Chp 11

Jackson came out of the ritual in a daze. Staying awake for seven days affects the body and psyche despite the magic supporting him. The mages around him stood and rubbed at their backs. He looked around, not sure what he was supposed to do next. The ritual was the only thing he had prepared for, and Jackson didn't know what to do now that it was over.

His mother's voice helped to blow away the fog in his mind, "Jackson? How are you feeling?" Bloodshot eyes greeted him when the room stopped swimming. He smiled at her.

"Hey, ma. Look, I have magic now!" with a lot more effort than he thought it would take, he pulled at the pulsing light inside him. A part of him was happy it responded but the little bit of control he thought he held over it was swept away in a rush.

He held out his hand out palm up, trying to conjure the sphere he was picturing. On the last day of the ritual, the pain stopped, but his senses didn't return. Alone but for himself and his newfound magic, he tried playing with it and getting a bit of control. Inside that void, manipulating it was simple and easy. Out here in the real world?

The sweat soaking his skin ran in rivets up to his upheld hand. He watched in fascination as it formed a wavering sphere the size of his palm. The candle lights around him flickered in the reflection. Around him, the room began to twist, and his water fell apart as he tipped forward. For days the magic had sustained his muscles and his mind. At some point, he forgot he was fighting to stand and now his body was demanding repayment for the work.

His mother's face was there before he hit the ground. She peered into his eyes and was relieved to see her son was back, though completely spent. "Idiot. Trying to use your mana after exhausting your body? What would you fuel it with, fool boy?"

The guard by the door let out an explosive sigh, "Yeah, I would have done the same, though. I mean, if I could awaken now, of course, I would use my magic first thing!"

Serabelle ignored him and most of the mages shuffled out of the room, shaking their heads. One or two might have been smiling at the sight of the fearsome Valkyrie holding her baby boy. The image contrasted so greatly with the idea of the woman who would "regulate" the local mage chapter.

Soon only the guards and the guild healer were left in the room. The healer suggested they move to the healing room and lay Jackson down to recuperate. The guards lifted the unconscious man rather unceremoniously by the armpits and Serabelle held back a snap at seeing Jackson drug out like a drunkard.

Serabelle was torn. The mother in her wanted to stay by his side until he woke up, but the reason he was so exhausted was the mages guild. She idled outside of the healing room, her outfit drawing the attention of many parties in the guildhall. Her two silver adventuring students, Able and Leanne, walked up to her. Serabelle smoothed her face, but she knew her voice would betray her feelings.

"Teacher Serabelle, how did Jackson do?" Leanne asked cautiously, feeling that something was off.

Serabelle moderated her response, these two deserved to know about Jackson as they were growing close due to their similar training. "Jackson is well. He is resting as the numbskull tried to cast his magic immediately upon coming out of the ritual. Yes, he is an Awakened Adventurer. He-"

At Able's joyous shout, she cut off and grabbed the man's face. Tactful? Perhaps not, but there were too many unknowns. Who else was targeting her family? What information did they have access to?

While she allowed the mages who were in the room to leave, she placed tracking wards on them and was monitoring where they went. One did not go to the mage chapter, and she was paying close attention to his location in her mind so that she could see where he spent his time before reporting to his superiors as required.

She was drawing more attention from others in the Guild, but it was better than letting everyone get free information on her family. Serabelle removed her hand and whispered, "Please, follow me, and I will explain some things. I hope that I can trust the two of you?"

The two nodded vigorously and ran to keep up with her fast stride. Able was a tall redhead who joined the Guild in the northern city, Klend. He moved here with an adventuring group on a mission to keep bandits from a river barge. Unfortunately, his party split even before they made it to the bandits. Inner-party relationships often have messy endings. Able's party found their friend's corpse guarding an empty wagon while they had one such spat. The bandits using their distraction to steal away and murder Able's friend without a single alarm sounding after them. He left that party as soon as they arrived.

Luckily, he ran into Leann who was a Hamblin local. She was a fellow newbie and had yet to find a party that could use her mediocre air magic. Her dark blue tunic did little to draw attention to the rather plain woman. Nothing about her seemed to stand out from the crowds; Able literally ran her over upon entering the guild. The two hit it off well after that and learned ways to coordinate their magic. Their combination magics made many people believe they were married. Serabelle was proud of how far the two came and held high hopes for them.

An obscuration ward sealed off Jackson's bed, but Serabelle waved it away and brought them in. Faint scars showed on his chest where he tore gouges in his skin. While those wounds disappeared, the magic did nothing to hide the aftereffects of starving oneself of food and sleep for days on end. When the two silver adventurers saw him, they gasped. Leann rushed to the side of the bed and took his hand.

Serabelle glanced at Able, wondering if he might be jealous of her attention, but he looked just as worried though held himself back. She smiled at that. While Jackson didn't seem to have any romantic feelings for Leann, a mother could dream. One of her wards pinged her consciousness, and she closed the curtains around Jackson's bed and set up new wards around them.

With a mental flex and a snap of her fingers, she pulled out the map of the city she commissioned from the mage's charter. Using the towers spaced around the walls of Hamblin made triangulating his position easy. Serabelle got Able's attention with a snap. He drew around to her side, and she pointed at a rune hovering in the northern quarter of the city.

"Jackson's ritual was partly interrupted by several mages casting what I suspect was a magic blocker on his soul. If he had failed the awakening process, the ritual might have killed him without his unawakened magic to fuel his body to the end of the process. A weaker man would be on a death bed now," the words came out quickly and her tone was unwavering. She had been so relieved to see him move after the ritual was over. The last day he just stood there despite assurances from the mages that the ritual was running. And he cast water magic immediately! A grand sign if she ever saw one. Now to clean up the mess around her city.

She already dealt with her rage, and now cool flames fed her anger. "This is where one of the mages went to upon completion of the ritual. I will send you a compass spell to find the place and watch it for me. Try not to be seen but figure out who is there. I will catch up with you when my husband arrives."

Able's grey eyes were flint as he studied the map and accepted a rune script on his hand. Leann spoke up, "And what will you have me do? Shall I hunt down the others?" Serabelle knew she meant well but the

Sera watched her for a long moment, "Leann, I would ask that you retrieve my family and bring them here. Have you met Autumn? The Sproutling? If he is around, find him as well."

Able asked a few clarifying questions, but Serabelle made it simple: "This is not only my family but my responsibility to deal with the mage charter within the city. I will stop by their headquarters before finding you. Do not engage any mages unless in self-defense. They are mine."

The two left after giving Jackson a last look. Serabelle knew Antel would have already noticed that the ward she left on his arm was activating. They would not be alive today without having specific protocols to protect themselves. The family would be holed up inside the house together with weapons near at hand.

The only worry she had was for her husband taking things too far in his one paranoia. A man unused to simple concerns like money and purpose always overdid when their habits were set askew.

* * * * *

Daryl's life went from canoeing a creek to trying to ride a tornado. His father had set the other apprentices out of the smithy for the month, and he was creating custom models for Autumn. Each was a masterpiece in its own right. The lack of magic did not take away from the beauty of the sword's form and function. It was physically painful to melt them down when Father inevitably shook his head and began anew.

Autumn visited from time to time and picked up various test iterations and went through a martial arts form that was unfamiliar to Daryl. It was beautiful, like a snake's natural grace as it watches its prey. A sense of danger tempered his appreciation for Autumn's skill. As though when Autumn held a sword, he might strike at any time with no regard to whom was in his way.

That said, Autumn began as Daryl, accepting every model and proclaiming it good. His father explained the various properties of each blade, and soon Autumn was nodding along. Quickly most of the models were set aside as Autumn swung them or struck the training dummy out back in the walled yard.

Daryl was beginning to think it would never end as he watched Father forge another version only minutes after setting down another completed masterwork. This one was using ice-iron for the base and an alloy of venersteel for the blade's edges. He thought they were getting close as the last five models used the same materials, just slightly different alloys or a number of quenches in the oil bath.

A loud twang echoed off the anvil, and his father dropped his hammer on the floor. In the six years he spent in the smithy with his father, his father never dropped his hammer like this.

"Father?" When he didn't respond, he came around his father's side and put a hand on his shoulder. "Father? Are you okay?"

The giant man was rubbing at his arm, and Daryl wondered if he somehow struck himself.

"Put out the forge. Cold. Do not rush it but be quick about it, boy. Lock up and meet me at the house when you arrive, knock three times, two times, and three times. Tell me what I told you," Father's voice was stern as when he worked with an apprentice who was hearing but failing to follow his commands. His eyes looked at Daryl, but Antel was looking at something from a great distance.

Daryl stumbled through what his father commanded. His father repeated himself, and Daryl recited it even as he began to put away the tools. He closed off the forge to the air to stifle the flames before his father was satisfied and left the smithy in a hurry.

As always, when his father left the forge, everything inside seemed to lose its luster. Metals that sparkled in the mage lights would be duller; the soot stains hiding would grow more confident and stretch their shadows along the walls. Whether magic or his father's presence, Daryl wasn't sure but he believed that he would learn that trick.

If for nothing else, then hearing the metals talk to him like they seemed to speak to his old man.

Daryl stood alone shoveling coals out of the forge and only his breathing and the scrape of the shovel. Blacksmithing is always a craft, a path he wanted to walk on, right up until he stood in the smithy without his father standing there to brighten the way.

He activated the wards using the keystone that his mother gave him before walking the short distance between the house and the smithy. Knocking on his own home was weird, but he knew his father wouldn't do it without reason. After the last thump fell on the thick wood, he wondered if anyone was on the other side. Just as he began to lift his fist up, the door swung open, and his father dragged him roughly out of the afternoon sun.

The door slammed, and Daryl saw his sister's face and the two other kids watching from a doorway in the hallway. His father was eyeing him up and down with a frown.

"What weapon do you know best?" he asked.

Daryl shook his head, "Weapon? I mostly end up making swords for the guard? What's this all about? Is your arm hurt?"

His father glanced at his arm, confused, "My arm? I am unhurt. No, what weapon do you want to wield? I never asked you to train, but I assume you have a preference."

Daryl thought back to his time under his tutors and quickly chose "Waraxe."

His father grunted satisfaction and walked down the hallway to the room he shared with Mother. A moment later, he emerged with a waraxe he handed to Daryl without preamble. Daryl looked at his father, but the large man was already using a keystone around the door, checking the wards? What is going on?

Uneasily, he hefted the weapon designed to cleave limb from the flesh. While average humans could wield a waraxe with two hands or one in a pinch, this one was made for a man of his Father's build. Daryl hefted it and guessed that while it was more weight and length than what he was used to, the weapon might suit him better in the long run than its smaller cousins.

He knew his father's body language well after many hours of studying it. Antel was focused on the signals from his keystone and had other things on his mind; trying to talk would force him to start over. Instead of bothering him, Daryl focused on the ax in his hand. The blade was made with a blue-silver alloy. It is probably a saurian ore by the natural ridges that formed along the edges that would tear wounds upon exiting. The ridges were slight but his apprenticeship was not for show, and examining the ax under the mage lights, he noticed them almost immediately.

That's why it was so shocking when he realized the swirling pattern flowing down the blade was actually moving in response to how he held it. What he took for etching to make the weapon seem more valuable was magic that would divert his swings into the maximum potential forward. While he was no expert in enchantment magic, this particular device would take the user's latent energy to drive blows through thick monster hides and scales. He'd only seen this before because an adventurer was hunting griffins and wyverns in the mountains. His father had them promise to repay him by coming back alive and giving him a portion of their proceeds to include griffins' talons.

They didn't return from that hunt, and Daryl didn't think they ran from repayment.

The reason for the expensiveness of this enchantment was that any non-awakened could use the weapon. Only those awakened to their magic would wield them properly, but those without would hit harder than their compatriots.

His father moved to the kitchen and began muttering as he played with something in the air, using the keystone to change unseen magics.

A hum rolled over the house before fading into the wood. Finally, his father relaxed and sat at the table. Only then did Daryl see the massive two-handed sword lying by the backdoor. "Daryl, your mother alerted me to a potential threat to our family. Until she sends word, we will stay here and protect the kids. I suspect their parents will be back later today but we will not allow them to enter. If they want to leave, I do not see any reason to hold them.

"I can only assume something happened during your brother's awakening, a dangerous time for him."

"He was attacked?" Daryl's voice did not crack. The high pitch drew an eyebrow raise. Coughing back some manliness into his voice, he whispered, "Jackson was attacked?"

"I do not know. I fear this was the case, though your mother only signaled danger and careful. The wards for your brother are intact," Father explained slowly. Father's massive arms were covered in scars from battle against creature and metal alike. He traced a scar in the symbol for J on his arm. Amongst the hundreds of little cuts, this one was unremarkable, and Daryl overlooked it hundreds of times. He wondered how many more of the scars were wards his mother hid on his body.

"What do we do? Should we not be taking refuge in the Guild and protecting Jackson then?" he couldn't imagine that Father would sit idly. Especially while his family was still in danger.

"In this case, we stay."

"But Jackson is out there with Mom! What if they are hurt and need-"

"Silence," Father's voice interrupted. It wasn't the booming of the word that stopped his words in his throat as it was said no louder than his normal speaking volume. His father seemed to take up more of the room suddenly and was a much larger figure in the chair across from him. As if he sat in front of an angry giant barely holding itself in check instead of Father.

For a brief second, he saw a monster hiding behind his father's gaze. Arron's face flashed through his mind again, and he knew his old friend never stood a chance if this was his opponent.

"Listen carefully. Your mother and I have contingencies set up for some possibilities. While none of them are perfect, they rely on her and I knowing what we expect of the other. Right now, she expects me to watch over our family. You and Syndra are my topmost priority. This frees her up to focus on protecting Jackson while taking steps to return to us or clear us of danger.

"Normally, I would not be telling you this until you came of age according to your mother's wishes. Here though, you are a man. Wield that waraxe until the threat to our family is over. How many days have they been gone?"

Daryl didn't have to think about it, "They have been gone for nearly 6 days, Father. They should finish tomorrow."

Father humphed and sat for a minute in thought. Then he spoke with his smithing voice, and the whole house felt it, "Daughter, come here and bring your friends."

Faintly, Daryl heard Syndra's voice shout something back. A minute later and the three-man troop stood in front of Father. Daryl smiled as two of the figures seemed to be using Syndra's more petite frame as a shield. As if the younger girl could protect them from the giant.

"Yes, Father?" she asked. Daryl smiled as he watched Syndra absently roll a marble of clay in one hand. He knew her obsession with it would lead to a strong affinity in earth magics. His parents were hopeful for her natural awakening to it.

"For the next while, we will not be leaving the house. You know your brother is in an important ritual and for us to help him, we must not answer the door. Do you understand?"

"No," Syndra said. "Is Jackson hurt?" Daryl winced. He knew she was quick, but it always caught him off-guard when she saw through people beating around the bush.

Father wasn't expecting that response and took one of his usual thoughtful silences before speaking. "Your brother is okay. Your mother sent word to stay indoors for a while. Your brother Daryl is quite worried about Jackson, though. Could you help your brother Daryl? He needs somebody to watch him." Daryl thought Father looked like an owl-all puffed up at his cleverness.

Syndra seemed to consider this before giving him a brilliant smile, "Daryl, can I play with my friends in your room, or do you want to play here in the kitchen?"

Neither Daryl nor Antel saw the worry in her eyes. She was tempted to call them on their bluff, but it wasn't likely to lead her to more information. The smart choice would be to go along with it and learn what they had to say when they thought her distracted. The weapons they carried with them all night were significant tells that something big was going on.