Chapter 41: Chapter 40

The lessons went fine, as far as Nym could tell. They agreed to continue tomorrow and Nym was given access to a few other books. Bardin recommended them to him after telling him that they covered a broad spectrum of basic topics. The goal was to identify holes in Nym’s self-taught skills so they could recommend new books to help catch up on those.

This was the same idea Nym had been using while they waited for Bardin to get home, but it was easier with someone to point out exactly which books were designed to give general overviews of various magical disciplines. It was all useful information, but it wasn’t instructions for new spells, which was what he needed.

There was no way he was signing that contract, no matter how long the terms were for. He needed to squeeze as much magic as he could out of that library while it was still open to him. No doubt when he refused Bardin’s offer, that would be the end of his stay. In fact, it would be better if he disappeared before that offer showed up, just in case the Feldstal family didn’t take the rejection well.

The new goal was to learn enough spells to make him versatile, find some work if possible, and scrape together enough money to get out of Abilanth. The city was a deathtrap for people like him. There were too many destitute people living in the outer ring under a system designed to keep them there. Even getting enough food into the city to keep people fed required constant magic, never mind luxury goods. Everything was so expensive and so many people had nothing at all.

Worse for him, once he left the Feldstal estate, he would have to deal with Valgo’s attentions again. Nym wasn’t sure if that was going to be in the form of the old thief making good on his blackmail threats or just stabbing him in a dark alley. Either way, once he walked out the front door of the manor house, he had a limited amount of time to make himself scarce.

So when he finished the book Bardin recommended, he immediately wanted another one. He wasn’t precisely a prisoner in the guest room, but he didn’t figure he was likely to be welcomed to walk around on his own. There was a man posted outside the door, after all. Nym wasn’t particularly offended by the lack of trust, considering the circumstances with which he’d started his association with the Feldstals.

There was only one thing to do. He opened the door and the guard snapped to attention. “Hi,” Nym said. “Am I allowed to go to the library to get a new book?”

“My orders are to escort you wherever you want to go.”

“Perfect. Let’s go then?”

Nym still had to use his scrying spell to find his way around, but with that helping him he walked around as confidently as if he’d been born there. The guard passed a quick message to a servant they passed, and Nym noted the servant hurrying off towards the nobles’ bedrooms.

He entered the library to find it empty, though he doubted it would stay that way for long. The real question was who exactly would show up to keep an eye on him. He was betting on Bardin, assuming the man hadn’t left the manor house to attend to something. Analia was probably too inexperienced to know what to steer him away from.

Perhaps he’d overestimated them. Nym spent five minutes searching the shelves. That turned into ten, then thirty, and still no one showed up to shepherd him. He picked out several books and piled them up on a table. For another half an hour, he read about strengthening elemental aspects he struggled with. Specifically, he continued to work on his fire magic. The Academy student had given him advice that he hadn’t had the time to really experiment with, but there was no reason not to check it against something a bit more official.

He skimmed through that book and started on one that talked about basic rune structure. After reading for a bit, Nym got curious. It seemed easy enough, just an investment of arcana into specifically prepared channels that mimicked magical effects. As long as the runes were constructed properly, the only real limitation was the material used. A rune drawn on a piece of paper would burn itself off quickly, whereas one made using metal threads and sewn into a nightgown could last for months or years.

Nym practiced tracing some of the runes out on a spare sheet of paper, then strung them together in the pattern he’d seen on Analia’s nightgown. It had stopped his scrying spell from even realizing she was there. If he did it right, it would prevent anyone from spying on him. It might even help hide him from Valgo. There had to be some way the man kept finding Nym, and magic seemed like the most reasonable culprit to him.

The runes shimmered in his sight, weaker then the ones on the light orbs. That made sense to him. His was made of ink on a paper instead of being carved into stone. The amount of arcana he could pump into the runes was a bare sliver. But the important thing was that it worked. At least, it did something, presumably what it was supposed to.

He smirked to himself when a few minutes later, the door to the library opened and Bardin walked in. The noble affected surprise at seeing Nym there, but Nym thought the real reason no one showed up was because they were already watching him. He’d foiled that by successfully duplicating the runes he’d seen on Analia’s nightgown.

It hadn’t been that hard. By no means was he proficient in rune structure. He was a long way from inventing his own runes or even understanding what they did. All he’d done was copy what he’d seen while referencing the book to make sure each rune was drawn properly, then empowered the whole sequence. The only reason he even knew what the runes did was that they’d stopped his own scrying spell.

Even his suspicions that Bardin was magically spying on him were just that: suspicions. It truly could be a coincidence that the man had come into the library right after Nym activated the anti-scrying runes, but he doubted it. Still, the easiest way to find out was to talk to him.

“Perfect timing,” he told the nobleman. “Do you have a minute to advise me on where to look for a few books?”

“Of course. What are you studying?” Bardin asked curiously. The man was either authentic or a fabulous actor.

“I’ve been looking at runes. I didn’t even know they existed and had only a basic idea of what wards are, but they seem so useful and intertwined that it seemed like a good field to study.”

“Runes, hmm. That’s a very, very complex field. Even the basics aren’t generally something done in the first or second year of study. Are you sure that’s what you want to invest your time in?”

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“I just think they’re interesting. They don’t seem so bad. I’ve sketched out a few already and empowered them.”

Nym was sure Bardin already knew that, but he showed off his work anyway. The nobleman studied it for a moment, his eyebrows rising as he looked it over. “Nym, this rune sequence has seven structures and nine linking runes. There are even two contingency structures and an ambient resonance structure. Where did you even find this? I know it’s not in that book.”

“It was stitched onto your sister’s clothes,” Nym said.

“Ah! Of course. Do you know what it does?”

“I am not sure,” Nym said. He had his guesses, but it could and probably did have a lot of effects he wasn’t aware of.

“It’s an advanced privacy sequence, very common among nobles to keep people from spying on them. But to do this… and on a sheet of paper no less. This should have burned out before you empowered even half of it.”

Bardin was flummoxed. He just stared at the paper, occasionally shaking his head as he mouthed words that Nym thought might be the runes read out loud. Finally, he set the paper aside and fixed Nym with a serious look. A glow of arcana appeared around him.

“Be honest with me, Nym. Who are you? How are you doing this? Why are you here? There is no way you are a self-taught novice who’s been working with magic for a few months. All of this… the telekinesis, multiple conduits, rune sequences, this is not beginner work. One thing would have been astounding, but everything together… no. I don’t believe it.”

“I don’t know who I am,” Nym told him, trying to keep his gaze steady while he examined Bardin’s aura. “I swear. I washed up on a beach one day with no memories. My theory is that I already knew magic prior to whatever happened to me and I’m just kind of… re-learning it now.”

“That still doesn’t explain your age. I’ve met mages who’ve been working magic for a decade that would struggle to do some of the things you’ve casually demonstrated today.”

“Well I don’t know, Bardin.” Nym waved his hands at all the books around them. “Is there a spell in here to restore lost memories?”

“Here? No. That would solidly fall under third circle magic. I’m so curious about this though that I’d almost consider paying for it myself just to see the results.”

The aura reminded him of the truth spell they’d used on him, only far simpler. It lacked all the compulsion elements, not that Nym really felt like they’d worked on him. In a moment of insight, he realized that one of the reasons they’d been so friendly and trusting is that they thought he’d agreed to a magical compulsion to regard Analia as a friend.

Bardin’s aura was some sort of divining spell. If Nym had to guess, he’d say it was for detecting falsehoods somehow. It probably wasn’t very reliable considering how much easier it was for him to cast it, or maybe Bardin was simply a better mage than the healer who’d fixed up his concussion. Perhaps better wasn’t the right word. The healer was probably significantly specialized for his job.

“How much would that cost?” Nym honestly wanted to know. The one single memory he’d unlocked had been enormously helpful in pushing his abilities forward to the second layer. He couldn’t even guess how much he’d lost. He had years more between his age in that memory and his current age. That wasn’t even considering the room he’d seen in the memory. It looked like something out of the Feldstal’s home, only even more opulent.

“Depends what they find. Just for the diagnostics, not too much. That’s a second circle spell. Fixing whatever happened is another matter.”

“Someone did a diagnostic spell on me once when I first washed up on the shore. He said I was faking and there was nothing wrong with me. But I’m not!”

Bardin was silent while he thought. Minutes stretched on, and Nym started to speak several times. Each time, he stopped himself and waited. He knew he was at a disadvantage, that he needed Bardin and his family’s resources far more than they needed another mage on retainer, no matter how talented he might be.

“I have a friend who owes me a favor. We will pay them a visit tomorrow and they will do a proper diagnostics spell, not whatever crap version some backwater magister performed. Once we have the results, we’ll revisit this issue.”

Nym was instantly suspicious. Bardin’s motivations were entirely transparent. He saw Nym as a resource, something to tie to his family to be used to further enrich the nobles. He was friendly enough, to be sure, but in the same way he was friendly and polite with the servants. He didn’t consider Nym an equal, and even though that was the naked reality of their respective stations, it still grated on Nym to be looked down on.

For the chance to recover his lost memories though, he’d put up with a lot. Nym forced himself to grin and said, “I can’t wait.”

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