Battle Mage: The Lost King (Tales of Alus) (34 page)

“Maldus, we can end your imprisonment, if you want,” Sebastian stated pointing to the lone barrier upstairs. The others in the group looked at him in surprise. They had believed this ghost had free reign in the castle, but the mage had figured out that was only half true.

The wizard looked in the direction that Bas pointed and fear rose in his face. Turning white, the man’s hair and robe changed to reflect his fear. The illusion spell that allowed him to roam the castle and greet new guests was easily influenced by the man’s emotions.

“But the curse,” Maldus muttered fearfully. “If the walls fall, what will happen to the rest? I might crumble to dust like these others,” the man gestured to the broken skeletons, though the movement was more for his own direction than theirs.

“That is a risk you can take or you can remain a prisoner here forever,” Sebastian replied.

The team looked at him unsure of the offer. The wizard was a madman and had created the terrifying beasts roaming the forest and fields. Was setting such a man free a good idea? Sebastian wasn’t even sure himself, but he wasn’t so sure that Maldus would even take that risk.

Without answering them, the wizard disappeared again.

Sebastian looked at his left hand after the wizard had left and noticed that he was healed of the curse. No gray dust remained on his skin. Yara’s hand remained holding his in her relief at his release.

“I need your help,” Sebastian said to the healer. “We need to heal this place and our combine power seems to be able to do that best.”

Leading her to the barrier set to hold the wolves, Sebastian led her in the sun spell and reduced the purple glass to nothing in a single cast. Going to each doorway, they removed each barrier, even the new traps that formed as they passed through them. Saving the front door for last, the couple touched the two wood doors with their free hands and brought down the final barrier.

A surprised group of friends blinked as the doors opened like they were new. They looked tired. The wizards and Frell had thrown everything they had into breaking the enchantment holding their friends inside. To see the door just swing open after all the work, was a little disheartening.

Collin’s mouth was open a moment before he tried to ask, “How did you...?”

“It’s a long story,” Sebastian said patting his friend on the shoulder. Noting the falling sun, the mage asked the others, “Can someone summon the Sea Dragon, please? I have one last thing to do before we go.”

Yara joined him refusing to release his hand. Both were getting tired, but he knew that they had enough to do this one last spell.

The two climbed the stairs on the right and came face to face with the last glassy barrier. Seeing the true form of Maldus beyond the glass, Sebastian sighed. Looking dried out, but still mostly human in appearance, the wizard spotted them and backed away from his barrier in fear.

“Sun,” the two called the magic as one. The final barrier fell releasing the cursed wizard, but he huddled against the back wall.

“You’re as free as you wish to be, Maldus,” Sebastian declared softly. The wizard had been alone with his thoughts for more than a hundred and fifty years. A prison, even as nice as the once stately chairs
and couches might have been, was still a prison. Being trapped for so many years had taken their toll in a life lived beyond that of normal men and women. “There is enough of the dark magic to keep you safe here if that is your wish, but you can roam the castle in the flesh now if you want.”

Maldus said nothing and the two soon gave up trying to reason with him. In the greater scheme of things, the man should probably be considered an enemy or at least a threat, but the pale, thin man was no longer the wizard he once was. He was just a shadow, an illusion like the one he had hidden behind today.

Evening was beginning to take the sky, when the longboats of the Sea Dragon arrived on shore. The team was exhausted and, after a good meal, everyone turned in early for a well deserved rest.

Much like the Sea Dragon, the Carnivore used the island to hide from the ones they pursued. The air wizards had taken turns monitoring Sebastian’s team. Ashleen had seen the battle between the monsters. Sebastian had taken on the king of beasts. It was the largest thing that she had ever seen on land. The man was amazing, perhaps a little crazy, but amazing none the less.

Themenor had been confused by what transpired in the castle. Magically sealed for a time, the air wizard had returned and both had ridden the winds together to see if they could penetrate the barriers somehow sealing the broken windows. Equally frustrated, Ashleen had watched as Collin and the others outside used every once of power from some of their strongest spells to try and break down the front doors. The wood was thick, but they looked worn with age and yet the combined might of four wizards and a battle mage could do nothing to the doors or the walls holding them.

Was it another curse spell? The wizards of the Carnivore had deduced that the power of the magic holding the moss men had to be a curse. Curses came from dark magic. There were always rumors of the powerful spells when dealing with the Dark Emperor’s forces, but Ashleen had never witnessed one until that day. Someone with powerful magic had set these curses, but was it to prevent people like Sebastian from finding whatever he was looking for now or was there some other reason?

When Sebastian and the others opened the doors, she had seen as he had walked out holding Yara’s hand and felt a pain in her chest. She hated feeling that way, but it was there even so. While there was a bit of jealousy over what they had, the wilder wanted him to be happy and knew that a relationship between people from two different countries was unlikely to be more than a passing friendship. Still, Ashleen wished that she could trade places with the healer.

The following morning, both air riders watched as the water wizards seemed to be searching for something. She could see the remains of a pier in the water and perhaps the wreck of a ship sunk not too far from it. Had they been looking for the ship? She didn’t know, but wondered if they could have used the air riding spells to find it as she had.

A few hours search later, the Sea Dragon pulled up anchor and headed east around the point before heading north. It was the first time that they had turned from the generally southeastern direction they had been following for weeks.

With the people that they were supposedly following for their own good, the Carnivore anchored in the harbor before launching the search party in the longboats. The climb was led interestingly enough by Lord Romonus. Since the beginning of this new mission, the lord had seemed like a new man. Though he sweated in his chubby skin, Romonus grew more emboldened with each new island. Perhaps it was that Sebastian had already blazed a trail before him that helped the man feel safe enough to do things like charge up a stone walkway hewn from the steep stone hill or maybe the warm weather of the south invigorated him? Again it was something that she didn’t know. Not knowing but trying to learn was the work of an apprentice she supposed and put the questions aside as they approached the gray stone castle.

The wizards tried to sense the magic in the castle. There had to be something there that had triggered the trap that held more than half of Sebastian’s party for more than an hour. Not wanting to find the trap sprung on them, the wizards held the lord in check even as the man grew impatient.

“Please, wait a moment longer, my lord,” Deiclonus begged the man as the wizards tried to use their magic and senses to find what lingered there. Magic could still be felt, but it didn’t seem powerful enough to hold even one wizard now. That could be a dormant magic waiting to snap to full power, however, and no one wanted that if they thought about it.

Ashleen watched the rotund lord tapping his foot and thought that apparently their worry eluded him. Finally, the man had enough and pushed on one of the doors. With a great squeal, the shove sent the door on the right into the room where it banged against the wall as it disappeared. “See? There is nothing to be afraid of. Sebastian, that talented boy, has disabled the danger here.”

Frowning at him from behind, Ashleen watched as Dorgred acting impetuous as ever strode into the great hall as if he owned the castle. Fedwin moved quickly to back him up. The two fire wizards had begun to bond on the trip despite their obvious physical contradictions and personalities that seemed just as disparate.

“All clear,” the big man stated assuredly.

Fedwin searched and nodded his belief in Dorgred’s view before Zenfar and Hyren moved to join them. Deiclonus would have held back despite their assurances if Lord Romonus hadn’t decided to stride into the hall right behind them.

Ashleen noted a faint glow of purple, glass like magic in the windows to either side of the doors. There was magic still here, but it was like those windows had been cracked letting air in to let the ancient fortress breathe as it hadn’t for over a century. She thought that Romonus was actually correct. Sebastian
had broken whatever enchantment had once held the castle. The girl was more surprised that he had let any of it linger.

“Guests?” a voice cried out after they had all moved inside the stone walls. There had been a period of time waiting to see if a trap would spring and just when everyone thought it safe, a man’s voice had called out. They looked to the balcony over the far room. A man dressed in yellow robes like a Southwall healer stood looking down on them. Hair thinning with a neatly trimmed mustache and pencil thick beard on his chin, the wizard offered up an almost regal presence. Ashleen could feel something off about the man even so. “Guests twice in one week and a single day separating them besides,” the man declared trying to affect confidence. Ashleen could see something else in his eyes. “What strangeness. A man lives alone for so long and now so many people wish to visit him so soon. Well, I have no food for a dinner, so I am afraid that you will find I am unprepared to welcome you properly. Alas, I guess that means you will take your leave of poor Maldus then. Well, that is at it must be.”

“Wait!” Lord Romonus called back and Ashleen could see the wizard’s face contort slightly before recovering his fake smile. “We have a few questions for you,... Maldus, you say?”

“More questions, always more questions. No one just drops by for a cup of tea anymore, though I have no tea so I suppose that is to be expected. Everyone thinks Maldus has answers after living on his island for so long. That is strange. Wouldn’t you be the one for answers for me? Has the land changed much in a hundred fifty years? Has the Dark Emperor finished destroying his enemies and taken over the whole world?

“Well, I guess he hasn’t since people keep showing up to question, Maldus.”

Romonus nodded realizing that the wizard must be unhinged. He spoke quickly and talked about himself in the third person. For Ashleen that was enough to know the wizard had been left alone on the island for far too long.

Ashleen moved slowly towards the steps on the hunch that not everything was as it seemed. Backing away to the base of the steps as Lord Romonus distracted the wizard, the girl tried to avoid detection.

“Our friends have a head start on us,” the lord said with a smile and tried to be friendly like any ambassador would. “What did they ask you about?”

“Psssh.” The wizard tried to wave off the request a moment before going on, “We talked about this and that. They appreciated my work for example. My scalors, kairaks and kilven in the forest, have you seen them yet?” Tightening his lips in evaluation as he raised a hand to his chin contemplatively, the wizard shook his head saying, “No, you are much too fresh. You must have come straight to my door, unlike the others.”

His gaze looked towards the harbor, though even from the balcony there was no way that he could see the ship in the harbor. Ashleen thought the look was more like seeing someone react in a mirror. The third step was beneath her feet as the air wizard slowly began her climb.

The wizard continued looking distracted, “Then there was the talk about someone called, Germal? Gerald? Oh, what was the name again?”

“The Grimnal?” Romonus asked in surprise. The wizards began to mutter under their breath. No one had heard anything of this before and the idea that Sebastian was searching for the Grimnal was quite unexpected. Ashleen almost forgot to take another step as she looked to the wizard on the balcony in shock. His robe shifted color to gray as she watched. Others noticed as well, but they managed to hold their tongues. Themenor’s eyes went to the girl and she knew that at least he knew what Ashleen was up to now. She just hoped the addled wizard remained unobservant of her progress. If her idea of a mirror was correct, perhaps the man in their vision couldn’t see the hall well either. It was her best bet to maintain her progress without being discovered.

The wizard now clothed in gray robes with runes of yellow traced along the sleeves pointed at the lord looking impressed. “Ah, yes, Grimnal, that was it. Such an odd name, but they found his axe on one of my pets apparently. The boy must have been brave to request it from my scalor. He must be quite large and scary looking by now.

“Anyway, they asked if I had seen him, but it had been long ago. If he hadn’t taken so long here, he might not have been captured by the emperor’s hand. His ships were destroyed as well, I think, though I can’t say that any men came back to the castle. You would think with such a short swim that I would have seen someone asking for a bed,” he shrugged. “Oh well, I guess they weren’t like you just waltzing up to knock on my door.