Wizard Test - Chapter I
A young apprentice seeking power steps away from the mundane into the dangerous unknown.
“Why me, Durand?" The young man said. "It's not that I don't appreciate the opportunity, of course, but is there not someone more qualified for this task...perhaps an actual member of the Academy? A mage of some skill?" The question was made poignant by the fact that he was holding a shovel and standing ankle-deep in a sea of manure. Were he a formal apprentice the request might have made some sense. But a self-taught stable boy? What was the Circle thinking?
Durand stood outside the stable door. He was a round man of medium height, a stark contrast to the tall, lean - almost gaunt- frame of the other. "I have been authorized to make this proposition to you, Umre. None other. Retrieve the grimoire of the wizard, Teldrin of Geth, and bring it to the Academy. Upon its receipt, you shall be rewarded with admittance to the Academy of the Northern Gate."
Durand watched Tarsysk with narrow eyes, making the younger man wonder if the portly messenger could sense his legs trembling. "I'm certain the Circle wouldn't commission you if they didn't believe you were up to the job," Durand continued. "Or, perhaps they've just decided this is the best way to get rid of an insufferable nuisance." Tarsysk swallowed hard, nearly surprising himself.
He’d watched new student after new student be admitted. The children of wealthy families. His hanging about hoping to gain entry probably tarnished the Academy’s image. Why not send the unwanted wretch on a quest to get himself killed? And if he did the impossible and returned with Teldrin’s musty old tome then they’d have the grimoire. It was a win-win for the Academy and a high-risk gamble for Tarsysk Umre.
Durand looked over Tarsysk's work with obvious disdain. "Then again, you could go on shoveling horse shit for the rest of you life." He let the words hang in the fetid air a moment before pulling a scroll from a pouch at his belt and offering it to Tarsysk. "Here are the particulars, everything you need to know."
Once Tarsysk took the scroll, Durand turned and walked away from the stables. An odd thought that Tarsysk couldn't get away from fell off his tongue.
"I'm not the first person the Gate has approached about this. Am I?" He called out to Durand barely ten yards away.
Durand turned and gave the stable boy an inscrutable look. "In two days, a coach will leave the post and travel south to Autumn's Inn. From there, you'll be able to find a ride to Kyla's Forge. As an afterthought he added, “Luck and Harn’s blessings be with you." With that half-hearted benediction, he turned again and strode away.
That night, Tarsysk climbed the make-shift ladder to his perch above the horse pens. Every step was agony from his legs, up his back and into his arms. His reward for another twelve hour day in the stables. It was cold and drafty, much as it was every night. At the top, he stopped to stare at his disheveled bed roll and the dozens of loose papers and old scrolls laying among a few small piles of hay. Night after night for nearly two years he'd toiled, hoping to grab the Academy's attention with his knowledge of the arcane. But his studies were limited to bits of history, rote memorization, and the few tips he could pilfer from the discarded scrolls he'd found in the back of the Gate's public library. He gave out a short sigh and began quietly chanting words of power, hoping this night he’d finally harness his first burst of real magic. Much like the evening cold, though, failure was a constant companion. After nearly half an hour of repeating cryptic phrases and arcane gestures, Tarsysk slumped back against the stable wall, spent.
Every few months he'd call on the Academy, attempting to catch someone's - anyone's - eye with a short display of his knowledge. No one ever cared to notice. It was this fact that made Durand's proposal seem dubious. Whatever the masters hoped to gain from the wizard's grimoire, they must also be looking to test him. He crawled onto his straw-filled bedroll and wondered if he was the least bit ready.
The cave was long dead. The miners from the once vibrant town of Kyla’s Forge saw to that years ago. The silver ore that glittered at the slightest illumination no longer lined its walls. Only deep gouges in the stone told any tale of the cave’s past. Its pathways were cold and dry, not growing like many of the caverns sprinkled along the southern edge of the Azure Wastes. For the most part it was nothing more than a large, empty hole in the ground. The cave was indeed dead, and that fact suited Tarsysk just fine.
He stood at the cave’s mouth, a warm humming anticipation moving from his stomach to his tense limbs. He closed his eyes and wondered silently why he was there. He was no thrill-seeking adventurer, let alone, a seasoned warrior. His paltry skill with the long, lean dagger that hung at his side beneath his dark crimson cloak would be of little use in a real fight. The salves and powders he brought with him were nothing more than a few curatives and pyrotechnic distractions in case of trouble. He did carry one incantation he’d learned from an old sage outside the Northern Gate. A quick evocation in which the magic was said to ebb and flow with the wielder's will. The sage told tales of great mages blasting armies off hilltops and destroying entire villages with the spell. Tarsysk, though practiced, had never produced as much as a gust of wind or a simple flash of light with the art. None of that mattered. He knew, in any real confrontation, he had little choice but to run. But Tarsysk was tired of running. He took a long breath and stepped forward, out of the light and into the cold black.
He squinted in the torchlight at the tattered map he had purchased from the old miner at the tiny bazaar in Kyla’s Forge. Ten silver talons was a heavy price to pay for a map of a supposedly dead mine...usually. There was nothing usual, however, about this endeavor. Teldrin of Geth, sometimes referred to as ‘the Mad Mage’, had taken up residence not long after the miners left. He found the cave a perfect place to continue his mystical experiments away from prying eyes and the bonds of any moral or ethical restraint. Teldrin’s work was tolerated by the Northern Gate, perhaps because none of the Gate's wizards seemed interested in confronting him directly. But the sorcerers there continued to monitor his activities. Not long ago, their connection with him was severed. No incantations could divine his whereabouts, nor had he sent for supplies from ‘the Forge’.. Within weeks of his disappearance, the rumors began to fly around the Academy. One story suggested the old conjurer traveled too far north into the White Hills and met his untimely doom at the hands of a tribe of Irog. Being a formidable mage, Teldrin destroyed half the ice-ogre tribe before he was overcome by a well-placed boulder to the head. But to the young aspirant, that tale seemed far-fetched. Why would a mage of such renown and skill just wander into the wilderness to get himself killed?
Allegedly, Teldrin’s lost tome of magic still lay somewhere within the cavern’s walls and Tarsysk Umre, would-be apprentice to the Northern Gate, was tasked with finding it. The tome was to be payment to his teachers for continuing his heretofore meager education in the arcane; an education he had, to this point, engineered entirely on his own. This assumed, of course, that someone else hadn’t already obtained the book.
He moved slowly along the mine‘s main path careful not to stumble over old beams and tracks left by the miners, and never taking more than a few steps at a time. He constantly stopped to examine the walls and floor of the tunnel. Despite the torchlight he was having trouble detecting anything more than a few feet ahead. As the tunnel continued to twist and turn, he instinctively reached for the dagger under his cloak. Even if the cave’s former resident had set no wards or traps to protect his home, there was still a chance that something else might have found this gouge in the earth and made its lair within. Tarsysk knew what to expect from paranoid wizards, for he was well on his way. Ravenous creatures prowling in the dark were another matter entirely. His heart began to race.
To read Wizard Test - Chapter II, click HERE.
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