Chapter 1 - Chapter 1

REIGN OF ELEMENTS           

 

“No, no, no!” Master Steel said in his harsh tone. “You’ve got it all wrong; there is only so much I can teach you if you don’t want to listen!” James sat down and stared at the old elf, he was in a particularly bad mood today and when he was in a bad mood, no one was safe. “You cannot block a disabling charm with a simple parallax symbol! Not only will it provide no protection but it will also enhance the charm!” James looked down ashamedly after three years of education under Master Steel he should know something like that. Looking back up into Master Steel’s green eyes he tugged at the hem of his blue apprentice’s tunic. “Sorry Master Steel, I won’t do it again I promise.” James replied sullenly. “That’s the problem James, you will,” Master Steel said in a less harsh tone. “That’s why you’re here I guess.” The old elf settled down at his study desk and wove interact, complex movements with his hands. Suddenly the tea kettle on the bench flew up, filled itself, flew to the desk and went red hot. In moments it started steam started coming from the spout and Master Steel grabbed it out of the air along with two tea mugs that had zoomed to him as well. He poured hot water into both mugs and dipped in two packets of herbal tea, he then offered a mug to James. Accepting the mug James found a spot on the study room floor and sat there sipping carefully at his mug. He found it hard to down the hot brew quickly but did his best trying not to burn his tongue. When he was done he looked out the window and saw that it was getting close to dark “I have to go home now or my mother will be worried.” James said as he got up. “Yes, yes, tell Maria that I give her my regards and that I’m looking forward to your next visit tomorrow.” James nodded and headed towards the door, he put his hand on the doorknob “Well goodbye Master Steel.” James called. He opened the door and closing it behind him he made his way across the lawn to the east end of Torrent. The scenes he passed on his way home were saddening, huge holes were pounded into great walls, amazing statues of strong, fearsome kings nothing more than rubble. The war of Diamonds had left a terrible effect on Torrent, everywhere people were packing up from a long day of fixing the damage. A merchant ship laden with precious jewels was attacked by the Dark Blades who forced it into Torrent harbor; they had said that if they surrendered the ship they would be left alone. The greed fill Baron Samas would not let them have it for ‘official’ reasons but everyone knew that a great deal of money had exchanged hands. The Dark Blades had made a huge offensive against Torrent but Water Knights sent from the mainland pushed them back led by the famous Blue Water Knight. James had not actually seen him but he had heard from the other boys who watched the battle that had created enormous waves that crushed the enemy’s ships to nothing more than splinters. James wished that he could have watched the battle but his mother had said that it was too much for a child like him; James was not a child he was a fair age of twelve and had learnt much in the way of spell craft from Master Steel. His mother however was prone to disagree. James had one small love in his life, his bedroom window faced the great oceans to the east, James dreamed of one day exploring them while having wondrous adventures.            

 

 “What are you doing out so late?” Stephen asked James when he arrived home. James was too tired from all he had done today to bother answering him, he’d probably find out when his mother started screaming at him again anyway. Stephen was a guard-in-training at the local Water Knight barracks and for as long as he had remembered he had taken on the Water Knight hatred of the Fire Empire. Nearly every dinner he would complain about them until his father banned it at the dinner table, his father was an ironsmith and owned his own forge, it wasn’t the most successful business but he put food on the table. James moved up the stairs as quietly as possible, with any luck he could pretend he was asleep them get up early in the morning so that he wouldn’t have to sit through another lecture on what time to get home was and wasn’t appropriate. No such luck, using her near godly hearing his mother caught him halfway up the stairs. “JAMES! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? YOUR DINNER IS COLD!” She scolded him for another hour about why he shouldn’t get home late and how worried he had made her. Then she sent him back down to eat his cold dinner, when he was done she pulled him, by the ear straight to his father. “What has he done this time?” James’ father said in a tired voice. “Late, again!” She told him. James looked up into his father’s eyes “Don’t even try mister, it won’t work with me.” James’ father said warningly. James received another lecture about when he should and shouldn’t be home then was sent to bed. When he got into his room he collapsed onto his bed without even removing his clothes, it had been a strenuous day and tomorrow was going to be just the same. The next morning James woke with a start, something was in the bed with him. He rolled over and pushed Old Ben out of his bed, the ancient dog tumbled over and jumped off landing with a thump. Old Ben had seen better days, he was the family dog and had been for what seemed centuries, in fact Old Ben was older than he was! Stephen burst into his bedroom, threw the mattress over causing James to fall onto the ground and yelled “BREAKFAST… oh sorry, I didn’t know you were awake!” “Yea, I’ll bet you didn’t.” James replied but Stephen just smiled. He’d get him back for this of course; Master Steel had taught him a get curse that turned the victim’s ears into frog’s legs, the next time he and his girlfriend were smooching… BAM! Stephen frog ears! James amused himself with the image of Stephen with frog legs for ears; while he was daydreaming his Stephen began searching his room. “What are you doing!?” James yelled when he finally snapped back, Stephen look at him then started flipping through his book of spells. Stephen shrugged and continued reading James snatched the book back then pushing Stephen out the door as he went left his room for breakfast. He got down and sat at the table then he scooped some oatmeal out of a large bowl into a smaller bowl of his own. He began wolfing down the oatmeal at a tremendous speed that made his father look at him. “If your mother catches you eating like that she’ll hang you out to dry.” James ignored his fathers warning and continued to shove food down his throat. When he was done James ran upstairs at top speed, grabbed his book then went at top speed back down again. Once he got to the bottom he rushed out the door and made his way to Master Steel’s house. He decided to go through the market instead of his usual rout so he could see the amazing sights and sounds of the market. Running through the market he watched two gruff looking dwarfs argue about the price of some apples when he ran straight into a melon store. Knocking it over James fell in a heap, one of the watermelons he knocked over slid in front of a large half-ogre the half-ogre stepped onto the melon and slipped falling onto the ground.            

 

 The half-ogre got up and looked over towards James; it walked over to him each step making a loud thumping sound. Looking down at him it said in a slow voice “You make me fall, you pay for that.” James looked up at him and retorted “Stand back you brutish fool! I am a powerful wizard and if you don’t get out of my way I will turn you into a goat.” The half-ogre took a minute to register this new information then sized James up, James didn’t even reach his knee but he undeniably had the robes of a wizard. “You have robes of apprentice not proper wizard.” James gave him an indignant look and retorted “I’ll have you know I am very much a proper wizard, in fact if I wanted to I could squash you like bug!” The big lummox smiled and grabbed James by the leg lifting him off the ground. “LEMME GO!” James yelled but the half-ogre just smiled more widely. James tried to remember a spell that could get him out of this situation then he got it, the frog leg curse! James started chanting and wove his hand in a roughly oval shape; suddenly the half-ogre dropped him to the ground. “What you do?!” The half-ogre called in dismay, his ears had now changed into frog legs. James was actually slightly amazed that it had worked, he felt sure that with his luck his ears would have turned into frog legs. “What’s going on here?” Yelled a Water Knight. “Nothing.” James said. “Nothing, you call this nothing?” the Water Knight said looking at the half-ogre. “I hope you know how to set this poor fellow straight.” “I could, if I wanted to.” James said slyly. “Well you had better, unless you would prefer to spend a little time in the prison?” James considered his options and chose fixing it. “Ok, ok I’ll do it.” James said, he quickly fixed the half-ogre then rushed off before the owner of the stand he knocked over realized what was happening. Listening to the shouts behind him but not really caring James only ran faster to get to Master Steel’s house; he really wanted to get there for his lesson today. James reached the door and tried to open it but found it locked, strange, Master Steel never locked his door, he was the strongest wizard in town no one dared rob him. “Master Steel?” James called hesitantly. There was no answer, so James bang on the door louder, something felt wrong. “Master Steel?” James called again louder this time. Still no answer, then James heard a series of clicks from the other side of the door and it opened a fraction. Through the crack James could see a portion of Master Steel’s face, relieved that he wasn’t dead or anything James tried to get a look at what was inside. Before he could the door swung wide open and Master Steel gabbed him and roughly dragged him in. “I am aware of our prior commitment and I have every intention of giving you your lesion today but there is something I must attend to first. He then left him going up the stairs “Wait there!” he called down.            

 

 If Master Steel honestly thought he was going to wait here then he had another thing coming. James was going to find out what happened here somehow, at first he tried the conventional method of trying to walk up the stairs but an invisible barrier blocked his progress. Then he tried to listen in using a meditation technique that Master Steel had taught him but this to failed when he met a strange spiritual resistance. Finally James realized that he couldn’t find out hat was happening if he used anything Master Steel had taught him because he knew all the counters to them. Instead he tried something he couldn’t possibly expect, the upper floor consisted of one room so James climbed up the chimney pressing his weight on either side and shimmied his way up. Once he got to the second floor he put his ear to the wall and heard what was being said, it was muffled so he couldn’t fully hear what was going on. Listening as closely as he could he heard bits and pieces “Yes… hard to do so when you… what if I did…” Then James heard someone else in the room, it was a female voice which sounded as sweet as the honey apples James’ mother made in the summer. “I cannot… gems without help; you know… stakes are, don’t you?” There was silence for a few moments then Master steel replied “I understand… my students need me… if I could possibly…” James could not hear the rest; he tried moving his ear into a new position on the wall. As he tried he lost his handholds, James slid several meters down the chimney then tried and failed to get a hold of something… then fell to the bottom. Hitting the bottom of the chimney James made a huge cloud of dust… and a loud thumping sound, followed by him yelling curses at the pain. A yell came from upstairs and James knew he was in trouble; he got up and tried to dust himself off before Master Steel got down the stairs. He heard Master Steel stomping down the stairs so he tried to make himself look as innocent as possible, if he was lucky he could pretend he had just fallen and that he wasn’t listening. If he was unlucky, well he didn’t want to know what would happen then. Master Steel jumped the last few stairs and took one look at the room, his eyes followed the ashy footsteps from the fire place to James. When his eyes fell on James he could see that Master Steel was in a very bad mood, he looked James up and down and James realized he hadn’t completely gotten all the ash off. James smiled disarmingly “Hello, Master Steel are you done?” He said in the sweetest most innocent voice he could muster with his heart running a mile a minute. Then someone else came down the stairs, James couldn’t gat a clear look at the person because however it was they were wearing a cloak and hood that completely obscured their body and face. Whoever it was she had a slender figure that even the cloak could not hide, magical energy simply radiated from under the hood and James realized whoever she was, she was powerful. The figure looked at James for a moment (or at least he thought she did) then leaned over and whispered something to Master Steel he thought for a minute and whispered back. James tried to hear what they were saying but it was too quite for him so instead he tried to dust himself off at little more while they weren’t paying attention to him. Finally they looked back on him and Master Steel handed him some money and said “Here, take this and go into the market, buy yourself something nice.” Puzzled at why he hadn’t been turned into sheep but still grateful that he wasn’t James accepted the money and ran top speed out into the markets. James bought himself a pinch berry, the huge berries were about the size of a pineapple purple in colour and tasted like a warm summers day. Unfortunately they were best made in winter, and this one was made in spring so it tasted a little off but James gobbled it down anyway. Wondering about what he had heard in Master Steel’s house he once again didn’t notice were he was going and his feet inadvertently led him to the Water Knight barracks. James gazed up at the monstrous building in awe, it reminded him of Torrent’s noble history and the troubles that Ippus, the country where the element kingdoms existed were experiencing hardships. There was much democratic unrest in Ippus, the element kingdoms were fighting each other for territory and revenge, bitter rivalries had torn the country into pieces, none bitterer than the competition between Water and Fire kingdoms, they were the two biggest kingdoms in Ippus. Water kingdom controlled the majority of the sea trade routes and the best seas with the best fish populations. Fire Kingdom controlled the land, Mt. Geoson the biggest volcano in the known world, plus they had all the large trade roads. All the smaller kingdoms Earth Kingdom, Thunder Kingdom and Wind Kingdom were thoroughly sick and tired of the rivalry that let the invading Dark Blades and pillaging bandit fractions destroy Ippus.             

 

 “What do you think you’re doing?” The familiar voice snapped James out of his daydreaming, he turned around and found Stephen storming across the courtyard towards him, ‘Uh oh.’ James thought to himself. Stephen whether he could prove it or not would tell mother that he had been slacking off instead of practicing magic at Master Steel’s house. Maybe if he could get Master Steel to back him up he could escape punishment but he didn’t want to push his luck with Master Steel, this however would mean cleaning dishes and the house for weeks. Still wondering whether his mother would still make him clean the house if Master Steel turned him into a sheep Stephen caught up to him. “Why aren’t you at Master Steel’s? If you don’t get back there soon I’ll tell mother.” James took personal insult to this, he had been working very hard over the past weeks. “Make me!” James replied in a challenging tone. Stephen gave him a superior look, James thought this was ironic considering his biggest threat was telling his mother. “Leave now…” was all Stephen managed to say before alarm bells began ringing. A Water Knight came running up to Stephen and said in a frightened tone. “Captain needs your help, were being attacked by Dark Blades again!” Stephen looked at him and nodded, he ran away Stephen following behind him, he turned around quickly yelling over the panic. “GO HOME! Stay away from the docks!” James watched him run into the crowd and then ran straight towards the docks, like he was going to miss another battle!

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