Chương 90: Chapter 93: Desperation

You'd think the hard part would be going to sleep, right? But I've hardly had any trouble with my sleep schedule since the day I first practiced sorcery. It's part of the Untethered thing, I lay down, I get comfortable, I find the right position, and I pull my Essence free of my self and in the divide I lose consciousness. My body becomes still, my mind falls to dreaming, and it's time to get to work. Tonight, 'get to work' means 'prepare for the attack'. After all, she has to know that I'm closing in on her.

And that this is her last chance to get me. And that I'm at my most vulnerable. So I'm falling asleep fully dressed, breeches and jerkin, dressed for movement just in case. If she's been paying attention today, following my movements, she will know that I have curved air, grass, marble, water, stone, and steel, that I have channeled owl, and steel, and levin essence, that I have conjured linen and silk and leather, stone and glass. By her count, I'm basically out of mana.

Because I never mentioned to Kimothy that I have a separate pool of mana to draw from at the end of the day as the untethered essence. She should have only the slightest indication that I can cast while untethered. I hovered, waiting. Tonight no music composition or workbook studies. I watched all things, and I listened. And after a half hour I heard the shouting. It was supposed to be a bird call but Thumper is much better at shouting than at bird calls.

"Ca-caw! Ca-caw ca-caw!" she yelled out, frantic in pitch. This was not what we discussed. It was supposed to be subtle. I started pulling myself back towards my body, but I underestimated her speed. Magister Cheresa Braux busted in through the window with no hesitation, glass exploding through the room. Fortunately, Elica was not in her bed. She was moved to a safe spot in the local Cavalry Guard barracks, well-protected and surrounded by muscular older guys, just her type.

Instead, the figure rolling out of her bed was tall, broad-shouldered and action-ready.

"Stop!" he bellowed.

"In the name of-" She swept her staff over, and he was knocked back, bowled over, and knocked unconscious. Well shit. Honestly, a huge part of my plan really depended on her seeing him and freezing. He'd arrest her in the name of the Royal Cavalry Guard, and that would be that. He shows the badge, she accepts the inevitable. Instead, my sorcery teacher knocked him the fuck out with one spell, and then whipped around to face me. She had been talking to Kimothy. She knew about my issues being moved in my sleep.

That would be her first move. She flicked her staff and my bed lifted up and tumbled through the air, but instead of ripping away from my soul the whole thing tumbled into a giant white void, bringing my soul with it. I closed the door behind myself, and scrambled to find someplace to spill out. During the waking day with all my faculties, moving a dozen people at once is a bit of a stretch for me.

At night, using only the untethered mana, I was having trouble keeping my body and my bed inside the portal at the same time. I had to go and fast, but I did not want to travel too far. I had to see how this ended. If I just abandoned the city then she would probably kill Sir Maspers and come at me again. I picked a spot above, on the roof of the nearest building. I opened the door and fell out, my numb puppeted body fell without much effort to protect itself from danger.

The bed crashed to the rock and tumbled away. The sooner I can get back to my body the sooner I can throw all these marble knives I prepared earlier. My body was still mostly-insensible, and I started forcing myself back into it to recapture all my faculties. Right now I barely had any of my powers at all. And the fucked-up part is, that's my plan. Taking it from the top: My assumption was that Magister Braux was a smart and powerful mage. She was one of their best, by all accounts.

Every time she failed to kill me was because she had only an academic's understanding of sorcery, and not first-hand experience. She knew what she read or was told, but she was always fitting that information into a framework she understood. So she did not know, for example, that channeling steel is a passive effect that would protect from surprise attacks. And she did not know what I had not told her, like the effects of channeling levin essence.

She did not know how easy it would be to figure out that the javelin was not flung by a sorcerer, or that I can detect sigil inks even after they've discharged in an explosion. Or, that I had access to all kinds of records and offices on campus. Honestly, the only things that got me this far was all the secrets I've been keeping. Now, I need to get back inside my mind and body, all woken up again. And I might have a few minutes, depending on how good the spells that let her track me are.

I don't know enough about her- She came barreling back out the window and veered straight at me, flying fast. I had badly underestimated her tracking spells. I opened a portal-door right underneath me and dropped inside. I sent myself high up, into the aqueducts that crisscrossed above the campus, up to the walkway at the side of the waterway. My unmoving corporeal self fell out of the hole and thudded onto the stone floor, and I winced intangibly. She would have been watching me for a while.

Looking for patterns, weaknesses, opportunities. She knew about my vulnerability in my sleep. So I was pretty sure she would craft a spell that let her determine when I'm asleep. I had to assume she's not leaving anything to chance. With the drift of my soul that was lapping over the edge of the walkway, I could see that she was flying straight up, her eyes burning and her robes flapping around her. Her staff clutched in hand, ready with any number of dangerous spells. I needed more space.

High above again, there was a narrow catwalk just under the cavern ceiling. Dusty from disuse, a long way from the ground. I formed my portals and threw my limp corpus from here to there, and the soul stayed attached again. I had to move carefully, it was a strange game I was playing here. My trick did not slow her down at all, Braux flew higher, straight at me. She readied her staff, as soon as she had a good aim on me she was going to rip my body out of my soul, once and for all.

I opened another portal, directly above her, inches from her face. A twelve-foot hole appeared in the universe, and from it poured a million exploding suns of light, a flash-bang spotlight that left eyes in tears from brief, covered contact. And she was staring straight up at this halogen hell when it erupted. Unlike a sorcerer, her flight spells needed her to concentrate, or maintain them somehow. I'm not sure because I don't understand her magic anymore than she understands mine.

But she screamed, and threw her hands up to her face, and tumbled back, robes flapping around her as she fell. What an awesome time to have senses that route through the soul itself, with no retinas or lenses. I could see that there was an incredibly bright light, but it did not stop me from seeing other things. Like my own body. Flash-blinding the magister had bought me some time, maybe even enough to re-merge. My vision pulled out of my ether and into my eyes, and the light was hot knives directly into my eyes.

I screamed in reflex, covering them, crushing my eyes shut. It was too close, the crystals had picked up the splashed light and were sending it back out, spreading it across miles of cavern. It would take a while for the light to diffuse across the space, and right now it was just too damn bright. But, I was back. And I was ready to fight. I reached for the air to curve so I could resume my flight and my fight- And came up empty.

Every spell I had been readying all day, they were all gone, expired when I fell asleep- and hauling myself back to one piece again had not restored them. The grass, glass, marble, air- everything. All gone. [MP: 2/16] Fear hit me so fast I almost threw up. I have been planning this all day and I got it wrong. I am in a fight for my life against someone far more powerful than me, and my last twelve hours of preparation are wasted and I'm almost completely tapped out.

I've got one spell cast, to curve the void, and two mana to cast more of them. I start to reach for desperate measures. A whole catalog of ideas that I reserve for the worst-of-the-worst situations. Things like transforming into a tree, for example. I have to hold myself back from panicking. Of all things, the voice that comes to me with advice in that moment is Dean Krasp.

"It rarely hurts to at least ask first."

"Why?" I yelled out.

"Why are you doing this?" I need time to think. I need time to plan. I'm not good when I'm improvising, I don't thrive when I'm on the defensive. I need a plan.

"Because I know your secret, Harigold!" she yelled back. I cast out with my sorcerous senses, but could not find her. I can never find a human body, but I looked for the ink, fabric, silver, brass, and leather that she had on her. I looked for the gap in the air where her body filled it. But she knew my range, she knew how close she could get without letting me find her. She's been studying me.

"My secret, Braux?" I laughed.

"Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down?"

"The magister's college was founded to stop monsters like you!" Braux shouted. She has tracking spells that can find me from a distance. She probably has better senses than me. I might be the only one fighting blind here. I need to keep on the move. I tumble into a portal and come out hundreds of feet away, and cast about again, searching for her. Keep her talking.

"You nearly killed a dozen kids. You made me a hero, you dumb bitch," I scoffed. Searching for a weakness. I don't know enough about her, what pressure she's vulnerable to. I move again.

"You were never going to be the hero, not you," she retorted.

"Not once I told them what I know. I can afford some collateral damage." I traveled again, trying to zero in on her voice. If I can get close enough, I can find her with my passive senses. I can target her, and implode her, and turn her into a rain of blood over the city. This is Marco Polo, both of us blinded, both of us working with mysterious magical senses. She's flying, I'm using portals. I win if I get close enough to lock on.

She wins if I get close enough for her to lock onto me but too far for me to see her. And I don't know how much of a difference there is.

"You really are just a terrible assassin," I taunted.

"That javelin attack barely broke skin. the collapse almost killed everyone except me." She laughed.

"Oh good," she said.

"I hoped you'd think that. I've been mapping your defenses for weeks. Every power you demonstrated in class, every method you protect yourself by. Here, have a demonstration."

"A demonstration of what?" I asked. The phosphenes dancing in my vision were slowly receding. Soon I'd be able to use my eyes. But I need to keep her guessing. I reached to curve the void. And for the first time since I left prison, it failed. I froze- for a second I felt the way a record scratch sounds.

"There," she said.

"The last point. No more void, Harigold." I gestured, reached for the essence and it was not there. My teleports were gone now. I blinked, there were shadows in the light now. My eyes were unblurring, but that felt less important than my portals leaving me....

"Now, without your best tricks, you're right where I wanted you," she taunted. Well shit, the dynamic here just changed drastically. I'm now stranded on a high catwalk with no way down, while she's flying about. And soon we'll both have our sight back. I turned and started running. I've gotten good at it, I scrub my eyes with my sleeve, I need to get my eyes back soon.

"Your go-to weapon, your go-to defense," she scoffed.

"All in one so I can negate them in one move. No more explosions or implosions, no portals to travel around. And with the staff? I'm ready to negate your more direct tricks. Water, stone, crystal, even the levin energy. I'm ready to deflect every move you've got." She can stop me from curving void, can she stop me from creating void? I threw my hand out, conjuring a singularity, the crushing weapons given me directly by a goddess. Nothing happened. Yeah, she can stop me form conjuring the singularities.

I keep running. I'm trying to escape the trap. She was flying around for a while in the dark, taunting me, I think she was laying out sigils to cut off my access to the void, like they did in the prison. She was circling the area to cut me off, and if I can get outside the circle my powers should come back! Right?

"You're predictable, Harigold! That's what I learned from Quethron. You can't even see your own blind spots, the gaps in your thinking! You fall back on the same patterns over and over, and you can be outmaneuvered. Forty-seven affinities and I can counter them all!" Shit. She's right. She's been several steps ahead from the beginning. Well, you know what that means. Time to do something unexpected, right? Maybe she did come at me prepared to counter each of forty-seven different elements.

From hydrangeas to lightning bolts, she could have readied herself for them all. Shadows against light, she was hovering in front of me, taunting, laughing. Her staff held in front of her, ready to destroy me, to call on vast magics to throw me over the side of this ledge and watch me fall to my death. I ran at her, and I cupped my hands through gestures that had been practiced but never used.

She was already activating countermeasures, and they sparked and snapped all around me to shut down any of dozens of spells I could be casting. But not this one. Fire. I need you. The fire does not care for your needs. The fire has its needs. The fire can fuck off because I am Natalie Harigold and I will tame you like I tamed stone and steel and silk and song. You've been avoiding me for years, but this time you owe me. Fire owes not and is owed nothing. You do not hold the fire. But today, you may borrow.

Because you asked so badly. And I transformed. I was the phoenix now. Wings of fire spread out of my hands and flung wide, wider, engulfing, growing, my body burst out into energized vapors, incandescent, raging. Everything I was dissolved and gave over to flames. I had a second to see Braux's face turn to shock before I crashed over her like a tsunami and charred her down. I wrapped over her, and for a second I felt her inhaling my heat to scream.

By the time she pushed air back out there wasn't enough of her to make the sounds. Her fingers were still sketching counterspells when the bones blackened. She died silently, and dropped out of the sky. I followed her down, held her corpse in my talons, tore at her with my raptor's beak to break her down, tear her apart. Smaller parts burn better. Nothing of Magister Cheresa Braux ever made it to the ground, except ash and flickering cinders. What I hunt, I destroy.

Meanwhile, I was wrestling as hard as I ever have, dragging the essence of fire to my will. Stay, damn it! Behave! I grappled at it like a thrashing thing that tried to slip away from my arms but I forced it solid while I forced myself to flame. I stole its ability to defy gravity to create my wings. It wanted to burn me away but its heat was mine, and so instead we wrestled as equals, as enemies.

While the phoenix that was me tore the woman to nothing with heat and malice, I was tooth-and-nailing to bend this magic to my needs. But it would never tire of defying me. It thrashed just as hard now as it did in the first seconds. I gasped, groaned, and finally relented. The fire left me, and I slumped on the ground, once more returned to flesh. I tipped over and fall onto my side, and panted for breath, staring off into the middle distance. I was beyond exhausted now. I needed to pass out.

Needed to just stop and wake up later. That's all. But instead, I grimaced. I reminded myself that I am too stubborn to lay naked on the ground in the middle of the street. I am the daughter of the duke and duchess on the throne of Meadowtam. I am a sorceress, a genius, a field-sport gladiator, a revolutionary. I have enough strength left for one last portal.