Magium

by Chris Michael Wilson

  “So…” I say to Melindra, as we travel through the area filled with craters and fallen trees caused by the earlier tornado. “Do you still remember our discussion from yesterday? You were just about to tell us how stillwaters are created, but then we got sidetracked, and we never really got back to our initial conversation afterwards. Shall we continue where we left off?”

  “That is a lie, and you know it,” Melindra says. “I never said I would tell you anything about how you can become a stillwater.”

  “Okay, you never said you would… but you will tell us, right?” I say.

  “No,” Melindra says.

  “Why not?” I say.

  “Because Eiden decided after the still winter that we should keep what happened to us a secret,” Melindra says. “He was worried that if people found out how we became stillwaters, certain individuals might try to exploit that knowledge for their own benefit.”

  “Wait,” Hadrik says. “Are you saying that all the stillwaters got created during the still winter?”

  “Sort of,” Melindra says. “At any rate, I think it would be very unlikely for you to meet any stillwaters that are younger than six hundred years old.”

  “Does this mean that all stillwaters are immortal?” Kate asks.

  “No, not immortal!” Melindra says. “We can be killed just fine. It’s just that we stopped aging as soon as we turned into stillwaters. We also became sterile, and mostly immune to diseases, but that’s beside the point.”

  “So, none of the stillwaters can have kids?” Hadrik says.

  “Yes, that’s what I just said,” Melindra says.

  “But where are all the other stillwaters?” Daren says.

  “Dead, most likely,” Melindra says. “Most of them got killed by Eiden, but there were also some of them that went wild and got hunted down by various mercenaries. I think there may have been others I don’t remember, but either way, I haven’t met other stillwaters aside from Eiden in ages. I heard he’s been travelling around the world for a while, so I’m guessing that most legends you know about stillwaters were actually about him.”

  “Did you just say that Eiden killed most of the other stillwaters?” Daren says. “Why did he do that? And when?”

  “Well…” Melindra says. “To be quite honest, I think I may have already said too much on this subject. If you want to know more, you’ll have to ask Eiden directly.”

  “Could you at least tell us how you met Eiden, and what is your affiliation with him?” Kate asks. “Are you related by any chance?”

  “Oh, no, we’re not related,” Melindra says.

  “Ex-lovers, then?” Hadrik asks.

  “Not really,” Melindra says.

  “Then why did Arraka say that you were trailing behind him and the fox during the still winter?” Kate says.

  “Well,” Melindra says, “we sort of became friends while he was being imprisoned. Actually, we were more like trading partners than friends, but I guess we also became friends, afterwards.”

  “Was this before the still winter?” I say. “What was he being imprisoned for?”

  “Yes, it was before the still winter,” Melindra says. “I don’t know what he was being imprisoned for. He never told me.”

  “But how did he manage to get himself imprisoned when he has all these powers?” I say.

  “He wasn’t a stillwater back then,” Melindra says.

  “But he was still a mage, right?” Hadrik asks. “How were they keeping his powers in check? Were they using an anti-magic or paralysis cell?”

  “No, it was a regular cell,” Melindra says.

  “Was Eiden wearing some sort of collar while he was in his cell?” Kate says.

  “Hmm…” Melindra says. “I’m pretty sure that he wasn’t wearing any sort of collar back then.”

  “Then how did they manage to trap him?” Kate asks. “And who was it that captured him?”

  “Uh…” Melindra says. “I really don’t think I should be talking about this.”

  “Why not?” Kate says. “Did Eiden ask you not to talk about it?”

  “Something of the sort, yes,” Melindra says.

  “What about that ‘trading partners’ thing you mentioned earlier?” Hadrik says. “Can you talk about that?”

  “I suppose…” Melindra says. “See, when I was tasked with cleaning the prison corridors, I would often notice this large pile of rocks in one corner of Eiden’s cell, and each of those rocks were so marvelously unique in their shapes, sizes and compositions that I could barely take my eyes off them. I wasn’t sure how I could convince Eiden to give them to me, but once I saw those rocks, I knew that I needed to have them. So I kept coming back to Eiden’s cell, and I kept starting conversations with him every day, in the hopes that I’d find out something that he needed from outside his cell, so that I could trade it to him in exchange for some of his rocks.”

  “You wanted to make a trade with him for some rocks?…” Daren asks. “Couldn’t you just have asked him for them?”

  “Well, obviously, I could have just asked him for them!” Melindra says. “But who would be stupid enough to give them away for free?”

  “But they’re—” Daren starts to say, but he interrupts himself mid-sentence. “Ugh… you know what? You’re right. My mistake. Please, continue.”

  “Thank you!” Melindra says. “So, anyway, after several conversations with Eiden, I found out that the food they were serving him was of extremely poor quality. Since I was also in charge of serving dishes, and I had access to the kitchen, I offered to sneak some better food into his cell, every once in a while, in exchange for certain rocks from the pile in his corner. At first, he thought that I wasn’t being serious, and he accepted the trade, somewhat in jest. But when he actually saw me bring him the food, while holding out my hand, waiting for my hard earned prize, he looked rather shocked. I had to point several times towards the rock that I wanted before he actually gave it to me. He also seemed to be amused every time I referred to our bargains as even trades, but I’m not sure exactly why. He never told me the reason.”

  As Melindra talks, I suddenly remember my first conversation with Eiden, when I also offered him my own version of an ‘even trade’. After hearing this story, I think I’m starting to understand a bit better why he burst out laughing like that when I made my proposition to him.

  “You collect rocks?” Flower says, all of a sudden. “Do you still have them with you?”

  “Why, of course!” Melindra says. “I always carry them with me. My collection has gotten a lot larger in the past six hundred years, but I still have those original rocks that I started my collection with here in my backpack. Do you want to see them?”

  “Yes!” Flower says, excited. “I’d love to!”

  “Well, okay, but just so you know, I won’t be slowing down my pace,” Melindra says. “If you want to see them, you’ll have to join my side, and I’ll show them to you as we walk.”

  “Of course!” Flower says, as she rushes by Melindra’s side.

  The stillwater girl then takes off her backpack, and she begins to take out her rocks one by one, handing them over to Flower so she can get a good look at them, and then putting them back inside when she’s done. As I was suspecting, none of the rocks seem to have any real marketable value, and they would look completely worthless to anyone else, but that still doesn’t seem to stop Flower from marveling at every one of the rocks, while Melindra proudly explains to her the features that made her consider the stones to be worthy of her collection, making sure to also give her a brief summary of where she found each of them.

  While Melindra and Flower are having their discussion, Daren gives the rest of us a signal, and we all slow down a bit to have a talk, outside of Melindra’s hearing range, while still following her.

  “So, what do you all think about Melindra so far?” Daren whispers, while making sure that Melindra isn’t paying attention to us. “Do you think that she might be working with Eiden?”


  “You mean, like an informant?” I say. “I don’t know… I’d say the chances of that are pretty slim.”

  “Yeah, Daren, I think you’re overreacting,” Hadrik says. “We already knew that she was friends with Eiden when we took her deal. There’s no need to doubt her every step of the way.”

  “You’re all looking at this the wrong way,” Kate says. “It doesn’t matter if she’s trustworthy or not. As long as we don’t discuss any crucial information while she’s around, we’ll be fine.”

  “It does matter, damn it!” Daren says. “If we’re all just going to lag behind like this every time we need to discuss something important, it will look suspicious as hell!”

  “So what?” Kate says. “Why would we care if she thinks we’re suspicious?”

  “Because she’s a member of the team!” Daren says.

  “Is she?” Kate says, raising an eyebrow.

  “Listen,” Daren says. “My question was whether we should trust her or not. If you’re just going to say we should keep everything hidden from her, then it’s the same as saying that—”

  “You know,” Melindra says, as she sees us all huddled up together, far behind her and Flower, “if you’re going to talk about me behind my back, you could at least try to do it in a less obvious way…”

  “What?” Daren says, in a painfully obvious fake tone. “No, you’ve got it all wrong! We weren’t talking about you! We were talking about… err… Flower!”

  “You were?” Flower says, looking worried.

  “Hey, nice save, Daren!” I say, as I pat him hard on the back. “I don’t see how anyone could still think that we’re being suspicious after a well thought-out explanation like that!”

  “Shut up,” Daren mumbles, but he doesn’t say anything else.

  “Listen,” Melindra says, “if you all want to have your own private conversations about strategies and whatnot, it’s fine, but could you at least wait until we make camp or take a break somewhere? It’s annoying to have to keep a lookout for you, so you don’t get lost, while I’m also monitoring the monsters that are trying to ambush us.”

  “There are monsters trying to ambush us?” I say, while I quickly take off my backpack, and pull out my crossbow. “Damn it, Arraka, you had one job!”

  “My ‘job’ was to tell you about invisible enemies, jackass,” Arraka says. “None of these enemies are invisible. What kind of morons are you that you can’t even tell when monsters are laying an ambush for you, anyway?”

  “What type of monsters are we talking about?” Kate says. “And how many? They’re too far away for me to be able to get a read on them with my magical sense.”

  “Oh, they’re actually not that far away,” Melindra says. “But they are all suppressing their magical auras, so it’s understandable that you can’t sense them approaching. I think there are about five orcs, two ogres, and two goblins. The goblins are both mages, but the others seem to be just warriors. You should be able to take them out without much trouble.”

  “ ‘You’ ?” Daren asks. “Don’t you mean ‘we’? As in ‘we’, the group of people that are all travelling together, who will also be fighting these monsters together, as a team?”

  “What?” Melindra says. “Of course not! Don’t be ridiculous. What would be the use of bringing you all the way to Ollendor with me if you can’t even beat a few monsters by yourselves? Do you have any idea what good defenses they have in that city? How else do you think their king could afford to piss off every other kingdom in Varathia without getting killed off by now?”

  “But what if the monsters kill us before we get there?” Daren says.

  “Then I’d have to find somebody else to help me,” Melindra says. “Someone who could kill off a few orcs without complaining so much. Listen, it’s just a few monsters. It’s not the end of the world. The ice mage could probably take them all out by herself. The little girl too. Even the half-lessathi could probably handle them if he invested in the right stats.”

  “We have names, you know…” Daren says.

  “I don’t know your names,” Melindra says. “And besides, why would I need to know them? You’re all distinguishable enough by your races and specializations that I don’t need to bother to learn them.”

  “You’re trying really hard to get on our nerves, aren’t you?” Daren says.

  “Why do you say that?” Melindra asks, with a genuinely puzzled expression on her face.

  “Be quiet!” Kate says. “I can hear the ogres approaching from behind us. I think the orcs started advancing as well. We should be seeing them in front of us soon.”

  “Wow, that’s impressive!” Melindra says. “You can tell all that just from the sound of their footsteps? How can you tell the difference? Is it because ogres are bigger and heavier than orcs?”

  “I said be quiet!” Kate says. “If you’re not going to be useful, then at least stay out of our way, and don’t distract us with your talking.”

  “How cold!” Melindra says. “I’m starting to wonder if there isn’t actually some truth behind those myths which claim that there is a direct correlation between a mage’s personality and their elemental affinity!”

  “Do you ever shut up?” Kate says.

  She then suddenly conjures a shield made of ice in her hand, and she places it in front of her, just in time to block an arrow that came shooting straight for her.

  “For Tyrath!” shouts an orc from behind the trees, in the Common language, as he and four of his companions come rushing towards us, while roaring loudly, in unison.

  All of them are green-skinned, tall as Daren, with muscular physiques, pig-like faces and fangs coming out of their mouths, just as one would expect most orcs to look like, but these ones are armed to the teeth. One of them is wielding two flaming double-edged battleaxes in his hands, another one is wielding a two-handed broadsword that is almost as big as him, and the other three are all using maces and shields that appear to be made from high quality metal.

  The orc with the flaming axes seems to be the leader of the group. He is the one that shouted the first battle cry, and all of the other orcs followed his directions, as he led the charge towards us, and as he clashed directly with Daren.

  “Watch out!” we see Leila’s writing, in large blue letters, in front of us. “They’re one of the dragon’s elite squads! Do not take them lightly!”

  She then dashes behind one of the orcs that is less heavily armored, and she stabs him in the back with both her daggers. The orc roars, and he turns around, swinging his mace at her. His movements are much too slow for Leila, however, so she quickly dashes back, out of his reach, and tries to attack him again.

  “Leila, behind you!” Kate shouts, as another one of the orcs tries to position himself behind Leila, in order to strike.

  Kate then attempts to impale the monster with a spike made of ice that appears from the ground, in front of him. The orc manages to smash the icy spike with his enchanted mace, but he loses his momentum, and doesn’t get to attack Leila anymore, who quickly slides out of his reach.

  “I’ll take the ogres,” Hadrik says, as he rushes towards the two ogres that were trying to jump us from behind.

  In the meantime, Flower engulfs one of the orcs in a pillar of fire, but he walks out of it completely unscathed, thanks to his anti-magic armor, and he starts running towards her, with his broadsword at the ready.

  “Damn it!” Flower says, as she jumps out of the orc’s way and rolls on the ground.

  Once I get a clear shot of the orc that attacked Flower, I aim my crossbow for the narrow slit in his helm, and I pull the trigger. My aim was a little off, and the crossbow bolt didn’t go exactly where I wanted, but it still hit the monster’s head, and due to the power behind the shot, it passed right through the orc’s helmet and through his skull, making him stop his movements and drop to the ground like a log.

  As I make sure that the orc is dead, I suddenly realize that the two goblin mages that Melindr
a talked about earlier have still not made their appearance. Should I go look for them?

  If I stay here, I’m probably not going to get much use out of this crossbow against those three orcs using shields, and I’d rather not risk hitting Daren and Hadrik by trying to attack the monsters that they’re already busy fighting.

  I could fight the orcs at close range, but would it be a good idea to let those mages unchecked? I’m going to have to think carefully about this.

  As I place the crossbow in my backpack, I take a quick look at the battlefield to assess the current situation. Daren seems to have his hands full, fighting the orc captain with the flaming axes. The orc appears to have completely thrown away his defense, and he is focusing on delivering relentless attacks, one after the other, in order to not give Daren the chance to retaliate. Hadrik is still fighting the ogres behind us, and from what I can see, they are giving him just as much trouble as the ogre captain from the fort, so he’ll probably still be busy with them for a while.

  In the meantime, Leila is fighting three orcs at once, in an attempt to keep them away from our spell casters, while Kate, Flower and Illuna are all struggling to find ways to penetrate the orcs’ anti-magic armor.

  “I can’t believe you people!” Arraka shouts, from her amulet, as Flower tries to aim a fireball in a way that would not hit Leila, along with the orcs. “You were fighting the dragon head-on, yesterday, but now you can’t deal with a few of his lowly mooks? Are a bunch of anti-magic armors really all it takes to throw you into disarray?”

  “Yeah, I’ll have to admit that I’m a bit disappointed, here,” Melindra says, as she calmly looks around her, at all the people who are fighting for their lives. “If this is how these people handle a well-organized team of reasonably-skilled combatants, I shudder to think how they will handle Ollendor’s numerous teams of mercenaries.”

  Melindra’s monologue appears to have caught the attention of one of the orcs that was fighting Leila, because he is now heading directly for the stillwater girl, with his mace at the ready. As soon as he reaches her, the orc swings his mace hard towards her, in an attempt to bash her head in, but the girl evades his strike by floating a few inches above the ground, while pushing herself away from him with a small burst of air from the palms of her hands.