General Privil began with a very basic overview: the South Conflagrablaze Captive was a spectral, medieval, totalitarian state governed by an all-powerful entity called ‘the System.’ Tincture, was this class going to be easy.
“The System dictates every aspect of the lives of the Conflagrian people,” he said, “from where they live, to what they learn, to what trade they adopt, to whom they marry. The System even gives each newborn child their name, based off of their colorful appearances and prospective powers. For example, the third System Principal was named ‘Patrician Courier’ after his purple electromagnetic field and his ability to run at speeds greater than a snow-semivowel can glide.”
My classmates exchanged confused glances and whispers. They didn’t understand the concept of colored electromagnetic fields—or, auras. One guy raised his hand and asked, how could a person look any color besides varying shades of peach or brown? I understood their confusion; it was hard to depict the concept with words. How could one who’d never seen a mage comprehend the majestic way we radiated the essences of our colors? My sister Amytal’s presence wasn’t simply blue to the human eye. She had an intangible, innate, beautiful blue glow that shone through every aspect of her being.
Before entering the academy, I was sure to practice concealing my red aura. Even so, I feared my teachers would recognize me for what I was. But, as my first day wore on, this fear ebbed away. If I could fool Colonel Austere, I could fool anyone.
After the class spent a considerable amount of time tripping over the principle of colored auras, they began to digest the latter half of Privil’s example: Courier could run faster than a semivowel. Semivowels were the primary mode of transportation for civilian Ichthyothians. They were flivvers, but with skis instead of wheels. They could glide at hundreds of miles per hour.
The shock in the air was thick. My peers were impressed and freaked out. Oh Tincture, if they only knew the extent of my magic…
The screen at the front of the hall flicked on.
“We’ve created a database of every magical power we’ve managed to discover. But, we know there are probably hundreds—maybe thousands—more out there that haven’t been documented. So, it’s important never to underestimate Conflagria. They may not have running water or electricity, but the absence of tech doesn’t mean they aren’t a formidable enemy. Their magic could always surprise us. When fighting against them, we must remain vigilant and prepared to improvise.”
Privil began scrolling through the alphabetical database. “As you can see, a mage’s spectrum originates from a specific body part. They call this, a ‘source.’ For example, legs were Principal Courier’s magic-‘source,’ enabling him to run at superhuman speeds. Examples of common magical sources include hair, arms, hands, feet and legs. Examples of less common sources of magic include ears, wrists, throats, backs, internal organs and skin. Curiously, in all of Conflagrian history, there has never been an eye-mage.
“While there have been a couple recorded cases of partial multi-source mages—mages with one full source and a hint of unusable spectrum in a second—no mage has ever been known to possess more than one fully-functional source. However, the Conflagrians believe that, someday, one will be born among them who’ll possess a vast number of magical capabilities from two or more sources. This is the myth of the ‘Multi-Source Enchant.’ Our biological and genetic studies have determined this is improbable.”
I slid slightly in my chair. The Conflagrian ‘myth’ had come true right before the System’s eyes, and rather than training me and harnessing my power for themselves, they cast me aside and gave me plenty of reasons to hate them.
Fools. They handed a weapon to the enemy.
* * *
So, this was the Diving Academy. Hours of classes each day. Immunization clinics for every disease imaginable. Intensive training and endless exercise in sub-zero temperatures. For the first time since my deportation, I faced true mental and physical challenges and met people as intelligent as myself. Even with my eidetic memory and lighting-quick analytical skills, I faced trials I—almost—couldn’t handle.
My size made things interesting, to say the least. On the plus side, it made me comparatively light and speedy. I could be easily lifted and handled by my comrades as we practiced underwater maneuvers and formations. I could slip into tight spaces and hide where others couldn’t. But, there were also several drawbacks to being tiny. There were many tasks a big, strong man could complete with half the effort. There were places I couldn’t reach, equipment I couldn’t carry, and people I couldn’t support in formation. My physical littleness—not to mention the fact that I was the only female—also didn’t encourage others to respect or trust me. It impacted the degree to which people were willing to listen to me. Day after day, I found it difficult to be taken seriously.
I wondered how Cease Lechatelierite did it. Being smaller and younger than his comrades didn’t seem to undermine his authority or success. I couldn’t wait to see him in action and learn his secret.
Cease Lechatelierite
May twenty-fourth of the ninety-third age.
Nine months had passed since that battle. Nine months of surgery, physical therapy and optometry. Nine months in a wheelchair or on crutches, hooked to IVs, watching the world through a visual reparation band. Nine months unable to dive in the sea with my men. I’d failed myself, my fleet, my nation, and most of all, my friend.
The Trilateral Committee was trying its best to hush it all up. That battle was a black mark on my otherwise spotless record. Aside from the TC, only a few of my unit leaders and the Nurian and Ichthyothian heads of state knew all the gory details about my injuries. Everyone else believed I was now away on some top-secret mission.
Physical therapy. Some mission.
Today, however, I was leaving Icicle’s hospital wing to head to the northwestern shore of Nuria, where I’d evaluate the recruits and select the best for my fleet. They would complete a series of challenges in the North Septentrion Sea while I watched from a vitreous silica. Then, tomorrow morning, I would meet my chosen face-to-face and bring them back to Icicle.
* * *
Strapping on my visual band, I could see a line of two-hundred men treading water, awaiting my arrival. Each wore a numbered vest atop their diving suits which relayed to me some vitals and stats, like heartrate, pulse and blood pressure. I took notes as they performed underwater maneuvers, target practices, multi-man formations and shuttle-pilotry.
Number six was strong. He could handle large pieces of equipment and support entire chains of men. But, he was awkward and incapable of subtlety. His big, blundering limbs made strong waves and big splashes. He wouldn’t be good for any clandestine tasks.
Number one-ninety-four was a skilled marksman. He shot every target in his path. But, he finished all allotted tasks outside the time limit. The ability to perform quickly under pressure was crucial in battle.
Number thirty-two had decent diving technique but poor judgment. When given the opportunity to make a critical strike here or a life-saving swerve there, he often missed it. He wouldn’t be considered for the fleet.
Number eighty-six had the quirkiest flying style I’d ever seen. His flight-path was about as predictable as a horsefly. I recognized his particular brand of dizzying loops, sharp turns and lightning-quick spirals from a video I saw eight months ago—this must’ve been the same man. Last September, his branch-placement tests caused quite a stir; the examiners couldn’t decide whether to send him to the Diving Academy or the Air Force Academy. His remarkable pilotry would’ve immediately landed him in the Air Force… if only he didn’t do so well on the swimming tests, too. His swimming scores made the cutoff, to be a diver. So, the examiners brought the matter to the administrators of the two academies, who bickered until the dispute escalated all the way up to Air Force Commander Rai Zephyr and me. I looked at his scores and watched a few of his videos and said something along the lines of: ‘well, if the man can dive, let him
; I need good pilots, too, after all.’ And, that was that.
There was one soldier whose skill quickly caught my attention: number eighty-seven. Ironically, the first thing I noticed about him was that he wasn’t easily noticed. He was far smaller than the others, so it seemed like he needed to swim two strokes for every one stroke of his comrades… but, that didn’t slow him down. On the contrary: he completed the same tasks as everyone else, in a fraction of the time. He was light, speedy, precise, subtle in maneuver and incredibly graceful. He didn’t swim, he danced in the water. I marked him as a strong candidate, perhaps even for an officer position.
After four hours of observation and three hours of private contemplation, I’d chosen my seventy divers. The other one-hundred-thirty would return to the Nurian Academy for additional training, until they were drafted as needed.
I gave my list to Colonel Austere. Tomorrow morning, they’d line up in the gym of the vitreous silica at seven o’clock to meet their new commander.
Scarlet July
We emerged from the lengthy test, exhausted and nerve-wracked. Commander Cease Lechatelierite himself watched and scrutinized our every move from behind the windshield of a nearby vitreous silica. He would spend the night on the ship, deciding who he wanted in his fleet.
We were also aboard the manta ray—what we called the VS, since did indeed look like one—for the night. Those whom the Commander rejected would head back to the Nurian Academy, tomorrow morning. The rest of us would travel with Lechatelierite to Icicle Base, located in Aventurine City on the southern shore of Ichthyosis, where we’d train for three more months before entering the war.
To use a funny Nurian expression, I was a ‘hot mess,’ right now. We all were. We laughed and talked to pass the suspenseful evening, congratulating each other on surviving the practical final. My comrades bantered along with me. It took every day of the last seven months to win their respect, but I finally had it—I think. I earned it though excellence. As time went on and I proved myself, it got harder and harder for them to ignore me just because I was small and female. Shunning an asset like me would be stupid. And, you didn’t get this far if you were stupid. Of the two-hundred-eighty-seven who entered the academy, only two-hundred made it to testing. Eighty dropped out. Seven got seriously injured.
But, even now, as my comrades sat with me, I could tell from the way they stiffened ever-so-slightly when they touched my hand or patted me on the back that they were still somewhat resentful an eighty-pound girl could give them a run for their money. The only person who consistently treated me with complete kindness since day one was Nurtic.
In the barracks, Nurtic slept in the bunk above me. At night, when insomnia liked to visit me, Nurtic never missed an opportunity to try to strike up conversation. He was really attentive to me. He knew I enjoyed drawing, and actually remembered an offhand comment I made one night about how I missed using real wood-and-graphite pencils—all we had in the military were mechanicals and ballpoint pens, which weren’t great for shading. And, then, a couple days later, without explanation, Nurtic conjured up a real pencil. Number two, HB. Exactly the kind I said I liked. He gave it to me with a mysterious, dimpled smile.
Nurtic was a good kid, but also a bit of a troublemaker. The academy had a strict rule against keeping non-military-issue personal possessions, but somehow—and he adamantly refused to tell me how—he managed to bring his viola with him, from Alcove City. No joke. He kept the case stowed at the back of his locker and occasionally played for us in the barracks, after hours, away from our superiors’ eyes and ears. Aside from the obnoxious trumpet-blare each morning, followed by the monotonous Ichthyothian national anthem on trumpet and drums, the military world was devoid of music or art. So, everyone, even those who never cared for classical music before, appreciated Nurtic’s serenades.
And, now, here we all sat, the two-hundred diver-wannabees who went through hell the last seven months just for the chance to serve in Lechatelierite’s elite fleet, awaiting the moment of truth, coming in the morning. The evening passed slowly, full of mindless chatter and anxious whining.
“I need to make it in, I must,” Arrhyth Link breathed in a melodramatic tone, twisting a curl from the abundant, swirly mop on his head. “I can’t go back to Alcove City. Dad’ll send me off to Oriya for an Order internship with my geek cousin, Kaew. I hate politics. I’m not like Kaew, or my sister, Linkeree. For goodness’ sakes, Ree writes poli-sci research papers for fun; she’s sixteen and already has stuff published in research journals! Ugh. I was born to the wrong family. I prefer to shoot things and blow stuff up.”
“If you don’t make it in the fleet, you won’t be sent home,” Dither Maine reminded him, looking a little annoyed. “Ichthyosis didn’t just give you an exorbitantly-expensive, top-notch military education just to ship you back to Alcove City. If the Commander doesn’t pick you tomorrow, you’ll just have to stay at the academy longer. Then, eventually, you’ll be drafted into the fleet, anyway, to take the place of someone who got killed.”
“Uh, thanks, man,” Arrhyth said, face slightly greenish. “Was that supposed to make me feel better?”
Dither snorted. “Seriously, who complains about having such a prestigious fallback, anyway? People kill for Order internships. I think isolationism is stupid, of course, but I’m not gonna feel sorry for someone whose backup plan pays better than most people’s far-fetched dreams.”
I listened to their conversation, curiosity piqued. The Nurro-Ichthyothian Alliance, by definition, was anti-isolationist, so the military obviously attracted those who disagreed with the philosophy of political isolationism. In my seven months serving alongside Arrhyth, I never got the chance to hear his story—the story of how the son of the Second Earth Order Chairman came to participate in an international conspiracy that’d get Nuria blacklisted, if the Order ever found out. Back in October, Nurtic reassured me Mr. Arnold Link was ‘totally cool’ with his son’s military service and wouldn’t tattle on Nuria to the Order. I couldn’t understand how that was possible, but apparently it was true: eight months passed since the forging of the alliance and the Order was still ignorant—Nuria’s membership was intact.
Well, if I was ever going to find out what the deal was with the Link family, it was now or never; it was possible Arrhyth and I would be separated starting tomorrow, if only one of us got chosen for the fleet. This conversation here was the perfect opportunity to get nosy—Arrhyth usually tended not to talk about his father’s line of work, as no one here was really a fan of it.
“So, I’m guessing your dad wasn’t too thrilled with your career choice?” I asked Arrhyth, delicately.
He shrugged. “Well, he always pushed Linkeree and me toward politics. But, he didn’t object when I said I wanted to be a diver and Ree said she wanted to be a missionary.”
I felt my eyebrows creep up to my hairline. A soldier and a missionary? That was as un-isolationistic as it got. Talk about rebellious children.
“He ‘didn’t object,’ Arrhyth?” I found myself saying. “Seriously? I can’t imagine the leader of the isolationist world approving his daughter’s country-hopping, much less his son’s participation in an anti-isolationist, international scandal.”
Arrhyth gave me a sideways smile. “Who said he’s an isolationist?”
I froze, staring. Arrhyth then promptly turned away and joined a nearby group conversation about a science-fiction, time-traveling television series I never saw.
My hair twitched on my shoulder. The Chairman of the Order, not an isolationist? How was that possible? All along, I thought self-preservation was the reason Mr. Arnold Link wasn’t tattling to the Order about Nuria’s involvement in the war: he and his wife and children all lived in Alcove City, so it made sense he wouldn’t want Nuria to get blacklisted because that’d jeopardize the wellbeing of his family and country of residence. But, I still assumed Mr. Link was an isolationist. An isolationist who’d want to lock up his son for expressing an interest in the
illegal war.
Lock up. Oh, Tincture. I left my helmet on the floor in front of my locker instead of putting it away, after the practical exam.
I got up and left the barracks, wandering the dark corridors of the unfamiliar ship in search of the locker-room. I wondered how I’d managed to walk from there to the barracks after the test without watching where I was going. Apparently, I followed the herd mindlessly, distracted by nerves and fatigue. Eidetic memory was no use if I didn’t actually pay attention to what needed to be remembered in the first place.
I soon discovered most doors were locked at this late hour. So, I had to use my hair-magic—wrapping ringlets around knobs—to open them up. I tried the one to my left. It was a janitors’ closet. The next led to the water-heating system. I hooked a right down the hall and tried the first door there.
And, when I pushed it open, my heart stopped.
There sat Cease Lechatelierite on his bed, laptop on his knees. He was wearing only his boxers, so I could see way too much of his thin, deathly-pale, horribly-twisted body. He had IVs in his right arm, a brace around his neck and a shiny strip bound across his eyes.
Lechatelierite quickly drew a sheet over his body, snatched the visual band from his face and glared at me with his dangerous, silvery eyes. His injuries were no surprise to me. But, he didn’t know that.
Flinching, I stepped back. “S-sir, I’m s-so sorry—”
He slammed a fist against his nightstand and said in a low, threatening tone, “Breathe one word about this and you’ll never see the outside of this ship again. Got it, Nurian?” He spoke Nurian with a heavy Ichthyothian accent. Nevertheless, his throat-mage-like tone struck me to the root of my being. I wished I could evaporate on the spot.
“O-of c-course, sir—”
“Never!” His voice sliced through the frozen air.
If Cease Lechatelierite were an eye mage, I’d be dead ten times over. He obviously didn’t remove his band to see me better; he took it off to intimidate me with those iron eyes. I could tell from his dilated pupils that his sight was unfocused. But, tomorrow morning, he’d still obviously figure out the only girl in the lineup was the intruder.
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