Paranoid mage, p.14
Paranoid Mage, page 14
part #1 of Paranoid Mage Series
Without a specific destination in mind, he decided to ditch the entire idea of a destination and bought a Winnebago. It was surprisingly expensive, far costlier than the house in Winut had been, but with the largesse from the vampires he could afford it. Though he’d have to exchange some of the gold plates in the next city if he also wanted to keep eating and have enough fuel.
The pickup was discarded by the simple expedient of driving it into the bad part of town and leaving it unlocked. He expanded his senses to make sure nobody was watching as he rounded a corner and teleported back, a couple hundred yards at a time, until he was back inside his motorhome. Then he drove off again, heading for another city. It was probably overly cautious, but he didn’t want to make all his purchases in one place.
Once again he went to a paranormal-owned shop to get his business done. Partly because the source of the gold was paranormal and a mundane shop might give him grief, and partly because he was hoping that they’d have more than just supernatural-compatible laptops and phones.
“Anywhere you would recommend if I’m looking for some books on magic, for apprentices?” Callum asked as the man counted out money, coming up with a cover story on the spot. He was pretty sure the guy was a shifter, since he looked entirely human.
“You can try Pearson’s Used Books, over on fifth and main,” the proprietor said doubtfully. “But I haven’t heard of many out there.” That didn’t surprise Callum. It was obvious that supernatural society didn’t believe in freedom of information, even if they did have their own version of the internet.
“Thanks,” Callum told him, taking the bundled money. He planned on visiting later, but a quick look on his phone showed him that it was already closed, so it would have to wait for the next day.
Before he left entirely, he had an idea, and spent a while chewing it over while looking for holes. He felt a little bad about leaving without so much as a word to the Langleys, who had been more than accommodating. Even though Arthur Langley had clearly suspected something from the beginning, he hadn’t pressed. Neither had Jessica or Clara, and Callum genuinely regretted that he’d had to leave Winut. It had reminded him a lot of Tanner, and the people there had respect for privacy.
He took time out for dinner and waited until the gold buyer was closing, casting out his sense as the proprietor locked up and headed out. Callum made a tiny portal nearby, linking it to one just behind the proprietor, and spoke.
“Can you get a message to the Midwest Alpha? Alpha Chester?”
The man whirled around, instantly shifting to beast-man form, and Callum was glad that he was far away. He had the portal angled so he wasn’t visible, flush against the brick of the restaurant he was by, while the other side was similarly hidden against the outside of the proprietor’s shop.
The beast-man sniffed, ears swiveling as he stared in the direction of the portal, as if he could intimidate it into giving him answers. After a few moments, though, he nodded curtly.
“Please tell him that Clara’s friend is safe.” Callum judged that to be circumspect enough. It wasn’t stating Callum’s old identity, and it wasn’t given the shifter even a glimpse of Callum’s face, disguised or not. The only thing better would have been to use a different shifter, but Callum wasn’t going to trawl the city for someone who could do the job. Once he had magical reading material, he was leaving.
***
“That’s all he asked me to say, Alpha,” Keith reported. Chester frowned at his phone, but didn’t let any of it creep into his voice or along the pack bonds. Some shifters were more sensitive than others and they’d know if Chester was frustrated if he weren’t careful.
“Thank you,” he told Keith. “And no, don’t go looking for him. That is an incredibly dangerous man. Even to a shifter.”
“Yes, Alpha,” Keith said, in a tone that implied he had never held such thoughts in the first place. Chester knew better. He could feel Keith’s hunting instincts singing through the pack bonds, even though he wasn’t Keith’s direct Alpha. He closed the connection and dialed up Arthur Langley instead.
“Alpha?”
“Hello, Arthur. I just got an interesting message from one of Alpha Martin’s subordinates. Someone told them that Clara’s friend is safe. I assume the very friend himself, considering that the voice came from a wall, apparently.”
“That is good news!” Arthur’s voice was cheery. “Not that I thought anything would happen, but these damn agents have been harping on about him being kidnapped and us telling them what we know. Thankfully, Black wasn’t able to get a read on Clara being there from the corpses, though she did know that someone was prisoner. Guess what their current theory is.”
“They had Clara’s friend there, and an unknown benefactor took exception?”
“I encouraged it,” Arthur agreed. “They’re back at GAR now, apparently doing some more research.”
“And what of your own research?” Chester inquired. The mysterious friend was proving quite a strange beast. Most people wouldn’t simply vanish when confronted by GAR agents, guilty or not, and those that did wouldn’t get away with it. Mages left relics of their casting behind, shifters had pack bonds, and fae had their odd little kingdoms.
“Well, there’s absolutely nothing connected to the name he gave me. Not surprising, really. The only real bit of history I could find was the title transfer for his car, which was just before he arrived.”
“It’s not much,” he said, though he wasn’t much surprised. “Anything useful?”
“He didn’t bring anything with him and he basically never moved into the house. There’s absolutely nothing that ties him to a past at all. The agents were nice enough to share some of their file requests with me and there’s nothing that exactly matches what happened in the motel, either. There have been some cases where a few people were instantly killed from behind, but so many with a gun in so short a time? And through the temple? He must have trained out on one of the portal worlds.”
“That was my thought, too,” Chester said. Ignorant indeed was the supernatural who didn’t know of the portal worlds, considering that they were the source of magic and of every supernatural race. Even shifters needed to travel to the Deep Wilds, unimaginatively labeled Portal World Number 2 by GAR, if they wanted to turn a human.
While GAR theoretically protected earth from the dangers of the portal worlds, such as they were, they also kept training facilities there. Some of the more deadly agents were trained in the officially-nonexistent sites, where magic was dense and lethal tactics could be practiced against people and things nobody on earth would care about.
If one of those agents had gone rogue, GAR certainly had a problem. And it was GAR’s problem, not his. For Chester, it might well be an opportunity, if he treated it right. The man wasn’t a psychopath, but he could be terrifyingly effective, so there was probably some deal he could work out. He genuinely owed the man for saving his grand-niece, but he’d already turned down any offers of payment.
“If you find out anything else, tell me. Although I doubt you will.”
“Agreed.”
Chester once again hung up and closed his eyes, reaching through his pack bonds to tug lightly on two members of the Wolfpack, his own private enforcers. Two of them had, quite coincidentally, been present when the man had arrived, and that was the pair he wanted now. It didn’t take them long to enter the huge living room of the pack compound, making their way over to him.
“Roy, John,” he greeted them. “The man you saw in the basement before he took care of Arthur’s vampire problem — would you recognize his scent?”
“Of course,” John rumbled, almost offended at his Alpha questioning his prowess.
“Great. He was probably in or around this address in Lincoln,” Chester said, texting Keith’s business to them. “I want you over there as fast as you can manage and see if you can track him down. If you can find him, don’t approach him. Call me first.” He eyed the pair. “I’ll admit, I’m not sure if it’s possible. I don’t have any more information than that, but if anyone can track him, you two can.”
“Right away, Alpha,” Roy said, and the two of them hurried out.
***
Callum was more than a little nervous as he approached Pearson’s Used Books. It was one of those tiny old shops that wound up in the middle of a more modern segment of the city simply by being there first. It was also run by a mage.
He couldn’t tell what kind of mage, or even if it was possible to tell remotely with his spatial sense, but they definitely had a bubble of vis around them. Actually, studying that bubble closely was a help, because it wasn’t a structured and contained thing like Callum had been trying to make. It was just a local saturation, not very strong, like the mage was purposely leaking mana.
It seemed stupid to Callum, but there was probably a reason. Possibly even a good reason. Either way, he took a while to get the same effect with his own mana, pushing some out and then sort of tensing up as to not pull it back in. It’d take practice to hold it for lengthy periods of time, but he didn’t want to stand out too much.
Finally he pushed the door open, walking into a close and crowded space made of old and polished wood. At the front were the normal fare of any used bookstore, but there was a little bit of magic around a section at the back, probably a glamour. It was a good thing that he’d stayed most of his life in a relatively quiet and out-of-the-way town, or else he would probably have given himself away before by wandering into an obviously restricted section.
As it was he had no trouble stepping into the back section, where the mage he had sensed was sitting in an armchair reading. He glanced at Callum but said nothing, just flipping a page. The book he was reading was titled Investigations on Portal World Resonance, which was pretty blatantly supernatural. So at least Callum was in the right place.
Unfortunately for Callum, well over half the books were fiction. Supernatural fiction. He wasn’t entirely certain why they needed to be separate from the mundane fantasy section, but maybe there was too much truth in there to allow it out in general circulation. The other half seemed to be mostly histories and political writings, which was actually fine. It was definitely stuff he should read. It just wasn’t magical instruction.
None of the books had an imprint or serial number, and every last one had a leather cover rather than anything seen on normal commercial books. The price tags all started at three figures, too, meaning that as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t afford to just get a stack. He stopped at Arcane Defenses: A Treatise On Shielding and pulled it out, flipping it open to a random page. The jargon was relatively dense and the diagram on the opposite page didn’t make any sense, but at least there was jargon and diagrams.
“The glamour won’t let you read it without paying,” the mage said in a bored tone. Callum glanced at the page again, saw nothing different, and closed it, tucking it under his arm.
“Do you by chance have anything appropriate to the beginner mage? Like someone who is about to start apprenticeship?” Callum figured that was about the complexity he was at. He really would have liked to inquire after spatial magic books specifically, but that might be giving away too much.
“You seem a little old to be an apprentice,” the mage replied, still in the bored tone of voice, but flipped his book closed and floated it to a side table. Callum caught that the magic didn’t come directly from the mage or his bubble, but from the pocket-watch the mage had in his breast pocket. Or mostly from it, at least. It didn’t last long enough for him to study in detail.
“I am,” Callum agreed. “It’s not for me.”
“Hmph.” The mage waved his hand vaguely and more vis leapt from the pocket-watch, a complicated chain that wrapped around various books at the mage’s direction. What that looked like was three tomes floating off the shelves and over to Callum, who took them with ordinary hands. He didn’t know what type or aspect that levitation spell was, if any, and it was so far different from what he did that he didn’t want to look weird by using it.
The three books were Your First Focus, Mosu’s Encyclopedia of Mage Houses, and Portal Worlds Primer. The first one seemed the most interesting, but he wasn’t going to turn down anything might give him a better insight into what was going on. Though the three together totaled over a thousand dollars, and the shielding treatise doubled that.
“Thank you,” he said, and kept looking at titles. A lot of them looked intriguing, but between the expense and simply not wanting to look too suspicious he only settled on one other, a history detailing the establishment of GAR. That was more for his own curiosity than any driving need.
The mage had gone back to reading, and when Callum took out his money clip the mage just glanced at the books and took the hundreds Callum peeled off for him without comment. And also without making an attempt to give Callum any change. Since he didn’t want to raise a fuss, Callum just thanked him again and left.
As soon as he was out of sense range of the mage Callum let out a long breath and leaned against the wall, sucking the bubble of vis back in. Now that he was out of there, his hands were almost trembling from relief. He’d been prepared with so many lies, and filled in his broken mage tattoo carefully with the right color ink, but the other mage hadn’t even cared.
Apparently, even for the supernatural, retail was boring.
Callum teleported into his motorhome as soon as he was in range, and despite a burning desire to read the books, he started the engine and left. Now that he could sense magic, and knew that there even were such things as magic book stores, it would be easier to find unrestricted knowledge. Though judging by what had been on display, nothing approaching a complete curriculum.
He wanted to get some distance from the city and start experimenting. While magic would get lost in a city more than it would in the middle of nowhere, at the same time his fumbling around trying to learn things would be obvious. A mage of his age failing to show even beginner-level magic, outside his portals and teleports, would be suspicious.
If the books had anything useful at all he could train on the go, and the next time he approached a city or another mage, he wouldn’t be as blatantly ignorant. Every interaction was a danger, but if the mage in the bookstore was anything to go by, not a major one. So long as he didn’t act suspicious, he was just another patron. So long as he paid cash and kept to his persona, he wasn’t remarkable.
Eventually he wouldn’t be able to hide anymore, but eventually was the future. In the present, he had work to do.
Chapter 10 - Frustration
Reading about a mage’s focus was equal parts enlightening and irritating. It filled in a massive gap that Callum had sort of felt with his use of magic, but hadn’t really been able to articulate. It also explained some of the things he’d heard and sensed about magic tools, like the compact he’d found or the pocket watch he’d seen.
It seemed that mages used foci to cast most of their spells rather than manipulating their vis manually. They were something between a physical tool and a computer program, though the book he read didn’t use that term, instead relying on jargon. A huge number of spells, though Callum was wary of that term, were so complex that forming them from scratch was considered a tedious waste of time. Instead, their basic structures were inscribed in a material so that the mage could simply push mana or vis through it and have a nearly complete spell pattern, needing only direction. Normally that material was a metal from one of the portal worlds, as mundane materials couldn’t hold enchantment permanently.
It sounded to him like it filled out everything but a few variables, but given that said variables were things like targets and widths, it wasn’t something that could be easily filled in by the rigid structure of a focus. Nor was he a programming expert, to be able to easily translate the concepts into any particular language, basic or advanced. Part of him wondered if there was something like a magical computer anywhere, but considering that a focus needed a physical structure for the mana, that sounded like it’d be a difficult prospect.
Unfortunately for him, the First Focus book only had a pattern for one spell. That spell was the most basic spell of any mage’s repertoire: telekinesis, which used raw mana rather than any particular aspect. It wasn’t even a generalized version of telekinesis, since the book explained that it could lift a maximum of eight pounds, and had a very limited distance. Which sounded suspiciously like a certain cantrip, and probably was the origin of it. Though he had to admit, having telekinesis on demand would be useful.
The book also gave him an insight on the vortex mana cleaner he was using. It was basically a terrible but more intense version of the mana acceptor, unable to hold mana and dissipating it into the ambient over time. His version had some severe handicaps for normal enchanting use, since it would only pull in his vis, but that was fine. If anything, he would rather have some way to disperse vis back to mana faster, but the text didn’t cover anything like that.
While the book showed the enchantment, it didn’t show the structure of the magic the enchantment would make when he added energy to it. Even so, he would lay odds the chain-looking magic he saw the mage in the bookstore use was a version of it. First Focus mentioned that most mages purchased more complex focus plates eventually, and even made their own. Exactly where they were purchased or how they were made was not covered, even though it was stated very clearly that one had to be a full mage to do anything with them. Apprentices or unlettered types such as himself need not apply.
It was rather like reading a book on what could be done with a computer, but having no computer at hand or any place to get one. Tantalizing, but out of reach. It did at least explain what the magic supplies he’d found in Winut were and what they did. The mage had made her own foci for the wards, meaning she didn’t have to pay much attention to the structure, so far as he understood. Unfortunately, he hadn’t brought that stuff with him, so he couldn’t experiment.
