Ascendant

Nym didn’t remember much of the trip back. There was flying, and Cold Paw getting them back under the snow, and after that, he mostly just followed the wolf in a daze until they were back to the pack’s cavern. He vaguely recalled throwing heated arcana all over a section of the floor and collapsing on it before he passed out.

When he woke up, everything ached. He definitely had arcana poisoning, which he supposed he couldn’t complain about, all things considered. It was relatively mild, considering how much magic he’d tossed about and how sloppy some of his spells had been while he was frantically trying to avoid being crushed to death.

He did nothing but make himself comfortable and eat some of his dwindling supply of rations. They were going suspiciously fast, probably because Cold Paw had helped himself to Nym’s pack while he was sleeping. If so, the wolf was even more clever than Nym thought, since he’d specifically shaped a hook to keep it out of Cold Paw’s reach and the pack was still hanging from it when he woke up.

The stone beneath him was a poor substitute for a bed, but it still had lingering heat from the spell he’d cast hours ago, which Nym was grateful for. He had no desire at all to use any sort of magic, even though he was effectively blind without it. In fact, once his belly was full and his thirst was sated, the only thing Nym wanted was to use his pack as a pillow and go back to sleep.

That didn’t happen, of course. The old matriarch found him soon after he woke up and started pestering him for the details. With a wince, Nym forced himself to sit up and cast night vision on himself so that he could at least see the wolf-thing.

[You are a little roughed up, but in remarkably good shape for a day spent fighting the heat hunters.]

“I didn’t actually fight too many of those. Mostly it was the hive queen I was dealing with.”

[Did you kill it?]

Nym thought he detected some excitement in her tone. He hated to disappoint, but there was no point in lying. “Sadly, no. It took everything I had just to stay alive. But I did notice something strange. Fire didn’t really work against it. It was too cold to keep anything going, but I hit a part of the queen with lightning and the worms went crazy attacking it.”

[They attacked their own queen?]

“Yeah. I think that whole heat hunting thing is really the only thing they do. They don’t care what the source is or whether it might damage them. There’s no instinct for self-preservation. They see anything hot, they attack it.”

[And you think this strategy of heating the queen up will allow you to turn its brood against it?] the matriarch asked. [Will that be enough to kill it?]

Nym shrugged. “I have no idea. I can wound it. But I’m one person, and it’s… enormous. Maybe if we could heat up where its heart is and get them to attack that?”

[Will you try?]

“Honestly, I don’t know. It was way stronger than I thought it would be. I don’t think I can kill it, not with the magic I know.”

[Come with me, human pup. I will teach you new magics. Then you will be strong enough, and you will kill this thing for us?]

He certainly wasn’t expecting that. The wolves obviously used magic, but it seemed to be instinctual, something ingrained into the species. Nym didn’t think he could learn it like he learned human magic. If he could though, this might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn spells no one else had ever known.

Of course, the price for such instruction was steep, perhaps impossible to pay. Nym was not confident that he had anything in his current repertoire that would cause serious injury to the hive queen, and he doubted the matriarch was going to teach him something world-shattering.

“What if I can’t kill them, even with your magic?”

[Then you return to us, and we will keep trying. But perhaps you worry over nothing. You do not know our history, do not know where my kind comes from. Come, let us discuss what magics I can teach you, the powers that kept my people safe when I was still young and strong enough to wield them.]

Nym’s mouth curled into a grin. “Lead the way,” he said.

* * *

Nym finished carving the runes into an orb of ice he’d shaped with magic and poured arcana into them. It took a surprisingly long time for him to finish empowering it, but once it was full, he willed it into activation and it floated up into the air. Light shone gently on the cave, soft, but amplified by the ice-covered walls.

“Hah, my first ever enchanted item,” he said proudly. “Probably won’t last too long once winter passes, but it’ll do for now.”

[Congratulations,] the matriarch projected into his head. [Now are you ready to listen?]

“Yes, of course.”

The light orb was a necessary step, as it was much easier to see arcana when he wasn’t casting his own spells, and it was impossible to see anything but arcana otherwise since there was no light. That might not slow down the magic wolves living in a giant cavern buried under the ice, but Nym liked being able to see.

He wasn’t sure exactly what he was supposed to learn though. He’d seen Cold Paw use magic to add ice to his tunnels for extra stability, and the rate at which he dug was obviously magical, but it was closer to raw elemental magic than a defined construct that Nym could copy. He suspected he might be able to do something that had a similar effect with hydrokinesis if he practiced enough, but he wouldn’t be learning the fine points from Cold Paw.

Their ability to see in the dark wasn’t even magical, as far as he could tell. Nor was their extreme cold resistance. That was all biological, the same way thumbs were for Nym. Their telepathy was so instinctual that he couldn’t even find a spell construct in it. It was just pure arcana cast out with thought imbued into it.

[Let us begin. Understand first that we are limited in many ways compared to your magic, which is itself inferior to the Creator’s. The Creator taught many spells to the first generation, but he had to adapt them so that we can use them. And unfortunately, the ability to cast spells rarely passed down to the next generation, and almost none after that. When I die, the last of our ability to use magic likely dies with me, and you will be the sole successor.]

“First question. Who or what is the Creator?”

The matriarch let out a massive huff and bumped her head against Nym. [It was long ago. Suffice to say that he was a being of such magic as has never been seen before, and though he looked human, he was not. He spun us out of primordial ice and the spirit of the wolf, made us into something more, and breathed life into the first of us. He has been gone for many generations now, and I am the last of the first.]

“But what was he if not human?”

[Something that looked like a human, but immortal, all-powerful. And then he was gone, no words of goodbye.]

“I’m sorry,” Nym said. “This Creator person sounds like a parent to you. I don’t remember mine at all. It… it’s not fair.”

[Life is not fair, human-pup. Now, no more questions. Watch.]

Arcana flared up around the matriarch and wove itself into a terribly complicated construct. It was simultaneously more complex and bigger than anything Nym had ever created, and the speed at which the matriarch wove it was beyond impressive. It wasn’t collapsing either. Nym examined it curiously, trying to figure out what it did.

Snow started swirling through the air, filling the cavern. Annoyed, Nym pushed it away and went back to looking at the construct. More snow drifted past him, obscuring his vision again. Nym went to brush it back with a wave of hydrokinesis, but he stopped short of casting the spell. “You’re doing this,” he said. “This magic makes it cold, makes snow.”

[Correct. We all carry a spark of this in us at all times. It helps keep us comfortable and, if enough of us gather, will make the snow that we live under. Only I am able to make an external construct, which produces a much stronger version of the effect. Soon, you will be able to make it as well.]

“I don’t know if I could hold this stable,” Nym said doubtfully. “Even if I could pull it all together, how would I keep so many pieces from falling apart?”

[The arcana freezes itself into place. Your task is merely to power it and weave it quickly enough that it does not freeze before you have finished.]

That sounded like intent filtering to Nym, but he felt like he’d gotten pretty good at it while working on various ways to warm things up without accidentally immolating himself. He needed to flavor the arcana, for lack of a better term, to make it cold. Fortunately for him, that was something he had plenty of experience with.

He forged a new conduit, filtered it with memories of being cold, huddled up under ratty blankets and watching snow fall from the sky, knowing that it would be a long night and hoping it didn’t get worse before dawn broke. Nym strained second layer arcana through that memory and started weaving as he’d seen the matriarch do.

He wasn’t even half way before the threads froze together and got stuck. Nym let the whole thing dissolve and started over while the matriarch watched. He didn’t do any better the second time, or the third. “Are they sticking together too fast, or am I just too slow?” he asked.

[Both. Your thoughts of freezing are too strong, but you are also too slow to weave them. Speed will come as you learn how to make the construct, and you may find that having a strong intent helps you at that point. You should lessen your intent for now so you can practice.]

Nym expelled the arcana he’d filtered with frozen memories and thought instead of the nights he’d spent in the forest outside Palmara. Those were cold, but in an uncomfortable way. He’d been at no risk of dying from exposure, at least not most nights. He didn’t like that filter though. It reminded him of Ciana, of fleeing Palmara and the overwhelming whirlwind of emotions that had pounded at his thoughts, of the horrifying, comfortable numbness that banished the whirlwind.

It was a harder filter to hold in place, but he did it anyway and started weaving the construct again. Now it was half complete, but the arcana was getting harder to hold in place with just his will. It was cold, but it wasn’t solid enough to exist on its own without his support, and there were too many pieces for him to keep track of.

[Perhaps a little stronger intent. Try again.]

“Hey, wait,” Nym said in sudden realization. “You can see my arcana!”

The matriarch titled her head quizzically, like she didn’t understand. [Of course I can. How else would I instruct you on what you’re doing wrong?]

“Humans can’t do that,” he said. “I’ve never met another one that can see arcana like me.”

[Perhaps you are not human then. Maybe the Creator made you too.]