The Azure Wizard

by Nicholas Trandahl

  The Baron stood up before his throne, sword in hand, and finished, “I can no more mourn for my subjects that will die. I have mourned too much already. Bringing in the entire populace of Greenwell City will cause nothing but sickness and starvation as we wallow in overpopulation. It is better that tradesmen, laborers, and whores fall so that sages, nobles, scribes, and priests may live. It is in these occupations that our culture and our future will still survive. You are not barons or rulers, and I cannot expect you to understand my decision. Trust me to rule what people I can save, or don’t trust me and leave my city.”

  As ominous silence stretched, none saw a lone figure stalk into the shadows of the Great Hall. They never saw him creep closer and closer amongst the forest of pillars. None knew that he was listening to most of their conversation until he revealed himself to those present. He did so with a bold statement.

  “My Baron, the Wizard will trouble you no more! He is coming with me!”

  All the chamber’s previous occupants turned in a rush to behold the mysterious speaker before they suddenly were blinded in a duo of bright green flashes.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  The Priory of Prophets

  “So you mean to tell me, that you’ve been looking for me my whole life?”

  Ethan still paced confusedly, as he had been for the better part of an hour since he and his abductor had appeared somewhere upon the shore of the sea on the east coast of the Three Baronies. The afternoon sky was warm and smelled strongly of salt and rain, likely from the rumbling overcast sky that churned about above the shoreline. Gulls screamed and wheeled about in the air before the storm.

  He was speaking with a thin tanned-skinned man in a featureless white robe. His head and face were shaved to the skin and his red eyes held, surprisingly, a strong sense of empathy and benevolence. About his neck hung a wide iron amulet emblazoned with an open hand with an eye upon its palm. Soon after their instantaneous arrival here, the man had explained that his name was Marros, and that he was the senior member of an order called The Prophets that were tasked with seeking out the Wizard that would return Wizardcraft to the Three Baronies. The order had been established for this task all the way back in the misty realms of history at the dusk of the Ancient Age, when Wizardcraft still stirred within the blood of a number of individuals. For a thousand years they had awaited the rebirth of Wizardcraft, and awaited the finding of its Herald within the Barony of Greenwell, as was foretold to the ancestors of the order as their divination Wizardcraft powers diminished with the Ancient Age. The Prophets had saved the only known Wizardcraft-powered artifacts of the Ancient Age in the hopes that they would locate the Wizard responsible for the rebirth.

  When Marros had tiredly wandered into the Castle of Greenwell, his hope failing at finding the Wizard despite the sightings and monstrous reports of bizarre mutated beasts, he was almost struck with a fit of fainting when he saw the very Wizard that a thousand years’ worth of brethren had lived and died to one day find. It took only a moment for Marros to fish two teleportation crystals, relics of an age when Wizardcraft was rampant in the lands of the Three Baronies, from the deep pocket of his pale robe and use the last of their power to transport him and the Wizard back to the headquarters of his ancient secretive reclusive order. It was soon after their arrival, that Marros had thrown the now-useless teleportation crystals into the sea.

  “Aye, boy,” Marros finally replied with a contented smile, “you are the Wizard and Herald that the Prophets were designed to one day find and bring back here, to our residence in the Priory of the Prophets. It is all for you that we exist here at all. A thousand years ago our ancestors were tasked with awaiting your arrival in the land and with you, the return of Wizardcraft. And finally after ten centuries of stagnation and longing, you have been born and brought to us.”

  Ethan’s perplexed condition was written blatantly on his bewildered features as he stared and the Wendlithian-blooded man before him. “But why, Marros? Why bring me here at all? For what purpose?”

  Marros laughed lightly and responded in a very matter-of-fact tone, “We are here to watch over you, and to see if the wrongs that Wizardcraft has wrought in the Three Baronies may be undone.”

  A silence stretched between the two on the beach beneath a grey rumbling sky. Ethan walked over so that the surf of the tide rushed against his dark leather boots, and sighed. “What must I do, Marros? I would give anything to save the Three Baronies, or what’s left of them.”

  Marros ambled over to the Wizard as he stared over the slate-blue waves of the vast sea and he put his hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “That is very good to hear, Ethan. We think that something can be done to sever any further crisis wrought upon the Three Baronies by the return of Wizardcraft. But you must come with me to the Priory of Prophets so that I can more easily explain.”

  Ethan’s shoulders slumped in relaxation and resignation as he let tension that had been plaguing his body and heart for too long release. He nodded slowly and replied, “Aye, Marros. I’ll go with you.”

  The duo found themselves soon walking upon a gray flagstone pathway that led from the beach into the rising tree-cloaked hills that overlooked the sea. A rain had begun to gently drizzle down upon them from the churning overcast sky, and Ethan was quick to offer his thick, brown woolen cloak to his new companion.

  In less than an hour’s time the two of them, the Wizard and the prophet, had reached the end of the forested pathway. Before them was a very old moss-smothered ruin of an ancient keep. Some portions had crumbled into ruin while some still stood dark and proud upon the pinnacle of a steep cliffside overlooking the sea, now a shade of grey matching that of the raining sky. “Welcome, Ethan the Wizard, to the Priory of Prophets.

  Ethan spotted a few white-robed prophets, male and female alike, toiling about the Priory. Some were placing torches that burned with various hues of flame on each side of the main portal into the Priory while others rushed indoors to escape the rain and coming night, arms laden with baskets of garden vegetables and various gardening tools. Only a couple spared a quick curious glance towards Marros and Ethan as they made their way into the shadow of the Priory. Soon, these few observers began conversing with one another excitedly and some rushed away into the Priory, likely to alert their companions of Marros’s arrival with a strange visitor in tow. As Ethan and Marros walked side by side into the damp cool interior of the ancient Priory, the Vharian noticed that the peculiar torches burned with odd colors, didn’t put off heat, and seemed to be unaffected by the rainfall. They were obviously magical relics such as the crystals that Marros had used to transport the two of them from Greenwell City to the lonely stretch of beach on the eastern shore of the Three Baronies. Ethan wondered to himself what other magical relics of the Ancient Age remained stored within the Priory of Prophets.

  As they advanced into a large dark pillared hall, lit only by a few feeble torches bearing purple flame, Ethan and Marros were met by nearly a score of white-robed prophets. Children clutched the robes of some as they watched curiously and wide-eyed at the new visitor accompanying Marros. Ethan noticed that none wore the medallion that Marros wore about his neck, the amulet depicting an open palm with an eye at its center.

  “So I take it that you’re the top prophet here or something?” the Wizard inquired, his eyes glowing slightly blue in amusement.

  Marros laughed softly and said, “Aye, Ethan. I’m something of the sort.”

  When they reached the middle of the pillared hall, standing upon an ancient frayed rug of burgundy weave, Marros slowed to a stop and Ethan followed suit. A few dozen white-robed prophets and only a few children encircled them, their faces a mix or curiosity and, Ethan could swear, hope.

  “Friends, prophets,” Marros began with his arms outraised, “we welcome into our midst, here at the Priory of Prophets, Ethan Skalderholt, the Wizard and Herald of Wizardcraft foretold to us by our order’s founders a thousand years ago. He has brought Wizardcraft back into the
land of the Three Baronies, and I, Marros, our humble leader, have brought him here to us. Our task has come to an end!”

  The gathering of white-robed prophets cheered and applauded, some with tears welling in their eyes. Ethan, still a bit confused on why his arrival here would be such a wanted solution to the return of Wizardcraft, smiled nervously and waved a blue-tattooed hand at the congregation.

  Marros turned to Ethan with a broad warm smile, and he asked excitedly, “Are you, Ethan Skalderholt, the sole Wizard of the Three Baronies, ready to fulfill your destiny and save this land from destruction?”

  Ethan smiled and shouted, “Yes, Marros, and the rest of the prophets that have gathered here! I am ready to end this destruction and death, and fulfill my destiny!”

  Marros smiled warmly, putting a hand on Ethan’s shoulder, and he pulled the wiry Vharian close to him so he could whisper into his ear. In a soft voice that stirred Ethan’s wet blond hair Marros hissed, “Then die!”

  Ethan gritted his teeth and winced in pain as a dagger was drove home into his chest, its fine blade grinding against his ribs as it entered his chest and pierced his heart. Hot crimson blood spurted out upon Marros’s white robe, and the prophet jerked the blade free. As the congregation of white-robed prophets and their pale children cheered, Marros drove the blade home again, deep into Ethan’s stomach.

  Blood dribbled from the Wizard’s mouth as he crumbled to the ground, sliding free from Marros’s knife. Blood rapidly began to pool around him, and through blurry eyes he saw Marros, robe speckled with scarlet drops raise both hands into the air of the dark chamber in exultation. The fist that gripped the straight-bladed dagger was red with Ethan’s warm blood.

  Marros shouted, “The Wizard is dead! Wizardcraft is once again vanished from the Three Baronies! May this one spend eternity in the Soul Wastes with his kin, Illumis!”

  Ethan coughed up blood, and clutched desperately at his chest as his life drained from him. Then his eyesight beheld naught but a blue void, as azure as a cloudless summer sky. This vision slowly coalesced into the image of May and Kraegovich, Nythee holding the massive old Vharian’s hand, standing upon the bridge that led to the Castle of Greenwell. They seemed sad and a little confused as they talked, gazing hopelessly over the side of the bridge into the waters of the great Three Baronies River.

  For the second time in his life, Ethan was seeing a vision, the first when he brought Wizardcraft back into the land, and the second as he was leaving the world in death. Just as with his first vision, he would not ignore this one. Feebly he reached out a blood-soaked hand and grasped Marros by his ankle.

  Marros smiled, all benevolence replaced by malevolence, as he stared down at the dying Wizard with his fierce, red eyes. Ethan’s eyes began to glow a vibrant and rich blue as he choked out, “You’re coming with me, prophet.”

  A pillar of brilliant blinding azure light broke through the darkness of the chamber in the heart of the Priory of Prophets, and when it vanished the stunned and bewildered congregation of prophets surrounded only a tattered and old blood-stained rug in the middle of the hall. Marros, their leader, and the Wizard were vanished.

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Lost Love and Bloody Blades

  May and Kraegovich whirled around in surprise and hope when a brilliant blue flash and gust of wind exploded from behind them, in the center of the old stone bridge. In the setting sun, their hope quickly became shock as they beheld Ethan, bleeding and dying upon the ground, and above him a white-robed figure speckled in blood, holding up a bloody dagger. Kraegovich pushed little Nythee behind him against the rampart on the side of the bridge, and smoothly pulled free his sword from his scabbard.

  May screamed, “Ethan!” and when she advanced Marros held the dripping dagger out before him, menacingly towards her.

  “Back, whore, before I knife you too,” snarled the prophet.

  “What have you done, you bastard?” Kraegovich growled looking down at Ethan and taking a step forward, his sword gripped firmly in an iron grip within his two hands.

  “I saved us all, you Vharian oaf! I’ve killed the Wizard, and saved the Three Baronies. With his last breath the monsters will turn back into their mundane forms and all the destruction will cease.”

  May began sobbing as she knelt down on the bridge. The western sky blazed in fierce orange and to the east, behind the Castle of Greenwell, stars began to twinkle in the sky. She gazed through her tears into the tattooed face of Ethan, her lover, and in his glowing blue eyes she saw peace and his love for her. Through blood-speckled lips he smiled at her, and he wheezed, “I love you, May.”

  But then the blue glow in the Wizard’s eyes began to fade until she stared into the ordinary amber eyes of the Vharian storyteller she had first met. But behind the yellow-brown hue of the eyes was the glassy look of a dead man. Ethan Skalderholt was departed to the Ancestor Lands.

  May Kinsley looked up from the eyes of her dead lover and gazed into the wild red eyes of the prophet, Ethan’s killer, and through her tears she saw his vulnerability. “You aren’t going to be leaving this bridge alive, murderer,” she stated angrily as she began to slowly rise. Kraegovich still advanced, backing the prophet against the rampart on the other side of the bridge.

  “I beg to differ, lass,” he chuckled as he pulled a green crystal from a pocket on his bloody white robe.

  Suddenly shouts and screams echoed faintly through the air and ribbons of acrid smoke could be seen rising from Greenwell City beyond the Old District’s high walls. Monsters, likely the acidic Deep Wolves, were besieging the most powerful city of the Three Baronies. Marros looked confusedly to the west, in the direction of the most screams, and mumbled, “It can’t be. He’s dead. The Wizard is dead. Wizardcraft is dead.”

  “No it isn’t,” was May’s fierce but quiet reply.

  Marros looked on the ground before him at the lifeless corpse of Ethan Skalderholt, then up to the woman who had spoken, and then as realization dawned, he looked down to her belly.

  “His seed is in you, lass. A Wizard grows in your womb. Wizardcraft will not leave the Three Baronies until that fetus does,” snarled Marros as he advanced with his bloody dagger pointed out threateningly towards her.

  In a flash of cold steel Kraegovich leapt forward the rest of the way, straddling Ethan’s corpse, and severed Marros’s hand and dagger from his body in one swift downward chop. “

  “You will not touch this woman or her unborn child. That, I can promise,” warned Kraegovich evenly.

  Marros fell back against the rampart, green crystal grasped in one hand as his newly-acquired bloody stump dripped much blood over the old stones of the bridge. He howled in pain, and saw death coming as Kraegovich, the largest and most menacing Vharian he had ever seen, strode towards him, readying his sword for another blow. He shrieked in fright as Kraegovich raised his sword in preparation for another downward two-handed chop.

  Suddenly, in a flash of emerald light, a white robed Greenwellian man with shaggy brown hair and green eyes, curved dagger in hand, appeared in front of Marros. He had time to glance in Kraegovich’s direction confusedly and yelp in desperation before the heavy iron blade buried itself halfway through the man’s skull. Three more emerald-hued flashes severed the dusk upon the bridge, revealing three more prophets, two pale brown-haired Greenwellians, and one white haired Wendlithian. The Wendlithian wielded a curved scimitar he held with two hands, and the other two both held straight-bladed knives.

  Marros shouted, voice ringing in pain and desperation, “It took you fools long enough to track my amulet! Now defend me and kill these fools!”

  The white-robed Wendlithian took up a fighting stance in front of his countryman and smirked at Kraegovich. He snapped, “Among the prophets, I am the finest of swordsman, brute of the North.”

  He spun in a full circle waving his scimitar in a flourish and put on a cocky grin. Kraegovich let out a hardy Vharian chuckle, “There is a saying in my barony, prophet; ‘T
he finest of goats is still just a goat’”

  Kraegovich swung hard at the Wendlithian prophet and the swordfight ensued. One of the Greenwellians advanced toward May while the other held his dagger out menacingly towards Nythee. The terrified Wendlithian girl shrank into a terrified ball against the rampart of the bridge as the prophet cruelly joked, “Hush, hush, little girl. It’ll only last a second.”

  Those were his last words before a stone-bladed dagger sank hilt-deep into his temple. The prophet let out a jerky spasm before sprawling face-first onto the stones of the bridge in a fit of erratic seizures. May barely had time to dodge a swift swipe of the knife wielded by the other prophet, but she ducked beneath his swinging arm and punched him directly in the groin. He roared in pain and threw all of his weight onto the much-smaller May, smashing her beneath him against the hard stones of the bridge. He lay atop her and brought his dagger down towards her face. May barely caught his wrist with both of her hands and the two struggled against one another in a battle of strength, which May knew with dread the man would soon win.

  Kraegovich parried a swift horizontal slice of the Wendlithian prophet’s curved blade, and brought his shoulder to bear roughly into the man’s face, smashing his nose. Kraegovich reversed his grip on the sword and rose it up to plunge it into the stunned prophet’s ribcage from above, but as he thrust downward the Wendlithian spun out of the way, and in the completion of his rotation he scored a quick slice across the Vharian’s ribs. It burned in pain, but Kraegovich wouldn’t acknowledge it.

  The Wendlithian came in for another swift horizontal strike from the same side, and again Kraegovich parried it. But this time, instead of throwing his shoulder into the man’s bloody face, he let go of his sword and grabbed the prophet by the wrist of his sword arm and the wrist of his other arm, and spread the weaker smaller man’s arms out wide. He heard May scream behind him, in pain or fear, and knew he must finish this quickly. He brought his head forward hard into the already-smashed face of the helpless prophet, and two more times, until the Wendlithian’s tanned face was broken and deluging scarlet blood. He then let go of the man’s arms and caught him by the front of his white robe before he collapsed onto the ground. Kraegovich lifted the man high in the air, spun once, and tossed his broken-faced opponent over the side of the bridge and into the dark waters of the Three Baronies River.