by D. W.
Waving his hand again the magical eye disappeared and was replaced with Thad’s staff. “Now this is truly a magnificent item. I would send every one of my wizards to their death to obtain such a powerful artifact. The only downside is I would most likely have to fight the mage who acquired it to the death.”
Sae-Thae stood up from his chair and waved his hand and a small necklace popped into Thad’s hand. It was a simple item with one large gem in the middle and a string of smaller ones around it. Knowing that the Vathari wouldn’t bother showing him something of a mundane nature, Thad looked at it through his magical sight. The item glowed brightly with magical energy. It was a marvelous item that shielded anyone wearing it.
Unlike his other shields, the main core focused and brought all the other enchantments together. It was simply brilliant and something he hadn’t thought of before. Well that wasn’t completely true it worked much the way he had done some of his other enchantments but he had never carried the idea over to his other work.
Thad took his time and looked at each core one at a time. The shield only turned on when anything moved at the wearer at a speed that would cause damage. It also trigged if anything of metal touched the skin. The necklace was set up much the way his staff was so that all the needed spells used all the cores magic so that unless it needed to be triggered it always stored more energy that it needed for the base enchantments. While he had linked cores before each one only supported the center core they never had their own enchantment as well.
“I never thought of doing it like that. Thank you very much for the idea. I think it will solve my problem though it will take much longer to produce than I wished.” Thad said letting the necklace disappear into nothingness.
“I am glad I could be of assistance.” Sae-Thae said bowing his head slightly. “Truthfully I am amazed you are as skilled as you are without a traditional teacher. We have had some with magical power that were not allowed in the mage’s school, due to the limits who have taught themselves, but most of them end up burning themselves out and those that don’t aren’t even competent enough to light a fire.”
Thad couldn’t help but to smile at the praise. “I can’t say I didn’t have any help but it hasn’t been easy for the first year I went about it all wrong and tried to force the magic to do what I wanted instead of letting it flow naturally.”
“Now, that is simply amazing. A year you say? If you were performing anything other than the simplest of spells you’re either very strong or very lucky.” Sae-Thae said his face take on a very serious look.
“I would guess very lucky.” Thad said half laughing.
Sae-Thae joined in the laugher though it sounded much darker coming from the Vathari mage. “Don’t sell yourself short, the staff alone shows that you have great promise. I wouldn’t doubt that even in the prime of your people’s time that you would have been one of the most skilled mages the humans had to offer. If not then I don’t see how the Brotherhood had been able to drive them to extinction”
The mention of the Brotherhood grabbed Thad’s attention. He had read a small amount about them. They were the order that’s sole task had been to seek out and destroy anything of magical nature including mages. “What can you tell me of the Brotherhood?”
Sae-Thae’s face took on a serious tone. “The Brotherhood of the Fox was once one of the largest armies ever formed. With the Empires full might backing them they hunted down and killed the mages and non-human races. Normally mages had little to fear from armies but somehow the Brotherhood was able to learn to craft weapons that absorbed any magical energy they came into contact with. Sadly during the time you call the Fae Wars,the Vathari by our own laws couldn’t band together to fight off the Brotherhood and we suffered heavily. Thankfully most of our race lived underground and out of the Brotherhoods reach. The other races were not as lucky and many were drove to the brink of extinction. The Brotherhood didn’t end with the end of the Fae Wars, from our information they are still a plague on the surface, I wish I knew more to tell you but our information on the group is limited at best.”
“It’s more than I knew before.” Thad said slightly disappointed.
“Now back to the real reason I stopped by. I heard there was a commotion in the southern tunnels. Was that by chance you and your friends?”
“I’m not sure where the southern tunnels are but if you mean the little skirmish where the herd of creatures are, then yes that was us.”
Sae-Thae let out another short laugh. “I figured it was. I must say you continue to baffle the warriors. They don’t know how you were able to kill over twelve of their soldiers and disappear without a trace when every tunnel in the area was guarded. It seems that my mages and the priests are to make a more active role in the battles. My warrior counterpart is not happy about it at all, but the failure of his soldiers to bring you to heel has the rest of us quite happy, for too long he has held too much esteem for himself.”
“I am glad I could spice up your day.” Thad said half smiling to himself.
“That you did, but it seems that our time here grows short and I must attend to other matters. Good hunting my friend.” Sae-Thae said before disappearing leaving Thad alone.
Sae-Thae had given him plenty to think about but right now he wished that he would wake so that he could start working on the disguise shield. After spending nights trying to get into his own dream world when he finally accomplished it was now trying to get out after what felt like only a short stay. Sadly wanting to wake didn’t, maybe with more skill he would be able to wake himself. For now he simply sat down and began to work on how the enchantment would work when it was finished.
The great thing about the dream world was that he didn’t have to do the work to see the finished work. That didn’t mean it would work in the waking world but it gave him a base idea to begin with. He started out with five cores connected together the center one working as the driving force. The first core created a thin shield to work as a base. The second core searched the surrounding area and copied the heat patterns. The third core used the information from the second core to make an illusion over the shield that mimicked the heat signatures. The last core absorbed all sound made within the shield so that should even a battle break out within no one outside of the shield would be the wiser.
Within his dream it worked perfectly and only took the time to think it up to create. Once he woke he would begin his work but it would take days just to get the gems to link correctly so they worked in harmony and not independently. It was the major point of the whole design. He normally ran into troubles when he tried something new, but this time he had seen an example of the work, and he was sure he understood the basic principle.
With his main problem solved Thad laid back and relaxed simply enjoying the feel of the warmth of the sun on his skin. How long had he been gone from Farlan? He knew that the princess’s twelfth birthday was shortly after he had lost contact with her. Since he had stopped receiving messages he had no real way to measure time. He had cut his hair numerous times keeping it at shoulder length but having no clue of how fast it grew he couldn’t use that as a constant measure of time. From the feel of it he was sure he had been underground for at least a year if not more but it could have only been a season or two.
His body had grown thin over his time in the subterranean. It was mainly due to the thin diet he had. Though they had meat they had to ration it and Crusher ate about three times as much as him and according to the dwarf that was him eating light. Thad had grown fairly fond of the moss that grew naturally on the cave walls. It was a little spongy but it had a good flavor when it was cooked.
Thad let out a short laugh. For the past two years his life had been anything but what he had expected it to be. Even when he had first learned magic he never expected that he would save a queen, be thrown in prison, fight in a war, get captured, escape and then get trapped in an unending network of underground tunnels. It was almost as if someone was purposely playing with hi
m out of some morbid sense of humor.
CHAPTER XIX
Thad sat hunched over the pair of thick bracelets that he had been working on for the past four days. Unlike most of his other work these had been designed not only to be practical but also were pleasing to the eye. The main base metal was made of a mix of the ultra-light metal and the white steel as Crusher had suggested. Over the base metal he had added a thin layer of gold made from some of the coins they had taken off the dead Vathari warriors. Thad had to admit that they looked like something a rich Rane merchant or maybe a king would wear to a party.
Each bracelet had two parts that linked together. The gems had been chosen and placed not only for effect but to look pleasing as well. Each side of the bracelets held its own enchantments that would aid him in not only the subterranean but also when he returned to the surface world. Together his four new bracelets would replace most of his rings and would do it much more efficiently.
The right bracelet first part covered the cloaking, silencing, and shield spells. Each spell had three levels so that they could be used in different situations. The cloaking spell could layer the enchantment in either nightsight or the normal light spectrum. The one for the light spectrum was a little more complicated but it simply took what one side of the shield saw and placed it on the other in three hundred and sixty degree radius. It had been the hardest single enchantment so far had had taken nearly a day alone on its own.
The other side of the right bracelet covered his light spell. He had thought about adding more to it but the spell itself could be used in many ways, and each one was in essence its own enchantment. So he had taken the time to make what was normally a simple spell into something much more complex. It even included a spell that would surround him in a ball of absolute darkness.
The left bracelet was more for combat and carried his paralyzing spell, as well as many others that he had used with great success. He still hadn’t found a way around the use of more volatile spells but he wasn’t sure if those should be placed on a solitary item that could be used by anyone who was able to get ahold of them. The only true combat spell was the magical force spell that while it would push him back could still devastate anything living.
Sae-Thae had been right most of his work had been rushed and not taken to its full potential. Once he had found something that worked he never tried to improve it, he just simply let it be set aside and moved onto the next project, he had never noticed it before but it was the truth. This time he promised to take the enchantments to their full value, even if it meant taking a much longer period to make.
At first Thad had been worried that Crusher would be anxious to leave and would lament the lost time. The dwarf to Thad’s surprise had taken the news without complaining and even offered his expertise in the design of his new bracelets. He had even done beautiful etching on the gold overlay that looked like dragons in flight.
Sitting back Thad looked at what he had accomplished so far. He had tried to keep the work evenly spread over all four parts of the bracelets so that the gems would be fully charged at the same time but it hadn’t been easy. The enchantments he knew well were much easier to place and the difficulty of the linking the cores seemed to fluctuate for unknown reasons. As it was all but one of them were almost a third of the way done.
It had been hard work and today he had already almost spent himself with varying results. The bracelet to keep them cloaked was moving along but he had to add in two extra gems to the base designed to make the magic distribution more even. They hadn’t needed to be very big but having to rearrange the links had been tiring work much more so than the original placement had been.
He had also been working on other items some of them at Crusher’s request including making a few shield walls to slow down pursuers in a pinch. There were a myriad of other items but they were mostly on the back burner when he needed a break from his main project of the bracelets.
Leaning back to stretch his strained muscles Thad looked at everything in front of him. It was slightly overwhelming. Everything he had to finish before they could even stand a chance of safely navigating through the throng of Vathari warriors that awaited them in the tunnels beyond. It would be nice if it was like most work and he could simply put in extra hours to get it done sooner but no matter how he tried he ran out of magical energy well before his body physically tired.
Thad decided to take a break to let his mind rest a bit before he started in on the next set of links. Moving into the main chamber he sat down across from Crusher who was busy at his own preparations. He was only doing simple things such as smoking enough meat to feed them in the event they couldn’t get to a fresh source of food for a long period of time.
Avalanche was curled up in a ball against the far wall. Out of the three companions she hated being shut in the most and had whined whenever she was in the mood to romp around. Thad wished he could let her out, but the chances that she would lead the Vathari to their door were too great to chance. Once she realized she was stuck in the small space she had resorted to pouting in the corner like a spoiled child.
Looking at the sleeping creature Thad began to wonder about Avalanche. There was little doubt she was an oddity. She behaved much the way many of the young animals he had seen on the surface. Most of the time there was just simply playful innocence in the animal’s actions but every so often Avalanche displayed intelligence far beyond what he expected.
It wasn’t as if she did anything earthshattering. It was that she seemed to understand when they wanted to fight and when they wanted to hide. When they had sent her to scout she had done so with little prompting completing the task expertly. Other times Avalanche didn’t even seem to understand the most basic of instructions, though Thad had a feeling that it was more of a choice on her part.
Crusher followed his gaze to where the animal slept and shrugged his shoulders slightly. Crusher seemed to know more about Avalanche than he did and seemed in awe of the creature at times. Thad wasn’t sure what that truly meant but he hoped that he would discovery the answer to that and many other questions at Crusher’s home.
Pulling a piece of meat from the rack Thad inspected it to make sure it had been fully cooked. It still lacked hours before it was ready to be stowed away but it was more than ready for eating. While he snacked on the dried meat Thad looked at the small enchantment that he had made to create the heat. It was a simple extension of a project he had started back at the capital. Back then he had found the task almost impossible but with Sae-Thae’s advice he had been able to figure out how to create it.
In the end it had been fairly simple. It didn’t have to be one single spell but could be a configuration of spells working together to get the wanted outcome. For the heat trapping device it simply started with a spell that heated up the air slowly. To trap the heat in the enchanted field also created a shield that held in the heat but allowed everything else to pass through it. In the end it was a low energy costing and could run for days before needing to rest and recharge.
He still didn’t understand why he didn’t figure it out on his own. He liked to think that given enough time he would have eventually came across the answer, but in all honesty he had the answer in his hands more than once but didn’t know it.
The worst part of everything was that with every conversation he had with Sae-Thae the more he was tempted to visit him in his own city. He wasn’t sure how he would accomplish such a task considering the largest portion of the Vathari seemed to want him dead. Maybe he could find a way to visit his mage friend after he had made it to the dwarven village and things had settled down a bit.
Thad had thought about discussing the issue with Crusher but he was stopped by the language barrier between them. Not only didn’t they speak the same language Crusher couldn’t speak at all. More than once it had been a problem but for most things the two could manage to get their point across. With every day that passed it had gotten easier but there were some things that couldn’t be ex
plained in such manners.
His hunger quenched Thad patted his friend on the shoulder getting a big tooth smile and a slight wink. Thad had more than a small suspicion that the dwarf knew quite a bit about the magical process of enchanting. It wasn’t anything profound but the simple way the dwarf seemed to take everything he did in stride. He also showed a fair amount of concern when Thad pushed himself too hard as if he had seen another do it before.
Thad had shrugged off everything at first assured in the fact that he was the only mage until he saw the magical tattoos that were on Crusher’s back. He had gotten even more suspicious once he had met the Vathari mage Sae-Thae. Now he was not only aware that other mages were present, he had even met one. It filled him with hope that he wouldn’t have to continue to muddle through his magic as he learned.
Back in his makeshift workroom Thad sat down in front of the magical bracelets. Using his magical sight he looked over their progress. All the new links were strong and working as expected. Thad let out a sigh of relief; he had half expected to have to add more cores again. It wasn’t that they wouldn’t work with what he had but the idea was to make them not only work longer but last the test of time.
Sae-Thae had said that most of his previous work wouldn’t last more than a few years. Thad had been skeptical at first but after looking closely at the other items he had made he could notice a slight diminishing in its use of magic. It wasn’t fast by any means but it would be inconvenient if they failed at the wrong time.
Sure that everything was working as it should Thad moved onto the next stage. It was slow and tedious work but Thad enjoyed it in a simple way. The feel of the magic as it coursed through his body and implanted itself on the items in front of him was much akin to the enjoyment one might get from a well done massage.
Thrusting his mind forward Thad started building the interconnecting links between the different cores. Like the tunnels in the vast subterranean network, the paths to the different cores could go in many directions but some were better than others. It wasn’t as simple as the most direct route but what allowed the best flow of magic. There were times that a core only needed to be linked to one or two others and others times when the core had to be linked to the every other core and sometimes more than once. Thad wasn’t sure why it was but every time he made a new connection he watched the change carefully to help him understand. It was enough to know that it needed to be linked but it would be nice to know why. If he did then planning out a project would be much easier in the future.