"Is there a way I can talk to him again?"
"Probably, but I have no clue how. There are a few tricks I could teach you, but first we have to have a talk. Would you two mind … " The warlock said, gesturing towards Aidan's friends.
"Oh sure." Eleanor said, helping Timothy to his feet. The young boy leaned on her a little as they walked away.
"Are they alright?" Aidan asked.
"They're fine." Said Bartemus, sitting down. "She got a little bump on the head and his hip was shattered, but it was nothing a little magic can't fix. The residual pain should be gone in a few days."
"Did Timothy tell you about Edwin?"
"Yes he did. And you did too. You talked the whole time you were sleeping. It is quite troubling, and it is one of the things I need to talk to you about. Edwin has always been a master of the mind. He was able to put an entire sentence into someone's head when he was just eighteen. As you probably know, it is hard to give anyone anything more than an emotion. However, through a series of tests, Edwin was determined to try.
"The only problem with his experimentation was a lack of subjects. He made his first two go insane, and after that there was a lack of volunteers, so he ended up trying out most of his experiments on himself. He must have gone too far, because at some point during the war he started to sympathize with Malcommer. It was just little things, like talking about how wrong it was that we had to kill the goblins when they were only defending their home, but it scared some people. The council removed Edwin from the fighting. It was a tough blow for him. Malachi, Marcus, and myself had always been his friends, and we did everything together. After the war we tried to make up, but he blamed us for Marcus's death. He had, while we had been gone, managed to build up quite a lot of political power for himself, and was only a few steps away from being in the council.
"He was kind at first, but eventually his heart became harder and harder, until he was willing to do anything to get what he wanted. You saw that with young Gerang."
"But why didn't you stop him?" Aidan asked, his anger getting stronger.
"Malachi and I tried. We have brought our case before the council multiple times. Unfortunately, Edwin himself is a councilor and every time we challenge him he has friends that back him up. If we had known what would happen to Gerang, we would have fought much harder, though that doesn't make it right."
Aidan pushed his anger down. "You said that was one of the things you wanted to talk to me about, what else did you need to say?" he asked.
"The biggest issue is the staff you used. We kept it for you right here," The warlock said, pulling out a long object wrapped in sheets.
"This staff belonged to the most powerful sorcerer ever known."
"Let me guess," Aidan interrupted, reaching his hand towards the scepter, "Marcus Thunderheart?"
"That is the second time you have guessed wrong. No, it's Malcommer's staff. And he used this weapon to slay five hundred men with a single spell."
Aidan's hand jerked back.
"Well then why was it even in the building?" the startled mage asked.
"It was hidden in the walls. thanks to your friend the spineback, there are no walls anymore. I was wondering if you liked it?"
Aidan remembered the rush of power, the blinding joy of magic.
"Yes, I did like it, but that doesn't make me evil, does it?"
Bartemus laughed. "No staff is evil, in the same way that no magic is evil. It's the choice we make with it that counts. This is a powerful staff, made of strengthened obsidian, and," he pushed a button on the top, and a silver blade sprang out the bottom of the scepter, "it has a hidden use."
He gave it to Aidan, who could feel the power run from his ring into the black stone.
Bartemus watched his apprentice for a little while before he cleared his throat.
"I am going to have to leave for a while to figure out what's going on. I have some ideas, but I desperately hope they are wrong. I'm going to give you something to communicate with me tomorrow, before I leave. I'm also going to introduce you to a wizard that might be able to help you get into the ring, we're going to need Marcus's advice if my hunch is correct."
Aidan sighed. "Any other surprises I should know about?"
Bartemus chuckled. "Probably, but they aren't important right now. Right now you need to rest. I don't know what is happening, but I have a feeling it's going to change the face of Sortiledge."
Aidan, Timothy and Eleanor were all at the front of a crowd watching Malachi, Bartemus, and some of the senior wizards push and pull at a ball of magic. If you were up close, which Aidan was, you could see blue, semi-transparent words in The Sorcerer's Tongue floating around the core, which was just an indiscernible darker blue mass.
The ball grew to be as tall as a man before the sorcerers were satisfied. Bartemus whispered the incantation that would let the spell run free and clapped his hands, which was completely unnecessary but totally satisfying.
The magic shot into the air above the heads of the assembly and seemed to explode, expanding until it enveloped the camp.
"We're really lucky," Timothy said above the applause of the crowd, "There hasn't been a safety sphere creation in over fifty years. Too bad George couldn't be here to see this."
George, Aidan knew, had died with two other mages and four wizards in the attack.
That's five lives that Edwin has to pay for, Aidan thought.
Bartemus walked to Aidan beside a bald young man in a wizard's robe.
"Aidan, this is master Tong, an expert in meditation. He should be able to help you understand the Phoenix Ring. Until I get in touch with you, he is your master."
Master Tong gracefully bowed to Aidan, who clumsily tried to return the gesture.
Bartemus cleared his throat. "Well, since you two seem to be acquainted, I need to steal my apprentice for a moment.
The warlock pulled the young mage out of the way and reached into his pouch.
"This," he said, handing Aidan a glowing blue crystal, "Is a way for you to talk to me over long distances. I am afraid I am going to have a task for you soon, so keep studying until you get the word."
With that, Bartemus turned and walked swiftly towards the edge of the safety sphere where Malachi was directing a team of wizards to open a hole in the wall.
"I'll be back soon!" Bartemus called, and stepped through the hole. As soon as he was out, the wizards released whatever enchantment they had been holding and the break snapped shut.
Aidan saw his master step into the forest, and then he was gone.
"You feel your surrounding too much. You try too hard. You not focus enough. You focus too much."
Aidan was sitting on the floor of Master Tong's hastily constructed hut, trying to calm himself down enough that he could "travel within" and access the Phoenix Ring.
Master Tong had given him a wooden ball to hold in one hand and some sort of powder to hold in the other. The old man was standing over him, trying to help Aidan, but in reality just making him so frustrated that he was going to grind his teeth to a pulp.
"Now you angry. Anger does not make magic flow."
Aidan felt an alarm go off in his head right before the ball in his hand was incinerated.
The young boy jumped to his feet.
"This isn't going to work," he said, trying not to show how mad he really was.
"No. It work on my family for long time, since we come to Sortiledge. It not work on you because you too angry. You always angry. I not teach you if you be angry all the time."
"Well then fine." Aidan said, "I don't need to learn anyways!"
He walked out of the hut and slammed the door shut a little harder than necessary.
It had been a week since Bartemus had left. All of the mages and wizards in the camp had been busy rebuilding, except for Aidan. Instead of helping his friends he had been sitting in a hut listening to an old man drone on about "the island over the sea," where he had been born.
And there is no way that mediation will ever be a useful combat skill, thought Aidan, kicking a rock out of his way.
In truth he was more frustrated with himself than anyone. Meditation was something that was supposed to be easy to learn, Timothy had been able to figure it out in twenty minutes.
Aidan Rune. The boy that can't do anything that doesn't involve blowing things up.
He found himself on a hill that sloped up until it hit the safety sphere. He sat there for a moment and soaked up the pure majesty of what he saw.
The grass over the whole camp was green, as if it had never been scorched into a black mess. There was no rubble, and many of the tents had already been replaced by structures identical to those that had stood before.