by Ron Collins
“Shut up!” he cried. “Stop looking at me.”
Garrick threw himself into a dark corner and breathed heavily. He buried his head in the crook of his arm.
A serving boy drew near.
He was beautiful, pure and fresh, his aura salty.
For an instant, Garrick’s head cleared, and he thought he would be able to control his need. For an instant Garrick thought he would be able to warn the boy away. But instead he looked up and his terrifying hunger drew a breath.
The door opened as he reached a thin finger to the boy’s cheek. Arianna stepped through.
“Garrick?” she said.
A spark crackled from his finger.
The boy cried out.
Colors blurred.
Garrick’s hand burned, and an invisible fire ran up his forearm and shoulder. Energy filled his chest. The smell of honey and something wild became his entire world. Somewhere he heard a scream.
Then it was done.
And he felt bloated.
Fresh blood welled from the wound on his cheek, and a withered lump lay like clotted leaves where the boy had once stood.
Townspeople stared at him with slack faces.
“Garrick?” Arianna’s voice trembled, the expression on her face contorted between horror and revulsion. She turned and ran, leaving the door to rock back and forth in the empty doorway.
“Wait,” he said, holding out a pleading hand. “I didn’t mean…” His thoughts jumbled, but the look on Arianna’s face had said everything.
He was an abomination.
He stood, gaping at the open space she had left behind, and sensing fear from the gathering even before the barkeep turned a pitchfork toward him.
“Demon!” a voice bellowed from behind the bar.
More voices filled the tavern room.
“You don’t understand,” Garrick said. “I didn’t mean to do that!”
“Kill him, Jeb,” another man called out in a voice thick with ale.
Garrick crashed through the door to disappear back into the forest.
The moon followed him as he ran.
The memory of the boy’s freckled face loomed ahead, the vigor of the boy’s energy pounded inside his chest. He ran until bile rose in his throat and he had to stop to retch. When he was finished, Garrick sagged against an elm, panting for breath. The tree’s bark bit into his shoulder. He felt the entire structure of the wood, the slow power of leaves drawing sap from its roots, those same leaves inhaling the damp nighttime breeze and sending nutrients through the rest of the organism.
He put his head in his hands.
What had he done?
At least his hunger was gone. That much was good. But now energy flowed in his veins like a river. His senses felt overloaded. Blood pounded in his temples.
It was frightening.
You have taken, the unearthly voice rang inside his head. Now you must give.
Who was this voice?
This was all happening because of this thing, this creature, or … Anger boiled inside him. He clenched a fist and pounded the meat of his hand against the tree.
“Why?” he yelled at the voice, searching the clearing for the source. “Why are you doing this?”
There was no reply.
This was his fault, though. That’s what Alistair would say. He should have known better than to accept power without understanding its price.
But it had been Arianna.
Arianna.
Was it only a few hours ago he had asked if she would have him? All he had really wanted was to be worthy of someone like her, someone beautiful and with a real family and real roots. She was everything he had never had. Now he was terrified.
Tears welled inside him.
The truth of that word struck him: terrified.
A few hours ago he had actually been confident, but now everything was too big.
“Go away,” he said. “Please, just go away.”
Villagers shouted in the distance, and the oily aroma of burning torches wafted closer. The yapping of dogs echoed through the woods. He had to get away—had to get rid of this magic, whatever it was.
He clenched his fists while he listened to the villagers clamoring for his head.
Alistair.
He needed to go to his superior mage.
Alistair would understand. He would be mad, of course, but his superior would know what to do, and any punishment Alistair would mete would be better than dealing with this on his own.
Garrick turned and once again ran through the woods.
Chapter 5
As he ran, Garrick became one with the forest, forgetting about the boy, forgetting about the pull of life force at Arianna’s cabin, forgetting about the expression on her face in the tavern.
He felt alive and in the moment.
The boy’s life force was pure and buoyant. It made him stronger. It made him free to race, free to duck under sycamore branches and leap over downed trunks.
The sounds of villagers faded into the nighttime.
It was a long distance to Alistair’s manor, but he ran the entire way, pushing through brush like a bolted deer. Sweat rolled from his body and his breathing became hard, but still he ran. Smells of liverwort and mushrooms swirled in his wake, and the calls of animals echoed in the distance as he neared the manor. He leapt over a row of thicket, thinking about Alistair, thinking about how his superior would set this right and how then Garrick could start all over again. He thought these thoughts over as he ran.
Alistair would help him.
Alistair would know what to do.
He thought them once again as he crested the final hill that led to his home.
It was only then that Garrick came to a stunned halt.
The manor smoldered in the moonlight, its stone surface reflecting a silver sheen against the black sky. A curtain of gray smoke rose like mist to obscure the splintered fences that had once circled the stables.
The horses were gone.
“Alistair?” he called as he walked forward.
Charred grass crackled as Garrick crossed the manor yard, its burnt reek laying heavy over the grounds. The odor of magic ripped at his throat—a bloody essence laced with metallic ammonia. Koradictine sorcery, he thought, his memory flashing to the mage at the Ladle.
Could this be revenge of some sort?
Could the mage he soaked have done this?
The front door hung from a hinge like a page half torn from a journal. The foyer was dark as he stepped through. The boy’s energy surged inside him, responding to imagined threats. He quelled it, drew his dagger, and stepped farther into the building.
The hallway walls were charred. Melted remains of candles dripped over their scorched sconces. The stone floor was cracked and littered with debris. He and Kelvin had cleaned these stones just last week. He remembered Kelvin grumbling as he scrubbed. Garrick was the oldest of the apprentices, then came Balti, Kelvin, and Bryce. Little Jonathan, at six, was the youngest. He had arrived just this winter.
Where were they?
He stepped farther down the hall.
Once his eyes settled, Garrick realized he could see as well as if it were daytime. The boy’s energy, he thought, or rather, this strange magic he carried now—this curse—how much had it changed him?
“Alistair?” he called again. “Balti?”
The reek of sorcery grew as he climbed the stairs. An owl’s call came so clearly he thought the bird might be in the stairwell with him, but a glance backward confirmed he was still alone.
Jonathan’s room was empty, his cot in shambles, his clothes scattered. A few pages of his lessons lay littered on the floor.
The apprentices were all gone.
A pang of isolation overwhelmed Garrick, and he had to force himself to think.
Alistair would have defended himself from a position of power, a place where all his tools would be at his disposal—downstairs, Garrick thought. Alistair would have made his last st
and in his laboratory.
He retraced his path to return to the ground floor, then went down farther.
The stink of sorcery grew even thicker as he descended, but it was a different smell. This was the cutting tang of lemon, the odor of Lectodinian magic.
Lectodinian magic?
Mixed with Koradictine?
Impossible. Even an apprentice knew the orders never worked together, yet there was no mistaking this for anything other than Lectodinian wizardry, just as there was no mistaking the magic above as Koradictine.
Could Alistair have gotten caught in crossfire between the orders?
Was this magewar?
Gripping the dagger, Garrick continued downward. Fear crept over him like the touch of a snake.
He pushed open the door.
The destruction within was complete—tables overturned, wood splintered, crystal broken. Alistair’s ceramic bottles were shattered and their contents strewn about. The walls were cracked and charred with massive black blotches.
Alistair lay across the room in a pool of congealing blood, his robe torn, his eyes still open but fixed with a glassy stare. There was no breath in his superior. That much was clear. Probably hadn’t been for some time now.
The boy’s life force surged inside Garrick, seemingly drawn to the empty shell of Alistair’s body.
He thought of how he had saved Arianna and the creek bed.
Could he do it here?
Could he save Alistair? Could he bring his superior back from the dead?
The idea grew like a weed.
He sheathed his dagger and reached inward.
New magic rose, wild and out of control, so much more powerful than anything Alistair had taught him. Images and half-formed concepts grew in his mind, but the harder he worked to merge them to a single focus the more mercurial they became. The energy crested, and he felt like he might be ripped apart from the inside. He could not wait.
He touched Alistair’s temple.
Life force burned through his body.
His muscles stretched.
He might have screamed, but the power rushing through him made it impossible to tell. The burst knocked him to the stone floor. A stabbing pain flared from above his elbow, and he heard a great crack.
Then silence fell like a hood.
Garrick lay flat on his back, his elbow blazing with pain. His sight, so crisp a moment ago, had now gone dark.
He moaned.
A soft sound came from the distance—a robe rasping against the stone floor.
“Superior?” Garrick whispered, already sensing something was wrong.
The room grew frigidly cold. Alistair’s voice wailed in pain.
Garrick looked over his shoulder and saw a pair of incandescent orbs floating in the blackness. They were Alistair’s eyes. Those blazing orbs of crimson fire were his superior’s eyes.
Alistair stood and towered over him, those eyes blazing red. He spoke magic in a wavering, ethereal voice. Then he pointed a single, glimmering finger right at Garrick.
Chapter 6
Elman was drained.
The Torean mage was dead, his manor razed, and his apprentices captured—but the fight had taxed him further than he wanted known. His legs burned like they had run all day, and his chest and arms felt like they had been stretched at the rack. His mind was numb.
So he assigned the Koradictines to guard the rear and ensure the apprentices did not escape.
The slaves, he corrected himself, the children ceased to be apprentices as soon as they had been captured. He had assigned the Koradictines to ensure the slaves did not escape.
It was a task even a Koradictine should be able to handle, and it should serve to keep them out of his business for the evening.
Elman rubbed his eyes.
He was no fool. He understood what was going to happen to those slaves.
These slaves would be herded into a camp with others, then marched to the deserts of Arderveer, home of Takril—the most powerful Torean wizard alive—to be offered as a gift. When this gift was accepted, however, it would likely destroy what little remained of the Torean House.
Then the Lectodinians could finally turn to the task of cleansing the world of its Koradictine blight. Despite his fatigue, Elman grinned. That time could not get here fast enough.
The clopping of hooves drew near, and Oldhamid appeared at his side, his eyes glistening in the moonlight.
“The superiors will be pleased, no?”
Darkness hid Elman’s smirk. “Yes, the superiors will be pleased.”
“I think it is important we report our successes together.”
“Fear not, Oldhamid. You will receive proper credit for your part.”
Oldhamid was silent a moment, then nodded and fell back.
Wonders of all wonders, Elman thought—a Koradictine who took a hint.
One of the slaves whined.
“Quiet,” a Koradictine mage said, drawing his sword. It was a bit dramatic for Elman’s taste, but achieved the desired effect.
Garrick pulled himself toward the stairs, but his elbow flared with pain.
He knew Alistair’s magic. The bolt of energy his superior was preparing would be powerful enough to bring the manor crumbling down upon them both. Garrick groped in the darkness with his one good arm, hoping to find something he could use as a weapon. His fingers closed on a lab book.
He winged it at his superior, but the tome fell short.
Alistair whispered the spell’s final syllables, and reached his hand forward.
Garrick braced for pain.
A clap of thunder shook the floor, and a green bolt snaked from Alistair’s fingertips. But instead of pain, Garrick felt another essence, a strong, quicksilver aura that appeared in the chamber, but seemed to be just out of sight no matter where his gaze fell.
He felt power.
He smelled Torean wizardry more dense than the most arcane of Alistair’s experiments.
Then there was darkness, and an eerie silence where he had expected thunder.
The pain in his elbow was gone.
He could breathe without difficulty.
Alistair shuffled away, moving to climb the stairs.
Garrick rose gingerly to his feet. He wanted to understand what was happening, but things were moving too fast. He followed his superior at a distance, moving by force of will alone.
He felt it beginning then—the hunger coming, a hollow craving like acid in his belly, the same craving that haunted him after he had given life to Arianna, the same ache that had driven him to take the serving boy’s life.
Alistair ambled through the building with a grinding lurch. His back was hunched, and his head hung at an odd angle. One arm was a bony stump, the other dragged his burnt staff behind him. When he came to the moonlit yard, he surveyed the remains of his manor—took in the charred stone, the gaping hole in the far wall, and the smoldering stables. Then Alistair loosed a wail that started low before building to a high-pitched scream.
A putrid cloud of green mist rolled over the field.
Garrick’s stomach boiled with nausea. He fell to his knees, wanting to wretch but finding nothing to bring up.
Then Alistair was gone, and the green mist was fading into the darkness.
The hunger returned fully to him, then, perhaps even deeper than before. It was a presence, a force foreign to his way of thinking, yet so embedded inside Garrick that it felt like a second skin.
He felt weak. His eyesight blurred.
You have given, the voice said. Now you must take.
“No,” he murmured.
He crawled, fighting this voice in some distant hope that he could get away.
“No,” he whispered again, his throat raw with pain. “No.”
Chapter 7
Garrick woke facedown.
The sun was high above, and he was baking in the grass. The sight of the crumbling towers of Alistair’s manor gave him a sense of emptiness. The front door swun
g in the random breeze with a discordant moan.
He was alone.
His muscles whined as he stood up. The sensation of all-consuming hunger hit him then as if he had dived into cold water.
Food.
Nothing else mattered. He needed food.
Garrick limped across the field toward Alistair’s pantry as quickly as he could. He kicked Bryce’s dagger as he stepped into the building. It skittered against the flagstone floor with a hollow clatter. He found dried venison and stale rye bread, and ate voraciously until he could eat no more. Only then did he turn his mind to what had happened last night. Only then did he think about saving Arianna’s life, killing the boy, and crawling away from Alistair’s broken manor to pass out on the yard.
It was over.
Alistair was gone. Balti, and Kelvin, and the rest.
Gone.
He was alone again.
It wasn’t fair. These were the only words that would come to him. Not fair. He pounded his chest and screamed out loud. It hurt, but at least the pain was real. He screamed again.
Yes, he had wanted power. He wanted to be a mage. What apprentice didn’t want that power? But he had never wanted this, never wanted to kill or maim, or to feel such pain.
“I’ve had enough,” he yelled. “Do you hear me? I’ve had enough!”
His forehead flushed with sweat, and he felt something at the edge of his perception—an essence that was not quite heat. Bodies. The exotic taste of…cinnamon? People. He sensed people outside the manor. Four separate presences moving. Walking toward him.
He went to the window.
A detail of Dorfort’s guards approached from the southern hill, each with a long sword that flashed with the sun. One had an unstrung longbow strapped to his back. Another wore a helmet made of pounded bronze.
The guards’ arrival was no coincidence. The blaze at Alistair’s manor was probably enough to color the nighttime horizon, and if the fire itself hadn’t been visible, the curtain of smoke rising against the morning sky would be. Either way, he felt his hunger rise as the guards drew near.
