14 - A mirage of power

Why don’t mages turn themselves in, you ask? Why do they run and fight and join the factions, when they’d just need to accept tattoos, or the council’s oversight?

You hunt children like dogs, beat them up when you catch them, and instead of teaching them control, you traumatize them into inability to use magic.

Then the Alliance offers its oh-so-generous choice. Leave your families, leave your friends, give your whole life to the Council, to serve a master that spites you.

Or have your arms tattooed, no matter how much it hurts, being severed from the Else, no matter if it cuts away a part of your mind – you’re alive, you should be grateful.

Magic is well and truly dangerous. But pointless cruelty won’t mend the sky, it will just swell the ranks of the Syndicates and the Faceless Army.

For too long we accepted the folly imposed by the Alliance. We sacrificed our own children to appease Landfall, hoping you would see reason.

This ends now.

* Saevin’s declaration of independence, beginning the Zelenian Uprising.

“Wow, Mom always told me to stay away from the airship port,” I say, “she told me it’s full of thieves and…” I stop, abruptly, as I realize what I was going to say.

“Yeah, and Kalestrans,” Daravoi says, rolling his eyes. “And I heard there are mages, too. What’s the world coming to?”

I never learned the trick to consider what I’m going to say before I start speaking. He doesn’t look angry, though.

Also, I’d never really realized that Mom used Kalestran as a disparaging term. I never had anything against them, but I… kind of didn’t think about Kalestrans at all before meeting Daravoi.

In the skyport, however, you hear more Kalestran than Vorokan or Fallish. At first, Kalestran sounded to me like people endlessly clearing their throat and chewing gravel, but after listening to it for a while, I realize I can sort of get the meaning if I focus.

We’re in the far periphery of the city - we got ourselves bicycles, since we’re not taking the metro anytime soon. I hadn’t used a bicycle since I was a child, and with good reason – I froze halfway to death and my legs hurt like the Abyss. Some of my classmates rode bicycles for fun. There’s something wrong with people. Especially sporty people.

The skyport is cool, though. Mama was being a snob as usual. It isn’t anywhere as seedy as I expected, it’s just a large, chaotic open air market. And the airships are cool, seen up close - I never realized they were so big. When one flies above us, it looks like the sky got a new roof.

Most of the port is made of temporary, brightly colored tents, half shops and half warehouses, with only a few, squat concrete buildings built around mooring towers, where airships do boarding and loading. It’s a strange view – like the market is bristling with spires, and airships come and go like slow, wobbly flying whales.

The tents mostly sell weird, ill-assorted stuff that comes from abyss-forsaken villages: ugly wood-carved furniture, a thousand decorated glass devices to smoke vapors, clothes which look like they might be made of actua…l animal hair? Ew.

People bustòe about, scanning the merchandise and arguing over prices. It’s… like a mall, just very chaotic and open-air.

I’d enjoy wandering the market for a while, gaping at the airships, except it’s so fucking cold. Snow started falling as we arrived, and a horrible, icy wind is blowing, finding every weak spot in my second-hand thermal shirt.

“Could we take an airship without ThauCon spotting us?” I ask Dara, glancing at the huge, dark blue airship that’s being moored to a building. I really want to fly on one, now.

“In theory, there’s a custom check,” he answers, “but it’s a joke, I could get us on a ship with no problems. But I’m not kidding when I say they hate mages, they’d drop us mid-flight if they found out what we are. And anyway, where would we go? ThauCon is everywhere.”

I shrug. “It’s nice to know we have the option.”

I never traveled on an airship - they’re mostly for cargo, so they take winding routes through Officer-forsaken little villages. Mama used to say they were only for poor people and criminals, but Mom and Big Sis usually retorted something about an important economic function.

“So, where’s the tent for super-illegal stuff?” I ask. “Also, why don’t Kalestrans use concrete buildings? Is it a… cultural thing?”

Daravoi takes a deep breath. “Of course we have concrete buildings in Kalester, you idiot, but you can’t load one on an airship. Anyway, we have an appointment. Follow me, and please don’t speak. Everyone can tell you’re Vorokan, pasty as you are, but if you shut up, they could think you’re an okay Vorokan.”

“Why am I even here, now that I think of it?” I ask. “Like, I’m happy to come, but I have a feeling you’d be better off without me.”

Daravoi looks taken aback – I’m pretty sure he didn’t even consider going alone. He doesn’t like being alone. But in this case, it might have been better.

“Because if something happens, you can make a Lie and let us run away,” he says, and it sounds a lot like he's rationalizing on the spot. “I… you know. My magic only does one thing.”

That is true. Daravoi is good at fire and disintegration, while I’m ok at the former and shitty at the latter. But he tried the other spells in my book, and barely managed to move small objects or scry a room away. Fire and destruction seem the only things that are easy for him.

We move to a wide, low concrete building, with small tents all around it like colorful mushrooms. Electric carts, full of stacked metal crates, come in and out in a continuous stream. A few of the tents are shops, but most look more like impromptu offices, with people warming their hands on heat lamps and checking deliveries.

Daravoi checks his phone, takes a long pause, then walks to a smaller tent leaning against the buildings left side, its exterior striped blue and gold.

It doesn’t look much of a smuggler den. It looks like a simple shop selling rare teas and herbs, the kind of stuff that grows in stupid places in the mountains.

“It doesn’t look like the kind of shop that sells super-secret books of magic,” I say out loud. “Not that I’m an expert on smugglers.”

Daravoi clenches and unclenches his fists. He must be nervous. “Don’t talk unless I ask you something,” he whispers. “Really. If I say… moon it’s time to use a Lie and go away.”

We approach the tenth. A teenage girl is playing with a tablet behind the counter. She has her sleeves rolled up to the elbows, showing off intricate tattoos, and has the same sandy hair as Dara.

Daravoi starts speaking Kalestran, and I can follow only in bits - something about a special mixture he had ordered. The girl doesn’t seem surprised at all, and after something I can’t follow, she gestures to us to come in.

On the back of the tent there’s a door, wide enough for a cart, leading into the concrete warehouse. The girl dials a number on the door’s pad, and it slides open. She calls someone, and gestures for us to come in.

Inside, it’s a labyrinth of poorly lit, crisscrossing concrete corridors and numbered metal doors. Carts, some automatic and some human-driven, go in and out carrying crates. I don’t like the place at all – it looks like something out of a horror sim. A cheap horror sim, where some monster kills horny teenagers in unnecessary bloody ways. Even worse, there’s no heating, and it’s barely warmer than the outside.

We follow the girl for three turns, until we meet an unsmiling person in their thirties who greets us, gives us a hard look, and has a short, terse conversation with Daravoi. I recognize Vorokan and stranger. Xe has tattoos in an unusual, flowing script - one is agender, but I can’t parse the other.

Whatever Daravoi answers xem, xe must be satisfied, because xe guides us deeper into the maze of corridors, to a small room. Xe opens the metal door, and inside, instead of the stacks of boxes I’ve seen in the other rooms, is a plastic table and four chairs.

Most importantly, there’s a heat lamp. The cold was seeping into my bones, but inside, the room is pleasantly warm. Two people, an old man and a younger woman, sit in the two chairs opposite ours. I guess this is their confy-room-for-super-secret-encounters.

“We’re told you want something,” the young woman says, in Vorokan. I can’t place her accent, but it sounds fancy, like the foreigners who come to visit Big Sis from time to time. She and the old man have conveniently generic tattoos, marking gender and sexual orientation, but they’re half-hidden below their collar, as it usually happens with foreigners.

Daravoi looks at a loss for a moment, he starts speaking Kalestran, then stops and switches to Vorokan too.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“We’re looking for a book,” he says.

“A strange thing to search for in the black market,” she says, “have you tried the datasphere? Or a library?”

Daravoi looks straight at the woman. “Can we cut the bullshit? You know what book I’m looking for.”

Wow, he told me not to speak, and then he acts like this? But the woman doesn’t look offended. She nods.

“Do you know, though?” She asks. “That book is costly, and useless to most people.”

“We have money,” Daravoi says, sounding confident for a homeless kid three weeks away from starvation. “We’ll find an arrangement. What’s your price?”

We have about nine-hundred credits equivalent in gray accounts, plus a precious stone worth tens of thousands. Well, Daravoi has it.

But illegal or not, how much can a book possibly cost? I’ve never owned a paper book except for school, I’ve seen them for sale in heaps for a handful of credits, and they can’t cost much more than comics.

“I don’t think you know what you’re asking for,” the woman says, sounding annoyed. “And since you’re not one for politeness - are you a mage, boy? If you aren’t, forget about it, go home and have a nice life.”

Is she a mage, I suddenly wonder?

I can’t risk using magic. But I can still peek into the Else, as long as I stop there, without Reaching.

I let my eyes unfocus and my mind wander. At first I had to close my eyes to see the Else, but it’s getting easier and easier. Beautiful blue light floods the world, and while I still see the people in front of me, now it’s like watching a small, framed scene, just a small part of the web of things that could be.

Many other worlds spiral around us, realities that I could pull closer… but no, it’s not a time for Lies, or for using magic at all.

I focus on the truth - except I look deeper than what my eyes can see, I look at the true world beyond the Veil. Minds are sparks, Daravoi’s is brighter than most, even without using magic. I can see a small dark red ruby in his mind, and I see him as he is, but also what he could be, would like to be…

Cool, I’ll have to try this again – but now it’s not the time to get distracted. The woman and the old man don’t have any color on them, just bright blue sparks for their minds.

There’s something strange, though. There’s something cold and black, near them, Like a black hole trying to suck my power. It burns with cold. Just looking at it, my vision of the Else wavers. What is that?

I force myself to focus back on the conversation.

“… our time. So, do you have it or not?” Daravoi says.

How can I tell him something is wrong? We never managed the mind-communication spell described in my book.

The woman waves a hand. “It’s not something you keep in storage. We can procure it, but it’s costly.”

No one reacted to me peeking into the Else, so I guess my eyes didn’t glow blue. Even without Reaching or Summoning, the Else can give me useful information – I never realized that before.

“I should at least see proof, before giving you any money,” Daravoi answers the woman.

Again, the world in front of me becomes one vignette out of many. This time, I look at the branching worlds – it’s hard to see clearly what they show, they break and change and reform as I watch, and sometimes Daravoi is different, or we’re in another place. In most of the worlds, the two smugglers talk to us. But I follow a line unfolding in the future, and I find more of that cold, dark nothingness.

In another line, I glimpse the woman standing on her feet. There’s something in her hands, but I can’t see it clearly, it’s a hole in the Else, a void. It’s dark and cold, and yet it burns.

This is really wrong. I must tell Daravoi.

“We’re not asking for the moon,” I say, even if I missed a few beats in the conversation. “We just want to make sure you can really find a magic book.”

Daravoi freezes for a moment, then gives the smallest nod. Thanks the Forgotten Home – I’d never have caught the hint in his place, let’s be honest.

I focus on the woman who did most of the talking. Her mind glows bright in the Else, a snarl of light and flashes of thought. There should be a way to read minds, but my useless book specifically avoided describing mind-magic.

“As I said,” she speaks slowly, her voice cold, “you’ll have to wait a while more.”

“You’re clearly wasting our time. We’re leaving now,” Daravoi says, getting up.

I look around, without moving. Walls are nothing in the Else, but the farther I look, the more confusing the branching possibilities become. Still, I can tell there are three people very close to us. They must be in a room nearby, or in the corridor outside. They all have that blackness with them.

“You really should wait here,” the woman says, her tone openly menacing now. “See, that’s the thing about the magic-related market. The real money isn’t in books or other items.”

“Really insightful!” I grin, even if I’ve no fucking clue what she’s saying. “I’m sure we’ll have the chance to do business in the future. But now we’re leaving.”

I reach for a different world - one where this really was a shady meeting between buyer and seller, and not… whatever the fuck it actually is. A world where the two people in front of us actually meant to let us go.

I can’t find any. This was never about a book sale.

Sweat starts running down my back. I can still do this. It’s not a world that can be, but one that could have been, one that makes sense. I look at the branching worlds from a different angle, one where the line connecting them are fuzzy and green, and possibilities are more malleable. I find, and at the same time make, the world I’m looking for – one where we all nod at each other politely, if a little tersely, and Dara and I leave. I Reach for it with my power, and Summon it into existence.

“Could you show us the way out?” I ask. “We wouldn’t want to get lost.”

She opens her mouth to speak, then frowns.

We just had a friendly business meeting. A powerful mage knows how to navigate the underworld, and wouldn’t fall for a trap. We simply didn’t reach an agreement yet.

Yes, I had a lot of meetings like this. Terse words in a secret place, some haggling. Then you go home, and no one tries anything strange, because in the shadow world reputation is worth more than credits.

I pull that Lie into the world, with all my will and my power. It could be, after all.

“Yes, of course,” the woman says, sounding dazed. “Wait, I’ll tell the guys…”

She frowns. At her side, the old man shakes his head, as if trying to clear it.

“As I was saying,” she adds, speaking slowly and squinting at me. “The real money isn’t in selling books.”

“Really, I know the market is bad,” I say. Understanding. She’s just doing her job, and now she’ll let us go. “No hard feelings.”

She walks to the door, looking like someone desperate to remember something.

The old man turns to me, his gaze way too focused “The real money,” he says, “is in the mage trade.”

My mouth dries and sweat soaks my thermal vest as I finally understand: we’re not clients, we’re the goods. These people are bounty hunters.

The moment I realize that, my Lie flickers, and the woman turns to face me. She reaches into her pocket for the cold, dark thing I can’t see in the Else.

“You are…” she says, furious, “fucking with my mind.”

With a strangled sound, she gets a knife out of her pocket - the blade shines a bright gray. Silver.

I lose focus for a moment, the possible worlds slip through my fingers, and I forget everything but fear.

“Liar,” the woman growls. “I’ll cut your throat for this.”

“No need,” the old man says, putting his arm in front of her. “Xe’ll be hanged, and we’ll be paid handsomely for it.” He’s rummaging in his pocket, and I know things will go even worse, very soon.

Daravoi raises his hand, but hesitates, looking at me.

I’ll die. Big Sis was right, as usual. I’m so going to die, and I had it coming. Lost Stars, I just want to curl into a ball and wait until they kill me, or hang me, or whatever.

But it’s not time to be afraid. I must be someone who wouldn’t be afraid.

A powerful mage would have no reason to be scared. So, I’ll be that for a while.

And this, I realize, is also exactly what I should make them believe. I must scare them.

But I’m not scary at all. I’m at best annoying, magic or not.

Except… Daravoi didn’t think that. He made me add that rule, don’t be a mind-controlling Sim villain.

This looks like a good time to break that rule. What if I was a powerful mage - a dangerous mage?

“Do you truly think this will go your way?” I ask, smiling. I take a touch of Big Sis’ I’m polite but very angry smile, and a bit from Prince Therones, the mind-controlling villain from The Hollow Court.

I raise my hand, reach into the Else, and reach for a world where I’m already powerful, where instead of blue light dancing on my fingers, my whole hand turns into blue glass in a split second.

My fear disappears, like a switch going off. How could I fear the two pitiful smugglers in front of me? Two mundanes with knives. Silver or not, how to they hope to stand against me?

“I don’t want to make a mess,” I say, self-assured, because there’s nothing here to fear. “But a silver knife won’t protect you, if I burn you alive. And even if your friends outside have better protection, how will that help, if the ceiling falls on their heads?”

The woman freezes, clutching the silver blade like a talisman.

“They wouldn’t need the book if they were really powerful,” the old man says, but he doesn’t seem convinced.

I don’t even need to fake my annoyance. A silver knife may cut through a magical shield, but they’d still be dead, if we hurled Elsefire at them.

Against every instinct, I take a step toward the woman and her mage-killing silver knife.

“Look, you say the big money in the business is in turning in mages. Maybe you’ve even done it yourselves,” I say, and rage comes all too easily. I make both my arms and my whole face look like else-glass. “What kind of mage did you get? Some half-starved kid running from their family?”

They’re getting afraid now. In the Else, their fear casts a shadow - one where I’m taller and less scrawny and my smile looks scary and not just weird. I pull it closer, and the woman with the knife walks back all the way to the wall. Blue light blazes from my hand, as I reveal my power - no, wait, it’s just trickery, but it looks like the real thing.

“If you knew anything about the Art of the Veil, you’d know it’s not the tool of a beginner,” I say, dismissive. Who knows, it might even be true. “But I didn’t come here to kill anyone. So, put that knife down, get out, tell your friends to stand down, and never pull this shit again, because once in a while, you could find a real mage. And the next one might be less forgiving than I.”

Silence falls, and the woman looks at the old man. He looks at me, and I’m not sure he bought it. But he gives a small nod, and she puts down the knife, slowly.

“I’ll go out and tell them we changed plans,” she says. “You can follow me. But be careful, they could… misunderstand.”

“If there’s a fight, you’ll die first, and they’ll die a moment later,” I say, still smiling. Ok, this was leaning a bit too much into the sim villain. But she nods, terrified, and doesn’t seem to find it stupid at all.

I let the Lie slide away a bit, because if I collapse exhausted halfway to the exit, this will end badly. They don’t even seem to notice, though - this was a good lie, not like the jewel shop bullshit. They keep believing it even without the magic, and I don’t feel exhausted.

I even manage to keep up the creepy smile, until Dara and I are out of the warehouse and we can bolt like rabbits.

***