The Oligarch

Prologue: The Vdelgma

All Jade felt was terror. She was hemmed in on all sides by people. The smell of so many warm bodies crammed into one train car was smothering. She could barely breathe. The only thing she could hear above the sobs and cries of her fellow prisoners and their whispered prayers was the sound of the locomotives engine, chugging away endlessly. The only light she could see in the darkness was the dim orange glow of the runes on her shackles. The same runes kept her power bottled up inside her, so she couldn't use it to escape. They had been taken out of Miishawk. It was a labor camp for her kind, the Vdelgma. She had seen such trains leave Miishawk before. She knew of only one other labor camp and that was Ashorn to the north. The only other camps she knew of were the death camps, and this was a south bound train. She used to believe the gods could help her, but not after the redguard killed her father, not after they raped her mother, not after watching her younger brother collapse from exhaustion and being shot through the head and fed to the dogs, not after that. That was when she knew that the gods were cruel, not benevolent. A man next to her was screaming, begging Dialunas to save them. She however, prayed to no one.

She heard the train start to slow. We are here, at the end of the line, she thought. It stopped suddenly. The jolt seemed to sate the prisoners, for everyone quieted. Then, the door opened. "Come on out! All of you!" A voice shouted in the gruff accent of the northern nation of Graz, the homeland of the redguard. Everyone began shuffling out. She stepped out and squinted in the blinding light. She saw dozens of redguard, and even a golem. Why would they use a golem to guard us? She wondered. Then she looked and saw something rather strange. Their car was the only one open. They weren't at a station either. They were in the middle of the woods with a road leading off into the darkness. She wondered if they had decided that they didn't need to take them to a death camp and that they figured they could just shoot us all here. "You are to walk on this road in duel file. If you try to run, we will shoot you," one of the redguard said, his crimson colored coat gently swaying in the night breeze. It bore a captain's insignia on it's left breast. They began marching them along. She heard someone stumble and fall, crying out in pain. "Get up! Do not complain, if it were up to me I'd have the lot of you killed you Vdelgma," the redguard captain said. Vdelgma, she hated that name, in the old tongue it meant abomination. That's what they called us, all because we could do magic. They weren't like the thaumaturges, the people who learned magic, they were the ones born with it. The fire of the universe bottled up inside a person. But thirty years ago, they declared all forms of practical magic to be illegal, that it was too dangerous for a civilian to wield such power. And by practical magic they meant everything other than using it to create things and enchant things, which only thaumaturges that had gone into that form of study could do. So they rounded up everyone who showed any sign of magic and sent them to the camps. Her brother Haden and her had both been born with the power, so they took them both away. Jade missed the power, so much so it was as though a part of her was missing, and in a way that was true.

They went on for what seemed like days. Though in reality it was only a few minutes when everything fell apart. The guards shouted in surprise as a metal sphere landed amongst them. It exploded in a blinding flash of light and noise that turned the whole world white. Jade couldn't hear anything as her ears were ringing but she felt people moving quickly all around her. This was her chance, she thought. She made a break for it. No sooner had she done this than vision and hearing returned and she could witness the blood bath. She saw five men dressed identically in black cloaks, wide brimmed hats and beaked masks like the kind you'd see at a masquerade party. They were fighting all twelve of the redguard, and winning. They whirled around wielding a flaming saber in one hand and a revolver in the other. The redguard's knives and guns seemed to have no affect on the masked men. But she noticed that every time one of them was struck they flickered, like a reflection in water being distorted by ripples. She also noticed that they were all mimicking each other. They're all illusions, she realized. Though at least one of them must have been real because three of the redguard were dead already. She looked around and noticed that most of her fellow prisoners were gone, she could see them running off through the trees. She didn't run though, because she still needed to kill the people who had made her life hell. She sprinted up behind one of the guards who was dealing with an illusion and didn't realize it. Quick as a flash she brought her arms over his head and started strangling him with her shackles. "This is for Haden you bastard," she whispered quietly in his ear, pulling him tighter to her chest. He tried to free himself but his attempts were pathetic and he died in her arms. She started to get up but as she did she felt the cold steel of a rifle barrel press into the back of her head. "You will die for that, bitch," it was the captain, and he was going to kill her. She was so close to freedom all for it to end now. She flinched when she heard the gunshot, but it wasn't her with a hole in their head, but the captain. She stood up and saw that the masked man had killed all but three of the guards.

She decided not to let him do it alone and she grabbed up the captain's rifle and took aim. She fired twice, once missing, the second time hit one of them in the leg. He screamed in pain right before the masked man opened his throat. She turned to the captain's body and began looking for the keys. She heard another gunshot and the sound of metal slicing through flesh. She searched through the captain's coat for the keys. Where were they. "Looking for these?" She turned to see the man in black holding a ring of keys he must have gotten off of another guard. She took them tentatively and said, "Thanks, you should probably do something about the golem." "Golem?" He had just enough time to ask that question before being knocked off his feet by a massive metal arm. The golem loomed over her, staring at her with it's glowing blue eyes. It's belly emanating heat from it's mana engine. It reached down a giant hand to grab her just as the lock clicked open. She grinned as her innate magic surged through her. It filled her with a sense of sheer ecstasy. Electricity sparked from her fingertips and the breeze picked up into a howling gale. Then she remembered everything that happened, her father's murder, her mother's rape, and her brother Haden being worked to death, and she screamed. She let loose all the grief and anger she had felt for seven years into a massive bolt of lightning. The golem exploded into steel scrap metal and gears that flew in all directions. Including unfortunately, into her.

She didn't care anymore, she slumped to the ground, blood oozing out of the wound suffered from a piece of shrapnel in her shoulder. She felt that her family had been avenged. She had done it, no prayers to mystical deities needed. She saw another shape looming over her, she could see that it was the masked man, the one who had assisted her vengeance. She thanked him silently in her head as he lifted her up and carried her off into the night.