Sorcerer's Creed Books 1-3

by N. P. Martin

  I slid the Rune Axe through a specially placed loop in my belt, so the weapon hung securely at my side, concealed by my trench coat until I needed it.

  After that, I stood for a moment, trying to think if I would need anything else before going to the Underworld, but aside from a miracle, I couldn't think of anything.

  A short while later, I met with Ray and Sanaka in the living room of Sanaka's Sanctum, which was as sparsely furnished as the rest of the place, the dominating feature being the huge fish tank that was set into the back wall of the room, taking up nearly the whole wall and throwing a glowing light into the room. The aquarium contained hundreds of fish, not all of them from Earth.

  "Good of you to join us again," Ray said as she stood next to Sanaka over by the fish tank. Since I'd been gone, Ray seemed to have acquired a staff of some sort from Sanaka. Standing with it, dressed as he was in his ancient duster and shabby boots, he looked like an old traveler about to embark on one last journey.

  Sanaka still wore the same black clothes from earlier, except that he had now added a long black leather coat to the ensemble. His sword was also in his hand, the blood red scabbard seeming to glow in the light of the aquarium.

  Both of them stared at me like they were waiting for an explanation. "Someone came to me for help," I said simply as I walked into the room. "I couldn't say no."

  Both Ray and Sanaka looked at each other, then Ray said, "I didn't think you had time to be a saint."

  I sighed and shook my head. "A baby's life was at stake. What do you want me to do? Are we ready to go?" I ignored Ray's face as I focused on Sanaka instead.

  Tanaka nodded. "Thanks to the owl, we now have Baal's exact location in the Underworld. We have also opened a gate that will take us directly there."

  "Alright," I said looking at them both, my adrenaline rising again. "Let's go get Leona back."

  Sanaka and Ray had opened a gateway to the Underworld inside one of the rooms on the east wing of the Sanctum. The room was in darkness as I followed in behind them. The only light came from the glowing red gateway in the center of the room that made us look like we were all bathed in blood. Also in the room were Blaez and Barney, the barn owl perched on top of Blaez's back. The look the two of them gave me made it clear that they were coming with us. Blaez obviously wanted to help me get Leona back (whom he loved as well). As for Barney, he just wanted his mistress back. I nodded over at them, and Blaez walked over and stood beside me facing the gateway.

  The gateway itself had the appearance of liquid blood and stood about six feet high by four feet wide. I stood staring into the slightly mesmerizing ripples for a moment, knowing that once I went through there, I would soon find out if Leona was alive or dead...or worse.

  "Let's go through the plan," Ray said. "First, we get face time with Baal."

  A laugh escaped my lips. "I didn't know they had iPhones in the Underworld," I said.

  "What?" Ray said. "They don't. What does that have to with anything?"

  I shook my head. "Nothing. A stupid joke. Continue."

  Ray looked at me a moment like I was losing my shit, then dismissed me with a shake of his head. "Anyway. The plan. We get Baal to fight us, then while he's occupied, I'll put a Holding Spell on him, hopefully without him noticing."

  "What if he does notice?" I asked.

  "Then I hope my magick is strong enough to counter his attempts to release himself."

  I nodded, wanting to ask what would happen if Baal was able to resist Ray's magick, but refraining from doing so because the mission already felt like a suicide mission as it was. "Okay. So once you get the Holding Spell on the demon, I do the spell to open a vortex to Dimension X."

  "Yes," Sanaka said. "Then we all force Baal into the vortex."

  "Hopefully banishing him forever," I added. "Then we get Leona and Margot, and we all go home."

  We stood in silence for several moments as if letting the plan hang in the air for inspection. As plans went, it sounded so simple, but we knew it would prove to be anything but. Even with our combined efforts, it was entirely possible that it wouldn't be enough to defeat Baal in his own domain.

  It was entirely possible that he would beat us instead, in fact.

  "Are we ready then?" Ray asked.

  Sanaka nodded affirmatively, but I still sensed his nerves behind his usual composed exterior. Which didn't exactly fill me with confidence, I have to say.

  Ray looked neither nervous nor entirely comfortable. He knew what he was getting into. He knew he might not come back from the Underworld. He also knew he was doing it for me, which I think helped quell his undoubted fear somewhat.

  As for me, I just wished I had some of that potion that Jack Burton and his crew drank in Big Trouble In Little China Town, the stuff that made them all forget their fear and primed them for battle. As I had no such potion (Note to self: invent one if I ever made it back from the Underworld), I just took a deep breath and tried to appear ready for action. "Let's do it," I said.

  "I'll go first," Sanaka said, stepping up to the gateway. He paused for a second before walking forward, and then the gateway seemed to swallow him up.

  "After you," Ray said, gesturing at me with his staff. "Age before beauty and all that."

  I gave him a look. "You're older than me, for fuck's sake."

  "I know, but I'm also beautiful. Now get going."

  Shaking my head, I walked up to the gateway, paused while I silently prayed Leona was still alive, and then stepped forward, closing my eyes as the gateway pulled me into itself and delivered me into the Underworld and Baal's domain.

  30

  The Land Of Baal

  Unlike the cold that hung around the Outer Reaches, the Underworld was warm, but not in a good way. In a suffocating, sticky way. The air was so hot it seemed to burn my throat and lungs, like the air itself was laced with sulfur. It was difficult not to cough as I reflexively covered my mouth and nose with my hand.

  Sanaka looked around at me as he stood seemingly unaffected by the corrosive atmosphere. Then I remembered that wasn't Sanaka's first trip to the Underworld. He was a former resident of the place, having gone to the dark side at one point in his long past. For as long as I'd known him, Sanaka could be cold and even cruel at times, but it was difficult to imagine him being in any way evil in the way that my father was. From what I understood, Sanaka got lost in black magick at one time. His soul was consumed by it, and he ended up in the Underworld. What his role in the place was, I still didn't know. Nor did I know exactly how long he had spent there before a Dimension Lord stepped in to save him, or why a Dimension Lord should decide to pull him out. I tried pressing Sanaka on the matter a few times over the years, but he was always reluctant to talk about it. And I was beginning to see why.

  The dark and smoky landscape that was rolled out before me like some nightmarish painting was possibly the most unwelcoming sight I had ever seen. Less barren than the black desert landscape of the Outer Reaches, and so much more alive and filled with a palpable dark energy that swirled around me like a storm of evil spirits, the wind their screeches, the uncomfortable warmth their touch. The sky was dark with a reddish tinge to it as if the clouds themselves were filled with the blood of the countless souls who must have surely resided there.

  And in the distance, the jagged outline of some colossal citadel, looking like it had pushed itself up from the ground itself or had simply emerged all at once at the behest of the ruler of that land.

  Which was Baal.

  I was so engrossed by what lay before me I hardly noticed when Ray came and stood by my side, having come through the gateway with Blaez and Barney. "That's where we need to go," Ray said as he pointed his staff in the direction of the citadel. "That's where we'll find Baal, and hopefully your girlfriend, Leona."

  "She's in there," I said firmly, more because I wanted to bolster the little hope I had of finding her than because I had some feeling that she was in there. I had no such feeling. The only thing I
felt was dread. And of course, fear. I was in the Underworld, after all, not Disney Land.

  "We should go," Sanaka said. "It is not safe to be so exposed out here."

  I couldn't help laughing. "It's not going to be any safer inside that fucking citadel."

  No one said anything for a moment as we stood staring at the massively imposing citadel that looked to lie about three miles away. In between us and Baal's lair, there appeared to be nothing but jagged slabs of rock, and what looked like small black lakes in the distance. If I strained my eyes enough, I thought I could see shapes bobbing up and down in these black lakes. I dreaded to think what the shapes were.

  Sanaka soon set out across the cracked, arid earth, and the rest of us followed. Ray walked just ahead of me, but behind Sanaka, who led the way. Blaez walked along beside me, his dark fur now split with veins of orange fire as he seemed to be preparing for the inevitable battle ahead. It was good to have Blaez there with me. His presence was always reassuring in dangerous times.

  I was also grateful for Barney's presence. The barn owl now stood over six feet tall and was walking along like some feathered dinosaur, its huge talons breaking up the dried earth as it walked. There was no doubt the bird of prey cut an imposing figure, and would likely prove useful in any upcoming battles. Clearly Margot's familiar was fiercely loyal and didn't mind facing possible death or worse if it meant saving his mistress.

  "It must be hard for him being back here," Ray said nodding towards Sanaka, who was still walking up ahead.

  "It's hard for us all," I said.

  "I know that, but you didn't once reside here, did you? You know what it took for Sanaka to come back here? He did it for you, August. He loves you as much as I do. Plus, neither of us could abide your stupidity."

  "My stupidity?" I said. "Give me a fucking break, will you? None of this has exactly been easy for me, you know."

  "I know it hasn't, but you must learn to separate your emotions --"

  "Yeah, yeah. Just leave it, Ray. Now's not the time."

  Ray went silent, but more because Sanaka had stopped walking. Ray and I caught up with him. Sanaka pointed the scabbard of his sword out in front of him, but he didn't need to say anything because we all saw what was happening for ourselves. The black lakes I caught sight of earlier were actually lakes of blood, and people were bobbing around inside them. Damned souls, and not all of them human. Some were clearly beings from other worlds, but damned nonetheless, their souls the property of Baal. Every one of them made a kind of low mewling noise as they struggled to stay afloat in the blood pits. And as I looked out into the distance, I saw that the ground was covered in such pits, dozens of them everywhere, all filled with perpetually drowning souls.

  "Jesus," I said. "Are they being punished?"

  "Yes," Sanaka said gravely, staring into the nearest pit several feet away as if he somehow knew what the people inside were going through. "They have displeased Baal in some way. It is a common punishment throughout the Underworld, not just here."

  "As long as they stay there," Ray said. "They shouldn't be any trouble for us. We keep going."

  We all started walking again, doing our best to avoid the blood pits and ignore the wailing sounds coming from within them. It was difficult all the same, not to catch the eye of the souls struggling around in all that blood. Their eyes pleaded for help, their abject misery and despair written all over their pained faces, faces which were awash with crimson. Hands outstretched as if for help, fingers clasping at the empty air for a moment before the person would sink below the surface of the blood, only to pop back up again a moment later to repeat their whole pathetic plight all over again. It was disturbing but nowhere near as disturbing as what happened next.

  All at once, the captives in the blood pits--human and alien souls--began to claw their way out and onto the dry ground. It was like some power had been previously preventing them from leaving the pits. A power that had now released its hold on them. The blood pit dwellers were now free to leave, and every single one didn't appear to be wasting that particular opportunity. And who could blame them for wanting to get out and stretch their legs after so long?

  You would think the dripping souls would have been happy to have gotten free from their vicious cycle of drowning in blood constantly.

  But no.

  The newly emerged souls were not what I would call happy. They looked mad as hell in fact. Like they wanted nothing more than to take all their built up pain and frustration out on someone who hadn't suffered as much as they had. Either that or they were all being controlled by Baal somehow. It was his domain, after all, and I had no doubt he was aware of our presence the second we came through the gateway. Maybe releasing the blood dwellers was his way of ensuring we never made it to the citadel.

  Whatever the case, the blood dripping souls closing in all around us didn't seem to care why they were suddenly free. Like a herd of walking dead, they were aggressively focused on me and the others, looking like they wanted to rip us apart.

  Instinctively, Ray, Sanaka and I went back to back as the hordes of bodies continued to close in at a disturbingly unhurried pace. Blaez was growling loudly by my side, intense heat and flames now rising from his tensed body. Barney was hovering just overhead like the silent but deadly predator he was.

  "Do not fall into the blood pits," Sanaka warned as he drew his sword. "You will never get out again."

  "That's comforting," I said, taking out the Rune Axe and gripping it tightly in my right hand. "Considering the fucking things are everywhere."

  "We just need to cut our way through them to get to the citadel," Ray said, his staff now held in a defensive position. "Be wary of using magick down here. The dark energy here is so potent and pervasive it may instantly corrupt whatever magick you conjure."

  I shook my head. "You might have mentioned that before."

  "I'm mentioning it now."

  "Stay close together," Sanaka barked.

  "And show no mercy," Ray said. "They are already dead. It won't matter."

  My eyes run across the bloody faces of the horde closing in on us. Most were human (barely), but many were also alien, clearly from some other world, some other dimension. A few were positively monstrous, in both size and appearance. Baal's reach really did span the known universe.

  As the adrenaline coursing through my veins went from feeling like warm piss to hot lava, I became aware of movement behind me and then a battle cry from Sanaka as he sprang into action. The bloody souls had reached him first.

  Just beside me, Ray readied himself as an intensely angry looking soul came towards him. "Time to see what you're made of, boy," he shouted before running forward and bringing the end of his staff down on the damned soul's head at a forty-five-degree angle. The movement was quick and precise, and it took me by surprise. It was probably the first time I had ever seen Ray fight without using magick.

  But I didn't have much time to stay surprised at my uncle's prowess with a long staff. I had my own angry souls to deal with. Blaez was doing a good job of keeping most of them back, barking and snarling at them. Barney was also swooping down over the horde, screeching loudly as he used his steely talons to knock them over.

  The horde wasn't deterred for long, though. Whatever their motivations for attacking us, they probably didn't have much choice in the matter. And they wouldn't stop coming unless we stopped them, that much was clear.

  So the first damned soul that came near me--a human man it seemed like, though it was hard to tell in the moment--I swung the Rune Axe at their head, shocked when the axe cut right through as easily as slicing a melon in half. I had forgotten how sharp and powerful the Rune Axe was. I was also thankful that I had chosen the right weapon to take with me.

  After that first swing, it was like I never stopped. The damned souls kept coming, and I kept swinging and chopping with the axe, doing my best to keep the Underworld inhabitants at bay. A few times, hands grabbed me. Hands that tried to rip my flesh, pull
off my limbs or gouge out my eyes. At one point, Blaez jumped on a damned soul that had me pinned to the ground after I had tripped on a rock. The Garra Wolf's huge flaming jaws practically engulfed my attacker's whole head before biting down, severing the head from the neck. After that, Blaez moved onto the next attacker, a look of terrifying fierceness in his glowing yellow eyes.

  The second time I got in trouble, I was surrounded by damned souls. Too many to handle at once. Barney swooped to my rescue, gripping bodies in his massive talons and ripping them apart in an instant.

  Sanaka still led the charge up ahead. Occasionally, throughout all the bloody carnage, I would catch a glimpse of my mentor as he cut down bodies like he was slicing through bamboo. He moved at a speed that was breathtaking to watch, his every cut with the sword completely assured and deliberate. It was the first time I had ever seen him seriously use his coveted sword. I didn't think my respect or admiration for the man could have gotten any deeper, and yet it did, right there in that dark hellhole as we were surrounded by foes that wanted only to dismember and eviscerate us and then drag the pieces back into the blood pits with them.

  Ray also continued to swing his staff like it wasn't his first rodeo. Which I knew it wasn't obviously, but again, I had never seen my uncle fight the way he did right then. Between Ray and Sanaka, they both gave me the courage to keep swinging, to keep cutting my way through the herd of bodies that never seemed to thin no matter how many we cut down. Souls were still crawling out of the blood pits like there was an infinite number of them beneath the surface of the blood.

  "They won't stop fucking coming!" I remember screaming at one point in frustration and near panic.