Once Called Magic: The Oconic Gates, #1

1

YOUR BASIC OCONICS

The horse unravelled.

Not a real horse — most people hadn’t used those in years. This ‘horse’ (for want of a better word) was an Ocara-4 conjuring, a magical construct summoned and sustained by three hundred lines of code. The pinnacle of oconic engineering. Strange then to see it flicker and fail; odd to watch the complex weave of air and light that usually bound it together get picked apart, as if a mischievous and unseen hand had found a loose thread and yanked on it.

As the conjuring’s substance faded, the bridle it wore sagged, sliding down through the dissipating creature to land with a slap on the stony road beneath. And without the conjuring to pull it, the cart that a grubby, one-eyed Ember Cobb rode in slowed, its giant wheels crunching gravel. The unravelling oconic horse, now little more than smoky tendrils of cotton-white fire, faded fast on the Ocosconan wind.

Ember sighed as the cart jolted to a stop. He’d liked the idea of travelling by road. There was an element of romance to it. A throwback to the way things used to be before the creation of the oconic gateways. For who needed to travel by cart or horse when you could step through a portal? Why spend days travelling a hundred miles when you could cover the distance in the blink of an eye? Sadly, his rose-tinted view of a simpler, un-oconic age had dissolved when he found himself banged, bruised and rained on in the back of the small, supply-stacked cart, wedged uncomfortably between two sacks of flour and a crate of apples.

Didn’t these Ocosconans have a proper carriage? Didn’t they know who he was?

But that was the whole point. They couldn’t know. And it would be much safer for everyone if they never found out.

I hope you’ve got another one, Ember said to the driver with as much politeness as he could muster.

He didn’t expect a reply. The two men hadn’t spoken much since they’d left the last oconic gate in the frontier town of Meiwu several hours ago. Ember didn’t even know the driver’s name. He’d tried to start a conversation with him several times…

How long does the journey take? he’d asked.

A few hours was the unhelpful reply.

Looks like rain…

Perhaps, the driver mumbled.

What are we carrying?

Supplies.

Talking to the old coot was like kicking your heels into somebody else’s horse.

The driver was a big man, shaved head deftly camouflaging an unkind baldness. A tattoo of what looked like a clenched fist was just visible above the upturned collar of his grey greatcoat.

The driver turned in his seat.

You say something?

Lokke repeated his statement. I said, I hope you’ve got another one. Another oconic horse.

I might. The driver climbed down from his box seat and walked to the rear of the cart. Ember noticed he moved with a limp, unable to fully bend his right knee. An old injury, imperfectly healed.

Might? Ember didn’t appreciate the man’s dour attitude. Or his miserly use of language.

"Aye, might. The driver shot Ember a look that could have been anger or frustration. He indicated the cart’s sizable load of boxes, bags, sacks, crates and barrels with a vague wave of his hand. Somewhere."

Don’t rush on my account. Ember stood up and stretched, groaning as his old bones clicked and tired muscles tightened. He picked up his sword, noticing the frown he got from the driver as he did so. Then he checked the two throwing knives were secure in the sheaths on his back and he jumped down to the ground. I’ll stretch my legs.

They’d stopped out in the open, under skies the colour of battered steel. The road from Meiwu, if you could call it a road, had long since faded into a stony track. Ahead of the cart, that track snaked across spiky grassland and past a low stone wall, disappearing into an expanse of fir trees. Beyond those, a range of hills rose to a jagged ridge, wreathed in low and angry-looking cloud.

What Ember knew of Ocoscona, he knew mostly from maps. The old clan land, or ‘Cara’, bordered Mulai to the northeast and stretched east across the top of the neighbouring Caras of Achawara and Errechaco. A spine of mountains cut Ocoscona almost in two. Beyond it lay the Wilds, a vast swathe of rolling hills and glacier-carved valleys, soaring peaks and icy lakes. He’d heard people describe the Wilds as ‘beautifully bleak’. But with the chill in the air and the promise of more rain, there was nothing beautiful about it. Ember was as far away from civilisation as a clansman could probably get. No distractions. No reminders of a once happy home.

The perfect place to put the pain of the past behind him. The murder. The betrayal…

Ember sheathed his sword, sliding the old cavalry sabre into the steel scabbard on his hip. He straightened his headscarf, tightening the knot at the back, then unkinked the collar of the rough brown tunic he wore, a poor replacement for the armour he’d left behind in the Briar. He missed the weight of it. The helmet through which he’d seen the best and worst of men in battle, the chest plate that had saved his life at Caldora, the gloves that had first held the hand of the woman who had become his wife.

The Wilds were a far cry from his old life of power and privilege. Back in the Briar, he’d ridden in fine carriages. He’d even owned a horse. A real one. Not some lifeless oconic conjuring.

You should get a proper horse, he muttered, swatting ineffectively at a fly. They don’t disappear on you.

A proper horse? The driver growled, hauling himself up into the back of the cart. I’ll tell you about proper horses. Proper horses get tired. They need feeding. Stabling. Someone has to clear up their shit with a shovel. And have you seen how much they shit? If you see a proper horse up here, it’s more ’n likely roasting on a spit.

You eat horses? Ember failed to hide his surprise.

Horses, pigs, cows, dogs, cats, bears, the occasional Great Reen if there’s enough of us to bring one down. We ain’t picky like you soft southern shites.

That’s barbaric.

It ain’t barbaric. Me killing and eating you, that’d be barbaric. We eat what we can kill; what the land provides. That’s the truth of things out here in the Wilds. You’d best learn it and quick. S’why we like our horses in a can. All modern and oconic. Besides... The driver sneered at Ember. You’re the last person I expected to speak up for proper horses.

And why’s that? Ember fiddled with the grey eyepatch covering his left eye, trying to waft some air underneath it. He watched with the other eye while the driver shifted a wooden crate and ducked down out of sight. The Ocosconan reappeared a moment later, clutching a large metal canister. He blew on it and wiped its dirty surface with his sleeve.

I’ve seen the city you call the Briar and your Mulai clans ain’t got no proper horses there. Everything is pulled by conjurings, all shapes and sizes of ‘em, dragging carts, carrying boxes, obediently following those coloured lines that you got painted on those pretty streets. A proper horse would just shit all over everything.

Ember rubbed his black-bearded chin. I never said I was from Mulai.

Well, the driver looked Ember square in the eye. You are ain’t you?

Ember knew he needed to tread carefully. Ocosconans had the same fondness for the Mulai as a sheep did for a hungry wolf.

I’m not ashamed of it, Ember said.

"You should be, one-eye. It won’t help you around here. If you’re going to hide out with us sky-blues, you might want to pretend to be pledged to someone else."

Who says I’m hiding?

Why else would you be here? This is the middle of bloody nowhere. The Wilds. I don’t think it’s even part of the Empire, technically speaking. A Mulai caster without his colours and no lance that I can see, going to an Ocosconan fortress that most people don’t know exists. Looks like hiding to me.

Ember stood with his hands on his hips. He watched the driver climb back down to the ground.

I’m not hiding, he lied.

No? I’ll bet you didn’t come here direct did you? Nobody does.

I… The driver had a point. The journey had taken Ember from Ocos by gate to Astoran, on to Happ-Jagar, then overland to a hilltop town he didn’t catch the name of, before taking another oconic gate back to Ocos hidden in a crate, which was subsequently shipped through another Imperial portal to Meiwu.

Safer for everyone if nobody knew he was here.

No, Ember admitted. But I’m certainly no caster. Not any more. I’m a free lance these days, pledged now to Ocoscona for as long as it needs me. I’ve left the Mulai red and black behind.

Ember knew that wasn’t entirely truthful. It might be easier to step out of his own skin than to abandon his clan colours. They had shaped him and given him purpose. He’d won them on a grey day much like this. Twenty four had taken the Testing in the cool morning shadow of the Hourglass in the Briar. Sixteen received the Mulai red and black the next day, confirmed as full casters, Defenders of the Empire.

Those colours held no power here. Quite the opposite. Walking into a garrison of Ocosconan casters could get him killed. The rivalry between Mulai and Ocoscona stretched back to before the Breaking. But it had turned sour after the Annexation, when Ocoscona became a reluctant part of the Empire — not Hierin Mulai’s finest hour. Ember reconsidered the driver’s suggestion. Some Ocosconans hated the Mulai. It might be a good idea to keep his allegiance quiet after all.

A man can’t just change his colours like he changes his socks. The driver sniffed and limped to the front of the cart, where he set the canister down on the ground and pulled out a small black book. You might not wear the red and black, but you’ll always be Mulai at heart. He flicked through the pages of the book before stopping on one page. You were born to it. Just as Ocosconan blood pumps through my veins. Now stand back.

Ember didn’t get a chance to say anything further as the driver mumbled the primer phrase for a new Ocara-4 binding. He read the words carefully from the book without any of the haste that a caster would approach it. Ember took a step back and shielded his eye, waiting for the oconic energy to erupt.

The canister contained compressed oca — what the clans once called magic. It was designed to spout its magical energy upwards, where it would coalesce into whatever pattern had been pre-cast into it. Your basic oconics. Without a canister, the driver would need to read and recite the incantation from scratch. Complex incantations ran to hundreds of lines, could take hours to recite and demanded total concentration. One slip of the tongue, a stutter or hesitation and the binding would fail.

Ocara-4 bindings didn’t need to be an exact representation of a real horse. There was no need for a tail, mane or facial features like ears or eyes. Oconic conjurings didn’t need them. The only reason that an Ocara-4 looked like a horse was that people wanted it to look like a horse — a perfect, artist’s interpretation of a horse. It was why teams of logicians had fine-tuned the shape and size of a quadruped Ocara into a sleek and powerful sculpture of stallion-shaped light.

Which is what Ember should have been looking at. But the canister was still. Quiet.

I’m no logician, he said after a moment of awkward silence. But that didn’t work.

Tentatively, the driver bent down to examine the metal canister, not wanting to get too close. He tapped the worn casing with his finger before cupping the canister in his hand.

There’s some oca in here, he said with a sigh. Just not enough to magic us up a horse.

Leak?

Maybe.

Got another?

The driver sighed. No. He looked up at Ember. And don’t go yapping about your proper horses again. I don’t want to hear it.

Wouldn’t dream of it.

Ember looked towards the distant fir trees. The track stabbed into them and poked out the other side, before curving around a steep hillside to disappear behind it. He looked back at the driver. Ember thought he had him pegged now. Saw a little of himself in the man — a broken soldier, bitter, clinging to the edges of a life he could no longer have. Ember didn’t know whether to pity the driver or try to shake some sense into him.

Of course, some people didn’t want fixing.

How far to the fortress? Ember asked.

Reckon we’re still a few hours out, the driver said, grunting as he got to his feet. He slapped his greatcoat to get rid of the dirt. So you’d best get going.

Where?

To Refu Ruka, of course. Where d’you think? It’s a long walk. I’ve got a bad leg. I can’t bloody well go can I?

Shouldn’t we wait for help?

Ain’t none coming. Refu Ruka only has one working cart and you’re looking at it.

What about other travellers? If we wait, surely someone will…

The driver shook his head. "It’s just you and me, one-eye. A few hunters and trappers, maybe. So, as I said, you’d best get walking."

"I don’t even know where this Refu Ruka is. You said it was a secret fortress."

Just follow the road, left at the fork. You’ll find it’s a straight run all the way. Besides, the Poachers will find you before you find them. Just tell ‘em I sent you and show ‘em your orders.

Poachers?

The Fuerzi-Kri. The driver waited for Ember to understand, but seeing no recognition on his face, he added: The Ocosconan Eighth? Don’t they teach you anything in Mulai?

On the contrary, I thought Ocos disbanded the Eighth years ago?

Re-tasked. Special duties. You’ll see. The driver waved him away. Now get going. You don’t want to be walking out here when the sun goes down.

Seeing he had little choice, Ember climbed up the side of the cart, retrieved his bow and grabbed his knapsack, checking the quiver of arrows sticking out of its end. He dropped back to the ground and hefted the bag onto his back, adjusting it so he could still reach the arrows if he encountered any trouble. Onwards to Refu Ruka and a new life. He felt the driver looking at him.

"Hey, one-eye? Killed anyone with those old weapons?"

Not yet, Ember said as he started walking. Hoping to though...

2

A NEW & BLOODY COURSE

Sprinting chickens carried the news across the Briar. The shin-high Ocara-2 conjurings raced away from the Postmaster’s office at The Spear, one of the six soaring spires that gave the Imperial capital its distinctive, barbed skyline.

The glowing group split at the first junction, where the doors of the Yarborough Inn stood open, spilling a warm, inviting light. The tavern was one of the few places in the city that still lit a real fire, shunning the use of more convenient oconic heaters.

One of the Ocara bolted left along the Blue-Green Line, following the two painted strips along the bricks of Wolton Way, a canyon of shops and terraced houses that arced northwest towards another skyscraping tower, The Needles. Two took the opposite route, speeding along a band of green paint towards The Spire of Light and The Arrow.

The three remaining chickens scampered onwards, beneath street lamps still shuttered. They followed the Blue-Green towards the city’s heart, silently processing the markers that identified the various stopping points along the route — Doubletree Market, the Blue Glass Company, Tunnok’s Brewery. Every time a wagon rumbled across the lines or when bigger oconic manifestations shuffled past with their cargo, the chickens stopped with encoded patience before setting off again when the way was clear.

Where the Blue-Green ended, one chicken peeled off onto the Black-Green Line, a block-paved roadway that curved towards The Spire of Kings, the oldest of the six spires and home to the Kelsen clan. That left two messengers. Still sprinting. Never tiring. Their small legs a flicker of light and magic. They trailed the Indigo-Red Line down Broad Street. Ahead of them both, the Hourglass fortress loomed; a mile of vertical city within the city, layer upon layer of multi-coloured buildings, battlements, platforms, cranes, pipes and metal plates.

The two Ocara zipped beneath the huge wheels of a Crick Cooperative wagon train and onto the guiding line known as Red-Two, which looped around the massive building. Running over the cobbles, one jinked left onto the Old Red Line, which would take it towards The Sword, another spire that stabbed the sullen sky to the east.

The last chicken took a hard right as the Red-Two became a triple strip of crimson. It angled up a ramp and turned sharp left through a hole in the thick stone of the Hourglass, avoiding the queue of Ocara shuffling below, waiting their turn to gain entry through the larger entrance.

Into the Postmaster’s office it sprinted and into an empty pen, slapping open a small door and setting a tiny bell a-ringing. Around the Ocara’s glowing neck hung a small leather pouch, inside which was rolled a small piece of paper, on which were scribbled five words that would set the great Mulai Empire on a new and bloody course. Five words that would affect thousands of people, hundreds of thousands, all scattered across a union that stretched from the Deep Dark sea in the west, across Mulai and Ocoscona to the disputed borders of Errechaco and Karakektas.

Riss the Postmaster — cheeks blushed, wild grey hair sprouting from his pudgy head — noted the colour of the oconic messenger. He reached for his Postmaster’s rod, dispelled the small Ocara with a swift prod and took the message from its fallen pouch.

He bellowed for his assistant and a young boy shuffled in, a book in his hands, lost in a story of old kings and swordplay. Take this to level thirty-three, apartment fifty-two, Riss snapped. The name’s on the front. It’s marked urgent and bears the Watcher’s official seal. Riss placed the message in the boy’s hands. Go on then! Quickly now. No smoke breaks. No dilly-dallying.

The messenger backed away.

No, the Postmaster grumbled. Not that way. How many times!? Take Paternoster Three, boy. Three! And don’t come back until you’ve delivered that message.

Fearing a beating from the old man, the boy stuffed the book into his jacket and rode Paternoster Three to level twenty-four, the message clutched safely to his chest. He crossed through the checkpoint into the Midden section of the Hourglass and stepped onto another creaking paternoster, up nine more levels to the apartments on thirty-three. Out he stepped, pausing only to check which way he needed to go. Heading right, down the wide corridor, he jogged along it to knock on the door of apartment fifty-two.

Footsteps. The messenger stood tall, straightened his shoulders, smoothed down his jacket.

The green-painted door opened.

Urgent message for Caster-Colonel Lokke de Calvas, the boy said, sticking his hand out in front of him, the message gripped between his thumb and forefinger.

Give it to me, the housekeeper snapped, wiping floury hands on her apron. The Colonel ain’t here.

The messenger withdrew his hand. Then where can I find him?

Caster-Colonel Lokke de Calvas struggled to his feet, breathing heavily through his protective mask, sweat running down his back, blood in his mouth. The fight wasn’t going to plan.

He was Colonel of the Old Hundredth, one of the finest and most successful legions in the Mulai Empire.

Yet he’d just been knocked down on his arse.

He was a veteran of historic battles in Caldora, Errechaco and the Shattered Isles. He was the gods-damned hero of Zegoma Beach!

Yet he’d just been knocked down on his arse.

Not once, but twice.

At least nobody had been around to see it.

Rubbing his aching jaw, Lokke barely had time to gather his wits before his opponent ran at him again, swinging a short Karonne lance two-handed, like an old sword. Lokke raised his own long lance high, blocking the downward strike. He gripped the quarterstaff-sized weapon tightly as the blow landed, gritting his teeth as it jolted his wrists. His opponent dropped to one knee and swung again, aiming a crippling swipe at his ribs. But Lokke batted the strike away with a clang.

The Caster-Colonel jogged backwards, increasing the distance between him and his opponent. The old arena they fought in was a simple circle, ten paces in diameter with a floor of packed earth. Waist-high wooden fencing ringed its outside edge, patched in several places with lighter-coloured planks where it had been repaired after previous fights. A set of small wooden steps was the only way in and out.

Lokke relaxed a little, his eyes focused on his opponent. He let his lance hang loosely from one hand, dropping his guard, inviting the black-clad fighter to come at him again.

He hadn’t expected such a fast start. In truth, he hadn’t been ready.

He’d gone easy on his opponent.

He’d also underestimated her.

Across the arena, the black-clad fighter twisted open a chamber near the middle of her lance and Lokke watched the top end of the weapon erupt in a crackle of blue Ampa. He was about to object — this was supposed to be a practice match, no oconic bindings allowed. But his opponent chose that moment to charge across the dirt, sparking weapon held high.

Muscle memory shaped Lokke’s defence. The black-clad fighter attacked high, so he blocked high, angling his lance down diagonally to deflect the swift low blow that followed. Tendrils of blue light sizzled when the oconic weapons clashed. Lokke was keenly aware that the crackling Ampa had enough of a charge to zap him unconscious if she caught him with it. He’d probably piss his drawers too. Ampa tended to have that effect.

Not that he had time to think about it. The black-clad fighter dropped to one knee again and Lokke jumped to avoid a wild sweep of her short lance, aimed at his shins. He kicked out with his foot as he came down, smacking it into his opponent’s padded black tunic and sending her sprawling back onto the bare earth.

Lokke allowed himself a smile. As his opponent struggled to get back up, he pressed his advantage, whirling his lance around and slamming it down hard. The black-clad fighter blocked it, but only just, grunting with the effort, arms shaking. The two lances locked together, blackiron against blackiron, the air sweet with ozone. Lokke held his weapon on hers, pushing down harder, testing what was left of his opponent’s strength. He could sense it fading.

Do you yield? Lokke looked his opponent in the face. Her blue-grey eyes glittered back at him and he saw her mouthing something beneath the mask. I can’t hear you, he said impatiently. Speak up or⁠—

Then an unexpected kick. A flash of stinging pain in his thigh. His grip on the long lance loosened. Lokke stumbled back and then the world turned end over end. He wasn’t entirely surprised to find himself upside down, three feet above the arena floor a heartbeat later, blown backwards by a blast of conjured air.

The key to coping with a Knockdown binding was knowing how to land. You should not, as Lokke almost did, land on your back. This tends to knock the wind right out of you. Or land on your arse, which can hurt like hell. Both landings leave you in a poor position to defend any follow-up attack. Instead, Lokke remembered to twist in the air, hoping to land on his hands and knees. As he did so, he muttered the primer words for a binding of his own.

He felt his lance fizz.

Lokke hit the ground hard, hands crumpling beneath him, his shoulder ramming into the dirt. Ignoring the pain, he rolled onto his back, just in time to see the black-clad fighter’s lance smack into the Wall he’d cast across the arena. His opponent stepped back, checking for a way around the protective weave of magic-thickened air.

There wasn’t one.

He could have ended the fight there and then. The black-clad fighter he faced was younger than him, thinner and quicker. But Lokke didn’t like losing. If his opponent wanted to sidestep the rules, so be it. Two could play that game.

Counting up from the butt of his lance, he twisted open the weapon’s fifth chamber. Every caster stacked his or her oconic lance differently, guided by the way they preferred to fight or by the requirements of a particular mission. Lokke kept Fura charges in chambers one to three and an Ampa in four. In the fifth chamber...

Lokke collapsed the Wall binding with a prod of his lance and recited the primer for a Knockdown of his own, hoping the blast of air would fling his opponent across the arena as hers had done to him. The binding activated with a familiar sigh, almost as if the whole room had inhaled deeply, filling invisible lungs. Then it expelled the air with a quiet boom, whipping up dirt, shaking the arena’s wooden planks.

Lokke smiled. He sensed victory.

But the black-clad fighter had anticipated the move. She’d plunged her lance into the dirt, anchoring herself as the oconic wind raged. Lokke cursed and rushed in to finish the fight, his long lance levelled like an ancient pike. Again, the black-clad fighter managed to scramble out of the way and he found himself striking at empty air.

Lokke adjusted his stance, ready to attack again. His opponent was still on her hands and knees.

He raised his lance.

A distant boom sounded somewhere behind him.

What was that?

The thought raced through Lokke’s mind. He turned his head instinctively, distracted by the noise. Just for a moment. No longer than a heartbeat or the blink of an eye. But long enough. Long enough that he swung his lance a fraction too slowly, giving his opponent time to sidestep his strike as it arced down and to bring her short lance swiping up to crack him hard on the arm.

Pain bolted through it