The 13th Mage (11 page)

Owen sat up.
Jennifer was pregnant with a mage child, “are the
Old Ones
going to take the baby?”

“I wish it was as simple as that, her baby was not engineered by the Other.
There is a group of Shadow mages who have been
speeding up their own evolution because
they want to become powerful
enough to use
all the power
the
Staff has to offer
.
The fastest way to evolve is to be reborn.
We believe Jennifer’s baby is one of these mages.”

“The T
hirteenth
.”

“
The Thirteenth,
yes.”

“So the Keeper? Is…”

“We think the Keeper wants us to stop the
Thirteen
mages from getting together.
She gave us the exact time of rebirth, we took it from there.
There is a chance that when a mage is reborn he or she might change sides, which is one
of the shortcomings of rebirth. One
can never be sure what
one
will turn out
to be
like in the next life.
With the right influence the new mage might become one of us, something the
Thirteen
hadn’t counted on.”

This brought the word kidnapping to whole new dimensions, thought Owen.

“Jennifer’s chil
d is special in another way too. S
he is
in fact
more
Old One
than human.
Jennifer carries dormant hybrid genes.
It happens sometimes that a hybrid does not become a mage, they live normal human lives, their children will be part hybrid but any powers will be dormant, unless activated.
The
Old Ones
are very careful not to make any hybrid more than fifty percent mage, when an accident like this happens they usually destroy the child.
Too powerful for their liking and too human to be integrated fully into their society.
That is why this particular mage manipulated this conception.
A mage that powerful cannot be stopped by any of us.”

Owen felt guilty, he had thought of the rebirth trick himself, to take the
Staff
.

“What happens to Jennifer?”

“Jennifer is now a sort of mage. S
he not only carries the hybrid genes of her own but has also absorbed some of her child’s, which she’ll keep for around twenty years.
It is very likely that either the Shadow or the
Old Ones
will want to kill her.
If not both.”

“How come they haven’t done so already?”

Aeoife smiled, “we sent her to you.
You of the Council of Elders are so paranoid of each other that you have invented the most sophisticated methods of keeping each other’s positions secret to us as well as the Other.”

“So I simply have to hide Jennifer and the baby from the
Old Ones
and the Shadow.”

“Yes, but ultimately you have to protect the baby against itself.
Teach it compassion, wisdom, give it faith, and pull it away from the Shadow.”

“What makes you think I will do any of those things?
What makes you think I won’t join the
Thirteen
? I am an Elder after all, and the
Staff
is my ultimate goal.”

“You passed the test,” she said and reached over to his chest, “you still feel, like a human feels. You have turned your love into unconditional love, remember?”

Owen shifted uncomfortably, his condition was not something he wanted others to know, besides, he was still sure someone was manipulating him.

He looked at Aeoife piercingly, “am I under someone’s influence, is someone doing this to me?”

“No.”
She said.
“You are not under a spell of any kind, not any spell weaved by any human or mage but yourself.”

No, he thought, there was no way he would do this to himself.
It was too painful.

“You have lived for hundreds of years denying your most important nature Owen.
It is common with you mages who call yourselves Elders of the Council, to deny your most basic building block. You deny any connection with ordinary mortals.”

“I know more about mortals than most Elders.”
He said, defending himself.

“You are very knowledgeable, I grant you that.
But there is one thing about mortals you don’t know.”

“What is that?”

“That a human can access more power than we could possibly imagine.
This, after all, is more their world than it is ours.”

Owen looked at her in silence.

“Another cup of tea is in order,” she said and got up to pour more tea in the now empty cups.

Owen watched as Aeoife filled the cups and felt rage rising up and filling his entire being.
He was a simple pawn in someone else’s game; there was no question about that.
He did not like that one little bit.

“Your biggest strength lies in the same place as theirs, you are after all as much human as you are Other,” she continued.

He stared at her.

He waited for the next sentence.

He knew he wouldn’t get one.

“What do you want me to do now?”

“I don’t know Owen. What I told you
is as much as I know.
I trust you will know what to do or the Keeper wouldn’t have chosen you,” she said, “going home might be a good idea.”
She finally added.

“I can’t go back to them.
Jennifer is, well, I can’t be near her.”

It was not up to Aeoife to interfere.
The choices had been made.
Overprotecting him had been a major influ
ence in his inability to mature. N
ow he had a second chance, and she had to leave him to work things out for himself.

On his way back to the airport Owen thought of the new information he had received.
He should go back to
London
immediately, but there was something still nagging him.
It was not in his nature to bond to other beings, he had always been a cold and calculating individual,
which he always thought
was one of his biggest strengths.
In all the years he had roamed the earth only one woman had captivated his heart and he had put it down to carelessness at the time. It was true that this youthful body was overpowering in its insistence of propagating, as it had been in his original youth, but having such strong feelings for a woman was not normal.
To think he had spent hours trying to work out what the test was and all along he had passed it.
Feeling unconditional love for another person, what kind of test was that?
A witch’s test, he thought.
Trust them to think of something like that.
They probably knew he was weak in that area, it was not the first time he had bonded, expect perhaps this time it was much worse than the first time.
This time he hadn’t even thought of his own happiness in the matter, he could have had Jennifer’s love at any time and he hadn’t taken it, now it was too late, now his magic wouldn’t work on her.

Not that he would use it.
He simply couldn’t do anything that might change her, might make her not be herself.
It was most infuriating.

He wondered who the mage about to be born was in reality, tried to think of the Elders who had vanished lately, but there were several who hadn’t been around for a long time.
Elders could vanish for
centuries and no one would bat an eyelid.
It must be someone powerful, maybe an old
Staff
Holder, or someone who had Challenged and lost.
Maybe one of those Elders who didn’t even want the
Staff
, or at least pretended not to.
It could be a Witch.
Aeoife had said mage, not elder after all.
If that was the case then it would be impossible for him to identify him or her, they didn’t keep records.

To think Jennifer was carrying one of the most dangerous creatures on the face of the earth inside her body.
Well, it wouldn’t come into its full powers for a few years, long enough to reprogram it he hoped.
Jennifer would do a great job teaching it how to be human.

He came to the main motorway, it would lead him South to the airport.

The Way of the Witch, he thought and decided to carry on West, somewhere he hadn’t been to for a very long time.
It was still early after all, his flight wouldn’t leave until late that night.

Owen hadn’t spent much time in his homeland for the past century or so.
To call it his homeland was a mistake, there was nothing left of his culture or his people, except perhaps a few descendants who showed the genetic makeup of his race.
His human race.

After the arrival of Christianity the Power had been greatly diminished in his land.
It was like a capped well.
But it had to carry on flowing.
Unintentionally the new religion had, by blocking certain centers and not others, made the Power flow from the top of the island to the bottom on a southerly direction.

This flow was very useful for washing away any unwanted magic as well as giving a
boost to the mage’s own magic. H
e had seen Aeoife using it when he was still an ordinary mortal
centuries earlier
.

He came out of the car and climbed over the wire fencing which separated the hill from the road.
Above him the sky became grey.
A few drops of rain began to fall on him, “not now,” he said and the
clouds parted.
The late evening sun warmed him as he made his way through old trees and forgotten cottages, to the top of the hill.
He had to reach a certain spot on top of the hill as the sun hit the horizon.
It wasn’t a problem, the hill was much smaller then he remembered it.

There, barely noticeable to the eye, was a small mound covered in grass and shrubs, unknown to most what lay underneath was one of the most important and powerful sites of the Old Ones.
It lay undiscovered, unlike some of its smaller counterparts further north.
He sat down in the middle of the mound and waited for the sun to set.
Around him whispers tried to be heard, but his hearing was not yet that of a Witch.

As the land began to turn into gold, time slowed and the energies began their most powerful dance of the evening.

He stood facing the setting sun, raised his hands and called upon the Power to help him see through the fog of his confused mind.
All around him and below him his voice resounded deeply and powerfully, waking with it energies long forgotten.

He saw himself as a young child, his natural mother pulling him toward the Wise One’s hut in the woods.
His mother
knew her child was a chosen one, it was a privilege given to them from the Gods to h
ave given birth to such a child. H
e would one day be a Wise One and would bring fortune and safety to his family. But the new God didn’t like his type and she had to get him out of the village, out of sight.
Aeoife was waiting for them, she had prepared some hot milk and bread for him, she told him to go inside and help himself to the feast. His natu
ral mother greeted the Wise One, and then
they sat and chatted for a while
. T
hen his mother walked away.
As he watched his mother disappear among the trees Owen felt a warm, strong hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry my child, you are safe here,” the Wise One said, and he knew it was true.

Years later he saw himself leaving that safe heaven to see the world and try his luck.
The battle with the Shadow came soon after that, it was a close contest.
He wondered how much of his success was due to Aeoife’s constant advice through his formative years.
Left on his own he would have succumbed to the temptation and fear, which they represented.

He saw years of learning and wasted energy as he went after the
Staff
, it had been a relentless quest.
Yet it had served him well, there were few mage with his capabilities. He saw the people who had marked his life.
One of the mortals stood out among the rest, beside her, holding her hand, was a little boy.
A thin, pale boy, Sean.

He watched as his life unfolded in front of him, the last few months and the women who had entered his environment.
Too many women.

All around him there was light. A
man came toward him and stretched out his hand, a man he had seen several times throughout his life yet, although familiar, he couldn’t place.