Spellscribed: Ascension (3 page)

 
                    Endrance’s horse slowed down as they approached the house he had been directing her towards. A small house almost lost in the twists and turns of the streets of the city. He dismounted, and tied off the horse out near the front. He didn't expect to be there long. The landing in front of the door still had chips of stone and dust from the bricks that had been knocked down and removed.

 
                    His ears straining to pick up any sound, he walked up to the door and knocked. There was the sound of footsteps, and a voice called out from beyond the door.

 
                    "Who is it?" A mundane request. The woman's voice sounded tired and weary.

 
                    "It's me, Endrance." the mage said, knowing that the person on the other side would recognize his voice.

 
                    There was the loud scraping sound of something heavy being lifted from the door, and the clack of a lock. The door opened a crack and Endrance pushed it open just enough to slip inside. He closed the door behind him, his eyes trying to adjust to the darkness.

 
                    Only a few inches taller than Endrance, she was both curvaceous and muscular without damaging the air of femininity she wore. Her hair was darker than the blackest night and was incredibly curly, forming natural ringlets and spirals. Her eyes were dark black as well, but had a glint of red in them whenever the light fell just right on her. Her full lips turned upward into a weary smile. The woman had an aura about her that always took Endrance's breath away, even when she wore simple winter clothes like she wore now.

 
                    "Selene." he greeted her with an embrace. They held each other for a few moments, Endrance enjoying both the physical contact and how warm she was compared to the outside air. Even in less layers of cloth, she was far warmer than he was. His warming spell only did so much to ablate the cold.

 
                    "Endrance." She said quietly, as much a tired whisper as he'd heard from her.

 
                    “I had a little time before I had to head up to the castle to sit in on another meeting of the city leaders, so I wanted to stop and see how you both were doing.” He explained.

 
                    She nodded, and stepped back, letting him in.

 
                    "Did I wake you?" he asked. The suns had not yet sunk below the horizon that day.

 
                    Selene shook her head. "No." she responded. "I've just not been sleeping very well."

Endrance shook his head. "I'm sorry." he said.

                     Selene smiled again. "Don't be." she said. "It's my fault for spending all my energy trying to keep Bridget in bed."

 
                    The mage mock frowned. "I bet that's tiresome."

 
                    Selene gave him a wink and turned to lead him back. "You should know too," she said. "you bedded her first."

 
                    Endrance blinked several times in surprise as he followed. "W-what?" he asked.

 
                    Selene rolled her eyes, though he was not at an angle to see it. "I'm only teasing, love." she said. "Besides, regardless of how you did it, you tamed her enough that she'd sleep in the same room. That's as close to bedding her as you can probably manage."

 
                    Endrance sighed. "I know."

 
                    Originally Bridget had hated him on the same principle that many of the people of Balator viewed him: small, weak, and passive. It took some time and a fistfight to prove to her he could be strong when he needed to be, and she had finally warmed to him. Except after what happened a month ago, she had returned to hating him even more than she did before.

 
                    Selene led him up some stairs to the second floor. Most of the furniture here had been left intact, as the owners of the house originally had not taken much with them when they left; which was why they had chosen this house for Bridget to rest in. Though they had cleaned up much of the dust, Endrance's nose tickled despite the cold that numbed it. Selene opened the last door and firelight poured into the hallway.

 
                    She looked back at Endrance and tilted her head at the door. "Go in." she offered, "She should be done with her exercises."

 
                    The room beyond was a simple stone bedroom with heavy Balatoran style wooden furniture. There was a large fireplace in the far back wall in the center and there had likely been two people living in this room as there were two of most of the furniture. One bed was empty, the sheets strewn against the wall and the other was tipped up on its end, the legs of the head of the bed used to keep the bed upright as Bridget used it.

 
                    Bridget pulled herself up on one of the legs of the foot of the bed single handedly, suspended seven feet up in the air. Her muscles trembled from exhaustion and effort. The firelight caused dancing reflections on the beads of sweat on her body as she lowered herself down smoothly and began another pull-up. She was wearing nothing in the warmth of the fire and her back was to him as he entered. Endrance watched the muscles on her back ripple and shift under her skin and he figured that Bridget had almost no body fat at all. She'd bulked up since the last time he’d seen her. Almost every curve of her silhouette was broken by taut skin over muscle.

 
                    Her hair was chestnut brown and wavy enough that she chopped it off at shoulder level. Selene had been keeping care of her for the last month, so it looked better than it had during the first few days after the battle.

 
                    The woman grunted with effort as her chin rose above the leg and she slowly lowered herself, her arm almost convulsing with exhaustion as she pushed herself to do just one more.

 
                    She had to use just one arm for these exercises. A month ago she had lost her right arm when she nearly lost her life in the throne room. Endrance's healing magic had been enough to tend to the slash and broken bones, but the collar bone, shoulder blade, and shoulder socket had been all but destroyed by Kalenden's barbed sword. His magic wasn't strong enough to save her arm.

 
                    The ugly scar and deformation of her missing right shoulder and arm disrupted an otherwise symmetrical form. The flesh that healed over the injured shoulder was a pure white splash on otherwise tan skin, looking almost like a starburst from the right angle.

 
                    Bridget finished her last pull-up and slowly lowered herself down until her arm finally gave out. She dropped onto her feet easily, her breath coming hard as she turned to observe him. She didn't move or take any action to cover herself.

 
                    "What do you want?" Bridget asked harshly.

 
                    Endrance inwardly flinched. "I... just wanted to see you." he finally said.

 
                    Bridget looked down at herself and spread her arm out. "You can't see much more than this." she said.

 
                    Endrance blushed, focusing at looking her in the eyes. "I mean I wanted to check and see how you're doing."

 
                    She scowled at him. "I'm doing better, no thanks to you." she finally walked over to the other bed and plucked up a towel, wiping her body down. "Finally am almost as good with my left hand as I was with my right." she admitted.

 
                    "That's good."

 
                    "Yeah. Beats not being able to take care of myself."

 
                    "It does.  Is... is there anything else I can do?"

 
                    "Yeah." Bridget threw the towel back on the bed and started slipping carefully into some clothes. "You can give me my fucking arm back."

 
                    He had walked right into that one. "I did what I had to." Endrance said defensively. "You're still alive."

 
                    Bridget turned back to him, and though she was profiled by the fireplace he could almost see flames in her eyes. "I am?" she asked venomously. "Did you do what you had to? Anyone else there would have let me die a warrior's death!" her voice had risen to a shout. "And somehow you bring me back into this half-life of a cripple!" She slapped the skin over her missing shoulder, and held it. "At least if I had kept most of the arm I could do something with it, but this is a chunk carved out of my chest! I should have died!"

 
                    "No!" Endrance suddenly shouted out, his voice louder than intended, his eyes full of tears and his heart aching painfully. "No one should have died that day! None of you should have died!"

 
                    Endrance looked away, wiping at his face with his hand. "I… I failed you." he muttered. "I'm... I'll go."

 
                    He left the room, and barely noticed Selene trailing along behind him as he descended the stairs.

 
                    "You haven't failed me." she offered helpfully.

 
                    Endrance sighed. He pulled her into a quick embrace before he turned back to the front door. "Give it time." he said before setting back out. "It's bound to happen eventually."

 
                    Selene clutched her hand to her chest as she watched him climb onto his horse and ride off.

 
                    “Goodbye.” She murmured. She could see his shoulders slumped and his head hanging as he rode along. Her heart twisted to see him dejected and broken like that; he'd been like that every time he had come home.

                     Another hour of riding got him up into the eighth bowl. Navigating the city without Joven's assistance was much more difficult for Endrance than he expected, but he had sent the man on an errand to escort the messenger and his escort to somewhere they could stay. If Joven had been leading, it was likely Endrance could have gotten there in half the time. Given Endrance's lack of talent for navigation, the mage was certain of it.

 
                    The city was built into the side of the largest mountain in the range, Mount Balator. Thousands of years prior, a warlord united a bulk of the tribes in building a safe haven against some long forgotten threat. They found a several mile wide natural bowl of rock and earth at the foot of the mountain and settled there, building a thick and durable wall to close off the parts the natural rock formation had left vulnerable. This bowl was large enough for general settling, but was most effective as farmland, as the soil was rich in minerals and food grew abundantly with the constant trickle of water from the snowcaps. Eventually that generation had quarried most of the second bowl out of the slope of the mountain. Each bowl had been designed to be able to fully lock itself off from the rest of the city if under siege, and was set fifty feet above the ground level of the first. Given the relatively broad slope of the mountain, each bowl was three quarters the diameter of the last while still being relatively level.

 
                    During their excavations, the barbarians had discovered a metal they called black iron, which when refined, formed a black steel that was commensurately heavier and sturdier than normal steel. Working the metal became one of their prized crafts, and one of their only trades with the outside world. The stone they quarried out of the mountain was also cut and dressed nearby and dragged back to the mountain for construction. The stone was a dark gray material, though sometimes veins of black stone could be found.

 
                    Which led to why Endrance was there. He rode up to the gates of the castle and stopped, dismounting. A man in armor took his horse and Endrance instructed the man to stable his mount; the horse would be able to rest the night in those stables. His home wasn't far from here and he could walk once he was done with business.

 
                    An older man with a graying beard and most of the hair on his head gone waited for him in the courtyard. Several other men and women were gathered in a circle near a large fire. It was somewhat relieving to see that even barbarians got cold this high up in the mountain. He had not gotten used to the high altitude for months, and even to this day he still couldn't tolerate the cold very well.

 
                    He at least had magic to help sustain him. A simple modification of his warmth spell allowed him to keep the pocket of warm air inside his clothes instead of all around him, making the inside of his heavy layered winter clothing cozy and comfortable, but his nose and ears still went numb and his eyes stung with frozen tears. The spell took so little power that he could fuel it for days on end before it started draining his reserves.

 
                    The arguments stopped as Endrance approached and the assembled people turned to watch him. Around the fire, the people had formed three clusters, each headed by one of the most influential people of the population.

 
                    The first man who had been waiting for him was Thorald Ivarsson. A veteran of many battles, Thorald was a grandfather and had devoted much of his time in the community since he started slowing down with age. Now a great deal of people lent weight to his words and he had been chosen by them to voice their concerns. Beside him were two of his sons, both strong men with children of their own.

 
                    The second group was led by Balen, general and war-leader of a large portion of Balator's present military. Though there were two other generals, they were out of the city with their armies on defensive maneuvers. Balen was Joven's older and bigger brother, standing at seven feet tall and possessing a great deal of combat experience and skill with a weapon. He was present for the meeting to represent the military's opinions on the matter at hand. The big man still moved almost gingerly, having nearly been killed by his brother Joven during their confrontation with Kalenden. It wasn't his fault that he’d turned against them; Kalenden had charmed him with some sort of spell, forcing him to believe that Endrance and his brother had betrayed him. He had been healed, but still had bouts of dizziness since Joven had cracked him in the head so hard. Endrance had volunteered to look at his head again, but Balen insisted that the bouts were getting better.

 
                    The third group was led by a fiery haired woman named Kalah Varg. One of the few red haired women of Balator, she was feared by many as one of the most dangerous people alive. Endrance had thought it silly that the whole of their people had the superstitious belief that women with red hair had a temper, but Joven insisted that it wasn't a superstition, it was a sign of a very real curse. Given that she had been seen in battle at one point wielding a dead man by the ankle in one hand and a battleaxe in the other, and striking blows that bent steel with her bare hands in a bar brawl, Endrance had to suspend his disbelief until he knew better.

 
                    The three leaders waited for Endrance to come to a stop by the fire. Of all the people around, it seemed that only Thorald noticed that snowflakes melted upon touching his clothes. The three nodded their heads to him silently.

 
                    "So..." Endrance began. "I take it you guys are the final members of the council?"

 
                    "Guys?" Kalah asked, her tone menacing.

 
                    "Uh... people?" Endrance corrected. Kalah squinted at him, but after a moment of scrutiny, rolled her eyes and sighed in displeasure.

 
                    "Okay." Endrance continued. "So I take it you need me to help settle a matter?"

 
                    Thorald nodded, waving his hands at the doors leading into the castle. "We need to discuss what happens here."

 
                    "Here?" Endrance asked.

 
                    "The King was struck from the mountain." Balen supplemented. "We need to close off his home so that no one else moves in and is tainted by his evil."

 
                    "But that prevents us from using the castle at all." Kalah stated plainly. "And that would make this whole bowl useless."

 
                    "We don't believe that it's necessary to block off the castle." Thorald said. "But the other two have different ideas."

 
                    "We need to stick to tradition." Balen insisted. "This whole problem was caused by our king not following the traditions."

 
                    "We need the castle for our new leadership." Kalah added. "We should knock the old castle down and build a new one."

 
                    Endrance looked at Kalah, incredulous. "Knock the thing down?" he looked up at the castle.  "That's going to take a long time."

 
                    Kalah nodded. "But the new castle won't have the taint of the old king."

 
                    Thorald shook his head. "We don't have time to do either of those. The ascension will happen in the spring."

 
                    "Right." Endrance responded. "The ceremony where you all beat the stuffing out of each other to see who gets to rule the throne."

 
                    Thorald nodded, Balen shrugged, and Kalah smiled.

 
                    "Stuffing," Kalah stated. "would be an understatement."

 
                    "Oh, you're competing too?" Endrance said wearily.

 
                    Kalah smiled. "Yes. My sisters will back me."

 
                    Thorald looked surprised. "You have enough of your... kind?"

 
                    "Tradition says you must take at least twelve." Kalah said with a grin. "And no more than twenty four. Otherwise there is no rule saying I cannot compete." she stared at Thorald harshly. "Or has the kingdom gotten so weak that it is afraid to recognize when a woman is proven to be strongest?"

 
                    Endrance watched the exchange with some degree of detachment. He was glad he wasn't going to be part of the ascension ceremony. It sounded like a lot of danger, and he for once was glad he didn't have enough friends; one would have inevitably put his name forward. He raised a hand, trying to get their attention. The conversation between the two had turned into bickering and they'd even managed to drag Balen into the issue. Kalah had started yelling and it seemed like things were about to come to blows. Endrance had to figure out a solution before they ended up murdering each other. As much as he disliked having to interfere, he wanted to see as few people as possible die because of his actions.

 
                    Endrance took a breath, used all of the voice training exercises he had learned and waited for the air in his lungs to warm before shouting. "ENOUGH!" he boomed.  His voice scattered theirs into echoes as he spoke as loud and as deep as he could manage. It was easily sufficient. Silence reigned as the three leaders and their followers stared wide eyed at the smallest one among them.

 
                    "I do not have the time or patience for this degree of bickering!" he exclaimed, his exhaustion adding a bite to his tone of voice.  He continued to speak with enough projection that they knew he would not allow interruption. He might also have been venting because of his encounter with Bridget, but he wasn't going to think about that.  "This kingdom has been broken up enough.  The only people who can lead it back into some semblance of sanity cannot afford to be arguing over this!"

 
                    Endrance walked through the people, actively pushing one of Thorald’s brothers out of the way as he passed.  “This castle is not going to be knocked down, nor will we block it off!” he exclaimed angrily. “Yes, bad things happened in it, but you have hundreds of years of your people’s history engraved in it! If the misdeeds of one man are enough to make you throw away your pride in your history, then you are all weaker than I ever believed.”

 
                    Following behind him, members of the council and their supporters became angry. Only Thorald seemed to agree with him. He walked up the steps to the castle doors. He stopped before going in and turned to look back at them, his own built up frustrations giving him backbone he wouldn’t ordinarily display. "As the Spengur I will remove the taint of evil from this place and there will be no more fighting over it!"

 
                    Kalah looked at him with some measure of respect. "You... can do that?"

 
                    Endrance looked over the group, his eyebrows furrowed. "Yes. I am the Spengur. Do any of you know what I'm actually capable of doing?"

 
                    "No." Balen admitted.

 
                    "Not really." Thorald said, scratching his chin.

 
                    "No." Kalah said. "But I get the feeling I should find out."

 
                    "Fine." Endrance stated. "You do that, ask the Ergnoa if you have to. Until then, I will take care of this."

 
                    Endrance entered the castle doors then and didn't wait for a response. He let them slam shut loudly, the sound satisfying to him on some level. He pulled the drop bar into place, preventing the door from opening from the outside. He paused for several moments, his back to the crossbeam, trying to get his heart under control.

 
                    Too much was piling up on him. It had been different when Kalenden had been around; his threat had made things seem so linear, so simple. It had been easy to decide what was needed to be done next. Now he was bogged down in a dozen small things that came from that linear progression of choices, and he was entirely unsure which things to do first and which to do later.

 
                    He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. It didn’t matter what else he had resting on his shoulders at the moment; he had already walked himself into a corner with the castle, so he had to sort that out first. He figured that the only taint in the castle was the taboo the king had left in the minds of the people, so there really wouldn’t be anything to worry about.

 
                    He figured he’d walk through each room, see if he could detect anything arcane, and if so, deal with it. If it turned out there was nothing, he’d just cast a few flashy spells where the people waiting outside could see, and say it was all cleaned out. That way they would be happy, he would be done, and Balator could move on.

 
                    The first room had hallways that led to either side of the throne room.  At one point it had been manned with over a dozen armed men and women who would be able to flood the chamber to flank intruders from both sides. Now, the doors were abandoned and the double doors into the throne room hung open on their hinges.