Chương 150: Book 3 Chapter 10.5: Suffrage

++History has recorded me as building a coalition of disenfranchised women to advance my goals with. Believe me, this was never intentional. It was simply convenient for me how easily enticed such prodigies were by the prospect of joining someone who actually considered them to be capable of thought. ++ - From the writings of Isabel Vornholt, 'The Great Lich'. 1, 891 A. E. Alira Bella Paula was not, of course, attending the Winzorth Institute anymore. By this stage she was actually closer to thirty than twenty.

A grown woman. More than that, a grown woman rapidly running out of youth. She had faced all the obstacles I had observed her facing when we were still acquainted, and apparently not managed to overcome them. Her father's business had gone under at some point, forcing her to forgo apprenticeships with greater long-term benefit to instead maximize short-term financial gain.

The result of this was that, a year after she started, Paula was just about keeping her family afloat, but unconnected and looking at marriage into one of Garamon's prominent magician-families as her finest prospect. It was quite a good thing I reached her when I did. Paula being made into a Voret and forced to create more of that idiotic bloodline would be a humiliation beyond description. Less fortunate was that she did not still reside in Laugrey, this extended my journey to find her.

Extended it so much in fact that I decided to put my cloudscraper to better use and send it back to Estia, The Winzorth Institute was not my only source of useful magician labour, after all. It was Cadnich that held Paula at the moment, the very same city from which Dave Blakely had emerged. I had heard much of the place, and just about none of it was good. Cadnich was known to be a den of thieves, drunkards and violent maniacs. Going off my exposure to Blakely, every single one of these claims was correct.

That was, however, a sample size of merely one, so I did not commit to it as a conclusion just yet. From what I observed of the city, it certainly had a unique feeling compared to most of Garamon's structures. Wide more than tall, it looked to have grown out, spreading like the tendrils of some fungal mass centred by the great docks that brought in its income.

Chimneys belched black smoke, as was common in all the cities of Garamon, and as I rode through the streets in my rented carriage I found the place far less degraded and rotting than I had expected. What I did see was an oddly metropolitan mix of faces. Skin tones ranging from darker than an Estian to paler than was common in Garamon, hair emerging straight, long, short, frizzy or curled, eyes of brown, green, blue, grey. Hooked noses, stub noses, thick and thin lips, a great variety of features.

The one commonality seemed to be the shorter stature and the less expensive clothes. Cadnich may have been among Garamon's greatest industrial centres, but that did not mean the people within it were living well. I had long since learned that the amount of money a person created through their work was barely correlated to the amount they enjoyed as payment, if at all. Another curiosity of the modern age, and one I intended to take full advantage of in starting my new business.

But to begin that business, I still had to find Paula. This would prove difficult, because Cadnich was apparently populated exclusively by people who did not trust, like or, indeed, speak to nobility. I was not sure how each and every person in the streets here knew I was of that particular class, but know they did, and so searching for the magical foundry under which Paula was apprenticed took me the better part of a day.

Patience is the most powerful force there is, however, and I was able to apply mine to singling out the location through brute effort. It was not an especially impressive building, perhaps the size of a small warehouse with only one great chimney at its centre from which steam and smoke emerged. Even approaching it from the outside, however, on foot since there was no room near it to accommodate my carriage, I could feel the heat from within. This sensation intensified when I actually stepped into the workstation.

There was little fire, but lots of steaming vapour and glaring air. And it all smelled of mana. I quickly spotted Paula through my watering eyes, where she worked in one corner. Her hair had been cut short, probably to avoid it accidentally being ignited, and her hands were outstretched, face focused as she simultaneously heated and compressed blocks of steel before her into flat planes. I saw other magicians working, all of them weak and petty.

Doing the same job as Paula in pairs, due to apparently lacking the skill to both heat and beat the metal alone as she did. And more importantly, they all worked far more slowly. Raw power was a gift unlike any other, and I wagered that Paula was as strong as each one of the other dozen magicians in this warehouse combined. In fact, Paula was stronger. She had more magical potency than even Agrian, by a shade at least.

His marginally superior natural talent and significantly earlier start was just about overcome by her five years of seniority. And compared to the pitiful wretches she was working alongside, there was simply no comparison. A sanctioned mage was the term for any magician to properly, officially train and graduate from one of the recognised Institutes. They made up roughly one quarter of all magicians in Garamon. One quarter.

Because it was expensive to train a magician, particularly the average, wild talents who tended to be born from families without pre-existing geniuses or long histories of selective breeding for arcane ability. Excepting myself of course, the average 'wild mage' was simply not worth the expenses needed to properly instruct them in magic. They could still learn, indeed most did.

Even a petty magician who fell short of the roughly two thousand vis lower bound produced by the weakest Institute magicians would still be able to take home more money through magic than they could by physical labour, though especially untalented magicians had been known to prefer careers in law or medicine over magic for the same reason. What I was looking at here was not a very well funded operation. These magic wielders were like clumsy, weak children floundering around.

If every one of them combined their powers in a contest with mine, I would win without much effort. And I was still growing. So it was with no fear that I walked through the hall and headed right for a corner room, the only room save for the expansive workstation. Paula spotted me when I was halfway through and stared, stunned and silent, disbelieving. I almost paused to soak in the expression on her face. But I had work to do.

Inside the corner office I found a skinny woman leaning back in a chair, blinking in surprise as I entered. I could actually see the cognitive processes occurring within her. Her eyes swept over me, taking in the sight of my clothing and bearing, and in a single moment all the unease was swept away and replaced by a wall of friendliness so painfully forced that it made me want to incinerate her on sheer principle. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"Good afternoon miss," she smiled.

"Lady," I corrected her. She seemed surprised.

"My lady," she amended.

"Good afternoon, to what do I owe this pleasure?"

"One of your workers, Alira Bella Paula, I will be purchasing her contract," I explained. The woman's smile wavered and I saw her eyes become narrow and almost feline, thoughts already curdling into some way of getting around this.

"I'm afraid that particular contract isn't for sale," she told me with a smile.

"Why?" I asked her. I did not return the smile. Commoners did not like nobility, and magicians especially did not, but they did fear us. A smile undermined that most useful of emotions.

"Because she's easily my most valuable asset, and I don't think you could possibly pay me enough to make her worth my while," she replied. I made a show of pausing.

"Name a price," I challenged.

"Fifty thousand crowns," she said. I was actually given pause by that. And then I realised what was going on. Paula barged in before I could do anything about it.

"Isabel!?" she asked, then stepped in front of me and stared at my face for a long moment.

"It is you!"

"Yes," I told her.

"Hold on, I am busy bartering for your freedom." I would have liked to avoid being known as an associate of her, if Paula's current employer suspected a sentimental connection then she would be more likely to overcharge. Then again, she had overcharged already. For different reasons.

"I don't need you to do this," Paula snapped.

"You're always fucking doing this, showing up to just barge your way into my life and—""Shut up," I cut in.

"I am busy bartering." I ignored her while she squawked and stammered, turning back to her employer.

"You are asking a deliberately ridiculous price."

"If you can't pay it, then we have no business here," she sighed.

"I'm sorry, but I just need Paula's labour."

"No, you do not need it that much. Not more than thirty thousand crowns, or twenty, or fifteen—all sums you could ask and possibly receive. You demanded fifty to deter me, even at the cost of a better payout for yourself. Why?" Paula was quietening down now, listening more intently. She seemed as interested to hear the answer as I was. Her employer began to sweat.

"What I ask for my contracts is no business of yours," she told me, growing haughty and stubborn. An act.

"Alira, how has your marriage discussion been going?" I asked.

"Or rather, how did it start?" I almost did not catch myself using her first name, and she answered before I could truly wonder about it.

"What do you mean how did it start?" she asked me.

"I…asked around, made it known I was looking for one, then I was approached by the Vorets."

"I understand what has happened then," I noted.

"I would like you to leave my property now," Alira's employer growled as she stood up.

"I don't know who you think you are, but—" air constricted around her windpipe, cutting off her voice. A simple spell, but quite amusing. I left the pressure just light enough that she did not inconveniently suffocate to death while I spoke.

"Consider a magician family looking at a powerful magical prodigy. One of the most powerful in fact, among the ten, maybe the five, most gifted alive. She is such a starkly contested genius that she could easily rack up the asking price for her hand and demand some staggering allowance as part of her condition for wedding the various magical scions bidding for her. Now consider that magicians are smart, sneaky and morally bankrupt." I saw the realization light up in Alira's eyes.

"So they all agreed to hang back, wait until I was in dire straits and let the pressure mount until I had no choice but to accept a lower offer," she finished. Her employer squirmed for a few more seconds before straightening up.

"Yes. They paid me good money for that, more than I'd get from selling your contract even." Which explained why she was willing to demand such an outrageous asking price. Alira's anger was slowly withering now, and she looked at me with lidded eyes.

"Why are you here?" she asked me.

"I would like to offer you a job," I told her. She seemed to think about it. Then nodded.

"Alright, I accept." Her employer was mid-sentence when I turned back to her, looming over the table.

"My name is Isabel Vornholt. You might know me. I am certain you know my family." She went very pale in an instant, then nodded, eyes bulging.

"Good," I nodded.

"This will make things faster. You will sell Alira Bella Paula's contract to me for a penny. I would have paid thirty thousand crowns, just to be clear, but you inconvenienced me, and so you can live out your life with this financial deficit and the knowledge that it could have been a profit. You can also explain to the Vorets what happened here." She looked like she wanted to be sick, and I let that sensation linger a moment before I drew out a roll of bank notes from my clothing.

I had deliberately sewed compartments in to hold such valuables, apparently pockets in female clothing was simply not the done thing.

"Alternatively," I added.

"You can accept this." Ten thousand crowns were represented in the notes. I saw her face fall.

"That's nothing," she whispered.

"The Vorets will probably take it off me anyway!"

"Then you do not tell them about it," I suggested.

"I certainly will not. Consider this a gift. One that I will deny granting you if ever questioned about it. One that, I suspect, you stole from me and ran with, yes?" She understood my meaning, nodded, and fled like a frightened rat. I turned to Alira when she had gone.

"Are you free to depart soon?" The woman looked far from pleased.

"I'm just trading one job for another, then," she sighed.

"The marriage offers were all bullshit, I was never going to be welcomed into those families as anything other than breeding stock and a bauble. My life is fucked, my father's debts are still getting worse, and now you're here to ask me if I'm ready to depart?" she looked utterly savage with her bitterness, contempt for the world itself twisted across her features.

"Yeah, fine, I'm ready. When do we leave, boss?" I studied her for a moment before acting on impulse, reaching into my pocket for another roll of bank notes.

"You do not have to, if you do not wish to," I told her.

"You can simply take this and find more stable employment elsewhere." It was another ten thousand crowns, between this roll and the other was the full sum I had been planning to pay for Alira's freedom. She stared at the money, frozen in place.

"What's the catch?" she asked.

"The catch is that you have to consider the debt of your helping me and Agrian train with combat magic paid. That is all." I left the money on the desk and began to make my way out.

"Goodbye Alira." I was out through the door and halfway down the street when she caught up to me again, a grin bright and wide across her face.

"This isn't you manipulating me, you know," she told me.

"Okay," I said.

"I mean it, I've just realised that you're probably the only employer I can trust to deal with me on the level."

"Okay."

"Stop saying that."

"Why?"

"Just stop it," she was growing annoyed now. Her face was red for some reason.

"Are you suffering from heat stroke?" I asked.

"Shut up and keep walking," she snapped. I considered reminding her who was employer and who was employee, but decided not to for now.