The Currents of Magic

Chapter Fifty-One

When Meyer opened his eyes he was sitting in a chair, his feet and hands shackled to the floor. For a moment he was confused, but then his most recent memories rushed back to him, and he felt a pain in his chest like never before. His stomach felt more constricted than Trant's most powerful binding spell around his body, and his jaw felt heavy. He wanted to swallow, but he couldn't. All he could do was stare forward in disbelief.

His father was dead.

It couldn't be.

He wouldn't believe it.

Vaguely Meyer noticed his surroundings: the dim room, the grimy black walls. There was a table in front of him with a chair on the other side.... But even as his mind passively catalogued his environment—remembered a voice mentioning the Magician—his thoughts remained fixed on his father...

...On Vanroc... On his meaningless life...

And then there was a creaking behind him. A door closed and footsteps echoed against the stone floors. Meyer didn't bother to twist in his chair; he was sure the chains around his wrists were too restrictive for movement anyway. He closed his eyes, opening them as a robed man walked by him.

He recognized Galdin Moon at once. As usual the lord was garbed in a majestic gown which shimmered as he walked, and his fingers were adorned in many fine rings. When he reached the other side of the table, he bowed his head slightly before sitting down.

"Meyer Brant," he said. "I am quite glad to see you."

Meyer said nothing, trying to comprehend the strange expression on Moon's face. He couldn't seem to focus, however, and his thoughts felt muddled as he tried to understand the situation. He had been saved him from the Raiders... by someone who had mentioned the Magician...

"I know, you have been through a lot," said Moon. "But wish as we might, history will not stop for us to collect ourselves. Pieces are moving, and you might yet have a part to play."

Meyer sensed Moon looking at him, but he merely gazed forward blankly. He didn't know whether or not to trust Moon, but he didn't care. As usual the lord wanted something...

But Meyer didn't care. He was done with the world. He was done with caring. The Raiders should have killed him. He wasn't supposed to be alive.

"I may not have always been honest with you, and yet I consider myself a straightforward man," continued Moon. "When you arrived at Eldrin's Dale I told you my intentions to train you as a sorcerer so one day you could serve my realm. And that is still true. I hope that once the storm passes you will join me."

Moon paused, fingering one of his rings. "I tell you all this in hope that you will continue to trust in me. To understand that the truth that I am about to give you might not be easy to accept, but that it is meaning is paramount nonetheless... Do you understand?"

Meyer simply stared at Moon. He could sense that somehow the lord had deceived him, and wondered vaguely if he should feel hate towards him, but he felt nothing. Moon and fate: they were both working against him. It was all the same.

"Meyer, do you understand?" repeated Moon.

Meyer nodded, reaching absentmindedly for the Currents—just so he would have something to hold onto while Moon prattled meaninglessly—but as he reached for the void, his magical sense pushing outwards, he fell into an endless nothing. It was as though an impenetrable cloud had engulfed the void between him and the Currents.

"The Magician is not what you think he is," said Moon drawing Meyer's attention back to the physical room. "To you he no doubt is a mysterious menace. You have heard of atrocities, and they have been attributed to the Magician. You have heard of subdued lands, and they have been rumored to have fallen at the hands of the Magician. But Meyer, you are only a boy from Vanroc, raised most your life isolated from the greater world. Even afterwards, you spent but several months in Eldrin's Dale, a protected utopia meant for nourishing young magical minds. You do not know the world and you do not know the Magician."