The Lich Without a Soul Vessel

Evan flicked his hand, a flash of black light snapping out to catch the ice lance before it landed. The four students stared at him, dumbstruck, and Evan explained: "At your level — and honestly, at levels well beyond yours — the problem people run into most is that their casting stays too simple, unable to build a sustained stream of firepower. You're fighting as a team. Coordinate well, and you can keep up an unbroken assault that never lets your opponent catch a breath. The timing I gave you wasn't even the ideal interval — that varies from person to person. Practice until you find your own rhythm. And remember: in a real fight, you want the enemy following your rhythm, never the other way around. Let them set the pace, and you've already lost."

The four teams fell into thought. Jamie spoke up. "Professor, we're weaker than Ruby's team to begin with. Can this really work for us too?"

"You're weaker than them, but it's not a difference in kind. Master your own rhythm, break your opponent's, and you can beat an enemy one or two tiers above you," Evan said. What he was teaching them, in truth, came from lessons he'd learned while fleeing for his life — if you couldn't seize the initiative against a stronger enemy, you were as good as dead.

Jamie's team from Marsiba squared off against Mary's team from Escuro next. They'd clearly learned something from watching the first match — their offense and defense flowed together with fewer gaps, though the transitions between spells still lagged noticeably. After watching for a moment, Evan waved a hand, and a sheet of pale light swept between the two teams, pulling them apart.

Everyone stopped and looked at him. "You have another weakness," Evan said. "Your positioning is too rigid. You basically plant yourselves in one spot and never move. In a real battle, nobody stays fixed in place."

He walked them through how to dodge, how to shift and weave. Their movements were clumsy at first — most mages weren't built for close combat, usually casting from behind a line of knights or other protectors, which was part of why mages, despite their raw destructive power, rarely operated independently. On any real battlefield, knights still carried the weight of the fighting.

With Evan's guidance, they began moving like restless butterflies — still unpolished, but combined with their spellwork, it was a different picture entirely from before.

His neighbors' place sat a good hundred cubits from his own — a shared residence, home to Emma and a potions assistant named Jessica. Having finished dinner and noticed the commotion, the two of them wandered over and greeted Evan.

Evan greeted them warmly in return. The students, seeing the two women arrive, straightened up one by one and called out greetings to their teacher. Seeing that they'd more or less grasped the concept, Evan called a halt to the training. "You've got the basics down well enough. Keep practicing on your own after this, and put your hearts into it. Good luck in the tournament."

The students bowed in thanks and took their leave. Evan turned to the two women. "Please, sit."

They sat down as the last traces of sunset faded from the sky and the magic lamps along the path flickered on. A skeleton came over and poured coffee for the three of them. Emma laughed. "You really are lazy. Necromancers might have a bad reputation, but there's something to be said for the convenience. This is the first time I've seen anyone use a skeleton to serve guests."

Evan laughed. "Skeletons are usually for combat, or for holding a scalpel during dissections — not for pouring tea. I only worry about how it sits with guests psychologically. We're all mages here, so I figure you can handle it. Out in the ordinary world, though, I wouldn't dream of it."

Jessica took a sip of coffee. "You coached them just now, but it won't change the outcome. They still have to settle it between themselves eventually — coached or not, the result should be the same in the end."

Evan understood what she meant and smiled. "True enough. In the tournament, they'll all be facing the same pool of opponents, so it evens out. But sharpening their technique will help them well beyond just this one competition."

The three of them, all teachers, lingered under the tree in the dappled lamplight, sipping their coffee and enjoying the evening at their leisure — until another figure approached. All three rose to their feet the moment they saw who it was.

It was Ortlando, headmaster of Hollingburton. Seeing them stand, he chuckled. "Sit, sit. I'm here on a small matter. It's after hours — no need to stand on ceremony."

Evan said, "We're not standing because you're the headmaster. As you say, it's after hours. We're standing because you're our elder, and this is simply the respect we owe you."

Emma and Jessica nodded along. Ortlando looked pleased and sat down with a satisfied smile. The skeleton poured him a cup of coffee. He took a sip and frowned — Evan's coffee left a great deal to be desired, nowhere near the quality of what Ortlando was used to. Neither of the two women reacted, though; few people had a palate refined enough to tell good coffee from bad.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Ortlando forced down another mouthful and set the cup aside. "Coming by this late means there's real business. Something strange has been happening near Granville County, close to the Druids' territory — a secret cult devoted to a certain devil has surfaced there. The Druids have already gotten involved, and a materials-gathering team from our own school has gone missing in the area. It's not a massive crisis, but it's not nothing either. I've thought it over, and I've decided to send you."

"Which devil do they worship?" Evan asked.

"Ormani. One of Solomon's seventy-two demon lords," Ortlando said, offering nothing further. Evan understood at once — he and Ortlando had both seen Ormani's projection before, something very few people knew about. Ortlando hadn't come to him without purpose; this whole visit had been about Ormani from the start.

"All right. When do I leave? And what happens to my class while I'm gone?" Evan asked.

"Don't worry about that. For the next month, you won't be teaching at all — the whole school's tied up with the tournament, and classes are more or less suspended. Students who want to keep learning can run their own experiments or find another teacher. It's standard practice around this time," Ortlando said. Emma and Jessica both nodded in confirmation.

"Jessica, get yourself ready too — you'll travel with Professor Evan to see the Druids. There's a shipment of magical items we owe them, which was originally that missing team's job. Now it falls to you. You'll leave tomorrow morning, along with two senior students who'll join you at the same time," Ortlando said.

Jessica hadn't expected to be pulled into this, but she didn't object either. She simply nodded. "All right. Understood."

"Go collect the magical items you'll need from Emma, and keep a proper record," Ortlando added.

Emma nodded. Ortlando left his coffee untouched after that and rose to his feet. "I should be going. I'm an old man — I won't intrude on you young people's evening any longer."

The three of them stood as well. "No need to see me out," Ortlando said. "Oh, one more thing, Professor Evan — think you could manage some better coffee?"

Evan blinked, then laughed. "What I serve is the everyday kind. I don't exactly have connections to get my hands on Bawang Island coffee. If the headmaster comes calling, he'll just have to make do — or better yet, bring your own next time you visit?"

Ortlando laughed too. "I was only saying it in passing — don't take it to heart." He laughed heartily, and Evan laughed along with him, while Jessica glanced down at the coffee in her cup, not that she could tell the difference anyway.

Evan went back inside. Xiaoshuang flew in carrying a strange sort of honey. "Try this. Killer bee honey — it's delicious."

Evan dipped a fingertip in and tasted it. His sense of taste still hadn't fully recovered, though he could pick out the basic notes. "Not bad. Delicious," he said approvingly, though in truth he had no idea whether it was good or not — his taste buds weren't sharp enough to tell this honey apart from any other.

Xiaoshuang knew he was lying, but she was pleased regardless, and launched into a lively account of everything she'd seen in the mountains that day — how a magic bear had gone honey-hunting with her, how they'd cleverly gotten the honey away from the hive, and how the bear had ended up covered head to toe in stings.

Evan listened quietly to the fairy's excited chatter, tossing in a question here and there, and the two of them — one so much taller than the other — laughed together more than once. It struck Evan, in that moment, how good life felt. He hoped it could stay this way forever.

When Xiaoshuang finally finished her story, Evan said, "I'll be heading out tomorrow. You don't need to come — it'll be easier for me to focus without worrying about you."

"Where are you going?" Xiaoshuang asked.

"Granville County. I'm representing the school in a deal with the Druids over some magical materials. Jessica's coming along, and two senior students too."

"Is it far?"

"Not far. Should still be within your range," Evan said — meaning the range within which Xiaoshuang's fairy magic could still enhance him.

"In that case, I'll skip it. Tomorrow I want to go check on that silly bear, and watch those butterflies do their pretty little dance," Xiaoshuang said, entirely carefree.

Evan smiled faintly and let out a yawn. Xiaoshuang looked at him with open scorn. "Don't put on an act. Since when does a lich need sleep?"

"You're the one who should be sleeping," Evan shot back, a bit testy. Xiaoshuang, hearing that, obediently flew off to her own tiny house, which she'd built up high — her reasoning being that she wanted to look down on the lich from above, forcing him to look up at her instead.

Once Xiaoshuang had gone to rest, Evan put out the lights as well. He settled into meditation first, still holding the image of the Black Lotus in his mind. Within his mental sea — which seemed to stretch on without limit — there stood, at its center, something that might have been a great tree, though he could never quite make it out; it hovered at the edge of perception, present and absent by turns. He'd combed through a great many books in the library without finding anything definitive, though one volume of mythology had told the tale of the life goddess Avna, and within it, a legend of a tree of life. There was also mention of Aulin, the faith of the Gonishu people, which spoke of a world tree as well. What connection could there be between them?

Evan set the question aside for now, letting it settle at the back of his mind, and turned his full attention to the Black Lotus, his thoughts undistracted, the lotus unfurling layer by layer in his meditation. What he didn't know was that his path of magical cultivation had already drifted from the orthodox one. True cultivation called for visualizing the corresponding god — in his case, Hadir, the god of the underworld. Once Hadir manifested, practitioners who believed themselves masters of the dark element would find that element gathering to them naturally. But Evan visualized the Black Lotus instead. On the surface, the two looked the same. Underneath, they were nothing alike.