Book 2, Chapter 79

Monarch was smaller in real life than I’d assumed from the scrying spell. It was only after I saw her in person for the first time that I realized that she was barely taller than my sister. Admittedly, Senica had hit a growth spurt in the last year, but even I came up to Monarch’s chest.

She was utterly dwarfed by the throne she sat on. Whoever it had been built for must have been a large person, and Monarch appeared to be nothing more than a child perched on it. For all of that, I didn’t doubt that she was the most powerful mage I’d met in the last few years. Even from across the room, I could feel the mana rolling off of her.

Part of that was the number of enchantments hanging from the jewelry and clothing she wore. The torque around her neck was alive with mana, practically buzzing. Three different rings on her fingers were enchanted in some way, though I couldn’t tell what they did from so far away. There was a scepter laid across her lap, and though I couldn’t see it from this angle, she also had some small length of metal strapped to the inside of her arm.

That wasn’t even including the throne itself. An immense amount of mana was stored inside it, far more than my staff contained. It was well-hidden too, shrouded so thickly that I could only sense the barest outline of it. That would have been a concern if not for the fact that while the mana was hidden, the channels it was constrained to pass through were not. That mana had a very specific purpose, and the throne was not a flexible tool. I could expect one or two tricks from it and nothing else.

“And so you arrive,” she said, not at all perturbed by my abrupt entrance. “Eager and foolish. I know your weakness, you see.”

As she spoke, she sent a spike of mana down into the throne. A hidden trap shimmered into existence around the room, one that I recognized instantly. It was a teleportation lock, most commonly used to hinder a mage’s magical movements and prevent escape. I wasn’t planning on running, so that wasn’t a problem.

No, the problem was that it also obstructed access to phantom spaces, which meant I’d need to fight through the magic to reach the bulk of my mana reserves. Until I broke the ward surrounding us or fled beyond its reach, I’d have the mana in my staff and not much else to rely on.

Lucky me, I’d decided to bust down the doors just in case I did need a quick exit. But when I glanced over my shoulder, I saw a stronger version of my bar passage spell snaking its way across the open doorway. It would be easier to use phantasmal step to pass through the walls than to force the magic barring that open door, but it seemed Monarch’s trap was well-constructed. No doubt the walls would be impermeable as well.

I was sure she thought this move gave her an advantage, but all it really did was cut off a retreat I didn’t need and force me to prioritize regaining access to my phantom space over killing her. I was content to let her brag while I studied the magic emanating from her throne.

“My weakness?” I prompted.

“You have the knowledge and the skill to wield mighty magics far beyond me,” she said, her tone teasing. “But you lack the mana. I’m sure you’ve got more than it feels like—ancestors only know how you keep it hidden—but I doubt you’ll be able to defeat me in the four or five spells you can draw from that mana crystal in your staff.”

I kept my face smooth and resisted the urge to laugh. Monarch knew on an intellectual level that I had plenty of tricks up my sleeve, but she didn’t comprehend the scales that I worked on. It made sense, in a way. Mana crystals were entirely different things than storage crystals, and growing them to prodigious sizes took a great deal of skill. The ones I’d seen here were pitiful things, not even a tenth the size of the one I’d made using a three-year-old’s core.

I’d disabuse her of that particular misconception soon enough. On the off chance that I was the one underestimating her, however, I held off on attacking and engaged with her. There was no point in wasting the chance to dig into her defenses if she was just going to hand it to me. I was confident that whatever she was trying to find out about me wouldn’t help her.

“I hope that’s not your whole plan. Trapping me in a box using yourself as bait has a serious drawback in that you’re stuck in the box with me.”

“I’m confident I can parry every attack you care to try until you run out of mana,” she said. “By now, I’m sure you’ve examined the spells keeping you here and realized that there’s no way you can break free while fighting me.”

I wouldn’t exactly say that, but I could admit that it would be significantly more difficult to do so. Once again, the problem there was that she assumed I couldn’t beat her with just the mana in my staff. Even if for some reason I couldn’t, I was confident I’d correctly identified the spatial trap’s weak point and could collapse the whole spell with about a minute’s effort, less if Monarch kept talking.

I started walking to the left, one hand trailing across the wall and the other holding my staff. Though I wasn’t maintaining eye contact with Monarch, I had three scrying spells viewing the room from different angles and in different spectrums. I’d know the instant she made her move.

“I think that perhaps you are being overconfident,” I said. “I’ll admit that I’m a bit curious what stories you’ve heard about me. From what I can tell, I’ve been largely lost to the passage of time as a new age rose and fell, leaving the world shattered. I can’t imagine many societies were able to adapt to the sudden loss of mana.

“You have to understand, in my day, it was as plentiful as the air you breathe. Civilization was rooted in its use. It was in literally every single facet of our lives. People regularly ignited their cores and became mages through no effort of their own. It was always the skills that separated a true mage from a bumbling sorcerer. Even some of them figured out enough on their own to match the magic I’ve seen from your cabal.”

There it was. I sent a tendril of mana into the wall through my fingers and paused as though lost in thought. “I should apologize for taunting you with a world so out of your reach. It’ll be a few decades before I can repair the damage that idiot apprentice of mine did, and you’ll be long gone by then. I’m being cruel telling you about a world you’ll never get to experience.”

Monarch’s face turned ugly, and she lifted up the scepter laying across her lap. It was quite distinctive, and I’d pegged its purpose the moment I’d seen it. It was known as a scepter of the elements, a versatile tool commonly used by mages who struggled with conjurations. The runes inside it sparked with mana as Monarch activated the scepter, and a lash of flames arced out across the room at me.

There was nothing to use as cover. Other than the dais Monarch’s throne had been built on, the floor was flat and devoid of furniture. Those granted an audience with Monarch would stand, apparently. Without even a line of pillars to shield me, the only way to hide from the fire would have been to move behind Monarch’s throne, and that looked like it’d be a tight fit. There couldn’t have been a foot of space between the throne and the back wall.

I grabbed one of the doors I’d broken down with telekinesis and flung it across the room to intercept the fire. Flames splashed off the stone ineffectually, and I willed the door to surge forward and strike Monarch. It got within a foot of her, then deflected sharply to the side and smashed into the floor. I saw the shield ward flare for just an instant, extremely efficient without sacrificing any of its power.

That would have been bad enough, but the throne reacted at the same time. It was linked to the artifact, ensuring that Monarch’s wards would never run out of mana before her opponent’s did. That could be a problem, depending on how well-designed they were.

Another flame lash curled through the air to splash harmlessly against my own shield ward. Small condolences, the scepter didn’t appear to be linked to her throne as well. She didn’t have unlimited mana for offense.

I had to admit, it was a spectacular defense, worthy of a ruler back in my day. I hadn’t expected Monarch to be quite so well insulated from harm, but it certainly explained her confidence. She believed she’d starve me out, that I’d run out of mana long before I found a way to hurt her.

“Foolish overconfidence,” I muttered. “Amateurs playing with toys they don’t understand.”

“What was that?” she sneered. “If anyone is overconfident here, it’s you.”

“Bold words, but you don’t sound like you believe them.”

Transmutation was one of the slowest disciplines—powerful, but rarely used in battle. Even at my level, that truth held up. There were a few spells that had been adapted to combat, but it wasn’t  often that they were the best options. The transmutation magic I’d used to defend the village, turning the enemy mage’s heart to stone, was one such occasion.

This was another.

Mana poured through me and into the ground. I didn’t bother to hide it, and I sensed more than saw the sneer fall off Monarch’s face as she realized just how much mana I was using. She struck out at me again, this time with slicing blades of pure air. Those were actually easier for my shield ward to deflect, and I ignored them.

The mana built on itself with each second that went by. The spell was quick for a transmutation, but compared to the instantly castable conjurations I typically used, it was glacially slow. That was alright. Monarch might have a nigh-impenetrable defense, but her offense was sorely lacking. It had been her mistake to think she’d trap me here and simply wear me down.

Still, it was a shame about all the mana I was about to waste. I could have done great things with the repository hidden in that throne. It made the storage crystal I’d taken from Tetrin seem like pocket change in comparison to a vast fortune.

“What are you doing?” Monarch demanded as she rotated through each element with her scepter, all of them failing to break through my shield ward.

“Changing the rules,” I said.

The spell reached a crescendo, so strong that the room fairly vibrated with it. I gave Monarch a tight, mean, little smile, then released the master tier spell I’d built up over the last ten seconds. A deafening crack split the air, so loud that my amulet registered it as an attack and muted the sound.

Then the ground tore itself open, revealing a dark abyss of nothingness below us, so deep that I couldn’t see the bottom. It was many, many times wider than the chamber Monarch had tried to trap me in, so wide that it reached out toward the edges of the Old Grounds, and so deep that it rivaled the underground lake a few miles away.

Monarch and her throne fell away into that darkness, her scream of anger and denial lost amidst the cracking and grinding of the earth as it folded in on itself to give room to the abyssal maw I’d transmuted into existence.