Battle Mage: The Dark Mage (Tales of Alus) (10 page)

Chapter 5- Shadow Lord

“Don’t just stand there like a lump, boy!” Atrouseon groused as he had been all morning.

Usually Palose had the morning to sleep, since he had been stuck watching the laboratory for the last few weeks as he guarded Atrouseon’s precious vessels. This morning, however, had been building for most of the week, or perhaps since the day his experiments passed Garosh’s test in truth.

According to Atrouseon, the emperor was coming to see this project for himself. If they passed this last test, then Palose was bearing witness to a form of rebirth for the leader of Ensolus and half a dozen other cities serving the emperor. These children in their glass cocoons were simply waiting for the final breath of life to bring consciousness, so they could finally leave the womb.

Palose was slightly on edge as well. He had never seen the emperor, as few had in recent years apparently, and the mage was curious about this legendary figure. A creature that had lived in one form or another for a millennium or more, he had witnessed more lifetimes than any normal man while living in at least three different worlds. Palose wondered what mysteries he had seen and what knowledge must be possessed by one who had lived so long and garnered enough power to put off death more than once.

“What would you like me to do, master?” he replied to the warlock politely. Though Atrouseon didn’t require the title in private, it had been judged best to refer to the man as master in public where opinions of the resurrection men were not favorable. “The floor has been swept and wiped with wet rags. Every table and piece of glass has been cleaned including the tanks.”

The necromancer ran his hand through his raven colored hair nervously. It was a motion paired with scratching his trimmed goatee that had been repeated nearly every minute since the warlock had woken that morning. With the extra time spent waiting in the laboratory that was as perfect as it could ever be, the man was going to wind up going bald from the abuse.

Nodding at his apprentice, who appeared much calmer than the other four warlocks pacing throughout the lab, Atrouseon breathed out a deep sigh. “I guess that we have done all that we can,” the master breathed sounding unsure of himself.

“The emperor won’t care about how clean this laboratory is when he sees your creations in their tanks, master. Once he sees them I doubt that he will have eyes for anything else, since he has been waiting for the perfect vessels for centuries,” Palose put out the words and watched as the men all seemed to calm down. Their eyes turned to the young man in some surprise.

He was only eighteen, but Palose had practiced both being quiet and trying to sound wise throughout his career. Whether he had been successful in his attempt to appear so was outside his reference, since it was based on others’ opinions. He had only asked one person if he had seemed wise, but that was while taunting him before condemning him to death. Such an opinion was likely to be bitter, he thought wanting to laugh at the idea.

Whatever his past, the mage had managed to calm this lot. Atrouseon, perhaps youngest of the group, looked to be entering middle age. Warlock Etriak had thinning brown hair peppered with gray. His face bore wrinkles that came from a long life more than the stress of recent days. Alimus was bald. His eyebrows were still dark, though leaning towards gray. While he was younger than Etriak, he was decidedly older than Atrouseon. Last was the one who seemed youngest to the eye.

Warlock Thielius had elven pointed ears. One of the races from an old world, many of his people had fallen to the emperor or joined him. Thielius was just a descendant of one of those elves and a marriage to a human at some point in his family’s past. His light brown hair was drawn back in a tail reaching the middle of his shoulders. Unlike the other three men, the elf seemed to be much calmer, though still agitated by the impending visit. His green eyes caught Palose’s gaze a moment as they all listened to the young man and felt a little more at ease.

“Your apprentice has a way with words. For one so young, I would have believed you would be more nervous at the emperor’s approach than we,” Thielius said with a nod towards the mage.

Giving a smile that revealed some humor, Palose replied, “I’ve already died. What do I have to worry about?”

The elf laughed aloud, while the other men participated to a lesser degree. Both nerves and the touchy subject of resurrection men hampered their spirits as they waited for the emperor.

When the time finally came, the warlocks had a brief window to gather themselves as four orcs in dress armor entered the room through the door with their hands resting on their swords. Their eyes took in the room and the men inside of it quickly and yet thoroughly before word was passed back that all was clear in the guttural voice of the lead orc.

Palose was slightly surprised to hear the words came out in common. He had never heard an orc or goblin speak in the language of the north, until Listher in Ensolus. After nearly two months of exposure to the creature’s, often cutting, verbal jabs, Palose had grown so used to the goblin speaking that he had almost forgotten that it wasn’t human. The few orcs and other creatures he had seen while in Ensolus often spoke in their own language, so hearing these soldiers speaking thus was more unusual.

Thoughts of the orcs were quickly swept aside as he felt great power coming through the wall. Without line of sight, the mage could have pointed exactly where the oncoming source of magic was coming from each step of the way. When more soldiers entered before the source, it was like looking at gnats flying between him and the sun. Perhaps the sun was the wrong concept, however, as the being that entered was cloaked in shadow.

Through a cloud of darkness surrounding the emperor, Palose was able to discern a hooded figure all dressed in black. Black robes with gold trim and a hooded cloak helped conceal the emperor’s appearance, but he still seemed thin. It was a body that was dying and his skin was merely covering bone.
The evidence of that came as the Dark One ignored the bowing warlocks, Palose included. A hand lifted exposing an appendage that looked like it could be the hand of death. The shape of each bone could be made out from skin that seemed translucent to his eyes. Veins appeared blue, but the mage almost wondered if his blood even flowed any longer.

Atrouseon managed to speak even as they all felt the power of the Dark One as he merely stood before them. “My lord, we have finally created a vessel that Garosh could touch with his portion of your power. The male in the center and his sister beside him should be powerful enough to both contain your magic and last indefinitely.”

Sounding like leaves rattling on stone steps, the emperor’s voice breathed out causing them all to tremble with each word. “They are too young.”

Nodding, though the emperor never looked at him, Atrouseon answered, “Each month will add a year, my emperor. By the spring, he could appear as a man just leaving his teenage years.”

A skeletal finger pointed to the first male, the failure that had nearly received a passing grade. “This one can not hold all of me.”

“Lord Garosh suggested that we keep it for you to decide if the vessel would be needed. We have not tested the other one with your full power. If time brings us to need it, you might place some of your power inside all three to survive.”

The hood nodded. He moved from one glass womb to another stopping with the girl. “Bring them all to their middle teens. Can you build the rejected one into a warrior?”

The warlocks glanced between one another, but left Atrouseon to answer once more, “We can build the muscles to become stronger, but he would still need to be trained, sire.”

“We will bring him out in five months and give the other two half a month longer. The reject will be trained as a warrior and hold some of my power,” the emperor decreed. As they watched, the cloaked figure released some of his power into each vessel. Like a puppeteer’s thread, Palose could feel the emperor tying himself to each one. The strength of his magic concentrated on the boy in the center and threatened to destroy it like grass in a fire, but this vessel was strong. It did not burst or burn away, but remained stronger than steel before a hammer.

When the emperor removed his hand from the tanks and stepped away, Palose could feel magic amassed in each vessel. He had just witnessed the Dark One’s power and it was enough to make all three vessels more powerful than any wizard he had yet seen.

“Five months and you will awaken the first with your power, sire?” Thielius questioned seeming less affected than the other men.

The shadowy figure looked at the warlock and nodded. “I will give each my essence before I take my new form. They will become my sword and shield, a brother and sister who will be devoted to me.”

Palose felt the dark gaze leave the warlocks to come to a rest on him. For the first time, he felt true worry and perhaps even fear. Advancing on him slowly and deliberately, the mage held his ground knowing that fleeing was no option before the emperor. Even as his body weakened, the Dark One’s power seemed to be growing as it tried to explode out of the being.

“I sense death on you, but I smell life as well,” that rasping voice spoke to him like death was commenting on his defiance of his realm.

Atrouseon looked uncomfortable, but he answered the unasked question, “I used the resurrection spell on this one, my lord. He opened the gate into Windmeer and we nearly destroyed the city from within.”

“A resurrection man.
I sense your strength is like a child’s. It will grow to become more than you ever were in life and when that happens I may come for you to join me.”

His voice broke as Palose found his mouth asking almost of its own volition, “Join you, my lord?”

Shaking his head, the mage could see a face dry as paper, wrinkled and worn with eyes that would have looked dead, if not for the glow of magic coming from within. Like portals to the emperor’s power, Palose could see a portion of the Dark One’s power and he felt like he would burn away one moment and take it for his own in another. Magic seemed to waft off of the cloaked figure and, if he just knew how to grasp it, Palose felt like he could take it as his own.

“We shall see,” was the reply as his shadows began to swirl and gather around him again. The emperor’s audience was through and they had all been dismissed.

Like the sun, he had risen and now the sunset left the room feeling empty. Palose felt new power in the room, however. Looking to the children in their glass wombs, the mage felt the emperor’s presence in each one. He doubted that he could have held even half the power the rejected one held inside of him now.

“We will need to work on the reject,” Etriak spoke after the emperor and his soldiers had left the building.

Thielius nodded, “So many failures for so long and now we have not only one that can hold the emperor, but three he wishes to use.”

“A warrior or a better description would be that the reject will become his bodyguard. The master has found a use for each, though I am curious to see how they all are used by his will,” Etriak said wistfully.

Clearing his throat, Atrouseon said to the men, “The emperor has left his essence in all three. We must monitor each as the power grows inside them. We are trusted to follow his orders and make sure that the vessels become the sword and shield as well as his future body.”

The warlocks were soon engrossed in checking data and the blanks. Only Atrouseon thought beyond the project to the other words spoken by the emperor. “Palose, he has taken an interest in you. Like these vessels, he wants to watch you grow, I think.”

“I can’t handle his power,” he said bluntly.

“He doesn’t want you for his vessel,” the master said with a frown. “Keep studying and practicing your magic. Perhaps you will discover something that I can’t even prepare you for, but whatever else, keep growing so you don’t let him down.”

Palose could do little more than nod and was glad when his master released him to go study.

His feet had led him to the north and the schools for wizards and warlocks. Palose was unsure exactly why he had gone there. It had been several days since witnessing the emperor judging the blank vessels and his strange proclamation that the mage’s power would continue to grow. How it could increase beyond what it was now was beyond his current understanding though he had one idea.

Atrouseon was tied to the resurrection man and that had made him stronger. Whether his power had been added to the warlock’s in some way was the unknown part of the bond. If his magical strength had increased his master’s power in any way, it might well be one possible way to add to his own. Again the spells he had been researching might have both answers as to what he truly was and what he could become.

Sounds of magic being used came from nearby as Palose walked beside one of the warlock schools. A doorway was set in the thirty foot wall attached to a stone building that appeared rounded rather than straight, and rose for six stories to tower over its wall. Palose noted that the mason work of both wall and building seemed to be beyond just the basic stone work of men. Stones were smooth and where mortar was usually found, the bricks appeared bonded to one another in a way that no normal brick layer could have designed.

Palose turned the knob on the wood door, an obvious entry point that avoided a more circuitous route through the warlock school. An exit that could be used by the public was unheard of in the schools of Southwall, but he supposed Ensolus had no fears of their spells getting out with a city bent to the emperor’s will as it was. Ignoring yet another philosophical difference between the countries, the mage stepped through the entry to see dozens of wizards practicing their magic.