Chapter Four

Previously: After Maxwell and Ivan made it back to the garrison, Theurgical Officer Davis offered Maxwell a deal that was probably too good to be true. All Maxwell has to do is participate in the RITD's secret project.

Chapter 4 - The Wards Will Fall

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MAXWELL adjusted the collar of his uniform shirt closer towards his chin and combed his fingers through the short dark curls on the side of his head before tugging his hat into position—crooked to expose the protective tattoo on the shaved side of his head.

His hands were red and tender from the furious scrubbing he’d given them in the sink with the scratchy garrison soap. He’d scrubbed his face too, the theurgical ink running rivulets down his forehead and stubbornly resisting removal until he’d near taken the skin off. It wasn’t a shower, but it was enough to create some distance from the memory of Tam bleeding out in the truck while spirits swarmed the road behind the wards.

The weight of the wardblade at Maxwell’s hip helped to relieve some of the simmering dread lurking in his heart. At least if hyssil breached the walls he’d have something more than an empty rifle to protect himself, not that it would be much.

Maxwell veered off into the older part of the garrison at a jog and hit the bridgeway. The walls transitioned abruptly from painted cement bricks to the smooth concrete material the Balebians had favored, punctuated by large panels of thick glass that caught the light with a strange prismatic tint.

Back when the Balebian Empire had been at the height of power, the building had functioned as a toll station of sorts, squatting above one of the empire’s carved passes that cut straight through the South Peaks. The entire thing was a testament to their staggering capacity for magic. But the empire’s magic and power was dead, lost in the span of a single night. With the Rending came the emergence of the immortal hyssil to plague the survivors of the empire’s heavy shadow.

The pass near the garrison was covered in large-scale theurgical wards, their brass sigils anchored into the rock. Maxwell slowed halfway across the bridgeway when a flash of light flared at the edge of the wards in the pass. His Sight wasn’t active but in the glare of the floodlights hyssil were obvious, their shadowy forms stark.
Another flash and one of the furthest wards went dark, the brass dulling as the theurgy was spent.

They were running out of time. Davis was right. Even with every theurgist working tirelessly throughout the night and warder guards stationed at every entrance, the garrison’s defenses wouldn’t hold against such an onslaught. Whatever device the RITD had squirreled away up in their secretive workshop was probably their only hope.

The door to the workshop was the silvery metal the Balebians favored, the electrical rewired for modern security. Maxwell pressed the buzzer and waited. The door slip open moments later.

Ivan ushered Maxwell into a creaking elevator, eyes rimmed red like he’d been crying.

The unease in Maxwell’s stomach churned again like a venomous rattler. Ivan never looked anything less than confident and Maxwell had never seen him even remotely close to tears. He wanted to reach out, bring Ivan close.

“Are you alright?”

“The main workshop is second floor from the top,” Ivan said, ignoring Maxwell’s question. He sounded like he was talking more for his own benefit. “Above that is a room we’re calling the hangar. We think the Balebians used it to store flying devices.”

Maxwell’s breath caught. Ivan was trying to distract him, but it was working. He knew about Maxwell’s interest in Balebian history. “So windskips are real?”

“There’s one up there,” Ivan admitted. “But it doesn’t work. Every authorized theurgist and seer has tried to get it working without success since—well. You’ll see in a moment. Here we are.”

The elevator came to a shuddering halt. Ivan rattled the elevator door open.

The workshop was a large circular room, ringed with arching doorways that led out to a circular balcony on all sides like a lighthouse. Tall workbenches slabbed with soapstone were reminiscent of the school chemistry labs from Maxwell’s childhood. But in the middle of the room, space had been cleared for an enormous device constructed of concentric circles of laminated paper and an inner spindle of brass.

“This the RITD project?” Maxwell asked.

Ivan nodded. He took a seat at one of the lab stools. “It’s a field generator. In theory it should produce a warding field that hyssil can’t enter. We haven’t tried using it yet though—it’s only a prototype. And it requires a seer to operate it.”

“A seer can’t use theurgy though,” Maxwell said. “What would you need me for?”

Maxwell frowned and moved closer, examining the symbols written on the laminate construct. They weren’t like any of the theurgy sigils he was used to, though his vocabulary was admittedly lacking, learned through snatches of conversations and one off casual mentions Ivan provided.

Ivan twitched like he wanted to stop Maxwell from stepping any closer. Maxwell stopped where he was, unease sitting heavy in his stomach like a heavy rock. Ivan was afraid. Afraid of what Theurgical Officer Davis had said and afraid of the field generator.

“It’s not theurgical,” Ivan said. His words were calm and devoid of his normal charismatic inflection. “It’s a henotic device.”

Maxwell blinked. “That’s Balebian. Dead magic.”

“Not so dead anymore. The RITD has been documenting its return for the last year. I was being promoted to work in the new Henotic Division to study it further.” Ivan tapped his fingernails against the soapstone and jerked his head towards the field generator. “I’ve been working on this as Davis’s assistant for a few months at the RITD’s behest. That’s why he recommended me.”

“So this was your special project.”

Maxwell looked back at the symbols against the laminated paper. Henotic magic had been dead for centuries. And Ivan had been working on this? On magic no one had practiced since the Rending?

He took a seat on the cold tiled floor and summoned his Sight. The customary roar of darkness enveloped him, erasing his concept of time and self. He was adrift, tumbling endlessly in a pitiless sea. And then he was half sprawled on the ground, panting hard. Ivan’s arms circled around his chest, propping him up. Despite their closeness there was a stiffness to how Ivan held himself, like the theurgist was determined to keep from touching Maxwell.

Maybe Ivan was simply ashamed at keeping such an enormous project secret. But the RITD was an organization built on secrets. He couldn’t be mad at Ivan for keeping this one, even when it had such tremendous implications for the field of magic. And civilization. And life as they knew it.

The field generator glowed with a steady golden light, rich and alive. Theurgy paled in comparison to the vibrancy and depth contained in the symbols etched against paper. The longer he looked, the more he felt drawn to what he saw. This was real magic, the magic of an empire.

And Ivan had a hand in its creation.

Maxwell disentangled himself from Ivan and rose. Ivan couldn’t see the delicate veining of magic, the rippling currents hidden in the symbols. Not with the Sight sigil washed away.

He looked down at Ivan and smiled at the wide-eyed expression that Ivan returned him with lips so thinly drawn they’d lost their color.

“This—this is beautiful. How do I start it?”

Ivan didn’t move for a long moment. Finally he pointed towards the interior spindle and the sharp brass needle that pointed towards the room. “You prick your finger,” Ivan said. He covered his mouth with his knuckles. “Your blood will activate the field. It’ll start spinning a henotic field that should be adequate to encompass the garrison.”

A simple pinprick and the garrison would be safe. Davis had promised him a letter of recommendation for the RITD. Maxwell reached out.

“Wait.”

Maxwell looked back at Ivan. His theurgist looked nakedly vulnerable kneeling on the ground, brow furrowed with a heavy emotion Maxwell couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“Aren’t you concerned?” Ivan’s voice was rough.

“I trust you,” Maxwell replied. He turned back to the spindle. The brass was sharp, sharper than he expected. Pain traveled bright and crisp up the back of his hand when he pricked his finger.

He withdrew his hand and a small amount of blood remained, staining the brass. It faded into the metal and a rippling wash of faceted colors spread across the laminated circles. With a slow creak they began to turn over and over on themselves, gathering speed.

“It works,” Maxwell said in delight. He turned back to Ivan. “Hurry and make the Sight sigil. You have to see—”

Ivan’s steady yellow spirit shredded away like burning film. Maxwell’s Sight peeled back, revealing the mundane dullness of the reality underneath. A smell filled his nostrils and lay heavy on his tongue, wet concrete and the acrid stink of summer beetles.

The field generator hummed, then whined loud and low. The draft from the passing of the gyroscopic circles whispered over the back of his neck, now clammy and cool with sweat.

Pain exploded up his arms and across his chest. His vision wavered but he had enough awareness to see Ivan still sitting on the floor, eyes wide and hand clenched around his mouth. Maxwell collapsed to the ground.

His spirit was being ripped from him to feed the machine. He didn’t need his Sight to feel as it was spun away from him in slivers and spools. The tiled floor was cool under his cheek and he focused on that point of contact. His skin burned, his nerves alight with protest.

The field generator was working, humming steadily along. Motes of golden light hung in the air, the specks of magic so potent they were visible even without his Sight active. He’d done as Ivan had said. But it was all wrong. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

Ivan wouldn’t have agreed to this if he’d known what the field generator needed to sustain itself. Something had gone wrong. A flaw in its design. There was only one thing to do.

Maxwell hoisted himself on his elbows despite the tremors running up his arms. He squinted into the gathering glow of energy snarled around the inside of the device and snapped the connection to his spirit.

The field generator emitted a screech and the golden motes of magics blinked out of existence. Golden light exploded out in a quick burst and the lights above flickered twice and went dark. A washboard hum oscillated in the air, growing in intensity and the henotic symbols smoked black. The concentric circles destabilized, their endless turning wavering then dropping to the ground with a crash. The spindle soon followed, arcing towards Maxwell.

He yelped and rolled away from the generator, scrabbling in the darkness towards Ivan.

The miserable taste of twisting magic vanished from his mouth, leaving behind a strange numbness. He ran his tongue over his lips, grimacing at the lack of sensation. His fingernails hurt. His eyes felt strangely too small and too large, and his skin might as well have been a stranger’s. But the worst was the lingering burning infused deep through his chest. The mark of serious spirit damage.

The field generator lay in pieces, the laminate rings still smoking from the symbols. No longer golden and alive, they had curdled to a rotten brown like fallen leaves in stagnant runoff. There would be no getting it working again. The RITD’s prototype was a failure.

Ivan made a noise, somewhere between a moan and a sob. He knelt on the floor, his hand over his mouth and chest heaving with suppressed emotion.

If Davis thought there was no other alternative to keeping the garrison safe, then Maxwell had just doomed them all.

Things aren't looking up for Maxwell or the rest of the Third Company garrison at this point, are they?

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