The Archmage: Intermission (Assorted, Part Two)

Janice Littlefoot was hawking her goods in a medium sized farming town when the light exploded from the clock towers. Caught off guard, she dropped the book she’d been waving around, and had to dive to catch it before it splattered into the mud. 

As she stared into the light of the tower, she felt hate churn in her gut. She hated magic. Hated it so much. She didn’t used to be this way, but… Her son had awakened an aura, and he’d begged her, day in, day out, to go to school. As a member of the quartz heart trading association, she’d had enough to pay for tuition, at least in part. He had to take out some bank loans, but nothing that would risk the crippling debt that a peasant would have had to risk. 

He’d done well. Nothing on the level of a noble who’d been tutored in languages and array designs from birth, but well enough to pass into his second year, unlike most of the schlock. 

Then he’d been eaten by a grimalkin. All because his stupid, worthless teacher hadn’t ensured that his contingencies were intact. She knew he could have survived and grown stronger, but no, he’d died. She’d barely gotten anything more than a letter in the mail from the school, too. 

So as she stared up into the light, she just hoped that whoever was casting this spell to mock her was killing themselves too. 

When the light vanished, she smirked, and slowly the world came back together. She sold the book, and expensed a night at the inn to her trading company, falling asleep before her head could hit the pillow.

When he appeared in her dream, she was furious. 

“You’re the one who caused the light, huh?” she demanded. “What, are you taunting me? Are you a rival of the quartz heart?” 

He ignored her, speaking on and on about his time in the orphanage, which she resolutely ignored. It was clear he wasn’t actually here, he’d somehow forced his way in to give this message, but it wasn’t true two way communication. 

After that, he turned his mental torture spell into showing her Yesgol. How he had almost died. 

He was lucky. 

Her son had been better than him. He could have done so much. This… child was so ignorant to speak about things that he had no right to. 

As he compared these experiences to the workers who died in mines or factories, she tried to spit in his face. She couldn’t. But that didn’t stop her from giving it an honest try, over and over again. 

“You can hate and fear magic if you want. But it strikes at random. There is no reason that I became a mage. Your child or grandchild. Your sibling. Your niece or nephew. Even you. Any one of you could awaken an aura, and if you do that, you are not safe. Your child is not safe. Nobody is. I ask you all this – how many of you have had friends or relatives who went off to become mages, only to die in a training accident?” 

She paused. 

How had he known that? 

Had this monster been the one who killed her son? Had he pushed him to absolute failure by lucking his way through his own training accident? By pushing his dark witchery onto him? 

And then he explained the aura spark ritual, and doubt began to slowly creep in. 

She would need to verify, of course. If he was sending this mental pulse to her alone, then it was just a taunt, an attack to use her emotions and twist them around somehow. 

But if he was right about it, and that they farmed the lives of mages…

Then the nobility had killed her son. 

Or this monster in human form had. 

It had to be one or the other, because she knew her son had too much potential. She knew that her son must have scared the nobility and so they’d selected him as a target, killing him before he could grow strong. 

But if she was the only one, then he was using some form of dark magic to tinker with her emotions as fuel. She’d heard of spells like that, whispered in faerie stories, ways to warp people’s minds with grief and loss. 

As he started talking about politics, she began to grow confused. Why did she care? Sure, the government was the one who set the taxes and tariffs and import laws, but they were so far above her that they might as well have been the clouds. 

Even if he was right, and everything really was controlled by a cabal of archmages, it didn’t matter. It wouldn’t change. Nothing ever did, not really. 

But if her son had been killed… Well, at least she could stop selling to nobility. 

…

Ryker didn’t have a last name. When he’d been dropped off on the doorstep of the orphanage, there hadn’t been so much as a note. 

Maybe he should have been angry at his parents, but he wasn't. The world was cruel to everyone, and if he’d accidentally knocked some poor girl up, they would have had to do the same. He couldn’t even afford much to eat at the end of the day, let alone enough for a kid. 

Ten hours on the factory floor. 

No breaks. No water. 

And he was hardly the only one. He was lucky, in fact. His orphanage had been able to support him until he was fourteen, but only twenty feet to his right, an eleven year old was crawling into the machine that produced the large swatches of fabric that tailors turned into clothes, going to unstick one of the pins that seemed to always get clogged. 

As Ryker worked, he ignored the whisper in the back of his mind. Being around this much slow suffering, his aura wanted to burst to life. 

He kept it suppressed.

Nothing good ever came of auras. Magic was dangerous. Everyone knew that. The nobles touted that their superior bloodlines was the only thing that kept them safe from the dangers of a backfiring spell. Ryker thought the solution was probably a lot simpler – they had the money for a good education, and that meant that they could afford to learn better from a young age, and then were less likely to make mistakes. 

But it was known among everyone that when you started messing with your aura, trying to learn tricks and stuff, you were likely to blow yourself up or die. 

Ryker didn’t have the money for education, and he didn’t want to die. So he hadn’t lit his aura a single time, not since it lit itself randomly the first day. He’d kept his head down, and he’d not died. 

After the ten hour shift, the loud steam whistle blew, and Ryker collected his pay for the day. Forty crowns. Setting aside thirty-five for rent, he started heading to the market. There wasn’t much he could get for forty crowns, but he’d give it a shot. Hopefully he could find something cheap enough to be a serviceable dinner. 

In the end, he ate a hunk of bread and cheese, and turned in, his stomach still rumbling slightly. 

When the mage appeared in his head, Ryker shook his head. 

“No. Get out. I don’t want nothing to do with magic,” he said. “I’m not taking whatever deal for power or trainin’ or whatever.” 

But the mage ignored him, introducing himself as an archmage who’d come from a place not altogether too different from Ryker. The memories of the orphanage were all too familiar too. Ryker didn’t know that specific orphanage, but there were too many of them in the city. Too many children people couldn’t afford, sold off as cheap labor to a factory. That was the simple truth. 

“I’ll hear you out,” Ryker said. “But that don’t mean I’m going to agree to do nothing, okay?” 

The mage ignored him again and started explaining things. 

And they made sense, at least mostly. He didn’t buy that everyone was dead from being killed – magic was dangerous. Everyone knew that. The mage himself admitted that 

“I admit, some did. I’m not claiming magic is without risks at all. I experienced some. But can you really accept that so many of those who died did so to keep the nobility in power? And let me be clear… This is used to keep the nobility in power.” 

That… 

Hmm. 

Ryker crossed his arms over his chest.

He didn’t want to die, neither by training accident or being killed by the nobility. 

But what could he do? As the mage pivoted to talking about politics, showing how much better Zheren was, and how much better factory workers had it there, a hunger started to wake in his gut. 

But what could he do? The nobility were giants to him. 

“There needs to be a change, and now,” I said. “The nobility won’t go down quietly. They may not go down quickly. But we can make them bend the knee. Put down your pickaxe, your needle, your shovel, and don’t work. Don’t do a damn thing until they are willing to give us a system that pays us what we’re worth, and treats people equally. With this spell, I have already torn down every aura pillar in the nation.”

Ryker shook his head. 

As nice as that sounded, it wouldn’t work. He had to eat. He’d be better off running to Zheren and begging them to let him in.

“For those of you who cannot afford to put down your work, I have spoken to the Princess of Selt and her son,” the mage said. “Elderglass has sent a relief fund and three military airships to act as guard, and Zheren is lowering the wards and setting up refugee camps all along the border. Head to the border. There will be food, medicine, and inoculation for those who are in need. It will take courage, but we can make the world a better place.” 

Ryker’s eyebrows raised. His factory wasn’t too far from the border. He might not be able to make it alone, but if what the mage was saying was true… 

He could run to somewhere better.