Techromancy Scrolls: Adept (6 page)

He looked to where Celeste had disappeared into the castle then at me with a grin. “Interesting company you keep for a young herder.”

I didn't know what to say but I don't think he expected a reply because he was already jumping spryly into the back of my wagon saying, “Lets see what salvage you have for me today little one.”

I climbed up beside him and pulled back the canvas, then opened my burlap sack. His eyes glittered again as he looked into the sack and whistled to himself. “How do you find such treasures? He looked at the signpost and ran a hand over the steel post. I could taste and feel the magics from his hand. His eyebrows went up. “Steel.” he said.

He grabbed the signpost and threw it to the ground. The loud clang of it on the cobblestones made Goliath nervous. William jumped down and I followed him with the sack and went to his table. I rummaged in it and pulled out the small motors and placed them in front of him. I saw his magics reach out to them, one shaft turned the other didn't. I wondered why the man was not a Techromancer, but figured it had to do something with the low levels of magic I was sensing from him. Celeste, being a Techno Knight, was low level, but she felt as though she had ten times his power.

I looked at him expectantly and he tapped his fingers on the table, making a steady thrumming sound on the wood as he thought. “Two silver? One each?”

I smiled, I liked this dance, there was something invigorating about dickering. “Three. Two for the free turning one, one for the seized one.”

He enjoyed the game too, I could tell as he countered, “Two, five penny.”

I held my hand up to spit in it but saw the gleam in his eye and stopped. I squinted at him, “Two silver, five penny, and two penny vouchers in the market.”

He chuckled at me and spit in his hand, “Done.”

I spit in mine and shook. “Done.” He moved them to the side and from his coin belt he counted out the money and placed the coins in front of the motors and then pulled two violet penny voucher slips from his clipboard and slid them under the coins.

Penny vouchers weren't as good as real pennies. You could only use them in the market and the vendors gave no change for them. So you had to be smart shopping in the market with them to get as close to a penny as you could. Vendors had to save up one hundred of them to cash them in at the treasury. It was a sort of credit for the keep.

I grinned then looked in my bag, I took out the Mustang emblem and pocketed it. He squinted trying to catch what I had decided on keeping until I showed a scholar. Then I pulled out all of the copper wires that were covering the true prize. After dickering and letting him get away with paying only a full silver, I smiled hugely at him.

He tilted his head, he knew it had to be good if I saved it for last. I pulled the burlap down to reveal the alternator. He reached for it and I slid it back from him. I pulled a little bulb from my tool bag and used some wire from the stack and connected it. I placed the butt of the bulb on an iron strap on the table then flicked the pulley and the light flickered a little.

I'm not too proud of the predatory toothy grin I gave him as I said, “Three gold.” The man was salivating. He wiped his jowls, his eyes glued to my treasure, and I pocketed my bulb and and put the wire back on the stack and slid the alternator across the table to him. He couldn't get his hands on it fast enough.

I felt him send his magics across the device and he froze and pushed it away from him like it would burn him. He was on his feet and his voice held an accusatory tone, “There's residual magics on it! Did you...” I was suddenly frightened, I didn't know he'd be able to tell. I was heating up and my breathing was getting faster.

I saw a reflection of my eyes in his, burning brilliant amber. Shit! He was bellowing, “Guards! Rogue!” Power was starting to build in his hands. Oh god, I was going to the stockade just because I tried to get more coin for the salvage. What would mother and Jace do?

A deep resonating bass voice behind me said, “Belay that! She's with me William.” William quickly lowered his eyes and bowed his head as I turned to see Celeste walking up with a large bald man in his fifties dressed in the robes of a noble. A scholar?

My heart jumped into my throat and I swear I was a moment from passing out when the purser said, “Of course Prime Techromancer Donovan.”

My vision was starting to swim in the augmented colors of the world. I was aware of every metal around me, I could taste iron in all of the people's blood. Power was starting to arc down my arms. I started to feel lightheaded and realized I needed to breathe. I exhaled and tried to take in a breath without it sounding like a gasp. Show no weakness Laney! Belatedly I bowed low and kept my eyes on the ground.

The big man stepped up to me and placed his hand on my back. His deep bass was soothing as he said quietly, “Breath trough it child. It is alright. Breathe, calm yourself, it will pass. Control it, don't let it control you.”

I started taking long deep breaths and tried to calm my center. Besides Duke Fredrick himself, the Prime Techromancer was the most powerful and important figure in all of Wexbury. He was telling me to calm myself. Him standing there was counterproductive to that end. The Techromancers were my heroes.

The colors of the world slowly bled back to normal and I slowed my pulse. I could feel the heat leaving me. I knew my eyes had returned to normal. I stayed in my bow. He pulled me up gently. “There, that's better now. Look at me child.” I looked up at him hesitantly. He looked over at William, “This is a child, not a rogue.” The man nodded and kept his eyes low.

Then he addressed me again, “When was your igniting?”

I didn't understand and Celeste answered for me, “Yesterday father. Her gift bloomed in defense of a Knight of the Realm. It was spectacular, I'd never witnessed an igniting before.” Igniting? She knew something happened and didn't tell me? Oh good lord, this was Techromancer Donovan!

He looked at me expectantly but then his eyes narrowed. “You did not know? Surely you were aware of your gift.”

Oh... I said meekly, “I am a sensitive. For two metals sir. Iron and copper.”

He snorted then put an arm around my shoulder and looked up at William. “Pay her price and have her wagon moved to the main livery please.”

William hastily counted out three gold coins from his coin belt, then picked up the rest of my coins and vouchers and handed them to me. I said to him, “I'm so sorry for any trouble I have caused sir.”

William looked at me for a moment, studying me then exhaled and said, “I'm a little excitable. I'll have your wagon moved for you.” I nodded and Celeste pulled me from her father and put an arm protectively around me as we followed the Techromancer into the castle, past the onlookers that were gawking at us trying to figure out what was happening. I was in the same boat.

As soon as a heavy oak door was closed behind us the big man asked, “What have you done child? Anyone who was magic touched would have seen that display.” I didn't know if he truly wanted and answer or if it were rhetorical.

Celeste chastised the man, “Stop it, you are frightening her father.” I blinked, she obviously had no fear of the most powerful magic user in the realm. We moved in silence to the base of the Techromancy tower, just below the great library. We entered a grand office that was in disarray, with scrolls, tomes, parchments and devices stacked everywhere.

He dumped parchments from two chairs in front of a great oak desk and made an ushering motion. Celeste pulled me down into a chair as she sat beside me. Techromancer Donovan sat on the edge of the desktop and looked between the two of us. I could see his mind running at lightning speed in his eyes.

He looked at me but spoke to Celeste, “Daughter, why can commoners not wield more than the magic of a sensitive?” I understood he was educating me by having her explain it for me.

I didn't know much, just that anyone in the village that developed an affinity for more magic, wound up on public display in the stockade, then vanished after a few weeks. I assumed to the dungeons.

She exhaled and looked between me and her adoptive father, and sighed out, “Rogues.” It was a single word that was frightening to all that herd it. She expounded upon it, “When commoners started developing the gifts that once only the nobles possessed. The lords of the realms deigned they were not to utilize those gifts. They were under some misconception that a serf was not worthy to be included in the conclaves of magic users in the keeps.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Those who broke the edict would be subject to public floggings and imprisonment or execution. This of course did not sit well with those magic inclined who had the audacity not to have noble blood in them to 'deserve' the gift.”

I was noticing more and more that even though she was a noble and held the bearing of one, she disapproved of how nobles behaved. She got the same look whenever I was being disciplined by someone. My eyes went slightly wider as I realized it was because she had once been a commoner like me, like she had confided.

She didn't have that noble blood she spoke of. She was a woman of two worlds and she didn't believe they should be separate. I could see her reading my eyes and I caught an almost imperceptible nod from her, knowing I had come to that realization.

Her voice had no emotion. “This caused an uprising and secret societies five hundred years hence. Magic users would flee the keeps to avoid punishment. Large groups organized and were labeled rogues. They may have started as frightened people but they quickly became more dangerous than the marauders and would wipe out entire outlying villages with their magics to raid for supplies.”

She closed her eyes, “This put the lords in a no win situation. They had to maintain the archaic rules restricting who could wield magics in order to stop others from rising to power with ill intent inside the walls of a keep, but it also perpetuated magicked people fleeing the keeps. The lords of the keeps were damned if they did, damned if they didn't.”

She opened her eyes and looked at me. “It all came to a head fifty years back when the leader of the rogues, Rydell, decided that raiding was not enough. He decided to assault the walled keeps to take them as their own and end the rule of the lords. They first struck Far Reach, killing every man, woman, and child. The Techno Knights, Knights of the Realm, and Techromancers of Far Reach put up a valiant fight but were massively outnumbered and the magical assault was relentless.”

I knew of this story from the bards, it was the Great Mage Wars that ended six years before I was born. She gritted her teeth and spoke the next through them, “They mounted the bodies of the fallen Techno Knights and Techromancers on pikes at the main gates as a warning to all. This began the great Mage Wars. All of the realms united under Prince George of Highland Keep to stop the rogues. Their numbers only grew as they swept up from the South, laying waste to all villages and keeps.”

She was noticeably aggravated now, “They didn't care who they killed in their wake. Tens of thousands of innocents died with the defenders. The wars raged for over thirty years until one man, from Wexbury. Sir Tannis, Hero of the Realm, lead an assault deep into enemy territory, directly into the heart of Far Reach. The most powerful Prime Techromancer to ever hail from Wexbury. He handed his station down to father to don the mantle of Techno Knight.”

She had pride on her face now and her voice was strong. I loved hearing this tale every time the traveling bards traveled through the realm. “He was one of the three Adepts known to live past igniting in that time. He could control all metals and channel electricity, combining magic and raw power. After both sides were decimated, with the keep in ruins, only Sir Tannis and Rydell were left alive. They stood for two days and nights, locked in a battle of raw power. Then it is said Sir Tannis called upon the earth itself to vanquish the Arch Rogue Rydell.”

She looked sad as she said the next, “It was too much for Tannis. The knights that arrived to witness the end of the battle rushed him back to Wexbury, but the Hero of the Realm died on the journey home. The rest of the rogues ran and scattered themselves throughout the realms.”

Then that fire of disapproval of the nobles was evident in her eyes again as she added to the story, something I did not know. “The travesty to Sir Tannis' family that followed was inexcusable in my own view. His daughter, who had deigned to marry below her station, to marry a lowly commoner, no longer had the ties to Tannis' nobility. As a wife takes her station first from her parents and second from her husband. She was stripped of her nobility and disappeared into Wexbury, never to be seen again.”

Then she shrugged it off and looked directly into my eyes, “After that, the punishments were modified for serfs who ignited, they were only placed in the stockade as an example to others, then traded to other lands to be put into a capacity as to never use their magics. These 'disappearances' served as better deterrent than execution. Fear of the unknown.”

She looked at her father, “Through recent rumblings and investigations by our spies, it has been determined that there is a man who is organizing the rogues again, and we fear the approach of another Mage War.”

I went pale. Another Mage War? The horrors the bards share of the inhumanities people suffered in the last war gave children nightmares after hearing. It couldn't possibly happen again could it? But then my mind caught up with me and I tried to stop the terror welling up inside of me. I refused to let it show. My voice came out in barely a whisper as I stood, avoiding their eyes. “I'm to be brought to the stockades then.” It was a statement not an question.

Celeste pulled me back down into the chair and tried to meet my eyes, I only averted them down. The Prime Techromancer sighed and spoke, “If we are to follow the letter of the laws, then yes child.”

I didn't look up and he added, “But there are ways around it. It would be a shame for us to lose a Terchromancer who is sensitive to two metals. Yet I believe there is even more to you. You have something about you child, your magics taste familiar, like there is something you are not sharing. I can't quite place my finger on it.”

He chuckled out, “Hell, you may not even know you are not sharing if you didn't even know your potential until yesterday. And you have caught the eye of my Celeste. If she is seeing something in you then I would be a fool not to.” I stopped breathing at that. Celeste was seeing something she hasn't shared with me.

Celeste perked up and asked, “What ways father?”

He dipped his head to catch my attention. I looked nervously at the man, holding back the energies I could feel threatening to escape me again. He smiled like he were sharing something exciting as he spoke to me, “We could marry you off to an eligible lord in the castle. I hear Count Heinrick's son Edwin is of majority.”

I was on my feet instantly, finally losing my calm as energy spilled out of me and every metal object in the room sprang to life and started rotating around me, just above my head. I snapped, “I will be betrothed to no man! No man shall ever have me in their bed!”

Both Cleste and the big man stood, but his eyes were not on her as he absently said, “Most commoner women would jump at the chance to marry into nobility, young Laney. Like a dream come true.” He seemed mesmerized by the chaos of swirling metal forming a chaotic halo above me. The lights hanging twenty feet overhead started arching power into the whirling dervish, I hadn't realized they were electric lights.

A warm hand on my arm and a gentle voice beside me pulled my attention and I looked at Celeste through augmented vision, colors swirling. There were so many tastes around me. Everything was getting confusing until I made out what she was saying, “Laney. It is okay. Nobody is going to marry you off. You need to calm down. Laney, look at me.”

I turned to lock eyes with her, amber energies trailing from my eyes at the motion. Her emerald eyes were blazing with green power, it was so beautiful. She smiled and said, “Laney, breathe. Think about breathing. Concentrate on one thing.” I nodded, choosing her eyes, and took deep calming breaths.

She smiled again and I smiled back, I couldn't help it. Then I covered my head with my arms as she did when metal rained down on us when I felt my vision return to normal. It was darker in the room, half the overhead lights were out now.

Donovan was in motion, squatting and sifting through the mess of metal items around us as he distractedly asked like nothing had happened, “Sell you off to a noble family? It is how I was blessed with the most amazing daughter I could have wished for.” He kept picking stuff up and then dropping the items back on the floor to move to the next.

All commoners were property of the realm. I didn't want to be sold, I knew it was the right of the Keep or my mother to do so, but I couldn't leave mother and Jace. I fought the power from rising again, Celeste tilted her head still staring into my eyes. She smiled and said, “She is not cattle father.”

His examination of the debris stopped as he suddenly looked up at her with concern and love in his eyes. She glanced away from me for an instant as she held a hand toward him. “I do not feel that way father. I love you. But I admit to feeling that way in the beginning.”

He stood as her eyes met mine again, she was like a calming force on me. I did not wish to distress her. Then she smiled and tilted her head toward her father but keeping her eyes on mine. “There is another way father. She could become my squire. As Knight ascendant she would hold the rank of nobility and her family would rise to the station.” I blinked, a squire?

The man looked at his daughter for a long three heartbeats then nodded and reasoned it out, “That would have the desired effect. We would not lose a potential Terchromancer and she would be beholden to none but you. But she is a child daughter, she is no warrior. Duke Fredrick would never allow it.”