Ringwall's Doom. Wolf Awert

council there was little hope that the old, rather pained-looking mage would last long. To their surprise, however, he found some way to prove himself. Malicious tongues wagged, claiming he had been the one to get rid of Tofflas.

      Nill waited with the politeness expected of a youth, but Murmon-Som did not seem intent on adding anything to his greeting. He simply stood there, motionless, his eyes fixed silently on Nill, until Nill felt ever more uncomfortable under his gaze. More to say something at all than because he had thought about it, he muttered: “Is ‘brother in spirit’ not a little… dignified for one such as me? It is no secret that I am no true archmage. I lead no lodge and am little more than a neophyte. I must be the weakest archmage ever to join the council.”

      Nill gave a pained smile; he knew within the first few words that his jest would not reach his fellow archmage.

      Murmon-Som flicked his wrist weakly, as if driving off flies or a bad smell. “You yourself are the secret now, brother. Your classmate Prince Sergor-Don had little effort in defeating you. Indeed, not a sign of great strength. Yet in the tournament you succeeded against powerful sorcerers such as the great Morb-au-Morhg or old Infiralior. You passed under Binja and Rinja’s watchful eyes, and Malachiris, the old wood-witch, could do you no harm. And only shortly afterwards you killed Mah Bu, one of the most powerful archmages on the council.”

      “I never defeated him,” Nill retorted passionately. “He killed himself, because he could no longer control the powers he presumed to use.”

      “Oh, really?” The old man’s laugh was more of a coughing bark than a true sign of mirth. “And who has the power to make an archmage kill himself? An archmage is no simpleton, brother, who makes mistakes so foolish as to cost his own life. Especially not in a fight.”

      Nill grew annoyed at this. He hated praise for accomplishments that weren’t his; quite beside the fact that killing an archmage ought not be counted as one in the first place. “I had help. Was that not mentioned? To this day I still don’t know how I won, but I suppose the Ramsleg accompanied me as a friend, and saved me in the end.”

      “Yes, yes, I heard whispers… the Talon-foot, the Ramsleg and the great Serp. The three great Demon Lords.” The old man gave another bark. “In ancient legends they speak of mighty sorcerers who boasted of meeting one. None of them ever mentioned working alongside one. You claim to know all three. Not that I distrust you – only every explanation you give is more wondrous than the last.”

      Murmon-Som stood still as a statue, immovable, untouched and with a blank stare.

      “And the Nothing,” the Archmage of the Other World continued after a long pause. “You forgot the Nothing, Brother Nill. You may laugh about it, jest about it, but it looks as though you are the only one who can enter without personal risk. Not even the magon can do that. Ringwall housed many future victims of the Nothing, those who poked their noses in too often. These days, the path into Nothingness is no longer a search, it is a way for the desperate to escape their miserable lives.”

      Nill agreed unwillingly. One of Mah Bu’s apprentices had suggested he visit the Nothing to find truth and magical power. In his naivety he had followed the advice and survived the resulting attack. The Nothing had granted him a questionable fame.

      “Not for nothing were you chosen, by the magon and the archmages, to sit the chair of Nothingness, a chair that has been empty for so long, waiting for a master,” Murmon-Som broke the silence.

      Nill wanted to reply that the empty chair was no more than a symbol, but suddenly speaking was incredibly difficult. He felt trapped in the opposing archmage’s aura and could not fight back. He did not even know how he could have fought. He felt as if time itself had become stretched and viscous, forcing its way forward ever so slowly. Murmon-Som did nothing but look, but he did so with such force that Nill forgot where he was. He could not even tell if it really was Murmon-Som holding him, or whether it was one of those magical moments in which time stops and the world ceases its movement.

      Nill began to speak, but he heard his words as a drawn-out howl, incomprehensible to his own ears. He retreated to the symbol of Nothing and made himself light and lighter still. Time sped up again. Nill’s speech formed words, and he heard himself say:

      From Nothing, from the one

      it forms the two.

      At war with itself

      the three seems true.

      Four, five manifold

      in chaos bold

      it breaks.

      Nothing’s magic then takes

      and keeps unseen

      what was done.

      The elemental symbols began to pulsate and lose color, the gentle wind stopped blowing, time moved forwards and Murmon-Som paled. His fingers dug deeper into the wood of his staff, and his already-crooked body bent lower still. Nill noticed none of this. He blinked, looked around in confusion, and finally arrived back in the present.

      “What was that?” he burst out. “I felt time stand still.”

      “Time does as it pleases,” the other archmage replied, having regained his composure.

      “What happened?” Nill look helplessly at the man opposite him.

      Murmon-Som merely shrugged. “I do not know. You spoke, it seemed to me, some sort of summoning. But I did not understand the words you said, nor did I feel their power. I cannot tell whether you were the cause or the subject of magical powers. But there is no doubt that something happened here in the Sanctuary. The smell of magic is fresh upon the air.”

      The old man raised his head and sniffed. “Lots of magic, and powerful at that. Which kind, I cannot say.”

      The archmage made a gesture of farewell, leaving a confused Nill behind. Nill never really knew what he was dealing with. It always felt as though someone was toying with him. Powerless, young and inexperienced in magic, yet at the same time a feared member of the High Council – it was a contradiction that would have confused those with far more knowledge than him. If Tiriwi had her way, he would have been better off turning his back on Ringwall, but she had seen that this was the only place where he could begin his search for his parents. Even more than Tiriwi he missed Brolok’s simple view of the world; fighting and resting, survival or death, food and drink were all he cared for. “Never try understanding the thoughts of an archmage,” he had always counseled. “They occupy a world others cannot.”

      What he would have given to simply shepherd a herd of rams around the hills of Earthland, the sun on his back and the wind in his face! The encounter with Murmon-Som and the sudden standing still of time weighed heavily on his mind.

      “People always want what they don’t have,” he sighed. “And what they don’t have seems to change all the time. But what else can you do but run after those things if there’s no place to rest?”

      *

      The student who had beaten Nill in a fight Ringwall, which was still spoken about, was Sergor-Don, of the lineage of Herfas-San, house of Ombras. As the son and heir to the ruler of the Fire Kingdom he demanded and received the obeisance of all those beneath him in rank as naturally as grass bends in a storm. Only Tiriwi, an Oa who did not recognize the nobles’ right to rule, and who was more than a match for the prince with her own, strange magic, and Nill, the muckling with magical powers yet without ancestry, denied him what Pentamuria’s order commanded. But this alone was not the reason for the intensity of their mutual dislike. Unable to bend the knee, one out of tradition and a sense of royalty, the other out of natural stubbornness, they collided in Ringwall more often than would be usual. It was only a matter of time until dislike became hate, and that hate forced its way to the surface.

      On the day of his departure Prince Sergor-Don had challenge Nill, thrown him to the dirt and left no doubts as to who had more power and strength. But the final, fatal spell was never spoken; the mouth that commanded the insatiable