The Rise of a Dark Mage

by D. L. Harrison

  She gaped at me, “You’re a mage? But how did you hide it, we have court mages.”

  I snorted, “Those guys are amateurs, and considering your mage library was burned to ash, they’re not trained very well. Besides, there’s a hidden magic spell, I always have it on. Even a strong master mage wouldn’t have been able to tell, not without me being in robes.”

  She still didn’t look mad, just shocked. I expected an explosion any minute, but didn’t get one, at least not yet.

  Instead she calmly asked, “And you came to Lethia for what reason?”

  I asked, “What do you know about the court mage Silvia, from three hundred years ago.”

  She shrugged, “Not much, a lot of that history was lost a hundred and fifty years ago.”

  I nodded, “She built that necklace you’re wearing, for the first queen Maria when she was still a princess. She also enchanted the daggers that your brothers wear. She’s responsible for the defensive magic that keeps the passes closed to an invasion from Zual, and that also keeps the enchantments alive on the swords and communicators your knights use.”

  She asked in a confused voice, “That’s interesting, but how does it answer my question.”

  I smiled, “Silvia was arguably the most powerful mage in the last three hundred years. I came to find what was lost. Knowledge, and power.”

  She frowned, “Did you find it?”

  I nodded, “Over a month ago now. But I didn’t want to leave Daniel by then, so I just kept on with the lies. Plus, you’re my first friend. I’d more than one reason to stay.”

  She sat back and took a sip of the wine.

  “Daniel is going to shit.”

  “You aren’t?” I asked.

  She replied, “Check with me in the morning, I’ll let you know then. I think I’m in shock. So does that mean you’re really powerful?”

  I nodded, “Yes, you could say that.”

  She sighed, “You know, I was really looking forward to meeting your family.”

  I couldn’t help it, I laughed.

  She slapped me on the arm.

  “So why did you tell me now? Why not just make something up about your family being out of town, or something?

  I frowned, “Because I love him. If we go any further it needs to be with everything on the table. I also felt guilty.”

  “So… no plans to take over the kingdom?”

  I giggled, “Who would want it?”

  She gasped, and slapped my arm.

  “No seriously, I’m not interested. Your mom works too hard.”

  She asked, “So when are you telling my brother?”

  I sighed, “Not sure, either here tomorrow, or the next day when the three of us are alone in the carriage. I won’t wait any longer than that.”

  She nodded and patted my knee, “Good luck. I may be mad in the morning, but right now I just feel bad for you. My brother is going to lose his mind.”

  “Good night.”

  She returned the sentiment, and then we both went to bed. Although I stayed awake for another hour to work on the weather ritual.

  Chapter 17

  When I woke up the next morning, I felt rather nervous as I casted my clean and refresh spells, and dressed. I chose a black dress, with white needlework designs, and then moved into the receiving room rather anxiously.

  Marie was there waiting for me in a creamy white cotton dress. Her face was neutral as she looked me over, the usual smile was absent. She was really beautiful in the sunlight, and a good woman. The best. I felt guilty, but strangely relieved as well as I waited for her response to last night’s revelations.

  It appeared she was purposefully trying to make me sweat it too.

  “Good morning?”

  Marie sighed a little sadly, “I’ll keep your secret, and I advise you to tell my brother tomorrow. I should be angry with you, but I’m just sad I’m going to lose my friend. I’ve never really had any before either. You aren’t like anyone I’ve met, which isn’t surprising, since I was raised in court with a bunch of two faced vipers, outside of my family.”

  “So, you don’t think he’ll forgive me?”

  Marie shrugged helplessly, “He might forgive you for being afraid and lying. Eventually. For being a mage? I don’t think so, no.”

  I felt tears threaten and clenched my jaw.

  “So, are we still friends then? I can always visit.”

  She smiled wanly and shook her head, “How?”

  I winked mischievously, “Magic of course.”

  She giggled.

  “My family would lose it, so sure, you can. It’d be kind of dangerous though, wouldn’t it?”

  “Maybe,” I said rather doubtfully, “It would take a lot of knights with swords to subdue and kill me.”

  A knock on the door interrupted us, and Marie opened it.

  Elidy skipped in. Actually skipped. She was irrepressible. After several weeks here, I was sure her father liked it that way. I’d seen him be firm with her, but she never once got in any real trouble.

  “We need to get going, it’s our last day. Let’s ditch the guards and get breakfast in the market. It’s a guilty pleasure, the palace kitchens never make anything that greasy and good.”

  I laughed, “Why not, let’s get out of here.”

  Elidy walked over to a wall and winked at us as she pushed in one of the stones, and a door opened up in the previously seamless wall. Obviously she’d been saving this surprise for a long time, based on the mischievous twinkle in her eyes.

  I shook my head in amazement, I’d no idea how easy it would be to ditch the guards…

  I knew what was coming, so I’d wanted that last day to last forever, but of course, it flew by. I did have fun shopping, although I’d argue it was more Elidy’s and Marie’s company that made it so.

  There was a rather large banquet where the new treaty was signed and the night passed in a blur. Lethia would get food, although not enough for everyone, and Sandoval would get gold. Both would get a peaceful neighbor for another ten years.

  I had no idea why that would take three weeks to work out, but I supposed delivery schedules and the like could be difficult to work out. There were a lot of people to feed, and not that many soldiers and knights to accomplish it. Plus, I had the feeling they had to couch everything in formal language in an official meeting.

  I shook my head at the foolishness of it. Drought and famine, and all because the royal family turned on all mages. I’d a theory that they were simply afraid. Mages had a power they were forced to trust, because they couldn’t control it. As a rule, kings and queens didn’t like things they couldn’t control.

  They must have fully trusted the court mage that turned on them, and they went overboard in their response. The war to expel mages must have been both long and brutal.

  Since they were royalty, they didn’t have to suck it up and move on. No one could force them to grow up, and their successors were raised on the stories to hate mages. Of course, the good mages moved out of the kingdom and obeyed the edict that banned mages in Lethia, which only left the troublemakers behind. That led to more strife and reinforced their delusional belief that all mages were bad.

  And of course, the current royal family had a very personal reason not to see that truth, in the prince consort’s death.

  I was also sure it was more complicated than that. Political crap by the lesser nobles, and many other influences, but at its heart it was fear of both magic and betrayal.

  That night I tossed and turned, knowing what the morning would bring. I’d no illusions, he would reject me, hurt me, and it was all my fault. On the other hand, I couldn’t make myself truly regret it, if I’d told the truth to Daniel in the beginning, I’d have never gotten to know the man. Eventually I had to use the calm and focus glyph on myself to settle down, and fall asleep.

  Marie had been calm, perhaps a little in shock, but relatively accepting of the truth.

  I knew this time wouldn’t go nearly s
o well. I’d even raised defenses in case he pulled out his weapon, although I’d never hurt him. I was incapable of it. We’d gathered our things, the honor guard, and our escort and started out just after dawn. We’d just left the city.

  I casted a glyph of privacy on the carriage, so others wouldn’t hear what was sure to be a loud argument. Then I swallowed and moved to the seat across from him. I didn’t want his hands near my neck for some reason or another.

  “We need to talk.”

  Marie moved over and took her brother’s arm. I didn’t know whether to smile at her support, or worry that she thought he might get violent as well. He really wasn’t a violent man normally, but mages were a definite hot button topic.

  Daniel asked, “What about.”

  “I’m a… liar.”

  Marie giggled at my cowardly evasion, which didn’t help all that much.

  I continued, “I was travelling alone that day I walked out of the forest. The townspeople looked at me strangely and I realized something was wrong. You see, I had no knowledge of the… situation in Lethia at the time. I knew nothing of your kingdom. When I found out the truth of things, I decided the best way to disarm the mistrust I saw, was to lie.”

  He stared at me with cold eyes, but didn’t say anything. It was the first time I’d seen his blue eyes and not seen warmth and humor in them, outside of the few times mages have come up that is.

  I went on like a runaway carriage, “So, I don’t have a merchant’s family, I just told that story to the innkeeper because I do have some small skill making jewelry, and things kind of got out of hand. I’m actually an orphan.”

  He asked in a cold and pained voice, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? If you lied to me about that, how can I trust you about anything else?”

  Oh boy. He was already pissed and I hadn’t dropped the bomb yet.

  “There’s more. I didn’t just make up that story to avoid a few strange looks, I made it up because I found out that mages are outlawed in Lethia.”

  I can’t properly explain the horror of the look I saw in his eyes. The anger drained from it, and there was a total lack of anything in them, except maybe contempt.

  He said, “Tell me you’re joking,” and I saw his jaw tighten, and the vein in his neck tick.

  I sighed, and felt rather defeated, “I love you Daniel, but I can’t do that. I am a mage.”

  He growled like a wounded animal, and then he turned to Marie with a thunderous glare.

  “You knew?” he asked in a deadly quiet voice.

  She replied in a calming voice, “Less than two days, she wanted to be the one to tell you and I agreed.”

  I said softly, “I’ll go, just… I’ll go.”

  The anger erupted in him, and all I could do was sit there and take it. He threatened death, imprisonment, and torture all in one long tirade of angry words. I saw the truth though, he was just a wounded seven-year-old that had lost his father, hiding behind his prejudice. When he finished his tirade I casted a glyph that stopped the horses, opened the door, and jumped out.

  He screamed, “Stop her!”

  For the first time I activated the enchanted travel ritual. It ran through quickly, and I finished it manually with the last three glyphs, for portal size, duration, and where it went.

  I opened a portal to the mountains, close to Silvia’s hideaway, and I stepped through it. It was where I’d flown over when fleeing Zual, which is why the portal worked. It shut behind me, but was open long enough to hear the gasps of the shocked soldiers.

  He hated me. I was… both angry and ashamed. I was also annoyed at myself, I’d wanted to see Mendell, but I’d let my feelings and guilt get in the way of that. I laughed at the absurdity of that thought, if I wanted to go I still could. I casted an air elemental to carry me the remaining short distance to Silvia’s hideaway, and it put me down right outside.

  I brought up several glyphs and casted the spells that would rise up from beneath Silvia’s, now my, hideaway, and destroyed every single enchanted protective ward. Then I walked inside.

  Chapter 18

  I’d like to claim forethought, but it had been a spur of the moment decision when I’d used Sylvia’s glyph design to create the same shortcut spell for the four elementals in one spell and summoning. That meant all I needed to do was set new wards, keyed to me and only me, and everything started to work again. Simply because I could use her shortcut spells now, because her shortcut was now mine.

  My wards also included the intent to simply destroy any elemental that was seeking this place. It wasn’t perfect, because if a mage thought of the same thing I did, and followed the same trail, they would still locate this place simply by following where their elemental had been destroyed. However, they’d be unable to examine the defenses, which meant they’d never be able to read the books remotely, or do anything that I’d done.

  This place was mine now, but it was empty. I didn’t want to live here, or hide here. It would do to house my magical knowledge, and gold. That reminded me, I probably had more gold now than the Lethian royal treasury.

  I walked through the place to Silvia’s remains, and removed the bracelet around her wrist, and placed it carefully on one of the charging shelves. I was angry with Daniel, but I didn’t want to take away his only protection from a mage either. I was… messed up to say the least.

  Then I cast a glyph of earth, and had it rise up around her and entomb her in smooth stone, and then engraved her name. There was a little respect behind it, she’d accomplished great things, but it was more that I didn’t want to have a corpse lying on the floor in my hideaway. I knew her spirit was already at rest in this place.

  I’d decided I would never be as foolish as Silvia to give out enchantments as she did, it enabled the mad course that now seemed to rule the royal family. However, I decided not to destroy the enchantments either. All that would do is cause… more competition from Zual. It would also upset the balance of power in the world, and I didn’t need to cause widespread death and destruction to claim my place. Once I decided where that was.

  Then I walked back to the work room, and sat at the work table. I cast the commune spell, and created a new glyph that would cast three spells at once. It wasn’t something I needed to do, but I thought it would be handy to be able to cast those three spells at multiple targets at once, so it was worth doing. I’d be able to hold five copies of the glyphs with five targets in my head, the intent was already built into the shortcut.

  I considered that the outcome of those spells would be non-lethal, perhaps I already had an idea of what I’d be doing in the future, but my subconscious didn’t yield that information.

  Then I worked on the weather ritual, I was obsessed with it. It was a job half done. It was also a good anchor for my sanity, the focus it required kept me from falling into grief. Or perhaps a better description was it kept me from falling too far into grief, because I did, grieve I mean.

  I wished I’d just left, and never seen that empty rage on Daniel’s beloved face. Once I was done with the ritual, I’d figure out where to go next. But for now, hiding sounded as good as anything ever had.

  The second day in my self-imposed isolation, I started to worry. I worried that they’d be attacked and I wouldn’t be there. Which was stupid, they were surrounded by two sets of guards, and safe from banditry. I didn’t believe Sandoval or Mendell had the same problems there. Still, it ate at me in the back of my mind as I worked on the weather ritual.

  The truth was, I was fairly sure it was close to completed. I just needed to make sure I’d done it correctly, it had to be perfect. Not just the glyphs themselves, but each intent that needed to be put behind them to build on the last. If I actually used it, and it was incorrect, it wouldn’t reset the weather pattern as it was supposed to, and could actually make the problem worse. Which, would be bad.

  If it worked, it would have to be cast every ten years or so, to reset the weather pattern to avoid drought and famine in the future.
I snorted at the idea of one of those mages back in Lethia actually having the ability to cast it, they wouldn’t be able to understand it, even if I gave them the spell with detailed explanations.

  I realized then, that I planned to do it myself. I’d have to think on that a while, why did I want to help an ungrateful people like that? There was nothing in it for me. Or was there? There was a plan in the back of my mind, but it wasn’t clear yet. One thing was for sure, I was done hiding who I really was from the rest of the world.

  I got up, the worry in my mind about Daniel and Marie continued to bug me. I walked back to the room I sealed Silvia’s remains in, and walked over to the shelves.

  It was a pretty bracelet, although not as nice as the one on my left arm. It had sapphires and rubies in eight settings. I knew it charged the three protective artifacts the royal family owned, it also had the communication enchantment that connected to Marie’s necklace. Which was why I was there in the first place. The other five had the glyph for more of those combined elementals.

  I picked it up and put it on my wrist, it was fully charged from being in this room. I could now cast nine protective four in one elementals, which was insane. More importantly however, was I had a way to check up on Marie.

  I thought of her sweet heart shaped face, liquid brown eyes and long curly light brown hair. It was late, and she was most likely sleeping right now, which meant she’d be alone.

  “Marie,” I said softly as a copy of her appeared before me, I knew she’d see a copy of me standing at the foot of her bed.

  She gasped, “Cassie?”

  I smiled at her use of my nickname, maybe she really didn’t hate me, “Yes, I’m not really there. This is a communication spell, it’s a part of your protective necklace. I have the other half. I was… worried. How are you, and… how is Daniel?”

  She shook her head, “He’ll be okay. He’s kind of… out of it right now. He really loved you Cassandra. I’m doing fine. How does this work?”

  I sighed at the news and answered her question, “Just think about me while wanting to talk to me, and it will activate the enchantment. I’ll hold on to this end.”