Jace Beleren, have far too much potential to live a life that comes to nothing.
'You ask why you should join with me. Perhaps because you want the opportunity to make a living-a real living-that allows you to live comfortably without hopping from one depraved miser to another. Because you want to earn the respect of others, men and women who would hold you in awe based on who you are and what you've done, rather than because of what you hold over them.
'And because a part of you knows, even if you haven't admitted it, that your skills are stagnating here. You have power, Beleren, including an instinctive grasp of magics that few others can master, but you're letting it wither. Working for the Infinite Consortium, I guarantee you the opportunity to exercise those abilities, to stretch them far beyond your current boundaries, to learn from others.'
Jace glanced up, his pulse quickening. 'There are those among you who can teach me?' He hadn't had a true mentor in years, not since…
'Not thought-reading, no. But other magics of the mind, such as your illusions, your clairvoyance? Absolutely. I myself know a bit about such things, though they're not my primary area of study. I could teach you myself, when time allows. And if I cannot instruct you in reading minds, at least I can help you build up your discipline, do so more effectively.'
'You would do that?'
'Beleren, to have potential such as yours on my side, I would do far more.'
'Just make sure you do better than his last teacher,' Baltrice snickered.
The sharp crack of ceramic sounded across the table as the mug shattered in Jace's grip. His entire body so rigid he could have been having a seizure, he glared at the woman through abruptly glowing eyes, and if wishes could kill, it would have been her neck breaking within his fist.
'What do you-How…?' He could scarcely choke the words past the bile in his throat.
'Come on, Beleren,' Baltrice smirked at him. 'Everything else we know about, you didn't think we'd learn about Alhammarret? I understand you're still a wanted man in every town within a hundred miles of Silmot's Crossing.'
His vision veiled in a film of red rage, Jace found himself standing, his chair lying on the floor behind him. 'You will never utter that name again.'
His voice was surprisingly steady, not even raised in a shout, but it slashed across the table, an invisible blade. Baltrice recognized the danger sign for what it was, but backing down before this upstart never entered her mind. She, too, rose to her feet. The air above the table grew heavy with tension and gathering magic. Tezzeret said nothing, perhaps curious to see if one would relent.
And Jace turned away, unwilling to start a fight he wasn't certain he could win. Eyes downcast and cheeks slightly flushed, he straightened his chair and slumped into it. And yet, one corner of his mouth turned up, as though he'd succeeded in making some sort of point.
With an ugly, arrogant grin, Baltrice too returned to her seat.
'Baltrice,' Tezzeret announced, 'wait for me outside.'
The woman's smile died as though shot with a crossbow. 'What? Boss, I-'
'I need to speak with Beleren, and I need to do it without the two of you threatening each other every second breath.'
Jace's jaw twitched as he suppressed a smirk.
'But, boss, what if he-'
'I am in no danger from Beleren. Go.'
With a scowl and a final flash of fire in her eyes, Baltrice left the table, hoping against hope that the little bastard would be stupid enough to refuse Tezzeret's offer. Then, given what he already knew, the boss would have no choice but to let her…
So wrapped up was Baltrice, daydreaming about what she'd do to Jace Beleren if she had the opportunity, that it didn't occur to her until later:
For the life of her, she could no longer remember the name of Jace's mentor.
CHAPTER TEN
They sat on the floor, across from one another, in the heart of a cavernous room beneath the Rubblefield complex. Here, though the perimeter of the room was stone, the internal walls were thin metal, divided into slats that folded and slid along runners in the ceiling. With those walls, the huge room could be divided into any number of smaller chambers, of almost any shape. At the moment, the 'sub-room' was an almost perfect oval.
'I assume I don't need to tell you,' Tezzeret began after several moments of silence, 'just how potent a tool telepathy can be to an organization such as mine?' 'No,' Jace said with a faint grin. 'I think I can figure that much out on my own.'
'Excellent. You've passed the 'not a raving imbecile' test. I-'
'What I don't understand,' Jace said, 'is why you don't already have access to such powers. I know my talents are rare, but they're not that rare! Are they?'
'You wouldn't think so,' Tezzeret admitted, 'but you'd be surprised. In all my years, I've come across only two mind-readers other than yourself. One of them is dead, and the other-well, isn't available for employment.'
'But-''
'I've tried building a great many devices,' the artificer said, refusing to be interrupted again. 'Tools to accomplish what I and my agents cannot. They, too, came up short. I built two crowns of etherium-'
'Etherium?' Jace repeated.
Tezzeret clenched his jaw at yet another interruption and held up his artificial hand. 'Etherium. A powerful, magic-rich alloy capable of holding any manner of enchantments. It's also exceedingly rare, since the secret of its creation is all but lost across the entire Multiverse. This hand is probably more valuable than the entirety of this district.'
Jace's eyes widened.
'As I was saying, then,' the artificer continued, 'two crowns of etherium, one of which should have allowed me to read the thoughts of anyone wearing the other. We managed to communicate, speaking as though we were right beside one another across a distance of miles, but I could never read any thought he didn't choose to project. I constructed a sarcophagus of needles and tubes, into which a subject could be placed. I managed to extract the equivalent of two words' worth of thoughts before the machine turned the subject's brain into so much gargoyle guano.'
Jace shuddered.
'I even once fashioned a crystalline chamber,'
Tezzeret reminisced, eyes glazing slightly, 'capable of storing the memories and personality of a dying man. But the mechanism that should have allowed communication with the mind within failed to work, and since I'd built it purely for communication, I hadn't included any means of placing him into a new living body. So I've no idea how much of him was actually preserved.
'My point,' he concluded sharply, coming back to himself with a sudden blink and glaring at Jace as though somehow he were at fault for the digression, 'is that, though it comes so easily to you, and though it's a form of magic wizards have been struggling to develop for ages, it's actually proven to be a very rare, and very elusive, talent.
'And that means that we've got to get you, Beleren, as skilled as we possibly can.'
'I can live with that,' Jace said with a fierce grin.
'I'm so glad to hear it. Talk to me.'
'What?' 'Talk to me.' Tezzeret leaned forward, fists on the table. 'Not with your mouth. With your mind.'
For an instant, Jace stared. Tezzeret wasn't certain if he was concentrating, or had somehow failed to understand the command. Then…
Like so? The words formed directly in Tezzeret's mind. Jace's lips, his tongue, his teeth moved not at
