“Yes, please, I’m starving,” Azerick croaked out.
“Let me go to the kitchen. I’ll be right back.”
Delinda darted out the door and down the stairs. Azerick tried to recall the events of the battle just before he blacked out as Delinda’s footsteps echoed down the stairs. He remembered Rangor had stabbed him deeply in the chest. He remembered a lot of blood and the air bubbling out of the wound. After that, his memories became fuzzy. He was sure he had used his new spell, but he could not remember the exact results. It must have been successful, or he would certainly be dead right now. He was surprised he had even lived through his so-called victory.
Delinda returned a few minutes later with a bowl of honey-sweetened porridge. “Cook was glad to hear you are awake. I imagine Zeb and the others will learn of your recovery soon enough and will wish to give you their regards as well.”
Azerick smiled and nodded his head in appreciation of his friends’ concerns and well wishes. He gratefully took the bowl Delinda offered and took small bites of the warm, soft food. He had a hard time eating even the small bites, but he forced himself to work through it until the bowl was empty. He leaned back against the pillows once more, his stomach settled and satiated. With the food weighing in his stomach, he felt his eyelids getting heavy and fell back to sleep while Delinda stroked his hair.
He had no idea how much time had passed when he next awoke, but his stomach told him the time had been substantial. There was some soft bread and liver paste under a glass dome next to the water pitcher on his side table. Azerick managed to pour himself a cup of water and helped himself to the small repast. He felt stronger this time and was able to eat the simple fair without too much difficulty.
He looked up when he heard the door creak open as Delinda stepped into the room. “Oh, you’re up again. I’m sorry I was not here when you woke. I had to attend to my duties.”
“That’s all right. I just woke up a few minutes ago.”
“You seem much stronger today.” she sat on the bed next to him. “I’ll get you some warm food if you feel up to eating.”
“Definitely,” Azerick replied gratefully as his stomach let out a loud growl of agreement.
“I’ll be right back then.”
She came back a short while later with a large, steaming bowl of stew, thick with vegetables and diced chunks of meat. She also carried a silver flask Azerick recognized as the one in which they used to store the healing potion.
“I think this is ready now. You can take it after you finish eating.”
Azerick felt his strength slowly returning as he devoured the bowl of stew. Once he wiped the bowl clean with a chunk of bread, Delinda unstoppered the flask and handed it to him. He took a short sniff of the pungent liquid before draining the contents in one long pull. He winced at the bitter taste and handed the empty flask back to Delinda. A warm heat spread through his body as the potion worked its way through his bloodstream. His wounds began to tingle and itch as the potion forced their rapid healing.
“How do you feel?”
“Like getting out of this bed.”
“You should not push yourself too soon.”
Azerick grinned at her mischievously. “Well, if I can’t get out of bed maybe you should get in it,” he teased, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her down to him.
“Azerick, stop it! You are recovering from nearly being killed,” she chided him but did not resist as he kissed her.
“That’s the difference between nearly getting killed and getting killed.”
Delinda sprang from the bed with a gasp when the door suddenly swung open.
Leave us, girl, Lord Xornan commanded.
Delinda skirted past her master warily with one last fearful glance back at her love before she fled the room.
You have recovered significantly from your grievous wounds I see.
Azerick did not respond to the statement.
That witless half-orc very nearly killed you. Do you realize how shameful it was for me to have your nearly lifeless carcass hauled out of the arena?
“I won. Isn’t that the important thing? I win too easily it shames you. I win with great difficulty and it shames you. The crowd surely enjoyed it, so what is it I have to do exactly to please you?” Azerick asked caustically.
You were nearly beaten. You, a powerful sorcerer, were nearly beaten by a savage creature swinging a sword. Your weakness in the bout reflects poorly upon me. Your weakness in The Games is construed as my own failure in properly training you. I will not be humiliated like that again!
Azerick was surprised at the psyling’s vehemence. It was the first time he had ever heard his master raise his voice in anger. These thoughts were quickly lost as his whole world began to swirl and dissipate like a morning mist blown away by a powerful wind.
Warped wooden planks replaced the mauve stone walls of Azerick’s room. The smell of smoke filled his nose and burned his eyes, and he began coughing to clear his lungs of the contamination. He turned his head at the sound of a child crying. He saw Maggy in the corner holding little Beth in her arms as flames climbed up the tinder-dry walls. He looked around the room and saw Jon and the others sitting forlornly near the center of the room.
“Jon, we have to get out of here!” Azerick shouted.
“It won’t do no good, boy. We’re already dead.”
Azerick ran across the room and slammed into the door with his shoulder, but it would not open. Something was blocking the door shut. His shirtsleeve caught fire and he slapped it out with his hand. He heard Beth wail louder and turned to see her dress had caught fire and was burning her small legs. Azerick ran over and tried to smother the flames, but they continued to spread and ignited his shirt.
“No!” he shouted as he felt the searing heat burn his arms, raise blisters, and char his flesh.
The flames disappeared and the room shifted once again. He saw he now stood the room he once shared with his mother at the inn. As he turned and looked around, he saw a large man looming behind his mother. Azerick tried to scream a warning, but his voice came out as nothing more than a weak croak.
Azerick charged forward and grappled with the big sailor as he tried to grab his mother. Harlow was considerably larger and stronger than the young Azerick was and easily pinned the boy beneath his bulk. His breath reeked of alcohol, and his large hand wrapped around Azerick’s throat. In his other hand was a sharp, curved knife that Azerick fought to keep away from him.
He drove a thumb into Harlow’s eye. The big sailor reeled back with a roar of pain and released his grip on Azerick’s throat. Azerick grabbed the hand holding the knife and twisted it around until he heard bone snap. Harlow dropped the blade with another bellow of agony. Azerick scooped up the fallen blade and stabbed the drunken sailor in the stomach, causing him to fall backward off him.
Azerick rolled to his feet and sprang on top of Harlow, squeezing his eyes shut in rage as he plunged the knife into him repeatedly while shouting a wordless, feral scream. Azerick opened his eyes when the body under him stopped fighting and shouting. He looked down in horror as the face of his mother looked up at him in anguish and then anger.
“You killed me, Azerick. Why did you kill me?” his mother wailed.
He spun toward the source of another voice behind him. Azerick recoiled as he looked at the pale, dead face of his father. His throat was cut and dried blood covered his neck and chest.
“I am disappointed in you, Azerick. You were supposed to be the man of the house while I was gone. You were supposed to protect your mother, but you let her get murdered.”
“I tried, father! I tried to protect her and take care of her! I swear I did! I was just a boy, father!”
“And what about now?” the shade of his father demanded. “You sat in that school like a highborn prince. Why have you not avenged me? Do I mean nothing to you now? Now that you think you are some powerful sorcerer your family no longer matters to you?”
“I have not forgott
en you! Who killed you father? Who killed you?” Azerick screamed.
The ghosts of his parents stalked toward him, reaching with desiccated, claw-like fingers. “You did,” they chanted in unison. “You did. You did. You did. You did. You did.”
His room spun back into view, his throat was raw from screaming, and his body was soaked in cold sweat. Lord Xornan stood at the foot of his bed staring at him with his arms tucked inside his voluminous silk sleeves.
You see how I can punish you when you fail me. If you fail me again, your punishment will be far more severe. I will hurt you in ways you cannot imagine.
“I fought as best I could, and I did win. Does that not count for anything?” Azerick asked in a whisper, fearing his voice would crack if he spoke louder.
Fortunately, you were victorious no matter how hollow that victory was for me. Because of the severity of the wounds you took, others criticized me for being an ineffectual master. Perhaps there is some truth to their accusations. I have made an error in not taking a more direct role in your training.
Azerick shuddered as he listened to the psyling admonish himself. Not because he thought Xornan actually felt any responsibility, but because such self-recrimination could only mean something unpleasant was in store for him.
These last several days I have researched ways in which I may speed your learning, and I am confident I have discovered a method that has a nearly equal chance of being successful.
“A nearly equal chance of being successful or what?” Azerick asked.
Of destroying your mind of course. It is a rash action, but a necessary one in my view. Fortunately, my view is the only one that matters.
In a blink, Lord Xornan closed the few feet separating him from his slave and clasped a cold, long-fingered hand over the top of Azerick’s head. The convalescent sorcerer tried to pull away, but he was unable to move a single muscle. He moaned loudly, unable even to scream. It felt as though the psyling’s fingers were piercing his skull and digging into his brain.
Strange lights and images whirled through his mind of such complexity he could barely make sense of them. Sigils and arcane runes burned in his vision like the floating spots the sun left when you stared into it too long. Strange words of power echoed deafeningly in his head like temple bells. Azerick had no idea how long it lasted, but it seemed an eternity.
The sights, sounds, and at least some of the pain left as quickly as it had come. Total blackness replaced the chaotic images and noise. He was certain he had not slipped into unconsciousness. At least not like any form of slumber or trauma-inflicted blackouts he had experienced before. His body floated in an ethereal oblivion, but he was aware. He could think, but he could not feel, hear, or see anything.
Where was he? Was he still on his bed in his room? Was his mind shattered? Did his body live on as a mindless shell? Would he exist until he starved to death, or would his consciousness live on in this endless void even then, floating through this nothingness for all eternity?
Azerick found that by concentrating he could move his body. At least he thought he was moving. There was no sense of movement since there was no object on in which to judge his movement.
As he slowly turned, he thought he spied a thin line in the distance only slightly brighter than the blackness around him. Azerick blinked, unsure if he really saw anything at all. He slowly turned his head from left to right and picked up the line in the very periphery of his vision. He imagined himself moving toward it at an oblique angle so he would not lose sight of it again. As he drew nearer, the line grew brighter until he could look at it straight on without losing it.
Azerick stared confusingly at the jagged line hanging in the empty void, unsure of what it was. It appeared to be a hair-thin crack in fine crystal, if crystal were made of perfect blackness and had no substance. He pondered this enigma for an indeterminate amount of time. Time simply had no meaning here, wherever here was. Azerick concentrated and circled around it. He felt a sudden sense of unease, almost panic, when the mystical fissure disappeared. Azerick was relieved when it reappeared as he came full circle and floated before it once again.
It appeared that whatever it was existed only in two dimensions, much like magus Allister’s gate spell. On a whim, he pressed his eye against the faint line, wondering if he could see anything beyond it. Through the fracture, he could see Delinda weeping over his prostrate form lying on the bed. His view shifted and he could see himself lying on his bed through her eyes. Azerick looked closer and saw a golden aura limning his body.
He was certain Delinda could not see this aura, but he could not say how he knew. He looked at his floating body within the void and saw it was limned in a sickly green instead of gold. Azerick peered back through the fissure and studied Delinda. She too was outlined in the same sickly green aura he had in this place.
Why did he have two different auras? He floated in an endless void he was certain was not a physical place. It possessed a flaw that allowed him to see the physical world, but his body had a different aura there. Delinda had the same aura in the physical world that he had in this one.
The flaw is in my psyche! The green aura is the taint of the psyling’s mental control. The fissure is a crack in the mental domination Lord Xornan has over me.
Through that tiny breach, he saw himself free of his master’s mental shackles! Azerick began shouting, kicking, and clawing savagely at the flaw in an attempt to widen it. If he could get his spirit through it, he would be free!
He knew what he would do if he could free himself. He prayed he would have the luxury of time to inflict the amount of pain he desired onto the psyling. He threw his mind at it with all his will. He imagined a mental wedge jammed into the crack and forcing the fissure to expand.
There at the end, it split just a fraction! He redoubled his kicking and mental pounding and watched as the crack expanded millimeter by millimeter. Azerick began to notice the blackness was growing lighter. Black turned to grey and grey slowly turned to white. The white began resolving itself into colors that became shapes. He realized the shapes were the objects in his room and Delinda sitting next to his bed.
“Azerick, oh Azerick I thought he killed you!” She wept, threw herself onto him, and held him tightly.
Azerick tried to shove her away. “No! No, I have to go back! I was almost out! I was almost free!”
Delinda sat up with tears in her eyes and a look of shock on her face. “What do you mean you were almost free? What’s wrong with you? Are you hurt?”
“Xornan’s control, I was almost free of Xornan’s control! I could see myself through a weakness in his control. I do not know how it got there, but I think it has something to do with whatever he did to me. I think he caused a small breach in whatever controls us.”
“I’m not sure what you mean. I’m just glad you are all right now. Are you okay?”
“My head hurts terribly, but I think I’m all right. At least as all right as I was before.”
Azerick reached out with his mind to touch the Source and found it there to do his bidding just as it had been before. He touched his wounds and found they were still tender, but not debilitating. He got out of bed and washed up with the fresh water in his washbasin then got dressed, eager to move about once more. His muscles felt weak and clumsy, and he tired quickly. He sat back down on the edge of his bed and held Delinda’s hand.
“How long was I out this time?” he asked, feeling a bit ashamed for neglecting Delinda’s concern for him.
“Three more days. I heard you screaming and ran up the stairs, but I dared not enter the room. I wanted to rush in and claw that beast’s eyes out with my bare hands for whatever he was doing to you, but I could not. I don’t see any wounds on you. How did he hurt you?” she asked as she stroked his shoulder.
“He brought back my most horrible memories and twisted them to make them even worse. Then he did something to me. I do not know what he did, but it hurt badly. When I came back to my senses, I was float
ing in a lightless void bereft of all sensation. Then I saw the crack or breach in my mind. I tried to break through and was starting to succeed before I woke and was pulled away from it.”
Delinda looked at Azerick quizzically. “Can’t you find it again? If you found it before you can find it again and free yourself.”
Azerick shook his head. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. I don’t know how I got to wherever I was or how I could possibly get back there.”
“Maybe you can enter a trance or through meditation of some kind. If it can be done, I know you can do it. You will find a way.”
Azerick hugged her tightly and kissed her, grateful for her confidence in him. “Let’s go for a walk. I need some fresh air.”
“Are you sure you’re strong enough?”
“My head is still a little loopy, but I really need to get out. Walk with me through the garden.”
Delinda helped him stand and slipped her shoulder under his arm. “All right, but let me help you, at least on the stairs.”
“Gladly,” he replied.
Azerick was able to cross the room without trouble, but he was grateful for Delinda’s steadying hand traversing the stairs. She helped guide him through the glass-paned double doors leading into the garden. Azerick relished the cool air even though the smells of city life tainted it. Negotiating the stairs had taken a considerable amount of energy out of him, and he was ready to take a rest on the first marble bench they came to.
“I wonder how long it will take our spider-faced master to find out he didn’t kill or cripple me,” Azerick posed to Delinda as they sat down on a bench under a red leafed tree bearing a resemblance to a maple tree.
Not long at all, my pet, came Lord Xornan’s immediate reply.
Azerick jumped despite himself and looked furtively around. The psyling had silently walked up on them and was standing just a few yards down the path Azerick and Delinda had just come down. Delinda gasped in surprise, and Azerick could feel her shiver in fear.
Do not be terribly alarmed. I have grown accustomed to your impertinence and find your feeble attempts at resistance amusing, on occasion. Do not presume to construe my tolerance for license to act inappropriately. It would be unpleasant for you if you should overstep your bounds or try my good humor.
The Sorcerer's Path Box Set: Book 1-4 Page 44
