Red Mage Ascending: Book 1 of Tournament of Mages

by Cleave Bourbon

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Author’s Note

  Red Mage Ascending

  Prologue

  Chapter 1 - Origin

  Chapter 2 – Servants

  Chapter 3 – Heart of Fire

  Chapter 4 – Visitors

  Chapter 5 – Thessa

  Chapter 6 – Loss

  Chapter 7 – In the Dark

  Chapter 8 – Nightmares

  Chapter 9 – RUN!

  Chapter 10 – The Arena

  Chapter 11 – Down

  Chapter 12 – Children of Blood

  Chapter 13 – Tharen and Gwade

  Chapter 14 – The Gift

  Chapter 15 – Renewal

  Chapter 16 – Wanted

  Chapter 17 – Turnabout

  Chapter 18 – Blood Feeders

  Chapter 19 – The Truest Path

  Chapter 20 – Journey of the Chosen

  About the Author

  Glossary

  Copyright

  RED MAGE

  ASCENDING

  Tournament of Mages 1

  Cleave Bourbon

  Copyright © Cleave Bourbon 2017

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  Author’s Note

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome to the Tournament of Mages! This series chronicles the stories and lives of the six mages, Red, Blue, Black, Green, Grey, and White as they prepare for the great tournament at the end of the books. Whether this is your first book in the series or you have read the opening novelette Tournament of Mages Commencement, I know that names and places can get convoluted over time so I have included a glossary at the end of each installment to help. The glossary will grow with each book of the series. You may want to refer to it often until you get the hang of the names and places, or you can use it to reacquaint yourself if you have read any of the other works in the series.

  Best Wishes,

  Cleave

  Red Mage Ascending

  The servant girl Hana is a mystery. She doesn’t act like a member of the lower classes. She tries to hide it, but her education is often evident in the way she speaks. Crumpled intricate drawings of animals and people have been discovered in her trash bin. Once, in the market place, she was overheard giving directions to an elf in perfect high elvish! There was also the time her employers came home to the most beautiful piano music they had ever heard, but when they opened the front door, Hana quickly pretended she was only dusting the keys. She seems to have magical powers as well. When one of the children came down with a fever, she healed him when the clerics could not. What terrible dark secret is she harboring? She must be a noble in hiding or a member of the clergy, or she might even be one of the destined six mages. After all, the tournament is only a couple of years away.

  Prologue

  Ephaltus, the Tourney Master of the six kingdoms examined the scrolls and parchment strewn about on the table before him. Awake for only a few months, it fell to him to prepare for the Tournament of Mages set to take place five years hence. Like clockwork, every one hundred years, a Tourney Master would awaken five years before the great tournament set to determine which of the kingdoms would produce the winning mage who was fit to rule them all. It is also the Tourney Master’s job to identify and prepare the mages as they emerge, one from each kingdom, and help prepare them to compete in the tournament. Ephaltus oversaw the arena complex and all its secrets. This was a special year, however, because it was the millennium. This year he would train a new one thousand year Tourney Master and he would retire.

  “Marlee? Are you following me?” Ephaltus asked his young apprentice.

  “I’m here Master. I almost tripped on one of the stairs, they are quite steep.”

  “Hmm? Well, you’ll get used to them. You will be climbing those infernal stairs many times in your thousand year tenure. This is the way to the Ocularius Magnus. This is how you will be able to observe all the mages without having to flitter around to them in person. Although, if it is your preference to do so, the colored orbs will allow you to travel swiftly.”

  “I can see the advantage of the Ocular…”

  “Ocularius Magnus. Don’t get so caught up in the fancy name. It means big eye or big lens or something like that. I call it the Oculus for short, probably incorrectly, but who really cares what you call the thing. It’s a spy-glass!”

  When Marlee topped the stairs she saw around lens with gold trim. There were two seats attached to it that swiveled with it. The lens itself was controlled by a series of spinning handles, “Why are there two seats?”

  “The extra seat is removable. The dryads attached it specifically for this year. They will remove it when you are here by yourself.”

  “How does it work?”

  “If you notice, there are six colored circles around the golden circumference of the lens. You use the two spinning levers to turn the Oculus until the color lines up with the arrow at the top and it will focus on that color mage. The colors of the mages have many significances you will find throughout your training. It’s very convenient. The only catch to using the oculus is that you must have identified the mage before the blasted thing will show you anything.”

  “You sound as if you don’t like the Ocularius Magnus.”

  “I don’t. Sometimes it lies.”

  “It does?”

  “Not literally no. But, it is easily manipulated by the gods. They like to fool and tinker with it so their champion is displayed in a better light. You must constantly and consistently calibrate it magically to guard against their interference. It is easy enough to confirm what you are seeing is really happening. It’s just a pain in your backside to have to adjust it all the time. Let me warn you to perform the magical calibration every single time you use it because the one time you forget to adjust it will be the one time it has been manipulated. That has come back to bite me more than once!” He pulled himself onto the seat and patted the other for Marlee to join him. Once she climbed on board he showed her how to adjust it. he spun one of the levers and the whole apparatus moved.

  “Wee, this is fun!” Marlee said.

  “Fun, oh yes, that reminds me. You can’t interfere with anything you see happening to the mage you are watching. Mages can’t be killed by other mages before the tournament, but as you know, others can kill them, but if they do, they must take their place, so you may see many Blue Mages, for instance, over the course of the five years. The gods try to limit it from happening too often because once the time of the tournament approaches, a newly made mage won’t have time to train properly and therefore would be a poor champion.”

  “Now, if you think you have the hang of it. I will leave you to experiment with it as you please while I take care of some pressing business.”

  “Shouldn’t I come with you to learn?”

  “Not in this case. You can’t possibly learn everything at once. We have five years’ worth of training to get through, but I still have to do my job too.” He stepped off the Oculus. “We really have only confirmed the Red Mage for certain, so start there.”

  Marlee spun the handle and the Oculus moved until the red disk lined up with the arrow. An image began to appear in the center of the lens. Marlee watched intently as it focused.

  Chapter 1 - Origin

  Hana hid behind the mammoth trunk of an ancient oak. She panted and gasped for air but was
forced to abruptly curtail her heavy breathing when she heard the guttural sounds of her pursuers nearby. Her chest burned and heaved as she held her breath in check. She let out air in quick, quiet bursts and sucked in periodically. The muscles in her left leg twitched, not used to the exertion. She bent down and rubbed it as her breathing stabilized. She sucked in and held her breath again. One of her pursuers was close. It was sniffing the night air for her. Hana closed her eyes and reached out with her mind. Normally she could feel living creatures, not with touch, but with her mind. She had been able to feel life since she was a child. She could feel the heartbeat, and when she closed her eyes and concentrated on that heartbeat, she could see the blood flowing through the living body in her mind’s eye as if it contained millions of fireflies all lit up at once. It allowed her to see inside one’s body and fix it when it was broken. But not this creature, not her pursuer, it was dark to her in every way except sight and sound.

  Hana pushed off the trunk of the tree to gain instant speed as she heard the creature snort with triumph at detecting her hiding behind it. The thing screeched and presumably called to the others of its kind as soon as it spotted her running away. Hana looked back and noticed it loped after her on all fours. Spurred on by the horror of what she saw, Hana received a burst of fear-fueled energy and she sprinted faster than she had ever done before. Unfortunately, the darkness of the forest and the time of evening conspired against her and she failed to see the tree root sticking up from the path she followed. She tripped over it and tumbled forward to the ground. She felt the wet leaves and the moist ground. Sharp scrapes of dead branches cutting into her soft skin, made her wince. She came to a stop and immediately recovered to her feet. She tried to run again but the thing was upon her. It clawed Hana’s leg first, to keep her from bolting she presumed, as another creature appeared and went directly for her neck. She blocked the second creature from biting her but the first creature sank its fangs into her lower leg. The pain was sharp, instant, and hot. The thing was making loud sucking noises as it took in her blood. She was still holding the one at her throat at bay, but just barely. It screamed and screeched like a wild animal.

  “Ah yes, let the fear color your blood!” The creature at her leg paused long enough to say.

  The fiend at her neck abandoned its task and refocused on Hana’s bleeding leg. “step aside, let me!” The second voice had a feminine lilt to it even though it also sounded more sinister and guttural than the first somehow.

  It was all Hana could do to keep the pain under control. She concentrated on her body like she had learned over time to do. She could see her blood flowing through her body and now something else. With the fresh infusion of her blood now flowing through them, the creatures at her wounded leg began to become visible in her mind’s eye. That’s all she needed. She reached her hand out and the blood within the first creature responded. She had control of it. She flung her fingers outward and the thing flew backward from her. As soon as it did, she clasped her hands together and then abruptly broke them apart. The blood responded in kind and the creature tore in half with a blood-curdling scream. The other creature bolted away, but now Hana had the upper hand and she used it. The thing that was feeding on her moments ago soon found itself walking against its will back to her, writhing and screaming to get away. She rubbed her hand over her bloody wound. It covered up and began to heal.

  The creature was close enough that she could see what it was now. It appeared to be a girl in her early teens. Hana had planned for it to meet the same fate as its friend but now, looking at the girl directly in her dark eyes, she felt compassion. She couldn’t just kill her.

  “What are you?” Hana asked.

  The girl seemed like she might answer at first. Her face softened and her eyes got big. But, when Hana allowed her to come closer, the girl howled and tried to bite.

  “If you want it that way, so be it!” Hana said. She began to tell the blood to rip the ingrate to shreds but at the last moment, she had another idea. She held out her hands and began to manipulate the blood within the girl’s body. “What is making you this way? I wonder if I can fix you? I have healed others from within.”

  “No! The girl screamed as the blood flowed back and forth under Hana’s command. “Kill me!”

  “Oh, does this hurt?” Hana cruelly made the blood burn within the girl. “The more you squirm and resist me the more I’m going to make you burn!” Hana’s anger rose within her in waves of rage. She began to like the twisted, pain filled expressions of her former attacker. “How does that feel, you little ungrateful whelp?” The girl gurgled in pain, which brought Hana back to her senses. She looked through the body of the girl with her connection to her own blood. She felt dizzy. She had lost quite a bit of blood to the two ghouls, but she didn’t let up. She was determined to find out what was wrong with this girl. “Why?”

  The girl panted and writhed. “There are more nearby. You will not survive.”

  Hana ignored the girl and searched inside her body, commanding the blood from her own body to heal her. The girl screamed and Hana let her go, no longer able to see her blood flowing inside the girl. She could hear the rustling of leaves and the snapping of branches as the others approached. They were attracted by the child’s screams. Hana was about to turn and run when a curious thing began to occur. The girl slowly became visible to Hana’s blood sight. At first, it was a faint glow and then the streams and rivers of blood began to pump as a heart grew within the girl’s chest.

  The first creature seized Hana’s left arm and the next sank its teeth into her right shoulder. Weak from the first attack, she couldn’t find the strength to fight back or use her sight to command the blood they sucked from her. The girl was right, she would not survive this. More creatures appeared, howling and panting with glee. Hana braced for death.

  The thing that had her arm bit down. The pain had become numb to her now. She looked into the dead eyes of the thing taking her life. It was a young man. Its eyes went wide, the dead eyes came to life as it was ripped from her arm, a small, clawed hand protruded from its chest holding its emaciated heart. The hand opened and let the heart fall. It seemed to move in slow motion as it backed out of the young man’s chest. He fell aside to reveal the girl Hana had just tried to save. She still glowed with life. She attacked the thing at Hana’s shoulder and dispatched it quickly with incredible strength and a blow to the head, sending the bones of its nose up into its brain. More of the tainted men and women came, but the rescued girl fought them with animal ferocity. Hana caught the glimpse of the girl’s claws. They contracted and retracted like a cat’s. Hana let herself fall against a nearby tree trunk. She slid down to a seated position as the girl finished her work.

  “What are you?” The girl was only a few inches from Hana’s face now. “What have you done to me?”

  “What’s your name, girl?” Hana asked.

  “It’s Thessa, or it was, I think.”

  “Thessa, that’s an Ag Caderan name.”

  “It is, but I am from Craessa, not Ag Caderan.” Thessa sat down beside Hana. Blood trickled from her mouth.

  “You are still unwell,” Hana said. “Here, let me help you.” She tried to move but failed.

  “No, you have done enough. I fear you’ve made yourself too weak trying to help me already.”

  Hana let herself fall back against the tree. “I’m not all that certain what I did to you.”

  “I hungered for flesh and blood and now I don’t,” Thessa whispered.

  “Why, who did this to you? I mean, you were just a girl before I assume.”

  “I have little memory of it. I know my name and where I lived before, but that’s all.”

  “Didn’t you have a family? Won’t they be looking for you?” Hana asked.

  “No, I know I don’t have a family. None of us did. Wait, I remember that much. We were all together when someone came to where we lived, a back alley.”

  “And?” Hana asked.

 
“And now I am here with you.”

  Hana tried to pick herself up again and when she failed to do so, she took a gnarled, dead branch from the ground and used to prop herself up.

  “Here, I will help you,” Thessa said. “I will come with you. I owe you my life.”

  “No, you saved mine too, we’re even.”

  “I insist. I want to come with you.”

  “You can’t. I don’t live alone. I work as a common household servant.”

  “Take me with you. I can work as a servant too.”

  “I don’t need your help. I will be able to heal myself shortly. I have done it before. I just need to recuperate.”

  “But, I have nowhere to go.” The girl’s nose began to bleed.

  Hana reached out and wiped it with her sleeve. “You’re still not well.”

  “No.”

  “I’ll tell you what, there is a cellar out back where I work. I’ll hide you down there. I can bring you food and water. I will heal you there when I am able. You’ll be safe until we can think all this through. Maybe you can work for mistress Moira too, but I know she won’t let you wander in off the streets and I’m fairly certain you have several days of healing ahead of you, besides the fact.”

  “I will do as you say.”

  “Hana smiled as the girl helped her walk. “You had better.” She stumbled near one of the dead. “They could be a problem if they are discovered.”

  “Let the wolves take care of them,” Thessa said.

  “That’s a bit callous don’t you think?”

  Thessa stopped to stare at her and Hana remembered how she had killed one of them and almost boiled Thessa’s blood. “Yes, let the wolves take them.”

  Thessa resumed helping Hana walk. They both hesitated when the leaves behind them began to rustle followed by a scraping sound, the kind of noise one hears when someone is pulling themselves up from a resting position. Hana and Thessa turned to look at the same moment.