The Lich Without a Soul Vessel

Evan's time at Hollingburton was when he began to make a name for himself.

Hollingburton Academy stood in the Atlas Mountains fifteen li southwest of Dunckheath, the capital of Nabos, nestled in Hollingburton Valley with three peaks rising around it — Hollingburton Peak reaching highest into the clouds, with Ima Peak and Sili Peak flanking it on either side. The academy itself occupied several square li of the valley floor, its outer grounds dense with forest and magical creatures. Outside of the start and end of term, ordinary travelers had no way to reach it.

That was the impression outsiders held. Students who made it inside learned something different within their first year: the real Hollingburton existed in a half-plane, spanning several hundred square li, where twelve towering magic spires rose in a ring and runic arrays flowed continuously across their surfaces, generating a protective barrier over the grounds. Within that ring stood four colleges — Zebisini, Aspola, Malciba, and Aesculos — each with its own specialty.

Zebisini focused on all schools of magic and magical arrays. Aspola handled potions and magical items. Malciba covered divination and astrology. Aesculos specialized in curses and contracts. Some instructors taught across colleges, particularly for foundational courses like Introduction to Magic, Magical Pharmacology, and History of Magic.

Evan had been here for a stretch of days. He'd met with the headmaster, Ortlando Dean, who had explained that since Evan arrived mid-semester, he wouldn't be assigned teaching duties until next term. His appointment was to teach Dark Magic and Defense — a general elective drawing students from all four colleges, worth three credits. For now, his role was simple: manage the Magical Items Office and prepare his course materials.

He walked into the office with a borrowed copy of A Taxonomy of Magic tucked under his arm. The office had three staff. Avaz Burney was a middle-aged man, slightly balding, carrying a comfortable extra weight, and perpetually cheerful. Emma Watson was a recent graduate who'd stayed on at the school — quick and a little irreverent.

"Good morning." Evan set his book down. The other two looked up and returned the greeting.

He'd spent the previous night in his alchemy lab. The school had given him the quarters formerly belonging to Bennet Picasso, the previous Dark Magic and Defense instructor, who had reached an age where he'd preferred to return to his hometown and keep only an honorary title. The quarters came with a private alchemy room — all faculty residences did — though it was naturally more modest than the school's dedicated facilities. Instructors used them for personal research, and sometimes to produce specialized potions or magical items.

Evan was currently using his to fill in the gaps in his education. He'd arrived at Hollingburton and immediately realized how many there were. His death magic was solid, but his knowledge beyond that was scattered and uneven — and divination and astrology, in particular, were entirely foreign to him. The library had become a regular destination.

The library's books were another thing he hadn't expected. They'd been transcribed using magic and weren't static in the way ordinary books were. Quite a few of them moved — illustrations of magical creatures that actually wandered across the page. Without magical energy to open them, they couldn't be read at all.

He settled into the chair at his desk and glanced at the magical message board — a local communication device that combined text and visual records, the academy's equivalent of an internal messaging system. Nothing urgent. A few students from less wealthy households wanted to come by and collect wands.

The school provided wands to students who needed them, though most students brought their own — the standard-issue wands offered modest amplification and limited style options. They were free, however, which made them worth collecting for students who couldn't afford better equipment.

"Emma, how many wands do we still have in the storeroom?"

Emma opened the ledger. "Two thousand one hundred and twenty-three. All elements represented — even spatial and temporal, though only three or four of each. The rest are fully stocked."

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She paused, scanning further down the page. "There's something odd in here too. A two-wheeled vehicle — made by a student named Duval from Aspola. He traded it for a robe last semester. It's supposed to maintain balance using magic, and it's meant as a means of transportation. Interesting concept, but not very useful." She glanced at the back of the storeroom. "Should we move it to the scrap inventory?"

Evan went over to look at the diagram. He'd been half-expecting a magical bicycle, which he hadn't actually seen in this world either — but what he found was something closer to a rickshaw with a magical balance mechanism built in.

The academy had a standing rule: students who produced magical items could sell them to the school in exchange for equipment or potions. Some of the submissions were genuinely unusual.

He looked at the diagram for a moment, and an idea clicked into place. A bicycle wasn't a magical item at all — two wheels, one behind the other, the rider maintaining balance through their own body. On Earth it was one of the most common vehicles in existence. This world had horse-drawn carriages, but most ordinary people traveled on foot. Was there any reason it couldn't work here?

He picked up a quill and began drawing. The quill moved at his direction across the paper, and Emma and Avaz watched with mild curiosity as the design took shape. When it was done, neither said anything for a moment.

"The drawing is well done," Avaz finally offered, "but will it actually move? You'd still need magic to keep the balance, wouldn't you?"

Emma nodded.

Evan gave them a small, slightly mysterious smile. "No magic required. I can make it run, and anyone can ride it."

Neither of them believed him. Students arrived to collect wands shortly after, and Emma led them to the back while Evan added measurements and specifications to his diagram.

Over the following days, he enlisted some of the Aspola students to fabricate the components. Aspola students were trained in the construction of magical constructs — they could produce intricate golems that moved with genuine precision — and the parts Evan needed required no runic inscription at all. For them it was straightforward work.

They were curious about what their professor intended to do with a pile of simple mechanical parts, but they helped. Evan assembled the components himself, substituting a natural tree resin similar to rubber for the tires — solid, not pneumatic, but functional. When the assembly was complete, a finished bicycle stood in front of the gathered students and staff.

He climbed on and rode.

Everyone went quiet. It actually moved.

Emma circled it several times, then climbed on herself. The bicycle toppled sideways immediately. Evan caught her before she fell far.

"There's a balance to it," he said. "You have to feel it."

Emma cast a personal balance spell, climbed back on, and after a few wobbling minutes was riding a steady line. An hour later she could manage it without the spell.

That was sufficient. Within two or three days, particularly among the Aspola students, bicycle construction had become a minor craze. A dozen appeared in the halls and pathways of the academy, and the fashion was still spreading. Students began modifying the design, adding magical enhancements, and before long the first flying bicycle made its appearance.

By the time Headmaster Ortlando noticed, riding had already become a fad. It had been barely a week. He came to find Evan, with a colleague in tow, and the conversation that followed was businesslike and efficient: the school had identified commercial potential, intellectual property law in this world was essentially nonexistent, but Ortlando was not going to let something originating in his academy go uncompensated. He negotiated a sale of manufacturing rights to the commercial division of the Nabos government — a ten percent production levy on every bicycle sold, six parts in ten going to Evan, four to the school.

This transaction, as a side effect, helped prompt the eventual creation of secular intellectual property legislation. Evan hadn't anticipated any of this.

He also hadn't anticipated becoming wealthy. The school's involvement ensured the Nabos government honored the arrangement, and the royalties arrived reliably. He hosted a dinner for the faculty as a gesture of thanks, including Ortlando, and at the dinner Ortlando remarked that Evan had become a rich man, though magic had a way of consuming whatever funds one accumulated.

Evan donated a portion of his earnings to renovate the school's alchemy facilities. Ortlando placed a hand on his shoulder with visible approval. Avaz leaned over and murmured something in Evan's ear that translated roughly as old fox, meaning Ortlando. Evan smiled. A headmaster's job was to protect the school's interests above his own, and Ortlando was clearly very good at it.

Things settled back into routine — and then Prince Elloran appeared at the academy.

Elloran had come to Nabos specifically because of what was inside him. He hadn't wanted it removed. He'd wanted it tamed. The Druids he'd consulted first had considered the problem seriously and concluded they couldn't offer reliable help. Their recommendation: Hollingburton. The academy housed Charlemagne Roland, the foremost authority on infernal beings anywhere in the known world.

That was how Elloran's party arrived at the school.

Evan didn't know any of this. He was at the Magical Items Office, cataloguing equipment and reading. The message board on his desk lit up.