The Making of a Mage King: Prince in Hiding

by Anna L. Walls

  Sean stunned the horse, which brought him down splay-legged, but didn’t take him down completely. Men hurriedly lashed the new rails in place.

  “Tie a rag over his eyes while you still can,” yelled Manuel, and he leapt the fence to do his own bidding.

  Marinda knelt beside the still form of Jessup. His eyes were open, but he wasn’t breathing. His chest had been crushed. Marinda took up his hand. A drawn out “Oh” was all she could manage as tears rolled down her face.

  Sean dropped down beside her and clasped their hands in his. Jessup arched his body and found air enough to scream. With Marinda’s help, Sean forced his bones and muscles back into their proper place. He forced blood to return to veins and arteries, then forced those torn veins and arteries to mend.

  Long before he was finished, Jessup was quiet and his eyes were closed, but air came and went as it should, and a pulse throbbed in his throat.

  After he had been carried away, Sean turned to the horse that now stood quietly, but only because it couldn’t see a target. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all,” he said.

  Ferris heard him. “No, it’s a good idea. It’s a very good idea. We just have to be more careful, that’s all.”

  “This breed of horse wasn’t bred for their congenial disposition,” said Manuel. “There’s bound to be some we won’t be able to use, no matter what we do, especially since we have to train them to take new riders.”

  The horse was standing calmly now. Sean looked it directly in the face. He noted every muscle twitch and flick of an ear. He made the blindfold vanish. It saw them. It looked at them – considering – then the ears went back and it charged. Its dead body crashed through the new portion of the fence and came to rest at Sean’s feet. “Unless you have an objection to horse meat, add it to the larder,” he said bitterly, and headed out of the yard.

  Sean stopped a short distance away. He had to think. He drew his swords, intending another workout, but ended up merely standing there.

  Larry came up behind him and announced his presence by hitting one of the dangling blades with his. He didn’t take the challenge. “What’s bothering you so much?” he asked.

  “How did we get here, Larry?” asked Sean. “How did this happen? Only a few months ago, I was a junior in high school. What happened?”

  Larry sheathed his sword and came around to face him. “You’ve always been different; not in anything obvious or visible, but you think different. I’ve always tried to emulate you, but I can’t hold a candle to you. You are able to think of everyone. You are able to be king. You are capable of considering a lot of things all at once and seeing how it would all fit together. That is why we are here. That is why all this has happened. You’re not reconsidering, are you?”

  “No, I don’t suppose so. It’s just that everything is happening so fast. In such a short time, I’ve already saved several lives, been betrayed, and worked magics I never knew existed. I’ve fought battles the like of which I’ve only read about and friends have died. I’m just allowing myself to be a little overwhelmed, that’s all.”

  “You can’t let that happen,” said Larry. “You can’t be overwhelmed. I don’t know about any of the others, but speaking for myself, if I knew that you were overwhelmed, I think I might just curl up and die right here, because if you can’t handle it, I don’t stand a chance.”

  Sean had to smile. “All right,” he said. “I won’t do that. Why don’t you show me what Ferris has been teaching you.”

  “See what I mean? How did you know Ferris has been teaching me?” asked Larry.

  “You always come around about the same time and I can’t see you passing up the opportunity.”

  They crossed swords. Larry wasn’t very confident yet, and what they were using was no stick like they used to play with. “You’ve been practicing,” he commented, and Larry smiled. Then there was a clash against his shoulder piece. Sean ducked and dodged to the side to meet the new assault and saw Ferris. He glanced around and saw Darrel only a couple steps away. He was moving around to stand on the other side of Larry, and Sean found himself fighting all three of them.

  Then, to add a little excitement to the match, one of them cast a binding spell, which caused Sean to miss blocking a blow from Darrel. Then, there was a hot binding; Sean burned the back of his arm when he pushed through it and now his armor was smoking. He made it rain then, long enough to soak his armor, then he turned it abruptly to a thick fog and used the cover to change location. He purposely avoided using magic to attack back. Attacking was easy enough and he didn’t want to hurt anyone.

  “Find the magic,” said Darrel, after another attack that centered on his eyes.

  Sean fought blind for a moment before he figured out how to undo it. “What do you mean?” he asked, as they clashed again.

  “Even though you are strong in the magics, such tactics could cause enough distraction and hindrance to allow one of us to get through,” said Ferris. “You need to learn how to find the mage and take him out of the fight, and believe me, by now, such a person would know that you could use magic too and they would never be so gentle with you.”

  ‘Find the magic’, he says. How do you find where magic is coming from? Sean tried looking, much like he had searched for his friends when they were being held prisoner, but he wasn’t allowed to concentrate. All three of them redoubled their attack and Ferris cast the next spell. “Stop,” he said, and Sean caught another blow on his shoulder piece before he could bring his defenses up again.

  His next idea was to search the men who were fighting him. He knew that both Darrel and Ferris could use magic, and he knew that Darrel was strong. He also figured that it wouldn’t be that obvious, but he looked anyway.

  The next attack made his sword slip. He managed to hang on to it, but his hand burned now. He was starting to get desperate. He sent out what he could only call a pulse. Thinking of using it like radar, it showed him where most everyone was, and there, around the back corner of the house lurked Clayton. He shielded him, then he bound the rest of them. “Enough,” he said, as he held his hands up. “I found him. I may have cheated, though.”

  Holding his hands up revealed to all of them that his right hand was dripping blood. Darrel, who was fighting on that side, caught his wrist and lifted his sword from his hand. Carefully, he opened his fingers to reveal that it looked like he had set his hand on a red-hot stove then leaned on it. The blistered skin was still wrapped around the hilt of his sword, which was slick with new blood. They all took their turn hissing at the sight of it.

  “Clayton!” roared Darrel. “You didn’t try teleporting without looking again, did you?”

  When Clayton didn’t respond, they all went to investigate, and found him sitting where he had been standing, holding his head and looking like a small child trying to hide.

  Darrel knelt beside him. “Clayton, are you all right?”

  Clayton looked up at them; his face was wet with tears.

  “Clay, what’s the matter?” asked Sean, as he joined Darrel beside him, his hand almost forgotten.

  “It’s gone,” he whispered. “It’s all gone.”

  The shield? My shield hadn’t just stopped him from casting magic; it had cut him off from magic entirely. I never would have guessed. Just as I never would have guessed the affect it would have on him. He removed it and watched as wonder and relief washed across Clayton’s face. “I’m sorry, Clay, I won’t do that again.”

  “No, no,” he said shakily. “Use it. It’s very effective.” He saw Sean’s bloody hand. “What happened to your hand?”

  Reminded of it, it hurt again.

  “Did you try snatching without looking again?” asked Darrel.

  “Yeah, you said I was getting better. Did I do that?”

  Darrel didn’t answer his question directly. He turned to Sean and propelled him toward the house.

  His hand was forgotten again with the deluge of smells and sounds that assailed them as they
entered the house, which was buzzing with the preparation of lunch in full swing. Marinda looked up as they entered and Darrel held Sean’s hand up for her to see before they got more than three steps inside the door.

  She immediately fixed a bowl of warm water and poured something into it, then she scooted a girl closer to her mother, making an extra-wide space for him to sit. She pushed Sean into the spot, and after rolling up his sleeve, put his hand in the water. “Keep your hand in there. You’re eating left handed for now.”

  Keeping his hand in the bowl was hard. It was almost worse than continuing to hang onto his sword. He didn’t know if it was the water, or the temperature, or whatever she put into it, but it stung – a lot.

  Mattie appeared at his side to cut his meat for him.

  “I haven’t seen you for a while,” he said.

  Had she been ten or younger, he would have said that she ducked and hid her face, but she was old enough to hide most of the action, and only looked away for a moment. “There are many things to do here,” she said softly.

  “Have you been avoiding me?” he asked.

  Before she could answer, Larry chimed up from across the table. “The preacher came this morning.”

  Sean had never heard it said that guys glow, but he thought that Larry might be an exception. He actually glowed. The arrival of a preacher meant that he and Jenny would be married very soon. Sean searched out Jenny and saw that she was blushing. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her blush. “When’s the day?” he asked, grinning at his friends.

  “There’re two other young couples here,” said Marinda. “The preacher will marry them all tomorrow afternoon.”

  Sean turned to speak to Mattie, but she was gone.

  After most everyone had finished their meal and left, Marinda took Sean’s hand out of the water. It was quite numb now, and all the blood had soaked away. It looked skinned; he could see muscle structure and finger tendons.

  Marinda chuckled when she caught his face. “Skinned rabbits and such are different than when it’s something that belongs to you, isn’t it?”

  Moments later, his hand was coated with brand new skin – very brand new skin. It felt little different from the skin on his arm.

  Marinda went to her room and brought back a pair of soft leather gloves. “These were for my husband. I was going to give them to him for his birthday the year he disappeared. Finishing them helped me wait for him, but he never came back. I think he would like it if you would make some use of them.”

  Sean put them on. Though new, they reminded him of the gloves his uncle had worn that day. The ends of the fingers were cut off, and they felt odd because of it, but they fit well and were comfortable. “Thanks,” he said, meaning it. “I think I’m going to need them.” He rubbed his new fingertips together. “I might get blisters anyway.”

  She patted his hands in their new gloves and chuckled. “You just might, so be careful.”

  Sean remembered what had happened at the beginning of the meal and asked, “Aunt Marinda, I’m not one of those young couples getting married tomorrow, am I?”

  Her face turned serious and she looked directly into his eyes. “No, you’re not. I’ve seen you around Mattie and I’ve spoken to Miss Jenny about it. Mattie is a nice girl, but she’s a commoner. It’s fortunate that you never used her; I was able to find her a much better match because of it, despite the unfortunate incident at Genabum. A wife of yours will, and must, come from the nobility and she knows this. It is better this way.”

  “Who are you to decide who I marry?” asked Sean pushing to his feet and knocking the chair over behind him, his temper flaring again.

  “I am your closest living relative after Ludwyn. You may have been allowed to think otherwise in your city of New York, but here, you will be king and your bloodline is of concern to all of us. Your wife will be carefully chosen for you. Even your consorts will be scrutinized.”

  “Are you telling me that I will have no say in who I socialize with?” Sean was incredulous. He refused to believe this archaic way of thinking still existed.

  “You will always have a say. You will be king,” she said, matter-of-factly. “But you will also be guarded and a woman can come very close to you, and not only in your heart but into your closest circles as well.”

  “What say will I have?” Sean was yelling now, ignoring her warning. “You will see to it that I don’t meet anyone I might be interested in unless she measures up to some standard of yours. You’re even willing to supply me with choices of bed partners, but only if they’re good enough for you. Who cares what I think? I’m not a fish in an aquarium. If that’s what it means to be king, I’ll go back to New York and you can select someone else.”

  “No you won’t,” said Elias, who came in just in time to hear the last part of Sean’s tirade.

  “Who’s going to stop me?” Sean said, turning on him, still in a towering temper.

  “You won’t leave us to face Ludwyn alone,” he said calmly, his voice sounding out of place pitted against Sean’s temper.

  “I can wipe Ludwyn away from here,” Sean said hotly.

  “No you can’t. You might not be able to do it face to face, but with you, we might stand a chance. Without you, we die.” Elias spoke so bluntly that it doused Sean’s temper like throwing water on a fire.

  He’s right. I wouldn’t leave them to face Ludwyn alone. He stormed out of the house. But no one is going to meddle in my personal life. I will bed whomever I want.

  The Roots of Plans

  Outside, Sean went in search of the giant he had fought briefly the day before; he had a sword he wanted to borrow. Thankfully he hadn’t killed the man. He found him in the smithy. What better place for a man the size of an ox? “That sword you were using yesterday; can I borrow it?” Without a word, the man pointed to where it hung beside his door, and then went back to pounding on what might become a plow.

  Next, Sean searched out the pile of fence posts at the end of the corrals and picked the top one. Using magic, he lifted it high and drove it into the packed ground with the force of a pile driver, then he proceeded to hack at it with the big sword, learning its balance and weight as he vented the limits of his temper.

  He found that wielding such a long sword wasn’t as simple as it appeared. His familiar moves, with this sword, didn’t generate enough force to make the blunt edge do the damage the massive weapon was designed to do. Sean wished for a brief glimpse back into early history to read the mind of the man who invented such an oversized sword. He could imagine the length being useful against cavalry, where a foot soldier could take out a charging horse, and perhaps the rider as well, without having to get too close to the horse. Incorporating long-stepping spins was the key he was looking for. After that, the post didn’t stand a chance. Pain in his hand told him of blisters, but he paused only long enough to heal them before continuing.

  Sean noticed Ferris start toward him as the post came apart, but he didn’t wait for him; he wasn’t finished yet. He exploded the remains of the post, leaving a small crater in the ground. He brought another post to him and drove it into the ground a few feet from the first.

  When Ferris saw the post drive into the ground, he stopped. When he saw Sean lift the top quarter off with a spinning underhanded cut, he headed in a different direction.

  Sean was dismembering a third post when he looked past it and saw Mattie. She was standing with a narrow leaf rake in one hand. Her free hand covered her mouth and her eyes were wide.

  Sean’s anger evaporated. Shit, now I scared her. He lowered his sword and turned away. He healed his hand again. He was afraid to take his new glove off; he didn’t want to see what he had done to the new skin on his palm. He flexed his shoulder; it was still sore, and the demands of the heavy sword hadn’t helped.

  He felt a soft touch there and the soreness went away, then she stepped around in front of him. “You were so very kind to me, but you did not use me, even though I offered many times, and woul
d have – gladly. Cordan is kind to me too. He knows how I feel about you, and he accepts that. If you still want me to be with you, he has said he will accept that too.”

  “What?” said Sean. “What man would tolerate such a thing?”

  She seemed surprised. “You are the rightful king; any man would be honored…”

  “No,” Sean said, interrupting her. “I am not a king, not yet, and it’s not an honor.” Then he saw he had frightened her again, so he took a deep breath and calmed down. “I would like to meet your future husband.”

  She smiled and took his hand to lead him. He followed her past the guardhouse to one of the closer fields where several men and women were working. “Cordan,” she called, and one of the men straightened up to see who wanted him.

  As soon as he recognized them, he came over. “My lord?” he said, and started to kneel.

  Before he could complete the move, Sean said, “Is there somewhere we can talk?” I’ve seen him around, but where? By the time they reached the door to a modest house, he remembered where he had seen him. He was the guard Ferris had been talking to about Cisco when we first arrived. He was wearing a cotton shirt and homespun pants now instead of armor.

  Cordan offered Sean a chair at his table and Mattie went about rummaging in the kitchen.

  “I had another thing on my mind when I asked to come here, but I’m curious about something,” said Sean. “The other day, you were a guard. Today, you’re a farmer. How does that work around here? How many men are here?”

  “I suppose there’re about sixty men, young and old, here and we all take turns standing guard duty, though some of us have more experience than others. When we’re not on duty, we work the fields or tend the stock.”

  Mattie set a platter of diced meat in the center of the table with a side dish of a spicy sauce to dip it in if they wanted to. She also set out a plate of cheese and some sliced bread. To complete their impromptu meal, she set two mugs of beer in front of them.

  Sean raised an eyebrow at the sight of beer.