The Elements of Sorcery (5 page)

I caught up with the Arbiter a few streets away from my lab, huffing and puffing as I tried to make ground on his confident stride. The cool air whisked sweat from my forehead, but I was rapidly overheating and I'd already tripped over my robe more times than I could count.

"Where… are… we… going?" I gasped at him.

He didn't deign to answer, instead continuing his lope through the alleys, hot on the trail like a bloodhound after a rabbit. His manna sword was still sheathed across his back, but every few dozen steps or so his hand would stray to its hilt, protruding from behind his right shoulder. He checked each direction at every cross street; looking at what, I wasn't quite certain.

I followed as he ducked down a thin side alley, and nearly ran into him as he stopped cold. My breath came in wheezing gasps as I tried to catch it; he held up a finger for silence, and I held the air in my lungs for a moment as he listened, head cocked intently.

"They're not far ahead," he said. "Are you going to make it?"

With focus, I was slowly able to return my breathing to normal. Sweat poured off my brow, now that I was no longer moving, but at least I was no longer puffing like a bellows. Swallowing hard, I looked at him and nodded gravely.

His hand wrapped around the hilts of the manna swords on his back and drew them; they came free with a rasp. Cold blue light sprang forth to fill the alley around us, and he strode forward, no longer checking the streets around us, but instead moving with a focused purpose.

Around the corner in the alley up ahead, I could hear voices. Several voices, and it finally clicked in my head that he had said
'they'
.

My brain scrambled for something, anything, an incantation which was fast enough to respond in the face of a vampire and might actually be effective. It was the Arbiter's job to hunt horrors – I was a scholarly sorcerer, a practitioner and a student of theory, not a single-minded destroyer of evil. While my power was far more flexible than his, it was also much weaker, particularly against the darkest horrors of corruption. It could make hash out of a human being surely enough, but against something like a vampire…

We rounded the corner just as a group of three silhouettes disappeared into a dimly-lit doorway. The light from within vanished as the door slammed closed, leaving us once again with only the moonlight to see by.

"Could there be more than one?" Tal asked in a hushed tone.

My mind struggled to recall what I'd read of vampires. "It's technically possible, I suppose, but I've never heard of such an occurrence. They're usually solitary, territorial predators. If they've learned how to work together, though…"

"They might have had the combined strength to kill an Arbiter."

A cold shudder ran through me. "It's possible."

He looked at me, his face seeming pale and drawn in the moonlight. "This isn't your fight. You've done enough by helping me find the ones responsible. If you'd prefer to return to your lab, I will kill these vampires and be on my way."

It was a fair assessment. There was a good possibility I'd actually be a hindrance once the swords started swinging, and he'd just given me an out. I could just go back to the safe, warm cocoon that I lived my days in and continue my experiments and my research, knowing that I'd done what I could to avenge a wrongful death… even if the victim
had
been an Arbiter.

"That's not going to happen," I said, the words surprising even me. "You might be the strongest Arbiter in the world – I don't know you, so I can't say for certain – but against three vampires who already possess the energy of one of your own… you're going to need a wildcard, and I can be that extra factor."

He nodded, though he seemed mildly surprised by my commitment. "Well enough, then. Do you have any sorcerers' tricks up your sleeve that might help disable or kill a vampire? That flash of light you used back at that den of debauchery was fairly effective."

"Oh, that?" I asked. "More of a trick, really. I think I have a few things that might help us more directly."

At that moment – and until the day I die I will never forget that gut-wrenching, grisly, horrifying expression – Tal flashed me a grin.

"
Khrona dakar!
"

A blast of orange flame, hurled from thirty feet away, slammed into the door that the vampires had passed through. The thin wood splintered under the raw power of the shrieking fire, sending shards flying inward even as they burned.

Tal whirled around the corner and followed on the heels of the gout of hellish flame, his crystalline sword ablaze with cold blue light, and he disappeared through the now-open doorway. Shouts of surprise came from within, and I ran toward them, crossing that thirty-foot distance in the span of only a few seconds, hurling myself through the smoldering door frame. Another spell was already on my lips as I took stock of the situation.

The Arbiter was pursuing two of the vampires, who'd turned to flee into an inner doorway. The third cowered against the far wall, though it was recovering from its shock more quickly than any human could have. Before my eyes, it transformed, shedding its human-like form and becoming a vaporous black shadow, red eyes glowing like coals from within the billowing smoke-form.

Something lashed out and struck me. Though there was no physical pain, I felt what could only be described as a kind of spiritual agony as the vampire's tendril locked onto my wrist and began draining the life from me. A scream tore itself from my lips as I felt my spirit struggle to hold on, and somehow I managed to shape the scream into another incantation.

"
Kettek!
" I shrieked, and an arrow made of pure white light crossed the space between me and the vampire in the blink of an eye, slamming into the shadowy form with a jarring impact that actually shook the walls of the rickety house we'd entered. The tendril shook loose from my arm, and I felt my strength surge as it returned.

Then it came at me, and my breath caught in my throat as it descended. I tried to scream again, to force air past my lips, but my lungs were frozen in terror as the crimson eyes of the vampire rushed toward me. A cold rush of wind went past me, and its tendrils drilled to the center of my very soul.

Despair filled me as my vision began to darken. I had been overwhelmed, and the Arbiter was nowhere in sight. I should have taken his advice, gone back to my lab…

My lab.

The book, lying open on my lab table. Could it be enough to save me? Would Yzgar's formula work against the power of a fel creature instead of a carefully-crafted spell? Was my mind working well enough to remember the incantation while the vampire sucked my life away?

There was no choice left; I had to try.

My lips were cold, but I forced them to work. It started off as merely a murmur as I began to recite the incantation in its native Old Tellarian, the alien syllables twisting my tongue into strange shapes and patterns. My vision darkened further, but I whispered more phonemes. The chill crept from my hands up my arms as the vampires clutched and clawed at the core of my being, draining the manna that animated me and gave me life.

Then, the chill reversed, and warmth began pouring into me.

My chants became louder, more insistent. No longer whispers, they were spoken words, and they were now being almost drowned out by the piteous wails of the vampire as Yzgar the Black's ancient formula turned its own power against the creature and gave it to me. It began to unravel, just as the dark sorcerer had promised, and instead of draining my power, it was suddenly pushing its own into me.

It was
glorious
.

Warmth became heat, and I was flooded with power and energy beyond anything I had ever experienced before. My chanting grew to a crescendo, until I was shouting the words over the shrieking of the dying vampire and the roaring winds which rushed into the tiny building. The corrupted energy that gave life to the horror buoyed my spirit until I nearly began to
sing
the words of Yzgar's miraculous incantation, so happy was I and so euphoric, the greatest high I had ever experienced in twenty-odd years of magical practice.

There was a shift in the feeling of the power, subtle at first, but then it yanked me violently around and I was instead flooded with cold; cold beyond reason, cold beyond imagining, the deep chill of the depths of winter at the bottom of some far-flung icy sea. This was not the cold of death, though – no, this was the cold of the pure manna, the very power which had been kept by the dead Arbiter, Gaerton Daen. It was
his
power I was feeling now, taken by the vampire and then delivered into me via the incantation.

For a moment… a long, painful, ecstatic and beautiful moment, I held the two sides of the manna in my hands. My right arm blazed with the searing crimson heat of corruption, and my left with the wintry cobalt purity that shone from the Arbiter's eyes and sword. I was the embodiment of the world in that moment, in perfect balance and utter chaos all at once. It felt as though I could see the very fabric of the universe, all the inner workings and threads that tied every part of everything to everything else. It was perfect enlightenment.

A searing pain blossomed at the base of my skull, and I lost consciousness.

It was dark when I awoke.

There was something soft beneath me. As my eyes fluttered open, I took in the sights around me. I was back in my lab, lying on the straw pallet in the corner where I spent my nights. There were a few candles burning, but it was dim.

Next to my lab table was D'Arden Tal.

No. It was the Arbiter.

Those glittering blue eyes were watching me so intently… I felt like a field mouse, staring into the eyes of the raptor as it approached.

"You're awake," the Arbiter observed.

Gritting my teeth against the pain in my head, I rose. "So it would seem."

"Was that the work of Yzgar the Black?" he asked.

My throat was dry. I tried to swallow, but all I got instead was a hacking cough. "Yes," I breathed, as I slowly recovered. "How did you know?"

"It is important to study history," he said, "So that we may not repeat its mistakes. Wouldn't you agree, sorcerer?"

My enfeebled mind couldn't think of a retort. I stayed silent.

He reached over and picked up the grey leather tome, turning it over in his hands. "I won't ask where you got this, since the answer would be irrelevant. I will simply thank you, Edar Moncrief, for turning it over into my possession."

My lips refused to work. I nodded numbly. He could have the damned book.

Next, he reached into a pocket just inside his tunic and pulled out the heartblade – likely the one he'd taken off my workbench, since it was not in one of the black leather cases. He dangled it before my eyes. "I'll be taking this with me, as well."

Again, all I could do was nod.

He leaned back, sliding the tiny crystal knife back into that pocket inside his tunic. "For invoking an incantation written by one of the most hated and dangerous black sorcerers of the past several centuries, I should simply kill you… or have you dragged back to the Tower to await sentencing," the Arbiter mused. "There's even the possibility that I could simply report you as a magical threat to the town guardsmen… it seems they don't like you very much. I'm sure they'd be more than happy to string you up for me."

"…helped you…" I managed to wheeze.

"Indeed you did," he said. "You helped me locate and eliminate the vampires which I had come here to find. For that, you deserve to be commended."

My eyes flew open wide. He was simply staring at me, his face completely serious… but I could see the mocking laughter in his eyes.

"You knew…?"

"That Gaerton Daen was dead? Most certainly," he said, with a little dismissive wave of one hand. "Unfortunate, but unavoidable, when one sends a mere stripling to do a Master's job. Think on this, sorcerer… what kind of murderer leaves a corpse lying in the street in the middle of the day?"

There it was. As I mentioned, I can be an idiot sometimes… mostly when fear is the predominant emotion in my crowded brain. Add in the joy of a discovery, and reason goes right out the window. "You put it there."

A tiny smile played across his thin lips. "Give the man a gold medallion. I was hoping to lure someone out by placing it in that alley – in fact that was the third place it had been in three days. At last, I found you. Of course, I should have killed you the moment you fed me that line about the 'Sorcerer's Code'… do you think I'm stupid?"

I could have kicked myself. What I thought had been a brilliant discovery, a series of flashes of insight, a series of bold and calculated bluffs that had led to some of the best acting I'd ever done in my life – he'd orchestrated them all.

Never again would I underestimate the Arbiters.

"Why?" I managed. "Why me?"

He broke into a full smile; a heart-stopping expression. "You are not as widely derided as you think, sorcerer. There are rumors, whispers about you, some of them from very dark places. Someone had to determine if you were a threat."

Whispers, about me? That was a chilling thought. "And… am I?"

"That is the question," the Arbiter said, his eyes intent once more on me. "You have invoked a deadly spell, written by a dangerous black sorcerer. You have absorbed more power into you than any man truly ever should… which makes you dangerous, as well. Yet when I gave you the option, you chose to stand against the darkness, rather than run back to your lab and hide away. You are a difficult case, Edar Moncrief."

"That was a test?" I asked. "You were
testing
me?"

"All men must be tested; it is the fires of danger and the choices we make which forge the soul from cheap ore into shining steel," the Arbiter said, his eyes glittering.

There was no reason to ask what he would have done if I had failed that test. A lump formed in my throat as I considered the grisly demise that my temporary bout of insanity – or heroism, call it what you will – had narrowly avoided.

"So what do you intend to do with me?" I asked, managing to swallow the lump.

"You have seen more than most men ever see, sorcerer," he said, his voice sinking to a low growl. "By all rights you should have died invoking that incantation, and yet you stand before me. If the vampires' power didn't kill you, Daen's certainly should have, and yet
here you are
."

Silence – uncomfortable, painful silence filled the lab, until I thought I would scream at the agony of it.

At last, he broke it. "The Arbiters do not take chances."

My heart sank.

That was it; I was going to die.

He pushed himself off my lab table with his hands and stalked toward me. I closed my eyes, waiting for the end.

"We do not take chances, and yet somehow… I like you, sorcerer," Tal said, though there was no trace of warmth in the statement. My eyes sprang open in amazement. That sentiment scared me more than anything else he'd said since we met.

"I never saw you here," he continued. "But know this, Edar Moncrief: if I ever see you again – I'll kill you."

The arctic chill of the Arbiter's mass brushed past me, colliding with my shoulder. I lifted a hand and shoved him off me, though my meager strength made little difference against his bulk. My fingers fluttered as I pulled that hand back to me, and then something caught at the back of my throat. A closed fist, the same hand I used to push him away, flew to my mouth and covered a wracking cough that doubled me over.

His words lingered in the air as I expelled the breath from my lungs in a vicious fit of hacking and wheezing.

Slowly, painfully, I recovered, straightening myself at last. I opened my closed hand.

In the center of my palm lay the tiny, fragile, crystalline heartblade – the one he'd hidden away in that tunic pocket.

Simple sleight-of-hand. The things you learn to avoid starvation.

The Arbiter had the book… but
I
had the incantation. The words seemed to be indelibly written on my brain. There was no possibility that I would ever forget them, now. Together with the heartblade, I held in my hand and my brain the first chance in centuries to unravel the truth behind the secretive Arbiters.

A hysterical part of my brain babbled that I should
tell
the Arbiter, remind him that even though he might be ready to burn that book and remove its writings from the world forever, that they still lived on in my brain. After all, the "Sorcerer's Code" meant I could never tell a lie… right?

I clamped my mouth shut, to prevent either the howling laughter of a madman or a desperate confession from escaping. At last, his presence disappeared from my lab, and my life, forever.

There was always the chance that he'd discover what was missing, and come riding back for my head, but I was tired of this two-bit town anyway. It was time to move on. As the dawn rose, I would vanish like a shadow.

In the silence that followed, my parched lips cracked in a grin.

My work had only just begun.

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