God Mage

by D. W. Jackson

  “That is the fear of anyone who controls the elements,” the master said. “Though for most that would only mean a slight deviation in their actions. I believe that in your case, it would be much more severe. We do have those who can naturally use the arts, and we have seen what can happen when their emotions take control, and that is the last thing we wish to have happen during your stay in our village. We will talk among ourselves, and will let you know of our decision,” master Yamato said, his eyes moving to the door.

  Bren took the hint and left the room. His mind was racing as he left the building. He hadn’t intended to ask the masters for anything when he went in, but with the realization that they could help him, he couldn’t help himself.

  Outside, Bren found the others waiting on him, and oddly enough, Hayao looked the most relieved when he came out. Bren hadn’t thought about the pressure that the man had been under. Looking around, Bren noticed that everyone looked relieved. He hadn’t thought about the fact that they were all living under the threat of death for the past few days. Not for the first time, Bren hated the new way he viewed life. It was almost as if he was nothing but a spectator anymore.

  “Master Torin,” Hayao said, bowing to Bren.

  “When did I become master…I thought it was just Lord Torin?” Bren asked.

  “I no longer have a house to call my own,” Hayao said, his face showing his emotions for the first time since Bren had met him. “There is no greater shame for one of my lineage. Yet you have still offered to take me in, and for that, I am very grateful. I swear that for as long as my line exists, we shall guard you and yours.”

  “That is very…generous,” Bren said hesitantly. “But I do not think my offer garners such a commitment.”

  Hayao didn’t respond but simply bowed again. Out of everyone that Bren had met, Hayao was the hardest to figure out. Bren believed it had to deal with the training that he had endured since he was young. Arashi had said the man had no honor, but Bren didn’t believe that was true. He was just a man who had to do things that others might find hard to swallow in order to hold to his own meaning of honor.

  Once they arrived back at Hayao’s family home, they were greeted much more warmly than they had been on the previous day. Not only were the welcomed with a large feast, their rooms were changed to a newer section of the house that was much more comfortable. It was not as if they were treated badly, but the atmosphere had been cold and distant, now it felt as if they had actually been welcomed.

  That night, Bren and the others were asked to dine with the rest of the family. The setting for dinner was a bit different than Bren was used to. There were no chairs, just thick cushions for the guests to sit on, nor was there a table. Each person got their own mini table that was brought by a young woman. Another thing Bren noticed was that none of the women in the family ate with them. In fact, the way the other men looked at the women with him, made it easy to tell that they didn’t think much of them, especially Brenda, who among all of them was the most outspoken.

  “More,” Brenda yelled holding up the small glass that was used for the rice wine, which they often drank with meals. “Don’t you have a bigger glass,” she said, picking up a small glass decanter that held the wine and took a large drink. Bren had thought her actions would make things harder, but oddly, the elder man who sat at the head of the group laughed.

  “Bring the lady as much as she wishes to drink,” the man said still laughing. “It is not often that I see a woman who can drink so much.”

  As the night progressed, Brenda drank more and more, and many of the others began to join in the merriment. In the end, Bren and the other guards were forced to carry many of their friends back to their room. Bren, who seemed to draw the unlucky lot, was forced to take care of Brenda, who was not only drunk but had wandering hands.

  “You were such a cute baby,” Brenda said as she leaned heavily against Bren’s shoulder. “Mother always talked about you when she came back from a visit. She used to tell me that she was going to arrange a marriage between me and you.”

  “That’s cheating,” Faye said, grabbing Brenda’s other arm and helping Bren carry her weight, though he wasn’t having trouble with her. “I have been working on him for the past year.”

  “I’m cheating,” Brenda said, slurring her words slightly. “I never took mothers words seriously. I mean Bren here was just a little kid who I had only seen when he was just a chubby baby. So my mother once talked me into going with her on one of her state visits and there he was. He was still just a kid but he was such a cutie,” Brenda said kissing Bren awkwardly on the cheek.

  “Hay, no kissing,” Faye said with a slight chuckle as the entered the room.

  “Jealous,” Brenda said pulling Faye close to her and giving her a kiss full on the lips.

  Even though he was more removed from himself than normal, Bren was still caught off guard as Brenda pulled away from him and grabbed Faye’s head and forced a kiss on her. Bren fell to the ground as Faye pulled back wiping her mouth and coughing. “Why in the nine hells did you do that?” Faye asked, but Brenda was already sleeping peacefully where she fell.

  After they put Brenda in bed, Bren sought his own bed. A few seconds after he laid down, he felt the now common feeling of Faye wrapping her arm around him as she pressed her body close to him. “It’s not fair,” Faye whispered after a few moments.

  It was the first time Faye had said anything after she had lain down, and Bren was not sure how to handle the situation. He wished that this would have happened when he was more himself, but there was only so far wishing could get him. “What do you mean?” Bren asked, hoping that it was the right response.

  “Brenda, Lillian, Phena, and Shariel, you have all these other women around you. They all have their own claims to you, and I am just some farm girl that you met on your way to the tower,” Faye said, her voice sounding meek and slightly concerned.

  “Phena is my sister,” Bren replied, trying to make his voice sound slightly upbeat. “Shariel is like an aunt, and Brenda scares the living hell out of me.”

  “I can see why,” Faye replied shyly. “What about Lillian. She isn’t family, and she is downright beautiful. I can’t even compare to her, and she…loves you.”

  Bren could tell that Faye was worried about her position with him. Although he knew it, he wasn’t sure how to handle it. He knew that he cared about her, but it was hard to really focus on that now. “She is beautiful, but I don’t think she really loves me,” Bren responded, picking his words carefully. “She fell in love with my father, and when he disappeared, she just let her attachment switch to me. It wouldn’t matter anyway; she reminds me too much of my mother.”

  “If you say so,” Faye said pulling Bren in even tighter than she had before. It was slightly uncomfortable, but Bren didn’t pull away from her.

  As Bren drifted off to sleep, he felt a pull coming from his mother as she tried to pull him into one of her dreams. Bren thought about declining her invitation but decided it would be best to talk with her. In the end, his mother was going to find him, and it was better to get it over with. At least in his dream his mother couldn’t hit him too hard.

  As the darkness cleared, Bren found himself in his own room where his mother sat on the edge of his bed. Bren waited for her to say something, but as the silence continued, Bren decided to make the first move. “Mother,” Bren said softly.

  “I didn’t think you would come,” Maria said after a tense moment of silence. “I have tried to talk to you numerous times, but each time I only ended up spending the night alone in this room.”

  “Things have been difficult,” Bren said, moving over behind his mother.

  “What happened to you?” Maria said as she turned around and got her first look at him. She reached out her hand and lightly touched his cheek, which was now bright silver. “You look like someone painted your skin.”

  “Like I said, things have been difficult,” Bren replied. “If everything works
out, father will be home soon.”

  “Thad,” Maria said surprised. “How?”

  “I can’t tell you right now, but I am working on it,” Bren said as his mother pulled him into a tight hug.

  “I miss him,” Maria said, her voice filled with her emotions. “I would give almost anything to see him again.” His mother was holding him so tight that even in the dream he could feel her strength. “But I would not trade your father for you. You are my son, and though I do not always show it, I still love you dearly. If it is dangerous then please promise me that you will leave it alone….Please.”

  “I don’t know if it will be dangerous,” Bren replied telling his mother a half-truth. “But this is something that I have to do. I am not doing it for father, or for you, but myself. Ever since I was a child, I have seen the odd stares and heard the half-concealed remarks. People have always blamed me for father’s disappearance, and at some point I have started to blame myself.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Maria said pulling back and looking her son directly in the face.

  “At some level I know that, but I still want to find father. It is just something I have to do.”

  His mother didn’t say anything else. She just gave him another tight hug and wept silently. Bren wrapped his arms lightly around his mother and held her until the darkness started to pool in around him to take him back.

  Chapter 4

  The next morning, Bren woke feeling a little more rested than usual. After a quick exercise with Cass and a small breakfast, Bren decided he could use a nice walk.

  As soon as he headed outside though, he was met by man slightly shorter than he was who wore a deep blue suit much like Hayao wore. Bren started to walk around the person, but the other man moved in his path. Once again, Bren tried to move around the man but was blocked. “Can I help you?” Bren asked, trying to sound polite.

  “Yes, you cannot waste my time,” the short man said, looking Bren over closely. “Follow me.”

  The man didn’t give Bren a moment to think over his words but instead turned and walked away from the house. Without time to think, Bren followed the man. The further they moved away from the house, the faster the small man began to walk. For such a short man he was able to move quickly without making a sound.

  Soon they moved away from the city and into a thinly wooded area. Even in the thin forest, Bren was finding it hard to keep up with the man, who moved through the trees as if he belonged there. Soon Bren found himself forced to run to keep up with the other man.

  When the man finally stopped, Bren found himself standing in front of a small pond that was fed by a waterfall. Bren looked down into the water, which was so clear that Bren could easily see the fish swimming in the depths. It was amazing. It looked as if the water continued down endlessly. Within the pond were large bright fish that ranged from the size of his finger to a few that were bigger than his leg, though it was hard to tell the size of some of the fish that swam in the deeper water.

  Before Bren could ask what they were doing in such a place, the man jumped onto a rock that was situated at the base of the waterfall. When the man didn’t say anything, Bren looked around and found another rock that sat underneath the waterfall.

  The water was like ice against his skin, but Bren was easily able to push the feeling aside. After a few moments, he felt something strike him in the back. Jumping to his feet and turning around, Bren found the short man standing behind him. With a push, Bren fell back. He tried to jump, but his foot slipped on the rock, and he fell into the cold water below.

  “Why did you do that?” Bren asked as he bobbed back to the surface.

  “You wasted my time,” the man said coldly.

  Though he couldn’t see the man’s face, Bren knew that he was frowning. “Then what do you want me to do?” Bren asked curiously.

  “I want you to feel,” the man said holding his hand out under the water. “Feel each drop of water—how the water feels against your skin. You shut everything out, refuse to feel. You must learn to feel and control what you feel and how you feel it.”

  The man took his position back under the waterfall without saying another word. Bren watched the man for a few moments, but when it was apparent that he wasn’t going to say anything else, Bren climbed back on his rock. This time instead of blocking out the coldness of the water, Bren let it cover him.

  The water was so cold that it felt like little daggers digging into his skin. After a few moments, his body was soaked to the bone, and his teeth began to chatter. One of the few things that Bren could still feel was pain, but it was not a common thing for him as his body now was hard to damage and healed quickly. The cold was a different feeling as normally, he simply pushed the feeling away. He didn’t know why, but he felt slightly relieved at the feeling of coldness that washed over his body.

  After a short while, Bren started to feel the tug of the water. He felt calm and soothed, and he wanted to let himself flow into it. Just to let everything go and become one with the elements. Just as Bren was about to let go, he felt something hitting him in the side. Opening his eyes, Bren looked over lazily to see the short man yelling at him, though he couldn’t make out the words. Suddenly, the man pulled out a weirdly shaped dagger and jabbed it toward him.

  Bren’s trance was broken as he quickly dodged the attack falling into the cold water again. “Were you trying to kill me?” Bren asked as he treaded water.

  “I told you not to waste my time,” the little man said angrily. “You need to control your feelings, do not let them control you. You were letting the elements take you. If you do that, you might as well be dead as you will no longer be among the living. You need to feel everything yet maintain complete control over your body. The elders wished for me to teach you control, but that doesn’t mean that I will waste my time on someone who doesn’t want to learn. Now sit under the water and feel it, but do not let the feelings take control. It is just water; if you cannot do that, then everything else will be beyond you.”

  Bren didn’t know how long he sat underneath the waterfall, but before he knew it, the sun had fallen out of the sky. Numerous times the man had to hit him to get his attention, but he never said another thing to Bren.

  After Bren was able to sit underneath the cold water for more than an hour, the man tapped Bren lightly on the shoulder. “Better,” the man said when Bren responded to his light tap.

  “What is next?” Bren asked, shivering uncontrollably.

  “Next we warm up,” the man said, jumping back across the pond onto solid ground.

  Bren followed the man’s lead and tried to jump across, but his stiff and cold muscles tensed on him, and he landed in the pond. As he surfaced, the man gave a short laugh. “It looks like it is a good time for a fire.” The man put his hands together and took a deep breath, and a large stream of fire roared from his mouth as he breathed out, catching a large pile of sticks alight. “Help me gather more sticks for the fire we need to make it larger.”

  As Bren ran through the woods to gather wood, his sweat mixed with the cold water and the evening breeze made him shiver even more. As long as he kept his body moving, he didn’t notice how cold he was, but the second he stopped moving, it pounced in on him with a vengeance.

  After Bren had made his seventh trip carrying large piles of wood back to the fire, the man decided that it was enough. Now that the fire raged large enough that it looked more like a pyre than something someone would use for a camp, the man casually walked across the burning logs into the center of the fire where a small spot was left bare and sat among the raging inferno. It didn’t take Bren long to notice a second open spot among the fire.

  The flames licked at his feet like hungry dogs forcing Bren to move quickly. He knew that if he wanted to, he could use his magic to walk easily across the flames, but he figured that it was against what he was being taught. Once he was within his little circle, he took a seat on the hard ground. Only seconds after sitting down, Bren could fe
el the immense heat around him. Large beads of sweat rolled down his face, and his body, that only a few moments ago was freezing cold, now felt as if it was being cooked alive.

  Just as he had done with the water, Bren let himself feel the heat. The water had covered his whole body after only a few seconds, making it hard to feel each drop, but the heat was different. As he shifted his body away from one hot spot, another would arise, ever changing the part of his body that grew uncomfortable. And to add a bit of uncertainty to it, there seemed to be odd moments when the fire would decide to flare up, and the flames would lick at an unsuspecting part of his body, causing immense pain for a brief instant.

  It took longer for Bren to get used to the heat, but once he did and was able to sit motionlessly and feel the heat on his body, he began to relax. It was as his body relaxed that he started to feel the pull of the fire. Unlike the water, it was not a gentle, easy, feeling of calmness that tugged at his awareness but something quite different. The fire was eager, angry, and full of the desire to eat. It wanted more, and Bren could tell that nothing could satisfy its hunger.

  At first, Bren could feel his own hunger echoing in his body. He had only had breakfast that morning, and now it was way past time for the evening meal. Thanks to the cold, he had forgotten about that hunger, but now it returned, and he could feel the pain as his stomach tightened in need of food. Bren fought against the desire to eat, but it was not an easy task.

  After he was able to push away the hunger, he felt anger. The anger moved through him and attacked every memory that had caused him pain. His father had abandoned him, and his mother had pushed him away, making him a prisoner in his own home. As the thoughts assaulted him, Bren could feel the flames around him grow hotter. He tried to calm down, reminding himself that his father had not abandoned him but had been taken from him, but that just redirected the anger to the Brotherhood.

  Bren knew that he was losing himself to the fire, but try as he might, he couldn’t break away from its pull. A sharp pain rang though his head, and his eyes snapped open to see the short man in front of him standing on the hot coals of the fire without a hint of discomfort. “Control,” was all he said before returning to his own place to sit.