Chương 72: Chapter 71: Power

++The Winzorth Institute prepared me to deal with the adult world, mostly by instilling patience and letting me adjust to stupidity placed into power. It should have instilled more. ++ - From the writings of Isabel Vornholt, 'The Great Lich'. 1, 891 A. E. My final stop before departing from the Winzorth Institute was with the Grandmaster himself, and I had hoped to settle our business quickly so that I might leave all the sooner. This plan did not come to fruition.

The Grandmaster delayed our meeting, and then I was informed my departure was itself delayed as well. The growing proximity to war had caused a lot of breakdown in the usual means of transportation and communication within the Empire, something that disgusted me far more than the prospect of mass casualty and devastation. I needed those means of communication. Whichever idiots had made them so fragile, I would see them pay. Fortunately, mundane methods were more reliable.

Telegram sent my word where magical delivery failed. A day and a night passed, and I was at last called to speak with the Grandmaster. The man had not changed much since I met him those few years ago, physically at least. A little thinner, a little more wrinkled, a little more rotted and close to the grave. The biggest change was his new tendency to cough blood, on occasion. That, and the desperation it brought. He was pacing when I entered, hands trembling.

"You didn't warn me you'd be putting our lessons on hold," he snapped.

"I did not have the chance," I lied.

"It was a snap decision that I did not have any choice in making when I did."

"So my life is forfeit because you were under a bit of stress?!" he growled.

"Your life is not forfeit. You know enough now to begin experimenting yourself, surely."

"I have been, but you still haven't given me what I need to…perform the ritual." He was not going to verbally say 'become a lich'. He did not say that even in conversations where we had mentioned the word necromancy. The idea was apparently larger and more taboo than even that.

"I have," I reminded him patiently.

"You must devise your own ritual your own way or it will not work. We have been over this. Soon now, you will manage it."

"How soon!?" he snapped.

"Because you're thousands of years old, what is soon for you?" I had, admittedly, been thinking in terms of decades and centuries, which he may well not survive for. Magicians could live longer than ordinary humans, but simply fighting the effects of age was always a losing battle that grew harder the longer it went on for. The grandmaster would live a century, maybe more. Which gave him only twenty or thirty more years if he was unlucky.

"Years," I said at last.

"Perhaps sooner, perhaps later, but you have a serious chance at living, and I cannot do anything more to increase this chance." His eyes were ablaze.

"You delayed in starting my lessons, I could have weeks or months more progress made now than I do." This was tiresome.

"I did not come here to watch you have a nervous breakdown," I snapped.

"There are things we must attend to before I depart for good, if you would like to waste more time whining at me instead of working to save yourself then be my guest." I had gotten better at finding and pushing on people's nerves. The Grandmaster fancied himself a pragmatic man, and when hearing things framed in starkly practical terms he made a concerted effort to bury his emotions on principle alone. I watched as he spent the next few moments calming himself.

"Another lesson," he said after a moment.

"You're not leaving yet, I know that much. So you owe me one last lesson before you depart. It's the least you can do." I did not agree with that, but I knew that keeping him happy was in my best interest anyway.

"Very well." The Grandmaster was a quick student at least. In fact, he surprised me by having grown far more than I would have expected him to, going by our previous lessons. He was nearing the end of his learning curve by now, but a mere few years had already seen him progressing quickly. In a few more, I wagered, he would be what most considered a master of necromancy, and my estimate of decades for him to attain lichdom was looking strong.

By this point he had graduated to not only animating several, larger-than-human corpses, but also manipulating the stuff of death itself. This was more theoretical than immediately practical, at least until reaching the very highest levels, but it was absolutely vital for his long-term ambitions of transcending the mortal coil.

"How long did it take you to become a lich?" he asked me midway through. I was surprised by the question, and briefly struggled with it.

"... Decades, I think. After I began studying myself."

"You think?" the Grandmaster frowned.

"I thought you had a perfect memory." Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"I do, of my lichdom. But I was born with a normal brain reliant on the normal means of storing knowledge that any other human does. I cannot recall memories from the past if my past self was unable to properly recall them." He thought about that.

"... So, I'll remember being human less than I remember being a lich?"

"Liches are humans," I corrected him. He bristled.

"Do you even remember your humanity to be saying that so confidently?" I paused, let the churning emotions his question incited settle.

"I was born a human. I grew up a human. I learned to live as a human. Studied as a human, died as a human. Was reborn…and I was still me, with my same thoughts, same values, same goals and ambitions and lessons learned. The creature that slopped out of my mother's abdomen was the same creature who sits before you now, simply younger and less learned. I am a human as much as you are." He did not look convinced.

"I'll find out one day myself, then," the Grandmaster whispered.

"If I don't die first." We worked more in silence for a while, which I appreciated far more than my student's company. If there was one thing I missed in the modern age it was silence. It could not last of course, he went and ruined it all over again. This time with an entirely different question.

"The Winzorth Institute has more battlemages prepared and trained than at any other point in its history," he told me flatly.

"If it time comes down to it…we could stage a coup in this generation." I felt as though my stomach were dropping out of me, and the breath caught in my throat. There are some sensations natural to a physical body that I do not care for one bit.

"No," I said sharply.

"Not now, not anytime soon." The Grandmaster met my gaze and held it.

"I don't know how long I have left," he pressed.

"If there's any chance I can improve my odds, pilfering old tombs or Demigod-controlled vaults for necromantic texts, I'll take the risk." He was attempting to use logic, which meant that he would be susceptible to logic himself.

"We can bide our time to grow stronger before making that move, but not after. It is irreversible. The war with Irucci is going to give us more insight into how the Demigods, and Gods, will react to such a conflict, there is no reason not to wait for that to finish, at least. And if I can gain more influence during it to raise our odds even more, so much the better."

I still preferred forcing people to obey me with the threat of sheer power, but it was satisfying to see my persuasive abilities do their work all the same. The Grandmaster reluctantly agreed. For now.

Agrian hadn't felt truly nervous in a long while. He hadn't felt truly angry, either. Life had been pretty good these last two years, comfortable and relaxing. Maybe a shade boring, sure, but then that was life as a student. And it wasn't like he'd lacked for excitement either. Something about hitting manhood had broken down a few of the barriers around him in the past, and he'd finally started to enjoy a bit of camaraderie with his fellow magicians.

That distance was always there, he doubted he'd ever stop being the noble's son in a magician circle, but his distinctions and assistance to everyone else in the magical sparring bouts seemed to have gone a long way. Then Isabel had ruined it all, naturally. Her trip out of Laugrey had been odd and out of nowhere, but Agrian hadn't worried about it. Now she was back and joining the army. He found himself wishing he'd investigated a bit more. Found himself wishing lots of things.

Chief among that, he found himself wishing he'd thought of some way to screw over his sister's plan besides joining the army right alongside her. Impulse control was not a trait that ran particularly strongly in the Vornholt lineage.

"You alright?" a voice came out from beside him, whipping Agrian's head around to gaze into the face of Korig Dunar. A tall boy, though shorter than Agrian, he had one of those faces that inspired friendliness, and radiated even more. Agrian couldn't help but smile at him.

"Alright enough," he sighed. He turned to send another glance at the skyship waiting for them. It was smaller than the one that had carried him and Isabel to the Winzorth Institute on their first day, but also seemed more modern. The magic radiating off it was denser and less refracted, more tightly controlled. Pure efficiencyEfficient.

"The two of you are just adorable," Bagran mocked.

"You should get married. I wonder which of you would get pregnant, the inbred moron or the commoner with liquid shit in his veins." Agrian did not like Bagran very much. For one thing he was one of the few boys at Winzorth taller than he was, which Agrian automatically considered grounds for distaste. For another, he was a massive cunt.

"Who are we even waiting for?" the cunt growled.

"Isabel," Varnal Tross answered. He shot a look at Agrian as he spoke.

"You signed up because she did, right?" That was right. Agrian did not didn't like smart men either. And he didn't give this one the satisfaction of having his suspicion confirmed.

"Isabel," Bagran actually licked his lips as he said her name.

"Well, nevermind then. That is a prize worth waiting for, eh?" He looked at the other boys with a grin.

"Anyone who says something insulting or sexual about my sister is going to kill the rest of our wait by picking up his teeth," Agrian told the group. The good thing about being around magicians instead of nobles was that they tended to do a lot less fisticuffs. Agrian had a reputation for painfully educating other boys who stepped over the line, and he saw even Bagran's smile slip now.

"Careful, Vornholt," the magician-heir grinned.

"We're leaving school soon, you know." Agrian bloody well did know. His father had been all too happy to pull a few strings and let him drop right into the army, and it was no surprise that a family like Bagran's could manage something similar.

"I have arrived," Isabel called out, instantly capturing every scrap of attention in the vicinity, like always. Agrian found himself surprised to see her clothes. Trousers, a shirt and jacket. All thick and tough-looking rather than the flamboyant dress robes she tended to prefer at the Institute.

"Isabel," Bagran stepped forward, practically licking her with his eyes.

"My future wife." Isabel looked at him, and Agrian swore her face looked like some Eastern stone carving depicting a demon. Bagran did not seem to understand what he was looking at, and smiled even wider.

"Is that everyone?" Korig asked nervously. He seemed the most eager of them all to leave, precisely opposite to Agrian. Agrian looked around, and saw everybody else was as confused as him. Except for Isabel, who simply glared like usual.

"It's everyone now," a new voice came out. All heads turned and Agrian saw a volcano walking towards him, glowing with magic instead of heat, and in the form of a woman. Tall and radiating strength, eyes aglow and face curled into a perpetual half-sneer.

"I am Aryqatan," she told the group.

"Child of…the Gods. And I'm going to be leading you all on your mission." Agrian didn't say anything. What was there to say, really, when you found yourself staring up at a Demigod?