Terrance drove the first stake through her shoulder, pinning it. He got to work hacking off the arm so that he could switch it with the leg and start draining the magic. With the existence of the cleansers, he was increasingly convinced that this way had been chosen not for its effectiveness, but for its brutality. A symbol that people would not forget. A way to prevent more illicit magic usage before it even began.
“The Mages' Guild made me hurt her,” he said.
“You’re a monster,” said the man. At least he wasn’t approaching again. “You know that, right? You’re a monster.”
And if he had been looking at himself from the outside, Terrance would have agreed. He didn’t have the obvious joy of John or Wanda, but his actions were the same as theirs. He was cutting open an innocent young girl, threatening her father, and blaming it on the most powerful entity in the land. He’d chosen to wear the skin of the monster, and this is what monsters did.
If only there was a way to save these kids too. Save them, and fill out the ranks of his army. The kids in nearly a third of the residential areas would slip through the cracks because the prison was too far out of the way. Slip through the cracks, and have to be personally murdered by Terrance.
If only there was a source of people nearby that no one would miss.
And then he remembered the orphanage.
The orphanage idea made sense. Save a child with magical talent, whose family loved them, and put in their place an unloved, talentless waif who would likely die on the streets or end up in jail once the orphanage released them.
But Wile had put the plan down. Staked it to the floor, if you will. How would they get someone out of the orphanage without drawing attention? How many parents would be horrified by the plan? There were already plenty who were skittish about the criminal taking their child’s place, and with the orphanage plan there would be more of them reacting even more strongly. That could blow apart their whole operation. Better to go slow than to risk that.
Wile wasn’t the one having to get his hands dirty, of course, but Terrance would defer to him for now.
Things had otherwise been going well. Two new rescues had joined their ranks, Klaus had found Terrance a second cleansing device that the Department of Discovery could afford to “lose”, and Wile had found not one but two possible spaces for magical training.
They were now at the first of those spaces- a forgotten alleyway between two crumbling, burnt-out buildings on the far southern part of Nordheim. The Health and Safety Guild was in the affluent northern section of Nordheim, and the response had been delayed. A drought had made kindling of the wooden parts of the buildings, untreated with the flame retardant that covered the richest houses, and the sources of water usually used to put out fires here were a mere trickle. The relative sprawl of buildings this far from the core meant that only a couple blocks had been destroyed, but the will to rebuild had never materialized.
Terrance figured that they had about fifteen minutes to practice before they had to cleanse themselves and get away from the place, so it was important that everyone focus. They had the schedule of practice drawn up, and all five of their rescues had studied the relevant uses of magic. They had even gone through a dry run of the sequence that day while they were waiting for night to fall.
“Okay everyone,” said Terrance. “Ready?”
“Aye.”
“Frederick, start counting.”
“You got it.”
“Grab the stream of magic. Don’t use it yet. We’re going to be using it soon, but I want you to practice the control of it.”
They had all grabbed magic before, so it didn’t take that long. The thing was slippery, but it was there to grasp.
It was also, somehow, much weaker here than at the Mages' Guild compound. The pull didn’t seem as strong, and Terrance had the sense that any magic he used would be less effective. That was useful to know. That also meant that no one was spiking magic yet- if he could have been sure of this result he could have started their training much earlier while in the basement.
Eventually everyone had a hold of their magic. Hans was motioning wildly to dramatize how much self control he was using. Kids.
“Okay, now on my mark, I want you to use our first bit of magic: strengthening. When you’re doing this, your body is stronger, you heal quicker, you move faster, your senses are heightened… every one of your physical attributes is better. And how much magic you use is how much better you are. This is what Natalie used to kill three men who were each twice her size. When we make our move, this is primarily how we’ll take down Inquisitors… we’ll all use this and gang up on one. Anything else will be hard to coordinate beyond the initial volley without a chance of hurting one of our own. But with that said, if we become skilled enough, we can throw fire all at once as our first attack. So that’s a motivation to study.”
Terrance took a break to check on how they were all doing. Natalie was doing great- this was what came naturally to her. The others were slowly feeling out what their increased power got them. Hans was trying to fight the stone wall, punching it repeatedly, and not losing as badly as one would expect. A couple chips flew out, and the bleeding was contained.
Terrance made some corrections, gave some tips, but mostly let them figure things out on their own. Some of them had studied for weeks for this moment.
Frederick gave him the signal that they were seven minutes in. It was time for fire-throwing.
This was the perfect place to test this out. Every flammable structure had been taken with the fire. What was left already had scorch marks, and whichever Inquisitor came looking would likely not be able to notice that some of them were fresh.
“Okay, form a line. Stand with your backs against one wall, aiming at the other. And spread out… if one of you loses control, we want the others safe.”
They lined up as he had said and started incubating little balls of fire in front of them. After a ball grew to the size of a fist they propelled it at the opposing wall. This process took almost a minute for some of them, which was not a surprise given how weak the magic was here, how weak their natural affinity was, and how inexperienced they were. In order for an initial surprise volley to be effective, several of them would have to be able to form and throw that size of fireball in two or three seconds. Not to mention their accuracy… at this point it was unlikely any of the fireballs would hit the target Inquisitor.
Their times and accuracy were getting slightly better as they went, but all too soon Frederick called time. Terrance and Natalie went around with the cleansers and removed the magical charge from everyone.
Hans tried to prance away, even started to strengthen his body to prolong the feeling, but Natalie caught him and pressed the cleanser against his skin until the charge left him. After that he didn’t cause any more trouble.
Terrance and Natalie then tried to cleanse themselves, but it didn’t work- the charges stayed. They ended up having to cleanse each other.
They walked back, everyone exhausted but giddy; the rescues because they had used magic, Frederick and Terrance because the plan was coming together.
“It’s working,” said Frederick. “We have a mage army.”
“We’ve created a weapon,” said Terrance. “That’s for certain. But it’s not yet sharp enough to make the Mages' Guild bleed.”
“It will be,” said Frederick before taking a drink. He’d brought a flask? To the riskiest thing they’d done yet? At least he hadn’t used it before or during the practice. Frederick gave a satisfied sigh, took another swig. “It will be.”
Part IV
Cat and Mouse
19
When Terrance got back to his flat, he grabbed a stream of magic for a second and released it.
Using magic would give you a bright spike of magic visible to others, but once it faded your signature was still faintly visible to other mages when they were close. Cleansing completely removed that magical signature, and going into the Mages' Gu
ild tomorrow without that would arouse suspicion. Luckily, grabbing hold of the stream without using it would restore the signature, and it was subtle enough that it wouldn’t show up to other Mages — such as the Inquisitor on third shift.
At least he thought it would be third shift. It was hard to tell the exact time from his flat- he wasn’t nearly rich enough to have a personal timepiece, and his first shift assignment only required that he rise with the sun and follow the natural pattern of the city.
The Inquisitors and the Department of Works were the only Departments that were active every hour of the day. Three shifts of eight hours each, although Works only kept a skeleton crew on at night in case of infrastructure emergencies, while Inquisitors kept a full shift of three to five Inquisitors. Accidental magic usage was just as likely to happen at night as during the day, although often for different reasons.
With twenty-three Inquisitors total, including the Grand Inquisitor, that meant they could fill out six squads and were each on duty, on average, once every two days. It was a cushy gig if you didn’t mind all the killing. People still shied away from it.
He wondered, briefly, what would happen to the Inquisitor who had been sent out to investigate their practice, but he didn’t let that keep him from sleep. He would find out soon enough.
The disappearing magic users were all the Inquisitors wanted to talk about.
“Those lazy fucks,” said Wanda. “I wouldn’t have let them get away. I bet he got there, saw how many of them there were, and got scared. Can you imagine that? An Inquisitor, scared.”
If Terrance had been alone that thought would have brought a smile to his face. Instead he had to maintain appearances. “Give me the story. I’m clearly not in the loop like you are.”
“So get this,” said John. “The second shift is about six hours in, almost done, when they feel this big magic spike. Bigger than any random commoner has a right to on their first try. So we send out a Master out of turn.”
“Why’s that?”
“You know…”
“He’s a Journeyman,” said Lorenz. “He wouldn’t know.”
“Right. Anyways, we send out a Master, and…”
“Wouldn’t know what?”
“You’ll find out when you’re a Master. Anyways, he’s out there and as he gets closer, he sees that what looked like one spike from the compound actually separated into six different signatures. And those six, if it really was six, kept on using the magic too. Signatures as clear as day. Each not as strong as they initially thought, but still better than your average untrained commoner. So he’s getting closer, and then… boom. One by one, they disappear.”
“The magical signatures?”
“Yea. Just disappeared. That’s why I don’t think the Inquisitor was scared or lying- the others on shift corroborated the story, although to them it looked like one signal fading out over about a minute.”
“That’s crazy. Do we know how that could happen?”
“We’re investigating. One of the smaller cities fomenting rebellion in this manner is… unlikely. The Department of War hasn’t detected any unusual magical activity during their expeditions, and the infrastructure involved is rather difficult to hide. And the ships from the northwest… their people haven’t shown any proclivity for magic. Still, we’re going to investigate activity along the route to the trade port.”
Terrance wondered, by habit, how that would affect Wile’s shop.
“Another possibility is those old cleansing devices.”
“Cleansing devices?” asked Terrance. Time to play innocent.
“They cover them in training… but not very long, since they’re not used anymore. But long ago instead of killing the offender, they would hold a device to their skin and return the mana that way. Then they would hold a trial for the offender and punish them according to how purposeful their violation was.”
“Sounds boring,” said Wanda.
“Yes, and time-consuming, and ineffective. Our incidence of illicit magic usage has dropped considerably since those times.”
Lorenz looked as if he would almost prefer the old way, but Terrance didn’t blame him for not speaking up. John and Wanda had genuine passion for what they did, and Terrance tried to fake it as best he could.
“Anyways, that is unlikely. We haven’t let a cleansing device out of the compound in ages. I’m sure they’ll run records to see if anyone has checked one out recently, but I doubt they’ll find anything.”
Klaus had given him the devices off the record, so they wouldn’t find anything. But if they performed a thorough count they might see that two were missing. Would they question the Department of Discovery record-keepers? If they did, would Klaus talk?
Terrance would go over the plan with Wile and Frederick again. He could likely fight his way out of the Mages' Guild if he caught them by surprise, assuming the Grand Inquisitor didn’t happen to be nearby, but then he would be of no use to his rescues. You couldn’t cleanse yourself, and he couldn’t very well lead them to the base where they kept the mages in training.
The conversation carried on around him, circling and bullshitting, until they detected another illicit magic usage.
“I wonder if it’s a fake.”
“Ha,” laughed Wanda as she started putting on her cloak. “I hope not.”
It was now down to three of them, so Terrance would have to start taking a larger role in the conversation, but their reaction led him to another idea- what if there were a rash of false alarms? The Inquisitors’ structure had a lot of slack built in, but it hadn’t been tested much in the last couple centuries. It might be pretty easy to get them aggravated, get them to make mistakes and get sloppy. And then another benefit came to him — a way to save lives.
“You’re insane,” said Frederick. “I like it.”
Wile was more hesitant.
Natalie, who had started joining the strategy sessions as a full participant, wanted to go forward. “I’ve heard what they do to the people. Seen the grieving families. We can save a couple more and start finally stressing the Inquisitors.”
The false alarms were to be concentrated on the west side during the daytime. The first purpose would be to throw any suspicion away from Terrance; how could he cause what was happening during his shift, when he was in the compound with his team?
Two mages would go out. One would draw on magic for a short period, mimicking the spike that occurs when someone is using their powers for the first time. They could practice their magic, but only for a few seconds. That wasn’t the purpose.
They would then stand in an out-of-the-way but easily-exited place like an alleyway or roof and wait until the Inquisitor’s magical signature was in sight, and thus the Inquisitor was less than a minute away. Then the second one would cleanse the first, making them no longer easily trackable.
“We’ll need more on-the-ground training,” said Wile. “Nonstandard movement through the city, across roofs and through alleys. Quickly blending into a crowd. If we’re going to do this, we have to keep everyone safe.”
“Do we have any experts in this who can train us?” asked Natalie.
“Wish we had found the thieves guild,” said Frederick.
“The what?”
“Inside joke. But Frederick… as part of the Justice Guild, don’t you have access to the thieves guild? Someone you’ve guarded that you liked and trust?”
Frederick sighed, visibly racked his brain, then brightened up. “You know, there may be a guy. His father got killed by the Mages' Guild, and he started stealing to support his mother and siblings. I bet I could… get him released.”
“What’s the chance of him ratting us out?”
“We can put him in a safe house to minimize the risk,” said Natalie. “Don’t have to let him know Terrance or Wile’s name — they’re the only trackable ones.”
“Excuse me?” said Frederick.
“He already knows who you are, and if he reveals you to the Justice Guil
d he goes back to jail. No benefit to him.”
Frederick looked satisfied.
“Then it’s agreed. Let’s start.”
20
The rescues trained every morning in urban movement, studied magic every afternoon, and then practiced that magic at night. They switched locations randomly, and even added a third that Wile tracked down- it wouldn’t do to be predictable. All locations were on the outskirts of town, as near the outer walls as possible.
Each time the rescues went out to practice magic, they grew in power. Mages for some reason didn’t train every day, or even every week — probably because of that stuck-up nonsense about “preserving the magic” — so the rescues were quickly on a trajectory to surpass novice members of the Mages' Guild. They weren’t equipped as well as an Inquisitor, and individually none of them would have a chance against a Master Inquisitor, but it was progress. Together they might really accomplish something.
By the end of the week many fireballs were flying straight and true, and most could form them within ten seconds. Their bodies could move and jump faster than they thought possible, and presumably their strength was increased as well- Hans was the only one willing to keep punching the stone walls, and while he hadn’t punched through one yet he reported that the pain involved was decreasing every night.
They had also let each person get experience with using the cleansing device and detecting nearby signatures. Neither skill was difficult, but executing them quickly and precisely would mean the difference between life and torturous death.
Terrance wasn’t able to attend the urban movement sessions, since he didn’t want this thief to know his identity, but the rescues were enthusiastic about their progress. Frederick visited during his off day and confirmed that things were indeed going well.
It had been a bit less than two weeks since they had hatched this new plan, and they were already ready to go.
Mages Must Fall Page 10
