Death Comes To All (Book 1)

by Travis Kerr

  “The magic used on blades do things like making them nearly impossible to break or giving them an edge that never needs sharpened. Magic like what we saw can’t be used on a blade. That magic just doesn’t exist, or if it does I’ve never heard of it, and I’ve studied magic all my life. I've heard about the kind of magic that I saw surrounding you, though only in reading."

  He gestured for Roland to sit back down, and after a moment he complied. Tara wordlessly sat down next to him, just as interested in hearing about this as he was. He was still angry with Raiste for keeping so much from him, but the more he thought about it, the less angry he became. Considering that the man they killed was the same man that had hurt Tammie, he deserved everything that had been done to him and more.

  Still, Raiste should have known better than to throw them both into a battle without first learning everything he could about the man he planned on killing. He had said before that he always planned every detail before killing someone, yet his actions had hardly been the carefully planned assassination that his friend had taught him.

  "As I'm sure you already know, most people who possess magic tend toward a single aspect. Their power is centered on one type of magic only, and while a mage might be able to do other things with their magic, anything other than their personal specialty will not have much power. The more powerful the magic, the more focused it becomes. The most powerful of the great mages can only do a few, very specific, extremely powerful things with their magic. Other magic users have less focus on a single aspect of magic, but a wider range of things they can do with it. Some humans, and most of the non-human races who were created by magic, can't use magic at all."

  Roland hadn't known most of that, apart from the knowledge that it was mainly only those of human kin who could wield magic. Most of his education had come from his mother, who spoke little of magic.

  Roland had always assumed that it was because she had little magic of her own, and likely knew only bits and pieces of magical knowledge herself. Her knowledge in other things of the world seemed quite extensive compared to most people he had met before or since, but that didn’t mean she knew much about magic. Still, he had no intention of telling Raiste about his lack of knowledge. Instead, he simply nodded.

  I’ll hear him out. At the very least I should learn something.

  "For some magic users their magic is extremely focused, meant for only a single use and nothing else," Raiste continued. "Such was the magic that I saw today. The magic that was being used is a type of battle magic. It greatly enhances a person's fighting prowess. It can increase the speed, strength, and stamina of a person in battle. In your case it also enveloped you in a magic barrier, and used your sword as a focal point against incoming magic. Had that fireball hit you it might have been turned aside, but since you instead brought your sword between it and the attack, it absorbed the fireball completely, then fired it from your weapon as if you were the original caster. Battle magic hasn't been seen in over a hundred years, as far as I know anyway. It's extremely rare, and very, very powerful."

  "So then who was this powerful mage that cast this battle magic over me?" Roland asked. His anger had nearly faded completely, as often happens when new information is posed to a naturally inquisitive mind.

  "You still don't seem to understand," Raiste said, shaking his head. "This isn't a type of magic that is cast on someone else. There are minor wards against certain types of magical attacks that someone might cast on another, but nothing like this. Battle magic like this can only come from one source, the man who is using it. It's part of the reason it is so powerful.

  “Every living thing, whether it can utilize magic or not, has a natural defense against magic being used against it. Because of this, it is difficult for a mage to use a spell directly against another being. Most spells that attack another don't do so directly. For instance the fireball that Sloan tried to use didn't attack you directly, but instead heated the air and sent that superheated substance hurtling at you. If he had instead tried to light you on fire your natural defenses would have kicked in, and he would have had to overcome those first. As such, the result of the spell would have been considerably weaker than the total amount of energy put into it. The stronger the mind that a mage has to overcome, the greater the amount of energy lost in the transference.

  "Magical defensive or healing spells cast on another works the same way. Your mind doesn't know what type of magic is being used, so it will attempt to stop the magic no differently than it would a magical assault. A mage trying to help you could drain themselves until they are unconscious, and still not increase your fighting ability even a fraction of what it had been during that fight."

  "So you're saying that whoever cast those enhancements on me had to have been one of the most powerful mages?" Roland asked, trying to grasp what his companion was telling him. "Because of the difficulty in this transference thing, a normal mage wouldn't be able to do it, right? Why would one of the great mages want to help me, especially considering that I was with you at the time? It seems from what you've told me that at least most of them want you dead."

  "No, I'm telling you that no one cast that magic on you today!" Raiste answered in frustration. "No one could have, not even one of the great mages. That magic came from you, and no one else. You used that magic all on your own. You used it instinctively, so much so that you didn’t even know that it was you that was using it. You're a battle mage Roland, the first to walk the land in, well, who knows how long."

  Chapter Eleven

  "That's impossible!" Roland cried. "I can't use magic! I'm a sorvinian. We don't have magic. Not a single sorvinian in history ever has!"

  Raiste had expected his friend to react that way. He probably would have felt the same way himself if someone told him such a strange story. Still, he knew without doubt that it was true. As the son of one of the great mages, Raiste had studied the history of magic extensively during his childhood. He recalled vividly his childhood aspirations of becoming a battle mage himself one day, but of course that had never been the direction his own magical talents had leaned.

  "Your mother was a human," he pointed out. "Most likely you received your magical ability from her."

  "You mean that you think my mother might have been one of these battle mages too?"

  "No, that's unlikely. While it is often true that parents with strong magic will generally have children who have strong magic as well, that is not always the case. Sometimes a child with powerful magic could be born to parents with almost no magical talent whatsoever, or a great mage might have a child that shows little magic at all. Sometimes power might skip a generation or two, or power might appear in a family that has never shown strong magic. There's not always a family connection to it.

  “Even in those cases where strong magic is passes on, what that magic might do can be wildly different. There might not have been any battle mages in your family history. Unless we can trace your family line back, there's really no way of knowing."

  "So why is it that the powerful families keep their power generation after generation, while those born to lesser families rarely if ever increase their position?" Tara asked. She had resolved for the most part to stay out of the conversation, as magic was something she knew little about, and it was obvious which direction this conversation was going. Still, it seemed an important enough question to ask, and it might defuse the strong emotions that were running through the group. Much of their anger had faded, but she knew that it could flare again at the slightest provocation.

  "Magic was the fuel that put the great mages in power in the first place, but that's not what kept their children in power. The great mages in ancient days used their magic to teach the races, to keep them from killing each other when the Age of Learning began. This put them in a position as leaders, but they never planned on their descendants keeping that power, like the kings of old once had.

  "At first the descendants of those original mages, those that led the new r
aces of mankind into a more civilized society, followed in their parents and grandparents footsteps. They tried to help the world become a better place for everyone. Over time, however, those families, or most of them anyway, became corrupted by the power that they wielded. Instead of trying to help the other races they began caring more about exerting their control over them. Over everyone."

  He picked up a flat stone and threw it over the pond, watching as it skipped across its surface. Roland could tell that talking about this subject pained the man, but he needed to hear all of it. Where he went from here was already decided. He had made that decision the moment he followed Raiste into Sloan's office building. Now he only needed to know the reasons behind it, and all of this was a part of it.

  "My father saw, clearly, the corruption that now exists in the families of the great mages. We call them all great mages now, but truthfully many of them no longer have the powerful magic that their ancestors once controlled. That is a closely guarded secret, even by those who still have powerful magic, like Bloodheart. Even with all his power, he has no way of knowing if his children will share his strength, so like all of them he holds to the lie they all live by now.

  “The races are at a point now when they can rule themselves, without the need of powerful mages to rule over them and keep them in line. The mages rule now only because they wish to hold on to their power, and for no other reason. Anyone who wants to let the people choose for themselves what laws they should live by, or who should be controlling them, are destroyed, just as my father was. This is the reason I have dedicated my life to destroying this ruling class, not only to avenge my father, but to take his vision and see it through."

  "So all that magic, everything that I did during that battle, it all came from me," Roland said, numb with the comprehension.

  It was all me. All those men I killed. It was all me.

  A part of him had hoped that somehow the magic that had filled him had also, in part, controlled him. That he had not been responsible.

  But no. It was all me. I’m the one responsible for killing those men.

  The fact that he had not been given any choice at the time was a small consolation. He has still taken another man’s life. Several men, who he had killed in horrible, nightmarish ways that he would never have thought possible only a day before.

  It was the magic, his magic, that had given him the power to do that, but he could not blame those deaths on the magic. Even when the magic was filling him he understood that it was nothing more than a tool, no different than his sword really. He had thought at the time that someone else was giving it to him, but that didn’t matter.

  Giving a carpenter a saw doesn’t build you a house. That’s still up to the man who wields it.

  Now he knew that it came from him, that it was his own, but how he used that tool was up to him. He had never used magic before, perhaps because he never believed that he had any, or perhaps because the type of magic he had was never needed in his life previous to that moment.

  Regardless of how that magic came to him, it was his now, apparently, though he had no idea how to use or control that power.

  I have to learn to control it. I can’t let this power control me.

  When he had used his magic he had not done anything differently though. He hadn't even known it was coming from him, as if it was entirely instinctual, just as Raiste had suggested.

  How can I control something that comes out by instinct?

  It at least explained why he felt so drained once the magic left him. It was his own energy that the magic had been feeding off of.

  “Is that why I was so tired after the fight?” he asked. “Because it was my energy?”

  Best to be certain of these things.

  "That would seem to be the case," Raiste confirmed. "Some mages can pull the energy for their spells from other sources, such as other living things in their environment, and there are some mages that have great amounts of energy that they can pass on to other mages to power their stronger spells, but can't use that energy themselves.

  “From everything I've read, battle mages are not known to be able to use outside sources like that. Their power comes from their own bodies. However, since magic can affect each user differently, it's impossible to say for certain if you might be able to learn to use outside sources or not. Many battle mages were known to lose consciousness after the magic leaves them, however your body has a massive amount of natural energy already, likely due to your sorvinian father. If I'm right, and this is just a guess mind you, you might be able to fight longer and use more energy than any other battle mage in all of history, just on the basis of how much raw power you possess."

  "If that's true, how do I control this magic? The only time I've used it was by accident. I didn't even know that I had used it at all. If what you're saying is true, I could drain myself to death simply because I can't shut it off."

  "You don't need to worry about that happening," Raiste assured him. "Magic doesn't work that way. A mage will pass out long before he expels enough energy to kill him. There were stories of power mages, those who would give their energy to other mages to use for spells too powerful for one man to cast on his own, dying because a mage continued pulling from them after they lost consciousness, but I don't believe it's true. All evidence I've read about it shows that once a mage loses consciousness he can no longer transfer or use his power, so he can't be killed that way.

  “In any case, it certainly isn't possible for you to use too much energy and kill yourself. Still, passing out in battle could kill you just as easily. Once you can no longer protect yourself, your enemies can hack you to pieces with impunity. So you'll need to learn to control the energy you expend and how you use it."

  "I'm assuming that you can teach me how to do that?"

  "I can teach you the theory at least. Controlling the energy released in magic is different for each type of magic being used. Since, as far as I know, you are the only battle mage alive, there isn't anyone who can really teach you. You'll just have to learn it yourself. Also your abilities have already proven to be different from that of most battle mages in antiquity. The ability to soak an attacking spell into your blade and redirect it, for instance, has only been spoken of in legend. If I hadn't seen it myself, I wouldn't have believed it."

  "Would it be possible to draw in an opponents magic, like I did with that fireball, and then use that power to fuel my own magic then?" Roland asked. While he had almost no knowledge at all about magic, in theory or in practice, he did recall his mother once telling him that energy was energy. She had said that it could neither be created or destroyed, just changed from one form to another. If that was true, it might be possible to use energy from a source like that, as once he drew it in he might then be able to control it to a point.

  "I honestly have no idea," Raiste replied. "I've never even considered such a use of magic before. Of course, I've never encountered magic that could draw in an attacking spell the way you did either. I really don't know what you might be capable of."

  Wonderful.

  "As interesting as all of this is, I think we need to consider how we are going to get out of here first," Tara pointed out, breaking into the discussion. "We have horses, but taking the road seems too dangerous at the moment, so we don't have much use for them right now. We can't ride them safely without some sort of a trail for us to follow."

  "Unfortunately I have to agree," Raiste said after a moment's thought. "We'll need to lead the horses south on foot." He looked up at the sky to the west, where the light from the setting sun was already starting to fade, causing the sky to glow with a faint pink color.

  "We should stay here for tonight. Roland and I will have to change our appearance before morning, just in case someone along the road notices us paralleling them. It's unlikely, but it's better to be prepared, just in case. We'll leave as soon as there's enough light to lead the horses safely. We can't afford a fire tonight either. We're far enough from the road
, and few people know of this spot, but we still can't risk drawing attention to ourselves."

  Roland understood what the man meant. A campfire would be noticeable for quite a distance, and the guards were searching for them on the road. The last thing they wanted was for a wandering patrol to notice a campfire in the woods, far from the safety of the guarded road.

  "Tara, you and I will have to split the watch tonight. Roland is going to need as much rest right now as he can get. He doesn't know how to control his magic yet, and didn't hold much of his energy back during that fight. It's only because of his physical power that he was able to keep going this long. We'll be traveling hard tomorrow, so he'll need to recuperate. We'll want to put as much distance between us and the city as possible. I doubt they have a clue which way we might be heading, but Bloodheart will send patrols in every direction."

  Roland wasn't pleased at the thought of causing his friends any difficulty. As always, he wanted to be able to do his part. However, he understood Raiste's thinking as well. If the magic he had used weakened him as much as Raiste suggested it might have, he would need to replenish his energy, and quickly.

  Hopefully the group could avoid the patrols and wouldn't have need of it, but should his companions need him to fight again it would be best if he could fight at full strength. Otherwise, he would only slow them down.

  Rest today so I can fight again tomorrow.

  Roland paused to help Raiste unload the horses, putting aside the bag that carried his clothing from the rest of the pile. He noticed that Raiste had put aside his personal travel bag containing the makeup, wigs, and prosthetic pieces he used for his various disguises. Likely the assassin already had in mind who he was going to become next.

  Roland had no idea what type of change was going to be made to his own appearance, though he was sure Raiste had already thought of that as well. He had spent his entire life hiding his identity, if his story was to be believed. Roland certainly believed him. Now that the secret of Raiste's true identity was out, there was no longer any reason not to.