Apparently getting up on time was not in the cards the next morning. Christian came to bleary wakefulness, half-unsure of his location. The quality of the light was strange. As he slowly shook off the haze of sleep, Christian realized with a jolt that the light was strange because it was much later in the day than it should be. Swearing, he sat up and stared at his clock in disbelief, willing it to not actually be two o'clock in the afternoon. His cell phone confirmed it, however. There wasn't any point in rushing around to get ready. He'd have to chalk it up as another lost day. Thankfully it was still clear outside, if blindingly bright. If nothing else he could take his time showering and getting dressed, that at least was a positive to take away from it.
Samir was sitting on the floor when Christian came back from the showers. He looked annoyed.
"Do you think you could bother to tell us when you're planning on staying inside all day?" he said as he clambered to his feet. Christian tried not to roll his eyes as he unlocked his door.
"I would happily bother to tell you things if you and Emmerich had bothered to tell me how to get a message to you especially since neither of you seems to carry a phone." Christian stripped out of his damp robe and towel and started pulling on his clean clothes. "I had other commitments last night, and apparently I needed to sleep in today." He couldn't keep the venom out of his tone. "You treat me like I'm either an idiot or a hand grenade or both. I know we've all been busy with classes and the like, but you two act like teaching me anything is just not a feasible option. Now, what did you find?"
Samir looked taken aback. He sat quietly on Rei's bed while Christian struggled into a long-sleeved t-shirt and then a sweater over that. At last, once Christian had found his glasses, he spoke.
"That is fair," he said, his tone humble. "We forget that while you are new to our world, you have power that far surpasses ours, and that you have not begun to tap it. I cannot teach you the things you need to know, my powers are not like yours, and Emmerich can only give you enough knowledge to make you truly dangerous. You will need to find a much more powerful mage to train you." It was strange to see such a large man look quite so brought to heel. Christian almost apologized, but bit his tongue. He needed to stay in this position of power for the moment.
"What did you find this weekend?" he asked instead. Samir straightened, lifting his blue eyes from the floor to take Christian's measure. After a minute, he spoke.
"I undid all the wards that I could sense in town. Your friend, he had a nice assortment, but nothing hostile about any of them, and he's a non-magic user, so I left him alone."
"He knows what you were doing, at least a rough idea of it," Christian said. Samir nodded, unsurprised. "I reassured him that you were no threat to him."
"That was kind of you. Now, the interesting things I found," and he pulled a flyer out of his pocket. Christian saw that it was one of the campus maps from the student center's information desk. Samir stood up and spread it across the top of Christian's dresser. There were different circles drawn on it in a variety of colors. "The blue circles, those are the wards your friend had set." Christian was impressed. Sean had set far more many wards than he had indicated, and all over Arcadia. "Like I said, non-hostile wards in his case. Mostly they were wards for hiding and disguising, a lot of protective ones, some of them seemed to be early warning systems set for specific individuals. Do give him my apologies for undoing a lot of work." He then tapped the green circles that were scattered around campus. "These are Emmerich's. They're power blockers, breaker switches. He sets those wherever different wiccan and pagan groups tend to gather for ceremonies. He's a bit paranoid about them accidentally doing something harmful, and deliberately tries to prevent that." Samir shook his head. "Arcadia is a thin place, but even that level of protection is excessive. Right, these red ones, I don't who set those. Female, certainly, and full of raw power. They are not standard mage lore, but a custom system. They seem to be a combination of power blockers and early alarms, but with a few elements I couldn't determine."
"They're around the library for the most part," Christian muttered. He tapped one in particular. "This is bizarre. This is exactly the spot Rei found me after my ordeal." It was heavily circled in red.
"That is bizarre. That was one of the strongest wards I had to undo." Samir frowned and looked hard at Christian. He then turned back to the map, still frowning. "We need to find out more about that ward-caster."
"Tell me about the other circles," Christian said. "There are still a mess of them."
"Oh, right. The purple ones, those are yours, mostly less effective and harmless practice ones. Wards of holding, wards of hiding, that kind of thing. You've got good instincts for ward-work." Christian murmured his thanks and let Samir continue. "The black ones. Those trouble me. They are all relatively fresh, there are a great many of them, and in a completely different ward language. I couldn't even get a sense of whether they were guardian wards or something sinister. They were hard to break as well." The two men stared at the map in silence. "There's no distinct pattern to how they are laid, not like the red ones, which most certainly were set to contain something within the library. But they are not scattered the way yours were, a genuinely random placement." Samir made an aggravated noise. "Emmerich couldn't see a pattern either. Nothing in either of our backgrounds gives us the knowledge we need."
"I wish I could say that there was something I could see, but I'm as much in the dark as you." Christian could see nothing in the black circles. "I wish I had June or Oliver here, they have good eyes for this kind of thing."
"I won't sleep easily until we know more about the red and black wards," Samir said. A sudden scraping of a key in the lock caused both of them to snap upright. Christian let himself relax. "It's just Rei."
"It is indeed," Rei said cheerfully as he came in the room. "Today is a good day, yes?"
"If you say so," Samir replied with a little smile. He suddenly seemed to remember that he had the map out, and snapped around to fold it up, but Rei had already seen it and was examining it over Christian's shoulder.
"Ugh, that is creepy," Rei said, disgusted. Christian looked up at him, curious.
"What's creepy?" Samir demanded. Rei took the map over to his desk and laid a piece of paper over it. He marked the black circles on the paper, then pulled out a marker. He traced a series of lines from circle to circle. When he was done, he looked disconcerted, but held the paper out to Samir and Christian.
"It's kanji?" Christian asked. Rei nodded. "I don't know it off the top of my head."
"Shi," Rei said, his voice chilled. "End of life." He looked anxiously at Christian. "Death."
"That's...troubling, to say the least." Samir said. "How did you piece it together?"
"The walking paths, they look like one of the strokes," Rei answered, tracing it with his finger. "It was like a missing pieces puzzle. What is this a map for?"
"Treasure hunt," Christian said evenly. "Emmerich and some of the guys from the role-playing group decided to give everyone treasure-hunting quest. Sort of like geo-caching, but with written clues instead. There were a handful of us involved."
"Ah. Well, whoever left all the things in black, that was bad taste." Rei rubbed his arms, obviously trying to warm himself. "They are taking things too serious for a game."
"Emmerich won't have realized this," Samir said, taking the map and the sheet with the kanji. "Thank you, Rei, for your help. Christian, I'll see you later." He gathered up his coat and bag and hurried out the door. Rei turned to Christian.
"I do not want to judge, Christian, but you are making strange friends."
"Rei, you have no idea whatsoever."
Emmerich ambushed Christian on the way to breakfast the next morning.
"You look awful," Emmerich said in an unhelpful way as they made their way to the South Branch dining hall. "Samir told me you slept most of the day yesterday. Too much fun over the weekend?"
"Not likely," Christian replied, stifling a yawn. "I just kind of felt like crap all day. Headachy, sore, all-around gross. It seemed to be a good idea to just sleep it off. I'm chalking it up to one of those mystery bugs that goes around the dorm. What do you want?"
"I wanted to see if you had any brainwaves about those wards Samir broke. Especially I'd like to know if you had any thoughts about the ones that were in black."
"The ones that made shi on the map?" Christian felt his hackles rise when Emmerich made a dismissive snort. "What? Can't stand it when someone sees something you miss, or is it because it was Rei?"
"Okay, they could be the start and end points for a kanji, or it could be that Rei made a wild guess that sounds plausible, like one of those scam-artist psychics." Emmerich pulled out the map and flapped it open at Christian. "Look, they could just be randomly placed. Maybe they connect the dots in some other pattern. It isn't necessarily shi, that's all I'm saying." The early morning sunlight reflected up through the map, and all the hairs on Christian's arms stood at attention. He froze, grabbing the map from Emmerich. Emmerich stopped, about to argue, until he saw what had frozen Christian in his tracks.
The early morning light blazed up through the map, illuminating both front and back. There was no mistaking it, as lines began to form between each black circle, thickening into distinct strokes. One spot in particular, on the path between South Branch and Clarke Halls, darkened faster than the others, then began to gray slightly before bursting into flame. Christian dropped the map, yelping. It was blazing away to ashes before their eyes. Emmerich tried to slap out the flames to no avail. They stood in silence, watching it crumble to dust in the icy sludge on the sidewalk.
"I owe Rei an apology," Emmerich said. "Death, is that what he said it means?"
"Yes, indeed." Christian stared as the still-smoking dust scattered in a sudden breeze. "We are in a serious business up to our necks, I think."
Sitting through classes that day was torture. Christian felt like he wasn't even actually in them, but some automaton had taken his place to write notes and answer questions. He even smiled and laughed like a normal human being, but deeper inside his mind was in turmoil. Whoever had cast the death wards, as he had taken to calling them, had done the job so thoroughly that they still carried power even after their breaking. If they had actually broken, he mused. Samir had said they had been very difficult to break, and he wasn't even sure what sort of wards they were. What if their purpose was to destroy after they had been meddled with by another magic-user? Samir might be in danger, but so might any magic-user in the vicinity. What if it was more far-reaching than that? It could be a mage who sought to bring those dark things into this world, to rend it apart. Had they played into his or her hands? He felt a growing rage at his continuing absence of knowledge. He was beginning to get the impression that Emmerich couldn't actually teach him anything, either by lack of permission or lack of actual skill. It was ridiculous that his most helpful tutor was a man that had next to no magical skill. If he hadn't been sitting in class, Christian might have flipped the desk over or blasted out the windows with magefire.
He decided. Someone had set very good wards around the library. That would be where he would go as soon as he was done in class. There was something in or around the library that needed to be held in check, and he wanted to find it. Maybe he'd get some answers then. As soon as the bell rang, Christian grabbed up his bag and half-ran from the classroom, deaf to Sebastian calling out his name.
Christian took the steps up to the library entrance two at a time, then yanked open the door a little harder than appropriate, gauging by the looks other students gave him. His stomach dropped once inside the main lobby. The entirety of the library was cordoned off just past the front desk. The young woman working there looked at him with scorn.
"What book do you need?" she asked in exasperation. Christian blinked at her, confused. She made a noise of pure aggravation. "We're closed to students and faculty. If you need a book, please tell me so I can send someone after it or I can tell you if it's been checked out already."
"I don't know what I need. I was just going to find a quiet place to study. What happened?" Christian shifted his bag more comfortably over his shoulder, very aware of the stabbing pains in his calves. The front desk girl looked even more peeved.
"You'll have to find a different place to study. Try the student union. And what happened is none of your business, actually." She turned away, shoulders squared in defiance. Christian let out a disappointed sigh and turned to leave. The afternoon sun caught in the glittering shards by the baseboards. He stooped to look. It was broken glass, and quite a lot of it. It looked like broken light bulbs. He glanced up at the pendant lamps. Sure enough, they had bright new bulbs in them. A few were still dark, red "x"s drawn on them. The young lady at the front desk cleared her throat. He turned to look at her. She waved him over.
"Okay, Sherlock, you win. All the lights blew Friday night. Some of them even broke the fixtures. They're being replaced and repaired, but it could be another week before we're open."
"What caused it?" Christian asked in a low voice. She shrugged. "Weird."
"I know! It's so freaky! I mean, we all know the library is haunted, but this is a new one!" She was relishing her role as a source of information, and she leaned in to talk in a conspiratorial whisper. "Books being moved, weird noises at night, some of us have even seen moving shadows and that kind of thing, but never this." She pointed at the lights. "Three people quit over it."
"That is so weird," Christian said carefully, trying to sound only casually interested. "Another week before you're open?"
"Oh, yeah." She seemed a little disappointed now. "Sorry, I thought you might be into ghosts and stuff. Um, yeah. Just keep checking back." She gave him one last forlorn look and turned back to her homework as he went back outside.
The sun was at that awkward angle in the afternoon sky, where it blinded those unfortunate enough to be headed facing into it. Christian blinked miserably, eyes watering. He carefully made his way down the stairs and turned toward the student union. He froze suddenly, chilled and sweating all at once. He tried to lift his foot to take another step, and couldn't. Pain shot through him, and he felt like he might faint. Just as suddenly, the pain faded, and he could move again. Dizzy, he dropped to his knees. As his vision came back into focus, he saw a scattering of bright red dots on the sidewalk between his hands, belatedly realizing they were drops of blood and they were coming from him. He gingerly touched his nose. It was bleeding with some volume. He sat there on his knees, waiting for the world to stop spinning. He couldn't be exactly sure, but he thought this might be the exact spot where he had started dying. It had been warded, for what purpose still wasn't clear. Christian started digging in his coat pocket for a tissue.
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