Wild Mage - Water and Stone: Legacy of the Blade, #2

Wild Mage

Water and Stone

Joseph J. Bailey

Joseph J. Bailey

Contents

Author’s Note

Prologue

Stone in Need of Water

Not Hard-Headed Enough

The Fall and the Aftermath

My Master

Nightmares and Screamscapes

A Rest Disturbed

Grim Acceptance

Wera’dun

A Rock with a Name

Companion

Happenstance

In the Beginning, the Word

A Return

Past the Valley

Elemental Nature

A Rolling Stone Gathers No Dross

Times Past

Fall

Aftermath

What Next?

Guraem

Uërth

Freedom

Studies

On the March

Dust and Debris

Earth Storms and Thunder Quakes

Adventure

Djen’lum

El’amin

A Look Inward

Eyes of the El’Amin

No Choice but to Leave

The Fire That Burns

Luistaer

Cooling

A Trip Deferred

Over the Hill

Vestiges of the Past

A Fading Sun

Leave-Taking

A Nightmare Revisted

Wakening

Departure

A Flock of Stone

On a Prominence

Breakfast

On the Mount

Water Made Stone

What Next?

From Here to Somewhere

Almost Home

On the Trail Again

An Idea

A Return

Observance

A New Day, A New Resolve

Practice Makes Imperfect

Pride Goeth Before the Tangle

A Nightmare Reborn

And Then There Was Another

Over the Mountain and Through the Hell

The Lost Valley

Unexpected Is as Unexpected Does

Surprises Come in Big Packages

Partial Protection

On a Wing and a Slayer

When Wards Collide

A Final Encounter

A Purpose

Partnership

Epilogue

Also by Joseph J. Bailey

Help Spread the Word!

Glossary of Terms

About the Author

Synopsis

Author’s Note

Your time is short. Go long.

Be the Light you wish to see in the world.

- Master Nomba

Prologue

With the fall of the Empyrean Gate and the routing of the Uërthly Host, the legions of Chaos finally believed they had achieved permanent access to the mortal realm.

On the day of Heaven’s defeat, seraphic blades fell from the firmament, Paradise’s tears made solid, each Angel’s Sword marking the death of one of Uërth’s chosen defenders.

The blades were wieldable only by the purest of heart, and there were those on Uërth who still believed humanity’s deliverance would come from above.

But what good ever came from the edge of a sword?

Their path to Uërth clear, the legions of Chaos began their assault upon the realms of Man. Overmatched and outnumbered, humanity was decimated at every turn while the world was despoiled and recast around it.

Despite the crushing defeats meted out and the annihilation of human forces at almost every engagement, the hordes of Chaos were shocked by the resilience and tenacity of Man, the mortals’ stubborn refusal to yield ground and allow demonic ascension.

Though these meager humans’ paltry lives were suspended tenuously between the Empyrean and the Abyssal, very much unlike their righteous heavenly allies, the Lords of Chaos were quite surprised to find that they refused to fight fair.

Or yield.

Stone in Need of Water

Luecaeus needed to find a new living fluid-filled receptacle.

The living fluid-filled receptacles passed far too quickly, their lives burning incandescently, like a volcanic eruption, but stilling just as fast, returning their water to the earth, to his kith and kin.

He had just lost his wera’dun, and the loneliness and desolation in his facets were vast indeed.

The living fluid-filled receptacles were too fragile for such a harsh place. Far too many were quenched.

Soon the land would drown in their blood.

He could not let that happen.

Earth and water lived together in harmony, each shaping and molding the other, each creating the other’s future.

Too many futures had been lost to the devourers of elements, the juel’dara from the planes of Darkness.

The juel’dara’s portal had been sealed by his wera’dun, but there were so many living shadows here now that more could come. 

Another maw into Darkness could be made. 

Uërth would be swallowed.

He must find more rocks to throw into the juel’dara’s gullets so that they would choke, knocking out their teeth so they could no longer bite, and filling their mouths with rubble until they could no longer feed.

He needed a wera’dun to make this possible.

He could not do it alone.

Not Hard-Headed Enough

"Maeraeth!

Run!

A roiling cloud of Darkness erupted from the bare earth, a living rift into the bottomless Abyss, darker than the void between stars. The night sky above disappeared before the demon’s ebon sweep, a living sea of evil intent on engulfing our souls.

I felt the chill emptiness of the demon’s presence from afar, a cold so deep it brought my soul to a shuddering halt.

Master Nomba stood firmly before the Darkness, one small, brave old man reaching his arms out in a futile attempt to halt a raging flood with his bare hands.

"Run!"

Years of training kicked in, breaking the spell of my stupor: countless lessons spent at my master’s side, obeying his every command.

At least this I could do.

I ran.

I sprinted away from my master at full speed, muttering the very spell of warding against extradimensional invaders we had spent so long mastering even as I pumped my knobby arms and my long, bony legs loped down the rocky slope away from my teacher, the man who had given my life purpose.

My spell complete, magical energies gathered, wreathing me in the energies of Creation.

Finished with the incantation, I looked back over my shoulder toward Master Nomba, who was now bathed in incandescent azure flames, while a shower of ivory flower petals looped and whorled around me, a fluttering halo of sweet-scented aromatic bouquet.

Daisies?

White light flashed, so bright I think that I actually saw the explosion through the back of my skull. Then there was no seeing as I was catapulted through the air on a tumultuous wall of roaring sound.

At least a remnant of vision was restored when my head cracked against the earth some indeterminate distance away from my point of launch, and a universe of stars briefly occupied my vision.

When I finally woke up, surprisingly still alive, my protective halo of flowers was still hovering around me.

The Fall and the Aftermath

Though the catastrophe had happened centuries before, Heaven’s Fall was not a distant memory. The loss of Uërth’s Heavenly defenders, her noble champions, was a constant presence, a sad reminder of what had been and a tragic counterpoint to the dangers of the day for any who yet remained on Uërth’s once lustrously shimmering surfaces.

I was, I am, one of the lucky survivors of this holocaust.

Or I am at least the distant descendant of them.

This fact affords me no honor or reassurance.

I am aware of my place in the world.

This place is constant and unwavering.

I am near death.

Always and forever.

At least I am not alone in this predicament.

The entire human race, and many others besides, hangs from the same fragile, weakening thread, our lives and ways of life winding downward, our connection to this world soon to be severed by the grasping, slashing claws of demonic invaders.

The wonders and glories of ages past, the heights of magical ascension and aspiration, once made manifest across the world in the fullness of glory, were largely no more, washed away by the unending tide of demonic advance.

I was among the dross of what was left, the worn, broken driftwood waiting to be shattered by the next set of crashing waves.

I was one of the fortunate ones, the ones who yet lived, the ones doomed to remember and dream about what had been lost, what was but could never be.

I am a survivor, one of the few who may live to see Uërth’s last days.

I should be honored.

But mostly I am miserable.

In this, too, I am not alone.

My Master

When I finally managed to lift my head up and look around, there was no sign of Master Nomba.

Neither was there a top to the mountain we had been standing on just moments before.

The demon must have gone the way of the peak, and my master.

Laying my head back down, for it hurt too much to hold it up any longer, probably because all the missing rocks from the hilltop were now lodged in my skull, I closed my eyes and cried.

So much for my master.

So much for his vision.

So much for me.

I blacked out.

Nightmares and Screamscapes

I stood alone atop a rocky prominence. The gray, clouded sky boiled and frothed above, its motions disturbed by some inner turmoil. Skating above the landscape, the clouds seemed near enough to reach out and touch.

But I dared not extend my arm too far for fear of falling.

No matter how close the clouds appeared.

A hot wind blew fiercely across my face, sucking the moisture from my mouth and nostrils, leaving my lips flaky and parched, my nose burning.

My clothes whipped about me, the cloth too short to become tangled but long enough to be caught by the vicious wind, the fabric cracking with every capricious turn and frenzied adjustment of the currents.

I adjusted my footing, the irregular rocks cutting into the soles of my feet through my boots as I settled atop the wind-hammered stones.

Sere, blasted plains stretched to the horizon, the land as cracked as my unfortunate lips, as dry as my nose.

Nothing living moved within the flat’s extent.

Though the clouds threatened rain, none came.

The foul smell of brimstone filled my nostrils, an unwelcome foreboding of what was to come for demons threatened these lands as much as the few surviving people living on them.

My eyes burned in the acrid wind.

Blinking did little to help.

Somewhat surprisingly, I felt power surging through my veins, the raw substance of magic churning through my body ready to be unleashed.

I knew then this was a dream for I never felt anything move through my veins, much less magic.

And I generally did not surge.

I sputtered.

My eyes locked on the plains, I watched the end of an era unfold, the death of peace and security.

The very air above the hardpan warped and distorted, bulging and stretching in ways my mind could not fully grasp, some internal or external pressure threatening to break through.

With a final tear that made not a sound but that reverberated through my soul, turning my knees to jelly and making my mind grow numb as my heart wrenched in sadness and pain, space ripped apart, opening onto an endless well of Night.

The yawning Abyss that unsealed was so dark that I could see it devouring light, the air itself tortured and deformed into obscene shapes, the illumination twisted and bent as it descended into madness, giving off final gasps of rainbow hues before being swallowed utterly.

Inconceivably, the yawning portal, this ravenous maw, was alive.

It was hungry.

And it wanted to engulf our entire world.

I could feel the gate’s malevolence radiating outward in an overwhelming wall of animosity, one that threatened to push me off the mountaintop with the tangible force of a physical blow, sending me careening down the mountainside to my bloody, dismembered doom—a wet spot to be quickly soaked up by the plains.

The gate’s incomprehensible regard, an intelligence so vast that I could not recognize its awareness, fell upon me like a god’s own anvil cast down from the heavens, burning with fiery heat and force as it collided into me with its precipitous descent, smashing me in place as it dissected me where I stood.

With its attention fixed upon me, I could not move, much less fall.

No matter how much I wanted to.

I was locked in place for countless eternities while the gate’s baleful regard peeled me back layer by layer.

Worse yet, this gate was not empty.

The gulf overflowed with evil, evil that now had a way onto Uërth.

And it was coming through.

Falling to the Uërth in an aphotic tide, seething unchecked across the barren earth, their motions far too fast to track, a wave of Darkness spilled forth from the immense swirling rift in the firmament.

Just trying to watch gave me a headache and made me question fundamental assumptions about the nature of my existence.

The divine seal of the Empyrean Gate had fallen, its magic shattered along with the Heavenly Host.

This travesty was the outcome of Empyrean Gate’s demise.

The spawn of Chaos was unleashed upon the Uërth.

I was all that stood in the way of the demonic horde.

And I could not move.

Or act.

A wall of gibbering madness rushed across the plains toward me—gnarled and crooked arms, scabrous bodies, taloned limbs, thrashing tails, gnashing teeth, blazing eyes, and surging horns—every shape and flavor of nightmare. Trailing the advancing masses above, living clouds of Darkness, great winged horrors whose wingbeats cracked like thunder and shook the heavens, hosts of specters and ethereal entities, swarms of imps and cacodemons, vital shadows, among many other abominations, spilled outward from the great rift, filling the sky itself in an implacable fuming tsunami of horrors vomited from the very heart of the Abyss. Dispersed far too liberally amongst the roiling unholy horde, teeming with fell powers far beyond those of even the fearsome demon lords flying above the massed throngs, greater powers stirred—demon princes, the terrible juel’dathra whose might rivaled that of the angels themselves—strode or flew like titans amongst the common mob, molders and annihilators of hopes and aspirations.

Fell arcana laced the moving tide in unholy magics, curses bespoiled the land and stole its spirit, dark rites empowered the foul horde with all the timbres and textures of terror.

The very cause of Heaven’s Fall marched upon the Uërth.

Toward me.

Finally, I loosened the bonds constraining me.

A bit.

"M-m-master!

C-c-come!

My voice was quavering.

My body was shaking.

I wet myself.

Adrenaline rushed through my veins, calling me to action, urging me to respond.

But I could not get the words out.

My stuttering, long held in check after years of disciplined practice, was out of control.

My words would not reach my teacher in time.

Together, we could make a difference.

Together, we could at least warn the people of Uërth of the terrors that would soon be upon us.

If only I could get