Severed Empire: Wizard's Rise

by Phillip Tomasso

  Those two facts are what concerned him most.

  He had the feeling that everyone knew something, even if only a piece of the puzzle, except him. He intended that to change.

  “How is he?” Mykal asked his grandfather.

  “I’m fine.” It was Blodwyn who replied. He was still on the bed, one hand pressed against his forehead. “I can’t believe she did that.”

  “I think she felt threatened,” Mykal said, having no idea why he was defending the wizard’s actions. “Wyn, what’s going on?”

  Chapter 13

  “We’re going to try this one more time,” Mykal said, taking control of the situation. Blodwyn resigned to that fact. They were outside, on the porch. It was not a large porch so they all sat close together.

  The morning was well underway. The sun up, waging a currently silent battle against dark clouds threatening to cover blue skies. The odor of manure filled the air. Mykal knew chores needed doing. The cows would be in pain, waiting for him to milk them. There were eggs to collect from the coop. All the animals would be hungry. And then there was the stretch of fence along the south that remained in dire need of repair. And yet, all of that would have to wait. Getting things done had been put on hold because sitting on the porch was a wizard, and some kind of magician who could see the future.

  “The first thing I want you to do, before we go any further, is to prove that I am a wizard.” Mykal folded his arms across his chest. Ultimately, everything hinged on Galatia proving he was a wizard, or a magician, or that he possessed any kind of power at all. Because if he didn’t, if she couldn’t prove it, then everything else didn’t matter. It meant she had the wrong person. She could move on.

  Galatia pursed her lips. “How old are you, Mykal?”

  “I’m ten years and seven,” he said.

  “And what happened to your mother?”

  Mykal’s eyes went to Grandfather. He looked uncomfortable. Mykal could tell that it had little to do with the cushion on the chair, or the blanket over his legs in the heat. It was the piece of the puzzle he held onto. Did he know something about his mother that he had not disclosed?

  “She disappeared. She was kidnapped by bandits. It wasn’t long after I was born,” he said. “I don’t remember her.”

  “You were two,” Grandfather said.

  “I was two.” Mykal didn’t even know what she looked like. Grandfather said that he was a perfect image of both his parents. It only helped some. “My father went after them, promising he’d find her and bring her back home. I never saw either of them again.”

  Blodwyn nodded his head, but was looking at the slats on the porch.

  “They are not dead. And your mother wasn’t abducted,” Galatia said.

  Mykal anger surged once more. “You can’t do that! You can’t come here and say something like that!”

  Blodwyn jumped to his feet and wrapped an arm across Mykal’s chest, restraining him. “Let her finish, Mykal. There’s more to the story.”

  It was as if he’d been sucker punched. The air escaped his lungs. He couldn’t breathe. He took a step back, away from Blodwyn and off the porch. “What do you know about my parents, Wyn? What do you know?”

  Blodwyn cocked his head to the side, looking over at Galatia. She nodded.

  “What are you not telling me?” Mykal said.

  The sun was quickly losing the war. The storm clouds spread like a disease covering more and more of the sky. It had started over the Isthmian, but more clusters appeared elsewhere.

  “When your mother was pregnant, she called for me,” he said. “I told your grandfather the other night. My job was to teach you to defend yourself. The same as I taught your mother to defend herself. It’s what I do.”

  “What are you, then? A common sellsword?”

  “Mykal!” Grandfather’s voice was as hard as it had been when he’d been scolded as a child. It was still weighted with the same impact. But Mykal refused to apologize.

  “I’m not unlike a sellsword.” He stepped off the porch, looked up at the darkening sky. “I’m also a friend. I was your mother’s friend, and I’m your friend. I’ve dedicated my life to protecting your family.”

  “And yet, my mother and father are gone.”

  “Your mother wasn’t abducted, like Galatia said.”

  “So where is she? What happened to her?”

  “The supposed bandits that came to the house were escorts. Friends of mine. I’d sent them to get Anna out of the kingdom.” Blodwyn leaned his weight on his staff, and bounced lightly on the balls of his feet. “It was an easy decision to make. I would do it again. The tough part was not telling your father. That she made me promise I would not do.”

  “My mother made you promise to steal her away from her family and not tell anyone she was safe?” Mykal demanded, his words saturated with venom.

  “She did.”

  Mykal shook his head. His eyes were closed. When he stopped he had to stretch out his arms. His legs wobbled until he locked his knees. It was possible the world was trembling. It wasn’t a common phenomenon, but it did happen. “She wouldn’t just leave me.”

  “It was to save you. You, and your father.”

  “My father’s gone,” Mykal said.

  “She didn’t know he was going to come after her,” Blodwyn said.

  “Of course he went after her. He thought she’d been kidnapped. He saddled a horse the minute he’d found out she was gone, and rode after them.” It was Grandfather who shouted. His hands were balled into fists. His one foot was off the chair and planted flat on the porch, as if he were about to leap out of his chair and lunge at Blodwyn.

  “King Nabal was looking for Anna. Someone told the Watch she used magic. They were coming for her,” Blodwyn said, and shrugged, as if the few statements explained everything.

  “That’s crazy. If the Watch showed up they’d realize the accusations were false, and they’d leave her alone. We’d still be a family. I’d have my parents still. I wouldn’t have been an orphan all these years.”

  Blodwyn set a hand on Mykal’s shoulder.

  Mykal shrugged it off. “Don’t.”

  “The truth is, Mykal, Anna, your mother, is a wizard.”

  “That’s not the truth.”

  “It is,” Blodwyn said. “And if the Watch caught her, she’d have been put to death. Worse, she knew you’d have been killed as well.”

  “What, because I’m a wizard? I was two!” Mykal said. “If any of this is true, then it means she was afraid she might die, so she ran. She abandoned me. That’s not a mother.”

  “She must have known you were a wizard, Mykal. Your mother left to protect you. She left because she loved you. Not to get away from you. Not to save her own life. She led the Watch away from your father’s ranch. Not to it.”

  “So where is she?” Mykal said.

  Blodwyn shook his head. “I told them to never tell me where they were taking her. I didn’t want to know. That could have been just as dangerous.”

  A silence fell over them. Not even birds chirped. The only sound heard was the ever growing wind. Branches on the lone tree outside Mykal’s window rustled and swayed. Another storm was coming. Why did rain even matter. “I’m not a wizard.”

  ***

  “King Grandeer’s Watch were brutal,” Galatia said. “They’d run steel through your spine and out of your chest, before bothering to ask if they were slaughtering the right person. Thousands of innocent people were murdered during their hunt for magic users.”

  “You said there were only twelve wizards in the empire,” Karyn said.

  “Twelve, yes. And possibly as many as a hundred and fifty magicians,” Galatia said. She sat beside Karyn on the bench, knees pressed together. “The Watch had the world to themselves. There was no one to oversee their tirades. They pillaged and raped and murdered, all in honor of their king. Who could stop them? Who was the king more likely to believe?”

  Karyn said, “My knowledge of magic is li
mited. I only know what I’ve heard, or read of in books. It seems to me that even with just twelve wizards you could have, if not defeated the king, the emperor, you most certainly could have given them a fight that would have been legendary. And yet, I’ve never heard of a legend like it.”

  “She’s right. Couldn’t the wizards stop them?” Grandfather said. He had settled down. Mykal knelt beside him. That seemed to help.

  “The kind of magic needed to stop a bloodthirsty army is more than I possessed alone. Together we may have been able to stand against them. There were some that fought, met the armies head on. That was part of the problem. It happened fast. Too fast. We are not violent people. We don’t sit around and debate war strategies. However, that was exactly what needed doing. The people feared us even more than they already had and joined in of their own accord to help the king in seeking us out, and participating in our destruction. It became an ambush. There was no one we could truly trust. The king placed prices on our heads. Word spread about rewards to be paid for our capture, dead or alive. We were on the defense, on the run, right from the beginning.

  “The king already convinced everyone I was responsible for the death of the queen and their child. I suppose in a way it’s true. But I didn’t harm them. I just couldn’t heal them. It didn’t take long for the king to gain support from the emperor. Besides the bounty, this was when the king formed and trained his elite and called them The Watch. Their sole purpose was to seek and destroy magic. Wizards, street magicians, relics, books, charms . . . anything that could be used for sorcery. The fear and terror spawned from the king’s madness spread like a plague. It seemed like everyone was infected. People turned against one another. No place was safe.” She lowered her head.

  “What did you do?” Mykal said. He set his anger aside. For whatever reason they’d been drawn together. Sooner or later they would get to the bottom of things. Learning the truth might not make things easier, but at least he would be better equipped to start dealing with reality. Everything buried would be unearthed. He took some solace in that.

  “Of the twelve wizards within the empire, there were just four of us left. I was notified by raven that we were to meet at the library in the ancient ruins on the east side of the Isthmian past the Rames Mountains and across the Balefire River. The journey took several months. I felt as if the Watch were close behind the whole way. Not only did I fear for my life, but worried I was leading the Watch right to them.

  “Before finally reaching the ruins, I made certain one last time that I wasn’t followed before going any further. Confident I was alone; I continued on to meet with the others. Last to arrive, I found that many of the decisions on what course of action to take had been determined.” Galatia looked beyond the porch, toward the dirt road that led to Nabal’s castle. She grew quiet then, for a while. No one urged her to speak. In silence, everyone waited. Galatia tried to smile. “The plan was quite simple, really. First, we swore never to talk about the plan. Even now, it is difficult for me to break that rule.”

  Mykal began to stand then stopped. He was prepared to remind her of his demand to tell them everything, but changed his mind. He waited patiently, giving her a chance to first volunteer the information.

  “We were to go into hiding,” she said. “No one would know where the other hid. That way, should one of us get caught, we could never betray any of the others. Except. . .”

  “Except what?” Blodwyn said.

  “There was one way to call everyone, should the need arise to meet again. And that is why I am here, Mykal. I have a need to call the four wizards. We can remain hiding no longer,” Galatia said.

  “Why? I don’t understand,” he said.

  “The other wizards blamed me for everything that happened. They were a little shocked when I appeared at the ruins. To say they weren’t happy to see me would be an understatement,” she said.

  If everything she said was true, she might be the sole reason for the dark times wizards faced. “You can call the wizards?”

  “I can. You are the only other wizard in the old empire that I know.” She held up a finger. “Let me rephrase that. You are the only wizard in the old empire that I trust. I am here to get you first. Together we will call the other three. We need to do this before King Cordillera does.”

  “You trust me,” Mykal said. “You don’t even know me! Wait, hold on. You mean there are other wizards here? In Grey Ashland? Karyn? Is she the other one? You don’t trust her?”

  “Slow down,” Galatia said. “Karyn has magic. She is an Unfamiliar.”

  Karyn said, “Unfamiliar?”

  “You can see things. You see the future in dreams. No one taught you to do this. It is natural for you. You just never knew it was magic. Thankfully, you knew enough not to share your ability with anyone else,” Galatia said.

  “How do you know I haven’t told anyone?”

  “Because, dear,” she said. “You’re still alive.”

  “Who is the other?” Mykal still suspected Blodwyn, but kept his guess to himself.

  “In the Osiris Realm, King Cordillera does not view magic and sorcery as evil. Just the opposite. From what I’ve been able to learn, he wishes he had been born a wizard, or that he had magic. The best he can do is mild potions and spells recorded by scribes and found in books written by the ancients. Left wanting more, he tracked down an heir to one of the twelve. Her name is Ida. She lives inside his castle, and is never far from the king. I believe he considers himself something of an apprentice.” She laughed mockingly, a clear insult directed at the king of the east. “Ida is why I’ve come out of hiding,” Galatia said. “King Cordillera is plotting a takeover. No longer content with his stake in Osiris alone, he plans on attacking Grey Ashland, rebuilding Castle Deep, and becoming the new emperor.”

  “There have been wars in the past,” Blodwyn said.

  “Yes. Where men in armor fought one another with honor and binding rules of warfare. I’ve seen enemies line up against each other and then charge, bloody battles fought on grassy plains. Green stalks like seaweed beneath pools of blood always all that remained. Brave warriors, without doubt. It seems ridiculous to me, but I have no proper military training. King Cordillera intends to use magic to accomplish his goals. The opposition will never know what is coming.”

  Blodwyn said, “You’d indicated with twelve wizards there wasn’t enough magic to win a war against king’s steel. What’s changed?”

  “You misunderstood. King Grandeer had already launched his attack. There wasn’t time to prepare. We didn’t plan. We never acted in concert; each having different ideas about what course of action to take until it was too late. We were forced to always react. King Cordillera is using Ida to plan his attacks carefully, using magic as his main weapon,” Galatia said. “And once he has what he’s looking for, there will be no stopping him.”

  “And what is he looking for?” Karyn said.

  Galatia said, “Me. The other three wizards. And Mykal. King Cordillera won’t kill him; he will enslave him.”

  Chapter 14

  The morning had passed quickly. The sky aggressively becoming darker and darker. Mykal forgot about neglected chores until his stomach rumbled. While everyone went inside, Mykal accomplished a few tasks. From the coop he gathered two dozen fresh eggs before heading to the barn. When the cows saw him they mooed loudly, eager to be milked.

  In the kitchen, Mykal poured fresh milk for everyone, set a saucer in front of each person and filled it with virgin olive oil. It was a luxury, the oil. Fresh churned butter from cow’s milk was the price. Merchants loved Grandfather’s butter. He added garlic to it. Not too much, but just enough to give the butter special taste. The recipe was perfected by him. Other farmers often tried imitating it, but with little success. He seasoned the oil with herbs and some spices from the garden. He broke the few loaves of bread they had into hunks. “Dip these in the oil while I scramble up some eggs,” he said.

  They ate in silence. Mykal
was the last to sit down and eat, the others having already finished. He couldn’t hide his anxiousness to get back to Galatia’s story. Her words painted a picture. Everything she said had begun to make sense. There was no way he could understand every detail, but he finally felt that he was hearing the truth.

  Leaving the plates on the table, Mykal urged Galatia to continue.

  “Where was I?” she said.

  “Kind Cordillera is using Ida in his plan to become emperor,” Karyn said.

  “It’s more complicated than that,” Galatia said. “He doesn’t want to go to war with only one wizard on his side. He wants all of us.”

  “Like me?” Mykal said.

  “Yes. He knows of you. So far, he has not been successful in finding you. Trust me, if he had you, he would persuade you to fight on his side.”

  Mykal laughed. “I would never fight for such a man.”

  “Even if he captured your grandfather and was keeping him locked away in a dungeon?” Galatia said.

  Mykal stared at his grandfather. “I’d never let that happen.”

  “You’re not talking about Mykal, though, are you?” Blodwyn said.

  She shook her head. “No. I’m not. Mykal hasn’t had any training. He doesn’t even know he’s a wizard. He has not unleashed more than a trace amount of magic. Cordillera wants someone who can wield power like a knight swinging a sword. He wants a wizard than can inflict damage, and instill fear.”

  “He knows about you and the other three wizards,” Blodwyn said.

  “Yes. And right now, Ida is trying to figure out how to call us all together.”

  Thunder boomed and rain fell fast and hard rattling on the dwelling’s tin roof. Lightning flashed in the blackness lighting the kitchen as bright as if the sun sat in the room with them, but lasted only a fraction of a moment.

  “Get more candles, Mykal,” Grandfather said.