Tundra

It was a narrow escape. I grappled with the druid, until finally I managed to scuff a patch of snow with my foot, drawing a rune which blew us apart. I barely had time to reach for my tools, a hastily packed piece of parchment and already inked quill that I had shoved into my pocket, before the thing closed back in again. Then, I saw its face, the face between the blisters, properly for the first time.

‘Wait,’ I exclaimed. ‘I know you! We met in the forest, days ago.’ Indeed, the antlers sprouting from the druid’s battered crown looked very familiar.

‘I don’t know you, flesh thing,’ snarled the monster, ‘but I will. I will eat your heart.’ There was a rumble, and the land threw up a fresh crevasse, sending me flying backwards, my paper sprawling from my fingertips. ‘You think I couldn’t smell your foreign magic?’ he hissed, nose in the air. ‘You think I couldn’t tell when you brought something here?’

I cast my mind back, and then I realised it, the Blackmouth child must have done it. She, ignorant Apprentice that she was, had set off the alarm for this creature, and so had brought him here, to find me, another meaty thing with the Blackmouth smell. Her magic in her apparition must have involved a pact, the way we were both taught in our formative years. Thus, the spirit that the pact was made with must have ventured through the druids’ spirit world. Perhaps it had even been devoured, I thought sadly.

‘This land is ours,’ the druid went on. ‘This is the wild land where my spirit-brothers roam, and you will not take it from us.’

Fumbling for my quill and paper, I managed to scratch a further few, quick scribblings that sent me lurching to my feet, suspended in the air, my height again off the ground. ‘I’m not here to take your land,’ I said. ‘I’m just trying to get to Mossen Grove.’

‘Mossen Grove?’ the monster barked. ‘Mossen Grove is irrelevant. Mossen Grove is of the old order.’ The druid clapped his hands, stirring up a storm in miniature. ‘Mossen Grove is in our grasp. Stop resisting. Let us put your bones to good use... I’ll use your skull as a cup to drink from.’

I tried for a flame spell next, but my simple spell sputtered out at my fingertips, overwhelmed by the greater force of nature. And so, I used my last scrap of paper for a speed rune, fell to the ground and ran as fast as I could back towards my horse, whereafter I galloped until my mount’s main was foamy with sweat. My journey to Mossen Grove was thwarted, for what if I found nothing there but more men and women possessed? I wished I had taken the advice, or rather orders, of the more senior members of my sect when I had been summoned. I wished I had not, thinking the tundra to be a place without hierarchies, disobeyed.

All the way back to the tower, I remembered their words. I had been summoned before a panel. There, also, was the Geomancer I had conversed with several times, looking strangely serene.

‘Why did you not return when we summoned you?’ the most senior mage, a Master of Flames, had asked.

I apologised. ‘I was on my way somewhere and could not turn back.’ Then, I rounded on the Geomancer. ‘Why is this man here?’ I enquired.

‘I have as much right to be here as anyone,’ he said, standing his ground.

The senior mage spoke again. ‘It was he who had you summoned, in fact.’

Him! I thought, but did not say. He must have known the Blackmouth refugee would use a bargain or a pact. He must have known, therefore, that the druids’ spirit world would be disrupted.

‘We have heard disturbing reports of your activities,’ the senior mage continued. ‘Given your history, we have always allowed you some latitude, yes? This druid thing you have, we do not expect it to ever yield results, but we have permitted it. However,’ and it was a pronounced however, ‘in doing so, we fear we have given you the wrong impression. You are not a law unto yourself. Your upbringing aside, you are a member of this school, and you will obey our instructions. You will not, for example, destroy your colleagues’ work.’

I was baffled. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said, ‘but we have much bigger problems. You know what’s happening with the druids?’

But the Master ignored me. ‘A member of this academy interfering with another’s work takes precedence over anything the savages are doing,’ he said severely. ‘Do you deny that you destroyed this man’s fungus samples?’

‘What?’ I asked, confused. ‘Yes, of course I do! Why are you listening to him, anyway? He’s possessed.’

The Geomancer spoke for himself. ‘I have a familiar spirit,’ he volunteered.

‘That is somewhat unorthodox,’ the senior mage admitted.

‘Yet it’s permitted. Interfering with my work is not.’

‘It’s controlling you!’ I exclaimed.

‘Besides,’ the Geomancer carried on over the top of me, ‘are we really going to let a Blackmouth reject lecture us on the proper way to deal with spirits?’

‘Blackmouth’s practices aside,’ the Master overrode him, ‘this is a legitimate concern. Besides, what this tribunal decides is not for the ears of spirits. Dismiss your familiar.’

‘But–’

‘You can’t, can you?’ I interjected, fiercely. ‘It’s taken you over completely.’

Several things happened at once. First, there was a pop as the Geomancer attempted to vanish, and a sweeping, crackling sound as a leash of fire snapped out to restrain him. Finally, with an almighty roar, the spirit dropped all pretence of being in control.

‘Your time is coming, southerners!’ it bawled. ‘The Herald of the Otherworld will tolerate your presence on his land no more!’ The Geomancer, possessed, twisted in his binds. ‘Allow the Otherworld’s light to shine on you. Give yourselves to us or be destroyed.'

Another spell was cast, and another. Finally, the spirit seemed ejected, trapped in the fiery binds that now held my former colleague, who was limp. The senior mages were all ashen faced.

‘Now do you believe me?’ I asked.

The Master who had spoken before nodded. ‘Maybe there is a problem, but we will deal with this our way. Somewhere in our library there will be a defence against these spirits, and for your disobedience, we charge you with finding it.’

‘Surely it would be better to ask the druids?’ I suggested, seriously. ‘You saw how much power it took to eject that thing. What are we going to do when possessed men come against us again, or when this Herald comes?’

But the Master split the air with a dismissive hand, negating my intention. ‘No more druids,’ he barked, impatiently. His free hand pointed up the stairs in an accusatory manner. ‘You will find a solution in the library. You are a sorcerer, and you will act like one!’