Choice

by Gary Stringer

  Choice

  (Majaos Trilogy Book 3)

  The Well of Life is the source of all magic on Majaos. Its location has remained a mystery since the time of Merlyn. Eilidh must work with her friends to solve this Ancient puzzle and race to find it before Nilstiar does.

  Most of Eilidh’s friends are back, but how can she make them stay? People are not exactly her forte, but she knows she can’t do this alone. Can she find within herself the skills she needs to keep her party together?

  Elsewhere, the Knights of Balance are preparing to rescue the fallen Callie but it will all be for nothing if Loric can’t pass his trials. The dragon predator stands between them and time is running out. They must save their silver friend before she reaches Death’s Door or she will be gone forever. Is Phaer’s strange condition an illness, a curse, or something else?

  As the past catches up with them and secrets are revealed, Eilidh must open the door and find the truth. In the end, it’s all about her: Eilidh’s choice.

  Prologue

  It had been a long time that meeting; the meeting that had changed his life. Many frustrating months had gone by since setting out on her trail. However long it had been, he wasn’t altogether sure he was any closer to his objective, but he had to stick with it. His Master was patient, so would he be.

  He remembered the streets of Merlyon that night, filled with a buzz of activity. Daytime businesses were closed, no doubt having done extra trade having been Graduation Day. The city’s night-time businesses had no doubt thrived, too, and celebration continued into the wee small hours. He had thought that city would never change. It seemed as if it had always been so and would always be in the future. Hard to believe it was all gone now. The city, all his old haunts, the Great Library, even the Council building that had stood as a living monument since the time of the Ancients. Who knew how many mages were in there when Niltsiar reduced it to rubble? Ah, but his Master survived. Of that he had no doubt. Merlyon, as diverse a culture as one could imagine, had been a place of ordered chaos. Now it was a wasteland. It seemed impossible, inconceivable.

  Looking back, that night had started like any other. Many people called out to him, saluted or waved. He was well known in these parts – indeed, where was he not? His profession made others treat him as life and soul of any party, and as such they overlooked his other perhaps grumpier side. He had a short temper with those he felt were mocking him, belittling what he did or just generally wasting his valuable time. He engaged freely in small talk with passers-by– one never knew when one might learn something to be used to one’s advantage later. Meanwhile, he kept his own conversation to topics that were already common knowledge. No sense in giving an advantage to others.

  He had set out on his own in late childhood, unwilling to wait around for some arbitrary age set down by his people as the threshold of adulthood. He had travelled well, already, but he longed for a chance to test his mettle on an adventure. There were opportunities in adventures that he found quite attractive: Wealth, power, glory. Little did he know he was about to get that chance...

  * * * * * ...When he regained consciousness, his first reaction was puzzlement, since he could not immediately recall losing consciousness in the first place. As the fog in his mind slowly lifted, he recalled something about scarlet robes– war mages. Yes, that was it– war mages. A group of them. He had been briefly curious about where they might be headed in such a hurry, when he realised they were heading for him! That was the last thing he could remember before waking up here. Wherever `here` was.

  He did not have long to wait for his first clue. He was lying on a sofa, in a magically-lit chamber with a disorientating red glow. The colour of the sofa was hardly what he would consider good taste: a kind of green that made him feel somewhat queasy, especially when his head already felt as if his brain had exploded. This green sofa had a purple trim at the bottom, which clashed horribly with the green, red highlights, brown tassels and a single, bright orange cushion. When he tried to prop himself up by leaning against this cushion, he could have sworn the sofa let out a stifled cry, but he put this down to his aching head.

  At that moment, a door appeared in the wall in front of him and burst open with a resounding crash that reverberated around the room. The figure that swept in wore scarlet robes with black hood and cuffs, which made them a dark aligned witch or warlock. The war mage was clearly displaying the night blue symbol of Dark Magic. That symbol was worn only by one person: the Master of Dark Magic and Supreme War Master himself...Drizdar. He who had recently acceded to power following Mistress Chandril’s mysterious demise. Drizdar called upon magic and the walls glowed. Clearly a shield spell.

  The person on the sofa leaped up immediately, standing straight and focussing his gaze on the Seal of the Council of Magic: Majaos y Natus– Magic is Life. He would not dare sit in the Master’s presence. The Master glowered balefully, apparently boiling with anger, but gradually regaining control.

  “Get out of here, now!” Drizdar commanded.

  “I— I’m sorry, Master,” stammered the other. “Please forgive me, I— I don’t even know how…” “Not you, imbecile!” The force of the Master's rage was nearly enough to blow the guest off his f eet. Drizdar pointed at him and he half expected flames to shoot out and engulf his body. “You I have sent for,” the Master told him. “You will stay until I am done with you. I’m talking to this quintessential trickster.”

  The Master once again addressed someone whom his guest could not see.

  “The others may tolerate you popping in and out at will but I don’t! You know that. Now get out!” Apparently, this unseen presence did not obey, for after a momentary pause, Drizdar rolled his eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. “Very well then, it seems I shall have to banish you myself.” The War Master cast a spell and if weren’t so ridiculous, the confused guest would have sworn the sofa uttered a squeal of protest as it vanished into the ether.

  “What I am about to tell you,” Drizdar said, obviously now satisfied, “is strictly for your ears only. I have a task for you and you will perform it with the utmost secrecy. Betraying yourself intentionally or inadvertently would not be conducive to a long and happy life.Is that understood?”

  “Of course, Master,” he replied. “I am sworn to obey in all things.”

  “See that you do.” Drizdar used his guest’s name, which was both a surprise and not. It was no surprise that Master Drizdar could find out the name of anyone he wished. It was only a surprise that the guest was in any way significant enough that Drizdar should bother. There was no offer of a seat, so he remained standing, alert and attentive, trying hard not to fidget under the warlord’s withering stare. The War Master began to pace as he spoke, the air surrounding him fairly crackling with energy. Life was concentrated around him, glowing intensely in the red part of the colour spectrum, as one would expect from the Supreme War Master.

  “You would have to be the world’s greatest fool to be unaware of the invasion of chaos creatures, but what you will not know is that this is a symptom of a much larger problem. Niltsiar has returned.”

  “Niltsiar? Isn’t she one of the Higher Council?” Drizdar halted and rounded on his guest who suddenly wondered if speaking had been a mistake. But Drizdar seemed to check himself before answering, cryptically, “Until a short time ago she was, but that is not the Niltsiar of whom I speak…and yet they are one and the same. Niltsiar is a name my former master Akar-Sel mentioned more than once and I have no doubt he was working for her. Now she is back under a different guise – in fact, she has worn many faces since her return and now she has devastated the Higher Council. In so doing, she has put me into a position of power, for which ordinarily I would not be ungrateful. But my change in circumstances is, in of itself, irrelevant i
f it means I am merely her pawn. It is only significant if I can use my position against her, somehow. I know with every fibre of my being the threat she represents. Gamaliel suspects something of this – he is no fool and I must be careful how I deal with him. For now, I have allowed him to lead the Council– after making enough noise to make my reluctance appear convincing. In reality,” he continued as he resumed pacing, “I am exactly where I need to be. While all eyes are on him, I can move about in the shadows whilst using my War Master role as a front.

  “As for Merlana, she is raiding every reference book in the Great Library and should she find anything useful, believe me, I will know about it. But she is insignificant. I am far more interested in what Gamaliel is up to, the cunning half-elf. He might have slipped that girl in and out unnoticed, even by me, if I hadn’t spotted that annoying prankster.”

  Drizdar broke off suddenly and pointed at the tall standing lamp in the corner. The other individual could not imagine how it had come to be there - it had not been before. With a turquoise blue base, ruby red stand and bright orange shade, he surely would have noticed. His guest flinched, preparing for the lightning bolt that the archmage, given the mood he was in, would surely send arcing across the room. He then felt rather foolish when Drizdar did no such thing.

  “You’ve heard the rest of this conversation before,” said Drizdar to the lamp, though why he should be talking to it as if it were alive was beyond his guest's ability to guess. “So it will be terribly boring for you if you stay, and I know what happens when you get bored, so I suggest you leave. Permanently this time.”

  The lamp disappeared in a huff and Drizdar was apparently satisfied.

  “Alright,” he continued to his guest. “Let me start at the beginning...”

  * * * * *

  A tall tale or two later, Drizdar started to wrap up the meeting.

  “Now, you have listened patiently, but-” he began. He paused again, becoming fixated on a bright orange door hanger, but after swearing profusely under his breath for a moment, he seemed to resign himself to its presence and continued. “But now we come to the role I have mapped out for you. I have tasted Niltsiar's vile form of magic. It is an abomination - a threat to the very fabric of Life. She must be stopped! Everything depends on it!

  “Now, to this end, Gamaliel has sent some Catalyst girl on a quest. Eilidh Hagram is her name.”

  “I’ve heard of her,” Drizdar’s guest put in. “That is not surprising.” The War Master nodded. “But beyond such media sensation, the details I have are sketchy. Obviously, though, Gamaliel believes she is somehow the key to defeating Niltsiar. If that is so, then I intend to send an agent of my own. One who can move around freely, following her wherever she goes, without arousing suspicion.

  “That agent is to be you.” * * * * *

  ...That agent is to be you.

  Those had been Drizdar’s final words to him – other than one quite bizarre command. “On your way out, throw that door hanger from the top of m y tower to the protective moat of molten lava below. I can’t imagine it will destroy him, but with any luck it’ll hurt enough so he’ll think twice about coming here again for a while...or ever, ideally.”

  Bizarre or not, his was not to reason why, just to obey orders. So now he was an agent of Supreme War Master, Drizdar. Considering his approach carefully upon leaving Drizdar's tower, he decided to head for Shakaran. By all accounts, this Catalyst girl had something of a reputation in Merlyon, so she would find it difficult to find suitable help. It made sense, then, that she would head for the rugged city of Shakaran. If he was there first, he should be able to draw her to him and make it seem like pure chance. He would negotiate a price - after all, free help is often suspicious. But if she felt he believed there was something in it for him, she would take him in. Or rather, be taken in by him!

  He would be a valuable, reliable ally, waiting until the time was right. If she did indeed hold the key to defeating this Niltsiar, his reward would be great when he delivered it into Master Drizdar’s waiting hands.

  Wealth, power, glory: this was adventure. It was his and it was sweet.

  * * * * * The power that crackled around Niltsiar's royal hut lit up the night sky like an electrical storm of unparalleled magnitude. Onlookers compared it to the power of a thousand suns blazing in that one spot, blistering the skin of Majaos like an enormous boil. Everyone gave it a wide berth, cringing, fearful of Her Divine Excellency's wrath should they do anything to disturb her. No-one envied her personal guards, forced to stand like statues either side of her door.

  Following the return of the dark elf Z'rcona, Niltsiar had not been at all pleased. In one sense, her servant had performed the task she had been set. She had retrieved the Great Key from the Ancient crypt of Spirit magic, but not before the Du y Kharia had unlocked its secrets and called forth its power. In so doing, she had not only gained command of the crypt's defences, but also set in motion a much more important chain reaction. In a moment, the Du y Kharia had undone one facet of Niltsiar's carefully laid plans. She had reinstated the magic of the Secret of Spirit - necromancy.

  In her studies of the different forms of modern magic - the Life Secrets as they were called - she had determined that Spirit was the greatest potential threat. In truth, Niltsiar supposed, `threat` was overstating it, especially at this late stage in her plans. It would be more accurate to characterise Spirit magic as an `inconvenience`. The Tech Wars, engineered by her favoured agent, Akar-Sel, had proved to be the perfect device for weakening all forms of Life magic and more importantly served as a convenient scapegoat for the loss of necromancy. Necromancers being unpopular, the Council of Magic felt it had other, higher priorities. So, just as Niltsiar had planned, they pinned the blame firmly on the Tech Wars. In reality, this was altogether impossible. No war could account for the fact that not one baby was born with an affinity for the Secret of Spirit. Other Secrets had been devastated by the Tech Wars, losing archmages and expertise, but diminished power and total extinction were two entirely different things. Niltsiar had managed to get away with it, though, and it had proved most useful.

  Now the dead were once again in a position to tell tales, which might prove to be...yes, inconvenient...if, of course, anyone still knew how to listen. After two centuries with this a lost art, she supposed it was unlikely to much matter.

  What did matter was the Great Key, because through it, she would get one step closer to her goal. There was just one thing she hadn't anticipated - the Great Key was spelled! As soon as she opened her mind to the object, a powerful Mageworm spell crashed through her not inconsiderable defences and burrowed into her brain. If left unchecked, the Mageworm would ravage her mind, seeking specific information, which it would `eat`. Growing and self-replicating, it would continue its feast until every scrap of knowledge pertaining to whatever it was keyed to find was gone. Once its task was complete, it would always lay dormant in her mind, ready to gobble up any attempt to relearn the subject in question. Otherwise, the Mageworm might simply self-destruct doing massive, unpredictable and irreversible damage to her brain. Death would be the likely result...if she was lucky.

  If it were left unchecked. And so it was that she bent all of her vast powers into countering the Mageworm in a way that would cause it to gently melt away, break down and be reabsorbed as raw magic. This was the cause of the lightshow to which her camp bore witness. The worm was well constructed - resilient and slippery, constantly trying to rewrite itself to adapt to and avoid Niltsiar's efforts to destroy it. But Niltsiar was a patient huntress. Gradually, she was able to squeeze the worm, allowing it fewer and fewer options until no more evolution was possible. It wriggled and writhed inside its prison before it was squashed under her metaphorical boot heel. Its integrity gone, it was reduced to the raw magic that first spawned it.

  Niltsiar slouched in her throne-like chair, gasping for breath, barely enough energy to wipe the sweat from her brow. Composing herself, she called out, “Z'rcona, g
et in here!” A slender, dark-haired elf maid strode into Her Divine Excellency's presence, wearing an equally dark expression. Z'rcona of the House of the Fountain schooled that expression to avoid revealing her inner satisfaction. She had successfully carved her way into a position of power within Niltsiar's encampment. She was entrusted with quests and assignments that took her all over Mythallen and in return, her Mistress had given her magic. The kind of magic all her people once possessed. Soon the dark elves would be a force again - the dominant force in the entire world, but for now, Z'rcona had to admit, it felt good to be the only one with such power.

  True enough, her last mission might be viewed as a slight blemish on her otherwise spotless record. She had been sent to retrieve the Great Key from an ancient temple in a forgotten corner of the continent. Unfortunately for her, the Du y Kharia had got there first - though how she'd ever found the place was a mystery to the dark elf. Things had seemed to be under control, but then she had received some...unexpected orders from Her Divine Excellency, forcing Z'rcona to improvise. Events deteriorated rapidly from that point. Undead creatures were everywhere and she'd only made it out in one piece thanks to the teleportation device she always carried. Still, she did retrieve the key, as ordered, so it was not a failure in the strictest sense. If the key was booby trapped, well, that was hardly her fault and even with her new magical skills, judging by the strain still evident on Niltsiar's face, there was nothing Z'rcona could have done about it. As for sacrificing her team, that was irrelevant.

  So her self-confidence was still very much intact, if shrouded, as she bowed to Her Divine Excellency.

  “Z'rcona,” came Niltsiar's greeting.

  “I trust all is well, Great One,” she ventured. “The Great Key was spelled. A minor inconvenience, although I must admit I u nderestimated the strength of the assault. Those who could achieve such a thing even in Ancient times were few in number. Now there are but two. I expected Merlyn would be the one to test me, but I realise now that was impossible. This trap was set while my father and I fought on worlds and planes beyond Majaos. This was the work of his apprentice.”