Wolf Awert - Ringwall's Doom

Nill began to speak, but he heard his words as a drawn-out howl, incomprehensible to his own ears. He retreated to the symbol of Nothing and made himself light and lighter still. Time sped up again. Nill’s speech formed words, and he heard himself say:

From Nothing, from the one

it forms the two.

At war with itself

the three seems true.

Four, five manifold

in chaos bold

it breaks.

Nothing’s magic then takes

and keeps unseen

what was done.

The elemental symbols began to pulsate and lose color, the gentle wind stopped blowing, time moved forwards and Murmon-Som paled. His fingers dug deeper into the wood of his staff, and his already-crooked body bent lower still. Nill noticed none of this. He blinked, looked around in confusion, and finally arrived back in the present.

“What was that?” he burst out. “I felt time stand still.”

“Time does as it pleases,” the other archmage replied, having regained his composure.

“What happened?” Nill look helplessly at the man opposite him.

Murmon-Som merely shrugged. “I do not know. You spoke, it seemed to me, some sort of summoning. But I did not understand the words you said, nor did I feel their power. I cannot tell whether you were the cause or the subject of magical powers. But there is no doubt that something happened here in the Sanctuary. The smell of magic is fresh upon the air.”

The old man raised his head and sniffed. “Lots of magic, and powerful at that. Which kind, I cannot say.”

The archmage made a gesture of farewell, leaving a confused Nill behind. Nill never really knew what he was dealing with. It always felt as though someone was toying with him. Powerless, young and inexperienced in magic, yet at the same time a feared member of the High Council – it was a contradiction that would have confused those with far more knowledge than him. If Tiriwi had her way, he would have been better off turning his back on Ringwall, but she had seen that this was the only place where he could begin his search for his parents. Even more than Tiriwi he missed Brolok’s simple view of the world; fighting and resting, survival or death, food and drink were all he cared for. “Never try understanding the thoughts of an archmage,” he had always counseled. “They occupy a world others cannot.”

What he would have given to simply shepherd a herd of rams around the hills of Earthland, the sun on his back and the wind in his face! The encounter with Murmon-Som and the sudden standing still of time weighed heavily on his mind.

“People always want what they don’t have,” he sighed. “And what they don’t have seems to change all the time. But what else can you do but run after those things if there’s no place to rest?”

*

The student who had beaten Nill in a fight Ringwall, which was still spoken about, was Sergor-Don, of the lineage of Herfas-San, house of Ombras. As the son and heir to the ruler of the Fire Kingdom he demanded and received the obeisance of all those beneath him in rank as naturally as grass bends in a storm. Only Tiriwi, an Oa who did not recognize the nobles’ right to rule, and who was more than a match for the prince with her own, strange magic, and Nill, the muckling with magical powers yet without ancestry, denied him what Pentamuria’s order commanded. But this alone was not the reason for the intensity of their mutual dislike. Unable to bend the knee, one out of tradition and a sense of royalty, the other out of natural stubbornness, they collided in Ringwall more often than would be usual. It was only a matter of time until dislike became hate, and that hate forced its way to the surface.

On the day of his departure Prince Sergor-Don had challenge Nill, thrown him to the dirt and left no doubts as to who had more power and strength. But the final, fatal spell was never spoken; the mouth that commanded the insatiable flames had remained shut. It was not the fear of the mages of Ringwall that had stopped the prince from burning his opponent to ash. It was the game of cat-and-mouse, the satisfaction that Nill would have to carry the humiliation of his defeat with him until the day he died. To Sergor-Don, it was the just punishment for a common muckling who had dared demand a place with the nobility, all because Ringwall had given him the mercy of a few lessons in magic.

The prince had had little time to savor his triumph, for at that very moment Gulffir, the City of Flames, capital of the Fire Kingdom, was gripped by fear, worry and unease. The old king lay dying, valiantly fighting off the pull into the Other World. He had one duty left to do, the last duty any regent must: to give his son his blessing and a final smile. But above all else, he must witness his councilors and generals swear their oaths to follow and serve the new king. Then, and only then, was it certain that the future would look to the past for guidance, that the common folk obeyed a single will, and the surrounding powerful families accepted their new ruler. The court prayed for the heir to return in time, the sorcerers sent out magical calls and the wild riders on the plains mounted their ritualistic hunt, for the spirits to join those of the prince’s and his followers’ horses and grant them speed on the way home.

The prince heard the calls. Blazemane, his fiery chestnut steed, turned into a beacon of flames in the setting sun. The small stallion’s tough, indefatigable muscles moved in everlasting harmony. The prince had long since left his following behind. He rode at a rising trot, his knees drawn up to the horse’s withers, kneeling more than sitting. Riding like this spared the mount, but demanded everything from the rider.

The powerful hooves beat the dry earth, throwing a plume of dust into the dark blue sky. Fast riders need no herald: dryness and wind presage their arrival. The wind also brought the smells of the plains back to the prince: macchian, rosemiriam, horseweed and the powerful scent of the common bluish-gray thynus flower. After so long in Ringwall, he finally felt the freedom that was his people’s most valuable asset.

Sergor-Don sang against the wind, his long hair whipping against his ears, the tart, bitter taste of dust on his lips. The plainsflowers had never smelled sweeter, and the tears which the wind wrung from his eyes had never been saltier. Saltbringer, they called the wind; as quickly as it conjured tears it dried them again, and none in the prince’s retinue would have guessed that they were not tears of sadness. Sergor did not weep for his father.

These tears will be my last , the prince thought. They are but salted words, spelling the end of my youth and the beginning of a new future. He was surprised that the moment he had so eagerly awaited should be heralded by wistfulness. But wistfulness was fleeting, born only for the moment. Now life would have to pay what it had promised him.

Sergor-Don’s thoughts strayed from the present; his memories took control and brought him to the Tower of Worry and Hope. It was so named because one could see far into the distance from the top and witness before anyone else who returned, and who did not. Some called it Skyseeker. The tower was the tallest building in all of Gulffir. Tall and slender, it towered above the city; it almost seemed to sway in the wind like a blade of grass. Whenever his strict timetable of studies and duties had allowed for it, the young prince had been drawn to the small outlook. Depending on his mood he was either the lone sentinel that warned the land of approaching danger and saved the kingdom, or the all-powerful ruler who watched from above, rewarding the bold and punishing the idle.

Loneliness was the immediate feeling conveyed by Skyseeker’s peak, but one could also understand the strength that could grow from it. Loneliness did not bother Sergor-Don. He had endured it from the early days of his childhood, but never suffered from it. From lonesomeness grew strength, and from strength, power. And you could never have too much power, he knew.