Obsidian Alcatraz

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Book excerpt

Skycity of Port Jericho, 10000 ft above the Aeryth Ocean, Year of the Jade Bull, 2114 CE

     The scent of blood hung heavy in the air. Cadi sighed and pulled out her pouch of gravening dust. Pouring a bit into her hand, she blew a breath out and the sparkling dust adhered to the surface of the door before her, revealing a tangled criss-cross of fingerprints. Once visible, the fingerprints were easy collect onto slender glass slides. It would be up to Jupiter, the Magisterial Artificer, to decode them.

     Cadi kyl'Ursaal was a Magister, part of a group of magi found in nearly every major city around De Sikkari. These magi specialized in processing the scenes of violent crime and in catching the criminals. Ironically, they bore the name once given to the magi guardians which had themselves been culled from criminals sentenced to death.

     That was before Kalla sin'Solidor, Empress Kalla of Dashmar, had set a new standard. The Dashmari had formed their own school to train their magi, the dashhuygin, and revived a lost method of acquiring a protector- that of bonding an elemental in a partnership. Unlike the magisters, who would perish when their magi did, the elementals merely returned to their own plane of existence. Now there were three more Kanlons, in addition to Cryshal and the Dashmari way had become the norm for most magick-users, save Argoth's Technomancers who never used magisters to begin with.

      Cadi herself had been trained at Tirithaal Kanlon, located in Ne Ramerides and she was unique in that she had no elemental partner. Though the young Mage had undergone the ritual several times, no guardian had ever presented themselves. Over the years she'd learned to deal with it, but it still hurt. Being a guardianless misfit among the Magi meant being creative. Cadi had taken it upon herself to train with the Harriers of Arkaddia. More than once, those skills had kept her alive in her demanding line of work, where a magick drain could be down-right lethal.

     The young, raven-haired Mage finished processing the door and tucked the slides into her pouch. She'd already processed the rest of the outside. With a deft hand she directed her magelight through the wards protecting the scene and into the building. Inside, more magelights bobbed, softly illuminating Cadi's partners patiently working the far end of the room.

     “All done. Where do you want me to start in here?” Cadi asked. Rolf's black-furred ears twitched back at her, though the Dashmari Magister didn't look up.

     “That end, please, Cadi,” Rolf said. “It's too strong for us over there.”

     Cadi moved the light towards the opposite end of the room. She already knew what awaited her there. She'd been the one to process the body for the Wraiths to take away. The body had lain in a sea of blood, now congealed in a tacky mess upon the floor. Her two Dashmari partners, highly sensitive to scents, could just barely tolerate the thick coppery smell and that only by employing magick to help. Fresh blood brought out the hunting instincts of the wolf-kin.

     Starting from where Rolf and Viktor had begun and moving the opposite direction, Cadi began processing the remaining half of the room. Time passed. Rolf and Viktor departed with their own evidence, leaving Cadi in the care of two Crows, as the city guards were called.

     Cadi yawned, thankful she was almost done, then paused. Something glittering darkly in the recesses of a corner caught her eye.

     “What do we have here?” she mused, holding up an inky black stone. It looked to have been a pendant of some sort, but no chain was in evidence, unless it had been collected by the Dashmari Magisters. Cadi stared at the stone, captivated.

     “Lady Cadi?”

     The Magister jumped as one of the Crows stuck his head in the door.  She absent-absentmindedly tucked the stone in a pocket of her uniform and looked up.

     “Yes?”

     “Are you almost done, Lady?”

     “Almost, Alphonse. I promise.”

     He nodded and withdrew, leaving Cadi to wrap up her work.