Black Halo (83 page)

‘Roughly a year.’

‘And you can still recall the lessons that enabled the practice of your studies?’

‘My master taught me much before I left him.’

‘Ah, so you are tutored instead of academy-trained.’ Bralston sniffed. ‘There are few like you anymore. Tell me, did your master teach you the Pillars?’

‘Of course. We covered them the moment I set foot in his study: Fire, Cold, Electricity, Force …’

‘Those are the Four Noble Schools,’ Bralston replied, ‘the ends of what the Pillars are taught to control and use properly.’

‘Aren’t … aren’t they the same thing?’

Bralston paused, fixing that scrutinising stare upon Dreadaeleon.

‘This is the problem,’ he said, the despair evident in his voice, if not his eyes. ‘Venarie is a subject of law. Law is a matter of discipline. Discipline is made possible by the Pillars.’ He counted them off on his fingers. ‘Rationality, Judgement and …’

There was a long pause before Dreadaeleon realised he was awaiting an answer. The boy shook his head and Bralston’s eyes narrowed.

‘Perception, concomitant. Rationality grants us the clarity to recognise threats and potential alike. Judgement is what permits us to act as we must in the name of the Laws. Perception bridges the two, acting as recognition of the situation and rationalisation of the proper response.’

‘How can my perception be called into doubt?’ Dreadaeleon replied. ‘Did you
see
what I did last night? Who else would have thought to destroy a heretic by bringing a
giant sea snake
down on him?’

While Dreadaeleon couldn’t
see
the childishly eager smile spreading across his face, he was made instantly aware of it by Bralston’s quickly deepening frown.

‘It’s
not
about spitting ice and hurling fire,’ the Librarian said. ‘The difference between using them as a means of enforcing the Laws and using them as means in themselves is—’

‘Perception?’

‘The difference between a member of the Venarium and a heretic,’ Bralston corrected. ‘Your time amongst these adventurers is what concerns me. How much have you done to enforce the Laws?’

‘I’ve … I’ve been enforcing them.’ Dreadaeleon rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I was the first one to encounter the longfaces.’

‘And yet you continued on with your companions instead of notifying the Venarium of their violation instantly?’

‘There wasn’t enough time.’

‘Time is a hindrance of the unenlightened. Wizards cannot claim the handicap.’

‘But I’ve done so much. The tome we’re chasing is—’

‘This tome,’ Bralston replied. ‘You say a priest sent you after it?’

‘Well, he hired us to—’

‘Gold is for the unenlightened, as is religious zealotry. We are concerned with higher matters. Venarie is as vast as it is ever changing. In exchange for the gifts we have, we dedicate our lives to furthering knowledge, to understanding how we, as vessels, relate to this. How have you done that, concomitant?’

‘I would argue that we can only understand how it relates to us by understanding how we, as vessels, relate to others. In fact, just last night I discovered—’

‘Any discovery made in the company of these vagrants is irredeemably tainted by—’

‘
Stop interrupting me
.’

Bralston’s eyes narrowed at the boy, but Dreadaeleon, for the first time, did not look away, back down or so much as flinch. He met the Librarian’s stare with a searching scowl of his own, sweeping over the man’s dark face.

‘This is far too insignificant a point for a Librarian to harp on,’ Dreadaeleon said firmly. ‘I’m hardly the first wizard to extend his studies through adventuring and I’m sure I won’t be the last, yet you act as though I’m committing some grievous breach of law just by being in these people’s company.’

Bralston’s eyebrow rose a little at that, his lip twitching as if to speak. Dreadaeleon, forcing himself not to dwell on the stupidity of the act, held up a hand to halt him.

‘You have another motive, Librarian.’

‘You are certain?’ Bralston asked, a sliver of spite in his voice.

‘I am more perceptive than you suspect.’

For all the ire he had been holding in his stare alone, for all the disappointment and despair he had seen in the boy, it was only at that moment that Bralston’s shoulders sank with a sigh, only at that moment that he looked at the boy with something more than scrutiny.

‘Perceptive enough,’ he whispered, ‘to know you’ve contracted the Decay?’

With a single word, Dreadaeleon felt the resolve flood out of him, taking everything else within him with it and leaving him nothing to stand on but quivering legs that strained to support him.

‘I don’t have it,’ he replied.

‘You do,’ Bralston insisted.

‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘No, I don’t have it.’

‘I can sense it. I can smell your blood burning and hear your bones splitting. I followed it last night. That’s how I found it. Surely, you can sense it. Surely, you know.’

‘It’s nothing,’ Dreadaeleon said.

‘Concomitant, if I can track you across an ocean through it, it is certainly not nothing. In fact, to even sense it at all, symptoms must be forming by now. Fluctuating temperatures? Loss of consciousness? Instantaneous mutation?’

‘Flaming urine,’ Dreadaeleon said, looking down.

‘The Decay,’ Bralston confirmed.

It was unthinkable, Dreadaeleon told himself. Or perhaps, he simply hadn’t wanted to think about it. He still didn’t want to. He didn’t even want to hear the word, yet it was burned into his brain.

Decay
.

The indefinable disease that ravaged wizards, that unknown alteration inside their body that broke down the unseen wall that separated Venarie from body, turning a humble vessel into a twisted, tainted amalgamation of errant magic and bodily function.

It was that which turned men and women into living infernos, turned flesh to snowflakes, caused brains to cook in their own electric currents. It was the killer of wizards, the vice of heretics, the consequence for disregarding the Laws.

And he had it.

He didn’t question Bralston’s diagnosis, didn’t so much as feel the need to deny it anymore. It all made too much sense now: his sudden weakness, his use of the red stones, his altered bodily state.

But then … how did you recover last night?

A fluke, perhaps. Such things would not be unheard-of. In fact, Decay’s fluctuating effects on magic often resulted in sudden, sporadic enhancements. It all made too much sense, followed too cold a logic, too perfect an irony for him to deny it anymore.

‘What …?’ he said with a weak voice. ‘What now? What happens?’

‘Your master told you, I am sure.’

Dreadaeleon nodded weakly. ‘The Decayed report back to the Venarium for …’ He swallowed. ‘Harvesting.’

‘We are wizards. Nothing can be wasted.’

‘I understand.’

Bralston frowned, shaking his head.

‘My duties require a survey of the ocean,’ Bralston said, ‘to scan for any signs of the heretic. After that, I shall return to Cier’Djaal. You will return with me.’

Dreadaeleon nodded weakly. A pained grimace flashed across Bralston’s face.

‘It’s … it’s not so bad, really,’ Bralston said. ‘At the academy in Cier’Djaal, you’ll still be useful to the Venarium. You’ll be able to provide services in research, even after you’re gone. And until then, you’ll be cared for by people who understand you for however long you last.’

Dreadaeleon nodded again.

‘Until then …’ Bralston sought for words and, finding nothing, sighed. ‘Try to rest. It will be a difficult journey back.’

He left, disappearing into the village, and Dreadaeleon allowed himself to fall to his knees. Funny, he thought, how the very indication of a disease, the knowledge that life must end, made one suddenly feel as though it were already over.

Ridiculous
, he told himself.
As though you didn’t already know you’ll have to die sometime. Hell, you’ve been with adventurers. You knew death was inevitable, right? Right. At least this way, you’ll do your duty. You’ll serve the cause. You’ll enforce the Laws. You’ll further knowledge. Harvesting … well, that’s just what happens. You can’t begrudge them that. You use
merroskrit.
Someday, your bones and skin will be used by another wizard. Everything is balanced. Everything is a circle
.

He stared down at his hands: hands that had hurled, hands that had held, hands that had touched. He estimated each one would yield about half a page, one full length of
merroskrit
when stitched together. He studied his hands, confirmed this guess.

And then he wept.

Lenk’s first memory of this forest had been one of silver.

That night, long ago, even as his body had been racked with pain and his mind seared with fever, the forest had been something living, something full of light and life alike. The leaves were ablaze with moonlight, as though each one had been dipped in silver. The song of birds and the chatter of beasts had rung off the trees, each branch a chime that amplified the noise and sent it echoing in his ears.

That night, a week ago, he himself had barely had a drop of life left in him, the rest of his body filled with pain and desperation. That night, every time he fell, he could barely pull himself up again. That night, he had struggled to hold on: to life, to light, to anything.

This day, he stood tall. Despite the fresh stitches in his shoulder, he felt scarcely any pain. Despite the night before, he found his body light, easily carried by legs that should have been weaker. Despite everything, he found himself with nothing to hold on to.

And in the unrelenting brightness of midmorning, the forest was a tomb.

Mournful trees gathered together to drop a funeral shroud over the forest floor, each branch and leaf trying its hardest to block any trace of light from desecrating the perfect darkness. Life was gone, the forest so silent as to suggest it had never even been there, and the only sound that Lenk could hear was the wind singing wordless dirges through the leaves.

Had life been a hallucination?

It was not a hostile darkness that consumed the forest, but a hallowed one. It did not threaten him with its shadows, but invited him in. It whispered through the branches, commented on how tired he looked, how awful it was that his friends had abandoned him and let him wander out here all alone, mused aloud just how nice it would be to sit down and rest for a while, rest forever.

And he found himself inclined to agree with the procession of trees. A week ago, when it had been brimming with life, he had fought so hard to draw into himself, to survive for a bit longer. Now, as he stood, relatively healthy and free of disease, he felt like collapsing and letting the dark shroud fall upon him.

What had changed? he wondered.

‘
Reasons, mostly
.’

He nodded. The voice rang clearer here. Perhaps because of the silence, perhaps because he wasn’t fighting it anymore. Perhaps because he recognised the worthiness of its freezing words.

‘Go on.’

‘
Consider your motives between then and now. You clung to belief, then; a strong force, admittedly, but ultimately insubstantial. You desperately wished to believe that your companions were alive
.’

‘They were, though. That kept me alive.’

‘We
kept you alive
,’ the voice corrected, without reproach. ‘Our
determination
, our
will
, our
knowledge that duty must be upheld. That did not come from anyone else
.’

‘It was the thought of them, though …’

‘
It was the thought of her
.’

‘And she …’

‘
Lied to us, as did the forest
.’

Perhaps it had, Lenk thought. Perhaps there had never been any life here. Perhaps it was always dead and dusky. The other voice, Ulbecetonth’s voice, had been with him, even back then, he realised. She was the fever in his mind, the hallucination in his eye, the will to surrender that pervaded him.

And she had bid him to seek the truth, to follow the ice.

The brook that coursed through the forest floor remained largely unchanged, its babble reduced to a quiet murmur, respectful of the darkness. He knelt and stared into it, saw empty eyes staring back at him.

‘She might have been lying.’

‘
Possibly
.’

‘She
did
infect my thoughts.’

‘
She did
.’

‘But then, she also said she was trying to protect me. It’s probably safe to say that I’m no longer considered worthy of protection by her anymore.’

‘
We
did
kill a few of her children
.’

‘Right. So … do I believe her?’

The voice said nothing. He merely sighed. It was a response customary enough not to warrant any greater reaction.