Winds of Magic chapter 1

 

Chapter 1

“What’s that in your hands?” asked Rei, my childhood friend. She was my age and we had known each other since we were babies. Her hair, at the moment, was in a bob cut and she wore a dress that was serviceable and yet still slightly fashionable. Her cheeks always had a bit of a pout to them, which I didn’t mind. Her eyes were deep blue and a contrast to her nut-brown hair. She bent over my shoulder to look at what I was holding.

“I’m thinking about applying to Rockwell Magic Academy,” I said, flipping through the school’s catalog.

“With your casting speed?” said Rei, scoffing. “I don’t think you’d be able to make it.”

“I’m planning on getting a recommendation from the school for my academics,” I said. “Even if I can’t do magic, I can apply to their magic engineer program.”

“I know you’ve always looked up to Regius Alnum,” said Rei, “But to be honest, I don’t think you’d make it even if you were as good at engineering as he is.”

“So what do you suggest I do?” I said.

“Go to a non-magic school,” said Rei.

“But you’re going to a magic school, aren’t you?” I said.

“I haven’t picked one, but yes,” said Rei.

“Hm,” I said. “Well, we can think about this later.” I set down the catalog and turned to my computer station. “It looks like I have to update my blog.”

“Yeah, you do that. I’ll prepare some food for us.”

“Are both of our parents gone again?” I said.

Rei sighed. “Yeah. Don’t worry, I won’t screw up the soup this time.”

I flicked on my compute workstation. Two jobs had been queued while I had been offline.

“Regius Alnum, can you fix this?” A message from my boss and partner, Crystal. I’d never seen them in person so I didn’t even know their gender, let alone what they looked like. All I knew is that they worked at the lab where my research was tested and published and was essentially my mouthpiece.

And, oh yeah, I was Regius Alnum, the famous engineer who solved the Resonant Five Paradox when I was eight years old. Even though I could run circles around anyone in theory, I had almost no physical ability to use that magic. Right now I was working on long-distance cast jamming and its effects on the battlefield.

The second message was from Mulberry, the CEO of one of the companies that I worked for.

“Alnum, can you send me a sit rep for project Canal?”

I sent her all my latest data and then turned to the problem Crystal wanted me to fix. It was a difficult one that took me about an hour and involved a couple simple oversights in the “Siege Code” that ran the jamming software we were developing for the military.

“Siege Code” was the way traditional magic had been mechanized over fifty years ago. Now all someone needed to do magic was a casting device and some software to run on it. It still drew from the caster’s innate power, but it was a lot easier than the old way of doing things.

I stood up and stretched my back, returning to the sofa and picking up the catalog for Rockwell again. It was a long shot to get in, even with my engineering credentials, but I was unable to tell anyone what I was working on anyways and all I had to prove that I was useful were my test scores.

Rei returned to the room, wearing an apron. “Come on,” she said. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

“I wasn’t aware that dinner was ready,” I said, standing up.

“I called you twice,” said Rei.

“Oh,” I said.

“Oh indeed,” said Rei, swinging a spatula at me. “Sit down.”

I sat at the table.

“I understand you want to go to Rockwell,” said Rei. “But I want to persuade you not to.”

“And?” I said.

“It’s just that I don’t think it would be a good fit for you. Your talents would be better used elsewhere.”

“I feel a calling,” I said. “I need to do something there, though I’m not sure what.”

“Fine,” said Rei. “Take the test. I won’t stop you. But don’t come crying to me when you don’t get in. Make sure you set up a second choice school.”

“Are you going to take the Rockwell entrance exam?” I said.

“Of course,” said Rei. “My advisors wouldn’t let me say no.”

Rei was, of all things, one of the most accomplished ice magicians in the country at her age. She could freeze things to absolute zero in under five seconds, matching the best of the best. However, her magic was very narrow in application and did not cross manifest. Such was the price of excellence.

Rei waved her spoon at me. “You’ll get crushed there,” she said.

“I can handle myself physically,” I said.

“I know,” said Rei. “That’s not what I was talking about. I mean, mentally. They’ll hate you there, even if you do get in. You’ll be a three for sure. Everyone will get better treatment than you.”

“I can handle it,” I said, wiping my mouth on my napkin. “And anyways, I’ve always been good at taking that kind of thing.”

Rei sighed, and continued to eat. “Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt.”

“Good,” I said. “You’ll be taking the test with me, right?”

“Of course,” said Rei. She waved her spoon at me again, this time aggressively. “And I’ll do everything in my power to help you.”

“Thanks,” I said.

We finished dinner and I retired to my room. I took out my haptic gloves and opened my personal computer station. Now was the time to work on the project that I had been putting together for more than a year. Teleportation magic. It had never been achieved before, and most attempts to create it had ended in Lovecraftian flesh monsters. This time was different. I could not test it on a sentient being until it had been proven effective, but according to my research, I was going along the right path.

If teleportation magic was discovered, then it would change everything. Warfare and daily life would be drastically different, the same as when flying magic was discovered. Even now, flying magic took a lot of energy out of the user, which rendered it applicable only in certain conditions.

I worked through the night into the wee hours of the morning.

Two days later I stood in the testing chamber at Rockwell Academy. About two hundred other people were in the waiting room or lined up to receive their orders. I was number one-twenty-seven.

I sat down in a chair and tried my best to look inconspicuous. The numbers were called one by one and the people in the waiting room thinned.

This wasn’t the academic test. That would be held elsewhere. This was the physical ability test, where my magic potential would be measured through a series of benchmarks.

I knew for a fact that I would score low. Very low.

Rei had been called in yesterday’s block to do her testing then, so I was alone. Or, at least, I thought I was.

A girl sat down next to me. She had thick glasses that I could tell were not for eye correction, but for spirit sense dampening. Her prescription told me that she had a very acute sense of the spirit world.

Her eyes were deadpan. They looked at me and then looked away almost as quickly.

“Hello,” I said, trying to break down the obvious barrier between us.

“Hello,” said the girl, in a monotone.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Jade,” said the girl, still in a monotone. She wasn’t even looking at me.

“My name is York,” I said.

“Interesting,” said the girl, still looking away. “Your name is not common.”

“Um, yeah,” I said.

“Hello, York,” the girl said, finally looking at me. She stared at me for a good five seconds and then looked away.

“Good luck,” I said.

Jade’s eyes flickered back to me for a moment. “Okay,” she said.

“One twelve,” said the clerk.

Jade stood up, brushing off her pants.

Besides her glasses, Jade had more distinct traits. Her hair was almost pure white. I could tell that it hadn’t been dyed. Her eyes, as well, were piercing grey. She embodied the term “frosty,” which really matched her personality.

She disappeared behind the door to the testing chamber. I waited patiently for my turn at the testing chamber. When my number was called, I stood up and approached the door.

It opened and a man in a suit ushered me in. The room resembled a shooting range, with various lanes filled with specialized equipment.

“Did you bring a casting device?” said the man in the suit.

“Yes,” I said, pulling out my wrist-mounted super-caster. It was a Mulligan unit from thirty years ago, a vintage piece. I could tell from the reaction of the examiner that he recognized it. He did not, however, comment on it, merely selecting something on his tablet. He looked up.

“Please run the maximizer,” he said.

I walked up to the first lane. It contained a box that was magically elastic, and when filled, would expand to a certain size that was relative to the power of the caster’s ether.

I scored a two point five, which was about the worst that you could receive.

The next test was a slab of reactive material that slid across a floor with enhanced friction. This tested how mobile my magic was.

I scored just below average.

The third and last test was a series of moving balloons that would pop on contact with my ether. I scored, again, in the lower percentile. Overall my test results were just as I expected them to be. Terrible.

I sighed, and turned around, nodding at the examiner. I walked out of the room and into the waiting room, grabbing my backpack before I headed out.

Jade was standing at the doorway, staring out into the street. I looked at her.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“A disturbance,” she said, her voice deadpan. “I can feel it.” She did not look at me.

“What do you see?” I said.

Jade took off her glasses. Without them, her eyes were fantastically piercing. “A darkness. The spirits are restless. Something is coming.”

I myself could not see much of the spirit world. Again, I was mostly a theorist. I shielded my eyes from the sun with my hand.

“It doesn’t look like anything’s wrong,” I said.

“I don’t expect you to see it,” said Jade. She looked at me, head tilted. “I may need your help.”

“You know I scored terribly on the benchmark tests, right?” I said.

Jade blinked but otherwise did not react. After a long pause she spoke. “Your aura is shining,” she said. Then she turned around, pointing to a small dark splotch in the sky. “They say that’s a reaper.”

I felt a chill go down my spine. “Reaper?” I said. A reaper was a rare type of spirit that grew from maliciousness and could account for a natural disaster-level disruption. “Why aren’t the onmyouji after it?”

“They do not see it,” said Jade. She started walking. I jogged after her, as she was surprisingly fast.

“Can I help?” I said.

“Don’t,” said Jade, not looking at me. “The reaper is not hostile.”

“But you know what they can do,” I said, still trying to keep up.

“I do not believe it will harm me,” said Jade. “I do not need your help.”

“I’m coming anyways,” I said.

Jade looked at me with a surprised expression, which was the most emotion she had showed me since I had met her. Then the expression was gone. “Very well then,” she said. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I won’t,” I said, as she stopped.

Jade pointed to a spot in front of me. “Reaper,” she said. “Why are you here?”

The reaper’s voice came out of nowhere. “Ah, he is here,” it said. “The man I was looking for.” I saw a finger materialize out of nowhere and point at me. “Regius Alnum.”