Highmage's Plight (Highmage’s Plight Series Book 1) (2 page)

BOOK: Highmage's Plight (Highmage’s Plight Series Book 1)
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Chapter 1: Highmage’s Plight

Flames crackled in the fireplace, the room’s only source of light set along the center of the stone wall. Shadows were cast over the intricately carved thousand-year-old desk and stacks of books on Imperial history and magery piled high in every corner. The aged, silver haired Highmage sat facing the fire chanting a spell. The flames gyrated higher with every word and an image formed.

He felt the call from the Northlands to seek vision from the fire. The unicorn reared within the flames. Through the unicorn’s eyes, he could see Imperial troops fleeing before a horde of goblins. The kingdom of Gwire, for long centuries the Empire’s ally, had to have fallen by treason, allowing the Demonlord’s armies to wreak havoc there. The Highmage sighed, seeing smoke rising from the ruins of the overrun line of border fortresses. Goblins could be seen flowing out of it, the blood of their victims drenching their weapons and mail.

Thunder pealed outside, which shook the Highmage clear of the vision. As rain poured on the tile roof, he could hear the Demonlord’s laughter in that thunder. It had begun! The Age of Mankind upon the face of this world was drawing to a close.

Trembling, the Highmage, the Guardian of this world, knew that with the northern forces in disarray it would only be a matter of time before the Empire itself fell. Ancient prophecy held that should Gwire and its Royal House fall, the Demonlord’s victory was assured. So the Empire had pledged troops to forever defend the borderlands.

With a wave of his hand, he felt the unicorn racing south. Time past seemingly in moments and the image in the fire showed the King of Gwire struck down, the heir fallen as he struggled to rally the city guard and his household troops.

There must be some remaining shred of hope
, the Highmage thought as he added a new note to his chant. The flames crackled and he heard the sound of hooves. There, the unicorn, galloping across the fiery image. The unicorn abruptly halted to stare back at the Highmage. He nodded at the creature, knowing it was the last of its kind. The unicorn’s horn glowed with power, disrupting the enchanted flames, raising up another image, deep within the ethereal flames. .

The unicorn presented a vision of a carriage riding up the streets of the Imperial Capital, this very city. It was under the escort of scores of mounted black liveried warriors. The sight puzzled the aged Highmage in his dark flowing robes. He realized that he was looking at a people mentioned only in stories told by sailors, or referred to only in journals and history books. Cathartans, legendary for their sword skill, they dwelled in lands far beyond the Empire’s borders, far to the southeast, beyond even the Barrier Mountains and south of the Great Waste. What made their presence far more unusual was the fact that they were cursed, and so rarely, if ever, left their land.

The Highmage wondered what they were doing there as they vanished in a flash of lightning. The storm outside raged where the unicorn’s vision had placed the Cathartans. When lightning next flashed, they and their carriage appeared again, but slightly farther up the street and in clear weather. The Highmage wondered if this was a vision of things to come.

Aboard the carriage was a brightly cloaked man who cradled a sick boy in his lap. The city around the Cathartan phantoms seemed subtly different, the buildings seemed taller, their façades somehow brighter to the Highmage. Lightning flashed and they were gone once more.

The thunder echoed with the Demonlord’s maniacal laughter. Lightning flared again and the phantoms returned, yet the accompanying sound of thunder carried a more muted note of his nemesis’ triumph.

What does it mean? Why would the unicorn wish to show me this
, the Highmage wondered.

He recalled there had once been a prophecy about Cathart, a land settled by refugees not unlike those who had founded the Empire, except that they were cursed. Few Imperial ships traded there for fear of that curse. Yet the prophecy offered them hope, and he understood the power of that which was not unlike magic. The group faded in and out of existence, and headed up through the Seven Tiered City.

Thunder raged, shaking the capital city of the Empire. Aaprin, an elfblooded apprentice, an adolescent of mixed parentage struggled to see through the heavy rain as he walked, accompanying his elvin master, who repelled the rain from himself with a spell. Aaprin’s master used him as a personal errand boy, knowing that the elfblood youth had not a lick of mage talent. Yet his loyalty more than made up for it.

Aaprin grimaced as he saw a strange carriage under heavy escort coming up the narrow street, not wide enough for two parties, toward them. The carriage rode toward them in cloudless sunshine, and Aaprin wiped the rain from his eyes in astonishment. His master seemed unconcerned as they crossed in front he could see them no more.

“Master,” Aaprin said, “Where did they go?”

“What are you talking about, boy?”

Lightning struck once more and Aaprin shouted in warning as black liveried riders suddenly bore down on them, the sound of their hooves and squeaking carriage wheels rushing forward about to run them down. He dragged his master aside as the coach narrowly missed them.

“Aaprin, what’s come over you, lad!” his master cried shaking his arm. “Have you gone mad?”

“Master, whatever are Cathartans doing so far from their southern climes?”

“What are you talking about? No one has ever seen Cathartans in the Empire. Now explain why you pulled me along on such an insane dash!”

He stared uncertainly. “Master, we would have been run down by the horses, otherwise.”

With a groan his master shouted, “Aaprin, go back to the Academy this instant! Forget our errand, I shall accomplish it alone! And think hard about your behavior before we next talk about this!”

The young elfblood swallowed and considered protesting, but thought better of it as the last of the foreign women in black livery riding in escort turned down the next street. There could be only one destination along that route. “My pardon, Master Stenh, I will go back this instant.”

Huffing, the elvin mage continued up the street while Aaprin ran back the way they came, running after the phantom Cathartans toward the Healers Hall.
 

There was a knock at the door and a servant answered. “Lord Stenh! What brings you out on such a terrible night?”

As the servant took his cloak, Stenh asked, “Is the Highmage about?”

“Yes, but he has asked to be left alone.”

“I must see him. The matter is urgent.”

The Highmage’s elvin daughter appeared at the top of the stairs, “Take Master Stenh to my father.”

The mage looked up at her gratefully.

“He has been in his study since his meeting with the Empress.”

He nodded in understanding and said, “Thank you, Carwina.”

Stenh was led into the Highmage’s study. The aged elf sat humming to himself and was hunched forward looking into the flames in his fireplace. The servant closed the door firmly behind him as Stenh waited patiently, knowing the Highmage was in the midst of a powerful spell. The mage sighed, thinking the Highmage must already know the terrible truth.

The Highmage’s chant grew more intense and the flames before him rose higher as he leaned forward. He saw an image form that resembled a space in the capital. The healers came forth and offered to assist with the Cathartan boy. The women refused as a darkly dressed man led them into the building. The image shifted as Master Healer Ofran himself took charge of the seriously ill child. He saw the old elf frown after examining the lad and could see his lips form the words, “I can ease his pain, but nothing more.”

The Cathartan lord’s shoulders slumped.

The Highmage frowned and gave up the chant. The flames flickered to normalcy.
“Alrex,” Stenh muttered behind him.

The Highmage sighed. “I had hoped to be left undisturbed on a night as terrible as this, my friend.”

“I am sorry, Alrex, but the news I bring is dire; the Academy scryers saw a glimpse of the Northlands. They are lost. Gwire has fallen,” Stenh told him with a shiver. “The Imperial Legion there has been cut off from all support.”

“I know.”

“The Empress will be forced to send additional troops. There will be war…the Final War.”

“There will be no reinforcements. The Demonlord’s minions work unseen. The Empress will not engage the remainder of the Legions until assured that they will not be thrown away in vain, fearing the end has indeed come. The true stakes of the Final War hinge upon what happens next.”

“But the Empress must!”

The Highmage laughed forlornly. “I have spoken to her. She believes our combined magery still leaves us evenly matched enough that we have time.”

Stenh, Dean of the Mage Academy, shook his head, “But we both know we no longer command the power our people once did. Only your mastery of the Gate as Guardian offers us any hope.”

Alrex lowered his head. He knew the Gate's limitations all too well.

“Leave me.”

As Master Stenh went through the door, Carwina whispered to him and gestured down the hall. She entered and said,“Father, I have given Stenh a room for the night. I’ll not have him hazard the storm once more.”

He shook his head, “Your healer training has made you too kind, Carwina.”

“And you need to sleep and leave off worrying about the fate of humanity. I would be happy to bring you a draught.”

“You were listening.”

She shrugged, “I was. Nothing else would have brought him across the city unescorted. It had to have been worth listening to.”

“You are a trying child, Carwina.”

“I am my father’s daughter,” she smiled warmly. “And you should leave off worrying about the Demonlord’s latest schemes. We can still defeat him.”

The Highmage gazed at his daughter in her optimism. “Would that we could.” He hugged his robe closer. “Yet the Aqwaine Empire is not the power it once was.”

“Yet the power of the Gate you wield is no small thing.”

“So our Empress and the Mage Guild believe but the Gate is not like other mageries. It can only be used in certain ways.”

“Still, humanity, even without magery, nearly defeated Elfdom before Battle’s End.”

“Yes, but they exhausted their ‘technology,’” Alrex said, pronouncing the word with great difficulty. “They were forced to flee the lands we together laid waste. Left primitive and hurt, they could offer us no further harm.”

“‘And from such the Empire was born,’” Carwina quoted from the Chronicles.

Alrex frowned thoughtfully, “Elves and mankind united to create the Empire, setting aside our hatred. But the Elfking’s hate was too great… and so he rages against us, now the Lord of Demons.”

Thunder shook the mansion. Carwina shivered and hurriedly left her father to his thoughts.

“There must be a way!” Highmage Alrex shouted. He cried a word of power and waved his hand at the stone wall behind him. The stones rippled with magelight, obeying him as the Guardian. Alrex marched across the room and strode through the glowing passage.

He entered the etherworld, a place outside of normal space and time, the antechamber before the Gate. The Highmage stepped forward and reached the Gate, an arch, glowing with raised elvish runes intricately carved by magefire aeons ago. Within the arch's depths stars dimly glowed and illuminated the archway in dull white light.

He knelt before the Gate and humbly lamented, “Our magery is nothing as to what it once was. The Empire crumbles around us more each day. We are no match for the Demonlord has raised.”

The Highmage considered the vision in the flames that had showed him a phantom present. It could be nothing else. Somehow he stood at a crux, a moment of paradox; however, he did not know if the vision was a harbinger of a futile ending for his people. Yet it seemed to promise more time, perhaps hope. "This world needs our help, old friend."

The Gate began to blaze as it awoke fully and considered its Guardian.

For millennia, the Gate between worlds had been closed. Long ago the stars were easily crossed by the Elves, worlds under many suns were called home. Yet through time, various worlds had been abandoned and their Gates sealed.

The Master Gate in the Highmage’s world still thrived but stood alone, as alone as its Elvin Guardian felt this day. For more than two hundred years Alrex had served as Highmage of the Aqwaine Empire. He would likely be the last before the Demonlord, once Elfking, conquered the Empire and in his madness exterminated humanity
.
Even Carwina believed the Gate could succour them from that fate
.

Highmage Alrex knelt for seemingly hours before the Gate, appealing.

“…but none of them understand your limits. You are a thing of pure magery. We cannot wield you like a sword. You are a doorway. And, whether they understand it or not, you are alive.”

The Gate watched him, understood him, knew the true thoughts of its companion, his fears and sorrows. They were one, Guardian and Gate.

The Gate then did what it had not done for thousands of years. Alrex shielded his eyes as the Gate’s runes flared brighter than a sun, reaching out to the beckoning stars of the galaxy.

BOOK: Highmage's Plight (Highmage’s Plight Series Book 1)
8.25Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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