The Archmage unbound

Chapter 25

I walked through the courtyard from the keep to the main gate, scanning the ground as I went. William walked beside me silently. He obviously had a good sense of my mood. We passed the stables on the way to the gate, but I never even spared them a glance. I didn’t intend to ride. I wanted to examine the ground carefully from here until the trail went cold, and possibly beyond.

“Tell me what you know of what happened here,” I said. William was a smart fellow and he did as I asked, giving me only the information pertinent to where we stood. Once we got beyond the gate he showed me the area where they had mounted horses and ridden away.

“And Dorian was on foot here?” I asked.

He nodded affirmatively. I walked on without commenting. William led me to the trail where they had turned off the main road to follow a small forest trail. I watched the ground along the path with both my eyes and my other senses. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for but I didn’t want to miss anything. Unfortunately I didn’t find anything that William hadn’t already noticed.

“What was this? The ground is all churned up here,” I pointed at a place where the earth had been disturbed.

“I didn’t see with my own eyes but some of the men on the walls were watching. According to their reports the enemy sent one of their riders back to stop Dorian’s pursuit. The rider charged him with weapon drawn and if the witnesses are to be believed Lord Dorian threw him over his shoulder.” William hesitated as he spoke, unsure if I would believe such fantastic details.

“What the man dismounted first?”

“No your Lordship, according to the people watching Dorian picked the horse and rider up and threw them both over his shoulder,” he clarified.

I stopped and put my hand on the ground. I couldn’t imagine what my friend had been going through at that moment, but I knew he had done his best. I might have laughed at the image of him throwing a horse, but the fact that he was probably dead now stole the humor from the thought. I straightened up and resumed walking. Despite the emotions within I still had not had the urge to cry. I was somewhat numb, though I felt a cold fire burning inside my stomach.

William led me along the path, showing me where they had found Miriam before leading me on to the place where their last stand had occurred. I surveyed the area carefully. “What happened to the body parts that were found?” I asked.

“The Duke had them collected and burned,” William replied.

I nodded approvingly. “Give me a moment alone William,” I told him.

Without a word the huntsman retreated back down the path and waited at a distance. For being a man of few words William was remarkably adept at discerning my intentions from a few words. I imagined his perceptiveness must come in handy when tracking and understanding game.

I closed my eyes so that I could better focus on my mage-sight, then I took a deep breath and began to search the area carefully with my mind. I hoped to find some indication of which way they might have gone but I knew that it was a long shot. After a quarter of an hour I had nearly given up when I detected a faint gleam of magic, something that had fallen to the ground.

It was a few hundred yards to the north of where we were now and I had a sickening feeling I knew what it was. I pulled my mind back rather than examine it more closely. I didn’t want to know, not yet, not till I could see it with my own eyes.

I waved at William and pointed north so that he would understand my intention, then I started trudging through the brush. It took me almost twenty minutes to reach the spot where it lay and the closer I got the more I shuttered my mind, to keep from seeing it before I could pick it up. Now I stood over it and I could not avoid looking at it any longer. Lying at my feet was a silver necklace with an enchanted pendant, the first of its kind I had ever made. The necklace I had given to Penny for her protection.

Kneeling, I gently picked it from the leaves and draped it across my left hand. The chain had snapped, as if its wearer couldn’t be bothered with the clasp. In my mind I could see her eyes glazing over as the life was drawn from her, till at last her dead hand had reached up to pull the last remaining annoyance from her prior life away. The creature she had become had ripped the pendant from her neck and tossed it as far away as possible.

There were tears on my face now, but I paid them no heed. Standing I tried to think of a course of action, but all my paths seemed dark and meaningless without her. I will have to hunt them down, all of them, I thought to myself. The shiggreth were a scourge meant to destroy humanity. Too long I had waited to act, and now my wife and unborn child had paid the price. Eventually I would find her too. And I’ll have to burn her as well, came the unbidden thought to my mind. With it came a torrent of rage as the floodgates of my soul opened up.

The air turned red as my anger boiled up, like blood from the earth, filling my mind and erasing my doubt. My heart beat like thunder and my body swelled as adrenaline filled my muscles with energy. A small voice in my mind warned me, I was losing control, but I didn’t care, not any longer. Power filled me with exhilarating potential to match the rage that had consumed my mind. I could see the world below me for miles; I could feel the earth’s blood deep below, crying out in anger and pain to match my own.

Around me the world grew smaller with each passing heartbeat and soon I could see all the way to Albamarl and further, beyond even that. Below it all the earth boiled and seethed in anger. The world of men was built upon a thin skin of crusted rock that barely covered the hot reality underneath it. It would take very little to unleash the fury below and wipe the surface clean with fire and magma. The thought had just occurred to me when I knew I must do it. Too long I had lain dormant, too long I had slumbered while the world grew cold and strange around me. I would wipe it clean.

I felt a hand resting atop mine now, a woman’s hand, long and slender. I looked down to see whose it was and I was surprised to see that my arm was red and swollen. It appeared to be made of molten rock. Resting atop it was a dark brown arm and following it I found its owner, Moira Centyr. “Stop Mordecai, this is not the way,” she rebuked me softly.

I gazed at her with tears in my eyes, tears that fell to the earth and set the dry leaves there aflame. Moira was tiny now; she had never looked so small to me before. “Who is Mordecai?” I asked her. The name felt familiar but it held little meaning for me.

“Mordecai is the man you were, the man you must remain,” she answered sadly. “Do not let your anger destroy everything you have worked to build.”

Her words brought my memories back and I suddenly understood my anger. “They must be punished,” I told her.

“No,” she said. “Not all of them, if you do this everyone will die. Does your mother deserve to suffer?”

A face appeared in my mind when she said those words and I remembered Miriam. I didn’t want to hurt her, yet my anger was beyond restraint. “I cannot stop now,” I told her.

“You must Mordecai, let go of your anger. You must not give up your humanity, not yet. Let the fires cool. Remember how your father banked the hearth at night? Relax… the fire will not die, just let it slumber, it does not need to burn so hotly.” As she spoke I grew calmer and I began to breathe again, though it seemed an unfamiliar practice.

After an unknowable period I finally regained myself. Moira talked to me through it all, soothing me and reminding me of things from my mortal life, helping me to regain my perspective. When I had finally recovered my sanity I was astonished at the change in my physical body.

I seemed to be made of molten rock; I was so hot I glowed like an iron pulled from a furnace. Now that I had calmed down though I was cooling off and my color had changed to a dull orange. I was also a lot bigger than normal. I stood at least fifteen feet in height and everything else had increased proportionally. Now that my mind was back to normal I felt close to panic at the changes in my body. I had no idea how to return to being flesh and blood again.

I looked down at Moira, desperate, “What do I do now?”

“I’m just relieved you’ve finally recovered your senses,” she replied.

“What about this?!” I said in a panicked tone, holding up my enormous stony hand.

“Now that you are yourself again I would think that part should be simple for you,” she said. “In case you don’t remember you just nearly wiped the face of the earth clean of all life. I think the rest of us deserve a minute to collect our wits.”

“Perhaps if you could just explain how I got this way,” I offered.

“I’m not sure how you did any of what you just did,” she said in an odd tone. “Normally when someone melds with the earth the way you did their mind is completely absorbed and they lose all conception of their prior emotions, yet somehow you projected your emotions onto everything else in the process. I even felt angry. You didn’t just become part of the earth, you made the earth become part of you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. Her voice held an almost petulant tone. “Except that you shouldn’t still be yourself. You went too far, and that’s an understatement. You should be like me now.”

I glanced at my body, “I think we do share certain features.”

“That’s not what I mean,” she snapped. “I’m not real; I’m a shadow of a person that once existed. You are still yourself.”

“I can’t go back to Lancaster like this,” I informed her.

She sighed, if elemental beings can be said to sigh that is. “You have shifted your physical body. In this case it was a side effect of your joining the earth but if you had gone any further your body would have completely lost humanoid form and become indistinguishable from the earth itself, does that make sense?”

I nodded. “So how do I undo this?”

“Idiot,” she said suddenly. “To think you would do so much yet be unable to manage the most fundamental part of shape shifting.”

“I haven’t had the most communicative teachers,” I replied sarcastically.

“Close your eyes and envisage yourself as you were before,” she replied, not deigning to respond to my remark. “Block everything out but your personal self, cut your ties to everything else. You must not think of anything but your body, and it must be the body you remember. Listen to the substance of your current self and coax it into becoming the self you remember.”

I thought about what she said for a moment before speaking. “Can I change anything?”

“What do you mean?” she said with a frown.

“I had a chipped tooth,” I said by way of example, “could I reimagine myself with a whole tooth?”

“You occupy the body of a giant, composed of rock and magma, and you want to know if you can rebuild yourself without a chip in your tooth?” Her expression was less than sympathetic.

“Yes.”

She stared at me for a long moment, pondering before she spoke, “Yes you could rebuild your body with a perfect tooth; however such a thing would be risky. You must remember your body, not just mentally, but viscerally. If you make a mistake you could die. Trying to alter your remembrance during the process could produce a tragic failure.”

I clenched my granite jaw, “I just discovered my wife is dead and my best friend along with her, I don’t really give a damn if I fail.” With those words I closed my eyes and tried to do as she had said, imagining myself as I had been. At first nothing happened, until I listened to my body. Once I had its voice in my mind I began to change it. It was a shocking realization, I was a rocky giant because my body’s song said I was, and by simply changing its reality, I became the flesh and blood human I remembered.

When I opened my eyes again I was human, though my tooth was no longer chipped. I smiled at that thought. I also now knew how fine the line between reality and illusion was. My body was in some fundamental way a product of my ‘vision’. If I changed the way I thought of it, it would change in response.

It occurred to me that I should test my theory. I closed my eyes again, but Moira’s voice broke my concentration, “Don’t,” she said.

“Don’t what?” I asked.

“Don’t try that… you haven’t learned enough yet. Shape shifting is in some ways the simplest of the arts but it is also fraught with the most dangers. The only thing you should attempt until you’ve had at least some basic advice is what you just did, returning to your proper form,” she answered.

“How did you know what I was thinking?”

“I have been acting as your miellte, since you badly need one. I am ‘listening’ to you, as best I can,” she responded.

“You can see my thoughts?” I asked curiously, and perhaps secretly a bit alarmed.

She smiled, “Not exactly. I can anticipate your actions and feel some of your emotions, but I don’t know exactly what you are thinking.”

For some reason that was the point when my normal human emotions kicked in again, while I had been in the form of an earthen giant I had felt only anger, the emotion I had been feeling when I changed. Now that I was flesh and blood again my normal ‘range’ seemed to be restored and my grief came back to me, washing over me like a river of sadness. “So you can feel my emotions now then?” I said in a voice devoid of the emotion I was feeling.

Though she was made of earth Moira’s features were as finely done as any mortal’s, her eyes revealed a deep sympathy within them. “Yes, I can feel your sorrow. I have known times such as these myself.”

“But you do not hear the question in my heart?”

“No,” she answered.

“Today I have seen the power I possess. A power so great it could destroy everything, yet I was unable to protect those most dear to me. I want to know why. Why?” As I asked the question I felt my anger returning, but I didn’t allow it to overwhelm me this time.

Moira’s expression changed as I spoke, becoming more stern. “Listen to me son of Illeniel, and I will tell you what I learned at great cost, once, long ago, ages before you were born. The ability to destroy is the least form of power, though it is the first form that any power will take. Even an infant is able to destroy things, weak though it may be. Using your talent to build, to create, or to restore, those are the greater forms of power; and those forms require time and cultivation to mature.”

I listened carefully, despite my anger and sorrow, even then my mind was working, looking ahead. “What of the power to protect?” I asked.

She closed her eyes. “That is an illusion. There is no power to protect, only to destroy and create anew. Protection is a result of the mind and clever use of power to manipulate the actions of those that would harm you, but it is not a result of power itself.”

“That makes no sense. If you try to destroy something, or someone, and I prevent you I have exercised my power to protect.”

“How would you prevent me?” she replied. “You would either destroy me, or use the threat of destruction to alter my actions. The protection of whomever or whatever is a secondary result, not a primary result of power. Power only creates or destroys.”

I didn’t want to agree with her, but I couldn’t see the flaw in her reasoning. Tired, I decided to put the discussion aside for another day. “I don’t like your answer, but I’m too worn to debate it.”

She continued, “All that belies another point you must be aware of…”

“What’s that?”

“As I told you before, an archmage does not possess power, he ‘becomes’ it. The power you use is not your own, you merely borrow it, and if you use too much it will own you. Remember that.”

I gritted my teeth but said nothing. I knew very well what she meant but I was convinced there was more to it than that. At every turn I was being told that all power had a price, that the power I used would cost me my very life if I tried to use the amount I needed to stop a being such as Mal’goroth, or the shining gods. Yet I could see that there were many unknowns in this game, even Moira didn’t understand the full limitations, or possibilities of an archmage’s ability. If she did she would already understand what had just happened to me, and she had already admitted to some uncertainty there. And I am not just an archmage, I thought to myself. I possessed power in my own right, as a wizard, though it might pale before some of the foes arrayed against me.

Beyond that I knew that the power of the mind might provide answers that no amount of brute force could. Moira underestimated the importance of intelligence that I was sure of, because all of her training taught her that the greater uses of an archmage’s power would obliterate his (or her) mind or ability to think. The natural progression of that train of thought was that all power, beyond a certain point, would render meaningless an individual’s power of thought or personal will.

I refused to accept that notion. I knew from my time in the smithy that sometimes small applications of force could have great effects. Skillful use of power magnifies what is possible. I turned my back on Moira and began walking back toward Lancaster. “You may go for now Moira,” I said curtly. For once my patience and courtesy were gone, and I didn’t really care.

Somewhere deep, in one of the dark places of the world something woke. It stirred restlessly, stretching a body that had been still for almost a millennium. The world itself had shaken, as if it would throw off the shackles of dormancy and drown the world in fire. Things were still now, but it could feel a lingering expectancy, as if the world had merely gone quiet, hushed in waiting for some larger event.

Slowly it shook the dust from its ancient form and began making its way toward daylight and fresh air. It was hungry, for it hadn’t eaten in nigh on a thousand years.