Fifteen Years Ago
Amegnon tried to wrap his coat tighter, but he already had it cinched as tightly as he could manage. It didn't help much against the biting cold air of the mountain's summit. He could have pushed away the winds with mana manipulation, but he needed to conserve his strength for what was to come. Just a few yards away, the man he despised so much stood without a care, some magic he hadn't told Amegnon about keeping him warm and comfortable.
"Are you cold, Amegnon? Already? We haven't even started yet."
"It's fine," he lied.
Olivander looked at him and raised an eyebrow. He sighed.
"You don't have to go through with this."
Olivander had treated him like dirt, an annoyance that he needed to hone into something useful, but in the last few weeks, something had changed. The Magi were busier than ever, and only Olivander's prolific power over portal transportation allowed him time to continue training his apprentice. During this time he tried — usually poorly — to empathize with Amegnon. Amegnon couldn't help but feel resentful about it. Why be kind now? Why care about how he feels all of a sudden?
"This is my path to power. You said it yourself."
Olivander looked troubled for a moment, but shook his head as if to clear it.
"I did say that, but there are more paths than this."
They had been through this. Amegnon wanted a specific class he had read about in a book from Olivander's personal library. One of the keys was a soulbound weapon made from a specific rare metal. The metal was buried far below them, and Amegnon needed to go through a trial of sorts to retrieve it.
He had enough of the stalling, he was thirteen now, and almost a man himself. He could handle it. He braced himself and looked straight into Olivander's eyes with a determination that he knew the man wouldn't ignore.
"Very well," Olivander said with a grim expression. He activated the ritual he had drawn around Amegnon.
"Expand your senses. Deep within the mountain below us is a vein of ore that contains the metal you seek to master. Find it."
The ritual amplified Amegnon's senses, which were formidable for his age and experience. He drilled down into the mountain searching for a source of power. There were some small nuggets that he rushed by, powerful, but not the prize he was after.
The cold bit at him. In order to claim the power, he needed to master himself. To do that, he needed to be able to focus on his task. He continued searching, but expended some small amount of willpower to keep the worst of the winds at bay, his mana manipulation reflexively handling the task.
Willpower was the area he had come the furthest since beginning his apprenticeship. Olivander had a way of forcing Amegnon into situations where he needed strength of will to endure, and the effects spoke for themselves.
Immediately the biting cold retreated, he was able to dedicate his entire focus to the search. As the minutes stretched, he had a growing sensation of dread. What if he couldn't do it? What if he was just wasting the High Magus' time and his own energy and potential? The cold crept closer and his senses slowed their descent, reaching the limit of what Olivander's ritual could provide. How did Olivander know the ore was down there? Could he sense it from here without the ritual?
"Aaahh!" He shouted against the bounds and limitations of his power. Frustration and a spark of anger pushed his already strained limits. The cold retreated, and his senses brushed on something new — a vast energy, deep within the ground. He could practically smell the rich aura.
He locked in on the energy and pushed his senses into it. It was all around him now, but the tenuous link he maintained with his senses threatened to break.
"Now you need to make it your own. Use your earth manipulation. Isolate the ore, and try to align yourself with it. Only once you feel a perfect resonance should you activate your new skill."
Amegnon pushed back the earth around the ore. This was made far more difficult by a combination of incredible pressure and distance, but his mastery over the earth element was strong. He made some space around enough ore for his purposes. His mana dipped low and he paused for a moment, unsure of what to do.
"I'm running out of mana…I don't think I can finish."
"You can use mana manipulation to restore yourself to a limited degree, but you will be helpless to stop the cold," Olivander said. Then a bit of the callous attitude that Amegnon knew so well leaked into his voice. "You must decide. Risk it all for a one time opportunity of great power, or guarantee your safety to find another path to power. I cannot choose for you, and I will not bring you back here to try again."
Coming from Olivander, one of the most powerful of the Magi, son of the Arch-magus and the Seer, and brother to the Bone Magus, it wasn't really a choice. Everything the man's whole family did was about risk and reward. How could Amegnon ever choose the easier route?
The frigid cold slammed back into him as he used mana manipulation to force mana into his body. He ignored the cold with the last bit of his willpower, sinking his mind into the ore far below. He had a budding affinity for metal, built over the last year of putting up with Olivander's unique teaching methodology. He used it to resonate with the ore. He could feel how it was both similar and different.
When he had the right feeling, he used his young affinity to separate a section of ore from the rest. Then he activated his new skill.
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Elemental Soul Weapon
* Spell
* Cost: 120 mana
* Bind an element to you to form a soulbound weapon.
* Weapon can be summoned or dismissed at will, and responds to your elemental affinities.
* Weapon retains any properties from the original material used to form the weapon.
* Limited to two Soulbound weapons.
* 0/2 Weapons Bound
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His head swam and he was past the point of shivering, but he felt the connection form. He dismissed the weapon from deep within the earth and resummoned it. A chain floated in front of him. Just a few interconnected gray-brown links were all he could create from the limited ore he could isolate. Though small, it radiated power.
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Links of the Chainkeeper
* Weapon: Chain
* Spell: Elemental Soul Weapon
* Created from raw materials and bound to the wielder
* Grants control over similarly wrought items (chains)
* Highly responsive to the wielder's mana manipulation
* Can be extended and duplicated with mana
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Olivander examined the chain with a critical eye and then gave his apprentice an approving node.
"That should serve you well."
Olivander broke the ritual at Amegnon's feet and then opened a portal for them.
* * *
Five Months Later
The newly appointed Arch-magus was in another foul mood. The man's slow opening up had closed back off, and he pushed Amegnon farther away than he had ever been before. Olivander was Arch-magus now, and he had every right to dismiss his apprentice. Amegnon often wished the man would just do it. Then he could at least find a master who wanted to teach him. Instead he found himself tidying up one library or another in the Arch-magus Tower or the Palace, waiting on a summons for training.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
On the rare occasion that Olivander taught him, it was more painful training. Amegnon wondered why the man just wouldn't teach him something. He fought, and he grew stronger. He leveled, and his willpower was honed to a razor edge, but for all that, Olivander didn't teach him anything. The man was a scholar and an expert in many areas, yet he only drilled Amegnon on combat and endurance. It was infuriating.
"Arch-magus," Amegnon said, entering Olivander's offices in the Arch-magus' Tower. Olivander's long-time assistant Steven had let him know this was likely the best time to approach the man. He was between projects, and no one on the council had yet bothered him today.
"Amegnon, I thought I told you to stop calling me that. Olivander will do."
"Sorry, Olivander. I was wondering if we could try out something. I'd like to learn some rituals. I barely remember the ones they taught at the academy, and you use them so often, it seems like something I should know," he said in a rush.
Olivander looked up from a paper he was studying. Amegnon remembered his first lesson — failing at memorizing a healing ritual. In truth, he had barely even looked at it before he passed out, so he wasn't sure if he would have failed or not. Olivander hadn't brought it up, and Amegnon, deciding not to bring up his failures, hadn't either.
"I was wondering how long it would take you to ask that. If you want to run, you need to learn to walk first. You've honed your willpower and made some of your skills truly your own. You're probably ready now."
Olivander stood up and walked over to a bookshelf. "Hmm."
He picked up a stack of books and shoved them into the air, where they vanished. He pulled another stack out of thin air and put them on the bookshelf.
"This is an introductory course to ritual execution and crafting. It's not perfect, but it should impart sufficient knowledge to begin. Start reading them. Once you cover the first four books, I'll test your knowledge and teach you a couple useful rituals. Then we can move on to more advanced work."
Amegnon was simultaneously excited and disappointed. He had hoped…but no, the man was busy. It wouldn't be fair to ask for a personal lesson on such basic material. Still, he had said he would teach him some useful rituals, and that was worth looking forward to. Amegnon retrieved the first book and left to read in the library, down one level. The Arch-magus often had appointments and Amegnon wouldn't presume to work in his office.
The reading went reasonably well. He was a little shaky drawing out the example rituals in the book. He was more or less copying rituals, and really didn't understand how they worked or what they would do, outside of the descriptions in the ritual book. He gained a basic understanding of how rituals should look, so he was fairly quick to spot errors, even if it was more just a gut feeling than actually knowing what was wrong.
When he finally completed the fourth volume, two weeks and more than a hundred hours of ritual practice later, he couldn't find Olivander. Steven was no help, the man just saying that Olivander was away on "Arch-magus business."
Another week later, when Olivander finally reappeared, the man simply referred him to the next series of books. He neither checked to see if he had absorbed the material, or taught Amegnon the rituals he had mentioned. Amegnon didn't bring it up. Olivander seemed drained in a way he couldn't describe, and though that he had maybe just returned from some battlefield. He would ask again after this series of books.
Unfortunately, the next series was more complicated than he expected. He had to refer back to earlier books on numerous occasions, and the rituals he was attempting to craft were beyond his understanding.
Two weeks later, he still wasn't done, but he was interrupted while drawing out a ritual by an unexpected person. He was working in a side courtyard outside the palace, well away from the Arch-magus tower when a harsh woman's voice snapped at him.
"Are you trying to kill yourself, boy!?"
Amegnon spun around and had to look down at the diminutive Muriel Casumus.
"I apologize, High Magus, I didn't hear you coming."
"No, I suppose you didn't. Had your head stuffed so far up my son's ass that you couldn't bother questioning what you were doing or why. Is that about right?"
This was not Amegnon's first encounter with the Seer, so he wasn't thrown off by the hostile tone or crude words. He was careful to always listen to what she said, because she was wise beyond any of the other Magi. At least that's what he thought.
"I'm working my way through some ritual books."
"Why?" she asked, hands on her cane. She wasn't that old, but she had always had a cane and walked with a limp. Amegnon had never asked about it.
He realized she had asked a question a moment later and rushed out half a response before he had finished the thought.
"So Olivander will…teach me."
She nodded as though that made perfect sense.
"Yes, yes. My son won't teach anyone who doesn't already know what he's going to teach them. That does sound like the kind of flimsy excuse he would make, but tell me, what ritual were you just drawing out?"
He had no idea. He froze, and Muriel nodded at the book so he could take another look.
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Ritual of Life Transfer
* Healing Ritual
* Transfers life from the caster to a target
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"A healing ritual."
"Don't be an idiot, boy. What ritual?"
"Ritual of Life Transfer"
Muriel waited expectantly, but he had no idea what he was supposed to say. Now that he thought about it, had she seen this conversation, and knew she could push him into self-conscious awkwardness? He was beginning to see why Olivander didn't seem to enjoy talking to his mother.
She sighed.
"What do you think happens if you mess up a life transfer spell?"
"It doesn't work?"
A small gate opened in the air next to him and a small rock flew out, hitting him in the head.
"You really think I want to hear your dumb off the cuff responses, boy? Use that brain I know you must have."
Amegnon didn't rub his head or acknowledge the injury. He thought about it. If a Life Transfer spell doesn't work…then…what? He could transfer too little life, effectively resulting in the "not working" outcome he had already tried. He could transfer too much life, in which case...he could probably die.
"Ah. I die?"
"You die."
Her words sent a chill down his spine. The Seer came to him in a random location far away from any place she regularly visited and asked him if he was trying to kill himself. She told him that ritual could kill him.
The shock of the revelation must have been clear on his face, because in a display he had never seen before, the woman's face softened.
"You're young, and you probably don't understand, or maybe you do, I don't really know anything about your past before coming here. The point is, the loss of my husband has weighed heavily on my son. Certainly more than he shows in public. Whether or not he shows it right now, he's close to you too. It would break him if he lost you due to his own negligence, so I have come to make sure you don't make a mistake because you're tired, and shouldn't be drawing rituals that you don't understand."
Amegnon was speechless. He had been that close to death. He had no idea.
"Return to my son, and explain that you are stuck. He will help you. It's not in his nature to let a problem go unsolved. You just need to do more to become a problem he needs to address. You will not attempt any rituals that one of the Magi didn't directly teach you again. Understand me, boy?"
He managed a nod and Muriel clicked her staff against the ground to signal an end to the conversation.
"Good. Now go."
He gave her a quick bow, collected the ritual book, and sprinted towards the Arch-magus tower.
Once he awkwardly explained himself to Olivander, he was surprised to find Muriel had been right. So often Amegnon had been the gifted student who almost needed no guidance at all that Olivander had barely needed to pay attention to him. Once he knew what to look for, Olivander's sharp attitude and apathy towards teaching his apprentice went away. Eventually it was replaced with true comradery as Amegnon grew older and Olivander settled into his role as Arch-magus.
For all that things changed, Amegnon never let go of the small seed of anger and frustration that had blossomed in his heart in the early days and months of his apprenticeship. It peeked out from time to time, and even with a less strained relationship, the distance he put between himself and the person he was closest to would forever color his life.
Amegnon could only put true trust in himself. People were chaotic. People didn't do what was best for everyone. People shied away from the hard things, even when they were right. People were selfish. When he was Arch-magus, he would make sure to do those hard things, no matter what it cost him.