Dread of Spirit: Rise of the Mage - Book One

by Jason Bilicic

  But he doesn’t need Shy. The bastard got mother and she could do the same thing. She always felt what I was up to, Kelc told himself. She mentioned that women had such power. Tasher can already do it. He knows Kreggen’s hesitation, feels his anger. He senses my spirit.

  Hells, imbecile! Kelc raged at himself. No wonder the man has called for my death with such urgency. He doesn’t need me to find Shy! He’s only a few glasses from getting exactly what he wants. Greech!

  Kelc fell to his back and stared up at the lightless sky, his chest tightening. He struggled to get air into his lungs, the weight of the entire world, it seemed, crushing him. A moment before, Tasher still needed to capture Shaia to complete his sick crusade, but now it felt as if the man would win through and get his way in mere moments.

  “How?” he asked, the word gusting from him as he fought for air. How in the world can I stop him? He’s built to consume spirit, to use it. Some greeching demon has shown Tasher how to do it. He tore mother into shreds so he could use her spirit to greeching follow and capture me. He…

  “No,” he whispered, more able to speak with the leather bit in his mouth than the iron one. “I felt her. She is inside of him.” Mother is still there. Just like father is inside of the skiver, mother is still intact. “He has her.” Kelc felt her when he touched Tasher, but he was able to draw her spirit back.

  He could draw her spirit away from me, he thought. He’s in command of the spirit inside of him. Can I do that? Just move my spirit around inside my body?

  “No,” he answered into the cold night. So long as any part of the body lived, his spirit would… “No,” he said again, remembering the night he launched his spirit into the storm over his house. I can separate my spirit from my body. But I can’t just shift my whole spirit into my left foot, or recall spirit from there. If my spirit is here it is in every part of my body, like blood.

  “Too much,” he grunted, thinking he’d spilled too much of his blood on this journey. But only more to come. I need to spill Tasher’s greeching blood. At least Kreg has done that much.

  A memory came to him as if uncovered by his hatred of the ex-warden. He could see Kreggen fighting Tasher on the night the warden tested Kreg’s battle prowess. He saw his brother’s sword slice up into the warden’s armpit and then pull back, sending an arc of blood into the air.

  But then it disappeared, he thought. The lanterns were bright that night and the blood flying from Kreg covered everything. And after the battle, Tasher’s linens were always clean and white. “Bloody greech!” Like a vampire, Micah had said. Tasher has no greeching blood. He has lyatum. “Skeesh!” It was lyatum that strung into the air and vanished. “Hells!”

  And after the battle, only Pyter touched Tasher. And then… Imbecile! Pyter was a greeching vulghast. Tasher sent him to take Gabriel and test me. “Hells.” I jerked his spirit through him because he wasn’t living. I ripped lyatum from him. He wasn’t alive. Not like a person. And there was blood when he exploded, but not enough. How many greeching bodies have I emptied of blood but with Pyter there wasn’t even enough to pool on the street in Wemmerton? “Skeesh!” I’ve noticed nothing.

  “Imbecile!” I’ve played right into their hands. Everything I’ve done has put me more and more on my own and easier for Tasher to manipulate. I’ve made myself an outcast, used spirit where anyone could detect it and traveled with a vampire. They think I killed my own father and mother. Even the skiver! It radiates with spirit power, obviously invested by some witch or warlock.

  Every damned thing I did has made me more the dark practitioner, more the criminal, more the scum of Symean society for whom none would speak up or raise arms to protect. Now he can lop my head off and drink my soul without so much as a moment of hesitation.

  “Greech,” he growled at the darkness. I’ve killed myself.

  Dawn seeped into the sky behind a heavy layer of clouds, offering a pale grey background light to the dark snow-laden clouds that hung threateningly in the air.

  Silence clamped down on the entire plain, allowing not a single sound to cross it. Out of respect, Kelc thought, the wind died completely as well, leaving everything as still as the dead on the freezing morn.

  Kelc let his tired eyes roam in the distance, looking beyond the camp where Kreggen and his deputies still slept and beyond the separate camp where the soldiers from the Vanguard quietly kept watch on him.

  “Hmmmph,” he grunted, looking into the east, toward Reman. Rising from the ground, visible in the pink yellow light of predawn beneath the clouds was a single column of smoke. Kelc had to blink several times as he thought for a moment that it might be a trick played by his eyes, but after a few moments the smoke remained.

  Shy, he thought. How have I lost you in all this? He smiled as well as he could, thinking of his sister. She was free. And that would have to be enough.

  He didn’t know that the smoke rose from Shaia’s camp. He didn’t need to know. All he needed was a picture of she and Micah sitting on ground the deputies would not dare tread upon. “Out of Symea,” he whispered. His eyes threatened to tear as he considered how she must feel right then. How I would feel if she were here and I were there, he told himself. Except I would kill myself trying to free you, Kelc thought to his sister. In fact, he thought, frowning, I have done exactly that.

  In saving Shaia from Kyndron and his priests of Thannon, Kelc had gotten himself captured. That time, while locked in the cage, had been when Kreggen had spotted him and followed.

  Not that Tasher couldn’t just follow the strands of spirit mother attached to me, Kelc told himself, freeing Shaia of blame for his situation. “I’d be here anyway,” he mumbled. I didn’t understand or plan enough to get away. “Imbecile.”

  Movement in the Vanguard camp drew Kelc’s attention. The soldiers, all of them, climbed to their feet and began stoking the fire and cladding themselves in armor. One of them coughed loudly as if suffering some ailment.

  The clatter of their routine filled the air for a time, before one of them started yelling, his voice profoundly loud in the quiet winter air.

  “Jista! Wake up and let’s get this done. We’ve better things to do. Get the warden and Tasher and let’s have done with this.” The man wore dark plates all over his body and an open-faced helm. A scimitar rested on his left hip. “Jista! Jista!”

  “Okay!” barked the dark-haired deputy, bursting from his tent. “We’ll ready ourselves. One glass, damn you. Give us one glass to prepare ourselves.”

  “Women headed to dance prepare themselves faster than you rustic louts!” The Vanguard spun away from Jista as the deputy sneered at him, a retort on his lips. The Vanguard soldier’s armor clanked as he stomped over to a bucket which he overturned and used as a stool.

  “One glass,” Kelc whispered, swallowing hard. Despite how awful the past days and weeks had been, things seemed suddenly more real. “One glass.”

  They’re going to kill me in one glass. A hiccup in the grand scheme of things, one glass was an amount of time of no notable worth and yet it now stood as the rest of his life.

  Kelc’s stomach clinched hard and he vomited. Churned yellowish liquid burst from his mouth, washing past the leather bit still trapped between his teeth.

  “Oh,” he moaned as his chest clamped down. “Why?” He’d seen it coming, knew when he would die and how, and it had hardly bothered him. But now it loomed before him, real and final.

  “Shy,” he whimpered, raising his chained hands to his face. He tried to rip the bit from his mouth but it was clamped too tightly around his head and without the ability to see how it was secured he couldn’t remove it.

  “Aaaggghhhh!” he yelled, jerking on the straps, his fear and frustration suddenly escaping control. He tumbled onto his back, his feet kicking twice hard against the ground as if this might help him break free of captivity. He squeezed his eyes shut and bit down on the leather rod in his mouth, shouting with exertion. The bit creaked between his teeth while Kelc claw
ed at the icy ground with his bare hands, seeking whatever strength he could muster to break free from just this one tiny piece of his prison, but it wouldn’t give.

  His body relaxed as he let a long breath gust from his chest, his muscles relaxing in defeat. During his effort, and with his eyes closed, he didn’t notice Tasher as he approached.

  “Settle down, boy, your end comes soon enough without breaking your teeth on that bit or shredding your flesh.” The deputy sounded both tired and annoyed. “Here.” With a flick of his wrist he tossed a plate to the ground, the lump of mash on it bouncing nearly off of the fired clay.

  “You killed her,” Kelc spat, struggling to speak around the leather bit even as he lurched to his feet and rushed Tasher. But the man didn’t even flinch as the chains dropped Kelc like a leashed dog, its length stretching tight and halting him with no less force than if he’d run headlong into a wall. “Het!” Kelc snorted as he hit the ground. “You killed her, you greeching bastard. Killed her!”

  Tasher’s mouth turned up at the corners. “I have no idea what you mean, murderer. Besides, witch, your mother lives on.” Now the smile formed in full. “But soon her soul will be set to a proper use. Eat. It’s the last time you ever will.”

  “Did you get to inspect Dell Pyter’s body in Wemmerton?” Kelc asked immediately, goading his captor. “After I was finished with him?”

  The smile disappeared from Tasher’s face and he turned from Kelc to walk away, one hand rising to stroke his chin.

  “I was covered in orts and bound in iron then,” Kelc announced, lying, desperate to spike Tasher with some fear. “Did you know that, deputy? Worse than I am now and yet every tiny piece of his worthless body erupted, his spirit desperate to come to me, desperate to serve me. I barely tried to claim him and every fiber of his makeup simply leapt to my need.”

  Tasher spun, his grey Symean eyes wide and his mouth open. “You,” he snarled, before stopping. “You will be little more than my slave in half a glass and I swear I will punish you every moment of every day until I burn through you like firewood, fueling my own ends.”

  “Your slave? I will be a dead man. How will you make use of me then, imbecile?”

  Tasher smiled again, feeling he held the upper hand. “There is more to every man than his flesh, boy. You will feel my fury. Just as your mother has these many weeks.” A derisive snort of laughter rose through him. “Your whole family has served Symea well,” he said, leering at Kelc, “or will. Your death is a mercy at this point. Your sister and brother will beg for as much soon enough”

  “Say what you will, Tasher…Bastard! It’s murder.”

  “Do you know the difference between mercy and murder, boy?” Tasher leaned towards Kelc, his eyes narrow. “The point of view of a dead man.” The deputy smiled, baring his teeth in a feral display of authority.

  “I may not be able to stop you today, Tasher, but there are powers beyond the flesh, and I am their master. I swear to you,” Kelc said, rising to his feet, chains noisily rising with him, “that I will haunt you until the end of your days, bringing ill fortune and pain to you until you claim your own life to escape. You’ve fared poorly against Varrl’s sons, Alkern.”

  No smile yet remained on Tasher’s lips. The deputy, the vulghast, looked into the grey-green eyes of his enemy. “We shall see, boy.” He turned, furious, and marched away, snow flying from his boots as he sped back towards his camp. “We shall see.” He repeated the words into the air, as if tasting them for truth. He stopped and turned, facing Kelc from twenty paces, his sword now in hand, breath gusting into the wintery morning air, sending plumes of mist skyward. “Your death looms, whelp, and then we shall see just what powers you command.”

  Tasher spun and returned to camp, leaving Kelc alone, his blood cooling. He looked to the sunrise, now a lemon-yellow crown preceding the sun, a few dark clouds still trying to obscure the coming day.

  “We shall see,” Kelc said, repeating Tasher’s words, fearing the imminent nature of them. What could he do? Try and struggle against the vulghast after his death and hope to win free or curse him? No hope there, he thought. But if I don’t…

  Kelc saw Kreggen in the warden’s camp, looking lean and hunted this frozen morning. “How much we’ve changed,” Kelc whispered, noting Kreg’s defeated posture and dark lifeless eyes. “And how much more yet remains?” he asked, seeing his own life coming to an end in only a short time. “We shall see,” he repeated. “We shall see.”

  “It’s time.” The words snapped Kelc’s head to the side as if he’d been kicked, waking him from the numb suspension of reality he’d found in the last half glass while trying to ignore his imminent fate, his flesh giving over to lack of sleep.

  Jista stood there. “Come on, boy, let’s be done with this.” The man towered over Kelc but radiated no menace, no anger. He looked tired, his eyes red with dark circles beneath them. He gestured with his mailed fingers for Kelc to rise. “Come on.”

  Kelc climbed to his feet with a subdued grunt, stiff after sitting all night, exhausted and emotionally spent.

  The deputy used a large iron key to unlock Kelc’s chain from the post that held it. He then waved vaguely. “They have crossbows and won’t hesitate for even a moment should you elect to do anything foolish.” Kelc could see the Vanguard soldiers, and just as Jista said they would, they stood ready, their bows aimed, their grim faces offering nothing but duty.

  “I’ve no wish to struggle against this, deputy. If it must happen, I only wish it was done already.” Kelc ambled ahead of Jista, moving in the direction he pointed, his body frigid and uncoordinated. “This whole thing is a farce and has been since it began.”

  Jista snorted a mirthless laugh, seemingly unaware of how clearly Kelc could speak around what should have been an iron bit. “Why do you say that?”

  “Tasher,” Kelc offered. “He is no man, much less a Symean deputy. He’s a demon. A vulghast. The best this land has is little more than a ghoul that should be feared.” Jista’s response was no more than Kelc expected.

  “Even if he were, boy, that doesn’t change what you are. And we would know if he were such a creature.” Jista walked a few steps, his heavy boots crunching the ice-crusted snow more loudly than Kelc’s, his weight considerably more than the young man’s. “That sort of thing does not escape notice in Symea. It can’t.”

  “Just as I did not, eh? Symea has a grip on all of this mess.” Kelc spat as his saliva tasted particularly bitter with the addition of some squeezed from the leather bit, sending a string of slime from the corner of his mouth. He batted it from his face with a manacled hand, breaking it clear of his lip. “He is what I say he is. I’ve no reason to lie now.”

  “Peace, boy. That is no concern of yours.” Again, Jista sounded more tired than anything. “Let’s just put an end to this nonsense.”

  “Yes.” Kelc couldn’t agree more. Every part of him pulsed with his heartbeat. His stomach lurched with nausea and his flesh seemed unable to control its temperature, now so hot he’d shed his cape and jacket after he’d been freezing only moments before. And even in the face of his own death he would find no rational thinking in Symea, only stubborn pride and closed-mindedness. “Yes.”

  The two men walked into the camp that housed the Territorial Warden and his deputies with the Vanguard troops falling in behind them, their crossbows ever at the ready.

  In the center of camp, brown grass stood in a circle cleared of snow. Kreggen waited there with Tasher.

  Kelc’s brother looked directly at him, stoic and powerful. His flesh held almost no color, as if Tasher had already sucked his life from him and his eyes showed red with purpled crescents beneath them. He wore full armor, the plates on his chest, arms and legs a dull grey, every joint filled with chain mesh. He wore his sword on his left and a long white and grey cape fell limply behind him, no doubt stitched with the crest of Symea.

  Tasher rocked from foot to foot, eager or nervous. He wore leather armor from neck
to knee and high hard boots of black leather. He held an axe, each side of it a broad blade like a half moon, the edge ground hard and fine enough to catch the grey morning light, reflecting it into Kelc’s eyes.

  Kelc looked at the former warden and then glanced back to Jista, who wore dark grey plates and chain as did his brother. He turned back to Tasher. “Leather armor, deputy? My claws can easily rip through that. No steel?” No creature of spirit could long stand such steel pressed to their flesh.

  Tasher’s eyes widened for the briefest time. “Keep quiet, witch, and drop to the ground.”

  Kelc noticed that both his brother and Jista now stared at Tasher as he lowered himself to the grass that winter had killed. He dropped heavily on his rump, unable to ease himself down gracefully.

  “Protect yourself, Kreg. Remember: You must change this land.” Kelc received the slightest of nods from his brother, more than he expected under the current circumstances.

  “Lay on your back, Kelc Varrlson,” Kreggen said, his voice hollow. “You have been found guilty of wielding the power of spirit in the lands of Symea and actively pursuing the dark practice. You have been witnessed using your powers by members of the Territorial Watch and Vanguard Forces. You are to be rend and your body put to death.” Kreggen looked to Kelc but Kelc looked up at a passionless grey sky and waited, his breath coming shallow to his ever-tightening chest.

  Sweat burst out all over his body as tingles sprouted on his skin, the tension of such an outrageous moment ripping at him. Even the grass seemed bent on participating as it seemed now to poke and jab, irritating his skin.

  Tasher stepped up next to him, perhaps three paces to his right, and he could hear someone else moving out of sight.