Ringwall's Doom. Wolf Awert
deep breath. His voice needed respite, and when it returned it was almost a whisper. “Do you see now why I do not want the rank of archmage? So much envy, rage, fear and hate. Can you tell me what to do?”
Morb-au-Morhg made a gesture and raised his arms to the sky. Another puff of black smoke emerged from his rough hands and rose up before dispersing. “How could I? I hardly know what to do myself. Find the truth. Part of it is here in Ringwall. Part of it is out there in the world. Find it and learn to understand it. I do not know whether you have the strength to handle it when you do. It is worth trying. Or do what my stormcrows do and disappear. If fate truly needs you, it will protect you. If you are simply incidental to the greater picture, another will take your place. Becoming a stormcrow might be worth a try.”
“So I can stay, or I can run and start over. Those are my choices, hm?” Nill asked. It was tempting, to begin anew with a clean slate.
“There is no starting over. In everything you do, you carry what you have done with you, what has happened to you. Your faults, your mistakes, but also your luster and your strengths.”
“But you can run from fate, you said. Or did you mean something else?”
Finally, Morhg the Great smiled. “Yes, you can – sometimes. Although I prefer the phrase ‘detach yourself’ to ‘run away.’”
“You have my thanks,” Nill said. The two unequal mages bowed to each other. There was much respect between the boy and the old man, and their composed faces were at odds with their wild auras.
Nill returned below the crown of Ringwall. Now that he knew that a decision was imminent, a soothing calmness took hold of him. Slowly he made his way to the middle floors, passed through several narrow corridors and arrived at the wide-open space between the Earth lodge and the kitchens, where a short stair led outside.
This is where it all began, he thought and stepped through the great entrance. He concentrated Fire and Water to pure energy, gave it shape with the aid of the Other World and strengthened it with Metal. He flung his own stormcrow into the air and delighted in the fact that it kept its form much longer than the wisps Morb-au-Morhg had conjured.
Life can be so wonderful, he thought with a smile, and in that moment he did not seem like an archmage at all, much less like a person chosen by fate.
He turned back and returned to the Hermits’ Caves, where he began to pack a few things. He would leave Ringwall, but certainly not through the main gate.
*
“I saw you had a conversation with the archmage.” Like a shadow, a high mage appeared beside Morb-au-Morhg. His dark robe identified him as belonging to the Metal mages.
“False, I had a conversation with young Nill.” Morb-au-Morhg remained calm and countered the arrogance of power with the wisdom of age.
“I just said that.”
“No, I’m afraid you did not. It would appear you are unable to tell the great difference between the Archmage of Nothing and young Nill.”
“You like him, don’t you?” The Metal mage’s lips tautened to an unkind smile.
“Wrong again, unfortunately. I do not like him. I fear him and I fear for him. Which is more or less the same thing.”
“What do you mean by that?” The high mage’s voice grew slightly leaden.
“I meant what I said. No more and no less. You may not know that he was an opponent of mine in the tournament; I had the opportunity to get to know him a little better than most here in Ringwall.” Not once did Morb-au-Morhg’s voice veer from its calm, gentle timbre.
“He survived the tournament, Morhg. He survived Mah Bu’s attack. Do you think he’ll survive us all? The only one left standing?”
“Perhaps, high mage, perhaps.”
And with these words he left the Metal mage, caring nothing for the half-hostile, half-thoughtful look that followed him.
Nill would have been more than astonished if he could have seen Ambrosimas. The Archmage of Thoughts was far less honest with the world and with himself than Nill assumed. He had retreated to the furthest corner of his rooms and stood before a giant crystalline mirror. Although it was made with the finest silver, the reflection it offered was blurred and hazy. Ambrosimas cursed under his breath.
“Every step I take makes the future more incomprehensible,” he complained aloud, and the walls darkened to fit his mood.
“How clear it all used to seem. The prophecy tells of the fall of Ringwall, and that would be the catalyst for Pentamuria’s end. And along comes Nill, an answer to the Nothing.”
Ambrosimas dragged the sky and the earth together and concentrated them with the five cardinal points until it became nought but a point; it exploded into such bright colors that his mirror winced and raised a threatening finger.
“We all failed, and that means you, too,” Ambrosimas ranted, poking his image in the chest. “Nobody cared to notice as the Nothing snuck into Ringwall. We did not see its place at the Sanctuary, we took the empty spot on the council for granted, we did not understand it for the shift it truly was. The Nothing was the beginning of it all. Not Nill.”
Ambrosimas opened the skies again and lowered the earth back to the ground, and the horizon appeared once more. The figure in the mirror grew slimmer.
“And now this falundron; it gives Nill the ability to move unhindered in the Walk of Weakness. On top of that, we have Perdis, whom nobody knows. A mage in Ringwall who left his name in the library, and there is no other record of him. Hide-and-seek. Anyone could be Perdis. But he is the missing link between the amulet, the falundron and Nill. Who is this person?
“And Nill? Why would fate decide upon such a small, weak boy to carry out its plans? Or is Nill not a tool, but a messenger of a new age?”
Ambrosimas was surprised at this new idea that had sprung at him from the mirror. Sometimes, thoughts are uncontrollable, free of the strict rules the mind imposes on them, and they play around – a dismal reminder to anyone who believes themselves to have true control of thoughts. Ambrosimas scowled and attempted to rein in his ideas. He quietly muttered a spell.
“As lightning they may strike
growing from, belonging,
crawling slow and running
in hordes and herds alike.
Created and then taken
A random one to no avail
remains so empty and so pale
Images and thoughts awaken.
Ever have in mind an end
Never for too long impend
Act or you are forsaken.”
But this new thought of tool or messenger did not give way to a new one.
“Well then, you swine,” Ambrosimas told his idea, “I accept your challenge. If you are truly powerful enough to avoid my magic, we will see where you get your strength.”
He cleared his mind in a long, arduous process that involved throwing out all his old thoughts and pushing the new one into this corner and that. It took quite some time before he was satisfied enough to look back into the mirror.
“If Nill is truly a harbinger of a new age and not a player in this game of fate, I’ve been looking in the wrong direction all this time. Nill is far less important that I thought; I must no longer look to the future, I must venture into the past.”
“I hate you!” Ambrosimas yelled at his new thought, for he knew what it meant for him. Finding the Books of Prophecy was no longer important. Nill’s past was the key to his questions.
“Nill, boy, from this moment