The Elements of Sorcery

by Christopher Kellen

  A thin bookmark made of red silk marked the page I was looking for. I'd been poring through Yzgar's grimoire a few nights past, and this particular incantation had caught my interest. The idea of reversing the flow of a tightly-woven spell in order to observe its creation was a fascinating one, though dangerous if not done properly. I placed the open book on my lab table and began to study the script.

  It was long, and written in a dialect of Old Tellarian that was difficult to decipher, but my memory had been honed for theory and formula and immediately began recalling what I'd translated a few nights before. Some of the letters were so tightly packed that they were difficult to read.

  As I leaned forward to peer at the pages of cramped script, the candle illuminating my workbench guttered and died. A frown creased my forehead as I stared at the red-hot wick in the dark for a moment.

  That was odd.

  Just as I opened my mouth to speak the syllable which would re-light it, something grabbed my robes from behind. I was lifted into the air, almost flying through it, tumbling to the ground several feet away. My tools and beakers rattled as the whole lab shook with the force of my body hitting the floor, and it was all I could do to simply hope that nothing had broken. I didn't seem to be, which was a start.

  I rolled over and opened my eyes, immediately closing them again as cold blue light flooded my vision. I blinked a few times and looked up at my assailant.

  He had a long face, the thin, straight nose of a zealot dividing it neatly in half. Dark hair, like the wing of a raven, fell across his face in thick strands. His eyes burned with a kind of purpose and intensity I had never seen before in my life, and indeed, his irises shone with the same azure glow that illuminated the crystal sword now pointed at my throat.

  I swallowed hard, trying to back up, but then there was a boot on my knee, pressing it into the ground and causing enough pain to make me cry out at the injustice.

  "Sorcerer," he hissed, voice low and chill like the winds of winter.

  An Arbiter had come for me.

  They were uncommon, rarely seen in the Old Kingdoms which occupied the remnants of the great Empire, and this was the first time I'd actually interacted with one… save for the unfortunate fellow in the alley earlier that day. Normally they have little use for sorcerers, looking upon us like gnats – powerless, generally harmless but annoying – unless a particular practitioner does something to draw their attention. One of my life's goals had been specifically to avoid attracting that kind of scrutiny. I'm not ashamed to say that the Arbiter's blazing eyes frightened the living daylights out of me.

  "Please don't hurt me," I whimpered, the pain from his boot on my knee radiating up and down my leg.

  "I was supposed to meet someone here," the Arbiter growled. "A brother, another member of my Order. His name is Gaerton Daen. Do you know anyone by that name?"

  My head shook in a negative. My hands were trembling uncontrollably. "I… can honestly say that I do not know that name."

  His heel ground down on my leg, and I could feel the tendons beginning to stretch. I howled in agony. "Enough, enough!" I exclaimed, my voice rising in pitch until it might well have shattered the glass beakers on my lab table. "I don't know the name, but I might know something about what happened to him!"

  The pressure on my leg suddenly vanished. The Arbiter took a step backward, lowering his sword from my eye-level to beside him, so that the lambent tip nearly brushed the floor. The pain echoed up and down my body, but began to fade rapidly.

  "Happened?" the Arbiter asked, a note of genuine confusion in his voice. He stared at me with those eyes, and I felt my blood run cold. "Something happened to Gaerton?"

  He didn't know.

  I'd opened my mouth, like a fool – again – assuming he already knew that something had gone amiss with his friend. Instead, I'd made myself into the herald of ill fortune, which did not do good things to my life expectancy.

  His gaze began to roam around my lab, and I felt my heart sink into my shoes. When his attention landed on the tiny, glimmering knife on my lab table, I saw him freeze. One moment he was moving, and the next he was still as solid stone. It was eerie, watching him stand there, as though he were suddenly carved from marble.

  For what seemed like an eternity, there was no sound in the room.

  At last, his lips moved. "Is that…?"

  In two lightning-fast strides he crossed my lab and swept the heartblade into his palm. He stared at it incredulously, looking from the knife to my face and then back again. His eyes were wide with anger, and something else. It took me several moments to realize that it was fear I saw in his eyes, doubt and uncertainty dancing in his head like a carnival troupe on Midsummer's Day.

  That only served to frighten me more.

  "Where did you get this?" his words rushed out in a whisper.

  In that moment, he was too confused to even take off my head with that razor-sharp crystal blade of his. Since that could change in a split-second, I decided I had one sentence in which to convince him that I was not at fault for the death of his friend. My only hope in living was that my mind would not betray me, and would give me the few simple words I needed to convince the man before me that I was friend, and not foe.

  "Gaerton Daen is dead," I declared. "I am searching for his murderer."

  Of course, I had been doing no such thing, but the impact of my words was, for once, exactly what I wanted. The Arbiter's eyes fixed on me, unblinking, twin spheres of blazing cobalt boring into me as though I were a specimen on a lab table. The cold, unfeeling regard in that gaze made a shudder run down my spine and settle in below my belly.

  "Dead?" the Arbiter whispered. "That's… impossible."

  He seemed frozen, paralyzed by the news, though not as still as he'd been when he'd first spied the heartblade on my workbench. I took the opportunity to climb to my feet, dusting off my robes as I did so. "I'm afraid it's not impossible," I said, choosing my words slowly and deliberately. This was one uninvited guest that I couldn't afford to offend. "I encountered his body in the street earlier today. That knife in your hand was the only thing of value left on him, save for his clothes. I took it with me to determine who might have been able to kill an Arbiter."

  "No one," the Arbiter whispered.

  I spread my hands in a helpless gesture. "Clearly someone could."

  He looked at me again, his features contorting into an expression of frigid rage. He took a step toward me, menacing, and the tip of his crystal sword lifted up off the floor. "How do I know you're not lying to me?"

  My throat constricted with fear, and I coughed to try to clear it as I stumbled a half-step backward. "The… the Sorcerer's Code, of course. We cannot lie. Surely you know that."

  The Arbiter barked out a sound, and it took me a moment to realize it had been a laugh. "A sorcerer lies when it fits his need, which is most of the time."

  "That's simply not true," I answered, raising one hand in a warding gesture. "A sorcerer composes, he equivocates, he may extend the facts in one direction or another when necessary, but it is the search for truth that drives all true scholars into the arms of the Art. No true sorcerer can lie when asked a direct question."

  He tilted his head at me, and once again I felt like an insect regarded with curiosity by a distant observer. "You're serious, aren't you?"

  "Never been more so in my life," I answered, hoping it came across with some measure of confidence.

  There was a long pause as he studied my face in the cold light of his manna sword. I found myself growing increasingly uncomfortable under the pressure of his glare, to the point where sweat beaded on my spine and trickled down the back of my neck. At last, he made a sort of throat-clearing sound and stepped back. It was only then I realized I'd been holding my breath.

  "Very well then, sorcerer," he growled, "Tell me this. Did you kill Gaerton Daen?"

  "I did not," I answered, and it was the most confident I'd felt all day.

  His glare scrutin
ized me – or, it seemed, the air around me – for a long, long eternity before he grunted, relaxing his stance and returning his sword to the thin scabbard across his back. I nearly pissed my breeches in relief.

  "Take me to where you found Daen's body," the Arbiter said.

  "One question," I said, holding up a hand. "How did you find me in the first place?"

  He tapped the side of his head with two fingers impatiently. "The manna coalesces around those who use it. There was only one place within the city walls that held a high enough concentration to be Daen, and when he did not arrive at our meeting place, I came here to search him out."

  "So you had no idea what this place was until you hurled me across the room?"

  "Precisely." His lips split in a grimace that showed glittering white teeth. "Now, take me to the body."

  "Do I at least get an introduction first?" I asked, regretting the words and their flippant tone the instant they passed my lips.

  He brushed by me, the scent of stale musk and another, stranger odor that I could not immediately identify tickling my nose in the breeze of his wake. "My name is D'Arden Tal. You are Edar Moncrief. You are going to help me find a murderer."

  III

  Where else does one go when confronted with a mystery? We returned to the scene of the crime. Or, at least, the scene where I'd discovered the Arbiter's body – the dingy alley filled with the smell of filthy clothing, human sweat and offal.

  Gaerton's body was not where I'd found it, of course, having been moved by the city guardsmen some hours earlier. It didn't take us long to find it, though. It hadn't gone far. Instead of lying in the middle of the street, it was now wedged in the narrow opening between two closely-built structures, along with a pile of refuse dating back weeks, and any number of odds and ends that had simply been disposed of. The reek was powerful, and I was forced to cover my nose with the neckline of my robe to filter out some of the stench. I was only marginally successful in my attempts to ease my breathing.

  The Arbiter, Tal, seemed unfazed by the smell. He simply stared at the broken and discarded body of the man who'd been his friend, and there was a kind of melancholy around him. It didn't show on his face, or in his body language – both of those were stoic, impenetrable – but seemed almost to shimmer in the air surrounding him.

  At last, he looked up, and gazed at me. "Was he wearing his sword when you found him?"

  I shook my head. "The scabbard was empty."

  "I see."

  "Does that mean something?"

  "Possibly."

  There was a long pause, and both of us were silent.

  At length, he spoke again. "Something is strange. It is… rare for any member of my Order to leave behind a corpse."

  "That certainly explains why I've never seen a book regarding an Arbiter's autopsy," I said, the words tumbling blithely from my lips before I'd even realized they were there. He turned a stony gaze on me, and I went on hastily, "but what are the circumstances in which they do?"

  Tal frowned, lines furrowing deep in his brow and around his eyes. At first glance, he looked to be about thirty years old, but in that moment, I got a sense of much greater age behind those glittering eyes. "I cannot think of any."

  "You can heal yourselves, correct?" I asked. "That's why it's so rare for a corpse to be left behind. Enough damage would have to be done to overwhelm your ability to self-heal."

  He nodded, a bit reluctantly, as though I were dragging diamonds from between his teeth.

  I tapped my stubbled chin with two fingers as I considered. "Then something must have robbed him of his power before killing him. It's the only plausible explanation."

  "Is there a manna font in this city?" he asked abruptly, casting a look at the alleys around us.

  "Several, why?"

  "I will need to consult with one."

  My left eyebrow elevated. "Consult?"

  "It's difficult to explain," he said. "Where is the nearest one?"

  I pointed down another alley which led toward the city center. "That way, I believe, but as far as I know, they're all boarded up. You'll have a hell of a time getting inside the chapel."

  He barely acknowledged me, but leapt into motion, purposeful strides carrying him down the side streets in the direction I'd pointed. It was all I could do to hike up my robes a bit above my ankles and hurry after him, trying desperately not to trip and fall on my face. I'm certain I looked quite the fool, scurrying down the filthy alleys, clutching my robes in my fingers like a noblewoman hurrying down a steep flight of stairs, but I couldn't afford to lose sight of him now.

  There were few things in this world which could simply drain the life out of a normal person, much less suck an Arbiter dry. It would have to be something phenomenally bad. There were a few theories which sprang immediately to mind, but I was huffing so hard from the exertion that I couldn't actually raise my voice enough for Tal to hear me. Lab work isn't exactly the most aerobic vocation.

  He drew to a halt outside a small, white stone building which looked entirely out of place among the angular, thatched-roof houses of the neighborhood we were in. This was one of the more populated sub-streets, and I could feel the eyes of the passersby on us as they slowed to gawk at the strange man in drab clothing and the silly sorcerer waddling along behind, trying not to trip over the hem of his robes. The peasants loved to gawk more than anything, except perhaps gossip. It was the little things that lightened up their dreary, desperate and ultimately fruitless lives. I was certain to be the talk of the town before nightfall, which would probably do good things for my business, if not my reputation.

  The font chapel was indeed boarded up, and the Arbiter stared at the wooden planks nailed two deep across the entrance as though it were a venomous snake.

  "You don't need to get inside, do you?" I asked hesitantly.

  He glowered at the barrier. "No. I can see from here."

  Inwardly, I sighed with relief. If he'd gone barreling through those wooden planks we'd have had much bigger problems, when the gathering crowd, exposed to the light of the manna, would have gone stark raving mad at best. Instead he just continued to stare at it, gazing through it, at what I couldn't be exactly sure. None but the Arbiters had ever truly laid eyes on a manna font, and those mortals who dared did not often have a story to tell afterward.

  Something was nagging at me, and I paused a moment to consider, while the Arbiter was staring through the slats. The dead Arbiter, Daen, had been missing his sword. Who in their right mind would steal a crystal sword – something only carried by some of the deadliest men in the world – off a body? Where would it have ended up?

  I didn't know the answer to the first, but the second question only had one answer.

  Finally, he turned to me. "Whoever did this must be a visitor to this town. There is no trace of them in the flow."

  "Then I suppose we'll have to do things the old-fashioned way," I said, allowing a grin to creep over my face. "Come with me. There's someone we should talk to."

  IV

  We crossed town from one run-down district, through the center square, to another neighborhood worse than the first. Twilight had passed hours ago, and the streets were dark, save for the occasional lamplight shining from a doorway or the slats of a shuttered window.

  The dead Arbiter had been missing his sword. An artifact like that, if it had been obtained by some enterprising citizen looking to make a few coins, would have made its way to just one person. There was only one person who'd dare to run in the circles that might buy something like a crystal sword.

  And I knew where he lived.

  Jahain Torthanas was a fence, and a particularly savvy one, at that. He'd had his hands on things most people had never heard of – I'd bought more than one book from his black market. He kept the city guard well supplied with rare vintages of wine and spirits, paid his bribes like any good citizen, and they mostly left him alone.

  Even well after dark, there were still unsavory characters lin
gering in doorways and lurking in alleys as we passed through. Visiting Torthanas wasn't something I cared to do often, and once more I was glad to have the hulking form of the Arbiter close at my shoulder, despite what it might do to my reputation. I would probably pay for it later, but for now it made me feel somewhat less like I was going to get a knife in the back for my meager coins.

  I turned down one alley after carefully counting the stones between one building and the next. Most buildings had six paving stones in the gaps between their outer walls, but this time I'd counted seven. This was where Torthanas made his home.

  The outside of the buildings were rotten and looked as though they might collapse if someone were to sneeze on them. We approached a door that seemed to be hanging off its hinges, but I knew it to be sturdy enough. Dim orange light flickered from within, dancing around the edges of the frame. I lifted my hand and rapped twice, hard, and then once more.

  "Who is it?" a rough, accented voice came from within.

  "Why, Merilee, it's your cousin Jago, come back from the war," I said, my voice rising into a high falsetto.

  The Arbiter arched an eyebrow at me. I shrugged.

  "Jus' a minute." There was some rattling at the door, and then it opened. Large, bug-eyes above a bulbous nose and beneath a mop of dark hair peered out at me. "Oh, it's you, Eddy. Whaddaya want at this hour?"

  My mouth opened so I could speak – even as I rolled my eyes at the hideous butchery of my given name – but Torthanas' gaze slid past me and landed on the Arbiter. He drew in a ragged breath that sounded like a fish trying to breathe smoke, and his eyes went round as saucers, showing the whites all around.

  He tried to slam the door on me, but I'd managed to get my foot wedged into the frame. The wood crushed my foot and I sucked in a breath as pain flared, but he wasn't able to get it closed again, for which I was grateful.