OK, maybe my novel isn't good. But I wrote it. I believed in myself enough to write six goddamn novels. So there.

Thpffffft!

BOO YAH.

"Yes, sir." Jaspa hauled herself to her feet and picked Myertek up off the desk where he had apparently crawled. Shtaa twitched her tail at them.

"Good night, Jaspa."

"Good night, sir."

The walk back to the dormitory seemed even colder and longer than usual. Jaspa sighed as she walked. What a night. Usually her tasks for Kalishk were interesting -- she had even met an assassination student once while on assigmnemt -- but they usually did not involve her fighting a group of armed men.

Jaspa got back to her room, unlocked the door, and walked inside. Everything was comfortingly familiar. She kicked the door closed and gently set Myertek on the bed. as she changed into her sleeping tunic, she realized she ached all over, and had skinned her knees on the wall. "Dammit." She hung the clothes up to air out and pulled her sleeping tunic over her head.

When she got into bed, she expected to lie awake for a few minutes at least, rehashing the fight, but as soon as her head hit the pillow, she fell right asleep.

Oddly, her sense of danger had not yet disappated. Maritus looked harmless now that the negotiations were over, and Jaspa could not help wondering if perhaps she was wrong.

I do not think you are wrong, m'lady, Myertek told her. I have seen our hunches be right too many times to doubt them. Perhaps it is something else?

Perhaps.

Jaspa hefted the box in her arms as Maritus took the money. "My thanks, sir. I think my master will be pleased with these."

"I hope so. Thank you for your business, young lady."

Jaspa bowed to him, and turned to walk out the door. He came up behind her and opened the door for her. Jaspa's mind was ringing with danger, so she did the only thing she could: she cast a strong shield around herself. She muttered " past me, past me, all harm must slide past me," under her breath and felt the shield click into place. Then she walked through the door. As she did so, a huge wooden baton came whistling down and was deflected by the shield.

Jaspa!

I am fine. Now- she set the box down and drew her common knife in one motion, and sliced at the shadowy figure next to the door. As her eyes adjusted to the relative darkness of the hallway, she found that she had opened up a not insignificant wound on the chest of the inn's host. He had fallen over in surprise and was holding his hands to his chest, which was leaking blood.

"Now, Host, is this the kind of reception you give to people who come visiting your guests?" She scrutinized his expression and the way he glanced at Maritus, and drew her sorcerous blade in her left hand as she spun around to look at the bookseller. "Or are you in on it, and simply planning to get your books back and the rest of my money?"

"I assure you..." Maritus held up his hands in protest.

"You nothing. Pick up the box." Jaspa stepped aside, kicking the host for good measure, as Maritus came forward. He knew she had the drop on him.

"Now, you are going to carry it out to the road for me, and then have your carriage take me home."

"I-"

"Yes?" She shifted her blade and began powering it up. It was not easy doing it with her left hand, but she knew how, and a small sphere of flames began to form around the blade.

"Nothing, m'lady. I shall be honored to offer you my carriage for your use after this hooligan attempted to harm you."

"What in the seven hells is that?"

Jaspa looked at the source of the voice: it was Grevastie, who was staring at the creature in utter horror. Wufle whined and cowered behind him.

Kalishk and Tindall ignored the interruption and continued their magical workings.

"Chancellor," Jaspa whispered, "be quiet, we have to make sure it does not notice us!"

Grevastie seemed not to hear her, and he summoned a large fireball and threw it at the creature. The monster held up a tentacle and caught the fireball, and threw it back towards Grevastie. Jaspa threw herself to the ground and bolstered her shields as the fireball bore down on them. Grevastie barely managed to deflect it, and it flew down into the courtyard and singed the grass, leaving a large circle of charred ground. Grevastie curled up, trying to hide behind the wall.

The creature slithered up towards them, its tentacles reaching up the wall. Jaspa watched in horror as a tentacle reached for Grevastie. She drew her everyday knife and charged it with power, and swung at the tentacle, slashing it deeply. The creature roared.

Several things seemed to happen at once.

Professor Tindall increased the energy she was putting out and the circle she had created expanded greatly, its pale blue glow brightening to the point that Jaspa could not look at it.

Master Kalishk held out his hands and threw a magical net over the creature. It settled over it and he drew it tight with a gesture, then raised his hands. The creature floated in the air, its tentacles writhing madly against the magical net. For a breathless moment, Kalishk stood, straining to raise the creature into the portal, and then it shot upwards and into the glowing circle. Kalihsk called out "now!" and Tindall gestured to close the circle.

Both of them sat down, their backs to the wall, breathing heavily.

Jaspa crawled over to them. "Sir? Professor? Are you both all right?"

They nodded, and Kalishk said, "Is that Grevastie over there?"

Jaspa nodded. "Yes, sir. He threw a fireball at it." She rubbed her arm, which felt cold. "The creature tried to get him so I cut it with my knife." she held it up. It was deeply etched by the creature's ichor.

"Good work, as usual." Kalishk hauled himself to his feet and looked over the wall. "It looks as though we have dealt with everyone out there. Flegen was eaten by the Larmen, and the mercenaries are all dead." He turned and looked at Grevastie, who had finally managed to stand up but was still white as a sheet. "Ah, Chancellor Grevastie. How thoughtful of you to join us."

"Kalishk - what - that - thing -" he trailed off.

"I would suggest that you return to your office and call a general meeting in the main hall so that Professor Tindall and I can brief everyone on what has happened. Run along, now." He made a shooing motion and then turned his back on Grevastie.

Myertek, wake up! She got up and dressed quickly, pulling on her regular working robes, which were dusty brown, and then washing her face before putting her warm winter cloak over the top. She slipped her arms through the arm holes and picked myertek up, then went out to breakfast.

The dining hall was nearly empty, so Jaspa was able to dart into the kitchens and grab a pasty and a couple of old apples for later, which she shoved into her hip pouch.

It was a bright, clear morning, chilly but not windy, and Jaspa decided to go up on the walls before going over to the library. She darted up the stairs. Myertek launched himself off her shoulders to take advantage of the opportunity to fly a bit. Jaspa leaned on the wall as she munched on her pasty, which was stuffed with unidentifiable meats.

Jaspa, look at this, Myertek said, and sent her what he was seeing. He was high up in the air, and could see what looked like a large group of men approaching from the West.

Jaspa gaped. We have to tell Master Kalishk! She jamed the rest of the pasty in her mouth and ran as fast as she could toward the library. She blew through the doors, Myertek barely landing on her shoulder in time, and she took the stairs two and three at a time, ignoring Myertek's claws digging into her shoulder. Kalishk was at his desk, looking a bit groggy.

"Master Kalishk! they are coming!"

Everyone in the library stopped and stared at her.

"What?" he asked softly.

"Myertek saw Flegen's army. It has to be him, who else could it be? they are coming from the west, they are only an hour or two away, I think!"

If you don't know about Cliff Brooks, go here for an explanation.

Jaspa's eyes lit up. "Oh, yes, of course! I have heard that if you walk the walls late at night, you can see his ghost."

Kalishk smiled. "Well, that was only a few decades after we got started here. He did not like the fact that we had ammassed as many books as we had and were unwilling to share with anyone not a student here. So, he gathered a small number of sorcerers who felt similarly, hired a few mercenaries for good measure and arrived in the middle of the day to find us ready. At that time I was sufficiently paranoid that I kept sentry spells maintained all around the countryside in the area, and was perfectly aware of everyone who came and went within a ten mile radius."

"Why did you stop doing that?" Tindall asked.

"It became tiresome. This is a much more populous area now. I would have to spend more time following up sentry alerts than working on the library itself. At any rate, cliff appeared with his small army of mercenaries and sorcerers. We let him come, and stood on top of the walls. [Back then, the Collegium was a good bit smaller, truthfully, so ] Myself and the Professors, two of whom were founders in their eighties, took the lead, and were backed up by the scholars and students."

"Students?" Tindall looked surprised.

"There were only," he paused and counted in his mind, "five professors and four scholars at that time, plus myself. We needed everyone who could so much as throw a force sphere. We taught combat magic more thoroughly early on back then because we had to worry about attacks a lot more. The students could shield as well as Jaspa can now after their first year.

"So," he continued, "cliff was a little taken aback, but he took a stand and demanded that we agree to share the library with any sorcerer that wished it. I told him that the chances of that were approximately the same as the chances of me deciding to become a eunuch, and he replied that in that case, they would be taking the library from us by force.

"It was quite a battle, truly. The mercenaries had been shielded by Cliff, and fairly well at that. We fought them for over an hour, and finally defeated them. But one of the students was killed, and nearly everyone was injured. It was a difficult fight."

I'm getting a much better feel for the characters this time through. although I'm not at all happy with the narrative flow, I'm starting to enjoy the process more, which is nice. I just really enjoy these characters a lot. I'm not doing a very good job of making their voices sound different, but then, this year's goal has been downshifted from "write 50k words that don't suck" to "reach 50k in spite of dealing with wedding planning and assorted health problems" so it's ok.

Jaspa nodded and held her hands up. "Past me, past me, all harm must slide past me!" As she said the last phrase, she drew on her connection with Myertek and shaped the energy into a pointed shield around them both. It shimmered like ice, and she grinned.

"Very good for a first try," Professor Tindall said approvingly. "However..." she tossed a small force sphere at it, and the shield shattered and melted, "perhaps you have taken the icy concept too far. It needs to be strong, like the ice on a pond in the dead of winter."

Jaspa nodded. "I see what you mean, I think."

"Good. Try it again."

Jaspa cast the shield again, this time remembering the times she had played as a child on frozen over ponds back home. the shield was thick and hard to see through when she was using her magical sight, and this time when Professor Tindall threw a small force sphere at it, the sphere slid past Jaspa and onto the floor.

"Much better! I want you and Myertek to practice this shield the way you practiced the other one. When you're not using it, keep it tucked away so it is ready to be deployed at any moment."

"Yes, professor. Thank you! This shield is really interesting!"

"You are very welcome. I pray that it will not be necessary, but I would rather have you over protected than under protected."

"You and me both, professor." Jaspa grinned, and went back to the window to practice.

It was a long day. jaspa became surprisingly proficient at the deflection shield under Professor Tindall's tutelidge, [and Master Librarian Kalishk and] Professor Tindall finished charging up the wands, and Master Librarian Kalishk did quite a bit of research on Larmenic defence spells. By early evening, they were all fairly tired and took a break..

"Master Kalishk?" Jaspa asked between bites of bread.

"Yes, Jaspa?"

"How will we know when Flegen gets here? Do you think he will send a messenger with a challenge or something like that?"

"I doubt it. I expect to know he is here when the sentry spells I put up last night alert me." He sighed. "This sort of thing is very irritating. I would much prefer to be left alone to tend to my books."

"How many times have you had to defend the library, if you do not mind me asking?" Tindall asked quietly.

Master kalishk thought for a few moments. "Heavens. This must be the fourth or fifth time I have had to do battle to defend the contents of the library. The Collegium Sorcaeum itself has been under attack more times than that of course."

Please stop aching. I am not going to stop writing until I hit 50k. I promise to stop as soon thereafter as I can, ok? Then I will rest you and ice you and everything. Seriously. I'm taking ibuprofen for you and everything, so quit yer bitchin!


Love,
Ealasaid

“Now, is that any way to behave?” Kalishk admonished it. “My lord, I am grateful that you have come but time is of the essence.”

“Hmph,” the creature grunted. “Kalishk, eh? And that sniveling girl back there must be your apprentice.” It laughed. “My, how times have changed. The last time I saw you, you were what, twelve?”

Kalishk bowed. “Your memory is superb, my lord.”

“What do you need?”

“I need the exact location of the sorcerer Flegen and his army, as well as where they are heading.”

“What do you offer?”

“As much of my store of incense here as you would like.” Kalishk gestured at the box next to Jaspa. “and none of your loophole seeking, either. I mean that jar next to Jaspa, and what it currently contains, not what it may contain after I have refilled it.”

The demon laughed again. “You have learned quite a bit, haven’t you? Very well. May I have leave to go find your information and then return?”

“You may,” Kalishk said politely, and the demon vanished with another pop.

Jaspa opened her mouth to say something, but Kalishk held his hand up to silence her. She obediently shut it, and checked the incense again.

That was intense, she thought to Myertek.

I’ll say. Please feel free never to summon anything that big, ever.

You got it. She suppressed a shudder.

Don't do it, Myertek warned her, He's a little bastard but Kalishk told us to stay out of it.

But even if I didn't know about the political angle I'd stand up for him. Won't it look weirder if I don't?

She tapped Osred gently on the shoulder. "Who might that be, Osred? You talking about the Chancellor again?"

He turned to look at her, and the eyes of the half dozen students he'd been holding forth to follwed his gaze. "Why, Jaspa, no, I'm talking about your favorite member of the walking dead. Kalishk is a disgrace. I heard aboutr how the last budget meeting went, and he should be ashamed, talking to the chancellor htat way."

"Right, becaus eyou're such a shining example of how one should behave toward the Chancellor yourself. How many Collegium rules have you broken this week, Osred? You're usually breaking at least a couple ever few days or so."

"We're not talking about me," he said icily, "we're talking about your pet vampire."

Jaspa couldn't help herself. Her fist moved as if of its own accord and slammed into Osred's face, a small force shield keeping her from breaking her knuckles on his cheekbones. He dodged, but she still caught him with enough force to spin him around. The students nearby gasped, and she heard someone say "get 'im, Jaspa!" at the same time as someone else said, "Don't take that, Osred!"

Osred righted himself and brought his hands up. They each backed up a little and soon were deep in the throes of a magical battle. Jaspa used an absorbent shield, knowing that if she rebounded anything toward Osred and missed, she'd be in deep trouble.

I knew it, Myertek said as he helped her keep the field up while throwing force spheres. You're going to get it big time now.

Shut up, Myertek, and help me fight!

"You know what I miss most about before I came here?" Roarian asked.

"What's that?"

"Curling up with a cup of cocoa and a good book of fairytales with my Mum and reading by the fireplace on days like this."

Jaspa sighed. "On days like this I usually had to stay inside and help with handicrafts. Blech. At least we had a nice fire so we were dry. But my brothers were jerks. i was terrible at sewing and knitting, even at making baskets. Bleh."

Jaspa rolled onto her side and looked at her friend. Roarian came from a privileged background and even though she was just another student, her family connections still showed. Her robes were made from deep blue material that was incredibly warm and soft. Her cloak, currently hanging on a hook by the door, was warm and lined with lambswool. Jaspa had perfectly decent robes and a good cloak as well, but she had to work for her money. Roarian just got presents from her parents and cousins. Roarian hauled herself up into a sitting position and pulled out a comb to work on detangling her hair.

"I wish we didn't have homework. I mostly just want to take a nap right now."

"Yeah. I want to sleep until this damn rain goes away," Jaspa moaned, rolling back onto her back and staring up at the ceilling some more.

Well, and it probably helps that I'm writing fun scenes. Kalishk taking on Grevastie, and Jaspa pondering about books. Rawk.

"Grevastie," he said calmly and clearly, "what is the meaning of this?"

Grevastie's eyes twinkled but his face was calm. "Of what, Master Kalishk?"

"You have cut the budget allotment for the library by more than half. This is barely enough to keep the books we have in good repair, let alone enough to purchase or copy new ones." There was a ripple of reaction to that as people looked at the sheets to see for themselves and whispered reactions to each other.

Master, you are creasing the paper.

Kalishk forced his hands to relax as he waited for Grevastie's reply.

"Well, yes. I did a few calculations and a little research, and with allowances for inflation, this is more in like with what the founders of the Collegium set aside. the past few decades you have been getting more than your fair share of the Collegium's resources, and thus depriving other departments of money they could put to good use." His bland smile showed a hit of teeth, and Kalishk found himself filled with the violent urge to tear the man's throat out.

Kalishk forced himself to reply civilly, "Chancellor Grevastie, you have been here less than a year and already you are claiming to know better than the Chancellors of the last century? Surely that is a bit... self-aggrandizing."

"I think not. I am simply more attentive to the bottom line and the big picture than others have been. If you feel that your allotment is not enough, perhaps the library should liquidate some of its ... less necessary volumes?"

The room fell silent at that. One of the other professors said, "Are you suggesting that Master Kalishk sell some of his books?"

"Yes, I am."

The room erupted, with the more angry professors standing up and pounding on the table. "This is outrageous!" Tindall said, and cries of "yes! Outrageous!" echoed her.

She kept her relaxed feel and didn't even turn as she answered him. "Sure, why not? Roarian, you keep score."

"You got it, Jaspa."

"What? She's biased!"

"Oh, shut up, Osred. You just want someone to stack the odds in your favor. Fine, pick someone to keep co-score with her."

Osred shrugged. "Fine. I'll keep score myself too, though, so Roarian, don't even think about cheating."

Roarian rolled her eyes.

Jaspa grounded herself and gathered a small amount of magical energy to herself. She shaped it into a sphere, then reached mentally for Myertek. He fed her power through their bond, and she poured it into the sphere. She felt it grow in her hands, and projected the illusion of color onto it. When she felt ready, she looked up at the target, a jagged rock a stone's throw away. It had concentric rings painted on it in white.

She raised her hands and held them up in front of her, palms facing, the sphere between them. Then, gathering her energy, she brought her palms around the sphere so they faced toward the rock, thumbs together, and sent the sphere hurtling toward the rock. with a soft grunt. The sphere hit the rock with a satisfying crack, leaving a red smear just to the left of the dot right in the center. Jaspa grinned and turned to Roarian. "Four points, right?"

"I'm doing a little research, and would appreciate it if you had one of your assistants bring these books up to my chambers." He handed over a small square of parchment. Kalishk took it in one pale, thin hand, and raised an eyebrow as he read it.

"I'm afraid that's impossible," he said with a hint of a smile. "These are all books which are not permitted to leave this floor of the library."

"But I am the Chancellor!" Grevastie said with a 'just us boys' conspiratorial smile. "Surely you don't expect me to let them come to any harm."

"No. But I do expect you to abide by the rules. You are more than welcome to come here during regular library hours and read any of these here." He handed the list back.

Grevastie's back stiffened, and Jaspa glanced around the room to see how the other students were reacting. At least one of them had not noticed at all, but others were watching covertly the way she was. She caught the eye of one of Kalishk's assistants and they exchanged "what in the hell!" expressions. Nobody dared challenge Kalishk, but the air in the room felt electric.

This could get interesting, Myertek said.

Depends on how stupid Grevastie is.

"Well, Jaspa," he said when he reached them, "what a pleasant morning." he brushed an invisible speck of dust off his maroon velvet robes.

"Is it?" she said lightly. "I hadn't noticed."

Ulline, Osred's familar waddled up behind him. She was a cormorant, much to Osred's continuing irritation. He had bonded with her quite closely when she was a tiny black chick, but had been horrified to discover as she grew that she was one of those large water birds the commoners used for fishing. He had done his best to train her to be graceful, but there is only so much training can do to overcome nature.

"I don't suppose you've mastered that reflexive shield yet, have you?" He put a foot up on the bench in front of him and leaned forward with one elbow on his knee. "It isn't all that difficult, but it did seem to be giving you trouble."

Jaspa took a deep breath, and felt Roarian put a restraining hand on her leg under the table. She glared up at Osred. "I was having a bad morning, if you must know. I didn't thave to practice much to get the hang of it. You can tell it's easy, though. I mean, you picked it up in just a few minutes."

Osred flushed a bit, and sneered. "I'm surprised at you, Jaspa. Trying to pretend you didn't spend over an hour last night out in the field practicing."

Jaspa's jaw clenched. Her eyes flicked to the professor's table, where nearly all backs were turned to them. Only professor Tindall was facing in a way that she could see them, but she was deep in conversation with professor Ailiet. Jaspa cupped her hand under the table as she turned her attention back to Osred. "Honestly, Osred, I don't know why you keep needling me about these things when you know I can beat you at just about -" she raised her hand and flung the ball of magical force that she had shaped in it at him, "everything else in Tindall's class!"

It was a tiny ball, so small she hadn't even needed Myertek's help to fashion it, but it bonked into Osred's head with a satisfying pock! He reeled back, one hand coming up to cup his temple.

"You she-dog!" he gasped, and flung a quickly-gathered sphere at her. Jaspa was able to dodge it, just barely, and she leapt to her feet as it knocked over the bench behind hers with enough power to crack it.

"Shut your mouth, arselicker!" she bellowed. Myertek directed a stream of power to her, helping her to shape a larger ball of her own to throw at him. Get him, m'lady! she heard him caw in her mind through their connection.

"Jaspa! Osred!" Professor Tindall's voice lashed out, startling them both. She had made it across the room and came the rest of the way over, her hands up. "Don't you dare," she said. "I think that's quite enough."