Ch 44: The Tale Of The Dark Mage

Frustration was palpable in the room.

Astasha, Calder, Errant, Helia, and Norelle, had been scouring the Magical Archives Library for hours in search of anything that might tell them what it was this evil wanted with the fire witch and Prince, but to no avail. It felt as though they were to find something in a haystack, but whether it was a needle or a hairpin wasn’t clear.

Tasha was pouring over the multitude of books and scrolls she had brought from her room, for what felt like the hundredth time, and yet was no closer to finding any information that could aid them. She sighed loudly.

“Nothing useful?”

Calder had come up behind her and was looking over her shoulder.

She shook her head. “Nothing I can see. There has to be something. I just don’t know where else to look.”

There was silence for a moment, and she could feel Cal’s apology before he said it.

“I’m sorry.” It was almost a whisper.

She turned in her chair to see his face. “Cal—“

“No, you’re right, we need to trust each other, to stay true to each other. You’ve never given me a reason not to, and yet I let my doubts and emotions trick me into thinking otherwise.”

His words made her guilt squirm in her stomach but she pushed it down.

“We’ve been through a lot, and it seems there will be much more still to go through. You have nothing to apologize for.” She took his hand and squeezed it, hoping to mask her prior emotions.

“But we’ll get through it together.” He kissed her hand and she smiled up at him.

“Yes we will.” It hurt her soul to say the words. She wanted so badly for there to be a happily ever after, but she knew better than to hope for that.

A thud pulled their attention away from each other as Errant shut a particularly large book with a humph. “I have read every book in this library, many of them more than once, and yet there is nothing I can recall or find that might help us.”

Calder shook his head. “We know so little of demons, of any of this, perhaps there isn’t anything here that can. You’ve said it before yourself Errant, we can’t be sure of any of it.”

Astasha turned back to the pile in front of her. “Everything I could find on demons is here, but it’s all extremely vague.” Her gaze moved to the water witch who was flipping through the pages of an ancient text. “Sorceress Norelle, have you had any luck on figuring out what this darker evil in our dreams could be?”

The young woman shook her head. “Nothing substantial. There are numerous references to black eyes being a mark of dark magic, but nothing that correlates to demons.”

Errant sat defeatedly in the chair next to him. “What aren’t we seeing? Even the runes seem lost. They show a great evil looming, a darkness engulfed in flame, and two lovers, no doubt you,” he said motioning to Astasha and Calder, “at the epicenter of it all, but they cast uncertainty every time I try to find answers or a solution.”

“I wonder…” Helia had been pondering silently through the whole exchange, but now she stood from her seat as everyone’s eyes locked onto her. She looked around the group. “What if we aren’t looking in the right place?”

“Trust me when I say there is no greater collection of magical writings save those at the Elemental Temple, and I have studied every piece there as well.” Responded the High Sorcerer.

A small smile played on Helia’s lips. “That’s just it. We’ve been looking at historical and educational literature. But we haven’t considered the lore passed down through the ages.”

“What do you mean?” Asked Calder.

“Have any of you heard the tale of the Dark Mage and the Forsaken King?”

Astasha raised an eyebrow and Calder cocked his head.

“You mean the children’s story?” Asked Norelle.

“Precisely.”

“I’ve never heard of this before.” Said Astasha.

“I don’t see how a fable could give us any information to aid us in this matter.” Responded Errant.

Helia wasn’t convinced. “That’s just it, what if the story came from something real? What if the tale is so old, it was something that actually happened, yet it was told in the ways of old, before ink and parchment were created, and eventually, the truth faded into fiction.”

“What is this tale?” Astasha was glad Calder had never heard of it either.

It was Norelle who responded. “It’s sort of a warning to young sorcerers to not get greedy with power. Did your mother never tell you it Sorceress Astasha?”

She didn’t know why, but the question made Tasha blush, a sort of shame seeping into her bones. “No. My mother has no magic. It was my father who bore the blood of the elements, but he disappeared when I was a babe. The only teachings my mother had to offer were the books passed down from my father’s mother that he left behind.”

“That must have made for a difficult transition into your magic, not having someone to guide you.” Helia’s face was compassionate, but it still made the younger fire witch feel like there was more behind her words. Perhaps if she had been raised with proper training and a parent who could teach her, she would not have made the decisions that had led them all to where they were now.

“I made due.” Was all she said in response.

Calder’s hand tightened around her own, no doubt sensing her self doubt. “Regardless,” he said. “What does the tale say that will supposedly help us determine what is happening?”

“Well,” said the water witch. “Its the story of a young mage, brilliant, but naive. She wasn’t master of one element, but of all four, and still, she wanted more. So she set out to master the spirit. The High Sorcerer is a representation of it, but one cannot simply command spirit. It is the very essence of being. The mage was determined, however. She came across a King who fell madly in love with her. This love, she felt, was the way to harness the final piece to her power, and so she feigned to love him back. And in the moment when he was most vulnerable, as he vowed himself to her for all eternity, she reached her magic into him and tried to take the power of his spirit into her. But it was more difficult than she thought.”

The room was silent as Norelle’s light, tinkling voice contrasted with the dark and ominous story.

“The mage refused to give up.” She looked around at each of them, a sort of fear on her face. “She dug her magic into the darkest depths of the earth, pulling energy from places which light had never touched, and it corrupted her soul. But the power was great, and she ripped the spirit from the King, forsaking him to walk the world as an empty shell. Finally, she was master of all energy. It was too great, though, and she did not know that at the time she bore the King’s child. The magic consumed the unborn babe, devouring it in darkness, and leaving the mage scarred and tattered inside, banished to a half life, not dead, yet not truly living. And so she remained, as it says, until she vanished from the world entirely.”

A chill ran up Astasha’s spine.

The Prince was the first to speak. “Is such a thing possible? To harness the very essence of spirit?”

Errant stood from his seat, shaking his head, brow furrowed. “It is a children’s story, meant to frighten young sorcerers so that they may understand that there are limitations to wielding such power. There is no such way to harness spirit, and therefor, there is no way the story could have been true.”

Tasha’s mind was whirring and a kind of sickness came to her stomach. “But what if there was Errant? What if this mage did exist? What if she still does?”

“That is impossible.” His face was set, but the High Sorcerer’s energy wavered.

Helia stepped toward Astasha. “You see the connection, don’t you?”

She nodded ever so slightly. “The demon kept saying ‘she’ and spoke as if it knew whoever this was well. And then when it retreated in the woods, it was if it was called away. Why would a demon answer to anyone?”

“Unless?” prompted the older fire witch.

“Unless it was answering to its creator.”

Norelle’s face was pensive. “You mean…?”

Astasha nodded. “The unborn child devoured by darkness. The first demon.”

The energy is the room was tense, everyone afraid to accept the possibility. Errant refused altogether though.

“There is absolutely nothing in the history of magic to support this insane idea. And even if it were true, it still tells us nothing of what it wants or why Sorceress Astasha and his highness are connected to it.”

Calder looked at the High Sorcerer. “Can you tell me, with utmost certainty, that anything else we have or might come across, makes more sense than this?”

Errant opened his mouth to speak but refrained, sighing as his lips came together.

Calder nodded once in resignation. “Then this is what I believe we should assume we are facing. That is, unless anything else comes to light that makes more sense. We have to strategize and we can’t do that blind. This at least gives us a direction, even if it isn’t exactly as the story goes, it makes sense that our enemy is a sorcerer of the darkest of magics. Now we just have to determine what it is it wants, and why it thinks that Tasha and I will be the ones to make it happen.”

“Don’t you all see it?” Asked Norelle innocently. The group simply looked at her and she wagged her head, the way Astasha had grown used to seeing her do it, her silver hair flapping about. “A dark mage,” she said pointing to Tasha. “And a forsaken King.” Her finger moved to Cal. “A reincarnation of her original attempt to harness the greatest power of all. The power of spirit. The power of love.”

Suddenly the pieces were beginning to fall into place.

Once again, Errant seemed to be the only one in doubt. “There are too many dissimilarities to assume this is the case. Sorceress Astasha is not a dark mage for one.”

“No,” interjected Helia. “But she used dark magic to free the Prince.”

Calder came to her defense. “Tasha isn’t evil. She did what she had to do to save me.”

“We know that, your highness, but, it still begs the question, how did she know to do so?” Helia responded. “Dark magic isn’t something taught, unless it’s passed down from an elder dark sorcerer, and Astasha was self taught.” Helia cocked her head to the side as she pondered a sudden inquiry and then turned to her fellow fire witch. “How did you know to use blood magic in your ritual? There are no teachings here that would have led to that conclusion.”

Astasha’s throat felt dry as all eyes fell to her. “It was in a book, handed down to me from my grandmother. I never knew her.”

The truth she didn’t want to face began to rear it’s ugly head. Astasha found her mind spinning and her heart in her stomach. Everything that had happened, everything the demon had said…

“It can’t be.” Said the High Sorcerer.

Calder was looking around, confusion on his face. “What? What are you all thinking?”

It was Tasha who answered him, though. “That I might be descended from dark sorcerers.”


**Author’s Update** *Hello lovelies! Well, I’m back, and for real this time! I’ve got some big things brewing for our little love birds so get ready! Feel free to follow my page on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/WrittenByBCole for updates on new chapters, new books coming soon, and more! Love & Light Everyone!