Chapter Two: Of Magic, New and Old

 

Liam's screams didn't abate as the pad spit us into the Third Layer and into a traveling closet.

The pad dropped from the ceiling, its function completed, and Liam swore and leaped away. I scooped it up and stuffed it into the cleaning pocket that Dagfinn, Delia, Will, and Constantine had created through a combination of communication, materials, traveling, and delinquent talents. The cleaning process wiped the pad's trail, to protect the user from being followed.

Not that anyone other than Raphael, Will, and I had portal pads that worked between layers, but it was only a matter of time before remnants of our technology found their way into the Department's hands, and with their vast resources, they'd be able to reverse engineer the design.

A drop of something hit the floor and started steaming.

“Your nose is bleeding, and it’s not red,” Liam murmured, and a measure of melancholic notes tentatively wrapped around me. His focus turned quickly to the swirling notes and the music soared into a feeling of awe.

I quickly wiped the paint from my nose—a streak of violet this time—and patched the floor before anything emerged.

It would be just my luck for our combined magic to create a musical monster in a closet.

“Come on,” I said, pulling my cloak fully around me before I opened the door to the traveling cupboard.

With no other option, Liam followed me as I exited.

Stares followed our progress as we walked through the compound. I pulled my hood further down, and tried to tamp the power that was licking against my skin, waiting to be used.

Always waiting, now.

The shield shimmered around Liam and he bumped into a wall twice while staring in wonder—awe overtaking fear. His attention split between his own magic and the magic happening around him—like the small creatures and mechanical wonders climbing the walls and skittering around us.

As we moved further without attack, he grew bolder and started peppering me with questions.

“What is that?”

“Where are we?”

“Who are you?”

“What's with the blue shield?”

I answered that one. “It's your magic hitting mine.” The shields always manifested as blue during Awakenings. Christian's blue.

“Yours?”

“The shield is preventing you from exploding, killing anyone, or attracting the wrong kind of attention.”

His eyes widened. “Exploding?”

“Congratulations!” I pushed him toward the lab chamber. “You're magic!”

“That...that isn't helpful!”

He planted his feet in the hall, blue sparks swirling faster under the shield. I tapped it. “Don't worry. That shield protects ninety-nine percent of mages.”

He looked anxiously at his arm. “What about the other one percent?”

“Better hope you’re average.”

“That's not funny.”

“Too right,” I said, tugging him back into motion. “I need to process you, let's go.”

I could see the horrible notions of what that might mean going through his mind.

I nodded and stifled my smile. “There's a grinder and everything.”

“What, no! Let go. Are you even human?”

It was an answer that not everyone agreed upon.

I tilted my head up so that he could see my face, and I let solemn promise infuse my voice and connect to the magic of the shield. “You will be safe. You will learn to use your magic. And you can then decide what you will do with your life. Nothing bad will happen to you here, I promise.”

He frowned, then nodded almost unwillingly, visibly unsettled by why he suddenly believed a stranger. “Why then did you say—”

“If I can't add a bit of humor to the situation, it sucks twice as much,” I said.

Twelve steps down the hall, though, I tugged my cloak tighter.

“They are all staring at you,” he said.

“Yup.”

“Did you grow horns under there?”

“No.”

“Because even that guy with a tail back there—he had a tail—was staring at you.”

I didn't answer.

“What are you, some kind of magical messiah?”

“No.”

The further we progressed through the tunnels, the more silent he grew and the more his Awakening magic began to react. He flexed it unconsciously. “Where are we?” he asked again.

“We’re in the Third Layer of the world. There are five. You will get the run down on all of that soon. Suffice to say, this one kind of sucks at the moment, but that's my problem to deal with and you will be safe here until you get a bead on your power.”

I pushed the red button to the chamber rooms.

“None of that made any sense,” he said, as I pushed both of us inside the main console area, a somewhat cramped space surrounded by fifteen individual chambers—like an overworked nursing station for mages. Ekaterina, a mage that I had rescued days before, was exiting from her chamber as we entered. Yvette, another new feral, still brimming with the light she'd Awakened with the week before, was reviewing something on the console with Betony, the grizzled lady who ran the ward. Both Awakened mages paused and stared curiously as I pushed Liam toward one of the last two empty chambers.

He started to say something to them, but I pushed him inside. “No time to make friends now. You are going to burst.”

I surreptitiously wiped at the paint I could feel pooling in the corners of my eyes.

“That isn't something you say to make someone feel better,” he said, voice going high.

“What if you are going to burst with unicorns and happiness?” I asked as I swiped the paint into the vial that was already pulsing at its seams.

“Am I?”

“Let's think positively.”

As I started dismantling the shield around him and connecting him to the room and privacy controls, I tried not to think about there being only one empty room left.

The chamber was a neat combination of a stripped-down battle room and containment area. It allowed newly Awakened mages to explore their powers in a safe environment—safe for themselves and for others. In exchange for housing them, the complex funneled and used their Awakening magic. Everything in the Third Layer was reused or bargained for, and Awakening mages required a lot of upkeep, but also generated a lot of interesting, powerful magic.

The chamber was everything I wished that Christian and I had upon our Awakenings.

I pushed aside my sadness, swallowed the paint that was rising in my throat again, and concentrated on the present. “You will be here until you get through your Awakening safely. Lots of others are here to help and you will be assigned a mentor,” I told Liam.

I wouldn't trade Draeger for anything—but the human element was important, too. I’d had Will, and eventually the others, to help me with the aspects a construct couldn’t give.

Like real hugs.

I rubbed at my forehead as my mind provided five other random tidbits of interest that weren't pertinent. This was why I wasn't a counselor in this operation. “You can request a virtual mentor, like an AI, tailored to you, as well. That information will all be explained in the briefing.”

And above all, the recently Awakened mages would be the best source of help for him.

Still, I couldn’t help but add, “But if you do try the virtual route, consider letting your brain choose. Never know what's going on up there.”

He looked at me. “Thanks?”

I smiled faintly. “Your best question yet. You can have a bright future in the magic world, Liam, regardless of what you’ve just experienced. Magic is what you make of it.”

He frowned. “Is that how it is for you?”

My smile slipped, and I forced it back into place. “You have a lovely talent. One that can make the world a happier place.”

I looked at his violin. Now that the shield had been stripped away completely, and his Awakening was stretching its arms, music notes were growing in force, melding together in the air—funneling beautifully around the instrument and his body.

I pulled a strip of ribbon from my pocket that was imbued with three complicated runes and tied it to a clip on the case. I had to reach through his funnel of magic to do it, and the melody was breathtaking—overloading my mind for a moment and tempting me to stay.

I pulled back. “I think you will enjoy magic once you have harnessed it. Good luck.”

“Wait—”

“It's best if I don't stay.” But I paused at the door with my fingers on the handle. “But don't let anyone treat you differently. You are as much a mage as anyone who Awakened earlier. Remember that.”

I slipped from the chamber without looking back.

~*~

I dropped the device containing the magical packet of information I had gathered on Liam during the rescue—recordings, thoughts, data—into the hands of the console guardian. Betony merely nodded her head, but I could read the thoughts in her expression as her gaze slipped to the final free chamber.

Time. Time was not my ally.

Another drop of paint dripped from my nose, but I quickly pressed a handkerchief hand-stitched by Delia against my skin. The handkerchief was imbued with a collection enchantment that I'd connected to a storage vial in my tower. A nearly full vial.

Visual patterns flashed across my vision, overlaying everything. People veered around me, but they appeared only as tracers of light and geometrics. I needed to paint again—to exchange that which was seeping from me. At the beginning of my exile I’d only needed to paint once a week, then it had increased to twice a week.

I’d last painted two days ago and the need was building within me.

Images of destruction flashed through my head.

I gripped my fingers into fists. I needed to find a remote location to work. Somewhere safe so I could organize all the information that was zipping around my brain and strangling it.

It would grow worse if I did nothing.

The headache I sported was also a side effect. Using Origin Magic was a lovely, lovely feeling in the flow of the moment—the absolute notion that I was doing what I was meant to do. But afterward under thousands of lines of “other code” wrapped in the world—especially in the broken one of the Third Layer—my brain was still trying to sort out what everything meant and to catalog where everything went.

At Excelsine, I hadn’t had any of this type of trouble. The excessive amount of magic and connections around me had made using magic effortless.

Painting helped me sort and wrap the data into images. Even if there were...side effects.

I headed toward my quarters, hood pulled low to block out the magic of the people and world around me, with my head bowed to let my nose bleed in some semblance of privacy.

I didn't get far before an official with a bright yellow insignia at the side of the wrap-around collar of his throat stepped into my path and clicked his heels together.

His bright pin stood out like a miniature sun on his black uniform. I liked to call the people dressed in such a way “the bees”—especially now when the yellow blur seemed to be in manic flight. Better than thinking of them in a far more sinister manner, like the Department enforcers with their silver pinned collars. I had no idea why the governments in the Third Layer had patterned themselves in a similar style to the Second Layer enforcers they hated.

“Council meeting, Miss Crown,” he said, clicking his heels together again. “They are waiting for you.”

Maybe it was just the current fashion trend. Delia would know.

“Miss Crown?”

“Yes, of course.” I subsumed the patterns beneath an even more blinding headache, pulled forth “survival mode” for my magic, and set off for the deepest cavern in the mountain. It was like trying to rope and ride a migraine without doing anything beneficial to taming it. But with each step, I buried a little bit more and brought myself back to “normal.”

The world wavered. Something in the distance—in my tower—exploded, and the man at my side jumped.

I shut my eyes and pulled myself together.

The massive stone doors creaked open. I gripped the hems on my sleeves, pushed the last of my magic behind the shield I was picturing in my mind, and stepped inside the cavern that housed the council of the Western Outlands.

Even with my safeguards in place, Kaine's presence had me on edge, and I peered cautiously through the dark sloping shadows. I reminded myself that Kaine wouldn't be able to breach such fortifications—not without access to the Second Layer justice magic wielded by the Department that allowed him to slip within the dark cracks.

Kaine was the bogeyman in the night.

But in the Third Layer, in the middle of Outlaw Territory, Kaine's magic would light up like a beacon.

Still, I checked deep in the darkest recesses for Stygian shifts and the edges of the shadows for curling claws.

I let my hood fall back as I approached the forum.

Council meetings had been occurring with increasing frequency, and at each gathering, more representatives assembled. I could see the Ophidians in the section they always inhabited, alongside scores of other Outlaw tribes. Frost Viper, the Ophidian I knew best, gave me a slow nod. The jeweled containers I had given her were shrunken and twinkling in the cuffs attached to the shells of her ears.

Amid the assembly, seated in five large chairs were the council heads of the Western Outlaw Territory.

“Origin Mage,” said the imposing and weathered woman of indeterminate years who always sat in the middle chair.

“Ren,” I corrected.

The woman tilted her head. “Origin Mage, we were just informed that you brought us another.”

“A boy named Liam, who just turned seventeen—”

“That's the fifth feral in half as many days,” the woman said.

I curled my fingers into fists. I thought of the last empty chamber. “I know.”

“The Department is using your magic to find and activate Awakenings.”

“And the Awakenings are getting worse,” the council member to her left added. “More children are carrying the tendrils of Origin Magic adjacent gifts.”

I felt the rebuke deep within my gut. “With such gifts, they will be powerful allies to you.”

“The Department will come for them.”

I stepped forward. “Not if we take Stavros out of the Department—”

Murmurs grew.

“You understand little of what you are saying,” the council member said sharply. “Although Enton Stavros is the power behind the Department, Second Layer citizens are the ones who give him his position. You underestimate what mages are capable of ignoring in their quest for security and abundance.”

“I understand what mages are capable of ignoring,” I said softly.

The woman looked at me, her expression sympathetic, but her jaw firm. “Your brother was but one victim. We have thousands in this room. And in this layer, there are millions. The Second Layer has been able to crush us since the Breaking. It has been seventy years since our world was devastated, the magic halved. And in that time, what has happened? The histories detail the truth. The Second Layer wants a man like Stavros in power.”

“I will fix this layer. The atrium test shows that it can be done. And the new city will be a success. What was once, can be again.” A hologram burst into the air above my palm—a replica of Aurum, The Golden City, that had been destroyed seventy years before. “And then the Second Layer will be forced to look upon you as an equal.”

The woman in the center silenced the murmurs and flares of excitement. “The atrium is an incredible achievement. And our scientists are excited about the new city’s progress. We understand your power. But understand, Origin Mage, that though justice and flame kindle in our breasts, we are survivors. We don't have the grand desires of some of our brethren in the other territories to own what once belonged to our ancestors. We seek to work with what we have, and to increase our abilities and lives each day in the small ways we can afford. We, too, want security and abundance, just like the Second Layer populace, but most here were born with neither. Finding abundance in a world of scarcity is a tale told to children to give them hope in an otherwise hopeless circumstance. And a way for those in power to blame us when we fail.”

“Your world can be fixed. I can fix it. Look—”

“Child.” There was a soft rebuke in the word, as the distinguished woman to her right leaned forward. “I near eighty with but half a cycle of moons to go. I remember the Breaking. I lived in the splendor of The Golden City, and only escaped its destruction due to the deathbed visit to my grandfather on the other side of the world the night before. I remember the grand promises of Flavel Valeris and the scientists who flocked around him. I remember his tests, so magnificent. So easy. His dedication to his craft was absolute—his promises for more were without artifice.”

“I'm not looking to give more—”

“Everyone looks for more. It is in a mage's nature.” She held up her hand, silencing me. “Look at you. You cannot stop your flights to save the Awakened.”

“You would have me leave them?”

“They are traps. Traps wrapped in multiple forms. You aren't so blinded to see this. And each time, Enton Stavros comes more prepared. And his preparation is for you.”

I lifted my chin. “I have survived each encounter and have saved every feral. I refuse to allow him to take even one more—”

“Child, we do not want Enton Stavros to have your powers under his control, and neither do we desire him to do whatever you think he is doing with the ill-Awakened children. But by running out to save them, you do yourself no favors. Each action you take is reported—reported to Second Layer citizens as the Department desires. Each destination is noted. The Department and their media do not care for the plans and goals you deem worthy. They only care about stripping you of your magic and power, and punishing all who support you. This is evidenced by today's news. With the support of nearly the entire Second Layer Council, the Department is petitioning to attack the Western Territories. An attack against innocent people in the Third Layer who have contributed nothing to the terror in their world.”

Murmurs rose around the room, reverberating dread and guilt within me. As interconnected as many of the people of the Third Layer were, the outlaws and people of the Western Territories were solitary survivors, working with what they had, instead of trying to get back that which they no longer possessed.

Everyone in this room knew a Third Layer zealot intimately, but the leaders here weren't the warmongers.

These people had sheltered me, which made them prime targets. I would repay their kindness a thousand-fold.

“They can't touch you.” My fingernails pressed into my palms. I inhaled deeply through my nose and let it slowly emerge between a tiny crack in my lips as I looked around the cavern at the gaunt faces and the soft, precious magic that they kept wrapped close, like the last knit scarf they possessed.

“I am working wards everywhere,” I said. “With magic that I recycle from off-Layer use. I will protect you. I swear this. And every feral I bring in adds an additional piece to the protection ward. I will protect you.”

She smiled. It was a smile that was far older than her eighty years. A smile drenched in suffering and memory.

“We knew when you came to us that death was a possibility and we accepted that risk. Origin Mages have the best intentions. Always. And to bathe in the light, in the hope, even for a small moment, is something that even the most wretched and most pragmatic of us can't resist. But for all their power, all their vision, Origin Mages always forget what it means to be human. To be without.”

I frowned. “I will protect you.”

She looked at me sadly. “But, Child, how will you protect yourself?”