Free Science and Sorcery by Christopher Nuttall

were bare centimetres from his ear and yet he couldn't feel her breath.  But it was a dream.  Who expected it to work like real life? 
     
    “Yes,” he said.  Some basic caution forced him to ask a simple question.  “What do you want in return?”
     
    Harrow laughed, a simple tinkling sound that echoed in the air.  “You do have potential,” she said, seriously.  “Everything comes with a price.”
     
    She stepped backwards and looked down at him.  “I will ask you for one favour in exchange,” she added.  “I and my comrades have been imprisoned unjustly, by a man who thought himself the lord of all.  We need your help to break free.  I will train you until you can help us.”
     
    Calvin looked back at her.  “Why were you imprisoned?”
     
    Harrow smiled, rather sadly.  “Once, there was a time when those who could master their minds possessed vast powers,” she said.  “No muscled thug could ever hope to best a sorcerer, for sorcerers had the ability and intelligence to master magic and bend the universe itself to their will.  The world allowed those with the right abilities to rise high, while keeping those who never worked to develop themselves down.  Those who were smart could become the masters of the world.”
     
    Calvin found himself believing her.  He was smarter than Moe, perhaps one of the smartest boys in the entire school.  But intelligence hadn't helped him when Moe had been beating him up, or shoving his head down the toilet, or when he’d watched the girls fawning over the football jocks.  How could he help it when his talents were intellectual, rather than physical?
     
    And it wasn't right .  It had never been right.  And if Harrow was telling the truth, it was a subversion of the natural order.  He wanted to believe her.
     
    “There were thirteen of us who dared to bring forward a world where all of us would share in its power,” Harrow continued.  “We were the most powerful magicians in existence; if it could be done, we could do it.  But there were those who opposed us, including one magician who was sly and sneaky.  He created a trap and imprisoned us before we could realise what had gone wrong.  His treachery was so great that the remaining mana drained away and broke civilisation, until the swordsmen put it back together with themselves in charge.  The way they treated you is the way they treat everyone with smarts, because they know , deep in their hearts, that you are superior.
     
    “And we waited for countless centuries until the mana started to return and the bonds on our prison weakened.”
     
    She smiled, openly.  “And now there is a new generation of magicians,” she concluded.  “I will teach you and you will free us from our prison.  We will walk this world once again.”
     
    Calvin hesitated.  The story seemed believable; hell, he wanted to believe it.  He’d always known that he was something special, although he’d never dreamed of the truth.  And he’d incinerated Moe and his friends...it was his first taste of real power and he wanted more.  He could avenge all the taunts, punish the tormentors...Peter Parker would have said that great power brought great responsibility, but Peter Parker had never been seriously bullied.  Why should he serve the world when the world had knocked him down time and time again?
     
    It was intelligence that separated mankind from the animals.  Intelligence had taught humanity how to master fire, to work metal and to start the long process that had eventually led to computers and space rockets.  But throughout all of recorded history, it had been the strong men who had taken command, bending the intellectuals to their will.  Men in jackboots, unable to comprehend what the intellectuals could do, had ruled – and the world was not a better place.  It was the same everywhere; men with strength, men with connections, ruled...and everyone else had no choice, but to suck it up.  He felt