The Elements of Sorcery (6 page)

Lesson II
S
ORCERER'S
C
RIME

I rode into that village on the back of the most miserable, broken-down nag of a horse that I'd ever had the displeasure to ride.

The icy chill in the air was a sure sign that winter approached, and the ankle-deep snow drifts were needling that fact quite insistently into my feet and ankles. Traveling alone through the wilderness with nothing but a cantankerous equine for company was fine while the weather was still relatively pleasant. In the winter, however, it was all too easy for death to creep up on me while I slept away the daytime hours.

One thing I'd learned quickly in my life on the road: never try to camp for the night in the wilderness unless you have someone to watch your back. It doesn't matter how many magical wards you put up or how well you disguise your makeshift shelter.

The monsters
will
find you.

My protective enchantments kept the horse and I from freezing to death, but it was a pale offering. Ever since the weather had turned, my magic was the only thing that warded off the creeping frost. Maintaining protective wards for so long was like gripping a frozen iron bar with every ounce of strength I could muster, and I was exhausted. A fold of my dark grey cloak was wrapped around my face like a muffler and my hands were tucked in tight against the saddle beneath me, and yet it still felt like they had decided to take a permanent vacation and leave me behind with the damn horse.

The near-full Deadmoon hung in the sky above me, shining its bleak bone-white luminance down on the snow, leeching every speck of color out of my surroundings. The trees were black and the snow was starkly white, and everything else fell somewhere in between. It was always an unnerving sight, but one I had grown used to during my travel. The hairs on the back of my neck were fixed in a permanently-prickled state, though whether that was due to constant vigilance or simply the frozen air I was never quite sure.

It was somewhere around this state of affairs when I decided that I no longer cared about getting to Selvaria. The city – and my new life, since I had abandoned the one in Elenia for very good reasons – could wait, as far as I was concerned. All I needed was a warm fire and a cot. I'd even settle for a dirt floor as long as there was a blazing hearth.

The one remnant of my pride hung around my neck, kept in a tiny leather pouch close to my heart. It was the Arbiter's heartblade, the one I'd stolen from D'Arden Tal before he realized what I'd done. Everything else had been left behind in Elenia, burned to cinders when I lit my own lab aflame before disappearing in the middle of the night. I'd regretted the necessity, but disappearing with my life had been far more important than anything else that day.

All of this was why I ended up riding into a two-horse town in the black of night. With my arrival, it was immediately upgraded to a three-horse town, and there was much rejoicing. Of course, given that the gap-toothed citizenry were certainly all safely tucked into their shacks, the actual celebration would have to wait until morning.

A sorcerer had come to… I squinted at the rough wooden sign at the edge of town, which had a name printed on it in black letters. It was mostly covered in sticky snow, but I could just make out the glyphs.
Varsil.

Edar Moncrief, the only sorcerer ever to outwit an Arbiter, had come to Varsil. Watch out, peasantry.

There were no walls here, which was immediately concerning. The horrors that stalked the night were fewer in the wide-open farmland like that through which I rode, but that didn't mean they weren't there. They didn't even build a wooden fence to keep the tiniest of fel beasts from knocking on their doors; a testament to just how comfortable the people in the Old Kingdoms had become with the terrifying night.

The flickering light from a torch rounded one of the shacks, and I immediately looked up in alarm. Night watchmen, it had to be, though I had no idea how a place this pathetic had scrounged up enough volunteers to keep an eye on the midnight hour.

"Ho there!" a thin voice called out, and it took me a moment to realize that it was female. "State your name and business in Warsil!"

Oh,
Warsil
,
I thought. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry. I allowed my broken-down old horse to close in a bit with the citizens before identifying myself. There was always the possibility that they would shoot me down with a crossbow or something, but that's what magic is for, after all.

It was during this time that I heard another voice mutter, much more quietly, "Better hope he's no sorcerer, or we'll hang him like the last one."

The words died in my throat even as I opened my mouth to speak. Superstitious folk in a tiny town on the edge of nowhere… the total earnest lack of irony left a foul taste in my mouth. Surely everyone knew that a sorcerer was no one to be trifled with, and certainly not one to be
hanged
like some common criminal.

"Identify yourself, stranger, or this will be the end of you," the feminine voice warned.

My brain whirled, searching for an answer. Was a flat-out lie the best option? Did I instead try to misdirect, throwing them off my scent until I could reveal the true extent of my power?

I licked my lips, which immediately chapped in the wind. Was it my imagination, or could I actually
hear
that woman's hand trembling on the trigger of a crossbow? Desperately, I spat out words, hoping that they would make some kind of sense.

"My name is… D'Arden Tal!" I shouted. "I'm an Arbiter! Don't shoot… for Arangoth's sake,
don't shoot!
"

"You don't look much like an Arbiter," the reedy woman observed.

"And just how many Arbiters have you met in your lifetime?" I sniffed disdainfully.

"Well…" that seemed to give her pause.

"Where's yer crystal sword,
Arbiter
?" sneered one of the others, a flat-nosed man who was missing most of his teeth.

"Not
all
of us carry a sword," I lied. "Some of us have… other talents."

"Oh yeah? Like what?"

I lifted one hand and spoke a single word under my breath. Blue flame – the exact shade I remembered shining in the Arbiter's eyes – flashed out from my finger and streaked toward the peasant's ugly face. He stumbled backward with a cry just as it exploded silently before his eyes, leaving him shaken, but unharmed.

The rest of them were staring at me in shock. Before they could raise the cry of "
sorcery!"
and sic their pitchforks upon me, I made up something that sounded good. "Those who question the Arbiters often harbor corruption within their own hearts," I said, fixing the man with what I hoped was a sufficiently chilly glare.

That got them. Suddenly their demeanor changed, and instead of being cautiously distant, they began cheering as though I were some sort of champion.

"It's really true!" the thin woman said, her face alight with sudden hope. I felt my heart sinking as I stared at her. "An Arbiter has come to liberate us!"

"Liberate?" I asked, but they didn't hear me over the sound of their cheering. Though it was the dead of night, I could hear doors opening all around us.

"What's going on?" called a sleepy voice.

"It's an Arbiter!" the watchmen called back.

Soon the entire village was awake and had taken up the cry. My blood turned to ice as I listened to the genuine joy that suffused the cold night. Adults, elders, children… all of them whooped and hollered into the night in some kind of horrendous concerto.

Edar, you nattering nitwit
, I cursed myself silently.
What have you gotten yourself into
now?

"Please, Arbiter, forgive our suspicion," the reedy woman, who'd been the first one to say a single word to me, gushed. "We here in Warsil have lived with a terrible problem for many years, and for so long we have wished for one of your order to come and free us from it."

"Ah, yes…" my mouth spluttered, "well, you see…"

"Please, please come with me," she said, interrupting. "We will care for your horse, and I have a fire burning in my hearth. You are welcome to the hospitality of my home for as long as you like."

Part of me wanted to bolt, or at least to confess the truth to these poor people, even if it meant I would immediately be run out of town. There was certainly no way that I was going to be able to help them with whatever problem they needed an
Arbiter
to solve. Yet, for all of that, my mind wandered back out over the icy plains I'd been traveling, and the call of warmth and real food was too strong to resist.

Perhaps I could slip out before dawn, and they'd never be any the wiser.

"Very well," I said, trying to keep my tone imperious. There was no way I would ever be able to duplicate the bottled fury so effectively communicated by the bearer of the name I'd appropriated, so I settled for gentle condescension instead. "I will accept your hospitality, good woman."

The joy on her face was overwhelming, and my chest swelled with the adoring praise that was being showered upon me. Never before in my life had anyone looked at me with such rapt attention, and certainly not a whole crowd. Fear, revulsion, anger, disgust; those I was quite familiar with, but this…
this
was something different.

I never forgave myself for what I said next, but when a crowd of people is staring at you with something akin to worship, you tend to say stupid things.

Really
stupid things.

"Never fear, citizens of Warsil – whatever problem you may have, it will soon bother you no more."

The cheering erupted anew, and a deaths-head grin plastered itself on my face as I mentally kicked myself over and over again.

So, in addition to being a dishonest rat of a sorcerer with a big mouth that tended to invite trouble, I had now committed a crime which all but ensured my own death, should my deception be uncovered. Impersonating an Arbiter was surely the worst thing I had ever done in my life; except maybe for getting the better of one in a battle of wills.

Well, at least I was warm again.

Sitting in front of the fire, I was at last able to relax the wards that had kept me from freezing to death. Relief overcame me as I released the power that I'd been gripping for days on end, and allowed the manna to flow back into the world. It was dangerous to support a single enchantment for so long – it risked running along the edges of corruption – but necessity always wins.

Slowly but surely, the feeling began to return to the tips of my fingers and toes with the prickling sensation that always accompanied such events. I resolved that I would never allow myself to ever be that cold again.

The thin woman – who turned out to be rather attractive in the firelight, with soft blond hair and striking blue eyes, the deep color of the stormy sea – brought me a steaming mug of something that carried a rich, earthy smell. I looked up at her with barely disguised alarm. Did Arbiters need to eat or drink? Was this some kind of test?

Her only expression was awe and kindness. After only a moment's hesitation, I accepted the earthenware cup from her with a grateful smile, and took a long sip of what turned out to be a hot, bitter tea. "Thank you, good woman."

"Please, call me Alina," she said, with a shy glance away from my gaze.

"Alina…" I mused for a moment, and then recognition clicked in my mind. "As in, Alina the Golden Queen?"

Her eyes widened in shock. "You know the story of the Golden Queen?"

Of course I do,
I wanted to say.
I'm a bloody sorcerer. Every myth and legend is at the beck and call of my vast knowledge. Isn't that incredibly impressive?

Instead, all I said was, "I may have heard it in passing."

"My mother named me for her," Alina said, her voice quiet. "She wanted me to be her light against the darkness. I never thought anyone else knew the story. I told it to my children, of course." She bit her lip after this last sentence.

An interesting story, if not a particularly useful one. "I see," I said aloud, trying to keep my tone cool but engaged. "You're a brave woman, volunteering to keep the night's watch."

"Someone has to," she answered, but something about her tone struck me as evasive. I turned to look at her, and she fidgeted beneath my gaze. My sorcerer's intuition nudged me, and where I normally would have stayed silent, something about the strange power the name of the Arbiters had granted pushed me on.

"Someone with nothing to lose, perhaps?" I asked.

She wrapped her arms around her midsection, and looked away. "Please enjoy the fire, Arbiter. I must return to the watch."

Damn. I'd pushed too far. I opened my mouth to say something more, but she was already leaving, disappearing beyond a shoddy doorway. "In the morning, you'll have to tell me about this problem your village is having," I called after her, but she was already gone.

Oh well, I thought. It's not like I'm planning to stick around that long anyway.

There was just one problem… how was I going to slip past the night watch who'd welcomed me so warmly?

It was a problem I was going to have to solve when I got there. The warm fire was just too inviting; I couldn't tear my mind away from it long enough to think about how I might escape the clutches of these simple villagers.

When I woke, it was morning.

I looked around, bewildered as consciousness returned. The rosy light of sunrise was streaming in through the cracks in the house above me, and the fire had almost died to nothing.

So much for my plan to escape before dawn.

"Oh, you're awake," a voice came from behind me.

Such was my surprise that I very nearly leapt out of my skin. Biting down against my instinctive reaction, I managed to squash my reaction down to only a smothered yelp, and turned around to see Alina sitting in a wooden chair a few feet away.

"Um… yes," I said. "So it seems."

Her brow creased very slightly. "I thought Arbiters didn't need to sleep."

Damn these legends and tales. "Well, that's true, actually. I wasn't sleeping, just meditating."

"You were snoring."

My mouth started to say something, but I closed it with a click.

"I've been keeping the children at bay," she said with a little smile. "All of them are desperate to lay eyes on an Arbiter, but I told them that even heroes need to rest."

"Um," I said uncomfortably. "Thank you, I suppose."

She looked at me with a sort of world-weary sadness, and suddenly she seemed much older than she appeared. Her gaze seemed to cut through me as though I were made of parchment. "You're not really an Arbiter, are you?" she asked.

"Of course I—" I started, but the look of misery in her eyes caused the words to die in my throat. I coughed, trying to clear it. For some reason, I found that I couldn't lie to her when asked a straight question. "Um. No, actually, I'm not."

"That's a shame," she said. "We had really hoped that you might be able to help us."

"Perhaps if you tell me what it is you need help with, I might be able to do something," I answered.

"No." She shook her head slowly. "We need an Arbiter."

"Arbiters aren't all that useful, you know," I snapped, my pride stung by the dismissal. "They're really only good at one thing, and that's hunting monsters. They're not particularly friendly either, I might add. Whereas, someone with my talents—"

"Your talents?" she asked.

The words of the other night watchman rang in my ears, and I choked. Coughing wracked my chest for a few moments while I expelled the saliva I'd inhaled from my airway, and she looked on with only mild concern. At last, I managed to say something that sounded like, "Yes. Talents."

She still looked skeptical, so I pressed on. "Look. You have a problem. The likelihood of an Arbiter just walking through here to help is slim to nil. I'm here now. Tell me what the problem is, and if I can do something, I will."

Why are you volunteering to help these people?
My subconscious demanded.
Weren't you supposed to be getting out of here?

I batted the inner voice away like an annoying fly. There was no way I was going to let the vague legends that surrounded the Arbiters hold more power than I could, not after the hell that I'd been put through in Elenia.

Alina sighed. "It's the Reaper."

"Reaper?" My mind traversed every tale and tome I'd ever read, and came up empty. "I've never heard of such a thing."

"That's what the folk here call it," she said. "It comes every month, on the three days of the full moon. Twice as tall as a man, with eyes that glow like embers in the darkness. If it laid on the ground it might be a long shadow, but upright it looks more like a tree with no branches. On the first night, it comes at moonrise, and releases its terrible hounds – we always hear them baying, that's how we know that it's coming again, and in the morning someone is always missing. The next night, when it returns at midnight…" she trailed off.

My eyes were wide with horror; I coughed, trying to drag my uncooperative expression back to neutrality, and gave her an encouraging look. "Go on."

"It's not hounds anymore," she whispered. "The second night, and the third, the missing people return to claim more… and they're dead."

A chill walked down my spine. "How long has this been happening?"

She shrugged, looking away from me. "A year, perhaps."

"A year?" I asked. "Why haven't you tried to fight it?"

"Of course we tried to fight it!" she snapped. "When we did, it cut everyone down as though they were nothing but wheat in the fields. There was so much blood… our knives and pitchforks were useless against it. The hounds—"

"All right, all right," I interrupted when her voice choked up.

She cleared her throat, and brought shining eyes up to lock with mine. "That was the night they took my children," she whispered. "All of them, dragged into the mist by those awful hounds. I could hear them screaming, but I was hurt—"

Her voice broke again, and a strangled sob tore its way from her. She fell forward, landing hard on her knees and wrapping her arms around her midsection, her blond hair obscuring her face. I bit my tongue, feeling incredibly awkward, even as my own eyes threatened to moisten at the display of utter vulnerability before me.

She shook in the silence, not making a sound as the grief overwhelmed her. There was nothing I could do to soothe such a terrible pain, and I knew it, but despite myself I slowly moved toward her and placed one hand on her shoulder. Her arm twitched as I made contact, but she didn't try to remove it.

"They came back the next night," she whispered, rocking back and forth on the floor. "Little Rory, and the twins… they came here, and they pounded on the door with their fists," Her voice broke off again as tears dripped onto the wooden planks beneath her. After a heartbreaking moment, she resumed, and her voice was husky with grief. "All I could do was keep my back against the door as they tried to break it down, but I couldn't stop crying. They never said a word. Then they were gone."

Of all the tiny villages in all of the Old Kingdoms, I had stumbled upon the one which was truly plagued by some kind of corruption. Worse than that, I'd already promised that I would do something to try and help them.

Alina was right. They needed an Arbiter, and I wasn't one. Still, what was I going to do? Up and leave, now that I knew the yoke of horrors that these people were suffering under?

She looked up at me, her eyes bright with tears. "You're not an Arbiter. You can't help us. Why don't you just leave? I won't tell anyone. It hardly matters anymore. Soon we'll all be dead, just like the rest of them."

I drew in a slow breath and let it out again. "I need to get an idea of what this thing looks like," I said, keeping my voice low and soothing. "Do you think any of the villagers will be able to help?"

"Why?" she asked. "Why do you want to help us?"

I clenched my jaw tightly closed for a moment before speaking. "I don't know."

It was the truth.

"Can you think of anyone who might be able to help me?" I asked again.

"Maybe Palis," she said, her voice quiet and raw. "He was bitten; the night… that night, but they didn't take him."

"I'll go talk to him," I said. "Where can I find him?"

"He's the smith," she answered, waving one hand in the direction of the front door to her home.

With a nod, I rose smoothly to my feet. Almost every instinct I had screamed at me to run; the second time that I'd noticed that particular feeling since I'd met the Arbiter. Beneath all of that, though, there was something within me; a stern voice that said, very clearly:
you will help these people
.

When I reached the door that led outside, I looked back. Alina still knelt on the floor, with her back turned to me.

"I can't save your children," I whispered to her, "But if there's anything that I can do to avenge them, you have my word that I will do it."

Never before in my life had I made a vow of vengeance. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled as I said those words.

I realized that I meant them.