The Flames of Deception - A Horizon of Storms: Book 1

by AJ Martin

  “Then… tell me why you lied to me! Why can’t you talk about your life to me?”

  “Because I am afraid you will hate me!” he exclaimed, and turned away from her, leaning on the stone crenulations, hunched over. “If you knew half of what I have had to do…” he stopped.

  She looked at his stooped figure. After a moment, she said softly: “How can you predict what I will think if you do not tell me what I need to know? Please, Matthias. If we are to carry on this journey together, wherever it will take us, I need to know who you are.”

  A minute passed in silence, but then slowly, he turned again, leant against the stone and looked her straight in the eyes. He nodded. “You asked about my relationship with Maryn. Well, that is, perhaps, the best place to start.”

  Beginnings

  142nd Day of the Cycle, 495 N.E. (New Era)

  “Maryn comes from the city of Mahalia,” Matthias began, settling back down into one of the chairs in the guest rooms Josephine had been provided, with a fresh glass of wine in his hand. “I come from a province in the north of the realm called Maolis. It’s a relatively uneventful and unknown region: a small collection of rural villages. When I was taken from my family by the wizards, I was placed in the care of Maryn’s parents.”

  “Why?” Josephine asked.

  “It’s a standard practice,” he explained. “You are housed with a local family to acclimatise to your new surroundings.” He took a sip of the wine. “You know, I think I am getting used to this stuff now. Not that I wouldn’t prefer a spiced tea, but this isn’t bad.”

  Josephine chuckled at the comment and continued their discussion. “It must have been strange, being taken from your family and placed with another?” she remarked.

  Matthias smiled. “I wasn’t the most… cooperative of house guests. It wasn’t my wish to be taken to become a wizard. Not after what they did to my mother. But I didn’t have much choice at the time. Wizard’s don’t take no for an answer.”

  “It sounds like you were press - ganged!” Josephine exclaimed.

  “I have heard worse analogies.” He shook his head. “Anyway, that’s how I met Maryn. She didn’t really like me for a while. I can’t say I blame her, the way I acted. Eventually though, as time passed, I settled down and we became friends.”

  “How long did you stay with them?” Josephine asked.

  “I spent five years in their care whilst I undertook the initial tests the Mahalian Academy enforced on me. Then they came for me, one morning, without any warning, to inform me I had passed into the Thirteenth Tier.”

  “What’s the Thirteenth Tier?” she asked, then raised a finger as she recalled. “I remember earlier, when you were speaking to Protector Balzan, you said you are a part of the Eighth Tier?”

  Matthias nodded. “They are different levels of Mahalian study, and…” he thought. “I suppose the only word is power, though it might not quite explain it well enough. Wizards in the council belong to the First and Second Tiers. Beneath them are people like Fenzar - strong men, with enough ability to afford them a prominent position in our society, but they are not quite wise enough to enter the highest levels. His kind make up three more tiers, and then beneath them are the rank and file wizards, who form another four levels. Apprentices fall in the remaining tenth to fourteenth tiers.”

  “So you are actually… quite a novice, in wizarding terms?” Josephine suggested, a slight grin on her face. Matthias spotted it.

  “If it makes you feel better, yes,” he said. “The Fourteenth Tier marked the very beginning of my studies, when I was first brought to Mahalia. When I graduated to the Thirteenth, I was taken from Maryn’s household and put in a dormitory in the Great Pyramid. Thousands of wizards live there. It’s a sanctuary, surrounded by a great shield of energy.” He smiled as he continued his introspection. “It was an honour to be asked to enter that building. I never thought in the years beforehand, when I was practically indentured into their ranks with little choice in the matter, that I would take up such an offer. But time and my tuition had shown me a new path that my life could take.” He looked up at Josephine. “I was drawn to the possibilities. But it did mean I had to leave Maryn. We had grown much closer in those years.”

  “I take it that you were not allowed to continue visiting her?”

  Matthias sniffed. “You have had enough of a glimpse of my people’s culture buy now. What do you think?”

  “So you moved away and left Maryn to continue your career,” Josephine nodded. “That must have been difficult?”

  “It was.” He let out a breath. “But that is not the end of it. Nothing so simple.” There was a knock at the door and he stopped as a young girl entered carrying a silver platter of grapes and apples.

  “Protector Balzan thought you may still be hungry,” she nodded, and set the tray down by their side. Another girl appeared through the door behind her with a steaming pottery jug and two cups, and placed them on another small table. “He also thought you might enjoy this particularly, sir.” They stepped quickly out of the room as Matthias lifted the delicate lid, inhaling the aroma, and shook his head with a smile.

  “Mahalian elderflower tea,” he chuckled, and set the wine aside, enthusiastically grasping at the jug.

  “It seems that the two of you have come to an accommodation, considering your opinions of each other a few hours ago,” Josephine remarked.

  “Learning the truth will do that,” Matthias said, pouring them both a cup and setting the jug back onto the table, before sipping delicately at the hot liquid. “A little taste of home,” he whispered. “You know if I didn’t know better I would say Balzan knows more about my life than he lets on.”

  “Why is that?” Josephine asked as she sniffed at the cup with less pleasure than Matthias.

  “My father used to make elderflower tea all the time, from the black lace shrubs that grew on our land. Of all the teas, this is without question my favourite.”

  “Perhaps he does,” Josephine replied, took a sip, and grimaced. “However, if he knew me at all he would bring us more wine!” She set the cup back on the tray and took a sip of wine to remove the taste of the tea. “Anyway, back to your story,” she nodded.

  Matthias nodded. “I suppose it was too much to ask that the interruption would have proven enough of a distraction for you,” he smiled thinly. He took a breath. “Maryn was no ordinary woman.”

  “Is there ever such a thing?” Josephine smiled.

  “Perhaps not. But in Maryn’s case, she could wield the earth power. She practiced illegally with her talent for years. She even helped me, in the early days of my tuition. But eventually, as is always the case, she was discovered. To her credit, she had hidden the fact for a long time - longer than any woman had ever before. But because she had got away with the cardinal sin of our people for so long, it made the effect of her practise all the greater.” He shook his head. “There was an outrage. Her family was well liked and powerful in Mahalia, for humans in our realm. It caused enormous embarrassment for the council to have missed what she was doing. A woman, using a power, right under their noses for more than two decades. So faced with the certainty of the death penalty, she fled.”

  “And the council never found her,” Josephine commented. “All this time?”

  “Oh they found her,” Matthias said, and stood, walking to the window and looking out at the illuminated city.

  “But how-” Josephine began, but then Matthias cut her off.

  “I found her,” he said darkly, with his back to the room.

  Josephine’s brow creased. “I’m not sure I know what you mean?”

  “I was one of them Josephine. A wizard: an apprentice for nearly twenty years. I was their closest remaining link to Maryn. Her family was persecuted, tortured for information. Information they never knew in the first place. So with no other leads to act on, they sent me off to find her. In the final year of my apprenticeship, they drafted me into their plans to track her down and bring he
r back to Mahalia to be made an example of.” He fell silent again.

  “What did you do next?” Josephine said quietly, her eyes glistening with fascination, and cradled her wine in her hands.

  “The only thing I could do - or at least, what I thought was the only option in front of me at the time. I went after her like a wolf after its prey, sniffing her scent across Triska. She didn’t make it easy, mind you,” he snorted, and leant his arm against the cold glass pane in front of him.

  Josephine smiled thinly. “I am glad to hear it,” she said.

  “It would have been so much easier if she had simply vanished without a trace. If she had disappeared completely. But as clever as Maryn was, she couldn’t hide everything, especially from me. I caught up to her at a place called Snowmeadow, in the north of Triska.”

  “I take it Maryn did not simply come quietly?” Josephine asked.

  “No.” He stopped.

  Josephine leant forward in her chair. “Matthias, I know I pleaded with you to tell me this, but if it is too difficult-”

  “We have started now. So you may as well know the truth of it.” He turned around from the window. “I was accompanied by another wizard. A man named Tobias. He was a little older than me, and a member of the Seventh Tier. Officially the council sent him with me as backup, in case I couldn’t handle Maryn. In truth, he was there to make sure she didn’t convince me to defect.” Matthias paced forward. “The moment I laid eyes on Maryn I knew I couldn’t do what the council had asked. How could I send her back to be tortured? Most likely killed?” He shook his head. “But now there we all were, with Tobias at my side, willing me to take Maryn and neutralise her. If I wouldn’t, then he would.”

  Josephine swallowed at the further silence that followed. She knew the answer to her next question, but she had to ask. “You killed him,” she stated.

  Matthias’s jaw clenched. “Yes. I killed him.”

  “Was there no other way?” she asked.

  “If there was, do you not think I would have taken it?” he snapped. His eyes glazed as he turned his thoughts inward. “What wouldn’t you do for your family? For someone you…” He shook his head and turned away from her. “Maryn ran from me, as she should have. We barely spoke after I did it. She turned and ran, as fast as she could. And I returned to Mahalia and told the council that she had killed Toby. That she had paralysed me and vanished without a trace.”

  “I am surprised they believed you, from all you have told me of them.”

  “Well, it seems one thing my people are very good at doing is lying. No wonder that some of it rubbed off on me.”

  “You are a good person,” she whispered softly.

  “Good men don’t do what I did. He was a friend. A good man, who just… got in the way. There isn’t a day that passes that I don’t regret what I had to do. In spite of my failure to apprehend Maryn, the council eventually promoted me to the Ninth Tier. And again they sent me out on missions to apprehend people that threatened the peace. Many, many missions. Most of them were for the greater good, that much I am certain of. But sometimes I was asked to stop people who I know in my heart were good men. There are only so many times that you can be sent to do that before you can’t do it any more. Which has brought me here, eventually, many years later, working with wizards who hope to change things for the better, and to you, to save the council from itself. But that doesn’t change what I’ve done to people in the name of Mahalia.” He threw his arms out. “So there you have it. That is why I didn’t want to tell you more about my life. Because for every good deed I have done there is undoubtedly a bad to balance the scales. Most likely they are now leaning heavily to my damnation.”

  Josephine sat in silence for a few minutes. “What you did for Maryn, you did to save an innocent woman.”

  “By killing an innocent man.”

  “A high price indeed,” she said. “And there are no words I can say that would bring justification to that death, or your actions. But I do not think you are a monster, Matthias. You are just as infallible as the rest of us. Too many good men die to preserve the peace. The fact that you are doing all this to change those in power means if you are successful, no other people will die because of the bigotry of others.”

  Matthias looked at Josephine in shock. Then he smiled. “Then… you don’t find me disgusting, for what I’ve done?” he asked.

  “For showing remorse? For trying to be a better man? No, I do not hate you Matthias. In fact I-” Josephine stopped mid-sentence, her face set suddenly.

  “Are you alright?” he asked her, returning to his seat.

  “I feel a little odd. Light headed,” she said absently.

  “How much of that carafe of wine did you have?” Matthias replied.

  “It isn’t that. I am perfectly sober! But… something is wrong,” she advised. “It’s as if…”

  The way is open, a voice said inside her head, cutting her short.

  “What?” Josephine asked. Matthias looked at her puzzled.

  “’What?’” he queried.

  “There’s… I heard a voice. Inside my mind. I… I think it was the Akari,” she said.

  Matthias sat forward. “I thought they couldn’t communicate with you again?”

  “This is different…” she took a breath. “It’s disjointed. Not so much a conversation as a note. This isn’t right.” She raised a hand to her temple and closed her eyes. “My head… it hurts!”

  The light will cast out the dark, the voice whispered, almost too quietly within the confines of her mind to be perceptible. It must brighten the land and burn out the shadow!

  The fortress shuddered suddenly and violently, and the princess cried out in pain. “Josephine! Talk to me! What’s-” Matthias’ gaze was drawn by a flickering like lightning at the window. He stood slowly, carefully, and peered out through the glass. Across the back of the dragon, light emanated from a crack, which expanded before his eyes.

  “What’s happening?” Josephine asked, opening her eyes again and struggling to her feet.

  “The battlements!” Matthias cried and ran to the door. Josephine took one look out the window, and seeing what Matthias already had, turned and ran after him, her head pounding with every footstep. She lost him as she tried to retrace her steps to the stairwell that led them to the top of the fortress, and she cried out to him as her head span.

  “I’m here!” he replied, grabbing her arm. In his hand he held the scabbard of his sword, and his staff was strapped to his back. “Come on,” he nodded, and they ran together. As they moved, Thadius emerged from a corridor.

  “Your Highness!” he cried. “What in the God’s names is going on? An earthquake?”

  “This is no earthquake,” came the voice of Balzan, who surged through the corridor, overtaking all of them in spite of his age. In a row they ascended the spiral stairs to the battlements, before Balzan threw the door open at the top and ran to the ledge. The city rumbled again and the shockwave sent them all tumbling to the ground. As they began to get to their feet, a flickering field of light emerged around the dragon. It bent out of shape as the air groaned with the movement and then, like glass, it shattered into pieces, before disappearing on the wind. The crack on the dragon’s back expanded until it immersed the entire body of the creature in a bright, white light. The air grew quiet, the wind died down, and then the light went out. Josephine stared at the dragon and her mouth fell open.

  “Matthias! Look!”

  The regent looked about his desk puzzled as sheets of paper buzzed on its top. His cup of tea rattled in its saucer. He watched it intently, until it rattled off the side of the desk and smashed to the floor. Then realisation dawned, and he dashed to the window.

  Luccius helped up a serving maid from the floor of the tavern where she had fallen with the first shockwaves. Cards littered the floor, and upturned tankards spilled ale across the dirty wooden floor. The floorboards creaked ominously around him as he made his way to the door and stared
upwards, and watched as the dragon’s head moved slowly from its ancient pose for the first time in an age. Then he ran, as fast as he could, towards the fortress.

  Josephine limply clung to the crenulations in front of her, her eyes wide. Matthias stood beside her, staring as the stone on the dragon began to peel and chip away, flake off bit-by-bit and fall towards the ground like snowflakes. His eyes crackled a deep blue as he seized the power.

  “Josephine!” He yelled in the growing din that was rising and grabbed her shoulders. “Can you do anything? Put up another barrier? Some kind of shield? Anything!”

  She gasped as shimmering scales replaced the dry brown stone on the dragon’s skin. She concentrated, her arms shaking, body quivering… and found nothing.

  “I can’t find it Matthias!” she cried, terrified. There was a horrible ripping sound, a cracking, and from ahead and a snake - like tail threw itself about, uncurled from the pillar and thrashed violently. The ground continued to shake. “I can’t focus! The power’s gone! I’m too tired!”

  Matthias let go of her and threw himself to the edge of the battlements. “Oh gods no,” he breathed.

  Hope Lost

  142nd Day of the Cycle, 495 N.E. (New Era)

  There was an almighty explosion, as the final shackles imposed on the Great Dragon Sikaris were torn free. The pillar Sikaris had stood on for centuries crumbled and great chunks of rock hurtled down to the ground, shattering the cobbled streets below and flattening buildings as people ran screaming for their lives. Sikaris extended his neck, opened his mouth and roared. Flame burst from his gaping jaws.

  Josephine shook her head. “The barrier was up!” she whispered. “How can this be happening?”

  Matthias watched as the wings of the beast unfurled and Sikaris took to the sky, his silhouette covering the moon. Despair filled his soul. “It doesn’t matter how it’s happened,” he said. “He’s free.”