Chương 19: Chapter 18: Mundane Imprisonment

++There is no greater way to gain allies and enemies than by letting yourself be observed as, in some way, exceptional. The truly distinguished in the world will rarely inspire a neutral reaction. I used this to my advantage, and suffered for it. As is the case with so many of my other characteristics, it caused more problems for my early years than it would have if I had been reborn into a male body. And as with all the problems I faced in those days, I adjusted.

++ - From the writings of Isabel Vornholt, 'The Great Lich'. 1, 891 A. E Professor Bogern was knocking on my door early the next day, and when it opened a few moments later I found the man sweeping into the room with an eagerness that had been entirely absent from him the afternoon before.

"Isabel!" he grinned, practically vibrating with enthusiasm as he eyed me altogether differently than before.

"Did you sleep well?" I had slept adequately, though never well. Sleep was not something I enjoyed being forced to do, and each night of it left me missing my old, undead body all the more. I was aware this was not exactly a normal thing for any eight year-old to confess, however, so just shrugged and remained silent. The Professor did not seem to even notice.

"We've finished assessing your brother, my dear, and now it's your turn. Are you excited?"

"I—" —"Don't worry, it'll all be fine, come with me," he took me rather forcefully by the hand and started leading me, or rather dragging me, out of the room. I could do nothing but be pulled behind him like a leaf in the wind, but comforted myself with the reminder that he would one day be crushed beneath my reign of terror along with all the other petty magicians of his era. I was hauled through the same corridor as last time, then into the same room. The assessment chamber.

It looked unchanged, which I was not surprised by, whatever was done for these assessments could not be too hard to clean up in a day, or else Winzorth would need either far more rooms or far fewer students.

"What will this assessment feel like?" I asked the Professor. I wanted to ask exactly what it would entail on a technical level, but that question seemed too precise for a girl of eight.

"It may hurt," he admitted.

"Try not to move, however, if you do it will make things harder. Take longer, less reliable—at worst we may have to start all over again."

"I see." That was inconvenient, one thing I had not been able to observe very much was the sight of children in pain. I had little idea how they would be expected to respond, certainly not to the eyes of a man who had likely seen the sight countless times before.

"You…have no other questions?" The Professor seemed surprised, damn. Was I failing to ask anything obvious, that a child would? Ah, of course.

"Where is Agrian?" I did my best to add a whinging note to the question, as if I were actually worried for his safety—as if I were stupid enough to think these magicians might slit the belly of their golden goose.

"Agrian is fine, he has been assessed already. He was… very impressive." I could recognise the understatement easily enough, and the eagerness. Of course. The magicians of Winzorth had probably not fully believed my father's reports, even with Doctor Brown confirming. Now they had seen at least one of them verified for themselves. And if Agrian's talent was real, they must be thinking, then perhaps my ridiculous genius was as well. They soon found out. I was laid down atop a table and told once more to stay still.

I waited patiently while the devices were set up, and several new men entered the room. All of them glowed with mana, though I could tell none were especially powerful. Pupils, perhaps, senior apprentices, or else some servant under-class of magician considered strong enough to aid with magic, but not to perform it individually. Whatever their role in society, their role in the analysis soon became clear. I felt a mist of aether congeal around me, similar to the one Doctor Brown's device had conjured.

This one was thicker, however, and swirled more. I imagined the purpose of that was to keep its density consistent, rather than allowing thicker sections to settle in one place.

"Okay Isabel, I want you to strain your mana as much as possible. Can you do that?" It was literally the thing I had done more than anything else, and doing it at maximum output was no difficulty at all. I enjoyed the looks of astonishment on all faces present as I blasted out my magic without holding back. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Is that okay?" I asked, deciding that a real eight year-old would probably be expected to seem less certain about things than I felt. Perhaps more fearful, too.

"What are you doing to me?" I asked, adding a touch of frantic worry and making my mana less stable to simulate mental fog. Professor Bogern answered me with patience, but not warmth.

"We're just seeing how your mana moves through the aether, Isabel. You've seen it done before, remember? It was how Doctor Brown found out about your magical power."

"I want Agrian," I said, recalling how the boy used to mindlessly ask for me whenever something had him uncertain.

"You'll see him again soon," the Professor soothed, in what was one of the least soothing voices I had ever heard. Maybe these people would not recognise genuine childish fear, they seemed not to have learned how to mitigate it at all despite their vast exposure. The period of examining my mana output lasted longer than Doctor Brown's had, perhaps as a result of added thoroughness.

I noticed, mainly by turning my eyes since my head was still not permitted to significantly move, that Professor Bogern looked to be growing more excited by the moment. At last, after a good few minutes, by the end of which my mana was starting to dwindle from the constant effort, it came time for some new kinds of tests. This was where things became uncomfortable.

"Remember, stay still," the Professor repeated. I felt him poking at me with some cold, metal instrument I could not see, pricking my skin but not quite breaking it. The pricking became worse. At first I thought I really was being cut, but I did not feel any blood flowing from me, nor did the sensation seem quite right. It was almost entirely magical, I realised. Mana touching my mana, an irritant attacking the very substance of my soul.

My reflexive response was to ward off the arcane jabs, and I realised that was the point. They wanted to examine how reactive my mana was. I saw no reason to hide that, indeed after a moment I had my powers work more than they were on their own—giving the illusion of a far less controlled and mastered Vessel than I actually possessed.

"Are you doing this on purpose, Isabel?" the Professor asked me, which was my first indication that I was failing, in some way, to perfect my disguise.

"What am I doing?" I asked him, feigning the sort of worried uncertainty that he would probably expect.

"It's hard to explain, but you're controlling your mana some way, right? Stop that, just let it do whatever comes naturally." He had given me no information at all, so I was forced to take a guess at what was odd about my magic and simply agitate it more, increasing the activity as best I could without making it too regular or predictable. The Professor did not protest again, and left me to enjoy my ongoing torment in peace.

This lasted another few hours, by the end of which I was fully able to appreciate why mere children would consider such an experience to be so deeply miserable. Agrian was likely still sulking about his own time in it even now. At last we moved onto the final stage, or at least the Professor told me it was. He said it with some trepidation, like he expected me to protest despite my total ignorance about what to expect.

He was likely used to dealing with the children of gifted magicians who had already been assessed in this way, who had told their children what to expect. Which meant he knew that whatever was waiting for me, it would give me good cause to dislike it.

"We're about to channel raw mana through your Vessel," the Professor warned me.

"I'm afraid this will hurt, but we need to do it to gauge the limits of your tolerance, so that we know how hard you can be pushed in training. This will let us devise the perfect training plan for you." I could have simply told them of course, but then that would be rather a suspicious thing for a relatively untrained child to do.

"Okay," I told the Professor, unsure what else to say. He did not bother with any more conversation, simply began the final stage. I felt a sharp and sustained pain at that, though it was not nearly as bad as he seemed to have expected me to find. Perhaps having my bones broken by divine power was simply good preparation for the sensation. The worst part was that the pain continued for a while, and that it was strange.

It felt like someone was reaching under my skin and attempting to rip all the nerves out from below, though I did not think for a moment that it was actually in danger of killing me. Quite the opposite, it felt oddly invigorating. Difficult to articulate how, like I had felt the very substance of my own strength, seen it replicated and distilled, and was now having it dripped into me. Not a foreign intrusion at all, more of what was already there, and all of it good.

I had to resist an especially childish giggle as the sensation continued, then continued mounting. Pressure beneath my skin, beneath my muscles, beneath my soul. It was only the Professor's voice that broke me from my reverie to focus, once more, on the room around me.

"What's happening?" I heard him demand, a touch of panic to his voice.

"The mana, it's…not stopping."

"What do you mean it's not stopping?"

"I mean it's not—" —"I know what not stopping means you fucking idiot, why isn't it!?"

"I…don't know, Professor, the girl is just soaking up more." A pause followed, and I felt the power continue surging. I actually would have stopped, then, had it been up to me, but I was not the one responsible for this. I could not turn the magic away, for it was orders of magnitude beyond the thousand or so vis my own Vessel could output, and any resistance I offered would only turn into Vessel strain. With power like this, that strain would mangle my magic. Possibly forever.

"Stop it," the Professor urged after a moment.

"This is insane, stop it now! The machinery isn't designed for—" the room went entirely dark, all light dying instantly. I could still see, but not physically. My eyes caught only the pulses of mana moving in the air, the thousand colours of broken-down magic and chaotic power. It took a few more moments before actual light flooded the chamber, conjured, I saw, from the Professor's hand. This was not some otherworldly summoning, he was simply turning mana into illumination in the same way most apprentices could.

And he was staring at me as if he were trying to work out whether I was even human. Which is, in fairness, a matter of some debate. Though I would personally say that I am.