Magium
The mage tournament
Book one
Chris Michael Wilson
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Afterword
Chapter 1
They say there is a very fine line between bravery and stupidity. As I stand here, in the middle of this forest, gazing at all of the explosions far in the distance, I realize I may well have crossed that line, to a point of no return.
My name is Barry. I am twenty-eight years old, and I could quite accurately be described as your everyday ordinary guy. I have no talents, no particular skills and no academic background. The only thing that defines me is my lifelong obsession to become a mage. It is what I’ve wished for ever since I was five years old. It has been my driving passion throughout my life, as I’ve constantly amassed knowledge about mages and travelled the world in the hopes of finding a way to make my dream come true.
After endless years of searching through dusty tomes and weathered parchments, I have finally found a way to do it.
The catch? I need to first win a tournament against the most powerful mages in the world. Sounds crazy? That’s probably because it is. But it is far too late to go back now. The only way that’s left for me is forward.
As I stand here, knowing that it’s no longer possible to return to my normal life, I can’t help but feel a bit excited about this whole thing. Maybe I really am completely out of my mind. I would have expected to feel at least a little bit scared about all of this. But instead of that, I get this constant tingling sensation that won’t go away. The feeling that I am closer to my dream than ever before in my life. All of the terrible dangers that await me seem distant to me, and all I can really think about now is that at the end of the tournament, when I win this, I will finally become a mage.
There’s an explosion maybe a few hundred feet from my location. The fights have already begun. And one of them is much closer to me than I would have hoped. There’s no way I can get in a fight with any of the mages at this point. I need to avoid combat for as long as possible if I am to survive until the end.
I head in the opposite direction from where I’ve heard the explosion. As I am heading towards the end of the forest, I start hearing voices. There are two mages talking in a clearing a few feet away from me. I hide behind a tree and take a quick glance towards the clearing.
It seems the two mages have just finished fighting. One of them has the appearance of an ordinary thug. He is wearing a simple stained white shirt, leather pants and a belt full of throwing knives. His untrimmed black beard hides a wicked smile. Just by seeing the confidence in his eyes, I can clearly tell he is the victor of the skirmish. The other mage is wearing heavy armor, but his shield lies on the ground besides him and he is barely holding his sword anymore.
Taking a closer look at the mage in armor, I notice his head is bald, his skin is dark, he is likely in his mid-forties and he has a scar on his forehead, shaped like an ‘X’. I’ve read of a mage matching this exact description who went by the name of Daren, and he was quite legendary, but would he lose so easily to some common thug? The mage in the white shirt answers my question as he addresses the one in armor, while casually playing with one of his knives.
“The legendary mage Daren! The savior of the Eastern Continent. The healer in armor. They say you’ve travelled the world, saving countless villages from destruction. That you’ve once fought ten rock golems by yourself, only to defend a small child. I guess this goes to show, you should never really trust legends, aye? I always knew all of those tales about mages as strong as giants were just codswallop. Hell, if all those ‘legendary’ mages that joined this tournament are as weak as you, I’m going to win this by sundown!”
He starts laughing but he stops suddenly.
“Wait, who’s there?” he says, as he turns towards me.
I quickly pull my head back behind the tree, and press my back against it, trying to breathe as silently as possible.
“I know you’re there, coward. Show yourself, or I’ll have one of my knives find you!”
I keep my breathing as silent as possible and don’t say anything. He must be bluffing. He never got the chance to see me. He’ll give up once he sees there’s no answer.
“Have it your way, then,” the thug says, as I hear him throw a dagger towards me. The dagger whooshes past my head and before I get the chance to react, it turns in midair and flies right into my left shoulder, pinning it against the tree. I let out a muffled groan of pain, as I reach to pull the knife out.
“You’re not going to get that knife out so easily,” the thug says. “My knives have a life of their own, and they only listen to me. Now that I know where you are, I’m going to…”
The thug suddenly interrupts himself in the middle of his sentence, and then he does not say anything for about five seconds. When he finally decides to speak again, his voice is changed, sounding a lot less confident than before.
“So you’re a stillwater, eh?” the thug says, while trying to hide the slight trembling in his voice. “Trying to get me to lower my guard by acting like an idiot? Trying to lull me into a false sense of security? Is that your plan? Well it ain’t gonna work on me. Cause I’m too smart for that, you hear me?!”
His sudden change of attitude towards me is not completely unexpected. The existence of stillwaters is one of the main reasons why I’ve dared to dream that I might have a chance to win this tournament.
Stillwaters are a very rare breed of mages that are known to be incredibly powerful. One of them is said to have destroyed an entire city in an instant some twenty years ago, with only a flick of his fingers. The city of Olmnar was said to have been one of the greatest cities on this continent, but it was wiped off the map just like that, in a single second. Such is the power of these stillwaters.
But what is even more interesting about these stillwaters is that you can’t differentiate them from normal humans. Normally, you can sense the magic flowing from every being. You don’t need to be a mage to do it. By sensing their magical aura, you can tell how strong mages are before engaging them in a fight.
Stillwaters, however, have the same aura as normal humans. And if you were to run into someone that seems to have almost no magic in the middle of what is essentially the greatest mage tournament in all of history… What would you be more inclined to believe? That an average human was somehow suicidal enough to join the tournament only to get massacred? Or that you are facing one of the strongest and rarest kinds of mages that exist in the world?
“You don’t scare me, stillwater!” the thug continues. “I’m going to fill you with holes and you’ll end up begging me for mercy! I bet your legends are no truer than they were for this sad excuse for a mage standing next to me.”
“That’s funny,” I tell him. “That’s almost the same thing the people of Olmnar told me. Before I burned their city to the ground.”
There is a long pause after I’m done talking, during which neither of us says anything.
“You’re bluffing,” the mage says, after a while.
“I guess there’s only one way to find out, then,” I tell him, as I feel my heart pounding in my chest.
The few seconds of silence that followed felt like the longest seconds in my life. After a long pause, the mage says, finally:
“You’re in luck, stillwater. I’m feeling merciful today. I’m going to be
out of your hair just as soon as I finish this guy here.”
“You do that and you’ll regret it,” I say without thinking.
My last sentence seems to have taken him aback.
“What, are you kidding me?” the thug says. “You’re going to defend this lowlife?”
“If I have to,” I say. “Do I have to?”
The mage once again falls silent. He doesn’t seem to want to push his luck any further. After a while, I hear him put his daggers back into his belt and then spit on the ground.
“I’ll remember this, stillwater,” the thug says. “Don’t think I won’t. You’ll rue the day you messed with Cutthroat Dave. And the same goes for you, healer in armor. I’ll be seeing the both of you again, soon.”
After he finishes his speech, he turns away in disgust and he heads into the woods on the opposite side of the clearing. The dagger from my shoulder pulls itself out on its own and hurries to catch up with its master.
Once I can no longer see the mage, I let out a big sigh. That was close. That was really close. I can still feel my heart beating rapidly in my chest.
You do that and you’ll regret it? What was I even thinking? Was I trying to get myself killed? This is a life and death tournament, Barry. This is not the time for you to start playing hero.
As I try to calm myself down, the mage in armor sheathes his sword, picks up his shield from the ground and starts walking towards me.
“You had no obligation to save me,” he says. “But you did so anyway, at the risk of your own life. I cannot let such selflessness go unrewarded. I, Daren, vow this day that I will offer you my protection from this moment, and until the end of this tournament. Tell me, brave soul, what is your name?”
His speech took me by surprise.
“It’s, uhh… It’s Barry,” I say. “My name is Barry.”
“Wait, your name’s Barry?” Daren says.
He tries to contain his laughter but fails miserably. He was trying to sound solemn and dignified just a few seconds ago, but it seems it didn’t really take him long to drop his act.
“Now, that’s the weirdest name for a mage I’ve heard in my life. Especially for a stillwater. Do you have something you want to tell me, Barry?”
“Yes,” I say. “My parents had a really weird sense of humor. Speaking of names, aren’t you supposed to be a hero of legend? How exactly does one as strong as you get bested so easily by someone named Cutthroat Dave?”
“Oh, that…” Daren says.
He is sounding embarrassed.
“You see, Barry,” Daren continues, “I may be powerful, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have weaknesses. It turns out one of those weaknesses is that I never really managed to master the shield spell properly…”
“The shield spell?” I ask him. “The one that casts an invisible protective layer around yourself? But isn’t that one of the first spells any mage learns?”
“It is…” Daren says. “But it’s not like I can’t cast it at all… I can defend from magic just fine. It’s normal weapons that I have a problem with. This is why I wear armor. This is why I use a sword and a shield. I first started using them because I couldn’t use the shield spell properly, but soon, I started tailoring my magic around them, and my very fighting style. I found a master that would teach me to fight with weapons, and I used my magic to enchant them. Then, after every fight, I’d just use my white magic to heal my wounds. Like so…”
He demonstrates it by raising his hands in the air and making a white light appear all around him. As the light shines, his wounds start closing, and the blood fades away. He then uses the same magic to heal the shoulder wound I’d gotten from Cutthroat Dave’s knife.
“The cutthroat’s knives had a life of their own,” Daren says, “and there were many of them attacking me simultaneously. If I had a proper shield spell to defend against them, defeating him would have been child’s play. But defending against all those knives with a shield and sword alone would have been impossible regardless of my combat skill. All armors have their weaknesses. All he had to do was go for the armor’s joints repeatedly, until he wore me out.”
“Why are you telling me all of this?” I say. “Shouldn’t you be at least a bit worried about revealing your greatest weakness to someone you just met?”
“Hey, you just saved my life!” Daren says. “So you can’t be that bad, right?”
“Pardon me for interrupting,” I hear a woman’s voice coming from behind the trees. “But would you by any chance be Daren, the legendary savior of the Eastern Continent?”
Chapter 2
Both Daren and I turn around at the same time. We see a slim, tall figure standing behind us, with long black hair, fair skin, and a very serious look on her face. She is wearing leather pants, a long sleeved white blouse, and a green, hooded cloak. She appears to be somewhere in her early twenties.
But that’s not all there is to this woman. I can also sense a strong magical aura all around her. An aura that couldn’t possibly be coming from a regular human. Could she be… a banshee?
My heart starts beating rapidly again. That night from fifteen years ago is coming back to me. I can see it vividly, and I can still hear the laughter. That sinister, high-pitched laughter. Will it never stop haunting me?
I breathe in deeply, and try to calm down. This woman can’t be a banshee. The feeling I’m getting now is too different from the one I got back then. Does that mean she’s a mage? No, that would be impossible. And yet…
“Barry,” whispers Daren. “Don’t be afraid. I know white magic. I can purify her.”
I realize Daren must have also sensed the magic coming from the woman and concluded that she’s been possessed by a banshee. Banshees are parasitic spirits that need to inhabit bodies in order to survive. They usually spend a few weeks inside a body in a dormant state before taking over. During this phase, the host may develop magical powers. Once a banshee is in full control of the body, they say she has awakened. The only way you can save the original host once she’s been possessed by a banshee is to use white magic to purify her before the banshee has fully awakened, which basically means killing the banshee without harming the host.
However, the purification technique operates on the assumption that a woman cannot have magic powers of her own. They call it purification, but all the technique does in fact is to completely eradicate the aura that gives off the strong magical vibe, with the purpose of also eliminating the banshee along with it. On the other hand, if the aura does not actually belong to a banshee, but to the woman herself, the purification would be nothing short of a death sentence.
“No, wait. Listen to me!” I blurt out. “This woman isn’t a banshee.”
“So what, you’re suggesting she’s a mage, then?” Daren says. “Barry, women can’t be mages. There hasn’t been a single recorded case of a woman mage in our entire world’s history. Every time a woman’s developed magical powers, it’s been because of a banshee. Every single time.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” I say. “But this one is different. If you try to purify her, you may well end up killing her!”
“How can you be so sure?” Daren asks me.
“Because I’ve met a banshee before,” I say. “Up close. Have you met a banshee before, Daren?”
“…No,” he admits.
“You just said you trusted me enough to tell me your greatest weakness,” I tell him. “I’m asking you to trust me on this too. Can you trust me on this, Daren?”
Daren gives me one long look, and then he sighs deeply.
“Alright,” he says. “We’ll do it your way. But I’m keeping an eye on her. I swear, Barry, if it turns out you’re only saying all of this because of her looks, I’m going to—”
“Would you guys mind telling me what you’ve been whispering about for the past minute?” the woman asks us.
“We were talking about your looks, actually,” I tell her.
The woman is looking straight at
me. It’s hard to tell if she’s upset or simply unfazed by my comment, but at least she appears to believe me. She decides to ignore me completely and addresses Daren instead.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she tells him. “I was asking if you were Daren, the healer in armor.”
“I am, indeed,” Daren says. “What business would you have with me?”
“I… require an escort,” the woman says. “I am not certain if I can survive this tournament by myself. And I’ve heard of all your deeds of valor and all your legends, so I thought that maybe…”
“Say no more!” Daren says. “I will grant you my protection for the duration of your quest. From what you say, I would surmise that you’re not actually trying to win the tournament?”
“No… I’m not,” the woman says. “I am looking for… a friend. And I have reasons to believe that she’s somewhere on this continent. But I don’t have any specific leads just yet. For now, I just need to stay alive.”
“Then you can join us!” Daren says. “We were just about to get out of here! We’re way too out in the open right now.”
“Us?” the woman asks. “You’re planning to travel alongside this stillwater? You can’t trust him!”
“Hey, I’m right here!” I tell her. “What do you have against me, anyway?”
“Don’t give me that act, stillwater,” the woman says. “I’ve heard of what your kind can do. Human life has no value to you. Tell me, what did the people of Olmnar ever do to deserve such a terrible fate?”
“Whoa, whoa!” Daren says. “Let’s all calm down!”
He turns to the woman.
“Listen,” he says, “I understand your concern, but this man saved my life and I intend to repay my debt to him. If you’re looking for an escort, then it’s going to be the three of us travelling together. I’m not accepting any alternatives.”
The woman pauses to consider Daren’s words.
“Very well,” she says. “If that’s the way it has to be, then I am forced to comply. But know that I’ll be constantly watching my back. I am not as easily convinced as you, healer in armor.”
Magium: The Mage Tournament: Book 1 Page 1