Wizard Trials: Chapter 30 (Patreon)

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          Gouts of flame jumped from the oiled treen silk to the pile of wood. “Shit, shit, shit!” Draevin cursed. He instinctively waved a hand at the flames before realizing he didn’t have any actual mana to use. He pulled the mana bottle he always kept in his pocket, pulled the cork off and took a single swig. Once he had some mana it was a simple matter to put the flames out with a mist of cryomancy. Draevin walked a slow circle around the wood pile shooting jets of mist at any smoldering embers that weren’t caught by the first spell. When he was done the whole crater looked like a winter morning with a layer of frost covering everything.

          Draevin glared at Grrbraa.

          For his part, Grrbraa looked thoroughly ashamed.

          “Obviously you were meant to tear a piece off,” Draevin told him. “If you just drag a section over the whole thing will catch fire.”

          “I am sorry. I did not know it would do that,” Grrbraa said, head bowed and tail drooping.

          “Who—Ack!—gave that idiot permission to start a fire in the first place?” Istven demanded. He was still coughing up blood. It was glowing eldrin blood, but the significance wasn’t lost on Draevin.

          “Are you sure you’re okay?” Draevin asked him. “You look like you’re about to keel over.” Istven actually didn’t look any less confident or imposing than normal, despite lying on the ground with cuts all over his body, but Draevin wasn’t about to admit that. He was hoping to change the subject away from his irresponsible leadership.

          “It is just a flesh wound,” Istven said.

          “You’re coughing up blood!” Draevin yelled.

          “I can take care of myself,” Istven said. “Unless you would prefer I risked all of our lives using the crown just after escaping the clutches of the Everstorm?”

          Draevin paused. “Okay, fine. You have a point, but if you die in your sleep you’re going to feel like an idiot.”

          Peter walked up to inspect the burnt silk. After a moment he reached inside and pulled a softly glowing storm rod out from between the folds of cloth. “Found another,” he said. “Shame about the silk though. There’s no way we’ll get the ship fixed now.”

          Draevin raised his eyebrows as high as they could go. “Did you actually think that was an option before this?”

          “I did,” Peter said. “All the metal and wood parts can be replaced, but not the treen silk. Nobody is making treen silk anymore and any of it that wasn’t stored properly these last few years is probably useless.”

          “You’d be building the whole thing from scratch,” Draevin pointed out.

          Peter rolled his eyes and tossed the storm rod he was carrying into a pile with the others. “Like I built the whole thing already? All that would take is time. As long as it took less time than the amount we’d save by traveling faster it wouldn’t matter.”

          Istven spat some blood onto the ground beside him and pointed a finger at their new orc guest. “Who is that?” he demanded. “I am gone for a few minutes and you pick up more strays?”

          “He’s Peter’s new slave,” Draevin said.

          Peter’s brows drew together in anger. “Slave?” he repeated indignantly. “Moz’shak is a skilled orc warrior I defeated in combat to earn his loyalty. He’s nota slave!”

          “Okay, jeesh,” Draevin said. “Not a slave then. He just does whatever you say and doesn’t ask for pay. Totally different.”

          “This orc attacked you?” Istven asked Peter.

          “Yes,” Peter answered. “He used some strange form of aeromancy to suffocate everyone.”

          “Not me,” Sylnya said from the ridge of the crater where she was still soaking up the last rays of sunlight.

          “That’s right,” Peter agreed. “Or me. I used an illusion to trick him and waited for a chance to strike later.”

          Peter said that last part so casually Draevin almost would have believed him if he hadn’t known for a fact that Peter was lying through his teeth. He’d been just as unconscious as everyone else, and he’d had to borrow Draevin’s mana to cast his illusions. Being that they both knew Peter was lying, Draevin and Sylnya exchanged a dubious look. Neither of them decided to call him out for it in front of the orc though. Like it or not, Peter’s lies were probably the only thing keeping the orc from suffocating everyone a second time. Draevin didn’t want to imagine what Moz’shak would do in the name of “honor” if he ever found out he’d been tricked.

          “What do you mean by—Ack!—strange?” Istven asked.

          “His magic doesn’t create wind,” Peter said. “It’s used to freeze air into a solid form. He can even fly with it by creating platforms to walk on.”

          Istven waved a hand as though Peter’s explanation were pointless. “It is not better then, only different. Where did he get his magic?”

          Peter glanced over at the green-skinned orc. “You wanna tell him?” he asked.

          Moz’shak bowed his head. “Before I leave Fel’heem, Mystic Tor’shak is give me power.”

          Peter’s expression lit up. “You see?” he said excitedly. “Their tribe has mystics that just grant it to them. It’s the same way they’ve used magic for centuries. That’s why they’ve always lived in the middle of nowhere. They never needed mana wells in the first place!”

          “Yes, and where do these mystics get their magic?”

          “Remember Gro’shak from the Last Tournament?” Peter asked.

          “I remember beating him,” Draevin interjected. Peter rolled his eyes, but Draevin saw a look of surprise pass over Moz’shak’s face. At least someone was impressed.

          “Well that staff he carried around was a source of mana,” Peter continued, unabated.

          “Interesting,” Istven mused. “We must acquire one of these staves.”

          “Never!” Moz’shak shouted. “No staff for outsider! Is tribe mystic only!”

          Istven pulled himself to his feet, quickly looked around, and grabbed a scrap of metal. He held the scrap in one hand and retrieved his crown in the other. He stared down the orc while he put the crown on his head. Ghostly white flames began to flicker across his skin. The various cuts on his skin were burned away. He held out the scrap of metal and squeezed his fist around it. After a moment the metal crumbled beneath his grip and fell to the ground in two pieces.

          “Do you have any idea who I am?” Istven demanded of the orc.

          Moz’shak bared his tusks. “Orc not fear eldrin.”

          “You will fear this eldrin! I am the last king of Eldesia. I am the bearer of Haedril’s Crown. If there is something I want, I take it. The likes of you stand no chance of stopping me.” By the end of his speech Istven’s voice took on a two-toned vibration that rung with authority. It was actually really intimidating.

          “Ummm…” Draevin hedged. “You sure you want to be wearing that thing right now?” Istven ignored him.

          “Staff only for tribe mystic,” Moz’shak said defiantly.

          Istven removed his crown. “We shall see about that.”

          “I think diplomacy has a good chance of working,” Peter said. “We still don’t know how the orc staves are supposed to work. It’s possible they could find a way to grant us the same power without actually handing over something sacred to their culture. If we just take one we might not even be able to access its power.”

          “That’s why it would be a mistake?” Draevin asked. “Not because stealing is wrong?”

          Peter and Istven both fixed Draevin with a dead-eyed stare devoid of even a modicum of shame. Draevin just shook his head. Sometimes he wondered how he’d ever gotten involved with these two madmen.

          “So,” Istven said, just as calm and even-toned as he’d been while coughing up blood from injuries that would have incapacitated or killed a lesser man. “Is that all I missed while I was gone?”

          Peter gestured at the crash site behind them. “Obviously we abandoned ship. Draevin caught us with his cryomancy. Then the orc attacked. That’s pretty much it. How about you? Why were you… bleeding?”

          “I got in a fight with your vampire friend,” Istven said.

          Peter’s orc looked over at him and cocked his head back in surprise. “Master is friend to vampire?”

          “One vampire,” Peter corrected. “She was friendly. I even got her talking.”

          “Not anymore,” Istven said. “She tried very hard to kill me, and she is not… the same anymore. She was left too long in there and has become something new: neither vampire, nor shade. She has become something in-between. I was unable to kill her myself.”

          Peter frowned. “That sounds like a problem that needs to be dealt with. Not ideal.”

          “Not ideal?” Draevin repeated. “This is exactly what I warned you about! Literally the worst case scenario! Now we can’t use shadows without being assaulted. All thanks to you and your reckless experiments. Were you actually working on a cure for vampirism or were you trying to create a monster? Because honestly I can’t tell anymore.”

          “No, I was… planning on working on a cure,” Peter answered. “I just got distracted. I’m going to round up the rest of the storm rods before we lose any more light. Come on, Grrbraa.” Peter turned away and Grrbraa followed after him. Grrbraa had been awfully silent during that last conversation. Probably hoping everyone would forget about what he’d just done with the fire.

          “This is your fault,” Istven said.

          “What?” Draevin asked. “Were you talking to me?”

          “Yes. All of this is your fault, Draevin.” Istven gestured vaguely at the scorched wood and silk. “When you are in command, you give the orders. But you must also take responsibility for the mistakes of your subordinates. It is your duty to know their strengths and weaknesses and command them appropriately.”

          “Is the fire really that big a deal? It’s not like we were going to be able to salvage anything in this wreck, I don’t care what Peter says.”

          Istven nodded. “This time it was only a fire. Next time the wrong decision could cost someone their life.”

          “Sure,” Draevin said, barely keeping the sarcasm out of his voice. “I’ll keep that in mind for next time.” He wasn’t planning for there to be a next time now that Istven was back in command.

          Istven pointed at the pile of storm rods that Peter had gathered up so far. “I recognize those,” he said. “They were the storm rods at the back of the airship.”

          “Yeah,” Draevin confirmed. “They were charged up by the Everstorm. Peter failed to mention that he’d designed the airship to harvest mana from the Everstorm.”

          Istven frowned and stroked his chin. “Do you recall the meeting where that project was proposed?”

          “Proposed, sure. Not approved.”

          “Correct,” Istven confirmed. “For Peter to work on it anyways behind the Council’s back must mean he had support from someone with resources.”

          “Like Alex?”

          “I doubt Alex would be enough by himself,” Istven mused. “It is no matter. If you have mana you should report our situation to the Council. They will want to know that we have made contact with the orcs and that the airship has been destroyed.”

          “You actually want me to check in?” Draevin asked. He almost couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I thought you said we weren’t going to listen to the Council.”

          “I will take their input under advisement,” Istven said. “But ultimately I am in charge of this expedition. All decisions are mine to make.”

          “Whatever you say.”

          Istven wandered off to supervise Peter.

          Draevin returned to the firepit and found Grrbraa’s flint and steel. In just a minute or two he managed to get the fire going without causing a catastrophe, then sat down next to it. Kranin soon approached and unloaded a sack of food. “I’m going to get started on dinner if you don’t mind,” he said. He pulled out a crooked metal frying pan and settled it next to the burning logs.

          “Sure,” Draevin said, “but I need to concentrate so keep it down.” He crossed his legs, closed his eyes, then focused his mind. Draevin’s thoughts drifted to Tenna, Caelnaste’s offer, and the fate of their vampire friend. He doubted Caelnaste really had the power or authority to bring anyone back to life, and as for the vampire trapped in that shadow world? Draevin actually felt bad for what happened to her. It would have been better if they had just killed her quickly.

          After a while Draevin found himself within the recesses of his own mind. There were rolling hills covered in snow extending off into the distance and a small frozen lake nearby. Draevin recognized the lake from his childhood. He had gone swimming there in the summer and skating in the winter. It was only a short hike away from his family home.

          Probably destroyed now.

          He walked down to the edge of the lake, feeling strangely drawn to it. There was something in the depths, deep under the ice. A dark shape, frozen in place. Something about it filled Draevin with dread.

          “Hey there,” Tenna called out from behind.

          Draevin turned around. Tenna was standing barefoot in the snow, skin pale and tinged blue. She wore her short hair loose around her face. “Took you a while,” Draevin said.

          “I don’t just hang out waiting for you to contact me, you know. I’m actually kind of busy these days.”

          “I thought you told me a while back that time doesn’t move forward at the same rate for you.”

          “We really don’t need to go into that right now. What do you have to report?”

          Draevin thought about everything that had happened. He wasn’t sure what was safe to share with the Council and what wasn’t. Then again, Tenna probably had better judgment about those sorts of things. “Well, the vampire experiment went about as badly as you could expect.”

          “Great,” Tenna said sarcastically. “Go on.”

          “They were keeping the vamp in the shadow realm so it wouldn’t go feral, and it turned into some kind of half-vampire, half-shade. It gave Istven a run for his money.”

          “Istven?” Tenna asked. She sounded skeptical. “That can’t be right.”

          “He went in and came out on the verge of death,” Draevin said. It was maybe a slight exaggeration, but Draevin wanted to drive home how irresponsible Peter was being with his experiments. “Oh, and the airship crashed.”

          Tenna’s eyes went wide at that. “It crashed? Is everyone okay? Can it be repaired?”

          “We’re fine. I’m actually kind of relieved I don’t have to fly around in that death trap anymore, but it’s basically been reduced to scrap. We used it to flee the Everstorm and it hit the side of a mountain going way too fast. Peter wanted to rebuild it, but then Grrbraa accidentally lit the treen silk on fire. It was a whole thing. We did make contact with the orcs at least, so it’s not all bad news.”

          Tenna furrowed her brow. “Uh, that wasn’t the mission, remember? You were supposed to go to Caldenia to recover that cache of mana. You should already be on your way back.”

          “Oh we have mana,” Draevin told her. “Remember how I said we fled from the Everstorm? Peter had a whole thing set up to harvest mana from the Everstorm with storm rods attached to the back of the ship. That was how we crashed. It’s also how we blew right past Caldenia. We’re actually at the Gailen Caldera right now. And I mean that literally. We’re camped out on the side of it right now.”

          “So the storm rods worked?” Tenna asked. “Are they holding their charge?”

          “Wait a second!” Draevin shouted. “You’re the one who helped Peter get around the Council to build that thing? How did you even get in contact with him without me knowing?”

          Tenna bit her lower lip. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. From her expression, Draevin thought she knew exactly what he was talking about. He also had a pretty good idea about who could have been helping her. It explained a lot. Like why Draevin’s nephew had already trained with Tenna behind his back.

          Draevin glared at her. “I wasn’t born this century,” he reminded her. “We’ll talk about dragging my nephew into questionable legal situations later. How are things going back there?”

          “It’s actually been pretty quiet since you left,” Tenna reported. “Barely any attacks at all. Just a few half-hearted raids by Dwyra’s forces.”

          “I’m not surprised,” Draevin said. “We seem to be occupying a lot of Chaska’nal’s attention at the moment. Did you know vampires can track each other? Apparently a single jar of blood is enough for them to know exactly where you are at all times.”

          “Gee, I wonder how you figured that one out.”

          “Yeah,” Draevin agreed. “Basically everything that human touches ends in disaster.”

          “Sounds like you’ve had quite the adventure so far.”

          “I admit, it wasn’t exactly the vacation I’d been hoping for,” Draevin said. “But at least I’ve been getting caught up on my sleep. If you have anything to pass on, now would be a good time. I don’t think Istven is going to listen to anything the Council has to say unless it suits him though. He seems to like everything Peter does. Did you know Peter actually drank vampire blood yesterday?”

          “No. How would I know that?” Tenna asked. “He didn’t turn, did he?”

          “He didn’t. But that was just luck more than anything. It made him real sick. Istven had to use the crown on him. The vamp blood healed him and gave him super strength and speed for a little while. I don’t think it’s safe to use though. He would have died afterwards if not for Istven. Sometimes I can’t tell if he’s a genius or just insane. His tolerance for risk is way too high. One of these days he’s going to get someone killed. I just hope it’s only himself.” Draevin thought to himself for a moment and realized he’d almost forgotten to mention Caelnaste. “Oh, and apparently Caelnaste is still alive. She’s a vampire now and she’s not feral like the rest of them.”

          Tenna furrowed her brow. “That… sounds serious.”

          “Just add it to our list of problems,” Draevin sighed. “I’ll deal with it if she ever shows her face again. Don’t worry about it.”

          “Well, that’s quite the story,” Tenna said. “No surprise about Peter. Why do you think we locked him up?” She blew out a breath. “Well… I guess I’ll have to tell them now.”

          “Tell who? What?”

          “The Council. About Peter.”

          “You didn’t tell them? Tenna! They have to know!”

          “Calm down, Drae. It’s not like that. They know Peter’s with you. They just… sort of think you guys have him tied up and are treating him like a prisoner.”

          “Well we should be! I told Istven but he’s convinced—”

          “Yeah, yeah. I get it. Istven will just have to face the Council and explain himself when he gets back.”

          “Istven’s a strong leader. He just… doesn’t like taking orders from anyone.”

          “I know, Drae. I was asked to tell you to tell him that if he hasn’t reached Caldenia yet the Council wants him to turn around.”

          “That’s not going to happen.”

          Tenna frowned. “Well… I don’t know. We’ll see how they respond to the news about reaching the orcs. I think I’ll just tell them you recovered the cache. I mean those charged storm rods are basically a mana cache, aren’t they?”

          “I guess so.”

          “Great. Try to make sure Peter doesn’t waste the mana on anything before you get back. We’ve started rationing food. We really need that mana.”

          “I’ll do my best,” Draevin promised.

          Tenna stepped forward and wrapped Draevin in an icy hug. “Until next time, Drae. Stay safe out there.”

          “You too,” Draevin said. Then Tenna did something unexpected. She gave Draevin a quick peck on the cheek. Her lips felt like solid ice. “Tenna!” Draevin said in surprise, putting a hand up to his cheek.

          Tenna just grinned and gave him a wink. He was about to ask her what she meant by that when she dissolved into snow and scattered in a gust of wind. Draevin just shook his head, surprised to find he kind of liked the gesture of affection.

          It was too bad nothing could ever come of it.

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