by Alan Baxter
Isiah’s strength was not comparable to that of a normal man. Centuries of training and development, along with a seemingly unsurpassed ability to manipulate matter and thought, made him incomparable to a normal man in just about every respect. His abilities were infinitely more than sufficient to straighten an old office cabinet constructed of thin metal.
As the cabinet straightened, the metal groaning and creaking, blackened paint flaking off, he grasped the top drawer with his mind. He pulled with psychic strength that far outweighed his enormous physical strength. With a tooth curling screech of metal the drawer slid jerkily out, the sound unreal and loud in the still, dripping forest. Isiah let it come all the way and lowered it to the ground. Now he could see everything in the top drawer and the lower drawer was visible in the gap that was left. The cabinet popped back into its twisted shape with a dull clang as he let go.
Disappointing. There were papers in the drawers, but the heat had baked them brown like old parchment and black all around the edges. As Isiah tried to gingerly lift the top sheet it crumbled in his fingers. The writing on it was illegible, burned and smeared. The fire must have raged at an intense heat.
He brushed aside the top sheets, letting them fall apart like the finest ice, to see if the papers below were better preserved. The top papers did seem to have protected the others somewhat, but it still made no difference. There were diagrams and writing, some typewritten text, most handwritten. All of it illegible. Isiah leaned forward to look down into the bottom drawer, still trapped in the deformed cabinet. That drawer contained nothing at all.
‘Fuck!’ Isiah stood up, hands on his hips, looked around impatiently. Something was wrong here, it was all just too convenient. There was no way the Sorcerer could have known he was coming; he had only decided himself the day before. He knew from Samuel’s mind which part of which country to come to and had travelled there, using the unique ability that had become so much a habit for him, letting his body lose molecular cohesion and simply disappearing from one place and reappearing in another. Distance and time were irrelevant to him.
So why did it feel like the place had been deliberately torched the night before he had arrived? Why did it feel like there was no way that he would find anything because all the important stuff had been taken away before the fire was lit? Call it instinct, but Isiah certainly felt like the clown in this circus. It was possible that this Sorcerer had used some kind of divination magic. The guy was powerful, no doubt about that. Was it possible that he had the kind of natural power and ability that Samuel had displayed? This Sorcerer had had the power to teach Samuel an awful lot, that much was certain. But if Isiah himself had not decided to come here until yesterday, how could the Sorcerer have divined his intent so quickly? Could the Sorcerer perform a divination like that every day out of sheer paranoia? The idea seemed preposterous. However Isiah looked at it he knew that he was missing something and he knew that there would be little or no clue to be found. But this place was the only lead he had.
He squatted, looking around the charred room. He pulled an old leather pouch from the inside pocket of his battered leather jacket. With practiced deftness he rolled himself a cigarette and determined to continue looking until something turned up. He put the cigarette between his lips and, with a quick twist of the mind, the end flared alight. He took a deep draw, then blew fragrant bluegrey smoke out in a swirling cloud. If there was any clue to be found, he would find it. He wouldn’t be beaten until all the possibilities had been exhausted.
While he smoked he further checked the MageSign, letting his mind roam across the whole plan of the house. With all the walls burned and fallen he could see pretty much all of the place from where he squatted and the places he couldn’t see with his eyes he scoured with his mind alone. The whole place was soaked in evil MageSign, all of it blurred, smudged.
Out of curiosity he let his scanning mind drift beyond the edges of the house, his will gently creeping across the grass, among the trees, his eyes following its course. The MageSign was certainly strongest at the house, but it seemed to extend out into the forest in every direction too. It was not unusual for the residue of such large and intense amounts of magic to swell and spread beyond the confines of where the manipulation took place, but this was different. The MageSign spread too far, at least several hundred yards into the forest in every direction. It even seemed to emanate from the ground and the trees themselves. When he had first arrived and carefully scanned as he approached, the strength of MageSign at the house had been overwhelming and he had not noticed the underlying ‘Sign throughout the area. Now, as he concentrated, the evidence was there. This place was hugely charged, soaked in manipulative activity since centuries past.
He stood and wandered to the ragged edge of the house, jumped down to the charred grass below. He walked out into the trees for a few yards before crouching again. He flicked his cigarette away, not bothering to look as it spun end over end a couple of times before it vanished, his mind sending its molecules in a hundred million random directions. Pressing his palms flat against the damp, loamy earth, he let the MageSign drift across his mind, let his consciousness sink down into the earth, into the manipulative residue. Into the past.
It was all imagery and interpretation on his part to make any sense of it, but the overwhelming sensation was one of death and sacrifice. Enormous magics had been worked here, hundreds of years ago, but their legacy remained, staining the land. Isiah’s mouth twisted in disgust as he let his consciousness sink deeper, letting the history of the place creep through his thoughts. There had been something here that people feared and revered, something that had required enormous amounts of blood to satiate its evil desires. People had been here for centuries, slaughtering and sacrificing, trying to sate that thirst, using the blood to appease this thing and using its evil benevolence to work the most despicable magics. Isiah stood swiftly with a gasp, his hands coming away from the earth with a sound of damp protest. He gripped his hands into fists and drew in a deep, shuddering breath, letting the fresh, rain-scented air fill his lungs.
It was long over and the details were vague. Details always were when he looked this way, his interpretations based on feelings, emotions, residual magic, the vibrations of the land itself. But he had been around several hundred years and experience was often his greatest ally. He was rarely wrong with his interpretations.
However long ago it was and however vague the details had become, one thing was obvious. This was a place of great power, a place where huge manipulations had been worked and all at the expense of gallons of spilled blood. No wonder the Sorcerer had chosen this place to set up home. Perhaps the blood magic that he practiced was the same blood magic that had been worked here centuries ago. Perhaps he had some ancestral lineage to this place and held ancient, secret knowledge. That would be some very interesting history indeed.
But it was all speculation, academic, unless Isiah could track this Sorcerer down. The more he learned the more determined he was to find this black mage and find out all the detailed truth. And then finish his reign.
As he turned to head back to the ruined house his senses prickled. He dropped into a crouch among the trees and froze, becoming instantly as still and solid as a granite statue, his breath stopped. Someone was coming. Here in the middle of a forest miles from anywhere, who would come? Hope against hope that it would be the Sorcerer returning, only to find his home destroyed. But Isiah was convinced that the Sorcerer had torched his own house. It was partly intuition that told him this, partly the distinct lack of clues. So most likely this was someone else entirely, but they might know where the Sorcerer could be found.
As these thoughts passed through Isiah’s mind he let his consciousness fan out before him, seeking the approaching person. He found the man walking along the rough track that led to the house. Isiah pulled back his probing mind. If this person had any level of ability, even a fraction of Isiah’s, he would likely sense a probing mind. Everyday people with
no thought of the supernatural at all could usually sense such a thing, but having no idea what it was their rational brains brushed it off. More often than not people’s brains simply ignored things that they didn’t understand or want to see. But if this person was associated with the Sorcerer then it was quite possible that his mind was more developed than the average Joe.
Isiah could see across the burnt, irregular platform of the house from his position among the trees. He produced a deeper shadow about himself and mentally pulled a couple of branches lower, their droplet covered foliage adding to his camouflage, and waited. After a couple of seconds the man appeared through the trees and approached the burnt dwelling. He didn’t seem at all surprised to find the house in the state it was.
The man was a strange looking soul, tall and rangy, long, lank hair, maybe twice as long as Isiah’s shaggy, shoulder length hair. The stranger wore all black clothes, jeans and shirt, with a heavy black overcoat and boots, his face and hands grubby and rough. He looked more like a tramp than anything else. As the stranger stepped up onto the broken porch Isiah got a psychic waft of his personality and locked down his mind, smothering himself in magical cloaks to mask his own aura. This person certainly had some ability, his power surrounding him like a bad smell. A person that could manipulate matter and energy had a presence that was undeniable to another person with talent. Ordinary people could sense the power of the magical too, but usually didn’t understand it, or put it down to some natural charisma or ‘bad vibe’. Isiah was very good at masking himself from all and sundry, his anonymity and privacy extremely important to him. And, in a situation like this, more than important to prevent his being discovered by the black garbed stranger. Isiah would follow him when he left. Perhaps the Sorcerer was not so elusive after all.
Isiah’s mask was tested as the stranger walked to the large back room of the house and paused, turning slowly in a full circle, his eyes searching the trees around the ruined house. Isiah felt his mind sweep past, searching. The man’s mind was black and oily, its touch not dissimilar to the sensation of a spider scuttling across a naked arm in the dark. Inside and out this stranger was unclean and impure. Isiah grimaced, pulling his psychic cloak tighter as he hunched in artificial shadow.
The man seemed satisfied. He looked at the floor, his eyes scouring for something. After a moment he moved forward and dropped to his knees, began scraping away piles of soot and ash with his hands. He spent a couple of minutes clearing a space on the floor about two feet square, then sat back on his heels. He pressed his palms together, as if in prayer, closed his eyes. He began to chant, his voice rough and guttural, the words unintelligible. Isiah was fluent in just about every language known to man, ancient and modern, but these were words he couldn’t understand. But he recognised them. This was the language of the blood magic that Harrigan had used.
As the man chanted his hands parted and he pulled back the left sleeve of his coat. His forearm was criss-crossed with scars, some old and puckered, some newer, pink, angry. Continuing his chant with his eyes closed, he reached his right hand into his coat pocket and withdrew a long, bright Bowie knife. For all his filth and dereliction, his knife was extremely well maintained. As his voice rose, his incantation becoming faster and more frenzied, he stretched his left arm out, angled slightly downwards, palm facing the floor with his fingers splayed wide. Suddenly his voice barked out three staccato words and the knife gleamed as it arced outwards and down, the blade sweeping its length across the exposed flesh of his forearm.
The man leaned back on his heels, turning his face up to the sky as he hissed in pain and blood flooded his arm, running in fast moving rivulets across his spread fingers, dripping onto the floor. Isiah felt the surge of the man’s will as he worked his magic. A dull light pulsed up from the floor as the air shimmered with RealmShift. Under the cover of the intense activity Isiah let his mask drop slightly and sensed around the man, searching for where that portal he had just created might lead. It was a small pocket of non-space, a place where time and matter didn’t exist. It was infinitesimally small and infinitely large at the same time, a bubble of pure thought squeezed between worlds. It must have been created by the Sorcerer as a safe hold. It was linked to this spot in this Realm, anchored to the edges of reality like a limpet to a rock. Only able to be opened by those that could manipulate space and energy, it made for one of the most impregnable safes imaginable. It had been decades, possibly centuries, since Isiah had seen one of these.
He watched the man’s blood run down into the portal and shook his head. This Sorcerer obviously had more people convinced that blood was required to manipulate matter and energy. It was all a matter of belief and willpower, but these people needed the idea of blood and hate and pain to conceptualise their magic. Weak, despicable sheep. He wondered how many more there might be.
With a gasp the man snapped his fingers closed into a fist and dragged a stained cloth from his pocket. He wrapped the cloth tightly around his gashed forearm and tied a knot in it, pulling it tight with his teeth like a junkie preparing to shoot. He shook the blood off his hand and wiped his fingers on his coat. He leaned forward, looking into the inconceivable depths of the portal. Slowly, deliberately, he reached down into the dull glow, one hand supporting him on the burnt floorboards as he reached in, stretching his arm to its length. As his shoulder neared the light he turned his face away from it, as if the light was too bright or too hot to bear. With a grimace he searched around in the portal, grasping for something. Isiah could see under the house from his position and had the strange vantage point of seeing the man’s arm disappear into the floor of the house to his shoulder but not appear underneath.
After a moment more the man sat back up onto his heels, drawing in a deep breath and pulling something up through the portal. It was a small leather bag, a pouch with a drawstring top. Isiah tried to sense what it might be but the surge of energies from the portal and the magic the stranger had worked swamped any detail. Too much damn noise!
With a sweeping gesture of his arm the stranger made the portal snap closed with a soft thud and a coppery flash of RealmShift. Isiah pulled his mental cloak tight again, hiding in self created nothingness once more. The man stood and turned on his heel, striding across the broken house and back towards the small track that lead away into the trees. As he went he stuffed the leather pouch deep into his coat pocket.
Isiah stood up as the man disappeared between the trees, letting go of the branches and the artificial darkness. With a measured step he headed the way the man had gone, following at a safe distance. Isiah’s life had been spent in many forms of training, various studies in magics and energy manipulation, languages, philosophies, religions, but also extensive studies of martial arts, tracking and survival. Slipping away from the path and into the trees he moved silently as a cat, keeping to shadows and heavy foliage. He kept the man in view between tree trunks as he went, always at a safe distance, determined to follow this filthy stranger wherever he might go. He wanted to know where the Sorcerer was and he also wanted to know what was in that pouch. And if the Sorcerer had cleared up so well before leaving, how did he come to forget that? As he slipped through the trees like smoke Isiah smiled to himself. This is suddenly becoming very interesting!
2
A howling gale caused leafless branches of crooked trees to scratch and scrape on the leadlight windows. By flickering orange firelight three men sat, each reclined in a leather wingback chair arranged in a crescent in front of the hearth. The room was a library, every wall covered floor to ceiling with shelves crammed with books, from ancient leather bound volumes to modern paperbacks and magazines. Two of the men leaned toward each other, chatting quietly, while the third stared deep into the dancing flames, his face creased in a worried frown, his hands kneading nervously. There was a slight sneer to his frown, the wavering shadows making his face appear animated, the flesh undulating. It was a gaunt, old face, lined and rough. And it was a mean face, the eyes small,
penetrating. The gaunt man shot out one hand, grabbing one of the other men roughly by the shoulder. ‘Shut up your inane waffle!’
The man jumped in surprise, his face shocked. ‘Sorry. We are just... excited at the prospect.’
The gaunt man turned in his chair, leaning towards the other two. ‘Excitement, Braden, is not what we need here now. We need clear thinking, caution, strategy. We don’t need grown men acting like children at Christmas.’
Braden’s face paled under the harsh stare of the gaunt man. ‘Yes, Dominus, of course. But the things you plan! It is no mystery that you are known as the Sorcerer. The magics will be truly awesome.’
The Sorcerer shook his head, his eyes piercing Braden’s face. ‘A time of great trials is approaching and we may well have our greatest hour, but we will not let anything fall apart due to over-confidence or a misplaced ease of mind. Do you understand?’ Braden nodded sullenly. The Sorcerer leaned forward to see the other man in the farthest chair. ‘Colley?’ Averting his eyes from the Sorcerer’s harsh stare, Colley nodded too.
The Sorcerer sat back in his chair once more, steepling his fingers before his face as he stared into the depths of the fire. The fireplace was enormous, gothic swirls of marble and iron. The fire roared and leapt amongst huge logs piled in the grate, yet it only just gave warmth enough to heat the room. The Sorcerer sneered, his top lip curling as he cursed again this terrible, ancient home. Always cold and dank, the thick stone walls almost slimy to the touch. He had had fires like this blazing in every room for weeks and the cold had barely begun to lift from the place. But it was a solid, strong house, well removed from the rest of society, nestled among the forests and fields of this old country estate, isolated on these forsaken Yorkshire Moors of northern England. In the depths of winter it was a harsh and lonely place to be, but that was the point. It was extremely fortunate that the Sorcerer had discovered Braden and subsequently discovered that Braden owned this old manor. With the Sorcerer’s added funds to make it liveable once more it had become an ideal base. At least for the time being. He would certainly approve.
