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  Spells of the Curtain: Battle Mage

  Copyright © 2018 Tim Niederriter

  http://mentalcellarpublications.com

  https://dwellerofthedeep.wordpress.com/

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written consent of the author. Unauthorized duplication in any media is a violation of international copyright laws and will be prosecuted.

  Published by Mental Cellar Publications

  This is a work of fiction People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to actual people, places, and events is purely coincidental.

  Also by Tim Niederriter

  Spells of the Curtain Series

  Court Mage

  Battle Mage (August 7th!)

  Winter Mage (August 14th)

  Garden Mage (September 1st)

  Traveler Mage (September 19th)

  Fire Mage (October 7th)

  Protector Mage (October 25th)

  …and more to come!

  Tenlyres Series

  Ilsa and Blue

  The Gray Lector

  The Lyre War

  The Root Conspiracy Series

  Memory Lost

  Mind Chase

  Image Storm

  Cell Cycle (August 21st)

  …and more to come!

  Other Books

  Rem’s Dream

  Find out more at http://mentalcellarpublications.com

  This series is for the friends who made it possible.

  And also for Zig Zag Claybourne, a fellow author who encouraged me to dust off this tale.

  Thank you all.

  Summer in the imperial city progressed in a mixed haze of pain and joy for Edmath. He spent what days he could with Chelka when he wasn’t re-acclimating to his role in the Saale Emperor’s court and she wasn’t working for the War Empress on the far side of the palace.

  His wounds from the duel healed over the course of the next two weeks but his broken hand remained in a sling all the way until the year’s first convention of the Council of Kings. The dignitaries of government convened in Diar, arriving in the sixth week of summer from all over the empire. In all, there were over twenty major members of the council, each with his or her own collection of advisers, servants, and guards.

  The first day of the council, Chelka and Edmath went together to the house of a healer Saale he had decided to see about his hand. The bandages and sling on his arm were hardly appropriate for the highest council of order in the empire. He hated lacking the use of his fingers as well, though he knew that the risk involved in healing broken bones would be significant.

  Saale magic could be employed as life arts to repair damage, but stopping it from going too far could be difficult. Edmath’s studies in this field often mentioned the nature of the life arts as being fundamentally about creation and growth, not repair or healing. Each form had its limitations, but a few Saales specialized in precision arts such as the healing he required.

  At any rate, he had been nearly maimed fighting the duelist from Roshi and considered himself lucky that he’d be able to keep his hand at all. Chelka went to hire a carriage for them to return to the palace, as they would not be able to make the trip across the city in time without it.

  Edmath stepped into the white-washed, nearly flat-roofed building. He was greeted by a hunched old woman with a rega hanging across her chest and a head of long gray hair.

  “Well, well, the Saale duelist. Come right inside. Your message mentioned you wanted help with that hand of yours.”

  Edmath bowed.

  “That is right, Lady Haph. I require something that will keep them together without alerting all to the knowledge of my, certainly unfortunate injury. It is the Saale Emperor’s pride at stake, you know.”

  “Of course, young man. No need to get windy. Sit down.” She indicated a hard-backed chair in the back of the room with a jab of her finger. “I have just the thing for this, so don’t worry.”

  Walking to the other side of the room, Edmath took a seat in the chair. His eyes moved around the, perhaps overly clean room. The white walls and heavy tabletop were all clean and free of dust. Clear water sparkled in a cup on a table by the window, and beside it, several potted plants grew upwards around small poles, more vines than trees. Edmath recognized them by more than shape. The scent of fire beans tickled Edmath’s nose and he felt as though he might sneeze.

  “Are you ready?” Lady Haph came toward him from the doorway, holding a cane that was too long for her in one hand, and a glass of water in the other.

  “What manner of treatment is this, good lady?”

  “Ah yes, you would want to know. You will be pleased to hear that there is a striker on this cane. I’m not going to beat you over the head with it. The water is for you to drink. We have to make sure to keep your body saturated so I don’t accidentally dry you up when I create the cushions in your hand.

  “Cushions?”

  “That is what I said, young man. The cushions will keep your bones from rattling around while they heal. The process is not perfect, but it will allow you to dispose of those bothersome wrappings and speed the rest of your recovery.”

  “Very well.” Edmath took the glass of water from her. “Proceed.”

  “As you like, as you like.” She struck the air with her striker-cane and magic flowed out of the tear and directly to her. She drew it in and touched the point of her finger to the skin of Edmath’s arm just above the bandaged area. He felt a tingle and closed his eyes.

  “Drink,” she told him. He obeyed with a splash of the glass against the roof of his mouth. The tingling faded, replaced by an awkward, dense feeling in his hand. The pain of the broken bones, which had been slight but constant until now, faded little by little until only the barest hint of it remained.

  The corners of Lady Haph’s mouth parted in a satisfied smile.

  “That should do the trick. Unwrap that hand, young man.”

  When he walked out onto the street, Edmath found Chelka paying the driver of a team of moths across the street.

  She glanced at him as he approached, dark hair and tawny skin shining in the morning light. Her eyes moved to his broken, but no longer bandaged hand. She smiled like the heart of a sunflower.

  The carriage driver was Augo Vassma, the middle-aged moth lord who’d flown him, Zuria, and Sampheli to the imperial palace on his first day in the city. Approaching the carriage, Edmath bowed to the driver.

  Augo laughed.

  “If it isn’t Saale Donroi! You keep the company of some beautiful women, friend.”

  Chelka gave Edmath an amused glance before walking around the moth landed on the road and stepping into the carriage. He followed her, directing his eyes toward Augo.

  “Lord Vassma, thank you for your service, once again.”

  “Climb aboard. I hear you are in a hurry. Very important party you have waiting for you.” Augo whistled. “The Council of Kings.”

  “Right you are.” Edmath climbed into the basket beside Chelka and they took off, careful not to use his newly treated hand. “Please land us near the north gate.”

  “North gate, boys and girls,” Augo said in moth speech. “Let’s go.”

  The moths fluttered faster. Chelka grinned as they rose over the buildings. She told him about how she had enjoyed her journey on the sky levoth to get here faster a few days after arriving. Strong wind blew over the city and through Edmath’s hair.

  When they touched down at the palace gates, Chelka and Edmath thanked Augo and hurried into the palace. Passing over the outer gardens on a columned bridg
e, they made their way to the King’s Dome, a great gray building that rose up from a series of pools and fountains surrounded by tall, green-leafed trees.

  After greeting the guards at the door, they found that the councilors were still entering the building. The Oyster King, Leus Ogusotha and his sizable company of advisers and bodyguards were just ahead of them. Within the gateway, Chelka and Edmath parted ways. All the Saales were to join their Emperors’ tables to support them. There were, in all, ten kings in the empire, one for each tribe. Three of them already lived in Diar, Marnaia Hayel, Zemoy Benisar, and Vosraan Loi. In addition, the three councils of elders from the other tribes each had tables to themselves within the tall chamber at the dome’s center.

  The room towered three stories and was topped by a transparent crystalline dome so the sun was clearly visible in the sky above. Most of the tables were already full of the representatives from every district of the empire as well as their attendants. The ten kings and queens each had a table for themselves and their parties. Edmath passed the ones belonging to the Swan Queen, Gellia Dayull, and the newly-arrived Oyster King Ogusotha before finding the one he was to sit at. Cloying humidity pressed down on the many councilors all around the room.

  Edmath took the seat Haddishal Rumenha had left open beside him for his use. He had been honored when the Saale Emperor had told him his position. As a fresh Court Saale, and, he reminded himself, as the winner of a duel with of honor with Roshi, he was supposedly as worthy as any. If only the group of old monks who had requested his removal from the monastery all those years ago could see him now. More than worthy. Respectable.

  The square table before him was already crowded with Saales from all the different regions, from Olos in the northwest to Vishelen in the southeast, who wore both white regas and black sashes, marking them as royals and commoners alike. The Saale Emperor greeted him with a sidelong glance and half-nod before turning back to the other representatives at their table.

  “I hope we will have enough here soon.”

  Razili Nane, sitting in the seat on the other side of Haddishal from Edmath, answered the emperor with a nod of her own. She lifted a book from the seat beside her and then opened it. Her eyes skimmed down the pages as she flipped through them one after another.

  “Almost, Excellency. There is still the Magister of Tokalgo, and no part of the council can begin without him.”

  “Right you are.” Haddishal sighed. “I think his Grace might only keep that law to annoy the rest of us. His Superiority, the Magister of Tokalgo, is always late.”

  A flicker of shadow passed over the dome, then another, and another, like streaks of slender clouds, but Edmath guessed they must be winged animals by the way they glided.

  The shadow of something massive, still serpentine, but no less than thirty feet long, eclipsing the crystal dome from sunlight for a moment before passing completely. Edmath looked glanced at Razili in surprise. Haddishal Rumenha did not look, instead stroking his beard with a smile on his face.

  “That must be him now.”

  The Magister of Tokalgo was a singularly mighty personage. As he slithered into the hall, wings folded on his back, many heads turned to look upon him. Many of the representatives and royals must have seen the magister before, but, of course, Edmath thought, one does not simply ignore the thirty-foot-long winged serpent entering the chamber with its entourage.

  Haddishal Rumenha and the other two lower emperors rose, turned to the magister and bowed, as his undulating tail carried him to where the High Emperor’s palanquin sat on a raised dais at the far end of the room. Edmath followed the great creature with his eyes. Of course, the magister was smaller than the miraches, probably only half as long, and much lighter of build, but his regal deep blue and straight silver scales shone in a way that made the hair of the Roshi creatures seem dull. Haddishal Rumenha and the other two lower emperors sat back down. The great head of the magister descended from between the wings, in a bow to the High Emperor. Vosraan Loi actually stood, his wrinkled features warm with a smile.

  He reached out his veined hand and touched the great serpent above reptilian brows.

  “Greetings, Jattla Worrilk, I see you have arrived with the tribute as always, faithful to the bargain our forebears made between each other.” He gestured past the magister to the train of greater eagles, and mix of winged and wingless serpents, as well as human men and women carrying baskets full of gold and fruit. “This pleases me, once again, to imagine how fine the fortune you keep for yourself is.”

  The magister serpent opened his mouth and his voice boomed out across the room, deep, powerful, and disconcertingly human.

  “Your Grace, I regret my lateness, but the treasures my people bring are too great for flight, and slow travel immensely.”

  The magister threw back his head and hissed with a distinctly forked tongue before returning to human speech.

  “In the name of Serem the Creator, may this Council of Kings begin.”

  People vacated the tables and then servants cleared them away, another recent tradition due to the magister’s regular lateness, Edmath discovered. With past magisters, the council would simply stand and wait. Worrilk the Jattla was a magister of incredible slowness, but also, Zuria had assured him when they were children, of incredible intellect.

  Worrilk was said to be the only animal in the living world to have become a Saale without the knowledge of the ancient magisters which he now possessed, having taken that position. His powers were unrivaled by humans except for perhaps the High Emperors.

  This information left Edmath quite unprepared for the mighty creature’s actual presence, and he felt overwhelmed by the way the magister towered over the High Emperor’s seat while everyone else moved to their benches along the dome’s curved wall. Brief confusion ensued as to where several of the newly appointed representatives would sit, slowing things down further. Waiting left Edmath impatient. He wished he’d brought a book with him like Razili.

  When everyone was seated in their proper places, Worrilk the Jattla raised his great head and shifted his features into those of a human face, though still plated with blue and silver scales and still massive. He looked up at them, handsome, serene, and fearsome, despite the face, or perhaps because of it.

  “Let us come to order in this fine hour of the morning.”

  The late morning, Edmath thought.

  The magister continued, having paused for a long breath.

  “The summer sun hangs in a clear sky above us, sirs and misses, lords and ladies. Some of us have traveled far to be here on this day, and I’m afraid there is no stopping it. There are matters in this empire, which must be addressed. The representatives will hear the cases of the kings and queens now before any votes are taken up. We will all pay heed, oh highnesses.”

  The first king to speak was always the ruler of the Oyster Tribe, Edmath knew from his studies of the court. The Oyster Tribe fed much of the empire, so their rights came first, as did their complaints. The pale and aging Oyster King stood in the front row of the first division and raised his arm before speaking.

  “Thanks to your Superiority and a blessing on this honorable convention. I submit to you all the deepest worry of my people this year. It is on the oyster beds that our time has always been lavished. It is on these same oyster beds that feed all of our peoples, that a great slaughter is taking place. Countless times this year, the pirates of Palatan and the distant Shark Tribe of Omosot have come and carried off our greater animals in large numbers. All I seek today is assistance in defending my people’s livelihood, and our nation’s food supply. Thank you, councilors.”

  He sat down, and the speeches passed to the next division.

  The second division belonged to the Moth Tribe, and so Vosraan Loi said a few words about how prosperous his people were. To Edmath’s surprise, his speech mentioned no request. Even the High Emperor should almost always have something to say, some sort of wish for his peop
le to fulfill, but not today.

  The next two divisions spoke. The Elk Tribe with the War Empress Marnaia Hayel as its queen disagreed with the Fourth Division’s leader. The Eagle Elder. The old Eagle Tribe woman requested the High Emperor seek lasting and complete peace with Roshi. Empress Hayel spoke of her people’s need for more land in the northwest, where Roshi held sway. They did not argue so much as spoke their opposed speeches side-by-side before passing to the next divisions.

  Edmath marveled at how much composure they showed, even going so far as to turn to Razili Nane, who sat beside him.

  “Do you think they will be able to keep calm later?”

  “We may find out.” She smiled at him.

  The fifth and sixth divisions were the Whale Tribe, with Brosk’s father, Ahenesrude, as king of the Whale Tribe, and Razili’s mother Semana as Queen of the Coral Tribe, respectively. They agreed that piracy had increased and larger and larger raiding forces continued to sail from Palatan, just to the south of the country of Vishelen on the coast of Zel. The seventh division, ruled by the black-haired and quite young Swan Queen Gellia Dayull said she needed more time to raise troops for the imperial army and so begged for peace, at least until the next spring.

  The eighth division’s Worm King, Kassel Onoi, a grizzled, yellow-haired man in his late forties, stood and supported the others who wished for peace. His people were not ready for another war, not yet. Edmath thought of Yot, the village boy who had died hating Saales while monsters ate him from within. He suppressed a shudder, frowning. Kassel Onoi finished his piece, bowed to the crowd. Then he sat.

  Zemoy Benisar supported peace and taxes for more commemoration of this age of prosperity, for the Squid Tribe in the ninth division. His speech was short. Edmath saw Chelka, sitting near War Empress Hayel, close to the bottom of the rows of raised seats, nod her head sleepily as her father sat back down.