Chapter 5
~5~
A lise’s Advanced Practicum in Manipulation and Control of Noncorporeal Entities, more commonly known by the students as Bossing the Bodiless, went terribly.
Because Alise was so late for the five-hour practicum, the other students had long since warmed up, completed the initial exercises, and were tackling the advanced application. And, of course, just to continue the trend of her horrendous luck, the day’s assignment involved binding and releasing more complex spirits.
Spirit magic, like all forms of magic, functioned at escalating levels of difficulty. Anyone, even mundanes, could benefit from using the simplest and smallest spirits called elementals. Once bound and trained to a task, the elementals operated indefinitely on the instructions given to them by the binding wizard. Thus, most everyone in the Convocation, unless they lived in crushing poverty, had dust-eating earth elementals in their homes or fire-elemental heated floors.
On the next level up, anyone with some amount of magic, even familiars, could influence tamed spirits. With potent Elal magic thick in her blood, Nic had a knack for coaxing elementals and even more complex spirits into doing her bidding, despite the fact that, as a familiar, she couldn’t actually wield magic. Nic was an exception to many rules, however. Alise had been surprised to see how Nic had refined her technique over the last year to use her ability to sense magic to create a kind of passive field to influence the “mood” of spirits, for want of a better word.
Similarly, even low-level wizards of any variety could give elementals new instructions. Thus, with the air-elemental powered carriages, for example, any wizard could program in a new speed or destination, but one absolutely needed a wizard for that. Anyone could ride in the carriage, so long as you had a wizard to set it up for you.
Low- to mid-level wizards capable of wielding spirit magic could call and bind spirits of ascending complexity according to their own magical potentials, their training, the type of spirit, and their access to magic, either from their natural reserves or via magic taken from a familiar. The universe contained many kinds of spirits, in branching echelons, from the mindless elementals that were the equivalent of single-celled organisms to sentient spirits too wily and powerful to be controlled by mere humans. The old tales contained stories of immensely powerful wizards who tamed djinn or daemons and harnessed them to assist in their plans, usually to rule the world.
Those tales were always cautionary. Those wizards who essayed such ambitious workings sometimes managed to carry off such monumental feats but, while their imaginations knew no bounds, magic did. A limited resource, magic always ran out eventually. Even with a bonded familiar or even multiple bonded familiars, as had been sometimes the practice in the past but was strictly illegal in contemporary Convocation society, a wizard could drain them dry and come up empty.
Controlling a being as powerful as a djinn or daemon required constant effort. They didn’t take kindly to being captured by mere mortals. As soon as the magic ran out, they broke free. And took revenge.
Still, there were many, many kinds of spirits in the universe—many more than had been catalogued, so said her professor in History and Taxonomy of Non-Corporeal Beings. House Elal wizards all scoffed at the concept that there could be any entities they had not encountered, expressing their professional disdain, but Alise believed her professor. There was a great deal not known in the world.
At any rate, in Bossing the Bodiless that day, the advanced students all worked at the furthest extent of their individual abilities, both in magical potential and learned skills. That was the point of the advanced practicums: to push the boundaries of what the student wizards could do in their specializations.
The process of locating, summoning, and then binding a more complex spirit to a task was a threefold process. Unlike the numerous and ubiquitous elementals, the more complex the spirit, the fewer in number and the more difficult they were to find. As a wizard long practiced in Elal magic—one of Alise’s earliest memories was of watching household imps dance to make her giggle while she clapped her hands for more—she possessed a stable of bound spirits for various tasks. Like the sword-bearing spirit she’d summoned too late to defend her against Gordon Hanneil.
Don’t think about him.
The compulsion flexed painfully.
Forcing herself to concentrate on the warm-up exercises, which should be simple, Alise cleared her mind to locate a mid-level spirit. Professor Cixin would know if she tapped any of the entities currently bound to her. That would be cheating and grounds for a failing grade. If she were in the mood to push herself, as she decidedly was not, she’d locate and attempt to harness an entity along the lines of another warrior to add to her roster. She could certainly use more of them. But the one that looked to her now had been captured by her father and handed over to her after she manifested as a wizard, once she had enough skill to give it instructions and keep it bound. Locating and binding another from scratch would be a challenge, and she was not up for anything that might test her nerve.
Especially since this particular exercise skirted very close to how she’d murdered her mother.
When Nic had first suggested that Alise might be able to sever the wizard–familiar bond, she’d been intrigued. And young and arrogant enough to embrace the challenge without considering the potential consequences. So far as she and Nic knew, no one had ever thought of doing such a thing. Certainly none of the records even hinted at the possibility, and Alise had looked. Well, she’d performed a cursory search as time allowed, but her teachers had always been emphatic that the bond was unbreakable, severed only by death, and perhaps not even then. It wasn’t as if anyone had data on that. Even Elal wizardry didn’t reach the spirits of the once-living. Cillian might be able to uncover more, but he didn’t know what Alise had done, so had no reason to look.
It hurt to think about how excited she’d been initially, to see the possibility of the bond-severing and know that she could execute a trick every single person in the Convocation believed to be impossible. Even before she attempted it, she’d known she could pull it off with a bone-deep certainty such as she’d never before experienced. And it had been exhilarating, a triumph of skill and power that left her exultant, filled with giddy delight in herself. She’d actually been proud .
Foolish, foolish girl.
Only later did she realize the horrible consequences of her impulsive power flex, as the two familiars she’d separated from their wizards—Maman and Laryn, a traitor offered the option as an alternative to execution—both began wasting away until only empty, mindless husks remained. And then died.
Alise could never, ever risk committing such a terrible crime against humanity again.
Trying to keep her mind on her practicum, she smoothly finished the requisite warmup exercise of locating a number of likely, mid-level spirits. For someone of her heritage, often the challenge was getting the spirits to leave her alone, especially the mischievous and curious ones. Spirits of all sorts had always been attracted to her. That was part of having a high MP score in spirit magic. When she’d manifested as a wizard, that had become exponentially worse. Spirits pounced on her, demanding to be noticed, and fed with magic.
Fortunately, the academy, for all its faults, truly shone in instances like that. Her professors had been prepared for that exact eventuality, taking her under their collective wing in those early days, shielding her from the more voracious entities intent on manipulating or forcing her into doing their bidding. It had been a rough few days, receiving an intensive course in recognizing the more malicious spirits, regardless of how they attempted to trick her, and then protecting herself from them.
Spirits of all kinds still came readily to her call whenever she chose to admit them through her shielding, so assembling a variety from Professor Cixin’s list on the board took little effort. They bustled there at the edge of her wizard senses, gathered in her mental grip like a bouquet of eager, sentient flowers. She only needed to choose one to bring through the veil and into their world to add to the complement of spirits bustling around the workroom.
The various entities the other students had summoned obediently swirled through obstacle courses, ringing bells, floating objects, and shining lights as directed. Except for a few cases where the student-wizard had lost control, or never fully had it. Professor Cixin was assisting with one of those at the moment, standing behind Grey Ananiel, hands folded behind his back as if reminding himself not to take action, calmly coaching Grey to control the gremlin currently perched on a high shelf, shrieking with fury.
Alise should pull one of her eager guests and get it over with, but found herself balking at pulling through even the least of them. If she did, she’d have to bind it, lest she end up like her unfortunate classmate, chasing a rogue entity, to the disdain of all, in order to run it through the exercises laid out by Professor Cixin. He wanted the students to test the strength of the bonds, using the lightest possible touch, then severing the bond as the spirit executed its task and reestablishing the bond again.
The exercise was meant to teach them how to regain control of an entity they’d summoned, in the event they lost it for some reason. Such as in a lapse in available magic, inattention, improper establishment of the initial bond, or because an enemy wizard severed it in an attempt to take your defenders away. Alise had learned all of this early on, along with intensive education on the nature of bonding, the information rolling through her mind in the voices of her various teachers. The advanced practicum, naturally, brought that intellectual understanding into real-world application.
Rattled, beyond tired, and unnerved by the possibility of going anywhere near any kind of bond-severing again, Alise just couldn’t make herself do it. So, she fudged it.
She was clever and good enough at her skills to make it seem like she’d made a strong effort to complete the task and just hadn’t quite been able to manage it. She summoned a relatively docile spirit, bound it, and half-assed her way through the most difficult exercises, working as slowly as possible and drawing it out. That should be believable, given how behind and out of practice she was at the objectively arcane techniques. A lot of the more complex skills the academy taught were famously impractical. The wizard students often complained that they’d never use most of them in real life—how many of them, really, would find themselves in a pitched duel against another wizard?—and that these more complex tricks were simply hoops to jump through.
Finally, the El-Adrel clock high on the wall relented and pinged out the time signaling the end of the practicum. And Alise congratulated herself for getting through the practicum without collapsing or drawing undue attention. Mentally she thanked Grey Ananiel for being such a screwup that he’d lost control of a fairly minor gremlin, absorbing Professor Cixin’s attention until, with a sigh of exasperation, the professor finally seized control of the obnoxious creature and banished it. He’d then sternly lectured Grey, assigning him to remedial work on elementals until he could bind them in his sleep.
Alise headed for the door with the flood of other student wizards, burying herself in the midst of their flow while keenly aware that she had no one to chatter companionably with as everyone else did. At least she wasn’t in Grey’s position, the young wizard having flung himself furiously out the door first and even now complained bitterly to a circle of sympathetic friends.
“Wizard Alise,” Professor Cixin called. “A moment please.”
Alise nearly groaned aloud, her steps slowing as she gazed at the open doorway, escape so close and yet now out of reach. Reluctantly, she turned back, hoping she wasn’t literally dragging her feet as she returned to the professor’s desk. Professor Cixin had turned his attention to some notes in Grey Ananiel’s file and he held up a finger for her to wait.
So, for the second time that day, Alise found herself shuffling her feet, waiting like a child to be called on the carpet. The seeping dread was ridiculous. She’d faced down vicious hunters, malevolent automatons, and other monsters. She’d nearly died, for dark arts’ sake, so a dressing down from a professor should hardly feel threatening. Somehow though, even with Gordon Hanneil’s vile threats still curdling her stomach, his compulsion worming in her brain and undermining her will, this felt like the last straw that might bring her down.
At last, Professor Cixin looked up, scrutinizing her, but thankfully without any psychic magic. He’d been a House Elal wizard for some time, though he’d moved to teaching at Convocation Academy long before Alise had been born, apparently as a form of semi-retirement. He taught only the Advanced Practicum in Manipulation and Control of Noncorporeal Entities and Alise had been his prize pupil at one point, enough so that she’d been referred to as teacher’s pet. Not so much anymore.
“What happened today?” he asked without preamble.
“I apologize for my tardiness, Professor. I only just returned to academy a few hours ago and had to meet with Provost Uriel before I could return to class. It won’t happen again.” She hoped that was all he referred to.
He waved that off. “Proctor Divya explained. I mean, what happened with today’s exercise?”
So much for that hope. “I know I’m lagging behind on the material. I promise I’ll catch up. It’s a priority for me.”
Giving her a long look, he sat back. “Let’s shortcut this conversation, Wizard Alise. I know what you are capable of. I probably understand the full scope of your abilities and potential better than any other living person in the Convocation, including your illustrious father. That assignment should have been a mere stretching of the legs for you, the equivalent of an extra lap around the track for a long-distance runner. Had you actually tried .”
Stung, Alise glared at him. “With all due respect, Professor, I did try.”
He dashed a hand sideways. “Had you actually attempted the task, you would have succeeded. No more prevarication. We’re both well aware that you are on probation here. Shall I tell Provost Uriel that you are not putting full effort into your advanced practicum, arguably the single most important course for you to complete for graduation?”
Alise struggled to contain her immediate argument. Every professor always thought their class was the most important, so that wasn’t worth debate. But for him to threaten her with this when he knew exactly how precarious her position was at Convocation Academy felt like an exceptionally low blow. And she was in no state of mind to take any more blows. “No, Professor,” she answered tightly.
“Then explain the problem.” He gave her a long stare from sharp wizard-black eyes under bristling white eyebrows.
She took a breath, hoping the words would spring to her lips. Blew it out again when nothing came to her. No way could she explain her real problem, but then what could she say?
“I am a master-level wizard of spirit magic, young Alise,” Professor Cixin said. “However, my MP scores in psychic magic are woefully low. I cannot read your mind, even should I wish to, which I do not. Therefore I require that you answer my question, explicitly and honestly.”
Alise stared back, feeling fully alone and helpless, the sensation overwhelming enough to make tears prick her eyes, which was even worse than all the other emotions.
“Come now, child,” the professor said, not unkindly. With a twitch of magic, he established a silencing shield around them. “If you cannot confide in me, the teacher you must rely upon to guide you to your fullest potential, then who can you?”
No one. The easy and obvious answer came to her. She could never share with anyone the potentially earth-shattering news that she could break the wizard–familiar bond. That wasn’t just paranoia, either. That information could upend the entire power structure of the Convocation on a massive scale and, on a personal scale, doom herself to execution, imprisonment, or a long tenure of curtailed liberty and being experimented upon, followed by execution.
But she clearly was going to have to say something to Professor Cixin—unless she wanted to let everyone down by being expelled for a third and final time, the first in her family to fail to graduate—and say it soon, as Professor’s impressive brows were drawing together in a thunderous expression promising imminent explosion.
“I’m afraid of becoming like my father,” she blurted, surprised to discover as she said it, that it was true.
Unfortunately, Professor Cixin didn’t seem to buy it. He sat back and steepled his fingers. “Piers Elal is one of the most powerful wizards in the Convocation and head of one of the largest high houses,” he said. “Why wouldn’t you want to follow in the footsteps of your sire? Despite recent kerfuffles, he will almost certainly reinstall you as his heir-apparent. Regardless of what your brother tells everyone who will listen, Elal has yet to name him as heir—or to formally disinherit you.”
Was this a test? If so, was it a test of her loyalty to House Elal or of something else? It suddenly seemed that a great deal rode on her response and she was playing blind.
She attempted to assemble her scattered thoughts, tried to think what Nic would say and do. One of the fallouts of Nic being the elder sister, with such magnificent MP scores across all categories, and with everyone’s expectation that she would manifest as a wizard and become the next head of House Elal, was that their father had devoted his considerable attention and training to Nic, not Alise. Nic had been the one to learn the finer points of house politics and navigating conversations like this. Even their maman had given extra attention to Nic on matters of etiquette, arcane details of Convocation society, and how to be a high-house lady. Probably Maman had believed she had time to teach Alise such things when she was older. But they’d all run out of time.
Alise had only her own instincts to go on. Here went nothing. “Tell me, Wizard Cixin,” she said, deliberately dropping the honorific demanded by his current station, “why did you leave House Elal? By all accounts you had a high position there, well paid, and with considerable influence.”
He tapped his steepled fingertips together, not angry or offended as Alise had expected, but quietly thoughtful. Perhaps, unless she missed her guess, even intrigued. “I was not happy with the… expectations placed upon me in my position there,” he said slowly. “Now, I answered your question. You answer mine.”
“I am afraid of the effect on me of having too much power,” she said, bluntly enough, a nice ball of truth to obscure what she couldn’t afford to confide. “I’ve seen too much in these last weeks, of huge amounts of power, both magical and worldly, used in terrible ways.”
To her surprise, he smiled slightly. “Ah, now we are coming to the heart of the matter. Thank you for your trust, young Alise. In return, I shall offer you this advice: you wield enormous magic whether you wish to or not. That ship has sailed. In truth, it was never up to you whether you would be a wizard, no more than it was mine, no more than it was your sister’s choice to be a familiar.”
“Nic would’ve handled being a wizard better,” Alise muttered ungraciously.
“I agree.” Professor Cixin nodded at her shock. “Do you know why Nic would have made a better wizard?”
“Because she’s smarter and more capable?” Alise offered sardonically.
“Not in the least. Because she was never afraid of it.”
That was true. Nothing frightened Nic. Whereas Alise felt like a slowly unraveling ball of terror.
“The thing is,” Professor Cixin continued, “fear or not, you must learn to control your magic to the finest degree possible. Only then can you make a considered decision on how to employ your immense power—and only then can you have any hope of following through on any resolutions you might make regarding the ethical use of it.”
Alise stared at him, disconcerted. “Maybe,” she finally said, “there are some abilities no person should ever have.”
“That could well be. However, whether you have them is not up to you. Whether you use your abilities, what you use them for, that is all you can control. And for that, you must study and apply yourself. You must engage in diligent practice. Only by knowing exactly how to do something can you make a choice not to do it, and also exert the control required of you to stick with that resolve. Otherwise you will become a danger to yourself and to the Convocation. Am I understood?”
She didn’t love that answer, but she had to admit the sense of his argument. “I understand,” she acknowledged, her voice sounding as glum and, well, spiritless as she felt.
Cixin regarded her somberly. “Despite my lack of psychic potential, I can nevertheless intuit that there is much you haven’t confided still.” He held up a hand when she opened her mouth to protest. “No, I shall not press you for further answers. You are at the center of a brewing storm, young Alise, and I do not envy you what you have thus far endured, nor the role you’ll play in what is yet to come. I am telling you now, however, that you may trust me. I do not expect you to do so immediately or easily, but I will teach you everything I know and guide you into the uncertain realm of what I do not know when you surpass me, which you inevitably will. Remember that and come to me when you need to.”
Even more taken aback, Alise nodded.
“In the meanwhile, you will return during your next free period to make up today’s exercise,” he said crisply, banishing the silencing spell.
Alise nearly groaned aloud, biting back the question, what free period? “Yes, Professor.”
“As soon as you demonstrate your competency with it, you will be free to go,” he added. “I do not imagine it will take long, if you actually apply yourself.”
No, that was true. “Thank you, Professor Cixin,” she said, with considerably more enthusiasm.
“You can thank me by learning your assignment,” he replied, more brusquely, stacking his notes together. “Remember: diligent practice will serve you well. Now, off with you to the dining hall. You look hungry.”
She was hungry, but also still queasy, so she didn’t know if she’d be able to eat. Probably she should try, so that everyone would stop trying to feed her. Exiting the classroom at last, she flinched when a tiny Ratsiel courier flew at her. Just a messenger, she told herself scornfully. Stop jumping at the least little thing.
Taking the folded paper, she read Cillian’s message and sagged against the wall of the busy hall, students parting around her as if she were a piece of furniture, ignoring her easily. Good news was, he hadn’t been fired. Bad news? Cillian had been appointed to supervise her independent study and expected her in the archives later.
What in the dark arts was she going to tell him? Gordon Hanneil’s nasty compulsion flexed, reminding her she could say nothing.
Whatever she did manage to say, it would have to be firm. And final.