The Artifice Mage Saga Boxed Set: Books 1-3

by Jeffrey Bardwell

  “My . . . mess?” Armand asked, grabbing his helmet.

  “You should be happy to know the army succeeded where you failed. Devin the Mage is in imperial custody. The emperor was very appreciative. What better bait to lure his fellow mages out of hiding? How will the revolution you spent so much effort concealing from us react when they learn we hold one of their own? They have good ideas, but they needed something to galvanize them into action.”

  “You want the revolution to succeed?” Armand asked. “What of your precious duty to the empire?”

  “The people are the empire, Major, not a man sitting on a golden chair.” The general smiled. “Let the puling masses follow a feckless emperor. The rebels are citizens who actually want to affect change. Glorious! How could I not serve such a noble ambition? They see the same rot I see.”

  “All I see is a traitor.” Armand lowered his helmet back onto his head and ran a quick test of his finger servos and reached for his sword. “I can't let you take that crystal. It is a prize for my emperor.”

  “An emperor who does not trust you to collect a glowing rock. A man who planned to destroy a million to kill a handful. A vile person who sends you to murder helpless old men.” His scornful voice was clear. The general, overconfident fool, had left his helmet on the floor. “Where was your sense of justice then?”

  “The emperor is . . . My Lord Horatio II is . . .” Armand's voice died in his throat as he clenched his mechanical fists. “You dare impugn . . . it was the emperor's express command. Of course, it was . . . it was just . . . just . . .”

  “Can't say it, can you?” The general laughed. “What did I expect from a man who uses justice as a shield to disguise his own ambitions. You are nothing but a dagger stained with the blood of innocents in service of a corrupt, unjust tyrant. You are unfit to wear the uniform of the Imperial Army. You are relieved of command, sir.” The general lunged forward and wrapped Armand in a tight hug, trapping the Major's sword in its scabbard.

  “You swore an oath . . .” Armand gasped.

  “I offer you no violence,” Festus said. “I shall destroy you with love.” With open palms, he clasped his hands behind Armand's armor and squeezed. The armor began to buckle. The gears in the general's arms whined. “Scream a bit, won't you, Armand? I only cracked Lowe's casing. If I had shattered it . . . well they say the agony of a man in breached armor is quite excruciating.”

  “You . . . you . . . ” Armand gasped as the pain began flowing down his legs. The suit kept him upright even as the rear panel shattered. The alchemical battery nestled against the small of Armand's back exploded. The river of pain became a flood.

  “I have kept my oath,” Festus said as Armand's world dissolved into agony. Liquid fire coursed down his thighs and drowned his toes, then his feet, then everything below the ankle was a raw, vibrating nerve. “You have your sword,” the general chuckled, patting Armand's scabbard, his voice growing faint as Armand sank into a sea of pain. “I have not touched a hair on your head nor attacked your armor by fist or by blade,” the general whispered.

  Armand's reply came as a long, wordless moan.

  “Don't die yet, sir,” the general clucked. “I am a man of my word and I made another oath when you abandoned most of my men for dragon bait on that lonely beach . . .”

  Did I abandon those soldiers? Armand asked himself. No, I led them. I saved them. I'm a hero. Visions of corpses and smashed red armor littered the beach in his mind as the mounting waves of pain broke across the shore . . . a hero. Mangled hands reached for his stirrups as he led the survivors away. I saved all I could, didn't I? He was still pondering this as the waves crashed over his head, drowning him in darkness.

  Vice emerged from the darkness with a foul taste in his mouth, a smoky scent in the air, and his feet itched. He absently reached down to scratch his toe and screamed. His legs ended mid calf in a pair of ragged stumps. Armand's mind insisted his eyes lied. He could feel his toes wriggling, sense his foot flexing.

  “By the gods' putrid eyes,” he cursed, startling as his loud voice echoed through the . . . large chamber? The base of the tower. He could feel the cool stones digging into his slouching back. They had popped the latches on his armor, dragged him back down to the base of the tower, and left him for the dragons. Armand blinked and peered through the door. The orange pink dawn of a fresh day was rising outside. The beasts would be rising soon as well.

  Armand sat upright. His left hand felt heavy. His sword. They had strapped the hilt to his hand. He tested the blade's edge against his thumb. Dull, of course. He sniffed. Why did the blade smell like pitch and tar?

  Sounds began penetrating the haze in the tower: a persistent whuffing and snorting. The noise worked its way around the outer wall of the tower moving towards the doorway. Armand squinted into the light. Was something there?

  An angular head with large nostrils poked into the room with a long neck behind it. A dragon the size of a large dog with shining blue scales peered into the room. The beast glanced at Armand's sword and licked its lips.

  What? Armand turned to examine the sword and screamed as the blade shed glowing embers across his chest. He ruffled his shirt and the hot embers soared across the room. It was a damn torch. They had tied his hand to a torch.

  The dragon gave a happy, little warble as Armand waved the flaming torch about and cursed. The man set the torch on the ground and the dragon lashed its tail. For the first time, the beast seemed to focus on the human arm attached to the burning object. The dragon paced and hissed, its tail wrapping around large debris as it half circled the room.

  The man glanced around the room, looking for a blade, a rock, anything.

  The dragon reared back on its haunches.

  Armand raised the torch.

  The dragon's head followed the path of the flame. Its tail twitched. Then it dropped back to the ground, crouching.

  Armand shifted his grip to a firmer, two-handed stance. He held the torch like a club. His mind detached, like he was merely listening to a story: an epic, heroic tale. The mighty hero, robbed of his legs, but never his cunning, sat waiting. Soon the beast would strike.

  The dragon's talons clicked on the floor as it gouged the stones with its forepaws. The muscles in its haunches rippled with sinuous grace as the pelvis rose in the air. The long, blue tail became perfectly still. The man could smell the beast's breath, foul with the charred meat of lesser, weaker animals. The dragon licked its lips again.

  The man gnashed his teeth and growled. By the five gods, I will eat you first.

  The dragon charged. The man raised his club. One of them roared.

  21. DEVIN, YEAR 498

  The roaring woke Devin from his slumber and the reverberation shook him off his pallet. Devin winced as the tower shuddered and a rain of small rocks and dust fell from the ceiling. He heard dim sounds of roaring and screaming coming from outside. Somewhat dazed, he brushed the dust off his trousers and shuffled peered out the window.

  A vivid, bronze eye with a pupil the size of a horse peered back, filling the window and bulging into the room. Devin screamed and stepped back, almost tripping over the sack of watches he had collected in a bed sheet the day before. The bag was vibrating as the watches within it hummed.

  Curious, Devin thought, as the vibrations traveled up his leg.

  The giant eye blinked, then cast off from the tower. Devin shielded his face as—claws?—gouged a hole in the roof and tiles crashed to the floor. An angular, scaly head, then a green torso, then gigantic green bat-like wings came into focus and dropped out of sight as the creature descended. What a dragon, Devin marveled. A drake in his prime. And the watches had no negative effect on him. What if other magics have little effect on him?

  He cautiously walked back to the window and peered outside. Dragons blotted the sun. Dragons lounged on rooftops. Smaller dragons prowled the streets, chasing the few unlucky pedestrians not behind locked doors. Not that the locks saved them as several larger beast
s had taken to cracking houses like eggshells or simply demolishing them with a tail swipe. The dragons covered the capital like a swarm of scaly, colorful locusts that breathed fire and ate people.

  Devin stared. He had expected a few large mavens, maybe a drake or two to make good the emperor's boast, but this was insane. What was the man thinking?

  The artificer crossed his arms. He was thinking of any means necessary to abolish magic in this world. I approve of the sentiment, but his methods are crude.

  Devin looked at the chaos down below. Drusilla was caught in that. Styx . . . well, Styx was probably enjoying it. The entire revolution was going to get flamed. Or worse, they would attack the dragons with magic and redouble the damage. He winced at the sound of another one of the iron and glass spires imploding as a dragon tried to land on it. Not that the dragons didn't have a good head start on the mages for destroying the city.

  Devin marched over to one of the slate tiles littering the floor. They were shaped like flat, skinny single wedge axes. Devin braced the tile in the crack of the door so the wedge rested against the stout bar holding the door closed. Then he raised his metal foot and kicked the tile, driving the wedge into the timber.

  After a few kicks, the slate broke and he fetched another. He kicked again and again. He was not going to let the revolution die in a torrent of dragon fire. He could feel the wood starting to split. He kicked again, relishing the shuddering vibrations in the wood as the slate bit into the timber and transmitted the shock through his leg. He kicked again and smiled. That's what freedom feels like.

  A voice suddenly shouted on the other end of the door, “Stop. Please, stop.”

  Devin raised his metal foot and kicked harder. “Come in here and make me, butterfly.”

  “Butterfly? Are there butterflies attacking you?” the voice asked with a familiar laugh muffled through the door.

  Devin paused and put his ear to the door. “Drusilla?” he asked.

  “Sta . . . ack,” Drusilla said. “What . . . mean . . .ot . . . working? Back up . . . try.”

  Suddenly, the sack of watches Devin had so conveniently gathered in one spot screeched like all the lost souls in the world were trapped inside it. The rest of the watches still on the wall added their voices to the chorus. Devin screamed and threw himself across the room, away from the cacophony, and covered his ears.

  When Devin's ears stopped ringing the watches had fallen silent. He rapped his knuckles on the floor to ensure he hadn't gone deaf. The cell door was still there as solid as ever and beyond it he thought he could hear yelling. But it sounded more like loud stage whispers.

  “Of course, magic isn't going to work. He's a famous mage. They've probably littered those damn watches everywhere. You're not supposed to be casting spells anyway. What do you mean that was a little one? Damn near collapsed the tower on our heads. Go get the iron fist. Hold tight. We're coming, Devin!”

  He sat on the floor bemused as the door began to shudder under a series of violent blows. It looked like a giant was knocking on the door of his tower. Would that make me a fairy tale princess? And where is the prince to rescue me?

  The door didn't shatter like one of the slate tiles, but collapsed around a large crack splitting down the middle. “Devin,” Drusilla cried, leaping over the wreckage, leaping into his arms and wrapping her legs tight around his waist. Drusilla blushed as a three person team of Jemmy, Patrice, and Tarbon lugging a machine with four handles followed her through the door laughing and whistling. The device looked like a metal fist attached to a giant piston.

  “So much for my quiet revolution,” Drusilla said, kissing his cheek. “You like it? I call it my 'iron fist.' See, it's a rotary cam between the engine and the rod that converts rotational to linear motion, pounding and pounding and pounding.” She thrust her hips to demonstrate the mechanism.

  She has an adorable smudge of grease on her forehead. Devin smiled as he touched his still warm cheek with one hand and held her close with the other. “My knight in shining armor,” he murmured. “Just like when we were kids with our little, wooden swords.”

  Drusilla groaned and unlocked her legs, hopping to the floor. “Yes, Devin, just like that.”

  What did I say? he wondered as her back stiffened. “So you've gone from handling stiff wooden swords to using your fist?” he asked.

  Drusilla gasped and then smirked.

  His cheeks flushed as he—

  Understood that reaction, did you? The artificer chuckled.

  Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Just shut up. “Thank you for the rescue.” He turned to the rest of the party hurriedly. “I want to thank all of you. Now we just need to defeat the emperor and save the city from the dragons. Let's focus on that.”

  Patrice, the next ex-battering ram bearer, lost her grip on the machine she was laughing so hard. Jemmy and Tarbon struggled between them easing the machine and themselves to the ground.

  “Never mind the battering ram.” Drusilla glared at the older woman and then turned back to Devin. She patted him on the shoulder and kicked one of the loose tiles. “I have some bad news. We're not going to be able to use the mages to fight off the dragons attacking the city.”

  “Of course,” Devin said. “Because magic doesn't affect larger dragons. It's so obvious.”

  “What? No!” Drusilla took him by the shoulders and peered into his eyes. “That's a ridiculous idea. Did one of those tiles drop on your head?”

  “I saw a large dragon fly past,” Devin gestured to the window. “The watches went off. Didn't faze it. But they did effect the baby dragons. Dropped them right out of the sky. Ergo . . .” he shrugged.

  She pursed her lips. “Didn't you tell me how the cabal used magic to restrain dragons?”

  “That was a small, very tiny dragon,” Devin muttered.

  “And the one you killed in front of the army at Port Eclare. The old behemoth? Was that a tiny dragon, too?” She smiled and patted him on the head.

  He swatted her hand away. “You made your point. If I told you every tile scattered on the floor there smacked my head on the way down, can we forget this part of the conversation ever happened?”

  She nodded. “I'm just happy you're alive and didn't end up . . . like Fangwaller.” She shuddered. “The throne room was abandoned, but they just left him hanging there on the edge of death.”

  “So why can't the mages fight the dragons?” Devin asked quietly.

  “Tobias told us if anyone casts a large magic spell, all the pent up energy in their bodies will release and explode.”

  Devin smiled. “Bless the five gods. He's still with us then. When his house burnt a few days ago, I feared he had been captured or worse.”

  Drusilla shook her head and wiped away a tear. “He's gone, Devin. He wrote a letter before he died testing his theory on mage combustion. Styx saw the results. It was horrible.”

  “No, I'm missing something. Something about the watches and the dragons. Something Cornelius tried to tell me once.” Devin waved to a few of the party members and gestured to the watches still hanging on the walls. “Can you help me pull the rest of these down?”

  Drusilla snorted and helped. Soon his bed sheet sack was overflowing with mage detectors in a room full of mages none of whom could use their magic. Welcome to my world, Devin thought, hefting the sack over his shoulder. Not that he said anything. Patrice could probably burn him with her eyes, magic or no.

  “It was a behemoth, wasn't it?” Devin chuckled to himself, racing down the stairs. His metal foot clanked against the loose steps, but he no longer cared if the tower collapsed.

  Styx and Jemmy were waiting at the bottom of the stairs. “I'm sorry, Father. They wouldn't let me climb the rickety steps. Everyone voted and said I would have been a tight fit.” He hung his head. “I didn't get to vote.”

  Devin reached up and hugged his son. “You're here now. I'm here now. That's all that matters.”

  Styx smiled and squeezed him gently. “Yes, Father.”


  Devin reached out and shook Jemmy's hand. “Thank you, Jemmy. You are a true son of the revolution and I have misjudged you. I couldn't see past the uniform or our . . . history.”

  Jemmy plucked his black surcoat and grinned. “Distrust is your best ally against someone wearing one of these.” Then the knight slapped Devin on the back. “Figured if I kept saving your life, you might forgive me for delivering you into the claws of that butcher.”

  Devin took a deep breath and sighed. “I will forgive you when Armand Delacourt Vice lies dead at my feet.”

  “You want to borrow my sword?” Jemmy asked, chuckling.

  “Watch out for guards,” Drusilla called, her voice echoing down the stairwell.

  Devin cupped his hand to form a megaphone. “You said the palace was abandoned.”

  “She said the throne room was abandoned,” Patrice grunted, hopping the last few stairs and shooting a streak of fire over Devin's shoulder. Devin's scream was almost drowned by the sound of the watches he carried. The High Guard he hadn't seen hiding in an alcove collapsed on the ground, dead.

  The watches' shriek was mercifully brief. “Warn me next time, Patrice. I just got my hearing back. I'd like to keep it a bit longer.”

  She cupped a hand to her ear as we gathered at the base of the tower. “Misheard you there, oh glorious leader. It sounded like, 'Thank you, Patrice. The five gods bless you for saving my hide, Patrice.' That's what I heard, right?”

  Devin nodded, brushing the singed hair off his shoulder. “You missed the part about your quick wit and beauty.”

  She grinned. “I'll have to listen harder next time. What 's the plan?”

  “Well, the small dragons rely on magic for flight. We saw as much that day in the shop. What if the larger ones are more susceptible?”

  “But you said the big one outside the tower wasn't affected,” Drusilla protested, coming down the stairs.

  “I said the watches didn't affect his flying. But that could be explained any number of ways. Maybe he was gliding on the thermals of the roasting city. Maybe he was too massive or too far away, but make no mistake, Dru, he was much too massive.”