“Really?” Hadley asked.
“Well, after I landed my boot in the guy’s nuts, it wasn’t hard to convince him to let me borrow it. He’ll be a bit sore when he wakes up in the morning.” She started loading the bags into the cart. “How’d it go for you guys?”
“We’ve got a long walk ahead of us.” Parker sighed. “I’ll tell you on the road.”
He grabbed the handles of the cart. Parker was their leader now, and he would push the cart the first mile toward the tower. It was cold, but he was warmed by the company of Krystal and the rest of his team. And by the fact that he had found another ally in Marcus.
CHAPTER EIGHT
With a flash of light and a pillar of smoke, Ezekiel and Gregory materialized under a broad oak where a stand of trees met the prairie.
The sun was still low, just as it had been when they left their last spot. Gregory's head spun. There were only a few magic users in the Quarter who could teleport, and Gregory had never done it until now. They had already jumped several times today, and it was taking a toll on him. He tried to gauge his surroundings, having no clue just how far they had jumped.
He glanced over to watch Ezekiel bend at the waist and then drop to the frozen ground at the foot of the oak. Leaning against the trunk, the old magician closed his eyes. Apparently the magic was taking a toll on him as well.
“Ezekiel?” Gregory grunted, rushing over and dropping to his knees next to the man. “What do you need?”
A faint smile graced on his lips, though his eyes remained closed. “Just some rest, Gregory. And perhaps some good conversation once my strength begins to return. We jumped farther than I normally prefer, especially with a guest. It takes a lot out of me.”
Gregory nodded. He knew that casting wore magicians out. Even the simple spells he was capable of drained him ever so slightly. The young engineer also knew this was the beauty of the magitech that his father had specialized in. Thanks to magical energy stored up in the amphorald crystals from the Heights, humans could have magic at their fingertips without it taking a toll on their physical or mental well-being.
He dropped his pack and opened it, searching for the wine skin. He pulled it out and placed it in Ezekiel’s hand.
“Ah, ale from the mystics?” he asked.
“My father’s special reserve. I’d saved some in my bag for a time such as this. Julianne told me that you are a fan.”
“She’s rarely wrong.” Ezekiel uncorked the skin and tilted it back. Color came back to his skin as the liquid ran down his throat and warmed his belly. “Now, that should speed the process. Thank you, boy!”
He nodded. They sat in silence for a while, and Gregory watched the sun travel its path. At the same time, he swept the area, alert for any movement. Although clueless about where they might be, Gregory did know that they would never be safe, and with the wizard resting, he had to be on guard. Finally, he said, “You know exactly how it works, don’t you?”
Ezekiel opened his eyes and took another pull of the mystics’ powerful ale. He shook his head. “Magic?”
“Of course.”
“Exactly is a precise term for an engineer to use lightly, don’t you think?” he winked with a grin.
“It is, and I don’t. You talk very little about the technical aspects of magic, but I have a feeling that its origins and methods are no mystery to you.” Gregory grabbed the wineskin and took a drink himself, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“You’re very right and completely wrong.” Ezekiel leaned his head back against the trunk. “You know my story, though, don’t you?”
“In part, yes. That you were raised with what you call the Oracle. Lilith?”
“Yes, that is right. She’s, well, one of a kind. I spent years learning from her, and even I struggle to understand it fully. But I’ll tell you what she told me, and maybe you can make some sense of it. You’re smarter than I am.”
A couple weeks ago Gregory would have blushed at such high praise, but he just nodded instead. He was beginning to accept the fact that he was in fact an intelligent person. After his near-death at the factory, he had begun to see that life was too short to be ashamed of who you are.
Ezekiel sat a little straighter and warmed to his story. “You know that in the time before the Age of Madness, our ancestors knew no magic. But that didn’t mean they were without power. They had technological capabilities that dwarf the best Arcadia has to offer. Even Adrien’s airship would have seemed like a child’s toy compared to what they built.”
Gregory shook his head, amazed by the idea. “What happened to it all?”
Ezekiel sighed. “Just like magic, their tech had the ability to create or destroy. On the worst day the world has ever known, humanity saw just how destructive their technology could be. So it was lost, along with almost everyone in the world.”
The old man fell quiet and stared off into the distance. Gregory wondered if he was thinking about his own destructive capabilities or those of his former student.
“Anyway,” Ezekiel continued, “that’s not an answer to your question. The old world’s ability to create large machines was nothing compared to their ability to create small ones. Imagine machines so small that you couldn’t even see them with your naked eye. Small enough to live inside a person, but advanced enough to alter that person’s very nature.”
Ezekiel stared at Gregory as the implications of what the old man had said dawned on him.
“Wait… You’re saying that magic, everything that you and Hannah can do, it’s really the result of tiny machines?”
“Correct.” Ezekiel said. “Living in our blood, passed down from our ancestors.”
“And our ancestors created those machines?”
Ezekiel laughed nervously. “That’s a harder question to answer. Let’s just say that someone created the machines. Lilith calls the machines nanocytes, and those nanocytes allow us to access a much greater power than is found in our world. They open a door to another realm, which Lilith calls the Etheric. The people we call magic users are simply folks who have learned to draw on that power, manipulate it. And by doing so, they influence the world around them.”
Gregory’s head swam as he continued to mull over what the wizard had told him about magic, its source, and means of operation. He had a million questions, but he didn’t know where to start.
“If it’s all tech,” he finally asked, “then why let people believe that it is magic?”
The old man placed his hands on his knees and pushed himself to a stand. He reached a hand down to Gregory. “We will talk more as we walk. I’ve got enough strength back to travel by foot, but we won’t be using magic for some time. The critters inside me need a rest.” He winked at Gregory and pulled him to his feet.
Following the course of the sun, the two walked in silence for a while, Gregory waiting for Ezekiel to respond. Finally, he did. “You are an intelligent person, and you’ve spent your life around technology. Does my explanation about the nanocytes make sense to you? Only a little, I would guess. Imagine trying to make sense of this all fifty years ago, on the tail end of the Age of Madness. No one would have understood. And besides, when it comes to actually using magic, understanding is less important than believing. So when folks began to call it magic I chose not to correct them, and the Age of Magic was born. After all, ‘magic’ is excellent shorthand for technology you can’t explain. If you could go back in time and see the old world’s technology, it would certainly seem like magic to us.”
“My father, I think he understood that, maybe more than anyone,” Gregory replied. “He was always curious about the old world. About their power to tame their environment and create new technologies.”
Ezekiel nodded. “Never knew your father. He wasn’t even born when I set off from Arcadia. But from what I could see, your father is…was…a great man. It’s one thing for a person to become a magician, to learn how to focus and use the power inside us all. But it seems that Elon and hi
s colleagues did something I never thought possible in their creation of the magitech.” He laughed, mostly to himself. “Hell, I’m not even sure if Lilith herself expected such a development, which is, of course, a little hard to imagine.”
Gregory reflected on the words for a few paces, then said, “So, you think he’s gone?”
“Your father?” Ezekiel shrugged. “He was in the factory when everything went sideways. Being caught in an industrial fire like that would kill most, but stranger things have happened. You never know.”
“I have no idea how to feel about it,” Gregory ruminated with a furrowed brow. He felt his throat constrict with emotion. “I mean, on the one hand, he’s my dad. Always has been. For most of my life, he was good at it. On the other, it’s hard to shake the fact that the guy was ready to sacrifice me for the Chancellor’s vision.
Ezekiel paused on the crest of a small hill. The path they were walking wound its way down the other side. In the distance, lines of smoke rose into the winter sky. Villages spotted the pastoral areas of Irth, and the one that lay a few miles beyond their spot on the hill was their goal for the night.
With his eyes fixed on the distant village, Ezekiel pulled his pipe from his bag and filled it with herbs picked from gods knew where. Tamping the weed down with his pinky, he flicked his fingers, drawing a tiny stream of fire that hovered over the bowl. He drew intently, then exhaled rings of smoke that danced in the afternoon breeze.
After drawing once more, he ruminated. “I imagine we all have issues with our fathers. One way or another, the men that raise us shape us. Sometimes for good, other times for ill.” He laughed as he gazed at the horizon. “Mine and yours might have been somewhat similar.”
Gregory smiled. Ezekiel was old enough that the young man almost assumed he didn’t have parents. All young people always thought the oldest folks in their society had somehow crawled out of the belly of Irth fully grown and ready for anything.
“How so?” he asked.
Ezekiel walked again, his legs moved more briskly this time, as if inspired by the promise of the warm meal that awaited them.
“I was born into Madness. In those days, it was necessary for a man to do whatever it took to protect his own. A woman, too, mind you. My father, he was a hard man, in ways, but only because the world had shaped him so.” Ezekiel laughed. “Father took chances all the time, always for what he thought was right. My mother nearly killed him more than once. He would sacrifice anything for us.”
“How the hell is that like my father? He has become like Adrien.”
Ezekiel drew on his pipe and exhaled as he shook his head. “No, I think not. Adrien is driven by himself. He veils it in rhetoric about Arcadia, of course, but the man wants nothing more than power. Power to do as he wishes, to be worshiped by all. It is a sickness that knows no cure.”
“And my father?”
“Your father’s crime was believing the wrong story. A carefully woven story, one that had been told to him since the day he was born. He put his trust in the Arcadia that Adrien had made, a city in the Chancellor’s own image. Most of his life, it served him well, and his prosperity only supported the fact that the tale told was a good one, that the narrative was true.”
Gregory nodded, even though he wasn’t completely certain he understood.
Ezekiel continued. “Your father’s last decision, to give up his only son for the city, for Adrien, was a mark of his conviction. It was a terrible thing. He’s not a victim, but, like my father before him, he believed a story that made sense of the world. And stories, both true and fictional, most often require a response, demand action.”
“So, you’re saying my father was a good man?”
Ezekiel laughed. “Hard to imagine it when he hooked you up to the core, isn’t it?”
Gregory nodded. “No shit.”
“But, he was human, complex in all the ways we are.” They walked in silence for a little longer. The outline of houses took form on the horizon. Finally, Ezekiel said, “I’m glad you’re a part of our group, Gregory. A part of Arcadia’s revolution, to make her all she was supposed to be in the first place.”
“I am too.” He pursed his lips, then continued, “It gives me something to believe in, to work for.”
“I need to trust that you would be willing to give everything for it. Are you, Gregory?”
Gregory stopped and turned to face Ezekiel. “I am willing to give all, to give my life.”
The magician smiled and nodded. “Then you also believe a story that makes sense of the world. We are not much different than your father, only our story is true. And it doesn’t require us to kill our children. Now, let’s go find some food and shelter,” Ezekiel said, as storm clouds moved in from the West.
I hope this story is true, Gregory thought to himself. He said a little prayer to the Matriarch and Patriarch that he, like his father, was not being drawn into the fiction of a madman.
****
Amelia and Hannah stood outside the room, pausing before going in to see just how many of their people were going to take them up on learning magic. Those who had gathered to hear Julianne’s story about the girl who would win back the city were mostly women, children, and the physically weak. Both women knew there was a chance that none of them would come to learn how to fight, to take part in the revolution that was brewing.
Hannah glanced at Amelia, only to see her run her shaking hands down her pants.
“You’re nervous.” Hannah asked, but it was more of an observation than a question.
“Sure.”
Hannah laughed. “You are the youngest freaking Dean of Students the Academy has ever seen, and you’re pissing yourself in the face of a couple of our misfits?”
“When you take the task of teaching seriously, it always makes you nervous.” Amelia forced a smile. “You should remember that.”
The young magician cocked her head. “Sure. But in the face of kicking Adrien’s ass and taking down his airship, this doesn’t seem like much of anything.”
“Maybe that’s what makes me nervous. Those people in there,” she nodded at the closed door, “if there even are any… Half of them probably won’t make it through the battle.”
Hannah nodded, realizing the weight of her friend’s comment. “True enough. But if they don’t fight and we lose, life won’t really be worth living, now will it? And Adrien will probably kill them anyway.”
“Good point. Let’s go show them how to defend themselves.”
Amelia turned the knob and pushed into the room. Hannah followed, with Sal right on her heels, his long talons tapping the floor in rhythm with his footsteps.
Hannah froze when she saw the assembly. The day before they had talked with a dozen or so of the refugees, but the attendance for their first lesson was twenty strong. Her heart leaped. This kind of passion was what they would need to end the Chancellor’s rule forever.
Beaming, she said, “You all know this isn’t the place to gather for free dragon rides, right?”
Eponine turned and stepped toward Hannah. “I’m not here for free things. I’m here to work hard and learn to kick ass like you.”
Hannah smiled. “Well then, kick ass you shall.”
Everyone in the room laughed, but it was clear they were nervous too. The room divided almost evenly by rank. One side was made up of nobles, mostly women and children. She read fear on their faces and could see that they were still uncomfortable with the new life they had elected. The other half were residents of the Boulevard. Life had been hard on them, which made these people strong. Deep lines on their faces told stories of struggles and a strong will to survive. Hannah nodded at them, knowing that if they were going to truly be a team, the dividing line between them would need to be erased.
Her eyes lit up when they landed on the familiar face of Roland, a man no more than fifteen years older than her from the Boulevard. He was seated in an old wooden rocking chair, his right leg pushing him gently. The other was missing
, but a stump where his left leg should have been tapped in cadence on the chair. His rough wooden crutches lay next to him.
“My dragon hasn’t been ridden for some time, my lady,” he remarked with a wink, “but I’m not here for that. I’ve come to learn how to shoot fire and shit lightning.”
The Boulevardians all laughed, knowing Roland’s humor well, while the nobles shifted in discomfort.
His presence brought her comfort and his passion gave her hope. “Well,” she retorted, “if a one-legged drunk from Queen Bitch Boulevard can learn to shit lightning, we might just have a fighting chance at making Adrien shit...well, shit.”
Although she wanted to, Hannah couldn’t wipe the smile from her face. “I’m glad you’re all here. Now, let’s see if we can make magic together, shall we?” She looked around the room. “But not here. Don’t want to do Adrien’s job for him by bringing the whole damned place down around us. Amelia, why don’t you lead your class out to the lawn?”
The Dean of the Rebellion nodded, then turned and left the room with the people right behind her. Hannah waited.
“You sure you’re up for this?” she asked, extending a hand to Roland.
He grabbed it firmly and pulled himself to his feet. “Screw you, Princess. I taught you a thing or two on the streets, before and after I lost my damned leg. This is nothing.”
She handed him the crutches and glanced down at Sal, who looked back at her, his tail swinging slowly back and forth. “You sure you don’t want to ride my dragon?”
Roland laughed. “That’s my line.”
“Yeah, but I hear it seldom works for you. Well, come on then. Time’s a-wasting, and we have some magic to learn.”
CHAPTER NINE
Clouds of steam poured from the mouths of their team as Hannah and Amelia took stock of the people who had come to learn magic. They didn’t look like much, but Hannah knew that she hadn’t either only eight months before.
Revolution - C M Raymond & L E Barbant Page 8