Silver Mage (Book 2)

by D. W. Jackson

  “Get your flea ridden mutt off me!” Crusher yelled as he grabbed Avalanche around the neck.

  “I don’t think she has fleas,” Bren answered back, trying to hold back a laugh.

  Avalanche grabbed crusher by the collar of his shirt and began dragging him around as the dwarf kicked his legs and cursed. Flipping on his stomach, Crusher hit the rock hound hard in the jaw, sending a resounding thud into the air. Avalanche barked playfully and jumped back, letting the dwarf go. “I think she missed you,” Bren offered as he helped the dwarf to his feet.

  “I missed her as well,” Crusher admitted with a grumble. “Just wish the blasted mutt would let me finish me work before tackling me. Now, what brings ya ta my shop? As much as I complain, ya never come ta visit. Just when ya need suffin from me.”

  “I need a sword,” Bren answered, feeling more than a little embarrassed.

  “What’s wrong with the one ya got?” Crusher asked, giving him a stern glare.

  “I haven’t broken my father’s sword if that what you’re getting at. It’s just…” Bren said, looking down at the hilt that swung freely at his side.

  “I see,” Crusher said, giving Bren a knowing look. “A good sword will take time and coin boy…don’t expect me ta finish it overnight.”

  “Thank you,” Bren said smiling.

  “Don’t be thanking me yet boy,” Crusher said grumpily. “What till ya get my bill, then ya ca decide if ya want to thank me. Now come inside and you and your boy can have a drink with me.”

  Bren heard Cass groan beside him. Crusher was one of the few people the young warrior couldn’t handle. He had spared the dwarf on two occasion and lost each time. The last time, Crusher had wagered that if he won, Cass had to drink with him whenever he wanted. Bren held back a laugh as they walked through the doors to Crusher’s home. It was good to see his friend lose sometimes, it kept him from getting to full of himself.

  CHAPTER II

  Bren woke with his arms, legs, and head aching badly. His head spinning slightly as Bren sat up in bed and looked over to his desk, where the large stack of papers waited. As he swung his feet out of his bed, the door to his chambers opened and Lillian walked through. “Why don’t you knock?” Bren asked, quickly covering himself with the covers.

  “It’s hard enough to open the door with my hands full, let alone knock,” Lillian said with a bright smile. “I brought you some breakfast, as well as herb tea to help you get over your late night activities.”

  Bren looked at the dark green liquid that sat on the silver tray. “Have you found any way to make it taste better?” Bren asked as he warily picked up the glass and took a small drink. He tried not to grimace as the thick tea washed across his tongue.

  “Just drink it in one go and quit complaining like a child still suckling at his mom’s teets,” Lillian said in a motherly fashion.

  Bren wanted to retort back, but he knew better. With a grimace, he quickly downed the remainder of the glass, trying his best to keep himself from gagging. His head began to clear before he sat the glass down, but the strong aftertaste still made Bren wonder if cure was worth the price as he knew from experience that the aftertaste would hang around for most of the day.

  Bren fought the urge to wipe at his tongue with his nightshirt after Lilian had left. If it would work, he would do it, but having tried it before all it ended up doing is making the taste worse.

  After getting dressed, Bren made a quick sandwich out of the items left on the silver plate and sat down at his desk. From the small amount of light coming in from his window, Bren was sure that he would have at least an hour before Cass would remind him of his promise to start a morning workout program with the other guards.

  As much as he hurt, Bren couldn’t really complain. He had enjoyed the previous day’s exercises, even if they had left him in a great deal of discomfort. Sighing, Bren picked up the first paper and started looking over it. The tower was requesting more funds already…How much did they need? It hadn’t been more than a few weeks since their last request.

  Pulling out a sheet of thick parchment, Bren began to pen a note to the council requesting the reason they needed an increase in funds so soon. He had to rewrite the letter four times, trying his best not to ruffle too many feathers. It was still a delicate situation with the tower, after all, the events had taken place only half a year beforehand and he needed to tread lightly, but not so lightly that he would let them take advantage of him.

  No sooner as he placed the letter in his finished pile, a knock came at his door. “Bren, you didn’t forget about your promise last night did you?”

  “Coming,” Bren yelled with a slight laugh. If there was anything that could put him in the mood to get away from his desk, it was having to deal with matters that dealt with the tower. As he reached his door, Bren looked over to where his leather armor sat in the corner. His chest and sides still hurt from the day before, so he decided it would be best to leave it off for a day to let himself heal, though in the end he knew that it would mean extra bruises.

  “Get a move on, the others are waiting on you,” Cass said, his voice light and his face pinched. Bren knew without asking that the guard’s head was hurting more than a little, as Crusher had made him drink until he could barely walk the previous night.

  “You could ask Lillian to make you a cup of tea,” Bren offered as he shut his door loudly.

  Cass flinched and brought his hand up to his head. “I would rather lick the backside of a mule than drink that tea again. The headache is a small price to pay to not kill my taste for the rest of the day. Honestly, I don’t see how you can drink it.”

  “Lillian doesn’t give me much of a choice,” Bren admitted. “I tried to refuse one time and she practically held me down and poured the stuff into my mouth.”

  “She is not the kind of person to take no for an answer, is she?” Cass asked laughing.

  “No she is not,” Bren answered with a slight smile.

  The rest of his guards were waiting at the foot of the stairs for him, and most of them looked as if they had spent the night getting kick in the head. As good as shape as they were in, he was sure that over half of them would be floundering for most of the morning.

  Unlike the day before, they started with a light run of less than a mile before starting with sparring. Bren once again faced off against Cass, but this time it was a much more even fight, seeing as how the other warrior flinched in pain each time the swords rang out. The katas were also cut short, leaving Bren with much more of the morning left than he had anticipated.

  Sighing, Bren looked up to the sky. It was overcast with only small streams of light peeking through. It was nearing full winter and Bren was anticipating the first snowfall. On the coast, it rarely got a large snowfall, and the few times it did, it turned to ice quickly. He had heard that the previous year there was so much snow in Torin that people had to make tunnels in the snow to get around the town. He was sure that the people were exaggerating, but he had to admit to himself that it would be a sight to see so much of the white powder in one place.

  Looking around, he noticed that most the houses were still mostly thatch, with more than a few places needing repair. They needed to be fixed, and quick, but that would take a number of laborers that the city just didn’t have. As he looked back to the inn turned palace, an idea struck him. He didn’t know if it would work, but it was worth a try, and it might even make some of the mages start to see the non-humans as real people. Not just tools for their use and abuse.

  Forgetting about Cass and the others, Bren rushed up to his room and grabbed the letter off his desk. He neatly folded it before placing it in a nice envelope. After picking out one of his better outfits, a nice dark set of leathers that was trimmed lightly in dark green and after checking himself out three times in the large mirror in his room to make sure he didn’t look too outlandish, Bren headed back downstairs where he found his guards preparing for breakfast. Not wanting to cause them to lose t
heir first meal, Bren moved back to the kitchen where he found Lillian, as well as, many others working to ready all the needed food.

  “Do you require something my lord?” Lillian asked, noticing him as soon as he stepped through the door.

  “No, I was just going to let you know that I and the guards will be gone for the noon meal so that you wouldn’t prepare too much.”

  “That doesn’t matter, if we have any food left over, I am sure there are plenty of families that could put it to use,” Lillian said in an offhanded manner. “It is better to have too much, should you not return than too little, should you return earlier than expected.”

  “Whatever you think is best,” Bren replied, shaking his head. He knew better than to think she would take it easy. He didn’t know where she found the boundless energy to not only cook, but keep the place spotless as well. From what he had learned, the elves were nearly immortal and one of the longest lived races on Kurt, and they spent all of their time perfecting whatever they put their minds too. Whether it was cooking or mastering politics. Lillian had put it to her mind that she would not only be his personal maid, but in such a capacity that made her nearly irreplaceable. Giving the elf one final look, Bren wondered what he would do if something happened to her. Nothing good he was sure.

  While he waited for his guards to finish their meal, Bren busied himself with checking on the rest of the house workers, as well as, inspecting the current level of funds that had been accruing in their makeshift vault that was nothing more than a few iron walls and a large door with a secret lath that Crusher had devised. The dwarf assured him that only the most fool-minded thieves would try to steal from him, but Bren didn’t want to take any chances with the entire countries funds.

  Picking up the large ledger that sat next to a desk guarded by one of Flynn’s soldiers, Bren flipped through the pages until he reached the most recent entry. Two hundred gold coins for stone work on the palace. It wouldn’t start until after winter, but they had decided to pay half the cost up front to help the dwarven stone workers get the needed materials ready in time for the first snow melt after winter. That still left them with a little over twelve thousand gold in the vault, though most of that had come from his father’s elven estate.

  He had eased up on taxes hoping that the extra gold entering the human and non-human districts would help spur spending, but so far the non-humans had been cautious with their extra gold, afraid that the next tax gathering would be even fiercer than before.

  It was a large amount of gold for such a small country, but with the tower looming above them asking for large sums every few weeks, it wouldn’t last long. He needed to find a way to increase funds without having to depend on his father’s elven holdings too much. If he pressed that too far, he wasn’t sure what impact it would have on the elven isle and from what he learned from Lillian, he wasn’t sure that they would let him know when he was pushing their funds to the limit. He had asked many times for a full accounting of their resources, but while he had not been denied, they had been reluctant in sending them to him.

  “Do you need to make a withdrawal my lord?” asked an older balding man who was so thin, Bren was sure that if he turned sideways, you wouldn’t be able to see him.

  “No, I was just checking on the state of our coffers Jonas,” Bren told the elder man that Lillian had hired to keep accounts of their spending. He was a kind man, but had a keen mind where gold was concerned. He doubted that even his mother’s accountant kept her vaults in such an orderly state. After the first few times inspecting the vault, he found that Jonas did far more work than would have been expected. There were large chests, each one with pieces of paper detailing how many coins were in them, and a place for someone to write down if anything was taken out of them. As Bren said, the old man was kind, but he had a fierce temper for those who didn’t follow the few rules about the vault.

  “They are doing well my lord, but a little too thin for any real breathing room,” Jonas said with a frown.

  “I agree with you Jonas, but I can’t think of a way besides taxing out people that we may increase the funds,” Bren said hesitantly.

  “Would you mind terribly if I offered a suggestion my lord?” Jonas asked with his normal straightforward attitude.

  “It would be an honor to hear it,” Bren replied intrigued.

  “I would suggest that you get with the merchant guild. The tower had tried to make contracts with them in the past, but the guild refused saying that they didn’t have the authority. I am sure that with you, it would be a different story. If you could make an arrangement with the guild over appropriate taxes with imports and exports, we will see an increase in the merchants, as well as a larger influx of gold in our coffers.”

  “Now that you mention it, I haven’t heard of any of the guilds merchants coming to town since my visit,” Bren admitted. “I will have to contact Aunt Monique to see what terms we can come to.”

  “Splendid,” Jonas said, turning back to his books.

  Feeling better about their financial situation, Bren headed back to the main hall, where he found the last of his guards finishing up their meal. Without a word, the men quickly formed around him. Bren found it uncanny how they understood when he wanted to go out, but then again, they spent most of their time with him, so he knew that he shouldn’t be surprised.

  “Where are we going today my lord?” Cass asked with a blank look on his face.

  “To the tower to speak with the council,” Bren answered, his face calm and emotionless.

  “Let me guess, they are not expecting a visit,” Cass said in a sarcastic tone. “Do you enjoy making our lives more difficult than they have to be?”

  “I have to admit, that it does add a bit of fun to my day,” Bren said, trying to conceal a smile.

  “Do you think there will be a fight, or are you going to behave yourself?”

  “I don’t think there will be a need to fight, but you can never tell with the council,” Bren replied, shrugging his shoulders. “Be on guard just in case. This is only our second visit since I took control of Torin, so there is bound to be a little resentment among some of the elder mages.”

  “A little resentment,” Cass said mockingly. “You would find less if you had a member of the Brotherhood in your basement being beaten daily.”

  Bren couldn’t hold back a laugh any more. “You might be right, but we need to get over that. Otherwise, the country will be the one to suffer. I am hoping my visit today will ease a bit of the tension, but it might just bring up some old wounds,” Bren admitted. “Either way, it is a fight that we can’t keep putting off.”

  “I would much prefer if we all just went out to a field and not leave until one group was destroyed,” Cass said with a disgusted sigh. “All this back and forth with snide little underhanded moves leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”

  “I agree, but that is not the way the world works. You can’t rule with an iron fist. Any country that has tried has collapsed, just like the empire. We need to work together, even if those old windbags don’t want to.”

  CHAPTER III

  The Mage’s tower was located near the edge of the city and was surrounded by the houses of many of the upper class mages. There was a noticeable difference between the houses surrounding the tower, and those found in the non-human district.

  “Calm down,” Cass said, grabbing Bren’s shoulder lightly. “It won’t do any good to get all worked up before you even talk to the council.”

  Looking down, Bren noticed that his fist was clenched so tightly that his fingers were turning white. “Thank you,” Bren replied, relaxing his grip and taking a few deep breathes.

  The tower itself was massive and was so tall that it almost looked as if it would pierce the clouds in the sky. It was made of dark black stones that had awed Bren when he had first seen them, but now reminded him of the sickness that had spread through the upper ranks of the mages. They had forgotten what it was like to be hunted, and they treated
the non-humans with contempt. Sae-Thae was the only non-human on the council, and that was only because he had been appointed by his father before he had disappeared.

  “Bren!” A light voice yelled shortly after Bren entered the main courtyard to the tower. Turning to his right, Bren saw the source of the voice as a young girl, only a few years older than him, rushed toward him.

  “Faye,” Bren said, greeting his friend as he tried not to blush as he noticed how tightly her robes clung to her toned body. Faye had lived the most of her life on a farm and had been used to hard work, and that hadn’t changed when she had come to the tower.

  “What are you doing here?” Faye asked in a low whisper once she was near enough for him to hear her.

  “Meeting with the council,” Bren said in reply, trying to keep the contempt out of his voice.

  “Not picking another fight are you?” Faye said in concerned tones. “Many of the mages think you are out to destroy the tower, though most of those are just views that they are repeating from their teachers, but overall you aren’t thought of very highly by most of the mages. The few who have minds of their own understand you are trying to do what’s best, but it won’t help if you keep picking fights with the masters.”

  “I don’t plan to pick a fight,” Bren said angrily. “Most the time, it’s the so called masters who start the fights in the first place.”

  “Don’t get mad at me,” Faye said, giving him a harsh look. “You might be the king, but I still don’t mind kicking your hind end and if you won’t let me, I will have Cass do it for me,” She added, giving the tall warrior a winning smile. “From what I heard, he will do anything for a pretty face.”

  “I would not,” Cass said coughing. “Well, I wouldn’t permanently injure him.” Cass added, getting a laugh from the other guards as well as Faye.

  “Just try not to make things worse for yourself,” Faye said before running back toward the small group of girls she had been talking to before he had arrived.