The Wizard That Wasn't (Mechanized Wizardry) by Ben Rovik Read Free Book Online

friends.”
    There was a muffled clink on the earthen floor, and Jilmaq’s eyes widened.  A cluster of two-toned coins in gold and platinum lay at his feet; more money than a hundred peasants could have paid.  He couldn’t keep himself from scraping the coins up into his lap then and there, dirt embedding itself into his fingernails.
    The other slowly lowered into a crouch, approaching Jilmaq’s eye level.  The wizard froze, staring into that face.  The visitor reached a pair of gloved hands deep into a black robe.  The hands emerged a moment later.  “As for the task itself, it’s really very simple,” that smooth voice said.
    Jilmaq’s bloodshot eyes went wide.  Bound with ribbon at both ends, draped across the visitor’s upturned hands, was a shining braid of fawn-colored hair.
     

“For the last time, it’s fascinating.  Now will you shut up and lift?”
    “I feel like an explorer,” Lundin grunted joyously, shifting his sweaty hands for purchase along the smooth corners of the apparatus and heaving upwards.  He was bent double with his knees locked and felt the agonizing pull as all the effort of the lift went directly to his lower back.  Samanthi staggered for balance on the other side, trying to even out her grip against Lundin’s over-zealous hoist.  “It’s just that magic has literally never had this kind of analysis before,” Lundin panted, shambling forwards with the bulky machine resting partly on his thighs.
    “I’m sure that’s true,” Samanthi said through clenched teeth, glancing over her shoulder as she walked backwards, the cords in her arms taut from exertion.
    “And it’s not chaos; not even close.  There’s a formula.  Like I told you, the Invocation starts—”
    “Horace, watch your burning feet!”  Samanthi swore as the bulky generator wobbled towards her.  Lundin recovered from his stumble, kicking the pair of calipers aside.  The floor of the Petronaut warehouse was a minefield of discarded paperwork and loose widgets, as if the criss-crossing crush of busy, preoccupied techs and ‘nauts charging this way and that to prepare their gear wasn’t obstacle enough. 
    The city-state of Delia had eight squads of resident Petronauts; about ten dozen curious souls in total.  The happy quartet of Malcolm, Mascarpone, Elena and Lundin was the smallest squad by far.  Delia was a wonderful place to be a Petronaut, as the world went.  While Delian nobles could hire the master machinesmiths for contracted work, the meddling patronage that allowed wealthy dilettantes to dictate what they should research was forbidden by a royal decree two decades old.  Old Queen Tess had been a powerful advocate for the ‘nauts, arguing very convincingly to King Randolph that Delia was more likely to gain a technological edge over its neighbors by giving its researchers facilities, funding, and freedom, than by forcing them to kowtow to wealthy patrons for every coin, and waste time humoring their benefactors’ half-cocked ideas for this invention or that whirligig.  Twenty-one years later, Delia’s influence stretched far beyond its city walls to every corner of the Anthic Thrust, the long thin peninsula the city called home.  The success was thanks largely to the string of marvels that had emerged from Workshop Row, where ideas flowed freely between ‘nauts and private naturalists, merchants, dreamers and tinkerers.  When the widowed Queen herself passed three years ago, the thought of a more heavy-handed state gave the ‘nauts many sleepless nights. But the Regency Council, established to rule until Princess Naomi came of age, stayed faithful to Old Tess’s promises, and researchers stayed at nearly the same levels of funding and independence.
    Which meant, on the few occasions when the Regents did make an official request for their services, the Petronaut community fell all over itself to be obliging.  Currently, the Council was tapping all of them to help provide