Magician Prince

by Curtis Cornett

  “You can imagine what I thought of his offer. I threw him out of this very shop, but he seemed to take it all in stride as if he knew that he would win out eventually.

  “Avelice heard us arguing and wished to seek out the man, but I forbid it. I declared him a crook and a charlatan.” Sane remembered those fights between his parents and his sister. His father continued, “Eventually Avelice gave in and for a time it seemed like the whole thing was behind us.

  “Then came the day the hunters arrived. They knocked on our door like any good, decent folk would, but they were far from decent. Avelice and I were the only ones home at the time. When I opened the door, a pair of them identified themselves as Kenzai hunters and forced their way in asking to see your sister. They had Constable Ragnit with them, so I knew they were telling the truth about who they were. I did not know what to do. I did not want them to take my little girl.” Sane’s father suppressed his feelings of sorrow and resentment for fear that he might not be able to continue. After a long moment, he did, “I yelled for her! ‘Avelice, the hunters have come for you!’ I shouted. ‘Run, girl!’ They ran past me and kicked in the door to her room. They knew exactly which room it was too. It did not occur to me before then that they had been watching her.”

  “They took her?” the boy asked breathlessly.

  “No, she was gone. I didn’t know it then, but the hunters had surrounded the house in case she tried to escape and they knew she was there. Near as I can tell that magician, Xander, had come for her and they vanished into thin air. We lied to you then, because we thought the truth would be too painful.”

  The boy thought about what his father told him letting the information slowly sink in. After a long silence he finally asked, “Then why are you telling me this now? It has something to do with that man that just left, doesn’t it? He is one of them.”

  Sane’s father nodded. “Since your sister is a magician, he said that there would be a chance that you would be one too. They have been watching you for signs of magic ever since Avelice vanished.”

  Beef and bread fell from the dropped sack the boy had been carrying, but he did not care despite his rumbling hunger. “How could you let them spy on me and say nothing?” the boy accused.

  “Easy, son,” Sane’s father put his arms around the boy, “I did not know until just now. That man that came in here- the hunter wanted to buy you. He said it was to compensate me for the loss of my apprentice and to encourage me to turn you over without difficulty.” The boy’s father placed five gold coins in his still too small hands. It was enough for him to start a new life. “This is the money that the hunter gave me. He said he would pay half now and half tonight when they retrieved you, but I am leaving it up to you. You can take the money and run or you can go with them peacefully to one of the magician cities, but no matter what you decide your old life will be closed off to you.”

  The boy looked out the shop’s front door and saw the flutter of a brown cloak disappear into the shadows about a half block away on the opposite side of the street. The hunters already had him. He was in their net. It was just a matter of time until they reeled him in.

  “They are watching even now,” the boy whispered. He placed the coins back on the counter.

  Night came too quickly as the boy waited for the inevitable to come. It wasn’t fair. Why would they think he knew magic? He never cast a spell or sacrificed the neighbor’s yappy dog in a dark ritual. He didn’t know the first thing about magic.

  His mother was sitting in her chair sobbing again as she watched her son and for the first time Sane understood why. She feared this day would come ever since Avelice disappeared. She would lose both of her children to the Kenzai.

  His father stared helplessly at a bottle of ale. He had not yet given in to putting the bottle to his mouth, but he did not look far off.

  Maybe Avelice will save me, Sane thought hopefully, or her husband, Xander.

  He finished packing his meager possessions: some clothes and an old slingshot he got as a gift on his last birthday. It seemed wrong that that was all his life had boiled down to. A few possessions that fit snugly into a backpack and any trace of the boy would be gone from this place after tonight.

  The family ate dinner listlessly. No one wanted to say their final goodbyes and they could think of nothing else to talk about. The moment they finished there was a knock at the door. The timing was too perfect to be a coincidence. If there was any doubt that the Kenzai were watching them, then that doubt was now gone. The three of them stared at it intently, but did not move. A second knock followed. This one was a bit louder and sounded somehow more insistent than the one that came before. Sane’s father finally rose from his seat and opened the door.

  “Sir Cordwainer,” the cloaked figure nodded, “It is time.” The man entered the room without being asked. Another Kenzai who was similarly attired in a non-descript brown cloak with the hood pulled over his head and the husky Constable Ragnit followed him.

  “It is good to see you again, Josef,” the constable said to the boy’s father, “although I wish it was under better circumstances.”

  “As do I,” replied Josef. He spoke like a man resigned to his fate.

  The first Kenzai stood before the boy and pulled down his cloak revealing the face of a man who was probably in his mid-thirties. To Sane, he said, “This is scary, I know, but I promise that nothing bad is going to happen to you.” He cautiously took Sane’s backpack from him and handed it to the other Kenzai without looking. His focus was always on the boy and maintaining eye contact.

  The other man rifled through the bag and pulled out the slingshot. “A weapon,” he said devoid of any warmth in his deep voice. That was probably why the first Kenzai had done all of the talking up to that point. He handed it to his partner.

  “You can’t take this,” said the first Kenzai, “I’m sure you understand.”

  “It was a gift from my parents,” Sane told him on the verge of tears, “It’s all I have to remember them by.”

  “Rules are rules,” the baritone Kenzai told him stoically.

  “Let him keep it!” his mother wailed to the surprise of everyone there. “Let him keep the slingshot!” She lunged at the Kenzai holding the slingshot and made a grab for it, but the Kenzai was a battle hardened warrior and flung her to the ground with his free hand causing her to cry out in pain.

  Josef went for the man next, but the apathetic Kenzai who pinned him by the throat with one arm and freed his sword with the other pressed him up against the wall.

  “Easy,” Constable Ragnit cautioned pulling his own sword, but it was unclear whether he was warning the Kenzai or Sane’s father.

  Sane was unsure of what to do as he looked at his mother crying on the floor and his father turning red from a blocked windpipe. He felt the blood pumping through his small body. He wanted to fight these men and save his parents. Instead he turned and he ran down the hall toward his bedroom. He had a hand on the doorknob when he remembered the dreams about these men catching him in there. He ran into his parents’ bedroom on the opposite side of the hall instead and climbed out of their bedroom window with an ease only possessed by those that were both young and swift.

  Fear carried his feet forward as he dashed between a pair of Kenzai that clearly hadn’t expected the boy to come their way, but they lost little time before calling to their brethren and following in pursuit. Sane wondered how well his pursuers knew the streets that he tried to lose them on. The sounds of more boots on cobblestone came from behind him. It would not take long for the men with their longer legs to catch the boy. He had to hide.

  His eyes flashed around him peering into shadows as he looked for a safe place to hide from the hunters. Magic! he thought, Magic! Magic! Magic! Come to me! Help me! The boy felt a second wind come to him, but if there was any magic behind it, he could not tell.

  A hunter appeared before Sane causing the boy to veer down another side street to avoid the Kenzai’s grasp. Another hu
nter came from the right and two more appeared on his left, but Sane continued to run darting out of each man’s reach in turn. He was getting tired again, but pushed on. There was no stopping now. He knew that if the hunters caught him, then they would kill him.

  Still the hunters gave chase and followed him or tried to cut him off. Then he saw what he had been looking for. An unattended merchant’s cart was parked outside of a house. The boy risked a look behind and saw that he lost the hunters- at least for the moment- and slid underneath the cart. It was a perfect hiding spot for this time of night as long as he stayed curled up in the shadows. The cart appeared to be too exposed to make a good hiding spot and Sane thought it might only get a cursory glance from the hunters for that reason, but within the shadows he would be difficult to see.

  The moment of truth arrived scarce seconds later as one of the Kenzai ran past. Then three more followed suit. The boy wondered how many hunters there were. It did not matter he was too weary to run any farther. It took all of his concentration just to control his exhausted breathing.

  A fourth and fifth man ran past, but they enjoyed a more leisurely jog rather than an all out run. One of them stopped terrifyingly close to the cart.

  “Why are you stopping?” asked the other.

  “Need… to catch… my breath,” the one near the cart huffed.

  A minute or more passed as the hunters rested. One was actually sitting on the cart now. Every nerve in the boy’s body called out for him to move his feet, but he could not overcome the fear and weariness that kept him rooted to that spot.

  “Do you feel that? It is like a pooling of magic,” asked the one that stood at the end of the small side street.

  The one sitting on the cart did not respond leaving the question hanging in there. Then a sudden jerk of the boy’s tunic pulled him out from underneath the cart and the grim face of a Kenzai hunter greeted him. In a movement so swift that the boy could barely even see the blur of the strike in the night the Kenzai hit Sane in the face with his ham sized fist driving the boy to the ground.

  “That is for making me run,” the hunter told him.

  “Calm down, Marcos,” said the other hunter, “He is just a boy.”

  “You make me run, you get hit. That is the rule,” the bruiser reminded his partner.

  Sane rubbed his cheek. “What are you going to do to me?” he asked looking at the one who hit him.

  The bruiser jerked the boy up again and began dragging him along until the boy was able to regain his footing and walk between the men.

  It was the one who showed Sane some small mercy that answered. “You would have been going to a domain to live out your days, but now that you ran… it will be up to the magistrate to decide. You will either continue to the domain as planned or be sent to the prison of Baj as a rogue magician.”

  A Treatise On Magic

  Warning: If you skipped ahead to this addition, there are a few spoilers contained in this section. So go back and finish Magician Prince before continuing on.

  Magic is split into several disciplines. Each discipline has its own strengths and weaknesses. Knowledge in one discipline does not equate to knowledge in another. The various disciplines are necromancy, restoration, elementalism, enchantment, and manipulation. In addition there is a form of magic used solely to negate or weaken other magic forms. For lack of an official name, let’s call it Kenzai.

  Most spells are cast simply through a combination of concentration, focusing on the intended results, and energy. In this way it is possible to cast a spell simply by thinking of it. This can be a double-edged sword for novices who, lacking control, could conjure any number of spells without meaning to and cause harm to himself or others. As spells become more complicated the requirements of greater concentration and greater energy escalate. Some magicians find it necessary when casting powerful spells to draw a rune that allows them to improve their focus like during the summoning of an elemental. When greater energy is required magicians will often invoke the power of one of the gods to aid them in the casting of a strong or unfamiliar spell. The risk to that is that the god in question might decide not to help, causing the spell to either fail or produce a weaker effect. For example, Alia can cast a very powerful enchantment without much difficulty, but when summoning even a relatively weak spirit like a war wraith she still finds it necessary early on in the series to invoke the god of war, Vailon.

  Staves, grimoires, and wands can power magic, or if no other tools exist magic found within the blood of the living can be used. However, this can be fatal to both the user and those around him. Grimoires are also used to store complicated spells and enchantments for later reference or use as an educational tool.

  While these devices are always needed for spell casting (with one notable exception being Byrn) it is occasionally necessary to have other items present depending on the spell being cast. Transportation runes are needed for safe magical travel. Atmari crystals are needed for soul transference.

  Necromancy- Necromancers are mainly known as summoners. They can summon the dead and spirits back to the world of the living. Necromancers are also able to raise armies of the undead and speak to those that have already died.

  At higher levels necromancers can begin to practice what is known as death magic. Death magic revolves around taking life energy from one person and giving it to another (usually the caster). The natural progression of this is that a necromancer can also drain the soul and that is how soul transference originally began. The drawback of death magic is that it can kill very easily and that tends to cause other magicians to give necromancers a bit of a wider berth. Death magic can also be stored for short periods of time and used to create vastly powerful spells of destruction that a magician would normally never be able to attempt on his own.

  Restoration- The healing discipline. Restoration can be used to heal injuries, stave off death, and promote fertility in people and nature. However, the process can be taxing and no amount of healing can reverse death. Healing magic is largely considered to be the province of Ashura’s priests, but there have been rare reports of other magicians using the healing arts to great effect.

  Elementalism- Elementalism harnesses the very elements in the world and uses them for offensive magic. The wielder can summon the elements from his very fingertips with little effort, but the environment itself can be manipulated at higher levels for far more powerful magic. It is also possible for a magician to alter the environment to cast a more powerful spell like when Byrn casts several smaller flame spells to heat the air in preparation of creating an even more powerful spell near the end of Fallen Magician.

  As the warriors of magicians, elementalists have also learned the art of constructing elements into various weapons and forms of armor. Always at the front lines of confrontations, elementalists are considered the most short-lived of magicians and few ever reach the rank of master, let alone grandmaster.

  Enchantment- Enchanting is commonly used to enchant items to give them special properties. Many grimoires are enchanted to give mages a boost when casting difficult spells related to their disciplines.

  Enchanters commonly can use their higher-level talents to affect others' minds. They can confuse people, implant memories, compel them to act against their wishes, and even convince someone that they have been killed with such certainty that the victim could really die.

  Manipulation- Consists of spells that manipulate the world around the caster. Manipulation is often a more finesse type of magic for opening locked doors and making objects lighter/heavier. It is most commonly used to enhance the caster’s physical attributes and senses and over time those effects can become permanent. At higher levels it can be used to transport great distances with runes, make someone more durable, turn almost invisible for short durations, and speed up reaction times to the point where it seems that everyone around them is moving in slow motion.

  Kenzai- Kenzai is the anti-magic art. Most do not consider this to be a form of magic
at all as it can be used by just about anyone and its only use is for the cancellation of other magics. Kenzai magic shares some familiar characteristics with other forms of magic and in some ways seem to be a combination of them. It can absorb energy like necromancy. However, it only affects magic and cannot be used to kill. At higher levels the anti-magic can be focused into a blue flame that can be very destructive to any magic spell it makes contact with.

  Kenzai also use enchanted items to build up their resistance to magic cast at them or, in the case of less talented users, to drain magic through the use of runes and specially crafted weapons.

  Magic Rank endings are:

  Apprentice- None Example: (Fire Magician)- None

  Journeyman- Kin (Same)- Firekin

  Adept- An (Same)- Firean

  Master- Mas (Same)- Firemas

  Grandmaster- Os (Same)- Fireos