The Accidental Archmage: Book Seven (Dragons and Demons)

by Edmund A. M. Batara

  “And congratulations for your advancement,” said Hal.

  “What advancement?” replied the surprised mage.

  “Successfully finishing one of the tests for a Lesser Elder Mage,” answered X. “Though the explanation of how you accomplished that feat, which we hope you could replicate later when needed, is a matter which escapes us. It’s like passing a major qualification without undergoing proper training and education. Let’s admit it, you have huge gaps in your knowledge about the Elder path to magic.”

  “I don’t know how I did it. Everything seemed to fall into place and casting the spell just felt right,” said Tyler.

  “The correct state of mind, yet buttressed with rickety foundations,” observed X. Tyler could sense amusement in the answer. “We better find another Elder shrine fast. Your abilities are developing faster than the availability of the knowledge needed to understand and control them.”

  For his part, Tyler couldn’t see what the problem was – the results were what mattered – and he told the pair exactly that observation.

  “Elder magic is ultimately about warping reality around you, sire,” explained Hal. “The stronger one gets, the wider the area of effect. But it also needs control and understanding. Raw power could lead to unexpected and unfortunate consequences. You could inadvertently tear a hole in this world’s reality, and create another Void Land. Or create a portal which entities unknown from other worlds could enter. Limited knowledge is dangerous.”

  Or I could accidentally open a gate into this world for malignant entities from hellish dimensions, such as those the white dragon and his race are trying to prevent from gaining a foothold. Crap. Just when I thought I had something, thought the mage with disgust. Then a thought came into mind.

  “Where’s H?”

  “On his way back. Though he seemed to have taken a meandering route. He has taken to exploring like a fish to water,” replied X.

  “Tell him to hurry back. We’ll need him to scout for us when the journey to Tartarus begins,” advised the mage.

  Suddenly, a small gust of wind appeared in the middle of the clearing, gained strength, and then quickly coalesced into a humanoid form. It was Asag, wearing an absurdly satisfied smile on his face. Tyler stood up.

  “That was fast,” the mage commented as he walked toward the daemon.

  “Oh, dealing with them was quick. It was the decorating which took time.”

  “What decorating?” asked the mystified Tyler, wondering with apprehension what the daemon had done this time.

  “There were less than a couple of thousand despite what our friend here told us. I encased each in a rock shell. Don’t worry, they’ll die eventually – lack of air, hunger, boredom. But Fossegrim now has a line of stone jotnar lining its western border. If there were more, I could have enclosed the borders of the entire forest. A nice decorative touch, if I say so myself. A terrible warning to interlopers and a tasteful ornamental placement, don’t you agree?”

  ***

  “Even for jotnar, those are not good ways to die,” observed Tyndur with distaste. “Killing your enemy properly is one way of respecting them. Hacking, beheading, squeezing the breath out of their miserable lungs. The usual ways of the battlefield.”

  To Tyler’s surprise, Asag laughed loudly.

  “Oh, einherjar, I am so surprised. There are so many things you still haven’t learned through your long years, the second life included,” bawled out the daemon in between bouts of laughter. “Do you really think they’d grant you the decency of a clean death? Think about it. Me? I am just checking if my powers have fully returned.”

  “Have they?” asked Astrid, preempting the mage. Tyler was surprised at the Valkyrie’s query. Either she was sizing up Asag or Astrid had picked up a taste for the arcane during her stay in Kemet.

  “Sadly, no. I guess it would take time,” replied Asag ruefully. Then he looked at Tyler and a smile brightened his face. “But I am confident beyond all doubt that while in the company of my friend, the Archmage, I’ll be back in the fullness of my handsome and attractive form in no time at all.”

  “Huh? What do I have to do with your magical recovery?” asked the mage with alarm. The daemon continued to confuse him. It was irritatingly unsettling most of the time. Sometimes, Asag had the penchant of saying odd and bizarre statements which assumed the hearer understood what the daemon was saying.

  “The more I use my abilities, I faster I regain my original power. It’s like a dull knife. Needs constant honing to keep it sharp. And with you as the proverbial trouble magnet, I can safely say I am certain to get the practice I need!”

  Tyler shook his head in disbelief. The bastard actually wanted trouble — lots of it. To a certain extent, Asag did remind him of Loki, but with less malicious scheming. So far, the mage immediately qualified his conclusion.

  But the daemon acted like a brat most of the time, and Tyler still couldn’t determine if it was all a clever ploy. Even as a scheme, it was entirely believable, but if it wasn’t, then the mage knew he had a significant problem on his hands. All that power in the hands of a being with the mentality of a demented child. Then somebody spoke up from the rear.

  “Then we’ll make it simple; you get first crack at any enemy coming our way. You won’t find any objections from me.”

  Tyler looked and found the comment came from Habrok. The ranger had a wry expression.

  “My dear ranger, I don’t traffic with the mundane. Ordinary ones I leave to your company. Leave to me powerful ones or even an army, like that misbegotten and motley assembly of jotnar. But anything less than a large host, I refuse to touch. I have my pride,” replied Asag in a condescending tone while crossing his arms, a gesture which went with a determined look on his face.

  Tyler stared at the demon, wondering whether Asag’s personality was regressing. It looked that way. The mage remembered the daemon hadn’t been so petty and childish the first time he met the being. He hoped it wouldn’t get worse. A petulant and very powerful dark entity with the mind of a spoiled brat would be an impossible task to handle, and the bastard, from what it said, was bound to get more power if its abilities were used that often. Given their enemies, Tyler had no doubt Asag would get the practice he desired.

  “Enough,” the mage said, knowing the discussion wouldn’t end unless he acted. “Time’s a-wasting, so let’s go to where the Titans appeared. Hrun? Kindly lead the way.”

  ***

  One really couldn’t miss the area of the forest where Eira had been abducted. Upon reaching the top of a low hill, a scene of ugly devastation violated the eyes. Large swatches of fallen trees, many of them burned husks, and violently churned ground marked the location. Even on the way up the hill, the party could see massive, fallen tree trunks and giant boulders around the path they took. The battle itself must be an impressively frightening sight to behold.

  Tyler had to take a deep breath and steady himself as he surveyed the scene. He felt dizzy and nauseous. It was not only the memory of Eira being abducted which affected him when the sorry sight greeted him, but the mage also felt the impact of a strong eldritch wave radiating from the area. He then realized they were the remnants of the massive energies released during the battle, though Tyler didn’t expect the residual effect to be that tangible and physically debilitating.

  “What was that?” he immediately asked his guides.

  “Residual magic, sire,” replied X.

  “I know that, X. But why so strong? I would have expected such magic to have disappeared by now. It even passed through my shields,” observed the mage, still slightly suffering from vertigo.

  “It all depends on the power of the entities wielding or releasing such energies, sire. Considering a group of Titans, a Greek god, an ancient elemental, and a powerful draken were all throwing their kinds of magic around, the battle was bound to scramble the magical field in the area. But it will be gone in a few days,” Hal explained. “Though the innate nature of Fossegrim
must have contributed to the kind of effect the location is emanating.”

  “Given what you experienced, you can imagine the kind of power which resulted in the creation of the Barrens,” added X. “And your shields didn’t see them as a threat, being now part of the natural state of the area.”

  Then a disturbing thought stirred Tyler’s mind. If the energies released during a conflict between powerful enough entities could result in such a disabling effect, how was he supposed to fight magical battles against a number of foes with that level of power?

  “If you’re powerful enough to go against such beings, you wouldn’t be affected by the deleterious side effect. In fact, you wouldn’t even notice it,” ventured X. “Anyway, the phenomenon only arises after a certain level of magical disturbance had been reached.”

  The mere residue of the battle made me dizzy. How the fuck am I going to handle the main actors? Crapshit. Beyond my pay grade? The hell with those bitches. My wife is a captive, and I’ll tear Tartarus apart if I have to, decided the mage grimly.

  ***

  The party, except for Hrun and Asag, fanned out in the immediate area where the abduction took place. Tyler had faith that Habrok and Astrid, with their tracking skills, would be able to pick up some trace or clue.

  Each member was assigned a sector to search, but as the mage neared the edge of the ravaged, irregular shape of the destruction, Tyler noticed a stone tablet standing under an undamaged tree. It stood out like a ground marker, straight sides with a curved top. Ordinarily, such a small object would have escaped casual scrutiny, yet it called attention to itself. If there was something out of the ordinary, it was obviously that artifact.

  “Do you see that?” he asked Kobu, his perennial shadow.

  “See what, sire?”

  “A stone tablet under the eaves of that tree,” said Tyler, finger pointing to the mysterious object.

  “I don’t see anything, sire. But I do feel a distinct magical resonance coming from that direction,” offered the exile.

  “It must be meant for me,” answered the mage apprehensively. “Do you sense anything hostile, Kobu? I don’t sense any threat, and I could be wrong.”

  The exile answered quickly in the negative. Kobu mentioned that all he could detect was a miniscule ball of faint energy, but he still couldn’t see the stone tablet. He did add that the use of such objects to leave messages was fairly common among powerful magic users, though the statement came with the warning that the use of such devices as traps was not unheard of.

  “The hell with it. I do have my shields. But if it’s Titan in origin, then the bastards must be arrogantly presumptuous to leave a fucking calling card,” angrily said Tyler as he walked quickly to the spot.

  Nothing happened as he neared the object, and told the exile about it. Kobu speculated the mage must be meant to touch it. Tyler extended a hand and gingerly touched the curved top of the stone artifact.

  Chapter Four:

  The World According to Asag

  As he touched the stone, a concerned furrow momentarily appeared on his brow. The stone felt real to the touch, and warm. A quick moment later, Tyler felt stupid. Somehow, the picture of a supposedly powerful Archmage gingerly touching a stone object looked ludicrous.

  Fucking grave marker, the mage thought irritably.

  He looked back. The rest of the party was busy with their tasks except for the daemon looking in their direction. But Tyler couldn’t tell what the enigmatic entity was thinking – for once, its face was devoid of any expression.

  Of course, it’s warm. Magic, remember? You’re still an ass, Tyler, the mage thought to himself as he turned his attention back to the marker.

  A reflex action on his part brought a scrying spell to life and yet it still didn’t indicate any danger in the immediate vicinity. All the conjuration revealed were the magical sparks representing his companions, the fading echoes of the powers unleashed in the area, and a queer distortion in the spot where they discovered the marker.

  Disturbingly, in all the information the spell brought back, Asag’s was the strangest of all. The dark entity’s energy echo was a greatly disquieting void of shifting black and gray hues. The mage could sense the lack of inner solidity in the being’s form. It was as if the entity itself was but an illusion.

  Despite everything that had happened to him, Tyler still had what he called in hindsight, Earth moments – instances when he unconsciously looked at things, people and events from that reality’s point of view. The shocking enigma of Asag was relegated to the background in the face of the visible mark of their current tormentor. A mage trained in the traditional way would have placed the question of the dark creature’s true nature at the front of the queue of possible threats.

  Unfortunately, the young mage still had a long way to go along the path of his decision to turn native. It was instances like the present that brought that little, yet crucial thought to the fore – Tyler’s full concentration was instead brought to bear on the hated artifact before him.

  The stone artifact didn’t react immediately to his touch. Nothing happened. Except for its warmth, it felt and looked like an ordinary marker made of rock. He turned to the exile and dryly offered that anticlimactic observation. Then Tyler noticed that the man was staring at the object.

  He could see it?

  He was surprised and shocked at the sudden realization. Tyler looked around and the forest looked the same – fallen trees and ravaged ground. Then he found that his companions, except for the exile and the daemon who still kept his distance, were nowhere to be seen. The exile gave a wan smile.

  “An area illusion, sire, and quite powerful too, given the details reflected in the spell and the fact that its area of effect was large enough to reach here and include me,” said Kobu. “I believe the imagery around us was what it was when you touched the stone.”

  “If it’s a message or something else, it must need something more to be activated,” replied Tyler, his voice clearly marked by some relief that his world didn’t go to Hell with that slight touch. But Asag’s weird presence in the illusion considering his distance from the marker was a glaring anomaly, but the mage put it down to the daemon’s unknown abilities and level of power.

  “Prolonged contact. A forceful disturbance. Or even the destruction of the item. Those are but a few of the possible triggers. But given the benign nature of what has happened so far, I’d go with the less destructive of the choices,” advised the exile, though the mage noticed that Kobu’s weapon had transformed into two katanas. But the warrior evidently didn’t notice Asag’s presence in the semblance of reality engulfing them. A quick consideration resulted in Tyler’s conclusion that the magical energy binding Asag to him was probably the cause of the daemon’s manifestation.

  But the exile’s words of warning quickly stoked into life a red-hot brand in the mage’s nascent fury, already barely held in check by whatever self-control he had learned. Right before him was a physical manifestation of the forces which invaded his home and abducted his wife. A sudden, luminescent blaze of magical force violently erupted from his hand and blew to pieces the offending object.

  The pieces from the destroyed stone marker had scarcely dropped to the ground when a dark, purplish-colored ball of energy appeared in its place, slowly forming into the shape of the old man he had met deep in the accursed bowels of Tartarus. Again, the old man had a wry smile on his face, though he looked sprier and appeared to have shed off a decade or two.

  “YOU FUCKING SON OF A BITCH!” suddenly shouted Tyler as he recognized the figure, immediately letting loose a bolt of azure energy at the still forming mass. The scintillant, though silent, ragged beam crashed through the smoky shape and passed through onto the waiting forest beyond. Even with the blinding rage which erupted as an abrupt red haze in his mind, part of him registered the curious fact that though he could hear the sound of trees falling in front, the scenery remained undisturbed.

  “It’s but an image, s
ire,” Kobu quietly and calmly told him.

  “I know, Kobu,” coldly replied the young man through clenched teeth, never taking his eyes off the now complete image. “I did suspect this bastard was responsible for Eira’s abduction, and I only wish he was here for real.”

  “Here you are at last. I did wish our meeting would be on a gentler footing, but you have forced my hand, mortal,” said the simulacrum abruptly, catching the duo’s attention.

  “Many of my plans have been ruined or forced to be shelved because of your actions, mage. Whether they were foiled consciously or as a direct though unintended consequence of your petty, misguided quests, I don’t care. What matters is that somehow, you have done things to thwart them, to my shocked chagrin and great discomfiture,” the figure continued in a composed manner.

  Surprisingly, Tyler found the image looking directly at him. For a simple magical message, it was impressive, though eerie and discomfiting, to say the least, like an inanimate portrait whose eyes followed you around the room. He took a quick glance at the exile and saw Kobu in a relaxed stance, though the man was also listening. The warrior saw him looking back and grinned, followed by a wink. Tyler thought the man must be quite familiar with the spell or variations of it, to be so calm about the entire unfolding incident.

  “Your meddlesome activities end now. I would have taken your life back in Hellas but the events of Scarburg gave me pause, and I doubt if you willingly consider a short period of comfortable exile in Tartarus,” said the figure as it crossed its arms.

  Quite well-informed for somebody imprisoned in that shithole, observed the mage, his temper fading. As his fiery rage subsided, a growing, icy ember replaced the dangerous emotion in his mind as the young man continued to gaze on the image of the creature responsible for his beloved’s abduction.