The Sword of Elseerian: The White Mage Saga #2 (The Chronicles of Lumineia) Read online

  The Sword of

  Elseerian

  By Ben Hale

  Text Copyright © 2013 Ben Hale

  All Rights Reserved

  To my family and friends,

  who believed

  And to my wife,

  who is perfect

  Table of Contents

  Prologue: The Dark Realm

  Chapter 1: Burned

  Chapter 2: Secrets and Truth

  Chapter 3: Survival

  Chapter 4: The Guild

  Chapter 5: Mother

  Chapter 6: Guarded

  Chapter 7: Reunion

  Chapter 8: Undercurrents

  Chapter 9: Knots

  Chapter 10: Forbidden

  Chapter 11: Cassiopeia

  Chapter 12: Leverage

  Chapter 13: Rage

  Chapter 14: The Power of Fear

  Chapter 15: Centaurus

  Chapter 16: Trained by a Swordsman

  Chapter 17: The General

  Chapter 18: The Melee

  Chapter 19: Archives

  Chapter 20: Tentative

  Chapter 21: The Book

  Chapter 22: Recollection

  Chapter 23: Entity

  Chapter 24: Refuge

  Chapter 25: Ally

  Chapter 26: The Sundrop

  Chapter 27: Brokins

  Chapter 28: Orion

  Chapter 29: Threat

  Chapter 30: Ice

  Chapter 31: Leaders of Light

  Chapter 32: Unfamiliar

  Chapter 33: A Mother's Secret

  Chapter 34: Corporal Marks

  Chapter 35: Firefight

  Chapter 36: Sister

  Chapter 37: The Vaults

  Chapter 38: Ancient

  Chapter 39: Survivor

  Chapter 40: Derek's Story

  Chapter 41: Christmas

  Chapter 42: Escape

  Chapter 43: Alone

  Chapter 44: Frozen

  Chapter 45: Taken

  Chapter 46: The Purpose

  Chapter 47: The Sword of Elseerian

  Chapter 48: The Master

  Chapter 49: Desperate

  Chapter 50: Unmasked

  Chapter 51: Released

  The Chronicles of Lumineia

  Author Bio

  Prologue: The Dark Realm

  Ducalik tumbled into the Dark as the portal to Lumineia closed behind him. Rage coursed through his frame as he rose to his feet—but he did not give voice to the seething hatred and fury. Instead, he turned and watched the last point of light evaporate, plunging the landscape into eternal night.

  The Dark curled around him, swirling and tightening to the point of suffocation, but Ducalik's lip curled in a sneer. I should have been ready. But he knew he could not have known the portal would be opened several months early.

  Sensing his cooling hate, the Dark swirled closer, and Ducalik reached out to it. The shape of a spiked muzzle formed in the black mist, invisible even with Ducalik's enchanted eyes. He caressed the head, and the Dark issued an audible rumble. Fleetingly he wondered how many organisms made up the fraction of Dark in his hand. He wasn't aware of a number high enough, and the Dark consumed the entire planet he stood on.

  "I know," Ducalik growled. "But if they opened it once, they will open it again."

  His twisted mind considered what he had learned. The Lord of Chaos had been notably absent, confirming what he had suspected for ten thousand years. Draeken had been vanquished. Ducalik was disappointed. He'd wanted to kill the Lord of Chaos himself. The surge of hatred caused him to taste bile. Now he would never have the chance to punish Draeken for trapping him in such a place.

  The instant Draeken had first sent him through the portal the Dark had assailed his mind. Jagged whispers had cut into his consciousness and torn into his thoughts with frightening brutality. It found his love towards his mate, and his anguish at her betrayal. It fed on both, and used his guilt to force its way deeper.

  Everything he'd ever done was laid bare in blistering detail. Every heinous act, every tiny mistake, all were stripped from his mind and shown to him—over and over again—until guilt threatened to vomit from every pore in his body. Then it inhaled his fears and twisted his mind to make them reality.

  In the void of light he felt the presence of monsters approach, their hairy arms reaching for him. Their steps shuffled as if from every side, causing his whole frame to cringe and quake. The Dark pressed in on him, and seemed to crush his body and soul. He fought for breath and screamed through tears of agony and terror.

  Throughout the torture the Dark whispered for him to succumb, to yield his mind so that the pain of his existence could end. He wished for death in the same moment that the Dark found his hatred.

  The images of his banishment flashed before his eyes. The tremendous victory over their rival barbarian tribe, where Ducalik had called on his foes' own bodies to aid him. Enemy soldiers had turned aside and, at his command, slain their brothers, fathers, wives, and children. Covered in the glorious blood of his destroyed enemy, Ducalik had turned to find revulsion on the faces of his tribe members. The chief had banished him before the warblood had dried on his body. His mate had been the sole one capable of speaking on his behalf, and she had turned away . . . in shame.

  The Dark relished the memory, but recoiled at Ducalik's response to it. Hatred and fury roared to the forefront of his mind. Nausea and guilt were replaced with bitterness and rage, and the Dark withdrew. The momentary freedom cleared his thoughts, and Ducalik was surprised to realize that days had passed.

  Absolute darkness oppressed his vision as he climbed to his feet. He turned his head, and cast vision spells on himself, searching for any light. There was none. No sun, stars, or moon were in the sky, and without them reflected light failed to illuminate the ground. There was only the oppressive weight of the Dark, which hovered at the edge of his consciousness, and touched his skin with its infernal weight.

  He felt a flash of fear—and the Dark didn't hesitate. Ducalik crumpled to the ground in anguish, clawing at his ears as the whispers sliced into his mind. Time passed in writhing pain, and countless times he almost yielded. Then the Dark found the betrayal again. His mountain of hatred and anger once again forced the evil murmurings out.

  The pattern repeated again and again, and was the sole reason Ducalik did not succumb. In his lucid moments he fought and learned, until he understood the true nature of the Dark, and the limitless organisms that formed the black mist. Their supreme consciousness could consume a world's inhabitants, but he was the Master of Flesh. After millennia of agony . . . he mastered the Dark.

  The face of his mate's betrayal only burned brighter as time passed, until it was seared into his mind. She may have been long dead but his yearning to punish her did not abate. Then he recalled another face in his memory.

  Standing beside her, the chief of their tribe had looked upon her with covetous eyes. With Ducalik banished he would have taken her for his own. They would have borne children together, and generations of their seed would have lived without ever knowing Ducalik's name. The only way to hurt them would be to kill every last one of their descendents, until their very blood was erased from existence. And if their seed touched every soul . . .

  I will have no choice.

  His hate surged as he dwelled on it, but he reminded himself that his time was approaching. The ten-thousand-year anniversary of his imprisonment was just months away. Only then could the portal be reopened.

  At his will the Dark swirled around his for
m, and carried him to the top of the nearest peak. Twenty thousand feet off the surface he broke free of the mist, and the night sky exploded into view. Stars and constellations unfamiliar to Lumineia greeted him. Their light failed to penetrate the endless Dark that blanketed the planet.

  One feature dominated the view. Huge and forbidding, a vortex sat where the sun should have been. Its center was a blackness that rivaled the Dark. Light curved and bent before being sucked into the hole. He had no idea what it was, and neither did the Dark, which had resided in the realm for much longer than he.

  Ducalik shivered as he hovered in the sky. Without the Dark he would have frozen in seconds—but even it couldn't stop the cold this high. As it had since the beginning, the Dark sustained his body. Now as he looked out over the unending stretch of Dark, he thought of the months that remained until the portal would be opened once more.

  In the few minutes that he'd returned to Lumineia he'd sensed the sheer vastness that the races had swelled to. The Dark tightened around his body, sensing his rising anticipation. Ducalik's words sounded loud in the empty night.

  "Soon, my friend, there will be much for you to consume . . ."

  Chapter 1: Burned

  Dread filled Tess as she watched the cloaked ones gather around her house. Just as Iris had warned, they had come to make her a martyr to their cause. Her death would become a reason for the mages to go to war against the non-mages of Earth—because they would make it look like non-mages had killed her.

  She knew from experience that each of them would be powerful with their magic—too powerful for her to defeat on her own. And with her unknowing parents sitting downstairs, her options were fading fast.

  Her heart heavy in her chest, she scanned the men in the shadows, searching for them, counting. Ten became twenty, and then thirty—and still they massed. Then three strode into view from her backyard, and she knew they had already surrounded her home.

  From within her darkened room she watched, and struggled to see a way out. She had only minutes before they attacked, and knew what would happen when they did. They wouldn't hesitate to slaughter her parents along with her. Her house would then be destroyed so there would be no evidence to reveal their actions.

  They were Harbingers. Men and women who had joined in a single purpose, to bring magic out of hiding in a way that would let them conquer the non-magical nations of earth. Chosen for their talent or position, they were masters of magic with a disposition for arrogance and violence. They wouldn't balk at killing a fifteen-year-old girl.

  She swallowed and realized that she couldn't do this alone. Steeling herself for what was to come, she sent a fast message to the girl who had warned her. Gifted despite her youth, Iris was a techno mage with the power to manipulate any live signal in the air. They had met three months ago when Tess had gone to her first term at Tryton's Academy of Magic. Iris had been her roommate, and had saved her life multiple times over the course of the quad.

  Knowing Iris would get the message to Hawk, she dodged out of the room and raced downstairs. She slid to a halt in the living room. Unaware of what gathered around the house, her mother was curled up on the couch, reading, while her father worked on his laptop.

  "Um . . . Mom, Dad?" Tess said. She tried to still her shaking hands as she searched for the words to warn them.

  They turned to face her, and frowned in unison at her expression. "Is something wrong?" her dad asked.

  Jack rose to his feet and moved fluidly around the couch. Kate was only a step behind him, her brown eyes intense as they bored into Tess.

  "What's going on?" Kate demanded.

  Tess opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. In her head several statements rushed to be voiced, but they all got clogged in her throat.

  I'm sorry, but I have been lying to you.

  I'm a mage, and for the last three months I've been at a school that taught magic.

  There are people outside that want to kill me because I am the oracle.

  Oh, and you aren't really my parents.

  They stared at her, and she stared back. Just as her dad was about to say something the lights in the house winked out. The TV popped and faded, leaving the room dark. Jack grunted in annoyance.

  "I'll check the breakers," he said, but Tess reached out and caught his arm.

  With the darkness to hide behind she finally managed to speak. "Dad, it's not the breakers. I don't have time to explain everything, but a group of people are doing this—and they are here to ki—hurt me."

  The words came out in a rush, tumbling over themselves before bursting from her lips. She felt her dad's arm go rigid under her hand.

  "Kate," he said quietly, "get your guns."

  Tess froze at the word. She knew her dad worked in the military, but little else about his profession. Her mom couldn't have been more different. She was an elementary school teacher, one of the most tame professions imaginable.

  Jack pulled Tess toward the front door and fumbled with the handle for the coat closet. Finding it, he yanked it open. A moment later he found what he was searching for and there was a crackling noise. Light filled the hallway as he tossed a handful of green glowsticks toward the front door.

  "Dad—"

  "Not yet," he said. His voice sounding muffled with his head in the closet.

  Then he stepped into view with a shotgun in his hands. Tess was shocked. She had no idea there'd even been a gun there—and then she noticed the weapon. When she was younger he'd taken her clay pigeon shooting. They had used a smaller 14 gauge shotgun, long and sleek with only a couple of shells in the chamber. This shotgun was black, stocky, and its chamber was as long as the barrel.

  He shoved shells into it and pushed her back to the living room. "Kate, you take the back," he said. His voice was surprisingly calm as he yanked a couch around so it faced the front door. It scratched across the floor as if made of lead.

  Her mom had similarly placed glowsticks at the rear entrance, and had turned the other couch to face it. She was kneeling behind it. There was a loud click as she slid a loaded magazine into her assault rifle. Beside her a trio of other weapons rested within easy reach, along with several other items.

  "Is that a grenade?" Tess asked.

  "Yes, honey," her mom said, and pulled her down between the sofas. "Now get behind the couches. They're reinforced with steel plates."

  Tess crouched, speechless, as her dad reached under the sofa he'd just moved. In quick succession he withdrew a pair of grenades, a large pistol, and the gun Tess had learned on. Then he pulled another gun from a concealed holster at his back.

  He threw a glance at Kate as he checked the clip. "Where's the extra ammo for the eagle?"

  "Under the bookstand," she said. She armed her weapons and laid out a row of ammunition.

  He reached under the bookstand and grabbed a box of shells, and then another. Placing them next to him, he set about loading the various weapons before him. The speed and familiarity of their actions caused Tess to come out of her stupor.

  "How many guns do you have?" she blurted.

  "Only what we need," Jack said without looking at her. Clicking an ammo clip into one of the spare guns, he placed it in easy reach. Then he caught up the shotgun and laid it over the couch, its huge muzzle pointing toward the door.

  "Ready," he said. A heartbeat later her mother said the same.

  "Tess," Jack called over his shoulder, "You probably have twenty seconds to tell us what's going on."

  She wasted five trying to put a sentence together. Then she said, "Um . . . I can do magic, and the people outside want to kill me for a prophecy they think I am supposed to fulfill."

  Her dad turned to face her, his expression fixed. Kate just kept blinking, and then said, "Uh . . . could you repeat that, please?"

  Just as Tess opened her mouth the front and rear doors exploded. The blast of fire sent kindling and shards of glass billowing into the living room. They embedded into the back of the couches a
nd walls. The next moment cloaked figures strode inside.

  The shotgun blast and the assault rifle sounded overly loud as her parents fired, and staccato bursts of light spit from their muzzles, lighting the room. Men screamed and fell, surprise and shock written on their features. Another pair died before a stone mage pulled dirt from under the ground. Puncturing the floor, it lifted a shield of rock to close off the hallway. Sparks scattered off its surface as Kate unloaded controlled bursts of gunfire into it. In seconds another stone mage blocked the front door as well.

  Tess raised her hands, ready to call on her own magic, but the cloaked figures withdrew, taking their injured and dead with them. In the lull her dad dropped his shotgun and picked up one of the pistols. He racked the slide as her mom reloaded her rifle.

  For a long moment there was silence, and then a blast of fire struck the house. Walls trembled and windows shattered. Decorations and pictures fell to the floor, their glass tinkling into pieces as they impacted the hardwood. A moment later another blast of fire struck the opposite side of the house. Then the fire came in a continuous stream.

  "Watch her," Jack barked, and bolted for the stairs.

  Kate picked up the gun that Tess had used before and shoved it into her hands. "Watch the front. If anything moves, shoot it."

  "But—"

  "Just do it, Tess, I don't have time to argue," she said.

  Before Tess could respond Jack came pounding down the stairs, his expression one of confusion. "They've lit every side of the house on fire," he said. He blinked a few times, as if he were trying to shake an impossible image from his mind. "They don't appear to be using conventional weapons. Any luck getting a signal out?"

  Kate jerked her head in the negative, her face tight with worry as she thumbed her phone. The house began to heat up as the fire broke through the outer wall. It spread across the ceiling and floors, surging as if led by an intelligent mind. Jack darted to the fire extinguisher but Tess intercepted him.