But in his day, restrictions were unheard of.
“You must’ve been gone a while, old-timer. That’s how things are run here in Arcadia. Have to control the magic, that’s what we’re told. It’s too dangerous. I’m sure it’s for the best.” The kid turned to watch the three men rush after the girl. “She should know better. Those guys are gonna do a number on her.”
The boy shrugged and looked back at the old man.
But he had disappeared.
Glancing over her shoulder, Hannah saw the men gaining. The three goons were faster than they looked. She turned right, then left, then right again. She popped out of the alley and into the heart of the bazaar. Her legs moved as if a new sense of life flowed through her body.
She hopped over a cart filled with apples and grabbed the handle, halfway dislocating her arm from the momentum. However, flipped it and sent the green orbs rolling across the cobblestones.
She prayed the obstacles would gain her a few steps.
The grocer hurled curses at her. Ignoring him, she ducked through a stall selling fine silken scarves that she could never have afforded. Hannah pushed through the crowd toward safety, but the shouts behind her indicated she had not yet lost the Hunters.
Her eyes cut around the square now alive with the excitement of a chase. She spied an alley she thought she knew and broke for it.
Footsteps grew louder as the men got closer. She dodged a large wooden crate blocking her path and took three steps in before she looked down the alley.
“Shit,” Hannah muttered, seeing the dead end blocking her exit. The clamor of the men scrambling over the crate filled the alley, and she turned and backed herself against the wall. Hannah lifted her hands in surrender.
She smiled, the humor never finding her eyes. “Fun game, guys. You caught me. I’m it now, right?”
“On your knees,” the lead man, marked by a long scar across his eye, growled as he approached her.
“Seriously. I’m not what you think. Just a kid. My brother, he—”
“Don’t look like just a kid to me,” another said with a laugh. “You look like a woman. Ripe enough to eat.” His eyes scanned her body, making Hannah want to retch.
The two smaller men started to chuckle but went dead quiet when the giant raised his hand.
“We’ve heard every excuse, Unlawful. None of them worked. No one’s talked their way out before. You’re certainly not going to be the first.”
The leader drove a tall bronze staff into the ground. Its tip glowed blue.
Magitech, Hannah thought. She’d seen Hunters’ weapons take men down before. It was not a pretty sight, but she never thought she’d experience its power first-hand.
Her eyes darted around the alley, first to the men and then up to two visible windows overhead; she doubted anyone listening would intervene. She looked back at her attackers. “I don’t know magic,” she cried. Her heart pounded out of her chest as she pleaded, “I beg you, listen!”
But the Hunters were violent to the core. They acted first and listened never.
The eyes of the two men behind the staff wielder were suddenly suffused by black, as if replaced by perfect midnight. A sign that they were about to cast their magic.
One of them swept his arms across his chest and followed the motion over his head, making arcs. By the time they came to rest by his side, two perfectly round fireballs danced in his hands. The man laughed as he saw the look of fear and awe in Hannah’s eyes.
He hurled a flaming orb just over her shoulder. It crashed behind her in a tiny explosion, and shards of brick bit at her neck. The other man extended an arm and flicked his wrist. She tried to move as a barrel flew from the edge of the alley. Hannah ducked, narrowly dodging the missile.
“That is real magic, Unlawful,” the scar-faced man said. “It is for the few who are worthy, not for street scum like you. And we are the protectors of its use. We tag you as an Unlawful and enemy of Arcadia.”
The man flicked something the size of a playing card towards her, which floated like a bird to find its home on her forehead. It burned as it made contact. She clawed at the mark, trying to peel it away, but she knew it was no use; only magic could take away the tag.
Hannah eyed the alley behind them, looking for any way out. Nothing. She was caught, and a sense of doom washed over her. The feeling from the market square returned, and heat rose beneath her skin again. The young woman clenched her teeth and tried to get control of her body.
The monstrous man grabbed her shoulder and shoved her to the ground. As her knees smashed into the cobblestones, she screamed in pain.
“Now that I have you in the right position, time to take my prize,” he said with hideous laughter. He grabbed his staff, and with its glowing end tilted her head up to face him. “You wouldn’t look half bad if someone washed the mud and muck off you. A shame to lose such a beauty from our fair city, but the law is the law. Since we’re bringing you in DOA,” he leaned down to whisper near her ear “we might as well play a little first.”
A shit-eating grin covered his face. The sound of laughter and lewd comments surrounded her. Life for the lower-class people in the Boulevard ranged from difficult to brutish, but she had never expected to meet her end in an alleyway, gang-raped by a group of the Governor’s civil servants.
Her eyes narrowed in anger. “Go to hell!” she yelled at him.
She swung a clumsy punch to the man’s groin, and he pivoted just in time to catch it in the ass.
He grinned down at her. “Ooh, feisty one. I don’t mind some foreplay first.”
The man dropped a right hook. The sound of her crunching nasal cartilage filled her ears as Hannah’s world went blurry.
Reaching down, the Hunter grabbed a handful of her threadbare shirt and pulled. Her covering gave way with little resistance, and she instinctively wrapped her arms across her bare chest. Sobs of fear and resignation leaked from the broken young woman. Her head drooped slowly toward the ground.
“Don’t worry, little one.” The large man gave her a feigned look of pity. “We won’t kill you. Well, not before I have you first. And maybe the boys behind me, too.”
Hoots and hollers followed. The man flipped Hannah over. One hand held her hair while the other grabbed the waist of her pants. The pressure cut a line into her stomach.
She closed her eyes and tried to hold back her emotions—the one thing she might be able to keep from them. But fear of ungodly violation gripped her soul. A tear escaped her eye, trailing a path through the dirt down her left cheek.
At least William was safe.
That was as much mercy she could hope for in a city like Arcadia.
“Hands off her!” The voice rang through the alley, clear despite the noise coming from the bazaar.
Hannah crumpled back to the ground when her attacker let go. Pulling the tattered shirt over her chest she looked up to see a figure covered in the folds of a brown robe. Hunched over, he supported himself with a twisted wooden staff. The hood of his cloak covered his head, face hidden in its dark cavern.
“Step away from the girl, you cur.” He waved his staff back towards the only exit from the alley. “Take your henchmen and be on your way.”
The three men looked at each other, then back at the new arrival. All three laughed at the stranger’s demands, but the one with the scar responded.
“Go back to wherever you came from, old man. This is official government business.” He jerked a thumb at himself. “We’re Hunters, and we have a pocket full of tags to hand out. Careful,” he pointed to the old guy “or we’ll add you to our list.”
They could see the stranger’s eyes glowing in the darkness underneath his hood. They were bright red, like embers. Hannah gasped, and the men stepped back. The hooded man whispered words Hannah couldn’t discern and tilted his head, letting the hood fall down his back.
She nearly screamed when the identity of her redeemer was exposed. Hannah had expected a wizened old face, but instead she saw the head o
f a monster; green, hairless, and shining in the midday sun. Two horns jutted from its head toward the heavens. Eyes big and round like an owl’s darted around the alley.
The three Hunters screamed in fear.
As the three thugs stumbled backward in terror of the demon standing before them, Ezekiel couldn’t help but smile. The devil mask was an ancient spell not practiced in Arcadia, at least not as far as he knew. It was designed to scare the shit out of anyone who saw it.
He was glad it hadn’t lost its effectiveness. He lifted his staff into the air, and before it hit its apex, dark clouds covered the quarter. Thunder rolled overhead and winds whipped through the tight passageway. He extended his left hand toward the men.
“Arcadians!” he spoke through the wind as the dirt and the trash whipped around them. “Magic is not meant to exploit the weak, but to rescue them. I would have thought they still taught that here.”
A bolt of lightning screamed down from the heavens and connected with his staff. Channeling its power, he splayed his fingers and its power flew from their tips, a secret art learned from the people of the Dark Forest.
The two smaller men were slammed against the alley walls, their bodies twitching from the current. The smell of burning hair and flesh filled the alley as the bolts danced over their unconscious bodies.
The large one, in an act of extreme stupidity, ran toward Ezekiel. He swung his weapon at the wizard, trying to cave his head in.
Ezekiel held out his palm; both man and staff stopped and rebounded slightly. The Hunter looked at his weapon, dumbfounded. Ezekiel smiled.
He closed his palm and twisted his wrist upward. The magitech staff began to steam. The Hunter screamed, but couldn’t let go as his hand was fused to the shaft. It melted before his eyes, dripping liquified bronze across his skin. He fell to his knees and stared at his deformed arm.
Ezekiel stepped forward and glared down at the man. “Now it is I who mark you, as a fool and despised of Irth. You will never lay that hand on the innocent ever again.”
With that, Ezekiel raised his wooden staff into the air and cracked the man across his skull, sending him crashing to the ground.
The old man looked down at the Hunters crumpled in the alley’s filth.
He spoke the word of release and the demonic face disappeared to reveal his wrinkled skin and white beard underneath. The lines on his face relaxed. A sense of accomplishment like he hadn’t felt in years washed over him.
Thoughts of the restoration of the old ways had consumed him since he returned home, and his quest had just started in this alley. This would be his first act of many.
If the Matriarch and the Patriarch were with him, he would find a way to cleanse this place. He looked up just in time to see the girl vault the wooden crate blocking the alley, the tatters of her shirt flying behind her.
Shaking his head, he realized that in the old days he would have tagged her with a tracking spell. He was rusty, and it seemed that the rust would need to be knocked loose. But he wasn’t worried. His cunning and intuition would be enough to find her.
And find her he must. He pictured the green energy that had flowed from her and the strange lizard which had reacted to her power. Whether she knew it or not, she would have an important role to play in what was to come.
2
Hannah swiped a shirt from a booth in the bazaar as she ran toward safety. It covered her physically but did little to ease the pain of what had just happened. They were going to hurt her, maybe kill her, for no reason other than they could.
They had the power.
Fear drove her legs as disgust churned in her gut. Remembering the tag, she pulled her hair over her forehead to try and hide the mark. The Hunters had branded her as an Unlawful—an illegal magic user and enemy of the city. Until she could find a way to remove the tag, the city would certainly be her enemy.
She finally made it to the small city park beyond the marketplace. It felt like a lifetime ago that she had been on her way here with her brother. She stopped and dropped to her knees behind a tree. The smell of the scar-faced man still haunted her.
She could still feel the tug of his hand on her hair; the rhythm of her heartbeat raced across her throbbing face to remind her of the blow he had delivered.
Doubling over, she spilled what little food remained from breakfast onto the grass. Her body continued to retch, searching for something more to expel as if it might be able to rid itself of the memory of the assault. Finally, falling over on her side, she screamed into the dirt and pounded it with her fist.
“I only wanted to help William,” she moaned through her tears in the empty park. “I only…wanted to help.”
She pictured the man grabbing her shirt as the words came, and a rush of anger came over her. It was the same energy she had felt as she held her brother in her arms and then again in the alley.
Powerlessness somehow turning to power. She pictured the strange lizard, the way it had stretched and grown in front of her. She saw her brother’s sick form suddenly becoming well.
Then she imagined the demon-faced man drawing lightning from the heavens and hurling it at her attackers. Scared of the sensations, afraid that she was someone like that thing, she fought the surge in her body until it eventually subsided.
As she stared up at the sky, Hannah decided that she would do all she could to keep the power within her at bay, learn to control it. She also swore to herself that she’d die by her own hand before being treated like that ever again.
She vowed she would find the Hunters and make them pay, and that no other women would suffer at their filthy hands.
After what felt like hours, her thoughts turned from the violence in the alley to her brother. At least he was safe. Fear, anger, pain; none of that mattered as much as getting home to William.
She got to her feet and pushed herself toward the Boulevard, hoping nothing had hurt him in her absence.
Adrien stood in front of the window at the top of the Academy’s single tower. As the Academy’s Chancellor, Adrien had certain advantages, such as the view from his office. From his vantage point, the highest spot in Arcadia, he could see each of the city’s four quarters.
His assistant stood behind him giving a report, but Adrien hardly listened.
Doyle had completed his studies ten years earlier. He was a half-grade magician who came from a noble family, so Adrien had little choice but to admit him. Even though Doyle couldn’t cast a spell to scratch his own balls, but his devotion belonged to Adrien alone.
So instead of sending him out into the world, Adrien kept him by his side to serve as Special Assistant to the Chancellor. What Doyle lacked in magical acumen, he made up for in loyalty. Adrien knew the man would kill for him; that is, if he had possessed the ability to cause harm to anything at all.
It was time for the monthly update on financials. The numbers bored him. The Academy flourished financially, not only from the astronomical tuition that the rich were willing to shell out to enroll their snot-nosed, silver-spoon kids, but also, and maybe more to the point, because Arcadia’s Governor gave him whatever he demanded.
The Academy was the backbone of the community and the only thing keeping Arcadia on top in this world still struggling to recover from the Age of Madness.
“I was thinking, Chancellor, that maybe it is time that we consider admitting more students. The demand is there, and we could—”
Adrien had continued staring out across the city. He lifted his hand and waved away the man’s comments as if swatting a fly. “You haven’t learned, have you, Doyle? Our job is not to fill beds but to control entry. You see, many in our place might keep the doors shut tightly because scarcity breeds demand. They’re short-sighted fools.”
He paused in his explanation to inspect his cuticles, then looked at his assistant. “But not us. Demand will always be high. Damned nobles would sacrifice their youngest to get their oldest in. And who can blame them? The chance to have a magician in the family is
no small thing.”
“What does scarcity breed, then?” his assistant asked.
Adrien lifted an eyebrow and waved his hand towards his window. “Scarcity breeds prestige. Prestige provides power. And power gives us whatever the hell we want. That’s why we restrict access. Control the magic, control the world.”
Doyle blushed and looked down at his papers. “Right then. Do you want to—”
“That’s not all,” Adrien continued, ignoring the man altogether. “How are we to keep track of all the authorized magicians?” Adrien turned back around to look out the window. “Can you even imagine the world that the Founder envisioned?”
The assistant twitched at that name.
“Let everyone study magic?” the Chancellor continued. “Ezekiel was a damned fool. If things had been done his way, Arcadia would have been in ashes years ago. Hell, he thought that the old world was bad; went on and on about it. But that’s nothing compared to what would happen if we let any damned fool practice magic. It would be bedlam. Chaos!”
Adrien slapped the frame of the window. “No! We’ll keep the class sizes right where they are. Besides, what do we need more magicians for? We have the manpower necessary to complete my plan with the students that are here now. We have the pick of the litter. Our primary goals are research and design, not enrollment and financials. The Governor is pleased with the new prototype, and he wants to employ the magitech as soon as possible.”
“Right. Very good, sir. I'm sure he’s pleased. Should I—”
Adrien observed a couple of carts stuck facing each other on a street three blocks over. “Damn right it’s good, Doyle. And he’d better be pleased.”
He turned and walked behind his desk, pulling out the chair and sitting down. “That asshat would still be pissing in a cracked pot in that little district of his if it weren’t for the magitech weapons we’ve crafted for him. If it wasn’t for me—me and the Academy—he’d have nothing.”
The assistant looked down at his feet and pulled on the collar of his cloak. “There are, um, a few other things.”
Welcome To The Age of Magic Page 2