To Kill a God

Magic

Fitzgerald led the group into his laboratory. The room, adjacent to the sale's room at the front of the shop and the lounge where they had been, was lit by a multitude of candles and a couple of oil-lamps stuck to the wallpapered walls. It was a larger area, clearly meant to have a few people working at the workbenches that lined both sides. Zips toured the room, her hands clasped behind her back as she inspected everything that was unusual.

The old dwarf leaned under one table and pulled up a machine. It had six crystal pillars, each with a series of marking on them and little rings at the base. On either side of it were two metallic balls. Al guessed one to be steel or iron and the other brass, but he wasn't sure. The machine reminded him of a strange cross between a doctor's weight scale--the sort you stand on, then adjust--and the balls of metal you touched at science-fairs to make your hair stand on end.

"This," Fitzgerald began, "Is an Arcanometer. It measures the magical capability of a being. The measurements can be manipulated, of course, but you must know what you're doing to manage that. The guild has a much more accurate one it uses to test out initiates, but this one should do for our purposes."

Al walked up to the machine and watched as the little rings around the pillars vibrated slightly. They weren't touching the crystals, just floating there. "How do we make it... measure us?"

The wizard stepped up and placed a hand on each ball. "Just relax and press your hands like so." The little rings began to climb. At the same time, the crystals shifted colours. They each turned a different colour. Blue to the far left, a dark swirling grey at the other end.

"The six magics you talked about," Al said. "This is why you associated them to colours?"

The wizard nodded and smiled at Al. "Exactly. See the rings? They measure your current ability in any given magic." Most of the rings were fairly low, hardly having risen from the start, but the blue, red and green rins were near the second, third and fourth marks respectively. "I'm a fourth tier green wizard. With specialities in red and blue. Simple?"

Al nodded.

"The amount of light coming from any given pillar hints at the caster's potential. Most any new mage, arcanist, sorcerer, shaman or wizard will start at the first tier or below, but you can see their potential in the lights." He pointed to the three pillars that had lit up more than the rest. "It's not as easy a thing to judge as tiers, but it's a good indicator of who is worth training or not. I still have a little growing left in me, but I doubt I'll go much beyond where I am now."

"Can I try?" He asked. He could see Zips standing not far away, staring at the device curiously.

"Just place your hands on the balls." Fitzgerald said.

Behind them, Zips snickered. "Yeah, bro, a firm grip on those big balls. Just don't spend too much time fondling them. There are pretty, innocent girls here, after all."

Suppressing a sigh, Alphonse placed a hand on each sphere. They were surprisingly cold, the chill filling his palms then running up his arms as though he had submerged his hands in ice water. He gasped, but kept his hands on the spheres.

The rings didn't move. The pillars remained glowed only faintly. "Um," he said. "I feel a tingling."

Fitzgerald looked at the device, then to Alphonse. His eyes slowly filled with a sort of sadness. Disappointment, maybe. "It seems as though you are like the beastkin, my young lord. No innate magical talent. It happens to one in four of us who are not of the beastly sort. Don't worry."

Al pulled away from the device and looked at his hands as he took a few steps back. He didn't know what he had been expecting, but it was not this. Some sort of ability, maybe. Something to make up for the dreadful situation they were in. "I suppose, Fitzgerald, that us humans are unable to use magic after all," he said.