by Steve Barker
Once the guard was clear, the sorcerer ceased his chanting, and the steel bars of the cell returned to their original shape. The sorcerer turned to leave and cocked his head slightly toward Jeron as he grinned.
“Sit tight my prince, I shall return for you shortly,” and then left, closing the door behind him.
Jeron awoke to find himself outside of his stone cell for the first time in what seemed like months. To his dismay, one type of prison had been traded for another. Though the room was dark, there was some light coming from an open window partially blocked by a heavy curtain across the room. There was also some candlelight coming from a table on the other side of the room. The table was covered in vials, tubes, bowls, and various other instruments of alchemy. The room appeared to be some type of laboratory.
Standing with his back to Jeron was the sorcerer, focused on something that Jeron could not see. Feeling his body for restraints, Jeron could find none, but discovered a fresh wound on the inside of his forearm, oozing still. He peered around to examine his enclosure, and found himself confined to a steel barred cage roughly the length, width and height of a man. As he examined his cage, he saw that Hollyglade lay in an identical enclosure next to his. He looked to see if she was conscious, and found her eyes to be closed, yet he was able to observe her chest rising and falling.
After taking a quick look back to the sorcerer, and hearing the loud sounds of battle coming through one of the open windows, Jeron whispered to her,
“Hollyglade. Hey. Hollyglade. Wake up.”
Her eyelids fluttered and she let out a slight groan as she brought a hand to her head. Opening her eyes, she turned to look at Jeron, and then at her surroundings, stopping to focus on the sorcerer.
“Jeron, where are we?” she whispered nervously.
With a quick glance at the sorcerer, and then back to Hollyglade, he replied in a hushed tone,
“I believe we are somewhere in the central tower, though I do not recognise this apartment, per se.”
Hearing the conversation behind him, the sorcerer turned to see his captives awake.
“Well, you two, I’m glad to see you are awake to take part in this most auspicious night. I must thank you both, for this evening you shall contribute to a night that shall become legend among the Kingdoms of the land. You shall be instrumental in bringing peace and prosperity to not only Loria, but its neighbours as well.”
“What in the gods’ names could you possibly be hinting at?” shot Jeron, clearly no longer caring about raising the ire of their captor.
“Ah, my Prince, I am so glad you asked. But it is you, my dear,” he said as he turned his attention to Hollyglade, “who should have the greater curiosity about your role here. For it is you who shall give me the greatest power ever imagined by our kind.”
She sat up, and faced him, holding the bars of her cage with one hand to steady herself. She looked him in the face, though she could not see his eyes, and did her best to seem confidently defiant.
“I’ll give you nothing. What I have can not be harnessed or controlled. It’s of no use to you.”
“Oh ho! My dear girl! How wrong you are!” he exclaimed. “You are indeed special, and your power is great, but I shall take if from you. In a certain way I find it disheartening that you never learned to wield it for yourself, nor do you seem to know just how special you are.”
“I am not special,” she retorted, “and I will not let you take this from me. You’ll have to kill me trying, and then there will be nothing for you to take.” Her defiance was genuine. Her furious anger real. She had seen her power cause enough death and destruction by her own hand, and was not going to willingly allow someone else to use her power to cause even more suffering.
“Oh, how wrong you are, dear girl. Since we must wait to begin, let me enlighten you.” The sorcerer stepped to the curtain and opened it to allow some light into the laboratory. “You see, dear girl, if you had been educated in the magical arts, you would know that there are several kinds of power, and several ways to wield it. The two main streams of thaumaturgical practice are the Wizard’s chosen practise of Magery, and the practice of Sorcery.
“There also exist lesser streams of magic, like the gifts of the Elder Folk, who have various innate magical abilities, and can wield power in various ways. But, in all cases, the wielders of power are just that: wielders of it. We all must find sources of power, draw upon those sources, and then use that power through the lens of our specialities, spells, incantations, potions, or other forms of magic.
“You could think of it like taking a water jar, filling it with water, and pouring it into a potted plant. The water is the power, the jar is the part of the user where the power is held, and the hand holding the jar belongs to the wielder of that magic, and the plant is the target of the magic. I myself was trained in the stream of Sorcery, yet have expanded my learning to include all disciplines of the arcane.”
“What does any of that have to do with me?” Hollyglade interrupted.
“Ah, yes. Well dear girl, as I said, you are special. You are the first known example of a surviving offspring of two different Elder races. And as such, you are quite unique. Having studied many examples of the failed attempts to produce offspring from pairings such as that of your parents, I have discovered why the offspring fail to survive their birth.
“As I mentioned, users of magic must draw power from various sources in order to then wield it. Wielding that magic is an expenditure of power. Once a user of magic has cast his spell, he empties his proverbial jar, and thus his power is limited. But when two of the Elder races join with each other to produce a child of the blend of their races, that child is in and of themselves, a source of power.” He paused for a moment as the revelation hung in the air. Hollyglade was puzzled, and did not have the words to respond to the sorcerer’s divulgement.
He continued
“The reason all other children with mixed heritage such as yours die in the womb, is that the power that resides within them is too much for their infantile bodies to contain. Thus, the power tears their being apart and their essence is lost, resulting in stillbirth and a dissipation of the source created by their conception. You were saved from such a fate by the courage of your father, whose decision to try to hold together your essence within the womb kept you from succumbing to the power within.
“As a result, you lived, and your mortal shell was made strong enough to contain the vast power which originates from your being. As you may be able to imagine, someone with the knowledge of how to wield such power, would be able to accomplish much, once the need to draw power from outside sources is no longer a concern.”
“What makes you think you can take another person’s power? And even if you do, what makes you think you can become a source of it yourself?” She asked, still hoping to learn something that might help her fight.
“Ah, there we have it, dear girl. It is not your power I desire, but the part of you that creates it. That, is what I shall add to myself, once I have taken it from you.”
“What good will it be to you anyway? As I can see from looking at you, you are not Elder Folk, your body would reject anything you try to take from me.” She was just guessing with her theory, and hoped that his confirmation or rejection of it would tell her something.
“Again, you are more informed than you seem. Yes, as I am now I would not be able to take that which you have, and add it to myself. I must either change what you have, which would devalue it, or change myself. Knowing that I do not want to alter your source of power, I am left with altering myself. That is where the good Prince will aide me, in my transformation.”
“How could I possibly have anything that would make any difference to this?” Jeron challenged. “I am no Elder Folk, and have no magical heritage.”
“Ah,” the Sorcerer purred eerily, “now we come to what makes you special, my dear Prince. You have very special blood, that of the Nartakish race once thought extinct. Such blood is the key
to bridging the gap between the Elder Folk, and humans.”
“I am no such thing. My blood may be Royal, but that only makes my station within society special, nothing more,” Jeron denied, though only doing so out of a principal of resistance to the Sorcerer’s claims.
“Oh, but it is true, Prince. You have the blood. My tests have proven it, confirming my research into your lineage. You see, it was not a blind guess that led me to take you captive. I spent years looking for the descendants of the last known members of the Nartakish clans. The Nartakish were a very rare sub-race of humans who possessed the ability to wield power and practice magic with but a thought. They were gifted with the fortitude to draw tremendous amounts of power from any source they found, and hold it for indefinite amounts of time.
“Their downfall was in believing that they could make themselves live forever, being sustained with nothing more than the power they drew into themselves, and therefore they decided not to bother breeding to continue their line. But this proved folly, as they eventually learned that though they could sustain themselves for incredible lengths of time on the power alone, they could not do it indefinitely. Those who committed themselves to that doomed path eventually succumbed to the deterioration of their flesh which the lack of normal sustenance brought upon them.
“However, I discovered that there were a few who decided to marry into the lines of humans, outside of the Nartakish clans, and thus their line would continue on, even if the blood was diluted, and the gifts no longer manifest. Your family line is well documented, but the connection to the Nartakish was removed from the records kept here in the Royal Library. No, it was only among the ancient ruins of the once grand and proud house of The Distorted, that I found a small section of their once great library. And in that ancient library of the old Sorcerers, the Tome of the Elder Houses, a detailed documentation of the proud clan lineage of the Elvish, Dwarvish, Gnomish, Giantish, and Nartakish peoples. And in that, a reference to a marriage between house Blacksky of the Nartakish, and house Peaksoul.”
Jeron’s face transformed to a look of awe and terror, for he knew that the sorcerer did not lie. He had studied the history of his house, House Peaksoul, and had noted that there were some vagaries in the details of his ancestry during the time of the Arcane Upheaval.
“Jeron,” Hollyglade interjected “Why should that matter?”
“He can not tell you why it matters, girl,” replied the sorcerer, “but I shall inform you. You see, the Nartakish blood has one special property that is unique among all the races. It is able survive any sickness, and any malady that would normally affect any of the other races. I have found through my research, that this is because it is unchanged by the blood of anything that it mixes with. However, I have found a way to alter the Nartakish blood, human blood, Elvish and Giantish blood, to blend with each other to make a wholly new blood.
“When this blood flows in my veins, I shall be able assimilate any part of any other being into myself. So, there you see where you shall contribute to a new era. I have taken blood from each of you, altered it and have mixed it with my own. All we wait for now, is the dark of night, and the presence of the new moon who’s tidal pull shall make the blending permanent. Once the blending is permanent, I shall pull from within you the essence which makes you whole and allows you to create your power, and I shall consume it, adding it to the fabric of my own being, and thus becoming my own source of unlimited power.” He began to smile with a sinister grin as he revelled in the approaching hour of his planned self-exultance.
“Now, enough schooling. There is still some work of preparation to be done. Dusk is nigh.” The sorcerer turned back to his work table, picked up a couple of bowls, and moved into an adjoining room.
Hollyglade and Jeron looked at each other with shared fear and concern. Neither could see a way to fight what was taking place, yet both knew an attempt had to be made. Shifting closer to the edge of his cage, Jeron spoke first.
“Hollyglade, you have to fight him.”
“I don’t know how” she fretted. “You’ve seen the extent of my knowledge of power and magic.”
“No. He’s made a mistake.”
“What do you mean? We are who he said we are.”
“That’s not what I mean,” he whispered. “He has schooled us. We know more now than we did before. We know that you have unlimited power, and that’s what he wants. We know you have more power than he does, otherwise he wouldn’t need yours. So we know it’s possible to defeat him.”
“But Jeron, I don’t know how!” she whispered strongly.
“You can figure it out. I know you can. You are obviously a very intelligent girl, and I’m going to help you.”
“Alright, but what can I do?”
“Think about what he said about the water jug. The person pouring a water jug could pour it anywhere they want, but they choose to hold it over the potted plant. For you, it’s not a jug, it’s more like a barrel, or a lake, or even the whole ocean. You have just have to learn to pour it where you want it to go.”
“How to I do that?”
“I believe he told us. He said that the body is the wielder of the magic, you just have to pick a target.”
Hollyglade gazed into nothing for a moment while running over the possibilities in her mind. She understood that she had immense power, and that she could choose to wield or withhold it. It was clear to her that touching stone was a form of targeting, and that there may be a way to target something without touching it.
“Maybe I understand a little. It’s what I’m doing when I touch the stone, I’m thinking about it. But I have to be touching it.”
“No. You don’t Hollyglade. Think about it. The power only came out through your hands in that cell down there. It didn’t come through your legs, or your back, or where you sat on the stone. So you already told it the path to travel. You just have to tell it a path that goes beyond your fingertips.”
“Jeron, I am no student of magic, nor wizardry, or sorcery. I do not know how.” She sniffed, putting her face in her hands.
“No,” he agreed “you are not a wizard or a sorcerer, nor an archmage or a shaman, nor an elementalist or enchanter. You are Hollyglade, first of your kind, and source of power. Wielder of power. You are the one some called the Wayrender, Firebrand of the Western plains. Your father and mother gave their lives to preserve you, and your incredible gift. Do not be ashamed to use it. You have said that they raised you to be a person who uses your strengths for good. I believe that you are good, and thus I have faith in you. Now is the time. Destroy this evil, and be the good that triumphs over it.”
She looked up at him in surprise and amazement, wondering how someone who had just met her could have faith in her when she had so little in herself. Then, her amazement became her determination. The Crown Prince of Loria, a man, though young, known to be learned and wise, who had followed closely in the footsteps of his father Jerold the Just, the greatest King Loria had ever known, was placing his faith in her. If he made the choice to have such faith, then she must choose it also.
“I’ll do it. I’ll fight him. But you must help me figure out how.”
With a smile of invigorated determination and focus, Jeron clenched his fist and met her gaze.
“Yes, Hollyglade, let us share our knowledge once more.”
◆ ◆ ◆ ◆
The pounding was deafening, and his ears were ringing as he awoke to find himself on a hard flat surface. Feeling around, his hands found the edges of a wooden table. Forcing his eyes open, the failing light of late afternoon poured through the window of the infirmary. He struggled to sit up and found several wounds about him, including a nastily throbbing lump on the back of his head. As he became more or less seated upon the table, a man moved over to him and grabbed ahold of his arms to steady him.
“Woah there trooper, slow down. You’ve been through a lot the last few days, I wasn't sure you’d ever wake. You’ve had a rough time of it,” said the man,
dressed as a medic.
“Where am I? How did I get here?”
“Well, you’re in the garrison infirmary. I’m Yoric, the garrison medic. You, and a few others were brought here when the army and the garrisons were all recalled to reinforce the legions already stationed in the capital.”
“Recalled? Reinforce them for what?”
“Wow, you must have been out of it for a while, soldier. The Demarians are at our walls, that’s who you hear trying to knock a hole in them. Two of our legions showed their force by presenting themselves on the field to the north, but they were ordered to retreat behind the walls when the Demarians showed up from the south also. I am told there is a battle at sea beyond the harbour, too. It’s good you’re up. Every able body has been ordered to the wall to take up a bow. I noticed you came in with one across your back, and I’m sure they could use you up on top of that wall.”
The soldier brought his hand to his head, and then felt his other wounds. His leg felt sore, and he was not sure if he could stand on it.
“Do you have water?”
“Here trooper,” replied the medic, handing him a jug. “You had a few holes in you when you came in, but I sewed you up correctly. I’d not try to run on that leg, but you may be able to pull a bowstring.” The medic turned back to the unconscious trooper he had been working on earlier, and continued his treatment.
The soldier felt his shoulder, and disagreed with the medic’s assessment. But, being in no mood to argue, he looked around for his boots.
“Where are the rest of my things?” he asked, hoping that at least some of what he had carried about him made it to the infirmary.
“Over there” pointed the medic. “You’re sure fond of blades my friend. I believe there were several times I’d thought I’d found them all on you, only to discover more and more. ’Twas quite the treasure hunt,” he chuckled.