“Hello,” Alba greeted him, ever friendly. “I’m Alba Livian. This is Sciona Freynan.”
The man nodded at Alba and gave a little grunt before turning away in what was either nervousness or extreme rudeness.
“It’s fine,” Sciona whispered as Alba gave him a sour look. “Ignore him.”
Emotionally, Sciona was at capacity. If she started worrying about her competition, her head would explode, and Alba would have to scrub her brains from the bench. For now, the only mages in the chamber she could afford to contemplate were the examiners.
The twelve mages of the High Council sat raised up behind a long desk, all of them busy conferring, shuffling through their notes, or adjusting their multi-purpose conduits. Their murmurs were too low to make out from the examinee seating but seemed to fill the chamber with their gravity all the same. Only one hundred mages ever practiced in the High Magistry at a given time. Of those hundred, only the twelve greatest sat on this High Council and bore the title of Archmage. These were the men who turned the wheels of Tiran, as their forefathers had since its founding.
Archmage Bringham was the sole Council mage Sciona knew in person, but she knew all of the others almost as intimately through their books on a breadth of magical disciplines. Archmage Supreme Orynhel, Head of State and Clergy, sat in the highest seat. At his right hand sat Archmages Thelanra, Mordra the Ninth, Gamwen, Scywin, Lehar the Fourth, and Eringale. At his left sat Bringham, Renthorn the Second, Duris, Capernai, and Faene the Eleventh. Sciona had read every word these men had ever written down to the footnotes and structured her life around their teachings.
“So, those are the archmages?” Alba whispered in awe.
“Yep.” Having worked with Bringham for so long—having seen him on his off days, when he spilled tea on his notes, got his mapping coordinates backwards, or stubbed his toe on lab equipment—should have taken some of the mystique from the Council. But beholding them all seated together in this hallowed hall sent a thrill up Sciona’s spine.
“They don’t look how I expected.”
“Did you think they were as big as the statues outside?” Sciona joked. “Or that those white robes actually radiated light like in the paintings?”
“No. I’m not five. I just—I guess I thought they’d be carrying staffs?”
“Staffs are wartime conduits,” Sciona said. In battle, you needed a supple yet robust conduit that wouldn’t blow apart with the explosive energy expenditures of combat. But Tiran hadn’t been at war since the Founding Mages defeated the Horde three hundred years ago. “Most highmages still train with staffs as private religious practice—since it’s mandated in the Tirasid—but conduits that big aren’t really practical for day-to-day magic.” In the years Sciona had worked for Archmage Bringham, she had never seen him take his staff out of its display case.
“Then… how do they do their magic?” Alba asked. “All with spellographs?”
“No, no,” Sciona said. “That would get time-consuming, wouldn’t it? Staffs are just one kind of multi-purpose conduit. Highmages all use different objects to implement their pre-written spells. Archmage Duris uses his gloves. Archmage Orynhel has his ring… though most of the older mages still prefer wands.”
“How does that work?”
“You’ll see.”
All seating in the hall faced inward, overlooking a circular floor where the applicants would demonstrate their skills. This circle had hosted a hundred turning points in Tiranish history. It was where the traitor mage, Sabernyn, had been tried for his heresies and put to death. It was where Renthorn the First had showcased the magical lightbulb that had led to the development of Tiran’s entire electrical grid. Careers were born, nurtured, and slaughtered within this circle. Today, the pale limestone floor was empty save for an unassuming oak desk at its center. On the desk sat a top-of-the-line spellograph and a stack of spellpaper. Other items would be involved in the testing, but the archmages would summon those as they became relevant.
“Jerrin Mordra!” was the first name Archmage Orynhel called into the tense hush, and the unfriendly applicant beside Sciona stood. “Please step forward!”
Mordra?
Sciona glanced sideways at the young man as he nervously straightened his robes. This was Archmage Sireth Mordra’s son? Sciona immediately hated him for displaying any nerves at all. There were no stakes for him here. He would pass the exam on the basis of legacy, as the sons of Council members always did. There were only two spaces open within the High Magistry since Highmage Tython had retired and Highmage Yeranis had passed away in the last year. If Archmage Mordra’s son met the basest standard on the testing floor, one of those spots belonged to him.
Sciona glared at the legacy’s back as he faced the Council, thanked them for their consideration, and stated his mission.
“Archmages of Tiran, I humbly stand before you to test for the rank of highmage. I have studied magic at Danworth Academy and here at the University of Magics and Industry. My areas of specialization are mathematics and mapping theory.”
In other words, nothing. The theory of magic without the application. Anyone with an important enough father could get good grades in mathematics and theory since neither required proof of efficacy in a lab, let alone a factory.
“With your permission, I will approach the testing desk.”
As Archmage Orynhel nodded, Sciona leaned forward, keen to see if this little bastard would live up to his forebears. Mordras past had revolutionized Tiran’s transportation and communications systems, so it was a tall order.
Archmage Renthorn the Second was the first to set a prompt. Drawing his wand, he executed a subtle flourish, barely perceptible from the examinee seating. Light flashed at the wand tip, and a bowl materialized on the desk.
“In the vessel before you, you will find four hundred paper strips. Compose and activate a spell to disperse them throughout the chamber.”
A laughably easy prompt. There were a hundred ways to deliver and precious few ways to screw it up. Sciona supposed an excess of energy might create a spark that set the paper ablaze, but Archmage Renthorn hadn’t demanded that Jerrin Mordra keep the pieces undamaged, only that he disperse them.
Jerrin Mordra attacked the spellograph with the hands of a seasoned composer, fingers punching the steel keys so fast that the individual clicks merged into a cascading clatter. The silence in the hall magnified the sound and made Sciona’s own fingers twitch. After a half minute of typing, Mordra hit the break key with an audible clack and began his mapping composition.
Here, his fingers slowed just slightly, betraying indecision. A simple mapping sub-spell would have taken Sciona half as long to write, but she had served her time since her undergraduate days in Bringham’s lab, handling raw energy as well as numbers. It was hard to predict how those numbers would translate to energy when you had only ever worked on paper. Finally, Mordra hit the activation key; the spellograph dinged and displayed the fruits of his tentative fiddling.
Alba gasped and gripped Sciona’s hand so hard it hurt.
“What?” Sciona whispered.
“That’s… i-is that…？”