Inktober #1: Ring (Patreon)

“No,” Diana Faust said, facing the Council. “No, I will not be bound to a ring. My teacher is dead; by the laws of the arcana, I am free, and I will so stay.”

“See thou reason, woman,” Fa Guang said impatiently. “Thou’rt a journeyman and young for it besides, still in the fullness of your first life—”

“I have taken more than one client prime,” Diana said. “’Tis far from my first life.”

“In body, yes,” Amyntas said patiently. “In years, thou’d hardly be old enough to have children grown—”

“I have no children.”

“And if thou hadst them, they’d still be in their youth. Thou wert an apprentice for less than ten years.”

“Despite which, I avenged my teacher and earned the rank of Journeywoman.”

“See reason!” Fa Guang shouted. “One as young as thou art should not be unbound! Accept the ring, take a new teacher. Amyntas has offered to take you, as have Nikolaus and Ismail both.”

“Master Nikolaus was an apprentice for six years, and was accorded the rank of master within forty. He is hardly a century old. Wherefore should the rules be different for me?” Diana smiled coldly. She knew well exactly why the rules were applied differently now.

“Let us be frank, then, if thou demandst it so,” Gasparo said tightly. “Thou’rt a woman. Petrius should never have taken thee as apprentice. We all know ‘twas thy coin, and perhaps thy body, not thy aptitudes, that led him to pretend thou wert suited for the magical arts.”

“So Huo Tian said, before I killed him.” She let herself smirk. “No master was he, true, but a journeyman of over 200 years’ standing, and if Petrius told me true, ‘twas his temperament and not his skills that led you to deny him an apprentice of his own. He was skilled enough to kill Petrius, who you made a master when he requested permission to take an apprentice.” He hadn’t told them the apprentice he planned to take was a widow in her 30’s. They were probably regretting that they hadn’t pressed him for more information before granting his elevation. “And yet he fell to me, mere woman that you call me. Did you think such was blind chance?”

“Yes,” Gasparo snapped. “He underestimated thee. Had he taken the combat seriously, thou’dst never have prevailed.”

Probably true. But irrelevant. “The fact remains, I have earned my passage. I was the apprentice of a duly recognized master. I wore his ring. And when he was untimely and viciously murdered, I completed my obligation and avenged him. I have won a death-duel against another arcana of more than twice my age and experience. By all of our laws I am a Journeywoman now, and with my teacher dead, I need not wear anyone’s ring.”

William scowled at her. “By all rights, we should try thee and banish thee from our company for causing Petrius’ death. Huo Tian would never have killed a master with a proper apprentice.”

Fury welled. Diana controlled it. “What fault is that of mine? I did not choose to be born a woman. Petrius made the decision to teach me. Huo Tian decided to behave as if I were no arcana at all, and he died for that presumption.” She held William’s eyes for a moment, then met Gasparo’s. “He respected me not, and for that died. Petrius held me in respect. None of you can say the same.” Antonio, Petrius’ own teacher, had shown her some, but he behaved toward her more as a nobleman toward a daughter-in-law than a Journeywoman in her own right. “As for who does share blame… you, o eminent Council, allowed a master to be murdered by a journeyman with a grudge, and did naught. You sat on your highly respectable rears while I risked my life. I was apprentice enough, arcana enough, to carry out justice in your stead, but now you claim I must submit to another teacher, one who never chose me in the first place?” 

She folded her arms in front of her. “I say you all, nay. Nay, I shall not submit. Petrius looked at me and saw a potential arcana and future equal. You look at me and see only a woman. And you fear me, because I have killed an arcana far greater in experience than I am, because I used the magics of Chaos and survived it, and you know not what I might do in future. I am young and you do not know me; I am a woman, and you are as blind as most men, for all your power, and have made yourself willfully ignorant of women. You want to control me. You want one that you trust to hold my life force on a leash, to bind me to the ring so you can compel my obedience if I do not do as you expect. But since you hold me in contempt for the sex of my birth, none of the excellence I seek, none of the knowledge I crave, will be held in the compass of what you expect. I shall not be bound by your expectations.”

“We asked this of thee to give thee the right to obey of thy own will,” Fa Guang said. “But do not think we cannot force thee. Choose a new master of your own accord, or be bound to our choice for thee.”

She was fairly certain that that was a bluff. All arcana magic was based around consent. Consent could be tricked, it could be uninformed, but the magic would simply not work in the face of a “no.” However, she would take no chances with her freedom. “Then know this,” she said. “I will die ere I submit to any master. I am a Journeywoman and have earned that rank… by killing an arcana, and not one of little repute, either.” She looked around the council chamber. “There are five of you, masters, and one of me, but I am prepared to die, hot in the flush of the youth you accuse me of. You men are wise elders of great age and experience… but can you guarantee that you could defeat me and none of you suffer fatal consequence?” Diana smirked. “I think men of age and wisdom do not achieve such status by being careless with their lives, but how should I, a woman and young as you say, know what men of such age might think and do?”

She saw it sink in, saw them glance at each other. Yes. Men of great age, who might live a thousand years or more if they didn’t fall in battle, would not be eager to go into battle against a young mage who’d expressed willingness to die before surrender and who’d already killed a powerful arcana.

But they might imagine that she had too little power to prevail against even one of them, not after she’d consumed the life force of two entire clients prime to wield enough power that she could avenge her teacher, not after the medics had had to give her flos corde to save her life. So she let power out as light, letting a corona shine around her body like the halo of an angel. She saw their faces change, and knew they were thinking what she meant them to. Arcana were careful with their power, because their power was life force, and could only be extracted from human beings who consented to give it. Most, the clients, gave small amounts, amounts they could spare, for minor acts of magic. Let me become pregnant, make my husband love me again, protect my family while I’m soldiering for the Duke. But the greatest amount of their power came from the clients prime, the people willing to give up their very lives in exchange for some great working of magic. And it wasn’t particularly easy to find people who wanted something badly enough they were willing to die for it.

Diana had found two, within a year. And for all the Council knew, she could have managed the same trick. Two clients prime had made her, briefly, so powerful she could barely restrain her power… but could she have learned better control? Could she have taken another client prime… or two? How much power did she have?

And how willingly would any of them risk his own life to test her?

They looked to each other, and nodded, and drew back in their chairs, sitting back rather than up near the edges as they had been, and the master who hadn’t spoken finally did.

Raoul held Diana’s gaze. “Very well, Journeywoman. You have earned the position. It was not by your doing that you were unbound; that was Huo Tian, and you repaid him in accordance with the law and tradition.”

Diana nodded, acknowledging his words, which were no more than her due, and the polite regard he showed her in saying “you” rather than “thou”. But he went on.

“However. Do you not take up the ring as apprentice now, you shall never take up the ring as master. No matter how long you live or how learned you become, you will never teach an apprentice. You will never be granted the Master rank.”

Diana had expected that. She breathed out. It wasn’t a small matter, to be denied the right to have an apprentice, but she hadn’t become an arcana for power – neither the social power inherent in being known as a master, nor the physical power of life-force that the teacher could drain from the student through the rings they both wore. She wanted knowledge. And teaching a student would gain her no new knowledge for herself.

“I accept those terms, Council Elder,” she said. 

“Then go from here. We have no further business with you.”

It was a rude dismissal, but Diana had no desire to remain anyway. She bowed once, turned on her heel, and left the Council chambers, free.