by Dante King
The wagon shook unevenly as we entered the Grand Esplanade. I may have been robbed of sight, but I knew this city almost as well as I knew the countryside where I’d grown up. The moment I’d moved here, a boy with ambitious hopes, I had familiarized myself with every last little alley and major lane in the city. It never hurt to know where you might need to hide one day, and how to get there. Of course, anyone who lived there knew the Grand Esplanade, and the magnificent view of the Longscale River. Once we passed underneath the open arch gate, the guardhouse would be down the paved promenade and to the right.
Instead, the wagon took a sharp right before the gate and came to a stop. I tensed instinctively, and my heart started pumping blood more rapidly to ready my brain and trained muscles. Wherever the soldiers were taking me, it was certainly not the guardhouse. Before I sensed a mage approaching, I already smelled her, a feminine freshness standing out in the steaming, dusty city like a daffodil blooming in a dung heap. She approached soundlessly. I had heard only a couple of whispered footsteps when the wagon doors were thrown open, and I found myself gawping at a tall, beautiful woman wearing the uniform of the city guard.
Her slender figure was framed in a halo of light. Her scent was strong and distinctive; it drew me right in. She was completely covered in the blues and whites of the city guard uniform, but the material clung to her form, accentuating the elegant reach of her flat belly and the slight curve of her hips.
The thin black belt she wore around her waist held together the light-blue half-skirt that draped her hips and revealed the stark white of her trousers, visible through its waist-high slit. Her gloved hand rested on the hilt of her rapier, touching it tenderly, the way I touched my ax. I had no doubt she was the kind of woman who knew how to use it, and use it well.
Her magic billowed around her tall, statuesque form in swirls of orange, red, and tiny specks of gold. It had the tenor of strength and resilience, as fiercely independent as Lillian’s magic but not as strong. What she had, though, was a matured and cunning control over her powers. Silver-black hair fell past her shoulders in light waves, seeming to mirror the ease with which I was sure she wielded her magic. Her full coral lips were curved into the hint of a smile as her bright, upward-slanting eyes regarded me critically.
“Kurt Woodsman,” she stated.
I raised my eyebrows. “I take it I’m not going to the guardhouse?”
“You have that right.”
“Who are you?”
“Yarina Windryder.” Every time she moved her head, her silver-black hair caught the sunlight and sparkled wildly.
“What do you want with me, Yarina Windryder?” I asked.
“Service,” she replied simply.
I frowned. “I’m a guardsman at the Arcanum. At least I was until a few hours ago. Come to think of it, I might actually have some time to do you a little service. Though you shouldn’t ask me to guard anything. I figure you know what happened last time I took a job with that requirement.”
She laughed. “Your talents are wasted in the Arcanum anyway.”
I felt something stir in me, and I knew exactly what it was: the old ambition that had driven me to leave the countryside and move to the city.
“My talents?” I repeated.
Yarina met my gaze with a confidence I recognized in myself. “You thought you were just a Zero. You were wrong. Your magic cannot be detected by others, and yet you can detect their powers.”
“I always thought it was strange that I could smell and see other people’s magic.”
“You have other powers, no? Or have they not shown themselves yet?”
“You mean the goo?”
“Goo?” She frowned. “The Negation Aura?”
“It sounds so much cooler with a name like that.” I smiled at the angelic beauty. “Let’s say I agree that I’m not exactly a Zero. I can’t really agree to use my talents, because I don’t even know what they are.”
“Kurt Woodsman,” Yarina said with all the officiality of a monarch, “you are a natural-born mage slayer.”
3
“Did you say…mage…slayer?” I asked. It was hard to piece together what that might mean, while trying not to get distracted by her cool grey eyes that bordered on the hypnotic.
She smiled. “I did. You can get out of the wagon, Kurt.”
I realized I had edged all the way to the door, my head awkwardly bent to be able to look outside, so I jumped out immediately with a nimble twist. It felt nice to stretch my legs. As I stepped onto the uneven stones beside Yarina, I noticed she was almost my height. At six-three, I was used to towering over most women. But Yarina must have been five-ten at least.
We were standing in a quiet alleyway. I recognized the bronze cobblestones beneath our feet and the neglected brick walls on either side of us. The wagon had turned into the little street between the Limp Cat and the Black Sailor, two alehouses I used to frequent before I’d found a home at the Broken Barrel.
I looked around and realized we were alone. Where were the two guards who were supposed to be accompanying me to the guardhouse?
“I’m supposed to be heading to the guardhouse for questioning,” I said. “I’m already in enough shit. I’d really not like to drown in it. From the look of things, Archmage Barlin holds a lot of sway.”
Yarina looked unimpressed. “Archmage Barlin is a child with a homemade cardboard seal compared to the people I work for.”
Well, lah di dah.
“Like who?” I asked.
“There’s no need for you to possess that information.”
“Then there’s also no need for me to stick around.”
Yarina sighed. “I cannot tell you who I work for, but I can tell you that they would be incredibly displeased if you left. Besides, I have much more to tell you. And even more to show you.”
“Is that so?” I let a smile freely occupy my lips as I looked the dazzling city guardswoman up and down. I knew she wasn’t making an innuendo, but I enjoyed the way she rolled her eyes. This probably wasn’t the time for flirtatious banter, but this woman was hitting all the right buttons...and I wanted to press more than a few of hers.
Yarina chuckled under her breath, obviously enjoying my appreciation. “Nothing like that,” she said. “You strike me as the kind of man who likes a challenge—perhaps even a little danger?”
I was almost certainly out of a job at the library, and I’d be unhirable after last night’s colossal fuck-up—fuck-up, that is, in the eyes of the public. It hadn’t been my fault, but no one would believe that. Whoever this woman and her employers were, they would provide the only jobs that would fill my coin purse.
“Okay,” I nodded. “I’m listening.”
“Mage slayers existed a long time ago,” Yarina started explaining, while retaining her composure with remarkable ease. She spoke slowly, her plump lips moving with beautiful precision. “They were an ancient order of magical beings who were chosen to hunt down corrupt mages and cleanse the kingdom of their tainted magic.”
“Magical beings,” I said, “hold on. There’s nothing magical about me.” I paused for a moment as I remembered what Yarina had called the Negation Aura. “You’re talking about the goo that protected me from the pyromancer’s fire?”
She smiled in a way that suggested she wasn’t about to reveal all her secrets just like that. “Why do you think I tracked you down? You not only managed to survive the fight, you managed to kill a pyromancer.”
“That sounds very plausible, bravo, only that you showed up almost immediately after the fight. You couldn’t have heard about me and come to find me so quickly. You knew about me before last night, didn’t you?”
She wasn’t fazed. “I’ve been watching you for a while, Kurt.” Yarina tilted her head ever so slightly downward and fixed her gaze on me from below. A tingle ran down my spine.
“A beautiful stalker,” I said. “And here I was thinking all stalkers were twos, threes at best, but you’re at least a nine an
d a half.”
“Sorry?”
“Out of ten.” When I noticed she was still confused, I opened my mouth to explain, but she lifted a palm in a minimal gesture.
“Enough chatter. I want to see exactly how powerful you are.”
I shrugged. “Tell me what I need to do.”
She studied my face, looking for clues, and her eyes dropped to the bruise on my arm.
“Does it hurt?” she asked pointedly.
“I’ve had worse.”
“May I?” She gestured for me to show her my arm.
I nodded and offered her my forearm. She pulled off her glove and touched her fingertips to the red splotches that dotted my skin. The cool caress of her touch sent tingles up my arm and further up to the top of my head.
“He was a journeyman pyromancer,” she said, mostly to herself. Then her gray eyes found mine as her fingers lingered on my forearm for just another moment. “This was a direct hit. It should have burned you whole. Even with a Negation Aura, you couldn’t have prevented so strong a blast.”
“I was lucky.”
“This wasn’t luck, Kurt,” she said, and there was an earnest note in her voice. “It wasn’t just the Negation Aura, either.”
“Maybe the favor of the gods?” I suggested with a laugh. “They sure know I need their favor. I’ve been saying my prayers, you know. Every night before I lay down to sleep.”
Yarina dismissed me with a shake of her head. “You simply summoned the aura without realizing it. Mage slayers typically have the ability, but they have to train for months, sometimes years, to produce even a weak form. You were able to produce the aura because of Instinctive Negation.”
“Umm…Instinctive what now?”
She sighed. “You’ve never heard of Instinctive Negation before?”
I shrugged.
“The Battle of Revin? Where the siege machines were disarmed through the act of one small boy? He had Instinctive Negation. This is the stuff of modern legends.”
I shook my head slowly. “Never heard of Revin. Never heard of the boy. Never heard of Instinctive Negation.” I knew I sounded like one of those broken arcane automatons they kept in the library, but I was getting a kick out of irking Yarina.
She placed a hand on her forehead and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “He knows so little,” she muttered to herself. “I can see this assignment will be rather difficult.”
“I’m from the country,” I said. “I know how to milk cows and herd sheep. I can chop wood with an axe, and I’m half-decent at throwing one, too. Magic is kind of new to me. I had no reason to study it before I moved to Trysca.”
“Well, now you sure do have good reason to,” Yarina said. “A mage slayer’s magic is usually dormant. It typically marks its owner as non-magical and only shows itself under extreme pressure.”
“Like the boy in the Battle of Revin?” I asked, and she nodded. “See? I might not know a lot, but I have a good memory.”
“You can recall something I explained less than a minute ago...you’re right, a remarkable feat of recollection.” Yarina smiled at me, and I took the verbal swipe on the chin.
“Touche,” I said. “Just wait until I start reading up on my magical history. So, I suppose you’ll be telling me more about this Negation Aura?”
“Indeed. It behaves much like a shield. It’ll protect the mage slayer from any magic sent in his general direction. In some cases, it can even nullify the strength of the magic being used.”
“I still felt his fire though,” I pointed out. “But it didn’t burn me.”
“Negation Aura is a minimal shield. It will take the sting off attacks, but it won’t protect you completely. Without it, you would not have survived the fight.”
I whistled low. “Damn…who would’ve thought?”
“You haven’t ever experienced Negation Aura before?” Yarina asked with clinical interest.
“No. I’ve never shown signs of any magical ab…” I stopped short. It seemed so silly, but what could be the worst thing that happened if I just mentioned it?
“What is it?” Yarina asked.
“I can sense magic,” I admitted. “And not just sense it…I can smell it, feel it…taste it. There are times I can even sense the type of magic that’s been used.”
“Can you sense my magic?” she asked.
I nodded. “It’s beautiful. Red and orange, a couple of darker spots of magenta…even a little gold around the edges. I’ve always been able to see a mage’s magical aura. I just always chalked it up to being alert…observant.”
“It’s called the hunter sense,” Yarina explained. “Another characteristic of your kind. It allows you to anticipate attacks. It will give you an edge in battle.”
“And what battle would that be?” I asked, amused.
“The one on our doorstep,” she replied, “the one we need to prepare for.”
“So you’re here to recruit me?”
“You have a very specific skill set, Kurt, and the city could use a man like you on our side…especially now that the enemy has got the Terminus Seal.”
“Why is this seal so important?” I asked. This kind of information was not shared with the library guards, let alone with a non-magical one. We had to be satisfied with knowing it was of unimaginable value. “And why does every side want it?”
“The seal absorbs energy,” Yarina explained patiently, “and magnifies it threefold. It was created to fuel magical experiments and further magical knowledge, but it was stolen from its creator and used against the people. Its theft was the reason behind the Apocalypse Wars.”
I raised my eyebrows. This was new. I knew about the Apocalypse Wars, of course, but had never realized the small object I had been guarding was what it was all about.
“So, Kurt Woodsman,” Yarina said, again with that formal tone. “Will you join our ranks and embrace your role as mage slayer?”
“Do I have a choice?” I asked.
“Of course you do.” She cocked her head. “Your choice is simple. You can choose to work for the kingdom, help me retrieve the stolen seal, and be hailed as the man who saved our city…or you can skulk away into obscurity, live a quiet, normal life…and disappear into the fine print of history.”
I narrowed my eyes playfully. “Thank you for putting it into perspective for me.”
Yarina smiled brighter, her eyes lighting up too this time. The gray sparkled and showed itself to be close to silver at times. “I don’t think you needed perspective at all. I’ve known other men like you in my life…you won’t be content with the… conventional.” She raised one eyebrow at that, and slightly tilted her head forward again to look up at me through her eyelashes. It was maddeningly seductive.
“Trust me Yarina,” I said as I took a step toward her, keeping my eyes locked on hers. “You haven’t met a man like me before.”
She didn’t back away. She held her stance and matched my steady gaze.
“You think you’re special?” she asked.
“You just proved that I am,” I pointed out. “The only mage slayer to be found in a very, very long time. Or did I get that part wrong?”
She smiled and shook her head. “You did not.”
“I rest my case.”
“Does that mean you’re taking me up on my offer?” Yarina asked, all business.
I smiled. “Oh, I am most definitely taking you up on your offer.”
A grin spread across her face, and I toyed with the idea of kissing her. I’d probably earn myself a slap, but I was fairly certain it would be worth it. No, I would wait…it appeared we would be spending a lot of time together, and I didn’t want to sour the relationship by pissing her off right off the bat.
“Good.” She nodded. “Then this belongs to you.”
Yarina pulled out a bronze ring with a small stone that glowed a faint turquoise.
“I’m flattered,” I said. “But I have to say…it’s a little soon for a proposal. We’ve only just met.”
>
Yarina looked shocked for a moment and then smiled as the joke sunk in. “You’re funny.”
Her smile was most delicious when she smiled at my jokes. The edges of her mouth curled up, and there was the tiniest little indent in the middle of her upper lip’s perfectly rounded curve. It mimicked the shape of the cat-like creases her smile made on the bridge of her nose.
“I try,” I said as I took the ring.
“That ring was created by the greatest inventor Trysca has ever known, and it belonged to the greatest mage slayer who ever lived. As a mage slayer yourself, it’s only fitting that you wear it.”
“What happened to him? The mage slayer who wore the ring?”
She paused for a second. “He was killed in the Apocalypse Wars. Along with every other mage slayer in the kingdom.”
I raised my eyebrows. “It’s a dangerous job, huh?”
“Scared?”
I snorted. “Try eager.”
Yarina seemed pleased. “I thought so.”
I looked down at the ring in the palm of my hand. “I take it this ring isn’t just symbolic?”
Yarina shook her head. “It has a purpose,” she said mysteriously.
“Which is...?”
“All in good time,” she said, gesturing for me to put it on.
I slipped the ring on the middle finger of my right hand, and my heart pumped unevenly for a few moments. I felt different somehow; I just couldn’t articulate how or why.
“The mage slayers paid with their lives,” Yarina continued, “but they succeeded in imprisoning the Chaos Gods. For centuries now we have had some semblance of peace…I guess we are privileged to have experienced this long reprieve. but I’m afraid those days are behind us.”
“Why?”
The playful glint had gone out of Yarina’s eyes. She looked at me with a nervousness that bordered on fear, though she never lost her powerful posture. “The Chaos Gods have been released from their cells,” she said softly. “They corrupt mages who desire forbidden knowledge, power, and supremacy. They will spread their dark magic across the kingdom and destroy us all. It’s not a coincidence that the Terminus Seal was stolen from the Arcanum today of all days.”