The Sorcerer's Abyss (The Sorcerer's Path)

by Brock Deskins

  What do you hope to gain from this nonsense other than wasting time better spent administering to your realm?

  “You know what I hope to gain. Why do you continue asking?”

  I hope that it will eventually make you realize you are an idiot.

  “I know full well I am an idiot, but it will never keep me from trying. Now, if you are not going to help me, at least do not interfere.”

  Oh, I won’t interfere. I want you to feel the full responsibility for your failure. After which I will tell you I told you so and hope you will then stop wasting both our time and start ruling, as you should, instead of chasing shadows.

  “Fine, just shut up and let me do this.”

  Azerick examined his sigils one more time and then bent his entire focus into drawing and shaping the Source. He fed the energy into the sigils along with his new abyssal power. He knew this undertaking would require an enormous amount of power and again wondered if he possessed enough. Moreover, could he bring that power to bear without giving Klaraxis the opening he needed to wrest control of their shared body. Azerick had little doubt that if the demon ever got control it was highly unlikely that he could win it back. This was Klaraxis’ body and it gave the demon an enormous advantage when it came to possession.

  The sigils scrawled along the walls glowed while the massive, intricate rune flared with the brilliance of the sun. Cracks began to form in the wall along the scrollwork painted upon its surface. Bright rays of white light streaked across the room, bursting through the fissures. Azerick closed his eyes against the impossible brilliance, but the light was still bright enough to be painful. Not needing to see in order to direct the magical energy, Azerick turned his head away, which gave him some relief from the searing aura.

  The room began to tremor as Azerick tore a hole through space, cutting through dimensions in his bid to go home. The rays of light dimmed, but the shaking increased until it felt as though the entire citadel would come crashing down. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought he could hear Klaraxis screaming. Whether it was in fear or anger he could not tell, nor could he expend the attention needed to determine which.

  Able to see once again, Azerick looked at the wall and the spider web of deep fissures decorating its surface. Inside those cracks, he spied blackness punctuated with the twinkling of what looked like stars. Azerick knew this was the way out. He expended more power and forced the cracks to become major breaches, not just in the physical structure of the wall, but the metaphysical reality of intradimensional space. The rifts widened and Azerick thought he spied movement within, but it was difficult to tell with the entire room shaking.

  …you damned idiot! he half-heard Klaraxis scream.

  “What did you say?” Azerick shouted back.

  Before the demon could answer, half a dozen tentacles bearing small mouths with razor-sharp teeth burst through the wall. The appendages were enormous, at least as thick as his body where they erupted from the wall, and Azerick had a powerful notion that what were flailing around the room were just the tips of a far larger creature.

  One tentacle slammed into Azerick and hurled him against the wall with bone-jarring force as they writhed around the room, smashing cabinets, alchemy equipment, and sending books and papers everywhere. A tentacle wrapped around an overturned bookcase, crushed it to splinters, and then dashed the pieces against the floor and walls until it was little more than pulp.

  Azerick tried to close the portal, but he had lost control of it to whatever it was on the other side desperately fighting to come through. Unable to close the rift, Azerick tried to drive the creature back into its own dimension. The sorcerer summoned his power and lashed out at the nearest tentacle with a beam of intense, yellow light. The ray burned into the oily, black appendage with a hiss like hot steel dipped into water for tempering.

  The reaction was instantaneous. What had been random destruction became a concerted effort to crush the source of pain. All six rubbery arms lashed out Azerick. Azerick leapt away and sent an arc lightning into one of the limbs questing for him. More black smoke and an acrid smell roiled off the struck tentacle, but it did little to slow or weaken it. Distracted by his target, two other tentacles came at him from opposite sides and coiled around his body. Azerick nearly disappeared within the creature’s grip as it tried to tear him apart.

  Despite wearing the guise of his human form, Azerick still possessed Klaraxis’ strength and resilience. Azerick gripped the tentacle with both hands and sent electricity coursing into it while the creature tried to tear the sorcerer in half. When that failed, the monster tried to pull him through the wall and into the maw of whatever waited beyond the rift. Azerick’s body was repeatedly abused as the monster smashed him against the wall in its attempt to pull him through.

  Azerick fought the creature as best he could, but with the repeated battering and flailing about, it was difficult to bring his magic to bear. He even tried to tear the tentacle apart with his bare hands, but the muscle was incredibly strong and refused to yield to his abuse.

  You must free me or we are going to die! Klaraxis shouted inside Azerick’s head.

  “Then we’ll die! I will never free you, Klaraxis, even if it means my own destruction.”

  You are even a greater fool than I thought, human!

  Unable to pull its captured prey through the rift, the creature flung Azerick at the far wall. He struck the unyielding stone hard enough crack its surface and send a spray of shards across the room. Azerick was dazed and struggled to get back to his feet. He braced himself as the tentacles streaked across the room at him. The appendages slapped against the wall around him, dropped to the floor, and lay still.

  “What in the world have you been up to?” a sultry voice asked. Sharrellan let out a lilting laughter.

  Azerick struggled to his feet and faced the goddess. “I was trying to go home.”

  “Foolish boy, you are home. Surely Klaraxis told you such a thing is not possible?”

  “Impossible simply means one has not tried hard enough,” Azerick responded defiantly.

  The goddess smiled at her prince’s stubbornness. “You always were a contrary child. It is what drew me to you. In this case however, your stubbornness will not see you to success as it did in the past.”

  “Are you saying no one has ever escaped this abyssal prison?” Azerick asked angrily.

  “No one who belongs here,” Sharellan said.

  “I do not belong here!”

  “I disagree, as do the powers guiding the universe. Argue all you want with either of us, neither will avail you any good. You would be better served focusing your efforts on running your realm instead of toying with things you know nothing about.”

  I have told him, Mistress!

  “Of course you have, Klaraxis, and of course he does not listen. He is completely irrational, yet claims he does not belong here.”

  “I don’t belong here!” Azerick heatedly insisted. “This is a world of pain, death, and selfishness. It is where these demons and the shades of evil men belong, not me.”

  “Not you?” Sharellan asked incredulously. “My dear child, so many of these shades are here because of you. You have sent more souls pouring into my kingdom than anyone else since, well, a very, very long time.”

  “What are you talking about?” Azerick asked. “I have been forced to kill a few, several when my school was attacked, but that hardly makes me comparable to these monsters.”

  Sharellan laughed deeply. “Oh, you poor child, you really don’t know, do you?”

  Azerick felt a sense of deep foreboding. Anything bringing the dark goddess such pleasure was sure to be bad. “Know what?”

  “Do you not recall your final act before escaping the psyling city?”

  Azerick thought back to that horrible day, the day he lost his first true love and unborn child. Revisiting Delinda’s memory brought on a fresh wave of pain even after all these years. He had escaped to the artifact room in Xornan’s
tower and used a malevolently evil staff to bar the door. He then used his sunder spell to weaken the structure of the staff so it would break when the psylings managed to break through the door in hopes of destroying the tower where so many painful memories lived.

  “I trapped the door in hopes of killing the psylings and the guards who were after us,” Azerick said. “That hardly makes me a monster.”

  “My boy, that chamber contained more objects of power than almost any single place in your world. Other psyling lords also possessed their own hoards they stockpiled for their plans of conquest. When your little trap went off, it destroyed everything in the chamber, including the device that created gateways between worlds, which was nearly as powerful in its destruction as all the artifacts in the room combined. The explosion was strong enough to create a chain reaction, destroying the entire city and everyone in it. Child, you singlehandedly destroyed an entire species, and you don’t think you belong here?” Sharellan laughed again. “You personally sent nearly a hundred thousand souls straight to the abyss. Do you think they all deserved to die? How many slaves were in the city, those poor wretches who were simply unfortunate to be caught up by those vile creatures just as you were? You are the best Hand I ever had.”

  Azerick reeled from the revelation. Was it true? Could he have killed all those people? He would not shed a tear or waste a single thought of remorse for the psylings, but all those people who were slaves just as he was were dead. All because he wanted to punish his captors. He could have simply escaped through the gate. But was leaving those people to suffer the indignity of slavery better than a swift death? Not to him, but such was not for him to decide. It was too much to process right now.

  “Everyone died?” Azerick asked. He thought about Braunlin and some of the other decent people he had known.

  “All but one. The abyssal elf managed to escape. The point is, my Hand, you have made a great many enemies serving me; most of whom are now here and looking for revenge.”

  “I didn’t know. I never meant to do so much damage, especially to the ones who did not deserve it,” Azerick said numbly.

  “Do you think they care anymore than I do if you meant to slaughter them or not? No need to answer. It was a rhetorical question. Even you certainly know the answer to that. The fact remains you have enemies here, and you have better things to do than bash your head against a wall trying to leave.”

  “You say I am the best Hand you have ever had. Why not send me back?” Azerick asked. “Obviously I am no good here.”

  “Your single line of thought is quickly becoming tedious,” the goddess replied darkly. “As I have told you, I cannot.”

  “You cannot or you will not?” Azerick challenged.

  “Take your pick. They both end with the same result. I cannot because I do not possess the ability. I will not because there are greater things than you or even I in the making and those things require you to be here.”

  “What things require me to rot in the abyss?”

  “Things I cannot tell you.”

  “Cannot or will not?”

  Sharellan smiled at Azerick, amused once again by his contrariness. “Will not.”

  “Why not? If I am needed to affect some greater scheme of yours, would I not be able to do more if I knew what it was I was supposed to be doing?”

  “It is no scheme of mine, child. I do not know what you are to do, and if I told you what you faced then I risk disrupting the strands of fate and you may not do what you need to do.”

  Azerick gave Sharellan a perplexed look. “I don’t understand. How would knowing what I need to do keep me from doing what I need to do? If I knew what I needed to do then I would do it, and far more efficiently than not knowing. Your argument is counterintuitive to me.”

  “That is because you are a child. Let us say you are a farmer and are about to take several of your cattle to town for slaughter. I come and tell you a highwayman will rob you of your coin and cows if you travel. What would you do?”

  “I would not travel to the city, of course,” Azerick replied. “I would at least delay my trip.”

  “Because you chose to avoid the robber, one of the cows selected for slaughter kicks over a lamp in the barn. The fire spreads quickly from the barn, to the house, and the field of wheat. You and your family burn to death and the loss of all those cattle and the fields around your home cause a food shortage resulting in hardship for hundreds of people. Another scenario is one of the cows you were to slaughter contracts a disease, spreads to your other cows, and to several herds around your farm. All of the cows die off or are culled because it causes a deadly illness to any human who eats them. This causes starvation and an economic collapse as beef becomes hard to get, making it too expensive for all but the wealthy to purchase. All this because you knew what was going to happen to you and you wanted to change your fate.”

  “But couldn’t you tell me about the fire or the disease?”

  “No, because any interference in freewill can disrupt the strands of fate. I could not even tell you about the robber. I cannot see what will happen on the strands, only the placement of people and certain events. I know you are supposed to be here, but I cannot tell you what you must do or not do because I simply do not know. Not even the Sisters of Fate know what you are to do, only that you are here and your being here plays a significant role in what is happening or going to happen.”

  “I think I see. Have you seen me out of here?” Azerick asked hopefully.

  Sharellan smiled. “Goodbye, my Hand. Remember, you are surrounded by enemies.”

  The goddess vanished before Azerick’s eyes. There was no puff of smoke, no flash of light, or shimmering of a gate; she was just gone. Azerick looked at the destruction the creature caused and sighed.

  “Well, back to the drawing board.”

  What do you mean? Weren’t you listening? She said you could not escape this place. Are you still going to pursue this idiot quest?

  “Of course.”

  She told you it was a waste of time! She told you there were creatures here out for revenge! Why are you going to ignore our goddess’s warning?

  “She is your goddess, not mine, and I am going to continue to look for a way out because that is what I would normally be doing. If I stopped doing what I would normally do, then my barn burns down.”

  Your logic is annoyingly human! Fine, ignore the fact she told you that you are an idiot and wasting your time.

  “She never said I was an idiot or wasting my time.”

  It was implied. You cannot ignore her warning of imminent threat. You need to reestablish your dominance to secure your authority. You continue to show weakness, and it invites covetous creatures to attack you.

  “She never said there was an imminent threat.”

  Of course not! That would jeopardize freewill and the strands of fate. Do you think she simply came here for a social call? She all but said someone was coming for you.

  “So what would you have me do?”

  I once called every demon under my command and slaughtered a thousand of them with contemptuous ease just to show the others I could do it.

  “Not really my style. Either way, I can only do what I would normally do, and what I would normally do is not give a damn. Besides, I’m inside this ridiculously large fortress located in my own realm and surrounded by tens of thousands of demons. What could happen?”

  ***

  The Rook flew across the barren landscape in his stolen form. It had taken a great deal of time to locate a shadow crossing. Three times he had lost a body in a fight with demons and other creatures of the realm, but they had been unprepared for him, and he dispatched them with relative ease. He took their bodies of those who could fly after absorbing their souls.