Battle Mage: Forging New Steel (Tales of Alus Book 9)

by Donald Wigboldy

  Raven Leros noted the interaction curiously but started out saying, “Well, the emperor struck the Twin Towers a brutal blow, but they were driven back thanks to you and the other wizards using portal magic. It may take awhile to fully repair the wall, but we will simply keep extra men there to make sure nothing else tries to get through until it is fixed.”

  Nods from the table and around the room all signaled that they felt the same.

  “Falcon Sebastian,” Leros continued after a brief wait for the self congratulations to end, “or should I call you Owl Sebastian? That seems to be the prevailing opinion of you since you continue to learn at a different rate in unique ways. Still knowledge of spells, even new ones, doesn’t mean someone your age has developed maturity or wisdom.

  “While there were many compliments, even from some of those sitting here who witnessed the orchestration of the defense that you were part of; there were a few questions that your actions have raised with some of your fellow mages. I am used to wizards and soldiers questioning what we do, but when your fellow mages begin to doubt you, there may be a greater problem.”

  Sebastian wanted to tell the man to get to the point. The combination of flattery and insinuation of a problem at the same time was irritating to him given his lack of sleep or a good breakfast.

  King Alain surprised him and took up the speech, “Word has come that you spent time healing the enemy’s soldiers and creatures before you sent them away with a portal.

  “Where did you send these creatures, falcon?”

  “I sent them back to Ensolus, I believe. We haven’t officially ever confirmed the exact position of their city as far as I have been told, but evidence points to it being so,” he replied.

  “Why did you send these creatures back after bothering to heal them no less as well? I was told that you told our soldiers to let them be while the monsters were cornered in a hole made in the wall by these very creatures!”

  Raven Leros added, “These actions bring some concern to all of us, Sebastian.”

  Wanting to sigh, but avoiding doing so, the owl mage replied, “I sent them back as a message.”

  “A message saying what?” King Alain asked in response to his overly brief explanation.

  “I healed them to show them mercy. A troll spoke to me in common, though it wasn’t as clean and clear as someone from Southwall might speak, but it was definitely intelligent enough to speak with me. The orcs were even more like us. They spoke and, if I closed my eyes, I could even believe that they were human men speaking to me.”

  “So they are more intelligent than you thought,” High Wizard Neferen interrupted looking annoyed by the mage. “What does that have to do with this message you say that you sent?”

  “Because they are intelligent, they understood that I was showing them mercy. If a dog is treated kindly, it believes without apprehension that you are going to always be kind. Treat it kindly for awhile and a man can beat the dog and still have it be loyal.

  “These creatures serve the emperor and haven’t seen any other way. If we show them that we can be kind and that there is another way, maybe more will learn and question why they attack us.”

  High Wizard Culmore had held his tongue. Being a former diplomat wizard, the man had learned to listen more; but when needing more information the wizard was willing to ask questions. His question was, “So your message was to the creatures serving him that they don’t need to keep serving an evil master?”

  “We know that Gray Hall was founded by those who wished to separate from the emperor in the past. It is reasonable to think that other creatures continue to be dissatisfied with how they are treated.

  “Giving them an alternative to his rule might be as disruptive as the emperor’s spies going into the south to stir up our cities against King Alain,” Sebastian explained.

  The owl mage changed to the second reason he had sent the creatures back, “They were also sent back to where I believe Ensolus has created a guarded portal chamber. Warlocks we interrogated said that it was too dangerous to go through ourselves, but letting them know that we know how to get to them is another message this brings.”

  Raven Leros summarized, “You want to give him something to worry about for once.”

  Sebastian nodded. “I think that we’ve seen enough killing over the centuries. Perhaps there will be a day where we can kill the emperor ending the rest of the unreasonable death we visit upon each other.

  “If we do manage to get to the emperor and kill him, how will we deal with the creatures left behind? Will we kill his entire cities or try to lead them to peaceful coexistence?

  “I hope that we can learn to live side by side. Maybe we’ll get lucky and the emperor will end his feud with us that comes from our ancestors, but after this many centuries I think we can all assume that there won’t be peace while he is around.”

  Leros looked to the men and women on either side of him waiting for more comments before asking, “So that is his answer. Are there any other questions about his loyalty or anything else?”

  When no one spoke up, the raven nodded to Sebastian and added, “I think that is enough about last nights’ decisions. Now that we have weathered the storm at the Twin Towers, it has been decided that you should shut down all the portals you have discovered in Southwall. The time has come to cut off his spies and keep them out once and for all.

  “There is no problem with that order is there?”

  Shaking his head, Sebastian promptly replied, “No, sir, I will return to the inn to eat some breakfast to build my strength and take them out as swiftly as I can. I guess that will also remove any future surprise for them concerning what we know of their portals though.”

  “We can’t risk further damage to the morale of those cities. Having a chance at setting a trap isn’t worth the trouble they are causing, so it is time.”

  This time he nodded and having been dismissed, Sebastian left the room to return to the inn. He could have accelerated his trip by using a portal, the owl realized; but such actions might just worry the council of advisors more than it was worth.

  Sighing at the thought, the mage walked home.

  Chapter 36- Portal Race

  Sebastian held the map in his hands struggling to make his portal work. Siltrene was supposed to be his first target since, along with Mariport, New Harbor and Southpoint; it was one of the ports sharing the channel created between Southwall’s allies Marianis and Sileoth. To lose those cities meant creating an unwanted barrier between the rest of his country and the island nations.

  The mage was surprised to find that he didn’t seem capable of focusing on the gate through his map. It was one of the cities which his magic had originally pointed out when searching for signs of Palose’s handiwork, but now it felt like the gate was no longer there. What could be causing the interference was beyond him, since Sebastian was too new to the magic to know what problems could be created.

  “What’s wrong?” Ashleen asked. The girl, along with Olan, Elzen and Rilena; waited for Sebastian to use his magic since no one else among them could create a portal so far. For a battle mage, the spell required too much power for these three to do it and Ashleen wasn’t comfortable with the magic yet, even though she had supplied power for portals for him several times.

  “It is almost like the portal point isn’t there anymore,” he replied.

  Rilena suggested, “Since you felt where it was, can you envision it even if the stones were destroyed? Palose might have figured out that you have managed to track his magic and figured out a way to disguise the stones, since you destroyed the first three and moved the gate near the Twins.”

  Handing a pair of imbued stones to Ashleen, Sebastian sighed before replying, “You know about as much about that possibility as I do. I’ll try to recreate the point using the map and piecing it together in my mind. Maybe even without a strong signal I can still make it there. If I get stuck in the Silver World, I will just call a portal back to here.”
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  He placed his finger on the point above Siltrene and closed his eyes trying to recreate the feeling which had been so strong only days before now. “Door,” he ordered and a glowing gateway appeared before him.

  Ashleen passed the stones to Rilena and took his hand. At his confused look, she stated, “What if you get stuck somewhere that you need more power? I’ll go with just in case and you can get us back to Rilena instead.”

  Giving a nod, Sebastian held onto Ashleen’s hand and stepped through the doorway before him. With the usual quick glimpse of the silver void and the distant islands floating like dust in the distance, the mage found the exit in a second stepping out into an alleyway.

  The air was warmer than it had been in Hala and the sun lower in the east. It had been closing in on the eleventh hour, but here it seemed closer to the second bell. Maybe set around the height of the ninth hour, the sun told him he had moved to the west significantly as long as this was still his world. Sebastian had never been to Siltrene before, so they could be anywhere.

  Producing the map, the mage dropped a pair of imbued stones to set a lock and stepped forward a few paces. Using the spell to locate magic on the map, the mage ran his finger over Siltrene searching for affirmation. The marker of red turned black and the mage let out a breath that he had been holding in relief.

  “We made it,” he confirmed for Ashleen who had been waiting with her hand on his shoulder as she looked at the map beside him.

  “Are there stones here now?” the wilder asked looking around at the unpaved alleyway. Cobble stones could be seen farther ahead where they could see traffic walking on a main street. The alley was just a place out of sight to use such a portal without being noticed. Since the locals hadn’t even bothered to do more than pack the earth down for the path between the buildings, it was obviously not overused.

  Sebastian felt for Palose’s magic. If this was the right place, then something was wrong. There were no stones with his magic in them nearby.

  “Nothing, it is as if he had never been here,” the mage replied trying to expand his sense of magic vision as far as he could, but there was nothing to find. “Maybe with Darterian or Darius’s help we can find another warlock’s linking gate, but Palose’s magic isn’t here.”

  Ashleen nodded and mused aloud, “Then he is onto you or whoever he believes has tampered with his gates. He is either moving them beyond your senses or having someone else make them like the one you found in Banosh that doesn’t seem to fit one person’s aura.”

  “I didn’t get any hit on the map for Siltrene, so either he has abandoned this city leaving it to maybe one of his spies or he has found a way to change the stones beyond my ability to find,” he sighed in aggravation.

  “How did you manage to get us here without the stones then?” the girl asked trying to help him figure out what had happened.

  “There is just enough magic left on the map to find the city, if I concentrate hard enough,” Sebastian replied glancing to the tan walls of the buildings surrounding them. Like most of the southern cities, the buildings seemed to be colored either tan or white. He had been told it was to reduce the affect of the sun’s rays to keep the heat from building as much as the darker grays or even black stone used to the north where heat was more of a blessing than a negative thing.

  “He has moved to counter you. Palose must realize that someone could track his magic. Let’s return to the others before trying the next city.

  “You can check the map and see which others are like this. Follow in his wake while Palose removes what he believes is a weakness, but don’t change any others until he has worked ahead of you. Maybe this will let him believe that the other three were just luck.”

  “You want me to try and fool him into believing that I can’t find the other gates in the Dragon Spine Mountains, including Ensolus,” the owl stated following her logic. “We’ll have to make sure to change them quickly then.”

  “Or once you have caught up, you can simply plant your markers away from his if you wish,” Ashleen replied with a smile. “I would make sure to find those removed before the map becomes useless. Then we can adjust to the rest accordingly.”

  He nodded and called up a doorway to Hala leading the girl back to their friends. It would be a race to keep up with the dark mage, but Sebastian thought that he could do it and Ashleen’s plan might leave him unwary to all that he knew about portal magic. Perhaps it wasn’t the exact answer his leaders had hoped for, but without Darius or his compass to track other possible gates, it was the best that he could do for now.

  The red mark beside the return chambers in Ensolus was a temptation that he hoped would remain. One day he would test his luck and use one of those gates to find Palose and then the emperor to end this never ending war.

  Palose formed another portal stepping out onto the island where Kolban had made him create a gate in case he ever needed to return to the Grimnal’s island prison. Sylvaine’s hand remained in his until she was clear of the glow and he closed the doorway.

  “This is pretty,” the girl voiced her opinion looking at the tropical trees around them. She turned looking where the gate had been to see the ocean waves lapping on the shore.

  A young, blonde haired girl started at the newly arrived guests. Palose smiled at the young warrior with her spear in hand, but that smile faded as he noticed something different about Ulia.

  “Where are your tattoos?” he asked feeling something wrong about the girl. She had been marked with the power of runes, though the girl was too young to have been fully initiated with every marking that her older brother had been. Still the defensive runes were missing and had been everywhere on the girl who wore little clothing on the island which was much warmer than anywhere in Southwall year round.

  Her green eyes looked at her bare skin almost in shame, and replied, “They are just hidden, he said.”

  “Who said that? Did a wizard come to do this to you or have the shamans changed their practices?”

  The petite girl looked at Palose raising her tanned arm as if she still couldn’t come to terms with the change of her skin. “He did it. The young man who fought the black ships before you came. He freed the father of us all and took him away on another ship.”

  “Was his name Sebastian?”

  Her green eyes brightened at the name and she nodded, “That was it. I couldn’t remember. My father wouldn’t let me fight in the battle with those monsters in the black armor. He said I was too young, but I could guard the north end of the island if they made landfall here.

  “I could only watch the ships sailing by attacking each other,” Ulia added turning to point towards the northern end of the island and the ocean beyond the beach.

  Palose wanted to yell at the girl to focus, but she was barely more than a child. Yelling at girls never worked. They either seemed to scream in a frenzy or broke down to cry. He wasn’t certain which Ulia would be, but taking a breath to steady himself, the dark mage picked his words carefully, “Did Sebastian return by boat or did he use a gateway like mine?”

  The dark mage had used the magic from his spells set within the warriors that he had resurrected to return to the island. It was as good as using the lodestones since his magic was part of the three rune warriors now also.

  “He used the magic door like you, but he came alone,” the last words almost sounded like an accusation aimed at Sylvaine. Was she jealous? Palose wondered, but barely cared. The girl had been a casualty in the need to secure the gateway, a gate no longer there, he thought in annoyance.

  Moving a little deeper into the wooded area at the north end of the island, Palose and Sylvaine were followed by the barefoot Ulia. She was so petite that the dark mage wondered how anyone could take her serious as a warrior, but somehow she had made the grade. Perhaps it simply spoke to the need for anyone available. Ulia may simply have not wanted to do other work also, he supposed.

  His mind returned to the matter at hand as he ignored the younger gi
rl. He pointed to a small clearing a couple hundred feet deeper into the trees than where his original set of stones had been planted. Sylvaine nodded and placed the new stones about eight feet apart.

  “So he lives and has returned after all,” Sylvaine stated referring to the confirmation of Sebastian’s return from Ulia as the girl returned to him.

  Nodding, Palose replied, “Well, that would also explain a few things.”

  “Like?” the dark haired girl questioned with an air of surprise.

  “It would be like Sebastian to move the portal north of the wall and give warning to the defenders of the Towers. If he can offer a surprise that will help Southwall, the mizard will do what he can to catch the enemy off guard.

  “Then he healed those creatures from the battle and sent them straight to the chambers. Bas was too smart to try and attack Ensolus through the gate, but he sent Kolban the message. He wanted the emperor to know that Southwall can hit us where we live as well.”

  “Could he have just reopened one of the portals made by the warlocks to escape or do you believe that he truly knows how to get to Ensolus?” the curly haired girl brushed a lock of dark hair from her eyes. Palose thought that her hair was actually getting curlier from the ocean air and increase in humidity.

  Unfortunately her question was a bit of a snag in his mind. Kolban had asked nearly the same thing when Palose was less certain of the culprit involved. Did Southwall know how to find their general gates or was it just the luck of using one of the escape portals to reopen the connection? He didn’t know for sure, but the dark mage hadn’t told Kolban his beliefs. Whoever was assaulting his portals could very well have learned how to track the other kind of gates as well. They had been to Banosh and closed the greater gate while destroying his as well.

  If Sebastian used mapping magic, all the gates of the empire could be at risk. Luckily, they employed guards to watch for intruders anyway, but this might be the first time that it wasn’t just for show.

  “I don’t know,” Palose finally replied to her question, “but I think it is becoming a race to outmaneuver each other now.”