Creation Mage 6 by Dante King (red scrolls of magic .TXT) 📗

cutting a massive load of shit in half. There was a metaphor and a life lesson in there somewhere, I was sure of it, but it had been a long day and I was ready to turn my brain off and enjoy myself.

“Well done, Mortimer m’boy!” Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock bellowed happily.

Mort rejoined the rest of the party, walking lightly through the snow, and accepting a brimming beaker of something that smoked in the cold air from Igor.

“Now,” Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock cried out over the rising babble of his kith and kin, “let’s all of us head back inside where libations and victuals shall be brought forth and we can settle in for a good Chaosbane party!”

The company started to head back inside, and I followed along slowly behind. It had been an interesting few days, but it looked like things were not quite over yet.

All of us gathered around the vast Chaosbane family dining table and feasted. There were heaped tureens, piled plates, overflowing bowls, and generous platters of every kind of food I could imagine—as well as some that I couldn’t. The conversation flowed like wine and the wine flowed like water. It was one of the most pleasant dining experiences I had ever had the pleasure of being involved in, and was only slightly interrupted when Igor somehow managed to set his end of the table on fire.

Halfway through the feast, Madame Xel and Odette Scaleblade appeared, bringing with them none other than Gertrude the Inscriber. It only took Gertrude a few minutes at the end of the table that had not recently been set ablaze to bolster my spellbook with four new spell slots. I felt like she made a concerted effort to get the business taken care of so she could wander casually down the table and take up conversation with the patriarch, Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock.

“You know,” Damien said, gesturing expansively and slopping red wine into his lap, “I was expecting a Chaosbane Christmas to be a little more… I don’t know, nuts than this.”

I exchanged glances with Leah and Mallory. Mallory gave me one of her austerely patient looks and rolled her eyes, while Leah carried on gnawing at a succulent, meaty fowl leg and paid absolutely no attention.

“Well, boys,” I said, “I think it would be fair to say that you missed out on a lot over the past few days.”

“Like what?” Nigel asked.

I puffed out my cheeks. “Nigel,” I said, “where the hell should I start?”

“How about the beginning?” the halfling said.

I thought back to the sleigh ride through the wormhole. “How about the beginning,” I muttered.

An enthusiastic ding-ding-ding-ding-ding of a teaspoon on the side of a thin glass—followed by the predictable shatter of said glass—floated up from the head of the table.

Reginald Chaosbane cleared his throat and drew the attention of all onto himself. The mustachioed man slouched nonchalantly in his chair. It never ceased to amaze me how he managed to somehow strut while sitting down, but there he was doing it. When everyone’s attention was fixed on him, the Headmaster of the Mazirian Academy stood, brushing broken glass off his waistcoat.

“Thank you, thank you,” he said. “Just a few quick words before we all become too addled with all this exquisite food and drink, if you’ll indulge me. As you all doubtless know, thanks to the fantastically insidious properties of gossip, there was quite the kerfuffle up at the Castle of Ascendance today.”

There was some sniggering and a few waggish jeers from some of the assembly.

“It was something that had to be done,” Reginald said, his clever eye flicking briefly onto me, “but it has ruffled some feathers amongst the higher-ups, amongst our betters. They were feathers that were inevitably going to be ruffled somewhere down the foggy road of the future, and that future is now upon us.”

“What are you on about, lad?” Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock said peevishly.

“I mean, that Queen Hagatha and her Arcane Council, who were never great fans of mine, will soon be positively shitting kittens when they find out what actually transpired at the Castle of Ascendance and why,” Reginald said. “The Council will no longer play their games in the shadows and will no longer allow me to do things at the Academy as I have been doing them.”

This sounded like something serious, but looking at Reginald’s excited and confident face, it was clearly something he had been orchestrating for a while. My going to the castle and causing a bit of a stir didn’t seem to be the real reason behind why the Queen and the Council were suddenly no longer turning a blind eye. I wondered if it had anything to do with my parents’ plans for the future of universal magic.

Reginald Chaosbane grinned like some sort of roguish pirate tiger and raised his glass.

“So,” he said, “after we have celebrated another splendiferous Yuletide here at the Chaosbane family seat, we will not be heading back to school straightaway, but onward unto unknown shores!”

Everyone raised their glasses. There were smiles all round. Butterflies of excitement awoke from their slumber in my stomach and began stretching their wings. I looked around at my friends. The unknown was to adults as the dark was to kids: something scary to reach into. People usually liked to see what it was that they were grasping for, but the people at this table didn’t give a damn. To them, it was all an adventure, and the future was there to be stretched out for and grasped with both hands.

I raised my glass higher and intoned with the rest of my friends, “To unknown shores!”

End of Book 6

 

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