The Sorcerer's Legacy (The Sorcerer's Path)

by Brock Deskins

  “So, they were still looking for me when you left. How long have you been here?” Azerick asked sullenly.

  “A bit over a year now. Not nearly as much work, even considering the slowdown after—well, you know, your father and all. Nice folks up here, but not many are willing or able to spend the coin on a private weapons teacher. Azerick, they say you killed a boy at that school. Is that true?” Ewen asked gravely.

  “Master Ewen, I have killed a lot of people since my mother died. The first man I killed was that very same night and death has followed me around like a shadow ever since. But, I swear to you, I never killed a man who did not deserve it. Travis, the boy that died at The Academy, was an accident.”

  “I never thought you was a murderer, lad. Your father raised you right and I like to think I taught you proper enough not to become that sort of man,” came Ewen’s heartfelt reply.

  “Thank you, Master Ewen, your opinion means a great deal to me.”

  Ewen’s face brightened back up. “So what have you been doing all this time? You been here in North Haven the whole while?”

  Azerick shook his head. “It’s a long story. Why don’t you come up to the keep sometime and we can catch up.”

  “You’re the one that bought up that haunted place? I heard some crazy wizard was moving in but I never would have guessed in a million years it was you!”

  “Yes, I am the crazy wizard, sorcerer actually, but it is not haunted any longer. I took care of that,” Azerick said.

  Ewen shook his head in wonder. “Drove out a spook that’s been haunting that place for hundreds of years. We definitely got some catching up to do. I’ll tell you what, I’ll pop in there in a day or two and you and I can have us a good sit down and talk about everything. It’s good to see you well, son, mighty good.”

  Azerick smiled warmly. “It is good to see you too Master Ewen.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Ellyssa had been grounded for two days and Wolf was already bored. Having been on his own for so long, he was surprised by how much he missed her company.

  “I’m bored, Ghost, what are we going to do?” the half-elf asked his wolf companion.

  That simple question coming from Wolf would have mothers grabbing their children from the street and men locking their doors, but Ghost just looked at the lean boy with his gold eyes and blinked.

  “Let’s go see if there is anything interesting going on at the keep.”

  Ghost padded along softly behind Wolf as they stealthily made their way through the wall and ducked behind the several small stone buildings that stood in various states of reconstruction. The pounding of metal and the flying of sparks quickly drew the half-elf’s attention. Creeping from building to building, he watched a lean but powerfully built blacksmith wearing a thick leather apron pound a piece of iron with his heavy, steel hammer.

  Wolf watched in wonder as sparks flew from every strike. After pounding the bright orange glowing metal completely flat, turning it several times while he beat on it, the smith let the forked end hang over the side of the anvil. He then struck the narrower ends lightly, bending the steel tines until they both formed a loop. The blacksmith held the hinge up to his eye to examine his work, and then doused the glowing hot metal in a barrel of water to temper the steel.

  Wolf was fascinated as the water hissed, gurgled, and steamed when the hot metal came in contact with it. The blacksmith left the forging room of the smithy and disappeared into another room where Wolf heard what sounded like the filing of metal. The curious half-elf crept from his hiding place, looked at the fiery hot forge, and ran his hand across the heavy steel anvil. He dunked his finger in the barrel of water and then brought it to his tongue.

  “Blah, brine,” Wolf said as he made a sour face.

  He lifted the lid from another barrel, dipped his finger into its contents, and found that it was filled with a light oil. He rubbed his finger and thumb together, interested in the slippery feeling of it, then washed it off in the brine barrel. The oil spread out from his fingers creating a rainbow of colors on top of the water. Wolf found the phenomenon intensely interesting. He dipped his hand into the oil, transferred it to the barrel of brine once more, and watched the rainbow spread out from his oil-coated hand.

  “Hey this is neat, Ghost, you should look.”

  The large black wolf just sat near him and watched, not terribly interested in Wolf’s discovery. Wolf scooped up a double handful of the oil, dropped it into the water, and watched as the globules of oil rose to the surface.

  “Hey, Ghost, the oil floats on top of the water instead of mixing with it. Why does it do that do you think?”

  Not bothering to wait for a reply that he knew was not forthcoming; Wolf dropped several more handfuls of oil into the water and watched in fascination. He heard the blacksmith returning to the forge room, cutting short his experimentation. Wolf and Ghost darted out, hid next to the opened sided building, and watched the smith once more.

  The blacksmith grabbed another piece of iron with a large pair of tongs and thrust it into the forge. He worked a pair of bellows with his foot, pumping fresh air into the forge causing it to glow even brighter and put off so much heat that Wolf could feel it on his face from where he spied around the corner. The blacksmith pulled the near white-hot iron from the forge with the tongs and began beating it flat with his hammer.

  The skilled blacksmith quickly formed the hot iron into another hinge. Once the hinge met his satisfaction, he plunged it into the barrel of brine just as he had the previous one. The instant the red-hot iron touched the oil floating on the surface of the briny water, it ignited and sent a burst of flame up and out of the barrel large enough to scorch most of the whiskers off the surprised smith’s sweat-covered, soot-stained face.

  The shocked smith jumped back with a shout of surprise, dropping the hinge as well as his tongs into the barrel where they immediately sank to the bottom. The blacksmith cursed before looking up and spying the awed half-elf.

  “Wow, that was so neat!” Wolf shouted. “Did you see that?”

  The smith looked at the open barrel of oil and quickly deduced what had happened. “Why, you little cretin, I’ll wring your skinny little neck!”

  “Uh oh, Ghost, time to go,” Wolf informed his lupine friend and sprinted back towards the safety of the forest with the angry shouts of the now nearly beardless blacksmith sounding from behind him.

  After a few minutes of running, Wolf could no longer hear the angry shouts of the blacksmith and slowed to a walk, safely in his woods once more. He loped through the woods in a southerly direction so he could watch any traffic along the road. Wolf watched the occasional cart bearing workers, and tools loaded onto carts pulled by horses or sometimes oxen or mules pass by heading up towards the keep.

  He was about to give up his newest pursuit as boring when several riders came out of the gates of North Haven leading several strings of horses. Half the riders were well-dressed men and women while three other men in plain clothing led the string of horses, eighteen in all by Wolf’s count.

  “I wonder why all those people are going to the keep?” Wolf posed his question to Ghost. “And what’s with all the horses?”

  Wolf followed the procession towards the keep, always staying hidden within the trees. The caravan moved at a sedate pace, taking a little less than an hour to travel the four or five miles that lay between the keep and the city gates.

  “Azerick, there are people outside with horses!” Ellyssa shouted excitedly as she looked out the window of the library where Azerick conducted her lessons on the newly completed fourth floor.

  Azerick crossed the room, it was the largest one on the fourth floor, and looked out the window and into the courtyard. He saw half a dozen people, two women, and four men, each riding their own horse, and pulling nearly a score of horses behind them, each bearing a saddle and bridle but no riders. Ellyssa bounded down the stairs three at a time as Azerick followed at a more leisurely pace.

  B
y the time Azerick reached the entrance hall, a cavernous room twenty feet high and large enough to host a ball, Ellyssa had already admitted three of the newcomers and they stood waiting as he walked down the stairs to greet them.

  “You have done wonders with this place,” Lady Miranda praised him as the sorcerer entered the room.

  She looked at the several chandeliers that were hung by stout rope running through pulleys and attached to the walls so they could be lowered for lighting and cleaning. The walls were covered in thick tapestries that helped insulate the room and trap the heat from the two enormous fireplaces that stood to each side of the grand hall, unlit due to the warm season.

  “The workers have done wonders, I have done very little, truth be told,” Azerick corrected.

  “How do you get such a bright white light from the lamps?” Miranda asked, looking up at the large, but rather plain, chandeliers.

  “It’s magic!” Ellyssa blurted out. “Azerick lets me light them every morning since I learned how to cast the light spell. I’m a wizard!” she added excitedly.

  “Oh you are, are you?” Miranda asked smiling down at the young girl. “And what is your name?”

  “I’m Ellyssa and I’m Azerick’s apprentice. I set a tree on fire but it was an accident and now I have to squish rats with an ugly goblin named Grick, but he’s not a bad goblin that eats kids, he’s nice even though he was bad and got turned into a goblin by the woods fairy so he isn’t a kid anymore,” Ellyssa rambled excitedly.

  Miranda gave the chatty girl a bemused look but could not help but smile. “Well, my name is—,”

  “I know who you are! You’re Lady Miranda. I saw you last winter fest. You are very pretty like your mother, but she doesn’t smile like you do. That was before my father sold me to Azerick, but I don’t mind because a gross fat man was going buy me but Azerick give me a glass ball and I made it glow really bright so he bought me instead. The fat man was really mad but Azerick used magic to knock him to the ground. I thought it was really scary at first but now I think it’s really funny. Azerick said he was going to turn him into a pig if he tried to buy any more kids, but I think he already looked a lot like a pig, especially rolling around in the dirty street.”

  Miranda could only gape as she tried to pick apart and understand the girl’s chatter. “Magus Azerick bought you?”

  Ellyssa was about to begin a third rant when Azerick cut her off. “Why don’t you take a breath and go work on writing your ten fundamentals of wizardry. You have fallen behind and will likely not finish before your restriction is up at the rate you are going.”

  “But I want to stay and talk to Lady Miranda!” she whined.

  “Go to the library, now,” Azerick ordered.

  Ellyssa crossed her arms and stomped up the stairs. “You never let me do anything except squish gross old rats. It’s not even a real library, Lady Miranda, it only has thirty-two books!” the angry girl yelled in a parting shot and sprinted up the stairs before Azerick could reprimand her.

  “It looks like you bought yourself a handful,” Lady Miranda said, unable to keep the laughter from her voice.

  “I have indeed. And to clarify my buying her, I basically gave her father a sum of gold for her to become my apprentice. I do not deal in slaves. She is as talented and as bright as she is willful. Whether she will use her potential for good or evil, I have yet to be able to determine,” Azerick explained.

  “If I did not know better I would say you took her in out of the kindness of your heart, but you don’t do things just for the sake of doing good, do you?” Miranda asked, crooking her eyebrow at the taciturn sorcerer.

  “I will, on occasion, take pity on those that are incapable of helping themselves,” Azerick replied somberly. “Nobles rarely fall into that category; at least I have not met any that do thus far. Present company accepted of course.”

  Miranda cleared her throat uncomfortably and introduced the others. “You remember my maiden, Sarah, and this gentleman is Sergeant Philip Garmin.

  Sarah looked much the same as she did the day Azerick met her when the bandits attacked, although the dress was not nearly so fancy. Sergeant Garmin wore a well-polished chain shirt over a padded doublet and a fine linen shirt of royal blue. A well-maintained longsword and matching dagger hung low on his hip where his hand constantly rested on the pommel.

  “Welcome to my home, Ladies, Sergeant,” Azerick greeted coolly. “What brings you here today?”

  “I received word that your workers recently completed repairs to the stables and I thought I might bring you a gift of my own. I am sure that you recall the horses we recovered that belonged to the bandits. I feel that they belong to you by rights,” Miranda replied formally.

  Azerick gave Miranda a small bow of appreciation. “You are most gracious, My Lady. Was there anything else you desired, My Lady?”

  Miranda stiffened at the obvious dismissal. “No, Magus, that was all I wished to convey at this time. I shan’t keep you from your duties any longer.”

  Azerick saw the group to the door with hardly a word of farewell, ducking quickly back inside and closing the heavy door as soon as they were beyond the threshold.

  “What an infuriating man!” Sarah exclaimed as they mounted their horses and began the ride back to North Haven proper.

  “And rude, My Lady,” Philip added. “I would gladly return to teach him some manners when speaking to his betters.”

  “He is infuriating and rude but I think we ought not to judge him too harshly. We know very little of him and what he has experienced. Moreover, trying to teach him anything by force, be it by arms or will, I think would end badly for whoever tried, Philip, but thank you for the offer,” Miranda told her company.

  Azerick checked on the horses as soon as Miranda and her escorts traveled beyond the wall. Azerick did have a team of workers repair the extensive stables even though Horse was the only animal, until now, sheltered within the structure. He caught up with one of the men handling several of the new horses.

  “What is your name, sir?” Azerick asked the man.

  “Brandon, milord,” the man replied nervously, fearing he had done something wrong.

  “Brandon, are we prepared to stable this many horses?”

  “Aye, milord. The stable is sound and a new roof covers the entire thing, but most of the stalls lack doors seeing as how there was only the one horse to stable at the time. We got men building new doors right now for the rest of the stalls and ought to be finished within a couple hours. We also got men building a large paddock for exercising them all and that can done by the end of the day if milord don’t mind pulling a few men off fixin’ the breaches in the wall to help,” Brandon replied, relaxing considerably seeing that he was not going to be reprimanded.

  “Your plan sounds excellent, Brandon, see that it gets finished.”

  “Aye, milord, right away then,” the man said and began shouting instructions to the men working on the wall to begin digging postholes for the paddock.

  A small man wearing wire-framed spectacles, carrying a satchel filled with rolls of vellum, books, quills, ink, and walking with a slight crouch bustled hurriedly over to Azerick.

  “Master Azerick Giles, are you he?” the man asked nervously.

  “Yes, what can I do for you?” Azerick asked a little abruptly, not being used to having this many visitors in one day.

  “Oh, ah, Lord Randall sent me. He told me that you have need of, ah, an accountant,” the nervous little man stammered.

  “Yes I do, and you are?” Azerick prompted.

  “Um, ah, the accountant, My Lord.”

  Azerick raised an eyebrow at the man.

  “Oh, Simon, My Lord, Simon the accountant.”

  Azerick dropped his grim demeanor and shook the timid little man’s hand. “I do indeed require an accountant, Simon. Please follow me and I will show you what I require.”

  Azerick guided Simon into the keep and took him down the stairs to the sublevel. Th
e man flinched once as a large rat scampered across their path but Azerick reassured him that he had someone working on the rat problem.

  “He is a goblin named Grick. You will likely see him, and perhaps my apprentice, depending on how much trouble she gets herself into, down here working on it.”

  “Oh, ah, a goblin you say? Very unusual help but efficient I would wager,” Simon replied.

  “Here we are,” Azerick told Simon as they stopped in front of the heavy vault door.

  Azerick spoke some words of magic and the engraved runes on the door flashed for a brief second before Azerick hauled it open by the large iron ring mounted near the center.

  “I have changed the wards so that you may have access to the vault from now on without my having to disable them,” Azerick explained to the accountant.

  “Oh, so you are a wizard. Ah, there arerumors going around is why I say that,” Simon hastily explained.

  “Precisely, and I am able to track all of my possessions by magic should any of them come up missing,” Azerick informed the man.

  Simon paused a moment to consider the importance of what Azerick had said before he was able to put them together and understand the significance.

  “Oh, ah, of course, Master Azerick, of course. You need not fear any sort of, ah, illicit activities from me. I would never dream of taking something from my employer,” the accountant assured him.

  Azerick was confident, given Simon’s expression and demeanor, he was telling the truth and that the odd little man would never even think of pilfering from him.

  “Excellent, well here it is,” Azerick declared as he pulled the thick door open and revealed the pile of treasure inside.

  Simon’s jaw dropped in awe at what he beheld. “Oh, ah, that is, oh my. Oh my, my, my, my,” he stammered and blinked several times at what lay before him. “What, uh, exactly will you be requiring from me, Master Giles? Uh, Magus Azerick, My Lord.”

  “Just Azerick, Simon, I don’t like to stand on formalities,” Azerick tried to reassure the clerk but ended up confounding him even worse. He finally settled for Master Azerick, anything less sent the little man into a stammering fit.