I bet those totems are the security measures that the Dragonking mentioned, Alex thought, admiring their craftsmanship as they walked past the massive totems and out of the hall. There were no signs that they had been carved with tools of any kind. Maybe the freefolk made them through magick?
It was the first time that Alex had been so close to the freefolk culture. Back at his natal land, the freefolk presence was minimal, instead replaced by the samoharo culture, which had mixed with his own after centuries, or the culture from the Kuni Empire.
While the walls of the building were made of stone, the wide rooms they walked through featured wooden poles, beams and walls covered with lush vines. Tribal paintings done in leather canvas, depicting the different freefolk clans and their story, decorated the free spaces between vines and walls. The air smelled of red oak, maple syrup and incense. Light was provided either by cleverly hidden skylights or luminous quartz orbs. It was a relaxing environment.
The entrances to the offices of the teaching staff were located after the research labs. They were accessed by going up a broad staircase. The entrance door to the offices section opened to the sides, like an elevator door. In front of it, a marquee with luminous letters provided general messages to the students, staff, and teachers. The hallway for the offices was narrower than the wide-open spaces of before, full of doors whose design and material seemed more linked to the user’s personality than a concerted design effort. Departing from the traditional wood, one door seemed to be made of living, sentient ivy and another was of marble with engravings of spirits dancing on the surface.
They finally reached the last office of the corridor. An oak door barred access to it. On the door were two metal plates indicating who worked there: Prof. Leonard Hunt, arcano-researcher, and Samantha Ambers-Estel, junior researcher, teacher and postgrad student. Alex paused a bit. Maybe he could ask some of the nagging questions he had when it came to magick. But he needed to get her somewhere else. He doubted she would be so accommodating with the Dragonking or her dad around. Fionn hadn’t let him out of his sight, and he looked uncomfortable. It was the kind of look Alex had known before: an overprotective father.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” the Dragonking said. “Let me know if you need any extra help. Heavens knows that the professor is not the most organized man in the world.”
“I tried to reign in his worse habits,” Sam said defensively, but the Dragonking was leaving already.
Sam opened the door. The smell of paper and humidity invaded their noses. There was a faint smell of incense, probably an influence from Sam. To Alex, the space seemed quite similar to the office Hunt had at Mercia University, full of leather-bound books and ship diagrams, including one of a dreadnought from the Great War. His desk was littered with data crystals.
On a bookshelf, there were the familiar statues and a few trophies from sagewar tournaments. Alex smiled with fondness at them. It was at one of those tournaments where he had first met his former mentor. Alex still kept in his bookcase the figure Hunt had given him after trouncing Alex’s ‘army’ during a game. The figure was meant to remind him to learn from his mistakes and enjoy the games. It had been a token of friendship as well. Alex could only hope that the professor was still alive.
“I’m hungry,” Alex said out of the blue.
“You always are.” Gaby rolled her eyes.
“It’s not my fault that my body needs the calorie intake,” Alex complained with a pout. Gaby only shook her head in disappointment.
“Let’s go, I will show you the cafeteria,” Sam said to Alex, grabbing his arm. Then she stopped and said to her dad, “Unless you need me for this, Dad. This is my office, too.”
“I think I have it covered,” Fionn replied with a smile, but Samantha’s dour expression didn’t change. She walked away, pulling Alex’s arm with strength.
“I’ll go with them. I need a drink and you need better parenting skills,” Harland added, following Sam and Alex.
† † †
Sam, Alex, and Harland sat at a table in the cafeteria. The place was large, designed more like a food court from a shopping mall than a school cafeteria. It had, however, large drawings of many of the cities from across Ionis, and a few from the Kuni Empire and the Straits. They piqued Alex’s curiosity because they were top views of the cities. They weren’t traditional urban blueprints, but sketches focused on the roads inside the cities. Alex wondered how those drawings were made. At first, he considered that they were the works of dragon riders. However, there were drawings of modern cities such as Saint Lucy, the capital of the Emerald Island, whose current configuration had been built more recently, centuries after the dragon time.
“The cafeteria is empty right now because most of the students are on holiday, and the few remaining ones are in elective courses. What’s with the glasses? You look like a total dork.” Sam pointed at Alex, eliciting a laugh from Harland. Samantha, unlike Fionn, was direct and didn’t mince words.
“It’s just temporary,” Alex replied, somewhat offended. “Can I ask you a question, Sam? An honest question?”
“Yeah?” Sam replied doubtfully.
“Why is your hair glowing and changing color?” Alex pointed at her head,
“What?” Sam replied in a higher pitch. She grabbed a strand of her hair and saw her previously lustrous red hair was changing in swirling waves to a bright lilac and back to red. Embarrassed, she took a knitted cap out from the inner pocket of her jacket and put it on, tucking her hair inside to hide it. Alex saw that she was clearly embarrassed, as her cheeks were turning red. “You shouldn’t have seen this.”
“Sam, I think you can tell him,” Harland told her with a reassuring tone. “He won’t mock you. I’m sure.”
“Do you promise not to laugh?” Sam asked coyly to Alex, looking intimidated for the first time.
“I promise. Cross my heart,” Alex replied with a smile, making a cross in front of his chest with his right index finger. “Is it a magick spell?”
“No. It is… how can I explain it? It is like an allergic reaction,” Sam started to reply, trying to think of an appropriate answer, while Harland watched, amused by the exchange.
“To what? Peanuts?” Alex asked, confused.
“No, silly. To magick energy,” Sam replied, laughing. Her shoulders relaxed.
“You will need to elaborate because you lost me there.” Alex made a gesture with his hands, asking for more explanations. The waiter brought them a pizza topped with applelime and pepperoni slices. Alex helped himself to the largest slice.
“Regular mortal bodies are not exactly designed to handle magick energies well, although freefolk have a natural endurance to withstand them longer than humans, because at the beginning, during the Dawn Age, we were shapeshifters. Now, once those energies run through your body, they start altering it, even at a genetic level. At times, it is something minor, like eye or hair color, and the changes don’t last long. But for people that live in a magickal nexus or cast massive spells, the changes are permanent and even inherited. Like the pointed ears or peculiar hair color that many freefolk have,” Sam explained. “The same can happen to humans with time, and if they survive long enough. After all, freefolk and humans are now similar in all but one aspect: natural attunement to magick.”
“There are worse effects than what she has mentioned. Severe cases when they end up transformed into metallic statues or animals permanently,” Harland added.
“So anyone using magick can get those features?” Alex asked.
“It is not that simple. Not everybody can handle magick energies. Most freefolk can, but not all. There are few humans with a natural inclination to magick, but others have been studying for decades how to cast a few mirages and most can barely harness or feel the energies. To compensate for that, most learned wizards use staffs, grimoires, pendants, stuff to channel the energy. Magi like me
, or many of the freefolk, have a genetic trait that allows us to eschew that and use our own bodies. And even then we use some crystal or staff to regulate the energy,” Sam added to her explanation while pointing at the crystal hanging from her neck. “That’s dangerous too. Crystals like my pendant tend to resonate with them as if they were entangled with each other. Too much magick and everything will blow up in a chain reaction. Then again, the crystals are useful for other things such as power couplings, fuses, and tracking devices. We have plenty here. The whole Maze is full of them.”
“It sounds as if magick acted similarly to radiation or the warp energies… Wait a minute, can you ride a warptrain?” Alex asked.
“Yes, but I hate those things because I get all sick and my hair changes. And if I’m not careful, other things happen. I tend to stay in the cabin, bored out of my mind…”
“What else can happen?” Alex bent forward in a conspiring attitude, giving Sam more privacy.
Sam was embarrassed, her cheeks turning as red as the pizza sauce.
“My ears transform into silver fox ears,” she said while looking at the floor.
“I bet you look cute with them,” Alex replied, reassuring her. He was keeping his promise of not making fun of her. Besides, he did find the image of her wearing fox ears cute.
“Thanks,” Sam said, her cheeks flushing with blood. Harland stifled a laugh.
“So back to the topic, warptrains run with magick energies?” Alex asked.
“That’s the common agreement, yes. Hence the development of something as stupid as arcanotech. Using ancient knowledge to develop trains. You can thank Mykir for that. That’s why freefolk stay away from civilization as much as possible.” Sam shook her head in disappointment.
“I can’t argue with that.” Alex rubbed his chin. “And I studied that subject in college. Anyway, so if magick acts like a radiation field, it should follow the same rules of energy conservation… But how would that explain a disintegration spell, for example?”
“Look. Magick, for all its potency, has to follow simple universal rules. Like the energy conservation law you mentioned. You can’t create nor destroy energy or matter, just change it,” Sam explained plainly.
“So, following that, there is no such thing as a disintegration spell?” Alex asked.
“No, instead, it’s actually just a teleportation spell used in a creative way.” Sam smiled.
“You don’t teleport the whole subject at the same time to the same place… That must hurt.” Alex grimaced at the thought of having his limbs ending up half a planet away from his torso, or worse.
“It is also the number-one cause of death of many rookies working magick,” Sam added, stealing a bite from Alex’s pizza.
“Your craft sounds more complicated than I thought. It is as if a magick user is warping reality using high energies while their brain is calculating thousands of quantum states,” Alex reasoned, after a while.
“That’s why I believe that arcanotech is to magick what engineering is to quantum physics. Not even in the same league of understanding,” Sam replied with smug satisfaction.
“What about spells?” Alex asked her. “How they do work? They must have rules too. I have seen your spell books. They look complicated.”
“Well, it works in rules of three. Three types of magick, three levels and three types of characteristics,” Sam said.
“Go on,” Alex said.
“There is divine magick, the one that the priests use by asking boons from the Great Spirit, the Old Gods or even the few Mortal ones that can do it. There is natural magick, the one that draws from the magick field of the planet using spells or raw power. And demonic, that one is self-explanatory. Then you have spells of the first level that require massive preparations and rituals, a second level that uses incantations and gestures, and the third level, the toughest one to achieve: It is when you simply think and then reality warps.” Sam paused to catch her breath. “It is said among the freefolk that you get only one true third level spell and that reflects your inner nature.”
“Makes sense. And the characteristics?” Alex prodded further.
“Easy: range, duration, and intensity. You usually can focus on one, maybe two of them. Only dragons and mythic people like the Akeleth or Queen Khary could use spells of great range and power that lasted more than a day. A regular spell at most lasts a few hours, and has a range of no more than thirty meters, and the more intense it is, the more explosive the backlash is. Reality doesn’t like being played with.”
“I have to admit that I find it really fascinating,” Alex said, his face sporting a look of happiness. He was enjoying this explanation. “Usually, no one back at the university elaborated beyond the basic tenets of magick, even when dealing with arcano-research: Magick doesn’t make sense and it’s explosive.”
“Thanks,” Sam said out of the blue.
“For what?” Alex looked at her confused.
“For actually listening and for not making fun of my condition,” Sam replied, smiling at Alex.
“Hey, trust me, I know a thing or two about being mocked,” Alex replied. After a brief pause, he continued, “I was wondering, and sorry if this is too intrusive, but I couldn’t help noticing. Why the cold shoulder with your dad? Was he a bad dad? Actually, how come he is your dad? You don’t look older than me. How old are you?”
“Oh boy,” Harland exclaimed. Until then he had remained silent, just watching and listening.
“Did I ask something I shouldn’t have?”
“Nah, it’s ok. Unlike my dad, I do talk about these things,” Sam said. “I’m twenty-two. I’m his great-granddaughter. He and his wife Izia had a daughter before disappearing. After his return to the land of the unfrozen, he adopted me. I was a child then… And before you ask, he is a great dad, the best I could ask for. Just that in recent years he has been retreating from the world.”
“That’s true,” Harland added. “I have tried to force him out of that funk. I’m still surprised he took this case.”
“I don’t know,” Sam continued. “Maybe I remind him a lot of Izia. Maybe the memories are hard to cope with. Maybe it is hard to explain why he doesn’t look a day older than thirty-three. But in any case, it hurts when someone you care for rejects you.”
“I know the feeling. Dysfunctional families are the rage now,” Alex replied, looking dejected.
“That’s why you moved to Mercia?” Sam asked.
“How do you know that?” Alex asked, surprised.
“The professor told me about it.”
“Do you believe it?”
“My paternal figure is a man with regeneration powers that was born a century and a half ago. I work in a school full of arcane secrets. And you arrived on a flying ship with a samoharo in the cockpit. What do you think? An incursion wouldn’t be out of the question,” Sam replied.
“Thanks for believing me,” Alex said.
“You are welcome, geek,” Sam teased him.
“I think it is time to get back,” Harland stood up. The three of them walked back to the professor’s office. When they walked past the map of Saint Lucy, Alex stopped there. The layout of the roads, as drawn on the map, reminded him of the magick sigils that decorated the walls of the school.
“Funny map,” Alex pointed to the map. “Saint Lucy seen from above, as in that map, looks like the sigils decorating this place. With the three crystal obelisks in the middle. Like an antenna…” Alex stopped as his eyes opened wide as a saucer. It suddenly dawned on him. The diagram followed the same circuit principles of the circlet. It was a summoning sigil. But the batteries stolen from the labs wouldn’t be enough to empower that. They needed more than that, and someone who could guide the energies. And the Maze was the perfect place to find both.
“What are you thinking?” Harland asked, concerned. Just then, the school’s f
loor shook, as if a minor earthquake had happened. This was followed by another, and the sound of explosions on the outside could be heard thanks to the echo of the halls.
“That you haven’t been following clues, but were lured here…” Alex explained as he tilted his head to the right as if trying to hear something. “Yeah, I’m hearing you.”
“With whom are you talking?” Sam asked, intrigued.
“My friend, the ship’s pilot. He is sending me images through the lenses,” Alex explained, pointing to them.
“You’ve been spying on the school! Never mind, I need to know what is going on.” Sam said, biting her lips. Dust fell from the ceiling and the whole place shook with a loud boom echoing through the halls.
“Aww crap. I can’t believe it!” Alex exclaimed. “He says that it’s a dreadnought!”
“How in the Pits did a massive thing like a dreadnought manage to enter the Maze? We had troubles and the Figaro is way smaller,” Harland said, surprised.
“I have no idea. Some kind of magickal protection perhaps. Good construction quality… who cares? The problem is that it’s attacking the school!”
“If that were true, the alarms would have gone off by now,” Sam stated, sure of herself, but the constant biting of her lips betrayed her concern. It was then that the alarms of the school blared at full volume.
“Don’t you hate it when that happens?” Harland told Sam, clearly not amused.
† † †
Fionn and Gaby had gone over Hunt’s office several times, without any luck. The clutter taking up most of the space was a stark contrast to Sam’s desk, which was an example of order and discipline.
“Seems that Sam is very strict and disciplined,” Gaby said, looking through Hunt’s bookcase, while Fionn examined the desk with the pile of papers on it.
“Only at work. Trust me, she can be a handful outside of here. I don’t know where she got her rebellious streak,” Fionn replied, distracted.
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