Cloak & Dagger: Book II of The Dragon Mage Trilogy

by Carey Scheppner

  Jerrin nodded. “Yes. I’ve studied many writings dating back to ancient times and have some actual experience fighting at the Tower of Strength and the battle at Marral.”

  “Good!” said Malachi. “Your experience as a grey mage warrior is sorely needed. It will be up to the grey mages to save the Tower of Hope. Are you aware of the fate of many of the black mages?”

  Jerrin nodded. “I’ve already been briefed.”

  “Good,” repeated Malachi.

  Jerrin looked around. “Where’s Mara?”

  “She’s on an important mission,” said Malachi. “Her services are required with the druids in the Tower of the Moon. They need her magic to help create a cure for the plague.”

  “The ‘Tower of the Moon’?” asked Jerrin. “It actually exists?”

  Malachi smiled patiently. “Yes. Its location is still somewhat of a mystery, but -.”

  His comment was cut off when a deep-rooted tremor suddenly shook the tower and its battlements. The high cleric instinctively grabbed hold of Jerrin’s shoulder to keep from being thrown down. Minor debris tumbled from the ceiling above them.

  Malachi had a look of horror on his face. “That’s the first time in a while we’ve had had such a tremor! I fear the time is near at hand.” He looked into Jerrin’s eyes. “What do you know about elementals, Jerrin?”

  Jerrin narrowed his eyes. “Not much. Why?”

  Malachi put his arm around Jerrin’s shoulders and began leading him away. “Because, my son, that is what we’re up against.”

  “Tell me what you know,” said Jerrin anxiously. Whatever preconceived ideas he had before arriving here were about to change drastically.

  Meanwhile, outside, soldiers had the gruesome task of cleaning up the bodies of several skink warriors who had fallen off the battlements during the latest earthquake …

  * * * * *

  The wind had diminished considerably as the spell casters gathered atop the Tower of the Moon in preparation for the summoning spell. The sky was still mostly overcast, but the twilight created by the setting sun still gave off enough light to see by. Torches were lit a short distance away from the altar to provide light when the sun finally set. The supplies of dwarven ale, wildhorn leaves, and faelora were ready beside the altar. The three druids were dressed in their usual dark blue robes. They stood around the altar, separated by each of the other mages. Vera had on her white robe, almost glowing clean since her exit from the mountains. Her robe was as white as Frosty, who stood back, well out of the way of the summoners. Mara wore her grey cloak while Kazin wore his black one. Behind the mages on the ground lay their staves, which were needed later.

  “Is everyone ready?” asked Martha, who stood to Kazin’s right.

  “I think so,” said Vera. She stood between Adriana and Milena, who was on Kazin’s left.

  “Then let’s hold hands,” said Martha. She took hold of Kazin’s right hand and Mara’s left hand. Everyone else followed suit, taking hold of the hands of those next to them.

  Adriana, who was directly across from Kazin, began a soft chant. Milena and Martha joined in. Their spell was uniform in pitch and loudness, rising and falling like a large wave in North Lake. The mood created by this was mesmerising, and made more eerie by the disappearing daylight. Kazin felt as though his very spirit was floating with the spell. Vera and Mara experienced similar sensations.

  Unlike the air elemental, who was difficult for the druids to summon, the water elemental was a more familiar entity that they had experience calling to their plane of existence. Kazin half expected to see the druids sweating with the exertion of the spell as he had seen when the air elemental was called into being. But that was not the case with the water elemental.

  Before long, a layer of water began to appear on the altar. It rose and fell with the chant of the summoners. With each rise it grew larger. Its form soon began to materialize. The entity’s head rose above its humanoid torso. Even its features became evident. Kazin always thought mermaids were alluring, but this elemental was breathtaking in comparison.

  “Why have I been summoned?” demanded the elemental when it was fully formed. Its body melded into the pool of water that rested atop the altar. The water should have run off the altar’s surface, but seemed to be attached to the elemental by some unknown force.

  Adriana stopped chanting and looked up at the magnificent being. “Greetings. We are the druids of the Tower of the Moon. We require your assistance to aid us in creating a cure for a lethal disease.”

  The elemental turned to look at the speaker. “I am aware of the disease of which you speak. It was I who was used against my will to create it.”

  “We know,” said Adriana. “You cannot be held responsible for causing it. We are interested in curing it. You have been summoned that we might create a spell capable of healing those who are sick and dying.”

  The elemental paused before speaking. “You speak the truth,” she said at last. “I know the order of the druids and I know you. You care about nature above all else. I sense your feeling of loss and grieve for you. I will help you in your endeavor. It is a noble cause and will balance the damage my magic has caused during my last summoning. But take heed! My strength is not fully returned! Your magic must be strong enough to enhance mine in order to create a spell of such significance!”

  “We understand,” said Adriana.

  “You must gather the spell components,” said the elemental. “They must be things you know to make even a slight difference to those who suffer this disease.”

  “We have the components ready,” said Vera. Adriana seemed agitated when Vera spoke out of turn, but said nothing.

  The elemental turned to regard the cleric. She recognized her immediately and her eyes widened. “You! Are you the cleric who saved me from the lizardmen?”

  Vera looked embarrassed. “It wasn’t just me. I had help.”

  “From the druids?”

  Vera shook her head. “No. From my companions. They all contributed.”

  “Are they here?” asked the elemental.

  “Only one of them,” said Vera. She nodded her head in Kazin’s direction. “Kazin.”

  The elemental turned her attention to Kazin and regarded him closely. “Curious. I did not expect a black mage to be one of my rescuers.”

  “I really didn’t do much,” said Kazin. “In fact, I was almost unconscious when you were released from the lizardmen.”

  “We wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for you, Kazin,” interrupted Vera.

  The elemental looked between the white and black mage with interest. “Such modesty! It is rare indeed to discover that no one wishes to claim that they rescued an elemental! Bring me your staves.”

  Vera let go of Adriana’s and Milena’s hands to pick up her staff while Kazin did the same. This left Milena chanting on her own. Thankfully, it didn’t break the connection with the summoning spell. Seeing this, the others stopped holding hands as well.

  As Vera presented her staff, the elemental asked what her name was.

  “Vera,” said Vera.

  “I am Ella,” said the elemental.

  Ella reached out and touched the clear staff for a split second. Then she put her arm down. When she spoke, it was with a deep, serious voice. “Vera the cleric, you now have increased ability with water-based spells. Those spells will be more potent, and less taxing to cast. You can learn all spells related to water, regardless of your rank as a cleric.”

  Vera stared at her staff in wonder. “Thank you!” she whispered in reverence.

  The elemental turned to take hold of Kazin’s outstretched staff but recoiled when she saw the orb atop the staff. “A dragon mage!” she exclaimed. “Do dragon mages still exist in this day and age?”

  “I’m the only one that I know of,” said Kazin quietly.

  The elemental’s eyes narrowed and she seemed to look right through the black mage. “There is some resemblance. Yes. It is unmistakable. You are
the dragon mage.” She straightened. “It is destiny that we meet here and now. You will need this!” With a movement so quick it was instantaneous, she swatted Kazin’s staff with her right hand. On contact, a thick layer of mist sprayed everyone near the altar. When the mist settled, Kazin still stood there with the staff in his hands. The elemental undulated, its form unsettled, but soon reformed when Martha and Milena increased their summoning effort.

  The elemental nodded. “There. Now your staff is enchanted. You must receive enchantment from the other elementals to ready yourself for your most difficult task.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Kazin.

  “You will,” said Ella, “in time.”

  “Ah, speaking of time, we need to work on the cure,” interrupted Adriana.

  The elemental turned to the druid. “Quite right. What ingredients have you got?”

  Mara opened the nearby bags she had set up and drew out a sample of each thing. She described each item as she went. “We have faelora, which helps reduce the pain of suffering. And wildhorn leaves, which, when fermented as in this dwarven ale, cause the sick person to gain enough strength to get up and walk around. Of course, a side effect is intoxication.”

  Ella examined the contents in Mara’s hands thoughtfully. She did not seem the least bit surprised at the discovery of the dwarven ale as a healing agent. “We can use the faelora and dwarven ale. The wildhorn leaves by themselves are useless.”

  “But we need three items to make the spell work properly,” said Martha suddenly. The robust druid had stopped chanting. Immediately Adriana picked up where Martha had left off, adding her magic to Milena’s.

  “Yes,” said the elemental. She turned to the black mage. “We have it right in front of our eyes.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Martha.

  The elemental turned to Martha. “Lizardmen are immune to the poison. Their blood is part of the cure. Dragons are related. If we use a vial of Kazin’s blood, we can accomplish our objective just as well, but with one added benefit. By using dragon blood, which is high in magical energy, we will only need to use it once. Once the spell is created, we can cast it with only the two other ingredients and achieve the same effect.”

  “Of course!” exclaimed Martha. “In the past, spells were constantly created using dragon blood, so that the spells could be cast with fewer ingredients thereafter!”

  “Exactly,” said Ella. The elemental turned to Vera.

  “May I borrow your staff?”

  Vera nodded and handed her the staff.

  The elemental turned to Kazin. “I’ll have to ask you to transform into a dragon for me in order to obtain the dragon blood. Only when you are in dragon form is your blood correct for this spell to work.”

  Kazin gulped. He wasn’t entirely ready to do his transformation so soon. He was still leery of the dragon’s previous control of him. Nevertheless, he knew this was too important to be postponed. He walked over to the edge of the tower to give himself more room. Then he transformed. He stretched out his neck so his head was directly in front of the elemental. The two beings were nearly the same size.

  Calmly, the elemental used Vera’s staff to touch Kazin’s cheek. A word of magic was uttered and the bottom of Vera’s staff turned red as it filled with Kazin’s blood.

  “Now pour a cup of dwarven ale and place a few faelora herbs in it,” said Ella. She turned to regard the dragon’s face. “You can change back again, Kazin.”

  Relieved, Kazin transformed back into his human form and approached the group while Mara quickly prepared the cup of ale and herbs and placed it in front of the elemental.

  Then the elemental touched Vera’s staff to the cup and spoke another word of magic. The blood in the staff poured into the cup to mix with the other ingredients.

  “Do you have some magical words to use for the spell?” asked Ella.

  “Yes,” said Martha, “but I’m not sure of the order of the words or the proper inflections.”

  “Give me the words and I will sort them for you,” said Ella. “Then you must listen to how I pronounce each syllable and repeat it after me.” She looked at the two summoners. “You can stop your summoning. I will help of my own free will. You needn’t worry that I will depart from you if you stop. We must work together on this.”

  Adriana and Milena stopped chanting.

  “Ah, that’s better!” said Ella in relief. “I should have just enough strength to do this.” She looked at each of the gathered spell casters as she spoke. “You will need to channel your magic into the cup, one for each of the schools of magic - white, black, grey and druid. The remaining ones - I count two - will have to chant the spell correctly, over and over a total of ten times. After that, we won’t know if the spell works unless we try it on someone who is sick.”

  “Already taken care of,” said a voice behind them.

  Everyone turned to see Frosty, his white coat reflected in the torchlight. No one had noticed how dark it had gotten since the elemental had been summoned. The clouds above parted for a moment, allowing the moon to shine down on the Tower of the Moon. The additional brightness revealed a mermaid lying at Frosty’s feet.

  “Perfect,” said Ella. She turned to Martha. “The words?”

  Martha said the words as they came to her.

  “Very good,” said the elemental. “This is how you cast it.” She pronounced the words the way Adriana and Martha were supposed to say them with the proper inflections. They repeated them until the elemental was satisfied.

  “One question,” stammered Vera suddenly.

  Everyone turned their attention to the cleric.

  Vera looked ashamed as she spoke. “How do we channel our energy at the cup?”

  Everyone looked at each other uncertainly and the elemental laughed. “Good point! What each of you must do is cast a powerful spell of your choosing at the cup, provided the spell is continuous and strictly from your school of magic. For the grey mage, your spell must consist of an equal combination of black and white magic. The more potent your magic is, the better the created spell will be. Do not worry about damaging the cup - I have already enchanted it. Your spell will not seem to affect the cup once the druids have begun. O.K.?”

  Everyone murmured in understanding.

  “Good,” said Ella. “Let us begin.” She nodded to Martha to begin. Adriana and Martha chanted the spell once, directing their magic at the cup. Then the elemental nodded to Kazin. “You may proceed.”

  Kazin raised his staff and pointed it at the cup. He had decided to use his favourite lightning bolt spell. It felt strange to cast it at a cup of ale with faelora floating on top, and despite the elemental’s words, he expected it to blow up into a thousand pieces. That was not the case when the lightning bolt struck the cup. Instead, the energy seemed to be consumed within the liquid inside.

  Martha and Adriana finished chanting the spell a second time and Kazin could feel the energy of another spell merge with his. Mara was casting a spell which mixed with his, traveling along his bolt spell and into the cup. He couldn’t make out the spell she was casting.

  The druids chanted a third time and then Vera cast her spell. It was a water-based spell that flowed along Kazin’s bolt toward the cup. What happened next caught Kazin off guard and made him nearly stop his spell. His bolt of lightning had nearly vanished!

  “Do not stop!” warned the elemental. “Your spells are from different sources of magic and will seem to cancel each other out, but are still very much present.”

  Kazin obeyed. He knew his spell was working. He could feel as the energy left his staff.

  The druids finished the spell for the fourth time and Milena cast her druid spell at the cup. Any lingering magic that was being cast at the cup was now completely invisible.

  The four spell casters held onto their spells with all their might as the older druids repeated the main spell six more times. Upon completion of the tenth casting, all spell casting ceased at once. Everyon
e was startled by this instantaneous stoppage, expecting their spells to go on. It was then that they realized that a silence spell had been cast by the elemental.

  Ella gracefully picked up the cup of ale. “It is finished. You may now use the ingredients to enhance the spell’s effects.” She held it out for Vera to take.

  The cleric took the cup and approached the mermaid in front of Frosty. She dipped her hand into the cup and withdrew some moistened faelora. Then she squeezed out the ale while she shakily spoke the same words of healing magic that the druids had been chanting.

  At first nothing happened and Vera was about to cry out in despair. Then the mermaid moved. The mermaid took a deep breath and opened her eyes. “Where am I?” she asked in a clear voice.

  “You are at the top of the Tower of the Moon,” said Frosty. “We tried to heal you. How do you feel?”

  The mermaid smiled seductively. “I feel fine. May I go back into the water now?”

  Vera turned to the others with tears of joy. “It worked!”

  Mages and druids hugged one another with joy and relief. Countless lives had been lost since the outbreak, but now countless lives could once again be saved. They could now move forward to combat the disease across the entire land and sea. There was a new sense of hope in the air.

  When the happiness of the moment had subsided, the mages and druids profusely thanked the water elemental for her help. Then the elemental left them and returned to her own realm to rest.

  Adriana and Martha began to make preparations for healing the sick in the tower. Milena gathered what supplies the other druids could spare and prepared to fly a griffin back to her land where her people waited for her.

  Kazin knew he was needed at the Tower of Hope, where war could already be underway. Mara and Vera chose to go along with him, anxious to spread word of the cure so that many others could be saved before it was too late. They rode on Kazin’s back.

  The dragon mage flew as fast as he could, his faithful familiar Frosty by his side.

  Chapter 33

  The scout galloped through the construction zone and across the moat bridge at full speed, the nostrils of his steed flaring with exertion. People scrambled to get out of the way as the horse and rider came thundering through. The sentries had seen his approach and the portcullis into the tower’s courtyard was already open. The rider galloped through the opening and reigned in his horse. He jumped to the ground and approached the general, who was standing near one of the stairways that led up to the battlements.