Andrew Rowe - Sufficiently Advanced Magic

For Ariela Rowe, the newest member of my family. Each newlife is a shining beacon of hope for the continued existence ofhumanity.

It was the day of my Judgment, and I was prepared in a thousand waysthat didnt matter.

If I have a choice between tests, Ill pick a dialogue or mathematicalchallenge before accepting a combat challenge.

In the unfortunate event that Im stuck in a combat challenge, Ill tryto run if theres anything bigger than a goblin. Possibly even if its agoblin, depending on how mean he looks.

Spike traps are not my friends. Spike traps are the enemy. I will avoidthem at all costs.

Id been training for this day for five years since the day mybrother, Tristan, had left for his own Judgment. Hed entered theSerpent Spire and, like so many others, hed never returned.

Now, at seventeen, I stood among hundreds of my peers. They were waitingto try their luck. But I didnt trust luck. Luck wasnt reliable.

Instead of relying on the fickleness of chance, Id taken everythingwith me that I thought might help.

Bringing weapons and armor into the test was strictly forbidden, butthere werent any rules about bringing a backpack full of supplies. Ihad double checked, triple checked. Maybe theyd consider my grapplinghook a weapon, but crossing a downed bridge was one of the most commonchallenges, so I doubted it.

My boots were more durable than the shoes my companions tended to wearand offered vastly better traction. Instead of a silken shirt, I wore ablack leather doublet and pants. Not currently fashionable, but morelikely to slow down a claw or blade.

Id studied, too, but there was a limit to what I could learn from theexperiences of others. After a Judgment, the memories of the individualwho took the tests would rapidly fade, similar to waking from a dream.Some people held onto stronger memories than others. I read every book,essay, and scrap of paper that I could find with hints about what othershad experienced. But nothing was reliable.

Apparently, Selys our beneficent goddess, creator of this death traptower and all the others wanted to maintain a degree of mystery fornewcomers.

Even with all my preparation, I wasnt sure what my odds were ofsurviving the ordeal. From the grim expressions of my peers, I couldtell some of them were running the same numbers in their heads that Iwas.

Or maybe they were just intimidated by the sight of the spire. Id seenthe tower from a distance before, and I knew it was big, but thatword wasnt close to describing it. Gigantic might have scratched thesurface. Titanic, perhaps?

I couldnt even see where it ended.

The spire was roughly cylindrical in shape, constructed of dull bluestone I hadnt seen anywhere else. The circumference of the towers basewas nearly as impressive as the height. It eclipsed the size of anyordinary castle.

Our scholars, military, and adventurers had spent years attempting tomap the interior of the spire. Even their combined efforts barelycovered a fraction of the estimated rooms within. This wasnt just dueto the size. The spires interior layout constantly changed, with roomsand passages appearing and disappearing on a daily basis.

The Gates of Judgment were open wide, but it wasnt an inviting effect.With ogre-sized jagged spikes of rock surrounding the entrance, itlooked more like the tower had opened its jaws to swallow its victimswhole.

Most people were willing to risk entering the spire for a single reason:it was a chance to earn an attunement, a mark of Selys favor.

Every attunement brought power along with it, a fragment of the goddessblessing. Some attuned could heal wounds with a touch. Others could hurlblasts of lightning. Every attunement extracted a cost, but that didntstop anyone from trying to earn one.

Father was attuned. Mother was attuned. Shouldnt it have been easy forTristan to pass the same tests?

Tristan had every advantage. As the firstborn, Mother and Father trainedhim endlessly, drilled him on their own experiences within the tower. Notwo Judgments were identical, but common elements had been found.Physical challenges. Puzzles. Tests of intellect.

Hed studied, prepared, and taken every mock test imaginable. Hed stillfailed.

Mother left not long after that, and Father insisted on personallyproviding me with additional training. After two years, he pulled me outof public school entirely. Id been practicing dueling every day for thelast three years. I had the scars to remind me.

Father wanted to hone me into the perfect heir to the familys legacy.To earn the same attunement he had the attunement our family wasfamous for.

I didnt care about any of that. For me, earning an attunement was justone fraction of a longer-term plan.

According to legend, the goddess would bestow a boon on anyone who wasbrave enough to reach the top of one of her spires. There were scatteredstories of successes. Heroes who had met the goddess and wished forwealth, power, or even to join her in the divine kingdom floating highabove the world.

I had no intention of trying to make it to the top of the tower rightnow. Earning my attunement was just the first step along my path, onethat would give me the power necessary to begin my climb.

It could take years to grow strong enough to reach the top of the spire.

But Id get there eventually.

And Id ask the goddess to give my brother back. It was the only way tobring my family back together.

I was stopped by a pair of copper-armored guards just in front of thegate.

Name?

Corin Cadence.

One of the guards moved a finger down a list until he found me, crossingout the name. Ill need to check your bag and papers.

I handed him the papers first, and then the bag. For the guard, thismust have been mundane. Routine. For me, the stakes were a little moreserious. I was about to risk my life, and no one had I had met had evencommented on that fact. No one had offered a single warning.

My father hadnt even deigned to see me off at the train station. Itseemed incongruous, given the time hed spent preparing me. Hedprobably decided Id feel more confident doing this on my own.

As usual, he was wrong.

My hands trembled as I glanced to the entrance. I flinched as I watchedthe applicants in front of me fade into transparency, then nothingnessas they crossed the threshold into the tower. It looked like they weredisintegrating. Maybe they were. I wouldnt know until I tried.

The guard handed my bag back to me. You can head on in.

Thanks.

I stepped up to the threshold. I knew what was going to happen next, butI didnt like it.

No choice. Ive come this far.

I closed my eyes and stepped into the serpents maw.

Every inch of my exposed skin burned, like I had been out in the sun fordays. Fortunately, keeping my eyes shut had spared them from sharingthat sensation.

Less fortunately, that hadnt prevented the nausea. My stomach reactednext, and I pitched over to vomit on the gray stone floor. My eyesfluttered open after my meager lunch abandoned me.

I stood in the middle of a chamber of white stone. A bright glowilluminated the room with no discernable source. The room was circular,maybe thirty feet in diameter. At the center was a formation ofwaist-height pillars. I counted twelve in total.

Each pillar had a single object atop it. My first challenge. My firstchoice.

The room had three discernable exits, and I glanced at them before Itook any further steps. One was straight across from me, the othersninety degrees to either side. I turned around briefly, but there was noexit door, just as I had been warned.

The doors themselves were etched with similar runes to the ones that hadguarded the tower itself. They each had a single central symbol: acircle with a colorful crystal within. The gems were blue, yellow, andred, from right to left. The books I had studied had mentioned similardoors. Opening a door was as simple as touching the gem, but variousauthors speculated that the colors had some significance. Most believedthat red was the path of violence, for example.