Chapter 8
Jailbreak
El-Kasamar, Tri-Border Region
Most mages were ill-suited for hard labor. Tasks such as digging ditches and breaking rocks would be wasted on them. However, that did not mean there was no work to be done. Idleness was an even bigger waste than setting men to tasks they were not fit for, after all. Magecraft typically required nimble fingers and a highly detail-oriented mind, so most of the prisoners at El-Kasamar were put to work at crafting jewelry, watchmaking and the like. The fruits of their labors would fetch a much higher price than a load of gravel or a box of nails. That kept the prison's administrators and their sponsors happy, especially now that there was such a large influx of new laborers.
Master Hrunting Unferth tried not to think about those who were profiting off the current situation. The world had turned against mages and now they were wholly at the mercy of the mundanes. The best he could hope for at this point was to do his work well and get slightly better treatment for it.
It was fortunate that his work engraving silver watch covers did not require any big movements of his arms because the binders only allowed him to move his hands about ten centimeters apart. The binders had not been removed once since he was first arrested and he had not been given much reason to expect they would ever be removed.
He remembered that when the Mage Ban was first passed, there were a few intemperate voices in the mage community urging them to fight back, but those voices were drowned out by the overwhelming majority who did not want a war between mage and mundane. They thought that by meekly submitting and complying with all the demands made of them, the storm would pass, mutual understanding would be restored, and they could go back to the way things were.
Should they have listened to the intemperate voices back then? Had they resisted back when they were at the height of their power, would things have turned out like this? Would it be better? Would it be worse?
There was nothing to be gained by wondering about it now. Not only the registered mages from before the Vigau Incident but anyone with even the slightest potential for magic were being rounded up and sent here. Robbed of their powers due to the blinders and with ARCANUM mages in the ranks of their overseers, any revolt on their part would be quickly put down. All they had to look forward to was death and the hope that their labor would postpone that day.
Without warning, there was a loud noise like a cannon blast. The entire workshop shook. Master Unferth's hand slipped and his awl raked across the watch cover, spoiling his work. However, another blast made it clear that a scratched watch cover was the least of his concerns.
The watchmaster burst into the workshop, shouting, "Prisoners, fall in! Hurry up now! Form up! Get where we can see you! Hands up! I wanna see those hands! Guards, if any of 'em so much as tries to scratch their ass, I want you to—Augh!"
The watchmaster's body seemed to deflate as a cloud of steam poured out of his body. It was as if all the water in his body vaporized in an instant. The other guards in the workshop went up the same way, one after another, until none remained. The bewildered prisoners looked around in confusion at the shriveled corpses of their captors when a figure appeared in the doorway.
Master Unferth would have never believed who it was. It was Mordekai Grummond, not in the form of a child as he had revealed himself several months earlier amid the Grimalkin Incident, but rather as a young man in his prime, before he joined the Phoenix Mages' Guild. However, it was not only his shape that had changed. Even with the binders blunting Master Unferth's perception, he could feel the immense power radiating from Master Grummond. It was enough to make every hair on his body stand on end.
Everyone was left so stunned that only Master Unferth appeared to have the courage to speak up.
"Master Grummond?"
"Master Unferth," Master Grummond replied. "How have you been liking your stay?"
Master Unferth looked around at the bodies of the guards.
"You... you killed them..."
"It was that or let them kill you," Master Grummond said. "While it is a noble sentiment to lay down your life for these mundanes, it would not be a fair trade. Every one of you is worth ten thousand of them."
Master Unferth could not believe what he was hearing. Certainly there were those who harbored mage supremacist feeling, but Mordekai Grummond was never one of them.
"You've changed, Master Grummond," Master Unferth said.
"The times have changed, Master Unferth," Master Grummond said grimly, "and I have changed with them. We will talk more once I have finished liberating the rest of our brothers and sisters." He touched his ear and said, "Giger, the workshop on the east quad is clear." He then turned to Master Unferth and the others and gave a slight bow of his head, saying, "Help will come shortly. Master Unferth, gentlemen."
And with that, he withdrew. The prisoners did not know what to do and so none of them moved from where they stood until a green-haired mage appeared. He took a step back when he almost stepped on the corpse of the watchmaster and gave a look of disgust as he made a quick scan of the workshop. He then walked over to the prisoners and said in a gruff, impatient voice, "Alright. Let me see those wrists, people. Hurry it up."
Not everyone was so quick to do as they were told until the first one to hold out his hands to the green-haired mage had his binders removed with a wave of the mage's wand. Once the others saw this, they eagerly crowded around the mage, putting him in an even fouler mood than when he arrived.
"Back off, back off," he growled. "Everyone'll get their turn, dammit."
When it was Master Unferth's turn, the mage greeted him with a curt, "Master Unferth," just as Master Grummond had done. Master Unferth saw the blue roots to his hair and though it had been thirteen years, that sullen attitude had changed little.
"Barz Falkner," he said. "So you're involved in all this, too. Will we see Kamellia Reis as well, a proper trio of Abominations?"
"I'd appreciate it if you took that stick out of your ass for a minute and showed a little gratitude," Falkner grumbled, foul-mouthed as ever. "And you don't have to worry about Kamellia. She's back mindin' the house."
"Would you care to explain what has possessed Master Grummond that he would do all this?"
"I wouldn't," Falkner said bluntly, "and you wouldn't believe me if I told you. Now, come on, everyone. I'm gonna take you to where the others are. Sit tight there until Mordekai finishes clearing out the guards."
"There are three hundred guards here," Master Unferth said, "nearly a hundred of them ARCANUM mages. What can one man hope to do?"
"He'll kill them," Falkner said. "Maybe if they catch him in a good humor, they can surrender and he'll spare them. Only I don't think he's in a good humor today."
"This is madness," Master Unferth said. "The Mordekai Grummond I knew would never do something like this."
"Well, he's not the Mordekai Grummond you knew. Not anymore."
"Abomination..."
"Yeah, maybe don't be sayin' that around him. Remember what I said about his good humor."
Master Unferth felt weak in the knees. The mundanes' fears had given birth to the very monster that haunted their nightmares and after they way they had treated the mages, there would not be many willing to fight for them. Could things get any worse?