Chapter Fifty Two

  Strands of mana weaved into an unfamiliar pattern, forming runes of well-known power. Structure and rigidity, protection and containment. Abjuration. The runes were formed, and their wells began to fill with the mana of a spellcaster, and the spell… fizzled. It failed. Again. Shuka cursed herself mentally for messing it up again, but abjuration magic was entirely different from the illusions she was used to. It didn’t help that she had an audience.

  “Hey, you almost got it that time. The runes felt good enough; you just gotta not fuck it up next time.” Maryam ‘encouraged.’

  “Any idea how I’m fucking it up? You know, so I don’t do it again?”

  “Nope. But you’ll figure it out. It’s only been what, a day and a half? Just keep practicing.”

  “If you’re getting tired of practicing your magic, you can always go back to training your swordsmanship with me.” Xorvos added in ‘helpfully.’

  Oh boy, the only thing worse than failing to cast a simple spell. Losing fights.

  “I’ve been at it for hours, ” Shuka complained. “and before this, I was sparring with Xorvos. Can’t I take a break?”

  “Oh come on, you know how important this spell is. I don’t know how you two went up against the Grand Paladin without a hint of protective magic on you, but it ain’t happening again.”

  Shuka knew Maryam was right; the spell really was useful. She was trying to learn a basic shield spell, or more specifically, she was trying to harden her mana in the shape of a disc. Or even harden it at all at this point. It was the absolute starting point of all abjuration magic, the same way changing mana’s colour and making it visible was the absolute starting point of illusions. Learning this spell was the gateway to an entirely new school of magic, one specialized in protecting her from harm. On the other hand, abjuration magic had nothing to do with illusion magic, and learning it from the ground up was hard. Even with the new method of spellcasting she learned from Melia she was struggling to get her mana to do what she wanted it to.

  At least Maryam’s a pretty good teacher, and I’ve got nothing but time here. It’s not like I ever spent this long practicing magic back in Rainsburg. It might have taken me a week to get to this point if I had been taking it as casually as I normally do.

  The door to Shuka’s room slammed open with a panicked ferocity, taking all of the room’s inhabitants by surprise. Melia stood in the now open doorway and gave the briefest of explanations before letting herself in.

  “Hey, we gotta scram! Validus is in the guild, and you can’t be in here with him.”

  That was all Shuka needed to hear. Luckily, all of her things were with her in her room, and she didn’t have too many possessions in the first place, so after a dozen or so frantic seconds Shuka, and her friends too, were ready to leave.

  “Melia, where do we go? If Validus is in the guild then I can't risk him seeing me in the common room trying to leave, can I?”

  “The common room? Are you crazy? No, we’re going out your window.”

  “Window? But this room doesn’t have a win-”

  Shuka turned to see what Melia was talking about and saw her roughly sticking a large painting of a window on her wall. She must have used some sort of glue on it because all she did was slam it against the wall, and it stuck in place. Or maybe it was just magic.

  Where did she even get the painting from? It’s bigger than her.

  With the painting in place, the small witch shoved her hands into it, causing the ‘window’ to open wide into an alley. Melia then wasted no time before crawling through the window and into the alley herself.

  “Well hurry it up already. And don’t forget your disguise.”

  *

  It was almost surreal how fast Shuka went from fleeing her room in a panic fueled dread to snacking on street food in a crowded market. The alley the window painting led to connected to the market, and Melia wasted no time in shoving Shuka and her two friends into the mass of people. To blend in, she claimed. A few minutes later she shoved a couple of probably stolen sandwiches into their hands. Fresh, she assured them, which was good because Shuka had seen Melia take food from the garbage before. The sandwich was good; the bread was high quality, and it had a wide range of fruits and vegetables on it. Sidus had plenty of farmland in its vicinity, so wheat and produce like that must have been cheap. It was a curious thought you had while munching on a good sandwich. But Shuka had been fleeing for her life.

  What am I doing thinking about this crap? The produce must be cheap? Does Validus know I’m hiding in the thieves guild? I might not be able to go back there now, and there’s still several days until I can get the curse removed. What do I do? If Asheli can’t hide me, will Grand Priest Mervil be able to? But where, a temple? That’s a terrible idea; someone would tell Validus about me in an instant. Actually, can Validus track the magic of that painting to here? Or even just recognize the alley depicted in it? He does live in Sidus, doesn’t he? Why are we still here? We should be getting as far away from here as we can.

  “Hey, uh… I think that bite is chewed enough.”

  Shuka realized she had become lost in her thoughts mid-chew and had just continued chewing. She swallowed her thoroughly chewed food and looked down at Melia, who had broken her out of her trance.

  “Oh, sorry. I was thinking about stuff. How can you be so calm? Or I guess… casual? If Validus catches you helping us, you’ll be in danger too.”

  All the witch did was shrug.

  “Ehh, a guy like him isn’t so bad. All he’s gonna do is throw me into a jail cell and pretend I’ll stay there longer than an hour. Besides, even if he did wanna kill me, all I gotta do is not get killed.”

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  “But he could still hurt you; doesn’t that scare you?”

  “Not really. Most animals live every day in survival mode; you can go a few more days.”

  “Should we be talking about all of this here?” Xorvos interjected. “It’s a bit… public.”

  Shuka realized he was right. Neither she nor Melia had said anything too incriminating, but they had implied criminal activity in a crowded market, surrounded by people.

  “Oh fine, let’s skulk in a dark alley if you are so worried about us being too suspicious.”

  The look on Xorvos’s face made it obvious that skulking wasn’t exactly the solution he was looking for, but Shuka decided it probably wouldn’t matter either way and followed the witch. Thankfully, she went to a different alley than the one the painting led to. This alley was on the other side of the market. It still didn’t feel far enough away, but it would have to do. Melia quickly found a trash can to perch herself atop like one of the gargoyles Shuka fought in the dungeon. Maryam leaned up against the wall of the alley, and Xorvos paced nervously, constantly looking out towards the marketplace.

  At least I’m not the only nervous one.

  Shuka simply sat down with her back against the wall opposite Maryam’s, but kept herself ready to get up and run if she needed to.

  “Boy, you guys are jumpy, ” Melia stated. “I mean, that’s good; it’ll keep you alive, but c’mon, have you considered stopping and smelling the roses while you’re running for your lives? Like, what’s the worst that could happen? Validus catches you and stabs you to death?”

  The absolute shit-eating grin Melia had as she said that should have pissed Shuka off, or at least annoyed her, but oddly it reassured her instead. After all, if Melia was acting like that, then things couldn’t be that bad, right?

  “What were you even doing before I showed up?” Melia asked with the curiosity of a child. “Anything fun?”

  “Magic training.” Shuka answered. “Maryam was teaching me a spell.”

  Melia’s face distorted in disgust at the horrid thought of their activities.

  “Eww, yuck, training. Count me out; that sounds like work.”

  Scurry, Melia’s raccoon familiar, poked his head out from the witch's hat for the express purpose of sticking his tongue out at Shuka before returning to his hiding spot. It was rather rude.

  “You guys can go back to your yucky training, I’m gonna go steal something shiny. Don’t worry, I’ll stay in the market in case you get in trouble, but you’re all too boring for me to hang out with.”

  Before Xorvos could protest Melia’s thieving, she was gone, leaping off her trash can and landing amidst the crowd.

  “You know,” Maryam started. “We really should get back to training. It’s not like we have anything better to do right now anyway.”

  “Fine. But I better learn this spell soon if I’m putting this much effort into it.”

  *

  Carefully, ever so carefully, Shuka started to construct a round disk out of mana. As far as she knew she made the spell circle correctly, and things were going well so far. But she had failed at this stage before by losing concentration on the spell circle while she was forming the disk, so she took it slowly. Finally, the disk was formed and she commanded the mana to harden. In an instant, a translucent, slightly blue disk the size of a plate apparated in the air. It worked, for the first time it worked! And then the disk, with nothing holding it up in the air, fell and shattered on the ground.

  “Shit.”

  “Hey, that was pretty good.” Xorvos encouraged. “You managed to create a disk this time; that’s farther than you’ve gotten before. You must be close to finishing the spell now.”

  “Yeah, but I want to be done already.”

  “You practically are, you just gotta make sure you hold onto the non-converted mana in the shield.” Maryam instructed. “And may pump some more mana into it in general, it broke pretty easily.”

  Shuka didn’t need the advice, she knew what she needed to do. The spell involved converting most of the mana put into it into a type of hard mana that acts as the actual shield that blocks stuff. But she can’t control that mana, or at least not well. It becomes a solid object instead of a mystical energy, so instead she left about a quarter of the mana in its natural state that she could control. She just… forgot to. She had never gotten that far before so she forgot that she needed to keep it floating to be useful.

  And of course it didn’t have much mana in it, I’ve been failing this spell all day, I’m running out of mana. If I do any more I might not be able to maintain my disguise illusion, and that would be a problem. Still, I’m so close to learning this spell… should I try one more time?

  Just as she was about to start casting again, she heard the distant clank of armour from the marketplace. It reminded her of Validus, so she looked over but didn’t see anyone.

  Maybe it’s just an adventurer or a guardsman. Or is Validus done with whatever he was doing at the thieves' guild and is looking for me now? I should be careful just in case.

  A commotion was coming over the marketplace now, and Shuka thought she saw the flickering of white flames through the stalls and people, but that must have just been her imagination. Validus would hardly use such a dangerous flame in such a crowded place, right? Then she saw the source of the flame, and found it wasn’t Validus. A imposing man clad head to toe in steel was burning like a pyre in white flame. A sword with a blade as long as he was tall was strapped to his back, also lit aflame with holy fire. He stalked the marketplace like a hound, searching for something, and Shuka had a dreadful suspicion she knew what he was looking for.

  “We gotta leave. Now.”

  Xorvos and Maryam also noticed the flaming man and did not need to be told twice. Maryam was even casting some physical enhancement spell to aid her in the endeavour of running away. But at that very moment, their pursuer turned his head and started directly in their direction. Without hesitation, he started to sprint at them. The people of the marketplace were giving him a wide berth, but not everyone could get out of the way in time from the sudden movements he made. Several people screamed out in pain as the burning man pushed past them, callously allowing his armour to burn them. Shuka was out of the alley and was running as fast as she could away from the terrifying man chasing her. She wasn’t fast enough. The man drew his sword from his back and dragged the tip of its blade across the ground for a mere moment before swinging it in an upwards slice. The already flaming blade burst into an inferno of fire with its contact with the ground, and that inferno was sent in a line across the ground with the swing of his blade. A wall of holy fire erupted in front of Shuka, almost hitting her directly. It blocked off her escape, and the flaming man was still approaching, now with his blade drawn. Maryam was the one who moved first, conjuring several force bolts and shooting them at the approaching menace. They each impacted the man’s armour, displacing the flames for a moment and causing him to stagger a bit, but otherwise not doing much. Xorvos intercepted the man, getting in between him and Shuka, but his opponent was covered in holy flame. He couldn’t grab, or even punch him without getting burned. While the quanso hesitated, the paladin struck, hitting Xorvos with a powerful shoulder tackle that knocked him to the ground. He then followed it up by stomping his head with an armoured boot before continuing to his true target, Shuka. In a panic, she hastily shot an arrow at her pursuer, but he simply let it shatter against his breastplate, doing nothing.

  “Look over here, fuckass!”

  Maryam leapt onto the man, shouting obscenities, but before she could even land, he grabbed her by the neck and held her aloft for a second before slamming her down onto the ground. Maryam screamed in pain, a rarity in her dragon form, but Shuka knew how much the holy fire that wreathed his gauntlet hurt. She might have tried braving the wall of fire behind her if she didn’t. With no one left in his way, the paladin once again approached Shuka, giving her no way to escape. Then, all of a sudden, he lunged, sword flashing through the air in an instant. Almost as a reaction, Shuka cast the only spell that could have saved her, the shield. With no time to think, she poured all of the mana she had left into the spell and solidified the mana before she had a chance to see if it was going to work. Miraculously, it did. The shape was a bit wonky, more like a splatter of paint than a perfect circle, but the shape didn’t matter. It formed directly in front of the blade right before it pierced Shuka’s heart, and she remembered to keep it floating as well. The sword broke through the shield with little effort, but its trajectory was shifted ever so slightly. Instead of piercing her heart, it went through a lung.