Chapter 026

Master vs. Apprentice

In the middle of a grassy, verdant sea the locomotive arrived at a gradual stop.

Passengers panicked much like they tended to do whenever their established schedules were obstructed by semblances of the unknown. As such, the inside of the train had come to foster a tsunami of shouting and criticisms. No matter how she sliced it, something was definitely wrong. Ebony sharpened her gaze, aiming her crimson eyes at various locations around the train cart. Sitting across from her, Rune looked to be one edge. He must have sensed it as well. The wafting sensation of dread.

“Apologies, passengers,” spoke the conductor, his deep voice pouring out of the speakers suspended over their heads. “Due to unforeseen circumstances, all trips to the capital have been terminated. Once again, we apologize for any difficulties this might cause you, however, we value your safety more than anything else. For the time being, we ask that you remain in your seats.”

“I thought this would happen.”

Taunted by frustration, Ebony actively fiddled with the radio in her lap. “I can’t get through to Major Griffin or the others. They should have updated me on the situation by now.”

“Another of his missions going off script? Well, at least it wasn’t my fault this time.” Rune rose out his seat, releasing an assortment of silent mutters underneath his breath.

Unprompted, the fire mage did the exact opposite of the conductor's instructions. Though at this point, it hardly surprised her. “Rune, where are you going?” Ebony asked, watching her teammate push his way past the crowding passengers and hastily proceed to the back of the car. Ebony frowned, it was obvious he’d no intention of providing her with even the slightest ounce of context. Ultimately, she had no choice but to follow his lead.

She too plunged inside of the rambunctious herd, men and women, children and elderly. Everyone radiated solidified clouds of anxiety. Had she not possessed the gift from Ryas, she suspected she would’ve behaved in a similar manner. Luckily, she held the power to change not only her fate but theirs as well. Reaching the rear of the crowded car, Ebony pushed open the door and stepped outside. Greeted with intense summer rays upon her pale skin, she now found herself standing midway between two train cars. At first, she’d suspected Rune to have retreated further down the confines of the locomotive. That was until she sensed it, a powerful, blistering essence signature that exploded to life. It originated from above.

Locating a ladder stationed on the side of the car, the girl swiftly made her way to the train’s roof. Crawling over the ledge, her eyes flashed in surprise. With his tome floating in front of him and surrounded by incubated ribbons, Rune shouted, “Regaleo!” as cascading streams of smoke grunted out the soles of his boots. Glancing over his shoulder, he extended his hand toward her and said, “Well, what are you waiting for? Let’s go.”

“Wh...What?”

“We can’t depend on the train to take us to the capital, so we’re just going to have to get there ourselves.” He shaded his vision with his hands, gazing off into the distance. Approximately two hundred meters ahead, Ebony could clearly identify the outline of the enormous, capital city. Its large buildings were shrouded in a vortex of the summer’s hot air. Can he really make it that far?

As if responding to her mental inquiry, Rune would go on to mention, “Hopefully, I have enough essence to last the trip.”

“Rune, are you sure about this?”

“Not really,” he shrugged. “Then again, it’s not like we’re high on our number of options. If you got any brighter ideas, I’m all ears.”

“No!” Ebony denied. “It’s fine.”

“Good. Now, hop on. I'll handle the flying part,” he told her, pointing a thumb at the hinder portions of his shoulders.

Hop on? She attempted to conceal her amplifying embarrassment behind a mundane disguise, though her ears gleamed red all the same. Climbing onto his back, Rune hooked his arms underneath her thighs, Ebony nearly letting an astonished yelp escape her. Taking a breath to relieve her of her pounding stress, she hesitantly wrapped her own pair of arms around his neck whilst also pushing her breast and stomach against his broad back. For the mission. Do this for the mission! She was grateful to Ryas that he couldn’t see her flustered, red expression cursing her with its company.

“Alright, we’re good to go,” he announced, spreading his feet apart from each other and slanting his upper body forward. “Make sure you hold on tight. Wouldn’t want you falling off mid-flight.”

“Wait...what?”

He didn’t acknowledge her with a response, nor attempt to exorcize her nerves. What instead he did was permit the essence dwelling within him to circulate his body, and touch the epitome of his soul. She felt the burning magical energy consume him. His right eye gleamed orange. His blonde hair swayed to and fro. Gusts of wind echoed from underneath his worn and torn boots. And, feasting on a final gulp of fresh air, Rune would leap into the sky, the pair of rippling flames scorching the underside of his footwear carrying them higher.

All at once, Ebony lost sight of reality. The world around her was robbed of the details serving as proof of its existence. Blitzing her optical windows was a festering coagulation of color, of which she could only partially make out the green of the grassy meadows and the sapphire of the sky. Seemingly disinterested in her well-being, or preoccupied with the severity of the mission, Rune cared not to lower his speed. If anything, it felt to Ebony that his howling flames only increased their intensity. Her eyes watered as her muscles calcified. In an attempt to suppress the follies of wind unaffectionately assaulting her, she buried her face into Rune’s back, praying to Ryas that their wild trip would very soon meet its conclusion.

Her prayers were eventually heard.

Rune stabilized his fire, the rapid sparks retracting back into the soles of his boots. The savagery of storming winds was calmed and Esteras returned to how it normally looked. “There it is.” Braving a peak over his shoulder, Ebony spotted it. She could hardly believe that in a period of what she suspected to be a mere five minutes, they’d flown from the train and to the city which at one point teetered on the line of a distant horizon.

At first, everything seemed to be normal. The illusion was subsequently shattered as her concentrated glance fixated on the numerous colossal prisms of ice erecting off the ground. Below them, a stampede of terrified civilians retreated towards the city’s perimeter attempting to escape the gradual ocean of ice eagerly chasing after them. Just like she’d expected, there weren’t any combat mages to be found. Major Griffin’s plan must be working as normal. The only downside was that, since there was a lack of magically enhanced soldiers in the vicinity, it’d be up to them to quell the frozen threat.

“So this is his Day of Zero, is it?” Rune commented as they flew over the heads of kings and nobles.

“At this rate, the entire city will be completely covered in ice.”

“Unless we do something about it.” They dropped out of the sky, Rune choosing to land close by one of the pillars and just a few paces from the approaching blanket of famished ice. Ebony climbed off his back. Desperately attempting to discount the cluster of butterflies rampaging in her stomach, she caught wind of something peculiar about the spell. The longer remained activated, it seemed, the quicker it froze its environment. She observed as the frost devoured a three-story building with ease. Scaling from its base, the frigid plague consumed the cement construction before moving onto the smaller house beside it. “Alright,” Rune started, cracking his knuckles. “I’ll deal with the pillar.”

“What?”

“It looks like the pillar is what’s causing everything to freeze. It’s probably why there are so many of them located around the city. So, if we destroy them, we might be able to put an end to this nonsense. In the meantime, you escort the people who haven’t yet evacuated the area to safety. Other than the ice spell, we still have no idea how many of Thatch’s goons are running around. Civilians could use the extra protection.”

She glanced at him, and then at the towering ice pillar several feet away. In the middle of a glistening street, it brought out a frosty era without bearing any signs of stopping. “Are you sure you can handle this by yourself?”

“Don’t worry,” he confidently reassured. In the palm of his hand flickered an infant flame. “My fire magic should be more than enough.”

She held her reservations, and yet she nodded nonetheless. “Alright, Ransford, I’ll trust that you know what you’re doing.” Ebony turned on her heels and darted in the direction of the screaming. What was there to doubt? Rune’s fire was superior to Thatch’s ice. And with his skills, the situation should be under control. Grabbing hold of the faith in her teammate, she shouted back at him, “I’ll return to provide assistance as soon as I get them to safety!”

Rune gave her a final nod as she bolted down the street in the opposite direction. He then turned to face his target.

Ever since he learned of the Gyrakian’s true plan, he had started to nourish an unsettling feeling deep within the basement of his gut. Never did he expect something as bizarre as this. Freezing the capital city of their neighboring nation, talk about bold. Regardless, he wouldn’t allow them to have their way.

Concentrating on the flow of his essence, Rune breathed out of his clasping lips the name of his spell, “Anguis Mordeo.” His right eye ignited with the vibrance of orange as his blonde hair fluttered in the air. Magical energy paraded around his enchanted mechanism, feeding him the power of Ryas. Taking a massive step forward, Rune lunged his right palm at the ice pillar as a stream of fire roared past his fingers. The opposing element collided with the frozen tower, a clapping sound ringing across the city. No time was wasted as the flames scorched and destroyed. Golden cracks began weaving over its icy hide. Portions of the frost giant collapsed to the ground, kicking into the air shards of silver. And just as it began to secrete a deep groaning noise, Rune ceased his spell. He placed his hands on his knees gasping for air.

Realistically speaking, with his most powerful spell, he could probably desolate the ice pillar with a single attack. However, he couldn’t take such a risk. There were other ice pillars to be dealt with as well, and since he was cut off from James’ team he wasn’t knowledgeable of their success at destroying them. If he were to waste a large sum of his essence here, he’d be rendered useless for the remainder of the mission. So, he favored the notion of using numerous, less destructive spells requiring only a handful of his essence reserves. It would, in fact, take longer. On the flip side, it meant that he had more magic power to spare.

Shooting another Anguis Mordeo, Rune took notice of the pillar’s design. As he erased more of its surface, bit by bit, a faint turquoise glow started seeping through the cracks. There was something buried underneath its frigid coat. A core. He then remembered what Trevor told him during their duel. He’d claimed a manite crystal was the key to their plan. He hardly paid the notion any mind, however, after seeing how much magical power it could grant a mage, it became clear what Trevor’s intentions were. The manite crystals were “batteries”, in a sense. They supplied the ice pillars with an unending buffet of stolen essence thus allowing them to freeze the city as long as necessary. As vile as it was, Rune had to give credit to Trevor’s ingenuity.

Finishing off another stream of fire, the mage partook another two-minute break. Sucking in gasps of air, he sponsored a curious stare at his deteriorating target. Its manite heart desperately attempted to repair the pillar, regenerating the ice that he had melted. Though, regardless of its best efforts, there was little it could do to return to its former glory. Deep punctures and craters dotted its surface whilst glistening steam ascended to Ryas. Even the sheet of ice wasn’t expanding as quickly as it had done prior. Without a doubt, his spells were working. One more should be enough. Then I’ll move on to the others. Inflating his lungs with more oxygen, Rune prepared to launch a final fire spell to put the crumbling glacier out of its misery for good. His essence flowed. His eye ignited. And the intensity of a dormant spark enveloped him. However, just as the flames readied to scream out his palm, a familiar voice distracted him.

“Rune!” he shouted. Assaulting him with a blast of bewilderment, Rune canceled his spell and, in one swift motion, spun around on his heels. Colonel Jacob Andrew, his master, strode towards him presenting the stern scowl Rune had grown accustomed to during his training.

“Andrew..?” the boy uttered. “Wh...What are you doing here? Griffin told me that...Thatch and his men had captured you, along with the other mages from your bracket.”

“Did he? I suspected after all that you’ve been through, you wouldn’t so easily accept what others told you. Especially if it came out the mouth of a military dog,” Jacob smirked. “Come now, did you really think so pathetically of your old teacher?”

“Absolutely not! I knew Griffin was full of it! You could never be bested by terrorists! Ah, this is perfect! With both of our spells combined, we’ll be able to get rid of these ice pillars and stop Thatch’s plans!”

“Yes, well, before anything else, there’s something we have to discuss.”

“Can’t it wait? If we’re not fast enough, all of Savannis will be...”

“That’s the point,” Jacob said, cutting the incomplete statement in half. Rune's confusion returned with a vengeance. He regarded the veteran in dazed silence, desperate for him to elaborate further. The frown sitting upon Jacob’s face had amplified and his arms trembled like he was in pain.

“I don’t understand, what do you mean?”

“The ice pillars...I cannot let them be destroyed. The plan is almost complete, I can’t afford any more complications.”

“...You’re not making any sense,” Rune nervously smirked. “Quit fooling around, Andrew. We’ve got a city to save...”

“As I told you, I cannot permit their destruction. Not until Savannis is frozen over.”

A part of Rune wanted to hope this was a dream, or a delusion caused by overexertion of essence. The words his master spoke of, he couldn’t comprehend any of them. Not a single one. Jacob Andrew had always been a peculiar man who kept to himself. As such, it became a near-impossible task to accurately determine what he was thinking or how he felt at any given moment. Even so, Rune liked to think after training with him that he possessed a stronger understanding of how the mage operated. But as he stood facing his master, a quivering, gaping jaw accompanying his dumbfounded expression, he was left alone. Completely in the dark.

“B...But why?” Rune gasped. “Wait, I know! It’s the Gyrakians! They’ve placed you in a trance, right? You’re acting against your will.”

“I’m in total control over my body, Rune. I assure you of that.”

“If that’s true, then why...” Out of frustration, Rune bawled his fists. Brandishing at Jacob a darkened glare, he snapped, “Why are you spouting such utter nonsense?! The capital is under attack! People could be killed! And yet you’re saying you don’t want the pillars to be destroyed?!”

“Yes, that’s exactly it. I’m the one who came up with the plan, you see.”

“No!” Rune loudly denied. “You’re lying!”

“I am not,” Jacob countered. He started walking forward, approaching his former student with restraint and sympathy as his weapons. “Listen, Rune, I recognize how this can be...difficult for you to comprehend...”

“Oh, really?! Is that what you think?!”

“I didn’t mean for you to get involved in this, and I longed not to confront you ever again after today. Nevertheless, Ryas had different plans. When I learned Griffin sought to recruit you for his mission, why, I knew there was nothing else I could do. This is the reality of our predicament,” he explained softly. “The Day of Zero, I had researched it plenty over the past decade. A spell with the potential to cover an entire city in permanent ice, the applications were limitless. When I learned of its existence, I realized then and there, I could use it to save our country.”

“Save it?!”

“Yes, everything I do...everything I’ve done, is for the betterment of Esteras.”

“You’re trying to destroy its capital city! How are you saving anything?!”

“To put it plainly, our country, our glorious Esteras, has been molded for years and years by demons disguised as humans,” he answered without a hint of hesitation or conflict. “You’re rather young, Rune, so I wouldn’t expect you to be aware. As it stands currently, the direction they seek to take our country will eventually lead us to ruin. To more despair. The dreaded 7 Year War will look like a joke by comparison. If nothing is done, we’ll all be doomed.”

Rune curved an eyebrow. “And just who are you referring to?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Jacob grunted. “Our mighty and esteemed sovereign who treats war as if it's some kind of joke. Greedy nobles and politicians using their money and reputation to prance freely in the shadows. Those damned bastards at Military High Command! They must all be eradicated like the vermin they are, every last one!” His pair of green eyes bounced like rubber balls inside of his head. He stretched both arms out by his side and screamed for Ryas to hear, “I will be the hero of this story! The Day of Zero is meant to act as a rebirth! We’ll bury Esteras’ past and sins under layers of indestructible ice! We’ll dispose of those who sought to bring death and destruction to our once beautiful land! Then, and only then, can true peace be restored.”

“You’re...you’re insane...”

“No, no I’m enlightened. I’m one of the only people who have the resolve to see to such a risky operation. I won’t deny it, yes I teamed up with Gyrakians but only to make use of Thatch’s unique magic. I have every intention of disposing of those worthless morons after the Day of Zero is finished,” he claimed, folding his arms. “The military, no, this empire has lost every ounce of its credibility and my faith. It deserves to be forgotten by the annals of history. But you, Rune Ransford, you are one of the few good mages, deserving of seeing our golden future. So please, leave this city at once.”

“You’re seriously asking me to just run away, like everything’s normal? You’re talking about saving a country, and yet you care not for the death and destruction you’re causing? What of all the people who haven’t escaped Savannis? Families, the ill, the handicapped. Do they not matter to you?!”

“Sacrifices,” he responded, as if the answer should be obvious. “All of them are sacrifices for the greater good. Most of these noble pigs deserve what's coming to them anyhow.”

“Sacrifices, are they? And tell me, how is that any different from what you claim the military is doing, huh?! You say you fight for the people, for the country, yet you have no problem dragging innocents into your affairs?!”

“The military sacrifices lives for a pointless endeavor only to very soon start another blood parade shortly after. Those unfortunate, innocent souls lost today will help forge a brighter path for countless generations.”

“A life is a life, regardless of the outcome! If I let you have your way, if I stand back and do nothing, it means I’ll be just as much a murderer as you are! And that’s something I can’t live with!” Rune held up his fists as Draken flipped its pages. His master must have been surprised by his reaction. A retracted showcase of his hostility caused him to emit a small gasp, and add to the distance between them by taking a couple of spaces backward.

“You mean to fight me, Rune?”

“I’m sorry, sir. As a combat mage, it is my responsibility to protect the citizens of Esteras. If you seek to harm them...then that makes you my enemy.”

“I see. How unfortunate,” Jacob grunted. “I was hoping you’d see my point of view. You’re just like that lightning mage. Until his soul departed, all he could think about was stopping me.”

“Wh...What?”

“I wonder, how badly has the military brainwashed the next generation where they are content with culling those with superior intentions?”

“You’re...talking about Daze, aren’t you?”

“Was that his name? It was a real pity. But in the end, he sought to stop me so I did what I had to do. And after all these years, it never gets easier to watch Ryas’ light leave a child’s eyes.”

His last tendrils of composure snapped. Rune sprang from his spot, kicking dirt into the air. In a rush of speed, the mage disintegrated the space separating him from the Arbor Mage. Swinging back a fist behind his nape, he bellowed with tears in his eyes, “Ardens Pugnis!”, rage plagued by sorrow sprinkling out his tongue. Darting towards his master, he buried his scorching fist into the man’s stomach. Air deflated out of Jacob's innards, along with volleys of saliva. The strength fueling the magically enhanced attack launched him off the ground and sent him flying away. Similar to a stone skipping over the surface of a lake, he skidded numerous times across the street before finally coming to a stop a good sum of meters from where Rune now stood.

Lying on his back staring up at the clouds, Jacob somehow managed a feeble laugh. “My, my, the reports weren’t kidding. You really have gotten stronger, haven’t you?”

Rune wiped strands of tears off his cheeks. “Why didn’t you defend yourself?”

“Because I don’t want to be responsible for the death of my friend’s child, nor for the death of my apprentice.”

“Then you better decide right now, Colonel Andrew!” Rune shouted, clenching a burning fist in front of him. “Which is more important to you, your student or your ambitions?!”

“...The future,” he answered.

His tome exploded with color and magic. Stones and pieces of discarded litter started to levitate off of the ground. His eyes gleamed with surging essence. A shimmering green aura enveloped the Arbor Mage, filling him with almighty strength. “Forgive me, Kazimir,” he whispered, shoveling a blue frown. Raising his hands into the air, Jacob shouted, “Wood Magic: Yggdrasil!”. And so a god was brought forth into the world. Rune leaped back as the earth beneath his feet quaked and churned. They breached out of splintering trenches, shattering the very fabric of the planet. Clusters of roots and ladders of wood coalesced into one another, forming a single, gigantic organism. They wrapped, slithered, condensed, and extended. Tackled by astonishment, Rune directed his gaze upward. Higher and higher did it grow, almost as if it was striving to touch the sky itself. It was taller than any man, taller than any building, and taller than any of the ice pillars. Casting its shadow onto the world below, the titanic tree rooted itself into Savannis City.

The tips of its herculean branches spawned glowing emerald leaves and blue-colored flowers that rustled from cascading currents of air. Shifting roots and serpents of wood composed the bulk of its hulking torso, making it appear as an amalgamation of deformed creatures rather than a trunk of a tree. The further it sunk its tree roots into the earth, more did the streets crack and fracture. Rune had no choice but to abandon his position. Jets of fire carried him further from the monstrous tree. He landed a handful of paces from the ever-expanding sheet of ice behind him. He was trapped!

Gazing upward into the heavens his vision met the wooden behemoth his master had created. To himself, he could only ponder what the best course of action should be.