Free Entromancy by M. S. Farzan

organization into its enduring three divisions, themselves based on magical skillsets.  Nightpaths and Daypaths, who gained their namesakes from the shadow and light from which their mancy originated, were necessarily subordinate to team-leading Inquisitors.  The latter straddled the line of destruction and inquest to tremendous effect, being tasked with sniffing out the most elusive of anti-government activity, and devising strategies that would then be carried out by the former.  Yet, each type of magic required the mancer’s use of ceridium, which made the assassin’s exception all the more worrying.
    “Wait a minute,” Alina said suddenly, shaking me from my musing.  “If the Nightpath’s digitab was off the grid since leaving North Beach, how did the assassin track him to-” her voice cracked a little.  “To my place?”
    The technomancer clicked a few buttons, wiping the screens blank.  “Hmm, has anyone synced with any of his instruments since then?  A digitab, or network-enabled vehicle, perhaps?”
    As one, the Pitcher and I swung our heads towards Tribe.  I glowered, remembering him tinkering with my cruiser’s music system at the North Beach storefront.
    The auric looked to one side, then the other, then back at us.  “My fault!” he said, raising a hand uncomfortably.
    Gloric shook his head and grabbed another keyboard, tapping away.  After a few moments, all of our digitabs beeped.
    “Should be good now,” he said.  “And don’t worry about us here.  The best they can get is a trace on the outskirts of the neighborhood.”
    “Um, thanks,” Tribe said.
    I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to the situation than Karthax’s bloodlust against the underraces and the presence of an impossibly magical auric hitman.  I vented my concerns at the gnome, frustrated.
    “How do we figure out more, then?” I asked, feeling my tiredness fuel my temper.  “About why the revs are suddenly willing to kill their own people?  And this-” I waved a hand towards the empty monitors. “Project Watershed?”
    If the technomancer picked up on any of my irritation, he didn’t let on.  “I can call the auric king if you’d like,” he said coolly.  Having seen what he could do, I didn’t doubt his sincerity, but I also wasn’t ready to pick sides just yet.
    Sensing my reticence, he continued.  “Or, you can go and ask Karthax himself.  Or the Sigil!”
    Tribe and Alina both looked at the gnome quizzically, and I felt a vain burst of pride for not being in the dark for once.
    “How do we get to him?” I asked haughtily.
    “Follow the missing drones,” he said, referring to the devices that had been increasingly disappearing from the city over the past few months.
    “Nevada?” Alina asked.
    “Reno!” Gloric exclaimed, typing at one of his virtual keyboards.
    “The Sigil is in Reno ?!” I said incredulously.  Nevada was underrace territory, loyal to Aurichome and fiercely defended.  Any air or land travel was normally diverted around the entire state.
    “Sparks, to be specific!” the gnome said again, bringing up a map of the region and an image of what looked like the inside of a rustic tavern.
    “I’ve always wanted to go, but who has the time?” he clucked.  “We’ll need a guide, one that can take us where we need to go and negotiate with the revolutionaries.”
    He punched a button on a mechanical keyboard, and a masked figure appeared on one of the monitors, framed by a single name.
    “You’re kidding,” I said, disbelieving.
    “Nope!  Owes me a favor, much like I owe our pretty Pitcher here,” the little auric beamed at Alina, who smiled back faintly, tugging at Buster’s silky coat.  Gloric turned in his chair, stretching.
    “Now, who’s up for breakfast?” he said.

FIVE
     
    Dwarves and trolls are the most physiologically recognizable archetypes of the aurics, but they are no less human than the others.  What most see as genetic difference