The Archmage's Eclipse: A Darklight Universe Short Story

by C. Gold

  The Archmage’s Eclipse

  A Darklight Universe Short Story

  By C. Gold

  Golden Elm Publishing

  Redmond, WA

  Copyright © 2017 C. Gold

  Cover Design by HotCovers.net

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  First Edition

  The Archmage’s Eclipse is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or places, is completely coincidental.

  Golden Elm Publishing

  Redmond, WA

  Please visit the author’s official website:

  www.thegoldenelm.org

  Dedicated to those suffering with Alzheimer’s and the friends and family of loved ones who have to deal with this painful disease.

  “Forbidden to remember, terrified to forget; it was a hard line to walk.”

  ― Stephenie Meyer, New Moon

  Contents

  The Archmage’s Eclipse

  From the Author

  Books by the Author

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  The Archmage’s Eclipse

  “W AKE UP ya big lug!” Marjery threw open the curtains and let a bright stream of sunlight into the bedroom.

  “What’s your problem, woman?” Her husband, the once great Archmage Ecksander, rolled over and buried his head in the pillow.

  She flung the covers off him and prodded his arm. “I had a Vision. If we don’t get to the Weeping Gorge before morning the world ends.”

  Ecksander groaned. “Why would it do that?” His voice was muffled from the pillow.

  Marjery yanked it out from under his head. “Diarmid is going to use the equinox eclipse to summon his demon army if we don’t stop him.”

  That got his attention. Ecksander rolled over and pawed the side table for his glasses and shoved them on. He looked at her with his one bleary blue eye and blinked. “We?”

  She sighed. “Yes we. You. Me. We. You’re still the most powerful wizard in the country.” Even if you can’t remember it yourself. She turned away and grabbed the staff which was always nearby and gave it to him. While helping him stand, she couldn’t help but recall the once vibrant, athletic man he was before tragedy struck. Now a jagged scar marred the left side of his face from hairline to chin. The left eye was milky with blindness and he still needed the staff to walk even though it was four years since Diarmid’s surprise attack left him for dead. But worse than any physical scars, sometimes he couldn’t remember her. That hurt the most.

  Like a mother hen, she watched over Ecksander as he shuffled into the kitchen and sat down. His slight frown was the only indication that his leg bothered him. That and the surreptitious rubbing of his bum knee under the table. She went over to the hearth fire and fixed him tea and toast. He never ate much these days—another thing to worry about.

  Marjery left him alone to pack what they’d need for the journey. It would take the entire day and she wasn’t sure what they’d face. She was little more than a hedgewitch, so her powers wouldn’t stand a chance against a warlock like Diarmid. But perhaps she could dig up something to help even the odds. She added a few more herbs and powders to her witchy supplies, then turned to the arsenal that Ecksander had collected over the years. The wands she could use, barely. The swords, no. Ah, but the dagger could come in handy. Its enchantment allowed its wielder to see in complete darkness—handy when facing warlocks during eclipses. She also grabbed a few small spheres designed to release various nasty effects before closing and locking the chest. Dragging everything outside, she hitched the horses to the small cart, loaded it up, and pulled it to the front door.

  When Marjery entered their small cottage, Ecksander was still in the chair, motionless as stagnant water. His eye was unfocused and held such sadness that it made her downright uncomfortable. She didn’t like it one bit. “We need to get moving,” she said as she rushed to his side and tried to shake off a feeling of impending doom.

  Slowly his eye lost its distant gaze and focused on her. He frowned and asked, “Why’s that?”

  Already he’d forgotten what she told him earlier. Helping him up, she handed him the staff and replied, “It’s nice out and I want to go for a ride.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so?” He flashed her a saucy smile and winked like his old self.

  Marjery blinked back the tears and helped him into the cart. Why did it have to be his mind that was damaged? She could have happily lived with the physical disabilities, but losing him day by day was killing her. As she climbed into the cart and sent the horses forward, she recalled their first meeting.

  “Put that down right now!” The admittedly handsome man was totally mangling one of the more delicate herbs as he held it up and squinted between it and a notebook crumpled in his other hand.

  “Marjery, we don’t yell at the customers.” Her boss, known as Big Mo, ran the apothecary store. He huffed up next to her and bowed to the man.

  “Apologies my lord. She’s new.”

  “What are you saying,” she hissed. “Just look at what he’s done.”

  Her boss gave her the stink eye and dropped his voice to a whisper—which was a surprise coming from him. “He’s one of them fancy lords. You go make yourself scarce now. Shoo!”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “Here, give me that.” She snatched the notebook out of the young man’s loose grasp.

  “What?” His brilliant blue eyes looked like large sapphires behind the thick lenses. They got even bigger when he looked up from his missing notebook and saw it in her grip.

  She pointed to the poor thing in his hand. “You can’t just mangle them and expect them to retain their effectiveness.”

  “Oh.” He stood there looking a bit stupid before a belated attempt at politeness kicked in. “I’m Ecksander.” Then he flushed again and remembered to bow.

  The guy was kind of cute in his social awkwardness even if he ham-fisted plants. Marjery returned his bow with a simple one of her own and tried not to smile. She ignored Big Mo’s grumble—he still had the outdated belief that females had to curtsey. None of that nonsense for her. She scanned the list. It was a typical healer’s shopping list and looked vaguely familiar. Scrunching up her nose in thought, it hit her. “Let me guess, Lady Cronelly’s class?”

  Ecksander’s head bobbed up and down. “Yes, how did you know?”

  “We get her students in here all the time. Though,” she scanned him up and down, “you don’t look like a typical healing student.”

  The young man sighed and pushed up his glasses. “I’m not. I’m supposed to be a wizard in training but my master thought I should learn some basic healing after I blew up the lab. Twice.”

  Marjery couldn’t help the soft giggle. Definitely cute. “Well, let me help you with that. We don’t want to mangle any more plants than necessary, do we?”

  He happily agreed, and they spent the next half hour side by side. At some point her boss decided it was safe to leave her be. She was too busy enjoying the company to pay attention to when he left.

  “I’m hungry.”

  Those two words popped Marjery out of her happy memory bubble. It was already midday, so she stopped the cart and helped Ecksander down. He walked stiffly as he usually did after too long at rest and she felt guilty for daydreaming so long. Once he was walking with his usual limp, she guided him back to the cart and passed out the food. Together they sat and
ate under the warm autumn sun. With such a beautiful day, you’d never suspect the dangerous evil waiting to pounce on them in the morning.

  This particular hilly rise was almost at the halfway point, so Marjery was pleased with their progress so far. Once they finished eating, she got them back on the road.

  “Where are we going?”

  She patiently answered, “Weeping Gorge.”

  “Doesn’t that have the big waterfall?” He turned to her and grinned. “That was our special place wasn’t it?”

  Marjery smiled and nodded. Indeed, that was where he proposed. But not until after he’d graduated. Before then, he would come to the shop each week, hand her Lady Cronelly’s list, and follow her around while she neatly bundled up the herbs. He never wanted to talk about himself, preferring instead to listen as she discussed healing, herbs, and sometimes the books she read. Later, he’d admit to liking a passage from one of the stories she mentioned. His attentiveness made her like him even more.

  “I remember dancing in the moonlight after a late night dip in the water. You had the most beautiful hair, flowing down like velvet chocolate.”

  Marjery wiped away a tear. It was so rare that he was this lucid. She remembered the first time he asked her to a dance. It was that first winter after they’d met. Right before he had to get back with the supplies, he froze at the doorway, shifting from foot to foot, before finally getting enough courage to ask. Her first instinct was to decline. A hedgewitch didn’t belong at such a fancy gathering. But one glance at his begging eyes and she was done for. He might have been shy, but he was a great dancer. They got looks and stares, but she no longer cared as long as she was with him. That’s when she first knew she was lost.

  “I got down on one knee before I realized I was stark naked and the ring was in my jacket pocket back by the shore.”

  She laughed softly. Oh how she remembered that.

  “I had to get up and do it all over again. The second time was harder than the first. I was so scared you’d say no. Then you said yes, and I knew I was blessed.” He had a blissful grin on his face to match her own.

  “I knew I was blessed too,” she replied.

  “What?”

  “I said I knew I was blessed too.”

  “Oh. Where are we going?”

  Marjery looked over at her husband. The light had gone out of his eye and his face held nothing but confusion. Her chest grew tight and her eyes began to water. She had to look away and blink rapidly to keep the tears from falling. “We are just going for a little trip,” she reassured him. Sniffing, she glanced at him side-eyed, but his chin was resting on his chest, eyes closed and he began to snore lightly. It was probably for the best. Sometimes sleep helped. This time she let the tears fall.

  They finally reached the top of the gorge. Here, the roar of the waterfall was deafening. The road kept going down a steep incline until it leveled out at the base, but her Vision had shown that the high ground was the optimal place to counter Diarmid. Pray to the Goddess it was accurate.

  She found a clump of trees to hide the cart from casual sight and unhitched the horses to let them graze. Then she opened the bundle of stuff and laid everything out in the back of the cart for easy access. She was as prepared as she could be.

  Marjery looked over at her sleeping husband and shook her head in sorrow and fear. How could she ask this of him? Yet, if not him, then who else? The war that set Diarmid on the throne also ended the lives of too many wizards. The only reason Ecksander was left alone was because he was too crippled to be of any threat. Or at least that’s what everyone believed. Only Marjery knew that sometimes the wizard’s fire returned. She had to hope it would happen again, or they’d both be dead. Although it was probably better to be dead than enslaved by demons.

  Cradling her husband’s head in her lap to make him more comfortable, Marjery kept watch. She had two wands nearby just in case of trouble. While she waited for the sun to rise, she fondly stroked Ecksander’s hair and remembered the time he dragged her camping. Of course he started off with all the basic camping supplies and the perverse desire to do everything without magic. But the tent kept collapsing, the ground was too muddy, cold, and hard, and the fire refused to start. She laughed at him when his resolve quickly crumbled and he used magic to craft them a habitable dome and lit the fire with a flick of his finger. Then he posed in front of his handiwork, hands on hips, looking as proud as a lord of the realm.

  How he’d hate the lack of any amenities right now, and he would definitely chastise her for sitting on the cart out in the elements. It’s just one time, she silently promised him. One last hurrah and then they’d go back to their cozy little cottage. And he’d slowly slip away from her, leaving her alone.

  Marjery was standing in a field. When she turned towards Ecksander, the sky boiled over with inky black clouds and the grass sickened and died. Feeling a warm drop of liquid land on her face, she wiped it off and looked up to see bloated corpses floating above, their entrails hanging out, dripping blood.

  Marjery jerked awake to the smell of brimstone and rotten corpses. The hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood on end and the very air became poised, like a snake ready to strike. Diarmid! Hastily waking Ecksander, she shoved a day old slice of bread in his hand and prayed he was up to the task. She jumped from the cart and helped him down as soon as he was done eating. Gently, she slid his glasses back on, handed him his staff, and kissed his ruined cheek. “It’s time.”

  “Time for what?”

  “Don’t worry about it.” She guided him to the back of the cart. “Wait here. I’ll go see where he is.” Marjery hated to leave her sleepy, confused man by himself, but there wasn’t much time now. She gave him a last reassuring smile before she went scouting.

  The most obvious place for a warlock to summon demons would be at the bottom of the gorge where the ley lines crossed and formed a node. She got down on her belly and crawled the rest of the way to the edge of the cliff and peered down. At first the spray from the waterfall obscured her vision but a gentle breeze cleared enough of a patch for her to see a warlock’s circle with an inscribed pentagram burned into a magically melded slab of solid stone. There was no sign of Diarmid, but she knew he was close.

  Sliding back from the edge, Marjery stood and surveyed the surrounding area. She spotted a flat enough patch of ground, and sat cross legged in the middle. Once comfortable, she began to slow her breathing and calm her mind. As she slid into a trance state, she reached into a pouch on her belt and brought out a handful of seeds. One by one she tossed each in the air and floated it over to land at equal points around her. When the circle was complete, she coaxed the earth to accept the seeds, then sent a gentle, nurturing magic outward until each eagerly sprung up and formed an unbroken ring of thick vegetation. The circle of life completed, she cut off her magic and stood to survey her work. She smiled with satisfaction. Even if Ecksander was able to flame-etch his own circle, her life protection would be a better choice in facing the warlock’s death based magic. Now it was time to fetch her husband and pray to the Goddess that he could be a hero one last time.

  Her husband wasn’t where she left him. Marjery’s heart seized up with fear until she found him with the horses. “There you are. I need you to follow me.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’re going to save the world.” At least Marjery hoped so.

  “Ok.” Ecksander smiled.

  She had to help him over the low-lying hedge since his left knee was pretty wobbly. Once inside the protective circle, she stood him in the center and took a steadying breath. Already the surrounding energy was turning negative as the warlock began his spell. “Ecksander. I need you to cast a protective shield. Think you can do that?”

  “Sure, that’s easy.” He lifted his free hand and swirled it around in a circle.

  The air popped as the shield snapped into place, forming a dome around them. The sudden removal of menace was such a relief she fel
t like sagging to the ground. But they had a lot of work to do. Holding his hands she channeled her healing energy into him and prayed this worked.

  Ecksander looked around and frowned. “Marjery? What’s going on?”

  She was instantly relieved even as she strained to keep a steady flow. “Diarmid is going to use the equinox eclipse to summon a demon army.”

  He growled. “That mustn’t happen.”

  “The eclipse is about to begin.” Even now, she sensed the lick of the moon’s shadow taking a bite out of the sun’s energy. Although they were protected, she could still detect a shift in the balance between good and evil, light and dark. “Diarmid has begun his spell.”

  Ecksander looked down at their clasped hands. “So it’s come down to this?” The resignation in his eyes stole her breath. He shook his head as she went to speak. “No time.” He shifted her hands to hold his waist and turned his back to her. “You’ll have to hold me up, I need to use both hands.” He carefully avoided mentioning her other purpose—to keep his memory whole.

  Snaking her hands underneath his shirt for skin to skin contact, she steadied her healing flow and rested her head against his back. She was happy to share one last adventure with him, even if it was for such a dire mission.

  He began chanting in the low bass voice she knew all too well. Time passed and the surrounding light became increasingly emaciated. The ground beneath the pine trees was filled with thousands of wispy, crescent-shaped shadows. As the eclipse progressed, the dark energy gained strength and pressed against the shield. She gripped Ecksander tighter and focused on keeping the healing magic flowing. His muscles grew tense as he sent out a wave of energy towards his nemesis.

  Diarmid fought back. Ropey black tendrils slammed into the shield. Ecksander grunted but repelled the blast. The ground became leeched of color and turned a silvery blue. Marjery turned west in time to see a dark shadow racing towards them. She pumped a last surge of healing energy into her husband before it was cut off by the eerie dusk of the total eclipse.