by Dan Oakley
“Just how big is this basement?” I asked.
So far I’d only seen the large meeting room we stood in, part of the corridor and the admiral’s office.
“It runs all along the whole row of shops,” Toddo said. “Interconnected routes have been constructed to link every property on this street. So we have multiple entrances and exits in case we need to leave in a hurry.”
“I had no idea it was so vast,” Kira said. “It’s very well disguised.”
Toddo stroked his chin and shook his head. “Valletta,” he said again. “I wonder what she’s thinking.”
His words were making me nervous. I was expecting some all-powerful giant mage to put me through my paces, and I was sure I’d come up sorely lacking.
“Come with me,” Toddo said after a moment. “I’ll take you to him.”
Before I left, I muttered a warning to Bayliss to keep Draylan out of trouble. I could see they’d partaken of more ale while I’d been meeting with the admiral, and the more Draylan drank, the louder he got.
Toddo led me out of the meeting room and down the staircase, and along the narrow corridor past the admiral’s office, and kept walking. We passed numerous doorways but didn’t enter until we reached the door that had been painted red, with a number of runes carved into the surface.
Toddo shot me an apologetic look and then shouted at the top of his voice. “Valletta! Valletta, let me in.”
His voice echoed around the corridor.
We waited, but nothing happened. I couldn’t help wondering why he didn’t simply knock on the door.
Toddo tried again, this time cupping his hands around his mouth. “Valletta! You must open the door immediately, by order of the admiral.”
His cries reverberated around us, and there was a noise from inside, and as we waited, I turned to Toddo and asked, “Why don’t you just knock.”
Toddo smirked. “Why don’t you try it?”
Tentatively, I reached out and rapped softly on the door. But instead of my knuckles making any sound, I felt a blow to my head.
Disorientated, I ducked and stepped back. Toddo burst out laughing.
“You didn’t go to mage school, did you?”
I scowled as he continued to laugh.
“What just happened?”
Toddo pointed to the door. “It’s the runes; he’s put an echo rune spell on the door, so if you knock on it, you get knocked. If you kick it, you get kicked, if you shout at it, your voice echoes back to you. It’s really quite annoying.”
He tried again, this time roaring. “Valletta! The admiral requires your presence.”
That seemed to work because, in the next couple of seconds, the door opened.
I braced myself, expecting to face a giant spacemage in an elaborate cloak, but instead, I had to look down, quite a long way down. The man in the doorway was short. The top of his head barely met the middle of my chest. His arms and legs were short and stumpy. As he looked up, his sharp hazel eyes focused on me for a moment. I thought I saw a glimmer of interest, and then the expression on his face was replaced by one of boredom.
“What do you want?” he asked, with his hand on the door, seemingly ready to slam it shut.
“This is Tomas of Terrano,” Toddo said quickly. “He is a spacemage, apparently a very powerful one. Unfortunately, he’s never had any formal training.”
Valletta looked at me, a spark of curiosity showing in his eyes, but he fought it and turned away. “What’s that got to do with me?”
“It’s your job to train him.”
“No way,” Valletta said bluntly, not bothering to spare my feelings. “I don’t train mages anymore.”
He began to shut the door, but Toddo quickly said, “You don’t have a choice, Valletta. This request comes straight from the admiral.”
Valletta hesitated and then exhaled a long breath. “What did I do to deserve this?” he muttered. Then he turned to Toddo. “What are you still hanging around for? I might have to train this one,” he said, pointing to me, “but that doesn’t mean I have to put up with you as well.”
“Lovely to see you again too, Valletta. See you later, Tomas. Good luck.” Toddo turned and walked away.
When Toddo left, I turned back to look at the small man. Despite his short stature, he was intimidating. His hazel eyes were sharp and intelligent.
“Well, what’s so special about you?” he asked, leaving me standing in the hall, not inviting me in.
“Nothing, as far as I’m concerned,” I said, not wanting to confide anything in such a cantankerous character.
“The admiral clearly thinks otherwise so you’d better come in,” he said grudgingly, opening the door a little wider.
I stepped inside and looked around in wonder. Valletta had set himself up some kind of laboratory. There were glass flasks full of colored liquids bubbling away over small flames, and every blank space of wall had been covered with rune carvings. At one far end, he had a padded chair and a footstool, surrounded by bookshelves. It looked like a comfortable enough spot. I pictured myself there, sitting and reading, soaking up knowledge from past spacemage masters.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to happen today.
“Don’t even think about touching my books,” Valletta warned, holding up a stubby finger and wagging it at me. His hands were covered with golden rings embedded with jewels. I noticed intricate engravings on the sides of the rings and wondered if they were magical runes too.
“Fine. What do I have to do then?” I asked, hoping to get training out of the way as soon as possible so I could return to my friends and make sure Draylan hadn’t been kicked out.
He smacked his lips. “Ha! I have just the thing for you to do. The perfect training exercise!”
He waved me over to a bench and set down a glass beaker on the paper-lined surface. Beside the beaker, he set what looked like a pile of polished pebbles.
“Sit there,” he said, pointing to a three-legged stool by the bench. “And put each of those pebbles, one by one, into the beaker using your magic.”
I looked at him in disbelief. I wasn’t exactly advanced, but this was beneath even me. I’d moved much more substantial things than a small pebble with ease.
“No offense, but I can do that easily. When we were stuck on Tor, I was moving all the mutant lizard carcasses around with my magic. Maybe we could start at a higher level,” I said.
His mouth curved up in a knowing smile. “Control,” he said. “That’s what you need to learn. That’s the secret to becoming a great mage.”
With a huff of frustration, I quickly put each pebble, one by one, into the glass.
Valletta observed me, and when I was done, he poured the pebbles back onto the bench and then put a small measure of blue liquid into the beaker.
“Now do it again, without making the barest ripples on the surface of the liquid,” Valletta ordered sternly.
I tried. It was harder than I expected. On the previous occasion, I’d been lifting the pebbles and letting them drop into the jar, which was probably about half as much work as carefully controlling their fall. It was almost impossible to move the pebbles slowly enough to prevent ripples on the surface of the liquid.
The intense concentration was giving me a headache, but I carried on, moving the pebbles, one by one, as Valletta watched.
“There’s no point getting advanced before you have the basics down,” he said.
“They said I was talented. It doesn’t take much talent to do this.”
“You’re wrong; it takes patience, as well as ability and control. You have some raw material there, Tomas. I doubt the admiral is wrong about you, but when you have the power, it’s even more important for you to have a solid foundation.”
When we finally finished with the pebbles, he handed me individual crystals marked with runes and told me to infuse my energy into each of them. When I did so, he inspected the crystal, marked down the color, and made notes in his book. His writing was scra
wled, and I found it impossible to read most of what he was writing about me.
When he pulled out yet another drawer full of crystals, I felt my anger flare. I didn’t have time for this. I needed to help Trella. How was this making me more powerful?
“Look, I’m sure you’re a very good mage. But this isn’t helpful. I need to get back to my friends.”
“Your friends are fine without you for a little while,” Valletta said. “This is important.”
I was beginning to think the admiral had sent me to Valletta to waste my time. How was this supposed to improve my abilities?
He handed me a crystal that was cut in the shape of a pyramid. I clutched it, feeling its sharp edges digging into my skin, and the gem glowed with brilliant white light. It was so bright I had to use my other hand to shade my eyes.
The rune patterns on the walls flickered and then glowed intensely.
Valletta quickly snatched the crystal from my hand and watched me, concern in his eyes.
“Have you heard the legend of the chosen mage?” Valletta asked.
I shook my head. I was starting to suspect the admiral had just sent me down here to Valletta to keep me out of the way. They were plotting something.
“No, I haven’t. Has it got anything to do with the Mage Queen?”
The severe expression disappeared from Valletta’s face, and he smiled. “Yes, it’s something of a tale they tell young children. I suppose, growing up in a non-mage family, you missed out on a lot of that.”
I looked up sharply. He’d seemed surprised when I came down here, so how did he know anything about me if the admiral hadn’t filled him in?
“What do you know of me, Valletta?”
“Only the things you reveal about yourself,” he said. “You’ve had barely any training and yet any mage worth their salt would be able to tell you have a lot of power within you, so I can only guess that means you were brought up amongst non-magical entities.”
I nodded. “Yes, I was brought up on Terrano, though I lived with a mage for some time. She wanted to teach me about magic, but I wasn’t interested.”
“Why not?”
“Because magic was seen as evil on Terrano. I didn’t want to be different.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “That’s the problem with the Kingdoms. Everyone wants to be the same as everyone else. There was a time when we celebrated differences.” He got to his feet and opened another drawer, pulling out yet more crystals.
I groaned.
“While we use these,” he said, “I’ll tell you the legend of the chosen mage.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. I gave him a tight smile. “Great.”
Chapter 13
Valletta handed me another crystal. I gripped it in my fist, and it glowed light green.
He made a careful note in his book.
“Are you going to tell me what all this means?” I asked, holding up the crystal.
He snatched it out of my hand and replaced it with another, smaller crystal. “No, you wouldn’t understand anyway, and I don’t have time to teach you the finer points of crystallography.”
“But there is a point to it all?” I asked, exasperated.
“Of course there’s a point. I wouldn’t be doing it if there wasn’t. Now hold this crystal above your head.”
Feeling foolish, I did as he asked.
“Are you going to tell me about the legend of the chosen mage then?” I asked.
His mouth lifted in a smile and his eyes twinkled. “Ah, so you are interested.”
“Well, it beats sitting in silence, holding crystals.”
He put the small crystal away, back in its case, and then handed me another one, the largest one yet. When I took it from him, I was surprised that nothing happened. All the other crystals had glowed in varying shades and felt either hot or warm in my hand, but with this one, there was nothing.
Valletta’s eyes widened a little, but of course, he didn’t tell me what it meant. “Interesting, very interesting.”
“So… the legend?”
“Yes, yes, I’m just getting to that.” He made me wait while he made yet another note in his book, and then looked up. “It’s an old story, older than the Kingdoms themselves. To do with the oppression and hardship of mages. It is said that an orphan boy, possessing powerful magic, is hidden away in one corner of the universe and brought up in a family with no magical abilities. He has a hard start in life, but after he is shown kindness by a fellow mage, he begins to learn the true meaning of magic. It is said that the chosen mage will fulfill the prophecy.”
He handed me another crystal.
“What prophecy?”
“The chosen mage is the one who has the power to allow the Mage Queen to rule again.”
“I thought there was no such thing as the Mage Queen. I’m not sure I believe in it myself. It sounds like a child’s fairy tale.”
“I’d have to agree with you there. Besides, the story’s been passed down through generations and has become corrupt with each retelling. Who knows what the true prophecy is?”
He handed me another crystal and smiled. At least I wasn’t boring him anymore, I supposed. He seemed fascinated by the reactions of each crystal in my hand.
“Are we going to do any other training today?” I asked.
“Patience really isn’t your strong suit is it, Tomas?”
“No, not when my friend’s in danger, and I’m sitting here holding crystals. I should be helping her.”
He sat back thoughtfully. “And how do you intend to help her?”
“That’s the point. I don’t know. I came here because Toddo said the resistance would help.”
“What he says doesn’t matter. It’s the admiral who rules the roost around here. What did she say to you?”
“She seemed to suggest they would help, but not straight away. She thought the fact that inquisitors were following Toddo meant it was too dangerous to act now.”
“And don’t you think she has a point?”
“Well, of course, but who’s to say it won’t be even more dangerous tomorrow or next week?”
“Well, I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait. Nothing happens around here without her say-so. And don’t fall into a trap other men have before you. Don’t let her appearance deceive you. She is extremely powerful.”
“More powerful than me?” I asked, genuinely interested.
“There’s a big difference between raw power and trained power, Tomas. Don’t ever forget that.” He leaned forward, his sharp hazel eyes fixed on my face.
“I won’t,” I said after he grabbed my arm urgently. “There was a mage who spoke to my friend earlier and unnerved her a bit. His name is Jonno, and he said he had psychic abilities. He said she was going to betray me.”
Valletta had been rummaging around for yet more crystals, but he paused. He kept his back to me as he spoke. “And did you believe him?”
“No, I didn’t. I just wondered if you had any idea why he would say such a thing. I guessed he was making up the psychic bit.”
“He’s not making it up. Jonno has a gift that most mages do not possess. That said, he doesn’t handle it correctly. There is a nuance to these kinds of things. And Jonno is most definitely not nuanced. He sees things in black-and-white. Friend or foe.”
“I don’t care what Jonno says, there is no way Kira would betray me. So he must be making it up to cause trouble.”
“That’s a distinct possibility. Jonno is a troublesome mage. Then again, the most creative and powerful types always are. I don’t flatter myself to be a genius, but I have a great deal of power, and sometimes it can make me act in a way that seems a little odd to others.”
“You mean hiding yourself away down here, away from everybody else like a kind of recluse?”
“Yes, like that.”
His voice was cold. I had thought he was warming to me, but perhaps not. Perhaps he was yet another person here I needed to keep a close watch on. After
a few moments silence, as he wrote furiously in his book, he looked up, placed his pen on the bench, and sighed. “I apologize. I don’t often deal with people, and I forget my manners.”
“That’s all right,” I said.
I thought he was friendlier to me now than when I’d arrived an hour ago. He probably saw me as some kind of pet project rather than someone he would enjoy spending time with, but at least he’d lost his bored, contemptuous look.
“How did you and your friend end up here on Marrachi?” Valletta asked.
I sighed. “It’s a long story.”
He chuckled. “That’s okay; we have plenty of time.”
He handed me another crystal, and as soon as my fingers closed around it, it glowed purple and smelled of the ripe heathers of Terrano. I felt a pang of homesickness for my homeland and Maureena.
“I was taken to serve the Kingdoms aboard the KSS Morellic. Trella was already on board, and she was working with the inquisitors when they captured us on Terrano. She trained me on the ship for a little while, and we were sent on a mission, a suicide mission, to the planet Tor, but we didn’t know it at the time.”
“That’s the planet that had the nuclear disaster, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “Yes, Kira, the friend Jonno said would betray me, was the only survivor. It happened when she was a child. When the rest of our team abandoned us, Trella, Kira, and I had to survive on the planet alone. We grew close.”
Valletta nodded thoughtfully. But he didn’t interrupt. He was a good listener, and I missed Trella, so I began to talk to him and open up, telling him about the challenges we’d faced on Tor and how we had pulled together to overcome them. After some minutes passed, I realized how much I’d confided in him and looked up, embarrassed.
“Don’t stop,” he said. “It’s interesting, and I’m not here to judge you.”
“There’s not much more to tell.” I finished by saying, “We were taken by the pirates, but we managed to get control of their ship with Finn’s help.”
Valletta handed me a jagged slither of crystal and said, “Tell me more about this Zarak character.”
