Blood Of The Wizard (Book 1)

by Thomas Head

  He grabbed a bolt of wool-and-berber and wrapped it around his shoulders. He told himself he did not know her, that for all he knew the old maid could have been sent to live out her days at some convent, and decided against it. She might have turned away desperate farmers that wanted to come and lodge. But that was all just nonsense. This woman knew too much, far too much, to not be in touch with the hidden verve of the world.

  “Then where are they, witch?” he asked her.

  She looked into the stew, stirring it slowly. Then she shook her head. She returned with a wad of wet and dry rags, along with a dressing wrapped in yet more rags.

  “Take off your trousers, lad. We have to clean that leg ‘for it rots off.”

  He was unable to keep his eyes from opening wide.

  “Sakes, son. You scared an old witch will see some dwelf balls? Take them pants off and lie back.”

  With a huff, Cullfor slid himself out of his boots. When he stood before her without pants, and he shook his head, cupped himself as best he could, sitting way back, putting the other hand behind his head.

  She pulled a stool between his spread legs and sat. Tenderly, with surprisingly little hesitation, she began picking at the soggy crust that had begun to form around the arrow wound. She produced a pipe from her under dress along with a pouch of pungent starweed.

  “Get your hands of your dill and pack this,” she said.

  As he sat before her, fully exposed now, he packed then lit the pipe, drew deeply and handed it to her. She began mumbling and rocking a bit.

  “You plugged it with dressing, I see.”

  “Yes.”

  “Wise. We’ll need to get it out and replug it. We might be able to sew it. We’ll have to see.”

  “Alright,” he said.

  “It’ll get bloody.”

  “I know.”

  She smiled, leaning up to pat his cheek. “I say that, well… just don’t want you getting too shy when blood rushes down there, an’ that little dill starts to unfurl.”

  He cocked an eye.

  “You might want to stand back then.”

  She slapped her thigh and gifted him with a small laugh, never looking up from her work. Then her tone changed a bit.

  “Tell me the first time you sensed it, wizard.”

  “Sensed what.”

  The nod she gave was serious, as if to say that he knew what she was talking about. No wizard could ever remember the first time they harnessed the verve. But there were a few, or so the legends say, that need no mage-guard… there are some with room in their souls… for a shadowflyer heart… some who become their own mage-guard… something beyond a wizard.

  … a mandragon.

  He hesitated, then looked down at her. “Nearly starved after three days without a bite, I look to either side of me. My mother crouches my right, her grimace not complete with the scars she’ll earn that day. A soggy afternoon. Melting snow that will soon freeze again, then get buried under two more feet. Our little cottage in the mountains is falling away under our feet. We’re being carried off by a dragon, then we’re being swallowed, stuffed back into some pouch in the beast’s gullet. I’m not scared. And you know I speak the truth. In all of the Dwarf-king’s Fellowship of Warbands, by God and the saints, there are none better in the business of butchery than the cutters, and my father at the time was a Cutter. A Merry Cutter. He first taught me to swallow fear. To keep it in my pocket like a stone. They’ll move in the hills below us, searching for days, silent save for my father’s anguish. I sense this even then. I know they will not find us. It is unreal to think of … even now. But these nightmares are real. When we are spat out of the beast, we are woven into the cave wall alongside blue-faced elves, and I look at them. I’ve heard all manner of nonsense about them. And that is what I think about, keeping my fear in my pocket. I think about the elvish nonsense. That they dye their teeth red. They eat raw pork. Their penises are black from odd rituals.”

  “All true,” she said.

  He grunts, knowingly.

  “Someone yells. It is coming. Odd to think that after so many days in the beast’s belly I only just set eyes upon it. And here it is, coming to us from the depths of the earth, running and bellowing, ugly as dung on the devil’s hooves. Then a roar rises. Eyes are lowered. Aye dammit, the whole scene is dream-wind of fury and shock as it rushes to me. A warm feeling streaks down my right side, like a fire without the energy to hurt. And I understand I’ve pulled something ugly out of the world, something that would not harm me...”

  She nods.

  “Yes, you felt the looks of the others too. And you felt a certain joy at what you’d discovered.”

  “That joy, it was like a … I don’t know. But I tell you there was a skull-twisting pain in knowing.”

  “Yes, yes, we must allow ourselves the pain, lad,” she said, at which point she began pulling the plug out of the wound. “Ye might be indomitable, but the pain and the broken bones, it’s just the laws of nature. You lift a shield, block a hammer from crushing your face, but for damned sure ye brain is going to get the rattles.”

  “Hell’s depths,” he whispered, not so much at the pain, but at the grotesque shin bindings she dangled for a moment before throwing into the fire.

  She covered a long, thin finger in a rag and began scraping out the wound’s puss.

  “So you never spoke of it to your uncle.”

  “No.”

  “Wise enough,” she said. “I used to whore a bit up in Balturshot. Oh, but I was stupid too. Fourteen. A human approaches—in black hood, aye, the damned visage of evil. Now I say, lad, how much more obvious do ye’ get?”

  Cullfor said nothing.

  “Fiver silver pennies and I let him take me off in his carriage into the woods-road to his cottage.”

  “He got rough,” Cullfor said, forgetting to form it as a question.

  “Oh, no. He was quiet. I was so fresh-headed, I thought I was quite a mysterious thing, riding the silence; I didn’t even take it for guilt… or the malice it was. Horses were everywhere then. Hell, we ate them. He was chewing on a horse rib. He got it all the way down to the bone and he stops the horses. He throws the rib to the muddy ground and he calls me human trash and tells me to get out and get it.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “Let me finish, lad. Here we are in the middle of this forest road, and he tells to get out and get the horse rib he just threw into the damned muddy road. I wasn’t so fresh-headed that I couldn’t sense the change in him. I know this man wants to humiliate me. Make me eat that muddy bone and God knows what else. You can just feel it. I say okay, and I’m just going to run, but the next thing I know there’s a knife against my throat. He smiles and pushes the blade, but it just rips a little and he falls backward instead.”

  Cullfor smiled.

  “His head is still on the rock that cracked it, and by damn I should have shoved that bone into his brain. At the very least I shove have rammed it into his rose hole.”

  “You ran.”

  “No. Took the carriage. Shoved that bone straight down his throat—and took his carriage.”

  “Thundering hell,” Cullfor whispered, laughing a bit.

  “So there’s us,” she said, but he was not exactly sure what she meant by it.

  And he didn’t ask.

  “So there’s us,” he said.

  “But you should know something of him, too,” she said.

  Chapter 65

  “Weather fit for lunatics and humans.”

  —Dwarven complaint

  __________

  There was a bizarre moment atop a wave, a strange sensation of lift. To Lady Dhal, it felt like the boat was stuck in the air, or that it was trying to make up its mind.

  The dwarves felt it too. When it the moment was over, they fell silent. From time to time they looked back at the spot. But nothing was said about it, and even her shock faded by degrees.

  She looked at the great, bound dragon. Then
something of the moment grew. She sensed something, and looked back. Very slowly, something traced through the water. It seemed to uncoil, like some unlikely, dark god from the Old Religion. But it submerged before she could make out its form.

  She shuddered, and the sensation shrank, replaced by an unexpected, morbid feeling—which was as unfounded as it was unavoidable. It was the sense that her kidnapping was somehow her fault.

  As a small island disappeared over the edge of the water, she was sure of it. This was Divine Retribution for something she had doubted during Mass. Payment for that deep black hatred she had sometimes lathered onto her husband. Holding her stomach, she thought of the Holy Cannon. That it rains on the just and unjust alike. That the sun shines on good and evil. But the thoughts felt like excuses and did nothing to ease her. Physically, she was hardly better. The constant sheeting of wind was already drying her eyes. Her tongue felt like an enormous, dry muscle. She managed to swallow.

  Suddenly there were shouts. The Dwarven accents rose in an impossible medley. Men were suddenly scurrying everywhere. She began panicking, looking, and then the vessel rose on a rogue swell. As it plummeted, Lady Dhal’s stomach rose into her chest, and when her bottom slammed the smoothed wood, she bounced and landed on her back.

  Then there was silence onboard, which erupted in wild hoots of laughter.

  She was gathering herself when she noticed the handmaiden was gone. She looked to the closest dwarf.

  Their eyes locked for a moment, but he just stared through her disappointment, his face was neither distant nor present. She looked out over the ocean, scanning. Nothing. Then the handmaiden splashed from the ocean, waving and gurgling. She saw the panic of her rolling, white eyes.

  Then the water slurped her under again.

  Lady Dhal shouted, “What are you doing, you ignorant dwarves!”

  She looked back. Her form had not returned to the surface.

  “God’s hooks, you simple curs! Turn around!”

  They did not even bank the vessel.

  One of them rose and grabbed her. He pointed to a dark shape in the water. The same one. It was slicing toward a circle of foam on the surface.

  “Please!” she urged.

  Again, they shook their heads.

  Dhal crossed herself. God help me, she thought, and leapt overboard. But she was still bound, and the dark epiphany hit too late.

  the next moment, the water smacked her face, and the cold exhausted her air in a single grunt. Splashing, she twisted and reached for the sides of the boat, but missed, struggling now to keep her head in the air. When she lunged again, the bindings caught. As he struggled to loosen them, they squeezed around her. The force yanked her sideways, pulling her backwards and upside down. The thin, cold rope began to slip up her neck. The water was splashing over her face.

  The last sight above water was two large men, laughing as they looked down. The rest of the crew looked overboard with passive interest as they cut the rope.

  But the rope was still squeezing her. All that she could see and hear and feel was water. Inches of it grew overhead, then feet. A steady, wide disturbance spread, the silver wake of the vessel as she sunk even deeper. For a moment, she hovered, clawing at the surface, but she felt heavy. Her chest burned, and spurts of air began to leave her. Then she began slipping downward. Further. Deeper.

  The pressure began to burn in her chest. Encased in blackness, she saw pinpricks of light, far below.

  __________

  Cullfor bent and put an arm under the old witch’s stubbly chin. Her skin felt as thin and fragile as aged parchment.

  He lifted her face

  “There are two types of magic,” she began. “Some, like ours, is the influence of the four matters. The old ones call it the Halting….”

  “And?”

  “There are those who have the Quickening.”

  “Quickening?”

  Then her lips were suddenly puckering.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Agh damn…come on now!” she told herself. “Such magic…. Is the handling of time.”

  Cullfor nodded, pulling up his pants as he finished cleaning the wound.

  She continued, “You must understand that the dragon a beast of this world, but not of this time. That is why we cannot halt the weapons carved of its bone.”

  Cullfor cocked an eye. He fisted the handle of his odd axe. “But I—”

  “What took you was a living creature, yes. But no creature that size could take flight without the Quickening. That is why they might detangle their souls before they die. Dead dragons, they yet crave the warmth of life… they seek human imps, to become demons incarnate. They crave the warmth of life, young wizard! And all too often they gain it. Oh, at a terrible price. In the old days, the Age of the Arc, some men knew how to conjure them. And, sweet God, some even traded their souls for the power of the wraiths…”

  She trailed off. Then she grinned, suddenly. Her eyes were twinkling. Then the old witch said nothing

  Cullfor froze, feeling the blade of a small knife between his eyes; it was the sensation he always got during an epiphany. “But like a demon, they knew they must torture and stir fears in order to keep their power…”

  “Maybe you’re not such a stupid oaf, young wizard.”

  She stood, grunting with the effort.

  The blade sensation between his eyes never left its mark. He looked down, gritted his teeth. A thread of indecency tugged at him to rush away from the harsh truth, the unforgiving fact that because of him his uncle was dead, his village was ruined, and the two people he cared for most of all in this world were being used as living bait.

  Instead he just stood.

  Then the shutters slammed.

  “Mind your emotions, young one,” she whispered.

  Feeling somehow ridiculously small, somehow cruel, he looked out toward the byre. For a moment, he just stood in the dark, looking. Then he paced. Then he bellowed wildly, his fist in his mouth, until from somewhere deep and embarrassing, he found the crude resolve to ask her a favor.

  “Madam, I need that donkey.”

  He produced his small purse of coins. The air was warm on his hand. You can’t buy passage where you’re going. No one sails to Arkenstowe but the dwarves themselves or the human longmongers who do business with them. And it is not enough money for a horse.

  Then he felt the hot slap of her hand.

  “I’ve no use for your money, wizard. Keep it, and keep this advice. Mind your senses along the way.”

  “So somewhere between here and there he lies in wait.”

  He roared and he let go of the money she had just told him to keep, the small velvet rope falling his fingers. He heard the clink of the purse, barely audible over his groan. As he sucked the knuckle of his fist, thinking, she stroked his chest.

  “Good luck to you, Master Wizard. Mind this heart of yours. It will lead you to them. But see that it does not become an anchor.”

  Still breathing heavily, he kissed the top of her head, and kissed it again.

  “There is not enough time in life to properly thank those who deserve it. Madam, I am afraid I owe you more than I could ever repay.”

  She lifted the coins from the floor and tossed them back to him.

  “Go now. Get them back. Kill the dark wizard bastard who took them. Then, perhaps, you might come drop a few pennies my way, Master Mandragon.”

  She bowed to him, and shut the door.

  __________

  Cullfor heard an unexpected hiss of rain against the thatched roof as he left the cottage. He looked toward the barn, tight-lipped, as he emerged into the soaking wet.

  Everything was colder now, and dark. Steam began to rise from the straw as approached the byre.

  Suddenly, lightening blasted the forest nearby.

  He ducked, spun. The branches were still alive with a sizzling jeer, and a great pulse raced through his feet. He thought he saw a shadow. It was a like dragon, completely black,
but it was standing like a man. It laughed a moment, then disappeared.

  He shivered, knowing the shadowflyer would see him coming long before he’s ever know who it really was.

  The water poured down his face. He looked to the byre, watching the ass stumble out. It fell over at the door, dead. It had been struck by lightning, and it was still smoldering.

  Cullfor walked forcefully away. There was a small intuit, urging him to go faster. He began to run.

  And it felt like escaping something.

  Chapter 66

  __________

  Cullfor tromped through uncertain wilds, running northward all night. Even as morning dried away the mist, he was gripped by a formless sense of failure. It was a unique depression—almost a desire to be disappointed. He wished he could say that, dammit, the ass being struck by lightning was just a monstrous setback. But he understood it was worse. Whoever was seeking him was able to steer that bolt close enough to nearly kill him. Some might find stupidity in thinking that. But he knew better. The ugly, real fact was that he was up against powers he was only beginning to comprehend.

  With downcast eyes, he paused.

  Damn it, he wished he had learned more, sooner. He had to get it in his head: This is a battlefield. In a battle, any battle, pity will kill you. Even self pity. But he couldn’t escape it. He studied the ground, staring at nothing in particular for a moment. Feeling like he just wanted to go home and get in his own bed, he breathed, and just let his thoughts drift. He recalled once looking up at the moon and feeling like he was made of its odd stuff, as if a chunk had fallen to earth, and he had been hatched from it.

  Walking now, he thumbed the money in his pocket. Hours of this bleak battle-mood saw him to a break in the forest, where a field sprawled before him. It was inexplicably green, and it rolled like water under a morning sky that was as pink and gold as his bleary eyes could take.