Magium

by Chris Michael Wilson

  “That’s definitely possible,” I say. “I’m guessing that the cities of Varathia already have their own defenses against Tyrath’s armies, and he’s also got the animals to worry about. It would be a pretty bad idea for him to unleash his armies now, when there are mages wandering around the continent, capable of slaughtering hundreds of monsters without much effort.”

  “We should let the king know about this,” Daren says. “He might want to make some preparations, in case these events really come to pass.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Although, I’m not sure if he could actually do anything to protect this city even if he knew about this stuff in advance. A few flying machines and some mages aren’t exactly going to be a lot of help in breaking up the fight between a stillwater and a dragon.”

  I sigh, before I continue.

  “I don’t know why I’m getting the feeling that we’re going to have to deal with that dragon in one way or another, if we want there to be any organizers left alive to hand us the prize at the end of the tournament.”

  “Ooh,” Daren says. “And are you going to defeat the dragon by yourself too, just like you said you’d save all the cities? You’ve got a busy schedule ahead of you, I’ll tell you that!”

  “Shut up,” I say. “I know I can’t do it all by myself. I only said that on the spur of the moment, because Eiden was pissing me off with his defeatist attitude. Luckily, I’ve got a friend who’s a well-known legendary mage that might be able to lend me a hand, if things get too rough. He can’t cast a proper shield spell to save his life, and he sucks at magical theory, but at least he’s decent enough with a sword and shield.”

  “Hey, now, is that any way to ask someone for a favor?” Daren says, with a grin. “Where’s the head bow? Where’s the pleading tone in your voice? Remember, you’re speaking with one of the most renowned heroes in the world, here.”

  “Actually, you’re right…” I tell Daren, in a more serious tone. “I should not be joking when discussing such matters. Allow me to ask you again, in a more proper way.”

  I then bow my head, and I use a much more humble tone in my voice, as I ask Daren my next question.

  “Please, Daren,” I say, “will you help me?”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa…” Daren says, as he takes a step back. “I was joking, Barry! It was a joke. I thought you’d have been familiar with my sense of humor by now. Listen, if saving the cities of Varathia is really that important to you, then we’ll see what we can do, alright? Just stop bowing your head, already! It’s making me uncomfortable…”

  “In either case,” Kate says, as I am now raising my head back up, “we shouldn’t rely too much on Eiden’s promise to give Barry powers if he succeeds in his task. The terms of their agreement are much too vague, and Eiden could very well change his mind at any moment.”

  “I agree,” Daren says. “However, given the vague information we have about this so-called calamity, the only way we can be certain that it doesn’t happen is by taking care of both Eiden and the dragon, and that is… definitely not going to be an easy task.”

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “I know what kind of tricks Eiden’s using, now. I’m sure I’ll have them all figured out in no time. I haven’t been studying magic all my life for nothing.”

  “Hah!” Arraka says. “Now there’s something I would love to see: Eiden getting beaten by his own tricks.”

  “Let’s not be too hasty,” Daren says. “Barry only figured out two of his tricks so far. I’m guessing Eiden would know hundreds of them after his long life as a stillwater. Anyway, I’d say we’ve talked enough about Eiden. Let’s pick up our pace. We’ve spent quite a bit of time in that marketplace, so we’d better hurry up if we don’t want to leave the king waiting.”

  It takes us about another hour to finally reach the front gate of the king’s palace. The king’s servant was waiting for us at the entrance, and as soon as we get within hearing range of him, he announces that Golmyck is currently waiting for us inside. As we make our way into the throne room, we see that the gnome is sitting on the floor, on all fours, with a wrench in his hand, trying to adjust the height of his throne.

  “Just a minute,” Golmyck says, as he tightens one last bolt at the base of his throne.

  He then gets up from the ground, and he gives us each one quick look.

  “I see that the young lessathi girl has decided to join your group,” Golmyck says, and then he turns to Leila. “I’m very sorry about your father. He was a respectable inventor, and he did not deserve the fate that he got. Unfortunately, there was no way for me to intervene in his trial, even if I suspected the evidence to be forged. For what it’s worth, I made sure to cancel his pursuit as soon as he escaped the city, so he at least won’t need to watch his back, on his way to Ollendor.”

  “…Thank you,” Leila writes, not knowing exactly what else to say.

  “You are here for the documents, yes?” Golmyck says, now turning to us. “Follow me to my private room. I will stamp the papers for you there.”

  He goes to pull the lever behind the throne, and the path towards his secret subterranean room opens up once more, just like the last time when we’ve visited the castle.

  “Barry, as usual, the throne room is in your care until I return,” Golmyck says.

  “Yes, your highness,” the king’s servant says.

  “Barry?” Leila writes, looking very confused.

  “Yeah, that’s what the king’s servant is called,” Hadrik says, while we go down the stairs towards the secret room. “Isn’t that hilarious? We’ve been joking about it for hours after the last time we came here.”

  “I see…” Leila writes.

  When we reach the subterranean chamber, the king lays out a few papers on his desk, and he begins to stamp them, one by one. While the gnome is busy with his papers, I suddenly remember the lessathi that came to visit me in my holding cell, below the arena, and the device that he gave me.

  I panic for a few seconds, and I start feeling my pockets with both my hands, to see if the device is still there, but I calm down when I realize that I’ve already thrown it away while I was heading towards the castle, since I didn’t see any reason to hold onto it anymore.

  “So, uh…” Daren says, while looking at Golmyck. “I think there’s something we should let you know about. We ran into Eiden on our way to the castle, and he told us that there will be a calamity shortly before the end of this tournament that will destroy all the cities in Varathia. A calamity that will be triggered by his actions. We are suspecting that he might get into a fight with the dragon Tyrath, which is what will cause all the damage.”

  “I see…” Golmyck says, as he takes a short pause from stamping the documents, to think about what Daren said. “Well, if this calamity is indeed of the magnitude that you describe, then it would serve no purpose to try fortifying our defenses. The only way we could survive such a thing is to make sure it doesn’t happen at all. Did Eiden tell you that this calamity would involve the dragon?”

  “No,” Daren says. “But he implied that destroying the cities is not his actual purpose, even though their eradication would happen due to his actions. A fight between him and the dragon is the only thing we could think of that would make sense, given these circumstances.”

  “Hmm…” Golmyck says, as he rubs his chin. “There is something that I don’t fully understand, here. Perhaps you could clarify it for me. What exactly is your affiliation with Eiden? He has personally intervened to save your lives before, and I see that you know him well enough to have private discussions with him, but I can’t tell in what way you are connected to him. Have any of you been acquainted with him from before you came to Varathia?”

  “No,” Daren says. “We all met him here for the first time.”

  “Then why is he so fixated on you, and not on any of the other participants?” Golmyck says. “Surely you cannot be the only unique group that has joined this tournament?”

  “Actually, for al
l we know, he may also be visiting other groups of mages,” I say. “He has the ability to identify people by their auras from very long distances, and he can teleport anywhere he wants, so it wouldn’t take him much effort to do it.”

  “I see…” Golmyck says. “Yes, I suppose you could be right. As long as we do not know his exact purpose, we cannot assume that your group is the only one he’s interacted with so far.”

  He pauses.

  “Now, then…” Golmyck says, as he gets a serious look in his eyes. “Leaving Eiden and the calamity aside, I believe there was a more pressing issue that we agreed we’d discuss once you’d be free from your imprisonment. Am I correct in assuming that you are all still on board with our plans concerning the lessathi?”

  “Of course…” I say, as I take a quick glance towards the others, to make sure that none of them changed their minds in the meantime.

  “What about your new friend?” Golmyck says. “Will she be joining you as well?”

  “We haven’t told her anything,” Kate says, “since you said we shouldn’t talk about any of this outside your room, but I think that she may want to come with us as well, given the circumstances.”

  “Ah, yes,” Golmyck says. “Especially since some of the lessathi you are about to fight are the ones who imprisoned her, and also the ones who conspired with her landlord to sell her father into slavery…”

  “Wait, what are you talking about?” Leila writes. “Why are you fighting the lessathi?”

  “We’ve been told,” Kate says, “that there is a select group of lessathi who reside in this city, and who have been tasked by the other kings of Varathia to keep the gnome king in check and to make sure that he does not overstep his boundaries. We intend to rid the king of this problem.”

  “You want to kill all the lessathi in this city?” Leila writes, shocked. “You can’t! If you kill any one of them, the others will find out, and they will send back word to their main headquarters. You will become one of their main targets!”

  “I would be surprised if I weren’t already one of the lessathi’s main targets,” Kate says. “They should know very well who I am.”

  “Actually, the lessathi will not have the time to contact their main headquarters,” Golmyck says, as we all turn towards him. “When I accepted your help, it was because I already had an idea of how you could deal with this problem in a timely manner, without it affecting your tournament schedule. There would have been no use in requesting your aid if there wasn’t a quick way to deal with all of the lessathi at the same time, before they get the chance to alert their allies.”

  “What do you mean?” Hadrik says.

  “The lessathi will be holding a meeting in about two hours from now,” Golmyck says, “in a subterranean chamber situated not far from this castle. The main purpose of this meeting is to discuss the political implications of the earl of Ollendor’s murder, and how it will affect them and the city of Thilias in the coming weeks. At first, this gathering was supposed to be held after your trial and execution. However, as I suspected, Eiden’s intervention forced them to postpone it until after the end of the arena fights. Since you all managed to survive, I am quite certain that they will have a lot to discuss, especially regarding the reaction that Ollendor will be having to this unexpected turn of events. The meeting is mandatory for all the four lessathi who reside in this city, so you will have the opportunity to attack them all at once, without fearing that any of them will find out what happened to their comrades, and go into hiding.”

  “But how will we get there without being noticed?” Daren asks.

  “This room that we are now standing in is connected to a large network of underground tunnels,” Golmyck says. “One of these tunnels will lead you exactly where you need to go. I know this, because I’ve had one of my spies follow Barry through one of the underground corridors, and directly to the lessathi headquarters a few weeks ago. Luckily, none of them know that this room of mine also has a secret entrance to the tunnels, so they haven’t bothered to post any guards at this particular entrance.”

  “Hold on, hold on,” Hadrik says. “When you say Barry, you’re talking about your servant, right?”

  “Oh, that’s right, I meant my servant!” Golmyck says. “I keep forgetting that I need to specify.”

  “Well, if it’s your servant, then couldn’t you have just asked him for the information directly?” Hadrik says. “Why would you go through the trouble of having him followed?”

  “Oh,” Golmyck says, smiling. “It’s because my servant is a traitor. He’s been working with the lessathi for years. That’s why I never let him inside my private room.”

  “A traitor?” Hadrik asks, shocked. “What the hell, man? If you’ve known that he’s a traitor for so long, then why do you still keep him around?”

  “It’s because Barry has never been very smart,” Golmyck says. “He is extremely easy to read, and he also never manages to realize when he’s being followed. I’d much rather have him as a plant, than someone who would be smart enough to actually fool me. And this way, I get to find out useful information about the lessathi, such as the exact hour and location of their meeting today. It’s very convenient. All I need to do is let slip some seemingly sensitive, but ultimately useless information to him every once in a while, to avoid suspicion, and I get to have my own spy in the lessathi organization, with minimal effort on my part.”

  So the king’s servant was a traitor… Now I understand why that lessathi who I met in the prison knew about my stat device. It’s because I showed it to the servant on my way to the arena. Damn it, I should have been more careful.

  “Does that mean that you will also have your servant killed once we’re done with our job?” Daren asks.

  “Oh, goodness, no!” Golmyck says. “Barry is harmless. There would be no reason to kill him. He does not know any lessathi other than the ones in this city, so as soon as those four are dealt with, he will revert to being just my servant, without any of the spying shenanigans.”

  “Do you have some sort of map of the underground tunnels that could help us reach our destination?” Kate asks.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do!” Golmyck says, as he takes a folded parchment from his pocket and then begins to unfold it.

  He lays out the map on the workbench, so we can all see it clearly, and then he explains to us in detail which of the tunnels we’ll need to take, and where the lessathi headquarters is located on the map.

  “Arraka, can you—” Illuna starts to say, but she gets interrupted.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ve got it,” Arraka says. “Hold on a sec.”

  She then conjures a detailed hologram of the underground tunnels, although the map seems to be a little different from how she usually draws it. The lines that represent the edges of the corridors are no longer all drawn in the same color. Some of them are blue, while others are green.

  “Is there any reason why you decided to use a different color for some of the corridors?” I say.

  “Yeah, the green tunnels are the ones that I can’t actually detect with my magical sense,” Arraka says. “I only put them there because they’re on the map. They probably have walls and ceilings made of seredium, which block my magical sense. I have no idea if there are people walking through them, or if they can even be accessed at all. The path to your destination doesn’t have any seredium on it, though, so at the very least you can be sure that you won’t encounter any guards on your way there.”

  “What about the meeting room?” I say. “Is there anyone inside it right now?”

  “No,” Arraka says. “Their headquarters is empty. I would have put some dots in there, if there were people in it.”

  “So, where are we going to wait for the next two hours?” Daren says. “Should we go outside, or?…”

  “Oh, no, no, you should definitely not go outside,” Golmyck says. “If you leave now and come back only a few minutes before the lessathi’s meeting, my servant may get suspicio
us and contact them in some way. You can wait right here. I don’t really have any chairs in this room, but I’ve only just cleaned the floor, so you can sit on the ground if you want.”

  He then stamps two more documents, and he hands them over to us, so we can each take a look at them.

  “There you go,” the king says. “These papers should be enough to absolve you of your crimes, no matter where you go in Varathia. Now, if there’s nothing else you need from me, I will be resuming my work on the lessathi device that was supposed to send you the instructions related to the tournament’s objectives, telepathically. I’ve been trying to get it fixed for more than a week, but I still can’t figure out what’s wrong with it, so you can imagine how frustrating this has been for me.”

  As Golmyck goes to work on his device, Hadrik puts down his backpack, and he reaches within it, to pull out a deck of playing cards.

  “So…” Hadrik says. “Anyone up for a game of cards?”

  We spend the next hour or so playing a card game that Hadrik learned from dwarven taverns. Apparently, one of the original rules of the game was that a player needed to take a sip of dwarven ale every time they lost a hand, but we had to scrap this rule for obvious reasons. The game involved a lot of bluffing, so it was no surprise that Leila was the one who came out on top, given that she could read auras, to tell if someone was lying. Since I was the one she could get a read on the easiest, due to the fact that for some reason, she can see my aura become ‘spiky’ every time I lie, I eventually got tired of losing every single match, and I decided to take a break to read my notebook some more, in the hopes of finding more loopholes that Eiden might be using.

  “Hey, Daren,” I say, after reading through the notebook for some time. “Remember that one time when Eiden paralyzed every one of you? Right before he teleported us in front of Thilias?”

  “What?…” Daren says, as he’s trying to focus on his cards while listening to me. “Oh, yeah, I remember. What about it?”