Kaz let out a deep “hmmmph,” which Magius ignored. The air elemental, given the command to begin its duties, floated impatiently around the two “guests.”
“Commme. Rooommmmmss. Guesssstsss.”
Their host watched as they followed the mist creature up the spiral stairs. When they were out of earshot, Kaz leaned toward Huma, who had taken the lead, and whispered, “This mage is your friend?”
“Yes.” Huma found it difficult to answer with assurance.
“Pray that he still considers you in the same way. I think that this tower and its secrets would make for a very secure, very permanent prison.”
The knight did not argue the statement, having already considered that possibility.
If this were indeed a prison, it was one to which many a villain would have begged entry and incarceration. After becoming at least partially used to the misty servants, Kaz and Huma had no difficulty enjoying the meats and fruits, not to mention the wines, which would have been fit bill of fare at any royal court.
The rooms, too, were resplendent, albeit much too large for a normal-size person like Huma. Kaz, on the other hand, found the furnishings perfect for his bulk and pointed this out as more clues that the tower was some remnant of his own race. Huma knew that no one had ever recorded minotaurs this far west until the wars had begun, but he kept his doubts to himself.
They had been given separate rooms, something which Kaz had at first protested as an obvious ploy to divide and conquer.
“Had he desired to, Magius could have struck us both down any one of a hundred times,” Huma countered. “You saw the way he handled you in the corridor.”
“Luck. Let me take him on, one to one.”
“And he will leave nothing but ashes. Magic is as much a part of him as breathing is to us.”
The minotaur smashed one massive fist into the wall. To his satisfaction, it yielded quite nicely. “In my homeland—”
Huma stopped him before he could go any further. “This is Ergoth. These are human lands. Human ways.”
“Are they? Have you forgotten the battle already?”
“I have not. I only think that you should trust me. I know Magius far better than you.”
Kaz quieted, but not before replying, “I hope you do. For both our sakes.”
It was those words that Huma contemplated as he sat against the bedboard. Despite the drain of energy from their walk through the grove, he had found himself unable to sleep. Kaz, on the other hand, might have been dead, save for the fact that his snores resounded through the walls and into Huma’s room.
The candles, lit before he had entered, had melted to the point where many were of little or no use at all. The flickering made odd shadows around the room, and Huma eventually found his eyes returning to one particularly high and deep shadow in the far corner. It was so dark, he almost believed that, if he chose to, he could have walked right into it and through the wall.
“Huma.”
A hand, open, thrust out from the shadow. It was followed by another. The knight edged away from that side of the bed and toward his sword, which hung next to the bed.
“Huma, I must speak to you.”
“Magius?”
“Who else?” Arms followed the hands, and then the rest of the mage appeared as well. “Forgive me the dramatic entrance,” Magius whispered, “but I wish to avoid speaking with the minotaur, who might be displeased with some of what I am about to say.”
“And I won’t be?” Huma was feeling irritable. The mage’s tricks were beginning to wear even on his boyhood friend.
Their eyes met, and Magius quickly turned away. “You might be. But at least you also see reason. My powers need only slip once for that two-legged bull to do me in.”
“I could not entirely fault him, Magius.”
“I know.” The spellcaster put his face in his hands. “How dearly I know.”
Huma stood up, walked over to his childhood friend, and rested a gentle hand on the other’s shoulder. “Tell me, and I will promise to listen with an open mind.”
Magius looked up, and they were briefly back in their early days, when neither had cared about anything more lofty than fun. The look vanished almost as soon as it appeared. The elegant Magius held out one hand. Instantly, the staff was there, awaiting his commands.
“You see before you a magic-user of great power—and even greater potential. I was not the first to say that. Fat, cheerful Belgardin said that the day he sponsored me.”
Belgardin. Huma remembered the old mage. He had been the first to see the power welling within the young Magius. Power such as he had never seen before. Belgardin was a high adept of the Red Robes, and this enabled him to realize the help the boy needed while still calculating the prestige that accompanied the training of a possible Master of the Order—any order.
“He was right. You remember. I excelled at all things. I was the brightest candidate they had ever seen. I mastered spells even some established adepts had difficulty with. I was a prodigy.” The hint of conceit in the voice of Magius was quite reasonable; everything he had said was true.
The mage’s face fell serious. “You ordinary people hear of the Test and all the rumors about what goes on.” Magius made a cutting motion with his free hand. “The rumors pale in comparison to the truth.”
The Test was the final proof of a mage’s ability to cope with the power. It did not matter which of the orders he or she belonged to. All magic-users took the Test.
Magius dropped the tip of his staff to the floor and leaned heavily upon it. “I cannot say what others have gone through, just that some did not survive. I went into the Test with every possible scenario plotted out in my mind. I thought they would send dark elves after me, force me to kill an elderly or ill person. Perhaps, I believed, they would have me stand at the edge of the Abyss and face the Queen herself. I knew some of it would be illusion, but much of it would be very real. Real enough to kill me.”
Huma nodded understanding. Word naturally leaked out. Some of the rumors, it seemed, carried elements of truth.
The handsome face broke into a smile, one that seemed mad under the circumstances. Magius laughed lightly, although Huma could not guess what he found so funny. “They fooled me completely. Or perhaps even they do not truly know all that goes on during the Test. I suspect that sometimes the power itself takes a hand. Whatever the case, I was confronted with the one thing I found I could not accept.
“My death. My death in the future.”
There was nothing Huma could say to that. He might deny that it was real, try to convince Magius that it had to be all illusion, but what could he say that he himself believed?
“Somehow, I succeeded in surviving. I think that madness was what waited for me if I failed. I fooled them by entering into another type of madness then. A madness created by the realization that what I saw would indeed come to pass. I left the tower, left the Test, knowing my fate and determined to do something about it.
“And I found I could not. Not by the strict bylaws of the Orders. Despite their supposed freedom from restrictions, neither the Red nor the Black Robes offered anything that could assist me. They were still too limited, and I certainly was not cut out to wear the robes of white, as you well know.”
Magius chuckled at the last, then sighed. The candles had burned down to nearly nothing.
“With a realization of the restrictions placed upon me by the Three Orders, I decided that I would be forced to step beyond the lines they had drawn in order to—if you’ll pardon me for saying so—change the future.”
Huma stepped back involuntarily. The wild spells, the outlandish clothing, so different from the austere robes of other mages. He shook his head, not believing that it were possible to do what Magius had done.
“Then and there,” Magius was saying, his attention focused inward, “I turned from the formalized, stifling training of the Conclave and became a renegade.”