Battle Mage: The Dark Mage (Tales of Alus) (15 page)

The blond groaned and he could feel Sylvaine tense beside him seeing that he had managed the spell that eluded her as well.

“It isn’t as smooth as some, but it should work,” the mage commented on his work critically.

Sylvaine called up a small flame that rose up from her fingers to touch the base of the black light. Even the weak bit of fire strengthened the shield and he noticed the edges beginning to firm under her attention.

“Sylvaine!” Turless hissed pointing towards the stairs.

The sound of a clearing throat led their eyes to one of the librarians who looked sternly at the table full of apprentices. “You know the rules. No dangerous use of magic in the library. Fire is a very dangerous piece of magic. Come with me, young lady.”

The fire winked out along with his shield and Sylvaine rose giving him a grimace. “Eloria is going to kill me,” she breathed disappointedly.

With Sylvaine’s removal, the study group soon broke up for the afternoon. The girl’s mentor was called in and Sylvaine found herself having to help out in the library for twenty hours over the next week. For someone who could find books almost supernaturally well, the punishment was hardly severe, though perhaps that was because Eloria had actually found the matter amusing.

Her student’s control was such that even her use of fire so near their precious books and scrolls was never a potential threat. Sylvaine even knew a spell to snuff fire like the dark shields were able to do.

While Palose found that he missed the girl’s presence a bit, he had a new job to do with Atrouseon. It involved a trip to the Breeding Pits, but that was all he knew.

“Hurry up, boy,” Atrouseon grumped as he hurried ahead of the mage through the streets leading to the west and their target. The warlock was wearing a brown leather coat, dark brown pants and leather boots, which was a shift from the man’s preference for black. He had suggested that Palose wear clothes
that would hide stains and that he wouldn’t care if they were ruined. Ruined how, the warlock wouldn’t say.

Taking quicker strides, the mage found that he wanted to question his master about what they were heading to the Pits for and why, but his curiosity was tempered by his more natural instinct to remain quiet and observe. It had been his way while at White Hall and the northern castles. He found too many questions usually bothered the ones asked. If they wanted you to know something, most people could barely contain themselves before spilling their plans. Those who wanted secrecy would remain quiet, but often Palose could discover what they held in by watching their behaviors as they worked to conceal their purposes.

Atrouseon turned his head to see the battle mage just behind his shoulder. His eyes reacted by opening slightly wider in surprise before revealing satisfaction in his apprentice’s quiet obedience to his orders. The reaction reminded Palose again of their true relationship. His master called and he followed. Little more than a slave to Atrouseon’s will, he also realized that it could have been worse. The warlock was far from the hardest of taskmasters in Ensolus or even in the school of White Hall. Still, the invisible collar of obedience continued to chafe.

Through his research, Palose had discovered several things about the bond that had once worried him. First, if Atrouseon, his maker, would ever die, the magic binding him to life would remain. Apparently other warlocks dabbling in resurrection spells had failed to properly bind their creations and when they rebelled, some killed their makers. It was one of the reasons there was such a negative stigma to the magic in Ensolus where dark magic was not only researched but encouraged. Such spells set the emperor’s warlocks apart making them more dangerous to those more ‘civilized’ wizards who looked down on necromancy and the like as being barbaric.

The second thing he had found was that the bond between the one casting the spell and the one to receive the magic could enhance each other’s power. It was another reason some necromancers had chosen to give part of their power to the subject. In return for the sharing of his power, if he in turn brought back a warlock of equal or greater power, his strength would grow as well.

Of course, bringing a willful warlock back to life and sharing your power with him often led to some of the negative results. They gained power and were only constricted by the safe guards the maker instilled on the dead. If they failed to use the right controls, the resurrection man had the freewill to kill their maker.

This led to the third and perhaps most important piece of information from his studies; if he used the right ritual, the resurrection man could not only kill his maker, but steal all of the man’s power for his own. It had taken research through more than a dozen books, not only by Palose but Sylvaine, Holdy, Turless and Defrienne as well. His new friends seemed willing to help him understand as much of the resurrection magic as he could. Though he wasn’t sure exactly why, the mage didn’t resist the help.

With five people looking for important information, Palose had been able to cover more ground. They brought him important and unique spells, notes and other relevant information distilling their reading down to more digestible bites for him. His own reading had yielded much as he had demonstrated with the mouse bones. Atrouseon had even been the one to impart the small skeleton to him as his master. It was just one of several devices he had access to thanks to the warlock.

If not for the benefits of Atrouseon, Palose wondered if he would have taken the leap to break the chains between them.

Apparently his master’s thoughts had gone to a similar place as he asked, “Has your study of necromancy been fruitful?”

“Yes, master,” Palose answered obediently and without pause. “I can manipulate bones and have committed most of the main rituals to memory, though I haven’t exactly had a reason to the use them yet.”

The older man chuckled at the comment.
“No one dying to let you use necromancy on them, hey?”

Nodding, the apprentice replied, “I could maybe create a wraith or bone guard. That would be a chance to imbue will on the dead, but again I haven’t decided to scrounge up a suitable test subject as of yet.”

“Talk to the disposal orcs. The ones working around the human side are probably the easiest to deal with since most speak common. Dealing with those living beyond the Breeding Pits can be more difficult. The little beasts begin to think they are as good as those of elven and human descent. Their rudeness has to be tolerated while working there since they have numbers and their clans don’t appreciate outside interference, even if we do all serve the emperor.”

“Has it always been that way or has the failing health of the emperor spurred more of the dissent between the races?” Palose questioned gently. If Atrouseon was willing to share information, then the battle mage would surely take what he could get. Some answers had come from other sources like his friends and the research books, but the warlock was high enough ranked in their echelon to have some answers that he might not find written down or available to mere apprentices.

At first Palose was unsure if he would receive an answer as a big pause awaited his question, but finally the man replied, “I am not old enough to know what came before the exodus from the Silver World, but as long as I can remember it was the emperor’s will that united our cause. In the last decade, I have seen more of a separation between the races in the city.

“Decades before it is said that groups from the outlying mountain cities have abandoned the mountains to hide from the emperor. His reach has suffered and most that have fled remain lost.” The man’s back straightened from a disheartened slouch that had begun to force itself on him. “But with the new vessel, his majesty’s power will be renewed and those who have dishonored him will either fall in line or be reduced to dust on the wind!”

The conversation fell into silence once more and soon they were entering the Breeding Pits. Palose’s nose found the smell of the pits had begun to abuse his senses long before they were within a stone’s throw of the building. According to those who said they knew, the massive stone building had been built to try and contain some of the stench. Several stone chimneys vaulted to the ceiling where the exhaust could be channeled through vents exiting the mountain high above; but, even with the attempts to remove the odor, this area was avoided by most humans due to a stench that the other races must have learned to ignore or somehow didn’t notice.

As they closed in on the immense building for the pits, Palose noticed foot traffic had picked up for the first time since leaving the area of the military training fields. Almost a mile of fields abandoned for the winter had led to an area controlled by trolls. The hardy creatures still braved the cold as if it meant nothing to them to the point that they even had to pass through a bazaar run by the creatures in a strange mockery of a human market.

The mage felt eyes on the two warlocks as numerous trolls and even some of their smaller brethren noted the rare crossing. Trying to show no worry or fear, he followed Atrouseon to the base of the Breeding Pits where the mage found a dry moat lined with deadly stakes and a bridge that could be raised for defense.

“They fear someone storming the Breeding Pits?” he questioned as they passed more than a dozen troll and orc guards to enter through an open gate.

Answering soberly, Atrouseon stated, “It isn’t to keep others out, but to keep what is inside the walls where it belongs.”

It was then that he realized that the bridge could be pulled away as easily as it could be raised and Palose wondered what they bred that would require such measures. If there was something to protect the rest of Ensolus from, then that made the goal of the thick stone walls to be a barrier between what was
inside and that which was outside. It had been purposed in reverse. The fact that they were walking into such a place made his skin crawl with trepidation.

Once inside the walls of the Breeding Pits, Palose noted the temperature raise and the humidity became thick also. Again the building’s walls were used to maintain the heat even during winter.

Lanterns became necessary along the path of the halls and walkways that passed over rooms with dozens of vats and tanks with forms both large and small nestled within the glass. Looking over the rail at the vats, he realized that the liquid appeared similar to that being used to create the blank vessels for the emperor. He quickly assumed that the liquid was used for breeding many of the emperor’s creatures. Not all could breed like humans apparently and in this building they both helped and perverted nature.

Climbing stairs to another floor, he could soon see larger tanks holding armored viles and kiriaks in various stages of gestation. They could be bred to full size here or removed as juveniles. He had heard that some of the villages surrounding the pits held families of the races. Some cared for the young, though he was unsure if there were females having children or if they were families purposed to care for what came from the Breeding Pits.

A third set of stairs took them dozens of feet above the high ceilings of the second floor. Once there, Atrouseon’s path seemed different. They navigated between smaller tanks and vats. Orcs, goblins and even elven folk could be seen within these tanks. Perhaps humans were created in other rooms on this floor, which made Palose wonder if some of the people he knew had been formed here rather than as the gods had intended.

“Don’t look so ill, just because of the need to create armies has pushed us to create them faster within the Breeding Pits. They make what we need, whether it
be man or beast,” Atrouseon informed him with no question for the strangeness of creating all this life away from nature’s womb.

“Or warlocks?” he added wondering once more who he may have known that had come from these chambers.

“On occasion, though it is harder to breed magical beings with any surety.”

Finally they came to another room passing through a doorway guarded by four orcs in full armor. The extra security extended inside with a pair of trolls and four more orcs guarding a hall and second set of doors. A last room with no other way in or out was found past those doors.

Half a dozen figures stood inside. The first two to look at the newest arrivals made his chest go cold with their undead stares. Wraith warlocks holding the power of magic guarded the men, most of who were hooded. Power radiated from the four men and as they turned, Palose noted Warlock Thielius from the vessel team as one of them. Two other men wore black armor, but their powerful auras of magic led him to believe that these were men of the Wizard Hunters that he had heard about in Ensolus.

Both male hunters were of a similar height and apparent age, but they bore the pointed ear tips of the elves, so Palose doubted their true age. The fiercer looking of the two was Lord Devolus and he felt like looking into the night. His black hair and groomed beard were echoed by his strange eyes that were all black. The other hunter looked like he could be related, but his brown hair and eyes were those of someone who had not given himself over to the darkness.

The last figure was cloaked and leaning on a staff. He appeared as an older gray haired man, but his eyes were black like the dark wizard hunter. This last gave off no feeling of magical power, but Palose doubted he was without magic. The old man was suppressing his power to deceive whoever might be looking, but for what reason he wasn’t sure. As an apprentice in the shadow of his master, however, it wasn’t his place to inquire or even appear to acknowledge such things; but he made a mental note even so.