Soulburned: The School of Souls

Chapter 26: A Restless Mind

Adler lounged in his room. The door was still locked and barred, but as a sign of "goodwill" from the Archmage, there was no longer a door guard. Adler was truly alone for the first time in months. A decade, if you counted his time with "Empathy."

Relief.

In the silence, Alder's thoughts were a maelstrom.

Adler still wasn't completely sold that the voice of destruction he had toted around inside his head for so long was quite the force of benevolence that a name like "Empathy" implied.

He still didn't know what the voice's goals were. It had wanted him to destroy the Soul Smithy's artifacts, thus crippling Iris's means of creating new Mages and Wizards... but what did the voice gain from that?

Was it still inside of him? Or had the fresh Brand destroyed it?

Adler used his Logos to examine his Brand. He still didn't know what the strange runes were, he'd never been able to match them up in any of the Library's many books. He supposed if anyone in the Iris knew, it might be Marelda. The Artificer. He'd need to question her about it if ever given the opportunity.

Adler still couldn't believe that he'd lived in this spire for so long, free to roam its many floors and halls for the majority of that time, but had never met the woman. Yet, when he'd been taken to her, the Archmage had made it quite clear that she had been the one responsible for creating the glyph.

His Brand wasn't a normal glyph. This at least, he was sure of. Glyphs were merely aids. Predetermined pathways for Logos to flow. His Brand was no pathway. It was a wall, A dam built specifically built for his soul.

He'd have to ask Thale if Mages were able to use glyphs. He'd never seen it done... Maybe there was something inherent to the mental magic that allowed the

The word density came to his mind. Logos was a fluid thing, and most attempts that had been made to describe its use reflected that. It flowed and poured. It acted as a current or ebbed. Eros, however, was always described as a solid.

Adler's Thymos raged and roiled as he continued to examine the Brand. If this power could be compared to any state of matter it would be plasma. Hot lighting caged inside his chest.

One could not dam lightning.

He'd need to find the spirit, "Entity." It had been weeks since his 'Trial', weeks since the creature had told him it would find him. If Alder could, he'd have grown impatient.

Adler could still feel the barrier. It rugged at the blockage in his Thymos, begging for more. It wasn't going to able to sustain itself for much longer. Without Adler's intervention, it would fall.

But is that what I want? Adler thought.

He wished he knew what he wanted. Without being able to feel his emotions, he had no way of knowing.

Intellectually, he could rationalize wanting Sclera to fall. He'd been imprisoned here for the majority of his life. Any sane person would want revenge.

But was Adler sane? For the longest time he had assumed he wasn't, the the voice in his head was another symptom of the same desire He harbored no ill will towards the Archmage and Maredla, but that was most likely because he couldn't. He had no way of knowing if he was an especially vindictive person naturally, or if he would have forgiven his captors.

He shook his head.

A pointless line of thought.

He turned his attention back to the barrier.

Entity had used Logos to activate his Brand and control the flow of his Thymos. Until recently he wasn't able to sense or see the flow of Logos, but now...

He probed at the spell that lingered in his chest.

There it was. A single thread of silver Logos hidden within the coppery depths of his roiling Thymos. It stretched out from the Barrier spell to his Brand, connecting things.

Curious. Would removing the Brand destroy the Barrier?

He made a mental note to examine that connection further, but for now, he turned his attention back to the thread of Logos.

Adler had been bored for a decade. There was little else for a child to do but study. He had read a mountain of books in an incredibly broad range of fields. As a result, he had a very well-rounded wealth of knowledge, which until now, had largely been useless.

Excitement.

He pulled a quill and sheet of paper from his desk and started to draw runes.

No two Souls were alike, and neither were their components. The current working theory was that the specific composition of one's Eros was the blueprint that the body was formed from. This was also presumed true of Logos and Thymos. The quantities and characteristics of one's soul components were what made a person an individual.

It was the primary risk of Soulmancy. Pull too much Eros from your soul, and you'd starve the body of its vitality. Too much Logos, and you'd destroy your psyche. Too much Thymos? Well... Alder wasn't exactly removing the Thymos from his body, but he imagined that being cut off from it had a similar effect.

Pull too much Thymos and you'd lose the ability to feel.

These effects were gradual, and when a Soulmancer was careful, largely harmless. The Soul, in time, heals. Wizards who made themselves drunk from Logos overuse would sober. A mage who consumed their muscles into atrophy would heal. A sorcerer that drove themselves into a depression would soon bounce back to mania. The solution was usually simple. Sleep.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Soulmancers would under normal circumstances, return to normal. Restored to the blueprint prescribed by their soul.

Adler continued to scribble runes.

Knowing that each and every person's Logos was different, was paramount to tracking spells. If Adler had a piece of the Entity's soul, he could find it.

He continued his work.

It was largely taught and largely misunderstood, that the nine schools of magic could be neatly separated out into four categories. The 6 basic Schools were each tied to specific Soul Components. Mages with their Eros, had access to Abjuration and Transmutation magic. A Wizard's Logos could be used for Conjuration and Illusion. Sorcerors, when they were allowed to exist, could use their Thymos for Evocations and Divinations. The remaining three Schools, Enchantment, Imbuation, and Necromancy, required a blend of two different Componts, and were thus, only available to compounded Soulmancers.

This was largely true, but not completely true. There was overlap. Magic is not so easily defined, and the lines became blurred when one examined them closely enough. A Mage could cast some evocations if they knew which ones would only require a physical component. A sorcerer could manage a few Abjurations, and and few illusions, the ones that only required emotional magic. Wizards, as such, could handle very basic transmutations and divination, those that only required mental progress.

If he'd been born centuries before, his Thymos and empathic abilities would have made him an oracle. As it was, Adler could not access his Thymos, and so could not cast the vast majority of Divination spells, but there were a few that only required Logos. And he had read them.

He finished.

Scratched out on the scrap of paper was a simple tracking glyph. The glyph was just a frame, the actual spell was simple and would take place in his mind. It would focus on the target he was thinking of, then display a mote of light in his vision to highlight the object or creature. In this case, the Target was any Logos that matched the composition Entitiy's.

He focused on the single thread of alien Logos he could sense, then poured his own into the glyph.

The page started to smolder as energy flowed into it. Most glyphs were carved or transmuted into stone for precisely this reason. The parchment would be destroyed in the spell, so this could only be cast once.

His vision exploded into white light.

He screamed in pain, and instinctually through his hands over his eyes, trying to shield himself from the blinding white, but to no avail.

He dismissed the spell.

He swore and tossed the charred remains of parchment into a nearby bin.

Entity's Logos was interwoven into the Barrier, the tracking spell had been a failure.

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The afternoon shadows grew long, casting Adler's confines in a dim light.

Sylane peered in through the bars.

"I was beginning to think you weren't coming," he said. "Or that you'd been discovered."

She shook her head.

"You're sure we can talk here?"

"It has to be here. The Archmage is tracking my mind. He'll know if I leave."

"And you're sure he's not listening?"

"As sure as I can be. I sense no Logos. Do you sense Eros?"

Sylane paused for a moment, delving through the room with her own Eros.

"Just the door, but it's just a strenghting spell... They've really relaxed your imprisonment, haven't they?" Sylane marveled, "It's like he wants you to escape."

"He does," Adler said simply, "He wants me to escape so that he can follow me... What about you, were you followed? What took so long?"

"Please, I'm too tangled up in their day-to-day to be followed. I am merely a fly on the wall, at least to most of them."

"Most?" Adler asked.

"Thale, he's why I was late. I helped him to get to the Artificer's Workshop."

"He suspects something?" Adler questioned, still not understanding.

"No, he just... notices me. More so than the rest of them. I'm not able to melt into the background when he's there."

Adler nodded.

"Yes, I felt that..."

Sylane looked at him funny.

"What?"

"You felt that?

Ah. Adler understood. When he said felt, Sylane had clearly assumed that he'd felt his own emotions. He'd need to be more careful of that.

"I mean to say that I noticed his attention toward you. When he was guarding me, he grew quite defensive of you." Alder said. "And he mentions you often when he's escorting me."

"Why would he feel the need to jump to my defense?"

Adler could feel her wariness.

"I was delirious. I'm not sure what I said, but I noticed how he was reacting. I took it as an opportunity to get under his skin. He was an unknown entity, and I wanted to learn somthing about his character. Whatever I said, it doesn't seem to have affected his perception of you."

Sylane was silent for a moment.

"What did you learn?"

"That the man is incredibly emotional," Adler said. "He wears every thought and feeling plainly for all to see. It's... disconcerting."

His positive assessment of Thale pleased Sylane.

Interesting.

"For you, I suppose that would be disconcerting."

Alder wasn't sure if that was supposed to be an insult or merely an observation, so he moved on.

"Have you heard from them?" Adler asked after a moment.

Sylane 's mood turned sour in Adler's empathetic sense.

"No." She said, "But I heard from this 'Shaman' character again. He's threatening me with their lives."

"I'm sorry to hear that. " Adler said. "Did he give any further instructions? Has he heard from the voice?"

"No, and no... just the threats." Sylane sighed, "I need to figure out where the Archmage and Artificer moved the Coals. Ugh, all that work, all that death! Just for them to be moved!"

"It's not our fault that this Shaman is an idiot. If he had any degree of intelligence, he would have just waited for the Barrier to fall, or at least tried digging in in a less conspicuous manner..."

"No, it's not our fault that he's an idiot, but that blood is still on our hands."

Adler frowned.

Confusion.

"The Kovites were preparing that assault regardless, Sylane. Coordinating with them just made sense. We both needed distractions and what better for that than an assault with a Soul-Eater?"

"I-I know why we did it. I just didn't expect it to be such a successful attack... They'd be stuck behind the second wall for so long, I didn't think they'd break through."

"You didn't have a choice, they have your family. You have no reason to feel guilty."

"That's easy for you to say... You don't have to live with your conscience."

Guilt.

Adler wasn't sure if it was his, or hers.

"We'll get them out, Sylane. I'll help you find the Coals."