God of Magic

by Logan Jacobs

  The wraith seemed as shocked by what I’d done as I was, and for a beat, neither of us moved. Lavinia recovered more quickly, however, and the trance over us was broken as another of her arrows pierced through the wraith’s slack mouth.

  It howled and lashed out with its cracked and yellowed nails at me since, unfortunately, I was the closest opponent and it probably wasn’t too thrilled to have my hand buried in its chest.

  I barely managed to pull my hand free and stagger back out of the way as Maruk charged forward to engage the creature again. “It wasn’t supposed to be able to teleport!” he called back as he stepped in front of me and blocked the wraith’s next attack. A shower of purple sparks rained down over us as the magic bolt struck his shield.

  “Aerin bought the dust, blame her,” Lavinia retorted as she drew back her bowstring for another shot. “I told you that guy was a fraud.”

  “He offered me a really good discount for it!” Aerin replied helplessly.

  “Yeah, no wonder, because it’s fucking useless,” Lavinia growled. Her statement was punctuated by the twang of her bowstring, and another arrow pierced the wraith’s forehead.

  The creature shrieked, and the thin layer of skin that still clung to its skull began to shred off in tatters that glowed as they dissolved into the air before it teleported away again.

  “Stay on it, Maruk,” Lavinia commanded. “We’ve almost got it.”

  “What do you think I’m trying to do?” the orc grumbled as he followed the wraith which teleported once more when it saw him coming.

  I realized that if it was going to keep teleporting, we could be here all night chasing it around. I didn’t want that, and while I wasn’t sure if I was able to interrupt its teleportation the way I’d interrupted its attack, I was going to find out.

  The wraith had evidently decided to give itself some breathing room because it reappeared as far as it could get from any of us. It didn’t seem as eager to attack now, either, but I knew it would move again once Maruk got to it. I focused on the point of light that glowed within the creature’s chest and raised my hand as Maruk neared it, his shield ready.

  Stay there, I thought, and a surge of warm power shot from me like a hunting eagle.

  The wraith’s form flickered as Maruk drove his shield forward to bash it in the chest, but it didn’t teleport, and the orc’s shield hit it with a sickening crunch. The wraith let out a terrible, rasping cry as its skin frayed off its skeleton and its bones cracked and then dissolved into light. Within seconds, only the tattered rags of its ancient garments remained. As they fell into a moldy heap on the grass, Maruk bent to retrieve them.

  He brought them over to where Aerin and I still stood, his mouth stretched in a relieved smile around his tusks, and Lavinia shouldered her bow as she joined us.

  “Told you we could take this one,” the archer said confidently, though she was still panting slightly. “No problem.”

  “Easy for you to say, you weren’t the one who had to chase after it,” Maruk snorted, but then his scoff turned into a relieved laugh, and Aerin and I laughed too.

  “I saw what you did with the wraith,” Aerin said, and she touched me lightly on the arm. “Way to go. How’d it feel?”

  “Good,” I replied. “Great, actually.” When I had used my power against the wraith, I’d gotten the same sense as when Theira had first shown it to me, like I was finally complete.

  Lavinia cleared her throat. “Right, thanks for that,” she said quickly.

  “No problem,” I answered.

  Aerin turned to her. “You’d better let me have a look at that scratch, then we can see if that old ghost left behind anything valuable.”

  Lavinia knelt in the grass so that Aerin could assess the wound on her shoulder. Four long, bleeding welts stood out against her skin, which was blotched angry red and deep purple. I was surprised the wraith could have done that sort of damage with just a scratch, but I supposed magic might have been a factor even in its physical attacks.

  I expected the elf to pull out a roll of bandages, maybe a salve, but instead, Aerin placed her hands on Lavinia’s back on either side of the wound and muttered something under her breath.

  Suddenly the light in Aerin’s chest began to glow brighter, and exactly as I’d seen the magic course through the wraith’s body, golden-hued light began to flow down the elf’s arms and into her hands. Instead of the hissing whine that I’d heard when the wraith had attacked, however, the sound that accompanied Aerin’s magic was gentle and melodious.

  As I looked on in amazement, the red and purple welts faded and the wounds closed themselves, and within moments, there was no evidence at all that Lavinia had been hurt.

  Aerin stepped back, and Lavinia stood and gave her an appreciative nod which seemed to me like a fairly casual reaction to such miraculous healing. Of course, I realized, magic wasn’t new to any of them.

  “You’re not hurt, are you, Gabriel?” Aerin asked then.

  I blinked. “No. No, I’m alright, thanks.”

  “Maruk?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me that a bath and a glass of Château Fèvre won’t fix,” the orc replied, and Lavinia cast him a sly grin.

  “I don’t know about that,” she said.

  Maruk gave her a cold look. “I pity you, you know,” he said importantly. “You have no appreciation for the finer things in life. If you would let me show you a little culture--”

  “Oh, keep your culture.” Lavinia waved him off. “Let’s see what loot the old guy left for us.” She set off toward the sigil-marked stone that the wraith had come from while Maruk shook his head and breathed a long-suffering sigh.

  Lavinia began to scuff her boots in the dirt and grass, apparently in search of something, and Aerin and Maruk soon followed suit. I scanned the ground around me and wondered what exactly they were looking for and if I should start kicking around as well when Aerin called out, “Over here!”

  She grabbed hold of a thick iron ring lost in the tall grass and grunted with effort as she pulled it up. A moment later, a tearing of roots and a sharp creak echoed through the air, and Aerin nearly fell back when the trapdoor suddenly swung open.

  I followed as Maruk and Lavinia joined Aerin at the door. I could see the top of a ladder, the wood gray with age and cracked in places where it had begun to rot, but about a foot down, the rest of the ladder and the cellar beyond were lost in darkness. An odor like stagnant water wafted up from below.

  “I think I shall let the three of you scout around down there,” Maruk announced. The crinkle in his short, upturned nose gave away the primary motive behind his decision, but I wasn’t sure the entrance was wide enough to accommodate the orc’s enormous shoulders, anyway.

  Aerin threw him a teasing smirk over her shoulder. “Stay if you want,” she said, “but if I find any fancy belt buckles down there, I’m keeping ‘em.”

  Maruk looked put-out but waved the elf away. “Go on, then, I don’t want to be here all night.”

  Lavinia tested the first rung of the ladder with her foot. “Aerin, you better go first.”

  Aerin frowned. “You mean I get to go first into the creepy, smelly dungeon? How generous of you, Lavinia.”

  “I meant because you’re the smallest,” the archer replied, arms crossed. “If the ladder seems too weak for you, come back up, and we’ll figure out another way down.”

  “Fine,” Aerin said as she stepped up to the edge of the cellar entrance. She tested the old ladder carefully for the first few steps, but she didn’t get very far before even her bright red hair disappeared into the gloom. We could hear the soft clink of her armor as she continued her descent, and then finally there was a small splash, followed by a noise of disgust from the elf that echoed off the cellar walls. Gold-tinted light blossomed up from below, and I could see the top of Aerin’s head about twenty feet down, as well as a layer of standing water.

  When Aerin turned her face up to us, her eyes sparkled in the light. “
There’s good stuff down here, come on!”

  Lavinia slung her bow and quiver off her shoulder, handed them to Maruk, then followed Aerin down the ladder. She jumped the last few rungs, and there was a splash followed by an indignant cry from Aerin.

  “Watch it!” the elf yelped.

  “Ugh, it smells even worse down here,” Lavinia said.

  I wasn’t particularly eager to wade through six inches of foul water, but my curiosity at what lay beyond won out, and I followed my new companions down the ladder. A few of the rungs sagged slightly under my weight, but fortunately, they held. Lavinia was right, it did smell worse down here, and the air was cool and damp. I gritted my teeth as I stepped carefully into water that reached well above my ankles and soaked my socks through my boots immediately.

  Aerin’s mana glowed as it had when she’d healed Lavinia, but now the light was collected in a sphere suspended above her palm that she used to light the small space. Arranged around the room on tables and shelves that kept everything safely out of the floodwater, weapons, armor, and other valuables gleamed in the warm golden light.

  Aerin moved forward to scrape a few gold coins that were scattered across one of the tables into a pouch while Lavinia made for the collection of weapons, from which she took a long dagger and a leather and velvet quiver filled with long, dark arrows.

  I found myself drawn to the shelves stacked with books and scrolls, and I wondered how they had survived with all this moisture in the air. Maybe there was some sort of enchantment that protected them from the mold. I scanned the titles along the spines, many of which were decorated with silver and gold embossing. They were beautiful, but I didn’t recognize the language on half of them or the alphabet on the other half, so I had no way of knowing which might be useful to me. I chose a thick tome at random and balanced it against my arm as I opened it.

  Rows of text were written in a flowing script alongside a vibrant illustration of a woman and a dragon in a forest. I carefully turned a few more pages, but they bore similar illustrations. I guessed it was a storybook, or perhaps, considering where I was, a history book, but in any case, it clearly wasn’t the grimoire I’d hoped for.

  I unfurled a few of the scrolls next, but as far as I could tell, they were all legal documents of some sort. I returned them to the shelf and tried not to feel too discouraged. Just because I didn’t find the magical instruction book I needed right away didn’t mean there were none to be found anywhere.

  When Aerin sloshed over to me a few minutes later, she wore a merry grin and a new pair of armored gloves. Slung over her shoulder was a sack almost as large as the elf was tall. The canvas was strained against the bulk of its contents, and I figured Aerin must have managed to stuff nearly half the goods in the chamber into the bag. I couldn’t imagine how she was able to carry it.

  She glanced over at the books. “Anything good?”

  “I’m not sure,” I confessed. “I can’t read most of the titles.”

  The elf held up the light to scan the books with more care and her thin brows crinkled into a frown. “Most of these are in Caaldirian. Wonder what they’re doing here,” she said, almost to herself. Then she shrugged. “They’re not much use to either of us, they’re only books about Caaldirian history and economics. You can take them to sell if you want, but I doubt anyone between here and Ovrista will be very interested. They wouldn’t be worth the pain to lug around. Come on, see if you want any of the old guy’s armor.”

  Since Aerin’s standards for what was worth taking seemed fairly liberal, I decided to trust her judgment and leave the books behind. As I followed her over to the metal mannequins that displayed sets of armor, I realized that if this was some sort of burial chamber, something was missing.

  “Shouldn’t there be a body?” I asked, and as I did, I thought I felt the same clammy chill as I had when the wraith had appeared behind me.

  Aerin glanced back at me, eyebrows raised. “Here? No, this isn’t where he was buried. That was looted a long time ago. Some mages figured out how to trap the wraith so they could take what they wanted without all the bother.” She sounded bitter about that, but then she grinned. “The old guy was smart though, he didn’t keep everything in one place. We heard there might be some things worth taking left here, and we’ll get a bounty for destroying the wraith.”

  The armor looked finely made, but it was all heavy plate metal and looked like it would be too big for me. I would have to buy something when we got back to... wherever it was we were going back to. I would need armor meant for a mage and new clothes that were less conspicuous than my khakis and button-down. I was about to go check out the weapons when a dark hooded cloak caught my eye. As I pulled it from the display, I was surprised by how lightweight the fabric was, and it ran over my hand like water. It would at least solve one of my problems by helping me stay disguised until I’d gotten some new clothes, and I could tell it was valuable. I decided that I could sell it later to buy a cheaper replacement along with the other items I needed and draped it over my shoulder.

  When I turned back to the weapons racks, Lavinia had obviously been picking them over, and she handed me a heavy silver-plated shield when I approached.

  “Uh, thanks,” I said.

  The corner of the archer’s mouth quirked up. “It’s for Maruk,” she explained. “See anything you want?”

  I looked over the display of swords, maces, and other instruments of destruction, but I couldn’t say any of it appealed to me. “Do mages usually carry weapons?” I asked.

  “Mages are weapons,” Lavinia replied. She selected a modest-looking dagger in a sheath from the collection and handed it to me. “But it helps to have some back-up.”

  I nodded as I took it and strapped the sheath around my waist. “Thanks.”

  “Ready to go?” Aerin asked. “This smell is starting to make me dizzy.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Lavinia agreed, and we made our way back up the ladder into the cool night where Maruk waited.

  I gave him the shield and earned a wide smile in return. He strapped it to his free arm and tested its weight. “Very nice,” he said. “Although I do hope that smell won’t stick.”

  “You use two shields?” I asked as I looked at the orc. I’d thought he’d simply replace the one he’d been using, not use both. “That seems... unconventional.”

  Before I had even finished speaking, I saw Aerin and Lavinia urgently shake their heads behind Maruk, but the orc drew himself up proudly.

  “Well, I’m not a barbarian,” he replied solemnly.

  “I’m not sure I follow,” I said as I gestured at him. “What does the second shield have to do with that?”

  Maruk sniffed and adjusted his armor in a self-important way. “Some of my brethren might delight in excessive violence, but I do not,” he answered. Then he scoffed. “I mean, have you ever tried to get blood stains out of suede?”

  I blinked back at Maruk as he looked down at me with his eyebrows raised. Evidently, that was not a rhetorical question.

  “Uh, no,” I admitted.

  “It’s impossible,” he informed me.

  Lavinia drew her hand in a slicing motion across her throat in a clear signal that she wanted me to stop, but my curiosity was overwhelming.

  “So you never use weapons?” I asked. “I mean, what if you need to--”

  Maruk cut me off. “To do what? Decapitate someone? Raid a village? There’s more to life, you know, and more to me. I may be an orc, but I can appreciate the finer things. I am here to provide protection for my friends, and I can accomplish that perfectly well without a blade.”

  “Sorry,” I said quickly, “I didn’t mean to suggest--”

  Maruk was on a roll, now, however. “My parents wanted me to carry on the family traditions, of course. Pillaging, plundering, fashioning armor from the bones of our victims, you know, but it was all just so dreadfully unsanitary.” His tone became wistful. “I wanted to pursue the arts, to study music and philos
ophy, but the closest thing we had to that back home were sea shanties and crude jokes.”

  “Your family are... pirates?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Maruk said. “They’re quite infamous across the Ibarin Sea, they have a whole fleet. My mother hoped that giving me my own ship to command would inspire me to take up the business, but I couldn’t possibly spend the rest of my life sacking port after port, so I decided to join a guild to get them off my back. Of course, they still think bounty hunting is rather tame, but it’s the best compromise we could have made.”

  I blinked. “Right, um, of course. So if they’re pirates--”

  “They’re not giving us a cut of their loot,” Aerin cut in. She sounded disappointed. “Maruk wanted to make his own way in the world and do the honorable thing.”

  “I was going to ask if we should be worried about law enforcement or something,” I corrected her.

  “No, at least not around here,” Maruk answered. “And we’re getting by just fine, Aerin, earning our own money.”

  The elf rolled her eyes, but before she could say anything in return, Lavinia interrupted her.

  “You two can stand around arguing all night if you want, but I’m going inside to make camp,” she said. “We’ll leave for Ovrista first thing in the morning.”

  “Hang on,” Aerin called after her, “help me carry this.”

  Lavinia didn’t bother even to turn around. “Oh, no, you wanted to take all that junk, you have to carry it back.”

  “It’s not junk!” Aerin insisted as she hefted her sack over her shoulder and trailed after Lavinia. “These are all valuable relics!”

  We found a room inside the castle that was rat-free and had walls that were mostly still intact and set up for the night. Before it had even occurred to me to wonder if I was going to be left sleeping on the floor, Maruk gave me an extra bedroll and blanket that he’d packed. I wondered if they had brought spares because they’d anticipated that I would join them or if these had belonged to their old mage. In any case, I was grateful to have them. The day’s events had caught up with me, and I was exhausted.