The Lawgiver blessed by Horsemen: the Story of the Master of Legions
A Magister Negi fanfic for Traingham's 'By Your Enrapture'
Written by Spiritblade
Disclaimer:This story is written on behalf of Traingham for his Magister Negi Magi fanfic, 'By Your Enrapture'. I do not own his story (isn't that obvious?) and the franchise (for if I tried, I will find an army of very angry people on my doorstep). But the Magic World is large enough for everyone, and holds enough wonders to rival Creation.
I give Traingham the right to change the story, so that it fits with his.
Also, one last minor detail: there WERE some minor spelling mistakes and gaffes in the draft I gave Traingham. The fault is mine and not his.
(O)
It began with the Great War.
It began when the arrogant and the ambitious reached for godhood and sought the means by which to make their dreams a reality. It began when powers whose time had passed long ago and those who wished to renew their war against the King of Heaven heeded these foolish princes and kings and showed them the way. But these potentates soon learned – or had known all along – that there was a price to pay to drink from the chalice that would grant them that which they desired.
And they paid it willingly. The Mundus Magicus had two superpowers. To the North was the Empire of Hellas, which was populated by demi-humans, those who had in their veins the blood of the mystical races that were born – or created – in the First and Second Ages. To the south were the human-dominated lands of the Republic of Megalomesembria. For centuries, the two had lived in peace, until an incident turned two great allies against one another. That incident I speak of was the assassination of Hellas's Emperor and Crown Prince at the hands of members of the Devout, a Megalomesembrian extremist faction who wanted to bring the 'impure' Empire of Hellas under the righteous rule of Megalomesembria. One could liken them to the Old World's Nazis and Fascists, and one would not be far off the mark. But the Devout, like so many extremists factions within both Hellas and Megalomesembria, were puppets of a group called the Conclave.
It was they, these cursed traitors, who brought two ancient lands to near ruin; they who sold out their countries and their people for that which their masters – or mistresses – would neither share nor grant. Their schemes had left thousands dead and millions homeless. Cities as old as the world burned or fell from the skies, and the earth and sky were torn asunder as the sons and daughters of this ancient world – my home-world – turned their weapons on those they had once called friend and lover.
Into this inferno were born many heroes. The Thousand Master and the Ala Rubra – the Red Wing, as they were known in the tongue of the Old World – were but one of many. It was they who brought an end to the war. It was they who rallied the world in the face of an ancient enemy who sought to regain their rightful place as rulers of both the Old and Magical World. The final battle was fought in the ruins of the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Ostia, the once grand metropolis whose majesty and legend was still evident in the floating islands and the ten thousand spires that pierced the azure skies in homage to the Unconquered Sun. In a sea of fire, amidst skies where gods, angels and heroes crossed swords, legends were made and fear trembled in the face of defiance. There, in the Imperial Manse, which stood at the city's heart, the Thousand Master Nagi Springfield defeated Ansera, the First and Forsaken Angel, the demi-goddess whose schemes had nearly led to the destruction of the world.
It cost the Thousand Master dearly, though. For a month, he laid in a coma, guarded by his comrades in the Ala Rubra, his lovers and the royal guard and battle-mages of two nations. When he awoke, it was to the cries of a jubilant people, grateful for the part he had played for bringing a terrible war to an end. We know that he did not stay in the capital of Hellas for long. The last time the Magic World had heard of Nagi Springfield was when he imprisoned the Dark Mistress Evangeline A.K. McDowell, an act that served to earn him the favour of the dreaded vampire queen's many enemies. The manner in which he had done so had earned the Thousand Master the admiration of even his most vindictive detractors. He defeated the Dark Evangel not through the sorcerous might which had laid the First and Forsaken Angel low, but by tricking her. Gods, I wish I could have been there when it happened. But enough; you already know this. You know about the exploits of the Thousand Master and his comrades.
Rather than wax lyrical on what you already know, I will instead tell you of what you do not. I will tell you of those men and women whose actions would never equal those of the Thousand Master's but who, like he, delivered the despairing and fearful to a safe harbour. And among those heroes, there are those who are reviled like the Anathema of old.
Maybe I should start at the beginning, and introduce myself while I am at it. My name is William Enders. I am a student at the Ariadne Mage School. I am – was – an inhabitant (one of the last few surviving, anyway) of the town of St. Germaine, which was located on the borders of Ostia, and which was destroyed in one of the last battles that saw to the deaths or imprisonment of the First and Forsaken Angel's generals and champions. I am also the squire and ward of one of the top agents of the Mage Council known as the Master of Legions. It is about him that I write this entry, one that is a repudiation of what most would know about my guardian.
I do not deny that he is a smug, self-absorbed twit whose insolent grin is all that would be needed to start a second Great War. Nor do I deny that his love life would have made even the Caliphs of Hellas green with envy – and the religious authorities in the Old World to excommunicate him in short order. But those are minor issues; the real reason why so many hate and fear him is because of his level of mastery in the Dark Arts. Dark magic is inherently corrosive; it drains the user of his or her very life force in addition to tainting the soul. One's flaws become more pronounced and it becomes more and more difficult for the Dark Mage to rein in his appetites as he progresses further down the Dark Road. But in return, the Mage is bestowed with power equal to that of an Archmage. He has it in him to break the very land and set the sky ablaze. That which was once beyond his reach soon becomes possible. Demons kneel in fealty and the ruling Princes of the Night extend a hand to those whom they deem worthy of patronage.
None walk the Dark Road without good reason. The price, as I stated before, is a high one. No mage with an ounce of common sense crosses this Rubicon without knowing that it leads to your burning the bridge. And my master knows that. His first step onto the Dark Road began when he was but ten years old when his city came under attack by a demonic army led by one of Hell's five ruling sovereigns: Sammael, Queen of Wrath. In the midst of that fierce battle, the Queen of Wrath came upon my master, and arrested the sword stroke that would have killed him as it did so many others. Instead, she asked my master's name and presented an offer. In exchange for serving as her agent on Earth, she would spare his city in which he lived.
Believe me, watching your home burn down around your ears and hearing your friends being turned to mincemeat a street away is a good enough reason to say yes – which my master did. And he knew what he was getting himself into the moment he took the hand of the Queen of Wrath and pledged his fealty. The rest, as they say, is history – some of which I think is best that I keep to myself. Now the question arises: why him and no other? Why a boy who can barely cast a basic Firebolt Charm without burning his fingers and not one who is the school's most promising protégé? Why not the many warriors and mages who defended the city? Certainly, they would have been more suitable for whatever the Queen of Wrath had in mind.
The only answer I can think of after much thought and debate with the demons I have met – some of whom had taken part in the attack on my master's city – is this: Empress Sammael, Queen of Wrath and one of Hell's Five Sovereigns, sealed a pact with my master on a whim. But it was a whim which paid off handsomely. My master is regarded by many demons and rebel angels in the Queen of Wrath's army as one of its chief officers. The fact that my master has at his command numerous Heroic Spirits to act as his honour guard and advisors, as well as an elite legion of no less than 300 lesser demons (which I must point out, is a term given unto all supernatural beings regardless of divine or unholy heritage) makes him one of the most powerful (and uncrowned) Mage Princes in the Mundus Magicus.
Indeed, my master could have made himself just that, his every whim catered to, instead of licking the boots (or pissing on it, as he so often does) of the Mage Council. And yes, I asked him for the reason why he would choose to work for the very organization that would do to him what the Romans did to Jesus Christ. And being the smug bastard that he is, he tells me that the Mage Council is predictable. Everyone (at least most of them) in the organization wants him dead – but every last one of them wants to be credited for the kill (and not in a way that would bring the wrath of the elders of the Council down on their head). The probability of one pack of assassins screwing up the plans of another, in this instance, becomes astronomical.
And it's not only the Holy Order sycophants in the Mage Council who want him dead. I heard rumours that no less than two Dark Lords and three Dark Mistresses want him in the ground. The Lycans have a bounty for the one who devastated the Winter Fang tribe (which my master claim was an accident – he had not meant for that First Age war-strider to go berserk and flatten the tribe's chieftain and reduce his sons to paste). The Heavenly Host want him shackled and locked up in a prison at the edge of Creation for seducing a high-ranking member of one of its Choirs. That incident caused quite a scandal, let me tell you (and left said female angel very, VERY happy). Oh, don't worry – it gets better here on out: the High Elves have not forgiven him for burning half of the Ancient Forest in his attempt to throw a Pit Lord and its retinue back into the Hell it crawled out of, and are most likely trying to arrange an accident in the not so distant future. And the Night Elves – that was the worst one and the most tragic. The Great War – and the Conclave – had corrupted one of its guardian demigods, and it had run amok, destroying several Night Elf communities and corrupting the very land it had once protected. The Mage Council had sent my master in, along with three companies of Holy Knights, to aid the Night Elves to try to seal the demigod. It was an endeavour, however, that came with an underlying warning to the Night Elf mages – they had best succeed in their attempt to heal the psychic wounds of the tormented demigod, or the Mage Council will put him down. Many Night Elves blame my master for that night, but I say that if he had not been there, the nation of Ashenvale would have lost many of its most powerful sorcerers and shamans.
The Dark Evangel once said in a rare interview given to Lil' Mika, the vampire nation's foremost journalist that hatred is a poor reward for heroism, and Death a poorer one for a lifetime of suffering. It makes me wonder who she had in mind when she spoke those words.
Lady Theresa had once told me that the Mage Council tolerated my master for one reason and one reason alone: they need him. They need someone of my master's calibre, a bloody sword that even the dreaded have good reason to fear. And he needs them as well. They are the means to which he can fulfil his oath to the Queen of Wrath when she appointed him her Huntsman. I have good reason to believe that Empress Sammael is fond of my master. She has lavished him with gifts and power, most of which allow my master to channel the tainted energies which would have destroyed him long ago and which allow him to smite his enemies. If she disapproves of his decision to join her enemies or his choice of companions, she does not show it.
My master treasures his friends and lovers. The first are but a handful as most are leery of being associated with a practitioner of the Dark Arts. Most are underworld figures, many of who owe my master a favour that they have no choice but to honour lest he come back a second time to do to them what their enemies could not. The second are (slightly) more numerous, and who warm my master's bed with a frequency bordering on scandalous. Of the 12 female Heroic Spirits that my master has contracted with, 11 share his bed and are most likely plotting to have his daughters swarm him when the time is right. They are not alone. My master's two Ministra Magi are most likely plotting the same thing. The first is Majikina Mina, a shrine priestess who works in the Old World and whom my master had fought alongside on many an occasion. She works as my master's liaison to the Kyoto Mage Association and is one of its finest exorcists and teachers. It was she who created many of the Charms and wards that my master uses to bleed the Taint from his body. The second of my master's Ministra is a woman named Rikku Armisael, who was born in Hellas and who is part of the Morning Star Adventurers' Guild, whom my master had met in the fourth year of his service to the Mage Council and who he and Lady Mina had met when the Devout were pursuing her and her party for the artefact they had managed to unearth from Ostia (which I later learnt consisted of a saddle belonging to the demonic steed of the Apocalypse which my master later rode, a suit of super-heavy jade plate latter worn by Lord Bayard, and three Daiklaves, which my father allowed Rikku and her party to keep as a reward for foiling the schemes of the Devout).
I cannot help but compare my master's lovers to the celestial bodies in the sky. Lady Mina, Lady Rikku and my master's Heroic Spirits are like the moon, the sun and the stars. Some, like Lady Mina and the Heroic Spirit Lilith, are like the moon – wise, gentle, seductive and quiet. Others, like Lady Rikku and the Heroic Spirit Strike, are like the sun – fierce, passionate, warm and sensuous. I have to admit that, without them, my master's personality and temperament would be less than pleasant. With them, he can contemplate a future, even if it is one where they will run him ragged in ways that would make my nose bleed and cause a Saint to faint.
I met them all, that day, five years ago, when my home of St. Germaine was in flames. The local garrison had been all but crushed by the Anathema that was one of the First and Forsaken Angel's generals. The horde that was sacking the city was all but unopposed, and any aid was hours – maybe even days – away. I prayed for a miracle. I remembered praying even as a black-armoured monster lifted a massive sword to end my life, instants before a white-robed, orichalum-armoured rider mounted on a demonic steed thundered past and cut my would-be killer in half with a Daiklave. I remembered the thunderous horn-blast that shook the city, a sound of defiance and a challenge to its destroyers. I remembered a beautiful white-haired priestess clad in Japanese armour leap from the flames, holding a power-bow in one hand, surrounded by Fair Folk Cataphracts, their gleaming, crystal spears ready to meet any threat. I remembered a blonde-haired woman pull me up, a jade Reaper Daiklave resting on her shoulder, a smile on her lips, as over a dozen Beast-men and humans wearing Gunzosha battle-armour and levelling reaper cannons and bolt-guns at the advancing tide of monsters materialized behind her.
'Don't be afraid, kiddo.'
And you know what? I haven't been afraid ever since. I was a child when I lived in St. Germaine. I was a man when I left it. And I will be more when I leave my master's home for the last time. My master and I were born in the days of the Great War. We will die when it is but a memory. But in the days from now till then, what a memory it will be.
William Ender.
Ward of Sheik Muhammad, Master of Legions
Student of Ariadne Mage Academy, Year 2, Class 8
12th December 2012.
Fin.