A Mage Of None Magic (Book 1)

by A. Christopher Drown

  Lleryth smiled when Niel wrinkled his brow. “Don’t look so puzzled, child. It’s not that bizarre a concept. A primary difference between our peoples is while you perceive magic as an external force to be harnessed and controlled, we believe it emanates from within.”

  Niel considered the statement. “So which one is correct?”

  “Both,” Lleryth said. “Or neither.”

  “Of course,” he replied.

  Lleryth chuckled. “Think of it this way: for the body to function and grow, one must eat. But there is no one correct meal for everyone, everywhere. Different cultures put together many varied combinations of foods and spices to create many different ways of accomplishing essentially the same thing—nourishing the body.”

  “I used to know a cook,” Niel said, “and he liked to say there’s a lot more to eating than chewing.”

  “Precisely. Preparation can be just as important. Furthermore, what sits well in my belly may not do the same for you. With your Canon it is much like that. Many read from the same book, yet despite the insistence for uniformity, the end result always reflects the individual. I believe these fragments of the Heart augment one’s inherent magical talents. What you and I have experienced is apparently but the first part of that process.”

  Niel toyed with the pouch he wore. “If just being close can affect me, what would happen if I touched it?”

  Lleryth’s face grew dark. “It is not time for that.”

  “Will there be?”

  Lleryth gave a long, vague glance into the Forest. “When you have nothing left but it and what has always been with you.”

  Briajl approached, a blanket draped over his forearm. He nodded to Lleryth, and then, to Niel’s surprise, him.

  “The others are nearly ready,” Briajl said, his manner curt but not hostile. He held out the cloth. “This is for you.”

  Niel accepted the item, a thick cloak weighing far less than its bulk implied, and offered Briajl his thanks.

  Past Briajl’s shoulder, Niel’s eye caught Arwin swinging himself up into his saddle and steadying his horse as it took a few antsy steps.

  Arwin called over with an exaggerated wave of his arm. “We’re off to save the world, Apprentice. Wanna come?”

  Niel grinned despite himself, then turned back to Lleryth.

  “Thank you, Keeper,” he said. “For everything.”

  Lleryth cupped Niel’s cheek with affection, which let Niel see clearly the old man’s brilliant shine. “Remember all I have told you, child, and we will look back on this day with cause for song.”

  29

  A single, massive column of sheer, white stone, the New Tower loomed magnificently before them, giving the impression it had pushed up from deep within the earth.

  Except it wasn’t, and it hadn’t.

  Though the Tower stood unchanged, Ennalen now saw the subtle imperfections of the illusion. As she got closer to the Tower’s only entrance, Ennalen felt the flaws in the magic perpetuating its appearance. And it sickened her.

  Revulsion spun to delight as she beheld the two guards at the Tower door, each in full armor with wicked-looking pikes at the ready, and each wearing the colors of Fraal University.

  It seemed she had been expected.

  More than three hundred years had passed since any soldier from the outside had set foot on College grounds. Idly, she wondered who on the Board had solicited the University for the loan of this pair, and what explanation might have been given for so extraordinary a request.

  “None shall enter!” barked the taller of the two. In a sharp, practiced motion they crossed their polearms in front of the entryway. “By order of the Lord Elder!”

  “How interesting,” Ennalen replied with a smile.

  With a twisting motion of her hands their weapons clattered to the walk and the soldiers flew backward, crashing head-first through the thick wooden door, splitting it down the middle and tearing it from its hinges. Without breaking her stride, Ennalen crossed the threshold.

  When the protective rune above the arched doorway unleashed its assault, she bared her teeth and growled. Skin searing, she bent and grabbed the ankle of one of the motionless soldiers and swung the man over her head, using his helmeted skull to knock the stone with the offending rune from the entryway.

  Ennalen dropped the man’s leg and brushed her hands off against one another. With a crooked smile she crouched and drew the sword from the other soldier’s belted scabbard.

  The Tower was only known to prevent magic derived from Canon from being used within, but nothing guaranteed the energies from her cantle—hidden safely away—would reach her once she ventured farther inside. Best not to be completely defenseless.

  She stalked down the long corridor to the main audience chamber, her appetite whetted for the feel of Thaucian’s thin neck in her fists.

  Despite her violent cravings, Ennalen rounded the final bend in the hallway and burst into laughter. Dutifully posted outside the door of the chamber, trembling in pale dread, stood the same young acolyte who had escorted her to Thaucian and Denuis what seemed ages ago.

  The one who had lied to her.

  Ennalen quirked her mouth, relishing the moment. “I suspect the Lord Elder is aware I’m here.”

  “He is, Magistrate.”

  She gestured toward the chamber. “Then be so good as to announce me, please.”

  “Yes, Magistrate.” He fumbled for the latch ring, turned it with a loud clank, then pushed open the door.

  “Magistrate Ennalen, of the Ministry of Law,” he announced, then stepped aside to permit her entry into the great room.

  As she strode past the boy, bloodlust tightened Ennalen’s flesh. Anything short of achieving the murderous climax building inside her would be insufferable.

  She stopped almost mid-step.

  Instead of Thaucian alone in the chamber as expected, she found herself the focus of the entire Board of Elders—each of the fifteen seats on the grand dais occupied by its appointed Member. Ennalen glanced about the austere faces of the Board and realized what each of the Members wore about their necks: thick silver chains from which hung small, dark stones.

  Cantles.

  The tip of her sword clanged against the floor as her arms dropped in disbelief.

  “You are welcomed, Magistrate,” came the Lord Elder’s salutation, his voice far from the rough, weakened timbre to which she had become so accustomed. On his face, a confident smile made clear his entertainment from her dismay.

  “Come close so that we might speak more comfortably.”

  Uncertainty gripped her once again. She fought the urge to crouch down, head in her hands, and scream as the vehemence cleaving through her threatened the last remnants of her sanity. Instead she forced herself still, though she knew her appearance woefully lacked the poise for which she had made herself known.

  Cantles! They all have cantles! How can that be?

  Thaucian’s deceptions clearly ran deeper than even Denuis had known. But if each of the Elders had his own portion of the Heart, why hadn’t the Board simply done away with her if they knew what she had been doing?

  A basic rule of investigation holds that a person fails to pursue an obvious avenue due either to unwillingness or inability. Even with the aid of their cantles, the Elders were apparently not in a position to eliminate her, but at the same time had no trepidation allowing her into the Tower. That suggested a balance of some sort had been achieved—inadvertently, she guessed.

  An equilibrium the Board wished not to upset.

  Thaucian smiled again. “You’ve deduced we’ve nothing to fear from one another.”

  Ennalen exhibited her best courtroom deportment. “Why ever would you fear me, Lord Elder?” She stood her sword upright in front of her and folded her hands over its pommel at her chest.

  Thaucian frowned. “This is no longer a time for games, child. This is a time for plain talk, for much will be determined by what happens here in the next few moment
s.”

  “Very well,” she said, “then allow me to begin. How do you explain each Elder here keeping of a portion of the Heart?”

  “It’s quite simple. The tale of Bradias—in fact, the existence of Bradias—is a lie fabricated to help conceal the truth of the Board.”

  Ennalen all but forgot her rage in a sudden desire to learn more. “That truth being?”

  Thaucian chuckled. “Do you recall, my dear, when you were young, your attempt to discern my age?”

  His knowledge of what Ennalen had long considered a harmless inquiry, despite its surreptitious nature—something about which she had never confided to anyone—stamped out what doubts still flickered in her regarding Denuis’s claims.

  “I recall having difficulty uncovering much information about you at all,” she replied.

  “As you were meant to, since I am nearly three hundred years old. As is each of my esteemed Brothers and Sisters on the Board.”

  Ennalen gasped. “What?”

  “After the Board was reestablished following the Devastation, this body explored the damage done, particularly within the Black Plains, where we first discovered the cantles. The rest is much as you have been told, but rather than hiding the pieces away, we studied them, collectively and individually, seeking to unlock their powers.”

  “And one of the benefits of your prolonged exposure,” Ennalen surmised, “is this longevity you and the Board claim to enjoy.”

  “For the most part, yes.”

  “I imagine then,” she continued, “that with the help of the cantles it’s been a relatively simple matter to feign the regular rotation of Members to and from the Board when necessary. An Elder pretends to die, takes the form of a younger man or woman, then is elected back onto the Board. Thus plenty of time is gained to selectively bring true replacements into your fold, and your secret is maintained.”

  Thaucian smiled broadly. “My dear Magistrate, you are a credit to your office. Which brings us to the here and now. While potent in the extreme, the powers of the individual cantles are finite, and we are rapidly approaching those limits. Just as our predecessors, we have been unable to overcome them.”

  Ennalen considered his words. “You’re dying.”

  The Lord Elder nodded. “The flesh has boundaries far short of those of the Heart. The time has come for us to seek out those who might succeed us while we still have sufficient time to teach what we’ve learned.”

  The irony made Ennalen smirk. “Apprentices?”

  “Yes,” Thaucian said, “and after more than a century of vigilance, you are the first we have found.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “In all that time, you’ve only come across one person worthy of assuming the role of Elder? Forgive me, but does that not diminish your chances of locating fourteen others any time soon?”

  Thaucian again laughed softly. “While you are indeed the first candidate, you are not the only candidate. We believe there will be others along readily.”

  Ennalen narrowed her eyes. “Denuis mentioned a boy named Niel.”

  “Indeed. And there are others.”

  Three hundred years…

  Each of the Elders possessed a cantle, enabling them to extend their lives by nearly three centuries—and her cantle was much larger. The remainder of the Heart, if indeed intact as she had seen in her visions, was far larger still. A sudden possibility sprang into her mind, one she otherwise could not have dared imagine.

  “No,” she said. “I will not join you.”

  Thaucian pressed his fingertips together as he leaned back into his chair.

  “Magistrate, I urge you to reconsider.”

  Ennalen’s sense of wonder evaporated as rage and indignation again flared.

  “I think not. First, while most entertaining, I’ve no reason to believe in the perfect honesty of your tale. Second, it occurs to me that had the Board been interested in bringing me into the fold, as you say, you’d have done so long before now. If what you say is true, Lord Elder, that for the time being we have nothing to fear from one another, then to me that suggests I am much more than merely a potential successor. It likely means I’ve become a genuine threat, something you would prefer to rein in before it grows beyond your control.”

  Thaucian sneered. “You’re alluding, perhaps, to your own intention to heal the Heart?”

  She tilted her head. “Am I?”

  “Such arrogance. And such ignorance. Do you truly think yourself capable of what we combined have been unable to do?”

  “I think that as of right now, this equilibrium between us is due to the Elders’ collective mastery of your relatively small portions of the Heart, balanced against my comparative inexperience with a much larger, more powerful portion. Quality versus quantity, if you will. I also imagine my skills improving, whereas your cantles, Lord Elder, won’t be getting any bigger.”

  Bright hostility burned in Thaucian’s eyes. “You will fail, Magistrate,” he said, “and you will die.”

  “Then you’ll have lost little, since there are just so many more potential replacements out there from which you can choose.”

  Ennalen turned to leave but paused as the intricate map in the floor caught her eye. She raised her sword and with one tremendous thrust plunged it deep into the marble at the point marking the College.

  The thunderous noise of her strike rolled through the great chamber like splintering ice. Cracks webbed outward through the polished stone from the large gouge she’d made and stopped just shy of the dais.

  “But if I succeed,” she said, “may the gods themselves offer you mercy. For I will surely not.”

  Ennalen turned her back to the dais, left the sword embedded in the floor, and strode from the room.

  30

  Upon leaving the Forest, it became obvious to everyone why the Galiiantha had given them cloaks. In their absence, the outside world had hidden itself beneath a shimmering mantle of snow.

  Niel smiled in the sharp, cold Aithician night, tremendously relieved and thankful for the privacy provided by the overcast sky and the hood of his cloak. He’d begun to worry the stone around his neck had caused his sanity to slip. For the moment at least, that appeared not to the case.

  Earlier that afternoon Peck returned from scouting ahead with confirmation that they neared Glernny. At Arwin’s direction the group traveled through the night to make town by halfmorn. Despite the long ride, Niel found himself not nearly as tired as he should have been, so the bizarre surges of emotion plaguing him were not the result of fatigue. When his mount stumbled in the darkness, though, and nearly caused them both to fall, there was no need to speculate on the source of the violent rush of fright he felt, nor on his own soundness of mind.

  Niel had somehow become attuned to the horse he rode.

  The abrupt peaks and valleys of the animal’s emotions immediately captivated him. Each time a branch cracked or an owl screeched in the night, the horse gathered itself with a flick of an ear and a subtle raise of its head, and then after a heartbeat of alarm, recalled its training and settled back down.

  The fascinating discovery could have occupied Niel for days, but it hadn’t ended there. Soon after delineating his own emotions from the horse’s, he realized that with effort he could also touch upon those of his companions: Jharal’s gruff irritability, Cally’s guarded poise, and Arwin’s practiced nonchalance. While curious, it had not surprised Niel to perceive no such presence from Peck. His repeated attempts to do so, however, resulted in a sobering reminder of what lay ahead.

  From a great distance, Niel sensed a radiance like the sun close enough to touch, and an irrefutable urgency to go toward it, more demanding with each passing hour.

  Niel kept his findings to himself. Deducing from where and whom the lure emanated would be no great leap, and the others had been decidedly somber since leaving Chael. He doubted news of his newfound empathy would add much cheer.

  Instead, he concentrated on more immediate concerns. Because they had
no sound idea of what to expect when they encountered the enigmatic Magistrate Ennalen, Arwin asked Niel to learn a spell or two. And since only one incantation within the spell book could be considered offensively useful—Inducing Sleep—that was the one Niel had chosen.

  By all rights, it should have been simple, but learning the spell had proven unexpectedly tedious. At times, even confounding. He grappled to comprehend even elementary syllables and runes. Granted, having to read by the dim, swaying light of his hand-held lantern was not the easiest thing in the world, but something told him even in an ideal environment the process would have been nothing like the effortlessness of learning the Conjuring Light spell. He struggled through it, though.

  In the winter quiet, with his book put away and the stubby candle inside the lantern extinguished, Niel sat back in his saddle and smiled again, enjoying the warmth of his cloak and the tranquil plodding of the other horses.

  ***

  Day broke over the far-off line of the Forest behind them with a resplendent palette of lavender and topaz, coaxing a brassy richness from the hilly, snow-capped landscape ahead. Though obscured by a veil of fog, the town of Glernny was easily visible, nestled at the end of the trail that snaked its way into the shallow valley below.

  In the brightening dawn, Arwin called a halt for a brief rest and quick meal before the final push. While Peck vaulted gracefully from his saddle, both Cally and Jharal grumbled as they lowered themselves slowly from their mounts. Cally stretched her arms over her head and performed a series of cat-like bends. Jharal disappeared behind a row of trees and brush.

  Niel allowed a smug smirk at the others’ fatigue; he still felt fine despite lack of sleep.

  As soon as he set foot on the ground and let go of the saddle, however, the world withered away. A sudden weight of exhaustion crashed down and sent Niel stumbling backward.