• Prologue: Pillars of Light (new draft)
• Basis of Magic

Prologue: Pillars of Light (new draft)

Tarone snapped awake, listening to a dull resonating hum as it coursed up the tower's walls. Standing up in the darkness of his room, he reached for his staff, but encountered only air. Old habits. Pressing one hand against his forehead, he struggled to remember the present. My quarters, the mage tower. The alarm... he furrowed his brows. Not the tower bell, he knew. Something different. Something worse. He banished the last of his confusion and lit the lamps in the room, making his way to the door. He could already hear commotion through the thick stone walls.

He opened his door and poked his head out cautiously. Several students looked about in wonder, while two of the masters were making their way down the hall to the staircase leading below. “Get the apprentices back in their rooms and keep them there!” he yelled out to the two. He waited only long enough to catch their glances before moving back into his room.

By the time the next resonance sounded throughout the walls, he was already donning his scale armor. He spared no time to admire the beautiful sheen the armor had, nor was he impressed by the complex patterns formed by the runes engraved into each scale. Years of war had long since numbed him to its allure. His body, however, fought him. Joints, now accustomed to a simpler life, protested his quick movements to get into the lightweight metal armor. It felt far heavier than it ever had before. I'm getting too old for this.

He was tightening the buckles on his bracers when three more masters walked in. “What is-” they all started.

“I don't have time to explain. Keep everyone in their quarters, and stay out of sight. Now go!” He waited until they were out of the room before sighing. Too much responsibility. I was better off in the field....

Jirath entered the room on the heels of the retreating masters. “Hurry up, old man,” he said, mocking him.

Tarone grunted, glaring at him. “You shouldn't be so anxious. You have family to look after.” He checked all of his straps one last time, frowning. “Did you see anything?”

“Nothing.”

Tarone looked back at him, confused. “No magic at all?”

“None.”

“The rune should have alerted us to a tower breach.” Jirath said nothing in response. His expression told volumes. The flash of fear reflected in his eyes, followed by hard determination. He pushed away from the doorway, heading for the stairs. Eager to remove the threat, I see. Tarone was forced to ignore his body's protestations to chase after him.

As they descended the tower, Tarone's mood grew more sour. Curious journeymen and apprentices wandered the halls, looking futilely for the source of the alarm. Very few of the masters were attempting to restrain their movement. We should have told them more. He stopped only long enough to order them back to their rooms. They obeyed, if a bit reluctantly; few students had the nerve to argue with a councilor, and as they shied away he knew they could sense the danger he did little to conceal.

The ground floor was eerily silent in comparison. Jirath stopped at the edge of the stairs, peering around the corner. Tarone stopped behind him, quietly observing his friend. Jirath drew a horseman's ax from his belt, holding it across his chest with both hands as he slipped around the corner into the hallway. You've changed, Jirath. Tarone followed, careful to keep his movements to a minimum.

Blood. Tarone noticed it almost immediately, but he could tell from the way Jirath grew stiff that he had scented the thick stench of it. A lot of blood. Tarone placed a ward around Jirath and then himself, already concentrating on several different runeforms he could quickly access.

The sight of the main hallway nearly washed away his focus. Three dead bodies lay in a mangled heap against one wall, recognizable as apprentices only from the tattered clothing hanging from corpses ripped open brutally. Another body, a journeyman, had been crushed against the wall forcefully enough to embed bone fragments in the stone. Tarone clenched his teeth and stepped slowly into the hallway. He'd seen worse on the battlefield. We should have been prepared. He glanced over at Jirath, watching him survey the area; his gauntlets wrung against the haft of his ax in anger as he took in the carnage. Jirath looked back toward the main gate. Tarone could sense Jirath's eagerness to leave now, to run back to his manse and check on his wife and daughter.

“The best thing for us to do now is deal with the intrusion,” Tarone spoke softly.

Jirath snapped his gaze back to Tarone, narrowing his eyes. Seconds passed before he nodded, stepping around Tarone and moving farther down the central hallway, deeper into the tower. Tarone barely caught him mumbling as he walked off. “I can feel Aliese, that's all that matters.”

You've changed a lot, Tarone thought as he followed, trying to avoid looking at the mangled corpses of students he might have known.