The Effaced: Chapter Two

I wiped my brow as I released my concentration on the precision metal-warping spell I was holding, and the last rune on the support beam started sparking to life with the same minty color of the crystal core for the airship. 

I pulled out my pocket watch, then turned to the captain. 

“It’s half an hour past fifth bell,” I told him. “I’ll be taking my leave now, but I should be able to finish the repairs within the next two days.” 

The captain, who had pulled a chair up and was reading a book, gave me a glare. Unlike my manager, I couldn’t read this one as anything but frustration and annoyance. 

“Like the eleven thrones of hell you are,” he said. “We leave before noon tomorrow. This is urgent.” 

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. If I had a thin-pane for every time someone thought their job was the most important thing in the world… Not to mention, the idea that there were eleven thrones was just a pointless superstition. That thought sent a pang of loss through me, and with practiced ease, I shoved the feelings down. 

“Overtime is extra,” I clarified. “Time and a half, twice that if I have to go past midnight.” 

“Done,” the captain said. “I need this vessel airworthy before noon. Am I understood?” 

He was testing my willpower… 

“I understand,” I said, then stepped back and examined my work, sorting what I had left to do, then checked my aura reserves. They were a bit over halfway full, but if I was going to work all night… The iron ring around my pinkie finger allowed me with a small, but steady stream of aura, but I could do with increasing my recharge. I grabbed an iron bangle that I’d designed to maximize the contact of iron with my skin from my briefcase and snapped it around my wrist and rolled it up to cover my forearm. A moment later, I felt the flow of aura as my recharge grew stronger.

With that sorted out, I got to work on repairing the remaining two structural beams that I had yet to fix. As the clock wore on, I finished them and turned my attention to the light armor plates, studying them. 

I had expected thin layers of steel that had been treated with steel magic to be as strong and flexible as possible, but were unenchanted. To my surprise, the airship designer had laid several lines of spellwork into them. 

That, in and of itself, wasn’t terribly uncommon. But the stranger part was that the enchantments seemed to be made from thin lines of copper, laid into the inside of the plates. I wouldn’t have been able to pick up on the fact that they existed at all if I hadn’t been a metal mage. 

“What’s the problem?” the captain snapped from where he was half asleep in his chair. 

“No problem,” I lied. “Just thinking.” 

I started re-attaching and fixing the plates, but their design must not have been included in the ship’s strange power core, because they didn’t relight themselves, and I wasn’t about to try and do it. Neither of my rune bonds would have been much good for it, for one, and for another, I was already thrown off by the captain’s strange attitude and the unusual power core. 

It was well past midnight when I heard the quiet snoring of the captain, and I glanced back over at the crystalline core and squinted. 

There was something very strange about it, because now that I’d gotten a sense for the spellwork laid into the metal, I was confident that it should have been re-lit by the core. It was too similar in structure and composition to the spikes and brass bands that encircled the core. 

More damning still was the fact that each of the plates that hadn’t been damaged was able to resist attempts to even sense its own internal structure. I didn’t have Archmage’s Sight, but I’d have bet every thick-pane I owned that their enchantments were active.

I wasn’t the ship’s mage, but I did want my paycheck. I knew just how annoying clients could be if things weren’t up to their expectations, and the last thing I wanted to deal with was an irate captain trying to get all his money back because his expensive defenses had failed to activate. 

I considered my options. If I was supposed to fix it, and didn’t, then I’d be in trouble. 

If I wasn’t supposed to have realized that they existed, and they were miraculously fixed, then it could be blamed on the excellent spellwork of the core. 

If I wasn’t supposed to have realized they existed, and couldn’t fix them, then I’d be fine. 

I felt like the safest option was to at least try, so I wove my aura in a pattern that would link the copper running through one of the plates I’d fixed to the spikes of the core, half expecting it to do nothing. 

To my surprise, the spell clicked into place easily, and the plate immediately started resisting my metal sensory spells.

“Mmm,” something said, and a thousand emotions flashed through my mind at once. Had that been Odril? But no, the voice had sounded vaguely masculine, and she…

Had it been the captain? I glanced at him, but he was still asleep. Sleeptalking, maybe? 

I shook off my disorientation and connected the other plates I’d fixed in the same way, allowing each of them to start resisting my senses as well. It was getting late, it was probably.

That core really was exceptional. I wondered if it was maybe a new generation of core model, or a new corporation that was breaking onto the scene with a new style. 

Dawn had come and gone by the time I finished the last plate. Again, I heard a masculine groaning noise, and whipped around to look at the captain, who was sitting up. 

Ah, it must have been him, then. Right?  

“Onto the boiler room?” the captain asked, as he finished pulling himself from his chair. 

“Of course,” I said with a professional smile.

Internally, I let out a loud groan.  I thought I had been done with the repairs…

Thankfully, the boiler wasn’t too difficult, just a nest of cracks along one pipe and some of the standard wear and tear that was to be expected, and I stumbled out of the airship only an hour and a half later. 

“I’ll send the check in the morning,” I said, before realizing it was almost ninth bell. “Tomorrow morning, that is.” 

“Send the bell to Elucidate Labs,” the captain said, and I just mindlessly nodded, then reached down to pull out my flying disc, before realizing I’d left my briefcase of tools near the core. 

“Left briefcase,” I grunted as I headed back in, the captain turning to follow me. 

Again, I thought I heard a strange groaning as I picked up my case, but I was so tired it was probably just the delirium of a malfunctioning brain. 

When I got back out, I realized I was probably too tired to be flying, so I turned to the nearest sky bridge and started the long walk home. 

I had a collapsible bicycle in my briefcase, with some simple enchantments that would allow me to turn the wheels and work up some truly impressive speed, but if I wasn’t even good enough to take the lower skylanes, I didn’t want to risk crashing into someone on the skybridges either. 

I debated hiring a rickshaw. They weren’t nearly as expensive as a boat, and they’d get me home faster, and I was craving my bed. 

It was a shame that it was so early in the morning. This would throw of my sleep schedule for weeks. If I’d been in my early twenties, I would have just stayed awake all day, pushing through to the night, but those days were long behind me. 

I blinked, then rifled around in my briefcase until I drew out a medium-pane, and waved down the nearest rickshaw. I wound up drifting to sleep in the cart, only waking up when we pulled to a stop atop my building. I passed the money over to the driver, and then left. I was over-tipping, and by more than twice the amount that the ride had cost, but I hadn’t had any change on me. Besides, I’d just made an absurd amount of money, and a big laboratory like Elucidate would be willing to shill out, so I couldn’t say I was too concerned. 

I muttered my thanks as I headed to the lift, then glanced at the button. Why were there so many of them? 

I pressed floor nine, then the lift started rumbling as it descended. When I arrived on my floor, I froze. 

Adrenaline flowed through my body and my mind started falling into old grooves. Magic lit itself around my hands, and I barely needed to use a flicker of effort to shape it into the right spells. I’d need to be on defense, so I’d enforce my coat and combat shirt, but keep a hand on my weapons. I reached down for my sword and gun, but they were gone – of course they were. So was my coat and combat shirt. 

That broke me out of my daze. I wasn’t that man anymore. I was just an engineer. 

My spells puffed away, and I stepped out of the lift. 

Outside of my doors was a pair of constables, in the gray uniforms and shiny copper badges that they always wore. Each one of them had a thick combat and utility wand on one hip, with a gun on the other. 

My door had been blown open, the metal enforcement spells that I’d placed on the deadbolt either subverted or simply overpowered. 

“Hello sir,” one of the constables said. “Are you the owner of this apartment, a…”

He checked on the paper. 

“Mister Axel Font?”  

“I am,” I said. “What happened?”

As I spoke, I had to practically stop myself from shaping my aura. I doubted either of these constables had the ability to detect what I was doing, but there was always a chance their wands had the divination magic to pick it up at such a short range. 

But when both of the constables ignored my question, drawing their guns and leveling them at me, I couldn’t stop myself.

I allowed a spell to fill my third eye, a familiar spell that I’d used more times than I could count when I was a teenager, one that I couldn’t forget, no matter how much time had passed.

“Axel Font,” the one on the right said. “Lower your hands and release all magic. You are under arrest.” 

As he spoke, he raised the wand, which started glowing a bright red. 

“What?” I asked, more confused than anything. The adrenaline hadn’t let up, and I was getting twitchy with both of their guns leveled at me, but I lowered my hands. I didn’t release my spell, though. I wasn’t going to let them shoot me. 

“Why am I under arrest?” I asked. 

“Release your spell!” the one on the left barked. 

“I’d be happy to, if you lowered your guns,” I said. “I’m only holding a simple gun-jamming spell.” 

“Drop the magic,” the one holding the wand barked again. 

I sighed and pulled a trick I’d learned. 

As far as I knew, there was no way to truly detect any and all magic, short of the sight of an archmage. Most divination spells just looked for runes. 

So I wiped the runes from my spells, keeping their line structure present in my aura. In my inner mind, I rebuilt the image of all the runes and where they would go in my existing line structure, but I didn’t shape it. 

But I was tense, ready to shape at any second. With the image firmly held in my inner mind, I would be able to snap it into place the next best thing to instantly. 

Sure enough, the wand stopped glowing. The constable with the wand out didn’t lower his gun, but the other removed a set of shaping disruption cuffs from his pocket and snapped them around my wrist, speaking as he did so. 

“Axel Font, you are under arrest for conspiracy, high treason, and the murder of a member of the Senate. You have the right to remain silent, but should you revoke that right, anything you say can and will be used against you. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. If you decide to answer questions now without a lawyer present, you have the right to stop answering at any time.” 

What?