by Rod Walker
MASTER ROGUE: MAGE TOME
Rod Walker
Table of Contents
Description
Chapter 1: A Dead Woman
Chapter 2: Commercial Disputes
Chapter 3: The Surgeon
Chapter 4: Plotting
Chapter 5: Archmage
Chapter 6: Shadows
Chapter 7: Blood and Magic
Chapter 8: A Dead Man
Chapter 9: Double Dealing
Chapter 10: Triple Dealing
Chapter 11: End Game
Chapter 12: Promises
Other Books By Rod Walker
About Rod Walker
Description
In the tradition of the great sword and sorcery thieves of pulp fiction and classic dungeon crawling games comes a new tale of daring and adventure.
Rowan is a legendary master thief of Kalderon. When a dying half-elf woman leaves him a rare book, he hopes to sell it for a quick profit.
But it turns out the book is magical, which is bad enough. Even worse, a number of powerful wizards want the book for themselves, and every master thief knows that wizards are ill news.
The only allies Rowan has are his wits and boldness.
And even that might not be enough.
Master Rogue: Mage Tome
Copyright 2017 by Rod Walker.
Cover image copyright © Johan63 | Dreamstime.com - Book With Magic Powers Photo.
Ebook edition published December 2017.
All Rights Reserved.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law.
Chapter 1: A Dead Woman
From the memoirs of the Baron du Rowyn:
Looking back, I probably should have left the damned book lying in the gutter.
The whole messy business began about midnight, in the maze of stinking alleys surrounding Kalderon’s docks. The city of Kalderon, greatest of the Seven Free Cities, always reeks of dead fish and garbage, but the pouring rain helped drown the stink. I was walking home from a tavern, after drinking a not insubstantial quantity of ale, when I saw the dying half-elven woman fall into the mud.
“Here, now, my lovely lass!” I called, sloshing towards her. At the time, I thought her a lady of negotiable virtue, and feminine company nicely complements ale. I knelt besides her, helped her to sit. “Never fear, never fear, your noble knight protector is here, and since I’ve rescued you from the dire peril of this stinking mud, I do believe a kiss is in order…”
She looked at me with wide, terrified eyes in a pale, lovely face. I took in her womanly attributes, which were admirable, but I also noticed other things. Like the enormous black book clutched in her arms, the shredded suit of leather armor, and the hot blood soaking her clothes.
Damsel in distress, indeed.
The cold rain became almost icy, her blood washing into the mud. I knew several clerics of the nine civilized gods who owed me favors, and some of them might have prayers powerful enough to heal her. No doubt those wounds had an interesting story, and I long ago learned that interesting stories often lead to profit.
The woman slumped against a damp brick wall, moaning. She tried to point at something, and her hand fell into her lap, slapping against the book’s leather cover.
I turned and saw the wraith drifting towards us.
It looked like a pillar of shadow, black against the black night, a skeletal shape covered in a heavy robe.
“Well,” said I.
The wraith floated towards me, reaching out ghostly hands.
I was drunk, but not enough to slow me. I rolled to one knee, snatched a dagger from my belt, and flung it. The blade whirled through the wraith, not even slowing, and bounced off the wall. I threw two more, to no effect.
“No,” groaned the woman, blooding falling from her lips. “No, not steel…magic, you need magic…”
I knew that. I’m not that stupid.
The wraith flew towards me without hesitation. It had taken my measure, after all. So, I imagine the wraith felt quite the fool when I whipped out my enchanted longsword (a prize of a previous venture) and stabbed. The blue-glowing blade ripped through the wraith’s chest and up through its face. The thing made a sound like tearing metal and disintegrated in a spray of black smoke.
“Damn undead,” I mumbled. I hate undead, almost as much as I hate wizards. When I die at the age of a hundred and twenty, in bed with two or three sprightly lasses, I hope I die clean and don’t come back.
I sheathed the glowing sword, turned, and saw that the woman had died.
Some clerics owed me favors, but none were strong enough to pray the dead back to life. I watched the rain pooling in her open eyes. That seemed strangely disrespectful, so I knelt and closed her eyes.
Then I searched her corpse. Disrespect’s one thing, but practicality’s another, and she certainly had no further need of her worldly chattels.
I found very little. A dozen silver pieces in her pouch, a silver ring that might fetch a few coins, and a plain shortsword and dagger. The blades had no magic about them, which explained how the wraith had killed her. That left only the massive book, no doubt ruined by the rain and the mud. I reached down and lifted the cover.
The front page was bone dry. So was the cover.
That was a bit strange, so I took a closer look.
The rain fell on the cover, but did not wet it. The raindrops didn’t even splash, but instead slid away from the book. It was a strange thing to watch. I flipped through a few pages, expecting the paper to dampen, but it remained dry.
Intrigued, I began to read, or tried to. I can speak a score of tongues, and write in six, but I didn’t recognize the book’s script. Then the letters began to blur and change, for a moment I thought the ink had begun to run. But the pages remained dry, and I realized the letters were changing of their own accord.
I slammed the book shut. It was a wizard’s spell book, no doubt, and the woman’s story became clear enough. She had stolen the book, the wizard had dispatched the wraith, and now she lay dead in the mud. Tragic, but thievery was always a risky business. The risk might have been worth it, though; a wizard’s tome would fetch a fortune in gold.
I looked at her corpse.
For her, risk had almost been worth it. Almost, but not quite.
“I thank you for the boon, my dear,” I said, tucking the book under my cloak. “I’ll raise a glass to your memory.”
Then I hastened away. Corpses turned up near Kalderon’s docks often enough, but it was still best to be elsewhere when the guardsmen found the body.
Chapter 2: Commercial Disputes
The next day dawned hot and clear, the city’s stench restored in full, and I went in search of a buyer. Kalderon has more than its fair share of archmagi, graduates of the College of Sibyriu, but they’re as corrupt as the rest of the city’s merchant princes, and I knew better than to approach them. Instead I made my way through the dockside slum until I came to a ramshackle pile of a warehouse. The second floor housed a tavern, a branch of the thieves’ guild occupied the third floor, and whores practiced their trade on the fourth floor.
Warrick the Fence conducted his business on the ground floor. He owned the building, after all, and was too fat to manage the stairs. Fat men, I have found, are often greedy men, and Warrick was no exception.
“Rowan, my friend,” he purred in greeting as I ent
ered. He sat at a slab-sized oak desk, no doubt looted from some merchant prince’s study, a glass of brandy in hand. Behind him stacks of crates and barrels filled most of the ground floor. “You look lean and hungry as ever.”
“Warrick,” I said. “You’re fat and ugly as ever. Business must be good.”
He folded pudgy hands over his enormous paunch, rings glittering. “It truly is. It’s a good time to be an honest merchant.”
I almost laughed. Warrick did some honest trade. He also bought cargoes from pirates and wagonloads of freight from bandits. He also did a brisk business in stolen jewelry. His spells, however, separated him from the hundreds of other crooked merchants in Kalderon. Warrick was a wizard of middling power, having been thrown out of the College of Sibyriu for various shady dealings, and a fair number of stolen magic items found their way to him.
“We’re all honest men here,” I said.
Warrick laughed a repellent, phlegmy laugh. “Oh, indeed. What is it, Rowan? We’re both busy men, and I’m sure you didn’t come here to inflict your appalling conversation upon me.”
“As it happens, my conversation is both scintillating and witty,” I answered, “and appreciated by people of taste, which you are not. I do have a bit of minor business, one that could be easily achieved by a dozen wizards of greater skill, but since you are a friend, I thought I would throw it your way.”
“Pah!” said Warrick. “I have many great enterprises awaiting my attention, and I haven’t the time to waste upon every ragged street-thief with a stolen trinket.” His scraggly eyebrows climbed up his pallid brow. “You do have a trinket, I assume?”
“Oh, aye, a trifling bauble, to be sure.” I reached under my cloak and placed the heavy book upon the desk.
Warrick grunted, tapping the cover. “Killing wizards now, are we? A hazardous business.”
“Why, I thrive on hazard.”
Warrick paged through the book, frowning at the shifting characters. “Peculiar. Some sort of warding, I’d wager.”
“A spell book?”
“Aye, likely,” said Warrick, squinting at the pages. “I know some of them, but others are strange. Of course, it could be illusionary script. I’ll need to work some divinations.” He smirked. “The effort will be taxing, and I’ll require ample payment.”
“You’ll be taxed,” said I, “because you’ll cast some petty divination any half-wit wizard could manage. I won’t pay any more than a single gold piece.”
I began the traditional exchange of bargaining insults, but Warrick curtly cut me short and agreed to my price. I was a bit surprised, but the book must have intrigued him.
“My arts require absolute silence,” said Warrick, flexing his hands over the book. “Interrupt me at your own peril.”
I rolled my eyes, but folded my arms and waited. Warrick launched into a sonorous chant, his hands waving through grandiloquent motions.
“You know,” I said, “I’ve seen this spell cast before, and it’s never required such florid gestures before. But I do appreciate the effort towards theatricality.”
Warrick glared, sighed, and began chanting again. This time his gestures were sharp and precise, and his words carried a cadence that made the hair on my arms stand up. There was a dull thrumming noise, and the book flickered with a brief white light.
“Well?” I said.
Warrick’s eyes got wide. He made a strange gurgling noise.
“Do you know what this is?” hissed Warrick. “Well? Do you?”
“No,” I said, “which is why I’m here.”
Warrick blinked several times. “The book.” He looked at me, looked at it, and licked his lips. “It’s…ah, a minor enchantment. Almost…almost totally worthless. I’ll give you ten gold pieces for it. Really, I’m being generous.”
“When did you become such a bad liar?”
Warrick mumbled a few things. Then he was holding a metal rod, and gesturing with a look of dreadful concentration on his face. There was a blue flash, and I felt his will hammering into my mind, commanding me to hold still. But I had endured such spells of paralysis before, and I knew how to wriggle free from their grip. I kept still, though, hoping to lure Warrick into foolish action.
“Idiot,” grumbled Warrick, waddling over to the crates. He picked up a hatchet and turned. “Do you have any idea what you found? Of course not. You were always an utter idiot.” He walked around the desk, sighing, and lifted the hatchet. “This is going to make such a mess.”
I reached down, yanked free a dagger, and whipped it at his face. The blade would have plunged into his right eye, but it struck an invisible ward and ricocheted away. Warrick cursed and began chanting another spell, gesturing like a madman.
His ward might have turned a thrown missile, but it couldn’t stop a direct blow, which I proved when I lunged forward and punched him in the jaw. Warrick squealed and fell backwards, landing hard on his rump. He babbled another spell, blood flying from his lips, and vanished in a flash. I drew my sword, turning in a circle, trying to track him down.
“Have you gone insane, Warrick?” I called, eyes sweeping over the cluttered warehouse. “This is not the way to do business. Dead men make no profit!”
Warrick must have found my eloquence unconvincing, because I heard him chanting again. He stood atop a stack of wine casks held in place by a rope net, that metal rod in his hand again.
I had seen that spell before, too, and I began to run.
Warrick thrust out the rod, shouting the last arcane word, and I threw myself into a roll. A dazzling blast of lightning thundered from the rod. It clipped me on the left shoulder, burning away my sleeve, and set my limbs to twitching. The lighting stroke blasted into a crate, throwing burning splinters into all directions, and several other crates caught fire.
“You idiot!” shrieked Warrick. “That’s valuable merchandise!”
I staggered back to my feet. “Then why the hell are you setting off lightning bolts in here?”
Warrick said something uncomplimentary and began another spell.
I raced forward, ignoring the pain in my arm, and began hacking at the rope net. The enchanted blade sliced through the ropes with ease, and after three cuts, the whole thing snapped away. Warrick squawked, losing his spell, and I dodged aside. The pile of casks fell, some rupturing, fine red wine spraying across the dirty floorboards. Warrick struck the floor with the snap of bone, and went still, his head at a grotesque angle.
“Gods,” I muttered. The entire back wall had taken fire, and the warehouse had started to fill up with smoke. Coughing, I knelt and relieved Warrick of his rings and belt pouch. I contemplated looting the desk, but the fire was spreading too fast.
Instead I snatched up the book, tucked it under my cloak, and dashed into the street. A brisk run took me to a tavern several blocks away where I rented a room with Warrick’s gold. The place was filthy, but quiet, and flopped down onto the sagging bed.
I needed to rest, and to think.
“Damn wizards,” I muttered, rubbing the red burn on my arm.
Warrick had been greedy, treacherous, and grasping, but he’d also been a coward. What could have compelled him to take such a foolish risk? I pulled out the heavy book and stared at it. He’d tried to murder me and claim the book for himself, that was plain.
Whatever it was, it must be valuable beyond all measure.
I grinned, despite the pain.
No profit without risk.
Tucking the book away, I rose in search of ale. There’s nothing quite like a drink after someone’s tried to kill you.
Chapter 3: The Surgeon
Later that night, I went in search of more trustworthy arcane talent.
Well, at least somewhat more reliable arcane talent. Wizards are all crazy, and you can’t ever trust them, not really. Something about spell work must scramble a man’s brains.
And the wizard I planned to visit was especially crazed. He did not, however, have any real interest in gold. Warrick’s
sole love lay in profit; this wizard’s interests lay in more esoteric areas, most of them unpleasant. The book might pique his lethal attention, and I contemplated that little conundrum as I walked to the wizard’s building.
He lived alone in the rooms over a butcher’s shop, a fly-infested hole that stank of rancid pork. Patrons who consumed the butcher’s sausages tended to die in unpleasant ways, and most people avoided the place. I suspect the wizard’s patronage alone kept the place in business, since the butcher procured materials for the wizard’s work.
I stared up at the windows, fingering the satchel holding the book. A vile reek came from a collection of stained barrels near the shop’s doorway. I pulled off the satchel and tucked it behind the stinking barrels. It ought to be safe enough there. I climbed the ramshackle stairs to the doorway on the second floor, knocked, and waited.
Time passed. I felt an unpleasant tingle, the hairs on my arms quivering. No doubt I had just been the focus of some divination.
Then the door swung open in a breath of foul air, and I found myself face to face with the Surgeon.
He was an elf of indeterminate age, clad in a filthy blue robe splashed with dried blood and chemicals. Greasy white hair hung past purple eyes like ferocious storm clouds. They say elves are fair to the eye, but the Surgeon looked like a half-dead corpse. Mottled gray patches of withered dead flesh covered his pale face and bony hands, and he stank like a dead rodent.
The Surgeon hissed. He had a rusted razor in his left hand, the edge crusted with dried blood. “I remember you.”
I swept into a grand bow. “And I am honored, learned one, to have been found worthy of remembrance.”
“Inside.” The Surgeon strode into his rooms, to my disappointment. I had hoped we could conduct our business outside.
Splintery wooden shelves lined the walls, covered with massive glass jars. Things floated in thick multicolored fluids, bits and pieces from various creatures and various people. A jar of eyes seemed to follow me with their dead gaze. A massive metal table sat in the center of the room, besides a small stand covered with a variety of gleaming blades.
