The Curse in the Gift (The Last Whisper of the Gods Book 2) (4 page)

Now clean and dry, Sorial rose from where he was reclining and mounted the wyrm’s massive neck. As was his habit, he scratched it behind the ear holes, mimicking what he had done with horses during his years as a stableboy. The wyrm most likely didn’t notice the touch, but it provided Sorial with a sense of familiarity. As soon as he was firmly seated, the wyrm dove.

Riding the worm required not only the skill to hold on, but the ability to link with its unique method of travel. Sorial had learned quickly how to phase through the earth; during his first trip, he had suffered numerous bruises and scrapes. Since then, injuries had become increasingly less frequent and were never serious. He began experimenting with a process by which he might eventually be able to bring someone with him, using his powers to provide them with protection.

Sorial didn’t fully understand how the wyrm traveled. It moved through the earth like a fish through water, passing into all manner of solid material with minimal displacement. It could not traverse fissures, caverns, underground waterways, and magma in this way. If it encountered those, it would detour around them. Large rock masses didn’t deter it; it passed through them with no more difficulty than loosely packed dirt. While riding the wyrm, Sorial didn’t need to breathe in a conventional sense - there were microscopic air pockets all around that he could tap into. He could “swim” on his own but at a greatly reduced speed. The more time Sorial spent underground, the more convinced he became that, for one such as him, earth was like water only more dense.

It took less than a quarter-hour to make the trip from the pool to Sorial’s cavern. His temporary “home” was an eerie place more than one hundred feet wide at its center - the kind of closed-in area many humans would find uncomfortable. The air, fed only by tiny passages to the surface, was stale and close. An underground stream passed through the middle, entering and exiting through openings in opposing walls, and gurgling as it moved along. Small fish swam in the current and Sorial had devised a way to move earth beneath the water and trap them so he could scoop them out with his hands. Once cooked, they were tasty, but there was so little flesh on their bones that he had to consume more than a dozen to fill his belly. Phosphorescent lichen populated the walls, ceiling, and part of the floor, spreading as free and as far as ivy and filling the cavern with a ghostly illumination. Until his trip to the surface today, Sorial had forgotten what natural colors were like. Although the floor was relatively smooth, massive stalactites dangled from the ceiling. Sorial had probed them for their history and saw how it had taken millennia for them to form from the deposits left by droplets of water that seeped through the porous roof.

After dismissing the rock wyrm to hunt a meal, Sorial sat cross-legged on the floor near the stream to resume his self-taught “lessons.” It was only then that he realized how tired he was. Losing track of time in this environment was easy; Sorial ate when he was hungry and slept when he was tired. The rest of his days were spent exploring his new abilities and contemplating his place in the world. How long had it been since he last rested? At least three meals ago. Twenty hours, perhaps thirty. It was common for him to forget about sleep but not a good idea. Magic worked best when the mind was sharp; fatigue was an enemy. Sorial thought that if he ever went into battle, it would be after a full night’s rest. That, of course, presumed he had a choice in the matter.

He lay on the floor with his head and back touching hard stone. Although naturally cool, it offered surprising warmth the longer he reclined, almost as if it absorbed his body’s heat and radiated it back. With the exception of the sounds made by the stream and the occasional dripping of water from the slick, moist ceiling, the cavern was wrapped in a perfect cocoon of silence. Sorial briefly wondered whether The Lord of Water would feel comfortable here, close to his element but surrounded by so much of another. That was a question for another time and place.

As Sorial began to drift off, his reflections turned inevitably to Alicia. Here, on the cusp of sleep, he could think about her without analyzing the precariousness of their situation. He could remember her beauty, recall the sweetness of her scent, and become aroused by as-yet unrealized fantasies. He needed Alicia. But how long would it be until he could have her? That was the damnable part of his situation.

CHAPTER FOUR: THE LORD OF FIRE

His name was Justin, but they called him The Lord of Fire. The title was hard-earned but, despite the blood and sweat that had gone into it, it was hollow. As yet, he was Lord of Nothing, unless one counted the rag-tag band of misfits who had chosen to follow him and named themselves his “army.” Some day in the not-too-future, however, he expected the whole of humanity to acknowledge him as its sovereign. Then he would truly be The Lord of Fire, one of four who had inhaled the last breath of the gods and used it to bring order and balance to a world that, left to its own devices, would surely destroy itself.

Justin was a surprisingly small and fragile man for someone with his fearsome reputation. He had a gaunt frame with abnormally long limbs and thin, delicate fingers that court musicians would envy. The pasty, translucent skin of his face stretched tightly over his skull, giving him a ghoulish appearance. His crown was bald but there was a sparse growth of silver hair on his chin and upper lip. At age 39, he looked twice his age. His most arresting features were his eyes: deep brown, they flickered with an orange/red glow that could be seen most clearly in the dark. It was an affectation - one he had consciously adopted upon coming into his powers - but he was proud of it. People who faced him knew he was no ordinary man.

Justin luxuriated in the heat of the southern Forbidden Lands, near to the Great Wet Jungle that few men from the human cities to the north had seen. It was here, close to the location where he had come into his powers, that he had established his army’s camp. He believed this to be a portal the supposedly all-wise Ferguson knew nothing about. It was nice to have knowledge of which his former mentor was ignorant. Justin liked having the portal close. That way, when one of his recruits displayed the necessary potential, the trip could be accomplished in less than two days. There might also come a time when the portal would again serve Justin. Wizards could only pass through once and survive, or so it was said. But there were ancient documents that hinted at another possibility - documents that formed the basis of Justin’s greater scheme. The Otherverse beckoned and who was he to deny its siren call?

He was a patient man, which was fortunate, since the plan he had set into motion had evolved not over weeks and seasons, but years and decades. His greatest concern was that he wouldn’t live long enough to see it come to fruition. Based on his understanding of the history of wizards, gleaned through the perusal of all the great libraries across this continent and another, he was among the oldest of his kind. Most wizards burned out before the age of 30. Even the two greatest, Malbranche and Altemiak, didn’t live longer, although the exact dates of their deaths were lost in the mists of time, unrecorded by the hand of any scholar.
If
they had died, that is. Justin wasn’t so sure and that possibility excited him. Immortality wasn’t much of a temptation - the end-game of the gods proved it was more of a trap than a boon - but the potential of discovering new avenues of power and accomplishment was a great enticement. He didn’t want to live forever but he wouldn’t mind clinging to this existence for another few decades, or even centuries.

For now, however, it was all about waging war. A nasty business, to be sure, but a necessary one. Humankind couldn’t be brought together under a single banner without shattering the allegiances that currently dominated the continent. There were six major cities - Vantok, Basingham, and Earlford in the South, and Andel, Obis, and Syre in the North. When Justin was finished, many of those bastions of human habitation would no longer stand. Not that men wouldn’t rebuild. In fact, Justin would encourage that. But the new settlements would have new names and new leaders and all the survivors would swear allegiance to Justin’s council of four rulers: The Lord of Fire, The Lady of Air, The Lord of Earth, and The Lord of Water.

Right now, the matter of The Lord of Earth was giving him indigestion.

For many years, Justin had relied on Ariel, The Lady of Air, to be his eyes and ears across the continent. It made sense considering that she could ride the winds far and wide, covering more distance in a day than he could in a week. Fire had many strengths but speed of travel wasn’t one of them. Justin couldn’t fly, burrow under the earth, or swim the seas. Walking (or being borne on a litter) was his preferred means of moving from one place to another. There were ways he could teleport, but that could be inconvenient, requiring heat sources on both ends. So Ariel became his chief gatherer of information. Without her, he would be blind and deaf, cocooned in his own small corner of the world. Unfortunately, she didn’t always disseminate everything she learned. She was selective and, as one might expect from someone fostered by Ferguson’s disciples, she loved secrets.

One case in point related to her younger brother, Sorial, whom she had watched from afar since his childhood. Her air-granted ability to alter her physical appearance had allowed her to interact with him in occasional incidental ways. Justin had known about Sorial as the latest in Ferguson’s lineage of can’t-miss candidates, but he had never considered him either a threat or a serious contender for one of the wizards’ positions. More fool him - he had known Ferguson of old and should have realized that the crafty old man wouldn’t have bothered with Ariel’s brother if there wasn’t legitimate potential there. Now, to Justin’s detriment, that potential had been realized. Damn and blast!

Ariel had known as well. She had seen early on that he was no mere pretender. As Justin had learned from her a few weeks ago when she confessed her decade-long obsession with the boy, she had watched Sorial’s progress under the tutelage of Ferguson’s lackeys and contrived several encounters. Her goal, at which she failed, had been to divert him from Ferguson’s path. Sentiment had been a driving force and there had also been perhaps an element of jealousy. Ariel had offered Sorial aid and cryptic advice, but he hadn’t been swayed. Justin would have expected nothing else and, had Ariel consulted him, he would have told her as much. Ferguson was a brilliant manipulator and the stubbornness Sorial had exhibited was a family trait. Justin had never known anyone more intransigent than Ariel.

Justin’s plan was to cultivate likely candidates culled from the ranks of those who had joined his forces - those who, when brought into close proximity to a portal, heard its call. Age was apparently an issue - men who hadn’t matured sufficiently to impregnate a woman and girls who hadn’t shed their first woman’s blood were blocked, even if the potential was there. Thus far, his efforts had met with meager results - only four legitimate candidates, three of which needed seasoning before facing a transformation. Eventually, Justin expected to develop a Lord of Earth and a Lord of Water in this manner, both owing allegiance to him. They would be treated as equals as befit wizards but their loyalty would be to him as a mentor. Unfortunately, Sorial’s elevation complicated matters. Sorial was not Justin’s acolyte and never would be. He was Ferguson’s. After all these years, the old man had finally achieved his lifelong goal. Damn and blast!

Could this complication have been prevented or at least managed? Certainly, it would have been simpler if Ariel had come to him from the first. Justin would have preferred to implement his own plan of seduction rather than merely trying to undermine Ferguson’s. Instead of implementing a scattershot and ultimately ineffective plan to keep Sorial from becoming a wizard, he would have encouraged it and offered friendship and fraternity - whatever enticements Ferguson had presented and more. But now, it was too late. The Lord of Earth had been pushed into a position of opposition. Things had evolved to where Justin would have to kill Sorial. What a waste. When it came to identifying targets with an aptitude in earth magic, Justin had marked a lone candidate - a thirteen-year old boy who had been tested only two weeks ago after waking from a dream with sticky loins. To have had a chance to recruit Sorial, to have stolen him away from Ferguson... it was frustrating to contemplate what might have been. If only Ariel hadn’t been so damn stubborn. If only she’d been able to see the bigger picture and come to him earlier. If only, if only, if only...

Killing a wizard was no simple matter. They could die as easily as any man, but getting to them, especially by magical means, was a tricky thing. Sorial was inexperienced but he would be wary. Ariel had warned him that if he went through with the transformation, she would destroy him - another foolish misstep on her part. Far better to get him to lower his guard and believe he would be welcomed unconditionally into a society of wizards then ambush him at the right moment.

Ariel was one of the smartest women he knew, but she was capable of making catastrophically bad decisions. He understood the root of it: her older brother, the would-be wizard, had died because Justin preceded him to a portal by two years. Two boys with an affinity for fire…but Justin had gotten there first. Ariel had long ago reasoned this out and, on some level, she blamed him and it was wont to cloud her judgment. She didn’t trust him when it came to Sorial. And this was the misbegotten result.

“Have you forgiven me?” Her voice came from behind him, sibilant as the wind. She had a habit of sneaking up on people like that. It could be unnerving, especially since he was alone in his command tent and the flap was in front of him. Doors rarely seemed to be a problem for Ariel. She could go anywhere the wind could.

He turned to face her. As always, she wore long, dark robes with a cowl to hide her features. He knew she donned a mask as well. Once, in an unguarded moment, he had seen her face and he could understand why she hid it - a scarred and horrific ruin, eaten away not only by her sacrifice at the portal but by years of magic use. She hadn’t husbanded her resources as carefully as he had. The beauty was mostly gone, but the lingering shadows of it both intrigued and saddened him. It was the promise of a life that might have been had she not given herself to her magic. Now, however, she was a consort to air, and air didn’t care what she looked like. Vanity wasn’t a productive characteristic for a wizard although history recorded many who had wasted their talents on retaining their form and features even as the use of those selfsame powers wasted them away.

“Your rash actions have set back my plans by seasons, if not years.” The words were unnecessary; she knew this. But they had to be said. He hadn’t spoken to her since angrily denouncing her following her confession - something made necessary by the undeniable evidence that The Lord of Earth had come into his power.

“I know. I’ll find him and eliminate him as I should have done when it became clear he wouldn’t change his course. This is my error. I’ll correct it.” Her voice was heavy, betraying a depth of emotion that surprised Justin. She wouldn’t admit affection for Sorial, but he knew it was there. She had watched the boy from afar for more than a decade. How could she not have come to care about him? Ariel might claim she would kill him but Justin didn’t know if she could do it and, if she succeeded, what emotional scars it might leave. But even if he did it himself, he would need her help.

“Ariel, we’re partners in this. We have a common goal. You can’t hide things from me, especially when they’re this important.”

They were as good as married, albeit without a physical relationship. They squabbled like any couple but, in the end, their affection for one another brought them back together. Sex would never be an issue between them. Justin’s price at the portal had been to yield his manhood. He had been gelded, leaving no appetite for the pleasures shared by men and women in the darkness. Ariel wasn’t a virgin but she had taken no lovers since they had met and any desire to do so had dried up. They were well-matched, at least for now - committed to the same plan, at least insofar as Ariel understood it. Justin hadn’t revealed the deeper layer. He was unsure of what it entailed himself. The world then the Otherverse.

“Rectifying the situation with your brother becomes a priority, but we can’t allow it to undermine our overall objective. If anything, the timing must be accelerated. We’re going to have to start treating the war as an imminent event, not some nebulous future thing.”

“Justin, I know you coddle these ‘recruits,’ but we have to step up identifying likely candidates for water. Thus far, there is no Lord of Water, but when one emerges, we want to make sure he’s one of ours.”

The Lord of Fire nodded. She was right about that, but none of those Justin had tagged with an affinity for water was promising, and they were all too young. If Sorial was removed, there was an option for earth, but water was a different matter. He wasn’t sure why. To prevent a rogue Lord of Water from emerging, an option was to watch the portals but there were three of those and only two of them. To have Ariel shuttle back and forth between Havenham and Ibitsal would deprive him of her scouting skills. Sorial’s transformation had made a muddle of his plans. He’d have to rethink everything.

When Justin had devised his campaign to unite humanity and achieve balance, he had done so with little expectation of needing Earth or Water to complete the task as long as they didn’t oppose him. Sorial, if established as Vantok’s defender as was surely Ferguson’s objective, would stand directly in Justin’s path and that was as big an obstacle as he could envision. Sorial’s youth gave him access to greater reserves of power than either Justin or Ariel could tap. They might exceed him by an order of magnitude in skill but sometimes, when it came to battles, raw power could trump experience. Because of the uncertainty inherent in any magical duel, Justin would feel more confident paying an assassin to plunge a dagger into Sorial’s heart. Accomplishing that, however, required access, and gaining access necessitated that Sorial’s location be known. At the moment, he was in hiding. Understandable but frustrating to someone trying to rid the world of his presence.