Apprentice

by Nicholas Hale

  "You could have said that without all this violence…"

  "Maybe. But then you wouldn't remember it as well."

  With that the old man left through the black portal, and it closed in on itself leaving empty space.

  Some of Gawain's group were beginning to stir. His staff had been knocked far away, but he could stand up using the support of the wall. He limped his way towards Castor. They had been defeated fairly quickly, so he still had use of most of his spells. He raised one hand to cast a healing spell on the unconscious Castor, and hoped that whatever was in the adjoining chamber wouldn't make its way outside while they were so vulnerable.

  It was far too early in their adventures to die here.

  The great black dragon still awaited them.

  Chapter 1

  - Thirty years after Naxannor's wake

  Reaching up almost five hundred feet into the sky, the Shadow Spire seemed a spear jutting out of the parched, barren lands of southern Ryga. At its base, could be seen a town of sorts, the residents of which often ignored the existence of the tower entirely, for it was not their business what mages did. All they knew was that founding a town near it had been good fortune—they had escaped the ravages of the demon war unscathed while many other settlements a great distance beyond bore scars inflicted by the passage of the arch-demon Naxannor.

  To the residents of the town, the tower was an enigma. They knew little and did not want to know more about it. Things were fine for generations, the way they always were. If, for instance, a robed figure came out of the tower to buy supplies, he was treated hospitably, with respect and given generous discounts, all in the aid of sending him back quickly.

  Magic was alien to these people.

  Townsfolk could observe, during a stormy night, massive bolts of lightning strike the black walls of the tower, only for the stone to pulse and absorb the force, whereas any normal stone would have been shattered into pieces. And the rains. They were indeed a blessing for a town so isolated, in so parched a land. Some of the residents even felt it was the tower that created the rains.

  Simpletons, thought Thaugmir as he observed the town from the spire's terrace. The streets in the town were still empty. It was a little too early for them to be up. Their existence meant little more than a source of mundane but necessary provisions to him.

  Today, all his apprentices had woken up early to prepare the tower for a very distinguished and dangerous visitor. The tower itself had formidable defenses, but it wouldn't hurt to enhance them with his own magic. He turned around to see a group of apprentices chanting the necessary incantations to inscribe runes into the walls of the tower that would greatly suppress any offensive magical spells cast within.

  But would it be enough?

  Their visitor today was the arch-mage Gawain, keeper of Castle Norvind, whom Thaugmir had last seen a hundred years ago. Very few people knew Gawain personally, but nearly everyone knew of him. Indeed, he was the envy of every mage, for he possessed knowledge of the Lumen—one of the most powerful schools of magic in existence. Even after two centuries of plumbing the depths of magic, Thaugmir hadn't the faintest idea where to begin when it came to the Lumen.

  To that end, Valymar Skybane—curse the fool—had assembled twelve of the greatest mages from the three continents. Thaugmir had been a hundred years younger and was thrilled to be counted among such distinguished names. Also, a hundred times more foolish, he thought bitterly.

  Valymar, like other mages seeking the Lumen, had concluded that the key to its power lay in the fabled libraries of Norvind. And so, the thirteen fools had set off together to assault Norvind and, he recalled with a laugh, kill Gawain. Only Thaugmir and Devrin, another mage from the continent of Eora, had survived that ambitious endeavor.

  At first it seemed they were winning. Atop Norvind's tallest tower, the thirteen mages encircled Gawain and had beaten him into submission with a combined display of magic never before witnessed in the known lands. He remembered feeling invincible. Proud. Godly. Until Gawain lashed out and showed them just how far from gods they really were.

  Lying on the ground half naked and mortally wounded, Gawain unleashed the might of the Lumen upon his assailants.

  Another century of magical training could not have prepared Thaugmir for what followed. Obliteration. The laws of nature twisted in ways that Thaugmir couldn't even begin to imagine. Even the most accomplished of them, Valymar, could only stare as Gawain's magic ripped through his defenses. This battle, unlike their initial assault, lasted mere minutes. Minutes that felt like hours. They had exhausted all their magical energy in putting up defenses against the onslaught. Thaugmir remembered the sheer terror he had felt as the last bit of his magic was drained in another useless shield.

  It was mere chance that Devrin and Thaugmir had survived. Severely wounded, they crawled back to their own towers to lick their wounds. Thaugmir had taken a full month to recover under the intensive care of his apprentices. He still envied the Lumen, but Thaugmir decided that he liked living a lot more. He would work to become much stronger before he would consider facing Gawain again.

  Or so he thought. The time to see Gawain had come, and it was far too soon for his liking. And most certainly not in the way he had envisioned it, either.

  It started with an apprentice of Devrin's who had come knocking at the Shadow Spire. It appeared he had some rare astronomy charts for sale. At first Thaugmir had thought that the apprentice had stolen the charts from his master. Thaugmir did not care—and there was no love lost between him and Devrin; they had barely acknowledged each other during Valymar's folly, and the only thing they had in common was that they were both survivors of the same debacle. Wishing to know if the apprentice had any more magical objects for sale, Thaugmir began probing him with questions.

  It was only then that he found out the truth: Devrin was dying. Devrin himself had sent the apprentice to sell the charts for gold to buy healing.

  It sounded foolish to Thaugmir at first. None of the mages were so impoverished that they had to peddle their artifacts to afford treatments. Devrin was a formidable mage and could surely work out the magic needed to heal his wounds. The apprentice had then said that Devrin's condition had worsened far too much and that conventional treatments had ceased to work. Devrin had intended to call upon the priests of Myria, the goddess of Justice.

  Thaugmir was surprised when he heard that piece of news. No priest would be in the same room with a mage if he could help it. To priests, who received magic and power from blind devotion and complete submission to the gods they worshipped, the magic of mages was an anathema. Their faith did not permit non-believers the use of magic. And the priests of Myria were rabidly fanatical. They would take everything Devrin had and more if he was to receive any healing from them. They sought not gold, but sacrifice. More so for mages. It would mean that Devrin would have to renounce his own school of magic and surrender himself unquestioningly to Myria. A preposterous notion that no true mage would ever consider.

  Intending to verify the situation, and keeping in mind the prospect of obtaining some more valuable artifacts, Thaugmir had gone to Eora, to Devrin's castle. There he had seen that the priests of Myria were already hard at work trying to heal Devrin. The man was unrecognizable—he had been reduced to a doddering old cripple. His limbs were nothing more than piles of lifeless flesh and bone attached to his withered body.

  A few more inquiries and some bribes later, he understood that Devrin was dying from a magic spell. They said that the remnants of a spell cast on him nearly a hundred years ago was eating him away from within. Thaugmir's heart skipped a beat as he heard this. A hundred and five years ago was exactly when they had fought Gawain. An apprentice at the castle eager to ingratiate himself with Thaugmir had given him all the details. Devrin had never completely recovered from the battle with Gawain, the apprentice had said. His condition had only worsened since.

  No doubt the apprentices believed that they would need a new ma
ster with Devrin so close to death. They had willingly given a guest room in the castle to Thaugmir, and had served him as they would Devrin. He had intended this trip to be a short one, but Thaugmir decided to stay and extend it a bit. Perhaps he could get some insight into how the Lumen worked by studying Devrin.

  After a month of that fruitless endeavor, Thaugmir had woken up one night and vomited blood. By the evening he had run up a burning fever. Any happiness at inheriting Devrin's possessions faded with the realization of what was happening to him. He needed to get back to his own tower. Quickly. Devrin's books were useless as Thaugmir's forte was in a different school of magic entirely.

  He stole away as quickly as he could in the middle of the night to board a ship back to the continent of Ryga—to the Shadow Spire. The long trip back from Eora to Ryga had nearly killed him. He had barely made it to the gates of his tower before collapsing from extreme and unnatural exhaustion. He had to be carried in by his apprentices, who had put him to bed immediately and worked whatever healing spells they were capable of.

  The next day, Thaugmir felt the fever die down a little, and the day after that, he could walk and eat normally. In a week's time, he had recovered completely. He pored over his books and had conducted several experiments to arrive at the truth, although he had suspected it the very first night back at his tower.

  It was the Shadow Spire that had saved him and kept him alive for so long while Devrin had been drained of life. The tower had somehow countered Gawain's magic.

  But why did the effects of Gawain's spell surface this time? This wasn't the longest he had been away from the tower—he could recall several trips he had taken in the past. Perhaps it was being in such close proximity to Devrin that had caused the spell afflicting his body to react as violently as it did.

  He had been overcome with pride when he realized that his own tower held locked within its walls magic that could counter the fabled Lumen. True, he had barely unlocked a fraction of the tower's potential, but there would be more time for him to learn—as long as he was alive.

  At first Thaugmir forced himself to accept that he had to remain within the protection of the tower for the entirety of his life. Yet, the more he thought about it, the more he hated the fact that Gawain's magic still afflicted his body. Who knew what other effects the magic was having on him? Many anomalies in his own spells over the last hundred years made sense when he factored in the lingering effects of the Lumen. Some of his spells behaving differently, small, unnoticeable lapses in time that he couldn't explain. He simply could not have this. After much deliberation, he decided to send for Gawain himself to negotiate his release from the magic afflicting him.

  "The preparations are done, Master," came a voice that snapped him back to the present.

  It was Lorian, his finest apprentice. And the key to his predicament.

  *

  Thaugmir had found Lorian in one of the far-off villages in northern Ryga that he had visited some years ago for the study of demonic magic—a task that had become needlessly complicated in recent times.

  The knowledge of planar summoning magic was restricted entirely to the Summoners of Lasrim. Even before Naxannor, summoning was outlawed. But after the Summoners had raised Naxannor and fought at his side, the law had been mercilessly enforced across the known lands. Scores of demon hunters and righteous paladins hunted down mages merely suspected of dabbling in Summoning .

  Although Naxannor had been vanquished at the city-kingdom of Azanar, remnants of his magic still remained in many of the towns and villages that had fallen to his hordes. Visiting such places was an opportunity to study demonic essences without traversing the planes or having to meddle with summoning and inviting the wrath of self-righteous philistines.

  So it was that Thaugmir had gone to a village that one of his apprentices had happened upon his travels. One that he claimed had very unusual demonic essences.

  The village itself was a disappointment. The strength of a demonic essence could often be seen in the debilitating effect that it had on life. The strongest of the demonic essences were found in ghost towns where the entire population was wiped out by disease and mutation. These were the towns that most mages wished to study.

  Yet the people in this village were anything but unhealthy. They mostly kept to themselves, but Thaugmir could notice a certain hunger in their eyes. Something that reminded him of a wild predator stalking its prey. He began to understand what his apprentice had meant by the word "unusual." There was definitely something extra-planar at work here, although it might not have been demonic.

  Thaugmir had prepared to study the essences in much greater detail before he noticed something odd.

  A young street urchin had been following him around for some time.

  It took a short while, but Thaugmir finally understood that the apprehensive looks he had been receiving were directed towards the child and not himself.

  He continued with his work, ignoring the child for a few days, although wary of him—many a good mage had fallen prey to petty thieves for the trinkets that they possessed. On the fourth day, the boy approached Thaugmir casually and asked to be taught magic. At first Thaugmir wouldn't have even considered it—any apprentice he took was already well versed in the basics and ready to begin study at an advanced level. He didn't have time to sit and teach uneducated street urchins, no matter how much they glared at him.

  It was then that the boy convinced him in a single instant.

  Holding out his hand, the boy produced the tiniest of flames, no larger than that of a candle. A very basic spell, but it seemed the boy knew something of magic.

  "What else can you do?" asked Thaugmir out of curiosity.

  "Just this. It was the only spell I saw you cast."

  Thaugmir raised an eyebrow. He had come to this town on an academic mission and couldn't recall having cast any spells since he had arrived. Unless…the campfire. It had been the only spell he had cast; a simple one at that, and he had done it unconsciously. Only once. For this boy to have learnt merely by observing Thaugmir's actions was...indeed astonishing. The spell was very basic but the speed at which the boy mastered it, as well as his relative inexperience with magic, made it all the more remarkable.

  "Has anyone taught you before?" asked Thaugmir, now seriously considering the boy's request.

  "No. This is the first time I've seen a mage in this village. Although...there was one man who visited a week ago who looked like a mage, but he didn't do any magic."

  It must have been the apprentice who had told him about the village. Well, well.

  "Very well then," said Thaugmir. "I can speak to your parents and ask if they'll let—"

  "I don't have parents," replied the boy immediately. "They say I used to, but both of them died during the demon war."

  "A guardian perhaps? Who takes care of you?"

  "No one. I take care of myself."

  Another orphan of Naxannor's war. Not very rare during these times. Yet, most of them would have succumbed to hunger or disease. The boy looked relatively healthy, which spoke of a stronger will to live than most. Determination was something he liked in his apprentices.

  Thaugmir was never one to rush into decisions. He barely knew the child standing in front him, and on any other day would have rejected such a proposal. Perhaps he would have considered it, but not before scrutinizing the boy's past thoroughly. Yet, on this day, he felt a strange sense of recklessness and hunger—something that seemed fueled by the very air he breathed, perhaps a by-product of the strange essences in the village. When he saw the boy, he saw not a ragged street urchin, but a formless lump of metal that could be forged into the perfect weapon.

  "What is your name, boy?"

  "Lorian."

  "Very well then, Lorian. You can travel back with me to my tower and we can begin your studies."

  Lorian didn't need to wait long to begin his education. The boy had bombarded him with questions that very night at the campfire. By the
time Thaugmir left the village and returned to the spire, he was amazed at how much the boy had understood. He was a street urchin, but he had apparently taught himself how to read and write. A prodigy. He might have visited the village with a different objective, but it was indeed a stroke of luck to have found Lorian there.

  After he began studying at the spire, Lorian had first been tutored by Thaugmir's apprentices and, within a few years, had quickly risen to surpass all of them to study under Thaugmir himself. Every mage dreamed of an apprentice like this. Thaugmir had even envisioned Lorian as his successor. The next master of the Shadow Spire.

  *

  That was a much earlier time. After his more recent insights into the untapped potential of the tower—specifically its ability to counter the Lumen—Thaugmir wouldn't dream of letting anyone else have it. The tower was very much a living entity and had often chosen its master. Thaugmir had known in some way that the tower wished him to possess it and he had disposed of his own master to take his place as the master of the Shadow Spire. The throne room of the tower opened itself only to the worthiest. Initially Thaugmir had been pleased that the tower had reacted warmly to Lorian.

  More recently he had seen that the throne room willingly opened its doors to Lorian. That had dismayed him to no extent. Lorian was indeed a worthy apprentice. At his age, to have learned nearly everything that Thaugmir had to teach was no small feat. Today, if Thaugmir were to battle against Lorian, he would no doubt beat the younger mage. In another ten years, maybe even five, Thaugmir knew that the scales could tip either way.

  It was only a matter of time before the tower chose Lorian to be worthier than Thaugmir of its favor and revealed some of its secrets to him. And Lorian was hungry. Thaugmir knew this. His lust for knowledge and power were simply not human. Although he knew the child greatly respected him, Thaugmir had no doubt the boy would dispose of him if he felt that Thaugmir was an obstacle to his growth.

  He had also considered killing Lorian for a brief moment, when he realized that he desperately needed the tower in order to live. But he wasn't ready to take such measures yet.