The Colors of Magic, page 1
The Colors of Magic
By Charles Payseur
Published by JMS Books LLC
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Copyright 2023 Charles Payseur
ISBN 9781685504045
Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com
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Published in the United States of America.
* * * *
The Colors of Magic
By Charles Payseur
“For as long as there has been a Hegemony of Magecraft, there has never been a mage ordained without a Complement.” Ryebert the Gold was in rare form, face shaking as he spoke, as the indignation of his words seemed to shake the very air of the Hegemonic Council.
Jamie winced as he felt stray energy, dry and scratching, fill the air.
“What my Complement means to say,” Norger the Silver said, placing a hand on his partner’s shoulder, drawing Ryebert back before he could accidentally start the tapestries on fire, “is that you’ve been a student for longer than anyone in the history of the Hegemony already, and while your aptitude might earn you preferential treatment from your professors at Daggermount, the Hegemony has seen many with gifts far greater than yours. You would do well to remember that it is a privilege to be ordained, not a right merely because you seem promising.”
Jamie bit his lip, unsure which approach he preferred: the blunt slap of Ryebert’s words or the cold cut of Norger’s. There was a reason they had ruled as heads of the Hegemony for two hundred years, a reason that even the professors at Daggermount, the most prestigious and powerful school of magic, walked softly when their names came up in conversation.
“You might never have known your parents,” Norger said, “but I suspect if you had, you would not be so dismissive of your heritage or your legacy.”
Jamie stopped himself from rolling his eyes, though only just. Of course it was about his parents, and about the prophecy—Jamie was some sort of promised child who would deliver the Hegemony, deliver the world in general, from some grave threat. A prophecy marked by the scar on his hand where his father’s blood had fallen as he died, protecting Jamie from the dark wizard Fagan’s assault. So far, though, it had only made him the target of mages and creatures hoping to prevent whatever future good he might accomplish. If not for his friends, Raven and Diego, he would have died on his very first day at Daggermount, when he was only twelve years old. Now twenty, and far too old by Hegemony standards to still be a student, things had finally escalated to the heads of the Hegemony themselves demanding he shape his life to their vision.
“I guess we’ll never know,” Jamie said, as much an answer as he was willing to give.
Norger nodded, breathed in, and with that breath took in the errant magical energies Ryebert had released. The largest benefit of being in a Complementary partnership was each mage strengthened the other’s magic, honed and focused it. Which was why it was a requirement for ordainment and the reason Jamie had resisted it for so long.
“In a week’s time, you will have found your Complement,” Ryebert said, “or else you, as well as your friends Diego Azúl and Raven Maeford, will be expelled from Daggermount and permanently banned from ordainment.”
Jamie gaped. He had never…he knew the Hegemony was desperate for him to join and end any lingering question of his loyalty, but expulsion? Permanent bans for not just him but Diego and Raven as well? It was tyrannical. It was…exactly what he should have expected. He closed his eyes, his hands clenched in fists, but his body otherwise the picture of calm control.
“And, of course, without the resources of the Hegemony, it is unlikely that Ms. Maeford will be able to access the Green Realms where her father disappeared,” Norger said, once again smoothing out Ryebert’s threats and also driving them home, making them personal. “And Mr. Azúl won’t be able to access the Great Library, which might be his best chance of discovering the cure for that curse of his.”
“Thank you,” Jamie said, surprised his teeth weren’t cracking with how hard he was biting down on his rage. “Your concern for my friends is touching.”
“You will pick one of them,” Ryebert said. He then pulled out a small bottle from his golden robe. “And if you can’t, drink this and it will pick for you.”
“Pick for me?” Jamie asked. Of course they expected him to pick, to betray them and himself. And yet, there seemed no way to avoid betraying them now, now that their connection to him would cost them everything. “I thought that it was supposed to be something…personal. Something that reflected our souls, our very beings.”
“And so this potion provides,” Ryebert said. “It is part of the secret knowledge of the Hegemony. Something extremely powerful. But, as you’ve proven incapable of making a damned decision for yourself, this will show the truth of it.” And with that, the gold-robed man threw the bottle in Jamie’s direction.
For a brief moment Jamie wanted to let it shatter, to just walk out of the room and to hell with the Hegemony and these snakes pretending to be mages. But Jamie caught the bottle, glared at it in his hand.
“One week,” Ryebert said, then turned to leave the room.
“Choose well,” Norger added before following, leaving Jamie alone with his decisions.
* * * *
The dormitories of Daggermount were among the most secure places in all of magedom, almost as well guarded as Hellgate Prison. Or almost as well guarded as Hellgate Prison had been before its destruction at the hands of Fagan, once Jamie’s teacher and now the most wanted mage on the planet, who had taken his crusade to spread the light of magic directly into the darkest of magical arts. Finding out his teacher was actually the mage responsible for his parents’ murders had been…unpleasant to say the least, and three times already Jamie and his friends had nearly died stopping Fagan from destroying everything the Hegemony was supposed to stand for. Walking the halls to his room, the Grand Mages’ words ringing in his head, Jamie wondered if it had been worth it.
“Hearts’ home,” Jamie said as he came to a very familiar empty stretch of wall, and the stone rearranged itself, made itself into a door for him, and closed just as smoothly after he had stepped into the room beyond.
Immediately his nose was assaulted by the smell of burning food, and he smiled to see a small tendril of black smoke snaking its way from the kitchen area a short distance away. Senior students were allowed rooms like this, and Jamie, given how many times he had saved the school, had perhaps more luxuries than most, though Professor Braxis was still always trying to make his life a nightmare of homework and chores. One such luxury was he got to share his rooms with his two closest friends, though it did not include a personal chef, as much as Raven’s cooking often made him hope.
“I followed the directions to the letter,” came an angry voice from the kitchen.
Jamie walked toward the voice, toward the burning smell.
“You did not,” came another voice, obviously trying to suppress an I-told-you-so. “You were supposed to cook them at three hundred fifty degrees for fifteen minutes.”
“We didn’t have fifteen minutes.” The first voice again, Raven’s voice. “So five minutes at a thousand fifty degrees should have been fine.”
“Baking is more than math.” The second voice was Diego’s, obviously offended, as he always was when Raven bullied her way into his kitchen. “And I don’t even know how you got the oven up that high. Doesn’t it top out at five hundred?”
A silent pause and Jamie moved to the kitchen doorway, peered in to see Diego, light brown skin slightly flushed in the heat of the room, giving Raven a stern look, her jet black hair covering her face the way it did when she was trying to hide something.
“I may have…altered it a little,” she said.
Diego looked about ready to growl. Normally he was fairly unflappable, but mess with his oven and he became a different creature. Jamie stepped fully in before the two could enter into a full-blown fight.
“I’m back,” he said.
Raven whipped about and Diego looked up from whatever he had been about to say, smiles spreading on both their faces. Raven was the first to him, wrapping him in a hug and kissing him forcefully on the mouth. Jamie surrendered to it, letting her lead, her tongue slipping into his mouth, wrestling his. A moment later she broke off, forcing a gasp from his mouth as she made way for Diego, who sighed at the display and leaned forward, kissing Jamie lightly on the cheek.
“Welcome back,” Diego said.
“What
Diego sighed and took her by the shoulder, turned her back to the oven. “Let him have a moment.” He pointed at the oven. “I expect that to be fixed by the time we get back.”
“But the cookies…”
Jamie smiled, remembering she had tried to make him cookies their second year of finals as well, and how it had nearly burned the entire dormitory down.
Diego gave her a stern look. “There’s a batch I made yesterday in the breadbox.”
Jamie couldn’t help but laugh, knowing it was exactly something Diego would do. After so long, they knew each other too well to be surprised, were too fond of each other to stay mad for long, though Raven made a good show of glaring at Diego’s superior smile.
“Fine,” she said, probably as much because she loved Diego’s cookies as because she had no real other options now that her attempt was a mass of cinders. “But don’t you go starting anything without me.”
“Just make sure the spells are all reset how I had them,” Diego said, taking Jamie’s hand and leading him out of the kitchen.
“Sorry about that,” Diego said.
Jamie knew that if it was something Raven wanted, there was little anyone could have done.
“She did manage to almost pull it off this time.”
They shared a smile as they made their way to the bathroom.
“Just being back feels amazing,” Jamie said, not surprised how true it felt, how much just being in the presence of his friends made the stress of his meeting with the heads of the Hegemony melt away. At least, most of it.
The weight of the bottle in his pocket still seemed to be dragging at him, but he pushed it from his mind as they reached the bathroom and Diego began tugging at his clothing. First his shoes were removed, then his socks and shirt, Diego single-minded and silent as he moved, placing each article of clothing carefully near the door to be collected later for laundry.
With a flick of Diego’s wrist, fingers of magic found the fly of Jamie’s pants, quickly had it undone and the pants slipped down his body along with his underpants, leaving Jamie completely naked. Diego smiled and then, with a subtle motion of his hand, directed his magic to his own clothes, which were soon in a matching pile near the door.
“Now, you need to wash up and relax,” Diego said, and pushed Jamie toward the shower, though Jamie could see by his friend’s half-hard length he had other things on his mind as well.
Jamie didn’t argue, instead let himself reach out with his will, magic igniting the flames that would heat the water even as Diego tethered a spell to tap it from the Blue Plane directly, of which water was the guiding symbol. Diego always had seemed fairly Blue, fluid and even and fathoms deep. He paired well with Raven, who was obviously more Orange, technical and fiery and a genius at making things work. Together the two could have easily Complemented, been ordained, and left Daggermount behind, or even come back as teachers. But Jamie…He sighed, not sure there was a color for him, let alone a Complement.
“You’re distracted,” Diego said. Soap floated to his open hand, which he lathered and started using on Jamie’s chest. Hands sure, strong, and confident rubbed the soap into Jamie’s muscles, trailed over nipples that couldn’t help but harden at the contact. Jamie hissed softly as he felt himself begin to react to Diego’s touch. “They want me to choose.” Jamie knew it was pointless to hide it. They had all known what the meeting would be about. Still, Diego’s hands paused a moment as Jamie spoke, tensed just a moment before relaxing again and continuing the task they had started, moving around to his back. Not for the first time, Jamie was glad the shower was as large as they needed it to be, as large as their magic could shape it.
“Then we should wait until we’re all together to talk about it,” Diego said.
Jamie almost laughed. Of course he wouldn’t try to influence Jamie’s decision, as much as they both knew what they meant to each other. Their regard for Raven, though, was no less than their feelings for each other, and to try and sneak around would insult them all. For years they had avoided this moment of choice, aware some day they would be made to pick and one would be left out, always hoping, somehow, they’d find a way around it like they had found a way out of hundreds of life-or-death situations.
Diego’s hands worked soap across his shoulders and down his back, sliding across the skin of his ass, and Jamie couldn’t help but whimper at that, the touch so light, almost hesitant. He wished he could just lose himself in the feel of Diego’s body, his mouth, his cock.
“We should also wait until we’re all together to deal with this,” Diego said, sliding a hand around to give his erection a gentle squeeze.
Jamie groaned, though again he knew Diego was right.
They bathed in silence, taking turns washing each other, Jamie making sure to take his time with Diego as revenge for getting them both hot and bothered. By the end he was biting his lip, wondering if Raven would be really that upset if they had just a little…
“Okay, you two, time’s up,” came Raven’s voice from outside, in the bathroom.
Jamie wondered if she had been reading his thoughts, despite that being a rather forbidden spell. It wasn’t like Raven was the most respectful of authority or convention, after all. Whatever the case, Diego lingered long enough to kiss Jamie on the lips this time, soft and quick, before releasing the spell for the water and stepping out to where Raven was standing with towels.
“The oven is back to exactly the way it was before?” Diego asked.
Raven rolled her eyes. “Without any of dozens of improvements I could have given it, yes,” she said, handing him a towel.
Diego leaned in to give her a kiss as well. Jamie followed, took the towel she offered, and then sighed as she pulled out a bottle from her pocket. The same bottle Ryebert had given him, though he could see his clothes were still piled by the door.
“Care to explain this?” she asked.
Jamie took a deep breath, trying to figure out where to begin.
* * * *
Diego made tea, and Raven spiked their cups with bourbon, which seemed necessary given the conversation, and they all nibbled at the cookies Diego made. Mugs floated from the squat table in the center of the room to hands and back again as Jamie did his best to explain what had happened, what was expected of them, and what the consequences would be if they failed to meet those expectations.
“Those fucks!” Raven said, and her mug slammed hard enough onto the table that Diego and Jamie both winced. “After everything we’ve done for them, after we prevented those old bastards from being assassinated by Fagan and drowned when Atlantis rose, still they’re insisting that we choose, like our choice isn’t clear?”
“They’re frightened,” Diego said.
He leaned back, looking more sad than angry, though now and again Jamie could see flashes of pain and rage, most often when he glanced at the potion. It sat on the table between them like a hole into a dark dimension none of them could stand to look at for long.
“The truth is that we’d be stronger Complemented.” He sighed. “At least, two of us would be.”
“It hasn’t stopped us from saving the day time and again,” Raven said, hair rising with errant magical energy, which was making the room around them hot.
If they had been Complemented, Jamie might have harnessed that energy, used it without it doing any damage, channeled it into something useful.
“But Fagan might take a Complement at any time,” Diego said, “and despite all that we’ve done, whatever it is that Jamie’s supposed to do to save the world hasn’t seemed to happen yet. At least, the scar on his hand is still there.”
Jamie moved to hide his hand but then stopped. It didn’t matter if they saw; after all, they all knew it was there, as much between them as the damned potion. He wanted to pick it up and throw it.
“Whatever it is, we can handle it,” Raven said, “and if the Hegemony doesn’t like it, they can fuck themselves. With giant studded dildos. Up their urethrae.”
Jamie and Diego winced again.
Raven reached forward and snatched the potion from the table. “I don’t trust them. Whatever this is, there’s something off about it.”
