Rise of Shadows (18 page)

The next morning when I awoke I saw Shea, who looked much better than when I had last seen her. She had changed into clean clothes, and there was a gentle aroma of some kind of flower about her. She must have had a bath because, for the first time since I had met her, her hair was clean and flowing around her face, instead of the tangled mess it had been.

“How are you doing, Dusty?” she asked.

I got up begrudgingly from the soft animal-skin mat where I had slept, which felt like a little piece of paradise compared to spending the better part of a week traveling on foot and sleeping on hard, unforgiving ground. “Better,” I said, but then the memories of the previous day came slamming in. “Where is Craig?” I asked.

“Resting,” she said. “By the time the patrol had found him, the sorcerer had left him for dead.”

“Will he be all right?” I asked.

“The priests think so, but he is in for a long healing process,” she said. “Come, let’s get some breakfast.”

“Can I see him?” I asked.

“No, he needs to rest,” she said and then took me to a large room where some humans served us a meal of meat that I did not recognize. I ate in silence, trying not to think about how I had failed these new friends. After all, I am the wizard; I should have protected them from the sorcerer and not fallen victim to his charms.

“Dusty, it could be weeks before Craig can travel again,” started Shea. “I do not think you should wait. You need to get back to your people and your war.”

“It’s doomed! I’ll never make it in this world alone,” I said.

“Nonsense! We will make it. After we eat, we will head out into the town and buy supplies for the trip,” she started.

“We?” I interrupted.

“Yes, we. Did you think I was going to abandon you?” she asked.

“Well, I thought you would stay with your brother,” I said. “Won’t he be upset if you leave him behind while he is hurt?”

“He’d flay me alive if I sent you off alone,” she said. “Now, neither of us has any money, but Craig is well-known in these parts, so we can probably buy some stuff on his tab,” she said.

“How are we paying for this food, then?” I asked.

“Dusty, this is a temple of Light,” she said as if that cleared everything up.

“Okay, does that mean you have some relationship with them so that you don’t have to pay?” I asked.

“Yes, but beyond that they feed the poor, like us, for nothing. They also provide free healing services,” she said.

“Wow, that’s really generous,” I said.

After eating we left the temple and headed into the town where we found various different outdoor shops with many creatures of different races shouting about the superiority of their wares. Having traveled to tourist locations in my own realm, I knew enough to ignore them, and Shea seemed to be on a direct path to somewhere special. Soon we arrived at a small shop which, unlike the places we had passed by, was contained inside a building. Inside were a large variety of random goods that did not really seem to share a common theme. While Shea spoke with the storekeeper, I wandered around and examined the odd array of wares.

A small hand axe caught my eye. It was made from a single piece of metal and had some type of animal skin wrapped around the handle to provide a firm grip. It was light, fast, and glowed faintly to my magical awareness. I could not tell what the magic was, but it was one of the few things in the shop that was enchanted. That gave me an idea, so I picked it up and walked over to Shea and asked, “Do we have enough to get this?”

She looked at me with surprise and said, “An axe? Well, maybe, but our limited funds would be better spent on food and other necessities of travel.”

“Shea, I can use this,” I said while still working out how to do what I planned.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, that axe would use up all your credit,” said the shopkeeper.

“It’s worth it,” I said, and then I walked up to him and said, “Hold the rest of this stuff, if you do not mind, and we should be able to square up by tomorrow.”

“Certainly,” he said.

Shea looked at me and said, “What are you up to?”

“Follow me, and I will show you,” I said. I took the axe and headed out of town into the woods, looking for some nice young growth. After walking for a while, I found a tree with some branches that would fit the bill perfectly. I climbed up and cut some of the branches that were still young and supple and then cut the branches into five forty-centimeter long sticks. “Please keep watch over me while I work. This is still very hard for me and requires all my focus.”

Shea nodded, and I went to work whittling the sticks down while slowly and quietly chanting, “Pyraulous pagou,” over and over, pouring its power into the sticks until each started to glow with power. Soon I had five perfectly straight wands that were each thirty centimeters long and were capable of casting a dozen ice bolts in the hand of a competent wizard.

I looked up from my handiwork and saw Shea had been busy making potions. At some point she must have left and come back because there was food waiting for me. That bothered me a little, but I was too drained mentally from creating the wands to care much about anything other than eating.

As I tucked the wands into my armor and approached the food Shea asked, “Ah, you must be done then?”

“Yes, and I am ravenous,” I said.

“Well then, eat up! I was able to get the attention of a local patrol, and they watched over you so that I could hunt for reagents and get some food from the temple. I figured if you were going to make us wands to sell, I could chip in and make some potions,” she said.

“I’m hoping only to sell one or two, as they will be useful should we be attacked again,” I said.

“I assume those are bolts, then?” she asked.

Each of the offensively focused lines of magic had its own bolt spell that was often referred to by the general name of mage bolt. Since I am an ice-based wizard, my bolts are ice bolts, while Flame’s would be fire bolts. They are the first offensive spell any wizard learns and typically the most versatile to use in combat, as they scaled up with a wizard as he grew in power. “Yes, they are ice bolts,” I said.

“Let’s head back to town then and see what we can get for them. I am sure between one of those wands and some of these potions we should be able to cover what we need.”

We packed up the campsite and headed back into the town. I must have spent the majority of the day working on those wands without realizing it, as it was nearing nightfall when we finally reached the shop where we had purchased the axe earlier. Shea was able to sell him one of the wands and a few potions for what seemed like a fairly large amount of money, as she was able to pay for everything and still had a bag full of coins left over.

Once we finished our business there, we headed back to the temple for dinner, but as we were walking it occurred to me that we could not eat there anymore. “Shea, where are we going to eat now?” I asked.

“The temple, of course,” she said.

“Well, we can’t eat there anymore,” I said.

“Why ever not?” she asked.

“Because we are not poor,” I replied.

She laughed and said, “It’s okay. They accept donations too.”

“Then we should donate extra,” I said.

“How much did you have in mind?” she asked as we approached the temple doors.

“I don’t know, do we have a lot? I’d like to see us cover other travelers like ourselves that might not have wands and potions to sell. Maybe a year’s worth of a group like us eating here?” I asked.

“Wow, that is very sweet of you. We could do that, but it would take almost all of our funds,” she said.

“Then we can sell another wand. I can make more,” I said.

She walked up to the collection box with a huge grin on her face, dropped the entire bag of money into the coffers, and then said to the guard, “Sir, we would like a meal and beds for the night.”

“For you, Mistress Shea, it would be our pleasure. Come on in.

I was not sure what had just happened, but something changed when we made that donation. The world looked a little brighter, and the air seemed a bit cleaner. No, that was not it; it was as if some kind of shadow had lifted, allowing me better perception.

The next day, after selling another wand Shea and I booked passage on one of the many trade caravans that passed through this outpost taking goods between the southern and northern kingdoms. Booking passage on these caravans was nothing like what I would have expected based on my travels back in the Vydorian Realm. Here, when you booked passage it was more of an agreement to travel together in a large group for mutual safety than actually getting passage. We had to provide all of our own supplies and our own horses to ride on.

A horse, as it turned out, was a large beast that had been trained to carry people, pull wagons, and haul supplies for long distances, and apparently at much greater speeds than any human could travel otherwise. I had never even heard of such a thing before and spent most of the morning getting tutored by Shea on the basics of controlling one of these great beasts. Thankfully I had some knowledge of animal husbandry from my years as a prospect, which helped me understand the beasts. It seemed amazing that such a large and powerful creature would obey the gentlest commands, and I was very worried that if it should ever decide it did not like listening to what I asked it to do, it would take off, do its own thing, and there would be nothing I could do about it.

As we left the outpost and the lush forest that had been our home for the past week the scenery shifted to rolling plains of deep green grass. After another day of travel the green grass faded away to reveal a blackened landscape filled with the petrified remains of all manner of people and beasts. The stench over the land was almost overpowering and caused tears to well up in my eyes and made me light-headed. The whole caravan seemed to pick up the pace a little, and everyone was quiet and alert as we traveled through this dark region. Shea, who had been riding next to me the whole time, pulled in a bit closer and clutched the wand I had made for her before we had left town.

“What is this place?” I asked in a whisper.

“The southern edge of the Shadow Lands. We should clear it by nightfall,” she said with a distinct lack of confidence in her voice.

“And if we don’t?” I asked.

“Then we keep riding till we do,” said a man nearby who had a crossbow at the ready while constantly scanning the area.

No one looked comfortable about being here, and true to the man’s words we traveled well into the night until we were back on the grassy plains where we finally made camp for the night. Once we had tended to our horses, we joined a group of fellow travelers that were gathered around a fire. Once we had settled in I asked Shea, “What was that place?”

“It is where the last battle was fought between the sorcerers and wizards in the Second Great War,” she said.

“Aye, that it is: a gruesome, cursed place,” said an older man whom the group had taken to calling Pa. “Those wretched magi, the whole lot of them, we would be better off without them!”

“Sorry, I am not from around here, but I thought the wizards fought to defend everyone from the sorcerers?” I asked.

“You heard wrong, stranger. The wizards fight the sorcerers, aye, but only because they hate each other,” he said.

“Aye, don't be around when they fight. You’ll end up accursed like those vile creatures that live in the Shadow Lands,” said another.

I kept quiet while the others joined in with nothing but foul words for magi of all kinds. From their perspective, the wizards of this realm were only slightly better than the sorcerers in that wizards will not go after mundanes without just cause, unless they happened to be fighting a sorcerer. Then it mattered not at all to them to destroy lands, families, or anything else, as long as they beat the sorcerer.

Several of them had first- or second-hand accounts of unfortunate mundanes that got caught in the crossfire between various magi. One even told a horrifying tale of an entire town being wiped out as horrible, summoned creatures turned it into their arena to fight in at their masters’ bidding. Woman and children were ripped to pieces, and even the warriors of the town fought desperately just to escape with their families.

I was stunned by what I was hearing. Wizards were supposed to be the good guys, the champions of the realm, and should have been loved by all, but here they were considered to be a necessary evil at best. I had no idea how to respond to any of what they were saying, but I was sure of one thing: I would not let them know I was a wizard!

After a while, I got up and went over to our horses where I had spread out my sleeping mat. I reasoned that animals tend to have a much better sense of danger than I did, and any uneasiness in them would wake me. As I got ready to sleep Shea came over, put her hand on my shoulder, and asked, “You okay?”

“I guess as long as they don’t find out I’m an evil monster, I will be,” I said.

“You? Evil monster? By the Light, that must be the funniest thing I have heard all week,” she said.

“Are the wizards here really like that?” I asked.

She sighed and did not say anything for a while, but then relented and said, “Yeah, but not all of them. I know that some of them are better, but for the most part … yeah, exactly like that.”

“And these are the people you are sending me to for help?” I asked.

“Well, yeah, but you are one of them, and they are the only ones that can help you get home. There really is no other choice,” she said.

I sighed and then said, “I suppose so.” After that, I laid down on my mat and attempted to sleep, but it would not come. All I could think of were the stories I had heard about my fellow wizards and how horrible a people they were. One question kept burning in my mind all night long: if this is what it meant to be a wizard, then did I really want to stay on this path?

~~~

Elsewhere, the old man was sitting at his desk watching Dusty and Shea’s interactions with the rest of the travelers in a three-dimensional projection just over his desk. They watched until Dusty was tossing and turning in his bedroll, then the old man looked up at the steel-eyed man and said, “Excellent, the seeds are planted, and he will carry them to Spectra for us.”