Soul Gem Collector 5 Chapter 5

“These are a lot of spells.” I braced my hands on the side of the huge mahogany table and stared at the baker’s dozen spell books that Taslyn and Noura had collected. “Do we have everything for these? Are we even capable of doing these?”

We’d spent the day before waiting on the shipment of chymicals from the Korlems and then starting a batch of black powder. It hadn’t taken us too long to prepare the ingredients between my expertise, Taslyn’s quick hands, and Noura’s precise magic. This morning, we’d moved on to the next step of the process before we’d gone to Dunsany library, where we’d spent the morning and most of lunch doing brainstorming and research. We’d dug up all the books with spy spells, image-trapping spells, and point-to-point scrying before we’d finally narrowed down elements that would both record the sound and vision for later playback and be able to connect to each other to form a coherent whole.

“As long as we go with the mirror-based spell, we ought to be able to make it work.” Taslyn said, and she tapped the book in front of her. “I’ll enchant the silver and glass before you melt it down, and then I’ll draw the connection runes onto the backing with black walnut ink before you pour the silver in.”

“This says to engrave the runes onto the backing.” Noura pointed at the book. “Aren’t you worried about the black walnut ink degrading?”

“I would if we were planning to use this again,” Taslyn said. “Black walnut ink is perfectly fine as a magical ink, especially since we won’t actually be able to smell it after the whole thing is done.

“I’m a little worried about building the memory board for the receiving mirror from scratch,” I confessed.

“Is the nickel-titanite alloy particularly tricky?” Taslyn asked as her finger traced the curling circuit paths of the memory chip design in the book. “Or hard to get?”

“Nope, it’s actually pretty easy to get and work with, it’s just not used in real artificing very often,” I explained. “It’s a physical and magical stabilizer, which is useful if your chakras are out of whack, but it doesn’t help produce a very impressive effect. It’s mostly added to alchemical tools so they won’t affect the properties of the materials we work with too much. I guess since I’d be welding the copper circuits and the quartz chips directly onto the board, it would probably be the element that stabilizes the magical current.”

“Does quartz store memory?” Noura’s brow wrinkled. “I thought they were just like little batteries that you can fill with energy.”

“Quartz stores many things,” Taslyn said. “Noura, haven’t you ever worked with quartz for magic?”

“Why quartz when a diamond is prettier?” Noura lowered her voice. “I don’t build magical things by hand, and I don’t really use spell components or runes or crystals the way you all do. We don’t usually need them. Whenever I shape matter, all I need to do is think it into being.”

“Have you ever made a magical object just by thinking about it?” I asked. I glanced from the books to Noura, then at the books again.

“The things I create don’t…” Noura bit her lip, looked around, then leaned over the table and spoke in a whisper. “They don’t have their own magical energy, the way real things do. They’re inert.”

“Even the flying carpet?” I asked.

“Even the carpet,” Noura nodded. “I’ve seen real enchanted carpets in bazaars a few times. They’re woven with magic into every thread and colored with potion dyes. They’re practically sentient creatures! All I made was a piece of fabric that I used to lift us up into the air.”

“And the food you’ve been feeding us?” Taslyn furrowed her brow.

“It nourished your bodies, I promise.” Noura clasped her hands together. “But if I made a piece of quartz, you wouldn’t be able to use it for anything more than a bauble. It would be a perfectly fine rock, but magically it would be like a… a little blank space in the tapestry of magical energy around us. Inert.”

“Well, that’s good to know.” I sighed and ran my fingers through my close-cropped hair. I kept my hair as short as possible so I wouldn’t catch it on fire in the laboratory.

“I’m sorry I didn’t mention it earlier.” Noura hung her head.

“It never really came up.” I shrugged, then tapped the circuit. “But I understand how you feel. I’m kind of worried that since I don’t really have a way to manipulate magical energy at a base level, this whole thing won’t work.”

“I don’t think it will matter as long as we perform the activation spells correctly.” Taslyn slid her hand over mine. “But I’ll invest all the components with magical energy before you begin, if you like. A little moon water and meditation ought to help.”

“How are you going to wear the mirror so nobody notices?” Noura asked. “You’ll have to find some way of looking inconspicuous. I don’t believe that wearing mirrors on one’s clothing is in normal fashion here.”

“It’s not, so we’ll have to get creative.” I tapped my chin in thought, then pointed at Noura. “That’s where you’ll shine. If you can shrink the enchanted mirror down without losing any of its magic, then put it in a brooch or an amulet or something, I can wear it on myself and nobody will notice.”

“Well, that’s settled.” Taslyn nodded and pulled out her notebook. “Now the hard part: Making notes.”

“Please do allow me!” Noura fanned out a sheaf of folded paper in her hand, then tapped one of the books. “Just point to the bits we need, Tas.”

“We need these two mirror designs.” Taslyn pointed at a small circular mirror with a complex spiral rune drawn on it, and then to a larger oval mirror with a mirrored version of the rune. “Got them down?”

“Yes, next?” Noura waved her sheaf of paper, and I could see lines and letters appear on the folds.

“This rune next, this spell here, and then--” Taslyn tapped her fingers on top of a long paragraph of thickly lettered text. “Zayre, you know how to make mirrors, don’t you?”

“They’re super easy,” I said. “Barely an inconvenience. Backing, silver, glass, let set. The hardest part is keeping the table stable. You don’t even need to use good silver. Why, is there something special involved in this version?”

“Other than the frequent application of moon water, no.” Taslyn shook her head. “It’s old enough that it doesn’t even require a grade for the silver. To be honest, I don’t think it’s the most modern magic mirror spell on the market.”

“Well, I’ve got plenty in the scrap bucket,” I shrugged. It struck me that I could probably ask Janel to buy me some mirror-grade silver if I really needed, but I shook my head at myself. I knew that our fortunes would be merged soon, but it was a little embarrassing to think about asking her outright to buy me anything, like asking a parent for pocket-money I hadn’t earned through chores. I reminded myself that the leftover magical energy clinging to the scraps in my bin would lend more strength to the spell than a bunch of new metal I got from the store anyway. “Or do you think we need a newer spell?”

“I think we’d need to get hold of an industrial mirror-making grimoire for that,” Taslyn said. “You’d be the best at that, Zayre.”

“I’d need a few hundred gold pieces and a legitimate guild license.” I shook my head. “And it’s the guild license that’s the problem. You can’t just conjure up one of those.”

“Then as long as you’re sure you have everything you need, let’s hurry.” Noura riffled her fan of papers, and it didn’t take long before Noura unfolded a complete blueprint of the spells.

“Perfect!” I whispered. I glanced around to make sure that nobody else was looking, then gestured at the blueprint. “Fold it back up and let’s get out of here.”

“Shall we stop by the cafeteria first?” Taslyn asked, licked her lips, and bared her small canine fangs. “Research makes me hungry.”

“I’ll whip up something for us back at the lab,” Noura offered. She folded up the blueprint and stuck it into the front of her tunic. “I’d rather not be seen on campus much, if you two don’t mind. I feel that I’ll be safer if I keep a low profile.”

“Sure,” I agreed as we headed down the ladder that extended from the sixth floor all the way down to the bottom of the library. I was used to zipping around Dunsany Library’s seven levels on their somewhat cramped ladders, since the book-filled ziggurat had been built back when the Academy was just a few buildings in the middle of a shantytown, and learning to fly had been a crucial rite of passage for every wizard, witch, and thaumaturge. I definitely wouldn’t have been admitted to the Academy back then. “Your food is a lot better than the cafeteria’s anyway.”

I was starting to get used to attracting attention whenever I went out on campus, both as the sole human with magic and as the winner of the Tactical Thaumaturgy Tournament. I didn’t like it much, since the attention seemed pretty fake after years of people treating me like a glorified janitor, and since it invited scrutiny that I just didn’t need as someone with a lot of secrets. However, today I didn’t get more than a few glances and half-hearted nods. I was fine with that, but I got a few resentful glances, and I wasn’t sure why until I watched an ostrich girl run by with a broken wooden wand in her beak and a stack of books balanced on her back between her huge wings.

“That’s right, it’s time for everyone to start on their final projects all at once,” I observed. “Weren’t midterms just yesterday? Or am I getting old?”

“We’ve been away a little,” Taslyn reminded me as she hooked her arm through mine. “The borders of the city are not the doors to the Elven Lands, and time runs the same whether we are here or not.”

“I’m just so used to staying on campus unless I have money,” I sighed. “Everything’s kind of different now. This might be the last year I spend here.”

“Doesn’t everyone fear graduation just a little?” Taslyn’s voice was much lighter and cheerier than usual as she swung her basket.

“Oh, there’s plenty of other stuff I’m scared of,” I muttered as the purple and red trees that surrounded the lab rose up before us.

“And we’ll get through it together.” Noura squeezed my other hand. “You have no reason to fear as long as I’m by your side, my dear.”

Ferox picked that precise moment to raise his head and bare his fangs at the trees in front of us.

“Seems like Ferox disagrees,” I muttered. I glanced at Noura and Taslyn and lowered my voice even more. “There’s danger at the lab.”

“Would you feel better if I went on a bit ahead to see what’s there?” Noura whispered.

“Yeah, please.” I cracked my knuckles as Ferox growled in the back of my mind. I glanced behind us to see if anyone had noticed anything, then beckoned the girls into the shady treeline anyway. “From here. Best not have anyone see you do your thing.”

“Keep this safe?” Noura plunged her hand into the front of her dress, pulled out the blueprints, and placed them in Taslyn’s hand. Her form shimmered with an outline of orange light before it collapsed into a single orange spark that cast a faint golden glow about it. The spark hovered in the air for a moment, then zipped off between the shaggy red trunks of the trees.

“Well, I barely went out armed today.” Taslyn slipped the blueprints under the lid of her wicker basket, rummaged around for a moment, and then withdrew empty. She slid her hand into one of the folds of her black skirts and pulled out her sturdy, wood-handled iron dagger. “This will have to do.”

The tiny orange spark of Noura’s body flitted back out from between the trees. The spark stopped at the treeline, expanded into Noura’s fiery outline, and then shimmered into her dark-skinned Diaflorian disguise.

“It’s those gentlemen who came to call on us the other day.” Noura rolled her eyes, but her hand went to her side, and a jeweled, curved scabbard materialized at her side. “How much of a threat are they, really?”

“Well, they’re not exactly the brightest diamond in the mines,” I joked, although I knew that Otso was more perceptive than most people gave him credit for, and Cad was at least suspicious enough to know that I had something to do with Valerys’s disappearance. I was still pretty certain that if they had any real proof, they’d have told someone by now, but the more they hung around the lab, the more likely they were to actually find some proof somehow. I didn’t exactly want to kill them-- especially not Otso, who’d proven himself to be a relatively honorable bear-man in Valerys’s absence-- but I also couldn’t have them hanging around the lab any more. I had to get rid of them one way or another. “What are they doing?”

“They’re lurking about with their weapons out.” Noura fluffed up her hair and glanced behind her. “The bear’s leaning against the front door with his hammer in his hand, and the blonde one’s up on his toes looking in the window. He’s got a rapier.”

“It sounds like they’re in plain sight.” Taslyn pulled her hood up over her head and turned her face toward the woods.

“Oh, they’re not even trying to still hide, but it’s still a very lurk-y situation.” Noura nodded toward the woods. “Shall we surprise them?”

“Best not.” I shook my head. “We don’t want to give them any kind of pretense to attack us, because I know at least Cad will take it. We need to make a lot of noise and act casual so that if they try to rush us, at least they’re the ones who look like assholes.”

“Solid thinking.” Taslyn nodded and slipped her hand into the flap of her basket, where it lay. She did not let go of her knife. “But they’re bound to be less friendly with us without Janel here. She always seemed to be the civilizing influence in that group.”

“Oh, what if I made myself look like her?” Noura’s skin lightened, and her eyes glimmered jade. Her flat nose lengthened, her cheekbones slid up, and her tight curls twisted themselves into a set of elaborate braids. Her hourglass figure slimmed, her breasts perked up, and her legs grew longer. Finally, her white linen sheath dress trimmed with purple and yellow triangles rewove itself into a high-necked purple satin robe embroidered with golden suns and silver moons. When she’d finished changing her appearance, she patted her hair and smiled. “Close enough?”

“Fascinating,” Taslyn murmured, and her amber eyes peered out from under her dark hood.

“Hmm.” I glanced toward the forest to make sure that Otso and Cad hadn’t gotten tired of waiting for us, then studied Noura. As my eyes roamed over the djinn’s face, I realized that the little click of recognition I got in the back of my brain hadn’t clicked. I felt as though I was seeing a perfectly made wax statue of Janel. I frowned as I tried to figure out what was off about Noura’s face. “Not quite. I think maybe your eyes are the wrong shape?”

“You might need more makeup,” Taslyn suggested. “Or is her head a bit smaller?”

“Ohh, I thought I had her, but now I’m all mixed up.” Noura frowned, held out her hand, and conjured up a small silver hand mirror with an elaborately filigreed frame. As she tilted her head this way and that, her eyes changed angle, and layers of black and shimmering violet spread across her eyelids like a chemical sunset. “Up? Down? Should I make them longer? Oh, I had it, and now I think I’m losing it...”

“I don’t think it’s the eyes, really.” Taslyn shook her head. “I think it’s the way she holds herself. It’s like she’s always at a royal ball, gliding across the floor with some dignitary in hand.”

“A noble mien?” Noura tilted her chin up, raised her eyebrows, and looked down her nose. “As such?”

“No, now you look like a mean girl,” Taslyn said, and she propped her chin on her fist. “Mm, perhaps I was wrong. She isn’t really a royal ball person. Imagine you’re gliding across the forest floor like it’s a ballroom, with the woods for your chandelier, and instead of having a prince at your finger it’s a bluebird who’s singing a song just for you.”

“I was just going to say, I think the behind might be a little more…” I imagined Noura’s round, soft ass in my palms as I cupped my hands. Then I lifted my fingers to imitate the pert curve of Janel’s buttocks. “Up.”

“Both good notes, thank you.” Noura widened her eyes, held out a dainty hand to the heavens, then wiggled her suddenly tighter ass at me. “Zayre, do you think I’ve got the posterior quite right now? Would you like to check?”

“It would be my pleasure.” I couldn’t help but smile as I slipped my hands underneath Noura’s silk-clad ass and gave her buttocks a squeeze. “Tas, what do you think? Does she have the ass right?”

“It’s close enough for the gait and the drape of the cape.” Taslyn’s tail flicked back and forth, but a pink blush spread across her cheeks. “But there’s something missing. I think it’s less about the way Janel is formed than about the way she inhabits her body. Her little quirks and gestures, like the way she lifts her shoulders a little when she smiles or the pattern of her forehead crinkles when she thinks. Or how she’s got a different eye roll for every situation that deserves it. She gives this little sigh when it’s her ‘the boys are being stupid’ eye roll, but she purses her lips when it’s the ‘let me do it’ look, and it’s to the left when she’s telling you not to mind what they say about you…”

“Please, my dear!” Noura waved her slim hands above her head. “Too many notes. I pride myself on my craft, but this is close work and I need a few rehearsals to integrate everything you’ve said into my performance.”

“You’re right,” I sighed. I patted Noura’s ass and stepped back between a beech and an oak. I liked it when the usually cool Taslyn showed her soft spot for Janel, especially since I was looking forward to another threesome with the fox-girl and half-elf sometime soon. “The problem is that Cad and Otso were like brothers to Janel for years, so if something is off about her they’re going to suspect it immediately. And if you’re not fooling us right now, you won’t fool them.”

“I’m sorry.” Noura drooped, then straightened up and rolled her shoulders back. She closed her eyes, held up her palm in front of her forehead, and started to pass her hand slowly down over her face as her expression changed. Her jade-green eyes opened and crinkled, her shoulders went up a little, and her wine-red lips broke into a wide smile. As her hand dropped from her chin, she opened her wine-red lips and lilted her voice up in Janel’s cultured sing-song. “More like this, darlings?”

“It’s like watching an actor act,” Taslyn offered. “I can tell that you’re acting. You need to act like you’re not acting.”

“But I am acting!” Noura threw her hands up. “How am I supposed to act like I’m not acting?”

“Act like you’re being natural.” Taslyn held up her hand and seesawed it back and forth a little. “Take about, oh, twenty percent off there. No, thirty.”

“All of this is throwing me off so much.” Noura shook her head and shimmered back into her Diaflorian disguise. The corners of her plump red lips drooped and her dark eyes fell. “I really felt that I had it before, but now I’ve lost the whole thread and I just don’t think I can get it back. Give me a moment to breathe, and let me have another try?”

“Let’s all just take five.” I stepped back, took a breath, and felt the hair prickle up on the back of my neck. “Actually. I’m not sure if we have five. Ferox is getting pretty anxious. I think they might be heading this way.”

“Then let’s meet them, shall we?” Taslyn swept her cape around her, headed toward the lab, and whistled a few notes. “Let’s just act natural.”

“When have you ever whistled?” I teased Taslyn as we headed through the trees toward the lab. I could feel Ferox’s growl in the back of my skull, but I still crunched through the fallen leaves. I didn’t see or hear Cad or Otso coming toward us, and I just hoped they’d let us come upon them peacefully instead of starting a skirmish in the woods.

“I like to practice my bird calls.” Taslyn smirked at me, pursed her lips, and warbled out a tweet. “Name that bird.”

“Now, was that a bluebird?” Noura asked, and she held up her hand delicately and imitated Taslyn’s whistle as she glided across the moss. “Do they really come if you call?”

“Not normally, but they might become interested if it’s in mating season,” Taslyn said as she glanced up into the purple and red branches. “But it’s the wrong time of the year for that. Now it’ll be a territorial call.”

“What about this?” I cleared my throat and let out a “caw, caw.”

“Easy, a crow,” Noura giggled. “They’re just about everywhere. It’s actually sort of funny that there are some creatures that are just the same in Diafloria as they are here. Like rats! Everywhere has rats and rat-folk.”

“Is there anything we don’t have that you’ve got in Diafloria?” Taslyn swung her basket as we walked and spoke in a loud, casual tone, but she still kept her fingers under the lid. “I’m sure there are all kinds of interesting little animals in the desert.”

“Well, the biggest difference is that the cities are full of feral cats,” Noura explained. Her dark eyes peered ahead into the woods, even though she kept her tone light. “Everyone treats them like pets, and if you find one sleeping somewhere it’s considered bad manners to disturb it.”

“Interesting,” Taslyn proclaimed loudly. “So do they keep the rats at bay?”

“I suppose they would if everyone didn’t feed them scraps,” Noura said. Her hand went to her side as we neared the treeline. “There was a sweet little black and white one who used to catch sparrows near my window. I’d feed him pieces of lamb. Do either of you have any pets?”

“I caught a spider in a jar when I was four and fed it flies for a while,” I said as we stepped into the sun that filtered into the clearing where the brick laboratory sat. I stopped, held one hand up to shade my eyes, and held the other up to greet Cad and Otso. “’Lo, boys. How are you now?”

Cad jumped up from where he’d been crouching in front of the door to the laboratory.

“Zayre.” Otso raised a hand. He’d leaned himself and his war-hammer against the side of the brick wall of the lab.

“Don’t tell me you left something in the lab last time you visited,” I joked as I ambled toward the pockmarked building. I flexed my fingers as I moved, just in case one of the guys decided to attack me. I knew that Cad’s sapphire-hilted rapier and Otso’s ruby-studded war-hammer weren’t just melee weapons, but powerful foci for their battle magic, like a wand on strength potions. “You drop your hankie?”

“Yes… my handkerchief.” Cad produced a white handkerchief from the long midnight blue sleeve of his robe, then dabbed at his forehead. “That was it.”

“Well, now you have your shmatte back, so go about your day.” I waved dismissively at Cad. “I’ll see you at practice. Eventually.”

“Actually, we’re here because of me.” Otso grabbed the handle of his war-hammer, swung it up, and cradled the huge, square head in his big paw. He held it out to me. “It just stopped working, and I don’t know why.”

“Just stopped working, huh?” I peered at the head of the war-hammer, but didn’t touch it. I couldn’t see any cracks in the big red ruby set at the base, or in any of the smaller garnets set around it, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a problem somewhere. I started to mentally tally up the steps I’d need to take to find the problem. First I would need to check the settings to see if any of the gems were loose, then I might need to take the gems out of their settings and study them under a loupe for hidden flaws, then I would check whether there were problems in the copper or silver wiring that connected the gems to the handle…

I stopped myself before I touched the head of Otso’s hammer. I had been the de facto repairman for every broken magical item in school for the past five years or so as a way to pay my tuition, but that was over now. I didn’t have to fix anyone’s shit if I didn’t want to, and it was obvious that Otso and Cad’s request for help was a trap. I had no idea what they were actually trying to do, but my best bet was to get them away.

“Listen, I’m not fixing stuff any more,” I said. I nodded toward the direction of the far-off Battle Magic field. “Isn’t the forge at the armory up yet? All that endowment money rolling in should have gotten us some professional repair staff.”

“Would we be bothering you if we had any other choice?” Cad sniffed, and he nodded at the laboratory door. “If you’re too busy to help out your teammates, at least let us into the lab so we can try to fix his hammer ourselves. It is still a school building, you know.”

“Well, it’s my dorm right now,” I said. “And it’s going to be until the end of the semester, which is when they’ll have a space cleared for me in the actual dorms. Plus, you guys know way less about alchemy and metallurgy than I do about Battle Magic. I don’t trust you not to blow yourselves up. Again.”

“So you really do want to have it both ways.” Cad crossed his arms and arched a plucked eyebrow. “You want to be on the Battle Magic team, but you don’t want to go to class or practice. You want to stay in the Alchemy building, but you don’t want to be in the Alchemy program.”

“What I don’t want to do is everyone’s repairs while I’m trying to wrap up my own projects,” I snapped at Cad. “I’m honestly trying to finish things up in here without distractions so I can actually come to class on a regular basis next semester, all right?”

“What is it that you’re trying to finish?” Otso rumbled as he pressed a huge paw against the door, and I could hear the wood creak under his hand. “Seems to be taking a long time.”

“I’ve been running some of these reactions for years,” I said. “The Dean won’t accept my credits toward my degree unless I turn my assignments in full, otherwise I’ll need to go here for another ten years before I get accredited. You know what he’s like about tuition.”

“All I know is that if you really wanted to be on the Battle Magic team, you’d support your teammates,” Cad sniffed. “We’re supporting you, after all.”

“What I want to do is graduate, Cad,” I sighed. I turned to Otso. “Otso, please do yourself a favor and get your hammer fixed by a professional. I’ll see you guys at practice.”

“Cad, that’s enough.” Otso shouldered his hammer, then turned to leave. “He’s too busy for us. Let’s go. I’m sure I can find someone to fix this in town. Might even have it back by next week.”

“No!” Cad balled his fists up, and his face started to turn red. “You’ve shown us how little you really care about the team, and you can bet we’re not going to have your back after this any more.”

“That’s fine,” I shrugged. “Just stay away from the lab and we’re good.”

“You think that just because your little stunt with Janel dazzled everyone, you can do whatever you want?” Cad sneered. “You didn’t get all of that endowment money yourself, human. That comes from good breeding, and it comes from teamwork. You can’t stand on your own, and you’ll never make it as a Battle Mage.”

“Is this really another attempt to goad Zayre into a duel?” Taslyn sighed, slid her hood back with one hand, and rolled her eyes. “Why do you keep doing this, Cad? You keep losing every time.”

“You’re so confident about your little friend,” Cad sneered. “But do you have the strength to stand beside him in battle?”

“So you came here spoiling for a duel, did you?” Taslyn smiled and drew her knife out of her basket. “Come on then, Cadwallader. See what this iron knife will do to that Elvenborn flesh.”

“Wait, wait.” I held my hands up. “If we’re going to have another duel, I want there to be a point. Can I assume that if I lose, I have to fix Otso’s hammer?”

“You have to show us how to fix my hammer so that we can do it ourselves.” Otso pointed to the alchemy lab. “Right in there.”

“Agreed.” I took a deep breath. “But if I win, you have to stop coming here to fuck with me. I never want to see you around the lab again.”