Welcome To The Age of Magic

by C M Raymond et al.

  “The boy told us about the loss of his parents to some of the Mad, the ‘zombies’ as you call them. He’d been making it on his own for a long time and had no plan to do otherwise. Trust was not one of his virtues, and we couldn’t blame him. He had seen the worst in people, and it was only because of the harsh winter that the boy named Adrien agreed to join us.

  “Over the course of a few weeks not only did he come to trust us, but I started to see that the boy had abilities beyond what he knew. It wasn’t unlike what I saw in you. So I offered to train him if he would agree to stay and help to build our dream. We were quite a pair. He was naturally gifted, I was naturally stubborn. Many I have taught believed I was born special. I wasn’t; I just worked without ceasing and doggedly pursued my aims. Magic was no different.

  “As people started to come to our burgeoning town, Adrien’s gifts advanced quickly. He took the lead on magical construction, helping others understand how the gift of physical magic could be used to construct the city itself. It was an amazing sight to see.

  “While he led that project, I worked with the refugees pouring in, helping many of them to hone the power within them and focus it on aspects of the young city. There was nothing like magitech in those days, but I expect that even then Adrien may have been imagining what he could do if he could apply magic to inanimate objects. It’s clever, really. Nothing I would have ever have thought of.”

  “Yeah,” Hannah interjected. “Magitech is a hell of a thing, really. They’re applying it to all sorts of stuff. Problem is, no one on my side of town can afford it.”

  The old man nodded. “That is indeed bad. But I fear that something worse is coming. Adrien has plans for magitech, something bigger and more dangerous than anything we can imagine.”

  “How do you know?”

  Ezekiel smiled out of the corner of his lips. “Like I said, know thy enemy. I confronted my old protégé.”

  As Ezekiel told the story of his confrontation with Adrien, how he tricked him into revealing part of his plan and then attacking nothing but Ezekiel’s shadow, Hannah went from surprised to downright impressed.

  The old man was full of tricks.

  “I don’t know what,” the old man continued, “and I don’t know when. But Arcadia is going to need us. Irth is going to need us. So, I spent the last couple of days locked in my room, searching for answers outside the city. In the deepest corners of Irth.”

  “Well? Did you find any?”

  Ezekiel sighed. “Yes, but not the ones I wanted. I have been searching for an old friend, someone who could help us, help you. But I can’t find him.”

  The two sat for a while by the Wren, each lost in their own thoughts. Hannah marveled at the man’s stories, realizing that if she stuck with him her life would never be the same.

  The opportunity she had been given by the magician was literally beyond her wildest dreams, but also her wildest nightmares.

  She wondered if it was worth it, worth giving up her old life, not that there was much to discard. But she missed her brother and Parker like crazy and decided she would find a way to see them sometime soon. Maybe Zeke would teach her that astral projection trick.

  “How did you end up doing it, Hannah?”

  “Doing what?” she asked. She was hardly listening and was afraid she’d missed something he said.

  “Sal’s wings. Have you thought more about it? I’ve never seen anything like it before. If we’re going to have a fighting chance against Adrien and his forces, we’re going to need every unfair advantage we can muster. Right now, you’re all we’ve got.”

  Hannah laughed. “Better call in some reinforcements, ‘cause I’ve got no freaking clue what I did to Sal in the marketplace or out here. It just happened. I tried the physical magic approach, which didn’t work. Then I did the navel-gazing thing. Nothing.”

  “Then what?”

  “It was you. You kept bitching and badgering me. I was frustrated and angry. Felt like I was going to explode, and then I just kind of did. It just happened.”

  Ezekiel stroked his beard and sighed. “Well, we know it has something to do with emotion, which is no surprise. All magic is connected to our emotional states, but we still don’t understand the catalyst.”

  Hannah picked up a rock and looked at it, turning it over in her hands. “If emotion is what we need to take down those bastards ruling over Arcadia, I’ll figure it out. I promise.”

  She tossed the rock out into the Wren.

  16

  “You’ve been sitting there for an hour and haven’t said a damned thing. Can you really not hear me when you’re out starwalking or whatever?” Hannah paced the floor, and Sal followed her every step. But the magician kept his eyes trained on an imaginary dot on the wall. “Well, that’s good. I was afraid that maybe you had lost your marbles or just plain gone bloody nuts.”

  Ezekiel didn’t twitch.

  “Oh,” Hannah continued, “that’s nice. Me? Yeah, I’m doing fine, except I am in lockdown in a three-bloody-room building with nothing but a freak of a lizard and a magician who goes monk for half the day to keep me company. Otherwise, things are just peachy.”

  The wizard remained silent.

  Hannah had been training in the tower for what felt like an eternity, and she was going crazy from being cooped up in one place. Other than the fact that there was absolutely nothing to do, her teacher was a peculiar sort of company.

  Ever since she turned Sal into a dragon Ezekiel had been spending more and more time sending his mind to roam Irth. He wouldn’t say what he was looking for, beyond a few oh-so-ominous answers.

  Meanwhile, Hannah was feeling a strange stirring in her gut. She could only guess it was the thing other people called homesickness.

  She called it missing.

  Although the girl would never call herself homesick for the squalor and the abuse of the Boulevard, there was plenty that she longed for.

  William. Parker. Her bed. And even QBB itself. Everything that was familiar had been stripped from her. It was the first time she had been away from the place that had made up her entire existence, and she missed nearly all of it.

  Hannah leaned down and picked up Sal. He folded his wings in so she could hold him more easily. “At least I have you, little guy.” The lizard’s tongue flicked in and out, moistening her cheek.

  “The lizard isn’t your only friend,” the magician’s voice boomed across the room.

  She turned. “Thank the Patriarch. I thought you’d died with your crazy, red eyes open.”

  Ezekiel got up from the floor and plopped on a couch near Hannah. “Someday, child, you’ll find that magic is one part learning, one part practice, and fifty parts mindset. During my time abroad, the greatest of the things I learned was how to focus my life toward the work of magic and restoration. You will do well to learn this sooner rather than later.”

  “My meditations are coming along,” Hannah said a little sulkily.

  The man laughed. “I’m not too old to remember what it is like to be your age. I was only a few years older than you when we set off to build Arcadia. That year, I knew everything. And then, two years later, I knew I was wrong. Life is an endless road of changing perspective. Some call this waffling, but I call it growing in wisdom. And among all the arts, nothing is greater.”

  “Ah… OK. Got it. Change your mind. Get wise. I’ll write that in my little book.”

  Ezekiel’s face grew soft. A smile spread across his lips. “You’re a hopeless smartass, aren’t you?”

  “Yep,” Hannah said with a smile to match. “Gonna take more than magic to change that.”

  The man stood, and the smile faded from his face. His lips grew tight and Hannah knew that something very serious was coming. She had learned that the magician loved life and enjoyed a joke or three, but when it came to the survival of the world, the old man was all business.

  “I don’t understand you,” he said.

  “Most don’t.”

&nbs
p; “No, I mean your skills. Though they are rough, magic is trying to escape you. That’s how we got this little guy here.” He nodded toward Sal. “But you’re able to express magical arts that are foreign to all the guilds of all the corners of Irth. I’ve spent hours in study, and it seems you might have some unnatural combination of all of the arts.”

  “Hell, as far as I know all magic is unnatural,” she shrugged.

  The magician laughed, which brought her some comfort. “On the contrary, there is nothing more natural than magic. It’s in each and every one of us. The question is whether someone is strong enough to bring it out. People like me who have been mentored in the arts are taught to bring it out in a way that doesn’t blow their bodies into little bits all over the city streets.

  “Imagine how annoyed people would be if they went out in their best clothes, only to have them splattered with blood by someone losing themselves to magic? Others will never manifest the magic whatsoever. But you are different, Hannah. You’ve done nothing to bring your magic to the fore, but it refuses to be bottled up. Just by being in the world, the magic created Sal, and there is no explanation for that.”

  Her mouth hung open as she thought of a wiseass comment to dispel the seriousness of the room.

  But she had nothing.

  Finally, she said, “So what should I do?”

  “That, my dear, is the question for the ages. If I had the answer, I would give it to you. But I know some people who might know.”

  “More friends of yours from the old days?”

  Ezekiel nodded. “Something like that. I’ve been holding off on this awhile, but I’m afraid there is no other choice now. I need to go visit them.”

  Hannah squinted her eyes, suspicious of what was coming next. “OK, when do we leave?”

  Ezekiel’s face answered the question before his words. “I’m sorry, Hannah. I’m afraid you can’t come with me.”

  “Why the hell not? I’ve been practicing every day like you said. I’ve been getting better. And if these people can help me, then I should go with you.”

  “It’s not that simple. I have been reaching out with my mind, trying to connect with them, but there has been no answer. Which means one of two things. One explanation is that they have turned their back on me, which means that they have become as great a threat as Adrien. Maybe worse.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “I know you aren’t, but I am. Because the other reason I may not have been able to contact my friends is that they’re dead. Which means that there could be some danger I can’t foresee. And you are too valuable for us to run in blind.”

  Hannah dropped her eyes. Despite all she had been through, it seemed that Ezekiel still saw her as a child to be protected. When would he learn that she could contribute? To use magic as he did to protect others?

  Finally she looked at her teacher. “Fine. What do you need me to do?”

  “I need you to stay here and keep practicing. My trip may take… Well, it may take a long time. But when I return, I need you to be as ready as possible. There is no telling what comes next, child. But whatever it is, it will not be safe.”

  The magician disappeared without another word, leaving Hannah alone in the tower for real this time.

  Parker kept his head down as he paced toward Queen Bitch Boulevard. His bag was heavy with his tools, and the coin sack bouncing on his hip was evidence of a good day on the streets.

  But he knew it was only a fraction of the haul he could have pulled in with Hannah. To say his thoughts turned to the girl wouldn’t be quite right. She was always there, at least in the back of his mind. He couldn’t help smiling, picturing her by his side.

  Parker, like most of the guys in the Boulevard, thought she was attractive, but she had captured him with more than just her looks. Smart. Funny. Gifted. And if Will wasn’t bullshitting him about her magic, then her gifts were deeper than he had ever imagined.

  And the young boy seldom bullshitted.

  “Half your take, prick,” a gruff voice said.

  Parker looked up into an ugly mug he didn’t recognize manning the toll booth into Queen’s Boulevard. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Doesn’t matter. What matters is who I work for. Now hand over the toll and be on your way, ya little shit.”

  “Where’s Jack?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care. He’s probably back at your house shagging your ma. Now drop the coin and be on your way.”

  Parker felt his face flush. He knew the man was trying to start something. Probably got his jollies off throwing his weight around. Parker held his tongue and reached for his purse.

  “Or he might be doing that sweet piece of ass you hang around with.” A disgusting laugh rolled off the man’s double chin. “Heard she has a thing for Capitol men, if you know what I mean. Nice of you to share her with the Hunters.”

  Without thinking, Parker swung the bag of coins at the man’s thick face. But Horace’s man was deceptively fast. He ducked the attack and pulled Parker’s arm up behind him. The brute slammed him face-first against the wall. Rough brick bit at his cheek as pain shot through his already-sore skull.

  “I oughta turn you in for even thinking about it,” the man breathed into Parker’s ear. “But lucky for you, I don’t feel like doing the paperwork. Now, let me lighten your load, and you can be on your way.”

  He gave Parker one more shove against the wall and yanked the bag of coins from his belt.

  “You’re a shit-eating pig,” Parker spat at the man. He considered a second attempt, but the men who worked for Horace were ruthless, and Parker knew that pushing his luck would have terrible consequences for him, and maybe his mother. The filthy words about his mother and best friend rang in his ears. He spat at the man’s feet.

  The obese man snorted like a swine. “By the way, you can tell that piece of ass that the Hunters are looking for her. They've put a price on her head, as commanded by the Chancellor. Or you could always turn her in yourself. You probably need the money.” The man shook Parker’s bag before stuffing it in his pocket.

  Son of a bitch will get his, Parker thought. He would right this wrong, but first, he needed to find Hannah and warn her about the price on her head.

  Her fingers twisted with increasing intensity and speed. They were a blur in front of her eyes, but she didn’t notice. Stuck in a trance, Hannah was more connected with her body than she’d ever been.

  The practice was paying off, at least in terms of her focus. Finally, folding the fingers of her hands into each other, she spun them out and fanned them toward the pile of papers across the room. The sheets pulled toward one another, but stopped just short of a pile.

  “Shiiiiiit!” she screamed into the empty room.

  Sal ran and slid under the chair, the only furniture in the room. Hannah slumped into the chair and patted her leg. The little dragon obeyed and jumped into his mistress's lap. His tongue lashed out and tickled her arm, aiming for comfort.

  “Thanks, buddy. Guess I need to rest more. Those wings of yours cost me something, that’s for certain.”

  Sal rubbed his smooth head on her arm, and she gave him a pat.

  “Yeah. We’ll be fine. Let’s see if I can’t get this down before you can learn to fly over the tower. A little competition might do us some good.”

  She was glad Sal was there, especially since Ezekiel had left for whatever important mission he was on. The man was full of secrets, and she wished he would disclose more. But the man offered something no one else ever had.

  A way out of misery for her and for Arcadia.

  “Let’s go get something to eat. I’m—”

  A scream outside interrupted her. She shot for the great hall and looked out the window in the direction of the cries for help. The distance was great, but from where she stood she could see a person in a tree, an animal on all fours leaning against the trunk.

  “Damn it. Sometimes I miss the filth of the city,” she muttered.
r />   Ezekiel had told her to be careful. She suspected he meant for her to stay in the tower, but the magician was all about righting wrongs. If she couldn’t help some wanderer by shooing off an animal, she sure wasn’t going to take down Adrien’s evil empire.

  As she strode for the door, she grabbed the silver blade given to her by the rearick and made her way to the edge of the woods.

  Halfway across the grass, she thought she could make out what the man was shouting. Then she realized it was her name. The voice was familiar.

  “Parker? What the hell?”

  Joy mixed with fear for her friend. She couldn’t understand why he was treed by some stray dog. She’d be sure to call him a sissy when it was all over.

  “No, Hannah, go back,” his voice wrapped around her and echoed off the tower. “Run!”

  She ran, only toward him, not back to the tower. None of this made sense.

  Ten more strides and she saw the creature turn. That’s when it struck her. It wasn’t leaning on the tree; the thing stood on two legs. It tilted its head, sniffed the air, and let out a blood-chilling howl.

  Lycanthrope, she thought. Can’t be. Those damned things don’t exist.

  She’d heard the stories all her life, but like the tales of dragons and druids, she’d assumed lycanthropes were also residents of make-believe. They were sinister creatures that were a mix between man and wolf. It was said that they were descendants of the werewolves that roamed the earth before the Age of Madness.

  The creature looked like it was a Were turning back into a man, only to get caught in-between, frozen forever on two legs. Its long arms stretched toward its knees, culminating in razor-like claws.

  Sniffing again, it took a step in her direction, then paused. Hannah held her arms up. She considered casting. But with the magic fails she just experienced in the tower, she doubted her ability to produce anything at all. She probably couldn’t even give the thing a proper paper cut.

  “Easy…” she cooed, hoping the thing was more animal than man.