Sorcerer Rising (A Virgil McDane Novel) (24 page)

“Wasn’t really something I intended,” I replied, making a show of studying the mouth of the cave and ignoring him. Whatever I could to keep the fear out of my voice. The purple eyes watched me, cruel and laughing.

“Was that your doing out here?” I asked, tilting my head back.

He laughed, a deep rasping sound like ripping meat. It wasn’t as bad as the spiders, but it set me on edge.
Of course, Sorcerer, of course.

“And why would you be going to any e
ffort to save my skin?”

A coincidence, I assure you. We and the Nidians have discussed our arrangement several times. They know what
is mine and what is theirs. Yet they keep pushing into my territory. They are pests. Foolish pests. Why do you come to my lair, Sorcerer?             

“I came for your help,” I said simply.

My help?
he whispered. I had his interest now.
Why should I help you, lordling?

“Much has changed in the last few years,” I replied. “Things are not as they were.”

Much has changed since last we met
, he agreed.
I cannot deny that it is not to my preference.

“Don’t thank me
. It wasn’t my doing.”

He edged closer, his eyes widening.
Do not lie to me, Sorcerer. It was all your doing.
He laughed, a slow guttural sound that echoed up the tunnel in slow, undulating waves.
You did not answer me, Sorcerer. What claim do you have to me?

“Simple. I die, you die. I’m doing something. I need the power you could bring to the table.”

And what makes you think I want anything to do with this table?
Of anything you do?

“Hard to rule a land after it’s been destroyed
.”

This world has already seen one Armageddon
. I have reveled in it. What makes you think I would shy from another?

“There’s a difference between a decimated land and a land being blinked out. You would not survive my death.”

So you say
, he said slowly, his tone indicating his disbelief.
And what exactly could I do to help you?

“I propose a partnership of sorts
. Between your holding and mine.”

Why?

“Ally with me now, and I will not be a problem later on.”

You are not what you once were
.
And I am so much more. I am weary of thee, Sorcerer. Give me a reason I should not destroy you right here and claim this world as my own.

“Because I am this world, serpent. Because killing me would mean the end of your sad little existence.”

That wasn’t entirely true, but he didn’t need to know that.

So you say
,
but this is your word only. I have seen nothing to indicate my total rule of this land is beyond my abilities. Especially with the current way the scales are balanced. Would you not agree, Sorcerer?

“No, I would not,” I replied, giving him a long hard look down the tunnel. “If you try to make a move on me, I will see this land destroyed. I will see it shattered, its pieces thrown off the
edge, and the ash will be the least of anyone’s problems.”

I doubt your resolve, Sorcerer
, he said, inching slowly up the tunnel.
You would not see this world destroyed, would not have the ferocity to do so.

I did not move, did not speak, a slow smile spreading across my face. Red crept into the edges of my vision and the scene before me was replaced by one of destruction and fire. “Then try your best,
serpent. But know this, it wasn’t the Brand that shattered my keep. It wasn’t the Brand that brought the Nidians or cursed my woods. It wasn’t the Brand that blighted the land and turned the sky to ash. It was I and this world is but a fraction of the state I left Nidia in. Remember that, serpent, and consider whether or not you want to be on the opposite side.”

He slid back down the tunnel, but the humor did not leave his unblinking eyes.
That is more like it, Sorcerer,
he said, that deep rasping laugh playing up the tunnel.
You have earned my blessing. Do not waste it.

I took a deep breath, watching him recede back into his lair. I flexed my hand, feeling the web, stronger than ever, as it played across my hand. The veins had faded, not entirely, but enough to be noticed.

I turned around and went back to Al and Tiffany.

The walk back to the keep was exhausting and uneventful. We took the long way.

“Good job, Wizard,” Al said over his shoulder as he headed toward his shack. “Good to see you people can work well under pressure without throwing your friends to the wolves.”

Then he slammed the shack door.

“You’ll have to forgive him,” I said, shaking my head. “He took it harder than I did.”

She looked around, at my darkened sky, my battered keep. “You seemed to take it pretty hard yourself.”

“Well, that’s what happens when you get thrown to the wolves,” I said. “You get torn apart.”

“Is that really how it happened?”

“Come with me,” I replied. “I’ll show you.”
             

I led Tiffany into my keep, down its dark hallways, it uneven stairways, until I faced the west wing.

The ceiling was high here, so tall that the light didn’t reach the top. The doors were just as tall, fine oak inscribed with a litany of runes and glyphs I didn’t remember. Two knights, one silver, the other black, stood on each side of the doors. They ignored us.

“It took me nearly a year to figure out what this hall was,” I said quietly.

“It’s your Guild Hall,” Tiffany said.

“Yes,” I said, nodding. “You said you’d never been to Nidia. In its heyday we had a regular operation there. After the war with Ander we needed to refill the coffers. Production went up tenfold. We were sending more and more people, delving deeper and deeper into the monarchy’s land. We went in, gathered as much silk as we could, and got out. Any day we got out without seeing a spider was a good one.”

I looked at her, stared into her eyes. They were still pretty, wide and illuminated by the candlelight.

“Nidians don’t kill you,” I said. “They capture you and drink you, like vampires but worse. They have a particular taste for mage blood. The power in our blood fuels their magic, makes them more than they would be otherwise.” I sighed. “I went after my people because…because it was the right thing to do.” My eyes were blurring. “We didn’t know how bad it was though. Not really. Mages are a vintage to them, one that gets better with age.”

“Oh, God,” Tiffany whispered.

I nodded. “There were Wizards and Sorcerers, even a few Witches. They’d been kept in cocoons for…for years. Living husks, sucked dry but kept alive.

“The Guild knew, but they wouldn’t talk about it. It was just the cost of doing business. They told me to return, to…to leave them. Even before what I did, Nidian silk went for a couple hundred bucks a bundle. I was not to interfere with anything that would hinder production. We’d been trying to strike a deal with the Queen, with any monarchy that would have us, for hundreds of years but nothing ever stuck. War was thrown around but anything that resulted in a loss of population for the Nidians would hinder production. It was a cash cow. I knew…I knew as long as there was something of value they’d never stop.

“Nidia was ruled by the Widow Queen. She has a name but we’ve never heard it. Her magic
is powerful, a web that extends through space and time throughout her entire kingdom.” I paused. I could see her throne room like it was yesterday. “Everyone asks me how I did it. How’d I curse the whole world? I wouldn’t have been able to do it without her web. I burned it, cursed it with fire. It touched everything. It was nothing to make it spread to the other webs, to every web.”

“That’s how I earned my B
rand,” I said.

I pressed my shoulder against the door and shoved. There was a groan, a dull, painful grinding of metal, of wood sliding over dusty floors, a throbbing pain that pressed down along my brow and grew until it held my entire skull in its cold, tight grip.

“And this is what it did,” I said, bracing myself against the pressure in my skull.

The room was a large oval with a pedestal set in the center. Torches lined the walls but they were unlit, casting the room in a gloomy haze. Dozens of doorways lined the walls, each with a symbol over the archway. The ground was slanted and pieces of masonry littered the floor.

Each doorway was empty, a pit of black, inky nothingness. They stared out like open wounds. Just glancing at them hurt. On the other side of the room was the largest arch, a compass carved over its arch. It was the worst. Black, poisonous fog drifted in from its threshold and ugly, black scorch marks had scored the glassy stone.

I walked to the pedestal. A small silver display case sat atop it. I lifted the dusty glass door and picked up a heavy key ring with dozens of keys. I flipped through them. The first was shaped like a simple door key with square teeth and was made of loose soil compacted into shape. The next was a simple beam of light. After that was a swirling, amorphous sliver of mist. There was a gold rectangle, a crystal rod, an elegantly curved key made entirely of water, a similar one made of quicksilver, another that was a blade of obsidian.

I spun the keys on my finger, waving my hand around. “This was their punishment, Tiffany. Everything they taught me, everything that made me a Wizard. Years of my life. Your people took it all. Their lessons, their techniques, their secrets. Everything.”

I faced her. “They pried it from my mind, Tiffany. Everything out there,” I pointed outside, “that’s their fault. They violated me, ripped chunks out my mind and soul, because I went back for my people. Because I saw a hundred men and women being tapped like kegs, their blood bottled and sold to royalty, and I stopped it!”

I was mad now, screaming. Red flowed into the edge of my vision. “This is how the Guild fires its people, Wizard! As soon as your balance sheet is red, they cut you loose and they make sure you’re of no value to anyone else when they do!”

She wasn’t looking at me, but at the doors. Tears flowed down cheeks but her face was hard. “They only did part of this,” she said quietly.

I almost lost it then. “I know what they did!” I roared at her.

Now she faced me, the full power of her eyes on me. I don’t know if it was magic or just her, but it stopped me dead. “No!” she said forcefully. “You only think that!”

She grabbed the keys from my hands. “They took this away!” She pointed outside, the same direction I had. “All that though, that’s you!”

I was shaking. “How dare you.”

“I’ve treated people after all kinds of traumas,” she said. “The Brand, culling, and any number of other types of minds run away with themselves. You have to accept this, Virgil. Move past it.”

I shook my head. “You’re just like the rest of them,” I said. “I can’t trust any of you. You’d do anything to keep whatever was in these rooms a secret.”

“That’s not what it’s about,” she said, her eyes pleading. “I want to help you.” She placed the keys gently in my hands, her body close to mine. “Let me help you.”

“Will you tell me what was in these rooms?” I asked.

She stiffened. “No,” she said quietly.

I drew away from her. “Why?” I asked, my voice rough.

“You are not in the frame of mind to have that power,” she said. “You wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

“Typical,” I spat. “Someone doesn’t fit into your tidy little box, and that means they can’t handle the responsibility of their vast reservoir of knowledge. Did you ever consider that there are more people who avoid the Guild than are turned away?”

“If you can be part of the Guild,” Tiffany said, “You should be.”

“That sounds just like them,” I said. “Your own father was a Sorcerer. So was my granddaddy. People like my grandfather, your father, they took that insult and made it their own because they knew if they signed on with the Guild then they’d be marching into clouds all over the world, having their lives, their talent, decided by spreadsheets and ledger books.”

“Says the smuggler,” she replied. “My daddy spent his entire life trying to be a Wizard and cursing them for not accepting him. He was a lazy drunkard and he wanted the money more than anything else. He didn’t accept our rules because he couldn’t meet our standards. He complained that they wouldn’t give him a chance, that they were driving him out of business, but he was never willing to better himself to make it happen. To earn the right to do so.”

“The work I put in. I earned this and I’ve done a great deal with it.” Then she grabbed me by the forehead and pushed.

I fell back onto my cot. For a moment, I just lay there, trying to ignore the feeling of vertigo waking up and brought. I sat up slowly. Tiffany was in front of me, frowning.

“I helped you, Sorcerer,” she said, not unkindly, but without gentleness. “Don’t disappoint me.”

“You did at that,” I said, sliding the ring onto my thumb. “And I thank you.”