Chapter 26: Ledas: Nowhere to Fit
Ledas walked through the morning town towards the castle in his new garbs, but they didn’t bring him the joy he expected of them. His mind was strangely occupied by hatred of himself. His father, Ledas Sanders, whose name he bore had most likely already passed away. He felt like a mess. He was one.
“I was named after an affliction that is ruining my life. It’s sick, it’s disgusting. If I had a chance to change his name to anything else he would do so immediately and without hesitation.“ he was uncharacteristically muttering to himself. “If I had learned of the meaning of this name before, I would have been already Bobby or Jimmy for fucks sake! This is some sick joke”
He felt disgusted towards his father, not sure exactly why, but something was wrong, and he was unsure if his thoughts were his own or if he was overreacting. He stopped. “Grandfather was named Ledas too, it’s a common tradition to call someone by the name of a grandparent that had nothing to do with powers of cold in his blood. It meant Ice, not Cold.” His attempt at rationalizing calmed him slightly, but he quickly returned to self-loathing while striding towards the castle.
“Hey, Court Mage Runeword!” - a familiar voice pulled Ledas out of the downward spiral. “Your new suit suits you.” Ledas looked at four guards not instantly recognizing Olaf as the one who called him out.
One of the guards asked another, “Hey, isn’t that the guy who did card tricks?” he wasn’t exactly subtle, so everyone present heard it.
“Good morning Guard Olaf.” Ledas felt relieved that his cycle of thoughts was abruptly stopped.
“Let me introduce you guys to my old friend Ledas Runewards, the Court Mage of this place.” he turned to Ledas “These are my colleagues, Arthur, Betty, and our sergeant Shaun.”
“Olaf, quit messing with us.” Shaun was quite dismissive. “I saw this guy in Vishap’s belly, I think I even treated you guys to some beer.”
“Did you think my tricks were just sleight of hand?” Ledas looked at them with the most serious expression he could make. Their eyes opened widely and their jaws dropped slightly. “It was… a sleight of hand” his serious expression broke apart as he finished the joke. Betty giggled slightly, while others broke into laughter. “Hey, guys I am not joking” Olaf was being patted on the shoulder as his colleagues didn’t believe him in the slightest.
Ledas had a choice in front of him. A choice of a magician, one who controls attention and expectation. He could either wait for them to learn about his current stature in quite some time when everything will be declared officially, and prank Olaf in a mean way, or… start a small performance. He closed his eyes in preparation for the performance. There was a spell improvisation he wanted to try out from the moment he woke up. Sphere, force field, force multiplication, light barrier… he had no idea how to make the whole effect into one spell, but he could do it with two. He grinned moving his hands forming runes behind his back. He never performed an actual magic show in front of people before. The first spell was a simple one he quickly named it “The area of darkness” but most likely this spell already existed in hundreds of variations, he set up a light-absorbing cube encompassing all five of them. It was slightly above the ground and had the function of allowing light in, but not out. The most important piece here was a simple delay to activate the effect.
The second spell was a modified sound barrier. He called it the “Echo sphere” in his mind. A sphere of not letting sound out, but echoing it back. He just needed to copy the sound canceling and run a similar loop with negative values inside the sphere, slightly amplifying his voice.
He waited until the delay in the first spell ended and the area suddenly became dark. Town's Guard including Olaf looked around in shock, but they only saw each other and Ledas, even the ground they were standing on was pitch black making them stand in a pure endless void. It was time to release the second spell. Ledas unleashed the second spell with the release of mana. Winds blow around him. His eyes glowed and his hair stood up.
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“How Dare you disrespect Me! Vermin, get on your knees!” His voice echoed in the sphere, reverberating as he opened his hands widely. Ledas laughed maniacally looking at the guards. Betty was no longer giggling, she froze just like Arthur and Sean. Olaf was different though, he quickly recovered from the initial shock and was just observing what was around him.
Betty’s legs were shaking, and she frantically looked around, especially at the Sergeant, whose hand was shaking somewhere between his hip and the hilt of his sword. “Ledas, stop fooling around!” Olaf’s voice reverberated too.
“Fine, fine”, the wind stopped the light and the sound instantly returned to the world. Guards were standing just where they were, their hands ready to reach their weapons. Ledas looked at Olaf with a guilty face “It was too much, right?”
Arthur and Betty fell on their knees catching their breaths, their faces were displaying utter shock. Sergeant Sean was in shock too, but it looked different. He made a bow.
“I apologize, under no circumstances I intended to offend you, Lord.” He wasn’t as much afraid of the magic as the fact that he and his colleagues publicly showed disrespect to the court mage. There was no one on the streets, so maybe, just maybe the mage would take their apologies, or not demand a harsh punishment.
“Umm... Sorry guys, I got carried away,” Ledas saw the mini havoc he wrecked in the minds of Olaf’s colleagues. His hand was scratching his occiput as he averted his gaze slightly bowing. “Let's pretend that this never happened?”
“Huh… ” Sergeant quickly understood what had happened. The new court mage was an immature person, who could be barely considered an adult.
“Sure…” Olaf and Sean helped their shocked colleagues stand up.
“I guess I’ll go…” Ledas quickly left the scene with shame on his face and in his voice.
As he was outside the view the Sergeant looked at his new addition to the team. “Is your friend always so unhinged?”
“No, This is the first time I see him like this to be honest. Don’t know what bee bit him.” Olaf has never seen Ledas use such magic before, only occasional small spells to light a fire, or protect from rain on the road, but nothing like this “I guess he is just stressed, it's his first day as a Courtmage”.
“Slap that kid when you see him next time,” Arthur had already regained his composure. “I almost shat myself because of this. Who the hell makes kids courtmages?”
“Sure. I'll berate him.” Olaf was the only person who saw things as they were, a show going wrong from someone who loved to show off.
It was slightly after dawn that Ledas reached the castle his mind now occupied with the stupid show he just performed. He felt unbalanced, the ground itself was hostile when he walked on it. He wanted to lie down like when he was hiding in the room for a week after the incident.
Only the staff and the guards were awake, so he went to the chamberlain's office for the keys to his room. It was empty. He asked a maid in the corridor if she knew where the man was.
“He is in the staff’s kitchen, Magister. It is breakfast time for servants now.” She bowed before Ledas. This treatment felt strange to Ledas, the understanding of his role had not yet formed. Ledas remembered the advice given to him by Sweety:
1. Wake up early.
2. Favors are the local currency.
3. Nobles won’t accept favors for now.
So, he went to the staff kitchen. He navigated through the narrow passageways to the kitchen. When he entered, the people inside were quite cheerful, eating their breakfasts, but as soon as they noticed him the atmosphere rapidly changed into a tense one. No one made a sound. A couple of maids were about to ask the chamberlain something about the intruder, but stopped halfway when they read the room.
“Excuse me, how may I be of service, Magister,” the chamberlain stood up and made a bow.
“Sorry to interrupt your breakfast” Ledas looked around. There was a cook, a few maids, and a couple of guards here, he was out of place, and he wasn't blind to see how some people froze. “Actually, never mind me.” He turned around and closed the door behind himself and cringed from himself. “How the hell am I even supposed to connect with people here if I don’t belong to anyone here?” He whispered to himself as he moved towards the chamberlain’s office, to wait for him there. "It was a mistake to take the offer. Should have declined right away..."