The Onyx Throne - Book One

The clorvol moved much faster on the hard-packed road than it had over land. It wasn’t as fast as a horse, which Mitchell saw they had an equivalent in this world, a creature called a jivi. As their wagon joined the Diran Road, Mitchell got his first opportunity to see something other than his companions and their now-dead captors.

He had learned that while Lethelin was a human, Revos was a cambion. They were a demonic race that was shunned by most other societies. They had their own small kingdom somewhere north of Awenor where they lived mostly in isolation. They were considered untrustworthy and duplicitous owing to their demonic nature and Revos had said that, while tales of their chicanery were wildly exaggerated, the reputation wasn’t totally without merit. They tended to be powerful practitioners of the mystical arts, however, and, given their natural affinity for fire magic, they were considered a fearsome race.

Allora was an elf, which was one of the most populous races Tewadunn, the other two being humans and dwarves. Mitchell saw a few dwarves on the road. They weren’t as squat and hairy as Tolkien would have had him believe, but there was a notable height difference compared to humans. The tallest one he had seen so far among the caravans that passed was barely five and a half feet tall. And they all tended to be thickly muscled from what he could see. He also saw another race that Allora said were gnomes. They basically fit the bill of what he was expecting. He didn’t see many of them and he learned that they avoided hot climates, preferring forests.

Mitchell marveled at the similarities between fantasy tales from his world and the reality of this new place. Was there some kind of shared consciousness that disseminated these stories across worlds and universes? Was dimensional travel happening all the time? Everything he saw only generated more questions.

Mitchell had grown up in a world with no magic and only one surviving humanoid race. Humans had evolved on Earth, and they had the fossil record to prove it. Yet there was a human woman sitting not three feet from him that had not been born on Earth. The whole idea fascinated him. Mitchell had always enjoyed the life sciences and had a better-than-average understanding of things like evolution. Everything told him that having humans evolve simultaneously on two planets would be next to impossible. The Star Trek model where all the aliens were bipedal with binocular vision and ten fingers and toes was not how it should really work. Yet he was looking at two different humanoid species besides Lethelin’s. As much as he wanted to get to the bottom of it, he decided it was a question best left for another day. Besides which, he wasn’t sure the penalties would be worth it given all the language mistakes he would make trying to explain genetic mutations and allele frequencies.

Allora had explained that the Diran Road was one of the main trade arteries through Iletish. Given the mostly flat terrain of the country, at least in the central part, it allowed for a nearly straight road that ran from the mountains–the Skybreaker peaks she called them–in the west to the capital city, Mosira near the country’s eastern border.

Thanks to a chat with another trade caravan, they learned that they were only two or three days away from a place called Basai, a town Allora said was perhaps a week’s journey from the mountains. With good weather, it would be a week or two over the peaks and then they would be in Awenor.

Their wagon pushed on and Revos explained that the risk of any problems along the road was minimal. The Scorpion Guard patrolled heavily and there was a bounty on things like wild clorvols which kept their numbers down. Given the dry terrain and the difficulty in farming, Iletish was very dependent on foodstuffs from other lands and the guard took their duties seriously.

Now that they were along the road there were trade stops that travelers could avail themselves of if they wanted to spend the coin. Just as back home, it seemed people here were always looking for an opportunity to make a buck and Mitchell saw vendors offering a wide variety of goods and services. Allora took the opportunity to buy them some more comfortable clothes and Mitchell was finally able to get out of the filthy rags he’d been wearing for nearly a month.

The clothing was a loose-fitting linen-like material that allowed his skin to breathe much more than his denim had. The shoes were also surprisingly comfortable. They were leather-soled and sewn into them was a canvas-like material that went up to around mid-calf with a cord that laced it in place. The leather was supple and it felt much more natural walking on the often sandy surface than his sneakers had been.

Eying himself as he moved around experimentally in the new gear, he said, “I look like Aladdin.”

“Who’s that?” Lethelin asked as she lounged in the back of their wagon.

“It’s a…” He paused not knowing the word for character. “A person from a story. In the…story he dresses kind of like this.”

Mitchell plucked at the loose garments and the shirt made from the same material that was belted closed across his chest.

“What is the story about?” Lethelin looked intrigued.

“Well, the Disney story is about a poor beggar who finds a magic thing…cup that has a powerful creature in it that gives him… what he wants. He can ask for three things.”

Talking around the words he didn’t know was almost like a game.

“But you said there was no magic on your world.”

“There isn’t, but we have stories with magical creatures and people who use magic. But on my world, they’re just stories. It’s not real.”

“There is some magic,” Allora chimed in from the side of the wagon, securing some packages of supplies she’d purchased with their plundered coin. “But it is very weak.”

“Really?” Mitchell asked. He understood her almost perfectly. Almost two weeks of near-total immersion in the language with a punishing study schedule had yielded results. He wasn’t even close to fluent but basic conversations were coming easier.

“It took many days to refill my mana reservoir once I had exhausted it. And even then it felt… thin.”

With the packages secured, she joined him at the back of the wagon and began to belt on her sword and the long dagger she wore on her opposite hip. She was wearing similar clothing to him but somehow she looked regal. The loose fabric still clung to the curves of her hips and her ample breasts swelled the front of her shirt. Mitchell worked hard not to stare. He did not want to get an erection in these pants.

“Maybe your world once had magic but something changed resulting in a very mana-poor environment.”

Mitchell wondered if there had been more magic in his universe in the past. Maybe that’s where the stories came from. Maybe the legends and myths were based on truth but it had stopped for some reason.

“I found a cekip,” Revos said from behind Mitchell. “We can finally determine what mana types he has.”

“Excellent,” Allora said.

Over the last several days his magic training had continued, but it had been all theory. Revos had said that, until they figured out what kinds of mana he had access to, it wasn’t safe for him to continue to the next stages of his education. Without any practical training, however, he had learned a good deal about how the magic functioned.

While mana was all around them all the time, only some creatures had the capacity to harness it and direct the flows, something they called channeling. Of the humanoid races, the ones that could channel were born with a sort of reservoir that could absorb mana from the environment and be used in spellcasting. At the lower levels, spells were constructed purely in the mind. It involved channeling the desired mana type into a rune that you formed in your head. Once you could access your mana reservoir, select the type you wanted, and push it into a rune with your will, the spell would take effect. The more powerful the spell, the more complex the rune, the more mana it took to create, and the more will it took to direct it. Then there were the gemstones.

Each mana type had a corresponding gemstone that could be used to focus the mana more efficiently. You could cast spells without it but, the way Mitchell understood it, it was kind of like sending hot water down a long uninsulated pipe. Much of the heat would be lost by the time the water came out the other end and so it was with casting spells without gemstones to focus the energy. The effect was a less powerful spell and a significantly higher mana cost to achieve the same effect. Different mana types resonated with different gemstones and this allowed them to be used as a focus and to more easily direct the channeled mana.

It wasn’t without cost, though. Channeling through the gemstones produced minute fractures and cracks that built up over time, leading to a reduction of efficiency and, eventually, the stone would shatter. As such, they had to be replaced periodically, which meant buying more. The more powerful the spell one cast, the more stress it placed on the stones used in the casting and the faster they would deteriorate. Larger stones lasted longer than smaller stones but were more expensive. Stones with flaws in them would deteriorate faster than stones of higher quality.

The number of mana types someone could access also determined what type of magic user they were. Someone who could only access one or two mana types was called a sprite. A witch or a warlock was someone who could channel three to four. An arcanist could channel five to seven, and a full mage could channel all eight types of mana. Mitchell learned that while Allora was considered a witch, Revos was a full arcanist. He liked to argue that he was actually a mage because his fire magic gave him an extra source of power to draw on. But since it was a characteristic of his race rather than a type of mana he could draw on, scholars said it didn’t count. Revos said they could get fucked.

“This will tell me what kind of mana I can use?” Mitchell asked as Revos handed Allora a leather band about two inches wide and almost two feet long. “Or if I’m a sprite or an arcanist?”

“It will,” she replied while critically examining the item. “Poor quality, but it will do.”

In the fading light, Mitchell could see the glint of several small stones set into the leather as she checked it.

Flipping it over, she shook her head.

“They did not even link the stones,” she scoffed. “I hope you did not pay much for this.”

“I know my business, woman. It’s what was available,” Revos replied, his voice flat. “If you want, I can return it and we can wait until we get to Awenor.”

Allora gave him a wry look and then turned away without answering.

“Mitchell, would you join me, please?”

Allora shooed Lethelin from the back of the wagon before hopping into it herself. Then, she sat with her back resting against one wall. Mitchell followed and soon they were seated cross-legged across from each other in a very familiar position. Many hours had been spent like this as they traveled, either practicing language or learning to access his mana. Once he was comfortable and Lethelin and Revos had joined them, Allora handed him the leather strap. Not wanting to risk any misunderstandings, she cast her language spell on him and Mitchell felt that familiar tingle as it took effect.

“This is a cekip. Embedded into the leather are eight small gemstones, one for each mana type.”

Mitchell saw that there were indeed eight different gemstones of different colors, each one smaller than a pea. Arranged in a rough octagonal shape, they went all the way through and were visible on both sides. The band tapered off on each end and Mitchell assumed it was meant to be tied around his head.

“Here,” Allora said, pointing to a shape that had been pressed into the side of the leather and inside the circle of the gemstones, “is a basic mana rune.”

It was nothing more than a circle with eight lines radiating out from the center, the tip of each one ending at one of the gemstones.

“While accessing your mana reservoir, I want you to imagine this rune and then imagine pushing your mana into it. The rune will separate the mana as it flows into the cekip and each gem that lights up will tell us what mana you can access. Once we know that, we can begin instructing you in some spells.

The rune was simple enough and Mitchell knew he would have no trouble holding it in his head while he channeled.

“Will it hurt?” Mitchell asked, eyeing Allora suspiciously.

She blushed slightly, the embarrassment of her previous falsehood still fresh in her mind.

“No, it is painless,” she assured him.

“If channeling hurts, you’re doing something wrong,” Revos said from his spot at the back of the wagon.

“All kids who can channel do it on their seventh name day,” Lethelin said, perhaps trying to reassure him. “Anyone who can channel, even a sprite, can be a huge boon to a family. Not me, though. As dun as they come.”

“Dun?” Mitchell asked.

“A rather unkind word for someone with no magical talent,” Allora explained.

Mitchell was a little shocked that anyone would call Lethelin dun, magic or no. She was strikingly beautiful.

Lethelin only shrugged.

“Kids can be little shits,” she said by way of explanation, “especially when they have magic and you don’t.”

“But it’s okay,” her voice took on a chipper note. “Mira never lets me down.”

Lethelin pulled out the long stiletto that she kept tucked under her cloak on her back and kissed the blade lovingly.

“Isn’t that right, baby?”

Mitchell remembered that blade cutting through Ivaran’s cheek and the mess of his body she had made after he stopped watching. He suppressed a shudder.

“Anyway,” Allora said, bringing them back to attention. “It will not hurt and should only take a moment.”

Mitchell placed the band on his head as instructed and tied it firmly in place. He told Allora that he could feel each stone where it contacted his skin, which was important. While it would work without skin-to-stone contact, it was more efficient if there was nothing between the two. Efficiency seemed to be the name of the game when it came to casting. It was all about finding ways to direct as much of one’s mana as possible into a spell without it going to waste.

She showed him her own headband which was designed in a similar way. Hers was different though. Around each stone was a delicate filigree of gold and silver wires that ran all through the headband. He had seen her swap stones a few times and his cekip didn’t have any such functionality. Hers was designed to make it easy to slot new stones in when they needed to be replaced. Allora explained that this cekip was made with low-quality stones and only intended for a handful of uses before it was thrown away.

“Now, with the rune held firmly in your mind, channel your mana by pushing it into the rune and directing it at the one on the back of the cekip. Your mana should respond to your will once you give it a direction to flow.”

“Okay.”

After days spent accessing his mana reservoir under Revos’s brutal tutelage, it was easy now. Especially without anyone poking or prodding him in ever more painful ways. He almost didn’t even have to think about it before the mana was there, eager to do his bidding. As she had instructed, he pushed his mana toward the rune and, to his surprise, the mana went. It was the strangest feeling. He felt a slight pressure in his head, not painful but just there, and his mana seemed to flow forward where he wanted it to go. It found the rune in his mind and he felt it begin to fill the mental lines he had drawn.

He was about to announce his success with his first-ever spell when something went terribly wrong.

Mitchell felt white-hot needles of agony where the gemstones came into contact with his skin and before he could even scream or pull the cekip off, there were several loud popping sounds that reverberated in his head and he was thrown back into the wagon. Through a haze of pain, he heard both women scream in surprise, and Revos uttered a loud curse.

“What in Stollar’s hairy taint was that!” Lethelin shouted in shock.

Mitchell tried to open his eyes but something wet was clouding his vision. He went to wipe it away but his arms didn’t want to respond. The smell of burnt meat filled his mouth and nose. He wanted to gag but he couldn’t move.

“Get the cekip off him!” Revos called from somewhere. “What’s left of it.”

“Mitchell!” Allora’s voice this time, panicked. “Mitchell, say something.”

“Did it blow a hole in his head?” Lethelin asked, also sounding scared.

There was a tugging sensation and Mitchell thought it was the cekip being taken off but he couldn’t feel much. His thoughts were sluggish and his body didn’t want to respond to any of his commands.

“Shock,” he thought to himself. “And I might have a hole in my head. That’s nice.”

A second later he felt the warm tingle of healing magic flow through him. Then the pain followed. His forehead was on fire. He could only groan in response and even that was a pitiful sound.

Over the next few minutes, as Allora exhausted her mana reservoirs healing him, he began to regain some of his senses. While Allora maintained the spell, Lethelin washed the blood off his face and he could finally open his eyes. What greeted him was the sight of a tear-streaked Allora leaning over him, some of his blood splattered on face and her new shirt. She had several tiny scratches marring her flawless skin.

As his bleary eyes found hers, she choked off a sob.

“You will be okay!” It sounded more pleading than confident.

He was still dazed but his limbs were working, mostly. He reached up slowly and wiped away one of her tears.

“I think I got blood on your new shirt,” Mitchell said. His voice was thick and his tongue felt heavy in his mouth. “Sorry.”

“Move over girl, you’re almost drained. Let me take over.”

Revos was suddenly there, his massive form blocking out the sky as he worked his healing magic to repair the damage from whatever had happened.

“Who sold you the cekip?” Lethelin asked. “Mira and I have some questions for him.”

“Red tent next to the fountain,” Revos said, his voice strained as he poured magic into Mitchell. “A dwarf named Gellick. I’ve got some questions too, so don’t kill him. Yet.”

“Be right back.”

Mitchell closed his eyes, too exhausted to keep them open any longer, but he didn’t sleep. He felt an ache in his left hand and realized it was Allora clutching it while she whispered prayers to Vish. It was uncomfortably tight but he didn’t try to pull it away.

“That should hold for now,” Revos said, finally. “I’ll want him to eat something before I try anymore.”

The cambion’s thumb wiped across Mitchell's forehead and he grunted in satisfaction.

“There shouldn’t even be a scar,” he said. “You’re lucky, boy. I’ve never seen a cekip explode before. Thank Stollar’s nipples none of the shards of gemstone pierced your skull. Maybe all that thumping from Lethelin toughened you up a bit.”

Mitchell grunted and tried to sit up but Revos held him down.

“Don’t try to move just yet. More healing may be needed. I have to rest a little bit and you require some food. But first, I have a merchant to question.”

He left the wagon and it was just him and Allora. She’d regained her composure but her eyes were red-rimmed and moist.

“Mitchell, I did not lie to you, I swear. That is not supposed to happen. I do not know…” A pained look crossed her face. “We test children! The same was done to me when I was a girl. Cekips don’t explode. Even poorly made ones such as that. It is a painless process!”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Mitchell said, trying to reassure her. “It’s not your fault. Can we talk later though? I’m… really tired.”

The healing must have been extensive. The way they’d explained it, the magic just amplified the body’s natural biological process, so it could still take a lot out of someone.

She gave him a weary grin. “Of course.”

“And my hand?”

Allora looked down at where she clutched his, noticed how white the skin was around her powerful grip and released him immediately.

“I am sorry,” she said.

“No, don’t be.” Mitchell flexed his hand letting the blood flow back into it and then found hers once more, holding it gently this time.

“I just want to rest for a minute,” he told her, his voice getting heavy with exhaustion. “Will you stay with me?”

“Always.”

Mitchell felt the smile at the corner of his lips as he slid into sleep.

It was the hunger pains that woke him up. His stomach felt like he hadn’t eaten in days. As he started to shift he felt a weight on his chest. Opening his eyes, he could make out the back of Allora’s head where she had lain down on him. He watched her for a moment and saw that her breathing was slow and even. He also noticed that his arm was around her and that she was nestled into him. Feeling the warmth and the weight of her pressing down on him Mitchell realized that this was the first real human contact he’d had with anyone in more than a month. Mitchell had forgotten how good it felt to hold someone. Almost involuntarily, his arm squeezed her tighter.

Mitchell could almost imagine that they weren’t charging toward their death on a hopeless suicide mission to save a magical kingdom. Rather, he was with his girlfriend on a camping trip somewhere outside Scottsdale. He could pick up his phone and play her some Otis Redding or Van Morrison and they could slow dance in the Arizona twilight. Then, when they finished dancing, they would retreat into their tent to make passionate love until they collapsed in each other's arms until the morning sun.

Mitchell had almost lost himself in the fantasy when the wind shifted and the musky scent of their clorvol rolled over the back of the wagon. You didn’t get smells like that in Arizona. Reluctantly, he pulled himself away from his imaginings of a happier world and tried to move. He needed to eat. The healing must have been way more extensive than he’d thought at first. He felt like his stomach was eating a hole in itself.

He began to shift, hoping not to wake Allora, but it was a futile attempt. She arose almost instantly and sat up, her eyes blinking rapidly and her hand reaching for her waist where her sword would have been. Then, she remembered where she was and looked down at Mitchell.

“You are awake.”

“Yeah,” he said and sat up. There was a slight ache in his head but other than that he felt okay. Physically at least.

“Revos said you should eat.”

Allora reached over and pulled a small satchel to her and pulled out some flatbread and cheese. They sat in companionable silence as he devoured the food, pausing only to drink thirstily from a waterskin. As he chewed, he checked the time. Vish was more than three-quarters of the way across the sky which meant dawn was only about two hours away. No doubt Revos and Lethelin would be awake soon. The sky still dazzled him at night. He didn’t think he would ever get tired of seeing it.

Once Mitchell had consumed the entire contents of the satchel, which had also contained some dried fruits, he felt able to speak. Allora cast the language spell on him without needing to be asked, indicating that she expected the conversation to be beyond his still-limited ability.

“So, what happened? Was it a bad cekip?”

Allora grimaced.

“We do not think so. The merchant had two others and they were all of similar quality. The dwarf even tested it on one of his own children to prove there was nothing shady going on.”

“So what, then?”

“When Revos returned he did some examination of your mana reservoir, which is something he had not thought to do before.”

“You don’t do this normally?”

“It is not something I know how to do,” she replied. “But, as an arcanist, his magical knowledge far exceeds mine. He found something shocking and thinks he knows why the cekip almost killed you.”

“Am I… broken?” Mitchell asked her, suddenly terrified that he wouldn’t be able to use magic at all.

“Far from it!” Allora said. “Your mana reservoir is…. Well, according to Revos, your mana reservoir is immense. Impossibly so. As someone who only just started using magic, it should be a fraction of that size. It takes years of study, focus, and spellcasting to grow one’s reservoir to the size you already have.”

“How is that possible?”

“We think it is because of the mage catchers,” she said.

Mitchell said nothing, waiting for her to explain.

“You were born with a mana reservoir, even though you lived in a realm with almost no mana and no magic. Living in such a place, your reservoir was never used and so it laid dormant your whole life. But the reservoir was still in you and it wanted to be filled. Mana is drawn to it. When you arrived here the mage catchers were put on you immediately as a precaution. Ivaran did not know that you could not use magic, but since the mage catchers worked on you, he left them on.”

Mitchell had not forgotten the sickening feeling he’d had when he wore them. The bottom dropping out of his stomach, the nausea, and the throbbing headache.

Allora continued.

“With the constant drain on your mana reservoir, your body adapted, trying to fill itself. It began drawing more and more even though it was being taken out of your body as fast as it was brought in. But the side effect was that your reservoir began to expand and grow as if you were using it. Constantly, for days.”

As Mitchell pondered her words, the less sense they seemed to make.

“If this happens every time someone uses mage catchers wouldn’t you just be making them stronger? Why wouldn’t magic users use the mage catchers as a way to strengthen themselves?”

“Your reservoir has a fixed size, much like your height. Practice will help it achieve its full potential but it can’t be increased beyond its natural limit. Most people reach their full potential before their twentieth high sun if they have had sufficient study. And since almost all children are tested and given the ability to develop their magical talents–in Awenor, at least–I do not think anyone ever thought to put mage catchers on children to accelerate the process. It might even do more harm than good. Putting mage catchers on an adult would do nothing to their mana reservoir except drain it.”

Mitchell thought he understood.

“So, it’s not that my reservoir is impossibly large, it's that the mage catchers allowed it to grow really fast in a short time? I’m already at my full size?”

“That is what we think, yes,” Allora nodded.

She reached down and picked up the charred remains of the cekip. The center was blown completely out, it was stained black with his blood, and it was only held together in the front by the barest piece of material.

“This was never intended to channel that level of mana. Without knowing what you were doing, you unleashed the full force of your mana into something designed to accept the amount of mana a child could channel. It exploded, as any gemstone would if it was over-charged.”

Mitchell reached out and she handed him the ruined cekip. Just that level of handling snapped the little bit of burnt leather that was still holding it together. He turned it over, examining it in the moon’s pale light.

“Is this some of my skin?” He asked, pointing to bits of charred something along the edges of where the stones had once been.

Allora leaned forward, seeing where he indicated, then arched an eyebrow. “I believe so. You will be quite powerful when you have mastered your skills.”

The idea made Mitchell a little giddy. He wasn’t broken and he would be a powerful wizard or mage or whatever.

“Do we know what kind of user I am? Were you able to see what mana types I have before it exploded?”

“I did,” Allora grinned. “Before it exploded six of the eight gemstones were illuminated. You are an arcanist!”