Mind Forged: Book One of the Enchanters of Xarparion
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Authors: T Michael Ford
Mind Forged
Book One of the Enchanters of Xarparion
By T. Michael Ford
Table of Contents
I wish to personally thank the following people who supported me in this, my first book. I would like to thank my father most of all, without his assistance I don’t think I would have ever gotten as far as I have come. He supported me in my writing and was there to listen. Secondly, I would like to thank Betty for her work as my editor and the many hours of work she put in. You earned many hours of assistance in your future remodeling projects! Thirdly, Jenny Hentges for her outstanding work on the cover. Thanks again, Jenny, it looks great! And last but not least, my beta readers, who provided constructive feedback on the book in its many reincarnations. So a special thanks to Tammy, Cathy, Bob, George, and Kaitlin. Thanks again everyone I couldn’t have done this without you!
This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, situations and events portrayed in this novel are from the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, people, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form, electronic or mechanical without expressed written permission from T. Michael Ford.
No actual marmots were harmed in the writing of this book.
Copyright © 2014 T. Michael Ford
ue
“
Mommy, will you tell me a story?” a little girl asked. She was already in bed but was not ready to sleep. The mother smiled warmly at the girl and sat down on the bed next to her.
“
And what kind of story would you like?” the mother asked.
“
I want a scary story!” The girl was bouncing with excitement. “With princesses and dragons and unicorns!”
“
All right, I have just the story. But are you sure you’re old enough?”
The girl frowned
, “That’s not fair! You and daddy face scary things for real all the time, so I think I can handle a story.”
The mother
began, “Long ago, in the age of the sword, there was the kingdom of Wereia. In that kingdom was a huge fortress on a mountain; in fact, it was this very one.”
The girl wiggled deeper into her covers, ready to listen.
“Wait! Is this a short story or a very long story? If it’s long, I need a drink of water first.”
“
Well daughter, which would you prefer?”
“
The long story! Please, we don’t have anything going on tomorrow; it’s rained for the past two days, so I won’t even get to play in the forest because it will be muddy!”
“
Very well, but I will need to retrieve a book from your father’s library. Go get your drink and come right back.” The little girl nodded and scampered to a nearby nightstand that held a pitcher and a small-handled cup. Concentrating, she poured her drink and sipped it expectantly.
The mother got up and left the room
returning about a minute later with a large leather-bound book with a golden design on it. Her daughter slid over past the middle of the bed as she had done so many times and watched her mother fold her large, feathered wings in close to her body and carefully lay down on the bed, inching closer to her little girl protectively. Giving her a hug and a kiss on the head and pulling the blankets up over their laps, she began.
“
Now, this is a special book that has a princess, dragons, and even unicorns. It tells everything about the events leading up to the final battle with the evil necromancer, who was really scary, and the brave people that defeated him. The book can tell the story better than I can.” The girl nodded eagerly and snuggled her head into the soft feathers of her mother’s wings as she opened the book and started to read.
Alex
It’s a lovely spring morning. The birds are singing, the sun is in just the right spot, and there’s a nice warm breeze coming in. All in all, it’s a perfect day. But am I out enjoying it? Nope, I’m doing chores for my dad. See, he’s the local blacksmith in town, but not the impressive kind who make wonderful and powerful weapons or armor. No, we’re the kind who makes pots, pans, and farm tools.
In reality
, I love this work and I get along great with my dad. Well, most of the time. There are some days that he can be a real ass. Anyways, today is just one of those days, you know? First nice day of spring after a long winter and all you want to do is be outside, well that’s not going to happen today anyway.
Getting back on
track, my name is Alex. And before you say it, yes I know it’s boring, but hey - son of a blacksmith here! I’m nineteen years old, brown haired, blue eyed, six feet tall and that’s about it. I like to think that I’m a good-looking guy, but I never seem to have much luck with girls. I mean, yeah, I’m strong and in pretty good shape, but no one in this town wants to date the blacksmith’s apprentice who always seems to smell like smoke, hot metal and sweat, not when you can find yourself a real live wizard who will most likely be rich some day.
Foalshead
is your typical farming community, nestled in a backwater area where two gentle mountain ranges meet. The ground is fertile and the weather is generally pleasant, although winters can be difficult, especially for the smaller farms higher up into the hills. The one reason or purpose that this town, Foalshead, survives is to support the only magic school in the known world; so naturally, it’s not unusual to see wizards and wanna-be wizards all over the place. And the girls love them.
Of course
, the wizards who do come here are always acting very mysterious and secretive about what goes on in the mage tower in the middle of town. But believe it or not, farmers and townspeople are not stupid and, in fact, many are very well informed. It also helps that the town has been doing business with the wizard school, Xarparion, for over three hundred years, and the locals have built up some knowledge about what goes on behind those walls.
First, the tower in Foalshead is not the school
. It’s not really that big, just a small stone keep with high walls and a gate. If you walk three hundred paces in a circle, you can go all the way around it. It’s just a doorway of sorts; wagonloads of grains, horse feed, vegetables and even chickens and pigs drive in, are unloaded and then drive out, and no one ever sees a trace of the stuff again.
Second, not everyone
who comes out of the tower is a wizard, some are apprentices or acolytes, but most are just staff who work for the various “towers” at the school, or staff of the school itself. These are the individuals who broker most of the purchasing from the farmers. The farmers and townspeople will tell you that dealing with the academy staff is sometimes nerve wracking; but at least they can’t fry you with a fire bolt or evaporate all the water from your body. But occasionally, a full wizard will come into town and then it’s advisable to pay attention to the color of their robes, or better yet, avoid them altogether! The most common wizards in Foalshead are the healers and for the most part, they are very well liked in the community because they can save a man’s leg that had been savaged by a boar, assist in childbirth or even save the town from cholera outbreaks. They dress in dark gray robes with red arms. The next group is the earth wizards in, of course, green robes. They can move rocks, excavate caverns, shape crystals, and summon elementals. A few of the earth wizards are talented enough to be called druids, which are also very popular in Foalshead because they can encourage the crops to grow, drive off pests, and its rumored that they can even talk to the plants and animals, so all-in-all, a very useful person to have around in a farming community.
From there it tends to go downhill in the popularity department
. The water wizards (blue robes) and the wind wizards (light gray robes) are either mostly neutral or can be downright pains in the ass! Normally, they don’t have any real business in our town, so the ones who come through typically are young mages feeling their oats, looking for an adventure, a no-strings fling with the opposite sex or a fight and they don’t care which one they find. I’ll give you a hint; Foalshead is chronically low on adventure at all times!
The final group is the red robes, the
fire wizards. They have similar motivations for visiting our small town as the water and wind mages; however, in their case, they are almost always looking for the fight! Most townsfolk, when they see a full red robe, turn and go the opposite direction. I’ve even seen some of the very few businesses in town hang up their “closed” signs early if there is a fire wizard in Foalshead. Essentially, they are the quintessential jerks of our small world.
Fortunately, or perhaps not from the standpoint of earning any coinage, the wizard community seems to have adequate blacksmithing wherever they come from, and they rarely c
ome by and bother our tiny shop.
I live with
my mother and father in a decent wooden clapboard house on the outskirts of town, where we’ve lived for a few years now. We have a small garden and a stable out back where we can board a few horses, or house them pending a shoeing etc. We were forced to move here after the situation in our old village got…complicated. But now things are going well. My mother used to assist the local healer at our old village, but seeing that there are healing wizards usually around in Foalshead, those skills aren’t needed any longer. Now she works as the cook in one of the local inns, The Sleeping Hedgehog. Normally, someone my age would have already left home and be making their way in the world, but Dad is getting old, and a life of constant toil and injuries from heat and the occasional recalcitrant farm animal has taken its toll. Besides, I don’t think mother could handle me leaving. So I work the forge on a daily basis, and like most young people my age, dream of better things to come.
Today
’s client, Miss Stal, the orphanage keeper, is a harsh, middle-aged woman with a beak of a nose that a vulture would envy. She had again brought in her largest pot; it was leaking again and she was furious. As usual, she is blaming us, saying that we do poor work. But really, it’s the fact that she habitually soaks verbena root in the pot overnight and the acids that leech out of the plant destroy the iron. Most reputable farmers won’t even feed verbena root to their hogs, as it will cause them to grow sickly and underweight. It’s really just a noxious weed, not even a food crop, and this horrid woman was feeding it to orphans. Just thinking about it made me really angry!
“
Alex, I need that order!” I heard my father shout from outside. I blinked and the world spun for a second, as I recovered from my daydream. I really need to snap out of this; it seems that since my last birthday, I have been daydreaming more and more. Usually it is just about people and friends in the village where we used to live, or thinking about some great adventure I could be missing out on living in Foalshead. But other times, like now, I’ve actually gotten steaming mad just thinking about injustices I can’t change! Dammit! Looking down, the pot I held in my leather gloves was steaming and glowing faintly, but it was a bluish tint and not even hot. I don’t even know how long I’ve been holding it.
“
Alex!”
“
Be done in a minute.” I plunged the pot into a nearby vat of water and watched the color fade. Once it looked normal enough to handle, I quickly tossed it into a hemp bag along with the rest of her order and ran outside.
Miss
Stal was around front complaining to my father like she always does when anything with ears is around. I jogged the rest of the distance and handed her the bag of goods. “Here’s your order, Miss Stal.”
She
scowled at me. “About time! I’ve had to feed the children with expensive food from the inn. That place has no idea what good gruel is!” I winced slightly and thought,
“You’re right, they don’t know how to make good gruel, probably because there is no such thing as good gruel. The inn actually makes food!”
Those poor kids are probably praying right now for me to melt her cookware back down to the ore it came from and feed it to a stone troll.
“
This better be the last time we have to fix that thing,” she huffed. As always, the abrasive woman had succeeded in getting on Dad’s nerves. Thankfully for me, she just spun around and marched off to take her anger out on her cooking, and sadly, those poor kids. “I hate that woman,” my father growled under his breath.
“
I think everyone does. I just feel bad for the kids every time we give that damn pot back to her.”
He nodded.
“I know, but don’t worry; I delayed her long enough that your mother could run over some real food.”
“
Speaking of food, remember Mom is working late again tonight so I’m done for the day.”
He grumbled as I
started to make my way to the house, “Men shouldn’t know how to cook.” And then he expertly slid a bar of cheap stock iron into the forge for the next day’s order of barrel rings.
I
laughed, “Well, if I didn’t know how to cook, you would have starved to death long ago.”
“
Fine, but she didn’t have to teach you all that other crap.” The ‘crap’ he was referring to was one of his favorite old grudges. When I was too young to help my dad at the forge, I spent my non-school days helping my mother. That meant following her around, helping her cook and even watching her work with the village healer. A good portion of it actually sunk in, so now I’m rather good with both cooking and herbs. I’ve got tons of potions written down in one of my notebooks.
I
chuckled and shook my head, stopping to pat the old family dog sleeping next to the corral fence as I went into the house to get started on dinner. I wasn’t going to tell my dad, but I actually liked cooking. It felt good to see someone happy when they ate my food. The kitchen was the main reason my mother made dad buy this place - you could open a bakery in here and still not use all the space available. As soon as I started assembling ingredients, I suddenly felt totally drained, like I had run a long race or had been putting up hay all day. Torn between exhaustion and hunger, I went for a quick stew made from last night’s leftovers. That’s not to say that my mother didn’t teach me to make leftovers taste great too.
With the stew going
, I took the time to sit down in a chair and relax…I don’t remember the last time I felt this tired. I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I know, my dad was in my face. “Son, what are you doing?”
I shot up from my flopped over position and nearly fell over from a bout of vertigo
. I grabbed onto the chair arms and steadied myself. “For some reason, I’m extremely tired all of a sudden.”
Concern flashed
across his face for a second but quickly vanished and was replaced with minor annoyance. “I’m sure you just stayed up too late last night reading those ridiculous adventure books of yours.”
“
Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“
Come on, let’s eat and get you in bed early tonight.”
So that
’s what I did. We ate our slightly overdone stew in silence. Dad even offered to do the dishes tonight. With things in the kitchen under control, I careened off to my room, hands pushing off the hallway walls to keep me on a straight course. I didn’t even have the willpower to get undressed before collapsing on my bed.
....................................
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Maya
Maya crouched low in a fighter stance with one foot slightly behind and tense like a coiled spring, small shield and thin engraved long sword at the ready. She sighed and surveyed the lifeless dark brown earth beneath her feet, her elf senses reaching out and detecting no living water or green foliage anywhere nearby. There was no breeze to ruffle her hair or cool her skin beneath the light, small-weave ring mail she wore. The pale, muted sun above was as lifeless as the plain on which she stood, dispensing light only grudgingly, but still heating up the atmosphere to a very uncomfortable level. Perhaps the warmth radiating up her soft leather boots came from somewhere below instead. Satisfied there was no immediate threat, she stood up straight and shook back her long curly silver hair. She briefly debated tying it back in preparation for battle but knew it would make little difference and at least her ears could be unbound for one last battle. She stood about five and a half feet high as humans’ reckoned size, and it let her see the rippling, shimmering effects of mirages across the plain in the distance. Her breath caught a bit as at first shades and then full figures materialized out of the distortion, marching toward her. Swiveling slowly around, she noted the same from every direction, north, south, east, and west or what passed for them anyway in this place.
The thought of trying to run for it, possibly find a seam in the line, briefly crossed her mind, but the tactical part of her brain knew that the trap was already sprung, and there was no escape.
At three hundred yards, the approaching wall devolved into individuals rather than a single mass. Walking corpses, mostly wearing rags, probably former innocent farm folk, carrying whatever weapons came easily to their putrefying grasps. Mindless, some even eyeless and brainless, they plodded forward. To a child born of nature, this sight was more bone chilling than anything else imaginable for there was nothing natural about this scene - it was sheer abomination. In addition to the zombies, here and there wights and ghouls bobbed in and out of the line, as if to drive the lesser undead forward faster. They were more powerful and smarter than the simple zombies and skeletons. Maya knew they were also cowardly and usually content to have the corpses wear down their opponents to the point of utter exhaustion before moving in for the easy kill.