Ferez Abdul Ahud strode down the open hallways of the Mage’s College of Pyris, head held high, self-satisfied smirk on his face, armoured suit clanking as the steel and Pyrerite alloy smacked against the tiled floor and the robes hanging about his shoulders swirled pleasingly in the breeze. He’d been an Adept barely a year, itself an incredible achievement at the tender age of twenty-three, and was already being invited into the Circle chambers. Sure, it was to receive a task that some might view as unsavoury, but he had earned his Adept rank to become a battlemage. Shying away from killing now would be counterproductive.

Admittedly, he had become a battlemage to seek glory, fame, and fortune on the battlefield, not conduct college sanctioned assassinations, but until he established his reputation, he had to take whatever work he could get. And besides, from all accounts, his target had it coming. He unfurled the Writ of Termination in his hand and read it again.

Ferdinand DuBois, by order of the Pyrisian College, blah blah blah is to have his record of good standing rescinded and is to be terminated for the following crimes:

Murder of college affiliates, three counts

Murder of non-Pyris Mages in good standing with the college, four counts

Murder of Pyris Mages in good standing with the college, two counts

Theft of college goods, one count

Smuggling of magical artefacts without college consent, one count

Bringing disrepute upon the Mage’s College of Pyris, eleven counts

Some more blah about customs and traditions, the bearer of this document is to conduct the termination and recover the stolen item, present the corpse whole or in part(s) thereof as proof, some more legal jargon, and then the signatures of the High Mages and even the Arch Mage himself!

This guy has really pissed off the college, Ferez thought as he rolled up the scroll and tucked it into his robes.

Though murdering nine people and smuggling on the black market would do that. The theft charge was a bit trumped up, it was only there because ‘technically’ the colleges considered all magical artefacts their rightful property regardless of who found it, but given the litany of other offenses it probably didn’t matter much in the overall scheme of things.

DuBois was, by all accounts, a mage of no note. He had scraped through his Adept examinations through creative use of fire magic to offset his low Talent and gone on to have a thoroughly unremarkable career as a battlemage. The Circle had hoped he would abandon his delusions of grandeur and become a Professor, passing his techniques to young mages with more potential, but he had stubbornly refused to bow out despite losing every time he went up against another mage. There was a pool among some of his peers as to how he would die in the end and Ferez had already placed his money on drowning by Aquis mage. Unfortunately.

He frowned. There was a lot of money riding in that pool. Sure, the bounty on DuBois was substantial, but why cheat yourself out of money if you didn’t need to? He decided to duck into the bookies’ quarters on the way out of the city to change his bet to death by immolation. Just five minutes out of his schedule, but the payout would be worth it.

That being said, he still needed to figure out how a laughable nobody had murdered six mages. From the debrief, Ferez knew that two of the victims were battlemages of some renown and should have been more than capable of dealing with the runt. So how had he bested them? The Circle had been adamant they died duelling, not knifed when their backs were turned. The devastation around their bodies was undeniable proof they had fought back, and so logic demanded DuBois was either working with a far more capable accomplice, or had gotten his hands on something that more than levelled the playing field.

Ferez looked back at the scroll and tapped his finger on one charge in particular.

The theft.

It wasn’t too far a logic leap to assume the magical artefact was the root of his newfound power.

Ferez grunted and resumed his march. He needed to know what that artefact was, and what it did. He was a powerful mage; talented and exceedingly good looking, but it was a fool’s gambit to go into battle without knowing what he was up against. And if there was one person in the city who would know, it would be Four Fingered Leo.

*

Ferez had tried to find the smuggler at his market stall, but curiously, it had been vacant. Fortunately, he’d had a few interactions with the man over the course of his apprenticeship, and he knew Leonardo Telruson had a permanent room rented above a tavern nearby. Unfortunately, Leo wasn’t there either, which was why Ferez was now standing there, lurking in a shadowy alcove in the corner of the room, waiting for him to return.

He had been lurking for over an hour now.

He had it all planned out; he’d hide in shadow, Leo would come bustling through the door and start pottering around, completely unaware he had company until Ferez stepped out and said ‘hello, Leo,’ at which point the smuggler would spin around, shocked and dismayed, and probably comment on how that was the most terrifying and awesome entrance anyone had ever made. It was an excellent plan, one of Ferez’s best, but it was, sadly, close to being abandoned since boredom was about five minutes from forcing him to give up.

He harrumphed and crossed his arms. Opportunities like this didn’t come along very often. Except for Umbral mages who could summon shadows wherever they wanted, of course, but they lacked a flair for the dramatic and, in Ferez’s opinion, their unique abilities were completely wasted on them. Either way, he was getting extremely irritated by Leo’s tardiness.

He was just about to abandon his post when the door burst open and Leo barged in, his robes swishing about chaotically. He was a short Tok Risim man, tanned skin with the blue-black hair of a water mage, plump, verging on fat from a comfortable life behind the city’s walls. He started rushing about the room, picking up objects seemingly at random and dumping them into a canvas sack he produced from under the bed.

Ferez stepped out from the shadows. “Hello, Leo-oof!”

He exhaled hard as Leo barrelled into him, nearly knocking him over. The smuggler stopped where he was, eyes widening as he took in the armoured mage in front of him. Ferez lurched forward and clamped a hand over his mouth as he started screaming.

“By Val’Pyria, would you shut up, Leo?” Ferez hissed. Leo stopped struggling long enough to get a good look at his assailant, and recognition dawned in his eyes, though they stayed wide as he nodded.

“Alright, I’m going to take my hand away. Not a peep! Understand?”

Ferez slowly released his grip and stepped back.

“Long time, no see, Ferez,” Leo said, massaging his jaw with his hand. It was, Ferez noticed, the same hand that had earned him the moniker Four Fingers. Smuggling could be a hazardous trade, criminals liable to lose life or limb in any number of unpleasant ways. In Leo’s case, though, it was rather ridiculous; he’d gotten drunk while running a shipment of baby swamp drakes and had the bright idea to domesticate one by hand feeding it. “I would love to catch up, but you may have noticed I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

“I can see that, although I think it would behove you to take a minute out of your busy schedule,” Ferez replied.

Leo’s eyes narrowed, and Ferez sensed a shift in his posture. Not his physical posture, mind you, the only movement he made was to let his hand fall to his side. No, it was the posture of his Talent, the innate force that allowed mages to manipulate the elements. He started coiling it around himself, ready to act.

Ferez sighed. Leo had been kicked out of the Aquis college while still an apprentice. He was unlikely to be on Ferez’s level, but Aquis were famously quick on the draw if there was a source of water nearby. Unfortunately for Ferez, there were pitchers of water everywhere in the room, probably for that very reason.

“Lets not do anything rash, Leo. I just need some information. I’m not here to arrest you or anything.”

Leo scoffed. “Arrest? You think that’s what I’m worried about?”

“It’s not?”

An unfamiliar voice joined the conversation as a hooded figure stepped out of a different, dark alcove. “No, he’s worried about us.”

Damn, but that was an impressive entrance, Ferez thought as he and Leo whirled on the newcomer.

“Who the Pit are you?” Ferez demanded, though it was Leo who replied.

“He’s from the Assassin’s Guild.”

“Pit, Leo. What have you done to get a contract put on you?”

“I don’t know! They attacked me on the way to my stall this morning. I’ve been trying to lose them all morning!”

“Don’t suppose you’d be willing to tell us, then?” Ferez asked the assassin.

The guilder shook his head.

“Figures. Well, in that case…” Ferez trailed off as he remembered something the assassin had said.

Us.

He whirled as the door was kicked in, hurling a stream of fire that incinerated the first assassin to come through. Behind him, he heard the sounds of a scuffle and an abrupt cry. He turned his head, still keeping up the flames, to find the first assassin on the ground, perforated by a half dozen spears of ice. Leo was panting slightly, but gave him a thumbs up when he saw Ferez watching.

“Guess you’ve still got it, Leo. Any ideas now?”

“Yep, out the window!”

Ferez glanced at the window and the bright, cloudless sky beyond.

“We’re three storeys up. How are you expecting to get down?”

“With… this!” Leo replied, running to his bed and pulling a bundled rope of bed sheets from underneath. One end was secured to the bed leg.

“Do… do you just keep that set up? Permanently? How paranoid are you?”

“Just the right amount, it seems. Come on.”

Leo ran to the window and leapt out, the improvised rope going taut and swinging wildly before it settled. Ferez turned his attention back to the door. His flames were keeping the other assassins at bay, but they would come through as soon as he released the stream to run.

He reached his free hand out and formed a small ball of flame just beyond his outstretched palm. He’d pioneered this technique a few months ago, and its reliability was still a little touch and go. He didn’t have many alternatives, though.

He lobbed the Flash Bomb at the doorway as he cut the stream of fire. Once the bomb was through, he clenched his fist, detonating it and releasing a concussive blast that splintered the doorframe and cracked the stone walls. That ought to keep any foes down long enough to make good on his escape.

He spun and sprinted for the window, hearing several groans from the corridor outside and at least one person screaming, and followed Leo out, grabbing the rope in his hands as he flipped over the sill. The bedsheet rope went taut.

Then snapped.

The damn armour, he reflected as he fell, probably weighed more than the rope could handle. He hit the ground with a crunch, the back of his head smacking on the dirt road, and his world went dark.

*

Ferez slowly came too. First, he noticed he was on his back, then that he was somehow moving, feet first, and lastly that he was fucking cold.

“Mmmmuuurrrgghh,” he groaned as he tried to sit up. He couldn’t move. He was frozen in place, literally, he realised, as he opened his eyes and looked around. He was on a bed of ice, clamps over his chest, wrists, and ankles to hold him in place.

He turned his attention to his surrounds, trying to gain his bearings. He was moving through a dark tunnel, damp, though that impression could have been from laying on an ice tray for gods knew how long. The scent of salt and seaweed filled his nostrils, and far off he could hear the screeching of gulls. They were near the ocean.

“You’re finally awake?” Leo’s voice asked from somewhere behind his head.

“Think so,” Ferez replied, wincing as the noise sent pain spearing through his head. Though awake, he was struggling to even think, every attempt at grasping the jigsaw pieces of ideas floating through his skull ending in frustration as they danced back out of reach when he tried fitting them together. He was almost certainly concussed. “Wh-where?”

“Smuggler’s tunnel. Runs from the Six Cities to the Salazaar port. Took me a while to find one that hadn’t been opened in a while, though. Couldn’t risk more assassins waiting for us inside.”

Leo’s tone was bright and optimistic, and, with Ferez’s aching head, it was starting to piss him off.

“You’re remarkably upbeat for someone with the Guild after him,” Ferez said, pulling against the restraints. He gave up when they refused to budge and instead arched his head to see Leo behind him.

“I’m a smuggler, Ferez. Someone is always after me. You get used to it. Although,” he said, moving around to the side of the ice bed, “I was hoping you might illuminate me why they want me dead this time?”

“You really don’t know?”

“Nope.”

Ferez sighed. “Tell you what, let me up off this cursed slab and I’ll tell you what I know.”

“I could,” Leo said, scratching the stubble on his chin, “or you could tell me what you know, and then I’ll consider letting you out.”

Ferez briefly thought to melt the ice himself, but the assassin from earlier had already discovered the hard way that Leo was wickedly fast with his magic. Any attempt to break out would likely see him turned into a recently deceased approximation of his underpants.

Holey.

“Leo, friend, be reasonable! How long have we known each other? You can trust me!”

“Yeah. I don’t think so. My last smuggling partner of five years put a knife in my gut over a crate of smutty novels. Smut! We stood to make a grand total of, maybe, a hundred silvers on the damn thing and he stabbed me over it! I don’t even know why it’s illegal to trade it in the Six!”

“It’s distracting for the young apprentices, so-“ Ferez started before a bar of ice clamped over his mouth.

“I don’t care, Ferez! That’s not the point. I don’t trust anyone. That includes you, and I can sprout ice nails out of that bed whenever I so choose, so start talking.”

“Mmmmph,” Ferez replied.

“Right, solid point, well made.” With a wave of his hand, Leo melted the ice bar away.

“Thank you,” Ferez said. “It seems I’m at your mercy, though I can only tell you what I think might be happening here, so please bear that in mind before you start punching icicles through me.”

“I’ll consider it.”

“Good man, all I ask. Ahem, as to why the Guild may want you dead. Have you done business with a fellow by the name of Dubois recently?”

Leo stopped walking and the ice bed stopped alongside him. “Dubois… That does sound familiar. Ah! Yes! He’s new to the scene. One of the link men at an illegal Resonance Ore dig up in Aderath. Brought me some pieces for distribution in Salazaar about a month back.”

“I see. I was coming to talk to you about him, see if you had any information. He is, or I should say, was, a college Adept. He’s been kicked out for stealing from the college-“

Leo snorted. He knew exactly what that meant.

“-and murdering nine people,” Ferez said. “Including six mages.”

That gave Leo pause.

“He sounds like bad news.”

“He wasn’t, battlemage of no note initially. Until he got his hands on an artefact and went on a little killing spree.”

“So you’ve been tasked with his execution?” Leo asked, his lips curling around the word.

“Like you can talk. Don’t judge me for my occupational choices.”

“Hey! My line of work is as honest as dishonest work gets. Certainly not as bad as murder.”

“Uh huh. Remind me again what happened to your last partner?

“That’s different. That was self defence.”

“If that’s what you need to tell yourself.”

“Alright, enough of that,” Leo said as the ice below Ferez rippled. “What’s this got to do with the Guild?”

Ferez felt tiny pinpricks along the back of his neck. He knew there were more vestigial spikes forming beneath his armour. The plate was thick, but it wouldn’t stop magically imbued ice. He gulped.

“I haven’t quite figured that one out yet, but it can’t just be coincidence, can it? Maybe they’re after the artefact? If it can allow a nobody to kill battlemages on an even footing, it must be pretty powerful. Or maybe he’s hired them to cover his tracks?”

“That’s the best you can do?”

Ferez stared Leo in the eyes as he replied. “I’m afraid so. You going to kill me? Or release me?”

Leo shrugged his shoulders, and the bed dissolved away, dropping Ferez to the tunnel floor. “Seems to me we’re both in the shit now, anyway.”

“How do you figure?” Ferez asked as he climbed to his feet, the elevation change setting his brain thumping against his skull. He never appreciated it before, but the armour was fucking heavy when you’re trying to climb to your feet. Or run. Or dive through windows.

“The Guild must know you’re involved now. They’ll be gunning for you the same as me.”

“What’s your plan, then? I assume you have one.”

Leo tapped the side of his head. “I always have a plan, frequently several. I have backup plans for the primary plans besides. Plans within plans within plans. My mind is a steel trap stuffed with plan-bait.”

“So what is it?”

“We’ll take my ship to Aderath. There’s a battlemage there who coordinates most of the smuggling in the southern regions on the down low. I’m hoping she’ll be able to shed some more light on what’s happening here.”

“That sounds like a good plan. What’s the backup?”

“The what now?”

“The back up? ‘plans within plans’ and all that?”

“Oh. I have to admit, I was hoping you wouldn’t actually ask.”

“You don’t have a back up, do you?”

“Not unless changing our names and moving to Skjar counts.”

It most definitely did not.

“Damn it, Leo. What happens when we get to your ship and it’s crawling with guildsmen?”

“Not possible. No one knows which ship is mine except me.”

“Humour me.”

“I will not. There is no point wasting valuable cognitive power on unrealistic scenarios.”

Ferez groaned and shouldered past Leo, heading deeper into the tunnel. “By the Pantheon, you had better be right.”

*

“Hurry it up, Leo!” Ferez shouted as he hurled a stream of flame from the deck of the ship. It went wide of his target by a good few meters. Between the concussion and the rocking of the ship, he was struggling to hit anything.

Ship, he thought, it’s a glorified dingy!

Maybe four metres from end to end and a couple wide. How Leo expected to get this thing to Aderath was a mystery. More pressing though, was that, besides being tiny, it was also very exposed, and a dozen Guild assassins were currently swarming the docks to get aboard. More were hiding in the adjacent warehouses, loosing arrows from dark windows.

An assassin leapt at the boat, a pair of curved knives in his hands.

“Fuck, ALL OF YOU!” Ferez shouted, blasting the man out of the air with twin streams that roared hungrily on past the guilder and hitting a warehouse wall. In seconds it was ablaze, burning assassins throwing themselves from windows or streaming out of the doorways. Amazingly, despite the ocean just a few metres away, most of them dropped to the dirt and started rolling around instead, trying to put out the flames, while the rest just kept running around in screaming circles until they collapsed and stopped moving altogether.

“Bravo, Ferez! Excellent work, keep it up,” Leo said as he faffed about with some rope.

“Damnit, Leo. This thing is a bloody row boat, how is this taking so long?”

“Well, I haven’t actually sailed this thing since I lost my last partner-“

“The one you killed? Let me guess. He was the sailor out of the two of you?” Ferez said, throwing up a wall of flames to immolate a hail of arrows.

“Correct. Like you said though, how hard can this be? Ah, there we go.”

Leo tugged on something and the sails bloomed open. He started cheering as the boat moved, then swore when he realised they were still tethered to the pier. He ran over and started untangling the mess until Ferez pushed him aside.

“Hey!-“ Leo protested before Ferez torched the rope, the bollard it was tied around, and a fair chunk of the pier.

“No ‘heys’, Leo. Get us the fuck out of here!”

“Right, probably smart,” Leo replied, turning to the back of the boat and making a rapid series of gestures. The ocean beneath the boat swelled and Ferez held on in sudden, desperate fear as he found them falling along the face of a tsunami. He was dimly aware of screams as the body of water demolished what was left of the pier behind them, before the wave carried them off into the open blue sea and, he hoped, relative safety.