Ends of Magic

Nathan was left in a bit of an awkward situation. He’d started digging his magic-annihilating aura into the external shell of the arena in a bid to help Khachi against the fate-mage. But over the course of the duel, he’d only made it about halfway through, and Khachi hadn’t needed his help after all.

Part of that had been his desire to move slowly, to avoid making a hole large enough that it could be noticed. The crystal wall was hundreds of feet from the nearest audience, and the ubiquitous magnification effects focused on the Questors inside the arena, not on the barrier itself. But the consequences for being caught ranged from funny to catastrophic, and Nathan was still unsure he should be risking this after all.

I’m already committed. Might as well prove it’s possible in case I need it later.

As it was, he was drilling a hole about a pencil-diameter in width, and the crystal was clear enough that it was invisible even if you knew what to look for. He still gave the bore a few kinks to prevent the straight line from standing out, or from giving any debris from the fight an easy way out. It would have been awkward if he’d done this during Kaelis’ fight against the water mage and a jet of water had sprayed out of the dueling arena.

While he was focused on penetrating the defenses, Khachi’s next challenger appeared. He looked like a fairly standard mage, complete with robes, glowing jewelry, and a staff. But he wore a manic grin that worried Nathan. He looked over to Sarya for an explanation and got a confused shrug in response. Nathan had a bad feeling about this, so he redoubled his efforts. He was almost through.

The moment the duel started, the other mage called out. “Atomic Insights cut indiscriminately, but you first opened that box.” Then he gestured, and a nuke spell flicked out, flying towards Khachi like a missile.

Khachi tried to blast the spell and the Questor with beams of light. Both were protected by solid shields of force that were more than sufficient to hold for the few seconds Khachi had.

Nathan felt ice suffuse his veins. The rest of the world stopped mattering. He focused all of his effort focused on the tip of his aura. He wasn’t trying to bore through the crystal any longer, instead driving his antimagic through the barrier like a pick through ice. He smashed his way through with a spearhead of antimagic. His magical senses found their way through, piggybacking on his aura, and he saw that. The spell was already starting the compression sequence. He wouldn't make it in time.