Paranoid Mage

“I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about,” the fae representative told Archmage Taisen.

“I see,” Taisen said. It meant that the fae had closed ranks to obscure whatever had happened to Ray Danforth. He didn’t know why, either. While he was unwilling to let the fae get away with kidnapping one of his men, he could hardly start a war with the Seven Lesser Courts all at once either.

The click codes Ray had sent over his scry-comm before vanishing implied that it had been a fae that had taken him, not some random beast that had been “accidentally” allowed to wander into the territory between the Houses and Garrison One. There was a reason he drilled the codes into everyone, even though he’d never really expected to need them. Something that could be directed with pure vis, likely unnoticeable even to fae kings, was an incredibly powerful emergency option.

“I would appreciate it if your sovereign would contact me with any information should he find it,” Taisen said, knowing he couldn’t press too much. Not while he was still in Faerie. Even for him, that was a dangerous proposition.

If they had been on Earth, it would have been a different matter. Taisen would have had no compunctions using whatever force was necessary if he’d been able to lay his hands on a fae who might know. It was the sort of mess that reminded him why he’d never wanted to be an Archmage or head of a House to begin with. He wanted to be out solving problems with direct action, not arranging things and tiptoeing around other people’s sensibilities.

“Of course, Archmage Taisen,” the representative said insincerely, and bowed. Taisen scowled and turned away. The fae wouldn’t help, but he was on good terms with a few of the Houses that lived on Faerie. He’d fought alongside Archmage Caledon at Garrison One, before Caledon even was an archmage, and the man had been a strong supporter ever since.

He flew out of the diplomatic post, just outside human territory, and shot toward House Caledon. It would be good to renew those ties, and maybe ask a few favors. If the fae felt that they could move against him, he might need allies there sooner rather than later.

***

Archmage Duvall would have been perfectly happy never hearing about Callum Wells again. It wasn’t like she didn’t have other things to be doing — she had a life completely independent of all the drama going on with GAR and the Earth in general. She would admit to a grudge — but an Archmage had better things to do.

Other people were more invested, from the presence of Teller Janry in her front room. House Janry was generally polite to her — as they should be after she’d stabilized over a hundred acres for their Faerie estate! But she mistrusted them being in charge of the Department of Acquisitions — or any other places they’d gotten their hooks into.

“We’re certain it’s Wells,” Teller said, sipping tea in exactly the proper manner for someone of his background and station — manners she appreciated. Duvall had been seated across from him, but restlessness at the thought of dealing with Wells again had driven her to her feet and she found herself pacing next to the window. “Given how slippery he is, we haven’t approached the area directly, but we interviewed all the mundanes. Among other things, the reports definitely sound like brand of gravity magic, even if they didn’t see him directly. Besides, there’s nobody on record in that area.”

“That’s all well and good,” Duvall said. “But what do you expect me to do about it?”

“Lock him down,” Teller replied. “Like I said, he’s slippery. But you can stop him from teleporting around, right?” There was a hint of challenge in his voice and Duvall scowled.

"Of course I can," she said. It was obvious Wells could do some things she found difficult to grapple with, but she’d seen his magic and was more than confident she could counter anything he did – Wells was no Archmage.

“Then GAR is officially requesting your presence to counter any potential spellcraft,” Teller said. Duvall frowned. She did have her own bone to pick with Wells — what she’d found about his portals was disturbing. There was nothing at all on the other end, just some terrible void — it was heresy, plain and simple, and could not be allowed to continue. So long as they weren’t expecting her to go into actual combat with Wells, it was probably worth her while.

“Very well,” she said. “The particulars?”

“With Archmage Taisen’s departure, we have fewer battle-ready mages, but we do have a squad from DAI who will be backing up a combined force of fae and vampires,” Teller said. “The site is unfortunately close to Portal World Six, so we have to be a little careful, but Archmage Wizzy doesn’t seem to be involved.”

“I can open a portal directly if you’re going to stage somewhere,” Duvall said with a grunt. She knew that was what they wanted anyway. “What about Archmage Janry? He could just sink the area into the ground if they want to get Wells.”

“It’s unlikely the Archmage could do anything fast enough to prevent Wells from escaping, and given Wells’ particular talents a more direct approach seemed best,” Teller said – just excuses. More likely Janry was just scared of the man who’d already killed an Archmage and a Fae King, not to mention whatever he’d done to remove Constance.

“Fine,” Duvall said. “But I want at least half the squad with me. As you said, Wells is slippery. On the off chance he’s got something I don’t know about, I want to be properly protected.” She had faith in her shields, more or less, but under the circumstances she wanted to be protected by people with faster-than-human reflexes.

“That can be arranged,” Teller said, which meant Duvall probably could have asked for more. She sighed and turned to face him.

“When were you intending to do this?”

“The sooner, the better,” Teller replied. “Local night is in nine hours. That would be the first window.”

“American time,” Duvall sighed, glancing at the grandfather clock ticking away against the wall. “Fine. Where exactly are we going?”

“Mexico,” Teller said. “We’ll meet at the Mexico City branch office an hour beforehand.”

“Very well.” Duvall looked at the clock again. “I will be there.”

“I appreciate your assistance in this matter,” Teller said, draining the tea and standing up to offer her a bow. “I look forward to seeing you tonight.”

Duvall saw him to the door while a servant cleaned up, and then pulsed her vis to teleport down into the armory. Not that she used combat foci, but there were still extra tools that she didn’t want to do without. A couple of fae trinkets that she actually trusted, reinforced under-armor with kinetic protections, and a few extra sensory foci.

She let her seneschal know where she was going to be as she prepared for the excursion — her own guard would have been preferable, but they weren’t quite as powerful or trained as she would like. Considering Wells’ track record so far, they’d only be at risk for little gain, especially since there was going to be a DAI squad there anyway.

When the appointed time came around she made sure she was appropriately dressed, double-checked all her foci, and reached out to the House’s teleporter. She pulled herself through it to the GAR hub, and then pulsed her vis to locate the appropriate anchor. Two more teleports brought her from the hub to the Mexico City branch. Which was not very large, merely a few rooms and offices beyond the teleporters.

To his credit, Teller was already there. He stood to greet her as she stepped out of the teleporter, dressed in a combat uniform with an arcanorifle slung across one shoulder — a weapon he probably didn’t know how to use. At least he cut a good figure.

“Any updates?” She demanded, not wanting to waste any time.

“No, we’re just waiting for the rest of the squad to arrive.”

“Give them this.” She took an anchor from her bag, a lightweight plate about six inches in diameter. “I can bring them through when we need to.” If they were mages there’d be no issue, but extending flight to a large group of vampires was not easy for anyone who wasn’t of air affinity to begin with.

“Fantastic,” Teller beamed, and handed her a scry-comm. It was one of the newer, military models, and she clipped it to her shoulder, feeding it a thread of vis from her shell and shaping the resulting spell form around her ear and mouth. She liked her normal scry-comm better — but she wasn’t so stupid as to insist on different communications for such an operation.

She pulled out a chair and sat, knowing she was earlier than expected — but resenting the waste of her time anyway. The squad came in all at once a few minutes later, all in combat uniform with DAI logos, mostly vampires with one fae. He didn’t look any different from the rest — but Duvall was an Archmage. She could tell the difference.

The non-mages were in a ten-man squad, with some kind of internal grouping that she didn’t care about. So long as they were competent enough to protect her. Frankly she would have preferred Taisen’s soldiers, even if Taisen himself had suspect allegiances. He didn’t do backroom deals — the one thing about him she respected.

There were four additional mages as well, none of whom seemed particularly powerful but probably represented a range of aspects to cover all contingencies. There was a reason every House tried to have a variety of aspects — though almost every House was known for one. But they probably wouldn’t be too useful in an actual fight. Wells didn’t function like a typical combat mage.

Teller started giving some sort of briefing that she mostly ignored. She already knew the history with Wells, what he had done and what he could do. All his abilities required that he be able to use his own magic, though, and with no other mage of note around – Teller hardly counted – she should be able to suppress Wells. Teller ended the briefing by handing the anchor to the fae, and Duvall stood, ready to leave.

“I’ll notify you through scry-comm when Archmage Duvall is ready to bring you over,” Teller concluded, and Duvall grunted affirmation. The sooner they started, the sooner it’d be done.

With that, they went outside and took to the air, Duvall following Teller even further south. The sun was almost behind the horizon, and the lights of mundane cities faded as they went further out into the country. It reminded her of the last time she visited the Portal World Six site, for maintenance — she couldn’t fathom why someone would live so far out in the middle of nowhere. Unless they had to.

Well was too dangerous to get close to without preparation. He had shown he had quite the sensitivity, but even he couldn’t sense miles away without resorting to active vis pulses. Which was something she would recognize and could deal with. But even from a distance the lines of a glamour were visible to mana-sight, marking the presence of a mage dwelling.

Duvall pulsed her vis straight downward, finding a road and aiming for it. That time, Teller followed, and when she touched down she conjured a few lights — she felt better with their surroundings illuminated. Then she reached for the anchor, activating it so she could pulse her vis through to the other side.

“I’m ready,” she told Teller.

“Give it another few minutes,” he said, looking at the sky. It was still purple, not quite into the black of night. “We want our people to be completely ready.” Duvall shrugged, finding herself more and more annoyed by the time it was taking. Every time she had to deal with direct action she spent most of her time doing nothing — a complete waste.

Duvall tapped her foot, waiting impatiently as Teller talked with someone over the scry-comm. While she was tempted, she didn’t try to pester him into going before he was ready — she didn’t like combat, but she wasn’t stupid. Let people who actually knew how to carry out an operation do their thing.

Finally he gave her the nod, and she tapped the anchor again, using it to snap open a portal frame. The squad blurred through, equipped with rifles and blades both as they assembled on the road. Teller said something else that she didn’t really listen to, but they divided themselves so three moved into guard position around her and the other seven got into some kind of formation ahead.

“I’d really prefer to do more surveillance first, but we can’t risk Wells noticing and rabbiting.” Duvall thought he was explaining for her benefit, but she wasn’t sure — maybe he just liked to hear himself speak. She was convinced enough that it was Wells, and if it wasn’t, GAR could deal with the apologies.

“Archmage, if you could teleport us in and lock down the area?” Teller said, turning to her. She sighed, and then pulsed her vis out as far as it would go. Unlike some other aspects, the spatial active sense didn’t give much more than outlines and densities, but it worked well enough for her purposes.

It bounced right off the house itself, since of course that was more tightly warded than just the glamour, even if at a glance the wards weren’t great, but her pulse did find a number of suspicious bits and pieces of enchantment and metal. She selected a clear space outside the house and wrapped everyone in vis, overpowering their resistance to drop everyone in a clear space in front of the house — and quickly, because she knew he would have noticed the pulse.

At the same time she pushed out her vis from her shell and spun a stasis net over the area, her magic freezing space. Not that it stopped anyone from moving through it, but any attempts to teleport around would be difficult. Let alone open any kind of useful portal.

The squad of seven rushed forward, and she felt a push back against her stasis net — nothing that she couldn’t handle. She was an Archmage after all, and it was proof that it was Wells. But her satisfaction was short-lived as some her vis simply vanished. It wasn’t broken or overpowered, it was simply gone.

It was a sensation that she’d only felt once before and would never forget.

“Wait⁠—” she managed to say, but that was all she could get out before it was too late. Their targets vanished and the horrible emptiness ballooned outward, just in front of the squad smashing through the back door, and then continued to grow and grow as it devoured her vis — worse, invalidated it entirely, as if her magic didn’t exist at all.

The wards around the house were snuffed out as a veritable explosion of null magic burst outward from a portal that had to be the size of a person, a spear pointed directly at them. The vampires and fae went limp, all the animating mana stripped from their bodies, as Teller conjured a stone wall that did nothing at all to impede the progress of the spreading nothing. It smashed into her shell and her shield fizzled and vanished as it tried to activate. The vis shell itself was proof against the null trying to erode it — she was an Archmage. But she was still defenseless, and with Wells wielding that kind of weapon, she was not going to stay.

Duvall pulled a strand of vis from her shell and fed it into herself, where a paired teleportation core was entrained in her very flesh – something she had been inspired to create after Wells’ disappearance from a heavily warded room. It wouldn’t do for the Archmage of Space to be less adept than a heretic. It energized and pulled her away, all the way back to her estate in the Deep Wilds. She appeared in her saferoom, where the other half of the teleportation core was etched into space itself, so it would never degrade.

She staggered over and dropped into the luxurious chair, panting from sheer nerves. Wells was absolutely insane. Null magic was exactly why she refused to try and open new portal worlds; not only did it eradicate any mana and most vis it touched, it could even permanently cripple a mage if their vis shield failed. She didn’t know why or how he had that spell form so ready to hand, but it was proof that he was far too dangerous to handle.

Serena Duvall prided herself on knowing when an obstacle wasn’t worth the effort, and she promised herself she’d have nothing to do with Wells ever again.

***

For better or worse, it turned out that paired portals worked across dimensions even if the dimensions weren’t connected. It took quite a few tries, but eventually he found a portal world that seemed to at least vaguely match ordinary physics and didn’t have massive creatures swanning around in space. It was still a vacuum, and the stars were partially obscured behind spiderweb-like filaments, but there was only empty space and a small featureless planetoid nearby, so he took the risk of putting one of his space drones through.

Since he could still connect to the drone when the original portal vanished, that proved the concept, though Callum wasn’t sure he wanted to rely on an enchantment for a consistent connection to the real world. The big dimensional portals were clearly stable on timescales of centuries, which was the kind of reliability he wanted. The Guild of Enchanting had found out that even pure bane materials were only functional for a decade or two outside their native portal world, and that was on Earth. In other portal worlds or deep space, that was even shorter.

Still, if he found a more habitable portal world, it might well serve as an emergency retreat or a storage area until he cracked the permanent portals. He was almost certain it was possible, but there was no telling how long it would take or how much effort would be needed to make a proper redoubt. As an interim measure, Callum was genuinely considering trying to find a corner of the Deep Wilds instead, despite it being a jungle chock-full of nasty beasts.

He put aside his sketches and followed Lucy as they went to tuck in Alex for the night. Two was the age where sleep was more complicated than it really should be, so it was a whole production. Frankly it was probably too late at night, but they were caught up in trying to do too many things and all they could do was the best they could do.

“C’mon sweetie, time for bed,” Lucy said.

“Wanna play outside!” Alex protested, angrily rubbing his eyes and obviously exhausted.

“Alex, listen to your mother,” Callum said. “You’re tired, we’re tired, and the sooner you go to sleep the sooner tomorrow⁠—” He cut off as a cascade of vis pulsed through his perceptions, surprise and panic freezing him in place for a moment. But just one moment before he grabbed Lucy and Alex to try and teleport them away to the panic room. Only to find he couldn’t.

The vis wave hadn’t really gone away, it had turned into some sort of rigid structure, hooking into every bit of space and holding it in place. He knew exactly who it had to be, the thought occurring the moment before the structure shifted and a teleport formed, dumping sixteen people out into the garden. Six were in mage bubbles, and he recognized the strength of one of them. Archmage Duvall had come calling.

He was aware hazily that the rest were vampires of some sort, with swirly fae magic in and around them, but he was more focused on how to deal with Duvall. He had to break her hold, if he was going to get everyone out of there, and he had no time to do it in. Just shoving vis at the problem did nothing; her control was far more powerful than his. He needed something that didn’t care about her strength.

The idea came to him as the garden door crunched, the supernaturals rushing the house. He couldn’t make any large spatial constructs, but Duvall still operated on the same scale as every other mage, and there was space between her hooks to make a very small portal. And there was a portal he could make that would get rid of vis.

He reached through his gut-port for his foci and with a sharp twist he wrenched open a portal to an anti-mana world just in front of him, the negative energy pouring out and eradicating Duvall’s threads. She seemed to flinch, the hold weakening, and he took the fraction of opportunity to shove the three of them through the gut-portal, through the nexus, and into the emergency backup cave in the northern United States. There was a lot of work put into the house, though, and he didn’t want to leave all that behind if he didn’t have to, so he tapped into some of his cached vis crystals and stretched the portal wide, intending to shove it at Duvall so he could break her hold.

At an inch or so across, the anti-mana effect was more or less a sphere. He’d expected that to translate to a moving mana-eater that would sever vis threads in the area, but it turned out that it did not scale linearly. Instead of a larger sphere, at five feet in diameter the anti-mana exploded out of both sides of the portal in an enormous deluge, billowing out to even larger than the portal width as it went.

A huge cone burst forth in both directions, sweeping over the entire invading party, who were already strung out halfway through the house, and passing straight through the walls. All the glamours and wardings collapsed instantly, shredded apart, and the supernaturals seemed to simply fall over. The vis lockdown vanished. Even his connection to the portal was severed, but when the portal didn’t collapse Callum just goggled.

He wasn’t sure what to do about the anti-mana portal, but before he needed to start trying to work his way in and rip up the portal infrastructure, it finally collapsed on its own. A lifetime of fifteen seconds was not much, but it was a lot longer than the small portals had been. That was something he’d have to think about later, when he had the time.

There was basically no mana around in the air, all of it having spent itself against the anti-mana, which might have been what caused the portal to finally collapse. There were fifteen bodies in various states of life left behind, all of which had been completely purged of vis. They looked almost exactly like they were normal humans. The vampires were completely down, and while the mages were conscious, they didn’t seem to have any magic.

He had no idea how long that would last, so he took advantage of it while he could. All it took was simply grabbing them and teleporting them into space. Without any vis, they couldn’t resist, and they couldn’t survive. But that was just the people who had led the assault. Duvall was obviously the one who was unaccounted for and he had no idea how long it would be until she got reinforcements, so he had to leave.

But he had a few seconds, it seemed. Long enough to try instituting the escape plan he’d started on after the cartel had visited. He opened a small portal into a corner of the basement and threw a switch, blowing the cutoffs for water and septic, then reached out to wrap the whole house and basement in one giant teleportation framework.

That was really what he’d gotten the vis crystals for, and despite the earlier expenditure he still had enough in reserve to support everything. Without planning ahead he wouldn’t have been able to rip the house and the machine shed out whole cloth, but he’d added a few reinforcement enchantments to the foundations, mostly to keep the house in a constant field of one gravity no matter what. Fortunately that hadn’t been destroyed by the anti-mana. He’d also made room around the concrete with some judiciously applied gravity blades so he could teleport it easily enough.

Most importantly, he’d made a big hole out in the middle of nowhere in Montana, near another cave. It wasn’t a permanent solution by any means, and his instincts screamed about leveling and grading, but it would do for a week or so. Bringing the house and the shed meant they kept all their stuff, minus the garden, yard surveillance, and traps, so it was not quite

as great a setback as it could have been. He drained two vis crystals in an instant teleporting the entire house out to the fallback position, then turned to where Lucy was still fumbling with one of the LED lanterns he’d stocked in the fallback cave.

“What was that?” Lucy asked, holding onto Alex — who was definitely not getting any sleep for a while.

“Supernatural assault team,” Callum replied grimly, trying to take slow and measured breaths. Every time something like that happened, the rush of adrenaline made him feel like he was sick. “They had Duvall with them, that’s how they ambushed us. Not sure how they got a lead on the cartel, but it had to be them who gave us away.”

“Oh,” said Lucy faintly. “So how bad is it?”

“Well, I got the house out,” Callum said, belatedly reaching through the gut-portal to start sweeping stuff out of the cave-cache into the nearby one he’d picked as a backup. The other caves were not as well finished or furnished, but they weren’t meant to be permanent anyway. “That property is a write-off and we’ll have to get our water from the barrels for a while, but we managed to salvage most of it.”

“That’s good,” Lucy said, then slumped, letting Alex down to the floor. “But dammit, I liked that place and the garden. Are we going to have to be running for the rest of our lives?”

“No,” Callum said flatly, opening up a portal to the relocated house and ushering Lucy and Alex through it. “Once I find an appropriate portal world we’ll have something unassailable, but I also need to make it unthinkable to go after us.”

“That sounds ominous,” Lucy said.

“It just has to be obvious it’s not worth it to even think about it,” Callum said. “Now, all the people who came to assault us are dead, save Duvall — she ran away. So that’s something. But we’ll have to go further.”

“Someone’s dead?” Alex asked, and Lucy blinked down at him.

“Don’t worry about it, sweetie,” she said, hugging him against her. “We’re going to be spending more time over with Uncle Chester for a while, okay?”

Callum grunted. In Mexico they could spend a lot of time outdoors in late fall, but in Montana it was not nearly so nice. He was going to have to board up the back anyway — the door and wall near it were completely destroyed thanks to the vampires barging through.

“Why don’t you put in a movie or something and let me fix the back a bit,” Callum suggested. “Maybe when that’s over it can be time for bed.” He’d have to put any serious discussion off until Alex went to sleep, which was probably for the best so the stress of the moment could pass.

“I’ll tell Chester and Lisa too,” Lucy said.

“Can we go, um. Can we go Uncle Chester’s?” Alex asked, which was pretty damn cogent for a two-year-old as far as Callum knew. Callum and Lucy exchanged glances.

“Why don’t you go on ahead,” Callum suggested. “I’ll clean up a bit and join you.” He was somehow sticky with sweat, something he hadn’t even noticed until that moment.

“Okay, honey, I’ll see you in a few minutes,” Lucy said, wrapping her arms around him for a kiss. Callum held her close for a moment and then crouched down to hug Alex before opening the portal.

“I’ll be along in a minute, kiddo,” he said, and Alex nodded with due seriousness before running through the portal into Chester’s house. Lucy followed, and Callum went to take care of business while he finished transferring things out of the cave-cache.

He picked up the conversation much later on, when Alex finally crashed. He sat with Lucy, Chester, and Lisa, drinking water because it was too late at night for caffeine and he was too wrung out for alcohol. In truth he would have much rather had the conversation when he was awake and rested, but he might end up putting it off even more if he waited.

“So, what’s the plan for making sure nobody else comes after us?” Lucy asked. Callum sighed and rubbed at his eyes.

“Well, one thing is that no man is an island. I think I’m going to have to officially enter some sort of arrangement with the American Alliance, House Hargrave, and House Taisen. Not really as myself, but as The Ghost or whatever. I’m not here for politics, but it’s impossible to live without some kind of association.”

“You’re practically there anyway, at least from my perspective,” Chester said.

“The terms of our Alliance are in many ways based on your enforcement to begin with,” Lisa added. “An official relationship wouldn’t really change anything, aside from us saying so.”

“Yeah, and it’s been stupid to turn down that resource,” Callum shook his head. “Sometimes I’m an idiot. I wanted to be independent, but…” He just shrugged.

“I’m sure Gayle and Glenda would be fine with it too,” Lucy put in. “They haven’t asked us for anything yet, but it’s not like we’re on bad terms. I dunno about Taisen though.”

“Yeah, it’s too bad I’m the primary point of contact there,” Callum agreed. “I’m really not good at making friends.”

“You’re too grumpy,” Lucy agreed with a fond smile, taking his hand. He squeezed back and looked at Chester and Lisa.

“The other thing is I need to make it clear that nobody is to mess with me. I’m not sure who exactly I got rid of with that assault on my house; maybe Lucy can find out later. But I need to address Duvall, GAR in general, and all the supernaturals who would be willing to come after me.”

“That’s a tall order,” Chester said dryly.

“Well.” Callum exchanged glances with Lucy. “I’m going to close the portal to the Night Lands.” Chester blinked once, slowly. Lisa showed more reaction.

“You what?” She goggled at him. “That’s — I don’t know how that will go but that’s not going to make people any happier with you.”

“That ship has sailed,” Callum argued. “The point now is to be so damn scary nobody wants to take the chance. It’s not like I’m a threat to ordinary fae or shifters or mages. It’s just the monsters.”

“That is a point,” Chester rumbled. “If you want to properly ally with people though, you’ll have to give them forewarning for such a drastic measure. People can deal with strong tactics, but not randomness. Surprises don’t help.” His tone was pointed, which was as close as he’d come to criticizing Callum’s past actions.

“I suppose,” Callum conceded, though he hated the idea of having to consult people before he did anything. “If it’s just the heads of House Hargrave and Taisen and yourself, that’s not terrible operational security. More than that though, and I’m afraid it’d leak and people would do anything to head it off.”

“They certainly would,” Chester agreed, clearly not sad at the idea of the main shifter rivals being cut off. “But once it’s done, if you have people to back it, it turns from some terrible, unprecedented disaster to a statement of power.”

“Right, which is the idea,” Callum said, half agreeing, half thinking out loud. “Might as well contact them and get them in for a briefing tomorrow.”

“I can take care of that,” Chester offered, and Lucy yawned.

“Yeah, please,” she said.

Callum wasn’t quite ready to go to sleep himself. The strange behavior of the anti-mana portal was still on his mind. He’d been damn lucky none of his family had been nearby, considering what had happened he’d opened it. Maybe scaling it up had been overly reckless, but it was only sixty times larger. What had happened was not on the same scale.

He opened a small portal over in the dragonlands, then doubled its size. Then doubled it again, watching the anti-mana spill out. Four inches was not much larger than one inch, but as his senses covered the black spot where the anti-mana was he realized he’d been completely overlooking how things scaled.

The portal construct was essentially just the perimeter, which scaled with diameter. The surface area was a square of that. The amount of anti-mana was a volume which was a cube. So the sixty-fold increase from one inch to five feet was, after doing some math, some two hundred thousand times more anti-mana.

The exponents probably weren’t exact. It took more than sixty times the vis to open a five foot portal, but it wasn’t thousands of times the cost. All the vis crystals in the world wouldn’t help if the scaling was that severe. But he had an inkling that the reason the huge portals were stable was maybe due to scaling factors.

Tiny portals could be fed enough mana to be sustained. Larger ones took so much absolute mana they were temporary. But even bigger and the volume of mana they could pull in – or was in the space they occupied – started tipping the balance. That was his guess, one that he’d have to verify later.

After all, he needed to check his weapon before he used it.