The Kingdom of Eternal Sorrow (The Golden Mage Book 1) (3 page)

Whistling the tune of an old ballad he loved, Aidric gazed lazily up at
the sky through the tree branches high above. Not a single cloud loomed in
sight, which meant that this time there wasn’t even a remote chance that he
would be caught in an unexpected downpour and drenched as he had been the
previous quarter-moon.

He still seethed with the indignation of it. He had been propped up
against a tree in his favorite spot along the Lake of Tears, reading a newly
discovered spellbook that King Diryan had given him and much like today, greatly
enjoying what little free time he had been given away from his ever-demanding
duties.

Not even a flash of lightning or a crack of thunder had sought fit to
warn him of the incoming storm before the Thrones above decided to let loose a
rather nasty downpour that had his robes drenched within beats. He still had
not lived down all the jokes that had resulted from his arriving at the palace
resembling a drowned snowbird.

If only I was a weather-mage, then I wouldn’t have to worry about
something as trivial as a little rain
, Aidric thought slyly, urging Shadow,
his midnight-black steed, to slacken his pace as he trotted along the well-worn
path that snaked its way through the thick trees to the banks of the lake.

It was a beautiful day, perfect for relaxing under his tree with the
warm, morning suns soothing his tired limbs. All around him, nature also seemed
to notice the beauty of the day. The air resonated with the sweet, harmonious
voices of the birds, singing their endless melodies until all of them interwove
into an enchanting chorus that radiated the happiness of the world. Even the
trees seemed to wave their limbs in a cheerful dance in the cool breeze.

Aidius, what I would give to have a maiden accompanying me to my
spot right now
, he thought wistfully.
The Thrones know that I have been
without a lover for far too long.

Aidric sighed irritably at that lonely thought, wondering, as always,
why he insisted on torturing himself with that particular thought over and over
again, especially on a day so beautiful that it demanded only cheerful
thoughts. He seldom had time for a personal life after his mage duties to
Lamia, his beloved kingdom. The irregular hours he kept and all his abrupt
departures during emergencies often turned people away from him in frustration.

When Aidric first announced to the kingdom that he had achieved the
title of a mage after years of study under Othos, then the Mage-general of
Lamia and also King Diryan’s personal court mage, women by the dozens flocked
around him, competing amongst themselves for his favor. He had enjoyed their
attention immensely.

The mystery of his mage powers made him extremely fascinating to them,
and he had them immediately enthralled when he began to perform little feats
for them with his magic. The fact that he had a handsome face didn’t hurt
either. He’d had no trouble finding a lover during those first few moons as the
new mage at court. His popularity also raised several notches when it became
known publically a few moons later that he was King Diryan’s choice to succeed
Mage-general Othos upon his death.

Nevertheless, Aidric could never keep a lover longer than a few moons.
The ladies he courted would realize how much of his time his duties to the
kingdom required. Some even went several moons between the times they would see
him. It seemed as if he was always being summoned off in the middle of the
night to the aid of a neighboring kingdom that was under attack, and the
battles sometimes continued on for several moons.

Frustrated and unhappy, they always eventually gave up on him and moved
on to other lovers, leaving him alone with his guilt over the fact that his
duties would always have to come first over his own life and the life of those
he cared about.

Then there had been Alina, a maiden as charming as she was beautiful.
She never minded his long tours of duty, making sure that they made the most of
the time they
did
have together. She had seemed a gift sent straight
from Seni during those difficult times. Aidric had never been as happy as he
was during the time Alina and he had shared. Then the world had come crashing
down on him. But no—he would not think of those times, would not torment
himself. He
refused
to think of them.

As if brooding ever helped anyone
, he thought wryly.
Selwyn
would hang me from my toenails if he knew I was chasing my own tail again after
that magnificent lecture he gave me over how I’ll find the right maiden someday.
Right maiden, indeed. What utter nonsense! Look what my last “right maiden” did
to me! Sel already has Raya, so what does he know of loneliness?

Aidric instantly felt guilty. He gave himself a mental kick in the
backside for that last whine as he continued down the grassy path with only the
trees as his companions.

“I should be relaxing after all,” he announced to the trees as if he
expected them to reply. Shadow whickered as if in agreement.

However, fate had other plans for him. Almost in the same instant, his
mage senses awoke screaming. His mind instinctually began to probe the area
before he could even gasp in surprise. What it encountered—Aidius—it was power
that hit his mind-probe with all the subtlety of a landslide!

As he hastily wrenched his mind away, Shadow reared violently, causing
Aidric’s teeth to clamp together painfully. He wrestled with the steed for a
few endless moments before he was finally able to settle Shadow down enough to
take action.

He banished the spellbook he had been leafing through into his magical
storage plane for safekeeping and quickly strengthened the defensive magical shields
about his body before turning cautiously towards the south where the origin of the
power source was like a beacon of raging fire to his mage senses.

Aidric could neither see anyone, nor sense anything else hidden amongst
the trees that the power could have originated from, yet, he knew
something
was out there. He could even feel a faint glimmer of human emotion, but it was
too distant, too vague to decipher. Praise Seni that it was not a Summoning at
least! The magical energies were not quite right.

Though a great deal of unease began to wash through him, Aidric also
felt a familiar rush of excitement at the thought of investigating the alien
power source. What manner of creature contained such power as to have the
ability to both cross the Lamian border, and to also have successfully kept
those powers hidden from the suspicious eyes and senses of the mages assigned
to the border station?

Cursing as he realized the implications, Aidric dismounted and
hurriedly tethered Shadow to the nearest tree. Then with his heart pounding, he
carefully directed another Probe of Inquiry from his mind into the forest to
see if he could touch the mind of whoever or whatever was recklessly sending
out such radiant vibes of power for any soul with mage powers to perceive.

Several hundred handspans into the forest, his mind-probe suddenly
touched the mind of his target, the raw power slamming into his mental shields.
He instantly drew his mind back as if burned, but that brief touch had been
enough from him to sample the “flavor” of the mind, that the one he sought was a
woman.

There had been no sense of startlement, no indication at all that she
had even sensed that her mind had just been touched. That was a good sign. If
she was not blocking her thoughts from intrusion, then he would be able to easily
steal the thoughts directly from her mind with her being none the wiser.

I wonder if she even realizes how stupid it is to leave her mind so
completely unguarded. Or—
His thoughts darkened.
Could this mindlessness
be a trap?

Aidric cautiously touched her mind again, this time bracing for the
onslaught of power, and slowly searched for anomalies along the surface as her
power raged against his mental shields. Then without warning, something clicked
in her head, a light
thump
against his mental “hand,” and a blast of power
in the form of a piercing scream crashed into his mind shields, instantly
shattering not only them, but his bodily shields as well.

The sheer blast of her power knocked Aidric flat, his back hitting the
ground so violently that it drove the air from his lungs. As he lay stunned and
gasping, her screams began to fill his head at an intolerable volume.

Aidric half-choked, half-cried out himself, reflexively throwing his hands
over his ears in a foolish attempt to block out the sound of her terrible
screams that dripped with fear and agony. He knew that the screams were purely
mental. He only had to reset the shields to his mind to silence them.

But he couldn’t. The concentration he needed to rebuild the shields was
utterly impossible as her shrill screams ripped excruciatingly through his mind.
Aidric writhed on the ground and moaned, feeling as if his head was going to
explode any moment. Then between one beat to the next, the screams within his
head swelled to a new, impossible height, and his screams were now a match for
the ones in his head.

Panic threatened to overwhelm him. His mind was being ripped to shreds!

Then, just as suddenly as the screams began, they cut off as if someone
had abruptly encased his mind within a spell of silence. The silence was as
profound and as unnerving as an unexpected clap of thunder on a cloudless day.

Aidric slowly brought his hands away from his ears, his heart pounding
to the point of pain and gasping for air. He had completely expected them to be
sticky with blood, but they were clean. For a moment, he could only lay where
he had fallen in stunned silence. What in Seni’s name had happened?

Only after sensing that the immediate danger had passed did he slowly climb
to his feet and begin to brush off the soil and dead leaves that clung to his
robes. The mundane exercise helped to calm his nerves a bit and to slow his
racing heart back to an almost normal pace.

He then immediately rebuilt his mind and bodily shields, still visibly
shaken on how the unknown woman’s single blast of power had instantly shattered
his strongest shields on contact.

No one had ever done that.

By Aidius, what in the six hells was that all about?
Aidric
thought wildly, his eyes still widened with shock.
That power—

His head whirled towards the direction he had sensed her. He
had
to find her. If she proved to be an ally, a mage such as she would be an
enormous asset to King Diryan’s magical defense. It might even be the very
thing they needed to tip the scales enough to end their current silent war with
Mihr.

Unless that whole episode was actually a deliberate attack, a test
of her abilities, and she has already transported herself out of Lamia—

That disturbing thought sent Aidric crashing through the forest like a
deer with the hunt at its heels, weaving skillfully between the trees whose lower
limbs maddeningly seemed to grab at his clothes with their prickly branches in
an attempt to prevent him from going any farther.

A few beats later, he skidded to a halt as he entered a small clearing of
thick grass about the diameter of ten strides that he had never seen before. It
vibrated strongly with residual magic similar to that of Lamia’s Mage-field but
on a much smaller scale.

Before he could even puzzle over the strangeness of the place, Aidric’s
eyes fell on the body of a woman. She lay sprawled face down on the forest
floor, her body still and twisted in a painfully unnatural position, appearing
to be dead at first glance. Sunlight streamed all around her, enveloping her
body in a faint glow that was both disturbing and beautiful to behold. He
cautiously invoked his Inner-sight and saw a small cloud of residual Mage-field
particles hovering about a finger-span above her body, causing a mystical
illusion around her of tiny, shimmering crystals.

Aidric edged over to her cautiously, an incantation ready on his lips
for defense should she suddenly awaken and strike out at him, but she didn’t so
much as twitch a finger. Once he reached her side, he got his first good look
at the woman—and cried out in shock, if not a little fear.

Aidius!

Her hair was
gold
! What he had first assumed was a patch of
sunlight surrounding her head, was in fact a long mane of golden hair. No
mortal of any of the many races of Seni’s World possessed hair of that hue.
Yet, here lay a maiden before his very eyes that indisputably had hair of gold.
The only thing that even suggested that hair that color was possible was an old
Lamian legend of a prophecy that many believed—and feared—would one day come to
pass.

This cannot be possible—what in the name of Seni could this possibly
mean? Has the legendary Golden Mage actually come?

Aidric suddenly felt dizzy as he continued to stare down at the woman
as if she was Aidius, himself. She wore very peculiar clothing, a top and
bottom piece that appeared to be undergarments of some sort but made of materials
he could not name. One cautious touch of the thick, deep blue material that
indecently hugged her thighs confirmed their strangeness.

Although alone, he couldn’t help feeling embarrassed at having observed
the nakedness of her legs. No lady of Lamia ever dared to show as much flesh as
was now visible on the lady before him—well, at least no lady of
decent
society.

He knelt down beside her and gently rolled her body over onto her back
so he could view her face. Only then did he see her youth. She couldn’t have
lived more than twenty summers. He frowned as he noted a trickle of blood
flowing from both her nose and ears—a telltale sign of magical trauma to the
brain. It was a condition common to mages, especially the apprentice-mages. He,
himself, had fallen victim to the condition on more occasions than he could
count. Rest and a potion or two would easily remedy the damage.