Mage for Hire

by Jason Kenyon

  The spiders did not relent on their enraged chase, and Obdo woke from his daze to see the spider hordes approaching at full speed. He let out a yell and disappeared out the door. Archimegadon followed, with Valia and Neurion hot on his heels. Once they were all outside Archimegadon turned to shut the door on the spiders, only to find that there was no door and no house.

  Only pine trees remained.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Obdo said. ‘We’re really lost now.’

  ‘That went well,’ Valia said, wiping some of the remaining goo from her arms. ‘I hate spiders.’

  ‘For once I must agree,’ Archimegadon said, before letting out a yell as a giant spider crept over his shoulder.

  Obdo, Neurion and Valia dived behind trees while Archimegadon did the only thing he could think of at such short notice. He fell backwards, putting all of his weight on the spider. With a horrendous yet highly satisfying splatch noise the spider erupted into a spray of yellow, pink and black goo, which left a quite impressive pattern on the forest floor.

  There was silence for a few seconds, and then Archimegadon coughed and wiped spider filth from his robes and hands. Neurion ventured out first, closely followed by Valia and Obdo.

  ‘They’re all gone, right?’ Neurion asked. ‘No more hiding on people’s backs?’

  ‘Nope,’ Valia replied, and Obdo shook his head.

  They sat down miserably and Archimegadon poked at the ground with the Staff of Antagules.

  ‘These robes are ruined,’ he said, ‘and we’ll never find a tailor shop for me to replace them.’

  ‘I just hope we can find a stream or something so we can at least drink,’ Valia said. ‘And especially so we can wash! That spider filth is going to stink like hell in an hour or so.’

  ‘It stinks like hell now,’ Obdo said.

  The companions lay back and all looked very sad at their predicament.

  ‘Are we ever going to get out of this forest?’ Obdo asked after five minutes had passed.

  ‘I’ll let you know,’ Valia replied, staring up at the distant treetops.

  ‘How are we even going to tell what direction we’re going in?’ Obdo asked.

  ‘Easily solved,’ Archimegadon replied. ‘Climb up a tree and look for those big white mountains above the Forest of Nalius. That is sort of north from where we were. If we’re still there, we should be able to see them.’ He coughed. ‘I mean you should, Obdo. Get climbing.’

  ‘I’d argue, but it beats lying here,’ Obdo said.

  Obdo climbed the nearest tree, taking the opportunity to scrape some of the hardening spider goo off his clothes. Climbing was not one of his fortes, but sheer desperation kept him going, and despite the fact he’d never really climbed a tree before, he managed to eventually make his way to the very highest point of the tree. Above the trees it was cloudy and had reached sunset, so that the clouds appeared to be burning in the distance. While that at least told him that they were still heading south for the moment, it did not tell him much else, for there were no mountains or landmarks of any variety to tell him where they were.

  ‘Any luck?’ Archimegadon asked as Obdo arrived near the bottom of the tree and fell the last two feet.

  ‘We’re still going south,’ Obdo replied, pointing from where he had landed on his backside. ‘Or was it that way?’ He looked in the opposite direction and pursed his lips. ‘Uh… well, there’s no mountains, anyway.’

  ‘Impossible!’ Archimegadon said. ‘There must be something.’

  ‘I’m telling you, there’s nothing,’ Obdo said. ‘Just a bunch of clouds overhead. Red sky, so a good sign for tomorrow, I think.’

  ‘I don’t care whether the weather will be fine!’ Archimegadon said.

  ‘You’re welcome, Sir Mage,’ Obdo said. ‘You can climb the tree next time.’

  ‘It would serve us better. Which way is south?’

  ‘Pass.’

  Archimegadon rapped on Obdo’s head with the Staff of Antagules. ‘Let’s go in the first direction he pointed and see where it takes us.’

  ‘First, let’s test that we aren’t going in circles,’ Neurion said, drawing his sword. He slashed at the tree Obdo had climbed and marked an X. ‘I hope we never see this mark again.’

  Archimegadon took the lead, and the companions ventured off into the endless forests. As the journey wore on Archimegadon’s mind turned to the two thousand relorans waiting for him in Aldrack. Out of anger at that setback he had refused to even look at the amulet Sen Delarian had told him to deliver, but now he pondered what it was. For a start, wasn’t Bartell trying to get all the magical items out of Aldrack? Oh well, that didn’t matter to him.

  Besides, all of that only mattered if he was able to escape the trap by Mesellanillian. It looked to him as though they were heading pretty straight anyway, at least.

  That was when he saw the X again.

  ‘Oh great,’ Archimegadon said. ‘Circles it is.’

  ‘Not to worry!’ Neurion said. ‘We’ll just have to tie a rope to the tree and head straight. So long as we have the rope we will be able to see if we are veering off course.’

  ‘Yes, but nobody has any rope,’ Obdo said.

  ‘We could scrape a line in the earth,’ Neurion said. ‘Same theory.’

  ‘Good idea, let’s do it,’ Valia said.

  They set about carrying out this plan, but every time they started to draw a line the soil fell back together automatically, or pine needles dropped from overhead and concealed their lines. Obdo suggested sticking twigs up at intervals and following that method, but whenever they tried that the twigs were mysteriously sucked underground.

  After trying seven variations of the same plan Archimegadon and the others sat down and sulked. There was a flash and Mesellanillian appeared, looking a little flushed but cheerful. He cast his gaze over each of them in turn and grinned. They all scowled back at him.

  ‘Not having much luck here?’ he asked.

  ‘No thanks to you,’ Archimegadon replied.

  ‘Too bad,’ Mesellanillian said. ‘You really messed up my home, you know. Those spiders have gone crazy.’

  ‘Your storage stinks too,’ Obdo said.

  ‘And your magic book just fell apart,’ Valia said. ‘Is that any way to treat your own writing?’

  ‘Oh, that,’ Mesellanillian said. ‘Well, I had a suspicion that people might try to find out about my curse, so I popped a little spell on it to stop anyone but me from peeking. And what do you know? I guess it worked.’

  ‘Leaves you in the lurch for future cursing, though,’ Obdo said.

  ‘Oh, I don’t use that book anyway,’ Mesellanillian said. ‘I have the main copy in my bedroom.’

  ‘How do you sleep, with all those spiders there?’ Archimegadon asked.

  ‘Terribly!’ Mesellanillian replied, and he cackled at his own joke.

  Archimegadon cleared his throat. ‘Well, you’ve done a good job with this spell. We’re all quite lost.’

  ‘Ah yes, about that,’ Mesellanillian said. ‘Since I like you all a tiny bit, I thought I’d help you out.’

  ‘Oh, you’re going to lift the curse?’ Archimegadon asked.

  ‘No, sadly,’ Mesellanillian replied. ‘I don’t really know how, per se. I know how you can break it, of course, since Vortagenses did it. The swine.’

  ‘Could you tell us how?’

  ‘No,’ Mesellanillian replied, and Valia had to restrain Archimegadon before he attempted to throttle the sorcerer. ‘No, you’re quite the interesting bunch. I want to see if you can solve this problem.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Things get a little boring by yourself for a thousand years. This is the most fun I’ve ever had.’

  ‘I’ll bet,’ Obdo said. ‘So what are you actually going to do to return the favour?’

  ‘I’m going to give you a hint,’ Mesellanillian replied. ‘A clue. A torch to light your way.’

  ‘Go on, then,’ Archimegadon said, fed up of waiting.

  ‘Well, no m
atter which direction you go in, you’re going to end up going in a circle within a very small radius,’ Mesellanillian said. ‘Now that you’re out of the clearing, anyway. The first bit of the curse is my favourite… the whole disappearing clearing bit!’ Everyone glared at him. ‘I suppose you didn’t appreciate it all that much. Oh well. Anyway, the clue… and here it is! Only Vortagenses was clever enough to reverse the spell. I’ll be watching.’ He disappeared with a flash.

  ‘That stupid imbecilic old corpse!’ Archimegadon said.

  ‘Shut up,’ Valia said. ‘He said he was going to watch, you idiot.’

  ‘She’s right, you know,’ Mesellanillian’s disembodied voice rang out.

  ‘Oops,’ Archimegadon said.

  ‘That was the worst hint I’ve ever heard,’ Neurion said. ‘He already told us about Vortagenses.’

  ‘So what can we do?’ Obdo asked. ‘Maybe we should climb the trees and hop between them, using the stars and the sun as guidance.’

  ‘It’s an idea,’ Neurion said.

  ‘No, it would be simpler than that,’ Valia said. ‘Can you imagine the warrior mage Vortagenses climbing trees and jumping between them?’

  ‘Possibly,’ Obdo replied.

  Archimegadon frowned. Things were starting to click together in his mind. A faint shadow of an idea…

  ‘Perhaps Vortagenses cut down the entire forest,’ Obdo said. ‘That would make it easy to see where he’d been.’

  ‘They would grow back,’ Mesellanillian informed him from the ether.

  ‘So that rules that one out,’ Obdo said. ‘I don’t know. Sir Mage, why don’t you flatten the forest with your magic?’

  ‘Let me think,’ Archimegadon replied.

  ‘That can only spell trouble,’ Valia said.

  ‘You’re right!’ Archimegadon said. ‘Absolutely right!’

  Valia took a step back. ‘No need to overdo it.’

  ‘No, no,’ Archimegadon said. ‘Come on. Follow me.’

  He strode off and the others followed, but suddenly Archimegadon started to veer left. Obdo was surprised to notice this, since they had been certain that they were going straight ahead every other time. Archimegadon either didn’t notice or didn’t care, for he kept going, and Valia and Neurion looked a little concerned.

  ‘What are you doing, old man?’ Valia asked.

  There was a sudden crash and a green barrier appeared behind them and shattered, its shards drifting harmlessly to the ground. They heard a yell and Mesellanillian appeared before them, looking furious.

  ‘How?’ he asked. ‘How could you do it so quickly? Vortagenses at least spent the night here! This is… it’s an outrage, I tell you!’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Valia said. ‘What’s going on? Did we escape?’

  ‘Indeed we did,’ Archimegadon replied, and he smirked at Mesellanillian. ‘I have outwitted you, oaf.’

  ‘Damn you!’ Mesellanillian said. ‘Next time I’m not giving away any hints, I promise you!’

  ‘So what was it?’ Neurion asked. ‘How did you break the spell, Master Archimegadon?’

  ‘We’ve been discussing it all day,’ Archimegadon replied. ‘Valia had it right when she said that thinking was the problem. We were all thinking, and that is what led us away from the simple truth.’ He spread his arms. ‘I, my friends, was so stupid that I was clever. We know that Mesellanillian here likes poor jokes. Obdo said we were too stupid to come up with a bad pun, but the sorcerer was able to, weren’t you?’

  ‘Oh shut up,’ Mesellanillian replied.

  ‘Get on with it,’ Valia said.

  ‘He gave it all away with his clue,’ Archimegadon said. ‘It was all a prank. He said we’d go in a circle if we followed a certain direction, and then said, no doubt believing himself very clever and funny, that only Vortagenses was able to reverse the spell. Well I reversed it too. I went in a circle, and we ended up travelling in a straight line. The spell only covered a small area… we broke through the barrier soon after.’

  ‘Oh, how ridiculous,’ Valia said. ‘Only one other person figured that out?’

  ‘Vortagenses had a bad sense of humour too,’ Mesellanillian replied. ‘I never reckoned on your stupidity. I hope I never see you all again.’

  ‘The feeling is mutual,’ Archimegadon said. ‘Be off with you. Begone.’

  ‘I could curse you again,’ Mesellanillian said.

  ‘You don’t know any other curses though, do you?’ Archimegadon asked. ‘I saw the very first page of your supposed book, and it was blank. The book was set to fall apart to conceal your own incompetence. This was your only trick, and from the looks of it you must have spent centuries on it! That’s why you’re so miffed.’ He tapped a finger on his chin. ‘Although admittedly I liked all the little touches. The whole empty horizon thing was nice.’

  If the sorcerer had listened to this comment, he didn’t show it. ‘You win this time, Archimegadon,’ Mesellanillian said, and he faded away into the air.

  ‘Good riddance to him too,’ Archimegadon said. ‘Now then, shall we head onwards?’

  ‘Thankfully, we can now,’ Valia replied.

  Chapter Twelve: Outskirts of Dusk

  With the pesky sorcerer Mesellanillian Altabranorius out of the way, the companions’ journey through the Forest of Nalius was not too eventful. Archimegadon was very proud indeed of his victory over the curse, and for a long time he ensured that the rest of the party knew it. Eventually Obdo grew as fed up of the mage’s gloats as Valia, and Archimegadon was forced into silence for the last day of the voyage.

  ‘I’m bored of all this traipsing about,’ Obdo said on the third afternoon of their journey. ‘It’s been a week since I left the farm, and I bet my cousin has pillaged all my stuff by now.’

  ‘You should have thought of that when you signed up for this quest,’ Valia said.

  ‘Five relorans ought to cover the losses and then some,’ Obdo said. ‘But still… it’s the principle of the thing, you know?

  ‘Thankfully, my relatives have never robbed me,’ Valia said, ‘so I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘That’s a point,’ Obdo said. ‘We don’t know very much about you, Miss Harpy. What were you up to before all this kicked off?’

  ‘I don’t know anything about you either, farm boy,’ Valia replied. ‘I intend to keep it that way, and I suggest you return the favour.’

  Obdo pondered it for a moment. ‘No, I want to know. What were you doing until now?’

  ‘I am a Knight of the Order of Endless Skies,’ Valia replied. ‘I trained and then was posted in and around Aldrack for a few years, until I was put under the command of the High Captain of Melethas, who in turn is under the command of Lord Bartell.’

  ‘Ah, your master,’ Obdo said to Archimegadon.

  ‘Bah,’ Archimegadon said. ‘I did a quest for him. He owes me a big favour. That’s where it ends. He is certainly not my master, Obdo. Why, the man has no knowledge of the magical arts! Mages do not learn from non-magic people.’

  ‘Sir Mage, you only know one spell,’ Obdo said. ‘I bet even Lord Bartell knows more.’

  ‘He most certainly does not,’ Archimegadon replied.

  ‘Bartell hired you?’ Valia asked, looking disgusted at the very thought.

  ‘He did indeed, milady,’ Archimegadon replied. ‘To flummox the Dusk Alliance, no less. He required me to deliver an amulet to Sen Delarian without letting them steal it.’

  ‘I don’t care about the mission,’ Valia said. ‘I just wonder why he would hire you, of all people.’

  ‘I am a Mage for Hire,’ Archimegadon said, drawing himself up. ‘I offer the best service for miles around. No doubt he heard of my reputation.’

  ‘Bartell’s no fool,’ Valia said.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t Lord Bartell himself who hired me,’ Archimegadon said. ‘It was Elsim Redrock, his clerk.’

  ‘I don’t know him,’ Valia said. ‘The closest person to Lord Bartell I’ve dealt with is my superior, S
ir Mortyn, though Bartell does sit in on the knighting ceremonies. What I do know is that Bartell became a hero thirty years back, when Valanthas was at war with Tel Ariel. You remember the necromancer, right? A few years after the war Bartell was made a general and later granted lordship of Aldrack in return for his services.’

  ‘A necromancer, Obdo,’ Neurion said. ‘And he didn’t get a very good reception. So just you watch it in future. There isn’t a future, you see, in necromancy.’

  ‘Yeah, but he ruled an entire army,’ Obdo said. ‘That doesn’t sound too shabby to me.’

  ‘Tel Ariel was burnt to death over the period of three days,’ Valia said, ‘by the mages of Valanthas. It took three great battles to get to that stage, too, and defeating him when he turned into a Bone Dragon – it was the Bone Dragon’s possibly-living bone-corpse that they burned. Your friend, Sen Delarian, was one of the mages who finally took him down. Sen’s one of the most respected mages in the country. Didn’t expect him to end up in Melethas. Well, I hope you were respectful when you delivered the amulet.’

  ‘You listened after all,’ Archimegadon said, a little surprised. ‘Yes, I was perfectly respectful, as he was to me, I might add. Quite right too. It isn’t often that pen-pushers get to meet mages who quest for a living.’

  ‘Actually, even without his service in the Tarmunath war, Delarian did a lot of questing years back,’ Valia said. ‘He killed off a gargantuan demon overseas when some Valanthians were looking for a new home and opened a demon’s nest by accident. He also quested with Bartell, before Bartell joined the army.’

  ‘Whoa, everyone is an adventurer,’ Obdo said. ‘How could I have missed out on this way of life?’

  ‘You were necromancing,’ Neurion replied.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Obdo said, nodding. ‘I was so close to making an army when you ruined my plans, Archimegadon! If only I hadn’t hired you to defeat my demon everything would have gone smoothly.’

  ‘Well, indeed,’ Archimegadon said. ‘You were clearly complacent.’

  ‘Sometimes you act like he really was a necromancer,’ Valia said to Neurion.