The Onyx Throne Pt. 01 Ch. 24-25

Chapter 24

Mitchell flexed his hand as they stepped out of the Dragon Academy into the desert sunlight. The palatial building reminded Mitchell of an old English manor except it was constructed mostly out of the pale stone which was common in Iletish. Revos said it was sponsored by the Iletishian royal family and that anyone could apply for admittance. If a family was too poor to pay the fees then the student had to agree to a term of service upon graduation to repay the debt. While walking the grounds he saw many young people from multiple races and walks of life and it was very hard not to make comparisons to another magical school from popular Earth literature.

The sevith he'd been fitted with was made of supple black leather that seemed to hug the skin around his palm without squeezing too tight. It had four finger holes and a thumb hole and a web of straps across his palm with an opening in the middle. Revos had told him that this slot was for empowering large rune circles for more powerful and advanced magic and was well beyond his capabilities for now. Instead, he was told to focus on the six gemstones fitted snugly into holes on the back of his hand.

Mitchell could draw upon mana from the six mortal schools of magic: conjuration, abjuration, evocation, enchantment, illusion, and divination. Each of the sevith's stones was meant to channel a specific mana type. Revos said it didn't matter which stone went where since the mana he would flow to the right one without any effort on his part, but that it was best to always use the same slot for the same type of gemstone. It was easier to swap out old for new in a hurry if he didn't have to think about which one was which.

Woven around the leather straps that hugged each gemstone were hair-thin wires of electrum. Revos had said that there was always bleed through of mana types when casting. Some illusion mana might mix in with evocation mana, or enchantment would bleed into abjuration. It wasn't usually enough to damage a spell but it would diminish its power, if only a little. For most casters, this bleed through was unimportant. But for high-level spells or combat casters, that extra two or three percent might be the difference between life and death.

The electrum, which was best for channeling mana as it offered the highest fidelity, would transfer the unwanted magical energy into the appropriate gemstone for that type so it would not be wasted and might be used later. How long it would remain in the gem depended largely on the quality of the stone and how much it had been used already.

The gemstones pressed into his hand but not uncomfortably so. Each one, about the size of his thumbnail, was polished smooth so as not to have any sharp edges which might irritate his skin. He was told to expect some blistering early on but that it would heal soon enough and the skin would toughen up. Revos showed him the back of his own hand which did have seven slightly rougher patches where his sevith stones had rested for decades.

"After a while, you won't even feel them anymore," the big creature had said. "And swapping out stones will become as natural as breathing."

To carry his gemstones, Mitchell was given a specially tailored belt pouch. He was told that this was a style favored by battle casters for the speed that stones could be retrieved and replaced. The pouch--called an ikas--was made of the same supple black leather and tied firmly around his waist. It had six columns arranged in parallel and each one could hold six to ten gemstones depending on their size. All he had to do was press his fingers to the top of one of the columns and a stone would be pushed out almost instantly. He fed new stones in through the bottom. Like the sevith, it didn't matter what stones went into which column, but it was best to keep it consistent so as not to have to think about it during combat. Fumble too long, or grab the wrong gemstone needed for the spell, and you would be dead. He was informed that drilling with the stones, both their retrieval and slotting, would become part of his practice routine.

Currently, the ikas was filled with six stones each and he had one of each type slotted into his sevith. Watching how the stones glinted in the sun he was reminded of the Infinity Gauntlet from the Marvel movies. This was not nearly so grandiose as that had been, though, and would not give him the power of a god. Still, he couldn't help but snap a few times and grin like an idiot. Revos had just arched an eyebrow at him and gave a long-suffering expression and Mitchell didn't bother trying to explain.

Besides, Revos had been in a sour mood all morning. When Mitchell had inquired about it as they'd left the Maiden's Mist at dawn, the cambion had sworn in his native tongue and Mitchell's vision had gone blurry for a moment and he thought he would puke up his breakfast. As he'd staggered into a fountain they were walking past Revos had apologized and offered a hand to steady him but the big creature would explain no further.

Now that he finally had the equipment he needed to start learning to cast his spells, Mitchell was in such a good mood that he didn't care if Revos looked like he was trying to pass a pinecone out of his ass the wrong way. He, Mitchell Allan, was going to learn magic. Real, actual magic. He pictured his younger self pouring over his dad's old fantasy novels as a kid and began miming casting powerful spells by throwing his hands out in over-dramatic fashion while vocalizing magical sound

However, Revos put a stop to his theatrics almost immediately.

"That's a good way to get killed," he cautioned.

After he thought about it for a moment, he realized how stupid he'd been. He supposed that here it was no different than walking down a street on Earth with a loaded gun and pointing it at people. He apologized and they continued on toward their rendezvous with Allora at the western gate.

"This stuff must be expensive. I didn't think we had that much coin."

Revos didn't answer right away and Mitchell assumed he wasn't going to, but he finally spoke.

"It did not come from the coin we looted from Ivaran and his men. I purchased it with my own funds."

Mitchell was a little stunned at that. He didn't know much about Revos but had learned enough to know that he was unusually stingy and selfish. He always did the least amount of work in the camp, ate the most food, and took the most rest. His sharing what was surely a decent amount of money was out of character. Mitchell never would have thought the demon generous.

"It is a tradition in some schools for a teacher to provide a student's first krisa or sevith as a gift. A reward for their effort and a sign of their faith in the student's potential. I chose to honor that tradition."

Mitchell wondered at the strange emphasis Revos placed on the word 'chose' but decided not to question it.

"Is this considered a good one?" Mitchell asked tentatively.

Revos looked down at him as they walked.

"It is the best this city has to offer. The leather is drake skin. A kind of lesser dragon. If you care for it then it should last you decades. The webbing around each stone won't fray or rip easily as with something like leather made from jivi hide. Also it's more flexible and breathes better than one made from the tough skin of a lizard, like a clorvol."

Mitchell didn't know what to say. All he could muster was a thank you.

"Consider it not just a gift but an... apology," Revos said the word like it tasted sour in his mouth, "for almost getting you killed."

"I appreciate that," Mitchell told him, and he meant it. "I will work hard to use it properly."

Revos merely grunted and they walked through the next few intersections in silence as the city came awake around them.

"What does it mean when a cambion has gold on its horns?" he asked suddenly, a memory sparking from yesterday.

Revos started out of whatever he was contemplating as they walked.

"What?" His voice was like a whip crack.

A little shocked at his reaction, Mitchell explained, "Yesterday when I entered the city with Lethelin I saw another cambion. I think it was a female of your kind, and she had the tips of her horns coated in gold. I just wondered what it meant."

Revos's golden snake eyes went wide and his head began to turn about like it was on a swivel. Not seeing what he feared, he turned back to Mitchell.

"This woman, was she alone?"

"No," Mitchell answered, confused. "There was another one with her. I got the impression he was like a bodyguard. He was even bigger than you and had two black-bladed swords strapped to his back."

"What color was she?" Revos demanded with what sounded like panic in his voice. "Her skin, what color?"

"Um... A kind of blue, I guess? She was actually kind of hot, which I never thought I would say about a dem--"

Mitchell's voice was cut off as Revos grabbed his upper arm and began to power walk down the street. He had several inches on Mitchell and a longer stride. Mitchell was almost jogging to keep up.

"We need to get out of the city. Now!"

"What? Why?"

"No time to explain!"

Mitchell grew tired of being dragged like a naughty toddler almost immediately.

"Let... go!" he demanded, yanking his arm free. "I don't need to be dragged."

"Then keep up," Revos snapped back.

The next fifteen or twenty minutes were spent with Mitchell trying to keep pace with Revos without actually breaking into a run. For his part, Revos barely paid him any mind and approached each intersection cautiously, sometimes even sending Mitchell forward to scout. The cambion refused any calls to explain. Finally, the western gate came into view and they were out of the city proper and into the open-air market that mirrored the one at the eastern gate almost exactly. The Diran Road cut a straight path into the distance as far as he could see.

"Lora said she would meet us at the edge of the market," Revos barked. "Let's go,"

The foot traffic was a little less orderly out in the markets than inside the walls and both of them almost ran into carts and shoppers multiple times but eventually made it through. Mitchell was panting by the time they finally found Allora and Lethelin with their clorvol sitting off to the side of the road away from the other travelers.

"Mount up! We need to go. Right now!" Revos said.

If Mitchell didn't know better, he'd think the terrifying creature was panicking. Allora picked up on it immediately and stood up on the wagon bed to scan behind them. Her hand went to her sword which had a covering wrapped around the pommel to hide the stone which would mark it as an Onyx Knight's blade.

"What is it?" she said, her voice tinged with anxiety.

"Not Milandris, I'll tell you later... after we're moving," Revos said, almost flying up into the driver's seat.

Before Mitchell had even found his seat in the back of the wagon, it lurched forward as Revos snapped the reigns hard enough to draw an angry grunt from the clorvol and it rocked the wagon in annoyance before settling into what amounted to its quick pace.

Several long minutes passed with everyone on edge and expecting an attack from every direction before Revos finally seemed to accept that they were safe from whatever danger he was running from.

"Please explain why we had to flee the city like bandits," Allora said, her patience finally gone.

"It wasn't about you or the kingling," Revos said. "It was... my cousin."

Chapter 25

"Is that important?" Lethelin asked, looking more bemused than worried now.

"She is searching for me. If she finds me, she will take me back to Kazig."

Mitchell looked to Allora who understood the question on his face.

"Kazig is to the north of Iletish and northeast of Awenor."

"It's one of the few places the people of the other seven kingdoms won't fight over," Revos said, his voice carrying hints of an old grievance.

"It is very cold most of the time," Allora explained. "But Cambions do not suffer much more in the cold than they do in the heat. When they first arrived on Tewadunn shortly after the fall of the dragon lords, it was uncontested."

"My people were in no position to fight for better territory then and the continent was in chaos. So they settled where no one else really wanted to live and they reside there to this day," Revos continued. "And Deaj Reaal is still one of the most magnificent cities on the continent."

There was an unexpected note of pride in the cambion's voice when he talked about what Mitchell assumed was the capital city.

"Soooo, why don't you want to go back?" Mitchell asked.

"I was exiled," Revos said after a long pause. "Forty-seven years ago."

"So your cousin wants to take you back. Isn't that a good thing?" Lethelin pressed. "Don't you want to go home?"

Revos didn't answer her and they rode on in silence for a while.

"I never found out what the gold on the horns meant," Mitchell said to no one in particular.

"It marks one of the royal family," Allora said.

Mitchell thought over the conversation in light of this new information. If the woman with the golden horns was in the royal family, then...

"Are you nobility, Revos?" Mitchell asked.

"Unfortunately," he growled. "The woman you saw is named Savarik. Her father, Ekmir, sat at the head of the Hellfire Council. You could think of it like a king but that is a mortal term and doesn't quite capture the position in our society, though it's close enough."

"And he's the one who exiled you, I assume?" Allora asked.

"Yes. The sulfur-breathed old bastard finally died three years ago and, since then, they have been calling me back. I guess they got tired of me ignoring their messages."

"Why were you exiled?" Lethelin asked.

The silence stretched so long that Mitchell was sure Revos had decided to stop talking. Finally he said, "I slept with Ekmir's favorite wife. Savarik's mother, as it happens."

Mitchell, Allora, and Lethelin all looked at each other and almost as if on cue began to laugh in unison. Revos hunched his shoulders and acted like he didn't hear them.

***

Allora said that they would reach the mountains in eight to ten days. She had acquired enough food and other supplies to see them all the way there. Once they arrived at whatever town awaited at the end of the road, they would sell the clorvol, which she said would fetch a better price there than in the wastes, and resupply for a trek across the mountains. That, she said, would take another week or two, assuming the weather was good.

Mitchell asked what they would do if Milandris found Awen before then, but she didn't have any good answer. All they could do was keep going. Elementals were not helpless but a determined person would eventually discover the geode. It was best to act as if they didn't have time to waste.

As far as Mitchell's magic instruction went, that was especially true. If he thought his training routine was rough before, he discovered that was just the warm up.

Revos had picked up a book of spell runes from the Dragon Academy and Mitchell had a chance to see what he would need to memorize to use his new abilities. When Revos produced the book from his robes that first evening out of Besari, Allora had looked shocked and had given Revos a slight bow and touched her thumb to her forehead. Revos looked uncomfortable at the gesture for some reason but nothing else was said.

The runic script was both beautiful and maddening. In order to cast a spell, he would need to form these shapes in his mind, will his mana into the shape, and then direct the shaped mana to his sevith to release the spell into the world. He could cast it without using the sevith but it was much more mana intensive to do so. Before that, however, he had to learn to feel the different types of each mana so that, when the time came, he could summon only what he wanted.

This required long hours in the back of the wagon sending mana flows into his sevith trying to light up individual stones rather than all six at once. To Mitchell it felt like trying to tease out the notes of a musical chord and identify those making up the sound. Headaches and intense nausea were frequent and he puked more than once, heaving up whatever he'd had for breakfast, lunch, or dinner when it happened. Every time he did though, Allora was there with a cool cloth wiping the sweat off his face as he tried to get control of his stomach. She had acquired some tea in the city, perhaps anticipating this very thing. It helped settle his stomach and ease the pain in his head, if only a little. Magical healing was no help for this type of sickness.

Oddly enough, Lethelin was assisting much more than she normally did. If Mitchell hadn't been so dazed by the strain of his new tasks, he would have thought they were competing somehow to see who could best take care of him. But that was stupid, he decided.

Mitchell supposed that the only good thing about his magical training was that if he pushed himself into near unconsciousness during the time in the back of the wagon, Allora didn't make him practice with the sword when they stopped. Usually, he collapsed into his bedroll before he'd even had a chance to eat only to be coaxed awake by Lethelin or Allora who would spoon feed him whatever they'd cooked for dinner. Then he would pass out again until they awoke him in the morning. By the second day, he was barely aware of having eaten at all.

Time became a blur. Waking and sleeping began to blend together until Mitchell felt he was existing in some sort of murky netherworld. He found that thinking of the mana types as colors helped to sort them out and he started imagining his energy like a multi-hued river of light flowing through his body with all the hues coming together in a harmony of technicolor brilliance. But extracting one from the rest still eluded him and after a while the colors all faded to white.

Once that happened, he would try to recenter himself and start again. No matter what he did though, he couldn't separate the colors any more than he could pluck them from a rainbow. But he kept at it. The hours stretched into days. He barely ate anymore because he would just sick it up a little while later, and he awoke each morning feeling like he'd hardly slept at all. Slowly, Mitchell felt himself fading from the world completely.

On the fourth night, he thought he dreamed of Allora, Lethelin, and Revos talking about him.

"You're killing him!" he heard Lethelin hiss. He wasn't sure if she was talking to Revos or Allora. "He won't be any good to us if you melt his brain!"

"We do not have a choice," Allora said, sounding guilty. "There is no time."

"I don't know anything about magic but I know what you're doing isn't right! Let him take a break. All he does is sit in the back of the wagon and stare at his sevith. His eyes barely open anymore and he's puking up anything he eats. He looks like a cloud addict!"

"If he can't dissect the mana flows, he can't cast the spells. Once he learns it will be easier," Revos said.

"And if he can't talk? What good will he be then? I asked him this morning if he thought he was any closer and he stared at me so long, I don't think he even saw me. His eyes were out of focus and he was mumbling something to himself in his own language!"

"He's getting closer," was all Revos said.

"How do you know?" demanded Lethelin.

"Because if he takes much longer the strain on his body will kill him," Revos replied flatly.

"How long do students usually need to separate these mana flow things?" Lethelin demanded.

There was a long silence followed by Allora's voice.

"Practicing an hour or two a day, a quick student can do it in a month or two. Slower students usually need three to four months."