The Chronicles of the Myrkron: Book 01 - The Nine Keys of Magic

by Timothy Woods

  Michael followed Joshua up the next flight of stairs. At the third floor landing there was another wall of glass.

  "Nice view from up here," Michael commented.

  "Yes and a great view of the sky at night, but it is even better from the observatory on the fourth floor. I have a nice telescope up there for star gazing."

  "Cool. I always did like looking at the stars. There is something fascinating and comforting about them."

  "Then you share that feeling with Uncle Micah and myself. Being as old as he is, I think they hold some special meaning for him. I guess they used them for a lot more in the old days than we do now."

  "All navigation was once done by the stars. I can see him having a deeper connection with them."

  "Well, anyway, let’s get you some clothes, shall we? You’re just about his size, so most of Uncle Micah's clothes should fit you pretty well." Joshua led Michael down the left hall to a set of double doors.

  "I guess my jeans aren’t going to cut it, huh?" Michael inquired.

  Joshua chuckled.

  "No, as practical as they are here, on Thelona you would most definitely stand out in a crowd." Joshua opened the doors and walked in. Michael followed him and was astounded to see that the entire room, a room bigger than his and Karin’s entire apartment, was filled with clothing. Clothes hung on standalone racks in neat aisles, as well as down both side walls. The rear wall was covered with shoes and boots.

  Joshua walked to the back wall and slid a section of shoes to one side revealing a niche behind it. He reached in and pulled out a backpack. It looked old but serviceable. It had a bed roll tied to its bottom. Joshua slid the section of shoes back into place and handed the backpack to Michael. He moved to the right looking at boots.

  "What size shoes do you wear?" Joshua asked.

  "Eleven," Michael told him.

  "Hmm, that may be a problem. I think most of Uncle Micah’s shoes are a size ten." Joshua picked up a pair of shin high, brown leather boots, looked them over and handed them to Michael.

  "Here. Try these on to see if they fit."

  Michael took the boots and looked around for some place to sit down. He noticed a small, three legged, wooden stool at the end of the aisle to his left. He sat down and removed his tennis shoes. He pulled the boots on and walked around a bit.

  "They are a bit snug for my taste. Got anything a little bigger?"

  Joshua scanned the wall and found another pair that was black and a bit lower cut.

  "Try these," he said, handing them to Michael.

  Michael sat down again, removed the brown pair, and pulled the black ones on. He stood and walked in them.

  "Much better. These are a lot more comfortable."

  "Excellent. Now let’s see about getting you some clothes."

  Michael sat down and removed the boots and grabbed his tennis shoes. Carrying both, he followed Joshua to the right wall, which was filled with two rows, one above the other, of pants. Almost all of them were black.

  "Your Uncle must really like black," Michael said shaking his head and chuckling.

  Joshua smiled.

  "Black is formal and is a color that does not attract attention unless over done." Joshua took down several pairs of the pants and handed one to Michael.

  "Try these. All of these are going to fit the same, so if these fit, then pretty much any of them will."

  Michael looked at them. They were a fine weave cloth, but appeared to be very heavy and warm.

  "I assume there is no changing room here."

  "No, but I’ll turn around if you wish, or you can go behind a rack."

  "Good thinking. Thanks." Michael walked around to the other side of the aisle and took off his jeans. As he put on the black pants, he noticed they didn’t have a zipper.

  "Hey, button fly. Micah is more with the times than I gave him credit for."

  Joshua laughed heartily.

  "No, it is the other way around. The times have caught up with Uncle Micah. Before zippers, pretty much all trousers were either tied or buttoned."

  "I hadn’t really thought about it quite that way, but it makes sense. It seems all styles are cyclic." Michael finished buttoning up the pants and walked around the aisle.

  "Other than being a little bit long on me, they fit great, and the boots should offset the length."

  "Go ahead and put the boots on and let’s make sure. Some of the styles here are shorter than others, and you don’t want to be walking the excess length off of them."

  "Ok." Michael bent down and pulled on the boots. The slight heel of the boot made the length just about right.

  Joshua walked around and knelt down behind him. He straightened and adjusted the cuff. "You’re right. That is nearly perfect." He stood up and took down two more pairs from the same section and draped them over his left arm.

  "This will give you three pairs of trousers." He walked back to the shoe rack and grabbed five pairs of socks from the end of the rack and tossed them to Michael.

  "Three pair of lightweight socks and two pair of heavy ones. Stick those in the pack."

  Michael caught them and picked up the backpack. He untied the straps and dropped the socks into the bottom.

  "I think I’ll scream if you hand me a black shirt."

  Joshua laughed.

  "No, no black shirts. I’m not even sure if Uncle Micah owns a black shirt. He prefers grays and silvers. His personal colors are black and silver. Let’s go over to the other side, and you can pick out what you would like."

  Michael followed Joshua to the other side of the room where there were shirts of varying styles, all were long sleeved though. He found a deep forest green shirt that caught his eye. Pulling it from the rail, he saw that the sleeves were slightly flared and the neck had ties laced up a vertical slit.

  "Can I try this one on?"

  "Of course. Green. A good choice for forest travel." Joshua pulled down four more, an off white, a tan, a gray, and a lighter green.

  "These are the same style, and will also be good for concealment in a forest, except the white of course, but you may need it for a more formal setting."

  Michael pulled off his t-shirt and tugged the dark green shirt over his head. He tucked it in and felt the sleeve. It was as soft as silk yet had no sheen to it.

  "This is a very nice shirt." He buttoned the cuffs, pulled the ties at the neck, and tied them into a loose bow. Holding his arms out at his sides he asked for Joshua's opinion.

  "Well, how do I look?"

  "You look like you will fit in nicely. The green suits you. All you are missing now is a belt." Joshua handed the shirts and pants to Michael and headed to the end of the aisle. From a rack hung numerous belts in both brown and black leather, varying in width from about one to three inches. He took one of the wider ones from the rack and brought it back to Michael.

  "With the shoes being black, the belt should match." The belt was about two and a half inches wide and had what looked like a hammered black iron buckle.

  Michael folded the pants and shirts and stowed them in the backpack. He pulled the belt around his waist, buckled it, and looped the excess up from behind and over the top and back down through itself.

  "The belt’s a bit wide for my taste; hell, the whole outfit makes me feel like something out of a Three Musketeer's movie."

  Joshua chuckled again.

  "Get used to it. That’s what everyone’s going to look like when you get to Thelona. Besides, you’ll want the wider belt for carrying a sword."

  "A sword? I don’t know how to use a sword. I’d probably cut my own foot off," Michael said incredulously.

  "It will be important to learn and learn fast. Magic won’t always be the answer. Uncle Micah will probably teach you. He’s the best there is with a sword. He taught me everything I know. I still practice occasionally, but with him gone as much as he is, I haven’t really kept up on it like I should."

  "Not much use for sword fighting here. What good would a sword
be against a gun? Speaking of which, why don’t they just take guns over to Thelona? A couple hundred good assault rifles and they would be practically unbeatable."

  "That is a good question. One I asked Uncle Micah a long time ago. I’ll explain it to you as he explained it to me. These days, you hear next to nothing about magic. It’s presence on our world is weak. With the rise of technology, the power of magic waned, though it was never as strong here as it is on Thelona. The strength of one negates the other. On Thelona, magic is so strong that technology does not work at all, and with the major powers there being wizards, neither side wants technology there. It would weaken their power. From what Uncle Micah has told me, that is why the church declared science heresy during the dark ages."

  "Wait a minute! Why would the church want to suppress technology? They were the ones who declared witchcraft to be heresy. I would think if technology weakened magic, they would want to promote it, wouldn't they?" Michael asked perplexed.

  "Well, with the church being run by magi at the time, their own power was threatened by technology. Declaring witchcraft to be heresy had more to do with trying to keep the power in the church and out of the hands of the commoner," Joshua explained.

  "I find it hard to believe that the church was controlled by wizards," Michael said doubtfully.

  Joshua laughed good naturedly at Michael's skepticism.

  "How do you think they rose to power so swiftly during the dark times? The hierarchy of the church were all magi, and a lot of priests were as well. That was the secret behind their strength. Why else to do you think even the monarchies bowed to them? They had the power to destroy their opposition. They cloaked their magic in the guise of excommunication and other such religious punishment. Come now, Michael, you cannot tell me that you never truly wondered why everything the church did back then was in Latin, the language of magic? Don’t get me wrong, the church is just like any other organization, it has its good and bad. But, in those times, it hoarded its knowledge to gain power. Power helped the church survive and flourish. Today, of course, Latin is only used out of ritual remembrance of times past. As far as I know, there are no more magi within the church, and these truths are no longer known to its hierarchy. Only through Uncle Micah have I learned the truth, and now you know as well."

  Seeing the expression on Michael’s face Joshua added.

  "Don’t let this knowledge change the way you feel about your faith, Michael. There were evil men in the church in the past, drawn to it for power alone. But today, look at all the good they do. Sure, there are still zealots and hardliners, but there are men like your priest, Father Barthold. Micah really likes the man. He has spoken to me of him in the past. From the way Uncle Micah talked about him, he is not only a true credit to the church, but also a true credit to mankind. With people like that in their ranks, how can you hold past wrongs against them? Not all they did in the past was bad. It just seems that the bad is remembered a lot easier than the good. Even back then, they had priests like your Father Barthold, men who truly wanted to help others. Look at what you see today. Priests are accused of molesting children. You hear this all over the news, but what you don’t hear is that for every one accused of such crimes, there are hundreds that are as appalled as you and I. Take Hitler for an example. He has been dead for many years, and you still hear his name. Because of all the atrocities he was responsible for, people still talk about him. Now, take someone like Mother Teresa, the direct opposite of Hitler. How many times have you heard her name since her death? The good that she did over the course of her life warrants no more than a passing footnote to most, only those she helped; and those who knew her personally remember her. The bad are immortalized, and the good slip quietly into the night," Joshua said with disgust.

  "Yea, I see what you mean. I never looked at it that way, but you are right. That is exactly why I never watch the news. It is always so dark and depressing. They only seem to report the bad that happens," Michael replied.

  Joshua waved his hand negligibly.

  "The news media is only partially to blame. Yes, they report the tragedies, but they only do that because that is what earns the ratings. How are the ratings determined? By what people want to watch and read about. So, it is not solely the media's fault. They are only providing what the people demand of them. But enough of that, Uncle Micah said you wanted to see some of my paintings."

  "Yes, he said you are a very talented artist. I don’t know anything about art, but I would really like to see some of them."

  Joshua smiled and flourished a bow.

  "You don’t have to know anything about art to know what you like. My paintings are landscapes and city scenes. I get the occasional commission for a portrait, but there is no need for interpretation. You will either like them or you won’t. It’s not the kind of art that has to grow on you, and they are not the kind of paintings that look like a toddler took a crayon to a wall. I paint what I see, not my interpretation of what I see. I try to capture the true detail of what I’m painting. Come, I’ll show you."

  Joshua led him out of the wardrobe and down to the second floor. This time they took the right hallway down to the end. He opened a door that let into a room as big as Micah’s wardrobe. This room had easels standing around its walls, some with paintings on them and some with blank canvases. In the center of the room was an easel with a stool before it and a table beside it. The tabletop was covered with jars and brushes and tubes of paint. A painter’s pallet sat on the stool.

  The nearly completed painting was of an ancient castle on a high prominence overlooking a vast bay. Michael was immediately stunned by the crispness of the detail. The painting had such depth it was almost three dimensional. He felt drawn to it. Joshua saw his eyes catch on the painting and smiled to himself.

  "That look is what every painter dreams of seeing on the face of a person viewing his work," he said with laughter in his voice.

  "I have never paid much attention to paintings, but even I can see you are to a painter what an ocean is to a pond. I have never seen anything like that before. It looks so real," Michael said with awe.

  Joshua continued to smile.

  "I’m glad you like it. Go ahead and look around. There is only one I would ask you not to look at, and that is the one that’s covered. No doubt Uncle Micah has asked you to see what it is, but I would ask that you leave it covered. It isn’t finished yet, and it’s a present for him."

  "You’re right. He did ask, but I will honor your request. How could I not, after seeing that?" Michael gestured to the painting of the castle.

  "You must make a fortune selling these." Michael couldn’t seem to pull his eyes from the painting. He could almost feel the wind blowing off the bay and thought he detected the faint smell of the ocean. Michael shook his head to clear it and began looking around at the other paintings. All of them were as expertly rendered as the first, seeming to come alive as he stared at them.

  "Are you a sorcerer as well? That would be the only reason I can discern that would account for the intensity of your paintings."

  Joshua laughed out loud.

  "As much as I wish it were so, no. I have no magical ability, but I will take that as the greatest compliment I have ever gotten. When I first started painting, Uncle Micah tested me for magic. He, too, felt there had to be an element of magic to them. I’m afraid I’m just what you see before you and nothing else."

  "There is magic in your paintings, Joshua. It may not be sorcery, but it is magic nonetheless." Staring at a mountain scene with snow-covered peaks and evergreen trees, Michael continued.

  "I wish I had the money to commission a painting from you. If I sold everything I owned, I couldn’t even come close to being able to afford something like this."

  "What would you want painted?" Joshua asked.

  Tears filled Michael’s eyes as he regarded the mountains before him.

  "I would want a painting of Karin. Your paintings are alive, and through it, I could see her as s
he was."

  Joshua’s smile finally left his face as he looked at Michael.

  "Michael..." Joshua waited until Michael turned and looked at him, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

  "I would be deeply honored if you would allow me to paint Karin."

  "There is no way I could ever pay for a painting by your hand," Michael said dejectedly.

  "You are going off to help Uncle Micah defend the land he loves. A land I want to see one day. I would consider it a privilege to be able to repay you for that aid. Let me at least paint a portrait of your wife as my contribution," Joshua said earnestly.

  Michael smiled slightly.

  "I don’t know what aid I’m going to be over there. I have no training and even less knowledge of what I can do; and I’m going to a place where people have been trained all their lives in the use of magic. How am I supposed to oppose anyone? Oh, I suppose I could bore them to death with my life story, but beyond that, I have nothing."

  Joshua raised an eyebrow at Michael.

  "Do you think Uncle Micah is the kind of man to act on a whim?"

  "No, I don’t. I don't think I have ever seen a more confident or competent man," Michael replied.

  "Nor will you ever. If Uncle Micah crossed to this world specifically to get you, then you can bet your ass there is a damn good reason he did. He would not have come to escort just anyone. Since he came for you, then it is you that is needed. Uncle Micah is the best teacher I have ever known, and from what he has told me of Merric, he is an excellent teacher as well. Sure, right now you know nothing of what you are getting into and don’t know how to use your powers, but that will be remedied in time. Don’t doubt your worth in this, Michael."

  "Thanks," Michael said with a bit more of a smile.

  "Spoken like a true philosopher," came a familiar voice from the doorway.

  They both turned to find Micah leaning against the door frame. Neither had heard him approach. Michael’s jaw fell open when he saw him. Gone was the businessman persona Micah originally greeted him with at Father Barthold’s house. Standing before him now was a warrior, garbed in loose fitting black pants tucked into black boots that came to his knees, and a billowing, long sleeve, silver shirt. Micah wore a wide, black belt around his waist and another across his chest and over his right shoulder. A sword hilt protruded above his right shoulder, and a short sword dangled at his right hip. At his left hip was a long dagger. There were knives, that looked like balanced throwing knives, sheathed in the belt across his chest. He looked like a walking arsenal.