Michael Mathias: The Wizard and the Warlord

Seeing Dostin cry like a babe when they buried Corva near Vaegon’s Glade hadn’t been easy, either. Now Dostin and Alizarin were Hyden’s charges and the only interesting conversations he found were with Claret, or Talon.

Phen was a man grown, and as capable as they come, but he was in the Evermore more often than not, these days. Hyden couldn’t believe the boy had fathered a child with the Queen Mother, and even though a lot had transpired, leaving the elves in a new, weaker situation, he couldn’t believe they were getting along with the kingdom folk.

A great expedition into the Wedjak was looming, but Hyden worried little about it. They would hunt demons on the way. Dieter helped prepare, as did Durge, and a trio of young dwarves strived daily to live up to the drunken legend Oarly had become.

Jicks eventually became known as the Hunter. His enchanted sword, the sparkling blue wyrm he rode, and the ice dragon that did its bidding, took seriously the chore of ridding the world of hellspawn.

Hyden’s body was older, and his mind was expanded so greatly that he was sometimes on the verge of getting lost in his own head. He was also struggling with the fact that all that magic passing through his body had changed him in other ways. It was likely that he wouldn’t age anymore. That bothered him, too, but not because he looked older. He’d lived only twenty-one summers, but looked like he was twice that. He just didn’t like the idea of living longer than a man should.

He found that the long beard, with its few gray hairs, lent to his credibility among the Xwardian wizards and scholars. There was a group of them studying, notating, and cataloguing everything they could find about the side effects of channeling so much raw, arcane power. Several times over the course of recorded history, a wizard had misspelled, or gotten a potion wrong, and ended up bathed in power. The ones who’d survived their mishap lived far beyond their expected time. Hyden had taken in and then released more than a thousand times as much as any three of the wizards they were reading about.

The births of Prince Vaegon and Princess Tamaerra were welcome distractions. Hyden was proud and happy for Mik and Phen, but on the whole he wasn’t feeling anything more than content. Not even planning for the upcoming journey could pull him out of his melancholic mood. He’d been to the Wedjak already and had since learned from Claret that it wasn’t much different than anywhere else men dwell.

There was something missing in his life. He thought about it often, but couldn’t pin down the issue. It itched at his curiosity like one’s nose does when it can’t be scratched because one’s hands are full. No matter how hard he pondered, he couldn’t figure out what it was. Then one day he was going through some of the texts in Dahg Mahn’s private study and everything changed.

He came across a volume titled: “Harthgar — Observations”

After reading only the first page, where he learned that Dahg Mahn had once visited the fabled city and had taken these notes himself, he began to feel a tingle of anticipation. After reading about some of the strange creatures and locals who waited there, he had half a mind to climb on Alizarin’s back and go.

Maybe he did.