Battle Mage: The Dark Mage (Tales of Alus) (51 page)

He was quietly reading in a chair trying to ignore Atrouseon as the man would hectically glance at one book and then another without seeming sure of what he was looking for. Apparently the warlock had finally been talking with his research team about a new project and his mood had started to brighten. He still had moments of agitation and depression; but the warlock was higher on life than before at least.

When a knock came at the door, Atrouseon was quickly up crossing the room as he decided to answer it, which was different from most days. The master didn’t want to sully his hands with such menial tasks most of the time when he had an apprentice and sometimes other attendants working around the apartment. Palose watched the man out of the corner of his eye waiting to see who was at the door.

Not surprisingly, a messenger from the emperor’s castle had arrived to call on the men. “What is it, messenger?” Atrouseon asked looking hopeful.

“A message for Palose Rosaren from the emperor, he is to come to the palace at once,” the man said and offered a small note of passage.

“Nothing for Warlock Atrouseon?” he asked still holding out hope.

“No, just the message and note for Palose Rosaren,” the messenger stated having been to the apartment for Palose several times recently. This servant knowing the apprentice by sight spied his target sitting behind the warlock and nodded before turning to leave.

The door slammed as Atrouseon’s face clenched into a frown turning on his apprentice. “Why does he call for you again? I am your master after all. If the emperor should be calling anyone, that should be me. What can you do for him that I can not?”

Closing his book, Palose knew that his reading was over for the time being. Even if he didn’t need to go to the emperor, Atrouseon was getting worked up and that meant no more peace anyway. “I am your apprentice as a warlock, but I was a fully trained falcon of the battle mage corps of Southwall before you found me. I had many skills before I was brought to Ensolus and I have studied to learn many more. Apparently, the emperor finds me useful.”

“Useful? You are useful? I created that ingrate a perfect vessel, two in fact. Now he has his little family, a new body, and apparently a new agent that is also my apprentice. No one wanted resurrection men in the city, but I created you and now you are the emperor’s favorite person!”

Advancing on the younger man aggressively, the warlock looked ready to strike him. Palose appeared relaxed and waited to see if Atrouseon would fail in his discretion. While the man was a powerful warlock, wizards and warlocks did not fare well against battle mages in small spaces and he was
tiring of the abuse. The warlocks could use powerful magic indeed, but the mizard Sebastian opened many eyes when he revealed that a good swordsman could easily defeat a fire wizard in a small ring.

“I made you,” the warlock growled aggressively grabbing the mage’s shirt. “I made the emperor, and this is how I am treated!”

Palose looked down at the hand curled into the neck of his shirt in disappointment before looking up into Atrouseon’s eyes calmly. “And how are you being mistreated? You were rewarded handsomely by the emperor for your services. I deposited the gold into the bank for you myself.

“You call me your apprentice and I do the tasks you ask of me without complaint. I have taught myself the spells of a warlock without your assistance beyond a few guiding words, because you know as well as I that I only need to read to learn more. I wasn’t a child when you found me and you helped kill me in the first place. You didn’t create me. You only brought me back enforcing that I serve you and the empire.

“All of that I have done without complaint. How have I done anything to betray you or mistreat you as my master?”

In the face of the calm mage, the warlock exploded in rage pulling back his a fist to strike the young man. In that instant, Atrouseon found out that he had made a mistake. Twisting free and turning the offending fist’s wrist and arm, the mage cranked on it forcing the appendage behind the warlock’s back. With pressure and control of the man’s body in this hold, he turned Atrouseon before crushing his face onto the table with his forearm driven by the weight of his body.

Struggling and crying out angrily, the warlock was held firm against the table even as he flailed with his free left arm. Palose warned, “I can break your arm this way, so listen to me, ‘Master’. Your magic makes me serve, and I have appreciated you giving me a place to stay and food to eat. I worked to keep your precious vessels safe for the emperor and do my duties, but you do not control me enough to think to strike me for no reason.”

“Get off!” the warlock growled uselessly, but the mage wasn’t finished.

“You talk about resurrection men being unwanted and yet I have been approached by others suggesting that I kill you, like I am some rogue resurrection failure. We both know that killing you, other than as self defense would probably get us both killed; but ask yourself how your reputation must be if there are people who would rather see your resurrection man alive and you dead.”

“Who are these men? I will kill them first!” the warlock raged as he continued to struggle to be free of the mage’s grip.

“They are cowards too afraid to do their own dirty work, so you are safe. If they felt they could kill you, they would have long ago.”

Atrouseon’s struggling began to subside as he figured out his ineffectiveness and heard the meaning behind Palose’s words. “You didn’t kill me. Why?”

“I found you useful,” stated the mage not bothering to hide the truth. “Keep being useful and there will be no need for such a needless waste of an intelligent warlock. Now for this affront and my continued patience, I think that you will need to pay to keep this mutually beneficial relationship going.”

“Mutually beneficial how?
I gave you everything you need already!”

Letting out a long sighing breath, Palose tried to ignore the interruption and refusal to see his part of the relationship. Explaining, though it mattered little that Atrouseon understood his viewpoint, he continued, “You know all of the duties I perform for you to maintain your appearance as my master. When you needed someone to trust, it was me that you had guard your precious vessels among other things.

“I also have been handling your wealth for quite a time now,” he let the last words sink into the man’s understanding.

Struggling as he comprehended the meaning of the comment, Atrouseon snarled, “You have stolen from me?!”

“You have no real need for what little I took. Look at it as earning a wage.”

“I am your master! Apprentices don’t need to be paid in gold. They earn knowledge to become their own men and earn their way on their own.”

Again Palose sighed, he would have shaken his head if the warlock would have seen the gesture, but the mage didn’t waste energy on such things needlessly. “You have treated me like a servant, maybe an unwanted child; but never as your actual apprentice. I know apprentices and how they are taught. You are like an uncle I was forced upon, putting me up in a small room and having me run errands to earn my keep.

“I think you also know, or at least fear, that you aren’t more powerful than I am. You had nothing to teach me aside from sending me to the library and told me to open a few books. Worse yet, since you took no part in my learning, you really have no idea what I know; and that should truly scare you.”

Struggling more from fear than anger, Atrouseon soon lapsed back into submission. “What is it you want?”

“I will remain here until the end of the month in the guise of being your apprentice. You will declare me fit to be a warlock and free of you so that you can take on an actual apprentice, if that is what you want. You will freely give me a third of your gold that I will place into my own account. Then we will sever our ties to each other and part as friends.”

“You want to part as friends and want to steal my gold from me while doing it. Are you insane? Has your recreation addled your mind?”

In response, Palose mumbled a spell before placing his fingers into the center of the warlock’s back. A surge of magic flowed through his fingers, not into Atrouseon, but from the warlock instead. The man gasped feeling his strength disappearing into his apprentice.

“What are you doing to me?” Atrouseon asked breathlessly, but his fear was palpable even so.

Removing his fingers from the place on the spine, Palose found the warlock very malleable and submissive as his strength diminished feeding the man holding him fast. The mage felt the new power in him and understood quickly how much magic there was still to feed his strength. Refusing his indulgence, Palose took a deep breath and replied to the helpless man before him, “Your enemies want me to take from you, everything that you have. What would you rather give up, part of your wealth or all of your life?”

A long moment of silence passed between them before Atrouseon acquiesced and surrendered, “I will do as you say. I can have the paperwork written up and delivered to the warlock council. You will be my apprentice until the end of the month and take the money. Just leave me be and let me regret ever reviving you, Betrayer.”

Releasing his hold on the warlock, Palose stepped back cautiously, though he doubted that the man had any fight left in him any longer. He had taken almost a third of the man’s magic and it translated into leaving him drained of energy. “You created me to betray a country, but it’s you who pushed for this betrayal. Now if you don’t mind, I need to go to the emperor.”

The walk to the castle went quickly as the mage’s mind reviewed what had just happened. He had just formally forced his master to acknowledge him as a full warlock essentially emancipating him. Of course extorting the man out of a small fortune in gold was probably not the best way to part ways, and using the spell given him with the knife to steal some of Atrouseon’s magic was another theft further deteriorating their relationship. On the other hand, taking his master’s power had probably ensured that the warlock would follow through if only to be rid of him.

When Acheri had directed him to the book ‘True Power’, he had found an exact duplicate of the spell to be used with the knife. Without the knife involved, a resurrection man could steal some power from his creator, but the governing rules of their relationship remained intact. He couldn’t kill his master for money, was one of those rules, but Atrouseon had never thought to add other restrictions to his death. The warlock had also failed to require him to avoid raising a hand to defend himself as the man found out earlier. The resurrection man’s mind merely had to out think the restrictions to avoid obeying a direct order.

He was still questioning whether he would have to use the knife to remove Atrouseon’s possible power over him when he arrived at the room holding the emperor. His guards pulled the doors open and gestured for him to enter. Not wanting to offend Kolban since he was already slow to respond thanks to his altercation with Atrouseon, Palose hurried forward finding the young looking emperor studying some maps on a table.

Acheri sat in a stuffed chair with one leg hanging over an arm and showing more bare skin than was ladylike as if any lady would sit with her legs apart in civil company. She was wearing green slippers which matched her dress looking very bored until the battle mage arrived. Her leg stopped kicking lazily and she drew it back down off of the arm smiling at the mage.

“Ah welcome, Palose,” Kolban greeted him sounding like an old man as opposed to the young teen appearing before him. “I appreciate you coming; though it is a little slow for you.”

Kolban’s apparent position on resurrection men or at least for him in particular, had been made known to him through Acheri, and his being chosen to assist the girl and Lanquer seemed to imply some trust and belief in him. The mage had been involved with plans known only within the emperor’s closest
circle of advisors, which also meant he had the ear of the emperor. Testing that ear, he stated, “Atrouseon didn’t appreciate my coming to visit the castle over him. I think he feels jealous of the attention and your current need for me in your plans.”

Walking over to the two men standing by the table, Acheri gave her opinion on the matter. “Jealous or threatened maybe. He was one of those behind the blank experiment. Didn’t you have a couple of the other wizards excluded from the final weeks before our birth?”

Her attention had moved from Palose back to the emperor with the question. Kolban shrugged at her change of conversation as he let her get to the point. “That was a lifetime ago,” the boy said with a smile. “When I first visited our vessels, I was able to check and make sure that they would be satisfactory. Knowing that I could transfer my power to this body, I chose to limit the knowledge of the transfer to even fewer.”

“That caused Etriak and Alimus to panic. They believed Atrouseon and Thielius had been the ones to steal them hoping to gain favor with the emperor,” Palose added with a nod. He informed the boy in front of him who had been that dark, shadow shrouded emperor.

“They were all rewarded for their efforts in the end,” the boy emperor sighed as if still disappointed in his warlocks. “Now Atrouseon is showing similar signs of breaking and taking it out on his apprentice? That is disappointing.”

“We had a chat that will put it behind us,” Palose stated trying not to gloat. “He will be declaring my studies with him over and I can be raised to a full warlock. I will move out of his home by the end of the month.”