Broken Mage (20 page)

Thad mimicked Sae-Thae’s bow. “I am
Thaddeus a humble slave to the Princess of Farlan.”

“A slave? Have the human mages fallen
so far over the years as to become mere slaves?” Sae-Thae said with
a bit more humor in his voice than Thad thought was
needed.

“I am the only human mage that I know
of. It is a lost art thanks to the Fae War.” As soon as the words
were out of his mouth Thad almost cursed himself. He had given the
Vathari more information than he had intended.

“Ah, yes. We have a record of that in
our archives. That war and the Brotherhood devastated many of the
weaker non-human races. While we are all for a good battle we have
learned there is little to gain from killing off other species.
From your ignorance of our kind I’m guessing even the knowledge of
the other races has been wiped from your histories.”

With every sentence Thad’s view of the
Vathari changed. At first he had considered them just bloodthirsty
killers, but now he had to admit that they simply just seemed to be
a society bred to fight. It wasn’t a large difference but there was
a difference. Not only were they intelligent they could also reason
and seemed to have a vast amount of knowledge at their
disposal.

“Yes, most knowledge of magic and other
races has been turned into mere stories of legend. Until recently,
I didn’t even know that other races really existed. I must admit it
has been quite a shock.”

“It is a sad event when history is
lost, it is something that is hard to regain. Seeing a human mage I
had hoped your people had regained its strength. As an award for
your skill today in battle I will let you in on a bit of
information. The Brotherhood of the Fox is still active. Every so
many years they make a foray into the darkness in an attempt to
find one of our cities. We kill them off quickly but they are
skilled opponents and while they don’t pose a huge threat here in
the subterranean, they limit our ability to interact with the
surface.”

Thad was confused at the information.
It made sense and would explain why there haven’t been any other
mages in the past years. If the Brotherhood still roamed the land
extinguishing any hint of magic from the records then everyone
would think it was something lost to the world of men forever. What
Thad didn’t understand was why Sae-Thae was telling him.

“It sounds as if you want me to
survive.”

“Oh, but I do young human. If it were
in my power I would pull back all the soldiers and let you walk
unmolested to the dwarves. The only problem is it is not up to me.
If I even hinted at that with the other heads I would soon find
myself replaced. I must say you have Telerem mad at how you have
torn through his regular soldiers and Luras is still hopeful to get
a few of her own troops in the battle.” Sae-Thae said with a look
that reminded Thad of when the queen was more talking to herself
than those around her.

“Then maybe you could help me out so
that we have a better chance of surviving.” Thad kept his voice
calm but he was sure the Vathari sensed his emotional state rather
than having to read it from his perceived face.

Sae-Thae didn’t respond but simply
stared at him contemplatively for a few moments. Then the Vathari
mage waved his hand and the area changed from swirling darkness
into a room that while oddly decorated was somewhat indicative of
what he had thought a mage’s room looked like in his
imagination.

The room was well lit,
though he wasn’t sure if that was natural of if the
Vathari was doing that merely for his benefit. The
furniture was all of a unique design and most of it looked as if it
had been artfully designed. Everything was made of a dark
stone.

“Now there are things I will be
unwilling to aid you with, but I see no problem with helping to
make this a bit more interesting. How would you like to start?”
Sae-Thae said as he waved for Thad to take a seat across from
him.

Thad scooted the chair back studying
the chair. The legs of the chair had been carved to look like the
feet of some creature and the back of the chair had an artful
design that looked as if an array of weapons had been thrown in a
pile. The seat of the chair had been covered with some kind of
animal skin. Sitting down Thad found that it was extremely
comfortable, something one wouldn’t expect from a chair made of
stone.

“First could we start with how you are
doing this?” Thad said as he waived his hand above his head getting
a small chuckle from Sae-Thae.

“You haven’t been checking the magical
eye that made its way to our city have you? Enchanting is such a
unique art. Did you know that if the same enchantment is made by
two different people it will not be the same? Whenever someone
enchants an item to respond to magic they are fundamentally
implanting a small part of themselves in the core.”

Sae-Thae stopped for a bit either
waiting on Thad to respond or to let the information sink in. Thad
wasn’t sure which one so he simply nodded his head and waited for
the mage to continue.

The Vathari made a gesture with his
hand and his magical eye appeared in his hand. A small visible line
ran from the magical eye to Thad’s chest. “Whenever someone creates
such an item there is always a small connection left behind that
can be used to trace back to the creator.”

The fear that crept through Thad’s face
must have shown clearly on his face for Sae-Thae’s started
laughing. “I wouldn’t worry too much it can’t be used to harm you.
Other than allowing me to talk to you in this manner there isn’t
much that can be done with it. Even for this I have to use another
special enchanted item that cost me dearly to obtain. Now one could
use this to locate you but from this distance I can only get a
general idea of where you are, but at closer range it can be quite
effective. Though seeing as to our current relationship you don’t
have worry overly about me giving too much information away. Now
your other toy that is being brought back by our troops will most
likely be used to that nature by some of my colleagues.”

“Do the Vathari have many
mages?”

“We are allowed to have two hundred
mages at any given time. One head, four arch mages, twenty five
master mages, and the rest can be any grouping of the lesser mages.
I never understood the titles myself. It is not as if the title
enhances or diminishes one’s ability. It only restricts what the
access is to our knowledge. There have been many points in our
history where a mage that never made it over the title of junior
mage was far more accomplished than his brethren but was held back
due to simple jealously and lack of political power.” Sae-Thae said
his voice slightly annoyed.

“You are allowed?” Thad asked
completely engrossed in the slivers of information he was
getting.

“Ah, I forgot your history has been
tampered with. So I shall give you some background information to
help you understand us. Thousands of years before the time you call
the Fae Wars the Vathari were one people and we had a king who had
a vision of conquering all the land. For centuries we bolstered our
numbers and began our war. We were bred and trained from birth to
fight and soon we held the entire realm under our control. For four
hundred years we reined, but there was a flaw in our plan. With the
world subjugated, there was no one left to fight to slake our
thirst for battle.”

“At first there were dissenters among
the slaves who would challenge us but even that ended over time.
After a few centuries of boredom our top generals started to turn
on each other. It was a bloody time but we nearly drove ourselves
to extinction.” Sae-Thae shook his head derisively.

“The other races took the chance to
band together and force our race into the depths of the earth to
hide and lick our wounds. It took decades for us to regain even a
semblance of our former strength and in that time we had learned
from our mistake. It was agreed that we would limit our numbers,
and set conditions for a new settlement to be created. If any group
of Vathari went against our laws all of us would rise up together
for only as long as it would take to destroy them.”

“So your own peoples thirst for battle
nearly killed off your entire race so now you limit your
populations?” Thad asked not fully understanding what Sae-Thae was
trying to say.

“That is a large portion of it, but
there are also numerous other Vathari settlements in the
subterranean. I couldn’t even guess to the numbers that live within
the tunnels. It is possible that our numbers are far greater than
what they were in the past, but it is forbidden that any two
Vathari settlements to work together. We fight amongst ourselves
more often than we fight against the other races. We are forbidden
to completely destroy another race but it is fully within our right
to destroy any other Vathari we come across.”

Thad sat and digested what he had
learned. It was somewhat amazing that the Vathari had such a
history. The humans seldom seemed to learn from their own history.
Just look at his homeland Farlan. They had started a system of
government to keep from repeating the failures of the past but over
time had forgotten their original goal and had fallen into the
habits they had sought to leave behind.

All the information, were things he
wanted to know, but none of it really helped his current situation.
As the Vathari went on about their history Thad began to think what
information might actually be useful to him. Nothing really came to
mind other than where they were the strongest and he doubted the
mage would divulge such information.

“It’s not that I’m not enjoying what
I’m learning, and if possible I would like to hear more in the
future. But what I really need is information that can help keep me
alive long enough to make it back to my own home.” Thad said
hesitantly afraid to offend his new friend.

Sae-Thae stopped speaking and tilted
his head slightly with a blank look on his face. “Sorry, I do tend
to ramble on, and shortly I will have to take a break. While you’re
asleep I am awake and the magical reservoirs of the enchantment
will run out far before you wake. There isn’t much I can tell you
that will be of use. Our more skilled troops are headed in your
direction, along with some of our priests. If you see a warrior
with a glowing tattoo be wary and any of the Vathari wearing robes
should not be taken lightly that will either be one of our priests
or one of my mages. Normally I would feel bad about giving out such
knowledge but it has been far too long since they have fought
against a mage outside of their own. The dwarves have mages and
such but just as our own they are limited on their use of
magic.”

“What do you mean they are limited in
their use of magic?”

“I must admit the loss of your history
is becoming quite annoying. I do hope you humans are able to
destroy the blight of the Brotherhood and begin to regain your
past. Each race has an element that it is linked to with the
exception of the humans. Dwarves are linked to the earth, Vathari
are linked to the darkness and so on. There is no Vathari that can
draw from the earth elemental. Likewise our enchantments are
limited in the same way. That is one of the reasons humans were
always a worthy foe they were the embodiment of chaos. While we are
slaves to our gods you are free of all chains except the ones you
decided to burden yourselves with.”

“You have gods?” Thad asked shock
clearly evident in his voice and on his face.

“I believe I might have said too much
there, but it has been so long since any of our race has talked to
one of yours. Be that as it may, I will have to leave you for the
night it seems our time is up and I do have many other things to do
this day. Good hunting human, may your blade find the flesh of your
enemies’ before theirs find yours.”

Sae-Thae disappeared along with the
room around him in a flash leaving Thad alone within the recesses
of his own mind. Last time after his visit with the Vathari he had
woken up right afterword but now he simply floated in his own mind.
This time he was left simply floating in the darkness with nothing
around.

Sae-Thae had been able change the
surrounding easily so Thad wondered if he could do the same. Fixing
the picture of his room back in the palace Thad waved his hand and
suddenly he was surrounded by the familiar sights he had been
missing. The only thing better would have been if the princess was
there to tease him.

Sitting down on the corner of the bed
Thad started to think about what he had learned during his meeting
with the Vathari. Most of it was useless in a battle but still very
interesting. The fact that they were limited to using the darkness
element was something he was sure he could use to his advantage
though at the moment he was unsure of how.

There was one thing he knew if he only
had to protect against magic made with the darkness element that
would still leave him with a great deal of room to work. He still
had no idea how to make a shield to block magical effect but it was
something to work on.

Sitting on the bed he began to think
about the different way to counteract magic that might be used
against him when what he was truly doing hit him. He was sitting in
his own dream working. It was slightly disturbing but also useful
at the same time. If he could learn to do this at will then when he
was pressed for time he could work even while he slept. It wasn’t
perfect as there might be some carryover from his subconscious mind
into the effects of his magic but it still left him room to
contemplate.