After giving Samson the specifics of his deliveries for next month, as they had done for the past four years, and telling the merchant that he would speak sense to his fellow Magister and convince him to stop bargaining, a lie, by the way, Magister Luke made his way to his workspace.
Many understandably imagine that all Magisters, by virtue of rank, hold equal power within the High Magistrate. That could not be more wrong.
They were not equals. This was particularly true for Luke, who bore a unique title: Second Magister of the Vault. The title suggested the existence of a First Magister of the Vault, one of the seven Magisters, and indeed there was. As the name implied, the First Magister held authority greater than Luke’s and stood nearly equal to the others.
The First Magister of the Vault oversaw one of the most critical duties within the Citadel of Magicraft: the production of artifacts. The entire foundation of the Citadel, built by Queen Arianna, rested upon the production and trade of those artifacts. The First Magister of the Vault supervised research and manufacture. He commanded the largest body of personnel and the most skilled workforce, composed of Verdenkind and Highbreed alike, all dedicated to artifact creation. It was no exaggeration to say that even among the seven Magisters, he ranked slightly higher in authority.
As for Luke, the Second Magister of the Vault, he bore another distinction. He was the oldest Magister, having held his title since its creation by Queen Arianna herself a century and half ago. Yet despite that legacy, it was fair to say he ranked last among them. For a very simple reason: he could not defend himself. His voice carried little weight. Worse still, beyond his already complicated position, he was disliked. That, at least, he could admit felt somewhat unfair.
As he approached the imposing building that housed his office and experimental quarters, his attendant greeted him at the entrance.
“Did you tell the others to prepare everything?”
“Yes, Lord Magister. We are only waiting for the raw manacyte to begin polishing.”
“Good,” Luke nodded.
He paused and glanced back toward the courtyard. The elven duo were no longer biking. They now sat beneath a parasol, taking brunch in the open air.
“His Highness seems in the mood to be outside today,” the attendant remarked.
“It seems so,” Luke replied as he stepped inside.
“It has been happening more often lately.”
He noticed that. How could he not?
Until recently, sightings of the Elven Queen were so rare that many doubted she resided within the Citadel at all. Yet she did. She had secluded herself in the Ebony Tower for over a hundred years.
Ridiculous as it sounded, it was true. And Luke suffered most from that reality.
Because of the special and secretive nature of his duties as Second Magister of the Vault, and because he alone among the Magisters was permitted entry into the Ebony Tower, the younger Magisters believed he received unwarranted favor. His removal was impossible. So they thought of him as an ageless parasite draining the Citadel’s coffers by currying favor with the Elven Queen, their Archmagister, whose authority eclipsed theirs combined.
Luke understood people. One did not live this long without learning to. Yet he could not help feeling their judgment unfair. He did not curry favor with the Queen. In truth, he would have, if ever given the chance. But the opportunity had never existed.
Though he had been permitted entry into the Ebony Tower, for nearly a century he had not once seen her. Not once caught a glimpse. Not once crossed paths. At times he had even questioned whether she truly resided there. The last time he saw her was the day her mother’s death was announced. That same day she was crowned Queen and granted the title of Archmagister.
In that regard, he had seen no more of her than the others.
That changed after the visit of two kings, King Dorian and King Lance, invited by Queen Theta. Since then, the once unseen Elven Queen, whose presence had faded into rumor, began making appearances. Occasional sorties at first. Then more frequent ones.
It had been seven years since she began emerging. Recently, it had become almost twice a month. Sometimes she even left the Ebony Tower entirely.
Luke often felt the urge to shout at his fellow Magisters: here is your chance. If you believe I hold an advantage, use this opportunity. Yet in all these years, none had attempted to approach her.
It made him wonder whether their resentment was simply that.
Resentment.
He and his attendant had just exited one of the grand stairways when they encountered a group approaching from the opposite direction. All were women. All elves. All dressed in black robes, veiled as if in perpetual mourning.
They were the maiden ascetics.
Aside from Luke and his personal acolytes, they were the only others permitted within the Ebony Tower. They were the most direct subjects of the Elven Queen.
The thick veils concealed their faces. Their similar builds did not help. Each appeared no older than her twenties, yet Luke knew better than to judge elven age by appearance. Some had looked that way for decades.
Fortunately, the most important members of the sisterhood were distinguishable. The Elders bore intricate embroidered patterns upon their veils, subtle black stitching that set them apart from the Devotees.
Even so, one had to look carefully.
When Luke recognized the pattern on one approaching figure, he stopped at once and bowed. It struck him then that he had not bowed to the Queen earlier when she had waved at him. The gesture had taken him by surprise. She never acknowledged him. Usually she ignored him entirely, much like the veiled woman before him did.
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As he and his attendant straightened, the woman stopped and spoke.
“You received your shipment today, correct?”
"Yes, Elder," he nodded before promptly reporting, "15 tons of S-grade raw manacyte."
The veiled lady with an embroidery of a one-eyed stag gave him a nod. "Do you still have refined manacyte to work with?"
"Yes, ma'am, I do, and we will immediately proceed to refine our raw manacyte," he explained before adding, "Rest assured, there will be no disruption in my work."
She nodded again before wordlessly taking her leave.
Officially, to the world out there, the Citadel of Magicraft is led by the Magistrate, made up of the seven Magisters. The reality, however, is that there are people above them, people through whom their most important decisions must be approved, and that person is not the Archmagister. After all, she is still a child. It is the leaders of the Ascetics who exist to serve Queen Theta who are. It is because they have a use for him that, even though all the other Magisters see him as someone who actively stabs and makes the Citadel bleed money with all his resultless yet outrageous requests, they do not have the means to kick him out.
As the group of veiled ladies vanished, the duo headed for their workspace, a giant laboratory, one of seven, each occupying a floor from the twelfth to the nineteenth floor of the Ebony Tower.
The chamber stretched wider than a banquet hall, its high vaulted ceiling vanishing into shadow above latticed chandeliers and slow-turning celestial models. Stained glass windows, tall as towers, filtered pale azure light across the polished obsidian floor, casting shifting geometric patterns like a living mural.
Dozens of workstations lined the space, each devoted to a different discipline such as alchemy, astrology, transmutation, and even necromancy, yet somehow the room remained orderly, like a cathedral of knowledge.
A massive hourglass near the entrance ticked silently, its sand suspended mid-fall as if time inside obeyed its own law. Also at a corner of the room, almost as if she were part of the furniture, an maiden ascetic, a Devotee, stood in complete silence, so much so that at times it was easy for him to completely forget her existence, like one would forget the presence of furniture, even though she was always there to overlook what was happening in here and ultimately report it to the Elder, like the Ascetic he had just met.
At the center stood a colossal mechanism, easily the most important thing in the whole lab, around which three of Magister Luke's attendants gathered, each with either a block note to take notes or a book in hand, a book written out of none other than his notes.
It looked at first glance like a giant fancy table, enormous enough to serve as the floor of a small room. Its surface was jet-black stone, polished to a glassy sheen, with thousands of delicate grooves crisscrossing like veins of silver. Embedded within those lines, faint azure light pulsed rhythmically, like a heartbeat.
Across the slab’s surface, thousands of small square recesses were arranged in concentric patterns, slots meant to hold glyph tiles. Many were already filled with intricate metallic plates, each etched with alien symbols that seemed to shift when viewed from different angles. Some of the slots flickered faintly, awaiting the missing pieces of an unfinished sequence.
At its center, a massive crystal, manacyte but not the same kind as the one from earlier, this was refined manacyte, the size of a carriage wheel, hovered an inch above the surface, spinning slowly. It glowed with a pale violet hue, strands of raw magical energy threading out from it and feeding into the etched channels.
The air around the table felt strangely heavy and charged. Each pulse from the core sent a shiver through the floor.
Without glancing at the glyph tiles involved, Luke guessed, "Space manipulation?"
"Yes, sir."
He took a quick glance at the table and the glyph tiles involved and understood the parameters at once.
"Localized gravity field, base intensity set to 1.3 times standard. Not global. It is anchored to this room’s coordinates," he read, then continued. "Outer array, field stabilizers. Seven glyph clusters maintaining uniform pull across three axes. No drift. Impressive."
"Thank you, sir."
"Energy input, refined manacyte core feeding a constant flow at 12 percent capacity. Trying to be considerate of our reserve, are we?"
"Yes, Magister."
"Well, no need to be anymore. Our reserve of raw manacyte has been replenished. Our refinery just has to do its job for us to have enough material to work without frugality." His attention went back to the device in front of him, reading the remaining parameters. "Here, force gradient modulation. Incremental escalation. The pull increases with proximity to the table. That is why I feel it more here than at the door."
"Failsafe glyphs on the perimeter. Pressure cut-off if structural strain exceeds critical thresholds. Smart and conservative."
"We were fearing collapse. Gravity is very different from the other elements."
He nodded, then went back to methodically inspecting the parameters of the table. “Secondary array... weight amplification targeting specifically organic matter. A little crude and lazy, but functional. It would have worked better if you had put into consideration not just ‘organic matter’ but a human target. Sure, it’s a pain to set all that, but for parameters being so stingy on manacyte resources, it would have been the better choice.”
They all took note.
His eyes flicked to a glowing glyph near the center.
“And there—vector anchoring. Downward orientation fixed relative to the planetary core, not the table surface. Hm, well done. That’s a smart decision. What feels like down is not always what’s really down. Best to trust the trustworthy downward axis provided to us by gravity itself. Using gravity to modify gravity, truly ingenious,” he praised.
The praise went to all his attendants’ hearts, boosting their confidence so much that one suggested, “Sir, we were thinking that if we work with these parameters, or to be exact if we reverse the effect and add more appropriate parameters, we could achieve what you wanted, a device lessening the effect of gravity around them, which would allow them faster movement and achieve a form of flight similar to the one produced by flight magic.”
The Magister could not help but chuckle at the optimism of his disciple, but he had to bring him back to his senses. “We are getting close to that, but you would need more than simple tweaking to achieve it.” He tapped at the side of the table. “Considering all the other variables for that kind of flight, we’re going to need a much bigger table. Worse still, if you want to make that a device which I assume is meant to be portable, we’re going to have to shrink this whole apparatus to a portable size.”
These words immediately shut down the optimism of the optimist in the room. “Come on, people, I didn’t say that to ruin the mood. I just want us all to be realistic. We’re making progress,” he reassured them, which was enough to cheer up his pupils.
They were making progress, there was no doubt about it for Luke, who had begun all of this over a century ago when he accidentally discovered the first set of these glyphs, these artificial glyphs. He remembered how he began this study from nothing. He remembered when, as a cleric of the W?hppr Faith, he was ignored for his discovery and worse still shunned and threatened for it. Only one person saw the potential of his discovery and in consequence offered him the means to pursue his research as a Magister of her newly established Citadel of Magicraft. That person was, of course, the late Queen Arianna, whose support is still active even after her passing through her maiden ascetics, who are as supportive as any of the three churches could have ever been.
He might be hated for betraying the church, hated by his fellow Magisters for not participating in what the Citadel revolves around, namely the production of artifacts for all the main factions of the continent, but he did not care. For as hated as he was for his status, it allowed him to do what he loved, namely understanding this new field called Scriptforging, which the late Queen Arianna foresaw as the domain that has the potential to replace what is now known as the creation of artifacts, which consists of infusing unique properties into tools, typically weapons or enhancers. This art has far greater potential. Proof of that is the existence of the once thriving society ruled by the tyrants who ruled the Land of Men before Cleon, who built their civilization around this craft.
