Magician Prince

by Curtis Cornett

  “That would be a great thing,” said Alia. She took a swallow of her beer and wondered how to ask him of Skynryd. It was the kind of thing that one should be sensitive to and so she did not want to just blurt out her offer. Finally after a few false starts, she decided that there was no better way to ask and just said, “If you want to talk to Skynryd, I can help.”

  The offer put Tomlin off balance for a moment and a look of deep sadness shone in his eyes, but it only lasted for a moment before he buried it. “I would like that,” he said in a tone that was very measured. Here too, he was trying to hide his pain and Alia wondered that she had not seen it before. She had been so focused on her own misery that she neglected his and that thought shamed her. Tomlin was her apprentice and that meant that she was his confidante as well as his master. Instead he was too busy being a sympathetic ear to her to be able to worry about himself.

  “Do you remember the first time we met Skynryd?” he asked. His eyes looked far away as he relived the memory. Alia told him that she did and delicately projected an aura of calmness about them so that no one would pay any mind to what they discussed.

  “Yes, we had hoped to make him the fourth member of the Collective.”

  Tomlin nodded. “We had heard of a priest speaking out in favor of magicians, telling people of all the good they could do if given the chance. He was thrown into a local jail cell and shunned by his fellow priests as payment for his words.

  “I was only thirteen at the time and still very much the learner as your apprentice. Skynryd was to be the first real test of my abilities. My mission was to sneak into the jail, free him, and get us both out safely without anyone being the wiser.” Tomlin had already finished his first beer and had poured a second, but did not drink from it. Instead he stared at it as he spoke, “Getting into the jail was a trivial matter. It was not at all how I imagined it. In my childish fantasy I thought the jail would be more like the insurmountable prison of Baj, but it was just a simple set of cells and a guard station more suited to containing drunken brawlers than rogue magicians. I walked in as if I had every right to be there as you taught me and looked the place over as if I was simply a curious little boy, but I need not have bothered. There was only one guard stationed there and although I had expected to have to use the sleep spell to knock him out before freeing Skynryd, that too was easier than anticipated. The guard was already sound asleep.

  “The ring of keys to the cells hung on his belt and I slipped them off with ease. Magic was not needed as my own experience as a child-thief gave me all the skill I needed. I took his keys without so much as a jingle and thought that I was in the clear. Skynryd was the only prisoner and so I did not fear anyone alerting the guard to my presence. If there had been, I know I was instructed to use magic to make them sleep too, but I had already decided that offering to set them free would be a simpler course of action and less risky.”

  Alia nodded. As a child, she would have rebuked him, because the point of the escape attempt had been for him to get some real world magical experience as much as it was to get the priest to safety, but now he was on the cusp of manhood and it no longer mattered.

  “It was the dead of night and Skynryd was fast asleep when I unlocked his cell door. Even though I had the keys I still did not want to step into the cell and so I called to him keeping an eye on the guard so that I did not wake him by accident. Skynryd woke up and looked at me in confusion. ‘Boy, what are you doing?’ he asked as I stood outside his open cell.

  “’I am here to rescue you,’ I told him proudly. Then added, ‘I am a magician.’”

  Tomlin had been speaking in a low voice, but Alia still hazarded a glance around the tables sitting nearest them. Even with the sense of safety she was projecting out to the patrons making a declaration like “I am a magician” tended to attract eyeballs to the person saying it. No one seemed to notice and when she looked to Tomlin she saw a look of concern being replaced by a nod. Alia’s aura had made him a little too relaxed as well.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No harm done,” Alia told him, “Please continue.” She strengthened the aura so that no one even noticed that they were still sitting there. It was midday and the common room was sparsely populated anyway.

  Tomlin continued, “Then Skynryd asked my name and I told him. The next words that came out of his mouth were a complete shock to me. He said, ‘Thank you, Tomlin. Now close the door and be on your way. I won’t be leaving this cell any time soon.’

  “My mouth was probably hanging in surprise when he told me to close the cell door. I stammered out, ‘Why?’ and he said, ‘Because I think I can do more good for magicians like you and even for my own clergymen from within this cell than I can outside of it. If I flee, then I will be branded a criminal and everything that I have said up to this point about the good side of magic will be dismissed, but if I stay then I will be tried and allowed to speak publicly for all to hear.’

  “’You will be executed and no one will care what you have to say then, you daft old fool,’ I told him without thinking. I still don’t know what possessed me to speak to him like that, but it sounded to me like he wanted to throw his life away right then and that made me angry. I pleaded with him to come with me, but he stubbornly refused.”

  Tomlin stared at his beer. It had gone untouched since he poured it and now his story had stopped as well. He looked as if his memory had suddenly jolted forward to Skynryd’s death. When Tomlin had told her of the priest’s death it was like a member of her family had died. She was selfishly glad that she had not been there to witness it and saddened that Tomlin had been.

  “He did not take your name calling well, did he?” she prodded, hoping to pull him back to his story. Somehow this seemed better to remember Skynryd as the man he was rather than focusing on how he died.

  Tomlin stymied a laugh and picked up his mug as if he had just sprung back to life. “That is putting it mildly. Skynryd strode across the cell, grabbed the door and swung it closed with him still inside. The clang of metal on metal rang loudly and woke the guard from his nap. Then to make things worse Skynryd called the guard and alerted him to my intrusion.

  “Skynryd probably thought that the guard would run me off since I was just a kid, but he had other plans. The jailer drew his sword and came at me. There was no word of warning or threats. The guard just attacked. For an instant I was dumbfounded by what was happening. Everything was suddenly spinning out of my control and I was unsure of how to fix it. The guard swung with an overhead swing that would have cleaved me in two if I had not stepped aside just then. Nevertheless the blade bit into my boot as I dodged out of the way and although the leather was not pierced that did not protect the small bones of my foot from being crushed under the sword’s weight. I screamed out in pain and thought that I was done for. Then you showed up out of nowhere.”

  “I had been hiding, watching the whole thing,” said Alia. “I am only sorry that I had not acted sooner to spare you that pain. Before he could strike again I reached into that man’s mind. There was no subtle manipulation there. I held him by sheer force of will.” Years later, the anger at seeing Tomlin lying on the floor of that jail still boiled her blood and Alia had to take a moment to return to a place of calm or else the aura that she was projecting would go awry.

  “It was probably for the best or things could have turned out much differently,” said Tomlin. Then he picked his story back up. “You forced the guard to sheathe his sword and then had him open the cell again. Then you ordered, not asked Skynryd to, ‘Get your ass out of that cell and heal my boy.’

  “Skynryd took my staff from the floor where it had landed and began to pray over me with it. The pain was reduced to a severe throb rather than constant agony almost instantly. I tried to get up, but Skynryd cautioned me against it, saying, ‘The wound has only just begun to heal. You will need to stay off of it for a few days.’

  “You forced the guard into the cell and locked the door behind him bef
ore helping me up to his chair. The guard was cursing and calling for help. He needed to be silenced and that was when you handed me your staff and said, ‘Put him to sleep now,’ as if it was that simple.”

  “It was.” Alia assured him, “and after a few tries you knocked him out. I was secretly proud of you to do it with the pain of a broken foot distracting you.”

  “I knew you were,” said Tomlin. “After that things got a little fuzzy for me as I was distracted by my own pain that came back even stronger once I began to take serious notice of it, but you took over the discussion with Skynryd and told him of your dreams for the Collective and how you wanted to form an organization of magicians that would stand up and protect their own. You told him how you wanted to create a place of safety for them where they did not fear persecution. The look in his eyes told me that you nearly had him convinced. Then you pointed to me as I nursed my foot and said, ‘It won’t be easy. Invariably things are going to get bad and people are going to get hurt just like that little boy and when that happens we are going to need someone to heal them. If you come with us, then you can help save the lives of untold magicians or you can die in a cell or get publicly executed as a heretic. The decision is yours.’

  “Of course, Skynryd agreed to join our fight. How could he say no after something like that?”

  Alia placed her hand on Tomlin’s. “He was good man.”

  “He was a good friend.”

  Chapter 29

  The rocking of the ship had almost become rhythmic as Byrn spent most of his time confined to quarters. Since telling Janus that he was Xander Necros, Byrn had been segregated from the other magicians. They deemed him too dangerous to mix with the other magicians and they were right, though not for the reasons they expected. King Janus saw “Xander Necros” as a weapon at his disposal, but feared a scenario in which that weapon might get free of its restraint and so kept him locked away where he could not be used until the appointed time. However, the truth was that the collar Byrn wore around his neck was already deactivated. He could escape if he truly had a mind to, but chose to stay as he worked out a way to get his fellow magicians off of the ship without bloodshed.

  In the days that passed Byrn spent his time quietly testing the limits of Xander’s body. The grandmaster had used the life forces of others to power many of his magic spells, but without being willing to feed from people in the same way Byrn was faced with much steeper limitations and found he had to devote some of his energy just to ordinary bodily functions. It was unclear if this was the natural state that Xander had spent the twilight years of his life living or if it was an effect of the spell that switched their minds. He guessed it was the latter, thinking that the original caster of the spell would have little use for his old body once it was vacated and would not care about the condition it was left in. There was some small condolence that his innate ability to see the magic currents, as he thought of them, and to manipulate magic without the need for a device were both still intact. It was also still possible to absorb ambient magic around him, but anything complicated like the fire wings was proving difficult to maintain for long.

  At times he tried to recreate Kellen’s magic. Looking back, he should not have been surprised that the Kenzai arts were just another form of magic just as healing energies were. When he saw Kellen’s power flare up earlier, Byrn recognized its similarities to his own fire elemental magic as well as to the absorbing attributes of necromancy spells. Some combination of those magic disciplines resulted in the creation of the Kenzai arts and Byrn was determined to figure out how to recreate that magic. It might be the only thing that would help him defeat Xander and reclaim his body.

  Hours or perhaps days passed in the creaking hold as Byrn made countless attempts to recreate the Kenzai magic and failed each time. For his first attempt at the magic he conjured a simple flame, then tried to infuse that with the necromancer death magic, resulting in a black hued flame, but without any special properties. Byrn was inexperienced with the intricacies of death magic. He learned the summoning arts of the necromancy discipline from the first Avelice Necros, but he had no desire to learn the most deadly magics that centered on absorbing life forces with the ever-present threat of Ashura’s curse weighing upon his shoulders.

  At times it felt like a useless waste of time, trying to recreate a magic he knew next to nothing about based on another form of magic that he possessed little more than a passing knowledge of. If he had help, then Byrn was sure he could master this new spell form, but locked away as he was there was no one he could seek aid from. Perhaps there was a necromancer or two from among the captured Collective magicians onboard the vessel, but it seemed unlikely. Any with the necessary skill would have transported to safety, leaving the younger and less experienced magicians to fend for themselves.

  On the sixth attempt Byrn tried to start by creating one of the black tendrils. He had never done it before, but had seen it in use by Xander and Avelice Necros although that was before he had gained the power to see the flow of magic. Once he had a reasonable approximation of that spell down, he infused it with fire. Again the result was a black flame, but now it held some life absorbing properties. It was not what he wanted, but it was a step in the right direction. There must be some other aspect missing. What made the flame blue and caused it to absorb only the magic from the blood instead of the whole life force? It was infuriating to be so close and still seem to have an unassailable obstruction blocking his goal.

  It should not have been so hard. Men like Kellen and Donovan could practice the anti-magic discipline and they did not even think of themselves as magicians. In fact, to suggest that they were using magic would likely invoke anything from laughter to violence. There were easily a dozen or two Kenzai roaming Aurelia for every one magician and it was a skill that could seemingly be taught to anyone regardless of magical aptitude meaning that it was a simpler form of magic to practice. However, knowing that did not make Byrn’s failures any easier to accept. In fact, it only served to fuel his frustration.

  Eventually the attempts started to blend into one another and Byrn began to give up. Maybe he misinterpreted the power radiating off of Kellen and only saw what he wanted to see.

  Byrn absently traced his finger over the wood as he sat cross-legged on the floor. His mind drifted back to Baj, then as now, he was a prisoner, but in Baj he was just a powerless boy making tentative forays into magic. Now he was a sorcerer with few that could rival his skill, even trapped in Xander’s body, and the only thing preventing him from leaving was his own desire to stay.

  For an instant there was a light blue flash of light where Byrn’s index finger touched the wood. It was there and gone so fast that he might have thought that he imagined it if not for the sudden blackness as his eyes readjusted following that light. Byrn knew that he had done it somehow, but was unsure exactly what and how he managed to make that blue light. It was not the blue flame that Kellen sported. It had been the softer glow of a Kenzai sword or rune.

  He suddenly realized what he had been doing, running his finger along the wood. Byrn knew that image well. He had stared at those anti-magic runes in Baj everyday for a year. He was redrawing one of those runes. Creating the flames wielded by Kellen was the work of a Kenzai master. Like any new student, Byrn would have to learn the less powerful techniques of rune carving and weapon enchantment before being able to wield that power directly. His fingers traced the rune once more, this time with a pressing of the magic he could spare. The rune lit with blue energy as he drew first the outward circle, then, without lifting his finger, drew straight lines from one edge of the rune to the next so that when he was finished the lines formed what he always imagined as gleaming stars in the sky.

  The moment it was complete the gentle blue glow of the rune increased ten fold so that the light filled the small compartment. Byrn’s stomach began to feel queasy as that old feeling of having his magic slowly drained from him took hold. He stood up and kicked at the rune, hoping
to mar it, but since it was drawn with magic alone there was nothing to mar. It took time, but eventually it absorbed the last of his magical reserves and having no more fuel to consume, died out.

  Almost at once, Byrn started to feel his magical essence rebuild itself, but he had to lie down. The magic that he devoted to keeping Xander’s body functioning properly had been depleted as well, leaving Byrn feeling unnaturally exhausted. He fought the sudden need for sleep and on some level he feared that if he were to sleep now, he would never wake up, but soon he could no longer keep his eyes open.

  ***

  Kellen shook him awake sometime later. When the knight saw that Byrn was awake he roughly hauled him off of the cot and held him on his feet until Byrn could think enough to stand on his own. “King Janus demands your attendance in his private quarters,” was all the explanation Byrn received before Kellen ushered him out of the room.

  A pair of guardsmen led the way up to the deck with Kellen following behind them. The treatment seemed unnecessarily rough on Kellen’s part considering that everyone believed that he was under the complete control of the collar. The knight’s anger was probably fueled by his remembered tortures at the hands of Xander Necros when their roles were reversed and Kellen found himself the prisoner. Byrn had been there too and watched some of the torture although he had not participated. Compared to what Kellen went through, Byrn was getting off lightly.

  The guardsmen banged on Janus’ cabin door and were admitted entry along with Byrn and Kellen. Janus sat on a massive wooden throne atop a dais so that he could look down on everyone else. He smiled at Byrn’s approach, but that smile was completely lacking of any warmth or sincerity. It was the grin of a wolf, having cornered a rabbit. “I hope you are enjoying your stay aboard my ship. The Kingdom’s Key is the finest vessel in the fleet.”