by P. Tempest
And now, here, I was being sent to expand the reason of the wizards. I didn't know enough to know how much of this was Rysan and how much was the wizards command. But it was still a Mage being sent to do the work of the wizards.
“You have given me a great deal to think on. Thank you. But how are you going to train me, you don't appear to have a sword.”
“We will cover that later when night falls. We have a long way to go.”
He was right. The hard dirt path, led us through large stretches of fields. We didn't hurry, it was still early. But I guessed at making maybe twenty, twenty five miles a day, by nightfall I would be ready to drop.
(------)
Twenty miles isn’t as far as people think. It's a day's easy travel. Without magic, it had felt harder than it would otherwise have been.
Then setting sun found us out of the fields, and on the edge of a small copse of trees. Brendon had barely spoken for the rest of the day. I'd not had much else to say. I'd been enjoying the warm sun, the cool breeze and the open space. The freedom was so intoxicating, it almost overcame my weariness.
I used a small expression of my power to pull a mound of earth up into a low bench, then I sat on it, I pulled off my boots and rubbed my aching feet. I checked for blisters, thankfully there weren’t any.
Brendon came over to sit on the bench.
“I won't be here for much longer, its Vesic's time soon. Please stay respectful, but don't worry too much he isn't a stickler for worship. When I come back in the morning be prepared for a hard day. We will need to be running to get you fit enough for your training.”
“Why are you going away? How are you going away?”
“I'm a Vessel, one of a few. This is Vesic's time. He loves the night.”
“Um, this is soo weird, I don't even know what to say to you.”
Brendon smiled at me then. “I know my own family have trouble accepting too, it will be fine. I will see you in the morning.” His face went blank as the sun sunk beyond the horizon, the dying light colouring his features with red. Little flares of his own light appeared around him and a shimmer of heat wavered around him. His face shifted, much like I'd seen before.
It took a moment, but he turned and looked at me, his eyes were pools of flickering flame. He blinked, and the flames receded to deep inside, you could still see them if you looked hard enough but they looked like normal mage eyes for the most part.
“Tristan, I see we made decent time. I recognise this area.” He raised his arm and pointed to the west. “There used to be a lovely inn there. Now there is nothing. The world changes. Time stands still for neither man nor god. How was the journey? Why didn't we take transport? I can't imagine you want to trudge all the way there.”
“Well transport apparently doesn't work in Nelar and there isn't a travel post there so the golems that we would be requisitioning wouldn't come back. The woman I spoke to this morning was less than forthcoming about reasons, she all but kicked me out the door.”
“Yes, Nelar is special.”
“What's special about it? No one will tell me and the records are really incomplete.”
“Nelar just is. It's been the way it is for hundreds of years. Maybe even thousands. But it got worse during the waves. It never used to be a bad place, just different. Now it’s broken in a way no one understands.”
“Do you know what I'm supposed to do there?”
“If I had to guess you have been sent there to die. A single man even a mage can’t change that place. It would take the wizards to do it and they have reasons for avoiding it.”
I sat in silence, the word of a god that I was being sent on a suicide mission, brings it all home. Rysan that bastard had sent me to my death.
“Don't worry about it now, we have a few hundred miles or so to cover before we reach Nelar, that is time enough to prepare you, if you show yourself capable of learning.”
“Time enough, I guess any time is better than none.”
“Very commendable attitude, I tell you that you will die and you are thankful for the time you still have. Very strange to hear from a mortal.”
I couldn't answer that. I'd known I would die in my service long ago. Maybe not so soon but eventually. I wanted to be a wizard, to reach the peaks of my profession, but a life given in service to the people was worth something.
“Silence is also strange from a mortal. Don't keep your thoughts to yourself, your Master Jase paid a heavy price for my services. You may as well take my experience. It costs you nothing and my well save your life.”
“How can I live then? If this task is going to kill me then I may as well give up now.”
“Don't think like that. There will always be opposition to your goals. It's how you handle it that defines you.”
“That has to be the least helpful advice ever.”
“Stand up.” Vesic stood and gestured, a tingle of magic travelled from his fingers to the centre of the clearing, a rush of light blossomed from the earth, as it faded a fire settled into place. It burned without fuel and didn't touch the ground.
I stood, I left my bag at my feet.
Vesic stepped away a few paces then set his feet and squared his shoulders. The fire that he had created leapt up, little flickers of flame swirled around him as if in a wind.
“I am not your friend, I'm here out of obligation. My advice is just that, advice. Take it or leave it, but don't insult me. Now your master Jase asked me to teach you to fight. If you won't use your mind as I had hoped then maybe you will be more willing once you know what you have to face. Now hit me.”
“I'm not going to hit you.”
“How are you supposed to learn anything if you don't try. Hit me.”
“I don't want to hit you.”
“Stop being pathetic. Hit me!” Vesic roared. Fire rose around him, growing with his anger.
“No.” The word had barely left my mouth before I felt the rush of heat proceeding Vesic's fist. I stepped back in shock, the blow missed by a fraction.
“Good. You are paying attention. Now hit me.”
I clenched my fist and swung at his smirking face.
I missed.
He wasn't there.
I started to fall as the expected contact failed to appear. A sudden push from my left assisted me to the ground.
“Knowledge is everything. Know your enemy. Know yourself. Know the land and the air and water and the fire. Know all you can. You can't win if you are blind. You can’t fight if you don't know where you stand.” I heard him say from my position on the earth. I'd being able to cushion my fall slightly, but it had still taken the wind from me.
“Now get up, laying down will get you killed.”
I pulled myself to my feet. I stood hesitantly before him.
His hand moved to his side, flaring the cape of flickering embers that had formed around him.
I flinched away. The flare of light startling in the dim gloom of freshly fallen dusk.
Vesic looked over to the bag I had dropped.
“Before we eat, I wish to examine your sword. Bring it to me.”
I stood looking at him sideways, there was no glimmer of a man underneath. This was the god as if the transformation took time to settle firmly on him. His earlier friendliness now seems as ephemeral as a spark. This was cold hard face of an immortal being paying a debt.
I got my sword.
The cool stone of the hilt was smooth in my hand as I slid it from the straps I had fashioned that held it to my bag. I took a moment to reverse the blade, presenting the hilt to the distant god in front of me.
He took it with barely a flicker of expression. His flame bearing eyes looked intently at my sword, then with a tilt of his hand he had the tip pointed against my throat.
My heart jumped, and I held myself very very still.
“Why stone? More specifically: why the stone of the heart of your home.”
Heart of my home? I thought.
“You made this out of the
stone core of your homeland. Why did you do that?”
“It's what was closest.”
He eased the sword from my skin.
“You could have chosen metal. I see you are ignorant of fire, but you have all the concepts of earth to choose from. You could have chosen water. But you chose the white stone of your home.”
“It's what came to me. I don't have an answer for you.”
“Do you honestly not know?” Vesic said. “Don’t answer that.”
I wasn't planning on it. Answering gods with swords that ask me questions never sprang to mind.
“Don't be flippant with me, it’s only my oath to your master that keeps me here. You don't know. Do they teach you nothing? Of course they don't. Far better to keep you ignorant and in debt to them. I would applaud but this now affects me. I have to educate you as we travel. Sit and prepare our meal. I will instruct you. Pay attention.”
I sat after breathing a small and silent sigh of relief. I pulled my bag up and rummaged around. I hadn't packed a huge amount of supplies, I had plenty of vegetable seeds, and the kit to hunt for some meat, if not the skills to do so but magic can cover for much. I did find the wrapped sausages that I'd picked up from the academy kitchens.
Vesic was swinging my sword almost casually, slicing the air with a finesse I couldn't hope to match. “The first weapon produced by a mage in a moment of need is special. They are all different, so just being special doesn't tell anyone much about them. This is made from the heart of your home, what that means is down to you to discover, but I would think it means something to you. Some part of you chose this. Not metal which is generally better for a blade.” He ran his thumb very lightly across the edge then grinned at the sight of blood welling from cut. “Although it carries a decent edge. The balance is fine, a bit light, but you aren’t very big. You don't need power. You need speed.” He swung the sword sharply through the air in a complicated spin that I couldn't describe. He started out facing me and ended facing me but the intervening time was a blur of movement and burning embers. He suddenly reversed his grip and plunged the blade into the earth, it sunk to the hilt in the soft loam of the rich fertile land.
The scent of moist earth and burning stone filled my nostrils. I breathed deeply of the wonderful scent. The cool evening air brushed past talking with it the heat of the fire god’s presence. I saw Vesic turn into the breeze, his gaze locked on something. His cloak of embers flowing behind him.
I looked where I thought he was gazing but I could see nothing in the gloom beyond the fire.
“Take up your sword, we have work to do.”
“What is it?”
“You need some training. I'm going to provide it as I agreed. My servants have heard my call.”
“What call?”
“Don't question me further. They are coming. No magic. Blade work only.”
I stepped towards him and bent to grasp the hilt of my sword.
I pulled the smooth white blade from the earth, it came without effort and no mark to show that it had been embedded in damp soil. Once I had retrieved it, I turned to look back to where Vesic was looking. I could feel something. A burning on the edge of my senses, nothing compared to Vesic, but I was expecting him. This was something else, and there was more than one. Three that I could detect.
Across the untamed land came three figures from different directions, they were converging. When they arrived they would be together. I couldn't make out details at this distance but their presence on my sense made me tighten my grip on my sword and open my reading up wide.
Night became as bright as day. The normally invisible tangles of magic glowed in all the colour of the rainbow overlaying my normal sight. Threads of light wove this way and that each demanding my attention. The sense of water in the air and earth came strongly, almost beseeching me to call out to it. The land wished more rain, the plants always thirsted. But this was something else, something opposing in the purest sense. Fire, in the camp flames and the roaring inferno that was Vesic stood out like freshly landed stars. That was what made water call to me. In the distance were men shaped things. Golems of a type I had never thought possible, their black flesh dull and flaky. Like ashes and soot. Cracks riddled the surfaces revealing the fire with in.
The threads of natural magic twisted away from them mostly although a few of the darker streams flowed around them, ribbons of darkness tainting each other.
“You made lava golems?” I missed off the words 'you idiot!' It wasn't respectful or clever to call a god who made these things something like that even if it was true
“I called me servants back into the world, they have slept since before you were born. Hunt them Mage prove yourself worthy of my tutelage.”
I looked at the mad god he was grinning with such a savage animistic glee that running into lava golems was starting to sound like a good idea.
I wasn't sure if he would allow me to be harmed, but it would be hard for him to keep his word if I died here and now. I didn't even know if a god could break his word, the oath of a mage places a compulsion to obey it, it’s not irresistible but it’s strong. It also punishes us if we break it. A god, a being made of magic, it made sense that it would bind tighter.
All this went through my mind as I ran over the earth, closing the distance between myself and the closest golem. I held my sword out, crossed over my body. If I fell, it would hurt, probably maim me, but I had other concerns like the lava golem that had noticed me.
It shifted its direction, it no longer ran to its master it ran to me. Wisps of light glimmered between us, my sword shone in my sensitive vision.
My breath came hard, but I ignored it. I locked my arm and flexed my wrist, my sword wavered then lined up.
I stopped moving in a few loping stepped to absorb my momentum, then twisted to the side. I could feel the heat radiating from the golem, its hard shell covering the liquid stone within. My sword slid through the hard crust bisecting the construct. Its face turned to me as its top half slid over my blade. An expression of open mouthed horror warped its features further.
I stepped back, looking at the bubbling pool of cooling magma. I'd never seen it before outside of class, it shifted from a bright orangey red at its most liquid to a less brilliant orange, like fresh forged iron, solidifying and greying. Flecks of ash formed on the surface. The ripples of heat shimmer filled the air, like waves of an intangible sea.
My sword remained unharmed, although a tiny tint of orange and black threaded through it. As I watched it bloomed then faded as if sinking into the stone.
The next golem was fast. It closed the distance rapidly. It’s stretched humanoid form devouring the distance between us.
I took a few steps to the side, away from the cooling stone. Then I planted my feet and steadied my sword.
The lava golem slowed, its burning eyes narrowed. It left marks of soot and burning grass in its wake.
I pulled back my sword arm, reading a lunge.
A clawed hand lashed out.
I raised the blade into the path of the blow. I felt the contact ring out, the sword vibrating like a bell.
The golem hissed, a fire on dry grass sound that sent shivers up my spine.
The other one was coming closer, I saw it out of the corner of my eye. My othersense flaring with information to tell me that I didn't have time to process.
I shifted my wrist, my sword flicked around to cut into the leg of the golem closest.
It moved out of the way. Its mouth twisted in a caricature of a smile.
I reached for my power to wipe the smirk off its face.
“Hold!” Vesic called from behind us.
I didn't turn, but both the golems stepped back. They looked over my shoulder.
“Turn and face me mage. They will not harm you now.”
Both golems knelt in front of me, not for me clearly, but I knew I could turn.
So I did.
Vesic was striding towards me, his cloak of embers flapping i
n the wind as if it was a real cloak.
My othersense flooded me with information.
His cloak wasn't real, it was a projection of his essence. Strands of which coiled through him and out, touching all around him. Threads tangled between him and his servants, to me and one that wove between Vesic myself and wound about before heading off towards Westhaven. None of this helped me deal with the angry god that was getting closer.
“I told you no magic. Did you think I was jesting?”
“No, I heard you and I tried, but-”
“No you fool, they are my creatures. They follow my orders. They wouldn't harm you more than necessary. You disobeyed my command. I can't teach you if I don't know what you can do. And I can't teach someone that won't do as they are told. Release me from my oath if you have no desire to learn.”
“I do want to learn, but I've barely even held a sword before and you set three, yes three, fucking lava golems on me,” I turned to point at the kneeling constructs. “How am I supposed to learn to face that if that's what I'm starting at?”