The Sorcerer's Scourge (54 page)

“Azerick!” Ellyssa screamed in anguished horror as she sprinted down the steps.

Azerick dropped to his knees and grinned with bemused wonder at the gaping, smoking hole in his chest before falling heavily onto his face. The only sound in the room was Ellyssa’s sobbing and the clatter of his staff as it struck the marble floor.

Ellyssa slid to a kneeling stop and lifted Azerick’s head upon her lap. “No! We have to do something!”

Devlin could only shake his head as he looked down at the weeping girl then at the dragon and the half-elf boy that walked towards them in stunned silence.

“We brought a cleric with us. Perhaps there is something he can do,” the sorcerer told her.

Ellyssa looked up hopefully. “Brother Thomas is here? We have to get to him! Now!”

“Of course. Let us see if we can get to him.”

Devlin knew his lie for it what it was. He did not know much about priestly power, but he knew that Azerick was beyond anything even the greatest of them could offer.

***

With Bran and Mushadan’s wizards spreading the word to cease fighting, the battling in the streets quickly wound down with only sporadic outbursts of violence lasting beyond the first few hours after the fighting had erupted.

Devlin stayed in Bakhtaran long enough to help General Baneford create a treaty with his brother allowing the Valarian to assume the title of Vila.

Brother Thomas wrapped Azerick’s body in linen and used his magic to keep the body from going foul during the long voyage north. It was a somber time for everyone. Almost every man and woman that sailed with Azerick looked to him as a friend. Azerick had saved many of them from a life of abject misery and poverty. He had saved their city from siege and the King they admired from usurpers. He was an icon of the kingdom, and now he was gone.

Worried that no one had seen Ellyssa for days, Allister went into the tiny cabin of the ship where she was holed up. He found her sitting on the small bunk, clutching Azerick’s staff as if she feared someone might try to take it from her. Her eyes, already sallow and haunted from her breaking, now looked skeletal from days of not eating. Allister saw the untouched plates of food upon the small table and sighed.

“He loved you very much you know. He would give his life a thousand times to keep you safe and consider it a bargain well paid. I don’t think he would want to see you give up and waste away like this. He doesn’t want you to punish yourself.”

Ellyssa looked up with her sunken, red-rimmed eyes. “I hate you,” she whispered.

“What’s that, dear?”

“I hate you,” she said more clearly. “It’s the last thing I ever said to him. When he told me I couldn’t go listen to the bard sing I told him that I hated him. He died thinking that I hated him!”

Fresh sobs wracked her body as Allister held her tightly. “Oh, my dear, he knows you loved him. He looked at you as his own daughter, and he knew you were just angry and hurting.”

“I love him so much and I was so awful! I wish he had left me there! I wish I was dead instead. He did good things for people. All I ever did was cause trouble and think about myself! He deserves to live, not me.”  

“To him, leaving you there would have been worse than dying. Azerick lost many people he cared about, but he persevered. It helped make him strong. What he would want you to do now is to be strong too. If you want to honor him, if you truly want to show that you have finally learned what he taught you, then show him you can be strong. Did I ever tell you about how he and I first met? Talk about troublesome. Compared to him, you’re an amateur.”

Nearly three weeks later, a grim procession marched up the road towards the school. Miranda raced through the gates, an excited smile upon her face as she saw Ellyssa and Sandy. She cast her eyes about, stretched onto her tiptoes to look over the heads of those in the front of the procession, and looked for Azerick within the group. Her smile slowly faded as she took in the despondency etched upon everyone’s face. When she saw the linen-wrapped body upon the bed of the wagon, her hands flew first to her face and then to the slightly swollen mound of her stomach.

“No,” she muttered, shaking her head in denial.

Rusty tried to put a supporting arm around her but she angrily threw it off. “No!”

Miranda looked from the wagon to Ellyssa, and in that brief glance, a thousand words were spoken, a thousand accusations were hurled, and a thousand silent apologies begging for forgiveness were returned. Miranda turned and ran back through the gates, weeping a widow’s mournful wail.

Ellyssa wanted nothing other than to crumble to the ground and let death take her then and there, but she stood resolute. She would be like Azerick. She would not break, she would learn everything she could, and she would hunt down and kill everyone responsible. The people of Valaria lived in fear of these slavers, but soon, she would give them something to fear. She would make it her sole purpose in life until their entire dastardly trade was nothing but a memory wrapped in the terror she would bring them all.

 
EPILOGUE

Far to the east and a bit south, Jarvin Ollander, King of Valaria, looked out over the enormous crowed of his people. Regaining the capital had proved to be a minor challenge. There were few left to resist him, and once he freed his loyal officers from their cells, his powerbase was nearly uncontested. The first message he received upon returning was a small writ from End’s Run. The results of that message were now on display, standing in a row of twenty upon the recently built gallows.

“People of Valaria, for too long I ignored the schemes and greed of petty men in the hopes that they would come to accept me. By clinging to this hope, they thought me weak and ineffective. In their attempt to steal power for themselves, they divided our kingdom and left it vulnerable so that vile, evil forces were able to take root. We all paid a terrible price for their self-interest and my weakness. Today, I correct both of those!

“Before you, stand those men and women who broke their oath of fealty and actively sought to usurp my lawful rule. Moreover, by doing so, they created a schism within our society that allowed evil to unleash itself upon us and very nearly destroyed us all! For their act of treason, there can be but one solution—death.”

Jarvin raised his hand in signal to the hangmen. He looked out across the crowd, seemingly gazing straight into the eyes of each one of the thousands of onlookers, and dropped his hand in a swift, chopping motion. The executioners pulled their levers and released the trapdoors beneath the feet of seventeen men and three women—all of them nobility. The clack of the mechanism echoed across the plaza as several people gasped and many clapped in approval for the execution of those that most of them blamed for the night of terror and the deaths of so many of their loved ones.

 “Their families shall be stripped of all lands and titles,” Jarvin paused, “but I shall not cast them into abject poverty. Let us not abandon any of our fellow citizens. Let not their children suffer unduly for the sins of their parents. Instead, let them earn their place in our society. I have seen what happens when someone loses everything. I saw it in a dear friend of mine and of the kingdom whom I have just learned has given his life defending what he believed in. I shall not inflict the pain and loss that Lord Azerick Giles unduly suffered. We are better than that.

“Lord Giles twice came to may aid and saved my throne. He prevented our kingdom from becoming divided and falling into chaos. He saved North Haven from the hands of a selfish and ambitious man. He created a school and home for many of our most unfortunate citizens—and I think he stole my ring.” Jarvin ducked his head and smiled fondly at the thought. “Let us all remember his sacrifices and the things he bestowed upon us all. Let us carry his memory forward and try to be the man he was. If we can do that, even just slightly, we shall all be better for it.”

***

Klaraxis felt his spirit plummeting back towards the abyss the instant Azerick died. He raged and cursed the foolish mortal for failing to keep his host body alive. Klaraxis had hoped for several more years of inflicting pain and death upon the mortal realm. Souls sent to the abyss by his hand went straight to the abyssal kingdom he ruled. Those souls sustained him, fed him, and increased his power. Once again, he would have to rely on those sent to him from followers, those begging for his favor within the mortal world, or those allotted to him by his dark queen.

He felt his spirit form return to the body he was forced to leave behind. Somewhere within his vault chamber, he heard the voice of the pathetic demon he had left to tend to his physical form.

“Oh look, him so pretty,” Skulk cooed. “Does the big blattazuu’s butt want to give Skulk a kiss? Yes he does.”

Klaraxis opened his eyes just in time to see Skulk’s bright red posterior descending towards his face. The little fire demog let out a strangled croak as Klaraxis’s massive onyx hand snaked up and wrapped around his throat.

The demon lord leapt from the stone plinth upon which his body rested and slammed Skulk into the wall. Klaraxis’s red eyes blazed with barely constrained fury as they bored into Skulks wide, terrified, yellow orbs. The demon lord unconsciously wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and saw a bright red, waxy streak upon his ebony flesh.

“Did you put lip paint on me, you vile little vermin?” Klaraxis screamed in unbridled rage. “How long have you been abusing my body?”

Skulk croaked out, “Never, my great and beloved prince.”

Klaraxis twisted skulk around and discovered a perfect imprint of his lips upon Skulk’s left cheek.

“Ack, once, my great and awful master.”

“Skunk,” Klaraxis grated in a tense but controlled voice, “the tortures I will inflict upon you shall be spoken in hushed, terrified whispers for all eternity.”

I don’t know, I think the color is rather fetching on you
, Azerick spoke from within Klaraxis’s mind.

Skulk fell to the floor, slipping from Klaraxis’s stunned grip.

“No. NO!”  The demon lord flew into a fit, thrashing around the room, knocking many objects from their shelves, and pounding himself in the head with his fists as if he could physically dislodge the interloper. “This is my body! You cannot possess me! You are dead, little sorcerer, dead!”

Yet here I am. You yourself told me that our spirits were irrevocably entwined. It appears you were correct.  It also appears that although we have exchanged bodies, our roles shall remain the same. Now get back in your cage, demon.”

“NO!” Klaraxis shouted in a drawn out scream of denial as Azerick once again forced him into that mental cage of nothingness that resided within his indomitable psyche.

Using the prince of lies’ demonic power, Azerick shifted into the form of his own image. Azerick looked around the devastated treasure room with his hands on his hips.

 “Well…crap,” Azerick sighed and strode from the room.

***

Far removed in what could only be described as the abyss’s opposing realm, four gods stood in conference discussing the fate of the mortals and the future of their own existence.

“It appears Jarvin has survived his forging,” Sharrellan, goddess of death, said.

Solarian nodded. “He has become what his people desperately needed. As long as he can hold his tempering, the mortals may yet stay united long enough to face our great enemy. What of the sorcerer? He did not come to me so I must surmise that you have him?”

“I do indeed.”

“And is he whole?”