Chương 127: Chapter 113 - Confrontation

++The problem with intelligent allies is that they tend to ask questions. I do not have a high opinion of the average human's cognitive functions, but I must say they are more unpredictable than those of the average brain-dead zombie. ++ - From the writings of Isabel Vornholt, 'The Great Lich'. 1, 891 A. E. Agrian was never where he needed to be, these days. He'd tried sticking close to Isabel, and even that had blown up in his face. His magical senses weren't as good as hers.

She felt the apartment blow up before he did, and in the time—only a minute or two, surely no more—he took to catch up, she'd already zipped along the city faster than if she'd been galloping across flat ground on a horse. He reached the scene just in time to see her dragged out by Nu'chista and given a dressing down, and he was about to intervene, as best as he could at least, when something else caught his attention. Magic. Not faint either, clearly felt in the air and… yeah, leading down into an alley.

Agrian looked in the direction it went, then looked at the crowd. They were all busy sneering at Isabel, but he didn't think they'd noticed the mana even before she showed up. Was it just him being a genius again? Probably, Agrian sometimes had to remind himself that he did ingenious shit a lot. It was hard to remember, spending so much time around Isabel, that his idle workings of half-assed magic were often things that more experienced magicians would spend long focus working their ass off to replicate.

He was torn. This mana was leading to and from the apartment, which meant it had a pretty clear connection to whatever had happened here. Agrian knew he had to follow it if he wanted to figure out what was going on. His instincts, though, were telling him to rush over and help Isabel. It was hard, turning away from her, but necessary. He couldn't do much, if anything, about a Demigod, but he could gather vital information now, and the longer he delayed the harder that trail of magic would be to follow.

Agrian just wished that doing the smart thing didn't feel so much like a betrayal. He headed down the alley, making good time thanks to the sheer intensity of mana he was moving after. It took about a minute of following the trail before Agrian got some idea of who he was dealing with. Or at least of how powerful they were. By how quickly the mana was fizzling out, he could guess at how powerful it could have been when first produced—at least within the timeframe narrowed down by the apartment's destruction.

He was working with a range, ultimately. The sort of assumptions involved in his calculation pretty much destroyed the very concept of precision, but that range was relatively narrow. Whether he went for the lower or upper end, Agrian was still pursuing a common mage, not a Highmage. Granted, a common mage of the First Class. Which meant if they were on the stronger side, he'd have a fight on his hands. Maybe one he lost, if they were terribly skilled or just got lucky.

Agrian was looking forward to the future and all the power it would bring. Prodigies grew up being told to fixate on tomorrow. That was where their power lay, that was the magic place where they held domain. Always tomorrow, and never today. For now, he was still young enough to be surrounded by magicians with close to double his experience. Talent offset that mostly. Not completely. So he continued his pursuit with caution. The mana was growing weaker.

Thinner as time passed, and Agrian had to resist the urge to pick up the pace. It wasn't like he was at risk of losing his only lead in the first place. A near-Highmage found near Isabel's apartment shortly after a disaster, and he scarpered when things went sour. This had Laiel Fiq written all over it. Soon the pavement was going to have Fiq smeared all over it. Sure enough, the trail did end soon. It had doubled back twice before doing so, but even still Agrian was able to follow it to…

the exact opposite direction as Fiq's quarters. That was just insulting. Some random, arbitrarily wrong way was one thing, but the odds of this mysterious near-Highmage happening to head off at an exact 180 degree vector from where Fiq was staying? It actually pissed Agrian off to see such a dumb trick tried on him. In fact, it had him wondering for a moment whether someone was framing Fiq. That was a really good way to turn himself into a paranoid nut.

Like Blakely, one of the men father entrusted with my protection as a boy. Come to think of it, Agrian had grown up being exposed to essentially the weirdest adults he'd ever met for the duration of his life. Well, at least his childhood wasn't boring.

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! Fiq's apartment wasn't as nice as Isabel's, or Agrian's. Correction, it wasn't as nice as Isabel's, or as nice as Agrian's had been before he went briefly insane and used all his furniture as impromptu projectiles. It also wasn't Fiq's apartment, he had to remind himself, it was some poor, random Estalian who never hurt him and didn't do anything to deserve being booted from their home. Good.

Agrian had gotten his blood nice and boiling with that thought, and he was prepared for what came next. Unlike Isabel, Fiq's apartment was on the ground floor and had a nice, open street right in front of its door. Agrian's introductory plan wouldn't have worked otherwise. He carefully sent a wafer-thin net of aether under the door, holding it primed and connected to his mana, and knocked before backing up.

Magicians couldn't automatically sense what happened to their aether, but provided they maintained an open connection with it to keep shaping the stuff, they'd get some sensation to alert them when that connection was broken. For instance, by some asshole stepping on the aether net and breaking it. Agrian knew that Fiq was at the door just before he started to unlock it, and had already begun building up speed when the latch clicked.

By the time the door was leaning inwards, he was already moving as close to a sprint as a jog. Agrian reached it, then lashed out with a leap that sent both of his heels connecting with the wood at once. There must have been more surprising ways to have a door opened on you, but for the life of him he couldn't think of any. Fiq would probably have been expecting mana before any attack, given the physical disparity between him and Isabel. Sometimes there were advantages to being a tall man.

Agrian felt the shock of impact as the door shot back, then smashed into Fiq and rebound back into his feet. Then those feet continued driving it forwards, effectively hitting the magician twice within milliseconds. Fiq practically flew backwards and the door finally lay properly open with his weight cleared from its path. Agrian hurried to his feet in case the magician had more fight left in him. He needn't have bothered. Laiel Fiq lay inside his apartment beside the door, gushing blood from his nose.

Agrian had actually seen gunshots that yielded less spilled ichor than that. No surprise there though, he'd long since learned that a profusely bleeding wound was not necessarily a bad one. Fiq was delirious and semi-conscious, writhing around like a landed fish and blinking up at the ceiling like he was waiting for it to answer some question he'd asked. Agrian was pretty sure he hadn't asked one though, just made weird, animal noises.

The near-Highmage did nothing as Agrian stepped in, deftly closed the door—which actually had a dent in it where the wood had impacted Fiq's face—behind him, and tugged the downed magician further into the apartment to keep his legs from being trapped by it. From there he hauled Fiq into what must have been the living room, deposited him on a sofa and went to draw a glass of water from another room.

Orapathaqi didn't have magically-powered plumbing like Garamon did, their water was stored in great tanks under each house, but it was still excreted by taps in buildings this well-off. And it was cool. Fiq yelped as it splashed over his face, blinking as he came to.

"What…the…fuck…?" he frowned, looked around with the face a man who did not have a serious concussion might pull, then his eyes settled on Agrian and he paled.

"Oh bugger."

"What did you do at my sister's apartment?" Agrian asked him. While coming here, he'd been worried he wouldn't be able to pull off a suitably intimidating tone for this line of questioning. No worries about that now. Just the memory of Isabel being hauled off by Nu'chista inspired him to perfectly usable heights of anger and aggression.

"Hold on," Fiq began with a cough.

"Hang on, you've got this wrong, I can explain."

"Do so then," Agrian sneered.

"And try not to make any sudden moves as you do." Agrian had killed men before, he'd done it mere weeks ago. Could he kill this one? Those same weeks ago he'd have said no! Of course not, Laiel Fiq was a civilised man of Garamon, not some bronze savage. Now Agrian was less sure. Now it was hard for Agrian to see much difference between Garamon and Estalia, except that the latter people had a cause he could sympathise with more than the continued flow of currency as they worked to kill and butcher. Yes, he realised.

He could kill Laiel Fiq. If it looked like this was about to go bad and magic was about to fly, Agrian could turn this man off as easily as snuffing out a candle flame. But he didn't need to. A few more moments of wheezing for breath and Fiq was speaking, a coward through and through.

"Your sister, she's colluding with the necromancers." There was no combination of words in history that could have chilled Agrian's blood as thoroughly as that one did.

"Shut the fuck up," he snapped, almost hitting Fiq on sheer principle before managing to stop himself. He wasn't his father, and he knew better than to incentivise everyone to lie to him.

"You don't need to take my word for it," Fiq scrambled.

"I can show you."

"Okay, show me." Fiq paused.

"Okay, not show you show you, but I have evidence beyond just my own word. Eye-witnesses claiming they saw her heading around through sites of importance to Orapathaqi, Godtouched confirming that they gave her books set to be burned. Just follow me and I can make it clear."

"Or you can bolt as soon as you get the chance, and hide behind military law the next time I come knocking," Agrian growled. He wasn't an idiot, noble or not, if he beat the shit out of a higher-ranked soldier in public there'd be disciplinary action. Maybe not a court martial but he wouldn't enjoy it, and Fiq would be free while he was tied up with the proceedings.

"I give you my word, as a magician, that I won't," Fiq told him, invoking that ancient custom that had foiled so many attempts at bullshit and sealed so many alliances. Agrian was almost disappointed. No. He was fearful, he realised. Because now it was looking like he'd gotten close to finding out what Isabel's secrets really were, and how she'd gotten involved in necromancy. And it was looking like he wouldn't like the answer.