The Artifice Mage Saga Boxed Set: Books 1-3

by Jeffrey Bardwell

  “I thought the training was rigorous. Sascha,” she called. “Take this watch away before the thing permanently injures your father.”

  “Oh, they are both fit for their duties, love.” The magistrate chuckled as his son ran into the room, grabbed the brass watch, and ran away again. “Both are commendable, conscientious, and two of my most highly regarded men. They've each worked for me for years and no doubt breezed through the academy. But each one is flawed in some way, off kilter. It's been bothering me more than usual lately.”

  “Why don't you talk it out?” she asked, settling into the chair opposite his and stretching her legs across his lap. “I'm always willing to listen. Unburden yourself and massage my feet while you're at it.”

  “Well, a guardsmen, the ideal guardsman, is a gentleman of many parts.” He took his wife's feet and squeezed the sides.

  She quivered. “Tell me more.”

  “The proper guard is well rounded.” He worked his fingers in little circles on her soles. “He is brave, compassionate, fair, stern, tough, wise, and witty.” He caressed under her toes and she giggled. “We police the whole expanse of the empire, and so we must reflect the empire.”

  “But you do.” Elena retracted her feet. “I've never seen such a chaotic mix of people in one building. You've attracted men from here in the west, from the capitol, the eastern provinces, and even the barbarian north. You even employ a few naturalized foreigners. And you have them working together so cohesively, dear, despite their many differences. You are a marvel and your dedication is one of the many things I adore about you.”

  His wife vaulted from her chair. She perched herself on his armrest again and cuddled next to her husband.

  “Thank you, Elena.” He held her close. “They're good guards, no matter their origins. The empire rotates the men through different posts, so it's not uncommon to see a multitude of faces. But that isn't quite what I meant. It's their emotional fortitude that worries me, not clashing cultures or ideologies.”

  “You lead the best guard unit in the empire and administer the most successful province. Nothing you do or say will convince me otherwise. Well, unless the emperor fires you. Can we move someplace with marble tiles if the emperor fires you?”

  “We are the best guards in the world, dear. We are not the Red Army sent abroad to pacify our enemies. We are not the Golden Diplomatic Corps sent over seas to placate our allies. We are the Black Guards. We grapple with citizens of the empire. Our enemies and our allies live right here in our own backyard. We must be softer than the army and harder than the diplomats.”

  “Oh, thank goodness you don't run the diplomatic corps, love. We would never live in the same house twice from season to season. Better to stay at home.”

  “The Black Guards must strike a balance,” the magistrate pounded the armrests and dislodged his wife. She toppled to the floor with a loud squawk, which her husband did not seem to hear. “We must protect the best of humanity while wrestling with the worst. But for the Black Guards, how can you tell which is which? Sometimes the border between the two wavers.”

  “Among the people you catch?” his wife asked, confused, picking herself up off the ground.

  “Among the guards, Elena. A guard represents the empire. He is the face of the empire everyone sees every day. We must embody all of the empire's virtues and none of its excesses. Such is our duty. These two men are unbalanced. Despite their virtues, or because of them, these guards embrace excess.”

  “Surely, some extra enthusiasm on the job is not a bad thing?” his wife asked, resuming her proper place in a separate chair beside her husband.

  “No, they both excel at their jobs. As far as I know, both men love their jobs. They are wildly enthusiastic, dear, but one brims with compassion and the other with sadism. I can name no names, you understand?”

  “Of course, Lucius.” Elena rolled her eyes and hugged her husband.

  He sighed. Keeping secrets from a wife was a fool's enterprise. She knew his men's roster like the back of her soft, warm hands. His wife insisted on greeting all of his guardsmen by name when she saw them patrolling the streets. She even inquired after their families. His wife could lecture him on his guards' private lives and yet duty demanded he not share intimate details of his workplace with her. Which meant he got to feel like an idiot and omit names from gentlemen she could identify in a trice by the color of their toenails and their children's birthdays.

  “The first guard, let's call him Guard X, is an admirable man in many ways. He is kind and sweet and compassionate. The men would lay siege to the tower of the gods for that man and hurtle themselves against its alabaster walls for all eternity. They would do it. They would follow him anywhere. He inspires them to the greatest heights man can achieve.”

  “Guard X,” his wife coughed, “sounds like a wonderful man, a model imperial citizen, and a credit to the Black Guards. I'm sure if I ever met him, I would concur with your assessment, dear, and try and find that man a good wife. What 's the problem?”

  The magistrate sighed. “The men would assault the tower of the gods for him, Elena, but he would never order them to charge. He loves too much. He cares too much. Every older man is his brother and every younger man his son.”

  “So? He treats them like a family. Don't you want your guards to be one big happy family?”

  “We're more like a dysfunctional family at the moment, dear. A proper guardsman tempers warm affection with cold calculation. Sometimes we must send a man to die for the good of the empire. Guard X climbs the ranks like a giant scaling a mountain. If he advances much further, he's going to find himself in the position where he must lead instead of shepherd. I don't know if he can. And don't get me started on the prisoners.”

  “What about the prisoners?”

  “If he is a father to all my men,” the magistrate said, “then he mothers all my prisoners. Sometimes I think I run a hotel instead of a constabulary. If there are doilies on the pillows tomorrow, I will not be held accountable for my actions. And the men all nod and wink and ignore his larger excesses because they adore him.”

  “What of Guard Y, dear? Do the men all adore that one?”

  “They're terrified of that one.”

  “How else is this guard different from the other?”

  “Well, forget inspiring assaults on the gods. This man worships the law.”

  “What an odd thing for a magistrate to say,” his wife said. “You don't run a temple, dear. What's wrong with a guard who venerates justice?”

  “Not justice, the law. That man treats the law like a glass idol. If you break it, he will force feed you the shards and blow the dry dust in your eyes for spite. It is his duty. He venerates law. He mouths platitudes to justice.”

  Sasha burst into the room, waving the large pocket watch like a trophy. “Daddy, Daddy, I have a trick for you! Do you want to see a trick? Daddy, watch my trick!”

  “Not now, Sascha,” the magistrate said, waving his son away. “Mommy and Daddy are still talking. Go and play some more.”

  “If Guard X's heart is filled with clotted cream, then Guard Y is filled with thin, black bile. He is a throwback to the violent days of yore when guards slaughtered more prisoners than they rehabilitated. He is most at home in the torture chamber. I can hardly protest, can I? Torturing confessions and administering corporal punishments is a part of his job. He revels in his job. He lives to cause pain.”

  “He sounds like a horrible man,” Elena said.

  “It is the way of the world, love, that horrible men make excellent torturers. I cannot even excuse the man for being a dullard. He is smart and crafty. He extracts promotions with more ease than he extracts confessions. The man twists and manipulates the system and he loathes the prisoners.”

  “Are prisoners not loathsome, dear?” his wife asked.

  “Whatever their crimes, those men and women are still citizens of the empire. He hates them too much.”

  “Is punishing prisoners n
ot part of the duty of the Black Guard, however distasteful you find it?”

  “I have no stomach for it, love, though I must bow to the necessity. But a proper guard should not derive such awful delight and glee from such a wretched task.”

  “So what if they're not perfect guards? Surely everyone cannot be the ideal Black Guard from your recruitment posters. They don't all meet your rarefied standards, do they?”

  “We are none of us ideal anything, dear.”

  “So what? They've both been performing their jobs well enough to advance up the ranks for years now. What suddenly brought all these issues to a head?”

  The magistrate rose and held a hand for his wife. She took it and he pulled her upright. “Let's go into the kitchen. That juicy roast has been stewing into my mind and I find myself hankering for a snack to get the taste of office politics out of my mouth.”

  Elena glanced at the sun slanting through the windows. “It's almost time for supper. Sascha's been so quiet, I lost track.”

  The magistrate and his wife adjourned to the kitchen. Seeing that the grownup talk had ended, their son trailed close behind them. As his wife handed him a crust of toast dipped in sweet lard, the magistrate sat on the warm tile hearth, leaned against the vibrating mechanized spit, and motioned for his son to join him.

  “Do you feel that, son? That's what progress feels like. And right now progress is easing all the knots from Daddy's back. Feels good, huh?”

  “Uh huh,” Sascha agreed, wiggling against the ornate filigree plate steel to scratch an itch between his shoulders. “When's supper? And when will you see my new trick?”

  “Soon, son, soon. I need to show you something first. You need to see how the empire created your dinner.”

  “Empire, nothing,” his wife said, rolling up her sleeves. “Don't listen to your Daddy, Sascha. I create your dinner.”

  “Yes, dear,” the magistrate said. “Anyway, son, back in the day, we didn't have machines like this. He patted the chuffing, steam-powered spit. “We had to turn the crank and raise and lower the roast by hand.”

  “Or used flea-ridden, mangy dogs,” his wife added.

  “Or dogs. Do you remember the dogs, Sascha?”

  “Puppies,” Sascha squealed.

  “Yes, we got rid of the puppy mill and replaced it with this sleek creation. Many craftsmen joined together throughout the empire to design and build this awesome machine. We had to rip up the entire fireplace to install this baby. Then we resheathed the hearth. Marble, of course,” he said, nodding to his wife.

  “Yes, in this one, tiny corner of the house. Oh, thank you, Lucius.”

  “Let me show you how it works.”

  “Must you parade us through this tired routine every time I cook a meal?” His wife braced her hands on her hips and huffed. “Forgive me, every time your machine cooks a meal?”

  “Yes, dear, I must.”

  “Then may I unbolt the faceplate tonight, darling? It's the highlight of my evening.” Without waiting for permission, she elbowed her husband aside and bent over the machine, twisting knobs and screws.

  “It's the wizards,” the magistrate said, cuddling his son, who in turn cuddled the yarn doll.

  “What, dear?” His wife's voice echoed from within the belly of the machine.

  “What's turned my Black Guards inside out. It's the wizard problem. The mousy mages keep popping up their little heads. Part of me wishes they would just stay hidden. We used to be lucky to catch five or six wizards per season; now it's one or two every other day. They've been squeaking out between the gears like greasy, little rats. Suddenly there are rats everywhere and that bodes ill for the rat catchers.”

  “Thank you for that delightful image.” His wife took her oil-stained fingers and smeared them on his shirt.

  “Are there more of them? Have we gotten so much better at detecting them? Who knows? Who cares? The capitol's sent us scurrying down rat holes to capture every single one.”

  “So, your men are overworked. Wouldn't be the first time you drove them too hard, would it, dear? How do rampaging wizards tie back to your two problem guards?”

  “They're wizards. They have no rights. Once they drain themselves and we capture them (don't get me started on how many men I use up grappling that task), they must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

  “They're criminals, dear,” his wife said.

  “But they are no longer citizens. They are traitors. You can't rehabilitate a wizard. They face the most gruesome punishment imaginable: men, women, little girls, little boys.”

  “Surely, the state doesn't expect you to administer the traitor's punishment to children?”

  “Expects and demands. The state doesn't care. And then you have two of my highest ranking guards: one cries and hordes candies for the little wretches while the other one hones his scalpels and sharpens his knives. The men don't know whether to follow the sergeant they love or fall in step behind the captain they loathe. You did not just hear me say that.”

  “No Lucius, of course not. And you must strike a balance, right?”

  “Oh, I can't choose sides, I can't choose sides. They are both doing their duty, however misguided, as I must do mine. But it's tearing the rest of my unit apart, Elena.”

  “I can make you happy, Daddy! Hold Lil' Sascha for me and I will show you my trick. Daddy, look. I fixed your watch for you.”

  The magistrate gaped. The watch had not worked in ages. It was a relic, a display piece from his younger days. The magistrate had not ventured into the streets or gone on patrol for years, but he felt some solidarity with the brave guards whom he sent into danger every day carrying the thing around in his pocket just like a real Black Guard. He certainly never used it for its intended function anymore. That was not his duty.

  The watch wasn't even useful as a watch. Around the office, the thing made a better nut cracker or a glorified paper weight. Like he told his son, the watch did not tell time. That was not its function. The watch had one sole, sinister purpose.

  Sascha hefted the device above his head proudly with both hands, turning the open case so that both of his parents could see his achievement. The watch face had a single dial, a crooked counterclockwise spiral with the arrow pointing backwards. The machinery creaked and as the magistrate watched, numb, the dial slowly started twisting. The machinery in the watch began to hum.

  The magistrate clutched his stomach. He felt as though the arrow had shot from the watch dial, spiraled into his body, and hooked to his intestines. As the watch spun faster, his guts twisted harder and harder and harder.

  This is not happening. This cannot be happening. The magistrate closed his eyes and willed the dial to stop moving, berating it like a naughty child. Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!

  “Sascha, put that down,” his wife cried, her face a mask of terror. “You put that down right now!”

  “No, I can make it go faster. I've been practicing. Watch me.”

  The magistrate forced himself to open his eyes. The man tried to focus on the boy's sweet face and not the doom held above it. The watch screeched, demanding the man's attention.

  Sascha held the device higher. The boy closed his eyes and focused. Then his son's hands began glowing. The dial spun faster and faster. The dial blurred. His fingers started deforming the bronze case. The machinery in the watch soon reached a screaming, frantic pitch.

  The magistrate reached for Sascha, to scold him, to protect him, to hide him, but the man knew it was too late. What froze his fingers midair was not his son, but his wife: Elena's stricken, harried look of total grief and despair.

  Elena wasn't looking at their son with those dead, empty eyes. She was looking at him.

  10. DEVIN, YEAR 494

  Devin could not see anything. The armoire suffocated and smothered him. Devin squirmed until he could place his nose and left ear against the door. The gaps between the weaved branches offered a welcome source of fresh air and curious sounds, muffled and indist
inct. As the youth listened, the noise came into focus. His imagination filled the gaps.

  “Kettle's done,” Cornelius said. “How enchanting. I cannot remember the last time an imperial citizen knocked on my door. We must sit and drink our tea and eat these tiny cakes like two civilized adults.”

  “I hail from the glittering font of civilization. My name is Armand Delacourt Vice. A pleasure to meet you.”

  “Is it? I wish I could say the same. I am Master Cornelius Gander.”

  “I could hardly have walked across the kingdom without hearing about the great and powerful Master Wizard, Cornelius. I even read some of your books. We confiscated them from an escaped criminal.”

  “So I have heard. Is it the custom of the empire to steal from their citizens and escort all the escaped criminals to the border?”

  “Those books were confiscated from a convicted traitor. He was no loyal son of the empire. A miscarriage of the law coddled one mage, and he escaped justice: a mistake I am seeking to rectify before the poison spreads. That damnable trial has given those horrible people hope and made them all the more dangerous. He is a symbol we must extinguish before the violence spreads.”

  Devin pushed away from the door, stunned. He almost missed Cornelius's reply. I am a symbol of hope? Black Guards are against spreading violence? Since when?

  “Hope for a better life is such an awful, insidious thing. I wish your empire the best of luck stomping it out. Mages can be so . . . difficult sometimes.”

  “The empire has ways of dealing with mages, be they ever so bold and powerful.” A heavy metal object thunked on the table, most likely the brass watch. “What peculiar chairs,” Vice said, scraping a seat against the floor. The wood protested and groaned as the man sat. “What is that fantastic smell?”

  “Not the turnip stew simmering over the fire?” Cornelius chuckled. “I would think an enlightened, imperial palette would consider my wholesome, Corelian stew somewhat rustic.”

  “We are not so unworldly in the empire that I have never smelled turnips. But such a large pot to feed a single man. Do you not have a guest here? A youth with a large appetite to eat the rest of your stew? Is he perhaps hiding in the back room while you 'entreat' with me?”