Rotten Magic

by Jeffrey Bardwell

  Devin screamed. His hands started glowing and the stench of smoldering cloth singed the air.

  “Devi,” his sister cried, falling off the bed.

  Dragon Boy? the mage growled. I. Am. The. True. Dragon. I am the real power, not some steel back pack. Of course you failed. You put your faith in machines. Flames shot from Devin's finger tips. So, who shall we burn first?

  Misera screamed.

  Tears streaming, Devin reached for his sister as he had so may times before to cradle and comfort her. He could smell the burnt pork of scorched flesh. His sister's scorched flesh. “I'm sorry, Missi. I'm so sorry.”

  Misera sobbed and pulled away. Devin looked down the length of his own arm. His hand was still burning with quiet flames, but he felt nothing as his guts unclenched and a calm water flowed from within, filling him.

  See? All that pain, gone. Used up, the mage snarled. Stop blubbering, she's fine. Everything is fine.

  Devin stared at the smoldering black mark on his sister's arm as she huddled on the other side of the bed, shielding her face with her hands. She stared at him through a mask of trembling fingers. “No,” he whispered, dropping his hands as the flames vanished. “Nothing will ever be fine again.”

  14. DRUSILLA, YEAR 491

  The guilt had started to gnaw my insides the night of the evals. The full weight of my actions did not descend until the disquieting dreams began, sliding quickly into nightmares. Horrible visions invaded my mind, Devin at the center of them all. He was calling for help while I watched from a distance and did nothing.

  Pieces began to chip off his body. He walked toward me, arms outstretched, leaving a trail of odd-shaped parts behind him. His feet shattered a little more with each fragile step. At last, I ran toward him, but his body was breaking to pieces faster than I could put them back together. Every piece was screaming, begging, pleading, surrounding me in a ghoulish chorus.

  I awoke, gasping. I dressed. I kissed my mother goodbye. All the way through the woods, I girded myself to go back to the Guild Hall's ornate gates and face this strange, new Devin. I had to verify whether all the terrible things I had done were worth the cost or if I had damned myself for nothing.

  I imagined our conversation, the first open conversation we would have had all season long. I would lay bare my foul treachery. He would expose the dark, awful secret that consumed him. And then . . . ? The dialogue in my mind dwindled to silence. I tried to chat with friends walking past the gates, but nobody would look me in the eyes.

  Did they know? Was my treachery exposed? Was this cold silence a precursor to Devin's reaction? I should have faced him that day, I thought. I threw him into the jaws of the machine without ever addressing his root problem. He needed someone to see him as a person, to bring him out of his loneliness. But I just saw a problem to solve.

  I brushed my hand through my hair and looked at the neat, trim trees lining the street.

  “No twigs, today,” I murmured, stifling a sob. I glanced around, desperate for any distraction from my looming thoughts and the empty time stretching before me. Each moment drove a new spike into my gut. I focused on the wind rustling the leaves, on the way the light filtered through the trees onto the cobblestones. The sheen of the tops of each cobble, polished by years of boots and cart wheels. I was down to examining the pattern of white, gritty mortar between the cobbles when a journeyman came to close the gates and usher me inside.

  Devin never arrived at the gates: not on the first day after the evals nor the next nor the next. Rumors abounded and stories flew across the Guild Hall like little chirping birds. I plucked a brace of common facts from each.

  Devin had failed his evals on character merit. Devin had stolen his invention. Devin had done . . . something strange. This oddity pointed to the weirdest rumor of all: Devin had made the puzzle box sing. May the gods blind me with the dark irony of it. The poor artificer whom I had treated as my own private puzzle went and solved the greatest puzzle in the guild. And nobody knew how Devin managed to do it.

  Further investigation revealed this to be a lie: one person knew. I should have investigated harder, but I was wracked with doubts and self torment. After three days of agony, under the burning light of my guilt, the soft lies had melted and exposed the knobby truth beneath.

  You weren't trying to help Devin, my mind accused. Rescue him from himself? Hah!

  But he needed help, I protested.

  What he needed was his best friend, not whatever . . . evil puzzlemaster you've become, my mind taunted.

  He wasn't my best friend anymore, I cried. He changed. He's different, darker.

  I castigated myself. People change, you stupid girl. Whatever trauma happened to him, he's still Devin. His behavior is not the issue. Was it too hard to try and get to know this new version? Were you too scared to act as the emotional buoy he needed while sinking deeper and deeper within himself?

  Yes, scared. I clutched at the word. I was scared.

  You were pathetic. So, Guildmaster Huron holds the keys to Devin's secret now: the singing puzzle box. Go investigate. Help your friend, if you haven't lost him already. But face the problem openly, like an artificer, not a sneak thief.

  I wasn't a thief, I protested.

  Oh? I asked myself. You can't lie to me. Misguided intentions do not erase those lock picks or the breaking and entering. What you stole was intangible and more valuable than all the gold or iron in the world. You stole information and then you used it to steal the dreams of your friend, you dirty, slimy, little thief.

  Head bowed, I shuffled through the corridors of the hall toward Guildmaster Huron's office. The sun was descending through the afternoon sky and long shadows stretched across the machine shop. I passed the younger apprentices working at the foundries with wooden ears. I mounted the steps with leaden feet. The guildmaster's door was wide open. I entered silently and closed the door behind me.

  “Drusilla, please come inside. I've been expecting you.” A hollow chuckle arose from behind the large metal desk. The puzzle box sat on the desk, partially dismantled. I looked up and blinked away fresh tears, my apathy broken by the tender weakness in that voice. The guildmaster's body had wizened in the days since the evals. He sagged in his chair. His clothes drooped off his bones. But his eyes had lost none of their sharp luster.

  “Yes, sir?” I asked, walking toward the desk, my eyes reaching toward that machine.

  “So many years gone by,” the guildmaster whispered to himself, “yet I am no closer to understanding this machine than when I was a lad studying the device, preparing for my own evals. Oh, the experiments I conducted! The treatises I wrote! But even with all the knowledge and skills gained since, something about the inner mechanism still resists my tampering. It is . . . quite humbling.”

  “You said you were expecting me, sir?” I prompted him.

  “I was.” He pushed the large brass box aside, clearing space to look at me. The massive edifice slid across the desk as if on greased rails with hardly a sound. As I startled at the impossibility of it all, he waved to one of the seats. “Please, sit. You were the author of this vile series of events, were you not? The more I investigate the situation, the more I find the touch of your hand upon it.”

  “My touch?” I echoed, sitting.

  “All over Devin,” he said, smiling, waving me back down as I stood with surprise . . . indignation? I don't know what I was feeling. “So much trouble to go through for one person. To harm such a person . . .”

  “I wasn't trying to harm him,” I cried, gripping the armrest of the chair until my knuckles bleached.

  His eyebrow quirked. “Did you believe you were helping him? By sabotaging the career of one of the most promising apprentices I've seen in years?”

  “Yes, I truly did. I thought I did. But he didn't need my help in the end, did he, sir?” I asked. “He sabotaged himself . . . somehow.”

  “That he did,” Huron growled. “In the same spectacular fashion he did everything.”
>
  “And it has something to do with that box?” I nodded toward the machine on his desk.

  Guildmaster Huron folded his arms. “The nature of this box and Devin's transgressions are secrets I shall take to my grave. I cannot acknowledge them openly, even to his . . . friends. The consequences are too dire. Do you understand, Drusilla?”

  “You exiled him from the guild for making the box sing and you won't tell me why?”

  “There are worse things than exile. I must protect the lad from himself.”

  “You're wrong, sir.” I glowered. “I thought that once, too. You're making a grave mistake.”

  “You don't know what he is, what he can do,” the old man cried, cradling the machine in his arms.

  “He's my friend. He is . . . important to me. What else matters?” You're just realizing this now? my mind hissed. Where was this delightful epiphany when you were destroying a genius?

  Guildmaster Huron straightened and regained his composure. “You have heard that young Devin absconded with his Journeyman's Piece? A foul weapon if I have ever seen one? Guild property?”

  I nodded. A weapon that bestowed the corrupting power of the mages on the common man. In that at least, the guildmaster's views agreed with my own.

  “I am sure he has hidden it somewhere on the premises. Surely, his best friend has some notion as to the location of the device?”

  I nodded again, feeling my face harden. Of course! The knothole in the old tree where he used to store his armor. The weapon is nestled inside the tree cavity, I'm certain of it.

  The guildmaster smiled. “Yet you won't tell me where, will you?”

  I pursed my lips. “I might consider trading the information . . . in exchange for the secret of the puzzle box. The secret for which I have shattered my soul and shredded Devin's life.”

  Guildmaster Huron clucked and patted the puzzle box with one hand. “I can see you paid a high price for this secret, Drusilla, but I cannot share it with you. I must hold the reputation of the guild above the fate of one ex-apprentice.”

  “The five gods hang the guild,” I said. “You would sacrifice Devin to protect that stupid box?”

  The guildmaster sighed. “On the contrary, my dear. In protecting 'that stupid box' as you call it, I am also protecting Devin in my own little way.”

  “I'm going to choke on all these damn secrets. What happened during Devin's eval exams?”

  “Oh, now is that all you wish to know?” Huron chuckled and the sound seemed to fade into the box on his desk. “Why not ask your stooge, Benson?”

  I paused, digesting the guildmaster's words. I should have known.

  You did know, my mind accused. You've been avoiding Benson . . . avoiding everyone. You didn't want to uncover the details of the explosion you caused after lighting the fuse and running away. Find Benson now. Come back for the box later.

  “We seem to be at an impasse,” the guildmaster said. “You are excused, Drusilla. Please leave an old man to his puzzle.”

  I nodded and left the room. As I turned, Huron had resumed fiddling with the box. You can't make a puzzle reveal its secrets, sir, I thought. The pieces won't fit if you force them. You need to relax and let the puzzle reveal himself . . . itself.

  Still pondering this, I found Benny alone in a corner of the courtyard sitting on a stump crafting a wooden dagger with a pocket knife. He clasped the knife and tossed me the dagger when I approached. “Consider this a gift of thanks, fair lady.”

  “For what?” I asked, catching the dagger and examining it in the sunlight.

  “For allowing me to defeat my dragon. I could not slay the beast with machines or swords, but words . . . aye, my words cut him to the bone.”

  “Your thanks are as nothing, sirrah.” I pinched the dagger between my fingers. The flowery speech was infectious. “You have only to look toward your own eloquent tongue to see the source of your victory. And you did not use a dagger . . .”

  “Devin would be no less wounded if I hand.” Benson hopped to his feet with a gleeful smile and dusted the shavings off his pants. “Though another guided my actions. I have only to look toward the crafty woman who stepped out of my way, cleared my path of all obstructions, and invited my hand to launch the killing strike. The fingers clutching that dagger should have been yours . . . my lady.” He gave a mocking little bow.

  The damn braggart. Fine. I can use that. I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Tell me, then. My ears crave to hear of your victory.”

  Benson nodded. “Of course. It was glorious. I stripped the dragon bare. All his lies, gone. His defenses, gone. Then the committee descended upon the pitiful creature that remained. Journeyman Waller was most helpful. Your work, I assume?”

  I nodded. “And the singing puzzle box?” I asked, toying with the wooden dagger, twisting its point on the tip of my finger. “What can you tell me about that little marvel?”

  Benson shrugged. “Guildmaster Huron bade me to leave the room in haste when the questioning began in earnest. The box did not utter a single note in my presence.”

  “Did it not? A pity,” I said as though the matter was of passing interest. The gods take that old man. He's sent me on a fool's errand, but I suspected as much.

  I tossed the dagger at Benson's feet. He plucked it off the ground with a questioning, almost hurt expression on his face.

  “I have not earned that trophy yet. You have one more task, sir knight.”

  Benson's eyes glowed as he gripped the hilt of the dagger. “Yes, my lady?”

  I pointed to the old tree with the knothole. “There lies the dragon's horde. You must protect it from discovery until the time comes to destroy it in a pillar of black smoke and orange flames.”

  “Yes!” Benson cried, pumping his fist.

  I held up my hand, palm out. “Not yet. The dragon must see the destruction of his horde.” No more hiding. No more manipulating. Devin will see me do this and he shall know why I do this. Whatever his current state, that machine arose from the evilest depths of his mind. It cannot exist. The evil it symbolizes cannot exist . . .

  You can't destroy the evil in Devin's mind by burning a dragon-flame machine, the logical part of my mind insisted.

  Benny's face had dissolved into a gleaming, rapt expression.

  Does that bully see nothing but destruction in the fires I've proposed? I hope to pull something from those ashes, some remnant of the friend I used to know or to present myself honestly to the person he has become. All Benny sees are burnt dreams. And he delights in it.

  No matter what horrible things you've done, my mind admitted, in this one thing, you are not like Benny. You take no joy in cruelty.

  None, I thought, spinning on my heel and leaving Benson to his dark imagination.

  Darkness fell over the Guild hall and I walked through the night toward the guildmaster's office one last time. The stairs groaned under the weight of my metal feet and the floorboards of the balcony creaked, but this place had been built by men and women who valued strong, solid construction. My footfalls were just the latest stressor in an endless parade of clangs, bangs, and thumps this building had endured. I clanked down the narrow hallways, ducking my head to clear the roof, and then knelt before Huron's office door. Then I drew back my metallic fist and punched through those timbers like an artificer knight.

  I could walk more freely in the temple-high ceilings of the guildmaster's office. I walked over to the safe mounted on the wall with a longing side glance at the pile of folders still stacked on the corner of the desk. The classified files I wanted—all the experiments and personal records Huron kept on the mysterious puzzle box—were buried deep within this safe. The locking mechanism was an elegant three tumbler design. Sadly, I had left both my lock picks and the will to use them in the office of Journeyman Higgins.

  Hmmm, the door is reinforced steel plate. Two divots in the side. Two large hinges. Pins are likely pinkie thickness. A central fracture should loosen those up nicely or at
the very least bend the plate enough that I can reach them. My eyes narrowed. And if that doesn't work, I'll torque the frame until the plate facing buckles.

  I sighed and sent a quick prayer to the five gods for the beautiful locking mechanisms I was about to kill. Then I adjusted the gear ratios on my forearms. Finally, I clasped my hands together, swung wide, and smashed the door with my steel fists.

  The central concavity was a beauty to behold. A few negligent twists and the steel door popped into my gauntlets. I laid it on the floor and turned to Huron's desk.

  After testing my weight on its broad metal surface, I unbuckled the straps and sat my armor on the desk facing the hole where the door used to be. I placed my right metal gauntlet atop the brass puzzle box and arranged my left in a cheerful, jaunty wave before locking the joints, exiting the pilot compartment, and closing up the armor.

  Yeah. Finally free from that sweaty steel cocoon. Phew. I fanned the hem of my blouse to circulate some of that cool, refreshing air.

  I turned to check my handiwork and smiled. No more sneaking, I thought. Imagining Guildmaster Huron's chagrin the next day, I grinned and started whistling while getting to work thieving . . . liberating certain files from the breached safe.

  Hiding behind the massive desk with my small Cat's Eye Lantern, focusing a narrow beam on the folders spread at my feet, I began skimming the documents and deciphering cryptic notes page by page. Slowly I began collecting and arranging the pieces of data until a coherent image began to emerge. Everything started aligning. Huron's callous dismissal. Devin's irrational fears. The source of that nebulous evil lurking inside my best friend. The song of the long silent puzzle box was a warning: beware the mage.

  My heart froze. Devin isn't trying to mimic mages. Devin is a mage. They kill mages. They're going to kill Devin. Guildmaster Huron was protecting him. The old man should have called upon the guards, but he didn't. A trickle of warmth for the guildmaster began to tease through my veins.