Wicked As You Wish (A Hundred Names for Magic #1) - Rin Chupeco Page 0,12

aimed at eventually infusing magic-based conjurations into automation, commercial goods, and operating system markets at affordable prices. It has also increasingly diversified to make a large number of corporate acquisitions, including MacGuffin, Inc. for $20.2 billion in 2010, and FarSeer for $18.5 billion in 2013.

A link from there to the Emerald Act page was already available, which also referenced Miss Hutchins’s video. News traveled fast. She clicked on the former.

The law had been passed quickly enough through the Senate and the Assembly with little outcry. She’d found a few people protesting early on without gaining much traction, but she was certain Miss Hutchins’s passionate outburst was going to turn the tide.

There were, Tala knew, nine types of magic: time, elemental/kinetic, death magic, transfiguration, summoning, healing, divination, conjuration, enchantment, and illusion. They were further classified into three categories of spelltech.

Category three magic: Generally harmless magic that could be created wholesale with little repercussions: software apps, non-combat spells, basically anything that couldn’t be altered from its original function. GPS spells couldn’t be changed to do anything but serve as a driving aid, for example, and posed no other danger beyond miscalculating navigation, just like any bad product available in the market. Low-quality glyphs were sufficient for these spells, which is also what made them easy to mass market.

Category two magic: Spells customized for individuals. Prescription potions sold in bulk at pharmacies were category three; drugs manufactured specifically for a patient with a particular condition fell under the second. So were divorce and labor contracts loaded with preapproved curses and enchantments, or charms of a defensive nature, or even magically engineered food.

Category one magic: Combat spells, weaponized spells, spells that could potentially harm or injure. The military, for the most part, had the monopoly on what little was available, though gun manufacturers have been itching to claim their own shares for years if not for the scarcity of high-grade glyphs available.

Passing the Emerald Act meant lessening the restrictions normally imposed on category two spells. Spellforgers with category two qualifications were mandatory, and acquiring the necessary licenses was a highly vetted process. But the new law now allowed companies to determine a spellforger’s qualification themselves, with very minimal penalty fees imposed on any faulty diagnoses or errors on their part.

That OzCorp was the main lobbyist for the Emerald Act, though, had not been something most people knew until Miss Hutchins had gone viral.

Tala stared at her screen again.

Avalon firebird, she typed, on impulse.

She’d read the pages before, of course. The firebird had never been photographed to her knowledge, but there were enough paintings depicting what it looked like. Long, red shimmering feathers, a graceful neck, and intelligent, golden eyes. The symbol of Avalon, the article stated, and its most powerful spell.

She scrolled down.

Serving as a royal rite of passage, it is said to present itself to the rightful rulers of Avalon on their eighteenth birthday. For twenty years after that, they serve their masters loyally, eventually disappearing to await the next heir. As their namesake suggests, fire is their primary weapon. It is one of the Three Treasures of Avalon, which includes the Nameless Sword, and Maidenkeep, the primary residence and headquarters of the Avalon monarchy.

There was a world map on the page, with the kingdom of Avalon highlighted—it was right at the center of the Pacific Ocean, slightly larger than Brazil. The closest nation to it, the former kingdom of Wonderland, was still depicted with its original size, though the explosion had long reduced it into three or four tiny islands. The map had been made sometime after the twelfth century at least, because the island of Neverland was already missing.

In comparison, the kingdom of Beira was on the other side of the world, above Norway and Greenland and roughly Avalon’s size if it hadn’t also claimed much of the Arctic for its territory.

Nobody in their right mind visited Beira. Saying it was a democracy was like saying Palpatine had been popularly elected to lead the Galactic Empire in Star Wars.

She scrolled down again.

The first known firebird was wielded by Vasilisa the Beautiful, the kingdom’s first queen. According to Avalonian mythology, Vasilisa sought out the firebird, creating what historians consider a censured spell to forge an eternal pact between the majestic creature and those of her lineage to combat the kingdom’s historical enemies such as the Snow Queen of Beira; her consort and right-hand man, the Scourge of Buyan; and Koschei the Deathless himself.

A lull in between paragraphs; a painting of the Snow