I look around my bedroom suite at home. The rooms are lavender draped in black which is the main theme of the space, Barbie Gothic. Red and black candles in ornate candle holders sit on dark, heavy Edwardian furniture. The space looks absolutely nothing like my light, airy apartment. Seeing it I realize how much I still let my rebellion against my controlling mother manipulate me, giving her the power after all. I love the woman but doing anything that gives her that self-satisfied smirk just chafes my ass. I shake my head, at almost fifty I should have left these feelings behind when I left this house almost three decades ago. Time to go make my mother happy.
“Married! You’re getting married?” Despite lifespans averaging hundreds of years mages still typically married young. Our reproductive years technically spanned decades but the more magic we worked with the higher the chance for…anomalies. Most mages partnered young, bore their children early, raised them, then quietly and genially separated to pursue other interests. At my age, especially considering what I did for a living, most mages were closing up reproductive shop. And reproduction was pretty much the only reason mages married at all. Children born within marriages were the only children recognized by the Houses of Magic and therefore had status and opportunities children born outside of marriage did not. Archaic bullshit like this is what happened when rulers never died. So mom’s second question was expected.
“Are you pregnant?” Before I could answer she scanned me, a clear violation of my privacy and par for the course with her. “No. Well, you’d better get on it if you don’t want to give birth to a dragon. After all, look what happened with you.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to give birth at all but that was not an argument for today. “Don’t you want to know whom I am marrying?”
“I assumed Jacob.”
“Jacob and I haven’t been together in years. He’s married to Lilith. You were at the wedding. And their second child’s naming ceremony.”
“Well,” she responded testily, “you can’t expect me to keep up with your love life.”
“I am marrying Alek.”
“Alek?” Here it comes. “Alekzandr Malu of House Oryan? Heir to the oldest and most powerful of the Houses this side of the Divide?”
“Yes.”
“Why is he marrying you?”
“Gee, thanks, Mom. I thought that this would please you.”
“No, I am pleased. This is excellent news.” She grasped me in her perfumed spider embrace. “We need to start planning immediately. Mustn’t give him a chance to change his mind though things can’t be too speedy. That would be unseemly.”
“Yeah, well, nothing is going to happen until after I finish this job.”
“What’s the job?”
“No details yet. I just know it involves some kid. Should be pretty standard.”
Mine is a world where technology and magic blend together seamlessly. Most people have a spark of magic, just enough to see it. Others, mages like myself, are drenched in magic while a tiny minority have no magic at all. People who have no magic at all can learn to manipulate magic in the same way someone with no sense of taste can learn to cook. Magic, like physics or math, has rules, recipes, to guide users. But it is dangerous for the mage blind to manipulate magic without the help of a mage. A chef who can’t taste may produce beautiful food, but won’t be able to tell if he mixed up the salt and the sugar- or the flour and the arsenic. A magic blind mage with a mislabeled jar might accidentally blow up a city block.
Still, one of the most talented inventors in history was magic blind. Aierie, a scientific prodigy working with her mage husband, Ronguld, came up with devices that have yet to be improved upon centuries after their tragic deaths. Being magic blind doesn’t necessarily stop a person from understanding how magic worked. It’s almost as if she saw the negative of magic by recognizing its influence. In this Aierie was both a philosopher and genius like none before or since.
As with any human society there are extremists. Within the community of mage blind there is a small group that feels magic is not only morally wrong but an affront to God. They live in isolation and shun the use of magic. A place they call Sanctuary and the rest of us called Satan’s Aviary. On top of the mountain and filled with cuckoo birds.
They drive combustible engines and burn coal for electricity polluting the world with their pure technology in the name of religious freedom. It is into this society a child is born who can see. She can feel the magic around her. As she is not a fool she hides her ability. Until she can’t anymore. When her secret is revealed she is ousted and shunned. Forced to make her way through a society that she is not only completely unprepared for but has been taught is evil. That’s where I come in.
Standard, I thought, racing through the woods while trying to keep shields on the two of us to block the gun powder powered projectiles being shot at us. Standard my berry brown behind. Who the fuck was this kid? I cast a portal and we slid through it making sure this time to keep my shield up until the portal closed lest one of those projectiles made it through. That’s a lesson you only have to learn once.
It is rare that two mage blind parents produce a child who can see, much less a mage. But it has happened in the past, even in Sanctuary. The kid is simple kicked out, not hunted down. I turn on the kid, a teenager of about fifteen or sixteen from the looks of her.
“Who the fuck were those guys? And why are they after you?”
“The Kamikaze Squad,” she pants. Obviously not used to running for her life, unlike me. “The Eaters of Death. The only ones amongst us allowed to use tainted technology.”
“Kamikaze like those suicide bombers of old earth?”
“Yes, the plane of purity and purpose.”
“Awesome. And they want you because?”
“Probably because they realize I am not, in truth, a mage.”
“Wait, isn’t that why they kicked you out? Because you can see?”
“Yes, but I don’t see magic. I see where magic isn’t.”
The cavalry arrived. Mostly immune to magic, Frenzel and his crew were excellent casters and, being centaurs, could move more quickly in the tight confines of these heavily forested woods than the bulky vehicles of our pursuers. The womanchild screamed and threw herself to the ground. “Abominations. Twisted melding of beast and man.”
“Hey, kid, according to your people we are all abominations. That includes you. Now stand the hell up and introduce yourself to the people who are risking their lives for yours.”
Then there is, like, a musical number, a skirmish, and the kid ends up running away. But I was waking up at this point and it’s all a jumble.