by Dante King
“In a nutshell; what you have, they don’t,” Madame Xel said.
“That makes sense,” I said. “And you were saying that there are some sponsors already who are keen to have me rep their gear?”
“Yes, there are already a few that are sniffing about and showing signs of interest.”
“Like who?” I asked.
“There are a number of people that have approached me,” Madame Xel said. “Both representatives of larger companies and corporations, as well as smaller scale, boutique craftsmen and artisans.”
“Are there any that you think would be more beneficial to us?” I asked. “Any that you reckon are closer to making a deal than others?”
“Hmm,” the succubus said, “yes, there are a few options that I think would suit us a little better than others. There’s a fairly prosperous food company, Mana-Snax, that specialises in snacks that War Mages can carry on them during the games and use to replenish their mana and health. I think they also manufacture canned potions that boost certain magical abilities, as well as enhance strength stamina, eye-sight and other physical attributes.”
“That sounds very handy,” I conceded.
“Then there’s another company that specialises in selling rare and interesting magical artifacts—or so they claim—that, or so the rep tells me, they come across by careful excavation,” Madame Xel said in a somewhat tentative voice.
“You sound dubious,” I said.
“That’s because I am.”
“About what aspect?” I asked.
Madame Xel narrowed her mauve eyes and tapped her lip with a finger. “About the whole company really. About their claims that the items are rare and magical—and not just knocked up by a team of goblins in some warehouse somewhere.”
“Still,” I said, “you have to consider whether passing up on potentially helpful magical items is a good move for Team Justin.”
Madame Xel stretched her wings and made a thoughtful sound. “Yes, there is that,” she said, “but then, if the items are actually magical and have been unearthed by teams of scholars or whatever, then one has to be careful that they are procured in a manner that is… How do you say?”
“Ethical?” I supplied. “Not shady or dodgy.”
“Yes,” Madame Xel said. “The last thing that a War Mage wants is to get embroiled in a scandal like that. If you’re going to get yourself into hot water, let it be for something that people can actually laugh about. A sex scandal always does wonders for a mage’s reputation among the everyday spectators.”
I winked at Madame Xel. “I’ll have to keep that in mind,” I said. “How would the fans react to a juicy scenario involving the savvy agent and her client being caught with their trousers down, do you think?”
Madame Xel cocked her head to one side and pouted those seductive lips of hers at me. “Justin Mauler, you naughty boy,” she said huskily, “you’re a devilish young man, has anyone ever told you that?” She gave one of her little silver horns a slight tweak. “I should be playing devil’s advocate, you know. I’m supposed to be the one doing the seducing in this scenario, if anyone is. You are incorrigible.”
I laughed. “I’m sorry, but you are a succubus,” I said. “So that magical artifact sponsorship goes in the ‘maybe’ pile, does it?”
Madame Xel inclined her head. “I think so. At least until I’ve done a bit of digging into their background. There is always the chance that they aren’t a bunch of thieving charlatans and are actually uncovering genuine curiosities. If that’s the case, then we do not want other mages to get a hold of any items of power.”
“No, that would be less than ideal,” I said. “Any others?”
Madame Xel grinned. It was a grin that heralded mischief. “I have been approached by someone from Women’s War Mage Monthly actually,” the succubus said. Her voice was casual, but it was laced with barely concealed delight.
I frowned. I thought I had seen copies of a magazine going by that name around the Academy; in the library and around the pool and other public places like that. “WWMM,” I said, “is that the one where there’s always some buff half-nude dude on the front?”
Madame Xel snapped her fingers. “That’s the one.”
“And they want to sponsor me?” I asked.
“Hmm, not so much sponsor you, Mr. Mauler, as make you the next half-nude dude, as you so colorfully put it.”
“They want to put me on the front of that magazine?” I asked in disbelief.
“That’s right. It’s more of a publicity thing, rather than an actual sponsorship type deal but, in my humble opinion, it would probably do wonders for your female following.”
I was about to throw this idea in the metaphorical wastepaper basket, when I stopped myself. I had to start looking at this whole War Mage thing as more of a business. I had to embrace the Instagram mentality and start shamelessly marketing myself. After all, image and style counted for a lot in life in general, despite what anyone else said. I had to ensure that I was tapping as many potential fanbases as possible.
“And all I’d have to do is take my shirt off?” I asked.
Madame Xel gave me another one of those mischievous, loaded looks of hers. “You haven’t ever looked inside one of those copies of WWMM, have you?” she asked me.
“Can’t say that I have,” I admitted.
“Hm, yes, well, they do require you to take off slightly more than your shirt when it comes to the pictures in the centerfold…”
These words took a little while to percolate through to my hindbrain. “What do you… Oh, I see,” I said.”Got ya. Yeah. Right. Yeah.”
Madame Xel chuckled at the looks that were evidently chasing one another across my face. “Maybe pile?” she asked.
“Yeah, I think the maybe pile for now,” I said. I was a pretty easygoing, liberally-minded and confident guy, but getting the old wedding vegetables out for a magazine that heaps of my fellow Academics would see… That would take a bit of thinking—or a lot of drinking.
“Are there any options that you feel would be best, both in terms of building my reputation and gaining gear?” I asked.
Madame Xel laid a hand on my thigh and patted it. Tingles spread out from where she touched me. “That’s the pertinent question, Mr. Mauler,” she said.
“So, you do?” I asked.
“Well, there is one proposal that I am most interested in,” the seductive succubus said, leaning back and crossing her legs in a fair imitation of Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, though I only caught a quick flash of red satin underwear instead of full bush. “Securing this particular sponsorship has taken much of my time at present.”
“Well, what is it?” I asked.
“The business—the brand—is a custom broomstick maker going by the name of Zelara Solarphine, of Solarphine’s Sticks,” Madame Xel said.
“Broomstick manufacturer, huh? That sounds extremely promising,” I replied, nodding.
“Yes, it does,” Madame Xel agreed. “Zelara is by no means the biggest manufacturer—she makes all her broomsticks alone and by hand, only imbuing them with magic once they are complete—but she is widely regarded as one of the most skilled broomstick artisans on Avalonia. Larger companies have tried to buy her out or lure her away with huge sums of money, but she has never sold.”
“She’s proud of her work,” I said. “She’s proud of putting her name to a product. That’s encouraging.”
“Absolutely,” Madame Xel said. “But the best part of this is that she will undoubtedly furnish you with a broomstick—if she decides to sponsor you, of course. Broomsticks are extremely useful items for all the obvious reasons. They’re allowed in some of the mage games, but not all.”
“Shit, I don’t care if you can’t use them in the games at all!” I said. “I’ve got to get me one of those no matter what.”
My mind was already populating my thoughts with images of me flying over the countryside at one-hundred miles per hour, zooming along with my toes skimm
ing the grass before boosting upward into a sky washed in the colors of the sunrise—or, more realistically, the sunset. I might have been attending a magical college, but I was still a student, and that meant mornings didn’t start until five minutes before my first class if they happened to be scheduled prior to noon.
“I’m glad you're enthusiastic,” Madame Xel said.
“Of course I’m enthusiastic,” I said. “Who wouldn’t want to be able to fly? It’ll make getting to the taverns in town a lot easier too. Just hop on my broomstick and jump off the balcony.”
Madame Xel raised a finger. “Never drink and fly, Mr. Mauler. That’s a big no-no. There's been a crackdown on drink-flying ever since Igor Chaosbane polished off three bottles of Sui-Cider, took someone else’s broomstick home thinking that it was his, then plowed through a window of the nunnery that sits on the edge of town, and accidentally turned all the door handles into dildos as he tried to escape on legs that were trying to carry him in opposite directions.”
I nodded. “Yep, that sounds like Igor,” I said.
“I doubt your sponsorship would last very long if you crashed through the roof of some poor villager’s bedroom sitting astride the latest creation from Solarphine’s Sticks.”
“Good point,” I said, “and sound advice. But, we might be getting a little ahead of ourselves here. I assume that we haven’t managed to seal the deal with this sponsor that you have on the hook? Otherwise we’d be talking about an offer, wouldn’t we?”
Madame Xel nodded. “Quite right. No, we don’t have anything in the way of concrete offers as of yet.” Madame Xel raised her eyebrows. “Actually, that’s not entirely true. A keen old elf who owns Spring-Step Douches assures me that he will keep you in douches for the rest of your life, if you agree to wear a cap with his company logo on during any interviews you might attend.”
I gave Madame Xel a look that was so wooden that she could have crafted a full dining-room suite with accompanying bookshelves out of it.
“Not quite the sexy sponsor we’re after?” she said, fighting valiantly to keep her face straight.
“Not quite,” I agreed. “I’m not sure if wearing a hat with the word ‘Douche’ on it is going to draw fans that will attract other sponsors. There’s something most definitely not spunky about colonic irrigation, I’ve always found. There are no other offers?”
“Not from anyone. Sponsors are being timid to the point of rude when it comes to you,” Madame Xel said.
“But, I won the goddamn Exhibition Matches,” I said in surprise. “Surely, they should be lining up around the block?”
“Ah, but you are forgetting something fundamental, Mr. Mauler,” my succubus agent said.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“That, despite how ably you and Cecilia Chillgrave acquitted yourselves in winning the Exhibition Matches, you are still an Earthling.”
This caught me off guard. “I hadn’t even suspected that that might be an issue,” I said. I scratched my head and rubbed at the stubble on my jaw. “To be honest, I don’t see what the hell me being from Earth has got to do with anything. Just because I hail from another world didn’t change how I went Stone Cold Steve Austin on all those other guys.”
Madame Xel looked confused at the reference, but made no mention of it. Instead, she shook her head slightly and said, “Your team performed beautifully—and you cut quite a figure, I’ll have you know, while you were about it. However, no Earthling has ever made waves when the Mage Games ramp up. There has never been an Earthling who has gone on to make a name for themselves in this racket. That’s just the way it is. It is what history tells us.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” I countered. Technically, I wasn’t an Earthling by birth, but I couldn’t exactly tell potential sponsors about my true birthplace or my real parents.
“Oh, and I don’t doubt it for a second, you strapping man, you,” Madame Xel said. “However, the seeming lack of Earthling capabilities in this competition is making sponsors second-guess themselves.”
“What does that mean?” I asked. This was turning out to be far more of an ordeal than I had ever thought it might be. There was far more strategy involved. Enough to make my head spin. Send me head-on into life-threatening danger any day of the week, rather than deal with all this sort of stuff.
Madame Xel must have sensed my frustration because she leaned forward and squeezed my thigh again. Then she purred, “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine. It just means that we’re going to have to use the more personal touch, that's all.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes to get my hands on a broomstick, I’ll tell you that for free,” I assured Madame Xel.
The succubus flashed her dazzling, perfect white teeth at me. “That’s the spirit. There’s that vim and vinegar that I knew you were stuffed with! Now, there is just one other teeny-weeny little thing that I should mention as well.”
I sighed and flopped back on the sofa, a wry grin on my face. “And that is?”
“There are rumors concerning your lineage. There is talk flitting about, as talk is prone to do, that you might not be a true native of Earth…”
She let the sentence hang in the air and waited to see what I did with it.
“I suppose that you’re referring to the fact that my parents—people I had assumed to be your run-of-the-mill Joneses with a labrador and a two car garage etcetera etcetera—are Zenidor and Istrea, the two most famed mages of recent times?”
Madame Xel’s face broke into a smile.
“Or, at least, they would be the most famed mages of recent times,” I continued, “if those good old guys and gals on the Arcane Council hadn’t wiped everyone’s memories.”
“Quite,” said Madame Xel. “Well, seeing as you are aware of your past, I feel that you’ll barely bat an eyelid when I tell you this: before the Void Wars, the Mazirian Academy was a training school for the elite and devout soldiers that followed the Twin Spirits.”
My eyebrows shot upward. “That,” I said, “I did not know.”
“Yes,” Madame Xel said, “it is why the Arcane Council keeps such a close eye on what goes on in this particular magical academy. Other academies—the magical learning places from which some of the mages you will compete against in the War Mage Games will come from—do not come under nearly so much scrutiny.”
“It’s good to see that Chaosbane—our illustrious Headmaster, I mean, not the one who drunk-flew a broomstick into an unsuspecting nunnery—is doing everything in his power not to act too nuts and draw attention to himself or the school then,” I said sarcastically.
“Ah, but it’s exactly Reginald’s devil-may-care attitude that keeps the Arcane Council from looking just that little bit too closely into affairs at the Mazirian Academy,” Madame Xel said. “The Headmaster might strike you as being one thong short of a full flogging whip, but there is a method to his madness. It was Chaosbane that worked his Chaos Hex to counter the memory-erasing magic that the Arcane Council tried to impose on all of Avalonia. It is the Headmaster who managed to keep a handful of select minds free of the Arcane Council’s brainwashing.”
“And the Arcane Council would flip their wigs if they found out that there are still some mages who are aware of the history that involves my parents?” I asked.
Madame Xel nodded emphatically. “Oh, yes,” she said. “There would be hell to play. Their greatest fear is that the army that Istrea and Zenidor started to build might, one day, start to grow once more. Those of us who followed your parents, the Twin Spirits, must keep their memories alive to honor them.”
I leaned forward, staring hard at the beautiful succubus opposite me. It was a measure of how interesting I was finding this little discussion that I barely spared a glance at the fantastic swell of her breasts, which bulged over the neckline of her skimpy top.
“You speak so highly of my parents,” I said, “but you seem like a pretty enlightened woman; free-thinking, forward-looking and all that. How
come someone like you could stand in their camp when their solution to the problem that faced them was to kill a whole bunch of people? It seems slightly… hollow. It’s like if a hippy, back in my world, wanted to sort out the problem of climate change by exterminating half the people on the planet. You know, it’s like, peace and free love for all, guys—but first everyone has to flip a coin and if you land on heads then you lose yours. ”
Madame Xel gave a little chuckle. “Oh, Justin,” she said, “not all of those who followed the Twin Spirits agreed with their methods! Genocide is a dish that does not lend itself to many palates. I did not agree with the method your parents suggested would solve the multiversal problem of magic depletion. In saying that, I agreed wholeheartedly that this was, and is, indeed a problem. I respected the way that they stuck to their wands, even when the Arcane Council opposed their views and tried to slander their names and their research.”
“So, you still have people looking into the whole magic dying problem?” I asked.
“Of course,” Madame Xel said. “Your old Vector Care teacher, Madame Incana, is on a mission to take a look into these things at the behest of Chaosbane.”
“But, Chaosbane’s story about the arachnadillos—” I started to say.
“Is just that: a story,” Madame Xel said.
“Is Madame Scaleblade part of this secret little society that Chaosbane seems to be nurturing?” I asked.
At the name Scaleblade, Madame Xel’s eyes lit up and she threw back her head and sighed melodramatically. “Ah, but of course,” she said. “I should have known that that minx would have been first on Reginald’s list to replace Madame Incana.” Madame Xel’s strange purple eyes moved over to the bed that lay in the middle of the room. “Ah yes, Madame Scaleblade is a firecracker!”
I followed her gaze and saw where she was looking. The thought arose that, perhaps, the two women had been lovers. My cock stirred at the thought.
Now there’s a sandwich I wouldn’t mind being the meat in, I thought.