Meredith Mansfield, Author

Here is Mastan, the mentor from MAGE STORM:

My name is Mastan and I am a mage.  The last mage, as far as I know.  At least, the last of the old order.  What the new order will be, I have no more idea than you do. 

There was a time when being a mage meant certain things.  Mages were always gracious, always offered hospitality to one another.  We offered our services to anyone and never asked more than they could afford to pay.  The rich paid us well.  The poor gave what they could.  There was an order to things and everyone took comfort in that.

Then the wild mages decided that the rules that had kept mages and non-mages coexisting comfortably for generations were too restrictive.  They wanted to be able to do just what they pleased.  They wanted a hierarchy based on raw talent, not wisdom and years of experience.  That created problems for everyone, mages as well as common folk.  Those without magic could no longer trust that a mage would behave honorably.  Some peaceful mages were even attacked.  Those of us who represented order tried to rein them in, bring them back into the fold of civilized conduct.

That ignited the Great Mage War.  At first it was the forces of order against disorder and I joined on the side of order.  But nothing is ever that simple and the war soon degenerated.  There were no longer two sides, but four, then eight, then sixteen, until every mage was set against every other mage.  Great destruction was wreaked across the world until they all killed each other.  All but me.  I am the last. 

My wife and son were casualties of that war, however.  And as I sat alone in the house I had built for my family, I determined that I had to create some kind of legacy.  I would not  have the ordinary kind, passing my knowledge on to my son.  I had to find another.

I tried to rebuild the waterfall that had roared outside my house.  That would also have restored the Long Water and much that was good in the old world.  But I realized I would never complete it in my lifetime.  I taught a young man who came to me, Trav.  But he turned out to be like the wild mages all over again.  I tried to destroy the mage storms, relics of the war, that still wrought destruction.  Even that, I would never be able to complete.  At least I could decrease the threat.

But my legacy found me.  It just walked in the door.  My legacy’s name is Rell.