The First Champion

by Sandell Wall

  Pleased with this progress, Mazareem tried taking a step. His leg almost buckled beneath his weight. He cursed his weakness. Casting about for a solution, Mazareem’s gaze rested on the wooden coat rack standing by the door. It was no walking stave, but it would serve to keep him upright.

  With his makeshift crutch, Mazareem hurried to follow Dezerath out into the hallway. She had not waited for him. The venerator turned a corner and moved out of sight right as Mazareem passed through the door of his room.

  Moving as quickly as possible in his weakened state, Mazareem shuffled down the hallway in the direction Dezerath had gone. The wooden feet of the coat rack made a terrible racket on the stone floor. Staggering like a three-legged dog, Mazareem chased Dezerath through the interior of the estate. She never looked back and never slowed down.

  When Dezerath disappeared up a long flight of stairs, Mazareem almost gave up. Nothing was worth this. Death would be a comfort, as far as he was concerned. It would be far easier to limp back to his bed, lie down, close his eyes, and wait for the abyss to claim him.

  Mazareem savored this temptation, and it almost claimed him, but before it could, an image appeared unbidden in his mind. It was the smirking face of Rowen. Mazareem knew that face. It was the same self-satisfied grin Rowen had turned on Mazareem after denying him the dragon’s heart that would have granted immortality.

  The memory was too convenient, too well-placed, to be chance. Mazareem felt Rowen’s influence, even here, and he growled as the old fury gripped his heart. The message was clear: Rowen was watching, and Mazareem was not about to let that bastard see him die like this. Using the coat rack as an anchor, Mazareem attacked the mountain of stairs.

  At the top, out of breath and seeing stars, Mazareem finally lurched through one last door. He found himself on a high battlement overlooking the compound's defensive walls. Dezerath stood with her hands on the railing. Her attention was on the city on the other side of the moat. In the courtyard below, a hundred armored tomb keepers waited for orders.

  “I expected to see seplica outside the walls at dawn’s first light,” Dezerath said when Mazareem stumbled to a halt next to her. “Why does Morricant delay? She knows where you are, and she must claim you or risk all of Orcassus thinking she’s weak.”

  After the brutal hike to reach this battlement, Mazareem no longer possessed the patience to placate Dezerath. It was time she accepted the dire situation she had created for herself.

  “Morricant is many things, but the one thing she isn’t is weak,” Mazareem said. “Nor is she merciful. I would guess that she waits to give you the chance to repent for your transgressions. Your life is forfeit, but you might still purchase leniency for those that follow you. If you want House Gorvan to have a future once you're gone, you should lower that drawbridge, cover yourself in sackcloth and ash, and prostrate yourself in the street to await Morricant’s coming.”

  Dezerath stiffened, her back as rigid as her attitude.

  “Have a care, risen one,” Dezerath said. “I’ve learned much in my short time in Orcassus. Before I killed her, Terro made it clear that you’re just a pawn to be used and forgotten. If you possessed real power, you’d never have let yourself be captured and tortured. You trapped me neatly back in Candeth, but your hold over me is gone. I never intended to die at your side in the rite of oblation.”

  “You won’t make it to the ceremony, but you may still yet die by my side,” Mazareem said. He raised an unsteady arm to point at a figure who had appeared in the street. “Morricant herself has come to deal with you.”

  Morricant glided across the cobblestones at a measured pace until she stood across from the drawbridge on the other side of the moat. The empress was alone and unguarded. She was wrapped from her shoulders to her feet in a black dress of wound ribbon. Mazareem wondered if Dezerath knew how deadly those ribbons could be.

  “You try to cloud my judgment with lies,” Dezerath said. “She comes alone to show that she’s ready to negotiate. She knows we have her at a disadvantage. This is going better than I anticipated. I thought for sure that she’d batter our walls for a day or two with her cursed seplica.”

  Mazareem shook his head in consternation. How could a person be so blinded by pride?

  “Stay here and watch,” Dezerath said. “I’ll show you how to defang the Lady of Pain.”

  Dezerath brushed past Mazareem and raced down the stairs of the battlement. Her long red cloak snapped in the air behind her. Moments later, Dezerath appeared in the courtyard below. She marched through the tomb keepers, barking orders as she approached the main gate. Mazareem looked back at Morricant. The empress was still waiting patiently in the street for the drawbridge to be lowered.

  Mazareem did not believe what he was seeing. At Dezerath’s command, two of her soldiers entered the gatehouse and started turning the crank that would drop the drawbridge. If they lowered the bridge and opened the gate, they would be welcoming the wolf into the hen house.

  Morricant did not appear concerned. She waited, arms crossed, for the bridge to fall into place. Once, she glanced up towards the battlement where Mazareem stood, and he knew Morricant saw him. The iron-capped end of the drawbridge hit the street side of the moat with a thud. Morricant started across it while the chains were still swaying.

  Dezerath stood in the center of the courtyard. An honor guard had formed up at her back, and the rest of her tomb keepers stood in tight formation on either side. The soldiers formed a narrow path through which Morricant was forced to walk to reach Dezerath.

  When Morricant cleared the gatehouse and passed through the midst of the massed tomb keepers, Mazareem was struck by how small she seemed. Even from his vantage point, there was no mistaking her heart-rending beauty, but she looked terribly human in the bright light of the sun. And in a place like Orcassus, humanity was weakness.

  Dezerath must have thought the same, because the venerator made some snide remark that prompted a laugh from her soldiers. Mazareem was too far away to overhear the exchange, but it was clearly a jest at Morricant’s expense. Morricant paid this insult no notice. She walked without hurry, her shoulders straight and her head held high.

  The laughter and murmurs in the courtyard died out; Morricant had reached Dezerath and her honor guard. Mazareem wished he were closer. He stared down at Morricant’s perfect face and tried to read her lips as her mouth moved. Dezerath’s feet suddenly shifted into a striking stance, and her hand went to the hilt of her sword. Following her example, her honor guard surged forward. They never stood a chance.

  Mazareem’s mouth dropped open as the ribbons of Morricant’s dress shot away from her in every direction. Almost faster than the eye could track, the silken strands wrapped themselves around Dezerath and her guards. Completely immobilized in an instant, the helpless women of House Gorvan struggled against the living fabric, but their efforts were futile. Dezerath cried out as the ribbon that bound her found the crevices between the pieces of her armor and slid into them.

  The rest of Dezerath’s soldiers were not sure what to do. A few of them drew their swords and advanced on Morricant, but when Dezerath cried out in panic for them to stop, they halted in confusion. Most of the tomb keepers in the courtyard hung back, unsure how to respond to the empress's magical assault.

  Morricant still had not moved since unleashing her weaponized dress. She stood naked and apparently defenseless, although that illusion had been well and truly shattered now. Belatedly, Mazareem wondered if she could deflect a well-aimed arrow. But Dezerath had not thought to position any archers on the walls. Her incompetence truly was exceptional.

  “This same fate awaits all who defy me,” Morricant said, her voice raised loud enough to echo from the stone walls of the courtyard.

  Her fingers twitched, and the ribbons that held Dezerath and her guards constricted. A few of the doomed women got out a gurgled scream, but most of them simply died, their throats sliced by the animated silk. And it was not just necks that were o
pened. Any place the ribbon had found a gap in the tomb keepers’ armor, it cut. Dezerath and her honor guard literally fell apart, severed legs and arms clattering to the stone in a bloody heap. The venerator’s decapitated head rolled across the ground and came to rest at Morricant’s bare feet.

  Gore-soaked ribbons drew back from the pile of corpses, and Morricant spread her arms wide as they wrapped around her bare skin to reform her dress. Rivulets of crimson blood dripped down her body and pooled beneath her feet. None of the surviving tomb keepers had any desire to suffer the same fate as their dead venerator.

  Morricant turned to face the remaining soldiers.

  “House Gorvan is no more,” Morricant said. “Cast your armor and weapons on the ground and leave this place. Any who stay will add their corpse to the pile.”

  The empress did not wait to see if her orders were followed. Morricant turned on her heel and stalked through the main door below the battlement that Mazareem stood on. In the courtyard, the tomb keepers began to strip. Pieces of armor rattled against the stone as they were hurriedly discarded.

  Mazareem did not linger on the battlement. Morricant would be searching for him, but he worried she might slaughter anyone she found on the way. If she killed Sorrell, his one chance at escaping would be lost. He lumbered down the stairs, reaching the coat rack down to the steps below and using it to support his weight as he descended.

  As he clawed his way back along the corridors to his room, Mazareem frantically searched his mind for a way to deter Morricant. If he showed any hint of concern for Sorrell, that would ensure her demise and reveal to Morricant his true purpose for coming to Vaul. That must be avoided at all costs.

  An idea came to Mazareem, and he stopped in the hallway, struck by the audacity of it. There was a way to distract Morricant, and she would never expect it, but only a lunatic would try it. Mazareem could attack her with raw magic.

  The magic spells that Mazareem used were carefully crafted and calculated to serve a specific purpose. They were a contract of sorts, designed to constrain the power he summoned and then banish it the instant his goal was accomplished. That same power could be called upon without the governance of a written spell, but the wielder risked being overtaken by the magic. If Mazareem could not control the unrestrained magic he conjured, he would become a living conduit for the spirit realm. And he had more enemies on the spiritual plane than he did the physical.

  Mazareem started forward again. There was no other way. Morricant would be unprepared for such an attack because only a madman would attempt it. Mazareem reached out into the spirit realm as he stumbled down the passageway. Without a spell, he had no right to demand an answer; Mazareem had to hope that something on the other side would hear his call and decide to help him.

  The answer came so suddenly and with such force that it almost floored Mazareem. There were powers on the other side eager to exploit his desperation. Spirits swirled around him, invisible to the naked eye, but burning bright in his third sight. They howled their hatred for him. Mazareem gritted his teeth and pressed onward. He had the power he needed—he just had to hold on to it.

  His vision flickered. The spirit realm interposed itself over the physical, and the passageway in front of Mazareem shifted in and out of reality. He staggered onward. On the limits of his perception, Mazareem registered the mutilated corpses strewn in his path. Morricant had come this way.

  A voice drifted through an open door on Mazareem’s right. He thought it was Morricant, but his tortured mind could not summon the memory to be sure. His soul buckled under the strain of trying to harness the raw magic surging through him. In a few seconds, Mazareem’s innermost being would start to come apart, and he would be lost forever.

  There was no more time. It had to be Morricant in that room, or Mazareem was undone. He lurched the last few feet to the doorway and looked inside. Morricant stood in the center of the room, ringed by four bathing barrels. A few discarded bodies lay slumped against the walls. Sorrell was suspended in the air in front of Morricant, wrists and ankles in the iron grip of the enchanted ribbons.

  Sorrell’s terrified gaze jerked to Mazareem. Morricant turned to face him, and when she laid eyes on Mazareem, her entire demeanor changed.

  “You’re insane!” Morricant said.

  Morricant’s ribbons dropped Sorrell and streaked towards Mazareem. Sorrell cried out in pain—blood flashed in the air. The ribbons had cut her. They twisted in the air as they came, flying as fast and true as an arrow. Before the killing fabric reached him, Mazareem raised both arms and unleashed the power roiling inside him. He screamed as he opened himself completely to the spirit world.

  Unrestrained magic exploded from Mazareem’s fingertips. It shimmered in the air like sunlight through a fine mist, a hundred colors just on the edge of visibility. Morricant’s enchanted ribbons recoiled to try and protect her—they were too slow.

  The wave of pure sorcery struck Morricant square in the chest. It plucked her off her feet and crushed her against the far wall. Morricant writhed against the terrible pressure. Her ribbons spasmed, churning on the floor like headless snakes.

  Morricant went still, and her head slumped down into her chest, but Mazareem did not let up his assault. He could not if he wanted to. The power had taken over. Behind his eyes, Mazareem felt more than heard the low rumble of a sinister chuckle. His desperate plea had attracted the attention of a demon. Mazareem had gambled and lost.

  Fiery talons enclosed Mazareem’s soul. For the first time in his life, Mazareem knew terror. He tried to withstand the demon, but he was helpless. Without the defined contract of a written spell, Mazareem lacked the means to extract himself from the spirit realm.

  Harsh, guttural words of the demon tongue lanced across Mazareem’s mind as his new master promised an eternity of suffering. Every utterance burned like acid. But just as the demon went to sever Mazareem’s soul from his body, something intervened.

  Mazareem saw a brilliant light appear. The demon’s power was eclipsed, and even as it screamed and struggled against this new entity, it was slowly obliterated. Mazareem was left unfettered—he was free. He had even been released from the spirit world.

  Reality came crashing back, and Mazareem found himself on his knees in the doorway. Before his rescuer vanished away, Mazareem reached for the light, trying to understand what had happened. His savior let the brilliance recede enough to reveal his face.

  Mazareem froze in confusion. It was Rowen. Rowen had delivered him from the demon. With a smirk, Rowen departed, fading from Mazareem’s spiritual sight and leaving emptiness in his wake.

  Too drained to comprehend this, Mazareem collapsed to the floor.

  Chapter 45

  SAREDON SAT ALONE IN a small room. His only company were two chairs and a desk, one of which he was sitting on. He wore the black leather armor of a trainee. The final trial was today, but before Saredon was escorted to the location of the test, he had been taken aside and told to wait in this room. He had no idea why, and he was starting to assume the worst.

  The last few days had been miserable. As the perks of being a reaver’s son had been stripped away, Saredon had been exposed to all the harsh realities the other students were forced to endure. He would never say it out loud to anyone else, but Saredon suspected he had it even worse than the others. Up to this point, he had been the top student in his class, and the other students attributed this to the special treatment Saredon had enjoyed.

  Now that Saredon no longer enjoyed the favor of the priesthood, the other trainees had wasted no time in finding clever and painful ways to bully him. He barely slept in his new bunk in the communal barracks. Even Thyria had become distant, which hurt Saredon more than anything else.

  After what seemed like an hour of waiting, the door to the small room finally swung open. Saredon’s heart skipped a beat when Kaiser stepped into the room. Tears filled Saredon’s eyes, and he swiped at them angrily. He did not want the first thing his father saw after
so long to be him crying.

  Kaiser shut the door behind him and turned to regard Saredon. Like Saredon, Kaiser wore only simple black leather armor. Saredon searched his father’s face. He shrank back from the hardness he saw there. In his mind, the memory of his father was filled with strength, yes, but also tenderness and compassion. He saw none of that in Kaiser now.

  Saredon felt destitute. He had dreamed about this moment for so long. When he had been alone on the street, he would have given anything in the world to feel the loving embrace of his father once more. But now that his father stood before him, Saredon felt further away from Kaiser than when he had been a lost orphan.

  “Your mother told me what you did,” Kaiser said.

  Kaiser’s voice was flat and emotionless. There was no accusation in it, but Saredon heard the disappointment.

  “I couldn’t let Thyria die,” Saredon said.

  He tried not to let his anguish make his voice quaver. The last thing he wanted was to argue with his father on the moment of their reunion.

  “Her fate was not yours to decide,” Kaiser said. “But that mistake is in the past. Learn from it, and it won’t be wasted.”

  Saredon bowed his head. “Yes, Father,”

  “I’ve come to prepare you for the final trial,” Kaiser said. “We’ll have a proper reunion once you’ve completed it.”

  Just like everyone else, Kaiser spoke as if Saredon’s success was a foregone conclusion. Saredon worked up the courage to try one last plea. Surely, for the love his father had for him, Kaiser would have mercy.

  “I don’t want to be a reaver,” Saredon said. “Please, Father, let me be anything else. Don’t make me go to the trial.”

  Kaiser did not reply, and Saredon risked looking up at his father’s face. He flinched away from the fury he saw there. Kaiser let the silence stretch, and Saredon found himself wishing that his father would say something. Anything.