Ascendant

The mage guildhall was the largest building Nym had ever seen. It was three stories tall and filled an entire block by itself, not even including the support buildings and fields taking up space next to it. It was actually the only place he’d found in Zoskan with open fields. Space was at a premium inside the walls, and the whole town felt crowded and squished together. Apparently being mages allowed them to claim an extra-large chunk of land.

He'd passed a church on the way there that was fancier looking, but the guildhall dwarfed it in terms of sheer size. It was also in a more expensive district. Nym saw a lot more guards patrolling than he’d seen by the Trough and Saddle, including some that were permanently stationed in front of certain stores that dealt in what he assumed were expensive merchandise. He got a lot of dirty looks from those guards.

Nym was nervous at first until he figured out what was going on. He was too poor to afford anything, and he was dressed in rough clothes that showed exactly how little money he had. There was no good reason for him to be there, so they all assumed he was looking for things to steal. He wasn’t, but that was infinitely preferable to wondering if they were deciding whether he matched the description of the child murderer they’d gotten from Palmara.

He reached the guildhall without anyone stopping him, and with a deep breath, pushed open the door. His first view of the interior was a disappointment. There were some benches and chairs set up, and a long counter with two men conversing behind it. The rest of the room was empty. It was decorated with some notice boards and a few tables with pamphlets scattered across them.

It was a weirdly depressing room to be in. Nym couldn’t quite put his finger on why, just something in the air. The two men ignored Nym until he walked up to the desk. “Hi,” he said.

“Hi there,” the man on the left side. “Need something?”

“I wanted to ask some questions about magic,” Nym said.

“Oh yeah?” Both of them were leaning on the counter looking down at him.

“Um… yes. I heard that you have to have a license to use magic in town. Is that true?”

“Sure is. Too many amateurs who couldn’t control their spells causing damage. And then they can’t pay, and someone is looking at the guildhall like it’s our responsibility just because someone else could use magic. So they decided that if it was going to be our problem, we were going to charge to take care of it.”

“That makes sense,” Nym allowed. “What do I need to do to get a license?”

Both men started laughing. “You’re about five or six years too young to even be worried about it,” the first one told him.

“But I can do magic,” Nym said. “And I don’t want to get in trouble for it.”

“I’m sure you’ll be safe. This is really only for big stuff. You’re not going to destroy a street or knock down a building with your magic, are you?”

“I just don’t want to get in trouble for flying. Can I do that without a license?”

The man whistled. “Flight’s pretty complicated. I can see where you’d be concerned. Tell ya what, you do a lap around the ceiling for me, and I’ll start getting the paperwork ready for you to apply.”

Nym drifted up until he was eye level with the men, then higher. He skimmed the walls just below the ceiling, intentionally going faster than what he considered long-distance speed. Neither man was laughing when he came to a stop, still floating in front of them.

“Blight my eyes,” one of them muttered. “Little shit really can fly.”

The one who’d been doing the talking just stared at Nym for a second. Then he shook his head and reached into a drawer to start pulling out paperwork. “Deal’s a deal. Here’s the forms.” he said. The man hesitated a second, then added, “It’s five shields for the application. That covers all your exam fees too.”

Nym fished out his two remaining copper shims. “This is all I have.”

With a sigh and a shake of his head, the man told him, “That’s not even the right kind of coin. You’d need fifty of those to equal five shields. I’m sorry, but you can’t submit an application if you don’t have the fee.”

Nym wilted. “And I can’t fly in town without the license? What if it was only flying and nothing else?”

“If you get caught, you’ll be fined. But honestly, and no offense kid, I’m not sure you could pass the exams if all you can do is fly,” the talkative one said.

The other one scratched his chin and eyed Nym up and down. “How good are you at flying? Can you change direction rapidly? Ascend and descend in response to attacks?”

“Maybe?” Nym told him. “I can dodge around trees a bit. I guess it would depend on how fast I’m going.”

The first man caught on to whatever his friend was thinking. “Hey, that’s a good idea. You think Brogan would take him on?”

“Maybe. Tell you what, why don’t you come with me. We’ve got an aerial obstacle course and the guy who runs it could make a special pass for you that’s just for flight if you can impress him. I can’t promise anything, but it doesn’t hurt to ask, right?”

“I guess not,” Nym agreed. “How do we do that?”

“You want to watch the front desk for a bit and I’ll take him back?”

“Sure. Let me know how it goes. Good luck, kiddo.”

The pair of them walked down a hallway. The mage said, “My name is Navarim. What’s yours?”

“Nym.”

“Nice to meet you. So here’s what I’m hoping will happen. I’m going to go introduce you to the flight master, Brogan. Hopefully he’ll be interested enough that you can fly so early and let you do the obstacle course. If you can impress him, he might give you a kind of pseudo-license that lets you fly and nothing else without you having to pay all the fees and do the other exams.”

Navarim led him through a confusing maze of hallways and adjoining rooms, and soon Nym was hopelessly lost. Eventually they reached a room that had a dozen circular platforms embedded into the floor. Each one was carved with symbols and glyphs that had wisps of arcana coming off them. Some glowed brightly, others flickered, and a few in the back were completely dim.

“This is the guildhall teleportation room. It’s for mages only, but it should be fine since you’re with me and I’m on mage business. Step up onto this one and we’ll go to the flight field.”

Nym examined the glyphs he was standing on while Navarim activated them. His arcana mist was a washed-out green color, and as the mage worked, it flowed through him into the platform below them. Light spread across the lines, at first making a circuit around them that brightened and faded, but gradually filling until the whole platform shone in his sight.

Then the world became flat and constricted around him, like someone scrunching up a drawing. Everything went black for a moment, and when Nym could see again, they were in a small shed. The walls were unadorned with any sort of decoration, and a wide double-door was thrown open to reveal a field full of the strangest equipment Nym had ever seen.

There were hundreds of poles of different heights seemingly scattered at random. Sometimes giant hoops were set into the sides of them, all painted in reds or blues or yellows. There were giant boxes the size of two-story houses made out of logs all spaced apart by a few feet. The interiors were filled with ropes stretched at various angles over and around each other, like a giant knot that had been blown open.

Mages of various ages zipped around and through the obstacles, sometimes diving gracefully through hoops, sometimes clipping them and spiraling out of control. Nym saw one particularly agile fellow rocket through a rope house at full speed, contorting spectacularly to avoid getting tangled.

“Wow, this looks like fun.”

Navarim chuckled. “Maybe for you. Brogan’s standards are difficult to achieve. This field was six months of hell for me when I was a student.”

“Mage Navarim,” a voice barked from behind them. “What do you think you’re doing bringing a child onto my air field?”

Navarim jumped in surprise and spun in place. “Flight Master Brogan,” he said. “We have a bit of a situation that we were hoping you could help us resolve.”

An old man, probably at least eighty or ninety and looking more like a wrinkled sack of skin with hair sprouting out of places hair had no business growing than he did like a person, stared at the two of them with a severe frown. He was wearing thick leather pants with a matching coat, a long scarf that seemed to alternate between white and pale blue as it drifted out behind him, and held what looked like a willow switch in one hand.

“What kind of situation would possibly require my intervention to resolve?” he asked.

“Well, you see, sir, this boy here has already learned how to fly. And he wanted to get a license so he could fly in town without getting in trouble. Very responsible of him to seek us out, don’t you think? The problem is he can’t afford the licensing fees, but you know, that’s really more for property damage stuff. All he wants to be able to do is fly.”

Brogan shifted to look at Nym. “He can, huh? What are you, six? Seven?”

“Ten,” Nym said.

The old mage grunted. “Still young. Good, can never start too early. But I fail to see what you expect me to do here, Mage Navarim.”

“Well, I thought that maybe you could just do the flight exam and, if he passes, he could get a special permit to allow him to just fly, rather than go through the whole thing.”

“Huh… a flight license. That’s an interesting idea. Not much call for it, since everyone learns all the other stuff when they complete the curriculum. I’m afraid I cannot help you. The rules are the rules. You need to clear this space.”

Navarim wilted in place. “You can’t make an exception? He’s really good. He demonstrated for us, did a lap around the entrance. He even skimmed the ceiling, tight corners, everything.”

“There is no such thing as a flight license,” Brogan told them. He waved them off and went back to watching the mage trainees loop through the air.

The words were a clear dismissal. Navarim let out a heavy sigh and said, “Sorry, kiddo. I thought maybe, but… well, let’s head on back.”

“I want to try the obstacle course,” Nym announced.

“What?”

Both mages turned to look at him in surprise.

“It looks fun,” Nym explained. “And, we’re not in town now, right? We teleported somewhere else. So I can fly here and I won’t get in trouble?”

“That is technically true,” Brogan agreed. “It’s really not a playground though. You could get hurt.”

“I’ll be ok. I’m good at flying.”

The old mage gave him a noncommittal grunt. “Even if you get to the end, even if you broke my own personal record, I still won’t give you this flight license thing you want. It does not exist.”

“That’s fine. At least I’ll get to practice here.”

Brogan thought about it for a second, then nodded. “Fine, you show me that you have full control over your flight and you can try it. I’ll even spot you myself to make sure you don’t get hurt. Mage Navarim, you can power the enchantments.”

Navarim blanched. “By myself, Flight Master Brogan?”

The old man gave him a wicked grin. “It was your idea to bring this boy here, was it not?”