Chasing the Cure and Other Stories

My First Day

The auditory assault nearly burst my eardrums. Normally we would not have heard the dragon-newts' call of death, being outside conventional soundscape and all, but our normalization field was up. Magic Officer Salandra died sitting in her chair, her posture still tall. Commander Kenley, my mentor, shut off the field with psychic magic.

"Damage report!" High Sorceress Kathy Janeway, Captain of Magifleet Airship Heixing, shouted from her chair.

"Arcana turrets are down, blessings are at half capacity. They've also damaged our holy defenses. One flashbang now and we'll go blind. We're sitting ducks!" Kenley shouted back, his gaze darting about his array of crystals. 

"Salandra! Convert our excess ether, direct those to our holy defenses!" barked Captain Janeway. She didn't know! I looked around. No one else seemed to notice either. I then remembered I was the only one with necromancy training.

"Captain," I said, as respectfully as I could. "She's dead."

Captain Janeway shot a glance at me, then one at Salandra's lifeless yet proud corpse. A small explosion rocked the Heixing; probably a fireball cast by a dragon-newt. Only then did her posthumous pride give out as she listed to her left, kept on her chair by the safety vines. 

"Kenley, who's this?" asked the Captain, face fierce.

"This is Neophyte Simon Lee, he's the trainee assigned to me," replied Kenley.

"Neophyte, huh? Looks like you know something about death. Can you resurrect Salandra?"

I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes. I didn't expect a High Sorceress like the Captain to have the same ideas as everyone else. I suppose it was natural, given how much necromancy has been shunned by polite society.

"Captain, I can't make Officer Salandra sentient again. I can turn her into a zombie at best and that won't do us any good in this situation," I replied, fighting the urge to be derisive. I stole a glance outside the viewport. The dragon-newts were beginning to cluster into small groups, their wings beating in sync. They were about to do something very unpleasant and they weren't waiting for us to be ready.

"He's part of the Assimilation Program, Captain. It's best not to have him use the magic of his kind," said Kenley. Despite the formality, the trickle of condescension in his tone was unmistakable. Again, nothing surprising. He had been giving me that side-glancing stink eye ever since I stepped on board the ship.

"I have no time for your opinions, Kenley!" Captain Janeway frowned. "Neophyte, do you know anything that might be able to help us?"

Ok, that's new. A High Sorceress asking an outlaw for help? If I were allowed to go home I would tell everyone about this. That day's still a good seven years away though, and it'll never come if the dragon-newts got their way. I looked over to where Navigation Mage Kurani sat. Even across the bridge, it was clear that she was flummoxed by the dragon-newts' entanglement, fighting back tears of despair.

"I have a way," I told the Captain. "But it is the magic of my kind."

"Out with it then!" she shouted.

"I can use namesake magic, just like how the Underworld activates Golems to do our bidding. This ship, the Heixing, its name is 'Black Star' in Chinese. I can resonate the ship's namesake, turn us into a black star for about five seconds, burn the dragon-newts."

Kenley slammed his fists on his station, nearly knocking over a crystal shard. 

"No way am I going to allow this ship to be treated like an Underworld Golem! It's dirty and utterly... inappropriate!" he screamed. 

"KENLEY! WE DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR THIS!" the Captain shouted back, her throat straining against her anger. Kenley sunk back into his chair. It was likely the first time the Captain had shouted him down.

"Neophyte! What do you need?"

"An enchanted calligraphy set," I replied. The dragon-newt clusters were beginning to glow. I had a minute at most.

"Take mine," said the Captain, tossing a rolled-up bundle in my direction. In it were a set of brushes and a small vial of ink. I pulled my assignment orders from my pocket and turned them over to the blank side. I began writing the Chinese characters for 'Black Star' (黑 星) in deep, dark strokes. We were incredibly lucky; it's easier to achieve resonance with character-based names. Namesake magic works better with individual symbols rather than permutations from a fixed alphabet. Still, it was difficult to perform precise strokes, especially when the glow from the dragon-newts began cutting into my peripheral vision. The crew was silent, all waiting with bated breath. 

"Done!" The light from the dragon-newts was becoming unbearable and it was hard to check my work. I could only hope.

"I need something for a Golem slot!"

"Right wall, where we keep the runes!" yelled the Captain. I stumbled over to the shelves and stuffed my craft into one of the drawers. In a blink, the whole world went dark and a fiery chill ran down my arms and legs. I began to suffocate, my lungs struggling against an invisible pressure. I felt my mind and body meld into the black flames, stretching time and space beyond all recognition.

I screamed a soundless scream. 

"Dragon-newts have been neutralized!" came Kenley's voice, reluctantly relieved.

The darkness vanished. I turned to see the crew looking in my direction, faces beaming with new admiration. Outside the viewport, charred dragon-newt corpses were falling through the clouds. I almost couldn't believe it. We had won. The magic of my kind had worked!

"Well, Mr. Lee," said Captain Janeway, getting up from her seat. "I think we have quite a lot to learn from you. We will mourn poor Salandra, but we would also like you to take her place as Magic Officer." 

"Captain," I laughed. "This is only my first day!"