Awakener

  Awakener

  Mage Song

  Book Three

  J.C. Staudt

  Awakener is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 J.C. Staudt

  All rights reserved.

  Edition 1.0

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Map

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Prologue

  With the king hovering over his shoulder, Maaltred Furiel was finding it difficult to concentrate on his work. The wild-song’s fires burned bright and hot in the depths of Castle Maergath’s underground forge, casting a vibrant green glow upon the rough stone walls of the workshop. Eerie, some might’ve called that glow. Maaltred found it comforting. To wield the power of nature so closely—to embrace it with his every breath and movement—gave him a thrill like no other.

  He sang the sigils of the wild-song, reciting the spell on the parchment before him. He raised the pipe to his lips and blew, strong and steady. The molten ironglass flared yellow with heat. Oily patterns swirled across its surface as it thinned. A shape was forming, a perfect sphere the size of a man’s fist. It was the third such sphere Maaltred had wrought in these fires, and it would be the last.

  The incantation was nearly complete now. Sweat stood out on his brow. He blinked away a stinging bead, never yielding his concentration. He spun his pipe, shaping his creation the way only an expert craftsman could. Within the sphere, a maelstrom roiled in darkness, the most potent convergence of nature’s forces he had ever witnessed.

  “Yes,” he heard Olyvard King whisper behind him, anticipation building in his voice. “Yes.”

  Before learning the wild-song, Maaltred had never realized it was possible to condense so much power into so small a thing. A glassblower by trade, he’d studied tirelessly under Dathrond’s finest Warpriests to prepare for the creation of the king’s three spheres. He’d been named Warpriest himself, though the title was little more than a formality. He was far from worthy of such status; he still kept his spells on folded pieces of parchment in the pockets of his robes. No other Warpriest in the king’s service did that.

  Truth be told, Maaltred would never have come this far or accomplished so much if not for his sister. Tanielle’s memory had driven him here despite his reservations. Magic had killed her, and Maaltred was convinced magic must die in return. What the king did with the spheres from this day forward was no concern of his, though; his service to the crown was at an end, and for that he was glad. As soon as this last sphere was done, he would return to his small village life in the Eastgap, where his wife Juna and his young niece Liselle were waiting for him.

  “I wish I could give you all the kisses there ever were,” Juna had told him the last time he’d left Sparrowmeet, over a year ago now. His holidays in the king’s service had been few, his visits home fewer still.

  “Save them for me,” Maaltred had said. “I’ll be waiting on the next one.”

  He often dreamed of returning home in high summer to the smells of the honeysuckle and wild lavender which bloomed in great abundance in the lands surrounding Sparrowmeet. Juna would be finishing a batch of warm meat pies, or a fruit cobbler with cinnamon, fresh and steaming. Liselle would be at her needlework, or walking near the stream, plucking flower petals and making wishes for love. She was coming of age now, and would soon be ready to marry. Maaltred would need to qualify a suitable husband; one to whom Tanielle and Holdek would’ve been pleased to give their daughter.

  “Tanielle,” Maaltred breathed, shaping the sphere’s final curves before lowering it onto a bed of damp sackcloth. Spinning the pipe upright, he etched a trimline around the neck of the sphere and tapped it free. “Bring the plug.”

  An assistant lowered a second pipe with a small gather of molten ironglass at the end, pressing it down onto the sphere to seal the hole left behind. The king bent to inspect the finished object, no less amazed than when Maaltred had crafted the first sphere weeks before, a fine specimen of blue ironglass with a cyclone of ever-spinning sand inside.

  For over a decade, Olyvard King of Dathrond had dispatched his servants far and wide in search of the missing fourth piece of the spell that would’ve unraveled the mage-song forever. Notes recovered from the study of Geddle the Wise had led the king’s Pathfinders, Dathrond’s most elite soldiers, to places beyond reckoning, from lost desert temples to the ruins of high mountain strongholds a thousand years forgotten. Geddle’s old study now belonged to the king’s Warpriests, a common room for reading, writing, and reflection on all things spiritual and magical.

  The fourth piece of the ritual was never found. In his anger, Olyvard King drew unto himself a host of priests, druids, necromancers, healers, mystics, scholars, archivists, and countless others whose command and knowledge of the wild-song were revered in the realms. This host of experts had spent years poring over the ritual’s three remaining parts; searching, studying, experimenting. It wasn’t until they arrived at a potential solution that the king had summoned Maaltred, considered by many to be the finest glassblower in the Eastgap, to join the effort. Maaltred was a novice of the wild-song compared to Olyvard’s other Warpriests, yet he had earned their respect through his hard work and devotion to the kingdom’s causes.

  The storm within the green ironglass sphere twisted and fumed, alive and teeming. When Olyvard reached out to touch it, Maaltred caught him by the wrist. “Not yet, majesty. The ironglass must cool for several hours before one may handle it without injury.” Olyvard’s glare made Maaltred think twice about having restrained him. He released his grip on the king’s wrist. “My apologies.”

  “Unnecessary,” said Olyvard, taking his hand away. “It is as you say. I might’ve harmed myself. A king desires nothing more from his servants than to be loved. You’ve done good work here today—yet again, by the look of it. You shall be justly rewarded.”

  The stone floor rumbled beneath their feet. Maaltred looked out the tiny barred window near the ceiling to see a crackle of lightning pierce the desert sky. Storms had ravaged Maergath since he’d wrought the first of the spheres. The weather had grown worse with the second, and now the wild-song was intensifying again with the third.

  Olyvard’s smile was thin and crooked. “Do you feel it? The power of nature has never been stronger. Soon the realms will bow before my empire. Every practitioner of the mage-song from here to Tetheril will finally understand the great perversion to which they’ve surrendered their minds. Every man’s true loyalty belongs to me, and to Dathrond. Do you not agree?”

  As always, Maaltred said what he must.
“I do, your majesty.”

  “When the sphere cools, bring it to the high hall for display. I would have the members of my court look upon their salvation before I disperse the three. When I send you into the realms, it shall be with great fanfare and acclaim.”

  Maaltred furrowed his brow in confusion. “Send me, sire?”

  “Surely you did not think I intended to keep the spheres all to myself.”

  “Eh… no. Only, I—”

  “Good. Here in one place, their destructive capabilities are too great. Before long, the unbridled power of the wild-song would bring low Maergath’s very walls. We must spread them wide across the realms, that my ambassadors may win victory over those who have used magic to thwart them in the past.”

  “May it be as you say, my liege. Only… I thought my task complete, now that I’ve fashioned the objects you commissioned of me.”

  “That was my intention, at first,” said the king. “Now, I’ve changed my mind. You’ve proven yourself worthy of a great deal more, Master Furiel. Which is why I’ve arranged a new task for you. Your work here in Maergath is complete, yes. Your work abroad is only beginning. You’ve a great distance to travel, and a very important charge to enact upon my behalf.”

  “Might I not stop home to visit my family first? I’ve had occasion to visit my wife but thrice in as many years.”

  “Oh, certainly not,” said Olyvard, laughing. “There isn’t time. Nor shall I be sending you north to begin with. One of the spheres is to stay here. Another will travel south. This third sphere—your finest yet, and the most powerful of the three—I’ve set aside for a special purpose. And who better to carry it than its creator? Who better to bear the future of our world into a foreign land than the one who made its existence possible? There is none but you, Maaltred.” The king touched him on the shoulder.

  It was the first time Maaltred could remember the king touching him—or calling him by his first name—in the three years since he’d arrived at the gates of Maergath. “Where would you have me carry it, your majesty?”

  “East. Far to the east.”

  “Into the Dathiri desert, my king?”

  “And further still.”

  Maaltred mopped the sweat from his brow with a sleeve. “Across the Aeldalos? Toward what destination… if I may be so bold as to ask?”

  “All shall be revealed, Master Furiel. Your duty has yet to be fulfilled. You are an instrument of greater significance than you or I knew when you joined us.”

  “My desire is to be of the utmost service to you,” said Maaltred, growing nervous. “As has it ever been. Thus, I must admit I hold doubt as to your choice in me. I am but a simple tradesman. I have known only one thing from a boy. I’ve mastered a few of the wild-song’s incantations, certainly. Yet I am no fit bearer of an item so powerful as this.”

  “You are fit to serve as I find need of you,” the king said coarsely. “Should I have a thirst, you are fit to bring me drink. Should I feel a draft, you are fit to robe my shoulders. The same is true of any wish I might presume granted me.”

  Maaltred bit his tongue to stem his complaints. This was an injustice, he knew. Yet he also knew the king would not suffer to hear disagreement. “You have more faith in me than I have in myself.”

  Olyvard snorted. “Faith? Perhaps you’ve misunderstood me.” The king took a step closer. When he spoke, he mouthed his words as if to make each one sting. “Dathrond, and everything in it, is mine. You are mine. What need have I of faith when I possess gold, and land, and the authority of men? You will do as I command, because I have commanded it. And for your service, you will accept what is due you.”

  Maaltred did not shy away, even as the king’s hot breath brushed his cheek. He merely stared straight ahead and gave a shallow nod, trying not to show his fear and reprehension. “As you will… your majesty.”

  Chapter 1

  In the wilds of Tetheril, time passes, dreamlike into the mists, until at last the immense becomes simple and the mercurial serene. There, in hidden places, one may find the quiet of nature a salve to the tempest within himself. Not so when the rivers rage and the trees sway in the stormwinds, or when all seems unhinged from the calm of a springtide day. But there is truth in our trials, and in all things the ages move with a greater stillness than we ourselves could ever hope to attain.

  ***

  Draithon Ulther tossed a padded blanket over the back of his gelding and followed it with the cracked old saddle he’d used ever since he was a boy. He cinched the straps tight about the animal’s flanks before adding a pair of saddlebags and a bedroll. The last thing he wanted was to spend the next few weeks on a hunting trip with his father, yet that was his destination. He would sooner have gone to Cliffside Harbor with Master Kestrel and Mistress Axli and the boys, but Draithon’s father never let him go to the western cities. It was too dangerous, he claimed.

  The only place Draithon ever got to go was into the woods, hunting, or fishing, or hawking, or helping his mother with the wash. At least Master Triolyn was coming along with them on the hunt this time. Having the archer for company would improve the outing; perhaps Father would go easier on him with someone else around.

  Hunting meant long days trekking through untamed wilderness; long hours spent in stillness and silence with bows at the ready; still more time lugging kills back to camp; and endless lessons on skinning, tanning, curing, and smoking. Draithon had taken his fill of all those things; he bore neither interest nor skill in any of them, and as far as he was concerned, he never would. Life was easier when all he needed to worry about were his daily chores. When he could spend his time reading or studying, or daydreaming about castles and cities and all the many cultures of the world.

  And girls. Especially girls. He wished he knew more of them. It was hard meeting anyone new when you lived in the wilderness. The only girls Draithon knew were his mother and sisters, and they didn’t count.

  There was Mistress Axli, but she was Master Kestrel’s woman. Still, it wasn’t as though Draithon hadn’t begun to notice her. Though she was much too old for him, he’d come to appreciate certain of her attributes in particular. Whenever she bent over a cookfire or lay in the grass with her children, Draithon found he could not help staring. She was a full-figured woman with the blood of the north in her bones. It was obvious in her bearing, her physique; even in her clothes. Sometimes, if Draithon was lucky, she would bend or recline in such a way as to give him a glimpse of what she might look like without them.

  “Have I ever told you the story of how I got that saddle?” Draithon’s father asked him from the adjacent stall.

  Draithon rolled his eyes. “Yes, Father. You and Jeebo stole a pair of horses from the stables at the River’s Wend in Briarcrest shortly after fighting off Lord Einrich’s son and two of his household guard. You’d left your own horses behind when you subdued the dragon Shandashkaleth and rode him across the skies of Orothwain in search of Mother and me. This is the very same saddle with which you dressed the horse you stole that day. I’ve heard the tale half a hundred times.”

  “Yet you’ve misremembered the details,” Darion said.

  “The details change with every telling, depending on whether it’s you or Master Jeebo telling it, and how far into your cups you’ve gone beforehand.”

  “Yet both Jeebo and I can agree on one thing,” said Darion. “We didn’t steal those horses. We bought them. In a manner of speaking.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Draithon. “You left a pouch of gold in each stall to compensate their owners.”

  “Correct. And the dragon we rode to Briarcrest is called Caidrannothar. The dragon you’re thinking of—Shandashkaleth—was the one in whose lair you and your mother nearly met your ends. The one possessed by the soul of Celayn, the ancient elven sorceress-queen.”

  Draithon shook his head wearily. “I don’t see what difference it makes. That was ages ago.”

  “It was ten years ago, nearly to the day,” Darion corrected him. �
��And there’s one last detail you’ve missed. Jeebo fended off three of Lord Einrich’s household guard by himself—not two.”

  “Forgive me that I haven’t your mind for details, Father.”

  “Nonsense. You’ve a mind like a sword. Now, if only you could learn to swing one.”

  Draithon said nothing. He was tired of being reminded of his shortcomings. That was all Father ever did anymore. Why wasn’t he as hard on Ryssa or Westhane or Vyleigh? Surely their being younger shouldn’t put them above reproach.

  “Did you hear me?” Darion asked.

  “I heard you, Father.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “About what?”

  “About working harder on your studies.”

  “I work as hard as the rest of them. I just don’t have the coordination to hit a bullseye or parry a sword thrust or ride a tilt.”

  Darion came over to lean against the stall between them. “I believe you do. You’re a smart lad. You’re tall and sturdy like me. You’ve left your brother and sisters well behind when it comes to your magic. You make Ryssa jealous the way you master spells so quickly.”

  “She goes about it all wrong,” said Draithon. “It’s the sigils and their meanings that matter, not the spells. Learn the language, and you can make it do whatever you want.”

  “That’s as may be, but not everyone learns the way you do. You’re better than I was at fourteen, I’ll give you that.”

  “I started learning magic much younger than you did,” Draithon pointed out.

  “Yet Westhane and Ryssa both lag behind where you were at their age.”

  “What’s your point? I know magic comes easy to me. I know I’m no good at archery or swordplay or riding.”

  “All I mean to say is that if you could turn your mind away from your daydreams once in a while, you’d be better able to focus on everything we’re trying to teach you.”

  “Are you sure?” said Draithon. “What if I’ve gotten as good as I’ll ever be at doing my sums or building campfires? What if those aren’t my strong points, and I’m meant to do elsewise?”