Tools of prophecy, p.1
Tools of Prophecy, page 1
part #3 of Prophecies Series Series
Tools of Prophecy
M.A. Rothman
Primordial Press
Copyright © 2020 Michael A. Rothman
Cover Art by Allen Morris
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
Also By M.A. Rothman
Technothrillers: (Thrillers with science / Hard-Science Fiction)
• Primordial Threat
• Freedom’s Last Gasp
• Darwin’s Cipher
Levi Yoder Thrillers:
• Perimeter
• The Inside Man
• Never Again
Epic Fantasy / Dystopian:
• Dispocalypse
• Agent of Prophecy
• Heirs of Prophecy
• Tools of Prophecy
• Lords of Prophecy
Contents
Prologue
Becoming a King
Coronation
Damantite
Visions and Dreams
Assassins
Eluanethra
The Training Begins
A Different Kind of School
Training
Leaving Eluanethra
A Return Home
Interrogation
School Starts
Dominic Strikes
The Hunt
Practicing Skills
A New Castle
Swamp Cats
The Contest
Awards Ceremony
The First Protector
Revenge
The Seed
Destruction
Preview – Lords of Prophecy
Author’s Note
About the Author
Trimoria
Prologue
Malphas breathed in the aroma of scorched flesh and sulfur as he awaited instruction from Sammael, the Lord of the Dark Host. Demonkind weren’t known for their forgiving nature, but despite Malphas’s past failures, Malphas felt secure in the belief that his lord would have a role for him in the coming offensive. After all, he’d come so close to victory during the last assault.
Though it had occurred over five centuries ago, Malphas could still clearly recall the moment he broke through the entrance into the world above. The taste of the air, the feel of the sun, the smell of the burning cities, and the combined might of the human, elf, and dwarf armies falling beneath the blades of his forces… just the thought of it still set his heart racing. Yet even with his early victories, Malphas had ultimately tasted defeat. All thanks to the wrath of a single human—an Archmage of devastating power.
Prior to the Archmage’s intervention, the war had gone just as Lord Sammael had foreseen. Towns were pillaged, fields laid to waste, bodies burned in great pyres. Then the Archmage constructed his barrier, his magical wall. It wiped half of Malphas’s army from existence in the blink of an eye, and sent the remainder of his forces scattered back into the Abyss from whence they’d come.
And so things had remained… until now.
Lord Sammael had recently begun assembling his troops for a second surge. After five centuries of trying to find a way through the barrier—and failing—Sammael’s frustration had reached a boiling point.
Having been called, Malphas now knelt before his master, the black scales of his knees pressed against the stone floor. At twenty feet tall, General Malphas usually towered over his minions, but here, kneeling before the high and immense throne of blackest stone, he felt utterly insignificant.
The Demon Lord didn’t even acknowledge his presence, he merely stared into the distance. In this region of the Abyss, the temperatures always bordered on freezing, yet singeing waves of heat emanated from Sammael’s skin.
Finally, after a very long wait, Sammael turned his attention to his general. “I have learned that a new wizard has entered Trimoria.” He said the words without speaking. His voice, inky and coarse, erupted as if from within Malphas’s head. “You will find out how such a thing was possible. If one can enter, others can as well.”
“But, my lord,” Malphas said in his gravelly voice, “how can that be? I thought you arranged for the purging of those who followed Seder.”
The Demon Lord’s rage bubbled to the surface. “Don’t ever mention my brother’s name again. I will not hear it spoken by the likes of you.”
Malphas bowed low, touching his forehead to the stone floor, before looking up into the harrowing heat of his master once again.
Sammael calmed as quickly as he’d become enraged. Closing his eyes, the heat he spewed changed to light, his very skin projecting a series of holographic images into the air between them.
The first showed a human wizard standing at the base of the throne’s imposing dais. Malphas had seen this human’s image before; this was the wizard over whom Sammael held control. In the hologram, the wizard stood before a group of humans, and bowed slightly in a show of greeting.
“Greetings,” the wizard said. “My name is Azazel. I fear that I have intruded on your happy home, so I will impose upon your time with only a few simple questions.”
A large soldier stepped forward. “I am Throll Lancaster,” he replied. “Protector-general of Trimoria. How can I help you, Lord Azazel?”
The feigned pleasantries continued, but not for long. Soon the encounter turned to battle. Sammael’s wizard sent blasts of energy at his foes, scattering them like leaves in a storm. Malphas saw that they were no match for the wizard’s powers.
But then, to the general’s surprise, an adolescent human stepped forward, his robed garb rustling in the wind, and met Azazel’s assault with a powerful magical attack of his own.
Malphas gave a grunt of surprise. A rogue wizard in the Trimorian Valley? How was it possible?
Azazel quickly met this new foe and demonstrated his mastery over the young wizard. But just as he prepared to finish him off, a second gray-robed wizard appeared in the distance and struck Azazel with a powerful blast to the chest.
Yet the master’s wizard seemed pleased. “Two wizards?” he said with a smile. “Oh, I will savor this for years to come.”
A fury of light and heat ensued. Pulsing streams of sizzling energy flew between the competing wizards, a sparking collision of tremendous powers.
Finally, one of the gray-robed wizards faltered, leaving only the human adolescent standing to face Azazel. Malphas felt his excitement rise. The demon forces would win the day.
And then, with a single harrowing blast, the adolescent sent the dark wizard flying backwards, impaling him on the wooden handle of a cart. For a moment, he coughed up blood… and then he disappeared in a crackling ball of black and red plasma.
Malphas couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
Azazel had lost.
Defeated by a child.
The scene shifted. Azazel lay helplessly on a forest floor, wheezing, choking back death, his eyes struggling to remain open. Three humans approached—the large soldier from the first vision accompanied by the pair of rogue wizards. Azazel lifted his hand, and the aura around him solidified into a dense cloud of darkness.
And with that, the vision came to an end.
Malphas’s menacing jaw hung open, but he quickly snapped it shut and directed his eyes to the gray stone floor when his master rose and descended from his dais. He saw only the long black shadows cast by his master, but Sammael’s grating voice echoed within his head.
“Not only are there two rogue wizards, but there is another Archmage walking in Trimoria. It seems as if Ellisandrea’s plan to kill wizards in avoidance of the prophecy has failed. The time of prophecy approaches.”
Still kneeling, Malphas dared to look up at the Demon Lord. “I never trusted that elven witch’s dreams. What can we do? The barrier remains around the valley. We cannot enter.”
Sammael smiled. “I can still project my influence into anyone who stands near the Seed. My brother remains ignorant of my abilities. The same is true of his Archmage puppet. They ignore the Seed at their peril.”
The Demon Lord then waved his hand over the general’s horned head, and a mist formed all around him. Nervously, Malphas breathed it in. And then his tension fell away. This… this was his power. The power he’d been missing for centuries. His master was restoring what had long ago been stripped from him.
I am whole once again.
“Yes, Malphas. I am returning your powers. You could not have foreseen your failure five hundred and sixty-three years ago. The first Archmage was a variable I had not considered. But you have done your penance, my dear disciple, and I have plans for you.”
The general smiled. “Thank you, Lord,” he said in thought. With his power restored, he could now communicate telepathically again. “I look forward to hearing your plan.”
Sammael’s form shifted, settling into its true, amorphous shape. “And you will. For now, rest assured that you will get your war… and we will have our victory. For I have taken control of a new human champion within the barrier.”
Becoming a King
Gathered in a field is a vast army that includes all manner of soldiers—humans, dwarves, even elven races. Through their midst rides a young general on horseback, barking directions to the various platoon leaders. He is handsome, with defined cheekbones and sparkling blue eyes, and his armor and sword glow with a f iery-red glint.
The general unsheathes his sword, waves it above his head, and points to the ridge just ahead. Beyond that ridge a black cloud has formed, radiating despair, and beneath that cloud is another army—this one borne of nightmare.
The armies begin to advance on one another.
The scene flashed white.
A giant ogre walks a natural stone bridge across a chasm, whipped by wind that threatens to pull him into the abyss below. The ogre is equipped in plate armor that glows a pristine white and emits sparks with every movement. His sword, sheathed at his side, is a tremendous greatsword with a pommel of red.
Following behind the ogre is a blue-eyed wizard, a look of concern on his bearded face. In one hand he carries a sparking metal staff, and in the other, a brilliant diamond the size of a melon. It pulses with radiant power.
Crossing the bridge from the opposite side of the chasm is a fiend of blackness and fire, reeking of brimstone and emanating waves of heat. The fiend matches the ogre in size, and it, too, wields a giant sword.
As the two great beasts, ogre and fiend, meet at the middle of the bridge, another presence is felt. Behind the fiend, at the edge of the chasm, stands a deeper, darker presence, palpably evil, so enormous that it dwarfs both fiend and ogre.
The ogre clashes with the fiend, and the wizard raises the diamond above his head.
* * *
Ryan Riverton startled awake, groaning. Every night, the same dream.
He yawned and stretched, and tried to ignore the soft snoring of his brother, Aaron, in the next bed. And then he smiled with excitement when he remembered what today was.
It wasn’t every day that people you lived with were crowned king and queen.
In fact, that would have been an impossible thought just two short years ago. But then again, almost everything they’d encountered since that fateful day when they first set foot in Trimoria was impossible. Magic. Bearded dwarven warriors. Elves. Evil wizards. Demons. All these things would have been seen as nothing but fiction straight out of an epic fantasy to the Ryan Riverton who lived with his family in the state of Washington. Back in those days, he and his brother were normal, everyday students. His mother was a teacher, and his father was an engineer who dabbled with a forge he’d built near the garage. Their life was ordinary. Good, but ordinary.
And then, two years ago, they took a vacation to Arizona… and found themselves stuck in a cave in the middle of an earthquake. And when the earthquake was over… they were in Trimoria.
They still had no rational explanation for that. Trimoria was a land that defied rational explanation.
In this world, Ryan was a wizard. An actual, real-life wizard—which even in Trimoria was incredibly rare. His father was a wizard too, though a reluctant one; Jared Riverton had far more enthusiasm for his newfound career as a blacksmith. His mother, Aubrey, had discovered that she was a magical healer, and his brother, Aaron—at seventeen, two years Ryan’s junior—had the gift of extraordinary strength that he had parlayed, through obsessive training, into incredible combat ability.
And these were the least of the changes to Ryan’s life. For there were prophecies, received in the form of dreams that every resident of Trimoria had every night, that foretold fateful roles for both Ryan and Aaron.
Aaron was the general leading the army.
Ryan was the wizard on the bridge.
It was quite a responsibility for two ordinary teen boys from Washington.
A pounding on the door made Ryan jump, and Aaron woke with a start, launching from his bed as if someone had lit his underwear on fire.
“Wake up, boys!” came Dad’s booming voice. “It’s time to get ready for the coronation. Get dressed properly and meet me in the living room in ten minutes.”
Aaron groaned. “I hate wearing my formals.”
Ryan laughed. “You don’t hear me whining about it.”
“That’s because all you need to do is slip a nicer robe over your head. It’s the same clothes you always wear. I have to wear full armor—and it needs to be buffed.”
“It doesn’t have to be buffed,” Ryan said.
“It does if I don’t want Throll to have a fit. It was bad enough having regular old Throll yelling at me. Now I’m going to have Throll, the Crowned King of Trimoria yelling at me.”
That was, Ryan knew, the downside of Aaron being Throll’s protégé. Throll could be demanding and impatient, and Aaron was on the receiving end of that attitude more often than anyone.
“Fine,” Ryan said. “I’ll help you put it on.” He added with a smirk, “As soon as I put on the same clothes I always wear.”
Despite his snark, Ryan had set aside his best robe for the occasion. He wanted to look his best for his betrothed, Arabelle, in the event she managed to make it back to town in time for the ceremony. He quickly dressed, then went to help his brother.
Every piece of armor Aaron wore had been expertly pounded into shape by their father, then imbued with magic by Ryan. That magic made the metal glow a bluish-white, the only outward indication that it could withstand far more damage than an ordinary suit of armor. Ryan helped with the chest plate, pulling the straps tight behind Aaron’s back, but for the rest of it, Aaron did everything himself, insisting it needed to be just so. Ryan gave him a full inspection, buffing out any spots that needed it, and then together they headed downstairs.
But in the hall, they bumped into Sloane, Throll’s sixteen-year-old daughter—and Aaron’s betrothed. She was normally tomboyish, but today she wore a dress of fine blue satin that was absolutely stunning, and her long blonde hair, normally in a single braid, now hung in gracious tresses down to the middle of her back. Even Ryan did a double-take.
It was weird being betrothed. In fact, it was weird even using the word “betrothed.” But in Trimoria, it was the custom to marry young and to get betrothed even younger. And the boys didn’t mind. Aaron clearly adored Sloane, and Ryan had fallen head over heels for Arabelle. As attractive as Sloane was looking right now, Arabelle’s beauty was incomparable.
“You boys better watch out,” Sloane said, twisting anxiously in her dress. “My father is in a sour mood. If you value your skin, don’t make any jokes about ‘Your Highness’ or anything. He isn’t taking this king thing well.”
“But isn’t that the proper way to address a king?” Ryan asked. “With a ‘Your Highness’?”
Sloane sighed. “Try it and see. Within this house, His Highness doesn’t want to be called anything other than ‘Dad’ or ‘Throll.’” She pointed to Aaron. “And when I say ‘try it and see,’ I mean don’t. Especially you, Mr. Troublemaker.”
Ryan chuckled. Aaron did have a tendency to tease people. And he might even be stupid enough to tease the protector-general and future king of Trimoria.
Aaron gave Sloane a lopsided grin. “Sorry, did you say something?”
Sloane glared.
“He’s just too stunned by your beauty to listen,” Ryan said, playing peacemaker. “You really do look great, Sloane.”
Sloane smiled coquettishly, batted her eyes at Aaron, and twirled on her toes to show off her dress. She could go from playful and alluring to serious and intimidating in an instant. And as far as Ryan figured it, it was exactly the kind of attributes she needed to be able to handle his brother, whose stubbornness rivaled that of even the most ornery of mules.
“Is that true, Aaron?” Sloane said coyly. “Do you like what you see?”
Aaron blushed. “You know I do.”
