Bel closed the door behind them and thought about latching it but then reconsidered. He went to the lone window and peered out into the blackness as Kerlith stepped out from behind the spell of protection and walked out into the clearing.
Kerlith stood in the middle of the front yard of the hovel, Muolithnon and Nes’egrinon a few paces behind him but they could barely see each other. It was too dark.
Rustling and movement was all around Kerlith. He removed the stone from his neck and gripping it firmly in his hand, held it far above his head and cried out, “
The old wizard said, “Well now look at that. Ghouls. And right here, off my front doorstep.”
Muolithnon held the side of his head and Kerlith heard, “Remember your training. Don’t panic.”
Kerlith allowed several of the ghouls to approach. They smiled as they placed their hands on him. One of them shallowly whispered, “Blood. We need blood.”
Some ghouls pushed and pulled, yanking each other out of the way, trying to be the first to taste blood. Kerlith extended his arms, his eyes clenched down tight, him mumbling words, pushing out from deep in his belly, reaching deep down within himself and pushing outward. A few ghouls touched Kerlith then immediately withdrew their burnt and blackened hands and retreated a few paces.
One cried out as his hand withered, “Why? Why do you hurt us?” He tucked the mottled appendage into the folds of his clothing.
Kerlith proclaimed, “Leave this place. Return to your home.”
Many of the ghouls murmured to each other, contemplating whether they should heed the words of the single young man when they numbered so many. A group of them began walking toward the apprentice en masse. Kerlith looked back at Muolithnon who nodded then turned to Nes’egrinon and said, “Obstinate, aren’t they? Shall we teach them a lesson?”
“Maybe,” the wizard grunted. “You first. I’ll stay here and watch for now.”
The young-looking mage stepped off the front porch and as his foot struck the grass, stepping out from behind the spell of protection on the hovel, the heads of many ghouls suddenly snapped toward him. Other ghouls erupted from the surrounding woods. Then a larger one, shirtless and scarred, ripped through the pack of them and screamed, “Mage!” The cheering ghouls stampeded towards Kerlith and his master while Bel nervously stroked his short staff on the other side of the window.
Muolithnon joined his apprentice as the ghouls enveloped them. The shirtless one howled, “MAGE BLOOD!” and launched himself in the air at Muolithnon, swinging a thick tree branch, striking the wizard on the head. The wizard collapsed to the ground in a heap. The other ghouls fell upon them, mouths open, teeth glistening, ready to bite, ready for blood.
Bel knew his new master told him to stay inside but surely he would forgive him for coming to their aid. He was a graduate of the finest wizardry school in all the land after all. He wasn’t a First Year. He knew how to do some things. He could help them. Bel grabbed his staff in his hand firmly, placed his hand on the doorknob, turned it and stepped outside into the darkness.
Ghouls were trying to pull Muolithnon’s fallen body away so Nes’egrinon slammed the tip of his staff into the ground, sending out a tremor, an earthquake, toppling many of the ghouls, then stepped off the front stoop and joined them. Bel shook and fell but quickly scrambled to his feet and ran to Muolithnon’s collapsed frame.
Kerlith held his stone in front of him while the elder mage lifted his long staff high, both shining forth blinding light and power. The ghouls circled them crying out with increasing ferocity, “Mage blood! Give us some mage blood! Just a drop. Just a little. It is all we ask!” but they cowered from the bright mage-light.
Kerlith pushed a flash of light into his stone to get their attention then announced, “You will have no blood this evening! Mage or otherwise! Now return to your home and rest.
Somehow, when the young apprentice said “rest” in the mage-language the ghouls calmed. Some reluctantly turned their backs and began walking back toward the forest. Others slouched and looked down at the ground as if they were reminded of who they were and where they belonged.
Nes’egrinon suddenly noticed Bel in the fray and looked on in horror as Bel held out his staff at a pack of ghouls and hissed, “
The group began to hop and dance ecstatically, crying out, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
The old mage moved quickly to Bel’s side and caught him as he fell back unconscious. He laid Bel’s body next to Muolithnon’s then held his staff high and pushed hard. A bright light erupted from his staff and pierced the darkness. The ghouls sheltered their eyes as the gray mage exclaimed, “
The ghouls paused, looking up at the old wizard, feeling the shine of his power, then slowly, one by one, wandered back into the woods. After the last of the ghouls left, the old mage lowered his staff, allowed its light to extinguish and said, “Kerlith, come. Carry your master inside.”
Kerlith bent down, threw his master’s arm over his neck and dragged him into the hovel. The old mage reached down and wrapped Bel’s pant legs in his hands and dragged him by his feet, Bel’s head bouncing and bobbing on stones, steps, the porch edge and threshold. Then Nes’egrinon closed the door.
The gray bearded mage laid his staff on Bel’s crumpled body and said, “
Kerlith said, “Good master? Where shall I place my teacher?”
Nes’egrinon pointed back at his bed without turning around. “There. In my bed. Lay him on my bed.” The old man poured himself a cup of water from a pitcher and added a pinch of dust from a jar. He addressed Kerlith as he drank, “Is this what they teach you now in that school?” pointing at Bel’s body.
“No. I don’t know. I don’t know why he didn’t stay inside.” Kerlith wiped the blood from his master’s forehead then added, “I don’t know why he didn’t listen. I would have.”
Nes’egrinon walked across the small one room structure and examined the gash on Muolithnon’s head then placed his hand upon it. After a few moments he removed his hand and the wound was noticeably smaller. He said, “It will heal. It will heal.” He cleared his throat and rested his weight on the bed frame, then continued, “I must rest. Leave your master there to sleep in my bed. In the morning we will discuss this further.”
“And Bel? Do we leave him there?”
The old wizard slumped into his chair in front of the fire, slowly closed his eyes and exhaled. “It’s as good a place as any.”
Chapter 3
Ulysses or Odysseus
Bel’s eyes peeled open and his vision slowly cleared. Looking around at the hovel he didn’t immediately know where he was. And then it came to him. He was in Nes’egrinon home. Bel tried to stand up but couldn’t move.
Seeing Kerlith sitting at the table, playing with pebbles, dancing them in the air, he called out, “Hey. A little help here?”
Kerlith looked over at him and said, “You have to wait for your master. He pinned you down.”
“I can see that. I can’t move.”
Kerlith smiled. “You really screwed up last night. Typical. What’d you do?”
“Poison.”
“Hahaha. They’re dead. What’d you think that would do?”
“I
don’t know. I saw your master lying on the floor unconscious. There were too many of them. I just thought I should do something. I wanted to help.”
Nes’egrinon bellowed from across the room, “You wanted? You wanted? Here you do not do what you want!”
Kerlith looked down. “Bel, I think your master is awake.”
Bel tried to twist his head toward the direction of the old wizard’s voice but from his position he couldn’t see him. “Master, I am sorry. I have only been here a short while and I have already gotten you upset with me. It will not happen again.”
Nes’egrinon rose from his chair, walked across the room and stood over Bel, his eyes barreling down into him. “You have yet to see me angry. Just don’t do something stupid like that again.” He reached down and placed his hand on his staff and said, “
Bel stood up dizzily, placing his hand on the door frame for support. “Master? What happened to me?”
“You did something stupid. You had no clue what you were dealing with and you threw yourself into the middle of it, waving your stick around like you were an idiot trying to save the world. All you Fifth Years are alike. Running around waving your sticks like you know something when you don’t have a clue. A good way to get yourself killed. And worse yet, a good way to get me killed. Now that’s something that I don’t want to think about. Some idiot kid running into a fight and getting me killed. I certainly don’t need that right now.” The mage walked back to his chair and sat. “Of course, most people are stupid so you got that going for you. At least around here anyway. Maybe it’s me. Do I attract stupid people or something?” The mage looked at the fire and continued rambling, “Anyway, Fifth Year, don’t let it get you down. You didn’t kill yourself and you didn’t get me killed. You just did something stupid. We’ll leave it at that for now.”
Bel coughed up mucus, swirled his finger in his mouth and looked at the black goo mixed in with his saliva.
Nes’egrinon exhaled in frustration then said, “Apprentice? Err, what’s your name? Kerlith, right? Tell the Fifth Year what you know about ghoul-kind. I’m tired of talking.”
Kerlith looked at Bel and for once in his life felt sorry for him. They had competed in everything at Lasaat and he loved to see Bel fail but for once Kerlith decided to defend him. “Bel, I know they didn’t teach us much about the dead at Lasaat. I learned everything I know about them quite recently. Even my master has little experience with them. We are defenders of the mountains, the land of the stonecutters. Our magic is of crystals and minerals, not ghouls and the dead.” Kerlith paused and glanced at Nes’egrinon to see if he was listening but his gaze never stirred from the hearth.
He continued, “Bel, do you remember anything about the dead, any of the stories from the academy?”
Bel coughed then sat down on the floor. “I remember one.”
“The one about Ulysses?”
“Odysseus. I rather call him Odysseus. It was in our History of Magic class, I think.”
“That’s the one I was thinking of,” Kerlith replied.
“I remember it going kind of like this. So, Odysseus, a great wizard, visits the underworld—I don’t remember how he got there—and he sees the dead. I seem to remember them being described as ghosts? Or shadows of their former selves?” Bel said.
“That’s what I thought too.”
“Then Odysseus gives them blood to drink. As they drink the blood they become more substantial. More... human. They can speak to Odysseus like any human would. Since a bunch of them died in different parts of the world, including Odysseus’ home town, they were able to give him information on what was going on there before they died. Some of them died recently so the information ends up being valuable.”
Kerlith turned in his chair. “Yeah. That’s about all I remember. Except one other thing.”
Bel looked up at him and questioned, “What’s that?”
“There was one of the dead that Odysseus spoke to who was a seer.”
“Oh yeah.”
“And the seer could still see in the underworld. He still had his gift of sight. Even though he was one of the dead, he could still see into the future. He just needed some blood to do it.”
“Right. I remember that now. They were people, all kinds of different people, with all their human knowledge and their abilities. They were just dead.”
“But they never taught us how to fight them at the academy.” Kerlith looked at the old mage again but he was still staring at the fire.
“How did you learn?” Bel asked.
“Much like you. We tried some things that didn’t work. But luckily it was only on singles. We never tried anything on a group like last night.”
“And what worked?”
Kerlith snickered. “Well, poison certainly doesn’t. That only makes them stronger.”
“I know that now. What else? How were you burning them?”
“Healing,” Kerlith stated plainly.
“Healing?”
“The same way you can help someone heal, digging deep within yourself, grabbing hold of your spirit, your life-force, and giving it up, pushing it into them. The same way. You give the ghouls all the goodness, all the life you have inside of you. For some reason that hurts them, burns them. They don’t like it. It is one thing that will make them go away, that’s for sure.” Kerlith explained.
“I see. Anything else?”
“Nothing so far. Nothing else we have tried works. In fact most things we tried somehow bounced back at us. Poison, for example. If you try to well up poison into them, it will only make you sick. But you already know that.”
Bel rubbed his temple. “My head is still ringing.”
Muolithnon stirred so Kerlith leapt from his chair and went to his side. “I am here.”
“Is it still night?” the mage asked groggily.
Kerlith looked out the window and replied. “It is morning, but it grows darker. The eternal night spreads its fingers here now.”
“Aye. We must return. See if you can find the horses while I ready myself. Take your stone and be watchful. The ghouls should not return during the day but just the same, do not venture too deep into the forest.”
Kerlith retrieved his stone from the table, placed it around his neck and exited the room.
Bel shakily stood, walked across the room and placed himself in front of Nes’egrinon. “Master, I am truly sorry. Please accept my apology.”
“Fifth Year, don’t apologize. It makes you look weak and wormy. Maybe like you are, but just the same, don’t do it around me. It gives me nausea just thinking about it. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to tell you two things here. First, I am a mage—”
Bel interrupted him, “I know that. You are one of the great—”
The old man sliced his words in the air with a glare. “I don’t care what you think you know and who told you what. I’m talking here and I’m telling you that I am a mage. Now, along with that comes a certain expectation. People in this uneducated world expect me to know everything about everything. A frog farts in the woods and people around here expect me to know why. But guess what? I don’t know why. Maybe the little frog had gas. I don’t know. It could have been for any number of reasons. Frogs fart. Get it?”
“Yes, master.”
“Don’t give me that ‘yes, master’ line. I’m talking here. What it comes down to is I don’t know everything and don’t think that you ever will either. Now I was getting to a point but I lost it somewhere. Oh, yeah. Learn this. There is sometimes much more power in inaction than in action.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t. We saw that last night. Tell me, what did I do last night to scare them off?”
“You held your staff high and filled it with light. You showed them that you could have destroyed them.”
“Did I? Could I have destroyed them?”
“Of
course. You are one the greatest mages yet living. They told us at Lasaat—”
“Okay. Stop right there because I am starting to think that you really are an idiot. They told you at Lasaat, did they? So that’s the garbage Rylith is spreading now. You need to flush all that stuff out of your brain right now.”
Bel did not know how to respond so he stood in silence. Rylith, the headmaster at Lasaat—no one there would dare address Rylithnon so, leaving off the last syllable of honor.
The old mage continued, “Listen to me and learn. What I did was a parlor trick. Understand? Psychology. I tricked them. A bright light can no more hurt them than you or I. My bellowing made them think I could so they left. Thank God, they left.”
“But...”
“But what?”
“But in the story—it’s coming back to me now—in the story of Odysseus, the dead charged at him and his men. The ghouls were desperate for blood but he held them off with his sword.”
Muolithnon stumbled from the bed and into the conversation. “Aye. He did. That sounds about right. A sword of power. A sword full of magic. But it is as your master has said. He speaks truth and you should heed his words. Odysseus could no more hurt the dead with a sword than any of us could last night with mage-light or mage-fire or mage-rain. He tricked them into thinking he could though. Tricking people into thinking that we have more power than we do is one of our best tools. This is why we must not tell anyone how our magic works or what we have the ability to do. They must always think that we have more than we do, that we are merely holding back. There is much power in secrets, young Bel. To destroy the dead? It is not possible. They are dead already.”
“Then we are undone,” Bel said in defeat.
Nes’egrinon looked at Bel then at Muolithnon and whispered, “No, not yet. There is yet still a way.”
Under the Shadow of Darkness: Book 1 of the Apprentice Series Page 2
