Adamant Blood

The phone rang at 2:51 PM, and Mark was not prepared for it, but he answered anyway, “Hello?”

“Hello, Mark Careed, yes?”

Mark’s heart skipped a beat. “Yes! Hello! Miranda, yes?”

With a professional, nice tone, Miranda said, “Yes. This is Miranda calling from Scholarship Aid at Orange Arcanaeum. I had expected today’s conversation to last a good 50 minutes, but it’s actually going to be a short one, because I am pleased to tell you that I sent your information up the chain and it came back with Archmage Sloane Addashield on the hook! Isn’t that wonderful!” Miranda said, all excited. And then she slyly added, “That’s a little fishing joke.”

Mark chuckled because he had no idea what Miranda meant by any of that.

… And then he realized he didn’t understand anything.

“What does that mean, though?” Mark asked. “I met the guy briefly but I didn’t even know his name until I researched it afterward.” And then Mark recalled more of that moment in time. “He seemed rushed? I didn’t want to actually say anything to him about… what had happened.”

Miranda got right into it, saying, “Addashield has suffered a large loss. It’s news in all the noble circles. He was here at Orange Academy to try and drown himself in work, which is why he was there at your full scan and why he was so curt. Please forgive him. Long, involved story short: Archmage Addashield is looking for a new apprentice because his previous apprentice failed the Tutorial. He died.”

Mark breathed deep. “Oh.”

“Yes. Dan Clover will be missed, but the archmage still needs an apprentice due to various agreements, and if Addashield hadn’t been so distraught he might have read your readout more carefully. That is just what he told me, just yesterday. He wants to speak to you directly. Can you be here at Orange Arcanaeum by midday tomorrow?”

Mark had no idea if he could be there tomorrow, but it was Saturday tomorrow, so he could probably—

Mark was being an idiot.

“Absolutely. I can absolutely be there.”

- - - -

“And, uh, that’s my history. I guess.”

Mark barely remembered the first fifteen minutes of meeting the archmage, alone, in an office in Orange Arcanaeum. He had been here, he had answered questions, he had mostly talked about schoolwork and Tutorial training and various certifications, and he had mentioned his family business. Had he been too modest? Should he have talked himself up? Archmage Sloane Addashield was looking rather quiet right now, and to the side. Not directly at Mark at all.

Oh gods.

Mark had fucked up.

Here was this great big opportunity and Mark had f—

“I have a demon that requires I raise apprentices that might decide to become demon-contracted themselves, using the same contracts that I have with my own demon. It’s a good contract, but this stipulation for apprentices is always a hassle. That’s why I’m doing this. That’s why we’re talking again.

“I have to do this.

“I would rather not, but needs must.

“My apprentice died in the Tutorial.” Addashield looked away. “It has been difficult. Dan Clover was to be a real apprentice. You will be a fulfilled obligation. I have needed to do this many times before, so I expect no real trouble in the process, but...” He frowned. He turned back toward Mark. “You’re barely a fit for my needs, but you do fit, in the way that you can shove a square peg into a round hole if you shave off the corners.

“The first thing you need to know is that if you want to take my offer, then it’s gonna hurt. I will be giving you a mana flavoring to attune your channels in the proper directions. After that, you’ll have to go through the Tutorial in a few months, and when you do, I will be there with you to finish the process and get you fully attuned to my desired needs, which means metalkinesis of a particular flavor. You can still do the healing thing from Freyala if you want. You’d probably need to do that anyway, because a forced mana shift is… It’s a lot more dangerous than people think it is. It’s what happened in the Reveal, and it killed so many of Earth’s people. The Veil restored the barrier, but people born on Earth are…” He frowned, and then he allowed, “Not something to be discussed in full with a person under Curtain Protocol, I guess.

“Anyway.

“Your recovery time after flavoring your mana will be a month. Your recovery time after Tutorial will be measured in months, if not a full year. This is not a kindness I do to you. This is rough surgery, and you’ll live, but you might not want to for a few days.

“If you don’t take my offer, then I’ll clear the path for you to inherit your father’s business with a full Telekinesis scholarship ride. That means between 4 and 5 years of arcanaeum, and you might not even get the full spell. Most people never do. Your father never did.

“So those are the options.

“Take my offer of enforcing your future development down a path of adamantiumkinesis, unlocked at Tutorial-level strength, or a full ride for Telekinesis training at arcanaeum, which might make you a halfer, if you’re truly skilled. Or maybe more than that! Who knows.” Addashield added, “You might pick up a few other magics at arcanaeum, too, if you opt for the arcanaeum route. Hard to know.

“Some people you’d expect to do remarkably well in arcanaeum fail out completely, and some that you think will fail in their first month turn into archmages. Such is the way of life.”

Mark was almost 100% sure he wanted Addashield’s offer, for any sort of kinetic magic was at the absolute top of his list of Wants. Telekinesis was generalized kinesis and not nearly as strong as specialized kinesis. Mark had often suspected that Dad had specialized into ‘fish-pull-kinesis’ just for the power boost that specialization brought, but he honestly did not know.

He didn’t know a lot.

Mark asked, “Can I ask questions?”

“The first part of attuning you to metalkinesis is talking about magic. This is the lowest level of mana flavoring.” Addashield said, “I’ll actually answer questions if you want to accept my offer, otherwise I will not.”

“I just have one sideways sort of question, then, to start,” Mark said. When Addashield didn’t deny him, Mark plowed on, “What does it look like, after I succeed, to have this thing done to me? Or for me?”

Addashield paused, grinned just a little, then said, “The aftermath of a full success looks like me introducing you to my demon’s kin, you telling them to fuck off, and you then getting on with the rest of your life.” He sat back in his chair. “I’ve done this 30 times before, once every 10 years. Only twice have people contracted with the demons I introduced them to. Both of those people were true apprentices, and not obligations. Most of all of them died in monster incursions, but I still keep in touch with their next of kin...” His voice drifted away. He shook his head. He breathed, and his eyes turned solid. “Your choice, please.”

“I choose adamantiumkinesis, obviously!” Mark said, thrilled to hear himself say it. “The strongest metal in the world! YES!”

Addashield smiled, almost sadly. “Your majority is in 4 months, you said?”

Mark was confused for a moment—

Oh!

He asked, “Tutorial? In 4 months, yes. May 3rd. My 18th birthday. Yes.”

“That’s a close timeframe, but I can make it work. I will be working with others, obviously. You’re just one of a few that I hope to use to salvage this tragedy. You will not have access to me, but I will have access to you when I want for probably the next two years. You understand?”

“Sir yes sir!”

Addashield nodded. “You said you wanted to do a Chosen power through Freyala?”

“Yes! … Uh. Unless I can’t?”

“You can do both, and maybe at full power, too, so we’re going to attune you to both at the same time. Some healing magic will make the real Awakening that much easier, and it’s not like it’ll cause too much more pain or recovery time.”

An emphatic thought echoed in Mark’s mind,

Oh my gods.

Followed by,

Wait what?

What does that mean? Two Talents?! Or just some godly… what?

Mark didn’t know what he didn’t know, but Addashield was a Hero of Humanity, so Mark trusted him implicitly. Except… Pain? Mark was elated and a little scared.

“Err…” Mark found himself grinning a little, even though he really didn’t think he should be grinning right now. A nervous chuckle escaped him. “Uh. You make it sound… Er. Bad—” He rapidly added, “I’ve broken bones before. Is a… a ‘flavoring’ worse than that?”

“Yes. Think of it less like a body pain and more like an ‘oh gods everything is on fire forever’ sort of soul pain. You’ll only be burning badly for a few hours during and after each session. Not actually forever, mind you. It will merely feel that way. We might only need to do one session, too.”

Mark steeled himself. “I can handle pain.”

Addashield said, “That’s the spirit!” And then he stood up. “Let’s go get you burned from the inside out.”

Mark tried to stand but he fell back onto the seat upon hearing ‘burn from the inside out’.

Addashield was trying not to smirk.

“Oh,” Mark said, realizing something. “You’re fucking with me.”

“It feels more like knives than burning, yes. Though some people have called it ‘burning like’!”

Mark had no words.

Addashield nodded.

And then the archmage led the way, his black half-cape swishing a little on his shoulders. He truly did remind Mark of a superhero, and Mark wondered if he was being too informal with the man. Was that why Addashield was fucking with Mark?

Would it really hurt that bad?

Mom and Dad had both told Mark to be on his absolute best behavior, to pretend like he was talking to the nobility of Daihoon (because he was!!!), and Mark had tried that at first, but rapidly he had devolved into simple politeness and solidity. Perhaps he should have researched more of that sort of stuff. Grandpa had a Xerkona/military background. Did that sort of thing count as polite?

If so, then Mark was already doing some of that.

Mark analyzed his own actions in his short interview over and over again, as Archmage Sloane Addashield walked down the hall of the administration building. Addashield didn’t have an office here, or at least not a permanent one, but they had given him a temporary office in the back, and now Mark was walking behind the archmage, on his way to… To do something?

To get burned from the inside out?

Right now?

In this here building? At this here hour?

Right now?

Mark was feeling a lot of emotions.

- - - -

Somehow, Mark found himself stepping into the full scan machine that he had already used the last time he had been here at Orange Arcanaeum. The machine looked much the same. Two big metal plates, one on the floor and one on the ceiling. A wall with a window on it, like in an x-ray room, held to one side of the full scan room. Computers and junk lay separated from the machine by the wall.

Somehow, Addashield had told Mark that this was happening right now.

And Mark was somehow agreeing to everything. To a sort-of apprenticeship. To having his mana veins… burned out, or whatever it was they were doing. And now some woman rushed into the room, and that woman was wearing white and gold, and she was arguing with Addashield in the most polite way she could that everything was happening too fast.

“I’m on a time crunch, Lola,” Addashield said, like a normal person in a time crunch, and not like an archmage who could rip apart the entire school if he wanted, “And the boy qualifies.”

Priestess Lola Turner (How did Mark know her full name? Had it been said somewhere else?) was an actual priest of the goddess Freyala, who had gone as far as to take the goddess’s mortal last name as her own last name. That meant she was up there in that clergy. Pretty high up, actually. Mark had no idea how high up because he seemed to know less and less as the day went on, but he knew Lola Turner was high up in the ranks.

Priestess Lola held herself still, her hands in her sleeves as she regarded Addashield, acting like so much more of a Daihoon noble than Addashield seemed capable of acting. She spoke softly, “And I must insist that the goddess requires an interview with Mister Careed in order to participate in this sort of action.”

She had danced around her insistence for a little bit, Mark was sure, but he was currently freaking out that all these big decisions were happening right now, so Mark didn’t really catch her insistences until they were plainly stated.

Addashield frowned at her. “You’re really not just going to go along with my request, are you?”

With perfect poise, Lola did a little curtsy, saying, “I will gladly go along with all of your reasonable requests, Archmage Addashield, defender of humanity.”

She didn’t even put any stress on the word ‘reasonable’.

Mark was pretty sure the stress was there, though, even if it was just implied.

Mark was impressed, and a bit envious. The archmage had made it pretty clear that if Mark passed all of this, then he’d be a pseudo-apprentice, and though Mark had no idea what that really meant, he knew it meant connections. Connections were a power all their own, but mostly they were yet another terror. Monsters were fun to fight and kill! Mark loved his life plan.

He was rather terrified of all of the parts surrounding his life plan, like dealing with other people.

But it was a terror that he was excited to experience.

He imagined taking tea in ceremonies in noble houses on Daihoon, in meeting enemies and making them into friends, in killing the biggest monsters around and saving villages. Daihoon seemed so mystical and cool, but it required the best sorts of magic to thrive outside of the cities, and that was where Mark wanted to thrive most of all.

So that’s why he spoke up in the middle of the Archmage and the Priestess, saying, “I want to be able to see the world and save everyone who needs saving. I would greatly appreciate Freyala’s assistance in this matter, Priestess Lola.” Mark bowed, holding his stomach to keep his guts from spilling out of his mouth.

Maybe bowing wasn’t the proper thing to do, but it allowed Mark to look at feet instead of faces.

He saw Addashield’s black robes swish this way and that as he said, “See! The boy wants this. Freyala would want this, too.”

Lola’s lower half barely adjusted in any direction at all. “The boy has no idea what he is asking for. He will be in so much pain—”

Mark stood straight, saying, “I know what I want, Priestess Lola, and I will walk through fire to get it.”

Perhaps it had been a mistake to stand up, for Mark saw Addashield’s eyes regard him in a way that he hadn’t regarded him before, while Lola looked… completely calm. Was calm bad? Calm seemed bad. Had Mark overstepped?

Yeah.

Addashield said, “Step outside, boy. We’ll call you back in shortly.”

Mark got gone.