Steel And Flame (Book 1)

by Damien Lake

  “Good. Starting tomorrow, I’ll be expecting respect out of you!”

  “Huh! I never said I’d go that far!”

  Chapter 19

  Dietrik shared breakfast with Marik, the morning’s repast being fresh bread and a thick ham steak. Luiez carefully selected the best meat cuts or the plumpest rolls for Marik during his recovery, despite never acknowledging that he did so. Marik gratefully accepted the preferential treatment unless his plate received a larger scoop of the noodle dish that never improved no matter how often he ate it. He was at a loss to understand why, seeing as he liked the dish’s ingredients unless they all kept each other company at the same time.

  “Will you have any free time today, mate?”

  “I don’t know. What’s going on?”

  “That new boy Knox has a wager with Kerwin.”

  “Everyone wagers with Kerwin. What’s so special about this one?”

  “They’re going to see who can stay fighting in the snow in their smallclothes the longest. Landon and I have a side bet on which comes away with the most frostbite.”

  Marik frowned. “There’s no snow out there. The last flurry melted before it ever hit the ground.”

  “It’s a Temperature Reality scheduled for the benefit of this year’s D Classes. I guess you won’t be involved with that.”

  “No,” Marik replied with a scowl. “I’m sure Yoseph will handle it.”

  “Oh, is that still bothering you? I would have thought you’d gotten over that.”

  “I’m never going to be happy with magic.”

  “So how are you going to work any spells with your back hairs crawling up your spine?”

  “I’m past that now. The old man says all that uneasiness and tingling and itching was my latent talent reacting to the magic in the training areas, and it’ll leave me alone from here on, for the most part. I say it’s just good sense, but I have to admit my body doesn’t react the way it used to.”

  “Good! I always thought you were overly paranoid about it all in the first place. So does that mean you’ll come to the exercise?”

  “If I can,” Marik wavered. “I have to put in my time at the Tower today.”

  “I’ll save you a good spot to watch from.”

  “Thanks.”

  Marik left the barracks after breakfast, seeing Caresse leave the mages’ building when he drew near. Of the six other magic users currently employed by the band, only half chose to quarter in the Tower. Tollaf would have lived in his workrooms anyway, and the two female magic users, Caresse and Lynn, took their rooms there to be away from the men in the barracks. The remaining mages, Yoseph, Ian and Jeremy, lived with their respective squads. All the men were assigned to specialist squads, each having joined the band in the midst of a fighting season.

  Of the magic users, only Caresse, like Marik, had been discovered to possess unknown talents after joining the band. Unlike Marik, she seemed very much pleased with them.

  She walked toward the officers’ quarters for breakfast, nodding at him with a grin when she passed. Being unaffiliated with a specific squad, the officers allowed her to share their dining facilities along with Tollaf and Lynn.

  As usual, he found Tollaf in a workroom, this time intent on a jeweled brooch. The old man studied it through a jeweler’s loupe and made clucking noises with his tongue.

  “Finally decided to take up a sensible trade?”

  “I was wondering how many of these it would take to buy silence from you for a single day.” Tollaf put the expensive looking accessory down atop the table. “I rather doubt I could find that many, though. Sit down, I have a lesson for you.”

  “You always have a lesson.”

  “This one is important.”

  “You say they’re all important.”

  “They are, so be silent for two moments and listen!”

  “Wait a moment,” Marik said, holding up his hand. “Is Yoseph doing one of those workings out in the training areas this afternoon?”

  “No, I’m having Caresse do it today. Why?”

  “I wanted to go over there.”

  “Good. Watch what she does with your magesight.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “That’s a good place to start this lesson. You can see how the energies are different when Caresse is using them than with me.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I’m a mage and she’s a wizard. Or wizardess, to be technical.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “That’s today’s lesson. But Marik, listen closely to all of this for once. This is important and you need to know it before you go out onto a battlefield with other magic users.” He watched solemnly until Marik nodded. “Good. Because if you don’t I’ll make sure Torrance locks you up in the holding cells!”

  “Get on with it, old man!” His mood always soured considerably whenever Tollaf started his interminable lecturing. He could be practicing his swordwork right now!

  “First thing is this, there are many different types of magic and magic users. People always refer to a collective group as ‘mages’, but any group is rarely ever just mages, or any other one specific type.

  “Some people say there are four types of primary magic users and others say five. I’ll let you decide whichever you like because it doesn’t matter. I want to give you a simplified explanation of each. We can expand on them in greater detail later. The first type is like us, mages. We can see and draw directly on the energies of the etheric plane from the mass diffusion or from the lines. The knots, too, if we were strong enough. Once we have the energy, we can shape it for use on the physical plane.”

  “And how long before I can use it for scrying?”

  “Keep practicing and we’ll get there one of these years. The second type of magic user is a magician, which is what you ran into up north.”

  Marik frowned at the memory.

  “A magician doesn’t use the same type of energy we do, because he can’t. Magician talent and mage talent don’t work the same way. A magician draws on the astral forms of physical objects. He can use single forms for simple spells, or mix different forms together for complex magic. Then he pulls the astral form into the physical plane from the astral plane where it becomes his spell. Magicians always need an abundant supply of spell components because ripping the astral form away and forcing it into a new shape destroys the physical object it started from.”

  “I always thought a magic user was a magic user, and the different names didn’t matter. These magicians sound like alchemists mixing things together.”

  “Except an alchemist is mixing the physical properties while the magician is mixing the astral. You won’t find any magicians or alchemists who think much of the other.”

  “Why? Are they always fighting each other over supplies?”

  “There’s a greater number of alchemists than magicians, but that’s about right. See, you can think when you try. The third type is a sorcerer. His talent lets him open pathways to other planes and bring through spirits and devils. He uses chants to keep his mind focused and diagrams of power to restrain the beings he summons. Once they are restrained, they can be forced to the sorcerer’s will. This is a very dangerous talent because if anything goes wrong, a devil can break free and cause all sorts of havoc.”

  “Not to mention if it doesn’t! Think of meeting one on a battlefield!”

  “That’s the other side of the coin. The fourth type is a geomancer, like Jeremy. They are very well suited to battle. They draw on the astral and etheric properties of pure elements.”

  “You mean like a magician? I don’t see how that’s any different.”

  “No, they use astral forms. Geomancers draw on the pure essence of an element, such as fire or water, and bring it into the physical plane. They might use an actual element, like the ground or a river, or they can form alliances with elemental spirits, who will then use their own power in service to the geomancer. Most of what they can do is ‘big
effect’ magic that is only useful as offensive spells.”

  “So the fifth type are the wizards?”

  “No, the fifth type would be a priest.”

  “You said there were only five. No, four!”

  “I said there were four or five primary types. Pay attention! The reason priests are often discounted is that their powers are not their own. They receive their powers from their deity in exchange for their faith. Depending on who you’re worshipping, you can be blessed with different powers. You’re lucky the two priests who worked on you worshipped a god who granted them Healing abilities.”

  Marik blanched. The rare magic user running around loose in the world was terrible enough, but the idea that any scruffy ruffian could suddenly unleash chaos and mayhem on a cataclysmic scale horrified him. “You mean anyone can get these powers just by changing their religion? I thought healing priests had to be gifted Healers in the first place!”

  “Not at all! Only the truly faithful are ever blessed so, and most deities only grant power to the topmost ranks of their clergy. You can see why many don’t count them as being true magic users.”

  Tollaf’s denial did nothing to sooth him. Marik forced himself to appear calm. “Then where do the wizards fit into all of this?”

  “You were born with one talent, for magecraft. Yours isn’t the strongest I’ve seen, but it’s hardly weak. Many are born with two different talents. For everyone born with a reasonably firm talent, you can count on a different person having two weaker ones. A wizard is a person with the talents for both magecraft and geomancy. Caresse could have trained solely as a mage, yet even if she had excelled at it, she would always be far weaker than I. By training in both talents and combining them together, she can practice as a wizard and be much closer to my level of strength in magic.

  “What’s more, by merging her different talents, hybrid spells can be created that are impossible for either a mage or a geomancer to cast, and so are unique to wizardry. There are many secondary types of magic users depending on how the talents combine, and I don’t feel like getting into them all today. To name a few though, you have witches, enchanters, and wizards.” He ticked off each on his fingers as he spoke.

  “And hedge-wizards. Don’t forget those bastards.”

  “A hedge-wizard is merely an untrained magic user of any class. It’s not a true type and fairly weak. Sort of like you at the moment.”

  “I don’t know about that. With nobody telling them how to do things properly, I’m sure a few have come up with some bizarre spells during their experiments.”

  “Possibly.” Tollaf nodded in acknowledgment. “Many of the most interesting discoveries in magic come about because nobody told the discoverer that it couldn’t be done.”

  “Exactly. And there’s no damned way I’ll ever underestimate one of those bastards again!”

  “The ones you should never underestimate aren’t the hedge-wizards. They’re petty and weak. No, the ones you need to be careful of are the harvesters.”

  “What type is that?”

  “They’re not a type, or at least not a different one. You could simply call them ‘dark’ mages.” Tollaf rubbed his forehead slightly in unease. “Each discipline of magic produces less savory types, but ours tend to overshadow the others. Perhaps because the source of our power is much simpler and more insidious. You know a mage draws on etheric energy, and you know etheric energy is produced by the excess life energy created by living things.”

  “Yes. And?”

  “And so a harvester is a mage so depraved he’s willing to go too far. Anyone who practices the harvesting ways is power hungry in the first place. Most of them can’t draw on the knots and go mad knowing how close they are to such power without being able to touch it. They aren’t satisfied drawing from the lines even though there are few workings that require the enormous energy of a knot.

  “So he draws from people, mostly. He doesn’t want to wait for the extra energy to bleed off naturally; he wants the entire load. When a person dies, especially young persons, all their life energy is wrenched away at once and flows into the ether. A harvester can capture the freed energy and use it, because it hasn’t joined a line yet and become wild. Go ask the fighters in your unit who have been around the longest about battlefields. If they came across the same field a year later, they’ll tell you how vibrant the growth and plant life was. All that energy settling into the ground from the dead fighters saturates it with life force.”

  “I’ve heard stories about witches and warlocks sacrificing people on pagan altars. Is that what that’s all about?”

  “Mostly, yes, but they’d be harvesters, not true witches. Actually, a person would be lucky for a quick death from a harvester. The body creates life energy to stay alive and keep itself healthy. When it’s injured or in immanent peril, it increases the production, like when your heart is racing from fear or excitement. Falling into the hands of a harvester means being tortured without mercy. It maximizes the production of energy while the body tries to repair the damage.”

  “Doesn’t sound like my kind of person.”

  “Good. Keep the differences in mind if you get tempted.”

  “Differences?”

  “Between chopping their head off in combat and slowly pealing them like a tomato in a dark room.”

  Marik’s stomach churned at the imagery. “I don’t think I’ll ever need to worry about the temptation,” he assured.

  “Good,” Tollaf repeated. “There’s whole schools of magic who hunt down harvesters when they learn of one. You need to watch your skin if you ever have to fight one. They’re the most merciless of any sort you’ll ever encounter.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind.” Tollaf had actually managed to keep his words simple for a change, allowing Marik to understand most of what he said. The last comment caught his attention, prompting him to ask, “What was that about schools a moment ago?”

  Tollaf shrugged. “There’s a few schools of magic here and there, and damned difficult to find. They don’t like to be found. Usually they’re founded by magic users with a bent toward the scholarly, or ones out to save the world from injustice. They teach their apprentices their own ethical codes and morals, and only teach magics they approve of. They call themselves schools, but any year where there’s as many as ten mages altogether is a prosperous year indeed.”

  “Well, that doesn’t sound so bad. Compared with other forms of learning I could name.”

  “Too bad for you they have standards.”

  “How many are there?”

  “Who knows? The only one in Galemar I know of is Winds of the Summer Sun.”

  “That’s their name?” Marik was incredulous. The name sounded unbearably pompous.

  “Not a bad bunch, actually. They spend most of their time trying to convince the weather to rain or not to, depending on the needs of the farmers around them.”

  “I can think of two baronies who would pay through the nose for that right now.”

  “The problem with weather-working is how damned difficult it is. They have to create massive energy reservoirs over eightdays to power the spells. It’s incredibly difficult because, in essence, they are attempting to alter a single facet of an unimaginably complex network of systems. You’ve been struggling to work your own tiny shield. Can you begin to imagine the scope of working to influence something the size of the entire sky?”

  “No.”

  “Then you need to practice more. Spend the morning working on your shield. I’ll tell you when Caresse is ready to set up.”

  * * * * *

  “Whoa-ah! Are you all right?” Caresse ran to Marik, who lay flat on the ground in the horses’ vale with a dazed expression. “Marik?”

  Marik’s head spun when he rose to a sitting position. He rubbed the back of his skull. “Damn, Caresse! I thought you were going to go easy.”

  “Umm…I did go easy, Marik. You didn’t tie your shield properly. You need to do that, so you do.” O
nce she saw she had not hurt the apprentice mage, her ever present grin returned. “But you should have seen yourself. It was very funny!”

  “I’m laughing on the inside.”

  Caresse was a hard person to stay mad at. Her natural cheerfulness, energy and exuberance never deserted her for long. She viewed life as one constant adventure, with new chapters being written every day. Boisterously accepting the charge, she had agreed to help Marik with practice exercises when Tollaf assigned her the job.

  Her attitude was very tomboyish, as was her garb, and she moved with a lithe grace unlike the women he had grown up around. She also talked in a peculiar way that Marik had yet to place. Neither her build or skin suggested an exotic origin and she was only two years older than he. The brown shock of hair that spent all its time looking for an opportunity to fall into her eyes did so again. Caresse pushed it back with an unthinking sweep of her hand.

  “You really need to be careful about such things. If you don’t bind it properly, it doesn’t help you at all.”

  “So I see. Let’s try that one again.”

  “Indeed, that is the spirit!”

  Marik concentrated on the working. His proficiency had increased until he no longer needed to close his eyes. The visualization methods from his mental training held him in good stead once he’d grown accustomed to this strange way of using them. No doubt his progress would have been non-existent had he not practiced mental imagery for a year hence. As with everything else, the longer he worked at it, the easier it became.

  He drew the energy he needed from within himself, sparing a moment for a sour thought that the old man had been right about this as well. The sensation now felt like releasing a held breath rather than the internal shuffling of his organs. Marik held the energy in his unseen hands, quickly molding it into the bowl that would protect his front quadrant. This time he remembered to tie it firmly to his core.

  “Ready? Here we go!”

  With his magesight, Marik saw Caresse gather the power she needed in the wink of an eye. Blending it with her own energy took barely another wink, then she hurled it at Marik’s shield. Caresse struck with raw force, the power unshaped into a specific attack. It connected almost as a physical blow from an unseen source, like the force rod Tollaf had used to knock his feet from under him in the workroom.