Magium

by Chris Michael Wilson

  “Oh, come on!” Hadrik says. “It’s not like Talmak can only cast earth magic. You’ve seen him at the last year’s sage contest. He can cast lightning magic too. And a whole bunch of other spells!”

  “Yes,” Daren says. “Basic spells. I never saw him cast any complex spells outside of his own specialization.”

  “Does it matter if they’re simple spells?” Hadrik says. “He can just use his huge energy to boost them and then they’ll be just as strong as the more complex spells!”

  “That would just be a waste of magical energy!” Daren says. “There’s a reason why more complex versions of the basic spells were invented. It’s because they’re cost-effective.”

  “Why would Talmak care about cost?” Hadrik says. “He has plenty of energy to spare. It’s not like we’ve ever seen him run out of energy in a duel before. Hell, as far as we know, his magical regeneration abilities may well be high enough that he can gain his energy back before he even has a chance to spend it!”

  “Ugh!” Daren says. “Barry, can you believe this guy? He’s actually trying to make a case that Azarius would lose in a fight against Talmak!”

  “Yeah, I honestly couldn’t imagine Azarius ever losing in a fair fight,” I say.

  “Bah!” Hadrik says. “Asking Barry is cheating. He’s from the Western Continent. Of course he’d root for Azarius.”

  “That’s just not true!” Daren says. “I come from the Southern Continent, but if someone were to ask me who would win in a fight between Azarius and the Sage of the South, I’d still pick Azarius, hands down.”

  “Fine, fine…” Hadrik says. “Okay, I’ve got another one for you, then! Who do you think would win in a duel between Eiden and Arraka?”

  “Didn’t this fight already happen, though?” I say. “During the still winter, I mean. I’m pretty sure that Eiden ripped Arraka to shreds the last time they fought.”

  “Well, from what I’ve heard,” Hadrik says, “the last time they’ve fought it was Eiden and the fox against Arraka, so it was a two on one fight.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “but you’re forgetting that Arraka was also fused with some other stillwater at the time. So it wasn’t a two on one fight, it was a two on two fight. That’s close enough to a duel for me. Like I said, Eiden mopped the floor with Arraka the last time they fought.”

  “Hey!” Arraka says. “Hey! What the hell are you talking about? Nobody mopped the floor with anyone! And Therius doesn’t count! He was a weakling! You can’t even compare him with the golden fox, let alone Eiden!”

  “Yeah, right,” I say. “If he was such a weakling, then how come you weren’t even able to take over his body properly, during your awakening?”

  “That has nothing to do with power, you idiot!” Arraka says. “Didn’t your friend tell you about ethereals? The guy had an overwhelming advantage while we were fighting in his own mind. In a fair fight I would have annihilated him! And the same goes for Eiden!”

  “Uh-huh,” I say. “You say that, but you still lost against him in the still winter.”

  “That’s because Eiden uses tricks!” Arraka says. “In terms of raw power, I’m way stronger than him!”

  “Who cares if you’re technically stronger than him?” I say. “Fighting isn’t just about strength. You also need to know how to use it.”

  “This isn’t about him being more skilled than me, you moron!” Arraka says. “I’m saying that he’s cheating! He isn’t using magic the way you’re supposed to!”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I say.

  “Forget it!” Arraka says. “I’m not going to sit here and waste time explaining to you how magic works. Tell you what. Why don’t you ask Eiden directly what I meant? He’s been standing there invisibly right next to you for the past twenty seconds, so I’m sure he doesn’t have anything better to do, at this time.”

  As soon as Arraka is done talking, Eiden dismisses his invisibility spell, while wearing his usual polite smile on his face, with his eyes closed.

  “You just won’t let me have any fun, will you, Arraka?” Eiden says.

  “Again?” Daren asks Eiden. “Good gods! What will it take for you to stop stalking us?”

  “There’s no need to be so rude,” Eiden says. “Especially when I came all the way here only to congratulate you on your magnificent performance in the arena!”

  “Uh-huh,” Hadrik says, not looking very convinced. “You sure that’s the only reason why you came here?”

  “Now that you mention it, there was another reason!” Eiden says. “You see, I couldn’t help but notice that the direction in which you’ve been heading since you left the arena leads directly to the castle of Thilias. You wouldn’t happen to be going there because the king Golmyck gave you some sort of a mission, would you?”

  “What are you talking about?” Daren says, feigning ignorance. “We’re only going to the palace to get some papers.”

  “Oh?” Eiden says, in a tone suggesting that he doesn’t believe Daren at all. “Well, in either case, I just wanted to let you know that if the king happens to give you a mission that is in some way tied to the well-being of the citizens of Thilias, you shouldn’t really bother to complete it.”

  “Why not?” Daren says.

  “Because the city of Thilias will not be around for much longer,” Eiden says. “And neither will any of the other cities in Varathia, for that matter.”

  “Wait, what…” Daren says, but he is having trouble continuing his sentence. “What are you saying?…”

  “I’m saying that shortly before the end of this tournament,” Eiden says, “there will be a calamity of such proportions that it will completely eradicate every single city on this island, at the same time.”

  “And you’re telling me that you’re just going to stand idly by and watch it happen?” Daren asks, shocked. “What is wrong with you? Aren’t you supposed to be the creator of this continent?”

  “Actually, that’s a common misconception,” Eiden says. “While the people of this land may call me the Creator, the island of Varathia has been around for much longer than my lifespan. The only reason why people started to call me the Creator all those years ago was because they wanted someone to replace the old Creator, to symbolize the beginning of a new age, and they chose me to take this role because I was practically the founder of the new civilization that came after the still winter, together with the golden fox. Oh, and I think you might have slightly misunderstood what I said earlier. I will by no means stand idly by while this calamity occurs. In fact, the eradication of these cities will happen as a direct result of my own actions.”

  “You bastard!” Daren says, with his eyes full of hatred. “I’m not going to let you do this!”

  “Why, Daren,” Eiden says, “I thought that you of all people would have every reason to be happy due to this turn of events! Weren’t you the one who told me that as long as you never give up, you can find a way to save everyone? Well, I’ve found a way! A way to save them all from their misery. I assure you that a quick death would be a much better fate than most of these people deserve, and as for the rest—”

  “Oh, shut up,” I interrupt Eiden.

  “Pardon?” Eiden asks me.

  “I’ve had it with your crap,” I say. “You’re acting like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum. Whenever something doesn’t go your way, you break all of the toys and make a mess of the playground, leaving the adults to clean up after you. You did the same thing with Olmnar. Is blowing up a city your standard solution to everything?”

  Every one of my friends, including Daren, are looking way too shocked at my sudden outburst to be able to say anything, and they’re all just staring at me in disbelief. Eiden is also looking directly at me, with his eyes closed, but his smile is now gone from his face.

  “What are you getting at?” Eiden asks me, calmly.

  “I’m saying,” I say, “that there’s no way you can just build an entire civilization like that almost by yourself
, and then in the span of only a few hundred years, you simply stop caring about what happens to any of these people and you kill them off like it’s nothing. This is just you refusing to admit your mistakes. You failed. You had all the power in the world, but you still couldn’t achieve what you wanted. And instead of manning up and trying to fix things, what do you do? You just sweep it all under the rug as if none of this was your fault, and then you decide to end everything by your own hand, as if that would somehow make it better. Stop this, already. You are only making a fool of yourself.”

  “I’ve heard just about enough of this,” Eiden says, in a dismissive tone. “You speak without even knowing the situation in which the other cities are in. Do you think that slavery and arenas are the real problems in Varathia? You have no idea what’s going on in the other kingdoms. The levels to which some of these people have stooped are much lower than what you could ever imagine.”

  “So, what?” I say. “Aren’t you their leader? Isn’t it the leader’s job to make sure that his people don’t go on the wrong path? How did you even manage to let it come to this? Did you just leave them all to organize themselves without even the least bit of intervention? Hell, even I would have done a better job at keeping things under control, and I know nothing about politics.”

  “You’re saying you could have prevented this if you had my powers?” Eiden says. “You, who could not even deliver a simple message?”

  “No,” I say. “I’m saying that I could have prevented this even if I had no powers at all! You, on the other hand had all the power you needed, but all you managed to do was make things worse. What was the deal with Olmnar, anyway? Did you think that by destroying that city, the fox would forgive you? Is that what you thought? Don’t make me laugh! If you’re seeking forgiveness, then how about you start by fixing everything you broke and by not being such a damn coward!”

  Once I finish my sentence, Eiden frowns, and all of a sudden, everything around me freezes, just like that time when I first fought the dragon. He then starts slowly walking towards me, while everyone except the two of us is frozen in place. He’s looking pretty pissed.

  I decide to stand my ground and to look Eiden straight in the eyes, as he approaches me. When he gets about a foot away from me, he stops and he opens his eyes, looking at me with a very dark expression on his face.

  “You know…” Eiden says. “It has been a very long while since someone’s made me this angry. I’ll have to hand it to you, Barry. You have a very unique talent at pushing people’s buttons. Tell me, do you enjoy risking death with every possible opportunity? Do you really want to die that much?”

  “You’re not going to kill me,” I say.

  “Why not?” Eiden says.

  “Because deep down, you know I’m right,” I say. “Everything I said about you was true. Otherwise you wouldn’t have gotten so pissed off about it. Killing me now would only serve to prove my point, and that’s the last thing you want.”

  “You really do like to play with fire, don’t you?” Eiden says. “I think what makes me the angriest is the fact that you actually believe what you are saying. You actually believe that you would have been able to accomplish the impossible… to change human nature, without even having access to any of my powers. Just what exactly is it that you are basing these claims on, I wonder?”

  “I’m basing them,” I say, “on the fact that I’ve already been trying to accomplish the impossible for the better part of my life! And unlike you, I have never even thought about giving up. I mean, look at me, damn it! Look at where I am! Who would be stupid or stubborn enough to go so far just for the sake of some childhood dream? And yet, here I am.”

  I pause for a few seconds before I continue, but I keep looking Eiden straight in the eyes, during this time.

  “I don’t care about human nature,” I say, after a while. “After seeing how the people here are perfectly okay with other human beings getting treated like cattle, and after seeing how they consider people dying in an arena to be a form of entertainment, I think I’ve seen enough to know that things here need to change. And if you’re no longer going to do it, then I will. I don’t care if I have the power to do it or not. I will do it. I already told you this once before. I am going to do everything that you couldn’t do, despite your immense power, and then I’m going to come back and shove it all in your face.”

  While I was talking, some of the anger has slowly vanished from Eiden’s eyes, and he now looks a bit calmer than before. I also noticed that he’s been stretching his right arm to the side every once in a while ever since he stopped in front of me, but I have no idea for what reason.

  “One of the benefits of being very good at reading auras,” Eiden says, “is that you can tell at every point during a conversation not only if a person is lying, but also if they are hesitating in some way, from the fluctuations in their aura. The fact that you were neither lying nor being hesitant at any point during your speech just now is something that I find truly fascinating.”

  Eiden takes a few moments to consider his next words, while he stretches his right arm to the side once more.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do,” he says, as he closes his eyes again, and he slowly starts to walk back and forth, over a distance of a few feet. “Whether you want to or not, this tournament is going to require you to visit a certain number of cities. You already know that you’ll be visiting Galamir, and since you’ve met Melindra, I’m going to assume that you’ll also be visiting Ollendor soon enough. There may also be other cities, depending on what the tournament’s organizers prepare for the next rounds. I’m going to be monitoring your activity in these cities from afar, to see how much you can manage to change in the short time you’ll have at your disposal. If you will stay true to your words from earlier, and you will indeed make radical changes through your own powers, then I will personally give you the power required to stop the calamity that is threatening these cities, and afterwards, I will leave you to shape the fate of these kingdoms in whatever way you see fit. If this unlikely scenario truly comes to pass, then I will—”

  “By the gods!” I shout, interrupting him. “Arraka was right! I can’t believe it. You really are cheating!”

  “I beg your pardon?” Eiden says.

  “I just realized why you’ve been stretching your right arm every so often since you cast the time freezing spell!” I say. “And also why you’ve been walking back and forth for the past thirty seconds. It’s because of the warning message, isn’t it? I also had access to that same time freezing spell back when you powered up my stat device, so I still remember how it works! You’re not allowed to move more than a few feet from your original position, so if any part of your body goes over a certain boundary, you’re going to get a warning message, telling you that if you don’t retreat in the next ten seconds, your spell will get cancelled.”

  “And what makes you think that triggering this warning helps me in any way?” Eiden asks me.

  “It helps you,” I say, “because whoever designed that spell never bothered to take the actual warnings into account when calculating the duration! As long as you don’t go too far beyond the boundary, and you retreat at the very end of the ten second countdown, you can practically add ten more seconds to the duration of the spell every time you do this. And since the time limit of the spell has been added by design, due to safety reasons, and not due to technical limitations, you could probably lengthen the duration of this spell almost indefinitely, if you’re confident enough that you can keep it under control. So, that’s what Arraka and Tyrath had been talking about all this time, when they said that you were using tricks. It’s not that you don’t need to obey the laws of magic because you’re too powerful. You’re just taking advantage of technicalities to get around the rules, and you make it seem as if it was thanks to your power all along. You’re using loopholes!”

  “While I do commend you for figuring this out all by yourself,” Eiden says, “I really don’t
see how this could possibly help you with—”

  “It was the same with Daren, wasn’t it?” I say. “That time when you put him to sleep despite all of his protections was also because you exploited some technicality, and not because your spell ignored all the laws of magic!”

  “Oh?” Eiden asks, while raising his eyebrows with his eyes closed. “And what technicality might that be?”

  After pausing for a few seconds to think, the answer suddenly comes to me, as if it were as clear as the light of day.

  “Protection overload…” I say, as I see Eiden’s expression change a bit, even with his eyes closed. “That’s it, isn’t it? I heard that this only happens to very skilled mages that go overboard with casting protections on themselves, without taking into account that some of those spells might actually do more harm than good, because they are in conflict with each other. If you’re not careful, you could end up generating small openings in your defenses that could easily be exploited by someone that is skilled at reading the flow of auras. I could totally see Daren making a mistake like this.”

  “Extraordinary!” Eiden says, with his smile back on his face. “I’ve used that trick countless times against many formidable foes in the past, and yet nobody managed to figure it out until now. However, I still do not see how this would help you and your group if you were ever to fight me seriously. Leaving aside the fact that I’ve had hundreds of years to learn these technicalities, even if you managed to learn them all, my level of magical power still dwarfs that of most beings on this island, with very few exceptions. I would say that you are not in a better situation now, than you were when you first met me on the second day of the tournament.”