The Dragon Rider (The Alaris Chronicles Book 2)

by Mike Shelton

  “Reports!” Daymian ordered.

  Lenz, A battle wizard in his late twenties answered first. “Kanzar has sent a sizable contingent of soldiers to Corwan. I heard from my sources that Mericus went there and, if it is to be believed, that he defected and didn’t take the city as Kanzar had commanded him to do.”

  “Mericus, huh?” The Chief Judge thought for a moment. “I don’t know him well. An opportunist, maybe, but a good sign of weakness in Kanzar’s ranks.”

  “And, it seems that Kanzar is also having trouble in Cassian. The thieves’ guild seems to be acting up and causing him trouble,” Lenz said, finished now with his report.

  “Any mention of Onius?” Daymian asked. He still hoped Onius, his old counselor, had not defected to Kanzar’s side.

  “He seems to be by Kanzar’s side and doing his bidding, but he doesn’t seem too happy with things.”

  “I hope he’s feeling guilty,” Daymian mumbled under his breath. “Next!” he said more loudly and motioned for the next report.

  “The Citadel seems quiet,” said Riona, one of the few women among Daymian’s military advisers. “More apprentice recruits arrive daily, but there is no sign of preparing for anything, other than wizards teaching them.”

  “Who runs the place?” the Chief Judge asked, for clarification. “Are they still bowing to Roland Tyre?”

  Riona laughed. “Yes, they are, sir. That young wizard has them all doing his bidding. I spent a few days there, and it was quite fun to watch the older wizards deferring to him.”

  Some of the other wizards in the room frowned at her and seemed to grow concerned.

  “Besides that,” Riona continued, “there are a few reports of things going missing.”

  Daymian nodded his head. Taking a drink from a glass goblet in front of him, he motioned for the next report. His throat was always so dry in Orr. The desert dust made him thirsty. He wished for the more northern cities’ climate. He smiled to himself at this thought. He had let himself get spoiled through the years.

  Before anything else was said, someone burst into the room.

  “Tam!” The Chief Judge rose out of his chair. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  The young apprentice’s clothes were disheveled and looked full of desert sand. He took off his head wrap, and sand fell all over the floor. “Sorry, sir.” He looked embarrassed. “I’ve been on the road from Corwan for days and couldn’t wait to get that darn thing off. I know it helps to keep the sun off my head, but it is surely uncomfortable.”

  “Don’t worry,” the Chief Judge said. “Where is Alli?”

  A servant standing nearby handed Tam a mug, and he gulped its contents down in generous swallows. Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, Tam continued, “Judge Mericus arrived last week with a group of men.”

  “Yes, I had heard that,” Daymian said.

  “Don’t know much about him, but it seems he’s decided to defy Kanzar. Well, it seems Kanzar sent an army to convince him to do otherwise. Judge Azeem left with his battalion right after Mericus arrived. They were marching back here to support you. But I was sent to ask Judge Azeem to return to Corwan to help fight Kanzar’s men. Then, I continued on alone to make sure you were aware of their plans.”

  “Whose authority had you for that, young man?” Lenz spoke up again.

  Tam looked at the Chief Judge and then back at Lenz “Well, Battle Wizard Alli, sir. Kanzar sent his men by land and by river. The Mallek elves are also helping, but it might not be enough.”

  “That girl doesn’t hold any authority,” Lenz stood up from his chair.

  “What about the elves?” asked Hakim, another of the Chief Judges advisors from Orr.

  “What is Mericus doing?” Riona chimed in.

  “Quiet, please,” the Chief Judge said, raising his voice slightly. “These are difficult times. I trust that if Alli thought additional help was needed, it was. So far, Kanzar has not deigned to attack us directly yet.”

  Tam then proceeded to tell them about the help from the Mallek elves and that Mericus seemed to be working against Kanzar for now, but that no one truly understood what Mericus’s end goal was.

  “His end goal is to be king,” stated the Chief Judge, frowning. He didn’t know if that was good or bad. “For now, we will hold our course and wait to see the outcome in Corwan. In the meantime, we will continue to train here in preparation for Kanzar’s attack. It will come. It has to.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The darkness seemed to suffocate Roland Tyre, and he grew claustrophobic. And, for the first time in his short life, he was truly afraid. When the creature who was Celia—that Roland now named the Chameleon—had closed the door, Roland had stood in the darkness, hoping and even praying that something else would happen: A light would seep underneath the door. Help would come. Or his magic would return. Anything.

  But nothing happened. No one came. And his magic—his lifeblood—remained dormant.

  Roland had lived a relatively easy life. Sure, when he was younger, he did work on his family’s farm and helped his father with his carpentry, but, in the end, it wasn’t all that hard. He figured now that, for most of his life, the easiness he’d found had much to do with the magic that had flowed unfettered through his body. He had told Bakari that he didn’t just feel the magic but that he was the magic. That it was who he was. And that, at sixteen years old, he was one of the most powerful wizards in Alaris.

  But now, the magic had left him all alone. If this is what normal humans felt like, Roland never wanted to be normal. He felt tired and sluggish, and his senses were dull, but that could be in part due to the dark.

  For the first half hour, he had screamed his voice raw. Then extreme anger set in, and he thought of all the harm he would do to the Chameleon when he found her or him or whatever it was. Now despair was beginning to consume him, bit by bit.

  What if he never got out? How long could he survive in this dark room with dangerous magical artifacts around him? He slowly sat down on the floor and then scooted himself back until he found a space on the wall to lean against. He closed his eyes, though this didn’t matter in the least. Eyes open or closed, it was the same.

  Somehow, Roland fell asleep. His slumber was restful and long, filled with dreams of glory and leading other wizards. Upon awakening, he felt a renewed sense of peace and hope.

  Wasn’t he always bragging about how smart and powerful he was? Well, when he wasn’t watching the women. That thought was stopped short. He had liked Celia, and look at what she had done to him. And he had kissed that thing! Yuck!

  He shook his head to clear his thoughts. Above all else, as a counselor, he had been trained to think clearly. Onius had been relentless in trying to have Roland look at all the possibilities and positions.

  He stood back up and began stepping carefully around the small room with his arms outstretched. With only a step or two in each direction his hands met shelves filled with boxes, bottles, and sacks full of strange things. Things he wasn’t sure he actually wanted to touch.

  What would they do? Did it matter what they did? It couldn’t be much worse, could it?

  Feeling a small box, he worked to open the lid and began to reach inside. He hesitated for a moment, let out a deep breath, and then plunged ahead. His hands wrapped around a small, round object. It felt cool to his touch, signifying a type of metal. He brought it out in front of him, but, of course, he still wasn’t able to see it.

  On instinct, he tried to bring forth his magic once again, to study the object. The backlash was severe, knocking him back against another shelf. Objects dropped to the ground, and he waited for something else to happen. But it didn’t.

  “What was that?” he muttered to himself.

  He still held the round object. Even though he couldn’t get to his magic, the object had responded to him trying to use it. He reached out blindly for a nearby shelf and set the strange item down. The shock had numbed his fingertips.

  More timidly now,
he reached forward in the dark once again. This time, he found a sack. Inside, he found a dozen very small blocks of wood. He pulled a few out and ran his fingers over them. Five of their sides were smooth, but one side was rougher, almost as if something was written on it. He fumbled with one for a moment, turning it over, and then it dropped from his hand.

  By the time when it would have hit the floor, Roland’s feet were sinking into the ground, or rather through the ground. He couldn’t see it with his eyes, but somehow he knew his body had just slid through the solid rock floor. His feet finally came to rest on another floor a dozen feet lower.

  Roland realized his eyes were still closed as he had handled the small blocks. Now, he opened them and found himself in another room, similar to the one above. Shelves lined with boxes, bottles, and bags of objects stood before him.

  “I can see,” he said out loud, realizing the truth of it. He smiled broadly and took a deep breath. Light had never seemed so wonderful. He laughed out loud.

  Glancing around again, he furrowed his eyebrows. The room appeared identical to what he remembered the room above looking like.

  “That’s strange.”

  Roland took a few steps and found the box with the ball inside that he had opened earlier. It was back in its original place, as if he hadn’t disturbed it. In fact, everything was back in place except for the two small blocks he still held.

  He walked toward the door and pushed. And, to his surprise and relief, it opened wide, letting more light, from the torches lining the hallway, flood in beside him. He had thought he must be down on a lower basement floor, as he remembered passing down through the floor of the dark room, but everything here looked eerily the same as before.

  Remembering Celia and what she had done to him, he raced down the corridor until he reached the stairs. Taking them two at a time, he ran to the top. Right before opening the door, he stopped, putting the blocks in a pocket of his robe. Then he combed his hair with his hands and took a deep breath.

  Pushing the door open, he found himself on the main floor of the Citadel. Servants were rushing around as if in a hurry to do someone’s bidding. So he stepped out of the stairwell to stop one of them.

  “What is going on here?” he asked the young woman.

  The servant ignored him, not even looking his way, and continued on her task.

  Roland frowned. He hadn’t encountered anyone so rude before. Coming down the stairs was Titus. A group of guards walked with him as if guarding him. The wizard’s wrinkled face looked even more tired than usual, and his steps were slow.

  “Titus?” Roland ran up to him. “What’s wrong? What’s going on here?”

  Once again, Roland was ignored. It didn’t seem personal—the man didn’t look away from him—but he just continued on as if he couldn’t see or hear Roland.

  At first, Roland became angry, but then he grew curious. He reached inside himself for his magic, and the blessed power was there again. He felt alive once more. The smell of baked bread from the Citadel kitchens washed over him and made his stomach growl. But he ignored this for now.

  He decided to follow Titus’s group and see what was going on. Entering the main reception room, Roland saw that a small throne was set at the back. A figure was sitting on it, dressed in blue with a gold cape swirling magically around him. Where had that throne come from?

  Roland blinked and let out a small curse. It was himself. He was sitting on the throne. It was the impostor, the Chameleon.

  “Bring the wizard to me!” shouted the impostor at the guards who held Titus.

  Roland moved closer.

  The impostor continued, “Titus, there is a new order here now. I know that you plot behind my back. Well, no more!”

  It was uncanny: the Chameleon’s voice was Roland’s own; the face, his; the smirk on his lips, his. But the eyes—those Roland recognized. They were the Chameleon’s eyes. The same green as Celia’s. Roland gathered his magic and threw it in the impostor’s direction. It swirled right toward the man and then went right through him with no one noticing.

  This was maddening. Roland looked down at himself. He looked real, and the floor beneath his feet appeared solid. He was Roland Tyre, but no one else seemed to be able to see him.

  “You will be taken to the dungeons and kept there until all the old wizards are rounded up,” the Chameleon continued. “There is a new order. A new generation of wizards now.” The impostor of Roland laughed. “I will prepare the Citadel for the return of the true king.”

  The true king? Roland asked himself. What in the world was this crazy impostor talking about?

  This must be a dream, he thought to himself.

  He put his hand in his robe pocket and pulled out one of the small squares, fingering it in his hand. What kind of magic did it hold? He held it out and dropped it on the floor, as he had done with the first one. As before, the floor softened, and Roland fell down through it into darkness.

  “Nooo.” Roland yelled, reaching out his hands to try and stay in the room with the impostor.

  As his feet hit the ground again, he tried to see, but it was pitch-black once more. He reached for his magic, and it was gone once again.

  “Let me out of here!” he yelled. He was back in the dark storage room. No one would ever hear him.

  Was what he had witnessed up above real? Was the Chameleon taking his place? Or, was it a glimpse of the future? Or, could it have been only his imagination? And what was that crazy talk about a real king?

  In his anger, he swept his hand to the side and knocked over some unseen items from the shelves. Then he grabbed another shelf in the dark and tried to pull it down. Muscles bulged, but nothing happened.

  “I’m going crazy in here,” he whispered, his voice raspy. He wondered how long it had been. Was it minutes or hours or days? He had no sense of time. No sense of anything.

  Think, think. He needed to stay sane and in control. He tried, unsuccessfully, to slow his breathing. There had to be magic in the room, among the artifacts. Something to help him.

  He fumbled with the items around on the floor, where he had knocked them from their shelves. He found a cylinder. It was smooth, and, although it felt like metal, it was warm to the touch. He felt a lid screwed on the top.

  Slowly—and pausing a few times, in fear of what might emerge—he unscrewed the lid. The foul smell of rotten garbage emerged. He wrinkled his nose and tried to put the lid back on with one hand but dropped it in the darkness.

  “Roland,” said a loud and deep voice, echoing in the small room.

  Roland whipped his head around. Where did the voice come from?

  “You say you are one of the greatest wizards in the land,” the voice continued. It sounded slimy and evil. “But you can’t even get out of this little room. You’re pathetic!”

  “Who are you?” Roland called. He was feeling pathetic; the voice was right.

  “Who I am is none of your concern. You’re no wizard. You cheated in the test,” the voice said, moving around the room.

  Turning in circles, Roland tried to follow it. “I am a wizard!” Roland hollered to the darkness. “I did not cheat. I outsmarted them. There’s a difference.”

  The voice laughed, deep and guttural, oppressive and everywhere at once.

  “What do you want with me?” Roland backed up against a wall. “Leave me alone.”

  “You can’t get away from me, Coward,” the voice boomed at his right side. “What are you doing, hiding in the Citadel, when your friends are out fighting?”

  “What do you mean?” Roland groaned.

  “Bak is out flying around on a dragon, a majestic being, trying to save Alaris. Alli is with the Chief Judge, preparing to fight. Even Onius is with Kanzar, hopefully making a difference.” The voice reverberated inside Roland’s mind. He couldn’t escape it.

  “But you sit here, all safe in the Citadel. You are weak. A weak, pathetic coward!”

  Roland sank to the ground and brought his knees
up to his chest, rocking back and forth. He knew the voice was right. He was weak. And he was no wizard! His mind faded into the distance, and hollowness began to grow within him.

  * * *

  Sometime later, he felt his body twitch. He didn’t know if he had slept or just zoned out. He fingered the cylinder in his hand, and a small, distant thought came back to his mind. He had saved the Chief Judge’s life—twice. He had removed poison from Eryck. He wasn’t weak. He was strong.

  He reached out, feeling around on the floor, blindly trying to find the lid to the cylinder. The voice tried to speak again, but Roland pushed it back.

  “I am not weak,” he forced himself to say out loud. “I passed the test. I am a wizard. A powerful wizard!” The more positively he talked, the better he felt.

  There, finally, he found the lid. Lifting it to the top of the cylinder, he screwed it back on. As soon as he did so, the disturbing voice went silent. Also, the room grew lighter—not from removing darkness but from removing evil. The foul stench had also disappeared. Roland realized then that the voice was his own insecurities, the darkest part of his mind. Everyone had some.

  “I am one of the most powerful wizards in the land,” Roland repeated to himself. More than ever before he knew that this was true, now that he’d totally vanquished his doubts. He also knew that magic existed in this room; in the artifacts. That meant there should be a way for Roland to reach his magic also. This was a task he could put his mind to. Something to keep him sane.

  He sat on the ground and began to think, pushing his mind deeper and deeper, taking himself into a trance. He thought about nothing else. The room seemed to grow more distant, and he felt as if the Citadel did not exist around him any more, Alaris didn’t matter, and the world was just a temporary place for people’s bodies to reside. He pushed his mind and spirit farther and farther beyond his mere physical existence. To a magical stream of consciousness. He would find his magic again—because he was magic!