Nature's Servant (28 page)

In its dying moments he made an incredible discovery. Pain and terror radiated palpably from the beast, magnified by death
’s swift approach. Acting on instinct, he flung out what he would later think of as a magical net, drawing it tightly around the cloud of dark emotion. The net pulled tight, capturing the creature’s death energies, and with one last scream, the horse stopped struggling and died.

Ferast eyed the glowing lines of the magical net intently and dispelled it with a flick of his finger. The glow faded and a dark, gleaming object fell to the forest floor with a soft thud. He reached down and picked it up, turning it over slowly in his hand. It was a twelve-sided gem, about the size of his palm, and it carried the unmistakable signature of power. If he looked closely he could see movement within, like slowly roiling clouds, dense and black as the night.

He was almost breathless with excitement. What could he do with such a thing? He summoned a globe light and sent it spinning out in front of him until it hovered in open space, giving off a yellowy light, different to the misty white shade it used to be. Briefly he wondered when his summoned light had changed colour, but he was far too excited to pay the thought any attention.

It made sense that the captured energies could be harnessed, and he wanted to see exactly how that worked. Reaching out with his senses, he forged a draw from the globe to the gem. If his instincts were right, breaking the gem would release the power, and the draw would feed it into the globe.

He dropped the gem on the ground in front of him but it didn’t break. Scooping it up, he flung it hard against a rock, and this time it shattered explosively. There was a kind of whooshing sound as power was drawn into the globe in a dark rush. The light swelled quickly to three times its previous size, and then beyond. He eagerly watched it grow four, five and then six times its original size, the light blazing like a beacon in the night. When it reached about ten times its usual size the growth slowed down and stopped. Ferast gloried in the strength of the gem. He could barely look at the blazing sphere of light. Realising he was barely within the trees, and the light must be visible for miles, he snapped his fingers, releasing the spell and letting the remaining energy dissipate into the air.

Instantly he was annoyed with himself. So what if anyone came to investigate the light? With his magic, he was more than a match for anyone. Shrugging off irritation at his moment of weakness, he turned his attention back to the shattered gem. He stepped over to it, picking up a shard between his thumb and forefinger. It was inanimate, empty of power. Taking care not to cut himself, he flicked it away and smiled, his mind whirring with the implications of his discovery. Did anyone else know about this? He thought briefly about Hephistole and the warrior mage, Voltan. His lip curled in distaste. If they did know, they
’d have some high-minded reason for not using the powers available to them. Well not him. Now he knew how to create these dark gems, it wouldn’t be long before he could face down the warrior mage with ease. He looked again at the fractured shards lying across the ground.

“Darkgems,” he muttered to himself. It resonated. Without even looking at the carcass of the horse, he turned and walked out of the forest.

…

Ferast sat in the corner of the tavern, sipping carefully on his watered wine. He hated everything about bars, from their sawdust floors that stank of piss and puke to their drunken, staggering clientele. But tonight he didn
’t mind being in the bar at all. He was filled with a tingling anticipation so exquisite that he barely noticed the irritations that would normally make him boil with anger. He was on the lookout for his first human subject. He thought back to the dissatisfaction of his first kill. The cat had died far too quickly. The spells had held perfectly, but in his excitement, he’d been a bit heavy with the knife and the cat had bled to death before he could heal it.

Since then, he
’d displayed what he considered to be admirable restraint, and prolonged his experiments with increasing success, exploring the limits of pain and mind control. During his last experiment he’d discovered the secret of making Darkgems, and it was that discovery that had finally convinced him to use a human subject. If killing a dumb beast released so much energy, what power might he be able to capture by killing a human?

Despite making that decision several days previously, some indefinable belief had kept him from acting it out. It was as if some hidden part of him was interfering with his plans, holding him back from greatness. It was telling him that there was no going back once he
’d taken this step, but he didn’t want to go back! He struggled to understand why that would be the case. He’d taken human life before, but perhaps there was still a distinction to be made. Poppy had deserved to die, but he was contemplating taking a stranger’s life, unprovoked, for the purposes of magical experimentation.

After wrestling with himself for several days, he
’d finally come to a compromise. He’d choose the most worthless, down-and-out specimen of humankind he could find; someone whose existence was so miserable it would be a mercy to take it from them. And so there he was, in the seediest, filthiest bar in the river-side town of Derolac. The town sat on the river Mercy, a deep trade channel leading ultimately to the Western Ocean, and like all river towns, it attracted a lot of human refuse. The docks were filthy and rat-infested, and the Sailor’s Fancy was just the kind of hole both human and four-legged vermin found appealing. Five minutes in the place had told Ferast all he needed to know, and he’d settled in to make his choice from among the deserving crowd.

After watching the seedy clientele for several hours, he
’d settled on two candidates: a grossly obese man slumped over his arm at the bar and a stinking vagrant near the door, who must have managed to beg or steal enough money for a beer. Either was a worthy choice, but he didn’t think he could stand the smell of the vagrant for more than a few minutes, and the fat man was a monument to ill-discipline. There were few things Ferast hated more than ill-discipline, and the man at the bar was not only fat but dead drunk too - two offences against decency in one go. Not only that, but his fleshy bulk reminded him of Emelda, a thought that would bring him much satisfaction as he carved him up. He took another tiny sip of his watered wine. The fat man it was then! He was about to stand up when the tavern door slammed open and two men staggered in, already very drunk.

He watched with glittering eyes as the taller man called out for ale. The two of them took a seat nearby. He was initially irritated by the interruption to his plans, but as he listened to the new arrivals
’ conversation, he decided to wait a bit and see if they were even more worthy candidates than the fat man, who didn’t look like he was going anywhere very fast anyway. The taller man was loudly boasting about things he’d almost certainly never done. He had the frame of an athletic man gone to seed, his once-handsome face masked by pouchy flesh and a double chin. He still had enough vanity to try and fit into his old clothes, but every button of his shirt strained over his belly, and though he carried a sword, its pommel was spotted with rust.

As he listened to the drunken man boast, and the smaller man fawningly agree with everything he said, Ferast realised who this man reminded him of: Everand. He sat up straight, filled with a sudden thirst for violence. There was no-one he hated as much as Everand. The privileged boy had only hung out with him for as long as he continued to agree with him, and flatter his already over-inflated ego. He had put up with it because it gave him a certain implied importance, and people had deferred to him most of the time, but he
’d always had to pretend to be less powerful than Everand, decreasing the potency of his spells in order to appear weaker than the popular boy. When Everand had realised that Ferast was in fact more powerful than him, he’d not liked it at all, and when the conflict with Gaspi happened, and Ferast’s manipulations had been revealed, Everand had dropped him like a bad egg.

Ever since, Ferast had
hated
him with a passion. Everand was the only person he’d ever considered a friend, and he’d betrayed him. This drunken fool was what Everand would be like in twenty years; still pompous, still self-important, and utterly pathetic. Ferast no longer had any doubt about who he would experiment on that night. He had his first human subject.

He sat and waited for hours, watching the tavern
’s patrons get steadily more drunk until they began to peel off in ones and twos as closing time came around, staggering back to whatever hovels they’d come from. He’d learned through listening to his chosen subject’s conversation that his name was Markus, and the smaller man was called Bevic. When they finally stood up to leave he followed them out of the door into the pouring rain. He used a basic force shield to repel the water; a trick he’d discovered pretty quickly when sleeping outdoors. Adding a second layer of spell-work, he made himself hard to see, just as he had when sneaking out of Helioport. Anyone who looked at him would find their eyes sliding off him, and they’d have to have a really good reason to focus on him to push past the compulsion.

The two drunks had pulled their coats over their heads and were splashing through the rain-soaked streets, complaining as they went. Ferast stalked quietly behind them, the knowledge of what was to come causing a heady rush of excitement. He felt powerful, deadly. Bevic took off down a side street before long, leaving Markus to weave his way through the puddles on his own. Ferast sped up, drawing up behind him as they walked past a large, empty warehouse. He looked around him, checking that no-one was about, and sent out a compulsion.

…

Markus shook his head in confusion. Why had he stopped? He couldn
’t figure it out. He’d just suddenly felt like he had to stop. He looked down at his legs.

“Now come on legshh,” he slurred. “Why did you shhtop?” He tried to lift his right foot but it was as if it were stuck to the ground. “Dammit,” he said, frowning. “Mushht be drunk.”

“You
are
drunk,” a sibilant voice whispered in his ear, causing him to jump. Or at least, he would have jumped if his feet weren’t glued to the floor. “I can sort that out for you,” the voice said from the darkness. Markus peered into the pouring rain, looking round for the speaker. He felt sure he should have been able to see the speaker. The lamp-lit streets were dim, but not
that
dim.

“Who ish it?” he said. “Show yourshelf!” Suddenly he felt a cool wave pass through his mind, and the fog of drunkenness passed in an instant. Inexplicably clear-headed, he felt a thrill of alarm. “What the heck?” he said shrilly, his heart pounding. “What’
s going on?” A figure appeared before him as if some kind of skin had peeled off him. It was just a boy, or maybe a young man. He was small and stick-thin, black hair hanging lankly round his sallow face. Markus was sure he’d seen him in the Sailor’s Mercy. He immediately lost his fear. He could snap this boy in half.

“Well done,” the figure said. “You saw through my compulsion. Pretty impressive really, for a man like you.”

Markus was filled with rage. “WHAT?” he spluttered. “It’s time for pain, boy” he said, reaching out to take hold of the insolent lad, but the boy held out a palm and he was suddenly unable to move his arms. In fact, he couldn’t move a single muscle from the neck down. Fear reached up and gripped him by the throat.
Magician!
he thought to himself.

“Please don’
t hurt me,” he heard himself say, his voice whiny and desperate. “I haven’t done anything to you.”

The magician smiled, his black eyes glittering with a feverish light.
“No, but you can do something
for
me,” he said. “It’s quite a privilege really. Now be quiet and follow,” he said, walking into the black spaces of the warehouse. Markus tried to shout, but found his mouth wouldn’t open. Unable to stop himself, he walked after the young magician, his heart beating so hard he thought it might stutter and fail. When he reached the far corner of the warehouse, the magician looked him up and down shrewdly.

“Well that won’
t do at all,” he said, flicking a single finger at him, and Markus felt his pounding heart slow down, subdued magically he supposed, though he still felt consumed by fear.

“
Yes that’s right,” the magician said. “I can keep your heart beat stable, and you can still feel fear. Clever isn’t it?” The conversational tone, more than anything else, let him know this boy was clearly insane, and unless he was very much mistaken, he was going to kill him.

In that moment, Markus felt terrible regret. He
’d been handsome once, and a good soldier. He’d had a chance at promotion, but he’d screwed it up. One drunken brawl too many had seen him discharged from service, and he’d spent the rest of his life working as a mercenary for trading caravans, spending all his money on whores and booze. He’d had a chance to settle down once too, but Julia had been far too good for him, and he’d ruined that too. Life had handed him opportunities and he’d squandered every single one of them, spending his years in a drunken fog.

“I can read your thoughts Markus,” Ferast said. “You think your life has been wasted, and you’
re right. You think I’m going to kill you, and you’re right. You’re going to die, right here in this warehouse. What do you think about that?”