The wizard the bear clan.., p.1
The Wizard (The Bear Clan Book 2), page 1
The Wizard
A novel by Vasily Mahanenko
The Bear Clan
Book 2
Published by Magic Dome Books
The Bear Clan
Book 2: The Wizard
Copyright © V. Mahanenko 2021
Cover Art © Ksenia Nikelson 2021
Cover Design © V. Manyukhin 2021
English translation copyright © Jared Firth 2021
Published by Magic Dome Books, 2021
All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 978-80-7619-421-2
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events 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..
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Table of Contents:
Summary of book one
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
About the Author
Summary of book one
Thirteen-year-old high mage Ishar-Mor was a valg, a lizard that walked upright, who was sentenced to death. After plotting to overthrow the emperor, the memory of his previous lives was stripped from him, and he was banished from his home world to one where they’d never even heard of magic. But sheer luck played a cruel trick on the executioners. Just as the high mage was being banished, a ritual was being performed in a different world to summon a soul. The Brown Bear clan leader’s only son had fallen from a tree and was teetering between life and death. Knowing full well what they were doing, the clan leaders beseeched their spirit protector for help, and he pulled the most powerful soul he could find out of the universe. The valg became fifteen-year-old Leg Ondo. There was magic, after all, in his new world, though he couldn’t use it — humans only gained magic abilities when they were initiated at age sixteen. When it came to magic itself, it was animal spirits called totems that gave their clans strength and two or three magic abilities. The planet also had force stones, or special rocks that could share magic power.
Six months later, Leg and his team were participating in an interclan competition when they were ambushed by goblins, the planet’s true inhabitants. His friends were all killed, though he managed to survive. He then figured out how to control the magic lines force stones gave off, using them to defeat the commander of a goblin squad. But it was as he prepared to do battle for his life that help arrived. Lando Slick, the sixth son of the emperor, happened for some reason to be on the outskirts of the empire, and he gave Leg a launcher, a forbidden weapon for the outcast clan. In return, the representative of the imperial Viper clan demanded a year of service from Leg. And the boy couldn’t say no. For reasons only he knew, Lando sent the son of his sworn enemy to one of the most expensive and privileged educational institutions in the empire: the Imperial Academy. Leg quickly realized how far the Brown Bears lagged behind the rest of the world. Cars running on force stones, clothing, learning, trains — even a regular provincial city made a deep impression on him. One downside to urban life, however, was the stench that hung in the city air, almost as if the city sewers didn’t work. The residents themselves were so used to it that they didn’t notice a thing, but it was an unpleasant surprise for Leg.
The train Leg was traveling on was attacked. The bandits were hunting Ulma Reloit, leader of the Panthers, the second clan in the empire, though Leg was able to leverage his new ability to control magic lines and save the old woman. That ruined the plans of a secret organization called the Crimson Ribbon.
Once at the academy, Leg met two boys his age named Elrin and Had. The work they put into training together brought them closer, though they were subsequently punished with a trip to the sewers, a special area for testing abilities and coming back with resources the academy needed, after breaking the rules. Two girls named Liara and Belis also headed in with them. Joining forces, the group made their way down to the third level below ground, as Belis had a map of the sewers she was counting on to get them all plenty of loot. But nobody knew that level was packed with enormous octopus-like beasts. The group found themselves in an uneven battle, and it was only Leg’s ability to work with force lines that helped him save his friends.
While still down in the sewers, Leg was able to find a statuette made of a blood-red material that turned out to be one of seven Bogush crystals. His find was quickly taken away — students weren’t permitted to have things like that in their possession. But that was when the emperor showed up at the academy to personally reward the student who saved his niece. Leg had no other choice but to gift the crystal to the emperor, the latter responding by lifting the moratorium on trading with the Brown Bears and giving them room to resume their development. Not only that, but Lando Slick handed the boy a porting stone. Working something like a teleport, it gave the sixth heir a way to show up when he was needed. Leg availed himself of it almost immediately. Had, one of his friends, had been kidnapped. The dark-skinned southerner was the only surviving heir of the Gray Elephant clan that had once ruled the Southern Empire. His plan had been to hide at Mirax, the Northern Empire’s Imperial Academy, only his pursuers were able to get to him even there. But while Leg was able to find where Had was being held, he found himself facing a new enemy: infernos. They were people who had chosen the path of absorbing mithril, losing their human appearance but gaining unheard-of strength. Lando and his people were able to neutralize the threat. Once he returned, Had joined Leg’s family, becoming one of the Brown Bears.
That calm lasted all of a few minutes, however. The bandits that had tried to eliminate Ulma Reloit, leader of the Panther clan, attacked him. Happily, he was able to fight them off, take one prisoner, and deliver him to the Panther residence. Ulma told the boy about how things in the empire really stood and how their assailants worked for a mysterious organization called the Crimson Ribbon that was out to destabilize the empire. As thanks for saving her, the woman set off with Leg to his village and signed a mining agreement with the Brown Bears. That let Leg’s clan shaman take him to another spot where a Bogush crystal had been stored and destroy it. Whoever could combine all seven parts of the statuette would get a map showing them all mithril deposits while also being able to control infernos as well as angels. The latter were the next level of modified people.
For his entry exam to the Academy, Leg wrote down a few chapters from a book that had been popular in his previous world. The text thrilled his supervisors to the point that they asked him to write the whole thing. Not only did Leg write it, however; he won a contest with it. After reaching the imperial palace, he and Liara found the seventh and final Bogush crystal, though it was taken from them on their return to Mirax. The head of security there, Lando Slick’s older brother, had no wish to strengthen the empire with such a treasure. Instead, the seventh crystal was hidden far away from both the Bears and the Crimson Ribbon.
Leg successfully completed his studies and earned his due reward, after which he and his friends set off for his village to go through initiation. In addition to Leg, there were Had and Elrin, the latter also deciding to join the Brown Bear clan. They were attacked by a Crimson Ribbon fighter on the way. But Leg was able to summon Lando Slick, and their combined strength was enough to defeat the adversary. The battle showed, however, that there was someone in the empire who could use magic. And something had to be done about that.
After initiation, Had became a powerful warrior with the ability to use the totem’s magic gifts. Elrin became a knight — they could mimic any ability used against them. For his turn, Leg was made a wizard, a legendary and long forgotten being who could create magic using nothing but his will. The gift wasn’t given lightly, however. To use it, Leg was going to have to take a long trip into goblin territory.
But was he going to be allowed to get that far?
Chapter 1
“...WHICH HANDED US yet another market, boosting our KPIs by — ”
“Enough!” The leader of the Crimson Ribbon raised a hand to cut off the report on the organization’s financials. Things were going well, credits were pouring into their accounts, and more and more clans were coming under their control, only none of that was putting him in a good mood. The feeling of approaching danger made it clear that something foreboding wa
You have one minute to clear the room. I need you. Do it.
“Everybody out! Now!” The man leaped to his feet and began ushering his staff out of his office with a haste unbefitting his rank. By the time a projection of his guest appeared in the middle of the room, the doors were shut and reinforced with an eavesdropping blocker.
“Master,” the leader of the Crimson Ribbon said as he fell to one knee. “It’s my pleasure to welcome you to my humble abode.”
“Rikon, step into the circle,” the projection of the gray-haired old man said, gesturing to where he’d appeared. At first glance, he looked to be about seventy, but that was only at first glance. A chosen few were all who knew the real age of the world’s shadow leader, and a reverent chill ran down their spine when they thought about it. Not many people were given the right to three hundred and seventy years. Even fewer remained as strong as they were at the beginning of their journey.
The leader of the Crimson Ribbon obeyed, and the space around him swirled for a few moments before taking form as a small clearing surrounded by thick gray fog. The three other pupils of the great master were there waiting. Rikon looked around. Of the four, two had gone their own way to found the Crimson Ribbon in the Northern Empire and the White Lily in the Southern Empire. The other two had remained there with the master to continue divining the secrets of magic. The old man spoke.
“A wizard appeared in the world today. The totem is enraged and demands that we eliminate them. And since we don’t know which empire is now home to the enemy, we’re going to have to spread our forces out. Rikon, you’ll take your Northern Empire, Devit will cover the Southern Empire, and Sharmir will scour the Western Empire. You have to find the wizard before they gather power, so do whatever it takes. If you have to check every kid initiated over the last year, do it. And when you find the wizard, eliminate them immediately. That’s an order!”
“Master, you didn’t give me anything to do,” one of the pupils said with bowed head. Rikon frowned to himself — he hated that useless piece of incompetency with every fiber of his being. The weakest of them, he was envious and unpleasant. The only reason he still had a place in the circle was because he was the first pupil. A hundred years before, the master had begun his path to greatness by working with him, and he’d developed a soft spot for the wimp.
“I have something for you, too. Your job will be to head into globin territory and destroy the altar of Zul’var. We should have done that a long time ago... Even if we can’t find the wizard, they won’t be able to prove to the Beast that they’re worthy of training. You all have my permission to use any resources you need to complete your mission. Get the emperors involved, the clans, anyone you want, just find and destroy the enemy. Meanwhile, I’ll try to pull more information out of the totem. Get to work! The wizard grows stronger with each passing minute!”
* * *
As I concentrated, the force lines thickened, filled with energy, and became visible as a ball of fire the size of my fist. The mana I had available to me dropped by a fourth. Unlike the usual abilities the totem gave, working with pure energy came with a heavy cost, though I appreciated the result. The small, deadly sun appeared just above my open palm to break all the laws of physics and magic alike. It was supposed to be impossible to make it without an ability.
“Excellent!” said Barx, shaman of the Brown Bear clan as well as my father’s grandfather. “Now, send it at the target. Hold it in your thoughts, turn your palm toward what you’re aiming at, and make the force lines do the work.”
I grinned and sent the lump of flames hurtling at the target, a mannequin fifty meters away. As it turned out, the 50/50 tattoo that remained on my shoulder as a reminder of my encounter with the totem let me interact with items even at that distance. But no further. The mannequin quivered, a singed hole appearing in it.
“That about does it for our lessons.” Barx promptly sat down on the ground, pulling a long pipe out of one of his many pockets. A few moments after a small spark leaped off the end of his index finger, he sank back happily into a cloud of smoke to lose himself in his thoughts. There was no sense talking with him. Even if I’d been able to shake him out of his stupor, I would have earned myself nothing more than a couple of cuffs to the head. It was a lesson I’d long since learned. Concentrating once again, I pulled up the list of abilities I had available to me and activated homeward bound. There was no way I wanted to walk all the way from the shaman’s cave. A split-second after the space around me swirled into a gray fog, I found myself in the palace’s main hall.
“Father, Lando,” I said, nodding to the two men, though they ignored me. The leader of the Brown Bear clan and the sixth heir to the throne were engrossed in a small board littered with odd figurines. As I’d found out, the game was called chess, and it had such complicated rules that I didn’t even try to understand them. Memorize them? Sure. Understand them? Not a chance.
“Buddy, wait up! I’ll be there in a minute!” Elrin was standing near the players, following their match with interest. He, unlike me, thoroughly appreciated the nonsense happening on the board. Yawning in boredom, I nearly snarled in frustration with myself, then forcing my thoughts to line up in order and going over to the board to figure out what was happening. Chess made the part of my brain work that many people didn’t need and therefore saw atrophy. Take me, for example. Once again, a wave of rage hit me, though I was able to stifle it before it could rush out. What the totem had told me during my initiation came back, and I could tell for myself why something that strange was happening. Where I’d once been ruled by logic and common sense, emotions and impulse had the upper hand. Constant laziness, the necessity of going to war with myself, the unwillingness I felt to learn anything new, and the urge to get out of any real work — all of it was my lot in life thanks to the old Leg. And that bothered me more than anything. There was nothing I could do about something that had become part of me.
Lando won the game, though my father demanded a rematch. Even if it was a low-stakes victory, the heir liked beating my father, so he quickly agreed. I could only sigh and head out to test my launcher. One thing was for sure: our spirit protector had given me a nice little toy, one that nobody could take away even in the palace. That was why the emperor was always surrounded by guards — they didn’t want anyone thinking too much about harming the leader of the empire. And given how hard that would have been regardless, what with the emperor’s position on the ranking, nobody risked it. There was a kind of exclusion zone around him that stepping inside came with the death penalty. After all, the totems always handed out weapons for hand-to-hand combat. Almost always, that is — my launcher stood out like a sore thumb. With a range of a hundred meters, it fired chunks of energy instead of arrows. The clip held thirty shots, and it could be charged with a force stone or just five units of my own mana. A dream, in a word. Including the fact that it could punch through inferno armor from ten paces away, it was more than a dream. When Lando saw what my weapon could do, he nearly killed me on the spot. But the best part was that it was impossible to lose. That was why nobody took them away at the palace. If I just expressed the desire, the totem’s gift appeared in my hand. That worked just once a day, but even completely destroying named items wasn’t enough to keep their owner from getting them back. It was a complicated and, more importantly, dangerous topic.
