The Making of a Mage King: Prince in Hiding

by Anna L. Walls

  She rose from buckling the last piece of metal to Sean’s shin and picked up a helmet. “You look so much like your father. He was only twenty-six when he was killed.” She ran her fingers through his hair, pushing it back before setting the helmet in place. “He kept his hair a lot shorter though.” She turned back to the closet and produced two cloaks. She tossed the light gray one onto the pile on the bed; the heavy black one, she fastened around Sean’s shoulders with special pins.

  He stopped her when she started to add Elias’s sword belt to the costume. “I think I’ll use Clayton’s sword. It’s bigger. Anyway, the last thing he said to me was that he hoped it would serve me better than he did. Was he my protection when I was outside?”

  “I’m not entirely sure what Clayton did with his time. We didn’t see him very often, but it would be something he might do; that or keep our tracks covered back there – anything that would put him between his brother and us. Perhaps he was discovered. Perhaps he was protecting you from someone who had managed to follow him. Only he knows what happened that day.” She stowed Elias’s sword belt with the rest of the things gathered on the bed, then began to tie the corners of the blankets together.

  They did the same in Gordon’s room, then finished up in Sean’s room. After they raided the kitchen, Sean looked at the pile they had accumulated. “We’re going to need some horses now with all this, unless you plan to take up permanent residence in that little farmhouse. I guess we could figure out a way to rebuild the roof and find something to cover the windows and doors. Food could get a little short, though,” said Sean, with a mischievous grin.

  “Oh shut up,” growled Cisco.

  Sean’s smile faded as he picked up Clayton’s sword belt from the coffee table where it had been left. He drew each sword and examined it. “Maybe we should go shopping before we go back,” he said, thinking of getting some sort of oil for the leather and a stone for the blades.

  “Nonsense, we can get whatever we need there a lot cheaper.” She gathered all the bundles up in a tight pile then looked him directly in the eyes. “Are you ready for this? It’s far more than what we came with.”

  Sean buckled the belt around his waist then pulled her close. “I don’t know; am I?” he said, and thought of the scorched farmhouse.

  * * *

  He managed to retain his feet this time, but only because he didn’t try to walk anywhere. Ferris came charging out, and then blanched before heaving a sigh as he recognized them. “Sorry Ferris, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  Ferris waved away the comment. “It looks fine on you.” Then he accepted the bundle Cisco handed him. The end of a sheath poked from one corner.

  Jenny and Larry were right behind him. Larry led him to the bench by the door and Sean gratefully sank down on it. When Larry didn’t ask, Sean said, “I wasn’t about to take you on the first attempt, not when I wasn’t sure I could do it. I’ll take you back whenever you want to go, as long as it’s not today.”

  Jenny pulled apart the bundles like a child at Christmas time. Cisco claimed her bundle and disappeared inside. Gordon took his from Jenny’s hands with a quiet “thanks” to Sean.

  When she came upon the bundle that Sean had brought from his parents’ bedroom, he said, “That stuff’s for you and Larry. I figured you two were as tired as I was of being cold.”

  She gushed her thanks and dug through the jumble of things. She pulled on a sweater that had belonged to Analeace, then she found the sword belt and brought it to Larry with uncertain eyes on Sean.

  Larry took it from her with the same uncertainty, and Sean nodded with a smile. “I never did care for the lighter swords very much. You’re welcome to it.”

  Larry strapped on the belt and gave the saber an experimental swing. When Jenny disappeared inside with the rest of the bundle, he sat down beside Sean. “Jenny hasn’t said anything about going back, and I think I like it here too. I’ll ask her for sure, but I kinda think we’re staying with you.”

  Sean’s heart swelled hearing that. He didn’t want them to go, but he didn’t want to keep them here against their will either. This place was nothing like what they knew; trees were trees and grass was grass, and as far as he knew, people were people, but there the resemblance ended. This was country; all he’d ever known was city.

  With the sun dipping below the horizon, they went inside. Thankfully he had recovered enough to walk in under his own power. As he stood there watching them sorting through their new possessions or planning something for supper, he came to a decision. I’m supposed to be a king here. I guess it’s time for me to start leading. “Don’t get too comfortable people, we leave here tomorrow.”

  Cisco looked dubious and Ferris scowled, but otherwise, no one made any open protests.

  Sean fished out his sword case from his bundle and handed it to Gordon. “I brought this for you.” He accepted it with a silent, self-conscious nod.

  In the morning, everyone dressed and packed their belongings into more manageable bundles. Ferris, now dressed much like Sean, came over. “You better leave off that tabard. There’s no sense declaring your house too soon. It could cause more trouble than we’re prepared for.”

  Sean looked at the black and red tabard. It was trimmed simply with red around the edges; a six-petaled flower dominated the center, though the flower was missing its middle, making the petals look more like fat wheel spokes than a real flower. It was drawn with simple red lines about the width of a fingertip, and each petal was the color of one of the stones. “Isn’t this the sign of the king or the royal house? I would think it would take us wherever we wanted to go.”

  “It is…or was,” replied Ferris, “but seventeen years have passed. The flower is the symbol of the six stones and Ludwyn has been deprived of them. I would be surprised if he hasn’t changed the herald somehow. Sight of that could bring him down on our heads in force, and if by some chance he hasn’t bothered to change it, it could bring the populous down on us. Going as undeclared mercenaries will likely have its own problems, but they would be somewhat less.”

  Sean shrugged and folded the cloth in with the rest of his belongings.

  With their slightly more compact bundles on their shoulders, they headed down the lane to the unused road. Once there, everyone stopped and looked at Sean.

  “What’s everyone looking at me for? This isn’t New York. I have no idea where to go.”

  After about a minute, just as he was about to reach for a coin to flip, Ferris came up to him. “That way,” he pointed toward the left, “about three maybe four days away, I think – is Ludwyn.” He pointed in the other direction. “That way – is time.”

  Sean got the point. He needed time; time to get stronger, time to gather information, time to learn what they were up against, to see what Ludwyn had been doing over the past seventeen years. He looked to his left. He had seen some of what Ludwyn had been doing. A horse tortured to insanity, a man only a little older than himself – he didn’t want to think of what Ludwyn might have done to him – for kissing a pretty girl. Grimly he turned right.

  Ferris watched Sean come to his decision, and kept himself at Sean’s shoulder as they walked. Before long they were spread out along the road, and as soon as the others were a little ways away and thinking of other things, Ferris spoke for Sean’s ears alone. “You can’t go up against him; you just can’t, so don’t try sneaking off.”

  “I know I can’t,” said Sean. “You’ve succeeded in pounding that into my skull, but I need to do something back there. Help me figure a way to do it and get away with it. Tell me that it’s even possible.”

  His eyes narrowed. “If this is because of what you saw during that viewing, it’s been well over a month. You can’t save anyone. He never let a person linger too long. I’ve seen some of his work, and that was seventeen years ago.”

  “As you said, that was seventeen years ago, but he does let some things linger. He makes things with pain now. He doesn’t just let them die whe
n it hurts too much…not anymore,” said Sean darkly.

  Ferris looked at Sean, aghast.

  Sean didn’t want to think of what his imagination was showing him, he had seen enough.

  “Cisco,” Ferris called softly.

  Cisco turned away from talking with Jenny and came back to where they were walking.

  “Tell him how to bring something to us,” said Ferris.

  “What?” she said, as she searched both Ferris’s and Sean’s faces. She saw their grim expressions. “What are you two hatching?” she hissed.

  Jenny and Larry dropped back to join them and both Cisco and Ferris straightened up and hid their concerns. Ferris went to walk with Gordon, who had been unusually quiet of late.

  With Jenny and Larry listening, Cisco began to teach Sean as if it were just another lesson. “There are two ways you can bring something to you,” she began. “The first, and by far the easiest, is to compel something to find you; that’s black magic, and of course, that can only be done with something that has a brain and is not otherwise detained. The other way is to teleport it to you, in much the same way you teleported us to your apartment. To teleport yourself, however, is much easier than to affect something outside of yourself.” She bent down and scooped up a little rock. Holding it in her hand, she said, “Move this rock from my hand to your hand. Please leave my hand where it is. This is also air magic, but it’s different than carrying it from one point to another.”

  Sean reached out toward the stone with his hand. He had no intention of touching it, he just reached for it. It worked; the rock (and only the rock) appeared in his hand.

  “Very good,” said Cisco, “but you must learn to do your magic without the gestures. I understand why you use them; they help you to visualize what it is you wish to do, but there will be times when you won’t want to advertise what you are doing, or perhaps you won’t have a free hand to use. Above all, the gestures take time and the magic doesn’t need them. The only thing magic needs, is thought. Now practice that for a while.” She turned to catch up with Ferris.

  “What about the other way?” Sean asked her back.

  She looked back at him questioningly, darkly, then said, “One thing at a time.”

  During the course of the day, Sean teleported small things spotted along the road into his hand. Both Jenny and Larry got into it too. Either Jenny or Larry would spot something and point to it, and Sean would make it appear in their hand. At first, his efforts were a little sloppy, but they made it fun, and they all did a lot of giggling. Sean saw a flower off in a field and made it appear in Jenny’s hair, roots and all. Then he filled Larry’s hand with a clod of mud, which, of course, Larry flipped back at him, and Sean succeeded in making it vanish before it hit him; he had no idea where it went.

  That evening, shortly before they camped for the night, Gordon came up to Sean. “I want to go back,” he said.

  Sean looked at him, surprised. “After everything you said to convince me to come here? What happened to ‘save our people’?”

  Gordon shifted his bundle unnecessarily and looked off across the darkening landscape, then up into the cloudy sky.

  Sean followed his gaze. It’s going to rain soon.

  “I don’t think I’ll be able to face…him,” Gordon said, bringing Sean’s eyes back from the clouds overhead.

  Sean studied him closely. “Why?”

  His mouth worked and he looked anywhere, but at Sean; then after a moment, he strode off past the others without further word.

  Ferris had seen the exchange and he came up to Sean next. “What did he want?”

  “He wants to go back,” said Sean. “He’s afraid of facing Ludwyn.”

  Ferris stared at Gordon’s back. “That’s understandable. I’m afraid of facing Ludwyn, but I have no wish to go back.”

  Sean looked at him. He wore his armor like Sean wore Elias’s. They both had their helmets hanging from their belts. “You never did look too comfortable in a suit,” said Sean.

  He chuckled and moved off to call everyone to make camp.

  Sean watched him go. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile let alone chuckle.

  A Fool’s Mission

  That night, Sean offered to take the night watch. After the fire had died down and everything was quiet, Ferris and Cisco both joined him at the edge of camp.

  A short distance away from the others, they sat him down on an accommodating log. While Ferris stood guard over them with his sword drawn, Cisco started to polish the day’s lesson. “All right, you’ve been teleporting things all day. What prompted this? What are you after?”

  “I want to rescue a man from my uncle.”

  “You what? A person? You can’t; you’re not strong enough.”

  “Stop telling me I’m not strong enough and tell me what to do.”

  Ferris shifted and Cisco glanced up at him, then sighed. “Very well, picture who you are after. You’ve been teleporting line-of-sight so far; this will be different. You need to be more careful with something you can’t see. You need to remember that a person has arms and legs, not just a face. It will become second nature soon, but this is your first attempt.”

  Sean didn’t need to worry about the man’s face; he didn’t remember what his face looked like. All he remembered was a terrified man in chains. He closed his eyes and searched for the memory, trying to find someone that matched. He hung his head. “I can’t find him.”

  “Tell me what you’re looking for,” said Cisco. “Describe him to me.” She prompted: how tall, how heavy, hair color, eye color, hands, feet, shoulders…

  Sean found him – it felt right. He ‘brought’ him. He opened his eyes to find a man in filthy rags curled into a tight ball on the ground in front of them.

  Cautiously, Cisco reached out and touched his shoulder. Her touch caused him to uncoil explosively, and Cisco and Sean leapt to their feet just as quickly. Ferris started forward, but before anyone else could get to him, Sean tackled him and held him down.

  To improve his strength and speed, Sword Master Mushovic would have him doing pushups in full armor, and for the last year, he’d included lessons with a sword big enough to use as a center pole for a small tent. None of it had any place in the tournaments, but they built muscle, speed and endurance. Sean pinned the man down and held him while he talked to him. “You’re not there anymore. You’re safe. You don’t know me, but I’m not going to hurt you. You’re not there anymore.” He went on like that while the ragged man fought him until he wore himself out; only then did he hear Sean’s words.

  He calmed down, and Sean let him go…slowly. The cloud cover made the night very dark, and the fire was little more than coals. Their tussle had attracted the attention of everyone in the camp. They all stood around watching.

  The newcomer looked around at the shadowy forms and began to hunch in on himself again. Sean took his cloak off and offered it to him. “Who are you?” he asked, in a raspy voice, ignoring the offer. “You’re not real. I must be crazy.”

  Sean and the newcomer were still sitting on the ground only a foot or so apart. Sean reached out and gripped his hand, saying, “No, you’re not crazy. I’m real. We’re real. You’re here now. You’re not there anymore. This is real.”

  He returned Sean’s grip and stared at him, then he began to shake violently.

  Sean wrapped his cloak around the man’s shoulders, then pulled him onto his lap. They sat like that for the rest of the night. The stranger trembled. Sometimes he sobbed, but most of the time he just shook. Shortly before the sun started to light the sky, he’d worn himself out and dozed, but even that was riddled with nightmares and trembling.

  As the morning progressed, they all waited for the stranger to rouse. Ferris paced. Cisco fixed some coffee. She silently offered a cup toward Sean from the fire, but he shook his head. He wasn’t going to move until the man in his arms did.

  A couple hours later, the sun peeked through a gap in the clouds and found their campsite
. The light woke their guest and Sean saw his eyes open, then open wider. He rolled away from him and to his feet, then he staggered and dropped to one knee. The expressions that stuttered across his face spoke of unfathomable pain and torture.

  Sean hadn’t moved; he was half-numb anyway. He held a hand out to him. The stranger would either pull him to his feet or attack him. Sean no longer heard Ferris pacing; he knew he was behind them poised to pounce like a cat.

  As the stranger slowly accepted his hand Sean said, “My name is Sean.”

  The stranger stood up slowly, and painfully pulled Sean up after him. He studied Sean with a confused expression. Sean watched as his eyes went from his face to an unfocused point somewhere between them. They shifted as if he were looking for something in the back of his mind. “Errol, my name is Errol,” he said as he looked back up into his benefactor’s face.

  “I’m pleased to meet you, Errol. Would you like a cup of coffee?” Sean spoke carefully and clearly. He pulled him close enough to rest a hand on his shoulder.

  Errol let Sean lead him to the fire. When he saw Jenny, he pulled Sean’s cloak closer around him. He didn’t look quite so grimy then; what remained of his clothes was scarcely decent.

  Errol accepted the coffee with trembling hands and sat by the fire where Cisco indicated. When left to himself, he retreated inside as if he were trying to remember things, or make sense of them.

  Cisco watched him, then whispered for only Sean to hear. “Let me have the white stone. He needs to be healed.”

  “Not yet,” said Sean. “Let him think. Let him rest and recover a little more on his own. I have another target first.”

  She whirled to give Sean her full attention. “It’s too soon,” she hissed.

  Sean looked at Errol where he sat so dejected and lost. “It can’t be soon enough.” Sean strode off away from the camp. When Ferris started to follow him, he said, “This will be a little more dangerous, Ferris. Stay back. You might need to protect the others.”