The mortal mage, p.1
The Mortal Mage, page 1
part #3 of The Mortal Mage Series
Contents
COPYRIGHT
SERIES ORDER
MAP
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY: EPILOGUE
NEW RELEASES
FROM THE AUTHOR
THE MORTAL MAGE
BOOK 3 OF THE MORTAL MAGE TRILOGY
Copyright 2017 by B.T. Narro.
Cover and Map by Beatriz Garrido, with Interior Illustrations also by Beatriz Garrido.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is coincidental.
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the copyright holder.
THE MORTAL MAGE TRILOGY
1. Awaken
2. The Akorell Break
3. The Mortal Mage
CHAPTER ONE
Their twisted journey had provided them with many paths, but only one remained. Desil wanted to trust that Basen had sent them through a portal to this glacier to keep them and the precious akorell safe, but the black citadel in front of them appeared as safe and comforting as a bed of nails.
And that was if they ignored the field of human bones in their way.
“Someone chose to lay down all these bones here, or a creature devoured the remnants of the bodies that were once here,” Desil told his two comrades. “Both seem unlikely, but I don’t know what else could explain this.”
Neither Beatrix nor Kirnich offered an answer.
There were no clothes among the bones. Most were skulls of various sizes and shapes, some with chips, others with cracks, and many with entire chunks missing, usually along the top of the skull. There were a few that were still completely whole, but all of them had belonged to a living person. There were so many. So many.
Desil didn’t know where he and his two comrades were now. He might be able to figure it out if he wasn’t so worried about Leida and her father. They hadn’t made it through the portal. Surely they had been captured by Fatholl’s Elves by now, but what would Fatholl do with them?
Desil wished he’d had time before taking the portal to ask what Basen had planned for their group here in this frozen kingdom. It seemed obvious that they were to visit the citadel looming ahead of them, as it was the only landmark in sight. But without anyone in their group knowing a single thing about it—not even the princess of Kyrro, who Desil expected to be the most knowledgeable about other kingdoms—how were they supposed to know what to do? Should they bring the akorell to the citadel where it might be safe, or would it be taken away from them if they did? They would have to make the most cautious choices of their limited options.
“We should hide the akorell somewhere before someone in the citadel sees us,” Desil said. “And it should remain hidden until we figure out who we’re dealing with and why Basen sent us here.”
The princess and the warrior accompanying Desil still appeared to think they were elsewhere as they walked with their heads bowed, the last battle all too fresh. It was the same for Desil, as gruesome memories of swords impaling living, breathing, screaming Elves and men stampeded across his train of thought.
But then Kirnich stopped suddenly and lifted his head as if to really survey the land. He was silent for a breath before he cursed.
Desil took this as his chance to try once again to contact Leida through the other plane. After everything that had happened, it was difficult for him to leave the physical world with his mind, akin to trying to fall asleep while wide awake.
Kirnich seemed to say something to Beatrix as Desil slipped away and entered the ocean of sizzling energy that sloshed and moved in tiny waves as far as he could see. There wasn’t much he could feel in his distracted state, but he reached out for Leida nonetheless. He cast his net as far as it could go and eventually felt her. Leida’s presence was quiet and still, as difficult to detect as a flake of snow on a frozen river. But he found her nonetheless and could tell that there was no message to read from her.
Desil fell out of the plane, stumbling as he reentered the physical world. Kirnich steadied him.
“You all right?”
Desil nodded.
The three of them walked around the frozen river in their way. Desil couldn’t help but look for a flake of snow to test his analogy, but there were none to find.
“Did you hear us, Desil?” Kirnich asked.
“No, what did you say?”
“We think we see a cave there.” The warrior pointed toward the base of the mountains nearby. There were two ridges, one on either side. With both covered in ice and snow, it would be a difficult climb for Desil to get over and impossible for anyone else.
That meant that the quickest way out of this glacier was past the citadel, where a white forest looked almost like a sanctuary in comparison to the pointed towers of the fortress, which lay at the end of a long bridge.
Desil eventually recognized the small opening of a cave that Kirnich had pointed out, but he also noticed the warrior’s injuries then. In the recent battle, an Elf had jumped on Kirnich’s back and driven a dagger into his shoulder. His armor was shredded around the gash, while it was scratched and dented everywhere else. Kirnich had cuts down his arms and the back of his neck, his blood still wet. Desil felt the sting from his similar wounds every time the biting wind came around for another attack. Beatrix appeared to have fared better. The psychic had spent much of the first battle with the Marros paining any of the flying creatures that came close to her or Basen. She apparently wasn’t touched in the second battle.
Battles…it had been one after another. It felt as though Desil had done nothing but fight since he’d left his mother’s tavern.
But they had finally obtained the akorell. Now all they needed were enough eppil vines and they could threaten the warring kings with destroying their castles. It should finally bring about peace.
It was unfortunate that Desil was more lost than ever in this glacier. Basen was supposed to be here, with Leida and Adriya. He had a plan for them here. Hopefully that would become clear as soon as Desil’s group spoke with the leader of this citadel.
It wasn’t a long walk to the cave, but each of the enormous six bags they hauled was filled with heavy akorell metal. They’d melted it with a toxic substance, collected it in bottles, and put each bottle in a bag. Now it was up to only three people to carry the six of them, and Desil had no idea how far they would have to go to return to Kyrro.
Beatrix was a powerful psychic; a woman in her mid-twenties with enough strength and courage to make every dainty princess before her seem like an anomaly. But her strength was limited to her mind. She couldn’t support more than one bag on her small frame, leaving the other five to Kirnich and Desil. The large warrior took three, one on his back and one with each hand, dragging them across the field of rattling bones. Desil carried one bag on his back and held the other, taking most of the weight onto his arms. They ached from fatigue, but at least the bag provided a bit of warmth.
“Shall I help for a little while?” Beatrix asked Kirnich.
“I can make it to the cave,” he grunted.
The three of them could easily be spotted if anyone was looking down from the citadel with a spyglass. It might mean the end of everything if someone then came to investigate what they were about to hide in the cave, but Desil didn’t see the point in worrying if there was nothing he could do about it. It wasn’t as if they could go any faster, and they weren’t about to stand out here freezing to wait for night.
Eventually they arrived at the cave. It wasn’t much taller than the large warrior, but it soon stretched to be wider than most houses in Kayvol, the small town where Desil grew up. The only light came from the opening behind them, and soon they found themselves in complete darkness. Desil gave his bag of akorell to Beatrix so he could focus on making light without burning himself by gathering a cluster of bastial energy to hover a foot in front of his hands. He thought he sensed movement of some kind ahead, but there was nothing to see except jagged walls.
They went a little while farther before Beatrix set down her bag. “This cave could go on for miles. It’s best we separate here.”
She seemed to be speaking to Desil. What had she and Kirnich said while Desil was focused on re
“You both decided it should be me who stays.” Desil said it as a statement of fact, not a question.
“Yes,” Kirnich confirmed. “Beatrix has to go because of her psychic ability, and I would be of more use protecting her than staying here alone. You can hide the akorell in the walls and focus your full attention on trying to reach Leida. We need to know what Basen hoped to accomplish by sending us here.”
“And you know how to take care of yourself in the wilderness better than Kirnich,” Beatrix said with some hesitance. “In case we don’t return.”
“In case we don’t return immediately,” Kirnich specified. “Ouch!” He jumped and pulled up his right pant leg. A small beetle, round and glossy, stuck to the side of his leg. Kirnich’s skin stretched as the warrior pulled the beetle off. He let out another yelp when the beetle finally came loose, then cursed as he noticed a trickle of blood. “The bastial hell are these things?” He turned the squirming creature around in front of his eyes.
It was a hair longer than it was wide, two rounded carapaces making up its body. Its face was too small to see its mandibles, but they must’ve been powerful to cause Kirnich to bleed.
“Febeetles,” Desil figured. “They’re carnivores, if you haven’t already figured that out. Their presence means we’re probably somewhere in Goldram. Good, we might be able to make it to the coast and take a boat back to Ovira.”
“How far is the coast?” Kirnich dropped the beetle and turned his boot on top of it.
“Given the ice and mountains around us, I’d say pretty far.”
“Then why is this good?”
“Because we could’ve found ourselves in many places much farther. Greenedge is huge. Oh…” Desil realized something that sent a needle down his spine. “The febeetle might also explain the bones.”
It took Kirnich and Beatrix a moment to understand what Desil was implying. The three of them looked deeper into the cave in a long moment of silence.
“How many do you think there are?” Beatrix asked Desil.
“Could be thousands to consume the human flesh from all the bones we crossed through.”
“That still wouldn’t explain what the bodies were doing there,” Kirnich brought up. “There must’ve been a battle. Then the febeetles had their feast.” There was some doubt in his voice.
“I think you’re right.” Desil hated to consider the alternative, that so many people had been killed by these beetles and then devoured, though he wasn’t completely sure that a battle was a better omen. If the king of the citadel was at war with someone, he would want the akorell even more.
Was there really no better place for Desil to hide the precious metal than in this cave with possibly thousands of flesh-eating beetles? Kirnich and Beatrix had empathy in their tired eyes as they gazed at him.
“Perhaps I should be the one to stay,” the psychic suggested. “I could control the febeetles if they attack.”
“No,” Desil said with a resigned sigh. “You and Kirnich should go to the citadel. Your psyche will be of more use there than I could be. Besides, I’ll be fine here.”
“Can you hide the akorell in these walls?” Kirnich asked.
“It might take a couple hours, but I should be able to. When do the two of you expect to return?”
“Immediately,” Kirnich said without delay, but then he stopped to think. “But it could take until sundown if we must wait to speak to someone.”
The citadel wasn’t a long distance away from here, except its location made the trek somewhat difficult. Kirnich and Beatrix would have to venture up mountainous hills to make it to the start of the bridge, then follow the bridge partially back the way they’d come. And there was always the chance they wouldn’t be allowed inside.
“You should take a bottle of akorell with you in case you need a gift.” Desil fished one out. “We’ll still have enough to create an explosion once we find enough eppil vines.”
He handed the bottle to Beatrix. It was more cracked than most others in the bags, enough for bastial energy to get through to the akorell, which had begun to glow. The metal trapped in the other bottles still looked just like melted and then hardened silver, now curved to match the contours of the bottle containing it. Still valuable, but without a glow to prove that it absorbed bastial energy, it would be unable to pass as akorell.
Beatrix gave the glowing bottle back to Desil. “We should be fine. I have a couple gold coins that are worth just as much in Greenedge as in our home. If a gift is needed, I can use them.”
“We should be going,” Kirnich said.
“What if you don’t return by tomorrow?” Desil asked.
Beatrix and Kirnich looked at one another before Kirnich turned to Desil. “Then you should come for us.”
Desil took it as a compliment. They trusted him enough to help them in case something happened.
“But no matter what,” Beatrix added, “keep the akorell hidden where you think it will be most safe. If we lose it, all of this will be for nothing.”
Desil nodded.
As soon as they left, he let out his light to relieve himself from the strain of holding bastial energy together. It was dark and cold in the cave, but the silent sanctuary provided just enough warmth from the outside for him to at least keep from shivering.
He got to work softening the nearby wall and scooping out the smooth rock. He was glad for the distraction, until his hunger started to win the competition against his concentration. He made holes along the wall, stashing each bag separately.
It was impossible to put the rock back so that it matched the rest of the wall, but he didn’t expect anyone to investigate closely enough to tell.
By the time he was done hiding all six bags, he checked outside the cave to see if he could still see his comrades or if anyone else was in sight. He saw nothing but mountains, snow, bones, and the frozen river. He ventured out toward it, toting his only possession besides his sword—a water pouch that had gone empty hours ago.
Water was easy to manipulate in comparison to rock. He couldn’t change its temperature, but he could convince it to shift to a liquid with ease.
The freezing water was too painful sliding down his throat to come as a relief, but it did help his hunger a bit. He drank and filled his pouch, then returned to the cave.
It was surprisingly difficult to find where he’d altered the wall. He’d done a better job hiding the akorell than he realized. Eventually, he found the changes to the smooth texture, glanced around to ensure there were no hungry febeetles looking for a snack, then sat with his back to the wall and shut his eyes. He didn’t know when or how exactly, but he would hear from Leida eventually. He knew so.
He drifted in and out of sleep, visions of the other plane coming in flashes. He felt someone reaching for him, probably Leida. He stretched his mind toward her, the feeling like trying to remember a name, but he seemed so far from her. It felt impossible for them to reach each other. Perhaps they were just too far physically.
After slumbering for what felt to be a couple hours, he rose and headed deeper into the cave. He might only find febeetles, but he couldn’t ignore the chance of encountering something else, hopefully something edible.
Then again, the febeetles themselves could be thought of as food. Desil had eaten a beetle before, when he was a child foraging with his father during one of their adventures out of Kyrro. He couldn’t recall how it tasted, only that the head, legs, and shell were to be removed before popping it in his mouth.
He started to look for them on the ground as he continued deeper. The cave was less cold here, making a better resting point if Desil hadn’t started to sense movement around him. He thought he heard scampering up where the walls met the layered roof. There were plenty of places up there for the febeetles to hide. He really didn’t like the thought of them coming down on his head.
Deeper into the cave, he caught sight of holes as big as his fists. He investigated the first group of them he came across by standing in front of them and making light. They appeared to be tiny tunnels that turned upward. He didn’t know what to make of that.
The size of the holes increased as he went farther. Warning signs flared in his mind as he was certain he heard the movement of many beetles. It was most alarming how the sound came from not just in front of him but also from above and behind, and still he had yet to see a single beetle since the one that had bitten Kirnich. He was more than ready to turn back, but something compelled him to keep going.
