How I Helped My Demon Princess Conquer Hell

Liam

Liam looked all around the coach he'd been trapped in. He reached out and touched some of the wood. It was surprisingly well made for a coach that was presumably made to be carrying prisoners.

“What is this?” he muttered.

“Arcana oak,” Albert said.

“Excuse me?" Liam said, turning to the cat.

“It's arcana oak," Albert said.

“So it's some sort of specially treated wood that has the ability to cut somebody off from their ability to cast spells."

"You see, it's a specially treated wood that's..." The cat cut off. He stared at Liam for a long moment, his eyes narrowing. His tail twitched just slightly, letting Liam know he was irritated. "Well, yes. That's exactly what it is."

"I figured," Liam said.

"How did you figure?" he asked.

“That's easy," Liam said. "I spent plenty of time in the Lesser Felwood and the actual Felwood, and in that time I saw trees that had been corrupted."

"I see," Albert said, though it was in a voice that said he didn't really see at all.

"And I figure if it's possible for wood to be infused by corrupted magic, or maybe I should just say it’s infernal mana considering what’s pulsing in my chest, then it's also entirely possible for wood to be infused by arcane magic. Or it's possible for it to be infused in a way that somebody isn't able to cast arcane magic."

"You know, you're entirely too clever by half," Albert said, looking at him with another swish of his tail.

"I thought you’d be happy that your little experiment is too clever by half," Liam said.

"Yes, well," Albert said, moving to lick his paw, "There is a point where an experiment being a little too clever becomes a liability rather than an asset."

"I'm so sorry that I'm ruining everything for you," Liam said, rolling his eyes.

“As long as you're sorry," Albert said.

Liam stared at Albert for a long moment. Only the cat continued licking his paw and ignoring Liam. He figured that meant he either really hadn't picked up on the sarcasm, or he was ignoring it.

Either way, Liam figured he had more important things to worry about than the moods of a sorcerer in a cat's body, which was already a double dose of trouble on top of the trouble he found himself in.

He looked at the wood again. Ran his fingers along it. The stuff was surprisingly smooth. Like somebody went to a lot of trouble to make it nice.

"They make it smooth like that because they tend to have high-powered mages and very important people kept in these things," Albert said.

"What's that?" Liam asked, turning to him.

"You were rubbing the wood and thinking on how smooth it was,” Albert said, looking pleased that he could finally tell Liam something he didn’t know. "I simply wanted to let you know why they do it like that. It's better to answer a question before somebody gets around to asking it."

Liam frowned. "Something tells me you didn't have a lot of friends when you were a high sorcerer."

"Whatever makes you think that a sorcerer of multi-generational talent would be interested in something like friends?"

“Finishing people’s thoughts for them is really annoying," Liam said. "Even if you think you know what I'm thinking, you shouldn't jump in and answer a question I haven't asked."

"That is the ramblings of a weak mind that doesn't like a superior mind showing it up," Albert said.

Liam frowned again and tuned out the cat for the moment. Albert had been nothing but trouble for him since...

Well, he'd been about to say the cat had been nothing but trouble for him since a couple of days ago when all this started, but the reality was the cat had been nothing but trouble for him since he was a baby.

He ran his hands along the wood again. A slight sparking tingling feeling ran along his fingers where he touched it. Blue sparks danced in between him and the black wood, almost like the sparks he got when he walked across the carpeting in Baron Riven’s house and then touched a metal part of a door.

"Interesting," he muttered.

He felt within himself. To the arcane core at his center. It was pulsing there, but it seemed to be subdued.

That was interesting. He wasn't sure he wanted to be near anything that made that arcane core seem subdued, but here he was. It's not like he had much of a choice. Nobody expected the Inquisition to show up, after all.

Though he probably should’ve expected the Inquisition in this case considering everything that had happened.

He looked up to the bars with light streaming through. There were small windows with bars made of dark metal on either side, and attached to a door on the back as well.

He looked out the side and saw rolling farmland moving past with a wooded area off in the distance. And to the other side, it was more rolling farmland going off into the distance. Finally, he turned his attention to the front, but he couldn't see much of anything there. They'd put some sort of board or slat or something over it to keep him from being able to see the driver.

Finally, he turned his attention to the back, and he caught motion there. He put his hands up against the bars. Again, there was that slight tingling and the feeling of something sparking along his fingers where they made contact with the bars. A not entirely pleasant sensation, but he could deal with it.

He put his face up to the bars and the sparking feeling got more intense. Like it was trying to press him back and away from them. He tried to infuse his arms with mana, but the flow from his arcane core was a tiny trickle.

Though the infernal mana followed his commands easily enough and flowed through him. It also seemed to give him a slight buffer against that unpleasant feeling, allowing him to touch the bars without more than a little discomfort.

"What are you doing?" Albert asked. "How are you even touching those?"

"What do you mean?" Liam asked, holding on.

He peered through again. There were a couple of Inquisitors riding behind the coach on horses. They were talking with one another, but then one turned and looked in his direction. That one paused for a moment, staring at Liam staring back at him with a look that was somewhere in between surprise and incredulity.

The Inquisitor pressed his arm against the one riding next to him and pointed at Liam. This one had a long gray beard and a grizzled face that said he was probably very old. For all that Liam couldn't tell what his Ascension was at this distance. He stared at Liam as well, his eyes narrowing as he watched.

"What are you doing, you idiot?" he said, laughing and turning to smack the other one next to him in the arm. "Look at him. He's had one Ascension and he thinks he can take out arcana bars."

"Let me guess," Liam muttered to Albert. "Bars that are able to absorb arcane mana and prevent someone from being able to use it."

"Something like that," Albert said. "It's also damned uncomfortable for anybody trying to channel mana to touch that stuff. I don't know how you're able to hold it like that. I couldn’t even do that comfortably when I was at the height of my power.”

His voice made the unspoken part clear: anything he couldn’t do at the height of his power was the sort of thing that should be impossible. Liam took some pleasure from doing something the damned cat couldn’t explain.

Liam tried to pull on the bars, but no matter how he tried to move them, it didn't work.

And it was uncomfortable. Deeply uncomfortable. It was a throbbing pain that started in his fingers and moved down his arms. He worried what would happen when it reached his heart.

"You really should let go," Albert said.

"You sound worried," Liam said.

"I am worried," he said. "If the effect manages to reach your heart or your core because you're stupid enough to hold on for too long then it can cause issues."

Liam drew from his other core and the infernal mana waiting in there. He moved more of it through his mana pathways, only this time he flushed out any lingering arcane mana. A moment later, the sparking stopped entirely. The feeling of a dull ache moving along his fingers and up through his arms also lessened, like it was pulling out of his body now that there was no arcane mana in his body for the enchantment to follow.

He held on them. The bars didn’t give, but he did hear the wood in all around them make a slight creaking sound. If he just applied a little more power, then he would be able to break them off entirely.

He pulled back, shaking off his hands and his arm.

"What was that?" Albert asked. "How did you do that?"

"I'm your great experiment," Liam said, looking at the cat with a grin. "Of course I'm going to be able to come up with a few things you never thought of."

"And yet you're still standing there putting your hands on the bars and trying to pull them apart like some ruffian rather than using your full potential."

Liam wheeled on the cat. Meanwhile, he heard the cruel laughter of the Inquisitors riding behind the coach. Apparently they thought it was very funny that he'd run up against the bars for the first time and possibly injured himself. He noted that neither of them came up to check on him and make sure his heart was still beating, even though there was apparently very much the possibility his heart could stop beating as a result of what he'd just done.

That wasn't very nice. It was almost enough to make him angry.

"What are you talking about?" Liam asked.

"You could use the magic spells that are at your disposal," Albert said.

Liam took a deep breath and let it out.

"Albert, you did something to me, but you didn’t think it through.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you put a bunch of those magic spells in my head, but I can't use them."

"Why not?" Albert asked.

"Think about how you learned those spells," Liam said. "Think about all the years of practice that went into making them possible."

"Well, I mean… I suppose that is something that happened, but I was very quick to learn."

"But didn't you start from the basics and work your way up?”

"Well, yes."

"So you were a quick learner starting at those basics, and then you worked your way up until you were able to be a quick learner doing more complicated things that built on that foundation.”

"Of course I was," he said.

"And you don't see the problem with trying to start me out with something ridiculously complicated and literally throwing me to the magical equivalent of the wolves?"

Albert stared at him for a long moment, and then finally he deflated. At least the cat was somewhat capable of seeing reason.

"I see what you mean," he said. "We're going to have to start with the fundamentals, aren't we?"

"That would be a good idea," Liam said with a smile. "And I would enjoy it if I had my familiar there to help me along the way."

"Well, of course," Albert said, and that almost made Liam feel affection towards the cat. He reached out to scratch him on the back of his head, which earned him a baleful glare. But then he started to purr and rub against the offered hand.

"It's not like I have much choice anyway," Albert muttered, ruining the moment only a little.

"You know, you don't have to take the asshole cat trope to this extreme all the time,” Liam said, sitting down on a bench and leaning back against it as the carriage rocked around him.

"I don't, but it's fun,” Albert said, still purring next to Liam.