FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

[center][b][u]Secrets of the Mysticium 2[/b][/u][/center]

[center][b][u]For Anonymous[/b][/u][/center]

[center][b][u]By Draconicon[/b][/u][/center]

As he was led out of Nicolette’s office, Bartholomew wondered how his life would change from then on. The whole idea of being bound to the magic of the Void was something that he had never anticipated. Fire, yes, perhaps. Ice, or water, he supposed, was another option that had been somewhat appealing. He remembered thinking of such things in the palace, wondering what it would be like to have power over those elements. Not once, not even once, had Void come up as a possibility.

[i]How will this affect me?[/i] he wondered. [i]Will this change me? My looks, my body, my…my soul?[/i]

He couldn’t help but think about it as he followed Commander Renata through the halls of the Mysticium, following the grand hall that seemed to run down the entire building into another circular, pyramid-roofed room, and then passing through the north side, following another large, high hall. Every time that he tried to distract himself from his thoughts, he ended up falling right back into them.

Void. What were the stories about that type of magic? He remembered some, stories that were told as morals against the overweening power of magic, and how to protect oneself from the worst of it. He remembered quite a few horrible things that had happened to those that couldn’t resist the lure of power, and shivered as he recalled tales of horrible, scarred individuals that had been marked with the physical manifestation of greed, and worse.

He ran one hand down the side of his face, thinking of the pock-marked descriptions of some of the Void casters that the stories of old talked about. They had become ruins of their former selves, shadows of pain and agony that yet lived because of what they drew from other people.

[i]Is that my fate?[/i]

“Oh, stop moping.”

Renata snapped him back to the moment with her harsh words, and he snapped his head up, annoyance writ large across his features. She looked over her shoulders, never stopping her quick pace.

“You think you have it hard. Get over it.”

“I’m sentenced to living with practitioners of an evil magic.”

“Evil? Who the hell said that?”

“…Didn’t you?”

“…Heh, okay. If you want to keep thinking that, go ahead. I can’t wait to see you say that to Gioconda.”

That name again. Probably the teacher of the magic, he supposed, someone that he would have to interact with on a regular basis, and someone that was probably a bit on the ugly side. He would have to see the scars of magic that awaited him, and then –

[i]Stop.[/i]

Bartholomew shook his head as they passed through another central, circular room, entering a thinner, darker hallway. As the shadows along the wall got longer, and the light dimmed, he forced himself to stop panicking, slowing his heart down through sheer willpower and ensuring that it wasn’t going to explode from anxiety. The last thing he needed was to lose his mind over something that was relatively small.

There were stories out there, but they were just that. Stories. Bartholomew had to know that. He forced himself to remember the various cultures that he had served as intermediary with, from the barbarians of the north to the cultists to the west, all with their own rumors and stories around them. The tales of cannibalism, self-mutilation, and more had been ingrained in so many of the empire, but more than half of it had been fake. A little education, and a little exposure, had been sufficient to bring him to a better understanding of the people around him.

This would be no different, he told himself. No matter the strange ways of the Melshani, there was no way that they would teach a magic that was that inherently dangerous at an academy, not even here. He had to hold himself together, and not panic. If he could manage that, then he would be fine.

Taking a few more deep breaths, Bartholomew brought himself out of his panic and composed himself to walk with the stature and the pride of a true Duke. He might be little more than a student here, but he would show himself as what he truly was.

They passed into a final circular chamber, and for once, they didn’t keep moving forward. He looked back the way that they’d come, and realized that they must have been walking for a good twenty minutes to get from one side of the building to another. He couldn’t even see the lights of the far chambers, and wondered just how large the Mysticium really was on the inside.

Renata patted him on the shoulder, and gestured towards a portion of the curved wall. He looked at it, and for a moment, saw nothing.

Rather than saying anything to mark himself for a fool, though, he walked over to the wall and ran his hand along it. It was smoother than the walls of the first chamber, unmarked by the fire lights that had illuminated and warmed the first room. Instead, there was a sense of pulling along the walls, as if they dragged the light from the air and, in the moment between contact and destruction, the light illuminated the wall in a way far more intimate than anything else.

As he ran his fingers along it, he felt the same emptiness and hunger that had filled him when he was touching the Void center during the sorting. He did his best to ignore it, allowing the cold to pass through him rather than controlling him, and kept running his fingers along the wall until –

Click.

His fingers found a little slip in the wall, somewhere between the smooth stonework, and he pushed down. The slip opened further, and a panel shifted to the side, grinding and rumbling in the way that stone did when sliding across the ground. He bent down slightly, looking into the hole that was revealed, and found himself more than slightly fascinated at the little passageway that was revealed.

“What is this?”

“The path to the Void.”

“It’s not in the open?”

“Not for some time. Inside.”

Renata pushed him, and this time, he was the one that led the way. It felt strange, after being the one to be dragged along for so long, but he went with it. His suitcase behind him and his other goods hanging off his shoulders, he made his way into the darkness.

It was touch and go for a good bit of the way, running his hands along the wall and feeling his way forward. When they reached a staircase, he almost tumbled onto it, and he would have were it not for the fact that he caught himself with his free hand. He felt the lute in its case jumble around a few times, and winced to himself.

“You could have warned me about the steps.”

“You could have noticed them.”

“I did. I noticed them so well that I almost made a bed out of them.”

“Keep walking, heh.”

It was less of a walk and more of a torture trudge as he made his way up the stairs. The trunk that he carried was made for rolling, not carrying, and more than once, Bartholomew had to stop in place to catch his breath from the sheer weight that he had to drag up the stairs. He groaned, rubbing the back of his head and wiping sweat from his forehead, and he could feel the thin silk of his undershirt starting to soak through.

[i]This is not servant business, but…I wish I had one here, anyway,[/i] he thought, shaking his head a few times. Despite his own attempts to be better than the majority of nobles back at the capitol, there were more than a few times when he had relied on his servants to get the worst of the physical work done. Now, he was starting to pay the price for it.

He glanced at Renata, wondering if she would give him some help. In the darkness, he could barely make out her silhouette, but with how fast and strong she was, he was sure that she could have carried his trunk up the stairs with one hand, and then probably forgotten that she was even holding it. He opened his mouth…then shut it again.

No, he would do this on his own. He was strong enough for that much.

Eventually, they reached the top of the stairs, yet were still swathed in darkness. Learning from his mistake, Bartholomew rolled the suitcase forward, pushing it ahead of him so that he wouldn’t stumble over something again.

As he felt his way along, he realized that they were passing around something wide and round. He cocked his head to the side, thinking about how tall the staircase had been, and tried to do a few mental measurements.

[i]If we climbed as high as I think we did…[/i]

Then they were in the dome that had been at the far end of the school. He was surprised. He had expected the living quarters to be down on ground level, rather than on the top. Then again, who said that they were going to the living quarters?

He pulled his attention back to the moment when he heard a rustling sound up ahead. The young Duke paused, and glanced back. No sign of agitation from Renata, so it probably wasn’t an experiment gone wrong. Looking ahead, he couldn’t see anything in the dark, only hear…and feel.

For there was magic in the air. The cool air and soft suction that he’d felt down on the ground floor was still all around him, pulling at his body heat and slowly sapping at it. He wondered if it was pulling at other things, as well, and if he would need to be aware of that. Considering the rumors of Void hunger, he figured that he would need to be.

Letting go of the trunk for a moment, he put all of his goods on the ground, and then held out his hands. He supposed, in a way, he needed to pass another test. Closing his eyes, he took two deep breaths, and fanned out his fingers.

[i]Reach into the depths, and pull at what lives there,[/i] he thought, remembering his very, very basic self-education. [i]There is magic in everything, a power that lives in all things. It can be touched by anyone, and used by all with the education, but it will only submit to the masters. Let me be one of the masters, and allow it to come to me, to give me what I need. Give me fire to fuel the darkness.[/i]

And with that, tiny pinpricks of candlelight flickered into being above his palms. Almost instantly, the darkness surged forward, pushing down around his hands until they were swathed in something deeper than darkness. Fuligin, burning black around his fingers, almost leaving him with the sense of cold and heat that came when one had shoved their hands in ice for too long and then exposed them to fire. He bit his lips, fighting the pain, and spoke.

“I offer fuel to the Void, sustenance to the darkness. And ask that it allow me welcome.”

Though he said it with all the formality of a court declaration, he knew that his actions were nothing more than a guess towards what he needed to do. He just hoped that it was the right guess, and that he wouldn’t pay the price for a misunderstanding.

After a few seconds, the blackness disappeared, and so did a portion of the darkness. It pulled away, leaving the corridor no longer empty, but dotted with the tiniest of lights. Not enough to illuminate, but enough to give him the sign that he was not alone.

A dozen different silhouettes stood around him and Renata, and he wondered how long they’d been there. Likely since he’d come up the stairs, he supposed, though that would be rather cruel to have hidden for so long. Most were garbed in something dark and thick, but he could see that there were other layers of clothing beneath the robes. Something to be worn over day to day clothing, then.

[i]How annoying. If they try to make me wear that…[/i]

Well, he supposed he might have to, but it wasn’t something that he looked forward to. He lowered his hands to his sides, and bowed.

“I am Bartholomew Pelior, Duke of Castrel and, apparently, consigned to the Void.”

The robed figures said nothing, though one of them stepped forward. It was shorter than the rest by about half a foot, and shorter than Bartholomew by more than that. It walked up to him, looking upwards just enough for him to see the hint of a muzzle.

“You see this as a punishment, hmm?”

He started to nod, but stopped himself. He needed to remember the ways of diplomacy, of understanding. There were always going to be difficulties, but he needed to be better than that, to surpass it. He started again.

“I feel unsure, and worried for my future.”

“Heh. Tell me, ‘Duke.’ When was the last time that you struggled for something?”

“I struggled for my life not two weeks ago, on the road here.”

“Hmmm, did you now?”

Bartholomew nodded, and brushed his coat back. Rather than flourish like a fool, he reached down and slowly drew his rapier free. On a hunch, he offered it to the figure, and it reached out. Soft-looking paws stroked along the edge of the sword, and the claws seemed to glow with the same fuligin darkness that had covered his hands a moment ago.

“A sword of adamantium. An advantage, though not a sure one in the hands of a fool.”

“Which I certainly am not.”

“Heh, you may be, but it seems you are not a fool in a fight. Four lives cling to your blade. No…three, with one being older than that.”

A shiver ran down his spine. It had been an ambush of six bandits on the road, and his servants had dealt with half of them. The remaining three had been his to handle, so that much was true. The fact that this stranger could read a fourth life, though…

[i]I will have to remember that.[/i]

The beast-person pulled their hand back, and reached to their hood. Bartholomew braced himself, still fearing for the worst when it came to the stories of the Void. What scars would he see?

None.

Instead, the soft-furred, masked face of a raccoon-woman was revealed, surprisingly slender and fine, with whiskers that seemed to twitch slightly as she looked up at him. He caught the hint of a violet-edged ruff of lace beneath the shoulders of her robe as she stepped back.

“So, Duke. You knew enough to offer the Void food and sustenance. What else do you know, already?”

“Very little,” he confessed. “And I am trying to hold back the fear of the old stories, as well.”

The raccoon-woman chuckled.

“Stories, hmm? Or warning tales?”

“Perhaps a hint of both?”

“Perhaps so. I don’t know what they tell of the Void in your homeland, but in the Melshan Kingdom, there are different stories. Come. We shall speak.”

“Am I dismissed, Instructor?” Renata asked.

“Only if you want to be. I’ll be needing him to be led to his quarters afterwards, though, so you might as well stick around.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The wolf saluted and remained where she was, and Bartholomew, after a moment’s hesitation, picked up his pace and followed behind the raccoon. He supposed that it was the best decision to leave his things behind, but it still took him a few seconds to make himself fully okay with it.

As they walked through the darkened, curving halls, he was slightly aware of a subtle rise in the floor. They must be going in a spiral path, he realized, heading further and further upwards. He glanced to the side, running his hand along the wall.

“I saw the domes on the outside, but when I stepped inside, the ceilings were triangular.”

“A remnant of the older Mysticium designers. They couldn’t develop a true dome, so they cheated a little bit.”

“The triangles prop everything up?”

“Essentially. It makes it easier to construct something larger around it, at least.”

He nodded. Domes had taken a while to actually be easy to build, and the Mysticium had been constructed much further back than the Imperial Palace in Haufdang. He supposed that people had to make accommodations for the past, in that way.

The raccoon-woman kept leading him further up, and the further they went, the more he noticed about her. Such as the fact that she seemed to be focused on something else. Such as the fact that her dark robe decayed and then reformed in equal measures. Such as the fact that she was moving a bit slower than he was, almost as if she was older than she looked.

It all added up to a great fascination of what was going on around him, and he didn’t know what he would do with the information. He did know, however, that it would eventually be useful.

They kept walking for longer than he wanted to admit, and only stopped when they reached the end of the hallway. It stopped in front of a black stone door, which disintegrated at the raccoon’s touch. She stepped through, and he followed after into the office that lay on the other side.

A thick desk of petrified, pale wood dominated the center of the room, with a chair that looked like it was made of cushions sitting beside it. The raccoon settled herself in the cushions, almost pulling the ugly contraption around her. She must have noticed him staring, because she chuckled and gestured at it.

“Yes, it’s foul, but it supports me properly. Sit.”

“Where?”

“On the floor, of course.”

“…”

“You are a student, not a Duke. You will earn more as you learn. Sit, please.”

Bartholomew reminded himself that he was still in foreign lands, and learning foreign cultures. But it was still degrading to sit on the floor, even though it was before what had to be an experienced teacher. He knelt on his knees, sitting back on his heels as he looked up past the desk.

“So…I assume that you are Gioconda?”

“You are quite right, young man. I am the teacher of the Void, and the head of the Void Affinity. What you learn of it, you will learn from me.”

“And from others, eventually.”

“Eventually, but not until you have mastered the basics.”

“Heh, you’ll be surprised how fast I do that.”

Her eyes narrowed, and he felt that he had mis-stepped. Gioconda shook her head.

“You will not be doing this quickly. You are intelligent, and I will grant you that without argument. However…”

“You don’t think I’ll take this seriously?”

“I think that you are too confident.”

“Heh, well, I have reason to be. How many students come here already knowing something about magic, after all?”

“All of them.”

Bartholomew’s smile dropped off his face in less time than it took to blink. Gioconda shook her head, smiling ruefully.

“Did you think that a simple spell such as the candles were so hard to learn? Most have a basic trick or two before they arrive at the Mysticium, and most have had quite a bit of time to learn more on the way here. In fact, we insist on someone learning a spell or two on their own before they arrive.”

“But surely, they’re still not going to be as quick as me.”

“You have quite the high estimation of your abilities, don’t you?”

“I believe that it’s justified.”

“And well it might be…at home.”

Gioconda shook her head, folding her hands on the desk.

“I will tell you this straight, young Duke. What authority you have, what skill you have in the arenas of politics and swordplay, what opinion others have of you…that does not matter here. All that matters here is your speed and skill and education in magic. And until you accept that, you will find yourself in deep trouble, and perhaps in deep danger, as well.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It’s a guarantee. Magic does not suffer fools, and Void magic less than the others.”

“…Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I don’t want to be responsible for the death of the Emperor’s nephew.”

He chuckled.

“I see that it matters, to some degree, who I’m related to.”

“In an outside way, yes.”

“But it still matters. Perhaps your academy is not so pure as you think it is.”

“Sarcasm, hmm? Wit is a weapon, but wisdom needs to be your shield.”

Bartholomew groaned at the parable, shaking his head a few times. He knew that he had a problem with sarcasm at times, but the instant put-downs that he was receiving made it difficult for him to hold a good opinion of this woman in his head. It was like she was intent on stripping him of whatever confidence he had in his own abilities, and replacing it with nothing but doubt. He understood that Void magic would be dangerous, but he knew that he was smart enough to figure it out, and use it properly.

She continued to stare at him, her strange, almost violet eyes feeling like they were digging through him. For a moment, he worried that she was rooting through his mind, but a moment’s thought told him that was impossible. He’d notice if something was missing. He’d tell if she was digging around in his head. That much discipline, at least, was taught to every person even vaguely related to the Imperial line, and he doubted that she would be able to get through that without giving him a splitting headache.

He eventually looked away, though, not willing to prolong the conflict over something so minor. She sighed.

“You will insist on pushing, won’t you?”

“I’ve always pushed to better myself, Instructor,” he said, remembering the title that Renata had used. “I’ve found it to be the best way to get ahead of those that want [i]my[/i] head, or that of my uncle.”

“And it does you credit, in small ways. I just worry that you will reach too far, too fast, and if that happens…”

“It won’t. I’m smarter than that.”

“Really? Then tell me. What are the seven Affinities?”

“What? I haven’t studied –”

“You saw them during your sorting. What did you see? If you’re as smart as you claim, you can deduce them.”

“Well, Void –”

“Doesn’t count, you were told that one.”

“Water, of course, and fire.”

“Yes, those are also reasonably obvious, but that establishes a baseline. Others?”

“Um…Earth, I think, and…and Energy.”

“I can see the draining confidence on your face. Five of seven. What are the other two?”

Bartholomew hadn’t faced such intense questioning since he had been forced to learn how to withstand interrogation. He simply hadn’t thought about the different pieces of the puzzle since he’d been sorted, since his mind had been somewhere else. Wracking his brain, he remembered the other two spheres, one of pure white, the other a stormy gray.

“…Air?”

“A process of elimination through the other three elements of the classical square. Good. And the final one?”

“…”

“Come, come. You have six. What is the seventh?”

“I…can’t say for sure.”

“Can you wager a guess?”

“…Something forceful. That’s all I can say.”

Despite her gentle voice, her quick responses left him feeling pushed, like he was constantly off-balance around the raccoon-woman. It wasn’t a comforting sort of feeling, and it was reminding him of everything that he didn’t know about the school, or about what his education would be like once it started.

Gioconda nodded at him.

“The final sphere [i]is[/i] Force. Void, rather than being in the center, is at the bottom of the other spheres, tugging at everything and feeding drains to it, while Energy and Force provide the guiding power for all magic, coming through the different types, leaving a bit of each behind until it touches Void at the end.

“These spheres of magic will touch everything that you do, and will affect all spells that you cast. Your Affinity for Void will form your base of magic, but as you learn, you will have to supplement your magic with other types. Specifically, those of Air and Fire, but that will come later.”

“You…I…This is very new to me.”

“As will be everything else.”

Gioconda shook her head, slowly standing up and walking to him. He started to stand, but she pressed a hand to his shoulder, squeezing it and keeping him on his knees. She leaned down, whispering in his ear.

“I take no pleasure in humiliating you. The court of Haufdang has long been kind to the mages of the world, and I do not wish to make an enemy of the Emperor’s nephew. But I will not suffer fools in my classes, nor a mistaken belief in ability.”

“A lack of confidence…can become a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure,” he muttered. “If you cannot believe you can do something, you will never be able to do it.”

“And if you believe you can do something before you are ready, then you will injure yourself, at best, and kill yourself, at worst. With magic, it is better to err on the side of caution.”

She squeezed his shoulder again, and let him up. As he stood up, Gioconda turned to her desk, pulling something free. By the time that he was comfortable once more, she had a scroll in her hand, and had passed it to him without a thought.

“This will unlock your room and give you a place in the lower levels.”

“Not up here?”

“You may room up here when you advance from Affinities to Synergies, but knowing you, I doubt you will remain here. Not for long, at least.”

“Why?”

“You will not be claimed. I can feel that much in you. You will not allow yourself to be claimed by magic, or by man. You will only give yourself to a cause and a thing that you yourself believe in. And that, young Duke, is not the Void.”

#

Commander Renata took him from the upper levels of the Void dome down to the lower ones, and he was grateful to find that the stairs were illuminated this time around. The wolf-woman carried his trunk, too, something else that he was most grateful for. He shook his head as he followed behind her, his mind still on the words of the raccoon-woman that had become his teacher.

[i]It can’t be as easy for others as she’s making it out to be. It took me weeks to learn those spells on my own. It will only be easier with a teacher, surely,[/i] he thought, shaking his head a few times. [i]And all that about the outside world not affecting what happens here...surely, that’s not right. I can’t imagine her treating everyone like this…[/i]

Yet, despite his talks to himself, he wondered how much was self-delusion and how much was true logic. Yes, he had caught her out, in a way. His status affected the amount of care she had in whether he lived or died, and that was an outside factor. But were there truly any others besides that? He wondered, and began to doubt it.

Renata tapped him on the shoulder as he was about to walk by her, and the wolf-woman gestured at a nearby wall. Gathering that it was time, he unrolled the scroll. The writing on it was written in the same fuligin color as any of the magic, and as he recited the Melshani script, it burned through the paper. By the time he reached the end, the scroll was gone, and a door had appeared.

“Fascinating.”

“Yeah, guess so. Let’s get you in.”

He was not surprised by the bare state of the room, but he was a little disappointed. He hummed to himself as he dragged a hand along the wall, feeling a few bits of dust around him, but it wasn’t so bad as it could have been. It needed a cleaning, but...it could be immensely worse.

With walls of the same black and purple that he was becoming used to seeing in the rest of the dome, he felt like he was floating among the stars, particularly as the bed was shrouded in a sense of shadow in and of itself. He walked over to it, running his fingers along the sheets, and was glad to find that they, at least, were clean and of high quality. Silk, for certain, and soft enough to make him smile at the touch.

He looked back at Renata, who was putting his trunk down at the foot of the bed, and nodded his thanks.

“I was near to dropping that.”

“You won’t be after a few weeks here.”

“Really? I thought that I would just be learning magic.”

“Mostly. But this magic burns away weakness.”

“Honestly, I thought it’d make me a glutton. Void, hunger, and all that.”

“Heh, lucky for you, I’ve never seen a fat Void mage.”

“Wonderful. My figure will never fade.”

His comment got a chuckle out of the wolf-woman, at least, and she shook her head a few times. Bartholomew set himself to unpacking, dragging his clothes out of the trunk and settling them either in the closet on the left side of the room, or into the set of drawers beside it.

As he worked, he was quite conscious of the wolf-woman’s gaze. He tolerated it, at first, but as it went on, he was more and more aware of being under observation, almost as if she was waiting for something. The young Duke kept his calm for as long as he could manage, occupying himself with ensuring that his coats and trousers and shirts would not crease or wrinkle, but eventually, it became too much. He turned, looking back at her.

“What is it?”

“I’m curious.”

“About what?”

“Why you bothered to come here.”

“It’s a fine enough academy.”

“For someone with your rank?”

He shrugged, and she - surprisingly - snarled. His eyes went wide as she suddenly appeared in front of him, crossing the distance between them in the blink of an eye.

“Advice, Bart.”

“Bartholomew, Renata.”

“[i]Bart.[/i]”

She growled.

“If you don’t want to talk about something, say you don’t want to talk about it. But don’t lie to someone that can sniff it out. Got it?”

“...”

“Good.”

She departed without another word, leaving him leaning over his bed and shaking his head.

[i]Okay...so, wolves can smell lies. Good to know.[/i]

[b][u][center]End of Chapter[/center][/u][/b]