Chapter 25 : The Mage
Chapter 25
The Mage
Toruna Manor
Just as Sir Stan had informed him, Lansius and Audrey spent almost all their time training throughout autumn. Before the season ended, sword masters and horse trainers began coming to Toruna, preparing them for the roles Lord Bengrieve had chosen for them, whether as pawns, retainers, or useful pieces in some larger scheme.
Autumn thinned into frost. The fields were stripped bare, the roads hardened, and the first cold rains gave way to the season’s first snow. Still, their training did not stop. When the yard became too slick with mud or snow, they moved to the hall and the stables. Lansius learned to ride in armor until his legs trembled and his hands cramped around the reins. Audrey drilled with blade and footwork until her palms split, healed, and split again.
Soon, thick snow sealed the lanes beyond the manor, and the cold wind from the western Targe Mountains cut through cloak and leather alike. For months, their world shrank to the training yard, the stables, the practice hall, and the smoky warmth of the hearth.
Yet beyond the manor walls, restless men did not wait for winter to end. Throughout autumn and winter, Lord Arte gathered support among the nobility, strengthening his place at court through bargains, favors, and carefully chosen words. Slowly, the effort to free Arvena began to gain ground.
After the worst of winter had passed, the roads slowly opened again.
Warm winds from the eastern sea finally blew inland, softening the frozen ground and turning the old snow to mud. With them came news: Calub, whom Sir Stan had contracted, had recruited a small warband. When the men reached Toruna in early spring, their arrival stirred the manor.
But that was not the only matter that drew Lansius’s attention. Unexpectedly, his friend the alchemist had enough influence over Sir Stan to persuade the baronet to grant Lansius permission to meet his mage.
A meeting was arranged soon after.
...
Lansius
A spring thunderstorm was howling outside. Inside the manor, the servants began to light the chandelier. The thunderous booms could be felt despite the manor’s sturdy stone construction.
Lansius cleared his throat. He wasn’t in good shape. His face and body were bruised, and both of his palms were bandaged from training. His buttocks remained sore after continuous horse riding, even during winter.
I should’ve carried a flask or something.
He wasn’t thirsty, but his throat felt bad. He wanted to get something warm, but he couldn’t possibly pass up the opportunity to meet the mage.
Sir Stan had just granted his permission after receiving Calub’s recommendation, and Lansius feared the baronet might reconsider his decision. So, he patiently waited just outside the chamber, waiting for a summons.
His thoughts returned to the alchemist. Calub turned out to be more influential than he initially thought. The way the two conversed made it clear that Calub was well-acquainted with Sir Stan and was even trusted enough to vouch for Lansius regarding the mage.
The man was either humble or simply concealing his status as an agent of a powerful noble.
At first, Lansius felt deceived, but he soon understood that secrecy was paramount in their circle. In exchange for such treatment, he gained access to a wealth of knowledge. The old Imperium history book he had read in Riverstead paled in comparison to the volumes the manor possessed.
In one manuscript, Lansius discovered detailed lore about the Ancients, the first beings to roam this planet. They were nearly immortal and, through their guidance, nascent species such as the elves and dwarves reached their peak during the Ancient Era.
During his time off from training, Lansius was currently engrossing himself in reading about early humans. These beings, the Grand Progenitors, were said to have lived even longer than the elves and were depicted much like the demigods from Greek mythology, complete with heroic deeds and epic tales.
However, there was one big caveat. One of the last Great Progenitors still walked the halls of the Imperium. He was known as the Ageless One. The reigning emperor.
While Lansius had heard about this before he read the books and manuscripts in Toruna, the grand figure was shrouded in great mystery. Everybody talked about the Ageless One as if he were a constant, much like the sun or the sky.
Only recently did Lansius understand there was more to the stories than just an immortal being. The emperor turned out to be one of the early humans, a Great Progenitor.
The creaking of the heavy oaken door alerted Lansius. Audrey, decked in her usual gothic attire, stepped out from the chamber. Compared to last autumn, she had recovered some of her muscles.
“How was it?” asked Lansius as Audrey closed the door behind her.
“Ah, nothing. She—the mage is just curious about my eyes.”
“She? The mage is a woman?”
Audrey let out a sigh. “Turns out to be.”
“What about your eyes?” asked Lansius.
“She said she wanted to invite a colleague of hers, a Hunter Guildsman, to give them a check.”
Lansius nodded nervously. He knew something was abnormal about those eyes, but he never thought it was something serious. “Are they magical or something?”
Audrey couldn’t hide a faint smile. “I wish that were the case . . . Now go on, the mage wants to meet you.”
Drawing a deep breath, Lansius was about to enter when Audrey whispered, “She seems trustworthy.”
He paused in front of the door, their eyes met, and he whispered back, “How can you tell?”
“I trust my instinct.”
Nodding, Lansius cautiously opened the door.
“Come in,” came a female voice from inside.
Lansius entered and saw the mage in person. She wasn’t much older than Audrey, wearing servant attire, but was relaxing on a comfortable-looking couch like a pampered lady.
“Please sit.” She pointed at one chair in the corner where the desk was.
“Now that both of you know about me, I don’t need to be in disguise anymore,” she mused, as Lansius approached the chair.
The mage undid her off-white headscarf and pulled out her brown hair, which turned out to be a wig, revealing long, blond hair beneath it.
The sight of her hair shocked Lansius. “Please excuse my curiosity, are you, my lady, a noble-born?”
“Even a dull blond catches the eyes. Eh?” she scoffed. “Hardly, but I get that a lot.” She scratched her head with little regard for Lansius. The casualness of her demeanor emphasized their status disparity. “So, you asked to meet me. Why?”
Lansius had thought about this so many times that his heart almost burst. “I want to learn about magic.”
“Learn about magic? Well, I suppose I could find you a book.”
How easily she agreed didn’t bode well for Lansius. “No, I read a book about the history of magic. That’s not what I seek.”
She paused to glance at Lansius momentarily. “Good, I hate books. The Imperium’s alphabet is driving me nuts.”
She can’t read the common tongue?
Lansius tried again. “I want to learn magic. Can you teach me?”
“Oh, it’s the same as that girl before you,” she said flatly, with a hint of boredom.
“Eh?” He couldn’t believe what he just heard. “Audrey wanted to learn magic too?”
The mage found the reaction to be funny and chuckled. “She didn’t tell you? How quaint. I thought you two are a couple.”
Lansius was rather taken aback. “Well, we still have our secrets.”
The mage smiled judgmentally.
“Um, so can you teach me magic?”
She picked a comb from her pocket and began to comb her hair. “I can’t teach. Magic is a talent anyway. Some have it, most don’t.”
Lansius pushed on. “At least you should test me.”
“Test . . .? Oh that test, so you did your homework. Well, I suppose I could.”
“Great, then what should I do?” asked Lansius excitedly. Despite knowing about the test from the history of magic, the book didn’t say anything about the procedure.
“Cast a fireball or something,” she mused, almost laughing.
“How?” Lansius asked, brimming with anticipation for instruction.
The mage was stunned. Even the dumbest men in Midlandia knew that conjuring a fireball or any element was impossible. “Aren’t you supposed to be smart? Even Calub vouched for you.”
“Err . . . what does a fireball have to do with me being smart?”
“Because it’s impossible!” she responded, a hint of tiredness in her voice.
“Oh, uh, right . . .” Lansius felt dumb.
The mage exhaled deeply in her seat, muttering, “C’est pour ça que je déteste les gens.”
The words sent a tingle through Lansius’s ears, stunning him. They sounded like a foreign language he had once studied, likely in school. He nervously asked, “Parlez-vous . . . français?”
The mage jumped from her seat. Her eyes went wide as she hid herself behind the chair as if fearful of Lansius.
“No way,” Lansius commented with his mouth agape. His suspicion was confirmed.
“What are you?” she challenged, wielding an ivory comb as her weapon.
Lansius rose and answered, “I-I’m from Earth.”
“The fuck, why did you say it like that? You’re an alien or something. Where are you from?” she snapped.
“I can’t remember. I lost most of my memory,” Lansius tried to explain.
Unconvinced, the mage’s eyes darted to Lansius’s hair. “Are you Asian?”
“I don’t know, but I guess so.” He shrugged, uncomfortable under her intense gaze.
She squinted at him, clearly evaluating his appearance. “But you don’t look Asian.”
Lansius replied weakly, “Really, I don’t remember anything. I could be from anywhere.”
As the mage gathered her thoughts, the earlier tension slightly dissipated.
Breaking the silence, Lansius asked, “So, how?”
She lifted a hand. “Quiet, I’ll do the asking.”
“At least tell me your name,” Lansius asked meekly.
She hesitated for a moment. “People call me Hannei.”
“That doesn’t sound French.”
“Fuck you!” the mage retorted passionately and with expertise.
“Okay, calm down,” Lansius said, trying to de-escalate things.
Great, she’s got an even shorter fuse than Audrey!
“Prove to me that you’re . . . from Earth,” the mage responded.
Lansius chuckled. “Like how? As if I could pull a smartphone from my pants.”
“Smart phone . . .? That sounds dumb. Are you fooling me?”
She doesn’t know about smartphones . . .?
Lansius’s eyes widened as he processed the implications. “No way. You got into this world before the year 2000?”
Hannei gasped, her hand flying to her mouth in shock. “You reached the millennium?”
Lansius nodded. “A good two decades,” he revealed, watching her carefully for her reaction.
Hannei shook her head in disbelief. “No way! But I’ve only been here for ten years.”
Lansius frowned, his mind racing as he tried to make sense of their differing timelines. “That doesn’t make any sense . . . unless time here moves slower than on Earth?”
She paused, looking visibly perturbed. “Ugh . . .” she grumbled, the theory not sitting well with her. But after a moment, her curiosity seemed to take over. “Tell me about Earth before the millennium then.”
Lansius sat back in his chair, grateful for the change in subject. He was so happy to have met another Earth-born that he momentarily forgot about magic. “Well, what do you want to know?”
Hannei looked at him intently before asking, “Tell me about Olympia?”
He tried hard but almost found nothing. “The mountain in Greece . . .?”
“What? No, it’s a ship. Try to remember, it’s a big, big action movie,” she clarified.
“I don’t remember . . .” Lansius paused and then something hit him. He slowly asked, “Do you mean Olympia, the sister ship of the Titanic?”
“Titanic, what’s that?” replied Hannei with a furrowed brow.
Lansius was shocked. “Tell me who won World War II?”
“World War? Do you mean the Great War? Are you joking with me?” She shot her strongest gaze at Lansius.
Lansius didn’t even blink. Compared to Audrey’s eyes, any eyes looked cute. “The Great War is the First World War,” he began. “There’s another one, the Allies against the Axis: Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, and Japan, you don’t know any of that?”
Hannei shook her head and asked, “Why are you using that word? It’s Deutsches Kaiserreich.”
Lansius gulped. “You mean, in your year 2000, Germany, is still ruled by a Kaiser?”
“Is it not the case in your world?” replied Hannei nervously, and both drew the same conclusion. Somehow, they were coming from different Earths.
A parallel world? Just unbelievable . . .
Lansius slumped in his seat as he tried to gather his thoughts. Meanwhile, Hannei returned to her seat, looking devastated. However, she found some solace and commented, “Well, at least, we’re still from Earth.”
Lansius nodded. They should have more in common with each other than with the rest of the Midlandians or Arvenians. “Do you watch TV?” he asked.
“Yeah, and also cinemas,” replied Hannei.
“Shampoo?” asked Lansius.
“Oh, how I wish I had it.”
The atmosphere was growing friendlier. Thus, Lansius dared to ask, “So, can you tell me how you learned magic?”
She bit her lip. “No, I can’t. As much as I want to, I just can’t.”
Not giving up so easily, Lansius tried again, “Can’t you test me or something?”
“The test is only to check the potential. Even if you have it, magic isn’t something any mage can teach.”
“Well, no harm in checking—”
“I just told you . . . I’d rather not,” Hannei raised her voice.
Lansius tried his best to persuade her. “Please, I’ve come to this place without anything, not even my memory. At least can you check it?”
Hannei let out a long sigh. Without saying a word, she rose from her couch and walked toward Lansius. “Just stay still,” she instructed, placing her palm over Lansius’s forearm.
She then recited, “Gloire au Père, au Fils et au Saint-Esprit. Comme il était au commencement, maintenant et toujours, pour les siècles des siècles.”
Lansius didn’t recognize the prayer; his French was not that good.
Being close to her, he began to realize that Hannei’s eyes weren’t entirely brown, but a bit golden. The prayer stopped, but all Lansius felt was the warmth of her palm. “So?”
Hannei pulled her hand away, took a step back, and simply shook her head.
Lansius chuckled and used his hands to cover his face. “Oh, I thought I had it, you know. Being summoned to this world and all,” he rambled, embarrassed.
“Don’t sweat it. Magic is rare unless you’re an elf.” Hannei consoled him.
Lansius nodded. “A question. Why do you recite something in French?”
“It’s just something to attune me to my source.”
“Source?” Lansius blurted out.
Hannei drew a deep breath. “Enough. I gave you what you wanted. Now leave.”
“Wait, we still have a lot to talk about.”
“You’re too nosy for your own good,” she retorted, returning to her couch. “While I’m not a member of the Mage Guild, the craft is still a secret. I’ve told you things I shouldn’t have. So zip your lips.”
Then, with more urgency, she added, “If you want to live longer, keep the Earth thing between us. Don’t tell anyone about our origin. Not Sir Stan. Not Lord Bengrieve. Not even your lover.”
***