Rotten Magic

by Jeffrey Bardwell

  4. DEVIN, YEAR 491

  A loud harrumph came from inside the classroom. All three of the apprentices turned to stare. A pair of old spectacles looked back, the eyes behind them unblinking and uncaring as the stench of chalk dust and parchment wafted into the hallway.

  “Will you lot scoot through the door already? You interrupted my lecture on steel joint welding. An intricate process to be sure. Now I must begin again,” the journeyman said, projecting his voice over the groans of the class. He jutted his chin at the empty desks in the front of the room and his spectacles slid down his nose. He pushed the spectacles back up with one finger while the digits of his other hand tapped on the lectern.

  Devin snorted as Drusilla helped him off the floor. To Journeyman Druge, classes were merely a waste of time that kept him from his proper station in life: the laboratory. He wasn't shy about telling them all how lucky they were he had sacrificed so much valuable time to further their education. After one of his dull lectures, most of his students fantasized about locking the man away in his lab and melting the key.

  Devin, Drusilla, and Benson took their seats. Druge resumed his lecture as the door closed, sealing the apprentices inside the classroom with him. As the journeyman droned, Devin's thoughts wandered back to the Black Guards. One of them follows me everywhere in the market. Nobody else, just me. And they've upgraded their suits. The better to squash poor, unsuspecting mages in their gigantic metal . . .

  A steel fist pounded on the classroom door. Devin whimpered, trying to push away from his desk and falling over. As laughter spurted from every corner of the room, Druge turned from Devin's prone figure to the door. “Oh, get up already. By the five gods, what is it now?” the journeyman sighed. “Enter! Enter secure in the knowledge you have doomed my students to perpetual ignorance. Get in here, man.”

  Devin blushed. He righted his chair. The eyes of the other apprentices singed the back of his neck, but none hotter than the gleeful twinkling malice of the Brute. “What are you so afraid of?” Benson drawled as the door cracked open and a small woman with a metal prosthetic hand entered the room.

  “Your presence is required in the forge room, Journeyman Druge,” the woman said, not giving the class a second glance.

  “Yes, very well. Talk amongst yourselves,” Druge said with a dismissive wave as he followed the woman from the room.

  Benson's smile grew wider and wider. “A mechanical hand?” he chuckled as the door closed behind the journeyman. “Does the thought of all those little springs and gears frighten you, Apprentice Devin?” He slapped his knee. “An artificer afraid of technology. Even the gods would laugh at that one.”

  “I wasn't . . . I wasn't afraid,” Devin stammered. Everyone knew it was a lie. He could see it in their faces.

  Benson's eyes widened with mock surprise. “Have you been play acting this whole time? Pretending at being an honest imperial like you pretend to be a dragon?” He pursed his lips. “You didn't grow up here. Did you come from Corel?”

  Devin shrunk into his desk as the room closed around him.

  Drusilla pushed away from her seat and went to comfort her friend. “That's enough, Benny.” She placed a hand on Devin's shoulder and squeezed gently. She turned and glared around the room as though daring anyone else to speak to even utter a whisper of reproach. At last she turned to Benson and her frown deepened as she marched toward him.

  Benson grinned at his enemy. “You are Corelian, aren't you? A rube from the east hiding among pure, civilized folks. One of those dirty, little mage lovers.”

  Drusilla gasped and slapped the bully full across the mouth. “You will take back those words,” she hissed. “Devin has more iron in his blood than ten of you! He has more skill in his little finger . . .”

  Benson rubbed his cheek and held up his hands. “Never said he wasn't artificer born. Just asking where.”

  “I'm not from Corel,” Devin said. “And is it a crime to like dragons?”

  Drusilla smirked and placed her hands on her hips. “Have you forgotten the symbol of the Iron Empire, Benny? That strange beast on all the banners? Scaly hide? Fiery breath? Leathery wings? What are those creatures called again?”

  “Dragons,” Benson said, crossing his arms and slouching.

  Drusilla smiled. “So nothing says imperial pride like a dragon, yeah? Keep the mage slurs to yourself next time or you'll be spitting teeth.”

  Benson ignored this and glared at Devin. “Just wait until this afternoon, Dragon Boy. We'll skin your scales then. Cut you up for dragon steaks.”

  “We'll see who cuts whom,” Devin murmured as Journeyman Druge returned to class. Devin spent the morning fantasizing about the retribution he would pound into Benson's hide that afternoon. To call someone a mage or a mage lover was the nastiest insult ever.

  How unfortunate it happens to be true, the artificer muttered.

  And how convenient, the mage cooed. Only fire will teach that young wretch some manners.

  Devin flexed his hand like a claw. My gauntlets will swipe the smile off his face.

  That afternoon, Devin crept around the back of the Guild Hall to don his mechanical gauntlets and armor. The large field walled off from the outside world was where the artificers came to test their inventions. Apprentices proved their mettle by designing and fighting in suits of powered armor.

  Devin's suit was . . . unique. He hid behind the old oak tree and began his transformation. The youth noticed the squirrels had been storing their nuts in the hollow crevice again and he left them undisturbed as he pulled several odd shaped metal objects from his stash. Nuts covered what he was doing quite nicely.

  Where a young artificer ducked around the tree, a metal dragon emerged from behind it. The horns curving around his head were pure affectation. The loricate steel chest armor looked approximately like the overlapping scaly bands on a dragon's belly. The blunted claws he strapped to his shoes acted like racer's cleats. But his prize joy were the pair of taloned, mechanized gauntlets: those dulled metal claws increased his grip strength five times and the things just looked so sleek.

  The masters and journeymen all refused to reveal what actually powered real mechanical armor, so the apprentices had to get creative and the weight penalty for their designs was absurd. Devin formed a clawed fist and the gears whirred as his fingers clenched. I could do so much more with a proper alchemical battery. Sometimes I think the guild just exists to keep secrets. He flexed his claws. You work with what you have: knowledge or materials. For all I know, they're encouraging us to innovate on purpose. Time to play the game.

  The apprentices' game of knights-and-dragon stretched back to the days of yore when a noble knight could trace his lineage from master to squire all the way back to the courts of old before the empire supplanted the monarchy. When knighthood represented something of the grandeur and chivalry lacking in their sad, wayside contemporaries.

  These days any common beggar off the street could join the academy to become a knight and many did. The academy churned out knights like a factory producing cheap, metal trinkets and flinging them across the empire. In modern times a 'knight' was either bashing heads inside the empire as a guard lackey or outside the empire as an army flunky. No more tournaments, no more heraldry, no more parades, and no more dragons.

  Some traditions are too ingrained to die, Devin reflected. They used to just divide into teams and play knights vs knights. But then one day Devin made a suit of dragon armor and Benson got creative.

  The rules of the game were simple: 1) No edged weapons, 2) No broken bones, 3) Don't involve the masters, and 4) The dragon always loses.

  Devin spotted the first pair of pot belly rejects sauntering with their tin helmets. They were beating the bushes with their little, wooden swords.

  “Damn dragon's around here somewhere.” One of the knights grunted, fidgeting in his ill fitting, tin plate shoulder pads.

  “Benson's gonna piss himself if that horned loser almost wins the fight again.”
The second one smiled. “We'll have a pink flood.”

  The first smacked his sword against his palm. “So we find Dragon Boy and we soften him up a bit first.”

  Devin grinned. You would be scrap metal if you tried. Benson usually sent a small, isolated vanguard of knights to probe the dragon's defenses, always the newest or most stupid of his lackeys. He'd seen these fellows before.

  The dragon flew around the bushes and ambushed the two unwary knights, throwing them to the ground. The knights twitched and lay still even as he collected their swords. It was an implicit, but never openly stated, rule that when a combatant was knocked down, he or she was “dead” and out of the game. After all, why state the obvious?

  Benson had added the fourth official rule, codifying another implicit tradition after drafting Devin to join the game. The dragon wasn't supposed to try and win; he was supposed to put up a valiant, mock battle and then die with dignity. Devin preferred to thrash knights. That's what dragons did. A pox on Benson and his imaginary rule.

  The dragon smiled, baring his fangs and flexing his metal claws. Three more knights down. But where is the main force lurking? Where is Benson?

  Devin saw Drusilla leading a group of armored female apprentices flanking around the side of the field and shied away from them. It always pained him to see that girl in the enemy's armor. But she always backed away when the fighting got heavy, kept her wooden sword sheathed, and never struck the final blow to slay the evil dragon. His friend a knight while he was stuck as the dragon.

  The youth snarled. If only they were playing a different game, Drusilla could be a princess and he could kidnap and carry her away. He never suggested such a game, not because Drusilla would protest, but because Benson would invariably cast himself as the knight errant or worse as the king and that could not be borne.

  But most of all, the artificer reminded him, you keep at this game because you like playing the dragon with all the knights of the world arrayed against you. It is the challenge that thrills you.

  It is nothing but a craving for the sweet taste of victory, the mage muttered.

  Devin admired the bundle of trophy swords he had amassed. He was always tempted to break the things, but some small part of the dragon's heart identified with those chivalrous knights of old. The youth peered around the side of the building. Benson's group had joined Drusilla's group and they had spread out in a line, working their way around the building to cordon him.

  The knights surrounded him and Devin laughed as the circle closed. Now comes the showdown between the brute knight and the mighty dragon. The mirth died in his throat as Benson stepped aside and pushed Drusilla forward. The girl's face paled.

  “T'would be churlish of me to kill this beast without recognizing the role of your Woman's Army, Milady. Honor the sacrifices of our fallen knights. Take my sword. Slay the monster.”

  I am a secret mage and a dragon at heart, Devin thought. Maybe I deserve execution.

  “Nay, sirrah,” Drusilla stumbled over the words as she held up her hands. “Whatever his flaws, whatever his crimes, this beast hath an innocent soul. What wrongs hath this dragon committed, what harmless villagers slaughtered, to deserve such a fate?”

  “It matters not,” Benson smiled. “He is a loathsome dragon who stains the earth with his touch and fouls the air with his breath. He is guilty by his mere existence. Do thy duty, Milady. Slay this beast in my name.” He thrust his sword into her hands.

  Devin clenched his teeth, preparing for the blow. Those wooden swords hurt.

  Drusilla clenched the brute's wooden blade in her hands, running her fingers along the delicate oaken hilt and smelling the cherry blade, admiring the leather wrapped hilt and smooth pommel. The girl looked the bully in the eye, stuck her tongue out at Benson, and threw his sword on Devin's pile of trophies.

  Benson sucked the air between his teeth. “Then thou art a traitor. Surrender your sword.”

  Drusilla sighed as she fumbled with the sheath and held out her blade. In that unguarded moment, Benson's arm whipped forward, took her sword, and smacked the flat of the blade into the girl's midriff below the padded edge of her breast plate.

  The girl gasped as the breath was audibly driven from her lungs, clutched her stomach, and collapsed. She huddled on the ground and forced herself to lay rigid. Benson lightly placed her sword on the twitching, fallen corpse of the knight Drusilla.

  Devin did not scream or rant or gnash his fangs, though deep inside a part of him wanted to do these things. Instead, Devin braced Benson's beautiful wooden sword against a tree, raised his steel cleats, and stomped. The blade shattered and Devin tossed the wooden shards at Benson's feet.

  “Can't use that sword anymore can you, Benny?” Devin taunted. “Ha! It's an edged weapon, now.”

  For a moment, Benson looked as though he might. The brute cradled the hilt in his arms and kept touching the points protruding from the half blade. “Kill the dragon. Stomp him into the ground. We want to make sure that beast is deceased.”

  “Kitchen knights,” Devin crowed, surrounded by pan shields and soup spoon daggers. A foot kicked his shin. “You had to raid the pantry for those costumes. Oh, Benny. Did you strip your momma's cupboard bare and ruin your daddy's firewood to whittle that stupid sword? You don't have a pink pot to piss in anymore.”

  Benson's cheeks flushed. The bully reversed his splintered, broken blade. He raised the hilt over his head and slammed the pommel into Devin's head. The crack of two solid surfaces connecting and the lesser one yielding vanished into silence as everyone backed away.

  Not an edged weapon, Devin thought hazily as he crashed into the ground. Darkness crept over him. Clever, clever Benny. Why couldn't you be stupid or overconfident, like the villains in the fairy tales?

  When he awoke, Drusilla was sitting against a tree, cradling his head and singing an ancient song of hopeless quests and glorious battles. She had removed her helmet and long, brown hair spilled over her shoulders and tickled his nose. The girl had neglected to remove the rest of the knight costume and her armor jabbed his neck. Devin sat up and glared. He picked up her helmet, holding the thing pinched between his fingers like a foul, skunky cabbage.

  Drusilla shrugged. “I may be your best friend, Devi, but I'm still a knight.” She patted his head and smiled as he laid the helmet on the ground. She rapped the breastplate with her knuckles and it gave a tinny, hollow ring as she gently detached his horns and placed them on his chest. She patted her lap and he eased his head back down. She threaded her fingers into his hair, kneading his scalp. “Knights are common as dirt, but there's only one Dragon Boy.”

  The weight of her words sunk past his disheveled hair and deep into his mind. They all fight the dragon. The dragon is supposed to lose. He clenched his fist and the dragon horns bit into his fingers. I need something more than armor. More powerful than gauntlets. I need something more . . .

  The power is already lurking deep inside you, waiting to be unleashed, the mage purred. Is a dragon not a fearsome magic creature?

  This is a game of skill, the artificer said. Do not pervert an honest contest between apprentices with such loathsome, tainted words.

  Metal skin. Metal horns. Metal claws, the mage scoffed. He wins these contests with ease using this weak, fragile facade. Has he earned the respect of these knights? Basked in the adulation of his metal-bending peers? Feh. He must show them the true dragon. Only then will he win.

  Devin gripped the broken dragon horns, twisting them, bending them further and further out of shape. The artificer and the mage fell silent, leaving the youth alone with his thoughts. For once, for the first time since the pair of strange voices had invaded his mind, Devin carefully considered their words with something other than detached interest.

  5. DRUSILLA, YEAR 491

  I have always taken a detached interest in warped things. How does knocking one piece of a machine askew lead to the collapse of the whole system? How is everything intertwined? How can I put it
back together? This was different. This was my friend. It was hard to detach myself. I twined my thumb around one of Devin's errant dark curls as his head lay in my lap. He has such thick, luscious hair. How can a boy have such hair?

  Devin closed his eyes and hummed. The content, happy sound felt like tiny daggers dancing on my ears as my thoughts grew more discordant.

  He's a boy, not a machine. But lately, he's been acting more and more machine-like: driven, distant, wobbly—like there's a gear working loose somewhere in here. I sighed and dug my fingers deeper into his scalp. Are warped devices created that way or do they slowly twist over time? I ran my fingers over the tiny bumps on his head, picking away the flecks of dried blood. When do a succession of little imperfections meld into the perfect explosion of shattered pieces—I withdrew my fingers.

  Devin winced as a few strands of hair pulled away in my hands.

  Just what are you hoping will happen? I quietly accused myself. And when did Dragon Boy here become just another project, a puzzle to be solved? He's my friend, yeah?

  He grabbed my wrist. “What's wrong?” The touch of concern in his voice made my stomach seize up.

  I smiled. Would you still sound so endearing if you could hear me analyzing those stripped gears inside your head? “Nothing. You're silly skull is just making my legs fall asleep.” He shifted and I groaned. “Get up, Dragon Boy. I can't bear the weight of you today.”

  Devin scowled and sat up. The broken set of horns slid off his chest and clattered to the ground. “I need to fix that,” he murmured, opening his eyes and reaching down.

  “You plucked the thoughts right from my mind,” I chuckled, then bit my lip.

  Devin's sour face brightened. “Would you?” he asked, handing me the horns.