by Chase Erwin
He stood at the top of the stairs and awaited the hand of his daughter, Princess Enwel. She was incredibly slender, almost six feet tall, and had her own hair, as brown as her father’s, done in a tasteful bun. She wore a silver evening gown studded with glittering sequins.
Taking her father’s hand, they both descended the steps in unison. The trumpeters tooted on gaily, and the assembly applauded with rapture and appreciation. The applause and the music died down when the king raised his left hand.
“My loyal subjects,” the king said. Had no one known about his abilities, one would have thought he was just a college student dressed up for a play. “I wish to welcome you all, once again, to our little get-together to close out the Festival of Forgiveness.
“This is always a time for reflection, and it is the first Festival we have had since the passing of my beloved wife, your Queen, Alyanna.”
At the mention of her name, everyone, King and Princess included, bowed their heads in a moment of silence.
There was a small rumble of thunder far off in the distance. When it ended, everyone lifted their heads.
“We forgive those, as we always do, for whatever injustices, whatever wrongs, they may have committed against us,” the King continued. “We also use this special time to give thanks to those for their kindnesses, their deeds, and their sacrifices.
“And it is with that in mind, that I wish to welcome our special guests for the evening. They are known locally as The Winds of Andusk, a branch of the Freelancers. Please, lady and gentlemen, step forward now.”
I watched as Beltrin, Caeden, Remi, Irek and Taryn stepped out into the empty space below the stairs. They stood before the King and Princess. I slinked backwards, further into the crowd.
“These five risked life and limb to protect a province of this kingdom and the Great Sentinels for which we stand,” the King continued. “I wish every single one of you to treat them as equals — thank them for their service to the kingdom. With that, I also ask you to eat, drink, enjoy your time here tonight. Let the festivities resume!”
There was rapturous applause as the king and princess stepped off the steps and the crowd enveloped them. Chatter
rose to a thunder, and I continued to make my way to the outer edges of the room.
I felt entirely out of place. Why was I tagging along with a bunch of heroes? I had no reason to hang around with them — if anything, I was holding them back from their next adventure.
I looked out a bay window looking out over the rear of the royal grounds. Behind the stone walls providing a border, there was a small clearing, followed by a deep forest.
But within the trees, I could see an odd, blue glow. Light was shining out past the treetops, creating rays that spanned out for miles.
It looked beautiful. It mesmerized me — almost as if it was heralding out for me. I felt a strange magnetism to it. I needed to see what it was.
With everyone else in our party lined up to meet and shake hands with the crowd, I decided to leave the castle and find out what was causing the light.
5. Whispers in the Woods
I politely nodded to the doormen as I exited the castle and sprinted quickly down the quarter-mile path back to the gates. I beelined to the left, and within a few moments I was in the clearing just off the castle grounds.
The blue glow of light was still emanating from somewhere within the hundreds of fir trees ahead of me. The uncertainty of what I would find was causing a buzzing sensation in my fingertips, as well as the feeling of heat in my toes and feet once again.
Ignoring it, I pressed ahead, stepping into the woods.
It was as if I had tunnel vision; I was not concerned with what might be to my left or to my right. I focused only on the light, walking closer and closer to it.
I must have walked about a good mile into the woods, and still it seemed like the eerie light was getting further and further away.
“Stop,” pleaded a male voice. I did as it commanded.
“Who’s there?” I demanded.
“Please, please stop!” The voice wasn’t commanding me — it was begging. “Please, for the love of all that’s holy, please stop!”
“Where are you?” I whirled around to face where I had been walking. “How can I help?”
“Please — NO!”
The plea turned into a chilling scream. I spun back around. Suddenly I was surrounded by a bright white light, tinged with blue.
Directly in front of me was a vision of a man, a young man, probably no older than I was. He was on his knees, writhing in pain, as another figure hunched over him. Its back was pulsating.
“Great Mother, please, please someone help… me…” the man gurgled, his voice getting fainter and fainter by the second.
I watched as the man crumpled to the ground, dead. The other figure turned to face me…
It was me. I was staring into a vision of myself. My eyes were coal black, soulless. My mouth was open, dripping with blood. I had fangs. Vampire-like fangs, dripping with my victim’s blood.
“No!” I screamed. I clenched my eyes shut, and when I opened them, the vision of me and the man were gone.
I turned once again to where I thought I had walked and began to run.
“You killed us,” said another voice as I ran past stumps, logs and foliage. “You killed us.”
I held my arms up to my ears as I ran. The tingling sensation worsened in my arms and legs.
I stopped when another flash of light temporarily blinded me. When I regained my sight, I saw the ghostly image of a small girl, about eight years old, her broken body underneath a large iron light fixture.
I realized at once this was the girl I had been forced to fight against while in captivity. The Ravens took bets on who would win. The girl had heavy fire magic, but I had stopped her by using extreme cold to break the light fixture and crush her.
Blood appeared to ooze under her head as I stared in disgust. Suddenly her head snapped upwards and she looked directly at me.
“Are you the Baker’s Man?” She asked.
I sobbed. It was only later after the fight I realized my competitor was a girl I had met by chance back in Galek. I had sold her cookies. She called me The Baker’s Man.
I turned again and ran, though by now I knew I was hopelessly lost. All I wanted to do was get far away from these voices.
I splashed through a puddle, mud covering up the smart looking shoes Beltrin had bought me earlier. I stopped against a large tree to catch my breath. I coughed and hacked, spitting up phlegm.
“You killed us.” Another man appeared, about 50 feet away from me at the base of another tree.” He had a nasty, ragged gash across his throat.
“You must save us.” A female faerie spoke, appearing to the right of him. She once had a pair of wings, but they had been torn off close to her back. The remains were fluttering helplessly. The bones in her neck were protruding.
“You killed us.” Five more visages of bodies - burned, bulging, broken, battered.
“You must save us.” They multiplied. Each time the phrases were spoken, more ghosts appeared. They began to inch their way closer to me.
“No, no, no…” I whimpered. “I—I didn’t! It wasn’t me, I mean it wasn’t really me… They, they drugged me…”
“You killed us… you must save us…” There had to be at least 50 ghosts. I could see every wound, every broken bone.
“Please, stop, I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
“You killed us.” They were within mere inches of me.
I screamed out, and my magic took over. I raised my right arm, and a thick yellow bolt of electricity fired from my palm. It struck a branch of the tree where the ghosts first appeared, snapping it and sending it crashing to the ground.
I began to run again. With each stride, another ghost appeared, chanting the three same words, and another memory unlocked. They were right — I had killed each one of them.
At another patch of dead wood and puddle
s, I stopped, and I retched. I was getting heavily exhausted. The blue light surrounded me again. Heaving and crying, I sank to my knees.
“You did not do it alone,” said my brother, as he appeared in front of me. The ghosts of the dozens of humans, faeries, elves and other beings I had killed began appearing behind him. “You were possessed by an evil force.
“Your new friends,” he rasped, “You are not safe with them, but you cannot stop the Ravens alone. They will help you succeed.”
“How?” I yelled. “How do I stop them, knowing what they can do to me?”
“You will find your way,” Antareus gurgled. “I know my little brother will survive.”
With that, he disappeared, followed by each of the ghosts, one by one.
I was left in the darkness, crying against a dead log.
The blue light suddenly changed to a deep orange, almost a crimson red. The sounds of crickets twittering in the night air was replaced by the sound of low, continuous laughter. Evil, familiar laughter. It sounded as if it was right behind me. I looked behind my shoulder… nothing.
In frustration, I yelled again, firing another bolt of electricity into the air. The orange light dissipated, leaving me alone in the bare moonlight.
A few minutes later, I could hear leaves rustling as three pairs of feet came running in my direction.
“It’s okay, I’ve found him,” said a female voice.
“Abel! What in the world have you been doing?” Beltrin seemed upset as he approached me.
“I… I saw a light,” I tried to explain.
“You shouldn’t be going places alone,” he scolded. “You have no idea who might be lurking out here.”
If he only knew…
“Beltrin, it’s alright. He’s safe with us.” It was Princess Enwel. She was still wearing her evening dress, although it was stained at the bottom with muddy water.
In surprise, I leapt to my feet only to get on one knee again and bow to her. “Your highness,” I said.
“Oh, please don’t,” Enwel said as she sat on the log. Roughly she took off her high-heel shoes and tossed them to the side. She reached behind her back and produced a flask, unscrewed it and took a long drink. “I hate having a title, and I very much dislike people feeling they have to treat me like a superior.”
There was the sound of a disgruntled sigh as Jonathan, the princess’ escort, watched her down the liquor.
Enwel rolled her eyes, screwed the top back on the flask and pocketed it. “I’m sorry, Jonathan, I promise I’ll be good,” she said mockingly.
I turned back to Beltrin. “I’m sorry, but… I’m seeing things, remembering things,” I said. “It’s all more horrible than I thought. I killed people, Beltrin. Dozens.”
Beltrin frowned and looked at the princess, who raised her eyebrows. Jonathan narrowed his, as he immediately began sizing me up.
“I… was held,” I tried explaining. “Against my will. By the Ravens.”
“Ah, the Covenant,” Enwel said. “I should have guessed.”
Beltrin took a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to me to clean up. “They tested potions on him,” he said, elongating the word ‘potions.’ “We assume they were testing their effects on him, and some of them stuck.”
I showed her my arm, which was still intermittently crackling with energy, as an example.
“I see,” Enwel said. “Well, you are definitely exhibiting signs of Wild Mage, that is certain.”
“She is a Wild Mage, too,” Beltrin said.
Enwel winked and fired a zapper of her own. She pointed it toward the puddle. It bounced off the top of the water, causing ripples, and into the sky directly above us.
“Must you?” Jonathan sighed again. He kept one hand on his sword as he looked quickly around the area. “We mustn’t be here much longer, Princess. There’s no telling who all might be lurking about in these woods. We need to return to the party. You two as well,” he added, almost as a throwaway comment, glancing at me and Beltrin.
Beltrin gave me another worried glance before gesturing for me to follow him out of the forest. We walked together, long patches of silence dotted with brief discussions about what our next steps should be.
6. Basic Training
“You are making fine progress, quit worrying,” Enwel said, her face occluded by thick, acrid smoke.
“Be honest with me… does this look like ‘fine progress’ to you?” I pointed at the stuffed muslin mannequin standing in between us. It was hanging on a metal pole, from the neck down. The head was upside-down on the ground, in flames.
“Of course, it does,” Enwel said after a thoughtful pause. “Three weeks ago, you couldn’t stop yourself from setting the whole thing on fire. Now we have it relegated to the head. Progress!”
Shortly after the event at the palace, Enwel arranged for me to spend three nights a week at the castle, so she could train me on controlling the wild magic coursing through my body.
It hadn’t been easy to convince Enwel’s father, the King, to allow it. He commanded me to meet him so Enwel and I could plead our case.
He sat before us in the Great Parlour, amongst portraits of each family member, a black ribbon of mourning still wrapped around one corner of the painting of his deceased wife. I kept looking at it as he spoke, still using his “public” facial persona. Youthful, vibrant, and dark-haired, he asked precisely why I should seek training from his daughter.
“Daddy,” Enwel began. “Before we get into that… I think you can drop the Masque spell.”
King O’Hir frowned and looked at the both of us. He seemed hesitant to let his age show.
“It’s alright,” I offered. “I think I understand… staying young helps keep the memory of your wife young as well?”
The king seemed taken aback by my assessment. He took a longing look at the portrait of the queen. He released a long, tired breath. As he did, wrinkles began to form around his eyes, which turned from a dazzling blue to a pale shade of gray. His hair thinned and turned white. Fifty years passed over his skin in the span of a few seconds.
“You are an astute young man,” the king said, his voice weaker, but still authoritative. “But I still do not understand why you should be under her tutelage – Enwel has a regiment of her own that she is tasked with training.”
“I believe I may be what you would call a ‘special circumstance,’ Sire,” I said, trying to plot my words ahead of speaking them. “You see… I am a survivor of a Raven lair.”
The king tensed in his seat. “Go on.”
“I’m not sure how much you have been told, but I was held there for a year and a half,” I continued. “During that time, they tested magic on me, almost daily.”
“It has affected his natural kinetic abilities, Daddy,” Enwel said. “He has become a Wild Mage. And he has not been taught how to conjure or control the kinetic channels properly.”
The king nodded as we spoke. “Enwel studied to become a mage,” he said. “Seven years it took to master all those skills and spells – are you telling me that the Ravens” –
“Forced all that magic within him in just a few months, yes,” Enwel said. “There’s no telling what all they tried to get him to do, no way of knowing how they bastardized the process.”
“My memory of the time I spent with them is… fragmented, at best,” I added. “I know that I have done terrible things” –
“Forced,” Enwel prodded me.
I nodded. “Forced to kill other prisoners while under the influence of their tests,” I said. “I feel terrible about it. I don’t want to hurt innocents. I don’t want what I have, but I’m stuck with it now, and I figure the best thing for everyone is if I learned how to control it.”
“Indeed,” said O’Hir. He stood from his chair with a tired groan. His legs wobbled slightly as he walked from the chair to the portrait of his wife. He placed his fingers on the gilded frame as he gazed upon the oil painting.
“Mummy would want me to
look after him,” Enwel offered. “I know she… she didn’t want her power either.”
The king looked at his daughter. “We don’t need to go into that here, dearest,” he said. “You’re right, of course. If you have knowledge that would help this young man, we are bound by our duty to this kingdom to ensure he learns that knowledge. You have my permission to proceed.”
The next day, and for three weekends thereafter, I flipped from staying with the Winds of Andusk for four days, then trekking up to the Castle O’Hir to spend three days and nights intensively studying and training with the princess.
