The Ways of Mages: Two Worlds Read online

  The Ways of Mages: Two Worlds

  Andrew Beery and Catherine Beery

  Copyright 2012 by Andrew Beery

  Kindle Edition

  Contents

  The Ways of Mages: Two Worlds

  Prologue- Daughter of Another Time

  Chapter One – The Road West

  Chapter Two - Of Night and Mud

  Chapter Three- Kaber’s Inn and Eatery

  Chapter Four- Preparations

  Chapter Five- Not Spatial…Temporal?

  Chapter Six- Tomorrow’s Yesterday

  Chapter Seven- Finally Time

  Chapter Eight- To Beard the Lion in its Den

  Chapter Nine- A Loop in Time

  Chapter Ten- Choices and Sacrifices

  Chapter Eleven- Upon a Sword’s Whim

  Chapter Twelve- Pershara City

  Chapter Thirteen- An Eagle’s Awakening

  Chapter Fourteen- Cries of the Past

  Chapter Fifteen- The Audience of Fate

  Chapter Sixteen- Deceiving Appearances

  Chapter Seventeen- The Isle Kingdom

  Chapter Eighteen - In Lamb’s Clothing

  Chapter Nineteen– Interesting Meetings

  Chapter Twenty – A Voice in the Night

  Chapter Twenty One- Late for Dinner

  Chapter Twenty Two- A Distant Storm

  The Ways of Mages #3: Starfire

  Other Books

  The Ways of Mages: Two Worlds

  By Andrew Beery and Catherine Beery

  Series Prolog

  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- Daughter of Another Time

  3000 years before present- Thioden

  “Time and space are a fabric. Each of our lives is a single thread in that fabric…”- Bendon D’Armis

  Kairevasigh flew high. Her night black feathers absorbed the dappled sunlight keeping her warm. She had transformed into her second form, the blood-right of all Sheyestivans. This second form was an eagle the size of a pony. Kairevasigh’s eagle form would get bigger once she reached maturity. Then, she would be about seven feet high with an eleven foot wingspan.

  She circled lazily, using the convenient thermals to stay aloft. Below her was a white city with sapphire and golden roofs. Thioden, in all its splendor, was home of the Great Library and the Council of Wizards. It went without saying that she had never heard of Thioden, or any of its denizens, before. It was Kaizir who told her what was what. How he described this strange world made her open her eyes. Looking around made her feel…like she knew nothing at all. Even after spending four of her twelve years at the greatest library in Sheyestiva, the Ulaisékan.

  Thioden teemed with many different people. There were those who had eyes similar to Kairevasigh’s blue with black veins, but they had silver threads too. Kaizir was one of these. They could do things that took her breath away. They used telecy, or the mind magics, with a skill that she had never seen before. People at home didn’t use their gifts so openly. To do so was to invite Challenge; which led to one of three things. The sought after outcome was victory. Victory proved you deserved respect because you were stronger, smarter, more cunning then your opponents. Those who failed the Challenge received shame and the loss of their honor. Those who were shamed had lost the respect of their fellows and were challenged more. Eventually, sooner rather than later, the third thing occurred. Death.

  Kaizir and the others like him did not fear Challenge. They didn’t acknowledge it when she shyly asked. Kairevasigh felt as though she were a wounded cliff deer fawn surrounded by a pride of ansool, the clever winged leopards of the plain. She couldn’t understand the customs of this place. She had no landmark in which to navigate. Her feelings of being out of place increased when she saw Kaizir’s people do other things. Things not belonging to the mind magics of telecy. They could heal with warmth. They could light fires and build with water and air. They could shapeshift into any creature they saw... though Kaizir had told her once that they could not make themselves the identical twin of another. She still wasn’t sure if they really could not... or if they would not.

  There were other people too. There were dragons, for instance. Kaizir had called them‘true’dragons. Kairevasigh wasn’t sure what he meant by that. Were they Marlheman? No one knew what she had been talking about when she asked. All they told her was that the‘true’dragons were natives of Pershara, which was the name of the land and kingdom in which Thioden resided. Some said that it was the dragons who had built Thioden.

  These Persaharian dragons reminded Kairevasigh of the Marlhemans. Marlhemans called themselves‘dragons’. They also built amazing fortresses and cities, or so the soldiers said. But the Persharian dragons had done something that the soldiers had never talked about. And it was one of those amazing things that would have been told of: the city of Thioden was‘alive’.

  Kairevasigh circled in a tight spiral, trying to wrap her head around that. She got dizzy before she could. Eventually, she thought, one just has to accept without understanding. She had a wise moment every once in a while.

  But there is a difference between saying something wise and internalizing that wise saying: for instance, being able to accept the sheer diversity of people that filled the streets of a living city.

  Other than Kaizir’s people, there were the fiery Ucora. The Ucora were a horse-like people w
ith flaming manes and tails and a single mother of pearl-like horn protruding from their foreheads. They spoke in a strange, buzzing monotone that reminded her of a hive of bees. The soldiers had mentioned these creatures. Creatures of fire and death, they said. They never mentioned the Ucora’s amazing passion in dance. Nor the skill they showed with carving sculptures out of pure fire.

  There were also a tall, bipedal people with pointed ears and silver-white hair. They called themselves Lvessa. They reminded Kairevasigh of living, opaque ice sculptures. She kept that opinion to herself. She didn’t fancy having all the water in her body frozen, which the soldiers described happening to their companions and Cursed troops.

  But, if she were honest, it was the lizard people who freaked her out the most. Something about having several eyelids and weird tongues…She couldn’t explain her revulsion. She just found them disgusting. She avoided them and the‘true’dragons because she wasn’t sure how to act around either group. One unnerved her. The other made her think of the Enemy. There were humans too. It was mind boggling to Kairevasigh, who was used to only dealing with her own kind.

  Only Sheyestivans were in the Empire of Sheyestiva.

  Kaizir had told her, during a game of chess on a sailing vessel that he was the Nirami or king of Arathin, Other than trying to bow and hoping to stay out of sight, Karievasigh had no idea of how to act around a king. Kaizir had told her not to do the‘bow and scrap in fear’thing to him. A bow of respect was about the only homage he desired.

  After she popped into existence in the middle of his entourage on their way to the ship, he had been curious. And thus he brought her to Pershara with him. He had asked his Lord about her. Maybe she had misunderstood, but Kairevasigh had no idea who could be above a king. Kaizir, after asking, had told the others that he sensed no evil from her. That he had been told that she was lost and needed to witness or learn something. Not ominous at all…But she had no one and nowhere else to go. So she found herself traveling with a king to another foreign country. Kaizir was visiting Pershara to strengthen the political ties between the two countries. His goal was to foster even greater learning and prosperity between the two.

  She had never heard of Pershara before she touched a pillar of Kales Amei inscribed with a tale of the end of the world. Arathin she had, once and a long time ago. And more as a folktale than a history. The other words, the names: ‘Kaizir’and‘Nirami’stirred something deep in her memory. She had read, as part of her studies, a Sheyestivan folk tale honoring the near mythical leader of great power and cunning. A leader who, if folk tales could be believed, lived some three thousand years ago. A leader named Kaizir. It ashamed her that it had taken her this long shake that memory loose. In her defense, it had been couple years ago.

  And I played chess with the Great Kaizir…Kairevasigh shivered. The pillars had sent her back in time. Why? How could she get back home? More to the point: why her?

  ***

  Present day- Pershara

  “Your pet has failed.”The Dark Lord’s voice hissed from under his cowl and slithered down to settle like chains about Maltacken. The shadowy blob quivered slightly.

  “In Vandenburg, My Lord. But not since. She has captured the new king the Arch Bishop has elected”the Lord of Shadows pointed out.

  “Aye, My Lord of Shadows. Tis the only reason she is still alive. I suppose she has captured Thomas Grimholden to further your own plans?”

  “Our plans, yes.”

  The Dark Lord laughed. The Dark-kin about the table watched, wondering which way his mood would fall.“Regardless,”The Dark Lord replied,“Should she fail to keep Thomas Grimholden in her tender care…she will know what it means to disappoint me. There are worst things than death. If any of those things keep your soon-to-be husk alive…Well, that is somewhat doubtful.”Maltacken bowed his blob head. “As for his niece, the half breed… Irathaz,”The Lord of Wrath straightened in his seat.“Happy hunting.”

  Chapter One–The Road West

  “When the blood of Kings, Mages and Dragons mix in love and lust will the beginning meet the end. The Alpha and Omega will face and the stronger will prevail.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “I’m not sure…the rest of the columns describe an apocalyptic battle that is to occur between the armies of good and evil. Each is to be headed by a child born of the coupling of a King, a mage and a dragon. One will be the product of a loving relationship, the other a bastard son begotten by rape.” –Excerpt from the diary of a mage

  The road west from Vandenburg was a welcome improvement over the Cyprus trails they had traveled from the south, Jewel thought. Her horse plodded gently alongside that of her new husband, Gawin Al’Dap. She smiled at the thought. The smile turned into a yawn. It had been a long night.

  The late winter sun was low in the sky at their backs. They had made an early start. The pair had been married in a simple ceremony led by the Archbishop, DeAnder Papus. That had been late yesterday afternoon; after the plan to rescue her uncle, King Thomas Grimholden had been finalized. Her brief vision into a possible future had been enough to identify Grim’s whereabouts... or at least his future whereabouts.

  He was, or would be, held in Castle Mortia. Mortia was just north of the Persharian capital. That meant they had to travel westward the entire length of the island continent of Pershara yet again.

  The decision had been made to split into two groups; one small and fast. This one would head directly to Mortia. The second, consisting of the Grim’s mounted knights, Trevor McGill’s irregulars and General Stanton’s regular army, would march on the capital itself. There was surprisingly little choice in the matter. There was no way an army was going to be moved in a hurry. Further, there was no way such an army could march west and not face the King’s Guard and remaining forces outside the capital.

  This meant Jewel’s party was the best chance Uncle Grim had for rescue; a party for which she was almost not invited! She glanced covertly at Gawin at her side. He saw and smiled warmly back. She blushed but smiled in return.

  Theirs had been much like any newlywed’s wedding night; filled with mysteries and pleasures. In the morning, while it was still quite dark out, Gawin had risen to join Tommy Toweltaker, Kindra, Robert Kimbridge and the wizard Bendon in the kitchens. The five had agreed the night before to leave at the crack of dawn. Jewel was to be left in Vandenburg for her own protection. She was, after all, to be the mother of the child of light.

  What the group of five had not counted on was Jewel’s determination. She met them at the stables, fully packed and ready to go. When Gawin started to protest, she set her feet, planted her fists on her hips and calmly informed him that one night of pleasure, however nice, did not always a pregnancy make. Further, if he truly wanted to protect her, he would ensure she was with child as soon as possible. That meant she was with him. So, unless he was prepared to wait in Vandenburg; she was going with them. That effectively settled the matter.

  When Gawin started to grumble about Jewel’s look of triumph, Bendon took the engineer aside and said“Get used to it lad. You’re married now.”

  They rode at a steady pace that spared the horses and yet covered ground quickly. Still, it did not seem fast enough. Everyone felt the pressing need for speed and yet there was a limit to what man and beast could reasonably endure.

  Bendon D’Armis, also known as Zebendon, was a short, bearded, gray-haired man. He was also quite possibly the most powerful mage in the kingdom. It galled him that so small a group as theirs could not find a means to expedite their travels. He pondered the problem at length. He and Robert held a series of low volume arguments as they rode along the muddy roads. Robert and the wizard were at odds on how to handle some aspect of theoretical magic. It seemed‘time and space’were linked. If there were but a means of folding one…the other would come along for the ride. Not surprisingly, the engineer and master craftsman in Robert wanted to build a machine of some type to augment Zebendon’s magic. Bendon felt w
hile there was merit to Robert’s idea, the time invested in building such a machine would offset any gain in getting to their destination faster.

  After consulting with Kindra, Bendon settled on a plan that, while not as fast as Robert’s approach, had the benefit of being immediately implemented. With Kindra’s help he folded time around the small party in such a way that their effective speed was more than doubled.

  The last several weeks had brought light snows to the mountains of eastern Pershara. Still, the sun was warm and the temperature not yet bitterly cold. The snows had left a virgin path, broken only by the occasional game trail that crossed the road. The trees, lightly dusted with snow, shimmered in the early morning sun.

  Jewel removed her deerskin riding gloves and placed them in a pocket of her fur lined riding cloak.

  Gawin choose that moment to extend a hand. She accepted it eagerly as they rode. He squeezed her fingers gently. They shared a smile.

  “A penny for your thoughts”Jewel said as they rode along.

  “I was thinking of you; of us; of the days ahead.”Gawin answered poetically.

  “And the nights?”she teased.

  “And the nights.”he agreed with a blush.

  The road turned south slightly and Gawin was forced to use an arm to push a stray branch out of the way. This meant he had to release Jewel’s hand for a moment. He lamented the loss of this simple pleasure but she offered her hand again as soon as they cleared the obstacle.

  They heard Bendon swear as the very same branch caught at his cloak. He called to the two in front.“You could have said something about the tree lying across the road!”

  “Hush, old man.”Kindra said.“It was more a twig than a tree. Besides, they have their minds on other things.”Tommy and Bendon shared a wolfish grin. Kindra shook her head and looked at Robert.“Men.”she said with mock disgust.

  “We are what we are.”Robert said with a matching grin.