A Bitter Brew

by Greg Curtis

  Some had gone further. Much further. They'd used their power for ill. The same magic that let people reach for the greatness they could aspire to, also let the darkness of the mortal soul out. All the wants and the perversions that people had kept hidden away in the privacy of their own hearts, were suddenly set free. And the world had become a darker place.

  Some had used magic to strike at their enemies, real and imagined, in secret. Those they believed had wronged them in whatever fashion. Others had then sought vengeance for what had been done. There had been magical duels. Battles that often levelled towns and cities, while thousands looked on and cheered as if the spectacle of wanton destruction and death was a good thing. Many had used their magic to enrich themselves, taking whatever they wanted. Too many had even tried to use it to rule.

  Gangs of thugs – once a small time nuisance – had become a major problem as they used their magic to fight over the most foolish of things. The colour of their skin or the shape of their ears. Whether they had wings or how tall they stood. Territory that none of them owned but all of them claimed. The writings of holy books.

  And the authorities hadn't been able to control them.

  They'd tried. An entire city of justice had been built – Altanis. From there trials had been held, enforcers and inquisitors went out to find the guilty and bring them to justice, and the guilty were stripped of their crystals and locked away. But even an entire city of law wasn't enough. Not when they were trying to control an entire world of people who were out of control. Or an empire. The people had been running wild. Like barbarians drunk on wine and given far too much power for them to control, they simply would not be contained. They would not listen to reason. And they would not listen to those in authority.

  Every day the seven of them had listened to more reports of disasters unfolding. Some of them accidental, some of them deliberate, all of them horrible.

  One city of justice was not enough and a second was planned. But a hundred would not have controlled a problem that everyone knew was slowly slipping out of control. Only one thing would as the seven of them knew. They needed to be able to strip the magic away from those who misused it.

  That was the agreement that the seven of them had made here. They would act as a restraint. Where people were misusing the magic they had been granted through the crystals, they would take it from them. Permanently.

  So here, the best part of two thousand years before, the seven most powerful mages – true mages – had stood, trying to save the world – and in the end had nearly destroyed it. They had shared their plans for the design of their great magical engines. Engines that would take away not just the magic in the crystals that were being misused, but also the ability of those who had misused the crystals to command them. They had drawn up the laws by which they would enforce their will. And the laws had been simple – at first. Misuse magic and it would be taken away from you. Forever.

  It was a harsh law. But at the time they had thought it the right thing to do if they were to save their world. The only thing they could do.

  This was the world that had been described in the ancient book Hendrick realised. But it was not as had been represented. The facts, where there were facts, were more or less right, but the reasons for them were twisted. It hadn't been the wizards ruling and enslaving the non-magical. But it was seen as theft and even enslavement by those who had been stripped of their magic. They didn't see it as just. Instead they saw it as a crime. Their magic had been stolen. And by the end, maybe it had become that. As for the wizards battling one another for power, only the seven of them had. The rest had been fighting one another simply because they were children with the power of the gods hanging around their necks. But again, that too had been lost in the writing of the book.

  Hendrick guessed that some of those who had helped to write that ancient book had been those who had had their power taken from them. Those who could not admit the wrongs they had done, and who had needed to blame others for what had happened. It wasn't history written by the victors. It was history written by the survivors.

  But the writers had been partially right. Because over the years and decades and centuries that had followed, the ancient Mithril wizard had begun to understand that they were no longer doing the noble deed they had set out to do. There were so many misusing their magic in so many ways that their simple law had needed constant tinkering. At first it was just killing, rape, mind control and wanton destruction that they had tried to stop. The worst of things. But over time other smaller misuses had been added to the list. Petty theft, intimidation, deception the list had quickly grown.

  But worse than that, far from being united in their goal, the seven mages themselves had slowly become rivals in a war of power. In the end they had stolen the magic not just from the wrongdoers, but from everyone. The magical engines they had built didn't care who or what they stole their magic from. They had stripped it from the world itself, and in doing so destroyed the magical creatures that had once called Malthas home.

  Most worrying of all for the ancient wizard, the draining of magic had changed them. Each of their magical engines was linked to them. It had to be. A mere mechanical engine could not make decisions. It could not decide who was misusing their magic. Only a mind could – and a soul. And each time they drained the magic from a crystal and the will from the one commanding it, it affected them. Maybe it infected them. The magic went into the engine and was shared with them through their link. It twisted their forms little by little. But the will, the dark taint of the one who had misused the magic also entered them. And it in turn twisted their very souls.

  That taint was hard to bear. It had frightened the ancient wizard as he'd felt he was becoming someone else. Someone he didn't like. But he'd believed that he had had no choice. Because like all of the others – though he hadn't understood that at the time – he'd believed that the others were taking more magic for themselves to beat him. He had truly believed that if he didn't keep up with them, he would lose. And the cost of failure would be death.

  Some of that was the taint of the souls from those whose magic he had taken. But some of it was the whispering of the behemoth in his ears. The beast he called Erohilm.

  Standing there on the terrace, looking at it through the ancient wizard's memories, Hendrick felt the wizard’s pain and uncertainty as he had grown ever stronger by resorting to even greater thefts of magic. He also understood the terrible logic that had made him do it. What had started as a noble goal had been reduced to a base hunger for power.

  But the wizard couldn't understand that. Not when his very soul was being poisoned by the taint he was absorbing. And of course not when Erohilm had been beside him every step of the way, telling him he was doing the right thing. Whispering that the others were breaking the rules as they plotted against him. Urging him to carry on. To survive. To do ever more terrible things, because if he didn't take more and more magic, the others would destroy him.

  The wizard hadn't understood what she was doing. He had loved and trusted her. By the end she had been the only person in his life he would even listen to. No one else could be trusted. Not even himself as by then he was starting to hear the dark voices of those he had stripped of magic. She had been his world. Never could he have guessed that Erohilm was toying with him as she toyed with the other wizards through her many guises.

  Her betrayal at the end had been utterly devastating. Her revelation that she had been secretly involved with his rival, and was leaving him for the other man, had broken him. It was at that point that all the voices of those he had stripped magic from over the centuries had suddenly bubbled up from the darkness within him, and taken control. Every dark impulse, every perversion, every demon had completely overwhelmed him. What had been left had no longer been any sort of a man.

  And yet at the end, the Mithril wizard had had only one wish in his heart. One desire as he had known that his death was upon him. It wasn't the wish that Erohilm hadn't betrayed hi
m for one of the others. And it wasn't hatred or a desire to kill the others. It wasn't fear of dying. It wasn't even a plea for his love to return to him. It was instead unbearable regret. The overwhelming wish that this moment, this bargain on a mountain terrace, had never been struck. That was the pain that Hendrick felt standing there. The pain of regret.

  And the terrible thing was that he had actually been lucky to die in that state, Hendrick thought. Because how much worse would it have been for him to have known the truth? To have died knowing that she had deceived him from the start? It would have been an underworld of pain all on its own.

  But the beast wasn't the only trickster around. Because he realised as he stood there, trying to shake the most bitter of the ancient wizard's memories out of his head, that the Mythagan had been hiding a secret of their own. A large one. The fact that they all wore amulets told him what it was. They had no magic either!

  Hendrick let that wonder wash over him. The little people. The most magical of the ancient races according to the bards. And they were completely without magic! Not even the limited borrowed magic that he and the rest of the afflicted had.

  How much magic did they have left, he wondered? This disaster had happened some sixteen hundred years before. This was the only place where the crystals were found. Or it had been back then. And the crystals eventually ran low. As the crystals had run out the wearers would have had to get fresh ones. But Malthas had been destroyed. The cities razed to the ground. The people almost completely annihilated. And this entire part of the world where the mine sat had been transformed into an impenetrable wasteland. After all this time, what did the Mythagan have left? He suspected it wasn't very much.

  And their knowledge wasn't very great. Not of magic anyway. Because they hadn't known that they could simply make a portal into the Hold from another world. Something that had been obvious even to an afflicted man with a fragment of an ancient wizard's soul like him.

  Of course the Mythagan would never have told them that! They would no doubt continue to wander around with their amulets, using them to cast spells, and pretending that they were actual mages.

  No wonder they were offering sanctuary to his people. It wasn't out of mercy and kindness at all. It was because they wanted their own mages. People who actually had magic of their own, even if it was borrowed from long dead wizards. They needed to replace what was being slowly lost.

  Maybe they had also been searching for this place and had hoped that some of the afflicted might know where it was. If so they were out of luck. The location of the mine had been a closely guarded secret all those years ago. And now it was hidden too, and protected by a nearly impenetrable wasteland.

  A laugh suddenly found Hendrick's throat as he remembered them telling him about what a poor mage he was! And he had believed them! They were nothing if not consummate liars! Knaves and deceivers, the lot of them!

  But then the laugh turned bitter as he finally realised what Sana had been saying. She had told them their wards were no defence against the behemoth. That they were being deceived. But she was confused and she had got things a little wrong. The wards they had provided were probably useless. They were old and failing. But it was worse than that. It was their entire system of magic. All of their amulets were failing. They were completely defenceless! And so were his people living among them!

  “Val!” He called to his friend, and immediately his visage appeared.

  “Hendrick.” Val humphed a bit. “It's been a while. I thought you'd forgotten me.”

  “You're right and I'm sorry,” Hendrick confessed. But he also wondered idly if he was ever going to win with the sage. When he summoned him Val was upset. And now when he didn't he was also upset. “But after the Mythagan destroyed my home, my spirit became ill. I lost hope and needed to spend some time alone. I spent some time dealing with my magic and the voice of the ancient wizard. So I began running with the unicorns.”

  “Running with –?! Is that some sort of figure of speech?” The sage stared at him, looking a little confused.

  “No. I found a world where the unicorns frolic across seemingly endless grass plains, and I ran with them. It's very good for the soul. They really helped me burn out the ancient wizard's whispers.”

  “I see.”

  Of course he didn't see. He couldn’t. Unless he actually saw the unicorns running free with his own eyes, he couldn't truly understand. And after that – well it changed a man. He now viewed the world quite differently. But this wasn't the time to try and explain that to his friend.

  “It doesn't matter,” Hendrick hurried on. “Are you still with the Mythagan?”

  “No. I'm at home. But they're around. Discussing matters of trade and an alliance with the Vordan Empire with our leaders.”

  “You might want to hold off on that alliance until you learn what the knaves have been hiding from you.”

  “Hiding?” Val sounded surprised. “They've seemed very open so far.”

  “They seem like a great many things. But the one thing they aren't, is open. Certainly they won't tell you that they have no magic of their own. That their entire Empire is built on a lie.”

  “No magic?”

  “Stolen. All of it. It is contained within those amulets they wear. And it's running out. But for the moment, the only thing that matters is if you can speak with my people on their worlds. Get a message to them. A warning.”

  “I can. They've set up some portals to their worlds.”

  “Then settle back, I have a tale to tell and a task for you to perform. The ghost dragons are coming for the Empire, and my people aren't there as guests. They're in danger. They may actually end up as the front-line warriors my father and step brother wanted them to be after all.”

  And wasn't that the bitter truth he thought. The only reason anyone wanted the afflicted was as magical soldiers! Even those who claimed to be rescuing them from that very fate. Once again his people had been reduced to property. And that was the true affliction. The way others treated them.

  Chapter Forty Eight

  Marnie was nervous, though she tried to hide it. Still, as she stood on the grass in front of the Abbey's garden, she couldn't help but fidget. Shifting her weight from one foot to the other and back again. Trying and failing to keep her hands relaxed at her side. And mostly trying to stop asking pointless questions that she knew no one could answer. She was supposed to be a leader of this fledgling Guild. She needed to look like one.

  Everyone was nervous though. There was a feeling of expectation and disquiet. After Hendrick had come and told them of the Mythagan's deception and what he'd learned on a mountain top in the wastelands, no one knew what might be coming. But it was going to be important. Marnie knew that. Everything he damn well did was important. She knew Tyrollan felt the same. Standing beside her he hid his doubts and always presented a calm, confident visage. But she could tell that underneath it, he wasn't as certain as he normally was.

  It wasn’t surprising really. First Sana had arrived and told the Mythagan to expect an army of the beast's servants larger than they could ever imagine and that their ward stones were useless. Five days later Hendrick advised that he had discovered that not only were the Mythagan liars pretending to have magic, but they were also almost out of it. If Sana was right and they really were expecting an attack, they would be annihilated. Worst of all, everyone who had accepted sanctuary with the Mythagan would be killed with them. Now Hendrick had sent word across the worlds that if they wanted to survive the coming war, they'd have to have as many warspells as they could. Why did everything always come down to gaining more spells?

  So the gifted were coming home. The Mythagan had contacted them to make arrangements for those living among them to go through the ceremony. Now a bare ten days after Hendrick had climbed his mountain and fifteen after Sana had given her warning the gifted were returning.

  How many were coming? No one could begin to answer the question when they didn't have the least idea h
ow many of their people had left to begin with. It could be thousands. The gifted had fled in large numbers once the King had started conscripting them. Marnie also had no idea how many had returned since. A few had, and they had regaled the others in the Guild with their stories of vast magical cities and wonders beyond anything they had ever imagined. Stories that reminded her strongly of Hendrick's tales of the ancient realm of Malthas. Which wasn’t surprising she supposed. But they were only a few.

  “The hour is upon us.” Tyrollan nodded at the town clock as it chimed ten bells in the distance.

  They waited a while for the people to appear. And kept waiting. Had Hendrick’s words been ignored?

  “They could just be late,” she told him. After all, what were the chances that the muck-spout had been ignored? Precious few!