Chapter Text
Want was so much sharper for the young. Not any stronger, but the erosion of disappointment had yet to steal the crispness of young dreams. Alador Blight sometimes wondered what he would do if he could have his youth back again, but the razor edge of want would almost certainly bring him back to where he was. Alone in front of a crowd beside people he loved more than the Titan. A stranger to all of them. The Haze that surrounded him was unbearable and as if to taunt him the memories of before were as crisp and clear as the day he made them, right until the moment he tried to share them.
A young Alador was still in the abomination classroom 20 minutes after the bell rang. He was too close to figuring out how to preserve magical clarity into a second generation dividing golem. Well mostly. He had also learned that Odelia usually passed this hallway after the halls had cleared out and if he was still working on a project she would wave back to him as she passed. They had always been friends but lately their conversations had caried a tension that Alador didn’t understand. He was starting to think that this was one of those days when she wouldn’t pass by. It was okay, the problem was an interesting one and he really would rather get it sorted before he left. He nosed down into the work. The gentle reinforcement of the arterial channels was doubly tricky for this design because of the deliberate imperfections in the channel that would allow the magical system to keep shape when it was pulled into successive generations of abomination. He could feel a burning starting in his bile sack that meant he was overtaxing himself. He stood his little purple homunculus on the table.
“Abomination divide” he whispered. First the creature split into two, smoothly and evenly like the two lesser abominations were stepping out from one another. Then with considerably more vibration and with two little splats of dropped goo there were four little abominations climbing to their tiny feet and turning to salute. A soft “Wow” broke his giddy revelry. He started up to see Odelia sitting at a bar stool at the end of his lab bench. “I’ve never seen anything like that” she exclaimed. “Did you figure out how to do that yourself.
“Uh yes” Alador managed to choke out “Well a lot of the theory work is my dad’s but the abomination adaptation is all mine.”
“Incredible, I always thought that abominations were single investments, how do you spread it across the four of them?”
He began to launch into the technical details and for once Alador’s voice didn’t fail him. Conversation didn’t always come easy to Alador but something about Odelias bluntness liberated him. She really wanted to know all the little details. Their conversation wandered. Without discussing it they walked all the way out of the school and a half a mile in the direction opposite of Aladors house before he could stand to turn at a right angle to her path. “talk to you tomorrow” he asked. She smiled “I’ll talk to you tomorrow Alador” then gave him a quick peck on the cheek and darted away.
As he doubled back home Alador was so dazed he didn’t realize that a fence had gone up in the lot behind his house until he was on top of it. It was his normal habit to cut through the lose scruff of knife ferns at the back of the property and skip the last couple blocks of street. Today the Knife plants had been cut down, some of the more stubborn limbs were still trying feebly to stab at the chain link fence that blocked off what was already a sizable dugout for the foundation. A Builders Guild member took a moment to give the scrawny kid three feet off the road a look before going back to her digging.
As he walked back onto the sidewalk he wondered who could be building there. The conversion to the coven system had sent the economy into downturn as witches who had depended on various magiks to do their work had to relearn their business with a narrower scope or more often sell out to or be incorporated into one of Belos’s government operations. He couldn’t remember the last time he saw a residential project. But maybe things were turning around as the new system began to finally show its benefits. Or maybe he wasn’t as good at economic analysis as he thought he was. His usual gloom didn’t seem to be able to settle tonight. The way Odilia had stared at his diagrams came back to him as he slipped behind the house and he smiled as he carefully laid an area counter spell on the defensive shield that his father had put up around house then resealed it behind him. He didn’t know what to do but he knew who would. He found his father was in their little green house chanting to the plants.
Cadex Blight was an unkempt witch with long brown hair and alarmingly sharp eyes. Their robe was covered in a wide array of stains. When their son entered the room Cadex stopped chanting and turned.
“How was school kiddo”
“Pretty good” Alador responded “I finaly got the abomination subdivisions to work, I think Abominations might finaly be the right track”
Cadexs face darkened a little at the mention of the track system “You’re such a bright and versatile kid Alador, I don’t think you should be shutting yourself down to one path”
“I know you don’t dad, but it’s that or wrap my house in a defensive bubble and never come out”
“Kiddo I can’t make you live my life, and I haven’t tried to. But I know you, You love the art. And Belos’s eleven percent of your real capacity bull isn’t the art. Once they put the seal on you, you wouldn’t even be able to let yourself in anymore”
“Pop. I’m sorry but I’m just not strong enough to do what you do. I have friends and ambitions and I don’t know how to live life on the run.”
Cadex’s eyes shimmered. But their voice was hard. “Kid, you need to make your own decision on that. I couldn’t take it from you and if I could I wouldn’t. But magic is who you are and who I am. Sometimes I wonder why there aren’t riots in the streets because of what they’re doing to us. Don’t trade it away lightly.”
“I won’t. But it’s a lot to trade to keep it too.”
Cadex’s first tear finally fell. “I’m sorry Alador, it’s not fair, kid. There was I time when I thought I could give you a world where you didn’t need to make that choice. Maybe you are right. Grab a couple of those necro-peppers and we’ll make dinner”.
Dinner was quiet. Alador chopped vegetables and passed them to Cadex who added them into a pan. The coven choice hung over them and now that they had both let loose neither knew how to bring the conversation back to safer waters. After dinner Alador showed the fractal golem trick to Cadex and Cadex helped him through some of mater efficiency problems that started with the second generation divide. After their fourth attempt of a third divide yielded three puddles and five badly mishappen little golems they both decided to call it a night.
Alador woke to a sound like a whale crashing through the aquarium plate glass. In his stupor he looked first at his intact window. As the sleep cleared from his eyes he realized that while the window was intact the Barrier was down. He didn’t even wait to throw pants on before rushing down stairs. From the kitchen window he could see his father standing resolute on the back porch facing a tall masked figure who stood at the side of a large hole in the back lawn.
“Fractalmancer” emperor Belos Intoned in a clear calm voice.
“Hierophant” responded Cadex no note of fear in their voice as they stared down the most powerful witch on the boiling isles.
“Its not too late to reconsider Cadex. You could have your own coven, full access to your magic, money and security for that boy of yours. Just teach me the secret”
“I will teach you nothing usurper.”
“Then mayhap your boy will. I doubt he will be a resistant to my persuasions as you were.”
There was a thrum of power that Alador felt in his bile sack and Cadex’s Staff was in their hand. “The boy couldn’t split a fairy light. I never taught him. I’ll die before you take me again and the secret of recursion will die with me”
“You were always too brazen Cadex. I admire that about you. Anybody else would have run once they escaped me. You set up a shield spell and enrolled your son in public school. It will kill you now. If you’re lying about the boy then I’ll have what I want from him. If not, then it’s a small loss. It will take me time but I’ll figure it out on my own.”
Cadex’s staff spun and the air was full of lightning Forking and colliding and forking again. For a moment the emperor was overwhelmed by the storm pattern. "Alador" came his father's mental sending "He needs to think me dead and you loyal." It’s the only way either of us get out of this. Make it look flashy and I should be able to do the rest.> Cadex's left hand was dancing behind their back, spinning three spells from three fingers. Belos was making progress against the lightning, sending small pulses of power into vulnerable nodes and the pattern was breaking down. There was no time to think.
Alador punched his hand through the kitchen window and sent a bolt of harmless light at his father. There was a flash of light and smoke and Cadex was gone. Alador didn’t have time to think about what had just happened. The porch was on fire. And the fire was spreading fast. Alador was too dazed to move. Belos was not. The emperor had finished the lightning and the cold sockets of his mask focused on Alador. In a rush he was behind him and warping the dazed young man to safety. At this point Alador began to feel wetness on his fingers. Distantly he noticed that the hand he had put through the window was bleeding from a long cut that ran from behind his second knuckle past his wrist. Then Belos was handing him over to a team in the empty foundation of the next lot. Somewhere between the loss of blood and the shock Alador lost consciousness.