My little Sascha is nothing like this dragon in human flesh, the magistrate thought. He squinted, lifting his gaze from the prisoner's bristled chin up the raised lanky arms and finally to a pair of manacled hands, but could not see the horns, fangs, scales, or forked tail the state insisted all mages possessed. Magic users posed a more subtle danger than the lurid images in the empire's propaganda would suggest. At least true dragons have the grace to look like fire-breathing monsters.
The magistrate fished in his long, black robes for a tarnished key. After bracing his heavy gavel with one elbow, he wound the thing up slowly to avoid straining the ancient brass mechanism inside it. He lingered over the ritual despite the stares and mutters of the crowd. Their boots tapped frantic beats on the flagstones. The tension in the room tightened with the spring, but all noises were subordinate to the quiet, winding gavel. The whole affair had transformed his orderly courtroom into a spectacle. Every lurid detail of the crime was brought from the shadows and aired before the public gallery. Never in the history of the empire, and the magistrate prided himself as an antiquarian of note, had the youth's hideous crimes ever warranted the luxury of an actual trial. That right was reserved for citizens of the empire, not dirty traitors.
But the artificers had been adamant and the guild was almost a law unto itself. Those artifice princes had distorted the justice system to suit themselves. The entire notion was perverse, a throwback to the days when haughty noblemen ruled an ineffectual monarchy by whim and private law before the empire ascended from the ashes of that judicial chaos and imposed order. Even after banishing the ex apprentice from their ranks, the artificers looked after their own. The bastards wore the massive gears of the glorious, mechanical Iron Empire like rings around their fingers and with one little twist, they crushed the authority of a mere provincial magistrate. The city council was roused. A trial date was set. Justice was mocked.
The magistrate glanced at his gavel. The burnished wood was starting to lose its luster. Trials for mages! Did all the gears seize in their dull, brass brains? Did those insidious artificers never pause to consider what a dangerous precedent we almost set this day? I have already petitioned the emperor. This will be the first and last mage trial: a footnote for the history books. He polished the old wood with his fingertips.
Every year, his subordinates presented him with a new gavel. Every year, he refused it. Replacing his gavel became something of a game between him and his men, a shared joke among veterans who sent quaking new recruits to brace the old man. The magistrate closed his eyes and suppressed the merry, whistling memory of his new, steam-powered hearth and his son curled up beside it. He enjoyed tinkering with the latest gadgets. His men knew this. They persisted, perhaps at his wife's behest, in attempting to replace his antique with a shiny, modern equivalent.
But you didn't need to wind those flimsy, modern gavels. The ritual gave the magistrate precious moments to reflect before his final judgment descended. And nobody bothered to repair them anymore; other men disposed of worn gavels like justice was a commodity: cheap, dirty, and broken, waiting for the artificers to replace them with the latest, gaudy trend. The magistrate preferred his justice sturdy and clean and well oiled. Servicing his gavel and polishing the mechanism was the only time the magistrate allowed himself to dwell on the machine's past judgments. He was not a man to let his job invade his home, though he suspected his wife might disagree.
The magistrate stopped. The gavel was primed.
Stop stalling and pronounce sentence. The magistrate filed his thoughts, took a deep breath, and reached for the gavel. All the reflection in the world won't change this child's fate. He may not be my son, but he was a son of the empire once. It would be kinder to kill the stripling as his crimes warrant. I could almost pity him if he wasn't an artificer.
“The status of this young man does not ameliorate the extreme nature of his crime,” the magistrate said, glaring at the collection of artificers seated at the front of the gallery. “Justice is the same for all, high and low. Yet whatever else he may be, this youth is a deadly, powerful mage the like of which the world has not seen in centuries. Thus, we shall resurrect the ancient punishment for magic users: banishment for life. Let this wild youth terrorize the kingdom of mage-lovers across the mountains and raze their cities to the ground instead of our own. Yet some vestige of the modern, imperial punishment for practicing such a vile art must remain. The law . . . stands. Let every step young Devin takes remind him of the penalty for sorcery.”
The magistrate hovered his gavel over the bench, holding it with both hands. Was that the right action? He gripped the handle with white knuckles, wincing as he squeezed the smooth trigger bar. For any other man, that sentence would have been a product of true justice, professional vanity, or political necessity. The wood and brass machine shuddered to life. The magistrate had not even realized such old laws were still on the books until those helpful artificers had gleefully rubbed their hands together as they pointed to a dusty, forgotten judicial precedent. So I let them twist my arm, by the five gods, and trample through my courthouse. My duty is to uphold the laws of the empire without fear or favor. Not everyone twists the law like their own personal plaything. The monarchy is dead. Noble privilege is dead. No more loopholes. I notified the emperor. Those dated, royal decrees which sat alongside true, imperial laws will be . . . nullified and sealed away as though they never existed. Would that the emperor could do likewise with that entire, wretched, mettlesome guild. The wooden mallet rose like a giant fist and hammered the bench one, two, three, four, five times, once for each of the gods.
The attendees bowed their heads, clasping their hands and steepling their trigger fingers to form the Sign of the White Tower. True judgment was the gods' domain. The magistrate joined them once his hands stopped tingling, but his thoughts remained irreverent and, for a judicial man, impious.
May the five gods grant mercy upon you, traitor. The guild that fought to save your life could not save your imperial citizenship. I wonder if they ever truly realized what a horrible death they denied you or what a horrible life they forced upon you? Was it malice or kindness that guided their hands to those old legal tomes? You are exiled under penalty of death to a hellish, backwards monarchy where the only metalworkers are burly smiths and steel-clad knights. Not a single gear or mechanism in all the land.
You will live out your days in a place of rogue wizards and fierce dragons as befits your true nature: a horrible, flaming monster hiding beneath an innocent-looking face. I could not design a more fitting punishment for a spoiled artifice prince if I tried. And your own people perverted the spirit of the law to foist it upon you.
The magistrate looked past the gawky youth dangling by his skinny wrists from the traitor's post and turned his head to examine the Black Guards stationed around the courtroom in their modern, mechanized armor. The guards appeared to be enlarged, grotesque parodies of the knights of yore until they moved and time moved with them. These were not noblemen dressed in gilt and gaudy heraldry, but living instruments of the empire's justice wrapped in stark black steel, and they looked glorious.
The magistrate heard rather than saw the condemned youth, who had maintained a hauteur of stiff propriety throughout the entire trial as befitted an ex prince of machinery, break. Upon hearing the sentence pronounced against him, Devin began to rattle and strain against his chains like a beast caught in a trap. The magistrate felt a twinge in his heart. He squashed it. This mage is not my son. He is a criminal like any other, the man reminded himself, nodding for Sergeant Jemmy to take the miscreant away.
2. DEVIN, YEAR 492
Devin rattled his manacles against the post, wishing he had his tools. The manacles were connected by a long chain running loose through a staple at the top of a tall marble column, which held his arms over his head. The damn column felt like an icicle pressed against his spine. Maybe if he seesawed his arms, he could abrade the staple with the friction of the passing chain links? H
e had thought of trying that earlier and glibly passing it off as an exercise, but something in the magistrate's face stilled his tongue and his arms. Every time the man had glanced at Devin, he looked almost . . . haunted.
The youth did not yell, scream, or rant. What was the point? Words would not break those chains. He tugged his aching, sweaty wrists, trying to grease through the restraints. He closed his eyes and attempted to muster the erratic, new powers that had landed him in this mess, but the sorcery was gone. His last hope of salvation lay in pleading with the five gods. Devin sighed as the fervent prayer died on his lips. He could not ask the gods to save him.
Stop struggling and start thinking. What's a pair of old shackles against the might of my mettle? The condemned grinned. I could create a better set of restraints with my eyes closed. His wrists burned when blood mixed with the sweat and he grunted as he strained. Thank the five gods my mind is still unchained.
Devin focused on the manacles. He prided himself in having an artificer's mind: steady as a turning cog, stubborn as a rusty bolt, and twisted as a coiled spring. Devin's long apprenticeship had taught him to solve problems by the grace of his gods given talents, not by magic trickery or divine intervention. You were an artificer from the cradle to the cogs until your mind blunted and your body rusted and through it all, the guild ruled your life. Devin had devoted years to the dream of becoming a master artificer before rivals, jealous of his gods given mechanical talents, conspired to banish him from the guild.
On the eve of his journeyman’s exam, what should have been his crowning triumph, the bastards finally succeeded. With the guild’s shops closed to him and his machines in ruins, what recourse did he have but magic? What was Master Huron's old quote about swatting flies with sledgehammers? His magic had no finesse, which had resulted in . . . several . . . regrettably enthusiastic . . . well the five gods would damn him if he called them accidents. He strode into the hall the day after his banishment with one fateful purpose: destruction. Had they not destroyed his future? And who hasn't fantasized about bringing down a building with their mind? Only, now he could. Devin shied away from the memory. It seemed that wild, erratic violence was the mage's curse.
Then the artificers had intervened with this show trial to try and save his life as though he had not just reduced half the hall to rubble and proceeded to kick him out of the country as well as the guild. Devin felt a swell of pride for his ex masters in spite of himself. They had bent the rigid, iron laws of the empire across their knees. Since when did mages get trials? He twisted in his manacles, slicing his arms to try and see the artificers sitting behind him at the front of the gallery from the corner of his eye. The youth wasn't sure if he wanted to smile or glare at them. Devin felt a sharp pang in his gut at the sight of a familiar black blob of an apprentice cap now lost to him sitting behind a blurry white master's cap, which he would never hope to attain again. The pain hit again. Devin glanced down. No existential regrets, just a knotted belt loop digging into his stomach. He wiggled his hips.
Not that he wasn't grateful for their help, by the five gods, but he would certainly never have asked for it. He swallowed another prayer. Stubbornness gave Devin's piety a hardened edge, which he would not blunt with useless acts.
Well, the five gods aren't coming to rescue me, even if I did ask and Mom always said I was the stubborn child. No tools. No magic. No gods. No problem. Devin cursed and strained harder.
One of the guards abandoned his statuesque pose, sheathed his sword, and marched to the traitor's post. The elegant greaves rang on the flagstones. Devin stared as the knight clanged towards him with black armor and a red, glowing visor. One of the guard's gauntlets shattered the heavy, iron manacles while the other cinched around the youth's wrists like a vise. Devin struggled, and the muted whirring escalated as the gauntlet clamped harder.
Agony splintered Devin's thoughts. He found refuge in the artificer reciting calculations in a smooth, fatherly baritone. What is the compound gear ratio in these metal fingers to produce such pressure?
A different, frenzied voice screeched from the depths of the youth's mind. Release me! They want pressure? I'll flatten the empire. Devin suppressed the voice of the mage inside his head.
So magic is responsible for your wild behaviors, now? the artificer's voice growled, elbowing the mage aside. How convenient. A dream come true for young men everywhere. You don't really believe that, do you?
The onset of sorcery had left . . . voices in its wake. Not the persistent, little voices that tell you it was all right to skip one of Master Huron's lectures or that nobody would notice if you used spit instead of polish to clean the brass, but true, fractious personalities. Were they already a part of him buried deep within, which the magic had brought forth and given voice, or spirits drawn to his powers who were merely hitching a ride in his mind?
Who knows? Devin thought. It's not like I've met any other mages I could ask even if it wasn't the most embarrassing question ever; they . . . we don't exactly march through the streets waving signs. I'm a mage who can't control his magic and by the way, I hear these little voices in my head. Surely, someone knew how to quell the voices or could at least teach him proper magic. The youth clenched his fists and willed the flames to appear between his fingers. Sometimes, something happened. Sometimes, not. Magic was a discipline that made a person question their own minds, and a greasy, unfamiliar feeling of self doubt had settled like shards of scrap metal in Devin's guts, threatening to shred him from the inside.
“Quit squirming, kid. You'll only make it worse.” Smoke emanated from the guard's visor and his coarse breathing echoed in the chamber of his helmet. The red glow vanished as he turned his head. The man did not look so much like a heroic knight from the fairy tales as an eerie, hulking giant wrapped in black armor. But oh, what glorious armor. Delight mellowed Devin's fear. The sights and sounds hidden beneath every gap and crease in the plate mail hinted at mechanical wonders stuffed inside. The gears spun and whirred while the pistons growled and punched, turning the guard's bulky steel limbs into instruments of fluid grace while steam hissed from his joints. A faint whistling prodded the back of Devin's mind, but that one quiet noise was swallowed by the cacophony, and he ignored it. The man lifted his unburdened gauntlet and the internal machinery whined as he flexed his fingers. “These babies can crush granite, but the controls are so damn finicky. Don't want to turn those little wrists into jelly, eh?”
Devin quit squirming. Such raw, mechanized power demanded respect and awe. The youth acquiesced to the suit more than the man wearing it. The guard kept a firm grip on Devin's wrists and led the youth into the basement. The long, wide corridor had a polished, sterile quality. The cold, white marble fornices of the vault stretched across the roof like the welcoming arms of a skeleton in a crypt. The tiniest of noises: a shallow breath, a dragging foot, all echoed alongside the knight's quiet, whirring footfalls.
The odd, two note whistle coming from the knight's black, metal elbow joint was also amplified in the narrow corridor, triggering a memory old Master Huron, white cap askew, standing over a suit of mechanical armor with its steel guts spilled across the floor. The man cradled a set of metal veins like a child's tin whistle and blew a two note trill through the valves. “Another broken actuator,” the ancient artificer had murmured before turning and noticing Devin. “Out! Out! Back to your own diversions, m'lad.” The old man smiled to soften the rebuke as he shooed the apprentice away. “Such intricate devices are not for apprentice eyes to see nor fumbling fingers touch . . . even you. Especially you. Some of the journeymen have been complaining again.”
“Ha! They wouldn't know an actuator from an arc tangent,” Devin scoffed, trying to peer over the master's shoulder.
The old man sighed. “You would do well to cultivate an aura of humility and abase yourself before the more prickly journeymen. A genius apprentice is still an apprentice.”
I thought the coot was just seeking to placate some obtuse journeymen
, but he was offering his most thickheaded apprentice wise advice. Well, I can follow it, now, although it's too late to tell the master he was right. The old man never came to my trial. Am I happy or sad that about that? All Devin's feelings regarding the guild were in a state of roiling flux. He focused on the suit to clear his head and calm his clenching gut.
Those old Mark 2 suits, Devin thought, watching the knight bend his elbow and squeak again. The loose actuator valves. “Excuse me, sir.” The youth jangled his chains to get the guard's attention, trying to inject a helpful, wheedling tone into his pleas. The sound of all that verbal bowing and scraping grated on his nerves; he must have gotten the voice right. “Is your suit the Mark 2 Drake Mechanical Armor, sir? You've um . . . got a loose valve in your elbow.” Devin bit his lip and pointed as he raised the manacles. “If you could free my hands? Maybe give me some tools? I'd be more than happy to fix it for you.”
“I bet you would. Nice try, kid.” The black knight chuckled and the hollow sound resounded in his helmet. He raised his visor and grinned down at Devin. The youth startled. The evil red glow and mysterious smoke merely came from a cigar the man gripped between his teeth. “I've heard it all: hexes, threats, bribes. One man offered to buy me a new horse if I would just loosen his manacles and look the other way.” The knight pulled the chain taunt and blew a fresh puff of smoke. “You're the first one who offered to fix a squeaky suit of armor. Let's move past all that, eh? I have my duty and you have an appointment. Now will you walk on your own two feet and face what comes or must I haul you there like a sack of potatoes?”
The Artifice Mage Saga Boxed Set: Books 1-3 Page 16
