Magium

by Chris Michael Wilson

  “Good!” Melindra says, smiling once again. “Now, as I’ve said before, if I would’ve managed to contact Eiden, I wouldn’t be bothering you with this, but since he’s been completely ignoring me ever since I came back to Varathia, I was thinking that maybe you, as his followers could—”

  “What did you just call us?” Daren asks her, perplexed.

  “Eiden’s followers,” Melindra says. “Aren’t you his followers?”

  “Hell no!” Daren shouts.

  Melindra is looking at us confused.

  “His friends, then?” she asks.

  “Far from it,” Kate says.

  “Then how did you manage to attack that noble?” Melindra says. “Wasn’t Eiden the one who gave you the power to do it?”

  “It was indeed,” Kate says.

  “So, why did he do it, if you aren’t his friends?” Melindra says.

  “You seem to have known Eiden for a while,” Kate says. “Do you really think that he needs a logical reason for everything that he does? Or for anything at all, really?”

  “Well…” Melindra says. “I mean… not recently… but if you really aren’t his friends, I must say I am quite surprised that he left you alive…”

  “Aren’t we all?” Kate says.

  “So, what was it that you wanted to ask of us?” Daren says.

  “Oh, right!” Melindra says, as she regains her smile. “In short, I want you to kill someone for me!”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Daren says. “I’m going to stop you right there, Melindra. Despite what you may have heard about us, none of us are assassins. We won’t kill people unless we have very good reasons to do it. We’re not going to kill someone just because you asked us to.”

  “Oh, but I’m not asking you to do it for free!” Melindra says. “I’m more than willing to compensate you for this task!”

  “We’re not looking for money,” Daren says. “We’re here to participate in a mage tournament, remember?”

  “I know!” Melindra says. “When I was talking about compensation, I meant that I would help you with your objectives. Don’t you want to know how to find the pinecones?”

  “Why would we need your help for that?” Daren says. “It’s just some pinecones. How hard could it be to find them?”

  Melindra smirks at Daren, and she takes what appears to be a pinecone seed out of her pocket. She then puts the seed in her hand, and it immediately starts to glow with a bright yellow light, just like Golmyck said it would when he announced our first objectives. She then holds her hand out to Daren, inviting him to take the pinecone seed from her.

  “Go on,” Melindra says, with a smile. “Take it! You’ll understand why you’ll need my help soon enough.”

  As Daren takes the seed from the stillwater girl’s hand, the bright yellow glow fades completely, and the seed does not light back up no matter how much Daren moves it between his palms.

  “As you can see,” Melindra says, with a victorious smile, “a glowing pinecone’s seeds will not light up for just anyone. They only resonate with auras that have an extremely high amount of magical power in them. If we’re talking about contestants from the mage tournament, I doubt that anyone other than the four sages would have enough magical power for a pinecone to start glowing in their hands. You’d need pure blind luck to discover a glowing pinecone if you can’t even make them glow when you touch them. If you don’t believe me, you can pass that pinecone seed between yourselves. I guarantee you that none of you will be able to make it glow.”

  We do as she says and we pass the pinecone seed between ourselves, to see if anyone is able to make it light up. Unfortunately, it seems that Melindra was right, and none of us have anywhere near the required level of magical power to make the seed glow.

  “So,” Daren says, as he hands Melindra back her pinecone seed, “am I to understand that what you will be offering us in exchange for the assassination will be one of these glowing pinecones?”

  “Oh, no, no, no,” Melindra says. “I never managed to get hold of a pinecone. I was lucky enough to find a few seeds on the ground near the border of a sacred forest, while I was on my way here. I wouldn’t dare to venture any deeper into one of those forests in order to find an actual pinecone. The golden fox hates my guts!”

  “But why would you need to go into a sacred forest to find a pinecone?” I say. “Couldn’t you just get it from somewhere else?”

  “You can’t get glowing pinecones from anywhere else,” Melindra says. “They only grow in the sacred forests, which are all territories of the golden fox.”

  “Oh, no!” Hadrik shouts. “No way! We only just got out of there a few days ago, and now we need to go back? What is wrong with these organizers? It’s like they don’t want anyone to actually win this damn tournament!”

  “So,” Kate says, “if you’re not going to give us a pinecone, and you aren’t volunteering to guide us through the sacred forests either, what is it that you are trying to offer us, exactly?”

  “Information!” Melindra says, smiling. “There is a device that has been made specifically to resonate with these pinecones, and it can make them glow without requiring a high amount of magical power, as long as you are close enough to them. It is a very rare device, but I know someone who has it, and I can lead you to them, after you help me with my goal. I can’t tell you who this person is, but I am quite certain that I can convince them to lend you the device for a few days, which should be more than enough for you to find a pinecone.”

  “Why can’t you tell us who this person is?” I say. “Is it someone we know?”

  “I very much doubt that any of you have met this person before,” Melindra says. “The reason why I can’t divulge their identity is because they’ve specifically asked me to keep it a secret, if I ever need to mention them in a discussion. I wouldn’t read too much into it if I were you. They’re just the more secretive type. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Right…” I say.

  “So, do we have a deal, then?” Melindra asks us.

  “I’m sorry, Melindra,” Daren says, “but I can’t just go around murdering people for the sole purpose of furthering my own goals. Even if my goal is ultimately to help the entire world, I cannot just kill a man for the simple reason that you want him dead.”

  “So it is a moral justification that you seek?” Melindra asks, with a look of curiosity in her eyes. “Well what if I tell you, then, that the person I want assassinated is a tyrant that has killed thousands of innocent people, and who is ruling his kingdom through fear and intimidation? Would that help to change your mind?”

  “Who are you talking about, exactly?” Kate asks.

  “Why, it’s the brother of the man that you’ve only just killed a few days ago!” Melindra says. “The king of Ollendor.”

  “You want us to assassinate one of the kings of Varathia?” Hadrik asks, shocked. “Are you out of your mind? We’ve been put in an arena just for killing a noble, and you now want us to kill a king?”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Melindra says. “Ollendor never participated in the organization of this tournament. Nobody wants to talk to them. Even Golmyck is less hated by the other kings than the king of Ollendor. I assure you that none of the organizers would bat an eye if you were to raise a ruckus in his kingdom. The only reason why they threatened you with your disqualification from the mage tournament after killing the earl of Ollendor was because you were within the borders of Thilias when you murdered him. If you were to start going on a rampage in Ollendor, I very much doubt that anyone would give a damn. Well, except for the local authorities, of course.”

  “I’m uh… not sure what to say about this,” I say.

  “She’s telling the truth,” Leila writes. “Ollendor is something of a rogue kingdom these days. Neither the lessathi nor the other kings have any influence anymore on what happens within their borders. Everyone pretty much ignores them, and many of the kingdoms have already kicked their ambassadors out of their t
erritories. This is why my father went there, after he escaped from Thilias. Because it’s a kingdom where nobody would be able to find him.”

  “See?” Melindra tells us, after she’s done reading Leila’s text. “There’s nothing to worry about!”

  “But isn’t Ollendor really far away?” Daren says. “And then you also have to lead us to your friend that has the pinecone detector. That sounds like a lot of time wasted, when we’re already three days behind every other participant of the tournament.”

  “So, what?” Melindra says. “It’s not like anyone’s made any progress since the objectives were announced. Nobody has any idea that the pinecones can only be found in the sacred forests. In fact, they are avoiding the fox’s territories like the plague, because they don’t want to deal with her, so the chances of them finding even one pinecone in the following week are almost nonexistent. Even when they’ll finally figure out what they need to do, they’ll still need to go against the golden fox. Without using a detector, I can’t even imagine how they’d be able to sneak by unnoticed long enough to manage to test every pinecone by hand, so they will need to engage the fox and her followers directly, and I think you can imagine how that will go for them.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m still not buying this,” Kate says. “You are a stillwater. Why would you need our help to assassinate a king?”

  “Because I came to Varathia as a tournament participant!” Melindra says. “It was the only way I could think of to get back to this place after that blasted king of Ollendor exiled me! But now the tournament’s spell is preventing me from hurting any of the locals, so I’ve been stuck here since day one, trying to find someone who can do the job in my place.”

  “And what guarantee do we have that you’ll fulfill your promise, once we’ve completed our task?” Daren asks. “Hell, what guarantee do we even have that you won’t start acting like Eiden, and try killing us off for fun, in the middle of our journey? We already know that you’ve worked with him in the past.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud!” Melindra shouts, exasperated. “If you’re so worried about my motives, then why don’t you force me to take an oath? You’re an enchanter, aren’t you? Just make me swear that I’ll fulfill my end of the bargain and that I won’t try to hurt you, and we can be done with this.”

  “An enchanter’s oath?” Daren asks her. “Are you serious? You do know that you’ll die if you break such an oath, right?”

  “Yes, of course I know that!” Melindra says.

  “And you would want us to also make an oath that we won’t bring harm to you during our journey?” Daren asks.

  “Oh, no, you don’t need to do that,” Melindra says. “It’s not like you could do anything against me, anyway.”

  “Huh…” Daren says.

  He then turns towards us.

  “What do you guys think?” Daren asks us. “Leaving aside her mildly infuriating, condescending remark from earlier, I’d say her deal is actually beginning to not sound so bad, all things considered. At the very least, I’m not getting the feeling that she’s trying to cheat us, and we’ll also get to save a kingdom in the process.”

  “Well…” Hadrik says. “I can’t say that toppling a kingdom is something I’ve had the opportunity of doing before, and it would also make for a pretty good story when I’m out drinking in taverns… It certainly sounds more fun than looking for pinecones, that’s for sure!”

  “I’ll admit that if we take everything she said into consideration,” Kate says, “her way of doing things may actually give us an advantage over the other participants, especially since the contest seems to have been rigged from the very beginning to only allow the four sages to move on to the next round.”

  “Yeah, what’s up with that, anyway?” Hadrik says. “I can’t say that I was aiming to win the tournament, but this is still making me pretty pissed. Why did they even invite the other mages, if they weren’t planning to give them a fair chance? Was it all just for show?”

  “You are forgetting,” Illuna says, “that the condition for passing this round is to bring the pinecones to the city of Galamir. This means that the sages can still be attacked on their way to the city, and the pinecones can be stolen from them. So, if you are strong or resourceful enough to be able to take an item from a sage, you can still pass to the next round, even if you don’t have sufficient power to make the pinecone glow. Plus, you also have the option to join the team of one of the sages, if they accept you. In other words, there’s more than one way to pass this round, but they all require dealing with the sages somehow. If you want to avoid the sages, then the pinecone detector will likely be your best option.”

  “Well, I don’t know about you guys,” I say, “but I’m personally looking forward to causing a little mayhem in the homelands of the ambassador of Ollendor. It would feel pretty good to finally get some payback after all he’s put us through in the arena. And besides, Ollendor is practically going to become Leila’s new home, soon, so we may as well do some cleaning up before she moves in.”

  Leila looks a little taken aback by my last comment. I think this is the first time when she actually realizes that she won’t need to part ways with us, now that the arena is over.

  “You will be coming with us to Ollendor, right?” I ask her.

  “Yes!” Leila writes, smiling happily. “Yes, of course!”

  “Well, if everyone’s on board with this,” Daren says, “then we’ll get started with the enchanter’s oath right away. Does anyone have any suggestions for things that we should not forget to include in this oath? So far, Melindra has agreed to vow that she won’t cause any harm to us, and that she won’t back out of the deal after we’ve fulfilled our end of the bargain, but maybe there’s something else we need to add, to make sure that the deal is made in good faith?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Melindra should swear that her friend with the device won’t try to hurt us, either.”

  “Good thinking!” Daren says. “The fact that she won’t hurt us herself is meaningless if she’s just planning to lead us into a trap.”

  “Uh…” Melindra says. “I’m not sure how much I can vouch for my ‘friend’, but what I could do is to guarantee that I won’t let them bring any harm to you, and we could also make it so that our deal will not be considered done until I leave you somewhere safe, with the device in your arms.”

  “Sounds good,” Daren says.

  Once Daren makes sure that nobody else has any suggestions, he takes out his sword, and he lightly cuts one of the fingers from Melindra’s left hand with it. Melindra then sprinkles some of the blood dripping from her finger on top of the sword, and the weapon begins to shine brightly, with a white light.

  “Is it working?” Melindra says. “Can I say the oath?”

  “Yes, the spell is working,” Daren says. “You may begin.”

  “Okay,” Melindra says. “So, first of all, I swear that I’m not going to harm any of you.”

  “You… do know how this works, right?…” Daren tells her. “If you don’t specify a duration, the oath becomes life-binding. If I accept your vow like this, you won’t be able to harm us for the rest of your life!”

  “Listen,” Melindra says, while pointing her finger at Daren. “If we’re all just going to keep doubting each other, we won’t get anywhere. Just accept the vow, will you?”

  “Well… okay, I guess…” Daren says, as he puts one of his hands over the sword, and the white light begins to flicker.

  “Wait, wait, hold on!” Melindra says.

  “Seriously?” Daren says. “I barely managed to cancel the vow in time. What is it?”

  “Can I change the word ‘harm’ to ‘inflict serious injuries’?” Melindra says. “I wouldn’t want to get killed for patting someone on the back.”

  “This is an enchanter’s oath!” Daren says. “When you say harm, it’s going to actually mean harm. Patting someone on the back or smacking them over the head is out of the question. And besides, y
ou’ll get ample warning if the spell considers that you are crossing the line. You won’t be able to trigger it accidentally.”

  “Oh,” Melindra says. “Well, in that case, carry on.”

  As soon as Daren is done confirming the first vow, he urges Melindra to continue with her second vow.

  “Okay, uh…” Melindra says. “I swear that as soon as you kill the king of Ollendor, I will begin leading you towards the person who has the pinecone detector that I told you about earlier, and I will not take any breaks unless you specifically ask me to.”

  “That’s not enough,” Daren says. “You also need to swear that as soon as you’re done leading us to this person, you will personally guarantee that they lend us the device, and that the deal will not be considered over until this device is actually in our hands.”

  “Fine,” Melindra says. “I swear it.”

  Daren moves his hand over the sword again, confirming Melindra’s second vow.

  “For your third, and final vow,” Daren says, “do you swear that you will guarantee our safety from your friend with the device or any of their associates if they try to attack us, and that our deal will not be over until you’ve left us somewhere safe, with the pinecone detector in our arms?”

  “Yes, I swear,” Melindra says.

  Daren moves his hand over the sword one last time, and then the light from the sword slowly begins to fade, until his weapon returns to normal.

  “Is that it?” Melindra asks. “Are we done?”

  “Yes,” Daren says. “The oath is done.”

  “Perfect!” Melindra says, regaining her smile. “So I’m guessing that your team will consist of you, the ice mage, the girl with the banshee, the giant shapeshifting as a dwarf, and…”

  Melindra stops suddenly, just as she was about to point towards me, and then she starts simply staring at me, without saying anything.

  “The dwarf was a giant?…” Leila writes, surprised, but we are all too focused on the stillwater girl to pay attention to her writing.

  Melindra starts heading towards me, with her eyebrows furrowed in concentration, and she stops less than one foot away from me, studying me closely.