186. A Magic Circle

Mana whined, building to a fever pitch. The magic circle glowed ferociously, on the verge of erupting. Bright blue light seared out from the ground, eclipsing the black-robed mages in its brilliance.

“Is there nothing we can do?” Ike asked.

Shopkeep crossed his arms. He shook his head. “I lack the kind of weaponry that could disrupt such a spell. A truly well-developed city should have externally-pointed grand formations of the sort that can bombard attackers like this. Once upon a time, I had them. But during the era of the puppets, Lord Nors cannibalized all of them in order to continue to feed himself… and all of us. Llewyn’s obviously been watching me for some time, and he knows this. Now that I’m no longer looping the space in on itself, he can openly attack the barrier, and I have no recourse.”

“No recourse…” Ike furrowed his brows. He shook his head. “That’s not right. Didn’t you just say it?”

“Just say what?” Shopkeep asked.

“A way to fight back against this giant spell of theirs,” Ike said, grinning.

“I’m a Shopkeep, not a strategist. You’ll have to be clearer,” Shopkeep requested.

Ike leaned in. “It’s like this…”

Down below, the blue light grew brighter than the sun. Mana beat out of the spell like the heat on a furious summer day. Ike breathed it in, not afraid to steal their spell’s mana. The shimmering surface of the barrier glittered before his face, as ephemeral as a soap bubble. It felt as though he could reach out and pop it with his finger, let alone something as powerful as the spell the black-robed mages were brewing. He swallowed, tense despite himself. He’d never really seen a barrier in action. He understood conceptually what they were supposed to do—block enemy attacks and prevent monsters from invading. But aside from watching Lord Brightbriar’s barrier run off those weird black-robed monsters, way back before he’d left the city, he didn’t really have any image of them in action.

He frowned. Those black monsters… what the hell were they? They chased me when I was carrying the Salamander’s tail back home, when I had to run on the top of the wall. I ended up fooling them by shooting a blast of mana in the opposite direction, but I don’t know what those monsters were. I never beat them. I just threw off a decoy and ran. He peered at the mages below. They kind of reminded him of the black-robed mages, but the mages were just men and women wearing black. Those monsters had been anti-magic, or something. All his mana had simply deflected off of them. Maybe they were using lunam, but even then… He shook his head. He didn’t understand it.

It's probably something to do with the puppets, but why is it only there, at my original city? What is Lord Brightbriar doing there that would create antimagic monsters, that he isn’t dong anywhere else?

His mind went to Rosamund. A complete person, who didn’t have to be powered by anyone else. Someone with memories and a personality. He hadn’t seen that out of any other puppet yet. If there was something different about her, maybe there was something different about the way he’d created her. Something that created unusual byproducts.

He shook his head. Or maybe those monsters were just unique to the area around Lord Brightbriar’s city. It was a strange area, after all. The Abyss was there, and there were more hunters in the area than anything he’d seen on this side.

He looked back. Toward the mountain, and his home city hidden on the other side. None of the cities he’d encountered had been close to the size of his home city. Save the king’s enormous city in the distance, which he still hadn’t been to, the other cities on this side of the mountain were more towns than cities, compared to his home.

I wonder if the king knows how big Lord Brightbriar’s city has grown. I wonder if he knows how much of a threat the man really is to him. He pressed his lips together, then shrugged. There wasn’t much he could do about it now. Maybe if he got to the king’s city, maybe if he managed to get a talk with the king… but that’s not likely. It wasn’t like these small towns. It would be like his home, where he couldn’t dream of encountering Lord Brightbriar.

Not that I’d want to. No… wait. He actually did kind of want to meet Lord Brightriar. If only so he could ask him about… well, everything. The puppets. Rosamund. His goals. He was still having to assume that Lord Brightbriar wanted to dominate the region. And sure, why not? Who didn’t want to be king of the world? But he didn’t know for sure. It was still a mystery, technically. Maybe the man had some other reason. It wouldn’t change Ike’s mind, but he’d be interested to hear it.

The spell below burned bright. He couldn’t even see Llewyn anymore. He cut a glance at Shopkeep, suddenly nervous. Could he pull this off? By the man’s own admission, he was a merchant, not a warrior. Even Lord Nors, the more warlike part of Shopkeep, hadn’t been the best fighter. Under pressure, he’d panicked and broken himself into a thousand tiny bits in a futile attempt to bring his city back to life. Could he do this? And if he couldn’t, would the barrier hold?

He swallowed. There was only one way to find out.

TZAM!

Blue light flew toward them as the giant spell activated. Ike leaned forward, like a sprinter. If everything went well, he’d have to be on the other side of the barrier the second the spell finished.

Beside him, Wisp dropped as well. The both of them tensed, preparing for the best.

Shopkeep stepped forward. His brows knitted in concentration, focused on the incoming blue light. He threw his hands out as if to grab it, then throw it back.

Space warped in front of them. The blue light whirled toward the barrier. For just a moment, it contacted the barrier—and then in the next, it flew back toward the mages, completely turned the opposite way.

Ike cheered silently. It worked! Since Shopkeep could freely manipulate space within his city, he’d asked him how far he could extend that control. “Only to the barrier,” had been Shopkeep’s answer. Shopkeep had been ready to give up, but not Ike. “Pull the barrier in a little bit. Give yourself a foot or so to work with. Then, when the spell comes in, spin it around and fire it back at the mages.”

And just like he’d said, it had worked.

Beside him, Wisp leaped off the wall and down at the scattered, injured mages. Ike followed suit. He grinned. It’s time to strike back!