An Explosion At First Light - Chapter 1

Gallahart. A city in Eridania on the banks of the Gallart River. A city you would never catch sleeping. There’s always something happening here. A ship coming to dock and its horn tearing through the fog that swallowed the city each night. A pub brawl boiling over onto the cold lamp-lit streets. Perhaps even a petty thief caught climbing down your balcony by your insomniac neighbour gazing out over the city. After all, crime was commonplace in Gallahart. Or at least on the east side of the Gallart, and in the lower districts of the west side. Thievery, pickpockets, extortion, shakedowns and sometimes the gangs got territorial. Only if gang violence escalated too far did the local station put a call out to the headquarters on the west side for back up. Everybody was promptly put back in line after that. Still, this was a rare occurrence. For the docks were on the east side, and nobody wanted to disturb the sailors. After all, they got paid to brave the horizons and the sea, not to mention all sailors were trained in Water Shaping to some degree. The docks were a surprisingly safe place, although nonetheless debauched.

While crime was commonplace in Gallahart, an explosion at first light, was not. One of the factories by the river, in the lower districts of the East, was up in flames. The roof and floors had collapsed, but the walls were intact. Bruised and battered they were, but they stood. The tremors were felt all the way to Lyssia’s Lane, the red light district behind the industrial strip. The police were called and soon enough the area was cordoned off with firefighters being called in to douse the fire. This was a spectacle, and people were crowding the pavements, drawn to it like moths to a flame.

Officer Gerald Johnson had been forced off the leave he took to go honeymooning with his wife, and was quite cross at the whole ordeal. So, when an overzealous journalist approached the cordon with pomp in his step and tried to snap a picture, Johnson snapped “No Pictures! Stand away from the barricade!”

Indignant, the journalist replied “I’m from the Gazette!”

“I don’t care where the fuck you’re from, get lost or I’ll arrest you!” Johnson unclasped a pair of handcuffs from his belt.

“Hmph. The department will hear about this from my editor!” the man said, as he trudged back.

The crowd had started to spill over onto the street but the sound of a carriage arriving and the driver’s urgent shouts of “Move!” forced the offenders back onto the pavement. The carriage stopped not too far away from the barricade. Officer Johnson, seeing the Police livery, walked up to it.

Detective Samuel Abbott of the Magical Crimes Department stepped out of the carriage and spotted Officer Johnson walking towards him.

“Johnson,” he nodded in greeting, once close enough, his brow furrowed.

“Sir,” Johnson gave a quick salute in response.

“How the hell is that factory on fire?”

“The cold maya crystals were all shattered, sir.”

“Overheating?”

“No, sir. They’re still cold to the touch.”

“Deliberate then... ” he started towards factory’s entrance, Johnson behind him.

“Whose is it?” the detective nodded towards the factory. The fingers of his left hand drummed the side of his coat, as maya began to dance at his fingertips. A tic that refused to leave – for more than two decades now.

“It belongs to Fernando Gonzalez, sir. Textile factory,” Johnson answered.

“I see. And where is Mr. Gonzalez? I thought someone would be here tearing into us already,” Abbott spotted two crystals mounts on either extreme of the factory’s front face. He walked to the right one first.

All factories in Gallahart were required to have at least four state-approved Fire Control Crystals, more commonly known as Cold Crystals positioned on four corners of the factory’s boundary so the fire didn’t spread to other factories, in case of a mishap. The Crystals absorbed the heat from anything that was on fire, effectively killing it before it could even start properly. They had to be recharged by maintainers and were kept on the boundaries because they could interfere with the regular working of a factory.

“We don’t know yet, sir. But he has a reputation, from what I gather. You might find him at Lyssia’s.”

Bending over, Abbott ran a finger along the edge of the broken crystal. It wasn’t completely shattered. The base remained in the holder. The top half was gone. Not a clean break. The shattered remains of the top weren’t near the mount. He felt it, the maya of Force around the crystals. Still not dispersed.

Factories weren’t supposed to be crammed together, one after the other. The law mandated a separation of five meters between all industrial buildings. In the narrow alleyway that was formed, he could see something glittering. And he felt cold maya respond when he Pulled. No doubt about it, broken pieces of the crystal, lying far away from the mount. Farther than any strike of a weapon could hurl them, and bullets would only pierce a crystal that large, not shatter it so.

Satisfied with his inspection, his mind finally caught up to what Johnson had said and turned to face him with his brows risen in disbelief. “It’s 8 in the morning, Johnson.”

He began awkwardly, “Yes, sir. He’s—It’s not out of the ordinary for him. Some of the employees live nearby - they’re the ones who called us actually. And when I questioned some of them, they all said the same thing. Said he was always drunk the few times he did visit the factory. You could smell it on him for miles. Oh, and apparently all of them knew about his escapades. Man was a libertine. Didn’t even try to hide it.”

“Libertine? Heh. That’s putting it mildly, I think.”

Abbott proceeded towards the left crystal mount, to see if that one too told the same story. As they were walking, Johnson spoke up.

“Sir, if I may?”

“Go on.”

“How come you’re here? What does Magic Crimes want with this one?” They were in front of the second mount, and Johnson could see Abbott becoming unfocused as his eyes refused to move from the crystal.

Abbott responded absentmindedly “I don’t know, to be honest. I didn’t have a case and the captain had a hunch. And maybe he was right... ”

Before he bent down and began inspecting it, he peered at the alleyway for a moment, nodded and then ran a finger along the broken edge.

“Really?” Johnson asked, shocked.

The detective didn’t reply at first, engrossed in his observation. Then he stood up straight and turned to him with the smallest hint of a smile.

“Yes. The crystals weren’t shattered with a weapon. There is lingering force maya on the mounts and crystals. I’m sure they’re on the ones out back too. Someone hit them with force magic. It sent the remains of the top half flying into the alley. Send someone to collect and preserve them. They’ll come in handy as evidence. The maya hasn’t completely dispersed yet.”

Johnson took a quick look into the alley and sure enough, there was something strewn about, glinting. He hadn’t paid them much mind when he saw them the first time, thinking they were broken glass. He wasn’t trained in magic and could perform no more than the very basic of Shaping, let alone sensing it from that far away, so that wasn’t a surprise.

He instructed one of the trainees standing at the cordon to go and collect them. Turning back to the detective, the sigh left him unthinkingly.

“The missus will be vexed, I suppose?” Abbott knew - first response for a magic case meant work. Paperwork, politics and bureaucracy. Johnson just got married. Abbott was sympathetic to his cause.

“She already is, sir. Like it’s my fault some pissant thought to blow up a bloody factory.”

“That’s this job, I’m afraid. But you might just have a way out of it if you bring her something nice when you go home,” he said, walking back towards the factory entrance, Johnson beside him.

“Oh, believe me sir, I will.”

“This Gonzalez seems to be a man of means. These crystals aren’t cold crystals. They’re frost crystals. Top of the line. Almost pure cold maya.”

Johnson answered the implied question “He is, sir. He married into the Franko House, after all.”

Abbott stopped in his tracks and looked at him. “What?”

“Yes, sir. He married Genevieve Franko. Eleazar Franko’s only daughter. I didn’t know either. The factory workers told me.”

“And he whores around all day with no consequence?”

“You know how them blue bloods can be,” Johnson shrugged, “But I thought you knew about all this.”

Resuming his stride, he said “Hardly. Captain called the house when I was still sleeping. All he told my wife is that a factory exploded and that he had a hunch it had something to do with magic. I didn’t even get a proper briefing. Carriage was waiting when I got downstairs. Most of the force is indisposed, right now.”

“The business about that freak?” he asked as the pair somehow made their way into the factory through the debris that was all over the place.

“Yes,” he sighed. “Gods help this city with everything that’s happening.”

The two of them approached the heart of the factory and Abbott’s brows knitted together. It was faint, but he felt them - echoes of force maya. Not just force, no. Fire too. An explosion spell.

He stopped and closed his eyes, reaching out. Feeling.

And Johnson, like many times before this – on the occasions he accompanied an MCD officer, saw the maya come alive. It was just as wondrous each time. The maya that lay asleep started thrumming. The invisible force that permeated reality in every way, became visible as the detective’s hands spread out and he Pulled on the maya, Johnson saw a dance of amber and vermilion begin. Like thick wisps of smoke they moved. The Maya danced as Force and as Flame, and enthralled, Johnson watched.

But the detective was different. The wonder and awe that Maya brought had almost left him. Almost. His mind was elsewhere. There was more force than fire. Three hours or thereabouts since the explosion. And all this maya was still left. An explosion spell didn’t leave that kind of residual maya behind. It was unbalanced. Inefficient. Poorly controlled. Force had overpowered fire. It didn’t spread out in every direction either, only vertically, he deduced. The walls were still intact, but the roof and floors were demolished. The ground they stood on was cracked. Force maya had seeped into the ground too. That explained the tremors.

An amateur? But how would that be possible? Someone with the reserves to do this could not be an amateur. Could it have been multiple people? The questions filled his mind, and he drowned his senses in the force and flame to focus.

He had too little to go on, he decided. He needed more information.

“The Captain was right,” he said, opening his eyes and turning to face Johnson. “This explosion was magical. Did you find anything else here?”

“No, sir. But to be honest,” Johnson scratched his head, “we’d need a lot more people to properly search this place. It’s a mess here with all this debris.”

He pondered that for a moment, “That... will probably be a waste of time. And we don’t have the men to spare either,” he stroked his chin, eyes narrowing. “The maya in this place isn’t faint. There’s no way this wasn’t magical.”

“Eh. Let it be,” he decided finally. “No use searching the factory. Just tell your men to sweep the perimeter of the factory. I’ll... see if I can get Eleazar to hand over anything unusual they find during the clean up.

“Wait! You can do that, sir?!” Johnson interjected.

“Not me. And not easily” he nodded a little uncomfortably and continued. “Report to me if they find something. Pick up Gonzalez from whatever brothel he’s holed up in and bring him to HQ. I’ll go talk to Genevieve Franko.”

“Yes, sir!” Johnson saluted and jogged back outside, barking instructions about lifting the blockade from the street and sending a few men to inspect the perimeter.

Abbott remained there, among the debris, thinking. It was absurd to him. If it was indeed a contract, who would put out a hit like this? And why? It’s not unusual for someone to have enemies, but why go so far as to blow up a factory? Why hire someone who couldn’t Weave an explosion spell right? Where would they even get someone like that? Not in this city, surely.

And so the more he thought about it, the less sense it made.

Letting out a weary sigh and shaking the questions from his head, he walked out of the factory and made for the carriage.