Millennial Mage

Tala sat across from Mistress Odera as they watched the land roll by from atop the cargo-wagon.

Tala had retrieved some of the knives and hatchets from Lyn before the woman could sell them. Now, they lay in two concentric rings on the wagon-top, Terry flickering around them, occasionally brushing the handles before squawking in irritation and flickering away. He’d been at it for days, even before they left Bandfast, so Tala paid him little mind.

He’ll just have to get over himself at some point.

-Centuries of ingrained behavior is hard to reshape, Tala. You could bond him, and he’d likely be able to make the change in an instant, but as he is now? Terry is ancient for his kind and alive because he is set and well-practiced in his ways. Give him time to adjust.-

Yeah, not bonding him ‘til I’m Refined.

-As we were advised. I agree.-

Tala returned her attention to Mistress Odera, still a bit uncertain as to the woman’s suggestion.

Aside from Tala and Rane’s discussion on their progress towards Fusing, the only other event of note was this one.

“You want me to try to dissolve one of your barriers.”

“That seems…incredibly dangerous.”

“We will approach it intelligently, but it is criminal that you haven’t tried this against workings of pure magic, directly. Especially after what Master Cazor told you in regard to the power working against his magics.”

“As you say, and as you have said nearly every time this has come up.” She took a long, deep breath, then shook her head in resignation. “So, how do we mitigate the risks?”

That began a lengthy discussion. Alat chimed in, voiced by Tala, and between the three of them, they came up with a solution.

Tala sat at the side of the wagon, legs dangling over the edge, facing the snow-covered rolling plains.

Mistress Odera then created a protective barrier out in front of Tala that was shaped to deflect the power up and away, if the dissolution power ended up doing nothing to the defense.

Mistress Odera then ensured that the working moved with them as the wagon continued on its way. “Ready, Mistress Tala.”

Tala pulled out an ending-seed and popped it into her mouth, grimacing at the taste of the iron-salve coating, but managed to ignore the unpleasantness.

She bit down and waited for the power to blossom between her teeth.

Moving carefully, she shaped her lips for short-dispersion and exhaled.

The dissolution power washed over the protective field, and Mistress Odera grunted.

“Oh, that…that is really uncomfortable.” The woman grimaced.

Tala watched the zone of compressed layers of air and water shimmer and almost spark magically as the dissolving power used itself up against the defense.

A moment after all the ending-seed’s power was gone, Mistress Odera dropped the field.

She immediately brought it back up. “Please strike the defense with your weapon. Don’t spare any strength.”

Tala shifted back onto the wagon for better footing, then stood, drawing Flow and pushing power through the weapon to transform it into a sword. With a sure, practiced motion, Tala stepped forward, executing an overhead chop with all her strength and body-weight behind the blow.

Power rippled around the soul-bound weapon as all of Tala’s magical weight slammed down as well, refined and directed into lethal cutting force.

Flow stopped dead on the defense that Mistress Odera had cast, though the woman had a look of intense concentration.

“Girl, you hit harder than a Leshkin juggernaut.”

Tala beamed at the praise, pulling back Flow and sheathing it, the weapon now back in the form of a knife.

“So? What do you think, Mistress Odera? How did the two compare?”

The older woman shook her head in obvious fascination. “You hit harder with Flow than with the breath weapon, but not by much. Even so, I’d rather take an attack from that sword over an ending-breath any day of the week.”

“What do you mean?”

“There was an odd grating feeling, a screeching dissonance, while I was resisting the dissolution. It felt like I was standing on sand that was being dug out from under me. It was incredibly disconcerting. In the end, it took less power to resist than your sword, but that hardly matters. I think a larger dose of the dissolution would have broken my protective magics with ease, while I could easily hold up against more than ten of those sword-strikes in quick succession without much issue.”

“I don’t understand.”

Mistress Odera made a vain grasping motion. “It was like the spell itself was slipping through my grasp, like I could barely hold onto it.” She nodded, suddenly seeming to have something click together. “It was as if my own spell-working wanted to come apart and was using all the power I gave it to fight towards that end.”

“So, the more powerful the magics…”

“In theory, the more powerful the magics you affected, the less they could resist.” The older woman had a gleam in her eye. “And I have a mastery of my magic that is belied by my relative weakness, Mistress. Any other Mage would have no chance at maintaining a hold over their working, and only old, well-practiced Archons would do any better.” She let loose a soft cackle. “Let’s test some more.”

And so, they did.

A tight stream of the dissolution was able to punch through several layers of Mistress Odera’s defense before the power was used up, but Mistress Odera was able to hold together the spell-structure against the destructive influence. So, they moved on to using multiple seeds at the same time.

True to Mistress Odera’s guess, even the beginning of the second seed’s power destabilized her working, causing the entire defensive spell-form to collapse, no matter how small a portion Tala concentrated the power on.

“It really does disrupt the spell-form’s ability to hold together.” Mistress Odera was contemplating. “In order to counter it…” She thought for a moment longer and then gestured, eyes alight with a mischievous glint.

A sphere appeared in front of Tala, hovering out away from the wagon as all the targets that Mistress Odera created had.

Tala examined the spherical shield with her mage-sight and saw that the seemingly smooth creation was made up of interlocking, overlapping bubble-like creations.

She glanced over and saw a look of smug satisfaction on the older woman’s face.

“Is that harder?”

“Marginally. It’s something I’ve played with in the past, but under normal circumstances it doesn’t actually give any benefit save a bit of added flexibility. Most applications of my magic need greater staying power more than the ability to adjust.”

I can think of a dozen sets of circumstances where the greater flexibility would have been useful.

-Ahh, but this is really what sets Archon level magic apart from that of Mages’. Mages almost have to focus on power in order to be effective. Archons usually have power to spare, and so they can be more flexible and creative in their enactments.-

Like Atrexia with her rock-spikes. It was a powerful working, but not very flexible in its use.

-Precisely. She is going to be a terror when she advances.-

Tala felt a bit of sadness, looking at Mistress Odera. If she advances.

Mistress Odera caught the look and scowled. “None of that, girl. I know an Archon could have it both ways. Now, focus.”

Tala nodded and turned back to the sphere of interlocking power.

She cracked two seeds between her teeth, waited the required time for the power to erupt outward and exhaled in a tight stream.

Just after over half her available ending-seed power was blown, the closest bubble to her fell apart, seeming almost to flow in every direction at once, rather than actually breaking.

There was a shimmering in the air and one of the neighboring shields distorted slightly, adjusting itself to snap sideways into the place vacated by the dissolved working.

The others seemed to jiggle and waver just a bit, altering their positioning ever so slightly. At that point, a new bubble formed within the complex magical structure, leaving it as protective as it had been to begin with.

The entire process had taken less than a second, and only the smallest amount of ending-seed power had gotten through, into the interior of the sphere.

The new target for Tala’s exhale wavered under the continued stream of power, but it held until the attack was spent.

Tala shook her head in wonder. “Rust me inside out.” She turned her gaze back to Mistress Odera.

The woman simply smiled with self-satisfaction. “I think that held up rather well; don’t you?”

From that point onward, Tala and Mistress Odera did some practice with the ending-power every day. The older woman insisted that Tala begin carrying an ending-seed tucked in her cheek, because it was painfully obvious when Tala popped a seed into her mouth.

“You must have your weapons ready.”

Tala reluctantly agreed, but only because the power couldn’t really harm her, so long as she didn’t swallow it.

-Our stomach is defended, but not as much as our mouth, throat, and lungs. We’d likely have to regrow a good amount of our insides if we swallowed one.-

That was, categorically, to be avoided. So, Tala used up the seed before sleeping.

It was the wise thing to do.

Other than that, the trip was utterly uneventful.

Arcanous beasts were fought off, the guards harvesting what they could; lots of good food was eaten, grudgingly; and Tala didn’t have to fight a single real conflict.

Luxury.

As the end of the trip neared, they crested a particularly high rise and looked down upon Marliweather, the city of Tala’s birth.

It covered so much more land than Bandfast, given that its mining operations were still…well, operational.

Tala recalled the types of mining humanity had tried through the ages.

Strip mining was effective, but left the land raw and unusable, like an open sore that took vastly too long to heal.

Open-pit mining was similarly scarring and had the added detriment of often creating lakes of despoiled water.

There were several others, but that was hardly the point. These days, humanity used underground mining, with Material Guide Mages ensuring the minimal manual labor brought forth the maximum results.

Within the ring of massive gantries and equipment to transport workers and materials down into and up from the mining tunnels, the familiar farmland lay just as dormant as it had been around Bandfast.

The city also looked very much like the one that they’d just left a few days back. The layout of the streets was nearly identical, as were large portions of the skyline.

Alat even superimposed Tala’s memories of Bandfast onto the vision of Marliweather before them. She had to search a bit, looking for the right perspective until she found a match.

-Huh, I guess the Builders don’t go in for innovation?-

If it isn’t broken…

-That’s fair. There does seem to be some evidence of iteration, though, so they aren’t completely stagnant. They’ve probably just perfected the design to a ridiculous degree by this point. And, they did rotate things a few degrees.-

The iteration makes sense, as does the slight rotation. We’ve traveled west, so north is going to have a slightly different directionality.

-I’m orienting off north.-

True north or magnetic north?

-How, under the stars, would I check true north? Not that we have a compass to check for magnetic north.-

Tala grinned. Follow the orientation of the city?

Alat grunted. -That might be so, I suppose.-

Tala considered for a moment. You know, while it was just a turn of phrase, I think we could actually use the stars to find true north.

Alat groaned. -Now I feel foolish. Of course we could, but we’d have to have the night sky and a lot of time. Using the city to short-hand it makes sense.-

Tala turned her focus back to the city.

Slight differences as evidence, the cities were clearly siblings, having come from the same makers. Though, once again Marliweather’s stage modified the view. The ring of mining work vaguely obscured the overall view of the city’s skyline with rising steam and smoke.

There wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to be noticeable in the cool winter-evening air.

Rane pulled himself up onto the cargo wagon and came to stand beside Tala.

“It’s lovely.”

“It looks like Bandfast.” Tala used her tongue to play with the ending-seed tucked inside her cheek.

-That’s going to become a bad habit.-

Hush. It’s fine.

Rane gave her a sideways glance before shrugging. “Bandfast is a lovely city too.”

Tala found herself grinning. “Fair enough.”

“So… I haven’t brought it up and neither have you. Now, we’re here.”

Tala sighed, her smile slipping.

“You grew up in that city, didn’t you.” It wasn’t really a question.

“Seems so.”

“Your family still there?”

Tala had a moment of panic. I have no idea. Did they leave? Did they die?

-Calm, woman. A Mage is notified if any of their family dies.-

They could have moved.

-Really? You think they could afford to relocate?-

Fair enough… The entire exchange, panic included, had taken less than a breath. Tala exhaled fully and shrugged. “I think so.”

Rane grunted. “Are you going to see them?”

“I probably should.”

He gave her a knowing half-grin. “But are you going to see them?”

Tala found herself smiling again and almost punched him, but she held herself back. “Yeah. I suppose so.”

“Do you want company?”

She rocked back on her heels slightly. Do I?

The wagons started their trip down the slope and towards the defensive perimeter of the city.

Terry squawked up at her, and she looked down at the neat pile of weapons the bird had made beside her. “Hey, you moved them!”

Terry practically rolled his eyes as he let out an indignant trill.

“Of course, I knew you could move them. I also knew that you didn’t want to. Good for you.”

He hunkered down and glowered up at her before flickering to her shoulder, maintaining his glare.

That’s actually pretty impressive, all things considered.

She shook her head and bent to place the knives and hatchets back into Kit. Then, she tossed Terry some jerky, and after he flickered to catch it, he curled up and closed his eyes.

Rane didn’t press his query, simply swaying with the smooth motion of the cargo wagon.

“I don’t know.” Tala’s voice was quiet as she returned to her position beside the large man, staring out at the ever growing city before them.

“Well, if you do, I’m happy to accompany you.”

“To meet my family.”

“No implications intended.” And by his tone and demeanor, he meant it. She hadn’t even caught him off guard with the question.

“Wow, Mistress Aproa is really helping you get over your awkwardness.”

Rane’s cheek twitched and colored just slightly, but he shook his head. “She has a lot of interesting advice. I don’t think I agree with all of it, but it is all worth considering.”

“Well, in either case, thank you for the offer.”

He nodded. “I’m going to do another sweep of the perimeter before we enter the defenses proper.” Without a backward glance, he turned and climbed down from the wagon.

Tala took some time to examine the far-flung defenses and to feel the power in the air around the city before them.

What she was able to discern was amazing, really. Bandfast was only about 50 years older than Marliweather, but there was already a marked difference in the concentration and zeme of power around the city and throughout the defenses.

Where the region around Bandfast was like a hill, when compared to the mountainous edifice of Alfast-Waning, Marliweather still felt like a level plain, magically speaking.

The defenses here were but weak lines of power, weaving a loose net over the city.

The towers in rings around the mining and farming districts were still beacons of magic, ready to strike down anything that required such, but the defenses as a whole were almost laughably weak.

Because they don’t need heavy defenses yet. The concentration of power hasn’t begun to draw in the kind of threats that need universal, heavy-handed responses.

-Plus, I’d imagine that the city’s Archons are ready to respond to anything extreme.-

Yeah, the “defenses” are more like a glorified detection grid at the moment.

-Bandfast’s aren’t much better.-

That’s true enough. It was mainly Archons who responded to and destroyed the syphon. The city’s defenses didn’t do much.

The caravan rolled past one of the massive towering gantries, filled with moving parts and magical mechanisms that Tala had never delved into the details of.

Steam and smoke rose around the outside of the metal edifice, made more visible by the crisply cold, winter air.

The structure stood like a benevolent god over this one entrance to the mining complex below, helping the small humans to access the riches of Zeme.

We really do stand on the shoulders of our ancestors. How much in my life is built upon all that came before?

-Everything.-

Tala nodded in mute agreement, simply continuing to marvel at the monument of innovation, which helped keep them stocked with precious metals.

The caravan passed several more of the mining entrances, but none quite so closely as the first, before they came to the farmland. As they entered the portion of road which cut though skeletal orchids and beside deep drifts of snow-covered, empty fields, Tala felt herself smile.

It is like a sleeping mother, ready to awaken and care for her children. Her sleep is needed, so she can better provide for us all.

After another few moments of quiet contemplation, Alat spoke into her mind. -That is a lovely way to view the land.-

I think it’s true, at least in part.

-It’s a lovely way to view family as well.-

Tala sighed. I have nothing against the idea of family.

-Just against your own.-

Tala felt something snap within her, and she sat down, hard, turning her rage inward. OF COURSE, I’m angry at them, Alat. They sent me away. They saddled me with their debt. They saw me as a means to an end, so they used me.

-You agreed.-

Tala froze, then shook her head. Of course I did. What twelve year old wouldn’t? “Oh, do you want to help your family?” How could I say “No.”? What sort of awful person would say “No.”?

-The Mages did try to ensure that you knew what you were agreeing to.-

Tala snorted. I’m not mad at them, but it wasn’t much of a choice, either way. “No, Master, I want my family to starve, but thank you for offering a solution.”

-They wouldn’t have starved.-

Tala growled internally.

-You are amazing at justifying your anger, and some of your anger is justified. But you did agree.-

If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have become a Mage.

-Because most of the debt is from your schooling. Why would they have accepted you, if you wouldn’t agree to pay the expense?-

I would have happily done it, without taking on my family's debts.

-Really?-

Of course!

-Did you ask? Did you really want to leave your siblings in a debt-ridden house? Or your parents?-

Tala didn’t have a response.

-No, you felt trapped and made the only choice that you felt you could. It hardly matters if it really was the only one available to you or not.-

Rust you. She knew that Alat was prodding her towards healthier thinking, using half-truths and overstatements to move her in the ways that she needed to go. What does it say about me that my alternate interface is using tactics like Mistress Odera…

The thought slipped through, not really directed at Alat, but Alat responded nonetheless. -Am I wrong?-

Tala hunched in on herself, ignoring the ingrained training to sit up straight.

-Am I wrong?-

No. The word was soft, quiet even in her own head.

Alat was silent for a long moment.

Tala wiped the tears from her cheeks, grateful that Mistress Odera wasn’t on the wagon-top with her.

Tala buried her face into her knees and cried quietly for a time, letting the subtle sway of the wagon rock her, comfort her.

Finally, she addressed Alat once more. I hate them for putting me in that position. How could they ask a child to choose?

-I know.- There was a softness to the alternate interface’s voice, a maternal quality.

But if I hate them, then what was the choice even for? What did it accomplish? Why take on the debt for people I hate?

-Do you really hate them?-

It was a long moment before Tala shook her head slightly. I don’t know.

Alat didn’t press the point, instead turning their focus elsewhere. -So?-

Tala wiped her face once more, pulling some rags from Kit to do a better job and to blow her nose into. So, what?

-What do you want?-

What do I want? I don’t know what I want, Alat. She looked up at the city’s outermost wall, and the gate that was a scant hundred yards away.

-Well, you better decide soon. Because we’re here.-

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