Reawakening

by CM Raymond

  While Adrien often made public appearances on the steps of the Academy to large crowds sitting on the lawn, the Governor was almost never seen. Everybody in the town knew that he was simply a figurehead, that Adrien held the real sway in the community. But seeing the Governor in the factory made Parker realize that the thing they were building was bigger than he had first imagined.

  “I guess everybody’s involved in this thing,” Parker said to Jack, who had fallen silent next to them.

  “Hmmm?”

  Parker nodded towards the balcony. “The Governor’s here. I was saying that this must be a pretty big project to bring him out of the Capitol building.”

  “Oh yeah. He’s always here,” Jack said. “I should think he spends more time in the factory than he does over the Capitol these days. Not sure what the guy does. I mean, Doyle and the chief engineer run most of the logistics here—them and that woman. The Governor just comes down to throw his weight around from time to time.”

  Jack’s comment grabbed Parker’s attention. “What woman?”

  Jack’s face fell white—he looked more afraid than he had all day. “I don’t know who she is, and I don’t want to know.” He quickly looked over his shoulder, as if she were right behind him.

  Parker knew that it was useless to pry when Jack got in this mood, and the two fell back into their work for a while.

  Parker tried to cope with the monotony by thinking about Hannah. She had been gone for months, and he was beginning to think that something might be wrong. His worst fear was that she may be hurt, but deep down inside, he knew that even worse than that was that she had just abandoned them.

  It wasn’t beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was coming back.

  Maybe that magician had convinced her to leave Arcadia behind and to go and make a new world for new people. This is what the revolutionaries were about. Wiping shoes clean and starting over was often easier than the long hard work of restoring something that was once good. But Arcadia was worth the work, and with or without his friend, Parker was still committed to the task. Which meant he had to get out of the factory.

  “Has anybody tried to leave?” Parker finally asked.

  Jack laughed. “I wouldn’t recommend it. Once you’re here, you’re here until they’re done with you. It’s kind of like a prison sentence, but with pay. You know François?”

  Parker thought for a while, Arcadia was filled with people, and he could only know so many. But then he remembered something. “Is he the guy that ran that little black market magitech ring?”

  Jack flinched at Parker’s words. He shushed him and looked over each shoulder. “Shouldn’t say that here. You know, with all the magicians around, they can hear just about anything they want to. But yeah, that guy. François had dropped out of the Academy—hell, I don’t know, maybe he was kicked out. But he ended up taking what he knew and starting that little business you spoke of. Of course, when everything started to tighten up on the Unlawfuls, François decided the risk was too great. It was time to stop taking the chance of getting the pinch selling illegal magitech. The way I understand it, the Hunters are harsher on people selling magical items than they are on those who are restricted and practicing.”

  Parker thought about Miranda and the way she had been tortured and hung to die at the stake in the middle of the square. Everybody knew that most Unlawfuls were killed on the spot, but most of them weren’t done in in such a public fashion. Maybe Jack was right.

  “Anyway, François, he tried to get a job here early on when they first opened the floor. It worked, but apparently, once he was in he had second thoughts—kind of like you are right now. The guy tried to break free, get loose from the factory. And it didn’t go so well.”

  “He didn’t make it out?”

  Jack paused from his work and laid his hands flat on the table. He checked over his shoulders again and then talked in a hushed tone. “He didn’t even make it off this floor. It’s these damn cuffs. There’s some sort of magical force field or something surrounding the place. You try to get out with these magitech cuffs on, it zaps you right there on the spot. You’d be a fool to even try. You hear those screams?”

  Jack nodded toward a large metal door at the other end of the factory. A man’s screams had been echoing out from there for days.

  Parker nodded.

  “Who do you think is behind that door? That’s where Francois is now. And that’s where you’ll end up if you try and run. Just keep your head down, like me. They’ll have to release us once this thing is done, right? And who knows, maybe the pay is real?”

  Parker nodded, trying to offer Jack some comfort. But he knew the truth. You didn’t handcuff paid employees to their work. And there was no way the Governor would be bold enough to show his face here if they had any chance of getting out alive.

  Parker needed another way, one that helped him out of the cuffs.

  He looked back towards the end of the factory once again. Francois’ screams continued to echo overhead through all of the other noise.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Doyle could feel his legs shake as he stood outside of Adrien’s office door. It wasn’t like his visits to the Chancellor were uncommon; he did it nearly every day. But the nerves never calmed; the anxiety never went away. Doyle knew by watching that he was always just one wrong word away from obliteration. It was like working for a lion.

  He’d seen Adrien kill a man for bad reports, or laziness, or even just simple errors. For some reason, Doyle had been able to keep his boss happy for this long, but each time he stepped up to the door, it was like he was playing a hand in a card game in the market. Luck only lasted so long, that’s why it was luck.

  Doyle took a breath, straightened his shirt, and knocked on the door. Before he got to the third knock, the familiar voice rang out from inside.

  “Enter!”

  Doyle stepped into the room and found his boss sitting behind the massive table—as he always did. Usually, he had to wait for the Chancellor to finish whatever it was he was working on,or perhaps just wait for nothing at all. But Adrien, for some reason, was filled with anticipation for Doyle’s visit.

  “What’s the report?” Adrien snapped.

  Doyle swallowed hard before continuing. “The good news is that the work on the floor of the factory is going very well. The men are working their fingers to the bone, and the entire thing’s taking shape. I can almost see it in its completed form. A little pushback here and there from some of the men who didn’t realize the terms of their agreement, but overall, the guys are just happy to have work and pay going home to their families. And as long as we keep them… well, imprisoned at the factory, it’s one less mouth to feed at home. So, I guess they believe it’s a win in the end.”

  Adrien was nodding. His face lacked expression, but Doyle was able to read the displeasure nonetheless. Finally, he spoke, “And, what’s the bad news?”

  Doyle could feel his palms beginning to sweat, even as his throat ran dry. “Like I said, the physical structure is not a problem. But we don’t have enough magicians working on the magitech core. There is, of course, some trial and error that goes into building a magitech machine of this proportion. I don’t want to speak poorly of the men, I mean, the magicians are doing all that they can. But you know how magic works. They’re just being worn out—one can only expel so much energy until they need to rest. We need more magicians, or this thing will take forever. We’ll have a beautiful steel contraption with nothing to make it run.”

  The Chancellor jotted some notes on a piece of parchment on his desk and then looked back up at Doyle. “Fortunately, I have that under control. I’ve recently initiated a new scholarship program, and Dean Amelia has been nothing but helpful in finding me recruits. I’ll have your magicians, top of the crop, and I’ll have them soon. Don’t you worry about that.”

  Adrien looked back down at the piece of paper turned it over and started scanning the page using his finger as a guide. He glanced ba
ck up at Doyle who was still standing at the edge of his desk. “There’s something else?”

  “Well, yes, sir. It’s about the Prophet.”

  “Old Jed? What’s he been up to?”

  Doyle insisted on getting consistent updates from the Governor’s Guard about what was going on in the streets of Arcadia. If Adrien was the brain of Arcadia, Doyle was his hands and feet. He had to keep this place moving. “It’s just that, his disciples are getting very, well, violent. They’ve begun striking out at the citizens, and many believe that their attacks are indiscriminate.”

  The Chancellor laughed, which always made Doyle feel uncomfortable. He knew that the man was probably judging him, if not considering his ousting. “Doyle, have you come so far as to believe that I’m a man who does not still treasure religious freedom within the walls of Arcadia?” Adrien laughed more as if he had just told the best joke ever. “Don’t you worry about old Jed. He and I have an understanding. If these people have been attacked, then I’m sure it was the will of the gods. Everything is going to work out exactly as we all planned. Is that all then?”

  “The only other item is the convocation tomorrow. Do you have your speech ready to go?”

  Adrien looked up from his table and smiled. “Yes Doyle, I believe I do. I’ve decided to throw out the old script. That was a speech for days gone by; tomorrow’s convocation marks the beginning of a new, brighter future for Arcadia. For all of Irth! I’m about to lead us into a place the old man never could—and to a place where even he can’t stop us.”

  ****

  Ezekiel’s sleep that night was not restful. Like most nights, it was filled with dreams that quickly turned into nightmares. It was almost always the same.

  They began with him and Eve, not as they are now, old and weary, but when they were young, at the founding of Arcadia. In the hazy fog of nighttime images, he walked hand-in-hand with his love. They would talk about their visions for what the city could become and the way that Arcadia might just pull humanity out of the Age of Madness and back into a civilized manner.

  That dream never lasted for long.

  It would move quickly to the night that they had adopted Adrien into the fold, welcomed him into their community. But instead of the innocent boy of his teenage years, they adopted him as an older man—the man Adrien was today. All the others, enthusiastic to help the boy-man, fought with Ezekiel, whose better intuition told him to cast the man back out into the darkness. But the others won, and like a storybook running in fast-forward, his dream would recount the fall of Arcadia to the tyranny of the orphan they’d taken in.

  It always ended with Adrien, cackling like a madman while standing amidst the ruins of their city.

  Ezekiel gasped and sat up, as he did most mornings, his eyes red and his body tingling with magical energy. Slowly, he allowed himself to calm down. Looking around, he took in his bearings.

  Off in the distance, he could make out a row of the rearick, finishing their funeral dirge. Their tradition was to bury the dead before the sun rose. It was an image born out of the long history of the mining people. From darkness they came, in darkness they worked, and in darkness their lifeless bodies would be cast back into the ground. The good people of the Heights buried nearly a dozen dead that morning—the number would have been far greater had Hannah and Ezekiel not arrived when they did. Karl had mentioned how, in recent days, the remnant had been attacking the lowlands more and more.

  They were on the move, and Ezekiel had no idea why.

  Camp was broken in silence, and Ezekiel, Hannah, and her pet dragon walked toward the back. They allowed the community of rearick to have their mournful march towards Arcadia. The group caravanned together for several miles, and then Ezekiel reached over to grab Hannah by the arm and pulled her off the path.

  “We leave them now.”

  Karl made his way back from the front of the pack. He removed his iron helmet and bowed his head in Hannah’s direction. “We owe the two of you our lives. I am forever grateful. Hopefully, we’ll see each other again in the New Arcadia. May the Matriarch and Patriarch be with you.”

  Ezekiel nodded, and Hannah considered stepping forward and embracing her friend. But the rearick turned too quickly, and before she could respond, he was back at the tail end of the caravan walking with his friends toward the market Square. He didn’t seem much like the hugging type anyway.

  “Why are we leaving them?” Hannah asked. “Aren’t we all going to Arcadia?”

  “Indeed, we are. But there are some things we need to do before we enter the city gates. And, if our friends thought their world was a living hell fighting the remnant, the last thing they need is to walk into Arcadia with the Founder and his Unlawful student. Their fate would be much worse than that of their brothers who they left in the dirt this morning.”

  They stood in silence as the rearick marched away. When they were alone, Hannah asked, “I get why we can’t go with them—I don’t want to put anyone else in harm's way because of me. But if that’s the case, how the hell are we going to get into Arcadia ourselves?”

  “That, my dear Hannah, is the question.” As Ezekiel said this, he turned from the main road and walked into a stand of trees off to the side. Hannah followed along behind him as he continued his speech.

  “As I have said, Hannah, not all are bad within the walls of Arcadia. And we need to find those allies who will support us. But you’ve been assuming that our only options lie with the poor—those who live within the Queen’s Boulevard. But this, of course, isn’t true. While they are few and far between, there are some rich and noble ones who also balk at the practices of bullies and tyrants. It’s our job to find them, and wake them up to a better way.”

  Hannah tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. She listened to the riddles of the magician for so long, but she still hadn’t been able to master the answers. Instead, she tried to wait him out. Unfortunately, her patience evaporated before Sal could even look around and find something to chase.

  “And how exactly are we going to do that?” Hannah asked. “I don’t exactly have many friends in high places.”

  “You may not,” Ezekiel said with a smile, “but Lord Girard does.”

  Hannah’s eyes narrowed as she looked at the old wizard. “And who the hell is Lord Girard?”

  Zeke couldn’t help but laugh. “He just happens to be the man whom I visited when I was away from the Heights. Girard is a man of great wealth, honor, and position within Arcadia. He is also an insufferably cruel individual. Years ago, once he had made his money off the backs of the poor, Girard moved out of the city and bought a manner in the country to the north. The damn place, if sold, could pull half the Boulevard out of poverty. Instead, the nobleman lived there in a life of vice. But he’s had a reawakening—a restoration of sorts—and now travels to Arcadia to seek redemption.”

  With a flourish, Ezekiel threw his overcoat off his shoulders. Hannah watched it drop to the ground. When she raised her eyes back, Ezekiel was gone. In his place stood a man taller, with a face that was soft from the ease of life. His beard was shorter, and his shockingly white hair turned dark. His robes were a marvelous crimson with golden embroidery.

  Her mouth dropped open. “Holy shit, Zeke. You’re kind of hot. I mean, still old, but not too shabby.” She walked around him to check out the robe.

  Ezekiel, as the nobleman, laughed. “Yes. They say that magic can work miracles. And now it’s your turn.”

  Hannah’s eyes dropped to the ground, and she thought of that day when she made herself a robe in the Heights to cover her naked body from Hadley’s eyes. “I might be able to manage the wardrobe, but the total transformation, I’m just not strong enough.”

  His eyes flashed red, and Hannah was dressed in a cloak like Ezekiel’s. Her hair was different as well. Previously straight and dark, her head was now adorned with curls of strawberry blonde.

  Sal hissed in surprise, then relaxed when he realized it was still her.