by JD Franx
Cormak sighed, struggling to hold his head upright. “Explosives? Like alcohol in a bottle explodes if you throw it against something?” The old man snorted, as if to ask whether Cormak was really that stupid.
“Alcohol burns, wizard. Did ya not feel my shite shaking the earth below your feet? Before your feet went sky-walking that is.” The old man cackled.
“You’re not from here, are you?” The old man slowly clapped his hands, mocking Cormack and stepping sideways towards the wizard, yet he remained crouched at eye level.
“Aye. Give the magic man a pint.”
“How long?” Cormak asked, wincing.
“Twenty effing years. One of you Holy Joe’s must have brought me here. Purple effing tornado and all, like Alice in effing wonderland, dumped me arse at the gates of the city north of here. Seems that magic can’t hurt someone who just arrived in your world after di-men-shy-nal travel. Your dwarfs call it arrival ascension. Another year or less and I can leave this shitehole because of them, though. Smart little tech-monger bastards.”
“Eamon,” Cormak said, perking up. “Are there ruins under these mountains? Dwarven ruins? You think you can get home using something you found? Maybe I can help you. The Dwarves were masters of technology in this world, before they became extinct. I’ve studied them for almost a hundred years, let me help you.” Eamon smacked Cormack upside the head, the sharp crack echoed through the confines of the large wood cabin.
“I don’t need your help, boyo. I need to be left alone. Seeing as you won’t, and I’m not a cold-blood killer, ya dense gobshites’ll just have to enjoy me lovely Irish hospitapality. How’s bout I wet the tea and we get to know each other? Oh yeah, that fine thing over there ain’t foolin’ no one,” he said, sliding over and lifting Shasta’s chin. “You been awake the whole time, sweet, don’t be a tease. Say hi.” Shasta opened her eyes, squinting in the brightly lit cabin.
“Hi? Good to meet you too much of a mouthful, Ir, Irish... Irishman?”
“Easy, Shasta.” Dominique whispered.
Eamon bowed. “Good to meet ya, Shasta. I hope you’re having a great effing day,” he mocked, his speech stilted. “Feel better? Kinda whiny for a pirate, ain’t ya, lass?” He chuckled, and stood. Stretching his back, Eamon stepped over to a brick and wood cubby-stove and poured water into a kettle, his back to the captives.
Shasta leaned forward as Eamon started whistling a strange tune. She caught Cormak’s attention. The wizard gave her a funny look as she lightly tapped her tied hands on the floor, making a dull clunk. Frowning, Cormak took a closer look, seeing the rectangle sapphire rune he had been holding when the explosion hit them in the clearing. Some how she had managed to grab it. He smiled as she raised her eyebrows and slid the rune across the wood floor to his tied hands. Fumbling with partially numb fingers, Cormak grasped the rune and warmed it between his first finger and thumb. Pressing down, it snapped, and a bright blue essence escaped. Closing his eyes in concentration, Cormak forced the shield magic to start small, positioning it between the ropes that secured him and the others to the cabin’s support posts. He held the magic between the bindings, letting it build power until he could no linger hold it. The bright blue shield exploded outward, snapping the ropes and slamming Eamon into the stove. The old man crumpled to the floor and Cormack winced at the distinct report of bones breaking. Shasta’s scream told him who the recipient was.
“Fuck,” he whispered, instantly ashamed of his mistake, but quickly ignored it, helping the others stand.
Struggling back to his feet, Eamon turned to see his captives free from their bindings less than ten feet away.
He laughed as the empty tea pot rolled into his boot. “Magic man! Well done, though I really wish ya hadn’t done that. I have better luck finding hen’s teeth than the plants for that tea. You wasted the whole pot. Damn. And ya broke the sheila’s wrists, boyo.”
Pulling a hidden blade from inside his belt at his back, Dominique sneered. “You got more worries than spilled tea and broken wrists, old man.” The small dagger gleamed in the light as Eamon glanced around.
“Really, gouger?” he asked, peering into all corners of his cabin as if looking for said worries. Finally looking back at Dominique, he pulled a round ball from his jacket and held it up for them to see. “All I see are three gobshites who’re lucky to be alive. Leave me home and tell everyone ya meet I don’t exist, and ya can go now. Alive, even. Sore, but alive.”
“You have got to be the dumbest, or the craziest, son of a bitch alive, O’Leary. We’re not going anywhere until you tell us how to make that explosive.”
“Aye, was afraid you’d say that, boyo. Very well. I agree. The recipe’s inside here, catch!” Pressing the top of the round ball, Eamon tossed it to Dominique. Cormak grabbed at it but missed. The second Dominique’s hands wrapped around the ball, it popped. A blazing bright light lit up the house and a thundering crack of noise shook the cabin to its foundation. Dust fell from the roof as both pirates and the wizard dropped unconscious to the floor like stones down a well.
Pulling green moss from his ears and blinking open his eyes, Eamon laughed like a madman.
“I haven’t had this much fun since Ireland last qualified for the World Cup. You pirates are just as stupid here as you are in me own world.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Orotaq magic. For fifteen years, I have studied every text and document I could find on the subject. I have even ventured forth to the Black Hollow peninsula with an Elvehn trader in the hopes of seeing or learning how such powerful magic came to exist. Having witnessed Orotaq magic myself on the shores of Kastalborg Island while fighting these monsters beside the Northmen, the origin of their magic has always puzzled me. They don’t use Lady Inara’s language to release magic, and Orotaq Shamans cast much faster than a bonded wizard. The first time I faced it was nearly my last. I was lucky in so many ways. I got to witness Orotaq magic first hand, and I survived to write this thesis for my Master Wizard trials. Orotaq magic is similar to ours from what I have seen. But where the Orotaq are so much stronger than us physically, their magic seems to be as well. The raw power behind what they cast is more than capable of cracking the bones inside a mortal man’s body. It was truly frightening to see for a wizard of my lesser experience and abilities.”
Journeyman Wizard Galen Vihr
Thesis introduction, 2025 PC
CAIRNWOOD
Kael silently moved through the dark, avoiding the burning torches by sticking to the shadows cast by the buildings and trees as he made his way back to Cairnwood’s north watchtowers. Without making a sound, he slid two spears through the handles of the watchtower doors to hold against the Orotaq’s superior strength if the guards above him left the towers.
Hurrying, Kael grabbed the two bags of weapons he had hidden earlier and ran back to the rope laid out from the prisoner tent. Tying both bags to the rope, he gave them a good tug, and saw Cornelius and another man look out between the flaps of animal hide covering the wood-framed tent. With no patrols in sight, they pulled the weapons back. Once again Kael was on the move, this time towards the lodge, with the hope that he could sneak inside and kill both Orotaq shamans before anyone noticed what was going on.
For the second time in less than two hours, Kael crept up to the open window on the far side of the lodge. Thanks to his esoteric sight, he knew the room with the window was clear of the Orotaq that occupied it earlier. Sure to be careful, he peered over the window sill, just in case his inherent, extra sense of sight missed someone.
Kael glanced around, taking in the lay of the room. There was a bar to the left along with a few tables and chairs scattered throughout the rest of the room. A hallway that led past the bar suggested the rooms were towards the back, just past the hallway with a set of stairs that led up. Closing his eyes to concentrate, he sensed one shaman upstairs while the second one was on the main floor at the back of the lodge. Without making a sound, he crawled through the window and he
aded for the room at the back of the main floor where he had felt the powerful shaman’s presence.
Not able to see in the pitch dark of the hallway, Kael focused on his magical sight, sensing all the rooms but one were empty. As he crept to the closed door, a rumbling snore came from beyond. He tried to adapt the silence spell swirling around his feet to hopefully quiet the hinges of the door before opening it. His hand passed over the hinges, top and bottom, and a trace of black essence remained behind. The door opened without a sound for the first half foot and Kael assumed the magic worked, just as the door let out a short, high pitched squeal. He froze, ready to attack if the shaman woke. A quiet sigh of relief passed his lips as the snoring mystic rolled onto his back, but didn’t wake up.
Shaking his head, Kael wondered if he would ever figure out his magic. Trying again, the door opened another foot and Kael managed to slide into the room sideways and sneak to the side of the Orotaq shaman’s bed.
The reaper-blade from Kael’s shoulder sheathe came free with nothing more than a whisper as his right hand wrapped around the carved bone handle. Staring down at the sleeping Orotaq shaman, he tried to control his breathing as he struggled with killing the defenceless man.
Killing someone who was trying to kill you in battle was one thing and it still ate at Kael’s soul, but the shaman was sound asleep. Kael’s conscience screamed at him to stop as he stood there contemplating his first cold-blooded murder since he had arrived in Talohna. Come dawn, this man would lead a group of Orotaq warriors in hunting down the village’s children for the Orotaq cook fire.
Firming his resolve, Kael forced the blade to descend just as all hell broke loose outside in the town square. The shaman’s eyes popped open just as the honed magical blade slipped into his throat. Panicking, Kael shoved the blade harder, right to the hilt of the dragon-bone handle and into the floor under the bed. It brought him face to face with the Orotaq shaman and he used his weight to hold the blade and the large man down on the bed. The struggle almost decapitated the shaman as he fought for every last second of his remaining life. Still face to face, Kael tried his best to keep the big man from kicking out and making noise. He was forced to watch as the last of the shaman’s life dissipated through his bulging pale-green eyes. Kael’s first murder was a success; his body shook with the stress of what he’d done. Taking a deep breath, he pushed the feelings aside, for now.
Slowly, he pulled the reaper-blade from the shaman’s throat and wiped it on the blankets before leaving the room. The fighting outside increased in tempo and Kael picked up his pace as he rushed to help the other villagers. Running down the hall, he turned the corner to the lodge’s common room and hurled himself behind the bar as the second shaman launched a ball of fire from the doorway across the room.
The spell detonated immediately and the pressure slammed Kael’s airborne body into the wall behind the bar. Believing he still had the bar counter for cover, he took a breath and shook the stars from his vision in an attempt to gather his wits. As he tried to regain his feet, he noticed the bar’s island had been obliterated and the shaman had another fireball already formed between his massive hands. The fire hissed and crackled as it grew to double the size of a human head. The shaman smiled and released the spell. Kael ducked, pulling his heavy Orotaq cloak around him for protection.
His entire body compressed as the explosive shock wave blasted him through the wall into the back-storage room of the lodge. With barely time to realize he was still alive, another fireball slammed into his chest and blew him through a second wooden wall, out of the storage room and into the courtyard. With a jarring stop, Kael came to rest against a large tree on the far side of the rear courtyard. The smouldering back wall of the Cairnwood lodge wavered in his hazed vision. He stung everywhere, his exposed flesh seared by burns. Try as he might, he could not concentrate through the pounding disorientation, even though the fire coating his cloak quickly died away, leaving the material unharmed. The heavy magic-resistant Orotaq cloak was the only thing that saved him from burning alive, but it had not protected his exposed flesh and body from the concussive force of the explosive fireballs.
Taking a deep breath on pure instinctive need, an all too familiar pain raced through his chest as he recognized the savage agony of shattered ribs for the umpteenth time since arriving in Talohna. Delirious from lack of oxygen and overwhelmed by blistered burns, shooting spasms of agony from grinding rib bones racked Kael’s body, adding to the misery. Knowing the shaman would come to check on the success of his magical barrage, Kael frantically tried to stand and defend himself. Shaking from muscle tremors, he managed to get to his feet in time to see three Orotaq shamans as they swirled through his vision.
All three stepped through the destroyed wall of the lodge and walked out to the middle of the open area some ten feet from where he struggled to stay on his feet. He knew if he could not tell which shaman was the real one, the fight would be over in a matter of seconds.
One of the shaman chuckled. “You are stubborn, little Human. You fight hard to live. Like a Hollow-Bred, but your little revolt is already crushed. It is a shame my master is not here to see me slaughter you. How the mighty DeathWizards spread such fear among Humans and the Elvehn is a mystery to us. Your weaknesses are astounding.” The shaman smirked as he taunted Kael.
Exhausted and delirious, he gasped for more air. “Do you Orotaq ever kill anyone without having to brag about it first?” It earned him a crooked smile but no words. “Oh, by the way,” Kael added, panting and still out of breath. “If your master is the other shaman, he’s not here because I killed him.” The returned taunt caught the shaman’s attention as Kael lifted the reaper-blade in his right hand. “With this. I pushed it right through his fat, snoring mouth.”
The Orotaq shaman roared with fury and renewed fire-spells swirled in each hand. “Coward,” he snarled. “To slay a sleeping enemy.”
“Braver than killing little children,” Kael snapped, through clenched teeth. “Guess you know exactly what a true coward is.”
As the shaman roared a second time, Kael knew his time was up, and he was still seeing wavering, alternating sets of the big shaman. Not knowing which of the swirling, throbbing enemy was real, he did not bother replying to the challenge, instead he vanished in a cloud of black smoke and shadow-walked into the middle of the three dizzying mystics. Reappearing from a second cloud of black smoke, Kael swung both his Vai-Karth blades at waist height, crossing the blades as they passed each other slicing air and nothing more.
When the blades missed, Kael’s scrambled mind filled with the familiar voices promising to help. Allowing himself to be distracted by the whispers and the reality that he had actually missed the shaman quickly turned into a mistake. The shaman recovered from his own surprise as Kael turned towards what he hoped was the real enemy. Granting permission to the voices mattered for not. A large pale blue fist crashed into his jaw.
Kael never had time to curse before a violent darkness shut down his demon-portal spell and his consciousness.
DWARVEN RUINS, EAMON’S GLADE
Dominique Havarrow returned to the waking world, riding undulating waves of nauseous pain, again. His brain felt scrambled, and it was difficult to hold a single thought for more than a second. The ringing in his ears was so intense he couldn’t tell if it was making his eyes burn and water or if his vision problems had their own agonizing issue.
“Crazy fucking bastard,” he moaned.
“Maybe. But you are one stubborn fecking gouger, pirate,” Eamon said, as he crouched, smacking Dominique on the side of his head. “Clear the cobwebs, boyo. You’d think ya got the fear from being ossified or something.” As the insane cackling reached his throbbing ears, Dominique’s mind cleared enough to remember what happened.
“Fucking O’Leary. You crazy bastard, what in the Nine Hells was that?”
“Flashbang, boyo. Maybe used a bit too much of the red shite though. Put a bit less in next time, I think. Even fecked
me own head a bit. I told ya to leave, big man. Now you’re desperately effed.”
Dominique blinked his eyes, repeatedly, finally forcing his vision to clear enough to realize they were no longer in the old man’s cabin. The heady scent of earth hung in the air and the coldness of the Deep seeped into his bones. “We’re in the Dwarven ruins you mentioned.”
“Aye, give the gouger a pint. Ya ain’t short a few shillings after all. Take a closer look while you wait for your magic man and the sweet to come round.”
Dominique eyed his immediate surroundings. Along with Shasta and Cormak, he was laying in a stone cell, the only opening was forward and heavy brass bars could be slid across to lock the cell at any time. Eamon tossed a bucket of cold water on Shasta and Cormak. The water splashed against Dominique as his two companions sputtered their way back to consciousness. Shasta shook the water from her face and hair, cursing. Dominique winced. The movement would only make her broken wrists throb with agony.
“Prick!” she snapped, lashing out with her left foot. Eamon smiled, safely outside her reach. “I’m going to enjoy killing you slowly, old man.”
Eamon laughed. “Spirited lass, she be. Quite the bunch ya bring to me door, pirate. Ya should be thanking me that you all still be breathing. But seeing as ya won’t leave me property...” Standing, Eamon grabbed the bronze bars and stepped through the door, sliding the bars shut. The heavy thud echoed through the ruins. “Enjoy the stay,” he added. “I got work to do.” Rattling metal swallowed Eamon’s last words as Dominique pulled his tied hands, not realizing a bronze ring had been slid through the ropes and attached to a chain anchored in the wall.
Taking a closer look, he could see the ropes on his wrist had been coated in a kind of resin. Testing it with his teeth, he bit the rope hard and gagged. Leaning over, he spat on the floor and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. The crazy old man had covered the ropes in resin from the prickle trees covering his property. Besides tasting like rotten mint-flavoured ass, Eamon had clearly heated it first, turning it into a super adhesive. Pirates and sailors used it to patch everything from sails to leaks in their wooden hulls below the water’s surface. Dominique sighed. He would wear out his jaw before chewing through it. Turning to his left and right, he could see Shasta and Cormak were identically secured.
