Instead of doing the rational thing – calming down and figuring out who it was that intended to stab me, for instance – I panicked.
Out of all my vast options, I picked a parlor trick.
Then I amplified it about a thousandfold.
My hands flew into the air, and with my mind, I called out for the power that surrounds all living things… the power known as the manna. It flowed into my hands and I molded it like putty into the first thing that came into my head which might have possibly stood a remote chance of deflecting the imminent attack.
"Aelzar forendas!" I cried, turning to face the room.
A bright flash of white light leapt from my fingers – bright enough to cause several dozen simultaneous cries of agony to rise up from the common room. At the same instant, a loud crack, which rivaled the sound made by striking thunder, split the air.
The sudden aftermath of the spell left the entire room reeling. Except, of course, for the Arbiter, who simply turned to me with an implacable stare.
A knife, still quivering from the impact, jutted from the wall a few feet away. It had been thrown, clearly, but there was no good way to see where it had come from.
"We need to go, now," I urged the Arbiter.
He answered me with only a grunt, releasing his grip on Alcar and dropping the fat bartender unceremoniously to the splintered floorboards. I strode out of there with all haste, resisting the urge to pick up the front of my robes so I could scurry faster. It just wouldn't have made the impact I wanted. Tal was close on my heels.
VI
"Did you get anything from him?" I asked, once we were safely away from the White Orchid.
"Lies and tales to frighten children," Tal muttered. "Nothing useful."
I arched one eyebrow. "What did he say?"
"He babbled something about a vampire," Tal said, and the disdain in his voice was thicker than the black Mard I'd been drinking. It was starting to go to my head already – the world was not quite blurry, but I was having trouble thinking straight. "As if anyone truly believes in vampires."
"Now… hold on just a second," I said, trying to keep my words from slurring. "Everyone here believes in vampires, because they're quite real and well-known. Are you telling me that an Arbiter, a defender against the horrors that lurk in the darkness, doesn't believe in something as simple and common as a vampire?"
He turned, stopping dead in his tracks, to glare at me. "You must be joking. A man possessed of a thirst for blood who wanders around dark alleys at night and preys on the unsuspecting? There are plenty of deviants out there who might fit that description, but there is not any such thing as a vampire."
"What do they teach you at that Tower?" I asked, the fire of liquor in my belly giving rise to courage I never knew I possessed. "A vampire isn't a man at all – it's a creature, no different than the worst kinds of corrupted horrors that you fight. They're akin to demons in that they often take the shape of a man, but instead of seeking to spread corruption through guile and deceit, they simply drain the life force out of living beings."
He continued to regard me skeptically. I blathered on; alcohol had the tendency to bring out the scholar in me. "It has to do with the equations detailed by Naegra Omishad in his seminal work Manna Defined, in which the vampire can…"
"Enough," Tal said, holding up his hand. "These creatures, if they exist as you say they do, must for some reason avoid the eastern lands. I have traveled these Old Kingdoms for many years, and never have I encountered such a demon."
"They tend to act quietly," I answered. "There probably aren't enough people in the east for them to bother – all of you are so spread out like you are. They rarely have to move once they establish a haunt that they like. I've never heard of a case of one attacking an Arbiter, though…"
"It must be incredibly brave, or incredibly stupid," Tal growled.
Thinking was becoming more and more difficult. "If there's a vampire here strong enough to kill an Arbiter…"
"This city is in a large amount of trouble," Tal finished. "How do we find it?"
I chewed my tongue thoughtfully. "Come with me. I have an idea."
VII
"Now this is incredibly stupid," Tal grumbled.
"I happen to think it's one of my more brilliant ideas," I responded.
The liquor had finally cleared from my head, and somewhere around halfway through the execution of said brilliant idea I'd realized just how idiotic it really was.
Of course, by that time it had been too late to mention that I was afraid of heights.
We were perched atop the roof of the building in which I kept my lab. It had once been a temple to some false deity, though no one was certain how long ago that was. The true gods had been dead for thousands of years, and no one dared even speak the names of the ones which now ruled the world, much less build temples in their name. The belfry of the old temple had once held a true bell, but it was now gone, leaving only an empty, drafty space where a few dozen bats kept their roost.
It was near midnight now – vampires never showed themselves during the day; like most other horrors, they were powerless in the light of the sun. Now, though, the Deadmoon shone down from the black sky with its bleak white light, rendering everything in shades of gray. A cool breeze rippled across the city, respite from the heat of the day.
It provided an excellent view of most of the city, from the slanted roof of the belfry.
"How are we going to see anything from up here?" Tal asked.
"We are not going to see anything," I answered. "You, on the other hand, are going to watch with your Arbiter's Sight for indications of corruption. Vampires are powered by it, just like any other fel beast or demon. They're not subtle, and when it starts to feed, it should light up like a beacon."
"Then how would Daen have been surprised by it?" he asked.
"If the vampire knew about him prior to his gaining knowledge of its presence, there would have been no contest," I answered. "It would have known not to feed until it had dealt with him, and if your response was any indication, I doubt your friend would have believed anyone who did tell him about it."
The Arbiter tensed, and for a moment I feared that I was about to lose my life, but he huffed out a breath and relaxed again. "You're right. Gaerton never was particularly open-minded. I don't know why he asked me to come here… and I suppose I never will, now."
Silence reigned as he watched the city, and I tried not to shiver myself off the roof as the cool winds continued to blow across the belfry. My robe was designed for the heat of the day, not the chill of the night, and I felt oddly exposed on that roof.
Night brought a different kind of energy to the Old Bitch. I didn't often spend time in the streets after dark, because it brought out the worst kind of folk – thieves, rapers and murderers, assassins and purveyors of the most dangerous mind-altering substances known to man. During the day it was deadly enough, but once the sun set, any pretense of morality faded away into nothing beneath the light of the Deadmoon.
Life in the Old Kingdoms is short and bleak, and the Bitch has a kind of desperate quality underlying all of the depravity. It's as though the citizens want nothing more than to experience all the highs possible in a human life, before it's snuffed out by random murder or one of the many horrors that haunts the night.
Now, as if the mundane corruption in the hearts of men weren't enough, a damned vampire had moved into the city. It was enough to make me want to pick up my lab and travel to somewhere less populated, though business wouldn't be as good.
"There." The single word cut through the night air.
"You see him?"
Tal didn't answer, but slid down the slanted roof and swung himself easily onto the ledge inside the belfry. He immediately began descending the stone stairs while I scrabbled desperately not to lose my balance and plummet to the cobblestones below.
"What kind of idiot climbs a roof at midnight?" I muttered under my breath.
VIII
I caught up with the Arbiter a few streets away from my lab, huffing and puffing as I tried to make ground on his confident stride. The cool air whisked sweat from my forehead, but I was rapidly overheating and I'd already tripped over my robe more times than I could count.
"Where… are… we… going?" I gasped at him.
He didn't deign to answer, instead continuing his lope through the alleys, hot on the trail like a bloodhound after a rabbit. His manna sword was still sheathed across his back, but every few dozen steps or so his hand would stray to its hilt, protruding from behind his right shoulder. He checked each direction at every cross street; looking at what, I wasn't quite certain.
I followed as he ducked down a thin side alley, and nearly ran into him as he stopped cold. My breath came in wheezing gasps as I tried to catch it; he held up a finger for silence, and I held the air in my lungs for a moment as he listened, head cocked intently.
"They're not far ahead," he said. "Are you going to make it?"
With focus, I was slowly able to return my breathing to normal. Sweat poured off my brow, now that I was no longer moving, but at least I was no longer puffing like a bellows. Swallowing hard, I looked at him and nodded gravely.
His hand wrapped around the hilts of the manna swords on his back and drew them; they came free with a rasp. Cold blue light sprang forth to fill the alley around us, and he strode forward, no longer checking the streets around us, but instead moving with a focused purpose.
Around the corner in the alley up ahead, I could hear voices. Several voices, and it finally clicked in my head that he had said 'they'.
My brain scrambled for something, anything, an incantation which was fast enough to respond in the face of a vampire and might actually be effective. It was the Arbiter's job to hunt horrors – I was a scholarly sorcerer, a practitioner and a student of theory, not a single-minded destroyer of evil. While my power was far more flexible than his, it was also much weaker, particularly against the darkest horrors of corruption. It could make hash out of a human being surely enough, but against something like a vampire…
We rounded the corner just as a group of three silhouettes disappeared into a dimly-lit doorway. The light from within vanished as the door slammed closed, leaving us once again with only the moonlight to see by.
"Could there be more than one?" Tal asked in a hushed tone.
My mind struggled to recall what I'd read of vampires. "It's technically possible, I suppose, but I've never heard of such an occurrence. They're usually solitary, territorial predators. If they've learned how to work together, though…"
"They might have had the combined strength to kill an Arbiter."
A cold shudder ran through me. "It's possible."
He looked at me, his face seeming pale and drawn in the moonlight. "This isn't your fight. You've done enough by helping me find the ones responsible. If you'd prefer to return to your lab, I will kill these vampires and be on my way."
It was a fair assessment. There was a good possibility I'd actually be a hindrance once the swords started swinging, and he'd just given me an out. I could just go back to the safe, warm cocoon that I lived my days in and continue my experiments and my research, knowing that I'd done what I could to avenge a wrongful death… even if the victim had been an Arbiter.
"That's not going to happen," I said, the words surprising even me. "You might be the strongest Arbiter in the world – I don't know you, so I can't say for certain – but against three vampires who already possess the energy of one of your own… you're going to need a wildcard, and I can be that extra factor."
He nodded, though he seemed mildly surprised by my commitment. "Well enough, then. Do you have any sorcerers' tricks up your sleeve that might help disable or kill a vampire? That flash of light you used back at that den of debauchery was fairly effective."
"Oh, that?" I asked. "More of a trick, really. I think I have a few things that might help us more directly."
At that moment – and until the day I die I will never forget that gut-wrenching, grisly, horrifying expression – Tal flashed me a grin.
IX
"Khrona dakar!"
A blast of orange flame, hurled from thirty feet away, slammed into the door that the vampires had passed through. The thin wood splintered under the raw power of the shrieking fire, sending shards flying inward even as they burned.
Tal whirled around the corner and followed on the heels of the gout of hellish flame, his crystalline sword ablaze with cold blue light, and he disappeared through the now-open doorway. Shouts of surprise came from within, and I ran toward them, crossing that thirty-foot distance in the span of only a few seconds, hurling myself through the smoldering door frame. Another spell was already on my lips as I took stock of the situation.
The Arbiter was pursuing two of the vampires, who'd turned to flee into an inner doorway. The third cowered against the far wall, though it was recovering from its shock more quickly than any human could have. Before my eyes, it transformed, shedding its human-like form and becoming a vaporous black shadow, red eyes glowing like coals from within the billowing smoke-form.
Something lashed out and struck me. Though there was no physical pain, I felt what could only be described as a kind of spiritual agony as the vampire's tendril locked onto my wrist and began draining the life from me. A scream tore itself from my lips as I felt my spirit struggle to hold on, and somehow I managed to shape the scream into another incantation.
"Kettek!" I shrieked, and an arrow made of pure white light crossed the space between me and the vampire in the blink of an eye, slamming into the shadowy form with a jarring impact that actually shook the walls of the rickety house we'd entered. The tendril shook loose from my arm, and I felt my strength surge as it returned.
Then it came at me, and my breath caught in my throat as it descended. I tried to scream again, to force air past my lips, but my lungs were frozen in terror as the crimson eyes of the vampire rushed toward me. A cold rush of wind went past me, and its tendrils drilled to the center of my very soul.
Despair filled me as my vision began to darken. I had been overwhelmed, and the Arbiter was nowhere in sight. I should have taken his advice, gone back to my lab…
My lab.
The book, lying open on my lab table. Could it be enough to save me? Would Yzgar's formula work against the power of a fel creature instead of a carefully-crafted spell? Was my mind working well enough to remember the incantation while the vampire sucked my life away?
There was no choice left; I had to try.
My lips were cold, but I forced them to work. It started off as merely a murmur as I began to recite the incantation in its native Old Tellarian, the alien syllables twisting my tongue into strange shapes and patterns. My vision darkened further, but I whispered more phonemes. The chill crept from my hands up my arms as the vampires clutched and clawed at the core of my being, draining the manna that animated me and gave me life.
Then, the chill reversed, and warmth began pouring into me.
My chants became louder, more insistent. No longer whispers, they were spoken words, and they were now being almost drowned out by the piteous wails of the vampire as Yzgar the Black's ancient formula turned its own power against the creature and gave it to me. It began to unravel, just as the dark sorcerer had promised, and instead of draining my power, it was suddenly pushing its own into me.
It was glorious.
Warmth became heat, and I was flooded with power and energy beyond anything I had ever experienced before. My chanting grew to a crescendo, until I was shouting the words over the shrieking of the dying vampire and the roaring winds which rushed into the tiny building. The corrupted energy that gave life to the horror buoyed my spirit until I nearly began to sing the words of Yzgar's miraculous incantation, so happy was I and so euphoric, the greatest high I had ever experienced in twenty-odd years of magical practice.
There was a shift in the feeling of the power, subtle at first,
but then it yanked me violently around and I was instead flooded with cold; cold beyond reason, cold beyond imagining, the deep chill of the depths of winter at the bottom of some far-flung icy sea. This was not the cold of death, though – no, this was the cold of the pure manna, the very power which had been kept by the dead Arbiter, Gaerton Daen. It was his power I was feeling now, taken by the vampire and then delivered into me via the incantation.
For a moment… a long, painful, ecstatic and beautiful moment, I held the two sides of the manna in my hands. My right arm blazed with the searing crimson heat of corruption, and my left with the wintry cobalt purity that shone from the Arbiter's eyes and sword. I was the embodiment of the world in that moment, in perfect balance and utter chaos all at once. It felt as though I could see the very fabric of the universe, all the inner workings and threads that tied every part of everything to everything else. It was perfect enlightenment.
A searing pain blossomed at the base of my skull, and I lost consciousness.
X
It was dark when I awoke.
There was something soft beneath me. As my eyes fluttered open, I took in the sights around me. I was back in my lab, lying on the straw pallet in the corner where I spent my nights. There were a few candles burning, but it was dim.
Next to my lab table was D'Arden Tal.
No. It was the Arbiter.
Those glittering blue eyes were watching me so intently… I felt like a field mouse, staring into the eyes of the raptor as it approached.
"You're awake," the Arbiter observed.
Gritting my teeth against the pain in my head, I rose. "So it would seem."
The Elements of Sorcery Page 4
