by Daniel Ruth
“That’s hard to imagine.”
“Well, everyone hated them,” she shrugged. “Why wouldn’t they? They were the physical embodiment of various negative concepts. Even their favored minions were suppressed.”
“How are Primals different than gods?” Peering over the beast’s shoulder I tried to get the lay of the land. I also took a moment to change my suit back into a robe. Maribel was welcome to the stares.
“Gods are made of energy. They can visit the Firmament and can recover from death in the Firmament, they aren’t quite as intrinsic to the fabric of existence as greater Primals. Also, the lesser Primals seem to have a more solid body. I am not sure I understand it but while a god’s powers fluctuated from some minimum based on their worshipper’s numbers, Primals have a fixed power level no matter where they are and how many followers they have.”
“So, are Primals indestructible?”
“The greater ones seem to be,” she nodded to herself. “During the revolution, they couldn’t or wouldn’t kill them. Grandfather wasn’t clear on whether they couldn’t be killed or doing so would destroy the multiverse. Either way, they were entombed.”
“The lesser ones can be?”
“The lesser ones can be. Compared to gods they have some strengths and weaknesses but being mostly material entities, they can be separated into races. Mostly.”
“So only the greater ones are concepts. I don’t see how being a race though separates them from gods.”
“Gods are energy beings. Whether a people believe in a god so much that one spontaneously manifests form in the Firmament or a mortal or supernatural entity ascends and is reborn, they are individuals. Even a pantheon isn’t really blood-related. They are related by concepts and belief.”
I looked at her nonplussed as we flew and nudged the pegasus over a bit to the shopping area. Her description of gods sounded a lot like greater Primals. “Right.”
“Most of the lesser Primals I have heard of are members of a race. They breed or bud or whatever their slimy little biology demands. They can’t interbreed with other races either. Maybe their ancestors came from the Firmament but their descendants are too physical to do anything except draw power from it. Just like the rest of us do.”
“Gods seem to have an advantage.” I nudged Cocoa again and we started to drift down towards the crowded streets. “What did you mean about slimy?”
“I am not sure about advantages. A powerful god with a large worshipper base is about on par with a normal Primal. A bit harder to kill perhaps. They both tend to have followers and minions, some in the billions, over multiple dimensions. Looks like there’s a clear spot over there.” She paused in the middle of her explanation to point to an area relatively clear of people. “As to slimy. Well, most of the ones I know of are huge masses of tentacles.”
I stiffened. Tentacles. That sounded eerily familiar but I couldn’t quite place it. Ah well, I was sure it would come to me. “Let’s stop in here for a bite. It’s pretty decent and I feel like I haven’t eaten in a month.”
She simply nodded and smiled. If it had been Beth I am sure she would have commented on the bread I had gobbled up. However, Maribel knew that I could easily eat several hundred pounds and barely feel full. Truthfully, neither of us needed food in a world full of mystic energy but it sure felt good to eat. Since it was a date we might as well feast.
“We got a bit sidetracked,” I chatted as we were seated. “Waiter, give me one of everything.”
“Yes, sir.” The well-dressed servant bowed and smiled warily. He might have remembered me from last time. “Would you like anything to drink?”
I stared at him flatly. “What part of one of everything was unclear?”
“Yes, sir. I will get right on that.” He turned away and started to head back to the kitchen.
“Wait a minute,” I stopped him. “You didn’t take the lady’s order.”
He stared at me, eyes wide. “Will anyone be joining sir and madam?”
“No. Maribel?”
“I’ll take two of everything.”
“Yes madam,” he said with a glazed look in his eyes. I frowned at him. I remembered the service being much better last time, but I may have eaten less. He tottered off in a daze. I huffed in wonder. He couldn’t be thinking that we would share. Unless I made the food myself as a gift it simply wasn’t done, even among prospective mates.
“If we ever go to Arch, I’ll take you to Sulayman’s place. He serves a nice selection.” I paused for a moment. “Or maybe not...”
“Oh? Why not?”
“He accidentally killed off most of the humans in his restaurant...”
“Sounds like the perfect place.”
“We resurrected them all...” I paused as I registered her dismissal. After taking a moment to absorb her comment I simply decided to change the subject.
We chatted a bit more about gods and Primals. The conversation turned to her pets and I learned in uncomfortably intimate details about the brand on them. As I expected, it was an excruciating process. I made a note, again, to not let her alone with my people.
As we talked wave after wave of food and drinks made their way to the table only to be taken away as we finished them. I vaguely noticed that there was a growing atmosphere of tension from the wait staff. Fortunately, it didn’t interfere with our mood.
After over four hours of food and pleasant conversation, we finished the last of the deserts. I paid with barely a hint of reluctance and we left the rather shell-shocked staff behind us.
Chapter 3
We wandered the streets and chatted. Sometimes her conversation was a tad bit creepy but it was always fascinating. I found it relaxing. There were no humans I knew around so I wasn’t worried about offending anyone I cared about. People and faceless strangers milled about us but most seemed to instinctively know to avoid us.
Several times as we were about to enter an alley, I had a slight premonition of danger. Rather than ruin the mood I simply turned into the next street over. I think Maribel might just have thought I was a bit lost or distracted. In general, it was fun, except for the unfortunate amount of money we were spending.
I didn’t particularly mind since I had traded a huge number of gems that were practically worthless in a modern world into an even more massive amount of gold. We even stopped at the same jeweler that I did that trading at. Maribel’s lips curled in disgust at all the gems that didn’t have a lick of energy to them. In her eyes they were worse than useless, they were a blight.
While it was true those artificial gems weren’t good for anything involving magic, I am sure that the rich wives and mistresses we saw browsing the trinkets didn’t care at all. I did notice that the gems had dropped distinctly in price. If I wanted to trade more, I would be wise to do so in another city.
The storekeeper kept staring at me. It wasn’t until we left, I realized that the form I had taken to sell the gems was a younger version of my current one. He was likely thinking I was a relative of his benefactor. He certainly hadn’t offered me any deals so I found his gratitude severely lacking.
While I certainly enjoyed looking at the gold and gems for sale, and I didn’t begrudge my date a few thousand gold coins for gifts and knick knack’s, I was far more interested in the magic shops further into the market. Maribel didn’t resist this idea. She may have been a female but she was also a skilled magic user and I saw her eyes light up as we entered the first one.
It was a smaller building, perhaps a bit run down. Never the less it sold magic sundries so it couldn’t have been too dilapidated. Maribel was a bit of a snob and sniffed at the enchanted makeup and glowing sparkles. I actually agreed. As an alchemist, I could create a batch of this useless stuff in a few minutes with five gold worth of wilted materials. It probably didn’t help that putting makeup on a shape changer was simply absurd.
We were both more interested in the tomes of arcane knowledge but we were rebuffed by the owner from doing more than looking
through the display case since we didn’t have a graduate’s badge.
“So, you say the schools are purposely retarding their student's curriculum in order to control the mages population?”
“I am pretty sure,” I nodded as my lady questioned my explanation. “They mystify a fairly straightforward process and drag out the courses that should take a few months into a five-year journey.”
“That seems a waste,” she said doubtfully. “I would think the other kingdoms would simply swarm them with better-trained mages.”
“It appears to be a multi-kingdom agreement. I think they are worried about out of control five-year-olds and angsty teens becoming weapons of mass destruction. By the time they reach fifteen or sixteen and take advanced training they should be able to follow orders and be able to be converted into fully trained mages within a few months. Until then they practice with fairly harmless cantrips.”
“Seems pretty easy to get around. What if one of the kingdoms raises a secret army?”
“I suppose the other kingdoms under the agreement stomp them,” I shrugged. While it was annoying not to be able to get to the advanced spells when they were right in front of me I did have a few ideas for the future. I also still had the books from the year four and five students to learn, so I wasn’t in a huge rush. “I didn’t really care enough to look into the details.”
“Are the circles and wards under the same restrictions?”
“I assume so,” I replied as I nosed through the exotic components. “I haven’t seen any yet. Circle masters have always tended towards the apprentice system. Still, the components for them seem easily available. Though the unicorn horn dust is atrociously expensive.”
“Don’t waste your time on that junk. Now that I have your circle at home, I can just borrow Cinnamon’s horn and have her regenerate it back in seconds.”
“That sound a bit painful,” I said faintly as I stared at her. I should tell Beth to spend a little less time with Maribel. I don’t think she really needed the warning but better safe than sorry.
“She won’t mind. She gets so excited sometimes I sometimes think she forgets the little things.” She reached the back of the room and looked over some dusty tomes. These weren’t under lock and key. “Oh look, some books on alchemy. Didn’t you say you practice it?”
“These days I mainly use it to make the pastes and paints for the circles and wards. I just started studying them so I can make up for them being a little less than perfect by using a better-quality material base.”
“You do seem to be a bit of a scholar,” she said as I gave her an exasperated look. A dragon that didn’t love a bit of research was no better than a stupid hydra. We’re all inveterate scholars. Who occasionally like to breathe fire. Assuming you’re the kind that can. “I mean more than usual. I talked a bit with your pet. She says you never get out because you're always studying circles or spells.”
“Since I was trapped in Arc, I’ve been focusing on learning a method to get back.” I opened the alchemy book and casually paged through it. It had large sections on the characteristics of ingredients and seemed to focus mostly on the applications of herbs. Honestly, most of it was herbology that I already knew by instinct.
“I got involved in circles and wards because there was no mage society or even an underground I could find that taught spell craft. It was probably just as well, circles lend themselves better to opening portals and gates.”
“Except when the dimensional fabric has been locked down by the local warlord,” Mirabel reminded me. I frowned as I continued flipping through the second alchemy book. It was similar although it was focused on minerals with random recipes or fragments inserted. Hmm, an invisibility potion. I tapped the page absently.
“Well, it was a goal,” I replied absently. The potion wasn’t very effective, it only lasted a few minutes and used difficult to acquire components. I had my own version that could give a person the ability to turn invisible at will for over two weeks and the ingredients were all commonly available. However, my formula had side effects that cumulatively were rather terrible. This one seemed harmless.
“It indeed seems a bit pointless, looking back. Well, not the limited mastery I finally gained but wasting over a year following vapor trails.” I turned towards the shopkeeper and gave him the book to keep safe and started to pick up some ingredients from the racks. “I’m still annoyed at the mages over there. The end of the world came and went and they’re still cowering in hiding after screwing over the rest of the world.”
“Eh, humans,” she replied as she gestured for several of the displayed gems to be shown to her. I suppose I should have expected that.
“I suppose that now the dimensions are locked down I don’t need to concentrate on studying so much. But it did help me understand the demon lord’s circle enough not to destroy the ten worlds.”
“I suppose there is that,” she said with evident disinterest. “Still, you need to get out more. Preferably with me.”
I grunted noncommittedly. While it was true my ultimate goal of mastering either circle or spell magic to the degree of opening a portal home was now pointless, there were other considerations. One of them was that I really loved learning. Not only that but I had made great strides in circles and was close to mastering the basics of spell craft.
I was actually making progress, which felt great after an entire year of struggling through one failure after another. There was also the fact that my breed was of the scholarly bent. More so than the average dragon. That part of my interests was normal.
If anything about me was abnormal it was my interest in psionics and my rather unusual strength... for my breed. Admittedly, I was curb stomped by a certain evil ancient dragon and barely held my own with an adult hydra, but in my defense, the average dragon increases hugely in power upon reaching adulthood. Both in magical power and pure physical strength. Sure, I didn’t win but I had nothing to be ashamed of. Really. I didn’t.
As I found myself dwelling on how I shouldn’t feel bad about getting crushed by the adults of my species I heard my new girlfriend squeal with excitement. Throwing off my melancholy I marched over to the counter to pay the butcher’s bill.
It was fortunate that we both had enchanted bags, otherwise, I am sure I would look ridiculous staggering around with dozens of boxes. Mine were mostly alchemy books and ingredients. Maribel’s boxes were mostly gems. It felt odd to trade the gold I had just recently gotten from artificial gems just to get gems back again.
As I contemplated life’s ironies, I noticed that more and more my limited precognition would twinge as we were about to go down one of the narrower passageways. My date didn’t mind my seeming indecisiveness but I was getting annoyed. At this point, I was pretty sure we were being targeted. It had been obvious for a while but I had been putting off addressing it.
Looking down the street I noticed that several overturned carriages were blocking the street. I snorted to myself. That was so blatant it was insulting. If we wanted to go forward, we would have to take an alleyway a few blocks down. Naturally, I turned into the alleyway I had just moved away from. Better to fight them at a location I chose, even if it was an ambush.
Maribel’s eyes lit up and the corners crinkled as a wide smile slowly made its way onto her face. She turned to me. “You shouldn’t have.”
“I could tell you were getting bored,” I replied with a smile. Above us, figures leaped over the gaps between the buildings and it almost seemed to rain people. In moments we were surrounded by heavily armored men wielding glowing swords.
“Did you think we would be fooled by a flimsy disguise? The Dark Guild has marked you for death. Your fate was sealed the moment you crossed us.”
I stared at him for a moment. He seemed to be waiting for a reply. “Did you practice that? Because it was a little hokey but I really think it worked for you.”
“You have no idea the pain you will suffer,” the man continued, ignoring my reply. I glanced at h
im crossly. Why bother waiting for my reply if he was just going to ignore it. “You can’t use your little tricks now. You will tell us where the artifact and we will not let you escape into death.”
I looked down at the runed tooth that hung from my neck. When I wore my suit, it was vaguely covered by my jacket as it hung from my side. Since I was wearing my robe now it was displayed prominently on my chest.
“Right. You’re an idiot.” I turned to Maribel. “Try not to kill too many, I have to live here.”
“We will torture your loved ones until even you would not recognize them...”
“Change in plans.” I interrupted him, still talking to my dragon lady. “Go ahead and kill them all except that one.”
I spread out my empty hands as if grasping something. As they closed, psionic energy formed, lancing out from my palms and coalescing into two ridiculously huge flamberges.
Although this raised a few startled cries it also caused then armored assassins to charge us. Glowing swords came down on my own energy blades. The first few swords impacted on my weapons causing sparks and flashes of conflicting energy. Any normal blade would have been shattered but both sides wielded enhanced weapons. I then swept my blades forward. Several of the warriors skillfully moved their blades to intercept. I admit it was somewhat satisfying to see their eyes widen as I plowed through their uplifted swords and plowed directly into their armored forms. Six forms in front of me were catapulted backward ass over teakettle.
Unfortunately, they were all wearing armor. Not just the leather protection that the first group wore but real plate mail. Obviously enchanted too, or the sheer force of my blow would have exploded them unless they possessed supernaturally enhanced physiques. They tumbled forty feet down the narrow road and jerkily got back on their feet.
Meanwhile, the people stationed on the building above us started to shoot arrows down at us. I snorted in disdain until a glowing arrow darted past my frantically parrying blades and skated along my cheek, leaving a shallow but bloody furrow. I sighed, naturally it was enchanted. It was all enchanted. Otherwise, everything would simply bounce off of me.