This month’s theme:
“The Twelve Days of Christmas”
By David M. Fitzpatrick
(Images by Xavier Romero-Frias via Wikipedia)

Happy holidays.

“A Magical Gift”
Fantasy
By David M. Fitzpatrick

The purple-leafed oak tree, massive and beautiful, waved in the breeze. It stood before the palace entrance off to the left. Lord Velshar regarded it with painful yearning. It was the empire’s greatest symbol of power and unity—the Tree of Prayers, said to be a conduit for the supplications of the people to the many gods. And Velshar knew that, on this terrible day, he and his colleagues truly needed their prayers answered.

The thirteen Lords of the Imperial Senate sat at the sprawling marble table on the huge platform, before a million people swarming in the valley below. Behind them, Emperor Kalnor Drizh towered high above on the gold-plated throne. The ocean of people cheered in a single roaring voice, but Lord Velshar, the former wizard Velshar the Fine, cold feel the manufactured enthusiasm. The people didn’t love Drizh or the Senate. They hated them all, as they should. They just knew they had no choice but to cheer, lest they be executed.

“Your Imperial Senate is here, as the law requires,” Emperor Drizh’s voice boomed over the sprawling mall, amplified and carried by a minor magic spell worked by Hezz, the Imperial Court Wizard. “Let their will be shown. Should they approve me for another three years, I will serve you well.”

Velshar was sweating. He glanced at the six Senators to his right, the six to his left, saw them all exchanging nervous glances. He remembered their clandestine meeting the night before, when they’d agreed to pound the table. If every Senator did so in unison, the emperor would be dethroned—in theory. It used to work that way, until Drizh took power. In thirty years, none had dared oppose him. Many Lord Senators had been executed. The public show was just a formality; the reality was emphasized by the countless thousands of heavily armed troops overseeing the great crowd below, and the elite royal guards lining the platform behind the seated Senators.

Velshar swallowed hard. They had to do it. He couldn’t kill all of them. Could he? If this worked, he’d get his old life back. He didn’t want to be a Senator, or even just a noble Lord. He only wanted to be a wizard again. To have his magic items, to channel his power… he missed that.

“What say you, Lord Senators?” Drizh asked in his powerful voice.

The thirteen extended their hands before them, ostensibly to raise them high in unanimous salute. Velshar traded looks with his comrades once more, saw several nods of approval.

And with that, the Senators brought their hands down and began to pound on the table. The crowd went dead silent at first, but the Lords grew bold, and began to drum ever harder.

All except Velshar. His hand was frozen in mid-air. He wanted to pound the table, but he couldn’t.

The dozen other Senators realized Velshar wasn’t pounding, and the twelve drummers ceased their drumming, staring down the table at him in horror.

“Most discouraging,” came Drizh’s voice. “But not unanimous. Guards!”

The shock troops surged forward, grabbed the twelve Lords, and hauled them to their feet. A million people watched in stunned silence.

“Take them to the tower,” Drizh hissed. “Let them pass by the Tree of Prayers. Give them the chance to appeal to whatever gods they wish.”

*   *   *

Velshar was brought with them to the stone tower at the front of the palace. It rose a hundred feet above the valley, not far above the purple canopy of leaves atop the Tree of Prayers, where all the million people could see.

The twelve Senators were lined up, backs to the tower’s edge. To one side, eleven pipers from the Royal Musicians played the death march. Hezz, the wizard, was there, his spell carrying the piped march into the valley. Velshar wished he had his own magic again. He’d end this madness with one spell. But he was powerless now.

“Beg for mercy, and I’ll spare you,” Drizh announced. “Refuse, and for your treason you’ll be thrown to your deaths.”

Velshar trembled in stunned silence. He was aware of the hateful eyes of his comrades, who he had betrayed, boring into him. He couldn’t meet their gazes. He among them all had failed, the worst kind of coward…

“Please, Highness, forgive me!” shrieked Bendazar, breaking from the line of Lord Senators at the tower’s edge, diving to his knees before Drizh, begging for his life.

And then Jemmar followed suit, breaking rank to kneel and beg like a frightened child.

Drizh smiled as the eleven pipers played the solemn death march.

“Two wise men amongst you,” he said. “All of you, follow suit, and end this.”

But the ten remaining Senators turned their backs to their emperor—the ultimate disrespect—and joined hands. It was the contingency plan, Velshar knew. It wasn’t supposed to get this far. It only had because of his cowardice…!

“We choose death,” said one of the Lord Senators.

And with that, the ten lords leaped, as one, off the tower, falling between the stone and the purple-leafed Tree of Prayer. The crowd in the valley made not a sound, and not a single Lord screamed on the way down. They all died, their bodies bloody and broken, under the shade of the Tree of Prayer.

Inside, Velshar was screaming.

The last thing he saw before he had to turn his head to hide his tears was Hezz, the wizard, trying to hide his own tears.

*   *   *

Velshar barely slept that night. He considered taking his life—a razor across his throat, or leaping from his cliffside castle to the rocky seashore below.

How could he have done it? All he’d had to do was pound the table, and the emperor would have been gone.

But he knew better of their ill-fated plan. Even if they’d all drummed, the emperor would have declared them treasonous and had them all executed. The military was under his firm control. Magic was all but outlawed, save for the very few authorized by the emperor, such as Hezz, so none could even threaten him. Velshar knew this well; he’d once been a powerful wizard in his own right, before his enchanted items were confiscated—as every wizard’s had, through the emperor’s trickery. He’d been left without his magic, but with his title, his riches, his status. All of that didn’t matter.

Velshar was lost in suicidal considerations when the troops arrived at his door, announcing that the emperor demanded his presence. He was hustled out of his castle and hurried in a carriage to the palace, and ultimately to the throne room. As a Senator, he’d been there before—but never to the rooms beyond. The elite guards took him into the emperor’s harem, occupied not even by the emperor. Velshar was made comfortable on the sprawling pillows.

The concubines entered next. They were dressed elaborately but scantily, full of colors and adorned with jewels. They came in three sets—three of alabaster skin, three of dark complexion and almond eyes, and three of the darkest brown and fullest lips. The nine ladies danced for him for several hours, and then they descended upon him, touching and caressing him.

He couldn’t refuse them, lest he offend the emperor for his generous offer. And so, as the day wore on and the night passed, he had sex with every one of them, and with every minute of pleasure, his guilt ballooned. He’d have traded the magical se for one good magic spell to kill the emperor. Just one of his magic items—never mind all of them!—and he could free his people. But, of course, the emperor had long ago destroyed any chance of that.

*   *   *

He woke with the morning light, and the concubines were gone… and Emperor Drizh stood over him. He clambered to his feet, apologizing.

“No worries,” Drizh said with upheld hand. “I trust you enjoyed my reward for your loyalty. But now it’s time for politics. As the only remaining Senator, the duty falls to you to select twelve replacements from the nobility.”

“I… I don’t believe I’m qualified,” Velshar said, and he couldn’t meet the emperor’s gaze.

The emperor’s face darkened, and he advanced until his big chest was in Velshar’s face. Velshar gulped and forced himself to look up.

“Let’s not play games,” Drizh said. “I know you were with them. I know you were a coward at the moment of truth. You’re as much a traitor in your heart as they were. But it takes a special kind of bastard to do what you did—knowing your friends would die. Surely, if you could do that, then choosing twelve Senators should be easy.

“But I’ll make it easier,” Drizh continued, a sadistic smile spreading across his face. “I’ll tell you who to pick—twelve who will be perfectly loyal to me. Refuse, and I’ll merely send you to the servants’ quarters and install them myself.”

In that moment, Velshar suddenly just didn’t care anymore. He couldn’t undo his wrongs, but he wouldn’t support the emperor.

“I welcome the chance to work as a palace servant,” he said, and he finally met the emperor’s furious eyes.

“So be it, servant,” the emperor spat. “From grand wizard to noble lord, and now to dirty servant. Dream of your lost greatness, wizard, as you toil your wasted life away. Guards—take him to the servants’ corps. And don’t bother taking him past the Tree of Prayer. I have a feeling he has long known that such prayers never get answered.”

*   *   *

The first day was hell. He hauled the eighth cow into its stall, and another milkmaid joined the first seven on another milking stool. There were twenty other milking stables, each with a suffering peasant hauling cows, each with eight milkmaids working hard. Velshar knew he’d never think of the lower class the same way again. Who was he kidding? He was one of them, and always would be.

“I have a message for you,” said the eighth milkmaid.

Velshar blinked in surprise. She was milking, not looking at him.

“Come again?” he said.

“It’s in my apron,” she almost whispered.

He saw it sticking from her apron strings. He reached down, grabbed it.

“Begone,” she whispered, nervous.

He left the stable, opening the note in the sunlight. It read: A spell of flight requires the feathers of five birds. Find me atop the cliff at midnight.

Velshar blinked in surprise, read it again, scrunched his brow. A spell of flight? Of course, it was illegal. But it was an easy enough spell, the kind a first-year wizard’s apprentice could work without needing any magic items to channel power. Even the emperor couldn’t take such simple tricks away. The wizards of the land might not be able to cast fireballs or turn enemies to stone, but they could certainly work basic flight spells. Not a particularly good flight spell, to be sure; it was more a simple levitation spell with the added benefit of slow forward momentum.

But who wanted him to work the spell?

Hezz, of course. It was the only logical possibility.

Velshar hurried off across the sprawling palace grounds in search of birds.

*   *   *

He found a drift of swans on the pond. There were seven of them, and he offered mental thanks when one gave its life. He plucked several wing feathers, dipped their tips and quills in its blood, and stuck the feathers through the braided cord he’d made of several lengths of twine.

There were ample geese at another pond, and he found six nesting with eggs in the reeds. He felt once again treacherous as he broke the neck of one; the others honked in terror as he repeated the ritual and added the bloody feathers to his braid.

The blackbirds were the hardest, but he followed their sounds and found four of them picking at worms in damp ground in a wooded glade. A well-placed stone killed one; the other three called out in frantic pook-pook-pook sounds as they flew off. He bloodied its feathers and added them.

The last two birds were the easiest, and he reveled in their deaths—not that they died, but that he took the emperor’s birds. It was easy enough to corner three hens in the chicken barn, chasing the trio around until he got hold of one. And when he killed one of the emperor’s two favorite pet turtle doves, he was almost glad.

He hid the feathered braid in his mattress and waited for midnight.

*   *   *

He rushed through the pitch-black night through the woods to the mountain, where a sheer granite face rose five hundred feet above the trees. He tied the braid about his waist, girdling him with feathers, and he spoke the words of the familiar spell. It was barely more than a cantrip, but it felt wonderful to cast anything.

He willed himself into the air, floating pitifully slowly upward. When he reached the shelf at the top, willed himself forward, then wafted down until his feet touched the stone. And there, in the moonlight, Hezz awaited.

“Is this is trick to execute me?” Velshar asked.

“Emperor Drizh needs no tricks,” Hezz said. “You’re alive because he delights in your suffering.”

“Then why do you summon me?”

“It’s time the emperor was destroyed—and you must use magic to kill him.”

Velshar laughed. “Then why don’t you do it?”

“Over the years, the emperor bade his corps of wizards protect him with powerful spells—protect him from all of us. Later, he had them executed. I’m the only one left, and he’s protected against anything I can throw at him. But not against your magic.”

Velshar threw up his hands. “What magic? I spent all day just to work this silly, useless spell. Like every wizard in the empire, he confiscated my magic items. Without those conduits, I can’t channel anything—can’t work anything stronger than conjuring a stiff breeze or divining the location of missing socks.”

Hezz’s face lit up now, and he approached Velshar with an eager smile on his face. “I knew when you failed to drum him out that destiny was with us. For you, Lord Senator, you were once Velshar the Fine. Your enchanted items were the result of five generations of your powerful family. It is said that those five artifacts are some of the most powerful of the modern age—and you, as such, the most powerful wizard the land has seen in generations.”

“That’s why Emperor Drizh took those items,” Velshar said, seething through gritted teeth. “He stole my family’s honorable magic and installed me as a puppet Senator—with promises that, if I behaved, one day I’d have those items back.”

“You know he’ll never return them. But I can.”

Hezz held out his clenched fist, and Velshar looked at it, stunned.

“You’re not saying…?”

“Magic items are indestructible. Who do you think the emperor charges with their security?”

Hezz unfolded his fingers. The items in his palm lit up the night with golden brilliance.

“My magic items,” Velshar breathed, wide-eyed. “The honor of my ancestors. The power of my family.”

“The salvation of this empire,” Hezz said.

Velshar grabbed the five rings and fed them on the digits of his right hand, feeling power coursing through him as he did. He seemed to emanate a bright yellow glow.

“I’ll avenge all who have suffered at the emperor’s hand!” he cried, and with that he leaped into the air and rocketed faster than any horse, streaking like a golden missile through the moonlight for the palace and the emperor’s rooms.

*   *   *

The valley filled with more than a million the next day, and they cheered endlessly—and there was no manufactured enthusiasm this time. Velshar smiled at the sound. He wasn’t sure if he’d taken the first step to redeeming himself, but he knew he’d given the people a great gift.

In case anyone far off might not be able to see, Velshar worked a spell that magnified what those up close could clearly see, and broadcast this image a thousand feet tall in the sky. Everyone saw the body—burnt, bloodied, broken—hanging by its neck from the purple-leafed oak at the palace entrance.

The free people reveled at the sight: Emperor Drizh in the Prayer Tree.

David M. Fitzpatrick is a fiction writer in Maine, USA. His many short stories have appeared in print magazines and anthologies around the world. He writes for a newspaper, writes fiction, edits anthologies, and teaches creative writing. Visit him at www.fitz42.net/writer to learn more.