Chapter Ten
The guild master’s chair, hewn from a single piece of black obsidian, resembled a throne far more than it did a simple council master’s high seat. Adorned at the base by a smattering of rare gems and capped at the top by a pair of golden ravens, the throne bespoke well the power and authority entrusted to the master of the guild. Regecon looked hard and long on the symbol of his newly acquired might. With his right hand he reached out to touch the fangs of the serpentine head that formed the armrest of the chair; his hand slid across the polished black obsidian as smoothly as silk.
This throne is now my seat, he thought. Smiling uncertainly to himself, he took the final step and sat down. He had realized of late that he harbored a surprising level of ambivalence toward his newly acquired power. He had never expected to have the guild chair thrust upon him like this. Arcalian had always looked promisingly like a dependable and long-lived master, but when he disappeared, someone had to take control. Regecon had already spent eight years serving on the council, so when the rest of the council appointed him guild master, it seemed like a natural and obvious next step. However, he found it unsettling how much power he had risen to—the power to command a guild of wizards, without a doubt the most potent force within leagues of Drisdak. Respected and feared by both nobles and peasants, one could find it easy to lose oneself in such power. He wondered briefly how Arcalian and Talamarius and all their predecessors had felt when they first sat upon this black chair. He remembered his first days at the guild, staring in awe at Talamarius as the mage reviewed the latest additions to his halls. Regecon had stood tall and proud as the mage eyed him, daring not to show even the slightest trace of fear. Four others had been accepted with him: Toreg, two men who had since left, and a woman, named Samarina, now dead. The toils of wizardry had proven too grueling for her and she had died in her final test. Regecon shuddered in remembrance, still wondering after all these years why Talamarius allowed her admittance in the first place. She had showed promise at first, but even Regecon, a mere apprentice in the guild’s eyes, had seen her growing weakness. He remembered the announcement of her death and the impassive manner in which Talamarius had accepted the news. He had thought the man cold then, and perhaps he still did. But his years at the guild had witnessed many other deaths in the struggles of wizardry and he could almost understand how a man could grow accustomed to tragedy.
May that never be my fate, he thought. Every student who dies under me, I shall remember to my final days ... like Theracon. He thought back to his own student, the first and only of his apprentices to ever fail. His death had been horrid, his body consumed by the very fire guardian of which he had lost control. Many a long night since, Regecon had spent in pitiless self-examination, wondering if he could have done something to prevent the tragedy. Perhaps he could have prepared the young mage more or discovered his weakness sooner. Expulsion from the guild seemed a small price to pay if it would have saved the young man’s life. He had long ago given up the consideration of making the tests easier, safer. Compassion was not a virtue a mage could afford when it came time to pass on the teachings of his art. He thought of his struggles with Arcalian’s blaze just nights before, wondering what would have happened if he had given in to the strain. He shuddered at the thought. Enormous amounts of energy had been poured into that blaze, energy that would have fed its fury if left unguided. If Regecon had fallen, the guild above him would be gone, perhaps all of Drisdak as well. One man’s life for a city: it seemed a small price to pay, but certainly not an easy one.
For quite some time, he sat contemplating that final thought; then, he returned his attention to his surroundings. He sat alone in The Hall of Audience, a chamber set aside for conferences with nobles and other assemblies. It measured nearly twice as long in length as breadth and provided a humbling walk for all who sought a wizard’s wisdom. Massive double doors, wrought from purest iron, guarded its entrance. Row upon row of ornate chairs and decorative benches lined its length. The council’s dais, the very dais upon which Regecon now sat, lay at the end of the walk. It rose four feet above the floor, its many steps carved with runes and sigils along their length, and sprinkled with a plethora of rare stones. The black chair of the guild master stood at the top of the dais flanked on either side by chairs carved from oak: three on its right, and two on its left. A pair of massive gargoyles rose behind the arrangement, grotesque beasts with laughing maniacal grins. Each one bore a pair of hands armed with jagged claws—one hand spread out in greeting to the audience of the hall, the other resting lightly above a silver door lurking at its side.
At the far end of the hall, the great iron doors opened and Jacindra marched in, leading the latest recruits for the guild. The small procession marched down the center of the hall, then stopped a short distance from the dais. Regecon counted three men and four women, all dressed in the pure white robes of the novice.
“Guild Master Regecon,” Jacindra said kneeling before the throne and bowing her head in respect. In unison, the men and woman behind her dropped to one knee and bowed their heads.
“You may rise, Jacindra,” Regecon said, straightening in his chair, “and present your case.” A strange feeling swept over Regecon as he looked out over the small number of kneeling bodies. He had seen men kneel before nobility many times in his father’s court, but he had never been the recipient of such respect. His elder brother had, as heir to the estate, but the second son of a Duke, although respected, held no title in Brenlath. Now, here he was, in charge of a guild of magic with power to match, perhaps even surpass that of the very same brother. He did not know if he reveled in such a fact, but he could not resist just a hint of self pride as Jacindra spoke.
“Guild Master Regecon,” she said in that regal air of hers, “I present to you the most recent applicants to your guild. All have been chosen according to the edicts of the black chair. Each one has paid the necessary fees and now humbly asks for your permission to study within these halls.”
Regecon looked at the men and women, studying their faces in detail, trying to memorize each and every feature. For a moment, he felt a flicker of doubt. Which one of these men and women would die in their toils? One was sure to fail, perhaps even two, and in his heart he felt responsible for the impending doom. Freedom, every man’s dream, every man’s nightmare. Aristoceles had taught him that, but he had never understood until now. Free to walk away and reject them all to save a life or free to bring them in and accept a death to mar his soul. Regecon was slow in answering the sorceress of the air, but finally he spoke, “You are certain they are all prepared?”
“I am,” she said firmly.
Regecon rose on the dais, towering above all present. “Then let it be known that all those who kneel before me now, shall henceforth be under my care. Apprentices of magic you shall be, servants of raven, snake, and staff. Let them come forward and swear their allegiance to this guild to bind their hearts and souls to magic. Come, show your conviction.” Regecon extended his hand.
The first man rose and walked purposefully toward the guild master. He bowed respectfully as the fire mage placed his hand on his head, then began to speak. “I swear my allegiance to this guild and my fealty to you, Guild Master Regecon. It is with utmost humility that I ask for your acceptance to study in these Halls.” The young man kneeled before Regecon and kissed the hem of his robe, then retreated to let another follow suit. The six remaining men and women each followed in turn. At last the final one retreated before Regecon and the seven men and women knelt before him in a row.
“Go now and uphold your pledge,” Regecon said. “The art of magic shall be taught to you and in its service shall your lives spring anew. You are apprentices now, servants of this guild.”
With that the seven students rose and Jacindra motioned them from the room. After they had left, Jacindra turned to face the guild master. “You handle yourself well on that throne. I truly think it suits you.”
“Thank you, sorceress,” Regecon replied,
then added, “I tried to look imposing.”
“I think you succeeded,” she answered with an amused smile. “They’ll probably hold you in awe for weeks.”
She was exaggerating, but not by much. Regecon remembered his first month at the guild when he had walked on eggshells whenever Talamarius appeared. The man had been quite intimidating in those early days. He smiled. “‘A little respect is good for the soul.’”
“Aristoceles used to say that, didn’t he?” Jacindra asked.
“Yes, he did. It's a good way to remember him, don't you think?” he said. Just then, one of the silver doors opened and Mathagarr strode in, followed shortly by Coragan, Borak, and lastly Galladrin.
“Greetings, my friends,” Regecon said, “Mathagarr ... why are you still up?”
The guardsman yawned before speaking, “I was just finishing my meal when Coragan found me. He was looking for you and I knew where you were. Having delivered them, I believe I shall retire. With your leave, of course.”
“Please, Mathagarr, get some sleep or you’ll wear yourself out,” Jacindra said.
“Yes,” Regecon agreed, “do as the sorceress says.”
“Thank you, sir, ma’am.” The guardsman’s chain armor clanked audibly as he strode from the room. Regecon watched the man leave, then turned to face the three others. They provided a strangely comforting sight: three men with the hardened looks of true survivors in their eyes, chiseled by the harshness of the world in which they lived—a harshness uniquely different from the toils of magic, but a harshness all the same. Borak stood in the rear, yet he seemed to tower with prominence above all present. He stood with feet planted wide apart and thick arms folded across his chest. The animal skins he wore seemed tight, nearly bursting from their efforts to contain him. Both Coragan and Galladrin looked somewhat flushed, as if from exertion. Each had a steely look in his eyes, and possessed an air of constant vigilance. Coragan was dressed in somber hues of grey and black, while Galladrin wore the expensive clothes of the night before—a blue shirt with a dragon of gold, and a blue cloak of a slightly darker shade.
“What is it you wish of me?” Regecon asked.
“First,” Coragan began, “I wanted to tell you we completed our cataloguing of the wreckage last night. We’ll go over the lists again this evening, but at the moment nothing else of note sticks out. Second, I wanted you to tell me all you can of Arcalian. If you want me to find him, I’ll have to know everything ... his habits, his women, his ...”
Jacindra let out a small chuckle, much to Coragan’s chagrin.
“Arcalian had no women,” Regecon said with a slight smile. “None of us do. That is not our way.”
“Even if it weren’t,” Jacindra added, “Arcalian was rather old. Not decrepit mind you, but I dare say that particular fire may very well have been out.”
Regecon nodded. “Yes, there is that as well.”
“Oh,” Coragan said, a little taken aback, “I should have remembered that ... er, both those things.”
“You poor souls.” Galladrin shook his head sadly, then cast his glance to the wall as Regecon raised his eyebrows at him.
“Life is filled with many choices, my friend ... and Magic can afford no distractions.”
“Anyway,” Coragan said. He had recovered from his moment of embarrassment rather quickly, and diligently pressed on. “I need to know his habits, any haunts he might have frequented, his family ... anything of that nature.”
“He had no family,” Regecon said, and Jacindra nodded in agreement. “Nor did he have any ‘haunts’ in town, if that is what you mean. He rarely left the guild except on matters of duty. Within the last two months he may have visited the town magistrate twice, that’s about it.”
“You are forgetting Alvaron, Guild Master,” Jacindra said.
“Ah, yes ... I had forgotten,” Regecon said, “Arcalian made a trip to Alvaron about a month ago, to clear up some matters with their guild. It did not go well and he returned in a rather foul mood.”
“You really aren’t giving me very much,” Coragan said. “This Alvaron may be a lead, but ... are you sure there is nothing else?”
“He did extensive work with herbs,” Jacindra offered. “He spent several days each month scouring the local countryside, looking for various rarities.”
“Herbs?” Galladrin asked. “Would that include rose petals and garlic?”
“Yes, I suppose he could have picked those up on one of his expeditions,” Jacindra answered, “but he could have just as easily acquired them at the local market. They are not all together too difficult to come by.”
“Is there anything else?” Coragan asked.
Regecon thought a moment more, but to no avail. Arcalian, like many mages, had been a reclusive character, not so much that he neglected his duties, but there were definitely times when one might call him secretive. “There is nothing.”
Galladrin turned to address Coragan, his blue cloak rustling. “What do you think? Rose petals or Alvaron?”
“I seem to recall seeing a map in those papers Borak found in that desk,” Coragan replied. “If it is of this area he may have used it in his search for herbs.”
Galladrin grimaced, his mouth crinkling into a wry frown. “Somehow I don’t think our friend decided to go out for herbs in the middle of the night and torch his study just for laughs. What do you propose we do, go out and scour all the land around Drisdak? That would be a little time consuming, in my opinion.”
“You're right. As it is, we have already let several days go by,” Coragan answered, “but I think we should still check those papers out. There may be some indication—”
A voice broke in from behind them. “Excuse me, Guild Master, Sorceress, gentlemen.” Five heads turned to bear down on a small shriveled man dressed in pale silver robes. The man quickly reddened and shrank back from the deluge of sudden attention. He stood there fidgeting a moment, apparently trying to gather himself to speak.
“What is it, Porthion?” Regecon asked. The little man appeared to relax at the sound of Regecon’s voice. Clearing his throat the wrinkled figure spoke.
“There was just something I’d like to inform you of,” Porthion said, then remained silent.
“Well?” Regecon asked with a hint of impatience.
Clearing his throat one more time, the little man continued, “I’m missing several books. I think they were lost in the fire.”
“Really?” Jacindra asked.
“Yes, sorceress,” the little man said, fidgeting and looking down at his feet. “I checked my ledgers and the last person to take them from the library was Arcalian. No one reported finding them after the fire and I just finished an extensive search. They are nowhere to be found.”
“Will they be difficult to replace?” Regecon grew concerned. Depending on the work, Regecon knew some books could be extremely difficult to come by. If truly rare, some might even cost in the hundreds of dragons to acquire—especially if he were forced to deal with Alvaron to obtain them. Although the guild in Alvaron made a point of having two separate libraries—one as a reserve—with a small army of scribes on hand to diligently copy needed texts, they had long been a less than sympathetic rival. Dealing with them would be rather costly. “Do you know which ones they are?”
“Yes, I mean, no ... that is, they won’t be too difficult to replace and I do know which ones they are.”
“What are they?” Regecon asked.
“There are several books really, The Rise and Fall of Morgulan: Lord of the Black Circle, The Curse of Zarina, The Drisdak Killings, Herbs of the Northern Forests, A Treatise on Time, and Legends of the Preternatural. The first three are all history books, A Treatise on Time is a philosophical text on the nature of time, and the others are just collections of lore: one on herbs, the other on supernatural creatures.”
“For some reason those first two books sound familiar,” Regecon scratched his beard and looked inward. “Zarina is obviously the black witch from le
gend, and Morgulan the tyrannical conqueror who took her as a lover ...”
“Have you been doing research?” Jacindra asked. “The two names are not uncommon in the annals of history. After all, they did try to conquer the world together.”
“That’s right,” Regecon said, brightening. “Ambrisia has a painting on them, The Fall of Morgulan she called it. I remember looking at Zarina in the picture.”
"I don’t know much about history ... I think I may have heard the name Zarina before, but I’m not sure where or when,” Galladrin said. “However, I must ask… does this have anything to do with us?”
“Not unless you lived a thousand years ago,” Jacindra said. “Morgulan was a great tyrannical dictator who wielded immense power. Zarina, his lover, was a black sorceress of diabolical means. Together they built an empire and nearly succeeded in conquering the entire world.”
Galladrin shrugged his shoulders, and gestured dismissively with his hand. “World domination is every king’s fantasy, that’s nothing new.” From what Regecon knew of the rogue so far, the faint smile at the corners of his lips suggested he was being deliberately argumentative. “I don’t see how that should impress me. It’s not like they tried something original.”
“Most kings only dream of conquering the world.” Jacindra strolled around the room as she spoke, causing Regecon to smile. As noble bred as she was, she adjusted quickly to the role of teacher. The image of her lecturing was vivid in his mind. Unwittingly, the rogue had nominated himself her student. “For Morgulan and Zarina, that dream very nearly became reality. Not only did they almost succeed in their endeavor, they went about it in a rather ... shall we say, distinctive way. You want originality, my friend, Morgulan approached torture and killing with an artist’s fervor. Opposition was crushed mercilessly—”
“That’s been done,” Galladrin pointed out, trying to sound unimpressed.
Jacindra darkened at the interruption, then continued. “Entire cities were wiped from the face of existence—”
“That too.”
The sorceress stopped pacing, and stood with her arms folded, her stare locked on the rogue. She had realized what the rogue was doing, and did not seem inclined to let Galladrin have the final word. Still, she would only speak the truth. “Men, women ... even children.”
The rogue lost a shade of the amusement behind his eyes. “That’s not original, that’s just mean.”
Jacindra, however, was relentless. “Soldiers who fell were impaled in droves, their bodies set on wooden stakes as a warning against resistance ...”
“All right, that’s a little twisted, but—”
“These were Morgulan’s Gardens of the Dead, as he called them. They hung untended for days, until the vultures picked the flesh from their bones. It is said the stench from the rotting bodies spread as far as a hard day’s ride in every direction.”
“I think I might be ill.” Indeed, the rogue’s face had taken on an ashen hue at Jacindra’s grim description.
“Captives,” the sorceress said, smiling in victory, “they had it worst of all. Zarina is not called ‘the Black’ for nothing. She was a practitioner of both necromancy and demonology. A devout demon worshipper, she was a woman to be feared. Hundreds, nay, thousands of men were sacrificed on her dark altars.”
“Sounds like the two of them were responsible for a lot of innocent blood,” Coragan said. “Let me guess ... both nobles, right? Where were they born, Torine?”
Regecon looked darkly at the bounty hunter, shook his head, but said nothing.
“No, actually Morgulan’s place of birth is unknown and it is said Zarina was born in a small estate near Pallernia, called Aralonn. What does her being of noble blood have to do with her killings?” Jacindra asked, in a seemingly puzzled tone.
Regecon looked from sorceress to bounty hunter then back to the sorceress. He wondered briefly if she really did not understand Coragan’s caustic remark or if she were merely playing dumb, daring the man to explain himself. Deciding it would be for the best if he headed any possible conflict off now, Regecon spoke. He did not need the woman butting heads with both men this early in the day. “It’s not important, Jacindra. You were saying Morgulan and Zarina were brutal in their tactics? I’ve always known Zarina was a wicked and powerful woman, but I was never particularly well versed in her story.”
“Yes, her vileness is only surpassed by that of Morgulan himself. I suppose that is why they found each other so attractive.”
“I must say,” Galladrin interjected, “as fascinating as this Morgulan character and his horrid achievements are, I think we should move on.” He, too, seemed anxious to change the subject. Despite his sometimes childish humor, the rogue seemed to be an intelligent and perceptive man. Coragan had nearly given Jacindra an open insult, although it was doubtful the bounty hunter had known of her lineage. A level-headed woman at most times, she took great pride in her family name, and could easily take affront at such forms of disparagement. “I don’t see the relevance of any of this toward our search for your former guild master. Obviously, Morgulan did not kill your philosopher and snatch Arcalian away, nor did Zarina, right?” A chill of a doubt had unexpectedly crept into Galladrin’s voice, and he trailed off into uncertainty. He breathed a long sigh of relief when Jacindra finally responded.
“No, they both have been dead for nearly a thousand years and as mighty as they were, neither had the power to escape the Scythe-Bearer’s demesne.”
“That’s a relief,” Galladrin said.
“I don’t suppose there are any treatises on roses or garlic?” Coragan asked, turning to Porthion. The bounty hunter did not look even a shade uncomfortable and was obviously oblivious to any discomfort his remark may have caused. Either that, or he simply did not care. “Oh, never mind,” he said. “We’ve wasted enough time already. Come on, Galladrin, Borak. Our lesson in history is over for the day. We have other work to do.”
Regecon watched as bounty hunter, rogue, and warrior headed from the room. His thoughts remained on Coragan. If the man proved to be half as good as his reputation made him out to be, he would be worth any amount of difficulty. Still, it was awkward hiring a man he knew was not fond of his position or his power. Regecon glanced at Jacindra. The sorceress of the air quietly conversed with Porthion, her back to the retreating men. At least things had not gotten out of hand. Sighing, Regecon motioned to the librarian, interrupting his words. “Well, Porthion, you say those books can be replaced? How much and how soon?”
Drasmyr (Prequel: From the Ashes of Ruin) Page 13