Scott J Couturier - [The Magistricide 01]

by The Mask of Tamrel (epub)

  Tamrel glanced at the laboring ice box and chuckled. “Ah. The web is already beginning to break down. I have unlocked the hearts of some very bitter men.” The minstrel drew close to Kelrob, so close that the mage could feel the stolen pulse of his breath. “I thank you for bringing me here, Kelrob. I should have come long ago.”

  Kelrob glanced up, not too sharply. “And how did you come here, anyway? You weren’t in our baggage when we crossed into Tannigal.”

  Tamrel nodded and sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress barely sinking beneath Jacobson’s massive frame. He bounced up and down on the springs, enjoying himself in an almost childish manner, and said with a sigh, “This is a strange body. Bulky, enduring, a mountain of flesh and bone at my command. My previous body was taken two-thousand three-hundred and forty-seven of your quaint cycles ago. He was a farmboy, lean and long, a spindle of skin throbbing with a fiery heart. I took him in the forest, summoned him with a whispered song from the tomb of my slumber. He donned me enthralled, knowing fully and blissfully that he was sacrificing his mortal impermanence to a greater work. Joyous he bonded with me, howling his song; but this Jacobson creature is a far more reluctant vessel. His heart is fiery, but it burns me, a hotter flame than I dared anticipate.” Tamrel sighed deeply, flexing Jacobson’s limbs, twitching his toes and fingers as if tuning a precocious instrument. “As for how I came here, I am drawn to intermittent fires in the hovering dark. I followed the flame of Jacobson’s heart here, aided by the dissimilar but no less potent beacon of your own spirit.”

  Kelrob rose from the bed, inclined his chin, and spoke in as firm as voice as he could summon: “I command you to release Jacobson from your thrall. He is an unwilling host, as you said. Surely you can find a more willing vessel.”

  Tamrel shook his head. “I will have him. I must have him. The hearts of men have grown dim indeed, these past darkling centuries — seldom in the last thousand cycles have I seen a more vigorous spirit. He was far brighter last year, the first that I sang to him; yet unbroken, still fueled by a coarse and belligerent hope. I had thought to find him utterly barren this year, if indeed he came at all. Imagine my pleasant surprise at such a potent receptacle conveniently attending my unforeseen ‘death.’” Tamrel chuckled, and gave Kelrob an unnerving applause. “All thanks to you, my interfering magician. You have freed me to new vistas that shriek and moan for my songs. I will sing them from this body, and dance amid what you are so blind as to perceive as destruction.” The minstrel rose to tower over Kelrob, the eye-slits suffusing with azure light. “Some of these songs are for you, Kelrob Kael-Pellin.”

  Kelrob blanched and fell back before this spectre, bumping against the writing desk. “I have no idea what you mean,” he said faintly.

  Tamrel dismissed his words with a flutter of Jacobson’s fingers. “Your eyes tell me many things, little mage, though more telling is what they refuse to tell. You are a bright coal, a flame waxing in an airless void. I could ignite that flame, stoke it, bring it to the full conflagration of its desire.”

  Kelrob felt a thrill trickle through him, a renegade yearning. “I want nothing that you have to offer,” he said aloud, hoping that his eyes spoke similarly.

  Tamrel ran his stolen hands down his stolen body, the lute-strings vibrating though no finger plucked them. “Do you see what an elegant beast I am, my child? I am the Other you have pined for, the material substance of your rabid and shameful fancies. I see knowledge in your eyes, forbidden to men, and it pleases me. You are a blaze carefully controlled and inelegantly stunted, bent to the common wick, but you need not be, do you hear?” Tamrel’s voice grew breathless as he spoke, thin and musical with his enthusiasm. “I have toppled buildings with a few simple songs. With you I can do much more. Listen to my song, heed what I presage and embody, for I can assure you that I am the last of my kind, the final breathing wonder in a world of dross.”

  Kelrob’s heart burned with a fire inherited from those luminous eyes. “A very generous offer,” he said through dry lips, “though I still know nothing about you beyond nebulous pronouncements. What are you, Tamrel? Tell me what you are, and I will consider your offer.” Do I really mean that? The thought clattered around his mind, was quickly suppressed and concealed.

  Tamrel’s eyes sparkled with merriment. “You have a hunger for secrets,” he said, “and I have many to reveal. However, most will come at the cost of your loyalty. I will give you this tid-bit, and then you must choose.” Bowing his head, he said mostly humbly, “At my pith I am simply a player of songs. Once I had flesh and blood of my own, though nothing so crude as the viscera you — and now I — am forced to inhabit. I was of the Vion, an elder race who sowed the fragrant palas seed by the loving light of the Twin Moons. Later, as the sun fixed itself in diurnal progress and the seas boiled with primal sorcery, we built the first of our great cities from gold and adamant, which I shewed you in the depths of your delirium. So eager were you, to drink of that fountain; but alas, it is long run dry, and had you tasted it you would have found only ashes and madness.”

  Vion. The name was familiar to Kelrob through the writings of Absalom the Mad, though they were remote creatures even to the wondrous ages he related. The Vion were spoken of as long-dead, their works and wonders ground into dust, though the seer did attribute the formless ruins by the Eastern Sea to the twilight of their glory. Kelrob closed his eyes and struggled to recall the vagaries of the tale, remembering only that the Vion were a race near-immortal, their flesh unpiercable by all metals of a terrestrial origin. They were (according to the Mad Seer) amongst the first magicians to arise amid the primordial waste, harnessing the newly-birthed magic through the making of song.

  Beyond this Kelrob knew nothing, save what Tamrel had disclosed; but he was in no wise convinced of the parasite’s fable. Absalom also spoke of trickery throughout his recounts, specifically its quixotic prevalence among the more fantastical beings and beasts of the primal world. It was possible that Tamrel was some variety of puca or malicious spirit (Kelrob’s carefully conditioned rationality wavered at the thought), preserved in an inanimate matrix through some sorcery beyond the mage’s understanding. Then again, the minstrel could be an abomination of more contemporary sorcery; his eyes burned the same hue as will-infused chromox. Kelrob had seen the inanimate lent a semblance of life by conventional means, labor-saving simulacrae and husks of trundling armor powered by small batteries of chromox submerged in alkaloid solution. Such automata were the endless delight of the rich, and could be programmed to perform simple tasks, but Kelrob had never heard of true independence being imbued, let alone the simulation of awareness. Though there were suppressed accounts of renegade magisters, traitors to the Isdori, who had made such attempts; Kelrob shivered despite himself, wondering if he was confronting the ultimate perversion, chromox bent and warped until the sacred alloy had achieved its own mean sentience.

  Tamrel sighed, Jacobson’s broad shoulders slumping. “I see that you doubt me,” he said. “That is understandable, though I had hoped for a more enterprising response. I take it that my offer is declined?”

  I need more time. Kelrob began to gnaw at the inside of his lip, drawing blood. He had fought to cleanse himself of the habit, as he was prone to reducing his inner cheeks to shreds at the mere perusal of a stimulating book, but now the familiar taste of iron helped him to gather his concentration. His teeth ached from clenching, and he further grounded himself in pain, knowing that a few strands of music from Tamrel’s lute and lips would seal the wounds in his mouth. He was in the presence of an unknown quantity, housed in the body of one he found inexplicably dear; he had no ring, no spells, no means of binding or dispelling or seeing. All that remained were his wits.

  The mage glanced up sharply. “Why are you asking this of me? Why not just play your songs and rob me of my reason?”

  Tamrel’s eyes glittered. “Because I long to sing of you.”

  “I don�
��t understand.”

  “It’s quite simple. I could compel you, force you to understanding against your will, but then where would our narrative be? You would be a pawn, not a hero, and a bard can never sing of a pawn unless it is with derision.” The mask’s lips twisted grotesquely. “I dislike derisive songs. I would rather sing of your glories, your triumphs. This is what I am truly offering, Kelrob: immortality alongside revelation. I will sing of your deeds until the earth shrivels to a gray husk and the stars hang livid in the sky. All you must do is bend to the task. Take my offer, mageling, for it is ultimately nothing more than the recognition of your own true self.”

  Kelrob’s heart pulsed with a warmth not inalien, but never before truly felt. That the temptation was present he could not deny: it had always been there, a furious but well-banked fire seething beneath his breastbone. Tamrel had kindled those flames with his words, and Kelrob wished for them to rise into a roaring inferno, wished it desperately. But he was no fool, despite the broad opinions of his peers and Masters. A dreamer has time to think of many things, to rotate reality and peer at various extrapolatory or fanciful facets; though regarded as a spurious leaning by the Isdori, Kelrob had honed the practice of dreaming. He had in fact imagined himself in roughly similar circumstances to his current one, though only in his more demented and unsettled moments. In such reveries it was always an archmagister who offered him ultimate knowledge, in exchange for a price (for there was always a price); generally he could imagine a way to outwit his teacher/nemesis, gaining forbidden knowledge at no cost, but sometimes he stumped himself, to bleak and hideous results. During his early years at the Rookery Kelrob had worked to curb his daydreaming, twisting his mind towards the acquisition of more practical knowledge. However, the phantasmagoric ramblings of Absalom the Mad had reignited his deadened imagination, and Kelrob realized now, confronting Tamrel, how much invaluable information he had gleaned from texts his Masters had considered guilty indulgences. He was tempted by the bard’s offer, the fire was there; but its stoking came at the cost of widespread death and the loss of Jacobson, repercussions he found untenable. Besides, even the sensation of utter truth could be simulated.

  Yes, yes, there was that terrible possibility to consider. Kelrob had read of the delusions woven by many eldritch species of the old world, faeries guiding humans with their crystalline songs to drown in pits of tar or ravenous succubi inflaming a man’s heart and loins in equal measure before gorging on his spirit. Often these creatures could be foiled by peculiar means, such as presenting them with a devious riddle or challenging them to a task. Kelrob in particular remembered the tale of a farmer who, when confronted with a wight demanding the blood of his first-born son, challenged the undead creature to sow seeds alongside him. “Whoever sows the greater number will have the greater yield; whoever has the greater yield will possess my son.” The wight laughed hollowly, knowing itself to be stronger and faster than the man. It accepted the challenge, and sowed the vast majority of the field in minutes while the farmer toiled in a corner. “I will return when the wheat is grown,” the wight declared, “for my yield will be greater. Then I will claim the lifeblood of your son.” The farmer agreed, much to his son’s dismay. The next morning, after the wight had returned to its grave, he salted the earth of his field, sparing only the small corner that he had managed to seed. When the wheat grew tall the wight returned, only to find the harvest stunted save for the farmer’s planting. “As we agreed,” the farmer said, “he with the greater yield will possess the boy.” And the wight fled screaming, foiled at the farmer’s ingenuity. Kelrob had enjoyed the tale, but always wondered why the farmer hadn’t simply allowed the grain to grow and harvested the majority of the crop early, thereby both foiling the demon and saving the yield.

  There is always a price.

  Kelrob passed a hand over his eyes, partially to shield his thoughts from Tamrel, partly to dull the headache storming in his skull. “I have considered your offer,” he said, “and I would like to make a counter-proposal.”

  Tamrel cocked his head, a canine motion that seemed native to him. “You have my complete attention.”

  Kelrob’s mind raced. What to propose? Seeding a field seemed woefully inappropriate, symbolically unsound. His eyes strayed to the neck of the lute angling up from Jacobson’s shoulder, and suddenly he knew. “I cannot accept your habitation of this man’s body,” he said, “nor the destruction caused by your songs, no matter how freeing. Besides, your promises could very well be false. I am a man of reason, or at least I try to be: I suggest a challenge. If you win, you can keep Jacobson’s body, and I swear to willingly heed your music. If I win, you will free Jacobson from your infestation, cease singing songs of death, and give yourself into my power.”

  Tamrel chuckled faintly. “You are an amusingly audacious creature. Name the task.”

  Now or never. Kelrob sucked in his breath, reminding himself that the challenge itself was mostly immaterial: the real goal was to buy time. “I have a stipulation first,” he said.

  “Go on.”

  “I want you to recede and allow me access to Jacobson. I want him by my side through this.”

  The minstrel raised a hand and stroked at his ceramic chin. “You truly care for this man,” he said, a note of very human surprise in his voice.

  Kelrob nodded sharply. “At the very least I owe him.”

  The frozen lips twisted upwards. “I accept your stipulation. In fact, it is necessary. I am still new in this flesh, and last evening’s work has exhausted me. Allowing Jacobson to surface will give me time to rest. Now name the task.”

  Kelrob held up a quelling finger. “One more thing. Over the course of this challenge you will sing no more songs to the people of this city or any other.”

  “Hah! You might as well demand a fish cease breathing water. But yes, I see what you are seeking...very well. My task is done here anyhow. Speak.”

  Kelrob nodded curtly. “My challenge is this. Give me one month — 31 days, despite it being November - to find an instrument you cannot play.”

  It was a shot in the dark. For all Kelrob knew Tamrel was only adept at the lute, though it seemed a remote possibility. The magician-bards recounted in Absalom’s stories were creatures of magnificent gifts, able to decipher the subtleties of an instrument simply by touching it. If this was the case the proposed quest was ultimately hopeless, though it would buy him one month to grope for other solutions. Kelrob exhaled the remainder of his breath and waited for the minstrel’s answer, his lungs burning and empty.

  Tamrel’s eyes flickered a bemused azure. “One month. You ask for a great deal, young one. Of course you realize that to pursue such a quest we must escape this newly-awakened city.”

  Kelrob nodded, his nerves twisting. “I know a way out.”

  The minstrel raised a hand to caress his crimson-dusted lips. “Of course it is an ultimately futile challenge. There is nothing I cannot play; even the inchoate strings binding matter and space in their dichotomous union yield to my pluckings. And yet...it would be a very worthy quest to sing of. Very well, I accept your terms. Though I have a stipulation of my own.”

  Kelrob sighed in commingled relief and unease. “I suppose that’s only fair. What is it?”

  “You will not betray my presence to your brethren. If you attempt to dishonorably deliver me into the hands of the Isdori, I will kill this man and seek another host, leaving you with nothing.” Tamrel’s voice went cold as he spoke, a malicious spark welling in his eyes. “My race considered the quest a sacred ordeal, its parameters as binding as blood. Should you betray me to your idiot teachers, I will not hesitate to discard this lump of flesh and seek another.”

  A furious knocking sounded at the door, causing Kelrob to jump. What now? He looked to Tamrel, who merely smiled and motioned for him to answer. Walking on wobbly legs the mage went to the door and cracked it slightly, just enough to peer into the
hallway.

  A wide-eyed porter stood at the threshold, chest heaving beneath his crimson servitor’s jacket. His knuckles were bloody, presumably owing to a succession of such furious summons; wincing through his panic, he raised the cuts to his lips and sucked at them. “Evacuation,” he managed to mumble around his fist. “You need to get out.”

  Kelrob blinked at the man. “I don’t have time for this,” he said.

  The servitor’s thin blond brows rose in surprise. “But, sir — they’re bombing the city. It’s not safe here!”

  Kelrob slammed the door in the servitor’s face, turned the lock and threw the bolt. He knew that the man was right; they needed to flee to safer environs, or at least environs that weren’t located on the eighth floor of a slender concretized tower. Turning to Tamrel, he nodded his head once and said, “As long as you give me Jacobson, we have a deal.”

  The minstrel bowed, the elegant motion causing Jacobson’s gut to bulge incongruously. “You are a born trickster,” he said, a smile evident in his voice. “I shall recede now, retreat into slumber. Jacobson will return to control of the vessel, though he may experience some momentary disorientation. I trust you will ease him through these pangs.”

  Kelrob nodded. “Do it quickly. Thanks to your glorious work our lives are in danger.”

  Tamrel sighed. “Know, Kelrob, that my initial offer remains. If at any moment you desire the freedom of your soul and the fullness of your power, all you need do is ask, and I will sing for you.”

  Kelrob jerked his chin imperiously. “Understood. Now begone.”

  Tamrel raised his head, the bone-white sheen of the mask going dark and inanimate. “I shall sing of you,” he said rapturously, the words barely a flutter in Jacobson’s throat. “Even if you fail me, I shall sing of you.” With a final gasp the glittering eyes went dark, and Jacobson’s body tumbled to the floor.