The Dragon Gate (The Dragon Gate Series Book 1)

by Randy Ellefson

  Matt reluctantly put down Soliander’s bag and followed the elf for his first magic lesson, dying to know what he could do. Wouldn’t it be great if he could fly, teleport, stop time, or best of all, make women fall for him not with a spell, but from admiration? A gleam appeared in his green eyes, excitement overcoming his caffeine withdrawal. Maybe he could make a cup of coffee appear, too.

  “What’s the plan?” he asked, carrying the staff.

  “We will abide by the traditional approach, albeit accelerated,” Lorian replied. “You will have my assistance on this quest, but if we are to assume your substitution for the true champions is perpetual, you must advance quickly but safely to perform on your own.”

  “Of course,” Matt agreed. He had no desire to turn himself into a statistic, if such a thing existed for wizards who’d accidentally killed themselves. He wondered if a census bureau existed for that.

  “I will explain the fundamentals of magic before you attempt to summon power from your staff.”

  “I thought magic items had the magic, not the person using it, so all you need to know is how to turn it on.” He hadn’t gotten any of his items to do anything yet, though he hadn’t tried much, afraid to learn what they did the hard way and become that statistic. They hadn’t come with owner’s manuals.

  Lorian nodded as they turned into another wing. “That is generally true, but wizards often make their own items more powerful, and if one fell into an untrained person’s hands, it would be more dangerous, so for a staff like Soliander’s, you must be able to summon the magic within or nothing will happen. This is true of most of his items, save those your friends have.”

  That surprised Matt. “They have magic items with them? Well, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Hadn’t thought of that. I wonder if there’s a way to tell what the items are and what each does. But you say they can’t use my staff?”

  “Generally, no. However, it possesses simple spells anyone can access, such as casting light.”

  That made sense. The others hadn’t been tested and Matt wondered if they’d show any promise, especially Anna, though Eriana’s healing wasn’t magic but a matter of faith and allowing the gods to use oneself as a vessel. She probably hated the idea.

  “If work with the staff goes well,” continued Lorian, “I’ll teach you simple spells.”

  “Does that require me to read them?” Matt wondered. “I can’t read elven or magic.”

  “When we reach that point, I’ll cast spells to grant reading, writing, and speaking skill of those. The spell to do so for magic is very rarely cast because those who have earned the knowledge do not generally give it to those who have not.”

  “I bet,” mused Matt, eager to reach that point. This was going to be cool.

  While the boys received lessons, Anna contemplated their situation from a comfortable wooden chair in the ever-present garden. Today was training day and yet no one had plans for her. She wasn’t expected to fight, thankfully, but healing hadn’t come up either. Her friends not mentioning it didn’t bother her, since they knew her inclinations, but the elves hadn’t either. Had Eric told Lorian she was an atheist and not to bother with training her to channel gods she didn’t believe in? She didn’t want to be considered just baggage and unable to help. Worse, she’d be a distraction if they had to protect her all the time. Maybe she should just stay behind.

  She sat biting her lip when the dwarf Rognir noisily approached, stomping on the loose gravel, metal items hanging from his belt clinking together. Judging from this dwarf, the race seemed as surly and grumpy as legend allowed. She’d picked up on an idea that elves and dwarves from different planets weren’t the same, so she’d asked a few questions and learned that they preferred living underground beneath mountains, tunneling deep into them for pleasure and treasure, neither shared with outsiders. Humans often relied on the legendary stonecutting skills when building castles like Olliana.

  “Mind if I join you, lass?” Rognir gruffly asked, voice so loud that he disturbed a flock of birds that took off en masse. He looked almost offended.

  “Not at all,” Anna replied, stifling a smile. Rognir hadn’t been here long enough to know of her disposition on gods and healing, so she asked, “Do you know how people do healing here?”

  Rognir pulled a pipe from a pouch. “The usual way, my dear. Pray to the gods and lay your hands on the person needing healing.”

  “Why does it work?”

  He looked sideways at her. “Pardon me for asking, but shouldn’t you know these things?”

  “No, not really,” she started, smoothing her priestess’ robe and wishing once again she didn’t have to wear it. “That sort of healing doesn’t exist on Earth. We do it with medicine or surgery.” He looked dubious.

  “Why doesn’t such healing work there?” Rognir asked. “Are your gods so displeased with your people that they do not answer?”

  “No,” Anna answered. “God doesn’t exist.”

  He frowned. “Your gods don’t exist? Why do people talk of them?”

  She shrugged. “Mostly to make themselves feel better. People like to believe a divine being has a plan for them and that the bad things in their lives are not random, but will ultimately bear positive fruit. The idea gives them hope, but they’re just reading what they want to believe into things and telling themselves it’s God’s will.”

  He nodded, the long beard rubbing across his plump belly. “Yes, humans are especially prone to interpreting everything. Sometimes a misfortune is just a misfortune, like a tree falling to block a road because it’s old, not to thwart your travel plans.”

  “Exactly,” she agreed emphatically, hazel eyes bright. It was always a relief to talk with someone rational about these things.

  “But other times it is the will of a god,” continued the dwarf. “It can be hard to tell when they act through intermediaries. How many gods are believed to exist on your world?”

  “Just the one,” she replied. “It wasn’t always that way, though. The Greeks and Romans believed in many gods, but those religions have long since passed. What always strikes me is that once people stopped talking of them, the belief slowly died. Now most believe in one god, and talk about Him constantly, but if they stopped, down the road it would be accepted as fact that He never existed either. It’s weird to me that more people don’t see that.”

  He nodded sagely. “People often see what they want to see. Since these gods of yours are not real, they do not appear to people, I assume.”

  “Right. Sometimes people have what they call ‘visions’ of God, but there’s no proof they aren’t just delusional. Even so, it is exceptionally rare.”

  “Some gods keep to themselves,” admitted Rognir, “so not appearing doesn’t necessarily mean the god doesn’t exist. Do you think that if people had more faith in this god of yours that he’d be more likely to appear?”

  She shook her head. “No, because many people devoutly believe in God and yet He does not appear.” She shrugged and added, “Mostly because he’s not real.”

  “How are you so certain he is not real?”

  Anna spread her hands. “There’s no real unbiased proof He’s any more real than any other notion of gods on Earth. See, the prevailing idea is that having faithin God’s existence and plans for you is what’s really important, so He purposely doesn’t appear.”

  Rognir furrowed his brow. “What purpose does that serve?”

  “I don’t know. None, really, unless you consider that God isn’t real at all and therefore faith in Him does indeed become everything.”

  The dwarf nodded, brow furrowed.

  She continued, “Many religious leaders try to keep people from seeing this by discouraging such thoughts. They say things like people can’t possibly understand the ways of a god, so we shouldn’t ask such questions. If you’re a humble person, you accept Him on faith, and to question is to be arrogant and therefore unworthy of God’s benevolence. It’s a social manipulation tactic, basic
ally.”

  Warming up to her subject, she added, “If the priests were as benevolent as they pretend, they wouldn’t need to use fear and coercion to make people believe. And why should belief be so important? Either God exists or He doesn’t. Why does my belief matter? If I stop believing in Him, do I make Him disappear?”

  Rognir grunted. “Fascinating. I’ve never heard of anything like that with gods, on this or any other world. Ours is a simpler scenario. Our gods simply show up as they desire.”

  That surprised her. “So then they really do exist?”

  “Of course.”

  That set her back a bit. “How many are there?”

  He puffed on his pipe. “On Honyn, the humans have fourteen, while we dwarves have nine. The elves have twenty-two. You’ll find it is different on other worlds.”

  “Interesting. Are there any worlds where the gods never appear?”

  “No,” Rognir admitted. “I’ve never heard of that until you mentioned it, but there are worlds where they are quite fickle and only show up every thousand years or so, sometimes on cue.”

  Anna found that interesting but had trouble accepting people would expect her to call on the gods to heal them. A total lack of sincerity on her part would doom any attempts like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If she didn’t believe, they wouldn’t show, confirming her disbelief.

  “How does a priest heal someone?” Anna asked again. “I know you said they call on the gods – a specific one, I assume – and touch the injured person, but what else can you tell me?”

  He pursed his lips, thinking. “You must be familiar with the gods, their teachings, and personality, and have some affinity or love for what they represent. They can sense this when you call upon them and it influences their decision to help. If you only intend to call upon one god, that’s the only one you must know intimately. It’s best if you’ve spent some time speaking with this god first. Some gods, even benevolent ones, can be capricious. Have you been told the names of the gods here?”

  Anna paused, realizing that was probably in the scroll she’d refused to look at. She confessed.

  “You should read it,” he advised, “if for no other reason than to make conversation with those wanting your advice. I can counsel you as we continue.”

  “You seem to know a lot about this.”

  He winked at her. “That’s because I’m somewhat of a priest myself, lass, though my skills are meager.”

  Anna wished she’d known that before and wondered if she’d offended him at all, but she didn’t think so. She’d been careful to discuss only God on Earth, not gods in general. She’d admitted her atheism in front of the wrong people before and had some turn on her rather nastily. Even less devout Christians could turn ugly over that. She called herself a “benevolent atheist,” meaning she didn’t go around denouncing believers. Sometimes she wondered if that was a mistake. If religions could crusade, maybe atheists should, too.

  She decided to look at the religious scroll after all and left Rognir behind in a growing cloud of smoke from his pipe. On returning to their suite, she found Eric leaving for a swordsmanship lesson with Morven, Ryan sitting in a chair, looking bored.

  “While everyone else is busy,” she started, “can you give me a riding lesson?”

  Eric spent the next hour learning to swing a short sword properly, focusing on defense, since avoiding death took precedence. To his surprise, the training included footwork that came easier with his background in martial arts, so the elf quickly focused on just the sword. Before long Eric’s hand hurt from the grip twisting in his palm as the force of Morven’s attack made it shift. He’d learned some basic skills that were in desperate need of refinement, and the elf had him work with his non-dominant hand, too. Morven dismissed him to give his hands a break. Eric left with his thanks and a promise to resume later.

  As he neared the suite, he noticed the door was ajar and stopped short, the hackles on the back of his neck rising. Strange voices came from within. Something was wrong.

  Lorian led Matt to an octagonal room with tall granite walls, a domed ceiling with two open windows, and a single, thick, mahogany door, which he closed but did not lock; there was a thick beam that could be lowered to do so. This was the first fortified room Matt had seen here, most others having no locks at all. Arundell reminded him of simpler times in the U.S. when people didn’t lock their front doors, the degree of trust refreshing.

  “This room affords supernatural protection through magical wards,” the elf remarked, leading him to the center, where two red cushions lay on the floor. “Most are denied entrance here, but today we will allow it, as your talents are unknown.”

  “So if I put us in danger,” Matt surmised wryly, “you want people to get in and save us?”

  “Something like that,” replied Lorian lightly. They sat on the cushions as a robin flew in and landed on a ledge. “You must understand where magic comes from or you’re no different from those using magic items, except more dangerous. Magic is inherently perilous, so we use prescribed means to perform it.”

  “Spells,” Matt guessed.

  “Correct. Spells can be fundamentally different on other worlds, but here a spell is a combination of words, gestures, and on rare occasions, physical matter. Not all are necessary. A spell’s outcome is either failure or success. There’s no accidental outcome unless only force of will is applied, which is why this is ill-advised. Magic draws energy from both living and inanimate objects nearby, another way people can be hurt, so spells control and reduce side effects. In addition, the wizard’s strength, skill, and talent determine the power of a successful cast. A staff can assist and protect against catastrophe.”

  The elf said, “You must learn to draw on this magical energy to make Soliander’s staff react. We’ll start with bringing light to the orb. The staff’s optional word of power will help and is needed for stronger effects.”

  “What’s the word?”

  “Enumisar.” At Lorian’s indication, Matt stood the staff on one end, the orb above them.

  Lorian advised, “Close your eyes. Reach out with your senses.” The advice continued quietly as Matt searched, sensing nothing at first, but then like a light appearing in the darkness, a warmth glowed nearby. He yearned and it grew stronger, nearer, warmer. His heart pounded with a sudden desire and fear.

  “Speak the word of power,” Lorian whispered, watching in approval.

  “Enumisar,” Matt intoned. The word echoed in his mind, spreading outward to reach the force, from where a brief flicker washed back over him, making contact. He smiled like a boy getting his first kiss. He looked and saw a soft, yellow glow filling the orb, the faintest flame flickering there.

  The elf looked pleased. “Few succeed on the first try. You have made contact, but not enough. Let your will flow. Embrace the touch.”

  With Lorian’s endorsement, Matt closed his eyes and again reached into the power, immersing himself in a kind of spiritual energy bath. He grinned and let himself go, casting caution to the wind. “Enumisar!” Matt repeated lustily, his voice hoarse. Suddenly the force rushed into him. A huge fountain of fire erupted from the staff’s crystal with a whoosh, a wave of heat blasting them from above and setting Lorian’s cloak on fire. Matt yelped and rolled away, breaking contact and dropping the staff, the flames dying. Lorian snuffed out the fire on him.

  Startled, Matt asked, “Did I do that?”

  “You most certainly did.” Lorian looked impressed but concerned. And slightly ruffled.

  Awestruck, Matt said, “Wow. That was cool.”

  Lorian raised an eyebrow. “On the contrary it was quite hot.”

  Matt chuckled at the misunderstanding.

  “We must work on your control,” said the elf, sternly.

  Chagrined, the young wizard said, “Sorry.” His throat felt parched and his skin seemed dry. Either it was the heat or he’d drawn too much energy from himself.

  Lorian licked his dry lips. “Now you understa
nd the need for control, especially with your potential.”

  Matt nodded. “Please teach me.”

  The elf gestured to the cushion. “Resume your seat.”

  As Matt moved to do so, movement caught his eye and Lorian followed his gaze. Something lay smoldering on the floor. They approached to find the robin lying there, feathers singed and smoking. Lorian was about to say something when the robin abruptly turned into a raven. Matt’s eyebrows rose. The bird moved slightly, not quite dead, and soon morphed into a falcon.

  Lorian remarked in surprise, “A changeling spy! Your presence here is known.”

  Matt stared at the bird, concerned. “Maybe it’s good that it won’t live to tell anyone.”

  “An oversight on my part. I apologize.”

  “No harm done, I guess.”

  “Perhaps,” answered Lorian as the bird stopped moving. “Someone still knows you’re here.”

  “But now we know that someone knows, at least.”

  “True, but not who.”

  The elf called for a messenger to alert the staff but otherwise resumed the lesson as planned. Other elven wizards here could see to the manor’s defense and the incident only strengthened Matt’s resolve to achieve something today.

  The instruction continued for several hours with Matt proving an apt and enthusiastic student. Years of analytical thinking from writing software code helped him grasp details and techniques. Finally, Lorian cast two spells on him so he could permanently read elven and magic languages. After Matt commented on wanting to read the spell books, with an eager gleam in his eyes, the elf doused some of the fun by instructing him to memorize two spells for their second session later that afternoon. It would keep him busy and out of trouble.

  Eric stood quietly by the door to their rooms, hearing two strange voices just inside, one sounding somehow distant, as if farther away than was possible in their rooms. The other sounded quiet, respectful, but somehow unnerving. Silently stepping to the opening, the rogue cautiously peered inside. A figure in elven clothing stood with its back to him, gazing into a black orb it held aloft. Soliander’s bag of books had been spread about on a table and rifled through. While Eric couldn’t see the figure’s face, the black hair streaked with white was unmistakable.