This portion follows The Mercadian Heist and The Mercadian Heist, Part IIThe day took forever to trod along its proscribed, droll route. The dead end suitor shoved off after the appropriate amount of empty courting, the staff buzzed about trying to make Jax’s mother, Mayzeri Deanna Armas, happy and mostly failing. Her mother was a force of nature in her own way, and if one had any wish to preserve themselves, they would need to find a safe distance and appear compliant to her whims and wishes.
Jacqueline Deanna Armas, known to Jackie to her friends and Jax to her colleagues, had learned early on that if you wanted to hold your own against someone of her mother’s ilk, all you had to do was smile, nod in the right places, and let her carry your side of the conversation as she saw fit. Most of the time, that worked.
Today was no exception. Jax nodded where she needed to, smiled where she was expected, and kept her mouth shut otherwise. She absolutely had to find out what was in the leather bag sequestered under the false decorative top of her armoire. The bag was simple in design, with two brass buckles holding the flap down, and the leather itself was well worn, weathered by either time or stress, but cared for along the way. It appeared to be a good bag.
Its shape was held firmly in her mind, and she ran her imaginary fingers over the leather, fingering the belted closures, wondering what was held within. Jax risked breaking the silence to find out. “Mother?”
Mayzeri looked up from her piles of court papers strewn across the dinner table. “Yes, Jacqueline?”
The staff hated when her mother used the dining hall for her work. Work that was better suited for the parlor or the office, and not where the smallest spill of food or drink could risk a verbal assault from the Lady of the House for something that was wholly out of their control.
“May I be excused for the evening? I wish to go to bed after having a day like today.”
Mayzeri raised an eyebrow. “A day like today, love? A day where you have to do your part for the success of your family in securing your future? Unfortunately, my dear, that will be every day for the rest of your life. That is the role of a woman in this society. Fight for what you are owed.”
Jackie sighed inwardly at the bait, but she knew it was expected to question. “What are we owed, Mother?”
A hint of smile at her mouth as she leaned back over her papers, “The world, my dear one. We are owed the world. We just have to stand up and take it. Good night.”
“Good night Mother,” Jackie pushed away from the table and nodded to Mr. Graves, the butler, as he opened the door for her. “Good night, Mr. Graves.”
“Good night, miss!” He smiled kindly.
Jackie pulled her dinner dress up to her calves and took the stairs at speed. She felt like a criminal in her own house. Never mind the fact that she had robbed a bank this morning. It was stealing her time back from her mother that made her a real criminal. She kicked off her shoes, picked them up with the free hand and practicing her silent run, praying all the while that the household staff where elsewhere. She turned the corner of the hall that had her room door off of it, spun inside her door, and locked it quietly from the other side.
Her sanctuary was calm, quiet, and empty. Mekka, one of the housemaids that was assigned to this side of the house, must have already been in here. The fire was crackling lightly in the hearth, and the bed was already turned down. Harrisa, her lady’s maid, would not be expecting Jax to ring for at least another hour, so she had time.
She tossed her shoes near the footing of the changing blind in the corner, pulled a chair to the armoire, and shifted the trestling of the false top to the side to free the bag from its hiding place. She pulled it down gingerly. When she had picked the bag up in the Mercadian Central Bank she had a felt buzzing in her hands, like there was an angry bee in the leather satchel. And now, here, she felt that buzzing again. She sat on the edge of her bed staring down the bag in her hands as if she was making a choice that would end the world.
Jax paused.
Should she open it? Would Armond be angry? What if there was something inside that was dangerous? A construct that could was beyond her understanding? She was not a magical person. Magic did not run in her family at all. There was an old rumor that she had a great-great Aunt on her father’s side that had a touch of it, and she had gone mad, living alone with a great number of cats and a live-in female friend.
Jax was mature enough to know exactly what her great-great aunt was, and mad was not it. That aunt probably had been a very kind and passionate person who knew exactly what she wanted out of her life. Just like Jax knew what she wanted out of hers. She wanted the same thing, in a way.
She wanted choices. And maybe a cat. Maybe a lover… someday.
So what if there was something in the bag she wouldn’t understand? Armond would not have sent her home with anything dangerous. It was just a leather bag. A simple satchel with two brass buckles, and simple shoulder strap. If it had been dangerous, it would be in a iron box, or void locker, or something even more exotic. Whatever was in the bag was valuable, but not dangerous. She squeezed her braid, feeling the jeweled comm concealed in the many dark strands, and thought briefly about trying to reach out to Armond.
Jax heard her mother’s voice in her head, “We are owed the world.”
Damn right we are, Jax agreed. She had carried this bag from the the most secure vault in all of Mercadia all by herself. She had carried it out of the Mercadian Central Bank and through the city, under the watchful eyes of many sorts. Whatever was in the bag did not warrant a second glance from any number of magically-aware beings that she had crossed paths with. No troll or goblin had stopped her. How many Sylvians had she walked near? Not a single one had batted an eyelid in her direction. She had been a simple teenage human girl carrying her bag on her way to somewhere.
Jax made her choice, undoing the buckles and pulling at the straps. She took a deep breath and held the bag open tentatively, expecting something to happen.
Nothing happened.
She sat it on her knees and looked into the dark of the bag.
Wands?!
At least twenty. Of all shapes and sizes. What the fuck where wands doing locked up in a bank vault? Wands were focus objects for very specific types of magic users. Magic users often made their own based on their preferred specialty or focus of magic. And everyone knew that wands were about as useful to another person as a used through pair of shoes. Nothing special about shoes. They won’t make you walk any faster, or do your walking for you. They are just shoes. Used ones are doubly useless at that. Kind of gross to use someone else’s shoes. It was kind of gross to use someone’s wand. It would help focus in a pinch, but it would be off and not nearly as useful as your own.
Useless fucking wands.
Jackie shook the bag gently, and the wands all woodenly clicked and thunked together like a bundle of sticks. She literally had kindling on her knees. Useless, stupid, …worthless sticks!
Jackie felt a flair of anger. Why had she risked a bank robbery at the most secure bank in all of the city, just so Armond could get his hands on a bag of used, nasty, wands. Like what the fuck is going on here!?
There had to be something else in the bag. She ran her hands over all the edges of the leather, hoping to feel a hidden zipper or a secret fold, something that held a piece of paper with a secret, or a Elvish map to a dragon’s hoard hidden somewhere deep in a mountain. But there was nothing else.
It was just a bag. She rifled through the bag’s contents, her hands brushing all of them, and nothing changed.
Full of useless wands. Jackie leaned back, shaking her head in wonder at the monumentious stupidity of it all.
“Pick me up.”
Jackie screamed, throwing the bag off her lap. It bounced off the rug, and the wands scattered across the floor, sounding just like sticks being scattered from a woodpile. She held her breath, both hands over her mouth. She exhaled raggedly, her hands were shaking. She almost pulled her enchantment out and spoke the trigger word to disappear. Almost.
Her own voice was shaky in her ears, “Who’s there?”
The voice was soft, genteel almost. Like a soothing balm given voice and action. “Just a useless wand.”
Jackie nearly repeated her scream. But she tempered her urge, feeling her emotions running through her veins like fire.
“Good. You have control,” the voice reassured.
Jackie’s eyes surveyed the room of wands, and her eyes fell on one near the middle. She knew it was that one. A dark brown one about the length of her forearm, twisted like a grape vine, one end smoother than the other. No carvings, no jewels, no inlays or fitted handles like some of the others. It was plain. Utilitarian. Unassuming.
“Yes.”
“H-h-how?” Jackie stammered. She didn’t know what she was asking. Well she kind of knew. She kind of was asking all the questions, all at once. How did she hear it? How did it talk? How could a simple wand be anything more than a shoe? Did everyone hear it? Could it talk to anyone? Was it sentient? Was this a curse? Oh my god, is the wand a person? Can you even transmute a person into a wand? What the fuck? What the fuck is happening? What the fuck is happening to me? Am I crazy?
Oh my god, she thought, maybe my great-great aunt was crazy and not just a lesbian.
“Stop.”
Jackie stopped.
“Deep breath. Count to five. Release. Count to five. Breath in again. Repeat five times.”
“What?” Jackie tried.
“Do it!” The voice said with authority. An authority that Jackie respected, so she followed the instructions.
“Feel better?”
She did. Her mind was calm, and the questions had started to take priority while the emotional responses had faded to a dull roar in the background. “Yes.”
“Pick me up.”
Jax did not move. “Why?”
“So we can communicate better. This takes effort.”
Jackie lightly stepped on to the carpet, and gathered all the scattered wands, making a point to not touch the obvious one trying to steal her soul or take over her body.
“That is ridiculous.”
“Ok. Stop. How are you doing that?” Jax asked, shoving the other wands back into the leather bag. “Invading one’s thoughts is impolite.”
“As a wand, think about this for a moment, a wand is not interested in stealing a soul or taking over a body. What use is either to a wand? I am a wand.” The voice said it as if it was the most absurdly obvious thing that could ever be said in the history of the world. “And the way that I communicate is profoundly easier and faster.”
Jax squatted down near the wand, still lying askew on the carpet, looking over it carefully while she shook the last of the wands into the bag, settling them back into place. “I think I am mad.”
“Not yet.”
“Great help,” she sighed. “But to everyone else that can’t hear you, witnessing me talking to a stick, I think it would be obvious.”
“Its temporary.”
“The madness?”
“The talking out loud part. You will learn to converse more directly in the future.”
“And that is why you need me to pick you up?” Jax tried.
“No. You have to learn things on your own.”
“Then why would I need to pick you up?”
“Because you need to make a copy of me, put the copy back into the bag, and then give the bag to whoever bought your crew to steal me in the first place.”
“I am not a wizard, I am thief.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters,” Jax said, returning the obvious matter of fact tone the wand had used earlier. “Only magic-touched folks can use magic. Most barely. Only the great ones are able to actually use it use it, in the way the stories are told. I am not one of the former, and definitely not one of the latter. I am not magic folk.”
“That’s a lie.”
“What’s a lie?” Jax was caught off guard.
“Everyone can use magic. Anyone. All living things are tied to the fabric of the universe. Why would magic only exist for a select few? Magic is not sentient. It cannot make decisions about who gets to use it. It is energy. Pervasive. Everywhere. All things are bound in it and by it.”
“So what are the Trials for?”
“The Trials as you call them are to keep the lie alive. Why would power invite competition, Jacqueline?”
“But everyone would know it was a lie, eventually, right? It only takes someone to come along and do it without the schools, the training, and the rest of it. Some hermit wandering in from a lonely mountain and using magic as if it was the most natural thing, that is all that it would take,” Jax paused and curled her lip into a sneer. “…And I hate that name.”
“Its what your mother calls you.”
“It is. And now you know why I hate it.”
“Pick me up, Jackie.” The voice was softer now, understanding.
“It’s Jax.”
“Pick me up, Jax.”
She reached out, letting her fingers graze the wood, expecting a great shock or a wave of power to wash over her. Nothing happened.
“Of course nothing happened. I already explained, come on.” It sounded annoyed.
Jax grasped the wand in annoyance herself and lifted it straight to her eyeline. “There! Are you happy?”
“My happiness is irrelevant. Now. Grab one of the junk wands out of the bag.”
“Junk wands?”
“They are meant to be decoys. To hide me from anyone looking without knowing what to look for.”
“Ok. This one?” Jax had pulled out a smaller, thicker, lighter colored wand with a single scratched jewel crowning a false hilt.
“It doesn’t matter. Now focus on what I look like. What the wood feels like. The weight of it in your hand. Think about how you feel the interaction of it through your skin, your fingers, your sight, your smell. Take a few minutes and create a representation in your mind. Include the most detail you can think of. Most important of all… think of what makes me ‘real’. Whatever that means to you.”
“Ok, then use a magic word or an incantation?”
“Of course not, I can explain why those exist later,” the wand was sighing even though it lacked lungs, air, and throat to sigh through. “Magic is old. As I said, is a part of reality, just as the interactions between things very large and very small are relatively the same throughout nature. It is only at the extremes where things are strange and incongruent. But the vast majority of the universe is made up of a single great fabric. Magic permeates that fabric. All you have to do is find a thread of it and grab on.”
“But how?”
“And that is why I am here. To show the way.”
“Wait. You are a dowsing rod?” Jackie wanted to laugh. “But for magic. Not water.”
“I AM NOT A DOWSING ROD,” the voice was borderline hysterical in denial.
“Says the dowsing rod.”
“Stop it. Now use your imagination. And close your eyes.” The voice had returned to the teacher voice.
Jax closed her eyes, and made an image in her head of the wand. Similarly to how she had imagined the bag earlier in the day. She ran her mental fingers over the wand as she actually ran her fingers over the wood, feeling the grain, the texture. She smelled the deep oldness of the wood, an aged wax, something far off like a campfire and baking bread coming from deep in a forest full of light. Birds were in the trees, singing songs that were wound of magic, the vines vibrated as they climbed the trees, seeking the warmth of light above. The mists of the morning wound among the roots of the old ones, touching their bark hesitantly, sharing messages from the sky and the wind. Everything was alive.
She felt it in her heart, the tug, the pull, and the connection to the world around her. Her breath slowed, the pulse in her fingertips faded from her consciousness, and she understood the wand in her right as she held what the wand that wanted to become in her left. She understood all she had to do was make the movement.
She had to move with intent, like one would take a step forward with their body. It is just a moment of thought, and then a moment of action. The brain interpreted for the body, and the body made motion through a complex series of chemical reactions and coordination that the brain knew nothing about. Likewise, she felt the magic, the feel of what she wanted, and she just… moved forward.
“And you are done,” the voice came along as if in a dream.
Jax opened her eyes and her left hand held exactly what was in her right. It was indistinguishable.
“Mostly. If you know what to look for. But for your first attempt, that is a great result.”
Jax set them both down and rolled them back and forth on the carpet without looking, trying to mix them up. She stood and looked down at both of them.
“The real one is on the right,” she said with no hesitation or delay.
“Yes.”
“How did I know?” Jax tugged on her braid as she did done since a child, considering what needed to be considered. Her mother called it her ‘thinking face’.
“Because you know what is real. Intuitively. Any person that understood the basic nature of things would know. But the trick is that you will put the fake one in the bag, and no one will be able to have a basis to compare. No one will consider that a duplicate will have been made in such a short time, and no one will suspect the thief of pulling one over using magic. It is… ahem… the perfect crime.”
“Funny.”
“See you just communicated without saying anything out loud. You are a fast learner.”
“I did?” Jax said aloud.
“And you ruined it. Just practice, it will come naturally… eventually.”
Jax stood on the chair and shoved the closed bag back into its hiding place, carefully shifting the false top back into place. She pushed the chair back into place, and sat on the edge of her bed, with the wand spanning her two hands.
“What are you?” Jax tried again, focusing on saying her mind without vocalizing.
“I am a wand.”
“You are not just a wand. Just like my necklace is not just a necklace.”
“I don’t know what I am. There was a day that I knew what I was, and I was a wand. I have always been a wand. When did you become everything that makes you up who you are now?”
Jax shrugged. “Along the way, I suppose.”
“You feel that you came to be who you are sometime as a child, and then you had some experiences, and then someone died or someone left, and then you had more, but different experiences, and then one day you are in your bedroom having a conversation with a wand. I am like that too. Except much more static. I am a wand. My experiences don’t matter. One day I wasn’t, then the next I was. I have been the same since.”
“But someone created you?”
“No.”
“Bullshit!”
“That is not language becoming a lady of station, Jax.”
“So one day, you were just a wand. Where? Growing from the smart ass wand tree?”
“My first owner laid his hands on me, and I saw through his eyes that I was lying in the bottom of a crater on a pillar made of melted glass, and the trees all around the crater were on fire, as the stars wheeled overhead, leaving streaks in the sky.”
“Pillar? Fire? Crater? What about that sounds like he didn’t create you?”
“He did not. If he had, I would know. When I came to be, I knew everything that I know. That including the knowledge that he did not create me.”
“Circular reasoning, as my tutors had ever heard it.”
“I am what I am meant to be for the purposes I am meant to serve. I am an intelligence, but I am finite. I am a wand.”
Jax felt like she had a million more questions.
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
“You want to know. Everything. You want to be more than you were lead to believe was possible. You want to have power, but not for power’s sake, instead to make your life exciting. You want to live a life worth living. And the answer is yes.”
“What was the question, then?” Jax tried.
“Will I teach you?”
“Huh.” Jax sat back and laid the wand across her lap. Her eyes looked inwards, thinking about what she truly wanted. She swallowed heavily. “I guess I have a lot to learn.”