Ultimate magic, p.2
Ultimate Magic, page 2
“The monks of the Archon Temple gave you their ring?” Hera asked, glancing from Eleira to Alec. “That was a wonderful thing you did giving it to your beloved, my son. Some would call it foolish, even.”
Alec grinned. “I have plenty of magical tools to aid me,” he said, feeling like he was about ten feet tall. For all his thoughts of maturity and stoicism, there was something inside of Alec Diamondspear that would always be akin to that hyperactive foundling at the Archon Temple, swinging a sword while fantasizing about single-handedly ridding the world of evil. “My bag of tricks is nowhere close to empty, mother.”
As if to punctuate the statement, he drew the Bloodcloak tighter around him. Alec felt no responding pulse from the crimson fabric, though it wouldn’t have surprised him. He had long since stopped being surprised by anything the Bloodcloak did. The strangest and most powerful of the Archon’s gifts to him, it appeared to act with a mind of its own. Fortunately, it did so to protect him: teleporting him and his friends out of danger or wrapping itself around the faces of his foes to blind them. The Bloodcloak had saved Alec’s lives more times than he could count—and saved the lives of his friends even more times than they could count.
As they spoke, the group moved toward a stately hall on the top level of the underground cylinder. The presence of such a large group moving through the city drew attention, and by the time they reached the front gates of the building, a crowd of mages had begun following them. Some shouted questions, but most seemed content to simply gawk at Alec and his friends.
What are they looking at? Alec wondered. Do they know something we don’t?
It was Maimonides who gave him the answer. “You’re a hero now, lad,” the gnome said, clapping a hand on Alec’s back. “By the time this war is through, your songs will be even more popular than mine! Bards will comprise hymns to the heir of Diamondspear —the orphan who grew up to save an entire people from the forces of Chaos!”
Maybe. But Alec didn’t feel terribly thrilled with that part. Saving the world was all well and good, but he’d much rather have a quiet life with Eleira. In his heart of hearts, he’d even thought of opening up an orphanage much like the one he’d been raised in. Boys needed a masculine figure in their lives, after all…
As they approached the doors, Alison’s parents broke off from the pack. They flanked the opening of the administrative building, each giving Hera a short bow as they swung open the doors. It would have been absurd if it hadn’t looked so respectful: as the pair had been walking calmly beside Hera for several blocks now, their sudden turn into servants struck Alec as peculiar.
“Alison’s parents are our most loyal members,” Hera explained. “When the time came, they didn’t hesitate to send their only daughter into the viper’s nest of the Royal Academy.”
“I rather like that viper’s nest, thank you,” Jolenta said, sounding amused.
“Yes, and until recently, I taught the little vipers,” Maimonides added. “They weren’t all bad, I’ll have you know. Two of them were your son and his beloved.”
Hera looked as if she’d just realized she’d stepped in a cow’s leavings. “My apologies,” the leader of the Inscribers said, shaking her head. “I meant no disrespect.” Then she turned to Alec. “My city is not your true home, my son. You were not born here; neither was I. But home is wherever your family is together.” She reached forward and took his hand, her eyes twinkling. “I hope you remember that.”
A surge of emotion welled up in Alec’s chest. “That’s the thing, Mother,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “I do know that. It’s the way I’ve been living all my life.”
He looked over his group of friends. His family. One look at them and Hera knew it was true as well. These people Alec had surrounded himself with—he’d chosen them to be bound to, in ties as strong as blood. Despite his parentage, Hera was the one off-balance here.
“But I do want to get to know you better,” Alec finished, feeling it a feeble way to smooth over the snub. “And I want some answers. About my past… about everything.”
His mother nodded. “Kirsten,” she said, gesturing at Alison’s mother. “And Jyndal.” That was her father. “Please lead our guests to the Council chambers.”
Alison’s parents let go of her hand and took the lead, nodding to their daughter to let her know everything was alright. Now that they’d entered the interior of the Inscribers’ den, the place resembled the halls of the Royal Academy a great deal more than Alec expected Maimonides would like to admit. Shelves covered in thick books lined the hallways, with titles in languages that made little sense to Alec. He suspected these weren’t grimoires—those would be kept further back, hidden from prying eyes—but that Master Maimonides would be eager to add more than a few of these tomes to his collection.
Alison’s father Jyndal was a tall, older man with a salt-and-pepper beard. “Our numbers are small,” he explained, passing an open door in the hallway, “but we have a magical program unlike any other in the kingdoms.” He gestured inside for them to look as they passed.
Alec saw several rows of students studying spellbooks. Unlike a classroom at the Royal Academy, not all these mages in training were young—and very few of them looked like an ordinary student the Crown would have been interested in training. Alec saw more than a few dark elves, gnomes, and even a dryad, all practicing a simple wind knotting spell Eleira had showed him during his first year at the Academy.
“We don’t allow the prejudices of the outside world to reign here,” Alison’s mother Kirsten explained. She looked to be about a decade younger than her husband, and was a handsome, earthy woman with long hair done in braids. “Anyone who lives here and wishes to master the ways of magic is given a spellbook and the leave to try.”
“Intriguing,” Maimonides said, studying the edge of a book being held between a teenage boy and a wood elf. “And if there are not enough grimoires to go around, you share?”
“Of course.” Kirsten sounded a bit affronted. “High King Alrick’s teachings that every grimoire is keyed to a single mage are lies, of course. Here, grimoires are treated like volumes in a library—free for anyone to check out and peruse. Within a learning environment, of course.”
“Of course,” Maimonides repeated mildly. “I’m just wondering how well that ‘share and share alike’ philosophy would serve your students on an actual battlefield.”
Before Kirsten could come up with a response, her superior spoke up.
“We hope to have more grimoires before that day arises,” Hera explained. “Though both of us know that time is coming soon, Master Shadebringer.”
“Indeed,” the gnome said with a final look at the students. He did not seem hopeful.
The Council chambers, however, gave them all a bit more reason to be cheerful.
The space where the Inscribers conducted business had all the grandeur of a palace’s meeting rooms, with thick fluted columns and blazing braziers suspended from the ceiling. A massive obsidian table dominated the space, looking as if it had been carved from a single slab of volcanic rock by ancient, primal magic. A number of chairs surrounded it, with places for food and drink already established by servants. Pitchers of water and wine sat in the center of the table—the latter of which Jolenta eyed with a touch more hunger than was strictly necessary.
But the true surprise came as Alec and Eleira walked over to touch the table. Across the shining face of the glossy stone were carved numerous scenes, each depicting a mighty hero in a tale from ancient lore. After a moment of confusion, Alec was able to order them in his mind—they moved from the foot of the long table to the head. In the first, a man descended to the sky on a beam of light, carrying a spellbook beneath each arm. The last showed the same man entering a portal above a massive crowd filled with people that were both cheering and weeping.
In between was a whole lot of fighting.
Battles against the forces of Chaos, against monsters—and against men. Each would have been enough to fill an epic poem in its own right, but together they told a story unlike none other. One that underpinned the very foundations of Alec’s world, and formed the reality in which he and everyone he knew lived. The very force of magic itself owed its existence in this world to that man.
“The Archon,” Alec whispered in an awestruck tone, running his finger along one of the grooves in the table. “It’s the Archon’s story!”
“His arrival in our world,” Eleira said, pointing at the first story. “His conquest over the forces of Chaos, and his granting of the Grimoires to the noble houses. Then his disappearance.” She bit her lip at this last one. “Why did he leave us, Alec? Why abandon humanity and let Chaos come creeping back in?”
Alec didn’t know. He suspected not even the strange, Archon-touched cloak hanging from his back could answer that particular question.
“By the Archon!” Jolenta gasped, coming to a crashing halt before the obsidian table. “It’s the Archon!”
“Droll as ever, dear,” Vodalus agreed, gesturing at their seats. “Shall we sit?”
“Oh, we shan’t sit there,” Jolenta insisted, gesturing toward the front of the table. “We’re the official delegation from House Igneous, after all! We’re supposed to be negotiating the terms of an alliance between the Noble Houses and these Inscribers, so we’d better get pride of place!”
Hera’s eyes narrowed. “You do have pride of place,” she insisted. “But if you think you’re going to get a better seat at the table than my own flesh and blood, you’d better give me a good reason why.”
Jolenta blinked, seeing the trap she’d just stepped into. “Well of course we’d never seek to upstage Alec Diamondspear,” she whispered in a chastened tone, quickly taking the offered seat. “That simply wouldn’t do, darling!”
“You go,” Viya said, giving Maimonides a little kiss on the cheek. “I’m going to take a look around. Some of the architecture in this place… it seems old. Very, very old. I’d like to do a little investigating…”
Alec would have liked to have heard more about that, but it was clear that even that whispered comment was more than Viya and Maimonides would have liked to have been heard by the group. Whatever they were playing at, it interested him greatly. The dark elf waved at Maimonides and blew him a kiss, then retreated from the chamber as servants arrived with more food and drink.
“Wonderful,” Hera said, clapping her hands. “We’ll get started in just a moment, son. There’s one more piece of business we need to take care of beforehand.”
Alec frowned. Business? He’d thought he and Hera were past that now.
“What do you mean, Mom?” he asked.
The corner of Hera’s mouth curled in a smile. “Have you brought it?”
Alec and Eleira shared a look.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” the elf girl said, plastering an awkward smile to her face. “Alec came here with everything he has—save for a few knick-knacks at his room back at the Royal Academy—”
Hera was already shaking her head. “The ancestral weapon,” she said, her tone almost pleading as she stared at her son. “The Diamondspear, Alec. Please tell me you still have it with you?”
He did. Though Alec had no idea why Hera of all people would want it so badly.
“Of course I do,” he said, reaching into his robes. As always, the baton lay concealed within. At a touch, it would extend to the length of a spear, a sharp blade emerging from the point at the front of the rod. The Diamondspear had been in Uriel’s family for dozens of generations, and was a weapon imbued with great power.
Just like every time he touched the weapon, he felt the gentle frisson of battle rage welling up within him. This was the Diamondspear Clan’s secret weapon—how even the gentlest of those who bore the name transformed into savage beasts on the field of battle. Alec didn’t understand how the magic worked, only that it did.
Since there were no enemies in the room with him, it was a simple thing to push down the tiny voice that told him to attack. Resisting the Diamondspear’s call was easy, and he felt no great temptation to extend the weapon to its full length as he handed it over to his mother.
Hera, on the other hand, did. With a touch, the weapon cut through the air with a vicious schling sound, extending to its full length.
“The Diamondspear,” Alec’s mother said, a strange catch entering her voice. “You brought it all this way, son. I’m so, so proud of you. You have no idea how important it was for you to bring this relic to us.”
To you!? Alec thought, alarmed.
Before he could think to reach out and take the weapon, Hera grabbed it with both hands and twisted the Diamondspear in a way he’d never seen before.
The weapon snapped in two, dropping neatly to the floor.
Chapter 2
Alec stared in absolute shock at the ruin of his weapon.
You could have heard a pin drop in the Inscribers’ Council Hall as the broken pieces of the Diamondspear clattered to the floor. The knife edge that had won countless battles for the youth lay on the stones, Alec’s own stricken face showing clearly in the blade’s reflection.
Eleira clasped a hand over her mouth, her face going pale with shock. “My Gods,” she gasped, so stunned she took a full step backward.
“You… you broke it!” Alec said, unable to come up with better words. He hated the way he sounded like a child, but in that moment, he felt like one—the Diamondspear was a cherished possession. An heirloom of a clan of warrior mages, thousands of years old! For her to just break it like that, it was…
“Madness,” Jolenta said, springing from her seat. “This is absolute madness! You’ve just declared war on your own son, Hera…!”
Strangely, neither of the students looked put out by this. Drama lovers, Alec thought, though the words moved sluggishly through his mind. He felt as if he were floating in syrup, unable to move. His weapon couldn’t be broken, could it?
“All of you calm down,” Hera said, looking impish. Despite her age, Alec realized his mother could be every bit the trickster as people like Maimonides and Jolenta. “The Diamondspear mages who created this weapon wouldn’t let their hard work go to waste that easily. They did a very good job taking care of what’s inside that spear…”
Inside the spear? Suddenly Alec realized his mother’s hand had closed very tight around something—something loosed from the interior of the Diamondspear’s hilt when she made that strange twisting motion.
Moving with a practiced swiftness, Kirsten and Jyndal scooped up the pieces of the ancient weapon and began putting it back together. As Alec watched, he quickly grew to appreciate the artistry and grace with which the spear had been created. Even a child could have fit the shards of the Diamondspear back into its full length—as long as the child knew which of the clever hidden clasps built into the silver snapped into which.
Within moments, a fully restored Diamondspear rested between Kirsten and Jyndal’s hands. They held it out like an apology, their heads bowed.
In the silence of the Council chamber, Maimonides whistled. “That,” he said thickly, sounding awestruck, “was the most amazing feat of engineering I’ve ever seen. Oh, Viya is going to kick me when she realizes she missed seeing it…”
Alec was extremely impressed and had learned something about the weapon he’d been carrying all this way. But what interested him even more was the thing clutched in his mother’s hand. “What is it?” he asked, gesturing at her closed fingers with his chin.
With a proud, secretive smile, Hera opened her hand. Laying in her wrinkled palm was a ring covered in ornate runes, with a garnet the size of a cherry in the center. The band was made of white gold, and looked surprisingly heavy in Hera’s slender, aged fingers. A single glance confirmed the ring would never have fit on her finger—nor would it have fit on the fingers of most people Alec had ever met. The band was large enough for a giant, stretching from the third knuckle of Hera’s fingers to the heel of her palm.
The ring must have been wrapped around the Diamondspear’s hilt. It was the only way it would have fit. Alec’s mind boggled at the thought. Had Uriel Diamondspear’s ancestors really created one of the most powerful weapons in the realms solely to serve as a hiding place for this ring?
“I was wrong,” Maimonides croaked. “That is the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen. Oh, by all the Gods, that is the Archon’s ring, Alec!”
The Council chamber filled with gasps.
Hera smiled, offering her palm to her son. “Master Maimonides is right,” she whispered, her voice barely audible but plain as day to everyone sitting around the table. “This relic is none other than the Ring of the Archon—the signet of the master of magic himself. It is the final and strongest of the gifts the Archon gave to men, and the Diamondspear clan has kept it safe for nearly a hundred generations. After I saw your cloak, I suspected you held the specific Diamondspear which contained the ring, and it seems I was right. The Archon moves in mysterious ways, but those ways are always for his own purposes.”
In a flash, it felt like everyone had crowded around Alec and Eleira. Vodalus, Jolenta, Alison, and Maimonides, even Trystara—all of them wanted a closer look at the oversized ring in Hera’s hand.
“Those runes,” Vodalus said, looking more impressed than the man had ever had cause to before. “I’ve seen ones like that in books at the Royal Academy. That’s the ancient script—the language of the Archon. Or his people.”
Jolenta scoffed. “His people? The Archon is a God, Vodie. He doesn’t have people. He’s too busy… I don’t know, creating the universe and giving mortals the ability to cast magic to have much time for social engagements!”
Alec wasn’t so sure. “The Archon didn’t create the universe,” he said, swallowing hard. “Not even Master Abel would have made such a claim, and he spent decades worshipping the Archon in the monastery where I grew up.”
