The Mage of Trelian Read Online Free

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter 2

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Affiliate 6

Affiliate Vii

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter 11

Chapter Twelve

Chapter 13

Chapter Fourteen

Affiliate Fifteen

Chapter 16

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Epilogue

"A
Proceeds."

Calen quickly airtight his eyes, trying to refocus. He knew that closing his eyes made little sense, given the perfect darkness of the vast hall surrounding them, but information technology seemed to help. And he needed all the assistance he could get.

He pictured the hall in his mind as conspicuously every bit he could, imagining the long empty tables, the wooden benches, the huge windows similar gaping open mouths filled with thick drinking glass. He pictured the tattered banners hanging limply from the rafters and the cold stone floor and on every surface — tables, rafters, floor, windowsills, everything — hundreds and hundreds of candles. Maybe thousands of candles, certainly more he was ever able to count. They sat in the ceiling fixtures hanging from heavy iron chains above him and blanketed the stones around him except for a narrow pathway leading to the hallway door.

He envisioned them all, tried to hold every concluding one firmly and completely in his mind. So he took a breath, and on the exhale released a burst of magic energy, lighting every wick at once.

Or . . . almost at once.
No, curse you.
Calen opened his eyes just in time to catch the last few candles flickering into life at the far end of the hall. He'd felt them, at the last 2d, struggling to light. He tried to control his heartbeat, tried not to allow his — business — prove every bit he looked at last to the older man sitting at the table abreast him.

Mage Krelig smiled slightly in the glow of the candles around him, merely that didn't mean anything. The homo smiled when he was angry as frequently as when he was pleased. His confront rarely gave clues to what he was thinking or feeling, and Calen had learned to just be wary at all times. Wary, but non afraid. Krelig had no patience for fear.

"That wasn't quite perfect, was it?" Krelig said.

Not afraid,
Calen reminded himself.
Y'all're not agape.
He willed his breathing to be fifty-fifty and steady, willed his centre to slow down.

"No," Calen said. The mage'south back had been to the straggler candles, simply he however would have been able to feel their lateness to light. Bluffing was not even a remote possibility. "The last few were dull."

He waited to see what Krelig would practice. He remembered how he used to be afraid of Serek. Agape of being yelled at, or insulted, or given tedious tasks as punishment.

He could almost laugh.

The first fourth dimension he'd failed one of Krelig's tests, the mage had struck him, hard, across the face up. That had been a shock, but at present Calen missed those first few days, when the dorsum of Krelig's hand was all he had to worry about. The next fourth dimension Krelig had been sufficiently disappointed in his new apprentice'south progress, he'd set Calen's hand on burn down. Just for a few seconds, and Krelig had healed him immediately afterwards — but those few seconds had been agony. Since then, Krelig had demonstrated diverse ways he could inflict pain as a consequence for failure. Knowing that the mage would heal Calen afterward didn't matter when the pain was happening. It wasn't always burn; sometimes it was pinpricks, or knives, or cold. Cold was surprisingly painful. One fourth dimension he'd sliced off the tip of Calen's ear. He'd put information technology back; y'all couldn't even see a scar. Since then, though, Calen had noticed that he'd developed a nervous addiction of touching the top of his ear with his finger. Merely to brand sure it was withal there.

It was an constructive method of teaching. Calen had never worked this hard in his life.

"Again," Krelig said finally. He blinked, and all the candles went out.

Okay,
Calen idea, endmost his eyes again in the new darkness.
I can exercise this. I tin can.
He prepare about envisioning the hall again, every feature, every candle. He had to do it this time; Krelig's "one time more" had suggested that one more endeavour was all he would let, and then there would have to exist penalization. Calen really, really didn't want to be punished. He wanted to become back to his room, to lie downwardly on his bed, and retrieve virtually his plans. And then he wanted to become to sleep.

When he slept, he dreamed. And sometimes he dreamed near Meg.

Well-nigh home.

But that was for later; first, he had to do this. He cleared his heed, thinking only of the candles, of the countless wicks waiting to burst into flame at his command. He imagined them wanting to please him, wanting to assistance him please Mage Krelig.
No stragglers,
he idea at them firmly.
All at once. Together.

He took 3 breaths this time, in and out, and as he released the tertiary jiff he released the magic with it, pushing information technology outward to reach those uttermost candles a few seconds sooner than before, willing all of the wicks to ignite every bit 1.
Please,
he started to think, and then crushed that impulse.
You don't beg magic to work for you,
Krelig had told him that very first twenty-four hour period.
You don't ask. You don't hope or plead or wish. You command. You lot direct the magic to do your will, and it obeys.

Obey!
Calen shouted in his mind as his energy reached the candles.
Light!

They lit. All at once.

He felt it, felt the single smashing rush of his control received, his goal accomplished, and didn't need Krelig's satisfied grunt to know that he had done information technology perfectly this fourth dimension. He opened his eyes again and took in the vivid glow from the combined flames and smiled a little smile of his own. It felt good, existence able to do it, to light and so many at once. The candle-lighting spell was one of the outset things every new amateur was taught, but he'd never lit more than a scattering of candles at a time before today. And he'd never even attempted lighting multiple candles at the exact same instant. He understood, of grade, that it would probably never exist necessary in a real-life situation to calorie-free a thousand candles exactly at once. It was impressive, sure, just not very practical.

But this wasn't nigh the candles; information technology was about learning control, about learning precision. And he was able to do something tonight that he hadn't been able to practice this morning time. Only like the night earlier, and the night earlier that. Whatever else Krelig was, and he was a lot of very,
very
terrible things, he was keeping his hope. He was teaching Calen more magic, more than swiftly, than Serek had ever done. He had not yet told Calen that annihilation was across him, that in that location was annihilation he wasn't ready to learn. Quite the opposite, in fact.

There was a cost, of course. And it was more than merely the pain and penalty, more being solitary with a madman in some distant fortress, preparing to wage war against the Magistratum and anyone else who stood in their — in Krelig's — way. It was the memory of his friends' faces as he'd turned away from them and gone off with the enemy. It was the knowledge that his true master idea he was a traitor. It was having to exist away from 1000000, knowing she needed him and that he'd left her alone to face the insanity of everything that was going on without him. Not that Meg wasn't totally capable of doing annihilation she wanted with or without his help, of course. Meg was the well-nigh capable person he'd ever met. But he knew what it meant to have a true friend to count on when things were bad, and he knew he'd been that person for Meg just as she'd been that person for him. And now neither of them had the other to count on, and it was because of what he'd washed. He'd done it for her, for all of them, to stop Mage Krelig from killing them all on the spot. But they didn't know that. And then they probably all hated him at present. He wanted to believe that One thousand thousand, at least, wouldn't have given up on him, that she would know in her heart that he'd had a adept reason for leaving. Simply she might still hate him for it. She might trust him and believe in him and hate him all at the same time. She wasn't exactly the most even-tempered person.

But he still believed that he could brand it right. He would pay for his new knowledge, do whatever it took, endure whatever he had to. And once he had what he needed, he would escape. He'd go back to Meg and Jakl and Serek and the others, return to Trelian and assistance them win the war and defeat Mage Krelig once and for all. He'd show them all that he was not a traitor, and more — that they had been incorrect not to trust him in the outset place.

But not yet. Not tonight, and not tomorrow, and probably not for weeks and weeks to come. Just . . . shortly. Eventually. As shortly equally he'd learned everything he needed to know.

"Pleased with yourself, are you?" Krelig asked, jarring Calen out of his own thoughts. He looked up, startled, but the mage's proficient sense of humour seemed genuine.

"Yeah, Chief," Calen answered truthfully. "I like how it feels when I get something right."

The mage nodded. "As yous should. There'south no shame in acknowledging your own accomplishments. Every mage should exist proud of his talent. Proud and unafraid to use information technology. Our ability is what sets u.s. apart, after all. It's the most of import piece of who we are."

"Yes, Chief," Calen said again. Krelig often waxed poetic about mages and their abilities, and how much better they were than everyone else. Information technology was one of the reasons he hated the Magistratum so much, and the rules that other mages lived past. The thought of being marked or having to hold back from doing whatsoever magic he wished was offensive to him. Calen had heard plenty of rants on the bailiwick at this betoken. He barely listened anymore.

"That's enough casting for tonight," Krelig said finally.

Calen nodded and started to rising. Only earlier he was halfway out of his chair, Krelig spoke once more. "I didn't say yous could get."

Calen froze, so saturday slowly and carefully dorsum down. Krelig's face up was expressionless.

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