Word Magic
A damp mustiness clung to his nostrils. The sound of water droplets falling into stagnant pools. A stillness like silence itself seeped through his skin into his veins.
Did it work?
Surrendering to his heavy eyelids, Maness sifted through fragmented memories. The vial shattering at his feet with a burst. The charging earth dragon. The cave-shaking vibrations and roars. Boltman Gail's urgent voice. At the ragged end of his memories, broken like shards of glass, Maness reached out a hand.
Toward the cluster of the brightest magic stones—and beyond them. Toward the magic circle revealed by the shattered wall.
Thank goodness.
The profound quiet around him meant success. There was no dying in the space within the book, after all. It definitely wasn't the afterlife.
His only concern was whether Boltman had dropped the largest stalactite with a mana bullet, as planned. If that had gone right, they'd be on their way to the library's treasure vault. Tempting as it was, it wasn't all that important.
His real goal was right here.
"How long has it been since I had a visitor?"
Contacting the leader of a dynasty now buried beneath the sands. Feeling vitality slowly return to his exhausted body, Maness opened his eyes.
Information flooded in through his vision, piece by piece. The space was as cramped as a dormitory room. It relied on a single small oil lamp for light. A desk and bookshelf on the verge of crumbling to dust. And one presence.
"......"
Maness pushed himself up from the floor. Only then could he fully take in the figure he'd sensed watching him.
A being dressed in a robe worn to threads, shaped like a human. Just as expected. Someone barely holding onto the form she'd had as a living person.
"Worth periodically talking to myself. It kept me from forgetting how to speak."
Getting into the hidden space had been fine, but Maness drew a blank on how to respond. A chill emanated from her, cold enough to freeze him to the bone just by facing her. Like the word death made manifest.
A lich. A being beyond the limits of lifespan. Not someone a mere mortal could address as an equal.
Srash—
A hand hidden in the hood flipped the pages of an open book on the shelf. The limited light made it impossible to make out her features. He simply inferred from the slender, bone-like something where a hand should be.
Was she giving him time? Seizing the opponent's mercy, Maness gathered his thoughts.
The lich knew why he'd come here. She was waiting for him to voice it first. To her, who had spent centuries alone in this place, a few moments were nothing.
"...I've come to inherit your magic."
No introduction needed. Just state what she had tried to do even after becoming a lich.
"I see."
Unique magic. The spell created at the pinnacle of a mage's mastery. A legend, a myth to the world. Few could even approach that realm, which required complete mastery of magic's extremes. A mage of such talent was a miracle once a century—and that was before considering full inheritance.
History demanded innate genius and inhuman time. Only one had fulfilled it.
The true master of the desert, Amanewt.
Srash—
The pages turned again. A different sound this time. Not waiting, but signaling the end.
"I need to finish this chapter to feel at ease."
The hood, facing downward, now turned front. Whatever lay beneath remained hidden.
"Since you've entered here, who you are and where you're from doesn't matter. Shall we skip that?"
The hand on the desk vanished back into shadow. The book lay open, hollow, its purpose fulfilled. The lich recited without a glance at it.
"Close."
⟨ Word Magic ⟩
Maness replayed the scene in his mind. Magic, undoubtedly. Nothing else explained the supernatural phenomenon.
But it was different. Same essence, yet different. Like branches diverging from a tree trunk.
What Amanewt had shown diverged from conventional magic.
"Inheritance requires understanding."
Understanding. A word he'd heard often since entering this world.
"Magic demands it, of course. But there's a difference between learning from the ground up and inheriting. Unique magic is like engraving on the body—akin to demonic spells."
Spells. The innate abilities of demons. No structure to dissect, no mana cost, no constraints like regular magic.
"That's why you must understand it."
A leap in logic. Maness accepted the elliptical phrasing without complaint. One had to account for her transcendence of human limits. Who could expect instant comprehension of her counsel?
"Magic that interferes with the world came in two forms: space and time. The dragons' domain."
This, Maness knew. The dragons had taught humans magic but kept space and time for themselves.
"Came in two forms...?"
One snag. Why past tense?
Its meaning was clear. The lich named the third.
"Word Magic."
Words laden with power. Unthinkable as magic.
"Magic that compels humans, life, the world itself to accept the intent from your mouth."
Maness's thoughts stalled. Was such a thing possible? He couldn't even gauge it.
But he'd seen it. The book closing at a word.
"Experience aids understanding best. Do well."
Silence filled the cramped space. Dampness crawled up his skin. Hot breath rasped through his throat. His eardrums trembled without producing a ring.
His eyes. Both stared at the presence ahead, as if sucked into the world.
"Behold."
⟨ Word Magic ⟩
*
It was hot. The intense sun? Yes. But not just that.
Buildings of triangles and squares. The stuffiness from faint sandwinds. Tension from the crowd filling the vast space. An incongruous silence. Sunlight glinting off windows, swords, shields. Through furrowed brows, Maness saw it all.
Not an illusion. Everything before him was real. He was fairly sure. At least, that's how Maness understood it.
Standing apart from the soldiers, he lifted his head. Countless stairs stretched skyward. His gaze was drawn to the top.
The tallest building. At its peak, a faint figure etched on his retinas. A golden staff crafted to command the dynasty. The one grasping the symbol of authority wore robes blending black and gold.
Unassailable majesty atop the world.
Thud—
Maness stepped forward. He had to. An intangible pull guided his soul.
His viewpoint fixed, absorbing what passed. Resolve toward death dominated the emotions. Beneath it, excitement, fervor, sorrow, resignation. A whirlwind of human feelings swept the crowd.
Silent, yet chaotic.
"Fear not."
⟨ Word Magic ⟩
A single phrase restrained him. Not sound through flesh to brain. It seeped straight into the soul.
Though intended, it quelled the turmoil tormenting the soldiers. Only resolve remained. Sacrifice for all that had built their lives—their end.
Thud—
His foot hit the first step. Maness nearly lost balance. Suddenly, he peered right beside the desert's master in her moment of glory.
Black hair cascading to her waist. Sleek lines from face to body. Most striking: eyes rimmed in heavy makeup.
Amanewt's gaze turned his way.
"...You've come."
A low voice reached him. Her face, scanning the intruder's form then closing her eyes briefly, bloomed with relief beyond mere ease.
"Your arrival means..."
Opening her eyes again, she surveyed the army at her feet.
"...it has meaning."
Her distant gaze hardened to resolve. Accepting any outcome to come. Dignity befitting the desert's ruler.
"I won't ask. Whether your mana form or your power of understanding. My future self, wiser than now, must have judged it."
Maness puzzled at her refusal to ask. Mana form and power of understanding. Vague, like the lich's phrasing—and this was no different.
Mana form he could guess. He'd felt his mana was special firsthand. But the latter? Unheard of, unthought.
"Power of understanding...?"
"Withdraw."
⟨ Word Magic ⟩
No answer. An external force of strong intent forced Maness back.
"To convey your intent to the world, you need expanded senses. So your pieces become not just you, but part of the world."
Boom—
A vibration tore at his eardrums, shaking his chest. At the army's edge, a narrow area lay devastated like a meteor strike.
In the center: a being of pure malice. Skin red as blood, hard to distinguish from stains. Two long horns. Purple hair whipping wildly, fused with them.
Impossibly distant. Like a human viewing ants.
But Maness recognized the one looking up at the dynasty's peak. From the greatsword dwarfing him, embodiment of terror.
A demon, living a life of blood, for bloodbattles alone.
"Timeo."
The greatsword swung. Lightly, like a child with a stick. The vast crowd a forest, humans leaves. The lone demon a typhoon.
It swept away everything forming the dynasty.
"Here, we make our stand."
Amanewt's pupils calmly held her successor.
"Yet our will endures. Since you've come."
The red line breakthrough the stairs violently.
"I won't doubt you."
Killing intent surged, no longer mere lifeform aura.
"Future Amanewt."
Despair welled. The demon leaped from the ground, back to the sun, looming over the desert's master. A blade to cleave glory itself aimed to end a page of history.
Death. An inescapable end.
"Stop."
⟨ Word Magic ⟩
A single word halted it. The ensuing will. To aid her successor's understanding, shining like the desert sun.