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Institution: Revised

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3/30/2009 21:27:47   
Nex del Vida
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INSTITUTION


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Before the world, before time, before humans, there was Chaos. Arcos took the Chaos, formed it with his hands, and separated it into matter and energy. The matter he shaped into the planets of our universe, the energy he made into the forces of this universe. Thus was our world created. He made beings out of matter, imbued them with energy to make them sentient, and set them upon one of the planets. Thus were humans created.
--Creations 1:1 from the Book of Magi

This is obviously false. The idea that an all-powerful creator could simply “form” the universe by molding it like clay is ridiculous. I have studied Mundane religions, and they all have their creation myths. I suppose the Arcane religion must conform.
--Excerpted from an annotated copy of the Book of Magi owned by Martin Fairweather. Annotations are in bold text.




< Message edited by Nex del Vida -- 4/3/2009 22:36:42 >
AQ  Post #: 1
3/31/2009 8:30:06   
Nex del Vida
Member

Pro Libris

A boy runs with his father across the grass. They are both laughing, but the older of the two has the air of a man who has experienced horrors. His face is sallow, his cheekbones sunken, his sandy hair lank. This running seems to be his only solace in a world full of troubles.

The son flings a bright green disk to his father, and the man dives for it. He catches it, landing with a thud on the ground, and a pained expression flashes across his face before he smiles again, pushes himself to his feet, and throws the frisbee back towards his son.

The boy, unlike his father, is devoid of shadows. The simple action of throwing the disk, the carefree laugh that escapes his lips, the smile playing across his features, each of these emanates innocence. The disk flies through the air, greener than the grass below their feet.

The father catches it. His eyes drift to the left sadly, thinking of something in the past. They dart up again, and the façade resumes. He throws the disk. The disk spins.

The boy catches it. No façade. Shining eyes, only love for his father. Throws disk. Disk spins.

Father. Dull eyes. Sadness. Love. Throws. Spins.

Boy. Naïve. Tender. Joyful. Throws. Spins.

The disk spins.

~ ~ ~


The son sits in his room, playing with his new talent. Mother and Father have told him not to or bad men will come, but they told him not to steal food too or the bogeyman would get him. He did it anyway, and nothing bad happened.

His father is in the big room, probably sleeping. The door crashes open, but the son pays no heed: he is deep in discovering what he can do now that he couldn’t before. He hears a half-articulated exclamation, probably his father waking up. Still the boy directs his attention towards the things he has made. Now he has two beds, two rugs, two doorknobs on each door. He is trying to make four doorknobs when three men rush into the room and grab him. He screams for his mother, who is not in the house, then his father. As the men run towards the open door of the apartment leading to the hall, the boy sees his father standing by the door. His hands seem to be on fire. One of the men curses and separates from the group, leaving his comrades to take the boy. A ball of red, flickering light shoots from his father towards the intruder, and the latter man dodges. He begins to say something to the boy’s father, and before long the man is leaning against the wall, staring blankly into space. The man walks back to his companions and says the same words to the still shrieking boy, who almost immediately stops crying and struggling and hangs limply in his captors’ arms. The men walk out of the dingy building. No sooner do they step outside than they being arguing, four other men running up to join them from neighboring houses.

“Joaquin, mind telling me how in Arcos’ name that guy’s a Pyromance? Detector-Tutelary Langley only saw a Reflector here, and she’s been monitoring this area pretty constantly since we picked up the little girl a few years ago. From the same house, if I remember correctly. So that would make twice Langley’s skipped over a strong Arcane signal.”

“Well, hell if I know. Maybe he just never uses his ability. She can only sense them when they’re using their abilities, right?”

“Ah, who knows. All we have to go on are the rumors from the ones who bring the assignments from her to us. It seems strange that he wouldn’t fire up even once in all these years. Let’s just get this little guy in for conditioning, shall we? We can leave the Detecting to the Detectors. Handel, Thoras, Jonah, Warde, you got the neighbors, right?”

~ ~ ~


When the boy’s mother returns home, her husband is huddled in a ratty chair, head in hands. She approaches him and puts her hand on his shoulder. He lurches and looks up at her, eyes moist. “They took Martin.”

She pulls her hand away as if pricked. Clutching the appendage to her chest she staggers back, slumping onto the couch. “I thought you would stop them. You can do... that… now.”

“I know. I know, I know, I know. I swore that I would stop them if they ever came for Martin. After I let them take Marie…”

The woman begins crying quietly. “Why have they done this to us? Why do our children have to be so cursed? All we’ve ever been are law-abiding people.”

“Alice, don’t do this to yourself. Now that I’ve used it, they know where I am. They’ll probably come for me soon. I promise you, I will get them then. I just thank God we realized that they find people who use their curses… if I had lit up in the years since they took Marie, they would’ve come and taken me away.”

Alice’s tears slide silently down her cheeks, dropping with soft sounds on to her faded dress. “And none of the neighbors remember. We tried telling them about Marie, and they looked at us like they had never heard of her. One of their curses must be to make people forget.” The intonation on the word “their” makes it sound as if she had said “Satan.” She looks up at her husband, jaw quivering. “Why didn’t they make us forget, Peter? Why didn’t they make us forget?”

The man stands up, walks over to his wife, and sits down next to her. He wraps his arms around her, and she lays her head on his chest.

“We don’t want to forget, Alice. We will never forget our children.”

< Message edited by Nex del Vida -- 4/1/2009 15:14:46 >
AQ  Post #: 2
3/31/2009 8:31:12   
Nex del Vida
Member

Humanity gradually advanced, enlightening their minds to science. Eventually they learned to split the atom, with devastating results to the planet. They fought amongst themselves, doing only small damage to the planet, until one enormous nuclear holocaust. The earth turned to rubble, and a very small number of humans survived. Arcos brought them forth from the rubble. He bestowed upon them incredible powers so they could live in the harsher environs of the nuclear earth. The humans lived with these powers for centuries, until the Year of Division. In this year, Arcos bequeathed one human with an exceptional ability: he could see souls and corrupt them. This human’s name was Sterling Deor. Deor was a king among men, and was worshiped by many. However, he was also hated by many. Those who supported him loved him so greatly that, eventually, he came to think of himself as a god. So drunk with power was he that he tried to overthrow Arcos by performing forbidden and deeply evil rites. In retaliation, Arcos struck down Deor and Disempowered his followers and their descendants: thus were the Mundane created. Those who did not follow the traitor, however, were left with their powers: thus were the Arcane created.
--Creations 1:9, from the Book of Magi

I don’t know what to believe here. I remember a lesson taught in Prehist that said something about a BA theory called evolution. Something about how animals changed to match how they lived and where they lived. Might this have happened to humans?

One thing I know for sure. There is no Arcos.
--Excerpted from annotated copy of the Book of Magi, owned by Martin Fairweather.



< Message edited by Nex del Vida -- 4/3/2009 22:51:08 >
AQ  Post #: 3
3/31/2009 8:39:39   
Nex del Vida
Member

Divortium Unum

As I sit on my hard, thin mattress in my blank, white room, I think back to the days before the Coming, before the institution. I think back to the years when I was a normal child.

I was happy. Nothing was wrong in my eyes, everything was fine, and I was content. My parents were loving if detached—well, they had to be. Surviving in the city wasn’t easy. I had good friends on the street and at school, though I only saw the latter one day a week. We learned in Prehist (short for PreNucleocaustic History) that kids used to have school five days a week for six hours, instead of the modern one day a week for eighteen hours.

So, everything was average. Average, that is, until The Day. That’s how I think about it, with capital letters. The Day of the Coming. It was a chilly day in March, and I was running around with some of my friends looking for food in the trash disposals. I bent down to pick up something that had caught my eye…

And then I had my Coming.

Back to “history,” though. Arcane are not born with their abilities, as is said in Creations 3:6 of the Book of Magi. When a maturing Arcane sees, tastes, touches, smells, or hears a certain thing, their ability starts to develop. My Trigger was a shiny coin, so polished that it was almost a mirror…

I recall Prophecies 2:4. The Arcane will soon be marching on the Mundane. We will “liberate” the planet from their grasp and assume our position as rulers. I don’t know how I feel about this. One thing I know is wrong: the Tutelaries are planning to kill the Mundane. No evicting, or rather, not in the traditional sense. They have interpreted the word “evicted” from the book of Prophecies as “evict from life,” rather than “evict from place of residence.” And the horrible thing is, it won’t even be a battle: the Mundane don’t stand a chance against us. The only reason we haven’t attacked before now is because of the time limit the Book of Magi imposes.

They will be crushed like ants.

The Archmage, as our leader is called, has the ability to change atoms from one element to another… he can turn oxygen into iron, for instance. What this means is that he can make a weapon out of anything. Also, if a Mundane were to shoot a gun at him, he could vaporize the bullet.

I am deeply concerned for the Mundane. There is one small mercy for them, though: the bigger the thing he wants to change, the longer he has to rest. This is true for some, but by no means all, Arcane. To change a car, for instance, he would have to rest for an hour or so. He plans to rest for one full week before the March. I would not be surprised if he simply transforms their entire army into hydrogen.

The Nucleocaust was an enormous nuclear war, encompassing the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Scientists and politicians at the time had foreseen this war, and had given shelter to one million people under the ice of the North and South Poles: a tiny number, granted, but they have multiplied over the thousands of years since the Nucleocaust into the billions that inhabit the earth now.

After the Nucleocaust, the world was a very changed place, according to Prehist. Following ten or so years of isolation under the ice of the poles—nuclear radiation usually only lasts for a year or two, but this war was so gargantuan that the fallout did not dissipate for a much longer period of time—the scientists deemed it safe for the people to come out of hiding. They emerged to find the world a desolate wasteland. The bombs had been so powerful that they had leveled mountains. All that was left of the formerly majestic peaks of the world were stubby, flat plateaus. There weren’t even the skeletons of buildings left. These poor men and women had to start from scratch. They had to re-invent modern life.

Around two hundred years after the Nucleocaust, the places that the people had chosen to settle in had been mostly rebuilt. The population had not grown, as everyone had thought it would: life in the new world was very hard. The people had multiplied, of course, but almost the same amount of people had died. Then, though, people began to notice strange happenings.

According to the Arcane History class here at the institution—my Prehist teachers never knew of the Arcane-- teenagers had started developing strange powers. Perhaps one could levitate, another could hurt people with her mind, and one could bend metal without using his hands. These were the initial manifestations of the Arcane, and this was when one man came forward with a book he said he had “found in the wreckage.” Of course, this was Magi (as the Book of Magi has been nicknamed). The man, whose name has been forgotten, thought it was the work of a god. He and his followers, mainly those who gained abilities, created a cult of sorts and retreated into their large, communal facilities, which became the modern institutions many hundreds of years later. The Mundane soon forgot about this sect and continued going about their daily lives.

The Nucleocaust was so important that it started a new time cycle. According to us, the reduced population of the world ventured forth from the ice in the year 0 AA (for After Apocalypse), but according to the old system of measurement it occurred in 2510 AD, with the bombs having been dropped in 2500 AD (or 10 BA, for Before Apocalypse). The Arcane calendar reads 2,999 AA this year.

The three thousandth year from the Book of Magi, the one that it was prophesied we would March in, is 3000 AA, one year from now. Here at the institution, our real training has begun. We have begun doing more than just the normal tactical theories and simulations. The Tutelaries kidnap people from the Mundane world for us to practice our techniques on. They are formed into haphazard groups, given crude weapons, and then the battalions, or Arcane Soldier Units, are sent to exterminate them.

We Arcane are militaristic. We have rigid procedures and structures, most of which make no sense. There are two groups of Arcane Soldier Units: one group uses people with similar abilities to increase each other’s powers and the other uses people with different abilities to heighten and enhance one another’s powers. I saw an ASU list lying on a table a few days ago.

ASU 97
Immobilizing Regiment
Members:
Peter Clark (Regiment Leader)
Ability: Bone Twist
Classification: Strong Physical
[p]Ptolemy Yates (First Officer)
Ability: Fear
Classification: Strong Intermediate Psychological
Sheila Baum (Second Officer)
Ability: Drowse
Classification: Weak Intermediate Psychological
Karl Tailor(Private)
Ability: Muscle Paralysis
Classification: Weak Physical
Olivia Triton (Private)
Ability: Earth Envelop
Classification: Weak Physical


In each division there is a Regiment Leader, a First and Second Officer, and two Privates. This particular Regiment focuses on immobilizing or handicapping the enemy. I’m friends with one of their members, and talk to him frequently. I’ve learned that their leader, Peter, has the ability to twist bones around, causing a lot of pain and general mayhem: he can manipulate your legs, for instance, so that the soles of your feet touch your back permanently. The First Officer can instill fear in the enemy so they become rooted to the ground in fright, the Second Officer makes them lethargic and tired, the Private Karl can stiffen some muscles in the body enough to impediment movement, and Olivia makes the ground rise up to cover their feet or trip them. I am the Second Officer in my Regiment, which focuses on disorientation. Here’s our sheet:



ASU 42
Disorientation Regiment
Members:
Louis Emerald (Regiment Leader)
Ability: Sight Shatter
Classification: Strong Psychological/Visual
Mikael Rochmononov (First Officer)
Ability: Delve
Classification: Strong Psychological/Visual
Martin Fairweather (Second Officer)
Ability: Reflect
Classification: Intermediate Visual
Lily Septimus (Private)
Ability: Pupil Dilation
Classification: Weak Physical
Kramer Heston (Private)
Ability: Jargon
Classification: Weak Physical/Speech


Some of these abilities may be harder to understand than the Immobilization regiment’s, so I’ll explain them:

Louis can essentially break apart the vision of one or two enemies. Think of your vision as a mirror. Now imagine this mirror being smashed, and each of the pieces rearranging themselves constantly in myriad different combinations, like a kaleidoscope.

Mikael, the First officer, can delve into a person’s past and bring up anything that he deems useful. He could make the person he is attacking relive their worst memories, or lull them into a false sense of security: make them believe their mother is standing there or something of the sort.

Now we come to me, Martin Fairweather. I can reflect things: myself, if I want to intimidate the enemy, or maybe an obstacle that I want to “place” in front of an attacker. Of course, these things are not substantial, but most people don’t know that, do they?

Lily can widen or shrink an opponent’s pupils so they are temporarily blinded by sunlight or by darkness.

The other private, Kramer, manipulate one person’s speech patterns into meaningless gibberish. This could be useful for scrambling enemy messages, ruining code or invalidating instructions. Very useful if an enemy general is delivering a speech to his troops.

So there you have it—our personal strike force. Our objective? To wipe out thousands of innocent men, women and children.



< Message edited by Nex del Vida -- 4/2/2009 20:50:48 >
AQ  Post #: 4
4/2/2009 20:49:48   
Nex del Vida
Member

Arcos told the Arcane, “You and your siblings the Mundane shall live in harmony for thrice a thousand years; but after this time you shall march on them and claim your rightful position as the rulers of this earth. The Mundane intruders will be evicted from your kingdom, and they shall serve you for eternity.”

--Prophecies 2:4, from the Book of Magi

What to think here? Raised to hate Mundane, but simply can’t. Why?

--Excerpted from an annotated copy of the Book of Magi owned by Martin Fairweather.



< Message edited by Nex del Vida -- 4/3/2009 22:51:21 >
AQ  Post #: 5
4/2/2009 20:51:21   
Nex del Vida
Member

Divortium Duae



I am knocked out of my reverie by a sharp rap on my door. Without waiting for an answer, it is pushed open. Tutelary Wachsberger barges in, and shouts at me, “Fairweather! What are you doing here? Morning Classes started twenty minutes ago!”

Oh, Deor! I curse, using the name of the betrayer from the Book of Magi. I must have dozed off…

I jump to my feet, snap off the Arcane Salute (closed right fist on chest, then right arm straight in the air with palm facing forward), and bark, “Yes, Sir, Tutelary! I’ll be right to class, then, Tutelary!”

A note of sarcasm must have entered into my response, for as soon as the words leave my mouth, I am sent crashing to the floor in a huge wave of dizziness and nausea. Tutelary Wachsberger stares down at me, a grim, smug smile on his stubbly face. That is Tutelary Wachsberger’s ability: he can incur vertigo or wooziness on anyone he wants, and does not hesitate to do so whenever he deems someone impertinent. It may not be the strongest ability, but you don’t become a tutelary because your ability is strong. You become one because you’ve mastered many fighting techniques, and can use the ability you have in the best way possible.

Wachsberger snarls, “Get up and go to class, or I’ll have the Archmage turn you into gas!” Needless to say, this is a completely empty threat, but it’s one of his favorites: he likes to claim that he knows the Archmage. While this isn’t impossible, it’s not very likely. The Archmage only communicates with his Advisor-Tutelaries. These are five Tutelaries that our leader has chosen because of their trustworthiness and exceptional power. Wachsberger is not one of these Advisors. Well… at least, I don’t think he is. No one knows much about the Advisor-Tutelaries, and I hesitate to think the Archmage would’ve chosen someone with Wachsbergers’ less-than-useful ability.

I jump to my feet, salute again, and dash off to class. I run past Wachsberger and into the hall. As I am descending to the Classes Floor from the Dormitory Floor on the white escalator (nearly everything in the institution is white), three more Tutelaries on their way to a lecture stare at me menacingly, as if I’d committed a galling crime— in the institution, being late to class is a fairly high-level infringement.

I see the door to my Morning Class, Theoretical Tactics, and push it open. Tutelary Andre stares at me menacingly, and motions for me to take my seat. I slink over to my desk, three rows from the front, and slide into my hard-backed plastisteel chair. I look at the worksheet in front of me. It has two lines of text written on it:

Design a weapon that will enhance your ability in a battle. This weapon must be
feasible to create and not too expensive. You have one hour.


Yes! Finally! I think to myself. I’ve been waiting for this moment—when I get to create my weapon—for a long time. However, I am already twenty-three minutes into the allotted time, so I’ll have to work fast.

I start thinking. My ability is Reflection. I can reflect one object or an area of less than twenty by twenty feet once on my own. However, with a mirror, I can reflect bigger things more times. I learned this around a year ago, in the washrooms. I was having a bit of fun, reflecting one of my eyes onto my forehead, in front of a mirror. I ended up having four eyes instead of three—previously, I had never been able to reflect something twice. I experimented. I tried reflecting myself—there were three of me instead of two. So, I had thought to myself, Mirrors help, eh? I can use that.

I start doodling as I think—lots of concentric circles in the margins of my paper, some of them filled in with pencil. Hmm… a mirrored dagger, maybe? A gun with mirrored bullets? No, there’d be too little surface area to reflect anything really useful… I look down at my paper, and see this shape:

My mind sparks with remembrance. The disk spins. A memory from my childhood is nagging at me, twitching at the corner of my mind… Throw. Spin. Catch. Throw. Where is it from? I can’t think of it… Spin. Spin. Shaking my head, I banish the memory to the far corners of my mind and concentrate again on the shape.

I quickly even out the circles, soften the lines, and draw some highlights in the inner circle:

It’s perfect! A circular mirror with a blade around the edge, that could be thrown. I would wear them in a diagonal shoulder-holster—there could be more than one—and whip them out when I need them! I smile to myself.

After fine-tuning my weapons—designing the shoulder-holster and a grip that would allow me to hold on to the disks without cutting my hands, as well as a rough sketch of a disk-sharpener—I look up at the clock and realize class is almost over. Looking over my shoulder, I catch the eye of Lily Septimus, a Private in my regiment. She and I are quite close. We have to be, or else Louis would drive us into the ground. The other two members of the regiment, Mikael and Kramer, are friends as well. I mouth, “What did you do?” She mouths back, “Later.” I nod as the bell is ringing.

I don’t take the normal halls to my next class. If I’m late to a second one today, it will mean serious trouble for me, and so I don’t dare risk being caught in the mob of other Arcane, all rushing in different directions. Ducking into a side corridor away from the bustle, I hear my footsteps echo… but wait. Those aren’t my footsteps. Turning around quickly, I see a slight shiver in the air. It looks like the disturbance the heat from a fire makes, in the approximate shape of a body.

I say, “I know you’re there. As a Second Officer of the Righteous Army of the Arcane, I order you to reveal yourself.” I smile, knowing that he or she will have to reappear or risk being expelled: contradicting a direct order from a superior officer is another serious infringement, more so than being late for class. There is no chance that this person is of a higher rank than me: such an easily detectable ability couldn’t have gotten past Private.

The mirage sighs and fizzles back into sight. It is a young-looking boy standing dejectedly in the hallway.

He has lank, black hair and pale blue eyes—so pale they are almost white. As I suspected, he is clad in the uniform of a private: light blue cloth with the Arcane Star on his lapel, the white five-pointed star touching its circular black border in five places. My uniform was a blue slightly darker than his, with the same star on the lapel.

“What’s your name, Private?” I ask.

“Aleksander Rochmononov, Officer.” His last name rings a bell, but I can't quite remember from where.

“Officer, I am the nephew of Mikael Rochmononov. I believe he is the First Officer in your regiment?”

That’s it.

“Ah, of course. Why were you following me, Rochmononov?”

The small boy looks at me. Although he has to be at least thirteen (the minimum admittance age for the institution was teenagerhood), he looks as if he is ten. “My… my uncle told me to find you. He said something… something he told me not to tell you. I really don’t know anything, but he said to give you this. I thought I would just slip it into your pocket without you noticing.”

He takes a piece of paper out of his breast pocket, but I push it away. “No, Private. If Mikael wants to speak to me, he can do so in Regiment Strategy Class, or tonight in our bunk.” RSC was the one class of the day in which I met with my whole regiment. I bunk with Mikael, and Lily is in almost all of my classes, but RSC is the only time I ever see Louis or Kramer. As the name implies, we go over strategy in the class, practicing maneuvers and tactics.

Aleksander replies nervously, “No, sir. My uncle told me he couldn’t speak with you about this. He wants me to give you this slip of paper… he said it is very important.”

What? I think. That’s very strange.

Thinking that the boy must be mistaken, but wanting to humor him, I take the paper and open it. Giving it a cursory glance, it looks to me like random squiggles and dots. Thinking the boy must be mentally deficient in some way, I smile at him and say, “Thank you, Aleksander. Now be a good boy and—”

But he’s gone. In his place is a slight haze.

Then a voice booms behind me, making me grimace: not only because I hate this voice more than any other, but because as soon it starts speaking I feel sick.

“Fairweather! Get to class! If I catch you being late again, there will be some serious trouble.” The word serious is accompanied with a feeling as if I had eaten something long-dead and rotting.

“Eh… Tutelary Wachsberger, sir! I… I was… erm…”

“He was helping me get to class, Tutelary,” says Aleksander. Wachsberger starts, a vein in his fat, sweating forehead popping out gruesomely. Apparently he has not been acquainted with Aleks before now, and does not know of his vanishing ability. I know from experience that it is very disorienting the first time you see a thirteen-year-old boy pop out from thin air in front of you.

The Private has reappeared, and has gallantly and efficiently extricated me from a very sticky situation. This makes up my mind about him: Aleksander Rochmononov is a trustworthy and, contrary to what I had earlier thought, level-headed boy. Corroborating Aleksander’s story, I add, “Yes, Sir. He has to find his way to…” Thinking quickly, I surmise that the boy must need to go to Regiment Strategy Class now: he is a first-level Private with no honors, and he has been recruited into a Regiment as I can see from the blue stripe on his left sleeve. That means he is either in RSC or Theoretical Tactics, and he can not be in the latter because I am currently supposed to be attending that class. I am very lucky to know this information, as only the day before I had had the privilege of studying the schedule for everyone in the institution. I had found it on a Tutelary’s desk when I was looking for a practice knife, and spent an hour or two looking it over.

“He has to find his way to Regiment Strategy Class, Sir. He is a first-level Private, and he walked into Theoretical Tactics by accident… I was sent to take him to RSC.”

Wachsberger sniffs, and shoos us down the hall towards the classroom with a flick of his hand. I breathe a sigh of relief and start walking Aleks down the hallway.

He has become bolder now, since he saved me from Wachsberger. “That was quick thinking back there, Officer,” he compliments me.

“Martin. My name is Martin. And thank you. Yours wasn’t too shabby either.”

The shorter boy looks up at me and smiles wryly. “You can go back if you want… I know where RSC is.” I start, and then realize that I don’t actually have to help him. I had forgotten that his forgetfulness had been a ruse.

Clearing my throat, I nod and walk back to class. I am still holding the scrap of paper in my left hand, so I open it. It still looks like random squiggles to me, something like this and I decide to take a look at it later.

~ ~ ~


Louis is already sitting at his chair when I get to the room, Lily not far behind. He is a short man with a brown crew-cut and tight muscles. He purses his lips at us, but we’re not late and he can’t do anything. We sit down, and soon Kramer and Mikael enter the room. I attempt to catch Mikael’s eye, but he pointedly stares at Louis.

“Hm. Now that we’re all here,” whines Louis in his high, irritating voice, “We shall begin.” RSC is the only class that doesn’t involve a Tutelary: all of the ASUs split up and work by themselves. A Tutelary leading the class would serve no purpose whatsoever.

“So. Have all of you designed your ideal weapons? You should’ve done that during your last Theoretical Tactics class.” we nod. “Yes? Good. Then let’s go around and tell.”

Lily was first. “I designed a small, thin dagger. It can be lit up using a button on the handle, and the tip will be a weak laser pointer.”

“The purpose of this being?” Louis whined.

“To shine it in an opponent’s eyes after I’ve Dilated his pupils.”

“Good. Perhaps a little pricey, but fine. Kramer?”

The other private was next in the circle. “A megaphone gun, sir. It would shoot bullets, but at the same time be an amplifier: I could talk into it when I wasn’t shooting, and perhaps manipulate the sound waves so that he or she hears it as Jargon.”

Louis purses his lips again, a favorite gesture of his. “Good enough, although how you combine a microphone and a gun is beyond me. Next.”

That’s me. I explain to him about my mirrorblades. Spin. Catch. Throw. Spin. Every time I think about the weapon, something gnaws at me, as if a memory is trying to surface… it is impossible for me to remember where from, what the memory is. I frown in consternation and turn to Louis to see what his reaction is.

Although Louis doesn’t like me, I can tell he’s impressed. His eyebrows raise a fraction of an inch up on his head, and when I’m done he nods emphatically. “That is… adequate, Martin.” The next, grudgingly, “I’ll… I’ll be sure to report your work for an honor.”

Smiling to myself, I know that this is a first: Louis being gracious. I had only gotten one other honor in my whole career at the institution before. I had performed an exceptional bit of reflection in my third year: by stretching the limits of my power, I had managed to duplicate an entire classroom using only a large hand mirror as an aid. Getting three honors meant getting moved to another class schedule: the Honor Schedule. I was happy at first that I was one step closer to being an Honor Arcane, but then realized that if I got a third honor I would have to leave Lily and my entire ASU. Honor Regiments use distinctly different abilities that augment each other rather than similar abilities that do the same. It is known to be harder to work with people who have different abilities, which is why the privilege is reserved for only the best students. I look at Lily, and she smiles encouragingly at me. I raise my eyebrows, and she shrugs: she doesn’t mind.

When I look back up at the rest of my Unit, I realize that I have almost missed Mikael’s weapon. I want to hear this.

“… that would boost my Delving power, making the memories that I call up all the more frightening.”

Louis responds, “No. Far too complicated, although perhaps sound waves of some kind could be incorporated into it.” Apparently, I had missed Mikael talking about a weapon that emanated frightening sound waves. I thought it an interesting idea.

“And now onto mine,” Louis says. “I thought of a scintillating blade that changes colors vividly. When I Shattered their vision, the blade’s colors would add to their confusion while I attack them.

I purse my lips and glance at Lily. She’s laughing behind her hand. Grinning, I look up, hoping that Louis hasn’t noticed. I’m in luck.

“Well, that’s all for today. Unit dismissed.” We filter out the door and back to the Main Hallway for a free period. None of the ASUs had anything more to do during RSC than we did, and so we all had an hour of nothing to do until lunch.

~ ~ ~


It’s lunchtime. There are three separate eating rooms: the cafeteria, the café, and the dining room. The former is for normal students, the latter is for Tutelaries, and the middle is for Honor Arcane. I glance longingly at the café, and at the golden Arcane Star badges, with silver rings rather than white, on the shirts of the teenagers inside it. Passing by the doorway on the inside of the café, a tall boy meets my eye and stares at me as if to convey a message. What he wants to say I do not know. I start with recognition: the boy’s name is Oliver Achilles. He used to be the First Officer in my Regiment, before he got his three honors. He had advanced fairly quickly through the ranks, surpassing me in rank just six months after the Regiment had recruited him. His ability was Light Manipulation. He could brighten or dim an area to a certain extent. I remember how he got his third honor; a week after he had become the First Officer, three months after I had become the Second Officer. He had concentrated a beam of light enough to burn a hole in a wooden table, all the way through three inches of solid hardwood. It had been in RSC, and Louis had smiled at him and sent him to the Tutelary Floor to get his third honor. The next day he had disappeared into the ranks of the Honor Arcane and I had never seen him again until now.

Lily bumps into me from behind and says, “Go! People are staring.”

I look around while my feet carry me towards the cafeteria. She is right. Many people, including one or two Tutelaries, are staring at me and laughing covertly. I must have stopped while I was thinking. I have to work on that, I think to myself. I always seem to tune out the world around me when I start thinking. It’s gotten me into trouble a lot lately…

Lily and I are in the cafeteria, waiting in line to get to the food counter. When we get there, the server gives me a meaningful look that reminds me of the one Oliver gave me. Shaking my head, I take my tray and walk towards the Officer Table. Lily waves goodbye and walks toward the Private table.

I sit across the table from Mikael, between the Kendra twins, called Jake and Robert. Mikael gives me the same look as both the server and Oliver, and, sensing something strange, I look around the room. Two others catch my eye, a pretty girl at the Leader table I don’t recognize, and a boy at the Private table whose face is vaguely familiar but whose name escapes me. My heart speeds up, and I look down at my tray.

My hands bring food to my mouth, but none of it registers on my tongue. I finish my meal. The strangeness of the situation impels me to leave, and I follow my own orders. Getting up from my chair, I dump my paper tray in a disposal and hurry out of the door, seeking asylum in my room from the strange stares. As I walk towards the staircase leading to the Dormitory Floor, my mind jumps to millions of little, irrelevant and ridiculous explanations: maybe they all know that I was late for class and hate me for it, maybe they know I don’t completely follow the Archmage, maybe they are looking to recruit me for a club…

The seemingly interminable hallway leading to my room stretches away before me. My bunk, unfortunately, is at the end of the hall. Hurrying towards it I think of the paper in my pocket, and realize that I will have to decode it.

I reach my door, open it, and sink onto my thin mattress. I push the door closed with my foot—our bunks are not roomy, to say the least—and slip my hand into my uniform. I bring out the scrap and look at it. Turning it over to see if there is an explanation on the back, I think to myself that it looks like someone has taken normal words and flipped them inside-out, upside-down, and backwards.

Backwards!

Of course! I turn the paper back over and focus on it. I have to Reflect it somehow… but where to start?

I try a few different things, such as simply Reflecting the scribbles below their actual selves on the paper and flipping them upside down, but then I try something slightly more complicated. I cover approximately half of the gibberish with my hand, and reflect the visible part below the covered lines. I take my hand off of the paper, slowly and with great trepidation. I am sure that I am right this time.

The paper now reads: Café. Monday morning. 5:00 AM. Bring no one. There were still some illegible dots and lines, but I attributed them as being there to confuse anyone who might have intercepted the message.

I gasp just as the door flies open and Mikael and my other roommates, two Privates named Tomás and Patrick come in. I hide the paper quickly in my pocket.

“Finish lunch early then, Martin?” says Patrick.

“Eh… y-yes… how was yours?” My voice shakes tremulously and cracks—I’ve just figured out something that, I can tell, is going to be important. Patrick starts up on one of his famous tirades about how he abhors the food here, and we all tune out. Pat is known for being extremely long-winded, and having absolutely nothing meaningful to say.

When he’s done, I have recovered sufficiently to talk without suspicious anomalies in my tone. “I completely agree. But we’d better get back to class now, unless we want to be late.” The two Privates get up off of their bunks and walk out of the door, Tomás accidentally kicking me as he hops down off of his bunk, directly above mine. Mikael stands up from his bottom bed across the room. Yet again I try to get him to look me in the eye, but he just walks out of the room after Pat and Tom. I sigh and exit the bunk as well.


< Message edited by Nex del Vida -- 4/3/2009 8:57:41 >
AQ  Post #: 6
4/3/2009 8:52:50   
Nex del Vida
Member

Arcos said to the Arcane, “Your children shall be born powerless lest they abuse their abilities. When their minds and bodies have developed to maturity, I shall Trigger them with a sensation, be it sight, sound, smell, touch, or taste.” Thus were Triggers created.
--Creations 3:6, from the Book of Magi

There’s nothing to refute this. When I was young, I had no ability. Still. Arcos involvement makes me suspicious. Perhaps triggers are simply the result of “evolution”?
--Excerpted from an annotated copy of the Book of Magi owned by Martin Fairweather.



< Message edited by Nex del Vida -- 4/3/2009 22:41:39 >
AQ  Post #: 7
4/3/2009 8:55:14   
Nex del Vida
Member

Divortium Tria

I am not looking forward to my next class, Arcane History. It is widely agreed to be the most boring class, and the worst part is I am at least mildly skeptical of all the information the teacher gives us, not being entirely in thrall of the Archmage. Tutelary Kerrim essentially teaches that the world after the eradication of the Mundane will be a utopia free of cares and worries. And that may be so… for us. But I doubt it will be carefree and happy for the Mundane, either serving as “our” slaves or being murdered.

Everyone in this place, seemingly excluding myself and only myself, take everything every Tutelary says as gospel. It sickens me, but of course there’s nothing I can do about it. Face it, I’m not the Archmage. I can’t transmute everyone around me into gas.

I walk for the second time that day down the stairway to the Class Floor, into the Main Hall, and through the branch leading to History. Entering the room, I take my seat and stare at Tutelary Kerrim in amazement. His profile never ceases to amaze me—he is thin as a rail and balding, with a slightly prominent upper jaw, but he has the most incredibly low, charismatic voice I have ever heard. I promptly doze off, his soothing baritone lulling me into sleep—he has already started droning about the wonders of a purely Arcane society, or Arctopia, as he calls it.

In my half-conscious drowse, I look forward to Monday morning at 5:00. The words echo in my head: Bring no one. It is fairly obvious that Mikael wants me to come, but the question remains: why?

The spoken word “…rebellion…” enters my subconscious, and I jerk my head up out of my hands. On the blackboard at the front of the room, Kerrim has drawn a complicated network of lines and labels. At the center is the word Arctopia, which does not surprise me—Kerrim’s lessons always center on his imaginary world.

Branching from the center were lines leading to the words “Mundane,” “Magi,” as the Book of Magi is abbreviated to, “March,” and “Rebellion.” Apparently he has just added the last of the four to the list, because that is what he is lecturing about now. I tune back in, and Kerrim’s deep, throaty voice enters my ears.

“In the year 1,176 AA, a small group of Privates and one First Officer attempted to mutiny against Our Righteous Cause. They took offense to the fact that we were taking Mundane, filthy creatures that they are, and using them for Tactics practice. They set up a meeting place and times, and had an encoded messaging system to communicate to each other with. All of their abilities had to do with sound mutation and other ventriloquisms. They would speak to each other in seemingly ordinary terms—‘Dinner was good last night, no?’ or ‘Slept well?’ Things that would not arouse anyone’s attention, and yet were slightly strangely worded. Perhaps they would mix up the syntax of their sentences, saying ‘Soft pillows on this couch’ instead of ‘This couch has soft pillows.’ In these barely off-sounding sentences would be hidden a secret meaning that only those who the code was meant for could decrypt by utilizing their powers.

“They were really quite ingenious, but our Archmage, in all of his infinite wisdom, found out about it and punished the rebels.” A not-at-all subtle note of admiration comes into his voice whenever he mentions the Archmage, and frankly it is quite annoying, but I keep listening. After all, I am not as fanatically infatuated with the Archmage as everyone else here is, and any chance to hear about others like me is welcome.

“The rebels were Vaporized by Our Glorious Leader, and since then no one has ever tried to rebel against us.

“Do not take this to mean that I do not admire these rebels. I cannot, as a member of Our Righteous Cause, say that I esteem the scumbags who would oppose our leader, but I do admit their intellect. After all, their rebellion continued for three years before it was stopped, gathering almost one hundred members. Of course, their numbers had to be limited because there were not, and still are not, a large number of people with corresponding abilities. That was their main flaw. Without that—ahem.” Kerrim coughed, and added, “Ah. I… I don’t want to be giving any… ahem… future rebels… not, of course, that there are any in this class…don’t want to be giving ideas.” I stiffen and swallow nervously and hopefully not noticeably, but I could swear that his eyes land on me for a fraction of a second longer than on anyone else, and that he squints at me.

I shake my head as the bell rings for the end of class, and as I am getting up I accidentally knock over my chair. Rushing to hoist it back up to my desk, a light hand on my shoulder apprehends me. Glancing up, I see Kerrim standing above me. He is not a short man, and he is made all the more tall-looking by his unnatural thinness. Although I am nearly six feet tall, he towers over me. I start shaking. He clears his throat. “Ahem. Fairweather.”

Trying to keep the anxiety out of my voice, my mouth stumbles over the words. “Yersis? Ah. Hm. Yes, Sir?” I blink repeatedly. Deor! I curse to myself. Since when am I a nervous wreck?

Kerrim looks at me strangely, and inquires, “You looked very tired in class today. Are you getting enough sleep? You’re even knocking things over.”

Sighing audibly, I breathe, “Ah! Yes, Sir! Of course, Sir. That’s it. I am overtired. Studying, you know.”

Kerrim smiles. “Ah, yes! You students are just designing your battle outfits, aren’t you? Well, I shall tell your—who is your Regiment Leader? Ah yes, Emerald. I shall tell Emerald not to give you so much homework.”

I am taken aback. This is possibly the first time a Tutelary has been nice to me. Not coldly respectful of a job well done, but outright amiable. I smile, and respond, “Thank you, Sir!”

While it is not true that I am tired, nor that I had been up studying, Emerald has been giving a lot of homework lately. There is a small screen embedded in the underside of the bunk above me—for people in the top bunk it is embedded in the ceiling—that gives assignments at precisely nine o’clock every night. Curfew is 9:00 and lights-out is at midnight, but if need be there are reading lamps attached to the wall to study with. Every night, at nine o’clock, Louis’s face crackles onto the screen and says, “Arcane Soldier Unit 42. Your assignment:…” and then he reels off a list of tactical exercises to be performed and mastered before the next class. A small ticket edges its way out of a slot in the side of the screen. That ticket is the only way any student can get into the halls after curfew. Every night, I tear the ticket from the slit and make my way to the Training Room, flashing the ticket at any patrolling Tutelaries along the way. There I would meet up with Lily, Mikael, and Kramer—due to some administrative privilege, Louis is not required to join in our after-curfew training sessions.

I never could fathom why we didn’t train like this in the day, but it was only one of the institution’s many seemingly pointless rules.

I realize that I am walking down the hallway towards my next class. Well, that’s one thing solved, I think. At least I don’t stop dead when I’m thinking anymore.

~ ~ ~


I climb into my bed and stare at the screen, thinking about the horrific mess of dinner an hour earlier. Thankfully, the irritating beep of the assignment screen interrupts my nauseating memory. I stare up at it and listen as it and the three others in my bunk crackle to life. I hear Tomàs’s screen saying, “Hello, Arcane Soldier Unit 96. You have no assignments today. That will be all.”

And then Louis’s face buzzes into view. He purses his lips—I smile—and whines, “Arcane Soldier Unit 42. Come to the Training Room for a special seminar. Be there as soon as possible.” I rip the ticket from the screen and sigh. A seminar… sounds disgustingly boring.

Mikael and I walk down the halls toward the stairs. We descend them, and I become aware of the bizarre silence of the institution at night. In the daytime it is filled with a profusion of sounds, children and adults rushing to get to classes or lectures, talking to friends, finishing assignments, brushing up on training techniques… and now, there is not a single sound in the entire place but our footsteps.

Although I am alone with Mikael, I decide not to question him about the slip of paper. He has been quite obviously not talking to me about anything, so I assume that he wants to explain it to me at the 5:00 meeting in three days.

Turning a corner, Lily comes into view. She resides across the floor from us, in the Girl’s Sector. I accelerate and stride up next to her. She smiles at me, and then rolls her eyes. “What do you think Emerald has in store for us now? A lip-pursing lesson?” Lily cracks this joke almost every time we have a nightly seminar, but I don’t mind. She has several “traditions” that she never fails to enact.

“Do not make fun of Mr. Emerald, please.” Mikael rebukes Lily.

She rolls her eyes a second time, and recites, “Yes, Sir.” That is possibly the most overused phrase in this place… I think. I Right behind ‘Yes, Tutelary’ and ‘Sorry, Tutelary.’ All expressions of servitude. What a wonderful world.

As we pass the entrance to the Main Hall on our way to the stairway leading down to the Training Floor, I see the attractive blond woman from the Leader table gliding serenely past, to some unknown destination someplace else in the institution. She turns her head as she goes past and looks directly at me.

“Taking a fancy to Maybelle, eh, Martin?” Lily chides me. I laugh and look away, but my mind takes up where it left off, thinking about all of the strange stares I got in the cafeteria. Then I have a flash of inspiration. “They’re all working together!” I whisper.

“Hm?” says Lily.

“Ah… nothing, sorry. Just thinking out loud.”

And then we reach the door of our Training Room, marked with the number 42 in big black characters on the small window. I push open the door, and, as always, my breath is taken away by its sheer vastness. A Tutelary, a few thousand years ago, had the ability to conceal very large things in very small things. This came in handy in quite a few situations. He could, for example, conceal a whole regiment of Arcane in a handbag if the need arose. He used this ability to enlarge the Training Rooms. Before him they were small white cubicles with a few punching bags and pop-up Arcsteel dummies. Now, however, they are forests.

He managed to make every Training Room a four mile square patch of trees and swamp and brush, complete with insects and even a few birds floating lackadaisically through the air. This was and is very useful in the common practice of using Mundane as hunting game.

While I hate and detest the idea of killing innocent people merely for a tutorial—don’t get me wrong, I hate and detest the idea of killing innocent people for any reason, but this especially—I must admit there is a certain thrill to stalking prey through the growth. I do not like it when I am forced to kill Mundane, but occasionally a machine or two is brought from the Arcsteel Laboratories, on the other side of the world, for us to hunt. I look forward to those times, to being able to destroy the spawn of the great and horrific Arcane empire.

Although… when they run… when they cry in fear… I do get a certain thrill. Perhaps today we’ll get to—

No, Martin! Stop that! Killing helpless people is never entertaining.

Although it greatly disturbs me, occasionally I get flashes of anticipation when I think about having to kill Mundane. I try to suppress these flashes, but they come completely unbidden, and I have never completely mastered them.

Today, however, no hunting of any sort will take place. This is a seminar in which Louis sits us all down on the fertile ground and lectures us, for an hour at the least. The longest seminar I have ever attended reached four and a half hours, but only because a former member of our Unit was an hour late… that is why he was dismissed.

As soon as I step off of the small elevator platform and into the small grove at its base, Louis instructs me to sit down, although I do not need to be told. There has never been a seminar held while standing up, nor will there ever be one. Louis believes that it is imperative to our learning process that we remain sitting while he talks at us.

Sighing, I flop down on the grass with my back against a tree. At least it’s nice out here. Or… in here… ah well. I never can figure out whether to refer to the Training Rooms as outdoors or indoors. They are certainly not in the institution; leastwise, not a definition of “in” that is used commonly. There is no roof above our heads, or else the roof is painted like a sky, and painted very, very well. There is nothing to indicate whether it is real or not.

Lily sits down at the base of a tree a few feet away from mine. She flicks her hair over her shoulder, and curses under her breath when it gets caught on the bark of the tree. Her hair is always getting caught in things, as hair as long as that is bound to do. It falls halfway down her back, and she is constantly twirling it and playing with it. As if she is picking up on my thoughts, she takes a lock of hair and starts weaving it through her fingers.

Mikael has already taken a seat against a large boulder, his black hair hanging down in front of his eyes. Looking at him, I can see his resemblance to his nephew. They have the same round face, slender nose, and small mouth, along with wanly pale skin. The only difference between the uncle and nephew is that Mikael has very dark eyes, while Aleks’ are pale blue. Prehist taught that humans have changed drastically over the three thousand years since the Nucleocaust. When the scientists let the people come out from under the poles, it took quite a while for them to spread out over the planet again. Transportation devices had to be reinvented, so there were a few hundred years in which the people were only living in the small area of the Arctic and Antarctic. People bred in ways that had been uncommon before the Nucleocaust, since all racial and national boundaries had been broken. Many people became polyglots because their parents came from two different countries (different languages have been rendered obsolete by Lingfra, a shortening of lingua franca, which all countries have now adopted). Now there are very few who know the languages of old.

When ships were recreated, people crammed themselves onto the vessels and sailed to different continents where they reproduced, resulting in an amalgam of ethnic groups in every country. There is no longer a standard of what people are “supposed” to look like in any given area.

Kramer walks into the clearing from the elevator. He dwarfs everyone in our Regiment and, in fact, almost everyone in the institution. He stands at six feet three inches tall. I have always thought that the private has a dominance issue, because he remains standing whenever possible. I assume that he resents his low rank as private, so he seeks to look down on people in any way he can, be it literal or figurative. He chooses literal, and leans against a tree while remaining upright.

Of course, however, he is no match for Louis’s contemptuous stare, which has been perfected over years of being a Regiment Leader. Emerald stares Kramer down to the ground, where he sulks insolently.

Now that everyone is here, Louis begins to speak. “I have called you all here tonight for a seminar.” I shift into a more comfortable position among the roots of the tree. “However, a seminar is not what I will be delivering.” My eyes quirk up and look at Louis of their own accord, and I can feel the eyes of the others in the room doing the same. He smiles strangely. “No. Tonight we will be having a practice session. You will notice the wall to your left, please.” We all turn our heads and look in that direction. There is, just as Louis said, a wall among the trees that could be mistaken for thick vines if one was not looking for it. Louis walks over to the wall and we follow. He touches what appears to be a leaf, and a segment slides open. Inside it, there is an array of objects, seemingly random, bathed in bright white light. Then, however, my eyes adjust to the brilliance and I gasp: I am looking at four disks in a diagonal row, suspended by what are revealed to be magnets as I tug one of the disks off of the wall with some effort. The others have done the same with objects they recognize. I run my hands over the blade-edged, reflective circle I am holding. The disk spins. There it is! The memory! I furiously think back to my childhood, try to remember where it’s from… Spin. Throw. Spin. The disk spins. Innocence. So innocent.

That’s new, I think to myself. Innocence? Strange… these blades aren't innocent.

Louis is trying to order us to put our weapons back, but we pay no heed. I glance up and see Lily pointing a small dagger at a tree. Suddenly, a minute but extremely bright beam of red light shoots from the tip of the dagger and strikes the tree.

Louis has stopped trying to make us put anything away, and has taken his own weapon from its sheath at his waist, which I had failed to notice when I came into the room. It is a sword to match Louis’s stature—that is to say, short and stocky. He is holding it flat in his palms, but it looks like it could be wielded using only one hand. I notice a small triangle at the base of the blade that looks like a button. Louis touches the triangle, and I realize that I was right in my assumption.

The entire blade lights up with an incredibly vivid shade of turquoise, before shifting to a tawny gold color, and then moving to deep purple. Louis is gazing at the sword, smiling slightly, looking almost dreamy. I too stare in awe at the vivid spectacle.

Remembering something, I turn to Mikael. Louis thought that his idea was too complicated, so I am wondering what, if anything, Mikael took from the rack. At first I see nothing, but then Mikael brings his hand up to his ear. I see that he is holding a small speaker on a wire. At the other end of the wire is a circular earpiece. He fits the piece into his ear and positions the speaker near his mouth. I walk up to him and ask him what the device is. He smiles at me, and responds, “I do not know, as of yet. But I think it must have something to do with the sound-waves I suggested to Louis. May I have a… practice?”

I look at him. He wouldn’t kill me off just yet—not right before he wanted to meet me at the café. I nod quickly, before I change my mind.

He smiles. His eyes narrow and I feel him probing at the outer walls of my mind.

Suddenly, my mind’s barriers rupture. I hear a voice whimpering and realize that it must be mine. Mikael is rooting through my memories, pulling them out and throwing them away. But then—

The woman hugs the infant and her husband closer as the chill winds penetrate the thin blanket they use for shelter. The child wails for sustenance, and the woman attempts to nurse it. The long months of cold and hunger have sapped her dry, however, and she has no milk to give her three-month-old baby. He cries louder. The man under the blanket shifts in his uneasy sleep and a frown crosses his face. The baby sobs harder still. His mother begins to weep softly as well, and bends her head down to warm his small one.

A small boy watches a scruffy white dog as it prances next to him on the gray sidewalk. He throws the stick in his hand across the road, and the dog fetches it and brings it back. The boy laughs and races off down the street towards his home. The faithful dog follows. When the boy gets to the dirty gray building he and his parents live in, his mother calls him into the house. The boy knows the rules of the household, so he leaves the dog outside. He notices his father, thin and gaunt from hunger, doing something with the pistol he keeps in a drawer in his bedroom and walking out the door, but the boy takes no notice. He enters the kitchen. His mother talks to him about how times are hard, and desperate measures must be taken, but the boy tunes out midway through—he finds more than enough food in the trash disposals throughout the city. He is wondering what the loud bang he just heard was when his father comes back into the room, and gives his mother a bag filled with something the boy cannot see. Uncaring, the boy walks to his room to play with his toys, dirty stones and a cats-eye marble he had found on the street, his prized possession. A short time later, his mother’s quavering voice calls him to the kitchen. The boy goes down the stairs and sits down at the table for dinner.

The boy is laughing. The disk spins. His father is—

“Stop!” I scream. I realize that Mikael’s headset is emitting an eerie noise, a sort of purr and moan combined, but I am too horrified at what Mikael has done to think about that. I find that I am curled up in a ball and am shivering. I climb cautiously to my feet, steadying myself on a low tree branch. Mikael’s eyes are sympathetic and joyful at the same time. At first I attribute the joy to sadism—I should never have trusted him—but then I realize that his weapon must work extremely well, despite not actually being a weapon, and he is happy about that. Deor! No wonder he’s the First Officer. He puts his hand on my shoulder.

“Martin. I am so sorry. I did not realize how potent this little device was. If there is anything I can do for you, just let me know.” The joy is gone now, and I can see that he is realizing what he put me through. I swallow the bile that has risen in my throat and push his hand off of me.

“It-it’s fine. Thank you.” I manage to whisper. My voice comes out harsh and gravelly. I turn around and see that everyone in the clearing is staring at me. Lily runs up and gives Mikael a nasty look. She takes my arm and leads me to her tree. Louis is advancing on Mikael, obviously about to lecture—no, rant—at him, but I can see that Emerald is also impressed with the effectiveness of this contraption.

I lean against Lily and close my eyes. Of course I hadn’t remembered the first vision Mikael had conjured up, but I have always known that my parents were extremely poor for a short while after I was born. I do, however, remember the incident with the dog. I still try to tell myself that it was not the dog I ate, that he ran away, that my father was shooting birds… I even managed to partially convince myself of these excuses for memories. But now Mikael has brought it all rushing back.

Should I go to the café? Now that Mikael has violated me so horribly, I do not know if I trust him enough to accept his invitation.

But I think about the emotion on his face, the one that was crowded out by the temporary joy. He really was sorry. I will go.



< Message edited by Nex del Vida -- 4/3/2009 9:00:38 >
AQ  Post #: 8
4/3/2009 15:02:12   
Nex del Vida
Member

Arcos bestowed many powers upon the Arcane. Never did he make the mistake of giving the ability he had given to Sterling Deor again. There were hundreds of different powers, and Arcos spoke to his people and said, “Let one hundredth of your children have the ability to fly with the birds. Let the same number be able to affect the world around them with their minds to a small extent. One eighth shall affect the vision of others; the same shall affect the hearing; and thus for all senses… Let one hundredth of one thousandth of your children be able to control fire. Let the same number control water, the same air, and the same the ground you live on, and so together they may control the natural powers of the .”
--Gifts 1:1 from the Book of Magi.

Besides Arcos—but he’s in every chapter—there aren’t any problems with this. Certainly Pyromances and Aquamances (also Geomances and Ventumances, apparently) are rare enough, and I suppose I would fall under the “visual” category. There must be more exact classifications, but when this was written they wouldn’t have known. It’d be interesting to see.
--Excerpted from an annotated copy of the Book of Magi owned by Martin Fairweather.



< Message edited by Nex del Vida -- 4/3/2009 22:50:01 >
AQ  Post #: 9
4/3/2009 15:05:25   
Nex del Vida
Member

Divortium Quattuor


Louis asks me if I can continue the training session or if I would like to go to bed. I need a rest, and I tell him so. He nods and motions towards the elevator, and my heavy feet carry me to the platform. Lily looks after me concernedly, but I keep walking. I need to lie down.

The elevator carries me to the door, and I walk down the perpetually echoing hallways. I must have dozed off on my feet, because my head jerks up when my hand meets the cold metal of the doorknob. Opening the door, I collapse onto my bed and fall asleep immediately, without even bothering to take off my shoes.

~ ~ ~


The next morning I am woken up by Patrick, who taps me on the shoulder and says, “Wake up, sleepy. Today’s Saturday! We have a free period until lunch.”

I nod and sit up, waiting for him to leave. He does so shortly. I hunch my back and rest my head in my hands, brooding over the events of the night before. How will I face Mikael today? I have RSC two periods after lunch… As if my thoughts are a beacon, my Regiment’s First Officer opens the door hesitantly and walks into the room. I stare at him reproachfully, letting the full force of my horrific childhood memories assail him. He bows his head and sits down on the bunk across from mine.

“I am—” he starts, then sighs and opens his mouth again. “I cannot express the depths of my sorrow for the inexcusable crime I have committed.” I nod brusquely, acknowledging but not accepting his apology. “I… I do not ask forgiveness. I merely ask that you realize that I did not know the power of my device. I hope that you can find it in you to trust me—” and here he gives me a significant look, “—and not think of me as an enemy.”
“Mikael,” I reply, “I do not think that I can ever recover fully from what you did to me last night. However, I do realize that you made a mistake, and I hold it against your earpiece, not you. But I do hope you know that I can never trust you completely again.” I struggle valiantly to keep my voice from breaking, and succeed with difficulty.

He inclines his head for a long moment. Not waiting for him to look up again, I leave the room and hurry towards the Main Hall. Today, as Patrick said, is Saturday, and all of the members of the institution are allowed outside for four hours of the day before resuming classes as normal. I consider going back up to the bunk to change into a new uniform, but I do not want to go back in there with Mikael. I find that everyone else has already exited the enormous building, and walk the well-known route to the door.

A Tutelary appointed as a sentinel is guarding the door, making sure nobody sneaks back into the building. I salute him and fire off the words, “Sir! Official Regiment business, sir. I apologize for my tardiness.” Well, it’s not strictly untrue… I was conversing with my First Officer.

“Yes… go ahead,” responds the Tutelary in a nasally, haughty voice. I step out of the door and into the bright sunlight.

Training Rooms, with their forested appearance, are well and good most of the time, but people need to have real fresh air and real sunlight, not the strange indoor-outdoor stuff of the Rooms. The vast majority of the planet today is covered with buildings, but the institution has a twenty-acre area of fields, rolling hills, and small woods, which the students and Tutelaries are free to roam about in on Saturday mornings.

It is autumn. The fields are a golden shade and the trees are just turning auburn and orange, presenting a truly beautiful sight. There are so few wonderful moments in the institution, but this is one of them. With the cattle and sheep grazing in the fields, the bright conflagration of leaves, and the rippling of the grain in the meadows, I feel that this is apt compensation for the horror of the night before.

I look for Lily, but she is nowhere to be found, and I am not surprised. Twenty acres is not a small region.

I run down the slope towards one of the cow fields to try to find one of my favorite animals. As I get nearer to the grazing beasts, the pungent and glorious smell of their feces enters my nostrils, a welcome relief after the cold sterility of the institution. I see a group of Privates laughing and pushing each other over in a neighboring copse, and can’t stop myself from smiling. It is an unwritten rule that, while in the fields, nobody is anybody else’s superior. Those Privates have as much authority as I do while we are outside.

I spot the distinctive markings of my cow, who I call Sally. She has an entirely black face and body with the exception of a white splotch on her side, and I walk up to her and put my hand on her nose. She nuzzles me, and as I am bending over to rest my head on hers I feel a tap on the back. Turning around, I see Maybelle standing in front of me, her long blond hair braided and hanging over her shoulder. A short, red-haired boy walks towards us, stops a few tens of feet away, and just stands there. Strange, I think.

“Martin,” she addresses me, her voice lilting softly, “Are you coming?”

I look at her sharply. “To what?”

“Don’t play stupid with me. I know he sent you a coded note as well.”

“You… you got one too?”

“Of course I did, several weeks ago. You, me, David over there--” here she points to the red-haired boy—“and a Tutelary. We’ve already had a few meetings, and Mikael told us he would be inviting you.”

I reel at the openness with which she talks about the note, having thought previously that Mikael wanted us to keep it a secret. I tell her this, and she responds, “There are ears everywhere in the building. Out here, no one listens. Oh, plus we have some help from David.” She indicates the boy, still standing in the same place. She offers no explanation as to what she means.

Frowning, I reply, “How many of—us—are there?”

“Six, including you.” she responds simply. “Again. Are you coming? I heard about what Mikael did to you.”

I lean heavily against the cow behind me and rub my forehead with my fingers. “I’m going to need some explanation here.”

She sighs. “We know of your distrust of the Arcane Empire. Mikael, being in your Regiment, has observed this over many months. I, too, disagree with the bloody rituals suggested by the Archmage, and hope to at least warn the Mundane population of what is to befall them.”

I gape at her. I have always known that I disagree with the Archmage, but this… this is full-scale rebellion. “We could be killed.”

“That’s why he chose us in particular. We all have a powerful ability that can be used either to defend us in the event of discovery or to deceive the eyes or confuse the mind, to prevent us from being discovered. You will learn more at the meeting on Monday.” Maybelle turns and walks away.

I stare at her numbly for a few seconds before turning around to Sally, my mind fiddling with unimportant thoughts like Why do the Tutelaries need grain and cows for sustenance? I’m sure one must have the ability to conjure food. Then I actually get engrossed in that question and think about it until the alarm sounds for us to go back inside.

~ ~ ~


The next few days pass in a blur. I do not remember talking to anyone or doing anything. I am a shell, going through the motions of normal life, waiting. My entire existence is pinned on those words: five o’clock. Monday morning.

~ ~ ~


Finally it came. Mikael touches my shoulder to wake me up, and we both walk silently out of the room towards the Café. We enter, finding no one else there. We wait. Maybelle arrives, followed shortly by Aleksander and the boy who had stood near Maybelle and I in the fields. A few minutes later, a short man enters. Mikael gestures for everyone to sit down, and we do so.

“David. Would you?” asks Mikael out of nowhere. The boy nods, stands up, and closes his eyes for a moment.

The room, while not having changed at all, now has an air of quiet, as if a bomb could go off outside it and we would not hear.

“Thank you,” nods Mikael to David. “Now,” he says, looking around the circle of chairs, “We must introduce ourselves to Martin. I believe he knows me—and my ability—all too well.” I look at the floor, not wanting to catch his gaze.

Maybelle speaks up. “My name is Maybelle Abfuren. I serve as the Leader for ASU 55. I am a Pyromance.” I am taken aback—Pyromances, or fire-controllers, are incredibly rare. According to the book of Gifts in the Book of Magi, one out of every hundred thousand Arcane are able to control fire. Tutelary Kerrim once dedicated an entire lesson to the rarest and most powerful abilities ever encountered in the institution, and Pyromancy had been one of the first ones he mentioned (along with its cousins, Aquamancy, Geomancy and Ventumancy).
David, the Silencer seated next to Maybelle, is next. He says in a quiet voice, “I am called David Wallace. I am a Private in Unit 156. You know my ability.” As he sits down, his medium-length red hair falls in front of his eyes. He leaves it there. I get the impression that he is extremely shy.
Next is the short, pudgy man who had served me in the Cafeteria a few days ago. He coughs wetly into his hand, wipes it on his uniform, and pats his stomach. He is a rather disgusting man, barely five feet tall, and even fatter than Tutelary Wachsberger. He is pale, though, in contrast with Wachsberger’s ruddy complexion.
“I,” he wheezes phlegmily, “am Tutelary Ruben. I can Excrete a sticky substance from my hands that can camouflage an area.” He sees my confused expression and adds, “I’ll show you.”
He reaches out his hand. An oozing, pus-like liquid drips from his fingertips and forms a small wall on the floor about an inch high. He concentrates on his hand and the drips turn into a torrent. The wall builds higher and higher until it is at a level with his head. I’m still confused as to what he means by camouflage: all he has done is made a four-foot tall wall of revolting yellow gunk. Then, almost instantly, the entire wall turns transparent—and Tutelary Ruben is not there anymore. I concentrate on the spot where he used to be seated, but my eyes slide around it and I can’t focus on it.
“You see?” comes a voice from behind the wall. “The ooze camouflages me.” The wall turns yellow again, and then evaporates. I grimace involuntarily.
Seated beside Ruben is Aleksander. He stands up, smiles at me, and says, “Hello, Martin.” He turns to the rest of the circle. “We’ve met. Martin knows my name and ability.” Aleks sits down.
Everyone in the circle turns to me. I clear my throat. “My name is Martin Fairweather. I am the Second Officer of Arcane Soldier Unit 42. I serve under Mikael, and I can Reflect things.” I flick my hand, concentrating on David. Suddenly there are two of him. Both of him look up in alarm. Smiling, I dismiss the apparition.
Mikael is speaking again. “As you all know except Martin, we are all here because of our disloyalty to the Righteous Cause and its glorious leader.” He says “righteous” and “glorious” with a contemptuous sneer. “During our previous meetings, we—”
At that moment, something occurs to me. “What about Oliver?” I ask. Mikael frowns at me.
“Who?”
“Oliver. I remember a few days ago, when I was eating. Everyone here gave me a look, as if they were trying to say something to me. Do you all remember that?” They nod. “Well, before I got into the Cafeteria, Oliver—Mikael, he was our First Officer before you—gave me the same look.”
Mikael furrows his eyebrows. “I know of him, although I have never met him… I did not invite him here, though.”
Maybelle laughs. “Him? Ha! I saw him sucking up to the Tutelaries in the halls even before he disappeared—went to the Honor Arcane, didn’t he? You have to be pretty damn loyal to the Cause to do that. He would never betray the Archmage.” I feel my stomach tighten—I’m two thirds of the way there myself.
“So… why was he looking at me?” I look around the circle perplexedly.
Mikael sighs. “I don’t know, Martin. Perhaps he recognized you.” I don’t believe this for a second—the look he gave me wasn’t just a glance of recognition. Mikael looks at me and says, “May I continue?” Embarrassed, I nod.

“During our previous meetings, which have not been nearly as structured as this, we have simply expressed our disgust at the beliefs our peers hold. Usually, Martin, we communicate during the Saturday free periods, like when Maybelle and David talked to you. I have been constantly scouting the population with my ability for others of us like Martin, and I am confident there is no one else.” He can do that? He’s more powerful than I thought… why isn’t he ASU 42’s Leader?

“Now that we are all here, we must establish the rules. One, we must never speak of this without protection from David. Two, we should have as much protection as we can at any one time. Three, we are not to exchange any information, nor are we to interact more than would normally be expected of us.”

“So, what about the ‘extra protection’?” Maybelle is looking questioningly at Mikael.


“Ah, of course. You see, most of the abilities here can be used to protect us. Martin can reflect things in front of us, so that it looks like there’s a wall in our place, or something else of use. David, of course, can soundproof an area. Aleksander can disappear—not the most useful ability for the group, granted, but very practical if he needs to move unnoticed. Tutelary Ruben can… well, I don’t exactly know how to describe it, but you’ve all seen.”

“What about you and me?” Maybelle asks. “Our abilities aren’t exactly defensive.”

“I realize this. Our abilities are for… last resorts.”

“You mean if we have to kill anyone to stop them from talking.” Her voice is utterly calm, which disturbs me slightly.

“Yes. That is what I mean.” Mikael voice is grave, which, strangely, comforts me—at least it’s better than Maybelle’s dry uncaringness. “Are there any other questions before we go on?”

Tutelary Ruben raises a thick, pudgy hand. “Shouldn’t we protect ourselves to the maximum… erm… now?”

Mikael nods and responds, “Of course, Tutelary. It will serve as a sort of practice session for later meetings. David has already gone, so why don’t you go next, Sir?”

Ruben stands up and waddles to the door, his uniform stretched tight under the pressure of his expansive back. Raising both of his arms, he conjures a wall of puslike ooze that quickly fills the doorframe. It turns perfectly clear, leaving the door apparently obstruction-free. Turning back to us he rasps, “If anyone were to—ahem—open the door, they’d see an empty room.” He lumbers back to his seat.

“Martin. You next.” Mikael indicates me. I think for a few seconds, wondering what to Reflect, and then look over to another portion of the cafeteria. The chairs are still set up around the tables. My mind sparks.

Since I realized that mirrors improve my ability, I have taken to carrying a small hand mirror around with me. Taking it out, I aim it at the vacant area. Using my ability and the mirror together, I Reflect the empty area through where we are seated, instead of just in front of it. The result is quite strange. Whenever I look at something within the affected area out of the corner of my eye, it begins to morph and merge with what I Reflected, but if I look straight at the same thing I see it normally. I step out of the circle and see, to my pleasure, an empty area of seats. Stepping back into the circle, everyone reappears. “It works,” I say.

Mikael looks at me in surprise. “Very good work, Martin. If I were a Tutelary, I’d give you an honor.”

Ruben looks at me. “I, however, am a Tutelary. What would you say if I gave you one?” My eyes widen.

“But… that would mean I wouldn’t have class with Mikael… I wouldn’t have any reason to communicate to any of you. Wouldn’t it be suspicious if I tried to talk to one of you? And also, where would I say I’d gotten the honor? They do ask, you know. I couldn’t tell them ‘Oh, Tutelary Ruben gave me one while we were convening in the Café during a secret midnight meeting organized by Mikael to overthrow the Archmage,’ could I?”

“Hmm… I suppose you couldn’t.” Mikael is looking thoughtful. “But it would be quite useful to have a spy among the Honor Arcane. Martin, you do have two honors, don’t you?”

I cringe and look around the circle. Maybelle is trying—and failing—to hide her disgust at the fact that I’m almost an Honor Arcane, having made her hate for them clear a few minutes earlier.

Ruben speaks up again. “Wait! I have an idea. Suppose you do this same piece of Reflection—or something like it—tomorrow, say in the halls, when I’m near. Then I can see you ‘legitimately,’ and I can give you a third honor.” I’m impressed at how quickly the fat man came up with the justification for me getting a third honor: he speaks so thickly and so little that I had previously assumed he must be mentally deficient. But my first impression was wrong, just as it was with Aleksander.

“I—I suppose I could do that.”

Mikael inclines his head. “Alright. As for the problems with communication… I have seen Honor Arcane keep ties with non-honor friends. That would not be an obstacle. Are there any other questions? No? Good. To the third item on our agenda.”

Mikael stands up, folds his hands in front of him, and starts pacing back and forth behind his chair. “I am sure many if not all of you are wondering what our main purpose here is. I cannot directly answer that question, however, because I do not know the answer myself. That is what we are here tonight to decide. Should our goal be to kill the Archmage? To destroy the institution? To warn the Mundane? To—”

Ruben again speaks up. “To sabotage the brainwashing.”

Every eye in the circle snaps directly to him. He clears his throat, blinks, clears his throat again, and says, “Yes. The brainwashing. You had to have noticed that the vast majority of the people in this institution are all too ready to kill innocents? To torture helpless people, to enslave or murder countless oblivious, harmless individuals? Why do we not have this same readiness?”

Maybelle frowns. “We just have… better morals?”

“And why doesn’t everyone else have ‘better morals?’ What makes them different from us? What allows them to kill remorselessly, to talk of ‘evicting’ the Mundane without even a quirk of an eyebrow, without a change in facial expression, without caring? Maybelle, you may be able to talk of killing your fellow Arcane without regret, and while that does not indicate the most superior moral values, it is understandable to want to get back at the people who capture unknowing Mundane civilians and hunt them!” Ruben is practically shouting now, and has risen out of his chair. I stare at him. Spittle is flying from his lips, and it makes for quite an interesting sight.

“I will tell you what lets them.” The Tutelary’s lips are curled in a disgusted grimace. “Directly after birth, they take every single infant and put them in a room. I have seen this room. It is large and white, and there is a screen in the ceiling. The children are forced to stare at this screen. It plays twenty-four hours a day, images of Mundane killing, raping, torturing. I do not know how, but they make it very clear in these images that it is Mundane, not Arcane, that are doing these things. For the first six months of life, the infants are fed, given water, and taken care of—never leaving the white room for a second. After six months, they are released into the Nurturing Wing. They grow up and become murderous, conscienceless monsters.”

The room becomes very, very quiet. After a full thirty seconds of silence, Aleksander’s voice pushes up out of the stillness. “Why are we different?”

Ruben looks at him incredulously. “Don’t you know? Haven’t you figured it out?”

We shake our heads.

Ruben sighs. He sits down and leans back. “None of us were born in the institution.”



< Message edited by Nex del Vida -- 4/3/2009 22:52:19 >
AQ  Post #: 10
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