The Phoenix Ring (The Thunderheart Chronicles Book 1) Page 2

  When he opened his eyes, the tent was ablaze. Fire crawled over the ground, his clothes, even on his arms, though he felt no pain. He barely had a moment to be startled before something hit the back of his head, and then his world descended into darkness.

  2

  Aidan woke up in a soft bed, the softest he had ever slept in.

  That’s strange he thought, without opening his eyes. I don’t remember laying down. He rolled over, wondering if his mother would be calling for breakfast soon.

  His eyes snapped open. He was staring at a wooden ceiling completely unlike the thatch at the orphanage. Wherever he was, his mother would not be calling for breakfast. He turned his head and saw a beautiful glass window.

  Glass, the most expensive thing to cover a hole with. Where am I? Aidan thought.

  He rolled out of the bed and took in a more detailed view of his surroundings. He was in a room three times as long as him that boasted two identical beds with matching chests on each side. The walls were made of stone, and the front of the room was dominated by a large door, while the back held a fireplace.

  Aidan swung his legs over the side and, silently as he could, walked to the door and listened. When he heard no one he tried to open it. Locked. Aidan paced around the room for a few minutes trying to figure out where he was. He remembered the Rangers, and his lack of skill with a bow, and a wizard, what was his name?, and then…

  It was blank.

  He sat down on the bed that he had woken on and stared into the fire. The shapes seemed to dance. They looked like people screaming, tents on fire, a Ranger holding an unstrung bow looming over him-

  Oh.

  He put his hand to the back of his head and it came away sticky with blood. Yet somehow he felt no pain. He had been knocked out before, one of the older boys at the orphanage had been digging for potatoes when he had lost his grip on the shovel. It had hit Aidan on the back of the head and he had been out for an hour. He had woken understanding why the men of his village claimed they had been kicked by a horse after drinking too many cups of ale.

  Right now Aidan felt better than he had in years, and for once in his life, he wasn’t angry at anything. Of course, as soon as he started thinking about it the never ending rage made itself present. And suddenly the face that dwelt in the fire was not one Aidan had ever seen before.

  It had the same hair as Aidan, in an untidy mess, and the same expression of a troublemaker, but it was far older. Aidan knew who it was, and his green eyes shone with hate.

  “Go away!” He shouted at the fire, and to his surprise it went out with a whooshing noise.

  He stared at the cold ashes for a few moments, before he raised his hand and gazed at it. Then he pointed it at the fire again.

  “Fire!” He shouted. “Blaze! Burn! Ignite!” Yet the ashes remained still.

  “I think you’ll find,” Said a voice behind him, “That the correct word is Ingo!”

  The hearth blazed to life, and Aidan spun around. An old man was standing about three feet behind Aidan. He looked just like the wizard Amilech, except for a white, glowing mark the shape of a moon on his head.

  Aidan saw that the door was open behind the old man and tensed himself to run.

  The wizard smiled. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he said. “Why don’t you have a seat?”

  Aidan turned around and saw that there were two chairs set up around a small wooden table.

  I could have sworn that there wasn’t anything there before Aidan thought as he nervously sat down.

  “My name is Malachi. So tell me,” the wizard said, “what did you think of my brother Amilech?”

  Aidan thought it would be better to just remain silent.

  The old man rolled his eyes. “Either you can tell me what you know, or I can put a spell on you that will make you speak. Your choice.”

  Aidan gripped the sides of his seat and glanced toward the open door, where he thought someone had been standing.

  The wizard looked back and saw what Aidan was staring at. “Let’s fix that distraction, shall we?” he asked, waving his hand. The door slammed, and Aidan's mind went blank again.

  “Now, where were we? Ah yes, you were going to tell me what you thought of Amilech.”

  Aidan tried to lie, but instead of saying, “He was really nice sir,” he said, “Your brother is a jerk.”

  Aidan’s eyes widened in horror, and he cringed in his seat as the wizard opened his mouth.

  But instead of casting a spell that would mean certain death for the boy, the wizard began to laugh heartily.

  “Yes, I always thought so too. I think it sent him over the edge when I became a warlock and he remained a wizard.” He said, gesturing towards the moon on his forehead.

  Aidan had no clue what this meant, but he nodded his head as if he did.

  “So how long have you known that you have magic?” The warlock asked.

  “About fifteen minutes,” Aidan said, giving up on trying to lie.

  The man frowned. “But surely one of your parents had magic?”

  “No, my mother has no magic, and my father… well, he was a weak man.”

  Malachi looked as if he saw more than what Aidan told him, but remained silent on the subject.

  “So then I am assuming that you know very little about magic. I am also assuming that you want to know where you are and how you got here. Am I correct?”

  Aidan nodded his head vigorously.

  “Tell me, what do you know about magic?” Malachi asked.

  Aidan thought for a moment, which was not easy with Malachi staring at him, the old man had the odd habit of blinking one eye at a time. “I know that everyone has magic, and that most people can’t use it or there is not enough to be considered powerful. I also know that wizards have more than most people, and I can guess that magic is inherited.”

  The warlock smiled in the same way a mother smiles at a toddler trying to walk for the first time.

  “Well not quite. Not everyone has magic. Let me tell you the story of how magic came to Sortiledge.

  “Long ago, when dragons ruled the skies and unicorns owned the land, there were three small tribes of people. They were all the same, a strong race of creatures that looked just like us. There was another race, the Ancients. No one knows who they were or what form they took, only that they possessed magic so powerful that in their youth they could push islands out of the sea.

  The Ancients told the three tribes that they could each be given one gift and one gift only, that they and their descendants would possess forever.

  Each tribe met the Ancients at the appointed time, and asked for a different ability.

  The first tribe acted as one and truly cared for one another. It is said that there was never a poor man in the tribe, for they all shared what they had. They said to the ancients in one voice “We ask only that what we make with our hands will be successful.”

  The Ancients responded “Your wish will be granted, and since you have unified yourselves today, you will forever be unified. Alone, you will be weak, but when you stand together you will never be defeated.”

  The Ancients performed their magic, and the first tribe became short, slightly rounded, and incredibly strong. They were given hammers and picks, and were transported to the western continent of Sortiledge , now known as Beganor, where the land is poor but the mountains are tall. They became the first dwarves.

  The second tribe came forward. They had conferred together for many weeks, yet the group was divided. When it was time for them to decide their gift, the leaders and strongest stepped forward.

  “We ask for a beauty that all creatures will envy, and for a grace unlike any other.”

  However, while they were still speaking, a young boy whose sweetheart was fatally ill ran forward and fell on his knees. “We ask for the power over life and death!” He panted.

  One of the rulers, who was very vain and did not want the boy’s wish to be granted over his, threw a spear that p
ierced the boy in the back. As the boy lay dying, the Ancients grew very angry.

  “You have committed a great evil this day in our presence,” They said. “You shall be granted what you asked for, but it will come with a curse. You shall be the weakest of all the races, made for running and not for fighting. You shall be the first to pass, and will never change from the form you have asked for.”

  Yet they took pity on the boy. “His wish will be granted, and his life spared. It will be a curse to you all.” They said to the vain of the tribe.

  They were transported the easternmost continent of Ariyahn, the land of forests and plains. They found that they were beautiful and moved with a grace that even the deer envied, yet they could not lift rocks and logs that they would have found light before. The boy was healed, and the first thing he did was pull the illness out of his sweetheart. He found that he could not simply dispose of the disease, but had to put it somewhere. He pushed it into the leader who had thrown the spear at him, who died a day later. The boy set himself up as king, and began to turn his people into the best healers that have ever lived, yet to the leaders he showed no pity. And so elves were created.

  The third tribe was cunning and greedy. Nothing would satisfy them except to rule over the other tribes.

  “We wish that you would give us the same power you have, to make the ground tremble and the waves rise, to bring fire to life with our fingers and destroy those who hate us.” The Ancients, for the first time, were afraid.

  “Are you sure this is the power that you wish for? It will come with a curse, and there are many other things you could ask for, such as wisdom. Nobody has ever asked for wisdom.

  But the third race remained resolute in their request. The Ancients finally and very hesitantly gave them what they asked for. “You will receive your gift, but you will be cursed as much as the elves. You will not pass until long after the demise of the other races, but you will always wage war amongst yourselves, until every last one of you has died at the hands of another. Yet some of you will never gain the power, they will be stronger than you in every other way and will never be under your control.”

  The third tribe was left on the middle continent, Gurvinite. They were called human, their power was called magic, and the ones left without were called amogh.”

  This man is mad, Aidan thought. And he could kill me with his little finger. I want a knife.

  The wizard was currently enjoying watching a line of fire ants (that had not been there before) run over his hand.

  Aidan cleared his throat, at which the wizard looked up and the fire ants disappeared. They did not pop into nonexistence or even fade out. One moment they were there and the next they simply were not.

  "Where am I, sir?" He asked in a small voice.

  The odd man laughed. "Why in Fort Phoenix, where else?" he said.

  Aidan cringed. Fort Phoenix was where the king's wizards and mages were sent to train. All Aidan knew about it was that it was high in the mountains far to the north of Gurvinite, and that the elders of the village spoke of it as a brutal prison where magic would be extracted from ordinary folk, leaving them lifeless.

  The wizard abruptly stood. "Come, let me show you around your new home, here, can you read and write?"

  Rose had forced all the boys going through the orphanage to read and write, and Aidan was no different. "Yes sir." He said.

  "Well then you can take this," he said, handing Aidan a leather-bound notebook from somewhere within the folds of his robes, along with a quill. "And don't worry about ink, that quill will never run dry."

  The warlock opened the door, where a boy about Aidan's age was standing. He had blonde hair and blue eyes, and was a few inches shorter than Aidan.

  "Timothy, I want you to take Aidan out and show him around, try to tell him as much as you can."

  Timothy nodded his head eagerly as the warlock shuffled past, leaving the two boys alone.

  Aidan stuck out his hand, and Timothy shook it with some vigor.

  "It is so good to meet you, Aidan," he said.

  "Er, it's good to meet you too," Aidan said, more than a little taken aback.

  "How did you know my name?"

  The boy went red. "The crack under the door is a little big, and I was standing outside, so I couldn’t help but hear a little…"

  Aidan laughed, he liked this energetic boy.

  "So where do you want to go?" The smaller boy asked, changing the subject quickly.

  "Uh, you lead," said Aidan. Maybe there will be a chance for me to run while he isn’t looking.

  Timothy promptly turned around and began to walk quickly down the hall. It was a vast structure, with many identical doors like the one Aidan had just used. Each door had a number on it, the one Aidan had just exited was number thirty-seven.

  Another thing Aidan's mother had taught the boys was simple math, all out of a book given to her by a charitable noble.

  "These are the boys' quarters," Timothy said. "The girls' quarters are on the other side of the camp, to keep them separated from the boys during later hours."

  Aidan was shocked. His idea of a wizard was similar to Amilech or Malachi, odd, and with a long white beard. Timothy did not really strike Aidan as a powerful sorcerer, but a girl wizard had never even crossed Aidan's mind.

  They crossed his mind now, and he wondered if they were as pretty as other girls. No girls lived in his village, but he had met a few his age as they had passed through. He had never had time for romance. His focus had always been on joining the Ranger’s corps, and he remembered with a pang that his dream had been forever snatched from him. That didn’t mean he wasn’t interested in courting an attractive young woman.

  They exited the hall and came out into the open mountain air, which was refreshingly cool. Aidan saw that there were several odd shaped buildings scattered across a field that seemed almost too perfect. No building was the same, and many should not have been able to physically stand. There was a henhouse that seemed to be made of better quality wood than most mansions, with perfect white hens milling around outside guarded by a perfectly golden rooster. There was a cube shaped building suspended in the air by only one thin leg, with smoke pouring out of it. However, the most amazing thing was that the entire place seemed to be encased in a huge, blue tinged, transparent soap bubble.

  Aidan realized that his jaw was hanging open, and Timothy laughed. "Do you want to go see the safety sphere?" he asked.

  Aidan could only nod.

  Timothy started jogging towards the edge of the field, where the bubble started. It was fairly easy to see through, and there appeared to be a forest on the other side.

  "Go ahead, you can touch it," Timothy said.

  Aidan gently reached out and stroked the bubble, half expecting it to pop. That would be two camps destroyed in twenty-four hours. To his surprise, it was as hard as steel.

  He pushed a little harder, and finally gave it a good punch. And then the wall punched him back.

  It wasn't really a punch, but a force slammed into Aidan that knocked him down. He hit the ground with the wind knocked out of him, Timothy doubled over laughing.

  "Sorry mate," he said between gasps "I should have told you that the safety sphere fights back. It hits you with twice the force that you hit it, but I guess you know that now."

  Aidan glared at him until the laughing subsided. So much for escaping, he thought.

  "Are you done now?" he asked the young sorcerer.

  "Just about," Timothy answered. "I think next we can take you to the mage training area. How much do you know about the levels of sorcery?"

  Aidan stared at him blankly.

  "Ugh, this might take a while," Timothy said. "We can talk while we walk. A sorcerer is what we call anyone who can practice magic. A mage is the first level of sorcery, a mage can do magic with a staff, which is made of some material with runes inscribed on it, and it has a gem on one end. For a mage, magic is directed out of the staff.

  "The n
ext level is a wizard. Wizards can do magic with a wand, which is a small staff without a gem. The magic is normally directed out of the tip of a wand, and most sorcerers never make it past the wizard level.

  "The last level is a warlock. Warlocks can direct magic with nothing but their hands. When a wizard becomes a warlock, he has a magic symbol engraved on his head. There are only three warlocks in the entire camp, and my master is one of them. Do you need some help?"

  Aidan was furiously scribbling in his notebook, and had nearly tripped over a stone.

  I do not belong here anymore than I belong in a palace he thought.

  Aidan and Timothy passed the boys’ quarters. Aidan realized that it was the most normal building in the entire camp, shaped something like a chapel, while many of the other buildings should not have even been able to stand. One building on the other side of the camp was fat and round and held off the ground by two thin legs. And it was the color of roses.

  "Oh, those are the girls’ quarter's" Timothy said dubiously. "Don't ask about the color. Alright, so this is the mage training building."

  The structure that the boys were standing in front of was about twice as tall as Aidan, and was, unlike some of the others, attached firmly to the ground. It was roughly a circle, and there did not appear to be a roof. As soon as Aidan registered this, a fireball soared out of the top of building and continued to fly upwards until it hit the safety sphere and exploded.

  Timothy opened the door and Aidan hesitantly stepped in. The inside of the building was huge, it could easily span half of the village where Aidan lived. And everywhere there were mages. All of them had a staff, and most were doing magic of some kind or another. One boy was flying atop his scepter, a girl was shooting fireball after fireball at a metal shield, and there even appeared to be a group of kids standing around a pool of burning water.