Mage Against the Machine

by Shaun Barger

“Do you know what’s out there?” he said. “Beyond the sky? Outside of our domes, our Veils?”

  Nik hesitated, unsure of where Hazeal was going with this. “Of course.”

  The chaos of shattered reality and radioactive wastelands. The end result of a magically enhanced nuclear exchange that killed off mankind a century before, in 2020. Lancer Class Edge Guard regularly braved the desolation, carefully documenting their expeditions for the largely disinterested public.

  Nikolai had seen it all.

  “Do you now?” Hazeal chuckled. “I’ve seen it, you know. With my own eyes. It’s as terrible as you think. But not in the way you suspect.”

  Nikolai eyed him, impatience starting to mingle with fear. In the year since he’d last seen the old mage, Hazeal had turned into the fucking Cheshire cat.

  Hazeal drew a handkerchief from his pocket, mopping his weathered brow.

  “Your mother was the one who brought me there,” he said, folding the handkerchief into an uneven rectangle with trembling fingers. “It’s what killed her, in the end.”

  Nikolai froze. “What . . . are you talking about?”

  “I owe your mother a great debt, Nikolai. To say the least. But now, that debt is paid.”

  Hazeal reached into his pocket, serpent quick, and tossed Nikolai a slick medallion. Nik ignored his instinct to slap it away with a swipe of his baton. He caught it, powerful enchantments burning cold against his skin.

  Nikolai eyed the shimmering medallion in his palm as if he’d been handed a grenade. A dimly luminescent crescent moon set against the illusion of star-spangled sky. The rank insignia of the Moonwatch—a clandestine network of the most powerful living Battle Magi serving as royal assassins, spies, and secret police, as well as the only order to outrank the Edge Guard.

  It was the king’s own license. A key to any lock.

  “I lost my magic fighting a Moonwatch to get that for you,” he said, through gritted teeth. “Burned myself out. Should be a few weeks before they realize the owner is dead. Hide it. No, don’t just put it in your pocket, I said hide it!”

  Slowly, Nikolai slipped off his sneaker and stowed the medallion away, never taking his eyes off Hazeal as the old half-mage’s expression flitted madly between sorrow, rage, and euphoria.

  Hazeal clamped the handkerchief on the revolver’s grip and drew it from its holster. Nikolai tensed, reaching for his Focals as he prepared to dive aside and kill the half-mage. But Hazeal wasn’t trying to shoot Nikolai. Careful not to let his fingers touch the rune-etched steel, he offered it to Nikolai, pommel first.

  “This was your mother’s. She wanted you to have it.”

  Nikolai eyed the revolver suspiciously, not moving to take it. “I thought you said you had a message for me.”

  “A message, and gifts,” he said, eye twitching impatiently. “The insignia, so you can go see what kind of men you’re really working for. Especially that murderer. That fucking butcher.”

  “Who?”

  Hazeal’s cracked lips widened into an unpleasant smile. “Why, your precious Captain Jubal, of course. But don’t take my word for it. Look to his library, and see for yourself.”

  Nikolai furrowed his brow, incredulous. “And the revolver?”

  “She wanted you to use it. Wanted you to finish what she couldn’t.”

  “Finish what? Use it for what?”

  “The gun will teach you the secrets of manipulating Veil with the apocrypha weave, if you ask it to. To make a door in the sky.” He looked up at the lush roof of leaves fiery red with autumn, his eyes lit with a junkie’s wild gleam. “So you can see what the human world is like, for yourself.”

  “Why don’t you save me the trouble and just fucking tell me?” Nikolai snarled, eyeing the revolver like it was a venomous insect.

  Hazeal whimpered, suddenly appearing quite frail. “Please, Nikolai. I’m not supposed to, I don’t understand why. It won’t hurt you. I promise it won’t. I’m only this way as punishment. For what I did.”

  “Punishment? For what?”

  His eyes welled up with tears. “Your mother died because of me. She—”

  “My mom and dad died in a skycraft accident,” Nikolai said, cutting him off. “How is that your fault?”

  “No, Nikolai. I’m afraid that’s not what really happened. The crash was just a cover, for an embarrassment to the crown.”

  The realization that Hazeal was telling the truth hit Nikolai like a steel-toed kick in the balls. Though he wasn’t surprised—not really. How could that terrifying woman have possibly been killed by something so mundane as a crash?

  “She trusted me,” Hazeal continued. “Asked for my help. But I lied. Pretended I was on her side, then ratted her out. Swallowed my guilt and moved on with my life, until six months ago I found a parcel. Shelved among my books, covered in an inch of dust, as if it’d been there for years. But I’d never seen it before.”

  Perspiration darkened the handkerchief clenched around the gun from fingers visibly straining with effort.

  “Your mother discovered my treachery too late to save herself and the others, but apparently with enough time to leave a vengeful little gift for me—enchanted to remain hidden until enough years had passed for you to become a fully-fledged Edge Guard. Which she never doubted you would. I went out of my way to show you kindness when you joined the Edge Guard as a cadet, to alleviate my own guilt. But when I opened that parcel to find the revolver . . . your mother’s messenger made it quite clear that my debts were far from paid. So please. Take the gun. I’ll give you her message afterward, just please. Let me be done with this.”

  “How do I know this isn’t a trick? None of this makes sense. How am I supposed to believe you?” Nikolai shook his head. “No. Give me the message first.”

  “Please, Nikolai . . .”

  “Message first. Then we’ll see.”

  Hazeal paled, hesitating.

  “She hurt you, when you were a child. In this very forest. Every morning. For years. And then . . . in the end . . . before she died . . .”

  Nikolai flinched, feeling as if he’d been slapped. “Stop.”

  “. . . she hurt you even more. The worst she’d ever hurt you.”

  “I said stop. Shut up!”

  “She needed you to know that she never wanted to hurt you. That she was sorry. So very sorry. And even though she could never ask you to forgive her for the pain she caused you . . . she hopes that this final inheritance might make up for it, at least in part. That once you possess the revolver, she can be at peace knowing that no one will ever be able to hurt you again.”

  Hazeal’s haggard features softened as he watched Nikolai, who felt smaller with every word.

  “I don’t know what it means, Nikolai. I don’t know what she did to you. But . . . that final, terrible thing. Does anybody but you know about it?”

  Nikolai grew dizzy, blood pounding in his ears as he struggled against the onslaught of horrible memories.

  “N . . . no.”

  “This isn’t a trick. Your mother was a deeply flawed woman. But she loved you. And I know for a fact that she would have destroyed whole cities to keep you safe.”

  Hazeal took a step closer, eyes brimming with a concerned, fatherly warmth. Revolver still held aloft for Nikolai to take.

  Nikolai took the gun.

  An overwhelming sensation—an almost liquid pleasure—seeped into the skin of his fingertips as a woman’s voice whispered promises of secrets and power and violence and sex and fire and blood and—

  Nikolai tried to let go, screaming as he fought against the crushing euphoria, struggling to shut out the voice and the feeling of violation as it touched his mind, as the cool creeping tendrils spread into his pools and channels of magic.

  The hellish ecstasy tore away like a stinging shock of icy water as the gun was knocked from his grasp by a muddy stick Hazeal swung hard enough to break two of Nikolai’s fingers. The silky, irresistible whispers dwindled to a distant hush as t
he revolver tumbled away.

  For a moment, Nikolai could only stand there, stunned as he stared at his hideously crooked digits. Then pain exploded in his jaw as Hazeal slammed a heavy fist into his face.

  Reeling, Nikolai drew his baton Focal to try and defend himself, but Hazeal tackled him, howling with crazed, triumphant laughter.

  “You thought you had me! You thought I was yours but I’m a half-mage now. I hid my mind! And now . . .”

  His hands were slippery as they found purchase around Nik’s wrists. A cloud of flame billowed out to the side from the tip of Nik’s baton as Hazeal turned the hand away the instant before Nik could incinerate him.

  Mud steamed and blackened. Moss turned to ember, filling the air with putrid smoke as Nik struggled and screamed under the thickly built man.

  “St-stop! STOP! Get—get the fuck off of—”

  “I lied, Nikolai! Your mother was a vile woman. Everyone else worshipped her, but I knew what kind of mage she really was. I knew! Just like I know you’re going to be monster, like her. If not worse.”

  Nik strained with his broken-fingered hand to draw his second Focal—a dagger. The pillar of flame billowing from his baton grew to a blue-and-red inferno jetting off beside them, and Nik could feel his hair smoldering, could see Hazeal’s filthy clothes catching from the heat alone, and—

  Hazeal wrenched the wrist of Nikolai’s baton hand with an audible crunch. The billowing inferno sputtered out as the baton slipped from fingers Nikolai could no longer control. Hazeal cast aside the baton, then drew Nik’s blade Focal and tossed that away as well.

  “I should’ve known she’d make me pay eventually. But I’m glad they killed her! Just like I’m going to kill you. I hope she’s watching from hell.”

  He struck Nikolai in the face with the bloodied knuckles of his free hand, each punch a distant thud the young mage could barely feel anymore.

  A thread of light silently pierced Hazeal’s neck. There came a flash of heat and the pressure released, the weight of the stocky man suddenly gone. Nikolai sputtered and choked, blinded as he was enveloped by a thick cloud of ashes.

  Two voices argued loudly over him.

  “—STYX Ilyana this is an order do not give him that potion you are NOT a healer and you just killed that mage oh Disc I knew Nikolai was up to something but of all the foolish, idiotic—”

  “We’re the same rank, Albert,” Ilyana said, her voice shaking audibly. “You can’t give me orders.” Her hands trembled as she cradled Nik’s head and poured something warm and bitter into his mouth. “If I hadn’t killed him he might have killed all three of us, and—don’t touch that gun!”

  Nikolai choked and spit and tried to open his eyes but he was still blinded by the ashes of the dead half-mage. The bitter warmth of Ilyana’s potion spread in an instant—throat to stomach, stomach to fingertips. Pain disappeared. The voices became distant. Darkness took him.

  * * *

  “Superstitious bullshit,” Nikolai grumbled as they descended the great white steps into a hall draped with red and gold. “This is such a waste of time. I’m fine.”

  At the end of the hall stood a pair of immense polished black doors, standing in sharp contrast to the white stone. A dancing glow flickered from under the doors, moving and refracting like light reflected off water.

  “You were exposed to dangerous magic,” Ilyana said. “Dirty. Old.” She pointed at her temple, twirling her finger. “Crazy-making.”

  “I’m surprised the healer didn’t try to leech me. Or rub me down with snake oil.”

  “That healer managed to rebuild your shattered face to its former glory without so much as a scar. So stop complaining.”

  “Money maker intact,” Nik agreed solemnly, rubbing his chin. “Disc bless that mage.”

  “And I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t say no to a snake-oil rub,” she said, nudging Nik with her elbow. “Depending on the masseuse.”

  Nik smiled weakly, but he could tell that her cheerful bravado was at least partially a facade.

  “Your healer gave orders to sit in the Disc’s light for at least two hours to be cleansed. Dirty magic gone.” Ilyana’s colorfully painted eyes teased from below Cleopatra bangs as she pushed open the big black doors. “And if that doesn’t work, we can always try skinny-dipping in the sacred water.”

  The Marblewood Disc Chamber was a cavernous dome of slick white marble, built so that hundreds of magi could comfortably stand around the smooth glassy pool at the center of the room.

  Hovering over the pool was Marblewood’s enormous white Disc. It shone with silver light as it floated at the center of the domed ceiling, seeming to pulse and strain against the massive black chains that held it in place. It dripped occasional droplets of water infused with magical energy, feeding the pool below. It was roughly the shape of a coin, soft-edged and otherworldly.

  Every Veil had its own Disc. Limitless supplies of magical energy revered by some magi as gods—or God, depending on whom you asked. The truth of their origins was long lost to history. All that was known for certain was that without the Discs, there would be no magi.

  The Discs were silent. Eternal. And when a mage died their soul slipped from their bodies, a phantom visible to only the most powerful magi as it returned to the nearest Disc and disappeared forever within its pearly depths.

  Ilyana watched with delighted amusement as Nikolai unslung a bag from his shoulder and produced a picnic blanket.

  “We’re going to be here for a while,” he said, spreading the cloth across the floor along the curving wall. “Might as well get comfortable.”

  He pulled a couple tall, amber-tinted bottles of expensive honeybrew from the bag and popped the caps with a wedge of hardened air. “Want one? Doc didn’t say anything about drinking.”

  En route from the healer ward to city hall the day after Nikolai’s traumatic encounter with Hazeal, they’d made a brief stop at the safe house so Nikolai could freshen up, change, and quickly pack a bag to bring along for the prescribed basking in the Disc’s light.

  He’d bought the aged brews a few days prior, originally intending to invite Ilyana to join him for a picnic on the secret lakeside beach he used to go as a child. He’d still been mustering up the courage to ask her out, but when she volunteered to supervise his cleansing, he figured the Disc chamber would do as well as the lake. City hall was closed for the night, so at least they’d have privacy.

  Besides—they could both use the drink.

  “Well, well, look at you,” she said, sitting beside him and taking a long swig. “Disc. That’s good.”

  “Just because I didn’t grow up in a two-thousand-year-old enchanted castle surrounded by puzzle halls like you and Albert doesn’t mean I can’t class it up.”

  “Mine was only five hundred. More manor than castle. And no puzzle halls. Those are so tacky. Gilded Age Schwarzwald bullshit.” She took another swig and sighed, flashing Nikolai a forced smile. “Ever have a picnic with a murderer before?”

  He winced, and she turned away, seeming to regret the jest.

  She went quiet, staring at the bottle as she idly peeled the label, digging her thumbnail around the edges of the sticker. “Sorry. That was in poor taste. I haven’t quite . . . I’ve never . . .”

  Nikolai reached to put a hand on her arm, but stopped short, thinking better of it.

  “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have snuck off. Shouldn’t have lied. I just . . .”

  “I just. You just. We just.” Ilyana shrugged. “The captain is going to chew your ass out when we get back to New Damascus, but I get it.”

  “That spell,” Nikolai said, curious. “That thread of light.”

  “Nasty little weave, isn’t it? You’ll learn it on your next promotion.” She shook her head, holding out the palm of her hand. “It’s easy, too,” she said, a slight tremor to her voice. “Just the littlest twist on a normal pyrkagias fire spell. Scary how easy it is to turn a person into dust. And Lieutenant Hazea
l . . .”

  “That gun,” Nik said. “I think it drove him insane. He was going to kill me. He . . . hated me.”

  Ilyana and Albert had been present for Nikolai’s debrief. He’d been sparse with the details, acting more shocked and dazed than he’d actually been to buy some time to think.

  Captain Jubal had interrogated Nikolai through a communication crystal. Nik had almost given in, almost handed the medallion over as he struggled not to wilt under the concerned warmth in the captain’s eyes, cutting through him even as a miniaturized image in the depths of a sphere.

  He told them that when Hazeal appeared, claiming to have a message from Nikolai’s mother, he’d followed the half-mage without telling the others because he’d been afraid of spooking the supposedly dead Edge Guard. Nik left out most of the details of their actual encounter—saying only that the half-mage had tricked him by relinquishing the revolver in a false show of surrender, then viciously attacked once Nikolai had been incapacitated by physical contact with the artifact.

  When pressed as to whether or not Hazeal had said anything—anything at all—Nikolai recalled, with subtle enough difficulty to be believable, Hazeal ranting about his mother while he attacked. Something about killing Nikolai as revenge.

  Not a lie, exactly. Just a carefully curated truth.

  Nik smothered the surge of anxiety at the thought, the pang of guilt focused on the Moonwatch medallion hidden in the lining of his suitcase back at the safe house. The others hadn’t found it hidden in the sole of his shoe, even after they’d undressed him to be healed.

  “Ilyana . . .” he said. “Can I tell you something . . . in confidence? Something you can’t even tell the captain?”

  Ilyana barked a laugh. Then, realizing he was serious, she looked him in the eyes, and let out a long whistle. With a puzzled smile like she couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth, she said, “I trust you, Sergeant Nikolai Strauss.”

  “Oh. Um. Thank you. I mean—”

  She held up a finger, cutting him off.

  “When you’re promoted to lieutenant, like me, you swear a long and complicated set of oaths on bended knee to the king. One of those oaths is that if I discover a Battle Mage subordinate guilty of or planning to participate in treason, I’m sworn to execute them on the spot, unless further intel is required. In which case we’re supposed to cut out their brain and put it in stasis for the Neuromancers to data-mine later.”