Chương 14: Vander's Hints

The Dean rushed into their command tent, out of breath, "Elvera, another wraith on the western road." Elvera suddenly didn't seem so frail and old anymore as she leaped out of her chair and rushed outside. She spread her arms out wide as that made it easier for the Dean's air magic to steer her correctly as it picked her up and pulled her along with compressed wind. The Dean blasted across the huge encampment and then over the stone wall surrounding it, finally setting Elvera down gently on the road.

They had flown through the air so fast that the guards on the wall didn't duck until they were already past them. They only relaxed after they saw who it was. They were becoming used to the Dean flying in and out. The wraith looked like a condensed blue cloud of gas in a vaguely humanoid form. It was currently pulling trees out by the roots and throwing them into the forest. The trees were almost as thick around as the wraith itself. Somehow it seemed to casually pluck them out of the ground.

The roots tearing out of the ground, bringing piles of dirt with them. The Dean and Elvera just watched it for a few minutes, no longer in a rush now that they had it in their sights. Often they could just wait until it dissipated and that would be that. The wraiths were unpredictable and it might suddenly get bored of pulling up trees and decide to attack the camp. Or, just as likely, start cutting individual blades of grass in half. So they watched.

The behavior of wraiths might have seemed random, but it was always destructive in some way. The mage's job was to try and draw it away if it started to damage something important. While they waited and watched it closely, Elvera stretched her limbs, all of them making cracking noises, "that's the third one this week." The Dean nodded, they both knew the reason there were so many wraiths, they just couldn't talk about it. Indirect comments like Elvera had just made were about the extent of what they could manage.

He was about to say something when the wraith suddenly turned and rushed at them. Elvera responded in the span of a blink, blasting the wraith with enough lightning to take out a whole regiment. All it did was stun the wraith for a moment though. Which gave the Dean a chance to get them both airborne and get them some distance. He opted to fly directly away from the encampment. There weren't any towns for a hundred miles in the direction he was going. So, no real risk to anyone.

The wraith shook off the stun, grabbed one of nearby trees and then hurled it into the air. Trying to knock them down. They both just gracefully dodged out of the way. Though technically Dean was dodging for both of them, since Elvera had no way to control her movements in the air. The Dean lowered them closer to the ground and kept them moving. He had to maintain enough distance to dodge any sudden attacks, but make sure they didn't lose the wraith.

They were notorious for just losing interest in something if they couldn't see it anymore, or couldn't find a way to reach it. They kept leading the wraith further away from the camp, Elvera occasionally having to blast it with lightning again to get its attention. Or just to stop it getting too close when it lunged ahead by stunning it momentarily. After an hour of delaying it, the blue fog just collapsed and it was gone.

They both dropped to the ground and relaxed on the soft grass, being airborne for that long was a bit hard on the body. The Dean wasn't much younger than Elvera. And she walked with a cane these days. The Dean chose his words carefully and said, "if only we could convince the Chief Mage to come down here and deal with these himself." Elvera snorted, "it's nice to daydream sometimes. But I think I'll wish for something a little more realistic, like an endless brandy bottle."

The Dean laughed, but the sound wasn't an entirely pleasant one.

"Oh?," said Sal, looking at Chadwick who had just taken a deep breath, "it seems the lad has returned." The Chief Mage perked up and came closer. He flinched slightly when Chadwick's eyes snapped open, staring directly at him. Chadwick took another shuddering breath and the various packages that were balanced under his arms started falling away.

"So weak. And I can barely see," he muttered to himself. Then he looked lovingly down at the black book still open in his hands and shut it with a snap, "thank you friend," he said to the book itself, stroking the name on the cover. Sal and the Chief Mage relaxed a bit, after seeing the boy talk to the book. They had both been getting a little worried about the slightly extended duration the boy had been out. They had seen many students return, talking to the book itself happened in about half the cases.

Though many were swearing expletives instead of thanks, not all the mages who had agreed to store memories for future students were pleasant teachers. Still, seeing him respond like that made it seem a little more normal.

"Congratulations. Mage Chadwick," said the Chief Mage. The boy's stare shot back to him and he gave the Chief Mage a disconcerting look, tilting his dead slightly. The Chief Mage decided to ignore this, granting the boy a little slack since many forgot that they had only been standing there a moment, after some vigorous training in the books. It could take a moment to adjust, so he just plowed on as normal.

"So, lad. How was that?" Asked the Chief Mage. Chadwick just shrugged and looked around the room, he gave Sal a nod and then continued his scan. Shaking his head, seemingly to clear some mental fog. The Chief Mage was hoping the boy would immediately start rambling, most of the students did and it was his only way to find out how long he had been in there. Since he wanted to know Chadwick's current magical weight.

And, while he couldn't put him on the slider to test him again until the six months had elapsed, by comparing the initial weight to his most recent one, and factoring in how much time he had just been in the book, he could make a pretty educated guess.

"Did you enjoy yourself?," asked the chief mage, again a vague enough question to not violate the rules of the memory books. Chadwick looked down at the piles of food that had fallen from his arms, "turns out that wasn't enough. Should've brought more." While the kitchen had loaded him down with things that he had theoretically eaten while he was in the book, they were still here. He only took the memory of them with him.

The Chief Mage raised his eyebrows, he knew that was probably close to three months of food, if the boy had really been there that long then he really needed to know just how long. Was it four months? Five? Since the growth of magical weight was exponential, a month could drastically change the calculation for someone who already had as high of a weight as this boy. He went for another attempt to get the boy talking on his own, "oh?"

Chadwick just nodded and then stretched out his arms, seemingly transfixed by seeing his muscles flexing. Not that there was much to show on such a skinny lad. The Chief Mage was about to try one last attempt when the boy finally continued speaking.

"I'll need to re-do a few things I learned but that didn't follow me out of the book, some enchantment work and so forth. Will I still have to attend any classes? Teach any?" asked Chadwick. Sal was looking slightly miserable off to one side, just staring at the floor. Shuffling his feet. The Chief Mage shot a warning glare at Sal, then said to Chadwick, "no rush yet lad. Keep in mind that for us, you just went into the book. And we are very curious."

Chadwick tilted his head again slightly as he stared at the Chief Mage, "I gather you can't ask me anything too direct about my experience in the book?" The Chief Mage gritted his teeth and just decided to go for honesty, if the lad already knew that then he might as well appeal to his better nature, "that is correct, nature of the books. But we did notice you were gone on our end for longer than usual. While, I can't ask directly how long you were in there.

If you were to say, hold up some random number of fingers?" Chadwick started at him for a moment, then shrugged and held up eight fingers. The Chief Mage looked a little shocked for a moment and paused to do some mental arithmetic before saying, "eight months lad?! Well, I apologize we did not provision you correctly for your journey. But this does mean we need to speed along some plans." Sal looked horrified and, now out of sight of the Chief Mage, mouthed, 'sorry,' to Chadwick.

Chadwick wasn't sure what was happening, but his instincts from far too many battles were telling him something wasn't right. So, he decided to not to correct the Chief Mage that his fingers hadn't related to months, but years. He was hoping that satisfying the Chief Mage's curiosity would get him out of here faster. He was ready to return to Elvera's office so he could change his eyes, rebuild the spatial magic bag and start the slow process of changing his muscles back to what he was used to.

He supposed he also still had to deal with delivering messages around the tower too, though that felt like a distant memory. He felt horribly weak and half-blind after losing all the finely tuned adjustments he had made to his body. Which is probably why he completely failed to stop the Chief Mage when he reached out with a bone ornament covered in runes and tapped it to the similar, but smaller, one on Chadwick's necklace.

It took Chadwick a moment to recognize the bone ornament, it was exactly like the one Mage Sloan had shown him when they first arrived to the tower. The symbol that showed he had earned the title of Mage. The Chief Mage's hand came back empty, the larger bone ornament had fused to his original necklace, "congratulations on earning your title Mage Chadwick, the youngest in our history I believe," said the Chief Mage. Chadwick suddenly found himself under the strongest mental assault he had ever faced.

Even stronger than the screaming sirens that Vander had summoned for him. The Chief Mage gave a smug smile, "now I have several things I need from you. First, I need you to obey all directions I give you. Second, never talk about the necklaces. Third, obey all royalty and those of at least an officer rank in the royal army. Fourth, respond to all my orders you understand by saying, 'yes, Chief Mage', then immediately complying.

The last for right now, is that for the next three days you will prepare what you need for the warfront. Be ready to leave on the carriage going at dawn on the fourth day." Chadwick was staring, stunned. The compulsion to follow these directions was overwhelming. When he got to the last order, he found himself saying, "yes, Chief Mage." And then heading up to his office to pack.

The Chief Mage was standing in the library after Chadwick had marched out, still wearing the two packs he had taken into the book with him. The packages of food were left lying forgotten on the floor. He spotted Sal who was staring morosely at the floor, "smile Sal, you get out of going. At least for a while." Sal immediately started smiling and said, "yes, Chief Mage." But, while a smile was now plastered on his face, his eyes still looked exactly as sad as they had a moment earlier.

Chadwick fought against the mental compulsion the whole way upstairs. But, the more he tried, the more the enchantment on the necklace ramped up the pressure. Once he was going along with the command, it eased off again. He had wanted to go up to Elvera's office anyway. And that's where he would prepare what he needed for a war zone. Since the things he would do to prepare for a fight already lined up with what he was planning to do anyway, he decided to just go with the compulsion for now.

He could try and fight it once he was out of the tower. But, for now, he needed his eyes back. Chadwick was able to relax somewhat when he got to Evlera's office, it seemed like the compulsion just wanted to make sure he did what he needed to so that he was ready to leave in three days. He wouldn't have to literally prepare for three days straight without stopping, even if there was nothing left to prepare. This story originates from a different website.

Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. His mind was racing as he tried to work out what this was all about. He did spare a moment to admire the handiwork of the enchant. It must have some very clever intention control to allow it to not accidentally force someone to take a command literally when that wasn't needed. Though he suspected if he was given a command like "punch that child", he wouldn't be able to stop himself if the Chief Mage really did want exactly that.

Chadwick realized he was still holding Vander's memory book in his hands, he placed it carefully in the middle of his desk. He was pretty sure he wasn't supposed to keep the book. But the Chief Mage had presumably forgotten. And Chadwick certainly wasn't going to remind him. He pondered for a moment. What would Vander do in this situation? Then he realized he knew the answer. Vander made him read dozens of books on the exact type of enchanting that would allow controlling others.

He had even suggested mental resistance training. Even the books Elvera asked him to read related to this. Though he wasn't entirely clear on the royal family lineage bit yet and why that might fit in. Vander obviously knew Chadwick would run into this situation. For some reason he wasn't able to say anything directly about it. Chadwick pondered this for a moment and decided to later carefully catalogue all the knowledge Vander had passed along to him that might relate to this and come up with a way to solve it.

It would have to wait until he was on the long carriage ride to the warfront. Since he really did want to prepare right now. Even without the necklace's influence. After he had taken off the two packs and he was wearing and stretched a bit, getting a feel for just how much weaker and slower he was now, he headed down to the kitchen. It had been almost eight years since he changed his own eyes and he wanted a practice run first.

The walk down to the kitchen was disconcerting, he had spent far less of his life in this tower than he had in the book. His body moved almost automatically to go the right way. Everything just seemed unfamiliar. Like he was in someone else's house in the dark and had forgotten how walking was meant to be done. His return to a child's muscles was disconcerting. The stewardess that ran the kitchens greeted him with her usual motherly smile and fished out a cookie from the nearby jar.

Her smile faltered slightly when Chadwick ignored the cookie. He remembered that he had never once failed to accept an offered cookie from her, years ago when he had been here. Which was only yesterday for the lovely old woman. Chadwick was leery of everyone after what just happened with the Chief Mage and he was in no hurry to be eating anything prepared by someone else. Though, the smell of the cookie was almost overwhelming. His diet had not had anything but meat, fish and wild plants in it for a long time.

She slowly put the cookie away, waiting for him to change his mind. Looking hurt at the almost blank expression Chadwick had. But then she suddenly froze, "ah, we just prepared a batch of travel foods. And almost every student comes straight here craving something, after whatever mysterious journey it is that they take in a single afternoon. That for some reason never needs the foods we pack. Many just want a hot meal, some want pastries. So, what will it be student Chadwick? Or, should I say Mage Chadwick?"

Chadwick nodded at the last and then said, "eyes. Any animal will do."

"Eyes!? Good lord boy, what happened to you?," she said, coming closer to look him up and down for any injuries.

"It's Mage now. Not 'boy'. Whatever eyes you have will do fine, though the fresher they are the better," said Chadwick. The whole time he had been in the kitchen, he just looked… blank. No emotion present. His training with the suicide squids had taught him to be able to completely squash emotions when needed. The squids would take your worst emotions and amplify them if so much of a hint of them existed. The result being that you felt so horrible you wanted to kill yourself.

The only solution was not feeling any emotion, so the squid had nothing to latch onto. He was feeling the need for a clear head now. The stewardess looked slightly horrified, but she nodded, "yes Mage. I got some fish heads this morning for soup. Will they work?" Chadwick allowed a small smile onto his face, fish eyes had a place in his heart now, "that will do fine. I will wait while you get them. One head with both eyes should be fine." The stewardess shook her head sadly but ducked back into her ice room.

She came back out with the head of some large fish Chadwick didn't recognize, "will this do?" Chadwick nodded, took the fish and turned to leave. The stewardess continued speaking though.

"Far be it from me to question the ways of mages and why they would make a boy experience whatever is you experienced. I'll just say that I'll be here for many years to come and you will always be just a young boy to me, even if you start teaching classes or grow up into some powerful Mage. So, anytime you need something, come see me. Even if it's for fish heads instead of cookies," she said sadly.

Chadwick paused for a moment, he didn't feel like trusting anyone at the moment, but the sweet old lady seemed like a very unlikely villain in his story. Before he left, he said, "I appreciate everything you have done. And I would appreciate it if you packaged up some fresh cookies for me to take with me three days from now. To remind me of better times when I leave."

"Leave? But no brand new Mage is given permissions to leave the tower. Only the most experienced do the rounds of the villages. The only other thing happening is the convoy to the war…," she said, suddenly realizing the truth all by herself.

"But that's insane, a war is no place for a boy!" Chadwick just smiled grimly, "I really do hope you prepare some cookies for me for the trip." Then took his fish head and left the kitchen, returning to his office. He found Sal waiting outside his office when he got back upstairs. The man looked morose. Chadwick immediately understood why.

"You make those… things," Chadwick found himself unable to say the word 'necklaces'. The result of the compulsion slamming into his mind when he tried. He paused for a moment while it subsided. Then continued, "don't you?" Sal gave a depressed slow nod, "I'm sorry lad, I would have said something. If I could." Chadwick nodded, he felt no blame for the man after experiencing the necklaces effect himself. He decided he wanted to know what he could say though, "what can you tell me?"

He asked and directed Sal into his office. They sat down in some chairs and Sal seemed to struggle with knowing what to say. Chadwick reached under the desk to where he knew Elvera had forgotten one of her hidden bottles of brandy, "I'm starting to see why she kept so much of this around. I imagine it makes things a little easier. Not really to my taste. I understand all the same."

He handed the bottle and a single cup over to Sal, who nodded gratefully and then took a long drink directly from the bottle before filling his glass.

"I can give you a history lesson. You will have to piece together the rest yourself," said Sal. Chadwick nodded his acceptance and told him, "I intend to work on something while you talk," said Chadwick, indicating the fish head he had just unwrapped from the paper the stewardess had wrapped it in, "I am listening." Sal gave the fish head a curious look, took another long gulp of his brandy and began, "almost a thousand years ago. The tower was full to overflowing with mages.

We had so many, that even with hundreds of mages returning to their homes and just as many exploring foreign lands, we couldn't fit them all. The king we had at that time saw this as an opportunity for expansion. He had a large army and the largest collection of mages this world has likely ever seen. He decided we would claim the Siyene lands for ourselves. The tower was loyal to the king, so they gathered up every mage they could and helped him strike the first attacks.

We claimed a large portion of the Siyene lands and with only fairly minimal casualties amongst the mages. The king sent the mages home and told them he would need to consolidate his hold on the new lands before he would need them again. His soldiers remained to hold the new lands and tax the people living there." Chadwick nodded along at certain points, his focus was very much on the fish in front of him. Sal paused in curiosity for a moment as he saw the fish's eye was changing to a gold color.

He decided to ask afterwards what Chadwick was doing. He continued, "we killed a few Siyene shamans. Mostly the minor ones that lived among the tribes we had conquered. They managed a few nasty curses, not much else. Something they seem to have a specialty for regardless of what other affinity they possess. Very few put up much of a fight. What we didn't realize was that the shamans living among those villages were the ones that had failed from their own school of magic.

They had something like our tower, where the shamans went to train. Their retaliation was swift and brutal." Chadwick nodded approvingly at this last point. Sal continued, "the shamans swept through the soldiers the king had left with ease. They only stopped once they reached the border. We thought perhaps they would just reclaim their lands. That killing our soldiers would be enough of a message. Instead, they had decided to prevent us from attacking in such a way ever again. They cursed us."

Chadwick looked up and paused what he was doing, "what do you mean 'us'? The whole kingdom?"

"May as well have been, they cursed our lands. To cause the wraiths to appear whenever we had too much magical power. Because of the number of mages we had at the time, the kingdom was almost torn apart. Wraiths were appearing constantly in every village across the kingdom. Wreaking havoc and causing food supplies to dry up. The king recalled the mages to try and stop the wraiths, since soldiers couldn't even touch them. Many mages tried and most of them died in the process.

Ironically, the wraith appearances started to slow down as more mages died. It took many years and several famines before the Chief Mage at the time realized what the curse did. As a temporary solution, all the strongest mages left the country. So long as they weren't on our soil, wraiths stopped appearing. It became a tradition in the tower that the teachers would have to carefully pass their knowledge along to the next generation of mages to make sure nothing was lost.

As they couldn't stay once they became too strong. A single strong mage wasn't enough to affect the balance, as the curse seemed to be based on the combined strength of the mages present in the kingdom at any one time. Even the dedicated teachers were forced to leave to protect the kingdom, before they could fully pass on their knowledge. So, a dream mage came up with the memory books."

Chadwick seemed interested, but still had his attention on the fish head that he had now flipped over and was staring at the other eye. Sal continued, "somewhere along the way we lost the knowledge of how to create new memory books. Nevertheless, enough different types of mages had created books that we did fine. We simply re-used the books we had. For a long time this system held, until a completely new generation of mages came through that had never experienced a wraith.

They refused to leave when they became stronger. Wraiths started to appear and the mages tried to find a way to stop them, or break the curse. Something the first mages had never managed in their time. Eventually the king had to intervene and ordered the Chief Mage to come up with a way to force those mages who became too strong to leave. You can guess what the solution was." Chadwick grimaced and nodded, even thinking about saying something about the necklace caused a spike in the compulsion.

"I'm not sure when this part occurred, but someone decided that mages who wouldn't leave, would get assigned to fight the Siyene on the border. By crossing over the border, the curse would no longer apply. The Siyene's knew this though and created enormous fortified structures at the border and are actively trying to prevent us just camping a big group of mages inside their lands.

Often, the Chief Mage of the time would have to pass his mantle along and leave our lands himself, sometimes volunteering for the war front to try and help get our mages a foothold in Siyene lands. Since every mage gets stronger with time, and the Chief Mage is usually the strongest to start with, most Chief Mages would need to leave when they got into their forties, though it depended on how many other mages we had in the country at the time. The king himself was given a way to… overrule the Chief Mage.

If there was a failure of compliance. But it is ultimately up to the Chief Mage how he goes about lowering the magical weight to be within acceptable limits. As long as the Chief Mage took care of it, the crown stays out of it," continued Sal. Chadwick paused whatever he was doing with the fish head for the first time, and said slowly, "so, if most Chief Mages historically had to leave in their 40's, and power grows exponentially…"

"Exactly. The combined magical weight of everyone in the tower right now…," said Sal. And then Chadwick finished the thought, "is still too high even with it being almost empty in here." Neither of them said it, but they both realized what it meant. The Chief Mage was ancient. By him staying, he was having to send every other remotely powerful mage away. Elvera herself was old enough that she probably should have left a long time ago.

She only stayed because she had been vital to the tower's messaging system and maintaining their library by getting new copies of books scribed. Until Chadwick took over her job. By learning her job, he had literally condemned her to go to war. All so the Chief Mage could stay here in comfort. Learning that fact made the Dean attempting to hide Chadwick's magical weight suddenly make a lot more sense. A lot of things clicked into place for Chadwick. He couldn't say most of them out loud because of the necklace.

Nevertheless, he was starting to get the picture. He looked sadly at Sal for a moment, "I take it that means, eventually, you will be joining me at the border?" Sal nodded morosely, "as soon as I train up someone who can handle a 25-point conditional to replace me." Chadwick suddenly remembered something had been excited to tell Sal when he first managed it, years ago in memory book timespan, "I finished the bag by the way, though obviously I will have to re-do it now that I have returned from the book."

Sal shot to his feet, "but, that means you can do a 30-point conditional… you could replace me!? I was conflicted before, but I can't send you to a war zone when I should be going in your place. I'll go tell the Chief Mage right now." Chadwick shook his head, "you will do no such thing. If I stay, he will put me back on the slider test as soon as my six months is up. And then we will both end up going." Sal looked confused, "but, he would only do that if your magical weight was too high.

And mine is likely the second highest in the tower now, behind the Chief Mage. You can't possibly have too much if you were only in there for eight months." Chadwick laughed, "you and the Chief Mage both made a wrong assumption there. That wasn't months." He felt comfortable enough knowing that Sal was in the same boat as him – and was willing to go and sacrifice himself to let Chadwick avoid the war – to tell him the truth, "it was years."

Sal dropped back into his chair and then drained the rest of his brandy, "I'm so sorry lad." Chadwick shrugged, "I wanted to catch up with the others that went anyway. I'll need you here once I figure out a way around this… thing. Make sure you get assigned to take over the message stones so I can contact you without anyone else seeing." Sal grimaced, "I've tried boy, part of the…," he broke off, unable to say what he wanted, "it prevents attempts. Let's say that." Chadwick shrugged, "we'll see.

Hold here a moment because I want to examine… it. Ugh that is unpleasant. Once I get my eyes back." Sal was about to ask what he meant, but Chadwick just held up a hand and then froze for about a minute. Sal watched curiously to see what Chadwick was doing, then looked alarmed when one of Chadwicks eyes turned a stark gold color. Chadwick breathed a sigh of relief, "that's better, let me just finish the other one."

Another 30 seconds went by, Sal was carefully watching Chadwick's other eye, or he might not have noticed that it became a far more sparkly blue than it had been before.

"What on earth have you done with your eyes, lad? That seems extremely dangerous," asked Sal.

"It is, but the result is worth it. Show it to me and hold still for a moment," said Chadwick. Sal knew he was talking about the necklace, even if he couldn't come out and say it directly. He fished it out from under his shirt and sat while Chadwick stared.

"Huh, seems tricky to mess with. Some of the alarms would kill," said Chadwick after about a minute. Sal raised an eyebrow, "that took me months to discover. And I'm the one that has to make the new ones. How on earth can you tell from just looking at it?"

"As I said," said Chadwick, pointing to his gold eye, "the results are worth it."