Michael
A small ball of light flew through the air and impacted on a small wooden target dummy, maybe 20 centimeters in diameter. The light dispersed the moment it hit solid material and Michael cursed again.
“Dammit, why can’t I get anything to work.” He looked out of his tent into the barely illuminated night and listened to the falling rain. Since yesterday, they were forced to trudge through the bog from the continuous downpour. In addition to the frustration of being cold and wet all day long, Michael was trying to advance his magic, which didn’t help the situation in the slightest.
He was trying to find some way to make his magic more suitable for combat, apart from trying to blind people. As he watched the falling drops appear from the darkness, he thought back to the conversation that had sparked this particular pursuit.
- Three weeks ago –
“Multiple times already I have nearly been killed because my magic can’t even hurt a mouse. There must be a way to use it in combat,” Michael questioned his teacher.
“I don’t know what to tell you, that is how your element is. I can start teaching you how to do blessings if you want but that is a lot more complicated than normal magic,” Kiran answered with an apologetic look.
“This can’t be all my element can do. Yes, Geron even said that the Grandmaster of the Order of Purity would burn him alive, so there must be something else,” Michael argued.
Kiran laughed, “Kid, you are talking about the strongest light mage of humanity. Sure, he can conjure beams of light so strong that they cook a knight in his armor in a second or sear the flesh of one’s bones, but he is the pinnacle.”
“You said that the priests were not good at magic so I should be able to reach that point faster, right?” Michael had already determined that this was his path but having affirmation from his teacher would help.
“That Gradel Thule and the other high members of the order are somewhat of a different thing. They have access to forbidden knowledge and artifacts of the old times. You won’t reach anywhere close to their power for decades if you even manage it at all.”
Kiran probably didn’t mean it like that, but his words stung anyway, Michael’s talent in magic was nothing special. Sure, he had a mana well that could rival many adults already but the talent he was showing in so many things didn’t extend to magic. He was still doing basic things like light explosions and other kinds of forms. He lacked the on-the-fly creative energy that a mage needed.
This wasn’t even unusual; mages just took a long time to develop their powers and Michael was progressing fine, but this kind of progression was not the explosive advancements he was used to.
Kiran noticed his suddenly worsened mood and said, “You can still be a strong mage, you just have to work around the limitations of your element.”
“I don’t believe it. So much knowledge has been lost, there must be something I can do. I won’t accept it.” He had to find something, he refused to be held back by something that was part of him and he had no influence over.
- The present day –
Michael was still watching the rain. It was the middle of the night, and the camp was quiet, he pitied the people who had to stand watch in this downpour.
“Why did I have to be born with this element that can’t do anything,” Michael mumbled to himself. He half expected to be struck down by Idas for complaining about his divine element but the only thing that answered was the continuous drumming of rain on his tent.
He put his hand out into the rain and caught the water droplets. “Why can’t light be like water? It is in many things, at least I think so but why does water get hard when thrown strong enough, but light doesn’t?” Watching water had helped him tremendously in his understanding of light but the two of them were very different.
He looked at his hand and watched the water splatter in his palm. That looks a little bit like the light does when hitting something, he thought. Why does this one splatter, but when I punched Kiran’s wall of water it felt like hitting a wall of iron?
He created an orb of light in his hand, sucking the light from a candle in his tent, and looked at it. Maybe I can make it solid by condensing it, he pondered. He tried to push it in, and the orb got brighter and smaller but when he touched it his finger still went through it as if it were just air. He had tried this before multiple times and didn’t know why he expected something different.
Frustrated at his lack of any progress he closed his hand around the orb, extinguishing it.
“This is getting me nowhere,” he said to himself. “Light is not like water; it has no mass to it. It is like filling a jar with fog and then putting your hand in, it will just move out of the way.” He stopped for a moment, that thought was something new for him and he wasn’t sure how he had gotten that idea.
Maybe light has mass but I am filling a vessel with loose parts of it. It is like chainmail where the links are not interlocked. He rose from the place he was sitting and hurried over to his armor, fearing that the idea would escape him if he waited too long.
He let his fingers feel the material and followed each link until the next. His eyes were closed as he projected the armor before his inner eye. A familiar feeling began to spread in his mind as the subconscious presence began to intermix with his own thoughts.
Points of light began to appear in front of his inner eye in ever greater numbers. His finger began to follow a single link again and again. His eyes - even though they were closed - also followed its path and began to move in circles.
The imaginary points of light began to rotate around the armor, grouping up slowly and forming a line after a few moments. Michael continued this movement until they were moving in a single line. They had formed a ring but were still as fragile and easy to disrupt as they had always been.
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He didn’t know how to forge them into a solid ring until an ethereal strand of light entered the picture. Michael hadn’t inserted it into the imagined scene, it had just appeared as if inserted by someone else. Even though he hadn’t created it, he understood the intention.
He began to connect one little dot of light after another with the strand of what he knew represented mana, and then the ring was complete. The parts couldn’t avoid contact anymore because now they were connected to one another and unable to freely move anymore.
The little ring of light, Michael had created, lowered itself down to the chainmail he imagined and the moment it overlapped with one of the rings, the whole chainmail exploded and became a light version of the mail.
As if hit, Michael awoke from his trance. He took a deep breath; his lungs were burning as if he hadn’t breathed for a while. He sat there for a few moments more, gasping for air as he stared at the armor.
What the hells was that, he thought. The whole experience was still vividly present in his mind and the idea he had gathered from it was imprinted in him.
“This is not normal,” he said to himself with a mixture of concern and excitement. He had not been normal for years, but this was a new high for him.
Michael had told himself that the voices were his subconsciousness, but he knew that he was lying to himself. The knowledge they were imparting to him and the support they gave him couldn’t come from his own mind. Someone or multiple someones were influencing him and what scared him was that he didn’t know why and with what goal.
“Whoever you are, I will take the knowledge and become strong enough that I can stand against you if you have evil intentions. Don’t think I can be used this easily,” he lowly growled.
He wasn’t sure if he imagined it or not, but he felt a whiff of amusement and pride.
---
“We are closing in on the border, Michael. After this hill, we should be able to see the wall,” Solon said and looked longingly at the mountains behind the hill.
“The wall? You mean the border, right,” Lance asked with a raised eyebrow.
“You will see,” the dwarf replied with a smile.
Michael sat up in his saddle as the caravan climbed up the little hill. As he reached its peak, the full glory of the dwarven border came into view.
A fifteen-meter-tall wall made out of dark grey solid rock rose out of fields of grass, spanning as far as the eye can see to both sides. A rectangular tower split the wall every kilometer and oversaw portions of it. Behind it, Michael could see swaths of agricultural fields that dominated the landscape as far as he could see.
Michael stopped his horse and just admired the view. The others were doing the same and Sir Tomp whistled impressed. “This makes Lionsgate look like a leisure project.,” he said, and Michael nodded absentminded.
“It is even more impressive from close up,” Solon said with a proud expression.
“Then what are we waiting for,” Michael replied and ordered his horse forward.
Solon stayed next to Michael; both their horses were on the small side to accommodate their body. “Once we are at the gate, leave the talking to me,” the dwarf said.
“Will there be problems?”
“There shouldn’t be.”
Michael nodded and they continued on toward the large gate in the distance.
Solon was right, the wall was more impressive close-up. Now that he could see the details with his enhanced vision, he could see the runes and decorations on the walls. Each angle looked planned, and every stone phased over into the next one so seamlessly that he could barely tell them apart.
He also felt a strange pulling sensation on his body which he had never felt before but before he could ask what it was about Kiran spoke up.
“Astonishing, the wall is covered in artificer enchantments. That is the pull you feel if you wondered. The enchantments devour such a huge amount of mana that they even strip the air of it and your mana is not used to the pressure difference yet. It will calm down in a few minutes.” Michael had never seen the mage this excited.
“You mean the whole wall is an artifact? I didn’t even know you could enchant buildings,” Michael exclaimed in amazement.
Kiran ripped his gaze from the magical marvel in front of him and looked at Michael. “Where is the difference between an object and a building? You can enchant everything,” he paused for a moment like he was pondering saying something else but then he shook his head and stayed silent. Michael was too enamored by the wall to think about it though.
The doors of the gate were similarly covered in runes and looked more like granite than wood.
Michael inspected the two huge ten-meter-tall statues that flanked the gate and felt like their eyes were following him as his group ventured closer and closer. They were shaped like dwarves but looked vastly different. The left one was bare-chested and armed with a large two-handed axe which rested on the ground and the right one was depicted with full plate armor with a shield and a hammer.
“What is it with these statues,” Michael asked but couldn’t avert his gaze.
“They are the founders of this kingdom, Thorm and Yoren, the fire and the steel. It is said that they still watch over us through their statues,” Solon explained and put two fingers to his forehead.
A loud voice shouted in dwarfish at them from a window in the gate as they approached it, “Halt! What is your business in Garekha?” Michael had learned a little bit of dwarfish, but he was far from proficient.
“I am Solon Gremson, I am returning home, and this is Michael Rowan, Count of Reen and Emall, and his retinue, they are coming to establish trade,” Solon shouted back up the gate.
“You may approach to identify yourself, but keep your hands away from your weapons,” the voice answered this time in remurian after a few moments of silence.
Solon and Michael unmounted from their horses and walked to a small window next to the gate reinforced by metal bars.
Behind the bars was a just wall and Michael looked at Solon confused until a part of it was suddenly pulled aside and the face of a dwarf appeared. He was much younger than Solon and looked annoyed at something.
“Identification please,” he said, and a small metal box opened up in the wall beneath the window.
Solon took off a metal plate that he wore around his neck and dropped it into the box, which quickly retracted back into the wall.
“Mister Gremson, it has been a while it seems,” the guard said while cross-referencing the metal plate with a book.
“Six years,” Solon answered with a melancholic smile.
They waited in silence for three minutes until the dwarf looked up from the book. “Seems to check out, welcome home, Mister Gremson.”
The box came out again and Solon took his identification plate back while Michael watched the whole interaction with interest.
Then the dwarven guard turned to Michael, “Identification and caravan permit, please.”
Michael looked at Solon confused, and the dwarf stepped forward. “They don’t have that yet, but we are on our way to have a meeting with Minister Valmick Uthson.”
The guard narrowed his eyes and inspected Solon. “Do you have an invitation or any other proof of this? If you had a meeting, you should have gotten interim identification.”
“I have this.” Solon pulled out a small palm-sized circular plate. Michael couldn’t get a good look at it, but he at least saw a hammer and shield.
The box opened again, and Solon carefully placed the plate into it. “The minister is my brother-in-law and would certainly be displeased if you turn us away after our perilous journey through the beastwoods.”
Michael looked at Solon surprised; he had never mentioned that he was related to a minister in the kingdom. Michael now noticed that he didn’t really know much about his family situation in total.
Michael could see that the dwarven guard had become much more nervous all of a sudden and quickly began skimming through his book until he found what Michael guessed was the page with this token.
Michael had to smile a little bit when he thought about their ‘perilous journey’.
“Yes, sir. Everything seems to be in order with this. Ehm, again welcome home, sir.” Michael could barely contain his amusement, it seemed he wasn’t the only one who could pull out a ‘I am important card’.
“Open the gate,” the guard yelled.
Michael and Solon turned around after receiving the token back and began walking back to their horses. “So, you have family in a ruling position,” Michael asked.
“Nothing I go flaunting around with normally, but it does have its advantages.”
“So, who is he,” Michael pressed the dwarf.
“Valmick is the Minister of Coin, something like the steward you humans appoint,” Solon replied, but didn’t seem too enthusiastic to talk about him so Michael dropped it.
After reaching their horses, Grur spoke up, “They are just going to let us in? Interesting, I was wondering if having a dwarf with the caravan would be enough.”
Michael glanced over to Solon and then said, “We all have our ways.”
The gate began to slowly swing open, and the view of the agricultural districts opened up. Michael was the first to enter the dwarven kingdom and behind him, he could hear Kiran say, “At least we won’t have to sleep with one eye open anymore.”