A Mage Of None Magic (Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title

  Copyright Information

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  Section 1

  Section 2

  Section 3

  Section 4

  Section 5

  Section 6

  Section 7

  Section 8

  Section 9

  Section 10

  Section 11

  Section 12

  Section 13

  Section 14

  Section 15

  Section 16

  Section 17

  Section 18

  Section 19

  Section 20

  Section 21

  Section 22

  Section 23

  Section 24

  Section 25

  Section 26

  Section 27

  Section 28

  Section 29

  Section 30

  Section 31

  Section 32

  Section 33

  Section 34

  Section 35

  Section 36

  Section 37

  Section 38

  Section 39

  Section 40

  Section 41

  Section 42

  Section 43

  Section 44

  Section 45

  Section 46

  Section 47

  Section 48

  Section 49

  Section 50

  Section 51

  Section 52

  About the Author

  Transcend Reality With Seventh Star Press

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  Chronicles of Ave Now Available!

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  The End Was Not the End Anthology

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  A Mage of None Magic

  The Heart of the Sisters, Book One

  A novel by

  A. Christopher Drown

  Copyright © 2014 by A. Christopher Drown

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be copied or transmitted in any form, electronic or otherwise, without express written consent of the publisher or author.

  Cover art and design: A. Christopher Drown

  Cover art in this book copyright © 2014 A Christopher Drown

  Interior Illustrations: Jason C. Conley

  Interior Illustrations in this book © 2014 Jason C. Conley

  and Seventh Star Press, LLC.

  Editor: Karen M. Leet

  Published by Seventh Star Press, LLC.

  ISBN Number: 978-1-937929-58-9

  Seventh Star Press

  www.seventhstarpress.com

  [email protected]

  Publisher’s Note:

  A Mage of None Magic is a work of fiction. All names, characters,

  and places are the product of the author’s imagination, used in fictitious manner. Any resemblances to actual persons, places, locales, events, etc.

  are purely coincidental.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First published September 2009

  SecondEdition

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As I said last time, my deepest gratitude goes to Alexander, Meredith, Tammy, Mom, Dad, Jennifer, Meggan, Erin Branham, Katharine Huffman, Barbara Franklin, Linda Wyatt, Joel Rosenberg, Felicia Herman, Dave Baker, Kris Martin-Baker, Mike Broderick, Dana Commandatore, Debb Dribin, Scott Dribin, Chris Clark, Dave Florida, John Santore, Lyndsay Ryor, Mark Maggs, Trina Lance, Regina Arndt, Ben Potter, Traci McSwain, Mary Forrest, Juanita McCants, Ashley Huttula, Jay Martin, Kim Martin, Sabrina Vollers, Faunne Anderson Brown, Rachel Townsend, Dorothy Murphy, Bill Roth, Laura Lee Phillips, and Bret Funk.

  Now, though, I’d like to include Amanda Trowbridge, Roland Mann, H David Blalock, Herika Raymer, HC Playa, Melissa Royer, Juanita Dunn Houston, Nisha Taylor, Jon Klement, Madison Woods, Corey Mesler, Mark Kaiser, Erin Wells, Wendy Sumner-Winter, Roby Hutchison, M.B. Weston, Alexander Stephen Brown, Bill Eakin, Jackie Gamber, Dan Gamber, Elizabeth Donald, Barbara Gatewood, Tim Gatewood, Kara Fergusson, J.L. Mulvihill, Stephen Zimmer, and Bethaney Taylor Harris.

  Again, they all know why. At least I really hope they do.

  —AD

  Dedication

  In memory of my father,

  Douglas R. Drown

  and my grandfather,

  Irenee Joseph Lachance.

  Heroes in all the ways that matter.

  1

  Excerpt from The Collected Writings of Professor Ignalius Potchkins, Fraal University Society of Letters

  Scholars know little of Uhniethi’s beginnings. Some argue he heralded from as far away as the Outer Kingdoms. Others maintain he was born of two demons—one of shadow, one of fire—who bestowed upon him the sum of their terrible powers. Most agree, however, that a thousand years ago Uhniethi enrolled at the College of Magic and Conjuring Arts, and that there, despite his irreverence, the faculty recognized him as an astonishingly gifted student.

  So voracious a learner was he that, by the end of his freshman term, Uhniethi had surpassed in ability many of his instructors. His exceptional talent for magic fostered a growing arrogance, and during his years as an upperclassman, schoolmates noted an increased volatility on Uhniethi’s part. Accounts exist of brazen public stances against high-ranking College Members. Beneath those, whispers of heterodoxy—pursuit of magic beyond Canon; the gravest crime in the eyes of the College—raised questions of Uhniethi’s soundness of mind. Some worried whether the prodigy had become too dangerous even to be called before the Board of Elders.

  Following his senior term and subsequent confirmation, Uhniethi accepted the post of chief minister to Lord Juleon of Talmoor, a prestigious placement given Uhniethi’s inexperience. Lord Juleon hailed from a lesser house within the aristocracy, but in that day his tiny domain counted among the wealthiest in the Lands. Many believed Uhniethi taking the position meant he had forsaken the impertinence of youth and at last had fully embraced the tenets of the College.

  That was not to be the case. Indeed, the very day he arrived at Talmoor to assume his duties, Uhniethi discarded any regard he might have held for the traditions of his education. Upon meeting the Lady Anese, Lord Juleon’s wife, he did what for a magician is the unthinkable: He fell desperately in love.

  Like Uhniethi, the Lady Anese fostered no esteem for convention. She was many years Juleon’s younger, and the arranged marriage they shared conveyed little mutual affection. Flattered by Uhniethi’s attentions, Anese’s intrigue soon gave way to acceptance of his overtures and the two began an impassioned affair.

  Months had passed when word came to Talmoor that the Lord Elder himself desired Uhniethi’s assistance in a matter of great urgency. Gratified by the distinction of a personal summons, Uhniethi left for the College that same evening.

  Instead of being allowed to rest after his long journey, Uhniethi was ushered to the Old Tower the moment he reached campus. Once inside the main audience chamber, attendants barred the doors and brought up the lamps to reveal the full Board of Elders along with countless rows of spectators. Uhniethi immediately realized he had been extended no mere invitation. He had been brought to trial.

  Well-known are the lengths to which the College will go to punish those who violate its laws—magician and aristocrat alike—and for the first time in anyone’s recollection, Uhniethi showed fear. He attempted to flee, but the Elders’ collective will wove itself abou
t his body and held him in place. After a brief struggle, Uhniethi resigned himself to captivity and demanded to know what had happened to the Lady of Talmoor. At first, the only response was silence.

  Uhniethi shouted his question again. From somewhere in the chamber a single voice called out the fateful reply:

  “Everything that can.”

  As vigorously as historians debate Uhniethi’s origin, the details of what transpired at the Old Tower that day are also a matter of deep dispute. However, on the following points nearly all concur:

  Uhniethi, unbalanced by the notion of Anese coming to harm, and in an astounding display of power, tore himself free of his magical bindings. Those few Elders not slain by that brutal trauma went instantly and irretrievably insane.

  Uhniethi next turned his wrath upon those who had come to ogle his demise. He spewed vile incantations into the gallery, each more horrific than the one before. As though fueled by the terrified cries that filled the chamber, he mauled, gutted, or flayed alive any upon whom he could fix his gaze.

  Amidst the wails of the wounded and dying, Uhniethi ceased his rampage to work an even more grisly spell. From the mangled bodies strewn at his feet, he pieced together a massive winged creature. When the monstrosity was complete he climbed upon its gory back and soared away to Talmoor to rescue his beloved.

  When he reached Lord Juleon’s castle, Uhniethi discovered not a moment had been squandered exacting Anese’s punishment. He found her alone in the empty public square, chained to a scorched wooden beam atop a pyramid of still-orange embers—burned alive. Worse still than even her murder was how her charred remains had been left unattended and on display. Regard for the dead in those days reflected a decidedly more reverent age, when people observed without fail the rituals governing burial. Mourners interred everyone from peasant to lord with equal deference.

  As even the most uneducated among us is well aware, Uhniethi did not permit such vulgar disregard for the Lady Anese to go unanswered.

  2

  Excerpt from The Astute Scholar’s Abridged Companion to the Known Energumen, Fifth Edition, edited by Enri Marbahn, Onyx Publishing Guild

  With but a whisper and a flutter of his fingers, Anese’s bindings fell to the ash. She drifted toward him, stopping only inches away. Uhniethi studied her face, a twisted portrait of agony frozen in flesh once as soft as petals but now roasted to a thick rind. No trace of her eyes remained, once bright brown like fine brandy. Instead, hollow smoldering sockets stared back in an empty plea.

  “Sorcerer!” echoed a shout through the deserted plaza.

  Uhniethi glared over his shoulder in the direction from which the epithet had come, toward the triple rows of banner-draped balconies lining the castle’s inner curtain. Guards, ministers, and others had gathered above, below, and to either side of Lord Juleon, himself hunched forward and gripping the stone ledge at his waist. At Juleon’s right stood none other than Herahm, Lord Magistrate from the College’s Ministry of Law.

  “You seal your fate by coming to fetch your whore,” Lord Juleon growled.

  Uhniethi knelt, easing Anese’s rigid body to the stone tiles. With a wave of his hand, the blackened husk of her remains vanished.

  For a moment, silence.

  Uhniethi then let loose a savage bellow that filled the air like thunder, launched into the sky as if shot from a bow, and hurtled toward the castle wall where he stopped midair before the balcony’s wide-eyed occupants.

  “No, my Lord,” he seethed, aiming a trembling finger first at Juleon, then at Herahm. “I seal your fate, and that of your whore.”

  Herahm cried hasty syllables, but Uhniethi jutted his arm out to a ghastly length and stabbed his fingers through the Lord Magistrate’s teeth. Herahm choked out a muffled, bloody retch as Uhniethi ripped away his tongue.

  “I may require your help shortly,” Uhniethi said to Herahm with new, cold calm, “but for now I wish no distractions.”

  “Archers!” Juleon screamed.

  Uhniethi tsked, then reached out with both hands, seized Herahm and Juleon each by the throat and lifted them from the balcony.

  “Ladies and gentlefolk!” he called as he brought the writhing pair to him. “I fear your Lord Juleon has done you all a great disservice this day!” He pressed his mouth to Juleon’s ear. “You seem to enjoy a good fire, my Lord. I believe I can accommodate you.”

  Uhniethi closed his eyes, ignoring the fearful shouts and the hail of arrows now flying in his direction. He drew a long, deep breath, not simply filling his chest but expanding it to an inhuman size. Bones cracked and muscles tore, but Uhniethi continued drawing air. The sound of his inhalation became like a gale wind.

  Flame vomited from Uhniethi’s mouth; a buffeting torrent that slammed into the massive wall surrounding the castle, incinerating those on the balconies. The wall buckled, crashed down, and a merciless surge of magical fire flooded the inner ward.

  Uhniethi cackled as the ravenous blaze swelled to a colossal size, cascaded down the hillside toward the villages and farms below, and devoured all it touched. Wave after wave of flame spilled from the castle like a giant cauldron boiling over, and soon everything from horizon to horizon glowed a hellish orange-red.

  “Alas, my Lord,” Uhniethi sang through the rush of heated air, “had I any sense for the dramatic I’d offer a clever, parting remark. I trust you’ll take my meaning anyway.”

  He let go of the still-struggling Lord Juleon, whose screams lasted well beyond his plunge to the devastation below.

  Herahm finally went limp in Uhniethi’s grasp.

  “Yes, Lord Magistrate, sleep,” Uhniethi laughed. “For you will have much to do when you awaken.”

  3

  Niel stood, blissful amongst the squawks of gulls overhead and the rumble of the surf below. Before him stretched a shimmering prairie of sapphire whose sharp, salty fragrance delighted his senses every bit as much as its enormity confounded them.

  At last, he thought. The Nilfranian.

  He’d never seen the ocean before, if one didn’t count picture books; the tiny house he’d shared with his teacher, Biddleby, had been tucked deep in the golden folds of the rural Lyrrian midlands, isolated by thick woods and rolling pastures. After traveling so long and scarcely believing he’d finally arrived, Niel found it just hard to believe that in a matter of days he’d be trudging right back the way he came, back toward Lyrria to take his long-overdue place at the College.

  He sighed. In strict fairness to Biddleby, no age requirement dictated when an apprentice should attend the College of Magic and Conjuring Arts. As in most things affecting a pupil’s life, one’s sponsor held sole discretion. Still, the typical age for a freshman was fifteen. As best as Niel could tell, that had passed four long summers ago.

  He shrugged, dismissing his umbrage as best he could. He’d lived with Biddleby his entire life and knew that while the old fellow rarely gave reasons for his decisions he did always have them, so he bore Biddleby no great ill will. If anything, it underscored the irony of his arrival at the coast: When it came right down to it, he had no real reason for being there. At one time Niel had nurtured an honest, simple yearning to see the ocean from the deck of a ship; experiencing something so much larger than himself had held a fascination since childhood. Yet despite the grand view before him, he couldn’t deny the disappointment creeping in, tainting the triumph of having made it so far on his own.

  That was not to say the journey had been anything of a waste—far from it. He’d seen more countryside than he once had thought possible; given the time and effort invested in training, teachers rarely allowed students out of their sight. Then again, conservative leanings aside, Biddleby often prided himself on his eccentricities. Indeed, the old fellow showed surprising enthusiasm for postponing Niel’s enrollment until winter, confessing a sympathy for the wanderlust intrinsic to youth. “Maybe boots with thinner soles will let you focus on your work,” Biddleby had said, “instead of brushing from your ear the
pests of things left undone.”

  From the bluff Niel spied several ships rocking gently in the cradle of the sea. Sailors swarmed over each like ants on an apple.

  The weeks that had passed with no one other than himself for company had been no hardship. The idea of being among people again made Niel uneasy, especially since Southerners had no real love for magicians. But the tiny community huddled against the cliffs looked harmless enough, and the novelty of sleeping on the ground had dissipated so long ago that a good night’s rest enticed him far more than the idea of company and conversation troubled him—not that common folk could be relied upon for either. He would head into town, inquire about passage for the morning, find an inn, have supper, then crawl into bed—a bed all to himself, if he could afford it. Not even sitting down for a few hands of Stash held any appeal.

  As he smiled at the thought of a real bed, a fat grey gull flopped down near his feet, waddled over, then gazed up at him questioningly.

  Taking it as a hint, Niel gathered his things and started down.

  ***

  An hour later Niel emerged from the foothills to find himself within a stone’s throw of the shore. The new vantage let him appreciate the enormity and grace of the nearby ships all the better—the rich colors and craftsmanship of their elaborate prows, the geometric intricacies of riggings running from mast to deck then off again in a dozen directions, and the stark brilliance of the sails as they flapped and swelled in the breeze. He’d read of the devotion ship captains often had for the condition of their crafts, of how the whiteness of a sail spoke to the caliber of the person commanding her. While likely nothing more than vanity among seamen, the result was indeed spectacular.