Forgotten Mage

by D. W. Jackson

  “Do you think it’s true?” Bren asked intrigued.

  “I don’t know…Honestly, I never gave it much thought myself. If you would like, we could look through some of your father’s journals and see if he found anything. Your mother had them sent here after his disappearance, so they should still be in my office somewhere.”

  “I think I should,” Bren said resolutely. “If the Brotherhood is after me, I would at least like to understand why.”

  “There is usually little understanding when it comes to beliefs. There is nothing that will turn a person into a madman quicker than what he holds in his heart to be true, whether it is or not.”

  “Do you think we can wait until tomorrow to start? I think it would be best that I get some sleep,” Bren said, as his stomach turned again.

  “Yes, I think that would be a good idea,” Sae-Thae responded with a smile. “I doubt that your Weapons Master will take any excuse, even if it is that you were attacked in the middle of the night, as a reason to get out of your training.”

  “You’re probably right,” Bren replied, almost laughing.

  Bren didn’t go back to his room alone though. Sae-Thae ordered four tower guards to escort him and Flynn. They were then to stay outside of his room for the rest of the night. As Bren walked back to his quarters, he cursed the Brotherhood again. “It’s one thing to try and kill me, but couldn’t they have done it in a way that didn’t mean I would have to be followed around by a horde of hulking guardsmen all the time,” Bren mumbled to himself. “So inconsiderate.”

  As he lay down, Bren was haunted by the images of the man being tortured. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see Shane’s face, contorted in pain, as his screams echoed through his mind. When Bren finally did fall asleep, the assassin was waiting for him there as well.

  Bren found Shane strapped in the same chair, though it was hard to recognize the man anymore. The skin on his face had been peeled back, and the bones in his hands and feet were gone, leaving them look like some morbid type of glove and boots. The most disturbing thing to Bren, was the fact that all but five of the man’s teeth had been removed.

  “You did this to me,” Shane blamed Bren.

  “I didn’t…” Bren said in denial as he back away from the chair, though no matter how much he moved, the distance between the two gradually became closer.

  “Why didn’t you just die?” Shane asked in an imploring voice. “You need to die…You will destroy the world and everyone in it!”

  “How?” Bren asked as he dropped to his knees, hiding his face from the man. When no answer came, Bren opened his eyes to find that he was now in the chair. “Master Rouma, stop it’s me!” Bren said, as the older mage approached him with a wicked looking curved blade.

  “Let me ask you again, Master Farlane. Why did you destroy the veil?”

  “I didn’t destroy it,” Bren replied, as tears ran down his face.

  “I always thought that you would know better than to lie, Master Farlane,” Rouma said, before plunging the knife into Bren’s chest.

  Bren woke screaming, startling Flynn who ran over to his bed as the other four guards burst into the room. “Are you ok? What happened?” Flynn asked, his hand resting on his sword and his eyes scanning the room.

  “Nothing…I just,” Bren said, his face turning a deep red in embarrassment.

  Flynn gave him a harsh look and turned to talk with the other guards, who left quickly, but not before looking in his direction and chuckling a bit. Bren didn’t know what Flynn had said, but he was sure that it wasn’t anything very pleasant.

  Flipping onto his side, Bren closed his eyes and tried to return to sleep, even though he feared that he might find the assassin waiting for him again. Tomorrow would be coming soon, and neither time nor the Weapons Master would wait on him to get a good night’s rest.

  “You son is more guarded than I figured,” Humanius said, pacing back and forth. “Thanks to all the protection you placed on the palace, we never had a chance to get close to him, and he had arrived at the Tower before we even knew he had gone from the palace. I thought wrongly that, at the Tower, we could at least get to him.”

  “Did you think that my friends would just let you kill my son?” Thad asked haughtily. “If you want to get to him, you will have to bring more than a few killers that work in the shadows,” Thad added smugly.

  “You might be right, but thanks to your little war, I don’t have a large army at my command anymore. Even if I did, they would have to make it through Farlan or Rane to reach your little Tower, and I doubt either of those countries would be too welcoming.”

  “You should give up on my son,” Thad said, hoping that the god would do just that.

  “I can’t do that Thaddeus…He is too great a threat, and growing to be more of one every day. I will just have to change how my men are targeting him. Maybe, if a few of the other mages start dyeing, then it will force your friends to start guarding everyone.”

  “So you would kill innocents just to get to my son?” Thad asked, his anger rising.

  “Innocents? None of them are completely innocent. All mages, strong or weak, are a strain on the veil. Your world would be better off without them in the long run. They have too much power and influence and as time moves along, some of them will start to see themselves as self-proclaimed gods,” Humanius said, with a knowing look.

  “Like you did?” Thad asked, his face flush with anger.

  “Yes, just like my people did, and it did not end well. There were deaths, tens of thousands of them, as we asserted our position over our fellow beings. That is why I cannot let that happen again.”

  “So you have decided to play god, which is what you don’t want others to do? What right do you have to choose our fates for us?” Thad asked, hitting Humanius as hard as he could.

  The god didn’t even flinch at Thad’s attack. “I might not have any right to choose your fates, as you said, but I will do so anyway. It is, what is right. If not for me and my sister, you would not have magic…I am just rectifying our mistake.”

  CHAPTER XIX

  The next morning, Bren woke without assistance. Though, it was more as if he just got out of bed, since he had not slept very well the night before. Feeling completely drained, Bren grabbed a towel and headed for the bath house, hoping that the hot water would sooth some of his sleepless stupor away.

  With his trusty troupe of guards following behind him, Bren winded his way through the corridors until he reached the baths. “Wait,” Flynn said, grabbing Bren by the arm. “Let me check it out before you go in. The bath is a great place for assassins.”

  Thad begrudgingly agreed to wait as Flynn and one of the tower guards searched the bath house, forcing anyone, mage or not, to leave before he entered. The harsh looks the other apprentice mages gave him as they were escorted out of the bath house, some still with soap covering their bodies, made Bren duck his head. He had just wanted a bath, not a whole parade in his honor, where the end result would be a lifetime of hate by some of his fellow mages.

  Once every place was checked, and no other people were left hiding in the water, Bren was allowed to go inside the bathhouse. After undressing, Bren eased himself into the hot water, and instantly started to feel better. “It’s amazing how much better you feel during a bath. I think you could be dying and still enjoy a good bath,” Bren said to no one in particular. “You should join me Flynn.”

  “I will take a bath once I am relieved of this duty. I cannot fight as well unarmed and unarmored,” the fighter said stoically.

  “You know, my life isn’t so important that you can’t at least try and enjoy yourself a bit,” Bren said, slightly annoyed. “I can tell that you don’t like me much, so why not be a little lax and at least take a bath. You are starting to smell like the backside of bull.”

  “I may not like having to babysit a spoiled little prince, but that does not mean I will not preform my duties in a professional manner. The Weapons Master bel
ieves that you are worth protecting, and has entrusted me with the duty to make sure that you still draw breath. As long as he believes so, I will continue to do my duty, but should he decided the opposite, I would be more than happy to slit your throat. I might even sing a little song while I do it.”

  “Can you at least tell me the reason you find me such an eye sore?” Bren asked, letting his entire body except his head slip under the nearly scalding water.

  “If you must know, my mother threw me out of the house as soon as I was ten. She didn’t need another mouth to feed, and as a male, I wasn’t worth much. I was left to fend for myself. So, I headed here, in hopes of finding some place to work so that I didn’t have to eat refuse left over in the garbage bin. I tried three times for a spot in the school. I worked three times harder than the others because, should I be forced to leave, I had nowhere else to go. Then after all that, the little prince comes along and simply gets handed a place in the school, two weeks after admissions. You have everything handed to you with no real effort on your part.”

  “I see,” Bren said, trying to think of some sort of retort but nothing came to mind. With his morning significantly ruined by Flynn’s sour mood, Bren got out of the bath and dressed for training.

  The normally long walk to the training field was made even more so, by the quiet and sour group of guards who followed him. Bren found himself starting to wish that it had been Flynn who had been injured by the assassins, not Cass.

  The other trainees were still getting ready for the day when Bren and Flynn arrived, so he deiced he would try and catch the Weapons Master. Bren found Jacob in his office, looking through a large stack of papers. “Weapons Master,” Bren said, knocking lightly on the door.

  “Mister Farlane, I thought you would be seeking me out today. However, I didn’t figure that it would be this early,” Jacob said, only taking a short look up from his papers. “I will assign another guard out of the more able trainees before you head back to the Tower.”

  “It’s not that Weapons Master,” Bren said weakly. “If at all possible, I would like another guard. Any other guard except Flynn.”

  “Is he not doing his job?” Jacob asked, looking at Bren and giving him his full attention.

  “No Weapons Master, he is doing his job to perfection,” Bren said hesitantly.

  “Then what I the problem?” Jacob said, looking back down at his papers.

  “He hates me,” Bren admitted sheepishly.

  “Bren, if you think that everyone is going to like you, then you need to wake up and stop dreaming,” Jacob said, his voice cold and sharp. “Most the other trainees, both young and older, don’t care much for you. They look at you and see a pampered prince. They seem to miss the fact that you work as hard as each of them. If you were here all day, in class, and during evening training, they might see past your title, but right now they can’t.”

  “Then what can I do?” Bren asked, almost pleading.

  “You can start by growing up a little,” Jacob said, pointing Bren to the door. “Get used to the fact some people…Or most people, are not going to like you, and get over it. Now, I have more important work to do than continue to pamper you. As long as Flynn is doing his job, he will remain you guard, seeing as he is one of the best swordsmen we currently have.”

  Bren left the office and headed to the storeroom to start his work. “Why do they hate me? Just because of who my parents are? I didn’t have a choice in being born a prince,” Bren muttered to himself as he started cleaning a long broadsword.

  You know, I have to agree with the Weapons Master, you do need to grow up. Your father was never this whiney…It is very annoying to tell you the truth. I like the fact that you have a bit more backbone than he had, but must you complain about every little thing.

  “Fine, you want me to stop complaining, then I will stop,” Bren said, swearing to himself that no matter what happened, he was just going to deal with it.

  That would make my life, and yours a lot better. Keep dwelling on everything that goes wrong and you won’t even notice the things that go right.

  “I could say the same thing about your thoughts on women…You know that not all of them are out to get me,” Bren said evenly.

  When you can find one that is not looking to get something from you, let me know. I would honestly love to see a woman who didn’t want power, gold, or love from a person.

  “Love, you have a problem with love?” Bren asked, shocked at what Thuraman had said.

  Love, yes, I have a problem with love. Nothing else in this world can make a person act like a complete idiot other than love. Your father acted a fool anytime a woman was near because of feelings such as those. He was trained to love women without even thinking about it. I warn you now Bren, nothing in this world can bring a powerful person to their doom faster than the love of a bad woman.

  “What about a good one?” Bren retorted, slightly annoyed at Thuraman’s abject hate of anything that dealt with emotions.

  Haven’t ever met a good woman, so I wouldn’t know.

  “You have met my mother and she is a good woman,” Bren replied defensively.

  I think you have a skewed idea as to what a good woman, or person is. Your mother kept you confined to the palace, and refused to let you take your birthright as the next leader of the Tower. She still plans to drag you back to Farlan to live the rest of your days as a prisoner. If that is a good woman, I would hate to see a bad one.

  “Well she…” Bren started to say, but nothing came to mind that would sound good in defense of his mother’s actions. In truth, he didn’t understand or agree with many of them either, but he knew that she loved him, and that she was a good person. Misguided at times, but still a good person, or at last he hoped that was the truth. Trying to imagine his own mother as a villain left a sour taste in Bren’s mouth.

  Like the day before, after cleaning they practiced with the enchanted swords. Bren enjoyed the practice. It was something to take his mind off the fact that someone was trying to kill him. Without Cass there, Bren was pitted against Flynn, and he was sure that it was the Weapons Master’s idea.

  Bren had always thought that Cass never held anything back, but after two rounds with Flynn, Bren was starting to change his mind. The older boy was much faster than Cass had been. Flynn’s movements seemed more fluid, and each strike was meant to kill.

  “Keep the point of your sword up, don’t let it dip, not even for a moment. For god’s sake, don’t cross your legs when you take a step back! It looks cool, but one wrong turn and you will find yourself lying on your back, waiting for your enemy to run you through,” Flynn said, after the third time Bren was knocked to the ground.

  Getting back to his feet, Bren reset his position and tried again. Flynn came straight at him, the same as he had the other three times. A strike to the right, then a quick thrust to Bren’s chest, both easily parried. With each strike, Flynn’s speed increased, forcing Bren to push himself past his abilities. A low sweep right after a thrust, forced Bren to take a step back, but Flynn was ready this time and shoved hard with his shoulder, tripping Bren and sending him tumbling to the ground.

  “What is the point of sparing if you are not going to learn from your mistakes?” Flynn yelled as he kicked Bren hard in the ribs. “Next time you cross your feet when you step back, I will beat you until there is nothing left but a pile of mud,” Flynn yelled, accenting his point with another strong kick.

  Wheezing, Bren got to his feet and prepared for another attack. Flynn continued to thrash Bren in the sparing ring until midday, but Bren never did cross his feet again. The bruises from the first few times were a pointed reminder of the consequences of doing so.

  Like most days, Bren studied with Master Carnear after his training with the Weapons Master. Today was a short session, as both Carnear and Bren both had other places to be. Bren had hoped that he would get another chance to use his magic, but Carnear only had him do some more routine meditation exercises.
/>
  As Bren raced toward master Sae-Thae’s office, his spirits picked up. Nothing could dampen what he had waited all day for. He would finally get to see what his father had been studying when he disappeared and maybe find a way to bring him back.

  “Bren where have you been?” A light voice called from down the stairs. Bren stopped to look for its source, making both Flynn and his new guard Hours more than a little annoyed. After a few seconds he spotted the source and waved to Faye.

  “Been busy and more than a little guarded,” Bren replied jokingly, getting a smile from Faye. “I was on my way to maser Sae-Thae’s office, do you want to walk with me? I could really use someone to talk to.”

  “I would love to, but is it ok with your friends?” Faye asked smiling. “They don’t seem to be in the talkative mood.

  “They never are, that is why I could use someone else around,” Bren replied laughing.

  Sae-Thae, as well as Phena, were waiting on him with a large stack of journals and notes. “Did you find anything?” Bren asked enthusiastically.

  “There is quite a bit to go through, but I have found few promising things among the notes. I figured we could enlist the aid of Isophena in looking through everything,” Sae-Thae said as he handed Bren a large leather-bound journal.

  “Do you think I could help?” Faye asked shyly.

  “Sure,” Bren replied quickly, having almost forgotten the young lady had been there.

  “Are you sure that is wise,” Phena replied curtly. “Would she even know what we are looking for?”

  “Isophena, I am sure that the young lady could be of use,” Sae-Thae said offhandedly. “Well, no reason to stand around chatting. Everyone grab a book and starting reading. If you find anything interesting, make a note of it and we can discuss it before we all leave.”

  Bren already had one in his hand, so he took a seat on the ground, having found that Sae-Thae’s choice in chairs were not very comfortable.