What a tremendous clamor they made! Thundering through the woods on the back of a silverpaw bear, with the winded wolf chasing after them, struggling to keep pace. The other denizens of the forest took notice. Deer bounded away in fright, bats and owls took flight in a thousand different directions. The smaller creatures huddled in their roosts and knot-holes and trembled, waiting for the ground to stop shaking.
“Haste, Korak!” Charlot cried, and small hands tightened on the back of his robe in excitement. The trees overhead hid the moonlight, and the master arcanist was truly blind, racing forward into the void with the command to call light from Flaccaro always at the ready.
Korak’s snarl alerted him, and Charlot called out for light. Flaccaro burst into brilliant daylight and, for an instant, the legionnaire was blinded, his warhammer raised high. Charlot, too, was dazzled, and he heard the crunch of tortured steel as Korak bowled the warrior over and smashed him into the earth.
“Don’t kill-” Charlot began, but the bear’s shoulder was already raised. The huge paw swiped, and with a muffled clang, the legionnaire’s helmet sailed away and rolled off into the gathering darkness. As Charlot peered down at the man, he realized his head was still inside of it.
There were shadows circling them, and the two war dogs wheeled around Korak, trying to get to his rear. Charlot twisted around to defend, nearly knocking Henriq to the ground. One of the jet-black dogs rushed forward, fangs bared to sink into Korak’s rear leg, terribly quick.
But Charlot’s words were quicker. So fast that three sigils sounded like one, Charlot invoked a sphere of invisible force, capturing the charging dog. If the legionnaire was dead, they could have answers from the war dog. But no sooner had Charlot crafted the fear than he felt the spell slipping away from him. He’d miscalculated. He was too weary to maintain the invisible prison!
How perilous to overtax himself on a spell that conjured force! If it went out of control, it might fragment and cut them to ribbons, or tear right through the plane and send gods-know-what spilling out into the world.
A novice might make such an error, and a skilled magician would release the spell at once for fear of the terrible consequences. But Charlot was an archmage. Even in failure, he was in control. He released the force sphere-by inverting it.
What a sound! What a terrible crunching, bursting pop as the dog was crushed into a paste nearly instantaneously and ripped out of the world entirely, banished into the plane of pure force!
On the other side, Charlot knew there was a tremendous storm of light as the dog’s remains were converted to pure energy. Pray the denizens of that place did not take notice of him! Their wrath was beyond compare.
“Augh!” Henriq cried, too startled for words.
For an instant, Charlot was too weak to draw breath, and he felt a desperate, clawing feeling in his chest.
Finally, he could draw in air, and he drew a wheezing breath, his head so light he could barely stay mounted.
Korak wheeled around to face the last dog. The bitch was all that was left of the raiding party, but she would never flee. The war dogs of the Wyrth Legion fought to the death. Hackles raised, the war dog braced for a final lunge at Korak. But the snarl became a twitch of confusion as a shadow crossed over her face and darkened her features.
At once, the battle pose fled, and the dog went down in a yowling ball of confusion, with her hind legs kicking at her face, trying to get the darkness off.
The Asyndagrim would not be denied. The black crystal mask formed around the war dog’s face, perfectly fitting to its contours. As she had mastered the wolf, Lak took control of the war dog and, finally, she stood perfectly still and obedient. The war dog was her creature now.
Once more, the red, glowing eyes of a sïthur blazed from the mask’s sockets, and a mouth of shadows formed. Korak growled in confusion, raising a paw at the enthralled dog.
“Hold, Korak. That is an enemy no longer,” Charlot said, his voice terribly spent. The bear turned his head, snuffling at the air in confusion.
“The boy is gone,” Lack said in a growling mis-mash of two different voices. After a moment, she mastered the new configuration, and the voice became fully her own.
“He was treed in this oak. The legionnaire sat down to wait for the others. I suppose he didn’t fancy chopping down the tree with a hammer.”
“What of the boy?” Charlot said, a little substance returning to his voice. He was unsure if he could ride. They might have to stop for the night here.
“Not above. He pulled some ruse on them. Perhaps he simply climbed from tree to tree and got away. Likely, he dropped into the river.”
“Saved again. She has her finger on him,” Charlot said, caught between admiration and regret. Surely this was the work of the Laughing Star. Behind him, he felt Henriq moving about, agitated.
“That’s…that’s a demon!” Henriq whispered, still clinging to Charlot’s back.
For a moment, Charlot tried to conjure an evasion, but he was simply too weary.
“Yes. That is a demon. Lak is our ally. Care you do not tell your relatives about her, or they may try something foolish and get hurt. The sïthur is under my control.”
“What’s a sïthur?”
Charlot paused, his exhaustion battling with his desire to explain things. But he could not resist.
“A race of devils. Just as you can tell a Khemerian from an Ibexian, the children of the moon come in many types. Sïthur are distinguished by forms that are primarily humanoid, multiple irises, and some extraplanaar minutiae which I cannot even begin to explain to you. The possess an intelligence higher than that of most humans.”
“Chuh! Most!” The sïthur’s laugh came out as a canine snort.
“Oh, are you smarter than I, shade?”
“Certainly,” Lak replied, her haughtiness as sharp as fangs of the dog she wore.
“How is it, then, that I am the master?” Charlot asked, danger in his voice like an unsprung trap.
Wisely, Lak had no retort for Charlot. He gave a quick nod of victory, but then Flaccaro’s light flickered and faded until it was no brighter than a torch. The magnificent staff was tired, too.
“Let me see which way he went while we still have light,” Charlot said, feeling acutely how defenseless he was out here in the dark.
Charlot willed the hair tied around his finger to seek, and it stood straight up, then pointed west. He drew a deep breath. Even the simple cantrip sapped him now.
“Across the river,” he lamented. From the hair’s trembling, he could tell the boy was still alive and on the move. That would have to be enough for the night. He could go no farther.
“Where is the wolf?” Charlot asked. He squinted about for some sign of their singed friend.
“He remains, cowering over there in the shadows. I prefer this form. The Wyrth dog is stupid and obedient. She does not intrude on my thoughts as the wolf does, nor do I have the taste of that awful dust in my mouth all the time.”
“I didn’t have time to give him a name,” Charlot lamented, wishing he could call to the wolf. Perhaps they’d lost an ally. Surely being a pawn of the Asyndagrim was a trauma unlike any other.
“The wolf’s true name is Siyabros,” Lak said, and Charlot could feel the name’s power hanging in the air. How typically sïthur, to think the true name of an animal had so little value she could simply throw it away!
“The mask unveils the true names of those it possesses?!” Charlot muttered in alarm, and below him, the possessed dog nodded. The human gesture looked uncoordinated and unusual as the canine performed it.
Again, came the urge to destroy the mask, all the more dire now that he knew more of its power. It stole true names! At once, his mind reeled with how the mechanisms of control would be bent around this. How could anyone ever escape?
A thousand questions about the mask vied for his attention, until at last the boy fidgeted behind him, reminding him they were caught in the dark in the middle of nowhere.
“Ah, I should get you to shelter. Curse this dark! We shall return in the morning to find Sylas. I hope he hasn’t spent all his luck just yet.”
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
He hated to give up with their quarry so close, but he could not find the boy in the dark. There was no telling what awaited them across the Reyane.
“Perhaps your aunt will have some dinner for us,” Charlot mused, and Korak’s head tilted with interest. Dinner was one of the words he knew. Then, Charlot’s thoughts went to how such an encounter might go, and he realized he would arrive mounted on a bear, telling a fabulous tale. It would not do.
“Lak! Find the head of the legionnaire!”
“What? Why?”
“Do as I bid, shade! Find the head and bring it here! It’s the helm I want. Down, Korak!”
Korak settled to the ground. The bear gladly lowered his belly to the ground and set his chin against the earth. The war dog found the severed head in the weeds and brought it to Charlot. In Flaccaro’s waning light, Charlot fumbled with the chin strap and finally removed the helmet, tossing the head aside.
“Carry this. I want to have more proof of what has transpired than the mere word of a boy.” He loosened the strap enough for the big dog to bite down and carry the helm by its strap.
“Flaccaro! Sleep, friend. Arise, Korak! North!” Charlot commanded once he had remounted. The light was snuffed, casting them into darkness, and the bear tromped forward. Soon, Charlot heard the sound of the big war dog trotting alongside them. At first, that was it, but as he grew used to the sounds of Korak and Lak, a third set of legs padded cautiously behind them.
Siyabros the wolf was still with them.
3.5
Where had all the light in the world gone? The night was as black as the Void herself. Never before had Charlot wanted for light and been unable to produce it. He was as tapped as Flaccaro, every iota of his power spent. Without his magic, Charlot was as weak as the child.
Henriq clung to him still, sometimes drawing air through his teeth when Korak took an unexpected step or shifted to get around something. The pain in his leg had to be great, yet he thankfully tried to be silent. The boy had grit.
Here was true blindness! Charlot could not say how far they’d come or how far they had left to go. Lightheaded and tired, he rode through the wilderness with all the sounds of the night surrounding him. Hooting owls and howling wolves, snakes rustling through the undergrowth and bats on the wing. Anything could be out there! He could be riding right into an army of legionnaires, off the side of a cliff, into a dragon’s maw; he could only hope the bear knew what he was doing.
As Korak plodded forward with his heavy steps, Charlot’s mind danced forward. What if this was unavoidable? What if he failed to find a cure for his ailing eyes, and the nights grew longer and longer until at last they swallowed the day completely?
He pictured himself in his tower, groping about, trying to find his way up the winding stairs or looking for things in the great clutter of his workshop. Impossible! If he lost his eyes, he was finished. He could not craft without them. He could not even read! His grand library, priceless volumes from all over the lake, useless for anything but kindling.
Eventually, a challenger would come. How could he defend himself without sight? Unable to repair his defenses, unable to see the threats coming. Why, Sylas had walked right up to his door!
It was inevitable someone would defeat him and claim his tower for their own. Charlot’s lip curled at the thought of someone rifling through his things, meddling with his treasured creations! Imagined another man ordering about his golems, leafing through his journals, plucking his silver pears! Would they even have an inkling of the value of it all? Who would have even the faintest notion of how hard it had all been to collect, how difficult to maintain, the bodies stacked at his doorstep for the simple act of bearing the title archmage?
If he even made it back to his tower! If Lak suspected for an instant how weak he’d become, she might try anything. How foolish he’d been to let a demon travel with him, bearing a powerful artifact he barely understood!
What if she tried to take him over as she had the wolf and the dog? If she overtook him before he could utter her true name… He stiffened in his makeshift saddle. Never show weakness before a sïthur! He kept her true name at the ready, waiting for the cold touch of crystal against his face.
As the fear coiled around Charlot’s chest, another thought came, blacker than the night surrounding him. This boy Henriq knew a great deal about him. What if he spoke to others? Who knew where the words might travel? What if they made their way to the waiting ears of the Manatramord? What if Ytrios came to check on the Asyndagrim’s prison and found it plundered and began questioning the locals?
They were not so far from the Blouche River. If Ytrios made him talk, it would not be hard to identify Charlot, and if the boy had guessed that he was going blind…
What if! Charlot spat into the road at his right as if to physically expel the paranoia from his body. Murder a child to cover his tracks, what a farce! Yet, in the unending dark, it did not seem as ludicrous as it ought to.
It was too easy to forget that the night would end and desperate ideas for escape whispered to him. There were those out there who would give him new eyes, for a price. Hadn’t Nylacome bartered with Revel V Ramos, given him the eyes of a devil? Eyes that saw through the planes as easily as his could peer through glass, eyes that could see a ship a hundred leagues away or the fine hairs trembling on the eyes of a fly, that pierced all deception…
No! He recoiled from the thought in his seat, drawing a murmur of discomfort from Henriq.
Better to die! Better to perish than take a bargain with a demon! Look no further than the possessed dog panting ten paces away! Make me human again, she’d begged! Revel V Ramos had wandered the Arc for a dozen lifetimes trying to regain what he sold! Better to consume himself, the tower, to raise a pillar of flame to startle the gods themselves! Better to die than a man than to become a devil.
Charlot shook his head, and the world shook around him. He realized he was in no small danger of falling asleep and tumbling off the makeshift saddle. He needed something to keep him awake or he would not make it. He could hear the war dog trotting beside Korak. Surely Lak would talk with him. But he did not want to engage with the demon. There was always the underlying dance of power.
“Henriq!” Charlot said sharply, and the boy twitched, startled. He’d been half-asleep himself. “Talk to me. I am nearly falling asleep.”
“What about, sir?”
“Anything, nothing. I just need something to keep me awake. When you grow old, your own thoughts become tiresome. I have heard them all a thousand times before.”
The boy was silent for a moment, and Charlot was afraid he had truly fallen asleep. But he was only thinking.
“Well, you already know about the leg. I haven’t done much else. Let’s see…you like beasts, right? I went to the Brambleberry fair once, saw a monkey!”
“A monkey, you say? What sort?” Charlot said, blinking with surprise. He was indeed interested.
“The fella who had it didn’t say! I asked him, but he just said it was a monkey. He didn’t speak Norta at all, and I could barely understand his Yarlee it was so accented.”
“What did the monkey look like?” Charlot had forgotten all about being tired.
“Well, he was maybe twice the size of a baby, had white stripes across his eyes, big jug ears, and white rings at the end of its tail.”
“Three rings?” Charlot asked.
“I think so,” the boy said.
“That’s a Morgo Macaque! They’re from deep in the southeast. They live in the Ymberwood. They can sing! Only in the wild, though. They will not sing if captive. Very intelligent compared to other lesser primates.”
“I wish I would have heard him sing! He was so queer-looking, but he had expressions just like a man! When I am a captain, I shall have a whole troop of them, cavorting in the rigging an’ such. What if they could be trained to fight? They’d board the enemy ship and cut the rigging to tatters. Who would be nimble enough to stop them? Why you could launch them with a catapult!”
“A captain, you say?” Charlot asked, and the boy’s excited babble came to a sudden halt. “I thought you were going to become a priest?”
“Err…well I had, uh… I’d promised that I suppose. But you said to recant, and it does sound a bit dreary. It’s just a daydream to become a captain. I tell myself stories about it to pass the time. It can’t ever happen.”
“Rubbish! I once had a daydream to become an archmage. My father was only a dabbler, and we lived in a village even smaller than Billibee. Here I stand. I have been to every corner of the Arc, traversed the planes themselves. Whatever you desire in this world can be yours, if you are willing to suffer and strive for it.”
“There’s sailors got only one leg! I’ve seen them! They got a wooden peg, and they get around just fine on the docks.”
“Pah! You’re hardly missing a leg. It just needs proper treatment. I’ll speak with your aunt if she has the wits to listen. Willow bark tea, a diet rich in fish and eggs, plenty of tart fruits, and then you should be in a cast for three or four months to keep you off it. Give it a year, and it’ll be as good as new.”
“I don’t like fish!”
“You had best learn. What do you think captains eat?”
“Why, salt pork and biscuits. Plenty of rhum!”
“Ha! They eat fish three meals a day. You’ll eat so much you start to grow scales.”
“Can’t you just magic my leg better?”
“Would be that I could. True healing comes from the stars. Magery is ill suited to repair the hurts of the body. Man is a complex and delicate apparatus. There is a spell for instance to fuse two pieces of broken glass together, but try that on a wounded joint, it will never bend again!”
The boy made a disappointed sound, and Charlot couldn’t help but agree. If only the body was not such a mystery! To work the Art upon something, one had to fully understand it. Find a man who understood himself, impossible!
“Have you read the journals of Captain Laecke?” Charlot asked, and Henriq could barely contain his excitement. His father had two volumes of Laecke’s chronicles, and the boy knew them word for word. Charlot had read them all, of course, even fragments of the missing eighth journal and, at once, they launched into a spirited discussion of the legendary explorer.
Charlot had barely gotten through explaining what had happened in the first published journal when, in the distance, he spied a soft glow, faint as foxfire over a moor. As the bear lumbered forward, it grew brighter and brighter, a single shining point in the world of darkness. Thank the stars the boy’s aunt was a beekeeper! The house was like a candlelit beacon drawing him in.
“That’s my aunt’s house. We made it!” Henriq breathed, stirring at the sight of home. “Care you don’t startle her. She’s got a bow in there, and she’s a wicked good shot. My cousins are, too.
“Who all is within?”
“Just my Aunt Giselle and my cousins, Petal and Audee.”
“No uncle?”
“Dead for years. Fell in the river drunk.”
“Your aunt’s not a believer of the Truestar, is she? I don’t fancy her trying to burn me at the stake after saving you.”
“She thinks they’re idiots. She called my pa a dummy for paying those penny priests to pray over my knee.”
“Good. Whatever you do, mention nothing of the sïthur, and let me do the talking. Act like you’re too tired to say much,”
“I am tired,” Henriq replied.
“Use it!” Charlot demanded. At their side, the black war dog snorted. It was unmistakably a laugh.