When Meyer opened his eyes he was sitting in a chair, his feet and hands shackled to the floor. For a moment he was confused, but then his most recent memories rushed back to him, and he felt a pain in his chest like never before. His stomach felt more constricted than Trant's most powerful binding spell around his body, and his jaw felt heavy. He wanted to swallow, but he couldn't. All he could do was stare forward in disbelief.
His father was dead.
It couldn't be.
He wouldn't believe it.
Vaguely Meyer noticed his surroundings: the dim room, the grimy black walls. There was a table in front of him with a chair on the other side.... But even as his mind passively catalogued his environment—remembered a voice mentioning the Magician—his thoughts remained fixed on his father...
...On Vanroc... On his meaningless life...
And then there was a creaking behind him. A door closed and footsteps echoed against the stone floors. Meyer didn't bother to twist in his chair; he was sure the chains around his wrists were too restrictive for movement anyway. He closed his eyes, opening them as a robed man walked by him.
He recognized Galdin Moon at once. As usual the lord was garbed in a majestic gown which shimmered as he walked, and his fingers were adorned in many fine rings. When he reached the other side of the table, he bowed his head slightly before sitting down.
"Meyer Brant," he said. "I am quite glad to see you."
Meyer said nothing, trying to comprehend the strange expression on Moon's face. He couldn't seem to focus, however, and his thoughts felt muddled as he tried to understand the situation. He had been saved him from the Raiders... by someone who had mentioned the Magician...
"I know, you have been through a lot," said Moon. "But wish as we might, history will not stop for us to collect ourselves. Pieces are moving, and you might yet have a part to play."
Meyer sensed Moon looking at him, but he merely gazed forward blankly. He didn't know whether or not to trust Moon, but he didn't care. As usual the lord wanted something...
But Meyer didn't care. He was done with the world. He was done with caring. The Raiders should have killed him. He wasn't supposed to be alive.
"I may not have always been honest with you, and yet I consider myself a straightforward man," continued Moon. "When you arrived at Eldrin's Dale I told you my intentions to train you as a sorcerer so one day you could serve my realm. And that is still true. I hope that once the storm passes you will join me."
Moon paused, fingering one of his rings. "I tell you all this in hope that you will continue to trust in me. To understand that the truth that I am about to give you might not be easy to accept, but that it is meaning is paramount nonetheless... Do you understand?"
Meyer simply stared at Moon. He could sense that somehow the lord had deceived him, and wondered vaguely if he should feel hate towards him, but he felt nothing. Moon and fate: they were both working against him. It was all the same.
"Meyer, do you understand?" repeated Moon.
Meyer nodded, reaching absentmindedly for the Currents—just so he would have something to hold onto while Moon prattled meaninglessly—but as he reached for the void, his magical sense pushing outwards, he fell into an endless nothing. It was as though an impenetrable cloud had engulfed the void between him and the Currents.
"The Magician is not what you think he is," said Moon drawing Meyer's attention back to the physical room. "To you he no doubt is a mysterious menace. You have heard of atrocities, and they have been attributed to the Magician. You have heard of subdued lands, and they have been rumored to have fallen at the hands of the Magician. But Meyer, you are only a boy from Vanroc, raised most your life isolated from the greater world. Even afterwards, you spent but several months in Eldrin's Dale, a protected utopia meant for nourishing young magical minds. You do not know the world and you do not know the Magician."
Moon breathed deeply. "I however, am not a young man anymore, and that is putting it mildly," he said, smiling mechanically. "I have known the Magician for years. I have been faithful to him and his lofty cause since he was first banished from the High Order. Little do people remember, but the Magician was once the shining face of the next generation of sorcerers. Only when he proposed what his elders were too corrupt and scared to do was he cast as a villain..."
Moon paused and straightened in his chair. "Now I believe you have heard of the Inscription Scepter and the Listening Stones, have you not?"
Meyer nodded emptily, Adryn's lesson on Magical History a stale memory that felt as though it belonged to a different life... To a life when he had hated Adryn for spurning him, not for betraying Eldrin's Dale... To a life when he was more concerned with Jaeda than with danger—when Moon hadn't been the servant of the Magician...
But somehow he didn't care.
His father was dead.
Vanroc was gone.
The Magician could take over the High Provinces—he could take over the world... Maybe the Magician would kill him because he was Odessa's son. It made no difference.
"Then you will remember that the Great Realms have monopolized all magical power by hoarding the Listening Stones," continued Moon. "Since the dawn of the Fifth Age the Great Realms have used that power to enrich themselves, carefully monitoring what magic the layman might access...
"And then thirty years ago the Magician began his quest to break this magical monopoly when he endeavoured to solve the Triad Puzzle and find the Inscription Scepter. The Magician might not be a saint, but the world is not simply divided between good and evil. The Magician's goals have always been to put magic back in the hands of the people. And you might be able to help him do that. Your blood might be the key to unlocking the Triad Puzzle."
Meyer stared blankly at Moon, the lord's suave mannerisms melting away as he spoke of the Magician.
"Meyer," continued Moon. "If you unlock the Triad Puzzle and help the Magician attain the Inscription Scepter, do you know what that will mean? Do you know the treasures you will reap? The treasures we will reap! The Magician handsomely rewards those that help him—Meyer, if you cooperate... There is so much to gain!"
Moon's face was lit up. His eyes were ablaze with desire.
And then Meyer spoke.
"Do you think I care?" he said quietly. His voice was void of passion, but suddenly the words tumbled forward, monotonous if not angry. "My home is gone. My father dead... And I saw my best friend torn apart by creatures of the Magician."
Moon's face darkened, but he did not speak.
"I used to fear The Magician," continued Meyer, his voice growing stronger. "He was as you said: the evil that people whispered about, the evil that penetrated even into my sheltered reality. But you were also right when you said the world is not divided between good and evil. It's all just a merciless game of chance. I don't hate the Magician because he's evil. I wouldn't love him if he were good. I don't have the energy to care about things that don't matter."
Moon's eyes flickered sternly. "I know, you are still traumatised," he said. "You have a lot to process. But time heals all wounds, and soon you will be able to see more clearly. I can also assure you that little action will be required from you. Tomorrow or the next day you will be called upon in attempt to open a small casket. It is locked using a powerful form of Blood Magic. All you will have to do is hold the casket in your hands. Until then you will be able to rest and recuperate..."
Meyer's concentration drifted as Moon continued talking about the possibility of plush treatment if he proved cooperative. Soon his words were nothing but a dull drone in the back of Meyer's brain. Clearly the lord did not understand...
But suddenly Meyer refocused on Moon's words.
"Before I leave," the lord was saying, "you must answer one simple question: who warned you to leave Aldrick's Dale the night you escaped with Damian?"
Moon stared at him, and Meyer stirred from his stupor. From the moment Moon had entered the room, his words had been nothing but blather, but something about the question hinted at greater meaning. Meyer eased forward, though his manacles did not allow him to sit fully straight.
"Come now," said Moon. "You have caused much difficulty by trusting in this informant... changing your name in my records to obscure your birthplace in the Outlands... If only I had know earlier we might have already unlocked the Triad Puzzle...
"And to think, the bloodshed that could have been avoided—Eschera would not have resumed her onslaught on the Outlands looking for Odessa's son...Perhaps the attacks could have been avoided altogether..."
And suddenly Meyer felt his thoughts moving again. Moon was blaming him for destruction caused by the Magician... Blaming him for innocent deaths... He felt an unusual emotion building in the heart of his being—a strange, unnatural, cruel hatred—a curdling and twisted desire...
"You and the Magician..." said Meyer coldly. "You are the reason Vanroc is destroyed.
"Precisely the opposite," said Moon. "When you escaped Eldrin's Dale, you were picked up by the Magician's men, but they did not know who you were. They were enroute to bring you here, to the Darnac stronghold, but being crude mercenaries, they were ill equipped in their means. They never properly reported their capture to the Magician, and I was forced to use my own men to determine where you might be. Already I was beginning to wonder about you and if perhaps you were not Odessa's son, and needless to say the Magician would have been none too pleased to learn that you had escaped given your ancestry..."
"Thankfully, I was able to track down an old instructor of yours, Master Lorant. He informed me over several interesting details of your past, and my suspicions were confirmed. I still did not know your whereabouts, but at my urging, I told the Magician that Odessa's son might be found in Vanroc. I urged him not to destroy the town, and indeed he didn't. He allowed me to orchestrate a covert removal of all the male youth in Vanroc to be brought to the Darnac stronghold. I can only sadly lament that the Raiders learned of Vanroc's compromised defenses and attacked a week later..."
Moon continued talking, but Meyer had heard enough. Moon was as good as responsible for the destruction of Vanroc—for the death of his father—and nothing would save him. Meyer felt his raw emotions exploding inside him, and he screamed. It was incoherent and guttural, and suddenly he was reaching through the fog that obscured him from the Currents.
His mind burned with pain, but his heart burned with rage even stronger. His shackles burst and he leapt across the table at Moon. His fingers closed around Moon's neck and he squeezed. His anger took over, and Meyer felt all his deranged desires channel towards Moon in a beam of fury.
Moon was supposed to have been a mentor... A protector... Yet he had been working with the Magician. He had sanctioned the destruction of Vanroc. He had taken away his father... The Magician might be evil, but Moon was worse. He was scum. He was as deceiver, a conniving rat.
Meyer heard Moon choking and he squeezed harder—but then a gargantuan force was rushing towards him through the Currents.
Before Meyer could react the spell broke upon him, and he felt himself flying backwards. He tried to reach for the Currents, but again they were blocked, this time by a fog so thick the he felt dizzy even at the slightest movement into the void.
He landed on the ground, and at the very same moment he felt invisible restraints form around his body, preventing him from moving. He saw Moon standing up and straightening his robes.
Then the lord strode to the door, where two men had appeared with swords loosened in their sheaths.
"I told you to be generous with the Gulnara," said Moon with disgust in his voice. "Put him in a cell and tell Larson he was right. The boy is not to be reasoned with. We will have to try other tactics."
Moon turned, and as he did, Meyer saw a woman standing next to the men with swords. Meyer could not see her face, but he recognized her by the light airy clothing she wore.
"Are you well, my lord?" said Adryn.
"Fine," said Moon curtly. "Thank you for stepping in to avert an unpleasant situation."
Meyer tried to twist against his magical bonds, a new wave of hatred washing over him, but then Moon nodded at the door and he and Adryn exited. He struggled for several more moments, but with a final grunt, he gave up, his breathing heavy as he lay immobile on the ground.
The two men clad with swords approached him and lifted him up, carrying him from the room, into a wide corridor. They turned left, starting slowly past tapestried walls and glowstone lamps, but their route appeared to be sloping down, and soon the hallway became dimly lit and Meyer could only see the black ceiling, which occasionally dripped water. The men carrying him descended several flights of stairs, and then down another dark passage.
Finally there was a clink of a key turn, and the creak of a door swinging open, and he was placed on the ground. One of the men took out a small vial from his pocket and opened it up, placing it at Meyer's lips and tilted it backwards.
Meyer felt the tasteless liquid enter his mouth and tried to spit, but his muscles did not respond. The liquid just dripped down his throat. He felt like he was choking but he couldn't cough. The man withdrew the vial and walked to the door. There was another creak and a clink, followed by a cold silence.
Meyer felt the liquid sliding down his throat, and suddenly he was coughing. He still wasn't able to move his body, but he managed to lift his head, the binding enhancement fading. A few minutes later the magical bonds disappeared altogether and he crawled to the corner of the room.
Pulling his knees into his chest, Meyer wrapped his arms around his legs and stared at the grimy floor and the walls stained with streaks of black.The door was wooden with an arched top and without a window.
Meyer half heartedly reached for the Currents and was met with an impenetrable barrier.
It was over.
Turning his eyes back to the floor he exhaled the last tendrils of hope. He wanted it to end... But it wouldn't...
All he could do was wallow in his misery...
Time was nothing... everything was nothing....
But then Meyer heard a tapping sound coming from the wall behind him. He sat up a bit straighter, momentarily distracted from his dark thoughts. The tapping continued, growing louder, and Meyer instinctively moved away from the wall in attempt to observe the phenomena.
Just then a stone slid out from the bottom of the back wall. A hand appeared, pushing the stone aside so that there was a square foot of emptiness in the wall. Two more stones slid out and a body began to wriggle through the entrance.
As the body emerged, Meyer thought he might pass out from shock. Before him was Dobson, his almost forgotten friend from Vanroc.
Dobson's face was dirty, and his clothes ragged, but there was no mistaking him. His face lit up as he laid eyes on Meyer. "Ian, you won't believe it," he said, calling back into the hole in the wall. His voice was as innocent and excited as ever. "I found Meyer!"
As Dobson turned back around, Meyer realized his vision had become blurry. He was crying tears of joy.
HERE ENDS BOOK ONE OF THE CURRENTS OF MAGIC SERIES.
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