The Last Spell

[published]

                        THE LAST SPELL
                                 
                 



    Ashwan the Magus tapped his crystal ball repeatedly, seeing only the reflection of his wizened face and long white beard submerged in his hooded cloak.  It flickered several times, then faded out completely, perhaps forever.  He sighed and once again bemoaned the folly of his predecessors and mentors.  Magic had once been thought of as an endless resource, like the Great Forest.  However, unlike the forest, magic did not renew itself.  There was only so much to go around in any single place.

    He looked out the high window in the hollowed tree that was his home.  Gunther, his apprentice, was running up the forest path, no doubt with the news Ashwan awaited.  His long-sought goal for unity of the two kingdoms was finally accomplished.  He could hear Gunther running up the central stairway.  He burst through the chamber door, red-faced, sweating, and disheveled.

    "Master!  Master!  It's war!"

                        *    *    *

    King Ort held the war council in the Great Lodge of the Western Kingdom.  The Great Lodge had been built from the three hundred trees cleared for the site of the royal village.  It was the only edifice known to the people of the Great Forest.

    "Lord, do you believe this war is wise?" asked Ragar the Advisor.  "We have been at peace with the Eastern Kingdom for more than a hundred years.  Should we risk our prosperity over the romantic whim of Prince Hamler?"

    "Do not dismiss my son lightly," said King Ort.  "I did not think he had the wit to be King, yet his proposal to the Princess Altar would join our kingdoms through his heirs without bloodshed."

    "The prince said nothing of this plan to me," said Hachmer, the War Chief.  "He just went on about how her eyes were like stars, her hair like gold, her face like the moon or some such nonsense.  She is a fine strong girl and has her father's skill with an axe and spear.  She also has his face.  No beauty is she."

    "I suspect Ashwan's hand in this match,"  Ragar offered.

    "No matter," said King Ort.  "King Sangor insults us by imprisoning the princess in her sleeping lodge and refusing the prince as a suitor.  This insult must be washed away in blood."

    "King Sangor opposes this match for the same reason you want it," said Rangar.  "Perhaps some peaceful arrangement is still possible?"

    "No,” said King Ort.  "If I had proposed this match and been refused, I would have understood.  To deny my son as a suitor on his own is a slur on our honor.  My decision is made.  We will cross the river at dawn seven days from now.  Send my scouts now to find a suitable place to cross.  See that my warriors are gathered here and prepared.

                          *    *    *


    Gunther related to Ashwan that he had seen the gathering of the warriors, weapons and supplies in the royal village of the Western Kingdom.

    "King Ort plans to cross the river and attack in five days.  Some say this is your doing, others feel you're just an ancient hermit with no powers."

    " I admit I helped the prince and princess meet and sparked the romance a little,” Ashwan said.  "It didn't take much.  They're young and healthy.  Nature did most of it.  I had hoped this would allow for a bloodless union of the two kingdoms."

    "Master.  How could you think this would work?  My father was from the West Side of the river, my mother from the east.  We had to live isolated in the forest because neither family would accept their marriage.  When raiders killed them I was left to bury them and forage alone in the forest, until you took me in.  The two kingdoms may not have waged war in a hundred years, but there is no love lost between them." 
 
    "If your parents had been prince and princess do you think they and you would have fared the same?"

    "That would have been different."

    "Exactly.  Here is a task for you then, apprentice.  Think carefully, and tell me why they haven't fought for so long despite their mutual hostility."

    Ashwan turned to the study of his calendar, weather charts, and maps while Gunther began to ponder his task, chin resting on his fist, elbow on his knee.

    "Master, may I ask a question first?"

    "You may."

    "How can your question or your charts help prevent the war?  Shouldn't we be using some magic?"

    "Gunther, there are many tools available to the Magi, none of which are really helpful without skill with the most important one," Ashwan said, tapping his temple. "Now show me you have developed its use."

    Gunther returned his chin to its roost on his fist.

    In time, Gunther spoke again. "Master.  I have an answer."

    "Tell me"

    "The Western Kingdom excels at construction and the fashioning of tools and weapons.  The Eastern Kingdom excels at raising crops, livestock, and making garments.  Each kingdom produces something the other wants to trade for. It benefits both sides not to fight and disrupt the trading."

    "Excellent!  Now, do you think this came about by happy chance?"

    "You created this trade dependence?"

    "Yes."

    "Why then risk war now?  Why didn't your powers see that this romance between the prince and princess would start a war?  Why do you use your power so indirectly, instead of just making people do what you want?  Why do you even care if the Kingdoms unite?"

    "So many questions.  I will need to ask much of you soon, so it is time for you to know why I act as I do."

                            *    *    *


    Ashwan had attended his first gathering of the Magi, a millennium ago, as apprentice to Magar the Wise.  A hundred Magi assembled in the Great Desert.  Many were priests.  Some the advisors to kings.  Others, kings themselves.  All had come for the fellowship, to share or trade for secrets, and for the competition.  What great feats of magic he had witnessed!

    His mentor had bested the others with a whispered three-word spell that produced two winged dragons engaged in a fierce aerial battle.  Finally, each had seized the other's tail in its mouth and consumed the other until nothing was left but their teeth, which fell from the sky.  These were presented to the others as gifts.  What a waste!

    The last gathering, three hundred years ago, had produced only eight Magi with such meager resources their campfire had been ignited with sparking stones.  That assemblage concluded that magic was a limited resource and the Great Desert had all but been drained.  They resolved that each Magus would draw for a compass point and seek out a new source of magic for themselves in that direction.  That way their traditions might be carried on.

    Ashwan had drawn Northwest and began his four-year journey to the Great Forest.  Much of his travel took him through the burgeoning Roman Empire.  He earned his way as a healer, scribe, astrologer, and occasionally construction consultant.  He learned much from and about the Empire.  Of particular interest to him were the Empire's methods of conquest, which either assimilated and enriched a culture or annihilated it.

      He trudged beyond the borders of the Empire, across another desert, and finally, from atop a mountain range, viewed the Great Forest.  He traveled through the forest, discovering the river and following it northward.  There he found the source of the magic he had sensed.  A primordial tree, the wellspring of the forest itself.  As high as a hill and three Roman war-wagons wide.  Aswan had used its own power to reform the interior into the rooms and workspaces he required.

      The native people of the forest were tribal barbarians, the tribes being little more than extended families.  All their time and efforts were spent in survival, hunting in the forest, raiding and feuding with other tribes.  However, they showed the potential for the kind of duality of thought prevalent among the leaders of people.  For example, in a raid they would kill every man, woman, and child in the other tribe.  They had no concept of slavery.  A slave would be just one more mouth to feed.  The same with prisoners.  To take a prisoner, even an infant, would be to spend tribal resources on an eventual adult who could one day seek revenge.  Conversely, to kill a member of one's own tribe, for any reason, and deplete the bloodline was the most loathsome of taboos.  A violation of which would bring about prompt and brutal execution by the rest of the tribe in concert.  Contradictions of logic, surely, but practical realities at their stage of development and material Ashwan could work with.

      Slowly, with an idea planted here, a skill taught there, Ashwan began his campaign to unite the tribes into villages, the villages into kingdoms, and one day the kingdoms into a nation.

                          *    *    *


      "Master.  If the Roman legion truly numbers greater than the trees of the Great Forest, I don't see how even the unity of all the tribes could defeat them."

      "They probably could not.  However, if they resist well enough, the Romans will exact tribute and open trade with the Empire, leaving some royal autonomy in place.  Your culture could not only survive, but flourish."

      "We would still be Roman subjects."

      "The future nation could outlast the Empire.  If they are not united enough to resist, they would be enslaved en masse and scattered throughout the Empire.”

      "Will you use your powers to help us when they come?"

      "Gunther, if you are to become a magus you will learn to think beyond the current times.  The Romans will not reach here for many generations, but the two kingdoms must be united now.  They can then control the river and begin the extended trade with the rest of the forest tribes that will set the groundwork for the unity needed later.  As for my powers, a magus does not create power.  He only learns how to focus and use what power already exists.  There was never as much power here as in my homeland, and there is little enough of that left.  There is only enough left for one last potent spell.

      "Is that why you have only taught me herbal healing instead of conjuring?"

      Yes.  Now, what I need you to do first is pack all of our belongings into the cart.  We will need to find a new home, however things go.  Then go to King Sangor and alert him to the impending attack.  Take this dragon's tooth," Ashwan said, removing it from around his neck.  "He will then know that I sent you.  Tell him to be at the river here.."--pointing to the map--"..with his army before dawn five days from now.  He is not to attempt to cross until dawn.  I will meet you there at the river the night before.  Take the map.  Remember, whatever happens that morning, do not leave my side.

                          *    *    *


      The pale dawn slowly dispersed the heavy fog lying above the river and through the forest.  The Kings and their armies were gradually afforded a view of each other on the opposite banks.  They were distracted from even this by the sight of Ashwan and his apprentice apparently standing on the surface of the river halfway across.

      After heated councils, both Kings, with advisors, began to wade through the waist-high river toward Ashwan.  All were surprised to find the water level lowering as they walked up the sides of the sandbar that Ashwan stood upon.

      "Sorcerer's tricks," King Sangor snorted.  "There is no magic in standing on a sandbar."

      "The magic..," said Ashwan,".. is in knowing that the sandbar was here, that here the river would be at its lowest, and so here King Ort would cross.  Sufficient magic to bring you both to me."

      "Ashwan," said King Ort.  "Why have you betrayed me by bringing this violator of honor here?  This will not stop me from waging war."

      "Nor will it stop me from defending my kingdom from this salacious invader, trying to usurp my kingdom through the marriage bed," said King Sangor.

      " Your armies could fight in the river, I suppose, but then the fallen warriors would be washed away.  You would not be able to bring them home for the families to mourn.  That would bring dishonor to you both."

      "If you seek to make me chose between dishonor to my subjects or my family, I will deal with the dishonor to my family first.  You will not stop this, Ashwan."

      "I would have to place the dishonor of not defending my kingdom first.  King Ort is right, Ashwan.  Your tricks have no place here.  Though you have been of service to me and my forefathers, and I now suspect to him and his also, I tell you now, you are no longer welcome in my kingdom."

      "On that, I must heartily agree," said King Ort.

      "You are both right and wrong.  I can not stop this war, but it can and will be stopped by you both," Ashwan said, raising his hand.  "Wait.  Let me tell you why.  A year and a half ago you both came to thank me for training midwives so more women and infants would survive childbirth.  Then both of you paid me to increase the number of infants.  You remember the two-week blizzard that winter, when even the hardiest of you could not travel from one end of the village to the other.  That was a form of the Dragon's Breath that I conjured for you.  Then, in the fall, each of your kingdoms was blessed with eighty healthy births, both with sixty males and twenty females.

      "Now, don't look like that, neither of you paid me not to help the other.  I remind you of that to tell you this.  The fog you struggled through last night and this morning was another form of the Dragon's Breath.  During it half of the new infants from each kingdom were exchanged, in no particular order, and a spell cast upon the mothers so they would bond with the infants they have already awakened with.  Nothing you say or do will ever convince them otherwise.  I recommend that you never say anything about it to your women."

        The two Kings stared at Ashwan with revulsion.

        "Yes, you cannot fight this war without dishonoring your fallen dead.  You cannot win without killing those of your own bloodline.  Even should you choose to spare the infants you would be bequeathing your heirs with forty potential vengeance seekers."

        The Kings' faces, losing none of their revulsion, now reflected hatred and rage.

        "What you can and should do is go home now and make peace with this love match.  Yes, love.  I did arrange for them to meet but they did the rest on their own.  Whatever action you take the bloodlines of your kingdoms are now and forever intermingled."

      Both Kings, seemingly of one mind, commenced enraged battle cries.  King Sangor raised his axe and swung it at Ashwan's head.  King Ort thrusting his long spear at Gunther.  Both weapons rebounded as though they had struck a rolling boulder.

      Frustrated and suddenly weary in spirit, both Kings glared at Ashwan.

    "I vow, if I or my descendants ever find a way to end your existence, we will,” said King Ort.

      "I take the same vow for my line."

      "I only wish the best for kingdoms, however you feel about me.  To show this, here are presents for your coming grandchildren."

      Ashwan handed King Sangor a thick forearm length of a tree branch that had been carved to an edge on either end and hollowed out from the top.  Gunther handed King Ort what appeared to be a large, close mesh, spider-web woven from strips of braided leather.  Its diameter was the height of a tall man.  Longer, widely spaced, braided strips extended outward from the rim of the web.  The rim of the web itself had birds-egg size river stones woven into it at hand-lengths apart.

      "Grandchildren?"  The Kings said in unison.

      "Twins.  One boy.  One girl.  I had no part in that either, I only know that it is already so.  All the more reason for your blessings on this marriage."

      "What are these prophesied children to do with these devices?"  said Ragar the Advisor.

      "When they are ten years of age, present them with these gifts.  They will discover their purpose and name them.  Go in peace now."

      Both Kings..angry, reluctant, but defeated.. began to wade toward their armies to lead them home.

                            *    *    *


      Gunther was pleased with the new leather garments and boots his master had given him for their journey.  He stood outside their home ready with the fully packed two-wheeled cart.  As he had watched Ashwan hobble into the tree home one last time, he became troubled by thoughts of his master's ability to travel.  His master had seemed drained and ever more frail since they had returned from the river.  Gunther could pull the handcart by himself if need be, but it would be slow going and awkward.

      A heavy shower of leaves began to fall around Gunther.  Looking up, he could see the uppermost branches of the primal tree begin to shrivel and crack while shedding their leaves.  He watched, uncomprehending, while the desiccation slowly traveled down the massive trunk of the tree to the ground.  Then the earth seemed to shift as the mighty roots shrunk beneath his feet.

      Striding briskly out of the wasted tree was a tall, beardless man just in his maturity.  He was newly attired in leather, with bright eyes and a hearty glow to his complexion.

      "Are...you...my master Ashwan?"

      "Yes, it is I, Gunther.  You were right in thinking I could not travel well in my recent condition.  I have drained the life force from our home to regain my youth.  We must travel far and quickly now.  The Kings' assassins, who I am sure will be coming, would not know me now, but might still recognize you.  Although I am young again, that was the last of the magic and I am now as vulnerable as you."

      Ashwan took hold of the cart and began to pull.  Gunther stood still.

      "Ashwan, you said that when we find a new source of magic that you would truly apprentice me in its arts."

      "Yes.  When we settle in a new home, you will be a true apprentice Magus."

      Gunther remained immobile.

      "What is troubling you Gunther?  Out with it, we need to be on our way."

      "You said there was only enough magic left for one last potent spell, yet now I have seen two very powerful spells since.  If you would deceive me when my life was at risk, how can I know to trust you again."

      "Gunther.  Gunther.  I was able to draw enough power from the river to protect us from the Kings's' wrath, but only while we were standing in its current.  You wouldn't want to live in the river, would you?"

      "No.  No.  I mean the conjuring of the Dragon's Breath, the exchange of infants and their bonding with the mothers.  That seems to be a very potent spell indeed, and now you have also regained your youth."

      "Oh that.  That had nothing to do with magic.  Remember, I told you a Magus uses many tools.  I didn't lie to you, Gunther.  I lied to the Kings.”


                              The End