Steel And Flame (Book 1)

by Damien Lake

  “You’re a stone idiot, I’ll have you know,” Dietrik barked harshly by way of an opening comment. “You need to stay on your guard from now on, because next time I’ll leave you to rot!”

  “What…” Marik croaked, but stuck on the first word. The water had only soothed his throat. It still remained splintered and harsh.

  “Well, now that I can stop mothering you, I can go and enjoy my rest holiday! It’s Kerwin’s turn anyway, so I’m going.”

  Dietrik left the room and slammed the door behind himself. Thoroughly bewildered, Marik glanced at Kerwin.

  “Don’t you pay him any mind,” Kerwin responded, his tone far gentler than Dietrik’s. “He’s been crazy with worry all the way back. Barely left your side on the road. Only goes to prove the loners might have a point after all.”

  “What…what...happened?” Speaking became slightly easier with practice. He felt the muscles in his neck grating with every syllable.

  “That bastard of a hedge-wizard popped out when you weren’t looking. He caught you with a nasty piece of work he had tucked up his sleeve.”

  “Wiz…ard?”

  “Can’t remember, huh? I’m not surprised. I wouldn’t want to myself.”

  Kerwin asked him questions requiring only simple answers, working back to the point where Marik’s memories had bid him farewell. After finding the place, he imparted the history for the lost time. Shadows surfaced in Marik’s mind while he spoke. Recollections slowly slunk back in. At the end, Marik could match most of Kerwin’s descriptions with images from his memory. Also, while Kerwin talked, Marik gradually came to realize he dreamed no longer.

  “I got…hit then?”

  “Yup,” Kerwin said simply. “Couple others got it too.”

  “They…here?”

  “Nope.”

  “Oh.”

  “Dietrik about went nuts. We found you still breathing, but Floroes said he couldn’t do anything. Fraser sent the men out to all the villages we’d been through and they came back with a pair of priests. Good thing for you they worshipped the right gods since it took everything they both had to drag you back. We took two of the horses the bandits were using and ‘borrowed’ a wagon from a village to haul you all the way back here.”

  “Kings…home?”

  “The one and only.”

  “How long…asleep?”

  “A long damn time, Marik. It’s been almost an eightday already since we got back. Winter’s going to start soon.”

  Utter shock. How long had he been out? He could not comprehend. Marik made an attempt at humor to shake it off.

  “So, did anyone…pick today…in the pool?”

  “I didn’t start one,” Kerwin told him, solemnity thick in his voice. “We were too worried you wouldn’t wake up at all.”

  Which told Marik a great deal about how bad his condition had been. He shuddered slightly, feeling it in every ache across his body.

  “That’s what…I get for…tangling…with a mage. That’s why…I can’t stand them.”

  Kerwin glanced aside, looking at the wall instead of at Marik and biting his tongue. Marik was too busy concentrating on his words to notice the sudden uneasiness in Kerwin’s expression.

  “Tell me…about the...ride back.”

  “Not much to tell. We really had to push to get you back here, you know. Practically dawn to dusk in the saddle. None of us had time to find a good tavern or any willing ladies either, and you can bet you’ll be hearing about that a lot from the fellows.”

  “What’s the odds?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to think that one out. How many times will you hear the same complaints? Maybe it’s got possibilities.”

  “You never…change. I was dreaming…about…the roaches.”

  “What, that? I didn’t start them at it. I just put down odds on it.”

  “That’s what…I meant.” He paused in thought for a moment and to gather his strength. “I hope…Dietrik’s not…too mad.”

  “About what?’

  “Having to…look after me.”

  “Don’t you believe him for a moment. Like I said, he practically never left your side during the whole trip. You remember his filly in Drytell?”

  “What?”

  “His little punch bunny he snuck off with in Drytell. The place with all the foxglove plants.”

  “Oh. That woman…from next door…the chandler?”

  “That’s the one. She came around when she saw us pulling into the inn’s stables again, looking for another round. He blew her off without a by-your-leave. It was funny as all hells, her looking like she got kicked in the head by a mule.”

  “I thought he…liked her.”

  “Oh, he did. You can count on that much. Remember I was ready to knock him out of his saddle after all those stories of his over and over. He was too concerned with your sorry hide.”

  The journeyman chirurgeon returned with several drafts Marik needed to choke down. “This is going to put you back to sleep for awhile,” he explained.

  Marik fought to say he did not want to sleep, that he would be having dangerous dreams. The young man ignored the feeble protests.

  Kerwin decided to leave, having been reassured Marik would mend. “Besides, it’s the middle of the night. I think I’ll go sleep on my own cot.”

  The sight of him leaving the room blurred when Marik’s eyes fell closed against all his effort to stop them.

  * * * * *

  Over the next eightday, he improved. Though only able to drink water and eat fall apples pounded into mush, he still counted himself lucky. Marik suffered a steady stream of insults from his friends, each of whom felt the urge to stop by and thank him for their miserable trip home. He took it well, knowing none truly meant it.

  Harlan, Chatham and Maddock stopped by one afternoon. Chatham’s antics in tormenting the long-suffering Harlan drew the first laugh from Marik since awakening.

  The only surprising visitor came one afternoon while Marik sat up in his bed, flexing his various muscles for Delmer, the journeyman chirurgeon assigned to him. He could only bend his elbows and knees halfway. Delmer assured him normal flexibility would return with time and exercise. A noise in the doorway drew their attention to the man standing within it.

  Of average build, though very muscular, his fine-weave tunic and his thick fighter’s breeches had seen much service. They were well cared for. His breeches were supported by a leather belt, the legs tucked into his boot tops. An elaborately carved pattern decorated the belt’s length. Neither old nor young, he could have been anywhere from thirty to forty-five.

  He nodded to Delmer while he stole the one chair in the room. After turning it so its rear faced them, he straddled the seat and crossed his arms atop the chair back. The stranger watched without saying a word.

  Delmer hurried to finish the examination, then took a damp towel and carefully wrapped it around Marik’s head so he looked like a desert rider from the Kello-beii. Hair regrowing atop his head worked its way through the abused flesh, and while the skin had toughened as it healed, the itching drove him crazy. He would have kept his head shaven if he could do so without breaking open the blisters. The towel’s damp coolness helped to alleviate the itching. Once he finished this last chore, Delmer left the two men alone.

  “How are you feeling?” asked the man.

  “I’ve been better,” Marik responded cautiously.

  “I can imagine. I’ve been asking around about you. I had Janus pull your personnel file.”

  What? “Sir?” asked Marik, deducing this man must be a senior officer if he could order cranky old Janus to do anything.

  “I’m Torrance, by the way,” said the commander of the Crimson Kings, and offered his hand. “I’m sure you’ve heard of me.”

  “Yes, I have. Uh, sir.”

  Torrance shook his head as he carefully shook Marik’s hand. “Don’t bother with that. It’s only useful in front of the nobles or the army officers.”

&n
bsp; “All right. I appreciate your stopping by to see me, but why bother?”

  “Has anyone told you why you survived?”

  “No,” said Marik. “I assumed…I don’t know. I was lucky.”

  “Good, I told everyone not to. Yes, you were lucky, but not the way you think. I sent Tollaf over to check you while you were sleeping the first few days.”

  “Tollaf?”

  “The head of my mage forces. Chief Mage Tollaf, to the rest of you.”

  Mages. Marik felt the old revulsion crawling to the surface. Oddly enough, this time the usual shudder that customarily ran through his spine failed to accompany it. He had too many pressing concerns at the moment to wonder why. “You sent a mage to ‘check me out’? For what? And why? I mean, yeah I survived a spell and all that, but what does that have to do with anything?”

  Torrance cocked his head. “I will ask you in turn. Why did you survive a spell attack that killed five other men by reducing half their body mass to ash in an instant?”

  “Every tragedy has its survivors.”

  “Every natural tragedy, yes. I think you’ll agree this was quite unnatural.”

  Marik kept silent.

  “Your situation is not so uncommon, actually. For every mage practicing his art, there are at least three or four others with the same gifts of magic, though theirs is latent. Most go through their entire lives with no cause to suspect it’s there, sleeping within them. If they do recognize it, many can’t use it. Their talent is either too small to be wakened and used, or it has shriveled with disuse, like a fruit too long on the tree.”

  “I don’t have any magical talent,” Marik replied. A mounting horror slowly built with every word the commander spoke.

  “Not that you’ve ever recognized you mean. Like so many others, you’ve never had a need of it, so it sits in the back of your mind, growing weak like any of your other muscles from lack of use. But part of you knew it for what it was. That’s one reason why you’ve gone out of your way to avoid magic whenever you could.”

  “What?”

  “I told you, I’ve been asking around about you. Aversions to magic are rather common in those who have the potential within them, but aren’t ready to accept it.”

  “I still don’t believe I have any sort of ‘talent’ like that!”

  “That’s why I had Tollaf examine you while you were still out like a snuffed candle. He tells me you do indeed have it within you, that it’s been latent all your life, and only uncoiled when it did to save you from certain death at the hands of magic, the one thing it could defend you against when your life was in question. It shielded you from most of the destructive force and prevented the worst of the damage. Not that it was able to do more than save you by a fly’s whisker.”

  “No. There’s no way!” Torrance, the commander of the entire band, had stopped by to play a twisted joke on a crippled invalid! Yet even in his bleak despair, he could not quite make himself believe that. Then an escape presented itself. “But if it’s true, it’s latent, right? It’ll sleep itself away if I leave it alone!” Marik felt he might be able to grasp this horrible reality, now that he had a plan to deal with it.

  But Torrance shook his head. “It was latent. As I said, cases like yours aren’t entirely uncommon. With some, the gift destroys itself when it’s called upon so suddenly and desperately. Tollaf tells me it is like bringing a candle into a mine full of coal gas. The flame ignites the gas, which blows out all the air in the mine. The gift is destroyed in much the same manner as the mine collapsing.

  “With others, as with you, it becomes drawn out, or awakened if you like that description better. Imagine if the mine survived the blowout of flaming gas. The air is clear and it is safe to enter. In your case, that means your talent has escaped intact and is no longer obstructed. But you can’t count on your talent saving your life again as it first did. It is active, and you can’t ignore it anymore.”

  Marik shouted, “I’ve ignored it all my life, haven’t I?”

  “If you were very, very careful, you might be able to go through the rest of your life without training in its handling. Except the odds of accidents are terribly high.”

  “Why?” demanded Marik. “Those hedge-wizards or whatever spend their whole lives trying to use magic! They’re lucky if they can light a candle!”

  “That is true, up to a point. There are other considerations.” Torrance held up a finger. “One, their gifts tend to be minor and lighting a candle is all they could do in most cases anyway. Two, they are not ignoring their gifts, they’re trying like the hells to use them. Their constant effort gives them the skill and control to wield their talent without mishap for the most part. If you try to suppress it, it will back up like a dammed river until it overflows and makes a mess of your life and everyone’s around you. Or, to return to our previous image, the mine may be cleared of foul air, but the explosion weakened the structure. The walls need to be shored up, new braces put in to keep a collapse from killing everyone in the vicinity.”

  Marik gripped his head in his hands. Pain throbbed through his temples. He shook in denial.

  “It’s not the end of the world.”

  “Isn’t it?” snapped Marik harshly.

  “Not at all. In the first place, the Kings always have a use and a place for a person with magical ability. It’s one of the highest paying ranks in the band.”

  “I don’t care about coin.”

  “Then learn about scrying spells,” Torrance spread his hands. “If you become an expert scryer, you’ll become one of the band’s most important members. Additionally, if you’re good at it, you can use those same spells to find your father.” A sharp glance from Marik prompted him to add, “Janus told me about it.”

  “If he’s still alive,” muttered Marik. He desperately needed to avoid this, even if it meant relying on the arguments his friends had used against him.

  “There are as many scrying spells to determine the past as there are to determine the present. Or so Tollaf tells me. One way or another, you could find your answer.”

  Torrance could see that Marik remained unconvinced. He apparently changed the topic, asking, “You’ve made a home here in the band, haven’t you?”

  “Of a sort,” Marik replied warily.

  “Many of the men do. It can be quite like a large, extended family, in a peculiar fashion. It was for me at any rate when I fought my way up. Now I am at the top, working to keep everything running smooth. I’ll tell you, as the top dog in this kennel, that the band is doing well most seasons, though we can always use extra mages.”

  Marik declined to offer a comment, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  “You know a lot about the band, having been here for a year now. You know what a wonderful place it can be for men like us.” He paused, expecting a response from Marik, who only nodded. “You know how we encourage the men to keep themselves fit, to exercise and train so they can maintain the reputation we’ve worked so hard for in this kingdom. Anyone letting their skills, whatever they may be, lie fallow gets booted through the front gates. The mages are not tested the same way as the rest, but they can be if Tollaf decided to.” Torrance paused a moment to let his words take root. “I would very much hate to have to kick out a band member after they had made a home here.”

  It felt like he had been punched in the stomach. He considered pointing out the similarities between the commander’s argument and the ruder forms of blackmail. Instead he held his tongue.

  “I’m a nice person by nature Marik, and I do not enjoy expelling people from the band. But I love the Kings, and I will do what’s needed to make them as strong as I can. I would consider it a personal favor if you’d agree to start training under Tollaf at the Tower.”

  “Sir.” Marik said this softly, unsure himself if it was meek agreement or a final attempt at protest.

  “Tollaf won’t be ready to begin for awhile, and you’re in no condition to start at the moment. You still have time to
think it over, but remember what I said. Can we proceed on the assumption you’ll be training as a mage?”

  Though he had not reached a final determination, Marik nodded.

  “Fine. Then the first order of business is your reading lessons. Whether you begin the other training or not, it’s a valuable skill, and Tollaf says you’ll need it for his tasks. Yoseph will come over later and begin teaching you.”

  The commander departed, leaving Marik still spinning from the drastic changes his world had undergone.

  * * * * *

  “What’s all that racket?” Marik asked Yoseph when his letters tutor arrived for the day. Sounds from a distant crowd had drifted through the open window since yesterday afternoon, the volume steadily increasing the whole while.

  “It is the gathering of the new applicants.” No mater the topic or the urgency, Yoseph’s face always bore the same expression of weary contemplation. He perpetually delivered his words in a steady monotone. “The crowd has been gathering outside the walls for several days.”

  A year already passed, Marik thought. And no progress made on my original reason for joining in the first place. This recalled Commander Torrance’s words to mind. He scowled inwardly.

  “Did you practice with the papers I left you last night?”

  “Oh, yes. They were thrilling. I couldn’t put them down. I thirsted to see what might be on the next page.”

  “Good, then we shall review them.”

  The man was oblivious to sarcasm.

  “I believe this first was your list of skills from your own application last year. Your familiarity with the subject should have helped you decipher the words, along with the rules of letters we have been discussing.”

  Marik sighed. Time, yet again, for an entire afternoon wasted squinting at ink squiggles and being lectured by the Demon of Eternal Boredom. He could hardly wait to escape this room.