Chapter 73 Command: Negation

  Seventeen glowing spell sigils hung in the air all around the greenhouse just off the main path to the Thronsen Manor in the Thronsen Estate. Jala smiled to herself as she gave them all one last look over. She walked over to the door and grabbed the handle without any hesitation whatsoever. Alexander gasped and reached for her but it was too late. Sir Solomon’s eyes went wide. The marquess and his wife looked like they were trying to blend into the grass. Isaac and Lenna just watched as if they already knew what the outcome would be. Organized chaos exploded entirely inside the confines of the greenhouse.

  A Reality Wall attempted to form but was redirected from, what was supposed to be a Reality Bubble, to form a wall entirely across one side of the walkway. A ball of concentrated airborne poison attempted to form but its location was sent to the inside of the now walled off section of the greenhouse. A Reality Bind was redirected from her to a poison dart frog that was relaxing on the side of one of the poisonous small trees. Two Disintegrate spells intersected each other in mid air over the walkway in such perfect fashion that not even the dust stirred. A few mental magic attacks were redirected at various other dart frogs, one of which ended up exploding from the mental pressure while the rest just succumbed to illusions or mind control of one kind or another. The first alarm that was supposed to sound out was muffled as its sound was constrained to a singular point of origin instead of an entire area and that point of origin was inside one of the larger pots that had a very stout bush growing in it. The second alarm had its sound changed to a soft melody that Lenna instantly recognized as the undertone of the sword dance that she had taught Isaac. The next alarm added another instrument and the fourth added the final piece necessary for even Isaac to recognize it. Lenna had hummed it a few times as they had done the dance and had learned to play it on the violin before they had left Safeharbor. Another Reality Wall and poison cloud attempted to lock Jala down but they were also redirected in the same manner as the first set. A signal attempted to be sent downwards into the mage’s tower but was instead sent back to itself which caused the rune to pop like a small but powerful electrical discharge.

  Jala started humming along to the music as she danced through the greenhouse towards the entrance to the Court Mage’s tower. She ran her hand along one of the Reality Walls that had been redirected to ensure her safe passage to the entrance. She smiled with nothing but pure smugness and self satisfaction plastered across her face. She had somehow managed to break through all of the security measures at the same time in less than twenty minutes when the ‘genius’ wizard had quoted the job as taking hours.

  “Sir Solomon, what are you going to do?” Lenna asked her fellow paladin as Isaac took a step towards her aunt and the now cracked open greenhouse.

  “We will need to join you. The marquess and marchioness are flight risks and if the Court Mage wakes from her coma it will most likely not end well for me.” Sir Solomon replied.

  Lenna nodded and then followed after her husband. Alexander hurried in after her and Sir Solomon gestured for the nobles to get up and follow the other Court Mage inside. His eyes widened in surprise as the three prisoners were not given the option of capitulating. Instead, all three of the prisoners were lifted an inch off the ground and pulled inside as if they were being abducted by a shadow monster from a horror story. The nobles obviously protested with cries of fright and curses of surprise, but none of that was new, even so, they had kept their volume down as if they were trying to keep from offending the two legged monsters that had upended their entire world.

  “Excellent work, Jala. It was truly a treat.” Isaac praised her. “The music was a nice touch.”

  Jala’s self satisfied smile only brightened even further. “I know.” She agreed and then started walking in circles around the trap door that wasn’t even hidden in the slightest. “Now, this is more of a chore than a fun distraction.” She began. “It is very much like the boy’s tower. It is simple yet all encompassing and utterly overwhelming. It lacks all finesse and was clearly designed by someone who lost their love of magic.” She continued. “Let me explain it in a way that my niece would understand.” She tapped her chin in thought for a moment. “It is the difference between a sword cast into a mold versus one forged from an ingot. You can feel the difference in the spirit of the object. A molded blade just lacks the character of a forged one.”

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  “And in order to get into the tower, you must separate the iron, carbon, manganese, and silicon, either into separate piles or destroy them all together.” Isaac continued with her analogy. “In the molded blade the components are uniformly distributed to a degree that makes the process simple but takes all of the variety and fun out of it.”

  Jala brightened again. “Your chemical understanding always surprises me, nephew.” She told him.

  “I think that is the best compliment you could possibly receive.” Lenna explained to her husband honestly. “Not about your understanding but the fact that she called you ‘nephew’. She has biological nephews that have never been called that.”

  Isaac smirked. “I am afraid that it might take a while before I am ready to call you ‘auntie’ Jala.” He replied. “But I will take the compliment in the spirit that it was given. Now, as far as the tower goes, is this something that Alexander and/or myself can help you with?”

  Jala eyed Isaac up and down for a moment. “How all encompassing is your perception blocking application of shadows?” She asked him.

  “It requires my engagement ring if I want to be truly invisible, but even then, some beings can feel where I am based on where what is supposed to be there isn’t.” Isaac explained.

  “Have you tried just using more shadows?” She continued questioning him.

  “Not quite, but my shadows have become more dense as I’ve gotten stronger.” He replied. “What do you have in mind?”

  “From what I can tell, there is a focal point, an object that serves as a foundation to the entire security system and its individual arrays.” Jala began.

  “That has been confirmed, yes, with the potential for sub systems to be done entirely independent of it, depending on how hands on the previous Court Mage’s who ran the tower were.” Isaac filled in what she had missed.

  “If you could get your hands on it for me, I might be able to either send a false intruder alert and trigger all of the traps at once or give it whatever command is supposed to allow outsiders safe entry.” Jala explained. “If that is not possible, even by you, then we will be forced to dismantle everything by hand.”

  Isaac nodded in understanding as his brows furrowed in thought. “I need a continuous stretch of shadows in order to enter.” He told her. “I can feel where the shadows cut off, there is something sealing the tower off so completely that there is absolutely no space between any two… wait, that’s not actually possible.” Isaac cut himself off and knelt down next to the trapdoor.

  Jala smiled down at him as if she was looking proudly at her own child learning something new on his own. “There are very few absolutes in this world.” Jala told him. “The limits of mana and magic are not among them.”

  Isaac forced his perception and focus down into the shadows that ran along the edges of the trapdoor. He went down until he hit the frame that kept the door from falling inwards. He ran under the door and then… nothing. He didn’t feel anything. Isaac’s brows furrowed with focus as he doubled the amount of power he was burning to send out his perception. He felt something waver for a moment and then sent even more mana through the path his perception had taken. He got a fuzzy image of a dimly lit but very large open room before everything was ripped away.

  Isaac gasped for air as his perception and focus was forcefully thrown back into himself as all of his exterior mana, save for what flowed to Shamesh who was also with them, was thrown into a different frequency of magic. Shamesh reappeared right next to him with his hand on Isaac’s shoulder.

  Jala looked down at Shamesh. “You should remove this so I can preserve my mana.” She told him.

  Shamesh nodded and rose to his feet. The mana stored inside him, inside his silhouette of a core, surged as he raised his hand with his fingers ready to snap.

  Lenna’s arm shot out to keep Sir Solomon from Shamesh as he instinctively took a step towards him while his hand shot for his sword. He stopped and glanced between Alexander, Lenna, Isaac, and the two strange newcomers. “I will stay my blade.” He assured Lenna and forced himself to relax. “But I will need an explanation after all of this is done.”

  Lenna locked eyes with him and subtly shook her head with eyes that spoke of worry for his safety and a warning to watch himself. It was not the fact that he needed an explanation but the way that he had said it that caused Lenna to worry. No one knew better than she how Isaac reacted to being ordered around. If anyone should be worshiping Sovereignty, she would think that it would be Isaac.

  Shamesh snapped his fingers. “Command: Negation.” He ordered and the Anti-Magic Field that had formed around them popped like a soap bubble. Some often spoke of the Dispelling or Countering magic as if it was a hammer that shattered every other spell like it was glass but that was not the proper truth of it. Some people, like Isaac, could actually shatter spells from the outside with nothing but overwhelming power in similar fashion to using a hammer to crush glass, but most others needed a more mana efficient means. Command: Negation was a spell that worked like how someone could hit a piece of crystal with something harder, but not necessarily larger, and it would shatter. It was like an icepick shattering a frozen lake instead of a bolder crushing through it. Shamesh had learned both versions from Shamsha and it was a good thing too. When it came to countering an Anti-Magic Field it required both more power and a perfectly concentrated effort in just the right place, a place that the dispel was naturally drawn to. Shamesh, even in his sort of incomplete state, was still based off of a grand master wizard and a simple Anti-Magic Field would do little more than slow him down. He did wish that his master would learn how to get rid of them but maybe that was something out of his master’s reach. Only time would tell.