The Elements of Sorcery (8 page)

Alina and I stepped out into the twilight air. Though the sun had only just vanished in the distant west, the bright ivory light of the Deadmoon was already visible on the eastern horizon.

There wasn't much time left.

"You need to gather everyone," I said to her. "Make sure they're armed, and don't let anyone get dragged off this time. Make sure that everyone stays together."

She opened her mouth, as if to argue, but I interrupted. "Go!" I shouted.

Her eyes narrowed briefly at me, but then she nodded, and turned to run toward the cluster of houses in the village.

No one had been able to tell me from which direction the Reaper and his hounds would come, so I had no way to be prepared for it. Instead, I turned to face the east, and watched the moon smoothly ascend over the treetops as the seconds and minutes ticked by.

At last, just when a hint of the stark white crescent was visible above the forest, the first howls came on the wind. The temperature seemed to drop several degrees as I stood there, frozen, the hairs along my arms and back of my neck rising into rigid spines. Gooseflesh covered me as the long, mournful sound carried through the air, ripe with the scent of manna.

The feeling of manna all around me was
very
familiar.

"Sorcery," I breathed.

My lips cracked in an ugly grin. No monster, this. Just a man, driven insane by a quest for power. He had likely unearthed some dark secret in a forgotten tomb, and instead of running in the opposite direction – like any sane man – he had decided instead to read it, take it into himself and give his mind over to madness.

It took a special kind of thought, a certain power of will, to resist the lure of madness when one invoked the sorcerer's power. I had it. Most did not, but it didn't stop them.

A sorcerer was just a man.

I could kill a man.

The baying of the hounds grew louder in the distance, seeming to echo all around me. Despite the shouting of the peasants as they raised the alarm at Alina's command, the cold wind made the world feel strangely lonely. My fingers grasped and flexed as though holding the hilt of a sword, though I possessed no weapon, save for my wits and the power over which I held sway.

You're a madman,
my mind pronounced.
It's been nice knowing you
.

Drawing a deep breath as I attempted to shut out the more rational portion of my mind, I reached out with the power of the manna. My eyes snapped closed, and the world behind my eyelids sprang into stunning azure light.

My consciousness leapt into the air with the soaring grace of a hawk taking flight. Within seconds, I could see the world spread out beneath me, but it was not trees and earth and stone that I saw. Instead, I could see the rivers of manna as they snaked through the earth, just below the surface, carrying the deadly life energy along.

There was no font nearby – they tended to sprout up in places where humankind was closely clustered, and we were too far out into the farmlands for that. Before long, however, my sorcerer's vision seized upon a current which would be strong enough to serve whatever purposes I required, and I bent it to my will.

Power crackled in my veins as I struggled with the manna. It twisted about in my hands, threatening to slip away from me as though it were an eel that I clutched at with oil-slick fingers. Under normal circumstances, I would have drawn only what I needed in the moment that I needed it, but I was up against something entirely outside my experience, and I wanted to be ready.

It was like wrestling with a bolt of lightning. My hair all stood on end, and when I re-opened my eyes, I was ringed in a halo of brilliant blue light. My breath came in short gasps, and the world seemed darker outside my ring of illumination.

When the next howl came, it was close, and I whirled around when I realized it had come from right behind me.

Time slowed to a crawl as I came face-to-face with a slavering beast, easily half my height at the shoulder. It was rippling with muscle, looking like a cross between a large dog and a wild boar. A mane of black fur ringed its ugly head, and long yellow teeth dripped saliva. Its paws were twice the size of my hands, and it left no prints in the snow behind it. The howl died away, replaced by a slavering snarl as its crimson gaze bore into me.

In the light of those red eyes, all of my self-assured bravado burned away in an instant. My hold on the manna flow began to slip as it writhed in my mental grasp, and instead of saving it for the Reaper itself, as I had intended, my lips formed words before I could even complete a coherent thought.

"
Ashatren kvi tai san
!" I cried.

The ancient spell activated as I spoke its invocation, shaping the manna, forcing it to conform to the pre-constructed specifications. I became merely a conduit for the power as the flow I had harnessed routed through my mind and body, shaped into a coherent burst of cobalt light and energy that leapt the space between my hands and the beast in a split second.

Even as the power left my hands, I began cursing myself. The bolt of manna struck the creature directly in its open mouth, and the crimson eyes went dark as the cerulean light exploded out the back of the hound's head. It dropped to the ground in a lifeless heap.

The beast was dead, but all of the manna I'd brought under my control was gone. I crumpled forward, falling to my hands and knees in the snow, feeling as though every vein and artery in my body had been scorched from within. Clouds and shadows played at the edges of my vision as unconsciousness threatened. Desperate gasps of air were all I could manage, and the cold rushed in to replace the warmth I'd felt, leaving me shivering uncontrollably.

Then she was there beside me, and the golden light from her lantern pushed back the darkness. "Are you all right?" Alina's voice whispered in my ear.

I looked up and began to respond, but the breath froze in my throat as my eyes fell upon what could only be the Reaper.

Easily ten feet tall, it was as though the shadow of a dead tree had come to life. It towered over us, an inky blackness whose roots stretched out across the snow. It had no branches above, terminating in a ragged edge that looked like lightning had blasted it. Two malevolent eyes glowed a brilliant crimson at perhaps the eight-foot mark, burning through me and deep into my soul.

A cough stopped somewhere in my throat, and I felt myself choking. I had thought that being caught in the gaze of the Arbiter was terrifying, but I realized in that moment that I had never in my life known true terror. The mental pathways I used to channel the manna were burned raw. I was defenseless, lying prostrate at the feet of this monster.

No, not monster!
My rational mind cried.
A man! Only a man!

If this was a man, the glamour he had used to disguise himself was impressive. Without the manna I wasn't able to pierce the veil, but given what I was staring at, I had trouble convincing myself that there was something there to see through.

Alina stood and strode forward, and I reached out one hand helplessly. She stood defiant before the creature, holding a pitchfork in one hand and thrusting out her golden lantern in the other. "Give me back my children!" she shrieked, her voice breaking with grief and fury. "Give them back, you monster!"

"Alina," I tried to say, but it came out only as a croak. "No—"

The Reaper's eyes flashed a blinding red, and my heart pounded so loud in my ears that it drowned out everything else. As I stared ahead, I watched one of the Reaper's roots lash out and strike Alina across the face, sending her sprawling into the snow. The golden orb of light fell to the ground and winked out.

She struggled to her hands and knees, a line of redness dripping from her pale cheek to the snow. Her blue eyes locked on mine, and she reached out one hand toward me.

The same root that had struck her shot out again, and plunged through her back in a spray of dark, arterial blood.

Her eyes widened in shock, and her mouth dropped open.

The outstretched hand, alabaster in the pale moonlight, fell limply to the snow.

I struggled to cry out, to shriek, but my lungs were frozen. The world began to darken around me, and the Reaper's eyes flashed a brilliant crimson.

No!
I screamed in my mind.
No—

"Alina!" I shrieked, startling myself back to consciousness. My voice echoed strangely in the silence.

With great effort, I managed to sit up and look around.

There was no sign of the Reaper… or of Alina, save for the pool of frozen blood on the snow.

"No… no, no no…" I mumbled.
My mouth felt strangely mushy, as though my tongue had gone numb and feeling had only just begun to return. In a daze, I struggled to my feet, looking desperately around.

She was gone.

I had failed, and now she was gone.

In all my life, I could not remember a moment where I'd felt more alone.

My hands had gone numb with cold, I realized as I climbed to my feet, brushing snow off of my knees and elbows. How long had I been unconscious? I looked up to the sky, and the Deadmoon had only risen perhaps another few inches off the horizon. Not long, then.

Dazed to confusion, I stumbled back toward the cluster of houses that formed the center of the village. There was no one in sight. Smoke curled from the chimneys of the homes, but there was no one else outside. Only me. Alone.

Had Alina roused them out of their houses, or had they refused to come to her aid? How many more of the villagers were missing?

Numb, raw, hurt and exhausted, I decided that these were questions that would have to wait until dawn. The worst of the night was over, and there was nothing I could do to help those who had been taken. More than anything else, that thought grated on my mind and conscience until I was near-ready to scream with the agony and injustice of it all.

Tears blurred my vision as I dragged myself through the door of Alina's home and closed it behind me. I picked up a large piece of wood and dumped it on the smoldering embers, where it slowly began to burn.

I dropped to the floor in front of the hearth and held out my hands to warm them. For the first time since I'd left Elenia, I missed the cold eyes of the real D'Arden Tal. He would have done better.

He wouldn't have failed Alina.

Who was I, to be playing at being a hero? There were real lives at stake here, and here I was, pretending to be an Arbiter, just so I could get out of the cold for a few hours.

Immersed in troubled thoughts and self-loathing, I fell asleep in front of Alina's hearth.

 Sometime later, I awoke cold and alone.

My mind dragged itself out of sleep with great reluctance. Part of me thought it would have been better simply to have never woken.

The fire had burned to nothing in the hearth. Through the thick pane of smoked glass that served as a window, I could barely make out a coldly sunny sky. It was impossible to tell how far past dawn it was without going outside, but the sun had clearly risen some time past.

Alina's words rang hollowly in my mind.
The second night, and the third, it's the missing people who hunt for the Reaper… and they're dead.

Was that what my failure would cost me? Would I be forced to stare into Alina's dead eyes and destroy her corpse before it could take any more innocent lives?

My teeth clamped down on my lower lip so hard that I tasted blood.

You could leave
, my mind offered.

The thought was so sweetly tempting that I nearly sprang to my feet and ran for the door. Would it be possible to simply leave all of this behind, and forget that it had ever happened? Disappear into the world like the coward that I was, leaving no trace behind of the 'Arbiter' who had briefly stopped in Warsil?

Could I leave a village full of innocent lives to be tormented, murdered and brought back from the dead as the pawns of some mad sorcerer?

Fear, cowardice and anger – both at myself and at the Reaper – warred within my exhausted mind. I still felt as though the insides of my mind had been stripped raw, and the thought of conjuring even the smallest lick of manna caused a pounding ache at the base of my skull.

No matter how much I hated this village, no matter how much I wanted to leave, I couldn't bring myself to think that it was a good idea. Regardless of everything else, I had lied to these people. I had made the first move, recklessly declaring that I was an Arbiter in front of all of them. Though I'd never felt a particular need to live up to my word in the past, something compelled me to it now. In the name of D'Arden Tal, I had sworn protection to this village, and I had sworn vengeance to Alina.

The fact that she was dead didn't change that.

With a sluggish stagger, I rose to my feet. Why had Alina and I been alone out there? Where had the villagers been? Why hadn't they come to help us?

I must have looked like death when I emerged from the cold house into the snowy village square. One by one, I could see the villagers slowly emerging from their homes, like terrified squirrels poking their heads out from the boles of trees.

As I gazed upon them, I felt a strange sort of anger spark somewhere deep inside me. A burning rage ignited, brighter than any flame I'd ever seen, and it swept me away on a tide of madness.

"You
worthless
peons," I snarled, spittle flying from my lips. "Where
were
you?"

Perhaps it was the raw viciousness of my tone, or the way my hands lit up with brilliant cobalt light as I unconsciously summoned power to my fists, but every one of them in sight stopped to stare at my haggard form. I recognized the faces of some of the people I'd interviewed the day before, including Palis the smith.

"She stood up against that monster all alone," I said, my voice dropping to a hiss. "And where were
you
? Cowering behind your walls, praying that they wouldn't come for you? Did you offer up your pleas to the dark gods, or the dead ones? How many of you are missing this morning? How did your cowardice fare in the face of evil?"

The venom in my words surprised even me, but if I had ever cared about the opinion of these peasants, it had been burned away when Alina had been taken. The words that would invoke an apocalyptic bloodbath and slaughter all of them where they stood were on my lips, and it was only the faintest vestiges of my willpower that kept me from destroying them.

Cries and desperate pleas began to rise from their lips, but I hardly cared. The blood was pounding in my ears, and I dimly became aware of the crackling energy that leapt between my outstretched fingers like tiny bolts of lightning.

"There was nothing we could have done," Palis the smith said, his voice echoing across the village green. "We can't stand against that thing. That's your job, Arbiter."

I rounded on Palis, ready to destroy him with a single word from my lips, but just that second, her face appeared in my mind; round, soft and open, her blond hair falling across her eyes. My anger faltered in that moment, and the power died away from my fists. Instead of ending them all, I collapsed to my knees in the snow and drew a shuddering breath.

"Cowards," I whispered, and the venomous pronouncement judged me as thoroughly as it did them.

After several minutes, I managed to push myself to my feet again. "I am no Arbiter," I said aloud, ignoring the whispers that ran through the assembled crowd of peasants. "My name is Edar Moncrief, and I am a sorcerer. I may be the only sorcerer ever to best an Arbiter in the battle of wits, and I am powerful enough to kill each and every one of you individually, should you make any attempt on my life."

The looks upon their faces were enough to tell me that I had filled them with fear. The next words that I said were more for myself than they were for them. "Tonight, I am going to destroy this Reaper. It will not take me by surprise again. By your own words, you have told me that tonight, at midnight, those who are dead will return… and they will come for you. If you do not stand and fight with me, I wash my hands of you. They will take you, and without direction from their master, there is no telling what they might do to you.

"If you die tonight, it will be through no one's fault but your own."

With that, I turned around and stalked back into the lifeless hut that had once belonged to a beautiful, broken woman, and slammed the door closed behind me.

The sorcerer that was masquerading himself as this 'Reaper' had concocted a terror glamor so strong that it had entirely overwhelmed my senses. It was a neat trick, something I had read about but never explored in depth.

My ancient books had burned along with all of my other possessions, when I'd set my lab aflame before leaving Elenia. Destroying some of those priceless artifacts had hurt me worse than much of the physical pain I'd experienced in my life, but almost all of it was committed to my exceptional memory. It didn't stop the pain, but it lessened it somewhat.

Here in this dismal village, I didn't even have so much as a scrap of parchment on which to take notes and write out my eldritch formulas. My good pen and inkwell had burned with the rest.

Still, the thoughts needed to be ordered somehow, or I would never devise an incantation that would strip away the Reaper's glamor so that I could get at the man inside. I picked up a piece of coal from the dead ashes of the hearth, and began to write on the wooden walls.