Magician Prince (26 page)

Kellen accepted the explanation without
question and clapped Byrn on the shoulder in a gesture of
camaraderie that still left him a little surprised, despite all he
knew of the knight. Kellen had gotten no more than a few paces from
the magicians when he suddenly stopped and became suddenly rigid.
Now blue energy suddenly flared from within him in that subtle way
that only Byrn could see.

“Guardsmen take that man into the quarter
cabin and bind his hands,” Kellen commanded and a dozen men jumped
to obey. Byrn considered trying to become the firehawk again and
flying away from the ship, but there was not enough room to take
off from and the fiery wings were more suited to gliding than
actual flight anyway. He let the men take him below deck while he
waited in a mid-sized room. The area where the magicians were all
crowded together was only a little larger.

He did not have to wait long for Kellen to
arrive with King Janus, who wore his father’s crown. It somehow
looked out of place on his head. A quartet of the king’s royal
guard flanked him with weapons drawn.

Janus strode forward with a smooth arrogance
like a cat that had just made a fine meal of an unwary mouse. He
examined Byrn intently before speaking. “This is the leader of the
Collective?” he asked rhetorically and a quick grin spread across
his face. His eyes danced with delight. Janus unlatched something
from his belt and held a control rod unlike any of the ones Byrn
had seen before up for him to see. It was no more ostentatious than
any of the others, but it was larger, about the size of a club, and
had several runes carved into it at the head. It must have been
some sort of master rod that could control all of the magicians at
once. “Just so we are all clear and there are no mistakes, tell me
your name.”

Janus did not know that the collar around
Byrn’s neck did not work and so he would accept any answer the
sorcerer gave as being the truth, but the look on Kellen’s face
told him how certain he was that he had the right man. If Byrn made
up some random name, then Kellen might figure out that the collar
was not working. “I am Xander Necros,” answered Byrn.

The king nearly jumped for joy at the
proclamation. “What luck that you were one of the magicians
captured. Now you can help us to stop the rest of your sorry group
and save Mollifas. What a fitting irony.”

The mountain was conspiring against the
sorcerer every step of the way to the point where Sane was almost
certain that the rock, the wind, and the blowing snow were living,
thinking things that held a personal grudge against him. The paths
were narrow and often steep as he climbed. Patches of snow sat over
clear patches of ice that would cause the sorcerer to slip at the
most inopportune time or when he least expected it. The wind grew
into mighty gusts that threatened to blow him off the mountain’s
face when the climbing became the most difficult. Yes, if someone
told him that the mountain wanted to kill him, Sane would have
believed it.

Perhaps it was the dragons that made the
weather so fearsome, he mused as he approached the clouds that were
still planted very high among the mountain peaks. Surely there were
others before him that tried to scale these mountains and catch a
glimpse of the mighty beasts of legend that were purported to be
the first and most powerful of the higher races. It was said that
only their vast intelligence rivaled their massive strength and if
that was true, then it was lucky for all of the other races of the
world that they were also pacifists according to the ancient
legends.

A gust of wind tossed a bevy of drifting snow
into Sane’s face nearly blinding his eye. He brushed it away as a
shadowed figure passed his view so swiftly that he was not sure
that he could trust his own sight. His head swiveled upward as he
tried to locate the source of that shape. Briefly, he thought it
might have been a dragon, because who else would have a reason to
be in such an unforgiving place as this so far from the rest of the
civilized world? There! It was no dragon that flew through the air.
It was a man!

“Byrn!” Sane called out to the man flying
through the air. He shouted the name again and added a bit of magic
to help his voice carry over the wind. Byrn was flying, but did not
use the fire wings as he had back at the palace. Now the young
sorcerer’s body moved through the sky as if it was beholden solely
to Byrn’s will and the laws of the universe could be damned. What
new magic had he learned since they last met? Sane could not help
feeling a little jealous. For all his own power and regard as one
of the strongest magicians in Aurelia, he was not much better than
a novice in comparison.

Byrn stopped his ascension and turned in
mid-air, his body did not move as it spun on its invisible axis. He
looked at Sane, but did not move to join the older sorcerer. He
stayed there hovering for a minute as the older man approached, but
soon lowered to the edge of the stone overhang beneath him. His
arms were crossed as he watched Sane climb most of the way, leaving
him feeling like he was being judged somehow. It was a strange and
unwelcome feeling.

It took a quarter of an hour for Sane to get
to a position just below Byrn. The overhang was almost high enough
to climb up and he tried to make his way up the rock wall without
using much magic, preferring to save as much energy as possible for
the creation of a nightly camp and a fire. He reached up for Byrn
to take his hand and thought that he would not grab it for a
second, but Byrn reached out with his staff for Sane to grab hold
of and hauled him up.

“What are you doing here?” Byrn asked in lieu
of a greeting. His tone was almost like an accusation to Sane’s
ears.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Sane
chuckled, but it soon died on his lips. Byrn was frowning and
studying Sane closely as if he was trying to divine the reason for
his old mentor’s arrival. “Learion pulled me from the void after
you saw me last and said that I needed to go to Dragon’s Peak and
find a grimoire written by Xander Necros. He said that you would
need it to defeat him.”

“The gods don’t get involved in the affairs
of mortals very often,” Byrn said, one eyebrow raised.

Sane nodded. “It seems that they have made an
exception where you are involved.”

“It seems I am a lucky one,” Byrn mumbled so
low that Sane barely heard him though they stood next to each
other. He sounded almost melancholy like the young man who once
lamented his fate to become a magician years ago.

“What happened in Wolfsbane?” Sane asked
tenderly.

Sane thought that Byrn had not heard him or
would refuse to answer if he had, because he began climbing up the
mountain again and Sane followed dutifully after. Once they were
over the next outcrop of rocks Byrn finally answered. “The kingdom
attacked and things did not go exactly as planned. I…” Byrn trailed
off for a second before finding his voice again, “Xander had an
endgame in mind that would have leveled the kingdom forces, but it
didn’t quite work out that way. We lost some good people.”

“Were you the one that stopped him?”

Byrn smiled wanly, “I guess you could say
that, but it is only a temporary setback. Collective magicians are
converging on Mollifas as we speak and will be waiting for me to
signal the attack.”

“For you?” Sane stopped.

“Someone has to lead the Collective,” said
Byrn, “and who better than I? You said yourself that I am a prince
and a magician. Lessers and magicians alike will fall in line under
me.” He must have seen the doubt in Sane’s face, because he asked,
“You will follow me, won’t you, Sane?”

“Of course,” answered Sane. This was what he
had wanted, Sane reminded himself, but he could not shake the
feeling that something about Byrn felt… wrong. There was more to
what happened in Wolfsbane than Byrn was letting on.

As they continued up the path Sane watched
for any other signs of strange behavior, but Byrn’s mood seemed to
improve as they traveled together. After a few hours of travel they
came to a likely clearing to make camp and Sane extended the
mountain wall out to either side to give them suitable protection
from the wind.

Byrn conjured a small fire and they sat down,
wrapping their cloaks tightly around their bodies.

“It’s cold,” commented Byrn with an
involuntary shiver.

“A little,” agreed Sane, but took little
notice. He soon lied down and fell asleep.

***

Xander watched Sane sleep soundly.

He wondered how long Sane would continue to
serve him faithfully, thinking that he was Byrn. Would he help put
Xander on the throne? It was an amusing idea and one worth seeing
come to fruition, but first he had to make sure that Byrn’s curse
had not been passed on to him. That was the only reason he had
spared Sane when he first saw him on the mountain. However, he did
have to admit that the old sorcerer wasn’t the worst traveling
companion and he was a wealth of useful knowledge. Thanks to Sane,
Xander now knew that Byrn had somehow managed to survive. If he had
not, then Learion would not have sent Sane to find Xander’s old
grimoire- the one he had left in the possession of the dragon-folk
as payment for allowing him unfettered access to Kassani’s temple
over the centuries.

The dragons would not allow Sane to take the
grimoire and if he somehow managed to convince them, then Xander
would take it from him or destroy it, but first he must entreat his
patron goddess. She would lift this curse and make things right for
him.

Xander looked up. The clouds were not much
higher. Even at Sane’s slow pace they would break through the cloud
cover tomorrow. Soon a new age of magicians would be ushered in and
Xander would be at its head.

It was no surprise that the higher they
climbed the colder the magicians got. It was a miserable experience
even for Sane with his natural endurance for cold, but Byrn had to
surround himself with a manipulationist’s bubble to deflect the
wind’s bite. The cloud ceiling loomed ever closer as they
approached the top.

“It will not be much longer,” said Sane,
trying to fill the silence that had plagued them for most of the
morning. “Do you think we will see any dragons?”

Sane had meant it as a joke, but Byrn smiled
at him and said, “You never know.”

Gradually the terrain became harder to
navigate as the magicians journeyed into the clouds. It was thick
like the deepest of fogs and only Byrn’s bubble, that he extended
to encompass Sane, was able to push the mists away and reveal the
stone at their feet.

It was difficult to measure time as they
passed through the mist on an ever upward and often meandering
path, but Sane guessed that they spent hours trying to navigate the
trail. He wondered if they would ever find their way out when
suddenly his head emerged from the cloud cover and the sudden
blinding light of the sun forced him to avert his gaze. Its gentle
warmth shined on his face and soon his whole body as he fully
emerged to the surface. The welcome relief of the sun was almost
enough to distract Sane from the shadow that passed over him and
the thunderclap that came from just above.

His head swung upward just as a black shape
flew over him. He sucked in the rarified air with a gasp as he
examined the figure that was now soaring away. It was difficult to
judge the creature’s size or its distance away without any points
of reference, but it looked to be far larger than anything Sane had
ever seen before or would likely see again. Its skin was pitch
black in stark contrast to the light blue sky surrounding it and
was covered not in lizard-like scales as he imagined, but in what
looked to be segmented sheets of ebony armor. It had a tail that
stretched out longer than a man was tall and had long, muscular
limbs that would allow it to jump great heights. The creature’s
head was large enough to snap a man in half with its powerful jaws.
Another clap of thunder came and Sane realized that it was caused
by the beat of its night colored wings. This was a dragon.

The sight of the dragon filled the sorcerer
with awe as he followed its path through the sky and saw dozens of
its kin in a myriad of colors not unlike a rainbow. Some were
soaring as the black one did while others sat perched on
mountaintops. Far, far in the distance was a brightly gleaming
object, but they were too far away to make out what it was.

Byrn saw his gaze and gestured to the
reflected light. “That is the dragon’s city. It sits atop a vast
network of mountain peaks and was crafted from those very mountains
by their magic.”

Sane was about to ask how he knew that, but
was immediately more interested in a red dragon flying directly at
them. In a matter of moments, it was upon them and if it had wished
it could have killed them with ease fore Sane was too surprised to
mount a defense and Byrn did not even bother to lift his staff.

The red dragon stopped in mid-air and hovered
with a steady flapping of its wings before deciding to land just
before them. Sane thought that the dragon, he had to make a mental
effort not to think of it as a beast though its appearance
resembled one, would sink through the clouds and fall below, but
its clawed feet found some purchase. Either the mountaintop they
stood on extended some distance just underneath the tops of the
clouds or the mythical being was somehow standing on top of the
clouds themselves. Among any other races such a feat would seem
ridiculous, but if he was now looking upon a dragon anything
suddenly seemed possible.

“You are… humans,” said the red dragon. Its
voice was young and feminine like a girl who had recently come into
her womanhood. “I have never seen one of you before,” she displayed
a grin that bared her fangs making a face that would have appeared
threatening if not for her familial tone. It was then that Sane
noticed that her lips did not move when she spoke. Her head jutted
forward tentatively and she took a sniff of both magicians before
returning to her original position. “I am called Southernstar.”