CHAPTER I

SCENE I.

Wick followed in the wake of the blue-coated masses. On his own, he hadn’t expected to find his way around this fortress-within-a-fortress as well as he already did. Of course, the streets and landmarks pretty much explained themselves, college brochures notwithstanding.

He seemed to just breeze past the labyrinthine hedges, the Doric colonnades, the sculpted gardens and swan ponds to find Main Field. The Main Field.

Named Campus Imperator on his brochure’s stylized map, he couldn’t help but gawk at its signature landmark, a gigantic image of Jupiter Triumphant in painted marble.

It looked that big on the map, but Wick chalked that up to exaggeration, to emphasis; to signal the core center of these our hallowed institutions. But, no. Common sense be damned. Jupiter was just that big.

The god dwarfed even those domed vaults and Venetian palaces that surrounded Campus Imperator. Granted, it stood on high foundation, a pedestal fashioned from polished granite in gold accent, but even without the trapezoid mount the highest perch here present came only to waist height of the stone monstrosity. Its very pose draped Wick with shadow on approach. The young man couldn’t help but follow the masculine lines up to the heavens it reached for with an outstretched hand, while the other cradled its toga praetexta. And its eyes. Its glinting, blue eyes; they drilled into Wick’s own.

Jupiter’s gazed burned a hole right through Wick’s skull and made its demands clear and unambiguous, “Excelsior.” It laid out the lines of destiny that Wick must toe, “Excelsior.” There would be no denial, no defiance, no excuses brooked, “Excelsior.”

Helpless, Wick bowed his head and passed under the yoke of the shadow of the colossus.

“Hadriana Iolos,” a buzz set upon the milling masses. Wick caught the name and wondered, who?

The blue-coats began to coalesce and collect, an aura of familiarity emanating from strangers and old friends finding each other. In the case of Hadriana, this name Wick just heard, a parting of the big blue sea seemed to point her out. He just couldn’t get a clear enough view, however, given his short stature and less than healthy eyesight. And as the flux pulled him in and along the currents of walking masses, he lost whatever chance he had at that. Instead, the chorus of voices answered his questions for him.

“Who?” someone asked.

“You know, the girl who aced the ORACLE?”

“You can ace the ORACLE? How? Thought that wasn’t the point.”

“Well, apparently you can—and she did.”

“How though?”

“She’s an Iolos—of the House Iulus. How do you think?”

“Blood win?” it scoffed.

“No, I wouldn’t say that. Unfair to say that.” The voice continued, “But blood does have a tendency to show itself, especially when you’re House Iulus. Especially when Blood Iulus won’t be ignored.”

House Iulus. Who hadn’t heard of House Iulus? Certainly not Wick. Even on the farthest frontier farm-world from which Wick grew up, he knew of House Iulus. House Iulus seeded his world, conquered and kicked out the Reichsmen so his father could have a tract of land to settle and colonize. Thankful wasn’t enough of a word for the kind of gratitude his people had for House Iulus.

Caught in the drift of his own thoughts, his body pulled further into the growing stream of fresh, new, and excited faces. More bodies converged on Campus Imperator, blowing the gentle brook up into a rush as the hour of assembly approached. The Grand Magister was set to address all of the new students today, and no one wanted the taint of tardiness on their record. And as the hundreds grew into thousands, Wick’s reptilian unconscious wondered how they would all fit into what seemed to be such an ordinary administrative building.

The Caesarion Building, however, would not be scoffed at.

It felt and looked bigger on the inside. Much, much bigger than its ordinary Neo-classical facade let on. New students, like Wick, had only the helpful signs and placards to usher them along the polished and shining corridors. Joyful enthusiasm and animated conversation muffled the sharp echoes of their steps, courtesy of the high vaulted ceilings and the incredible width of the passages.

The Solarium, they called it; this room written down on their schedules. This they found at the confluence of three corridors and at the far end of an ante-room the size of a small barony’s manse. Here, past two imperious, cathedral doors, did they find themselves welcomed into another manicured garden. Beneath a clear, glass, geodesic dome; sitting on an unimpeded view of the Elysian skyline, a landscaped amphitheater had been carved into the very rock of a cliff’s edge.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Wick knew the founders liked to build on high ground; he just didn’t expect them to be this dramatic about it.

It took a while for him to find a seat, apologizing and excusing himself, bouncing from one tier to another as they filled before he could even claim a right to his space. Things would have gone a lot faster and smoother for him, had it not been for the silent intensity commanding most of his attention.

Silhouetted against the light of the shining city, a sharp-edged tower stood statuesque with its back to the students, gazing with rapturous intent upon Elysia. Wick could understand its enthrallment. Through those massive, crystal blast panes he could see a glimpse of it himself. And what little he saw entranced him just as much as the figure disturbed him.

When finally he found his place to a far corner at the back, he managed a better view of the stage below, a better scale of this silent and solitary spectacle. Fifteen feet, he estimated. The figure stood at about fifteen feet in height with a body structure imposing enough to command everyone’s attention even at a distance. That conversation died down to whispered contrivances indicated just the exact kind of atmosphere this someone inspired. And it certainly was a someone. Just not someone human in the least.

SCENE II.

When everyone had settled into place, the seats filled and the students cornered into a sort of troubled patience, only then did the humanoid break Elysia’s spell to retreat away from the windows. Turning about, stepping forward to face the students in the fullness of his might while draped in shadow cast against the light, Wick gasped inward. Thus before them, the student body, spake an Empyrean.

Crystalline skin of cerulean hue. Eyes afire with white light. Hair a curious range of somber gray to pitch darkness. An almost horn-like foreheads stretched out into a wide angular frame that gave its features an even more inverted triangle look. Wick identified all these traits and more prototypical of the alien race that had miraculously lifted humanity from the ashes of its own self-destruction. And to see this Empyrean robed in the panoply of his station complemented by the official garments of a high-ranking Republican Magister, his fascination marched beyond mere curiosity. Wick beheld history with his own eyes and it had struck him dumb.

“Yo, kid,” a young man next to him said.

No reply.

“Kid,” again the young man tried to catch his attention.

And again it failed.

Scoffing at a third attempt, the young man simply lifted Wick’s dropped jaw shut, and the latter didn’t even notice.

“Call me Gus, by the way,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”

The Empyrean scanned the tiers, eyes roaming and freezing hapless student in place with its cold gaze. A troubled wrinkle seemed to afflict its brow. When it spoke, it did not speak with the voice of angels as Wick had imagined it.

“Almyra,” the Empyrean called, “We are missing some cadets.”

The voice came from a scale of depth alien to the human ear, of a tone and modulation that might only be registered as a filtered overlap of the tenor and baritone scales but with mineral-like notes and reverberations that no human throat could utter. It did not sound real, natural, or even organic, and failed to put any of the students at ease.

A witch’s hat rose up from down below. Beneath it, a woman getting along in life checked the students present against a sort of brass slate that clicked and clacked in her hands.

“I see three empty seats, Almyra.” The Empyrean seemed patient enough to point out the gap in the tiers.

“Forgive me, Lord Geste,” said the woman in the witch’s hat. The slightest touch of pressure rebuffed, she assured him that—“Facial recognition takes time. My daemon shall identify the truants presently.”

“We wait.”Was it an order or mere fact, Wick didn’t know. He had since ceased his awestruck childishness.

But before the situation could grow more uncomfortable, three lads burst in through the hardwood doors. A freckled red head gasping for air. A pale boy shaking in his boots and about to drop on a knee. And a rather huge, bull of a chap scratching his head apologetically.

“Gentlemen,” said Lord Geste, a hint of thunder in his voice and lightning in his eyes, undetectable if not for the subsonic goosebumps that then crawled up everyone’s spine. “To your places. We are about to begin.”

“Lord Magister,” Almyra said, clearing her throat rather loudly to call his attention. “I do believe these three have recused themselves, such as they have missed their first day of tuition in arriving late to your assembly.”

The Lord Magister gave them, the shuffling three, such a withering of looks that those students closest to them pulled away as if such things were contagious.

“How?” he said, asking the simplest question.

“Well, they’ve arrived late to the assembly, sine qua non for their entry as cadets in the Republican Legions.”

“I missed three cadets before I could begin my address, Almyra.” The thunder in his voice began to strain against its apparent placidity. “Perhaps your daemon could now help us identify who these truant cadets were?”

“Ah, well,” she started. “Facial recognition has yet to run a complete cross reference, my lord. The guilty parties, however, have indubitably prese--”

“You have failed to identify our three missing cadets before I could begin my address, correct?”

She hesitated. She wanted to hazard an answer, but the Lord Magister had made his decision.

“Benjamin Garrison. Elijah Crosse. Maxion Lucas. To your places, please, gentlemen. We begin.”

Beaten, but undefeated, Almyra returned to her seat, her brass doohickey removed from sight. The Lord Magister, now relaxed and satisfied that he could get on with it, released everyone else from similar discomforts. His gaze had lost its flash, and his stature softened. He stretched a thin smile with his lips and began his address to the first general assembly of new cadets.

“Greetings, cadets.

“My name is Markurian III Geste, Grand Magister in Corporem Astra to the Third Republic of Elysium.

“And from this day forth…

“I am your Lord and Master.”