Devan Chronicles Series: Books 1-3

by Mark E. Cooper

  His challenge had caused a great deal of upset, and maybe that was a good thing. His people needed to be shaken out of their old thinking. Warriors were strong and shaman were weak, they thought. Well if this was to be his last day in the world, he would show them what a shaman’s magic could do! At least one good thing would come from his death.

  The prophecy of The One mentioned a battle between shaman, but Kerrion had believed it meant between a clan shaman and a Hasian sorcerer. The truth was that one brother would kill another this day. It was a heavy blow to Kerrion, who felt responsible in failing his apprentice. Shelim had tried to tell Kerrion that he was a great teacher, but he wouldn’t listen. It was a mentor’s responsibility to teach and guide his apprentice. If he went astray, it was the fault of the mentor not the apprentice.

  Nothing he could say would dissuade the old man.

  Shelim prepared himself for the day with his usual routine. He used his mirror to look for danger, and was pleased to see none anywhere near. He ate a little food, and drank a little water making sure both times not to take too much. His stomach felt knotted, and too much food might upset him at a crucial time. He grasped his magic and heated a little water to wash the grease off his hands and face then cooled it again before throwing the water outside. He hung his medicine pouch from his shoulder, and his long knife at his waist then left the tent.

  He walked through the camp trying to ignore the whispers and shocked stares. He couldn’t help but smile at some of the comments.

  “He still carries his long knife, never should have been a shaman”

  “…warrior not a shaman.”

  “…always was… never should have—”

  “—not worried… look—”

  He was both a warrior and a shaman. Fifteen summers as a warrior, weren’t erased by a mere two summers of training as a shaman. He might have felt differently after another ten, but he would never know now. He wasn’t concerned about his death, but he was worried for his apprentice. Darnath would be banished when he was defeated, unless he could somehow take Duren with him into death. He was determined to do that somehow. Kerrion would become Darnath’s mentor and would teach him all he needed to know.

  He took a deep breath before scratching on the flap of his parent’s tent. His father looked out and beckoned him inside. He seated himself with his mother and brother while his father tied the flap down. His brother didn’t say anything, which he appreciated, but his mother was close to tears. She was a strong person, she wouldn’t let herself cry.

  “My son,” his father began. “Why did you challenge?”

  “Darnath has been training with Duren for as long as I have with Kerrion, yet at the last Gathering he had learned nothing! Duren was deliberately holding him back and now he has threatened Darnath with becoming a Lost One.”

  Tomik sat back with a hiss of shock. There was no worse punishment than banishment. Most would prefer death rather than leave the clan, which is why some preferred becoming a renegade. A renegade was one of the people who had been banished but refused to leave the plain. They were rare, as was banishment, but it did happen.

  “I became Darnath’s mentor and taught him what Duren refused to teach, but yesterday Duren finally pronounced banishment for Darnath’s supposed failure to learn. I challenged to prevent that.”

  Tomik was shaking his head in denial, not at what he was doing, but rather at what Duren had already done. “Why would he treat his own apprentice so badly? It makes no sense. Can you win?”

  He shrugged a little guiltily and nodded. “I think I can prevent the banishment, yes.”

  “I didn’t ask that. Can you win?”

  He shook his head.

  “I want Torin to have Nyx and my weapons. Give my pouch to Kerrion and tell him I’m sorry for disappointing him. My tent… give that to Darnath, or if he’s banished give it to Betsia.”

  Torin’s face remained blank. “I will do as you ask, but I’m sad to see how weak you’ve become.”

  Selima gasped at the disgust in Torin’s words. “Torin! How can you say that to your brother? Apologise!”

  “I say it because it’s true! Not two summers ago he was one of our best warriors. Now he comes here defeated before the challenge even begins!” Torin turned angrily toward his brother. “You should be planning how to win, not lose!”

  With that Torin untied the tent flap and left.

  “He didn’t mean that, Shelim. He loves you and…” Selima began.

  “He’s right though,” he said. “I should be trying to find a way to win.”

  “You need to think about how you would attack if you were Duren,” Tomik said seriously. “Then you need to think of a way to turn his strength against him.”

  He nodded. Kerrion had taught him all he needed to be a shaman, but Duren was older and more experienced. He must have learned a few tricks in that time. There was no way for him to know what those tricks might be, so turning them back against him was unlikely. What he needed was a way to surprise him, and then hit him as hard as he could all at once.

  Torin ducked back into the tent. “Duren is ready.”

  Shelim hugged all three of them before leaving the tent to face his enemy.

  “Shelim…” Torin said uncertainly.

  “I know.”

  “I didn’t mean… I’m sorry about…” Torin took a deep breath. “I love you brother.”

  “And I love you,” he said and hugged Torin. “We will see each other again.”

  Torin nodded at the words He didn’t say they would see each other again in the Other World where the God dwelt.

  Hundreds watched him walk out of the camp and into the open. Common sense said that throwing magic around where flammable tents stood was foolish. He walked a good distance from camp and stopped. Duren, though small with distance, was well inside his range. He hoped that Duren was close to his own limit, but didn’t know what it might be. He knew the man was weaker than he in raw power, and hoped he might have less stamina because of that. It was his only advantage. Shelim was ready for any attack, but he didn’t grasp his magic. He was hoping to unsettle Duren by waiting. He listened to the sigh of the wind, it was a beautiful day, and there wasn’t a cloud to be seen. The smell of cook fires and curing hides wafted his way on the breeze. The sun was directly overhead giving neither of them an advantage. He was expecting Duren to attack with fire, and he was ready for that, but the man just stood there as if he had all day.

  The honourless dog was trying to scare him with his own tactic.

  Shelim grasped his magic and dove aside. A fireball arced in and blasted a black circle into the grass where he had been standing. He damped the blazing grass and sent a fireball on its way in return. He watched it land, but he could still feel Duren’s magic. His first attack had failed. He cast fire twice more, and stood up in time to see his enemy engulfed.

  Yes!

  He could hardly believe it. He had won… but no, Duren was standing amid the flames completely unharmed. How was it possible? He strained his eyes trying to make out what he was seeing, but Duren was too far away to see clearly. The flames abruptly died leaving his enemy standing as before. Shelim fumbled his mirror out of his pouch and summoned an image. What he saw confused him at first. He could see the ground surrounding Duren was burned black from his fireball, but the man was standing smugly unharmed upon a circle of unburned grass as if taking his ease. There was a shimmering blue wall surrounding him and it had stopped the flames! Kerrion had never shown him anything like that. Duren cast fire again, and Shelim quickly damped it before it could hit him. A hot wind rushed over him but nothing more. He thanked Kerrion for all the practise on their campfire for that little trick.

  He cast fire trying to understand how the… the shield worked. He could think of no other name for it. He tried to see the thing with his other sight, but all he saw was a shining circle surrounded by the turbulence caused by Duren drawing his magic. Duren attacked, and again Shelim damped the f
lames, but he was taken by surprise when two fireballs arrived, not one. Duren had hid the second behind the first. The flames reached him and the pain.

  “AEiii!” he screamed.

  He extinguished the flames and his burning tunic almost instantly… almost. His right arm was a mass of blisters. Moving it was agony.

  The shield, think about the shield.

  Did it absorb his fire, or did it hold the fire out? He cast another fireball and watched it strike the shield in the mirror. The flames were held away from Duren—it wasn’t absorbed. Thinking to heat up the shield, he cast fire in a constant stream. It seemed to work at first, but suddenly he couldn’t breath!

  Duren was crushing him in a fist of magic.

  He drew hard on his power and pushed back. His flames continued to roar around Duren, but it wasn’t having any effect. He let them go, and felt the pressure around his ribs ease as the extra strength came to his aid. Duren’s shield had begun to flicker. He took a chance and cast more fire even while struggling to hold out against the pressure trying to crush him. Duren shrieked in agony as the flame finally breached his shield, but he didn’t fall. Instead, he redoubled his efforts and power hammered down upon Shelim.

  Sacrificing his fire altogether, he desperately tried to use Duren’s method to squeeze the life out of his enemy. In agony, he felt a rib snap, but he wouldn’t quit. Harder, and harder, and harder he clamped his magic around the vile man. The pressure eased around his own ribs at last, and he began to hope that his new tactic might yet bear fruit, but suddenly the weight of Duren’s magic crashed down like a hammer upon a smith’s anvil. Duren was trying to push him into the ground! His knees were buckling. He had to use some of his precious magic to keep his feet or he would surely be buried alive.

  He struggled and writhed trying to fight and defend himself at the same time, but he was at the limit of what he could safely draw already. In desperation he flung open his link to the magic as wide as it would go and drank in the power uncaring of the danger. With a shout of anguish, he tried to throw off Duren’s grip upon him and pushed!

  Duren’s spell shattered, and Shelim’s feet left the ground. He stopped pushing at the earth, and landed lightly just in time to damp more fire as it roared around him. He was stronger, he knew he was, but Duren’s shield reduced the effect of his fire. Thinking to somehow equalise the odds, he tried to make a shield the same as Duren’s, but the instant it was ready, his magic roared out of control and slammed through his head. He felt sick and dizzy—the pain lancing through his head made his eyes water. In desperation, he tried a different way. He wrapped his magic around him like a warm blanket, and a shimmering wall appeared fully formed in time to intercept Duren’s fire.

  He flinched expecting agony, but gasped in relief when the crackling shield held. He’d felt sure it would fail, but it was holding. More even than that, it had increased in strength! His shield was different than Duren’s. It was blazing white instead of blue and it was absorbing the fire! More of Duren’s fire struck, and he laughed as the shield strengthened yet more. He was safe.

  “Now you die Duren, I’m going to kill you—”

  The shield was increasing in strength, but his hold upon his magic was slipping! It wasn’t fair! The stronger the shield became, the harder it was to control. He had to kill Duren now before his own shield did the same to him! He cast fire in a constant stream, and tried to crush his enemy at the same time, but his shield weakened the power of his attacks. He couldn’t think of any way to increase it without weakening his defence. All he had left was his long knife. He sprinted forward hoping to get at Duren before he lost his hold on the shield. As he closed the range, his fire strengthened. He should have thought of that! Distance always weakened the effects of magic. Duren intensified his attacks and backed hurriedly away, but in his attempt to maintain his distance he stumbled and fell. Before Duren could regain his feet, his shield collapsed under Shelim’s continued onslaught.

  “AEiii!” Duren started to scream before he was turned to ash floating on the wind.

  Gasping from the strain of holding his traitorous and runaway shield, Shelim reined in his fires. He didn’t even have enough energy to celebrate his victory. He gritted his teeth as his hold upon the magic slipped a little more. It felt like he was holding on by his fingernails. How was he going to let it go? He could simply release it, but that didn’t feel safe somehow. If he survived this, he would never invoke this spell again—it was just too dangerous. Praying he was doing the right thing, he tried to drain the shield of the extra magic it had absorbed. There was nothing nearby to release it into, so he tried to make it go up.

  A column of light three yards across connected him to the sky. It blazed and crackled upward announcing his victory to everyone in the clan. If they hadn’t known of his victory before, they did now. It dissipated after a short time leaving his original humming wall of magic. Shelim tentatively tried to release it, and it collapsed with nothing more than a snapping noise like a log on the campfire.

  He released his magic and collapsed panting to the ground. The pain in his ribs was sickening, but his arm was worse. The blisters had ruptured during the fight and blood was running freely down his arm. It was a screaming agony; it felt as if Duren’s fire was still burning it. He grasped his magic again, and the pain receded a little as the glorious feeling took his concentration. He stumbled back toward the clan. Kerrion would help.

  He could fix anything.

  Darnath rode out to meet him with Nyx on a lead rein. Shelim was pleased to see him, but was more pleased to see Nyx. He mounted awkwardly and headed for the camp.

  “Thank you, Mentor,” Darnath said simply. “I told the eldest what you did for me. He seemed happier when I left.”

  “That’s good,” he grunted between gritted teeth.

  “Will you be my mentor openly now?” Darnath said full of hope.

  He nodded. “As long as Kerrion doesn’t mind. I’m still an apprentice and one apprentice may not teach another. He might take you as a second apprentice, but I’ve never heard of a shaman having two at once. We will see.”

  Crowds of silent people watched them ride in. Their stares made him uncomfortable. When he dismounted, they edged back from him. They were afraid. His heart sank at the sight. Kerrion was right again. Shamen hid their true power for just this reason. Would anyone trust him now? That was soon answered when his father pushed through the crowd and hugged him. Shelim grunted in pain as his broken ribs shifted. He tried not to worry his mother by letting her see. She was not far behind his father, and so was his brother Torin. The ominous silence was broken when questions were suddenly shouted from the crowd. Everyone was very excited. Some shouted questions, others wanted to congratulate him on his victory. He tried to answer as many questions as he could. They seemed satisfied with his answers, though he could barely remember what they were.

  “I need to see Kerrion about this arm, father. I’ll come by for a long visit later.”

  Tomik agreed and went back to his fletching. His mother and brother gave him a brief hug and left him to find Kerrion. Darnath accompanied him to Kerrion’s tent, but he wasn’t there. Shelim concentrated and found the familiar feeling that was Kerrion’s magic.

  “He’s over that way somewhere,” he said thickly.

  “You’re looking pale, Mentor. You should rest. I’ll go and find him,” Darnath said worriedly.

  The pain in his arm and ribs was bad enough that it was no longer blocked by his magic. “I can’t wait, Darnath.”

  It became obvious as they made their way through the camp, that all was not well. Some, it seemed, were more accepting of change than others. The fear he saw made him sad. The respect offered by the majority he met did go some way to dispel the feeling, but he couldn’t help dwelling on the sight of a grandfather hustling his young charges from his path. What did the fool think he was going to do, hurt them? He supposed the reaction was only to be expected. Older folk were set in their way
s and they didn’t like change. At least the younger ones were eager to speak with him. He listened to their excited retelling of his battle as he made his way through the camp, but his concentration was wavering. Was Kerrion hiding from him on purpose? He couldn’t believe that.

  All became clear when they found him searching Duren’s tent. “Mentor, I… seem to be injured… would you… heal it please. It hurts…” he panted in time with the pain.

  “Shelim! Sit down my boy. I watched your battle in the glass… what was that thing you made? No, tell me later. I have to heal this first, it looks painful.”

  “Yes Mentor, but could you do my ribs first? I’m finding… it a little hard to… breathe.”

  He grunted in pain as his ribs shifted during the healing, but the small extra pain was over very quickly. There was nothing from them any longer, and with relief, he found that he could take a deep breath without pain. His arm took longer. Shelim found that if he used his other sight, he could see Kerrion blazing with health and vigour, but where his arm should be there was nothing!

  “There, that’s as good as new,” Kerrion said.

  “Thank you Mentor,” he said. It wasn’t as good as new really, but some silvery scars were a small price to pay when he had expected to pay with his life.

  “I am not your mentor any longer, Shelim.”

  “But Mentor! I thought Darnath explained!” he cried, would Kerrion banish him now?

  “He did, but you can’t be my apprentice any longer. You have taken the last step very early, but by becoming mentor to an apprentice you have declared yourself a shaman for true. One apprentice may not teach another—the penalty for disobedience is banishment. Therefore, you cannot be an apprentice…” Kerrion gripped Shelim’s shoulder. “Do you understand?”

  He breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes ment… yes eldest. Can I still ask for advice and talk over tea sometimes?”

  “Of course!” Kerrion said in surprise. “We are brothers. Besides, we are friends are we not?”