Rise of the Mages (Rise of the Mages 2)

by Foster, Brian W.

  RISE of the MAGES

  Brian W. Foster

  DEDICATION

  For my wife, Amanda,

  without whom there would be no novella

  because I would have never stopped talking

  about writing and started actually writing.

  Copyright © 2015 by Brian W. Foster

  All rights reserved, included the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  11.

  12.

  13.

  14.

  15.

  16.

  17.

  18.

  19.

  20.

  21.

  22.

  23.

  24.

  25.

  26.

  27.

  28.

  29.

  30.

  31.

  32.

  33.

  34.

  35.

  36.

  37.

  38.

  39.

  40.

  41.

  42.

  43.

  44.

  45.

  46.

  47.

  48.

  49.

  50.

  51.

  52.

  53.

  54.

  55.

  56.

  57.

  58.

  59.

  60.

  61.

  62.

  63.

  64.

  65.

  66.

  67.

  68.

  69.

  70.

  71.

  72.

  73.

  74.

  75.

  76.

  77.

  78.

  79.

  80.

  81.

  82.

  Epilogue

  Thanks for Reading!

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  1.

  Xan jolted alert as the shop door slammed open and a huge figure burst inside.

  “Where’s Rae?” a man’s voice shouted.

  Xan’s sleep-blurred eyes couldn’t bring the man into focus. “M-master Hess? Master Rae’s out at the Simpson farm—” The hulking blacksmith carried something. A boy, his son Ira, slumped in his arms. “What symptoms?”

  “Huh?” Hess said.

  Xan rushed across the room. “What. Are. His. Symptoms?”

  “Are you blind and daft? He’s out!”

  Ira’s forehead felt like his father’s forge. “What happened?”

  “Stupid boy ate a mushroom he found in the forest.” Pain etched Hess’ voice.

  “What did it look like?”

  “Like a mushroom!”

  Xan’s mind raced. What did he know about fungi? So hard to think through the fog of sleep clouding his mind. Was it twenty-two types that grew near Eagleton? No. Twenty-three, and two of those types could kill.

  Hess turned toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” Xan said.

  “To get help at the apothecary over at Rarytown.”

  “That’s half a day’s ride. Your son might be dead by then.”

  “What else can I do? Rae’s not here!” Panic danced in Hess’ eyes. His fists clenched and unclenched helplessly.

  Making potions was a lot different than diagnosing patients, but Xan didn’t have a choice. If he did nothing, Ira would probably die from the poison. “I can treat him.”

  “You’re a blasted kid.”

  Really? Xan was seventeen! When were people going to see him as something other than a child? “I’ve been a journeyman apothecary for a year and mix almost all the potions that come out of this shop.”

  Hess glanced at the door. “I should have paid more attention to where he was going. If something happens to him …” He let out a long breath. “What do I do?”

  “Trust me. I can do this.” Xan hoped that wasn’t a lie. He rubbed his eyes. If only he could think straight.

  Without a description of the mushroom, he didn’t know which poison to counteract. What if he chose wrong?

  After a few moments of concentrating, the answer came to him. First, induce vomiting to get the mushroom out of Ira. No further damage would be done, and maybe, Xan could figure out which it was from the undigested remains.

  Xan turned to the shelves behind him and selected three jars, quickly mixing the contents in correct quantities and dumping the resulting liquid into a vial. “We’ve got to get this into Ira. Hold his mouth open.”

  Hess laid the boy on Xan’s worktable. Ira’s shirt rose in the process, revealing red splotches on his stomach.

  A rash? That didn’t make sense. Neither of the poisonous mushrooms created a rash.

  Unless poison wasn’t the problem.

  Xan hadn’t even considered the possibility that the symptoms were due to something else. What kind of blasted, rads-infested idiot was he?

  Fever. Passing out. That rash. The ailment had to be Ezeal’s Curse. And Xan had been about to treat it with ground sarro root. That would have killed Ira for sure.

  The vial slipped from Xan’s grasp and tumbled to the floor. It hit and burst into shards.

  “By the Holy One!” Hess shouted. “What happened?”

  Xan’s heart pounded. Should he admit what he’d almost done? But then Hess would never trust his judgment. Probably wouldn’t even believe the real cause of Ira’s symptoms.

  “Sorry. My mistake. I’ll whip up another batch.”

  Xan turned back to the shelves and tried to shield his work from view. Hopefully, Hess wasn’t paying attention to the use of different ingredients. When Xan finished—including adding some coloring to make it look more like the original potion—they forced Ira to down the medicine.

  “It wasn’t the mushroom that made him sick,” Xan said.

  “What? But—”

  “Ira will be just fine with treatment.”

  Hess clenched his meaty hands into fists. “Why should I trust—”

  “When you come back tomorrow for another dose, Master Rae will verify my diagnosis.”

  “Boy, if anything happens to my son, I’m going to kill you.”

  “I understand,” Xan said. “But look.”

  Ira’s eyes flitted open. “Dad?”

  “Your son is going to be just fine,” Xan said.

  Hess ruffled Ira’s hair. “If you’re sure … I guess … The boy does seem better.” He reached for his coin purse.

  “No,” Xan said. “Tomorrow.”

  Hess picked up his son. “Well. Thanks, then.” He mumbled something else as he walked out of the shop.

  Xan shut the door behind him and leaned his back against it. His breathing quickened, forcing him to suck in air to calm himself. He’d almost killed a little boy. What a ridiculous, blasted, idiotic, ridiculous rads-infested thing to do!

  He couldn’t make mistakes like that.

  “That’s it,” he muttered. “I’ve got to do something.”

  He had to gain a respite from the dreams.

  Not that he hadn’t tried to find
a solution. Not that he had any idea how to proceed. Not that he could even think straight.

  Xan glanced at a bag stowed near his feet. There was one sure way to clear his thoughts.

  No. He’d allotted himself two seeds per day and had already had three with the entire afternoon left.

  But did he have a choice?

  Xan pulled a costrel from the bag and worked out the stopper. Such a bad idea. He tilted the leather container toward his open hand. And hesitated.

  Neat rows of glass canisters and dried plants stared at him, each a little representation of Master Rae’s teachings and each full of reprimand for what he was about to do. Not to mention that anyone walking by outside could see him through the window. The door could swing open at any moment.

  “Get a hold of yourself, man.”

  Keeping a close watch on the door and window, he tossed a licuna seed into his mouth. The world brightened, giving him—hopefully—an hour or two of clear thinking.

  So how to cure an ailment when you have no idea as to the cause?

  Simple. You asked Master Rae—the best apothecary in the duchy of Vierna, maybe even in the entire kingdom of Bermau—to help. Which was exactly what Xan should have done after the first night of dreaming. But it was too late. He just knew how that conversation would go.

  “Hey, Master Rae,” Xan said, “how can I get rid of these dreams I’m having?”

  “Dreams?” Xan mimicked, lowering his voice and injecting a phlegmy quality. The result came out sounding absolutely nothing like Master Rae. “How long have you been having them? What are they about? Why do you want to get rid of them? Who—”

  Xan put his hands up to escape the torrent. “Just me talking to a girl in a meadow. They’re nothing unusual except that I have them every night. For twenty nights. And I recall them more vividly than any dream I’ve ever had, like they’re more real than anything else in my life. And that they leave me feeling like I’m not sleeping at all.”

  “You haven’t gotten any sleep for twenty days!”

  “Staying in bed pretty much all the time on the weekends helps,” Xan said in his normal voice, “and I’ve been chewing shaved variegation bark.”

  “That would work for a while, but, if you’re really as tired as you say …”

  Xan stared at the floor. He couldn’t even face the imaginary specter of his mentor. “I’ve been taking licuna seeds for the last week.”

  “Seeds! Are you insane? You’re fired.” Xan paused from speaking in the deep voice. “Tarnation, boy! Didn’t I teach you better than to mix medicines while impaired, even simply by the lack of sleep? And you did it while taking a dangerous drug? Forget just being fired, I’m having you arrested.”

  Xan wouldn’t be able to bear hearing that condemnation, that disappointment, from the real Master Rae. And what would he do next? Being discharged before receiving his letter meant no other apothecary would take him on.

  He’d risen to journeyman faster by a year than anyone he’d ever heard of. The best apothecary around trusted him almost like an equal—some of the time, anyway. His work helped people.

  All that ruined.

  “Why didn’t you ask me for help sooner?” he said as Master Rae, stroking an imaginary beard.

  “Because I thought it wasn’t a big deal? Because I thought I could handle it myself? Because I thought you would tease me about wet dreams?”

  “No. I don’t think that’s quite it.”

  Xan stared at the floor. “It’s because I’m a complete fool. You see, the girl is pretty—really pretty—and I like being with her. And I was afraid you might end the dreams permanently.”

  How could he be such a complete, blasted moron? Was he so desperate for a girlfriend that he’d risk his health and, worse, patients’ lives for an imaginary one?

  He rubbed his temples. Unfortunately, yes, he was. And she wasn’t even a real pretend girlfriend—he’d never even kissed her!

  Ridiculous!

  His hands shook, and he steadied them against his legs. If he could get just one night of pure rest, he’d be okay. There’d be no more mistakes—no more almost killing a patient. He just needed to find the right potion.

  Not that he hadn’t pored over every book in the shop already. How was it that Master Rae’s references held cures for everything from toenail fungus to balding hair but not a single mention of stopping dreams? No help for it but to figure something out himself.

  Xan had never heard of a report of a patient dreaming when knocked out with Wizard’s Beard. Lord Oxley’s Bane suppressed mental function. Either of those could work, but, if so, wouldn’t there be a potion listed in the literature? Perhaps a mixture of the two?

  Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

  Was he really considering, without any testing, trying a combination of two powerful herbs on himself? What were the chances the mixture wouldn’t make him sick? Not much higher than the chances it would actually help.

  But better that than no chance at all. Right?

  Xan groaned. Reasoning like that was sure to cause a journeyman apothecary to spend the next three days expelling the contents of his stomach from both ends.

  After an hour researching, mixing and muttering, and tossing out results that didn’t seem quite right, he capped the bottle of murky green liquid and closed up the shop.

  He stumbled through his long walk across Eagleton and halfway up the mountain to the Diwens’ house. In his room, he held the potion in front of him. Its ugly color and floating brown chunks did nothing to inspire confidence.

  Xan swirled the liquid and removed the cork. Sniffing, he waved it under his nose. “No noxious fumes.” He brought it to his mouth and closed his eyes. “One. Two. Three.”

  He couldn’t do it.

  With a sigh, he set the still-full bottle on his writing table. “There’s no way this is actually going to work. Best I can hope for is that it does nothing.”

  Xan looked at his bed, at the bottle, and at the bed again. Seizing courage with both hands, he grabbed the mixture and tossed it into his mouth. His face screwed into a grimace as he choked the potion down his throat. It tasted fouler than the tonic Master Rae gave children he suspected of feigning illness.

  “It will either stop the dreams, or it won’t. I’ll either get sick, or I won’t.” He flopped onto his straw mattress and fell asleep an instant later.

  2.

  Justav raced against the end of night. The moonlit woods on both sides of the road passed in a blur, and still he dug spurs into Victoro. The beast would go no faster.

  Not nearly long enough until sunrise.

  He glanced back, gritting his teeth when he found his thirty men spread like peasants harvesting grain. “Keller! Tighten the formation.” The debasement of raising his voice to be heard over the thundering hooves galled him.

  “My lord, the horses in the rear are pushing as hard as they can. Your mount is the fastest.”

  “The sand spirits take your excuses!” Why had Justav expended so much gold to provide his men with the best animals if they were still going to complain? “I'll have the mage tonight.”

  His sweaty stench mingled with the disgusting odor from his animal. Grime coated every part of him. Muscles throbbed from constant riding.

  Twenty nights, he’d hunted his prey. Twenty nights, he’d ridden hard all the way from Sadilon. Twenty nights, he’d drawn frustratingly closer.

  So much to gain and so much to lose.

  There was always risk in accepting a task personally assigned by King Barius. As the ruler of Dastanar, his concerns encompassed the big picture, and the welfare of individual agents like Justav dwelled at the bottom of the priority list. But the reward …

  If only an idiot older brother hadn’t made so many missteps in handling the family’s business, Justav wouldn’t have been put into the situation in the first place. No matter, though. All he had to do was kill his target. Their coffers would be replenished to a degree even Platov couldn’t destroy. Failu
re—

  Justav refused to think about the possibility.

  He drove his consciousness into the magic and sensed twin flows. Good. Not that he’d doubted the mages would dream again given the past three weeks, but it strained Justav’s mind to consider the power required. How could anyone sustain that level of draw all night every night? And who would dare?

  The two must know they’d be caught and executed. Was it a sign of confidence in their strength and training? Had the imbeciles running Bermau realized their stupidity and begun recruiting mages? Could Justav be leading his men into an ambush?

  Death benefits and training new recruits got expensive, but, likely, the king could be persuaded to cover reasonable costs.

  The real danger lay in the mages realizing their peril and ending their nocturnal meetings before Justav reached his target. Hidden by their government and no longer using magic, they’d be impossible to find. Each night Justav didn’t accomplish his task risked the unthinkable.

  And sunrise neared by the instant.

  He leaned forward, “Faster, Victoro. Faster.”

  If he could but locate them, no amount of power on their part would save them. Justav grinned. Working for the king was not without its benefits; he held his own surprises. His quarry would not escape.

  Confidence failed to banish his concern entirely. Important information had been withheld. Who pursued the other mage? Was that one a threat to Dastanar’s ambitions as well? Would Justav’s mission be affected?

  He put the questions out of his mind. It was time to end the pursuit.

  Dawn loomed, but the town, Eagleton, lay just ahead if his map held a shred of accuracy. Justav would see his quarry hang.

  3.

  “The meadow again,” Xan muttered.

  He glanced behind him to find his footsteps had left impressions in the grass spanning as far as his vision reached. And he had absolutely no recollection of having made them. Same as always.

  All the other details were the same, too—the cloudless sky painted a deep blue that only existed at the instant daylight transformed into night, the unnatural light clarity despite there being no visible source, lush grass, perfect majestic oaks.

  Not that he paid much attention to those elements. A hundred yards away, Ashley waited. An unbidden smile split his face.