The crazed magician gasped in air as if he was a fish pulled from a river. Marian twisted the dagger in his gut forcing the killer to scream just as much from anger than true pain. Mantellus' free hand grabbed at his assailant while the other held his staff with a death grip until it found the ranger's throat and he began to squeeze. Marian's throat felt hot under the magician's grip as it quickly tightened causing her vision to go dark for a few seconds and her grip lightened. Knowing that she was about to faint, the ranger forced herself back to full consciousness and delivered a kick to the priests groin causing him to lose his grip and forced both combatants to fall to the floor.
The bed shook frantically as Tian tried to free herself by feverishly twisting her wrists against the ropes with such intensity that she rubbed her wrists to the point where they began to bleed. Her feet kicked at the priest's head just inches out of reach. Tian watched in horror as the priest pulled the knife free and tossed it away focusing his malevolent stare on Marian Lightfoot.
Marian got into a crouching position and pulled her hunting knife from her belt. It was not as sharp or well balanced as her dagger, but could still kill a man when needed. She lunged once more at the prone magician this time aiming for his heart, but Mantellus raised his hand as if he was going to tell her to stop and a wave of flames shot from his palm throwing her against the wall and smacking her head with an audible thwack.
***
Mantellus sat on the floor panting for a minute waiting to see if his attacker would rise. When she did not he set about mending his wounds by turning his mental focus inward, soothing the pain screaming in his head and repairing the damaged flesh. It was long believed that magicians could not use the healing arts and therefore anyone that could heal was not a magician, but as Mantellus learned years ago when his tired and broken body was dragged into the temple of Ashura he was living proof that this was a lie. It was just one more way that the kingdom used magicians to their own ends and discarded them when they became... inconvenient.
Several minutes passed before the magical knitting of torn flesh was complete. Still not strong enough, to stand Mantellus crawled until he was sitting next to the body of the woman who attacked him. Her neck was badly burned and her head was bleeding. There would no doubt be a nasty bump, but she lived at least for the moment.
Smiling at Tian wickedly Mantellus said, “We will need another bed for our new friend, Tian.” The young woman began to cry hysterically at having her chance at salvation dashed. “Do not be sad, child. It looks like you are going to get a break for a while. I have a new toy now- at least for a while.”
Chapter 37
The spirit of Tannys Lightfoot raged at Priest Mantellus. He could sense the death and pain coming off of this man echoing all of the wrong he had done in his life. Tannys reached out with ghost hands and attempted to strangle the monster, but they passed through the priest ineffectually.
Fits of anger and frustration washed over Tannys as he racked his brain looking for a way to hurt the dark priest and help his former wife lying at the mad man's feet. As a spirit he was unable to have even the slightest effect on the world and was only able to take a solid form when summoned forth by a magician... as Byrn had done.
Tannys closed his eyes and allowed himself to be pulled back to his rightful place in the underworld long enough to refocus his attention on another point at the opposite end of the kingdom and pulled himself free to roam the world for a little while longer.
This time he found himself in the courtyard of the magicians' school outside of Lion's Landing. When he left Marian's side night was approaching, but now it was midday. Such was the passage of time in the underworld that the briefest of moments in the land of the dead was no different than hours or days in the realm of the living.
Not seeing Byrn on the grounds Tannys entered the sizable cabin. There were three boys playing a game unknown to him that involved spinning a small wooden ball on their fingers. The game must have been magical in nature fore the balls would spin for a half minute or more before falling to the ground. It was a small feat, but one unimaginable by normal means.
“That is good, Rion,” said an older voice sitting off to one side. It was Byrn intently watching the younger children. “Rather than holding the ball in place with your mind, try doing it with your finger. Project a small amount of energy from your finger flowing through the ball like the stick in a globe. Then spin the energy to make the ball rotate.” His instruction complete Byrn leaned back in his chair making a show of not caring what the children were doing. It was clearly a game designed to be instructional and Byrn's feigned disinterest was meant to keep the boys from figuring out that they were learning something.
Laughter came from the boys as the balls began to spin wildly on their fingers never moving from their centers of gravity atop the small fingers. The boy called Rion dropped his ball for a moment, but quickly scooped it up and returned it to his finger where it promptly began a new spin. Not long after that all three boys were dropping their balls and laughing as they raced to replace them as quickly as possible.
This went on for some time until the trio got tired and decided to go outside to play a more traditional game of hide and seek leaving Byrn alone... except for his silent watcher. Byrn got up from his seat to watch the boys from the window and once he was assured that they were staying near the cabin he went back to his seat and opened an old leather bound book he had been paging through. Tannys looked over his son’s shoulder to see strange words and drawings mixed in with the language of the kingdom. It was a spellbook.
“Byrn, can you hear me?” Tannys asked putting his face in front of his son's so that they were eye-to-eye, but if the young man had any inkling that he was not alone he did not show it. “Byrn, answer me!” the spirit now shouted, but still failed to get a response.
Tannys looked around for something he could do to get his son's attention. Seeing a cup on a nearby table, he attempted to pick it up and throw it across the room, but found that like with the priest his hand simply passed through it. Then he tried to knock the spellbook from Byrn's hand hoping he could interact with whatever magical power the book possessed, but the results were no better.
“Byrn must be the one to summon me,” Tannys said to himself, “but when will that be? It could be a day from now or a month and by then it would be too late for Marian.”
“It is frustrating not being able to communicate with the living. Is it not? There are few humans that are receptive enough to hear a call from across worlds.” Tannys turned to see the exotic beauty of the goddess of life, Ashura, standing before him. He knelt before her and she commanded him to rise saying, “In death you serve my twin sister, Kassani, not I, but I appreciate the thought.” The goddess smiled kindly.
Tannys rose slowly not wishing to offend the most revered god in all of Aurelia. “It is an honor to meet you once again,” he said with a low bow to show her the proper respect. “I mean no offense, goddess, but why are you here?”
“You speak well for a human,” Ashura's smile was disarming, “speaking plainly but with respect for your superiors. I will do you the honor of speaking plainly as well. I am here to help you. The murderer, Mantellus Firekin, is using not only the guise of a priest, but the magic of healing to prolong the suffering of his victims. I hate for any life to be ended prematurely, but this man’s destruction is for the greater good.”
“It was not so long ago that you put a curse on my son to prevent him from killing. Can you not simply curse this priest as you did Byrn? This Mantellus Firekin has surely done more harm in this world than Byrn.” Tannys looked to his boy lazily reading his magic tome still unaware of their presence.
“The ability to take a life is beyond my means. Kassani is the reaper of souls, not I. It was only with my sister's agreement that your son's punishment was carried out, but he is not cursed. He is being educated. Look at him. Deep in his soul he still hurts. The deaths he caused in Colum still eats at him, but
he has learned to control his anger and hence his magic. He looks for peaceful solutions to confrontations when possible and restrains himself when peace is not promising.
“The power at his disposal is immense. If left unchecked he would have been corrupted by his power like so many magicians before him. Byrn has a greater destiny laid out before him and he must be willing to seek out peace to bring it about. That is why Kassani agreed to help me with Byrn, but she views the affront of Mantellus Firekin as being none of her concern.”
“But it is my concern,” Tannys pointed to his son, “and it is his as well.”
Ashura smiled conspiratorially, “That it is and so here I am. To help you contact your boy.” The goddess moved to the window and watched the children outside playing. The boys were chasing a roque, a creature from another realm similar to a medium sized dog, but with pointy ears and no hair save for a mane that went down the animal's chest.
“When he sleeps his mind is more receptive,” Ashura said, “All you need to do is place your hand to his head and concentrate. You cannot speak to him even in a dream, but you can place your thoughts in his mind as images. It is possible to show him events that have occurred or that you believe may come to be... like the image of your wife being decapitated by her captor.”
Tannys bristled at the thought. “That is a gruesome image.”
The goddess turned facing him and nodded, “Yes, it is.”
Chapter 38
Byrn stared at the ceiling in surprise as he pieced together what he had just witnessed. The shock was so great when he woke up that it took a minute for him to remember where he was. Turshyn lay in the bed next to his, sleeping peacefully, and the older boys, Rex and Quevine, were against the wall opposite them, also sound asleep.
The nightmare had been intense. It was like no dream he ever experienced before. He was standing in the school's courtyard when suddenly his body felt weightless as if he was transporting somewhere else. Instead he flew up in the sky and moved northward faster than any bird could hope to go. In a matter of moments he passed over Ilipse followed by a lake and then a great forest that could only be Blackwood. Then he saw cities and he knew he was flying over the more heavily populated North Lands. Baj and Colum passed in the blink of an eye and Byrn was descending on a city larger than any he had ever seen before. There was a castle reaching into the sky in the north, but it was only a passing site as Byrn descended into a mass of temples. As he reached the street level he realized he was standing in front of one of Ashura's temples. He did not land in front of the building, but instead his body continued to float as it was moved of its own volition through the streets past a square, then shops and inns until storage buildings surrounded the elementalist and his feet finally touched the ground.
Byrn stood before a small building with boarded windows and he entered to find the interior was bare except for some dusty boxes in one corner. Then a door opened in the wall at the far end of the warehouse where there had been no door moments before. A bright light emanated from it that seemed to call out to Byrn. The magician approached the light. As he came closer, it grew brighter and Byrn had to cover his eyes to shield them from the intensity. Dread filled his heart making him want to turn back, but he was compelled forward into the light by unseen hands pushing him.
Once he passed through the doorway's threshold, Burn found that the light was gone and he could see clearly again. The room was plain, but its contents were anything but that. He watched helplessly as his old cellmate, Mantellus Firekin, tortured his mother. The psychopath stabbed her with a sword of fire protruding from his hand like an extension of his arm. He laughed with glee at her pain as Marian screamed and her body burned from the inside out.
Then Byrn noticed that there was another person in the room. It was a girl in her teens. She was pretty with dark hair and a yellow, ruined dress, but Byrn did not recognize her. The girl was strapped to a bed forced to watch the gruesome scene play out with a level of horror on her face equal to Byrn's own.
Eventually Marian feinted from the pain and for a brief moment Byrn felt a little bit of relief that the torture might be over, but Mantellus suddenly swung his flame sword into Marian's neck separating her head from her body. The head of Byrn’s mother fell to the floor and rolled to a stop against his foot. Marian stared at him with a lifeless glaze in her eyes shocking Byrn back to a waking state of panic.
Sane told him once that he sometimes saw visions of things to come. Was it possible that he was now experiencing them too? Byrn sat up and swung his legs over the side of his bed. He reached over to Turshyn and shook the necromancer awake. Turshyn rubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked at his roommate questioningly.
“Are you awake?” Byrn asked in a whisper to avoid waking the teens. The room was too small to reasonably accommodate four people, but with ten magicians living there space was limited. Only the headmistress, Avelice, had her own room.
Turshyn groaned at the foolish question and rolled over so that he was no longer looking at Byrn. “No,” he replied flatly and buried his face in his pillow.
“Turshyn, this is important,” Byrn whispered again, but a little more urgently. Turshyn rolled back over and looked at Byrn, visibly irritated. “I had a nightmare,” the elementalist offered in explanation.
Now angry the necromancer rolled back over and muttered, “When we move to the new school I want my own room.”
“I am serious,” Byrn said pressing on Turshyn's shoulder to turn him so that they were facing each other, “I think I had a vision of the future.”
“Listen to me,” Turshyn said, sitting up, “That is not possible.”
“It is. I assure you,” Byrn told him. He crossed to the clothes chest at the foot of his bed and grabbed a pair of trousers and a tunic in the dark. “My old master, Sane, told me he had visions of things before they happened. I dreamed that my mother was being murdered by one of my old cellmates from Baj.”
Turshyn exhaled heavily. “Let us say that your old cellmate did escape from an inescapable prison...”
“I am proof that it is not inescapable,” Byrn interrupted.
“Very well. What if this is true and you had a vision of the future. What then?” the always-pragmatic necromancer asked.
“We save my mother,” Byrn told him knowing the answer was a foregone conclusion. He pulled his brownish red cloak from his trunk. “She is somewhere in Mollifas. I saw the castle in my vision.”
Turshyn went to his own chest and got dressed as well in similar clothing and a black cloak for travel that lacked the customary red skull that would identify him as a necromancer. “We need runes to Mollifas and back, but when you wake up Avelice I hope you do not mind if I wait in the hall.”
“Of course,” Byrn agreed.
Fully dressed, the magicians walked the short hallway to Avelice's room at the end. Byrn knocked lightly at first, but not hearing a response began to knock more loudly until he heard the usually calm woman say, “Someone had better be dead,” with a low growl. Apparently necromancers were cranky when woken up prematurely.
“It is Byrn,” looking to his friend and added, “... and Turshyn.”
“Thank you for that,” Turshyn whispered.
“Wait a moment,” came the voice from the other side of the door. A minute later a tired Avelice with disheveled hair opened the door. Her nightgown was barely hidden by a hastily put on robe. “What is this about?” she asked looking at each of the men in turn.
Byrn told her of his vision and his need to travel to Mollifas. When he finished Avelice confirmed his hopes for aid. “I do have a rune to the capital city and another that can return you to the temple in Lion's Landing. You dare not use one that leads directly to the school. If what you say is true, then a rune here would be catastrophic in the wrong hands. Above all else we must take every step to insure the safety of the school.”
“How soon can we leave?” Turshyn slapped Byrn on the shoulder.
“I must go alone,�
�� Byrn decided. “I am sorry, Turshyn. My first instinct was for us to both go, but it is only possible to travel with one other person at a time. You can come with me, but I plan to return with my mother and I cannot bring you both back. This will be the last time that I leave her unprotected.”
Turshyn nodded dejectedly and not knowing what else to say punched Byrn in the shoulder. “You should get your grimoire,” he said finally.
Byrn ran back to his room and rummaged through his chest looking for his grimoire. He yanked it out and then returned to meet the necromancers in the study.
“Good luck and come home safely,” Avelice told him as she crossed the room. “My brother also has visions. Be wary. Sometimes what you see may be real events and sometimes it is merely a collection of symbols for you to interpret.” The boys looked at each other with the same question on their minds. Despite knowing the master magician for years neither of them had heard mention of Avelice having a brother.
Avelice took Byrn's hand in hers and dropped two wooden rune discs in it. She pointed to one and said, “The temple in Mollifas,” and pointed at the other, “The temple in Lion's Landing.” Byrn nodded and she rolled his hand closed. She told him again to be careful, but this time hugged him too.
“No need to worry,” Byrn forced a smile that he hoped looked more confident than it felt. “You have taught me well,” he added sincerely, knowing it to be true.
Byrn went outside to cast the transportation spell. It was not necessary to do it outdoors, but it felt more natural to him to do it this way and so it was easier to cast under the night sky. The transportation was almost instantaneous. One moment he was standing in the school's courtyard, then a few seconds later Byrn found himself inside the Mollifas temple to Ashura over fifteen hundred miles away.
Rogue Magician (The Magician Rebellion) Page 21
