The Artifice Mage Saga Boxed Set: Books 1-3

by Jeffrey Bardwell

  “It's because of the scar, isn't it?”

  “It's because you pay people to chop off the hands of your debtors!”

  “I live in a rough neighborhood.” She gestured to the alleys. “You've seen my clientele. By the five gods, Fordus even threatened me the day you came back.”

  “So you, master of a guild famous for clever conniving schemes and lofty political machinations, stoop to the level of brawling gutter scum?”

  “Don't paint the guild with a golden brush. You were as disgusted with them as I was. And you stoop, too. Some of my worst clients are your best revolutionaries. Isn't that why you started this: to lift people out of the gutter?”

  “You may pretend to be 'Queen of the Gutters,' but that's not who you are.”

  “You . . . How dare you tell me who I am,”she snarled. “Just because you're uncomfortable with the person I've become does not invalidate me. I am not that young apprentice with twigs in her hair anymore, Devin. Get over it. Besides, you were the one who started flirting and talking about bedrooms that day.” She pursed her lips and rolled her tongue in her mouth. “Not that I didn't enjoy it. Like a dream come true.”

  “That was before . . .” He bit his tongue.

  “Before you knew it was me?” Her eyes widened. “So you will talk that way to some random woman on the street, but not sweet, clever Drusilla?” She sniffed and ran her fingers through her hair. “The twigs fell out of my hair the day they arrested you for practicing magic. Innocence was a luxury.”

  “Yes, I know. I'm not as blinded by my ideals as you seem to think, Dru. I can be hard and practical, too.”

  She snorted and waved towards the table with one hand and mussed her hair with the other. The scar made a brief reappearance as she gathered her bags and boxes. “Don't you have more letters to read, oh practical and totally not brooding revolutionary leader?”

  Devin bit back his reply and nodded, turning his back on his friend and walking over to the table. Work would help distract him. He scanned a note from the top of the pile. It was from the little doctor with the glowing skin, Tobias. The man tended to fidget. He darted. The doctor persisted in treating his magic like a terrible disease he could never cure. And if magic was his disease, Tobias was a terrible hypochondriac. The man had latched onto Devin as his own private ethereal consultant.

  The note was typical of the man. He felt unwell, burning, glowing again at odd times of day. Did this list of foods trigger the condition? Perhaps Devin had learned something during his sojourn with the wise masters of magic in Corel? Tobias always made it sound like Devin had been on a sabbatical rather than exiled as a traitor of the state.

  He pocketed the letter. Drusilla had already retired to her bedroom with her purchases. “It's Tobias again,” he called toward the back of the workshop. “I'm going to go see if I can actually help him.” That sounded more snide and aggressive than I meant it. Devin sighed. He thought of the priest's words the other night. Who is intruding upon whom here?

  She did not respond. Devin thought he heard sobbing through the bedroom door.

  “Goodbye, Drusilla.” He locked the front door of the workshop so that none would disturb her. The shop still smelled faintly of elderberries: a treacherous, poisonous stench.

  13. DEVIN, YEAR 497

  The stench of the alleys faded the closer Devin got to the inner city. Doctor Tobias Drubber lived and kept his office in a vastly wealthier neighborhood than the shop of Master Drusilla, Queen of the Gutters. The doctor lived quite close to the palace in point of fact. Tobias had not yet fallen headfirst down society's slippery ladder, but remained ever conscious that the rungs were greased by the slimy palms of those who had failed before him. Devin could not help feeling that when mages were elevated to positions of worth and respect in the empire, the doctor's concerns about his so-called disease would vanish.

  Perhaps he was doing Tobias a disservice. Magic did have much in common with several maladies involving delirium and psychoses. If he told Tobias about the voices in his head, would the hapless doctor try to 'cure' him, too? Some of the man's experiments were . . . extreme.

  Another procession of Black Guards leading a black-hooded prisoner marched down the street. Devin pressed against the wall with the other pedestrians. The citizens' response was muted. Only one person flung an apple and another bystander pummeled him.

  “Don't tell me you're one of those mage lovers?” the apple flinger cried.

  “'Course not. Waste of good fruit,” his assailant said, glancing at the Black Guards. They paid the squabble no heed.

  “Just leave the poor man alone,” an old woman said, shaking her bag. “Let him walk to the Black Tower with dignity and peace.”

  Devin smiled as he walked away. The speeches and the whisper campaigns to humanize the mages were having an effect. One could even say they were . . . bearing fruit.

  No, one could not, the artificer grumbled. Feh. Mages.

  Devin soon reached Tobias's small apothecary, which adjoined the man's house. The doctor was isolated from his neighbors, whom the doctor had confided rarely complained anymore about the strange explosions emanating from the lab. It had made Devin feel a bit homesick.

  Devin glanced at the building again. Tobias had recently refinished his roof with strange-looking overlapping orange tiles. Curious. Devin shrugged and knocked on the door. The familiar angular face of the doctor's secretary Vespus bid Devin to enter the foyer, gestured to a long sofa with a plush, red cushion, and vanished into another room.

  “Is that you, Devin?” Tobias called from his lab. “Did you see the new clay tiles mounted on my roof? It's the latest craze. Did you get my letter?”

  “You were very vague,” Devin replied, feeling the letter crinkle in his pocket. He didn't know what to think of the roof tiles. He hoped they didn't weigh as much as marble tiles. The less said the better. Would the doctor put shingles on the floor next? “No new um, symptoms to report?”

  “Not as such, no. Welcome. Thank you for coming so quickly.” The doctor emerged from his lab wearing dark, heavy robes. Devin wiped a drop of sweat off his brow. Isn't the man stifling in that strange outfit? Is it some sort of surgical dress? Is that blood on his hands?

  The doctor went to a small pitcher and washed his blood-covered fingers. “So important to keep clean in this business,” Tobias chuckled before his face clouded. “Sadly, some stains do not wash away of late.” He clapped his hands. “Vespus. Some refreshments for our guest.”

  The servant scuttled back into the room with a small silver tray of sweets and two steaming mugs. “Of course, doctor.”

  Tobias clapped the man on the back and the tray rattled. “Just set it on the lab table and then take off for the evening. I dare say I've run out of patients for today.”

  Vespus gave a little bow, vanished into the lab with the silver tray, and then after tidying the loose objects strewn about the foyer, bowed again to Tobias and Devin, and then left the building.

  Tobias strode to the door and locked it. “He's a good man, but not a part of the revolution.”

  Maybe Vespus isn't part of the mage revolution, Devin thought, but if you keep treating your secretary like a manservant, he may yet join the populist dragon revolt. Devin was not yet ready to officially combine the two arms of the revolution, though he and Jemmy were scarcely the only conduits between the two and they were well on the way to integrating without his assistance. Drusilla had always considered it a fool's balancing act, but he didn't want to think about her right now.

  “What's wrong, Tobias?” Devin asked. This time?

  The doctor smirked as though he had sensed the unspoken qualifier and began lighting lamps around the foyer with his fingertip. He blew out his finger and turned to Devin. “Come into the lab. I'll show you.”

  Devin gagged as he followed the little doctor into a room filled with musty books, bubbling vials, and random objects in various states of disarray. It smelled like damp soil tinged with ether and
formaldehyde. He noticed the doctor was growing rows of small, bushy trees under a bright lamp in the corner. Dissected monkey corpses strewn across the counter tops. A bloody scalpel, a swath of bandages, and a large, metal box lay on the doctor's desk. Experiments scattered everywhere. The lab always made Devin think of Cornelius: the old wizard would have loved all this.

  He glanced at the steaming mugs Vespus has set on the counter and sighed. A bitter chemical aftertaste was inevitable. After a few short breaths, the chemical residues coated your throat. He grabbed one of the mugs and sniffed. The rum was heavily imbued with cloves and cinnamon. He sipped, dipping his nose into the mug. The spices overwhelmed his senses as the alcohol branded these new flavors into his throat. The five gods bless you, Vespus.

  Tobias took the second mug, wincing as he bent his arm, and raised it. “To the success of our endeavor.”

  Devin reluctantly raised his own mug, his nostrils clinging to the last remnant of cloves as the stench of the room flooded around them. “To success And death to the emperor.”

  Tobias nodded nervously. “Yes, that, too.” He set the mug down and peered through his dark curtains. “Well, you didn't come here for the rum, eh?”

  Devin sipped. “Why did I come here?” he asked, voice echoing inside the mug.

  Tobias did not reply. The man was suddenly preoccupied brightening and dimming the lamp over the tiny trees. “You would agree that control is power, right, Devin? I control this lamp with a tiny knob, thus I have power over it and direct its actions. Were the fuel to ignite and light up those curtains, then the balance of power would reverse. The lamp would control my actions. I would be obliged to extinguish the fire before the imbalance grew too powerful and the flames destroyed me.”

  “Yes?” Devin asked.

  Tobias braced one hand against the counter as he extinguished the lamp. The room was covered in darkness except for a tiny, pulsing glow. “I am losing control,” Tobias whispered. Devin realized the glow came from the man's elbow as the doctor bared his arm. The purpose of the heavy robes was now apparent. “I can't extinguish this by turning a knob,” the man moaned.

  “How long has the um . . . the knob been broken?” Devin asked.

  “It was a bright pustule mere days ago. Then a scar. Now a rash. It engulfs me, Devin. I don't know how to stop it marching across my body. My disease has finally reached the terminal stage. Have you ever seen the like in all your travels in the land of wizards?”

  Devin shook his head before realizing the doctor could not see him. “No,” he said.

  “Did you see it?” the doctor cried. “Always before on and off like a switch, but now it never ends. That's through three layers of sterile silk gauze. I excised the offending patch of skin like one might remove gangrenous tissue or necrotic flesh, but the taint is deeper than that. The muscles underneath glow. The blood seeping through the wound glows. I dare say the damn bones glow, too.”

  “I can take a look, Tobias, but I am hardly an expert on chaotic, magical events.”

  Liar, the artificer grumbled.

  The doctor cursed as he raised the flame on the lamp and the glowing faded. “By the gods' slimy armpits, that offensive patch of integument still shines just to spite me. Examine that, please. My arm is still tender.” He waved to the box and took a long, shaky sip from his mug.

  Devin collected the box and cracked the lid.

  Tobias screamed and shut his eyes. “Close the box. By the mercy of the five, close it. The cursed flesh blinds me.”

  Devin blinked as the doctor cowered on the floor, shielding his face. There was no glow emanating from the box. Not even a spark. He stared at the ordinary patch of skin, shriveled and curling at the edges, before he closed the lid. “It's sealed now.” He offered the man a hand. “I will take this back to the workshop and run some tests,” he said, shaking the box, “but I make no promises.”

  Tobias, still on his knees, grabbed the hem of Devin's shirt. “Please, this will ruin me. Help me find a cure before it's too late.”

  Is this how mages lose control? Do we lose our minds first? This man needs a priest, not an artificer with delusions of leadership. Devin grabbed the man and pulled him upright. “I will do what I can. Anything for a faithful son of the revolution.”

  “Thank you, Devin.” The doctor fluttered his fingers at the box. “Now please remove that hateful scrap of flesh from my house. It will ease my heart to see it go.”

  Devin nodded and backed out of the lab. “I will let you know what I discover.”

  Tobias smiled as he eased himself into a wooden chair, cradling the mug to his chest with his good arm. “And I shall keep you abreast of all my latest symptoms. I will document each minor progression of the disease. I always find it so cathartic writing those letters.” He swept the bloody bandages off his desk and gave a wan smile. “Though my refuge has transformed into a primitive operating theater of late.”

  Devin winced. “And such long, thorough letters they are. If it helps you feel better . . .”

  “I do not just do this for my own benefit,” the doctor said. “If I can save other mages from succumbing to their own disease, it will all be worth it. You may hold the key, Devin. You do such an admirable job masking your own symptoms.”

  “Not my doing, I'm afraid,” Devin replied. “I doubt I could replicate the effect.”

  “A technique learned from those sage Corelian masters, I suppose?” Tobias asked, sighing. “If I were a younger man, I would make the pilgrimage to Corel myself.”

  Devin sighed, trying to imagine Tobias trailing his rich robes through the dusty roads of Corel. “Something like that. Farewell, Tobias.”

  The doctor smiled and waved as he left. Devin hefted the box, feeling like dragon shit. There was nothing but false hope in this errand. He found an isolated Black Guard patrolling the streets and tiptoed past just in case he was wrong, but not a peep from the man's watch. The patch of skin was nothing more than dead flesh.

  Devin mused on ways to help poor Tobias. Would offering false comfort merely feed the man's delusion that magic is merely an illness to be cured? Or was the doctor innocently casting the problem in terms he could understand?

  He was still pondering his visit with the doctor when he came back to the workshop and quietly closed the door behind him. The machines were silent. Perhaps Drusilla was sleeping again. But no, he saw as he ventured past the engines, she was sitting at the table. She was examining the envelopes . . . his calculations and sketches.

  Drusilla looked up and tapped the equations with her finger. “These designs show promise, Journeyman Devin.”

  “It's apprentice and you know it,” he said.

  “I didn't mean to tease,” she sighed, handing him the envelopes. “But it should be Journeyman Devin. Would have been, too, if you hadn't brought magic into things, had properly documented your work, and had gotten your supplies through approved channels. Gears aren't the only things that need greasing in the Guild Hall.”

  “Is this the advice from the master without a guild? The so-called expert on working the system until that system chewed her up and shat her out?”

  Drusilla closed her eyes and massaged the bridge of her nose. “Stop. We both need to stop. I didn't mean to start an argument. But I am a master, you know. It's not just an empty title. The guild couldn't take that from me.”

  “And I'm just a lowly apprentice,” Devin said, shaking the box. The dead skin inside rattled.

  “That's not my point,” Drusilla cried, waving the envelopes. “This is good enough to be a journeyman's piece. Your journeyman's piece, you spiteful little shit. Shut up and let me sponsor you.”

  “What? You can do that?” Devin's eyes went from the envelopes in her hand to the shy smile on her face.

  “Well, I'd need to teach you some of the newer methods for the technical requirements, but yeah. Masters have had the ancient right of training their apprentices into journeymen on an individual basis for generations. I looked
into it a few days ago. Those statutes precede the formation of the guilds.”

  “I can become a true Journeyman,” Devin whispered, leaning against the lathe casing.

  “Yeah . . . you deserve it.”

  “You know Dru,” Devin said, grinning. “According to the Artificer's Guild, any relationship between master and apprentice is technically fraternizing. Against the rules.”

  “Screw the Artificer's Guild and screw their haughty rules.” She made as if to tear the envelopes in half. “So, you're rejecting my offer?”

  He ran over and placed his hand over hers, his other hand still clutching Tobias's black box. “No. Stop! Your guild, your rules.” He jerked his hands away and flushed. “First friends, then coworkers, now master and apprentice. Relationships are fickle things, eh?”

  “Yeah,” she smacked him softly on the head with the envelopes. “Very fickle things.” She smiled and raised her nose in the air. “But you had best progress quickly. I do not associate with ughhh . . . apprentices.” She clapped her hands. “I decree that we shall hold a feast to celebrate the formation of our new two-member guild. Apprentices are responsible for the shopping and the cooking of this meal.”

  “And what do the masters do?” Devin asked, rolling his eyes.

  She patted her stomach and grinned. “We eat. And maybe help Styx with the dishes.”

  “If this feast is to be truly special, something to be savored, then we must not rush. We should carefully select each recipe.” Devin held up one finger. “So I agree to these horrible, autocratic terms on one condition: the feast will be at a time and place of my choosing and shall be a surprise.” He raised the only thing he happened to be holding at the time, which was that stupid box. “To new relationships.” Is this how our two ideal worlds are supposed to fit together? Devin wondered. Do we mesh like two gears or just collide with one another?

  A slow smile spread across her face as she saluted with the envelopes. “To new relationships,” she murmured softly before fluttering her fingers and laughing. “Off to market with you. Our food stocks are running low regardless. Styx has been remiss in his shopping duties lately.” She glanced at the object clutched in his hand. “So, what's in the box?”