The Mage's Grave: Mages of Martir Book #1 (12 page)

Pulling back, Yorak said, “Surely you must know which one of your students owns a blood tear, shouldn't you? After all, this is your school, isn't it, Superior?”

The Magical Superior also pulled back. He stroked his chin, deep in thought. “I do not keep track of every little physical possession that my students own or bring with them from the outside world. It could belong to one of the Micans, but that's unlikely because all of the Mican students were gathered to greet the Institute mages earlier.”

“So the only clue you have to the identity of the attacker, and it is completely useless,” said Yorak. She rubbed her large nose. “That's it. If even the only clue we have is useless, then that must be a sign from the gods that I and my students must go.”

Yorak walked past the Magical Superior, brushing against him roughly. He did not turn to watch her go, because he was still looking at the blood tear, trying to think of who could be its owner. He heard Jenur make a noise of disgust at Yorak's leaving, but that was all she did.

Blood tears are very rare,
the Magical Superior thought.
Whoever dropped theirs must have been in a hurry. They had somewhere they needed to be, somewhere they could not afford to be late to. Otherwise, the suspicions of every person in the school would fall on their shoulders, thus ruining their schemes.

Although the Magical Superior had one of the most brilliant minds in the world—there was no point in being modest about it, it was a fact that had been confirmed again and again in his lifetime—this mystery stumped it as easily as if it were one of the dumbest.

And then, without warning, an explosion erupted behind him. Whirling around, the Magical Superior saw Yorak standing there, frozen in fear and shock, staring up at the massive pillar of fire shooting into the air hundreds of feet away from them, the flames showing over the top of the First Dorm.

It took the Magical Superior's brilliant mind another moment to realize that the explosion was coming from the sports field. In the exact spot where the
Soaring Sea
had landed.

Chapter Eight

D
arek's dreams were strange, to say the least, although he supposed that dreams were always strange. Still, these dreams were even stranger than normal. Whereas in most dreams he was not aware that he was in a dream, in this one, he was. That may very well have been the strangest part of this whole affair.

He was standing in the Arcanium's lobby, looking up at the Wall of Mastery, a wall that was normally covered with gold-framed pictures of the greatest students to graduate from the school. In real life, the Wall of Mastery normally held paintings of hundreds of past students, all of which looked as new as the day they had been painted. This in spite of the fact that many of those paintings had been painted centuries ago, although it made more sense when you considered that the paintings had been made using a special type of paint that did not age.

But today, the Wall of Mastery was completely black, with no sign of the paintings to be seen. It was an inky, purplish, ugly black, like the skin of a snake. Not only that, but it moved and groaned, like it was a living thing. Morbid curiosity compelled him to touch it and find out what it would do, but Darek's deeper instincts told him to stay as far away from the strange, seemingly organic wall as he possibly could.

Because Darek was not the adventurous type, he decided to stand at a distance and look at it. He had no idea what he was looking at, in all honesty, but as long as it didn't try to attack him, he knew he would be okay.

Besides,
Darek thought,
this is just a dream. Even if it was hostile, who cares? I'll be fine either way.

I wouldn't be so confident in yourself, young mortal.

Darek froze. Unless his ears were playing tricks on him—always a possibility in his dreams—that voice had sounded like it was coming directly from the 'wall' in front of him, like the 'wall' had spoken.

That's ridiculous, even for a dream,
Darek thought, shaking his head.
I am alone here in the Arcanium's lobby. I must be going crazy.

Then the voice spoke again, immediately wiping away all of Darek's lingering doubts about its true origin.
Alone? I would question the usefulness of such a concept. No one is ever truly alone, even at the end of the world. We are always surrounded by someone or something, even if that someone or something refuses to acknowledge us or share its presence with us. You are not alone, Darek Takren, adopted son of Jenur Takren.

Darek felt his heart beat increase.
What are you talking about? Who are you? Why are you in my dreams?

A wave of anger crashed over Darek, like the waves of the ocean. Only, it was not his anger, but someone else's.

Who am I?
the voice said.
You ask who I am? I should not be here. You should not be here. We should not even be talking. By becoming aware of my existence, you are jeopardizing my entire plan, the plan that will restore the world to the way it once was.

I didn't come looking for you, whoever you are,
Darek said, feeling somewhat annoyed.
Actually, I was hoping for a dream-less sleep. I nearly froze my hands off earlier, you know.

I am quite aware of what you did, Darek Takren,
said the voice, which was now clearly coming from the wall.
It was I, after all, who had sent the chimera. I did not think it would do much good, and I was correct, but it lasted long enough to allow my servants to escape. That's all I really wanted in the end.

So
you're
the one behind the chimera,
Darek said.
Are you also behind the explosion at the Third Dorm? Just who are you, anyway?

A superior being like myself does not need to answer such silly questions like that,
the voice said.
I am trying to figure out how we even managed to cross paths like this. Far more importantly, I am trying to figure out how to break this connection between us.

No,
Darek said, pointing at the wall.
You're going to tell me who you are and what you are trying to do. Otherwise, I'll—

You'll what?
the voice jeered.
This is a dream, after all. Even if it wasn't, you are still far beneath me in terms of sheer power. The power I command is the kind that your kind only ever dreams of. I am the first, the one who existed before all of this infernal, ugly creation. You are an ant whose life will be snuffed out shortly if you continue to get in my way like this.

The one who existed before creation?
Darek repeated.
Are you some kind of god? Or maybe one of the Powers?

Nice try,
the voice said with a sneer.
I am not going to let you know who I am. If—no,
when
—my plan succeeds, then all of the world, including you, will know who I am, will know and tremble before my might.

Darek didn't like the sound of that one bit, so he decided to do something about it. Remembering his oneiromancy lessons with Noharf Ximin, Darek held out his hand and willed his old wand into existence. It popped into his hand like it had always been there and began to glow with suppressed energy as he held it out in front of the wall.

Your wand?
said the voice, sounding not at all afraid of it.
Do you honestly believe that that little piece of wood will help you in the slightest? This is a dream, after all, and in dreams, you cannot actually hurt anyone.

I know,
said Darek.
I remember what Noharf always taught me. But I'm not going to hurt or even kill you. I'm going to expel you from my mind.

You mean you don't want to know what I am going to do?
the voice asked.
You aren't going to ask about my plans?

You've already made it clear that you aren't going to tell me a thing,
Darek replied.
Therefore, why waste my time talking to you when I could spend it waking up and finding out what's going on in the physical world?

The voice seemed genuinely shocked by that, but it said,
You are pragmatic. I like that in individuals, even in inferior individuals like yourself.

A cold wind blew from the voice, making Darek shiver, even though it was just a dream. It was like standing bare naked in the Great Berg on a cold winter day, almost causing Darek to drop his wand.

But Darek managed to gather the strength necessary to keep holding his wand. He said to the voice,
I don't care what you like in people. The point is, I don't want you in my mind infecting my dreams anymore.

Infecting? I am doing no such thing,
said the voice.
I am still not even sure how we became tied like this. If I had to guess, I would say you must have fallen unconscious at the exact same time I was contacting one of my pawns. Perhaps it was the excess magical power you used that caused your mind to link with me, at least temporarily.

That theory seemed reasonable to Darek. It was similar to something that Noharf had once taught him ages ago. Occasionally, it was possible for two mages who fell asleep at the same time to enter each other's dreams, especially if one or both of them were oneiromancers. It was an extremely rare phenomenon, not very well understood even by the best oneiromancers, but it was known to happen and when it did, it often linked the two mages for a long time, sometimes for life.

Because Darek did not want to be linked with this voice for life, he aimed his wand at the wall again, ignoring the cold wind that continued to blow from it.
Your theory might be correct, but I'm not going to stand around here and find out.

With a practiced twist of his wrist, Darek fired a blast of fiery energy at the wall. It was a spell Noharf had taught him, which, if used correctly, would expel unwanted visitors from his dreams. Darek had used this spell only a couple of times before, during his classes and training sessions with Noharf, but he remembered the basics of it well enough to understand how to use it.

The blast of fiery energy slammed into the wall, causing the voice to scream in pain as the flames enveloped him. Of course, the voice was not actually being burned alive, but the spell was supposed to emulate that feeling in order to get the intruders out of one's dream.

The dream fire sparked and crackled, but it was silent in comparison to the voice's screams. Darek had to put his hands over his ears to save them from getting hurt, although it was mostly out of instinct he did it because he was in no danger of permanently losing his hearing in a dream.

And then, without warning, Darek awoke.

Gasping for breath, Darek did not understand where he was at first. He felt soft sheets, saw a bright yellow light reflecting off the white walls of the room he was in, and could barely feel his hands. His senses were completely disoriented, yet for some reason, he felt as cold as if he had been sitting outside in the snow all day.

It took him a few moments to gather his senses back into something halfway coherent. Even so, his memories of the dream—and the voice—were already rapidly fading, like memories of dreams always do whenever you awake, and he had no way to write them down so he could recall them later. Even if he did have a pen and paper on hand, his hands felt so uncooperative that he didn't think he'd be able to write for a long time.

When his senses finally began to work again, Darek looked down at his body. He was lying underneath a thick white blanket and he could feel a soft mattress underneath his body. He realized that he was lying down in one of the beds in the medical wing.

Why am I in the medical wing?
Darek thought, looking up at the high ceiling directly above him.
How did I get in here? Why can't I remember?

One thing Darek did remember—albeit vaguely, as the memory had taken place a while ago and he had not thought about it in a long time—was that dreams like that almost always left the memories of the dreamer muddled and confused. Noharf had taught him that even memories of what happened before the dream were often affected, although the damage was rarely permanent.

It will all come back to me, probably,
Darek thought.
That's pretty usual for people who suffer from temporary amnesia like me. Any … minute … now.

Right on cue, his memories of the battle against the chimera came roaring back. Because they all returned at once, they were muddled and confused, even more so than they had been previously. But in a minute, the memories coalesced into something coherent and they became easier to understand.

That's right,
Darek thought.
The chimera attacked us out of nowhere. I took it on alone. The others tried to help, but somehow the chimera stopped them from doing so. What a strange, random thing to happen.

With a jolt, he remembered his hands freezing themselves off and he pulled them out from under his blankets. His hands were still there, as whole as ever, but they were so cold that he could barely feel them. It reminded Darek of the time a potential student, a Carnagian boot maker who had been convinced that he was destined for greatness, had fallen through the ice of the Great Berg and drowned. When they had fished out his body just ten minutes later, it had been completely blue.

Now Darek's hands did not look quite as blue as the boot maker's body. He did not know how much time had passed since he had fallen unconscious, but it must have been quite some time because his hands were a lighter shade of blue than he remembered them looking at first. Nonetheless, he still couldn't feel them, although he could move the tips of his fingers slightly.

Then Darek heard someone start nearby and he looked to his left. Aorja was standing above Jiku's bed, looking startled. She held one of her hands behind her back, like she was hiding something, although Darek didn't focus too much on that.

“Darek?” said Aorja. A scowl flickered across her face briefly before being replaced by a smile. “Oh, Darek. I'm so glad to see you're getting better. How do your energy reserves feel?”

Darek closed his eyes and felt his energy levels. As soon as he did, his limbs became astonishingly weak, as if all of his muscles had turned into mush.