The Royal Archmage
I used to be the Royal Archmage
Thanks to loyal reader Overdesigned for providing the narration.
“I used to be the Royal Archmage,” Alistair Faulkner murmured. His injured voice echoed softly in the empty cottage. No one else was there to hear the pride in the old man’s words.
Scraps from failed experiments lay scattered across the building’s lone room like fallen leaves rotting on a forest floor. Discarded metallic masks gazed back at Alistair with faded green eyes.
Alistair was falling apart. He wished he could remake himself stronger and younger. He had wished that for a long time.
Springs rhythmically strained and released. Interlocking toothed wheels spun as they endlessly marked the passage of time.
A bell rang through the cottage.
Alistair’s gloved hands shook as he removed the pot of water from his arcane fire and poured its contents into his teacup.
“I used to be the Royal Archmage.” Alistair’s sentence echoed through the empty cottage. No one else was there to hear the indignity he felt at his current predicament. Like a toothed wheel spinning around its axle, Alistair’s thoughts circled back to his rise to power.
Although from humble roots, when the preceding Archmage retired, Alistair had been granted entry into the contest like any other subject.
It was the first tournament of its kind in decades - a singular test of magical ability and concentration. The Realm’s greatest wizards were each given a turn to stand before a colossal iron cauldron and transform as much water as possible into steam.
Adepts from ancient wizarding academies strained, their magical forces causing several bubbles to rise. However, the water never descended by more than a finger’s width before the adepts collapsed, red in the face and out of breath.
A theatrical wizard summoned a portal to a plane of pure fire. Birds constructed of living flame fluttered into our world, and their wings spread waves of heat across the astounded crowd. At a command from the pyromancer, the largest avian circled over the audience’s heads and dove into the cauldron. The bird disappeared in a puff of steam, and the remaining animals fled in panic through tunnels of scorched branches.
An Elvish wizard, eager to showcase his knowledge and prove his place in the court, proudly lectured about his Lathor Asor.
“’ Lathor,’ is the Elvish word for ‘light.’ ‘Asor’ is an arcane term meaning ‘focused energy.’”
The Elf lifted his oversized staff over his head, and a lathor shot into the cauldron. However, the light beam seemed to bend as it hit the water and reflected a brilliant rainbow over the gathering. The crowd politely clapped at the display, but the water remained tepid.
The King was still rolling his eyes at the elf’s failure as Alistair approached the cauldron. The crowd must not have thought much of Alistair. The young man of modest dress carried an oversized walking staff and no certification from any wizarding school.
When he saw the King was paying attention, Alistair broke his staff across his knee. The staff, which Alistair had prepared by heating with minimal air, crumbled into dark black dust. The crowd gasped as Alistair repeated the motion on the smaller pieces until the strangely brittle wood was reduced to a pile of sparkling nuggets.
Alistair arranged the fuel under the cauldron and faced the King directly. “Your Highness, fellow subjects, I present the essence of fire.”
Alistair snapped his fingers. Metallic contacts in his glove struck one another, and a spark shot toward the wood.
Nothing happened.
Alistair snapped again, and a fire ignited under the cauldron. Thick white smoke began to rise.
The crowd was indifferent to the display, but the competing wizards howled in disgust.
“That’s not magic!” one fat wizard screamed.
Alistair kept his eyes on the King’s raised platform as he answered, “I disagree.”
A witch in a tight bun jeered, “Anyone could do that!”
Alistair shrugged. “Why didn’t you?”
The elf raised his hands, and the other wizards quieted to listen to the ancient creature. “The definition of magic,” the elf haughtily intoned, “is culturally dependent, yet it is widely accepted that there are six schools of magic.”
Alistair ignored the lecture and fell to one knee before the King.
“I am not a scholar, your Highness. I solve problems. Let me solve your problems.”
The memory of his day of triumph almost brought a smile to Alistair’s face. He strained loose tea leaves out of his flask with a metallic mesh.
“I used to be the Royal Archmage.”
The word ‘Royal’ rolled off his tongue like thick gravy poured onto a turkey.
The Royal Archmage ate from the King’s Court. Alistair could almost taste the food now. He had eaten his fill every dinner and stuffed his pockets with rolls and candies in case hunger, that old enemy from youth, greeted him later in his chambers. It had taken years of feasting for him to stop thinking of a full plate as a luxury and learn to appreciate the variety and skillful preparation.
The King’s table featured exotic fruits and meats from throughout the realms and beyond, honey prepared by bees the size of housecats, cheese and butter summoned from platonic planes of pure dairy, and elemental salt transmuted with magical purity.
Alistair looked down on his teacup, and no longer felt thirsty. He poured out the flask and muttered, “I used to be the Royal Archmage.”
No one could hear the shame in his voice as he emphasized the past tense.
Although his rivals still objected that he did not use “real” magic, Alistair had solved real problems.
His most significant impact was a magical powder that detonated instantly. Alistair harnessed the explosion by shaping a metal channel to propel a tiny arrow. Untrained peasants wielded the weapon with the proficiency of a longbowman with a lifetime of training. With the help of his apprentice wizards and witches, Alistair set up mass production, bolstered the standing army, and ensured the King could defend his growing Empire.
Alistair directed his Potion Master to create energizing brews that forever propelled the King’s forces forward. Alistair’s baited traps finally cleared the shipping lanes of sirens. Imperial diviners extracted magical liquids from the ground that powered further contraptions.
And yet, still his detractors sneered. He could hear the whispers behind him in court. Alistair’s scheming rivals were blessed with magical ability, and so only valued mystical power and downplayed results driven by Alistair’s devious resourcefulness.
But Alistair continued to deliver. Where magical talent was required, he delegated. When he found free time, he turned his ingenuity inward and reforged himself, integrating inventions into his own flesh. New fingers made microscopic movements. Mechanical whirring hearts kept time with more precision than the finest hourglass. Reforged flesh withstood the heat of arcane fires.
Alistair’s power grew, and he slowly replaced his acolytes with younger, less-experienced adepts who accepted Alistair’s discipline as the seventh school of magic.
His greatest supporter was the King’s son. The curious, playful boy had been mesmerized by Alistair’s creations. The Prince was almost always in the company of at least one of Alistair’s automatons - arcane creations with metallic minds woven from Alistair’s Logic Loom. Synthetic squirrels juggled acorns to entertain the boy during the day. At night, metallic wolves silently paced his bedroom and watched over the future king with glowing green eyes.
Despite their vigilance, the Prince fell deathly ill. The young boy’s pale skin turned red and heated like one of Alistair’s beakers. Late one evening, the young Court Apothecary pronounced that the boy was beyond saving. The King turned to his Royal Archmage.
Alistair tried to recall the mixture of emotions he felt upon receiving his mission. Pride in his selection. Fear of failure. The list felt incomplete.
“Compassion and sympathy for the suffering boy.” The words tumbled into Alistair’s mind like a turning lock. The memory of a memory made sense to Alistair. Of course. He would feel pity for a fragile human doomed to decay.
To save the boy’s body, Alistair remade his own. Artificial eyes that could see at a microscopic level. A mental augmentation weaved from the Logic Loom to bolster his brain. When that proved insufficient, he transferred his essence to the synthetic mind and fully replaced the original. As he worked late into the night, he did so with new, unyielding flesh that refused to tire.
As he tested the improvements on himself, his speed increased, and he implemented the changes on the boy. The Future King became perfect.
When Alistair carried the Prince into his workshop, he did so with trembling legs. When he emerged three nights and three days later, he strode with the certainty and precision of an elegant timepiece.
Alistair laid the boy’s new body at the King’s feet.
“Lad, are you okay?”
Arcane actuators made the Prince’s mechanical mouth open as he spoke.
“The Royal Archmage can do real magic.”
Hope filled the King’s eyes, although Alistair did not recognize it.
“Are you in pain, my boy?”
The Prince’s glowing green eyes stared back, uncomprehendingly.
“The Royal Archmage can do real magic.”
The King turned to Alistair, for the first time noticing Alistair’s new eyes. The King’s face reflected a different emotion. Alistair could not recognize it, either.
“Is that all he can say?”
Alistair’s mechanical heart ticked thirteen times as he assessed the situation.
“What else would you like for me to make him say?”
Alistair stared at the empty cottage in the small town where he was serving out his banishment.
He had spent years trying to understand why the King was so upset. The Prince was his heir and only legitimate son. The operation, Alistair reasoned, must have confused the line of succession.
“I used to be the Royal Archmage,” the creature who looked like Alistair Faulkner stated. But there was a subtle waver on the sentence’s first word.
Alistair had fled from the capital toward the frontier. He wasn’t sure if he had escaped the King’s Realm, but the village was little more than a few families huddled together in the wilds. Too small to be noticed by traders or tax collectors, the town survived on the game it harvested from the deep woods encroaching its borders.
The villagers had been skeptical, but Alistair eventually repaid their hospitality with augmentations matching his own. He would ensure none of his community would ever know death, and they all sang praises to the magic he could perform.
But Alistair was still growing old. Corrosion ate at his joints, and there was a tightness in his throat.
He looked down at his latest project. A copy of his body stared back at him from the workshop table. It was ready. He would live forever. He activated the synthetic mind and watched the green eyes begin to glow.
“I used to be the Royal Archmage.” Alistair spoke the words at the same time as the imposter.
No, not an imposter. The construct was a perfect replica, down to the gears ticking in time in the empty cabin.
Alistair’s woven memories were incomplete. He did not know how he should react to a copy of himself.
Both automatons cocked their heads as they simultaneously realized that they would treat their copy the same way their copy treated them. Alistair waved at his waving self as he pondered that they could both decide to be peaceful. Perfectly symmetrical either way.
“I used to be the Royal Archmage.” The mechanical voices rang out in stereo. “I used to be the Royal Archmage.” Alistair searched his memories. He found pride, shame, ambition, and rage. The imposter would try to steal his title.
Simultaneously, the two automatons grabbed at each other’s necks. Both men squeezed.
Two of the four green lights went dark.
Alistair dropped his assailant on the floor and surveyed the room.
“I used to be the Royal Archmage,” Alistair Faulkner murmured. His injured voice echoed softly in the empty cottage. No one else was there to hear the pride in the old man’s words.
Scraps from failed experiments lay scattered across the building’s lone room like fallen leaves rotting on a forest floor. Discarded metallic masks gazed back at Alistair with faded green eyes.
Alistair was falling apart. He wished he could remake himself stronger and younger. He had wished that for a long time.
Springs rhythmically strained and released. Interlocking toothed wheels spun as they endlessly marked the passage of time.