Fallen Magician (The Magician Rebellion) (9 page)

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Of course! I should have realized- you must be desperate for news of him. Xander was well the last time I saw him if a bit stir crazy. Then again we all were.

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The Kenzai kept us locked up in our own cells, but each cell was part of a larger cluster of six. We could communicate with each other, but not see or interact in any other way. In that way they could keep us from going completely mad without the risk of us ever having to leave our cells. Your father was the unspoken leader in our cluster. Despite the fact that we were all powerless in there, we still recognized his wisdom and listened to his counsel.”

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That sounds like my father,” Alia admitted with a hint of a smile at the edge of her cheeks. “Under that kind of lockdown and without magic how did you ever escape?” Alia asked with sudden intrigue.

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The only way I managed to escape was because I was allowed a little more freedom than the others. I was being trained to control my powers for the day when I would eventually be released and allowed to serve Aurelia.”

Alia touched Byrn’s arm and he felt a rush of excitement shoot up his arm. He looked into her shimmering blue eyes and felt like he was drowning in them, but he did not want to be saved. When she spoke her voice was soft, but compelling, “How very interesting. Please tell me more.”

The commander greeted Prince Janus Aurel’s entourage as they arrived at Baj Prison in a procession of carriages. The prince’s entourage consisted of his personal guard made up of Kenzai masters, comely servant girls whose sole purpose was to attend to the prince’s whims, and a few forward thinking nobles who were intent on incurring Janus’ favor. They rode in a set of four horse drawn carriages each with a pair of drivers that the commander guessed were also skilled fighters tasked with protecting the prince’s life in the case of the rare bandit attack or, less likely, a magician attack.

When the lead carriage arrived Prince Janus was the first to exit followed closely behind by a pair of his guards, a young servant who looked to be a favorite of the prince’s for her full lips and full body, and two nobles dressed in attire that the man who now wore the title of Dungeonlord considered foppish though he had the good sense not to say so.

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It is good to see you again!” announced the prince in a tone that managed to sound regal and affectionate at the same time.

The commander of Baj bowed graciously. “The pleasure is mine, my prince,” Knight-Commander Kellen Dungeonlord replied happily. Formerly, the knight-captain of the Colum city guard, Kellen was appointed as the new Dungeonlord following a riot and escape attempt that cost the previous Dungeonlord his life years earlier. In addition to being a master of the Kenzai Order, Kellen was also considered a local hero for his years of service in Colum and across the kingdom, making him a natural choice for the appointment.

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Welcome to Baj, your highness,” Kellen added with a salute. He motioned to an unseen guard in a tower above the gate and moments later the large wooden doors began to open. “If you will follow me, I would love to give you a tour of the facilities. It is an honor that only a few men outside of the Kenzai Order have ever had.”

The prince walked at Kellen’s side and his entourage from the first carriage followed behind them while the carriages were led into a waiting area where the horses could be stabled temporarily and attended to until the entourage went to Colum. Prince Janus would stay in the nearby city for the duration of his visit since there was no accommodations in Baj appropriate for a prince.

Kellen led them to the main receiving hall within the prison. “This is the main chamber and functions as a sort of hub for activities here since the hall is connected to all the other areas of the prison. This room also doubles as a staging area that we can use to move about quickly to reach any disturbance and, if necessary, can also be used as a rallying point. It was in this very room that the last escape attempt was thwarted three years ago.

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As you can see there are five doors in this room and each one is posted with at least one guard at all times. The door on the left leads to the guard barracks and the armory. The one on the right leads to the outer perimeter and to the guard towers along the walls that are manned at all times. The three doors in front of us lead into the prison proper.

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The prison is comprised of three levels and is designed in a manner that is half maze and half spider web making it impossible to travel from one place to another in a straight line. Within the prison you will notice there are runes all along the walls and within the cells themselves. My Kenzai brothers,” Kellen nodded to the prince’s guards, “will recognize these runes for what they are- anti-magic wards that drain all nearby magical energy and prevent it from regenerating. It is these runes along with the strict measures we use to keep the magicians contained that make Baj such an effective prison.

Kellen swung open the center door and turned to face Prince Janus presenting the prince his first glimpse within the walls. “Beyond this point, you may take two of your personal guards, but that is all I can allow- even for you, my prince.”

Grumbling from the nobles who accompanied Janus could be heard at being excluded, but they grew quiet with a wave of Janus’ hand without a look back.

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Understood, Sir Dungeonlord. I take no offense and neither do my companions, though their disappointment is understandable,” Prince Janus assured him, then flashed a smile to his noble friends to show there were no hard feelings. His diplomatic skills were impressive, indeed.

The prince summoned the two guards that rode in his carriage and Kellen led them further into the prison toward the prisoners’ cells. The walls were indeed covered in strange runes as Kellen had said, but they did not light up or do anything as Janus thought they would.

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Is something wrong with these runes?” Janus asked, “They do not appear to be working.”

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They activate in the presence of magic and will glow with a blue light as they absorb magical energy,” Kellen explained, “Since they have already eliminated all magic in the area, they will not light up unless a new source of magic is introduced.” He led his guests further into the prison until they came to the first cell cluster. “This is one of the cell clusters that we keep the prisoners in. They are kept in the cells at all times to limit the chance of escape.”

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Fascinating,” said the prince, “Baj seems very secure. You have done well here, Knight-Commander. I will be sure to tell my father of how well you have this place under control, but I must admit I am here for another reason- one that I could not put in the correspondence I sent you.”

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Your highness?”

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My father has his own magician, your friend Sane, to serve him and I want to take one of the magicians here with me to serve in the same capacity,” declared Prince Janus.

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Your highness, I would recommend against that. These men and women are very dangerous,” Kellen told him, careful not to make the prince angry. He had little experience with the prince previously, but according to Sane, Prince Janus tended to have a temper when he did not get what he wanted.

Instead of an outburst, the prince smiled slyly. “What if I told you that I have discovered a way to control the magicians? I have commissioned the creation of a device that does not rob a magician of his magic as these runes do. Instead it prevents him from using magic or doing anything to harm another except at the command of his master.”

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Your majesty, such a device could not-“ Kellen began, but the prince cut him off.

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It does work,” Janus assured him. “I have seen it with my own eyes. Have you heard of the magician Mantellus Firekin? He was the one who dressed up like a priest and kidnapped Lady Tian Nightwind a few months ago. The wizard found his way into our dungeon and I tested it on him. It worked flawlessly!

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Mantellus has since died, but even now I have that device being returned to me. If all goes according to plan it should reach Colum within the next few days.” Prince Janus’ eyes were wide and he grinned wildly at the thought. Kellen wondered if the prince was mad for a moment, but pushed the thought away. One day this man would be king of Aurelia and it was treasonous to think such a thing of him. “So tell me, Knight-Commander, who is the most powerful magician in Baj?”

There were many powerful magicians in Baj. Unlike the domains that held good, law-abiding magicians who had little or no knowledge of how to properly use magic, Baj was filled with magic wielders who developed their powers as they hid from the Kenzai that hunted them. The longer a magician avoided the Kenzai the more powerful they would invariably become. However, Kellen did not have to spend long thinking of all the magicians in his prison to determine who the most powerful one of them all was. His first act as the new Dungeonlord was to read the dossiers of every magician under his guard and among the dossiers was a lengthy file on a man by the name of Xander Necros, a purported grandmaster of necromancy.

The grandmasters were considered to be a legend by many. They were supposed to have power so far beyond other magicians that they made masters look like mere apprentices by comparison. The last grandmaster was said to have died nearly three hundred years ago when the Kenzai Order was officially established and the balance of power swung back in favor of the normal humans.

Of course, being unable to use magic in the prison made that claim impossible to prove without exposing Aurelia to unnecessary danger. It was a simple claim that any prisoner could make, because the truth of it could not be verified, but after speaking with the man Kellen felt there was something unusual about the man that he could not put his finger on.

No good could come of this request. If Xander Necros was truly a grandmaster and he broke free of the prince’s restraint, then he could cause untold havoc, and if he stayed under Janus’ command, then the prince would have at his call a weapon of unimaginable power and no one, not even the prince, should have more power than the king.

Kellen looked at the certainty in Janus’ eyes and knew that he was not going to be able to send the prince home disappointed.

Byrn sat at the round table surrounded by the masters of the Collective. The masters were the governing body of the magician group and numbered five people including Byrn. As masters they were deemed to be the most knowledgeable magicians in the rebellion and led the others by consensus.

With the exceptions of Alia and Byrn who were in their twenties, the former in her late years and the latter in his early years, the rest of the masters looked to be in their mid-forties to early sixties. To Byrn's right sat Levak Altermas, a manipulation master. He was in his fifties, but still quite fit and had a mane of red hair tied off in a high rogue's knot and a long mustache that he had assured Byrn was “terribly manly” over drinks when they first met. Next to Levak was Riona Necromas. She was the Collective's master of necromancy and although she was a bit chubby she hid it well under her flowing black robe. Opposite Byrn was Alia Necros who Byrn knew well by now. She took her sir name from her father Xander Necros, but was only an adept at necromancy. Her true mastery was in enchanting. To his left was the man known as Old Father Skynryd, the eldest of the masters and a healer who believed that healing came from within the body rather than the goddess of life. Skynryd found his way to the Collective after he was excommunicated for having a viewpoint counter to the teachings of Ashura and considered heretical by most in the kingdom.

Despite her younger age Alia was considered the head of the Collective, since she was the one who founded the group three years earlier and brought the masters together. She was also skilled at managing the Collective's business from sending magicians on assignments to handling the daily affairs of the castle and the town of Wolfsbane below.

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First, I would like to officially welcome Byrn Firemas to the masters table,” Alia said with a nod and slight smile. Byrn decided to take the name Firemas after some consideration a few weeks earlier. If he was to put forth his full effort into fighting the kingdom and Kenzai, then he needed to embrace this life and though it pained him to do so when he thought of his mother he nevertheless cut all ties to his former life. It was a difficult decision, but now that he understood the lengths the Kenzai were willing to go to subjugate magicians his path was clear.

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Second, I believe it is time that we took the offensive. We have had some fair successes working in secret, but the emergence of the control collars, the hand-cannon weapons, and the total destruction of my mother's school have shown just how much more aggressive our Kenzai adversaries are becoming,” Alia spoke calmly, but passionately, “We can no longer be content to stay hidden while slowly building our numbers or the Kenzai will track us down one by one. We are forty magicians strong now, but most of our numbers are still inexperienced youths. We have to increase our numbers rapidly to meet these growing threats. We need someone to lead us who could also be a symbol of what we can achieve. We need someone that we can rally behind and make our presence known to all in Aurelia and draw in all of the magicians still in hiding to our cause. In short we need my father, Xander Necros.”