“He can’t help you for I, Visalon control the dead. They will peck you to death even as you beg for mercy!”
Both of the brothers blinked a few times before they burst out laughing, “Fucks sake! I haven’t got all century to be pecked to death by chickens…Well, actually I have but that’s not the point. You cannot kill people with zombie chickens. Quite frankly it’s ridiculous.”
Visalon had the sense to look abashed, “It’s all I had available at the time alright! I couldn’t raise the two necromancers you’d already killed because of the cranial impaction.”
Cock scratched his head, “Cranial what?”
“She means head trauma, bro.”
“Oh, right.”
Suddenly there was another person in the room and she was standing next to Visalon, “Well done my disciple. You’ve kept them busy long enough for the other Circle to nearly complete the ritual. Soon Esterada will be free of all humans.”
The figure lowered the hood of her cloak.
Pock, Cock and Visalon gasped aloud.
“Mother!” said Pock and Cock.
“A human!” said Visalon.
Then another voice came from behind the brothers, “Don’t be silly boys. I’m your mother, that over there is my twin sister, Death.”
Cock rubbed his forehead, “Fucks sake, I think I’m getting a migraine.”
Pock clapped him on his shoulder, “And I’ve still got chickens pecking my ankles.”
“Oh yeah. Sorry about that.”
The undead chickens flopped back to the ground.
Life stepped forward and between Pock and Cock, “You have to stop this Death.”
“Never! Imagine the power I’ll wield when I destroy humanity.”
“But..”
“Do not ‘but’ me! You’re just jealous. You’ve always been jealous of me, because I’m better looking and had more handsome boyfriends!”
“Sister, we’re identical twins!”
Pock felt it was time to say something, “Err…auntie, you do realize that you’re the human god of death don’t you?”
“Do you take me for an idiot, child?”
Cock couldn’t help himself, “Well…”
Pock quickly interjected, “If you kill all humanity you won’t gain power, you’ll cease to be.”
“…”
By now Visalon was halfway to the city of Illirium, flogging her horse for all it was worth and vowing to set up a home for waifs and strays (but that’s another story). No one back in the room had noticed that she had slipped away.
Now, where were we? Oh yes!
“…”
“Oh shit.”
“Indeed, sister. You’re going to have to go back and stop them.”
“I can’t!”
“Why not?”
“They’re my friends. I made them promises, I can’t break my word.”
Pock looked at his brother, “She has got to be shitting us!”
Cock sighed, “Just let us know where they are and we’ll deal with it.”
“They’re under Butchers Row. Under Chops the Butchers.”
“You have got to be kidding!”, Pock shook his head, “Mother can you take us there?”
“Of course I can. Anything for my boys.”
Suddenly Pock and Cock found themselves back at the entrance to Butchers Row, there was no sign of Life or Death even though this was a life and death situation.
Cock sighed, “Tell me you have a plan and that it won’t take long to implement.”
“Oh yes. And for once we won’t get bloody.”
The two brothers hadn’t gotten far, before Pock staggered to one side and started to dry heave. Cock rushed over and started to rub his brothers back, but to no avail. Pock’s face started to turn blue. Then the screams started. Close at first and then seeming to expand out in a circle from Butcher’s Row.
Pock grabbed at Cock. “Get the Lord of Butcher’s Row. Only he can help us now.”
Cock gently pushed Pock away and ran into the alley, “Hey, Lord!”
Nothing happened.
Cock pointed down to the sewers, “Necromancers! In the sewers.”
Still nothing.
At the alley mouth, Pock had fallen to the ground with froth coming from his mouth. Tears started to run down Cock’s cheeks, “Fuck!”
And then he heard it. The tap, tap sound from before and the portal opened and out strode the Lord of Butcher’s Row, “Who dares to…”
“Yeah, yeah. We haven’t got time for that shite. There are necromancers in the sewers below and they are about to kill all mankind.”
The Lord blinked, “Really?”
“Yes, fucking really! Look my brother’s dying and only you can save him.”
“Why should I?”
“Because…err…because they are evil as fuck necromancers, and they have been killing chickens left, right and center.”
“Good point. Hang on a moment and I’ll be right back.”
The Lord of Butcher’s Row walked back into the portal and seconds later Cock was sure he could hear screams coming from below.
Serves the fuckers right, he thought.
From behind him came a groan and he whirled around to see Pock up on his hands and knees. Life helped him to his feet, and as she held him his strength seemed to return, “Mother, what the fuck is going on!!?”
“Sorry, lads. I have to keep hunting my sister or there’s no telling what mischief she will get up to.”
“How the hell did the two of you escape The Vortex Prison?”
Life sighed, “The barriers are breaking, my boys. A boy is coming with a black bird on his shoulder and the Orcslayers are returning to Ashen Falls, and when they do you will know that it is time.”
“Time for what?”
“Why, time for The Eight God, of course.”
“Of course they—” Pock stopped talking as his mother was no longer there.
Cock came and stood next to his brother, “I need a drink.”
“Me too.”
“What did mother want?”
“I’ll tell you on the way to the inn.”
What Is Stolen and What is Lost
An Immortal Treachery story
By Allan Batchelder
The girl was his penance and his salvation—his penance because he’d inadvertently caused her parents’ deaths, and his salvation because she gave him reason to live. His conundrum was that being a Shaper burned his wick a deal faster than most men’s, meaning that he might not be around long enough to see her grown and married. It was a fear that kept him up at nights, stewing and fretting until he eventually succumbed to exhaustion.
But how was he to deal with the Burning, the ever-present, painful cost of doing magic that all Shapers felt? Some of his colleagues, he knew, dosed themselves with sedatives or hallucinogenic herbs. Others drank to excess (he’d certainly given that strategy a lengthy trial). Some few tried to sleep away their days and nights together. And some went mad. On the other side, there were Shapers who became addicted to the pain, who became as emaciated and fiendish as any vampire. And then there were those, like the Queen’s Shaper, Cindor, who had learned to use his Shaping to control the very burning it generated. Chyrin envied such men, for he had no idea how such a thing was possible. It was like feeding one’s hunger by eating the air.
If he could just find some new approach, though, he could blunt his agony and slow his own premature aging, which would then allow him to see Mellie grown.
If.
What a world of hope there was in that little word. How it could contain so much emotion, possibility and import was yet another of life’s mysteries that remained frustratingly beyond Chyrin’s reach.
Better Shapers, he was sure, could glean the answers. Alas, he was not of their quality. Chyrin had come to his magic late and, as a result, had not enjoyed even half the financial success of his peers. He’d never been able to secure the patronage of any of Lunessfor’s nobility, and even its wealt
hiest merchants looked elsewhere for their arcane assistance. Thus, Chyrin was relegated to helping the working poor; his clientele paid him not in Royals or Merchants, but in Shims, in fish, and in bread of questionable provenance. For all that, he was a master of a few particular spells—none better!—and it was in this ability that he hoped to find his sought-after answer.
The question vexed him like a recurrent rash, or a cough that simply would not leave his lungs. The only cure for this torment, he knew, was to focus less on himself and more on his child, Mellie. She amazed him. Her ability to find or create playthings out of next-to-nothing was endlessly surprising, as was her commitment to whatever narrative she’d chosen for her games. He was, he suspected, in awe of her. And the more he watched, the more spellbound he became. He adored her riot of honey-colored locks, the spray of freckles across her nose, her silly, gap-toothed smile. And her radiant blue eyes (his were brown)! Ironic, the thought, that he should be the one enchanted. After watching her for several minutes, his mind returned, inevitably, to himself.
Chyrin set down the bowl of soup he’d been eating and stepped in front of the mirror on the room’s western wall. He was not given to vanity and could certainly live without encountering his haggard visage, but the glass was useful in his magicks, and so he kept it. Today, it showed him the face of a man in his middle years who might as well have been seventy. Mellie had even taken to calling him grandpa in jest, though it rarely brought a smile to his face.
How might he reverse or retard this rapid aging?
He watched Mellie pouring soup from his bowl into her own, and suddenly he had an idea. It was not an entirely pleasant idea, but as it was the only one he’d had in weeks and as he was getting increasingly desperate, he had to entertain it. The trick, as he saw it, was to essentially pour someone else’s youth and vitality into himself and then to pour his own increasing frailty into the other person. There were apocryphal tales of magicians draining the thoughts from others’ minds, and even one outlandish story of a body-swap. Surely, what Chyrin imagined would be easier. It would likely do nothing for the pain of the Burning, but if it could add years to his life, he was willing to make the attempt.
Oh, but to steal another’s youth and burden him with Chyrin’s age! How abhorrent it was to him, how it shamed him to think of it, and yet he could see no alternative if he wished to remain by Mellie’s side into her adulthood. Unconsciously, he sought reasons to justify his eventual actions, telling himself that he’d done more good than harm in the grand scheme of things, and that, perhaps, he was owed a little leeway in this instance, especially as his ultimate purpose was to continue his care for a child who would otherwise assuredly be an orphan.
That night, he dreamt of the fire in which Mellie’s parents had died. It was the custom, the expectation, throughout the city that whenever a fire broke out, everyone would help after his own abilities. Most folks participated in bucket brigades, but there were always a few A’Shea—healers—on hand to attend to the wounded, and certainly every available Shaper was expected to do his part. It was just that Chyrin had done his too well and too quickly.
He’d been out strolling when he smelled smoke and, seconds later, heard the general hue and cry of citizens addressing a building on fire. He’d been close enough that he’d had no reason to Jump to the scene and, anyway, he wanted to save his energy for the fire itself. The building was an old pile of a thing, subdivided into numerous homes, the top floor of which was already roaring with flames and past saving. A number of women and children had gathered across the street, whilst their neighbors did their best to pitch in however they could.
Now, there are any number of spells a Shaper might use to extinguish a fire. The actual choice typically depends upon that Shaper’s comfort and skill with his repertoire. Chyrin was not terribly adept at summoning large quantities of water, and so he usually opted to suck all of the air out of a burning structure, thus suffocating the flames. This time, to his everlasting regret, he neglected to check if there were any people still trapped inside the building when he cast his spell. The fire went out with a great whooshing sound. The only slightly-burnt bodies of Mellie’s parents went out with no sound at all. When he learned what he’d done and discovered the dead couple’s child sobbing uncontrollably in the arms of an old woman nearby, he swore that if he accomplished nothing else in this life, he would see that girl raised properly.
He spent days and then weeks visiting all the necessary authorities, filling out endless paperwork, and enduring more interviews than he could remember, but at last he was given custody of the girl. He wanted only to make things right. It was his fear of failure, then, that haunted him in these dreams, dreams that could only be banished by lavishing more love and attention upon his sweet Mellie.
In the ensuing weeks, Chyrin worked day and night, experimenting with the spells he knew and borrowing spell books from the few friendly colleagues he had in order to develop the magicks necessary to accomplish his task. Like many a Shaper (or alchemist) before him, he tested his findings on rodents, on stray cats and dogs, and even on the city’s street urchins. With every incremental bit of progress, he became more and more obsessed, until he inevitably abandoned all pretense of morality and began taking whatever and whomever he needed to fulfill his vision. He suffered only occasional fits of conscience, but he pushed them aside, over and over, with his fervent belief that it was all justified in the service of his beloved Mellie. Finally, he was convinced he’d created the necessary spell-work; his challenge now was to find the right subject, someone of abundant health and vigor and someone, too, whose expedited demise would not be mourned.
Days passed and only his usual customers came by, looking to rid their homes of pests, spy on their spouses, or locate missing objects. The truth was, Chyrin hated this kind of work. It was so far beneath his abilities, it was almost embarrassing. The greater truth was that no work would satisfy until he’d found his victim and stolen that person’s youth. After days of frustration, the ideal candidate walked through his door, and the Shaper could barely mask his elation.
The fellow in question was a strapping specimen, hirsute, toothy, with chiseled features, sunken eyes and a shelf-like brow. Chyrin could almost feel the young man’s strength radiating off him and found it difficult to contain his excitement.
“Welcome to Solutions,” he told the man. “What can I do for you?”
“Can you…can you make someone love me?”
It was a common request, but one more asked by young women than large, gangly men. “Of course,” Chyrin lied, although it was far more complicated than that. What he did—what he knew how to do—was to create compulsion that looked and felt like love for a time, but was really far worse for the mental health of both people in the long run. No one had ever come back to complain about his efforts, but he suspected that was more out of fear than desire. And, in any case, he was prepared to respond if they did.
“You can?’ the man asked, hope and relief comingling on his face.
“I said so, did I not?”
The other man nodded enthusiastically.
“Now, what do you offer in exchange?” Chyrin knew that whatever the man might pay him would be worth far less than the vigor he would also surrender, but he’d appearances to maintain, and so he pretended to barter.
After several minutes, the Shaper and his customer struck an agreement: the young man would give Chyrin a copper ring that had belonged to his mother—or so he claimed — and a large sack of apples, and the Shaper would enspell the young man such that the object of his desire would, by gradual degrees, find it necessary to be in his presence at all times. Once the promised goods had been handed over to Chyrin, he said, “Now, I need you to come behind the counter, here, and sit in this chair.”
The man awkwardly made his way to the chair specified and sat. It was sturdy but sparsely upholstered, and he struggled to find a comfortable position for whatever was to come. Chyrin offered him a small g
lass of quince wine—as small, in fact, as might deliver the required reagents without cutting into the Shaper’s supply. He was thrifty of necessity, but not where his quince wine was concerned. Rather, he purchased the best his limited budget could afford, and he didn’t like wasting too much on his customers.
After some minutes, his client, whose name he still did not know or wish to know, drifted into a gentle sleep, whereupon Chyrin rubbed his own palms with Theulia resin, the better to channel his magic, and grasped both of the sleeping man’s hands in his own. Chanting words of focus (a crutch he often wished he was powerful enough to avoid), he felt a new energy surging into his breast, even as his subject seemed to shrink and grow pale. He was not shrinking, of course, but his dwindling vitality certainly made it appear so. For his own part, Chyrin felt by stages invigorated, exhilarated, virile and, lastly, mildly alarmed. Was this truly how it felt to be young, healthy and strong? Had he fallen so far, or was the young man simply exceptional?
Whatever the case, Chyrin felt as if he might live for a hundred years more, now, and the prospect thrilled him. Turning his attention back to the other man, Chyrin saw that his breathing had become more shallow, his skin, blotchy, and his hair, dry and brittle-looking. He shook the man gently but was unable to awaken him. Frustrated, he pinched the fellow, with no better result. Finally, he shouted at him, causing the man to bolt upright and launch into a prolonged fit of coughing.
“I don’t feel s’good,” he complained.
I imagine not, Chyrin thought. “That’s to be expected with such demanding spells,” he said. “You’ll feel better by this evening, tomorrow at the latest.” And, of course, he had also delivered on the compulsion spell he’d promised. Even if his victim had not recuperated by then, he’d probably be too preoccupied with his intended’s attentions to bother returning. And what could he possibly do to Chyrin, anyway? The Shaper was now at the height of his powers, and the other man was no match for him.
With a little tut-tutting, he was able to urge the man out of his shop, after which he heaved a great sigh of relief and no little satisfaction. His spells had worked! He couldn’t remember having felt better.
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