Battle Mage: A Hero's Welcome (A Tale of Alus Book 8)

by Donald Wigboldy

  “She’s as much animal as human,” Garosh said suddenly dropping back to speak with the dark haired, young woman. “While Evie looks like just a child, she’s the most skilled changeling warlock I know. They are kind of rare actually so I was lucky to find her and convince the girl to join us.”

  Rilena followed watching as the wizards who had worked from the outside in shook hands with those moving inside out. It had been a group effort and not an easy one by any means.

  Her eyes moved to see Evie moving her hands as she worked a spell. Dropping to her knees as her dress appeared to be drawn into her skin while fur grew out along with the tail of a red wolf, the changeling glanced back before running off with a howl echoed by others.

  Frowning at the sight, Rilena considered aloud, “She didn’t have to remove her dress this time. Has the girl just been a nudist and used her changes as an excuse?”

  Laughing at the accusation, Garosh suddenly clapped his hand on her shoulder leaving it there as if the hold was supposed to be comforting. “No, I am no expert at changing form. In fact, I am complete rubbish at that magic and have no feel for it; but Evie’s always been a bit timid, especially inside of the mountain. She gets claustrophobic inside.

  “When she gets scared, the girl tends to shift into a mouse without much thought. Some forms like those of small animals don’t even require casting for Evie. She’s a wilder, you know; but anyway I asked her once why she could change into a wolf and whatever clothing disappears with her. Apparently the extra pounds of cloth and shoes are harder to shed and a small bird certainly doesn’t need a few extra pounds weighting it down.

  “Anyway that’s what she told me, though of course, she could be lying and just enjoys being rid of clothing. Most of the werelings that can change prefer their animal bodies and many refuse to dress unless they are going to be in their human or orc forms for awhile.”

  “Orcs can be changelings?”Rilena asked in surprise twisting in his grip to pull free. A look of disappointment was nearly hidden as the giant let his arm drop.

  “Orcs, goblins and even trolls can become changelings. Humans and elves aren’t unique in their ability to use magic, Rilena. We aren’t that unusual or special; but like humans not every one of their race can use it. The numbers are low, especially in trolls.”

  The mage rested against the wall made from the mountain’s sheer face beside the cave. Smooth, slightly sloping earth spread out from the cave, but only a few hundred feet away someone walking would have to avoid more drop offs and use trails little better than goat paths. Set high on the mountain, the upper entry to the cavern required a climb and would have given the enemy so many advantages in battle that Rilena was glad that Southwall hadn’t needed to fight their way up the mountainside during the winter. It also proved Garosh had been sincere when he offered himself up as a prisoner and had warned that Southwall would have lost that fight.

  Darius moved closer noting the giant near her. His eyes looked for the changeling turned into wolf and asked, “Do you get that anxiety for her now?”

  The question surprised the young woman, but she evaluated her mind and considered her feelings. Evie had run off leaving her behind. She was running towards a world that the battle mage couldn’t be a part of since Rilena had no ability to change her form. Still it was no worse than any other parting from friends that she had experienced since her days as a cadet watching promotions from the school and as a falcon the continual movement to the next job seemed full of those partings.

  “I’m used to people leaving,” the dark haired girl said pushing back the stray hair from her face back over her left ear as she looked at the high wizard. Her words were almost sad, but they were true. “At least if she was in trouble, I could try and help her here.”

  Darius nodded looking towards the trees beyond the clearing made by the Southwall camp outside of the fortress. Green leaves and grass had replaced the white snow of winter that Rilena had contended with on the mountain. A watcher with good eyesight could pick out the movement of wolves and mountain lions in the direction Evie had run towards.

  “Well, now that I think I have cracked the portals, perhaps you won’t have to miss your old friends as much.”

  Rilena looked at him and frowned rather than smiled as the high wizard had expected. “I thought your order of wizards had been closing the gates because you feared the walls between worlds breaking, or whatever the excuse was. Now you are thinking of expanding the use from the emperor to Southwall and who knows how many other nations? Why the change Darius? Has your wisdom gathered over centuries made you think differently or have you finally just gone senile?”

  Garosh laughed before he could turn away and even the wizard was forced to grin at the girl’s words. “Well, you do have a way with words Rilena. Anyway if use is controlled with wizards trained to both open and seal errant gateways, I think that it might be safe enough.

  “Silver World forms a buffer between other worlds now. It wasn’t always that way and I think that the emperor actually managed to artificially bind the void to Alus making portal travel safer. In essence, the void was created to be used so the barriers wouldn’t break.”

  Rilena looked at the silver haired immortal in surprise. Even Garosh looked disbelieving, but the giant mused, “That would make sense, I guess.”

  Raising a finger in a point towards the blue sky, the wizard added, “Now the question becomes, how can we use these portals to even the score against the emperor? Maybe you and your warlocks might have a few ideas to add, Garosh?”

  The big man glanced to the battle mage who still appeared confused by the revelation of the immortal, but he turned back replying, “I think that we might have a few ideas.”

  Sebastian pushed through the bushes to find a modest camp near a small lake. The water was very clear near the shore and fish of a sort he had never seen in Southwall swam close catching water bugs that landed on the surface.

  The rustling of the leaves made Ashleen turn to look at the man with a smile. He carried small branches from trees that grew on the island which was much larger than he had realized when they had first stumbled upon it. The water bubbled from beneath the surface from an unknown source without explanation, though he believed that for most of the strange amount of life and the life giving water; the explanation was just magic.

  Over two weeks the two of them had been stranded in the void. They had tried to create a gateway to lead back to their world every day, but survival had required that they learn more about the island and the silver world. They had yet to find other intelligent life, but fish in the single lake and small animals running wild in forests with trees capable of surviving with minimal water were quite common.

  It stood to reason that there would be life in this void. After all, the emperor and his people had lived here for centuries before the escape during the Cataclysm. Without water and food, no one could have survived for long, but thousands had come through during the emperor’s escape. Now with the emperor and his warlocks removed from this world, it still seemed to run like clockwork and life continued.

  “You must be confident in your fishing skills,” the young woman stated. Ashleen had slowly come to wear less clothing here. A top cut from her wizard robes covered her shoulders and breasts, but her stomach and lower back were bared above a short blue skirt made from tying a piece of cut robe around her waist. The battle mage wore his shirt less often as well, since for northerners, the air was too warm.

  That was their excuse, but there were times where Sebastian couldn’t help admiring the pretty woman and the flesh she exposed. She was a temptation and Ashleen knew it.

  “If I need to, I can always use reflex and just wade into the water and catch a fish,” the battle mage replied confidently.

  Ashleen looked at the silver light of what they referred to as sky above them. In the distance other islands appeared as shadows and they had noted that there seemed to be movement between them. The islands seemed to rotate
in a circle, but they hadn’t noticed what kept them from floating away from each other.

  Sighing, the wizard stated, “It never gets dark. It never seems to change temperature or have a change in the weather. There doesn’t even seem to be weather beyond this annoying wind I can feel.”

  Turning to look at Sebastian, she asked, “What good is being an air wizard when there is no weather?”

  “I’ve ridden the winds here. It’s different, but it’s possible. I just can’t believe that the emperor’s armies lived here for so long. It seems impossible to recreate water, since I’ve never seen any sign of rain, yet there are trees and animals here. This lake should be filthy, but water moves to continually refill it and drain off without a river to do any of it.

  “At least we are safe enough to be able to keep on trying to make a portal.”

  Her blue eyes rested on him before she sat on the spread cloth of the outer layer of her old robe. She was barefoot since the grass was soft and spongy under foot with few sticks near the lake to step on and injure her feet. A silver anklet laced with amethysts sparkled on her left ankle. He had seen it before, months ago, when the wilder had exposed enough of her legs for him to see it. She had been interested in him then, but Yara was still on his mind even while they had been separated keeping him from falling for the wilder easily.

  “Even if we can open a portal, how do we guide our way back to the right place?” Ashleen questioned as she held her knees drawn up before her with her arms folded around them. Sebastian had been with her for weeks, but he still couldn’t help looking at her admiringly. She was very pretty and he knew that if Yara hadn’t been his first love, Ashleen could have stolen his heart when they first met. Now the worry of being stuck in the void forever made him reevaluate his resolve.

  Swallowing as he tried to answer her question fairly, Sebastian mused, “If we can open one, which I believe we can; we will need to be able to focus on a point that we know is correct. Maybe we can try to go to someone or something we can feel even from a world away.”

  “You think that you can use Yara to call yourself to her?” Ashleen asked with a slight frown of disappointment. She had told herself that Sebastian was someone else’s love and that she couldn’t have him; but her heart still wished that he would love her instead.

  Looking away at that silver sky with its dark islands, Sebastian shook his head. “I doubt it. My ties to her don’t seem to be that strong.” Clearing his throat he added, “Strong enough to feel her from here that is. Maybe it has to be something with a magical draw to it and not just a person.”

  She had caught his first errant words and asked, “Your connection to Yara isn’t as strong? Are you two having problems?” Looking around she recalled the situation and changed the tense by saying, “Were you, I mean?”

  Shrugging, Sebastian refused to turn and look at her beauty. His feelings for Ashleen had been strong since they had first met, but he had Yara. After leaving Grimnal’s Island, things had seemed to change between them and he still wasn’t sure what had happened to cause the rift. On the journey to find the legendary hero, the two of them had cemented their love beyond what they had ever believed was safe without getting permission from their leaders.

  Both of them tried to obey the rules and do what was best for the country, but away from Southwall it had been so easy to forget about the corps or the wizards’ guilds. They had grown bold and experienced love in a way few could. With healing to bind them in different ways, everything was more intense and they were sure that nothing could break their bond; but time passed and she had pulled away from him for some reason.

  He still tried to figure it out every night, or what they called night when they needed to sleep.

  Ashleen felt the unspoken words in his silence and said, “The two of you were a bit of a long shot. She’s a healer. You’re a battle mage. She saves lives. You tend to take them, even though you can heal. Your minds are both similar and quite different.”

  “Sometimes opposites or things that are quite different form powerful bonds,” he stated turning to look at her again. Her blue eyes drew him in and he wanted to pull away again, but he didn’t. If he couldn’t risk looking at Ashleen without feeling guilty, that must mean something as well. “The best swords are made from a mix of soft and hard material. If you just used stiff, hard metal it will shatter. If it is too soft, the blade dulls or bends.

  “The right mixture makes something very strong.”

  Sebastian sat pulling the Hollow Sword from its sheath and he thought about the strength in the original blade. It had been made before the Cataclysm and yet the metal hadn’t rusted away over time. No blade made today would have lasted as long exposed to weather for almost two hundred years. He had used his senses to check the blade and its other half hidden safely inside of a stone vault. When he reformed the sword, his spell had added his magic to it adding yet another thing that was different to the equation.

  “This sword is made of hard steel and softer iron to let it flex. My magic made it stronger than any blade I have ever used before and it was stronger even broken than smiths make in Southwall. The differences made it strong.”

  Ashleen sighed and changed the way she sat. Moving to kneel with her lower legs tucked beneath her, the girl pointed towards the sword and said, “Iron and steel are similar. They are both metals and iron is used to create steel, isn’t it? You and Yara would be more like bonding steel with... wood maybe.”

  Her words not only sunk in, they brought another thought out that they had been discussing for weeks. “Wood and metal, that’s it!”

  “What is?” the girl questioned realizing that he had just forgotten their discussion.

  “Bairh’loore is made of metal and wood. It is a wizard’s staff created from my magic when I was searching for a safe way to tap the earth’s power.”

  “You did what?!” Ashleen asked in shock. She had seen his use of power that should have been beyond his means. Was he telling her that he had learned to tap the earth to enhance his magical powers?

  Wincing, Sebastian warned, “Don’t tell anyone, but I figured out that the power of the earth can be drawn out safely if done correctly. The problem is if everyone found out, wizards would abuse the power. Darius warned of wizards in his early years using staves to draw out the earth’s magic for destruction spells. Using it that way killed the men by shortening their lives the more they abused it.

  “We can talk about it later, but what is important is that Bairh’loore holds a part of me inside of it. My magic created it and it is almost alive, I think. It isn’t sentient, but it holds energy that I might be able to use to bring us home.”

  “If we can ever figure out how to open a gate by ourselves,” Ashleen replied sadly. They had been trying since before they had been trapped inside Silver World after all without success.

  The mage stood and began to pace as his mind raced. He closed his eyes thinking on what he had seen and how the spells felt to him. The warlocks had explained it as best they could and even forced a gate open.

  “The destination was the key,” he murmured. “I didn’t think I had enough power to open a gate the way they did and didn’t understand how they truly worked. Palose said that each gateway had an entry and exit, but I think he held back on telling the whole truth of it. A portal moves across space through the void like there are more gates or the points are pulled closer together.

  “Either way, we’re halfway home already and just needed the destination outside of the void.”

  Looking at him in exasperation, Ashleen raised her hands and slapped them against her outer legs drawing his attention as she complained, “But how does that make it any different from what we’ve trying to do? We know where we want to go, so how does that make it any easier to make a gate now?”

  Sebastian looked at her with a confident smile and picked up the Hollow Sword. Placing it tip down on the ground beneath his feet, the mage could feel a similar strength in the land tha
t he felt in Alus. It might not be natural inside the void, but there was power to tap into still.

  “Place your hands on mine,” he ordered with both hands holding the hilt of the weapon. Metal was more dangerous to use to tap the ground’s power in Alus, but it could be used. He would have Ashleen’s hands over his to create a buffer between her and the power which would come through the sword in case he was wrong. If he was wrong, the mage could only hope that he would draw the extra force into him and away from the girl.

  Her hands held onto his and her eyes looked to his face nervously, but there was confidence there from her love of the man before her as well.

  “We need to work together to pull the power of the earth to force open a gate since we can’t finesse one at this point. Like those two warlocks using our friends, we’ll pull more power and make a gate open.”

  Frowning, Ashleen shook her head and said, “But I need my hands to cast.”

  “You’re a wilder too. You know how to instinctively cast your lightning. A battle mage doesn’t waste effort on gestures except to aim.”

  He lifted free of her touch for a moment and with the sword he drew a line in earth between them and the lake. “If you need a visual to aim, use this line to call the doorway we’ll open. I’ll guide the destination to Bairh’loore and we’ll make this happen.”

  Ashleen replaced her hands and felt his confidence. “Alright,” she answered willing to give it a try.

  The two of them focused on the spell they had been trying for weeks. Sebastian was certain that this time he would open a portal. “Gate,” he mumbled like a battle mage spell. His mind tried to see the glowing doorway.

  “Gate,” Ashleen echoed with a nod. Her eyes opened to look at the line a moment and closed them again as if assuring herself where it must open.