Rogue Arcanist (Nick Teller Book 1)

  Rogue Arcanist

  Nick Teller, Book One

  Alan Brenik

  First published in 2018 by Brenik Books

  www.alanbrenik.com

  ISBN 978-1-9996400-1-9

  Copyright © Alan Brenik, 2018

  Cover design by James T. Egan of Bookfly Design LLC

  The right of Alan Brenik to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, organisations and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organisations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Paperback ISBN 978-1-9996400-0-2

  In memory of Shelly.

  You are missed.

  Chapter One

  Not my best work, I thought, staring at the metal dragonfly as it rose unsteadily from my desk. I could feel the arcane energy thrumming through the glyphs I’d etched along its body and glass wings. I leaned in, elbows propped on my desk, chin resting on laced hands; the dragonfly bobbed from side to side as if drunk.

  My mobile rang, buzzing against the wood of my desk. I faltered and the dragonfly veered off, hurtling through a stack of unmarked assignments and scattering them in a cloud of paper. I whipped my senses out and brushed its deactivation glyph, sighing as the dragonfly clattered to the floor of my office, scraping to a stop.

  I snatched up my mobile just as it started to blare Hendrix’s ‘All Along the Watchtower’, answering it with a swipe of my thumb.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘You better not still be at the university,’ said Ana, half out of breath, the sounds of London traffic loud in the background. Of all the staff at King’s College, Ana had been the only one stubborn enough to befriend me.

  I smiled, resting my neck on the back of my worn leather chair. ‘I know, I know. It’s Christmas break; I should go home.’

  The rain that had been plaguing London for two days hadn’t let up, and the glass-panelled roof and walls of my office were vibrating with the thunder of it. Lightning flashed beyond the rain-patterned glass, streaking through the evening sky and revealing the Thames. I closed my eyes. There were definite benefits to having a rooftop office, even if it was a glorified shed.

  ‘Home?’ There was a warning in Ana’s voice that made me sit up. ‘You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?’

  ‘Forgot w—’ then it hit me. ‘Oh, date, date. I remember. I’m leaving right now.’

  Ana sighed theatrically. ‘Honestly, Teller. If you’re late meeting Kelly, I swear—’ the sound of a car horn blasted over the line. ‘Eugh... just don’t be late, okay?’

  I was already scrabbling out of my chair, hastily gathering up the scattered assignments from the floor. ‘Don’t worry, I’m on my way. Honest. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah.’

  ‘Bright and early. And Nick,’ said Ana, a smile in her voice.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Remember to just relax. Be yourself. Have fun.’

  ‘Have fun,’ I parroted back. ‘Sure.’

  ‘See you tomorrow.’ She hung up.

  I slipped my phone into my jeans pocket, the reality of going on a date with one of Ana’s friends – a stranger – squirming to life in the pit of my stomach. I’d put it off a handful of times already, but my well of excuses had finally run dry.

  ‘Come on, Teller,’ I whispered to myself, ‘it’s one date. You can do this.’

  I left the unmarked assignments in an untidy pile on my desk and shoved my dragonfly construct into the top drawer. I switched off my desk lamp and all but ran from my office onto the stretch of flat roof leading back to the university proper. I hunched my shoulders against the rain and jogged to the maintenance door leading inside.

  I stepped into the stairwell and froze, gooseflesh sweeping my arms and neck – a heartbeat of paralysis as my senses brushed against rising tendrils of arcane energy, and then I was moving, taking the stairs four at a time and keeping a loose grip on the railing, knees jolting on impact.

  I almost tripped on the last flight, stumbling against the railing as I hit the ground floor – just hard enough to make me pause.

  What the hell am I doing?

  I knew the natural currents of arcane energy flowing through the campus like the back of my hand, but what I’d sensed wasn’t at all familiar and that meant only one thing: danger.

  I slicked a thin sheen of rainwater from my face and dried my palm on my jeans. My mother had spent my childhood tuning my fight-or-flight response firmly towards fight, and no matter how much I’d tried to temper that in the years since, my first instinct was still violence. But she’d also taught me that the mind should be swifter than instinct. Action without thought was how arcanists ended up dead.

  I stood straight, breathed out, and took stock. The stairs had opened onto a wide corridor. A series of lecture rooms trailed off to my right; halfway down the corridor to my left, facing the foyer leading out of King’s Building, stood the doors to the Great Hall. The faint smell of disinfectant tickled my nostrils, the floor patterned in mop strokes where the cleaners had already passed by. I didn’t need to guess which direction to take. The air was taut with power, grating against my senses – and it was coming from the Great Hall.

  I had a better sense of that energy, too. It was strong, with an undercurrent of otherness that reminded me of takeaway grease and the sharp-slick aftertaste of vomit.

  It’s a gateway, I thought, just a gateway. But the lie wouldn’t take; I knew the feeling of a spell being worked – a ritual, judging by the amount of power I could sense – and this was undoubtedly structured, guided. It had to be the work of another arcanist, and that felt infinitely worse than some chance gateway to Elsewhere springing up.

  Fingers of ice feathered down my spine. I looked to find my hands trembling. That familiar fear lurking just beneath my skin was stirring, the fear that my perfect, anonymous life was about to come crashing down around me. Hell, part of the reason I’d chosen to become a lecturer at King’s College was because it was as far removed from my previous life as I could get. I was positive there were no other arcanists among the staff or students, so whoever was gearing up the ritual was an unknown quantity – and that fact alone had me itching to run.

  I balled my fists and took another step. I’d be damned if I ran from the life I’d built without even knowing what I was running from. I’d been living as Nicholas Teller for nine years – my entire adult life – and I wasn’t ready to abandon that, not yet.

  I kept walking towards the Great Hall, ignoring how cold and alien the university suddenly felt. A quiet part of me whispered to turn back, that whatever was happening ahead didn’t concern me, but I wasn’t about to mistake cowardice for caution.

  But with another arcanist up ahead, my future was looking a few shades darker than bleak. I knew there were only two possibilities: the mystery arcanist was either a vassal of the Society or they were a rogue like me. I didn’t know which scared me more.

  I’d been raised on stories about the ruthless efficiency of the Society and their Blackcloaks. I’d even crossed paths with some of those sword-wieldin
g zealots once; it wasn’t an experience I was keen to repeat. And any rogues who survived outside the Society’s control were often as skilled as they were unscrupulous – practised at evading Blackcloaks and prone to flouting the Society’s mandates. Either way, it didn’t bode well for me.

  I swallowed a lump in my throat and placed each foot forward heel to toe. I couldn’t hear anything except the distant patter of falling rain and, beneath that, those half-heard, phantom sounds that haunt all empty buildings after hours. I eased my mobile out of my jeans and switched it to silent before slipping it back into my pocket.

  The arcane energy clouding the air thickened with each step, an invisible friction nettling the skin of my hands and face. It was hard not to imagine it clinging to my skin and clothes. I brushed my hair back over one ear, feeling as though my fingers belonged to somebody else.

  I’d been as deadly as a sword edge once, but in that moment I felt as blunt as a butter knife.

  I paused to the side of the Great Hall. It had two sets of doors directly across from the foyer entrance, and the faint glow of electric light was staining the floor before them. I knew the cleaners turned the lights off when they left around six, and it had been just after seven-thirty when I put my phone on silent. It wasn’t them, then. And it couldn’t have been Charlie, the campus security guard, either. He wasn’t due on shift for another half hour.

  I leaned over to the right-hand doors closest to me and pressed my ear to the wood. Nothing, at first. The only signs of activity were the light within the hall and the ritual’s building momentum.

  Then I heard it, muffled by the door but still just audible over the drumbeat of my heart: a voice. Young, and male – a student? After a few strained moments, I picked out the words please and don’t repeated every few breaths as if on a loop.

  My first thought was to storm through the doors and bring my power to bear against whoever was responsible. I’d felt weak and at the mercy of those stronger than me before, and the white-hot need to step forward and help shocked me with its intensity. But quick on its heels was fear, an arctic terror that burrowed into my bones and stole the breath from my lungs.

  Arcanists are among the most dangerous people on the planet, and rogues some of the worst. I needed to know more if I was going to open that door, before I let whatever was on the other side infect the life I’d built. I screwed my eyes shut, forcefully bringing my thoughts to heel. A well-trained arcanist’s mental control borders on the inhuman, and I’d been practising ever since I could remember. My breathing steadied almost immediately.

  I unleashed my second sight and colour flooded my vision: a matrix of light, scarlet and silver and green, each shade a current of power concentrated beyond the doors in the centre of the hall. I could still remember how overwhelming that flood of sensory information had been the first time I used my third eye, the energies infusing reality suddenly made visible. I’d been awed, terrified, utterly convinced of my own insignificance, and then I’d passed out. It had taken years of meticulous practice to use my second sight without running a high risk of brain damage, and even then the danger was only mitigated. But it allowed me to get a better sense of the ritual in the Great Hall, and it allowed me to see the sinuous threads of black light marbling its energy.

  The hairs on my neck and cheeks rose, a shiver unfolding in my chest. The ritual was nearing completion. I closed my third eye with an effort of will, the world around me spinning for a split second as my vision readjusted; I pressed my thumb and forefinger into the corners of my eyes as I marshalled my thoughts.

  I had to decide, do I walk away and let whatever happens unfold or do I get involved? I knew what my mother would have counselled: leave, run, and kill anything that follows. But my mother wasn’t built for polite society. Besides, I had to assume someone inside was in real danger – I didn’t know the exact nature of the ritual, but the black light meant it was connecting with Elsewhere and not a particularly nice part by the feel of it. That alone meant trouble for the university and anyone unfortunate enough to be on its grounds. Like the voice on the other side of the doors. And me.

  My chest tightened as I started connecting the dots. The mystery arcanist had to be a rogue… only a rogue would conduct a ritual touching Elsewhere, especially since the Society’s mandate on the matter warranted a swift execution. I didn’t want to go toe-to-toe with anyone who would willingly spit in the eye of the Society’s Blackcloaks, but the consequences of doing nothing could be even worse.

  Thoughts of the ritual’s purpose didn’t bear thinking about, and I wasn’t sure I could live with myself if I turned my back on a person begging for their life when I could help, not when it could be one of my students. Besides, my mother had been preparing me for dangerous situations since I was a child. As much as I’d tried to leave my past behind, the truth was I was far from helpless.

  Keeping a tight rein on the fear desperate to erode my conviction from the belly up, I carefully pushed open the doors by no more than three or four hand spans and slipped inside.

  ✽✽✽

  The Great Hall was one of the largest rooms in King’s Building, dominating the ground floor and jutting from the rest of the building like a proud chin to overlook the university grounds. It was a rough square, the side and back walls punctured with towering windows that brushed the ceiling. Four Corinthian columns provided support and decoration on either side. The hall’s rear windows were hidden behind plush navy curtains, and a step-high wooden stage topped with a modest podium was stationed before them. Since the university’s final exams had concluded prior to the Christmas break, the hall’s usual felt-backed metal chairs had been stacked in the narrow spaces between the columns and walls.

  I squeezed through the doors, easing them closed behind me and thinking cat-like thoughts as I sidled to my right. I crouched behind the nearest column and peeked around it. The hall was lit by a single row of halogen lights suspended over the centre of the room. Within seconds I had managed to take in the bizarre tableau framed in their white-yellow light.

  There were two people. I picked out the rogue immediately: a kneeling figure in a large black hoody. They had their head bowed and hood raised, rocking in concentration as they worked the ritual. I couldn’t even pick out the suggestion of a face, almost as if the hood was some sort of macabre inflatable. I found every reason to look away.

  The voice I’d heard from outside belonged to the second person: a young man lying semi-foetal on the floor. He was wearing a black t-shirt with the university letters KCL emblazoned across the chest in white – definitely a student, then. His feet had been secured with a plastic tie and his arms were bound behind his back, biceps and forearms like knotted wood as he strained to break free from what I assumed was another tie. He was good-looking in a brutish sort of way – blonde, with the makings of a beard clinging to his neck – and he was still reciting his desperate plea for mercy. Blood had streamed in twin rivulets from a broken nose to crust his chin and cheek, his eyes red and puffy.

  He looks so young, I thought, before reminding myself that sentiment wasn’t going to help him. I needed clarity, focus.

  The floor of the Great Hall had been vandalised with swirling sequences of glyphs in a circle roughly four metres across, scant few of which I recognised from my own knowledge of the Arcana. There was something about those glyphs that made me feel uneasy, nauseous, and all of them had been drawn in what appeared to be blood. I’d used my own blood to craft spells before, but this was something else. I knew only too well how much power human blood could channel; things weren’t looking good for that kid.

  I forced myself to consider the ritual academically. It wasn’t the most complex I’d ever seen, but it wasn’t anything to sniff at either. The glyphs had been woven into a handful of spells, each one knit into as many spell-chains again, and all of it channelling the rogue’s power. Both rogue and student were positioned in the centre within free-circles, two spaces unmarked by glyphs. They were op
posite one another, little more than a foot apart, and both evidently a focal point for the ritual nearing its crescendo.

  My mind raced, rapidly devising and discounting possible courses of action with equanimity. How best to help the student? I could attempt to disrupt the ritual by damaging one of the glyphs, but the whole thing might explode and take us all with it.

  I could try to shatter the rogue’s concentration and hopefully the ritual with it, but then the ritual might backfire on the student as well as the rogue.

  I could even try to suppress the rogue’s power if I thought myself stronger, but that would not only tie up my own power but demand near total focus: I’d be physically defenceless. Even my mother hadn’t been able to suppress another arcanist while fighting – not to mention what the effect would be on the ritual itself.

  Or I could attempt to siphon the ritual: divine a power glyph being used to anchor some of those spells and drain the energy out and away, all the while trying to keep the ritual stable and no doubt fighting the rogue for dominance every step of the way. It still ran the risk of unbalancing the ritual and killing us all, but I’d have a degree of control my other options lacked.

  Not ideal, but I had to do something. I ran my hands through my thick black hair, sweeping it back and away from my face. My hands came away damp with sweat. I took a shaky breath.

  Siphoning it is.

  I gathered my will, allowing my power to unwind and flood my body. My temperature jumped a couple of degrees, limbs overcome with a pins-and-needles sensation halfway between pleasure and pain. I wasn’t at full strength, not after tinkering with my dragonfly construct on and off throughout the day, but it would have to do.

  I blinked, allowing my third eye to spring open once more; it was risky, but I needed all the advantages I could get. The symbols of the Arcana littering the floor were abruptly wreathed in eldritch fire, sickly crimson energy flowing through their graceful curves and rigid lines. I prepared to fling my consciousness like an arrow towards the nearest sequence of glyphs, ready to hijack the ritual.