Book 2, Chapter 35

Teleporting multiple people was harder than teleporting one person, but not by much. The easiest way to do it was to inscribe a runic construct commonly referred to as a teleportation circle, though it was more accurate to call it a modifier that changed how spells with individual targets worked. Instead of affecting just myself, the magic would grab hold of everybody in the circle.

There was an increased mana cost, of course, but it was more like a tenth more mana for each person. I estimated that I could safely teleport nine people using my staff to cut out the transference inefficiencies of drawing from my mana crystal. That would include only the possessions they could carry on them. Teleporting something like a wagon was a whole different issue.

The best part of an inscription circle was that I could carve it, then let someone else power it. By someone else, I meant my father, though I would still have to help a little unless he’d gotten hold of a personal storage crystal and hadn’t told me. Even then, the capacity on the ones I’d made for the village was limited enough that it wouldn’t make up all the difference.

I spent a few minutes with the scrying mirror checking on my family. Father was working in the fields as if it were just another day. Senica was talking to some of her friends at school, a bit teary-eyed but refusing to answer their questions. This was going to be hardest on her. Unlike our parents, she wasn’t isolated and looked down on. If not for the concerns about the village being attacked again, I would have rethought my desire to pull my family out of here.

Mother was the hardest to find, mostly because I wasn’t interested in checking inside the huts and it wasn’t until she walked out of one a few streets over that I spotted her. I recognized the woman who followed her out as one of my distant relatives, my great aunt, I thought. We hadn’t talked much with my mother’s family in the years since I’d been born, and according to my mother, well before that. They hadn’t been happy with her decision to marry Father and had shunned her since before Senica’s birth.

Father had been an only child born late in his parents’ lives and both of my paternal grandparents had died before my birth. My grandfather had gotten sick and succumbed to his illness when Father was a boy, and my grandmother had passed on years later. Father hadn’t been specific as to why and I hadn’t wanted to press since it seemed like a sensitive topic.

What that meant for me was that, functionally, I had no extended relations, at least none that Gravin had met before I’d reawakened. I knew Mother had a sister, but not who she was or if I had any cousins. If there was ever a time to meet my extended family, this was it, but Mother walked away alone while her aunt scowled after her.

The conversation must not have gone well. I wondered how many times Mother had gotten the same reaction when she’d tried to visit her family over the years. She didn’t strike me as the kind of person who gave up on her family, no matter what the problems were. If she was, I had no doubt my own relationship with her would have been substantially more strained. I wasn’t exactly an easy child to have.

It was time to begin my own part in this operation. I stashed every personal possession my family owned in my phantom space, which filled up most of the remaining space. If we actually did manage to convince anyone to come with us, I was going to be leaving behind all of the furniture to make room.

Then I started inscribing the runes on the floor with magic. It was actually cheaper than usual, since I was able to use elemental manipulation on the hard-packed earth directly instead of the more expensive stone shape spell I did most of my rune work with. It took me about fifteen minutes to draw the full circle and twice my maximum mana, but I saved myself hours of painstaking work and the mana I’d have to force through my body to keep my hands steady through the whole process.

Mother returned home first. She stopped in the doorway, surprised, and looked around. “Where is our bed? And our table?”

“I’ve got them stored,” I told her. To demonstrate, I pulled one of our chairs back out, then made it vanish again. ““It’s called a phantom space.”

“That’s useful,” Mother said.

“You could learn to make one too,” I told her. “Actually, that’s something I wanted to talk to you about. I know you didn’t want to do the training to ignite your core earlier, but I was hoping you’d reconsider. If it’s just going to be you and Father keeping your new ward stone, you should have as much mana as possible available.”

“About that… It was supposed to be a surprise, but I’ve been practicing my mana control. Your father’s been helping me out. I’m sure I don’t meet your standards, but I’m getting better.”

“Oh?” I wondered what had brought about the change of heart. Mother already knew how much easier life was with an ignited core, but she hadn’t wanted to learn the techniques necessary to ignite hers before.

“Your father talked me into it,” she said. “Let me show you.”

And then she did, going through every single exercise I’d taught Father. She didn’t do them all perfectly, but she’d obviously been working hard, because she was better than any of the four students I’d been training up before my exile. We could ignite her core right now and get results comparable to Father’s, maybe slightly better.

“The way I see it, you’ve got two choices. You’re ready for an ignition ritual today, and with me helping you, I think you’ll come close to a perfect ignition. Close, but not quite perfect. Otherwise, I’ll help you learn the last few things you’re missing and, in a few weeks, you’ll be at your peak.”

“What’s the difference?” Mother said. “I remember you talking about this, but the exact numbers escape me.”

“Father increased his mana generation by about sixteen times, but if we hadn’t been so pressed for time, we could have gotten that up to twenty. There are some ways to help repair some of the flaws, but he will never quite achieve a perfect stage one core.”

“He knows, but he thinks it was worth it to save Nermet’s life.”

It wasn’t a choice I would have made, which was why I’d left it up to Father. If it had been just me, I would have given Nermet a merciful execution to release him from Noctra’s mental subjugation spell and the physical and mental torment that came with it. Father was a better person than I was. We’ve managed to save Nermet at great cost, and I hadn’t seen him again since then.

“Let’s wait until we’re sure I can do it right,” Mother said.

I gave her an approving nod and changed the topic. “Are you ready to start digging up the garden?”

“I suppose we should get started,” she said. “Are those going into your… what did you call it… Your phantom spot?”

“Phantom space, and no. Living things don’t do well in there, not even for a few minutes. We’ll need to pick everything that’s ripe, then dig up everything left and carry it with us.”

“And… that will work? You’re sure?”

“As sure as I am about anything else.”

“I guess we’d better get to work if we’re going to clear the whole garden out in a few hours.”

* * *

It took less than half an hour of us working before Malra made her appearance. “What are you doing? If you pick all that now, it’ll go bad before you can eat it.”

“We’re leaving, Malra,” Mother said. “And taking everything we can with us.”

“Oh my. That’s a shame. You have such a lovely garden, too. I’ll be quite sad to see it in rough shape.”

I suspected it was more like Malra would be upset that she couldn’t pick through it herself, though she undoubtedly thought she’d be entitled to the still-ripening fruits and vegetables we’d be leaving behind. Unfortunately for her, I wasn’t planning on sacrificing a single scrap of food. That decision might have been motivated more by pettiness than practicality, but that didn’t make it any less valid.

“Where will you go?” Malra asked.

“Somewhere far away,” Mother said. She, more than anyone, knew better than to feed our gossipy old neighbor any information.

After another few minutes of trying to pry details out of us, Malra gave up in a huff and headed back into her own hut. I caught Mother smirking for just a moment while she picked a pepper off the vine, but when she raised her head, the smile was gone. I must have imagined it.

* * *

Keeping Senica from messing up the runes carved in the dirt was a chore, but we managed it by taking her for a walk around the village. Well, Mother managed it. I stayed at home to keep an eye on all of the food we’d picked. The village didn’t have a lot in the way of preservation techniques, mostly because it didn’t need them. The weather was stable year-round and the food was grown more with mana than it was with good soil.

For all that, it was an impressive haul, and I didn’t trust someone like Malra not to make off with a bit of it if she thought she could get away with it.

Father arrived home with the rest of the family, followed by Ayaka. That wasn’t a surprise to me; I knew she was friends with my parents and she’d taken an interest in having her core ignited prior to my exile. What was surprising was having Shel and Talik walk in with her.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were leaving like this,” Shel said.

“I didn’t think you’d be interested in going, not with all the years you’ve invested in the arbor.”

“Oh no, I’m not,” she agreed. “But I would like to say goodbye. Talik, on the other hand…”

“Erm, yes,” he said. “If it’s alright with you. I was told the spot you found is rather lush, and I’d like the chance to work with it and see what can be made of the trees there.

I studied him for a second. “You ignited your core,” I said.

“I did. Shel helped me.”

“I see. How’d it go?”

“Thirteen times increase,” he said. He even sounded proud about that number. I supposed I couldn’t fault him for not waiting for me to return. It wasn’t like they’d known for sure that I ever would.

Both Ayaka and Talik had rucksacks full of what I assumed were their worldly possessions. That made six people, including myself, who’d need to carry the still living plants from our garden to transplant. We could make it work, as long as I took all the nonliving luggage into my phantom space.

“Alright, if this is everyone then,” I said. I directed the organization, got everyone into position and loaded down, and had both Father and Talik pour everything they had in their mana core into the inscription circle I’d made.

“The runes won’t last long written in just dirt,” I told Shel, “but I’d appreciate if you erased them when we’re gone anyway.”

“I can do that,” she agreed.

We made our farewells, and I started casting the spell. Normally, a teleportation took five minutes to set up, but with the additional complications introduced by the runic circle and the heightened mana cost, this one took eight. The whole while, my family and students just kind of shuffled in place and whispered to each other in low voices.

Somewhere around minute six, I sensed the mana of a person standing outside our window. No doubt it was our neighbor spying on us again, and I wished Shel all the luck in the world dealing with the old woman.

Then the spell went off, we vanished from the village of Alkerist, and at approximately two hours to sundown, set foot in our new home for the first time.