by Simon Archer
“You are in no position to be making demands, Madman,” Nadeine scoffed, pressing the flat edge of her sword into Viktor’s neck hard enough to make him choke.
“Very well,” Marinka said, standing up a little straighter and holding out a hand to hold Nadeine off. “Though I do agree you are in little position to negotiate, as a sign of good faith, I will assure you safe passage back to the kingdom for trial should you explain what you have done and restore our magic to us.”
Nadeine gaped at this. “You cannot be serious?” she asked incredulously. “Remember, princess, how many times he escaped capture before?”
“He will not escape us,” Marinka said, and there was certainty in her tone, but she shifted uncomfortably, displaying a crack in her confidence. “We have Leo now.”
“We had an entire kingdom’s worth of magi before,” Nadeine reminded her. Marinka’s discomfort showed on her face now, her brows furrowing together and wrinkles forming on the bridge of her nose. But then she stood up straight again, cleared her throat, and seemed to have made a decision.
“Even with the entire kingdom’s magi at our disposal, we did not have a mage of Leo’s strength,” she said. “And either way, I am in charge of this quest. My decision is final.”
“Very well,” Nadeine’s shoulders slumped at that, but she nodded curtly. “Tell us how you did it.” He erupted into laughter.
“As I said, I was born with different abilities than you,” he explained between cackles. I was getting the sense he really was mad like the forest elves claimed. “My connection to the magic was different, to be sure, but not deficient. I worked hard and was able to use my abilities to take away those of others.”
“Do you still have access to those abilities?” Nadeine asked, and I noticed the muscles in her arms and wrist tense, ready to strike against Viktor should he make a move.
“No, sadly, that was the price I paid. In order to lessen you, I had to lessen myself. But it was well worth it, in the end,” Viktor said, still laughing slightly under his breath.
“You don’t seem to be concerned,” I said, sweat dripping down my brow as I worked to hold the spell in place as I spoke. Even so, I was moved to speak by Viktor’s strange demeanor. “We’ve got you cornered, but you’re laughing and acting like your plan is still going perfectly.”
“So, is this the great mage about whom I have heard so much?” Viktor asked, perking up at the sound of my voice. “You do not look or sound all that powerful.”
“You seemed to feel otherwise a few moments ago,” I reminded him. He had no response to that. I saw a few particles of light fall off the edge of my mace, and I snapped my mouth shut, returning my whole focus to the spell.
“He is a great mage,” Nadeine snarled, bristling. “And you would do well to respond to his concerns.”
“I will be fine,” Viktor said simply. “One way or another. Certain assurances have been made.”
“You mean our assurances? Or someone else’s?” Nadeine asked. Viktor didn’t answer.
“If you will not answer these questions, you must answer our other ones, about how you took our magic,” Marinka said.
“Very well,” Viktor sighed, stretching his neck from side to side as much as he was able around Nadeine’s sword. “As I told you, my connection to our magic was… different from everyone else's. For some time, I viewed this as a curse, but I came to understand I could use it to my advantage.”
“But you still held it against the other kingdom elves that you couldn’t have what they had,” I said. It wasn’t a question. As many parallels as I saw between my own short-lived music career and Viktor’s troubled history with magic, I had never blamed others for my own inadequacies.
“True,” Viktor snarled, clearly annoyed by my observation. “I worked for some time on perfecting my technique in order to use it against the other elves and take away their magic. Or, at the very least, to diminish it to my level.”
“But how did you learn to take it away fully?” Marinka asked. “The man we spoke to whose magic you took was unable to use his magic as he once could, but he could create sparks and hum spells.” She gestured around at herself, Bernsten, and Nadeine. “We cannot even do that much.”
“Yes,” Viktor said, his voice snide. I could almost hear the curl of his lip. “My powers were limited to bringing others down to my level or just below it for some time, but I overcame that particular limitation, just as I did others.”
“And what do you mean by that?” Nadeine asked.
Viktor didn’t answer, but I noticed his head turn briefly in the direction of the spheres stacked against the wall off to our side.
“What are those?” Nadeine snapped. Viktor still did not respond.
“I believe I know what they are, Nadeine,” Marinka said, her voice trembling slightly.
“What?” Nadeine asked in the same sharp tone she had used with Viktor and swiveled her head around to face us. Marinka was staring at the spheres, and so was Bernsten. His eyes were wide, and I thought I saw recognition there. I looked from my friends to the spheres and back again until realization dawned on me.
“They’re orbs, aren’t they?” I asked, unable to stop myself, and I felt Freyja stiffen beside me at the word. “Like the ones the mountain elves used. The ones you told me about in the library at the training grounds.”
“Indeed,” Bernsten said, nodding, continuing to stare at the spheres. I could have sworn that the gray coloring inside them was moving ever so slightly, like looking at the sky on a cloudy day. “I believe they are, Leo Hayden.”
“You are more intelligent than you appear,” Viktor said, and he was more agitated now,
his voice shaking. Nadeine was staring at the orbs with wide eyes now, too, and she darted her attention back to Viktor when he spoke, tightening her grip on him and digging her sword down into the cut it had previously formed on his neck.
“What can they do?” she yelled, pulling Viktor’s head back so that it was pressed against the top of his chair. “Will they harm us?”
“Not on my command,” Viktor said, a sly smile crossing his face.
“What does that mean?” Nadeine asked. Her voice remained raised but was cracking in
fear. Viktor did not respond to her question. Instead, he addressed an earlier one.
“I studied the mountain elves for a long time when I worked in the royal castle,” he explained. “As is the case concerning the forest, the records there were incomplete, and often straight-out erroneous. But I recognized some of the inconsistencies and knew there was more to the story. I knew I had to visit the mountains. And I did just that after my breakthrough at the inn, taking away the children’s powers. Children are easier than adults, you see. Easier to make trust you, and easier to control. Additionally, their powers are not developed enough yet, making it easier to take them away.
“When I found the orbs, I learned to use them. I combined their power with that of my own and was able to erase all the kingdom’s magic. It was simple enough. No one had ever thought to combine our powers before. We were too busy seeking to destroy each other’s species. Of course, I destroyed my own magic, too. But I still had the orbs.”
“Is that how you took our resources?” Freyja asked, and Viktor flinched.
“Ah, yes, is this how you have been able to infiltrate my fortress?” he asked. “Enrolling the help of a forest elf?” He spat out the name of Freyja’s race as if it were a dirty word. “Why did I not think of this possibility? I suppose I did not imagine that you would find a way to cooperate. What did you do to force her into your service? Capture her? Threaten her children?”
“They are my friends,” Freyja said, stepping forward with fire in her tone. “I won their trust, and they won mine. They didn’t threaten me or anything. I wanted to help them.”
“I am genuinely touched,” Viktor drawled, dripping with sarcasm. “To answer your question, yes, that is how I drained this forest’s resources and took them for my
self. I may have lost my own magic when I took it away from you, but I have gained an aptitude for the mountain elves’ power. I must say, I find it far more pleasing than the frivolous ornamentation from which our people once drew their powers.” I clenched my fists at the insult. Music was far more than just pretty sounds. The kingdom elves’ magic was proof enough of that.
“If this magic is so weak, how come I can use it so well?” I asked, using my anger to gather more energy and channel it towards keeping my spell afloat. “How is it that I’ve been able to take out all your minions and break into your home? How is it that I can still use it when you can’t?”
“I must admit,” Viktor said slowly. “This, I do not know or understand. You have surprised me….” His voice trailed off, replaced by a series of choking sounds. Nadeine, on instinct, pulled her sword further away from his neck. But he didn’t take advantage of the opportunity, keeling over and continuing to choke.
“No… please… Master…” he hacked out with what little breath he had left as he fell to the floor and rolled over on his back. My companions and I all exchanged panicked looks and ran over to kneel at his side. But it was too late. With one last gasp, the remaining color in his face and lips drained away, replaced by a sickly blue color, and the life left his eyes.
“Leo, did you…?” Nadeine started to ask, but I cut her off, shaking my head.
“No,” I said, staring at Viktor’s lifeless corpse, and finally letting my mace fall away, though I still gripped my cello tightly, not wanting it to leave. The golden particles of light from the spell fell down to the ground, some of them sparkling on Viktor’s corpse. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Nor did I,” Nadeine said, looking down at her sword as if expecting it to confess to the crime.
“He said… ‘Master,’ did he not?” Bernsten asked, repeating Viktor’s last words.
“Yeah, I think so,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Freyja reaching for something on Viktor’s table. Bernsten kicked the corpse weakly, as if making sure he was really dead.
“Because he had one,” Freyja said. I turned to face her, and she was reading a piece of parchment: the object she had taken from Viktor’s table. Then, holding out the parchment to Marinka, “See?” Marinka took one side of the parchment in her hand while Freyja still held to the other. She scanned her eyes across the document.
“Indeed,” she said when she was finished, her face stricken. “It says that this person, whoever he is, knew that Viktor was planning to flee after he received word that we reached the center of the forest safely, and that if Viktor were to do so, this man would kill him.”
“I do not understand,” Bernsten said. “Who could this person possibly be?”
“A mountain elf,” I said, and as soon as the words came out, I was certain they were true. I could just feel it. It made sense.
“That is impossible,” Nadeine said, waving away my suggestion and shaking her head vigorously. “They are all long dead. Impossible.”
“Do not speak so soon, my friend,” Marinka said. “Listen to Leo.” She turned to face me.
“It just makes sense,” I said. “Where did he go after he left the kingdom? The mountains. And he’s been using their powers. How could he have learned all that by himself? How could he have come into contact with anyone else? The kingdom elves all hate him, and the forest elves just want to be left alone. It’s the only explanation.”
“It sounds right to me,” Freyja said. “None of us would have any kind of power over a mountain elf.”
“And none of the kingdom elves have had contact with him,” Marinka said.
“That we know of,” added Nadeine, still not wanting to buy into my suggestion.
“There is more, though,” Marinka said, holding out the parchment to Nadeine and Bernsten. “Look. It is a different dialect of writing. More like the mountain elves than ours.” Bernsten took the parchment from her and held it up so both he and his sister could read it.
“It is true,” Bernsten said when he finished, his face white. “The characters are slightly different.” Nadeine didn’t speak, just staring at the parchment and shaking her head in disbelief.
“Well, what now?” I asked, dropping my hand with my bow in it to my side. “How do we find this guy and get your magic back?”
“I do not know,” Bernsten said simply.
“I suppose we must venture into the mountains,” Marinka said.
“We cannot,” Nadeine said sharply. “That would be insanity.”
“Indeed,” Marinka agreed, nodding and failing to offer another suggestion.
“What about those?” I asked, pointing at the orbs.
“Were there not old stories about the mountain elves’ orbs?” Marinka asked, turning to Nadeine and Bernsten. “Tales that told of destroying them and counteracting their spells?”
“Indeed,” Nadeine said, furrowing her brows and nodding slowly. “I believe you are correct. There is an advanced spell for such a task.” At that, all eyes turned to me. I’d been memorizing all of the advanced spells as we traveled, but I hadn’t practiced all of them and weren’t sure what they were all supposed to do.
“Which one?” I asked, looking around at my companions. “I can’t read the descriptions, just the music.”
“It is fortunate then that I do know that spell,” Marinka said as she tapped her temple with one finger. “As royalty, it is one spell we were required to memorize, even if we could no longer do magic, so the knowledge would not be lost if it was needed.”
“What?” I asked hurriedly. “What did it look like?.”
“It had symbols like these,” Marinka said, moving her hands in the air to demonstrate. I nodded slowly, following along.
“Okay, I think I’ve got it,” I said after I watched her draw out the spell in the air several times. “Let me try it.”
I placed my bow back on my strings and prepared to play again. I stared at the orbs and began to play. It was the most complicated etude I had learned, set in a B-minor key signature, and relying a lot on harmonic notes.
As I played, particles of golden light appeared all throughout the room, coalescing together in patterns that looked vaguely like planets rotating around each other. The patterns spun around the room and then shot one by one into the orbs as I played through the etude, overtaking the gray cloud-like pattern inside them and replacing it with the golden light.
As I entered the latter third of my second run-through of the etude, the orbs started to shake, creating rattling sounds. Then, slowly but surely, they exploded, releasing the light back out into the room and cascading shards of glass down around us, creating a bell-like sound as they hit the floor. And yet somehow, the glass didn’t harm us. It just rolled off of our bodies and to the ground.
When I finished playing, I stood, and my cello disappeared. My entire body was tingling, more than it ever had before when I performed magic. It felt like my bones were buzzing, almost. I raised my hands to my face and saw that tiny golden sparkles were all around them in the air. I looked around at my friends and saw that Nadeine, Bernsten, and Marinka were experiencing the same thing, as they were holding their sparking hands to their faces. But it wasn’t just their hands that were sparkling, but all of them. I lifted the bottom of my robes to reveal my leg and saw that it was happening to all of me as well. After a few minutes, the tingling and the light disappeared.
“I feel… powerful,” Bernsten said, still staring at his hands as he clenched and unclenched his fists.
“I as well,” Nadeine said.
“And I,” added Marinka. “I believe our magic has been returned to us.”
“Indeed,” Nadeine said. “Leo, please sing us a simple spell.”
I did so, selecting a spell for cleaning that was a simple, straightforward C major scale. As I hummed, golden cleaning supplies, including a mop, a broom, and a duster, appeared all around me, and when I was finished, the room was spotless and sparkling, far more so
than any other time I had used it. My powers had gotten better.
Nadeine closed her eyes and repeated the scale. It wasn’t perfect, and she had a lot of work to do to learn how to cast the spell properly, but some puffs of golden light appeared in the air before her. She opened her eyes just in time to see the last one and yelped, jumping up and down in the air.
“It has worked, it has worked!” she exclaimed. “We have retrieved our magic. It has worked! Thank you, Leo.” At that, she ran to me and threw her arms around me, squeezing tightly. It was the closest I’d ever been to her, and she’d never shown so much emotion at once before, so I was surprised, but I returned the hug. Heat rushed to my cheeks and buried my face in her dark hair to hide them.
“No problem,” I mumbled, not knowing what else to say. Before I knew it, Bernsten and Marinka were also hugging me. I looked up over their heads to see that Freyja had run from the room. I broke away from the kingdom elves and rushed after her out into the forest. My companions followed me.
I pushed through the entrance doors to the fortress to find Freyja and dozens of other forest elves standing outside and staring up at the trees. I followed their gaze and was shocked to find that the deadness on this side of the forest was gone, replaced by the same vibrancy of life I had become accustomed to before we reached the center. The trees’ leaves were bright green again, and the bark was no longer peeling. Hints of early morning sunlight crept in through the ceiling of leaves and branches. Even better, birds sang in the trees and rabbits, chipmunks, and other animals darted across the path in front of us. All of Viktor’s spells had been reversed, and both the kingdom and the forest elves had gotten their lives back. Freyja turned to face me, and I was surprised to find there were tears in her usually hard eyes.
“Thank you, Leo,” she said, rushing forward and taking my hands in hers. “Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, meeting her eyes and reaching up to wipe one of the tears away. She smiled at me.
“Well done, my friend,” Bernsten said, coming up behind me and clapping me between the shoulder blades. “Well done.”
