Mark of the Fool
Chapter 594: Flim Flam

“There was blood in the water for a moment there.” Shale shook her head. “Because people are idiots. Now, drink up.”

“Toraka, you still haven’t told me what the hell happened up there.” Alex took a long sip of his beer, the second one bought for him by his business partner.

“That’s because when you nearly get slaughtered in business, you drink first, and talk later. We’re like soldiers on the battlefield. It’s just that the ‘blood’ we shed is gold instead of red.” Toraka guzzled a foaming stein of beer.

She and Alex were hunkered down, sitting in a corner of a beer tent near the Duel by Proxy’s arena, with their hoods pulled up, and their cloaks wrapped tight. In a way, they looked secretive, like two unimaginative thieves meeting in a dim tavern just before a caper, though—in this case—the ‘hooded and cloaked’ look was less for ‘cliche mystery’ and more for a ‘practical need for some privacy’ since fans and admirers had clung like cobwebs after the match was finished.

His and Claygon’s victory in the Duel by Proxy had left the audience wanting more, and they hadn’t had a second to themselves long after the match was done.

Ram had quietly departed before Alex could even speak to him, and then—as soon as he and Claygon had stepped outside—an excited mob of admirers had surrounded the two of them. He and Clayton had been bombarded with questions ranging from what sort of golem Claygon was, to how he’d gained intelligence and evolved, to what kind of training he had, and even if he ate.

There were offers from businesses looking to collaborate on sponsorships, people asking for interviews for the local gazette,and even a few…more racier invitations.

He’d basked in the attention for a time, using the opportunity to reintroduce the crowd to Claygon.

And drum up some business.

“Claygon’s state of the art.” Alex had clasped the golem’s arm. “Completely unique, but—if anyone wants a similargolem—then Shale’s workshop is putting a new line into production. You’ll never have to worry about security again with one of our new golems protecting you, or your loved ones, or valuables. You saw what Claygon did to his competition in the arena. Even an experienced battle wizard with a state of the art construct couldn’t bring him down. Now, imagine what he’d do to a burglar, assassin, or a hungry monster?”

“The word ‘jam’ comes to mind,” a teenage boy had said, drawing a ring of laughter from Alex and some of the others in the crowd.

“Yeah it does, doesn’t it. And speaking of jam,” Alex had said, smiling at the young man. He was surprised when the boy flinched and looked away, like a nervous fan meeting his idol. “The Roth Family Bakery is operating on the tournament grounds. If you liked what you saw today, why don’t you stop by the Vendor’s Alley. You can’t miss it: our stand is the one with all the illusionary Claygon’s above it. Buy enough bread and cookies, and I might be able to afford some new polish for Claygon!”

More laughter had spread through the crowd while his golem struck poses from the signs. “We make…the best food…though I can’t taste it…so go and…taste it for me!’ Claygon said, his voice that of an enthusiastic young man.

And that enthusiasm had been infectious.

By the time Alex’s friends and family—who’d been standing at the side, chatting with Shale and Khalik’s parents—dragged him from the crowd, there was an eager tide of hungry customers heading in the direction of the bakery stand.

That was when Toraka’s hand had fallen on his shoulder. “Come on partner, your friends have agreed to let me borrow you for a bit. Let’s grab a drink and talk.”

And now they were settled comfortably in the beer tent, with Alex sipping his second mug of ale while Toraka had downed three in the same span of time.

“So,” she finally said, wiping her lips with a handkerchief. “I take it you saw my panic?”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “Those buyers looked ready to jump ship.”

“Idiots.” Toraka grumbled. “They took one look at Prime and all they could think of was, ‘free golem’!”

Alex scoffed. “Free golem? A half-complete seventh-tier spell cast by one of the most powerful battlemages at the university does not equal ‘free golem’...but I could see why they would have gotten so excited. I mean…a lot of our clients are archwizards, right? The way Prime looked in the beginning of the match, it seemed like all someone had to do was pick up a spell-guide, learn Force Construct and bam—”

“—they get a construct without having to hand over a pile of coin, it’s a powerful construct, it can change shape, and goes away when it’s not needed.” Toraka rolled her eyes. “So, you can see why some of the non-wizard buyers were looking at Prime and salivating. You know what one of them asked me?”

“What’s that?” Alex leaned in, taking a long drink of ale.

“The woman actually said, if she could ‘get a golem for free, then what use was I?’” Toraka snorted. “And I get it: I’m a businesswoman. The idea of free or easy supplies, labour or product is what I dream about, but listen to this: the one who asked me that? She was a merchant, not a wizard! She couldn’t even cast a first-tier spell!”

Alex burst out laughing. “So instead of making a one-time payment for a golem that she owns forever, instead she pays a wizard to conjure a force construct whenever she needs one, and stick around to feed it mana? She might save coin in the beginning, but—eventually—keeping a powerful wizard on staff is going to cost her a lot more than just buying a golem outright.”

“That’s what I said, and let me tell you, I was nearly impolite when I told her that, but I kept things professional. But that idiot almost had most of the other buyers convinced. Hells, I was nearly convinced after the first round!” She shook her head, finishing her drink and ordering another one. “Visions of financial ruin were crawling through my mind.”

“Well, I can’t blame you,” Alex said darkly. “Listen, if I were you, I’d either start funding Professor Ram’s research as a sponsor, or developing something that can compete with Prime. We saw what limitations the spell has right now, but I’d bet you a lot of coin that Professor Ram went right back to the Cells and started working on ironing out those problems. What if he manages to up the efficiency of the spell and simplifies the spell-circuit? What if he manages to cut down on the feedback issues or somehow make the force construct autonomous? Then we really would be dead.”

At those words, Shale gave him a startled look.

Then she burst out laughing, starting first with low giggles that eventually grew into silent, body-trembling, fits of laughter with the occasional short creeping in.

Alex watched her, dumbfounded. “What’s so funny? I don’t think it’s funny: we’ve got to be ready for advancements in magical knowledge, or we’re going to be pushed out of the golem business.”

“Sorry, I shouldn’t laugh,” Toraka chuckled. “It’s just that…well, sometimes, I forget how young you are. Listen here, Alex, you’re right to a certain extent, but you don’t have to be as wary as you think. Every year, some wizard comes along, claiming that they have, or are about to overturn everything we know about magic, and that they’re going to set the world on fire with some new revolutionary spell. But here’s the thing: most of the time, what they’re saying is complete and total garbage.”

She snickered. “We call them flim-flam masters. Here, let me tell you a story. About five years…no wait…it was longer than that.” Toraka pondered for a moment. “This would have been about twenty-five years ago.”

“Right, so before I was born,” Alex said.

Toraka froze, giving him a pained look. “Do me a favour, partner. Please don’t remind me that I am hurtling toward becoming decrepit? I mean, I am, but you don’t have to remind me of it.”

“Fine, fine,” Alex said. “So what about this person from twenty-five years ago?”

“Well, there was this wizard who claimed that they had achieved the miraculous and had managed to rework the efficiency of fireball’s spell array. I told you before about young wizards claiming that they’d made the most revolutionary discoveries, well, this story’s different.”

“It’d be okay if you already told me the story. I know the elderly tend to repeat themselves,” Alex said.

Toraka glowered. “Gods, I wish I could still fire you.”

“Fine, fine, sorry.”

“I know you’re not sorry, but I’ll move on anyway. I thinkhis name was…Liz…no…Olivera…maybe? I don’t remember, and honestly, the name’s not important. What is important is that heclaimed to have so thoroughly reworked the spell array, that he’d transformed fireball into a first-tier spell. With no loss in power, and no loss in control.”

Alex whistled. “That’s…” He considered fireball’s spell array. It wasn’t a spell he’d studied in great detail, but he’d taken a look at it when he was in the library thinking of ways he could help Selina with fire magic in the future.

“Naturally, everyone ignored him at first, but then came the demonstrations.”

Toraka suddenly flung her hands in the air as though mimicking an explosion. “He set up this booth invarious places—always far from the university—and began throwing fireballs. Boom! Pow! Kaboom! They were some of the biggest fireballs people had ever seen. Just absolutely spectacular stuff,andeveryone observing could see that they were first-tier spells. He even showed off the magic circuits. Well, that got people more interested…and then the ‘buyers’ started showing up.”

Again her hands flew up. “Boom! Boom! Boom! Young wizards all over Generasi were suddenly throwing around fireballs using his unique first-tier spell. Naturally, a lot of people were now rushing in to buy it. But, the more experienced people smelled something fishy: if a spell is third-tier, then it’s third-tier for a reason. Sometimes, you’ll get some sort of advancement in wizardry that changes our paradigms. But those are few and far between. If the world changed paradigms every five minutes, then everything would be a sea of chaos. Up would be down and left would be right from one day to the next. No…breakthroughs are costly, and spells that are third-tier do not suddenly become first-tier. Sleight of hand.”

“Wait, what? Why did the phrase, ‘sleight of hand’ just come out of nowhere?” Alex said.

“I mean the whole thing was sleight of hand,” she said. “The wizard and his ‘customers’—all of whom were hired plants, by the way—were casting a simple first-tier spark spell that created a moderate burst of flame. Effective for starting fires, but not a fireball. So, what they were actually doing was throwing out a tiny, but—very concentrated—alchemical explosive that was hidden in the spell’s fire-bead. It would rupture and ignite, causing the resulting flame from the spell to appear much larger than it really was.”

“Oooooh, that’s bloody clever, but they must’ve gotten caught pretty quick,” Alex said.

“No. He was actually smart about it. He’d tell people his supply of spell-guides were rare first-printings that one could only get by going to his ‘office’ and placing an order. These guides would then be delivered right to peoples’ homes.” Toraka chuckled. “I almost admire the brilliance in the attention to detail in the scheme. By making it so that people received their spell-guides individually, it took longer for recipients to start comparing notes when, obviously, the spells failed to produce the expected results. In addition, he’d designed the spell array for his fake spell to be finicky, so even for more experienced buyers, learning it would take time.”

She shook her head. “It took about a day for the first buyers to realise they’d been scammed and a few more before news really spread. By the time people realised what had happened, he was long gone. My point is, you sounded a bit like those flim-flam masters, saying that—tomorrow—a spell that’s seventh-tier and requires an advanced battle mage to even operate it, would soon be ready for public consumption.”

Toraka raised her glass. “One day, I’m sure Ram will crack it. But we have time. And—as our new, actual revolution gets under way, we’ll look into new frontiers. That’s what business is all about.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Alex said, finishing his beer. “So basically, some of these buyers were thinking that the spell might be accessible tomorrow.”

“Exactly. A promising prototype is only a promising prototype until the final tests are done. You’ve got to hunt for and perfect the next step before you can reap the rewards…mmm, speaking of hunts. You’re in the Grand Land Hunt, aren’t you?”

Alex smiled. “That’s right: Theresa, Claygon and I are entering again. And we’re going to win this time.”

“Confident talk. I remember that Raniertook first place last year with ease.”

“Well, let’s just say I’ll have a little surprise waiting for him this time around.”