The Kingdom of Eternal Sorrow (The Golden Mage Book 1)

by C. G. Garcia

  He softly groaned and forced his trembling legs to carefully rise to equally unsteady feet. He swayed a little as a fresh wave of fatigue washed over an already greatly-fatigued body that was dangerously close to collapsing in exhaustion. Nevertheless, somehow, the spy managed to keep all bearings by grabbing the back of the king’s throne seat and leaning a little weight towards it for support.

  The Observer closed aching eyes and breathed deeply for a couple of depths before cautiously peering out from behind the throne seat to see if any eyes were looking anywhere near his direction. The Circle was deeply engrossed in a discussion, so it was unlikely that any of them had noticed the shadow lurking behind the throne seat. Most of the pompous bastards never looked past their own nose long enough to notice the knife about to cut their lordly throat.

  At the moment, all eyes were on Lord Caith, the Arms-general of King Diryan’s army, who was outlining to the Lord Commander the newest attack strategy that he planned to use along the Kemosian-Mihran border. That strategy was old news as far as the Observer was concerned.

  His attention turned once again to the king and Galen. They were still talking animatedly. The two men appeared to be in an argument. King Diryan’s body was tense, and from the king’s tightly balled fists held at his sides, the spy knew that the king was fighting to control his temper. They spoke in whispers, so the Observer couldn’t hear any of their discussion. Galen gestured in frustration with his arms. Apparently, Diryan was less than impressed with whatever the mind-mage was saying.

  After Diryan whispered one final retort, hidden eyes watched with amusement as the king turned on his heel and silently stalked away, leaving Galen to stare with a stupid look on his face at the retreating figure and muttering angrily to himself.

  It was all too easy, really.

  ***

  Sitting in the comforts of his study, Roderick stared at a painting of a particularly gruesome battle scene mounted on the opposite wall, lost in thought. The knowledge of the Golden Mage’s unexpected arrival had come as a fierce shock to him, affecting him more deeply than he cared to admit to himself, and that fact really infuriated him. Seldom ever had any news from the many spies he had planted in various kingdoms outright shocked him, and because he had been caught so completely off-guard, he had allowed himself to show emotion to that fool in Lamia. But that was the least of his worries now.

  What disturbed him the most about the news of the Golden Mage was the uncanny similarities of that particular Lamian prophecy to a series of dreams he had been having for some time now. In each dream, the landscape was the same, open plains similar to the terrain of southwestern Mihr, skies filled with dark, angry clouds ready to release their fury onto the world, and an army—his army—stretched seemingly from horizon to horizon.

  In several of his dreams, Roderick had been leading his great army against the Kemosian army or sometimes, against the Na’aran army, kingdoms that bordered Mihr in the north and west. In all of them, Mihr always triumphed in the end, the enemy armies either annihilated or captured.

  However, in another dream, the dream that reoccurred the most, it was the infamous Lamian army that he had faced. In the Thrones above, the storm had raged as usual. Only a span separated the two armies as they had readied their initial charge.

  That’s when the maiden in the sapphire cloak had stepped into view, her face hidden within the folds of a cowl, and beneath, wearing the sapphire robes of a Lamian adept-mage. The soldiers on both sides had seemed frozen into place, transfixed by the mysterious maiden as she had slowly glided into the center of the grasslands between the two armies with complete disregard for her safety. Then she had raised her hands and shouted into the very voice of the storm in the ancient language of magic an incantation whose meaning was irritatingly just beyond Roderick’s understanding.

  Her upraised hands had then come alive with a brilliant, golden light that somehow wasn’t blinding, parting the storm clouds until the rays of the suns had shone down upon her and engulfed her, had become her, transforming her into a being of pure light that was beautiful beyond comparison. Her body had become the sun and the long, wavy hair spilling from within her cowl its sunbeams. Like the rising of the first sun, the golden light had begun to radiate from her body, illuminating the lands around them until not a trace of the once raging storm had been evident.

  It was at that point that Roderick had heard the voice, a male voice that seemed distinctly familiar, seemingly coming from the very air around him. It was a voice that only he could hear, urging him to approach the powerful creature before him, this light incarnate.

  Each time he had the dream, he would hesitate suspiciously, and the voice would whisper that claiming her was necessary, that it was the only way he would win against the force of the Lamian army. The voice always insisted that the mysterious maiden was the key to his ultimate triumph. Urged by the voice, Roderick would always venture forward, hungry for the power he sensed within her. Yet, she would always turn to face him just before he reached her.

  He could never distinguish her features, just that her face and body were proportionate to a woman’s, but he had definitely been able to feel the heat of her eyes boring down into the very depths of his soul, searing the terrible coldness of the Dark Powers within with the heat of her rays.

  Roderick would wonder who in the six hells she was before being overwhelmed by the pain and beginning to scream—only to wake up in a cold sweat, occasionally with his lip bloody where he had bitten it or an offensive spell ready to cast in his hands. He had never understood the meaning of those dreams, though he was certain that a hidden meaning did lay somewhere beneath the theatrics. Now, he knew only too well.

  The Golden Mage…

  For years Roderick had hungered after the power of the Lamian Mage-field, and for most of those years, he had devoted his life entirely to the conquest of Lamia. Yet, no matter how organized his military strategy was—how large and powerful his army of fighters and mages—they couldn’t penetrate that damned shield around the kingdom. His army might as well have consisted of a child’s toy soldiers for all the good they did against the Shield.

  Nor had he been successful in forcing Diryan to surrender by invading many of Lamia’s allied kingdoms and threatening to destroy them. Lamia’s army always drove his forces back, mostly on the account of that accursed mage, Aidric, who seemed to wield ungodly powers.

  Damn him!

  Roderick sometimes suspected that Aidric wasn’t even human. His appearance was certainly uncanny, especially those pale eyes that seemed to find and pluck the deepest, darkest secrets directly from your soul. Rumors floating around Mihr said that he was a demon wearing the guise of a human, Summoned by Lord Othos, Diryan’s former Mage-general, on his deathbed.

  That particular account served only to amuse him. Roderick had done his fair share of Summoning creatures from Ter-ob over the years, and he doubted that the late Mage-general would have had the courage to do such a blasphemous thing. Well, demon or not, Roderick was determined to dispose of Aidric.

  I have labored too long and too hard to let that bastard upset my plans any further.

  Ever since he was a boy old enough to understand the ways of the world, Roderick had lusted after power. From that first taste of power he had experienced at the tender age of seven when his father had allowed him, as his first duty performed as the prince-heir to the throne of Mihr, to pass judgment on a prisoner who had been caught stealing from the palace, Roderick wanted to savor even more. There was nothing compared to the feeling of holding the power of life or death over another human being. The only way he could accomplish that, his young mind had reasoned, was to become king, himself, far sooner than his father had anticipated.

  To draw attention away from himself, Roderick never disclosed to his father that he had any ambitions of his own. He made a big show of being the lazy prince who cared nothing for the kingdom and only for his own pleasures. It had been disgustingly easy to convince t
he king that he cared nothing for the crown and was content on being the pampered prince. It was insulting, really, that a man of his blood could have been such a fool. The thought still made Roderick gnash his teeth in disgust.

  When, at age ten, Roderick’s channeling abilities awakened, his father had eagerly sent for a Domnae, a mage-priest from the Temple of Seni, to instruct him, thinking that perhaps the discipline of the Domni would shape up his son to accept his responsibilities as heir to the throne. Roderick sulked and whined at every given opportunity, refusing to give his maximum effort during his lessons, but secretly he hung onto every word that emerged from his teacher’s lips and practiced hard on his mage lessons, determined to learn everything the Domnae had to teach him before he made his move for the throne. He stole spellbooks from the Domnae’s library and studied them at night when no one dared to disturb him.

  Domnae Nelek had been surprised at Roderick’s magical potential, and was frustrated to no end when his pupil seemed to not want to develop his powers to their full extent. Quite by accident, Roderick learned that Domnae Nelek had secretly desired to steal him away to the Temple to become a Domnae when he had completed his training, but as long as Roderick refused to cooperate, he was upsetting those plans.

  After that, Roderick had made sure to keep a more careful eye on his teacher, lest he had suddenly awakened one day to find himself confined in the novice wing of the Temple under a submission spell.

  For nearly a decade, he had managed to keep up his pretense of being the brat prince in the public eye to the fury of his father and his mentor. Behind closed doors, he plotted and schemed against his father, deliberately creating factions within the noble houses and the ranking occupants of the palace until the entire kingdom was at the brink of a civil war. No one, even Domnae Nelek, had dreamed that their lazy, self-centered brat prince could possibly be the mastermind behind all the turmoil that had suddenly sprung up out of the blue to torment Mihr.

  Thus, when the king was found murdered one night when Roderick was nineteen, the guilty finger never once was pointed in his direction. His father had been found burnt to just a few bones and ash in his bedroom. His night clothes didn’t have even a single burnt thread. Even the sheets beneath him had not burned. Only magic could have accomplished such a remarkable feat.

  Since Roderick was reputed to be so bad at magecraft that he couldn’t even light a lantern with his power, the guilt had been thrown on the only mage in the kingdom who had unlimited access to the king’s chambers—Domnae Nelek. Roderick signed Nelek’s death warrant himself the very day of his coronation as Mihr’s new king. It had pleased him to no end to see the Domnae being led to the gallows wearing only his skin and shackles. In the end, Domnae Nelek couldn’t even use his magic to save himself since Roderick had instantly ordered his hands cut off and his tongue cut out.

  Executing a Domnae had caused him trouble to no end with the Brothers in Divinity. By divine law, it was forbidden to execute a Domnae without first a trial in the Temple and a death warrant signed by the High Priest, himself. Roderick had scoffed at them and promptly announced the Domnae’s plan to kidnap him from Mihr and force him to become a Domnae against his will.

  The Temple abhorred scandal. That had shut them up for a little while, at least. It was with that accusation that Roderick had broken from the Temple forever.

  The people of Mihr had been shocked by this sudden transformation in their brat prince and also by the power he wielded. Within days, Roderick had united the noble houses and held their loyalties. He had set up sterner laws and new peasant taxes. For a while, it had even seemed as though the peasants would revolt.

  He put a stop to such annoyances by demonstrating the extent of his powers. Sometimes he burned houses, but more often than not, it was bodies that lay strewn on the streets of villages, consumed slowly by green mage-flames that could not be extinguished.

  Roderick had also immediately enlarged his army, snatching any able young man as young as ten to begin military training. He hired many mercenary mages from the far eastern kingdoms of Bar’taiver and Rathtyen. He also forbade any citizen to leave Mihr, stationing troops all along the borders to prevent any attempts of escape. He thought of the people as his property, and all would bend their heads to his will or pay a cruel price for their insolence.

  Then the stranger in black robes, his face concealed within the folds of a hood the color of the blackest night, had appeared. Roderick considered that the best day of his life. The stranger introduced Roderick to the dark god, Arioch, and to the seductive world of Ter-ob, Arioch’s dark kingdom known commonly as the six hells.

  For two summers, the stranger taught him the ways of Arioch and the Dark Powers. Never had he felt so consumed by power, so invincible, as when he wielded the powers of Arioch. It was understandable why he had hated so see his mysterious visitor leave him.

  Never once had Roderick seen the stranger’s face. Sometimes he liked to fancy that it had been the great god, Arioch, himself, who had been his mentor.

  With the help of his newfound powers, Roderick drove the Temple completely out of his kingdom, casting a spell over the lands that saturated the very air and earth with the dark energy of Ter-ob, which would drive any of the Brothers in Divinity mad should they set foot on Mihran soil. The spell had also taken its hold on his people, making them completely his by binding their souls to the land—and to Arioch.

  When the hunger for power grew beyond the power he already held, Roderick had aimed his sights on Lamia and their legendary Mage-field, which could give him the power to rule the world. The only thing that stood between him and that Mage-field was that cursed Shield around the kingdom.

  All attempts to shatter the Shield had failed miserably. One such attempt had left him bedridden for a quarter-moon after in a fit of rage, he had tried to channel more of the dark energy of Arioch than his body was capable of handling. In that attempt, Roderick had nearly drained the Mihran Mage-field completely.

  Then to make matters worse, Aidric and the mage troops he commanded were making it increasingly difficult to attempt more attacks on the Shield, and that left him ready to spit nails.

  Now, not only did Roderick have Aidric to worry about, but he also had this mysterious maiden whom the Lamians believed to be the Golden Mage to deal with, as well. He would be a fool to think that he could easily twist her will to do his bidding, but…

  Even now he could hear the mysterious voice in his dreams whispering that the maiden he had seen enveloped within the light of the two suns was crucial to the success of his plans. Could the dream have been Foresight of a different flavor, bestowed not from Seni, but from Arioch, himself? Just because Arioch had not rewarded him with a Foresight sending before did not mean those particular dream had not come directly from him.

  With the Golden Mage in his power, his options were limitless. Roderick could very well conquer all of Seni’s world, especially if he had the near limitless power of the Lamian Mage-field to draw from—the Mage-field in which the Golden Mage would help him to obtain.

  With a smug smile, Roderick sat back into his chair and began to relax the tension in his shoulders as endless images of grandeur flashed through his mind. The more he contemplated it, the more he believed it could be done. No matter what the prophecy foretold, Roderick believed that every mage had at least one weakness. One just needed the fortitude to uncover it. After all, he had found Aidric’s strongest weakness. A pity that his attempt to exploit it had unexpectedly blown up in his face, and that method was now closed to him forever.

  That was one of the many reasons he had been willing to lose so many of his best spies in his efforts to successfully plant one within Lamia. He had wanted to try to uncover Aidric’s weaknesses no matter the cost. However, it had taken the sole spy that had finally managed to cross into Lamia much longer than Roderick had expected to uncover anything useful and even longer to use that information to his advantage.

  He simply did not have t
he patience to wait quite as long this time. If what his current spy had conveyed was true, then perhaps it would be simpler to uncover the weakness of the Golden Mage since she was untrained and ignorant to the ways of magic. Perhaps that, in itself, was her weakness.

  Life has just suddenly become more interesting, he thought with glee, gazing at the painting again and imagining that the soldier whose head was being torn off by an enemy’s bare hands bore Aidric’s face.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Aidric?” a hesitant voice called out from the sitting room, causing him to look up from the map of Kemos, Mihr, and Na’ar he had been studying.

  Allison… Aidric smiled as he rose from his chair to go out to greet her, his spirits immediately lifting. She sounded so uncertain, not at all like the majority of Lamian women who were more headstrong than gentle. He found her occasional uncertainty to be a charming quality.

  In fact, Allison had not been far from his thoughts during the last few sand-marks he had been working in his study. His mind should have been on the ambush they were planning on Roderick’s troops in Kemos, but he had found it very hard to concentrate.

  There was no doubt that he was attracted to her. That Lady Gaelle’s dig at him had gotten under his skin so badly that she had actually gotten the rise out of him she had desired had made this rather obvious. That realization had piled on an entirely new set of problems to his already overflowing plate.

  He didn’t know what to think or even if he should explore these newfound feelings at all. They were still practically strangers. Her trust in him was, at best, tentative. The last thing he wanted to do was possibly make things awkward between them, especially since they would be working together closely on a daily basis on her magecraft. Even the smallest distraction during lessons could be dangerous.