But I can’t stop playing my part now, so I repeat myself that being clumsy and nervous makes me a convincing student, and there’s no way the agents could see through my disguise. I walk to the heavy steel door and scan the authorization from my phone, then my wrist chip. I can feel the ThauCons’ eyes drilling a hole on my back.
No, wait, I actually feel something. A light, delicate pressure through the Else. Similar to the grad student’s magical scan, but much less obvious. I steel myself to avoid reacting in any way, and after a few seconds, it goes away.
That had to be the Council mage. But I fooled him, or he’d have spoken by now, right? The steel door slides close behind me, and I almost collapse with relief.
I find myself in a small concrete room, leading to a second door, flanked by the two metal columns of a theta scanner.
I feel something lacking, and it takes me a moment to realize what. The weak, distant feeling of Iketek at the edge of my mind is gone, and like in the Thaumocracy fortress, I can’t feel the Moon. The ominous presence of the Black Door, too, has disappeared.
“Please leave your bag at the door,” a recorded voice commands, “and stand between the scanners with your arms up.”
I put down my bag - which only contains absolutely harmless books - and step between the columns. Iketek and the Prop Master both swear that if I properly bind a Lie, no theta scanner can detect it. Only Summoning or Channeling from the Else would trigger the scanner.
Still, it takes three very long seconds, with the twin columns buzzing, before the voice says, “scanning complete. You may proceed to the Vault. Please do not take anything from the Vault without specific authorization.”
The second steel door swings open – the Vault is more secure than I thought. Smuggling out the Tetrahedron wouldn’t be that easy. In principle, Iketet and I should be able to bind a ward to my bag that hides its contents from the scanners, but I don’t relish the idea of going past the ThauCon agents carrying a bound spell - especially since they have a supporting Council mage with them.
The easiest solution, of course, would be to ask professor Kairim for a real authorization to take out the Tetrahedron. I could probably come up with an excuse, but dare I? What if xe knows it’s more important than it looks, and I draw xir suspicions?
Well, plans are for people smarter than me, usually Iketek. Today I’m just here to scout. I can be Tharvais a little longer, and walk into the Vault without worries.
The Relic Vault itself is a vast, square concrete room, with orderly lines of plastic plinths, each supporting a single steel cylinder. Most cylinders are the size of a soda can, but some are so large I could step into them.
There are more theta detectors on the walls - both for security and to monitor the relics’ activity, I guess - and a whole lot of cameras. Every cylinder has a glass window on one side, and a scanner pad to open it.
Could we edit my authorization, changing the relic I’m supposed to take out? Depends how complex the file is. I don’t know shit about informatics, but Daravoi is a little better, maybe he could try that.
For now, however, I’ll just take the relic I actually have an authorization for.
I can’t resist looking at the other cases, though. Most relics don’t look like much. Cubes etched with glyphs, glass shards, even something like a broken pipe section. Only a few are actually interesting: a small chain of silvery metal engulfed in lilac fire, a set of colored crystals that spin and reshape in midair, like a kaleidoscope, and a stone almost-triangle which floats in midair, and gives me a headache just looking at it, because its edges have something fundamentally wrong, like there should be a fourth side to make the edges connect, and yet there isn’t.
I guess it’s common for students to spend some time nosing around, but I can’t afford to look suspicious, so I check the numbered signs on the wall, and reach aisle F - where both my spinning top and the tetrahedron are.
I find my official relic first - it looks every bit like a crude child’s toy, a spinning top made of black stone, a spiral of minuscule glyphs glowing silvery on its surface. It lies motionless in its metal case, and it looks underwhelming, but still I can’t wait to have a look at it, especially in the Else. The screen next to the pad says scan ID to open.
I slide my wrist, praying my covert identity won’t fail me now, and to my relief, the pad flashes green. The front half of the steel container rotates, sliding into the back half, and leaving the relic open to my touch.
Professor Kairim gave me a cotton-filled plastic case - while relics are hard to break, xe insisted I took no risk. For a moment, as I reach to take the millenia-old relic, I forget about my doubts and worries and the soldiers waiting outside. I only feel marvel that I’m touching something so old and mysterious, and yet it feels so smooth and new under my fingertips. As the cylinder closes, the text taken for observation - Tharvais Indelmn, student appears on the pad.
I place the spinning top into its case with reverential attention, and I decide that to repay the Professor, I’ll take a small risk - I’ll take the spinning top to a student’s lab, and look at it in the Else. If I find anything, after the job is done I’ll send xem a real report. Xe’ll find out what I was anyway, and maybe xe’ll appreciate it.
Or, more likely, xe’ll forward the report to ThauCon hoping they find me and hang me.
First, I have to do what I came here for, though. Making a show of looking around and frowning, as if I’d got lost between the aisles, I walk toward the tetrahedron.
I ready myself to peek into the Else for the shortest possible time. Theta detector can’t pick that up, but the Council mage could notice me, if he’s looking in the Else.
When I get to case F-141, however, it’s empty - the only empty cylinder I’ve seen in this aisle. I check the number again, hoping to be discreet, but no - I didn’t make a mistake. My mark should be in case F-141.. There’s even a description on a small sign: ‘glyph-inscribed tetrahedron, use unknown’. The cylindrical case is undeniably empty, though.
Lost Stars. Did anyone else take it already?
I check the small pad under the chip scanner. Taken for long term study - professor Kairim Elsaven.
I freeze for a moment - is this bad news, or good? I don’t like that the professor is studying it right now. Does xe know there’s something special about it? There’s at least one mage in the university, the grad student - what if Professor Kairim is a mage, too?
But on the other hand, if the relic is in xir office, it will be way easier to get. No theta scanners, no safe doors, I just have to find the relic, distract the Professor with a Lie and run.
My heart beats faster. This wasn’t supposed to happen, but it doesn’t matter, right now. It might even be good news. I’ll just leave and tell Iketek and Daravoi about it. I make a show of looking around again, as if I were checking aisle numbers, and walk back toward the entrance.
In the small room between the doors, I’m subjected to a second, longer scan, and I’m asked to put the spinning top on a special tray. I’m starting to get nervous, but the exterior scanner flashes green, and the outer door opens.
I put the spinning top back in its case, and walk out. I even attempt to give the ThauCons a weak smile. The knot of tension in my shoulders is starting to loosen, when an agent - the girl with the sword - calls me from behind, her tone harsh.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Wait a moment, please,” she says. She speaks Vorokan with a strong accent - probably Zelenian, given the total lack of tattoos.
Fuck, has she noticed I spent too long in the Vault? Should I make a run for it? But it’s a long way to the top floor, these guys are armed, and they definitely run faster than me. It’s surely some more routine question, so I turn, with a nervous smile.
“Is your name Tharvais Indelmn?” She asks, and this time, I’m pretty sure she’s actually suspicious.
“Yes, is anything wrong?” I ask.
“Where are you from?” She asks, glaring at me. Her hand rests on her sword’s grip. The other two agents stare at me, too, and they don’t look friendly. One of them is a tall boy with a strange golden tattoo I can’t read, the other a red-haired woman with a scar across her cheek, who looks like she chews nails for breakfast.
“Landfall,” I answer, my mouth going dry.
“Which school did you attend?” The agent with the swords asks, and my knees feel weak - they found something wrong with my ID, obviously. If I survive, I’ll so ask the Prop Master for a refund.
“Landfall’s University for pre-landing studies,” I say, my voice coming out squeaky, “why?”
She doesn’t look convinced, and she starts speaking in Fallish - so fast I can barely follow.
“Would you mind speaking in Fallish?” She asks. “I’m cross-checking your data. When were you born, and where?”
I’m so, so fucked. I can speak Falish, but whatever Iketek says, it’s painfully obvious I’m not a native speaker. And while I remember my supposed date of birth, I draw a blank on the exact place. They found me out. They’ll catch me. They’ll hang me.
I freeze, heart thumping in my chest, and I see their faces change, from suspicious to outright alarmed. Two quad-copter drones come zipping through the corridor, and the woman with red hair moves her hand to her rifle.
A strange clarity comes through the fear, time slows, and everything becomes simple - like it happened when I faced the bounty hunters.
I wanted to be a real student.
I’d been happy to study these relics, to write boring papers and bother no one. But I can’t even enter this university under my real name, and they’ll arrest me and kill me, because I won’t play their fucking game and give up my magic, or join their stupid Council.
I’m a mage, a criminal, and these people exist to hunt people like me.
But this shouldn’t be the way the world works. And these agents aren’t wearing helmets. They’re as vulnerable to Lies as any person walking down the street.
The moment I Reach into the Else, they’ll know what I am. But as I’ve seen with the jeweler, if I pour enough power into the Lie, even the most ridiculous Lies work, if only for a short time.
I reach into the Else, slowly but confidently. I see the silver in their uniforms now, black strips of cold nothing blotting out the light of the Else. I see the ghostly outlines of the walls, the deep, ancient magic woven in them. I see a snarling, hungring white maelstrom of energy, below us - but that doesn’t matter, not now.
I see the worlds that could be, and in a blue so deep it’s almost purple, I immediately find the one I want - a world that should be. One where I’m a mage, and also a real student of the Rakavdon University. A world where I use my magic openly, to better study the mysteries of the past. Where I spin theories about it with my peers and professors, carefree, under the light of the day.
Without any attempt at subtlety, I reach for that world. With fingers that are already dissolving into blue glass, I Channel power, as much as I can, with no care for subtlety or for the waves I make.
“It’s rude to speak Fallish, here,” I say, and I’m confident and fearless, because in the Lie I’m channeling, magic is respected, and ThauCon exists to protect people like me, from the ignorant and from the beings in the Else. “And I really must go now. It’s almost time for the afternoon class.”
“Corporal Gehat to mission control, we…” the red-haired woman says, sounding confused.
“Wait, you were talking to me,” I say, snapping my fingers and pouring magic in every word, channeling all the power I can into making them more convincing, “can you stop talking to other people? It isn’t respectful.”
It makes no sense, it makes no fucking sense, even as a Lie - no, wait. It makes perfect sense, because every word I say thrums with magic, and they should respect that.
I see the red-hair corporal struggle to resist for a moment, then she relaxes and nods.
“Sorry,” she says, and she taps her earpiece, hopefully turning it off. “You’re right, you can go.”
“Mage,” one of the agents says, the tall, spindly young man. In the Else, he has ugly black circle around his arms, like black chains, and there’s the faintest purple spark in his eyes. “you’re… a…”
“Of course I’m a mage!” I say, annoyed - who would study relics without being a mage? A Mundane wouldn’t even see them properly! “That’s why I study here. Look, I only took a relic I need for a course project, and I have a signed permission here. Do you need to check it again?”
They look at me, as if they couldn’t believe what I’m saying, but I pull that other world closer and closer, out of patience with them, with being scared and with the world itself. My hands itch as they turn to blue light, and the world is bathed in blue, but it doesn’t matter – I’m not hiding what I am.
Finally, the girl with red hair nods. But the Zelenian girl with the sword turns to me, frowning. Can’t she just stop harassing me?
“Your name,” she says, struggling through the words. “Your name is not… correct.”
Lost Stars. I still have a fake ID. That would matter, even if my magic were legal.
But why would I need a fake ID, in a better world?
“Are you sure?” I say, frowning. I’m starting to struggle with all the magic I’m using, reaching for the Else becomes harder and harder, my fingertips hurt. But I don’t care, not right now. “It’s Korentis Tal-Venant, starts with K, ends with S. See?”
I scan my wrist with my own phone, feeling a weird exaltation at the pure madness of what I’m doing, and with one more trickle of power, I make the screen say Korentis, and show my actual, legit profile.
It’s incredibly stupid to give them my real name, but the easiest Lie is the truth, and if I walk out of here alive, I can worry about the rest later.
I keep pulling the impossible world closer, and while tiring, I realize that impossible or not, keeping up this Lie isn’t as hard as I expected. It’s not nearly as hard as making the jeweler believe he could hand me the necklace, because I truly believe this should be the world I live in, that I shouldn’t need a fake identity at all.
The three agents frown. The tall, dark skinned one makes a slow gesture - some holy sign of the Officer cult - but then he shrugs, and he relaxes.
“There’s…” the girl with the sword says, looking at her tablet again and again, shaking her head. Lost Stars, she’s persistent. But the one with red hair stops her.
“Let xem go, Cerical, we’re not here to harass students.” She turns to me. “Sorry. There was an identification problem. You may go.”
The sword-carrying girl finally nods, looking annoyed, like someone who knows something is wrong, but can’t put her finger on what. I pour a final burst of magic into the spell, because I must reach the exit before they realize I fucked with their mind. My Lies easily linger for a few minutes, but they’re probably getting frantic warnings from their base.
Then I feel something like an electric shock inside my chest, like something breaking, and the Council mage - a small, blond boy with oily hair and a lot of pimples - looks at me. His fingers draw a glyph in midair, bright red. His expression changes quickly, from confusion to incredulity.
Fuck, fuck. I see him in the Else now, scarlet light burns in his chest and eyes, about as bright as mine. His eyes lock with mine, in the Here and the Else, and I can tell he sees through the Lie to the world behind. I’m fucked.
But then the council mage winks.
“It’s all right,” he says. He sounds dreamy, confused, and I’m entirely sure he’s faking it. “It’s a pity that mages get no respect.”
“Shut up,” the red-haired agent says, turning to him, but she just sounds mildly annoyed at a colleague, not suspicious.
I’ve absolutely no idea what is happening, but I turn and walk away, keeping the Lie up as long as I can - I don’t need to run. I’ve every right to be here.
Until I round the corner, that is, and then I bolt like a rabbit, feeling the cold exhaustion of magic creeping into me.
Alarm sirens start blaring by the time I’m at the ground floor. But when the ThauCon agents come out, fury in their eyes, I’m already across the square, arms linked with Iketek – she’s pretty much supporting me - and wearing a different face.
They won’t find us - they lost their chance.
The city is big, and we are powerful mages.