The flight of the ravenh.., p.1
The Flight of the Ravenhawk, page 1
Flight of the Ravenhawk
By J. Edward Hackett
Ink Smith Publishing
www.ink-smith.com
© 2014 by J. Edward Hackett. All rights reserved
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Printed in the U.S.A
The final approval for this literary material is granted by the author.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-947578-34-0
Ink Smith Publishing
P.O. Box 361
Lakehurst, NJ 08733
For Ashley, the wife of my dreams and the only woman I know whose heart shines as brilliantly as the stars themselves.
“But you must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil follow on the act. The world is in balance, in Equilibrium. A wizard’s power of Changing and of Summoning can shake the balance of the world. It is dangerous, that power. It is perilous. It must follow knowledge and serve need. To light a candle is to cast a shadow…”
~ The Master Changer to Ged in Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea
Before the Light, before Queen’s book and scepter’s might.
We hold these promises dear in our fight.
Each here will sincerely seek Darnashi’s end; For this we live, with all purposes amend.
To not do as yee will promise on this night shall lead to death’s invite.
Let those who support Darnashi’s life, know our strife.
As long as he lives, the three races will unite.
One front for one death, one treaty to draw last breath.
On this I swear!
~ The Sylvaran spelloath spoken at the War Council of the Three Races.
Prologue
Dorn slammed on the knocker. “My Lord! Wake!”
Kalero yawned, stirring in his heavy sleep. “What is it?” he called. The Wizardrium’s armor clang in unison with heavy footfalls.
Dorn screamed, “Inspectors and Wizardslayers. They’re inspecting the warehouse!”
Kalero jumped out of bed. After finding himself fatigued from one of the underground meetings in the catacombs over the guild warehouse and the printing press workshop, Kalero napped. His tunic and cloak already about him, he flicked his hand and satchel and staff floated to him in haste.
In seconds, Kalero ran alongside Dorn. His legs felt like weights, his body not even awake to the strenuous activity. They weaved and bobbed through a serious of underground sewers and catacombs of the old city. Feet splattered puddles of muck and grime. Dorn’s muscular back remained backlit from an outstretched torch, a dark silhouette leading Kalero to an uncertain fate. Flickers of flame danced shadows as nervously as the pitch in his voice when he had first awoken Prince Kalero.
“Where are we going?” Kal asked.
Without looking behind him or stopping, Dorn said, “My home. I built an access way after finding some passages of the Lower City. Vendan stands now about eight feet higher than when it was first built.”
“I think I am going to be sick. They’re definitely near.”
Throbbing entered, Kalero’s skull. Atop the street, a small unit of enchanted armor with the alloy of the Wizardslayers could be felt stomping in unison. The presence of that armor and its alloy—Hecatium— radiated a field that drained magick from mageborne. He could feel his power waning, his head pounding matched the commotion from the troops above.
“Quickly!” Dorn shouted.
The Hecatium’s field of influence lessened, and a sense of the world’s enchantment returned. The pounding in his head ceased. The drain on his muscles regained some vigor. Hecatium drained the very lifeforce of a mageborne’s soul, and if exposed long enough to the metal, then a mage would die.
Since the tunnels wound in no predictable linear fashion, both Dorn and Kal snaked underneath the movements of the Wizardslayers above. Kal would enter various fields generated by the Hecatium armor, and then he would fall back. Dorn’s strong arms would pull him. In minutes, however, they were beyond the immanent danger. Still, Kal dare not cast any magick. The troops above might well have a tracker, and if they were going to Dorn’s home, Kal would not risk his family. Dorn had already risked much. Winding through passages, the damp walls muffled the sounds from above, and soon heavy footfalls faded only to be replaced by the sounds of running water and the scattering of rats. His sweat met the cold air, and Kalero shivered. For about three hours, he felt the coldness and refuse afoot.
Eventually, they came to wooden ladder bolted to the ceiling. Both held their knees panting. Hunched over, Dorn motioned for Kal to wait as he climbed up first. From his pocket, Dorn pulled a key that unlocked the door, and he motioned to a grated mat for Kal to wipe his feet. Dorn scraped his boots before climbing to the top. Then, he pushed open the hinged part, and a low light cascaded down into the passageway. Kal sighed heavily at the light above. Looking over his shoulder, he glanced worriedly back in the direction of the Wizardslayers. He worried about the pamphlets the Inspectors and the Wizardslayers would find. As the capital in the Allurian Empire, Venda was no longer a place of toleration and peace, and arguing for equality academically was no longer an academic exercise.
****
The Printing Press Guild Hall’s door hung off its hinges. Wizardslayers hauled pamphlets and manuscripts out of the building and threw them into wagons outside. Several Wizardslayers held the print manager. He was cuffed in the office, and minutes later, he screamed from interrogation. Chardon could hear the delightful screams. Eventually, the man would sign the forced confession.
On the wagon, Chardon sat. He wore a green tunic and matching leggings, and the Lieutenant answered to him. Chardon’s wiry face smiled. As the personal assistant to the Prime Magus, Chardon had been charged with tonight’s raid. The Lieutenant handed him the latest transgression of Prince Kalero Tremayne. He printed a pamphlet entitled: The Equality and Liberation of the Dim.
“Keep several samples of these for evidence and whatever else you find. There’s enough in the wagon.”
“And the rest sir,” the Lieutenant asked.
“Burn it alongside the Printers’ Guild manager. Treason is treason after all.”
The Council of Nobles passed a law recently that no material could challenge the teachings of the Wizardrium. Chardon closed his eyes. They had finally found the place where Prince Kalero had his works printed, and with this latest offense, they would issue an arrest warrant for the prince.
In the past, Prince Kalero had been caught handing out pamphlets about his metaphysical insights into the workings of the Source, which contradicted the Academy of Magery and the sanctioned teachings promulgated by the Wizardrium. The Academy and Wizardrium taught differently about the origins of magick and natural law than Kalero. For them, the discovery of the Enlightened Will and how the Will fueled various aspects and properties of matter were different because they denied the Will required the Source. They also believed that the Mages manipulated nature to whatever end they desire up to and including the Will of the King, even if this meant disturbing the balance and gift of creation itself. For them, nature was not creation; it had no Source. Instead, nature served them as they perceived it to be. Kalero had openly published several works these past two years, hastily readying them for the printing press before his elders could withhold them.
Professionally, he had paid the price. He had been a professor, accomplished in other areas of magickal research. He had penned several articles on how to enchant various metals, heal tissue with the addition of herbal properties all the while attacking Alluria’s fixation on manufactured pharmacological remedies, which only sold “cures” for profit. He was censured by some academic societies in other Kingdoms, and the Wizardrium had urged him to recant his first book, calling it a “dangerous speculation” and “a work steeped in lies.” The Academy of Magery demoted him to tutor. His colleagues would nod every once in a while in his direction, but clearly, he was playing with academic fire. His ideas had caught on in the more interesting salons and cafes around Alluria. These salons and cafes were filled with artists, poets, and the leisurely class of Dimmers born to privilege in the noble wizard Houses of Alluria but without the power. For these people, the idea that someone occupied lesser status because they were Dim seemed ridiculous. Being dim meant having no access to the power of the arts of Magick. The artists, however, protested on the grounds of social injustice, and their work had come under recent scrutiny of he Wizardrium.
First, Kalero published a Treatise on the Interplay of Balance and Will: A Theistic Companion to Magickal Metaphysics. In that treatise, Kalero explained the Source’s nature derived from balance. In his next book, Confessions of a Theistic Wizard, Kalero criticized the manners in which magick was employed tyrannically in his own brother’s Kingdom. In the magical world he had authored and defied the will of the Wizardrium, the ruling bodies of wizards, along with the Alluria’s Ministry of Information, and of course, his very own brother.
Several Wizardslayers in their obsidian-like Hecatium armor and inlaid copper-like runes stood outside. They had piled most of Prince Kalero’s manuscripts, and the guild manager pleaded for his li
Chapter 1
Dorn went out into the market. Allurian troops hammered a new ordinance about the new loyalty and sedition act. Next to those notices, Prince Kalero’s face looked back in print. Scrawled atop the poster: Wanted. Dorn swallowed hard. Not to rouse any more suspicion, Dorn secured eggs, bread, and cheese from the local market and returned home the long way.
He went by the Printers’ Guild Hall. Gerrin, the Printers’ Guild Hall Manager’s corpse dangled on a makeshift post locked by a chain. At the top of the post, a painted sign in blood read: Liar. Around the base, Dorn found burnt pages. There was enough to make out that these words were Prince Kalero’s making.
Dorn did not sprint. Every urge in his body commanded him otherwise, but discipline and intelligence prevailed.
When he arrived back, he entered his house quickly. Isadora, his wife, approached him. “Best not to take long with such a simple thing as going to the market, hun. He’s a prince at my table.” She mistook his nervousness for awkwardness as she grabbed the bag of food from him. Kalero sat joking with Naxon and Geru, their two sons. Kal felt at ease at the Rigela house. The home felt more like what a family should be, and he admired the awkward closeness in the brothers. The daughter Rigela sat across the way reading a history of Allurian architecture. Her flaxen hair lit amber by the morning sun.
“We need to talk,” Dorn said almost commandingly and out of revered respect he held for his prince. The alarm in his voice startled Kal.
“What happened?” Kal asked. Isadora looked inquisitive.
“Take my memories. Now!”
Stretching out his two arms, Kal took Dorn’s head in tenderness and friendship. Kal spoke words under his breath, his speech spidery making sounds that nobody in the room understood. Dorn offered no mental resistance. The spell was instant, and both Kal and Dorn fell into a shared consciousness like a friend dragging you into frigid lake. Images and thoughts coalesced merging into one awareness. In his mind, Kal walked with him inside the memories of the last hour. He saw the wanted poster, but more importantly, he saw the burnt pages at the feet of Gerrin’s corpse. The sudden flash of concern for family, the guilt of serving his prince, and the dreams of a better tomorrow for all Vendans fading just like the sudden end to the spell. It ended there. The silence lingered between them, and ended with Kal putting scrolls and journals into his satchel with haste.
“What? What is it?” Isadora asked, her hands folded akimbo.
“Gerrin is dead. They burnt him in a pile of my writings, and now there’s a warrant out for my arrest.”
Kal continued to pack away his things. He had known Gerrin for the past four years.
Isadora pulled Dorn aside two rooms over. “He cannot stay here...Never again. They’ll track him here. I just know it.” She still held the ladle, which she used to emphasize her point.
“I know,” Dorn said. He bit his lip. “At the same time, I can’t just abandon my prince.”
“The prince’s life ended the moment the Council and Wizardrium deemed it as such.”
“We’re trying to make the world better,” Dorn said.
“Dreams have a way of blinding dreamers. You have to get him out of here. By the blade, if you don’t, I’ll do it myself.”
Dorn raised both hands. “I’ll do it.” He left Isadora in the room, and met Kal in the other room. “Sire, if…”
“I know dear friend,” Kal rose from the chair. Rigela peered over her book watching the scene unfold not too sure about what exactly was happening, but she knew enough that Allurian architecture could wait. “I must leave tonight.”
“Do you know where you will go my prince?”
Breathing in through his nose heavily, Kal shook his head negatively. “I have no idea where I am going.” Flicking his wrist, both satchel and oakenwood staff floated to him. Naxon and Geru lighted up at the motion of objects floating through the air. “All that I do know is that to leave Venda would cause my critics to vilify me even more. If I face them, then I have a chance to finally be heard at the highest levels.”
“Don’t be naïve Kal. Whatever you do, make sure it’s the right call. Many are not as enlightened as you regarding the Dim.”
“I promise. I’ll make this right.”
Dorn’s wide shoulders and copper-skin arms flexed as both hands embraced the smaller mage’s biceps. “I know you will.”
Smiling, Kal eyed him with the longing wish that Dorn was his brother. Unfastening his cloak on a hook by the door, Prince Kalero pushed down on the thickly hinged door. Street lamp orbs emanated and poured into the lowly-lit den, and Kalero walked into the dark of night. As he left, Isadora bit her nails nervously, and Dorn slunk back into the chair. They did not speak the rest of the night.
Two hours later, Prince Kalero Tremayne entered the Wizardrium and asked to see his brother. The Wizardslayers took him into custody, and placed him under house arrest in the palatial wing. A day later, several wizards placed a force field of blue energy on that wing. Two days later, a tribunal summoned Prince Kalero.
****
The ticking clock clicked and chimed. Kalero Tremayne, a young man of thirty years and copper-skin sat in the comfy armchair. His satchel draped at his side, and his oakenwood staff hovered as his other hand swooshed it about in sync with his gesturing. Behind the desk, the young female swallowed at the display of gestural power, a fate and ability rarely seen in someone as young as Kalero. Unlike his colleagues, with whom power could only be casted by invocation of the High Art’s true speech, the very language of what Kalero called “creation,” Kalero could embody his will into movement. He could infuse the power of his will with the very magick he called the Will of the Source throughout the movements of his body. For him, the Source was the one true emanation of power in this universe, and he dared to call it the Light of God in his scholarship and teaching at the Academy of Magery. Beyond gestural wizards, the highest wizards casted from pure thought where no speech or gesture were needed to invoke the power wizards possessed.
Today, he had come willingly, hoping to shock his older brother out of apathy and the lust for power that consumed his soul. For his brother only two years older, unlike himself, had studied the High Arts of Magick all his life to achieve his talents, and while still young, Kalero could almost best him. Unlike Kalero, the King had simply done what he wished with his talent, as every wizard did. And this is what Kalero’s latest pamphlet took issue with: Wizards using their power indiscriminately regardless of its effect on the balance of all things, and he also called attention to the systematic discrimination of the Dim. Wizards referred to those without magick as Dimmers or being dim, but are not like those beings of the Underdark that serve the will of higher darker forces. Unlike Kalero, King Darnashi had never answered to anybody, and now with their Father dead, the Allurian Kingdom knew great prosperity, but only at the expense of the Dim, the imbalance to nature due to Alluria’s wizards, and the continual mistreatment entailed by such indiscriminate power—at the very least this was what the thesis of Exploitation of the Dim and Other Effects of Rampant Power contested.
Kalero had been a thorn in the side of the Academy for the past five years. No longer content with his station to merely observe as a learned man often does in the ivory tower, he went about trying to change the world through the pen. He started to write political pamphlets. With that, he could affect change, and hopefully make others see his point. He could use rational argument, the pen, and his mind to change the world for the better. That’s why he never resisted and came straight here. He did not expect the Ministry of Information or the Prime Magus of the Wizardrium to call for a formal tribunal. Dean Smythe, though, had been a friend of his father, and so he rested his hope on that friendship. Today could be different; today, I’ll make them see how wrong they are. His thoughts were hopeful. It had to work. His brother had to see it, and he’d get his big brother back, his Nash. King Darnashi would fall away, and he’d get his brother back.
