by A. C. Cobble
He looked to see if Ben and Amelie were paying attention.
Then he continued, “Keep in mind these were places that defended themselves for generations, and they were failing. Mages, trained for battle and hired to protect merchant caravans, were the ones who saw it most clearly. Those mages started talking. They began organizing in fraternities and making a coordinated effort to push back the darkness.”
Ben refilled his wine and sat back, captivated. He’d never heard anything like this.
Jasper, lost in his story, kept talking. “The Purple, the Sanctuary, they both originated in this time. There were others. The Guild, The Society of the Burning Hand, and The Cold Sons. They’ve mostly faded away throughout the years. Only the Sanctuary retains some of the old glory.” The mage sipped on his wine then expanded, “The Purple were a group of thinkers, philosophers almost. The Sanctuary was originally focused on healing, both wounds of the body and the emotional wounds of the populace. Because of their skill at healing the body, the Sanctuary’s representatives were welcomed everywhere. They became the first true diplomats. While the Sanctuary began tying together the factitious cities, trying to achieve some semblance of coordinated resistance, the Purple began researching ways to permanently blunt the threat of the demons. I wasn’t involved in either group. Much of what I know is second hand at best.”
Ben shifted in his chair. “How long ago did you say this was?”
Jasper grinned. “Very long ago. That’s not the point of this story. The Purple had several options they were researching, weapons or barriers mostly. Surprisingly, what proved most effective was the opposite, the Rift. By directing the generation of demons in our world, they made exterminating new arrivals a manageable process. It became predictable. They established the system of hunters, and the leaders of the city states banded together to make it work. Over the course of a few short decades, the demon population was shrinking. No new arrivals meant that each time a demon was eliminated, that was one fewer in a particular region. The world became a safer place. The lines of communication that the Sanctuary and others opened were suddenly even more useful. Trade, which had previously been exceptionally dangerous, became common place. The economies of many cities expanded rapidly. The leaders of those cities were able to extend their reach outside of their high walls and regional governments started. That brought more wealth as well as new resources were tapped and less had to be spent on defense. It was a golden age, in a sense.”
Jasper bent to place another log on the fire. His figure was silhouetted by the flames in the hearth.
“Many people say that golden age eventually came to an end,” continued Jasper solemnly. “The wars, the squabbling we have now, it didn’t exist for a precious century. There was plenty for everyone. Still, today is better than it was in the dark times. People can travel freely. They raise their families without fear. When there is war, it is self-inflicted by the lords people allow to rule them.”
“But,” interjected Ben, “what about this new wave of demons that is loose in the north? You said it yourself. A swarm like the one we fought today could overrun any town within fifty leagues of here. Without the Rift, without the institutions and protections that people had back then, couldn’t it get worse if we don’t act?”
Frowning, Jasper sat back down in his chair. “It could. If something isn’t done, then maybe it is likely it will be worse,” allowed the mage, “but the nature of man is to only focus on what is in front of him. A vague threat to the north isn’t enough to spur southerners to action. Coordinating a resistance is unlikely. Many won’t act until they are forced to, when they have no other choice.”
“Someone has to do something, and it can’t just be a few people,” argued Ben. “The Alliance and the Coalition, the Sanctuary and the Purple, they could band together like they did back then. If they keep fighting like they are now, the demons could sweep over the entire continent. Someone has to unite them.”
Jasper stared down at his empty mug. “Who could do such a thing, boy? No one has the power to force all of the warring parties to come together. There is no leader all of them would accept.”
Amelie spoke up. “We don’t know all of the answers, but one thing we do know. It has to start somewhere. Someone has to begin opening everyone’s eyes to what is happening. That someone might as well be us. We’re just an initiate and a swordsman. We can’t stop the demons on our own. No one can. We will do what is in our power though. We have to. We can be the pebbles that start the avalanche.”
Ben nodded to his friend. “Well said,” he murmured.
Jasper abruptly turned away from the fire. “It’s getting late for such dark discussions and I’ve had too much wine. We should turn in for the night.”
Ben ground his teeth. Jasper might be the most powerful person he had ever encountered, someone who could really make a difference if they could convince the mage to help them.
Amelie rested a hand on Ben’s arm. He sighed. He knew what she wanted. She wanted to give Jasper time to think about what they’d said.
The mage stood and gestured for them to follow, “Come. I’ll show you your room.”
“Rooms, if that is possible,” suggested Amelie, a flush creeping into her cheeks.
Jasper blinked in surprise and shrugged. “Oh, I thought… very well, rooms it is. We have plenty of space now.”
Later that evening, Ben knocked on Amelie’s door. She answered quickly. Her hair was down and a single candle lit her from behind.
“Do you think we convinced him to help?” asked Ben.
She shrugged.
Ben paused then whispered, “Jasper thought we were together like a couple.”
“And?” replied Amelie in a low voice.
“Should we have shared a room?” questioned Ben.
“You wish, Master Ashwood. You wish.” Gently, she closed the door in his face.
She was right. He did wish.
***
The next day, with dawn still climbing over the eastern ridge of the valley, Ben pulled on sturdy work gloves and dabbed vinegar on a cloth which he tied around his face. He followed Jasper out into the morning.
The first thing they did was drag all of the fallen demons they could find into a pile surrounding the arch-demon. It was hard work and took them nearly a bell. There were two-dozen demons in total, each nearly twice Ben’s weight. Ben was glad the mage Erran had killed some before they faced the swarm.
Jasper ducked into his laboratory and returned with a jug of clear liquid.
“Too close to the laboratory for this,” he mumbled, “but we’ll have a damn hard time trying to move that arch-demon with just two of us.”
The mage poured the liquid over the bodies of the demons and instructed Ben to back up. From twenty paces away, the mage snapped his fingers. The pile erupted in a giant ball of fire. Ben stumbled back cursing. The heat was uncomfortably warm on his face.
“Now for the hard part,” said Jasper.
They gathered a pick and a pair of shovels. Jasper’s friends would get a proper burial. The mage remained silent about who the bodies were. Ben left him undisturbed, only speaking when they needed to coordinate their efforts. Ben supposed that in all of his years, the mage had buried plenty of friends. That didn’t make it any easier.
While the men were out taking care of the bodies, Amelie had been flitting between the houses, straightening out the interiors and taking inventory of Jasper’s supplies. When Jasper and Ben were done for the day, she told them she had consolidated all of the foodstuffs in the main house, figuring it may be a while before Jasper needed the other houses for guests. For non-food items, she made a note of what was useful and where it was stored.
Amelie had also taken the initiative to prepare a hearty meal. Smoked fish, carrots, potatoes, and celery simmered in a thick stew. She’d found some hard crusts of bread she hollowed out into bread bowls. With the stew ladled in, they softened up nicely. Jasper drug out his wine barrel again a
nd filled three mugs.
Amelie brought out the black, purple embossed book Towaal had given them shortly before they fled.
“I should have shown you this earlier. Lady Towaal handed it to me before we fled Northport,” explained Amelie. “I can’t make any sense of it. The writing is some sort of code, I think.”
Jasper pushed aside his wine and accepted the book. He thumbed through the stiff pages, knitting his eyebrows as he skimmed the words.
“It’s not code. It’s just old. Old language, old versions of our letters,” he said, mumbling under his breath.
“What does it say?” asked Amelie curiously.
“It’s research, I believe,” answered the mage slowly. He was bent close over the book, frowning. “I would have to read closer to be sure, and it’s been a long time since I’ve seen writing like this, but it appears to be describing an undeveloped theory of how the two worlds interact, our world and the demon world.”
Ben sipped his wine and let the mage read. It made sense, he supposed. The Purple was able to create a key to open new rifts. They would understand the relationships between the worlds better than anyone.
“According to this,” continued Jasper after several silent minutes, “there is incredible power in the nether between our worlds, power that may be able to be tapped. It could charge magical devices or flow through a practitioner with sufficient will. It could be used as an incredibly destructive force.” Jasper paused. “You are familiar with how magic works, yes? Knowledge and will are used to manipulate energy?”
Ben and Amelie nodded.
“In practice, there are consequences to expending energy. Forces trigger opposite reactions. If I make it hot here,” he said, poking a finger onto the table, “then it will get cold where I drew the heat from. That limits the power of even the strongest willed mage. There is only so much a person can do before the consequences of that action are worse than the intended result. In a simple example, if I send too much heat somewhere else, I will freeze to death. A responsible mage is always concerned about unintended consequences and collateral damage. Even when those consequences aren’t personal, there are things a mage could cause which would be calamitous elsewhere.”
Ben scratched the back of his head. He thought he was following Jasper’s train of thought, but the man was describing theories of magic that seemed a step beyond what he’d overheard Towaal teaching.
“Imagine this,” continued Jasper, “what if a mage could draw energy from a source outside of our world, a source where the mage didn’t care about the consequence of the reaction, a source where energy flowed freely, unseen and unused?”
Amelie speculated, “A clean source of energy could be used indiscriminately. That could massively amplify the powers of a mage.”
“A mage who had sufficient knowledge and will to use it,” clarified Jasper. “If the theory in this diary is correct about the level of energy flowing outside of our world, then there are few alive who would have to ability to handle it, possibly myself, the Veil, one or two more at the Sanctuary, and an old friend named Gunther, if he’s still alive.”
Amelie nodded. “Still, if the theory is true, that would be remarkable.”
Jasper scooped up his wine and sat back. “It’s only a theory.”
“The demons,” stated Ben. His companions looked at him curiously. “The demons in the rift valley survived for centuries. They survived long after they’d drained the nearby life-blood. They were feeding on something that could sustain them. Some sort of energy.”
Jasper titled up his cup and drained the rest of the wine.
“That makes sense,” remarked the mage. “If the rift was drawing on this source of energy to sustain itself, then maybe some of that power was bleeding off, and the demons were able to use it. It’s not well understood how they subsist on life-blood, or what other types of energy could sustain them. I believe you are on to something.”
“Can we, or you, use that power?” asked Amelie, wide-eyed.
Jasper shook his head, “It’s possible I have the will, but I do not have the knowledge. This book ends mid-sentence.” He pointed to the last page, “That drop of blood is ominous, isn’t it?”
Ben glanced at the page and saw a thumb-sized reddish brown stain.
Jasper continued, “In the book, the theory is there, but the particulars are not. Speculation that this incredible source of energy exists is well and good, but unless you know how to tap it, it is just that. Speculation.”
“Could you figure it out?” asked Amelie.
“Maybe with the information that is stated here, if I had time,” responded Jasper. “By time, I mean years. I’m a maker. I work with my hands. I don’t form theories, I conduct experiments. If something is as powerful as this diary describes, you want more than empirical testing. Normally, you would try to consult an expert, but obviously we can’t go to the Sanctuary. Gunther was always interested in these things, but I haven’t seen him in centuries. I wouldn’t know where to start looking for him. Besides, I’ve been down this path before, and it did not go well.”
Ben raised his eyebrow and waited patiently for the mage to continue.
The man grimaced. “I mentioned that long ago there were several fraternities of mages. I was in one called the Society of the Burning Hand. Much like the Purple, we were always pushing the boundary, looking for a way to increase our power. We developed weapons and delved new sources of energy. Some of our members breached a boundary that should have been left untouched.”
“What do you mean?” queried Amelie.
“Death,” replied Jasper somberly. “There is a great deal of energy expelled at the end of life. That energy can be captured and used. We developed tools to capture death energy and convert it into useable form, weapons primarily. We should have left it at that. In hindsight, we should have expected it to go wrong. We’d gone too far, gotten too dark. Some of our members got greedy, and they started causing deaths to increase their power. It was a painful time, and I do not want to speak of it more than necessary, but I assure you, when our Society split, I was on the side of life. I fought and killed my brothers, many of them. I feel like blood still stains my hands from that time, but it had to be done.”
Ben met Amelie’s look. Jasper seemed so friendly and kind, but apparently even he had a dark side.
“Thank you for telling us,” murmured Ben.
With nothing else to say, Ben took a quick a bite of stew and frowned. It had gotten cold. He ladled fresh stew into his bowl and the others followed suit. They ate silently, all lost in their own thoughts.
“I’ve been thinking,” remarked Jasper after several silent minutes. “I want to help you. Help more than I originally intended. I cannot go to Irrefort with you, but I can take you as far as the Coalition’s border. From there, you’ll be on your own, but I’ll have the comfort you are on your way.”
“That would be wonderful!” exclaimed Amelie. “You have so much to do here though. Are you sure you can be away?”
A grim smirk twisted Jasper’s face. “My friends are dead. My animals are dead. There’s nothing left to care for.” Seeing the stricken looks on Ben and Amelie’s faces, he held up a hand to stop their protests. “There is nothing to be done about it. Maybe I will come back and rebuild, but to do that, I need to buy fresh livestock and supplies. Everything that needs to be done here in the compound can wait.”
“We would appreciate your help greatly,” responded Ben.
“Also, that will give me time to teach you a few things,” said the mage, looking at Amelie. “The Sanctuary has been remiss in some of your education. I will fill those gaps as best I can. There are things you should know, and things I can teach you to do.”
Amelie looked startled.
“I told you last night that the original members of the Sanctuary focused on healing,” said Jasper. “At the time, it wasn’t intentionally segregated to be a female organization, but women were the ones who were naturally drawn
to the mission. Male mages were drawn to combat. They were the ones who protected caravans travelling between city states and the ones who faced the demon swarms.”
Leaning forward on his elbows, the mage continued, “The first Veil used that. She claimed men were dangerous, violent creatures who wanted to dominate society. As I told you earlier, there were plenty of men around who were like that. The need to dominate is in the blood of some men, just as it turned out it is in the blood of some women. The lords and the ladies, exalting in their newfound economic bounty and regional governance, went right along. They knew the women of the Sanctuary. The Sanctuary had protected and healed the families of the rulers for ages. The men were strangers. They spent their time in the field, away from the throne, so to speak. Before long, the claims the Veil and her minions made were assumed to be true. Men were inherently unable to handle the responsibility that came with being a mage.”
“That’s when the purge began. She started within her own ranks,” continued Jasper. “The men of the Sanctuary were the first to disappear. After them came men on the fringes. They started to vanish one by one. Never a large group. It was always someone who could be picked off without a chance of escape or telling the tale. By the time those of us who could have fought realized what was happening, it was too late. Our brethren were already gone and we stood against the Veil like lone sentinels, spewing the truth to an unhearing world.”
“If the men were trained to fight, how were the Sanctuary’s mages able to overpower them?” wondered Amelie.
“Good question,” acknowledged Jasper. “The most powerful mage, a skilled blademaster, the best archer, they all have to sleep. No matter what skills you achieve, one person can never stop an army. The moment your eyes close, a blade in the night will find your heart. Rather than fighting an unwinnable fight, we went into hiding, the two-dozen or so skilled men who were left standing. Over the years, most of the original group have passed away or been killed. New mages have come along, either teaching themselves the art or learning as an apprentice. It’s never enough though. Including who I know and those I don’t, I’d estimate there aren’t more than a dozen capable male practitioners in Alcott today.”
