by DB King
Alec braced himself. He hadn’t just been eating for the last few minutes—he’d been running over his story in his head, making sure he had all the details straight. The last thing he wanted was to lie to Archmage Diamondspear, either unintentionally or on purpose.
“One happened about a year ago,” he explained, chewing and swallowing thoughtfully. “I was on my way back to the Archon Temple from a visit in town. Master Abel bid me to accompany some of the men to purchase supplies for the winter.” He shivered, remembering the cold. “On the way back, we came upon a caravan with a broken wheel. At first we thought the men needed our help, but it turned out they were bandits. They attacked, and…”
“And they died,” Uriel said. He made it sound so simple.
Alec nodded. “I only slew one. The other men killed the rest. Only one of the bandits survived. He fled into the woods, and we never saw hide nor hair of him since. His face was on a wanted poster for a while in town, but I don’t think they ever caught him.”
Uriel made an impatient gesture. “That’s not the one I’m interested in. I think you know that.”
Alec’s heart sank. The day Tanuin left…
Even after so long, he remembered it as if it were yesterday. The memory of it sent a chill down his spine.
“There was an elven ranger,” Alec began. “He visited the Archon Temple regularly, between his sojourns in the woods. His name was Tanuin, and he was...well, he was my friend. Just about the only friend I had in the whole world.”
“You must have been close to him,” Uriel said, taking a sip of his wine.
“I was. I was thirteen, and the two of us had gone hunting near the foot of Mirithpeak. A full day’s ride from the Archon Temple, but Tanuin promised the monks enough game to feed them for an entire winter, so they let me travel with him.”
“At thirteen!?” Uriel’s brows furrowed together. “In parts of the world, young man, a child of thirteen is considered little more than a babe.”
“We grow up fast in the Temple,” Alec said, remembering the responsibilities he’d had to shoulder at such a young age. “Tanuin and I ran down a buck—the elven ranger struck it in the side with one of his arrows. The beast ran off, bleeding, and we chased it until it succumbed to the wound.”
It hadn’t been a clean kill in any sense of the word. But Tanuin had saved the honor for Alec.
“Go ahead,” the ranger had said, pressing a dagger into his palm. “The poor thing’s hurting. Put it out of its misery. You and the monks will eat venison stew for a week.”
Nothing had ever felt as cold as that knife in Alec’s hand. He’d made his way slowly through ankle-deep snow, watching steam billow from the buck’s nostrils as its thrashing grew weaker and weaker. By the time he was within arm’s reach, the deer merely lay there, staring at him with its pale amber eyes.
He’d made the kill as quick as possible. The buck died moments after the cut, its artery severed and spurting blood onto the snow. Alec had almost imagined a look of gratitude on the creature’s face as it expired.
Once it had gone still, Tanuin came up and put a hand on his shoulder. “You did good,” the ranger said, nodding. “Help me get it onto the back of the horse—”
Eyes appeared in the treeline.
“Alec?” Uriel stared at the youth, snapping him back to the present. “Are you alright?”
“Huh? I’m fine,” he said, feeling a little sheepish. “Lost in memories, I guess.”
“I can see that,” Uriel said kindly. “Go on, son. I’m not about to judge you.”
He cleared his throat. “We’d just brought down the buck when a pack of green-skinned barbarians broke through the trees. It was like they’d been waiting for us. You have to understand, I’d never seen anything like them before: I’d never met anyone who wasn’t human, save for Tanuin. And he was mostly human, other than his ears!”
“There are other differences between elves and men,” Uriel said with a smile. “But I understand what you mean. Continue.”
“Later, Tanuin told me they were a type of barbarians called goblins,” Alec said. “At the time, all I could think was that they looked like the monsters the monks would claim lived under our beds, to scare the wits out of the boys.” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen anyone fight so fiercely.”
“The goblins?”
Alec shook his head. “No. Tanuin. It was a brutal fight, Master Diamondspear. By the end of it, I understood why the elves had allowed Tanuin to range the forests and fields. He spilled goblin blood by the bucketload, all to protect me, and in the end he sent the few that remained screaming back into the woods.” Alec paused, as if hearing the screams and seeing the flash of steel. “I managed to kill one. Just the one.”
Uriel’s brows furrowed together. “You were only thirteen, lad.”
“It didn’t matter. I should have done more.” Alec’s hand made a fist on the table. “Tanuin escorted me back to the Archon Temple right after. He told me the barbarians shouldn’t have been in that part of the woods, and that their presence meant ‘bad things were stirring’. Those were the exact words he used.” A bitter look filled Alec’s face. “That was the last time I saw him. I never even got to talk to him about the fight, not properly. The servants who work for the monks—some of them are former soldiers, I can tell. They say that after battle, men are supposed to drink together, to show camaraderie and bond over the fight. But Tanuin left me that afternoon, promising me he’d be gone for no more than a season. As soon as it was safe, he said, he’d return to the Temple.”
Uriel’s face was grave. “And how long ago was this?”
“Five years.” Alec stared at his empty goblet of water, frowning. “I think I might like that drink, Archmage Diamondspear.”
Uriel paused, then handed the young man his own cup. “Go ahead,” he said with a chuckle. “And I told you—call me Uriel. You’re supposed to be my nephew. ‘Archmage Diamondspear’ isn’t how my nephew would refer to me outside of a formal gathering.”
Alec took a long drink of the wine. At first it tasted sweet, then a sizzling burn seared his throat. He didn’t like it very much.
“I’m not your nephew, though, am I?” Alec couldn’t keep the bitterness from his tone. “This is all a ruse.”
“Aye, it is.” Uriel shrugged. “I’m not sure where you came from, exactly, Alec. I have scribes working on the task right now, attempting to track down the location where you were born and the identities of your parents. I don’t expect them to be successful in either task, yet I must try.”
Alec’s face filled with surprise at this news. “Really?”
Uriel nodded. “One thing I can tell you, however, is this: you are not a member of one of the noble houses. No bastard has been born to them in generations that the house of Diamondspear didn’t know about well in advance—sometimes even prior to the conception. You are from somewhere else.” He mulled over the thought. “Perhaps somewhen else. It’s been known to happen, from time to time.”
Alec couldn’t even imagine. He finished the wine, then set in on the rest of his meal. He’d have to get used to fine food and drink, especially if he was to attend the Academy, yet it seemed he’d never fully accept deserving such fine things as this.
Uriel moved the conversation to another topic. “Down in the Crypt,” he said, studying Alec with a practiced casualness, “when you cast your magic spell. What exactly happened to you in that moment? What did you feel?”
Alec gave the matter some thought. “I’m not entirely sure,” he admitted.
“Go on,” the Archmage urged. “Try.”
“I...I knew Marcus was in danger,” he said, trying not to think too hard about the hag’s fearsome visage and sharp teeth. “I reached out for the torches, and it was like I absorbed the flames. They entered my body.” He took another sip of wine. “It hurt quite a bit.”
Uriel nodded as if he’d expected this answer. “To put it in a way a scholar might write down in a tome,” the
old man said, “you absorbed the elemental power from several objects, storing them inside of your body. Then, you released them at an opponent—in this case, the hag. Would that be a correct way of putting it?”
His mouth full, Alec nodded.
“Very curious.” Uriel glanced down at his plate, his brow furrowed in thought. “I wonder if you would be able to absorb other elements as well, besides flame. Perhaps some that would hurt a bit less.”
Alec hadn’t given the matter of his magic any thought. Now that he did, an almost dizzying array of possibilities occurred to him. “I could do that?” he asked, his jaw dropping open. “Use more than one element? Put them together, even?”
Uriel spread his arms. “That’s what I’m trying to find out,” he said kindly. “There is much we don’t know about your magic, Alec. You have already broken one law by casting magic without the use of a grimoire. There may be quite a bit about magic we don’t truly understand—things we’ve taken for granted for a very, very long time. You have no knowledge of the sacred words that can alter the fabric of reality—what most at the Academy would tell you forms the totality of magic.” He sat back in his chair, a pleased expression on his face. “Knowing that, do you really think it impossible that you might be able to break other laws?”
Alec had never intentionally broken a law in his life. Yet Archmage Diamondspear had just told him he’d shattered several. Some of which governed the foundation of the world.
“Uriel,” Alec said, wincing a bit at the term of familiarity. He’d get used to it in time. “How would I go about testing a thing like that?”
The Archmage sat back from his meal, well and truly satisfied. “Now that we’ve finished eating, I think it’s time to try a little experiment. Are you willing?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good.” Uriel rose. “Let’s see what other types of magic you’re able to wield, young man.”
Chapter 9
As Alec finished off the last scraps of his meal, Archmage Diamondspear reached for a tiny silver bell on the table and rang it. A tinkling sound filled the air, and a moment later the door separating the dining room from the kitchen opened. A servant entered, moving so swiftly that Alec realized the man must have been waiting right behind the door for the sound of the bell.
“Yes, my Lord?” the servant asked with a neat bow. “Shall we bring you dessert? Some coffee, perhaps?”
A faint smile spread across the Archmage’s face. “I require something different, I’m afraid. Do you have any herbs or plants that could be brought to the table?”
The servant’s eyebrows furrowed together. “Herbs, my Lord?”
“Living specimens only, please. Dried herbs from the kitchen won’t do.”
A long moment passed where the servant attempted to determine whether or not the Archmage was joking. “I…can check, my Lord?”
“Thank you,” Archmage Diamondspear said. He waved the man off with a gesture, nodding slightly as the door to the kitchen closed. “When he returns, young Alec, we will test your magic. Prepare yourself.”
Alec wasn’t sure how to prepare himself, exactly. The last time he’d done magic, he hadn’t thought about it—he’d just done it, casting it when Marcus’s life became threatened. He barely remembered the muscles he’d flexed or the words he’d spoken—the entire fight against the hag felt like a nightmare. Was he about to enter another one?
A few minutes later, the servant came back with a potted plant. “Cilantro,” the servant explained, gesturing at the bouquet of long, thin stems with wide green leaves. “The chefs have several in the herb garden, so this one won’t be missed, my Lord.”
“Perfect.” Diamondspear took the plant in with a glance, then pushed the pot across the table toward Alec. “You may go. Greatly appreciated.”
More confused than ever, the servant withdrew. The moment he’d left, Archmage Diamondspear ran his hand along the rim of the earthenware pot, one eyebrow raised. “Do you feel anything when you look at this plant, Alec?”
To his credit, he took the question seriously. A casual observer would have found the scene hilarious: a young boy squinting very hard at a cilantro plant, while an old man in splendid robes watched on with an unreadable expression.
Finally, Alec sighed. “Nothing,” he admitted. “It’s just a plant, Uriel.”
“Technically,” the old man said, “it is an herb.”
The Archmage stared at him for a long moment, their eyes meeting. Then both of them began to laugh. The tension in the room dissolved. Alec felt about a hundred times better. The fear he’d felt around doing magic again faded beneath the joke—which, he would realize later, was exactly Archmage Diamondspear’s plan.
“I want you to try and do with this plant what you did with those torches,” the old man said, pushing the plant a bit closer. “Draw upon the element of Nature, Alec. Pull it into yourself, exactly as you did with the flame. Absorb it into your own power.”
Though he had no idea how to pull the ‘element’ of a plant into his body, Alec did the best he could. He concentrated hard, his gaze tunnelling as he stared deeper and deeper into the bushy clutch of leaves. The sights, sounds and smells of the world fell away as he struggled to sense the energy within the living thing. To pull it into himself the way he had with the flames, to make them part of himself.
He felt…something. Perhaps. It didn’t feel much like what had happened in the Crypt, at any rate. His fingers tingled with energy for a moment, as if he’d touched a doorknob after rubbing his woollen socks on carpet. The sensation left him just as quickly.
“I felt it for a second,” he said, glancing up at Archmage Diamondspear. The old man watched him intensely, frowning beneath his mustaches. “Just a little bit. I think I need more practice?”
Uriel nodded. “That, or you require a spur,” the man said wisely. “You didn’t hesitate back in the Crypt. When it became necessary, you mastered the magic as easily as thinking about it. Your friend’s life was in danger.”
Alec thought about it, then nodded. “I’ve heard of things like that before. Master Abel said he once saw a maid of twenty lift a cart in the middle of the street, after one of the wheels ran over her child’s leg. It should have taken three women that slender just to get one side of the cart off the ground, yet she tossed it off the boy’s body like it was nothing.”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Uriel said sagely. “Much in the way an animal is most dangerous when cornered, people have a tendency to reach for reserves they weren’t aware of having when the alternative is the death of someone they care for.”
Alec sighed. “It’s not going to be very good for those I care about if I have to force them into lethal danger just to cast a spell, Master Diamondspear.”
That brought a good, hearty chuckle from the older man. “No,” he agreed, “it will not. But think on this, young man. It may seem as though our kingdom is at peace. But there are stirrings beyond its confines. Dark happenings. The Expeditionary Forces have reported skirmishes with things far worse than an errant hag in a crypt, Alec. In truth, every person you care about—every single citizen within the kingdom’s confines—is in very real and very present danger.”
Alec felt his eyes widen. Master Diamondspear’s words cut to the heart of him. He’d considered staying at the Archon Temple to protect his charges—but if everyone in the kingdom was at risk of monsters invading from outside of the known lands, how could he be so selfish as to stay? He pictured tens of thousands of boys just like Thomas and Mortimer, awakening in the night to find creatures out of a nightmare sneaking into their homes. A shudder passed through him.
“Are you frightened?” Archmage Diamondspear didn’t wait for an answer. “Good. Use that fear, young man. Reach out to the plant again. Call upon Nature.”
With Uriel’s speech to guide him, Alec did just that. He placed his hands on either side of the earthenware pot, closing his eyes. An image filled his mind of the brave so
ldiers of the Expeditionary Force, charging into battle against a fell Shadow Beast from beyond the wastes. There was danger out there. All of them were in such dreadful danger!
Another of those tingly feelings washed through him. It felt stronger this time—but lasted no longer than the first. When Alec opened his eyes, one of the cilantro’s stems had wilted somewhat, drooping over the rim of the pot.
“That was a bit more,” he said, sensing Uriel’s disappointment. “I’m trying, really I am…”
The Archmage sighed. “It’s alright, lad. You’ve spent your entire lifetime believing you are incapable of wielding the forces of magic. Perhaps I’m pushing you too hard. You should be given time to study the elemental forces, understand them better.”
Archmage Diamondspear continued talking, but he now sounded like he talked to himself. Alec bit down on the panic flaring within his chest and concentrated. He wouldn’t let Uriel down! If his magic was the key to protecting his friends, he needed to learn how to use it!
My friends…
The image rose unbidden to his mind. Within a flash he stood in the Crypt, staring down the beautiful illusion of the hag as it cradled Marcus in its arms. Its face twisted, the banshee’s shriek erupting from its wide-open mouth as it attacked.
Only this time, the fight didn’t end when Archmage Diamondspear stepped in. Alec reached for the torches, only to find the creature’s knife-like nails striking at his chest. He stepped to the side, the wind of their passing racing over his skin, when he heard a scream.
Marcus!
The creature bit into his shoulder, exactly as she’d done to him. Marcus screamed and screamed—the pitiful wail of a boy far from home, who’s gotten into trouble and wants nothing more than to be held.
The creature held Marcus, all right. It would be the last embrace the boy would ever feel.
“Marcus! NO!” Alec screamed inside his mind. If he hadn’t been there, if he’d been another minute too late—the beast would have torn poor Marcus to shreds.
