Champion's Call

Chapter 17

Alain paced in front of the fireplace in his chambers, absent-mindedly twiddling a pen between his fingers. Every so often his eyes darted to the box that sat on the nearby table and the letters and books strewn around it. At this point, it felt like the eyes of the lion-dragon-beast on the lid were following him, taunting him for his continued failure.

He heaved a sigh, flopping down in one of the plush armchairs. If I keep pacing like this, I'll wear a hole straight through the floor. Not that he would have minded falling through the floor into oblivion, at this point. It sounded much less painful than trying yet again to decipher the letters his father left him.

For the past week, every moment that he had outside of his official duties had been devoted to trying to translate the letters. From what he could tell, they weren't written in any known language, nor were they written using any kind of code that had been written about at any point. If it were something like a book cipher, there was no hint as to which book or books held the key.

He rubbed his temples, closing his aching eyes. Between trying to translate the letters and completing the reading on High Magic that Cierre had assigned to him, his eyes were sorely overworked. The lack of sleep didn't help anything either.

The readings, at least, had been enlightening. Alain was the first to admit that he had very little knowledge of the ins and outs of High Magic before now, and hadn't had any interest in learning more than just the basics. Learning that he was the descendant of a long line of Dark Mages - well, that had made the subject much more interesting. He still wasn't fully aware of what Cierre and Fain intended for him to do, other than the vague idea that it had something to do with dark magic. Their short-term plan, however, was more clear to him - Cierre had laid out a course of instruction for him on the fundamentals of Light Magic, assuring him that the principles very much translated to the complementary practice. So far, he had read books on the use of runes, the proper formation of an arcane circle, and a particularly dense tome on the variations of Light entities.

Some of what he learned had been rather eye-opening, to say the least. He had always vaguely understood that there were different levels of power or ability among Light Mages, but hadn't really understood why. If he had been pressed for an answer as to why before now, he probably would have guessed that it had something to do with innate talent or perhaps the amount of practice a particular mage had. The truth was far more nuanced - though there wasn't a clear explanation as to the how or why, the general conclusion seemed to be that certain individuals were more appealing to Light entities than others were. So the weakest Light mages, for instance, could summon an entity and leverage its powers temporarily, but the entity would not be inclined to stick around and would bugger off as soon as it was able. More powerful - or appealing, perhaps - Light mages would be able to summon an entity and form a sort of partnership with it, though usually only the most minor and feeble of Light entities would deign to that sort of match. And the bond between entity and mage was weak at best; the texts held several cautionary tales about mages whose entities abandoned them at the most ironic moments possible for reasons only the Light knew. The truly powerful mages, which Alain assumed must include Cierre, had a bond of an entirely different sort. In their case, the bond between mage and entity was so strong that the two were practically considered fused. This meant that the Human mage would be able to leverage their partner entity's powers freely, with minimal ritual - and that the entity wouldn't just up and disappear at an inconvenient time.

The one constant for all levels of skill, however, was that magic bore a high cost. There was much speculation on the hows, whys, and whats of this exchange, but the texts made it exceedingly clear - the chances of living to a ripe old age with your sanity intact were absolutely infinitesimal.

Alain had a sinking feeling that if Light magic bore such a high cost, Dark magic was likely much worse. Clearly, his father had paid that price.

He sat up in the chair, running his hand through the hair on the back of his neck. His father had been practicing Dark magic - perhaps that was the key. He picked up one of the letters, the one that looked like it was most likely meant to be the first read. The markings on the page did bear some resemblance to the runes that Light mages used, though not so much that the similarity would be noticed on first glance. He frowned, picking up the text on runes and flipping through its pages until he found what he was looking for. It was a spell - a well-known one at that; one that prevented any but the intended recipient from reading the document it was placed on. If he hadn't been so focused on translating the letters to conventional language, he would have figured this out long ago.

He was too tired to be properly mortified by the oversight. He promised that he would take the time to properly brow-beat himself after he got some sleep.

Thankfully, the text was also fairly clear on how to break the spell if you were the intended recipient. Stumbling over his own feet in his exhaustion, Alain rushed to his desk, shuffling through the disorganized heaps of papers and various sundries until he found his letter opener. He went over and picked up the letters, placing them in a neat stack on the table. Taking a deep breath, he braced himself, then jabbed the sharp tip of the opener into his finger until he saw a dark dot of blood rise to the surface. His stomach flipped - there was no turning back from this moment. He had no doubt that whatever he was about to read would change his world forever. With trepidation, he held his finger over the stack of papers, squeezing until three crimson drops fell onto the pages in rapid succession.

In a blink, the markings on the pages changed - now clearly forming words, written in his father's familiar handwriting. Row after row of tiny words, marching precisely one after the other, cascading down the page. His breath caught in his throat as he read the first line.

Son, I have done things that can never be forgiven. Consider this both a confession and a warning.