by Awert, Wolf
The mage entered a small room that had been chiseled into the rock of Knor-il-Ank and had to grasp the wall for support. He coughed. The air was like a wet cloth over his lungs, turning every breath into a chore. He closed his eyes to gather his strength for a moment. But it could not get rid of the whirling, for it was not the air of the chamber that twisted around him. It threw its knots and nooses through stone, flesh and bone, wringing his brain. The mage retched, swallowed and retched again. His hand, still resting on the wall, was icy cold and shining with wetness that the rock greedily absorbed. He felt empty, his body a mere vessel whose contents had long since merged with the rock all around him, with the whirls in the air, with the figure before him that had begun to take shape like a man walking out of the mist. The Archmage was dressed in a silvery cloak, but he might as well have been naked. The poor mage would not have noticed. The aura was so densely packed, so deeply ingrained in the cloak and the flesh beneath it, that no more than the silhouette was visible.
The voice was deep and seemed to resonate from the deepest chasms of the earth. “What I want from you is this…”
The words were followed by thoughts and pictures at a sickening pace, leaving the mage breathless. After a short pause the words continued. “Do you see any problems with this?”
How was he to answer this question, with his voice lost in the boundless depths of an unknown aura, with his own free will fleeing as fast as it could from a presence so superior that it would never come back of its own volition? The White Mage nodded without realizing it.
“Good,” the voice boomed. “I’m relying on you.”
The vortex calmed a little. The mage tore himself from the wall and stumbled out of the chamber. He would have done anything to leave the place. He managed a few insecure steps before breaking down, sliding along the walls of the corridor. The rock left rusty tracks on the skin above his cheekbone, but compared to what he had just endured the feeling was like an embrace. In the chamber behind him the mist solidified into a golden point, shooting out through the wall. The Archmage had left. Only emptiness and silence remained. The rock breathed out shakily.
The patronage of an Archmage was very different to what Nill had imagined. He spent more time with the High Lady than with his mentor, who had not called upon him since their first meeting. If the patronage had any consequence, then it was that Nill was now, like Brolok and Tiriwi, protected from any direct attacks from his fellow students, although the animosity between them remained unchanged.
As such, his expectations were mixed when he received a message to come to Ambrosimas immediately. He was hoping for some induction into mighty spells of some kind, seeing himself atop a mountain, throwing bolts of lightning. At the same time he remembered his pathetic attempts to conjure a fire and wondered what his mentor had in store for him. His initial feelings of gratitude had given way to a discomfiting uncertainty. Ambrosimas’ tricks with the images from his past had awakened his worry. He wondered whether Ambrosimas knew all his memories, or whether he had simply awoken them. But then, who had the woman been, with her firm gaze and her heavy ponytails on her shoulders? After Ambrosimas had summoned her face she had appeared to him in his dreams. He had called her mother, but he had not felt like her son.
Despite all these questions Nill was determined not to disappoint his patron. He did not know that his decision was based entirely on the esteem the High Lady had shown his mentor.
Nill bowed. “You wished to see me, sir?”
Ambrosimas nodded. He was humming a tune and seemed to be in a very good mood. He beckoned Nill to take a seat somewhere among the pillows where he appeared to float weightlessly. “It is time to begin your training, Nill.”
Nill glowed. Finally! he thought.
“After your trial I know what you can do and what you can’t. First I will show you how to guide energy through your body.”
Nill grimaced. “But I can already do that,” he protested. “What I can’t do is powerful spells.”
Ambrosimas heaved a sigh. “Oh, the youthful impatience,” he muttered. “Listen to me. The only chance to win against someone stronger than you is to absorb the magic faster and better than they do, and to guide that magic onwards.” Ambrosimas’ expression became more serious, and the entire room was suddenly devoid of lightness and happiness. “What I am about to tell you is of paramount importance, for you must soon make a choice. There are two ways to learn magic. The fast one is to collect as much energy as possible, gather it at a point in your body and then to shoot it out. It’s your body’s problem to deal with then. Usually it will take it well, but sometimes it won’t. Nearly all Fire and Metal Mages choose this way, many Earth and even some Water Mages do too, although I’ve never understood why. Only the Wood mages avoid it as much as possible.
“Once there was a mage named Kuminfern. He was one of the greatest Fire Mages to ever live, and he was certainly the most powerful in his day. He strengthened his power with no thought of consequence for himself or anyone else. He put several of his students together in a ring to increase his energy. Almost a quarter of all his understudies died during their training. Kuminfern dreamed of becoming a mage king, controlling the land by himself. King of the five kingdoms and Magon, all in the same man. He succeeded, although it was short-lived. Fire serves to conquer, but Fire alone will not keep you in power for long. But that is a different story.”
“And the other way?” Nill asked.
“You don’t bother with your magical power. That which you have is enough. Instead you build on your body’s ability to redirect energy quickly and without injury. It is the safer way, but takes a long time and is more difficult.”
“I choose the first,” Nill said with determination. “I am not afraid.”
“I thought that would be your decision,” the Archmage replied, “but the time for choice is not now. You cannot choose until you know what you’re getting into. If you can’t properly redirect energy, the first attack from a strong energy will knock you down or kill you. No attack that has a chance of succeeding will forsake defense.”
“But you said that Kuminfern did.”
“Did he? Nobody knows how his early years began, but we also tell about the Lava Rider in our stories.”
“And who’s that?” Nill asked interestedly. He took in every word Ambrosimas said like a sponge.
“He had no pupils, for they all left him due to his demands. He flew high into the fiery mountains and let himself be carried by a flow of molten lava down the slope. Sometimes for days on end. He simply redirected the heat through his body. Learning to redirect a massive amount of heat takes a massive amount of fire. Lavacron, the Lava Rider as we call him, was immune to elemental magic, because he learned not only to absorb fire quickly and safely. He survived every duel and war he ever partook in. He would simply wait until his enemies were worn down and then use a simple spell to finish them.”
Nill was awed. Every time he thought he had found someone to look up to, a better alternative seemed to appear. Still, he was sure that the first way was the right one for him, because he had so far done well in redirecting energy. He was adamant.
“What energy would you like to try first, Nill?” Ambrosimas asked.
Without hesitation Nill answered: “Wood!”
Wood was his favorite, ever since he had met a crippled tree outside of the walls of Ringwall. He had learned how to turn his feet into roots and sink them into the earth. His arms could be branches, reaching toward the sky. The tree had thanked him, and a few days later Nill had seen small buds breaking through the withered bark.
“Then let us begin.”
The Archmage laid his hand on Nill’s head and pushed. Nill pushed back, but he could not stop the force.
“Why are you pushing? I thought you could absorb the Wood’s energy,” Ambrosimas grumbled.
“You did the pushing, I was just reacting.”
Ambrosimas shook his head and raised his hand so that it was roug
hly a fist’s width away from Nill’s head. Although his mentor was no longer touching him, Nill felt the pressure grow, and so he raised his own hands against it and absorbed the pressure through his arms.
“Cheap trick,” Ambrosimas muttered. He made a vine grow out of the wall which bound Nill’s arms to his back, and then continued the pressure from above.
Nill pulled at his bonds, his back bent, and he keeled over.
“So you can absorb energy, heh? Through your hands and feet, maybe. A little bit. There is an art to it, and it has to be through your entire body, so effortlessly that your body doesn’t even notice. Looks like we’ll have to start from the beginning.”
And to his chagrin, in the following weeks Nill learned nothing but redirection.
Nill did not keep his disappointment quiet in front of Tiriwi and Brolok. “If I’m to learn magic like this, then my first spell will be concerned with making sure I don’t trip over my beard! It’s taking so long!”
His friends showed sympathy, though. Brolok’s mentor had shown little care for teaching him about Metal, Earth or Fire, and had instead showed him many small, strange ways of healing physical wounds that could be sustained in battle. During his last lesson Brolok’s patron had thrown a silver spur at his leg that had buried itself deeper and deeper into his muscles. The man seemed to find joy in torturing his student, and so Brolok had prepared for a long term of suffering. He knew that some nobles kept mucklings for just this purpose, as a sort of perverse recreational activity. But his mentor was different. He hurt Brolok with precision, leaving him to feel the pain until it had become part of him. Only once the pain had achieved its goal did he help Brolok to handle it. He showed him how to stop the silver spur, and also how to dissolve it and reshape it into a magical shield to protect his injury. Once Brolok had mastered this, he unleashed swarms of silver worms on him until Brolok was writhing on the floor, screaming with pain. After three such attacks Brolok succeeded in using the first wave to shield himself from the rest, with each additional shot only strengthening the shield.
It was a bad situation for Brolok, but after every lesson the White Mage would take him in his arms, stroking his skin and removing the memory of the pain from his flesh and bones. “Wounds are not rare for warriors such as you, and almost nobody tends to them. But we mages know that the memory of pain and suffering can open up traps in your body. Removing the traces of old wounds is a difficult process, but it is worth learning. It is too early for you, my boy, far too early.”
Tiriwi had no mentor, but there were always those who showed her things or attempted to explain. It was typical of her not to talk about these encounters. And so Nill knew that Tiriwi was also receiving lessons, but he never knew their content.
“I don’t know if I’m actually learning anything with him or not,” Nill lamented. “He keeps finding things that aren’t as good as he wants them to be. But every Archmage would say the same of any sorcerer beneath them, not just with me. I’ve made no progress at all and I know no more than on my first day. He hasn’t taught me any spells yet at all. I wonder if there’s a certain reason behind his behavior.”
“And what reason would that be?” Brolok asked.
“He doesn’t want me to use magic at all!” Nill grumbled.
“Yes,” Tiriwi agreed. “That’s exactly what it looks like. Ambrosimas is a clever man.”
Nill saw her gleeful grin and considered strangling her. “Why do I even have an Archmage for a patron if all he does is talk about useless rubbish?”
Nill was almost looking forward to his lessons with the colored mages, even if it meant the company of the noble students. He still got annoyed when everyone laughed at him, because he still rarely managed to compete on their level. But Nill was stubborn, and deep down he thought: “One day I’ll show them. I’ll show them all.”
He would get his chance, but far earlier than he would have liked.
“Today your task consists of filling a wand with magic. I have brought wands of different woods for you. These here are aspen.” The White Mage in the gray robe that showed his lower rank held up a few twigs. “They are porous and dry. They are happy to accept magic in them, but they can’t contain much. These here are oak. They, too, are very dry, but far less flexible and denser. They can contain more than the others, but it takes more effort to do so. Choose a wood you would like to work with.
“And here I have three different types of wood that only the best can use. These two are made of flower-wood. They are different, but I won’t tell you their names. Flower-wood is tough, but pliant. The third is also flower-wood. It comes from the Dragonbloom shrub. I cut all three of these this morning. They are fresh, and still quite wet.”
“The Dragonbloom one is for me,” Prince Sergor-Don demanded.
“That’s not a Dragonbloom,” Nill interjected.
“It isn’t? How would you know, muckling? You’ve never seen one in your life.”
Nill was surprised that Sergor-Don even considered him worthy of a retort, and his voice was soft as he answered. “They say that no human can cut Dragonbloom.”
“A tale for children,” the prince sneered coldly. “Indestructible plants don’t exist, or the world would be overrun with them by now. Dragonbloom shrubs are hard to cut, but easy with a magical blade. But of course you know nothing of these things. How could you, muckling.”
Nill cursed his loud mouth, for he had run out of things to say. But he knew that it was not real Dragonbloom. Of that he was certain.
“You couldn’t fill it either, although I’ve heard that you’re supposed to be an arcanist. But an arcanist with no ancestry is a sorcerer without roots; you’re powerless.”
“It’s worth a try.” Nill gave a thin smile. He would not buckle down before the Fire Prince.
“Wait.” The White Mage interrupted their exchange. “You are not only going to fill the wand. There will be two of you sitting opposite each other, attempting to charge your wands. A filled wand will help you in a fight. But you may also forsake the use of the wand and attack immediately. You will have to do both at the same time: fill the wand and prepare for an attack. Do you understand?”
Nill bit his lip. Had the prince known all along?
The White Mage bent down next to Sergor-Don and whispered something in his ear. The prince seemed surprised, but then he grinned.
“What was the phrase?” he asked. “‘Only the best.’ Well now, muckling. You can have the Dragonbloom, and I’ll take an aspen. Or can I get something even weaker than that? Then you can show what you can do. Even with a wand of flower-wood, you’ll never defeat a real sorcerer.”
Nill had been afraid of this. Now all he could hope for was that the wand really did grant him additional powers, and that the son of all hubris, Prince Sergor-Don, was vastly overestimating himself. He was not particularly hopeful.
He took the wood. It was about three ells long, far longer than everyone else’s chosen piece. He bent the stick in his hands.
Not in my life is this thing Dragonbloom, he thought. The Dragonbloom shrub only grows high in the mountains, and there are no straight branches up there. Bushes in the mountains are crippled, twisted, full of eyes and humps, knotty and stubborn. They have to survive wind and ice, dryness, fire and hunger. Bushes in the mountains were always pliable, or they would just crack under the weight of the snows. But their branches were never straight.
Nill had listened to wanderers and hunters. Wood this long and flexible is usually an indicator of moisture, he thought. Maybe it’s from the fever-fens, or else from the hot springs. He had to admit that he had never seen wood like this in his life.
If the plant was cut this morning, he continued his train of thought, then it must have grown somewhere nearby. Maybe there’s a secret place in Ringwall or in Rainhir. He fastened the bough between his feet, grasped the shaft with hands equidistant from each other and began to redirect energy from the air through his head and into his hands and the staff. It we
nt quite easily at first, but then the staff began to resist. Nill held it with all his might, but the more he used his muscles the less magic flowed through him. This was not the way to fill the staff.
He put the bough aside and thought. Prince Sergor-Don had put his hands in his lap and was evidently not interested in stopping Nill’s progress. A smile was playing around his face. Great, Nill thought. Being laughed at is the last thing I need right now.
He grasped the staff by the bottom end with both hands. This was contrary to all he had learned so far. If the wood comes from a watery place, then there must be a way to use the old lines in it. He was far from giving up.
And to his surprise, it was easy. The magical force flowed into the staff from below, filling it up. Nill breathed a sigh of relief and surrendered himself to the beautiful feeling it gave him, when suddenly a sharp pain struck him. The top part of the staff had bent and hit him on the head. He took his attention from the bottom of the staff to the whole length of it and attempted to regulate the flow of magical energy. It was slower than before, but at least now he was no longer in danger of being struck by an inanimate object. The staff ceased its resistance, but began to warp. Nill had the impression that it was screaming in pain.
Nonsense, he thought. The branch has no life left. I could probably water it and tend to it until a new shrub grows, like with any swamp plant. But what little it has left is hidden in few places. I wonder if it can remember the shrub it grew from?
He struggled with the thin bough, which was now winding and twisting like a snake. Every point he did not immediately concentrate on was contorting. Soon enough the staff was more a knot than a straight stick of wood. That’s not it either, Nill thought.
He began anew, sinking his consciousness deep into the wood, straining to feel the staff. I have to understand how the wood feels, he told himself. There’s no point in fighting it. Looks like there’s more life left in it than I thought.