The Assassins of Altis by Jack Campbell Page A

twelve. He died at the age of thirteen, also on a failed contract, and also because of a lack of skills and experience, the records say. I suspect that the records lie. I found records of a few other young Mages who did not die, but failed in major tasks and were returned to acolyte status.”
    “That’s an interesting and disturbing pattern,” Mari agreed.
    “Why?” Alain asked. “Why must young Mages die, Mage Asha? Could you learn that?”
    “No one admitted to deliberately seeking the elimination or discrediting of those judged too young. You know what we were taught: that skill and wisdom alone determine whether one can be a Mage. No physical issue such as age should have any bearing on the matter, for all is illusion,” Asha explained. “Instead, I was told, sometimes those given Mage status are unwilling to accept guidance from their elders and thus lack sufficient wisdom. Sometimes they have yet to become themselves, their nature still in flux. Sometimes they are more prone to feelings, lacking enough self-control.”
    “How could those arguments be aimed at me or other young Mages?” Alain asked.
    “Focus not on the illusion of the words but on what they conceal,” Asha advised. “Turn those points about and you see what the elders reject. Who questions the wisdom of elders, Mage Alain? The young. Who changes the most in a short time as they age? The young. Who feels the changes of the body the most strongly as it grows, making self-control indeed more difficult? The young. Unpredictable. Questioning. Prey to the emotions given extra strength by the changes in their bodies.” Asha shook her head. “You, like other Mages deemed too young, were judged too likely to err, too likely to seek new answers, too likely to challenge the elders. And this is what you have done, though perhaps that only happened under the force of the elders’ attempts to eliminate you.”
    “Self-fulfilling prophecies,” Mari said, seeing both Mages turn questioning looks upon her. “That’s a saying for when you create the conditions that make a prediction come true. Your elders said that young Mages would fail, and then set them up to fail. Your elders believed that Alain would deviate from what they call wisdom, and they forced him into circumstances in which he did just that. So they were correct, because they did things to make themselves be correct.”
    Alain nodded to Mari. “Wisdom which justifies itself.”
    “But why not just admit those concerns?” Mari asked. “Why not say you need a certain level of maturity before you can be a Mage, whether it’s true or not? My Guild has done that, setting experience requirements in place that mean in the future no one else can be promoted as fast as I was, regardless of how well they master Mechanic arts.”
This time Alain shook his head. “The elders cannot admit such a thing. As Asha said, a fundamental aspect of the wisdom they teach is that the physical is irrelevant. Nothing is real.”
    “Wow,” Mari commented. “We’ve gone days without you saying nothing is real, and I haven’t missed it at all.”
    “But it is so by the wisdom Mages are taught,” Alain said. “If nothing is real, to say that the physical body in fact creates conditions which prevent anyone from being a Mage would be to undermine much of what they teach.”
    “As Mage Alain said in Severun,” Asha added, “the wisdom we were taught is lacking. The elders should examine where the errors lie and make changes, but instead they cling to what they know.”
    Mari couldn’t help a short, sardonic laugh. “Just like what Professor S’san and I talked about with the Senior Mechanics who control the Mechanics Guild. Different wisdom, but the same refusal to contemplate changes.”
    “Mari,” Alain said with a visibly surprised look, “the reasons Mage Asha gives for my elders moving against me are in part the same reasons your professor gave for your Guild’s hostility to you. There also