TST (15 page)

He had no idea how much time had passed when he next awoke but his stomach told him that the time had been substantial. There was some soft bread and liver paste under a glass dome next to the water pitcher on his side table. Azerick managed to pour himself a cup of water and helped himself to the small repast. He felt stronger this time and was able to eat the simple fair without too much difficulty.

He looked up when he heard the door creak open as Delinda stepped into the room. “Oh, you’re up again. I’m sorry I was not here when you woke, I had to attend to my duties.”

“That’s all right. I just woke up a few minutes ago,” Azerick assured her.

“You seem much stronger today,” she observed as she sat on the bed next to him. “I’ll get you some warm food if you feel up to eating.”

“Definitely,” Azerick replied gratefully, his stomach agreed with a loud growl.

“I’ll be right back then,” Delinda told him with a soft laugh.

She came back a short while later with a large steaming bowl of stew, thick with vegetables and diced chunks of meat. She also carried a silver flask that Azerick recognized as the one that they used to store the healing potion.

“I think this is ready now. You can take it after you finish eating,” She told him.

Azerick felt his strength slowly returning as he devoured the bowl of stew. Once he wiped the bowl clean with a chunk of bread, Delinda unstoppered the flask and handed it to him. He took a short sniff of the pungent liquid before draining the contents in one long pull. He winced at the bitter taste and handed the empty flask back to Delinda. A warm heat spread through his body as the potion worked its way through his bloodstream. His wounds began to tingle and itch as the potion forced their rapid healing.

“How do you feel?” Delinda asked him.

“Like getting out of this bed,” he replied.

“You should not push yourself too soon,” she scolded him.

Azerick grinned at her mischievously. “Well if I can’t get out of bed maybe you should get in it,” he teased and grabbed her wrist, pulling her down to him.

“Azerick, stop it. You are recovering from nearly being killed,” she chided him but did not resist as he kissed her.

“That’s the big difference between nearly getting killed and getting killed.”

Delinda sprang from the bed with a gasp of surprise as the door suddenly swung open.

Leave us, girl,
Lord Xornan commanded.

Delinda skirted past her master warily with one last fearful glance back at her love as she fled the room.

You have recovered significantly from your grievous wounds I see.

Azerick did not respond to the statement.

That witless half-orc very nearly killed you. Do you realize how shameful it was for me to have to have your nearly lifeless carcass hauled out of that arena?

“I won. Isn’t that what is important? I win too easily it shames you. I win with great difficulty it shames you. The crowd surely enjoyed it so what is it I have to do exactly to please you?” Azerick replied caustically.

You were nearly beaten. You, a powerful sorcerer, were nearly beaten by a savage creature swinging a sword. Your weakness in that bout reflects poorly upon me. Your weakness in The Games is construed as my own failure in properly training you. I will not be humiliated like that again!

Azerick was surprised at the psyling’s vehemence. It was the first time he had ever heard his master raise his voice in anger. These thoughts were quickly lost as his whole world suddenly began to swirl and dissipate like a morning mist blown away by a powerful wind.

The mauve stone walls of Azerick’s room were suddenly replaced by warped wooden planks. The smell of smoke filled his nose and burned his eyes as he began coughing to clear his lungs of the contamination. He turned his head at the sound of a child crying. He saw Maggy in the corner holding little Beth in her arms as flames climbed up the tinder-dry walls. He looked around the room and saw Jon and the others sitting forlornly near the center of the room.

“Jon, we have to get out of here!” Azerick shouted.

“It won’t do no good, boy, we’re already dead,” he replied and shook his head morosely.

Azerick ran across the room and slammed into the door with his shoulder but it would not open. Something was blocking the door shut. His shirtsleeve suddenly caught fire and he slapped it out with his hand. He heard Beth wail louder and turned to see that her dress had caught fire and was burning her small legs. Azerick ran over and tried to smother the flames but they continued to spread and ignited his own shirt.

“No!” he shouted as he felt the searing heat burn his arms, raise blisters, and char his flesh.

The flames suddenly disappeared and the room shifted once again. He saw that he now stood in his old room that he once shared with his mother at the inn. As he turned and looked around, he saw a large man looming behind his mother. Azerick tried to scream a warning but his voice came out as nothing more than a weak croak.

Azerick charged forward and grappled with the big sailor as he tried to grab his mother. Harlow was considerably larger and stronger than the young Azerick and easily pinned the boy beneath his bulk. His breath reeked of alcohol and his large hand wrapped around Azerick’s throat. In his other hand was a wickedly sharp, curved knife that Azerick fought to keep away from him.

He drove a thumb into Harlow’s eye. The big sailor reeled back with a roar of pain, releasing his grip on Azerick’s throat. Azerick grabbed the hand that held the knife and twisted it around until he heard bone snap. Harlow dropped the blade with another bellow of agony. Azerick scooped up the fallen blade and stabbed the drunken sailor in the stomach causing him to fall backwards off him.

Azerick rolled to his feet and sprang on top of Harlow squeezing his eyes shut in rage and plunging the knife into him repeatedly while he shouted a wordless feral scream. Azerick opened his eyes when the body under him stopped fighting and shouting. He looked down in horror as the face of his mother looked up at him in anguish and then anger.

“You killed me, Azerick. Why did you kill me?” his mother wailed.

He spun towards the source of another voice that sounded from behind him. Azerick recoiled as he looked at the pale, dead face of his father. His throat was cut and old dried blood covered his neck and chest.

“I am disappointed in you, Azerick. You were supposed to be the man of the house while I was gone. You were supposed to protect your mother but you let her get murdered,” his father accused.

“I tried, father! I tried to protect her and take care of her I swear I did! I was just a boy, father,” Azerick cried.

“And what about now?” the shade of his father demanded. “You sat in that school like some highborn prince. Why have you not avenged me? Do I mean nothing to you now? Now that you think you are some powerful sorcerer your family no longer matters to you?”

“I have not forgotten you! Who killed you father? Who killed you?” Azerick screamed.

The ghosts of his parents stalked towards him, reaching with desiccated claw-like fingers. “You did,” they chanted in unison. “You did. You did. You did. You did. You did.”

His room spun back into view, his throat was raw from screaming, and his body was soaked in cold sweat. Lord Xornan stood at the foot of his bed staring at him with his arms tucked in his voluminous silk sleeves.

You see how I can punish you when you fail me. If you fail me again, your punishment will be far more severe. I will hurt you in ways that you cannot imagine.

“I fought as best I could and I did win. Does that not count for something?” Azerick asked in a whisper, not trusting his voice not to crack if he spoke louder.

Fortunately, you were victorious no matter how hollow that victory was for me. Because of the severity of the wounds you took, others criticized me for being an ineffectual master. Perhaps there is some truth to their accusations. I have made an error in not taking a more direct role in your training.

Azerick shuddered as he listened to the psyling admonishing himself. Not because he thought that Xornan actually felt any responsibility, but because such self-recrimination could only mean something unpleasant was in store for him.

These last several days I have researched ways in which I may speed your learning and I am confident that I have discovered a method that has a nearly equal chance of being successful.

“A nearly equal chance of being successful or what?” Azerick asked.

Of destroying your mind of course. It is a rash action but a necessary one in my view. Fortunately, my view is the only one that matters.

In a blink, Lord Xornan crossed the few feet separating him from his slave and clasped a cold, long-fingered hand over the top of Azerick’s head. The convalescent sorcerer tried to pull away but was unable to move a single muscle. He moaned loudly, unable to even scream. It felt as though the psyling’s very fingers were piercing his skull and digging into his brain.

Strange lights and images whirled through his mind of such that he could barely make sense of them. Sigils and arcane runes burned in his vision like the floating spots the sun left when you stared into it too long. Strange words of power echoed deafeningly in his head like temple bells. Azerick had no idea how long it lasted but it seemed an eternity.

The sights, sounds, and at least some of the pain left as quickly as it had come. Total blackness replaced the chaotic images and sounds. He was certain that he had not slipped into unconsciousness, at least not like any form of slumber or trauma-inflicted unconsciousness he had ever experienced before. His body floated in an ethereal oblivion but he was aware. He could think but he could not feel, hear, or see anything.

Where was he? Was he still on his bed in his room? Was his mind shattered? Did his body live on as a mindless shell? Would he exist until he starved to death, or would his consciousness live on in this endless void even then; floating through this nothingness for all eternity? All of these questions ran through his mind.

Azerick found that by concentrating he could move his body. At least he thought he was moving. There was no sense of movement since there was no object on which he could orient himself by which to judge his movement.

As he slowly turned, he thought he spied a thin line in the distance that was slightly brighter than the blackness around him. Azerick blinked, unsure if he really saw anything at all. He slowly turned his head from left to right and picked up the line in the very periphery of his vision. He imagined himself moving towards it at an oblique angle so that he would not lose sight of it again. As he drew nearer, the line grew brighter so that he could now look at it straight on without losing it.

Azerick stared at the jagged line that hung in the empty void in confusion, unsure of what it was. It looked like a hair-thin crack in fine crystal, if crystal were made of perfect blackness and had no substance. He pondered this enigma for an indeterminate amount of time. Time simply had no meaning here, wherever here was. Azerick concentrated and circled around it. He felt a sudden sense of unease, almost panic, when the mystical fissure disappeared. He felt a sense of relief when it reappeared as he came full circle and floated before it once again.

It appeared that whatever it was existed only in two dimensions like magus Allister’s gate spell. On a whim, he pressed his eye against the faint line wondering if he could see anything beyond it. Through the fracture, he could see Delinda weeping over his prostrate form lying on the bed. His view shifted and he could see himself lying on his bed through her eyes. Azerick saw a golden aura limning his body.

He was certain that Delinda could not see this aura but did not know how he knew. He looked at his own floating body within the void and saw that it was limned in a sickly green instead of gold. Azerick looked back through the fissure and studied Delinda. She too was outlined in the same sickly green aura that he had in this place.