Iatus stood in line with his head down, the guard holding firmly onto the chains binding his wrists. He had spent the night in a small holding cell and his head hurt even more from resting it on the wooden shelf that had served as his bed.

They stood in front of a massive marble building with purple banners proudly bearing the Roman eagle hung on either side of the great double doors. The courthouse was where the accused from the surrounding districts went to be tried, the courthouse was split into different courtrooms, each for a different crime: there was a court for murderers, a court for assaults, a court for smugglers, a court for settling business matters and, where Iatus was heading, the Court of Thieves.

The queue was quite long today, stretching right out into the street; crime was rife in the city as the people grew desperate. Finally the queue snaked its way inside the courtroom. The magistrate sat in a raised box so that he leered down at the court. He was a small, fat man with a beard down to his chest and a balding head. He slouched in his chair, resting his chin in his hand and glaring at everyone that came through with beady, cold eyes.

It took over an hour for Iatus to reach the front, but it felt longer as each person got successively quicker trials and harsher punishments. With every sentence it felt like a little bit of Iatus was being chipped away, today was obviously a bad day to get caught, not that there was a good day.

The person in front of Iatus was called, the charge read out: petty theft. The trial lasted no more than a minute, a man of about 30 stealing bread to feed his family. He denied the charge, claiming that the merchant owed him money for a table and was trying to frame him. The merchant told the magistrate that he had seen the man take the bread and denied buying any table from the man. The magistrate nodded and pronounced the man guilty. 20 lashes it came to. The man was dragged off shouting and protesting his innocence.

Oh Gods, help me, Iatus prayed.

The magistrate finished scribbling something on a roll of parchment and looked up, adjusting his gaze to fall on Iatus. He frowned and sighed.

"Charge?" he yawned.

"Petty theft," spoke the guard.

"Do you have anything to say in your defence, boy?"

I had to or I would starve, thanks to you nobles and your bloody wars, thought Iatus but he shook his head, sensing this man would not appreciate a lecture.

"Very well, twice the damages in reparations."

"The boy is a beggar sir, he has no money," the guard said.

"Very well, flog him then, 30 should teach him not to steel," the magistrate waved his hand dismissively and began scribbling with his quill again.

"Wait!" cried Iatus as the guard began to drag him away and pulled out the silver coin.

The magistrate's eyes widened in surprise. "Where does a beggar like you get a silver denarii?"

"A noble walked past me this morning and saw me begging, he gave it to me."

The magistrate laughed cruelly, "No noble would give a silver coin to such a pathetic boy, you stole it more like!"

"I did not!" Iatus protested but the magistrate held up his hand for silence.

The magistrate's eyes turned cold and harsh, "I can understand stealing a loaf of bread from a market stall, but stealing from someone of noble birth is an offence I will not tolerate. An example must be made. I should execute you, however, due to your age and the dire need for recruits, I sentence you to the mage's trials instead. Maybe the Academy can teach you to respect your betters, if you survive. Guard, approach."

A look of surprise and horror flashed across the guard's face, but he stepped up anyway. The magistrate wrote something on a piece of parchment and handed it to the guard.

"Give this to the presiding tester."

The guard nodded, grabbed Iatus again and dragged him away. Iatus' jaw dropped open at the injustice of the situation. The mage's trial was practically a death sentence for anyone outside the nobility.

"No! You can't do this! I'm telling you the truth!" Iatus screamed at the judge and swatted futilely at the guard holding him.

The guard didn't notice much as he lifted Iatus up and carried him out of the building.

As soon as the court house was out of sight he hung his head, completely defeated. The imperious look in the guard's eyes was gone and he was a little gentler with him, slowing down to a walking pace, rather than the forced march they had kept up all morning. He even looked down occasionally with pity. However all this did was fuel the sense of dread growing in Iatus' stomach.

The busy streets swarmed around them as they walked, but they no longer held their appeal to Iatus. Everyone seemed to blur together, flowing around him like a river around a rock. Suddenly he felt very isolated and very exposed.

They walked out of the main administrative quarter, through the market and into the housing areas. The passed row after row of houses that got progressively shabbier and shabbier. They kept the testing area away from the nobles and the main districts in-case someone, or something, escaped, or so people said.

They came at last to a little building built on the corner of a crossroads. It was painted white and had black letters painted above it. Iatus couldn't read them but he knew this was the mage's testing centre, everyone knew the place and kept away, leaving a conspicuous ring around it where no-one would go. They all watched as people went in and never came out again. Since the wars turned for the worse the senate had been on something of a recruitment drive, testing as many children as they could get their hands on. He sighed, resigned to his fate.

The guard entered, dragging Iatus behind him, and made his way along the corridor to a solid looking oak door. He pushed Iatus into a chair, knocked twice and then entered.

Iatus looked furtively around and got up, not believing his luck, he darted for the door.

He twisted the handle and pulled but the door had somehow locked itself. Iatus cursed, kicked the door in frustration and went back to the door the guard had gone through.

He knelt in front of it and peeked through the keyhole, listening intently. The guard was talking to an old, thin, wiry man. The room was covered in papers and all the walls were dedicated to shelves lined with books. The man was sat at a large desk with a candle; the windows had all been blocked out by the shelving units so it was almost completely dark. He was reading the note from the magistrate, his frown lines getting deeper with every flick of his eyes across the page.

"This is a most unusual request; I have never had to risk one of my better demons before. If this boy does have the gift I will have lost a great asset," the man said glumly.

"It's a court order, you are obliged to carry it out," the guard put in.

"I know, I know, just let me think a minute, if only they would let me into the Academy library again..." the man got up and paced about a bit. He stopped suddenly, turned and started to rummage through his notes.

"Yes, this might do the trick. This demon is beyond even my level of skill and power, so I have no use for it. The boy will have no chance of holding it but, nevertheless, it will save me having to give up one of mine."

The guard's mouth fell open, "You can't do that, it's completely unfair."

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

"Silence, guard! You forget yourself. I may be on this assignment as punishment, but I am still a mage, and you will not question my judgement!" the man spat, then leaned back in his chair, smoothing his hair.

"Anyway, even if I were not a mage, this court order quite clearly states that the boy should be tried against the most powerful demon available. Don't worry; I will give him every chance I can, after all I do want to see the demon, even for just a second. And weren't you just a second ago telling me I was obliged to carry it out?" he smiled cruelly.

Iatus slumped back against the wall, feeling the last dregs of hope run from his body. The guard came out a few moments later and dragged him off again; they went down a set of spiral stairs and through the door at the bottom to the basement. Inside were four holding cells of sorts, really they were just large cages with a bed and a bucket put in them. They still looked better than last night's accommodation though. The only other furnishing was a small stool in the corner which looked as though it might crumble if you sat on it. Three of the cells were occupied, two boys and a girl, the two boys looked up at their approach but the girl didn't stir, she kept her head down on her chest, her face hidden in shadow. The guard unlocked Iatus' manacles and put him in one of the cells.

The guard gave him one last, pitiful look and left. As soon as the door clicked shut the boy in the cage next to him scampered over to him, a friendly grin on his face.

"Hi," he said, "I'm Libby. Who are you?"

Iatus looked at him suspiciously, "Iatus. You seem awfully cheerful for someone who will be put to death soon."

"Hey, I might not look like much but I have potential," Libby said proudly, "I am only here by choice; no mortal soldier could catch me unless I let them."

Iatus looked at him like he was mad, "What? Why would you do that to yourself, you could die?"

"Yes, but if I succeed then they will train me as a mage and I will get all the trappings and benefits of the nobles," he looked up at the ceiling and sighed with contentment.

"Libby, we keep telling you that only the noble magi get that, the best you can hope for is to become a battlemage, a soldier, nothing more!" the other boy put in.

"Maybe for you, but when they see my potential then one of the noble families will adopt me and then I'll be a consul, head of the Republic, master of all!"

Iatus just shook his head. He turned from Libby and had a look at the other two prisoners, the girl still hadn't stirred and the boy had curled up on his bed, he seemed to be whimpering.

"What's wrong with him?" Iatus asked quietly.

"He's got his test today," Libby whispered back, "Poor guy speaks with a stammer so he's as good as had it."

"I don't understand..."

"To summon the demon you need to recite the summoning spell perfectly, you can't do that with a stammer."

Iatus swallowed nervously and was about to take another look when the door to the basement groaned open and the skinny little man he had seen through the keyhole came bustling down the stairs. He peeked through the darkness with squinty little eyes that darted about like insects. Eventually his gaze settled on the boy.

"Right Herros, come on," the man said uncompassionately .

The boy stirred slowly, he was so white with fear that he seemed translucent, almost shiny in the low light, like a ghost.

The man led the boy out of the basement and locked the door behind them.

Iatus looked at Libby for an explanation but he just held up a hand.

"Listen," Libby hushed.

They sat in silence for what seemed an eternity, until they heard a whirring noise. It got louder and louder and higher in pitch until it reached a climax with a snapping sound. There was silence again for a moment and then a roar.

It didn't sound angry or scared, it sounded... triumphant.

You cannot hold ME, petty mortal, now DIE!

The voice sounded far away but it chilled Iatus to his core.

There was a boom like thunder and a scream and the whole place shook, causing dust to fall down from the ceiling.

There another boom and another scream, this one sounded like the voice. This was followed by another, and then another until finally they stopped.

Silence returned and the two boys stood there for a full minute before Iatus spoke.

"What happened?"

"I don't really know, no-one's actually succeeded since I've been here..."

"No-one?"

Libby just shook his head.

"He managed to summon the demon, but was unable to bind it," the girl said.

The two boys spun round to look at her.

"What?" Iatus asked dumbly.

"Never mind," she replied and went back to silence.

"She's never spoken before," whispered Libby.

Iatus was about to respond when the door opened again and the words were forgotten. The wiry man entered the room again. This time he came over to Iatus' cell.

"You boy, can you read?"

"What?" replied Iatus.

"Read. As in letters and words and books," the man said, impatiently.

"No..."

The man sighed and unlocked the cell, "Come with me. Don't even think about running."

Iatus followed the man to his office where he was beckoned to a seat.

The room looked remarkable unscathed, except for a circle of strange lines and letters that had been burnt onto the wood.

"Right," the man began, "you have been sentenced to the mage's trial. If you succeed you will be trained as a mage and then you will serve in the army as a battlemage, most likely, if you fail, you die. A mage has some power of his own but most comes from his ability to summon and control familiars. These are spirits or demons that the mage has managed to bind to his will. You will be given one opportunity to summon a demon. If you fail you will be executed the traditional way, with a rope. If you succeed in actually calling the demon you must have the strength of mana to bind it to your will or it will simply eat you and return to where it came from. Any questions?"

Iatus had several, at the top of the list was How is this anywhere close to Roman justice? but he bit his tongue and shook his head.

"Good, as you cannot read you will have to memorise the summoning spell and the binding spell, this will not be easy. The children you saw in those cells have all been here for weeks, still memorising the spell."

Iatus nodded dumbly.

"Right, the demon you will be attempting to summon is called Aelith. He is a fairly strong demon, so you will need to be prepared, it will drain your mana reserves considerably, if you have any. You will need to rest well afterwards. The likely occurrence is that you will deplete all your mana in the attempt and die before you even lay eyes on it. Now the summons, you will have to say these words very carefully and clearly, a slurred syllable in the wrong place will mean your death, either you will not summon the beast and we execute you, or you will mess up the binding and it will execute you."

"Now, repeat after me."

They went over the spell several times and then Iatus was sent back to his cell. They spent less than an hour together and Iatus got the feeling the man hated his job.

When he got back Libby jumped up from his bed and pushed his face into the bars.

"So what demon did he assign you?"

"What?" Iatus had been lost in his own world, trying desperately to remember the lines of the spell.

"What demon did he give you? Do you actually have wool in your ears, you seem to need everything repeated twice?" Libby laughed.

Iatus frowned but the kid's hopefulness was contagious and he was starting to feel better, despite himself.

"Aelith," he said.

The girl in the corner cell rose from her bed and wondered over, surprise written all over her face, "Did you say Aelith?"

"Yeah, why?" Iatus inquired.

"Because the only Aelith I have ever heard of was Aelith Stormcaller. He was considered a God by a small Gaelic tribe my father conquered years back. He was a greatly powerful demon, a shedu by my father's reckoning."

"What's a shedu?" Libby asked, joining in.

"There are four different levels of demons, imps are the weakest, then jinni, then shedu and then mara being the most powerful. But each level is considerably more powerful than the last, most magi only use jinni. Shedu are only ever summoned by experienced magi."

Iatus frowned, "How do you know so much?"

The girl just gave a grunt and retreated back to her bed. "It doesn't matter; you will be dead in a few weeks. Novices don't summon shedu."

Iatus opened and closed his mouth a few times, completely speechless.

Libby turned towards him, "At least it wasn't a mara."

Iatus was not amused.

The time passed slowly in the cells, Iatus tried desperately to memorise the spells that could save his life, he thought he had it pretty good but he could never get it all right. He practised through the night until he had it perfect. The next day he was called back to the office.

"Right, let's have a look at you," said the man. "Recite the summons first."

Iatus repeated the words he had learned so faithfully with ease.

When he had finished the man hit him on the back of the head. "You are slurring your Rs too much, speak properly you idiot," Iatus tried again and the man hit him again. "You need to still put emphasis in the right places, not just recite it. Again."

This carried on for a good hour until the man was satisfied.

"Now the binding spell."

They repeated the same procedure again, with Iatus getting hit on a protruding piece of his body every time he made a mistake, which was frighteningly often. The man seemed to enjoy it when he made mistakes and they were at it for hours; when Iatus was returned to his cell he hurt all over, his mouth was dry and his jaw hurt. He slouched in his bed face down and prayed for his salvation. He heard the sound of a cell opening next to him and presumed it was Libby's turn to face the man.

When Libby was returned he fell onto his bed, groaning with pain. No-one could move or speak and sleep claimed them quickly.