The Cursed Tower Read online

  The Cursed Tower

  The Mageborn Saga, Volume 2

  Dayne Edmondson

  Published by Dark Star Publishing, 2018.

  While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

  THE CURSED TOWER

  First edition. May 13, 2018.

  Copyright © 2018 Dayne Edmondson.

  ISBN: 978-1386736172

  Written by Dayne Edmondson.

  Also by Dayne Edmondson

  Schooled in Sorcery

  Ascended into Magic

  The Dark Tide Trilogy

  Emergence

  Eclipse

  Ruin

  The Mageborn Saga

  Mageborn

  The Cursed Tower

  Halls of Light

  The Magical Madelyn Mayfield

  Madelyn and the Unicorn Beach

  The Seven Stars Universe

  Ghost Ranger

  Space Commando

  The Shadow Trilogy

  Blood and Shadows

  Time of Shadows

  Shadows Fall

  Standalone

  The Complete Dark Tide Trilogy

  The Complete Shadow Trilogy

  Watch for more at Dayne Edmondson’s site.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Also By Dayne Edmondson

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Sign up for Dayne Edmondson's Mailing List

  Further Reading: Halls of Light

  Also By Dayne Edmondson

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  Thank you to my typo hunters:

  Richard

  Chapter 1

  The Tower of the Seven Stars. A behemoth composed of black stone or metal, it dwarfed the buildings of the city of Tar Ebon. Emma craned her neck as she walked, squinting against the mid-day sun gleaming off its shimmering surface to see the top. What adventures, what mysteries, awaited them there?

  Favio belched, shaking Emma from her reverie.

  She gave the bard a glare she would give her brother if he did the same, eyebrow raised. He may have looked to be her father’s age, but he acted much younger.

  “What?” Favio said, shrugging. “Better out than in.”

  Emma shook her head. “Disgusting.”

  “You haven’t spent much time among pigs then, have you?” Richard said.

  “No, I haven’t.” Though I’ve smelled some ripe people coming into Father’s store. Their store had been situated far from the markets, and the smells from her mother’s shop would have overpowered the smell of livestock anyway.

  The group continued in silence for a time as the tail end of the Iron Legion entered the eastern gate of Tar Ebon, making room for the mages who had gone to battle to enter. Emma walked at the end of the procession with Alivia and her companions.

  “Why can’t we be at the front of the mages?” Ethan asked. “You’re an arch mage, right?”

  Alivia offered a bemused smile. “I am an arch mage, but so are many of them.” She pointed to the row in front of her. “And you are students. Prospective students,” she corrected. “Decorum demands you walk at the rear.”

  “How are you faring?” Emma asked Kylie, ignoring her brother’s grumbled response.

  The girl jerked her eyes away from the Tower and met Emma’s. “It’s... a bit overwhelming.” She sighed. “I heard stories about this place, back at the coven. My mother...” she stopped, and tears welled up in her eyes. “My mother told me one day we might visit.”

  The lies parents tell their children. Emma guessed Kylie’s mother never had the intention of taking her, but she didn’t have the heart to say that to the girl still mourning the loss of her mother days earlier.

  The line moved quick and soon they were past the gates and walking on one of the main thoroughfares. Villagers who had stopped to watch the procession of the army lost interest by the time Emma and her group passed and soon they were elbowing villagers going about their business away from them. Emma had to admit there wasn’t anything about her appearance which suggested she was a mage. For all the townsfolk knew she was a wash woman.

  Tar Ebon reminded her of Ironforge, only more diverse. Instead of neat rows of houses of a similar design, the city boasted a wide variety of architectures sitting in clusters. The outermost houses they passed possessed straw or wooden roofs and wooden siding, while the closer they came to the center of the city the sturdier the buildings became, culminating in black stone buildings with red tile roofs. The people of Tar Ebon also wore much more flamboyant clothing than the reserved people of Ironforge. The somewhat warmer climate allowed for a wider variety of styles from tunics to dresses, robes to sleeveless shirts. Winter was a distant threat to the city.

  A myriad array of smells assailed her nose as they passed bakeries, blacksmith shops, tanners, fish vendors and more. The smell of human waste, something she’d partially forgotten the smell of while traveling in the wilds, was surprisingly not as prevalent as expected for a city of this size.

  “The streets smell clean,” Ethan commented, speaking Emma’s thought, though their neural link wasn’t open at that moment. “Relatively.”

  “Tar Ebon prides itself on being at the forefront of sanitation,” Alivia explained. “Running water and a sewer system help ensure waste doesn’t get thrown out on the street.”

  And we thought Ironforge was advanced with our heating systems, Emma thought. Their city had nothing like this.

  The army had broken off several streets back. Alivia told her they were housed in barracks throughout the city, so in the event of an attack they would be able to respond to whichever section of the city needed support the most. That made sense, considering the massive size of Tar Ebon.

  Despite having rested while the army fought at Senegal Fortress, Emma’s feet were burning by the time the stone houses gave way to a black inner wall surrounding the courtyard belonging to the Tower. The wall looked to be composed of the same material as the outer wall of the city, and maybe the Tower; she wasn’t close enough to see yet, a stone of an impossibly black color with no visible seams. A pair of black iron gates stood open, admitting the mages inside.

  “Alas, this is where I take my leave,” Favio said. He bowed with a flourish of his cloak. “Ladies. Gentlemen. It’s been fun.”

  Emma couldn’t help but smile sadly at the departure of their companion who had become their eccentric friend. Sure, he had lied about his identity, but he’d been given plenty of chances to leave them in the dust and had stuck by them. Besides, Alivia trusted him.

  Indeed, Alivia gave him a hug and kissed him on the cheek. “Goodbye old friend. Will you be going far?”

  “That would be telling,” the bard replied. “But I shall disclose this - I will be around when the time comes that you need me.”

  “Cryptic as always,” the arch mage replied. “And if we never need you?”

  “Oh, you will. I promise you that.”

  “A seer and a bard,” Ethan grumbled to Ric
hard. The farmer-turned-mage grunted in reply.

  “If... if you get up to Ironforge,” Emma asked, stepping forward. “Will you seek out our parents and tell them we’ve made it?” She fumbled around for paper before remembering they’d left most of their possessions behind at Senegal Fortress and she hadn’t had paper to begin with.

  Favio, seeming to read her mind, bowed again. “Of course, dear princess. Life is a wandering road, you never know where it might take you.”

  Emma cheeks warmed. “I’m hardly a princess.”

  “Every daughter is a princess in her father’s eyes, my dear.” He winked before shaking hands with Richard and Ethan in turn. “Take care of these lovely ladies, men.” He pointed a finger at them. “But don’t treat them like porcelain dolls either.”

  “What’s a porcelain doll?” Richard asked.

  “Glass,” Emma said absentmindedly, remembering the doll collection her mother had. She had seemed overly fond of the dolls, going so far as whipping Ethan with one of their father’s belts when he accidentally broke one.

  “Indeed.” Favio backed away and waved once more before disappearing into the crowd moments later. Emma didn’t think the man had magic, but he certainly knew how to escape unnoticed.

  The reddish cobblestones of the main thoroughfare gave way to smooth, seamless black stone. She finally had to ask. “What causes the stone to look black and have no seams?”

  Alivia looked down, as if seeing their path for the first time, then looked up and smiled. “I don’t notice the difference any more. But it is mage-forged stone. You’ll learn more about it at the Tower, but the basic answer is that the elements of existence in each piece of stone were melded together to form a single block.”

  “What purpose does it serve, other than to look pretty?”

  “There are many tactical reasons. First, it’s much stronger than stone alone. Normal stone walls are held together by mortar, a sticky substance that hardens. But when a stone is mage-forged, the stones act as if they are forged of a single slab of stone, making the structure, or ground, much stronger.”

  “Nice,” Ethan commented.

  “The buildings in our coven were like this. But they were not black,” Kylie said.

  “The stronger the bond, meaning the closer the elements of existence are to one another, the darker the color because more light is absorbed.” She smiled apologetically. “But you will learn all this in school. Follow me.”

  The courtyard bustled with activity as most of the mages entered through a wide entrance into the Tower. Emma squinted. There were no doors swung outward, and no hinges showing them swung inward. How did they... she jumped back as slabs of metal, she could tell from the glare of the sunlight on them, slid in place after a group entered and no more were coming up the ramp. An automated door?

  Yes, it is a sliding door mechanism that uses sensors to detect movement and actuate the motors that trigger the door to...

  Hold on, Emma barked to Shadow, her “Neurological Interface Assistant” or NIA for short. I don’t understand half those terms. But I can see what the result is. The doors open when people approach. Is that right?

  That is a highly simplistic explanation, but it is accurate.

  That’s all I needed. And I didn’t ask you.

  I shall endeavor to better detect when your inquiries are directed at me or your subconscious.

  Uh, thanks, I guess.

  Shadow wisely refrained from responding.

  Emma studied the Tower from several yards away. It reflected the light, similar to the doors... was the Tower made of metal? Alivia had already answered one of her naïve questions and asking Shadow would likely give her a ten-minute explanation on terms she didn’t yet understand, so Emma refrained from speaking, or calling upon the assistant in her head, again.

  The group did not go up the ramp, depriving Emma of a chance to see the automatic doors in action. Instead, Alivia led them to a squat, square building that sat to the north of the Tower. Like the Tower, the building was black, though unlike the Tower the building looked to be made of stone. Instead she followed the others through a pair of plain wooden doors, doors flanked by two guards in blue armor, into a tall, cavernous room.

  Four pillars supported the building, stretching up into shadows. A hearth burned along the left and right walls and torches filled in the gaps with light. At the far end of the building sat a chair. An empty chair, and an odd-looking chair at that. As the group neared, Emma could make out that it was made of metal, though not black metal like she suspected the Tower was made of. Suspended above the chair, attached by a bent metal rod of some sort, was a metal helmet. She opened her mouth to voice a question, but Ethan beat her to it.

  “What is that?” her brother asked.

  “The Sorting Chair.” Alivia said.

  “The what?” Kylie blurted, the first time she’d directly addressed the arch mage since waking earlier that day.

  “It is used to sort students into their appropriate house,” Alivia explained. “Th houses began twenty years ago, after the war against the Krai’kesh decimated our ranks.” She cleared her throat as if choking down old memories. “The houses were a way to begin to specialize the new mages coming to the Tower. A division of labor to prepare us for the future.”

  What future? Emma wondered, thankful Shadow didn’t blurt out his opinion.

  “So, what, some mages are farmers?” Richard asked sarcastically.

  “Agriculture is an important school of study for the survival and growth of the human race,” Alivia replied.

  “You can’t be serious,” Ethan said. “There are mages studying how to make better potatoes?”

  “Among other things in nature, yes.”

  “Look at me, I’ll be the lumberjack mage.” Her brother swung his arms in a motion as though he were swinging an axe.

  “Like father, like son,” Alivia mumbled. Emma found herself silently agreeing.

  “So, what does the Sorting Chair do?” Emma asked, trying to bring the conversation back to the matter at hand. She’d obviously brought them here for something, and the guards at the door suggested the Chair had some value.

  “You sit in the chair and put the helmet on. You are... tested... by the chair and it determines what the best house is for you.”

  “So, the chair decides if I’m going to be a farmer?” Ethan asked. “What if I want to be a warrior?” He held his fist up to imitate holding a sword.

  “There is a house for those bravest among the order. Many go on to become battle mages or mage guards. But we won’t know until you sit in the chair.”

  “Is the word of this chair binding?” Kylie asked. “It cannot be changed?”

  “The chair gives two choices. The mage chooses one now and may begin studying the other in a year.”

  “How are we tested?” Richard asked.

  Alivia shook her head. “No one remembers the tests, but we know it does test us, for time passes for those watching.”

  “So, the chair is magical?” Emma asked.

  “Of a sort,” Alivia replied cryptically. “It is an ancient technology, like a sort of magic to those who do not understand it, dating back to the days of the Founders.”

  “Will it hurt us?” Kylie asked.

  Alivia smiled kindly at the witch. “I do not think so. It has never physically harmed a student and, although students have broken into tears during the testing, they have not remembered what caused them to cry, which suggests no lasting harm.”

  “So, who gets to go first?” Ethan asked, in a tone that suggested false bravado. Like the time he’d asked that same question from atop their roof in Ironforge.

  “I was hoping for a volunteer,” Alivia said.

  “I’ll go first,” Richard said, stepping forward and puffing his chest up. Was he trying to show off?

  Alivia nodded and gestured to the chair. “Please, sit.”

  Richard approached the chair and sat. He placed his arms on the arms of t
he chair and Alivia secured them with bands of metal. He looked from Kylie to Emma and back. He was trying to show off. To look like he was the bravest.

  Emma opened her mouth to tell him he didn’t need to prove he was brave, but fear of her own crept up and stopped her. Instead she gave him a thumbs up and smiled.

  Alivia lowered the helmet on his head. It covered his head like an empty bowl upended atop it. She stepped back, and a band of red light spread around the rim of the helmet.

  At first, nothing happened. Then Richard shuddered, his back slamming against the chair and his hands clenching into fists. He emitted a bestial roar next, causing Emma to jump in surprise. “No, no, no,” he slurred. “Not her.” Tears ran down his face. He was sobbing.

  “Get him out,” Emma blurted, stepping toward the chair.

  Alivia held out a cautionary hand. “This is part of the test. It’s normal.”

  “It’s torture!” Emma shouted. “How can you condone this?” She pointed toward her friend.

  “Because he won’t remember it,” Alivia replied calmly.

  Emma watched as the shuddering died down, though now the boy was muttering. Then the shuddering resumed until he finally sagged in relief some minutes later. The red light on the helmet morphed to blue and the metal bars restraining his arms released on their own. He raised his hands to the helmet and pushed it up, then blinked and squinted at the others. “Did I pass?

  The chair emitted a chirping sound and two pieces of paper slid out of its side and fell to the floor. Alivia picked them up. “House Arreat and House Longclaw,” she announced.

  “What do those mean?” Kylie asked.

  “How many houses are there?” Emma asked.

  “Dude, you cried like a girl,” Ethan said to Richard.

  “Shut up.” Richard wiped the tears from his cheeks. “I don’t remember anything from after she put the helmet on my head, okay?”

  “House Arreat is one of the two disciplines focusing on earth magic. It involves metalworking and manipulation of the minerals and rocks of the world,” Alivia explained. “They are builders. House Longclaw is a fire discipline focused on martial prowess and weapons, mundane and magical. Warfare. And to answer your question, Emma, there are seven houses.”