Heroes or Thieves (Steps of Power 2)

by Sherwood, J. J.

  Jikun pursed his lips and regarded the lolling elf cautiously. Did he have a choice? …Not if he ever wanted to confront Saebellus in this lifetime. “Take you with…?” he repeated.

  “I can fight!” Eldaeus grabbed the end of the stick still protruding from the flames and tossed it at him. “I will show you!” he announced as he scurried down the hill.

  Jikun scrambled away from the smoldering stick, letting out a yelp. “Insane!”

  “What a grasp of the obvious,” Navon snickered.

  Eldaeus reappeared swiftly at the crest, two sticks in hand. “Here. One for you. One for you. And…” he trailed off, looking at his empty hands. His head snapped down to where Jikun sat and he glared suspiciously. Then he snatched the stick from the general and snapped it over his knee. Jikun extended his hand for his new, equally pitiful weapon, but the maniacal elf was apparently not done with his task. Jikun could only watch dumbly as he rotated the three until he had the longest and Jikun and Navon were each left with half a stick.

  Darcarus, who had returned with his promised and enormous branch, was ignored entirely.

  “And one for me,” Eldaeus finished. He thrust his weapon skyward, wasting no time. “I shall defeat you!” he declared loudly, voice echoing across the dome.

  “Fine,” Jikun grunted in exasperation, rising to his feet. To lose a battle to this male—even in his beaten body—would be a crime against a general’s very essence.

  “Wait, what is going on?” Darcarus demanded as he raised his shaft. “Why do you all have sticks?”

  But there was no response. Jikun remained far above divulging anything about what he had idiotically agreed to.

  Navon, however, seemed eager to begin. Perhaps he was covertly hopeful that his old general would be bested by this lunatic.

  Jikun glowered.

  “Can we use magic?—Er, can Jikun use magic?”

  Darcarus waved his branch threateningly. “Gods damn you all, I was gone for a minute. What did I miss?!”

  And as if he did not even exist, Eldaeus pranced about eagerly from foot to foot, nodding vigorously at Navon. “Use magic? Anything you like! Anything at all!”

  Jikun sighed and dropped the stick. He flicked a finger and in an instant, the Faraven stood frozen in a block of ice, nothing but his head still free.

  “Marvelous!” Eldaeus spoke in awe, attempting to wiggle free. “Truly marvelous!”

  Jikun regarded him vacantly. All the theatrics and excitement for this? “That was it? That is all you can do?” He stepped back and stumbled suddenly, catching the side of the stick with his ankle as his other foot held it in place. He lurched backward and tumbled into the fire. “Fuck! Shit! Damn it!” he swore as he scrambled out of the flames, knocking his back against the considerable block of ice.

  It teetered and lurched toward him, threatening to smash him beneath its several hundred pounds. Jikun swiftly commanded the ice to melt, but had only partially succeeded by the time it slammed him to the ground.

  “…Gods…” Jikun groaned as the rest of the ice melted away.

  Eldaeus promptly sat upon his back, pressing the stick to Jikun’s neck. “Ta-da!”

  “…You are delirious,” Jikun croaked. “You didn’t wi—”

  He grunted as Eldaeus pushed off of him, raising the birch toward the stream as though to silent applause. “So, what say you?” he asked, pivoting to face the pair. “Will you have me?”

  Darcarus gave a single clap of approval. “I don’t know what in the Nine Realms just happened, but he is coming with us.”

  Navon reached down and helped Jikun to his feet. “Are you alright? Really,” he attempted to query without revealing the chuckles slipping in beneath.

  Jikun glowered, knocking the palm away. He was far too mortified to complain about his injuries now. “Of course I am alright.” He viewed the Faraven cynically, brushing his chest off with mild indignation. “You really know a way out of the desert?”

  Eldaeus’ head flopped forward violently. “Of course I do. I was escorted here, remember? I recall the way out. The only way out!”

  The unease in the humidity was suddenly tangible. Darcarus’ complexion paled until it was hardly a shade darker than the tundra. “Are you talking about the Pass?”

  Eldaeus flashed an innocent grin. “Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssss I am, angry one! Come frolic amongst the grass and your pouting air will disappear!”

  Darcarus reached out abruptly to strangle the male, but the elf leapt aside with a mad cackle. “You said you had a safe way out of the desert!” he growled. “We are going to leave you in this—”

  “Wonderfully luscious cavern?” Jikun interrupted pointedly. “Not allow him to suffer and die like we are apparently about to do?”

  Darcarus’ mouth clamped shut briefly. “You are right.” He hurled his branch away. “He deserves this fate.”

  Navon possessed too much curiosity to refuse communication with the True Blood now. “What fate are you suggesting? Surely it cannot be worse than your plan to fight Relstavum with our battered, broken company.”

  Eldaeus was a painting of pure elation. “There is no need to be so upset. The way is only teeming with the undead of the Lost Infantry Regiment from The War of Dragons.” He wiggled his fingers gleefully before their noses, and Jikun had half a mind to snap them like the skinny, little twigs they were. “They skulk and slink and sneak about the path, still honor-bound to their duty to defend the pass from Het’s horde. You two do not look like dragons or Sel’vi, but they are only undead—I do not think they can tell the difference anymore.”

  “No one even knows where that path is because it is suicide.” Darcarus gave the grass an angry kick.

  Jikun knit his brow, watching the sand fly high and vanish into the darkness. He knew of the Lost Infantry Regiment—he had studied it in Darival’s academies beneath the overbearing intellect of the institute’s most prestigious scholar. Led by Captain Aritos to defend the pass through the Aenid Mountains from the horde of Het, every last male had been slaughtered by dragon fire. He could name every lieutenant. Every marshal. And the notion that the stories of his scrolls had come to life… He would have enjoyed a disbelieving laugh, but he feared encouraging the already manic Faraven. “You believe that tale of sprite whispers?”

  As Eldaeus detected the disquiet, he emitted a shameless giggle. Then he dropped his voice to a whisper, one hardly audible over their own breath. “The Pass of the Dead.”

  Jikun struck a palm across his brow. “Gods. The Pass of the Dead? From where in Ramul did you fashion that name?”

  Darcarus remained staunchly unnerved. “This is not something Eldaeus contrived. The Eph’vi would never travel out of the northern mountain range on foot. The notion is utterly absurd. Certainly, there must be some amount of exaggeration to the tale, but that an entire race of people has avoided the Pass for millennia signifies that it must bear some semblance of truth.”

  “Yes. Like: it’s a pass through the mountains and you’re dead if you don’t get your ass through it,” Jikun muttered with a scoff. “The ‘Pass of the Dead.’ You all should be ashamed.”

  Navon winced.

  “Oh please,” Jikun carried on with an exaggerated moan. “How many times have you, Navon, a necromancer, seen a corpse running about on its own? I certainly have not. I have seen your wisps and skulls, but no actual bodies. And yet you are telling me there is a whole army of dead that got up and congregated in this god-damn desert of all places, just to hamper passersby?”

  Navon’s face fell at Jikun’s rather pathetic image of their qualms. “That is not how the dead work…” he attempted.

  But Jikun was chortling now. “And even so, corporeal entities can be managed. It’s the smoke that is downright impossible.” His mind flickered with images of the twisting tendrils flaying Eph’ven citizens. “The Pass would be a godsend after Dahel.”

  Navon’s expression lost its mild annoyance and his foot stomped impatiently at th
e jest. “Just CEASE speaking! We are not simply talking about a few rotten corpses. Do you really know so little about magic?!”

  “That would explain why I am so bad at mine, would it not?”

  Navon was not amused. “And why you have such an absurd prejudice against necromancy,” he readily shot back.

  Eldaeus rocked onto his heels to observe in a shameless gape.

  Jikun loured. “I have gotten by just fine without knowing.”

  “Barely, Jikun. And your ineptitude must cease. If you were merely dismissing the Pass, I could possibly overlook your ignorance yet again, but you agreed to Darcarus’ ridiculous plan to hunt down an obscenely powerful necromancer! You will need me. You will need my magic. And you need to understand what you are going to face. Relstavum will not be like you—casting a few spells and then falling to the ground in a weakened heap. Relstavum can fight endlessly. Like I can. Unlike you. Unlike Darcarus. Necromancers do not become tired. You respected the Beast, and yet my magic was the only force strong enough to seriously harm it. If you do not kill Relstavum as soon as you engage him—if you lose the upper edge—he can defend against your attacks perpetually. You will end up sprawled on your back, begging for him to kill you, or you will accomplish the deed yourself through your inexperience and overexertion.”

  Jikun’s lips drew taut. “And what makes you two so special?”

  “Now you sound like an indignant child. That is not what I am inferring. You are unique… you just never did anything with your gift.”

  “Because I was already the best.”

  Navon’s expression acidified.

  “I never had time, Navon! In Darival, every elf was a cyromancer. There was no academy for ‘honing your skill.’ Magic was innate. Everyone had the gift. You started throwing ice beneath the feet of your parents the moment you could run from them. So mastering it was purely a matter of time and effort.”

  “And you were too busy whoring.”

  Jikun shot him an incredulous glare. “No, I was steeped in academy books on military strategies and histories—in between hunting thakish and swordplay. Do you think I could have become the general by merely throwing a show of ice before the council?”

  “I think, back on Sevrigel, a dung beetle could have become the general if he had the right connections to the council.”

  “…I am too dumbstruck to be offended. And you have about five seconds to articulate your point before I use my better judgment to decide this conversation is over.”

  Navon hastened to keep the general’s attention, though he was forced to elevate his voice as Eldaeus, bored of the direction of their conversation, began howling a painful tune in the ancient elven tongue. “Each magic has a price. Most forms of magic utilize two sources of power.” He raised his fingers to signal the two forms, as though Jikun needed such basic mathematical assistance. Perhaps he was suggesting the prince needed it too, but the Sel’ven had already lost interest and was unabashedly examining Eldaeus’ trinkets.

  He was likely fully aware of the technicalities of magic. He had, after all, summoned a dragon.

  “The first is innate ability. It can be likened to… potential muscle mass,” Navon continued. “As hard as an elf trains his body, he will never achieve the size of a human who does the equivalent. Each individual’s innate level of magic holds the same concept—though it is rarely determined by race, but rather by heritage and favor of the gods. Two innately powerful mages are likely to beget an innately powerful child, as in my case. But sometimes the bestowal of striking magical power is seemingly random—it is just as possible to find an innately powerful mage whose parents are of no note in some little city in the middle of a frozen tundra.”

  Jikun pursed his lips. ‘He means me, doesn’t he? Bastard.’

  Darcarus seemed to be listening enough to counter the Helven’s insults. “The difference, Jikun, is what you choose to do with that innate gift,” the True Blood attempted to reassure him.

  Navon glared at the prince. “But even if you should decide to utilize it,” he continued loudly, “there is a second qualifier to that magical potential: the health of the caster. Magic courses through our bodies—”

  “Does all of this have to do with what I need to understand about Relstavum?” Jikun barked. “Because I feel like we are sliding into a lesson that I don’t give two shits to learn.”

  “Well try to give at least one. You do need to know all of this, ‘damn it,’” Navon insisted adamantly. “And it’s about time you understood and desisted from berating my magical use. Magic is all around you—it is why you lost the war. It is how we escaped Dahel. It is what Darcarus used to keep the hel’onja from devouring you.”

  “Yes, and you have yet to praise my magical prowess,” Darcarus agreed absentmindedly as he looked up from where he was turning Eldaeus’ bracelet about.

  Jikun fell silent.

  “Now… as I was saying… The health of the caster. Right. Expending magic exhausts your body; like running, jumping, or climbing, spell casting exerts the caster’s energy and strains the body. To a caster like you, who simply treats his gift as ‘cast-on-whim,’ it’s the same as a sickly child with no muscle mass attempting to scale a mountain. You expend very little before your strength wears out—your magic becomes sporadic or wild, then eventually dies all together.”

  Jikun was listening a little more intently now, despite the continued insults. He had always been aware of how quickly his physical strength was drained, but on more than one occasion, such a weakness had nearly caused his death; the thakish in Darival and the Sevilan Marshes came prominently to mind.

  “And like training with an ill body, harmful consequences can result. Instead of pulling a muscle, your magic could end up out of control. Just as you berate my magic for threatening me, Jikun, you use your untrained magic with the risk that it could severely injure or even kill you. Magic must be used, nurtured, and strengthened the same as you train your body,” Navon continued. “And as for your body, when it grows weak, as yours has since leaving Sevrigel, every spell is that much more taxing and difficult to complete. You have always had a high innate ability and excellent physical form—though I can’t say so right now—but your magic is like the muscle you never use. A trained mage with half your talent and half your health could best you with hardly any effort.”

  Jikun bristled. “I would like to—”

  “See them try? Really? Do you truly believe you could win?”

  Jikun fell silent. Even in excellent form, as he had been in Darival, after a few spells he had tumbled from the back of Nazra and had nearly been devoured by the pursuing thakish.

  Kaivervi’s visage came suddenly to mind and he shoved it stiffly aside. ‘Now of all times?!’ “What else do you have to say?” he insisted swiftly.

  Navon paused. “…And now we come to necromancy.”

  “By Sel’ari’s cunt, finally,” Jikun swore, feeling relief that his lack of knowledge would soon be amended and he could despise necromancy to his fullest potential.

  The Helven’s indignation flared. “I will stop right here.”

  Judging by Darcarus’ slant away from him, he seemed mutually offended.

  Jikun gestured apologetically. ‘Not the time to provoke him,’ he chastised himself. “You can’t stop here. I cannot have listened to all this and never reached the god-damn point.”

  It was likely only due to the desire to explain his own talents that Navon continued despite the blasphemy. “All of this was the ‘god-damn point,’ Jikun.” He waited for the Darivalian to fall silent and adopt a superficial mask of regret. “Physical health. Innate ability. These are the requirements for most magics. Necromancy is an exception. The strength of a necromancer is based partially on innate ability, but overwhelmingly on the tenacity of his own soul. Let me use Tiras as an example.”

  Here was a historical figure every humanoid knew—from the most secluded dwarf to the grimiest of goblins. And every elf knew his story by the age
of five. “Go on.”

  “Tiras is often depicted as a rather gaunt, at times even sickly, Helven who traveled many miles on mercenary work, sleeping on the dirt and eating a rather poor diet. And yet, without question, he was the most powerful necromancer on Aersadore. He certainly had innate ability, but more than that, Tiras’ soul was strong. He was extremely self-aware and strong of will, certain in himself and his character, and he disciplined his soul as though it was his very body—utilizing it through spell-training until it far surpassed his physical strength. He could come and go from the Realms as though he were walking in and out of a blacksmith, picking up whatever souls he needed to weaponize his spells. And his strength of character allowed him to not just reach the First Gate of the Realms, but the Second, Third, Fifth… even, they say, the Ninth.”

  “I’m a heathen, Navon. I assume these gate numbers should impress me… but they do not.”

  Navon sighed and Darcarus looked back toward him with an expression that suggested that now, even he found the Darivalian to be an utter fool. Jikun brushed the dusting of grains that coated his flesh, trying to swipe away the prince’s expression.

  Navon ignored the prince and instead replied, “I could write a book for you, but I will try to be concise: there are Nine Gates in the Realms of the Dead. And I assume you actually know what the Realms are—the gateway to the gods?”

  “…Don’t you dare be insolent with me,” Jikun warned, raising his hand.

  Navon stepped swiftly out of reach as he carried on. “They form what I will call, for your sake, a ‘tunnel to Emal’drathar.’ Once through the Ninth Gate, your soul rests with your god. Before that, it has to pass through the Gates. The Gate Guardians of each respective Gate force souls through and on toward their god, and the Gates’ pull on the souls increases in strength at each new gate—thus only the strongest, most resistant souls can manage to remain in the Ninth Gate long enough to be retrieved.”

  Nine Gates teeming with the varying strengths of the dead—Jikun could grasp that. But… “Why in Emal’drathar would the gods create gates where necromancers could steal their followers’ souls? I would think the gods want the souls for themselves—not torn apart or obliterated on the surface.”