Sunlight sparkled off the waves below and into the distance. His eyes followed the sparkling carpet of waves off towards the dark clouds to the east. The remnants of the storm kept the waves stronger than they would otherwise be, but the mage figured in a few more hours the sea would settle to its more peaceful state. Looking down on the beach below, the sun, which had pushed through the wispy clouds above, lit the sand and stones making up the beach that he could see from his vantage. Tan and brown stones contrasted with the green of the grasses and the deep blue of the harbor water which was still cloudy after the storm had finished stirring up the silt of its bed.
The rope went taut as someone began to climb from the beach. Until she passed the jutting piece of stone halfway up the face, Sebastian couldn’t see that it was Serrena braving the first attempt. The fire wizard was tenacious as she fought her way slowly up the rope. Wondering what drove the young woman so hard, the mage knew that some of it was pride in being the best, but he still wondered if it was her desire to be more integral to him. There was no true second in command among his team and whether wizard or mage, Sebastian respected them all. For some, leading by committee wasn’t enough, but he led and made sure that he worked with all their ideas and demands as much as possible.
Giving the girl a hand to help pull her up onto the plateau, Sebastian felt a little vertigo as he looked straight down the deceptively high cliff. A worry of his balance and strength was something he wouldn’t have even thought pulling someone over a wall, but the height tried to overcome a person’s senses creating doubt. Even so, the fire wizard was on top safely in mere moments breathing a bit hard from the exertion.
“That’s a quite a climb,” the girl breathed heavily. “It didn’t look that hard from the beach.”
He nodded and shook the rope out to let the others know that the line was clear. Seconds later it went tight as the next person took hold and started up the cliff. Blind to the climber, Sebastian awaited whoever was next.
One by one they came up the rope and soon his full search team was on the plateau looking at the trees and brush holding the center of the land. Second to last was Maura who tried to maintain her frowning disapproval of such a climb, but much of the effect was lost as she gasped through her open mouth and her hair was in complete disarray. Bas had to turn before he laughed and pretended to just be evaluating the next step through the vegetation.
“What now, Bas?” Serrena questioned as she ran her fingers through her hair trying to straighten it as well.
In the moment’s hesitation, Captain Drayden said holding a pleasant smile, “Perhaps we should split up to cover the area in a quicker fashion as we did below?”
Nodding agreement, Sebastian said, “Maura and Idenlare can head to the right circling that way, Mecklin and Drayden take the left and Serrena and I will head through the middle. The compass shows more or less dead ahead anyway. If anyone comes across anything, explode a fireball overhead and leave a second one hovering until the rest can find you.” With at least one fire user available in each pairing, the mage figured that was as good a way as any to signal each other. Any fighting would create noise to follow and the signals would be a waste of time, though Sebastian doubted that there was anything of concern on such a small island with the limited resources that he had estimated were available so far.
Maura frowned harder and rebutted the idea as she replied, “Idenlare and I could take the center.”
Showing the device in his hand, Sebastian refused her with his eyes before saying, “The compass says this way and I have the device, but I don’t wish to miss anything and one of you may find an easier way down as well, unless you prefer climbing down the rope again.”
Her eyes said that she did not and sending them on their way by ignoring any further complaints, Sebastian led Serrena into the brush. The auburn haired girl’s face had lit up when he had chosen her to join him, which was fine if it helped with morale. Of course, he also had his reason for choosing the fire wizard to join him. He knew Maura wouldn’t go without her bodyguard and Bas knew Mecklin could keep any eye on their unusual captain. A man that apparently was good with a role dealing with other countries left his real duties vaguely masked and Sebastian didn’t like being in the dark as to his real purpose on this mission. Whether the king had sent the captain or not, the mage just couldn’t put his distrust completely out of his mind.
As the brush and trees quickly thickened to tangled messes that threatened to trip them with every step, Sebastian quickly wished that he could taken his place following the right or left path. Serrena started to call up a fire spell, but he stopped her as he warned, “No fire. First, that will throw off the others who might believe we are in trouble and send them back to us. Second, a fire might spread and trap us with all this vegetation surrounding us.”
“But it will take forever to wade through this mess,” the girl complained irritably.
Pulling his right hand to his chest, Bas acted as if he was throwing a disc away from him and ordered a spell, “Scythe.” A wind spell that he had read about but never had a chance to use, the scythe was just a natural evolvement of several other wind spells that the mage had used before, but it left Serrena’s jaw dropped at the sight of a path extended beyond them for twenty feet. A tree had stopped the thin cutting wind blade or it might have continued across the entire plateau.
“When did you learn that?” the wizard asked looking on with incredulity.
“It was in one of the books I’ve read. Wind magic seems to be one of the schools that I am most comfortable with and I’ve used similar spells. This is just the first time I’ve really had a good use for it,” he finished the last with a chuckle. How many spells did wizards know that were never used since they were nearly useless outside of certain situations? Such spells must seem rare enough when they were utility spells that required only sparing use.
“I would have thought that you would favor fire, since battle mages are all taught a fireball spell,” Serrena replied sounding a little disappointed.
Perhaps the fire wizard still thought that he was more of a match to her personality, but it was true. As the mage continued working outside of the mage realm of spells, Bas had found that, like full wizards, a mage tended to favor certain schools of magic. He was a good healer, though Sebastian focused his abilities through mostly one word. Wind spells were his most abundant resource, though he tapped other elements at times. Like the two wizards with them, Sebastian supposed that he would wear the light blue with bands of yellow and maybe fire as well, but battle mages were jacks of all trades so at this point no mage needed to choose a school, of course.
“All battle mage spells stem from the first mage, Raven Hurst. What he discovered has been the basis for the entire school for over a century, so that is what battle mages know.”
“Until now,” she grinned as they continued to follow the mowed path to the tree. “You realize that what you are doing is going to not only change things today, but future mages will learn of the first owl, Sebastian Trillon. Your spells will spread through your corps and be the new base of training for perhaps centuries more.”
To cover the flush of embarrassment, the mage cast another scythe spell in a straight line beyond the tree until a large rock stopped the spell again. He had never thought beyond the men and women quizzing him over and over about his new spells. They all wished to learn more as he discovered new magic or translated true wizard spells, but it took away from his learning more as well which led him to dislike teaching.
Breathing a quiet sigh, the mage realized yet again that he must try and pass on his knowledge. A more versatile corps of battle mages could change Southwall and the status of the war. Still, there were times that he wished that he could be left alone to discover more without the distraction.
Serrena must have finally caught some of what he was feeling as she inquired, “Don’t you like the idea that you are becoming famous. You’ve blazed new trails and built bridges between w
izards and mages for the first time. It’s a pretty big thing.”
“It’s also a lot of pressure and a big hassle,” he replied circling the stone. It wasn’t worth casting the next scythe until he could follow the compass’s direction, so they had to kick through the clinging brush as they circled the obstruction.
Noting her sudden silence, Bas looked at his companion a moment to judge her change. Green eyes met his beneath auburn hair glinting red from the sun’s light. “It may be a hassle, but it is important. Don’t you think?”
Sighing louder, he turned to fire the next scythe. “I know, but it always stems back to why am I the only one discovering anything? I feel like I am doing everyone’s work, which becomes that much more frustrating. Is there no one else that can look at what you wizards can do and figure out a way to configure it into a mage spell? A lot is simple observation and then sorting it out in my mind. Is that really so hard?”
Laughing a quick, derisive bark, Serrena retorted, “If it was so easy don’t you think somebody else would have done it in the past one hundred fifty years? You make it sound easy, but I’m sure that there have been spells that either took you longer or have still remained a mystery to you. Take that to people that just aren’t as creative as you and multiply that thought. Wizard magic is older than yours by a thousand years, but after the Cataclysm it was reduced by hundreds of spells I am sure and many have never been discovered again.
“Wasn’t High Wizard Darius saying something about you discovering something from his time that he allowed to disappear because it was dangerous?”
Bes started at her words. He hadn’t known that anyone aside from Yara had heard about the use of a rod or staff to increase a wizard’s power. The hazards of overusing the technique had killed or significantly shortened the lives of the wizards Darius had worked with hundreds of years ago, so the high wizard eventually helped to ban the technique among his guild. It disappeared until he happened upon it by working with a wilder. He had tapped the power of the earth and eventually paid a price as well. There was no way that he would expand that knowledge to others if it had such a cost.
At his silence, the woman continued, “Well, be that as it may. I can assume that what you learned isn’t in a textbook. If only Darius is the only other wizard to know of this spell or whatever, then you just proved how rare your talent of discovery is, Bas. You may not want to teach, but you need to make sure what you know is passed on even so. Your spells can save lives and improve Southwall. That’s all I am saying.”
He took in her words silently. They had been on his mind before she expressed them and the mage had tried to pass on his knowledge as best he could. That said, it didn’t mean that he wanted to become a teacher just yet. He was too young to sit in White Hall teaching new battle mages. There was too much to see and do before he retired to the relative quiet of a school.
A sudden thought came to mind as he considered his relationship with Yara. Could a position in one of the three schools be extended to her as well? They could be together indefinitely and live a long, safe life. Perhaps the cost of his freedom as mage was worth the opportunity to settle down with the girl he believed that he was destined to be with if he could just figure out the way. Maybe this was the way.
Refocusing on the task at hand, the mage pushed such thoughts from his mind. He had just decided he was too young to become a teacher and now he was considering what? Becoming a husband, a parent, and a teacher that he had originally thought was something too soon to worry over. He was only twenty years old and a falcon. It was time to do what he was supposed to be doing or hand over the task to someone like Maura.
Thinking of giving in to Maura brought his mind back to the search. When a last scythe broke through to a stone wall broken down in places and green with grass and brush trying to reclaim the piece, the mage looked at the sudden break in the plant life in stunned silence. The two looked closer and noted four walls with openings for windows. He had little idea of the age of the ruin, but it looked old and he wondered if it predated the Cataclysm. Could it be broken from the mainland and shoved this far away? Maybe it was an island that had shrunk to its current size after the earthquakes and sea had finished changing the world so rapidly only a couple hundred years before.
“Should we signal the others?” Serrena asked thinking of his orders to the two teams.
“Just a moment. Let’s look and make sure that we actually have a reason for them to come see this.”
“It’s a former home, Bas. Do you think that it isn’t important?”
He heard some sarcasm in her words as he consulted the compass and checked by moving to the side of the wall. Left or right, it took only a few steps for the arrow to change direction. They had found a point of interest.
“Yeah, this appears to be what the compass brought us here to see. Now we just have to figure out what we are seeing. Signal the others for me, Serrena, if you please. I will see if I can find anything that was left behind in here.”
The fire wizard sent up the first fireball and released its power in a loud thump that managed to shake his body as the mage pushed through grass and, to a lesser extent, ragged, little bushes that had managed to push through a stone floor. Sebastian could tell from the seamless stone, even in the state of disrepair, that magic had created this small place. That it was someone’s home was nearly certain. Why else would one build such a structure on a distant island?
“Gust,” he sent a few winds into the space between the walls driving away some of the dirt and plant material littering the ruin. To his shock a table and a stone block that seemed to act as perhaps a safe revealed themselves amid the wreckage of the former inhabitants.
“Do you think there might be something inside?” Serrena queried from the open frame of what had once been a door. The upper stone above the door had long since broken and lay at her feet.
The desk only held a piece of steel that had probably once been the blade of a long sword. Any other remains were dust or destroyed by mold. Putting the sword on the table to the left and the stone safe remaining on the right, the compass was placed between the two as he conducted an experiment. To his surprise, four lights now lit up the green emerald circle. The dull orange to the north remained Hala, a dull red represented southeast and apparently a distant goal to find. The remaining two bright red lights proved that both the sword and the safe were viable candidates as instruments involving the Grimnal.
With that confirmed, Sebastian looked more closely at the stone safe. Clearing away plants and debris, the mage was trying to figure out how it was sealed when Maura and Idenlare arrived followed shortly by Mecklin and Captain Drayden.
The researcher looked at the ruin in disappointment from the doorway. “This is it?”
Sebastian pointed to the broken sword and said, “This may have been one of his weapons and this safe apparently holds something more.”
Moving closer by brushing past Idenlare, who frowned at the woman’s back, Maura began to lay her hands on the stone safe. “You’re sure this stone holds something?”
“I can’t imagine the stone itself has importance alone. If we can figure out to break the seal on it, perhaps there will be something more useful inside. At least we know that he or someone with close contact to the Grimnal came this way.”
The woman nodded. “He was said to have a relationship with some of the island nations from a time of pirating, I believe, though that blade in your hand looks newer than a thousand year old piece of steel under this kind of conditions. Give me a moment to look at this stone. Perhaps magic not only formed this safe, but secured it also.”
Captain Drayden entered the ruin and acknowledged both Idenlare and Sebastian with nods. “It may have been formed from magic, but the lock is more ordinary, Wizard Maura.”
Standing up to confront the man with a frown, Maura countered, “And how would you know such a thing?”
Laughing easily, the captain moved forward towards the stone. “Coverin
g that would be a long dull story I assure you, but I do have knowledge of other safes of this sort. Magic creates not only the outer stone, but makes the means to unlock it seem invisible. If I may?” he queried with a gesture to the square block.
Grudgingly, Maura stepped aside and let the captain pass to kneel beside the smooth stone. As the man said, Sebastian saw no lock or handle to open the safe. If the compass had not pointed directly to it, the mage would have assumed it to be just a block of stone no matter how odd its placement.
Sliding his fingers from front to back and then across the top and front, Drayden seemed to touch every square inch of the exposed block. With a nod, the man placed seven fingers against the block in different positions along the sides. Four from the right and three from the left hand pushed gently a moment before he had to exert more pressure. It wasn’t much more though his finger tips changed color from the pressure of the extra push.
They heard a click and the seamless stone suddenly exposed a square all around the front face. Popping open nearly an inch, the captain was able to pull the door away to expose the interior of the stone safe. A hilt holding the remainder of the broken blade, a few books and some loose sheets of paper were revealed. Sebastian wondered if the hilt was the only true value as the party prepared to take these relics in hand to study.
The mage had found the first pieces of the puzzle that he hoped would reveal the whereabouts of the immortal known as the Grimnal for the ageless stone of Hala’s main keep. It still stood and Sebastian hoped that his search would reveal the same for the man.
First, he needed to sort through these clues.
Chapter 12- The Diary
Day 1
High Lord Gerid gathered crews for three ships. Ten wizards among whom I am included were all that he could find to take with him on this chase into the sea. So many were lost to the giant wave and earthquakes that those who remain need to help the survivors, or so the high lord said. He worries not just for those in Staron, Marshalla or Cadmene, but for his allies among the island nations where he believes the quakes originated.
Battle Mage: The Lost King (Tales of Alus) Page 13