Magician Prince

by Curtis Cornett

  Gravity came crashing down on the sorcerer forcing him to his hands and knees. A cloud of dust kicked up from his impact into the ground, forcing a thin veil of soil into his mouth and his one good eye. He coughed for a few minutes while his mouth tried to expel the dirt. Then Sane rubbed his eye on the sleeve of his cloak until he could see once again.

  His wand lay at his side and Sane picked it up as he got to his feet. His old bones felt energized like those of a much younger man and he got a good look around. In front of him was the base of a mountain that touched the clouds and disappeared somewhere in the mists. Somewhere up there was Dragon’s Peak, the mythical home of the dragon race. Sane never believed that the giant flying lizards existed and had chalked them up to legends. The old stories told that the dragons left the world not long after the magician war with the gods nearly devastated the world thousands of years ago. It was time to find out if the legends were true.

  Sane waved his staff overhead in a circle, then spun his body twice to make the circular motion more complete so that he generated a fine rain to fall on him and wash away the light casing of dirt from his body and clothes. Once he felt sufficiently cleaned, the sorcerer took his first steps towards Dragon’s Peak.

  Chapter 24

  The prince’s ship rocked from side to side as it sailed ever closer to Mollifas. All forty of the surviving domain magicians and the handful of captured and subsequently collared Collective magicians had been corralled onto the prince’s warship. As Byrn had predicted, it did not take long for the prince and his men to find out that the capital would soon be under attack and the troops were marched off almost as quickly as they had come to Wolfsbane.

  What Byrn had not planned on was Prince Janus taking all of his most experienced and elite warriors including the magicians on the remaining naval vessels. If they had gone by land, then Byrn would have had ample time to wait for a chance to free the magicians and escape, but aboard the ship escape was nearly impossible unless Byrn wanted to stage a mutiny and kill every normal human aboard the ship and that was an option he was not yet willing to consider.

  Prince Janus- no, it was King Janus now. He reminded himself for the tenth time. The passing of King Kale still did not feel real to him, not because they were close and he could not accept it. Though they had begun to reconcile, Byrn still hardly knew the man before his passing. The difficulty was in accepting that Janus, the brother who hated everything that Byrn stood for with such passion, was now the supreme ruler of all he surveyed. The irony of it now was that if Janus was killed or deposed, the crown would fall to King Kale’s last living heir. That would have been Byrn, but now that body belonged to Xander Necros and as intensely as Janus hated the magicians, Xander felt just as strongly towards those he called “lesser humans.” It would be a shift from one extreme to the other and no matter which of them sat on the throne it would mean that others would suffer.

  The sea salt was refreshing as Byrn took in the smell surrounded by a few of the other magicians. For the most part, they were all kept below decks in cramped quarters, but were rotated up to the deck in small groups to stretch their legs. This was done to ensure that the magicians did not suffer any undue atrophy or illness while aboard the vessel. The welcome relief from the darkness and the growing stink of too many people crowded together was just a pleasant side effect.

  A large man in white armor passed dangerously close to Byrn and he shrank down amidst the other magicians hoping that the man would take no notice of him. It was Kellen who had passed and he was the only person on board who had ever met Xander Necros. If Kellen was to recognize him, then it could lead to some uncomfortable questions, or worse, they might try to kill him outright.

  Much of Byrn’s former strength had returned by now, but Xander’s body was a sad comparison to Byrn’s own. The old man was much feebler than Byrn was used to. In their proper forms they might have been equally matched, but the sorcerer had not known how much Xander was held back by his old bones. It was only the grandmaster’s vast knowledge of magic that made him such a formidable foe. Byrn did not want to think about it, but could not help wondering what Xander was planning to do with his new body. If an aging Xander Necros could kill ten thousand men, women, and children in a single day, then what could he accomplish as Byrn Firemas? Mollifas could already lie in ruins.

  A cry of pain broke Byrn from his dark thoughts and he turned away from the rolling sea to see an older magician curled up on the deck with his hands over his head. A younger man he recognized as Kellen’s apprentice, Donovan, stood over him with a sneer. The Kenzai had taken to tormenting some of the magicians since they came on board the boat, finding them to be easy targets that could neither escape his wrath nor fight back.

  “What is the matter? Did you trip, old man?” Donovan laughed and gave the man a sharp kick. “Go on. Get up.” The old man whimpered to be left alone, but did not move from his place on the floor. Donovan’s boot came up and delivered another kick. This time it landed squarely in its victim’s gut and caused the elderly man to vomit, much of which found a home on Donovan’s pants and boots. “You son of a whore!” Donovan spat on the man and drew his sword. Byrn noticed as the energy passed from Donovan and into his weapon causing it to spring to life with its blue light. The image startled him for a moment as he came to realize something very important, but pushed the thought aside as Donovan was about to run the man through.

  Byrn threw his body into that of the Kenzai knocking him off balance so that his sword only met with the deck and he immediately regretted the action as a massive jolt of pain shot up his elderly arm where they had collided. Donovan whirled on Byrn and leveled his sword at the aged sorcerer. “You! How dare you touch me?”

  “It was an accident,” said Byrn, putting his hands up in surrender. “The rocking of the ship put me off balance.”

  “Don’t lie to me.” Donovan scowled and drew closer backing Byrn against the rail.

  “I can’t lie,” said Byrn tugging at the collar around his neck with a hooked thumb under it.

  Donovan took a step back, seeming as if he might back off, but was still unable to walk away. Byrn had embarrassed him and the Kenzai would need to assert his dominance much like a neighborhood bully who feared losing control over those that were supposed to cower before him. Donovan flipped the sword over and meant to strike Byrn’s face with its butt- a blow that would surely have shattered his jaw, but Byrn sidestepped the upward strike and Donovan’s own momentum carried him into the railing. Now behind him, Byrn saw an opportunity and grabbed Donovan’s ankles. He channeled a wisp of magic into his tired muscles and lifted the Kenzai’s feet up so that he toppled over the side of the ship.

  A loud splash came a second later when Donovan landed in the water and magicians and normal humans alike looked over the rail as Donovan was quickly being left behind.

  “Man overboard!” came the call from somewhere on the aft deck and a man began to wave some flags in short, jutted movements for the trailing ships to see. As their ship sailed forward another behind them was slowing and a lifeboat was being lowered down to fetch the floundering Donovan.

  Once the spectacle was over most of the ship hands went back to their business, but Kellen came to question the magicians a minute later. He stood a head taller than any of the magicians and regarded them in silence for a minute. “Who wants to tell me what happened?”

  No one answered. If Kellen had worded his question a bit differently, the collars would have compelled the magicians to answer, but no one actually wanted to answer and so no one did.

  He looked the magicians over and came to the one that Donovan had been kicking. The old man was on his feet now and clearly still in considerable pain from the beating he had received. “Go below deck and find one of the priests. Tell him that Knight-Commander Kellen wants your injuries tended to. The magician thanked him with relief and did as he was told.

  Then Kellen picked another magician and his tone was firmer. “Chance, t
ell me what happened.”

  The second magician looked as if he did not want to answer, but had no choice. “That man pushed him over,” his finger pointed at Byrn, but he quickly added, “but he had no choice. Kenzai Donovan was going to kill him.”

  For perhaps the first time Kellen really took notice of Byrn, who tried to appear as unassuming as he could under the Kenzai master’s stare. He watched intently for any sort of flare up in energy from Kellen, but there was none. “Why did Donovan try to kill you?”

  Among Kenzai, Kellen was perhaps one of the most reasonable that Byrn had ever met when it came to dealing with magicians. Kellen could be reasoned with as long as the magician in question was not a member of the Collective. So he answered truthfully for the most part, explaining about Donovan’s mistreatment of the old magician and only providing minor adjustments when it came to pushing Donovan and tossing him overboard- actions that would have been too aggressive for a magician wearing a working control collar to perform.

  Kellen accepted the explanation without question and clapped Byrn on the shoulder in a gesture of camaraderie that still left him a little surprised, despite all he knew of the knight. Kellen had gotten no more than a few paces from the magicians when he suddenly stopped and became suddenly rigid. Now blue energy suddenly flared from within him in that subtle way that only Byrn could see.

  “Guardsmen take that man into the quarter cabin and bind his hands,” Kellen commanded and a dozen men jumped to obey. Byrn considered trying to become the firehawk again and flying away from the ship, but there was not enough room to take off from and the fiery wings were more suited to gliding than actual flight anyway. He let the men take him below deck while he waited in a mid-sized room. The area where the magicians were all crowded together was only a little larger.

  He did not have to wait long for Kellen to arrive with King Janus, who wore his father’s crown. It somehow looked out of place on his head. A quartet of the king’s royal guard flanked him with weapons drawn.

  Janus strode forward with a smooth arrogance like a cat that had just made a fine meal of an unwary mouse. He examined Byrn intently before speaking. “This is the leader of the Collective?” he asked rhetorically and a quick grin spread across his face. His eyes danced with delight. Janus unlatched something from his belt and held a control rod unlike any of the ones Byrn had seen before up for him to see. It was no more ostentatious than any of the others, but it was larger, about the size of a club, and had several runes carved into it at the head. It must have been some sort of master rod that could control all of the magicians at once. “Just so we are all clear and there are no mistakes, tell me your name.”

  Janus did not know that the collar around Byrn’s neck did not work and so he would accept any answer the sorcerer gave as being the truth, but the look on Kellen’s face told him how certain he was that he had the right man. If Byrn made up some random name, then Kellen might figure out that the collar was not working. “I am Xander Necros,” answered Byrn.

  The king nearly jumped for joy at the proclamation. “What luck that you were one of the magicians captured. Now you can help us to stop the rest of your sorry group and save Mollifas. What a fitting irony.”

  Chapter 25

  The mountain was conspiring against the sorcerer every step of the way to the point where Sane was almost certain that the rock, the wind, and the blowing snow were living, thinking things that held a personal grudge against him. The paths were narrow and often steep as he climbed. Patches of snow sat over clear patches of ice that would cause the sorcerer to slip at the most inopportune time or when he least expected it. The wind grew into mighty gusts that threatened to blow him off the mountain’s face when the climbing became the most difficult. Yes, if someone told him that the mountain wanted to kill him, Sane would have believed it.

  Perhaps it was the dragons that made the weather so fearsome, he mused as he approached the clouds that were still planted very high among the mountain peaks. Surely there were others before him that tried to scale these mountains and catch a glimpse of the mighty beasts of legend that were purported to be the first and most powerful of the higher races. It was said that only their vast intelligence rivaled their massive strength and if that was true, then it was lucky for all of the other races of the world that they were also pacifists according to the ancient legends.

  A gust of wind tossed a bevy of drifting snow into Sane’s face nearly blinding his eye. He brushed it away as a shadowed figure passed his view so swiftly that he was not sure that he could trust his own sight. His head swiveled upward as he tried to locate the source of that shape. Briefly, he thought it might have been a dragon, because who else would have a reason to be in such an unforgiving place as this so far from the rest of the civilized world? There! It was no dragon that flew through the air. It was a man!

  “Byrn!” Sane called out to the man flying through the air. He shouted the name again and added a bit of magic to help his voice carry over the wind. Byrn was flying, but did not use the fire wings as he had back at the palace. Now the young sorcerer’s body moved through the sky as if it was beholden solely to Byrn’s will and the laws of the universe could be damned. What new magic had he learned since they last met? Sane could not help feeling a little jealous. For all his own power and regard as one of the strongest magicians in Aurelia, he was not much better than a novice in comparison.

  Byrn stopped his ascension and turned in mid-air, his body did not move as it spun on its invisible axis. He looked at Sane, but did not move to join the older sorcerer. He stayed there hovering for a minute as the older man approached, but soon lowered to the edge of the stone overhang beneath him. His arms were crossed as he watched Sane climb most of the way, leaving him feeling like he was being judged somehow. It was a strange and unwelcome feeling.

  It took a quarter of an hour for Sane to get to a position just below Byrn. The overhang was almost high enough to climb up and he tried to make his way up the rock wall without using much magic, preferring to save as much energy as possible for the creation of a nightly camp and a fire. He reached up for Byrn to take his hand and thought that he would not grab it for a second, but Byrn reached out with his staff for Sane to grab hold of and hauled him up.

  “What are you doing here?” Byrn asked in lieu of a greeting. His tone was almost like an accusation to Sane’s ears.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” Sane chuckled, but it soon died on his lips. Byrn was frowning and studying Sane closely as if he was trying to divine the reason for his old mentor’s arrival. “Learion pulled me from the void after you saw me last and said that I needed to go to Dragon’s Peak and find a grimoire written by Xander Necros. He said that you would need it to defeat him.”

  “The gods don’t get involved in the affairs of mortals very often,” Byrn said, one eyebrow raised.

  Sane nodded. “It seems that they have made an exception where you are involved.”

  “It seems I am a lucky one,” Byrn mumbled so low that Sane barely heard him though they stood next to each other. He sounded almost melancholy like the young man who once lamented his fate to become a magician years ago.

  “What happened in Wolfsbane?” Sane asked tenderly.

  Sane thought that Byrn had not heard him or would refuse to answer if he had, because he began climbing up the mountain again and Sane followed dutifully after. Once they were over the next outcrop of rocks Byrn finally answered. “The kingdom attacked and things did not go exactly as planned. I…” Byrn trailed off for a second before finding his voice again, “Xander had an endgame in mind that would have leveled the kingdom forces, but it didn’t quite work out that way. We lost some good people.”

  “Were you the one that stopped him?”

  Byrn smiled wanly, “I guess you could say that, but it is only a temporary setback. Collective magicians are converging on Mollifas as we speak and will be waiting for me to signal the attack.”

  “For you?” Sane stopped.
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  “Someone has to lead the Collective,” said Byrn, “and who better than I? You said yourself that I am a prince and a magician. Lessers and magicians alike will fall in line under me.” He must have seen the doubt in Sane’s face, because he asked, “You will follow me, won’t you, Sane?”

  “Of course,” answered Sane. This was what he had wanted, Sane reminded himself, but he could not shake the feeling that something about Byrn felt… wrong. There was more to what happened in Wolfsbane than Byrn was letting on.

  As they continued up the path Sane watched for any other signs of strange behavior, but Byrn’s mood seemed to improve as they traveled together. After a few hours of travel they came to a likely clearing to make camp and Sane extended the mountain wall out to either side to give them suitable protection from the wind.

  Byrn conjured a small fire and they sat down, wrapping their cloaks tightly around their bodies.

  “It’s cold,” commented Byrn with an involuntary shiver.

  “A little,” agreed Sane, but took little notice. He soon lied down and fell asleep.

  ***

  Xander watched Sane sleep soundly.

  He wondered how long Sane would continue to serve him faithfully, thinking that he was Byrn. Would he help put Xander on the throne? It was an amusing idea and one worth seeing come to fruition, but first he had to make sure that Byrn’s curse had not been passed on to him. That was the only reason he had spared Sane when he first saw him on the mountain. However, he did have to admit that the old sorcerer wasn’t the worst traveling companion and he was a wealth of useful knowledge. Thanks to Sane, Xander now knew that Byrn had somehow managed to survive. If he had not, then Learion would not have sent Sane to find Xander’s old grimoire- the one he had left in the possession of the dragon-folk as payment for allowing him unfettered access to Kassani’s temple over the centuries.