Vicious Magick (5 page)

After emerging from the underground passage,
Zanther, Madra, and Novanostrum spend what seems like hours
aimlessly winding their way down the river. The gravity of the
situation is starting to hit Madra.

“My…kingdom. It’s gone.”

“You’re overreacting,” Novanostrum says, “the
bard isn’t interested in you or your kingdom, he just wants that
damn map. So you go back in a few days and hire a few new henchmen
and bury a few bodies, it’s not the end of the world.”

“What map?”

In the light of the morning sun, Zanther is
inspecting the map in question, running his fingers over the
cryptic runes and trying to understand the landmarks denoted on the
worn and tattered paper.

“I was wondering the same thing, myself,”
Zanther says, “hey Nove, what exactly do you know about this ‘Nexus
Sketch’ and that crazy lutist back there?”

“The bard’s name is Varello. The Crucifers
hired him to find your map, acquire the Nexus Sketch, and destroy
it. They probably hired those Darrinian mercenaries as well.”

“Why would the Crucifers go to such lengths
just to destroy a piece of artwork?” Madra asks.

“It’s not just a ‘piece of artwork,’ it’s
supposedly the most important object in the world.”

“Yeah, well, we’re not going to get very far
unless we can read the damn thing, which we can’t,” Zanther
says.

“The Universitorium isn’t too terribly far
from here,” Novanostrum says, “maybe we should go there and ask
around a bit.”

Kragnar is a dragon. He lives in a (now)
uninhabited swath of land somewhere between Claustria and one of
the tiny kingdoms bordering it. He’s doing what he always does,
which is to find a pond large enough to accommodate his dragonic
girth and blow fire at it until it’s hot enough to be a nice
jacuzzi.

Sitting in his heated tub, he snacks on the
dead, boiled fish floating on top of the water, spitting the heads
in a pile on the bank.

Halfway through his seventh fish, his ears
perk up at the sound of human chatter carried far by the nearby
river. Humans on a boat. He slinks to the water’s edge and
submerses his massive, steaming, scaly body, waiting for their
approach.

The Crucifers

When men first realized that running around
hunting beasts with pointy sticks was more work than building
little huts around fields and letting their food grow itself, they
began to have a lot more free time. With this free time, they
didn’t have to focus so much on survival, and they started to get
anxious, to worry about things. Things like death and famine.
Crafty old men realized that instead of working, they could receive
food and services as payment for advice on these matters. Over
time, these elders formulated a system, and made sporadic visits to
convene in a central location to keep this system consistent. This
system evolved into the religion of Crucifisim.

The basis of Crucifism is this: a long time
ago, there was a man, born with all the evil of the world in his
soul. His father was Death, one of the Two True Gods. He wasn’t a
particularly bad guy, but when he learned that he was full of evil,
he killed himself in an attempt to rid the world of evil. His plan
backfired, because the evil simply diffused itself among the people
of the world, randomly appearing in certain individuals. In order
to appease the Two True Gods and prevent famines and plagues, the
Crucifers seek out these individuals and impale them on iron poles
crossed in an x-shape. This process is called ‘expaling’.

It should also be mentioned here that they
take donations, and that individuals suspected of possessing evil
souls can convince the Church of their purity with a generous
donation.

“I’m just saying, Claustrian women are all a
bunch of f--” Zanther says before he’s cut off by the appearance of
a giant fricking dragon popping out of the water and slamming the
boat with his anacondeseque tail, sending the three of them flying
in different directions.

Zanther and Novanostrum land on the
riverbank, the green, lush grass breaking their fall.

They look up to see Madra in the grasp of the
dragon.

“Well,
heroes
, what are you waiting
for? SAVE ME!” she yells.

They look at each other.

“You heard her, Nove, save her. Do some of
that wizard junk you do.”

“Fine. But you’ve got to help. I need you to
run up and decapitate that dragon. I’ll make it easy for you, make
it so you can run across the water.”

The sky turns black, and the grass and water
turn various shades of gray and white. Zanther draws his longknife,
his footfalls pattering on the surface of the solidified water. The
wind has slowed, the birds overhead are stalled in mid-flight, and
Zanther springs toward the dragon.

Kragnar swats at the jumping human, jarring
its longknife loose and sending him flying into a tree. He grabs
the longknife and flicks it at Novanostrum, missing, but not by
much. The wizard is shocked.

“It…didn’t work?”

“Yeah, no shit,” Madra says.

“Enough!” Kragnar bellows, shocking time back
into its normal flow, “I’m not going to kill you two, malice isn’t
in my nature. I am going to eat the virgin, though. Hunger, you
see,
is
in my nature.”

“I’m good with that,” Zanther grumbles from
the tree.

Madra pulls her shoe off and launches it at
the dragon’s eye, he drops her, and she swims between his legs. A
second later, the dragon shrieks out in debilitating pain, sending
a plume of fire about a hundred yards into the air. Madra climbs
out of the river and starts wringing out her clothes.

“What’d you do that for, woman?” the dragon
bellows.

“Dragon! These are Claustrian lands over
which I am queen. I don’t require a lot from my dragon subjects,
you don’t have to pay taxes or the moonthly deference, but I do ask
that you not lunch on my royal person. However, you are free to eat
that one,” she says, pointing at Zanther.

“Bleccch. No thanks, I don’t eat
men
.
Well, your highness, I’m sorry I smashed your boat.”

“It’s okay, dragon. There IS something you
can do to make it up to me.”

Zanther whispers in Novanostrum’s ear, “Did
you hear what that dragon called her? Heh.
As if.
”

Arithmancers

If you asked any random person in Upper
Kleighton which type of person they hated most, you’d have a 90
percent chance if getting the answer ‘arithmancer’. Arithamancers
make their living doing something even the most brazen prostitute
wouldn’t dream of: manipulating figures. While most everybody knows
enough maths to keep track of money, these arithmancers have the
nerve to embrace maths, to play with theoretical and imaginary
numbers; it’s enough to make any decent person shudder.

They sit locked up in their rooms, scribbling
figures on paper, on walls, on slates, something normal folks refer
to as ‘mathsturbation’. The most learned persons suspect there is
some utility to maths, but the problem is that as of yet nobody’s
really been able to find it. Using geometry to construct a building
is one thing; using maths to try and calculate the sum total of all
magickal energy in existence is quite another.