First and Last Sorcerer

by Barb Hendee

  A metal clack echoed in the cell and the iron door squealed open.

  Wayfarer thrashed back against the rear wall and then threw herself toward Chap. The chains stopped her, and Chap quickly shifted as far as he could to reach her. She got close enough to bury her face in his neck.

  Leesil blinked and squinted as light spilled in through the opened door, and when his sight cleared . . .

  A robed figure in light gray stood inside the opening.

  Leesil was too worn and shaken to say anything at first.

  The figure’s sagging hood turned slowly toward all three inside the cell. When the hood’s black pit fixed on Leesil, strange whispers began building in his head . . . until he choked, convulsed, and the walls blurred and darkened in his sight. One voice in his head rose above the chaos of the others.

  Where are they . . . the devices of my master?

  Everything went black.

  Leesil thought he might vomit from the sudden pain, and then the buzz of a thousand whispers in his head went silent all at once. When he could see again, he found himself collapsed upon the cold stone floor. He hadn’t even found the strength to push up when he saw the hood of the gray robe was turned the other way . . .

  Wayfarer lay on the floor, utterly silent and unmoving. Before Leesil cried out to her, he spotted Chap. The dog’s ears were flattened as he glared up into that hood, and his sky blue eyes narrowed. Even in weakness, Chap’s jowls pulled back in a dry-throated snarl.

  “What do you want?” Leesil got out as he pushed up to a sitting position. “Where is my wife?”

  Chap still stared up into that hood, and the hood never turned as an answer rose in Leesil’s mind.

  She is not yours anymore. And until I have what I desire, you will never see the sun . . . or have the freedom of death.

  The figure turned for the open door. Only then did Leesil notice that none of the guards had come in. The one that he could see outside in the passage stood facing away as if nothing were happening.

  “What are you talking about?” Leesil choked out. “What . . . what do you want . . . from us?”

  The figure paused in the doorway, though it did not turn back. The storm of whispers filled Leesil’s head like a nest of wasps stirring around the answer.

  Ask your . . . dog . . . since I cannot ask him myself.

  The gray robe drifted out, and the heavy iron door slammed shut without a guard turning to grab its handle.

  Leesil was caught in confusion. He tensed as he heard the outside lock bolt slide home. He looked to Chap. The dog’s eyes were still narrowed over a silent snarl as he watched the cell’s door. From the look of him, whatever that robed figure had done—could do—Chap hadn’t been affected.

  “Who was that?” Leesil whispered.

  Chap barely lowered his eyes but didn’t meet Leesil’s.

  —I do not know—

  “How did he do that . . . get in my head like . . . like you?”

  —Not . . . like me—

  “Then how?”

  Chap remained silent for so long that Leesil wondered if his old friend even knew. He looked to Wayfarer’s crumpled form. Before he called to her, he heard her shallow breaths, as if she simply slept. And Chap’s answer struck him then.

  —Sorcery—

  Leesil’s whole mind went blank and he grew cold. It was one word he hadn’t thought would come. That art of magic was supposed to have been wiped out long ago, but it didn’t answer his other question.

  “You heard something. I can see it. What in the seven hells is that robed one after?”

  Leesil waited—and waited—but not a word popped into his head. The dog lowered his eyes and, with one glance at Wayfarer, his muzzle settled on his forepaws.

  Chap stared blankly across the floor in silence, not looking at anyone.

  Leesil grew frantic. Whatever the robed figure wanted, it might be enough to stop Magiere’s torment.

  “Chap?” he whispered, and then more sharply, “Chap, what does that . . . man want? Damn you, answer me!”

  CHAPTER ONE

  Ghassan il’Sänke slipped through the night backstreets of the empire’s capital. Once a sage in the Suman branch of the Guild of Sagecraft, he made his way silently toward the inland side of the guild’s local grounds. As on previous surreptitious visits over the last moon, he was uncertain what to do when he arrived.

  He no longer wore the midnight blue robe of a domin of Metaology, for that certainly would catch anyone’s attention—too risky considering he was now an outcast and sought by both the city and the imperial guards. In disguise, he now looked nothing like the sage of rank that he had once been.

  Beneath the hood of a faded open-front robe, his short chocolate-colored hair with flecks of silver was in disarray. Strands dangled to his thick brows above eyes separated by a straight but overly prominent nose. His borrowed clothing of a dusky linen shirt and drab pantaloons was no different from that of a common street vendor.

  He turned into the small open market that he passed through on all such visits and headed into a cutway between two shops for a less visible approach to the guild’s complex. In part, he wondered whether such caution was needed. Few people about this late would ever glance his way.

  Most of the stalls were closed with their tarp flats pulled down, and all nearby shop awnings had been lowered and shut tight. But he had learned in hard ways to be more cautious than ever before. When he slipped along the cutway, across the back alley, and then neared the next street, a new smell filled his nostrils.

  Something rank cut through the alley’s stench.

  At the slow click-clop-scrape coming closer, Ghassan peeked out from the cutway’s black shadows. Up the northward stretch of the next street, an old man with a cane of scrap wood shuffled nearer along the sandstone cobble. Wrapped in rags too filthy to show any hint of color in the dark, he dragged his lame foot more than the good one. Of the many unfortunate moments that must have made up this beggar’s life, he slowed in turning his gaunt face toward the cutway’s mouth.

  Ghassan’s training was quicker than his caution. With barely a blink, the dark behind his eyelids filled with lines of spreading light. In an instant, a doubled square formed in sigils, symbols, and signs burned brightly. Then came a triangle within that square and another inverted within that, both at the center of the pattern. As his blink finished, he completed his incantation with a flash of thought quicker than spoken words.

  The glowing pattern overlaid Ghassan’s sight of the beggar’s face.

  The old man blinked as well. He looked about as if having seen something and then second-guessing upon seeing it no more. With a tired sag of his shoulders, he moved on in his click-clop-scrape.

  Ghassan waited until the beggar was halfway to the next cross street before silently stepping out. He could have made the old man see someone else in his place, but to wipe his presence from the awareness of one target was much simpler.

  Such were the subtleties of sorcery, especially for a master of the third and most reviled practice of magic.

  * * *

  Well past dusk, Chane Andraso stood on deck as a ship maneuvered into dock at the Samau’a Gaulb, the main port city of il’Dha’ab Najuum, one country in the Suman Empire. Arrival after sunset was nothing more than good fortune. Had they docked earlier—considering he was a noble dead, specifically a vampire—he would have had to wait until nightfall to disembark. Now he gazed out over the vast, seemingly endless port with mixed emotions.

  He and his companions had sailed south along the coast for nearly a moon. Partly relieved to reach their destination, he struggled to suppress anxiety over what they might face here.

  “It’s just as I’d imagined,” said a breathy voice beside him.

  Chane glanced down as Wynn Hygeorht stepped to the railing. She was so short she could have stood beneath his chin. Though in her early twenties, she looked younger, or at least she did to him. For a moment, his gaze locked on her pret
ty, oval face of olive-toned skin surrounded by wispy light brown hair.

  With heat lingering from the day, she had packed away her cloak and wore what she often called her “travel robe.” This marked her as a scholar—a “sage”—from the Guild of Sagecraft, specifically its founding branch in her homeland of Malourné, far to the north. Back there, all sages dressed in full-length robes, but this shorter one stopped at her knees. Beneath it she wore pants, tunic, and boots to move more easily. Still, the robe was the wrong color for her.

  Not long before, Wynn had worn gray for the order of Cathology, until she had been forced to change orders for a number of reasons. She now wore the midnight blue of the order of Metaology.

  Chane was still unaccustomed to this; he would always see her as a cathologer . . . a preserver of knowledge itself.

  Wynn looked away from the port and up at him. Her gaze ran over his pale face and red-brown hair. A puzzled frown then clouded her expression. Not wishing her to think he was studying her, he turned his attention back to the port that awaited them.

  “Isn’t it what you expected?” she asked.

  In truth, he had not given this much thought or expected anything in particular. Now, upon their arrival, the place looked too . . . foreign.

  His night vision was far better than that of the living. By the clear sky and three-quarter moon, he could see that most of the buildings nearest to the piers were only one story high. Many of the structures beyond peaked high above the waterfront buildings. Some had to be huge, by a guess, especially those set farther and farther into the immense capital of the Suman Empire. Every structure within sight was mostly golden-tan sandstone except for heat-grayed timbers and planks or the occasional dyed wall or pinnacled dome with colors faded by the desert sun.

  “Do you know where to find the guild’s Suman branch?” he asked in his nearly voiceless rasp. He had once been beheaded by one of Wynn’s past companions and then brought back to his undead existence for a second time by someone else. His voice had never healed.

  “I’ve a rough idea,” Wynn answered as she turned the other way and looked to their two companions down the railing. “Shade . . . Osha . . . the ramp will be down soon. Time to gather our belongings.”

  Shade, a long-legged black dog resembling an overly tall wolf, stood only a few strides away. With her forepaws up on the railing, she too looked out into the city. Then, dropping to all fours, she padded to Wynn’s side.

  Chane studied Shade’s every movement in concern.

  Before this voyage, the dog had been badly injured and nearly killed. Though she appeared fully healed, he still did not want her exerting herself unnecessarily. It was a strange thing for him to care so much for anyone or anything besides Wynn.

  Shade, a majay-hì, was a natural enemy of the undead. Yet in recent times she had fought at his side—both with and for him—and not only for Wynn’s sake. He could not help his concern for her in turn.

  All such thoughts faded as Chane glanced toward the aftcastle door.

  The fourth member of their group had turned to readying the last of their belongings. An exceptionally tall elf with long white-blond hair hefted several packs.

  From what Chane understood, the word in the an’Cróan elven people’s language for the man’s name—Osha—meant “a sudden breeze.” To Chane, Osha was a sudden and unwanted interloper who had forced his company upon Wynn. Unfortunately, Wynn did not see things this way, which was all the more irritating to Chane.

  In grudging fairness, Chane had to admit that Osha was astonishingly skilled with the long, curved bow strung over his right shoulder. His shots struck with more accuracy than should have been possible. Over his left shoulder was a quiver of black-feathered arrows, as well as a narrow wrapped bundle tied to his back.

  Osha raised his head with the usual dour expression on his long, horselike face. This softened only whenever his large amber eyes fixed on Wynn.

  “All is ready,” he answered to her.

  Though Osha now struggled less with tongues other than his own, Chane had rarely met anyone as inept with languages. He looked away, scowling for reasons besides those concerning the elf.

  Around them, sailors tossed down lines to men on the pier, and Wynn suddenly stepped off to join Osha by the small pile of their belongings.

  “Come, Chane,” she called without looking back. “You’ll need to carry the chest.”

  Following her halfway, his gaze lowered to a travel chest at Osha’s feet. It was much heavier than it appeared, for inside it lay the orb of Spirit. The one called the Ancient Enemy and other names and titles had once wielded that potential weapon in an all but forgotten war upon the world.

  The thought of the chest’s contents sharpened Chane’s anxiety. He had brought Wynn all this way, at her insistence, to reconnect her with past companions, but Magiere, Leesil, and Chap were hunters of the undead and certainly did not accept Wynn’s connection to Chane.

  They would never accept him either.

  More than anything, he feared what might happen should Wynn be forced to make a choice.

  “Are you all right?”

  Startled, he raised his eyes to find Wynn frowning at him again. He quickly stepped in to heft the chest.

  “The ramp is down,” he said. “Let us go.”

  Still frowning, Wynn turned the other way and grabbed her staff leaning beside the aftcastle door. It was taller than her head, with its upper end sheathed in leather over the long crystal atop it. She picked up the last pack and headed for the ramp as Shade closed in at her side.

  Wynn let out a breathy sigh, perhaps as daunted as Chane over what they would face in the next step of this journey.

  “All right, then,” she said without looking back. “Everyone stay close.”

  * * *

  Wynn tried to keep a confident air as she led the way down the pier toward the city. Though she’d come searching for Magiere, Leesil, and Chap, the only way she could think to find them was through one Suman sage of Metaology.

  Moons ago, she and Magiere had agreed to split up in the search for the remaining two orbs: Spirit and Air. In all, there were five of these devices, hidden centuries before by minions of the Ancient Enemy. Upon learning of the orbs’ existence, Magiere, Wynn, and their other companions had soon found themselves embroiled in a desperate search to find them all and keep them from the wrong hands. Three had been recovered—and safely rehidden—leaving only two left to locate.

  So Wynn had remained up north with her small group to search for the orb of Spirit. Upon finding it, she’d immediately sailed south to reconnect with Magiere, who, in her search for the orb of Air, had taken her group south to this very port, seeking assistance from Domin Ghassan il’Sänke—at Wynn’s suggestion.

  The domin had once spent time in Wynn’s guild branch.

  Unfortunately, he was unpredictable, perhaps untrustworthy, and always had his own agenda. One couldn’t even guess what he might do or why. Still, when Wynn and her oldest companions in this search had last been together, she couldn’t think of anyone better, let alone able and willing, to help Magiere.

  It seemed reasonable that the first person she should speak to would be Ghassan il’Sänke. If anyone might know the whereabouts of Magiere and those with her, it would be him.

  As Wynn dodged between passersby on the waterfront, she licked her lips, now drying in the night’s hot air. She was well aware that she didn’t have much to go on in her search, and she turned her attention to the sights and sounds of the capital.

  The air of the waterfront was tainted with spices and dust that mixed with the odors of sea brine and masses of people. She wondered how strong the scents might become inside the city’s narrow ways. And if it was this bad to her, it must be so much worse for Shade’s nose.

  As if that thought called the dog, Wynn felt Shade press up against her thigh. She glanced down and saw the dog’s ears were half flattened; Shade never liked crowds.

  Most of
the dusky-skinned and dark-haired people on the waterfront wore light, loose-fitting cloth shifts or equally loose leggings or pantaloons. Wraps upon their heads were done up in all sorts of mounds, short or tall, thick or thin. Perhaps there weren’t as many people as there would be during the day, but there were far more than she’d seen in any port at night during her travels.

  Some herded goats or carried square baskets of chickens or birds she couldn’t name. Many spoke to one another, but she couldn’t follow much of what was said. She read the common dialect of Sumanese quite well and even spoke a bit of it, but all languages in common usage tended to evolve like living things. Her knowledge of it was more scholarly than practical.

  A number of people glanced at her or her companions, and she could hardly blame them.

  Osha towered over everyone, and though he was dressed in brown pants and a simple tunic, his tan skin and large but slanted amber eyes were exotic in this place. Worse was his white-blond hair, which glowed too brightly whenever he passed under an oil lamp.

  Chane wasn’t much better, with his pale face and jaggedly cut red-brown hair. Dressed like a traveling nobleman in a well-tailored but well-worn white shirt, dark pants, and high boots, he would likely be fixed upon by any cutpurse around. That is, until they spotted the two sheathed swords at his waist instead of one. Fortunately, his unusual eyes might not stand out as much as Osha’s in passing. Once, Chane’s irises had been light brown, but the longer he existed as an undead, the more they lost their color. When he grew angry or agitated, they turned crystal clear.

  Wynn looked down once more at the tall black dog—or wolf—walking at her side. She buried her small fingers into the fur between Shade’s shoulders, mostly for her own comfort.

  Who wouldn’t glance at all of them?

  Looking into the city, she saw no trees or plant life anywhere, only an endless stretch of light-toned buildings. They stepped off the pier’s landward end and onto the walkway along the shore.

  “You know . . . where go?” Osha asked in his broken Numanese.