FSE

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A flash of blue. A short, sharp rumble of shockwave as a portal opened, connecting two points of time and space. This world was an old one, a forgotten one. A useless one. Nothing here was worth investigating, nor collecting. Its large, single sun sat in the sky, steadily getting darker with the aeons it had shone. In less than a million years it would begin its dying process. Two crescent moons huddled together in the reaches of the far heavens. With no rings around this planet and nothing of note in the immediate constellations it would be no great loss when its star burned up and it was gone.

The Senior Mage leading the trio of distant travellers frowned. He’d have rather not been involved with this, but it was he who had reluctantly accepted Lucinder’s application for the job post, so it would be he who gave her the inevitable bad news that she had failed her work trial spectacularly.

The women always did. Give them a tough task, and they fell to pieces. But it was good PR, offering jobs to the girls, and the mutants, and the idiots from the Job Centre that they had agreed they would take a quota from. The Council of Sorcerer’s was a vast and ancient institution with a proud and noble history. Least they could do was give uneducated citizens the unwanted jobs like cleaning and cooking. It wouldn’t do to waste magick on such menial tasks as those.

This Lucinder lass had managed to gain enough academic kudos to actually apply for an Inner Circle post, and they’d all been rather worried that she’d actually prove herself competent, and they’d have a tough time wiggling their way out of turning her down.

She’d been gone nearly two days now on her mission to get the Tri-Corn Horn Sceptre back, and from their careful tracking back in the Institute on their world, they’d seen she’d found it almost immediately. The magic signal surrounding her location was immense. It was anyone’s guess why she hadn’t immediately been in touch with them, or returned to them to deliver it. They’d expected the rat to have put up some sort of fight that she’d need to call back-up for because she couldn’t handle it, or for the nasty old dusty world to have made a mess of her outfit, causing her to run back home. Disappointingly she had done neither, as they were easy excuses to be rid of her. Instead she’d just hung around for seemingly no good reason.

They most certainly didn’t want to spend a minute longer here than they must!

The MagiMeter beeped. The signal pulsed on the screen. Lucinder was just ahead, through the trees.

They trod heavily, stomping through the dirt, bending branches with a flick of their fingers. They didn’t have to justify any use of magick. They were in charge. The pearlescent orbs on their carry staffs had enough of the stuff to last them until the next quarter review, and then some.

Still, one eye on the sky, eh, here be dragons and all that.

Only there were no dragons in the sky here, instead they saw a wide, burning rift. A rip in the fabric of reality. No kind of magick they knew of would have been able to do that. Good job they weren’t hanging around long enough to worry about it…

Lucinder stood on her own, by the tracks they’d all been following. The rat’s army’s refuse was scattered around her, hoof prints lay in the mud. Her official white robes, hemmed with bronze thread, were splattered with filth. Her lovely locks were showing signs of dullness from lack of 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner, and her eyes were tinged with redness from trying to sleep in an unfamiliar setting. Her Skecher pumps were now an unfashionable shade of brown.

She watched her superiors approaching and flashed them a confident smile. Or what she hoped was a confident smile, anyway.

“Ah, here’s our little lady!”

Her smile faltered. Why did old human men in positions of power have to be so UGH?! She had no reply to that which wasn’t going to get her in trouble.

“Well?” The Senior Mage looked around and gestured. “Where is it?”

Luci took a breath, “you see, sir, I haven’t actually found the Sceptre yet. The rat is at the mountain.” She nodded beyond the fields and forests to the lofty snowy peak.

Old wrinkled pale skin wrinkled further in confusion. “Not according to our instruments.” He waved his MagiMeter. It shrilled.

“Ok, well, I can explain that, it’s because of another mage’s presence here, sir.”

“Another mage?” His voice was flat.

“Yes, sir.”

One of his Fellows snorted with derision, “some mage to give off a massive signal like that. I’d expect them to be zipping through the sky right now. Or throwing fireballs around willy nilly.”

Luci’s cheeks flushed with heat, “what, you think I’m making it up?”

The Senior Mage chuckled, “if you have the Sceptre, there’s no point hiding it from us. Now be a good girl and hand it over, wherever you’ve stashed it.”

She bristled at ‘Good Girl’. “If I had it, I would return it forthwith, sir.”

The other Fellow rolled his eyes. “You think you’re the first person to get their hands on an Ancient Corruptible and want to keep it? Why do you think we lock them up?”

“Ancient Corruptible?”

“Very dangerous to feeble minds such as yours,” the Senior Mage said with a wink.

They were insulting her. They were rude. They were not very nice colleagues at all.

He raised his carry staff and as it glowed, the trees began to glow too. “Over there,” he nodded, “careful not to touch it with your bare hands.”

Luci’s eyes widened. “No, that’s not the Sceptre, sir! Wait -”

He cut her off, “oh, yes, it’s the mage isn’t it? The wonderfully powerful mage you just so happened to find on this abandoned world.”

“It’s not abandoned! Look around you!”

“What, this mess? Looks like abandonment to me, my dear. Graciousness, you females are so dramatic.”

His assistant, or Fellow as they were properly titled back at the Council, was approaching the trees confidently until, suddenly, he wasn’t. He almost tripped over himself in fright. “Sir!” he yelled, “it’s a – it’s a – d-d-…” unable to get his words out he promptly turned on his heels and skidded back, waving his orb-set staff around protectively, a blue defensive shield settling around him.

The other Fellow looked at him as though he’d gone mad.

The Senior Mage just looked cross. “Sebastian! Get a grip of yourself, man! Showing me up like that. Of course there’s going to be wild animals here.”

“Wild animals??” he panicked, “it’s a bloody dragon!”

All eyes were on Lucinder. “I did try to tell you.”

“No, you said a mage. Not a dragon.”

She shrugged, “there’s both, actually. And a goblin. They’re my travelling companions.” She cupped her hands around her mouth, “come on out, guys!”

“Travelling companions? This was a retrieval task, not a game of bloody Dungeons and Dragons!” the Senior mage roared.

“Have you seen the state of the sky?” Luci asked as her friends joined her.

“I don’t care about the sky! I want the Sceptre back in Holding! Oh my, oh… goodness…”

His gaze went from small girl goblin warrior, to tall reptile in a leather jacket and sunglasses, to male aardvark in a fancy blue cape bearing a nasty looking wound on his upper chest. He nodded. “I see.” He said. “I see what’s going on here. You’ve been side-tracked by a dragon in disguise. Your studies have failed you, girl, you should know how tricky dragons are.”

“He’s not really in disguise. It’s only a jacket and a pair of jeans.”

“What? No, no, that’s not the dragon,” he tutted. He pointed straight to Anar, “that’s the dragon! The other’s clearly a clever decoy. Barely registering on the instruments, look.”

“What? No, Anar is an aardvark like me, really he is…”

But her boss wasn’t listening, “he’s masterfully disguised himself, in an effort to seduce you and collect you, no doubt. Same race. Passably handsome.”

Anar’s eyes widened, his eyebrows raised in shock. Was he really a more convincing dragon than The Dragon?

“I daresay he’s been very charming and sweet towards you. The injury is most likely fake, too, a tool for gaining your sympathy. Girls do love to play at being nurses, don’t they?”

Brook tried not to snigger at her Generals’s bizarre accusations. Her mouth twisted in an effort to stay straight-faced.

Lucinder had sent them all away to the trees when her boss had arrived in case he had been furious. It would take some careful explaining to calm him down, without having her new friends there trying to ‘help’. Theirs was a strange tale to tell, and she hadn’t been sure if it was believable enough to even be worth telling. She was now confident that she was wasting her time entirely. “Never mind who’s a dragon, and who isn’t! The Sceptre’s power is going to destroy the universe, sir. Our universe!”

“Don’t be daft! I expect this troublesome dragon told you that, too.”

“It’s true!” snapped Brook from down by his robed knees, “that’s why the sky’s gone all weird.”

“I can’t possibly think of any reason for the universe to be destroyed, unless it’s a natural process. Whatever is going on up there is purely temporary I can assure you. Most likely a portal that has failed to connect to its destination point. It will be closed by its operator soon, no doubt.”

The friends turned to The Dragon, the real one, who simply shook his long head. Even he could see that this was going to go nowhere. Best thing that could happen was the Council Mages going away. Hopefully forever.

“Just give me another two days, sir. Maximum. We’ll find the rat very soon, he’s not far, now.”

The Senior Mage chuckled. There was no humour behind it. “No, no my dear. I’m afraid not. Your little fantasy adventure has come to an end. Your amulet is down to its last three spells, you’ve fallen in love with a dragon”-

“I’ve done what now?!” she objected, loudly.

“- and I want that sceptre back sooner rather than later. Deadlines, my dear, are a thing in the grown-up world.”

“Shall I stab ‘im?” Brook hissed.

She waved a hand, keeping the goblin girl down. “I wasn’t given a deadline,” she pleaded, “sir.”

With a yank that moved faster than she could have thought possible, Chanlon was ripped from around her neck. She paused in shock, eyes wide.

Anar’s fists lit up like incandescent lightbulbs, but the Fellows were ready with their staffs poised.

“Come on then, dragon,” jeered the one that wasn’t Sebastian. “Show us what you got.”

The Senior Mage dropped Luci’s amulet into a deep pocket and patted it with a smirk.

“Now I’m definitely stabbing ‘im!” Brook was a small green blur.

“I’m a Senior Mage from the Council of Sorcerer’s,” he sighed, twisting the unhappy goblin about in the air like he was flying a kite, “daggers won’t do much.”

The Dragon watched all this unfold and simply smiled.

“Are you ok?” Anar asked Luci, shooting her a glance.

“My amulet… Chanlon…” she felt her bare neck. It was like forgetting to put your watch on. Something was missing and it felt weird. “What are you going to do now?” she asked the Senior Mage, weakly.

“We’re going to send you home, and retrieve the Sceptre ourselves, that’s what we’re going to do. If that’s ok with your dragon boyfriend, here?”

She looked at Anar. She could let them send her home. There was no nonsense like this at home. There was Farmville on Facebook and Friday night drinks with her pals at home.

But Bromor was still missing. And the universe just might really be collapsing. And for his innocent sexism, Anar wasn’t nearly as annoying as some of the men she’d met. “They think you’re a dragon, Anar, what do you believe?” she asked him with a sparkle in her eyes. “Let them have it.”

So he did.

The world went white. There was a terrible roaring in her ears, and a fierce pulling sensation, like the vacuum of space almost. She clamped her eyes shut. She was sure she was not the only one.

They’d set her up for failure. At first it was a hunch, now it was a certainty. They were a bunch of utter bastards.

There were voices in the uproar. Yelling and shrieking and Sebastian’s cries of terror. Council of Sorcerer’s mages weren’t battle trained. They could throw up shields, they could cast a fireball or two at best.

Anar was ready to embrace the impossible, to bend reality to his will. She’d wanted to stop it, worst case scenario merely delay it, but now she was moody enough to let it happen. How long could shields last against his bombardments? They’d be blown about like dandelion seeds on the breeze. He’d exploded a gnoll’s beating heart earlier.

With a rumble and a shake of the ground, a portal leading back home swept the Mages away to safety.

“And don’t come back!” Brook yelled with a wave of her fist from her folded up position upside-down on the grass where she’d landed after the Senior Wizard had carelessly dropped her.

The Dragon helped the little goblin warrior upright.

The mages stood, breathing heavily. The polished hardwood floor of the Inner Sanctum now dirty from the dust on their shoes, and sweat sprung from their brows. Once blazing orbs were now dim, a testament to the battle they just fought and very nearly lost.

“Dragons,” rumbled the Senior Mage, “are more powerful than even I could realise.”

“He was trying to pull me to pieces!” Sebastian squeaked. “I ache all over. What will the medics think?”

“We are NOT going to the medics! This is already super-secret covert stuff, I told you. I don’t want anyone knowing that Sceptre is even missing. I’ve fudged paperwork for less than this. You heard what the girl said, she was getting close to the rat. We will recharge our Powers and change the location to the mountain she showed us.”

“Recharge our Powers? But sir, they’re not up for review until next quarter…”

“Did I stutter? We’re going to get that Sceptre back, and we’ll break a few rules to do it. No-one else knows what’s happened here, and that’s how it’s going to stay. I am not losing my position on the council over that rotten Tri-Horn.”

They nodded. Everyone knew Nisgarant only got a hold of it because Rowan, the Senior Mage himself, had signed off on the rat’s security paperwork. They employed so many, and it was a stringent application process, but fuck ups happened. Nisgarant was one hell of a fuck up. He’d been on the night watch in the Holding, and it had called to him. Nisgarant had known what it was, and where it had come from, in a matter of seconds as his tiny rodent brain had allowed it to seep inside and begin living there.

Even the Inner Circle Mages such as Rowan had limited knowledge as to what it was actually capable of. Tri-Corn horns were incredibly rare artefacts from incredibly rare mythical beasts. Even the best collections around the worlds only had a single specimen to show, the colour being the only clue that it was not a Unicorn horn. It had been a complete surprise to find a dragon had brought a united set of three in, embedded in a Sceptre, along with other various weapons, and they had swiftly confiscated all of them to prevent any wild magic getting out into society.

“You don’t really think it can destroy the universe, do you, sir?”

“There’s nothing in the reference texts about the abilities of Tri-Corn Horns to suggest so, no. Saying that, the reference texts are woefully brief.”

There was a pause.

“You don’t think it’s… dark magic, do you sir?”

“What? No! What sort of stupid dragon would carry a dark magic Sceptre through into a simple magic universe? That’s absurd.”

“Yeah, absurd.”

“Of course. Silly me,” Sebastian said with a small laugh. “That would be really, really absurd.”

They left the chamber quietly in search of fresh magickal devices. If they met that dragon again, they’d need to pull out the big ones. Maybe even some of the forbidden ones in the Holding itself. No-one had to know. It would be their little secret. Another one to add to the already growing pile of secrets…