Mage of Merigor: Merigor

Prologue

Nathaniel loved strolling through the king’s gardens. Vibrant flowers of every variety bloomed from early spring to late into the fall. Gravel crunched beneath his soft leather boots as he walked the carefully laid-out serpentine paths. The quiet gardens had become a refuge, somewhere he could escape whenever his studies at the collegium became too tedious.

He’d lived here for most of his twenty-five years. Well, not in the gardens, but in the dormitories next to the palace where the Master Mage’s searchers brought all the children gifted in mage craft. Most children, especially the boys, fought to become battle mages revered as both warrior and mage.

Not Nathaniel. His gift, his passion, lay in the scholastic arts. His strength came from knowledge taken from years of sifting through the arcane to find spells long forgotten and buried. He didn’t belong in battle. Other students derided his sword skills as clumsy and mocked his inability to ride horses or run great distances over the hills surrounding the city.

But very few of them had the honor of walking the gardens with the king, who also loved sifting through dusty manuscripts stored in the labyrinth of lesser chambers beneath the royal library. Several years earlier, when Nathaniel had sought out the lower levels after a particularly embarrassing sparring session, he’d barged into what had previously always been a deserted ante-chamber filled from floor to ceiling with useless records of past royal households.

No one ever came to these levels where the mice feasted on decaying parchment, and the smell of rat urine permeated the walls, floors, and even the beams running lengthwise across the entire chamber. He’d rounded a corner and had stopped short when two royal guards standing to each side of the normally deserted chamber turned their heads in his direction.

The nearest guard stepped away from the wall and faced him, looking him up and down, no doubt assessing his skills as a warrior. Nathaniel expected the usual sneer, but this man merely dipped his chin slightly in greeting. This level is off-limits to students today. The guard at the stairs should have informed you.

Living so near the palace, Nathaniel had grown accustomed to speaking with palace staff, warriors, and servants alike. I didn’t pass a guard.

Turning to the second guard, the first lifted his chin toward the hallway behind Nathaniel.

No words were exchanged, but the second man came to attention and hurried away, presumably to check for the missing guard.

The first continued to block Nathaniel’s way into the chamber. You need to leave.

Defying a palace guard for something as trivial as a place to hide from his tormenters would have been ridiculous. He bowed his head, but when he turned to leave, someone within the chamber spoke.

Darnel, who is it?

Darnel raised an eyebrow, silently asking for a name.

I’m Nathaniel Gauthier. From the Collegium.

A dusty man stepped through the door and strode toward him.

Nathaniel assumed the man worked for the scholar caste. He smiled and pointed at the man’s head. "You have a spider web covering the left side of your head.

The scholar returned the smile and reached up to pull the strands from his mop of brown curly hair.

Darnel stepped forward and looked Nathaniel squarely in the eye. Sire.

Confused, Nathaniel at first thought Darnel mistakenly believed him to be royalty. When realization dawned, he quickly lowered himself into a deep, respectful bow. I’m, I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I didn’t recognize you with all that dust…I mean, I’ve never seen you… He realized he’d begun to babble, so instead of embarrassing himself further, he turned and headed for the hallway, hoping to make a quick exit.

Wait, Nathaniel, is it?

He reluctantly pivoted on his heel to face the king and lowered his head again. Yes, Sire. Nathaniel Gauthier.

Well, Nathaniel Gauthier, why were you coming to this room?

I…I sometimes come here to look for lost spells. I’m a mage. A scholastic mage. He colored and glanced at Darnel, once again expecting a look of disdain.

As he’d done before, Darnel kept his face neutral.

The king rubbed his hands together, trying to brush off the sticky spider’s web. So, you’re the man who’s been leaving his tracks in the dust. I’ve often come into one of the chambers you’ve vacated and followed your footsteps to see which manuscripts you deem worthy of your attention.

That day had begun a friendship that had lasted for several years. Even though the king’s skill in battle outshone most of his knights, he enjoyed losing himself in the lower levels almost as much as Nathaniel did.

Earlier in the day, the two of them had discovered a lost manuscript penned by the king’s great-grandfather. They’d studied it for several candle marks, and now, they walked side-by-side in the gardens discussing the soundness of the conclusions presented within the manuscript’s decaying parchment.

As was his habit, Nathaniel walked with his hands clasped behind his back, listening to the king defend his position on one of the passages. He opened his mouth to comment on an interesting point when a snarling manticore straight from pages of superstitious folklore materialized on the path in front of them.

Nathaniel froze, staring in horror as long strands of spittle dripped from the creature’s foul-smelling mouth. Thick lips curled back to reveal three rows of razor-sharp teeth. He’d never seen a manticore before, but he knew enough to recognize its almost human head, which seemed a grotesque counterpoint to its sculpted, leonine body.

Time slowed as the beast gathered its massive bulk onto its haunches, preparing to attack. If there’d been time for him to panic, Nathaniel would have. He’d never seriously studied battle-magic and hadn’t a clue how to stop this monster from attacking his beloved king.

In frantic desperation, he pulled in all the magical power he could find. He drained nearby mages and stole every ounce of spirit magic from the plants in the garden. He even called up energy from the depths of the earth.

As the manticore leapt, Nathaniel threw himself in front of the king. He had a moment of shocked surprise when a flaming, demonic wraith flew out from between the jaws of the beast and plunged halfway through his chest.

The massive build-up of power he’d pulled into himself exploded into the ether, obliterating not only himself but both magical beasts as well.

Chapter 1

One Thousand Years Later

The mage-storm thundered toward him, decimating the islands that comprised the southern tip of the Merigor Archipelago.

Nathaniel watched from the top of a cliff; his shoulders set in resolute anticipation. His cloak whipped about his lean, muscular frame, and he ran his finger under the leather ties securing the cape around his neck. Minutely adjusting his grip on the gnarled, wooden staff he held firmly planted in the rocky outcropping, he braced himself against the buffeting wind.

Sparing a moment to glance over his shoulder, he pivoted just enough to view the thousands of Merigorian soldiers ranged behind and below him in row after row of disciplined ranks. To the far left were the red tunics bearing the sigil of the bloody talon, troops loyal to Count Hezimond and his brother, Lutor, who sat astride matching coal-dark stallions and stared up to where Nathaniel waited.

Turning slightly, he glanced over his other shoulder where the green-clad men of Duke Usher’s army stood unmoving, silently waiting and most assuredly praying that Prince Amelon knew what he’d was doing by placing the very lifeblood of his kingdom into the hands of an unknown mage.

These men also watched him. Their proud, defiant eyes locked onto him with a thin thread of hope that belied the years their prince and their kingdom had writhed under a yoke of oppression and untenable hardship.

His gaze then settled on the third and largest contingent. Once again, he marveled at the vast multitude of men and women who’d answered the prince’s summons and had eagerly donned the maroon and gold tunic of Prince Amelon of Merigor.

The young prince rode his muscular bay back and forth along the battle line shouting encouragement to his warriors. He’d brought the horse with him when he’d returned from twenty years of exile in the deserts of Raman. The exile had been designed to hasten the death of the infant crown prince, but life in the desert had hardened the boy into a battle-tested soldier.

His standard-bearer waited off to the side on a piebald roan.

His princess, Laucwen, put her hand on her horse’s mane, her silver chainmail glistening against the stark white coat of her battle mare, Rhioth. She held her drawn sword casually across her lap.

Prince Amelon had one purpose in life; to free his people from the yoke of oppression that had begun with his parent’s assassination shortly after his birth. He was a prince in title only; he wouldn’t be granted the title of king until the High Priestess of Theribor anointed him as such, and she had languished in a dank, dark prison from the very day of King Amel’s death.

Despite the distance that separated them, Nathaniel could see the intensity in Prince Amelon’s gaze. Not only had the prince gathered this vast army from among the scattered remnants of his people, but he had also summoned Nathaniel from the ashes of the past.

The sorcerer shook his head slightly as he once again marveled at the young man’s audacity. Nathaniel’s true life, his real life, had been lived a thousand years earlier, during the reign of Amelon’s distant great-grandfather of thirteen generations past, King Eldonmere, the Iron Fist of Merigor.

Nathaniel had died protecting Eldonmere. He remembered dying, painfully. Yet here he stood on a cliff preparing to battle the mage who twenty years earlier had destroyed Merigor on the whim of a neighboring queen, Vishtara of Raponia.

He turned back to face the storm. He watched its advance, read the power of his enemy by the whorls and funnels raging through the tempest. He’d never met the sorcerer responsible for the storm, yet he knew him intimately by the magical signature so carelessly left visible to any properly trained academy mage. But then, only a few powerful sorcerers remained in this time. And they had been strategically placed among each of the kingdoms to ensure that no one king or queen ever grew too powerful.

There had been hundreds of master mages scattered across many kingdoms when Nathaniel had served King Eldonmere. Now there was this fairly powerful storm-wielder, plus seven other master mages of varying talents. There were two or three others whose powers would barely qualify them for the beginning levels of mage craft at the collegium where Nathaniel had spent twenty-five years of his life—his first life at any rate. There were still those who did small works of magic—witches, hags, alchemists, the occasional conjurer—but very few real mages.

As the storm bore down, Nathaniel lifted his staff high. He grasped both ends of the dark, gnarled wood in white-knuckled fists. He would wreak havoc on the Raponian army before it could land on Merigor’s shores.

Warriors rode through the air in the midst of swirling winds. At first appearing as pieces of storm debris, they formed into thousands of armor-clad warriors riding a mage-born pathway of wind and clouds.

Leading the charge on the front edge of the storm, a contingent of archers held tightly drawn bows and awaited the order to fire.

Breathing deeply, Nathaniel inched his feet further apart, settling himself into a battle stance as a wall of arrows pierced the leading edge of the storm. Their ensorcelled tips trailed diaphanous green wisps as they sped through the air towards him and the armies of Merigor.

Nathaniel brought his staff down to his chest and thrust it skyward once again. He shouted a battle cry and threw up an invisible wall, easily turning the arrows to ash.

Putting his full weight behind the thrust, he pushed his staff forward and down. The wall tilted forward into the leading edge of the gale, wreaking havoc among the archers and first ranks of warriors who were flung out of the storm and hurled into the waiting arms of the Palentinian Sea.

Nathaniel felt the surprise of the storm-mage at the other end of the spell. The energies shifted as the mage regrouped.

After only a slight hesitation, the other mage threw down a wall of his own upon Nathaniel’s magic. It forced his power and his very staff to sink relentlessly toward the ground.

Or was it a wall of her power? There was something almost feminine about the energy. A scent of sweet alyssum wafted through the magical ebb and flow of the mage’s sorcery.

Nathaniel lowered his chin, re-focusing his concentration away from the other mage and back onto the storm. He hadn’t been a battle-mage in his first life, but he’d studied the principles and tactics of men like Quondin, the greatest tactical-mage who’d ever lived, and Jancor, the most powerful battlemage to take up staff and mace.

Quickly sliding his hands together on his staff, he ground out the changing spell through clenched teeth, straining to adjust the shape of his wall into a three-dimensional wedge. Slowly, ever so slowly, he began to cleave the storm in two, forcing hundreds of soldiers off the edges of their magical pathway by sheer strength of will.

Sweat erupted from his brow as another wave of power forced him to his knees, but still, he refused to lower his staff. It trembled in his hands as he struggled to hold it aloft.

Magic streamed from his core, debilitating him far more rapidly than he’d ever thought possible. His heart pounded with the pulse of his conjuring, but still, he redoubled his effort. If the spell killed him, so be it. He’d died once and wasn’t afraid of doing so again. He’d seen the oppression, the cruelty inflicted upon Merigor’s people. He would do whatever it took to stop the brutal Raponian occupation.

He consciously linked his struggle against the mage with the struggles of the emaciated children he’d seen staked out on the plains to die horrible, painful deaths. He ruthlessly shoved those visions back through the storm and onto the other mage.

He added the image of the little girl whose eyes had been burned out because she’d laughed at a Raponian merchant’s daughter. He added images of the corpses left tied to posts; their bodies flayed into strips of hanging flesh.

As each vision penetrated the storm, he felt the other mage’s determination and resolve begin to waver.

The hesitation shocked him. Did he or she not know of the cruelties being carried out here in Merigor?

Taking advantage of the momentary hesitation, he pushed to his feet once again, his leg and back muscles straining against the oppressive power of the other spell.

Cheers rang out from the soldiers behind him who’d seen him forced to his knees.

Once again, he felt the storm-mage’s concentration falter.

He widened the space between his hands on his staff, increasing the angle of his wedge and pushing more and more of the wave-riders off into the open sky to plummet to their watery graves.

Terrified warriors pressed inward, hoping to regain the solid purchase they’d had on the wind-born pathways created by their mage.

In what appeared to be a last-ditch effort to stop the slaughter, the storm-mage thrust the leading edge of the storm forward and down, sending warriors sliding headlong onto the plains directly in the path of the Merigorian forces.

Nearly spent and having done all he could to thwart the invasion, Nathaniel lowered his staff and wearily turned to watch the ensuing battle. He raised his fist in the air as the sight of Prince Amelon and his princess bravely racing into the middle of the fray renewed his flagging energy. He watched as mounted troops galloped after their prince while thousands of foot soldiers followed them into battle with blood-curdling cries of their own.

Count Hezimond and Lutor lead their troops toward the left flank. Hezimond took half the warriors down the outside of the invading army to push the outer lines inward. Lutor’s troops smashed straight into the ensuing melee, cutting down the disorganized enemy with ease.

On the right, Duke Usher and his son Reynarde were already deep into the fray with their mounted troops, slashing down from atop their horses and taking off heads with deadly, methodical precision.

Nathaniel’s stomach heaved as a particularly brutal blow sent a spout of blood gushing from the neck of one hapless soldier. When a bloody head flew into the air and bounced off the neck of Usher’s stallion, Nathaniel squeezed his eyes shut to block out the carnage, willing the hash and ham he’d eaten in the castle scullery to stay in its proper place.

Pulling in deep gulps of mountain air, he wondered again how he’d gotten to this place in this time. He’d been a scholastic-mage in King Eldonmere’s court, for heaven’s sake. He’d been one of the kingdom’s more powerful sorcerers, but his forte had been transformative magic. He turned tangled forests into beautiful, climate-controlled glades or converted worthless swamplands into verdant fields of waving grain.

But this— this butchery, this savagery, wasn’t anything like the stories he’d heard from the lute-strumming minstrels who sang ballads about the glamorous lives of famous warriors. Pull yourself together, man.

He took another breath and slowly opened his eyes. What more could he possibly do to end this battle quickly and stop the slaughter?

As he tried to locate Prince Amelon within the mayhem, he caught just the slightest hint of movement behind and to his left, where he knew no one had been just seconds before. Swinging around, he reflexively brought his staff to a defensive position, holding it in both hands horizontally across his chest.

On a rock not ten yards away, a strikingly beautiful woman watched him warily, one delicate hand thrust toward him, palm forward, ready to cast a defensive spell of her own. Wisps of waist-length blonde hair feathered the air. Her azure gown billowed gently in the windy remnants of the storm.

Even as he took in her beauty, he recognized the glimmer of a reflection spell. Realizing she’d outmaneuvered him, he caste a panicked dispelling charm of his own.

The image of the woman vanished, and Nathaniel threw himself to the ground seconds before a deadly bolt of magic came flying at him from behind and soared harmlessly over his head.

Sweeping his staff along the ground as he rolled down a slight incline, he desperately flung magic behind him and croaked out an encasing spell. The spell formed a magical cage around the same woman whose illusion had been standing in front of him just seconds before.

He’d never been in a magical duel before. There was a reason he’d taken the academic path at the collegium instead of studying the battle sciences. His father had wanted him to study the latter, but his great-aunt, whom he’d never met, had recognized the scholar in him. She’d encouraged his father to allow the boy to follow his passion.

Now, he was rethinking that decision as the sorceress effortlessly blasted a hole through her magical enclosure.

He unsteadily pushed to his knees, bracing for her next attack and hoping he’d have the ability to counter it.

When no spells were immediately forthcoming, he planted his staff firmly on the ground and pushed himself to a standing position. He heard the battle raging on the prairie below and wondered if Amelon still held the upper hand.

The woman standing before him had the chiseled, aquiline features common to the aristocracy of Raponia. Some of the nobility had the traditional hooked, eagle-beaked profile, but her slightly bent nose complemented high cheekbones and a pair of full, rosy lips.

The sorceress held his gaze, her light brown eyes telegraphing a confused curiosity. Who are you? I thought I knew every mage, sorcerer, enchantress, and hedge-wizard in all the kingdoms. How has someone of your strength escaped the notice of the ruling enclave?

The sweet, honeyed tones of a younger woman surprised Nathaniel. He’d expected to hear the deeper, more modulated voice of age and experience common to someone who’d studied for the many, many years necessary to become a master storm-mage.

The two of them glared at each other until Nathaniel shrugged. My name is Nathaniel. And what makes you so sure you know all the mages of the world? That’s a fair conceit if I’ve ever heard one.

It may well be conceited, but it’s the truth nonetheless. She carefully stepped down from the boulder, using her staff to give her better purchase on the rocky terrain.

Nathaniel took in her dainty, beribboned slippers and wondered about a battle-mage who went into combat as though attending a fete. Grasping his staff more tightly in an attempt to disguise the slight tremor in his hands, he chanced a glance over his shoulder.

Merigor’s forces were thoroughly trouncing Raponia’s, and he felt some of his earlier tension dissipate. There wasn’t much either of them could do at this point to turn the battle, so he once again turned his attention on the mage.

With uncertainty in her voice, she asked, Did you send those lies through the winds thinking they would stop me?

He jerked his head back as though she’d slapped him. Lies?

About the children. How could you imagine I’d ever believe such outrageous accusations?

Blood rushed to his cheeks. He’d seen atrocities he couldn’t wipe from his mind, and she dared to deny their existence? I saw those horrors with my own eyes. If it was your magic that brought about a Raponian victory twenty years ago, then there’s more evil in your little finger than…than… He spluttered, trying to come up with an