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Ch.10

I lay there gazing at the ceiling as I awoke from yet another unpleasant dream, fortunately this one did not have me ablaze with fury, instead all that greeted me was the pain from the previous day's spar. That and the whirling nausea from Aether sickness that made my stomach churn like an overzealous brat trying to make butter for the first time. My hands shook with muscle fatigue as I tried to wipe away the morning's drowsiness, a knock at the door caused me to sit up as one of the maids entered into the room with a trolley cover with a silver dome.

“Breakfast, young master” she spoke with a sweet sensuous tone that a man could get lost in, but I could only weakly nod. She uncovered a steaming pile of freshly cooked sausages that normally would have been a rare treat in the village, along with a bowl of boiled oats with cream, butter, and fresh cut fruits. It twas a decadent treat that had me drooling, my first instinct was to reach out for one of those strange black colored fruits. Though the skin was black the tender flesh was a deep purple, the taste was like a very sweet blackberry with the slightest hit of tartness. I could easily grow used to such foreign and delicious foods, so far removed from my life as a commoner.

“How are you feeling today Zamiel” a deep smooth voice called out to me from the doorway, causing me to turn my head towards Alexander who today was dressed in a simple cranberry colored tunic and black waistcoat with a pair of black trousers and the same knee high riding boots.

“Like I got ran over by a team of oxen” I grumbled while sliding my legs over to the edge of the bed and sat up with only a small amount of pain induced tremors.

“I see” he muttered, “I pushed you a bit too hard yesterday, you have my apologies. Fortunately I have business to attend to so you will have the rest of the day to yourself, might I suggest the library on the second floor of the right wing of the fortress” Alexander replied jovially as he strolled out conjuring a dapper hat and gentleman's cane out of lord knows where.

The library wasn't a bad idea I could certainly make use of the place if there were any more advanced books on magic, or even a few on how in the hell my powers worked. With that decided I had Olivia guide me once more through the polygonal maze that was now my home, frankly I was sure I'd never stop being lost in this place unless I began to map the damn thing out.

The library it's self was equally as daunting as the rest of this place, there were dozens upon dozens of book cases with dozens of shelves each. I stared dumbfounded while trying to imagine the cost of such a vast collection of books, with out any form of printing everything had to be written down and copied by scribes, not to mention the cost of making paper and the expensive glues for making bindings. Seated at a desk was a gray-white furred bipedal goat with curled black horns and chest length beard snoring ever so loudly, I turned to look at Olivia with a questioning stare.

“Master Talaxix” Olivia barked with a firm sultry tone causing the weathered old goat to raise his head searching the room for the source of annoyance before settling back and continuing to snore heavily. “Wake up you old goat” she barked slamming her hands onto the desk causing him to jump to attention.

“I'm awake, I'm awake” the old goat grumbled as he took proper stock of the pair standing before him “oh, it's just you Olivia, who's the brat” he yawned before receiving a powerful slap that left his head leaning at an odd angle.

“You are in the presence of Zamiel Draconis, grandson and current heir of his Lordship Alexander Draconis, now behave your self” Olivia huffed placing her hands on her deliciously wide hips.

“Ah, my apologies young master” he grumbled sarcastically before receiving a withering glare from the head maid that made the old goat rub his head self consciously. “I am Master Talaxix, Arch magus, historical chronicler and caretaker of his Lordship's tomes, now what may I do for you young master” the old goat spoke with an apologetic tone.

“I'm looking for intermediate books on the prime elements and any beginning primers on the other elements, also anything on the Demon Lords would be of use to me Master Tralaxix” I said with a slight bow of my head towards the old goat causing him to quirk a thick bushy brow at me.

“A young mage in the making, polite as well, usually you noble scions are all impetuous and rude, very well, though you'll probably come to regret the second request” the old goat spoke with a gravely chuckle. With a thump of his staff a spatial gate tore open next to him and he reached in to pull out some fairly normal sized books followed by several dozen impossibly large tomes. “Salazar's primer on space and time, a bit dry but informative, Pyromaneous the Great's intermediate elemental primer and treatise on the art of burnination, fucking mad genius at compounding and melding elemental spells. Ishtar's love, live and light, preachy but probably the best healer to ever live, and finally Zargothrax's diary of a mad sorcerer, also a mad bastard, wiped out a little kingdom named Dundee with an army of undead unicorns” he chipperly described the titles to me with a smile.

“I'll just take the books on magic” I said nervously looking at the dozens of books, each as thick as a side of beef and wide as a wagon wheel, to which the old goat nodded knowingly and cast the tomes back through the spatial rift with a dismissive chuckle.

Finding a quiet place I sat down and stared at the first book...it was on fire and laughing manically, “fucking mad genius indeed” I muttered before opening the book to the first page and began reading. Skimming through the chapters with lovely names like how to burn down the house, how to burninate, the problem with water and why it would be better if it was on fire. Seriously this guy was fucking nuts, still as I combed through the pages I couldn't help but become enthralled by his absurd and often hilarious experiments, who melds a regeneration construct to a fire construct and anchors it to their soul to make themselves nigh immortal. I had to wonder if this was truly considered intermediate, still his treatise on melding fire with water and a number of spell modifiers that would other wise not work with fire helped me to understand how to meld non traditional elements.

My day continued on with Salzars' space and time, it was a plain black book with very dry and droll lectures on the nature of space and the presence of time being relative and resultant to the presence of space it's self. He also went on at length about how space can exist both in a visible state and a virtual state not visible to the human eye. I frequently found my self nodding off during long winded segments, but was able to come away with a few basic spells to warp the space around my self and how to create small temporal fluctuations that only affect the caster or their intended target. I quickly discovered that the applications of time magic were negligible with out a firm grasp of the complex theories that Salazar had written about and an absurd amount of raw Aether.

My next endeavor was Ishtar, that was an unpleasant read at best, half of the book was spent ranting about how my race was evil and deserved to be exterminated down to the very last child. Her understanding of the inner workings of magic was comical at worst and spiritual at best, still with all of my other knowledge I was able to rip a few light and healing spells from her bitching. I hope one day I meet one of her descendants so I can blast them in the face with one of Pyromaneous's epic spells.

That only left the book that just screamed, “hello good sir, I am an evil necromancer who cuts peoples faces off to make book covers”, at least I think that was a human face twisted in agony and turned into leather. After flipping over the cover I was greeted by the screams of hundreds of trapped souls who's faces writhed under the sheet of paper. Reflexively I slammed the book shut, only to open the book and slam it shut once more as there was now an undead sorcerer blasting the trapped souls in the face with bolts of necromantic lightning. “Perhaps I'll read this another time” I said aloud as I scooped up the books and returned them to the crotchety old arch mage who was lazily snoring away.

I walked away with a burgeoning bag of new magic tricks and a satisfied smile, with one hand rolling around a ball of freezing cold liquid fire and a perfect sphere of molten glass in the other. The problem was I had plenty of new ways to maim and murder my enemies but no enemies to use them on. I cackled madly as I pictured raining burning lightning down atop my foes, “Pyromaneous must have affected me more than I thought” I muttered pushing away the insane delusions of absurdity. “perhaps I'm due for a spot of lunch” I thought before releasing my spells and sought out the nearest maid.