Was It Worth It?

You know, hanging here. Suspended a foot off the ground in a kinetic field. I keep thinking to myself: Was it worth it?

…

Two days ago

…

“Dammit, Mark! By Spiff, what happened to your eye?”

“Oh, uh… I fell.”

“You fell, huh?” That’s Val. My dormmate. Very astute. Or maybe my excuses are just bad. Especially when reused them over and over. “Fell into someone’s fist?”

“I, uh—”

“Get over here, you idiot.” She demanded. I had learned not to go against that iron will. Plus, she could afford the good medicine. Not the bargain-bin salves I grew up with. War orphan and all that. Some things still sting.

“Ah! That stings.”

“Grow up! You’re in senior year now. You can’t keep picking fights with the Eldaran snobs.”

“Val! They—”

“I don’t care! You don’t think they leave me alone? Voids sake, Mark, I’m a Raimex girl at an imperial school. I’ve had trouble since day one.”

“Yeah, but your kin don’t usually go imperial, so… Ouch!”

That one hurt more. She pressed too deep. That one was on me.

“Sorry,” she said flatly. “Were you saying something?”

“Can you not? It hurts enough already.”

“Well don’t be a…” The next word, originally Raimex, had since become a slur in Eldarian too. I’ll spare you.

I chuckled anyway. I always did.

“There. That should fix it.” She rested a cloth against my face. “If you can’t defend yourself against those snobs, don’t rile them up.”

“Val… they were saying shit about my father again.”

That sigh hurt worse than the punch. “Don’t they always? Ignore them. One more year and we’re done. Then we specialise into the guild.”

“If we pass,” I said, as I always did.

I barely scraped through my scholarship. Sure, I was the only kid in the orphanage to pass the entrance test, but that wasn’t saying much. Val, though? She grasped arcane biochemical reactions before she could walk, or so her parents claimed. She had a guild position waiting. Me? If I passed, if, I’d be lucky to oversee argic refinement in some backwater forge. Boring beyond belief.

“Whatever, Mark! Did you read that text I recommended?”

“Well, I—”

“You’re not helping yourself. Do you even remember the name?”

“Um…”

“A Collection and Investigation into Argic Channelling, Part Two, by Elara Zayne. There’s a chapter in there that’ll fill in the gaps you’re missing.”

…

Present

…

You know what? I’m starting to enjoy this.

Kinetic fields are usually used to move freight. One man can do the job of twenty, with well-tuned magi-tech. No wonder, some cargo’s fragile. It almost feels like being wrapped in a blanket.

Or maybe that’s the constricting force slowly starving my brain of oxygen.

Hard to tell.

Either way… what was I thinking about?

Oh, right. How I got here.

Where is here?

Are those footsteps?

Focus, Mark.

Ah, Val. Always pointing me in the right direction. Even if she sometimes dopes her salves with less-than-legal additives. But what do you expect from a chemist?

…

Yesterday

…

“Well, if it isn’t the traitor’s son!”

Oh great. These guys.

The children of politicians and generals. Merchants and landowners. Enrolled here before they could spell their names. No fighting for scraps in the canteen. No sleeping on damp sheets that smelled like rot. If I knew a slur vile enough to describe them, I’d use it. But I wouldn’t sully a good language.

So, they’re just the snobs.

“Hey! We’re talking to you!”

A shove to my side turned me around.

“Shh,” the librarian hissed instinctively, then immediately lowered her head when the snobs looked her way. Job security first.

“What are you doing here, Mark?”

I’ll admit, I couldn’t tell the sycophants apart. Four of them. Same tailored suits. Same styled hair. I swear they were printed from the same template.

“You finally learning to read?” one of the underlings tried. Failed.

“Well actually, I was looking for a text Val recommended—”

“Oh really?” Cue a lengthy tirade against Val’s heritage, my upbringing, and my continued existence. I’ll spare you that, too.

When they finished, I just said, “Hmm.”

“Quiet today, Marky! What’s wrong, that eye still hurt?”

Eventually the sycophants left their master. Only William remained.

William Yencios. The snobbiest snob to ever snob. The most influential student in the academy. And an absolute prick.

“I’m just trying to find a book, Will.”

“Wow. You’re boring today. What book?”

“One of Elara Zayne’s early works. It’s not in her section. Librarian swears it’s here.”

“Zayne?” He smirked. “Isn’t she a bit advanced for you?”

I rolled my eyes. All I can do really. Unless I want another black eye.

“Well, maybe it’s been taken out,” he said eventually. “The guild library has copies of everything.”

“Huh?”

“My father took me once. Not normally open to students. But I could get you a pass.”

…

Present

…

I know what you’re thinking. Why trust the arsehole who leads the charge against me?

Because I think too much of people. And because Will wasn’t always awful. First year, we could talk without fists getting involved. Mostly mine.

And midterms were coming.

I needed the edge.

“Interesting!”

Wait. Who said that?

…

Today

…

William’s word was good. He got me a pass.

Despite arguing with Val all morning, I went.

They call it the Glowing Tower, the vast structure tower above all in the biggest city in the world. Taller than the palace. If it ever truly glowed, it must’ve been a navigational hazard. The mage guild’s headquarters. At the base their expansive library.

The place was enormous. Sections bigger than the orphanage. Subsections bigger than my dorm. The librarians were too busy with actual guild business to help some lost student.

By the time I found anything by Zayne, the light was fading. An autobiography by her son. Dull.

But then the shelves grew denser. Older.

And then I found it.

“Elara Zayne… yes! A first edition?”

No.

A journal?

Sketches. Prototypes. Argic channels, we are only just discovering. Early designs for an argic forge.

And something else.

Something wrong.

“This section is off-limits.”

“Huh?”

My feet left the floor.

Oh wait, this is when it went wrong.

“Who are— who are you?”

…

Present

…

“Yes, yes, I know this bit!” a voice said, jolting me awake.

“What— was that? It’s like there’s a narrator in my head!”

“Oh, don’t worry. Side effect.”

“Who are you?”

“I am the senior guild crafter.”

My vision cleared. His robes were beyond arch-mage level. Magi-tech wrapped his wrist. Compact, impossibly so, connecting to the field suspending me.

And the device in his other hand…

“Stop it! The voice is back!”

“To see memories, I require a guide,” he said calmly. “Every mind is different. Yours created a… snarky narrator it seems.” he chuckled.

Snarky, am I snarky. Perhaps. But this man brought it out of me.

“I’ve only tested it on war criminals and convicts,” he added.

“When does it stop?”

Hmm, perhaps I was getting annoyed of the narration in my head at this point.

“Yes, I am annoyed,” I snapped, to myself.

“Fascinating,” he murmured. “Almost makes me want to keep you alive.”

“Kill me? You can’t!”

“No,” he agreed. “But what you saw in that journal is not guild knowledge. Something only the higher members of the council are aware.”

The room tilted.

He’s not going to kill me. Val knows I went here. As does that prick William. Not to mention all the people who saw me pass.

“No, that is true.”

“Wait! You can hear it too!”

“Of course I can.”

Of course he can, I was being mildly idiotic at that point. Perhaps it was the threat of death.

“Shut up!”

“The damned librarians were so busy they must have missed you pass. I told them we needed to hire more. Hmm.”

This man’s voice is grating.

“Tell me, Mark. Worried about finding a guild position after graduation?”

I was, it has been troubling me a lot recently.

“Shut up! So, what if I am?”

“How would you like a job in the library? One that may lead to something far greater?”

I stared. I was speechless, it was the best offer I had ever got. I hope he doesn’t realise I am an idiot.

“By Spiff! If you get rid of this damned voice, I’ll do anything!”