Read The Mage of Trelian Online

Authors: Michelle Knudsen

The Mage of Trelian (2 page)

“Master?”

“You didn’t learn that quite as quickly as you should have.”

You said once more,
Calen protested silently.
You said once more, and then I did it!
But out loud he only said, “I learned it as quickly as I could. I thought you were pleased.”

“But it
wasn’t
as quickly as you could. You could have done it faster. You’re still holding back.”

“No, I —”


Don’t you say no to me,
” Krelig snapped, anger suddenly pulsing in his voice. “I sense the power inside you, but you refuse to release it. You insist on reaching in bit by bit, accessing a little more, and then a little more —
I don’t have time for this!

Calen swallowed, afraid that anything he said would be wrong. But Krelig hated when you didn’t answer him. “I’m trying as hard as I can, Master.”

“It’s not enough. You must need some incentive.”

No. No, no, no. It wasn’t fair; he’d gotten it on the third try! “I —”

“When my visions during my exile showed me that you would be . . . important . . . to my success, I am quite certain they meant you at your full power. Not this partial strength you insist on clinging to.” Krelig was studying him, eyes narrowed. “You must not truly want to unlock your full ability. How can I encourage you to want that, Calen?”

“I do; I do want that. I’ll do better tomorrow, you’ll see. I promise. You don’t — you don’t have to . . .”

Krelig shook his head, and Calen’s stomach shriveled to a hard little knot inside him. “Apparently I do.”

And then the pain started.

Calen desperately tried to block the spell before it hit, but Krelig batted his attempt away without any apparent effort at all. The first wave of red fiery energy tumbled Calen backward onto the floor. He didn’t even have a chance to scream before the impact knocked the breath out of him. Krelig walked over and stood looking down at him.

“I know it’s in there. I can almost
see
it — such power, the power I need to defeat my enemies — and you keep it safely . . . locked . . . away. . . .”

With each of the last three words, Krelig sent another beam of fire into Calen’s chest, as though he were trying to burn a hole through him in order to let the magic out. It wasn’t literal fire; even through the pain Calen could tell that he wasn’t actually burning, but oh, gods, it felt like he was.

“Stop . . . please. . . . I’m sorry. . . .” He gasped out the words even though he knew they wouldn’t do any good.

It seemed like a long time before Krelig felt he had been punished enough.

Calen lay there for a while after Krelig left. Eventually, once he stopped shaking and his heart felt closer to its normal rhythm again, he got up and picked his way along the candle-lined path. He took one of the candles near his feet and relit it, continuing down the hall toward the stairway that would take him to his room.

Most of the halls and corridors were kept dark, but Calen knew the way to his room, and to the kitchens, and to wherever else he needed to go. And if he needed to go somewhere he didn’t already know the way to, he knew how to find out. That had been an early lesson, and he had learned it well. On their second night at the apparently long-abandoned castle that Krelig had claimed for his new home, the mage had deposited Calen in the dark in some random corner of the lower levels and told him he’d have to find his way to his room without light or help. And then left him there alone. And then set some sort of hungry, monstrous creature loose nearby, to give Calen a little extra motivation. Calen had never found out exactly what it was, that thing, but he could still recall its insistent, eager cries and the sound of its too-many legs scrabbling against the floor in the darkness just behind him. Calen had learned what he needed to very, very quickly.

He carried a little map in his head now, all the time. It was incredibly useful; he wished he’d known it was possible a long time ago. He could add to it whenever he wanted, and so could always find his way back from wherever he went. His room, the one he’d chosen from the entire wing that Krelig had given him for his own, was at the end of a long hallway on the uppermost floor of the castle. It wasn’t the largest room of the lot, but it opened up onto a huge balcony that provided a breathtaking view of the surrounding countryside. Calen still wasn’t sure what country or kingdom they were actually in, but whatever it was, it was beautiful. He spent as much time out there as he could, looking at the trees and the mountains and watching the birds during the day, and staring out at the stars or the moonlight glinting on the distant river at night. He tried repeatedly to figure out which direction Trelian might be, but there was no way to tell without knowing where they were now. He didn’t dare ask Krelig. Krelig would answer questions about magic without hesitation — he
wanted
Calen to want to learn, and as long as the questions weren’t stupid ones, he would answer willingly. He was less tolerant of other kinds of questions. Calen had learned that lesson early, too.

When he reached his room, he doused the candle and reset the wards in his doorway (he wasn’t entirely sure that the too-many-legged creature wasn’t still out there somewhere) and went outside to look out at the night.

He really wished he knew what Krelig was talking about.

How could he have some secret reservoir of power within himself and not be able to tell? Krelig thought that he just wasn’t trying hard enough, but if that extra power was really in there somewhere, Calen couldn’t find it. He had tried. From the very first time Krelig had mentioned it, he had tried. But how could he access something he didn’t really believe was there?

As always, he automatically searched the sky for a dragon flying toward him from the distance. It was foolish, but he couldn’t seem to help it. And as much as part of him wished to see Jakl — Jakl with Meg riding on his back, coming to save him, coming to yell at him and probably kick him but also to save him and take him home — he couldn’t
really
hope for that, because it was too dangerous. Maybe Jakl’s resistance to magic would be strong enough to protect him from Krelig, but maybe not. And the mage could still set one of his nasty flying slaarh at the dragon, or more than one. He didn’t think Jakl would be able to fight, say, five of the disgusting things at one time.

And he could hurt Meg either way. Calen had no doubt that Krelig could rip her apart just as he’d threatened that first terrible day when he’d come through the portal and everything had gone so very horribly wrong. The man had
stopped time.
Killing one girl would hardly cost him any effort at all.

No. Meg could never come here.
He
had to go to
her.
He just had to figure out how.

And when.

Because that was the other thing, of course. He couldn’t leave until he’d learned what he needed to defeat Mage Krelig once and for all.

Calen washed and changed his clothes and got into his bed and lay there for a long time before he fell asleep.

In the morning, as always, there were more lessons.

Calen ate his breakfast alone in the dining hall, as usual. Krelig must have acquired a cook from somewhere, because there was always food waiting on the table at mealtimes, but Calen had never seen anyone working in the kitchens or delivering supplies or even cleaning up. Krelig had never explained, and Calen suspected that questions in this area would be the kind Krelig considered a waste of his time. So Calen just ate what he found waiting for him without thinking too much about how it got there and left his dishes on the counter when he was finished. Then he went to wherever Krelig was waiting for him for that day’s learning.

Krelig never told him where that would be; Calen had to find him. Which wasn’t hard once he figured out how — it only took a bit of white energy sent along the castle corridors to locate the mage.

Today Krelig was waiting up on the battlements that ran along the entire perimeter of the castle. Calen emerged into the windy morning, clutching his cloak around him as he approached the older man. Krelig had cut his shaggy hair and beard since his return, and now looked somewhat less like a madman to the casual eye. But Calen’s eye was anything but casual, and he knew that Krelig was completely crazy. Not stupid, though. He was about as far from stupid as someone could be, in fact. It was hard not to respect that about him, even while hating the rest. He was evil and terrible and cruel and unpredictable, but he knew so much. And, like Calen himself, he always wanted to know more.

What Krelig most wanted to know about, other than why Calen “refused” to access his full power, was Calen’s special ability to see the colors of the different types of magical energy involved when someone was casting a spell. But unlike Mage Brevera and his friends back at the Magistratum, Krelig seemed to understand that it wasn’t something Calen could teach someone else how to do. He just wanted to understand what Calen could see and, Calen assumed, figure out how to use it in his war against the other mages. Calen just had to make sure he wasn’t around to be used by Krelig when the time came.

He’d tried, early on, to lie about what he saw. But Krelig had known. He had known, and he had made it very clear to Calen that he should never attempt to lie about his ability again. Very, very clear. And so Calen always answered truthfully now, and held fast to his determination to get away. If Calen wasn’t here, Krelig’s knowledge about what he could see and do wouldn’t make any difference.

Krelig was standing at the far edge of the battlement, looking out into the distance. He didn’t turn or acknowledge Calen’s presence at first, but as soon as Calen was close enough to hear him, Krelig said, “Stand there, and tell me what you see.” Then he sent up a swirl of multicolored energy into the air around him.

Calen stopped walking. “It’s mostly blue and yellow and purple, but there’s a lot of black and orange all along the outer edges of the other colors. As though all the colors have black and orange outlines, somehow.” He squinted, interested despite himself, as was usually the case. Orange was nullifying or neutralizing, and black was for concealment. “Are you trying to hide the colors themselves?”

Krelig let the magic dissipate and turned toward Calen, a half smile on his face. All traces of yesterday’s anger seemed to be gone. For now. “Trying and failing, it would seem.” Without changing expression, he suddenly sent a bolt of red and black energy directly at Calen.

Calen immediately sent out blue and orange magic to meet it, and the spells smashed into each other in the space between them, canceling each other out. Calen wasn’t sure what Krelig’s spell had been, exactly — although red magic was rarely anything pleasant — but he didn’t need to know in order to counter it. This was one of the aspects of his ability that Krelig seemed most interested in: that Calen could create counterspells and defenses based on the colors he was able to see.

And Calen was getting better at sorting out the colors all the time.

Krelig sent a few more easy-to-decipher spells at Calen, all of which Calen was able to block or neutralize without any trouble. They started coming faster, requiring more concentration, but Calen had gotten better at concentration, too. And at casting for longer periods of time without resting. After a few more increasingly speedy but not-too-difficult spells, Krelig turned away as if getting bored. Then he raised his head to look at a bird flying above them. It was one of the bright blue and yellow birds Calen sometimes saw from his room. He liked them; they made friendly chirping sounds to one another when they flew around, and lately one or two had begun to rest on the slim enclosing wall that lined the edge of the balcony when he was standing there. He kept meaning to find some bread or something to give them, to encourage them to visit more often. They made him feel a little less lonely when they came.

Krelig tilted his head and released a bolt of red energy toward the bird.

“Don’t!” Calen shouted without thinking, simultaneously sending a bolt of his own, willing it to intercept Krelig’s deadly little spell before it reached its intended victim. The mass of color flew from his fingertips without conscious thought, and only afterward did Calen notice what he’d sent and why. Orange for neutralizing; yellow for healing, in case his spell was too slow to stop Krelig’s but fast enough to heal whatever damage was done before it was too late; purple for motion and speed, which he guessed he’d included from some desire to make his spell move more quickly through the air. And it seemed to be working — his spell collided with and engulfed Krelig’s, consuming it into nothingness, and the bird, sensing the invisible forces clashing just a few inches away, gave a troubled cry and darted swiftly in the opposite direction.

Calen looked warily at Krelig. The mage looked back, seeming more curious than angry. “Friend of yours?” he asked.

“There was no reason to kill it,” Calen said defensively.

“No reason not to,” Krelig said, with the empty, careless cruelty that always made Calen’s stomach turn. But he still didn’t seem angry. That was good. After a moment he added, “You made your spell faster.”

“Yes.” It hadn’t really been a question, but Calen answered anyway.

“Did your former master teach you to do that?”

“No. I didn’t — it just sort of happened. I only realized afterward what I’d done.”

“Hmm. Could you have made it slower? Could you have made
mine
slower?”

Calen paused, considering. “I — I think so.”

“Try now.” Krelig released another bolt of red energy, but this one, Calen was relieved to see, was aimed only at the stone wall. Calen cast again, this time attempting to cast
into
Krelig’s spell instead of just trying to knock it aside or destroy it. He still used purple energy, but the intent was different, and so the effect was different as well. The colors were the
types
of magic energy, what a given spell was created out of, but each color could be used in countless different ways. He tried to shape the magic into something that would infuse Krelig’s spell and slow it down without otherwise altering it. He thought it worked, at least a little: the red bolt hit the stone with a small explosion, leaving behind a tiny crater, but not as quickly as it would have otherwise. At least . . . he thought so.

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