Lord Xornan was furious beyond anything Delinda had ever seen. Azerick sat half-dazed, gritting his teeth against the lingering pain of his partially healed wounds.
I should make you walk back to my manor for your utter failure even if it takes you all night to drag yourself across the city! The psyling raged.
The tension inside the palanquin was palpable the entire way back to the manor. The bearers gently set the palanquin down as they finally arrived back at the manor. Lord Xornan hurriedly stepped outside and ordered his retinue away; an order with which they were glad to comply. The psyling glared at the exhausted young sorcerer standing before him.
Do you have any idea what you have cost me? The price for saving your miserably useless life in treasure and dignity alone is likely beyond your comprehension! I warned you that the price for your next failure would be severe. You have left me no other choice.
Azerick braced himself as best he could for the expected mental onslaught. However, instead of a barrage of torturous mental images, he felt Delinda stiffen as she held tightly to his arm. He looked over at her and held her as her eyes rolled back until only the whites shown and let out a small grunt of pain. Azerick gently guided her to the ground as her legs buckled beneath her.
“No, stop! do to me whatever you wish but leave her alone!” he begged.
Thin rivulets of blood ran from her nose and ears as she shuddered and let out a last gasp of air. Azerick pressed his ear against her breast but heard no heartbeat or sign of breathing.
“No, no, you would not kill her,” he denied in anguish. “She was useful to you. This is just another of your sick mental games to punish me,” he said more to himself than to his master.
I assure you, this is all quite real. Unlike my previous lessons, from which you were quickly able to recover once the images ceased, this lesson you will remember and feel for a very long time. You will continue to feel the pain and loss of your loved one, and the little bastard whelp that grew within her, for a very long time!
Azerick felt as if he had been dealt a mortal blow at the revelation that his beloved had been pregnant. He was cradling her head against his chest and stroking her hair but froze at the words of his vile master and let out a deep groan.
Do not let your emotions for your loss distract you from your training. I have invested a great deal of time in you, and I still have enough confidence in your ability to grow in power to redeem yourself. If you please me, I will get you a new female, a prettier one even.
Azerick heard none of these words as the world around him vanished. An unending expanse of intense whiteness replaced the mauve stone of courtyard and tower. He was once again floating in that void of nothingness. The only difference was that this void was one of pure white rage instead of the blackness of pain. He frantically searched for the fracture he had discovered the last time he was lost inside the recesses of his own consciousness and quickly found it. He saw it as a black, jagged slash out of the corner of his eye. Azerick willed himself to fly to it as fast as his mind would allow.
He slammed into the weak spot with as much force as he could muster. When that failed, he began kicking, pounding, and clawing at its edges in furry, but it refused to yield to his assault. The grief-maddened sorcerer stood back from the fissure as rage and loss suffused his soul. The death of Delinda and his unborn child burned in his heart with the intensity of every loss he had ever suffered—his parents, Jon Locke and his extended family, his flight from the academy, his slavery, and all the senseless deaths in the arena all combined and then magnified tenfold.
He released all the anguish and emotional torment in an ear-shattering scream of fury and anguish. From his mouth erupted a roar that carried the power of every ounce of love, hate, fear, and pain that raged within him and augmented by the raw power of the Source. He pulled and pulled from the Source as he had never before and used all these emotions to shape and direct it in this one massive assault.
The fracture quavered under his emotional assault then shattered under its intensity. Azerick’s world returned with a flood of light, color, and sound. Lord Xornan took a step back in shock as his former slave stood up and looked balefully into his liquid black eyes. The psyling tried frantically to regain control of his servant, but Azerick was far beyond his power. An impenetrable mental fortress now blocked the psyling’s every attempt to reassert his dominance.
Azerick drank in the Source like a man dying of thirst gulps down water. Crackling arcs of excess power swirled around the sorcerer giving him the appearance of some terrifying, vengeful god. He pointed an accusing finger at the terrified psyling and released an awesome bolt of lightning that struck with such intensity that it burned a hole clean through his former master’s chest large enough to shove his arm through without any of the gore touching his sleeve.
Lord Xornan’s lifeless corpse flew backwards, landing prostrate on the flagstone courtyard. Azerick leapt atop of the body with a feral roar and began pummeling the bulbous head of the psyling with his fists. Gore soon covered his hands and spattered his body and face as his former master’s head split open like an over-ripe melon. The enraged sorcerer barely heard the shrill cry of brass horns blaring across the city.
Breathing heavily, Azerick looked up from his assault and spotted several minotaur, human, and orc guardsmen running at him through the open gates. With another bestial roar, he raked a stream of lightning across the line of charging guardsmen. The smaller humans and orcs were thrown back into smoking piles while the heavier minotaurs were brought tumbling down onto the flagstone avenue.
More clarions were ringing in the distance and were drawing nearer. Azerick knelt beside his beloved Delinda and stroked her hair. He took the small knife that Delinda always wore for trimming plants and chopping herbs and cut off a lock of her long, dark hair. He then lifted the satchel she carried and looped it over his shoulder. He turned and saw that more guards were nearing the gates. With a few words and gestures, stone spikes erupted across a large expanse of the courtyard, impaling several of the guardsmen and effectively keeping the rest from gaining the inner grounds.
Azerick knew he only had a few minutes at best before the guardsmen negotiated their way past the obstacle and psylings were sent for to deal with the deadly rogue sorcerer. He stepped back a few paces and said a short prayer and farewell to his wife and child. He then raised both of his hands and drew deeply from the Source once more.
A jet of intense flame erupted from his outstretched hands and engulfed Delinda’s small body in a magical pyre. Azerick poured more power into the relatively simple flame spell than was normally possible. His rage fueled the engulfing flames by drawing an unsafe amount of magical energy into himself, but he would not leave their bodies in this world. He would send their ashes to Solarian borne upon the winds.
In less than a minute, only ash covered the heat-cracked stones where Delinda’s body had lain. Azerick looked up at the sound of the shouting guardsmen that were slowly picking their way past his stone spike spell. With a last look at the vaguely human-shaped burn mark on the ground, he ran into the manor house.
“What’s going on out there, son?” Zeb asked as Azerick burst into the foyer and dropped a heavy crossbar across the thick, wooden doors.
Azerick turned and saw Zeb and several of his former crew looking at him from the large gallery beyond the foyer. “He killed Delinda and I killed him.”
“Killed who, lad? Who did ya kill?” the old captain asked, his voice laced with sorrow at the news of Delinda’s death.
“Lord Xornan. We are free now, but we need to get out of here. There are guards and psylings coming. Go round up as many of our people as you can and get them to the top of the main tower. I will meet you all up there. Grab what you can, but do not delay,” he ordered.
“They’ll have us trapped up there, lad. It’s suicide. We need to escape out one of the side doors and try to vanish into the city, or maybe take one of their boats and sail out of here,�
� Zeb argued.
“No, the only way out is at the top of the tower. Trust me, Zeb, and get moving.”
Zeb looked into the young man’s eyes and nodded his head. “All right, you scallywags, you heard him. Drop your mops and grab your socks, we’re getting outta here! Move it! Round up everyone you can find and get em to the top of the tower!”
Azerick ran down to the laboratory, taking three stairs at a time in his headlong rush. He selected several herbs and a few small vials of finished healing draughts before sprinting back up the steps. He saw several of the human slaves running about in their haste to inform the others and grab whatever possessions they had. Azerick rushed up the stairs to his room and stuffed a couple of his choicest books in a heavy canvas pack before heading to the library. Loud booming sounds echoed through the mansion as something heavy repeatedly slammed into the main door.
Zeb ran straight to the kitchen with several of his men to get Cook. “Cook, pack it up, we’re getting out of here.”
Zeb looked at another form that sat at the small table in the kitchen eating a haunch of mutton. Toron was one of Lord Xornan’s old gladiators. He was one of the few to survive long enough to retire. He was a big brute of a minotaur, graying around his muzzle and one horn had about six inches of the tip lopped off. A thumb and two fingers were all that remained of his left hand. He worked around the manor these days doing a bit of menial labor and acting as a house guard.
“What’s going on, Zeb?” Cook asked as he slid several large, sharp kitchen knives out of a rack and pressed them into Zeb and a few of his crewmate’s hands.
Zeb kept his eyes on the old minotaur as he told Cook what had transpired. “Toron, you always seemed a reasonable sort if not much on conversation. I don’t want to have to fight you, but you got two choices here. Lord Xornan is dead and we’re leaving. You can fight u, or let us go, but we won’t be stopped.”
Toron set his food down on the plate before him and stood to his imposing height of seven feet, just over eight if you added the horns—the one on the right anyway.
“I believe I shall take a third option if you please, and depart with you if you will allow me to accompany you,” he rumbled in a deep, gravelly voice.
Zeb considered the request for just a second, before answering. He was glad the old minotaur was not going to fight them. Even past his prime, it would have been a brutal and costly battle.
“Suits me fine I guess. I don’t know where we’re going, but a powerful fighter like you would be most welcome so long as you never give us reason to doubt your loyalty. Grab what you need and make for the top of the big tower. Azerick’s got us a way out.”
Cook and crew grabbed large sacks and stuffed them full with food from the pantry and smoke room. They filled bladders and jugs with water and slung them over their shoulders with leather and rope cords. Every man slipped a kitchen knife into his belt before hurrying upstairs to the top of the tower. They met Toron near the top of the stairs dressed in a thick leather kilt reinforced with steel plates, a chain hauberk, and a large, double-bladed battle-axe strapped to his back. Zeb gave him a nod and they made their way to the meeting point.
The door at the top of the stairs was open and they all scrambled inside. Azerick was standing near a bookshelf stuffing scrolls into hard leather tubes as nearly a score of men and a few women from Lord Xornan’s household staff piled into the room.
Azerick paused and looked at the big minotaur that stood amongst them, his horns nearly scraping the ceiling.
“He’s coming with us, lad, if you’ll have him,” Zeb informed Azerick.
“Any that wish to flee this horrible place is welcome to come. I need everyone to pack away and carry everything on that table,” he ordered, pointing to a stack of books, scrolls, and a few baubles of various sorts.
Everyone promptly obeyed as Azerick finished rolling and packing scrolls away into rigid tubes. A loud crash resounded from down below as the heavy doors gave under a tremendous force. Heavy, booted steps pounded up the stairs and throughout the rooms below as guards searched for the rebels.
Azerick stepped over to the multi-colored gemstones and entered the same sequence that Lord Xornan had used on his last expedition, feeding a small trickle of power into each one he touched. The portal snapped open and revealed a wall of darkness beyond.
“Everyone step through quickly now. I’ll follow in a moment and provide light,” Azerick instructed his group of refugees.
Azerick made his way through the stream of humans and closed the vault door. Brackets were bolted on each side of the doorframe and a thick cross bar leaned in a corner, its top surface covered in thick dust. He started to reach for the oak beam but got another idea. He grabbed the black, evil-tainted staff that leaned against a bookcase and dropped it into the slot instead.
“C’mon, lad, everyone is through but us,” Zeb called to him.
“Just a moment, Zeb. I have to do something first. No one will ever run slaves or gladiators out of this house again,” he swore as he cast his sunder spell on the artifact.
More hard thumps sounded against the door as guards threw themselves against the magically reinforced barrier. The artifact was extremely powerful and resisted Azerick’s attempts to tamper with it. It felt almost like a living thing and tried to return Azerick’s attempts to destroy it with the black energies it contained.
His determination finally won out and the spell weakened the physical structure of the ebony rod. He followed Zeb through the gateway as blows that were even more powerful shook the entire chamber. As soon as he passed through, Azerick closed the portal behind him.
A score of guards stood waiting for battle as five psylings launched their powerful psionic attacks against the barred door.
“The door and chamber beyond is protected by powerful magic,” one of the evil creatures told its kindred. “We will have to join our powers together to overcome it.”
“So be it,” the others answered.
The psylings clasped hands and stood in a half circle before the door. They all concentrated and sent their psychic energies to their brother who stood in the center, gathering and focusing their combined strength. As the power built to a crescendo, he released it all against the resilient door in one massive burst. The stubborn wood and steel yielded under the titanic assault and split asunder.
When the door and the ebony staff barring it were sundered, all the power pent up in the black rod detonated with such force that it caused an instant chain reaction of destruction. Every magical staff, ring, gem, necklace, piece of armor, and scroll that contained magical power, as well as the dimensional gate and the powerful enchantment that had protected the chamber, detonated as well.
A colossal blast erupted in a bright white light so intense that it seared the eyes of anyone that had been looking in that direction seconds before the explosion washed over them. In that same instant, the massive explosion sent a shockwave of destruction through the city, killing everyone, and reducing every building to rubble in a miles wide radius. Thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands perished in an instant. The great psyling city was virtually wiped out of existence.
Teraneshala, the powerful abyssal elf wizard, felt the blast and the mental control her psyling master had over her slip for just a brief instant. However, that instant was enough to enact the spell she had prepared the moment of her. She saw the wall bow under the intense force of the blast at the same instant her spell whisked her across the planes and back to her deep, subterranean home.
The elf staggered away from the rune-inscribed circle carved into the floor of a secret chamber, of which only she knew of its existence. She paused to consider what had just transpired. The wizard replayed the event, ran the “smell, taste, and feel” of the magic that had surely destroyed that warren of evil.
Teraneshala threw her head back and laughed deeply, her melodic voice echoing off the cavern walls. “Oh, very nicely done, little human. Well done indeed.”
&nb
sp; The elf was certain the human had played a hand in whatever it was that had just transpired, though she could not know what exactly that was. She hoped he had somehow escaped the destruction.
Far beyond even the abyssal elf’s home, across planes of existence that few could and even fewer would even want to reach, another creature shared in the elf’s laughter.
Yes, my hand, send me more souls, the goddess of death cried out in exultation as thousands of new souls flooded into her dark afterlife.
On the other side of the dimensional gate, a mass of humans huddled in darkness and muttered in fear. Azerick scooped up several plumb-sized stones from the cave floor and cast an enchantment upon them. Bright light flared from the stones that lay in his cupped hand. He passed them around to a few select people along with a scroll tube.
“Carry this light. If we call for the lights to be extinguished, drop them in the tube and cap it,” he instructed the light bearers.
“What do we do now, Azerick?” Zeb asked.
Azerick looked at the huddled refugees and the cavernous chamber around him. He looked at the wall of stone behind him, using his light to illuminate its hard grey surface. Several runes were deeply etched into its surface. Azerick traced each rune with his finger and felt the remnants of magic that resided within them.
The anger and adrenaline that had been fueling his body left him in a rush. Spots swam before his eyes and vertigo overcame his balance. His knees buckled beneath him and he slowly slid down the wall to a sitting position.
“Azerick, are you all right, lad?” Zeb asked worriedly.
“I am all right, Zeb. Do not worry about me. I just overdid it today. I need to rest right now is all. We can figure everything else out later. Just have everyone relax for now.”
Unable to keep them open any longer, Azerick’s eyes closed despite his best efforts, and he fell into a deep, fitful sleep. When he next opened his eyes, he found himself staring into Lord Xornan’s soulless black orbs.
The Sorcerer's Torment (The Sorcerer's Path) Page 14
