“That many mages drawing on the well,” Cornelius blanched. “A host of mosquitoes trained to act just like you? You will bleed the magic tiger dry.”
“And that is the root of your final problem: your priorities are backwards, old man. Magic is a tool to serve mankind, not some ancient, nature spirit to be preserved. I'm still uncertain whether such spirits even exist, but if it's a real creature, then I will happily reduce your tiger to a shriveled husk to save the mages from the world and from themselves. When that day comes, we will set magic aside like any other obsolete tool and begin a new age where everyone is free from persecution and magic is a fairy tale.”
“You can't do that. The universe will unravel long before you succeed with so much concerted ethereal energy lose upon the world.” Cornelius stared at the cold light flickering behind Devin's eyes. “You will shake the foundations of the world,” the old wizard cried.
“I intend to. Did you not hear what Abby said?” Devin knelt and cradled the girl's head in his arms. “I am a shining, Golden Dragon. And I will rescue every last mage from the fate the five gods have consigned them to suffer, even if it means destroying the empire and your precious nature spirit. The mages will rise from the ashes. And who better to burn the Iron Empire to slag or a hunt giant, mystical tiger than a dragon?”
“Have you forgotten what the Iron Empire does to mages?” the old wizard protested. “And you would gather them all in one convenient slaughterhouse and call it a school?”
Devin clenched his fists. “They pick us off one by one now, but I shall rally the mages. While one mage must hide from the Black Guards, an army of mages will pulverize the bastards. I will tear down the imperial palace and build my school upon the rubble.”
“Rally the mages? Cornelius shouted. “You delusional twit. You would have better luck herding cats by shoving them into a bag and shaking it. Your plan will produce an army of generals. Any wizard ever born is selfish, power-hungry, chaos incarnate. And imperial mages have been hunted for generations. They are not only wizards, but feral criminals. They respect nothing but brutality. Such creatures will mistrust you, hide from you, or kill you. Where will you even find one student willing . . .”
“Where will I find . . . ?” Devin threw back his head and laughed. “I've long since found my first student, old man: the child of my soul.” He beckoned to Styx, who was standing and wringing his hands while watching the argument unfold. “Come here, Son. Mages beget mages and no boy of mine lacks magical talent. You don't hear . . . voices, do you?”
“Me?” Styx asked, perplexed, pointing at himself with his metal hand.
“Yes, Son. I may not have much faith left for the gods, but I will always have faith in you,” Devin said, embracing the wooden man-child. “Now close your eyes. Squeeze your thoughts into your fingertips. Imagine a fire burning in that steel hand of yours.”
“I can't do it, Father,” Styx protested, shaking his head and closing his eyes. The wooden eyelids clacked and the automaton winced. “I'm not like you.”
“Oh, but you are,” Devin said, patting the handprint on the doll's chest. “Not of my flesh, but of my spirit. You are a mage, Styx, you just don't know it. But you don't have to struggle alone. I'm here and I've been where you are, now.” Devin stepped back. “So try it. Raise your metal arm. Imagine a fire. In your hand.”
Styx's chest fluttered as he took a deep breath. “Yes, Father,” he sighed, holding his hand extended in front of him, wrist limp.
“Straighten that wrist. Tighten those fingers,” Devin growled, trying to inject a bit of General Festus marshaling his troops. “Are you conjuring a flame or swatting gnats? Focus . . .”
“Yes, Fath . . .” Styx said.
“No, don't say it,” Devin said, crossing his arms. “You haven't earned the right. Was my faith in you misplaced? I just said you were of my spirit and no son of mine . . .”
“I am your son,” Styx cried, clenching his hand until the steel creaked. The wooden man flinched at the harsh sound and opened his fist. Then, like a candle thrust into a dark room, a sputtering glow began to flicker between those metallic fingers.
“I knew it,” Devin whispered, grinning as the pale, ethereal light glistened off his teeth and reflected in his eyes. Strong emotion is the key. “Hotter, Styx. Brighter. Show everyone the fire that burns inside you.”
“Yes, Father!”
“Blasphemy upon blasphemy,” Cornelius gibbered, falling to the ground as the automaton thrust his metal hand into the night sky, blue steel fingers wreathed in crackling, orange flames.
THE SAGA CONTINUES . . .
BOOK 3: HIDDEN REVOLT
NOTES FROM THE LAMPER'S GUILD
By the mercy of the five gods, I wish I could say South District is off limits. I cannot. I must cast you into that wretched den of shadows and wolves. Be wary. Travel in groups. For those who prowl the darkness travel in packs. Keep your dragon liver oil handy. Keep your igniters hot. It is our sworn oath to bring light to all dark corners. Let no man say the Guild of Light and Lamps have shirked our sacred duty. Into the streets, m'lads. Comb every alley. The lamps await your touch. Honest folk await your light. Go erase the darkness.
1. ARMAND DELACOURT VICE, YEAR 496
Sand and blood erupted as a block of rubble grazed the captain's calves, squashing the soldier next to him. Armand flung the man's entrails aside before they could stain his horse's glossy, white mane. The captain dodged and weaved around the falling debris, spurring his steed.
He wore a slightly battered suit of red captain's uniform, which he procured with open persuasion and a closed fist. His light mechanical armor responded like an extension of his body. It was not the heavy mechanical armor to which he was accustomed, but one could hardly ride a horse wearing that.
The suit's simple gear feedback controls were laughable to a gentlemen with decades of experience in the Black Guards. Never with anything so crass as patrolling the city streets, of course. Sparring in armor on the practice field was practically an unspoken requirement to clamber hand over fist up the greasy civic flagpole of imperial politics, a skill in which he had excelled under the previous administration of the Western Province. And then at the apex of that pole, the august personage whom that flag represented: the emperor.
Armand could only dream of reaching such lofty heights in the imperial bureaucracy as to stand beside the emperor himself. When the current magistrate took over the Western Province, the man had smacked the once soaring career of one Armand Delacourt Vice right out of the sky. He had fallen like a . . . like a rock.
Armand ducked as a chunk of marble roughly the size and color of his horse sailed over his head. He waved his arm forward, leading his men into the carnage. Acting the part of the perfect soldier. Maybe too perfect. I must dull my responses to meet the lackluster demands of this vocation.
A captain in the guards is a man of some repute. A captain in the army was a mid level peon, more bureaucrat than soldier. Armand found the dissonance jarring at times, but his assumed position within the wretched army hierarchy helped secure his anonymity. He selected his prey carefully: a nobody, a quill jockey. He was confident no one would spot the substitution and nobody had. What chance had a lowly army captain against the wiles and might of Armand Delacourt Vice?
The captain swayed in his saddle as the horse sidestepped while the ground shuddered and danced beneath them. Armand leaned down and hugged his steed to reassure the animal. Besides, the sweet perfume of panicked horse lather helped mask the bitter stench of human blood.
That miserable magistrate! Once the man had a vestige of honor and duty, but now? Joining the guards as a stepping stone to power had been a mistake. Armand could see that now in the clear light of an older, wiser man looking back on the foibles of a callow youth. But the allure of the law still called to him. How could everyone else see what was wrong with the world and not yearn to correct those problems as he did? Was the whole world wearing blinkers that narrowed their
vision to their own personal gripes and vendettas?
Some peered around the edges of appreciating the awesome scope, the magnificence of the imperial code which embraced everyone on the western half of the continent, the civilized half, in the warm security blanket of fair and equitable justice. Rules to love by; rules to live by. And everyone equal under the law.
The impertinent Sergeant Jemmy had once asked whether he worshiped the law instead of the five gods. Armand had chuckled at the man's jape, thrown an arm around the lout's shoulders, and informed him that not only did justice descend from the five gods themselves, but the blasphemous oaf was on night patrols for the rest of the season. The glorious five gods gifted unto man the societal laws to protect humanity from themselves, the spiritual laws to defend their souls from corruption, and the physical laws to safeguard the order of the universe. Everyone knew that.
Armand sighed as he blinked the grit from his eyes. General Festus had charged across the beach and led this army to ruin. Most of the army. A small core of reserves remained behind, who Armand had left to join the battle. That stupid general had an admirable intolerance for oath breakers on his ship, but the man did not go far enough.
The general's timid restraint reminded Armand of that damn magistrate. The man in the perfect position to fix things and purge the entire Western Province, yet he did nothing. Worse than nothing. The magistrate coddled his criminals. There was no other word for it. Such behavior offended Armand on a deeply personal level.
A pebble bounced off his horse's flank. The captain clutched the beast with his thighs and hugged the saddle as the animal reared.
Armand caught a single glimpse of his enemy. Beyond the fray, past the falling rocks and bloodshed, stood a bare-chested youth stabbing a glowing sword into the ground, sending shocks and monstrous vibrations across the beach. He was screaming something, but Armand didn't bother trying to listen to the plaints of miscreants. The captain focused beyond the youth to everything the child represented, all he symbolized by merely existing.
Armand closed his eyes. Flying boulders be damned. The five gods would protect their paladin or not as they saw fit. Armand began expanding his view to encompass the wider picture, to trace possible future paths and consequences: chaos, discord, strife, insurrection. All linking back to Devin, the so-called Artifice Mage.
That youth threatened the bedrock of everything Armand held dear. Mama Vice's boy would have to seek the highest authority. The captain spared a quick glance at the heavens and forgot to dodge. One of the descending rocks crashed into his horse's flank.
Armand flung himself clear as his steed fell to the ground screaming. He got up and flexed, testing the joints of his armor. The mechanics seemed unharmed. He turned and tried to make sense of the flow of the battle. Where have I landed? Where is the enemy? The screaming horse was distracting. He drew his sword and slit the animal's throat. The noise died with a bloody gurgle.
The captain's eyes narrowed as he peered through the flying rubble and the dust. His enemy's sword glowed in the distance. That cheap, glowing sword made a handy beacon. If Devin could do this much damage with an imitation joke shop weapon, what horrors would the youth unleash with a genuine magic artifact? It wasn't even the magic that made Devin so dangerous. Other mages knew their place, but this one defied the will of the emperor.
It all started with that damnable trial and now this. By the five gods, when was the last time we had to send a bloody army to pacify a single mage?
He glanced around the beach again. The sand was red with blood, broken armor, and shattered bodies. The army was almost lost. Who would protect the empire when the mages rose up? The feckless Black Guards? The battered reserves had finally caught up with him.
“Come, men.” Armand lowered his voice, trying to sound like a gruff army officer and rally the dazed soldiers at his side. He gestured with his sword to the dunes rising over the eastern edge of the beach. “We must take shelter. Regroup. Attack again. We shall defeat this enemy!”
Someone had to stop Devin and corral all the mages before it was too late. Before this horror descended upon the entire empire. The law of men and gods, and the very fate of the empire, depended on it. Surviving this battle was no longer a matter of personal health or private whim. Armand Delacourt Vice had to save civilization itself.
2. DEVIN, YEAR 497
Devin strolled through the capital of the Iron Empire with the easy stride of a tourist gleefully blending into the crowd. He had finally returned to civilization. The sweet smells of oils and ovens wafted from the pillars of smoke rising behind the merchant stalls. The low murmur of a thousand pressed bodies surged through the streets. The faint acrid stench of a sewer line, that urban river of piss and shit, flowed underfoot. The towering spires of glass and iron stood watch over it all.
And the roads. Devin wriggled his toes against the smooth pavement, feeling the radiant afternoon warmth soak into his tired foot. His boot had long since died in the wilds of Corel. Even his other foot, a mechanical device of worn gears and old springs, had started creaking after seasons of hard traveling. No more mud tracks. No more cobbles. By the five gods, I've returned to civilization at last.
“So this is a city?” a voice grumbled at his side. “Where are all the wooden trees, Father? I only see iron trees.”
Devin looked up into the wide eyes of the perplexed automaton walking alongside him. Styx did not blend into the crowd. His son was at least two heads taller than the largest pedestrian, skinny as a log, and made entirely of wood with brass fittings. The only exception to this was his left arm, which was made entirely of steel: a device of gears and springs much like a simplistic version of Devin's foot. A point of fact, Devin had crafted the arm himself as practice before building the more complex mechanisms for the foot.
Styx was a fully functional, living automaton. It was his height and quaint brass and wood design that drew stares, not his speech or perambulation. The steam-powered Iron Empire boasted the most cosmopolitan, sophisticated urban centers in all the world. The crowd had doubtless seen automata before, but these constructs of iron or steel were mere machines. Styx was something more. The less mentioned about the existence of the soul residing in his fluttering wooden breast, the better.
“Iron trees?” Devin asked, glancing at the row of lamp posts on either end of the street and smiling. Those iron trees did cast roots into the ground to harvest methane from the upper realms of the sewer main. No leaves though.
Styx crossed his arms and muttered something under his breath before kicking a lamp post. That attracted stares from the men in white caps scurrying from post to post with little step stools. The Lamper's Guild, hard at work before night descended. Devin felt a twinge as one of the white caps removed a small, steel square from his pocket, used it to light one of the lamps, and then gathered his stool and moved down the street.
“He was using your igniter,” Styx said. “You invented that.”
“Yes, he was,” Devin sighed, “and yes, I did.”
Styx began to wave the man down. “He needs to thank you properly for making his job easier.”
Devin pulled the automaton's arm. “No, he does not. We didn't come to the capital to start a feud with the Lamper's Guild.”
“I could do a better job than any dumb guild.” Styx glanced at his metal arm. A tiny flame danced on the end of one steel finger. There was a tiny, mechanical hum somewhere in the crowd. Devin groaned, bent down, and blew out the magic flame. He scanned the crowd. There was a Black Guard out there somewhere stalking mages.
“No magic,” Devin hissed, glancing around the crowd to make sure nobody had noticed either the sudden flame or the odd, tinny sound and it seemed nobody had. Styx had to be reminded every day since they'd set foot in the empire. The wooden man child was giddy proud of his new talent and wanted to show everyone he met. In the Kingdom of Corel, this was charming. In the empire, it was lethal.
Pain and despair fought to express themselves o
n Styx's angled, wooden features. “I'm so sorry, Father. How thoughtless of me. It only reminds you of what you've lost, doesn't it?”
Devin shook his head. “That's neither here nor there, Son.” Some days he missed magic, some days he didn't. “Mages hide their powers in the empire, remember? You can't go around making flames on your fingertips.”
Styx sighed like a child reluctant to put away a favorite toy and closed his metal fist. “Yes, Father.”
Strange how such a subtle shift of tone or expression twists the meaning of those two simple words. He's tired of traveling, too. Devin eyed the nearby public fountain with longing as the market crowds began to disperse. The sparkling clean water looked inviting as it cascaded down the pink and orange tinted statues while the ancient heroes and monsters basked on their pedestal in the last rays of the sun.
There was a brass plaque at the base of the sculpture. Devin turned to explain the mythos to his son—it was time the wooden man child learned about his imperial heritage—but Styx was still scowling at the glowing lamp post.
“They should use wyverns,” Styx said.
“What? To light the lamps?” Devin asked, chuckling, plaque forgotten as he imagined one of the huge scaly beasts crushing one of the delicate iron and glass spires as it landed, folding its wings, extending a long, reptilian neck, and shooting fire into the night sky. “A city's no place for a gigantic winged lizard spouting flames and wrecking havoc.”
“I don't mean a great, big wyvern, Father.” Styx spread his arms and then brought his hands closer together. “Just a tiny wyrm to light the iron trees. I think it would be charming.”
The Artifice Mage Saga Boxed Set: Books 1-3 Page 53
