The Dreaming Mark and the Vessel of Fools

A registered warlock

This would have been a few hundred cycles ago. Certainly before Archmage Kasiell's ejection, because it does involve Archmage Kasiell.

I shall confess, first of all, that I accepted my posting aboard the Vessel of the Creators without fully reading its description. I've made it this far into life without worrying too much about the details; it's not difficult when you answer to a higher power, especially such a power as Prambiot, The Shadow-Guide. But before I reached the Vessel, I'd been under the impression that she was a seafaring ship. Beyond me, it was, why she was simply standing on-end in the middle of the palace grounds, her boarding ramp extended to ground level all the same. "Don't question it, just keep walking the ramp," urged another young mage behind me. "I'm sure they'll explain once we're aboard."

Don't question it. Ever the refrain, it was, with the Creators. Nearly everything was somebody's doing. The eccentricities of each member of the crew would become clearer each day on duty. And my duty was somehow the least important of all: navigation and helms. One might think that driving a huge spacefaring galleon full of wizards, sorcerers, and other magic-users, being solely responsible for the direction it was going, avoiding each blazing star and gas-giant lest the whole thing be torn asunder, would be important. They, however, had much bigger problems: forestalling the collapse of the Universe, I'm told.

I had been on the helm for what felt like ten days. I'd mostly learned how the controls and devices at my station worked, what it meant when the large green jewel in the corner started to crackle, and when to be concerned about the scrying lens being blank. What I had not learned in ten days: how to speak to my superior. And by that, I meant the Archmage, to whom I now knew I was meant to report directly.

The course towards Galactic Construct Number Seventy-Three, an experimental ground of sorts to the Creators, had been laid in just moments ago. The Vessel had been steered in the proper direction - predictive vectors laid in to avoid a star, halfway through the course - and I'd only just brought her engines up to one-third.

The immense obsidian door behind me opened, and behind it was the Archmage. "You, helmsman. How soon is our arrival?"

"Randulf, milord." I bowed quickly, dispensing with the formality so I could get him his answer. Except I didn't know how to express the answer. Prambiot, guide me.

"I did not ask your name, helmsman, I asked when we are arriving." The Archmage tapped a foot loudly on the gold-laced-ebony floor.

I know not the scale of the figures these magic-users use, came the Shadow-Guide's words from the recesses of my mind, an ethereal voice of wind that reverberated through my psyche. Tell him it will be a week. If he deems it improper, he should explain why.

I could only trust the words of my patron. Glancing at my scrying mirror - more for effect than for utility - I sputtered, "Er, roughly a week, milord."

"A week is meaningless aboard the Vessel, fool." He made to slap me in the face, but was satisfied enough at my leaning away from his hand that he did not follow it through. "Let me see that." I stepped aside hurriedly. "Four hundred and thirty astronomical units at one-third impulse..." Kasiell muttered aloud. "We should only need a few particles of... to skip..." I could not understand the whole sentence. It seemed he was using words I'd never heard spoken before, and possibly weren't written in a human language. I'd been listening so closely, with my ears so opened, that it startled me when he spoke at normal volume again. "Slow us to one-quarter impulse," he commanded.

"Aye-aye, milord." I slid the stud of sapphire down its bronzed track on my console, and locked it in with a press of the two little opal switches. "If I may, milord..."

"You may ask somebody else," Kasiell interrupted, and stepped off the bridge.

I had to consult my patron again. What was my mistake?

The mistake THEY made, came the Shadow-Guide's voice again, was their assumption that all schools of the arcane are alike. They had to know, going in, that you were not a tome-taught mage from the Academy.

This much was true; I'd been on the Constabulary's books, back home, since I was very young, as a registered Eikonic Conduit. And to which school does the Archmage belong?

He is like us, I feel. His powers come from a patron, just as yours do from me. But I could not sense which patron.

It was a curious feeling, when the Archmage had stood beside me. A sensation of a central power feeding into itself. Could a magic-user become their own patron?

Unlikely... but not impossible. Such magicks are forbidden to his kind, but it would be unwise to rule it out completely.

Are we... am I the only warlock aboard?

Excepting the Archmage, potentially, yes. I sense no other patrons at work beyond us and him.

I glanced about the bridge to ensure that I was properly alone, then clasped my hands together. Hailed be ye, Prambiot, I whispered.

To speak my name is to grant me power, spoke Prambiot, for a name is most potent among those who invoke it. Together, we seek to observe the shadows...

...to bring light to they, whose powers must not be hidden within them, I finished.