by B. T. Narro
Contents
THE KING’S SORCERER
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Author and series information
THE KING’S SORCERER
By B.T. Narro
Jon Oklar:
Book 1
Copyright 2020 by B.T. Narro
Cover and Map by Beatriz Rare
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is coincidental. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the copyright holder.
CHAPTER ONE
I’d felt this energy buzzing in my mind since I was twelve years old. It had been six years now, and I couldn’t take the mystery anymore. I had to know what it was. I’d come to the city of Tryn a week ago. I had told myself that if I couldn’t find someone here who could explain this strange feeling, I was going to travel to the capital next.
It had been a long trip to the city from the small town of Bhode, where I was born. I’d left before winter to ensure the snow didn’t stop my horse from completing the three-hundred-mile journey. The only reason I hadn’t left sooner was because of news that had reached Bhode just a few months prior. There had been a rebellion against the king.
Apparently he had been preparing for war, but his people had turned against him. Now he was dead and someone else was king. I knew little about it, except that the kingdom was safe for a young man like myself to travel without fear of being swept up in a war.
That was the only benefit to being so far removed from the rest of the kingdom. The small number of us in Bhode were mostly immune to all of the political drama. However, I had no plans to return to the place where I’d lived my whole life. There was nothing left for me there anymore.
I knew little about the woman I was to meet today. She was a sorcerer named Scarlett, and she would speak to me sometime this evening. I was to wait in this tavern, where I had lingered nervously for the last hour. I had purchased a mug of ale so as not to look suspicious. Now I stood against one wall of the common room, somewhat close to the door, the air filled with joyous chatter.
I knew there was nothing wrong with my curiosity. I had not committed a crime, but discussion of the magical arts in Tryn made people uneasy. It would be foolish for me to think that the lord of this city did not take the investigation of sorcerers seriously.
I still wasn’t sure if I had it in me to be one someday, but I had always wanted to find out. I didn’t know how much truth there was to the stories of the magical arts. Apparently they could be used to perform many impressive spells, from providing water to dry crops to enchanting swords with some kind of enhanced ability. If this was something I ultimately could be capable of, I had best find out sooner rather than later.
Eventually I saw a woman enter who glanced around as if looking for someone. She located me a moment later. She had her red hair tied back in a tail. There was a twinkle in her green eyes as she looked at me pointedly, as if she had much she wanted to say. She was older than me by at least five years, but there was a youthful beauty to her unblemished face. I lowered my head in a slight bow as she approached.
“You must be Jon Oklar,” she said as she offered her hand for a shake.
Her palm was rough to the touch. “And you must be Scarlett.” I hadn’t been told her surname and didn’t think she would give one if I was to ask. There was no reason to even trust that Scarlett was her true name.
I had been asking about the magical arts to anyone who seemed like they might know something, including city guards. I had wanted to show them especially that I had nothing to hide. It wasn’t long after that an older man I had not met before approached me in the street and told me to be at this tavern at this time to meet a sorcerer named Scarlett.
I had contemplated skipping the meeting for my own safety, but I figured that if I was to be arrested it would’ve been done without any clandestine theatrics. Again, I had not broken any laws. Inquiring about sorcery was not illegal.
“You’ve been stirring up some trouble,” Scarlett told me with a wry smile. “I presume you were not born around here.”
“I arrived from Bhode just recently.”
Her brow furrowed. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s a small town far north.”
“Why did you leave?” she asked.
I was a little surprised by her sudden question. I wanted to ask her why it mattered, but she had information that I wanted, and I had nothing in return. I was not in control of this conversation.
“I didn’t have much reason to stay after my father died,” I answered.
“What about your mother?” Scarlett asked, stepping a bit too close for comfort. I figured it was only because of the noise in this tavern and not any romantic interest on her part, given the difference between our ages.
“Tell me about yourself first,” I tried. “Are you a sorcerer?”
“Yes. I’m a mage.”
“Is that different from a sorcerer?” I asked.
She showed me a little smile that seemed to be forgiving me for what I was beginning to think was a stupid question.
“Who do you work for?” I asked.
She spoke with an exaggerated lilt. “Why the lord of Tryn himself, Byron Lawson.”
Even though I had only come here two weeks ago, my father had spoken about Byron Lawson. I felt as though I knew the man well. My father’s relationship to the lord of Tryn was one reason I was not as scared about “stirring up trouble,” as Scarlett had put it.
“You know him?” Scarlett asked.
I nodded. I was about to answer how, but her mouth dropped open.
“Jon Oklar…as in the son of Gage Oklar?” She let out one loud “ha!” Then she put her hand on my shoulder. “I was beginning to think you were just a simple-minded young man who, with that face, was used to getting what he wanted. But now I’m beginning to see there’s much more to you.”
I might’ve been flattered about her comment toward my looks, but someone entered the tavern and looked right at me over Scarlett’s shoulder. There was recognition in his gaze, though we had never met. He stomped toward me with burning aggression in his dark eyes.
He was on the taller side, about my height. And although he didn’t have the same mass to his shoulders and arms as I did from all the years of sparring in sword and hand combat with my father, I feared him. He had the confidence of a drunken goon looking for a fight but the robes of a rich man, with his fancy blue cloak billowing behind him.
The man stopped behind Scarlett and seemed to be just barely in control of his anger.
Scarlett lost her smile and let out her breath as if sensing him behind her. She slowly turned around.
“Did I not tell you, mage,” said the man, “that recruits were to be sent directly to me?”
“I only just met him!”
A sense of alarm shot through me. I looked past the older man at two armored guards entering the tavern. They took their places just behind the man who was now leaning over Scarlett. The place quickly quieted. Soon everyone’s gaze was on us, murmurs quickly spreading.
I didn’t understand why I was being spoken about as if I belonged to either of them, but the word “recruit” was what put a fire into my legs. The thought of running was short-lived, however. It would be hard enough to get around the four of them in my way. Even if I did, I doubted I could escape one or possibly two sorcerers.
“You can leave now, mage,” said the man to Scarlett.
She started toward the door, but then stopped to look back. “Treat him well, Barrett,” she said. “You don’t want to make another powerful enemy.”
The older man swept his gaze across the tavern. Everyone who was looking earlier pretended not to have noticed anything as they returned to their conversations. I waited for the man to speak, but he appeared to be content to move his head around me like a dog trying to pick up the scent.
He had gray hair trimmed short and neat. His wiry mustache was black, but it faded to gray as it melded into his groomed beard. His dark eyes looked like they held a plethora of secrets, some I probably wanted to know, but many more I probably didn’t.
I was beginning to understand something I wish I had known before. Although there was a magical art form that was illegal, this was not the reason that the people of Tryn chose not to speak about these arts. It was probably out of fear that someone like this man would treat them like a recruit. But a recruit for what? That’s what I needed to know.
Seemingly content with whatever he sensed around me, the man leaned back and put on a false smile. “My name is Barrett Edgar. I work closely with King Nykal.”
So that was the new king’s name. Barrett appeared disappointed, presumably because I did not say I was honored to meet a man of such high rank. My father had told me about kings, lords, and noblemen. There were few of them where I came from, and my father said we were better off because of it.
“Tell me what you’re doing here,” Barrett demanded.
“I just came to learn more about sorcery.”
“Because you feel something,” he said.
“You heard?”
“No. I can feel it on you as well.”
Part of me couldn’t believe I was here speaking about this to someone so influential in the kingdom. I had hoped that it would be a moment much less important to my future that would start to reveal sorcery to me, not that I would get the attention of the king’s councilman.
My mother didn’t make it after childbirth. My father was my closest friend, but he died a little more than a year ago from an illness. We had one healer in our town, a monk who recommended prayer above all else. Before my father passed, I had tried to convince him that we should move to the city where he had spent most of his life. It wasn’t the northern cold that bothered me the most. It was what the townspeople lacked.
No one knew a lick of truth about the magical arts, and no one knew about the illness that eventually took my father’s life. This ignorance, including my own, had been a source of powerful rage. After a very long year, I left on the anniversary of my father’s passing.
My father, Gage Oklar, had been an expert swordsman and was the head guard for the lord of this city until he retired and moved north with my mother. They had me soon after. With the passing of my mother, my father was the one who taught me everything. He often boasted to our neighbors that I absorbed anything and everything I could, but eventually I reached a point in my life when I wanted to find out more than he could teach me. Specifically, I needed to know what this energy was that I could grasp and hold out in front of me. I could feel it buzzing, vibrating. It was like moving a cloud that held a lightning bolt. Through all my willpower, however, I couldn’t figure out how to use it.
The stories of sorcery drove me mad. There were many summers in which the whole town of Bhode wished for rain. I witnessed many prayers and rituals in which the people of my town hoped to influence the elements, never with any luck. But there really was a way to control the elements, and more. My father had seen sorcery here in Tryn. The magical arts were real, and I knew this energy within me was real as well.
“Can you tell me what it is?” I asked Barrett.
“What do you plan to do after you find out?”
That depended on many things that I wasn’t prepared to divulge to this politically, and possibly otherwise, powerful man. I wanted to explore Tryn as well as the capital, Newhaven. I wanted to see the castle at the center of the large city. Then I wanted to enter Curdith Forest and witness for myself if the rumors I’d heard about the huge, twisted trees and exotic and dangerous wildlife were true.
I didn’t have much coin left, however, so I needed to find work soon. I had planned to speak to the lord of Tryn about joining the governing force as a constable. I was certain that my surname of Oklar would at least allow me to demonstrate the combat skills my father had taught me. I was young, at eighteen, but I was somewhat tall and very strong. Even if the lord of Tryn didn’t need me, I was certain I would find work elsewhere. I had been happy to arrive in Tryn, considering all the options it provided me. I had just wished my father was here with me.
Even a small portion of this was too much to reveal to someone I had just met. I figured Barrett probably already knew about my father and expected I had at least some skill with sword. He could’ve been lying about this energy he claimed to feel near me, just to get me to sign some contract. There were certain agreements made by a certain type of sorcerer in which you were bound to the contract you signed. You could not ignore it even if you tried. My father had not witnessed anything like this, but he told me they did exist.
When I’d asked how he found out, he’d told me, “The lord Tryn had referred to them many times. Binding contracts, they’re called, made with magic.”
Not only was sorcery extremely rare, but it was guarded by those who knew about it. Apparently, there was one way of using the magical arts that frightened not just the commoners but even other sorcerers. I still had no idea what it could do or why it was illegal.
“I’m not looking to fight in some war,” I said.
“I’m not here to force you.”
I wasn’t sure I believed him. “I think it’s time you tell me what this is.” I grabbed the energy with my mind and held it out in front of me. I couldn’t see, smell, or hear it, but something told me that it was there. It was part of me.
Barrett looked right at the invisible vibrating thing that wanted to break out of my mind’s grasp. Part of me wondered if he might be able to see it, the way his eyes narrowed and a little smile formed with the crinkle of his beard.
“That is called a note of mana, specifically ‘Upper F,’ or ‘uF’ for short. It is a very valuable note for many reasons, but you won’t be able to cast anything with it without training.”
I let it go. It was difficult to hold onto for long, but I always felt it somewhere in my body even after I released it. I couldn’t quite pinpoint its exact location. When I focused on it within my chest, it was there. When I focused on it within my mind, it was there as well. It either moved around or it existed everywhere I searched for it. It seemed to be as much a part of me as my blood.
Barrett turned to address the two armored guards behind him. “Prepare the carriage. I will be leaving soon.”
One gave a nod before both of them left.
Barrett looked straight at me. “There are many people like you who began to feel a note of mana like this in their early teenage years, but most have forgotten the feeling by the time they’re your age. I don’t know why it is that you have focused on it and even strengthened it over all this time, but you have.”
I went from confused
to enthusiastically greedy for more information. I had many questions, but I still wasn’t sure he could be trusted. His impatient tone gave me the impression that he was ready to leave without me.
“What does ‘Upper F’ mean?” I asked.
He gave a resigned sigh. I saw now that the tavern had mostly emptied out. Perhaps I should’ve run off as well, but I had come this far just to speak to someone like this. I at least had to hear a little more.
“It’s part of a language that is used to discuss spell craft. I understand that is something you’re very interested in.” He leaned forward ever so slightly. “If you come with me, you will learn everything you want to know.”
My heart skipped in my chest. I had figured this offer would come, but I still was not prepared for it.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and asked, “And what do I have to give in return?”
“Nothing.”
It had to be a lie. “I must be required to perform some service.”
“The king is not the kind of man to make the same mistake as the last king. He would never force his citizens to endanger themselves against their will in some form of military service. It was the current king, Nykal Lennox, who led the rebellion against the late king, Oquin Calloum, because of the danger Oquin brought upon the kingdom of Lycast.”
He looked at me as if that should be enough to convince me, but it wasn’t.
“Where would we be going?” I asked.
“First, you are to be tested at the castle, Jon Oklar. Depending on the results you achieve, a number of options will be provided to you. This is an opportunity that has only been offered to eight people now, including you, and all others have accepted enthusiastically. They are on their way to the castle right now, where all of you are to meet each other. You will be arriving a little late, because I only recently found out about you, but you will not have missed anything vital.”
Barrett sounded eager to leave. Too eager, like he was getting the best part of the deal. And yet, I had offered nothing.