“I gave them to Kellen back in Everec,” he admitted glumly. The realization set in that he would not be back in Aurelia any time soon. For a fleeting moment, he considered traveling to Tempest where it was rumored that not only was magic accepted but also magicians were the ruling class, but he rejected that idea. After everything he had gone through in Aurelia and the good people he had lost or left behind, if he were to just walk away now he would never be able to live with himself.
Chapter 27
Snow fell on the abandoned city of Everec as Alia and Tomlin arrived under the cover of darkness. The rumors in Silvering were that a renegade magician had joined forces with the Kenzai. It couldn’t be Byrn, Alia told herself. He would never betray the Collective like that. “He would never betray me,” she whispered to herself.
Tomlin pretended not to notice her mumbling.
It was a long shot that they would find Byrn here, but Alia had to find him and she was running out of places to look. It had been more than two months since he disappeared with Kellen. At first, she feared that he was dead, but after several failed spirit summoning attempts by her father it was clear that Byrn still lived, but if that was true why didn’t he return to her? He couldn’t be in Baj- it was destroyed. They wouldn’t have risked moving him to a domain after the Collective’s victory in Ilipse.
“This place looks like a ghost town,” noted Tomlin. “No lights. No smoke from fires even though it is winter and we are in the mountains.”
“We should check the manor at the far end of the city,” Alia said without emotion, “Byrn once said he had his own tower there.”
They trudged through the snow in silence. Alia was painfully aware that she was now grasping at straws, but she was desperate to find her missing love. She conjured a flame at the end of her staff as the torched husks of crumbling buildings sought to block out what little moonlight they had to see by.
The tower was one of the few structures still intact in the city. It stood above Everec looming ominously over the burnt out husks that made up most of the city. Alia was not sure what to expect once they got there. Would Byrn be there? Perhaps, if he was really dead- a sudden chill passed through the enchantress that was not born of the cold.
The door swung open with a screech of disuse as the magicians entered the tower. Like everything else in the city, it was dark and foreboding. Alia led the way with her staff-torch in hand followed closely by Tomlin who held his grimoire tightly. Sometimes Alia had to remind herself that her apprentice was still a boy. He was a fifteen-year-old magician who had little talent for any magic other than enchanting. However, what he lacked in natural talent he made up for in sheer bravery and an uncanny ability to get out of almost any sticky situation. In that way he was her greatest soldier within the Collective and she had come to rely on him, perhaps too much.
The first floor was empty.
The second was too.
The third floor showed signs of fighting. There was an overturned table and dried blood on the floor, but there were no bodies to be found. Tomlin bent down and touched some of the dried blood with his fingertips. “Do you think this was Byrn’s?” he asked.
“There is nothing more for us to find here,” was Alia’s only response, “Let us search the manor.” She turned and hurried away almost leaving Tomlin in the dark. She fought back the tears that threatened to come and betray the façade of confidence that she tried to convince herself was real. She would not embarrass herself by showing weakness in front of her apprentice.
It was a short walk to the manor, but the wind was picking up making the night air feel even colder. The manor had large double doors that required several strong men to open it, but there was a smaller door within the right one that could be opened by an individual. Alia tested the door and found it opened easily.
“I take it we are going into the dark, scary castle?” Tomlin asked trying to sound at ease.
“It looks that way,” Alia agreed as she stepped inside.
A single brazier lit the main hall at one end as the sole source of light. It illuminated a doorway atop a dais. It was a clear enough invitation and the magicians approached with care.
The door creaked slightly at Alia’s push revealing a counsel chamber. A small fire burned in a much too large fireplace. It provided little warmth in the large room, but the man slouching on the throne at the head of the chamber did not seem to mind. His head rested on one hand as he studied the magicians with mild interest.
Then he stood up and descended the steps. His gait was casual, but not so much that his strength was unapparent. He hefted a great sword that had been resting on the end of the long, table and stepped into the light of the fire revealing an orcish face. He kept his hair in a warrior’s knot and wore a short beard that made his protruding lower jaw appear to stick out more than it really did.
“I am Commander Zakux of the Doombreakers and this is my home now,” the orc told them with the conviction of one who had lost everything that mattered to him and would not lose this one last thing in his possession and the sadness behind his pitch black eyes only served to confirm the suspicion, “Make peace with whatever gods you worship, children, fore you are about to die.” His voice was devoid of emotion that made the words sound like an idol declaration and that was somehow scarier for its lack of bravado. Zakux swung his sword at Tomlin who barely managed to leap backwards and avoid the slash. A reverse swing upward threatened to take off the young enchanter’s head as Zakux closed the distance with him.
Tomlin pulled out his dagger, but could find no opening in the orc’s attacks. Zakux wielded the overly large sword with more skill and precision than most others possessed with a short sword.
“Anytime you want to help-” Tomlin suggested to Alia as he ducked under a horizontal swing before rolling to his right narrowly avoiding the blade that crashed into the stone where he was crouched an instant before.
“Sleep,” Alia commanded with a wave of her staff.
Zakux relented and appeared disoriented, but forced his eyes to stay open. “Magikans,” he spat the word. He swept his sword downward in Alia’s general direction, but she did not retreat, knowing that she was too far away to be hit by the weapon. Instead Zakux buried his blade in the stone and caused it to erupt casting large chunks of stone at the woman. He wielded an enchanted sword.
Alia hastily erected a barrier, but was still forced to her knees by the repeated impacts.
Tomlin tried to sneak up on the orc, but was rewarded for his troubles with the back of Zakux’s fist landing squarely across his face knocking him off his feet as well.
Zakux looked back and forth between the two downed magicians unsure of which one to kill first.
“Please,” Tomlin begged, “if you are going to kill us, then I beseech you- kill her first.” A wobbly finger pointed at his master.
The orc spun to look at Alia and they both wore looks of surprise. Zakux returned his glare to Tomlin, “Are you completely without honor, human, that you would allow one of your females to be sacrificed before yourself?”
“Well, technically she isn’t one of my females, so I guess I would.”
An infuriated Zakux raised his weapon above his head about to cleave the boy in too when Alia struck his hands with her staff causing him to drop his blade reflexively.
Tomlin held his grimoire and pointed a finger at the orc. “Sleep!” his voice rang out and bounced off of the walls as a flash of light emitted from the enchanter’s finger. This time Zakux’s eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the ground. Within moments he was making a noise that was reminiscent of a lumber mill cutting into s heavy oak.
“’Kill her first?’” Alia asked helping her student up.
“What? I thought it was brilliant,” Tomlin tried to sound chagrined, but failed, “He was completely ignoring you until he realized you were a magician and orcs are notoriously chauvinistic. By offering you as a sacrificial lamb, I knew he would be so incensed that he would foc
us all of his attention on me. You should really be thanking me.”
There was a strange logic to what Tomlin said that spoke to his ability to read people, but Alia wasn’t about to concede so easily, “And what if he had taken you up on his offer?”
“Then I would have buried my dagger in his back. Besides it never would have been a problem if your own sleep spell would have worked.”
“Yes, well being with child tends to take a lot of energy out of woman. Sometimes I am surprised I can cast anything at all,” Alia rubbed the small bump in her belly that would soon become much more prominent. She nudged Tomlin over to the sleeping orc. “Now find some rope and get him tied up. We need to find out if this Zakux knows anything that might help us find my baby’s father.”
Epilogue
A shadow grew over the land of Wolfsbane. Healthy grasslands browned and flowers, once blooming, wilted as the shadow passed over them. A lone shepherd tending his flock aged decades in a matter of seconds before falling over in his field leaving a dead, shriveled husk where moments before stood a virile man. His flock, too, died from the shadow's plague, as did a wolf stalking the herd.
Still the shadow grew.
It extended over the kingdom of Aurelia. The Blackwood Forest died as the trees decayed and fell one after another. Mollifas fared no better as the largest city in the kingdom fell to the plague of darkness in a matter of seconds. Prince Janus- no, he wore the crown of king upon his head, clawed at invisible hands around his throat as his eyes rolled back in his head and his body shuddered a death spasm.
Still the shadow grew.
Lion's Landing crumbled underneath the shadow’s approach. Women and children died in the streets of the once prosperous city. Sailors frantically ran to their ships trying to cast off before the shadow reached them to no avail. The ocean quaked and the boats capsized trapping the sailors underneath.
Still the shadow grew.
The North Lands fell next. Kellen wore his armor- now dull from disuse, tarnished like his soul- and stood against the shadow. His natural speed and strength did nothing to help him push back the shadow as others fell around him and in the end his blue flames were extinguished by the dark and it took him as well.
Still the shadow grew.
The lands of man were emptied of all life and the orcs fell next as the shadow consumed the Dread Marsh and the lands beyond. Their mightiest warriors were as nothing when faced with the formless death that Korok had predicted long ago. Then the goblins fell. For all of their ingenuity, they could not hide from the shadow.
The shadow enshrouded every corner of Aurelia leaving the kingdom devoid of all life so that only the sorcerer, Sane, stood alone; the lone protector of a dead land. Then the shadow came for him too.
***
Sane woke with a start as beads of sweat dripped from his forehead and nose. His body shook as he tried to wrestle himself free of the vision. In the land of Wolfsbane a threat of unimaginable power was growing. He briefly wondered what the magician rebels known as the Collective were planning in Wolfsbane that would trigger such a nightmarish vision. Could it have been Byrn as Korok predicted? But he disappeared with Sari nearly a year earlier and had not been seen since that day.
“Did you have another of your dreams, One-Eye?” asked the sorcerer’s keeper who watched over him as he slept.
Sane was forced to answer by the collar around his neck and gave a full accounting of what he had seen.
“Excellent,” replied his keeper, “I will inform His Highness and Prince Janus to begin investigations into Wolfsbane immediately. Perhaps now we can finally put an end to those fiends that have been dogging us. It may well be time for Aurelia to finally march to war and bring the magicians to their knees.”
Afterword
I hope you enjoyed the second book in the Magician Rebellion Series and if so, please do me a favor and write a short review on your favorite book website (or three). It only takes a few minutes, but can have a huge impact. Also, if you’d like to contact me directly to tell me what you thought of Fallen Magician, good and bad, I can be reached at [email protected].
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