At the top of the world Lukas gasped for air. Once for the disbelief of it all, so grand in its nature that it filled his very soul. The very clouds of heaven appeared no more than an arms length away, begging to be touched, and he could see for miles in every direction, so far that, in a moment of splendor induced stupidity, he wondered if Highharrow could be seen. And then there was the Stone, a jagged black thing the size of a small building which, despite the immense weight it must have had, floated above the floor.
The second gasp was for much needed air.
There was no worse a contrast; in one moment feeling an awe so intense as to leave one giddy and seemingly stuck in time, and the very next to be dragged back down to the feeling of mortality by the plagues known as ‘pain’ and ‘exhaustion’.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Laurant said as he gazed out to the world beyond. “The north has little beauty, in my eye, but there is something to be said of this view, don’t you think?”
“I beg pardon, Laurant, but we don’t have much time. Is there a way outside of the glass? I can’t cast my magic with it in the way.”
Laurant smiled. “There is a door on the other side, behind the Stone. Do be warned, however, that the wind this high up is…well, let us just say that it is worse than you are imagining.”
Perfect, Lukas thought. “My thanks,” he said.
The door was glass, just as the rest of the hexagonal dome was. Its hinges, iced over, creaked and cracked as he opened it, producing shards that sank into the soft snow covering the outer edge.
Wind bit down to the bone instantly. He shivered uncontrollably as he shuffled to the edge of the Tower and peered down.
There must be thousands. From atop the Tower they were no more than dark specks littering the white expanse that surrounded them. He circled the Tower until he was on the northern face. There he saw the darkened trail in the snow, several hundred feet wide and devoid of any cohesion. Every man of them must have been eager to be the first to kill.
Fine adversaries. None better than feral dogs begging to be put down. He circled again to the southern face, where streaks of magic arched between the invaders and the Tower itself. Most came from within the Tower, Lukas saw. My fine students, I imagine. Crowds of black dots disappeared every moment as magic poured forth.
Proud as he was, Lukas growled to himself. Karine alone would be performing the attacks. And though she was making quick work of those she attacked, it wasn’t enough.
“I suppose it’s my turn to help,” Lukas said to himself.
Hand outstretched, Lukas poured his magic forth, forming an insignificantly small orb of glowing energy. He poured and poured his mana into it until, having achieved the size of a marble, his reserves ran dry. Then, with his other hand, Lukas pulled a potion from his knapsack, bit into the soft cork with his teeth, opened it with a pop, and drank.
As his mana soared once more he continued his tedious work, investing his mana into the orb of energy until his reserves ran dry, the veins of his arms burning all the while, as if his blood had become molten. Then he would drink another potion and repeat the process.
Behind him he could hear Laurant speaking fervently on some topic, his voice muffled. Lukas focused in as much as he dared; though containing the energy within the orb cost little in the way of mana or focus, all would be lost if he erred.
“...blood must…ritual…complete…”
It’s that, then. Lukas spat, yet the sour taste still remained. Unconscionable, he thought.
But there was no time to make his opinion known, nor would it have done anything even if he had. Battle still raged below. And it might just work.
Minutes passed as Lukas continued his own ritual. The orb had grown considerably, now almost the size of a small snowball, its luminescent light painful to look upon. A difficult task even during the best of times, made worse by the muted chanting from Laurant and his followers. And the cold, which cut so deep he could no longer feel his face.
Worse were his fingers. The cold crept into them slowly but surely, slowing them and dulling their ability to feel. Eventually he could no longer feel them at all, nor could he put any power at all into them, leaving him unable to consume the mana potions remaining to him.
Displeased as he was, his recovery rate was better than most, and waiting for it to refill, though the opposite of ideal, was not a travesty. So long as his students held out.
Watching the battle raging down below, Lukas questioned it all. Would they last? Had he taught them well enough? Had they been proper students in the first place? As lightning and fire and wind were all exchanged in a back and forth of bright lights and loud thuds and cracks, Lukas settled on ‘yes’. The Argmont siblings were indeed proper students. Some of the very best he’d ever had, in truth, in attitude if not in potential. And he had taught them well. How could he not? They had been his latest students, subject to the refined teachings that had undergone more than twenty years of careful evolution. The result of such students being under his tutelage was a fine trio of gifted young mages who could, in the right circumstances, accomplish almost anything together.
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They would last, or else lasting was never a possibility.
Though, Lukas supposed, he could speed up his plan. Feeling the power in his grasp straining against his control was proof enough. There was enough power there, definitely.
Power, but not time.
Behind him energy surged in unusual fashion, fluctuating wildly. Reaching out with his mana, he felt the presence of Laurant and the men he had gathered. Moreover, he felt their dwindling energy. And fewer sources of energy than he recalled.
Lukas turned to look. Two were sprawled out on the floor. Another was slumped forward, yet still upright. All dead.
But the fluctuations did not emanate from the dead or even the living. The wild energy came from the Stone itself, radiating off of it in haphazard fashion, one second barely releasing any power at all and the next releasing enough to suffuse the air around him.
He could not see Laurant, his visage hidden by the Stone’s blackness. But, feeling at the man’s mana, Lukas frowned. Laurant was almost out of energy. Soon he’d be joining the dead beside him.
He’s even more of a fool than I thought. The ritual was one Lukas disapproved of, though, he had to admit, was allowable given the circumstances. Given that it was performed correctly. That it was being botched only angered him further.
Lukas opened the dome’s glass door, ball of mana in hand and rueing what he was about to do. He rounded the Stone, then paused. Laurant, knelt before the Stone as the ritual sapped his power, looked like a living corpse, his gaunt face stricken with the incredulity of a man betrayed.
His fellows fared worse.
“Should I say that this is a well deserved turn of events?” Lukas said. Laurant’s eyes darted to him, but otherwise he remained still. “Who gave you the knowledge of this ritual?”
“A…a warlock,” Laurant said. The action strained him. “Years ago. Blood…for power.”
“Aye, blood for power. A common enough tactic, I’d say. And a foolish one.”
Another attendant slumped over, dead. Laurant’s eyes darted to the body.
Is the panic finally setting in? Lukas flexed his free hand as warmth came back to it. He could only guess as to how the ritual operated, but, he thought, his guess was probably correct. The magic of witches and warlocks always came with a drawback or another in return for their power. Laurant and his men were stuck, unable to move as their mana was siphoned by the Stone until either it killed them or, more unlikely, the Stone of Azphine was restored.
“I can help,” he offered, placing the orb in front of Laurant. The Head Servant stared. “In my hand is a great deal of mana. More than you’ve put into the Stone, by far. Potions. Thought you’d do the same, did you? Didn’t think to test out this little ritual of yours on a smaller stone, one less apt to siphon all your foolish lives away. If you did you might learn the most base piece of information needed for one to become a witch or a warlock or what have you.” Lukas leant down, his mouth just beside Laurant’s ear. “Someone has to die for this little ritual of yours to work. No matter the size of the receiver. That you knew. But for one this big? You’d need a hundred mages or more.
“But this here, in my hands? Not near so gruesome as the dark arts you’ve hastily decided to rely upon. The product of a simple ritual. So simple, in fact, that no chanting or praying was needed at all. Barely a ritual at all, really. And yet…oh so potent.”
Lukas touched the shining orb of light to the Stone, watched as it fell away into its inky black surface and, as it descended into the Stone’s core, began to glow with orange light. Then, as the lights reached the core and gathered again into another orb of light, they burst.
Lukas shut his eyes.
The Stone of Azphine glowed with the luster of a thousand immaculate suns. His skin burned in its presence and the air choked him. Only when he opened his blind eyes and saw the face of Azphine burned into his vision did he know that he was still alive.
“Incredible,” he said. A tear fell down his face. The intense light of a god vanished, and Lukas saw once more.
The Stone glowed with brilliant harsh light, yet only a fraction of the intensity he saw moments before. And when he turned away from the light of the Stone to see Laurant and the others it was as if they were shrouded in darkness. Despite that, the five who remained, now free of their ritual, squinted and shied away from the Stone’s abysmal light.
“It seems,” Lukas said, reaching out with a hand and forming another ball of mana twice the size of the one he’d touched to the Stone, “that I have been chosen by Azphine.”
“No,” Laurant croaked. Too weak to protest. Too weak, even, to move from his spot.
“Yes,” Lukas replied. “The Stone is alive once more. It, and all the mana it generates, is now under my command.”
The Head Servant groaned his protests and scrambled weakly after him, his mobility sapped. Lukas did not care to see if it would return.
Opening the glass dome’s door, Lukas stepped outside into the bitter cold and cutting winds, listening to the sound of battle below. Blasts of dim lights appeared from below as magic was exchanged. Lukas chuckled.
“It all seems so meaningless,” he said to himself. “A lifetime of studying, of practicing. And then now, to descend upon the great Tower of Victory during its greatest moment of weakness, only for the spark of divinity to be reignited once more. Ah, truly, the Gods are good.”
His arms opened wide.
“Perish, in the name of Azphine.”
The world stopped.
Snow parted from the dirt, dirt parted from the stones beneath, and the stones crumbled. Men were turned into paste, flattened in an instant as their armor crumpled, then disappearing with the dirt.
Lukas did not look. Not until it was over, when all the mana imparted to him by the Tower was gone and he fell to his knees and almost toppled himself over the Tower’s edge, too weak to stand or move or keep his head upright. And as his head fell he saw it. An immense crater with the Tower as its epicenter. An army wiped out in an instant.