Chapter 1: The New Master

A Chapter by Ben Crawford

Kenton Gladstone arrives in Sayrune as the new member of the magi Council.

Chapter 1: The New Master

The carriage moved along the cobblestone streets, the sound of the wheels on stone was constant, rhythmic and rather soothing. The man sitting slumped to one side in the carriage was sleeping fitfully, on long trips like these there was little to do but sleep, but Kenton did not lament this fact because for the few weeks leading up to his trip sleep was difficult to come by. He spent a lot of time in carriages on this trip and most of the principal roads in the country of Tirunis were cobblestone and he loved the sounds.

This was one of the longest trips he had ever been on and he did not realize how boring long trips can be. If he had more time he would have seen the sights, tasted the local food and gazed longingly at the local women. He was not a married man nor did he spend his money on rent girls, so he satisfied himself with looking. By all accounts he was a rather handsome man, with long waist-length dark brown hair he kept long and tied in a pony tail, which was the current Laraelian style for men, gray eyes and nut brown skin. His body was lean and tone from hours of training. Yes, he did have a hook nose and his eyebrows were a little busy, but many people considered him handsome, but that was home in Larael he had no idea what the standards of beauty were in Ullandar.

Getting off the island was the easy part, it was not very hard to cross Larael bay. The bay was fed from a North West channel from the North Sea and flowed out the north east channel back out to the sea. It was these channels and the bay that cuts Larael off from the north end of the continent of Tirunis and made it an island.

The southern coast of the laurel, bay was split down the middle between two lands, Ullandar to the east and Agrana to the west. Once he landed at a port in Ullandar it was one long and boring ride to the capital city of both Ullandar and all of Tirunis, the great city of Sayrune.

Something woke him from his nice warm dreams, with his brain half asleep, it took him a little while to realize what was different. The sound of the wheels on the ground had changed, instead of the rhythmic sounds of wheels on cobblestone it was a more even and constant sound. This was the sound of carriage wheels on flat stone streets and that could mean only one thing they were finally approaching Sayrune.

The streets of the capital city were nothing amazing to the people who lived there, but the seamless stone that ran through every street was a quiet and subtle show of its power and wealth. These seamless and unnaturally perfect roads also whisper a different story, but only to those who truly listen, it tells you that this city is ripe with magic.

Kenton pulled back the thick curtains and the light burned his eyes for a moment, but eventually he could see the gates of a large city. The gates were in of them self’s something to behold, most gates were large enough to let even the biggest wagon through and maybe even a catapult, but these were big enough to have five fully stocked long hull wagons into the city side by side with room left over to walk between them. The doors were just as tall as they were wide and yet they still were not as tall as the wall they were built into. There is something awe inspiring about looking at a man-made structure of such staggering size.

The gates were made of black seamless wood, there were no bolts or rivets or metal bands on the gates. They attached to the wall using very large hinges that seemed to just sink into the wood and had no visible signs of any kind of bolts holding them in place. Such a door would be unmovable by any normal effort of strength; this too spoke of the magic that this city possessed.

Once the gates came into view Kenton pulled out his watch and checked the calendar wheel that was on the outer side then checked the time. He knew he was late, the trip took much longer than he wanted and he was expected to be in his first council meeting today in a few hours.

Sliding open a panel in the front he saw the driver and the bodyguard sitting on the front buck board of the carriage.

“There is no time to drop off my things, head right for the Archium I will get dressed back here.

The Archium is the current home of the magi council and the five great schools, this was the place that would be his home and his testing ground.

“It’s six great schools now I guess” Kenton thought to himself.

The carriage was quite nice, it was large enough inside that and average sized man could stand upright if you did not mind your head brushing the roof. Keeping the windows covered he pulled a little lever and a few holes in the roof opened up letting light in. His clothes were soaked in sweat and the smell of the road. He never traveled in his best clothing knowing that they would not come out on the other end in any wearable condition.

The size of this carriage afforded him the ability to easily change his clothing and wash up a little. He stretched and made a few fluid movements, it was a small and graceful display of his art. The movements free up his tight muscles and he felt much better for it. He opened a large trunk that was sitting on the seats on the other side of the carriage. He pulled out his best clothes and a large stoppered bottle of water. He disrobed and placed his sweat soaked clothing in a different case from his clean ones. If it was not for the curtains he would feel odd standing naked in a carriage as he traveled through the city.

The stopper came off and he placed the bottle on the floor of the carriage, he traced his arms through the air gracefully and as he did, they gained a faint glow that stood out in contrast with his nut-colored skin. After a few more movements he raised his hand and the water started to glow and it rose from the bottle and covered his body, first his legs, then chest, then arms and finally as he took a deep breath his head and waist-length brown hair.

His type of magic was all movement and grace, by siphoning the energy generated by movement and Refining that into magic he was able to do amazing things. His mussels were lean and fast, he trained most of his life to build a body well suited to the movements and demands of his craft.

The water traveled around his body as his will demanded, and after a few minutes he was clean and the water retreated back into the bottle leaving Kenton Dry and clean. Not exactly the most impressive or original display of Keniticmancy but a very useful trick. He let go of the remaining energy collected by the motion of his arms, the energy rose off him like mist rising from a lake, he then turned his attention to his hair. It was quite normal for gentlemen in Larael to wear their hair long, but he was completely ignorant of the styles here in Ullandar.

He decided on just a simple hair tie, he was hoping that a little time in the city would help him learn the fashions and customs of this land, and the sooner the better. Sitting down in the carriage there was a knock on the door and he could hear the voice of a child calling his name.

“Master Gladstone, I have a letter for you, ” said the young voice.

Kenton opened the door and saw the small boy, he was dressed in a green tunic that most likely marked him as a runner boy. Pulling out his money pouch he grabbed two small silver coins and handed them to the boy, the boy looked shocked..

“Sir, this is a generous gift indeed, thank you so much!”

In Larael two silvers ywas what you gave a runner who tracked you down and delivered a letter, he cursed himself inwardly for his mistake. Were two silvers really that much money in this city or were runner boys just vastly underpaid.

He closed the door and sat back down in the carriage.

The letter was on good heavy paper and held a seal of six stars around a book, it was the new seal of the magi council; the old seal had five stars. He knew that he was late and that few knew when he would actually arrive so getting a letter delivered to him in his carriage as soon as he entered the city was a little odd. He looked the letter over and saw nothing odd physically, but then he reached out with his magical senses. There was a very small magical seal over the wax seal. After a few moments analyzing it, he realized it was a simple alarm that let someone know when the letter was opened, he had used the same thing when sending very important letters. He broke both seals and started to read.

Dear Master Gladstone, I am writing this letter to try and prepare you for the environment you are entering by accepting the new position of Keniticmancy Master. It has been a very long time since a new school of magic has been recognized, the last school to be added was Literamancy and that school is currently a cause of frustration for the council. You have a lot to live up to and to live down and I believe I should give you some valuable information that will help you get along with the other masters.

I am aware that you personally know Halbert Swale the Physicamancy master, but he is not quite the same man you knew, Keniticmancy use to be part of Physicamancy and now that we have separated them he feels like your school was carved out of his. It’s a stupid game, but the masters take pride in how many students get certified in their school of magic every month and he feels like your school will rob him of students. Do not treat him as an enemy, but he is also not your friend anymore.

Blythe Gartside the Luxamancy master will be meeting you when you arrive, he is a very kind and generous man and if you don’t do anything extremely and immeasurably stupid you will find a friend in him. He is what I would call a center point in the council, he is balanced in his views and ambitions and you can count on him to never fall to either extreme.

Speaking of extremes Mandassa Lisadar the Audiomancy master is a woman to watch your step around; she loves the games of politics and fame. She is very talented at seductions and she has a way of getting a man’s secret out of him and using it against him. Her reputation for being very “social” is well known, but she is more clever and talented then she lets on. Expect to be flirted with, pushed, prodded and examined by her in every way.

Eleanor Atterton the Vitalamancey master is rather intelligent and is a great respecter of reason and logic. She’s not as stubborn as most and she always responds well to reasoned argument. Don’t let her age fool you, her mind works faster than anyone I have ever met and if you try to match minds with her you will lose for sure.

Now we must talk about a person that causes me great pain, Torin Tarsis the Literamancy Master. He is a lazy a*s who is not worth the air, he breathes and the food he eats. All of the masters work hard to grow our schools, but Torin has no students, and only does what he absolutely has to. Torin is the very last Literamancer in the world and that is mostly the problem. If it was anyone with any kind of respect for the position of master he would resign his post but he won’t. We can’t remove him from the council because it’s in our laws we cannot remove a master unless we have a replacement for them ready to take up the position. We also can’t denounce his school because that requires a unanimous vote and he will always vote against it. He is a very unusual man, he has the face of someone in his late twenties but he has stark white hair. Don’t trust his young face, he may look young, but he is over seventy years old.

All these things I tell you so you don’t walk blindly into a room full of the masters you know nothing about because I can assure you that they all have taken measures to learn all they can about you.

Step carefully, learn quickly and be heard.

“Grow our schools, does that mean this letter is from one of the masters?” He thought.

He did not know what to say or do with this information, it was all so calculating like this person was sizing everyone up for a fight and they wanted him to know who he should bet on.

Kenton placed the letter in his trunk and made sure all his things were packed away and ready to go. The letter did do one thing, it set him on his guard not only because of how the masters were described, but because he was bothered by how the writer spoke. The carriage stopped and Kenton pulled back the curtains once again and saw he finally arrived.

The door opened and standing there was a short man waiting for him, he was pale skinned and he wore very dignified yet unusual clothing. He had on a long blue coat that almost touched the ground, gray shirt and gray pants. The man had a hooked nose, knobby ears, green eyes that were so bright they almost glowed.

“Greetings Master Gladstone, my name is Blythe Gartside I am the Luxamancy master. You can call me Master Gartside although I much prefer Blythe” he said with a smile holding out his hand.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Blythe and please call me Kenton, I am not used to being called master quite yet” said Kenton as he climbed out of the carriage.

“How was your trip? It’s quite a long trip from Larael”

“Yes, it was quite long, I really wish I could have taken a ship, but none were departing in-line with my timetable”

“Well, you are here a little later than we expected”

“Yes, I am aware of that, we had a broken wheel that sets us back a day or two”

“Have you had a chance to take your belongings to your room?” Asked Blythe.

“No, there was no time, I thought it would be best to come right here.

“Good idea, do you have any servants with you that will attend to your things?” Asked Blythe.

“No, it’s just me, I was never rich enough to afford a servant and I am not much for buying slaves, so I tend to take care of myself”

“No worries, I will have someone accompany your bags to your room, ” said Blythe as he waved down a young man who was at the top of the steps.

“Take Master Gladstone’s bags to his room, ” he said to the young boy.

The young man climbed up and sat between the driver and the guard then the carriage took off, leaving the two men alone in front of the building.

“Who was the boy if I may ask, ” said Kenton.

“He would sometimes call himself a slave, but he is my son Grath” said Blythe with a smile.

“He seems like a good boy” smiled Kenton.

“He is indeed, but we have little time for small talk, your first council meeting starts in a few minutes, ” he said looking at a timepiece on his wrist”

“Lead the way”

They walked quickly into the building, they were moving so fast that Kenton could not get a good look at anything as they walked. The hallways were well decorated and if he had time Kenton knew he could spend hours looking at all the paintings and art. He felt brushes of magic as he passed objects, doorways and rooms. This place was full of magical objects and people, he expected nothing less from the heart of all magical training.

“This place sure does live up to my imagination so far,” said Kenton trying to keep up.

“You don’t have buildings like this up north in Larael?” Replied Blythe not even turning around.

“There are disadvantages to living on an island even though we are only separated by a small expanse of water, it is still rather isolated and large stone buildings are hard to build”

“I was up there once a long time ago and I did not bemoan being trapped in such a wonderful place”

“It is lovely for sure and I will miss it, but the world is bigger than that island and few leave to find lives outside its protection”

They finally stopped at a large set of double doors, to the normal eye, they did not seem like anything special but they held very powerful magical wards. Outside there were no guards, but the doors themselves were like a wall of magic and nothing magical or mundane passed without permission.

“Go ahead and enter, the door has been made to know you already so you don’t need to worry about the wards” said Blythe with a smile almost reading Kenton’s mind.

Kenton reached out a hand to open the door, but he could feel the door, reach out to him and recognize him then it swung open.

“That door is quite special, it can be taught to recognize someone by their magical impression, around here we call it a person’s Clout” said Blythe.

“We call it the same thing up north, if I remember correctly, it is also a measure of someone’s power as well, ” replied Kenton with a bit of a sly look at Blythe.

“So it is but you would not be a master if we doubted your skill master Gladstone” he replied with a smile.

Kenton entered the room, it was round and had a few pillars spaced evenly around the room to support the roof. In the middle of the room there was a large round semi-circle table and in the middle there was a beautiful mosaic of the crest of the masters, and it looked rather new. He then realized it must have been new because the crest had six stars not five.

“Master Gladstone I am so glad to see that you arrived in one piece,” said an older woman standing near the far end of the room. She was tall and slender with thick, straight, short hair that had the color of coffee with cream. Her brown eyes were bright and she had on a very classy red dress that was high necked, very modest and long enough to almost brush the ground like most Shenala style dresses. Modesty was very important in Shenala so most of its clothing covered a lot, but also had a natural flair that made up for the lack of exposed skin.

“Master Eleanor Atterton I presume?” He said, taking an educated guess.

“You guessed right, but seeing as how there are only two women on the council you had a fifty-fifty chance” she said with a knowing smile.

“As reasonable and as lovely as I was foretold” he said giving a formal bow.

Standing next to her was a short man with dark skin, a shaved head with an over muscled build and a look of mild annoyance on his face. This man was Master Halbert Swale and not a man to cross. At one time he was a friend and a teacher, but when Kenton’s school was recognized, it caused a major rift with the master. Kenton knew he had to make his first impression a good one.

“Master Swale it is a pleasure to see you again, you are every bit as formidable as I remember you being so many years ago. I remember when I came with my master to meet you for the first time and you nearly broke my hand when you shook it”

These words seemed to soften his expression ever so slightly, it was not as great an impact as Kenton would have liked but it was a start.

“Your master was a great man and a good Physicamancer, it’s sad I had to lose him to another school even if it was one bread from my own” he said with a look that was hard on the outside but had a softness below the surface.

“I hope to be as good of a teacher as he was, and as good of a master as this new school deserves, as it is a child of your noble school it has a lot to live up to” these words softened Master Swales harsh mood and his face took on a more pleasant expression.

“Old Kengy would have been proud my boy, it’s so sad that he did not live to see all his hard work pay off” replied Halbert.

“He died in his sleep at a ripe old age, we all should be so lucky” he replied.

The door opened up and Kenton turned around to see a woman standing there wearing a scandalous blue dress that left very little to the imagination. This woman was either a very nice and extremely inappropriate welcome gift or she was Lady Mandassa Lisadar the Audiomancy master.

“Oh Kenton you are here!” She squealed like a young girl.

“Master Lisadar?” He said in a questioning tone, he was not quite sure how to respond to her addressing him by his first name like they had met before.

“Oh you remembered me,” she said running toward him with arms open for an embrace.

Kenton held up a hand, he looked firm and unmoving as he stared into her eyes.

“I am sorry, Master Lisadar but we have not yet met and it is not quite appropriate for me to embrace you in the manner you are attempting” his tone was polite but firm.

“Oh, I like this one, he knows how to play the game” She said with a smirk.

“Did you really have to wear a dress like that to his first meeting?” Said Halbert.

“Why not, I like putting my best foot forward, ” she replied, placing her right foot forward accentuating the slit in the dress that went all the way up her side to her waist.

“He is just a boy, don’t tempt him, ” he replied.

“I am not exactly a boy, I am thirty years old” Kenton spoke up.

“Son to some people you are still a pup” said Eleanor Atterton with a little bit of a smile.

“Well, now that we got that out of the way I think we can get started” said Halbert.

“What about Master Tarsis? Is he not joining us?” Asked Kenton.

He saw a mix of exasperation and amusement on the faces of the masters, so not everyone hated him.

“Torin does not attend every meeting, he only shows up to meetings where we decide very important issues, this meeting is more a formality than anything so I doubt we will see him” said Eleanor.

“His appearances at this table are few and far between, the lazy b*****d” replied Halbert.

“Quite right, but I could not miss the first meeting with our new friend,” said a voice coming from the far side of the room where Eleanor and Halbert were standing when Kenton came in.

Leaning back in a chair with his feet up on the table was a young man with brilliant white hair, glasses and a grin on his face so wide it was almost indecent. He had on black robes that looked striking against his hair and his eyes were an amber color and they seem to burn with power.

Kenton did not notice him come in and he would have felt any magic concealing him and the most worrying part was he could not feel even a hint of Clout from the man. All the masters had it, but this man was either no mage at all or he was something else entirely.

“When did you come in” asked Kenton sounding amazed.

“Somewhere between the w***e throwing herself at Kenton and master fist insulting me,” he said, pulling an apple out of his robes.

At those words, there were no doubts that this man was the Literamancy Master Torin Tarsis.

“Master Tarsis will you try to behave for at least a little while so we can officially induct him” asked Blythe.

“By all means Blythe” he said with a tone that showed a hint of respect.

Everyone took their seats; Kenton was not sure if everyone had an assigned seat or if it was a free for all. He stood for a little while until there was only one open chair left. The door to the hall opened and a young man came in with paper and ink, he stood at a small table off to the side. He was the scribe who wrote the official record of all meetings.

“This meeting will be short and sweet, the first order of business is that we must officially induct Master Gladstone as the first Keniticmancy Master, ” said Blythe and at these words Torin stood and clapped wildly then sat back down.

“All in favor of this appointment?” Said Blythe with a note of amusement in his voice.

Five hands went up, but Torin’s hand was the first to go up and the last to come down.

“Then let it be recorded that this day that Kenton Gladstone is hereby given all the rights and privileges of a master of the magi council, ” said Blythe and as he spoke the sound of quill on paper came from the young scribe.

“Our last order of business is that we need to assign someone for first class duty” Blythe said with a smile as his eyes flicked for a second towards Torin.

“First class duty?” Asked Kenton.

“Oh, right you would not know, in the Sayrune school the first lesson in the introduction to magic class is traditionally taught by a master” Blythe replied to Kenton.

“We normally vote on who is assigned this job” again, his eyes flicked to Torin.

“I move that we assign this job to Torin” said Mandassa.

“I second that, ” said Halbert.

“Then let us vote” as he said this, all hands, but Torin’s and Kenton’s went up.

“Kid you do know that you can vote now, right?” Said Torin.

“I don’t know enough about the issue and even if I voted against it the motion would pass regardless” he replied.

“Reason speaks in the places we may not expect” replied Torin.

“Well, it looks like it’s Four against two the motion passes, please record this in the official records” Blythe said with a smile.

“Bloody brilliant, that’s why I don’t come to this blasted things” replied Torin.

“We are dismissed” said Blythe getting up to leave.

Kenton stood up and walked over to Blythe before he could walk by him.

“I feel like I am missing some kind of private joke” said Kenton.

“In a way you are, Torin has no students and he does very little compared to the other masters so when a job comes up that is tedious they tend to be assigned to him” he replied with a smirk.

“So he does nothing at all?” Replied Kenton in a low voice.

“Well, he does act as the head archivist for the schools archives and surprisingly he is rather good at that, but other than his work there we are not sure what he spends his time doing”

The masters filed out of the hall and surprisingly Torin stopped Kenton before he left the room.

“I hope you are enjoying your first time in Sayrune Kenton” he said with a genuine smile.

“Well I quite literally went from the carriage to this meeting so I am still trying to get my feet up under me”

“Well, don’t listen to these people when they tell you how bad I am because I assure you that I am a whole lot worse, ” he said with that devilish smile of his as he walked out.