Magic's Genesis- Sword of Wilmamen Read online

  MAGIC’S GENESIS:

  SWORD OF WILMAMEN

  Book 2 of the 30 Stones Saga

  Rosaire Bushey

  Magic’s Genesis: The Sword of Wilmamen Copyright © 2019

  by Rosaire Bushey. All Rights Reserved.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing, January 2019

  Independently published

  ISBN 9781792070389

  Acknowledgements

  Writing is a pretty solitary business. Publishing is not. Thank you to my family and friends who continue to encourage and support me. Special thanks to J. Roby and J. Archual who provided feedback on the draft and who listened patiently as I talk to them about goings-on in Eigrae. Special thanks also to L. Bushey, who provided the map of Eigrae on the next page. And of course, to all of you who read my books, and hang out with me on social media. Cheers to all of you.

  Rosaire Bushey

  www.rosairebushey.com

  Codex of the Prime Wielder

  The Age of Magic & The 30 Stones of Power

  I have taken it upon myself to begin an account of magic as we currently know it. It has been two years since the Stones of Power were first discovered, and among many in Wesolk, this is known as year two of the Magic Age. I hope that this book will allow future wielders – those who are gifted with the blue collar, to learn from our efforts, so the nature of magic can be realized and in time, taught to others.

  Haustis continues to implore me to not to spread magic, seeing only great suffering in the spread of magic and its power. I believe it is a far greater danger to have the power in few hands. More wielders will create balance.

  As I write these words the following is an account of the stones as I know them to be:

  Lydria, human, wears one. Lydria is the Prime Wielder, the first to harness the power of the stone and begin to learn its secrets.

  Kimi, animal, bobcat, wears one. Kimi was present during the devastation of the forest that announced the arrival of the Stones of Power. He was healed by Lydria and absorbed a Stone of Power during their contact. Kimi has the ability to not only speak with Lydria, and she him; but the two are also connected on a higher level. They can share each other’s senses as well.

  Grettune, human, wears one. Grettune is the Governess of the Western Reaches and resides in Brookfield, under the gaze of the Frostspine Mountains. After Lydria’s defeat of Wynter in Solwyn, Grettune accepted a Stone of Power.

  Perryn, human, wears one. Perryn is the husband of Grettune.

  Haustis, Eifen, carries one as part of an amulet. The Amulet of Haustis is detailed later in this book. It is crafted from the severed finger of Lydria and a horse-hair partial circle. It continues to breathe life into Haustis. It is believed that without the amulet, Haustis would perish.

  Keldon, human, King of Solwyn, carries one as part of his sword. Keldon slew Kelmenth, the first dragon during the battle of Solwyn. The stone the dragon carried attached itself to Keldon’s sword. It’s properties, if they exist, are not entirely understood.

  Edgar, human king, has one in his crown, although he is not aware. The stone was placed in the crown by the Prime Wielder. Whether the stone conveys any power to the crown is yet unknown.

  The Codex of the Prime Wielder contains a stone so that none, but a wielder may open the Codex and know the location of the stones

  The Dragons of the north are hosts to thirteen of the stones. These stones were given by Wynter who placed each stone upon the men and women he had imprisoned in columns of ice, and through his magic, turned into the creatures we know now as dragons.

  Nine of the stones reside with the Prime Wielder as a single sphere as she searches for those who can use their power to serve the light.

  Lydria

  1 - Search for the Dragons

  “How did I let you talk me into this? I can barely breathe.” The words left Lydria’s mouth in staggered gasps as she fought for breath and clung to her walking stick as she climbed among the dirt and rock above the tree line of the Frostspine’s largest peak.

  Grettune stopped and turned, lowering a heavy wool scarf that covered her face and nose. Climbing the mountain would be suicide if the two were not able to maintain their warmth and air with magic. Even Kimi, Lydria’s bobcat companion, had decided against scaling the heights to search for the vast caves where the dragons must live.

  “I can’t hear you, you know.” Grettune’s voice was loud but barely reached her friend’s ears. The wind that slapped against the side of the narrow path they climbed caused all words to get sucked away and scattered across the clouds that kept the rock surfaces perpetually moist and dangerous.

  Grettune leaned in close to Lydria, putting her cracked lips near the other woman’s head, her breath causing tingles of warmth along the exposed skin of the top of her ear. “How much longer do you think it will take?”

  It was a fair question. They had been climbing for two days, and with every step they took the top seemed further away. The previous evening the women had built a fire and bent their considerable magical power toward finding a cave entrance lower in the mountain, but no such entrance existed. The only way to their goal was to continue trudging through the rain and wind.

  “It will be at least a day or more,” Lydria reluctantly told her friend. “The dragons live above the snowline and we have only just reached it.”

  Both women looked up at the mountain again and their shoulders sagged. The weight of their packs they carried mostly with magic, but the weight of their task dragged them down as surely as a blacksmith’s anvil.

  With nothing to do but carry on, Lydria moved forward so that Grettune could shelter behind her for a bit and lifted a magic shield that kept the wind away. The silence when the shield went up was wonderful and warmed their spirits as well as their bodies.

  “Why haven’t we been doing that the whole time?” Grettune asked as she lowered her mask again.

  “It takes energy we are already using on our packs and breathing. We don’t know what we’ll need before we stop, but we’ll need a fire, and shelter at least.” Grettune knew only too well the limitations of magic, having only had her stone for about a year. During that time the red-headed woman had been a devout trainee, using every available minute to practice and hone her skill, but Lydria could tell that keeping her pack up and maintaining her breathing was taxing. Their days would get shorter as their need for magic increased, but in a few more days, magic would hardly be necessary for their packs.

  Later that afternoon Lydria spied a small outcropping of rock and when they reached it, they made their shelter under the small stone roof. With canvas walls from their packs and a fire and food, the two laid their backs against the stone wall and closed their eyes, warm and secure until morning would wake them, and they would carry on.

  “Lydria, wake up.” Grettune’s iron grip on her friend’s shoulder caused Lydria to sit up. “What is that?”

  It felt like the mountain was grumbling, but there was nothing regular or natural about it. The rock beneath them reverberated without heed of rhythm or volume; sometimes silent for long seconds but often going on for minutes at a time.

  Both women watched Lydria’s lef
t index finger stub vibrate above the surface of the rock while the rest of her hand rested on the slick surface. She had lost the finger to an arrow fired by Wynter, a former wielder whom Lydria had fought in the Cobalt Tower more than year before. The stub moved as if it shivered from the cold, but the fire was still warm, and the air was still.

  The noise and tremors died down and then picked up again, and as it got louder, the tremors increased. “What do you make of this?” Grettune was not a woman given to sheepishness or indecision, but in her time near the mountains, she had never heard nor felt anything to prepare her for what has happening beneath them.

  Shrugging, Lydria did the only thing she could think to do, and placed her palms flat on the rock, closed her eyes and pushed her magic through the ground to see what might happen. She had no reason to believe she would learn anything from the process, and was surprised when the noise immediately became louder, assaulting not only her ears, but her brain as well – hammering at her senses, and suddenly the noise stopped and Lydria was left staring at her hands, mouth open and her nose bleeding freely across the rock.

  Moving quickly, Grettune, laid her friend down and put a rag to her nose, knowing a magically-induced injury could not be healed by magic. Grettune had spent many days lying in a pool of her own blood. She had broken bones, cramped uncontrollably, lost control of her bowels, and once lost most of her luxurious flowing red hair, leaving only the short tresses that now teased her neck. She knew what it was like to perform new magic or strong magic. Lydria was the most powerful individual on Eigrae, and after two years, a bloody nose meant she had once again stretched the limits of magic and learned something new.

  “What happened?”

  Lydria didn’t respond, instead staring at the top ledge of rock that made their roof and watched the smoke from the fire drift between the ceiling and the canvas walls before turning to her friend.

  “I think we’ve found the dragons.”

  Neither of the women said more that night and tried to go back to sleep, wondering when the rock beneath them would begin shuddering again. But the remainder of the night passed in silence, the only sounds being the gasps the women made each time a natural nighttime noise made itself known.

  They had already eaten breakfast as the sun rose, determined to find the way into the mountain quickly. Gathering their supplies, they walked slowly, not using magic to help lift their packs and staying silent, listening to the air and watching the mountain walls in front of them for any hint of an opening. The summit kept its distance, seeming to get no closer with each obstacle they climbed over. The path they followed, such as it was, left them early in the day as it disappeared under snow that was now nearing their calves.

  They paused on a small flat outlook to catch their breath. From their position near the top of the Frostspine, they could barely see Brookfield, far below a thin veil of wispy clouds. The town had grown considerably in the last year.

  In the far east, Lydria thought she could see a hint of the Cobalt Tower where Wynter remained a prisoner of King Keldon. Its dark blue height silhouetting it against the early sun. Physically, Wynter was strong. He ate well and was well tended, but his face was scarred from a battle in the spirit world - except for a band of unblemished skin around his neck - a testament to where the collar of a wielder had been. From Keldon, Lydria knew, that Wynter was still a threat; still searching for escape and a way to gain power again.

  Shrugging off her thoughts of Wynter, Lydria looked to the south toward the forest and the Great Lake which reflected the mid-summer sun like thousands of diamonds. The lake, even from this far away, was enormous – several hundred miles long and nearly a hundred wide at its narrowest point. Using the island of Thrushton as a guide, Lydria saw Bayside. Despite its size as the capitol of Wesolk, it was built low to the ground, and difficult to see. But for the mass of stone, it was a hole in the forest. The bay that gave the city its name was plainly visible, and they could just make out what they believed were ships docked there.

  To the west was forest. Even from this vantage, the forest seemed vast and impenetrable, stretching as far to the south and west as they could see, save smaller mountains and hills. The effect was much like looking at a very large farm, Lydria thought, with hills marking the boundaries.

  The two spent several minutes in silence surveying their world, which was now larger than they had ever expected. To the east, beyond Solwyn, stood the sea, but even from where they stood, it was impossible to tell what may have been sea and what was sky. Perhaps in the afternoon, as the sun sank to the west they would know, but for now everything was quiet, beautiful, and oppressively large.

  They turned from the vista and continued their path up the mountain and for more than an hour spoke little. After a short rest, they bent their heads down and continued their march, toward a curve that would give them, they hoped, sight of the mountain’s top – a sight blocked by the mountain itself.

  Completing the curve, Lydria could feel a difference in the wind as the wall of rock to their right shifted more toward their back. She kept her head down, however, waiting for her turn to walk up front and block the wind for Grettune, but instead of a gentle tap on the shoulder, she walked right into her friend who had stopped in the middle of the trail.

  Looking up, Lydria’s mouth went slack and her eyes wide and Grettune grabbed her wrist. Sitting on a stony outcrop, like a buzzard in a tree, sat an enormous green dragon. They were unprepared for the size of the creature as the last time Lydria had seen a dragon it was no bigger than a goat. But the creature that watched them with dark eyes was the largest thing either had ever seen or dreamed of.

  Its claws grasped a boulder as if it were a twig and the chilling points of its claws made indentations in the rock. The beast could, Lydria realized, crush the rock like a nut if it chose. Even Keldon’s two-handed sword would look thin and dull next to those claws, and as they looked up to the dragon’s eyes and face, they forced themselves not to run away. At the very end of the creature’s snout, two large holes puffed out the crisp morning air. If they were close enough, Lydria thought she might be able to fit her head in the dragon’s nostril. Horns came out of the top of the dragon’s head like an enormous bull, and from the base of its head pointing down. Smaller horns adorned the bottom of its jaw and along its snout.

  Around its neck, the dragon wore a sapphire-colored band, but the rest of the beast was as green as an emerald, shining in the sun along the top, and dark like the sea below. It had not moved since the women noticed it, breathing slowly, but watching them both with unblinking eyes.

  Lydria nudged Grettune with her elbow and the two slowly raised their hands to their necks, pulling down the warm layers they wore to expose their own collars.

  “I know who you are, there is no need to show me your band.”

  The voice was rich and deep and smooth, like a distant thunder. But the dragon’s mouth never moved.

  “If you would speak with me, you are too late,” the voice continued. “We three have made up our minds and we will leave this place.”

  After several breaths the dragon did not continue so Lydria spoke aloud, yelling to ensure her voice reached the enormous dragon towering over her.

  “Speak to me as you would your feline friend, whose odor surrounds you. Your voice will not carry here.”

  “We would speak to the dragon who speaks for your kind,” Lydria said. “We come as friends.”

  The dragon laughed out loud, his melodious voice replaced with a rockslide of noise, shaking the insides of both women who bent over unconsciously, their arms across their churning stomachs.

  “Friends. Where were our friends when we were locked in ice? Where were our friends when we were unmade and remade? You are small and weak – even with your bands – and we have no reason to befriend you.

  “The reds or the blues may deal with you as they will. Perhaps they will treat with you. Perhaps they will eat you. I care not. My fellows come, and I must
go, for we have work to do.”

  The green dragon raised his head in time to see two more enormous green dragons take flight from a hidden entrance still hundreds of feet above.

  “Where do you go?” Grettune asked as the dragon shoved off from his perch, his wings pushing against the sky and forcing them to the ground under the weight of the thin air.

  “We go east, to free our maker.”

  Codex of the Prime Wielder

  On Dragons

  Of all the sights of Eigrae, there is probably none more terrible and beautiful than a fully-grown dragon. They are far larger than any creature that roams the forests of Eigrae, being closer in size to an inn or a castle’s keep than a moose. Sitting on their enormous rear legs which are as thick as trees, a dragon’s head, as told by those who have claimed to see them, would easily look over a home and feel at ease amongst the tree tops.

  The madman Wynter created the dragons by entrapping fourteen souls in pillars of ice in what is now Solwyn. It has been confirmed by the Haustis of this age, that Wynter first encountered the beast during a spirit journey with the previous Haustis – a woman whom he killed upon his exit from the vision.

  Even to Haustis, for whom all living things hold a special place, the creature of Wynter’s vision manifested itself as neither wholesome nor evil, but only driven by its own nature. Whether or not the humans-turned-dragons will be similarly neutral is unknown, but after only a year, there have been murmurings that the beasts should be killed before they begin to steal livestock and decimate villages.

  That this plundering of humans hasn’t begun yet, provides hope that the dragons will maintain a respectful distance and that humans, Eifen, and dragons can peacefully coexist. If, however, this peace is ended, I see little hope that an attempt to hunt dragons will end well for the hunters.