by Lita Burke
Tredan did not wait long. The ailing front door magic was the first to go. The Enforcer sucked away the Protection Charm’s essence. The door crashed open. Interior wards shrieked at the intruder, then wheezed like deflating bellows. They gave a final burp and went silent.
Footsteps on the stairs.
Tredan’s visitor paused in the doorway. The Enforcer wore a lightweight Church robe over a plain tunic and black pants. His face was a sexless rictus with bland eyes and smooth white skin.
Tredan put his pruning shears on a nearby table. His hand trembled. “You’re wearing your Obscure Spells, Seri Enforcer.”
“Does my appearance frighten you?”
The Enforcer’s voice was an emotionless monotone from his masking spells. Tredan’s intruder could have been anyone.
“Some. I’m angrier at your damage to my shop’s Protection Charms.”
“Your fortifications were Magic Guild trifles. They were easy to eat.”
“Enforcers are pig-gluttons with essence.”
“Name-calling, Tredan? It’s unbecoming from a magician of your stature. Try flattery instead. Then resort to begging, followed by you giving me the journal. I will enjoy the progression.”
“The journal isn’t here. You’re wasting your time.”
“But you’re here. You won’t be a waste of time at all.”
“Your compliments disturb me, Seri Enforcer.”
“Apologies. Where is your journal, Enchanter morsel?”
“Go away.”
“I might after we talk.”
The Enforcer stepped into the greenhouse. Tredan tensed. Instead of moving toward him, his visitor walked to the center of the room and looked up.
“Good light in here. Airy. The open casements let in the breeze.”
Tredan inched toward the stairs. “Thank you. I like it.”
“I don’t.”
The Enforcer pulled out a waiting charm, thrust his hand overhead, and invoked the charm with a burst of words. The greenhouse windows banged shut. Their locks snapped closed. They sounded like breaking twigs.
The window magic had preoccupied the Enforcer. Now was the time. Tredan flung his amulets into the air. One hit the Enforcer. He swatted it away. The rest plunked into the pots holding Tredan’s treasured plants. The amulets’ spells unwound on impact. The vegetation leaped into action. Vines burst up, and roots bubbled out of pots. The magic-frenzied flora converged on his visitor. The vines had short thorns. The Enforcer yelped. Tredan spun, dashed to the stairs, and all but fell going down them at a run.
His plants had to delay the Enforcer long enough for Tredan to make it into the crowded street. He did not slow for the door at the bottom of the stairs. Tredan tucked his head and hit the solid wood with his shoulder. It burst open and slammed him against the far wall. He staggered, gained his bearings, and ran down the hallway to the shop’s rear exit.
A glowing charm stuck to the back door. Tendrils of green-lit magic clung to the wood like a spider web. Tredan saw the hostile magic at the last moment, veered away, and smacked the wall instead. His twice-abused shoulder shouted with pain.
The doors into the office, storeroom, and workroom were secured with the same type of magic. No escape back here. It had to be the front door. He trotted through the maze of curio-filled shelves to the front of the shop. He faltered to a stop. His opponent had also sealed the front door and all the downstairs windows.
Trapped.
The Enforcer’s footsteps pounded on the stairs. His opponent emerged from the hallway and crossed the shop.
“No closer,” Tredan said.
“Fine.”
“What do you intend to do? Kill me?”
“Will it persuade your ghost to give up the journal?”
“You need to be a Sciomancer to influence a ghost. It takes a delicate magic you don’t have. An Enforcer’s style is to destroy all magicians in sight and lap up their essence like a starved cur.”
Tredan whispered an oh-so-gentle spell to awaken his bits of essence in the shop’s curios. He had not performed magic so subtle and large since his Enchanter days.
“You’re right, Tredan. I’m no Sciomancer. I cannot get information from your ghost.”
“Thank you for not killing me, Seri Enforcer.”
“I’ll leave now.”
“Please go out the front.”
Tredan’s visitor relaxed his stance and smoothed his robe. “But first?”
“What?”
“Let’s play.”
The Enforcer snapped his arms wide. Magic sparkled in his hands. Tredan commanded the shop’s charms to fly. The curios jumped off their shelves and pelted the Enforcer’s face. They pried at his lips and tried working their way into his mouth and down his throat. Enforcers loved drinking essence. Let him choke on the charms’ essence on their way down.
The Enforcer could not fend off the flying curios without abandoning his unfinished spell. Tredan worked his way around his distracted opponent. He backed up and bumped into a display shelf. He did not have enough essence to continue his bombardment spell and leave the room. Not enough time to get to the roof and escape. Tredan needed more essence and a different spell.
The Enforcer’s hands sparkled with unused essence. Tredan floated an entire shelf of plant miniatures to the outstretched hands. They stuck. Tredan recited his greenhouse spell. The plants feasted on the Enforcer’s potent magic. Vines streamed from his hands, wrapped around the Enforcer’s arms, and encased his head.
Now Tredan turned and ran.
He reached the sealed back door before a vine tendril snaked in from the shop and tripped him. He sprawled on the floor. The vine wrapped around his ankle and plunged long spines deep into his calf. Tredan screamed. The vine dragged him into the shop and deposited him at the Enforcer’s feet. More knife-like spines pierced his other leg. They went through his flesh and embedded their points in the wooden floor. He could not get free. Tredan forced himself not to whimper at the spine’s fire in his flesh.
“What else, Tredan? That amused me.”
Tredan willed a shelf of Pleasure Charms to collapse. A charm designed to give exquisite sensations to a man flew at the Enforcer. It landed on his chest and slithered lower. The Enforcer plucked it away, dropped it, and stepped on the charm. It crunched.
“Don’t distract me with this nonsense.” The Enforcer kicked away the charm’s remains. “You still think like an Enchanter if you waste essence inciting lust in others.”
Tredan cursed. His swearwords became an oily cloud. It drifted up and coiled around the Enforcer. His visitor laughed and toyed with the tendrils as if they were gossamer streams of smoke.
“All you have left are harsh words? Such feeble magic.”
Tredan was an Earthe magician. His talent was to create magic using plants. His shop and its contents were made of wood. If he profaned wood, it could burn. All Tredan needed was a certain spell and enough floating curses to carry his magic to the wood. He could then fight the Enforcer’s superior magic with fire.
Tredan cursed another torrent, then recited the fire spell. The floating curses carried the spell throughout the building. The wooden walls smoldered. On a shelf near the Enforcer’s elbow, a burl wood clock burst into flame. The Enforcer jumped away.
“Get out or you’ll burn.”
“Wait, Tredan. I have something for you.”
The Enforcer produced a charm, pointed it at Tredan, and invoked its spell.
Every magical item in Tredan’s MindPlace Store vibrated and jumped out of their cubbyholes. They skittered across the floor. His active charms ripped holes where they had been attached to his Essence Cache. Tredan now knew how it felt to be gutted while still alive. Every tear in his Essence Cache was a white-hot misery. He bled essence from each opening. The pain stole his ability to think, let alone fight back. He could barely draw a breath.
The Enforcer stowed his first charm, pulled out a second, and stepped to Tredan’s side. He knelt and invoked the sec
ond charm with a silky whisper. “I use this special magic on Enchanters only.”
“What does it do?” Agony made Tredan’s voice a mere thread of sound.
“How did you put it? I remember. You said my talent was to lap up essence like a starved cur. Not attractive words, but accurate, nevertheless.”
The Enforcer hovered the charm over Tredan. It found a bleeding essence wound and settled on his chest. The Enforcer lowered his head and placed his lips on the charm. He drank Tredan’s essence.
The charm burrowed deep into Tredan’s Essence Cache and sought the dregs of his Enchanter magic. It also produced a lassitude. He struggled to think of anything to break himself free. Tredan slipped a hand into his pocket, closed his fingers around a charm, and drew it out. The Compulsion Charm. Its work to draw him to the Enforcer was done. The charm slipped from his fingers. The chain slithered across his palm to the floor.
The Enforcer paused. “Tell me where you’ve hidden the journal.”
“If I don’t?”
“You’ll incur His Divine’s Wrath.”
“I already have. It’s burning my shop.”
“This fire is nothing. His Divine’s Wrath will devour all you hold dear. Decide now. Time grows short.”
“For you, but not for me. If I die now, I take the journal’s secret with me.”
“Lanith will tell.”
“She doesn’t know.”
The walls of Tredan’s shop shimmered with flames. Curios kissed the fire. Their bits of essence burned with a cinnamon scent. Tredan’s Magical Curios smelled like a bakery instead of a charms shop.
“You didn’t tell her about the journal?”
“His Divine’s spell was too powerful.”
“There’s not enough time to talk to you properly.” The Enforcer stood. “My magic will not protect us much longer.”
“Then go.”
“You aren’t the only one who can feel His Divine’s Wrath.”
“I’m not moved by your circumstances.”
The Enforcer yanked away the vines pinning Tredan’s legs. The spine’s points released their hold on the floor, and took bits of bloody flesh where they ripped free of his calves. Fresh white pain consumed Tredan’s legs. He tried to sit, to stand. To run. His legs were useless.
The Enforcer turned and fled.
Tredan would die here, in the fire of his life possessions. It was a satisfactory end provided the secret of the journal went with him. He regretted not having one last delicious essence kiss with Lanith before he went on his final journey to the Fields of Yalu.
He settled back and closed his eyes. Tredan slipped away before the flames touched him. All Enchanters, even the ones long since retired, could use the special magic in their essence to wait in a dark place without pain while death claimed their body.
Two pairs of hands grabbed his arms. They dragged him across the scorching wooden floor. Then fresh air. Grunts. They pitched him into a cart. The stink of a scratchy horse blanket covered his face. The cart jolted, followed by the clop of a horse’s shod hooves. His Essence Cache injuries made Tredan sluggish. He rose halfway into a sit.
“Down, Enchanter.”
A hand pressed against his chest. Magic flowed. The Enforcer’s spell held Tredan’s limbs and made his tongue too numb to speak. He lay back on the rough boards.
“Take Goldwine Way north a half mile past the hospice.” The Enforcer’s words were directed to the unseen cart driver. “There’s a disused path into Old Burial Yard. I’ll tell you where to turn.”
“Thank you for not killing him before I had a chance to speak with my old friend.”
Tredan’s blood went cold. He knew that voice.
“Tredan suggested I enlist the services of a Sciomancer.”
His captors shared a laugh. The Enforcer spoke another spell. Oblivion came. Tredan heard no more.
###
About Lita Burke
Lita Burke is an indie author of fantasy fiction, an avid reader, and enjoys downloading titles by new authors onto her Kindle. Lita works a day job and writes her novels early in the morning before the day clutters up her brain.
Wrath, Prequel to Tredan’s Bane, is her first indie short story.
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Connect with Lita Burke
Follow Lita online for the latest on her upcoming titles, tips on writing craft, and more about her fantasy worlds.
Website and Blog: LitaBurke.com
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Twitter: Twitter.com/LitaBurkeWriter
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Preview of Tredan’s Bane
A Sciomancer’s ghost warns Lanith about fire and kisses. Fire for endings. Kisses for magical power like she’s never tasted before.
Lanith and her husband Tredan, magical curio merchants in the seaside town of Isor, have a quiet life until the day Lanith meets the ghost. She rushes home to find their shop on fire and Tredan gone. Keeping a promise to Tredan to seek help if he ever went missing, Lanith teams up with Enchanter Nyle. The reclusive Enchanters are so attractive, the Church declares them a danger to a person’s soul. The warnings are valid. Before Nyle will help her, she must taste his magical essence with a kiss. It is a revelation shattering everything she knew about magic.
They discover Tredan is not what he seems. For years a Church spell compelled him to keep a secret journal with magic to ruin the Enchanters. Enchanter essence powers everything in their world. Without it, many will die from lack of magic to nourish their bodies, fuel their machines, and even make the water flow.
Now a Church Enforcer has come to Isor, and he will stop at nothing to acquire Tredan’s journal. Lanith has to keep him from getting the journal and enslaving the Enchanters. In addition, she must conquer her desire for Nyle and his delectable magic before it sullies her marriage vows and damns her soul.
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