The Sorcerer's Path Box Set: Book 1-4

by Brock Deskins

  Faralynn was the local chapterhouse leader who collected taxes and tithes from all thieves working in the area in which Azerick unfortunately found himself. He had originally worked within Andrill’s district, but Faralynn’s rise to power over the past year redrew the lines, which put the young street rat within the powerful and unforgiving hands of one of the most dangerous and only female guild leaders in the city.

  Hugo and his friends laughed at the implied threat and gave him one more good hard kick to the ribs as they left Azerick curled in the fetal position on the cobbled street.

  “You and your moronic friends just got a permanent entry on my list, Hugo,” Azerick muttered as he picked himself up off the filthy cobblestones.

  As soon as he regained his feet and his breath, Azerick once again continued his trek home, taking the time to design two plans of payback for his wounded body and pride, but this time he kept more alert of his surroundings.

  No, best to focus on one plan at a time, he thought. Azerick devoted his full revenge-filled thoughts to the wizard. Hugo could wait a bit longer he reasoned. Azerick had never had magic used against him before. It made him feel powerless in its grip, and that made him feel, not scared, but certainly disconcerted. And angry.

  Hugo and his friends had been a pain and an annoyance for the past several years. Azerick guessed that made him about sixteen or seventeen years old now. He had stopped keeping track some time ago. That started Azerick thinking about his life before the streets and the one, or ones, who occupied the top of his revenge list: whoever set up and killed his father. He probably could have asked Andrill for help in getting information about his father’s murder, but he still owed the man a debt and was not about to increase it. It was hard enough just surviving right now.

  Azerick picked his way through a dilapidated warehouse with half its roof caved in. He looked around carefully before entering a large crate covering the trapdoor beneath it. He reached down and lifted several planks to reveal the entrance. This allowed him to grip the opposing floorboard. When he pulled, a whole section of the floor pivoted up to reveal a passage with ladder rungs built into a stone shaft.

  Azerick began his descent, barring the trap door from inside. He carefully avoided the rungs designed to cause a slip, make a bell ring, or worse, launch a spike into the belly of the one unfortunate enough to trip it.

  Azerick settled himself into his abode, his stomach singing to him in a rumbling baritone, and once again started to think of his past, back nearly five years to a time of safety, comfort, and happiness. Those thoughts, as he waded back upstream in the river of time, took him once again to those days of happiness but also to the most horrifying and dreadful moments of his young life. He thought back to the cause of his whole purpose of being, the purpose of revenge against those responsible for his life and the loss of his family, fine home, and education. His education had been the most important thing in his life aside from his parents.

  By the time Azerick came out of his reverie, it was nearly time to go back to the ‘market square of shame’, as he now referred to it, and make good on his debt. He was a man of his word after all. Integrity was one of the few things no one could ever take away. It could only be willfully surrendered.

  “Well as I live and breathe, whoever would have guessed a street rat would keep his word and do some honest labor?” the produce merchant commented as he watched Azerick approach his cart. "I really didn’t expect you to show up, boy. Might be some hope for your character yet.”

  “Be rest assured, good merchant, that my character is just fine as I see it.”

  Azerick spent the next half hour moving and stacking the crates of fruits and vegetables so the farmer could safely cart them back to his farm. It was not terribly difficult work, and he was finished in fairly short order.

  “You owed me a debt, boy, but I’ll thank you for your service anyway. Here, take these as a token of my good character,” he said and handed Azerick a small bag with a few apples, pears and a gourd.

  “Payment is not necessary. I owed you for what I damaged, and my labor made us square.”

  “Nonsense, boy, I know you’re hungry, and now you don’t have to worry about stealing a meal tonight. That makes me feel well enough that we’re still even if you accept it. A man, a boy even, needs to know what it feels like to receive compensation for honest work. Perhaps if more thieves and street urchins knew that feeling then maybe they would be more prone to doing honest work instead of trying to take the easy road and just steal it.”

  “Yes, sir, thank you,” he replied and walked away, not wanting to argue with the man who obviously knew nothing about living on the streets if he thought it was an easy life.

  Azerick did not think anything about his life had ever been easy since his father’s death. He did appreciate the food. He was not particularly interested in trying to filch a loaf of bread or a small wheel of cheese today. His earlier exploits still stuck in his craw, and he just did not feel up it.

  Tomorrow however, is another day, he thought as he made his way across the city yet again and crept back into his bolthole.

  Azerick spent the next week plying his usual trade, nicking bites to eat, lifting purses, avoiding Hugo and his crew like the plague, and burglarizing the occasional home when he was really desperate for money. He stuck mainly to the middle and upper middle class homes of merchants. He never pulled off another caper as lucrative as the one that made him enough coin to buy his precious alchemic set. Such had been an act of desperation and his situation, as bad as it was right now, did not warrant the possibility of spending several years in prison.

  His gift to his friend Bran had absorbed the remaining gold he had made from that run and now he was having a hard time making his payments. He was at least two weeks past due and needed to make a decent score soon before the guild got tired of leaving the collection job to those three idiots and sent out some real thugs to finish the job. He could always pawn his alchemic set back to Azeel but immediately discarded that as an option. He would have to burgle another house and soon. Nothing as risky or elaborate as before, but something he could hit quickly and with minimal risk. Maybe he would start casing some likely places tonight.

  “Or maybe they would just have to wait a bit longer,” Azerick muttered to himself as he spied a familiar old man in robes striding up the street.

  He looked around for some way to create a distraction that would break the old wizard’s attention enough for Azerick to get in and out quickly. Once again, the fates supplied the perfect means. Hugo and his motley little band were across the square, likely scoping out a mark or two as well. Azerick’s quick mind went to work and formulated a plan in seconds.

  He threaded his way through the crowded streets toward his three nemeses, scooping up a fresh lump of horse dung along the way. When he came within range, he shouted at the three thugs to gain their attention.

  “Hey, Hugo, I got all the taxes you’re worth right here.”

  As soon as Hugo looked up at him, Azerick flung the fresh dung at Hugo’s broad face with the accuracy of a champion archer. The filthy ball of manure hit Hugo right in the mouth with enough force to peel back his puffy lips and shatter the dung ball into dozens of tiny projectiles that caught Carrot, Rolly, and a few unlucky bystanders in its expanding spray.

  “Kill him!” Hugo screamed, spitting out bits of horse dung.

  Azerick took off like an arrow launched from a bow with the three hoodlums in pursuit. He ran through the crowds as fast as he could without knocking into any of them and slowing his escape. His path of flight intentionally took him on an unerring course toward the old wizard who had so humiliated him previously.

  Within moments, he caught sight of his target, ducked his head, and ran full tilt into the old man. White wispy beard, boy, and stained robes rolled into an uncontrolled tumble onto the cobbled street.

  “You!” the old, coarse voice shouted in surprise as recognition of his assailant sparked in his
mind.

  Azerick looked behind him with a look of fright, scrambled back to his feet and ran off into the crowd. Hugo, Carrot, and Rolly continued their pursuit through block after block of streets and alleys before Azerick eventually lost them by ducking into a printing shop and running out of the back door before has pursuers were able to turn the corner and spy his escape.

  Azerick ran several more blocks before slowing down to a nonchalant walk and admiring the purse of coins he snatched from that old fool of a wizard. He had just turned the corner out of an alley and onto the street, eyes on the coin pouch in hand, when he bumped into someone strolling down the sidewalk.

  “Pardon me, sir,” Azerick said as he moved to his right to let the person pass.

  “Pardon I will not give you, boy,” came the coarse grumble from the man.

  Azerick looked up to see who impeded his passage and saw stained robes, wispy unkempt beard, craggy-lined face, and sparkling eyes filled with both amusement and malice. He could only gape as the old wizard plucked his stolen property from the thief’s hand and secreted it back into his robes.

  “I told you before, boy; it’s decidedly unhealthy to steal from a wizard.”

  The old man then started mumbling words in a language Azerick did not understand and waving his hands in front of him in an odd but obviously intentional pattern.

  Before Azerick realized what was happening, he felt a great force against the entire left side of his body lift him off his feet and fling him through the air. The young thief sailed across the plaza and was dumped unceremoniously into a large fountain where several women were washing clothes and bathing small children. He landed with a great splash as women grabbed their wash and children and retreated from the sudden spectacle. Water filled his mouth as he yelled a curse before coming up and regaining his feet.

  “You sorry, old, goat-bred bastard, this is not the last of this, I swear!” Azerick shouted indignantly from the middle of the fountain, his clothes dripping and his soaked hair plastered to his head.

  “Boy, you must be the stupidest, most hard-headed, or just plain foolish thief who ever cut a purse. Whichever one it is, it is most assuredly impeding your ability learn and make wise decisions.”

  The old wizard’s hands started their rhythmic gesticulations once again. The water around Azerick started to excite into a roiling froth. Before he could move, another great pressure enfolded him in its embrace. This time he was able to see the cause. A great fist of water crushed him in an unbreakable grip then lifted him high into the air and slammed him back down into the pool. Some people in the crowd cried out in fear while many others actually applauded the show as the young man was lifted up once again, coughing to expel the water from his lungs. Back and forth, the great watery fist tossed him about like a terrier shaking a rat. The animated fist lifted him up then dunked him hard to the left then raised back up and slammed him to the right. Over and over the cycle repeated itself.

  After what seemed an eternity, Azerick finally found himself dumped at the wizard’s feet, sodden and expelling water from his lungs with great fits of coughing.

  “Now, boy, what do you have to say for yourself? Have I managed to get through that great thick head of yours?”

  “This is not over, wizard,” Azerick gasped and coughed the water from his lungs. “I would kill you one day, but that would be a mercy. No, there will be no easy death for you. I will humiliate you. I’ll make a mockery of you before all who would call you friend, I swear it!”

  “By the Gods, boy, what will it take for me to drive this lesson into that muddled mash of porridge you call a brain?”

  “Death, old man! You’ll have to kill me before I will ever submit!” Azerick declared.

  “It’s fortunate for you I have too high a regard for one’s life, even for one as angry and hard-headed as you are, to grant you exactly that, even though you have given me plenty reasons to justify it. Most of my order would not be so gracious. Count yourself fortunate, but know that even I have a limit as to the amount of foolishness I’ll brook!”

  With that last warning, the old man disappeared into the applauding crowd. Azerick was still trying to get his wind back when three shadows darkened the area around him.

  “Will you fancy that, Carrot? Here he is all nice and clean while we smell of horse crap,” Hugo said in a deceptively amused voice. “Let’s help up our friend and walk him home.”

  “Here you go, friend, up on your feet, let’s get you home,” Carrot said to Azerick as he and Hugo lifted Azerick from the ground.

  Still out of breath and exhausted from the magical trouncing he had just received, he was barely able to form a protest and even less able to resist them as they carried him away from prying eyes. They carried him into the alley and dumped him onto the cobbles. They rifled through his pockets and cloak and came away with the small coin purse he kept tucked in his shirt.

  “This will do for a start, but it’s far short of the taxes you owe,” Hugo said as he counted the coins in his hand before dropping them back into the pouch. “This is to remind you to have the rest by tomorrow.”

  All three began planting kicks to his back, sides, and arms. Azerick thought they were finished until Hugo said, “And this is for hitting me in the face with horse crap!” and began kicking him once again.

  This round the kicks lasted twice as long. He was almost certain they were going to make good on their frequent threats to kill him this time, but just as he was about to black out, Hugo issued him one more threat then all three left him lying in the alley’s gutter bruised, bleeding, and aching over every inch of his body.

  He lay there for over an hour, promising to inflict a great amount of pain on each of them for every kick they gave him. Through sheer force of will, he was able to drive himself to his feet and hobble home. It took him nearly two hours to cross the city and make it back to the safety of his lair where he immediately laid down on his pallet. He thought he had the necessary reagents to brew up something for the pain and speed his healing, but that would have to wait until tomorrow.

  Azerick had neglected to turn his large hourglass, so he had no idea how long he slept. He woke many times during the night as each movement sent fresh amounts of pain coursing through his body. He shuddered and winced as he sat up and was surprised to find that he was actually in more pain this morning than he had been last night.

  The pain was still as acute as it was before, but now a significant amount of stiffness had set in to accompany it. So much pain filled his young body as he stood up that he nearly lost consciousness. Great floating moats of light filled his vision while a wave of dizziness threatened to spill him onto the floor.

  Azerick fought back the pain and vertigo and crept over to his alchemic set. He sifted through the glass jars of ingredients and found what he needed. He had made pain relieving and healing aids frequently and knew their manufacture by rote. He ground blood moss, cristholis seed, and willow bark with the mortar and pestle, lit his oil-fueled burner, and set his retort to boil water. He poured in the mashed ingredients and set one of the small hourglasses to time the brewing cycle. He made his way to his little stove, kindled a fire, and set water to boil for some tea. He was soon sipping his tea waiting for his blessed potions to finish.

  Once it was completed, he poured it into his drained teacup and drank the bitter concoction down. It was still so hot that it scorched his mouth and throat, but he scarcely noticed it over the rest of his pain.

  In a few minutes, he felt well enough to make something to eat. He dug through his greatly depleted larder and came up with enough to make a stew that would last him a few days. He set a large kettle of water to boil then added chunks of vegetables, salted beef, barley, oats, and just about whatever else he could find. The healing draught would cause him to burn his food at a greatly accelerated rate, and he would need the stew to keep the potion effective and maintain his strength. He did not even wait for the stew to finish cooking before he ate a bowl of
it then crawled back into bed. Every time he woke up for the next several days he would wolf down a large bowl of stew then fall back asleep.

  After nearly a week of bed rest and healing draughts, Azerick was ready to go back out. He had to go out whether he was ready or not. He was out of stew, and every bit of food he had in his larder had gone into its making.

  Azerick was still stiff and ached where several ribs had been cracked or broken, but he was able to move relatively freely. He just had to ensure he took extra pains to avoid Hugo and the two testicles. That is what Azerick like to refer to them as, right and left testicle with Hugo being the dangle in the middle.

  While Azerick spent the week recovering, the city was abuzz with word of a great festival thrown in honor of The Academy’s millennial anniversary. There was to be large feasts, acrobats, and brilliant magical displays for the noble and lesser folk alike. Men dug massive roasting pits on the great parade field that normally hosted knightly tournaments and other displays for citywide attendance.

  The Duke pledged to serve five hundred sides of beef, pork, and mutton. There was also going to be a private feast held at The Academy with the Duke, nobles from across the kingdom, and the entire staff of The Academy as well as all the students. The students would be served in a dining hall separate from the nobles, but the Duke swore to visit during the dinner to address them all and give them accolades for their diligence and contributions to the kingdom.

  A festival of this scale would create an untold number of opportunities for a wide range of nefarious activities, but Azerick chose a very specific target. He snuck onto the grounds of The Academy the night before the ceremony, figuring there may be tighter security if he waited to infiltrate the grounds on the day the nobles and Duke would be arriving.

  He slept the night in the loft of the stables, hiding from the stable hands behind bales of hay or under piles of loose straw. He stayed in the loft until the next evening, watching the horses and fancy coaches as the city’s elite arrived. Drivers parked the expensive coaches in the square in front of the stables after they delivered their precious cargo to the front steps of The Academy and safely tucked the horses away in the numerous stalls.