The Malicarn #2
Now Gregorian stood before them. He was not a particularly old man, but he had the face of someone who took too many walks in the sun, wrinkled and sallow, with beady eyes and a hunched and crooked back.
He wore a bright blue cloak—not as thick as the one Buck’s father had owned, but just as long—and held a wooden staff in his right hand.
His beard was short and patchy, and he spoke slowly, a croak in his voice, as if he was always on the verge of forgetting what he was saying.
“Now, what I have here is a typical sorcerer staff. Probably a level three or four would have used this. You see one end here with a small obsidian orb, the other side this purple gem, shaped a bit like a spike. This gem, it is called a ‘collector,’ that is because you would stick it into a body”—here he mimed stabbing a corpse on the ground—“and draw out the energy needed for your spells. This orb is the ‘enhancer,’ and the actual spell is focused here. It does not always come out as a blast of lightning necessarily, but it is directional. Now, a real strong sorcerer, a level seven or eight, say, could do most of his spell-making without a staff, if he needed to, but the staff would still give him extra control, better focus, more efficient uses of energy.”
This was more information about wizarding than Buck had ever heard before.
His father and others had always spoken in such generalities—that the wizards were mysterious, or treacherous.
Buck realized he had heard very little about how the wizards worked, what they did exactly, and in what manner they did it.
Buck glanced at the other men in the little room, all nodding their heads and staring raptly ahead.
Only Kreek looked skeptical, stroking his beard and leaning back in his chair.
Gregorian held up his cloak. “Now this is a handmade cloak. You can still order it directly from many tailors. Most master tailors can do the hand-stitching. Though of course it is cheaper if you want to order one from one of the mass-produced shops. But the more authentic ones are nice because they are a little heavier, gives you a bit of the feel of what it was like to wear. Most people think the cloaks are only decorative, only nostalgic since they harken back to the prewar cloaks, in the days of the Old Kings. But there was more to it than that. On the battlefield, they do the same sort of work as a battle flag. The secular troops could see their wizard through the smoke and debris. They could follow him when he moved, see him give orders. And since the Dark Mages, the few of them there were, did not wear cloaks at all, you knew exactly where the Alliance Wizards were at. Of course, it made them targets for the longbow marksmen.”
Gregorian demonstrated some classic wizard stances with his staff, what a reanimate spell would look like (staff at forty-five degrees, slowly thrusting forward), or a defensive spell (usually a Necromancer specialty, it involved squaring your legs and holding the staff perpendicular to the ground).
Buck watched with interest but kept hoping to see one of the spells actually work. They never did.
“Now,” Gregorian continued, “while I would of course like to show you a real spell, all magical energy in the Malicarn is banished. That is how we keep the peace with the Necromancer, which is why we don’t train wizards anymore, and why this is a lost art.
But I assure you, it was real once, and quite beautiful.
However”—he paused and smiled—“a little taste never hurt?”
He raised his staff and waved it above his head. It sparkled, white streaks like lightning crackling from its tip. The crowd applauded. Buck wiped a tear from his cheek.
When the meeting ended, the attendees mingled with one another, a few badgering Gregorian about some obscure point of staff lore. Buck was standing awkwardly toward the rear of the room, unsure whether or how to engage, when Kreek approached him, hand out and smile wide.
“Good evening,” he said. “I am Sir Kreek, Master of Sword. You must be Buck? Wallace told me you might be coming.” Kreek had a strong grip.
“Nice to meet you,” Buck said. “Quite a show. Educationally, uh, interesting.”
“Mostly bollocks, if I am being honest. Gregorian has done this same speech at a few of the monasteries. Part of his campaign on behalf of the queen, hoping that some magic would be enough for people to stop clamoring to end the bans. But it is mostly smoke and mirrors.”
“What do you mean?”
Kreek smiled. “It is all propaganda. Magic is not gone, it is just suppressed. See how he does his little tricks? Gregorian is harmless enough, but he is an old man who protects himself before he protects the people of the Malicarn. Never forget that.”
That is how Buck Douglas ended up a member of the Wizarding Reenactors Guild.
He sat in pubs twice a week listening to Kreek lecture about magical heritage, how every man was entitled to it, how it had been stolen from them.
How this heritage was suppressed by the Necromancer, the real ruler of the Malicarn, a hidden menace who kept men poor and magic outlawed. It all made sense to Buck.
“Yes, the old king kept us safe,” Kreek would say at meetings.
“Prion handled the threats of demons and attacking dragons well. But his rule only dealt with external threats. What about internal ones? Are your pockets safe? Your sweethearts in their beds while you are away? And hasn’t it gotten worse under the rule of the young crippled queen?
Buck, were your mother and sister killed by magic?
Was your father? Or was it not rather due to the ravages of the land, of poverty?
Magic could solve all our problems, could save our farms and our families. ”
He would complain about the goblins from faraway lands who were flooding into the Malicarn, taking over dead farms, farms which had once belonged to Malicarn men.
Goblins kept to themselves, secretive and devious.
Buck saw them only rarely, sometimes passing them on the road.
But there were more of them every year, and fewer farms for men of the Malicarn.
“These goblins,” and Kreek would sneer when he said those words, “are brought here by the Necromancer and his men. Another way of keeping down the common folk of the Malicarn.” He did not say it himself, but others would whisper about how much the queen resembled a goblin—dark-skinned, crippled, full of secret plans.
Everything connected. Buck’s family farm, its failures, his father a broken veteran with no support, no prospects.
Buck’s own life, hacking away at stone, his young joints already aching as the queen and her advisors sat in the castle and enjoyed comfort.
He listened to Wallace talk about his theory that the Necromancer planned to replace the citizens of the Malicarn with demons from the netherworld.
“Maybe these goblins are demons too,” he would say.
And Buck listened to Kreek go on about his own ideas: how the only way to get magic back would be for the people, the common folk, to take it back themselves.
Once a month the Guild held reenactments at various sites across the realm.
Sometimes only on open fields, random spots where they could host a gathering.
But sometimes they held events on the sites of the actual old battles, where wizard had faced off against wizard: the Siege of Crooked Creek, the Engagement at Sutter’s Point, or the Battle of the Morlon Kastaun, where the Great Wizarding War reached its climax in the years before Buck was born.
The Morlon Kastaun was Buck’s favorite historical battle, so when he learned they were planning a winter reenactment he was especially excited.
Reenactments were full-day affairs, with chapters of the Guild all coming together to camp, drink, and battle together.
The Morlon Kastaun was perhaps the largest event they had ever put on, nearly three thousand men all told.
Each man was assigned to a company, and within that company to a platoon.
Historical accuracy was paramount, so each platoon was given specific instructions on where to march and how to behave during the battle.
Most guildmembers could not read, so the scripts provided to the platoons were of little use.
They just had to memorize their movements.
One man in each chapter was designated to be the wizard. In Buck’s, that was Kreek.
On the morning of the battle, everyone lined up in their respective formations.
Buck and the other grunts wore outfits they either bought or made themselves.
Buck wore his father’s old uniform, an authentic relic that impressed the other men.
Each reenactor carried a wooden sword as well, something that could be wielded in a historical fashion but not actually hurt anyone.
Then the fun began. At the sound of a trumpet, the guildsmen marched forward.
The Morlon Kastaun took place on a large, hilly field beside an old, dark forest. The original Temple of the High Wizards had once stood here, though now it was merely a ruin.
These fields were sheep pastures now, lightly sprinkled with a recent and rare snow flurry.
The only other nearby inhabitants were the monks of the Dollories Monastery on the far end of the battlefield.