Sacred Night

They took her away seven nights after the full moon. The priests had come to her family's small farm in the Red Fields and within hours they left again with her in tow. Mei had brought nothing with her but the clothes on her back. She had cried and clung to her parents and asked them why they were sending her away. “It is an honor, little Mei,” Momma had said. “The moon has looked upon you with her divine light and chosen you to serve her.” Father had been no better, but he'd hugged Mei close and kissed her forehead, scraping his fangs along her skin. “Go and do your duty, quinai. To serve moon and country...there can be nothing greater. This is hard for us, you must know, but it must be so. You'll understand, one day.”

She didn't want to understand, not some day and not now. Not ever. The moon had chosen her. Fine. Why did she have to leave home to serve it? Why did she have to leave her Momma and Father? Not leave, she knew, but given. They'd given her away. All because of when she'd first bled.

The priests themselves said little, which gave Mei plenty of time to think during the long journey from her family farm, the only home she'd known, to the temple of the Sacred Night. Both of them were old vampires, with faces like worn leather and hair gone white. The man had a long beard that hid half his face and a bald head that made his ears look absurdly huge. The woman's hair was done up in a bun, her eyes close together, her nose flat, even for a vampire. They ate nothing during the four-night journey, just stared down the road as the wagon lumbered along, the old mule's hooves clop-clopping on the dirt paths. They slept in black canvas tents when the White Watcher rose in the east. They'd brought food; a cage of pigeons that they gave to Mei to feast upon when she was hungry. She didn't want to eat, not in front of her captors, but the pigeons were fat and tasty-looking, and after two nights her throat was so dry that she could barely swallow. She took one of the pigeons in her small hands as it flapped and burbled, looking at her with its large, liquid eyes. “Sorry, pigeon,” she said quietly as she drove her fangs into it. She wrenched her head to the side, one quick jerk, and the bird went limp in her hands. Before the blood had a chance to cool she lapped it up, ripping away the feathers and thin skin with her teeth and nails. When the bird was just a dried husk she made to throw it to the roadside, but the priestess stopped her.

“Do not,” she said. She extended a hand and Mei gave her the tiny corpse. “You took the life of this creature to sustain yourself. Its sacrifice shall not go forgotten.”

“It's just a bird,” Mei said.

The other priest spoke. “Child, what did your parents do before every meal?”

Mei felt a stab of anger towards the priest. What right did she have to talk about Momma and Father? But she answered. “They thanked Mother Moon.”

“Indeed.” The priestess tucked the bird into a pouch tied to red sash round her waist. “The creature's blood is yours. The blood of the world belongs to the vampires. The rest belongs to the moon, who protects us and gave us birth.”

“Praise be to her,” the other priest said.

“You are to be a priest,” the woman said. “You must know these things.”

“I don't want to be a priest,” Mei said. Her voice caught in her throat, and she wondered for a moment if she'd swallowed a feather by accident. “I want to be a farmer like Momma and Father. I want to see the Blackfangs and the Silver Shore and everything else. I don't want to...” She blinked to stop the tears. She was thirteen. Her first monthly blood had come. She was not a little girl anymore, and she wouldn't let these strange old vampires see her cry.

“The moon chose you,” the female priest said. “Your first blood came when she was at her greatest power, when she was full and round. Forever now you shall bleed when the moon is full. When she is at her greatest power, so too will you be at yours. Women have always been favored in the service of the moon, but you, little one, are special. Holy.”

Mei didn't want to be holy and she didn't want to be in the service of anyone. But if she didn't have a choice, perhaps being in service to the moon wouldn't be too bad. Perhaps.

The moon was a crescent when they arrived at the temple. Mei's first impression was one of complete awe. The building was larger than any one she'd seen before. The whole thing was built of some dark, polished wood, but the roof was white and so clean that it reflected the moonlight. Through the arching front gate was a large courtyard, bare except for a rectangular slab of smooth, polished stone. It was pale, and clean, but the ground around it was dark and the two bloodwood trees on either side left little doubt as to its purpose.

The female priest saw Mei staring, so she spoke. “Every full moon we offer a blood sacrifice to the moon.” She gestured to the altar. “With our gifts, the moon knows our devotion to her and so she continues to stave off the White Watcher.”

They brought the mule and cart to a shed in the back of the temple where an acolyte in white robes led the animal to its pen. The acolyte's hood was up, but to Mei he looked young, fifteen or sixteen. Perhaps she wouldn't be the only young one in the temple. That made her feel better.

But once she was inside the temple of Scared Night, she wasn't so sure. Every vampire she saw looked to be her parent's age or older, shuffling around in robes of black or white with red sashes. None of them spoke. The temple's interior was made of the same dark wood – the bloodwood, she realized, aged and polished till it looked like stone. Chalices of silver, gold and jade rested upon tables between tall candles. Silk banners and woolen tapestries hung everywhere, depicting scenes of sacrifice, slaughter and rebirth. One massive tapestry at the end of the echoing main hall showed the moon and sun fighting over the Blackfang Mountains. Momma had told Mei the story several times, of how the moon had given birth to her children the vampires, and the jealous sun tried to kill them. Every other living thing relied on the White Watcher, but he was a jealous god. The vampires, blessed by the moon, were separate from the rest of the world. So it was.

The two priests led Mei past all the wonders and into a narrow hallway where many sliding doors indicated rooms. The priests waited outside one and called out, and the door was opened from within. Kneeling on a cushion was the oldest vampire Mei had ever seen. Her face was more lines than smooth, her thinning hair pooled around her on the floor, and her fangs almost reached her chin. And when she opened her eyes, they were dim.

“Reverend Mother,” the male priest said. “We have brought the child.”

The old vampire extended a claw and gestured to Mei. She stepped forward, hesitantly. “How old are you?” the Reverend Mother asked in a voice as thin and crackly as old rice paper.

“Thirteen.” The sight of the vampire's eyes, her flopping ears and ragged wings unnerved Mei. How old was this woman? A hundred? Several centuries? That wasn't true though. Vampires never lived to be that old. That was just something humans thought.

The Reverend Mother touched Mei's cheek with one long claw, gently. She pressed her finger in, turning Mei's face to one side, then the other. Mei shuddered. “I will see you on the full moon. Should your cycle remain true, we will know that you belong here.”

Mei didn't know what to say, so she just said, “Yes.”

She was given her own room and a set of clothes to wear, simple roughcloth robes. Her room had a pallet to sleep on and a scroll inscribed with prayers on the wall. Mei went to sleep without saying her morning prayers as usual. She was feeling rather resentful towards the moon right now and everyone in the temple. Prayers were the last thing she wanted. What she wanted was her bed back home, her parents and friends, the simple comforts of tending the farm and exploring the fields and nearby forests of pine, hemlock and hawthorn. Home was what she wanted. This was not home. It never would be.

The rest of the month passed slowly. Mei met the rest of the priests, acolytes and adepts in that time. There was Gen, the boy she'd seen tending the stable. He was an orphan, she found out, who'd been brought in by Brother Xiaoli after trying to pick his pocket. “It's a home,” he told her as he brought in fresh water for the mules and animals in the pens. Most of them were sleeping. Sometimes during the days Mei thought she could hear the mules braying and the chickens clucking through her dreams. But most likely she was remembering the sounds of the farm back home. “I never had a home before this. Brother Xiaoli's the closest thing I have to a father.” Brother Xiaoli himself was one of the younger priests, close to her father's age and stern as well, but Gen assured her that Xiaoli was kind to the acolytes. There was the old vampire who kept the histories of the temple of Sacred Night, Brother Bo, a tiny male with thick glasses whose robes were perpetually covered in dust, his hands black with ink. Mei spent an entire day with him as he told her about the wandering priest who had built the temple with his own hands, brick by brick, and about the old Kings of Night who had ruled Xima back when it was known as the Glorious Kingdom. There was Qi and Yi, two priestesses never seen apart. Everyone said they were close friends but Mei had only seen them fighting, usually arguing about something that had happened many years ago that neither of them could properly remember. Mei decided she liked them.

Then there was the two priests who had brought her to the temple, Brother Shen and Sister Daiyu. Neither of them had said much to her since her arrival, but they were both cold and silent and it seemed that most of the others treated them with a mixture of respect and fear. Mei avoided them when she could.

Mealtimes were passed in a basement hall lit by candle and torch. Prayers and thanks were given by a different priest or acolyte every time. The food was simple; rice soaked in blood from a cow or mule, dark bread, thin soups that spoke of marrow and blood. Mei took her meals with Gen most of the time, though sometimes the two priests that had brought her to the temple sat with her and asked her questions about how she was adapting to life in the temple. The Reverend Mother was never present. Brother Bo said she preferred to eat in the privacy of her chambers, but Gen swore that she was so old that she never ate anymore. “Besides,” he whispered to Mei one night, “I think she'll only drink human blood. Have you ever had human?”

“No,” said Mei. There had only been cows and chickens on her farm back home. She'd never even seen a human. “Have you?”

“Once,” said Gen. “When I was young and living on the streets of Goang by the Silver Shore. A ship of human traders from the First Union came to dock and I hadn't eaten in two days...” He ran a forked tongue over his thin, black lips. “Best thing I've ever tasted. I didn't take much, but I wanted to. I wanted to. Nothing compares to a human.”

The moon changed from a sickle-thin crescent to an empty space in the sky, then waxed and grew until it was a half circle. Mei was taught the prayers for each phase of the moon. “Mother moon grows and shrinks,” Sister Qi told her. “For the one night she is gone from the sky our prayers must be the strongest, so that we may lend her our strength.”

“Then she will return to protect us from the White Watcher,” Yi added. “Then a new month begins, and so the cycle continues anew.”

 

As the full moon approached Mei found herself becoming more and more uncomfortable, as if a horde of moths had hatched in her belly, fluttering about and beating at her stomach walls, anxious to make their way out. It was just nerves, she told herself. But the feeling moved further down and turned into pain, and on the night the full moon she found her robes stained with her own blood. She was brought before the Reverend Mother, who was still on her cushion as if she hadn't moved in a month. The old vampire took just one look at Mei, shaking and clasping her hands together tightly, and said, “She has been chosen.” Mei was brought out into the courtyard, protesting all the while, near dragged along by two priests. “I don't want to,” she said, but it was pointless.

The courtyard was awash in moonlight, casting everything in black and white and silver. The moon herself hung low and heavy in the sky, its lower half tinted a dusky red, each mark upon her face distinct and dark. The courtyard was crowed with (it seemed like) every vampire in the temple. Hoods covered their faces, though she recognized stout Qi and Yi and tiny Brother Bo. She was brought before the altar. There, Brother Shen handed her a stone knife. It was cold against her sweaty palms. “What...” she began, but her question was answered when Sister Daiyu approached the altar with a pure white bull in tow. “No.”

Shen placed his hands on Mei's shoulder, tightly. “You must. There is no question of it now.”

Daiyu tugged the nervous bull forward and shoved its head down onto the altar. “Quickly, child,” she hissed. The bull's eyes rolled madly and it squirmed, but Sister Daiyu's hold was strong. “Do it!”

Mei reached out towards the bull with the knife. “I can't,” she said, so quietly that she thought no one could hear. She'd killed animals before, chickens and little things when her family needed to eat. But not this. Not something just to appease the moon. The bull's eyes met hers, and Mei felt her heart catch in her throat.

Brother Shen grabbed her hand and before Mei could do anything to stop him he slashed the knife across the bull's throat. She cried out as the bull screamed and writhed. Its blood, hot and sweet-smelling, gushed across the pure white altar, and the blood looked almost black in the night. Brother Shen let her hand go and the knife fell from Mei's hand. “Drink,” he whispered in her ear. She didn't want to. She tried to back away from the dying bull, but Brother Shen blocked her path. The scent of the spilled blood coiled unto her nostrils, deep and rich. Her stomach rumbled and the pain below made itself known as her gut twisted. She closed her eyes and fell before the altar and, closing her ears to the last of the bull's dying breaths, she ran her tongue along the altar. Flavor flooded her mouth and her hunger drove her on. Soon she found herself at the bull's throat, her fangs tearing away the fur and skin as the blood pumped out slowly.

 

“Sister Mei!” she heard Shen call out through the haze of feeding. “Chosen by the moon! Blessed be she who is one with the whim of Mother Moon! Blessed is she!”

“Blessed is she!” the rest of the vampires called, and they extended their wings until the sound of their cries echoed around the courtyard of Mei's new home.

Superheroes

Ray spread his hands out and felt the way the elementary particles played between the gaps in space. The air itself was full of them, thick as water. He could swim in them. He could lose himself in them, between them, looking deeper and deeper until each tiny piece grew as large as the world. Each one was a world, its own little sphere teeming with life and energy. Each one was its own solar system, and beyond them lay only empty space where nothing existed until the path and orbit of the next particle. Boundless energy within each, and who could say whether that energy in turn begot life? Worlds within worlds. 

 

One of the tiny complete worlds hovered between his hands, each one made up of millions of elementary particles themselves. He crooked his hands. Energy flowed through his veins, lighting up his bones. Magic. What couldn't it do? Different for every mage, but for him...

The world between his hands shrunk, grew, then burst. Raw energy erupted out, spread, traveled through the void and touched the other worlds. The empty shell of the erupted elementary particle lingered behind until even that dissipated. It was such a tiny thing, to destroy one particle and release all the energy within. He couldn't even feel it against his bare hands. But for that one action there was one less world and that much more chaos, however briefly, and entropy continued its inevitable march.

“Training, Deathray?” He opened his eyes. Panopticon stood before him, hands folded behind his back, posture rigid and correct. The team leader's uniform was perfect and pressed, so smooth and unblemished that it could have been made out of porcelain instead of reinforced fabrics. Even his cape looked unwrinkled and well-behaved. The uniform's brass buttons and black boots had been polished to a mirror sheen. Panopticon's hair was grey now, cropped close to the shape of his skull; a military cut to go along with his demeanor, neither of which had faded after over twenty years of service with the Mighty Men. Ray suppressed a shiver, as he always did when confronted with his boss's eyes. They were blue, but so pale that they were almost colorless, the pupils odd-looking. Ray had never looked long enough to place what made them so strange, but to his best guess Panopticon's pupils were too small and more silver than black. “Your control is admirable.”

“Ray,” he reminded his boss. He'd always been Ray or Raymond, but he'd been saddled with the moniker 'Deathray' since the Civil War. That had been almost ten years ago, and the name had stuck. There was no point in refuting the name now, but he did it anyway. It reminded him of what he'd been used for. “Training,” he agreed. In truth he'd just been trying to pass the time. He'd been able to manipulate individual particles for years now.

“Good on you. Training means dedication, and that's the hallmark of a hero.” Panopticon clapped Ray on the shoulder, the sides of his mouth pulling out into what passed for a smile on him. “Come on. Team meeting.”

“What's going on?”

“You'll find out.”

Ray stood and followed the team leader. Panopticon was several inches taller than Ray and longer in the leg, and Ray had to nearly jog to keep pace. They walked through the halls of the First Fortress, past tall windows offering a sweeping view of Central City. Wide roads and suspended railroad lines zigzagged at random patterns through the city around buildings of varying sizes and ages. You could always tell the older ones; they were made of brick and stone and never rose more than a few stories, while the newer buildings and expansions were spindly towering glass-and-metal constructs. Most of the buildings near the First Fortress were the brick kind, as the borough of Yorktown was one of the oldest in the capitol. Eames Hall, where the king of old Harrington had ruled still stood in splendor, though it had served as the governor's mansion since Harrington had become one of the nineteen provinces in the First Union. The First Fortress, once the tallest and best-defended building in Central City and all of Harrington, was now dwarfed by skyscrapers. The old fortress was still impressive. At least Ray thought so. Few other places in the First Union had seen so much combat, bloodshed and history. Or magic. Mages had manned the fortress since the founding of Harrington centuries ago. This was the place for any discerning and promising mage to go, should they be lucky enough to be selected for a prestigious position amongst the world's greatest heroes.

“It's not anything serious, is it?” Ray asked as they mounted the spiral stairs in the Mage's Tower.

“You'll find out when the rest of the team does,” Panopticon said. His voice remained level, gravelly, but Ray knew when not to continue pressing his leader. When the old mage shoved open the door to the observatory on the top floor of the tower the rest of the team had already gathered around the circular central table. Sunlight streamed in through the windows that made up most of the circular walls, offering a sweeping view of Yorktown. The floor was inlaid with an ancient map of the kingdom of Harrington, old roadways and renamed cities defined in tarnished silver and pearl inlay on dark wood, while the ceiling displayed a constellation map, white on deep blue. The room was, simply, beautiful, but Ray had always felt that an all-glass room on top of a tall tower made for an obvious target in battle. Trying to hide his labored breaths, Ray slipped into his seat next to Grace Harding. Panopticon swept across the room and took his seat at the round table. He laced his hands together and looked around at the rest of the Mighty Men. “Gentlemen. Ladies.”

“What's the problem?” Grace asked. She leaned back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest. Ray had always admired Grace, even before he'd been admitted into the Mighty Men at the tender age of fifteen. She was tall, even compared to most men, with impressive shoulders and long, black hair that tumbled halfway down her back. Her face was beautiful, if hard and strong, though her grey eyes were cold.

“Is it bad?” Vectoress asked.

“Mordania,” the Living Battery opined.

“The vampires!” Steamroller roared.

Panopticon held his silence until his team had quieted down, and then he spoke. “It is Mordania,” he said, “but they're getting bolder.”

“They've already snatched up half of the islands in the Sea of Snow, again,” the Living Battery said. “And they're slaughtering elves now.” Grace shifted in her seat, her expression darkening as she muttered something that sounded like Savages. “What else can they do?”

“Their ambitions grow,” said Panopticon. “Word is that Emperor Varaz is gathering an army of mages. And he means to create them.”

Steamroller was the first one to voice his opinion on the matter. “Impossible!” he declared.

Panopticon glared at Steamroller. “Are you willing to take that risk? Are you willing to let Mordania trample over the free world with an army of mages constructed to meet their every need?”

“Let them try,” Grace said.

“We have the deathray,” the Living Battery reminded them. “Mordania's not going to try anything stupid. No one will.” He glanced towards Ray and nodded, almost in recognition of his contribution to the peace enforcing superweapon.

“Is it wrong for them to experiment?” Changeling asked. It was the first time he'd spoken during the meeting. He sat hunched over his folded hands, looking small and almost meek, moreso compared to the rigid form of Panopticon and Steamroller's hulking body that barely seemed to contain his own massive energy and excitement. Ray didn't understand why someone who could take on the form of almost anyone or anything would chose to look as unassuming as Changeling did. Ray had always assumed that Changeling stayed in his normal form all the time, perhaps for simplicity's sake. “Let them do what they want with mages. As long as they don't threaten the safety of others-”

“You think they're just trying to create mages for the sake of scientific advancement?” Panopticon asked. “What else can they do with them but incite war? This is a violation of magic and, inevitably, international law.”

“I don't think we have the right to-”

“Why don't we? It is in our best interest to stop them.”

“Only if Mordania is a threat.”

Panopticon slapped a palm onto the polished tabletop. The sound rang through the circular room, sharp as a gunshot, and all arguments and oppositions ended. “I'm in no state to hear arguments, Changeling. I'm keeping my eye-” Panopticon tapped a finger to his temple, near his left eye “-on Mordania. Varaz has nothing but lofty ambitions for what's left of the damn Empire, and I don't like this. If we need to take action, we will, and soon. I'm going to speak to the general and the president and see if we can't raise the alert level on Mordania. Until then, orders stand: country-wide problems are top priority, and we watch for any trouble in the south. And, unofficially, we ensure that Mordania doesn't expand too close to First Union territory or other free nations.”

“What about the elven forests?” Vectoress asked.

“Not our concern,” Panopticon said. “We don't treat with the elves. Let Mordania do what they want with them.”

The Living Battery snorted. Of all the Mighty Men, he was the only one that didn't conform to the pale-skinned look of a Union native. He'd been born in Inoor and had their typical dark, angular look. “If the elves could be subdued, they would have been by now.”

Panopticon waved his hand. “Dismissed. I'm going to keep a lookout on Mordania. I'll let you know if anything comes up.” So the old mage pushed his chair back, stood, and walked over to a window. He clasped his hands behind his back and became silent and unmoving. That was that.

“Just another excuse to crack some skulls,” Steamroller said, pounding one fist into an open palm. He grinned. “I got no problem with that.”

Grace braced her hand on the back of her chair and turned to Steamroller. A long lock of hair fell from her shoulder and dangled lazily beside her face in a way that made Ray want to reach out and touch her hair. He wanted to feel the play of elementary particles between his fingers, feel her energy mingle with his. It was a stupid impulse. Grace was his teammate, and if he ever acted on those impulses she'd make sure he remembered his transgression. He'd seen her tear people in half and he didn't want to be on the wrong end of her rage. “Anything to be violent, huh?”

He winked. “Then you must be excited too.”

She turned and left with an exasperated sound. The Living Battery and Steamroller left behind her, conversing amongst themselves. Ray could still hear Steamroller's laughs echoing up the spiral stairs even after the two mages were out of sight. As he stood, Vectoress went over to Panopticon and said something to him. The team leader only held up a hand to silence her before pacing over to another window. “Just ask him later,” Ray said to her. “It can wait, I'm sure.” Panopticon nodded his head once, terse and blunt. Interrupting him during his observation sessions was always a bad idea, Ray had learned. “Let's join the rest of the team. I think Grace might want a training session.”

“If this is all true, we'll need it.” Vectoress and Ray left the observatory. Panopticon remained behind, still as stone and just as silent. Vectoress was similar in age to Ray, though almost certainly older. She'd been on the Mighty Men longer, but going by looks Ray would have put her age at twenty-five. Her short, wavy hair and lively step made her seem younger.

“I think she just needs something to vent on.”

Vectoress laughed. “Let her and Steamroller duke it out.”

“That wouldn't be fair to Steamy.”

“He'd have a chance.”

“Barely.”

The end of the spiral stairs left Ray feeling slightly dizzy as they left the Mage's Tower. “Guess we have to wait now,” he said. “Unless Panopticon sees something else we can take care of.”

For the rest of the day news flowed in to the First Fortress, most of it concerning minor local crimes dealt with by the police and law-enforcing mages. The only information resembling anything exciting was a report of a vigilante street mage being investigated by the police. It wasn't until evening when Ray's shift had ended that Panopticon came out of the observatory and spoke to the team again. “The artificial mages are going to have to wait. Two things: Mordania's making moves to the south, and Lord Malice has re-emerged.”

“The third Lord Malice?” Grace asked. Bruises covered her arms from the hour-long training session which had devolved into a one-on-one brawl with Steamroller. “He's just a boy.”

“He is. It's Mordania that concerns me, though.” Panopticon glared at all the mages in turn. “Unless I'm mistaken, they're making tracks for Xima.”

Science!

It was raining. It was always raining or dismal in one way or another this far north in Mordania. Not that it made things any better. Sometimes, Gavril Kazarian felt that the first Mordanian Emperor had chosen this gloomy place to be the capitol to quash the will of the citizens. Of course, that was a morbid and incorrect opinion. Helmberg had simply been founded on top of several valuable metal mines and built high in the mountains for protection. That was it. The rain and sleet and damp wind were a result of geography and coincidence, not the malicious will of an old king. Still, Gavril sometimes wondered.

The sky was still pissing rain thirty minutes later when he tromped out of his house and onto the streets. People shuffled past, collars turned up, clutching umbrellas closely to themselves. They moved quickly to wherever their destinations were. The constant smell of smoke and asphalt was only slightly masked by the rain. Gavril sniffed and stepped into the usual waiting car. The commute to work took ten minutes, and Gavril read the paper in the backseat of the car while the driver remained dutifully silent. Idiocy was not something Gavril wanted to ever deal with, least of all in the morning.

Ten minutes later the car purred to a halt in front of the towering white bulk of the National Science Center. Gavril pushed his way out of the car without saying anything to the driver and hurried on in. His wet shoes squeaked against the polished floor as he made his way to his labs. Some of the other scientists and researchers called out greetings to him, good mornings and the rest. Gavril nodded curtly to some of them and ignored the rest. The student researchers he ignored entirely.

In the comfort of his lab he slipped on his long white coat. It was a large room, far larger than any of the other research labs in the National Science Center, except for the ones devoted to Operation: Skylight. That one was top secret. In here, several long tables filled the sterile room, each one covered with the bits and pieces of projects abandoned and picked up again, each in turn forgotten for another newer one. Stacks of papers covered in scribbled notes lay next to each project and multiple slate boards stood sentry at the back wall, each covered in equations and figures drawn in chalk with 'Do not erase!' in the corner. It looked, frankly, like a huge mess, but Gavril knew where everything was and what everything was for. Anyone who dared try and clean it up would face a severe tongue-lashing from Dr. Kazarian, and no one wanted that.

Gavril stood in front of the newest of his line of blackboards and frowned at his scribbled notes, hands in his lab coat pockets. “Elementary Particles” was written at the top of the board, followed by indecipherable scrawl, and then “Harnessing Device,” which had been circled several times with such force that the chalk had broken. One of the chalk stubs lay somewhere in the corner of the room, sad and forgotten. This, Gavril had decided, was necessary, nay, vital, to figure out. The First Union had figured out how to do it almost a decade ago and had refused to yield their secrets, as any sane nation would do. That the damn thing worked was worse. Some people had thought it a fraud, just a fancy and elaborate device cooked up to scare the rest of the world into submission, but when it had blasted a city block to so much rubble...

“Deathrays,” he muttered to himself before turning to one of the tables, the notes and papers still spread across it from last night's work. “What's the world coming to these days?” When one country went mad the others had to follow suit or be buried in the dust. Mordania of old had been mad, so the First Union had followed suit. And now Emperor Varak I was upping the ante to match the insanity of deathrays and the Mighty Men. “Damn Union.” There could be no going back now, of course. One could only forge on ahead.

With a groan Gavril sat himself down, pulled a beaten and much-chewed pencil out of his pocket and pulled the bunches of papers towards him. The basic process of the deathray was simple enough: the division of elementary particles led to an explosion exponentially proportional to the mass of said particle. The hard part was determining the exact magical process by which the particles could be safely divided and, more importantly, how to propel the force of the particles into a beam. Creating an explosion was one thing, but it was quite another to focus that explosion on a point many miles away, across borderlines and oceans. Gavril set to scribbling. He called for coffee mid-morning, which was brought to him in a tiny cup by a student. The doctor accepted it with a grunt and downed the hot, heady brew in one. His hand took to shaking as he continued his equations.

“Dr. Kazarian?” the student said, hesitantly. He held the empty coffee cup in one hand.

“What?” he snapped, not looking up.

“You have a message. Urgent.” The cup rattled against its saucer in the student's hand.

“Why is it just coming to me now, then?” he asked. 

“I didn't think you'd want to be disturbed-”

“Give me the message and stop wasting my time.”

The student swallowed. “Yes. Sir.” He pulled a small envelope out of his pocket and handed it over. Gavril glanced at it and felt himself freeze when he saw the emblem of the Imperial House stamped on the back of the envelope, an eagle clutching a sword in one claw and a thunderbolt in the other. He tore the envelope open.

“This message is from His Excellency and you didn't bring it to me straightaway?”

“I'm sorry, sir, but-”

“Leave.” Gavril pointed to the door as he began to read. “Get out.” The student lost no time in obeying the order. Idiot.

Dr. Gavril Kazarian, the letter began, I have personally taken note of your work as of late. Your devotion and contributions to this country have all been exceptional. I am aware that you have been working on the theories behind Deathrays. However, I have a personal project that I wish to commission to you. Gavril put the letter down. “God in Heaven.” A request from the Emperor himself...Gavril took a moment to compose himself before picking up the letter again. The letter quivered in his unsteady hand, from caffeine or nerves he couldn't tell. I cannot divulge any details in this letter for security reasons, but let it be known that you will receive your orders soon. The prestige and recognition you would receive for the successful completion of this project would be beyond compare. An escort will deliver you to Government Center later today for discussion on the matter. The letter ended with the small, tight signature of His Excellency and Supreme Ruler Varaz I of House Rorian, Emperor of Mordania and Protector of the colonies.

At three o'clock that afternoon a sleek black car pulled up in front of the labs and Gavril was escorted in. The car moved swiftly through the bad traffic in Government Center, past the official-looking marble buildings. Many of the buildings had been constructed during the height of the empire's power, and the elaborate antiquated architecture with their soaring towers and high, narrow windows showed it. The most elaborate of the buildings in the Center was the Imperial Palace and the car had to go through three gates in three walls to reach it. Within the décor was all white marble, gold leaf and dark naked iron. Everything was built in harsh right angles with flowing designs on the ceilings and walls. Through elaborate doors and past guards, most with rifles or halberds, a rare few in the long, flared coats and high boots of the mages. In a small, tastefully decorated room off of one hall sat the Emperor. He was a young man, dark hair cut short, with high cheekbones and a narrow mouth. His clothes were simple; a clean white shirt and a dark coat of modern cut with a medal pinned to the lapel.

“Dr. Kazarian.” The Emperor rose and indicated a chair in the corner of the room. “Please, take a seat.”

“Your Excellency.” Gavril bowed before sitting. He kept his hands clasped tightly across his belly. He'd seen footage and photographs of the Emperor before, but in person he looked very different. Normal, almost, in his modest garb. If Gavril had passed the man on the street he wouldn't have given him a second thought.

“I'm glad you could come, Dr. Kazarian. May I call you Gavril? Would you like wine? Cheese? Bring us a bottle of the Gorian red,” he called out to one of the guards.

“I don't drink,” Gavril said.

“No? Pity. Wine from the Gorian region is the finest around, and this,” he said, indicating the bottle as a guard arrived with it, “is a particularly fine vintage.” The guard poured the deep red wine into a wide-mouthed crystal glass. Emperor Varaz sniffed the wine before taking a quick sallow. “Exquisite.” He set the glass down on a small table and looked straight at Gavril. “Let me cut to the chase. Mordania has suffered in recent years. We've never been able to recapture the glory of the old empire. Where we once controlled half the world we now control a handful of tiny islands.”

Gavril nodded. Had he not been speaking to the Emperor he would have asked him to hurry up.

“My campaigns to re-establish Mordania as a world power have been less successful than I would have hoped. The elven savages are resisting us and the Mighty Men stop all our attempts to bring other places into our fold.” He took another sip of his wine. “Therein lies our problem. No national mage program. We are forever driven back by the same small group of mages playing at world police in the First Union's name.”

“Then what do you want?” Gavril asked.

“Mages, Gavril. An army of mages to challenge the Mighty Men.”

Gavril digested this request for a second. “You want me to make mages.”

“Correct.”

“You want me to find a way to give magic to people not born with it.” The Emperor nodded. “It cannot be done.”

“If anyone can do it, it's you, Gavril. You've studied magic before and your research on the nature of elementary particles is renowned. The studies you've been doing on deathrays shows great promise, too.”

“I haven't studied magic extensively, but-”

“Don't be so modest. You're the one to do this. I insist,” he said as Gavril frowned. “You will be compensated, of course. I will ensure you have whatever funding and resources you need to complete the project. If you need a new lab, new research assistants, you shall have it. I'll expect weekly progress reports from you.”

“What if I refuse your offer, Your Excellency?”

The Emperor chuckled. “I really don't hope you'd refuse me. You'll never get an opportunity like this again and you'd be doing Mordania an incredible service. It would be foolish to refuse.” He took another swallow of wine, set the glass down, and regarded Gavril over steepled fingers. “Send the government a list of what you will need to carry out the experiments. My advisor Pjeter Barrian will process the requests.”

The decision, then, had already been made, and it was clear that whatever Gavril said would do nothing. Besides, government funding was nothing to balk at, particularly when the bills were footed by the Emperor himself. “I shall do that,” Gavril said. He rose. “With your permission, I'd like to return to my labs and begin the research.”

The Emperor clapped his hands together and smiled. “Wonderful. Speak to Chancellor Pjeter before you leave.”

So Gavril bowed to the Emperor and left the side chamber, where he was greeted by a man of middling height slightly doughy around the middle, dressed in a rich clothing; maroon and gold velvet coat over a waistcoat and neat trousers. His hair was gray and hung just past his ears, and a trim goatee framed his lined mouth. All in all, an ordinary looking man in elaborate clothing. But his eyes were young-looking, bright and clever and so light a brown they were almost gold. “You're Pjeter?”

“Chancellor Pjeter,” he corrected Gavril grunted. “I will be His Excellency's representative on this endeavor. I will speak with the Emperor's voice, and all requests I make should be taken with as much gravity as if spoken by his mouth.” Gavril waved his hand, hurrying the advisor along. “Stay in contact with me through letters, or by voiceline, if you can. I will fill your requests and provide my own.” He talked on, but he didn't say much more and Gavril was soon dismissed and the black car brought him back to his lab where Gavril cleared off a stretch of table, took a fresh bundle of papers, and set to work on the certainly impossible task of creating mages.