Vaetra unleashed the vae.., p.1
Vaetra Unleashed (The Vaetra Chronicles Book 3), page 1
Vaetra Unleashed
Book Three of the Vaetra Chronicles
Daniel R. Marvello
Published by Magic Fur Press
An imprint of Logical Expressions, Inc.
P.O. Box 383, Ponderay, ID 83852, USA
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business organizations, events, or locales is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Daniel R. Marvello
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher.
ISBN:
978-1-61038-027-0 (paperback)
978-1-61038-028-7 (EPUB)
Digital Edition 1.1 – January 20, 2015
Vaetra Unleashed is dedicated to “Mama Marvello,” as my mother has started calling herself. She was one of the first supporters of my fiction writing and one of my first Vaetra Chronicles fans. Thanks for your love and support, Mom.
Table of Contents
Cover
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
Synopsis
Map of Northern Tanes Empire
Chapter 1 - The Runegate
Chapter 2 - Desperate Measures
Chapter 3 - Heir Designate
Chapter 4 - Convalescence
Chapter 5 - Lost Confidence
Chapter 6 - Deep River Camp
Chapter 7 - Abandoned Village
Chapter 8 - Grand Cedars Refuge
Chapter 9 - Druid Healer
Chapter 10 - Defender Marshal
Chapter 11 - Bought Out
Chapter 12 - The Wizard Returns
Chapter 13 - Nothing to Lose
Chapter 14 - The Runedream
Chapter 15 - Secret Knowledge
Chapter 16 - Incognito
Chapter 17 - Harvest Festival
Chapter 18 - Progress Report
Chapter 19 - Spiritual Healing
Chapter 20 - Scholar’s Revelation
Chapter 21 - Sorcerer’s Staff
Chapter 22 - Audience with the Emperor
Chapter 23 - News from Cassandria
Chapter 24 - Rollek’s Amplifier
Chapter 25 - Unwelcome Visitors
Chapter 26 - Hunted
Chapter 27 - Mission to Northshore
Chapter 28 - Evasion
Chapter 29 - Emissary Escort
Chapter 30 - Detour
Chapter 31 - Greater Spirits
Chapter 32 - Parting
Chapter 33 - Reunion
Chapter 34 - Parasite
Chapter 35 - Spirit Sorcery
Chapter 36 - Authority Revoked
Chapter 37 - Alibi
Chapter 38 - Invitation
Chapter 39 - Lightning Wand
Chapter 40 - Surrender
Chapter 41 - Strike Force
Chapter 42 - Headmaster’s Ire
Chapter 43 - Grand Entrance
Chapter 44 - Escape Portal
Chapter 45 - War Council
Chapter 46 - Governor Thoron
Chapter 47 - The Promising Path
Chapter 48 - Portal to Northshore
Chapter 49 - Infirmary
Chapter 50 - Betrayal
Chapter 51 - South Pass
Chapter 52 - The Test
Chapter 53 - The Gates of Cassandria
Chapter 54 - Resurrection
Chapter 55 - Beginnings
Thanks for Reading
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Books by Daniel R. Marvello
Vaetra Unleashed
Book Three of The Vaetra Chronicles
Synopsis
Jaylan Forester struggles to complete his training as a Sword Sorcerer so he can join his love Sulana as an elite guardian of the Archives. But he may never attain his goal if a persistent trance called the Runedream continues to cripple his spell casting. An ancient reference suggests the Runedream may be more help than hindrance, if only he can figure out how to use it.
Sword Sorceress Sulana Delano has her own problems. Desperate to overcome the injuries she sustained in a deadly confrontation against rival sorcerer organization Thunderhead College, Sulana travels to a druid refuge. Rejected by the sorcery-intolerant high priestess, she goes into hiding so she can receive secret treatments from a compassionate druid healer.
Time is running out for Jaylan and Sulana. Headmaster Dumont Fortenz and his supporters from Thunderhead College are spreading their influence throughout the empire and subverting the Sorcery Accords. If the Archives can’t find a way to stop Dumont, the empire could be torn apart by a war of sorcery.
Vaetra Unleashed is a swords & sorcery adventure of approximately 120,000 words (470 printed pages).
Chapter 1
The Runegate
“Are you ready?”
It was a simple question, but the twisting knot in my stomach kept me from giving a simple answer. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
Professor Marlene Delano stood just behind me on my left. She lightly patted my shoulder in encouragement. “Don’t anticipate failure; anticipate success. Both are self-fulfilling prophecies.”
Benjamin Morrison was behind me to my right. When I glanced over my shoulder at him, the young sorcerer smiled and nodded once.
We stood at the bottom of a rocky ravine about a quarter mile from the Archives castle. My target was a boulder about fifty yards away. Down here in the ravine, my efforts would be unlikely to hurt anyone, and the noise I made would only disturb a few random deer and ravens.
Not that a little sorcery practice would alarm anyone at the Archives. Sorcerers filled the half-underground mountaintop complex that had become my home. In addition to being a training facility, it lived up to its name as a repository of knowledge and artifacts related to sorcery.
The walls of the ravine concentrated the gathering heat of the day, so I welcomed the light breeze that stirred my loose shirt. The gloriously sunny day was a good omen for my first attempt at casting lightning.
“You can do it, Jaylan.” The supportive words came from directly behind me. Daisy Morrison, Benjamin’s twin sister, had joined my little field trip. The three of us studied together in Professor Delano’s incantations class.
“Okay, here I go.”
With a tingle of excitement running through my chest, I mentally opened a channel from my internal well of vaetra to the casting orb in my palm. I stretched my arm out toward the boulder and began the incantation I’d spent the past week memorizing.
White and pinkish striations within the orb’s crystal shimmered in the sunlight. Those features had been the inspiration for the name its creator had given to it: Froth. Every time I used it, I felt honored by the gift from my good friend Wizard Ebnik Vlastorus.
After the first few phrases, the plum-sized orb accepted the flow of vaetra I offered it. I was careful to maintain tight control over the flow since my goal today was to demonstrate basic manifestation, not destructive power.
Things went fine until I got about half-way through the incantation.
My vision blurred and tension began to build in my chest right below my sternum. My concentration slipped as I steadied myself against a disappointingly familiar wave of dizziness.
For reasons no one could explain, my spell work had been hampered by these strange symptoms since I first learned I could cast. No amount of rest or practice seemed to make any difference, and the healers had been unable to do anything for me.
My heart began to race, and I took deeper breaths between each phrase of the incantation. I tried not to rush the vocalizations because cadence was as important as pronunciation. I was determined to complete this spell.
I made it about three-quarters of the way through the incantation before everything unraveled. My flow of vaetra to the orb slowed and the growing manifestation noise from the spell stuttered.
Ben shifted from one foot to the other and muttered, “Uh, oh.”
I tried desperately to maintain my channel, but it snapped free of the orb before I could complete the spell. The last couple of words I hissed before my muscles went limp were definitely not part of the incantation.
The malady that interfered with my casting had never been this severe. In the past, it varied from lethargy to dizziness, but I’d never actually passed out before.
Except I hadn’t truly lost consciousness. I felt hands grab my arms from both sides as Ben and Professor Delano eased me down to lie on the rocky ground. A small stone dug into my back, but I was helpless to do anything about it. My eyes were closed, but I could still dimly see what was going on around me in shadowed, strobing images.
The channel I’d opened to my internal well was still active somehow, even though I’d lost the connection with Froth. As if it were sneaking away from my incompetence, the orb slowly rolled out of my slackening grip. The sensation of dizziness increased and it seemed as though I was floating away from the others through a dark, dense fog.
I’m not sure exactly how long I floated, but eventually the fog cleared to reveal a tall, arched gate made of gray stone blocks. I couldn’t tell if I had moved to the arch or it had come to me. Either way, my feet seemed to rest on solid ground again.
Runes decorated the stones at the top of the arch. The runes were familiar because I’d been seeing them for weeks. Every time I tried to cast a spell, one or more of those runes had intruded upon my concentration.
The opening created by the arch was utterly, frighteningly, black. I couldn’t tell if the portal was open or closed. No light or image reflected from it. I automatically reached out, but hesitated before touching what seemed to be the surface. Would my hand go through? Would I be sucked into the portal? I drew back my hand, afraid to find out.
I studied the runes on the arch. I recognized the first rune from my Artifacts and Implements class studies. Implements were driven by a sequence of runes, and this rune was usually one of the first ones in the sequence. I had not advanced far enough in my lessons to try my hand at smithing, the art of creating implements, so I had no idea what function it performed.
Was the gateway a giant implement of some kind?
As if to confirm my supposition, I noticed a hand print recessed into one of the stones at chest height on the left gate pillar. I went closer and positioned my left hand just above the depression in the stone. It seemed to be a perfect fit.
I glanced over at the right pillar and saw it had a similar depression that looked to be a match for my right hand. Why two hand imprints? I couldn’t possibly reach across the wide opening and place my hands in both depressions at the same time.
I was distracted from the puzzle by a disturbance in the fog behind me. I turned around and stumbled as the vertigo returned. The fog thinned, and I saw a hazy image of Daisy reaching toward me. Her voice called my name, but it came to me in echoes as if from a great distance. I called back to her, but she didn’t seem to hear me. My voice sounded muffled and yet close, as if I were speaking with my fingers in my ears. Her image faded back into the fog after a moment, so I went back to studying the archway.
I wasn’t sure what to do. I was in some kind of lucid dream and the gateway was obviously important somehow. But was this a good dream or a nightmare? I shrugged and decided there was only one way to find out. I placed my left hand into the depression.
Nothing happened.
Well, that made sense. Implements needed a power source and something to activate them—usually a trigger word. I tried to open a channel to the gate, but I couldn’t sense my internal well. My alarm at that discovery faded when I noticed the gate vibrating faintly beneath my palm. I suspected the power it needed was there, somehow.
Next came the trigger word. Smiths usually kept the trigger word simple. I spoke the word “open” and was rewarded with a swishing noise that sounded like a single sweep of a broom on a gritty floor.
The blackness of the opening parted like a curtain to reveal a stairway going down into a rough-hewn tunnel.
I pulled my hand back from the imprint slowly. The gateway remained open. I moved to the center of the opening and peered down into the tunnel. Dim lights floated slowly up the stairs toward me. I took a couple of steps back as they came closer. They hovered just inside the opening, apparently disinclined to join me in the fog.
At first I thought the lights came from someone ascending the stairs, but as they got closer, I saw that they floated independently, shuffling around one another. As I watched them, a few lights winked out and others came into being, some brighter and some dimmer. Each time they moved or appeared, they made a tiny noise, like a mosquito buzzing near my ear.
I stared at the lights for a while, uncertain of what to do next. If they were alive, I didn’t think it would be polite to just walk through them and investigate the tunnel. I wasn’t too excited about going down into the dark tunnel in any case. I’d have to hope the lights would stay with me so I could see where I was going.
While I had been considering the lights, they had apparently been considering me. With a chorus of squeaks, they made their move. They swarmed out of the gateway and surrounded me. When I failed to do anything but freeze in alarm, they pushed me toward the opening. At least, that’s what it felt like. The lights didn’t touch me, but increasing pressure on my back forced me to take a step toward the opening.
My alarm turned to panic. This dream was taking a turn for the worse and I’d had enough of it. With a flash of insight, I knew what I needed to do.
I leaned, shifting my trajectory so the pressure from the lights pushed me toward the right side of the archway. I reached out my right hand and placed it in the depression on the pillar. It was another perfect fit.
The pressure at my back disappeared as soon as my hand touched the pillar, and the lights streaked into the gateway just before I said the word “close.” The curtain of black slid shut again with the same swishing sound, sealing the pesky lights within their dark domain.
I turned away from the gate and started walking. I didn’t know where I was going or even if I’d just find myself standing in front of the gate again. All I knew was that I wanted to get back to the others and leave this strange place behind.
I only took a few steps before the vertigo returned and I floated through the fog again. When the fog cleared, I was back on the ground in the ravine. Benjamin and Professor Delano were trying to lift me to my feet with my arms draped over their shoulders. They held me steady as I coughed and shook my head to clear it of the residual dizziness.
I took my arms off their shoulders and patted their backs. “It’s okay. I think I can walk.”
They slowly let me stand on my own as I took a few deep breaths and rubbed at the sore spot the rock had left on my back.
Professor Delano kept a light touch on my arm and watched my eyes with a worried frown. “Are you sure? You had us worried. We were about to carry you back to the healers.”
“Something strange did happen, but I don’t think the healers can help. Thanks for catching me.”
We all stared at each other for a moment, and then Benjamin asked, “Do you want to try again?”
“No thanks,” I answered without hesitation, and we all chuckled.
I could tell that my brief sojourn had not only left me physically tired, but it had also taken a toll on my internal well of vaetra. I’d have to rest before I tried to cast again.
“What happened?” Daisy asked as she handed Froth to me.
I tucked the orb into the specially designed pocket I’d added to my belt. “Let’s head back and I’ll tell you on the way.”
Dream or no dream, the experience had me worried that I’d never be able to use an incantation to cast a spell. What would I do if the same thing happened on my next attempt and I faced the gateway once more? Were the lights trying to help me, or were they setting me up for trouble? Part of me wanted to give Froth back to Ebnik and be satisfied with using implements. If that was good enough for Sulana, it was good enough for me.
Deep down, I knew I would try casting again. Maybe facing down the gateway was some kind of mental test I had to pass. But that line of thought was no comfort. If it had been a test, it was anyone’s guess as to whether I had passed or failed.
Chapter 2
Desperate Measures
On our way back to the Archives, Professor Delano suggested I take the rest of the day off and rest. My head was starting to pound, so I gratefully accepted her offer. The twins volunteered to let Lissy, my alchemy instructor, know why I was absent.
I considered going back to my room to lie down for a while, but the frustrating event had left me too tense for sleep. Instead, I went in search of the one person who would truly understand the disappointment of my spell casting failure. I wouldn’t be able to relax and process the bizarre experience until I shared it with Sulana and got her perspective.
As I reached the door to the sparring room, I heard the characteristic clang of parrying practice swords. The cadence of the routine was slower than normal, so I was pretty sure I knew who would be on the other side of the door. Weaponsmaster Talon Destry had slowed his pace for Sulana.
Sulana Delano was the Sword Sorceress of the Archives. It was her duty to enforce the Sorcery Accords and ensure that sorcerers did not try to influence mundane affairs. She was both a skilled sorceress and an accomplished swordswoman, or at least she had been, until a tragic incident that happened a little over a month previously. While I was helping Sulana escape from a rogue band of sorcerers who had captured her, their leader Dumont Fortenz fired a lightning bolt at us that nearly killed her. She survived, but the lightning had damaged her strength and agility. It had also affected her ability to channel vaetra.
