MageLife (53 page)

In the street were people, not just people but solders. Hard men and a few women. Thousands of them. Each bearing weapons and armour, mainly leather armour, but a few larger men stood out covered in glittering glass like plate. They stood motionless, not a breath or a rustle, there was no clink of metal nor murmur of talk. They stood all looking at me.

I heard someone move behind me, but I didn't turn. I was too caught up in the moment

As one they sunk to their knees, the air pressed down on me as I watched them.

“Our father's oaths were given and repaid in kind. We serve our king still. What would you have us do?” The man closest to us called out. His armour moved like water over him, flickers of light and shadow chased each other through it like fish in a stream, unseen currents.

“Do your duty,” boomed Vesic's voice just behind me as he stepped forward.

“My lord our duty is to you, it is what you say. Tell us, we have been without guidance for so long.”

“Bring peace to this land. This man here.” I felt a hand touch my shoulder. “Is a good man, serve him as you would me. Once peace has come, I shall call your oaths served. Is this agreeable to you?”

“What of our families here? They need us for trade. The land here is broken my lord. It can’t support us.”

“The land is whole for now. Tristan and his men will do all they can to make sure Nelar is productive. You are needed.”

“We serve.” The words felt forced out of him, but there was a hint of comfort in them. As if he knew what the answer would be and accepted his lot.

The thickening of the air continued through the whole exchange. A tightening, like the start of a storm.

I raised my gaze up to the sky, nothing had changed.

Stray wisps of light danced in the space behind my eyes, my othersense pushing for me to look. I didn't need to as if felt the familiar tugging inside my head. The oath, but I hadn't bound myself with another. It wasn't mine. Vesic's and the army's had shifted binding me with their service.

Vesic squeezed my shoulder in what I think was meant as a reassuring gesture. “Look after them. I give them to you for what needs to be done. You will know when the time comes.”

“But why give them to me?” I asked softly. “I can’t command an army.”

“You are the best of men that I can find. You won't let them be abused. They are powerful and dangerous in the wrong hands.”

“I'm young. I make mistakes.”

“We are all young once Tristan. Now go and greet your men, there is work to be done.” The friendly tone reminded me of Brendon, as if the god and man were merging, maybe that happened. I would have to ask someone, one day, but not today. Today I had gained an army. And another responsibility. The weight of it was there, not yet settled as I looked over the grim faces of these brave souls committed to my cause whatever that was.

I stepped away from my mages, the battle last night, even though I had run off, seemed to have bound them to me. Forged in fire and all that. There were now my mages. It was terrifying. Didn't I have enough to worry about already? I tried to keep all my building frustrations off my face, it wasn't their fault. It wasn't mine either but that had never mattered in the scheme of things.

The short walk to the spokesperson of the army felt long and tense, all eyes rested on me, the sense of a held breath. The wind didn't move, nothing moved. A moment of crystalline timelessness, just waiting for what I would do.

It couldn't last.

I met the eyes of the spokesperson, he was a large man, not much older than me by looks but that could be deceiving if he had high magic levels or used his power a lot. His eyes told me nothing, they were wary, measuring me.

“I hope to honour your service,” I said, the only words that came to mind, as I extended my hand down to him.

The moment stretched.

He finally extended his arm and griped my forearm, pulling himself up to his feet. “I hope so too. I am the leader of this guard. Vincent. We will serve as we must but you must uphold your part. This land, this city is broken. We have had to hire our services out for years to get the food for our families. How can you take us from that?”

“Telsan,” I called without looking back, knowing he was but a few steps behind me ready to intervene if anything went wrong.

“Yes sir.”

“Do we have an agriculture specialists?”

“Not with us sir, we do although all have the basic skills to bring life back to this soil, it won't grow anything they want but it will grow what is needed to survive.”

“That will do. Can we train anyone?”

“Yes sir the skill are not overly complicated, anyone with an earth awakening should be able to learn quickly enough.” Telsan's words were delivered sharply and efficiently.

I smiled slightly as I realised why. He wants to show competence to this army.

“Good, we can start with that. Vincent, I know you have travelled hard to get here, but you missed a battle last night. The city could well have fallen. Please go, all of you,” I raised my voice to reach the far reaches of the army, there had to be more than ten thousand packed in so tight that the wide streets felt narrow. “Go home, see your families, I have no idea how long you have been gone from here but they will have missed you. We have work to do but take this time while you can.” I looked Vincent in the eye whatever he saw in my gaze he seemed satisfied.

He nodded and stepped back, commands to his army already pouring from his mouth.

I turned and walked back into headquarters, the mages quickly resumed what they had been doing as my eyes fell on them. I felt quietly impressed with myself. One hurdle down. Next is, oh.

“Telsan, Lysan, I need you both for a moment. Did anyone see where Vesic went to?”

“He left. Brendon came back. I think he went upstairs,” Lysar said.

“Good, one less thing to worry about right now. I need to set up communication back home. I think Nelar is ours now, we still have much to do. Don't forget that, but now it’s just getting this place running. Simple really. Telsan you have handled things like this before?”

“Yes, don't concern yourself there sir. We are just temporary. We get it functional then others who specialise in administration will be dispatched. Communication back home will be vital, we need to inform them of what happened, well you do, I'm attached to your command now, so it’s your responsibility.”

“I need you and the men to go out into the city, work out where you can do the most, make sure there is water, clean water and shelter, and get the fields mapped out. Teach who you must the things they need to know. Do it now, I need this building empty.”

“Tristan what do you intend to do?” Lysan asked, his voice wavered with uncertainty.

I reached into my pouch and pulled out the Orb seed.

“I'm going to activate this.”

Chapter 42

Standing in the centre of the Nelar Mage headquarters alone was a strange experience. The men had cleared out on my orders and I was seated, legs dangling, on the desk in the main hall, reception. I still could never work out what to call this part of the building. But it wasn't important right now.

In my hand was the Orb seed, its glassy structure bending the light in the room in very strange ways. Sending shapes and colours onto the walls that weren't found anywhere in the room naturally.

The doors were barred and a couple of my mages were outside keeping all away.

This had the potential to go so very wrong. Most mage magic was just expressions of will using concepts as a sort of lever against something that was so vast it was beyond the mortal mind to comprehend. As you advance you get taught lots of little ways to compartmentalise thoughts feelings ideas. But this thing in my hand was beyond all that.

It was a spell that covered so many parts of magic, so many concepts. It touched so much that it was more than many could handle. It could interact and change, grow and develop.

The Westhaven Orb was a golem in only the most superficial sense. In some ways close to what Airis could be, in others nowhere near.

Orbs could know anything with in their range, as they grow and get more complicated they get more powerful, more able to use that information.

They are normally one of the final things set up after the basics, so that they can give the senior, at his request, anything about the health of its area.

But in a city this large that had been without magic for so long, I feared what an orb could do. It could interact with the unnatural creatures, maybe some of the older, more primal magics that seeped into everything, that were everything. In tamed towns and cities, mages and knacks worked constantly building on what was there, cultivating, nurturing. It made them safer.

There was none of that here.

All this went round and round in my mind as I watched the light dance over the walls.

Sitting here alone watching light shows reminded me sharply of Sophia and Lyphia, the show we had seen and the players that I had promised patronage if they helped train my apprentice. The promise that id been unable to keep as I had been exiled from Westhaven. Another responsibility to live up to.

And just like that I made up my mind.

The desk I was sat on was solid oak. The whole thing was made from a single tree, the top was a slice clean through the trunk as if the tree was planted here, then cut and in many ways it was. It was reshaped by magic, made for this very purpose. Roots of wood spread through the floors and walls of this building. That was something I had figured out from my intense although brief study of the orb seed. The very enchantments that had been used here were standard for all headquarters for this very reason. Not exactly secret knowledge but their other use was less well known. They meshed with an orb.

I stood, planting my feet on the smooth stone floor and then I laid the glass ball on the desk, in the centre of the rings, the very core of the once tree.

My hand brushed over the seed as I opened my link wide and plunged into the torrent of sigils that made up the construction of spell.

Blackness.

Vast emptiness greeted me.

I stood, my mind stood, in the void. My senses alert to anything as magic poured out of my body into the seed. I could feel it but I was removed, somewhere else. One by one stars appeared in the void with me, each with its own voice, calling out and filling the space with sound. Pure notes touched by emotion. Ideas given form. They gradually illuminated the void, there was nothing to see except them, each trying to draw my attention. Soon there were thousands. They danced and swam all around me.

I reached my mind's hand out to touch the nearest. Complex ideas and diagrams, shapes. Few words were conveyed although solid meaning lodged in my head. An anchor. As I held it part of the material world slid into focus, the room around me this single star was the core all the other built upon, it went into the desk, the core of the tree, linking it to place, location.

The glass ball under my body's hand sunk into the desk, the rings opening to accept it. Its progress was slow but fluid through the grain of the wood, living wood that grew, its roots spreading, pulling nutrients and giving influence, reach.

The next star to come to me was just as complex. Its ideas, the foundation of body. Building on the anchor it gave the Orb a form. The same as the one in Westhaven but younger, more fluid. A ball of light and air, joining the ideals of knowledge and intellect. On to the anchor sigil it went, growing link by link, they interwove tying one to the other.

The next was harder, it was almost pure knowledge, a skill set, but adaptive. A flexible shifting thing that defied any solid grasp, into the body it went. All building.

Time had very little meaning here, I had no idea how long I had been building the orb, its network. The last few remained, and I was tired. The wonder of creating something so.... magical was draining out of me and exhaustion took its place.

Each star took power from me and through me, pulling on me as like a child demanding constant care and attention. A couple of times I had felt myself slip, and the links woven between stars had shifted fraying. Despite being nearly finished I couldn't rest or let up or all my work would be undone and the power I had spent would need to go somewhere.

The final stars slowly, so slowly slid into place, I didn't even look where they needed to go I just placed them where they told me. Their purpose clear to me now in this state of numb receptivity.

The last locked in and the void shattered, I fell back into myself.

I staggered on my feet, my legs long since dead, most of a day spent on my feet, unmoving, will do that to you.

Stretching them out brought pain and tingling heat shooting through the numbness that pervaded my body. Sweat, thick and oily sheathed my body, its cold slickness soaked into my clothes. A twitch in my hand brought my attention to the now sunken bead of glass that it rested on. I pulled it back and massaged blood back into it.

“You are Mage Representative Tristan Sodden,” a voice called into the empty hall.

My mind was too numb to make sense of anything right now, but the voice was clear and familiar.

“Orb, I did my task well then, if you are awake.”

“You did, Mage. I'm aware and alert. Not yet fully capable but that will come in time. Who is to be commander here?”

Oh

A small ball of light floated out of the sunken bead, its form almost identical to my Orb back home except much smaller, maybe half the size and its colour was closer to green than blue.

“Oh, there had been a question, hadn’t there?”

“That hasn't been decided just yet. I will need to speak to my second and to Master Jase before such a decision can be made.”

“Understood.”

“How come you talk like this? The Westhaven orb has a personality.”

“My limitations are in place until such a time as I have a master.”

“Well that makes sense. I will get on that as soon as I can. Now if you will excuse me for a moment I need to open the doors and let my men in, it’s been a long day already and I expect they will want to rest.”