“Let’s go,” Cassius said.

Professor Torres cleared her throat.

“Right,” he said, clenching his jaw. He made a gesture, and the apprentices stood to the side like soldiers lined up for parade. Each wore the thin bronze chain of apprenticeship that went from their shoulder to a loop on their coats, dangling down across their right breasts like they were carrying a conspicuous pocket watch. They all looked identical, with the same short light brown hair and light brown eyes. If they had personalities that went beyond discipline, like Cassisus, they’d masked them. They also had five wand sheathes hanging off their belts, crisp and polished as the rest of them.

All of them watched as a priest from the Luminate Order came in, glancing about the room. “You know, I have a feeling the Academy could afford to increase its donations to the temple,” he said.

“Take it up with Archmage Luspire,” Cassius grumbled.

“Oh, we have,” sighed the priest.

Mirian had gotten plenty of wounds healed, but this time, she was paying extra close attention. Without a focus, she doubted she could sense much, but she wanted to try. She watched carefully as the priest put his hand to his chest. The pose of the penitant it was called–except he must have been pressing the focus hidden under his robes closely to his chest. Mirian closed her eyes and tried to meditate, but as the bandage was unwrapped, the lances of pain shooting through her broke her concentration. Then, there was that burning sensation by the wound, then blessed relief as the pain faded.

“Thank you,” she told him. What she wanted to ask was how does it work? Are there celestial runes on your focus? What’s an ‘elder reliquary?’ Is it like casting a spell? Can I borrow your focus? But she knew what the answer to those questions would be already. All of it was secret knowledge.

The priest departed, and then so did they. Her leg still ached slightly–healing was never perfect–but it was so much nicer to walk on.

They walked right down the stairs and into the second basement level. It must have been a strange sight for the other students studying there to see: A sixth year student, leading a gaggle of professors and apprentices through the shelves. “Make sure to return your library books on time,” Mirian told a wide-eyed first-year student as she passed by. She and Professor Seneca found it funny, at least.

“Let’s see… I got shot to death there, so it was… hmm… two shelves over. Here,” she said, standing them all along the blank wall.

Cassius made a face, the first chip in his stony mask she’d seen. How much did they tell him?

“There’s no record of a passage here,” Torres said.

Mirian adjusted the rings around the shaft of her spellrod, then concentrated. “Does anyone have a reveal iron spell? I haven’t had a chance to re-scribe it.”

“What is that thing?” Cassisus said, scowling at the scepter.

“Spellrod. Ask Torres, she has a nicer one. Nevermind, I got it.” With a grinding clurnk, her empowered magnetic spell caught the lever, and the section stone wall opened.

“Five hells,” muttered Seneca.

Mirian swapped her spellrod back to light and cast it, the steady glow illuminating the “Now does anyone have a mapping spell? Super easy to get lost in here.”

“I do,” Seneca said. “Ghostly trail should do the trick, no?” Seeing Mirian’s quizzical look, she said, “Illusion spell. Creates a trail of colored light as we walk so we can retrace our path.”

“Good,” Professor Cassius said. “Three, guard the door. No students in, no beasts out. Two, you’re on point with me. One, take up the rear.”

“Yes sir!” the apprentices chorused.

With Cassius’s back to them, Mirian made a face at the others. He calls his apprentices by numbers!? Apprentice Three shrugged. Seneca rolled her eyes and made a gesture she did not expect a professor to make.

Mirian cleared her throat. “This way,” she said, taking the lead.

She had to stop several times, backtrack once, and nearly had them walk right on by the room they were looking for, but at last they found it. The corpse looked like it had before.

“One and Two, guard the passage. Wards up, wardbreaker caution,” Cassisus snapped as they gathered in the chamber.

Mirian stood by the pile of ash just north of the body.

“Well that’s gruesome,” Seneca said. “Want me to date it?”

“I’d rather you just found out its age,” said Torres with such a straight face it took Mirian a moment to realize she did have a sense of humor after all. She bent over and picked up the note Mirian had described.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Jei said something in Gulwenen to Torres, who nodded. Then her face went white. “Song,” she said, and then said something else in Gulwenen, and Jei’s face went equally pale. Whatever they’d discovered was bad news.

Three years, five months dead, as best I can tell,” Seneca announced.

“And shot in the back of the head,” Cassius said, in case anyone hadn’t picked up on that.

Mirian crouched down as if she was joining them in examining the corpse, placing one hand in the dirt. As subtly as she could, she felt for the half-buried wand. She grasped it, and carefully stuffed it up her sleeve, using a single finger to keep it in place.

“Eskier, this is big,” Torres said. “Sefora, Mirian’s right. We need to start gathering guards we can trust. There might be fighting. The project’s been… infiltrated.”

“So are you all going to start beliving me?” Mirian asked.

“I–” Torres started, but she was interrupted by one of the apprentices letting out a series of curses that would have made any sailor blush, and then a blood-curdling roar that echoed up and down the passages.

“Bog lion,” she whispered.

Then, everything seemed to happen all at once. Cassius already had two wands out, and Jei her orb. The orange light of a fire jet lit up the catacombs, then one of the apprentices gave a shout and dove into the chamber with them, kicking up a cloud of ash as he did. The other one had up a force barrier, and it shattered as something big slammed into it. The air in that area was distorted, like the way air from an oven wavered about. The bog lion was using its camouflage spell.

A shield of fire–apparently originating from Cassius–erupted around the apprentice, and there was a snarl as the blur retreated and refocused its attention on the group. With his second wand, Cassius blasted the bog lion with force. Instead of retreating, though, it attacked. Cassius put up a second fire shield around himself, and Mirian thought she saw a ghostly paw smash into it. There was an explosion of light and flames. The barrier held, though, and Cassisus repositioned himself in the entrance of the chamber so it couldn’t go around. The first fire shield was still up, which made Mirian blink. He was channeling two instances of the same spell through one wand. She hadn’t even known that was possible!

“I am unfamiliar with this creature,” Jei said. “Do we want it alive or dead?”

“Dead,” Torres said at the same time Seneca said “oh, alive would be wonderful!”

They looked at each other, then Seneca sighed. “Dead is fine, but the mane and skin intact, if you can. It has such interesting magichemical properties.”

Both Torres and Seneca were ready with their spellbooks, but with Cassius blocking the door, they were just holding them at the ready. Jei’s orb was glowing, and once again, phantom glyphs surrounded it as the orb floated in the air above her extended hand. Mirian wondered what she hoped to accomplish. Cassius was busy harassing the still camouflaged bog lion with blasts of force, and he was still blocking the entrance. Mirian could hear its heavy paws crunching the slate and bits of bone out in the passage as it moved around, deterred by the fire, but by no means giving up on its prey.

Then Mirian remembered what Jei’s real expertise was. She was thinking in three dimensions, but Jei wasn’t. She didn’t just study math for its own sake. She was all about applied math. Mirian peered out into the passage, just in time to see a spell appear out of thin air around the bog lion, coming from behind it. A feyfire spell, she thought. Burning embers of violet and green attached themselves to the bog lion, illuminating it. Mirian thought that was a splendid idea; now the thing was lit up, and a lot easier to target. But then, the myrvite roared again, and did something that caused all the air in the room to feel like it was being pulled at. Suddenly, the fire shields, the feyfire, and the lights in the room winked out, plunging them all into darkness.

Mirian recast her light spell, while Cassius said, “Dammit, Song! Don’t force it to use its nullifying spell like that!” His fire shield came back up, and just in time. The bog lion, no longer camouflaged, pounced right at him, smashing into the shield despite the hiss of burning flesh coming from its paws. It knocked Cassisus to the ground, though the shield still held. Now Mirian could see it in its true terrifying form. The thick mossy mane, the fury in its black eyes, the huge mouth full of needle-like teeth. Lions were cute. Bog lions were made of nightmare stuff. As the light caught it, it seemed like there was a thick tar bubbling in its mouth, like there was a churning swamp inside it.

As the bog lion came down on the shield again, Seneca sent out a flurry of force knives at its face, causing it to recoil and close its eyes. Jei’s orb brightened again, and she sent out her disintegration ray again. This time, she didn’t just cast it for a moment. She speared the bog lion right through the mouth, the black and red fire filling the room with an unnatural light that seemed to sap the color of the other light sources. As the bog lion leapt away, the beam followed it. When it rounded the corner, bounding away with a yowl, the origin point of the beam suddenly snapped to a new spot, and the ray kept drilling into it. The room smelled of burning flesh, and the bog lion let out a eerie howl of pain.

The second apprentice–One or Two, Mirian couldn’t recall–sent out a few fire rays of his own as he finally got to his feet. Finally, the beam stopped, and Song Jei smiled. “Dead,” she said. “Very resilient. A strong soul.”

Cassius sprang to his feet with agility that seemed like it should be beyond his age. “Wards back up!” he snapped. “And I said wardbreaker caution. Wardbreaker caution protocol! What does that mean to you?”

“Sorry, sir!” said Two–Mirian was pretty sure he was Two now. “Not making excuses, but that thing ate the ward faster than a starved pig at a pie festival, and that was while it was running at me!”

“It never tripped the sound ward either,” One said. He was clutching his arm, not at all complaining that there was blood running between his fingers. One of the claws had raked him. “Also, I believe my arm is broken, Sir!” he reported, and then fainted. Oh, so it had done more than rake him.

“We should get out of here. I’ve taken an illusionary snapshot of the scene already. We should bring the remains. Adria… deserved better than this,” Torres said. Oh shit. They know her. Knew her.

“And we should bring the bog lion,” Seneca said. “One, you cannot believe how hard it is to get bog lion mane this time of year. And two, I want to put it on the mayor’s front porch. That ought to get him to reassess the spellward situation, which I have been complaining about for years to no avail.”

“I can carry the bog lion,” Cassisus said, sheathing his two wands and pulling out a third. “Two, bandage then carry One.”

“I can carry the corpse,” Jei said. “Very gently,” she assured Torres.

“Sadly, when it used its natural nullifying spell, it erased the ghostly trail. And recall spell state is in my other spellbook,” Seneca said. “Mirian, you can get us out of here, right?”

Mirian grimaced as they all turned to look to her. “That depends,” she said. “Are you all going to start trusting me now? Kidding, sorry. Yeah, I can get us out of here.” Under her breath she added, “Probably.”