Battle Mage Broken Empire (Tales of Alus Book 14)

by Donald Wigboldy

  Reaching out to touch her arm, the girl he believed to be Sylvaine appeared ready to stop her from attacking him again. She moved closer and the spell concealing her face dissipated as the pretty girl with the curly hair seemed to reappear in front of him.

  "I worried that even this glamour wouldn't keep someone from recognizing me," she said with a sigh.

  Holdy looked at the wizard he believed was Oween, but no spell changed the look of her before his attention returned to the nearer of the two young women.

  "If you are alive and back in Ensolus, why are you hiding? How are you here anyway? Certainly someone would have noticed that you came back. You know about your squads' failed mission and their deaths, don't you?"

  All of his questions only seemed to make Sylvaine more uncertain of how to respond.

  The blonde looked unhappy but asked, "What are we going to do with him? If he tells someone that he thinks you are back and alive..."

  Holdy glanced to the other girl and wondered if he was going to have to defend himself from another attack. She looked powerful, but the apprentice knew enough spells to have a chance in any fight, he thought.

  Sylvaine moved closer and grabbed his wrists lifting them before holding his hands. "Can you keep a secret Holdy? Can I trust you?"

  His eyes flicked to the other wizard before locking eyes with the curly haired girl. Her eyes were violet as he remembered them. The only strange thing was that feeling of her aura. He could find the original feel of her magic in his mind, but this was not the same magical resonance. It felt muddier to him, like some other magic had blended with hers.

  "If you're the same person you were before, then I will keep your secret," he stated adding a condition to his trust. If Southwall or the nomads had managed to create a copy of Sylvaine, a difficult spell that he had read of in one of his books, Holdy could hardly risk saying that he would keep her secret even if that meant fighting them both to warn Ensolus.

  "Well, that is debatable, I suppose," the girl sighed again.

  Moving closer to him, the second girl looked intently at him with brown eyes that were like those of the Oween he remembered. Her hair looked natural yet was completely different from the wizard's coloring he had known before she left for Litsarin. "Holdy, what is your view of resurrection men, knowing what you do of Palose?"

  She used his name as if it was familiar to her and, though Oween looked younger, Holdy's mind began connecting the dots. Only one thing remained conflicting with his deductions. "Obviously as long as they aren't turning insane and attacking their masters and other people, I have no problem with them. Palose seemed normal enough, even though I think he preferred being alone most of the time."

  Sylvaine shook her head slightly and contradicted him saying, "He probably felt that way at first, especially when he first came to Ensolus. We all became friends with him and he came out of that shell eventually, don't you think?"

  Thinking on their interactions, Holdy answered, "He was friendly with the rest of us, but I think we were only friends because of you. You brought Maya and Defrienne to join him in the library. For some reason, he liked Turless enough that when I came along, as well as Selvor and Malfaes, he tolerated having the rest of us there.

  "What happened to you really, Sylvaine, and why does she seem like Oween even though the warwitch was much, much older?"

  "Hey, I'm not that old!" the blonde started defensively before her hand slapped over her mouth realizing that she had yet to officially give herself away.

  "It is you, isn't it, teacher?" he said pulling his left arm from Sylvaine's touch to point at the other girl. "Why do you look like that anyway?"

  Again Sylvaine sighed. She placed her newly freed hand on his cheek to turn him to look at her once more. "Holdy, what I tell you must be kept a secret or it could get us all killed!" the dark haired girl, who had been an apprentice like him before leaving Ensolus to disappear, told him emphatically.

  "I will only promise once I hear it," he stated before pulling his right hand away to cross his arms defiantly.

  Oween tried again as Sylvaine drew back looking uncertain again. "What do you know of resurrection men and the spells governing them, Holdy? You were always reading books. Did you read about them?"

  "I read a few on it, since I was curious about Palose," he admitted.

  "Did you read that only a living being could bring another back?"

  Frowning at the idea, he still nodded as his memory accessed the pages from two of the books that said something along that line. Whether using a blood sacrifice meant that the resurrected victim returning another to life couldn't cheat and use another living being as a proxy might have been debatable, but it would be hard to deny it otherwise.

  Sylvaine spoke up interrupting as the former teacher tried to give him a lesson. "Palose gave me a stone to keep track of me while I was gone. It was supposed to give me reassurance that even while separated; he could use his portal spell to get to me if I was in trouble."

  "Can he heal?" Holdy asked thinking that such a link could be helpful for reinforcements. Her squad had still died though, so perhaps it hadn't been enough. She was in front of him though and appeared to be alive, but perhaps there was something to it the girl still planned to tell him.

  "He... can not," she said slowly and reluctantly. "When my squad was attacked, it happened so quickly that I was already struck by an arrow in the chest. Everyone was dead or dying at least, but Palose came as he said he would. I...," Sylvaine cringed before finishing, "I died, Holdy."

  Letting out a breath that he hadn't realized had stopped in his chest; he looked up from a place on the ground and asked, "He could bring you back? I assume that is what happened."

  The girl nodded. "I've been in Ensolus helping Palose when I could ever since then. The way most people look down on or even fear resurrection men, I couldn't go back to the library or the school as myself. They probably would have destroyed us... killed us, if they knew that a resurrection man was truly alive. He cheated death, but that doesn't make us wraiths or something less than human."

  "Your aura is changed," he said before looking at Oween and added, "So is yours. Did Palose save you too? I hadn't heard of you dying, but I guess they don't make a big deal about it to someone that isn't related to the dead. If the war is going well or poorly, we hear very little about it; but your aura is off too. It isn't like it was when I took classes with you, but why do you look so young?"

  Letting out a breath of annoyance, Oween replied, "Palose found me and Warlock Nalack. We were in good enough condition, but he only brought us back as wraiths to serve him originally. We helped command the unit he made in Litsarin. Wraiths, like us, commanded lesser undead in the battles and helped keep an eye on the war for him. He is a remarkable necromancer, even if people still fear those kinds of warlocks the most."

  "But you don't have the red eyes of a wraith."

  The blonde haired girl's hands reached up to hold her shoulders and shivered like an unusually cold blast of air had run up her spine. "Palose read something in another book that made him believe that he could pull out a wraith's magic and reset them as a resurrection man or woman. It hurt more than dying the first time. Luckily I can barely remember it at all. I thought I was going to take that pain from one life to another as bad as it was."

  "That doesn't explain why you look closer to my age. I think you might even be younger than Sylvaine now," he added dubiously. While Oween had to be at least twice his age in truth, the girl in front of him looked as young as he or Sylvaine who was just a couple years older than the fourteen year old apprentice. "And your hair..."

  Frowning at him, Oween played with a lock of the reddish blonde hair and said, "Palose decided to give me a gift. He made me young again physically, though I remember my past life. The hair was just him playing around, I think. You don't like it?"

  Her change of gears threw him off for a moment. It was a question that he might expect of a girl his age in spite of her
saying that she had her lifespan of memories still available to her even if she had lost more than a decade of aging. He could remember her face from before leaving for Listarin. Though much older than a boy like him, he knew that there were apprentices who had mentioned how pretty the teacher had been.

  "It's fine, but different," he said dismissing her like he would any flighty girl more worried about her looks than matters of real importance. "So Palose can not only make wraiths and undead, he can give life back to you as a resurrection man... I mean woman?"

  Sylvaine nodded.

  Oween poked him in the arm with her finger and warned, "That's why you can't tell anyone. If the other warlocks knew that resurrection men and women weren't turning insane and that Palose at least could bring others back..."

  "They'd hunt down every last one of you to destroy you before Palose's power could become too great. Warlock's relish strength and covet others' ability to the point that they will do whatever they can to bring down those more powerful than themselves while trying to get more of it at the same time," he summed up the typical thinking of not only warlocks, but most men in Ensolus.

  "Is that why your auras feel different? I've rarely seen Palose since Sylvaine died, but his aura did seem more powerful as well. How can that be?"

  Sylvaine glanced around behind Holdy, even as Oween seemed to feel the same worry that they were being watched. She answered in a hushed tone, "I can't tell you everything for sure, especially out here in the open. All I can say is that for Palose it has helped his power increase because he was once a battle mage. Gathering more full wizards has its limitations, but the weakest gets stronger while the strongest does lose a little bit in the process. It is shared power, but no one really suffers much."

  Nodding, Oween added, "I don't feel different at all, but then again I was a wraith for awhile also so maybe I have forgotten what it felt like to be alive and with my original power."

  Holdy stated, "Your strength is roughly the same; but like Sylvaine, your aura isn't like it was before. You feel different. Maybe you are all joined in such a way that it muddies the look of your auras. They are part of you and you are a part of them now."

  Shrugging the apprentice felt like that was the answer. Looking intently, he could see the core of the original auras, but however many had been added to their group had continued to mask it in layers or something similar.

  Another quick look around as the girls continued to grow more nervous, inspired Sylvaine to say, "It is getting late. We need to get back before anyone worries about us.

  "You will keep our secret... won't you, Holdy?" the pretty girl pleaded.

  Oween had a similar look though Holdy had a feeling answering negatively would make her try to kill him even so. He had considered the possibilities of this news from the moment Sylvaine and Oween had first confessed to him. While the magic and Palose's increasing power depending on how many resurrection men he could make to add to his strength might worry some, Holdy didn't think that their existence threatened Ensolus in any way, at least not so far.

  He nodded. "I won't say anything."

  Thinking a moment longer, he added, "The emperor must have realized that something like this was happening. Doesn't Palose still visit him regularly? I don't think his changing magical strength would be missed by someone like the emperor."

  The two girls glanced at each other with renewed worry.

  "I wouldn't worry about it too much," Holdy said considering the implications. "If Palose had done something that the emperor felt threatened him, you would have been destroyed by now. You have been alive for almost half a year now. Atrouseon died... before that, and Palose became one of his favorites instead, didn't he?"

  Sylvaine nodded looking a bit relieved, though she wasn't quite as confident after his bringing up such a possibility. "I hope that you are right. Palose has gates outside of Ensolus though, so maybe he has already considered this as well."

  The girls turned to walk away, but Sylvaine said with a smile, "Maybe we can get together again sometime. Palose might even be willing to talk to an old friend. He's been a little distracted lately, and not just because of Litsarin, I think. Even so, I am glad that I could tell one of my friends that I'm not dead... well, not any longer anyway."

  Waving at him a moment, they walked eastward again. Holdy considered following. There were people that he could visit in the human quarter though he hadn't seen them since leaving to become a warlock.

  He didn't need to continue the tracking spell at least. If the boy wanted to find them, he could, though the girls didn't know that. While some needed a lodestone to track, he had committed the feel of their auras to memory. Holdy knew that was all he needed to use his magic to follow them or possibly even to use a portal straight to where they were.

  Palose knew portal magic and had helped bring the emperor's armies behind the wall and beyond. Though he hadn't been forced onto the gate teams as often, the younger boy had more talent for the magic than anyone else knew.

  He smiled grimly and started on his long walk to the magic school. Hiding his full talent and skills was just the way of Ensolus. No one revealed everything, not even an apprentice to his mentors or friends. That was another secret he kept while adding Sylvaine's to the list. Whether knowing of the resurrection man's secret could be of benefit to him in the future, Holdy didn't know. As a friend he would keep it, but if it should ever be necessary...

  "Come on, Holdy, stop dawdling. We'll be late if you don't hurry!" the wizard's voice called out to the boy demandingly.

  He couldn't help smirking hearing those words coming from Wizard Megannah's mouth though. After more than a year of working with the woman and listening to Fordenna teasing her to be on time, which she usually was though rarely early, it was rather amusing to think that she would be worried over him making her late.

  His eyes strayed past the woman and two other wizards hurrying with them to the large stone cubes ahead of them. The gate buildings as many referred to them had been built as a precaution more than from the belief that anyone could ever use their portal magic against them. There had been rumors of late, but never substantiated that someone had used gate magic to bring spies into the city. Hearing these rumors, however, made him worried that it might be true.

  Large stone buildings housed a pair of gates guarded night and day by powerful soldiers and warlocks preventing any entry there. The stone walls guarded by their towers at the entrance prevented anyone from entering the city without going through strenuous testing. Any unknown magic user without the proper documents was restrained and likely killed, since Holdy had never heard of anyone hearing from them again; but there had always been that worry of what if.

  It had been three days since he had seen Sylvaine and Oween. He hadn't seen Talithia and her elves either, but that was more of a relief. The elven girl, a noble lady, seemed to be mostly trouble for him more than anything. She had drawn him into finding Turless and discovered that her uncle could have answered many of her questions in the first place. She had also interrupted the training and insulted his teachers, though not loud enough for them to hear. That would likely have gotten him in trouble, he feared, even if it wasn't his fault that the girl had disparaged their teaching styles.

  Yesterday, when everything had seemed to return to normal, reports of the war turning against the empire in Litsarin had begun filtering through the school. It could have been viewed as more rumors, but warlocks and wizards began organizing to leave soon after those rumors started. Mentors with older students had been called on before the apprentices had been confirmed as ready, but it seemed like now just throwing able bodies at the front was needed. Selvor and Malfaes had already gone months ago to never return, so this looked bad in his eyes.

  "Come on already," the pretty blonde warlock complained tugging on his coat sleeve when his daydreaming slowed his feet more than to her liking.

  They joined with other gate wizards and a gathering army inside the eastern of t
he two buildings. He passed orcs, trolls, goblins, and armored viles mostly wearing standard armor. Rumors had it that the enemy had discovered using powerful light spells could ruin the defensive ability of the shadow armor, so maybe it didn't matter what they wore any longer.

  Elves and men joined the monsters in the lines with warlocks and wizards. Many of these looked at the larger beasts uncomfortably. Even after centuries of working together, it seemed like they were only barely tolerant of each other. Only the strength of the emperor's magic and his powerful commanders seemed capable of keeping such a diverse army working together, Holdy thought as he moved into position beside a large gate frame.

  Food and drink were placed on tables nearby, but eight warlocks counting him would be rotating in and out to hold the gates until the hundreds of troops passed through the gate. This was just one wave of the massive army of reinforcements that Ensolus had been sending from the capitol city. He had heard that the other cities had been ordered to send more troops as well.

  It made the apprentice wonder how large the enemy army must be if the emperor's generals believed that they needed so many. The army in Litsarin had been large enough to drive the enemy back to one little corner of the massive island after taking all but one city. What had happened there to demand so much attention, he wondered before helping cast the spell?

  "Don't lose focus, Holdy," Megan said just before they used their magic in tandem with the other warlocks gathered there.

  The huge rectangle of stone disappeared before their eyes as golden light formed within the framework of the portal doorway. Signaled forward by their leaders, soldiers and warlocks began to pass through the gate disappearing through the magic. Holdy had passed through short range gates before and knew that they would pass through a silver realm of light. Thousands of miles would pass in a blink using the former prison realm of the emperor and his people.

  Thinking it ironic that the emperor could use their trap against them like this, the boy's attention became focused on maintaining the strength of the gate pushing all other thoughts from his mind.