Usually when talking about summoners, one refers to people who summon apparitions of concepts held somewhere in the world of ideas and ideals.
A knowledgeable enough mage could summon an ideal blade, or even an ideal chair. That is of course if the mage knows what they're looking for in the boundless world of ideas.
These ideals don't belong to the material world, but to the world of gods, and without a mage to sustain them, they break apart.
"Calling 'Summoning' of Heroes a 'Summoning' is a wide stretch," Ledas concluded aloud after two days of a strange repetition: wake up, decipher ritual for five hours, breakfast, decipher ritual for two hours, training with battlemages, supper, decipher the ritual for another three hours, read for half an hour until falling asleep.
Mechanically, this wasn't a summoning ritual at all. It was a magical beacon sending signals and channeling magical stones through ritual to somewhere. In his hands he had something akin to Noritz's address in heaven, if the stories of heroes getting to this world through her were true. Maybe the address was to someone who accepted offerings in her stead.
The ritual contained some information to send too. Those parameters changed how magical stones and crystals were required. Ledas contemplated the most important parameter, the one he deduced to be the number of heroes per summoning.
The base ritual started with 0. But the math didn't add up. It was either starting at 0, or 0 meant extra heroes after the first. Another parameter probably indicated the power of the summoned hero, as unlike the first one, it was a non-integral floating value. There was no indication how that value translated to how strong the hero would be, only an ancient note in the documents suggested ten talents of gold worth of crystals as a base and not using more than a hundred.
There were few dozen checkmarks, text in the ancient language, indicating something. A few were marked, others not. There were no explanations in the ritual, only costs.
Ledas felt disappointed, as all the actual magic granting mythical powers was not in the ritual. Still, he carefully wrote down the sequences that sent things to the designated location.
Maybe with enough tinkering in how positioning worked, I could recreate a spell from the legends - teleportation. He though without keeping his hopes high. That was unlikely, as the mages guild would have discovered that decades if not centuries ago.
His optimization of the ritual was the beacon, making it shine in the magical space for longer with smaller consumption, but most of the ritual looked more akin to asking a deity to send someone; a hero.
During the first two days, he talked almost exclusively with Smoothy. Only Tomas among the battlemages spoke to Ledas and showed what the court mage did wrong and how to do it right.
"So if it's not summoning, what is it?" Smoothy lounged on a sofa a few steps away from Ledas.
"I don't know. It would take me a good year or two to figure that out precisely, and I don't think in the urgency I am asked to work I'll have a chance. It's most likely asking for a divine favor." Ledas reached his hand towards the plate with the pastry, but it was gone. Gluttony was his bodyguard's sin.
"To respond to it or not, is up to the deity, and in this case it's Noritz. Well, at least according to the stories."
"Collect all you got, and I'll give it to the boss." These were the last words the last piece of pastry heard before being devoured by the sneaky glutton.
Ledas wrote the report in free form, as he didn't know the proper way of making one. His handwriting was ugly but readable, taking maybe a third more space on paper than was required. He always gave reports to Smoothy to read first, and fixed them if something was unreadable.
Fortunately, no one cared about the abhorrent symbols he called letters, and his writing was getting better rapidly.
__
Sunday indicated no training with battlemages.So Ledas sat for a few minutes, unsure what to do, while Smoothy went away with his report.
He looked at the table with a thousand-mile stare. Tired. The glossy table had a bit of dust on it. Something about that bothered him. Maybe this was the first time he had noticed dust. He had lived for fifteen, maybe sixteen years without noticing such thin layers of dust. It never bothered him. He had never owned a polished table where that thin layer would be noticeable.
Ledas thought about cleaning it with his sleeve, but when he moved his hand and saw pristine garbs indicating his status it felt even worse.
He considered about casting an air spell, but it felt tiresome to cast a spell for something that would require one swipe of a wet fabric.
---
He went outside the room and asked the first servant he saw where he could get a piece of fabric to clean things.
"When would you like for a servant to come?" The answer wasn't what Ledas expected, but it felt great, as if vaporizing the strain the position and the job was putting on him. He went back, to lie on the bed and take a nap.
Later, going downstairs to the office part of his mage's tower, Smoothy wasn't there. He saw a maid sitting on a chair and rubbing her lower back, possibly taking a small break. The place looked cleaner than before. There was pastry on his table, untouched. He felt like a nobleman, getting all the nice pastries from professional chefs he never tried before. No! He was like a noble mage!
"Hello?" He tried to recall how nobles he'd observed acted, and they rarely greeted someone of lower status. But greeting a pretty girl felt natural, so he forgot about that.
"Oh, excuse me." The maid jolted up, her face grimacing in pain for a split second as she removed her hand from her back. "I am sorry, I didn't know you were here. I will finish everything as soon as possible." She was around eighteen, with black hair and a gentle face, wearing the black and white outfit all maids here wore. He had seen her during breakfasts sometimes. She glanced at Ledas, paying brief attention to his clothes more than anything else, clearly identifying him by them—or perhaps looking at his face wasn't proper.
"It's not urgent," Ledas said. “Nobles are slightly patronizing and acted directly with commoners, so I should simulate that.” Why? He had no idea. He was having breakfast with staff and Smoothy every day, but they never actually talked.
Moreover, there was a bigger issue.
“Now, how should I...?” Ledas asked himself. He looked left and right, pretending to examine the room. He had an idea of what he wanted to say when he entered, but when he got closer, his train of thoughts scattered like prey before wolves.
"How can I help you?" The maid was visibly uncomfortable.
“She has some problems with her back, probably overstrained. I can fix that, a small nice gesture to make this situation less awkward,” Ledas thought to himself.
"I see you are having trouble with your work. Let me help you. Turn around," Ledas said with the same patronizing tone, continuing to imitate nobles he had seen in inns and taverns.
The girl's face immediately turned pale as she froze for a few seconds before turning around. She was in a far side of the castle, with no one around, the door was closed, and there was a mage ordering her; she had no chance to run away, and she knew it. The lump in her throat felt like it was preventing her from breathing.
“Oh, she must really suffer from that pain if it's so hard for her to move,” Ledas thought, wildly misinterpreting her behavior. "Don't move now." He crossed his fingers, forming a <
The girl shuddered and started hyperventilating as she felt something filling her muscles. She took a deep breath and prepared to scream. In a second, a warm feeling spread through her body, and the back pain was gone, along with the finger no longer poking her.
"Huh?" She turned back toward the mage, confused at what was happening.
"Is the pain gone?" the court mage asked in the same strange, neglectful tone.
"Yes, Magister," she said in a shivering voice.
"Something wrong?" Ledas raised his brow.
"No, no..." She quickly proceeded to finish cleaning the room.
"It's a simple spell. Don't worry about that. I can do twenty in a row without breaking a sweat." Ledas slightly relaxed. “She probably thought I would ask for monetary compensation for casting the spell,” he thought to himself, misinterpreting the situation again.
In less than a minute, the maid was gone.
“Well, that was awkward,” Ledas thought to himself, heading up to his bedroom.
"Arty, how do you speak with girls?" he asked while entering the room.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
His life advisor Arty wasn't there.
Ledas stood in the empty room, confused. Where was he? Why was he there? His mind wandered to places his mind's eye could see but couldn't perceive, and what he couldn't see was chilling. The air felt too thin, the room too small. He wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go.
He rushed to the windowsill, his intent of running away that way vanishing when he saw the height.
---
He came back to his senses in the unlit corner of the bathroom.
Arty wasn't there. The mortifying feeling of emptiness made him bend in half. He didn't care about where his name came from anymore, the stupid misunderstanding with the maid which he now understood, or his place here; it didn't matter. He felt the cold wanting to seep out but held it inside like he had done many times during past weeks.
He gazed at the ceiling, but his wet eyes were focused on the endless distance. "Hey Arty, what should I do? I don't know what I'm doing at all."
***
Anna closed the door behind herself, walking quickly.
Smoothy was at the entrance, leaning against the doorframe.
"Isn't he a naive idiot?" Smoothy yawned silently, his voice barely audible.
"What are you doing here?" Anna walked down the spiral staircase.
"A few of us are checking up on him from time to time, to prevent him from totally fucking up or running away. Sis told me that he scared the shit out of some random guards on patrol." Smoothy walked next to her.
"I don't think he is fine. Something is wrong with his head."
"Yeah, don't you find it funny?"
"No."
***
Part 2:
In a couple of hours when Smoothy came Ledas asked to cancel the etiquette teacher, with the pretext that he needs more time to spend on the ritual.
Smoothy offered to go for supper, but Ledas declined, with “I am not hungry. See you tomorrow.”
Ledas sat with the ritual, it felt calming drawing it on the big empty floor in the middle of his study.
Well, It became empty after he removed the rugs and moved the furniture to the sides.
The ritual was the most important thing in the world. It required absolute concentration, and absolute concentration on magic cleared the mind.
He drew the lines testing each small piece of the schemes one by one. Rare ones would work from the first try. Hours flied as Ledas was drawing more and more schemes, adapting them to the more modern materials.
When Smoothy came again, it was already morning. He looked around the room that drastically changed it’s appearance, with sheats of different ritual parts hanging on the walls. The mage stood there with his back to him.
“Salty informed me you were shagging the furniture here, didn’t know you were that horny.”
“I am in my prime shagging years, it’s only natural.” Ledas responded without turning around, still focused on a particular circle that was refusing to work for the last three hours.
"Should I issue you a wench, or take you to a brothel?"
"I can survive until this is done. If it becomes unbearable, I will shag that Salty lass who touches herself while guarding the door at night, or you."
"Huh?" Smoothy was talking with someone who seemed completely different. "Mate, you should go have some sleep; you're losing your marbles."
"I am not a mate to you. Get out of here until you learn to address me properly." Ledas' voice was deeper, stronger, as if belonging to someone else.
In a few seconds, the door closed from outside. Ledas stood there for another half hour.
Reflected in the bathroom mirror, pale as porcelain, his face marked with blue veins wasn't a symptom of poor constitution. Physically, he was perfectly healthy, aside from the lack of sleep.
He focused on his hand, bringing index and middle fingers together, crossing them. The golden tattoos on the proximal phalanges of each finger connected to form a complete magical scheme. These were almost ideal tools to initiate up to low-journeyman magical spells without needing the usual phase of an incantation.
Despite the bath next to him, he went for the quick but uncomfortable option, submerging his fingers into the fire, slowly allowing the heat to spread through his body.
He no longer resembled someone who was terminally ill, a vampire, or an aberration.
"Good." He combed his ashen hair, which no longer looked menacing. One had to appear good and organized, especially in his unstable position.
The strange film in the eye of his mind was slowly melting. He looked to the side. The corner of the bathroom where he had hidden a few hours ago was covered in a thin layer of ice.
His hands shook; he was losing his marbles.
Things were bad. He quickly dispelled the ice and strode downstairs.
The windows of the study had been open the whole night, and it was freezingly cold because of that.
He tried not to calm himself. He needed to clear any suspicions that Smoothy might have. It was dangerous, dreadfully dangerous. He headed toward the kitchen to find the spy assigned to look after him, to turn it into a joke.
"Oh, the Magister came!" The spy was outside of the room.
"Sounds better than a furniture shagger." Ledas smiled at him with a smile only a socially inept person would find sincere.
"Hey, it was a joke!" Smoothy was slightly defensive.
"If someone tells you that you're funny, know they are full of crap." Ledas felt the pressure go away as he jumped on the opportunity to play being offended. "Come, food won't eat itself."
"Never thought you would be so thin-skinned."
"All furniture shaggers are thin-skinned." Playing offended when he wasn't did feel nice. He held onto the stupid joke, thanking the Mother of Mercy in his mind for giving him another chance to live.
The atmosphere in the kitchen wasn't nice at all. The staff was tense as if they were all sitting in a room with a delayed spell, about to shatter like thin glass that already had cracks in it.
The next few days went uneventfully.
Bathe in hot water, eat, bicker with Smoothy, work on the ritual, eat, read books from the Royal library to understand why things in the ritual were not working, bathe in warm water, sleep and repeat. He moved the mirror from the bathroom upstairs to the ritual room. Some might consider him a narcissist for how often he would check himself in it, but he didn't care. He was planning to buy another mirror or two so he would never be caught off-guard again.
On day three, right after finishing their meals, the Cook - Jonny, limping approached the table where Smoothy and Ledas were sitting.
"Excuse me, master mage, may I address you?" Jonny was a big man in his forties, with a gentle and honest smile addressed to everyone he saw.
"Sure, whatever." Ledas shrugged.
"I want to ask you for a small favor."
"Huh?... Alright." Well, anything was better than having only Smoothy as a conversational partner; at least the cook wasn't filled with bile.
"Can you do the same magic you did on Anna on me?" Jonny's words made the other staff members turn their heads.
"Ah, the pain suppression? Sure. Where?" Ledas moved his fingers on the left hand, building the spell.
"Em, left knee." The cook looked slightly twitchy at that moment.
Ledas poked the knee while still sitting at the table. The spell activated at that instant, forming glowing magical runes on the skin for a brief second.
"Em. Magister. Usually, you clarify terms before doing that." Smoothy spoke in a low tone.
"What terms?" Ledas looked confused.
"On the return favor. Unspecified favors get predatory sometimes."
"I don't care." He turned to the cook. "Jonny, right? I don't care. There is nothing you have or can have that I need, nor anything you can do that I would care about. I will ask back for a favor, probably never."
"Thank you, magister!" The cook bowed.
"Oh, right." Ledas started to cast another spell. "Show your knee."
"Emm..." Jonny followed the instruction.
"Mother of Mercy," Ledas substituted the other parts with runes and applied a simple healing spell. "Suppressing pain on a wound without healing could make it worse. Just in case."
"Oh, thank—" Ledas cut off the cook.
"Actually, an apricot pie tomorrow would be nice." Ledas stood up and the two left.
—
The freshly baked apricot pie the next morning was indeed nice.
The cycle repeated itself for the next two weeks, with only the morning routine slightly changing as more of the staff asked for small magical services that were hard to get in Tigranakert after the guild left and the association focused on training new mages as fast as possible, removing them from the market.
It looked like common folk felt just fine with the strange and rash mage when they found out he wasn't dangerous, and even less eccentric than the previous one.
Ledas assumed it was most likely Smoothy who sent the cook to do the breaking of the ice. He never checked if there was a wound in the first place, but it was his bodyguard who insisted on going downstairs for breakfasts every day and now for all meals.
He wasn't sure, but just in case, he tried to be as nice as he could be to the man who was trying to get under his skin with his jokes.
At the end of the two weeks, the ritual schema was completed; everything looked perfect. The few masked mages, most likely noble battlemages of the highest clearance or Wraith's people, did the last testing of every piece of the schema. No issues were detected.
Too perfect.
The King's men with chests filled with rare crystals and golden implements arrived the next day.
Ledas carefully positioned what he perceived as offerings and the crystals for the beacon in their positions. Everything was ready well ahead of time.
"I am done. Should I start, or are we waiting for someone?" Ledas asked the king's man, Smoothy, and the few masked battlemages.
"Everyone who has to be here is here." Wraith was leaning back on a sofa, completely unnoticed before.
"Understood." Ledas felt cringy every time Wraith would do that. No privacy meant that he had to keep ideal habits of keeping himself warm, but with the hot bath, that wasn't difficult.
He opened the first page, containing the chant to activate the ritual. It was written in an unknown language with a transcript on how to read it out.
"ARCHITECT!" Ledas said the word, but shouts came out. When he pronounced them, he knew what they meant right after the words left his lips. "I ASK YOU FOR ACCESS TO THE LIBRARY OF INFINITE KNOWLEDGE YOU KEPT SAFE FOR MILLENNIA."
Ledas stopped. He looked around in confusion. He somehow understood the meaning of the words and felt like he could speak it fluently, but the next moment he forgot, like one would forget a word unable to remember it. It wasn't normal by any means.
"Is that all?" Wraith asked, looking dissatisfied.
"No." Ledas started again. This time his voice was calm, as reading aloud felt more natural now that he knew what the first words meant. Maybe it wasn't normal, but ancient rituals never were.
"Architect, I ask you for access to the Library of the Infinite Knowledge you kept safe for millennia. Allow me to see the true wisdom of the Tower of Babylon you built."
Ledas felt his magic getting quickly drained as if he was casting high-power input spells in a row. Five seconds - nothing. Ten seconds - nothing. Fifteen - the schema began to glow as his vision turned blurry.
"Ah, here you are. It is nice to finally meet you." A mellow voice whispered in Ledas' ear. He turned around, but no one stood behind him, and Wraith was still sitting on the sofa.
"Did you?..." Ledas understood something strange. The words were in the same language as the ritual activation.
"Look!" One of the king's men pointed at the ritual circle.
The gold and the crystals in the offering area vanished.
"The deed is done," one of the masked mages, who definitely was Baron Vahan Karian, proclaimed. "Time will tell if you succeeded, but we should do a small celebration!"
Ledas stood there, with people patting him on the shoulder telling him "Good job!" and "Might be a real Ledas Sanders if you ask me" and other kind words one after another, but he couldn't join the joy.
He heard blood rushing in his ears and a high-pitched noise filling his mind. Who spoke to him? What was the Tower of Babylon and the Library of Infinite Knowledge? Who was the Architect, and was that the one who spoke with him and, most importantly, how?