Millennial Mage

The day after she’d gotten the dimensional tether, Tala sat cross-legged, deep in a meditative state when the world trembled around her. Her mage-sight screamed a warning.

Her eyes snapped over, and with a thought, Flow was in her hand in the form of a sword. She was sweeping it outward before her mind processed what she was seeing.

First, her mage-sight registered the aura: Reforged. The being before her was filled with a perfectly controlled, deep blue aura, clearly a bit more purple than true blue. It didn’t radiate out from him, but instead, was held precisely at the surface of his skin almost like a badge of authority or office.

Second, she recognized him: Xeel.

Third, he once again countered her. This time he simply hopped up, over her swing.

“Mistress. I apologize for the intrusion.” His hands lanced forward, grabbing either side of her head. His power flooded through her mind, and she was utterly at his mercy.

The moment passed, and Xeel was gone. A second later, something slammed into the wall behind her.

She looked up and saw Force stopped in place where Xeel had been.

With a smooth motion, Tala stood twisting to face the other way.

Xeel was peeling himself off the far wall, which was miraculously intact. “I hate kinetic manipulators.” He sighed, turning to face them. “Was that necessary, Master Rane?”

“Apologies, Master Xeel, but you were using magic against her. I struck before I fully recognized you.” Rane had been meditating nearby and was now standing just behind and to her left.

Fast reactions.

“On her. I was using magic on her, not against.” Xeel was brushing off his simple, dark Mage’s robes.

Rane’s tone was tinged with mild regret. “That’s a hard distinction to make in a split second.” He sheathed Force as he came to stand beside Tala. “What can we do for you, Master Xeel?”

“I needed a second point of comparison, to narrow in on her first encounter with the arcane.”

Rane glanced to Tala, then back to Xeel. “Is it that important?”

Xeel nodded. “Mistress Tala, how sure are you that you’ve never left the city or Academy until your first caravan trip?”

“I’m 100% certain.”

“Then, we have a problem.”

Rane was frowning. “What’s going on?”

“We have two options. First, Mistress Tala did leave the city on her first day in Bandfast, but no longer remembers doing so, wanting to do so, or what she might have been intending to do while outside. I find this very difficult to believe. Such a thoroughly invasive erasure should be impossible to hide, even from casual inspection.”

Tala swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. “What’s the second option?”

“The arcane encounter happened within the bounds of Bandfast.”

Silence hung heavy in the air of the training arena.

“When?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“By your records, on your first day, after you exited the teleportation tower and before you went to the Caravan Guild.”

“How can you possibly know that precisely?”

“Because Mistress Lyn has no evidence of mental tampering, and you were with her for the remainder of the day.”

Oh, that makes sense. “Wait, you examined her mind?”

“I did. I must say, she was much less violent than the two of you.”

“She leads a less violent life.”

Xeel grunted. “True enough, I suppose.”

“So, what now?”

“Now? Nothing. You continue as you have, and I’ll take this to the collective Archon Council.”

“We’re just supposed to continue, knowing that arcanes can get inside human cities?”

“What would you like to do?”

She opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came to mind. Rane placed a hand on her shoulder, and she glanced his way before closing her mouth.

“Master Xeel, I think what she means is: How can we be safe? What can we do to protect ourselves, and…” He shrugged. “It’s too big an issue to encapsulate all the implications.”

Xeel’s face softened, just a bit. “I understand this is…difficult. It definitely calls into question many things we thought certain. If such a manipulator has access to our cities, then many things become…” He shook his head. “It can’t have been long standing, nor could too many of them have this capacity, or we would already have fallen.”

“Are you sure? Couldn’t they want us to exist for some reason?” Tala felt a building jittery energy. What is true? Do I even have a family, or is that a fabrication? Is Xeel human, or do I just believe so? Tala cut off both lines of thought. No, that way lies madness.

“As I said, I need to take this to the Councils.”

Tala took a deep breath, but it was Rane who responded. “So, what can we do?”

“Improve the strength of your will and your soul. Fuse, and be alone as little as possible.”

She started scratching at her arms. It felt like something was crawling under her skin.

Xeel sighed. “Relax. Find some way to destress. When you get back to Bandfast, I’ll meet with you and tell you what I’ve learned. I had a talk with Mistress Holly, and she gave me this.” He held up an inscribed stone. “May I?”

Tala shifted uncomfortably. She recognized the stone, but Holly had never told her, precisely, what it did. “What will it do, exactly?”

“It will transfer the information directly to the Archive, locked to you and Mistress Holly.” He hesitated. “Well, initially it will be locked to her, until she processes it. The encapsulated results will be available to you, when they are compiled.”

Oh. I can get access to my own records? That seemed a bit of a silly question. Of course she could. “Alright.”

Xeel crossed the room with measured strides, and Tala bent her head forward to expose the scripts on the back of her neck. He placed the stone there, and she felt a strange tingle, like a dog was drooling on her then licking it clean.

“Gah!” She shivered, shirking away from the feeling, but the process was already complete. “I forgot how that feels.” She shuddered again.

“The transfer is complete.”

Tala had a thought. “You know, given the situation, it would be useful for me to have an Archive slate. Any chance you could get me one?”

Xeel gave her a long look. “You want me to give you an empowered item.”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

“No.” He paused for a moment, as if he was going to go on, but then he shook his head without saying anything further.

Tala waited another moment, but when he didn’t say anything else, she shrugged. “Worth asking.”

Xeel snorted a suppressed laugh. “Take care of yourself, Mistress Tala.”

He was gone.

Tala looked to the closed door. “How did he do that?”

Rane shrugged. “There are a lot of options, actually.”

She turned a skeptical look his way. “Why would you know how it’s done?”

He gave her a long-suffering look. “My master could do that, from the first day I trained with him, and he refused to tell me how. I’ve had a long time to try to figure out how.”

“Oh, yeah. That makes sense.” She shrugged. “Do tell.”

He held up one finger after another as he went through a list. “One. Immense speed, while manipulating matter around himself to remove the sonic boom and prevent materials from breaking. Two. A soul-bound gate, with one fixed location and a second, untethered end. He could summon that end and move through to a fixed location.”

Tala’s eyes widened at the idea, “Wait, gates? I thought those were only a theory.”

He gave her an odd look. “They are, and we’re theorizing.”

She grimaced at him but didn’t comment further as he wasn’t done.

“Three. Untethered storage space with a tethered entrance to get out through.” He shrugged. “That one should be possible, but like the gate, I’ve never heard of such a thing actually being done. Four. A partial transformation into, or merging with, light, which I believe is his element of choice. Five. A pulse of focused will-power to disrupt our perception for a moment to simply allow him to walk out. Six.-”

“Okay, okay. I get it. There are many, many ways someone could accomplish what he just did.”

Rane smiled, letting both his hands drop.

Tala gave him a skeptical look. “You didn’t have a sixth thing, did you?”

“Do you want me to go on?”

She scratched her lip, thinking. “No, that way lies madness. I don’t want the full list. I want to work on my void channels.”

She returned to where she’d been sitting, two tungsten balls in front of her. In the past few days, she had expanded her abilities with her active gravity manipulation to let her target two items at once. She couldn’t change their gravity as fast as when she focused on just one, nor could she affect them differently, but it was a start.

And it was exhausting.

It felt like trying to imagine someone juggling, and actively track where every ball was, while noticing how every muscle moved and tracking the exact nutrient expenditure.

No. It’s not quite that hard… She didn’t sound convincing, even in her own head. It’s hard, just not that hard.

She sighed, sitting down, locking onto the two targets, and closing her eyes. Focus Tala. One increases, the other reduces. It’s not that hard. It doesn’t violate reality.

It was not destined to be a productive day.

* * *

Two days later, Tala and Rane stood beside a simple, post-and-rail fence.

Rane wore a look of fascinated horror.

Tala just grinned.

They both ignored the almost overbearing power at ground level, around Makinaven.

Before them, a large animal pen held a half-dozen pigs, frantically running around, and Terry. Tala had seen the pig-pen on her way into Makinaven, and she’d instantly wanted to do something like this for the terror bird.

Terry, just taller than Rane, went around from pig to pig, pinning one down then moving on, constantly drawn to the next.

Sometimes, he would crouch down and sprint after a fleeing porcine. Other times, he simply flickered from one to the next.

He crowed, trilled, and thrummed in abject joy.

The pigs squealed in terror.

The farmer had lent the field and sold Tala the pigs for a gold. Tala knew she’d overpaid, but Terry was living the dream.

She tried not to think about the pigs.

Rane’s voice was hushed as he spoke. “He looks like a cat, toying with mice.”

Tala glanced to the large man, then back towards her terror bird. “So he does.”

The animals were churning up the large pen, but that was fine.

The enclosure was a hundred feet to a side, a perfect faux hunting ground…if the goal was purely entertainment.

After five minutes or so, Terry began to challenge himself. He ceased flickering around and attempted to catch more than one at a time without hurting them. That only lasted a minute or so, before the pigs finally began to tire.

The animals, whether becoming tired, or realizing that Terry hadn’t hurt any of them yet, began to slow their panicked racing.

Terry allowed them some rest.

Then, he flickered to the largest, slowest pig, and ate it in one bite.

The newly refreshed pigs squealed in renewed terror, and the games began again.

Terry’s jubilant, dominating trills drowned out the pigs’ squeals whenever he lifted his head in a triumphant cry.

“This seems… cruel somehow…”

Tala regarded Rane skeptically. “How so?”

“He’s terrorizing them. Why not just eat them?”

She turned to fully face Rane; one eyebrow cocked. “Terror. Bird.”

“Well, yes, I understand that.”

“Do you? I feel like he survives on terror more than meat…Actually, is that possible?”

“No?” Rane regarded Terry, continuing his one-bird, bloodless rampage. “I’ve no idea, and I don’t know of any theory that would allow it.” He shrugged.

They continued to watch as Terry gave the pigs another rest before eating a second and beginning again.

In less than an hour, Terry had a single pig left, and it lay shuddering on the ground, Terry curled around it, cooing contentedly.

“Okay, that’s a bit…much.” Tala swallowed. That’s how he sleeps next to me… “Terry! Just put it out of its misery!”

Terry raised his head to regard her, then shook. He stood, used one taloned foot to pat the pig on the head, then flickered to Tala’s shoulder, small once more.

“You’re…not going to eat it?”

Terry regarded her for a moment, then let out a long sequence of trills.

Tala didn’t understand at all.

Slowly, in the middle of the churned enclosure, the pig stood and hesitantly went over to the water-trough.

Tala turned to go, but Terry let out a short chirp, so she waited.

The pig slowly stopped shivering, drinking deeply. Then, seeming uncertain, it shuffled over to the only gate out of the enclosure, seemingly looking to be released.

Terry looked to Rane and squawked.

Rane, frowning, moved over to open the gate.

The pig perked up, patiently waiting to be released.

As Rane opened the gate, Terry flickered, appearing straddling the pig, his head now half again as high as Rane’s.

Before anyone could react, Terry snapped up the pig, swallowing it whole. The avian then straightened and gave Rane a long stare.

Rane took a step back, hand unconsciously resting on Force’s hilt.

Terry flickered back to Tala’s shoulder, curling up to sleep.

Tala swallowed dryly, regarding her avian companion. “Sometimes,” she swallowed again, “You are rusting terrifying.”

* * *

The day after Terry’s porcine adventure, Tala slammed her face into the wooden training floor, groaning despite the lack of lasting damage.

This was not the first time, and she knew it wouldn’t be the last. What really grated was she couldn’t blame anyone but herself.

She pushed herself up with her left hand, returning to her feet and readying for the next attempt.

Around her, filling about a third of the training room, Tala had built an obstacle course of a very strange variety.

There were the traditional obstacles: hurdles, climbing wall, balance beam, and such. In addition to those, there were a series of mundane tasks, some as simple as a cup of water to drink, some much more complicated, like lacing a shoe or writing a letter.

The mundane tasks were only worthy of the course for a single reason: She’d bound her right arm behind her back, simulating its absence.

That handicap made the entire process difficult beyond what she’d expected.

Would have been easier with just my right arm, and my left bound. But she hadn’t lost her left arm, and she wanted to feel that loss, to come to grips with the cost that she’d almost paid. Hah, come to grips. I’m hilarious.

Puns aside, she was struggling, and her left hand was cramping…again.

She knew from experience that her scripts would sooth the muscle ache, and restore it to functionality shortly, but it was still deeply uncomfortable.

I hate writing with my left hand… It was especially difficult when she chose to do the writing challenge directly after one of the climbing obstacles.

Tala had come up with this idea, while meditating on the loss of her arm…and after learning that the training complex had obstacles that could be added to a rented space at no charge. Personal introspection, free of charge.

Obviously, Tala had put together the more mundane tasks on her own, but none of those were overly complex.

Rane cracked an eye from the far side of the room. He was still covered in sweat and breathing heavily from his most recent series of forms. “I still don’t get why you’re doing that.”

“I need to understand the injury I endured. If I don’t, I’m going to become callous to damage I take on my body. I can’t allow that. I need to feel both the loss and the relief that the loss was reversed.”

Rane shrugged. “If you feel that you need to, but it seems like you already felt the loss, and you are relieved to have your arm back.”

Tala thought about that for a long moment. Finally, she sighed and undid her belt, which she’d used to keep herself from cheating. “You’re probably right.” She took another deep breath and let it out slowly. Then, she glanced behind her and grinned. “Once more.”

She whipped through the course, two good arms making each task trivial.

“That is so, so much easier.” She remembered the guard whose arm she’d cut off, to save him from the magical crystal contamination. She had a new appreciation for the time he’d spent without that arm, even if it had been his left. More than that, though, Tala felt a warm joy that she’d been able to help pay to restore the man’s arm, once they arrived in Makinaven. Yeah, that was worth the coin.

She’d have helped even if she hadn’t been forced.

It would have just been the right thing to do.

No question at all.

None.

At Tala’s request, the training complex’s workers removed the obstacles shortly after her last run through, breaking them down with practiced speed, and departing with only a few words exchanged.

Rane stood from his meditation after the workers had left. “So, I only reserved this space through the end of today. We were supposed to depart, today, but I figured I’d want the space the morning before we left.” He shrugged. “The point is, do we want to try to renew, or should we look for another place to train?”

Tala thought about that for a long moment. It would be nice to be higher up the tree. But when their time here ended, she’d need to come to the bottom each morning for the last couple of days. No reason to let that color the intervening weeks. She nodded. “Let’s find somewhere higher up. Maybe somewhere outside, or with a view outside?”

He smiled in return. “That sounds like an excellent idea.”

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