The Sorceress: An Epic Fantasy Saga (Origins Book 3)

by James Eggebeen

  Garlath leaned in to Zhimosom. “You have experienced these things? Have you not?”

  “Well ... we have ...”

  “Of course you have. That means you two need to learn together. You’re going to be working magic together for the rest of your lives.”

  “Rest of our lives?” Rotiaqua asked this time. There was a spark in her eye.

  “The rest of your lives. You are paired. Your life force is one. Your fates are intertwined and your destiny is one.”

  “And you will teach us?” Zhimosom asked. “Why?”

  “It’s dangerous for a wizard to stumble around trying to figure out how magic works all on their own. Those that have gone before you have learned things you will need to know. Like how to keep yourselves and those around you safe. I can teach you enough that you won’t destroy the town or kill a host of innocent folk while you’re learning. Besides,” he added. “I can use some help around here.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small vial full of rose-colored liquid. “While you’re getting your things, take this to the innkeeper. Tell him Garlath says to take two drops in his morning tea. No more!”

  Zhimosom pocketed the vial. “What’s this for? Why do you want me to take it to him?”

  “You’re going that way. This is the potion for his gout. His joints get sore. It’s a tea brewed from meadowsweet and willow bark. It helps keep his gout under control. If he’d take my advice and stop drinking mead, he’d be even better off.”

  Garlath stood up. “Off with you, then. Go get your belongings and come straight back.”

  Garlath looked at Rotiaqua. “Wait just a moment.” He knelt before her and passed his hands over her boots. They shimmered and transformed from the fine leather work of the castle into the rough and sturdy work on display in the shop below.

  “There,” he said. “They’re still the same on the inside, but I spelled them to appear more like what you would be able to afford.”

  29

  Zhimosom and Rotiaqua rushed back to the Barbarian Arms to retrieve their meager possessions. On the way back to Garlath’s, Zhimosom paused beneath the shade of an awning and set his pack down. “What was all that about pairing?” he asked.

  “You know our magic is joined. And not just ours,” Rotiaqua said. “It’s why we had to let Sulrad go. I thought it was uncommon, but perhaps it’s not. He seems to think it’s special, but also not unheard of.”

  “But the rest of our lives?” Zhimosom asked.

  Rotiaqua smiled.

  She reached up and put her arm around his shoulder.

  “What’s the matter? Still afraid of me?”

  “No ... Not really ... But ...” Zhimosom stammered.

  “You can’t still be afraid of being locked in the stocks, can you?”

  “No ... but you’re still royalty ... and you’re older than me ...” Zhimosom suppressed a shiver.

  Rotiaqua released him and turned him to face her. She had to crane her neck to look up at him. “Look at you. You’ve grown so much since we first met. I used to be taller than you. It doesn’t matter that I’m older than you, and I’m no longer royalty.” She turned him to face the street and pushed. “Let’s get back to the wizard. He can probably explain all this to us.”

  Zhimosom walked ahead of her all the way to the wizard’s abode, trying to avoid any further conversation. Out on the road, he was the leader. He foraged. He found work. He knew how to live off the land. She relied on him. She didn’t seem like a baron’s daughter while they were on the road, but in the city, it was different. She was more confident. She’d taken on an air of someone who belonged in the castle. It intimidated Zhimosom. Made him uneasy. He didn’t know how to explain it to her; he just wished they could get out of the city and back to the way things were on the road.

  When they reached the wizard’s rooms, Zhimosom climbed the stairs and knocked on the door.

  It opened by itself.

  “Come on in.” Garlath shouted from the back. He ignored them as they entered, focused on mixing ingredients for a potion. When he finished, he swept aside the beaded curtain and stepped into the main room. He wore a thick leather apron splashed with stains that looked to be ancient.

  He surveyed Zhimosom and Rotiaqua’s things. “Travel light, don’t you?”

  “We left in a hurry.” Zhimosom set the pack on the floor beside the table.

  “I have a room here for you, as I said, but you’ll have to clean it out first, though.”

  “We’re not afraid of work,” Zhimosom said.

  “Not work. Magic.” Garlath showed them to a room that was piled high with refuse. Bits and pieces of leather, cloth, dead branches, dried leaves, and broken glass vials and bottles filled it to ankle height.

  Zhimosom sighed.

  It would take most of the day to clear it out.

  “Where should we put all of this?” Zhimosom asked.

  “Where should you put it?” Garlath asked. “I should think nowhere would suffice, wouldn’t you?”

  “Nowhere? Where is nowhere?”

  “Exactly.” Garlath slapped Zhimosom on the shoulder and turned back to his potions, leaving him to wonder.

  “What do you think he meant?” Zhimosom asked Rotiaqua. He examined at the refuse piled in the room, pulled out a dried branch, and examined it.

  “He said we should use magic.” Rotiaqua took the branch from Zhimosom and held it in her hand. He felt the power she drew on as the branch vanished.

  “Nowhere,” she proclaimed, reaching for more.

  Perhaps this wasn’t going to be as difficult as he’d first thought. Zhimosom joined her in the effort, picking a piece of debris from the floor and imagining it gone. With effort, he could make the smaller pieces of wood vanish, but not glass or metal. By the time they had cleared a small section of the room, he was exhausted. He was lightheaded and tired. He was hungry, even though he had just eaten. Magic, it appeared, was hard work.

  He sat down on the floor and leaned against the wall.

  Rotiaqua dropped into position next to him.

  She looked no better off than he was.

  “Something wrong?” Garlath appeared in the doorway, looking down at the two of them.

  “I’m exhausted and we’ve hardly made much of a start,” Zhimosom complained.

  “How are you doing it?”

  “We are making the refuse go nowhere,” Rotiaqua answered.

  “Where?”

  “Nowhere,” Zhimosom explained. “That’s where we’re sending the refuse ... It’s exhausting.”

  “You’re sending it?” Garlath crossed his arms and scowled at Zhimosom. “Why are you sending it away?”

  “You said to get rid of it. Send it nowhere.”

  “You’re trying to send it nowhere,” he said. “Nowhere is a long way from here. It takes a lot of energy to do that.”

  “I’m learning that.” Zhimosom sighed.

  “Good. That’s your first lesson.” Garlath sorted through the refuse pile and pulled out a heavy piece of scrap wood. He handed it to Zhimosom.

  “Here. Turn this into nothing. Feel the energy that is bound within it. It can be released to power the spell needed to dispose of it. If you burn it, you release the same energy. Separate the energy from the thing and it will cease to exist.”

  Zhimosom focused on it. He felt the energy bound inside it. He reached for it, trying to separate it from the wood. It was hard to do at first, almost as if the object fought him. Finally, he found it. A thread of its energy was loose, dangling from the scrap, just asking to be tugged.

  He reached out and pulled at the thread.

  There was a loud bang. The power of the blast hit him in the chest. It was as if someone had kicked him. Hard.

  He struggled to breathe as he recovered his senses.

  “Not bad for a first effort. You should contain the energy, though. Maybe release it a little slower.” Garlath reached for another piece of refuse. He handed Zhi
mosom a small bottle this time.

  “Try it again, but this time, draw the energy into a wall around the object. Don’t just free it. Sort of like a shield, but use the object’s energy to drive it.”

  Zhimosom visualized the bottle. He felt the energy it contained. He pulled it and separated it from the bottle, just as he had done with the wood. It was harder to grasp the energy, but he soon felt it draw away. This time, instead of tugging at the thread, he gently pulled on it, slowly extracting it from the bottle, winding it in a mesh that encircled the object. The power was not as strong as that which he had extracted from the wood earlier, but it was there nonetheless. He embraced it, pulling it toward him as it unraveled from the bottle.

  The energy became insubstantial as the thread faded out to nothingness.

  The bottle was gone.

  “That’s better,” Garlath said. “Wood was easier because it once contained life force. The bottle only contained the energy used to create it. It was never alive.”

  Garlath held out his hands. “This is the lesson. Magic is hard. It takes energy and you only have so much. You have to recharge between spells or you will deplete your energy stores completely. When that happens, it’s no different from physical exhaustion. You get tired, dizzy, and hungry. When you do what I just showed you, it takes as much energy to drive the spell as you take from the thing you made vanish. You can accomplish the task, but nothing more. Magic has its price.”

  Garlath reached down to help Zhimosom up off of the floor. “I’ve prepared a meal for you. It will make you feel better. While you eat, you can think about what you’ve learned.”

  Zhimosom stood up on unsteady legs. He reached down to give Rotiaqua a hand up and then staggered to the table. He dropped heavily into a chair. “We could have used that lesson earlier today.”

  “You wouldn’t have learned it nearly as well if I’d told you earlier. This way, you’ll remember it a long time.”

  He slid a large tray laden with fowl meat and vegetables in front of them and took a seat.

  As they ate, Garlath told them what was required of a wizard in training. They would learn their lessons, but they were also expected to practice magic and to serve others. Wizards were to serve the community, he told them. It was why they had been blessed with magic in the first place.

  “Where does magic come from?” Zhimosom asked. “Why do some people have it and others not?”

  “Everyone has it.” Garlath served himself a plate heaped full of vegetables and meat. “Not everyone has the same level, though. Some are born with more than others.”

  “Born with it?” Zhimosom asked. He had not been born with magic. It came on around his fourteenth summer. He had never experienced any magical abilities before then.

  “You were born with it. It just didn’t awaken until about your fourteenth summer. Am I right?”

  “Yes. That’s about right.”

  “And you. Sixteen?” he asked Rotiaqua.

  “How did you know?”

  “That’s the age when the magic awakens. We don’t know why, but before then, it rarely manifests.”

  “How did yours start?” Garlath asked Zhimosom.

  “Fire. I started making fire when I got bored.”

  “That must have pleased your family.” Garlath smiled.

  “My father never liked it. My mother was killed in a fire when I was young.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. What happened to her?”

  “The baron’s men set fire to our house when my father was unable to pay his tribute.”

  Zhimosom glanced at Rotiaqua. He had never told her that it was her father’s men who had killed his mother. She looked ashamed, and Zhimosom felt bad for embarrassing her. He should have lied.

  “My father was killed in the war,” he continued. “I was only fourteen summers old. I’ve been on my own since.”

  “Your father was a soldier?”

  “A retired soldier. He was a farmer when the king’s troops invaded our homestead. They killed everyone around as a warning to the baron.”

  Rotiaqua reached out and put her hand on his. “I’m sorry. I never knew.”

  “It was not your fault,” he said. “It was your father’s, and the king’s. When nobles fight, commoners die.”

  “Not just commoners,” Rotiaqua said. “I’ve lost relatives in the wars too.”

  “How about you?” Garlath asked Rotiaqua. “How did it start for you?”

  “When I was sixteen summers, I started to have dreams. Dreams about things that came true. I would sit in front of the fire and dream, just let it flicker and watch the flames. I would see things in the fire. Things that came true later.”

  “So tell me, what led you here?” Garlath asked.

  “A dragon,” Zhimosom replied. “One evening, we were sitting on the banks of a river trying to decide on our destination and a dragon spoke to us. It told us to come to Tustow and find a wizard.”

  “A dragon?” Garlath stood up so quickly that his chair tipped over. “A dragon led you here?”

  “Yes.” Zhimosom replied. “A dragon.”

  Garlath waved his hand over their half-finished meal. “Don’t bother with that. We have to leave.” He turned for the door. “Now.”

  30

  Garlath had shown such a drastic change in attitude, Rotiaqua wondered what had happened. He had been setting up to tutor them in magic and seemed content to show them how magic operated and how they could control it, then suddenly, they were off. The mere mention of dragons had completely changed his demeanor. She struggled to keep pace as she followed closely behind Garlath and Zhimosom as they wound their way through the streets and alleys. She was still adjusting to the smell of a new city. The spices used in most dishes in Tustow all seemed to be derived from bitter and hot peppers with a hint of something sweet she had yet to identify. The weather was a touch hot even for the late fall and she sweated more than she ever had in her life. It was miserable, but the prospect of meeting the wizard the dragon had spoken of kept her rushing along. She trailed Garlath, fearful of being left behind even as Zhimosom seemed to have little trouble. The wizard moved so quickly at times, she was certain he had forgotten that she was following.

  Not far outside the city, they came across a rock outcropping that stood stark against the afternoon sky. Cut into the rock was a doorway, short and narrow. Strange symbols were carved into the mantle and side posts. Short strokes intersected one another at odd angles, forming complex figures that she had learned represented the wizards’ script. She even knew how to read a few of them, but most were beyond her learning.

  The door, set in the elaborately carved frame by contrast, was nondescript, unadorned. Unpainted wood planks were held together with strips of discarded leather without a care to aesthetics. The whole thing looked worn and weathered, as if the place itself was unused or abandoned.

  Garlath knocked on the door several times and then drew it open.

  He motioned Rotiaqua and Zhimosom to follow him into the gloomy interior.

  “Em’hin! Em’hin! You have visitors,” he called out.

  From off in the dark, the voice of an old man replied, “Bring them.”

  So frail was he that Rotiaqua’s could barely make out his words.

  “He’s awake,” Garlath whispered as they entered. “That’s a good sign.”

  They stepped into a large room filled with carvings of dragons. Big and small. They decorated everything. On the shelves sat figurines of dragons, while the shelf supports themselves were carved in the likeness of dragons. They curled around gnarled tree trunks, their tails and claws set out in intricate detail.

  A chair sat before the fire. It was carved in the likeness of a dragon, with wings slightly spread, head peering over the shoulder of the occupant.

  Em’hin sat in that magnificently carved chair holding a large book on his lap. He closed it without looking up and placed it on the stand beside him. When he turned his eyes on her, Rotiaqua wond
ered if he could even read the book. His eyes were covered in milky cataracts. Thick milky white, they focused on her. The old man examined her.

  Rotiaqua stood quietly, waiting to see what he had to say.

  Faster than she would have thought, Em’hin’s aging hand flashed out to grasp hers. Twisting it, he exposed her wrist.

  He shoved her sleeve up and ran one fingernail along the scar on her arm. “Here. This is the source of your power, isn’t it?”

  Rotiaqua shivered at the memory of the incident as it came alive in her mind.

  She snatched her arm back.

  Em’hin’s brows wrinkled, then slowly relaxed as a smile creased his ancient face. “You are blessed.”

  “Blessed?” Rotiaqua asked.

  “Blessed. You have been blessed. Once as a child and again recently. I can see their magic on you.”

  He held up his hand to silence her. “You have come about the dragon. You’ve seen him, haven’t you?” He glanced over at Zhimosom. “Both of you.”

  “Yes, we saw a dragon not long ago.” Rotiaqua wondered how he knew. “It told us to travel to Tustow and seek out a wizard.” Surely, that had not left a trace of dragon magic on her.

  “I know.”

  “You know? We were all alone in the wild when he came. How could you know?” Rotiaqua asked.

  “He told me.”

  “Told you?” Had the same dragon come to Em’hin that had visited them?

  “Yes. He told me. The dragon. His name is Ril’vesi. He told me that he was guiding the Mighty Ones to me, and that one day soon they would come ... and here you are.” Em’hin chuckled.

  Rotiaqua’s mind was filled with questions. Why had the dragon led them here? What did “Mighty Ones” mean? But what burst from her lips was “I thought dragons were extinct.”

  “They are thought to be extinct, but they are not. They are rare and infrequently seen. Even then they are shy. They are not creatures of this realm. You can only see them when they choose to permit it. They do not live here any longer.