Nym stood in the shabby little clinic. A few hours earlier, Faro had sent a message to the Silver Gilder asking him to come by at his earliest convenience, and since Nym had made little progress on figuring out what he’d done wrong with fixing his matrix on his own, he was eager to see if the healer could provide him with some new clues. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that kind of visit.
“Wow, this other healer must be really busy,” Nym said. “Five weeks? Will the army even still be here by then?”
“If they’re not,” Faro said mildly, “I’m sure that means Healer Doliar is not so busy anymore and will be able to move the appointment up.”
“I suppose that’s fair.”
“In the meantime, he sent me the diagram for another diagnostics spell he asked me to run on you. I’m not completely certain on what it checks for, as it’s far more complicated than anything I normally use, but it seems straight forward enough to cast, albeit quite expensive. As long as you’re willing, it should give us a clearer picture of what’s going on.”
“Are you charging me for it?” Nym asked.
Even if he was, as long as it was something he could afford, Nym would happily pay it. His research into the subject was completely stalled. He didn’t have access to the right books, didn’t even know what he was even looking for, nor did he have endless finances to spend on the search.
“No, no. If anything, it’ll be part of Healer Doliar’s services. I’m just administering it on his behalf. If you don’t want to do it now, that’s fine. He’ll want to do it himself when he sees you.”
“Might as well get it over with then,” Nym said, secretly hoping it would give him a new lead to look into.
The old healer started up the spell, which took significantly longer and also easily ten times as much arcana as the last diagnostics spell Nym had witnessed, then fell into a trance while he studied the information. Nym tried to remember if any other healer he’d seen had done that. He was pretty sure they hadn’t.
Eventually, the man snapped out of it. “Huh,” he said. “I don’t get it, but I suppose you’d like to see?”
“If you don’t mind,” Nym said.
The illusion was different than the one he’d seen a week ago. This time, the nodes had different colors in addition to the odd sizes and spacing, and each one had a line of light shooting off several inches. Sometimes the lights were thicker, sometimes they were longer, and Nym couldn’t really discern any pattern to that.
“What does it mean?”
“I don’t know. That’s just what Doliar asked me to run on you and send him the results. He outshone me a long time ago. The man’s a healing genius, knows more than I ever will and he’s barely a third my age. I didn’t even know this spell existed before today.”
That was frustrating. He’d see if Analia had any ideas later, but between the two of them, he was far more knowledgeable about healing magic. That wasn’t to say he knew a lot, just that she knew almost nothing.
“Alright, well… five weeks then. I’ll meet him here at your clinic?”
“Unless he tells me differently,” Faro said.
“Thanks, then. I guess I’ll see you next month.”
“So it seems. Good luck, young man. Be safe out there.”
“I’ll do my best,” Nym promised. He had a whole new set of spells he was busy practicing now anyway. He was as safe as he could be.
* * *
It was the soft glow of arcana that woke Nym up. At first, he was confused about what he was seeing, but then he realized there were two people standing over his bed in the dark. They were using some sort of concealment spells which made them effectively invisible to his eyes, but didn’t extend to the auras around them.
He held very still, hoping they didn’t realize he was awake until he had time to decide how he was going to respond. Double paralysis was the first option that came to mind, but that didn’t actually stop someone from using magic, which these two clearly could. He had learned a sleep spell recently, but it took a few minutes to progress from alert to drowsy to passed out. Nym doubted he had that much time before they made their move.
No, it was better to flee now and put some distance between himself and the intruders. He swiftly cast his scrying spell to get a look at the room, hoping the intruders had come in through the window and left it open for him. If not, he was going to need simultaneous telekinesis and flight spells. He didn’t even have time to finish it and get a picture of his surroundings before they caught him.
“Target is awake and casting,” one of the intruders said, lunging for Nym. He must have been using an aura reading spell to monitor Nym or something. Nym had a split second to wonder how long they’d been looming over his bed that they’d need something like that.
The other one lunged at almost the exact same time, and both managed to catch hold of the blanket and pin Nym down under it. There was no time for subtlety after that. He summoned a gust of wind to pick up both intruders, along with a few dozen books, and slam them all into the wall. While they were distracted, he leaped for the thankfully open window and flew through it. He was free from pursuit for all of three seconds before an arcana injection lanced up from the roof of the business across the street from the inn.
Nym dipped under it while casting a night vision spell. Even with that active, it was hard to see who was shooting at him. Like the two in this room, this one also had an active concealment spell. He was so busy scanning below and behind him for attacks that he ran straight into another arcana injection coming from the front. Nym saw the flash of arcana just in time to realize what it was before it struck him.
He’d been drawing in arcana slower since he still couldn’t drain it as fast as it came in. When the extra arcana hit him, it just bumped up his reserves a bit and caused a bit of a stir in his soul well since it had a foreign intent, but there was so much free space, it was easy to partition it off without it actually disrupting him. If he wasn’t still half-crippled with his casting, that arcana disruption probably would have grounded him.
His forward momentum was completely arrested by a band of force slamming into his chest. Nym grunted in pain and struggled to break free, but it was like iron circling around him. Once it caught hold of him, it didn’t want to move, and his flight spell couldn’t force it. So Nym attacked the spell itself, but the casting mage was actively pumping arcana into it.
“Hurry up,” a strained voice said below. “I don’t know what he’s doing, but this is way harder to hold than normal.”
It wasn’t a spell Nym was familiar with it, but he could see it, and he could shoot his own arcana into the gaps in the construct to start trying to pry it apart. He thought he could crack it, given enough time, but his assailants weren’t going to just sit back and wait for him to figure it out. He got hit by three more arcana injections in the span of a few seconds, though only the first one stuck. The second and third ones washed over him without entering his soul well as he cut off his own magic to eliminate the vulnerability.
He fought back with targeted blindness spells, hoping that if they lost track of him, he could escape. The spells took hold, but rather than stop his assailants, they just started using scrying magic to keep track of him instead. Nym didn’t recognize the exact spell, but even from a distance he could see more than enough similarities in the construct to his own magic to know what it was.
More spells came at him from at least five mages, and Nym felt himself being overwhelmed. The threat of a barrage of arcana injections any time he tried to use his magic pinned him down and cut him off from his options. He thought he could take a few, maybe as many as four, before they started causing arcana poisoning, but his assailants were throwing that many at him every few seconds. He could only work in short bursts, and it gave the mage holding the iron band capture spell time to reinforce it against whatever damage Nym could do.
Then they started hitting him with other spells, spells that blinded and deafened him, spells that made him feel nauseous and feverish at the same time. By the time they’d physically closed in him up in the night sky over Ebalsan, Nym was so disoriented that he couldn’t tell up from down anymore. Then the whole world pinched down on him, a feeling he hadn’t felt in months.
Someone had teleported him.
* * *
Nym woke up unharmed in a small, dark room with metal walls. A single panel on one wall looked to be a door, but it had no handle. He could see the glow of arcana through a series of slits in the ceiling, but when he tried to open a conduit, he found himself blocked. It was like there was a new, incredibly dense membrane between him and the first layer, and he wasn’t strong enough to push through it.
He was trapped in a mage cell.
Nym told himself to be calm, that panicking wouldn’t help him. He fought to push back the fear that flooded him from finding himself squarely in the middle of a nightmare scenario. He was trapped, cut off from his magic, and it was somehow even worse than he’d expected. He had no idea who the people were who’d captured him or why they’d done it.
Every fear he’d ever had about being arrested and thrown in jail came crashing down on him all at once. He’d thought he’d escaped that fate, left the people who would be interested in him far behind. It had to be someone following him from Abilanth. His crimes were far more serious there than anything he’d done in Zoskan or Palmara. The worst he was guilty of in Thrakus was using magic without a license, and he couldn’t see a squad of shadow operatives hunting him down across hundreds of miles to capture him just for that.
Whoever it was, they’d have to open the door eventually, and then he’d find out. The anti-magic properties only worked as long as the door remained closed, and as soon as he could reach through the layers of reality again, he was going to set the first person he saw on fire. Then blast them with a lightning bolt. Then set them on fire some more.
Being angry helped for a little while, but hours went by and it wasn’t possible to hold onto the anger when there was nothing to do but stare at an empty wall. It drained away, along with fear, curiosity, and every other emotion that wasn’t boredom. Nym was starting to wonder if that was the plan, to just leave him locked in a mage cell until he started going insane.
And then, finally, a line of light appeared on the wall with the panel. The door swung open, and the glow of arcana surrounding the mage cell went out. Nym forged his conduit immediately, only to have it rebound against the same membrane somehow. He was caught so off guard that in that moment as the door opened, he merely fumbled around.
Then there was a man standing there. He was tall, well over six feet, dressed in a combination of mage’s robes and military uniform. The light coming from behind him hid his features, but Nym caught a hint of blond hair around the outline. The man looked in at him, studying him.
“I suppose I should start with an apology,” the man said.
Nym stood in the shabby little clinic. A few hours earlier, Faro had sent a message to the Silver Gilder asking him to come by at his earliest convenience, and since Nym had made little progress on figuring out what he’d done wrong with fixing his matrix on his own, he was eager to see if the healer could provide him with some new clues. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that kind of visit.
“Wow, this other healer must be really busy,” Nym said. “Five weeks? Will the army even still be here by then?”
“If they’re not,” Faro said mildly, “I’m sure that means Healer Doliar is not so busy anymore and will be able to move the appointment up.”
“I suppose that’s fair.”
“In the meantime, he sent me the diagram for another diagnostics spell he asked me to run on you. I’m not completely certain on what it checks for, as it’s far more complicated than anything I normally use, but it seems straight forward enough to cast, albeit quite expensive. As long as you’re willing, it should give us a clearer picture of what’s going on.”
“Are you charging me for it?” Nym asked.
Even if he was, as long as it was something he could afford, Nym would happily pay it. His research into the subject was completely stalled. He didn’t have access to the right books, didn’t even know what he was even looking for, nor did he have endless finances to spend on the search.
“No, no. If anything, it’ll be part of Healer Doliar’s services. I’m just administering it on his behalf. If you don’t want to do it now, that’s fine. He’ll want to do it himself when he sees you.”
“Might as well get it over with then,” Nym said, secretly hoping it would give him a new lead to look into.
The old healer started up the spell, which took significantly longer and also easily ten times as much arcana as the last diagnostics spell Nym had witnessed, then fell into a trance while he studied the information. Nym tried to remember if any other healer he’d seen had done that. He was pretty sure they hadn’t.
Eventually, the man snapped out of it. “Huh,” he said. “I don’t get it, but I suppose you’d like to see?”
“If you don’t mind,” Nym said.
The illusion was different than the one he’d seen a week ago. This time, the nodes had different colors in addition to the odd sizes and spacing, and each one had a line of light shooting off several inches. Sometimes the lights were thicker, sometimes they were longer, and Nym couldn’t really discern any pattern to that.
“What does it mean?”
“I don’t know. That’s just what Doliar asked me to run on you and send him the results. He outshone me a long time ago. The man’s a healing genius, knows more than I ever will and he’s barely a third my age. I didn’t even know this spell existed before today.”
That was frustrating. He’d see if Analia had any ideas later, but between the two of them, he was far more knowledgeable about healing magic. That wasn’t to say he knew a lot, just that she knew almost nothing.
“Alright, well… five weeks then. I’ll meet him here at your clinic?”
“Unless he tells me differently,” Faro said.
“Thanks, then. I guess I’ll see you next month.”
“So it seems. Good luck, young man. Be safe out there.”
“I’ll do my best,” Nym promised. He had a whole new set of spells he was busy practicing now anyway. He was as safe as he could be.
* * *
It was the soft glow of arcana that woke Nym up. At first, he was confused about what he was seeing, but then he realized there were two people standing over his bed in the dark. They were using some sort of concealment spells which made them effectively invisible to his eyes, but didn’t extend to the auras around them.
He held very still, hoping they didn’t realize he was awake until he had time to decide how he was going to respond. Double paralysis was the first option that came to mind, but that didn’t actually stop someone from using magic, which these two clearly could. He had learned a sleep spell recently, but it took a few minutes to progress from alert to drowsy to passed out. Nym doubted he had that much time before they made their move.
No, it was better to flee now and put some distance between himself and the intruders. He swiftly cast his scrying spell to get a look at the room, hoping the intruders had come in through the window and left it open for him. If not, he was going to need simultaneous telekinesis and flight spells. He didn’t even have time to finish it and get a picture of his surroundings before they caught him.
“Target is awake and casting,” one of the intruders said, lunging for Nym. He must have been using an aura reading spell to monitor Nym or something. Nym had a split second to wonder how long they’d been looming over his bed that they’d need something like that.
The other one lunged at almost the exact same time, and both managed to catch hold of the blanket and pin Nym down under it. There was no time for subtlety after that. He summoned a gust of wind to pick up both intruders, along with a few dozen books, and slam them all into the wall. While they were distracted, he leaped for the thankfully open window and flew through it. He was free from pursuit for all of three seconds before an arcana injection lanced up from the roof of the business across the street from the inn.
Nym dipped under it while casting a night vision spell. Even with that active, it was hard to see who was shooting at him. Like the two in this room, this one also had an active concealment spell. He was so busy scanning below and behind him for attacks that he ran straight into another arcana injection coming from the front. Nym saw the flash of arcana just in time to realize what it was before it struck him.
He’d been drawing in arcana slower since he still couldn’t drain it as fast as it came in. When the extra arcana hit him, it just bumped up his reserves a bit and caused a bit of a stir in his soul well since it had a foreign intent, but there was so much free space, it was easy to partition it off without it actually disrupting him. If he wasn’t still half-crippled with his casting, that arcana disruption probably would have grounded him.
His forward momentum was completely arrested by a band of force slamming into his chest. Nym grunted in pain and struggled to break free, but it was like iron circling around him. Once it caught hold of him, it didn’t want to move, and his flight spell couldn’t force it. So Nym attacked the spell itself, but the casting mage was actively pumping arcana into it.
“Hurry up,” a strained voice said below. “I don’t know what he’s doing, but this is way harder to hold than normal.”
It wasn’t a spell Nym was familiar with it, but he could see it, and he could shoot his own arcana into the gaps in the construct to start trying to pry it apart. He thought he could crack it, given enough time, but his assailants weren’t going to just sit back and wait for him to figure it out. He got hit by three more arcana injections in the span of a few seconds, though only the first one stuck. The second and third ones washed over him without entering his soul well as he cut off his own magic to eliminate the vulnerability.
He fought back with targeted blindness spells, hoping that if they lost track of him, he could escape. The spells took hold, but rather than stop his assailants, they just started using scrying magic to keep track of him instead. Nym didn’t recognize the exact spell, but even from a distance he could see more than enough similarities in the construct to his own magic to know what it was.
More spells came at him from at least five mages, and Nym felt himself being overwhelmed. The threat of a barrage of arcana injections any time he tried to use his magic pinned him down and cut him off from his options. He thought he could take a few, maybe as many as four, before they started causing arcana poisoning, but his assailants were throwing that many at him every few seconds. He could only work in short bursts, and it gave the mage holding the iron band capture spell time to reinforce it against whatever damage Nym could do.
Then they started hitting him with other spells, spells that blinded and deafened him, spells that made him feel nauseous and feverish at the same time. By the time they’d physically closed in him up in the night sky over Ebalsan, Nym was so disoriented that he couldn’t tell up from down anymore. Then the whole world pinched down on him, a feeling he hadn’t felt in months.
Someone had teleported him.
* * *
Nym woke up unharmed in a small, dark room with metal walls. A single panel on one wall looked to be a door, but it had no handle. He could see the glow of arcana through a series of slits in the ceiling, but when he tried to open a conduit, he found himself blocked. It was like there was a new, incredibly dense membrane between him and the first layer, and he wasn’t strong enough to push through it.
He was trapped in a mage cell.
Nym told himself to be calm, that panicking wouldn’t help him. He fought to push back the fear that flooded him from finding himself squarely in the middle of a nightmare scenario. He was trapped, cut off from his magic, and it was somehow even worse than he’d expected. He had no idea who the people were who’d captured him or why they’d done it.
Every fear he’d ever had about being arrested and thrown in jail came crashing down on him all at once. He’d thought he’d escaped that fate, left the people who would be interested in him far behind. It had to be someone following him from Abilanth. His crimes were far more serious there than anything he’d done in Zoskan or Palmara. The worst he was guilty of in Thrakus was using magic without a license, and he couldn’t see a squad of shadow operatives hunting him down across hundreds of miles to capture him just for that.
Whoever it was, they’d have to open the door eventually, and then he’d find out. The anti-magic properties only worked as long as the door remained closed, and as soon as he could reach through the layers of reality again, he was going to set the first person he saw on fire. Then blast them with a lightning bolt. Then set them on fire some more.
Being angry helped for a little while, but hours went by and it wasn’t possible to hold onto the anger when there was nothing to do but stare at an empty wall. It drained away, along with fear, curiosity, and every other emotion that wasn’t boredom. Nym was starting to wonder if that was the plan, to just leave him locked in a mage cell until he started going insane.
And then, finally, a line of light appeared on the wall with the panel. The door swung open, and the glow of arcana surrounding the mage cell went out. Nym forged his conduit immediately, only to have it rebound against the same membrane somehow. He was caught so off guard that in that moment as the door opened, he merely fumbled around.
Then there was a man standing there. He was tall, well over six feet, dressed in a combination of mage’s robes and military uniform. The light coming from behind him hid his features, but Nym caught a hint of blond hair around the outline. The man looked in at him, studying him.
“I suppose I should start with an apology,” the man said.
