Mage Journeyman: Ordained Magic: Book Two, page 6
Carmen asked, “Will he or she be a little mage?”
I shrugged, “We don’t really understand it. Inheritance of magic might take a few generations to figure out. Some mages have magicless parents on both sides, some magicless have two mage parents, and in some families one mage parent has both mage and magicless children. The data is far from clear and it’s impossible to draw conclusions or predict.”
Even as a doctor I wasn’t entirely convinced it was about biology or dominant and recessive traits in DNA. I suspected there was a mystical component, and since none of us were allowed to even mention the trinity of gods behind magic we’d never be able to explain it, even if the mages did figure it out one day.
Carmen replied, “That’s all we have time for today,” then she signed off with her name and station ID, and the producer called clear.
Carmen smiled, “Can I ask something off the record?”
I nodded, “Sure, but I don’t promise to answer. Not until I hear the question.”
Carmen grinned, “Do you know if it’s a boy or girl?”
I laughed, “Not yet.”
Time passed and things went relatively to plan over the next few months. I was waiting for another shoe to drop, and I was alert for any problems, but over that time nothing bad happened. There were problems and things to do, but nothing not easily overcome with a modicum of effort.
I focused on enchantment and mastering my magic, teaching, healing, and of course family, but I’ll only touch on a couple of things that happened in that period before moving on with this account.
Not only did the Texas legislature adopt the laws, but other states started to follow along with the idea. Mage societies were requested to help enforce those laws subtly, it seemed that for the moment everyone was playing nice and walking on eggshells as far as that went. I was always pleasantly surprised when my pessimism went unrewarded.
Mage societies also followed suit with our customs and traditions, at least the start of them. Almost all societies in the cities passed a mage holiday to commemorate the day when magic came into the world, and it was a hell of a party. The idea for master mages in the societies to take on apprentices, those mages that were law abiding and didn’t abuse their power, but also didn’t want to serve the community were worth teaching, if only to learn to protect themselves better while we made them better mage citizens with our ideas, forging a new subculture.
It was also worth noting that Andrew Grossman was convicted and sent to jail for twenty years. It was a first for the world, the first mage to ever to be brought through the justice system, and the coverage in the media was intense and exhaustive.
My sister who I was very proud of, during her summer break between junior and senior years of high school, opened that magical orbital launch by magic business. The little brat, I mean my favorite sister, was richer than I was in the first week of operation.
Lastly, on a happy note, my son Liam was born. Seven pounds and five ounces. It was a home birth, at my mother’s house and she acted as the midwife, with magic. I wouldn’t dare say it was easy, but there were no dangerous complications with magic at our beck and call.
The event did answer one of our questions. Mages were detectable from birth, which meant my younger brother definitely wasn’t a mage, and would never be one. My son was one however, which meant we would know from birth.
Chapter Six
That Monday evening in July was warm with clear skies. Carlos and I were enjoying a light meal in the backyard while relaxing. The sun was just starting to set, which would normally be romantic but I felt a little too ragged in the moment to really feel that.
I’d just put Liam down for a nap, and I had to wonder how my mother had handled the two-hour feeding schedule without magic. The wards would assure I knew if he was hungry or needed to be changed, or even just crying. Not to mention the refresh spell which would keep me from becoming a zombie.
It was both magical and exhausting being a parent in the first couple of months.
Carlos said, “I think it’s time to find that family vehicle you wanted.”
I smirked playfully, “Do you really think I still want three more?”
Carlos snorted, “Yes.”
I smiled, “Turns out you know me pretty well. I’m still thinking a large SUV.”
That’s about as far as we got in the conversation when one of my wards went off. I’d intimated earlier the enchantment in Andrew Grossman was not just to suppress his magic. In a perfect world, nothing would go wrong. He was in jail, his magic suppressed, and he’d serve his time and pay his debt to society for his crimes. When he was released, his magic would be as well.
Our world wasn’t perfect however, and that went triple for the government. I’d been a little worried about putting a helpless mage in a human system that would have him at their mercy. No matter what he’d been guilty of he didn’t deserve being experimented on by some black op group out of one of the government’s three letter agencies looking for mage weaknesses. I’d also applied a healing enchantment, a protection spell, and a whole laundry list of wards that would notify me or activate those spells under certain circumstances.
That Monday night, my pessimism was finally rewarded. The wards informed me he’d been cut open with a surgical scalpel on his upper leg, and he’d been healed and was now under a protection spell. Which told me their intention was to remove the enchantment.
Which both made sense and made no sense at the same time. I mean, the government would love to figure out a way to suppress our magic and regain control, which seemed like the logical goal of such an action, but knowing the spell glyph was worthless for anyone but a mage. Just scribblings until magic power was applied with intent.
That thought led to the idea they must have a mage under their control, or maybe they just planned to put Andrew under their control. Insert a micro-explosive, or some other form of control. It was just my first guesses at such an act, I’d have to figure it out and make sure. If only because Andrew might not be the only victim in this.
I stood up, “I need to go, finish this conversation later?”
Carlos nodded, “Be careful.”
I cast an air elemental and an invisibility spell, both with hidden magic, then mentally ordered the elemental to take me to Andrew. The enchantments were linked to me, so the air elemental would have no trouble heading straight to it. I closed my eyes, and I did my best to ignore the sensation of rapid movement.
Sure, they’d probably have a good guess who was behind it given the enchantment was made by me and everyone knew that, but I didn’t want to leave proof behind, since I suspected I was about to invade a secure government building.
When the movement stopped, I opened my eyes to take in a surgical room. There were two doctors, two nurses, and a man in a suit with a surgical mask holding a gun, obviously a government agent though I couldn’t say from what agency yet.
A quick earth spell combined with hidden magic turned his gun into a paperweight. I was protected of course, but I was worried about ricochets, the medical personnel weren’t protected.
Andrew was completely covered by sterile green cloth, save his upper leg.
The agent looked a little panicked, and he waved the doctors away from the table as he brought up his gun. Which told me he had another mage, and he planned to unload his gun to get his hands on the enchantment by any means necessary, even Andrew’s death. I doubted unloading the thing could break the protection spell, but he probably didn’t know that.
I cast a sleep spell and he fell like a stone, the weapon clattering a few feet away on the pristine white tile floor. I wasn’t sure where we were exactly, I just knew we weren’t far from the San Antonio area given how long it’d taken to arrive I was guessing it was within a hundred miles of my house.
I tasked my air elemental to return Andrew to his cell in the penitentiary and to charge the enchantments, and he disappeared off the table. He’d be fine.
There were two cameras on the ceiling in the corners from the door, and I had to assume the place was wired for sound as well. I cast two more spells both disguising my voice to be male and to lock the door.
I asked coldly, “What is going on here, exactly.”
The two nurses jumped and squeaked in fear, and the men looked nervous as well as all their eyes darted around the room jerkily, looking for the invisible speaker. While I waited for them to come to terms with the situation, I searched the downed agent. Special Agent William Caldwell according to his NSA badge, but the license in his wallet said Samuel Cross, and he lived in Corpus Christie.
“Anyone?”
One of the surgeons said angrily, “Who the hell do you think you are, this is a secure…”
He collapsed to the ground with a sleep spell, but I laughed darkly as I cast an illusion of his eyes open and empty, “Anyone else want to die today? Answer the question.”
One of the nurses fainted, but the other one started to babble in a fast panicked voice.
“We’re just ordered to remove the surgical pin, we don’t know what they plan to do with it. Need to know, you know, the NSA doesn’t explain themselves.”
I interrupted, “Where are we?”
It’d be a lot easier if I could use the illegal spells and just read minds, not that I wasn’t breaking a whole laundry list of laws at the moment, I just didn’t want to violate mage laws while doing it. I was also trying to be as subtle as possible, the last thing I wanted was to take down the magicless government or start a war. On the good side, this was clearly an illegal black-ops mission, they wouldn’t be advertising this happened at all. No more than I would be.
The air elemental came back, it’s mission complete, so I sent it out to scout the local area as well as the address of the agent, looking for both location and the second mage I believed they had to have. I ignored the person answering my question as my elemental let me know we were at an air force base hospital in a military secured wing. There were also a lot of men with rifles out there.
There was no sign of a second mage on the base anywhere. Which is what I would’ve expected, a mage drugged up or under some form of control and locked up. It was the most likely scenario, but the theory was wrong.
The house on the other hand, did have a mage in it. A nine-year-old mage locked in his basement. I took a deep breath to calm down, as my heart really started to race and my blood boiled, as I glared down at the sleeping agent. I wasn’t sure what his plan was, but it was fairly clear he intended to use his own son to carry it out.
Obviously, he’d be forced to enchant magical suppression glyphs all day long, though I couldn’t say to what end or intent it would be put to.
I could even speculate. When magic was revealed a year ago, the NSA agent who was probably corrupt and narrowminded, believed mages were a national security nightmare and needed to be stopped at any cost, and then found out his young boy was one of them. I cut off that train of thought before I worked myself up too much.
At my mental urging, the air elemental took us both there. The people left behind could worry a little more, they’d figure out I was gone eventually, and the spells would wear off soon enough.
A couple of more spells told me the house was monitored by a lot of electronics, and there were two more NSA agents down the block in a van. It was more involved than just one person, his bosses were in the know on it, but I doubted the director and president were aware. They were too scared to make a move like this, against mages.
I honestly wasn’t sure what to do at that point, so I thought through what I really wanted.
I wanted to rescue the abused boy who had no doubt been taught he was evil. I wanted to make sure he was brought up right to be a mage with principles, and not turn into a monster or think he was one.
I didn’t want this to go public, or there’d be a major backlash on the mage side. The societies across America that bought in to the idea of putting our criminals through the justice system just might pull out, and I wasn’t sure I could blame them for it. But one incident didn’t mean the idea was bad, we just needed to keep a close eye on it and protect our criminals in the system.
There’d also be no way to keep my involvement subtle and invisible if I tried to take them all to justice. I’d have to reveal myself. Really, it was a good example why I wanted to have nothing to do with the government. I just wanted to heal, teach, master my magic, and raise a family.
On the good side, the agents and people involved would be eager to keep this all covert as well. I just wasn’t sure it was possible to get the young boy into a better situation and keep it all under the rug at the same time. That would be kidnapping, after all. I wasn’t sure I cared, but it would leave a trail.
I cast the commune spell, and I filled in Brett on everything that had happened and my thoughts.
It wasn’t very long, when he appeared in the house with his own air elemental, the two agents from the van as well, who were sleeping.
Brett said, “We can speak freely, I turned off the recording devices in the van.”
I cancelled the voice and invisibility spell.
“Good to know. Any ideas?”
Brett said, “I admire your moral center. When it comes to law enforcement of mages and our daily interactions with the public, we need to obey our mage laws and be an example to our mage society and the larger mage community. Just because we’re leaders in the society doesn’t mean we get to break the rules, which would be hypocritical and a clear abuse of power. But in this case it’s about a cold war between mages and the dark and dirty corners of the U.S. government that do what they want when they want without oversight.”
I made a face, “We need to read their minds, or force them to talk?”
Brett sighed, “I know. It doesn’t feel right to me either, but these guys play in the shallow end of the sewer, we can’t counter them unless we’re willing to bend the rules too. Unless you want to take the kid, leave them asleep, and set the house on fire?”
I blinked, “No. They wouldn’t hesitate to kill us if they could, but self-defense against a magicless doesn’t really work as an excuse for a mage.”
Self-defense depended on the victim feeling they were at risk of death, and the truth was no magicless could threaten a mage with magical protection. Killing just wasn’t an option, short of open war, which I would avoid if at all possible. The only valid self-defense for a mage was against another mage.
Brett grinned, “I won’t do that either, just making the point. Either we remove them, or we play on their level. The second is the lesser of two evils.”
“So, what are you suggesting?”
Brett said, “First, we need to find out what they were planning and how many people are involved and supporting it. Then we can decide the best way to handle it. Force them to retire and give up on pursuing such things is one possibility. We’ll also force the agent you caught to sign away his rights as a father, never seek contact of any kind, never speak of it, and find the kid a new home.”
I nodded reluctantly.
Brett said, “I can handle it, if you want to go?”
I sighed, “No. It sounds good to me, but I need to face it, not bury my head in the sand.”
It was an attractive idea to just let Brett handle it, but it’d be hypocritical to think I could wash my hands clean of it by leaving at this point. I needed to follow through on it. I also kind of hated the government even more, forcing me to play in their sandbox, ruthlessly.
“Any ideas on who might take in the boy?”
Brett said, “Jessica can help us there, we’ll take him to her.”
I tilted my head, then nodded.
We woke up the agent and got started. It felt ruthless, and wrong, but it was them that pulled us down into the mud. In the end there were nine agents and a military colonel involved in the covert operation, no one at a really high level knew what they were up to.
Their plan was twofold. They planned to use the glyph enchantment to make magic dead zones around sensitive areas and for protection. The second part was to use it offensively to take a mage’s magic and gain control of more mages.
Honestly, their plan was a bit pie in the sky, born of desperation and paranoia, and it never would’ve worked. At best, it would’ve hastened the end of the U.S. government. They’d have taken down a few mages, but there were too many of us. The ten involved all resigned the following day and from then on would avoid anything to do with mages, and we got that boy out of a bad situation. Hopefully this kind of thing wouldn’t come up often, but it did tell me I’d been wise to take precautions.
Chapter Seven
It was a warm sunny day outside of headquarters south of the city on a Saturday. The third class where we learned spell combinations casting two spells at a time had grown from three to just over twenty the last year. For a long time spell combinations, one spell enhancing another to make it half again as powerful, had been the focus in that class.
I was still exploring enchantment, it’d only been a few weeks since that discovery, but I’d also made another breakthrough in mastering our magic this past week. It was mostly unexplored even by me, but I was going to teach the concept anyway that day, and I was pretty excited about it.
“Good morning. We’ve done a lot with combination spells. The second spell acting on and enhancing the first. Such as an earth spell cast on a protection spell, enabling us to make our protections stronger by half and also enabling flight. It’s possible to drop the earth spell and still have the protection spell going.
“What I’d like to talk about today is combining spells in a different way. Instead of one spell enhancing another, the two spells combined become a single spell instead of one enhancing the other. A spell with two or more glyphs, but only a single concept and intent. I’ve dubbed them compound spells.”
I grinned, lifted a hand above my head, then cast a new spell with both an air and earth glyph. A bright scintillating flash of lightning left my palm and slammed into one of the few clouds in the sky, only to be answered by rumbling thunder a moment later.
