Abarach’s home was unique in how boring and pedestrian it was. It was big, sure, but it was plain, with almost nothing in the way of ornamentation or even furniture. The windows were featureless squares of glass that illuminated the rooms, but there wasn’t actually any sort of landscape beyond them.
Nym met the ascendant Councilman in the entry hall of his home, and was promptly invited to a sitting room that lacked any actual chairs. Abarach simply perched on empty air, so Nym did the same. A pot of tea appeared in the space between them, and Abarach said, “Would you like some?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Why was it always tea? It was fine to drink, Nym supposed, but he was kind of disappointed that no one ever came up with anything better to serve. He resolved right then and there that as soon as he had time, he was going to find a new drink to replace tea as the traditional polite refreshment to offer.
Abarach himself was every bit as plain as his home. He was a tall man with short gray hair and a set of fine wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. Truthfully, the only distinguishing feature he possessed was how old he looked. Every other ascendant had appeared as a youthful person in their twenties or early thirties, or else hadn’t looked human at all.
After the tea was served, Abarach settled back and said, “What brings you to visit? I’m afraid I don’t know much about our newest ascendant.”
Leaving the tea cup floating next to him untouched, Nym said, “I was hoping to get some insight into a spell I’m working on. I think I’m almost done, but there are a few pieces that aren’t quite working like I want them to.”
“I don’t really do that,” Abarach said with a frown. “Surely there are other ascendants who could help.”
“Probably, but it’s an issue of trust,” Nym said. “The last ascendant who was supposed to be working with me sold me out to someone in Niramyn’s faction who then tried to abduct me.”
“Ah, yes. Hozim. You understand that we are not a government and do not have any sort of system in place for punishing other ascendants?” At Nym’s nod, Abarach continued, “But I do understand why you would come to someone with a seat directly on the Council after that little debacle. Unfortunately, the fact remains that I have little interest in instructing on the basics and I very much doubt you could afford my help even if I did.”
“Ah, it’s not really… a basic problem, I don’t think. Let me just impose on a few minutes of your time to show you what I’m trying to do, and you can decide if it’s something worth discussing.”
Abarach took a sip of his tea and, with a sigh, said, “Very well. Go on then.”
Nym immediately brought up an illusion that showed the spell construct he was trying to form, and only that part. “This is what I’m trying to make,” he said, “and it seems to be stable on its own. However, I can’t connect it to the rest of the spell without an arcana surge coming through and blowing out this spot here.”
“What kind of linkage system are you using?”
“I started with Voth’s Inversal Theorems. That’s what the base spell used, but it failed completely in this modified version, so I tried the Mindarian method, the Jubei stasis coupler, the Grinkle linkage, even the old standard array port. Every time, the arcana hits this bend and destroys the whole thing. I’m thinking that the linkage system might not even be the real problem.”
“Hmm. Interesting. Alright, you’ve got my attention. This is fascinating stuff. Can you show me more of the spell?”
“Not really,” Nym said. “I understand why that might make it harder to figure out the problem, but I’m not able to reveal the rest of it. I was hoping more for advice about some other angles to approach the issue.”
“How very mysterious of you, but I understand. ‘We are all of us jealous guards of our secrets,’ as they say.”
“Yeah. I wish I could just show you the whole thing. I’m sure you’d be able to tell me what’s wrong in an instant, but those are the constraints I’m laboring under.”
Abarach watched the illusion for a minute while he sipped his tea. When the cup was empty, it disappeared and he crafted his own illusion. “Do you have a spot that looks something like this?”
“I… yes,” Nym said. “But that shouldn’t…”
“No, not on its own, but there’s an interesting effect you may not be aware of. It’s called the Hemodan Ripple, and it occurs when you cross-connect an auxiliary supply of arcana through two or more modular spell frames.”
Nym knew what the Hemodan Ripple was, and he knew that wasn’t what was going wrong here. There was only one solution for it: use a higher layer of arcana. But his memory was perfect, and he knew that Myzalik had done the whole thing with sixth layer arcana, except for the framework.
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Could the framework itself somehow be stabilizing the spell and preventing the ripple from forming? “Would it be possible to block the reaction that forms the ripple using a framework of stronger arcana rather than directly replacing the affected portion of the spell construct?”
“Theoretically? I suppose so, but that would be an incredibly round-about and inefficient way of doing it.”
“What if the spell wasn’t cast in an outer layer? If I did it using only the sixth layer arcana I brought with me to reality prime, that would mitigate the ripple’s damage since there wouldn’t be any ambient arcana to resonate with.”
“Ah,” Abarach said. “Clever of you. Yes, that would do it.”
Nym groaned and dismissed the image. That was it then. He couldn’t even put the spell together to practice it unless he went to the core reality. Hiding something that complicated was not going to be easy. For the sake of appearances, he said out loud, “I’m going to have to rethink this whole thing then. There’s no way to make this work as it is.”
“Nym, this spell you’re making, you know you’re not the only one trying to figure out how Exarch Myzalik did it, right? For someone claiming to want to remain neutral, this is not the direction you want to be moving in.”
Nym froze for a fraction of a second, then shook his head. “I want no part of this conflict. I’m just trying to get out of it alive.”
“Then I would advise you to abandon this line of research, keep your head down, and wait it out. Exarch Myzalik has made quite a few enemies, all of whom are more dangerous than you.”
“Right, I understand. Thank you for the advice, sir.”
“Do not trouble yourself over a debt. Consider it a repayment for Hozim’s actions. They reflect poorly on the Council as a whole, and I hope you won’t hold it against us. Of course, this is the only freebie you’ll be getting from me.”
“Of course,” Nym said. “That’s very generous of you.”
“Yes, I’m sure. If that’s all, you should enjoy your tea and be on your way.”
“Oh, yes, I’m sorry. I’m sure you’re very busy.”
“Endlessly,” Abarach said dryly. “For a group of supposedly independent immortals, we can be remarkably stubborn about needing our disputes to be resolved by the Council.”
“I won’t take up any more of your time then,” Nym said.
He said his goodbyes and left.
* * *
All the pieces fit together now. Nym just needed to return to the core reality to test the spell out. That was a bit of a problem because he wasn’t sure it could actually work on anyone but an ascendant, which meant that his only viable test subject was himself. At the same time, there was no way he was going to take a spell he’d never even successfully cast and attempt to use it on the Exarch who’d created it.
That was why he was standing in one of his hidden sanctuaries in front of a giant glass cage full of butterflies. He’d done his best to block out absolutely everyone from being able to penetrate his defenses by any means. If he was right, the wards would block every sort of scrying and divination, thanks largely to hidden presence’s influence. Hiding the arcana was trickier, but he’d set up a few experimental spells for that. Hopefully they’d be enough to hide what was undoubtedly the most massive and complicated spell he’d ever tried.
Nym picked one of the butterflies, a pretty thing with purple and black wings, and started the spell. He’d cast each individual component thousands of times, or his copies had at least, and he’d taken the time to really assimilate all their knowledge and experience into himself, however painstaking it had been. He knew he could do this spell.
The spell disagreed, and promptly fell apart.
Undaunted, Nym started again. It took all his ability to simultaneously cast all the parts of it needed and bring them into a unified whole, and just like his first attempt, he failed to complete it. That was fine; he hadn’t expected it to be easy.
Twelve hours later, he had his first success. The spell didn’t work, but it also hadn’t collapsed while he was building it. He reviewed his work and compared it to that pristine memory of Myzalik casting it, then nodded to himself. He’d suspected he had made a mistake, and once he took the time to analyze things, he’d confirmed it.
The next attempt went better, though he was finding it difficult to keep everything organized. Crafting each individual portion of the spell separately and then slotting them together was necessary for something this sized, but it did add an extra layer of difficulty he wasn’t accustomed to dealing with.
More than that, he was getting tired. Physically, he was fine, but he’d channeled a massive amount of arcana throughout the day. With a weary sigh, Nym retreated back to the sixth layer to rest and recover. He hadn’t expected the spell to be easy, but considering how much time he’d spent working on individual pieces, and that he had a perfect recall to see over and over how Myzalik had cast it in real time, he was surprised that he was having this much difficulty.
The only bright side was that as a stress test for his experimental arcana-hiding wards, things were going fantastic. Nobody had so much as glanced in his direction, as far as all his divinations could tell. Admittedly, they weren’t the best he could create, but he’d sacrificed being able to detect people in the name of staying better hidden.
When he was ready, he went back and started over again. It took him a bit to get back into the right mindset, but soon enough he was chipping away at the problem. Three more times during that session, he managed to complete the whole spell without any part collapsing, though none of those attempts resulted in him being able to successfully cast it.
On the third round of training, things got easier. All his practice linking them together and holding them at the same time finally paid off, and Nym grinned fiercely as he looked into the cage. There, hanging from a branch directly in front of him, was a tiny little cocoon. A moment later, a caterpillar fell from the branch. It shrunk away into nothingness before touching the ground.
It was the result of his age reversal spell, which in the case of the butterfly had actually forced it back into its metamorphic stage and beyond. He was almost surprised that it worked, considering it had been designed for ascendants, but he supposed Myzalik had built the spell with a superb amount of flexibility in mind. It was designed by an Exarch, after all.
Or maybe it was just the nature of the spell. It was designed to break things, and there was no delicacy needed there. The god killer rewound the target’s personal time to the point before they became immortal, to the point before they even existed if it ran long enough.
One minor success was far from enough practice. Nym started again from the beginning.