The Kingdom of Eternal Sorrow (The Golden Mage Book 1) (24 page)

How long have I been asleep?
she thought, remembering Aidric’s
earlier comment.
Surely I shouldn’t be
this
weak and hungry even
after I was sick.

As she was stubbornly trying to drag herself out of bed to at least sit
in the chair, Aidric returned with a tray heaped with food and a bottle of
wine.

“I told you that you shouldn’t be out of bed,” he scolded. He set down
the tray onto the chair and turned to glare down at her in disapproval. “Recovering
from magical shock is no small matter. You could make yourself more ill, and
right now we can’t have that because you and I’ll be taking a journey tomorrow
morning if you are well enough.”

Feeling guilty, Allison obeyed with a word of argument and settled
herself back against the headboard. “Where are we going?” she asked as she eyed
the food on the chair hungrily.

“I’ll tell you later,” he said firmly, following her eyes. “For now,
you need to eat. Let’s see if we can get some color back in your cheeks first.”

He presented her with the tray, and Allison automatically reached for a
piece of meat before she suddenly remembered that she still didn’t know from
what animal it had come from.

“Aidric,” she said somewhat hesitantly, “I don’t mean to be picky, but
what kind of meat is this?”

He seemed to find her question extremely amusing, although he was
trying very hard not to show it. Allison could distinctly see the laughter in
his eyes even though his voice was neutral when he answered, “It’s
ang
,
derived from our main supply of livestock. I suppose you might not be familiar
with our types of livestock. The animal is called an
antar
, and it’s as
large as a horse and has a white hide. Do you know what a horse—oh, good. I
assure you that it’s quite safe to eat. Our people have been feasting on its
meat for centuries, and none of us have died from it yet!”

“You’re making fun of me!” she accused, blushing in embarrassment.

“I’m sorry,” Aidric said with a smile, looking not at all sorry. “I
shouldn’t, I know, since you are a stranger in our world. I promise to behave
henceforth. Now, before you ask, the rest of the meat is mutton and venison,
and they are derived—”

“I know where it comes from,” Allison interrupted sharply. “We have
deer and sheep on Earth, but as long as we’re playing this Name That Food game,
what’s this?” She pointed at a piece of fruit that looked to be a cross between
a peach and an apple. It was similar to a peach in its fuzzy texture and
softness, but it was larger, shaped like an apple, and blood red.

“A
mitis
,” Aidric said. “Very sweet and quite delicious. I
recommend that you try it. Our best wines are made out of the juices of
mita
.”

Allison daintily picked up a piece of
ang
, and with a look of
uncertainty, she tore a small piece off and popped it into her mouth. To her
surprise, it was quite good. It tasted very much like beef, but with a much
richer flavor, as if it had been seasoned with a variety of exotic spices. Well
aware that Aidric’s eyes were on her, she began to eat more of it, pausing only
to take a few sips of the wine he offered her and wondering if they used
silverware at all since he hadn’t offered her any.

She even tried the
mitis
, which was every bit as sweet as Aidric
claimed it to be, with a mingled “greeny” flavor that reminded her of pine forests.
It didn’t taste even distinctively like any fruit she had ever eaten.

After a few moments of silence, Allison looked over at Aidric and said
shyly, “I was afraid you wouldn’t come back.”

“What and miss the opportunity of a lifetime to instruct a living
legend? Never!” he said with a lopsided grin. She made a face at him, and he
laughed and then said soberly, “Seriously though, if it hadn’t been for your
warning, I might not have returned with my life.”

He was watching her closely.

“So, it wasn’t just a dream, was it?” Allison said flatly, putting down
the piece of bread she had been nibbling on. She had suddenly lost her
appetite. “My God, Aidric, I
hate
being able to see the future! It
scares me! Can’t you just—turn it off somehow?”

Sighing, Aidric knelt down beside her bed, took her hands
in his, and said, “I’m afraid I can’t, little cat. Foresight is a gift given to
you by Seni, and there are only two ways you can rid yourself of it. You must
either damage your brain beyond that which the healers can repair, or Seni, Himself,
must take the gift away. I can’t shield it either because apparently, yours is
an ability so powerful that it breaks through even
my
shields. Besides,
even if I could, do you think something as trivial as a mortal’s magical shield
could obstruct what Seni wishes you to Foresee?

“Even when you’re trained, you cannot prevent the images from coming to
you. I share your Foresight ability, though obviously not as strong as yours,
and I never know when I’ll be overcome with a vision. Although it, at times, is
troublesome, Foresight is very useful, and over the years, it has saved many
lives.”

“Like yours,” Allison said with a nod.

“Ah, but what happened between us was
not
Foresight,” Aidric
explained with what appeared to Allison to be a touch of fear. “You weren’t
seeing the future but the
present
.”

“But—but—” she sputtered, taken aback. “How can that be? Besides, I was
asleep!”

“Asleep, awake, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “Our mage
powers work when we are in either state of consciousness. However, yours is a
power that no mortal has ever possessed in recorded history—the power of
Soulwalking. I don’t expect you to understand what that means when I, myself,
don’t fully comprehend it. That’s why we are leaving tomorrow morning to see
the Order of the Providence, for they know more about the Golden Mage than
anyone. I don’t know how to instruct you on how to control your power to
Soulwalk, but I suspect they do.”

He stopped, his expression suddenly turning both hesitant and distant,
as though he had abruptly forgotten that she was even there and his mind was a
million miles away mulling over a matter that greatly troubled him
. More bad
news for me, I’m sure
, Allison thought bitterly.

“There’s more,” Aidric finally said a couple of minutes
later.

“Isn’t there always?” she noted resignedly.

Aidric nodded, his expression sympathetic. “I’m beginning to have my
suspicions that something greater than your coming here is stirring in the
wind, and it has me extremely worried. There is a prophecy, told over millennia
probably, a prophecy that may or may not involve you.”

“I don’t understand—” Allison began before a
look
from Aidric
made her fall silent again.

“You will in time,” he assured her, “but for now, I can tell you this. The
Prophecy of the Six is the foretelling of a possible ending of mankind, of a
time when all six hells of Ter-ob, the dark plane, are aligned with the plane
in which our world resides, and a mage has the power to Summon all the demons
of each hell to overrun Seni’s lands, demons with the power to Summon the dark
god, Arioch, to our world, a being with the power to destroy Seni, Himself. I’m
beginning to suspect, as do the twins, that the time of alignment is near and
will occur sometime during our lifetime. This will be one of the things, among
others, that I wish to discuss with the Providencen priests.”

“You don’t think that I’ll be the mage who—” Allison said, her eyes
widening with horror.

“No!” Aidric interrupted fiercely. “I
don’t
, but if everything
is as I fear it to be, then you’ll be a
part
of it—as shall I and the
twins.”

Allison shivered at his tone, wondering for the thousandth time what
she had ever done in a past life to deserve the fate in this one that had
landed her right smack in the middle of this convoluted mess.
I almost wish
that I was back home getting religion beat into me every day by Will!
Allison thought and then abruptly paused, startled by a realization.
Wait—I’m
not supposed to remember anything about that bastard at all! I must’ve broken
through those mental shields Aidric put in my head. Crap! What if I—

“We’ll leave by portal, of course,” Aidric said, breaking her out of
her panicky thoughts. “We can’t possibly afford to delay your training any
longer than necessary.”

“A
portal
?” she all but squeaked. “Once was enough for me, thank
you. The one that brought me here made me feel like I was experiencing death. That’s
something I don’t care to experience again until my time comes.”

“I assure you it’ll be different this time,” he insisted. “The first
time you weren’t aware that what you were experiencing was a journey through a
portal. Besides, you aren’t well enough to travel ahorse. It’s a long and
perilous journey. The Seers’ abode lies high in the Calamon Mountains at the
edge of our northeastern border. It’s extremely difficult to reach by horse,
thus we would have to walk several spans on foot along steep, icy paths to
reach it. It would take us a half-moon at the very least to reach our destination,
so you must agree that a portal is more sensible.”

“Yes,” Allison said reluctantly. “I admit that as terrible and weak as
I feel right now, a half-moon trip riding and hiking up mountains doesn’t sound
like too much fun. There’s also the little problem that I’ve never ridden a
horse in my life.”

“Truly?” Aidric said, surprised. “If you didn’t ride horses, then how
did you get around?”

“On my feet,” she replied with a smile, “or I drove what we call in my
world a ‘car.’ The best I can describe it is that it’s sort of like a carriage,
but instead of being pulled by horses, it’s powered by a system of mechanical
devices and fuel.” At his puzzled look, she added with a shrug, “That’s the
best I can explain it. Your language lacks all the terms I would need for a
more thorough job, and I really don’t know the exact mechanics of how they work,
either.”

Looking thoughtful, Aidric muttered a few strange words under his
breath, and Allison gasped when an object appeared in his hand from literally
thin air. She was equally surprised to see, on closer inspection, that it was
her wristwatch.

“How did you do that?” she asked, her eyes wide with wonder.

“Magic,” he said simply with a shrug. “I’ll teach you how it’s done
later. For now, can you tell me what exactly this is? Is this a ‘mechanical
device’ as you say this ‘car’ contains?”

“Not exactly,” Allison replied. “It’s called a ‘watch,’ and we use it
to tell time.”

“And the bars within don’t move with magical energy?” Aidric asked
skeptically.

“I told you that we don’t have real magic in my world. It’s a form of
energy that makes it run, but not magic. I suppose that it’s useless to me
here, so if you want to keep it, you can. King Diryan mentioned that the
clothes of that French man who appeared in this world are in the archives of
that kingdom. Since the clothes I came in seemed to have disappeared, I
wouldn’t doubt that someone took them to Lamia’s archives. You might as well
have the watch, too, for future generations to gawk at.”

“It’s really a quite clever idea,” he said, more to himself than to her
as he continued to frown down at it with a perplexed expression. “I’ll give
this to our mage-smith to study. Perhaps he will be able to devise a magical
counterpart to it. It would be very useful, I think.”

Aidric muttered another set of strange words and the watch banished
just as quickly as it had appeared. Then he rose rather stiffly from his
kneeling position and said, “I don’t want to tire you, Allison, so I’ll take my
leave. I still have much to do before our journey tomorrow. I’ll leave you to
your meal, and then I want you to get some rest. A healer will arrive later on
to examine you and to determine if you are well enough to go. I’ll send Raya in
shortly to keep you company, for I fear I’ll return in only enough time to wish
you pleasant dreams. From what I’ve heard, you’ll need it.”

Then before Allison could say another word, he was gone.

Dressed in her apprentice uniform, Allison dubiously eyed the portal
Aidric had constructed only moments earlier in the center of his sitting room
and sighed. How she wished that Raya was there to lend her cheerful support,
but no one was present to see them off.

King Diryan had wanted to keep the whole trip as quiet as possible to
prevent unnecessary speculation and panic. Only a handful of people knew they
were even going—Maldon, Raya, Selwyn, and the twins—but they were all off on
various assignments. Diryan, of course, was presently occupied at the Council
meeting he had called the previous day.

I swore to myself that I would never go through one of these things
again
, Allison thought irritably as she gathered up the pack Aidric had
assembled for her and mentally began to prepare herself for the dreaded
journey.
Now, here I am, seven days later and fixing to deliberately go
through another one. God, I can’t even keep my promises to myself!

“Ready?” Aidric asked with a tired smile.

“No, but do I have a choice?” Allison replied wryly.

“Yes, we can always walk,” he teased. “However, I prefer this method
because right now I feel as though a herd of
antar
just trampled me.”

“Are you going to be all right?” Allison asked him worriedly, thoughts
of her own discomfort instantly forgotten as she eyed him critically. He
did
appear to be paler, although it was hard to see since his skin was already so
pale. “Shouldn’t we wait awhile and let you rest a bit before going through?”

Aidric shook his head. “I’ll be fine. When you build your first portal,
then you’ll understand how I feel. The weariness in my body will vanish once
it’s had enough time to recuperate from the shock of channeling so much energy
through it. We’ll have plenty of time to rest once we reach the Seers’ abode. Now
come. Despite what you may believe, I can’t hold this thing open forever!”

“Oh! Right…sorry,” Allison said as she took a hesitant step towards the
shimmering, multicolored oval light and then stopped. She could feel her knees
begin to shake with nerves as she turned to him and pleaded, “Can we please go
in together? I know that I sound like a whining brat, but I—I don’t think I can
face going in there alone again.”

“Of course,” Aidric said gently and reached out to take her hand. “Now,
hold on to your skirts!”

Then before she could begin to feel nervous again, he suddenly pulled
her into the brightness and then there was only chaos. He was right. This time
was not as frightening since she knew what to expect and especially since she
could distinctly feel Aidric’s presence, acting as her personal anchor, almost
within her very being. It was warm, strange, and exhilarating all at once.

Her first time traveling within a portal had felt like an eternity.
This time it seemed only seconds had passed before Allison was suddenly falling
into Aidric’s arms. She shivered as an icy wind immediately tore through the
thin material of her dress.

“You need to work on your landing a bit more, little cat,” Aidric said
with a chuckle. “You almost earned yourself a face full of snow!”

“Snow?” Allison asked stupidly, clinging tightly onto Aidric’s shirt
and trying to find her bearings again.

For the first time, she really saw her surroundings and sucked in a
sharp breath. True to his word, they now stood deep within a mountain range. Mounds
and mounds of snow lay all around them, and not a single green thing was
visible anywhere. Gray rock protruded here and there above the snow, but other
than that, there was no color present anywhere. In this snowy landscape, they
seemed to be the only life around.

It was no wonder that Aidric had insisted that she wear one of his
cloaks. She now gathered it more closely around her body and shivered harder when
an icy draft nevertheless found its way underneath again.

When she turned to look behind her, she gasped. An enormous, steep
staircase carved out of the mountainside rose up before them. It stretched up until
she could no longer see it as the clouds swallowed the mountain’s peak. The
stairs, themselves, seemed to sparkle with a golden light.
It almost appears
to be—holy
, she thought, stunned.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Aidric commented, noting her expression. “Yet,
it’s only an illusion. The staircase doesn’t rise so high. Although the
Providencen priests would like any visitors to think that this is the staircase
to the Thrones, it’s far from it. I suppose if I were to live out my life in
this cold desolation, then I would construct something such as this just to
amuse myself.”

Shaking herself out of her reverie with some difficulty, Allison said,
“It looks so out of place here. I mean, that golden light is the only color I
see around here. Why is everything so dead? Are we so high in altitude that
nothing
can grow here? I don’t feel lightheaded at all!”

“We are at the base of Death’s Peak. Although we aren’t as high as you
may believe, it’s still far too cold for anything to survive here. This peak
was named well. We should probably go inside before our shoes start to freeze
onto the path. They are expecting us.”

Allison gazed one last time at the mystical “staircase to heaven” and
wondered aloud as Aidric took her arm, “If this is only an illusion, then where
is the entrance?”

“It’s only partly an illusion,” he said. “Come, and you’ll see.”

Puzzled, she allowed him to lead her towards the ethereal staircase,
and then to her surprise, carefully up the stone steps. She started to say
something but then changed her mind.

I give up trying to figure this world out
, she thought in
exasperation.

About halfway up, just when Allison was about to believe that the
stairs
would
go on forever, Aidric suddenly stepped forward and walked
through what had seemed like solid steps. She felt a slight tingling on her
skin when she passed through the illusion. The bitter cold and snowy landscape
were instantaneously replaced by the mouth of a monstrous cave and glorious
warmth.

The cave was alive with sounds and color, a shocking contrast to the
dreariness outside. The sound of water dripping echoed throughout the cave, as
well as the gentle slapping of what was likely a stream against the rocks
somewhere in the distance. Green and blue mage-flames illuminated the cave from
suspended lanterns and torches along the walls of the cave. Shadows from the
flames flickered about, giving the impression that many people were lurking
behind every rock formation. Allison shuddered at the uncanny effect and
instinctively moved closer to Aidric.

“A bunch of priests live in a place like this?” she asked in disbelief,
her voice sounding hollow and appallingly amplified.

“Yes and no,” Aidric replied with amusement. “This is merely
the—visitor’s chamber, if you will. No soul knows the exact location to the
entrance to their abode. All I know is that it lies somewhere deep within the
mazes of this cave.”

“Then what do we do now?”

“We wait,” he replied simply. “Our presence will be sensed by a member
of the order and a guide sent. A confusion spell will be cast over us so that
no matter how hard we try, we’ll never find the true way on our own again. As I
said, they are a very secretive order, and this is done merely as a
precaution.”

“We have long been expecting your arrival, Mage-general Aidric
Stanisnik,” a deep voice suddenly said behind them, causing Allison to start
badly, yet Aidric seemed unperturbed by their visitor’s abrupt appearance.

They quickly turned as one to face the owner of the voice, a tall,
middle-aged man halfway concealed in the shadows, his dark hair just beginning
to gray at the temples, dressed in an assortment of elegant silver and white
robes lined with every precious jewel imaginable. At his neck hung a large,
circular gold medallion that seemed to glow faintly with power. It was divided
by deeply-etched lines into five equal sections, each containing its own
strange symbol.

Allison shamelessly stared at this ominous figure, both in fascination
and fear. Never had she seen a person look so—well, powerful. His steely green
eyes matched hers gaze for gaze, forcing her to immediately look away
nervously.

Aidric gave a slight nod of respect towards the priest and said, “Yes,
I suspect you have, Seer Etain. Seer Penrith most likely has told you much, and
as usual, found it pertinent to tell us nothing.”

Allison’s eyes widened at the unmistakable sarcasm in Aidric’s voice. She
glanced up at the priest.
He’s brave. I could never stare into those eyes
and talk to him that way. I hope he wasn’t insulted.
However, not only did Seer
Etain not seem to mind the comment, it appeared as if he found it rather
amusing.

Seer Etain smiled slightly and replied, “Indeed. I’m
certain Brother Penrith had his reasons. Many of us have Foreseen your coming
here to seek answers, and perhaps he did as well and thought it best to allow
fate to run its course.”

The Seer turned his attention once again to Allison, who struggled not
to cringe under that intense gaze. Etain’s eyes seemed to carry the knowledge
of many secrets about her, which she found very unsettling.

“I see you have brought the Golden Mage to us at last,” he said. “Never
had I thought that I would live to see the day when legends were born.”

“Her name is Allison,” Aidric offered neutrally, although she knew that
it bothered him for people to call her the “Golden Mage.”

“Yes, yes, we have been hearing her name whispered among us over the
years from knowledge gained by the study of ancient scrolls and by dreams,”
Etain said, “but I shall not delve into such matters with you here and now. It
is for Master Kiryl to decide what will be revealed to you here today. Come. We
have food and drink waiting, and after you have broken your fast, I shall take
you to see Master Kiryl.”

Aidric’s neutral expression melted into surprise, making Allison even
tenser. Seer Etain’s offer of breakfast was the first thing that had made sense
ever since they had set out this morning, so Aidric’s unexpected reaction
caused a multitude of alarm bells to start screeching in her head.

In the next second, Allison had her answer, and it had nothing to do
with breakfast.

“Master Kiryl will speak to us,
himself
?” Aidric asked
incredulously. “I have never heard of a single instance where he has spoken to
an outsider face-to-face.”

“The matter at hand warrants his and
only his
attention,” Etain
explained rather impatiently. “For this, he has made an exception. Now come.”

Before they set off, Seer Etain placed a hand on both of their
foreheads and instructed them to close their eyes. A split-second after her
lids were closed, Allison felt a sharp jab in her head, unpleasant but not
painful. When she opened her eyes again, she was surprised to see that nothing
around her had changed.

“The spell causes you to forget the path you have taken after you walk
it,” Aidric said, answering her unspoken question. “The spell will lift only when
we have returned to this spot.”

Allison nodded and followed Etain without a word as he led them deeper
into the cave. The farther they were within the cave, the closer the trickling
of water seemed to be. Before long they came to a small stream of surprisingly
clear water, which they crossed using a series of large, flat stones that had
been placed in the water as a rudimentary bridge.

Allison could see small, white fish and what looked to be fish similar
in appearance to trout swimming in the stream. Her mind told her that at this
altitude and climate—not to mention in a freaking
cave
—it should be
impossible to find a stream full of fish, especially trout, but she promptly
told her mind to shut up as she hurried after the two men, afraid that she
would fall behind and be lost forever in this maze of creepy caverns.

Before long they came to a huge door in the face of one of the cavern
walls made entirely out of silver with more of those strange symbols she had
seen on the Seer’s medallion etched into it. Allison stared at the door in
fascination, wondering what those strange symbols meant—then blinked in
confusion when she suddenly found herself in a small chamber, seated on a
wooden bench alongside Aidric.

What the—

“W-What just happened?” she croaked, glancing around wildly.

How had she gotten here? She had barely taken a couple of steps after
Seer Etain!

The room, aside from the bench, was completely bare, instantly giving
her the impression that it was some sort of jail cell. A thousand probabilities
of why they had been put in the room flashed across her mind, none of them
pleasant.

“The Seer’s spell,” Aidric said, reaching over to give her hand a
reassuring squeeze. “You no longer remember anything from the moment we left
the cave’s entrance to the moment we were seated here. Etain has gone to fetch
us our meal and will return shortly.”

“I’ll never get used to all of this magic craziness,” Allison grumbled.
“I
hate
knowing that someone can just make me forget a huge chunk of my
life whenever it pleases them.”

Aidric patted her arm sympathetically and said, “You’ll grow accustomed
to it more after I begin your lessons. I know it all seems so frightening and
strange to you—it is so for all apprentices—but once you are in control of your
abilities, this anxiety will pass, I promise.”

“Why do you even put up with me?” Allison blurted out.

Aidric tilted his head at her with a look of mild confusion. “Why
shouldn’t I?”

“I’ve been nothing but trouble to you from the moment I set foot in
your kingdom. You look ready to fall over with exhaustion, and yet, you bring
me all the way up here when I’m sure you have more important things to take
care of. Why would you want to take on another problem?”