The Accidental Archmage

by Edmund A. M. Batara

  “I agree, sire,” said Tyndur. “I saw tactics I have not seen before. That kind of warfare would tear apart any defense. I would hate to be the one facing him in a siege or on the open field.”

  “Now to our approach. Habrok and Asem in front with Habrok as the primary scout. Asem to serve as your loremaster, Habrok. Kobu and Tyndur to my flanks and Astrid guards our rear. Warmaster Liam will be with me. We will also be dealing with strange magic so don’t touch anything. I still don’t have the ability to retrieve lost souls from the dark place between dimensions. Not that the Followers could do that though I know they can imprison the souls of mortals and the energies of magical beings in spheres of peculiar make. We freed what we could find in the Aztecah temple city. Be careful.”

  At Tyler’s revelation, the group suddenly become quiet. Gone was the whispered discussions among individuals in the group on the coming incursion. Then Asem spoke up.

  “I was not informed about that, sire. They could do that? How about the Aztecah?”

  “Yes, they could, priestess. But from what I know, such knowledge or dark art was not given to the Aztecah. In fact, some of them became sacrifices to the rituals of the Followers. I assume such orbs grant them more power. That undead Aztecah witch was one such victim, volunteered by her master. After she lost her soul, the Followers revived as an undead champion and gave her the power to serve her master better,” answered Tyler.

  “A travesty! Such profane practices! Father knew this?” asked Asem, her face pale.

  “I would guess so, Asem. He’s in close contact with Viracocha as far as I know.”

  “And the pantheons didn’t do anything,” she murmured.

  “They didn’t know, priestess. Even the identity of the mysterious patrons of the Aztecah only came to light recently. There were rumors but no definite proof. Even Quetzalcohuātl was kept in the dark. You do know he and his supporters were virtually kept in exile by the present pantheon,” explained Tyler. “I don’t know what’s happening there but considering his enemies are now weakened, that deity must be moving to position himself.”

  “Deities! The more I hear about them, the more I want to close my ears. With all due respect, High Priestess, but all these maneuverings sound and look too human for comfort,” exclaimed Tyndur.

  “That they do, einherjar. It has always been like that,” replied Asem. “The insane quest for more power does make gods and men mad.”

  “I do not need more power. Only enlightenment and ascendance. Though they continue to elude me,” said Tyndur.

  “Tyndur, those high matters do not come when earnestly sought. The former arrives in pieces, frequently during unexpected moments, all building towards a greater view of what the world really is. And the latter? No mortal or deity had ever succeeded in such a quest,” Asem answered.

  “Thank you for your words, Asem. I should be talking to you more often. But for ascendance, I’ll try anyway. Maybe the journey itself will make things worthwhile,” the einherjar commented.

  “Now, any questions?” asked Tyler, moving the conversation back to the topic. The companions shook their heads. Then Habrok raised his hand.

  “Yes, Habrok?” Tyler asked.

  “I wanted the company to know all I have left are ordinary arrows. Good thing this army had a plentiful supply. But from experience, ordinary arrows don’t do a blasted thing against those Followers.”

  “Bring them to me. I’ll bless them. I’m afraid I can’t do more. I have to keep my magical reserves ready for tomorrow. There’s no harm in adding something to your missiles,” advised Asem.

  “Thanks, priestess,” said Habrok.

  “I’ll have my blades blessed too, Asem, if you don’t mind. But I’ll sharpen them first,” Astrid piped up.

  “I guess we’re done. But I want to talk to Asem and Tyndur. Please remain as the others make their preparations,” said Tyler. “Join Habrok and Astrid, Kobu. This is private and between the three of us.”

  The exile bowed and followed the ranger and the Valkyrie out of the tent. Tyler looked at the two remaining companions.

  “Now let’s talk about the ground rules on the things and knowledge which we might find up there. Assuming we survive the experience, of course,” said the mage.

  The group, Liam and six picked warriors included, moved out at dawn the following day. The initial stage of the ascent was easy. Scouts had already marked out the path midway up. Tyler suggested that to Liam as the mage was worried about risking the lives of the pathfinders. At the last marker, Habrok took over, and the party adopted a single file formation in their climb. Behind Habrok was a warrior who Liam said was an experienced mountaineer, having come from the northern hill tribes of the Monarchy.

  As the sun rose, Tyler could see below them the army’s encampment. The disposition adopted by Liam made sense. A sizeable central and solitary hill protected the cul-de-sac, with open approaches on either side. The mage could see the three lines of boulders safeguarding each opening. Tiny figures on the rocky center hill indicated that it was heavily manned while the other sides of the approaches appeared to have the same level of preparation. The armored cavalry was at the rear of the encampment, serving as a mobile reserve. The preparations were obviously of a defensive nature, but also made for flexibility in adopting a mobile form of warfare if it came to that. Liam clearly didn’t expect or wanted to stay long. Nor did Tyler.

  As he followed Kobu, the mage’s memory went back to the ground rules he laid down with Asem and Tyndur – the instructions to the party as a whole would be followed to the letter and a renewed promise not to touch anything or go exploring by themselves. Tyler did assure them of the opportunity to examine what he would find after the mage had checked for dangerous energies. Fortunately, the two didn’t ask him the details of how he was going to determine it. I guess they’ve seen enough weird shit from me, thought the mage. Though Tyler was primarily concerned with keeping Elder knowledge from the two, he was also worried about the duo killing themselves over unknown artifacts. He had his guides. They didn’t have anything to help them understand what they would see or find. Even Tyndur’s knowledge of Elder power was cursory and didn’t even begin to cover crucial basic information.

  Near the top of the blasted row of hills, the column stopped. Habrok and the warrior, together with Asem, moved forward, carefully and as quiet as they could manage. If those Followers have their own wards around, all the stealth in the world won’t hide our presence, thought Tyler. But there’s a chance that those bastards would believe that the Void Lands itself is a deterrent to human curiosity.

  After a few extremely anxious minutes, where the absence of explosions or the telltale energy signature of spells being flung was an enormous relief to the mage, Asem came down the trail. She went to where both Tyler and Liam stood.

  “Quiet as a tomb, sire,” the priestess reported. “But I have never seen such a scarred, blistered, and fragmented landscape in my long years. A small plateau awaits us above. The surrounding heights are broken or seared off. The ground itself is discolored, with craters, and small fissures. Large stones are scattered all over the place. In the middle of the plateau is a tall, large pile of boulders. I would have dismissed it as a topographical feature except that there’s a flat and wide stone platform in front. If my eyes don’t deceive me, the dais is heavily marked with symbols and large symmetrically sweeping forms. Both sigils and style are unknown to me. The energy we sensed is stronger and comes from that mound of rocks. The ranger and the warrior are still up there but near the edge of the bluff.”

  Asem’s report was concise and left Tyler bewildered. He was nervously expecting a deadly confrontation with powerful beings and now, what he found was a tomb.

  “Give me a moment to digest all that,” said Tyler. Liam was looking at him.

  The mage turned to Liam and shook his head.

  “Right now, my guess is as good as yours. But I have a sinking feeling that the explosions and colors in the
sky we all saw had something to do with the Followers’ temple being a pile of rocks. I am greatly relieved that we didn’t have a welcoming committee and the corresponding hot reception, but considering what happened to the Followers of Zin, and these are already very powerful beings, I shudder to think of what entity or group of creatures are capable of doing all that destruction,” said Tyler.

  The squids? Or some other group? the mage thought. This is the center of power of the Followers, not an easy target. And yet broken like a child’s playset. If it was the squids, then they’re more powerful than I thought. I think I saw two or three in action in the temple city, but I thought the Followers were holding their own. Losing, but giving as good as they got. But. This. Is. A. Totally. Different. Level.

  “Are the Followers really as powerful as you said?” asked Liam in a whisper.

  “Yes. I even saw them in action against another group. Same race, different gang. Leveled parts of the Aztecah temple city as collateral damage. Per wayward strike,” answered Tyler in a low voice.

  “Crap! This world is really a clutterfuck,” exclaimed Liam. “I miss Earth. None of this magical bullshit. You get into a biffo, you get a black eye, or worse, broken ribs and the hospital. Not this weird shit.”

  “You forgot the coffee, French fries, pizza, and the burgers,” added Tyler.

  “Oh, yea! I am so tired of bappir and onion flatbread. They’ve got good beer, though,” replied Liam.

  Chapter Notes and Lore:

  Clutterfuck – Australian slang. I rather would let the reader find out what it means.

  Biffo – Australian slang for a fight.

  Bappir – A Mesopotamian bread. Usually used as rations due to its long-lasting qualities. One could imagine how it tastes.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The Room

  As Tyler and Liam climbed up and stepped into the edge of the escarpment, both saw that Asem was not exaggerating. It was an incredibly surreal landscape. It looked like rocky terrain blasted with extreme heat, left to cool, and then showered with a deluge of stones. Later sprayed with a mix of colors here and there.

  Liam instructed his men to stay near the edge of the plateau and went with Tyler and his group. Adopting the formation Tyler told them, the party warily approached the destruction, making their careful way and roundabout way to the massive pile of stones which the priestess mentioned.

  Giant boulders covered the approach to the ruined structure. The ground was pockmarked with craters of all sizes, and the soil was churned up. Tyler could see small pools of slag everywhere.

  Was the heat that intense? observed the surprised mage. And they were throwing that kind of power at each other? Makes you wonder about the type of shields they had. Took them a few days to finish their fight.

  “Step slowly and carefully. Watch each other’s backs,” warned Tyler. “We don’t know what happened here or if the ones who did this are still here.”

  I hope not, thought Tyler, glancing at the partially destroyed hills around the site. In the distance, some mountains showed large holes and chunks were blown off. Whoever did this must have plenty of power. And won. Don’t forget, Tyler. They won this battle. Shit.

  As they got closer, Tyler noticed a hooded cape on the ground. It had the same cut and color as the ones worn by the Followers of Zin he had encountered in the temple complex of Tamoanchan. The group stopped. The mage carefully stepped forward and prodded the cloth with his staff. Finding no reaction, he used the weapon to flip the attire over, noticing that parts of it were torn and a big hole was in the front, its edges ragged and burnt.

  When the cloth was removed, Tyler saw it covered a desiccated humanoid form. It was dried out to the point that the loose skin merely clung to the bony frame. It had lost its eyes and the gaping holes in its bald head ghoulishly stared back at the mage. Tyler remembered the tall Elder beings he had encountered. But the body which greeted his sight was shrunken in height to less than half of the stature he recalled. The hole in its left side revealed where the fatal strike struck. Given the length of its arms and legs, it must have been taller than the Elders he had encountered. But the mage couldn’t account for the desiccation. It was as if the body was the result of being processed in an industrial grade drying facility.

  Shouldn’t it have been blown to pieces? the new observation entered his mind.

  “Dead and hopefully will stay dead,” said Tyler, addressing the group. He examined the corpse again and noticed it had large gold bracelets on each arm and the fingers were full of rings. Some of them were made of gold and the others he assumed to be platinum or some pale rare earth material. But the large precious stones adorning the rings were clearly diamonds.

  “Energy focus points,” said a voice by his side. It was Asem.

  “You think these pieces of jewelry were magical?” asked Tyler.

  “Maybe at some point, sire. But now I sense no magic in them. Curious. I get the impression they have been completely drained. Sucked dry to the point of rendering them useless for any magical use. I doubt if these beings would be wearing those bangles just for appearance’s sake,” commented the priestess.

  Tyndur looked on but said nothing.

  “I’ll check them first. They might be devoid of energy now, but there’s no telling what those symbols would do. Get a small sack. Habrok should have one. This fellow doesn’t need the jewelry anymore and I might be able to glean something from them,” answered Tyler as he prepared his staff as an improvised prod.

  “Guys. Any danger of these things activating upon contact with the staff? The staff does have energy. Power to spare, in fact,” the mage asked his guides.

  “We believe these are Elder artifacts. Emptied of any shred of energy. One would need Elder energy, a lot of it, to reactivate even the smallest ring. Your staff would be safe. But don’t touch them by hand. We are of Elder energy. These things might unexpectedly drain us. But a pouch or a sack will be enough protection. Just something between them and your skin,” replied Hal.

  “Liam would be safe? He doesn’t have any magical energy in his body,” the mage asked. He now had second thoughts about using even his staff. “I don’t like the idea of any of the companions being exposed to such artifacts. And I have reservations about Asem and Tyndur holding them. Asem, because of her connection with Thaut, and Tyndur, because I am not certain if there isn’t a tiny ember of Elder energy in him. He already had been exposed to the Elders and had shown some abilities which are suspiciously similar to Elder capabilities. His touch, even if greatly insufficient to activate the objects, could drain him of that spark. I don’t know what it will do to him.”

  “The visitor would be safe. Of all of those gathered here, he would be the perfect person to gather them. No shred of magical power in him. Except for amulets and similar objects but those are self-contained receptacles. His body also serves as an insulator against passive magical energy,” advised X.

  “Never thought that being bereft of magic would be of such importance,” remarked Tyler.

  The mage turned to the group.

  “The jewelry poses a threat to anybody with magic. The risk is quite low, but I’d rather play it safe for all of us. Even Habrok is at risk, being a native of this world. Ambient magic courses through his bones. A situation which leaves us only one option – Warmaster Liam.”

  “Hey, mate. Are you sure about this? After your speech, and seeing that bag of skin and bones, I am a bit leery about being ‘touchy-feely’ about that dead thing on the ground,” objected Liam in English.

  “You’ll be safe. It only reacts to a particular kind of magic. Even if we’re talking of normal magic, you don’t have any in your body. Unlike me.”

  “I’m putting a lot of trust in your word here, mate,” said Liam. “If I die, I’ll haunt you until the end of your days.”

  As the two turned to the objects on the ground, Tyler saw Tyndur on his knees closely examining the jewelry, but he kept his hands well away from the
m. Then einherjar stood up and went to Tyler.

  “I believe I have seen similar characters before. You remembered the incident I told you about?” said Tyndur.

  Tyler nodded.

  “Well, the symbols look similar but not exactly the same. These have sharper angles and spiked curves in them. One could say they’re a debased version of what I have seen,” explained Tyndur. “The ones I am familiar with were elegant, smooth, and flowing in their simplicity. The ones on the jewelry had plenty of hooks and barbed curves. But the base symbols are the same. But don’t ask me to translate. I never got that far.”

  “Thanks, Tyndur. The more reason we should take precautions. Like Asem, I sense no power in them. But considering they are or were magical artifacts, I don’t want to take unnecessary risks.”

  “Good decision, sire,’ replied the einherjar.

  Liam, holding the small sack, slowly approached the body. When he got close enough, he got on one knee and turned to Tyler.

  “If this arsehole gets up and bites me, you’ll be the first I’ll run after, mate. I don’t fancy living the rest of my life in this clusterfuck of a planet as a zombie.”

  Tyler laughed. “I do have it on the best authority you’ll be safe, Liam.”

  Liam gingerly removed the jewelry with his fingers. He started with the bracelets, trying to avoid touching the dry skin of the body. One of the hands separated from the body as he moved a bangle off its wrist.

  “Oh, this is disgusting!” he exclaimed.

  “We still have the rings, man!” Tyler told him.

  “I hate you, bastard of a mage. And this is a morbidly yucky exercise,” Liam replied.

  Finally, the man finished the task and slung the sack over his back.

  “Real gold. As pure as it could get without being too soft. I could tell by the weight. I’d say 22k to 24k in purity. Some of the rings could be platinum. Genuine diamonds too. Large ones. Not a semi-precious stone in the bunch.”