Messenger of the Dark Prophet (The Bowl of Souls: Book Two) (12 page)

Professor Beehn couldn’t help but smile at the looks of wonder on the faces of these young people as they entered the main square and stared up at the clock tower. It wouldn’t be long before these fresh-faced cadets became true students of magic. He recalled his first few months at the school learning the limited extent of his abilities and puzzling out his place in the world. It had been a trying time, but he remembered it with fondness and wished that he still had that intense sense of wonder at every new piece of knowledge. On top of that, he wished that he had his teenage body back.

That last thought was particularly true, for as he stood on the hard pavement watching the new
students
line up, his back begin to ache. A sharp pain crawled up the back of his neck, through the center of his head to settle right behind his eyes.

These headaches had been growing in intensity over the past two years until they were becoming unbearable. He hadn’t told anyone about them, but they were increasingly difficult to hide. The only time now that they were manageable was when he had run several miles in the morning. The exertion seemed to put his body in order.

With reluctance, he leaned over to Master Latva and asked if he could be excused, explaining that he wasn’t feeling very well. After one look into the professor’s eyes, the old wizard could tell that the professor was in pain.

“Have these headaches been bothering you for long?”

“Off and on, sir.
This one is just particularly bad.”

“I see,” Master Latva said. “By all means, Professor, slip away. I do have one condition though. You must stop by the infirmary and let Matron Guernfeldt have a look at you.”

“As you wish, Master Latva,” Beehn agreed, though it left a sour taste in his mouth. He had never been particularly fond of the woman.

Professor Beehn left the square intending to go straight to the infirmary, but as he walked, the ache in his head grew stronger until he wanted nothing more than to drink a cup of strongly herbed tea and lay down.

He was the only wizard besides Matron Guernfeldt to live outside of the
Rune
Tower
. As the wizard in charge of school grounds, most of his work was done outside of the tower and he had been given a small house of his own not far from the
Magic
Testing
Center
.

Instead of visiting the infirmary, he decided to stop at his home and rest. If the headache continued, he would then go see the matron. Besides, the calm clean order of his tiny home was just what he needed to untangle his mind and put the headache to rest.

Justan walked out of the barracks physically exhausted, but with his world much more firmly in place. The sky was clear and it was looking to be a beautiful day. The sun peeked over the great school wall and took the morning chill out of the air. The warmth of the sun hit his back and gave him a shiver. It felt good.

Justan still had a full day planned. He started toward the
Rune
Tower
excited to get his studying started and put the events of the morning behind him, but his spirits fell just about as soon as he started. Most of the
Mage
School
students were crowded around the center square of the school by the clock tower where the new cadets were receiving their welcome speeches. He didn’t want to have to wade through all of the other students to get to the library. He wasn’t in the mood for the smiles and stares his appearance always caused.

The school was a big place and the walk from the guard barracks to the
Rune
Tower
was nearly a mile. Usually Justan ran the entire way, but he was too tired from his morning exertions. When he reached the main road, the new cadets were already in the main square listening to the opening day speeches. He tried to walk by with a sense of purpose and not make any eye contact, hoping that the students would be too intent on the proceedings to notice him.

Despite his caution, several students called out to him and waived merrily. He forced a smile back in return and picked up his pace despite his protesting legs. Even that small bit of recognition grated on him that morning. He decided to take the long way around the crowd.

This path took him past several rows of buildings and along the side of the
Magic
Testing
Center
. He had spent quite a bit of time in that building over the past months as he was prodded and tested by the wizards. The building’s quiet strength had always comforted him. He didn’t know why. Perhaps he just liked that there was a place built that was as impervious to magic as he wished that his life was.

He was pondering this when he heard a peculiar sound. He stopped and listened. It came again, a thudding noise. Strangely, the noise came from inside the testing center. Those walls were so thick and so heavily protected that no sound should have been able to make its way out. Justan started towards the sound when a plume of rock and dust erupted from the side of the building in a violent explosion.

The blast knocked Justan off his feet and he found himself on his back for the second time that morning. Pieces of magically strengthened rock bounced along the ground in front of him. He looked up in amazement as a huge horrific figure stormed out of the jagged hole left in the wall.

Chapter Eight

It was massive, perhaps twelve feet tall, bulky and wide, and seemed to be made of bark and vines. The monster stomped out of the rubble on two legs as thick as tree trunks with feet tipped in what could only be thick roots. The ground shook when it walked.

Its enormous arms were corded with tight bundles of glistening vines that flexed like muscles as it moved, and it had a stump-like head capped with wisps of grassy hair. The monster’s face was an expressive mask of anger, with a thick rigid jaw and eyebrows made of thorns. As it stomped away from the testing center with a cloud of dust in its wake, Justan saw its eyes glow an eerie green.

He knew that it was trouble the moment that his eyes lighted on the thing. The monster radiated intense power fueled by anger and hatred. Its presence sent fear seeping into his bones and Justan was hit by an instinct to scream. Scream and run and never look back. But as the shock of its appearance wore off, his analytical side took over. The fear was overridden by curiosity. Justan stood up and stared after it in amazement. What was this thing and where had it come from?

His question was partially answered a moment later when a ragged group of students stumbled out of the hole after the creature. It was Arcon, Pympol, and Piledon and they were covered in dust. Piledon collapsed to the ground, coughing out bits of mortar and trying to gasp in the clean air, while Pympol and Arcon stared after the beast with horrified expressions on their faces.

The massive monster stomped over to the nearest decorative tree planted at the side of the walkway. It wrapped branchlike fingers around the trunk and with one straining heave, ripped it completely out of the ground. All four of the students watched in stunned silence as it raised the base of the tree to its head and started biting the roots off.

Justan ran over to the battered mages. “What is that thing?”

Arcon didn’t even acknowledge Justan's presence. “It’s amazing. Look at him. The raw power . .
. ”
His voice trembled with awe and a slight grin touched his lips. “Look, Pympol. He’s doing just as you built him to do. He’s seeking energy!”

Pympol ignored his friend and lurched over to Justan in a panic. He grasped the front of Justan’s robes.

“I-it’s a plant golem,” he stammered.
“My wizard project.
We could not handle it! It- it broke free!”
Pympol’s
shoulders slumped and he gasped, struggling not to cry with the pure abject fear welling up within him.

“This can’t be good.” Justan breathed.

He had read about golems in the library. They were powerful creations of magical power. How these students had managed to create one was beyond his comprehension. Golems were usually the unthinking agents of a wizard, just a servant or a guard unable to do anything unless it is commanded to. But something was wrong with this one.

The golem had finished biting the roots off of the tree. It turned to the nearest building, which was used to house stores for the school, and threw the remains of the tree with all of its might. The tree tumbled through the air and smashed into the brick, denting a section of the outer wall of the building. The golem roared in delight at the destruction. It shoved its way into the building, caving the side of it in.

Its hideous voice sent shivers up Justan’s spine. He turned to Arcon who was no longer smiling. “Did you instruct it to do that?” he asked.

Arcon shook his head slowly. “This is not going as planned.” He muttered, suddenly going quite pale. “Pympol, stop it. Tell it to await instruction.”

“I don’t think it will listen.” Pympol winced as sounds of destruction and eerie laughter ensued from within the storehouse.

Piledon looked up from the ground, his face white. The cadet whimpered as a section of the roof of the building started to collapse. “Oh, we are in big trouble,” he moaned. Justan saw no choice but to follow the creature.

“Pympol!
Is this thing supposed to listen to your commands?” The mage reluctantly nodded. “Then you are going to go and command it to stop just like Arcon said.”

“No!” Pympol shook his head and started backing away. “No, you don’t understand! I tried the moment it awoke. The golem just laughed at me and started pounding away at the wall. It won’t listen!”

Justan grabbed the mage by the front of his robes before he could get away.

“Well you are going to try again. That thing could hurt someone.” He turned to the others. “Arcon and Piledon, you two had better go and alert the faculty just in case this doesn’t work.” The two glanced at each other, uneasy at the suggestion. Neither one of them looked forward to admitting that this was their fault.

“Just do it!” Justan commanded and the two of them nodded.

Justan’s legs still ached from his early morning exercise, but adrenalin was pumping within him now and he easily dragged the unwilling Pympol towards the building where the golem was causing the destruction. The mage wept the whole way, moaning about the huge amount of trouble he was going to be in.

The golem’s gleeful destruction had created a lot of noise and several guards came running. They arrived just as the golem burst through the other side of the storehouse with a roar, sending barrels of pickles and spices all over the manicured lawns.

The three guards that had responded were directly in the path of the golem and none of them were academy graduates. Even so, they were well trained. They recovered from their shock quickly. Two of them began shooting arrows, while the third one took after it with a
longsword
.

The golem grinned, the wood and vines that made up his face creaking as they stretched to make that possible, and rushed at them with arms outstretched. The sound of its heavy stomping feet promised death to all things living.

The arrows
thunked
into the creature without effect and it was soon upon the guard with the sword. It reached out trying to grab him with its massive hands, but the agile guard evaded its grasp. The swordsman sliced away at the monster's grasping hands while the other two guards continued to fire arrows at it. Though the arrows stuck into the creature, the sword simply bounced off of the tough bark and vines. The golem was magically fortified to resist attack.

The golem continued to try to grasp the swordsman until it tired of the game and swung one stump-like foot. There was a thud and the guard sailed through the air and crunched into the wall of another building, slumping to the ground in an odd angle.

The other guards saw how ineffective their attacks were and started backing away, still shooting as fast as they could. Luckily for them, the large golem wasn’t very fast.

Justan dragged Pympol around the building just as the guard was kicked. He quickly hiked up his robes and removed the brace of arrows that he had taken to carrying around with him. He shot the uneasy mage a stern look.

“Don’t you go anywhere,
Pympol!
I’ve got to get its attention.” There were six arrows in all strapped to the belt he took from around his waist. He quickly fitted one to his Jharro bow. Ever since the incident with Piledon, he had kept the golden string close to his body, but it was deep in the inner pocket of his robes. He didn’t have time to restring the bow before the golem would overtake the guards.