The Archmage Unbound (8 page)

“Yes, but this power sounds too
dangerous to use.”

“That is because I have been telling you
of the most dangerous uses. An archmage can listen to many less dangerous
things, things more similar to his own, human nature. He can also listen in a
more limited manner. Power can be gained without passing the threshold. You
have caused the earth to shake several times already haven’t you? Yet you
retained your humanity.” She stopped and reached down, into the earth beneath
our feet and when she straightened up again she held a dense glassy stone in
her hand. “Here take this,” she said, handing it to me.

“What is this for?” I asked in surprise.

“A lesson,” she replied. “Do exactly as
I say and perhaps you will understand better. Crush the stone with your
hand.” I gave her an odd look but decided to humor her. With a word I encased
the stone in my hand with a shield of invisible force and then I began to
contract it as I squeezed with my hand. She put her hand on my arm before I
could accomplish her request. “Stop,” she told me.

“What?”

“Use your hand, not a shield.”

“My hand isn’t strong enough,” I said.

“Channel the energy into your muscles
and bones,” she explained.

I gave her a stern look. I had seen the
effects of physical power on the human body already, mostly by watching what it
did to Penelope when she had been my Anath’Meridum. She had once stopped a
mace in full swing with her bare hand. To be charitable she had done it to
save my life, but it had resulted in a multitude of broken bones in her hand.
“No,” I said, clenching my jaw.

Moira looked at me with an expression of
surprise. “Why not?”

“I would destroy my hand doing that,” I
said with a flat stare in her direction.

“Too bad, that lesson had two parts, the
first being a crash course in healing yourself. Obviously you’ve spent a lot
of time applying your powers in various situations. In my time a mage of your
age was usually a lot less experienced in such matters.”

“I’ve been forced by circumstances,” I
told her.

She smiled, “That isn’t necessarily a
bad thing. Very well let’s move to the more practical application. Listen to
the stone… and pay attention to it carefully.”

Despite what I had already undergone
with the voices of the wind and the earth it hadn’t really occurred to me that
something as small and innocuous as a rock might have its own voice. Some of
the books I had found in my father’s library had discussed the matter of
sentience and existence… concluding that the very nature of ‘existing’ included
a certain amount of awareness. Inanimate objects were alive in a sense, which
is why the earth had a voice, though its awareness was completely foreign to
the human mind.

What I hadn’t really considered was the
full ramifications of that fact… it meant that even small objects, such as this
stone, had their own limited awareness… though it might be very minimal. I
stared at the rock for several moments before asking, “Is that possible, to
hear something so small?”

Her blue stone eyes reflected the light
of the afternoon sun, giving her an eerie look for a moment. “Yes it is
possible. You must be careful in how you do it though; listen and make the
stone a part of yourself, like an extra hand or arm. Do not let yourself
become the stone. You must make it a part of you, not the
whole
of you.”

I laughed at the thought. “Surely I
couldn’t
become
something like this.”

There was no humor in her expression.
“You could.”

“Is it difficult to return from a state
like that?” I asked. Her seriousness was sobering.

“What do you think the chances are that
the stone in your hand will suddenly decide to become a human being?” she
replied.

“Oh.”

“Stop thinking about it and listen.
Clear your mind and focus on the stone. Don’t be dismayed if it takes a while,
just listen,” she repeated.

I did as I was told. Hopefully no one
would tell Penny that, she might take it as a hopeful sign. The most difficult
part was ‘clearing’ my mind. In the past when I had listened to the earth, or
even the wind, it wasn’t very hard. Both of those things were large and in
their own way very loud… finding the voice of one small stone, amidst the
background noise of everything around me… that was a different matter
entirely. I never did succeed in clearing my mind, not completely anyway, but
I didn’t need to. Soon after I began to focus and clear my mind of its usual
clutter I started to hear the voice of the stone in my hand. It wasn’t
particularly well defined, but once I started paying attention it was fairly
easy to find. “I can hear it,” I announced.

“Are you sure?” my strange companion
asked.

“Yes, I wouldn’t have told you if I
wasn’t,” I replied in annoyance.

“Listen carefully and include its voice
within your own. Make it a part of your own self. Once you can identify with
it I want you to change it,” she said.

“Change it in what way?”

“Any way you wish,” she clarified.

Typical
, I thought. “Thanks for your guidance,” I said dryly, and then I
got serious. Focusing I listened until the stone did indeed feel as if it were
an extension of my own being. It was a curious sensation, but it felt
completely natural. It was only afterward, when I had withdrawn myself that it
seemed strange to me.

Once I had made the stone a part of
myself I tried to think of something interesting to do with it. The most
obvious thing would be to cause it to relax… which would result in it falling
apart like sand. I think that is what my new ‘teacher’ expected. Given my
contrary nature I decided to try and surprise her. Drawing on past experiences
I thought of the first time I had experienced my gifts as a mage, the day I had
saved Star from the river. On a whim I coaxed the stone into reshaping itself,
molding it to resemble my memory of the beautiful horse. It was a shape far
more delicate than you might expect to see in stone, especially at that scale.

I had done similar things frequently
with metal, using my power to help shape the metal in my hands but this was
different. It still required the use of my imagination, but there was no
sensation of effort. I did not force the change myself, I asked… no I
showed
the stone my vision and it obliged me by taking that form for itself. When I
had finished I looked up to see Moira’s reaction. “How is that?”

Her face was impassive, “Very good,
better than most when they first attempt it.” Though she gave little outward
sign I could sense a feeling of shock in her. She hadn’t expected what I had
done. More importantly, she was trying to avoid letting me know I had
surprised her.

“How good?” I asked pointedly.

“Too good,” she admitted. “You’re a
danger to yourself.”

“I’ve heard that before,” I chuckled
wryly. “I didn’t like it then and I still don’t.”

“This is no laughing matter. You need a
meillte, several in fact, so they can rest. In my day someone like you would
have at least three,” she declared.

“Why three? I don’t see the advantage
of having more than one.”

“There isn’t for
you.
It gives
them the opportunity to rest. Three would be enough that one could keep an eye
on your mental state at all times, even while you slept,” she explained.

“That seems excessive, what would I do
while sleeping?”

“Probably nothing, but possibly
anything.”

“How many of these ‘miellte’ did you
have?” I asked.

“Two… I wasn’t judged sensitive enough
to warrant a watcher while I slept. The last archmage to require three was my
friend, Gareth Gaelyn,” she said promptly.

That seemed odd. Gareth Gaelyn had
supposedly been defeated in battle with Balinthor, while Moira later went on to
defeat the dark god, yet he had required more watchers?
That doesn’t make
sense,
I thought. “If he was more powerful why did he fail… where you
succeeded?” As I said it I immediately realized it was rude, but sometimes my
mouth gets the best of me.

“Power… you have to stop thinking like
that! An archmage does not possess power! He
becomes
power. Because
of this no archmage is intrinsically more powerful than another; the difference
lies in the ease with which they can adapt themselves. Gareth’s talent made
him a brilliant shape-shifter, something most archmages avoid. It also made it
easy for him to attempt something that would have daunted a mage with more
caution, someone more aware of their own limits!” she spat out angrily.

“I did not meant to offend,” I hastily
apologized. At the same time I was mentally reviewing what she had said.
Shape-shifting wasn’t something I had read of in the few books I had had a chance
to study so far. The term was intriguing, while also being frightening in its
implications. I stayed silent for a while before speaking again, “If you don’t
mind telling me… what did he do?”

She watched me for a moment, as if
considering her words. “We were being driven from the Kingdom of Garulon. It
was the first time we had met the shiggreth and they were something of a
surprise for us. Balinthor had kept them hidden from us until that day and
they overwhelmed our defense of the capital. Because we had not faced such
creatures before we had no idea what they could do… or how to fight them. We
lost the city and the army routed. Thousands died in the span of a few hours
and those of us still able to keep order withdrew, seeking to escape the chaos.
The fear and despair drove Gareth to attempt something radical. He was
desperate or he would never have done it.” She stopped then and turned her
back on me, as if to hide her face. Despite her alien body her demeanor was
entirely human, as were the emotions I felt running through her.

I waited.

“He became a dragon,” she said at last.

Apparently I had used up my supply of
‘wisdom’ because in my surprise I interrupted, “I thought dragons were only
fairy tales.”

“They are, or rather, they were… until
that day. Gareth had always been fascinated with the stories. In a moment of
desperation he sought to create the beasts he had dreamed of from the stories
of childhood. I am not sure if his fear and anger twisted his imagination, or
if it was purely a foolish thing to begin with, but the dragon he became was a
creature of fury and destruction. It tore into the enemy, tossing them about
as if they were dolls, incinerating those it could not reach with its claws.
Very few of the shiggreth that had come against us survived, and even the
avatar of Balinthor left the field, rather than face the dragon directly.”

“The history book I found did not
mention any of this,” I said.

“I doubt any of the scholars would have
written of it. The shame of it stained his memory. Before that day Gareth had
been well respected and loved by all that knew him,” she replied.

“But it sounds as if he succeeded. What
went wrong?” I already had a fair inkling of what she might tell me, but I
wanted to hear it in her own words.

“After he had killed as many of the
enemy as he could find he turned on what was left of the defenders of Garulon.
He slaughtered friend and foe alike. Few survived, apart from those I was able
to hide.”

I had expected something tragic. If
anything it helped put my own experiences in perspective, especially the end of
the recent war with Gododdin.
At least I didn’t kill my own people,
I
thought. “What happened after that?” I asked finally.

“We hid for days, waiting for the dragon
to leave, but the creature was cunning. Like a cat it waited, catching those
who revealed themselves. Eventually, when I felt him leave I emerged from my
hiding place in the earth and gathered up those few others who had managed to
escape. The dragon that had been Gareth was gone. Whether it still lives or
died long ago I have no idea.”

We talked for a short while after that,
but our conversation had taken on a dark tone and I had lost my enthusiasm for
it. Eventually I decided to return to the castle. I had had enough of dark
tales and tragic endings. My own life had nearly become one after all.

“I need to return, do you mind if we
continue talking at another time?” I asked.

“No need to be polite Mordecai. I am
only an echo, turn your attention aside and I practically cease to exist. Call
me when you would speak again,” she answered. With a wry smile she sank into
the earth and as quickly as she had come, she was gone again.

Dusting the leaves from my trousers I
headed back toward the keep, people would be looking for me by now.

That evening Marc explained his plan to
visit the capital to everyone over dinner. Dorian and Penny had been relieved
simply to see him attending the evening meals again so the news that he would
be traveling was rather disappointing for them. Still we were all glad to know
he was beginning to find a new purpose for his life.