The follow academic week proved miserable, wet as a sopping blanket at the bottom of a well. I couldn’t get those glazed-over eyes out of my head. My irreverence has put my in less than ideal situations more times than I care to count—but never had it traumatized me.
I went through the motions, barely scraping through the last week of my residency. Where once Mister Hamator, my direct supervisor and a Citadel faculty chair representing the Department of Internal Statistics, might have shaken my hand and clapped my shoulder upon dismissal on my final day; he instead pierced my soul with his pitying, sunken eyes, laying a gentle hand upon my shoulder and wishing me luck.
“I can return as a field agent,” I had told him. “Upon my graduation… I did enjoy my time here.”
“We’ll write if a position opens,” was all Mister Hamator could say, staring all the while at his polished, leather shoes.
I sealed myself in my apartment for the entire rest period before the semester’s start. I distracted myself with books and pre-work to prep for my upcoming capstone. I know I accomplished much—as far as coursework is concerned—but I cannot recall a single topic I read nor a single note I scribed.
Marta had come by—a few times. Her voice was the only one soothing enough to lull me to the door, to unlatch the lock and the chain I installed the evening I returned from my last day at the Department. Cracking the door so I could see her, but she would not see me in such disarray, my heart thumped in my chest as I listened to her hushed assurances and deeply concerned eyes—so round, so bright.
“Let me come in, Perry…” she whispered. “You don’t have to be alone.”
“But…” I croaked, every bone wishing it weren’t so, “I need to be alone. Talk soon, Marta. And thanks for the dinner.”
If something between me and Marta were to happen—I didn’t want it to be like this, when I’m so stressed and worried and scarred that one week working in such a sorry state undid all the groundwork I had laid through the summer.
My career was ruined. I had the stats to prove it: eighty-nine percent of ninth-years go on to work full-time where they interned for the majority—if not the entirety—of their sorcerously extended professional lives. Seven percent go on to freelance. One percent are selected as by the Citadel for special assignments.
The rest? They languish in the gutters, frequent the pubs. They might go on traveling the Great Kaldean Cities, trading cheap parlor tricks for a warm bed. Either way, such a life breeds an ethical concern regarding the live-giving ritual all graduated Phrygian Sorcerers go through—whether a life extended centuries beyond its natural end is blessing, or a curse.
I might as well drop out now—live a normal, mundane life.
That was another reluctance I had regarding Marta. She was going places. I’d sat in on her practicals at beginning of summer, when the semesters closed—the conclusion of her first year as a Siege major.
Marta de la Rosa is one of six students in the last century that can simultaneously act as an engine and a conduit. Real siege magic, the kind that brings down walls and levels cities, requires a bloody cadre of engines fueling a conduit—a sorceress who could do it all on her own suddenly found the Phrygian War Department scrutinizing her every move.
It suffices to say that a street-busking illusionist who flunked out of Siege in his tenth year is hardly a desirable mate. Hell, even if I did graduate, I sought employment in statistics—during a once in a generation time of war.
I’d essentially executed my prospects from the start, so why even try?
On and on the spiral went. It was standard procedure, a tradition of sorts for any final weekend before I’m to take up another year of study. This one, clearly, was made worse by inevitability of graduating, the impossible expectations that would then be thrust upon me… and the dead man’s eyes I had seen a week prior.
And Marta… Gods, I wish I good enough!
By the end of Sunday night, I had forced myself to the bathhouse to groom myself before class. I picked up groceries that had been waiting three days at the clerk and went to bed at eight, before dusk.
When the dark angel spoke, Perriander Lafey heard only a deafening drone, as if the earth beneath his feet had shifted at the same time a thousand whales issued reverberant mating calls. The force of that unknowable voice sent him sprawling backward, careening off the pier into the viscous deep of the Black Sea.
Perry gasped, filling his lungs with briny fluid, congealing and solidifying to stone, dragging him ever downward. The angel’s face appeared before him, her vacuous, black eyes alight as if she watched a flickering campfire.
Her plump, sumptuous lips moved, and the sea answered her call. Perry was thrust to the heavens, trapped within the grasping waters as a tidal wave crashed into Phrygia’s fragile waterfront.
The last of the tenth-years filed into the lecture hall just as the ground began to quake—the universal signal that the academic week was officially underway. I stumbled, beset by vertigo as the Great City Phrygia rose into the sky until the great chains hold her went taut.
I had never grown accustomed to this. It only occurred four times throughout a calendar month, and usually I was asleep. The capstone course, however, required that I rise at four in the morning and arrive before dawn.
Another broken leg on the stool—nausea before every session of the most important class for my wizarding career. Performance here would dictate whether I truly had destroyed my life on that last, flaccid week of residency—or if I might ascend to some high position that would likely send me off to flatten Wystran villages, from the way the news goes.
The room lurched—the whole of Phrygia, really—as I sat down next to Haslow, who had gotten there early. He smelled sooty, as if he’d been camping round a fire all night. Knowing him, he might have done just that—his lease had lapsed while he was away.
“I’m useless in the morning…” I muttered, slumping in my seat.
Haslow smirked and pointed to our instructor as signal for me to sit up and pay attention.
“Greetings all,” said the plump man at the podium. He was an olive-skinned Valentine—which is to say he’s from Idraan or Ionia—wearing an ill-fitted suit and tie. His greasy black hair was parted down the middle, accentuating his male-pattern baldness. “I am Archmage Torloon Bastilion and I have the honor of leading you all through the successful completion of your credential in Siege Magic.”
Bastilion sighed at length like wind escaping between rents in a tattered mast. “As you know, mages of our ilk are needed more than ever, given what’s going on at sea level. For the first time in nearly two-centuries, siege cadres have been called to defend Valencia against the Wystran incursion.”
Haslow scoffed, drumming his fingers on his desktop. Bastilion glared at him with all the loathing of an underpaid, overqualified adjunct faculty member.
“Let us take a moment,” Bastilion gasped, his thick face red with barely withheld rage, “to bow our heads in reverent silence. We all have family and friends affected by this war.”
As the rest of our peers bowed in prayer (to whichever gods suited their fancies), I watched my friend from the distance of my periphery. He sat seething, his pale skin as red as the professor’s face.
Wystrans were not common among the Citadel. Only about one-point-five percent of Phrygia’s total population identifies as having Wystran or Kuzolovan heritage. Frankly, the far north has a way of holding onto people, shaping them, giving them purpose and identity. ‘Once a strider, always a strider’ as the saying goes, at least—that’s what Haslow told me.
With how fondly he speaks of home, how wistfully nostalgic his voice becomes, I’ll never understand why he chose to study in the Citadel—it’s not as if he’d expressed any interest in his major either. His research residency in Grahtzildahn, though esoteric and brutal, had nothing to do with our duties as siege mages, should we be drafted after graduation.
It’s a common enough thing to entirely lose interest in your major. We students have no say in what we study. Our first four years consist of rigorous proficiency and personality testing, and rapid-paced catch up.
What are you prior professional experiences (if any), have you become proficient in a non-magical skill, are you a vindictive prick or an utter push over? These, and more, are the questions freshman advisors have in their heads as they evaluate students for placement. I was placed into Siege for my calm under pressure. Marta was placed for her natural aptitude. Some students are groomed for obscure specializations.
Recruiters wander the Great Cities and surrounding kingdoms searching for children, adolescents, young adults—frankly, anyone—who possess a glimmer of potential. Often times, such glimmers require special education in reading, writing, arithmetic, and sciences. Most of us come uneducated, having grown up in rural farmsteads—like me—or gutter slums and ghettos or even among nomadic tribes, living off the land—like Haslow.
Neither I nor Haslow were recruited. We traveled to Phrygia of our own accord—we met on the boat leaving Valencia and we’d been friends ever since.
“Why are you enrolling?” Haslow had asked me.
“Da sent me away,” I told him, staring off at the sea for the first as I leaned on the gunwale. “Got tired of me burning down the tool sheds. Where else does a man like me go?”
I’m not sure why Haslow was placed—or even why he enrolled—he never shared. I’d always just been glad to have friend by my side through the rigorous, spiritually draining education that I, for some reason, felt so much conviction to excel at.
“Now!” cried Bastilion. “Let’s get on the same page. Someone summarize the core fundamentals of siege magic.”
All of us could. Without thinking twice. This dull—and bloody—topic had been all we’d been permitted to think about for nearly six years. But instructors love redundancy, they call it practice.
Daria, a young woman whom I had taken several courses with, raised her hand. She always had answers. Even for the most difficult of questions… which this was not.
“Yes! Tell me!”
“Siege magic is enacted by cadre of mages, sometimes referred as a ‘system.’ The leading mage and primary caster is the conduit, who is fueled by the engine—being the rest of the cadre. The engine focuses on channeling and concentrating their combined potential so the conduit can unleash spell magnified hundreds of times beyond what one person can accomplish alone…”
“Most of the time.” I added, for Marta’s sake. My heart ached at the thought—I desperately hoped she would never be called to enact her rare gift upon the world.
“Right…” Daria cleared her throat. “For the sake of brevity, that’s how it works.”
“Well put, Daria! Well put! And I value enthusiastic debate, Perry. Gods know we need more enthusiasm…” Bastilion’s expression faltered, some troubling memory flashing behind his tired eyes. “As tenth-year Siege students in this day and age, it’s important you understand that you will be called to the field. While none of you are likely to act as conduit, it’s imperative that you’re all competent in both roles. Without the support of their engines, conduits burn up in an instant. Without their conduit, engines are defenseless against counterattacks.”
The room grew deathly still. All of us—and I’m confident speaking for my peers—felt the pressure of the draft letters awaiting our graduation.
Bastilion raised his arms, gesturing to the room. “Would someone care to add to our working definition?”
“Aye,” growled Haslow, “how ‘bout the killing of kinsmen? Is that a requirement for graduation? I came to the Citadel because they touted indifference to the mundane world—yet here we go marching to Valencia, burning honest folks for profit.”
“Apologize, boy…” Bastilion’s face darkened, and so did the room. “Now!” Thunder clapped as the instructor yelled, a cheap trick to intimidate freshmen. Haslow held the man’s glare, returning it tenfold.
“I will not tolerate disrespect in my own lecture hall,” Bastilion said, his fury simmering to an even boil. “Apologize now—or face the consequences.”
Haslow stood. “With all due respect—and you’re right, you are entitled to none—I will not apologize for speaking the truth. Pascal Doon has violated the core tenant of the Citadel. Since it’s a certainty that we will march out against the Wystrans come summer, I think its appropriate to discuss the matter here.”
Bastilion huffed and snapped his fingers. A spindly second-year acting as teacher’s aide emerged from the shadows holding a silver, bejeweled box. Bastilion opened it, withdrawing an elaborate catalyst—a ring that garnished the length of the wearer’s middle finger, master-crafted to withstand high concentrations of potential. In the hands of an Archmage, such an artifact was akin to a fleet of trebuchets.
“It seems this lecture calls for a lesson in sociology—a dash of warfare, eh? You are out of your depth, young man. I understand your sympathies for your people—but you are a citadel mage before anything else. I recommend you abandon this path immediately. This is your final warning.”
Haslow drew his gnarled wand, hewn from the branch of a sycamore.
“Oh well.” Bastilion shrugged. “Every good capstone needs an example. Assume your stance.”
I found myself on my feet—I couldn’t watch idly while my oldest friend gets erased by a far superior opponent. I clenched my fists, my entire body tremulous. I thought I might piss myself.
Bastilion laughed. “Two against one? I thought you Wystran boasted unparalleled senses of honor.”
“With only a blunt stick to defend myself,” Haslow said, “I’d argue a second is still not enough.”
“Bah! Let’s make this more interested, shall we? This shall be a group demonstration. Students in the front row, you are my engine. Everyone else, fuel our valiant dissenters. I am effectively outnumbered six-to-one. Fair enough for you?”
Haslow nodded.
“This is mad!” I yelled, my eyes darting around the room for help that I knew wasn’t coming. “A duel is one thing, but to lay siege? We’ll bring the building down!”
“Cold feet, Lafey? My, are you bloody predictable… worry not. The room is warded—all that happens here, stays here.”
“Perry…” Haslow said, eyes trained on the instructor. “Stand in the engine.”
I no longer recognized the man beside me. He had departed one year ago a kind and gentle soul—now, he was some hot-headed bravo. Haslow was placing everyone in that lecture hall under Death’s scrutiny; he knew it and he didn’t care.
I shook my head. “I can’t do that.”
“Fine. Hold the wards. I’ll throw fire.”
Before I could argue—my wards are rusty as an iron pan left in the rain—the duel had commenced. Haslow slung the first spell. I lurched into my battle stance, rehearsed in isolation a million times, but never directed against another person. Yet Haslow moved and wove sorcery as if he’d done so in anger at the pub every weekend of his life. What happened to him down there?
The students making up either engine shambled into sidelong positions to avoid the offensive magic. Though this formation made for protection from common offensive maneuvers by way of proximity, it made it near impossible for someone inept in warding—someone like me—to cover everyone from wider reaching attacks.
And that’s without factoring in the potency of a centured Archmage.
Haslow radiated heat as he drew from the engine—many of the students were already sweating from channeling enough potential to supply Haslow’s demands. I inhaled, drew in what little potential he spared me and formed a simple dome barrier around our system.
My ward shattered the second it touched air, Bastilion’s wave of sorcery toppled over us, bringing a nauseating deluge akin to being dragged through sand at the bottom of an ocean. I gasped, struggling to keep my feet and summoned another ward, this time contesting Haslow for his greedy pulls.
Bastilion stood eerily still, commanding a string of complex spells with nearly imperceptible tremors among individual fingers. I struggled to lift my arms as a spell heavy as a limestone keep crashed against my ward. I was spread too thin protecting our entire system. Giving us the larger engine was a bloody sabotage!
Haslow accounted for this—of course he did. He stood nearly as still as the instructor. His eyelids rolled, behind them his eyes darted between uncountable variables in the ether.
The warm air around us sweltered, my feet boiled inside my moccasins. At first, I thought this was Bastilion’s doing, but then I noticed the wall of flames surrounding our system—the flames danced as if breathing, as if they were alive. Members of our engine began to drop, falling unconscious one by one.
Haslow had conjured Worldfire—a forbidden art—he maintained it with narrow channeling, an unethical technique that requires the conduit pulls everything from singular members of an engine rather than evenly from the collective.
What the fuck are you doing?
Looking into Haslow’s strained features, I no longer saw a friend. Imagine watching your brother draw a longsword at your sister’s wedding, then he proceeds to butcher the guests in a bout of ravenous madness. That is what I had witnessed. Haslow had gone mad during his three-years in Hell, learning of his kinsmen’s rebellion was the final straw on the strider’s back.
Potential had transmuted to cloud of blackened smote. The air was sulfurous and impossible to breathe. Students continued to fall, sapped of all their vitality—our engine turned on Haslow, and everyone in the room was struggling to shut him down.
But he had unleashed Worldfire. Somehow, he had called an ancient, eldritch power only Grandmasters like Pascal Doon and Phrygian Black could contact. But there he was—harnessing Worldfire with unbelievable fluency…
This wasn’t Haslow’s first time.
“Stop!” I screamed, but my voice incinerated in the furnace winds enveloping our system. The flames began to twist into a cyclone.
I heard Daria and some other behind me chanting a quelling spell. I did the same, turning on Haslow and planting my feet as the force of our contesting sorcery split my bones and sinew apart.
This is it, I thought with certainty. Oh, how fast and unexpected Death comes… and what have I to show for it?
Daria’s quelling spell never reached Haslow. I was within the Worldfire—so mind did. My spell made contact, staggering Haslow and ousting the living flames in an instant. There was a moment of silence. My friend’s dead eyes met mine, devoid of even a hint of remorse.
Who are you?
Bastilion began to chant, but he only managed to utter the first syllable of the chant. Haslow let out a ululating scream and reignited. My senses evaporated.