by Trista Shaye
They stared at him for a time, his back to them almost obliviously, until Kendel finally broke the silence.
“Why?” he asked simply but firmly.
Rould straightened, as if remembering he had several prisoners tied up behind him and replied with his own question. “Why what?”
“Why are you doing this?” the mage repeated.
“Ah, why indeed.” The wizard turned then and Diana could see he held a bunch of oddly shaped stones in his hands.
The other companions noticed this as well and Shaarg began to slam about in his cage all the more.
“You take, you take those!” he bellowed, “You steal from me! Those mine, give back!”
“These?” The wizard held them up in askance, then nodded and laid the bunch on the desk. “Yes, they were yours. It’s an odd custom, you see,” he began to explain to the other three who were not trolls and didn’t know of their ways, all the while Shaarg’s nostrils flared and he paced in his pen.
“It’s an old tradition of the troll, that on a birthday, or a special occasion, you gift that specific individual a rock. Perhaps it’s one you found in the mud and simply rinsed off – you know, scrubbed a little. Maybe you stumbled across it one day and have been keeping it ever since, with a certain troll in mind. But you know the most valued, the most rare, are the ones they themselves have received but then gift to someone else, someone special.
“They keep these stone gifts on them at all times, just so they won’t get taken or misplaced. Pity.” He shook his head in mock sadness at the irony, “There are some special ones in your collection, aren’t there Shaarg? Some precious ones?”
Shaarg attacked the cage wall and bellowed in anger, shaking the bars in his fists. “Give back!”
“Hmm.” Rould pursed his lips. “Probably not. Though, at your funeral I’ll try to remember to leave one for you each.”
“How thoughtful,” Kendel mumbled between his teeth.
“I’ll leave you a special one, Kendel,” Rould continued, clasping his hands behind his back. “You were my student, after all. And you were the beginning of all this, really, so I have you to thank. And everyone else has you to blame. How very interesting.”
“Tell me why,” Kendel asked again, having never gotten his answer. “Tell me why you abandoned everything you ever taught me and turned on everyone you ever knew.”
“I think your question, boy, is why I turned on you. Isn’t it?” he asked, quirking a brow and beginning to pace a little. “Isn’t that the heart of everyone’s questions? Isn’t it always about themselves anyways? All you want to know is why I betrayed you. You don’t really care about everyone else right now, you just want your question answered, your mind appeased.”
“Answer the question!” Diana jumped when Kendel yelled, she’d never heard him sound anything like this before and it scared her a little.
“Fine.” Rould paused and rolled his eyes. “Taking all the fun out of it. Fine, I’ll answer you. Do you remember, Kendel, back when you were my student – technically you still are, you’re no master – but I mean back when you were still learning from me?”
“Why should I have forgotten that?” Kendel muttered, annoyed he had to play the man’s game to get the answers he wanted, that he needed.
“And do you remember when we were learning about the other realms and you seemed so interested in visiting?” Kendel was quiet.
“Do you?” Rould asked again.
“Yes,” Kendel ground out.
“And of course you wouldn’t have forgotten the letter we received from The Magic Vale inviting a mage to come teach their students for the summer, I know you remember that. You so wanted to go, but were afraid they would choose someone else. But I worked it all out for you, so that you could go, didn’t I?” He smiled and nodded not needing a response. “Yes, that was me. But what you didn’t realize, was that it was also me who sent a letter first to the fairy council, inquiring as to if we could send a mage there for the summer instruction of their youth. And you didn’t realize that it was me who had you in mind the entire time.”
Kendel was more than a little confused and he huffed, “Why? Why bother doing what I wanted?”
“Because Kendel,” Rould exclaimed and threw out his hands in a wide gesture. “Because it was what I wanted.” He nodded at the odd looks he received and went on, “Oh yes, yes, it was all a part of my plan. You see, what are the chances of a mage coming to The Magic Vale? The first, I might add, in its history? And what are the chances, that shortly after he arrived, there would be found a fairy ring, hmm? What are the chances? There are none. It was obvious to everyone that you, Kendel, were in charge of the dark magic that was cast. Tsk tsk. I thought I taught you better.”
Kendel growled and struggled again, but it was no use.
“So you wanted him to get blamed for it all?” Diana exclaimed.
“Yes, girl, that way the world could end nicely without suspicion being cast upon me. I could do what I wanted in the shadows without being a suspect. But no thanks to you, that plan didn’t come to fruition.” He made an annoyed sound and sent a glare in her direction. “But not to fear, this works out in the end, anyways. Almost better, even, than my original plans. So it’s a win-win.”
“Nothing’s a win and you’re a jerk!” Diana cried out, mad at the wizard for trying to get Kendel blamed for his actions, and mad at herself for having fallen for it, even if it was only in the beginning.
“Please, no hysterics, it’s bad for the digestion.” Rould waved a hand at her dismissively. “Besides, someone has to pay for the ending of a certain troll chief. Someone who I’d like to believe might be Kendel. Whom I know will be, actually.” He walked behind the desk so they could see what he was doing, and began sifting through the stones again.
“You see, Kendel, did you know trolls have magic? I didn’t think you were aware of that. But they do. Most every creature does, but we’re the ones who learned how to use it the best. The trolls only have a little understanding of it – but that’s still more than gnomes, or fairies. Some of their stones are magical, aren’t they, Shaarg?”
Shaarg growled and stomped in a circle in the cage, trying to find the weakest point and work on it until it finally gave way.
“You have a couple of those in your collection, don’t you? Whoops, should I have said, had?” He smiled to himself but didn’t look up from his task, “A certain one I think would be quite interesting to me, in particular. One given to you at birth by your father, it’s in here somewhere. You would never leave that one anywhere to get lost, goodness no.”
“Why do you need it?” Kendel asked, trying to sound like he might be interested but sounding more disgusted than anything.
“I thought it was obvious.” Rould chuckled. “To bring this all to an end even more swiftly and quite dramatically.”
“Why do you need a rock for that?” Diana questioned, wiggling her fingers to try and get some feeling back into them. “You already have dragon magic, why do you need anything else?”
“Oh, you know about the dragon magic? But of course, that’s why you were in The Dappled Peaks.” He tossed a rock to the floor and kept searching.
“We also know what you stole and who you stole it from. How dare you!” Diana exclaimed, mad at his lack of care for other beings.
“Oh, you mean this?” the wizard asked and snapped his fingers. An old looking, tan and red painted urn appeared on the desk just to the left. Rould looked at it for a moment, then shoved it off the desk without another thought. It fell to the ground and shattered into hundreds of pieces.
Diana let out a yelp at the sudden crashing noise and blinked, shocked. “Why would he do that?” she whispered.
Kendel closed his eyes and groaned. “Because I can’t disenchant it if it’s broken. When the object breaks the magic goes back to the dragon, or in this
case – since the dragon’s gone – it goes back to Rould and can’t be reversed.”
“But …” Diana let her mouth gape and her mind churn. “That was our only hope of setting things right.”
“Looks like that’s no longer an option,” Kendel replied with a sigh.
“Want to speak louder so your friends can hear? You’re not hiding anything from me by whispering to each other,” the wizard commented and tossed a couple more rocks to the floor.
“No Gilded Mage has ever needed rocks before,” Kendel taunted, trying desperately not to despair.
Rould shook his head and laughed, he finally glanced up at them and stopped what he was doing. “No we don’t need rocks, we don’t even need dragon magic. We just need the freedom to use the power we already possess. I’m just creating the freedom part and also securing my place. Because you know, Kendel, there can’t be more than one Gilded Mage.”
Twenty-One
“When you were born, I was the only one who saw it in you,” Rould began after long minutes of silence and unspoken questions. “I asked to be your teacher so that one day, I would be the wizard known as the master to the Gilded Mage, I would be your most trusted, most sought after council. I would be your right hand. But as you grew and no one else recognized what I had seen, not even you, I began to think about things differently.
“Why be the Gilded Mage’s adviser, when you could be the Gilded Mage himself? So in the years I taught you I was actually learning from you, secrets and things only one who was born to it would know. And I fed you lies. You could never know what you were destined for or I could never become what I had always dreamed to be – there can only be one.
“I told you and the other masters things that would keep the truth hidden and your talents and abilities beneath the surface. I never pushed you so you would never learn anything more than the most basic of spells, rules, and order. I honestly think I made some things up, things that now you believe are true.” He shrugged and frowned. “Sad. For you.”
“You’re lying now!” Kendel exclaimed, white eyed. “I’m not the Gilded Mage, I never have been. There’s nothing that special about me.”
“No, I suppose not.” Rould said, looking pleased. “That’s because, boy, for years I’ve been telling you that, that you’re nothing special, and you believed me. You began to trust those words, began to speak them, to breathe, dream, and live them. I stole you from yourself, and you walked away with it tucked into your belt as truth. Isn’t it interesting, the power of our words and tongues?
“You’re just the lonely little boy who hates adventures and can’t work up the courage to believe you might be more.” Rould spat and kicked a rock across the room that was near his foot. “Souls are easy to crush and bend, when they believe lies to be the truth. So I’ll be taking your place as head mage. You never deserved it anyways.”
“You can’t build yourself up to be a Gilded Mage, you have to be one by more than deeds. You can’t wish yourself into the position,” Kendel began, looking desperate and confused.
“Maybe you can, Kendel. Remember? I lied to you. It’s true most Gilded Mage’s are born to it, but there is a possibility to gain it – though it’s forbidden here. Or should I say, it was.” He chuckled, his expression one of a thief making good his escape with the valuables in hand.
“I have so much power now – I have dragon magic, I have the ancient spells, and soon I’ll have a little bit of troll magic, as well. I’ll turn the world on its head and start fresh and I’ll be the ruler and order of the new land.
“It’s all rather simple now. Just end you for the death of the troll chief in my place, and all will be set to balance again with the rules of magic and there will be no one in my way to contend with. Now that I’ve answered your questions, I feel quite thoroughly, please don’t interrupt me while I finish deciding which of these stones I want.” He began to sort more quickly.
Diana’s heart had begun to beat faster and faster as he revealed more and more to them, and now her mind was going crazy. Kendel!? Kendel was the Gilded Mage? She couldn’t remember exactly everything that that meant – and she was sure she hadn’t even been told everything – but she did recall him saying to Dakin something about writing or rewriting spells or some such. Something about earth shattering deeds, was it? Either way, he could fix the fairy rings, he could save the realms!
She was getting excited again, hopeful. There was a chance that this could all be fixed, if only Kendel was able to break away from the false identity he’d been stuck in for years and was able to accept that he was, indeed, the Gilded Mage who could stop this lunatic and be a hero. If only he believed in who he actually was.
Somehow she had to talk to just him, but no matter how quietly she whispered, Rould seemed to still be able to hear her. She was stumped and frustrated and ready to attack this wizard for all the heartache and pain he had caused and was still causing her friend.
He had lied to Kendel all his life, when Kendel was supposed to be able to trust him with anything and everything; he had sent him away to get blamed for a crime he didn’t commit so Rould could hide in the shadows and end the realms in relative quiet; and now, he was finally telling the truth and it was devastating, she was sure, to Kendel. Even now, especially now, why should he believe anything this wizard said? Even the fact that Kendel might just be the master of all mages? If it was Diana, she didn’t know if she would be able to believe that or not. But she had to hope Kendel did. She needed him to, they all did.
“Ah,” Rould exclaimed at last, holding up a small pebble that looked rather ordinary. He looked about his desk for something and rolled his eyes when he couldn’t find it. “I’ll be back,” he hissed and stuffed the pebble in his pocket as he exited the room.
Diana let out a breath as he left and she heard the door click shut. “Kendel,” she whispered. “Kendel? Can you get yourself untied?”
“Why would I be able to do that?” His voice sounded hollow and sad. “I would have done it before this if I could. We wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“But you can use magic on the ropes, can’t you?” she asked, trying to crane her neck to see him again, but she couldn’t quite look far enough over.
“I don’t think so. Remember when you had me all tied up? I couldn’t get out, then.”
“Couldn’t or just didn’t try?” Diana asked. When he didn’t reply, she added, “Besides those were vines, this is rope, something you’re more familiar with.”
“It’s the same thing, Diana! What do you think I am? A knot smith? I didn’t play with rope every day of my life and practice magic on it. I couldn’t do this if I wanted,” he mumbled.
She thought he was quite stubborn and rather a goob for not at least trying something. “Remember what I told you after I untied you from those vines? On accident, of course.” She added, sighing, “In Farran’s cottage, that night, when I kind of went off at you for being a scaredy cat. I told you to get ready to kick wizard butt, remember? Well, Kendel, you have that chance, one not all of us have, to actually do what we came here to do and reverse all the terrible things that have been happening. You can be what you were born to be. Just because some old master in a robe told you something different, it doesn’t take away what you are from yourself, not unless you allow it to.” Her shoulders sagged as she realized her pep talk really wasn’t all that great.
“Who am I kidding. I’m just an orphaned fairy who thought she could save the world. I couldn’t save my parents, I can’t save anyone else.” She paused a beat. “But you can Kendel, you can save us all. I believe in you, even if you don’t choose to get us out of this, I still believe you’re the Gilded Mage and I still believe there is part of who you really are deep inside. I saw it when you came to school to teach us and everyone laughed at you. You are special, different, and you made a difference to me, and I’m sure to a lot of the fairies in that cl
ass room.”
“You make difference to Shaarg!” Shaarg had been leaning against the bars of the cage listening and now he bellowed across the distance. “Look at me! Look at colors you gave! So pretty, Shaarg wear them forever. You help Shaarg when no one believe him but father. You trust I not turn you in but help you. I believe in Kendel, I believe no matter what happen. Rocks or no rocks.”
“And I believe I owe you an apology,” Matilda said as the troll finished. “For threatening to sit on you, you never deserved it.”
Diana figured that was the most encouraging a warrior gnome would get. She smiled. Even if the world ended, her favorite people – almost all of them anyways – were here with her. Somehow she didn’t feel as panicked as before, she didn’t feel like she had to fix something to make it all work out, because she knew she couldn’t do any more or try any harder. It was out of her hands.
“We’re all your friends, Kendel,” the fairy girl said, managing to strain far enough to see over to the chair where Kendel was tied. “Kendel?” she asked, confused by what she saw. But he was gone.
His chair was empty and all the ropes were collapsed in the seat. Diana felt her heart skip into her throat and something inside her soared. She didn’t know where he’d gone – and a small part of her wondered if he’d run away – but she believed he wouldn’t do that, not after all they’d been through. She couldn’t believe that of him, she wouldn’t.
“He’s gone,” she whispered and both Shaarg and Matilda looked at her oddly.
“Are we ready for beautiful destruction, then?” Rould asked as he opened the door and came marching back in, the pebble in one hand and something odd looking and long in the other. He paused once he’d gotten to the desk and looked up to see Kendel’s empty chair.
“What happened?” he demanded, the stone and contraption forgotten on the desk. “Where’s he gone!?”