The Empire of Death: Part One

This story is set over a thousand years before Mana Mirror, in the Empire of Death that Orykson crushed. It was intended to be a one shot, but given that I only got to the inciting incident, and was already at 2,500 words, it seems likely that this is going to be a trio of short stories?

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Ignatius Pedonson took a slow breath, trying to calm himself. 

It had taken his full fifteen years of serfdom ordained labor,  the better part of his inheritance, and a spot of luck, but he was here. In line with pimple-faced teenaged sons of landlords and wealthy merchants. 

All of them had been important. Had he failed to complete all fifteen years and gotten his landlord’s seal of approval, he’d never have been allowed to undergo these tests to begin with. He was just glad his landlord wasn’t the sort to squabble just to extend the contract an extra few months. 

Of course, without the inheritance, being a freeman wouldn’t mean much. Half the people in his landlord’s farm were freemen who sold themselves back to the lord, since they had no trade but farming.

If his parents hadn’t been so frugal, scraping to save every last chit and saving their own inheritances, and those of all four of his grandparents, just to pass onto him, then he wouldn’t have been able to afford this meeting at all, let alone the guarantor of an arcane formulae. 

Some back on the farm said he was a fool. They didn’t know the amount, but they knew how frugal his parents and grandparents had been. They told him to take the money and buy an apprenticeship under someone reputable, like a silversmith or stonemason. 

But what smith or mason would take on a twenty-five year old with no prior experience? Besides, he’d be liable to be robbed.

And what they didn’t know was, unlike many of his fellow farmers, he had gotten lucky. Lucky enough to take a leap of faith. His fingers rolled over the tiny, colorless gray stone in his pocket.

He had been out hunting on the edge of the Shadehallow Wood late at night when he’d found it. It had been a stupid and a dangerous choice, but his own personal share of crops hadn’t come in yet, and his stores were running low. So he’d hunted. 

It was dangerous, of course. It was a wild wood, with beasts and monsters. There were foxes in the woods that could vanish from sight and appear elsewhere. Lesser forest dragons, more than capable of killing a man with their breath. Living mounds of rot and mushroom that could kill a man with one blow and turn their body to fertilizer. And there were many other worse things still, whisperings of dark beasts and spirits that hungered for human flesh and blood. 

Perhaps worse than any of those was the Shadehallow Witch. Not much was known of him, save for the fact he lived somewhere in the wood, and that none found him unless he wished to be found. 

Rumors swirled both ways around the witch. Some said he had taken the firstborn child of a villager in exchange for curing the woman of the pestilence. That he scorned the Eternal Empire and mocked the god-king. That he had cursed a man and rendered him perpetually blind over a squabble for a bit of bacon.

Other rumors said he was kind. That he had cured a child of bleeding cough for no charge. That he had driven off a swarm of bugs that would have eaten through an entire crop for merely a few days of butter and bread. That he had been the one to cause the infamously cruel Lord Nyrinier to become bedridden. 

Ignatius figured it was as likely as not that either side was truthful, or both were. Truthfully, he was more focused on his biggest fear: being found by his landlord. 

As landlords went, he was reasonable. He rarely beat his serfs, demanded unreasonable quantities of food, or ordered them to accompany him for his own pleasure. 

But, fair man or not, the woods were owned by the local baron, who enjoyed hunting some beasts in its depths on occasion. If Ignatius had been found hunting those lands, his landlord would have whipped him within an inch of his life in accordance with the law. 

He hadn’t found a deer that night. But what he had found was a small, white stone that felt like the concentrated power of everything. Ignatius didn’t know what it was, nor what it did, but he knew that any sort of treasure compatible with anyone was worth a fortune. It was why blood rubies were such a useful currency – anyone with blood could use them, be they man, beast, monster, or otherwise. This strange rock might be more valuable. 

He’d had to hide it in his fields, buried deep beneath the earth, so that his landlord and fellow farmhands didn’t find it or sense it, but it was worth it now. 

Because he was finally ready to have his magic read. 

The mage tester stepped out of his cart, holding a slate with the chalked names of everyone who had purchased the testing. He was tall, with the kind of belly that only the wealthiest could have, and there was an air of danger and power around the man. He was an even more powerful mage than Ignatius’ landlord. 

“Ambridge, Luanne!” 

A young woman wearing the pure white flowing robes of high nobility rose and walked down the halls of the castle, her sandals slapping against the cold stone, and Ignatius returned to stewing in his thoughts, only broken out by a young man, about seventeen, with dark eyes jerking his chin at him. 

“Hey, serf, how by the god-king did you afford to get here? And with a hudau heritage stone in your pocket?” 

So, that was the name of the stone. That was good to know – at least now he’d have something to go on if he was forced to sell it, and if he could purchase temporary access to a college’s library it would give him a name to look up. Ignatius simply smiled and nodded to the noble brat, putting on his most servile and polite voice.

“Only through the work of my parents, grandparents, and some of my great-grandparents. Apologies if it’s disturbing you, my lord, I’d be happy to step out further down the hall.” 

The boy just rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath about the peasantry. Ignatius did his best to ignore them as the noble kid’s friends threw out opinions across the board, from being annoyed that a serf thought he could elevate his station, to thinking it was actually a good thing, as it proved it was possible, to wondering if Ignatius would be used as a propaganda piece to slow the rebelling serfs along the southern coast’s propaganda. 

“Pedonson, Ignatius!” the tester called, and Ignatius bolted up to his feet, nearly tripping over himself as he did so. The noble who’d called out to him snickered, and Ignatius’ face flushed as he headed into the mana testing room. It was long and fairly well lit, with gleaming spheres of a hundred different colors and shades lining the left wall. 

There were engraved labels on each of the shelves, beneath each of the spheres, but Ignatius couldn’t read most of them at a glance. If he’d had the time to sit and sound it out one letter at a time, he’d have been able to – the grand language spell might allow him to understand any language, but it didn’t make him any faster of a reader. 

Along the center of the room was a long, low table, engraved with dozens of arcane formulae and set with glimmering crystals. It led to the very back of the room, where there was a large stained glass window depicting the god-king in his glory. He was depicted ruling over generations of mortals, his hand held high to animate the dead in order to create his Enforcers and guard their world from the foreign barbarians who sought to conquer them. Not much light trickled through – this was the first floor of the castle – but it helped give the room a regal air. 

The right wall was covered in scrolls and tubes, each one an arcane formulae that had been recorded by a mage and purchased by the tester. They were labeled similarly to the collection of spheres, and Ignatius realized that each of them was directly across the room from its complement. There was also a desk with an ink bottle and papyrus already stretched on the tilted canvas to allow the quill to write on it properly. There was also a skull on the top of the desk, a violet light burning in its empty sockets. 

“Well, boy, go ahead and lay down on the table,” the man said, his voice dripping with contempt. “Oh, and in case you’ve got a choice legacy, decide on a mana type you most want.”

Ignatius did as the tester said, and shifted his hands to rest on the right formulae, his feet on others, and more. As he did, he focused on what he’d want, if he could have it. The power over the earth or life would be useful for farm work, but Ignatius wasn’t burning his family’s fortune and his good luck just for better farm work. No, if Ignatius was to have anything, he’d want the most obvious power of mages: command over the force of destruction itself.

“Send your mageless magic into the table – if you’ve even got that much.” 

Ignatius did as instructed, pushing power into the table at the indicated spots. It sucked down his power greedily, until he was bone dry and sweating, but the proctor didn’t seem to care. He let out a long, bone rattling sigh as he placed his own hand on various spots in the table and injecting his own magic into the table. 

“Now the next part is on you – if you fail, you’re going to have to wait until next year and pay to try again. Draw in all of the power stored in, and then slam it against the edges of your walls of your bone garden until you find your gates, then push it open.”

“Shouldn’t I let my mana recover naturally?” Ignatius asked, and the man let out another deep, tired sigh. 

“Just do it. You don’t matter enough for me to wait that long. Besides, there’s enough in there for you to brute force open a gate – just don’t be a fool.” 

Ignatius swallowed, trying to slow the pounding of his heart as he drew power back into himself. His garden refilled, then began to overflow. For a moment, the power started to slide out of him, too much for his spirit to store, but in desperation and panic, Ignatius gripped it, squeezing tight. 

With the excess, he was able to slam the power outward in a way that the passive mageless magic didn’t normally act, and thought he felt two… things. Gates, wasn’t that what the tester called them? 

He picked one and slammed the mana into it, but he was starting to lose his grasp. The table hadn’t held that much more than his garden. Ignatius didn’t know if the tester was cheating him, or simply unwilling to give a recent freeman any effort, but it didn’t matter. 

He had to break this open. He HAD to. 

Ignatius screamed, earning a slap from the tester, but he didn’t care. He was too focused as he slammed every bit of force into the gate he’d chosen. The mana was growing sluggish, but he squirmed and fought and begged and pushed.

The gate cracked open. It was just a tiny bit, the barest fragment of power, but Ignatius reached for it, drawing it into his mageless magic. The combined effort was enough, and the gate blew open. 

He let out a low, heavy breath, and the tester sighed. 

“Alright, alright, yes, very well done. Now, go on and walk through the mana samples, until you can find one that matches your mana type. The ones closest to the door are the fourteen any true human has, but if your breeding gave you mongrel blood, those are deeper in.” 

“Wait. I had one more… gate,” 

The tester sighed again. 

“Then use the power from your first mana type to open the other.” 

Ignatius drew power from his bone garden, and was blown back at how effectively the power flooded to overflow his pool of mageless magic. Manipulating it across the garden while stopping it from blowing apart was… difficult. It took him two attempts, all while the tester tapped his foot impatiently, his sandal creating a slapping noise, but he eventually forced it open.

“Good, now go!”

Ignatius scampered over to the collection of spheres, running his fingers along the collection, sensing them, and comparing their sense to what he could feel within his own bone garden. It didn’t take him long to find, as both were in the human section. He lifted them, and the tester let out an indignant squawk. 

“Get your grubby mitts off those!” 

Ignatius immediately set them down and began apologizing, while the man started tapping his foot again, then held up one finger, as if Ignatius was too stupid to be able to count.

“And now, select your spell. You get one – I don’t care if you have two gates, you paid for one spell, understand me? One. And don’t touch them! Just read the seal, they’re all right side up.” 

“I understand,” Ignatius said, and began sounding out the words one at a time as he walked over, starting with his first mana type. “S-uh-nuh. Sun. Sun mana! Oh, fire magic!” 

The tester audibly groaned and squeezed his eyes shut before opening them. 

“You have sun and storm mana. If you’re this slow of a reader, by the god-king… Just tell me what kind of spell you want.” 

“Combat spell,” Ignatius said instantly. “Maybe something to let me throw fire or lightning at someone.” 

The undead Enforcers might make up the bulk of the armies, but there was only so much they could do, even fueled by the god-king. Combat mages were welcome in the army, could be recruited by colleges, serve as mercenaries, guards for hire, and so much more. 

“Fine,” the man said, sliding a scroll out from the sun mana section and spreading it out on the desk. He paused as he did, then glanced at the skull. “Ah, and before I forget. This skull contains blessed magic of the god-king, and will ensure your soul isn’t deviant. Hold still, this won't take a second, then I can write up your scroll and you can leave.”

He lifted the skull and held it up to Ignatius’ face. Ignatius felt a shift of… something… in the air around them. 

The purple in the skull’s eyes turned blood red, and Ignatius’ heart dropped.