The Elements of Sorcery

by Christopher Kellen

  With deliberate movements, I lowered the sword so that the tip of it pointed directly at Shoulders’ eyes. “You bear the mark of corruption,” I intoned, low and raspy, choking the words out through my throat in my best imitation of the Arbiter I’d met in Elenia. “The sentence for harboring a daemon is death.”

  “What are you lot just standing there for?” Shoulders demanded. “Kill him!”

  “But—” Scar’s eyes had gone wide at the view of my sword. “He... he’s an Arbiter, Dev. An Arbiter! And he says—”

  “Bugger what he says,” Shoulders snapped. “I ain’t no daemon.”

  Now his companions were slowly backing away from him. The big man swung his axe down off his shoulders and hefted it in his hands, glancing from side to side. He was unnerved, I could tell that much. Instead of cowing, though—as I might have hoped—he took an aggressive step toward me. “Come on down off that horse, and we’ll prove just how much of an Arbiter you are.”

  My mouth dried up. Still, it looked like his companions weren’t willing to help him, at least for the moment. I’d narrowed the odds against me from impossible to improbable. A great victory for the Arbiter, indeed.

  “Very well, daemon,” I snapped. For the second time in two days, I swung down off my horse to face an enemy who would surely kill me. This time, though, I doubted I’d be saved by a fortuitous glaive from behind. Isteri snorted and stamped her hooves impatiently.

  As I approached Shoulders, I kept the luminescent blue sword out in front of me. It was actually difficult to see around the glow; I briefly wondered how the Arbiters managed it. Shoulders’ upper lip curled into a snarl as I drew closer, and faster than I would have guessed, he thrust the head of his axe straight toward me.

  I’d never been so glad in my life to have insisted that Mendoz teach me more than how to cower and whimper when someone attacked me.

  The strike, while not deadly, would likely have splintered my ribs and crushed my sternum. Instead, I sidestepped, turning as I went, and brought my sword across and down low. By a stroke of luck, my enchanted steel blade struck the wooden haft of the axe and bit in deep, pushing it aside. The shock jarred my arms all the way to my back, and I felt a muscle keen in agony. Only the exquisite edge on my blade kept it from sticking there, and Shoulders was so surprised that the axe actually wrenched from his hands and clattered across the stones of the Kingsway.

  I turned back to him, then, and I must have been a sight. My eyes and sword blazing the same blue, the cobalt light from my illusory enchantment reflected as a pinpoint of light in his own eyes. “The penalty for harboring a daemon is death,” I repeated.

  His eyes were so wide I thought they might pop out of his head and begin rolling down the Kingsway without him. I barely managed to smother a nervous laugh that tried to wrench its way out of my throat—instead, I managed a superior smirk, an expression which I’d never dreamed might appear on the face of the Arbiter I’d met. If I was lucky, they didn’t all have sticks quite so far up their...

  “I ain’t no daemon, I swear!” Shoulders squawked, his voice breaking. He stumbled backward a step or two, fear and desperation replacing the haughty anger and arrogance he’d worn only moments before.

  For a moment, I paused. If I released him now, would his companions—currently backing away with their weapons in hand—sense weakness, and turn back to fight me? I’d declared him daemon... what did that mean?

  You idiot, I cursed myself. The man in front of me was nothing more than an arrogant ass, no more a daemon than I, and probably less of one than Mendoz. Yet, if I spared him now, the Kalais would have no Arbiter at Sevenstone—shut up brain stop laughing like that—and my chance of accomplishing my goal would die in moments.

  Shoulders had dropped to his knees now, hands clasped in front of him, begging for mercy. He was saying something, but the blood rushing in my ears kept me from hearing it. His friends were almost twenty feet away now, but they could be back in an instant if it suited them.

  To destroy the daemons, I reasoned.

  To win my war, I argued.

  To save my pitiful hide, a very small part of me wailed.

  There was almost no feeling as the blade slid into his throat. There was blood—oh, so much blood—and he might have tried to scream, but I could still hear nothing over the roar in my ears. The others ran, horrified and shrieking, disappearing into the forest.

  A dim part of me remembered a quatrain from Madmen of the Dark Spire, a book I’d kept in my lab, back in Elenia. Corrupted creatures slain by the light of the Arbiter’s crystal sword were always consumed by blue flame. My mind, which had thoroughly detached itself, chuckled madly. We cannot betray the legends now, can we?

  With an effort of will, I bound the manna to my command and sent a gout of brilliant blue flame surging from the tips of my fingers. It licked at the body, searing the meat and sending up the sick smell of burning human flesh. My stomach threatened to jettison itself as the horrific odor filled my nostrils, but I didn’t stop until there was nothing but a scorched mark on the stones and ash that blew away in the wind.

  When my grisly task was at last complete, I sheathed my blade and climbed onto Isteri’s back. She seemed surprisingly unfazed by it all. As I nudged her flanks and we rode on, I couldn’t help but wonder—did it smell so awful every time an Arbiter killed something?

  VII

  It wasn’t so very long after that I did lose control on my stomach.

  One of the more interesting side-effects of the desperate gamble which had saved my life in Selvaria was the utter lack of need for food and drink. Nevertheless, when I at last pulled Isteri to a stop along the Kingsway and collapsed to my knees in wretched, agonizing wracks of pain, I managed to cough up a thin blue fluid. It was all that kept me from the even more painful prospect of dry heaves, for which I was somewhat grateful.

  Eventually, I regained my composure and climbed back into Isteri’s saddle, and we set off again. After another league or so, we turned off the Kingsway and threaded our way south through the forest. By the time we came upon the Kalais camp, as evening drew near, I had mostly come to terms with—or rationalized—the death of the soldier.

  A young groom took Isteri off to be coddled, and I headed for the red-and-gold banners which flew above the command tent. When I got there, Duchess General Martine se Vassoch was there, almost as if she’d been waiting for me all day.

  “So,” she said after a moment. “You’ve returned.”

  “Did you know?” I demanded.

  “Know what?” Her face was grave, but her hazel eyes sparkled with mischief.

  I stopped for a moment, took a breath, and considered her carefully. Yes, I decided. She had known very well. Still, I wanted to hear it from her mouth. “Were you aware that Sanfar was on the verge of a peasant revolt anyway, or was it just a lucky guess?”

  Despite her best efforts, one corner of her mouth quirked. “We might have had some intelligence suggesting that.”

  My eyebrows climbed. “And you didn’t think it might be relevant to communicate that to the Arbiter that you were sending in there?”

  “Intelligence can be unreliable.”

  Now she was just playing with me, and I could see it. Though I had no idea why, for my sandy hair had grown out shaggily to my shoulders and I wore three days’ scruff on my face almost constantly, the Duchess had taken something of a shine to me. She was a strong woman, and no doubt saw a match to her strength in the mysterious Arbiter—which was a facade, of course.

  I’d done what I could to discourage her, but she still seemed to enjoy playing games with my head. Perhaps she was just glad to be met to an intellectual peer.

  The introspective look on my face must have triggered something, because she sobered again and looked at me gravely. “I take it that the people of Sanfar were... receptive to our message?”

  “Enough, anyway,” I said. “We were lucky that the Lannthans didn’t leave more knights behind. If they had, we
might have had more difficulty.”

  She nodded. “Our scouts saw them withdrawing all of the legions with their nobility back to the west,” she said. “If they’d left the knights, we would have simply gone around and guarded our flank.” Martine paused for a moment, and then tilted her head. “Anything else I should know?”

  A low chuckle escaped me. “They’re on the march, should catch up with us sometime tomorrow, I’d wager. They’re going to be faster and lighter than your heavy troops, and they know the land. Mendoz has oversight—”

  “That boor,” she muttered.

  I smiled faintly, acknowledging the thought, and went on. “—and I may or may not have told the Sanfarians that they could work out who was going to be king of Lannth once the demons were defeated.”

  Her mouth quirked again. “You have a habit of saying such things, don’t you, Arbiter?”

  “What things?” I asked.

  “Promises you can’t possibly fulfill.”

  A cold stab of warning, like a sharpened icicle, penetrated my chest, but I pushed it away. Surely my instincts were just overreacting. The Kalais were here to stop the demons, and when they’d finished, they would go home. That’s what Revina VI, Queen of Kalais, had signed in a writ and sent to me when I’d agreed to assist her righteous cause.

  “Was there anything else, Duchess General?” I asked.

  She stared at me with those glittering hazel eyes for another moment, as though devouring me in her thoughts. Had I asked or been willing, I was sure that she’d have taken me to her bed in a moment, if only to say that she’d had a conquest of an Arbiter. Were I a different man, I might have taken her up on the offer—but as I was me, the idea simply made me uncomfortable.

  “No, Master Arbiter. That’s all. We’re six days’ march from the capital now, and thanks to you, we’ll be reinforced when we make our assault on Sevenstone. Thank you for your assistance.”

  “Of course.” I bowed and made my exit, my thoughts still troubled.

  VIII

  On the third day of the march, I’d taken Isteri off to one side, having tired of military officer banter. The scribes and loremasters were much quieter, and so I rode with them while they rocked back and forth in their saddles and wagons, trying to write legible notations on the move. Isteri did most of the walking on her own, leaving me to be hypnotized by the swaying motion of an elderly scribe as he attempted to compose a chronicle of the journey.

  “Hey there, sorcerer.”

  Mendoz’s voice nearly made me jump out of my skin. It took every ounce of self-control that I could muster to keep from letting out a yelp of surprise. He’d ridden up beside me on his draft horse gelding. “What is it?” I hissed. “And don’t call me that.”

  As I at last regained my composure and looked at him, something immediately struck me as odd. It was his expression, I thought at last. Mendoz was most familiar to me when wearing a lopsided grin, a leer, or a pinched and suspicious look. There was something wrong with him today, though... and I didn’t much like the feeling that came with that look.

  “Falgar’s got a good head on him,” the monster hunter said. “He’ll do fine. Look, Moncrief—we need to get out of here. This isn’t our thing. We’ve got no chips on the table here. Who cares whether Lannth or Kalais wins this war?”

  I frowned at him. “Did you forget about the daemons, Mendoz?”

  “That’s the thing,” he said. “Daemons. We’re not talking about fel beasts here. Even shrikes, for all their teeth and claws, are nothing more than beasts. I’ve never seen a basilisk, but I’d wager they’re just big snakes, when it comes down to it. But daemons... that’s intelligence. Real smarts, probably more than even you got in that head of yours. And if there’s more than one... that’s Arbiters’ business, not meant for a monster hunter and a sorcerer.”

  “Um, hello?” I asked, pointing to my eyes, which glowed brightly enough to shed a faint blue light, even during the day. I’d seen it on documents and tables when I leaned close. “Did you forget about this?”

  He licked his lips nervously, his gaze darting away. “You know what I mean.”

  Of course, I did know what he meant. There was a small part of me screaming that Mendoz was right, that, daemons or no, we needed to get the hell out of that place before we both got killed. The lure of—oh, I’m not sure what it was, but perhaps glory?—was stronger, though, whispering its promises of eternal fame in my ear.

  The Arbiters’ numbers dwindle, I thought. Given the chance, someone must prove that daemons can be killed without those crystal swords and ways that smack of zealotry. If they cannot, then we are truly lost.

  My, my, the voice in my head said, rich and luxurious with sarcasm. How far we've come from the sniveling wretch who lurked among the streets and alleys of Elenia, peddling love potions and wart remover.

  With an effort of will, I smothered the voice, which had begun laughing hysterically.

  “We can’t leave now, Mendoz. Not when we’re so close to the goal.”

  He ran a hand through his hair, sighing in exasperation. “That’s just my point. What is our goal here, Moncrief? The ever-lasting gratitude of the Queen of Kalais for delivering Lannth into her hands? Money? What are you after?”

  “We’re not delivering anything into anyone’s hands,” I said. “The Queen signed a writ—”

  “Which you neither received from her hands, nor saw personally signed,” Mendoz pointed out.

  I glared at him. “Are you implying that my guarantee from the Kalais throne is forged?”

  “I’m just saying, is all,” he said. “You don’t know where that slip of paper came from, even if it does have the royal seal on it.”

  He was right, but I wasn’t about to admit it. “If you want to go, Mendoz, you’re welcome to pack up and go. I have to see this through.”

  I must.

  The ugly monster hunter’s jaw firmed. “Just as long as you’re confident, then. I’ll get back to my riding dice game with Falgar. He’s a sly one, but I think I’ve figured out his trick.”

  His banter didn’t have its usual tone, and I winced internally. As he moved off, I glanced after him, but he didn’t look back.

  Way to go, my mind muttered to itself. Can’t go three days without alienating someone, can you?

  I’ve gone a week, I retorted.

  IX

  The city of Sevenstone, royal seat of Lannth, was named for its spot overlooking the western sea. The great cliffs which lined the western coast had many fissures and fjords, some of which were hundreds of feet to the rocks and water below. Sevenstone was situated at the meeting point of one of these fissures, its grand obelisks and towers reaching toward the sky as the surf crashed far below.

  As Martine had indicated, the travel took six days of marching after I returned to the Kalais cohort. Mendoz and his Sanfar Freemen managed to catch up with us by dusk on the day after I returned, and though there was some muttering between the Lannthan peasants and the Kalais soldiers, we managed to keep everyone separated. There were only one or two fights, and, perhaps surprisingly, no one was killed.

  Despite the fact that we were coming up on the coast, there were no sandy beaches and no gentle downward slopes leading to Sevenstone. Instead, the land actually rose as we drew closer. The cradle of farmland and forest which surrounded Sanfar and the central Lannthan cities gave way to grassy scrubland. Though it was not all that far a distance as the crow flies, I would have sworn that the winds were actually growing colder as we advanced on our goal, even though it was still late summer.

  The great walls of Sevenstone were quite imposing, especially from our view at the base of the last hill. As soon as we were in sight, Martine began barking orders at her men.

  “Set up the catapults!” she bellowed. “If they sally while you’re dragging your arses I’ll make sure that we put you between us and the daemon knights!”

  As for me, I could see why the early founders had built Sevenstone on the edge of
the sea. It was impossible to surround the city, and there were only two gates which allowed access past the walls. They’d never allowed it to sprawl, like so many cities did, keeping the population contained within the primary stone fortifications. It saved on maintenance, made sure that only an elite population could afford to maintain long-term residence in the city, and kept its people protected.

  On the other hand, though, the people within had nowhere to run. There would be no refugees fleeing the city. Every catapult shot which missed the walls would kill civilians as well as soldiers. It was a death trap, and anyone who failed to surrender would be slaughtered. I saw it playing out in my mind, as clearly as though I were there. This would be no bloodless victory—the streets would run red before the day was out.

  A cry went up from the soldiers, and my eyes were drawn to the wall.

  “A daemon!” someone yelled. “A daemon on the walls!”

  At the very edges of my sight range, I could make out a hulking, massive red form standing near the southern guard tower on the main gate. Antlers or horns stretched out from its head, and it held a wicked looking blade aloft. The sickened call of what sounded like a war horn with a bad cold went up from the walls, and a rallying cry came from the defenders, washing down the hill toward us.

  The sight of the daemon spurred the Kalais soldiers into motion. They went from a hardened pace to a frantic one as arrows began to rain down upon their cohort. I was with the officers, back as far as we could be while still within sight range, and death paid us a visit. Soldiers wearing the Kalais colors died beneath arrows which had a significant tactical advantage on them, protected only by soldiers running with shields held up over their heads like turtle shells.

  For half an hour the one-sided carnage went on, but the Duchess General had known her enemy well. She’d placed only a few heavily-armored units in arrow range to draw their fire, to keep them from sallying out while she set up her siege equipment. The catapults were kept at a more distant position, for they could fire much farther than any bow. At last, the Kalais horn sounded from the first of the siege engine companies, and Martine sent up a signal flare. There came a great wrenching and creaking of wood, a collective grunt of effort from the men working the counterweight, and then a slam as the first Kalais catapult launched its heavy payload into the air.