The Archimage Wars: Wizard of Abal

by Philip Blood

  Then the iron gates swung open on their own accord, and with a grin, Hydan marched on in, exclaiming, “I wonder if she has some of that brandy I read about, and geese?”

  A man, dressed in finery from another age, was waiting at the main entrance, at the top of the curved stairs which led up to the double doors.

  “Nicholas, it is so good to see you again. The lady of the House is out, but she has extended a permanent welcome to you, and any companions. I am Bartholomew, Fifth,” he said, and I noticed the same Spider Glyph on his cheek, like the one on Fiona.

  “And I am Hydan, Third,” my companion noted.

  “Welcome, Hydan of House Friare,” Bartholomew stated.

  I frowned at the man, “And we have met?”

  “Many times, but I am familiar with your current memory, ah, issues.”

  I scowled at that.

  Hydan said, “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have a concoction called brandy, would you?”

  Bartholomew gestured toward the doors, “It would be my pleasure to serve you a snifter, in the sitting room, as soon as you have freshened up from your travels.”

  Hydan’s grin blossomed, “OK, but what’s a snifter? It’s not some kind of odd creature with a big nose, is it? Or is it like a goose?”

  “It is a type of stemware, which will hold brandy,” Bartholomew replied.

  “Now we’re talking!” Hydan exclaimed; his smile now ear-to-ear.

  Chapter Four

  I got a black magic woman

  Got me so blind I can't see

  That she's a black magic woman

  She's tryin' to make a devil out of me.

  -Santana

  In my room, which was half antique store half palace, there was a very nice bathroom, with a stately shower, so I made use of it. When I came out of the bathroom I saw the large four poster mahogany bed, and it looked very inviting, so I lay down. I was very tired, and in seconds I was asleep. Some indeterminate time later, I must have been dreaming, but I suddenly awoke with a start. I’d been in some other palace, this one made of marble, and I’d been looking out a window over a forested countryside. I’d heard my voice saying, “All right, if those are your orders, then I will see if I can find out what you want to know. I’ll bring the information to you as soon as I have it.”

  Then I had awoken.

  That was interesting, I don’t know who I was talking to, but they had given me orders. Who could give a mage orders? Well, most likely their Archimage, but which Archimage? The obvious answer was the Archimage of my House. Could this be why I’d stolen information from The Dragon?”

  I found clothing in a big mahogany closet after opening the doors. There was a set of dark slacks and a silver button up collar shirt, as well as a black leather jacket and black shoes with socks. I put them all on, and they fit perfectly, even the shoes. I wasn’t happy about it. People knew more about me than I knew about myself, which pissed me off to no end. Dressed in my new casual clothing I went downstairs and located the sitting room by the sound of conversation.

  Hydan was in there, swirling a dark liquid around in a short, rounded, clear glass, the brandy snifter he had been promised.

  He smelled the aroma of the booze, and then took a sip.

  He smiled and then downed the entire glass in a single gulp.

  “I’ll have to remember that one!” he exclaimed brightly.

  Bartholomew refilled his glass without comment from a crystal decanter.

  Hydan said, “Hey, try some of this, it’s really exquisite!”

  But I was right to business, and asked Bartholomew, “Has Fiona returned?”

  He shrugged, “No, I’m sorry, and I’m a bit worried.”

  “Don’t be,” Hydan said, having once again downed his snifter in a gulp, and was gesturing for a refill. “She’s a Second, not a lot of things are going to mess up her day for long.”

  Bartholomew nodded, “Which is why I am concerned, it is not like her to be gone this long when she is expecting guests. What could keep a Second away?”

  “Good point,” Hydan said, accepting another serving of brandy. Then added, “Let’s see if we can’t lubricate our brains a little and figure this out!”

  “Lubricate? Don’t you mean pickle?” I noted.

  He shrugged, “You say Potato, I say Misgruel.”

  I had no idea what he meant by that.

  Then he took a sip and used his snifter to gesture in the air, “Let’s say something has detained the Albus Second. If this is the case, then it follows that they would be coming here next, if they are after you.” He pointed at me with a small gesture of his snifter, causing the liquid inside to slosh around slightly.

  Bartholomew suddenly looked concerned and started to put down the decanter.

  “Here, give me that,” Hydan exclaimed, reaching for the crystal decanter, which was still half filled with brandy.

  Bartholomew gave it to him, and then headed out of the room, I guess to check something, who knows?

  “So, the question is, do we stay here and fight them off, which I’m up for, as long as the brandy holds out, or do we skip town? If we are going to leave, where would you like to go?”

  “You still want to come with me? I thought you were here to see the sights?” I asked.

  He shrugged, “I was, but you are far more entertaining. I’m having a grand time! I’ve met chickens and had brandy, as well as Saphron. Both were exquisite!”

  I nodded, “All right. But I really don’t have any idea where I should go; I was hoping Fiona could fill in a lot of the blanks in my mind.”

  He nodded, “Indeed, there is this 'thing' she mentioned you purloined. Maybe you wrote it down somewhere; any idea where to go look for that?”

  “Nope.”

  He answered kindly, “Yes, I understand, your memories are on vacation. But, since you are a Hidden Soul, I assume you have never met your real parents?”

  “No, or at least, I don’t remember if I have.”

  He smiled, “Well, there is your quest, find your parents!”

  “What good would it do to find them anyway? They didn’t even raise me; from what I understand, they dumped me on Earth.”

  Hydan shrugged, “I was thinking if you found your parents, perhaps they could help you with your lost memories. At least one of them has to be a Second, for you to be a Third. Even though Fiona was unsuccessful, there is nothing like the bond of your family line. Would it hurt to go see them and find out?”

  “Just like that, go see them? I wouldn’t know where to start looking for my real parents.”

  “Sure you do, just look in the mirror!”

  I frowned, and glanced over the bar to the mirror behind the bottles, and saw the nautilus Glyph on my cheek.

  “You mean this Glyph?” I asked.

  “Of course, it shows your House, and therefore your World.”

  “House Sivaeral, and what world are we talking about?”

  He smiled, “That would be Abal, in fact, I just spent a little time there recently, so I kind of know the ropes, or at least, the best drinking holes!”

  I considered it, seeking my birth parents might help jog my memories, besides, if I’d been sent on a mission to steal something from The Dragon by my Archimage, perhaps I should go seek him out. He might also be able to help, and would be interested in me remembering so he could get to the information I stole from The Dragon.

  Bartholomew came back into the room in a hurry, and said, “There are some necrosouls searching the countryside near here, though they haven’t yet penetrated the glamour.”

  “No doubt they are searching for you, Nicholas, and if The Dragon really is their master, he will eventually break through Fiona’s glamour and find us,” Hydan said.

  Bartholomew spoke, “You are under the protection of the Albus House, so I can’t ask you to leave our family grounds, but without our Second here, I cannot guarantee your safety.”

  I stood and said, “All right, then I think it
’s best if I leave, that way they have no reason to attack you.”

  Bartholomew shrugged, “Do not fear for me.”

  I nodded, and then turned to Hydan and said, “All right, Hydan, where to?”

  He smiled, tucked the decanter under his arm, and got ready to burn a pentagram into the floor, but Bartholomew said, “Here, here, not in the Study! We have a room for that!”

  He led us to a room with a cement floor; on it were several previous pentagram marks, though they were just black stains, and did not currently have the active red flames.

  Hydan started making a new pentagram, and a few minutes later he had his new burning pentagram ready. This time, I went ahead and jumped in when he told me the Star was ready to go.

  The world spun and blurred again, and things became lighter. I was standing on a stone floor, and I could see a setting sun, just off behind a large pyramid. For a moment, I thought I was back in Egypt, but then I noticed the stairs going up the center of each pyramid slope, to a raised square top. I realized this was a Mayan pyramid. Then I recognized Chichen Itza; I was looking at El Castillo.

  Hydan spun into reality a moment later and staggered out. He took one look around and muttered, “Tarvos worshipers, ug.” Then he took a big swig from the decanter of brandy, which he had brought along.

  “Tarvos, what are those, some kind of demon?

  Hydan shrugged, “No, but some of their practices are borderline. These people learned to sacrifice their own kind to the Tarvos.”

  “Why would they do that?” I asked.

  “They mimic their gods, the Tarvos sacrifice mages of their own kind to their Archimage if they don’t perform satisfactorily.”

  I blinked, “Wow, that’s pretty barbaric, and likely very motivating to do your best.”

  He nodded, “Negative reinforcement, it does work, but fear is not the best motivator, though it is a motivator. They are generally an unhappy lot. It’s sad really, going through life that serious all the time.” He punctuated this by taking a big swig from the decanter.

  I looked around at the ruins and said, “So why are we here?”

  “We needed a world portal, and they aren’t easy to construct. It takes a lot of stone to hold all that power. In fact, now that many stones have been removed from the Stonehenge site in England, it really only has enough power to reach a few of the Worlds. However, this place has plenty of juice left!”

  “So, I take it you can travel between worlds from Stonehenge?” I asked.

  “Yeah, well, to Abal and a couple others.”

  I nodded, “But here, at Chichen Itza, there…”

  “Wait, this place is named ‘chicken eats ya’?” he said, his face pulling into a big grin.

  “No, it’s pronounced ‘chee-chen eet-sah’”.

  “Oh,” he said, sounding disappointed, but then said, “For a moment there I thought the Tarvos were developing a sense of humor. I should have known better.”

  I was still turning around, looking at the various ruin structures. “So, if Stonehenge could take us to Abal, why didn’t you take us there?”

  “Well, I knew of this place from a mind image given to me, just like your Stonehenge, so we could Five Point travel here. I picked this location because they might be watching Stonehenge, in case you tried to escape that way. If they got there soon enough after we portaled out, they could track where we went. They would probably check there because it was the nearest World Portal system.”

  “Ah,” I said. “And why would we go to the nearest one if you can teleport anywhere through one of your Stars?”

  “Well, the further you go, the more power it draws out of you to form the Star. Most mages would want to travel to the closest point possible.”

  “Most mages?”

  “I’m extravagant and kind of attached to my hide. Besides, if we had gotten into an arcane battle, I might have spilled my brandy!” he said with mock horror.

  He held up the decanter and used it to point at a structure which was much shorter than El Castillo, “And speaking of them finding us, perhaps we should wiggle an arm, in case The Dragon tracks us here.”

  “Wiggle an arm?” I asked.

  He replied, “I like to talk in the local idiom as much as possible. I did some research before I came to Earth. You know, get moving fast.”

  “Oh… shake a leg,” I replied.

  “Yeah, that,” he said with a grin, and then headed for the structure known as Akab Dzib.

  “The portals aren’t in El Castillo?”

  “No, that’s where they did their big sacrifices; this structure over here has the portal. Unlike Stonehenge, the Tarvos made just one portal, but they use a series of glyphs to allow a mage to choose the destination World.”

  I thought about the name Akab Dzib, and I knew what it actually meant, ‘Dark Writing.’ That sounded ominous.

  Hydan led me around to the southern end, where there was just one door opening. He led the way inside to a small chamber. On the opposite wall was another doorway, but this one had intricately carved glyphs up on the lintel, the very ‘dark writings’ which gave this building its modern name of Akab Dzib. Under the lintel, in the wide stone doorjamb, was another carved panel, this one showing a seated figure, surrounded by more glyphs.

  After looking over the glyphs for a moment, I spoke to Hydan, “So, how do we use it?”

  “The magic only works after midnight, for what the Terrans would call about one hour. You’ll know because the glyphs will glow blue at that time if a mage of sufficient power is near.”

  “There is a legend about that, I recall,” I said, remembering it as I thought about Acab Dzib. This is the strange thing about my memory, I could read ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, and speak various languages, as well as know local legends and history, but not remember a damn thing about my own memory. I was beginning to hate magic, and I still didn’t really believe in it.

  “Oh, what is this legend?” Hydan asked to while away the time until midnight.

  So I told him what I remembered about the Mayans, and then about this room and these glyphs. “The legend says they glow at midnight.”

  Hydan nodded, “Well, they do, but only if a mage is present. Of course, everyone is related to mages. Perhaps someone of sufficient power, say what might be an Eighth, if there was such a designation, was here at midnight. Maybe they had just enough power to cause the glyphs to glow. Most legends, on any planet, come from a basis of reality. Sure, they are often blown out of proportion, or exaggerated, or changed with repeated telling, but still, if you go back far enough, and dig deep enough, something real started them.”

  “How come there aren’t Eighths?” I asked.

  “Well, there are, we just don’t call them that. Beyond a Seventh there just isn’t enough magic to shape reality and make them immortal. They are also not tied to their Archimages by magic, which is the main reason we cut off the mage line at the Tier.”

  “What do you mean, ‘tied to their Archimage’?”

  Hydan replied, “Remember when the Albus Second told you about ending a mage’s line?”

  “Yes, she said all their descendants will also die.”

  He added, “But only down to a Seventh. This is the primary reason we cut off the title of mage at Sevenths, beyond there they are not tied to their line by sufficient magic, though they are certainly related by blood.”

  I nodded; the concept was easy enough to understand, however believing it… that would take a bit more evidence. Then I thought of something, “Wait a minute, I’m a Third, right?”

  “Yep,” he answered.

  “And you say I’m immortal?”

  He nodded.

  “But, I’m not. You’re just really saying I don’t age, but I could just drop dead at any moment if any of my elders die, which means my Second or my Archimage?”

  He shrugged, “That’s true.”

  “That is a shitty form of immortality.”

  Hydan shrugged, “It is what
it is. You can also die by just getting killed.”

  “Oh, thanks for the cheery addition,” I noted sourly.

  He took a swig from the brandy decanter and then held it out to me, “I suggest you start drinking heavily, you’ll soon forget you could drop dead at any moment. Just as a side note, this is one very good reason why family members revere and protect the elders of their line. Self-preservation is an excellent motivator and keeps most of them pretty damned loyal.”

  “Most of them?”

  Hydan shrugged, “There are the crazy ones.”

  I pondered that bit of information, crazy mages… great. I took a swig from the decanter.

  Hydan took back the brandy, and then said, “I better go outside to ‘sense’ the perimeter.”

  He then left, without really explaining what that meant. I figured he was making sure no one was sneaking up on us. It was getting close to midnight now.

  I noticed it was slightly brighter in the chamber and then noticed a blue glow around the glyphs.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” I noted, as some of the evidence of magic I wanted showed up right in my face.

  That’s when the blue outline of a person appeared in the doorway, under the glyph marked lintel.

  I was just about to call out to Hydan when she seemed to expand outwards from two-dimensional blackness into three-dimensional color. The blue glow immediately started to fade.

  “Who is ambuscading from the dark!” a girl’s voice demanded suspiciously, and a purple light flared up in the room. It came from a bright swirling mass which was about four inches across and hovering above her left hand. Her right hand was pointed at me, palm forward, like some kind of rocket launcher.

  “Who said I’m ambuscading? I was lurking, at best,” I replied.

  The girl was of African descent, with dark chocolate brown skin, and big brown eyes, with full lips and a slightly wide nose. She was pretty, though in an exotic kind of way. Her hair was long and straight, instead of the tight curls of the average girl of African heritage. What was most striking was the round Glyph on her left cheek, just below her eye. It was made in shades of dark purple. In the center of the Glyph were two crossing lines, forming a plus symbol, but each of these lines had two small hash marks toward each end. Where the plus symbol lines neared the outer circle, they ended into a curved half ring attached to the outer circle. It was almost like a kind of scope reticle. If I understood things correctly, this Glyph made her a sorceress, one from yet another world.