The Empire of Zeth/Chapter 13

Evy awoke in her chambers with a pounding headache. Her vision spun as she tried to rub the sleepiness from her eyes. Sitting up with a groan, Evy blinked rapidly and looked around the room. Master Garath sat at the small table nearby going over reports. Seeing her sit up, he set down the sheet of paper he has been going over and folded his arms across his chest.

"That was some stunt you pulled." Evy opened her mouth to argue, but Master Garath raised his hand and cut her off. "Don't worry my dear, I'm not mad... I know better than to question your magical skill. This all worked better than I'd expected anyways." Pausing, he picked up the sheet of paper he'd been reading. "Word of what you did in the marketplace is spreading like wildfire. I couldn't have planned this better myself."

Evy swallowed, her eyes narrowing. "Master.. you didn't... actually plan any of that.. did you?" Master Garath looked up from reading with a start. "Of course not! I would never orchestrate anything that would put our people in danger. You don't really think I'd do something like that, do you Evy?"

Master Garath caught Evy's gaze and held it. After a moment she looked away. "No, I'm sorry master... you'd never do that. It's just, I had to wonder, heh..." Master Garath shook his head. "Being the king of the spies makes people think such bad things of you!" he said with mock offense. Evy only rolled her eyes at him and hopped out of bed. "What time is it?" she asked with a yawn.

"Ummm... early afternoon I believe. Maybe two hours past." said Master Garath. "Eeep! I'm gonna be late for my lessons!" Evy said, hurrying to gather her things. "Erm, are you sure you're up to it Evy?" Master Garath asked worriedly. "I feel fine, I just overextended a tiny bit before! But I'm really fine, look!" Evy grabbed her rapier and did a quick pattern dance with it, her blade flowing swiftly through the practice exercises. She ended it with a standing back flip, then grinned at her master and bowed.

"Showoff!" he teased her. Evy stuck out her tongue at him and sheathed her rapier. "Alright, just don't push yourself too hard. You won't get any better if you keep passing out all the time!" Evy ran over and hugged her master around the waist tightly, then released him. "I'll do better, I promise!" Still grinning, she waved to him before vanishing in a cloud of black smoke. Shaking his head, Master Garath gathered up his reports and left to go back to his office.

...

High Priest Emery inspected the polished golden disc on the altar in the Cathedral of Light. Muttering to himself, he renewed a few of the spells placed onto the disc that has begone to fade. Only a few feet behind him, black fire collected and expanded. When it coalesced, Evy appeared.

"Hi, Emery!~ I'm here for my lessons!~" Evy exclaimed a bit too loudly. High Priest Emery nearly levitated in shock. So focused on examining the disc was he that he didn't notice Evy's arrival. He spun around, clutching his chest with one hand as his heart raced. "D-Don't do that!!" he scolded her.

"Erm... Do what?" Evy cocked her head, confused. "S-Sneak up on me, of course! You nearly gave me a heart attack!" Evy's eyes went wide. "O-Oh... I'm s-sorry! I didn't mean to scare you..." Emery's back arched, clearly offended. "I-I wasn't scared! If you must know, I was repairing the spells on the altar disc and you.. broke my concentration!"

Evy covered her mouth with one hand, trying to hide a smile as Emery glared at her. "Why can't you just use the city's teleportation network like everyone else?" he grumbled.

"Eh? Well because..." Evy started counting off points on her fingers one at a time. "Shadow-step uses less of my power... shadow magic is separate from my other magic so I don't waste power that can be used for other stuff... I can do it from anywhere and not just the network ley line entrances... it's instantaneous with no delays at all..."

Emery held up a hand. "Fine, fine - you've made your point. Next time though please materialize outside and come through the doors like a normal person..." Evy giggled. "S-Sure, Emery. I will" He looked at her sceptically, wondering if she really would do as he asked. With an internal sigh, he decided to change tactics. "I heard what you did in the marketplace. That was very dangerous." He folded his arms and waited for her to say something.

Evy looked at her boots. "I... I was careful... I put up wards first..." she mumbled. Emery sighed out loud this time. "In all my readings about creation magic, what you did shouldn't even have been possible... But after, erm..." He paused, thinking about what they saw her do during the fight against the Unmakers the mind probe. "A-After seeings what you can do first hand, I guess it doesn't surprise me.." he finished, then kicked himself - that didn't hold up..!

Evy's dark skin paled. "H-How did you know that was creation magic?" she said in a timid voice. "I had a talk with the young army healer who escorted you back home after you passed out." Emery said. "I ordered him not to speak of what you said to him... very sloppy of you to talk about that sort of thing in public. I'd expect more from a member of the Order of the Devout Hand..."

Evy blushed and hid behind her bands, mentally kicking herself. That was very sloppy of her... she had been overtired and let things slip she shouldn't have. That wouldn't happen again! "S-Sorry! I was overtired... it won't happen again."

Emery was glad she hadn't noticed his pause and weak explanation - he was always over-wary around intelligence agents. They had a way of noticing the tiny things everyone else missed, after all... Shaking his head, he addressed Evy. "Very well, make sure that it doesn't. Now, enough time has been wasted. It's time to start your lessons."

Evy's gaze left her boots and she looked up excitedly. "Okay!~ What do we do first, Emery?" she asked with a wide smile. High Priest Emery scowled at the impish girl. "First of all, if you're going to be my student then stop calling me by my first name - it's disrespectful!"

Evy's smile faded and she looked at him seriously. "O-Of course, high priest. I apologize. Umm... what should I call you?" Emery drummed his fingers on his crossed forearm. "The traditional title would be 'master'." Evy blinked. "Alright, err, master." she said, thinking it felt weird to call anyone other than Master Garath by that title...

"Very good. Now, I need to get a better sense of your level of skill before we begin, so let's start with a few basics... I know I don't have to explain to you how holy magic works, so let's just get right to it. First, call some light over the altar."

Evy nodded, concentrating. She let her power flow out and manipulated it with her mind. A dozen or more multi-colored light balls around the size of Evy's fist appeared over the altar and hovered there in a lazy dance, weaving around each other. Finished, she looked at High Priest Emery who was scrutinizing the light orbs.

"Very pretty Evy... but, is this even spellcasting? I mean... the orbs are made of holy magic, but not any kind I've ever seen before... where did it come from?" Evy giggled. "Uh, sorry. I guess maybe that was cheating, but you only said to call light and I just did it that way without thinking." Emery crossed his arms. "So what is this then?" he said, nodding to the light orbs with genuine curiosity.

Evy snapped her fingers and the orbs vanished. "Umm, it's something all drow can do... even before we got our powers, I'm told. It's very dark underground after all." she shrugged. "I don't really know how it works, it's just... I don't know.. I know how to do it, even though I was never taught how. Even babies can do it."

"I see... so some sort of instinctual magic inherent to your species? I have heard of such things..." he shook his head, returning to the matter at hand. "But, that's not important right now. I'm trying to asses your level of talent with holy magic here, Evy. Are you able to cast a holy light spell normally?"

"O-Of course I can, master!" she said, and gestured at the altar. A single orb of pure white light many times larger than her smaller dancing lights appeared over the altar, blazing like a small sun. High Priest Emery shielded his eyes. "Uh, very good. You may unsummon it now." Evy snapped her fingers again and the large light orb vanished.

High Priest Emery tried to blink the light spots from his eyes. "Very good, Evy." His mind scrambled, trying to decide what to do next. It'd been over 30 years since he taught a student, let alone one already as advanced as Evy. "I think we can skip some steps..." After thinking for a bit longer, he continued. "Let's try something more advanced. I assume you know how to create an arrow ward?" Evy nodded. "Mmm-hmm! Should I make one now.. master?"

"Go ahead, erm.. student." Evy concentrated and one by one silvery hexagonal shields with circular runes on them formed around her, until she was concealed inside an unbroken bubble made up of many smaller wards. High Priest Emery blinked - a single successful arrow ward took a great deal of skill and concentration, and Evy had just cast the spell several dozen times to create that complete bubble shield.

"Very good... that's quite a technique - I'm not sure I've ever heard of stacking the spell like that. Evy grinned and dropped the wards. "Do you like it? I came up with it myself!~" Emery shook his head. "It's very... creative. Usually we just make the one ward bigger when needed, though." he said. Evy grinned. "Well my way you're completely protected!" Evy twirled around inside her bubble giggling, then snapped her fingers and made it vanish.

High Priest Emery cleared his throat. "Aright... I think that's enough. You're more than qualified to learn how to detect and remove sleeper marks. Follow me, please." With that he spun on his heels and walked off down a side corridor, leaving Evy jogging to catch up.

... (NOTE: Not finished yet.)

Chapter 14: UNNAMED

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