The War of the Pyromancer

by P D Ceanneir

  The Efron Pump came about totally by accident. A local lord called Migtal, a vassal of Count Talien, had a well that appeared to dry up in late spring. After sending one of his servants down the well to investigate, he found out that the water level had dropped to below the level of the porous rock. Efron heard about this, and being a conscientious neighbour, went to see if he could help, and Telmar went with him.

  Both father and son climbed into the well and saw for themselves how low the level of water actually was. However, there was still plenty of water sitting inside several cave systems close to the shaft of the well. Dropping another shaft would prove costly and time consuming. Efron fashioned a large set of bellows with a vacuum cask on the end of a long thick canvas pipe so it could sit in the water. Working the bellows pushed the air out of the pipe and hastened the water on its upward journey to a metal tank with a tap. Of course pumping the water took a while but once it filled the tank then the supply became continuous. Lord Migtal, so overcome with admiration, offered to pay Efron for his help and urged him to patent the invention.

  ‘Oh, there is no necessity for that, my friend,’ Efron said to Migtal when his host invited him back to his ranch and opened an old bottle of expensive Keveni Rice Brandy to thank him for his help.

  ‘It’s not my idea anyway,’ continued Efron. ‘In 1059 YOA King Chiltern of Summerland Amon had one of his scholars find a better way of relaying messages around his huge palace. Therefore, he created a set of transport tubes that worked under air pressure and sent notes along it inside thin wooden cylinders. I just created something along the same principle.’

  ‘Nevertheless Efron, no one has invented a water pump before, you could make a fortune,’ said Migtal.

  Efron considered this, and at the urging of his wife and son, decided to patent the Efron Pump. Within a few short years, it made him a small fortune. Years later, he went further and created a mechanical pump to replace the bellows, Telmar helped by giving his father a series of mathematical equations to aid him in understanding the pumps capabilities in moving large volumes of water from underground. He went on to invent a milling and cutting saw for use in windmills to cut planks of wood to precise sizes for shipwrights and a far more efficient plough for farmers.

  This burgeoning creative enlightenment happened in the last years of Efron’s life. On a cold and wet winter’s day of 2957 YOA, inflicted by the true Rawn Phage, he died in his sleep. The funeral at the family grave was to be Telmar’s saddest day. He was now Lord of Dorit Lorne and Baron of Tressel.

  A year later, Telmar left Tuen House to start his education as a Rawn Master.

  However, first of all, I must tell you about Harlequin.

  Harlequin

  “What mad genius did reside inside Telmar? Most believed it to be his father’s ghost!”

  The Evil Baron: Peron of Duli

  1

  In the year 2949 YOA, King Cambrian I of the Vallkytes was in poor health. He left much of the affairs of state to Beltane, the new Duke of Keveni, who had some power over the mild mannered king. At the age of sixteen the duke’s son, another Cormack, became the king’s chancellor and presided over parliament with an air of confidence to rival that of his father. After several hundred years of absent Keveni nobles, two now ruled behind the throne of the Vallkytes.

  In the Rogun capital of Aln-Tiss, peace and economic stability were the watchwords of the time. The reigns of my great-grandfather and grandfather were to become two of the longest in Cromme History, so much so that it was called the Era of the Valient.

  Valient the Second ruled for several hundred years more than his father, Hagan the First. Valient’s untimely, or possibly timely, demise came about when someone poisoned him in his sleep with a vast amount of toxic substance taken from the roots of the very rare Larack Orchid. Most rumours of that time say my grandfather administered the fatal dose to take the throne, and it became a black mark on my family’s history. Valient the Second was very strict with his son and forbade him all opportunities to court any of the local lasses. Valient the younger built an underground tunnel that led away from the palace to apparent freedom to slake his royal ardour. However, his father found the tunnel and had it destroyed. Seven days later the old king conveniently died in his bed and the monarchy passed to his son who became Valient the Third.

  Whether it was the guilt or the slaked lust of my grandfather, Valient III became a fair-minded ruler. He had a passion for the arts and commerce; he became a shrewd politician (something that rubbed off on me) and I always remember how jovial he was around his grandchildren. He married the beautiful Eutriss of Mali, the daughter of Klan, chieftain of the Sorthi, a now extinct tribe that once inhabited the Sky Mountains. My father always told me how lovely she truly was.

  ‘She was as beautiful as a clear raindrop on a fresh lotus leaf, my boy,’ he would always say to me. ‘The kindest woman I have ever met and a skilled Rawn.’

  Scholars of that time acknowledge that my father was correct. Queen Eutriss was a much-loved member of the royal household. The entire royal household greatly mourned her death, more so by her husband who, at the time of her passing, also lost his joyfulness until I and my brothers came along.

  My father, Vanduke Duke of Carras, was born two months before Telmar. He had a very strained relationship with my grandfather after his mother passed away. He was a boisterous child and often found that punishment and the king came hand in hand. This, he later confessed to me, made him into a better man.

  ‘A better man, because I learnt to stay away from the grumpy old bugger!’ he would say with a laugh.

  Whatever the faults of his youth, Vanduke of Carras did indeed become a better man and a wonderful father. I loved him greatly and learnt much from his wisdom. He had an amiable charm that stood him in good stead in becoming a respected politician and negotiator. It was my father’s roguish, yet likeable character, that drew Telmar to him and the two would form a unique bond that only death would rip asunder.

  2

  Nevertheless, I digress. First I must take you back to a time before these two meet, to the day of Telmar’s thirteenth birthday and inside his bedroom at Tuen House.

  See now, careful reader, how he sleeps in a deep slumber, a tall boy with lush dark hair that hangs over his eyes and ears, his skin tanned from the many trips into the high pasturelands. He is slim and well-muscled for his age.

  Outside, the early morning air is still, the quiet occasionally broken by lowing cattle in the distance. The moon hangs onto black clouds as they slowly slip past its glowing surface. The moon’s single ring of dust sparkles clear and bright when the gaps between the clouds open to the night; it casts an eerie reflection over the calm still waters of Lake Tuen.

  See now, a light emitting from the ruins of Dorit Lorne Castle. Neither candle nor torchlight, this glow is of the brightest white and it pulses with soft rhythmic whispers. The light becomes brighter as it ascends to reveal a glowing orb that bobs for a few seconds as if it rides a current of wind. However, the night is free of any breeze. The orb is small, though it emits a pulsing sheen that makes it appear larger than it actually is, but its nucleus is as tiny as a baby’s fist.

  It moves, skirting the ruins and then hovers over the tomb of the Elder Styx. Sitting above it for a time it then moves on, dipping down a natural slope and heads towards Tuen House.

  The light reveals landmarks and dashes away deep shadows as it passes over them. It glides twelve feet above the ground silently and makes the mile long journey to the house in seconds. Its light reflects back from the black glass of the house’s windows and the orb dims slightly so it does not wake anyone within.

  If anyone were awake to witness the orbs strange movements, they would say only one thing, ‘It’s alive’.

  The orb starts to search from one window to the next until it finds the one with the sleeping boy, and then it sends out a dart of light, which gently taps the window.

  Telmar does not wake, he is in
the throes of a dream; it is the one about the Door. One he will have for most of his life, but this is the first of many. It starts with a collage of images that he will forget in the morning and that of the Door itself is so brief he will forget that too. What catches his eye is the trees that surround the Door. They are old and bare of leaves; their dark gnarled limbs sway in the wind. One long bough taps the door, which is white (being the recipient of his memories I know that the door changes colour the longer it remains in one place) he walks towards it and is curious to know why the tapping sounds so real.

  Tap, tap. Tap, tap.

  Telmar sees the branch strike the Door, but the sound of the tapping is behind him. He turns around; the Door disappears from his thoughts as the dream moves to a new location.

  It is his bedroom. There is a glow that brightens his room coming from the window. He catches his breath when he sees the spectral figure of his dead father tapping the window and beckoning him to follow.

  Then he wakes with a start and sits up. The white light from the window is dissipating. He jumps out of bed and looks out to see the white orb bobbing along the drystane wall that borders the south side of the property. His heart flutters for a second, yet he feels more curious than afraid. He quickly throws on his clothes and quietly leaves his room to go outside into the dark night. On the way out of the front door he takes an oil lantern from the hall’s sideboard and lights it with the flint box beside it.

  The ball of light is moving away as he exits the house. It heads back towards the ruins; he follows at a run.

  It is at this point that his memories become faded and disjointed; I will do my best to fill in the blanks of this episode in the young Telmar’s life for I feel it is very important to the story that I write. The reason for his fragmented memory of that night is caused by the glowing ball of light, which is slowly floating away from him but still within sight. Its dance is calming and hypnotic to him and his still sleepy mind is fogged and unsure whether this is still a dream or reality. It is not a dream, and the proof of it all will be sitting in front of him when he wakes in the morning. Yet, for now, he follows.

  See now, careful reader, as the orb’s hazy nimbus lights up the beginnings of the castle’s ruins. Much of the crumbling walls are covered in overgrowth or have been pushed down by trees as their roots undermined the old structure’s foundations. Telmar still struggles with the dream concept. He feels the stones and uneven earth under the soles of his boots and the sting of the tall stalks of grass on his thighs as he runs through the field, yet his mind is still sluggish and he stops several times to rid himself of dizziness. Soon he is well into the boundaries of the ruins and, though he is out of breath, he is eager to catch up with the ball of light.

  The light in question hovers above a thick pile of stones near the centre of the ruin and Telmar walks cautiously towards it. The path he walks on is well worn; long ago his father had it cleared to make room for his labourers as they continued to dig for historical artefacts within the ruins. Five years ago, when Telmar was eight, his father stopped the dig abruptly, paid his helpers and closed the site off only to return himself on his own. Telmar, at the time, never wondered why his father went to the ruins without him to help catalogue any extra finds. Now it stuck him as odd. Efron always allowed his son to share in any endeavour he started, but the dig at the ruins was out of bounds to everyone, including him.

  The ball of white light lingered for a few seconds until Telmar was close enough to be bathed in its glow. Then it dropped down into a hole in the rubble. Telmar runs to the opening in time to see the orb recede. He climbs down into a wide shaft, surprised to see wooden ladders set into the wall; they are relatively new and free of rot. Obviously, his father left them there before he died.

  The shaft is deep. When he reaches the bottom he swings his lantern around to find he is in a small room that leads off into a corridor. Wooden beams support most of the upright columns of stone and a row of flat iron bracers stop the walls from caving in. He surmises that the original labourers had left most of this work; they certainly had some engineering experience.

  The tunnel, which branches off from the small room, is wide. The glow from the orb has disappeared into its darkness. He takes a deep breath and follows it, still groggy and tired. After a time, the white light doesn’t move away from him and he knows it waits at the other end of the passage. Both his lantern and the orb now illuminate the corridor. Its walls are of sculpted blocks of limestone; some have niches with beautiful statues looking out at him like some pale cave beings ready to pounce. He hurries along until the passage opens into another room.

  The room was once another corridor but both ends had completely collapsed long ago so only a small area remained. At the far end sits a double door made of stone, the left hand side cracked in two while the right sits at an awkward angle to leave a small triangular gap at the bottom. The light from the orb shines from beyond it. Telmar crawls under.

  The orb hovers patiently at the far end of a large room. Its light reveals that part of the left hand wall has collapsed and earth now covers the floor. However, there is another light coming from his right as he walks over the dirt. It comes from a tall stone archway, sitting inside a group of sixteen standing stones that rise upward and curve into the centre towards the arch. Above all of this are eight huge interlocking sets of stone rings that shift back and forwards like a stuck cog in a faulty windmill mechanism, Telmar notices that these rings are floating in the air with no sign of support.

  Telmar is truly amazed. Through all of his young life up to that point his education at the knee of his father had been teachings of plain reasoned facts. This before him made no sense whatsoever. His curiosity is drawn to the source of light coming from the archway. He can see images inside the arch shifting from place to place like a window to new lands. There are places that he even recognises; other landscapes are alien to him, they constantly skip making his head hurt. He walks towards the arch to get a better look when suddenly the orb shoots forward at incredible speed to hang in front of him, blocking his route. He steps back a few spaces and the orb moves forward to match his steps, but still keeping a fair distance from him.

  ‘You don’t want me to go near it, why?’ he asks it.

  There’s a feeling of static in the air, a sudden pushing of pressure and the orb dims then glowed bright again. Telmar feels that something has changed. He looks around him, but nothing is amiss. Then the voice behind him makes him jump.

  ‘Hello son.’ It says.

  3

  Telmar’s heart leaps like a frightened bird against the cage of his ribs. He watched, dismayed, as his father extracted himself from the shadows of the rooms far corner.

  ‘Father?’ he said. He raised the lantern to get a better look, but Efron appeared to have an inner glow that needed no light to see him in the gloom. He looked young, younger than the time before his death ten months ago. He wore the usual clothes he would always wear when coming to the dig. Telmar could clearly see the far wall through his father’s transparent body.

  ‘Do not be afraid, Telmar,’ said Efron with a calming wave of his hands. ‘I am not a spirit come back to haunt you, I am a projection of my past self, conjured by Harlequin.’ He said this while pointing towards the white orb.

  ‘Harlequin?’ Telmar frowned as he looked behind him at the glowing ball.

  Efron nodded, ‘Remember the Grymward that belonged to the Elder Styx?’

  Telmar nodded slowly, still unsure of the situation.

  ‘He was a very intelligent man. He discovered a way to give artificial intelligence to Powerballs.’

  Now Telmar understood. Powerballs were a formation of stable energy created by Ri once they were able to merge all four elements of the Earth into one mass.

  ‘How were you able to create one?’ he asked his father.

  ‘Long ago I found a small ball of Glemmarstone in these ruins, about two inches in diameter and etched with several of Styx’s mo
re complex Skrol symbols. I managed to decipher most of the symbols from the Elders Grymward, which is full of valuable information and insightful projects that he never got around to doing. One such project was Harlequin, with the amazing properties of Glemmarstone and specific Skrol symbols I was able to give it a life of its own and incorporate part of my own personality into it, as well as the Elder Styx’s.’

  The ball dipped and bobbed as if saying hello to Telmar. Telmar smiled at its playfulness.

  ‘Does it speak?’ he asked his father.

  ‘Unfortunately it does,’ said Efron sullenly.

  Harlequin began to spin on its axis, it was difficult to see through the light, but Telmar sensed it was happening; apparently this was the only way it could speak.

  ‘Good morning to you young master Telmar,’ it said in a rich, intelligent voice which was unfamiliar to him.

  ‘Morning,’ he replied.

  ‘I must apologise for disturbing your slumber,’ said Harlequin. ‘It was deemed the best way to finally meet you without drawing undue attention to ourselves, you understand?’

  ‘Yes, absolutely,’ said Telmar, who was finding it hard to keep his eyes open as the soft light from the orb continued to make him sleepy.

  Efron cleared his throat to grab his son’s attention. Telmar had to hide a smirk at the fact that this projected image of his father did not actually have a throat to clear; everything seemed dreamlike and real at the same time.

  ‘Try not to look at it too long, son,’ said Efron. ‘The frequency of the light emission tends to hypnotise most animals, including humans. It has a few imperfections; the voice, I believe, is that of the Elder Styx and it can be quite glib at times. He will be a close friend to you, but don’t play Karsh with him because you will lose every game.’