Revelation (Seeds of Humanity: The Cobalt Heresy) (43 page)

Grade Six prospects were considered too closely entwined with the forces of magic, and would therefore have too great a difficulty in mastering the fusion of logic and intuition needed to harness the forces which had built the Empire over the last, supposed, six thousand years.

Of course, that wasn’t usually a problem the Empire had to deal with since all known Grade Sixes destroyed themselves at a young age by accidentally triggering their natural gifts. Being unable to control the forces they found themselves interacting with, most of these prospects failed to make it past their tenth or twelfth year, seeing as magical ability can begin to spontaneously manifest around the onset of puberty.

The young woman, Yrden, was dismissed by the Librarian when he had completed his entry in the ledger. The wizard, Ryben, who had apparently discovered her in some far-off land, escorted her from the room. I heard him tell her that he was very proud of how well she had conducted herself. I had to agree with him; it was pretty impressive that she hadn’t left the chair soaked with urine as far as I was concerned. All those eyes pressing down on a person could have a suffocating effect.

The scene repeated itself thirty five more times, with all of the hopefuls being between the ages of fifteen and seventeen. The highlights of the first thirty six hopefuls included a pair of Grade Fives (which, apparently, is what Jezran had ranked during his own pre-College assessment) and a half dozen Grade Fours, which judging from the increasingly loud murmuring throughout the hall was quite a haul.

The College would compensate House Listoh very well for its efforts in recruiting these young hopefuls, some of whom had been wards of The Guild for a decade after being discovered as small children. But most of them, like young Yrden, were more recent additions, probably having lived within the Imperial City for less than a year.

The thirty seventh prospective wizard was something of a surprise, however.

The young man representing the last of the ‘scouted’ prospects of House Listoh’s yearly batch sat down in the chair opposite the Librarian and Arch Magos Zhivel. He was a confident-looking young man, with black hair and angular, Asian features. Judging by his demeanor, he had probably been a ward of The Guild for a few years already.

“Name?” asked the Librarian, who despite spending the last two hours recording findings in his ledger hadn’t lost the official tone to his voice.

“Klauteus,” replied the young man. His features looked almost Asian to me, but it was hard to tell in the dark.

“Klauteus,” the Librarian repeated, as he had thirty six times before, “and the Magos of record having discovered the hopeful?” he asked, looking up at the woman, who was none other than Tamara, the woman I had conducted my negotiations with.

“Tamara von Azure, of House Listoh,” she replied stiffly.

The Librarian made a note of it, and afterwards he looked to Arch Magos Zhivel, who nodded her approval to continue.

The Librarian closed his eyes as he had done three dozen times already, and the orb flashed with a bright red light. Once, twice, three times…a pause, then a fourth flash which lingered for a few seconds before slowly dying down.

The Librarian looked to the Arch Magos, whose stoic features gave away none of her emotions. But Tamara was clearly concerned, as her fists clenched tightly from her position next to the chair.

“Again?” prompted the Librarian in his same monotonous, bureaucratic tone. It was only the third time he had asked to repeat the Reading; the first two times had been to verify the aura’s hue, which Zhivel and Mikan had disagreed on after the first Reading but later reached consensus after a review.

Arch Magos Zhivel nodded her assent, and the Librarian closed his eyes to repeat the spell. The orb once again flashed, but this time it was a yellowish color that flashed once, twice…a pause, then a third flash which actually looked more orange than yellow.

Young Klauteus looked up in confusion. “What does it mean?” he asked, a bit of panic creeping into his previous confident voice.

The Arch Magos spoke without moving an inch. “Magos Tamara,” she said imperiously.

“My Master,” replied the short, now slightly pale woman.

“Please confirm that this young man has this night completed his rituals of preparation,” instructed the Grand Master of The Guild.

“I do hereby confirm, Arch Magos,” Tamara replied, clearly working hard to keep panic from her voice and doing a reasonable job of it, “and by the witness of four learned Guild Magos,” she added. Four distinct calls of ‘aye’ immediately came from the crowd.

Arch Magos Zhivel nodded. “Very well,” she said, rising to her feet in a fluid, almost inhumanly lithe motion. “Klauteus, you are found you to be in violation of our most sacred Doctrine and are hereby required to submit yourself to Imperial mercy, that the cancer within you may be excised before it infects the purity of our Empire. Do you submit yourself to our merciful judgment in this matter?”

Klauteus looked positively white, and a gasp echoed throughout the chamber as the majority of the nearby crowd took an instinctive step back. Only Pryzius and I remained with our feet firmly planted, and I couldn’t help but make eye contact with him for an instant before returning my attention to the scene unfolding before us.

“Wha—wha—what does that mean, Matron?” stammered the young man, clearly having not expected this particular turn of events.

The Librarian stood from his chair. “According to our most hallowed doctrine,” he interrupted just as Zhivel was about to speak, “the entity you carry must be excised from your person completely and irrevocably, as even a fragment of such an entity would return given enough time and…nourishment.”

The Arch Magos was probably unhappy about being preempted by the Librarian, but she nodded affirmatively and her expression was utterly unreadable. “That is correct,” she assented evenly.

This whole thing had taken a turn for the macabre, and I was actually feeling for the poor guy sitting in the chair.

“W—will it hurt?” asked Klauteus, tears forming in his eyes.

Arch Magos Zhivel moved toward the young ‘hopeful’ and locked her eyes with his. “Pain is the fire, which together with the hammer of perseverance forges us, young Klauteus,” she said, gently caressing his cheek with her hand. “We must suffer such trials if we hope to master the forces around us…that we might better serve the Empire.”

The young man actually seemed calmed by the Arch Magos’ words, when I am quite sure they would have produced the exact opposite reaction from me. But something changed in his eyes, and almost too quickly to see he lashed out with his hand at the Arch Magos.

Somehow, in the fraction of a second between when his hand had rested on the arm of the chair and the moment before it would have impacted in the Arch Magos’ chest directly over her heart, three things happened.

First, his arm transformed into a huge, misshapen, bestial semblance of a human arm with three fingers instead of four and each of ended in sharp, red talons several inches long.

The second thing that happened was Klauteus’ face seemed to contort impossibly into a demonic visage, complete with black eyes containing triangular red irises that seemed to burn with a malevolent light.

But the third thing to happen was Tamara cast a spell of some kind which surrounded Klauteus (or whatever he was now) in a field of shimmering, lime-green light which froze him in place, with his talons mere inches from Arch Magos Zhivel.

The Grand Master of House Listoh, having stood unflinching before the twisted creature, considered young Klauteus’ hideously malformed figure before snapping her fingers, prompting a handful of wizards wearing House Listoh robes to move swiftly to the front of the crowd.

Magos Tamara was visibly drained from the effort of maintaining the spell, but her Master waited for several seconds before speaking. “Bring his collar,” she ordered, and almost immediately a young Apprentice—in fact, it was Gilai’el—came forward bearing a metal collar of some kind. The collar appeared identical to the emblem on the robes of House Listoh’s High Wizards, but this one was covered in glyphs while the image emblazoned on their robes was plain.

The Arch Magos turned to the Librarian. “With your permission, of course,” she said, almost as if it was an afterthought.

The Librarian nodded courteously. “The Archives depends on The Guild to carry out its duty in this matter,” he replied officially.

The Arch Magos held the Librarian’s gaze for a few pointed seconds before returning her attention to the scene before us. “Collar him,” she ordered, and the wizards who had stepped forward took up positions around the mutated body of the young man.

After a few seconds, each of the wizards surrounding the young man extended tendrils of energy from their hands in some kind of group spell which I had never even heard of. After all of the tendrils had connected with the shimmering green field surrounding poor Klauteus, Tamara gasped as she released her hold on the spell.

The force field held firm, as apparently the other wizards were now sustaining it with their combined energies. After taking only a few quick, quiet breaths, Magos Tamara stepped over to the Apprentice holding the collar Zhivel had ordered her to present. Only then did I realize that it was Gilai’el, the petite girl who had been playing hostess to Pryzius, who held the collar.

Tamara slowly took it from the pillow on which it rested and turned to Klauteus. She took only three steps to reach him, and when she was standing close enough to place it around his neck, she hesitated.

The Arch Magos raised her voice slightly when she next spoke, “You must collar him, Magos Tamara,” she insisted icily. “It is his only chance, and every second you delay reduces that chance.”

Magos Tamara nodded stiffly, but I could see tears streaming down her face. She opened the collar and placed it around his neck, where it closed automatically and looked to have been made specifically for his neck as it fit perfectly. The raven-haired Gilai’el visibly winced when the collar snapped shut, causing Zhivel to cast a short, reprimanding look in her direction.

The Arch Magos then approached and appraised the collar, probably looking for any potential flaws in its design or application, but she appeared satisfied and waved her hand toward the wizards surrounding the former ‘hopeful.’

They released their connection to the field, and Klauteus’ mutated body collapsed to a heap in front of the chair, knocking the orb from its pedestal in the process but the Librarian somehow caught the polished device before it landed on the floor.

“Prepare the subject for Extraction,” Arch Magos Zhivel ordered imperiously, and the wizards which had previously bound the creature with their magics, including Magos Tamara and Apprentice Gilai’el, grabbed the boy’s hideously mutated body and carried him out of the Main Hall. A few of the younger members of the crowd looked like they wanted to follow, but the Listoh guards discouraged them with little more than a stern look.

“I will attend as soon as the Reading is completed,” the Grand Master of House Listoh said pointedly to the Librarian, who was just finishing his latest entry in the ledger.

The Librarian nodded. “Of course, Arch Magos,” he replied, “I believe that concludes the Reading of House Listoh’s discovered talents, which leaves the six younger applicants.”

“They are House Listoh’s children, Librarian,” corrected Arch Magos Zhivel with an unequivocal edge to her voice, “not ‘applicants’.”

The Librarian bowed in a deep, apologetic gesture that I couldn’t help but think was less-than-genuine. “Of course, Arch Magos,” he said in a practiced, humble tone.

The Arch Magos returned to her seat after a lengthy stare at Mikan, and the Librarian replaced the orb on the pedestal and positioned it to both his and Zhivel’s satisfaction before returning to his own seat.

The Grand Master of House Listoh, whose demeanor was normally as cold and unreadable as a stone wall, actually seemed to beam with pride as she smiled in preparation for her next decree. “Bring forth our children,” she said, looking for all the world like a mother about to introduce her favorite child.

A handful of women appeared, each with a child much younger than the applicants who had just had their Readings completed. Marizzi was among them, and she carried in her arms a young boy no older than two years.

“The Reading is normally impossible before adolescence,” explained the Matron of House Listoh from her chair, “however, with a child born and raised within the confines of the Imperial City, such determination can be made at a much younger age.”

Librarian Mikan nodded affirmatively. “Indeed,” he agreed, “the Imperial Archives were previously unaware of the distinction between discovered talents and true children of Veldyrian, and we have House Listoh’s perseverance and dedication to thank for this latest discovery.”

I knew there was a subtext of some kind to their exchange just now, but I wasn’t able to put my finger on it. The Librarian flipped to a different page in his ledger and began to write in long, practiced motions. After a few seconds, he looked up from the book and motioned for Arch Magos Zhivel to continue at her leisure.

Zhivel nodded graciously before motioning for an unfamiliar woman holding the hand of a girl probably around six years old to step forward, and she obliged. The little girl was clearly her daughter, as the familial resemblance was striking.

“What is the name of the applica—“ began the Librarian before sheepishly looking toward Arch Magos Zhivel apologetically, “rather, the child?” he asked, his normally official tone somewhat broken compared to its previous, consistent timbre.

“Adenia, daughter of Apprentice Hestis von Auris of House Listoh, and Journeyman Charl ‘Magenta’ of House Hedrean,” replied the mother.

“Please present the patents of birth, in addition to the acknowledgment of both mother and father claiming the child as their rightful offspring,” instructed the Librarian.

A servant standing beside the mother and child stepped forward with a trio of scrolls, and after a moment’s appraisal, Librarian Mikan nodded satisfactorily as he made a note in his ledger. “Shall we proceed?” he asked of the Listoh Matron seated beside him.