Ringwall`s Doom

by Awert, Wolf

  Nill approached the Sanctuary with the same reverence he had felt when he had still been a lowly pupil. Here, the elemental magic existed in its purest form. He wished he had more command of it, but the art of magic required more than just the gift: hard work, practice and a lot of experience were mandatory.

  He absorbed the silence of the place like the earth drinks morning dew. He was alone, connected only to the magic of the place. But next to being alone was loneliness, which suddenly crashed down upon him. He had to be cautious not to let loneliness become abandonment. He shook his head.

  “I chose it this way. I chose Ringwall and Magic.”

  The Sanctuary was rarely empty. Time and again, white mages and colored ones alike visited the place, for only here was the purity of the elements complete. Nill saw the flaming red of a Fire mage and the blue of a Water mage, but they vanished quickly. Nobody liked to share the company of an archmage, even if they were barely more than a boy. He paid them only a moment’s attention before stepping into the inner circle, where he sat down on the pale grass.

  His thoughts dispersed, his emotions forgot about him, his body was lost. Only his self was still there in the grass for a while, until that, too, disappeared. The Nothing, the end of all things, had come to get him, and the Nothing, the beginning of everything, threw him back into the world. The traces of the ancient magic had fled his body, his mind was soothed, and the agitated exhaustion had been replaced by a more comfortable tiredness. Just before he fell to the side to sleep, a short chuckle escaped him. He, Nill, was the archmage and thus the master of Nothing. A jest lost on most others, he assumed. His mastery consisted solely of giving in to the Nothing for it to come and get him. Who could have any doubts as to who the master was and who the slave? Nill smiled in his sleep. He did not notice the watchful eyes that rested on him.

  In a corner a fair distance from the entrance, in the shadow of the restless Wood, stood an old man in an ugly gray robe, the surface of which seemed to be constantly moving. The combined weight of many winters rested on his crooked back, and his roughly carved staff served more as a walking-cane than a tool of magic. He muttered to himself in silent conversation, words streaming constantly from his mouth. His eyes were hidden. Half-closed, they rested in the shade of the hood. It was a picture of peace: the old man and the sleeping boy.

  Nill began to stir. His eyelids fluttered open like a butterfly’s wings and his feet twitched.

  “Greetings, brother in spirit.” The old man stepped out from the shadows silently and unexpectedly, startling Nill. He had not noticed the brother and wondered how it was possible to move so inconspicuously.

  “Greetings to you, Murmon-Som.” Nill carefully avoided addressing him as “brother,” for the Archmage of the Other World gave him shivers, although he could not say why. After his victory against Mah Bu in Ringwall’s library there had been a vote for a new Archmage of the Other World. The High Council had decided on Tofflas. But Tofflas had wasted away quickly. Everyone saw how he lost part of his life force every day, powerless to resist. Several archmages were disquieted by this, half-expecting an attack on the council; others saw a personal, unresolved conflict and denounced the attacker for not showing himself. But a newly-appointed archmage who could not protect himself was of no use to the council, and so they abandoned him to his fate.

  After Tofflas had left the world of the living, Murmon-Som took his place on the chair. Among the council there was little hope that the old, rather pained-looking mage would last long. To their surprise, however, he found some way to prove himself. Malicious tongues wagged, claiming he had been the one to get rid of Tofflas.

  Nill waited with the politeness expected of a youth, but Murmon-Som did not seem intent on adding anything to his greeting. He simply stood there, motionless, his eyes fixed silently on Nill, until Nill felt ever more uncomfortable under his gaze. More to say something at all than because he had thought about it, he muttered: “Is ‘brother in spirit’ not a little… dignified for one such as me? It is no secret that I am no true archmage. I lead no lodge and am little more than a neophyte. I must be the weakest archmage ever to join the council.”

  Nill gave a pained smile; he knew within the first few words that his jest would not reach his fellow archmage.

  Murmon-Som flicked his wrist weakly, as if driving off flies or a bad smell. “You yourself are the secret now, brother. Your classmate Prince Sergor-Don had little effort in defeating you. Indeed, not a sign of great strength. Yet in the tournament you succeeded against powerful sorcerers such as the great Morb-au-Morhg or old Infiralior. You passed under Binja and Rinja’s watchful eyes, and Malachiris, the old wood-witch, could do you no harm. And only shortly afterwards you killed Mah Bu, one of the most powerful archmages on the council.”

  “I never defeated him,” Nill retorted passionately. “He killed himself, because he could no longer control the powers he presumed to use.”

  “Oh, really?” The old man’s laugh was more of a coughing bark than a true sign of mirth. “And who has the power to make an archmage kill himself? An archmage is no simpleton, brother, who makes mistakes so foolish as to cost his own life. Especially not in a fight.”

  Nill grew annoyed at this. He hated praise for accomplishments that weren’t his; quite beside the fact that killing an archmage ought not be counted as one in the first place. “I had help. Was that not mentioned? To this day I still don’t know how I won, but I suppose the Ramsleg accompanied me as a friend, and saved me in the end.”

  “Yes, yes, I heard whispers… the Talon-foot, the Ramsleg and the great Serp. The three great Demon Lords.” The old man gave another bark. “In ancient legends they speak of mighty sorcerers who boasted of meeting one. None of them ever mentioned working alongside one. You claim to know all three. Not that I distrust you – only every explanation you give is more wondrous than the last.”

  Murmon-Som stood still as a statue, immovable, untouched and with a blank stare.

  “And the Nothing,” the Archmage of the Other World continued after a long pause. “You forgot the Nothing, Brother Nill. You may laugh about it, jest about it, but it looks as though you are the only one who can enter without personal risk. Not even the magon can do that. Ringwall housed many future victims of the Nothing, those who poked their noses in too often. These days, the path into Nothingness is no longer a search, it is a way for the desperate to escape their miserable lives.”

  Nill agreed unwillingly. One of Mah Bu’s apprentices had suggested he visit the Nothing to find truth and magical power. In his naivety he had followed the advice and survived the resulting attack. The Nothing had granted him a questionable fame.

  “Not for nothing were you chosen, by the magon and the archmages, to sit the chair of Nothingness, a chair that has been empty for so long, waiting for a master,” Murmon-Som broke the silence.

  Nill wanted to reply that the empty chair was no more than a symbol, but suddenly speaking was incredibly difficult. He felt trapped in the opposing archmage’s aura and could not fight back. He did not even know how he could have fought. He felt as if time itself had become stretched and viscous, forcing its way forward ever so slowly. Murmon-Som did nothing but look, but he did so with such force that Nill forgot where he was. He could not even tell if it really was Murmon-Som holding him, or whether it was one of those magical moments in which time stops and the world ceases its movement.

  Nill began to speak, but he heard his words as a drawn-out howl, incomprehensible to his own ears. He retreated to the symbol of Nothing and made himself light and lighter still. Time sped up again. Nill’s speech formed words, and he heard himself say:

  From Nothing, from the one

  it forms the two.

  At war with itself

  the three seems true.

  Four, five manifold

  in chaos bold

  it breaks.

  Nothing’s magic then takes

  and keeps unseen

  what was
done.

  The elemental symbols began to pulsate and lose color, the gentle wind stopped blowing, time moved forwards and Murmon-Som paled. His fingers dug deeper into the wood of his staff, and his already-crooked body bent lower still. Nill noticed none of this. He blinked, looked around in confusion, and finally arrived back in the present.

  “What was that?” he burst out. “I felt time stand still.”

  “Time does as it pleases,” the other archmage replied, having regained his composure.

  “What happened?” Nill look helplessly at the man opposite him.

  Murmon-Som merely shrugged. “I do not know. You spoke, it seemed to me, some sort of summoning. But I did not understand the words you said, nor did I feel their power. I cannot tell whether you were the cause or the subject of magical powers. But there is no doubt that something happened here in the Sanctuary. The smell of magic is fresh upon the air.”

  The old man raised his head and sniffed. “Lots of magic, and powerful at that. Which kind, I cannot say.”

  The archmage made a gesture of farewell, leaving a confused Nill behind. Nill never really knew what he was dealing with. It always felt as though someone was toying with him. Powerless, young and inexperienced in magic, yet at the same time a feared member of the High Council – it was a contradiction that would have confused those with far more knowledge than him. If Tiriwi had her way, he would have been better off turning his back on Ringwall, but she had seen that this was the only place where he could begin his search for his parents. Even more than Tiriwi he missed Brolok’s simple view of the world; fighting and resting, survival or death, food and drink were all he cared for. “Never try understanding the thoughts of an archmage,” he had always counseled. “They occupy a world others cannot.”

  What he would have given to simply shepherd a herd of rams around the hills of Earthland, the sun on his back and the wind in his face! The encounter with Murmon-Som and the sudden standing still of time weighed heavily on his mind.

  “People always want what they don’t have,” he sighed. “And what they don’t have seems to change all the time. But what else can you do but run after those things if there’s no place to rest?”

  *

  The student who had beaten Nill in a fight Ringwall, which was still spoken about, was Sergor-Don, of the lineage of Herfas-San, house of Ombras. As the son and heir to the ruler of the Fire Kingdom he demanded and received the obeisance of all those beneath him in rank as naturally as grass bends in a storm. Only Tiriwi, an Oa who did not recognize the nobles’ right to rule, and who was more than a match for the prince with her own, strange magic, and Nill, the muckling with magical powers yet without ancestry, denied him what Pentamuria’s order commanded. But this alone was not the reason for the intensity of their mutual dislike. Unable to bend the knee, one out of tradition and a sense of royalty, the other out of natural stubbornness, they collided in Ringwall more often than would be usual. It was only a matter of time until dislike became hate, and that hate forced its way to the surface.

  On the day of his departure Prince Sergor-Don had challenge Nill, thrown him to the dirt and left no doubts as to who had more power and strength. But the final, fatal spell was never spoken; the mouth that commanded the insatiable flames had remained shut. It was not the fear of the mages of Ringwall that had stopped the prince from burning his opponent to ash. It was the game of cat-and-mouse, the satisfaction that Nill would have to carry the humiliation of his defeat with him until the day he died. To Sergor-Don, it was the just punishment for a common muckling who had dared demand a place with the nobility, all because Ringwall had given him the mercy of a few lessons in magic.

  The prince had had little time to savor his triumph, for at that very moment Gulffir, the City of Flames, capital of the Fire Kingdom, was gripped by fear, worry and unease. The old king lay dying, valiantly fighting off the pull into the Other World. He had one duty left to do, the last duty any regent must: to give his son his blessing and a final smile. But above all else, he must witness his councilors and generals swear their oaths to follow and serve the new king. Then, and only then, was it certain that the future would look to the past for guidance, that the common folk obeyed a single will, and the surrounding powerful families accepted their new ruler. The court prayed for the heir to return in time, the sorcerers sent out magical calls and the wild riders on the plains mounted their ritualistic hunt, for the spirits to join those of the prince’s and his followers’ horses and grant them speed on the way home.

  The prince heard the calls. Blazemane, his fiery chestnut steed, turned into a beacon of flames in the setting sun. The small stallion’s tough, indefatigable muscles moved in everlasting harmony. The prince had long since left his following behind. He rode at a rising trot, his knees drawn up to the horse’s withers, kneeling more than sitting. Riding like this spared the mount, but demanded everything from the rider.

  The powerful hooves beat the dry earth, throwing a plume of dust into the dark blue sky. Fast riders need no herald: dryness and wind presage their arrival. The wind also brought the smells of the plains back to the prince: macchian, rosemiriam, horseweed and the powerful scent of the common bluish-gray thynus flower. After so long in Ringwall, he finally felt the freedom that was his people’s most valuable asset.

  Sergor-Don sang against the wind, his long hair whipping against his ears, the tart, bitter taste of dust on his lips. The plainsflowers had never smelled sweeter, and the tears which the wind wrung from his eyes had never been saltier. Saltbringer, they called the wind; as quickly as it conjured tears it dried them again, and none in the prince’s retinue would have guessed that they were not tears of sadness. Sergor did not weep for his father.

  These tears will be my last, the prince thought. They are but salted words, spelling the end of my youth and the beginning of a new future. He was surprised that the moment he had so eagerly awaited should be heralded by wistfulness. But wistfulness was fleeting, born only for the moment. Now life would have to pay what it had promised him.

  Sergor-Don’s thoughts strayed from the present; his memories took control and brought him to the Tower of Worry and Hope. It was so named because one could see far into the distance from the top and witness before anyone else who returned, and who did not. Some called it Skyseeker. The tower was the tallest building in all of Gulffir. Tall and slender, it towered above the city; it almost seemed to sway in the wind like a blade of grass. Whenever his strict timetable of studies and duties had allowed for it, the young prince had been drawn to the small outlook. Depending on his mood he was either the lone sentinel that warned the land of approaching danger and saved the kingdom, or the all-powerful ruler who watched from above, rewarding the bold and punishing the idle.

  Loneliness was the immediate feeling conveyed by Skyseeker’s peak, but one could also understand the strength that could grow from it. Loneliness did not bother Sergor-Don. He had endured it from the early days of his childhood, but never suffered from it. From lonesomeness grew strength, and from strength, power. And you could never have too much power, he knew.

  The small platform offered little room to walk on. As he paced around it, a set of stones always interrupted his concentration. A watcher up here had full view of the surrounding area, save for the sun’s point at midday. It was blocked by a sort of bay. There was no entrance to it, nor windows to look out from. It was as solid as the walls below. In his childish anger he had beaten against it with his fists, and learned the lesson that anger can amplify pain severely.

  One day, he had stood on tip-toe upon the winding stair that led to the top to touch the bottom of the walled-off area. There was no entrance here either, but as he scratched the stones he found that the mortar had rotted. He drew his knife and plunged it repeatedly into the gap between the stones until the mortar had fully given way, releasing a pitiful sigh of ancient air.

  There was a hollow space there! It had taken many more visits for Sergor-Don to remove the first s
tone and place it on one of the steps, and many more still until he had enough stones to stand on to reach into the hole. He had to sink his arm up to his shoulder into the hole, and all he got for his trouble was an old cloak, rolled up and skewered by a spearhead. The cloak was so old that it started to fall apart as he removed it. Dust and brown tatters he held in his hands. But hidden within that rolled-up cloak was a treasure more valuable than all the riches of the Five Kingdoms. It was several old parchments, hastily bundled together. They were torn in places, burnt in others, and stained all over in different colors that told of blood, the sweat of countless hands and tears from long-blind eyes.

  The prince remembered clearly how he had held them close to his face and breathed in the magical vapors that still clung to the scraps after so many years. It was all he could do at the time; the writing was unreadable to him. The map that was rolled up with the other parchment was equally useless to him. But Sergor-Don, the young prince, was not a child like any other. He stood still for a moment. Then he carefully stowed everything back in the space, returned the stones to their positions, cleaned the dirt and the dust from his precious clothes and made his way to Auran-San, his father’s First Advisor.

  “Teach me to read!” he commanded in his child’s voice.

  Prince Sergor-Don read all he could find in Gulffir, and as he did so he found himself pushing further and further into the past. He finally read the tales that the court scribes had written to honor their kings. The older the stories were, the closer their writing resembled that on the parchments he had found. To his dismay, the only thing he was not allowed to read were the books of magic they kept at court.