Reciprocity : Volume 1 of The Fledgegate Cycle Read online

  RECIPROCITY

  Volume 1 of The Fledgegate Cycle

  Jeremy Nagel and Zachary Smith

  Copyright © 2021 Jeremy Nagel and Zachary Smith

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN: 9798724243087

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  RECIPROCITY

  Prologue

  Liu had spent his entire life studying the old texts for the signs of the gate opening; no clear information remained available from the time before the last one. He walked out of the small library where he had been studying, wandering off into the little town that had been built for the express purpose of supporting this building and its reading rooms.

  In minutes, he was clear of the village and found himself standing in front of the gate, taking measurements again, just as he did several times a day.

  They had never changed, not in all the times he’d come here to see.

  He frowned slightly, looking hard at his instruments for a moment.

  Did I just misread that? he wondered.

  The volume of the magic near the gate was showing higher than it ever had, so he gave a deep sigh, promptly cleared the readings on his monitor, and took the measurements again. And again. And again. His knees gave out as he was taking them for the fifth time.

  Sweat formed beads on his forehead.

  But the readings were coming out the same on each occasion, although—obviously—it just couldn’t be. Maybe the device was faulty. After all, he did have to carry it around a lot…

  But faulty it was not. When finally he was sent crashing into the ground, he was forced to admit that maybe the readings had been accurate.

  After all this time, it transpired the magic must be condensing over near the gate.

  The bald-headed young man, wearing his pristine scholar's robes, rushed through the palace as if some great tragedy were about to happen if he didn’t quickly get to where he was headed.

  His eyes were wide, his attire flapping in the breeze created by his own movement.

  “My Queen. My Queen!”

  He rushed through into the Queen’s private dining room, sending the vast oak frame rattling and the doors slamming open against the wall—only to be met by the Queen's personal guards, sword drawn and jabbing at his throat. He almost cut his own neck open as he slid to a halt, his hands up in front of him. “My Queen,” he repeated, over-anxiously, spilling out the words as if they’d been held in some kind of receptacle that was overflowing.

  “The gate is going to open. I’m sure of it! My… my Queen… I’m sorry to have barged in like this.” It felt as though a thousand eyes burned into him, though only a few did, but ones with power. Gesturing hastily at her guards, the Queen motioned them to put down their arms. She sat down her cup slowly and looked at the young scholar for a moment.

  “The gate has opened, you say?”

  “No, not yet my Queen. It will open soon, though.”

  “What would lead you to believe that it will open again after so long?”

  “I have been studying at the gate library for many years, and I found the old equipment that was used to measure magic. I have been checking it a couple times a day for the last three years and yesterday, at last, it began to rise. I checked it several times… So, when I realized it was not a mistake, I rushed back to tell you. The magic has begun to gather near the gate. According to the records of the old scholars, that means the gate will open soon.”

  “I see. But the gate has not yet opened?”

  “No, my Queen.”

  “This is excellent news,” she said thoughtfully. “Do you know when the gate will open exactly?”

  “No, my Queen. The old records are not clear about how long the magic will have to build before there is enough for the gate to open. From what I can discern, it will likely take several months.”

  The Queen turned to her guards again. “Send for my Minister of War. If this information is correct, we will need to begin the tournament with this generation's candidates. One of them may be the first to step through.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  She turned back to the scholar. “Does anyone else know what you told me or how to work your instruments?”

  “No, my Queen. I have been alone in my pursuits in the gate library.”

  She reverted to the guards. “Take him to the jail. Make sure he speaks to no one.”

  The scholar fell to his knees, weeping. No one had ever returned from the jail.

  Two of the guards grabbed his arms and drug him, sobbing and flailing, from the room.

  The guards closed the dining room door behind them.

  “In two weeks precisely, you will take him from the jail and return him to his library, posting only the most trusted men with him. He is to be protected at all costs. If he can figure out when the gate is going to open, he is the most important man in the Kingdom for the time being.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty. May I ask a question, Your Majesty?”

  “Bold. You may.”

  “If he is so important, why did you send him to the jail?”

  “He interrupted my dinner.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty. Of course, Your Majesty. Please forgive my impertinence.”

  ✽✽✽

  Only twenty men were left standing on the field; after a lifetime of training, their numbers had been winnowed down to only these few. The stands around the arena were packed with people, everyone from the nobility and elites of the city to the absolute poorest having crammed themselves in to watch the brutality of the final selection.

  Only one would remain at the end.

  Only one would be chosen to take the first steps, ahead of the military.

  “You all are here to compete for the last time. You know how to win. For the audience, this will be the last man standing in the arena. In previous competitions, you know that I have been the adjudicator. But in this case, this competition has no adjudication, only a winner,” the judge said before ceremonially turning his back on the arena.

  In this competition, no allowances whatsoever would be made for fair play or an equal starting point. Only the strongest or the luckiest would continue.

  His back turned to the arena, the adjudicator shouted with no warning, “Begin!”

  Without hesitation, Hazk launched himself into the center of the group, drawing his blunted sword as he moved. The pommel of his blade slammed into a man’s forehead, knocking him unconscious before anyone else had begun to move. Before most of the men in the arena had realized that the fight had begun, Hazk had four of them stretched out on the ground. Even with
the blunted sword, it was questionable whether a single one of them could survive.

  Only one would be allowed to continue.

  Because of this, Hazk had selected his first opponent as soon as he heard that the final selection would be battle-royal style but no one remaining was weak or unskilled. They were powerful men, but he had trained against them all since they were children.

  He knew all their strengths and weaknesses almost as well as his own.

  Hazk ran toward his chosen target, his quarry, and knew that he would be receiving an attack quickly. He was the strongest, for sure, but even that did not allow him to rest or to believe himself more powerful; those were the thoughts of a losing man, and he was determined not to become one of those. He knew if they worked together, they could beat him.

  So, he grabbed the man by the arm as he ducked under him.

  He grabbed the man’s waistband with his other hand and spun him across his back, then deftly used the other man’s body as a shield from the fireball that had been launched towards the back of his head. The man in his grip took the full force of the fireball in the chest, his fight ending there, almost before it began.

  So, now it was three down. Hazk’s heart rate could go down a notch and he could breathe again, letting out the breath he had been holding onto, and pulling in another.

  Hazk dropped his human shield and fired a fireball back toward the place from which the first had been launched. Not waiting on his counterattack to land, he kicked the falling body of his shield to the right, hoping to tangle the fighters there in it. Instead of following it, he dashed left and took advantage of an opening to bring his right elbow down on the back of the neck of another fighter, one already engaged in battle.

  The distraction of Hazk’s elbow was enough for his opponent to take another fighter out of the match. Magical attacks flew around the arena.

  Fireballs scorched the earth and walls. Lightning blasts cratered the field.

  The protected walls of the arena seemed barely enough to stand up to the devastation within, and even the misses scored hits on the opponents behind them. The ground shook as Hazk launched himself at another warrior, and the seismic wave erupting underneath the stadium dropped a combatant to the ground, the ripples pulling him under, burying him.

  Hazk ducked under a wildly swung sword that came in his direction.

  Finally, being forced, he drew his sword to parry the two simultaneous spear thrusts by his opponents. Both fell to his sword in seconds. Five down.

  Surveying the arena, the moment after they fell, he found only eight of the group remaining on their feet. The remaining fighters came together in a rush. Seconds later, only four remained. Those four looked at each other as if weighing one another up, deciding who to fight next, who might be the surest, the weakest, the one certain to lose. It was always going to come down to them.

  The strongest four were all who still stood.

  A slight twitch of an eye informed Hazk who his opponent would be, but the twitch was one of hesitation, not selection. Hazk didn’t give him the chance to react. Throwing himself through the air, he felt the fine hairs on his neck rising with an electric charge just before the bolt of lightning fired by another of the combatants knocked him off course.

  Hazk rolled to his feet, quickly shaking off the hard landing.

  Turning to confront the mage who had fired the lightning, Hazk saw that he was already lying prostrate on the hard earth.

  Defeated, the other two remaining fighters, acting in tandem, had put him down.

  The men spread apart slightly without breaking eye contact, forcing Hazk to look back and forth between them. They intended to fight together to bring him down, and he recognized the great honor they were showing him at that moment.

  Hazk slowly took a deep breath while he considered the situation.

  A two-front battle, then.

  They gave him the moment he needed to breathe, and that was their last mistake.

  Hazk now reached for his power; he had only used it lightly since the fight had begun, and calling it to him now, he felt it swell and build. As he exhaled, he commanded its release, everything he had, in one instant. The blast of plasma that erupted out of each hand vaporized his opponents and destroyed a section of the arena’s protective wall behind them.

  Turning to the nobility on the side of the arena not far from the destroyed wall, he dropped to his knees, bowing his head to the blood-soaked floor with its now reddened, loose earth that boasted the stains of many prior bouts and vast quantities of men’s blood.

  “Forgive me. I may have gone too far. I assumed they were as powerful as I and could survive the attack.”

  ✽✽✽

  Ten millennia before the coronation of the Age of Khaxn-Ti, of which 230 years had passed, the denizens of the planet had developed a system of written communication, its express purpose being to chronicle a comprehensive history of the people. All significant events and discoveries were recorded in grand detail, while failures were documented as thoroughly as successes. Nothing was censored from this collection of learning.

  Every decade, a new volume was added to the archives, each one given a title indicative of the most notable event within it. And to protect the integrity of The Annals, no changes would ever be allowed to previous volumes since history would not be allowed to be rewritten.

  A society was created, known as The Scholars of The Annals of Qu-Ai, charged with protecting and updating The Annals. All citizens of Ma-Ti were given a condensed version of The Annals during their coming-of-age celebrations, and these versions contained the knowledge deemed most instructional and important by the Scholars.

  Hazk meditated in the Padmasana position, seated before the chaos of the newly reawakened portal. He had been training for this mission for ten full years now, though no amount of training could completely quash his unease.

  In fact, preparations for this day had begun decades before Hazk was even born. Like all children born of Ma-Ti Blood Citizens, he had been removed from his parents’ care at the age of five and delivered to a regional training academy. The starting curriculum was the same for everyone, and here, they learned the basics of magic, weapons skills, and scholastics.

  As the students progressed, their training was molded to fit their strengths, so by the age of fifteen, he had been selected as a candidate for portal missions, and for twenty years, he was tutored by scholars, warriors, tacticians, and dozens of other subject matter experts, preparing for the portal’s return. The time for training was now over, and Hazk opened his eyes, stood, and walked through the portal.

  Stepping through a fledgling portal was described in the Annals as imparting a feeling of being reborn. Through rigorous scholarly study and interpretation, it was concluded that the transition would feel like a sudden rejuvenation, a lightening of the weight of life.

  Well, their conclusions were certainly wrong.

  The ancients’ description was literal and to the point. At the dawn of its reopening, travel through the portal was not unlike being squeezed through a narrow and cramped birth canal, the body simultaneously stretched and compressed as it moved and was pushed toward the light at the other end. The distance traveled was unknowable, and the stars on the other side did not match any observed cluster or constellation.

  Travel time through the portal was well documented, taking precisely 1/32 of one planetary rotation to finish the journey. The time dilation between planets, relative to those traveling in the portal, was measured in weeks, and a question couriered to the other side, if granted an immediate response, would take a month to be answered. These phenomena would purportedly lessen as the portal aged, and differences in magical essences reached an equilibrium. Travel would then become near instantaneous and feel like walking through a cold cave. This transition took years, precluding an immediate large-scale return to the sister planet.

  There had been much debate as to whether the rulers of this world would keep the portal zone
guarded, but their contact in Hasdingium had been adamant that the portal had been abandoned. Communication had been sparse over the centuries, the drought of magic having limited the use of the communication stones to once a year, and the only remaining stones were in possession of the Southern Kingdom.

  Making matters worse, Hasdingium had lost contact with its spies sent to the North.

  Hazk’s trip through the portal ended suddenly and violently, depositing him on the ground with no trace of either grace or dignity.

  “Rejuvenating, my ass,” he mumbled, regaining his feet and dusting himself off.

  As he took in his surroundings, Hazk was shocked to see that the portal arches perfectly matched the illustrations he had studied in the Annals of Qu-ai.

  The blood of the dying guards began to soak into the parched ground as the ropey muscular man looked around for the first time, his black hair pulled and tied back, and the sides of his head shaved in the manner popularized by the Royal Family.

  His armor was lightly decorated and heavily scarred from a lifetime of combat, while a long sword hung at his side undrawn, and the spear in his hand slowly dripped.

  He was a tall and muscular man, with the sides of his head shaved, and a long braid hung over his shoulder and down his chest. It was completely black except for a thin silver strand running through it. His clothing and armor were unremarkable but the man himself would be hard to miss, his eyes also holding a look of destruction that had been carefully contained.

  Content that there were no others around, the man pulled on the rope behind him, pulling a small cart through the mirror. Hazk reached into his pack and removed a prewritten message that he tossed behind him through the portal.

  In two weeks’ time, Ma-Ti would know that the portal was functioning correctly.

  Hazk took one last look around the portal, then turned toward Hasdingium.

  Godegiselern, the Hasdingium Empire’s capital, was built on a narrow peninsula at the southernmost tip of the realm. Its location limited attack routes and allowed for the build-up of an impressive defensive infrastructure. The primary defense, a 30’-high wall, bisected the land at its narrowest point. The wall being manned by the Hasdingium army, any attempts to sneak into the capital would be met with death. The deep water ports surrounding the capital, coupled with the Hasdingium naval forces, made taking the city by siege all but impossible.