Which was why, in the heat of the moment when I’d been about to have my life sucked out through my nostrils by an angry vampire, those words had sprang unbidden back to my tongue… and my life had changed forever.
Now, thanks to some cosmic confluence—someday, you dark, betentacled bastards we call gods, someday, I’m coming for you—I stood beside yet another Arbiter, about to use one of the greatest and darkest powers that had ever been committed to parchment on the hideously deformed shell of its creator.
How did I end up here? my mind wailed.
Some distant part of me realized that this was the point when I usually gave up all hope of coherent thought and curled up to begin crying like a frightened child.
Another part of me chimed in: how long had it been since I’d really done that?
Images flashed before my eyes.
Me, standing firm before an insane sorcerer and the walking aberrations he’d created from the corpses of his own family.
A rain of cerulean droplets setting the hide of a shrike ablaze as the blood flowed from my hand and into the wind I’d conjured with a brand-new, spur-of-the-moment evocation, distracting the beast so that an ugly man with biceps the size of pythons could put six feet of steel in its skull.
The worst moment of my life, when I’d torn two innocent men to shreds propping up a power-hungry zealot’s lust for a throne that didn’t belong to her. Shame burned my cheeks at that memory, but I did notice one thing: in that moment, I was unafraid. There was no crying, no gibbering, no nervous babbling.
Just me.
I drew another breath.
With gritted teeth, I locked my eyes on the fel beast. It stared back at me with a burning hunger, wild rage in its eyes, its scarlet serpentine tongue at full extension, jaws wide, the lambent spittle of a creature of corruption coursing down its chin.
I raised my hands into the air, and began to speak.
XVI
The moment the words of the Verse of Undoing began to spill out from my mouth, I realized that something was wrong.
Shocked, I stopped chanting.
I shouldn’t have been able to stop. Once the Verse had begun, it could not be ceased.
My eyes went wide with panic. I looked over at Khaine, my jaw hanging open, dumbfounded.
“What’s going on?” he hissed.
“I—I don’t know,” I stammered. “The words aren’t right.”
My eyes flicked back to the fel beast. Its jaws were stretched in a hideous parody of a smile, and hissing laughter coughed from its throat.
Despite the heat, I suddenly felt very, very cold.
“That… thing,” I hissed. “It’s in my head!”
With only a moment’s concentration, I could feel it there; a slithering, black, oily, oozing presence squirming around in my mind. It was tampering with my memory, making the words of the Verse that I’d memorized come out a garbled mess.
“Fel beasts can’t do that,” I murmured, my stomach lurching as I identified the feeling. Suddenly, I longed for the cleansing chill of the sea to wash off the mental filth, and if that didn’t mean I'd gone crazy… “They can’t, they can’t, they can’t.” My resolve started to crumble.
Khaine grimaced and clenched his teeth. “That’s because it’s not a fel beast.”
“Then what?” I asked, starting at him with round, bloodshot eyes.
He looked at me with those glowing blue Arbiters’ eyes, the ones I shared, and my heart sank into my boots, threatening to descend into the floor and desert me forever.
“A daemon,” he pronounced, the word striking me like a tidal wave.
“Daemon,” I echoed dimly. Unwillingly, my eyes flashed back to it.
It narrowed its many eyes at me as it laughed, and then it twisted up its features and spat into the air. The sickening fluid arced through the air and landed only a few feet away from me, sizzling on the heated cavern floor before vanishing.
“Sorcerer,” it said, in perfectly-accented High Valisian. “You wish to dance? Then come. Come to me, and I shall destroy you.”
“Get out of my head!” I screamed, clutching at my scalp as I felt its presence slide through my mind again. It left a sickly feeling behind, like nausea or rotting flesh, except encapsulated entirely within my thoughts. Channeling manna into my mind, rather than through it, was extraordinarily dangerous, but I put a thread of power behind the exclamation anyway and shoved at the presence. It easily slid past my efforts. A sharp pain lanced into my skull behind my eye as I burned out a few synapses with my misplaced mental scalpel.
Had I actually wished to face a monstrosity like this? I had spent a watery eternity regretting the hubris I’d shown in the company of the Kalais, but that had been mere regret for getting a friend killed. This was something different. If the Lannthan king truly had been guarded by real daemons, would I have been standing in that cavern?
No. I’d have been dead before even starting the chant. The sheer weight of that thought was almost as sickening as the daemon’s presence in my head.
I stumbled and fell to my knees, retching violently as the daemon attacked my mind again. I’d eaten nothing for weeks, but there was apparently still some seawater left to expel from my innards. The salty brine smoked as it struck the stone. The heat burned my palms, but I couldn’t bear to stand.
The daemon laughed again, and the sound echoed not only in my ears, but directly in my head. “Pathetic mortal,” it sneered. “Though I am chained, you are still far inferior to me. Barely a babe-in-arms, ready to be devoured whole.”
“Do… something…” I choked and vomited up more seawater. The smell of the salt burning made my stomach clench even tighter. How much more could possibly be in there?
Oh… the daemon growled, though it was almost like a groan of pleasure. It was no longer speaking aloud. I could feel its presence in my mind as it crept its way through my thoughts, my memories, gazing upon them with predatory purpose. So much pain. So much guilt. I shall feast well upon you.
I could no longer see the floor of the cave. Instead, the daemon's eyes floated before me, on a field of darkness, as memories flashed across my vision. As though from a distance, I saw myself, standing in a darkened field of snow. My face was contorted in utter horror as I stared at the corpse of a woman who I'd barely known, who had seen through all of my deceptions and my desperate attempts at subterfuge though I'd known her only a few hours. She stood before the vision-me, her skin utterly white in the light of the Deadmoon, her eyes ablaze with crimson fire.
You did this, the daemon whispered, and I could not argue with it, for it had complete control over my mind in that moment. Your fault.
"My fault," I whispered through bitter tears.
A new scene replaced the snow-filled landscape. Now there was sand on the ground and darkness overhead, and a monster which seemed three times the size it had been in life. In the vision, the shrike had no real shape, but instead its oily skin swirled like mist in a vast, formless mass. I could see only its eyes, which had multiplied to thousands, and then they were the daemon's eyes, and it was devouring a shaking and pale Alvar Brauch as he screamed desperately for mercy…
You did nothing. You are a failure.
"Failure…"
In desperation, I tried to call up the moment of victory against the shrike, where I'd distracted it just long enough for Mendoz to kill it. The memory slipped through my fingers as though I'd tried to grasp the wind, and instead transformed into the grand halls of a palace. The daemon forced me to relive the moment again and again, as I watched a sword sever the neck of a pale and deathly Mendoz. The monster hunter's blank, milky eyes stared at me accusingly in every moment, even though in life I had seen only his back when he died.
You killed me, his dead, flaking lips whispered.
"I did it," I sobbed. "It's my fault. I'm sorry."
The daemon reappeared before me, its eyes glittering with triumph. In the vision it was not chained, and stood beside a circ
le shimmering with brilliant red flames. "You are a failure, Edar Moncrief. You have let down everyone you have ever met. In the end, you are the cause of their deaths. You. Only you."
"Only me," I repeated.
"They all await you," the daemon hissed. "They all await their vengeance in a place beyond time. Do they not deserve to right the wrongs you have done them? Simply step beyond this gateway, and your guilt can be assuaged. Take your place among them, end your guilt, and let them have what they so very much desire. The suffering will be brief, I assure you."
It would have been so easy to simply agree.
"Help…" I whispered.
The daemon's grin grew wider. "Yes. Help them, sorcerer. Help end the torment that you have consigned them to."
It took every ounce of will that I had left to whisper just four words.
"Khaine… help me. Please."
From my position—buckled over on my hands and knees upon the cavern floor—all I saw was a flash of movement from my left, and then Khaine’s boots striking the stone. I forced my head up as the Arbiter’s war cry resounded all around me, and I watched as he leapt bodily into the air, brandishing his crystalline sword over his head. Curls of blue smoke wrapped around his lower legs, seeming to propel him into the air faster and farther than any mortal could have managed.
The daemon’s gaze snapped away from me, locking on Khaine, and it let out a howling shriek as the Arbiter’s manna sword descended toward it.
Suddenly, I was free. I breathed a rush of air into my lungs, and felt my head start to clear. Khaine had distracted the daemon enough to draw its attention from me, and I clumsily scrambled to my feet—
—just in time to see the daemon’s lips stretch into another grin as it flung itself aside. The chains snapped taut, sparking and flashing just as before.
Khaine’s stroke landed precisely where the daemon’s head had been only seconds before, but it was no longer there.
The manna sword connected with the ghostly chains instead.
“Oh, gods be d—” I started to scream.
A soundless burst of thunder rocked the cavern, causing tiny crystals to shake free from the ceiling and rain down upon us, even as a brilliant flash of blue and white light flared into my eyes and sent me stumbling backward with a cry. I tripped on something and fell hard onto my right shoulder. Stars flashed in my vision, and I came to a stop in a heap a few feet away.
Groaning with the effort, I twisted my neck to see what had happened to Khaine. The Arbiter lay on the ground near the giant manna crystal. His sword had skittered from his grasp and lay, dark and lifeless, a few inches from his hand.
Just to the right of him, the daemon stood, rubbing one wrist with the other clawed hand.
It was free.
Running its long tongue over its jaws, the daemon inhabiting the body of Yzgar the Black turned to me and gave a big, predatory smile.
“Oh, my,” it hissed. “That feels just wonderful.”
As it turned out, there was more seawater left than I thought.
XVII
The daemon stalked toward me, its motions as sinuous and serpentine as the tongue that dangled from between its razor-sharp teeth.
“Now we will suffer no further interruptions, sorcerer," it hissed.
My hands and arms began to shake uncontrollably as I felt the creature swimming through my deepest thoughts, my dreams, my hopes, my desires, and worst of all… my fears. Exhaustion prevented me from fighting back.
“Get out,” I whispered. “Get out.”
Its grin grew wide enough that I almost expected its face to split in two. “You will make a fine vessel for one of my brethren, once that miserable soul is stripped clean. Still, since you declined my merciful offer, I shall simply take a more direct approach.”
A shudder wracked my entire body. I couldn’t move, couldn’t think.
This was it.
My death was upon me.
There were times when I’d had that thought previously in my life, but it had never been as perfectly clear. I’d rolled the dice and lost, and now I was going to pay the price for my misfortune and Khaine’s miscalculation.
I’m not proud of that moment. All of my inhibitions fled before the daemon’s demented glee. I begged, I pleaded, I wept, I groveled, and more, and through it all, the creature just seemed to become more and more self-satisfied.
When it started to hurt me, I screamed. My world narrowed to nothing except the blinding pain, and the daemon’s amused chuckling.
I have no idea how long it tortured me. As it went on, I withdrew further and further into my mind, desperately trying to protect the core of my sanity as the daemon did its best to shatter it beneath a furious and continuous assault.
Somewhere along the line, I found myself huddled in the darkness of my mind. The pain seemed far away from me then, and an image of a cold, flickering blue flame appeared beside me. I realized that I was sitting on the ground, with my arms curled around my knees, and the only light came from the blue fire beside me.
I looked over at it, taking in the depths of color burning in its heart. I’d never imagined that so many different shades of blue existed.
A voice whispered past my ears. Hungry.
Taken aback, I laughed. The sound echoed strangely in my ears. “Well, that’s the way my life goes. Driven to the brink of insanity, and I get stuck inside my mind with a representation of my neglected stomach.”
How I got the impression, I’ll never know, but somehow I understood that the flame was less than impressed by my attempt at humor.
Hungry, it whispered again.
A frown creased my brow. “What are you talking about?”
The shades of azure continued to flicker enigmatically.
I frowned at it harder.
“What are you?”
It didn’t answer, but my brain slowly figured it out.
“You want me to feed you?”
It flashed.
A fierce grin flashed across my face. “All right, then.”
When I returned to consciousness, the pain was almost impossible to bear. I coughed, feeling the twinges in my chest that signaled broken ribs.
“Ah, you’re awake,” the daemon purred above me. “Do you have anything left to say before I destroy you forever, sorcerer?”
I mumbled something.
“What was that?” it asked, and I could feel it as it leaned down closer. “I didn’t hear you.”
Summoning every ounce of my remaining will, I forced myself to look up at the creature. Brilliant blue blood was streaming down my face, bursting into tiny blue flames as it dripped from my chin and struck the stone floor of the cavern.
I reached out with my mind and did the last thing that I would have ever dared to do: I tapped the power of the giant corrupted manna crystal and channeled the power through the blue flame that lurked in the deepest corner of my mind. Fiery agony and ecstasy colder than a winter gale howled through the channels I'd forged over years of practice, the ones that focused every ounce of manna that I used, flooding my mind and my body. The force of it nearly drove me to my knees, and I staggered.
Weakly, I lifted one trembling hand, my mouth stretching into what I hoped was an appropriate parody of the daemon’s ghastly expression.
“Kettek,” I spat in a spray of cerulean drops.
A mass of brilliant light, precisely the same shade as Khaine’s manna sword and the size of a small vegetable cart, flashed out of my hand and slammed squarely into the daemon’s chest, bursting apart in a brilliant explosion that sent the oily-black form stumbling backward. It let out a piercing shriek of rage and pain, and the sound was music to my ears.
I didn’t stop funneling manna into the Arbiter’s flames for even a second. With each passing moment, I could feel it righting the wrongs that had been done to my body, and my strength slowly began to return.
As soon as the daemon righted itself, I took aim at its center of mass again.
&nbs
p; “Kettek!” I screamed with every ounce of breath I had.
Under most circumstances, my manna bolt spell was about the size of a fist, packing enough of a punch to put a full-grown man on his arse. When I shouted the invocation this time, that hungry flame amplified the power beyond anything I could have imagined, and instead of a ball of light, it came out in a wave, roaring like an ocean storm as it barreled down on the daemon.
It tried to fling itself aside, but the wave was too wide to be evaded. It crashed into the creature, eliciting another howl, but this one was more pain than anger. The creature burst into blue flames from head to toe, shrieking and spinning about as it frantically tried to put out the consuming blaze of purifying manna.
I’d spent three years pretending to be an Arbiter. If I’d had even the slightest inkling that the power I’d appropriated could do anything like this, I never would have bothered with the name. Compared to this, the name was nothing. Mud. Simultaneously, in that moment, I realized why the Arbiters were so hard on sorcerers. If a sorcerer were ever to unlock their secrets and discovered the truth of the power that the Arbiters were hiding… well, those sorcerers might be pretty scary, now wouldn’t they?
The brilliant cobalt flames sapped the daemon’s strength even as mine began to return. Blood still dripped from innumerable small wounds all over my body, but I could feel them closing one by one as the manna did its work. Exhaustion threatened to stop me in my tracks, but I just redirected the flow of energy, and as long as it passed through that insatiable flame deep within the channels of my mind, I had a limitless supply of energy.
Limitless.
A deep sense of satisfaction not entirely my own filled me to the brim.
As the daemon burned, my mind retreaded several things which I’d read throughout the years. Picking and choosing precisely the right phrases in mere fractions of a second, I strung together a brand new invocation, one that I was certain would serve me well many times into the future. With my broken, rasping voice, I began to chant in forgotten languages, and threw out both hands in front of me, pushing all of my will past the pain and shaping it to my will.
The Elements of Sorcery Page 25
