Chosen (Majaos Book 1)

by Gary Stringer

  “But?” the gentleman prompted.

  “But there is something special about this bucket.”

  “No, No!” protested the bucket, cheerfully. “Really, I'm just an ordinary bucket. A plain, uninteresting, wooden bucket. Nothing special about this bucket whatsoever.” Eilidh shared a glance with Toli and winced while the others were understandably startled. Their captors' Catalyst was, by now, feverishly making superstitious signs to ward off the supernatural. Eilidh could feel him probing for magic and observed that His Grace had gone quite pale. (She half-smiled briefly at the unintended pun.) Phaer, with his sharp elfsight, later swore he managed to catch a glimpse of the highly disciplined Enforcers, glancing at each other nervously when they never normally even acknowledged each other's presence.

  Meanwhile, the bucket continued to prattle on, undaunted. “Please, fill me with water. Wash your hands in me. Wash your clothes in me. Soak your feet. Soak your head!” Then, after a brief pause, it said, “Egad! If the wind changes your faces are going to stick in those ghastly expressions!”

  Suddenly, His Grace's face cleared and his lips parted in hearty laughter. “Kismet!” he cried, “Kismet, you fool! Don't you recognise me? It's me, you rattle-brained mage. Me! Garald!” In an instant, the bucket disappeared, to be replaced by a familiar figure: Kismet, back in his wildly clashing, colourful ensemble. He grinned and tried to move, but the male Enforcer still restrained him by what was now his collar.

  Kismet fixed Garald with a very theatrical, exasperated expression and said, “Really, Garald! What kind of thugs do you have working for you, these days?” At a nod from Garald, the Enforcer immediately released Kismet, who turned on him, hands on hips. “Yes, unhand me you lout!” He demanded, indignantly. A pair of white leather gloves appeared in one of his hands, which he used to slap the Enforcer once on each cheek. Eilidh half expected the irrepressible Kismet to be vaporised for his audacity, but the highly disciplined mage just stood there, motionless, hands clasped before him. They could all appreciate the effort this restraint required.

  Giving a final, “Hmph!” Kismet grinned and made the gloves disappear. Honour apparently satisfied. “Still,” he said, “no hard feelings.” He turned around to face Garald and the next thing they knew, Kismet was giving him a warrior's embrace, which Garald returned with equal ferocity.

  Suddenly, Kismet pulled out of Garald's grip and cried, “Egad! I'm being so frightfully rude! Garald, let me introduce my...erm...acquaintances.”

  Before he could give their names, though, Garald jumped in. “What's this? Do you associate yourself with thieves and brigands now?” “Garald! I'm shocked! However could you think such a thing? This admittedly mismatched group are fine, upstanding, albeit young and inexperienced, members of their respective professions! And,” he added in a conspiratorial whisper, “they are currently on a top secret quest of vital importance to King and Country.”

  Oh how I wish I'd never said that, Eilidh lamented, silently.

  “A top secret quest which you know all about, of course,” said Garald with a broad smile.

  “Naturally,” Kismet grinned back.

  “Well, that's good enough for me.” He gestured to the Enforcers who immediately dissipated the fire rings, and cancelled the Nullmagic spells.

  “Eilidh, O Esteemed Leader,” Kismet announced, “may I present His Grace, Prince Garald, Heir to the Throne of Shakaran.” In fact, he was not only a prince, but the Prince Regent – his father the King was suffering from a terrible debilitating disease that wasted both body and mind. Therefore, the rights and responsibilities of rule fell to Garald by law. In essence, then, he was the Sovereign, although he could not be crowned King until his father breathed his last.

  Kismet then indicated the Catalyst, who seemed even less pleased with Kismet's sudden appearance than he had been with the idea of a talking bucket. Eilidh decided she could relate to that.

  “May I also present Cardinal Radisovik, High Cardinal of the Church of Life in Shakaran.” Eilidh gasped - he was one of the most influential and revered individuals in the Church throughout Mythallen. He dealt primarily with the spiritual side of things - faith in Natus, the god of magic - rather than the more practical elements of dealing in magic. Eilidh personally had little time for religious trappings, but had been nevertheless prepared to show the proper respect by kneeling had the prince not stopped her.

  “No, please,” he said, holding up a restraining hand, “there is no need to kneel. However, there is just one thing you might all clarify for me: If you are not, in fact, thieves and brigands, then whydid you attack me?”

  It was Lady Hannah who spoke up. “Your Grace, if I may, thou hast misunderstood our intentions. I was never attacking thee I was attacking him!” She pointed to the dragon warrior. “Oh, so this one is not with your group, then?”

  “He is not, Your Grace.” Fire Rings reappeared around the dragonwarrior, as the Knight continued. “'Tis ever the sworn duty of a Knight to protect the innocent from unprovoked attacks, although I do now perceive thou needest not mine protection. Indeed, Ido applaud thy skilful swordsmanship.”

  Prince Garald nodded. “Of course you couldn't have known that at the time. Your intentions were good and honourable. Worthy of a true Knight. Please accept my sincere apologies for insulting your honour. I have the highest regard for your order and I regret my hasty words and actions.” Turning to the others, he said, “Obviously, the three of you were backing Lady Hannah.”

  Toli and Phaer agreed, but Eilidh said, “Not me, Your Grace.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, I said it was madness to get involved right from the start.” Garald laughed and told the others, “You should listen to your leader in future; she has a good head on her shoulders. The way things are at the moment, one cannot be too careful. There are always thieves and opportunists ready to strike during wartime. That's why I acted the way I did when normally I would welcome visitors to my city. Please, put these events out of your minds. I still insist that you accompany me to the palace, but as my guests, not my prisoners. As long as you don’t think it will jeopardise the secrecy of your quest, we won’t use the private Corridor, directly into the palace itself, but rather enter Shakaran through the main gate. That way I can show you some of my city. Then I will do my best tocompensate you for all your trouble.”

  “Your Grace,” Phaer put in, “if I may be so bold, when you say `compensate` does that mean you'll buy me a new bow to replace the one your guards burned to ashes?” “That is the very least of what it means,” he confi rmed. The prince turned his attention to his attacker. “Now you, dragon-warrior. Do you realise that an unprovoked attack against the Prince Regent is considered a capital offence in Shakaran?”

  “Do you realise that knocking a dragon out of the sky is considered a capital offence to my kind?” he retorted.

  “Explain.” So he did. He told how he was flying to Shakaran from Avidon to stretch his wings and hunt for food. He had spotted a couple of stray wild horses and dove to snatch one in his jaws, but just as he had committed himself to landing, the horses changed before his eyes - they were not horses at all, but centaurs using illusion magic. Now, two centaurs are no threat to a dragon so he didn't even bother spitting his acid breath at them. That was a mistake because no sooner had he landed and smashed the life out of one with a great forepaw than the rest of the herd appeared. Centaurs could run pretty fast when they hunted, so they were upon the dragon before he had really registered the danger.

  “There must have been four score at least, maybe as many as a hundred.” That was too many even for a dragon. They had set upon him, their weapons breaking through his scales and biting his flesh, leaving ugly, bloody gashes. His only thought was escape, so he spat at the thinnest section and they fell back from his acid breath - at least, those who were still moving. That gave the dragon all the time and space he needed to take to the sky. Even then, their archers shot arrows into him and a spear stuck itself in his
soft, vulnerable underbelly. He roared in pain and anger, showering them with acid again before speeding up his flight to outpace even the swiftest centaurs.

  Just when he was beginning to relax, he spotted the glade and it felt like flying into a wall – an invisible wall of energy. That, coupled with the pain of his injuries was enough to force the crashlanding they had all witnessed. Identifying the cluster of magic-users he felt justified in attacking them.

  “You're all lucky I was far enough away from the centaurs or you'd all be dead. What you did to me was the unprovoked attack, setting a dragon trap like that!”

  Prince Garald exchanged glances with his personal Enforcer guards and the cardinal. Satisfied with their silent responses, he said, “It seems we have another misunderstanding.”

  “Is that what you call it?” the dragon-warrior demanded.

  “Wouldn't you? Considering we did not create the glade or the barrier that caused you to fall from the sky. The dragon trap – if that’s what it was – was not of our making.” “It's true,” said Cardinal Radisovik. “I know the details of every magic spell in use today, yet I tell you truly: I do not know what magic could be used to make that glade appear and then disappear. I am something of a student of the legends of our ancestors, the Ancients. There are many stories that suggest they possessed powers well beyond what we now know. Why those powers were lost is unknown but my faith tells me that the gods must have taken them away lest we use them to destroy our world. Perhaps the glade was some kind of remnant of our ancestors’ handiwork: a relic or trap of Ancient times, though I do not know how that could be so.”

  “Anyway,” His Grace interjected, “the point, dragon -warrior, is that we were not there because we created either the glade or the barrier. We were there because a regular patrol reported it. That glade was not supposed to be there.”

  “Told you so,” Kismet remarked, sticking his tongue out at Phaer.

  “We came simply to investigate,” Garald concluded.

  “And what did your investigations tell you?” The dragon demanded.

  “Nothing. We have no more idea where the glade came from than we did before. The same goes for the energy barrier that brought you down. “However, I did already suspect,” continued the prince, “that the barrier was designed to prevent flight. As you know, I'm sure, as a wizard I have magic to control animals, so I summoned a raven to examine the glade from the air and while it could fly freely within the glade, it was unable to leave it. It couldn't even get close to the barrier. Of course, a raven is just a small bird, whereas dragons are the most powerful flyers in all the world. It is conceivable, then, that you might be able to break through but clearly at a cost, especially when already injured.”

  Eilidh spoke up at this point. “Why would anybody want to create such a barrier?” she wondered. “Why bother preventing flight when anything could walk through at ground level?”

  “I don't claim to understand why,” the prince answered. “I'm just saying what we've observed. The whole thing is a mystery.”

  “Also, Your Grace, if I may," Eilidh added, "I believe the strange magic of that Glade was affecting you all.”

  Garald looked to the cardinal, who answered Eilidh directly. “You are very perceptive, young lady. I believe that, as Catalysts, you and I may have been largely spared.”

  “That’s what Phaer said.”

  The cardinal frowned. “Did he now? Well, I think one of his kind ought to keep out of magical affairs!”

  Eilidh bristled. "And what exactly do you mean by that?" She demanded, her face like thunder.

  "Young lady," the cardinal said, "the Magically Dead have no business--"

  "--no business using their brains to form rational conclusions about the world around them?"

  "No business talking about magic when Natus himself has judged them unfit to receive his blessing!"

  "It seems to me you're only one doing any judging around here!"

  "Have you forgotten who you're speaking to?"

  "I don't care who you are. I'm not going to stand here and--"

  Phaer interrupted her with his touch, trying to calm her. "It's OK, Eilidh," Phaer assured her. "I appreciate what you're doing, but it really doesn't matter what he thinks."

  "Doesn't matter?" the cardinal demanded.

  “Enough!” Prince Garald insisted, exerting his authority. "Cardinal, we'll have words later."

  "Your Grace!" Radisovic protested.

  "Later!" Garald repeated.

  Toli tapped Eilidh on the shoulder. "So you'll stand up for him but not yourself?" She whispered, pointedly.

  Eilidh did not reply. “Well?” Garald prompted the dragon-warrior, returning his attention to the matter at hand. “You’ve heard our explanation, such as it is."

  "Why should I believe you?” the dragon-warrior asked, still a little suspicious, more on principle than any basis in fact.

  “Because I'm letting you go.” Prince Garald gave the nod and the fire rings around the dragon-warrior dissipated once more. The prince then handed him his sword and deliberately turned his back. The dragon had to concede that he had no evidence against the prince, certainly not enough reason to stab a man in the back, and what he said made sense as far as it went. He then felt the binding magic leave his body, so without another word, he walked a little way off, changed back to his natural dragon form and leapt into the air to fly back to his Avidon home.

  Chapter 5

  The city of Shakaran was a heavily industrialised place, where magical and technological crafts co-existed side-by-side. It was also a military city that considered itself a nation in its own right. Streets were cobbled rather than smooth paved as they were in Merlyon and that was just one minor example of the many differences between Mythallen's two largest cities. They were only just approaching the outer city gates but already Eilidh was impressed by what she saw. The air was filled with the sounds of merchants touting their wares and the ring of steel on steel as the city guard trained for battle. Among the many smells were those of the blacksmiths' forging fires, mingled with freshly baked bread. It was a large and sprawling city that had long since extended beyond its own secondary guard walls. Indeed, the very existence of a second wall proved this was a trend that dated back centuries. The first wall had begun to squeeze the city within until there was simply no land left and there was no choice but to build outside their protection. In time, a second wall had been raised further out, but now even that was too restricting. Unsurprisingly, there were plans already in place for a third wall, but for now there were but two.

  The royal palace was a castle or fort built on an imposing scale and it appeared to be carved out of the rocky mountain itself, rather than simply constructed on top of it. Prince Garald confirmed Eilidh's observation, citing Ancient Dwarven architectural techniques.

  Catching something in his tone, Eilidh gasped, “You mean, it wasn't built with magic?”

  “That's right. No magic whatsoever went into constructing this palace. It was an experiment– the architect wanted to prove whether it could be done. ” Eilidh suddenly shivered involuntarily. No wonder the structure felt so creepy. No magic! The very concept was so...unnatural. Every building ever constructed in her Merlyon home had been created by magic, at least in part if not in totality.

  The exterior of the palace somehow spoke not of threat but merely defence. It was a place where if you meant well, you were welcome; if you intended ill, then ill would befall you. Inside, the palace was bright and vibrant with colour, decorated with artwork and great tapestries. Some of the windows themselves were stained glass, depicting famous figures from Shakaran’s glorious past. Torches flickered on the walls, providing what was for most people comfortable illumination. Eilidh, however, eyed the lighting with a suspicious glare, deliberately walking in the centre of the passageways so she could give them a wide berth. There was no way to be sure, but she was worried that they might have been lit in some strange non-magical way.

 
; When she retired to her quarters that night, Eilidh made a point of using some household magic to remake her bed from scratch. She even asked Toli to cast a Fireflash spell on the logs in the hearth and light the room by causing the walls to glow. The Catalyst supposed it was a frivolous waste of her Life Store, as she proceeded to Grant Life to her magician friend, because she knew she would still be drained in the morning until the sun's rays could start the regeneration. Still, she couldn't imagine what possible need they could have for Life magic during the night. Toli now once again had enough to ignite the fire and create light in her own room if she so wished. The only problem could be if one of Toli’s spells fizzled - that was the trouble with Life magic, even with the simplest spells, there were no guarantees, especially for low-rank, inexperienced mages. Yes, Eilidh's actions were frivolous and unnecessary, especially since the walls would gradually lose their luminescence over the next hour or two. But it made her more comfortable. She had brought Life to this Dead environment. Ever since she was a little girl, Eilidh had found any magically dampened place very cold and frightening. To find herself now in a place that was completely Lifeless was borderline terrifying and she knew without doubt that she would never be able to sleep without the caress of magic around her.

  Before setting her head on her pillow, she gave the magic in the room a good `stir up`, making pretty, soothing patterns. It was a little technique Catalysts played with early in their training, as they strived to control the flow of Life. It didn't do anything in of itself, but it was important nonetheless. She supposed it was a little bit like a musician practising breathing techniques that they would never actually use while playing. Breathing control was an important skill to master, and if they could control breathing beyond what was necessary for their instrument, that ensured they wouldn't have to think about their breathing even in the most complex pieces. In the same way, Catalysts learned to control Life to the extent of creating works of art. No-one but another Catalyst could see them properly, but that wasn't the point: the fact that Eilidh could master such delicate control meant she could focus on the real demands of her job without being distracted by the basics. Eilidh’s Advanced Life Manipulation course tutor had been fond of the mantra: Focus on the goal, not the task; the solution, not the problem. He had likened it to drinking a cup of tea. One did not think about reaching out one’s hand, grasping the handle, lifting the cup whilst keeping it level so the tea did not spill, gently blowing on the hot liquid, and so on. One simply thought about the goal of having a drink, not the tasks involved in achieving that goal. For the best Catalysts, Life manipulation was the same: an almost unconscious task employed for a specific goal.