Branded Mage

by D. W.

  Ever since coming to the capital, Thad had enjoyed looking at the school. Over the years many buildings had been added, but none were ever torn down, so one could easy see the changes in architectural design throughout its history.

  The walk up to the main building was long and winded through a large garden that was tended by some of the students. It was beautiful and he could easily see the care that had been put into it. Every so often he would see one of the students weeding, their hands covered in dirt. He wasn’t sure why but seeing a noble doing such work made him smile.

  Shortly after entering the building, he found an older man with only the smallest ring of white hair around his head sitting behind a solid looking desk. The gentleman looked Thad over and gave a disapproving glair when his eyes reached his brand. Feeling uncomfortable under the man’s stare, Thad unconsciously reached up and touched the tattoo on his forehead.

  “What do you want?” The man asked, his voice dripping with distaste.

  Thad was shocked by the man’s attitude and his confidence melted away. “I……um” his voice frayed and cracked then nothing came.

  Thad’s nervousness seemed to fuel the man’s ire. As he stood, his face turning a dark red. “Listen boy, I have more to do than sit here and listen to the whimpering of some brain dead slave.” The man said pointing back toward the main entrance.

  For a brief second Thad almost obeyed the man’s silent command, his body turning slightly back toward the way he had come. But the wheels in his mind began to turn again as the initial shock of the man’s callous demeanor disappeared. Mustering up his courage, he squared his shoulders and tried his best to copy Bren’s stern expression.

  “Sir I am here on the authority of the princess of Farlan in order to meet with the dean of this facility.” He tried to make his voice stern, but it still sounded week to his ears.

  Raising from his chair the man let out a loud, “humph….” He then motioned for Thad to follow him. The old man walked slow. Thad was sure it was on purpose and not just because of his advanced age. He was led down two long corridors and three flights of stairs before he finally found himself standing in front of an ornamentally carved door.

  Thad knocked lightly then waited with his hands held behind his back. No noise could be heard from inside so Thad knocked again, this time adding a bit more strength to it. With still no reply, Thad reared back his hand to give the door a hard knock. Just as his hand began to descend the door swung open. Having put too much strength into the blow Thad stumbled forward as he tried to pull it back.

  An elderly woman, easily in her late nineties, looked up at him through squinted eyes. She looked more than aged as she stood hunched over leaning heavily on a dark wooden cane. Her hair hung around her shoulders like a silvery waterfall.

  “Yes, can I help you young man?” she said, her voice soft and barely above a whisper.

  “I hope so. Lady Alysia said you were the best person to discuss my problems with.”

  “Ah! Little Alysia? Well do come in.” she said turning around.

  Thad followed her to the corner of the office, where two large heavy cushioned chairs sat in front of a large fireplace. The room was more plain than he had expected. His mind having pictured the room littered with objects of great value and rarity.

  “What brings you to visit an old crone like me?” She asked pouring him a cup of water from a glass pitcher.

  Thad took the cup graciously. “This is kind of hard to explain. I work with magic, and I am working on a project that involves heat. The problem is, I have no understanding as to how it is made or transferred.”

  For the briefest of moments the old woman’s eyes sparkled. “So, you are the mage that has all my professors in an uproar. Meredith has been bugging me endlessly to petition the queen for an audience with you.” She said lightly chuckling.

  “As for your problem, there are many books I could recommend you to read, and I shall do so later, but for now I would enjoy a nice friendly chat.”

  Laura as she preferred to be called was full of information. She had traveled extensively in her earlier years with a band of adventurers trying to unearth lost relics of the Empire. Sometimes it took her awhile to remember all the details, but Thad didn’t mind the long pauses. He was so enthralled in one of Laura’s stories where she had been exploring an underground cavern; he nearly wet himself when a loud rap sounded at the door.

  “Would you get that for me dear? Moving around at my age is more work than it’s worth most of the time.”

  Thad gladly obeyed hopping up from his chair and rushing to the door like an impatient child hurrying to get back to playing. The door swung open to reveal a lithe woman, easily in her early thirties with deep-set brown eyes that reminded him of bronze coins. She had thick, straight, red hair that was cut short and her clothes were utilitarian, with a completely gray color scheme.

  Not even taking note of his presences she walked past him and straight to where the dean sat. “Have you contacted the queen yet? It is most imperative that I meet with the mage. Think of everything we could learn. It might even be possible to teach others, and revive the lost art of magic.”

  “Meredith I was wondering when you would be about. I guess it was too much to hope you would leave an old woman to her own amusements.” Laura said with a hint of annoyance. “I guess I shouldn’t hog our guest all to myself. Thad, I am sure the lovely professor here will drag you off, so I will have the books you need delivered to the palace by days end.”

  “Laura, what are you talking about?” She examined him closely, as if noticing his presence for the first time. The intensity of her eyes made him more than a little uncomfortable. “Oh! You’re from the palace. Did you bring word back involving my query on the young mage?”

  “I believe I am the mage in question, unless another one has surfaced that I haven’t heard about.” Thad said with much more confidence than he felt.

  “Not what I expected, but dreams and reality are seldom the same.” She said as she grabbed him by the arm and led him from the room. To say she gently urged him along would have been kind. She moved with haste and her grip was like an iron trap, making him feel as if a team of horses were dragging him.

  By time they reached their destination his arm was tingling from stinted blood flow. When she let go to open the door to her office he quickly massaged his throbbing arm. Inside the room the floor was covered with piles of books, parchments, scrolls, and papers. The whole placed looked like something out of his imagination. Not even the walls were spared as they were covered with large amounts of papers, with only a hint of the brown background showing through.

  Meredith made her way to the back of the room and began clearing off one of the chairs in front of her desk. It was a slightly funny sight, as she didn’t know where she should stack them. After a few minutes of moving the books, he finally had a place to sit. That was only a minor success, as he could only see the top of her head over the mountain of books that covered her desk. Instead of moving the books off the desk she merely slid everything apart leaving a narrow path. It was like looking at her though a partly opened door.

  “Shall we start?”

  “Start what?” Thad asked confused.

  Meredith’s brows furrowed as she taped her fingers on the desk. “At the beginning of your story, I want to know everything. Where you were born, what you did when you were younger, everything.”

  “What does my childhood have to do with magic?” He could understand her wanting to know about magic. It was a lost art, a scholar’s dream.

  She let out an exasperated sigh. “When you study something, you don’t just study one section of it. You study all of it. In this case you. How are we to know if your unique upbringing affected your ability to do magic unless we know what it is? Now for the first interview keep the information brief. If I need further information to clarify I will notify you.”

  Thad started by telling her of his time in at the slave academy. How
he had trained endlessly in both military and academia studies. When he got to the point in his story where he found the book of magic in the broken down tower in the woods she began stopping him every few seconds with questions.

  Thad wasn’t sure how long he sat in the cluttered mess she called an office, but by time he finished his legs were hurting from sitting in the uncomfortable chair. Thinking the torture was over he stood, stretched, and began to turn around when Meredith raised a hand to stop him.

  “So do you think it is possible to train others to use magic?”

  Her question caught him by surprise. He had never thought of teaching anyone else how to perform magic. Thinking about it, he couldn’t see a reason why others couldn’t learn to use magic as long as they had the skill. “I believe so.”

  “Would you be willing to test some of our students, and maybe faculty to see if they could be taught?” Unlike her other questions this one brimmed with excitement.

  While teaching others sounded like a good idea, he didn’t want to start by only allowing the privileged class the opportunity to learn. “I want to pass along the knowledge, but I want it to be available to everyone equally. I will discuss the possibility of starting a magic school with the queen.”

  “Not exactly what I wanted to hear. It will take years to set up a proper school. What if something happens to you? All knowledge of magic would once again vanish from Kurt.” Meredith said pleadingly.

  Though he didn’t want to admit it, she had a point. “What if I have a copy of the book I found set aside so that if something happens to me, you will receive it?”

  Meredith tapped her fingers on the desk in a rhythmic pattern with a blank look on her face. After a few moments her fingers stopped and she ran her thin fingers through her hair. “Very well, I guess it is the best I can expect at the moment.”

  After they hammered out the details on how and when the book would be delivered, Meredith was kind enough to lead him through the maze of corridors back to the front door. When they parted she gave him a warm hug, lingering just slightly longer than what he thought was comfortable.

  The sun was already sitting low on the horizon. He had spent much longer then he had intended at the school. The temptation to return to the palace, where he hoped the books the dean had promised waited on him, was great. The only thing that stopped him was Shariel.

  Making his way to his house by the market, a smile crept on his face. This was his first visit to town in a long time, and the familiar sights and sounds were like music to his ears. Stopping by a local bakery he picked up a few of Shariel’s favorite blueberry tarts.

  The magical lights of the house had already been turned on. Approaching slowly he could hear talking and laughing even from outside the house. At first he had worried how Shariel would handle taking care of herself, but the princess had promised that she was well taken care of in his absence.

  The door was unlocked so he opened it as carefully as possible, wanting to surprise her. Creeping through the house he followed the voices to the small dining room where he found Shariel talking and eating with two teenage. She had a large smile on her face and her dimples were showing brightly as she laughed.

  As he stepped through the door frame, the two teen girls noticed him and their expressions dropped. Shariel still laughing turned to see what the other girls were staring at and let out a high-pitched squeal that threatened to rupture his ear drums.

  She ran over and gave him a tight hug as the other two girls giggled. “Thad!” she shouted as she gave him another quick hug, then remembering her friends she blushed slightly. “This is my brother, the one I told you about.”

  After the excitement settled down, he joined the three girls for their evening meal. While he ate, Shariel filled him in on everything that he had missed including her birthday. She was doing good in school and many of her friends and even a few of the teachers checked up on her regularly to make sure she was doing ok. A few had even offered to open up their homes to her.

  “That is one of the reasons I’m here. I have talked to the queen and she has given permission for you to take residence in the palace if you want.”

  Shariel’s face lit up for a brief moment, and then quickly took on a serious tone. Pulling a strand of her light blond hair she began chewing on it. “If I did that, it would be a lot harder for me to spend time with my friends. This is kind of our base, but we don’t do anything bad. You’re not mad are you?”

  Thad tried to hold back a laugh as Shariel raced through the reasons she wanted to stay. “Shariel if you want to stay here, that’s fine with me. I just wanted to give you the option. I would like it if you visited me from time to time though, and when I find a chance I’ll come over to see how you are doing. How does that sound?”

  “That sounds perfect.” Shariel said, her face taking on a dreamlike quality.

  He spent the rest of the evening talking with the girls. The girls each taking turns telling stories that involved some silly prank or antic by one of the others. Whenever Shariel was mentioned in one of the stories she would blush furiously, but the lighthearted tone of the evening kept him laughing and smiling late into the night.

  Shortly after the two teen girls left, Thad and Shariel agreed it was also time for Shariel to make her way up to her own room, leaving Thad sitting by the fire alone. Though it had only been a little over half a year since he had left, it felt like half a lifetime since he had been there.

  It had been a long bumpy road to where he was now. One that nearly got him killed a few times due to his own stupidity. Looking back, not everything had worked out how he had wanted, but he wasn’t sure he would change anything. He reached up and rubbed the tattoo. Well, maybe a few things.

  Instead of trudging through the snow in the cold night air, Thad decided to spend a night in his old room. Inside he found the magical sending box that he had made as well as his magical tome two things he had nearly forgotten about.

  The sending box was one of his prize accomplishments. It allowed him to send small letters to another specially designated one of the same make, which was currently in the possession of the princess. He had also made bigger version of the same thing for sending goods across long distances, but they were all behind the house in a small shed.

  The magical tome was another of his favorite possessions. The tome allowed him to copy and store books in it, so that he could carry a variable library in one small package. He had intended to make more, but had never gotten around to it. Other projects kept coming up and taking his attention away.

  Taking one last look around his room Thad extinguished the magical light, plunging the room into total darkness. With a light sigh, Thad let himself drift off into a peaceful sleep.

  CHAPTER IV

  Thad woke early the next morning, well before the sun graced the sky. He wanted to get to his old sewer lair before too many people began crowding the streets. Winding his way through the squatter’s district, he found the hidden entrance to the lower networks of the city.

  The sewers had been built back when the old empire was strong, and mages were common. The whole infrastructure still held magical residue, emitting from almost every stone. Even the moss that grew on the walls and ceiling was of magical origin. It was a very complex system. One that Thad had no idea how to begin to duplicate. He had studied the moss extensively, trying to figure out how the mages had manipulated its growth into what they had desired.

  He found his little room, where his papers and items were stored. He found his staff learned against the wall and quickly picked it up in his hands. It had taken him a lot of effort and making it had nearly killed him. The staff was made of marblewood and had a large diamond set in its top as well as many cat eye gems throughout the rest of the staff, allowing it to amplify his magic.

  With his staff, notes, and diagrams of other projects he had worked on in hand, he made his way back through the sewer. It was a bittersweet moment. The sewer, while not the most inviting plac
e, had offered him sanctuary when he needed it. Now he was moving on to a new chapter in his life. He was moving on, where he could practice magic openly.

  After checking to make sure no one was around, he slipped from the hidden door leading to the sewer. Thad allowed his mind to wander, not paying as much attention as he should have. He ran into a group of ragged men. The squatter’s district was the main living area for males, and most of them worked for small wages, usually living off what scraps the females were willing to toss them. Many of them resorted to preying on anyone they could to survive. Thad couldn’t really blame them, but he was also not willing to become one of their victims.

  Noticing him, the men began circling around him. “Look what we got here. One of the hoity-toity slaves from the palace.” Someone said behind him. “Poor little lamb got lost in the big bad woods, and it looks like he’s found the wolves.”

  Thad moved his hand for his sword, and cursed when his fingers only touched cloth. He had let himself get comfortable in the palace and had stopped carrying it with him. Cursing his own carelessness he spread his feet and prepared to fight.

  “There is no reason for this to turn ugly. Just turn around and leave me be and no one needs to get hurt.” Thad said keeping his tone low and deadly.

  Without a response they all moved in for him. Thad waited until the nearest thug was so close he could smell his rancid breath then let loose his spell. A giant wall of fire sprung up around him, moving outward. The sounds of screams and smell of burning flesh soon filled the air as the thugs rolled around on the ground trying to put out the flames that had taken hold of their clothes and hair.

  Two of the men had hung back from the charge and were unscathed from his magical assault. Both men appeared to hold no fear. Their eyes looked as if they were promising Thad a slow and painful death. The closest one ran at him full force while the other, who carried a deadly looking sword, maneuvered to get in Thad’s blind spot.