Free The Mage's Grave: Mages of Martir Book #1 by Timothy L. Cerepaka

underwater. Stone channels magic better than wood.”
    “But how does that work?” Aorja asked, leaning forward, her eyes darting from Auratus's anklet to Kuroshio's armband. “I know that technically anything can be used to channel magic, but I was always told that wands were the best because they were specifically designed to channel the divine energy. Never occurred to me to use a stone.”
    Kuroshio stared blankly at Aorja, which told Darek that he clearly had not understood most of what she said. It made him wonder just how much Divina that Kuroshio understood. For that matter, he wondered how much Auratus understood, who due to her inability to talk was even more of an enigma than Kuroshio.
    So Darek said, in a slower voice than Aorja, “Aorja wonders how your magical stones work. She says that wands were designed for magical use, which is why we think they're better.”
    Kuroshio's goggles made it difficult to tell if he understood Darek's explanation at first, but then he nodded and said, “Ah. Well, stones very good. Mined from ocean floor. Can store magic energy. Useful.”
    His broken Divina was hard to understand, although Darek thought he got the gist of it. “So these stones are different from normal stones, then?”
    Before Kuroshio could answer, a small tremor shook the floor beneath their feet. Darek and Aorja looked down at the floor and so did Kuroshio and Auratus. Another tremor followed, this one stronger than the last.
    “What that?” said Kuroshio, looking up at Darek and Aorja with panic in his eyes. “Earthquake?”
    Darek shook his head as another tremor made Jiku's bed shake, although Jiku himself did not move. “Can't be. We never have earthquakes around here. This is something else entirely.”
    “Geomancer?” said Kuroshio, looking from Darek to Aorja and back again. “One of your fellow students?”
    Another tremor happened before Darek could respond, this one so abrupt that it almost threw him off his feet. He grabbed the railing of Jiku's bed to steady himself, however, and held it tightly as he stood up to his full height again.
    “I don't think so,” said Darek. “We should go check, however, just to be—”
    For the fourth time, the medical wing was shaken by another tremor, but this time, it was enough to cause the chandeliers overhead to sway. Darek doubted they would fall—the entire Arcanium was reinforced by an ancient magic designed to keep the place from falling in on itself in the event of some disaster like this—but seeing the chandeliers swaying set him on edge anyway.
    “Come on,” said Darek as he pushed away from Jiku's bed. “We're going to go find out what's going on out there and deal with it, if possible.”
    -
    Bursting through the front doors of the Arcanium and out onto the front steps, Darek found the cause of the tremors immediately, although he had a hard time understanding what he was looking at, at first.
    The creature had the giant wings of a bat sprouting from its shoulders, with a long, lion-like tail that whipped through the air. Its hind legs were short and stubby, like the legs of a zinyu, and its body was covered in fur like a thick coat. It had the face of a tiger, but the strangest part of all was its 'arms,' which were essentially pile drivers that it used to beat against the earth. Every time its 'arms' slammed into the ground, another tremor shook the school, easily identifying the monster as the source of the tremors.
    “What in Skimif's name is that?” said Aorja, her eyes widening as she drew her wand for battle.
    “Chimera,” said Kuroshio. “Created creatures. Very rare, though.”
    Darek had heard about chimeras. Like Kuroshio said, they were very rare, and when they did exist, their appearance was often radically different from one another. Chimeras were creatures created by biomancers, although due to the difficulty of such a feat, they were rarely seen. The gods could create chimeras as well, although those were even