Chương 159: Chapter 156. Fyre

There were exactly three people in the empire who could overrule a magus mid-sentence: the Archmage, the Emperor, and another magus. The man gliding in through the forge doorway, several inches off the floor, was the third sort. It was worth understanding what that meant, because most people pictured the wrong thing when they heard magus. They imagined raw power: a mage so strong the title simply fell on them, but the truth was duller and far more dangerous.

A magus needed master-level command of at least one of the seven schools, true. But the rank wasn't a measure of skill. It was a measure of reach. A magus could overrule the local Magisterium, commandeer its resources, redirect its people, rewrite policy that touched thousands of lives; and the thing that bought a person that authority was almost never the strength of their weaving. It was decades.

Apprentice to master ran five to ten years, if you never offended the wrong official or showed too much promise too fast. Master to senior, another ten or twenty, paid in committee seats and patient flattery. Senior to magus, if it came at all, took exceptional circumstances and backing most mages never came within reach of. The whole structure had been built, very deliberately, so that no one rose quickly enough to change anything. Until Adom had done it in five years.

For what it was worth, it helped to have an Archmage in your corner who already knew how the story ended. He and Gaius carried the experience of rebirth, and had seen how bleak the future was likely to be. But Gaius was too old and too watched to make the necessary moves himself; every step he took dragged a decade of enemies behind it.

So he'd spent his influence buying Adom the years instead — the examinations, the training, the doors an ordinary mage needed a lifetime to reach — and Adom had supplied the part access couldn't by simply excelling at anything he touched. The Magisterium was full of well-connected people who'd learned, painfully, that a door is only useful if you're strong enough to fill the frame. The appointment had come a few months ago, just two days after his nineteenth birthday.

The uproar had been immediate, loud, and frankly a pleasure to watch from a safe distance; senior masters who'd waited years, passed over for a boy they were sure had been lacing his boots wrong when they started. What none of them quite grasped was the point of it. Adom hadn't been raised up as a reward. He'd been set on the board as a piece, because the ten magi were the pool the next Archmage would be drawn from, and Gaius wanted at least one name in that pool who knew what was coming.

All of which was a long way of saying that when a voice cut his confrontation clean in half, Adom didn't argue. He turned, looked, and felt — for the first time since walking in — a flicker of real sympathy for the five men in front of him. Because the man on the broom was Newt Merlin. He came in standing on the enchanted wood as though it were solid ground, hands folded behind his back, a staff turning in a slow, patient orbit at his side. Pointed hat, deep robes, every piece of it expensive and quiet about it.

The Merlins were one of the five founding houses: three thousand years of accumulated power, influence, and shrewd marriages, until half the great mages in the imperial records were either Merlins or had married one. Newt had held the title of youngest magus among the Ten right up until Adom took it from him, and he'd borne the theft with more grace than anyone expected. Of the nine other magi, five wanted Adom gone, two tolerated him, and exactly two had ever been kind: Merlin, and a woman named Beth.

By Gaius's reckoning, that counted for more than it seemed. Merlin was also the quiet favourite to take the Archmage's chair when it emptied. In the life Adom had already lived once, Merlin had died in the chaos around Gaius's assassination. A decent man, lost in someone else's coup. He was not, at present, looking at Adom. He was looking at the five officials, at the boy with the split lip, and at the broken bracket on the floor, and understanding dawned quite quickly.

"Magus Sylla."

"Magus Merlin." Adom tipped his head at the officials.

"There was a bit of a situation here."

"So I see." Merlin's gaze kept moving over the room.

"Would you mind telling me what happened?" Adom told him. It didn't take long: the demand to see Master Kern at once, the apprentice explaining she worked by appointment, the senior official losing his patience and striking the boy, the rest of it sliding downhill from there. Merlin listened without interrupting, his eyes on the officials the whole time, and by the end of it whatever he'd been weighing had clearly settled.

He stepped down off the broom — onto the floor this time — then crossed to stand over the officials, and the ease went out of his voice entirely.

"On your feet. All of you." They scrambled up.

"You were sent to carry a message to a craftsman. Instead you put a hand on a boy, in front of witnesses, in a civilian shop, wearing the badge of the Magisterium while you did it." The men were trembling as everyone in the room silently observed.

"Do you understand what you actually broke here?" One of the guards, eager and reading the room exactly wrong, spoke up.

"The trust of the public in the Magisterium… sir?" Oh boy, Adom thought. Merlin turned his head slowly and frowned at the idiot.

"So you knew. You understood precisely what was at stake, and you stood here and let it happen anyway."

"What? N-no, sir, I — that's not — I only meant—" The guard's mouth kept working, hunting for the version of the sentence that saved him, but alas, there wasn't one.

"Effective now," said Merlin, "the five of you are suspended without pay for one week. On your return, you serve a month's probation. Every day of that month, each of you submits to my office, by nightfall, a written account of everything you did and an honest reflection on it. I will read them, and I promise you I can tell the difference between a man who has understood this and a man waiting for it to blow over." His eyes settled on Horn.

"You, who struck him, report to Disciplinary Magistrate Helena within the hour. Whatever she adds, you accept without one word of appeal." Horn's mouth opened to produce what Adom hoped was not a protest. The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon." Within the hour," Merlin said, and it closed. He turned away from them as though they'd already left, and found Filli, and his whole manner changed back over.

"Master Filli." A small bow followed.

"On behalf of the Magisterium, please accept our sincere apologies." Filli, who had spent several minutes now watching two magi run his showroom, managed, "Oh i-it's all right, sir. You don't have to do this!"

"I do. I won't labour it." Merlin crossed to Tomás and looked closely at the split lip, then drew a small vial of pale blue liquid from his robes.

"Swelling. Drink half, hold the rest to it." Tomás went red to the ears.

"Thank you, sir." Merlin then made a slow circuit as the officials shuffled out — a quiet word for Marina, a glance at Doran's hands to be sure they were steady, a nod for Erik and Gren at the counter. He said almost nothing. People simply stood a little straighter once he'd passed them, and breathed a little easier, which was a trick Adom had never managed, despite trying many times. Perhaps it was the youthful face. Soon after the guards left, the showroom let out a breath.

Hammering started up again in the back, somebody deciding the morning's excitement had run long enough.

"Well." Merlin stepped back onto his broom, which lifted him gently to eye level, the staff resuming its lazy orbit.

"Not the afternoon I'd planned either." He looked toward Filli.

"Which reminds me, since I've gone to the trouble of getting here. Master Filli, I came to place an order. A sword. The particulars can wait for a proper appointment, but I'd rather not leave this room having achieved nothing but paperwork for five fools." Filli, who had visibly not expected to do any actual business today, recovered fast. He found a slip of paper and a stick of charcoal under the counter.

"Of course, sir. Give me the broad strokes now, and we'll sort the rest when you come in." Merlin gave him the broad strokes — length, balance, the kind of edge he wanted, a few words about the man who'd carry it — and Filli wrote it all down, nodding, already half-lost in the problem of it. By the time it was done some of the showroom's ordinary rhythm had crept back in.

"Good." Merlin tucked his hands behind his back, now addressing Adom.

"I suppose I'll see you at tomorrow's session, then. Before the new assignments go out?" Adom kept his face pleasant. Inside, he came very close to wincing. He dreaded the councils. Hours of ten magi and the Archmage in one room, half of them looking at him like a stain on the upholstery, the rest perfecting the art of disagreeing with him at length and in beautiful procedural detail, over points that could have been settled in a sentence by anyone in a hurry.

It was, as far as Adom could tell, the single least efficient way human beings had ever devised to make a decision, and he had to be there for all of it.

"Wouldn't miss it," he said. Merlin's mouth twitched, like he'd heard the whole sentence under the words. He leaned down from the broom to shake Adom's hand.

"Always a pleasure, Adom."

"Likewise, Newt." He glided out, staff turning at his shoulder, and the showroom felt twice the size without him. Adom turned. Filli was at the counter, looking like he'd lost hold of a thought.

"So," Adom said.

"What was it you wanted to show me?" Filli's eyes went wide.

"Oh. Oh. Right!" He smacked his forehead.

"With all that, I completely forgot, but yes. Come on. You need to see this." He headed toward the back of the shop, gesturing for Adom to follow. As they walked through the main forge area, past the glowing furnaces and the rhythmic hammering of the other smiths, Filli began talking excitedly.

"So you remember that Celestium metal shipment I received a few months ago from Wangara? Beautiful stuff, but tricky to work with. And I still had some starfallen metal left over from that commission job. Now, the original Wam and Bam are still perfectly functional, don't get me wrong, but..." Adom was listening carefully. Filli would eventually become known as Fyre the Great, one of the most innovative metalworkers in imperial history.

Adom had learned to pay attention when the young man got excited about something, because it usually meant he was on the verge of another breakthrough.

"I've been experimenting," Filli continued, leading them down a narrow hallway toward his personal workshop.

"You know how you keep having to bring Wam and Bam back for repairs? Every time you use that thunder shrimp attack of yours, the energy discharge damages the enchantment crystals and runes. The metal itself holds up fine, but the magical components keep burning out." Adom nodded. It was an ongoing problem. His attacks were powerful, but they tended to be hard on equipment that wasn't specifically designed to channel that much raw energy.

"Well, I started thinking about that. And then I remembered something about how starfallen metal interacts with Celestium under certain temperature conditions. There's this fusion process that happens if you get the timing exactly right..." They reached the workshop door, and Filli paused with his hand on the handle. His eyes were practically glowing with excitement.

"The thing is, I think I've created something entirely new. A metal alloy that's never existed before." He opened the door and ushered Adom inside. The workshop was smaller than the main forge but much more cluttered. Workbenches covered every available surface, loaded with tools, partially completed projects, and what appeared to be several dozen failed experiments.

"The problem with your current gauntlets," Filli said, walking over to a covered workbench in the center of the room, "is that they're built for someone with above average human strength and above average magical output. But you're not exactly just above average, are you?" Adom laughed.

"I've been told that once or twice."

"Right. So I designed these for someone who hits like a force of nature and channels mana and Fluid like it's going out of style." He pulled away the cloth covering the workbench. The new Wam and Bam were beautiful. The base metal was a deep silver that seemed to shift between mirror-bright and matte depending on the angle of the light. Black accents ran along the knuckles and finger joints in patterns that looked almost organic.

Intricate runes had been etched into the metal, so fine and detailed they must have taken weeks to complete while tiny crystals were embedded at strategic points—on the knuckles, along the wrists, and at the base of each finger—glowing with a soft blue light that pulsed gently like a heartbeat.

"Filli," Adom breathed.

"These are incredible."

"Right?" The young man said excitedly.

"I named it Valiant metal, because it sounds heroic, but the alloy can handle magical channeling that would melt ordinary metal," Filli explained, practically bouncing on his toes.

"The crystals store excess energy instead of letting it discharge randomly. And the rune work... well, let's just say I've been studying some very old texts." Adom reached out and activated his identification skill. [Identify] The system response appeared in his vision, and his eyes widened. [Item: Wam and Bam (Class S)] Type: Enchanted Battle Gauntlets Properties: Metal Construction: Virtually indestructible under normal combat conditions. Resistant to magical overload and energy discharge.

Mana Amplification: Increases magical attack potency by 300%. Energy Storage: Can store up to 10, 000 units of excess mana, releasing it on command or during critical strikes. Self-Repair: Minor damage automatically heals over time using stored mana. Adaptive Resonance: Attunes to wielder's magical signature for optimal performance.

"Filli..." Adom said quietly. Filli grinned.

"I was hoping you'd be pleased." Adom paused, feeling like he should say something profound about the breakthrough, about the innovation, about what this meant for magical metallurgy as a whole. Instead, what came out was:"About that name, though. I think you could do better." Filli blinked.

"Right?! Valiant seemed cool at first, but it keeps reminding me of that mouse friend of yours." Adom laughed.

"Exactly what I was thinking. So, what will you name it?" Filli fell silent, his brow furrowing in concentration. Adom waited, watching the wheels turn in the young smith's head.

"What about..." Filli said slowly, then stopped. He was quiet for another long moment.

"There was this dwarven hero I always admired growing up. Fyre Heart-of-Iron. He lived about eight hundred years ago, and they say he used his fist for hammer, and that he created the weapons that ended the Goblin Wars. He's considered the father of all modern blacksmithing techniques." Filli's voice grew more animated as he spoke.

"The stories say he could forge metals that didn't exist in nature, that he could pull the essence of stars down into his anvil. Most smiths have a little shrine to him in their workshops. I've got one over there." He gestured toward a corner where a small carved figure sat among the tools. Hah, would you look at that. Some things seemed to just happen no what timeline, huh? Well, this wasn't a constant that needed changing, so Adom smiled gently.

"Fyre metal..." he repeated.

"I like it, feels like it was made for you."