The elevator dinged.

The doors opened, revealing a vast open space at the top of the tower, like a superhero’s penthouse suite. The first thing Mark noticed was the smell. It smelled like a clean forest, and also like sweet smoke. Mark couldn’t place or really understand the smell, but he smelled it all the same.

The apartment itself was all light and air and plants growing in small garden patches, but also large, soft-looking couches and a big fireplace like the one in the lobby downstairs. Half of the entry room had a wall made of windows, giving a mostly unobstructed view of the horizon to the north and the east. There was a massive door in the center of that view, offering a way to get out onto a balcony that wrapped around the exterior of the tower. Plants grew out there, mostly bushes, but there was one nice, low-growing tree with brilliant green leaves growing in a protected part of the roof. The other half of the interior room was three separate floors and a staircase leading up those stairs. Down here on the first floor was a big kitchen—

Archmage Steve Blackthorn was shirtless in a bathrobe, smoking something in a pipe as he flipped pancakes on a flat top grill. He had on boxers. He looked like any normal sort of guy, with dark brown hair, brown eyes, a pale complexion, and a relaxed attitude; like a guy in his house smoking a joint and making breakfast.

A nude woman was getting a drink from the fridge behind him. According to Mark’s unionsense, there were three other people in the apartment, all of them out of sight, in the other, larger half of the suite. Two of those people were probably having sex, according to their vectors. The third one was doing something else. The nude woman saw Mark and grinned as she held her beer. She walked behind Blackthorn and slapped the archmage on the ass, smiling and chuckling as she did so.

Blackthorn went, “Ahh!” as he jumped a little, and then he laughed and grinned and turned. “You’re not tired?” Blackthorn happily asked.

“I am very tired, and you have a guest.” The woman smirked as she pointed at Mark.

Mark had taken a single step out of the elevator, and the elevator just now closed behind him. There was no escape… And besides that, Mark wanted answers to questions. He needed to be here.

Blackthorn raised an eyebrow as he turned and looked at Mark. His eyes went wider and he exclaimed, “Mark! You showed up!”

The guy’s pipe fell out of his mouth but it didn’t fall down. It floated to the side and sat down on a small dish on a table in front of the kitchen. Blackthorn fluffed up his bathrobe and tied it around himself, while the spatula he had been using was now flipping the pancakes by itself, hovering there and exerting force outside of Blackthorn’s direct action. Cooked pancakes, all golden and with spots of blueberries, flopped onto a plate, as more batter floated out of a big bowl and plopped onto the grill. Fresh batter sizzled in a lot of butter.

The whole scene reminded Mark of when Addashield cooked in Mark’s home in Orange City. Mark recalled the taste of basilisk eggs, scrambled well, and sausage imported from Empire Aluatha, and how Addashield had hovered juice out of the fridge to pour Mark a glass.

Blackthorn asked, “Can I get you some pancakes, Mark? Maybe some coffee?” With a subtle questioning that was probably friendly, but which sounded concerned and which could have meant anything, he quickly added, “Are you drinking coffee, yet?”

He was asking about substance abuse, or something, maybe?

“… I have started drinking coffee. I prefer the flavored ones with lots of creamer.”

Blackthorn grinned. “Ah ha! Yes! That’s the good stuff!” Blackthorn clapped his hands and announced, “What is life without joy, right! Always go for the good stuff! Never go for black coffee. Black coffee is just boring old caffeine.” He walked over to a coffee machine that looked just as expensive as everything else in the apartment, saying, “I’ll make both of us some good stuff! Do you want it with or without some enhancers?”

Blackthorn’s Contract with his demon required Blackthorn to do drugs and sex, all the time, because his demon wanted to experience all of that, all the time, and Blackthorn wanted all of that, too. So when Blackthorn mentioned ‘enhancers’, that’s what Mark imagined he meant. It was probably the correct idea.

“No thank you, sir,” Mark said, “I’ll just take the latte, if you’re making them.”

Blackthorn grinned. “Of course!” And then he started making coffee, and after a flash of light, he had two cups of the stuff, and he was walking toward a table to set down the cups, saying, “I’m glad you finally accepted my invitation! I was afraid I had turned you off too much the last time we talked. Now, I know a bit about what you want, but I need you to tell me what you want, Mark. Please sit with me.”

… Mark decided to gloss over Blackthorn flashing coffee into existence. He sat down at the table with Blackthorn and had a sip of his coffee while Blackthorn sipped his own. Mark barely tasted it. He set down the cup.

Mark began, “I’m here to ask questions about the nature of magic and what that demon Leash told me about… Uh. I’ve gone to the Mage Guild looking for answers, but I’ve only just the other day found out that the Mage Guild is more of a regulatory body and not actually in charge of information, but I know about mage contracts and the inherent secrecy of the information. I don’t want to do a contract. I just want answers about… everything. Chances are I’m going to ask Addavein about all this stuff, too, but I don’t know what he will say… or even if he will be offended by what Leash offered; that idea of splitting Addavein back into the mage and the demon.”

Talking to that giant dragon would be like talking to a dragon, as the saying went; ‘talk to a dragon and have your life upended’. Talking to an archmage or anyone in any real position of power was pretty much the same as ‘talking to a dragon’, but not nearly the same.

Blackthorn sipped his coffee while Mark spoke. When Mark was done he set down his coffee and said, “I’ve gotten your full transcripts of the questioning session by Justicar, after the Demon Leash incident. I’ve read every statement given by everyone involved, and I’ve heard a few different ways in which Leash promised you several impossible things, should you Contract with him. I’m not going to go over much of that with you, because there’s too much to go over. Mostly, you should know this: demons are not a monolith. They hoard knowledge. Not all of them knows everything that all the rest know, but there is a vast, basic level of knowledge that they all have, that would put almost any archmage to shame, and that includes me.

“I spend most of my days high and having fun, Mark. I am not a studious person. My demon, Planty, is similarly non-studious. I am at the lower level of what an archmage is expected to be able to do. Oh sure, I can kill any kaiju, so I do my duty, but I’m not very solid.

“But what I have learned in various inquiries about what Leash said to you, about the resurrection magics of the elves, about ripping a dragon apart back into a person and a demon, and about permanently killing demons…” Blackthorn scrunched his face, looking away before looking back at Mark, saying, “There are so many caveats to all of those things that there is no good way to start talking about them, other than to say that they’re probably all impossible things, and yet, there’s a 20% chance that the resurrection and separation magics might be true.”

Mark felt himself relax.

So there was a 20% chance, huh?

Good enough.

Mark said, “Thank you for telling me that. I suppose, now, I need to get stronger if I’m ever to venture into Endless Daihoon to find those resurrection magics. To that end, can you answer questions about magic, and help me eventually reach that goal? Like, specifically and for now, how about a flight spell? How does that work?”

Mark was definitely overstepping the bounds of politeness, but he felt secure enough to do that. And if Blackthorn didn’t want to help, then that was fine, too. Mark could move on from this encounter having called it a success already.

Blackthorn breathed a little, and then hummed, and said, “Strength will not be your problem. Capability will be your problem. Asking about a flight spell is a good idea, and yet...” He leaned forward slightly, and in that moment, he changed. He was still the young-looking man he appeared to be, and yet his shadows seemed deeper. His eyes drooped. He was almost a hundred years old in a 20-something body, but he rarely looked it. He looked every bit of his true age in that moment. His voice was the same, but it was also deeper, as he asked, “Are you going to contract with Leash? Will you accept Malaqua’s arbitration of your Contract?”

Mark’s heart beat with black veins and he almost cracked the coffee cup in his hands, but he stopped himself. He let go of the mug and tried not to glare as he said, “Death to all monsters, and that includes demons. I will never contract with a demon.”

Blackthorn stared at Mark for a long, deep moment, and then he pulled back, but his age remained in the look in his eyes. He simply said, “Good to hear. You shouldn’t go into one of those Contracts at all. You’re going to be strong enough without it.”

A moment passed.

Blackthorn seemed to relax, his body language loosening, his age melting away into youth, and he grinned. His vector had been rather pointed in weird, solid ways for a good minute there, but now his vector relaxed. Mark sensed Blackthorn’s desires point away from Mark and toward the coffee on the table, the pipe sitting on the dish, and then to the hallway beyond, where someone said something and another person said something else, neither of which Mark could hear, but which he understood to be small, nice nothings.

Mark pretended to relax.

Blackthorn went, “Well then! Ha ha!” He smiled. “Good to know you’re not interested in demons!”

Mark frowned a little. “I’m not interested in them for Contract reasons, but I am interested in knowing how to kill them.”

“Oh well sure. That’s what I meant, too.”

It wasn’t what he meant at all. He was worried, or concerned, or a more complicated set of emotions about Mark Contracting. Not about actually fighting demons, or learning how to fight demons.

Mark said, “Everyone should want to know how to kill demons. I wasn’t even aware such a thing was even possible until Leash spoke of it. I thought they were all immortal, bodiless things, each of them tens of thousands of years old and unkillable.”

Blackthorn smiled, and then he went in a completely different conversational direction, “So hey! You’ve only got around 720 grams of adamantium on you, but you’re adamantium blooded, right? From what you have on your person, I can see you haven’t cracked the secret of making more.”

Mark blanked for a moment.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

His thoughts flashed across a spectrum of worry. Blackthorn knew that Mark could make adamantium, himself; that he was like one of those adamantium monsters that people hunted for their biometal. Blackthorn had called Mark ‘adamantium blooded’, meaning that there were probably similar words for the ‘mithril blooded’, which was the most common biometal that practically all mithrilkinetics made themselves, eventually. Adamantiumkinetics, like Mark, almost never made adamantium themselves.

Blackthorn smiled as he watched Mark have A Moment, seeming to see everything Mark was thinking, as he was thinking it.

Mark said, “I do not…” Mark frowned.

Silence.

“It’s good to be worried about being locked up for your adamantium production. It is a valid worry. Docile or mostly-docile adamantium monsters are locked up in very elaborate and secured containment zones in all of the major empires of Daihoon, and they are farmed for their adamantium. People who can produce adamantium are included in those lock ups, or at least they used to be, before the Reveal and all that shit show. There were lots of prison breaks back then. So many things happened back then.” Blackthorn continued, “You still shouldn’t let people know you can make the stuff. People are fucking greedy ass shitbags.”

“… Yeah, they are.”

Blackthorn nodded. “I’m a greedy shitbag, too.”

Somehow, Mark was not surprised. He deadpanned, “What do you want?”

Blackthorn grinned. “I want you to be my personal adamantium farm and I’ll be your mage-on-retainer.”

Mark frowned.

“We’re not doing prisons or holdings, or anything like that. You can live your life and do whatever. But when you want a big question answered, you give me a kilogram of adamantium. That’s enough to make one kaiju blade, with enough left over to outfit some smaller weapons, all for use in defense of Memphi. It’s just about the best deal that anyone could ever have with regard to answers from a real archmage, because they’ll be comprehensive answers. Enough to fill up an afternoon full of discussion, and maybe even a few weeks of afternoons. I won’t stop instructing you until you either ask me to stop, or you get what I was trying to teach you.

“It’s a priceless offer.

“But because we live in a world of actual prices, I can put numbers to this. 1 kilo of adamantium is currently 37 million goldleaf, with a constantly fluctuating price because Addavein disturbed the whole market. 1 kilo used to be worth 55.2 million. By way of comparing: A comprehensive magical answer from an archmage is impossible to buy, but 55 million would tempt most archmages. A kilo of adamantium is almost as impossible to buy as buying pure prismatic mana.

“The favor of a dragon, the action of a god, a prime soul crystal, or a treatise on one of the Big Spells and outside of the oversight of the Mage Guild; all of these are things that are worth about the same as a kilo of adamantium, and yet to call them equal in value would be a situational lie. But you have too much adamantium and I have too many answers, and thus, we can trade.”

Blackthorn grinned.

Mark had allowed Blackthorn to finish, because that was the polite thing to do, but now that he was done Mark wanted to stand up and walk away.

This sounded too much like making a deal with a demon. And, Mark had no idea how to make a kilo of adamantium. He couldn’t make any adamantium right now; not any faster than he already was, which was at the rate of 15 grams per year, or something similar to that. Blackthorn made it seem like Mark giving him that much adamantium was just a matter of… of deciding to do it?

Mark said, “I don’t know how to make adamantium yet, so I’m afraid this deal is over before it can begin. Sorry to waste your time.” Mark stood up.

He wanted to get out of there, anyway—

“Of course I’ll tell you how to make more of the stuff first. I want you to succeed, Mark, because when you succeed, we all succeed. Just look at all those monsters you’ve killed these last few months! I’m very happy that you’ve come to Memphi, Mark.” Blackthorn added, “And I need that adamantium, but I’m not dealing with that dragon. I’m gonna need weapons that can kill dragons, because that’s my main expected duty happening with this whole Twin-Cities-thing.”

Mark’s heart thumped.

Blackthorn was going to be the one tasked with killing dragons?

Mark sat back down, looking at Blackthorn, as he said, “So obviously you know which buttons to press to make me interested in this arrangement.”

Blackthorn grinned and put a hand over his chest, saying, “I solemnly swear to never use my massive power differential over you and yours to ever purposely harm you or yours.” He put his hand down. “But I need that adamantium to outfit my girls and guys with kaiju blades, Mark. When the portals open and connect the Two Worlds here in Memphi and the kaijus and monster waves start flowing this way, we need good weapons that aren’t Addavein-derived. We need those weapons in the hands of everyone.”

It was quiet, for a moment, as Mark thought.

The automatic cooking magics continued to grill pancakes in the background. Butter sizzled. Someone chuckled down the hallway. Blackthorn looked at Mark, and Mark looked away.

Mark turned back to Blackthorn.

He asked, “Do you want to kill him?”

Did he want to kill Addavein?

“No.”

No, he did not want to kill Addavein.

Mark wasn’t sure what answer he was expecting, or which answer he wanted. His own feelings about Addavein were complicated. But to hear a ‘no’ so solidly said was still somehow… disappointing, in some weird way.

Mark said nothing.

Blackthorn continued, “I’ll still try to kill him if he steps out of line, but no one wants that battle, Mark. It would be a disaster. You understand that, right?”

“… Yes, I understand that.” Mark frowned a little. And then he discarded his weird emotions, and said, “I don’t want to fight him or kill him either. The idea that he’s my talzarki is growing on me.” A ‘brother born in disastrous circumstance’ was much easier for Mark to stomach than Addavein being some sort of actual brother. Mark stared at Blackthorn. “But Leash spoke of separating Addavein into Addashield and Kanda.”

Blackthorn looked the same as before, but his vector was more pointed now. Darker. Blacker.

As though it wasn’t a major question, Blackthorn asked, “Is that something you’d want to do?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

Complicated feelings abounded, and in some sort of small way, Mark wondered if it would be easier to separate the dragon into the mage and the demon, than it would be to kill the dragon. Mark honestly had no idea of the difficulty or the involvement in the first option, while the second option, the fight-to-the-death, would end up with too many deaths.

“It’s dangerous to even talk about things like that.”

“… I can imagine that, yes.”

Blackthorn looked at Mark, and Mark returned the look.

Blackthorn moved on. “Let’s talk adamantium, manifested mana, and how that relates to you.”

Mark sat up a bit straighter. He nodded.