Dread of Spirit: Rise of the Mage - Book One

by Jason Bilicic

  “It felt like a pillar of spirit rising into the Heavens, Kelc,” Shaia said. “When you went into the storm, your spirit was there. I could feel it in a way I couldn’t have imagined. It was…It was…”

  “Powerful,” his mother supplied. “Kelc.” She sounded as if she begged. “If you don’t start figuring things out more quickly, you’ll kill yourself or us.” She frowned again. “Or the wardens will come for you.”

  “They can’t have him, mother. He could toss them around like rag dolls.” Shy smiled at him, a warm smile, almost seductive the way it pulled at him. “When he wants, he can walk from this fool nation, flinging these brutes before him.”

  “He could,” Adda said, “if he knew what he was doing. He nearly died last night. He sent Henna Lanch, making her a revenant. He healed his brother. By accident. Hells and blood!” she swore. “You do more than any practitioner in memory and you’re doing it all by accident. Kelc!” she called out, her hands rising to her face, her voice cracking. “What on Oerhe will we do with you?”

  “Mother,” he said with enough strength to force her attention. Her hands dropped to her sides, leaving her tear streaked cheeks. “Can you teach me without risking yourself?” He knew the answer before she slowly shook her head. “And to risk yourself is to guarantee your death.” That was not in doubt. “I must learn as I can and hope that by the time I need whatever power I possess that I can properly wield it. Until then,” he said, looking up into her worried eyes, “we must look out for each other. This is Symea. It was never any different.”

  Adda nodded, setting her chin, pride in her eyes as she looked upon her youngest child. “Youngest. I would give my life for you.” Kelc began to speak but she waved him off. “I tell you this so you’ll understand: there is nothing I can teach you. You are so far beyond my ability that I am as shocked as you are each time you do something. I would teach you all I know if your power worked anything like mine, but it obviously doesn’t. You are crude but forceful. What I feel...what Shy feels—What we can do is far more subtle and different.”

  “Yes,” Shaia added, “we cannot rip spirit apart and reshape it. We attach spirit to things and can then feel them, sense them…even read their thoughts at times. You,” she breathed. “Your power is almost physical.”

  “Margin Lanch’s spirit was very physical,” Kelc spat. “It lifted me from the ground and thrashed me before I shredded it.” Shaia’s eyes grew wide and Adda shook her head, again hearing of power that she could neither wield nor fully comprehend. “I had no choice,” Kelc almost apologized, “and I was so mad. What he did to Henna…”

  “Terrible,” his sister muttered. “He got exactly what he deserved. Killed by Henna and then utterly destroyed by you.” Shaia reached out and squeezed her brother’s shoulder. “If only you ran Symea. You could be a powerful warrior king like those of old. Wise, strong and caring.” She smiled, her eyes glossed over as though she looked not at her injured brother, sitting in his bed, but at the kingly man she wished him to be.

  “Kelc,” Adda said after a few moments, “do you have any power, any of that spirit left that you drew from that black dagger?” He nodded. “Can you use it to help heal yourself beneath the frostbitten flesh? It would be hidden but save you from infection and further rot.”

  “Of course,” Shaia announced. “If he can draw it out, any of us could use it. We could certainly help heal his face and foot.” Adda nodded.

  “Before you start,” Kelc’s mother said sternly, looking to her daughter. “Go feel for…anyone.” She waved her hand vaguely, indicating outside of the house. “We hardly need to have a warden burst in here while all of us practice.”

  Shaia nodded and leapt to her feet, leaving them.

  Adda pinned her son with her eyes after Shaia left. “Kelc,” she said, keeping her voice low. “When will you leave?”

  “Leave? Here?”

  “You know that you must. You can feel it.” His mother pulled a deep breath and blew it out. “To stay here is to be killed by Symean tradition. You know it.”

  “Yes, but…”

  “But nothing. The rest of us will manage. You have great accomplishments waiting for you somewhere. Things that no one else will manage. To risk that,” she hissed while her hand sliced through the air, “is madness. For what? Me? Shy? Kreggen is gone from here, Kelc. And your father…”

  Shaia stepped back into the room. “No one near,” she announced, cutting off her mother’s rant, though her green eyes still held Kelc’s.

  “I know,” he said, nodding to her. “I know.”

  “Kelc, come out here and spar with me.” His father’s voice seemed to fill the house, alarming the young man. Kelc looked at Shaia, who sat on her haunches next to his bed. She shook her head.

  “Varrl,” called his mother from the kitchen, “he’s only just recovering. He shouldn’t be out there fighting.”

  “He can still come go through the motions, woman. If you coddle him too much he’ll grow weak,” answered his father, following the statement up. “Weaker. Hells! It’s been days and days.”

  Kelc pulled himself upright in bed and tugged his boots onto his feet. His right foot felt foreign with three toes missing, but for all that it did little to change how he moved. He threw his jacket on and a cloak over that. Winter held Symea firmly in its grip now and it would be cold out there. He carefully eased his hands into his gloves, a little afraid that some of the new skin on his knuckles might be agitated by the leather seams, but they felt fine.

  Rather than strapping on his sword belt, Kelc simply drew his scimitar and skiver, carrying each in his hands as he walked through the house, his boots sounding loudly out on the wooden floor.

  He flexed his hands inside his gloves, causing the leather to creak against the grips of his weapons.

  He nodded at his mother, her eyes on him as he moved across the living area. “Be careful,” she said, earning a snort of cynical laughter from her youngest son.

  Kelc stepped out into the too bright sun, the landscape coated with brilliant white that took the light and amplified it, reflecting it into his eyes. His boots crunched the icy snow beneath his feet, a satisfying sensation to match Kelc’s mood.

  “You’re a mercenary?” Varrl asked, noting the lack of sword belt. “You just carry your sword from town to town for lack of proper equipment?”

  “Local militia,” Kelc answered. “I was called from my bed to save my home from invaders.” His father offered a grim smile.

  “Fine. We’ll move at half speed since you’re mother…”

  “We’ll spar full speed so as to make it worth our while,” Kelc told him, “or we’ll not spar at all.” He gave his father a moment to get upset over being interrupted, but he merely nodded. “I didn’t give up my recovery to come and play at a child’s game.”

  “Some nerve, I see,” offered his father while drawing his scimitar. “I hope your performance with your sword matches the bravado of your words, boy.”

  “Must you always call me boy?” Kelc asked, pushing it. His father’s eyes narrowed a bit. “It’s disrespectful.”

  “Does it bother you?” Varrl asked, his voice dipping into a more serious place. “Boy.” He chuckled.

  “It used to, old man.” Kelc’s weapons snapped to the ready as he glanced at his father. He’d arrived at a stark realization while lying in bed for days, watching everyone scramble around him, a decision that he’d shared with no one. He decided that he would be the calm one in any situation. His mother brought emotion, as did his father. Shy filled both of them with emotion. Someone needed to be the calm force. That would be Kelc. No matter what. “Now?” he asked the freezing sky, his eyes taking in the pale blue that seemed out of place in the midst of winter. He shrugged. “Call me whatever you want.”

  Kelc strolled across the porch and down into the yard where his father waited. The snow rose to his mid-calf, a little getting under his pant leg. He shook it off and resettled his feet. “You aske
d me to come spar,” he said, his tone disinterested, trying to convey confidence.

  “So I did,” grunted his father, rushing his son.

  Kelc brought both swords into the charge as he dipped one shoulder and spun, driving his father around him, but offering no counterattack. Again Varrl came, slicing into Kelc’s side, but meeting his son’s scimitar, which drove the attack downward enough that it just missed. Again Kelc offered no attack.

  “What are you about?” his father asked, circling the young man. “No anger today? No mindless charge that will drop you into the snow?”

  “No.” Kelc just stood. “Waiting. I am the calm beneath the storm.” He smiled.

  His father attacked with a faint, swiping at Kelc’s legs before halting the attack to jab his blade straight in, but Kelc used both blades to drive the sword aside and he reversed his skiver in his grip so that if his father charged in he’d meet the tip.

  Varrl reeled from the danger, but escaped as Kelc failed to pursue the attack. “A new trick,” puffed his father, the man’s breath hanging in the frozen air. “Where’d you learn that?”

  “It just made sense,” Kelc answered. “Are we talking or sparring?”

  His father came, this time raining attacks on his son, but Kelc focused solely on defense, his steel driving the shots too wide or too low, time and again. He gave not a step, making sure that his skiver stood at the ready any time Varrl positioned himself to charge in with a shoulder or swing with a gloved fist.

  The two combatants spun, Kelc on his small patch of trampled snow, and his father stamping a circle around him as he rotated, darting quickly from side to side to force Kelc to adjust.

  Varrl thrust his sword straight in and Kelc deflected it away, but now his father followed the motion, raising his hilt, using that to bash the skiver from his path. His shoulder caught Kelc in the chest and while his son spun to escape, he couldn’t quite manage it.

  Kelc flew backward but he wrapped one arm around his father’s neck, pulling him along. His other hand dropped his sword and found his father’s sword hand, gripping his wrist. They crashed into the snow, Kelc on the bottom.

  “Uhn!” His father tried to sit up, but Kelc clutched him and kept him off balance by denying him his sword hand. Varrl worked his other hand into position to support his weight and no sooner did he create space between himself and his son, he found the black skiver at his neck, the blade pressed so close it caught on the stubble rising from his skin. Kelc sucked in a breath. “Yield,” he gusted, his own breath now a plume above him. “You’re dead if this was a real battle.”

  His father’s eyes boiled as his sword hand shook in Kelc’s desperate grip. A rivulet of blood formed on his neck where Kelc’s dagger dug in a little. “Lower the blade,” Varrl growled.

  “Not until you yield,” Kelc quickly answered, wary of his father’s pride and skill. “On your honor as a Symean.”

  Slowly, Varrl’s hand opened and he let his sword drop into the snow. “I yield then,” he said through gritted teeth. “Now get that devil blade away from my neck.”

  Kelc lowered the black dagger but kept it ready. As soon as it no longer threatened his father, Varrl rose up off of his son. “Well fought, boy. A good tactic for a one-on-one fight though it would invite death for sure on a battlefield.” His father bent and snatched his sword up. “A better thought would have been to step inside of my shoulder and hurl my weight using the skiver in my gut. My momentum would have been shattered by catching a blade in my guts and you would have scored a serious blow, leaving me weaker and at a grave disadvantage.”

  Kelc climbed to his feet. “Yes, sir. But I was trying to defeat you without giving a single step.” He looked at the ground, noting his original spot and seeing the large depression his father and he had made while grappling. “I nearly succeeded.”

  His father snorted sardonically. “Such an exercise is for duelists, not warriors, Kelc. You’ll never make a good Symean man thinking like that. It will change your tactics and leave you fighting for pride rather than victory.” Varrl shook his head as he turned. “How any son of mine ever arrived at such a thought, I’ll never know.” He started towards the house before turning back. “Why do that? Why change your whole fighting style just to not give a step? You didn’t offer so much as a single attack in that whole exchange.”

  “I won,” Kelc answered while brushing snow from his shoulders. “I needed to fight without anger.”

  “That’s good, but to never attack? You leave yourself waiting to be defeated.” Varrl set his jaw. “You can’t leave me there to consider how best to attack you next. Eventually, I will get past your defense. Even now I know how I would attack differently if we fought again.”

  “I wasn’t fighting you, father. I was fighting me. For years,” Kelc said, “I have fought only myself. I know how to move the sword. I know how you fight, but I let myself become upset, or afraid, or…I don’t know what. This time, I would not be dragged into your fight.” He lowered his gaze for a moment, before raising his eyes to the predatory grey eyes of his father. “This time, I sought only to master myself. Nothing else mattered.”

  “Nothing else?” his father almost yelled, incredulous. “You could have died!”

  “I didn’t.”

  “I might have skewered you while you tried to ‘master yourself!’” he announced, sneering.

  “But you didn’t.” The young man kept his voice even, his gaze steady. “You lost.” As he spoke, Kelc realized that he felt no fear. None. He smothered a grin.

  “Boy! Should Symea ever need…”

  “Symea? I do not fight for Symea, father.” The words stopped Varrl. Blood rushed to his face and his gloves squeaked as he wrung his hands together. “I fight to not end up in bed, my flesh shredded by your sword or my bones broken by your fist. I fight to learn to be good enough that you can no longer use me as the focus of your anger. Nothing more. I don’t care about fighting. Not at all. And to tell you the truth,” he said, “I don’t care a lick about Symea.”

  “You…” Varrl shook where he stood. Veins stood out on his forehead and his eyes twitched, his voice pure scorn. “You shame me, Kelc. You shame yourself. You are a Symean and nothing can change that. You seek to rebel now because you’re young and think you know all there is to know, but one day you’ll see the need for this land.” Varrl raised a hand and shook a finger at his son. “Yes. And then you’ll think back to now and realize the greeching stupidity of your words. You are Symean. You’ll see, boy. I know just how to break that fool will of yours.”

  Kelc raised his blades.

  “No,” Varrl told him. “You do not want to fight. There is no need. Not now.” His father turned and walked away.

  Chills even colder than winter crept through Kelc, giving him pause. He took a moment to consider. Still no fear. At least, not like it used to be.

  “Hells.”

  Ten days. Ten days ago, Kelc sparred with his father and told him that he did not care about fighting or Symea. Since then, his father had not uttered a single word to his son nor asked him to perform a single duty.

  Kelc still found ways to remain helpful: shoveling snow, brushing the horses, carrying firewood, repairing boots, oiling leather, repairing a broken step on the porch… But his father had asked none of that. It felt strange to be left alone by the man. For all of Kelc’s nearly eighteen years, he’d been hounded by the man, and now? Nothing.

  While Kelc considered it, sitting on his bed, still in his sleep clothes, his father bounded across the floor in the living area to his room. He then returned to the front porch just as quickly.

  “All four horses!” Varrl’s voice snapped. “There are three of them coming.”

  Three bodies? Kelc stood into his boots and tossed his sleep shirt on the bed in favor of a heavy tunic and cloak. He marched through the house, finding no one.

  Once out the front door he saw his mother, father and sister cinching lines around the horses, Macy and Freska
already secured as the leads, Brownie and Kay standing in place but not yet secure.

  “Need any help?” Kelc called, earning not so much as a glance from his father. Shaia looked up from her work with the lead lines but did not answer. His mother, who struggled to collar Brownie, sucked in a breath and said, “No Kelc, we’ve got it taken care of.”

  “Three bodies?” he asked.

  “Family by the name of Norlin,” Shaia told him as she moved to help her mother. “Their chimney got blocked up and backed the smoke up while they slept.”

  “He doesn’t care daughter,” Varrl said, implying that she should silence herself. “This is not his land.” The man easily collared Brownie and Kay, allowing the women to attach the lines while he firmed up the girth and saddle. “You two must dig the graves. Two adults and one for a child.”

  “I will dig the graves, father, it is my…”

  “You will sleep and rest as if it were holiday. You have no part in our struggles.” Varrl did not look at him. “You want no part.”

  “This is our family,” Kelc snapped. “This is our duty to the dead.”

  “This,” his father spat as he swung around to face his son, “is our duty to the living, boy. And to Symea. We could leave the dead to rot. We could let the spirits wander at will, haunting every house and attic. But we don’t! We haven’t for hundreds of year. Because of the law!” Varrl shouted. “Symean law!”

  “Just because I don’t…”

  “So,” his father barked as he started forward, climbing the stairs. “You wish to fight after all, huh?” He continued until he stood just before Kelc, a head taller than the boy. “You just hadn’t found anything you cared about until now. Well?”

  “I don’t care to snap up my sword and…”

  “Some things can only be won with swords, boy. Some rights exist only because they’ve been defended in blood.” His father leaned in, his nose only a knuckle before Kelc’s. “Sometimes, only the brave can keep evil at bay,” he growled. “Cowards rationalize why things might be fine no matter what to preserve their own skin.”