by Ben Hale
"So why could I?" Tess asked, feeling a very worldly sense of pride. Then she realized that she'd merely turned on an elevator.
"I have no idea," he shrugged and raised an eyebrow at her, "I've never known it to work for someone underage."
The elevator picked up speed, causing Tess to ask, "How deep are we going?"
"To the terra trains. They will take us most of the way."
"So the school is underground?"
"No," he said with a grin, "but I won't spoil the surprise for you."
The elevator came to a stop before she could ask any more, and as the doors opened her eyes widened with them. The elevator now looked into a large dome-shaped cavern. Its ceiling was a smooth arc, as if carved by a spoon, and was lit by white-flame torches bracketed in the walls. With no cracks to mar its surface, the dark blue floor appeared equally polished, and was only broken by two parallel tracks that ran down the center.
She'd been to New York City a few times, but these tracks bore little resemblance to a subway. There was no trace of rusted or scratched metal. Instead, several pristine white rails sat in a shallow depression. Faded purple light veined them, rendering them difficult to look at. A gleaming silver tube-train floated a few inches above one of them.
"So it's a subway?" Tess asked.
"You could call a BMW a toy wagon, but it would be equally inaccurate," Hawk said, leading her out of the elevator as a family of four stepped in.
Tess stared at the group, trying to identify something that would characterize them as mages. The son looked to be ten, and the daughter a little older. Both appeared bored as the father pressed a finger shrouded in light to the elevator button. Tess turned away when the doors closed and fell into step next to Hawk.
Only a few others were in the station. One sat on a bench and stared off into space, his eyes glazed over. Every few seconds he laughed to himself. I guess even mages have crazies in the subway, she thought, but couldn't bring herself to ask Hawk. The man was dressed in a suit with an expensive overcoat, and in any other setting she would have thought he was a stock broker.
Then he laughed again, louder than before, his eyes clouding further. Tess felt odd staring at him, so she looked away. A group of three college age guys stood talking. One laughed while he played with a ball of water in his hand. Flipping it casually into the air, he caught it and then flicked it like a yo-yo. A string of water held it to his finger as the ball swung down and up. Then he rolled it between his fingers like a gambler with a coin.
Fascinated by the display, Tess missed Hawk's comment. Blinking, she faced him with an apology on her lips, but he grinned.
"Don't worry. I'll wager you master that inside of a week, if not a day."
"Because I'm . . . because of who I am?"
His grin widened. "Partly, and because it's easy."
She frowned, wondering how simple it would be to play with liquid water like that.
Hawk gestured to the train doors, which had just opened. "Although it's inherently easy with some, all magics can be siphoned into a ball of pure energy. Mastering orb skills is one of the first things students learn. It's an excellent technique for practicing magic in small quantities without fear of bodily harm."
Tess followed him onto the train. Although only ten feet in diameter from the outside, the inside appeared larger, and was furnished with curving couches and chairs. With the feel of a fifty-foot living room, the train car was spacious enough to handle the thirty or so passengers with ease.
Only a few disembarked as they got on, but everyone in the station stepped through the doors behind her. The stock broker found a seat in a sofa chair before resuming his glazed expression. The water mage discarded the ball of water, which splashed at his feet as he stepped onto the train.
"Come on, Nate, clean up will you?" one of his friends said to him.
Nate grumbled under his breath but flicked a wrist at the puddle. In seconds the water evaporated and Nate followed his companions further down the tube. Another family and a group of women boarded as well. The four women were talking excitedly, but Tess could barely understand what they were saying.
"The head chancellor himself said the vote had no chance of passing," one said.
"But I heard that Auroraq has almost been discovered," the second said, her brow furrowed with concern. Her expression was overly anxious, and the worry lines around her eyes made her look older.
The third scoffed at the remark. "That's not true. There is no way the auren's have the technology to see it. Their computers were designed by techno mages."
"But what if they did vote for lifting the ban?" the first challenged. "Do you think the world is ready for magic again?"
"No," the fourth said, her expression adamant. "As Chancellor Gerik said, our traditions must be upheld . . ."
Their conversation faded as they moved further down the car. A moment later the floor shifted underfoot. Tess took a seat next to Hawk. As the train continued to accelerate the rock outside the window turned into streaks of grey.
"How fast are we going?" Tess asked, surprised at the smoothness of the ride.
"With stops, we should hit Colorado in a little over an hour, so I would say a couple thousand miles per hour."
Her eyes widened at the revelation. "How is that possible?"
She must have spoken too loud, because a boy about her age turned to look at her. He smirked and said, "New mag huh? What field?"
She felt a flash of irritation at his tone, but suppressed the urge to snap at him. His slang was unfamiliar, but she could guess at their meaning. "Fire, you?" she said.
His expression shifted to smug. "Fire and gravity. I'm going to be a flier. The name's Marcus."
"Tess," she replied reluctantly.
"Headed for your first quad at Tryton’s? Me too. Can't wait to get into the air. Maybe I'll let you fly on my board someday."
The boy's condescension was infuriating, so Tess didn't reply. Instead she nodded curtly and turned away. His gasp brought her back to face him—but he wasn't looking at her face, he was looking at her hands. Feeling a sinking dread, she looked down and saw flames curling in her palms. Liquid fire poured up her wrists and coiled around her forearms, flaring like deadly gauntlets.
"You're not supposed to be able—"
His mother slapped the back of his head, causing him to flinch and turn away. His mother's disapproving gaze flicked between Hawk and Tess before she rose to her feet and pulled her son further down the car.
Tess took a breath and the fires cooled. Then she spun on Hawk. "A little help would have been nice," she said. She made no effort to hide the acid in her tone.
He shrugged, but his eyebrow was peaked. "You looked like you were fine. To answer your earlier question, the earth trains are half a mile below the surface, and use heat to provide power."
"We're that deep?" she asked, wondering if she would ever cease to be astonished. Then she had the unsettling thought that as far as the rabbit hole had gone, she wasn't even close to the end.
He nodded, his lips twitching as he suppressed a smile. "Do you feel like you are in wonderland yet?"
"How did you know?"
"You aren't the first new student I have escorted to Auroraq."
Tess snorted at that, and turned away to watch more of the passengers. Aside from their position inside a secret, hyper-advanced, magic-powered train, most of them betrayed very normal behavior. Some read books or talked on a phone (How did they get reception down here?), but most just spoke with their companions. One man was even sprawled on a couch, asleep, while another wore a pair of shiny glasses and talked into thin air.
Before she knew it they pulled into their first stop, and within minutes they rocketed away. Tess wouldn't have believed they were traveling so fast except for the blur of stone out the window. The motion of the train felt like flying, except without the turbulence.
That thought made her wonder if mages flew in planes. Or did they have super jets th
at circumnavigated the globe in the span of an Oprah show. Then she recalled the mention of a flier. The obnoxious teenager from earlier had said he was going to be one, and didn't Hawk say her real father had been a class three flier?
Before she could ask Hawk the train began to slow. They disembarked into a crowd. This time they stood in a much larger dome, and people bustled about the station in every direction. No less than eight tracks dominated the cavern, and as they walked toward a bank of elevators another silver train glided into place.
Many in the milling crowd wore cloaks around their shoulders. Although the colors differed somewhat, the cloaks were nearly identical in pattern. She was eager to see more magic, but it seemed few had a reason to use theirs in the station.
Tess and Hawk entered the elevator behind a mother and daughter. This time, she chose not to ask the host of questions that bombarded her mind. She didn't want to betray her ignorance as readily as she had on the train—but it was difficult to discard the image of the obnoxious boy as he stood three steps in front of her. Then the elevator slid to a stop and she stepped out into a sprawling mountain village.
"Welcome to Oakridge," Hawk said.
He swept his hand at the streets and buildings of a town unlike anything she'd ever seen. Lit by the sunset and countless glowing lamps, the streets were flooded with people. Dressed in everything from summer garb to winter cloaks, they were of every nationality and country. For the first time, Tess noticed that most of them bore a curious knot on the chest or shoulder. Some carried more than one, and the colors varied greatly.
"What do the knots mean?" she asked Hawk, gesturing to a group of girls wearing matching blue knots.
"The color represents their field. Red is fire, blue is water, pink is healing, and so on. A knot is earned through mastery and training. Each is an honor to receive, and most mages will display it regularly. The more sides to the knot, the higher the skill."
Tess nodded, but didn't get the chance to ask more as Hawk led her through the bustling city. Businesses and homes alike were distinct. Some were vaguely medieval, others looked like something out of a science fiction novel. Shops carried items that begged for explanation.
The Green Leaf boasted walls of bright green, and had trees and flowers growing out of the interior. As they passed, Tess could have sworn one of the trees waved at her. Silver Notes sat beside it. Fashioned of curving blue walls, it displayed odd instruments and had the most beautiful music coming from inside.
Farther down she saw a shop with a crowd gathered around it, examining what could only be described as short, liquid silver surfboards. They floated off the ground or hovered above displays. Through a gap in the crowd she caught a glimpse of a sleek, notched board. Its surface swirled with black as it floated next to a sign.
The Night Carver
Wind flyer only
8400 Marks
It went on to describe the board's features, which included an embedded cyclone and automatic gravity absorption for longer flights.
The whole atmosphere of the city was surreal. People and families walked the streets or browsed the magical wares like it was normal, talking and strolling as if there was nothing unique about where they stood—yet to Tess everything about Oakridge seemed impossible.
Trash, power lines, and vehicles were nonexistent, and in their absence the space had been filled with things she could not comprehend. A fountain flowed in a beautiful cascade that never touched the pond's surface. Instead it cycled back on itself in increasingly complicated patterns.
On the other side of the square, a squat building had steam blowing from strange windows near the top. Enormous, oddly shaped pots filled its shelves, and included a variety of peculiar utensils and cooking implements. The sign read, Cooking with Cauldrons. Beneath it, a large platter bore real food on its surface.
Further down an entire shop floated off the ground, and people strolled under it as if that were normal. Great trees bridged the gap between the taller buildings, providing sweeping, upper level pathways. At one point the stones of a building pulled out of the walls and reformed into a different shape, all while the people inside continued to shop.
The only thing that appeared normal was the bookstore—until she noticed that it carried no books. Instead, it boasted racks of sleek, tinted glasses. "Why does the bookstore have glasses instead of books?" Tess asked, coming to a halt to peer into the window.
"Oh, I am glad you reminded me," Hawk said. Shifting direction, he drew her into the open door.
Stepping into Knowledge and Archives, Tess examined the glasses on the bookshelves. Spotting one that looked about her style, she withdrew it and put it on—and stumbled backward.
Expanding outward, symbols, letters and numbers appeared at the edge of her sight. The three-dimensional diagrams moved and shifted the moment she glanced at them, and re-formed into patterns that she recognized. Then she saw script forming, hanging in mid-air with the bookshelf fading into the background.
What kind of glasses are—
The sentence appeared in the top corner of her field of vision, echoing the words in her head. They stopped when her thoughts came to a jarring halt. She blinked and removed the glasses, afraid the words had appeared in the air, but they hadn't. Confused, she put them on again.
Where did the words go?
As before, her thoughts floated a few feet away from her. She peered over the top edge of the spectacles’ frame, and realized that the words were only visible to her. She hastily removed the spectacles before any more of her thoughts could be written.
"We'll take one pair of omni-glasses," Hawk was saying to the shopkeeper, and then caught sight of Tess's bewildered expression. With a grin he added, "Do you like those?"
She nodded, not wanting to betray her confusion.
He smirked and tapped a glowing pad on the counter. It brightened at his touch and then resumed its previous light-blue color. As they walked out he explained. "Think of them as the ultimate computer. You will need them to do most of your schoolwork, and research."
"How do I print?"
Turning down a side street, he gestured to the glasses in her hand. "There is a rune on the top. When you have finished mind writing, you can look at a paper and tap that. Everything you have written will reflect on the page."
"What about—"
"Multiple pages too," he said, suppressing a smile. "Just stack the paper and it will take care of it—but to be honest you will rarely need paper."
"I was going to ask about research."
He laughed. "You can connect to the mage-net at a glance. It has the auren internet, of course, but it is expanded to include mage sites—which are three-dimensional and interactive, among other things. I think you will find it quite useful."
She stopped, and he turned to face her.
"They must have been expensive," she said.
He shrugged. "Not as much as you would expect. They've been used for a few decades now, so they are pretty common."
"Still," she pressed, "how did you pay for it?"
"In the mage world there is no physical money. Currency is called marks, and is linked to your unique physical make-up. It's a fusing of body magic and techno magic."
She thought of her tiny bank account in Virginia. "How am I supposed to pay for things in the future?"
He shifted uncomfortably. "I took the liberty of transferring a few thousand marks to your account. It should last you for the next few years . . . if you use it judiciously."
His discomfort made her think that the gift was a great deal more than he implied. At a loss for words, she settled on, "Thanks, Hawk. I promise I won't go nuts."
He smiled and motioned toward the spectacles. "You can check your balance through those, and don't worry about theft. Marks are impossible to steal. Even twins don't share the same physical markings."
Resisting the urge to try them on and find out how much he'd given her, she slid them into their case. Then she followed Hawk thr
ough another intersection until they reached a strange building. Built with stability in mind, its supports were anchored with enormous hands of shaped steel. Large and circular, it contained a single entrance through an abnormally thick outer wall.
Striding through the portal and past a handful of people, Hawk spoke to a bored man sitting behind a carved wooden counter. "Two for the next launch," he said, and tapped the counter.
The counter flickered as the man pointed to the door opposite the room. "Leaves in ten minutes. You can board now if you’d like."
Feeling apprehensive at the thickness of the door, Tess nevertheless followed Hawk through it. She blinked when she realized that the interior of the structure was open to the sky, and was shaped like a giant bowl. Coming to a halt, she stared at the large, clear ball that sat on a platform in the center.
Gray and lined with grooves, the sloped walls were seamless as they curved out and up. Then she realized that air flowed counterclockwise through the space. As if directed by an unseen hand, the breeze felt controlled, like the air from a vent.
"What is it?" she asked, taking a step forward
Hawk gestured toward the ball. "It's a tornado launcher, commonly known as a Terminous. It uses focused wind magic to throw us into the sky."
She felt her gut tighten. "But I . . . ," she swallowed, ashamed to admit the truth.
"Are afraid of heights?" he said, nodding in understanding.
"How did you know?" she demanded.
“Of course you are," he said. "But that's just because you haven't performed gravity magic."
She blinked in confusion, but he didn't elaborate.
"It's alright. Launchers have a flawless safety record."
"With my luck I will be the first to cause an accident."
He grinned. “Then I would fly us there myself."
"Are you a flier?" she asked.
"Of sorts," he replied, his voice cryptic.
Reluctantly she followed him into the ball, grateful that no one else entered. He stepped to the opposite side and sat on a translucent bench. Indicating for her to do the same, he said, "Out of curiosity, what do you perceive about the moving air?"
