Dragon Mage- Uprising Read online

  Cyrus bridled at the remark.

  A thrum of mixed reactions rustled through the crowd.

  One of the fishermen whose boat had been destroyed raised his voice. “It was Agrippa’s apprentice who brought this scourge upon! Now we are supposed to trust another? Never trust a mage, I say!”

  Evren saw his opportunity. “Good Wrislin, your voice is heard. I praise the efforts of you and others who have struggled to feed our town without your boats. We all remember how the dragon mage Cyrus made similar promises. We all know that Jace was Agrippa’s man and know of his checkered past. I do not trust their kind to have our best interests at heart, let alone keep you all fed or rebuild our trade and industry. How will we pay for this new army?”

  Jace snarled. “And how will filling your own coffers protect the Red Claw Islands? You’d rob the people through taxation and fees just as quickly as any pirate.”

  “We have need of ships and the Black Claws have them,” replied Evren.

  Darek growled in frustration, but wisely held his tongue.

  Jace threw up his hands. “—and have us become a puppet slaver colony to the Black Claws in return?”

  Evren shrugged. “We have both made our case, let the people decide which plan is best.”

  The arbitrator stepped in. “Gentlemen, you have both had your say. Voting will take place three days hence.” The debate was over.

  Cyrus moved from foot to foot as he eyed Jace’s dragon riders at the edge of the crowd. He’d heard enough, and yet his impatience gnawed at him like a hungry serpent. To strike the mage boy down here would be a senseless risk.

  Looking around, he saw a hulking youth with the insignia of the city guard standing at the side entrance to the plaza. A captain, judging by the badges on his uniform. Instead of watching the crowd, his eyes were locked on Darek with a look of hate. Cyrus smirked. Another potential pawn to be used in the days ahead.

  He shuffled over to him. “Ah, brave captain—my hearing is not what it once was—would you be so kind as to tell me which candidate is better? Seems a hard choice to make.”

  “No hard choice, beggar,” grunted the captain. He wrinkled his nose at the fishy stench, moving back a step.

  “Is that so?” Cyrus smiled, recalling the fish guts he had smeared on his cloak to heighten the illusion.

  “My father will win. That cripple has no chance. Father to the Mage Reborn—” the guard spat “—what a farce.”

  Cyrus’s eyes sparkled. “You don’t trust the mage? He has an honest face...”

  The captain grew angry at that, his face turning red. “Begone, before I have you thrown in the stocks. The public square’s no place for begging for scraps.” With a disinterested wave he turned his back.

  Cyrus smiled and selected a green-spotted runestone from his collection. Just as the young man turned, he clenched his hand around the gem and muttered a spell. A strange change came over the captain and he froze. Cyrus’s eyes darted left and right, but no one seemed to notice with their rapt attention still on the speakers. He infiltrated the weak mind easily, then moved closer, holding out his hand as if to ask for a few coins. The captain turned to face him, his eyes heavy and unfocused.

  Cyrus whispered in his ear. “Follow my commands and together we’ll destroy the dragon mage and his father. When it’s done, you will earn glory and praise. Is that something you want?”

  The captain blinked. “More than anything.”

  “Good.” Cyrus slipped a necklace of shells around the captain’s neck. “What’s your name?”

  “Bralig.”

  “Be ready, Bralig,” Cyrus said, “I will give you instructions soon.”

  Bralig smiled, nodding.

  Not only a captain, but Evren’s son. If he could ensure that the father won the election, he could seize control from within.

  Cyrus sent a silent thought to the runestone hidden among the shell necklace. Watch Jace and his riders closely. Report all that you see. I’ll hear your thoughts through the necklace you wear.

  Bralig gripped his sword. An ambitious gleam shone in his eye.

  Cyrus grunted. This minion would serve his needs well. Then he vanished into the crowd.

  He had climbed halfway up the low-shrubbed hill back to his dragon when Cyrus turned. Unwrapping his staff from its hiding place among his rags, he rubbed the glittering end until the white runestone glowed like a pearl. Thrusting the staff into the air, he pointed at the townsfolk and gave a ferocious snarl. “Curlesfunx ruit!”

  A green blast licked out from the tip and rained down like a flaring snake on the crowd below. The mage boy’s eyes lit. As if by some uncanny intuition, he turned about, ducking the blast at the last minute. A man fell dead behind him. Darek held up his forearms like a shield. A glowing sphere of power appeared around him and his father.

  By Kraton, where did the boy learn that? Cyrus cursed and ran to his dragon.

  * * *

  The town square erupted in panic. People fled to all corners—Darek tried to push his way forward and discover the source of the blast. He ran through the crowd, darting several wild glances left and right. “Where did it come from?” he cried.

  A woman selling apples to the crowd from her cart pointed a quivering finger up the hill. Darek’s eyes squinted to the rustling shrubs.

  A ragged-garbed figure had climbed onto a grey-green dragon and the two vaulted into the air. The beast spread its iridescent wings wide and sailed out toward the ocean.

  Darek summoned his dragon with a thought. A silver shape materialized and swooped down, plucking him from the ground and soaring back up like a sea eagle grabbing a fish. The chase was on.

  * * *

  Valoré flew off across the bay like a streak of mage fire, but the silver dragon somehow kept pace. Cyrus sneered. Darek’s dragon was a competent flier, but the two could not match Valoré under water. Cyrus took his dragon into a steep dive and they plunged under the waves. He called upon his necromancy and allowed the water to enter his lungs. Without the need to breathe, they could swim faster and deeper and deeper than any dragon rider could hope to match.

  The dragon’s forelimbs and hind legs propelled them deeper to the bottom, and Valoré swiftly lost their pursuers amongst the many underwater formations and caves below.

  The silver-headed dragon soon lost trace of them and bobbed to the surface. Cyrus grinned, imagining a red-faced Darek gasping for air. The day had been a loss, but he still had the advantage. They didn’t know who their enemy was.

  Chapter 3.

  Rebirth

  With bitter heart, Cyrus flew back to his sanctuary on Curakee island. He had failed again, but at least he had gained valuable information. His loyal sea serpent, Fercifor, a long, sinuous beast with black fins and massive greenish-black body, guarded the bay as he gathered what few dragons were left to him. He could hardly look at the creature’s one eye without seeing the mirrored face of Silver Eye, the dragon of Agrippa’s new apprentice, Darek, who he had failed to kill.

  How he longed to summon more serpents and watch as they ripped the upstart dragon mage apart. The boy had become too powerful, too well protected. Cyrus’s heart writhed in knots and a cold lump frogged his throat. A subtler plan was required to exact his revenge.

  He sent Valoré into a deep dive, splashing into the bay and swimming down to the underwater portal hidden under the complex coral shelf along the shore. He held his breath and began chanting a spell to unlock the heavy chain that sealed off the entrance. The iron and wooden portal shimmered as the metal links fell away and he guided Valoré through the magical barrier, sealing it behind him and replacing the chain with a hasty counter spell.

  He would not make the same mistake of dropping his guard and allowing intruders in again. Looking to his left, he frowned. The old portal to the outside world had been shattered with his own staff by Briad the traitor. The crack had flooded the lower levels of his sanctuary with seawater. An ugly mess. A veritable battleground of sogg
y dampness and mold that he could do without. Stripping down to bare skin and ringing his sopping robe of its water, he donned a dry garment pinned to the wall and bid Valoré return to the beast’s chamber while he marched up the wide, torch-lit tunnel to his workroom.

  It had taken many painstaking days to repair the portal. Windbiter, his eldest dragon, had hauled the stones and provided the fire for re-forging the metal binding along its seams. He was glad to have left the old dragon behind where the others had died in the battle at Cape Spear. Too many of his sea serpents had been slaughtered.

  His lost mage staff would have been a problem, had he not thought to create a spare—this one well-concealed from the fugitives, Agrippa and Briad. The loss of the runestones was a bigger problem. He had imbued too much of his power in them. Yes, he had others, less powerful, but functional, and for this, he thanked his luck to have hidden them amongst his collection of curios. Time passed as he brooded, staring at them now, unsure of the best way to make use of the twinkling gems.

  For the past two moons, he had remained in hiding in his network of caves, eating fish that his dragon would catch for him, smoked by the dragon’s fiery breath, but wracked by his own frustration and anger. He hadn’t always been this miserable.

  Cyrus remembered a time when the title of Dragon Mage had been his. Now the feckless upstart mage had stolen his place as Agrippa’s successor. Fools! He, Cyrus, should have been next in line, and if Agrippa, curse his hide, hadn’t denounced him publicly before he died, he would be the Dragon Mage.

  He had sacrificed everything to ensure no other would challenge him—done so many terrible things… He flashed back to how the Red Claw chief Margar had him lashed and thrown in the stocks over a few mischievous spells when he was but a child of nine. Days passed while urchins threw stones and rotten apples at him. Agrippa, the spineless jellyfish, had gone along with the townsfolk’s punishment, only arranging for his release after several weeks. The memory still burned his heart.

  It was nearly a year later when a tragic accident had taken Margar’s life. The man’s wife had suspected Cyrus, but had no proof. When she petitioned the elders, they were too afraid to do anything.

  Now the dark arts offered him a chance at revenge, and unlimited power. His path had been chosen for him long ago by Agrippa’s callousness. It was too late to turn from this path…

  Cyrus cleared his mind, exhaling deeply. The old Cyrus was dead, ripped away after his desperate walk across the bottom of the ocean as he fled from the magical waterspout raised by Agrippa. He could still remember the sight of it tearing apart dragons and ships, a deadly funnel raised from the ocean, destroying everything in its path. An ugly sneer flashed across his haggard face and touched his lips in a curl of hate. His pale fist smashed down on the table, upsetting the magic items.

  Never again would he let fickle fate touch him. He must shuck this old skin as the sea serpent did, growing stronger and deadlier. He would become a new version of himself, one his enemies would not recognize. Then he would find a way to crush this unworthy dragon mage and his followers. Let them think he had perished. They would grow fat and complacent, at that moment he would strike. In the meantime, he would prepare the necessary ingredients for the Tangenesis.

  Back again in his secret workroom, Cyrus consulted his tomes and drew the hammerhead shark head to his side. He had recovered the talisman from its place wedged between the claws of a rotting dragon corpse. He lifted it with macabre anticipation. An instrument of woe, it also served as a divining source, gleaming with an eerie quality under the sallow lamps affixed to the stalagmites. Something about the animus of the undead shark soul trapped inside it had given it power. The Myxolian realms of magic offered untold possibilities to a fearless mage.

  He set up a projection spell, firing a green bolt from his staff into a six-sided star chalked on the ground. The light flared; his lips curled in triumph. He knelt, placing the shark’s head in the center, its dead grey-black skin gleaming, still moist from necromantic power.

  “Hgraen! Fulgis sorit.” The words spilled from his mouth like packets of power and the light began to pulse as he chanted in bold tones.

  “Tell me what I need to know to rule the Dragonclaw Islands, oracle,” he crooned in an otherworldly voice. He stabbed down with his staff and the light flared as the jaws of the shark head snapped shut with a crunch. Cyrus saw a filmy bubble of colored gas rise from the shark head. Dark masses like smoke curled across its surface, forming vague figures. In the swirling haze, a bright blue sky emerged. It revealed a band of roving pirates attacking a Black Claw ship near the Serpent Deeps.

  He snorted, nursing a scowl of impatience. “Why would I care about such grubby cutthroats?” But then he paused, his eyes narrowing. “If the Black Claws are weak enough to fall prey to the pirates, perhaps the rogues are more powerful than they seem. They might make a useful ally with the teeth to do what must be done. You are wise, dark oracle, wise…”

  He chuckled for a moment, rubbing his chin, as a plan brewed in his mind. Passing his hand over the ghostly cloud, Cyrus searched for the answers to more questions that might aid him. “Show me the mage.”

  The image shifted to reveal Darek, riding above an open plain on his silver-headed dragon. Others rode with him on green and orange dragons, all laughing in good humor. They wore the same red uniform of the Red Claw Dragon School. The Rookery they called it.

  Cyrus spat. How he detested the dragon riders and their infernal school. With fingertip extended, he moved the view down to settle upon the ground where Cyrus recognized the rugged face of Jace, the dragon master, the young mage’s father. He would pay this ‘rookery’ a visit and make time to deal with the overweening pup and his arrogant father once and for all.

  The image changed to another scene, one which caused Cyrus equal dismay. A black ship at anchor in a harbor near Rivenclaw Island, captained by a familiar figure.

  “No, it can’t be!” He swallowed hard. How had the Black Claw traitor, Raithan, survived? His thin jaw dropped and he clawed at his lank black hair, grown rank over weeks of neglect. He had seen the man’s ship caught up in the waterspout and torn to bits like the rest of his fleet.

  He bounded to his feet. The treachery of his former ally could not go unpunished! Harpooning his sea serpents behind his back. Chin in hand, Cyrus mused. How to dispose of the captain? The man was wealthy and powerful. He would be on his guard. Perhaps an unexpected visit from a different type of sea monster would be best. One the captain would not expect. His mind drifted to a recent memory.

  The ancient squid Archituthis still haunted the seashore. He had glimpsed its giant tentacles as the creature lurked in the underwater grottos in the bay. It had been a mistake, summoning the leviathan in his first experiments with the shark head…but it might still serve some purpose.

  The creature had pursued him with relentless persistence. Even with all his power, the sea monster would kill him, if given the chance. He was forced to travel to and from his underground haven under the guard of a sea serpent. Several times he had been forced to fire a warning blast of green magic when the horned creature had fluttered too close. Cyrus glowered. Perhaps he could lure the beast to the Black Claw Islands and unleash it upon them.

  He took his makeshift runestones, gleaming with a sullen amber glow and laid them in a pattern around the shark head. Muttering an incantation, he raised his hands high and uttered some sinister words: “Agrak Kanrok Fugis Archituthis! Menustris, Flacci Venwn...” Arcane phrases sprayed from his lips, ones he had learned from Agrippa, but combined with the forbidden Myxolian spells he had gleaned, or rather, stolen from the old man’s lair. Agrippa had been foolish enough to leave such knowledge unguarded. To his detriment. Now he lay in a watery grave with crabs and snakes crawling through his eye sockets.

  With the spell of confusion woven, the squid would think that Raithan was him and seek the man out. It swam with ponderous thrusts, but should reach Ravenstoke by the new moon. Cyru
s chuckled in triumph. Until then, he would focus his attentions on the mage boy.

  He scowled anew. He needed a strong beast to defeat the silver dragon the youth rode. It was one of the old ones, the most powerful, birthed from an elder egg, laid in a time before humankind. The elder dragons, larger than most, were naturally stronger with sharper claws and fangs; ancient lore spoke of them once rivaling the size of the sea serpents.

  Cyrus had failed to hatch one of his own, but perhaps he had merely been unwilling to do what was necessary. He lit a torch and strode on nimble legs from his cavernous workroom. Windbiter dragged his gray bulk down the corridor after him, with a rasping croak gurgling from his thick, wattled throat. “Come, Windbiter—” Cyrus waved a pale hand back. “We must first see to the egg. I will need your dragon fire.”

  Stepping into a cavern filled with crystalline stalactites, the mage paused, eyeing the fixtures that hung like serpent fangs. He had suspended long, slow-burning lamps from them some time ago. He lit more now with his burning torch. His eyes gleamed like feral pinpricks in the cavernous light. A dull, oval shape met his eye, a stone egg, long petrified, with color like a great robin’s egg. He strode over and patted the cool surface with a distant smirk. The egg towered as high as him and ranged twice as long.

  “Yes, pretty egg with a hidden prize. One still living within. But how to awaken you?”

  Not an easy task. He recalled the Ritual of Rebirth that had first revealed his power. He had survived then by summoning a sea dragon. Closing his eyes, Cyrus tried to contact the creature within—and was rebuffed for the hundredth time.

  With a growl of rage, Cyrus commanded Windbiter by mental suggestion to nudge the egg out into the corridor. The dragon used his wide snout to roll it down the dank passage into a small workroom carved from the cave itself.

  Cyrus blinked. Warming to his task, he gathered the required tools from his main workroom: hammers, chisels, volcanic rocks, picks, brimstone, fire sticks, bead-restraints, suppressors, stimulants. Surrounding the egg with volcanic rocks, he coated them with a layer of brimstone. The egg would need extreme heat to hatch. At his command, Windbiter’s fiery breath ignited the area around the egg. Keep the fire hot until the egg begins to move.