“You should rest, I will too. I’m too exhausted, and our magic will come back faster if we take a nap.”
He nodded reluctantly, he could hardly imagine sleeping with what was going on, but in truth he could barely keep his eyes open. It was only fear and worry that had kept him conscious as it was. He’d never been fully drained of magic before, and while he’d heard of and learned of the effects, the reality of it was still somewhat of a shock to him.
Still, he tossed and turned for quite a while on the small cot, before his mind finally gave in and allowed him to find sleep. One of the things his mind came up with, was a much better way to scribe spells. In truth, it was so obvious that he blushed at the fact it hadn’t occurred to him long before. He didn’t even have to make a new spell for it, or even experiment at all.
He wondered why it wasn’t done that way all the time, but he wasn’t about to wake Lia up and ask her. The answer to that question could wait for a time.
He supposed he’d never considered it, because part of the solution was to utilize a rune spell that he’d never in his life actually have to use, because of what he was. At least, he’d never have to use it for the primary purpose the spell was used for.
Chapter Nine
He felt better when he woke up, his magic returned, but he felt disconnected. There were no windows in a dungeon, and he had no idea what time it was, or what was going on out there. He also hoped he’d made the right decision, not that he’d had a choice, and it was the right thing to do, but it was his actions that would be responsible if there was a mage war.
It was what it was. He considered escape briefly, but if they escaped where would they go? They were still brand-new mages, and he was weaker in magic than some of the apprentices, even if far more effective and dangerous as a rune mage with a sword, that only went so far.
Still, it seemed wrong to just sit there.
He got up and examined his cell, looking for anything that would be able to score the stone. That’s when he noticed the meal that had been left just inside the door of his cell on the floor. He was excited for a moment he walked over, then he sighed in disgust when he noticed all they’d provided for him to eat with was a wooden spoon, and a poorly made one at that.
The food itself smelled okay though, some kind of stew, and his stomach gurgled. He still felt nervous about it, he hadn’t eaten anything in months without checking it for poison first. Which was something he couldn’t do, not without any runes.
It seemed very unlikely they’d poison him though, why put him in there just to poison him? So, he ate, he’d need the energy.
Lia stirred, and gave him a comforting look before starting in on her own meal, but she didn’t speak yet. It really wasn’t bad, much like the cell condition itself, he’d had worse.
Waking up and the food helped him to think, and he considered the idea of doing the opposite. Instead of using his eating implement to score marks on the stone, the reverse might work. He silently checked the cell again under Lia’s gaze, and he found a small and sharp protrusion of metal on one of the bunks.
Still, it was a problematic solution at best, he’d have to move the spoon itself in the shape and lines of the rune to carve it, without seeing what he was doing. His only guide would be the rune picture in his head, and the movements of his hands. Worse, he wouldn’t be able to stop and check on his work, it’d be too easy to misposition the wood spoon’s smooth underside when he restarted.
He tried to get comfortable on the floor, it would take a while.
Lia broke their comfortable silence and asked, “What are you doing?”
He replied, “I’m not sure if we should escape or not, what we could even do if we did, but it seems prudent to prepare for the eventuality.”
She swallowed a giggle, or tried to, and gave him an apologetic look.
He raised an eyebrow.
She smirked, “Sorry, I got the mental picture of you fighting a battle with a crude wooden spoon. Earth spell?”
“Sort of. An enhanced one. If the three runes don’t look like scribbles when I’m finished. There’s very little point in escaping, if we’re still powerless except to unlock doors.”
He moved extremely slowly and carefully, embedding scratches in the wood by a millimeter at a time, and he had to maintain focus on where he was in the rune he was scribing in such a ridiculous manner. It’d probably take just as long as he’d taken to make the teleport spell made up of a whole lot of runes. Of course, the scribing tool was as easy to use on metal or stone as a quill was on paper.
The second catch of course, was that without a magic tool to undo it, he couldn’t afford any mistakes. Not even one. There’d be no undoing a mistake, he’d have to start the rune over from the start, and the spoon wasn’t all that big.
She frowned, “What other option is there?”
He smirked, “You’ll see.”
She glared, but let it go for the moment.
He added, “Try to keep your spoon, when the servants show up to take the plates. Just in case. They won’t be fooled of course, but they know we sided with the royal family and might cover for us.”
She nodded, and said, “Don’t turn around.”
He wondered at the strange order, until she moved out of his sight and he heard her making use of the chamber pot. So much for his plan of blocking the view to help preserve her dignity, he couldn’t afford to move at the moment though. On the good side, there was no one out in the hallway on the other side of the bars, so good enough.
Of course there wasn’t, all the guards in the castle were in a forced sleep. He suspected there’d be fire masters posted in tactical places, and that’s it. Another problem to get around, even if they could free themselves.
Another weakness to his plan, was that if anyone came to check on them he still couldn’t afford to move the spoon away from where it was, his plan would be painfully obvious even to a toddler. Regardless, that didn’t happen, and despite his doubts, several hours later the three runes he’d painstakingly drawn with a lip of sharp metal onto a wooden spoon felt right.
They discussed it, and they decided to wait for now. Even if they escaped, what would they do? He didn’t want to kill anyone in the escape and start that mage civil war, and that was assuming they even could. They were being guarded by masters. At best, they could slip away and what, return to the rune tower?
The largest temptation was to do it so they could communicate with Lia’s parents, and find out what the hell was going on. That would be one benefit, but it was a selfish one, and they were loath to unsettle the fragile balance out there if it hadn’t been unsettled already, just for more information.
For the moment, he put the spoon inside his boot. It was uncomfortable but concealed. Perhaps more importantly, the spoon was positioned so the runes were pressed up against his ankle.
Lia asked, “The enhanced spell?”
He grinned, “You know the earth spell, to shape metal. Forge weapons, and make jewelry.”
She nodded.
He said, “You also remember the rune spell that focuses a memory. Cassandra uses it in class all the time.”
She looked confused for a moment, then her eyes widened, “You want to form weapons with the runes already there.”
He nodded, “I’d never need that second spell to remember a rune, but I would need it if I wanted to, for instance, forge a new pair of bracers, adding the runes in as part of the spell. If it can shape bracers, it can surely shape them with the carved runes. Even I can’t keep a crystal-clear picture of hundreds of runes at once, unless I use that spell. I’ve certainly looked at my bracers enough to be able to enhance the image.
“I suppose that’s why it’s not done this way to start with, you’d need a complete end picture, which means it’ll only work after the first time. Still, Cassandra never mentioned it, and it’d be just as useful to add a single rune spell onto your current equipment, and a lot faster than using a scribing tool.”
He frowned, “I can see that, but that’s what the enhancement spell is for. Once you do it once, you shouldn’t have to do it again.”
She sighed, “I don’t know why. Perhaps because we’re not blacksmiths.”
He frowned.
She giggled, “That wasn’t a tease, love. We just never considered making our own equipment and weapons, we take it from stores like everyone else, and let the earth mages do it. That kind of thinking is intrinsic to your mind, because you can create things at a forge. I was trying to plan out a way to get into stores if we escaped, while you were planning to just make your own stuff. In hindsight, it’s obvious, but it wasn’t intuitive to me at all.”
She sighed, “This isn’t going to end well, is it.”
He nodded, “Even if we win, the mages are going to be hit hard. I don’t think Tanner will back off.”
She said, “The problem is that he has a point. He might be an ambitious ass, but I imagine at some point, when he started down this road, it was with good intentions. For all our power we have very little freedom.”
He argued, “Maybe we need checks on our ambition, and a predetermined channel for our greater power. The rules keep us in check, and from more of us becoming monsters that get our way and become entitled merely because of power. It’s not a simple thing, and both the argument I just made and the current rules you bemoaned are too simple an answer for a complex situation. We need a more balanced approach.”
She smirked, “What would you decide, if you were in charge.”
He frowned, “The towers are our homes, and where we learn magic. Freedom is all well and good, but an untrained mage is dangerous, and where else would they go to learn and grow in relative safety? Where else would they find mates of equal power and raise the next generation to keep our numbers healthy. There’s also the matter of our stipend, the crown supplies our food, the metals the earth mages use to fashion our weapons and jewelry, the paper in our library, and just about everything else.
“I’d say that between education, coin, a safe place to grow and train, and being fed, we owe the royal family for all that. We aren’t entitled to free stuff, no more than any other man or woman. I’d say a mage should be indebted to work for the crown for ten years, for all the things they provide. After that, they should get a choice on where they choose to live and what they choose to do.
“That’s forced debt though, so should they choose not to make that trade, and take on the debt of living at the towers, they’re magic should be burned out. They’d be a danger to themselves and to others otherwise.
“It would also have the added benefit of a mage learning the morality of magic for ten years, and what to do and not to do with our greater power. Sure, not all will take that to heart, but most would. In the end, I suspect most would want to stay with the tower. Most non-mage humans don’t like us all that much, why would we want to be anywhere else?
“Yet, we’d still have freedom, even while we paid the debt of responsibility, even if very little else would change. For those that found our way of life truly unappetizing, well those few could strike out on their own.”
She smirked, “All good points, except we could support ourselves if we had to. We don’t need coin from the castle. The towers belong to us, and we could barter with non-mages for the foods, metals, and other things. Then we wouldn’t be indebted at all.”
He shrugged, “It’s no different, in the end, except our power wouldn’t be making as big of a difference. The royal family sends us on missions that safeguards lives, and that preserves the kingdom of Reton. Instead we’d be making farm tools, and building buildings, something the non-mages can do. Sure, we’d be freer I supposed, in a way, but we’d also be forced to work different jobs, just to support ourselves. I’d rather make a difference, and to work off a debt at the same time.”
She nodded, “And that’s the problem. Your whole solution stems from the fact you like the job that we’re forced to do. I do too, by the way, but not everyone does.”
He shrugged, “That might be part of it, but not the whole, by far. Not every barmaid, farmer, or even blacksmith likes their job either. They do it to feed their family, and to earn coin to live. The important thing solved in my proposal was self-determination and freedom, and in my plan they’d have that, along with the consequences and responsibility of their power and debts. Ten years of service isn’t much to ask, when everything is provided to us from coin, to food, to education, to a roof over our heads.
“I think the biggest problem with the current system is freedom as a non-mage or lifetime service, we don’t really have a good choice there, or a balanced one. My system gives that, a middle ground of service where they’d be able to keep their power and even prosper in the future where they wish to.
“After paying that debt, they’d have a choice to stay or leave. They could even continue living at the tower, and then find their own calling or job outside of serving the crown as magical trouble shooters, if they pay coin monthly for rent and food out of their wages or earned coin through trade. Freedom is a concept, and important, but it doesn’t put a roof over your head or food on the table. Freedom means taking on the responsibility to do those things on your own, and it doesn’t entitle you to do nothing for it when it’s given. We can’t demand freedom, and then expect to be paid for it.”
She tilted her head, “I like it, and you make good points. Now we just need to convince everyone else.”
He snorted, good luck with that, not that she’d been serious in saying that. It was a fun exercise, to come up with a truly balanced and fairly compromised approach, but he had no delusions he could convince people to buy into it. The royal family wouldn’t let them go, and some mages wanted a complete split from the crown, while still even a smaller number, like Tanner, wanted to rule in their stead.
Life was messy, and as many people that loved his idea, there’d be people that hated it. That was pretty much true of all ideas.
In the end, life wasn’t very fair, and the self-righteous people who tried to force change, to what they viewed as fair and right, usually only made things worse.
Chapter Ten
He wasn’t sure how long they’d been in there, and he wasn’t even sure if it was day or night. He’d kept up his channeling practice when his magic had fully returned. Based on how his magic felt at any one moment, he could partially keep track of the hours, but it was disturbing being in the dark.
Still, it couldn’t have been more than a day or so later when all hell broke loose. He could feel the magic spells going off above them in the castle, and it felt far too much like one of the competitions did to his magical senses. Except of course, there were no magical safeties in the castle, or anywhere outside the arena.
He wanted to break out then, and help, but wasn’t sure of the situation.
Lia look grim as well, and like she wanted to help, but before they could make a decision one way or the other, the spells stopped. The magical battle had only lasted about thirty seconds. They were both on pins and needles as they waited for word. They agreed to give it an hour, if the battle didn’t start back up again, before they did anything.
That hour passed.
Lia said, “Let’s get out of here. I know its selfish, but I need to know what’s going on.”
He shook his head, “It’s dangerous, but it’s not entirely selfish. We can’t make any good decisions without information, and getting that information is worth some risk. We just don’t know the level of risk, which is why I’ve been hesitating. It also occurred to me Tanner might be using your presence in the dungeon as a lever against your parents.”
He focused on the advanced rune spell and channeled his magic. The mental picture of his bracers was ridiculously sharp in his mind’
s eye, including every line of every rune he’d had on them. As for the material for them, he used the bars of the jail cell, killing two birds with one stone. It would be iron, not steel, but it would be more than good enough, and just as effective, until he could get to a supply of steel.
He took the spoon out and handed it to Lia, so she could do the same, and then put the bracers on. It was a stark relief to have his runes back, he didn’t feel so naked or vulnerable with them on. The sword could wait, but he’d also fashioned a crude iron dagger with the two war spells he could cast. The rest of the spells were beyond his ability anyway, and could wait.
Lia fashioned eight rings. They were ugly, made of iron with no ornamentation, but they had her spells, which was the important thing. They could fix it later. She’d also made two strips of metal that she slid into her boots.
She smirked, “My defensive spells. Offense on the rings, defense in my boots.”
There were three missing bars when they finished, so they stepped right out of the cell and toward the dungeon entrance.
His shields were humming with power, he also had his enhancements running as well as the additional detection spells. To his relief, there was no posted guard at the dungeon entrance. Either there never was, or whoever had been there had been drawn away from their post during whatever fight had taken place.
She said, “Wait. Let’s see what I can find out before we try to slip out of the castle.”
Her face got a far-away look as he felt her activate the communications spell.
He waited patiently, but it wasn’t all that long before the look of horror that appeared on her face sent shivers down his spine.
Lia’s visage changed from horrified to steely anger mixed with grief as she came out of the spell, just a minute had passed. Lia started forward.
He frowned, “What happened.”
Lia hissed, “Later, we need to get out of here, and back to the tower.”
Rune Mage: The Rune Mystic: Book Two Page 8