The Reign of Magic (Pentamura Book 1)

by Awert, Wolf

  Nill repeated his words. “You are not my demons. I have long since had no need for my dagger. I never felt hate, and greed for power and wealth is foreign to me. All I lust for it knowledge, and even that does not consume my mind. Look upon my amulet. It will tell you the whole tale of my magic.”

  At these words he reached into his boot and pulled the amulet out; he had taken it out of the hiding place a long time ago, and now he hung it around his neck, clearly visible. The dark wood lay motionless on his chest. It was not radiating any magical power. It simply lay there.

  “Bring me that amulet,” Mah Bu demanded.

  Odioras and Avarangan reached for Nill, but they could not grasp him. Their vicious claws could not cut through Nill’s robe or skin, and they slid off as if it were polished ice. Only once they gripped the amulet could they find something to hold. The round brown disk disappeared in their mighty hands.

  They slowly shrank back down to the size they had been when they were summoned. They were still several heads taller than Nill.

  “Tear it off and bring it to me. Now!” the Archmage commanded.

  There was a crashing noise outside the room. The force of the crash had made the desks shake. Mah Bu turned his head to the commotion unwillingly. A second crash and the door splintered. A ram came trotting in. Large, skinny, with slanted yellow eyes and matted wool. It looked from one to the other inquisitively, and once it had seen enough took its place beside Nill, pushing its way past the demons. It rubbed its horn against the leg that had been broken. Nill looked in amazement.

  “It was you. You broke my leg!”

  Mah Bu, while at first visibly annoyed at the disturbance, soon had his good mood again. “Very good, now you have a companion for the long walk to the Other World.” With these words he threw a strong ember-blast at the ram.

  “No!” Nill shouted and drew up a water shield in front of the ram. It quenched the blast and Nill sent a white bolt at the Archmage, who stumbled backwards. Even as he did, Mah Bu raised a strong shield wall in front of him. Nill yelled at him. “What belongs to me is under my protection. Kill me if you can, but if you attack my friends, I will end you!”

  “A ram, your friend?” The Archmage chuckled. “Are you really threatening an Archmage? See what I do to your friend, and avenge him if you must.”

  Mah Bu flicked a strong magical hollow containing an unrecognizable spell at him. The ram leapt up and deflected the hollow ball with his horns. The force of it knocked him over, but the ball was suitably averted. Nill absorbed its energy with a black spell and felt full to the brim. If the ball had hit him properly he would probably have been torn apart, but the absorbed energy made him feel more powerful than ever. He turned the energy into white force and launched everything he had against the Archmage.

  The shield wall managed to protect Mah Bu from the brunt of it, but he was shaken nonetheless. With an angry screech he dismissed his shield and opened his mouth to an unnatural gape. A net came out of it, its mesh barely visible. For the first time Nill saw a net from beyond. The wide holes between the mesh showed Nill the Other World, but before the net he saw the in-between he had been trapped in before.

  “Come now,” the ram told him, pushing him forwards. The net caught Nill and tore at him, but to no effect. The ram grew larger and larger, his head breaking through the chamber’s ceiling. Nill could only make out its hind legs. “Go back to the here and now, Nill. This battle is over. Send me my servants.”

  “You can’t even reach me, let alone kill me,” Nill told the Archmage. He could not see through the net he had cast. All Mah Bu could see was that the ram had vanished and Nill was unhurt. “Killing me, as you said you would… you’re too weak. It’s all smoke and mirrors, illusions and acting. You have grand gestures and rhyming speeches, but you have no magic.”

  The high Archmage stood before a boy who had until recently been a neophyte and was being ridiculed. From his deepest depths rage spilled to the surface to surround him like a cloud.

  “I’ll show you magic you’ve never seen before and will never see again!” he screeched. “Irasemion, go get your victim!”

  The demon of rage pushed his way over to between his fellow demons and took the amulet out of their hands and from Nill’s neck. With his free hand he grasped Nill’s head.

  Nill raised a hand. “Return to your own world. Your master calls.”

  Mah Bu began to laugh hysterically. “You think you can banish a demon I summoned? You can’t banish any demon!” He began a new summon.

  “You’ve lost, Archmage. I understand your pathetic magic now. To use the demon’s power you need hatred, anger, greed and an incredible overestimation of your own abilities. You detest humans, you want to become the Magon. You’re full of rage and you think you’re an important mage. But you underestimated your enemy. I’m not the one you’re fighting; not the one you’ve lost to.”

  The Archmage gave an evil laugh. His crazy eyes had calmed down and he was looking at Nill. “You may have understood, but what you don’t see is that I control these emotions. That’s why I can summon the demons.”

  Words took shape in Nill’s mind. They came from nowhere, they were a gift. He did not know what he spoke, but he felt the power of the melody.

  “From far beyond to here,

  From here back to beyond.

  The wish unfulfilled.

  The spell resisted.

  The magic forgotten.

  The master changed.

  Becomes real when the wind dances its tale in the storm.”

  Nill knew these were the words he had to speak. They stood, solid and unavoidable, between him and the demons.

  “Odioras, Irasemion, Avarangan, Subturil. I dismiss you. Return to the Other World and serve your lord, the ram-legged. Take my greetings to Bucyngaphos and the great Serp. I free you from the Archmage of the Other World’s will.”

  Odioras and Avarangan sank through the floor. Irasemion, who had frozen where he stood, let go of the amulet and turned around. With one swift motion he tore the Archmage’s head from his shoulders. Subturil entered the headless body and dissolved there. The demon of rage turned back to Nill as though to say something, but the Other World’s call took him before he could speak.

  The Archmage’s face contorted. The head was floating in mid-air, fighting one last, desperate battle. Nill could not tell whether the fight was with the remains of demonic magic or himself. The body began to twitch uncontrollably, yet it still stood straight. It did not fall, but stayed on its feet; it no longer looked like a human, however, and certainly not like a mage.

  It took a long time until the face calmed down and the body took a more human stance. The mage looked at Nill, and from his mouth a gurgling noise rang out. The eyes were empty, and what had shortly before still been a mighty Archmage sank to the ground.

  Ringwall quaked in its walls. Magical shock waves rushed through the air, passing through the old stones until the rock deep beneath the foundation stopped them. Mah Bu had been a powerful mage, and upon seeing his folly, had fought his last moments with all his strength against the demons’ disobedience. Was it the reverberation of this last battle, was it the extinguishing of a magical existence, or was it just the slamming of a door between the here and now and the beyond, shut firmly by the three great demons? Here in the library was the heart of the storm that now rushed to the outermost outposts of Ringwall, and here it was over first. Nill stood over what little remained of what had once been one of the most powerful men in the world. His worldly body had dissolved. A gray, nondescript robe lay empty on the cold floor. A keystone to the library, a linen handkerchief, a pipe and a slightly dull glass ball lay among the cloth. It was all that had been left behind of a life at the center of power. What a waste.

  The longer Nill stared at the empty robe, the stronger the feeling grew that he was not alone. He looked up and found himself staring at the Magon. From the room where the scrolls were kept Keij-Joss, his erstwhile mentor Ambros
imas and Queshalla stepped onto the scene of the battle. Before long the other archmages had joined them, forming a ring around Nill and the pathetic remains of a once great Archmage.

  “Follow me. All of you! And you,” the Magon said, pointing at Nill. With a small flick of his wrist a cupboard moved aside, revealing a small room with greenish flickering air. The Magon entered and disappeared. The archmages followed him, one by one.

  Nill stood in the meeting room of the High Council. The archmages had taken their carved seats, but two of the chairs remained empty. The stool of Nothing was as simple and unimposing as ever. The chair of the Other World was gray, still radiating some dark power. It would take a great mage to step up to the post and sit on that chair. Next to Nill there stood an ancient mage of the Other World, as Nill could tell by his robe. He did not spare Nill a single look, instead staring straight ahead. Nill had not seen him enter. His gaze was drawn by the large table in the middle of the room. The great grayish-green surface had cracked all over and had grown back. It showed scars, cuts and eyes. Nill was certain it was watching him, although he did not know why.

  “An Archmage’s seat must never be vacant for long. In this room we have two possible candidates to replace Mah Bu. Tofflas, a Master of the Other World and the highest ranking mage of his lodge after the deceased Archmage; and also Nill, who may take the post according to tradition by right of victory. One of these two will take the place of our once-beloved brother. We must choose. Who would like to take the word and speak for either?”

  Nill was surprised. If someone had told him several winters ago that he would be a candidate for the rank of Archmage, he would have shaken his head and laughed. He had managed to become what he wanted: a powerful mage. But still…

  Three archmages had risen to speak. They looked at each other. The Archmage of Fire sat down again. Ambrosimas, Archmage of Thought, closed his eyes and nodded. Keij-Joss, Archmage of the Cosmos, broke the silence and spoke. Ambrosimas sat down.

  “This is no ordinary vote. The outcome will decide not only the replacement of a lost brother, but also many other things. A young man, scarcely out of boyhood, stands before us. Only a few moons ago he graduated a sorcerer and immediately lost a duel of life and death against another student, and yet he lives. I will not mention that the fight ought never to have happened. It is but one more stone paving the long road of extraordinary events. The boy survived by luck, chance or fate in the tournament and is granted the rank of mage without ever collecting practical experience in the world. Not enough, he is drawn into a fight with an Archmage and wins, and on top of that he survives an encounter with the most powerful demons a mage may summon. How all this happened will remain a mystery to us.

  “The cosmic streams tell us that the Change is upon us. I ask, therefore: is the boy the Changer, and if he is, what does that mean for Ringwall? Is it wise to accept him into our ranks, or does fate plan for him to leave the world? We can change the path of fate, but never outright defy it. A choice, then: a choice we can only make if there is something to choose from. Without a collective, shared vision of the future we have not yet known, I fear the chair will remain empty for a long time yet.”

  “It is tradition to discuss the possible successors of a brother.” The Magon had risen from his chair. “But Keij-Joss is right. The Change truly is upon us. It started, not today, but over ten winters ago. We did not have the wit to see it. Allow me to tell you what I see and what I know.”

  The Magon took his seat again and Keij-Joss imitated him. “This boy before us is part of the Great Change. He has a part to play, but which role is his remains hidden from my eyes. The visions have changed. The Changer draws closer, but his steps do not grow louder, or faster. The shape is growing. Not just visually, by distance, but also in its power. Yet its outlines are blurred. Nill is not the Changer I have seen for many years. Perhaps he is one of those who follow after him. Perhaps he will ride out to meet him. I do not know. The future is as unreadable as ever. All we know is that the Change has begun.”

  Nill stepped forwards and waited. The Magon glanced at Nosterlohe and Ambrosimas. Both remained in their seats. “Speak, Nill.”

  “I can feel the Change. It will come soon; in only a few winters everything will have changed. I don’t know any more about it. But what I do know are two things: I know that I will do all I can to keep Pentamuria from harm; and I know that I am no mage of the Other World. He who fights always has two opponents. One is always himself. That is why even the strongest may lose a fight. That’s what happened during the battle with Mah Bu. I was not the one to defeat him. He lost his last fight against himself. He was so strong that, without realizing it, he turned the power of the demon lords against him. I came to Ringwall to understand the magic within me. Governing is not my business; I understand nothing of the matter. As Mah Bu’s successor I would perhaps sit upon the gray chair, but I would never be the Archmage he was. I must use the time I have left in Ringwall to understand the coming Change, not to engross myself in a task I was never meant to have.” Nill gave a small bow and took a step back.

  Ambrosimas got to his feet and made a sweeping gesture. “As your old mentor, let me ask you something. Do you think anyone knows what they were meant to do? It’s of equally little importance whether you think you’re the right person for the post of an Archmage. Your opinion is not considered in the vote. Even against your express will, you can be put on the chair. The reasons leading to a vote are connected to fate and destiny. But Nill is right about one thing.” Ambrosimas addressed the council at large. “I believe he is a tool for change, not a tool for preservation. He is not the future Archmage of the Other World, but the way he’s going,” Ambrosimas chuckled, “I wouldn’t be surprised if he replaced the Magon in a few years, skipping the role of Archmage entirely. Let us cast our votes as we always have. Let us choose between two people.”

  Nill exhaled audibly. In spite of his relief, he was still curious as to how the vote would work.

  The High Council exchanged glances. Thoughts and looks shot from one to another, faster than the spoken word could ever travel. The vote had begun, and the candidate had nothing to do but stand around and wait for the result. Some of the archmages appeared to be in trance. A humming noise filled the room, and whirling energies that seemed to be coming from the Onyx slab were moving faster and faster, until a shout broke the spell. The Magon opened his eyes, the Archmage of Earth leapt from his chair and grasped its back, and Ambrosimas began to sing. It was nothing like the wonderful melody he had demonstrated during Nill’s trial. Quiet, rough sounds from deep within his throat, bubbling and seething like a stew on the fire, more breathing and sighing than melody and tone. When the wild dance finally ended, the tension in the room had reached breaking point; Nill could feel every hair on his body standing on end. A pale light was glowing on the Onyx before the stool of Nothing. The Magon remained seated and put his head in his hands. The Archmage of the Cosmos stood up and announced the verdict.

  “The new Archmage of the Other World is Tofflas. Nill will be the Archmage of Nothing, and will take the final chair in the High Council.”

  The Onyx trembled.

  Epilogue

  The news that the Circle had filled the empty chair of the Archmage of Nothing after many long years, and that the new Archmage was an only recently recognized mage who had not long ago been a student reached the Fire Kingdom before long. It was immediately reported to Prince Sergor-Don. The message slid into his heart and ignited a fiery storm of rage. But as fast as the shadow of anger had fallen onto the young monarch’s face, it had vanished. The messaged had risen from his heart to his head. His brain began to work furiously. A smile spread across his face, cruel and satisfied. “Fate could hardly comply better to my wishes. Everything is happening in the right place at the right time.”

  If you wish to be informed, when we publish the next Pentamuria book, send an Email with “Pentamuria English” to zaptosmedia@gmail.com

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