The Ways of Mages: Starfire Read online

  The Ways of Mages: Starfire by Catherine Beery

  Acknowledgements: Some characters are based on those created by Andrew Beery. Thanks dad for letting me discover your world! Cover art was done by Andrew Beery

  Prologue-The Serpent Storm

  Chapter 1- The Odd One Out

  Chapter Two- Caught

  Chapter Three- Choices

  Chapter Four- The Stranger and the Dark

  Chapter Five- Of Sound

  Chapter Six- The Vanished Town

  Chapter Seven- In Three Night’s Time

  Chapter Eight- What is Seen...

  Chapter Nine- The Truth Hurts

  Chapter Ten-Emissary of the Past

  Chapter Eleven- The Innocent Stream

  Chapter Twelve- The Melting Stone

  Chapter Thirteen- Tempest Dreams

  Chapter Fourteen- A Born Weapon

  Chapter Fifteen- The Reward

  Chapter Sixteen- Nightmare

  Chapter Seventeen- On a Dark Moon Night…

  Chapter Eighteen- Welcome to the Myth

  Chapter Nineteen- Roads

  Chapter Twenty- Lancha

  Chapter Twenty-One- The Passing of a Hero

  Chapter Twenty-Two- To be a Child of Prophecy…

  Chapter Twenty-three–The Keep’s Inn

  Chapter Twenty-Four- The Dream Hunter

  Chapter Twenty-Five - A Shattering Past

  Chapter Twenty-Six -The Lady and the Owl

  Chapter Twenty-Seven - Little World

  Chapter Twenty-Eight -Secrets in the Mist

  Chapter Twenty-Nine -A Sword Born of Dreams

  Chapter Thirty - Race the Shadow

  Chapter Thirty-One -Wolf Wisdom

  Chapter Thirty-Two - Razyan's Keep

  Chapter Thirty-Three - Of Keep Stones and Chess

  Chapter Thirty-Four - The Courtyard

  Chapter Thirty-Five - Riddle

  Chapter Thirty-Six - Stillness

  A storm was brewing…

  Evil sundered the world and shattered the pieces, so Jewel Al’Dap-Holden learns through a series of unlucky events. Lost in another world, Jewel finds keeping her faith and love alive hard after centuries tormented by one Lord Savranious of Nightmare. Questions haunt her as time continues its march… will she ever see Gawin or her family and home again?

  The evening was aging…

  Love began to heal the world as young Terana gathered her courage to seek her true place in the world. Only she stumbled upon an adventure she wasn’t expecting and came face to face with an old enemy. The road is said to be a dangerous place, a fact Grim finds to be true, On his way home, will he and his companions survive a jaunt to the Barrier Maelstrom arranged by Lady Kaltana of the Dark?

  Night falls on an uneasy world…

  On the other side of the world, Kairevasigh finds herself in interesting company. Brave Duncan and the beautiful Perela find themselves competing in a dangerous game of cat and mouse not knowing if they can trust their strange ally in the city. Ryan of the Thief’s Guild has secrets he is not willing to reveal and the Dark Council has something nasty planned in three night’s time…

  Can faith, love, honor, courage, and magic save a world in need?

  Love…

  Such a simple word. It could almost be missed in a crowd of other words. But a simple word is often the best creation can offer. There is only so much that our imagination can hold; even though it is so vast. We, the creation, need to define everything around us in order to have a chance of understanding. Understanding our surroundings, each other, even ourselves. But love is so much more than the powerful feeling that most of us assume it is.

  Love lives. Love has feelings and plans. Love creates.

  Love created everything around us. He created so He would no longer be alone. And what He made was good. Love was a silversmith creating the world as a mirror. The detail, the complexity; all of it proclaimed the glory of the one who made it for all to see. The silver mirror was thin to the point of fragility, but it was strong when it leaned upon its creator’s strength.

  Love granted His created companions a choice. He created everything, but there was one thing he could not create and have it be genuine: love. He did not make His creation to be empty constructions spilling empty praise and words of adoration. He wanted them to love Him. Genuinely and truly love and care for Him. So He gave them a choice: they could love and follow Him or they could choose not to.

  There were those who chose to know Love and the mirror was strong. But there were also those who turned away. They wanted to do things how they saw fit. No matter what the creator said. No matter who it might hurt. Each time they chose to go their own way something ugly was born. Something made of Hatred and Greed and Jealousy. These evil things tarnished the mirror.

  They became known as The Dark Lords and they hated Love. For they compared themselves to Love and found themselves lacking. They were not as strong nor as powerful as Love. And they could never be.

  They hated that knowledge.

  So they turned to His mirror; the thing that had birthed them. The thing they could master. But they could not master it if it were whole. And so they whispered in creation’s many hearts. They planted doubts. And with each doubt, corruption began to spread. Tiny cracks appeared in the parts that had turned from Love. Eventually, there were so many who had fallen away. So many, that it took but the lightest, gleeful, touch of the Dark Ones to shatter the mirror.

  And thus the world was sundered.

  But Love, the Author of Creation, had a plan.

  Prologue-The Serpent Storm

  “Ask your questions. I may answer. For every question you ask, be prepared to pay…” The Spirit of the Wellsékan.

  Pershara- at sea….somewhere

  The world was gray, black…and very, very wet. Thomas GrimHolden, the newly minted King of Pershara clung desperately to the yardarm with his legs. His hands were busy securing the oiled sail cloth. About him were tried and true sailors. A man, Jingles if Grim remembered the name right, was next to him, muttering incessantly. Grim could only make out one word out of ten. Maybe, thanks to the howling winds and the crashing sea. It was obvious the man was on the verge of a full scale panic. But he seemed to have mastered the art of venting said panic in talking. Something about bad luck and sea demons…or was it something about the ruination of a good thing?

  Grim glanced away from the knot he had finished tying. It was chaos about him. Salt laden water soaked him to the bone. It pooled in puddles about the deck. The taunt rigging vibrated when the wind played it as accompaniment to its howls. Which was constantly. Captain Willaim stood at the helm with JayDee. Earlier, the wheel had been too much for the old captain to hold onto and JayDee had jumped in to help. Now the two of them stood side by side, struggling to keep the ship going straight. The captain’s hoarse voice shouted orders. Grim was amazed that any soul could hear him over the sounds of the storm. Seeing that there was nothing left to be done, Grim made his way down the rigging to the slippery deck.

  The ship rolled from side to side as a monstrous wave dove under it. Training as a knight granted Thomas the steadiness found with great strength. It served him wonderfully on land. But for all its tests, land just doesn’t move like the sea. His strength only made it barely possible for him to make it across the bucking deck on his own two feet. Clinging to the rail of the stairs that led up to the helm, Grim glanced up to see JayDee, his soon to be wife, who stood on this side of the helm.

  JayDee was in her element. She looked like a pirate queen. Her dark hair barely contained in a streaming ponytail. Her hair piece looked like a crown. She stood balanced with a solid wide stance. When Grim was close eno
ugh she flashed him a fierce smile. Her eyes glittering with a reflection of the storm’s power.“What ho, Thomas? Enjoying the dance of elements?”

  “Sure. If clinging for my life counts as enjoyment.”Grim answered as lightly as he could. JayDee and the captain laughed. Grim shook his head, eyeing the roiling sea warily.“Are storms normally this bad or are my land legs showing?”

  JayDee shouted an order to a passing crewman. She then turned back to Grim.“I told you, I have never seen so many storms before. And no, not quite this bad.”A look of concern flitted across her face.“I’m not sure how much longer the crew can keep this pace up.”

  Grim had been wondering the same thing. They had been caught in this storm for…God only knew how long. In the beginning, the crew had been cycling through shifts. But then the storm increased in violence and no man could find any rest. There was nothing dry left on the ship and everyone was exhausted. This was when even the best of men made mistakes.

  And the storm showed absolutely no sign of slowing down.

  “God must be with us.”Grim heard JayDee mutter.“Your protection wards have held so far. Without them, I think we would have capsized a long time ago.

  “I knowwe would have.”Captain Willaim said as quietly as the storm would let him…which wasn’t that quiet.“Don’t be gettin’me wrong, the Lucky Blue Wing be a right goot ship. But she’d be made o’wood. Sea seems inclined to break wood this day.”The last he said even softer. If Grim hadn’t been watching the man’s face he wouldn’t have understood.

  A lance of purple-white lightning zinged close to the ship and sliced a wave. Flurries of snake-like lightings licked over the waves. The flash almost blinded the entire crew. The crash of thunder that followed on the lightning’s heels certainly deafened them.

  “Bloody hell!”JayDee snarled, shivering from the electric charge in the air.

  “I couldn’t agree more, my la…”

  “Willaim!”JayDee interrupted her friend before he could finish saying‘lady’. Willaim blinked before muttering an apology. He was interrupted again, but not by JayDee. The Wing bounced up in the trough of a wave with a groan.

  “What was that?!”Grim asked alarmed. Men on deck were knocked down thanks to the unexpected movement.

  JayDee shook her head then called to the men in the rigging.“What we hit?!”

  “I don’t see a thing ma’am!”A man called back.

  The man was right. The sea was black, the sky was a dark gray and the ship’s bow lantern had long since gone out.

  Another wave pitched them toward the sky. Grim narrowed his eyes and pointed at something in the distance.”What is…!”The rest the wind carried away. But it caught the attention of the captain and the dark haired woman. They stared. Grim could hear the shouts of the men pointing, calling their fellows’attention.

  In the distance, in a world of black and gray, was a constant pulsating light. It fell from the sky to the sea in a curtain-like way. A curtain that was caught in a wind storm. Where the curtain was pulled apart was…blackness.

  Everyone on the Lucky Blue Wing wondered what it was as they stared at it in awed trepidation. The sleek cruiser road along the back of the wave heading straight for the unknown.

  “I don’t like the look of that.”JayDee breathed. Willaim nodded mutely. The two of them went to work turning the ship.

  “Captain!!!”Jingles screamed. In the pulsating light, Grim could see the man imitating a spider down the main mast. He called out again as he hit the deck and took off running toward them, heedless of the rocking boat. Grim had a brief moment of envy. Jingles ran as if a rocking ship was little more than dry land.

  “Spit it out, man!”The captain commanded.

  “Mmmmmal…mal…maelstrom!!!”The ever talkative Jingles stuttered.

  ***

  Cold, black water caressed every inch of her body. And there was a lot of body for it to caress. Her serpent’s form was roughly a hundred yards long not including her head, which was large enough to swallow a large man whole. Her jaw was lined with hundreds of hooking teeth. Each covered with toxin that served to rip the soul from the useless flesh. Hmm…tasty.

  Kaltana smiled. She would soon have a lovely meal. There, her length above and slightly ahead, was a bobbing little cork. The proper term might have been‘ship’but whatever. It was a little toy that happened to be crawling with two legged snacks.

  The Dark Kin Council knew who was on that ship. Thomas Holden thought he had slipped away, but the Council knew. The Council had many eyes and ears. The upstart king who served the light was going to die. A shiver of anticipation swept through her. With the eagerness of a cat playing with a hapless mouse, Kaltana began to swim up toward the little ship.

  Roughly two or three thousand years ago, it was hard to remember exactly, the Dark Kin had sundered the world. There is more truth to the“divide and conquer”axiom then some believed. Their doubt made it so much easier, not to mention enjoyable, to crush them. The same was true for the world and those who served the light. It was even more satisfying to plant doubt in the hearts of those who knew the light. A challenge, but beautiful when they fell. Braking apart Pershara and Arathin had been imperative if the Dark Kin were to rule the world.

  As for the world…The world, with the rise of the barrier, became unbalanced. The sensitive world has this need for balance. Everything from the tiniest atom to the currents in air and sea has this desire. The need for balance causes the flow of energy through the natural world. Same with magic. Magic pools in places and people who are attuned to it till given an outlet to flow. The outward flow produces the work needed. That was the basics of it anyway.

  The barrier between Pershara and Arathin was a place of high density magic. The barrier cut deep through the ocean and high into the atmosphere. The magic had been tightly bound. But that was changing. Over the last hundred years the wall had been weakening. That was fine by her because it made it easier to get to and from her favorite hunting ground. It also made lovely storms and turmoil in oceanic currents. Thomas and his friends were going to learn firsthand just how unpredictable magic energized storms could be.

  Kaltana gently bumped the ship before diving back toward the depths. Her diaphanous wings giving her extra thrust. The waters were roiling nicely, but she was always a helpful sort…

  ***

  There was a moment when the ship became the still eye of a storm. No one moved on the ship as far as Grim could tell. Every man and JayDee stared to a point just off the port bow. The black sea was lit by the pulsating curtain. Behind them the waves were sixty to a hundred foot tall hills. Before them, the sea was almost flat. There was a rushing sound. It could have been the blood in his ears, but Grim was confident that it was, in fact, the sea. The sea was doing something he had prayed was nothing more than sailor folklore. The water was rushing so fast that it was smooth; all the way to that horrifying point where it vanished. JayDee and the captain had tried to steer the ship away, but they hit something again. The jarring impact had sent them into currents that played in the maelstrom.

  “Please tell me those are not last rites you’re muttering.”Doctor Harding said next to him, his voice loud in the near silence on the ship. Grim looked at him in surprise. He hadn’t realized that he had been praying aloud. Others around them were looking too, drawn by the loudness of the question.

  “No, Doctor. Those are reserved for those who are about to pass on to the next life. The living have little use for them. I was praying for God’s guidance.”Thomas replied, aware of the listening ears around them. The other man shook his head in response.

  “Why do they bother putting rudders on these dratted things when they don’t darn work?!”JayDee’s outraged question brought Grim’s attention to the helm. She and the captain were struggling vainly with the wheel.

  “Current’s too hard!”Captain Willaim called over the rushing sea. JayDee started cursing useless ships, which the captain took exception to.“Hey now. Don’t be cu
rsing the old boat. She has been doing her darnest to keep us afloat. Blame the sea for being temperamental. But keep it respectful like…and quiet. The sea is already in a bad mood.”

  Laughter tinkled over the sounds of water and wind. The sailors glanced uneasily about. JayDee and the captain froze, glanced at each other, than mimicked the crew in looking around. Grim turned to look down at the water. His breath stopped. Dear Father in Heaven….An eye the size of a small child curled in a fetal position peered out of the water. It blinked coquettishly at him. But despite the outward playful manner, Grim knew there was no soul within it. Nothing but evil. It made his heart freeze. Grim’s hand slipped into his tunic for the wooden cross that was gently glowing.

  “Sea Monster!!!”Some of the sailors started to scream. The laughter turned into‘tsk’ing sounds. A whoosh of water later and a large serpentine head loomed above them. Men scattered away from it. A ridiculously feminine voice fell from a maw that spelled‘the end’in so many ways.

  “Now, now. That iss jusst plain rude. I’m no sssseamonssster.”Its sibilant voice hissed.

  “Then what are you if not a monster?”JayDee challenged.

  “Ssspirit. I like that.”The serpent chuckled.“I would not sssay I am nota monsster. I have my momentss.”The snake winked at JayDee in a conspiratorial way.“But to say that I am limited to the sssea is offensssive to me. Asss to your question, what will you pay?”After a moment of JayDee’s silence the snake swayed slowly back with a satisfied smile.“Don’t worry, my dear, I know you will pay me ssoon enough. Asss to the ansswer to your quesstion; I am your guide to the other sside.”

  Doctor Harding dropped to his knees before the great serpent. Its eyes fell on him.“Milady.”The man’s voice trembled slightly.

  Two great diaphanous wings rose on either side of the serpent. They stretched, each longer than the ship. Water streamed off the gossamer limbs. They wrapped gently about the ship. Grim backed slowly toward the helm. JayDee’s hand fell to her dagger. Near her, she heard Jingles mutter under his breath“I don’t like this. I really don’t.”