I jumped out of the chair, sighing with relief. I rubbed the circulation back into my limbs and walked around to face Evan. Hard to look him in the eye when I could still taste Evelyn somewhere inside me. “That thing I felt when she touched me, does that happen every time?”
“Every time.”
“How do you deal with it?”
“Willpower, Mister Kovak. Something you must learn.”
I snickered. “You have no idea. What happens now?”
Evan cleared his throat. “That’s up to you. Are you asking for advice?”
“Hell yes, I’m asking for advice! I don’t know the first thing about being a mage.”
“Well, the first rule should be obvious. Keep your hands to yourself.”
“What’s the second rule?”
“Never trust a mundane.”
“And the third?”
“Never trust a mage.”
“Is there anyone I can trust?”
“Just me, Mister Kovak. Just me.” Evan’s face turned serious. “You must be very careful now. We don’t know the extent of your power, but with an index that high, you’ll be a target for every government, every company, and every criminal organization on the planet. You must be discreet, and you must learn to defend yourself. Blackmail, extortion, kidnapping - I’ve seen it all. The faculty are not openly treacherous, but they can be bought.”
Apparently, magic was not all wine and roses. “You’re the only people who know about my talent, so I guess you have my life in your hands.”
Evan glanced over at his girlfriend and looked suddenly tired, old beyond his years. “I carry more lives than yours, Mister Kovak. I’ve helped a hundred students through my program. They walk through our gates like cows in a slaughterhouse. They’ve been pampered their whole lives, groomed in private schools, spoiled like star athletes. They expect that treatment to continue when they hit college.
“They arrive on campus, and there’s a mob of people waiting to seduce them. Money, drugs, women, and gifts - just sign on the dotted line and XYZ Industries will take care of everything. Last week, a shark from Helix Biolabs tried to recruit two of my freshmen for medical research! Can you imagine? I caught them before they signed but imagine the fates of those I don’t hear about.
“You must keep your head clear, Mister Kovak. If you drink or use drugs, you must stop, now. You are too powerful to walk around inebriated. I don’t know anything about your personal life, but you must choose your companions carefully now. Once your score gets out, every social-climbing sorority girl and weekend witch on this campus will be angling for a shot at you. One careless encounter and some gum-popping harlot gets half your income for the rest of your life. Mages always get screwed in divorce cases and we never win custody.
“Don’t show off, and don’t sign anything! Some firms are legitimate, but even the good ones will screw you on support fees. If you enter my program, you’ll need an advisor, and if you go into business, you’ll need a lawyer who understands magic.”
I laughed bitterly and shook my head. “Thanks for being straight with me. I could have used a friend like you, about six hundred years ago.”
* * *
I had a million questions for Evan, but Evelyn was at his arm, having some kind of muted anxiety attack. “Will you excuse us, please? Just a few minutes, and I’ll meet you in my office.”
Evan showed up alone, frowning and stiff like he had just won a battle or lost a war. He apologized for the delay and let me in. This time he traced a symbol on his door and moved a glowing crystal to the center of his desk.
“I have a proposition for you,” he said. “I want you in my program, and to make that easier, I’d like you to join me in a bit of subterfuge.”
I threw up my hands and pushed myself deeper into his chair. “Whoa! I’m not ready to join anything.”
“You don’t have to decide right away, but this deception will make it easier for you if you decide to join us later.”
“What kind of deception?”
“I’m worried about your test results. You absorbed everything from my chair, but that’s the tip of the iceberg. Your real score is higher. Perhaps much higher. You don’t have a sponsor, you’re not registered with the Department of Metahuman Affairs, and you’re too powerful to walk around loose.
“If I report these results today, you will wake up in Virginia tomorrow, surrounded by men in black suits. You’ll be drafted by the DMA, and that’s bad for both of us. If you’d come through normal channels, I would have no choice, but you came in off the street, so I think I can file my paperwork, and still keep your options open.”
“How?”
“I’ll report what happened today, but I’ll list your index as 184. High enough to enter the program, but low enough to keep you off government radar. I’ll handle registration and become your sponsor. I’ll tell the government exactly what you told me. There was an error in your blood test, and now you’re being courted by my program. Your file will merge with a hundred others, and the minders won’t look twice.”
“You don’t look like the generous type, Evan. What’s in it for you?”
Evan smiled. “You’re already thinking like one of us. The benefit, Mister Kovak, is that I will be listed as sponsor on your permanent record. Your accomplishments will enhance my reputation, for the rest of your life. This is a tremendous boon for me, whether you join the program or not.”
“What if you get busted? What if someone catches you faking my results?”
“Some mages are hard to test. You’ve already invalidated your grade school tests. The first error protects the second, and you get to keep your life.”
“And if I refuse?”
“If you refuse, I turn in these test results. Six hours later, you’ll be stuffed in a black van. Six weeks later, you’ll be conscripted into some black bag hero team, and six months after that, you will be dead.”
“So, it’s not really a choice at all.”
“Not really. Sponsorship is mandatory, but you don’t have to join my program. That really is a choice, and I hope you will make the right one.”
“Look, even if I wanted to sign up, my grades… Before you look me up, I’ve got to be honest with you. I am a terrible student. The only time I ever did well was in this fancy corporate middle school sponsored by HDI. Everything else, high school and college, I’m probably sitting at a 2.5.”
“I can ignore most of this if you decide to join us. My recommendation carries a lot of weight here. I’m not permanent faculty, but I will be, and everyone knows it. If you really want to learn magic, I can offer you a fresh start.”
Evan was looking at me like I was food, too much like Lydia. He saw me hesitate and rushed to fill the gap. “It won’t be easy. My students are competitive, and some of them will hate you.”
“Why would anybody hate me? I just got here.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“You haven’t paid your dues, and you don’t know the rules here. You went to the wrong schools, studied the wrong subjects, and grew up in a totally different world. You don’t know your limits, and you don’t know how to behave. Mages walk a fine line in this world. You must conduct yourself with dignity and restraint at all times. Some mundanes romanticize us, but don’t fool yourself. We are always one mistake away from being burned at the stake.”
“Oh, come on, I’ve seen you guys on TV my whole life. Wizards run the world!”
Evan sighed. “Please don’t use that word. Wizard is a derogatory term now, precisely because of the television you grew up with. Have you watched it lately? The culture turned on us a decade ago. Now, mages are portrayed as villains, jokes, or useless buffoons. All the best roles are given to gritty Bluestar antiheroes working for the state, breaking the rules to give gifted criminals the punishment they deserve.
“Wizards are either too smart to be trusted or portrayed as useless bureaucrats for the cool heroes to rebel against. If a normal person calls you a wizard in public, they are insulting you, maybe even trying to start a fight. A few of my students have started to call themselves wizards ironically, but I try to discourage this.”
“So, we’re not heroes? Mages are a joke now? Even after all the stuff Arthur did?”
“Arthur Walton’s accomplishments were fifteen years ago, even if he did save the world. There is an active effort to deconstruct him and minimize his contributions in favor of others who look better on camera. Arthur’s entire history is being rewritten because he’s so difficult to work with. He’s an arrogant misanthrope who refuses interviews, the exact opposite of what our system rewards.”
“So, what does that mean for me?”
“It means, Mister Kovak, that from now on, you will go out of your way to avoid attention and obey the law. If you get fined for something, you will pay it, immediately. You will not challenge it, even if you think you can win. If you have political opinions, you will keep them to yourself. If you are stopped by police, the first words out of your mouth will be, ‘I’m a mage.’ You will keep your hands where the officer can see them, and you will speak only when you are spoken to. When tax time comes, you will hire a good accountant and pay a little more than you owe. And when the DMA comes to search your home, you will open your doors wide and offer them a cup of tea.”
“And what’s my reward for enduring this fascist bullshit?”
“Your reward, Mister Kovak, is the opportunity to live a decent life, and hopefully sign with a corporation that will give you a nice house and a clothing allowance, in exchange for token appearances and light spellcasting.”
“It doesn’t sound worth it.”
Evan shrugged. “Perhaps it’s not. Some of my students leave the country, but Asia is bad for us, and Europe is worse. Metahumans have established fiefdoms in Latin America. If I had your power, I would learn some compulsion magic and hop a flight to Paraguay.” Evan stood up. “But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. The choice before you is sponsorship. What do you say?”
“I don’t have much choice, do I?” I stood up. “Use the fake score and send me the papers.”
“Cheer up, Mister Kovak, it’s not all rules and compromise. You’ll make money, you’ll make friends, and if you give us a chance, you could even have some fun.”
* * *
“Evan, this is all happening so fast, I need more proof than a couple of test results. Can you teach me a spell?”
Evan gestured to his conference table and said, “Let’s move over here.”
A big oak table, surrounded by those lovely leather chairs. Evan uncovered an ancient wall safe and raced through the combination. He spun the dial so fast, the numbers ran together in a white blur. Then he said a few of those Latin words and pressed his hand to another steel plate. A rune glowed green on the face of it, and the door swung open with a click.
Evan pulled out a small gray box - unlocked it with a physical key and said a quick word of magic. It was full of ordinary index cards, like from my debate days. I was a bit disappointed, expecting something more impressive, like scrolls or leather books.
Evan sat down and started riffling through cards. “Usually, we start with divination and cosmetic spells, but you’re not a typical student, so I’ll give you something cool.”
He handed me a blue card with five symbols on it, obviously copied by hand. The tab at the top said, “Inanimate Levitation.” I held it like a hand grenade. “What should I do with this?”
Evan held up one finger and opened his top drawer. He pulled out a red rubber ball, like something a cat would play with. He set the ball in front of me and said, “The symbols on that card constitute one complete spell. I want you to bring in just a bit of power and concentrate on those symbols. Picture them in your mind, one at a time. You don’t have to memorize them, just stare at the card and concentrate. Those symbols are like keys to a series of mental locks. You’ll feel a kind of ‘click’ in your mind as you get each one right.
“When you hit the final rune, you’ll produce an effect in the real world. Each symbol has a vibration. You’ll feel it in your aura, like your spirit is tuning itself to the magic. Each symbol brings you closer to the final frequency. When you finish the last symbol, remember it, and hold that feeling for as long as you can. If you feel it slipping, just look at the card and focus again. Once the power feels stable, imagine yourself reaching out and wrapping that last symbol around this rubber ball. If you do it properly, the ball will levitate a few inches over the table, and you’ll be able to move it up and down.”
“So that’s it? Picture five symbols and concentrate? I thought it would be more complicated.”
“Some spells are. Powerful spells consist of thirty, sometimes fifty symbols. You have to picture each one precisely, and feel the right vibration each time, or the spell will fail. In ancient times, mages would associate spells with music or poetry to help them remember. These days we just read them off cards.
“Students are expected to remember basic spells, and a few emergency spells for calling help and dispelling magic. They spend most of their time learning what the symbols mean. We’ve identified nine-hundred and eighty-two discrete runes. Our graduates learn maybe ten percent.
“The first symbol on your card is called Rhion. Rhion is an air rune. When you concentrate on it, you’re aligning your spirit to the air.
“The next rune is Talse. Talse represents a category of inanimate objects. When you concentrate on that, you narrow your influence to non-living things. We put that in, so you don’t accidentally levitate a person, or part of a person, as you practice.
“The third symbol, Kios, is a control character. It links the object with your mind, so you can move it with your thoughts. If you used Halper or Cillia here, you could control the object with gestures or voice commands. Kios requires more energy, but most students prefer direct mental control.
“The fourth symbol is Alph. Alph is an activator symbol. The other symbols refine the magic - Alph releases it.
“The last symbol is Ptah. Ptah is a sustaining rune. Most spells end with Ptah. It tells your body to maintain the current pattern, hold the current effect until you release it.
“These symbols are like answers to a series of questions: where, what, how, when, and how long. The spell in front of you says you will be working in the air, manipulating inanimate objects, with mental commands, starting now, for as long as you concentrate.
“Most students cast by saying these names. Do this in public, and mundanes will think you’re crazy, mumbling gibberish under your breath. Eventually, you’ll learn to do it silently, but in the beginning, we encourage students to name the runes as they cast. Walk by a first-year class and you’ll see a room full of students chanting, “Rhion, Talse, Kios, Alph, Ptah.
“So! Those are the basics. Are you ready?”
I nodded.
“Focus on the card and bring in magic. When you get to the last symbol, keep it in your mind and wrap it around the object.”
I took a deep breath and tried to open myself, but the power wasn’t cooperating. I told Evan, “I can feel it, but it won’t move.”
“You’re trying too hard. Just relax.”
I rolled my eyes. “Why are people always telling me to relax?”
The magic screamed in my head, but I couldn’t let it go. I took my eyes off the ball and yelled at Evan. “What the fuck! It won’t—”
As soon as I took my eyes off it, the ball shot up and hit the ceiling, careening around the room. It smashed a vase and whizzed by my ear. Evan dove for cover, but he was too slow. The ball nailed him square in the forehead, leaving an angry red mark. Evan was seething, but quickly pulled himself together.
“As I suspected, Mister Kovak, you are very strong, but you have a slight control problem.”
* * *
We spent the rest of the hour working on it. My next few attempts went wild. I eventually got the hang of it, but sometimes I would still fake a spasm, just to see Evan jump. Torturing my mentor was cheap entertainment, but it was cheering me up. I cast it ten times and asked for a copy.
Evan shook his head. “Spells can’t be photographed, and I can’t let you write it down. Spells are registered munitions, so that card must stay in my office.”
“What do you mean they can’t be photographed?”
“Runes are inherently magical. The shapes attract KMP. The energy distorts optics. Run that through a scanner and you’ll get a stream of blurred nonsense.”
“Well, that answers my next question. You have to copy all this stuff by hand? There are no magic textbooks?”
“None. Ben Franklin tried to make a magical printing press, but energy collected in the grooves melted the blocks, and boiled the ink off. Even when you do it by hand, the process requires special ink and special pens. We have dedicated instruments now - tantalum shafts with ceramic points - but in the old days, quills would heat up and set your paper on fire.”
I reached across the table and spun the rubber ball. “Can we try this again?”
“You’re not tired?”
I shook my head.
“Three more times and I’ll kick you out. I have to do some work today.”
The last three times, I cast it from memory.
* * *
Evan led me outside with Evelyn playing bodyguard beside him, looking at me like I was something stuck to her shoe.
“Your girlfriend hates me so much, it’s actually kind of hot,” I said.
Evan glared at me, and I realized I had just said something incredibly rude, standing right in front of them. “Sorry man, I’ve never had magic in my body before; I think I’m a little drunk.” I leaned in and stage-whispered, “So, is she your girlfriend, or your familiar? Is she a polymorphed cat or something?”
“It was a pleasure to meet you, Mister Kovak. Please call if you have any questions… any serious questions.”