Mage Emergence

by Christopher George

  I telekinetically pulled him to his feet by his neck and brought him to me. I needed to know who he was. Was this Tibus? Would he now lead me to Voll? His eyes widened with surprise as I filled in the gaps in his defence and protected him from the doom of his own making. I dragged him before me so I could see his face. I cursed savagely as I let my shield retract. It wasn’t Tibus. I didn’t know who this was. He was therefore of no use to me, and he was too dangerous to leave alive. I threw him to the ground behind me as I searched for others. I heard the tell-tale crack of a shield collapsing and a strangled scream as it finally failed completely. He got what he deserved. I didn’t wait around to see him die. The only thing that would have caused me to turn around to finish him would have been an attempted teleportation, but he was too weak for that. He died in the firestorm he had created. I suppose there was a lesson in that. It was a pity he wasn’t the only one who had paid for his lesson.

  The fire lasted for three days before subsiding. The inferno caused by the torrential fires ravaged the land for kilometres in every direction. There had been very few survivors, and the land would be scarred by this for a very long time. It was a fitting tribute to the arrogance of our kind: his for causing this conflagration and mine for allowing it.

  * * * * * *

  The sudden effect of a massive firestorm in a very cold region had played havoc with the weather, and had been felt in kilometres in every direction. The weather would probably be chaotic for weeks to come.

  There were pitifully few survivors from the attack. Only those who had managed to hide in stone buildings had survived, and there were not many of those. Had I not removed them from the inferno, they too would have eventually been consumed. I had torn through the settlement with mechanical precision as I located survivors and teleported them into the waiting arms of Marcellus and his men. Most would arrive nauseated by the act of teleportation, but they would arrive alive.

  Our team wasn’t really equipped to deal with refugees, so we brought in adequate supplies from our base. These people wouldn’t be set free yet. Not until I learned what I needed to know. This had been prompted by a deliberate attack upon me and my men. Had the mage who had died in New Haven been responsible, or had he been working with others? Would this lead to me Tibus? Had Tibus been here, or had this been the act of a renegade mage? It had been appropriate to let the young mage die in the flames, but I could extract the necessary information from others just as easily. Once they were well enough to travel we moved the dozen or so people who had survived the fall of New Haven back to our camp. For the moment at least they would be safe, so we could question them.

  It was a curious mix of women, children and men who had been extracted from the fire’s wrath. I wasn’t concerned about another mage being amongst them; my presence in close proximity would have inevitably caused them to reveal themselves as their Mana sought to protect them. No, these were simple men, women and children whose lives had been turned upside down by me and my kind. I owed them a few days of comfort and protection before I sent them back out into the wild.

  I questioned each survivor personally, but wasn’t surprised to find that most knew nothing. I had almost given up hope when I found the answers I had been looking for. The older man had obviously been through some rough times. He had lost most of one arm and had visible scars on his face and neck. This wasn’t the first time he had had his home taken from him.

  There was no visible indication that he was any different from the others. He acted much the same as the rest of the survivors. He didn’t look me directly in the eyes. No one ever did. The enlarged irises of my kind were intimidating reminders that we were different. Most people didn’t even like being in the same room as one of us. This man was no different in that, he too looked uncomfortable in my presence. I would have been suspicious if he had not been nervous. And yet there was something about him that was strange about him, something elusive. I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  “How long were you at New Haven?” I opened my interrogation with simple questions.

  “Six months,” he muttered, and I realised what was different about him. He wasn’t afraid of me. In spite of myself I was curious.

  “When did the mage arrive?” I continued.

  “Three weeks ago.”

  I wondered if I would get anything but two-word answers from him.

  “Did you know his name?”

  The man shook his head.

  “Did you ever see this mage with him?” I gestured towards a dossier photo we had of Gregory Tibus.

  The man looked over at the photo and shrugged. “Maybe, don’t like to look.”

  “So there was more than one mage?” I prompted.

  He nodded again. This was useful information, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to use it just yet. There didn’t seem to be any way to trace the other mage now that New Haven was a smoking hole in the ground. As enticing as this was, it was still a dead end for now. This would need to be investigated later. I wondered briefly what quarry a new search would reveal. There was only one more thing that this man could help me with, and for that I needed privacy.

  “That will be all,” I ordered the guard who had led him in. The man in the seat rose, but I waved him down. “Just a few seconds more.” I nodded as we waited for the guard to leave.

  If we had been recording this meeting I would have disabled the cameras. If there had been others I would have sent them away with the guard. What was to come next would only be between myself and this man. I waited for several seconds more as I readied myself. This would need to be done carefully. If I pushed too hard I would lose an opportunity I didn’t want to lose. The silence was obviously beginning to unnerve him. It was time to act.

  “When did you lose your arm?” I opened gently.

  “Four years or so,” he grunted again. Back to his usual small responses.

  “How?”

  “Building fell on me in Chicago.”

  He had been in Chicago and had gotten out before it had fallen. That explained his stoic demeanour to my presence. A lot of mages had fought in Chicago before it had fallen.

  “You seem to have recovered well from the injury,” I continued.

  This line of questioning wasn’t making him any less nervous.

  “What’s your name?” I inquired, quickly switching my tact.

  “David,” he grunted.

  “Well, David. How would you like your arm back?” I whispered.

  I don’t think he heard me at first. It took several seconds before his face registered that I had spoken. The look on his face said it all. He didn’t believe me, that much was sure, but he had also seen what we were capable of and knew I might not be simply lying. I could see him calculating behind his eyes. What did I have to gain by lying? Why would I offer this? Why him? I could almost see a hundred questions buzzing through his head.

  “You can do that?” he queried softly. For the first time he looked at me directly. I could see the hope in his eyes. If I could restore his arm - and from everything he knew about mages he had no reason to doubt me - he would be able to fend for himself in this bitch of a world.

  “I can try.” I didn’t tell him that I hadn’t been able to successfully perform the technique yet and I certainly didn’t tell him what I had had to do to even get the fundamental understandings of what was required to even contemplate such a feat using Mana. He didn’t need to know that he wasn’t the first I had approached with such an offer, and that others hadn’t survived the process.

  He also didn’t need to know my own interests in the technique. If I could heal him, then I could heal myself. It could be done. I knew it could be done. Victor had done it. He had healed me from a gunshot wound when I had been shot by Marcus. I remembered the feat well enough. It could be done. It had taken me much searching to find the books I had stolen from my old master. It had taken me even longer to build up the courage to use them, to overcome my ethical and moral objections to the learning contain
ed within those tomes.

  I had had to do horrible, evil acts to gain the knowledge necessary for this feat. I was determined that the prices I had paid wouldn’t be wasted. Using this knowledge I would finally unlock the secrets that have eluded me; I would be able to heal myself and become whole again. But I wasn’t going to practise on myself.

  All I needed was patients and time. There was a word for what I was about to do to this man: Necromancy.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It wasn’t actually Necromancy if you used the classical term for the word, but the techniques and theories that I had learned definitely delved into a realm that many would call Necromancy. Regenerative growth sounded about as far as you could get from Necromancy, but the skills and understanding I needed were gained from experimenting on corpses. What was about to be performed was as close to Necromancy as you could get without raising a corpse from the ground.

  This man wasn’t the first I had offered this to, and he probably wouldn’t be the last. The last time I had attempted this, it hadn’t gone too well. It had taken a lot of time I didn’t have to figure out what had gone wrong. I wasn’t sure I truly understood even now, but I wouldn’t know for certain until I tried again. Fortunately, due to the war I had a plethora of subjects. There were hundreds of people bearing wounds that would allow me to practise my arts.

  All I needed to do was get it right this time.

  My subject looked nervous, and I didn’t blame him. I had teleported him away from his home and people. He didn’t know it, but I had sent him to the other side of the globe. I couldn’t perform these rites with the possibility of someone interrupting, - I needed complete privacy. If nothing else, I didn’t think it would be a good idea for others to learn that I was practising unethical medical procedures. I didn’t sugar coat it; I didn’t seek to validate or defend my actions. This was wrong. There was no doubt in my mind. It was wrong, but it was necessary.

  I was using this man to learn the required Mana technique to heal myself. It was selfish and it was evil, but I had already crossed that line some time ago. It was a necessity – I would be whole again. I would no longer be the crippled half-man I had been forced to become. I would stand on my own and I would bring vengeance on those who had wronged me. I didn’t dare stand against Victor again like this. I couldn’t, I wouldn’t stand a chance. He would destroy me.

  It was ironic that I was using Victor’s own hiding place to perform my experiments. I had stumbled upon this place before the war. It had been Victor’s hidden Nazi scientific research station during the Second World War. He had experimented upon people here and had discovered the powers I was attempting to learn. Did that make me as much of a monster as him? The only difference between us was that I asked first. My subjects had no idea what they were being asked. They had no idea of the horrible risk that they would be subjected to. No, I couldn’t claim that I was any more right than Victor. There was no good and there was no evil. There was only power, and those capable and willing to wield it. If you were unwilling to wield your power, you would be swept aside by those who would. That wasn’t going to happen to me again.

  I didn’t do much to placate my subject. Let him be nervous, that was a perfectly logical response to this situation. He sat on an examination bench that was easily over fifty years old and not that comfortable. I knew that from experience. I had once been shackled to that very bench.

  “Lie back,” I intoned. He looked up at me and gulped as he glanced between me and my assistant. He obviously didn’t know who to be more afraid of. Again, I didn’t blame him. My assistant had been dead for far longer than this man had been alive.

  “Randall won’t harm you.” I smiled softly. He couldn’t harm anyone. There was very little of Randall left, and I firmly controlled what remained. Randall was a drone, a dead man brought back to life to serve a mage. I had encountered their like before. I had seen them take bullets to the chest without flinching and perform acts that would have killed the living. Randall would do all these things and more. He would do anything I told him to. He had no more choice in the matter than any other tool in my hand.

  Victor had created Randall during the Second World War. I had encountered Randall when I first arrived in this place. It hadn’t taken me long to learn how to control the drones; the books I had stolen from Victor had covered their creation in some detail. It took little effort to seize control of them and bring them under my dominion. My assurances of his safety didn’t seem to comfort my subject much. Again, I didn’t blame him.

  “Lie back… please,” I repeated. I instructed Randall to hold the man down and bring his damaged arm into the light. The man flinched as Randall’s cold fingers gripped into him and held him down on the examination bench.

  The damage had been significant. The break to the arm hadn’t been clean. It was a miracle he had survived. He had obviously received skilled medical treatment very quickly after the trauma. That didn’t tell me anything though, if he hadn’t he’d be dead. The wound had been treated as one would normally treat an amputation. The flesh surrounding the wound had been folded over the stump and then stitched together to create a single scar. The tissue surrounding the wound was gnarled and tough from the damage it had received.

  This wouldn’t do. I need strong healthy flesh to work with. Dead or damage cells weren’t going to be sufficient for my needs. My subject flinched again as Randall applied more pressure to hold him down. His eyes glanced at me nervously as I pulled a scalpel from the gurney behind me.

  “Be calm,” I whispered, sending a burst of Mana into the stump where his arm had once been. I watched with satisfaction as the Mana did its work. The nerves surrounding the stump went dark one by one as they were lulled into a stupor and then died. They would regrow in time, but for now he didn’t need to feel what I was about to do.

  With a scalpel I gently opened the old wound. I was no doctor and my technique was sloppy. My work was more akin to a butcher than a surgeon; but it didn’t matter, this was damaged flesh anyway. It would need to be removed. I worked quietly and quickly. I could see my patient’s heart rate and breathing quicken as I worked. I didn’t need a machine to monitor my patient, I could see through the Mana just how he was doing. He would survive this, provided I didn’t let him bleed out. He had quite rightly gone into shock; I was after all cutting chunks of flesh from his arm. I had placed Randall in the way to prevent him from seeing what I was doing. He might feel pressure from Randall, but he would feel nothing of what I was doing. Randall’s fingers around the man’s arm acted as a tourniquet and kept blood loss to a minimum; even so, it was messy work.

  It took me half an hour to remove enough flesh until I was confident that I had removed enough to begin the real work. My patient passed out halfway through, and I was grateful for the silence. His haggard breaths and startled glances had been distracting. The wound surrounding the arm was now fresh and openly bleeding. I used Randall’s hands to bring the wound into the air. This would minimise further bleeding and bring the bloodied stump into the light. Yes, this looked good. I could work with this.

  I took a deep breath as I placed the scalpel into the bloodied mess I had left on the examination table. I flexed my fingers and watched with interest as the Mana played across my fingers. It still fascinated me even today. I watched for several seconds as the Mana built up in my hands. I ignored the slow but steady trails of blood that ran from the wound. I ignored the white flesh pressed tight on his arm by Randall’s dead fingers.

  I gritted my teeth. I needed to begin. Why couldn’t I begin?

  My hands shook as I released the first burst of Mana onto the wound. I had to force myself not to stop as I poured more and more Mana into the man’s flesh. The Mana looked sick and fey. This was abhorrent to me and send a chill down my spine. I doubted there was more than one other mage alive today who would have recognised the frequency of the Mana I was using. Victor was the only one. He would recognise it for what it was - after all he had discovere
d it.

  At first nothing changed, but I had expected this. The flesh had experienced a lot of trauma and it was natural that things would take a while. It happened so slowly, but that was okay. I knew what would occur next. The cells would regrow and new flesh would form. The problem was stopping what would happen after that. The issue wasn’t encouraging cellular regrowth. The trick was getting it to stop. Cancer is a bitch.

  I carefully monitored the growth of the Mana as it soaked into the surrounding cells. If I wasn’t careful I would lose control of the growth and it would become cancerous. Once that happened there was very little I could do. Fortunately that didn’t seem to be the case this time. I was making progress. I took a few moments to congratulate myself before I returned to my work.

  It was humbling to see the Mana solidify into bone, muscle and skin as it spread up my subject’s arm. Watching the Mana swirl around the intersection of flesh and magically creating bone, sinew and muscle from nothing. The subject would soon have a fully formed arm.

  Not subject! I corrected myself sternly. This man’s name was David. Now that things were looking positive I could remind myself of this fact. It was easier to keep them nameless if things didn’t go well. It kept me from remembering that these people had friends and family. It didn’t stop me from the callousness of my experiments, but it made me less likely to give in to baseless emotion and make mistakes. I couldn’t afford mistakes. Too many had already paid for my inattention.

  Yes, David’s arm was reforming at an acceptable rate. The radius and ulna were forming, surrounded by a ring of healthy flesh. His arm would be tender for a time, but soon it would be indistinguishable from his other arm. There didn’t appear to be any sign of cancerous cells. This was looking good.