The Last Magician

Published by Paul G Mann at Smashwords.com

Copyright 2018 Paul G Mann

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Acknowledgements

Wirral Writers for the support and critique of the work

Http://www.pixabay.com for the cover artwork

Also by this author, available at Smashwords.com

Newth (The Early Years)

Newth (A Time of Change)

Newth (Inhanth & Hive)

The Magic of Christmas

The Last Magician

Chapter One

Smoke drifted slowly in the soft breeze, rising lazily into the sky and across the valley below him. The ground was blood soaked and littered with the corpses of the thousands who had so bravely fought and died in the morning’s futile carnage. Blackened tree stumps, scorched bushes, burnt and mutilated bodies all lay in grizzled testament to the wizard’s fire that had ravaged the valley only an hour ago. The enemy was in full retreat, chased and harried by the horsemen of his Lord, as they ran in disarrayed panic from the slaughter behind them. No quarter given; enemy soldiers, brave men, unmercifully hacked to death with an axe or sword as they fled by whooping and cheering cavalry; all died with fear and terror in their eyes.

The noise of battle had faded away; replaced by a deathly silence, interrupted only by the cries and moans of the wounded pleading for help and mercy. It was a sombre scene that shamed him and his actions; the field of battle, a quagmire of blood soaked earth, disgraced and dishonoured his calling and his soul. The butchery was at his Lords command, but it was the magic within him that had caused the death and destruction that decorated the valley in all its sickening detail.

Laughter sounded behind him. Thousands lay dead and dying on both sides, and his Lord was laughing. The Lord gave orders and watched with evil amusement enemy soldiers, many gravely wounded and pleading for help and mercy, were coldly ignored. Dispatched unto death, without quarter by dispassionate, merciless troops. Even those who had so honourably surrendered, now tied and bound; immobile, unable to escape or fight back, they screamed in terror as troops unceremoniously hacked them to death. It was sport to them, axe's, swords and crossbow bolts, used to kill without feeling. Life lost meaning as the laughing and cheering troops executed men in horrific ways.

His Lord hadn’t always been this evil; as a child, he showed kindness towards others, asking him to use his magic to better the lives of the people his father had so wisely ruled. The evil had come in adulthood when he had inherited the castle and lands of his father. Power had turned him, corrupting him to the point he cared little for anything or anybody, not even his wife and son who he treated with dispassionate contempt.

His anger grew; thousands lay dead and dying all around him, and his Lord was laughing! He raised his arms wanting to smite every living soul within a thousand leagues. Sanity reclaimed him as a calming spell was hurriedly cast by his young aid; the small voice of his frightened apprentice pleading with him, restraining his anger and actions.

He looked at the youth; no more than sixteen summers in age and saw the fear in his eyes as his master threatened to wreak even more havoc on this war torn valley. He turned and looked at his Lord. In a voice quivering with outraged anger, he shouted over the cheers and terrified screams to his laughing master. ‘Never again shall magic cause this shame. Never again will a magician be beholden to the whims of a mortal being driven by greed and madness. Never again will this world be served by magic. From this day forth magic will cease to exist in this world and people will have to rely on their own wits to live and die.’

He never waited for an answer; he turned on his heel and strode away from the valley with his apprentice following, scurrying behind him. A transportation spell would have been quicker, but he knew his mood was dark. A long walk would calm him better than any spell he or his apprentice could cast. What he planned to do called for a cool calm head. He strode away ignoring the threats and orders to return to his Lords side. An arrow whistled past his ear, he dismissed it, flicking his hand at it, returning it to its owner. A grim smile crossed his face as he heard the commotion behind him as the arrow flew true, returning to the bow that fired it. He never faltered in his stride, not even when his apprentice struggling to keep pace and falling far behind begged him to slow.

Hours later and alone, he entered the Castle Keep and went to his chambers. Outside he paused releasing the wards he had placed over his accommodation to keep the unwary and unsavoury outside his private quarters. Once inside he busied himself gathering his books and artefacts of magic. In the centre of the room he placed his possessions around his feet and raised his arms. He began a slow almost inaudible chant and felt the magical power grow within him. It reached his fingers, and he released it sending it to probe every recess of the Castle and the immediate countryside outside the Castle’s cold stone walls. Satisfied he unleashed every ounce of his strength and sent his essence outwards to encompass the entire world with the commands he laid in a magical embrace.

He sought the magic of the Earth, the Air, and the Sea. In the courtyard below, the ground trembled and shuddered as a huge stone obelisk rose out of the ground to stand proud as if protecting the courtyard. The castle and outbuildings shook, but he cared little about the falling tiles and masonry as they fell from roof tops and walls to shatter on the stone cobbles below.

He had never attempted this before, no one had. It was dangerous; the magical forces he commanded threatened to create chaos. He drew the magical essence of the world into him and through him, into the stone obelisk. It took over an hour but finally satisfied that what magic remained was weak and unworkable. He kept just enough within himself, for one last selfless act that would make sure the atrocities of today would never again be repeated.

In the courtyard, he stood by the stone awaiting the return of his Lord and master. All his possessions had been destroyed, his books, his spells and magical amulets consumed by his powers and transferred into the stone. He knew defying his Lord would anger the old fool, but he was past caring. He cast a spell of transportation and dismissed his apprentice, telling him to forget magic and escape the castle, before the wrath of the Lord was turned on him in a feeble act of revenge for what he was about to do. Only one thing remained, one last act of barbarity needed to guarantee that magic would never again ravage this land. He waited, calm and serene for the first time in years in the belief that the action he was about to take was the right one.

He heard the gallop of the horses long before he saw them come through the gate. The riders dirty and bloodied from the morning’s battle and barbaric slaughter were in high spirits. As they saw him, they pulled their horses to a halt and sat in silence as they surveyed the huge stone now standing in the courtyard. The commanding figure of the wizard, hands spread apart and held high stood in front of the imposing rock. The Lord broke the silence demanding to know from the wizard what was happening. Uproar broke out as the wizard replied in a strong clear voice.

‘I’ve removed the magic from this world my Lord. It abides in this stone behind me and will never again used to cause death and destruction, no matter the cause, be it good or evil.’

‘Enough of this Wizard,’ the Lord growled, ‘go back to your duties and nothing more shall be said about your actions today.’

‘My duties in your service are over my Lord,’ the Wizard replied softly. ‘There is no more magic in the world. I am spent Sire.’

The Lord quickly fitted a bolt and raised his crossbow. ‘I don’t believe you wizard and if I must prove it I shall, by aiming this bolt at your heart.’

‘Do so my Lord, for my death will rid me of the shame I bear; but be warned, the moment you unleash that bolt at my heart will be the death knell for this castle. All the wards and spells that protect this land will cease with my death. Are you brave or stupid enough to let that happen?’

Slowly the Lord raised the crossbow to shoulder height and sighted the Wizards heart. ‘This is pointless wizard,’ he said, ‘I care nothing for your protection spells. My armies will give all the protection I need and if I need the services of another wizard, I will find one.’

‘No my Lord,’ the wizard replied slowly, a faint smile crossing his lips as he spoke. ‘All the magic of this world is gathered into this stone behind me. I am the last wizard this evil place will see.’

‘You try my patience wizard,’ the Lord replied ignoring the warnings he was being given. ‘We all know you will deflect this bolt so why this charade? Come man, return to your duties and I will forgive your insolence towards me without punishment.’ The wizard remained silent, staring at the Lord with piercing eyes. The Lord not wanting to lose face in front of his officers and men whispered, ‘so be it wizard,’ and fired the bolt at its intended target.

Straight and true the bolt flew striking the wizard in the chest. At this close range, the shaft almost went through the wizards’ body, the force of the bolt striking him, throwing him back against the shimmering obelisk. As he died, his essence was consumed by the stone, his mind melded with the forces within it; his body slid down the stone, his blood staining the obelisk and ground where he fell. As the bolt pierced his heart, and the wizard died, the wards and spells over the castle disintegrated. The castle walls carefully protected against time and the elements crumbled; huge stones and bricks lost their cohesion and cascaded to the floor and courtyards crushing outbuildings, soldiers and horses in a terrifying rain of death.

Across the Lords lands, fire erupted from the earth as spells to make crops grow and enrich the soil failed. Buildings shook and collapsed, vast tracts of land swallowed as fissures opened destroying everything they consumed. Death and destruction spread across the lands of the Lord; very little escaped the wizards’ wrath as a once proud and strong land was reduced to dust and ashes by the ravages of failing wards and spells.

As the castle crumbled, flames erupted beneath the monolith. Nature fuelled the magic and thrust the obelisk upwards into the air. Slowly at first but with an ever gathering pace it gracefully soared heavenward. The noise from the flames drowning the terrified screams of the people beneath the ascending megalith and falling masonry. It doubled its speed every few minutes until it broke free of the world and hurtled out of control into the dark expanse of space. The monolith became nothing more than one more piece of rock in a universe of darkness. Magical energies spread from the wizard’s essence, outwards from the stone, into the dark reaches of emptiness, away from the star and the planet that spawned it, searching for a world without magic. A world that would embrace magic and the good it could do, a world where magic would never be used for evil.

He was the last of his kind, but magic cannot die. He sought a world and a race to give the gift of magic to. A race who would use magic for good, and who wouldn’t be corrupted by the power; then and only then would he allow the magic to wash through him and cleanse his soul of the shame and dishonour he had brought on his art and himself. Until then, until the magic found this race in the vast universe spread before him, he would sleep and forget his shame. One day he would atone for his deeds; until then the last of his kind welcomed the oblivion that washed over him.

Chapter Two

He was a creature of darkness, not from choice but from the years of imprisonment he had suffered since he was nothing more than an eight-year-old child. Time and boredom had dulled his memory; days, months and years merged in to each other with the same drab, monotonous certainty that was his life. No one spoke to him, no one answered his pleas; no one cared if he lived or died. His prison was high in the south tower of the castle that much he remembered; that and being led, kicking and screaming up a well-worn stone spiral stairway to the cell that would become his home. He was beaten every step of the way until blackened with bruises, and bleeding from a myriad of small cuts, before unceremoniously thrown into the dark black hole that he now called home.

His only other abiding memory of that time was the nightmare of being forced to watch as his mother was beaten and whipped at the courtyard stocks, before stripped naked, she was violated by soldiers of the conquering army. Both he and his father, bound and forced to witness her ordeal, before his father was hauled to the block and executed in front of him, and his defiled mother. He was dragged away screaming for his mother as his father’s head rolled from the execution block into a gutter. His mother’s screams as she lay naked on the cold stone floor echoed through the castle, loud and full of anguish at the horror of her husbands’ murder; the sounds she made pierced the cold corridors that were once a warm loving home. He could still hear her cries ringing in his head each time he lay down to sleep.

Things had faded with time; he could no longer recall his parent’s faces. The sadistic beatings he had endured in the early years of his imprisonment, driving him to the brink of insanity had erased his earliest memories. All the beatings had long stopped, why he didn’t know or cared, they had and that was enough for him. The dark hell hole he found himself in was the only thought in his head, it was his world, his universe, and he hated it.

His only contact with the outside world was the arrival of his meagre rations twice a day; even then the contact was minimal, with not a word spoken. If he spoke, shouted or screamed at his captors, they ignored him. He could bang and kick his cell door until his knuckles bled and his bare feet became numb. The only reaction to this often screaming fits of temper and anguish was the withdrawal of his food and water. Missing the slop and stale bread was no real hardship, but the last time his captors kept him hungry and without water for four days. By the time they fed him again he was weak and on the verge of collapse; the episode scared him, making him realise that he depended on the creatures that kept him imprisoned, and without food and water he would surely die.

He did not understand how long he had been here. The only light that invaded his cell came from a crack in the brickwork high above his head that did nothing to dispel the darkness. In the beginning, the light was his only means of tracking time. Now it was nothing more than the signal that separated day from night, as his mind fought against the ever growing despair and encroaching madness that the years in dark solitary confinement was slowly, but inevitably dragging him towards.

He had paced his cell not long after being brought here. It was fifteen paces long by ten wide; now his longer legs only paced out ten and a bit long by seven and a bit wide. His only furniture was a hard, long wooden bench that ran the length of the cell. Years of misuse by former occupants and himself had splintered the bench in places. Rot at the foot of the bench where it joined the wall threatened an imminent collapse, and a jagged piece he broke off in a bid at escape, left splinters in his leg if he lay down to sleep. He now slept upright with the thin blanket that did nothing to keep out the cold in the winter months wrapped around him. The blanket was the only means of comfort afforded him.

Twice a day a small hatch at the foot of the door would open. He would slide his drinking bowl and a wooden plate out and wait until they were returned with his rations. The small hatch would stay open until the food and water were in his hands; once there, the opening was slammed shut. He had tried to leave it once, his mind concocting a plan to ignore the food ritual so the guard would be forced to open the door and he would escape. It was a stupid plan borne out of frustrated madness; he had left the food and gripping the long sliver of rotten wood he broke from the bench; he waited for the guards to open the door. It opened as he had thought, and as the guard entered his cell, he lunged pushing the sliver of rotten wood deep in to guards’ stomach. It was as far as he got, the screams of the impaled guard brought three others running to save him. Seeing what was happening, they pulled his victim free and set to beating him senseless; punching and kicking him in a sustained attack that had laid him out for two weeks. He was lucky, either that or the guards were experts at handing out beatings because not a bone was broken or a drop of his blood spilled. Since then he had diligently eaten the unsavoury mess that was his sustenance, vowing never again to plot an escape without first thinking it through with a hope of it succeeding.

He dreamed vivid dreams and nightmares of an axe, falling on his head that would wake him terrified and screaming. Formless monsters would hold him and beat him before the faceless head of his father was thrown at him or held aloft on a spike. He conjured images of his mother in his dreams. Her soothing words and strong arms wrapped around him comforting him before she was dragged from him. Screaming she lay naked on the floor as the monsters beat her and defiled her. He hated sleeping because when he was asleep the monsters ruled, the day of his incarceration was relived over and over again, only going when he woke in a cold sweat, his screams echoing through the cold south tower of Fairbridge castle.

Killing himself was an often thought, a way out of his misery, but the spark of hope burnt strong in him, that and the hatred he felt for everything outside of his cell. His one overpowering thought, the one emotion that kept him sane was his planned revenge, terrible revenge on the ones keeping him here, it was the planning and daydreaming that kept him alive. He refused to give his tormentors the satisfaction they would have at his death. Instead, he preferred to imagine how much his oppressors would suffer at his hands with the help of a knife.

Clean clothing and a thin blanket was thrown into the cell twice a year although he had no concept of the time between these acts of charity. The guards would beat against the cell door; it was the