The Fifth Law
The first thing Brandon had noticed about the city was the sheer amount of people.
The second thing he noticed was the noise.
As he, Plum, and Willam approached the city gates of Algaran, the sound of the crowds grew and grew until Brandon could hardly hear himself think. Brandon thought that it felt like being in one of the Keep’s spires during a particularly bad thunderstorm, except that it didn’t let up for even a second. He could pick out the chattering sounds of hundreds of human voices, hooves clopping on dirt and mud, banners and tents flapping in the wind… the sound alone threatened to overwhelm him again.
Just as he felt his heart begin to beat quicker, Brandon felt Plum’s arm slip into his. The familiar gesture brought him calm, and he breathed deeply again—and then proceeded to gag at the stench. The smell of horse manure and unwashed bodies mingled with that of fried food and exotic spices in the marketplace. The entire experience of being in the city was being constantly bombarded with sensory information, and Brandon was overwhelmed.
The three magicians made their way through the gates of Algaran and into the city. Willam opened his coat to allow Julien to slip inside and hide, and Meeks stayed practically glued to Plum. From inside the walls of the city, the press of people was even more oppressive than it had been from the distance, and Brandon found himself nearly mute from the pressure.
“How exactly are we expected to find your dyadic friends?” Willam asked. He had to practically shout over the noise.
“I…” Brandon hesitated. “I am not sure.”
“Laszlo told us naught but to bring the charm to the city,” Plum shouted back. “He assured us we would ‘find our way.’”
“Helpful,” Willam said brightly. Plum shrugged.
“Should we ask someone?” Brandon asked.
“And tell them what, exactly?” Plum asked in lieu of a response. “‘Hello, we are looking for a secret organization that is trying to overthrow Radiance and upend the entire social order, could you tell us where they live?’”
“Fair point,” Brandon responded, sheepish.
“We should find food,” Plum said, already scouting the market stalls and neighboring shops. “I certainly could use a hot meal.”
“And coffee,” Willam commented.
“And coffee,” Plum agreed.
They broke through the crowd and into a bustling public square. An ornate stone fountain dominated the square, and it was ringed by buildings in a way that reminded Brandon of the courtyard in the Keep. The fountain burbled and spat water, and the shimmering water pooled in the base rippled gently in the breeze.
What caught Brandon’s eyes the most, though, were the dozen or so people huddled at the base of the fountain.
They were wearing ragged clothes, if they wore anything at all. Each had a sign carrying some variation of the same story: one had lost a hand in the House Citrine factories, one a leg in the Vermillion fields, another an eye fighting in Radiance’s armies. One was a young girl, who couldn’t be more than eight years old, with no sign but clouded eyes and a distant stare. They each held out cups, or bowls, or sometimes just their hands, to collect a pittance of coin from the passersby.
Brandon felt a piece of his heart break. This was so much worse than what the peasants in the Keep suffered. He bent down in front of the girl, ignoring Plum’s distant protests.
“Where are your parents?” he asked her, digging in his pockets for some coin.
“Dead,” the girl responded simply. She squinted hard, trying to make out any details of Brandon’s face through her clouded vision. She was missing several teeth. “They was workers in a factory that caught fire a few years ago. I been on my own since.” She said the last part with her chest puffed, like she was proud of her self-reliance. Brandon felt like crying.
“Here,” he said, placing a gold coin into her outstretched hands. “I wish I could do more.”
The girl gasped. “Is this… gold?” She bit the coin experimentally, and her clouded eyes went wide. “Oh thank you, miss! May Radiance bless yer light.”
“I am not a…” Brandon hesitated, and then smiled. “Thank you. Take care of yourself.”
Brandon stood, leaving the girl beaming with her newfound treasure. Plum said nothing, but looked at him with an expression that he couldn’t quite place.
“‘T’would be an expensive habit to give every urchin a gold coin, you know,” Willam commented.
“We must do something,” Brandon replied, suddenly wishing he could be far more eloquent. “Is that not the entire reason we have come?”
Willam shrugged and averted his gaze. Plum looped her arm back through Brandon’s.
“Come,” she said. “We must eat, too.”
Three hours and a meal of fried, meat-stuffed dough later, the three magicians found themselves seated around a small, sticky table in a dingy, smoke-filled tavern.
Brandon had his head down, his face covered with his arms. Meeks was curled on his lap, and the familiar pressure brought him some small measure of comfort.
“Alright,” Plum began. Brandon didn’t lift his head. “Perhaps we ought to have asked Laszlo for specifics.”
Brandon snorted. “Perhaps we ought to have, indeed.” He lifted his head and rested his chin on his arm, regarding Plum and Willam. “That offers little promise as a path towards finding them now.”
“Do you have the charm?”
“Of course.” Brandon reached into his breast pocket and took out the small charm Laszlo had given him. The four spiralling arms surrounded a star, and the dull silvery metal glinted in the dim light of the tavern.
“May I see it?” Plum asked, a hand outstretched.
Brandon shrugged. “Be my guest.” He dropped the charm into her waiting palm. “Why?”
“I want to try something.”
She drew her wand and began tracing a sigil in the air. Brandon was, as always, impressed by her neat lines and perfect arc as she closed the circle around her spell. He felt a brief wave of fatigue wash over him as Plum drained a small amount of mana.
Plum cursed under her breath. “Nothing,” she said. “I thought that perhaps there would be a trace of mana on the charm that could point us in the right direction.”
“‘Twas a good thought,” Willy said thoughtfully. “If all this Laszlo fellow told you was to bring the charm, it stands to reason that there would be more to it.”
Brandon sat up quickly enough that Meeks made a disgruntled noise.
“You tested for red mana?” he asked, his heart pounding with excitement.
“‘Tis all I am trained to look for,” she said, an eyebrow raised.
“Let me see it,” he said, reaching out a hand.
Plum obediently handed the charm back to Brandon, who clutched it tight.
“Laszlo is not a red magician,” he said softly, and reached out with the power of his dawn magic.
Brandon’s morning ritual involved pulling in yellow mana from his environment, changing it to red mana, and using it to alter his body. When Laszlo helped him to discover his shielding ability, he had shown him how to do the opposite: use his body’s own red mana and convert it to yellow. Brandon tapped into his own, innate wellspring of red mana, and pushed out with it, from the tips of his fingers and into the Fifth Law’s charm, changing it into yellow mana in the process. If he were right, then…
Brandon grinned as the charm began to glow with yellow light—a familiar light. Brandon and Plum had seen it with Laszlo’s magic, when he converted blue mana into yellow. It was the same color as Laszlo’s dusk magic.
“What did you do?” Plum asked, wide-eyed.
“Laszlo is a dusk magician,” Brandon explained. “Blue and yellow. I am a dawn magician, red and yellow. I channeled a little bit of yellow mana into it, and it worked just as I hoped.” He turned in his seat experimentally, and the light dimmed. He turned the other way, and it got brighter.
“‘Tis pointing us to them,” he said softly. “‘Tis a compass!” He looked up at Plum and Willam, beaming, his heart racing.
“Brilliant!” Willam said, equally excited. “I’d never have thought to try dyadic magic.”
Plum gave Brandon a look that he couldn’t quite figure out. Her brow was slightly furrowed, and there was a barely perceptible frown on her face.
“Neither would I, apparently,” she said softly.
Brandon felt like a hole had opened in his chest. “Plum, I-”
“This is good news,” she interrupted him. “This means we now have a way to find the Fifth Law.” She stood abruptly, slamming her palms on the table hard enough that she made it wobble. “Shall we?”
Brandon hesitated. He looked to Willam, who looked back at him with a raised eyebrow. Plum was already halfway to the tavern door.
After a moment, Willam stood to follow her. Brandon took a deep breath, and after a moment, he followed too.
Within the hour, the three magicians found themselves at a most unlikely place.
“We are sure this is it?” Plum asked, her eyebrow characteristically raised.
“‘Tis where the charm is pointing us,” Brandon said, trying and failing to project confidence.
“So…” Willam began. “Do we knock, or…?” he trailed off, leaving the rest of the question unasked.
The building was a small, unassuming clothier on the outskirts of the city. It did seem rather charming, but nowhere near as grand or important-looking enough to be the headquarters of an organization like the Fifth Law, at least to Brandon’s eyes. A sign on the front proudly proclaimed it to be “Glorious Garments and Gear.”
“I suppose we just… walk in?” Brandon said, already moving towards the door.
He pushed the door open, and the bell above it jingled as he pushed through. The inside of the shop was exactly what he would’ve expected: rows of clothing racks, mannequins on display with simple outfits, and a long desk at the rear of the shop. The only light in the shop, other than what shone in from the windows and open door, was a medium-sized oil lamp on the desk. Brandon already missed the glowlamps of Keep Vermillion.
Seated at the desk was an older woman, perhaps in her fifties. Her clothes were simpler than the clothes she seemed to be selling, and her shoulder-length brown hair, just going to grey, was piled messily on top of her head. Her round face made Brandon think of a stereotypical mother in children’s storybooks. She held a thick book in both hands, and the half-moon spectacles in front of her pale, brown eyes threatened to slip off of her nose at any moment.
She smiled warmly as the three magicians entered the shop.
“Good evening, friends,” she called. Her voice instantly put Brandon a little more at ease with its kindliness. “Welcome to my shop, how can I help you today?”
Brandon glanced back and forth at Plum and Willam. Plum shrugged, and Willam sheepishly gestured for Brandon to take the lead.
“Right, um,” Brandon stammered. “We were wondering if we are in the right place.”
The woman’s gaze immediately tightened a fraction. She leaned forward, removing her glasses with one hand, and her other hand vanished under the counter. Plum’s hand shot to her wand, but she stopped as Brandon placed his hand on her arm.
“The right place for what, dear?” the woman behind the counter asked. The warmth in her voice and smile were gone.
Brandon raised his hands in surrender. “Peace, madam,” he said, as calmly as he could muster. He reached slowly into his chest pocket and pulled out the charm that Laszlo had given him, still glowing with a soft yellow light. “The right place for this,” he finished, letting the charm dangle by the chain and sway gently.
The woman behind the counter immediately relaxed. “Oh!” she said brightly. “You are the Vermillion magicians!” All of her previous warmth returned as if it had never vanished.
“I do apologize for the hostility,” the woman said. “But one can never be too careful.” She stood and drew a wand from her belt. Plum tensed, but Brandon’s hand on her arm stopped her.
“My name is Minerva,” the woman said. “I do need to verify something right quick, if you do not mind.” She raised her wand and whistled, and a small yellow songbird appeared from somewhere in the rafters. “I promise this will not hurt.”
Minerva drew a bluish-purple sigil with her wand—second position—with frightening speed. Even Plum did not have time to react before the songbird began to glow with the same color. Minerva quickly closed the circle as Plum’s wand came out of its sheath, and Brandon felt a wave of mana wash over him. The shop’s doors and windows slammed shut violently.
Plum exploded into action. Brandon felt the familiar rush of red mana bloom to his left as Plum sliced open her arm with a flick of her wand. Her spell was closed before Brandon could react, and Plum’s dripping blood crystallized into a long, thin blade, pointed directly at Minerva’s throat.
“Peace, friends,” Minerva said, her hands raised in surrender as her wand clattered to the floor.
“What did you do?” Plum demanded. Her voice was sharper than the blade she pointed at Minerva’s jugular vein. At some point, Meeks had reappeared, and stood on the counter, hackles raised, facing directly at Minerva’s familiar.
“‘Twas a simple illusory discharge spell,” Minerva said calmly, as though having a blade put to her throat was a weekly occurrence. “That, and I closed the door. As I said, one can never be too careful.”
Plum glanced sidelong at Brandon, who hesitated.
“Willy,” Brandon said after a moment. “Can you confirm?”
Willam nodded meekly. His face was ashen, and he silently drew his wand and began tracing a sigil in the air. He held his wand in first position, as a novice first learning to scribe. Brandon knew that he normally used second position, in imitation of Plum. He must truly be rattled, Brandon thought.
Willam closed his ruddy sigil with little flourish. He closed his eyes as if thinking deeply, and then nodded. “She is telling the truth,” he said. “‘Twas an illusory banishment spell, but the artistry was incredible! I’ve scarcely seen-”
“Thank you, Willy,” Brandon cut him off with a nod. He touched Plum’s shoulder gently, and she hesitated before stepping backwards. She flourished her wand again, and the blood blade flowed backwards into the open wounds on her arm with a sound akin to a towel being squeezed into a bucket. She quickly cast a healing spell—Brandon was put in mind of the scars on his own arms—and the gashes in her arm sealed themselves up. The fresh scars were immediately indistinguishable from the old.
Minerva was still smiling warmly. There was no trace of hostility or aggression in her body language, and in fact she seemed hardly bothered by the fact that she had been a hair’s breadth away from death.
“I do apologize again,” Minerva said. “‘Twould not have been the first time that an illusion had fooled me.” She touched a finger to her neck, where a small speck of blood had welled up, and smiled again. “I am going to pick up my wand now, if that is alright?” she asked, already bending to do so. “‘Twill go straight back to my hip, I assure you.” She slipped the wand back into its sheath before she stood, and once upright she smoothed the front of her dress and cleared her throat.
“Now that that unpleasantness is over, shall we start again?” She held out her hand to shake. “My name is Minerva Provident, of the Fifth Law. ‘Tis an honor and a privilege to meet you.”
Brandon hesitated for a fraction of a second before reaching out to shake her hand. “A pleasure, Madam Provident. I am Prince-Adept… I suppose now just Adept Brandon Vermillion. This is my… friend, Adept Plumeria Delora, and my cousin, Magister-Adept Willam Carnation.”
Minerva waved a hand. “We need not the formalities among friends, yes?” She chuckled. “Call me Minerva.”
She turned and placed a hand on the wall behind her. She rapped her knuckles against it in a complicated series of knocks—Brandon lost count at thirteen. She turned back and grinned at the magicians as the wall creaked and then slid to the side, revealing a long passage going underground.
Minerva stepped away from the passage. “I must close down the shop,” she explained. “Would you mind waiting for just another moment?” She stepped around the counter to lock the front door, and hung a “closed” sign in the window. She then drew her wand and cast a quick series of spells. The runes this time were yellow, and Brandon felt the air get a few degrees cooler as a complicated pattern appeared on the back of the door.
“Brilliant wards,” Willam said thoughtfully. He leaned over to whisper his next words in Brandon’s ear. “If this is a taste of what these magicians are capable of, ‘tis no wonder the Magisterium buries the truth.”
Brandon nodded, but said nothing, as Minerva returned to the passageway.
“Follow me, if you would,” she said as she stepped through into the passage. There was a slight shimmer in the air as she did. “Oh, and pay no mind to the wards, here.” She chuckled again. “They shan’t harm friends.”
Brandon glanced back at Plum and Willam. He hesitated, and then shrugged, and stepped around the counter to follow Minerva down the passage. He felt a tingle in his scalp as he passed the threshold, but emerged safely on the other side.
The passageway was notably cooler than inside the shop. The walls were lit by more oil lamps, ensconced on the concrete walls at regular intervals. Minerva was waiting patiently a few feet down the hall.
“Come along, friends,” she said warmly, as Plum and Willam stepped through into the passage. Brandon noticed a barely perceptible shiver run through Plum as she passed through the field, and Willam simply hrmed as he passed through.
Brandon fell into step next to Plum. The passage was just wide enough for the two to walk abreast, and she automatically slipped her arm through his. He reached out and gave her forearm a gentle squeeze with his other hand, and she turned to glance at him. Her brow was furrowed, as it so often was these days.
“We made it, Plum,” he said softly.
“Indeed,” she replied. It was barely a whisper.
They walked for perhaps five minutes and then came to the end of the tunnel. Instead of a door, they were met with another blank wall. Minerva knocked again, a similar but different pattern to the one she had at the other end of the tunnel, and the wall slid open. She turned back to the other magicians.
“Now,” she said. “You are about to meet Obella.”
The name sounded familiar to Brandon, but he couldn’t quite place why.
“You speak of Dame Obella Viridian?” Plum asked, her voice thick with suspicion. Remembrance shot through Brandon: Laszlo mentioned a knight that he had accompanied to the ball at Keep Vermillion.
“Indeed,” Minerva answered, nodding. “She can be…” she hesitated. “Mistrustful. Let me speak to her first, if it pleases you?”
“Very well,” Brandon said with a nod.
They followed Minerva into the next room, and Brandon felt the tingle in his scalp again as they passed through another magical field. The room they found themselves in was small, empty but for sconces on the wall and a single door. The door was metal and looked heavy, and had a slit about at eye level.
Minerva confidently walked up and knocked on the door—once, twice, three times. There was no elaborate knocking pattern for this one.
A few seconds later, the slit in the door opened quickly. Brandon could barely make out a pair of eyes,
“Obella, darling,” Minerva said in a singsongy voice. “We have visitors!”
The woman on the other side of the door—Obella—glanced towards Brandon, Plum, and Willam. Brandon now saw that her eyes were a deep, dark green that reminded him of polished jade.
“Minerva,” she said slowly. “Why have you brought strangers to our doorstep?”
“These are the magicians from House Vermillion,” Minerva declared brightly. “You do remember Laszlo’s mention of them, yes?”
“Of course I do,” Obella snapped. “But I’d not thought you foolish enough to bring them all the way here without proper precautions.”
“I took all the precautions, Obella,” Minerva replied tartly. “I have been at this for longer than you have.” She glanced back at Brandon with a sly wink.
Obella was silent for a moment. The slit snapped shut, and there were a series of clicks and rattles from the other side of the door.
The heavy metal door creaked open slowly. Dame Obella Viridian stood on the other side.
Brandon wasn’t quite sure what he’d expected. Obella was shorter than him by at least a few inches, but she had the presence of a mountain. She wore heavy plate armor that even Brandon’s untrained eye could tell was built for function over form, and he counted at least three blades hung from her belt. Her dark brown hair was close-cropped, and her face was criss-crossed with a latticework of scars, both old and new. Her dark green eyes regarded the group with an expression that Brandon could only describe as “disdain verging on hostility.”
“You had better know what you are doing,” Obella said, her voice like the crack of a whip. “Come,” she said to the three young magicians. “Laszlo will want to see you.”
Obella turned on her heel and walked down the hall on the other side of the heavy door. She didn’t even glance behind her to see if she was being followed.
Brandon turned to Minerva.
“Go on, friends,” Minerva urged, her warm smile spreading back across her face. “I must lock up, and then I shall be right behind you.”
Brandon glanced at Plum. She seemed wound tight as a clock, ready to spring into action at any moment. He reached out and slipped his fingers through hers. She jumped slightly, but squeezed his hand back.
The path that Obella led them down was much more inviting than the rough, stone tunnels of before. The walls were paneled with wood, and the oil lamps were frequent enough to give an inviting feel to the halls they walked through.
Before long, they came upon a large wooden door. Obella stood in front, impatiently tapping her foot.
“This is the meeting hall,” she said gruffly. “There has been a bit of a…” Obella hesitated. “Situation.” She regarded the magicians coldly. “It would do you good to see it. Come.”
Obella pushed the door open. They found themselves in a wide meeting hall. The walls were made of the same wood paneling, and a large but simple chandelier hung from the ceiling. The center of the room was dominated by a large table, shaped like a ring. There were a few other people seated around the table, but Brandon’s attention was grabbed by the young man, perhaps 20 years old, who was on his knees, his head bent low, inside the ring of the table. Brandon could not see his face, but his short, dark hair was mussed, as though he hadn’t brushed or washed it in a few days.
Seated at the far side of the table from the door was Laszlo Tolemas. He looked exactly as he had when Brandon had last seen him: his well-tailored vest and shirt, the same blue tie. The lightning crackle scars across the left side of his face shone in the flickering firelight, and his raven familiar, Folnir, sat quietly in the rafters above his head. Laszlo had clearly been speaking to the other around the table, but paused as Obella led the magicians in.
Laszlo’s face split into that wide, familiar grin on seeing Brandon and Plum.
“My friends from House Vermillion!” he exclaimed warmly. “‘Tis wonderful to see you’ve made it at last. Please, please, have a seat,” he said, gesturing to the empty seats around the table. “We are in the midst of a very important discussion.
“In fact, perhaps you can help,” he continued, almost more to himself than to anyone else in the room. “We are deciding the best course of action to take regarding our friend Alonzo here.”
Brandon hesitated, glancing at Plum, but stepped forward. Plum still seemed ready to pounce at a moment’s notice.
“What did Alonzo do?” Brandon asked.
“Perhaps the gravest sin that a dyadic magician can commit,” Laszlo answered, his moustache drooping as he frowned. “He betrayed the Fifth Law.”
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