Guild Mage 154

Chapter 154: Fall

“Journeyman Brodbeck is still a student at this college,” Caspian Loredan began.  “She is our responsibility.”

Liv didn’t look away from Genevieve Arundell – Guild Mistress Arundell, it now seemed – even when the old archmage spoke.

“We have credible testimony that Journeyman Brodbeck is illegally in possession of restricted magic,” Arundell said, and another ripple of murmurs spread throughout the room.  “She will be questioned and examined this evening, and if evidence is found to implicate her, she will be brought back to Freeport for King Benedict’s justice.”

“Which is more important than sending people to help Valegard,” Liv said.  She turned, finally breaking her gaze away from Genevieve, and reached out to embrace Triss.  “Get them all down to the waystone,” she whispered into her sister-in-law’s ear.  “I’ll meet you there.”  She stepped back and looked Triss in the eye until the other woman nodded.  Then, she turned to embrace Rosamund.

“What are you going to do, Liv?” Rose asked, her voice low.

“I’m not sure yet,” Liv whispered back, their cheeks pressed together, her lips almost at her friend’s ear.  “But I’ll meet you down on the beach.”

“Don’t keep us waiting,” Rose said, and they released each other.  

Liv turned away from her friends and walked out from the rows of chairs until she stood within arm’s reach of Genevive, in front of the high table.  Toward the back of the hall, she could already hear people leaving: the scrape of chairs, the overlapping voices of dozens of conversations.  The great matter that had drawn them here was dealt with.  Most of them, she decided, would be relieved not to set themselves against the crown.  And there was the prospect of learning a new word of power, very exciting.  And Liv?  Well, no one was going to speak out for someone who might be a criminal.

“Come upstairs with me,” Genevieve Arundell said, in a voice as hard and unyielding as stone.  Not the rock of the mountains, though, Liv thought to herself.  If anything, she’s stone that has spent too long with the waves of Freeport breaking against her, rounding down all the rough edges until it had become something different.

Liv nodded, and followed the new guild mistress to the stairwell near the high table, the one the professors used to come and go between the great hall and their offices on the second floor.  She was not entirely surprised when Jurian fell in at her side, or when the court mages who had accompanied Arundell to the college moved to prevent anyone else from following.

No one spoke until they had stepped into the office which had been loaned to Genevieve for the duration of her stay.  Liv saw that Galleron Erskine, the Baron of the Strand and the king’s spymaster, was waiting for them.  As before, the man let Liv walk by him into the center of the room, then closed the door and moved to stand between them and the exit.  Liv glanced to the window of paned glass.  Somewhere outside that window and far below them, at the foot of the bluff upon which the college stood, was the ocean.

“I understand you want to protect your student,” Genevieve told Jurian, breaking the silence.  “But it would be better if you went back downstairs.  I don’t currently have any reason to remove you from your post here.”

“I’m not going to do that,” Jurian said.

“Don’t tell me she’s my replacement,” Arundell asked, her lip twisting.

“No one could replace you, Gen,” Jurian said, shaking his head.  “But sometimes I look at her and wonder what it would have been like if we’d had a daughter.”

For just a moment, Liv glimpsed something in Genevieve Arundell’s eyes that she hadn’t expected: a shadow of the young woman in the dream of Godsgrave.  Then, the new guild mistress set her mouth, and hardened her eyes, and the ghost of the past was gone.

“I’m going to examine her imprints now,” Genevieve said.

Hope flared in Liv’s chest.  She was wearing the comb from Al’Fenthia, which meant that the guild mistress would only find Cel and Aluth when she looked.  At that point, she and Jurian would find a way to talk their way out of the room, and Liv could take Steria from the college stable and meet her friends down at the waystone.

“No,” Jurian said.  “You aren’t.”  He struck the butt of his staff against the floor of the office, and a shimmering blade of blue mana coalesced from the top its length.

“What are you doing?” Liv asked, an ocean of panic bubbling up from her belly.  “She’s not going to find anything –”

Genevieve brought her own staff around, grasped it in both hands, and a mirror-image of the blade Jurian had summoned appeared on her own staff, save that it was golden instead of blue.  It was the exact same spell, Liv realized.  A fragment of thought scattered through her mind: how many days had the two young lovers spent here at Coral Bay, practicing against each other?

“I think this is the last time I’ll be able to protect you, Liv,” Jurian said.  “Go.”

A moment of absolute stillness stretched out between the two archmages, until Galleron Erskine broke it by rushing across the room and reaching for Liv.  Without even thinking about it, she reacted, silently summoning a blade of ice and slicing the edge along the spymaster’s outstretched forearm.  Erskine cried out and recoiled.

Later, when she thought back, Liv couldn’t have said who struck first.  A storm of blue and gold mana erupted between the two mages, and Liv glimpsed shields, blades, half formed shapes all crossing the intervening space.

 “Aluthet Aiveh Avia!” Liv shouted, clicked the heels of her boots together, and ran straight at the window.  The enchantment worked into the embroidery accelerated her across the room so quickly that Liv only had time to squeeze her eyes closed and duck her shoulder before she hit the glass.

It was like running into a stone wall, and Liv guessed that if she hadn’t used the magic of the boots from Lendh ka Dakruim, her size and weight wouldn’t have been enough to carry her through.  With the burst of speed from Vefta, however, the windows broke around her body.  Pain blossomed in a dozen places at once, as shards of broken glass sliced through not only Liv’s dress, but her skin, as well.  Then, she was falling, and the sword of ice was no longer in her hand – she stretched her arms out.

The salt-wind from the ocean buffeted Liv as she dropped, and then she hit the glowing form of the great bird she’d summoned with her spell.  The great wings of the gyrfalcon beat once, and then she was rising up again, into the starry night with the great shining ring of the gods overhead.  Liv turned the bird south, toward where the waystone should be, and looked back once over her shoulder at Blackstone Hall and the buildings of the campus.

One stone wall of the building blew out in an explosion of intertwined magic, ribbons and billows of gold and shining blue wrapping around each other in a battle for dominance.  Chips of stone flew by Liv, and the force of the blast threw her against the feathered back of her summoned construct.  The great bird was thrown forward as well, and nearly fell out of the sky before getting its wings straight again.

A great rumble and crash came from behind Liv, and she glimpsed the roof of Blackstone Hall collapsing, great sections of stone wall tumbling down the bluff and into the dark sea, sending up sprays of white foam. 

For a moment, she was alone in the night, soaring.  

Then, the cry of gulls gave Liv just enough warning to shout an incantation and raise a shield of blue mana above her.  The gulls hit the blue pane in a succession of broken thumps, and then slid off and fell from the sky.

Shards of something solid flashed from below, pierced the mana-construct that Liv had summoned, and ripped through her left thigh.  She screamed from the pain, and steered the gyrfalcon down with her intent, swooping toward the beach and - hopefully - out of line of sight.  Merek Sherard and Arianell Seton, at least – which made Liv wonder where Anson Fane was.  She’d wanted to get to the stable, somehow, but there was no time.

Liv brought the gyrfalcon down on top of the waystone.  The tide was high, and she stumbled as her boots hit the wet surface and the surf broke about her ankles.  None of her friends were here yet – of course not.  She’d only been up in the office for a few moments.  Liv looked back up to the school, high on the bluff, and saw blue and golden light still shining out of the broken wall.

The distraction almost killed her.

It was only the sound of Anson Fane’s boots splashing in the surf as he shot toward her that gave Liv enough time to raise a new blade of ice, setting aside his lunge with a clang.  All of those sneak attacks Wren had tormented her with, every stab of a blunted practice dagger into her ribs, they were all worth it now.

Fane skidded by her, and both of them scrambled for their footing on the slick, smooth stone.  Liv felt the world swaying around her: she was cut in half a dozen places or more by broken glass, and her skirt was stained with blood from where one of Arianell Seton’s silver shards had ripped through the meat of her left leg.  She only wanted to collapse, to touch her hand to the waystone and be carried away into the dark place between, where she wouldn’t be able to feel any pain – but if Fane was on the waystone when it activated, he would go with her.

“Why are you doing this?” Liv gasped.  She wanted to swap her blade to her left hand, so that she could draw her wand, but she knew the moment she lowered her guard, he would be on her.

“Because unlike some, I’m loyal to the crown,” the boy answered.  He lowered himself into a fencing stance.  When Liv had faced him at the beginning of their time at Coral Bay, she’d used caltrops of ice to catch him when he charged her.  This time, with Jurian left behind to face Genevieve Arundell, and no idea when or if her friends would make it to her, she wasn’t feeling nearly so patient.

“Celent’he Aiveh Encve Stelim Kapium,” Liv gasped.  Without her wand, her mana wasn’t as focused, but it was a spell she’d been practicing for years.  Fane lunged, only to be met by five pillars of ice that erupted around him, like a grasping hand.

This time, instead of restraining, Liv used her spell to squeeze.  The gruesome sound of cracking bones echoed across the beach, and Anson Fane began to scream.  His rapier fell from a limp hand.  Only when the screaming had stopped, and the ice had been stained pink with blood, did Liv wield her intent to push Fane’s corpse off the waystone and into the surrounding surf.

With no further threat to fight, she collapsed onto the waystone, and felt the salt water sting her wounds as it soaked through her skirts.  Liv felt hot, and the world seemed to recede from her vision.  Even the sound of the breakers faded.

“Liv!” Arjun’s hand was on her shoulder, and a rush of healing magic surged into her body.  Liv blinked away the darkness, and saw her friends gathered about by the light of the ring in the sky.  Triss was holding Steria’s reins, and Thora was standing guard over a pile of bags and trunks on the stone.  Wren had her bow in hand, and an arrow nocked to the string while she scanned for enemies.  Sidonie was searching the sigils around the edge of the waystone, while Rosamund was at Liv’s side, holding her upright with a hand on her arm.

“What it in the name of the trinity happened?” Rose asked, and Liv nodded back toward the campus.

“Jurian and Arundell,” she said.  The lights from the school had stopped now, and Liv was afraid what the conclusion of that battle might mean.

“That rusting idiot,” Wren cursed.  “I’ll go drag him out and meet you all once I have him.”

“No,” Liv gasped, shaking her head.  “He chose to stay.  He knew what he was doing.  Wanted us to get out of here.”  Her eyes burned.

“I’ve got Valegard here,” Sidonie called, from the curved edge of the waystone, not more than fifteen feet away.  “But I don’t have enough mana to do it myself.”

“I’ll help you.”  Triss walked over to join Sidonie, and the two of them knelt down and pressed their palms to the sigil.  Light began to pour up off the waystone, surrounding them all.  Steria whinnied, but the northern mare had made this sort of trip enough times now that she didn’t immediately panic.

“How bad is she hurt?” Rosamund asked Arjun.

“I want a look at her leg once we’ve got to someplace that’s actually safe,” the healer said.  “She’s lost a lot of blood, Rose.  I can’t bring that back, but I’ve closed her wounds, at least.”

Liv let them hold her: for a moment, at least, she didn’t have to do anything.

Light surrounded them, and the pain went away.

☙

In the vast, empty darkness, Liv floated.  Her leg did not hurt, and her mind was clear.  Only now, without the weakness and frailty of her body, did she understand that she had lost consciousness on the waystone after killing Anson Fane.  The next thought followed: that when they arrived at Valegard, she would lose this clarity.

She had the sense of someone at her side, and recognized the familiar presence of Jurian.  Then, the emptiness erupted in light, and Liv gasped for breath, falling sideways into Rose’s arms as the pain of her wounds came back to her.

 Liv saw that the waystone at Valegard was walled in by stone, with oil lanterns mounted around on steel brackets.  Guards in the red and black colors of the Crosbie family called out their arrival, and pointed crossbows in their direction.

“It’s alright!” Triss shouted, rising from where she’d knelt to help activate the waystone.  “It’s me.  I’ve brought reinforcements.”

“Lady Triss!” one of the guards called in response.  “Stand down, it’s Lady Triss!”

“I need help here,” Triss said, rushing over to Liv.  “Help me with her.”

Liv tried to get to her feet, but her left leg gave out, and she tumbled back down to the ground.  In the end, they hoisted her up onto Steria’s back, and Triss led the horse while Liv clung to the mare’s neck with both arms and drifted in and out.

There were oil lamps, but she couldn’t get a clear sense of where they were, or what Valegard looked like.  She must have passed out again at some point, because when Liv opened her eyes again, she was being lifted down off the horse’s back.  Everything was so confusing.

“Bring her in and get her in a bed,” Julianne’s voice came to her clearly, and with that, Liv felt something in her relax.  If Julianne was here, they were safe.  She didn’t fight when they got her onto a bed, nor when Arjun cut her skirts away to reveal her left leg.  Most of her friends were gone now, but not all of them, and there were guards in the room.

“Blood and shadows,” Liv heard Rose exclaim, when her wound was exposed.  

The shard of silver had ripped up through her thigh and out the top, tearing a gaping wound in Liv’s leg.  Somehow, it had missed her femoral artery – old Master Cushing had explained to her in detail just how quickly a grown man would bleed out from that.  Red, raw muscle, torn and ravaged, was visible inside the wound, and despite Arjun’s first attempt at healing her, blood was still seeping out to stain the bed sheets.

“Get Grenfell to put her to sleep,” Julianne commanded, and Triss rushed past Wren and out of the room.  “Can you save her leg?” 

Arjun nodded, threading a steel needle.  Liv wondered if he carried them everywhere he went, or if someone had given it to him here.  Surely Valegard had its own chirurgeon?  “I believe so.  Anyone who isn’t here to help should clear the room.”  

Liv groped for someone’s hand to hold, and Rose was at her side.

“You’re going to be alright,” the dark haired girl said.  

Liv couldn’t tear her eyes away from where Arjun bent over her leg.  

“I need to repair the muscle first, and then close it up,” her friend muttered.  

When he reached into the wound to touch her raw muscle, Liv screamed.  She squeezed Rose’s hand so hard that some small part of her worried she’d break a bone in the other girl’s hand, and there were guards around the bed holding her body down so that she couldn’t thrash about.  They pushed back the familiar faces, surrounding her.

Master Grenfell appeared on her other side, from where Liv couldn’t say.  “Don’t resist,” he told her, and placed a hand on her forehead.  “Don’t fight me.  Ceiēs Æn’Te.”  His Authority pressed down upon her like a great weight, and for an instant Liv tried to fight it, as she’d practiced doing against Celestria Ward for months.

The pain shot up from her leg again, and Liv stopped fighting.  Instead, she embraced Grenfell’s Authority, and his magic, and let the word of power carry her off to sleep.