Dreadful Poetry by Lita Burke
Elf son Bright M’Choakenchilde enjoys a privileged life as a recent graduate from the Agatha University of Magical Arts and Sciences. Although his twice-seventh-son wizardry never developed, Bright’s brilliance with clockworks mechanics shines in his metal automatons.
Over the past year, many wizards and sorceresses evaluated Bright’s puzzling lack of magical ability, but none could fix him. With his dreams of being a proper elf mage fading, Bright resigns himself to a respectable, but magic-absent career, as an airship mechanic.
The afternoon before he ships out, Bright’s lost enchantments return, and he cannot control them. The destructive magical spree lands him in a mage’s jail cell. Even though his enchantments’ return was short-lived, Bright now has a significant magical infraction on his record. Even if he could weave spells, the Magic Guild now forbids him to do so.
Wizard Morton, one of Agatha’s senior professors, visits Bright in his cell and makes him an offer. A disgraced Wizardling Kadmeion has returned early from his year of field study, and Morton wants Bright to meet the tarnished wunderkind. The elder wizard has an impossible task, with an absurd deadline, and horribly inadequate resources for the two college boys. If successful, they regain more than their reputation. If they fail, then Bright and this wizardling will languish the rest of their days in a magician’s prison.
More stories from the Clockpunk Wizard fantasy world:
Lita Burke 