Ultimate Mage

by Simon Archer

“I will accompany you to the forges, Nadeine,” I said with a smile. “I’d like to see them.”

  Nadeine grunted as she turned back to her food, and I took this to be permission.

  “Do either of you wish to join us?” I asked, turning to Bernsten and Marinka.

  “Bernsten and I must return to practice, Leo,” Marinka answered, “but thank you for the invitation. I wish I could accompany you.” She smiled at me, and I felt my face grow warm. That happened a lot around Marinka, I realized.

  “Yes, we must go to learn more drills.” Bernsten was clearly excited about the prospect. “I am learning even more than I ever did in the royal military here. It is excellent. I wish we could stay longer.”

  “You don’t need to go back?” I asked Nadeine. She just glowered at me in response.

  “I’m afraid my sister is not welcome to return to the training room on this day, Leo Hayden,” Bernsten said, chuckling. “She is to get a new sword first, as well as, what did the drill sergeant say, sister? A new attitude?”

  “Oh, dear,” Marinka said. “Do not bring this up again Bernsten, I beg you.”

  “Oh, God, what did you do?” I asked Nadeine.

  She didn’t answer. She just continued to eat and redirected her glowering at her plate for some reason.

  “I’m afraid my sister became very irate when she did not perform up to her own expectations in scrimmages this morning,” Bernsten said, laughing even harder now.

  “They were very lofty expectations,” Marinka added, looking at Nadeine with kindness. “Not attainable in reality, I do not think.”

  “It was the sword’s fault,” Nadeine yelled as she slammed her fist into the table, tipping her half-full glass of milk over and into her food. Bernsten snorted his own drink, and liquid came oozing out of his nose while he laughed so hard he had to hold his gut.

  “I mean, I’m sure it wasn’t that bad,” I said, looking at Bernsten and Nadeine with what I guessed was a bemused expression on my face.

  “Oh, it was not, Leo, you are correct,” Marinka said hastily. “She was still the best swordsman there today, as was to be expected.”

  “Yes, but her reaction was truly that awful,” Bernsten managed between continued fits of laughter. Nadeine, having mopped up most of the milk from the table and the front of her armor, slammed her napkin down on the table, glaring at her brother.

  “Come, Leo,” she said. “It is time for me to rectify this situation.”

  “Uh, what does that mean?” I asked, imagining Nadeine marching back into the training room uninvited and making a scene.

  “Do not worry.” She rolled her eyes. “I only mean that it is time to go to the forges.”

  “Ah, gotcha. Sounds good, then,” I said. As we left, Bernsten continued to laugh, at one point so hard that he began to choke. Marinka slapped him hard between the shoulders, and he seemed to be on the mend.

  “That bad, huh?” I asked Nadeine.

  “I do not wish to speak of it,” she said, but I could see the ghost of a smile appearing on the corner of her lips.

  The forges were across the wide-open field that bordered the training grounds. The grass was long and the brightest green I had ever seen, and I breathed in deeply and stretched as we walked, enjoying the fresh air and sunlight. Nadeine wasn’t all that talkative, but I told her all about my training session with Anil and Siara. She seemed pleased that I had made so much progress but was clearly still in a foul mood.

  When we reached the forges, I was surprised to see that the building was very low to the ground.

  “How am I going to fit in there?” I asked. “It’s shorter than I am.”

  “Indeed it is,” Nadeine said, sizing me up. “You will have to stoop to enter the doorway, but this is not the forge itself. That is underground.”

  “Underground?” I repeated, unsure if I had heard her correctly.

  “Yes,” she said. “Much like with our water supply, it is practical for us to have our forges underground. It is closer to our resources and easier for the blacksmiths to garner the heat they need to make these weapons.”

  “You said that before you lost your magic, there weren’t any weapons,” I said. “Does that mean there didn’t use to be forges?”

  “That is correct, Leo,” she said, nodding. “This building did not exist before, though we have always had to travel underground in search of resources so that we did not have a need to venture into the forest, or even worse, the mountain regions. But no, we had no need for weapons before.”

  “So did you have forges for other kinds of metal, or just not for weapons?” I asked, thinking of all of the gold I had seen during my short time in the kingdom.

  “Oh no,” Nadeine said. “We used magic to shape our metal before, so there was no need for such specialized buildings.”

  “So, what happens if we do it?” I asked.

  “How do you mean?” she asked, looking at me quizzically. “I do not understand your question.”

  “I mean, what if the quest goes well and your people do get your magic back?” I asked, clarifying for her.

  “Ah.” She turned to look at the forges’ entrance, her brow furrowed. “That is an excellent question, Leo. I… had not thought of that before. I do not know what will happen. Much of our economy and our way of life have adapted to living without our magic. It will be an adjustment, to be sure, but a welcome one, I suppose.”

  With that, we entered the forges. I did have to stoop down to enter, but it didn’t last long since the stairwell at the entrance went downwards, not upwards, and I was surprised to find the interior quite spacious.

  It was more like being outside than inside, spatially speaking. The “room” was enormous, with no walls in sight, and the ground was made of dirt, not carpet or wood. Looking out into the distance, I noticed that the ground sloped increasingly downwards. As for color, my surroundings had a rusty hue to them, and there were rocks lining the path before us. The air had a musty quality to it. I didn’t see anyone else there, but that didn’t bother Nadeine. She walked forward with purpose.

  “Do you know where we’re going?” I asked.

  “Yes, I’ve been here once before,” she said. “Though I have never had a weapon made for me here.” She led me down a rocky path until I could see a collection of elves in the distance. One noticed us and walked over to us. He was a young kingdom elf, probably around Nadeine’s age, and was also wearing armor, though his was heavier and bulkier than hers or the others’ I’d seen in armor. He had the characteristic jet black hair and green eyes of the other kingdom elves, but his hair was longer than the other males’ and more tangled. Much like everyone else I met, he was eyeing me up and down carefully.

  “Welcome to the forges,” he said. “I am Edan. How may I help you today?”

  “I am in urgent need of a new sword,” Nadeine said, “and we are short on time. We come from the royal castle on a quest for the high council.”

  “Of course,” Edan said, bowing his head to her. “I am at your service and will do anything I can to aid you in your noble cause. I also extend my thanks to you and your companions for your service to our people.” He looked at me as he spoke that last part.

  “No problem.” I scratched the back of my head awkwardly. I never knew what to say when the elves talked to me like this. At least he seemed to take this to be an appropriate response, nodding again.

  “Come, follow me,” he said, gesturing for us to walk next to him. “Have you visited our forges before?”

  Nadeine said, “Yes,” and I said, “No,” at the same time. Edan laughed.

  “Well,” he told me as we walked, “this is the greatest forge in all of Eviorah. Outside of perhaps the mountain regions, of course, but they serve no one now.”

  “The mountain elves used weapons?” I asked curiously.

  “Oh, yes,” Nadeine explained. “They were highly proficient swordsmen. Even with the power of their orbs, they had to match our magic with strength of
their own.”

  “Indeed,” Edan said. “They had excellent forges, and their mountains provided excellent, hospitable terrain for making weaponry. We have modeled our own forges after theirs.”

  That prompted another thought in my head. “Why don’t you just use theirs if the mountain elves are all dead?”

  “A good question,” Edan said thoughtfully. “The mountain regions are very far from us. It would not be practical to have our forges there, nor would many kingdom elves be willing to live there in order to work so far from their homes. In addition, we consider it a very bad omen to associate with the mountain regions. Evil lurks there, even though its masters are long dead.”

  As Edan spoke, we arrived in an area where the ground’s sloping ebbed, and hundreds of elves in similar heavy armor to Edan’s worked at crafting armor and weaponry. The air was heavy and hot, and molten lava flowed through an aqueduct-like system of pipes into the elves’ workstations. Blocks of heavy metal were interspersed throughout the area. Loud, ringing clanking noises chimed around us.

  “This looks… really hard,” I commented as I watched the elves work, their brows dripping with sweat.

  “It is difficult work,” Edan acknowledged, “but we enjoy it. It is rewarding to craft weapons and armor for our kingdom’s defense.” There was an edge of pride in his voice.

  “But if you haven’t been to war in centuries, and when you were at war, you used magic instead of weapons, why do you spend so much time and energy on defense?” I asked. “I thought you said the mountain elves were gone, and the forest elves didn’t really care about the rest of the realm.” It just seemed like a bit of a waste of time and resources to me to spend so much time and money on weapons and defense when they didn’t have any known enemies posing an immediate threat to them.

  “Another good question,” Edan said, furrowing his brow. His voice trailed off, and he didn’t seem to have an answer. Nadeine stepped up to make the save, though.

  “Though the mountain elves are long gone, we have known for centuries that we still have enemies, Leo,” she said as she turned to me, speaking for the first time since we arrived in the clearing area.

  “You mean Viktor?” I asked pointedly.

  “Yes,” she said. “When our magic disappeared, we knew that we had an enemy. And without magic, we also knew that we had no real way of defending ourselves against any new threats.”

  “But he hasn’t attacked you or anything since then, right?” I asked. “So why worry so much about him?”

  “He took our magic,” she said simply.

  “Okay, yeah,” I continued as I rubbed the back of my neck, “and I get that that really sucks. If someone told me that I could never play music again, even just for fun, I would be really upset.” I gestured around the room, towards the hard-working craftsmen. “But you guys have seemed to rebuild fine. You just have different abilities, now. It seems like you’ve already kind of beat Viktor. I mean, if he wanted to destroy you, wouldn’t he have attacked already? Plus, he’s just one guy. It seems like you already won and are still the most powerful people in your world.”

  “These things are true,” Nadeine admitted, “but I don’t think you understand, Leo. Our realm has never been peaceful like your world--”

  “My world had war,” I quickly pointed out.

  “Not fought in your home,” she said. “At least not on a regular basis. We have never had peace in our realm. To not prepare to defend ourselves would be against our very nature. Is your world not the same? Do you have no military in peacetime?”

  “I hadn’t thought of it like that,” I said. “I guess that makes sense. It just seems like a lot to me.” I gestured out at the elves working in the forges.

  “It is no matter,” Nadeine said. “Most in our kingdom make their living the peaceful way. Working fields, refining their crafts, selling food, baking bread, or helping run our government. You only see a small part of our lives because of your purpose here, Leo.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense,” I admitted. If our quest went well, and I stayed in Eviorah, I’d have to make a point to see the other parts of the kingdom and talk to some other kinds of people.

  Edan led us to his workstation towards the middle of the clearing. The molten lava looked really cool, and I had to resist the urge to reach out and run my hand through it as if it were water. That urge disappeared pretty quickly, though, when my hand got too close to the lava and was burned a bit by the heat emanating from it.

  “Agh,” I cried out, pulling my hand up instinctively to cover my cheek.

  “Be careful, Leo Hayden,” Edan said, chuckling a bit under his breath. “The fire will bite you if you let it.”

  “Can you make me a new sword, blacksmith?” Nadeine asked, turning to Edan.

  “Of course, may I inspect your current blade?” Edan asked.

  Nadeine pulled out her replacement sword with a look of annoyance and handed it to Edan. “I do not want one like this.”

  “What about this blade do you find unsuitable?” Edan asked.

  “I… do not know,” Nadeine said, looking confused and a bit pained. “It does not suit me as well as my own.”

  “What happened to that sword?” Edan asked.

  “Leo Hayden shattered it with his magic,” Nadeine said, glancing over at me.

  Edan arched his eyebrows and looked at me, seeming to size me up all over again. “Indeed? Then the tales we have heard are true? You are a true mage? You can bring us back our magic?”

  “They are true, and we believe he can,” Nadeine said.

  “You must have very powerful magic, indeed, Leo Hayden, to be able to shatter a kingdom elf’s sword,” Edan said in awe before turning his attention back to Nadeine. “As for your blade, I will run some test options by you. We will try many different materials, weights, shapes, and sizes. We will find what is right for you, do not despair.”

  “Thank you, Edan,” Nadeine said, bowing her head to him.

  Edan handed Nadeine several swords, and she tried each of them, stepping away from Edan’s workstation and going through a series of swings and other battle moves. She was a fierce and elegant fighter, I realized, and I was glad to have her on my team. Finally, after careful consideration, Nadeine selected the blade that she found most suitable to her needs and style.

  Edan nodded and took it from her.

  “It was not a perfect fit,” Nadeine said, eyeing the sword hesitantly.

  “Of course not,” Edan said thoughtfully. “I expected as much, but I have observed your fighting now and am well-positioned to design a blade for you. We may make further modifications if necessary.”

  “How long do you expect this to take?” Nadeine asked.

  “I will expedite your blade to the front of my work pile,” Edan said. “We need you on your quest as quickly as possible. I am well aware. Come back tomorrow evening and check on my progress.”

  “I will,” Nadeine said. “And thank you.”

  We all bowed our heads to each other, and Nadeine and I turned to leave, heading back to the training grounds to rejoin our companions.

  10

  I awoke the next morning to the sound of Bernsten knocking on my door.

  “Oi!” he called through the door. “Leo Hayden, it is time for me to destroy you in battle.”

  “We’ll just have to see about that,” I shouted back. I climbed out of bed, freshened up a bit, and pulled my robes over my head. After a few minutes of preparation, I clambered to the door and found Bernsten standing outside, grinning in his customary suit of armor.

  “Are you prepared for what is to come?” the elf asked.

  “Are you?” I retorted, returning his grin.

  “I have been preparing for such glory my entire life,” he said, his voice booming out through the corridor as he knocked a hand between my shoulder blades in his characteristic greeting, his armor clanking together as he did so. As we walked, he placed his hand on the hilt of his long, broad sword hang
ing at his side.

  “Watch out, or I’ll break your sword, too,” I chided.

  “Oh, I will not allow such an event,” Bernsten said, looking unconcerned. “I will be fine, Leo Hayden. You will not catch me unawares like you did with my sister.”

  “We’ll just have to see about that,” I said, secretly glad the forges were right across the road.

  Together, we nabbed a quick breakfast. Who wanted to do a bunch of sparring and training on an empty stomach? Once we were ready to go, we moved on to the training room, where we found Anil and Siara waiting for us expectantly.

  “As we explained yesterday, Leo,” Siara began, “we think it best for you to test your skills against a trained warrior today.”

  “Excellent!” Bernsten rubbed his hands together and eyed me with an exaggerated evil expression.

  Anil ushered the young warrior over to one of the circles and had him stand across from me in a combat stance. As soon as he stepped into the circle, Bernsten’s goofy expression and easy-going demeanor disappeared, replaced by a grim determination and an impenetrable stoicism.

  I realized I’d only ever seen Nadeine in combat before, not her brother. I guess I hadn’t really been able to picture my friend, who was usually so carefree and happy, as an impassionate soldier following orders. It was a bit jarring, but in a way, it made me feel better about our impending journey into the forest to know that I had not one, but two trained and dedicated knights fighting beside me.

  I positioned myself across from Bernsten in the circle and quickly ran through all the combat spells I knew in my head, trying to remember all of the scales and variations and which combat style they were meant to counter.

  Before I knew it, Bernsten was lunging at me with his sword. Instinctively, I jumped out of the way to avoid him, the thrust just barely missing. I gathered myself in the split second I had to spare before he came after me again, and this time, I caught the telltale tensing of muscles before he swiped at me from my left. Before he could carry through, I hummed the appropriate spell, a fairly straightforward D minor scale, and the golden light appeared, creating a curved shield around my left flank. Bernsten’s sword clanged against it and bounced back towards his face.