Chương 56: Chapter 55: The Extended Tree

++Aristocrats breed like rabbits, and in an increasingly magical society their numbers swell ever more as fewer and fewer of their children die before adulthood. Unfortunately. ++ - From the writings of Isabel Vornholt, 'The Great Lich'. 1, 891 A. E. Flitting between the Winzorth Institute and my home at Lachfel was the greatest annoyance of my life around that point. Missing out on the new curriculum I had been introduced to was the least of it.

With my experiments going so promisingly I felt furious to be snatched away from them. Like I was a woman dying of thirst under a desert sun, suddenly dragged back out into the dunes after licking up only a few drops of water. The general irritation was only my second concern, too. There was also the not-insignificant matter of site security regarding my experiments and laboratory. I would be gone for quite some time, after all.

"I'll take care of it," the Grandmaster assured me. I was not, in fact, assured.

"How?" I demanded, pacing his study as I asked. The place was less cluttered than when I had first entered, and gave me more room for pacing. A consequence of our necromantic practice moving on to ever-larger animals.

"I've already declared the dungeon off-limits and thrown out the strongest spellwork I can to keep anyone from stumbling onto it accidentally. Any more powerful, and my workings will be detected by the Professors. Truth be told, I'm not fully sure Professor Foir hasn't already noticed it." I looked at him sharply.

"So not only are you neglecting to raise the security over my experiments, but you are now telling me that your initial method of guarding them was possibly already detected by someone in this very building." The Grandmaster's anger was just as strong as mine, and in an instant we were both glaring at one another. He had the advantage of current power and resources, I enjoyed the benefit of vaster talent and esoteric secrets. I considered the clashing of our gazes to be a balanced one. For now.

"Are you questioning me?" he asked.

"Obviously," I snapped.

"Are you stupid enough to take chances with stakes like this?" He held my glare long enough that he could tell himself the conversation had not ended with his own surrender, then sighed.

"I'll reinforce the precautions," he said at last.

"How would you want that done?" I had to think about it.

"Less magical defences, more mundane."

"Mundane defenses are harder to install," he pointed out.

"I'd need men in to do the work. It'd take time, and would attract attention." I thought about that.

"I will be right back," I told him.

Gyrat looked awfully surprised to see me, when I knocked on his bedroom door. Surprised and uncertain. Then his awful surprise turned into repulsive excitement, clearly forced but no less bearable for it.

"I think I know where this is going," he grinned while doing something disturbing with his eyebrows.

"You've finally come around."

"I want you to go to the corridor outside the dungeon and blow it up." Whatever he had been expecting to happen—and I had a good idea what he had been expecting to happen—this was apparently not it.

"What…what?" his leer was gone in an instant, pure confusion took its place.

"Destroy the corridors outside the dungeon; knock down walls, all that. Do not disappoint me." I turned around and left without another word, then spent the next hour exercising my mana.

The Grandmaster did not bother summoning me this time; I was simply translocated into his office without the slightest warning. I had been seated on my bed at the time, and landed painfully on my backside as I fell a yard or so to the floor. I was only glad that my new menstrual cycle had already moved past its most sensitive, painful stage before this happened.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" the Grandmaster roared.

"Do not raise your voice at me," I told him. He looked as if he was on the brink of hitting me, but fortunately he did not. My hand would have been forced into retaliating by an indignity as severe as that.

"What have you done?" he hissed.

"That idiot boy who's been following you around, Gyrat, he vandalised the hall right outside your lab, are you trying to draw attention to it? Is this some ridiculous act of suicide?"

"I will do you the dignity of pretending you did not say that," I told him.

"Obviously not, no. You needed an excuse for renovations, now you have it."

"I have a fucking hole in my walls!" He turned from me at that, and I just barely overheard him slowly counting to ten. When the Grandmaster was finished, he looked back at me, and his voice could not have been calmer.

"I…would like you to warn me about things like this before you do them, in the future." Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

"Okay." His eye twitched, looking for a moment like it might burst out from the socket and fly across the room.

"Give me your word," he added. I hesitated. I do not like doing that, for obvious reasons. It is good to let people know they can rely on my deals, but that does not make being shackled any more pleasant.

"I give you my word that I will warn you about decisions like this before I make them," I growled at last.

"Consult me," he amended. It was all I could do not to leap over and throttle him, and I would be lying if I said that my still weighing in at only two-thirds his mass did not strongly influence that restraint.

"I give you my word that I will consult you about decisions like this before I make them." The words tasted foul this time, like thick grease on my tongue. The Grandmaster seemed to find them just as sweet as I did bitter. He sighed, took a seat, then nodded.

"Right then. I'll start renovations, you can go back to your noble house and do whatever it is aristocrats do. Have an orgy with your cousins I assume?"

"I am twelve." He snorted.

"You know less about aristocracy than I do if you think that'd stop them. Anyway, our business has concluded, go away now." I do not like being dismissed, but I did not exactly have any reason to stay. I headed out and through the Winzorth Institute. Fortunately, I was able to avoid Gyrat finding me as I made my way to the front of the building, where the carriage escort was awaiting myself and Agrian, and I was quickly inside the first coach before anything else could impede me. Then we were off.

This time, I had brought far more reading material for myself in preparation for the stay. I was unable to continue my experiments, which angered me, but that did not mean there was no new opportunity to learn. Lachfel still housed its leyline, and I had acquired texts on them for the sake of seeing what Garamon may have discovered about the ancient structures. Agrian noticed the sack, or rather sacks plural, of books occupying the seat beside me, eyebrows going high.

"Do you think you have enough reading material?" he asked.

"What if you need something to distract you in the privy, you'd best go back for another few dozen."

"You should read more," I chastised him.

"Your neglect of theory will hold you back one day."

"Bah," Agrian looked out the window and sniffed.

"I need practical experience, that's all. I've never had a head for all that esoteric stuff. Give me a spell matrix to copy down and I'll do it. Give me a problem and I might make a spell myself just to fix it. What more does a magician need?" I was not in the mood to argue with him, but suffice to say I knew there was a great deal a magician needed beyond that. At least if they had any intention of founding an empire of their own. The carriages led us to a train, which, as usual, led us to Lachfel.

"There must be some way of quickening these vehicles," I sighed. In my early days they had all been astonishingly fast, but now, after so many trips, I was not able to help but compare them to the old magics I had once used in their place. Teleportation was obviously quicker, but even flight surpassed them. A flying spell, at bare minimum, could carry you horizontally as fast as if you fell from the clouds to reach your top speed.

It was, after all, the only way flight was possible—applying force equal to that which was exerted by gravity. If a spell did not manage that, it would not even make you hover. Inventing the train was all well and good for mass production, but I could not help but miss shooting across continents in a scant few hours or less. By the time we had reached Lachfel, I was already two books into my stockpile, and wondering if I should have endured the inconvenience of bringing even more.

Agrian was practically spasming with pent-up energy as the train stopped, and we were out into its station together almost as one. There, waiting ahead of us, was a familiar face and an unfamiliar one. Our mother awaited us, which was unusual for her. Less usual still was that she was with a man who was not our father. This one was clearly older, and not nearly as tall. His hair looked like it had been blonde once, but was now turning to grey, and he eyed Agrian with a remarkable intensity.

I, apparently, was beneath his notice, because the man's gaze shot past me like I was not there.

"Agrian," the stranger said as he approached and held out a hand.

"Do you know who I am?" Agrian was, in this moment, quicker to draw the obvious conclusion than me.

"Earl Yilear right?" he asked, shaking the man's hand.

"My…my grandfather." The man, the Earl, curled his lip slightly.

"Stop stammering when you speak," he said frostily.

"It makes you sound like a damned woman." Without another word to us, he turned back to our mother.

"Ready the carriage, Elizabeth, let's go." I expected her to argue; she was not one to be ordered about how she would use her own personal property. In this, I had still not grasped the particulars of aristocratic relations. Her father was still her father, and so Baroness Vornholt simply nodded and obeyed him. Travelling by carriage was an unpleasant experience at the best of times, a good deal rockier than train. This time, however, it was even worse. My maternal grandfather saw to that.

For the first portion of our journey, he kept his focus on Agrian. The boy was asked a great many questions, most of which I did not see the relevance of. Did he occupy himself with any sport, what were his social circles like, was he yet interested in women, all very manly and expected. I had briefly forgotten until then just how absurdly fixated many aristocrats were on such things. The conversation took a much less pleasant turn, however, when I made the mistake of withdrawing a book to read.

The Earl gasped as though I had just shot him in the stomach.

"Where did you get that, girl?" he snapped. I turned to look up at him, blankly.

"The Winzorth Institute," I told him. He seemed to flinch as I said it, his lip curling in disgust.

"Right, your father sent you into that den of degenerates, didn't he?" I did not actually know how to even begin responding to that, stupidity of this magnitude was still not something I had been exposed to enough to have formulated a standard response. I just kept staring at him, watching his rage build.

"I'll not have a granddaughter of mine reading occultic filth in my presence," he spat at last. I looked to my mother as he said that.

"Does father want me to listen to this man's instructions, instead of yours and his?" Of course, this obvious dismissal only made the old man angrier, but it also engaged my mother with the conversation in a way that I did not think anything else could have. It is remarkable how active people get in pursuing a goal they think someone who hits them for defiance would want them to.

"Keep reading, Isabel," my mother managed at last.

"What the fuck is this?" the old man spat.

"Is this how you run your household, Elizabeth?"

"Maybe it is," my mother snapped back.

"I will not be questioned about that by someone outside of my household." By the look on his face, I knew my maternal grandfather had not surrendered. Quite the opposite. In his head this was a declaration of war. That did not bode well for me, I had already suffered enough distractions and inconveniences from my idiotic family by now.