Academy of Outcasts

by Larry Correia

One time a trader visiting from the Core had even referred to Fogo as a nightmare hellscape. His terror had given all us locals a good laugh. Silly merchant. Hell is where pirates, murderers, and oath breakers go when they die. This is just home.

Life was short and cheap. Most of us died young, and all of us died tired.

magic could protect us from sustained temperatures, and even short bursts of fire, but if there was a magma burst through your tunnel wall, your charm was only good for giving you enough time for death to hurt more. Such was life on Fogo.

Gilda didn’t get it, which was fine. She was the sort to always be happy, no matter how rotten the circumstances. If that future husband she was planning on got killed mining the Red, she’d just find a new one and carry on. If her kids died working off our family contract, she’d have some more. Our people were resilient like that.

I got up and left, because you can love your family, but still want to toss them over the side of your barge.

“Where am I?” “You are on a cot, Mr. Carnavon. In the shoddy cabin your bargemaster declared to be a sickbay, so you could be attended to by what I believe to be a butcher, masquerading as a surgeon. When he was done stitching up your wounds—ugly

These were only to be used in an emergency, where the consequences of not having them would be worse than the consequences of getting caught with them.

Everyone knew guns were far weaker than magic, but they were more useful than strong language.

My people were counting on me. I would not let my family down. Even when you own nothing, you still own your reputation.

I’ll talk them down and explain you’re friendly.” “If that does not work, then I eat them?” I was beginning to suspect that friendly was one of those human concepts Trax was going to struggle with. “We’re going to try real hard to avoid that.” “Very well.” His word pictures didn’t convey emotion very well, but I think he might have been a little disappointed at that.

“I think it is good you do not let your continual failure make you feel like the failure you clearly are.”

I looked to Trax, but the basket was hiding his guilty little black eyes, except Trax probably understood the concept of guilt as poorly as he understood everything else.

“Naanwaala’s ass! Why’d I just have a vision of eating hordes of ratlets?” “That’s how Trax communicates. He means well. Who’s Naanwaala?” “She’s the Saint of bad decisions and painful embarrassing fuckups.”

It was an exclusive bunch, and I wasn’t welcome. It was either be so brilliant they couldn’t live without you, or rich enough they couldn’t afford to ignore you.

When she accidentally bumped my broken and dangling finger, I managed not to make any unmanly noises in front of her,

though some tears may have involuntarily squirted from my eyes. “Sorry

Azarin shrugged. “I never had much patience for politics. Oh, beer’s here. Thank you.”

“Don’t beat yourself up, Carnavon.” “I’m fine. Face planting into the ground is what’s beating me up, Azarin.” “Ground tends to do that. The hard part’s getting the spell to stick right, and yours are certainly flawed, but it’s working a little, otherwise you’d be hitting a lot harder.

waved goodbye, then sat atop the roof wondering why it was so much easier to understand magic than what a woman wanted.

“I told you the best way to impress a female is to kill a whale for her.”

“Squalo mages do not have to go through this strange process to find a teacher. Squalo have our own school of magic. Unlike the Core, our admission process is sensible.” “If this doesn’t work out, do you think I could get in there?” “To enter you must swim to the bottom of the deepest trench in the empire, then face your competitors in unarmed ritual combat, defeat them, and devour their flesh.” “So probably not.” “Probably not,” Trax agreed.

“Let’s get out of here.” We left the wounded students on the bridge and hurried downhill. “We’ll divide up our loot later. I know Charlu had a wand too, but I didn’t see it.” “I think I might have swallowed it along with his thumb.” “You can keep that one then.”

“We had a little run in with some Frunza Tarlev students on the road last night. No big deal.”

“Why did Trax just proudly send me a brain picture of him biting someone’s arm off?” Azarin was getting a lot better at understanding squalo thought language. “His arm didn’t come all the way off. Just mostly.

Azarin wasn’t my responsibility, but I couldn’t hardly let her run off with some untrustworthy gladiators to fight ghosts without me. “Alright. I’ll do it.” Trax lifted his head out of the pond. “I am excited for this learning opportunity.” “What’s that?” Rade asked nervously as he slowly moved his hand toward the hilt of his sword.

“That’s my squalo. He’s going to come along and make sure everybody stays honest.”

Oh, who was I kidding? I’d spent most of my day trying to figure out how to darken a small area, while ranks tens were out there combining all seven elements together to grow cities anchored in the sky. I had a very long way to go.

“The innocence of ignorance never fails to amuse.

I sat at the lone table in that room, bruised and sore, eating, drinking, and sulking. I’ll say this for the Core, even their basest rations they gave to suspected murderers awaiting interrogation was profoundly tastier than the old dry stuff we lived off of back in Fogo.

“I come in peace with news for Gaul Haddar.”

“Last time you came in peace, you nearly burned down the embassy and a tentacle monster tried to kill me!” “That was a misunderstanding.” “A misunderstanding? A bloody misunderstanding?”

Trax smelled me a long way off and rushed out to greet me on the road. “Hello, Carnavon. Your still being alive makes me happy.”