Devan Chronicles Series: Books 1-3

by Mark E. Cooper

  “If you think it best,” Udall said doubtfully, and looked to Jessica to show him the way.

  When Julia finally arrived at his side, Mathius was barely conscious. He was very pale and his eyes looked out from purple coloured caves. He was in great pain. Jessica pulled the blanket down to reveal the wound, and Julia gulped trying not to pass out at the sight of the hole in Mathius’ belly.

  “We removed the wood as soon as we could, but he’s bleeding inside,” Jessica said with no emotion in her voice. The noble lady was back—hard as steel. “I think his stomach is punctured.”

  Julia winced at the thought of such an injury. A punctured stomach must be excruciating. “Mathius, can you hear me? It’s Julia. I’m going to help you. You’ll be all right, I promise”

  Now you’ve done it.

  Before Julia scared herself too much, she quickly reached out and covered the gaping wound with her good hand. It barely covered it. Concentrating on her mage-sight, she tried to see Mathius the way the little book described.

  She kept slipping into what she thought of as the realm of power at first. A strange place, it was a realm of drifting clouds of energy. Nothing solid here, but strange swirling eddies and currents filled it. There were no boundaries, no walls, no sky, or ground. Nothing but energy existed. It was where she believed her magic came from. It didn’t help her with Mathius. The real world wasn’t present at all. Having an idea, Julia started again. This time she tried to summon the vision slowly. She watched eagerly as the hall faded and was replaced by swirling energy on its way to the realm of power.

  That’s it!

  Julia held the vision steady. She looked down and recoiled. Mathius, she assumed it was him, had turned into a sickly yellow mass of energy. There was no shape to resemble a person at all. Remembering the book, she looked closer and found streams of red streaking the yellow of his aura. Not knowing what to do next, Julia turned away and studied what she thought must be Udall. There was a tower of white energy radiating strength where he stood in the real world. Looking closer, she saw just a trace of yellow that she assumed was tiredness, but there was none of the red light that so infested Mathius.

  Turning back to Mathius, Julia tried to change the red light in his aura into a clean white. It seemed to work at first, but as she completed one area, the red light infested another. Knowing that it had to go, Julia tried to drive it out by main force, but it was no good. Every time she destroyed one stream, another took its place. She needed to find the source. Looking more deeply, Julia tried to trace the red streams to their source. She delved deep into Mathius, as if submerging herself in an ocean of energy. She was tugged this way and that by unseen currents. Some were gentle, but others surged rhythmically, and she had to fight to stay on course. Eventually she found a disgusting pulsating mass deep inside Mathius. It was purplish green in colour with red streams coming out of it. It made her sick just to look at it. She attacked the ghastly thing without mercy using streams of white magic that she willed into existence. Slowly the ugly mass shrank, but it fought her all the way. Angry at the nasty thing’s rebellion, she forced herself to draw harder on her magic and crushed it with one sudden push. The red streams began to wither and fade once separated from their source. Julia helped them along with more white magic.

  Julia had begun to return to Udall and Jessica when she noticed something odd. In the distance a beautiful blue light shone. It was a sapphire blazing amongst the white. Udall didn’t have anything like that, but Julia hesitated. Surely something so beautiful wasn’t bad. Mathius was a mage. Could the light be connected to his ability in some manner? Might it be the mage gift itself? Rather than take any more chances, Julia withdrew back into the real world, and promptly collapsed with exhaustion.

  Udall caught Julia before she hurt herself, and she smiled her thanks. She was more concerned with Mathius. He looked tired, but not in pain any longer. She still had her hand on his belly. She cautiously raised it to reveal a disgusting mass of puss and old blood. It was stuck all over the palm of her hand!

  Yucckk!

  Jessica quickly found a damp cloth and cleaned it off Julia’s hand. She applied the cloth to Mathius’ stomach and revealed a scar that looked years old.

  “Thank the God,” Jessica whispered.

  “Mathius, can you hear me?” Julia said.

  Mathius opened his eyes and looked around in apparent surprise. “I’m not dead.”

  “No you’re not,” Julia said with a smile. “I need your help, Mathius. Keverin is in a bad way. I need you to help with the healing.”

  Mathius sat up exploring the scar with his fingers. “You healed me?”

  “I healed you. Can you help me?”

  “I was never strong enough to heal. It takes a master or higher.”

  Julia was disappointed but not surprised. She looked up at Udall. “Take me to Keverin.”

  * * *

  7 ~ Heretic!

  Athlone looked up from the report he was reading as someone entered the room. “So Sorcerer, have you good news for me?”

  Abarsis moved further into the room and surveyed his surroundings. Athlone’s lips tightened. The pox-ridden sorcerer was acting like he owned the place!

  “I have news,” Abarsis agreed after a moment.

  “Out with it then.”

  The sorcerer’s eyes glittered at the order. “Bad news I’m afraid. Keverin managed to hold against the first attack.”

  “How?” Athlone snarled. “You said fifty sorcerers would overwhelm him. You said it was a mere formality. You said Keverin’s mages were amateurs!”

  “A mere setback I assure you.”

  “I ought to throw you and your friends out. Keverin, fool that he is, would welcome me with open arms. Malcor will be on the winning side.”

  “Be careful, Athlone, lest your words be taken for more than a jest. You’re allied with us now. No one crosses Mortain and lives. Best you remember it.”

  Athlone clenched a fist. He should never have listened to the sorcerer. He should have ridden to Keverin’s aid as Jihan wanted. Who knew, he might have contrived a means of ridding the world of Keverin in the heat of battle. It was too late now. He didn’t dare cross Abarsis and his two friends. They could kill him with a gesture.

  “I assume you have a plan,” Athlone said and poured a single glass of wine.

  Abarsis was cognisant of the implied insult but for his own reasons ignored it. “You will write a letter for us. I’ll see it delivered in timely fashion.”

  Athlone stared at the smug face. Sorcerers could do a great many things, but delivering letters seemed beneath them. Why use magic on something so petty... unless it wasn’t?

  “What letter? To whom?”

  “To your friend Bishop Jymis. I have heard it said that you have similar tastes. More importantly, you have the same enemy.”

  “What good in a letter? What has the Church to do with this?”

  “Ah well, as to that there’s something I forgot to mention,” Abarsis said making himself comfortable in the chair nearest the fire. He warmed his hands. “I am informed that Keverin has a new mage—a rather powerful one I was told.”

  “And? Get to the point man!”

  “I will then, since you ask so nicely. The mage is a woman.”

  Athlone gaped. It wasn’t possible! Keverin had secured himself a real live witch? Where did he get her? A witch... but that meant...

  Athlone smiled. “I see. I see indeed.”

  “I thought you would,” Abarsis said smugly.

  * * *

  Julia grimly forced her magic into the man, but there was something wrong. She had healed his wounds and he blazed with white light in the realm of healing, but she had been through this before with Ged and others. As soon as she stopped forcing magic into him, he would quickly dim to a fraction of this intensity. It was no good. Nothing she tried made a difference. He looked bright and strong as she had come to expect of a healthy man in the realm of healing, but if
she ignored the brightness and even the colour, she could see his aura didn’t roil and move about. It should be constantly moving as if trying to escape.

  Julia stopped pushing, and watched his aura dim, but this time it started to unravel before her eyes. She tried to gather him back into shape, but it was like trying to grasp mist. She watched as a tiny spark shot away into the distance. The tatters left behind slowly dispersed and winked out. Nothing remained where he had been.

  Julia came back to the great hall and looked at the empty shell of a man she had never known. She silently grieved for him. He was the one hundred and twenty fourth man to die while she attempted healing. The first few times had been devastating. She thought she had killed them by doing something wrong, but a pattern had soon become apparent. A man with injuries severe enough to be in a coma had more chances of dying than a man who was merely unconscious. That was no surprise. The same was true on her old world. She had proved to herself that she could heal a comatose man by doing it. None of the injured had died who were awake and talking during the healing, but if their auras were static, they always died. No exceptions—ever. It didn’t stop Julia from trying. Maybe it took more magic. She had used more than ever before this time, but it had made no difference. Next time she would draw all of it, if that’s what it took to save her patient.

  Moriz and Halbert carefully lifted the body and took it away.

  Julia sighed in weariness. She felt drained without her magic coursing through her. Maybe she should hold it all the time? Mathius wouldn’t like it, but she was coming to realise that Mathius didn’t know as much as he thought he did where magic was concerned. He was a dear friend, but he might be wrong about her. Her magic might be different.

  “Julia? You should rest. Your shoulder is bleeding again,” Mathius said in concern.

  Julia looked and found blood had ruined another dress. She didn’t understand why she couldn’t heal herself. When she had looked for her own aura in the realm of healing, she couldn’t even see it. Another mage would have to heal her, but there wasn’t one.

  “I can’t. They need me.”

  “You can’t save everyone! No one could!” Mathius said looking as if he wanted to tear his hair out in frustration. “I know you feel responsible for them, but that’s stupid. You hadn’t even heard of magic a while ago. How can you expect to build wards after so short a time?”

  Julia smiled tiredly and patted his knee where he crouched beside her. “You’re kind, Mathius. I know I can’t save them all. Take me to the next one please.”

  She might not be able to save them all, but she was still going to try. If she saved enough, the screaming in her head might stop. Mathius helped her up, and Julia surveyed the remaining injured men. On that terrible day, there had been hundreds in here—perhaps as many as eight or nine hundred. Now there were about a fifty or so left. Dozens had died before she found her little book and learned enough to save them, but she had saved hundreds since. The thought didn’t comfort her very much. Some injuries looked minor but were in fact serious—especially head wounds. Others were obviously impossible to put right. Swords left hideous wounds. Arrows were by far the easiest to fix. They just left a little hole. She had lost count of the men that had lost fingers, hands, and even entire arms. She could heal the stumps, but how could she heal something no longer attached? She had even tried to see a severed hand in the healing realm. She had hoped to find a way to re-attach it, but there was nothing to see.

  The poor man was devastated by the news. He was only young and could no longer follow the dream of being an Athione guardsman. Mathius said he would work in the citadel helping Janna in the kitchens. There were suddenly a great many extra servants in the halls of Athione. The sight made Julia want to cry.

  “What time is it?” Julia said noticing the gloom.

  “It’s late, almost sundown. You need sleep!” Mathius cried in frustration.

  No wonder it was so dark. Julia grasped her magic and gestured, lighting all the lamps and chandeliers in one go.

  Mathius gasped.

  “What? You don’t think your lord will mind do you? I don’t know how much things cost here,” Julia said looking worriedly at the thousands of candles in the chandeliers above her.

  Mathius shook his head in silence. No, Keverin wouldn’t mind at all.

  Julia knelt down beside the next man. All of her patients were serious cases now. The men with arrow wounds had been patched up and sent to barracks to recuperate. She had protested at first, saying that it was cruel to send her people off still hurting, but Jessica had insisted. Jessica made sense Julia later decided. Any way, she could always find them when no one was looking.

  Julia grasped her magic and began to heal. The man awakened a short time later and looked around the hall in surprise. Julia smiled and he smiled back. It was worth the tiredness to see them awake. But why did he, when others did not? She had done nothing differently. This wasn’t the first time she had tried to wake him either, yet here he was.

  God’s will?

  “What should I do now?” Julia’s former patient said.

  “Report to your captain tomorrow for re-assignment, and be more careful... please.”

  “I will.”

  Julia watched him leave, and then looked up at Mathius tiredly. “Who’s next?”

  * * *

  Keverin watched silently from the doorway, as Julia moved to the next man. After watching for a moment, he turned and walked out of the entry hall and into the west courtyard. It was still a mess.

  Marcus had ordered the men to pile heaps of rubble along the missing section of wall to act as a barricade for archers. It was a good plan, although completely redundant. Some of the men had christened the crevasse Julia’s Gap, but thankfully it had been shortened to The Gap. The Hasians hadn’t managed a serious attack since its creation. They hadn’t tried to resume the magical barrage, but it was only a matter of time. They seemed content to throw men’s lives away attempting to string a bridge. It made no sense to him. Even if they could string a bridge across and by some miracle prevent him from burning it, they still wouldn’t be able to get men across in sufficient numbers to threaten Athione. His men would easily be able to hold this end of a narrow bridge.

  Keverin marched back into the citadel and made his way down to the vault. He nodded to the guardsmen stationed along the route, but he didn’t stop to talk. There was something on his mind—had in fact been something on his mind since he awoke in the great hall with Julia staring worriedly down at him.

  Keverin inserted his key into a steel lock. He had replaced the old iron one when the book was placed in the vault. Opening the steel barred gate, he stepped inside and re-locked it. A short distance further on was another barrier, this one of wood. It seemed strange to expect a wooden door to be stronger than a steel one, but he did. Darius had used the strongest ward he knew how to make on it and the walls of the vault. He unlocked the thick vault door and stepped inside. A tingle went through him as the spell checked to see who was entering. Once recognised, he stepped up to one of the tables. He wasn’t interested in the chests standing on other tables ringing the walls. They merely contained the wealth his ancestors had accumulated over the last eleven hundred years of ruling Athione. The fortress was constructed in the year 81 AF, and his family had held it in an unbroken line ever since. He was the last in his line. After him the King would give Athione to a deserving lord to hold... unless the Hasians won.

  The chest bolted to the centre table held a thing far rarer than gold. It was a thick book bound in black leather. Darius said it was ancient, but it could have fooled him. He could still smell the newness of it. Darius said it was due to a preservative spell lost with so much else in the years following the founding of the Black isle. Keverin read the gold lettering of the title again.

  Bridging Worlds: Translocation for Sorcerers.

  Everything in it was beyond Keverin’s ability to understand, but he had known it was important t
he moment he laid eyes upon it. His father had owned the book for many years not knowing its worth. Keverin smiled remembering the child he had been. When Kevlarin showed the book to him, he had tried to learn magic from it, not knowing in his ignorance that he didn’t have the gift. Later it was the first book to be placed in his library.

  Then the day dawned when Darius ran into his study clutching it in his arms...

  “My lord, you must hide this before another mage sees it!”

  Keverin looked up from the account books and saw the agitation on Darius’ face. “Calm yourself Darius. Now tell me what is wrong?”

  “This!” Darius said brandishing the book.

  Frowning, Keverin read the title as Darius waved it under his nose. “What’s wrong with it?

  “Nothing. It’s priceless! It’s probably the only one of its kind in the world, unless, the God forbid, there’s a copy in Castle Black! It has the theory of gate building completely detailed from first principles. It even has several examples!”

  “But that’s good is it not?”

  “For the sake of knowledge yes!” Darius cried as he paced around the room. “But in the real world it’s a disaster waiting to happen! A strong enough mage could open a gate to anywhere with this. Even from Castle Black into your bed chamber!”

  Keverin smiled remembering his friend. Darius had constructed the ward on the vault to stop intruders. If anyone came inside without the ruling Lord of Athione present, he would die and worse than die—he would cease to exist even as a corpse. Darius was so concerned with the danger that he had even excluded himself from the spell. Even sons or daughters of the ruling lord would be unable to enter without him, unless of course he was dead and the heir came to be recognised with his father’s body. Gruesome as that sounded, Keverin had been unsure even that was enough. He had told Darius that they should destroy it. His friend was torn. The book was a treasure beyond price, but he had finally agreed. If loss of the fortress seemed imminent, the book would be burned and the ashes scattered. All Keverin had to do was take one step out the door with the book in hand, and it would be destroyed. That part was his idea. If ever he was forced into retrieving the book, even he couldn’t circumvent the ward.