Chapter 21
Sani stood dumbstruck for a minute, not sure what to say. She tried to think of the appropriate way to introduce herself to the leader of her order, to the man she had thought a myth. Instead what came out was “You’re serious, this is Kraevos? How can you be sure?” As the words left her mouth she regretted them.
Kreavos waved his hand in front of his face and it changed to that of a young woman with red hair and pale skin. “Is this enough to convince you?” He replied in a new voice befitting of his face. He waved his hand in front of his face and it was replaced by his actual visage.
Sani just continued to stare for a few seconds before responding. “Well… I mean… probably…” she mumbled before taking a seat at the table as she tried to collect herself and stop sounding like a dunce. “Sorry, it’s just that, wow I honestly didn’t think you were actually real. I mean not that you were fake, but more that you were dead. I mean you’re Kraevos, the mage of legends who helped to tame magic. You’re hundreds of years old, you can’t really blame me for thinking you were dead.”
“No, I certainly cannot, after all, I have tried to make it clear to people that I am dead, for some reason people have mythicized the idea of me and that is why I am still known. There are only supposed to be but a few that know I still walk Surren,” Kraevos said with some frustration in his voice. Then a smile crossed his lips, "Though I know what it really is, you’re just stunned at how good I look for my age, aren’t you?” Kraevos started chuckling and Vella followed suit.
“I mean you don’t even look as old as Aren,” she said pointing at her gruff companion.
“Hey, I think I’m quite striking thank you,” Aren replied. At that, Sani burst into laughter with the others as Aren muttered unsavory things under his breath. “This is the company I keep, I’d be better off with the bloody queen.”
After the laughter subsided Kraevos continued, “All humor aside Miss I can assure you that I am indeed Kraevos Verdane, founder of the mage’s academy and the biggest fool on this land of Surren.”
“What do you mean by that?” Sani asked.
“Exactly as I said, I am a fool made to be a genius. I am the cause of the whole mess that is Surren at this point and that is why I know how to fix it,” Kraevos replied.
Vella rolled her eyes as Kraevos finished his thought. “Ignore him guys. He tried to get going about that with me earlier too. I got him to agree to help us and that’s what matters.”
“Agreed might not be the word I would use Miss Vella. Perhaps coerced, badgered, or strong-armed might be better choices.” Both Sani and Aren were confused by the back-and-forth that Vella and Kraevos were having. It had only been this morning that they had split and yet Vella and Kraevos were engaging as though they had known each other for a long time. Kraevos certainly appeared to be the man that they had been looking for, the magical powers fit, but the temperament and the tone were far different from what they were expecting.
Aren leaned in close to Sani and whispered, “Is it me, or is this guy a little nutty?” Sani nodded, not quite sure what else to think.
“Alright, well if the two of you would stop arguing about semantics I’d like to get down to business,” Sani said cutting them off and trying to redirect the focus. “We all know the stories of what you did, but those are myths, I feel like there’s details missing. How exactly do you think you’re to blame for this? There has to be a good reason and honestly, the way you’re talking about all of this makes me a little hesitant to trust you without more information.
The grin fell from Kraevos's face as he began to speak. “Well as you know I was involved in the taming of magic here on Surren, but you are right that the myth does not contain the true details. That is a storybook version far from the truth. I didn’t tame magic with my knowledge and gift it to the people as the story goes. Things are far more literal than the story appears. I made the pieces that allowed us to tame magic. I made the throne rooms and the stones that help to focus and contain the wild magic.”
“But I thought that the stones had been around from the beginning of time,” Vella blurted. She immediately felt childish for saying such a foolish thing.
“Yes and no actually, it is more that they have existed as far as any can remember. Which as far as time goes actually isn’t a very long time. There are very few who still exist and remember, myself included.” With a heavy sigh, Kraevos continued as his tone dropped. “I suppose if you’re going to help me fix this you do need to have a better understanding of what is going on and that will help to understand the problem that we have all run into. Make yourselves comfortable and please do listen carefully, you may think you understand my story, but I can assure you that many a detail has been twisted by silver tongues.” With a snap of his fingers, Thick cushions puffed up from each chair and they widened greatly. Vella sprawled in her chair like a cat as the chair was now far more comfortable than her bed back on the farm. Kraevos swirled his hands above his head and colors began to ripple and form as he spoke. The colors shifted to picture book-like images as he began. “Long before even I walked this earth magic was truly wild, far more so than one could envision today. It had no focus, no control, it was untamed in a way most unhealthy. Chaos ruled the land and humanity was scattered and weak. Any humans that existed were in constant danger and could scarcely call any place safe. Dragons recklessly roamed the skies as supreme predators, they dwarfed the beats we know now. Magical creatures stomped the land, crushing whole hills and caves in a single footprint, why the very mountains themselves moved with a will of their own.” The images followed Kraevos's story magnificently, in a whimsical way showing the wanton destruction Kraevos described.
“Slowly some humans began to gain the slightest understanding and control over magic. It was incredibly crude and inefficient, but it was a mighty step forward. They used it as a blunt instrument, a tool to protect themselves and stay fed, nothing like the many-faceted means of magic we have now. It was simply a tool for survival. Nonetheless, this was the beginning of magic as we have come to understand it. I was born to a small group who had this understanding, but I was unique, I was far more attuned to the magic than any they had seen before. My bond was visibly strong in a way they did not understand. My people feared me more than anything, thinking I was a trick of the wild magic, and that I was not truly human. So ignorantly I did what any person would do in such a circumstance, I went to prove them wrong. I was no deception, I saw myself as the next step for humanity, the first who could truly harness magic, the one who could teach others to do so. A truly arrogant and naïve line of thinking to be sure, but the one I stuck to. I set out with the goal of helping to control the chaos that surrounded us with the ultimate goal of making something that could balance the scales for the material world against the magical one.”
“I was a young man probably only in my twenties when I started to make significant progress. I had set out to travel the land gathering what knowledge I could about magic and how it differed from place to place. I had begun creating a book containing all of this information and it took me two decades before I felt the least bit like I had started to form a base for the control of magic. By the time I had fallen in love and had a daughter. Sadly my wife died while my daughter was young, crushed by one of those blasted moving mountains, so it was just the two of us through much of this journey. This only steeled my resolve further, though it did blind me to the more pressing issues around me. I learned about all the components of wild magic and so did my daughter, if anything she was the far greater scholar as she grew up more naturally in the world of magic than I had. Where I had been shunned for my kinship to it, I had made sure to raise her as the gift that she was. She was my light and the only salvation I had in many a dark time. Eventually, around the time my Precia was in her late twenties, we had classified the five Major types of magic clearly and brought them into focus for our research. We had determined them to be the magic of the blood of life, the magic of form, the magic of the mind, the magic of the soul, and the magic of the elements. A rather broad approach, but if you look at it correctly every type of magic can be classified into one of these five categories. Through much labor, we were able to discover that we could refine and distill the essence of this magic. We could craft it and use it to create. We determined how to make the earliest wards and runes from this practice and eventually determined how to use it to craft weapons and armor, though that one took a great deal of help from a truly exceptional smith we discovered. Finally and most importantly we discovered that if enough magical power was concentrated it could create a sort of seal across similar magic. This meant that we could limit the amount of wild magic running rampant at all times and create a world with more considerable balance. We stumbled into this discovery on the cliffs of what we now call Horath.”
“So that has to be why the mage’s academy is there isn’t it?” It never did make much sense to me to have that place so far out of the way,” Sani mused.
“That is correct, though please be patient miss, that is far longer down the yarn I am weaving,” Kraevos replied. Sani sunk into her seat like a child scolded as he continued. “In Horath I discovered a stone that was lodged into the very crust of the land, one that truly seemed to influence that which was around it. So naturally I decided I had to study it. It became my singular focus, even my daughter could barely get me to come up for air. This stone led me down into the earth, for really it was just the highest point of a large vein of this strange material. It glowed and hummed with magic constantly, but unlike anything I had ever seen. It shifted from one color to the next, it pulsed and changed and I could feel the very magic within it flow from one type to the next. I tried to use magic to remove a piece and instead, it glowed with the energy of all five types at once. This was a sort of power I could not yet fathom and yet, it had formed naturally, it was not placed there by magical beasts or made by man, it had grown from the very earth. It was the most pure essence of energy I had ever seen. I still do not fully understand the process that formed this material, but I have done what I can to protect and preserve it. It had an amazing calming influence over what was around it, the wild magic of the earth stood still near it. So I began to experiment. It took me most of a year to figure out how to remove part of the stone with the magical energy still intact, but I did it. After many sleepless nights pontificating I finally determined that the rock was able to calm the wild magic because it drained it. Not enough to fully take the magic from something, but enough to balance the energy within it. My research continued to show that if we could force this drain to occur we could manage to control the magic to a manageable amount that would balance the scales between humans and magic.”
“So what happens if the stones were broken?” Vella asked.
“Getting ahead in the story, my you are a curious bunch,” Kraevos replied. “We had to devise a way to remove the stone while keeping the energy in it. Our first success was sheer dumb luck, so we needed a repeatable method. Once we found that out we began to slowly remove pieces of the stone and use them to determine the range, effectiveness, and result. Unfortunately, as our success and ambitions grew so did our problems. We reached a point where we were stretched too thin, we needed more to help us handle the burden. We had to find people who had an equally strong affinity for magic because they would be the only ones who could handle these stones and harness their energy as we did. At the same time, we knew that we needed to spread this as far as we could to create the largest safe area from the wild magic possible. We had to spread this to the corners of our land. If we could do that we could essentially create a net over ourselves that would encase the land in the protective aura the stones made.”
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“So by the corners of our land you mean the kingdoms, don’t you?” Vella interrupted.
“Indeed I do miss, this is in fact how the kingdoms first formed, but that part is mostly lost from the story that is told” Kraevos smiled enjoying the focus of his eager audience. “The kingdoms were formed not by provenance or divine right as they would have you believe, it was by necessity based on where I found people with a strong enough bond to magic. I had to choose locations that would help us spread the protective aura, ones that were strong enough with the wild magic that they needed to be contained and I needed people at those places that were strong enough to do so. The stones that we placed there so many years ago still stand, though you would not recognize them as such. They have been twisted by the designs of man to be grand idols of worship to one thing or another.” Kraevos’ happy grin turned serious as he continued. “Each of these places had a central stone, the largest pieces we could manage set in place, each one was set to balance the type of magical energy that ran most rampant there. This split between the five predominant magical types to have one area cover each. I found people bristling with the magical energy of that type and helped them to control it and place the stone so that we could all benefit. At least for a short while it seemed like this would work. The people who I chose were happy to oblige and help out. Unfortunately, my ambition blinded me to many parts of the situation, including the very nature and character of the people who we chose to help harness the stones. It was not long after that these individuals chosen used the power of these stones for their own means, after all, more of the magical energy flowed through them and they could control the magic to a greater degree. The base of human emotions and needs reared its head and greed overtook several of them. They formed the kingdoms to claim more and more for themselves. These individuals have been sitting atop these stones for hundreds of years now siphoning power for their own gain as they posture against one another.”
“Whoa, whoa,” Sani interjected, “you don’t mean literally sitting atop, do you? Do you mean the thrones themselves?”
“I do, it is indeed the thrones that are these stones I helped to place so many years ago,” Kraevos replied.
“Well then, seems pretty direct to me,” Aren grumbled. “We go to Sacrotia, bust up the throne and that’s that. No throne, no power, and then Emeria is no threat.”
“Magic is not so simple my brutish friend,” Kraevos said. “if destroying the thrones was enough don’t you think I would have done that long ago? The thrones must remain, for if they are fully destroyed it would break the tense balance we have with magic. That would allow wild magic to shift back into control and run amok across all of Surren. The amount of energy that would release would cause a magical maelstrom and the damage at that point would be irreversible. I would not be able to bind the wild magic again.” Kraevos placed his hand on the table and the map hummed back up, though it was covered in small purple glows. “Do you see each of those? Each one is a focal point for wild magic, these are all kept in check by the energy that is put out by the thrones. If any one of the thrones were to fall then the binding would break and all of these points would erupt with magical energy.” Vella looked over the map, as far as she could tell every major city and town was a magical focal point, there was even a glow near her farm.
“There is however a way to alter things, though it is not simple.” Kraevos waved his hand and the map disappeared. “At the origin point, the spot where I first found and researched the stone, there we could do something that could change this. If we went there we could perform a ritual of sorts that I believe could allow us to balance the scales, to help us fix the current problem with Emeria.”
“Perfect,” Sani replied, “overly vague and cryptic, but it’s already pretty apparent that is how you go about things. So what would the ritual involve? Something that can alter magic that potent must be pretty impressive.”
“Honestly, at this moment it would make little sense to any of you even if I did explain it. All I can really say is that I am the only one who can do it. There is not another mage across the land who would understand how or what to do. Though the problem is I am currently lacking several things that I need to be able to complete such a ritual.” Kraevos snapped his fingers and the map arose from the table again. On the map this time were three glowing silver beacons. One was in Aroster, seemingly where they were standing, one was in the port city of Lazzure and the last was in Horath. “I have one of the required items with me, so that is taken care of, but I must venture to Lazzure to find the second. The final is in Horath at the mage’s academy and that is where we must end the journey.”
A look of unease crossed Aren’s face, “I suppose there’s no other way but to go to Lazzure an’ Horath?”
“There is not my friend, these are special items, not something I can simply recreate," Kraevos answered. “Why, is there some reason we cannot go?”
“No, no,” Aren replied glumly, “Just don’t like the water is all, never have.”
“Then we should be off I suppose,” Kraevos said happily.
“Hold up,” Vella said stopping him. “The story isn’t done yet. You told us about the thrones, but I want to know about the people. You did say that the people who took the thrones were the problems didn’t you?”
“Yes, sadly I did,” Kraevos replied. “Well as you already surmised, the individuals who helped me with the stones were indeed the first kings, queens, and rulers of the kingdoms. Initially, this was by design as we needed to show strength based on our magical balance. It was their job to guide these forming kingdoms and then pass power over to someone chosen by the people, as it should be. Instead, not one of them could resist the temptation. There was one who I do believe would have resisted it, but it is my own folly that caused him to falter, Graclose the Lord of Chirock. He was a brilliant young man, an inspiring leader, and a kind heart. He was ambitious and wanted what was best for his people and in some way, I believe he still does. Graclsoe was the kind of naturally charismatic leader that anyone would fall for,” Kraevo's voice trailed off for a moment. “He had a way with the magic of form that I could never match and so he was the first of the stones that I bound. In my ignorance, I bound him fully to the stone, much more so than I meant to. My lack of control has led to him paying a terrible price. He has lived almost as long as I have now, cursed to an unchanging form, and undying body that is as stubborn as the earth itself.”
“What do you mean he paid the price?” Vella asked.
“Actually, I can answer that one Vella,” Sani replied. “Like you probably already know magic is a give and take, but it’s a lot more literal than people think. In order to gain power you have to give something up, sometimes this is time studying, and other times it is energy, but in the greatest circumstances, magic takes something more tangible or important from you. This only happens from the kind of exchange where someone is taking the power of the kind of magnitude Kraevos is talking about, it’s not like I would have to exchange something so severe for controlling a plant.”
“Well put Miss Greenbraid,” Kraevos said. “In order to gain control over the very magic of form, the magic of the earth Graclose became it. Though he may appear human his body is that of the earth now and has been for hundreds of years. He lives to this day because he is not human like us, he does not age or hunger as humans do. He is made of dirt, stone, and the earthly elements. He veils himself in magic so that he still appears like any normal person, but beneath it is earth animate.”
Like many things Vella had learned recently this was shocking, yet it didn’t stop her curiosity. “Then what prices did the others pay? They must have given up something equally important right?”
“The price has changed over time and has been more severe for some than it has been for others. Those who took less of the power offered paid less of a price. They were able to maintain some semblance of themselves. Those who took great amounts of power on the other hand became warped versions of themselves. They gave up something immense, something important in order to gain the power they sought. Those blind with ambition always pay a high price. The Sacrotatians for instance have always paid a high price. From the start, their queen was an overly ambitious woman who hungered for power insatiably. The first of their line was not unlike Emeria in that regard.” Kraevos waved his hand and the image of a woman appeared in front of him. She was tall and proud-looking, with a disdainful sneer on her face. “She was one of the most brilliant women I have ever met, but she was never content. I should have recognized that ambition in her would outweigh all else, but I did not. She lived for her people but in a prideful and self-centered way. She saw the success of her people as a direct reflection of herself and so once she had the chance to gain power she took all she could and worked her people to the bone. She fed off of their life, their very energy, the ambition inside her turning into a literal hunger that drove her mad. It is much the same for Emeria. She carries within her the magic of blood, of life itself, but it has been so twisted that she hungers for life rather than helps it. To her, a battlefield is but a magnificent feast that can quiet her voracious appetites for a brief while.”
Vella tried to imagine what Kraevos was saying, but it simply made her skin crawl. She moved on, trying to clear the images out of her head, “So what about Draeton, what price have the rulers like Dracyr paid?”
“Ahh yes, the price of wisdom. I must confess that the wise have also been the stingiest with their secrets. As far as I know, none have paid the price in full for wisdom. They have had greater restraint over their hunger for power and have been content to take merely a portion of what they could have.” Kraevos frowned, “They also were the first to shut me out, so I have had the smallest amount of information from them. Once they gained power they sought most to protect it rather than to expand. The sort of idea that drives one to create a fortress city such as Presidia. They did not want to share their knowledge with me and feared that I might already know more than they did. I have known Dracyr only from afar as I was shut out of that kingdom long before she was born. On the other hand the people of the Merenseo, the great forest, I know them quite well. They by and large have stayed true to the designs of how the thrones were supposed to operate. Their chief, the man who bears the title of the Moren, has been honorable since the first one of them took the title. In fact I have actually been to the ceremony to hand that title from each generation to the next. Every generation has one who bears that title, they take the power that goes with it too. Yet, they have only ever used a small amount of it and I would say they have never abused it because of the respect that they have for magic. Though they are the smallest of the kingdoms in number they are the most tightly knit and focused on their people. They hold the balance over the power of the spirit and as such they have a strong bond to nature and to each other as they understand the connection between us all.”
“Alright, so that’s four of the five, what exactly do the people of Lazzure have then?” Sani asked as Aren let out a rather noticeable sigh.
“They have control over the seas, that of one of the mightiest of the elements. They have sway over the tides, the swirls of the ocean itself, the ebb and flow of the water. They have always been very self-absorbed and greedy people.” Aren mumbled something unintelligible, but Vella thought it likely very unsavory under his breath before Kraevos continued. “Their focus has always been on the material. They joined the cause initially, but after the sealing, they kept to themselves outside of their trading. They neither care about helping nor hurting anyone unless it can generate some coin. The price they have paid has always been the same as their leaders have always been the same kind of singularly driven man. The High Arbiter as his title goes pays the price of his element. As he is the very pull and push of the water, he cannot leave it for long at all. His body would wither and die quickly were he to leave close proximity to the seas. This is why they are not only a coastal kingdom, but their very palace sits on the water on a manmade peninsula. The High Arbiter is always a most despicable man with avarice his only true feeling. He is as untrustworthy as one can be.”
Before Kraevos could continue Aren grumbled and interrupted, “That’s fine an all, but can’t we tell stories on the road? It’s about time we get moving.” Something had put Aren in an especially foul mood, though neither Vella nor Sani were quite sure why.
“Actually, I do think there’s one last thing before we get going,” Vella replied. “What exactly are we going to Lazzure to get? I mean you just said the High Arbiter is awful and untrustworthy, what could we be hoping to get there?”
“We will be retrieving an item that is needed to complete the ritual. I alone shall handle it and bear its burden. The less the three of you are intertwined with it the better.” Kraevos stood up and Vella could feel the pressure in the room rise. Whatever they were seeking, it clearly had left some rather unhappy memories with Kraevos. “I think it is best that we be on our way,” he said as he began to walk to the door. Sani and Vella exchanged confused looks, but neither felt like breaching the uncomfortable silence as they headed out to begin the next step of their journey.