26th of Taka, 1000, evening

3rd floor mage tower Fort Kitapüru,

She looked at herself in the mirror. “I am Claudia Khumalo.” It was getting harder to maintain the facade. Not that she knew what would be next but she saw the death of Claudia Khumalo soon.

It was a funny old world. She had shed her real last name years ago now. A name known in the lands of her birth. Instead choosing a common last name. One she had a fondness for. One that reminded her of her favourite aunt. A humble woman who had sheltered and protected her as much as could be. Khumalo, of the fish people, a name she would be sad to shed.

This time she would also shed her real first name. Like a skin. Her mother had told her in one of her vicious tirades what her name meant, lame. Being eight at the time it had hurt so much. To finally realise the depth of hatred her parents had for her. It wasn’t her fault she wasn’t a boy. No this time she would pick a name that spoke to who she wanted to be not to what someone else thought of her. Something that meant great, or powerful maybe even loved.

Why nobody had ever liked her she never understood. Well except for her aunt. She had never known her aunts name she only remembered she was one of the fish people. So she couldn’t use her aunts first name. But this time she was going to be strong. This time she would be bold. She just had to get out of this cursed fort.

She loved Mandy deeply and had nothing but respect for the captain and his departed wife. However, she had hidden with them long enough. Now if she stayed the focus would turn to them. She wouldn’t let that happen. They had been too kind. Besides now that the captain had been forced to deal with her directly he was a danger. He would see though her if he looked to closely.

Still the six years mentoring Mandy had been a reprieve of sorts. Not much more than a girl herself when she arrived it had given her time to grow and recover. The war that was coming would be a two edged sword. On the one had there was little fear that anyone would be looking for her specifically but they would be looking for people like her.

Nobody had said anything but she hadn’t fled the southern wars because she of a country’s benevolence. Mages were powerful in battle, more so in sieges. During war the pleasantries of volunteering for the frontlines disappeared. It wouldn’t be long before the testers were sent out. Everyone retested and the gifted dragooned. In the south being a non mage castor meant you were sent to the sweatshops and manufactories. Here this coven cast would mean they went straight to the front lines.

That she would have accepted. She did not fear the contest. She would have relished the opportunity to test her abilities against the others of her ilk. But if the abuse that was her family existence had any positives, they were in her discoveries about herself. Things that she hadn’t told anyone. Something that would send her into chains forever, if the all her research was true. She would have to leave. She couldn’t afford to be tested.

He reached for her powder brush. With a care others would have found almost tender, she slowly brushed a glittering powder off her cheeks. Carefully she scraped it into an ornate glass jar which she carefully stoppered immediately. It was strange that close to the end she thought so much of the past.

She gazed at the jar for a moment. It was strange that her very existence revolved around it. With humour she remembered Mandy asking some years ago, if she could glitter her cheeks the same way. It was funny, in the way that hitting your funny bone was funny. An involuntary laugh hiding pain. She had taken Mandy shopping for her own ‘gliter’ that ‘would suit her complexion’. It had been nothing of the sort.

She regarded the jar again. It was less than half full and dropping by the day. She was being forced to hide like she had since her early days. She hadn’t realised what the coven cast would do. If she had, she wouldn’t have agreed to join it. But it was taking all her recoup, nguvu she needed herself.

Everyone thought she was a castor and not a mage. That was what they saw only because she was able to cast a disguise and sustain it by sacrificing recoup. She understood that the professor called the sacrifice, upkeep. Either way with the pookkalam steeling her recoup she was now having to sacrifice dust to keep the cast running.

Dust. It caused her so much joy, fear, pain and sadness. Joy because she knew that she was valuable. Something she would love to ram down the throats of her poisonous parents. Fear because rulers the length of Indlu were vacuuming up mages any way they could. Looking for anyone with talent and power, looking for oddities. An arms race to find strength in magic.

Claudia knew that she was the very definition of odd. In fact she was everything people were looking for. Her disguise cast didn’t hide her appearance or change it in anyway. It hid her magic. It limited what others could discover by putting a cap on her magic in various ways. It was a vicious little cast. Insidious, debilitating and needed. It suppressed a number of things.

It disrupted her half grades in earth and wind without too many side effects. Obviously the wind affected her perception a bit. But the water suppression actually hurt. So much of the body was water and suppressing affected her spatial and speed scores as far as her SKAT said. They all in tern affected every aspect of her magic, recoup, switch, pool all of it. It reduced her overall aptitude by ten points pushing her below the magical one hundred that people looked for in prospective mages.

All of this so that she could force her source affinity down half a grade. When she was present for the coven cast, the professor had raised an eyebrow at her half grade in dust. That was so rare that there was only. One in the whole of Miylan and Fujiama who had it. She knew she had looked. He was a fujikan and his sole ability was to convince frogs to give him their dust. He then used it to instantly refill part of someone’s pool, just like any other mage.

She had a full grade in dust. If the professor ever found out about that she would be locked up just like Erica had been. Not because they feared dust mages. No. They would lock her up because the dust that formed on her cheeks could be used by anyone for their casts. Enough of it and a mage would never need to use their own nguvu. Sprinkle as you activate a cast circle, enchant a sigil or any of a thousand different uses and it gave an instant kick of nguvu and suddenly boosted the chance of cast success. She was a living breathing dust mine.

Dust. The single most powerful magical additive discovered and it grew on her cheeks.

She looked at herself in the mirror again. Funny. If the cast to suppress her dust didn’t suppress all her affinities she would have been pushed to the top of the mage pile. Sure she would have only presented as a two AGP mage not her full two and a half. After all they had a name for what she was in the south. Translated it was expression mage.

Here in the north western countries nobody had two expression affinities. Her three made her a once in a generation castor. Sure one was water but she hadn’t been teaching Mandy how to manage her water affinity for nothing. She was teaching her the techniques she had found worked on herself.

Her momentary pride at who she was gave way to resignation as she looked at her jar. It was the only one that still had any dust left. Sustaining her camouflage as the siege wore on was using her reserves. At best she had three days left and then she would be revealed. She would walk up onto the roof and if they didn’t see the changes on her then they would feel them as soon as she touched that circle.

She remembered what had happened to the professor when he changed the pookkalam with Mandy’s help. It had been a moment of triumph for her as Mandy’s teacher. More than that, it had warmed her through to see her pupil, no, her friend, start to blossom. Then the shock as the pookkalam had punted the snooty professor off the building. If her dust ran out and her stats revert to normal she would get a flying lesson too.

And then there was the dust. With her stats suppressed she generated a small amount all the time. Small enough that she could brush it off twice a day and be fine. If her stats reverted she would generate enough that it will blow off her face in a gentle breeze. It would also start to express from her scalp until eventually a violent hair movement would release a small cloud of dust. If either of those happened within the pookkalam the dust would cause chaos.

There was nothing for it. She was out of time. She needed to leave. But the fort was locked up tighter than a drum. She had tried to get sent out with Mandy on her recognisance. No luck.

She had considered taking to Silvia. Silvia controlled the coven but there was nothing Claudia could think of to persuade Silvia to disconnect her from the pookkalam. She was also doubtful there was a way to disconnect someone without sending the cast.

She had considered talking to Fitzhugh as the liaison for the mages. He was an even worse option. He didn’t get to decide who was in an who was out. He couldn’t lift the siege. No. She knew who she would have to talk to. So she here she was in front of a mirror, preparing to confront, well at least face the captain. She didn’t know how it was going to go. She had been keeping secrets for so long that she knew he would be hurt that they had been kept from his family.

She rose from her seat and with a final smoothing of her skirt turned for the door. She almost took a step when with a impulse she could not explain she picked up her last jar of dust carefully placing it within her clutch. She didn’t know what she was going to say to the captain. She didn’t know how much to tell him. She just hoped he could help. As she stepped to the door she felt it again. There off to the north east. May be if she was very lucky it would serve as a bargaining chip. On second thoughts maybe she had two.

A brisk walk later she entered the barracks. Asking for the captain she was redirected to the mess hall and from there to the officers mess. Normally she wouldn’t have gained entry to the latter but one of the junior officers recognised her as Mandy’s tutor and erroneously assumed it was an urgent matter related to the captains daughter. An assumption Claudia was only too willing to allow.

“Evening Claudia,” the captain greeted her. “Please have a seat.”

“Evening Lord Devereux,” she replied taking a seat in the chair opposite. A cursory glance on entry showed that the captain was dining alone.

There was a general silence for a moment.

He looked at her form a moment. “You don’t normally come here for your meals Claudia. So I have to assume that you are here because you have something to say or ask.”

Claudia winced. “Yes I did. But I was expecting to find you in the barrack and now that we’re here I am a little at a loss.”

“Ohh” the captains response didn’t seem to be anything other than a reaction. He was forcing Claudia to make all the conversation. It wasn’t a fair thing to do but his wife always go one better with Claudia and now that she was going he was a little at a loss as to how to deal with the exotic looking southerner.

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She took a breath, mentally shouldering arms, if that was the phrase. Her aunt said it was girding up your loins, what ever that was. Whatever it was called, she did it, reassuring herself before the plunge.

“What I mean, sir, is that I assumed a certain level of privacy afforded by the barracks. But now that we’re here I am uncertain if this venue will offer the same level of circumspection required for my conversation.” Claudia didn’t know what it was but with the captain she always seemed to fall back on formality. Much more so than his dear by departed wife, who she also missed.

“Ahh yes I see,” he steepled his fingers in front of himself. “How serious are we talking?”

“I have a very serious personal issue that I need to address. It will affect you and your daughter in various was but it should definitely be discussed in absolute confidence.” Now for the carrot she thought as she continued. “I also believe that I can she some light on the rumoured missing mage.”

The only physical reaction the captain made to either of the two statement was a narrowing of the eyes at the second. “Missing mage?” He finally questioned.

“The rumour has it that there are seven opposition mages. Like everyone in the coven I can do the calculations. Probably better than your daughter. Who, if rumour is to be believed, has been scattering around the fort and its surrounds with a single guard looking for anything that’s consuming the nguvu difference between what is flung at us and what is their theoretical combined recoup. I am sure that she has given you a figure that under normal circumstances would be close.” Claudia replied.

“Are you implying that her calculations are wrong.” The captain didn’t shift his eyes away from the tutor.

Claudia smiled. She loved it when they played word games, “No. I said she would be right all thing being normal. I implied that circumstances might not be normal. I also left you hanging because I have legitimate privacy concerns and I believe that a more secure location may offer us a better opportunity to dive into those circumstances.”

The captain smiled as he rose from the table. “Just stay here for a minute. I’ll be back.” With that he Walked over to the door and leaning out spoke briefly to the young guard station at the door.

As he returned to the table he took Fitzhugh’s disk out of his pocket. “I don’t think that you have seen this device.” The captain indicated the disk as he returned to the table placing it between them.

Claudia looked at it curiously. “This one, no. But It looks very similar to something that my father kept hung around his neck.” She winced internally, realising that her decision to tell at least a portion of her story to this man had made her incautious.

His focus narrowed on her. “Your dad?”

“Perhaps you can start the device so that I can answer your question.” The tension was getting to her. But she commented further. “And satisfy your curiosity on a mother front.”

The captain smirked and spoke a few foreign words waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. He repeated the phrase. Still nothing. Frowning he retrieved a piece of paper for his pocket after a few moment reviewing it he spoke the sentence again.

Curiosity Claudia spoke. “Do you mind if I read the paper. Perhaps then I could try to get it to work?”

In frustration the captain acquiesced. After looking at the paper for a moment she spoke with a slight tonal variation compared to the captain. Nothing happened. After frowning for a moment Claudia reached out to touch the object repeating the phrase and suddenly the thing activated.

With a sign of relief she remarked to the captain, “your pronunciation isn’t what mine is. But then neither of us are ‘sendian so that, I suspect, is of less import than touching the device. You might also need to be a castor to activate it. Not sure, it’s a guess.”

She took a breath. “My family is old, very old. We have lived in Beira since the collapse of the old empire. It is said that a male of our line has served the leaders of Inkululeko since the third emperor. My father has never been happy with my gender. The family’s males are the ones who bring honour on the family. He has no male descendants that survived the first year after birth. That I, a female, survived where others did not, at the expense of my mother, has never been forgiven.”

“So?” It was definitely a question. Not accusatory just an acknowledgement of missed understanding. “You family served the rulers of Inkululeko. My Ulimizali is poor so I can never remember what that name is translated to on our maps. With Beira I am guessing Freedom maybe.”

“Quite right as far as it goes.” She took a breath. “Officially my father, last time I heard was the equivalent of the Prime Minister of the Freedom of Indlu. A role he was supposed too pass on to his oldest male descendant. So my last name as you might have guessed is not Khumalo.”

Shock changed the normally controlled facial expression of the captain. For a moment he was lost. “Why would a princess from the cradle of civilisation take up a role as tutor to my wayward daughter? Or perhaps a better question why tell me not?”

Claudia tried to work out how to respond. “I’m not a princess. Prime Minister is a voted position and as such there are no royal titles. Where it might be inferred that my family would succeed in having the next generation placed in the ruler’s seat. I could not be me. I am female and such things are not accepted in the lands of freedom.”

“Not much freedom in that,” the captain quipped.

“More than you realise.” Claudia smiled. “These days I suspect that my mother died and had a number of miscarriage due to my father’s abuses whilst drunk. It was certainly something that I suffered from. Even that might have forgiven as there was an end in sight. However, he decided to arrange for my marriage to my cousin so that he could ensure another of his line would sit on the sapphire throne.”

She took a breath. “Forgive me for a roundabout start. But we get to the point. I discovered about this time that due to some improper family dealings that my husband to be abused women in the same vein. At the time discovered I was a mage, something normally to be celebrated. However, I am peculiar because of inbreeding of the ruling class in the lands of freedom.”

She paused for a moment. “I am not a castor, but as I said previously a mage. I am what they call a expression mage in the lands of freedom. I can cast in wind and earth,” she took a breath, “…and water. They decided to beat the water out of me. I fled. North and into the arms of your family, for which I am very grateful.”

“I am surprised that you didn’t tell us all this earlier.” He stated before continuing. “But I don’t understand why you feel compelled to share this now.”

“Simple you understand the treatment that Erica received from HMCC. She has a half grade just like I do. I am also a foreigner and without the protection of wealthy families here in Miylan. War as now broken out. I will be forcibly tested.” She replied.

The captain opened his mouth to respond but she forestalled him as she continued. “You may believe that your king would never force such a thing on his subjects. He is not going to be able to forestall the internal pressure to change that attitude for long. It’s not long until they start to round up people like me. People who haven’t been formally tested by some government sanctioned and bribed individual. War bring oppression and it will come to Miylan just as it came to all the southern states.”

“But the real driver for this conversation is that I have three days left.” She ran out of steam at that point.

“What do you mean you have three days left?” The captain asked.

“I dropped a cast on myself which helps me to hide my magical ability.” She waited for him to nod in understanding. “The pookkalam is draining my ability to sustain the cast longer. When it fails my full power will return. Now you might be looking on this as a good thing because you believe you need magical power to win here. The more the better I suspect.”

“You're not wrong.” The captain agreed.

She nodded. “Problem is that the pookkalam is a first time thing. Your professor does not know how to make it a flexible arrangement. He was slightly off on his adjustment the consequences for him were extreme. In fact I calculate that his mistake was in the order of half a percent of a nguvu unit.”

She could tell the captain didn’t understand the problem. “If I step into that pookkalam after my protective cast fails I will take and increase of ten percent in the base magic reading. I will add another half grade to water, which we discovered during the first cast, destabilises the whole pookkalam. Depending a little the backlash of that will be that we will obliterate the top four floors of the mage tower at a minimum. It it goes badly the fort becomes a footnote in history.”

“Ok that’s an order worse than I imagined.” He rubbed his face. “Why are you talking to me about this?”

She had him almost there. “Simple, Fitzhugh can’t do anything about it. Silvia won’t after you dressed her down for underperforming. Only you can command them to let me off. But you won’t do that unless I can help you win this little siege.”

“Well you hinted at something. But you haven’t given me anything that will. End this battle in 3 days.” He replied.

“I’ve just told you I have a water affinity. One of the weird things about water mages, they can tell where nguvu is, where it’s been cast, where it’s stored and so on.” She regarded the captain before continuing. “I told your daughter to pay attention to the feelings of nguvu more. To date she has not.”

She took a breath. “If she had, she would have felt the massive castings happening to the north east. Whoever you have looking for the seventh mage is looking I the wrong place.”

“North east, you’re sure?” The captain asked. “Not straight east?”

“Captain, Lord Devereux, I trust you in the arena of military battle. Trust me in the magical one. Definitely north east from here. If I had to guess I would say predominantly earth casts. Feel a bit like it did when I watched the mages at home move the city walls. Given the size of the nguvu feedback I would be guessing that here are at least a couple of castors. I don’t know where you got the magical number seven from but there are more than one castor doing that.”

She paused. “If I remember correctly the Fujikans built this fort to guard the water here. The only water on the way from Minapüru to Shinori through the desert on the way to the Ryu forest. It also gave quick access to the Yochi mountains. But the road kind of backtracks to get here. In their place I would build a base further into the desert and bypass this place completely. Well, assuming you can find the water. Though they seem to love that sapper tunnel cast. I would be using that to channel the water through to the new fort.”

The captain smacked himself in the head. “Stupid. So stupid. The first run of any campaign is to look after the supply lines. They don’t care about cracking our defence. If they get one of their sapper tunnels through they will aim to divert the water. They also get a new shiny fort at a better military location in the desert. A great place to launch an attack on Shinori, Take that and they will just head north and bypass the defences around the rye forest boarder. They could get in around the back of Kiso.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. “Just as well we have been blocking the tunnels. We should be able to keep them out of the desert just by stopping them getting the water.”

Claudia snorted. “You haven’t been outside recently have you?”

“I walked over here from the barracks.” The captain answered, confusion on his face.

“Well, you didn’t look up.” Claudia replied bluntly. She continued. “If you had you might have seen the storm clouds building far out to the west. If I was a betting woman I would guess that there is a plan B in place. They seem to have as weather mage pulling a storm up from the sea. Wow that’s impressive.”

“Full of praise for the enemy aren’t we?” The captain groused.

“Yes we are.” Claudia’s spirits were looking up. Not matter what happed she could get this all to resolve over night. She had a plan. Simple? Perhaps. Easy? no. Rough? Definitely. But it would work. Now she just needed to get the captain to sign off on it.

“A decent storm takes days to build. Longer if you don’t want it to drop all it’s water at the first hill it meets. Then you have to drag it to where you want it.” She grimaced. “We have to realise we were completely outplayed. “Their weather mage has been dragging this monster in since before the Fujikans attacked.”

“If you’re right, that’s quite damming.” He deflated as he exhaled. “It makes sense, we knew that Fujiama sent additional mages to the Minapüre but they never arrived. They must have gone straight to this new site wherever it. Miylan was never ready for this level of planning.”

Claudia pounced. “There is a chance. Their mage took a short cut. I assume be cause he thought we wouldn’t have a water mage here. The closest sea to bring the storming from is actually over near Kurinshiki. But he has to dodge the southern end of the Tochi mountains. If he went over them he would drop his water on the wrong side. So he instead is pulling the storm right over our heads. He should have avoided us and gone further south. But he is probably conscious that Miylan is locking up their water mages. More fool him. A very strong wind crafter can move storms a bit but usually they have too much water. You need a water mage to help. Or better yet a weather mage. One with both wind and water expressions.”

She continued gleefully. “If we mess with it and get it to drop it’s load here, we mess with there plant and we can pump all the nguvu in the storm into lightning. Free casts are great and we can use them to break down the enemies efforts here.” She was getting really excited now. This was what being a proper mage was about. Serious power but over weeks and fought over for hours by the strong of mind. “This is going to be a rare kind of fun.

A sly grin started to creep over the captain’s face. “Fantastic plan.” He raced over to the door.

Yanking it open he saw his daughter hopping from one foot to another in confusion he blurted out, “bath room is that way as you know.”

Rolling her eyes she replied in exasperation. “Dad, I don’t need the bathroom but I have urgent news. We’ve been tricked.”

It was the captains turn to roll his eyes. “Before you tell everything to the entire fort you had better come in. Join Miss Khumalo and I’ll be over in a second.”

Turning to the guard by the door he instructed him to find Fitzhugh and tell him to come to the officer’s mess. The make sure that max was on shift in the pookkalam and to bring Silvia to the office mess. It was time to make a plan and break the siege.