by CM Raymond
He finished his wine and placed the goblet on a side table. “But if you continue to ignore the threat, if you hole yourselves up in the mountain fortress, they will come. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but they will one day come—and it will be your end.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Stellan had about as much as he could take of the bitching from Dirk and Dietrich—the two young guards assigned to him. They were not much more than kids, as annoying as they were inexperienced. He had been commissioned by Doyle, the Chancellor’s lapdog, to journey out to the Heights for the sake of information gathering.
Apparently, the leaders of Arcadia had some suspicion that the mystics might be involved in subversive activities, and his task was to ask some questions. It would be an easy in and out. The mystics had their heads in the clouds and were an odd bunch. But at the end of the day, they made the best drink in all of Irth, so he certainly didn’t mind spending a night in the mountain monastery.
At this point, he’d need some strong elixir to get him through the journey with the numb-nuts that had been sent along with him.
Dirk, the younger of the two guards accompanying Stellan, bitched, “How much farther is it? My feet are bloody killing me.”
“If you keep complaining, it won’t be your feet killing you,” Stellan replied without looking back.
He’d climbed the mountain enough to know that they were close, but the elevation only got steeper from there. Looking out over the cliff that fell away just feet off to their right, he considered for a moment how easy it would be for the younger guards to have an “accident.”
“Stellan,” Dietrich said, “what exactly are we doing with these mind freaks?”
“We aren’t doing anything. You’re along for the ride. Keep your damned mouths shut. Chancellor Adrien only wants some information about whether or not the people of the heights are working with anyone that might be a threat to Arcadia.”
Dirk spoke up again. “Who would be a threat to Arcadia? I mean, we’re pretty much the most powerful city in all of Irth. Right?”
“Yeah,” the leader said. “And we want to keep it that way. One city couldn’t breach our walls, that is for sure. But I think that the Chancellor and Governor are worried about something a little more insidious. An attack from within. Not to mention, these people you guys call the ‘mind freaks’ are powerful. Their discipline is strong. They’re not to be underestimated.”
Stellan shook his head and realized just how big of a mistake it was having the two men along with him. His time in the Governor’s Guard had given him enough experience to know that the mystics could pick apart a man’s mind faster than a drunk can drink a pint.
And they could, if they wanted to, do some serious damage once in there. He’d shared too much with the men, and now the mystics could extract it all if they wanted. But he’d assumed the two men at the top were just being overly cautious, maybe even paranoid.
The mystics were pacifists and more interested in the life of the mind that than foreign affairs. It would be an easy job. Go in, ask some questions, get out… after having plenty to drink.
Rounding the last bend, Stellan finally saw their destination—the temple of the mystics. He stopped and turned to the men, looking at both. “Listen, keep your damn mouths shut. Remember what you learned about mental magic?” The two nodded in unison. “Good. Someone will try to get in your heads. It isn’t an attack, but just what they do. For them stepping into another person’s mind is just like shaking hands. Keep your mental defenses up, just like they taught you in the Academy.”
They nodded their heads again, like a pair of idiots. Stellan knew that his advice would mean next to nothing. Even if they did learn to defend themselves, it was likely the two had forgotten anything about it. The Academy was strict on who they let into their fold, but they became much more lax with students once inside. And unfortunately, the bottom of the graduating class was often assigned to the Guard.
The force was mostly for show in Arcadia. Standing at the city gate was the most grueling assignment for many of them—and it didn’t take a master magician to let loads of potatoes in through the walls. Stellan’s group was different.
They were the Guard that no one knew about—the ones who actually kicked ass and took out true threats to Arcadia. But Doyle was adamant about things going quietly, so instead of a fully armed force, he was stuck with the imbecile twins. Luckily, Stellan himself was more than capable of handling whatever threat was waiting for him beyond those walls.
****
With a full belly and his head sitting on the edge of intoxication, Ezekiel sat back with a feeling of deep contentment. The mystics were good at many things, but hospitality was the greatest of these.
Julianne had ended their meeting and decided to introduce Ezekiel to the rest of their little community. He was a legend after all. Now that dinner was finished, conversation swirled around him, people talking in pairs. His journey back to Arcadia had been a bitter homecoming, and a night like this in the Heights was precisely what he needed. It was a balm for his wearied heart and a reminder that there was goodness in the world of magic.
His eyes cut to Julianne, whose gaze was directed back at him. She gave a subtle nod, an indication that his words of warning were still on her mind. Ezekiel could only hope that their conversation would not be lost on her.
Amidst such a happy community, it could be hard to think of war. But Ezekiel could tell that Julianne would do what it took to protect a group like this. They were her family.
He only hoped that this desire for peace would lead them into the fight and not away from it.
After the plates were cleared, a mystic, a young woman with the face of an angel, stood at the head of the table. The room quieted and awaited the evening story. Ezekiel knew the tradition well. Narratives were a key part of their community, and the storied people made sure that they would not lose the oral tradition by ritually including a story told by a different member each night after a meal.
The girl smiled and closed her eyes to gather her thoughts. When she opened them again, all color had drained from her pupils. Her eyes stared out at the crowd like two white marbles.
Ezekiel knew the sign of magic.
While a physical magic user’s eyes turned black as night, the mystic’s eyes shined like stars. As she began her tale, cloudy images of what she was saying appeared on the table in front of her, acting out her words like a play.
“A long time ago, before the Age of Madness and before the WWDE, there was a time of peace—at least relative peace. But a young freckle-faced boy, named Clark, wouldn’t have agreed.”
As her words and magic painted the story of Clark and his exploits at school, the young mystic had the community leaning in and hanging on every detail. The audience was drawn in by Clark’s survival of what she called Middle School, a time that sounded worse than the Age of Madness itself.
Dodging bullies and mean teachers, the kid had to learn to survive. The story must have gone on for an hour, but to the enraptured crowd, it felt more like minutes. She had them eating out of her hand. Then she got to the part about the gift.
“In those days, the days before Madness, and before our esteemed guest walked Irth–” she smiled and nodded to Ezekiel “–magicians were few and far between. But there were creatures called genies—at least some believed they existed. Clark, the boy discovered one, when he dug an old glass bottle out of the ground on a beach on what was called Lake Ee-Ree. The boy placed the glass bottle between his legs and rubbed and rubbed and rubbed and rubbed.”
“Sounds like Mathias on a cold and lonely night,” a drunken mystic said from the back of the room.
The room burst into laughter.
The girl flushed but continued her story. “Finally, in a puff of smoke,”—at this point a puff of smoke appeared in front of the listeners, and several jumped back in shock—”the genie floated into the room. ‘You have one wish, Clark,’ the being from beyond said
in a deep and majestic voice. Now, like any of us, the boy had the hardest decision to make.
“Clark walked the beach, trying to come up with the thing that might serve him for the rest of his days. Money was fleeting. And he was too young to understand true love. So finally, after pacing a hundred miles on the beach, the boy knew what to ask for.”
The image of Clark walking on the table stopped, and the young mystic held a pregnant pause.
The girl was good. Everyone in the room held their breath.
“Come on, then. What was it?” the same voice called out.
“There was only one thing Clark could ask for. He looked the genie in the eye and asked that he might know how to do magic. With a nod of his head, the genie granted the gift, and left the boy alone with the power to shape the entire world.”
Ezekiel scanned the room. All the eyes were still on her, waiting for more. It was as if she had slid a delicious dessert across the table, only to then take it away.
“Well, what the hell did he do?” the man in the back of the room yelled out again.
“He did what any boy who knew the world wasn’t quite right would do. At first, he righted the wrongs of his school—and then his city.” As she told this part of the story, her imagework began to darken. “But after he had conquered all evil, when all the wrongs were righted, Clark used his power to take over the world. The same thing that any of us would do if we were left alone with power unchecked.”
The wispy picture of Clark disappeared as the storyteller sat. The room applauded—but tentatively so.
The other mystics were uncertain about the story, but Ezekiel understood it all too well. It was a morality tale about magic and the current state of Arcadia. While Clark and his genie were only a fiction, the warnings about the dangers of power were far too true. The young magician was very good at mental magic.
Through drink and food, Ezekiel had dropped his mental defenses, and he knew that the girl had made her way into his mind. She was clever, and her magic was strong. She told the exact story that Ezekiel needed for them to hear. The girl had sowed the seeds, encouraging her community to come to the aid of Arcadia, to the aid of all of Irth.
Julianne rose and thanked the girl for her story, though her words were measured. Turning to Ezekiel, she asked, “Would you be so kind, Master Magician, to share a tale with us? There is nothing like foreign stories to invigorate our craft.”
Ezekiel knew that an invitation to share a story was not something that could be denied. He decided to follow the young mystic’s lead and put his story to good use. He smoothed his beard as he stood. “Of course, Julianne. I’d be more than happy.” He looked up at the ceiling, searching for the right one to tell at this moment. “First, let me say thank you to…”
“Zoe,” the girl said.
“Zoe, yes. It means life—in an older tongue. Might your beautiful and timely tale give us life? Gifts, the best of them, can be both a beautiful and sometimes a dangerous thing. It does not, of course, mean that we should stop giving them.”
The group of mystics nodded in unison, and he knew that they were all walking through his mind. It was no secret what his commentary on the situation was.
“You will need to excuse me, as I am not a master of storytelling, but I will share a tale about a boy as well. Not one of fiction, but of autobiography. As many of you know, I was not born nor raised here, but rather, my roots are in a place that was, before the Age of Madness, called Siberia.
“It was a cold and desolate land, and the people reflected their landscape. My mother was hardened by the eternal winter, but my father, he was a different sort. A man of great dreams and visions, he inspired me to believe that the world could be different, that Madness could one day end, and that we, as a human race, could flourish once more. But my story today is not about flourishing, but about fear. The man who raised me knew no fear, but my mother instilled in me the importance of self-preservation.”
Ezekiel scanned the room. The eyes of the mystics were glassy with the effects of their strong ale, but nevertheless, they were all attentive. They seldom had the stories of an outsider in the great Hall, and Ezekiel hoped to give them something to feast on.
His story was not only one for the sake of entertainment, but like Zoe, his was meant to move them.
“When I was but a child, my family wandered through the wilderness from town to town, fleeing the Mad. In those days, there was never a moment of rest. Those who took a chance, who settled in, their days were always numbered. So, it was my mother, of course, who kept us on the move. She believed that if we ever settled down or even rested that the Mad would catch up with us and all would be for naught.”
Ezekiel took a sip from his own glass. Placing it back on the table, he continued, “One night we came upon a young woman. She was starving, half-frozen—and for all we knew, she was more than half-dead. My father, being the idealist that he was, wanted to help. It was always his way.
“But my mother was always more discerning. Our family was more important to her than anything else on the face of Irth. I was young then, and I can still remember the fight they had. There was heavy conversation and even a shout or two. But finally, my father’s ideals overcame my mother’s reservations. She relented.”
“We built a shelter there in the woods, although the position was far from secure. My father built a huge fire, a risk no matter where we were. But the generous man thought that we could revive her. And we did. The fire worked, but it worked too well. It brought this woman back from the brink of death, and it led the Mad directly toward us.”
Ezekiel’s eyes went red, and he raised a hand in the same manner that Zoe had. An image danced in front of the audience. Although stories about the Mad were common, the mystics still gasped either in surprise or sheer appreciation of Ezekiel’s magic.
The spell produced a moving image of ragged, starving people lumbering through the woods. It was hard to even conceive of them as human, though they shared the form with those who are watching. Their eyes glowed stunning red in the night darkness. The Mad lacked all thought—all thought but their desire for human flesh.
“None of you were alive during those days,” Ezekiel said. “And lucky for you that you never had to see them for real, although the same blood runs through your veins—the same blood that gave our matriarch her strength, the same blood that gave us magic. But the blood had turned bad, turning these once humans into what the Lowlanders call zombies.”
“My father was busy helping the sick woman. He was mending her wounds, rubbing the heat back into her feet and arms—because of his deep care for someone in need, he was totally unaware of the Mad advancing upon our shelter.”
The magician’s story, one of fact, but that was nevertheless more compelling than fiction, held every ear in the room. He was, admittedly, not much of a storyteller. But sometimes the narrative could trump the form.
He gave them all a nod and continued, not wanting to cliffhanger them too long. “I sat there, only a child. But even then, I marveled at the differences in my parents. My father was driven by compassion, my mother by vigilance. She agreed to let her husband help a stranger, but she never once let down her guard. And as he fought off frozen death, she, with a walking stick in one hand and a large knife in the other, fought off the Mad.”
“The creatures were strong, but she was fast, moving at a speed I could not fathom. In the shadows of our camp, I watched as her staff whipped around smashing in heads and taking out legs. I remember the knife, it’s blade grabbing the campfire lights, driving through the eye socket of one of the Mad. The twitching of its body will never leave me, and then, it fell still. Another one, she engaged in hand-to-hand combat. Fighting off its lumbering blows, and parrying the monsters’ attacks with her own offense. She was a true warrior.”
“There was a moment when one broke through her defenses and ran toward me, my father, and the broken girl. My mother drove the knife into the throat of one of the Mad and tu
rned, dashing for her loved ones. I was frozen. Useless. Just a child. But I knew that my life was about to end.