The Chimera Jar: The Aegis of Merlin Book 3 Read online

  The Chimera Jar

  Aegis of Merlin Book 3

  James E Wisher

  Sandhill Publishing

  Contents

  1. Teamwork

  2. Sunday at School

  3. Sentinel Search

  4. Chaos on Sunday

  5. Back at School

  6. The Hunt for Mercia

  7. Removing the Brand

  8. In Between

  9. Set the Trap

  10. Finals

  11. Sorority Battle

  12. End of The Year

  13. Almost Time

  Author Notes

  Also by James E Wisher

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2017 by James E Wisher

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Edited by: Janie Linn Dullard

  Cover art by: Paganus

  0511171.1

  ISBN: 978-1-945763-10-6

  1

  Teamwork

  Conryu walked down the familiar hall to dark magic class with a mixture of relief and disappointment. Winter break had been a pleasant change of pace after months of magic studies, but he hadn’t been able to avoid magic all together. The business with the Department remained fresh in his mind. Hopefully Mr. Kane would have the situation straightened out soon, if for no other reason than Maria was worried about him.

  Prime wriggled in his grip. The scholomantic didn’t like being carried and kept fidgeting in his hand. Right now Prime looked like nothing but an ugly green book. Conryu hid him between his notepad and Infernal Basics book.

  So far he’d been able to keep Prime a secret from the other students, though he had no idea who Dean Blane had told. Only Mrs. Umbra had asked to see the scholomantic and that had been a brief inspection conducted ten minutes after he got back to school. She seemed neither impressed with Prime nor disappointed in Conryu for claiming him. That was about as good a reaction as he dared expect.

  Prime had strict instructions to remain silent except when they were in his room and even then Conryu wasn’t allowed to study any of the many secrets the book held, except as applied to whatever his teachers had him working on.

  In addition to checking out Prime, Mrs. Umbra had said that they’d turned the investigation into the Grand Brawl incident over to the Department in Central. The only clue they’d found was a small fragment of necroplasma that had been made as hard as steel. It seemed the viper golem had been made of the stuff, but most of it dissolved when the demon escaped. He shuddered to think how many lives it took to create that much of the crud.

  “Conryu!” Kelsie jogged down the hall to catch up to him.

  He slowed and she fell in step beside him. When he hadn’t run into her on the train or in their dorm Conryu feared she may have decided she didn’t want to be friends after all. Her bright smile as she walked beside him argued otherwise.

  “How was your winter break?” he asked.

  “I survived. You?”

  “It was interesting.” No reason to give her too many details, especially since he had no idea what he could and couldn’t talk about. “I did some fieldwork with Maria’s mom, you know, to get a taste of the business of magic. Can’t say I’m much more interested in it now than I was.”

  “I don’t blame you. It seems like all my family talks about is business. I feel more like my mom’s employee than her daughter sometimes.”

  “That’s harsh.” Conryu opened the classroom door for her.

  The others turned to look when they entered. No one said anything, they just stared. It couldn’t be just him. They had to be used to having a guy in the class by now. Maybe it was because he was hobnobbing with the rich and famous.

  He shook his head and took his seat at the back of the class. When Kelsie sat beside him instead of in her usual spot up front Conryu raised an eyebrow.

  “What? I can’t sit beside my friend?”

  “Sure you can. I was just surprised.”

  The door burst open and Mrs. Lenore hustled through. “Sorry, I got mixed up in something. Welcome back, everyone.”

  She set to drawing on the chalkboard. When she finished there was a group of stick figures around a spell circle. “So for the second half of the year we’ll be focusing on group castings. Group castings allow individual wizards to combine their power to create more potent effects than they’d otherwise be able to. With each person added to the casting it grows more complex so we’ll be limiting our groups to five.”

  Mrs. Lenore wrote out two words in Infernal, break and shatter. “We’ll start working in pairs to create a combined breaking.”

  From behind her desk she took out metallic spheres covered in runes. “These will be your practice targets. One member of the group will chant ‘break’ to destroy the wards while the other chants ‘shatter’ to smash the orb. The spells protecting them are much more potent than those used in the wooden blocks we trained with earlier. Everyone pair up.”

  Before Conryu had a chance to look Kelsie’s way Mrs. Lenore continued. “Conryu, you’ll be working with me. For safety reasons you understand.”

  Conryu sighed, nodded, and walked down to the front of the class to join her. While the girls were talking and sorting themselves out Mrs. Lenore leaned close so no one could overhear. “It won’t do any good to pair you up with one of the girls until you can modulate your power enough to match a weaker partner. As it stands now your power would do all the work and she’d get nothing out of the experience.”

  “So what am I really going to do?”

  “I’ll explain once the girls have started.”

  The groups were soon set and Mrs. Lenore watched them for a few minutes to make sure they were doing everything correctly. When she was satisfied she rejoined Conryu in the front of the room.

  “So you were saying?”

  “Right, modulation. You need to hold back enough of your power so you don’t overwhelm your partners.”

  “That sounds kind of pointless. If the idea is to combine our powers to create a more potent effect why would I use less than my full power? I mean to match Kelsie I’d have to use like ten percent of my full strength and the combined casting would amount to less than a quarter of what I could do on my own. How is that beneficial?”

  Her mouth opened and closed but no words came out. She looked a bit like a fish caught on the beach. After a moment she pulled herself together. “When you put it that way it makes no sense at all. Combined casting is what I always teach during second semester. It never even occurred to me that it wouldn’t work for you.”

  She slumped and fell silent. He glanced back at the girls, but they were all engrossed in their practice. He put a hand on her shoulder and Mrs. Lenore looked up.

  “What are we going to do? If the final is all about combined casting I guess I need to learn it.”

  She shook her head. “That’s not really what it’s about. It’s just the breaking is of an order of magnitude stronger than what a single dark wizard can handle.”

  Conryu raised an eyebrow at that.

  “Okay, an ordinary dark wizard. Sometimes I don’t even know why you’re in my class. If you took the final today you’d pass it with ease.”

  “For the sake of argument and the fact that we don’t have enough people for only two groups, how could I work with weaker partners? We’ve established that lowering my own strength is useless. What could a second and third person do to make me s
tronger?”

  She sat on the edge of her desk and rubbed her temples. “I’m not sure. A standard circle casting wouldn’t work. It’s designed to unite wizards of similar strength. The problem is fusing the energy flows into a coherent whole.”

  “When I helped Mrs. Umbra banish the demon serpent she drew out my power and directed it with a spell of her own. Would something like that work?”

  “If you had the Death Stick and fifty years of experience, sure.” Mrs. Lenore closed her eyes and sighed. “I don’t know what to do. I’m a horrible teacher.”

  “Don’t say that. This is new for everyone. I have class with Mrs. Umbra later. Would you mind if I mentioned the problem to her? She might have a suggestion.”

  “By all means. God knows you need someone other than me to help you.”

  Class ended and everyone but Conryu left for their free period. The moment the last girl closed the door behind her Prime shook the notepad off and flew in front of him.

  “That woman is incompetent. I should be overseeing your instruction. Imagine, telling the most powerful wizard in the world that what he really needs to know is how to make himself weaker. Of all the stupid ideas I’ve heard over the millennia that one’s right up there with ‘Let’s call Lord Beelzebub Bug Eyes.’”

  “Don’t be so critical. Mrs. Lenore’s a good person. I’m afraid she’s just a little out of her depth.”

  “I didn’t say she wasn’t a good human, I said she’s an idiot. If she’d given it even a moment of thought she’d have realized her idea didn’t even bear contemplation.”

  The ominous tapping of Mrs. Umbra’s Death Stick sent Prime flying back to hide under his notepad. The head of dark magic was the only person Prime seemed to fear, not that Conryu blamed the scholomantic. She certainly had an intimidating presence. Despite that, Conryu found he was eager to see her again.

  The door opened and the short, wrinkled figure in black hobbled in.

  “Afternoon, Mrs. Umbra.”

  “Conryu. I trust that ill-mannered book has been behaving itself.”

  “Prime’s been on his best behavior. I haven’t told anyone about him yet. Is that the plan or can I let others know?”

  “Up to you, but until you learn to cast spells through it, the scholomantic will be a point of vulnerability.”

  “Is that what you’re going to teach me?” He sat up straighter. Anything that eliminated a potential weakness was of interest to him. “Before I forget, I have a question.”

  She hobbled down and sat behind the desk. “Oh?”

  He briefly explained what had happened in his first class. “Anyway, it sounds like combination casting won’t be of much use for me. I need to figure out some way to work with my classmates, if only for the final.”

  She nodded and tapped her chin. “Hey, book.”

  Prime flew up off the desk, but didn’t speak.

  “Do you have anything on fusion magic?”

  Conryu had never heard of such a thing, but Prime flipped his pages before finally stopping. On the open page was an image of three wizards standing in a triangle formation. The two in the back rested their hands on the one in front’s shoulders and the text described how to merge the three powers into one. It looked like exactly what he needed.

  “Can I show this to Mrs. Lenore? She seemed really upset that she didn’t know what to teach me.”

  “Let me see.”

  Prime flew over to allow Mrs. Umbra to read the pages. After a minute she nodded. “Very complete. That should solve your group casting problem. You have my permission to study those pages in your spare time, though don’t experiment without one of your teachers present.”

  “Never crossed my mind.”

  Prime flew back and landed on the desk.

  Conryu patted his spine. “Thanks.”

  The scholomantic’s pleasure flowed through their link.

  “So what are we going to practice?”

  “As you guessed we’re going to work on you sharing your spells with your book. Ordinarily this isn’t something we teach freshmen. Not much point since you’re technically not allowed to have a familiar until your second year. But in your case we’ll have to make an exception. That happens a lot, doesn’t it?”

  Conryu grinned. “Yeah, but what can we do?”

  “Indeed. Ready to begin?”

  He spent the next two hours trying to force a Cloak of Darkness spell to cover himself and Prime. After twenty castings Conryu was exhausted and the best he managed was a scattering of black spots so it looked like Prime had a fungus infection.

  “That’s enough for now,” Mrs. Umbra said. “Feel free to practice that as much as you like. By that I mean for at least an hour a day. We meet up again in three days. I expect you to be able to cover both yourself and the book in darkness.”

  Conryu nodded and stood up. “We’ll get there.”

  Maria reached the top-floor landing and made the short walk to the light magic classroom. She was eager to find out what they’d be working on this semester. She assumed healing since along with warding it was a light wizard’s primary area of expertise. It would be nice to be able to have something concrete to offer Conryu.

  She’d told him she doubted she was strong enough to join him on his journey, but if she learned to heal that would be something he couldn’t do, even with all his power. That thought made her smile. It was nice to think there was something magical Conryu couldn’t accomplish.

  Inside the classroom about two-thirds of the others had arrived and were sitting at their desks. Mrs. Alustrial was standing at the front of the class, looking especially stern with her face twisted in a deep scowl. She glared at Maria as she made her way to the desk she shared with Irene.

  “What did you do to get on her bad side?” Irene asked.

  “No idea. This is the first time I’ve seen her since midterms. Congratulations on passing by the way.”

  “Thanks, you too. Shame about Corrie.”

  “Yeah.” Maria hadn’t seen the weakest member of their class since she arrived, but the girl had to be upset. If Maria was ever demoted to the lowest rungs of magical study she’d have cried herself to sleep for weeks. Conryu probably would have done backflips, but the odds of him getting demoted were about as good as the sun not rising in the morning.

  The last of the class entered with seconds to spare and took their seats. Mrs. Alustrial tapped the chalkboard with her pointer and everyone fell silent.

  “Thank you, ladies. For the rest of the year we will be working on healing.”

  There were murmurs and Maria did a mental fist pump. Healing, just as she’d hoped.

  Mrs. Alustrial cleared her throat. “Before we begin I want to discuss what happened at midterms, especially the shameful display by Conryu Koda.”

  This time the mutters had an angry tone. Everyone had been embarrassed when Conryu had demolished their best work with no visible effort. Maria had been a little annoyed too, but considering the way most people treated him she didn’t blame Conryu for showing off a little. Besides, he claimed it was his teacher’s idea.

  “That sort of showboating has no place in our fine school. I complained to his teacher as well as Dean Blane, but since he didn’t break any rules no punishment was levied. Mrs. Lenore even had the gall to note that a little humility would do me… that is, us, good.” Mrs. Alustrial started pacing as her face grew red. “As though it were my fault that every year for the past ten years her students haven’t been strong enough to defeat my best students. Her bitterness was hardly attractive.”

  Looked like her teacher had a bruised ego. Talk about not attractive. When her classes first began Maria had looked up to Mrs. Alustrial, now she was starting to wonder.

  “So,” Mrs. Alustrial continued. “As long as you’re in my class you will have no contact with Conryu and as little contact with the rest of the dark magic class as possible. We wouldn’t want their negative attitudes rubbing off on you. Understood?”

&nbs
p; Maria heard nothing after the order to avoid Conryu. It was ridiculous and she had no right to tell them who they could hang out with after class.

  Mrs. Alustrial fixed her gaze on Maria. “I said, understood?”

  “No, ma’am, it is not understood. I’m not going to stop seeing my friend just because he upset you and I doubt you have the authority to make me.”

  The muscle at Mrs. Alustrial’s jaw bunched. “As your primary teacher I have all the authority I need. You will avoid that boy even if I have to assign you to detention every free moment you have.”

  Maria glared back. “I wonder what Dean Blane will have to say?”

  “This is not her concern, you will say nothing about it.”

  “I won’t mention your threats if you back off your order to avoid Conryu.”

  The two women engaged in a staring match for half a minute before Mrs. Alustrial looked away. “Do what you want. But if you need extra help with healing, like you did with wards, I suggest you find someone else to ask.”

  Bitch!

  At this point Maria wouldn’t have asked her for help if her life depended on it. It was going to be a long second half of the year.

  After an agreeable dinner with Maria, Conryu headed back to his room. He needed to talk to Mrs. Lenore, but he wasn’t sure if he should tell her about Prime. For the moment he’d copy the pages on fusion magic and say Mrs. Umbra gave them to him, which was close enough to the truth.

  The moment he stepped into his room the pixie swirled around his neck in wind form, then turned into a tiny girl and settled on his shoulder.

  Prime flew out of his grasp and snarled at the pixie. She pressed herself against his cheek and trembled.

  “Stop that, Prime. This is the first friend I made when I arrived and I’ll not have you scaring her. You two are going to have to learn to get along.”

  The pixie flew up near the ceiling and stuck her tongue out at Prime. The scholomantic rushed toward her, but Conryu snatched him out of the air. “Enough. Open up to that page about fusion magic so I can copy it.”