Draggah

by Toby Neighbors

  “How much of the book did he possess?” Leonosis asked.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Don’t toy with me, old man,” Leonosis warned. “I have no patience for your lies.”

  “It was perhaps the first chapter. The book wasn’t very big. And perhaps the last chapter.”

  Leonosis stood up and rubbed his forehead. The old man’s story agreed with what Robere had told him. The elderly servant said he saw an ancient looking book fragment on Tiberius’ desk. Tiberius claimed the book was from the temple, but Leonosis’ spies at the temple didn’t know anything about Tiberius using old books. The real question was how much Tiberius could possibly have learned from the book.

  “When did this happen?” Leonosis asked.

  “A week before your brother was banished,” the man said.

  A week wasn’t much time, Leonosis thought. But that meant that Tiberius could have learned something. Then a realization struck him from out of the blue. The Graypee attack. The city believed that Leonosis had rescued Rafe and killed two of the legendary creatures, but in fact it was Tiberius who had saved his friend. Leonosis had never thought Tiberius was up for that sort of challenge, but if he was already wielding magic, he would have been much more formidable.

  “Is there another copy of this book?” Leonosis asked.

  “No, my lord, I swear it.”

  “Have you told anyone else about this? Anyone at all, your wife, your lover perhaps?”

  “No, sire, I have no family and very few friends,” Ennis said. “I would never tell anyone.”

  “Make sure he’s telling the truth,” Leonosis said to his spies. “And find out more about the girl.”

  “Her name was Lexi,” said one of the spies. He was large with a thick black beard. “She stole some items during the King’s visit. Before that, she did mainly contract work. The people that knew her said she was elusive. She didn’t confide in people and didn’t seem to trust anyone. There are rumors that she killed two other brigands, but no real proof. The men were thieves, their deaths attributed to foul play, but the Paladins didn’t look very hard for the killer.”

  “Yes, just disposed of the bodies and considered Avondale a safer place,” Leonosis surmised.

  “Just so, my lord.”

  “Do we have proof of these robberies?”

  “She was never caught,” the spy explained. “But the day of the banishment, she fenced several items. Then four horses went missing, along with riding tack from a stable near the barley fields.”

  “So we know what she did, we just don’t know much about her?” Leonosis said. “Or why she would do anything for my brother.”

  “I knew Lexi,” Ennis said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Not well, but as well as most.”

  Leonosis leaned over the elderly man.

  “You knew her?”

  “She was a person who could get things,” Ennis said. “She had a good reputation on the lower levels. She could get what you needed without getting caught. I never had need of her services, but I knew people who did. She brought your brother to my booth.”

  “They were often seen together around the city,” Leonosis said. “If not for the fact that she left with him, I might believe he was just employing her services.”

  “Lexi was never greedy,” Ennis went on. “Which is why she never got caught. I’ve never heard of her stealing more than one or two items at a time. Usually just enough to pay for a room and meals for a week or two. She never snatched large items, so it was sometimes days before her victims even knew their property was missing.”

  “So she was smart, but that still doesn’t explain why she would willingly leave the city. It’s almost as if Tiberius knew I was going to banish him.”

  Leonosis realized he was thinking out loud. It was a bad habit and one he strived to keep in check. He couldn’t guess how Tiberius would have known what was going to happen. Then Leonosis remembered that he made the mistake of telling his younger brother that Rafe would be punished for his actions just before the King arrived. What if Tiberius had been planning things all along? It made sense; most of Tiberius’ belongings were gone from his room when Leonosis searched it. The book of magic was certainly missing. Even if someone else had raided the room prior to Leonosis’ search, news that the Earl’s son was dabbling in magic would have spread through the city like wildfire. Perhaps the entire episode had been planned. Perhaps Rafe and Olyva were never lovers, or perhaps Tiberius just used that offense to his advantage. Still, the question remained—why would Tiberius want to be banished?

  “Release him,” Leonosis said, waving at Ennis. “Report to me when you know more about this Lexi.”

  The spies all nodded, but Leonosis was already hurrying back up the winding staircase that led out of the dungeon. His brother was up to something. He returned to his own quarters, which consisted of a large anteroom complete with a large writing desk, fireplace, and a comfortable sitting area. He passed through this room into his private retreat. No one was allowed in the retreat. His bedchamber was completely separate and he often entertained female visitors there. His private retreat had large windows that looked out over Avondale. From his private room, which was a long narrow space, sparsely furnished and ideal for pacing, he made his plans for the future. There were maps of Valana and all of her Nine Cities on the walls. The only furnishings were a comfortable chair at one end and a thick rug that ran the length of the room. He enjoyed taking his boots off and walking barefoot on the thick rug while he paced.

  Tiberius had a plan, but he couldn’t guess what it could be. Why would his brother want to be banished? He wanted out of the city, but why? And why not just leave if that was his wish? Leonosis could imagine that perhaps his brother wanted a different life than what had been established for him by their father. Being a Paladin had some hint of prestige among the common folk, but it came at a high price since Paladins were sworn to a life of celibacy.

  Leonosis kept coming back to the same notion, namely that Tiberius must surely want to be Earl of Avondale. To do so, he would have to overthrow his brother, or have both Leonosis and Brutas killed. Tiberius was smart, but not given to violent tendencies. If Leonosis and Brutas died, there would always be those who believed that Tiberius had ordered the death of his brothers, even if no proof existed. Not to mention the fact that Leonosis didn’t see his brother as the type to slay his family just to rise in position. Tiberius was always a compassionate person, not calculating and ambitious enough to murder his brothers.

  On the other hand, if he managed to return from the blighted lands, he would be a celebrity among the people of the city. He would be the first to ever return from banishment, with stories of what lay below the mysterious mists that covered the lowlands. Then, if something were to happen to Leonosis, it would be easy for Tiberius to step in and take his brother’s place. If Tiberius had slipped away from the city quietly, it would be difficult to make a triumphant return. There would always be lingering doubt as to his actual whereabouts. Just because one of the Earl’s sons wasn’t seen in the city didn’t mean he wasn’t in Avondale. The Earl had a palace on the lake, not to mention hundreds of rooms in the main palace. People would speculate that Tiberius had just been hidden in one of those rooms, living a quiet life of luxury. But, if everyone in the city had seen him being banished, especially for no crime of his own other than loyalty to a friend, his story would have instant credibility. He would be the favored son of Aegus. He might not even have to murder Leonosis; the city might demand that Tiberius be made Earl.

  It was a risky plan to be sure, but if Tiberius had gained some magical powers, he might feel himself equal to the task. And if he was willing to break the most sacred law in Avondale, what else might he be willing to do? Could he raise an army from the wretches struggling to survive in the wasteland below the mists? Could he learn to control the huge monsters that roamed the blighted lands? What if he and the Princess knew something that Leonosis didn’t, he wond
ered. Might she be helping him somehow?

  There were too many unknown variables. He needed to act while he was still in a position of strength. The King’s heir was weak. No one expected him to live. Perhaps it was time for the Earls to gather and select a new ruler. If Leonosis could show that the King’s daughter was a witch, the other Earls would call for the King’s head, and Leonosis, as the only person to reveal the King’s failure, would be in a prime position to replace the fallen monarch. A smile slowly spread across Leonosis’ face. His brother may be crafty, but Leonosis was no fool. If Tiberius was returning to Avondale, Leonosis would be ready. And unlike his brother, Leonosis had no qualms about spilling family blood.

  Chapter 18

  Tiberius

  The first day of travel went smoothly, but a little slow. Everyone in the tribe was accustomed to travel, but most were tired from the night’s libations. It took two days to reach the spring of water that Tiberius led them too. On the plains, water was sometimes hard to find, and the new spring was little more than a trickle. It bubbled up from the ground and flowed along a narrow track. Tiberius guessed that if they followed the tiny stream, they would eventually find the point where it joined a wider one, but for the moment the stream was enough.

  Quntah secured the animals downstream from the camp, and the tribe set up their shelters again. The first night of a new camp was always a joyous one. Tiberius’ ability to lead the tribe to a new source of water only increased his legend among the Hoskali. What he considered a simple spell seemed like powerful magic to the people of the plains. Life seemed to slow down once they were settled. The Hoskali had work to do and Tiberius marveled at watching them do it. They stretched out the hides of the Tamakas and the sections of the thick skin they had harvested from the huge creature Rafe had slain. They scrapped the fat off the hides, used foul smelling mixtures to treat the leather, then built tiny fires and used the longer marshy grass that grew next to the stream to smoke the hides and give them color.

  Everyone in the camp had specialized skills and after a few days, Tiberius felt it was time that he focused on his own talents. Packed deep in the bag he’d hidden in Avondale, and that Lexi had brought when she left the city to join Tiberius in banishment, were the fragments of the book he’d bought from the vendor. Tiberius had already memorized the first section and felt he was becoming proficient as a healer. He considered himself a Wizard of the First Order, but he knew the wizards who had written the book would not look favorably on the spells he’d learned from Princess Ariel. Still, there were references to the Wizards of the Four Orders using other spells and his limited information didn’t allow him to work carefully through each of the orders. He needed practical magic and while he was a little afraid of losing control, he felt he had to dive back into the lessons that made up the Fourth Order of Magic.

  He spent most of his time on a slight rise away from the camp. He enjoyed the solitude being outside the camp gave him. When he was among the Hoskali, they were constantly vying for his attention. They liked to show off their handiwork and share little gifts with him. His harem, no matter how much he asked them to stop, were constantly striving to please him. Lexi had begun giving them tasks to keep them busy whenever Tiberius was around. Rafe enjoyed spending time with the Rogu, who often set out on long hunts. They came back the first day with loads of dried Tamaka dung, and on the fourth day they had succeeded in bringing down several large creatures that resembled deer, but with thicker, heavier horns.

  Tiberius would often slip away. He liked being able to watch the activity of the camp from a distance. He knew that Rafe was anxious to set out for Sparlan Citadel, and Tiberius was equally anxious to help his friend, but he knew the tribe wasn’t ready to move. They had found a camp with enough natural resources to exceed their needs and they would want to stay there as long as those resources were available. Tiberius set the book fragment on his legs and closed his eyes. One of his favorite pastimes now was simply feeling the magic around him. He did his best to sense it without conjuring it or stirring it up. He simply wanted to be able to sense it as keenly as possible.

  He slowly unwrapped the bundle that held his precious book. He laid the pieces out on the soft grass in front of him. He couldn’t help but wish he had the whole book. It was such a loss to only have the first and last sections, but he couldn’t let his mind dwell on that. The destruction of anything having to do with magic was a colossal waste in Tiberius’ opinion, but that’s exactly what had happened during the purge. The people who had fled to the high places, forming the nine fortified cities of Valana, had gathered everything that related to magic and destroyed it. It had taken Tiberius months of combing through Avondale’s seedy places and black markets just to find the fragments he had. If not for Lexi’s help, Tiberius doubted that he would have ever found them. Perhaps there were more, but it was doubtful. The only place that he had ever heard of that might contain writings on magic were in the archives of Sparlan Citadel. Princess Ariel had promised him access to those writings if he could travel through the blighted lands to the mighty fortress that housed the King’s own palace.

  Tiberius found the idea that certain forbidden books had been saved almost laughable. The order to purge Valana of magic had come from the King himself, after the Nine Cities had been subdued following the war for supremacy. At first, after the cataclysm that had driven the people up into the highlands in an effort to survive the devastating aftermath of the Great Wizard War, each city had been independent. In time, the cities grew powerful, with airships using the Hylum gas found and mined in Avondale to cross the blighted lands high above the mists. It was inevitable each city would see itself as the seat of Valana’s power, and of course that those cities would fight for supremacy. Sparlan Citadel had won that war, and brought the other eight cities under the control of one king. His first decree had been to destroy all traces of magic from the Nine Cities and thus the Great Purge had begun.

  Princess Ariel claimed that in her father’s fortress there was a hidden collection of books, many of which contained the secrets of magic. It seemed implausible, but Princess Ariel knew magic and had even exercised a degree of power that baffled Tiberius. She had levitated him and then snapped his leg like it was a dry twig, just to his test his own magical abilities. He’d healed his leg, but the pain had been the most terrible experience of his life. She had learned those powers somewhere, even giving Tiberius a list of spells that were in many ways more practical than the magic found in his own book. He longed to dive into the rich trove she had alluded to. He felt he could spend the rest of his life studying the secrets of magic, but first he had to get there.

  He looked again at his own ragged remnants of magical knowledge. He’d memorized the spells, but he’d yet to really practice them. In an act of desperation, he’d conjured lightning during the Tuscogee, but he’d been completely unprepared for the sheer power of the spell. He’d been lucky once, but he knew if he ever wanted to grow beyond the First Order of Magic he’d learned from the book, he’d need to practice his spells and hone his skills.

  He decided to read back over the three elementary spells laid out as the beginning of the Forth Order of Magic. The book’s pages were yellow and stiff, but the words were still clear.

  Accendo

  Fire is universally known and used, from a cook using fire to roast meat, to a blacksmith manipulating fire in a forge. Yet, very few truly understand fire, and as the second principle of magic states, Magic begins with knowledge. Fire occurs when combustible matter loses its magical energy. For instance, wood when heated will shed its inherent magical energy (the spark of life that causes it to grow), producing fire. Accendo summons that energy. The Wizard should feel the pull of magic from the unseen, into the physical world as fire.

  The focus of this spell must be control. A novice wizard may conjure Accendo but depending on the wizard’s aptitude, they may summon a tiny flame, or send flames erupting all around them. The wizard must will only as much
flame as needed through the veil that separates the physical from mystical. And just as a wizard’s will can bend and control magic, likewise when that magical energy enters the world of men, it can be bent and controlled by the conjuring wizard.

  It is best to practice this spell in a confined area where combustible materials are not present, such as a cave, or a small room made of stone. A wizard should be able to conjure both small and large flames, move them around in space, shape them, and extinguish them, before moving on to the next spell.

  Tiberius closed his eyes and said Accendo in his mind. Immediately, he felt the swirling wind of magic, but he was careful to control it. He felt like he was trying to stop the water of a swiftly flowing stream, but somehow he was able to do it. His mind was like a cork in an overturned bottle of wine. He allowed only the tiniest trickle of magic to seep through, but he felt the pressure from the other side. The other spells he’d cast felt like being in the middle of great magical storm. He’d learned through practice to identify the way the different types of spells felt, so that he could direct each element that he was using. This time, it felt as if he could sense an entire world of magical energy just on the other side of the imaginary cork he’d become mentally. The strain was much greater than he’d expected, but he didn’t give up.

  Slowly, he opened his eyes. The wide expanse of the great plain was still before him, the camp of Hoskali and his friends still busy, like ants tirelessly going from task to task, but Tiberius didn’t see any of them. His eyes instead focused on the tiny flame that was dancing in midair right in front of him. He could feel the magical power flowing into the flame, the fire consuming it like oil siphoned from the wick of a lamp. He couldn’t help but smile as the flame burned. He’d conjured fire before, but the fire had always consumed some physical object. He could feel magical power being pulled from the disks of dried Tamaka dung when he set them ablaze. The magic burst into flame once it separated from the object and then the fire fed off the thing; Tiberius’ work was done. But now, he controlled the magic completely.