Rogue Ragtime Read online

  Preliminary research suggests casters are unable to channel large amounts of power at the early stages of their magical development due to their "gateway" being relatively narrow in width4. However, through dedicated and daily practice, they will be able to build a stronger connection to their "tide of power" so they can summon increased amounts of magical energy. This strengthened connection will enable them to cast simple (or low-energy) spells relatively effortlessly, while also ensuring they can perform more complex incantations (or mid-to-high energy spells).

  Whether weak or powerful, good incantations create very specific outcomes and are worth the exorbitant prices merchants charge for them. See the following two spells as an example:

  The Wind of the Northshore: This phrase summons a gust of wind. How much wind, what direction it should blow in and where it should be placed are all left up to the caster's imagination.

  The Wind of Tumble South in the Depths: This incantation summons a two-foot high tornado underneath the caster's hand. It will follow the caster's hand movements, until they form a fist and it disappears.

  As you can easily deduce, the more general a spell—the higher the chance something may go wrong as the mage must mentally outline their specific requirements before they finish casting it. A loss of focus or distraction can lead to an unexpected (and often tragic) result. Therefore, a skilled magician or mage has hundreds (if not thousands) of specific spells memorized to deploy at any one time.

  Also, with practice, high-level mages can fix any spell or incantation to their own set of body movements (known as gesture-fixing) or cast it through thought alone (called mental-summoning). Although little is known about these techniques outside of the magical community, it is best to keep them in mind when dealing with a hostile caster.

  Five: The Pillagers

  THE GROUP LOOKED at the still-standing, bordered-up houses. Most of them had been made from terracotta brick. Now, however, their terracotta had faded into a bleached sepia or had been covered by burn marks and overgrown shrubbery. And those were the ones that had survived through the years. The rest were a mess of cracking concrete, mutilated steel and shattered glass.

  The roads were no better. The streetlamps were bent and dinted, functioning no longer as a source of safety or illumination like they used to. The tarmac of the highway was chipped and broken. And alongside the road, fences lay in ruin, either rotted through or partially hidden by long grass and vines.

  "Charming," Mea said. She held The Moderate Monarch in front of her; it was almost finished.

  "It would’ve been a beautiful town once," Steh said. "It seems like a nineteen-twenties housing development."

  Agra checked the map. "The clock's over there," he said. He motioned to several tall apartment complexes about three miles from where they stood. Even though it was going on dusk, some of the apartments were lit up.

  Mea glanced at Steh. "They have power," she said.

  The group's mage flicked one of his cards through his fingers. "Let's try not to read too much into it," he replied. "There are unaffiliated settlements with electrical know-how. It may not be a harmony foundation."

  "Uh huh," Mea said. "I'm not killing any Grinners until tomorrow."

  Someone behind them laughed. It was a cross between a chortle and a gurgle.

  "Pretty hair," a man said. His voice had a sniveling quality to it. "Even prettier body."

  The group turned and saw six men: three with swords, two with bows and one wearing a large purple robe and pointy hat.

  The speaker was of a medium build with arms too bulky for the rest of his body. Unfortunately, his face did nothing to compensate for his out-of-proportion frame. His nose looked as if God had slapped a ruler on his face, and his ears appeared to be hurriedly cut rectangles made from flesh.

  He continued, "Don't give us your names. Girls lay on the ground. Guys take a stroll. Leave your things."

  Tath stepped forward, furrowing her brow. "Are you talking to us? Me?" She looked at the rest of the group, as if trying to determine what they thought.

  Agra raised his hands in the air. Mea went back to her book.

  "Yes," the leader of the vagabonds said. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and growled, "Bow, strip, ground."

  The five other attackers spread out, preparing their weapons for combat.

  Tath conjured her bow. She held it half-an-arm's length from herself. Her right hand moved slowly toward her quiver.

  "What happens after I get on the ground?" she asked.

  The two archers snickered as they pulled their strings tight.

  "You close your eyes and think of happy things," the man said. He flicked his sword toward the ground. "Tell the rest of them to drop their—"

  Tath withdrew three arrows and fired them before the leader could finish his sentence. Both archers and the purple-robed man collapsed onto the bitumen, holding their throats. Their breathing became ragged and blood oozed from between their fingers.

  The sniveling man lunged, but Agra was quicker. He slid a dagger into the wrist of the bandit's primary hand and caught the leader's blade as it fell from his left one. He finished by sweeping the sniveling man’s feet out from under him. The other two swordsmen dropped their weapons and ran.

  "Mea," Tath said.

  Without looking up from The Moderate Monarch, Mea stomped the ground twice. The road broke, and a shockwave went through it—making the cowards lose their footing and fall onto the tarmac. Agra withdrew two knives from his back-sheath and threw them at the men. One blade went into each of the would-be-robbers' heads.

  "So, what's your name?" Tath asked the leader. He was sobbing.

  "Lewis."

  "Okay, Lewis, let me show you how to scare people." She grabbed him by the throat and pushed him against one of the still-standing walls of a nearby house.

  Mea wiped a block of rubble clean. "Steh," she said as she sat down.

  The inventor tapped his coat's pockets a number of times and then reached into the top-left one. Pulling out a small, glowing lantern, he placed it beside Mea so she could continue reading in the dwindling light. Afterwards, he sat on the ground. Taking a toolkit out, he started to disassemble one of his cards.

  "Don’t look at them," Tath growled at Lewis, anger rising in her voice. "Look at me." She slammed him against the wall once more. "You fucking look at me." Another slam. "Tell me what you see, Lewis."

  "I … Uh… A woman?"

  Tath pulled out an arrow from her quiver and brought the tip down on the bandit's cheek. A gash opened up as she drew it across his skin, but Lewis did not collapse from the pain. "What do you see, Lewis?"

  "You. I see you."

  Her right hand swung down twice, both times striking where the arrow had previously cut. A tooth fell out. "Try again. Fucking try again." She readjusted the arrow so its head was pointed toward his stomach.

  "I … I don’t know." A bitter odor wafted up from Lewis' pants. "I can’t … I don't know. You just seemed easy. I'm sorry." Snot glistened on his quivering lip. "I'm so sorry."

  Tath jammed the arrow into the bandit's stomach and yanked it up. He screamed.

  "Easy?" Tath asked. "Is that what you think? I’m fucking easy?"

  Agra placed a hand on Tath's shoulder and said, "He doesn’t know. I guess all those anti-patriarchal Grinner seminars didn't take."

  "I’m a warrior," Tath declared. She grabbed another arrow from her quiver and shoved it into Lewis' left shoulder. "A motherfucking warrior. You take my head, or I take yours. That’s the game. I'm not a toy for your dickless pleasure."

  Lewis nodded, tears streaming down his face.

  "We should ask about the lights," Agra said.

  Tath twisted the arrow in the bandit's shoulder, eliciting another whimper. "Power usually means Grinners," she agreed. Tath let go of Lewis' collar and stormed off.

  Agra slid over to where the archer had been standing a moment before. He flicked Lewis' forehead with his finger. "Le
t's agree this is an awkward start," he said, smiling while rubbing his chin. "We do need a little help though. What kind of people are up there?" He pointed to the apartment complexes.

  "A bunch of nerds," Lewis mumbled. "Wankers really. They don't seem to realize reading's illegal."

  "Reading and … nerding. They sound terrible."

  "Don't mock me. You're like the rest of us, thinking of stealing something." Despite the loss of blood, Lewis seemed to have found renewed life. "No-one's done that. Not from Wilson's Pub. You even touch a painting without permission, your hand comes off. They are, he is, pretty focused on his collection."

  "Not Grinners then?" Agra queried.

  "No."

  "Not Corsairs?"

  "No."

  "Not mystical fire demons?"

  Lewis looked confused. "No."

  "Not a group of indigenous citizens staking out their rights to the land they are owed?"

  "I don't fucking know," Lewis admitted. No-one ever sees Wilson. He could be a white man cosplaying a centaur for all I care. He'll kill you lot good."

  Agra stood up and took a step back; he nodded appreciatively. "Well, thank you. That's helpful information." He sauntered away while whistling a popular twenty-first-century tune.

  "Wait," Lewis said. "Where are you going? You seem reasonable."

  Tath slid out of the ever-expanding shadows. Her eyes appeared black in the dim light. "You tried to rape my friends," she said. "You let your family die without even attempting to save them. 'Reasonable' is not the person you get to talk to." She leaned in. "You get me." She yanked the arrow in Lewis' stomach out and stabbed him through the eye with it.

  The bandit leader screamed, but the lights from the apartment buildings did not change.

  Thurs, 16 Oct 65 P.C.T., 1:08am: Azra [P. Watcher 18034568X]

  Uh huh. You going to send me a copy of the apocrypha so I can check for myself?

  Sat, 18 Oct 65 P.C.T., 5:44pm: Junko [channel 37A4R]

  Aw, honey, I wish I could, but you know the Assembly prohibits provisional watchers from having access to critical information.

  And, unfortunately, I've got some more bad news …

  Six: The Artist

  THE FOUR OF them climbed thirty flights of stairs before taking a break. The alcove they rested in was off-white with scuffmarks and black mold dotted randomly across it. Although Steh had cast a spell to block out the smell of decay emanating from the building, it was not completely effective—leaving a faint odor within the group's protective barrier.

  "Dampeners," Mea commented as she held the metal netting that had been put up to stop suicides. At the base of the complex were two large, steel cylinders generating an unnatural hum. Their tone was discordant: a high and low pitch fighting each other for supremacy—neither winning nor losing. They had been designed for a single purpose: to stop celestial mages from teleporting into the apartment block. "I understand why the owner shut down the elevator," Mea continued. "There are endless bandit groups nowadays. But how many celestial magicians are there? A hundred including Steh? A dozen competent ones?"

  Tath reclined against the screen, her black curls brushing Mea’s well-developed shoulder. "Does it fucking matter? They like their privacy." Tath glanced over at the mutant, faintly smiled and asked, "If you had celestial magic and could travel anywhere, where would you go?"

  "Home," Mea said.

  "Play the fuck along. Don’t you have a boy, or girl, you’d like to sneak in on? Be all like, 'Bam, motherfucker! I'm here to see how long your train ride is.'" Tath smacked her hands together.

  Mea pushed off the netting. "I'd visit Hemi ngèr, if I have to answer."

  "Well, aren't you a bag of fun fucks? You can't visit someone who's not fucking real. Agra, whose bedroom would you zap into?"

  He shrugged, did a couple of squats and started on the next set of stairs.

  "You better fucking run," Tath called out after him. "Cause if Steh was better at magic, I’d get him to teleport me into your hotel room all the time. All the fucking time. Hell, I could save you from your own fucking stupidity around that Jaya girl."

  Agra ran up one more flight of steps.

  * * *

  What felt like an icy snake slithered from the tip of Mea's head to the soles of her feet. She snapped The Moderate Monarch closed. She was halfway through her second reading and Arry's inability to get his magic up for Lona was still a running gag. It was one of the parts she relished in every Hemi ngèr novel. Regrettably, for her, Arry would solve his case of the "downsies" with Lona by the end of the book and discover how awkward sex can be with someone you truly love. Mea had hoped for the joke to last until the final novel, but she had not been granted her wish.

  The cold sensation wound its way into her stomach and settled there. She put The Moderate Monarch away in her bag … and cracked her knuckles. The Chill Serpent, as her mom had called it, was supposed to be a premonition from her universe. Her mom had said it was a type of moral compass that gave one last warning to Navigators before they did something regrettable. Mea was not certain if her mother's theory was correct because the Cold Serpent had only announced death and mayhem for her.

  Agra, lanky and laidback, stood in front of the heavy-looking door to the pub. He waited until they were all on the landing, and then rapped twice.

  A male server greeted them. His tight charcoal suit was a sharp contrast to the loose tie around his neck. He sniffed unpleasantly at the gang. "You must be the ones who caused the commotion last night."

  "We didn't plan on it," Agra replied. "If the noise upset you, sorry."

  "The master wishes to know if you … removed the threat. Completely."

  Mea could sense Agra weighing his words. He peered over the head of the server, as if looking for a long, lost loved one. Admitting you had murdered someone and committing murder were two different things post-Cataclysm, the former being far worse. "I think they had an accident," Agra finally said. "We got there too late to help. That's why there was so much yelling."

  The server tutted them. "Is there anything you can do about your clothes?"

  "If that's an offer for free suits," Agra replied, "we're taking it."

  "The riff-raff I have to deal with," the server complained, gesturing for them to come in. "The master will see you soon. He wishes to convey his thanks for the 'accident.'"

  Once Mea stepped through the door, everything changed. The interior was vast, spanning hundreds of yards in every direction. When she looked up, she could count at least twenty floors with dozens of entrances and exits on each one. The roof was pyramid-shaped with a mural that depicted the most prominent artists since the Cataclysm. And in the middle of the foyer was a waterfall with a stream that cascaded from an empty space in the air to its basin. The fall's droplets sounded like the ringing of crystal bells.

  The patrons of Wilson's "Pub" were not the crowd Mea had expected. It was bustling with women wearing subdued pastel dresses and men in crisp white shirts and black pants. They spoke in hushed tones and drunk from tall, thin glasses as they ambled from one piece of art to another. There was no indication of where they had bought their drinks.

  Tath squeaked her shoe on the marble floor and pushed her lips toward her nose. "Not a beer drinking crowd," she said.

  "No," Agra replied, he seemed distracted. His eyes jumping from one patron to another. "A different kind of fun."

  "Looking for someone?" Tath asked.

  Agra ignored her.

  "Someone that starts with a 'J'?" she persisted.

  He tapped his knife sheath. "It seems like a teleportation hub. I thought I might see … Jera here."

  Mea slid next to him. "She left us with a bill for ten thousand credits."

  "And stole your favorite imagination," Tath added, "Mythzilla: Gets Real."

  "No, you're confusing them," Mea said to Tath. "That was Jasmine."

  "I don't think so," Tath replied. "Jasmine's the one we had to break Agra out of the Se
ndai nail-extracting rack for. Jera's the one who stole the credits."

  "That's not what I remember," Mea began. "I thou—"

  "Counterpoint," Agra said, interrupting her. "Jera dresses like a tengu when you ask her. I don't think I need another reason to date her."

  Mea was about to question Agra further about the inconsistency but stopped. She could hear a small voice whispering in her ear. Not whispering, humming. It was a tune from her childhood: four bars of music that her mother would sing when she had returned from another universe. Mea searched for its source, but the other patrons were only speaking, or speaking rowdily if they were Agra and Tath. She took a step in the direction of the song. It became slightly louder. She took another step and then another, each time the melody increased in volume. She tracked it through the foyer, down a hallway, past a young man quoting Tanzanian poetry to a woman from the Southern Isles and around a server with a neckline that revealed her belly button. Eventually, she found Steh in front of a painting humming the tune.

  "I'm sorry," he said, even though she was five paces from him "I couldn't listen to more of their bickering."

  Mea was cold all over now; her fingers tingled as if they were going numb. "I didn't see you leave," she replied, taking a step forward.

  "Perhaps you were a little distracted," he suggested.

  "Maybe."

  "Not wise to leave me out in the open. Think of what could happen if you aren't focused." Steh pivoted away from the picture. His ill-fitting coat hung awkwardly due to his stoop. He wore a baggy shirt on top of cotton pants; the bottoms of which were scrunched around the top of his shoes. His hair was a mess—it was supposed to be brown, but touches of white and grey were now liberally sprinkled throughout. Due to his lack of magical control, his hair seemed like it had been caught in an explosion that had been snuffed out mid-eruption. Everything about the man in front of her indicated Steh, and everything hinted he was the same Steh who had cooked them a delicious breakfast. Only the Chill told her otherwise.