A Shattered Empire

by Mitchell Hogan

  “I would have seen them eventually,” she said. “But it makes no difference. I’ll drag their secret out of you while you scream.”

  “No, you won’t. The knowledge can’t be extracted through torture, given up unwillingly. Coercive sorcery makes sure of that.”

  “You’re lying.”

  Caldan shrugged. Of course I am. “No, I’m not. If I’m pushed too far, coercive sorcery will snuff my mind out, like blowing out a candle. The secret of all this power will be lost to you, along with your revenge.”

  “They’re not usable. So I’ll take that chance.”

  “Will you? I think not. I can’t open the wells now, but I was making progress. Imagine if you could do it yourself. Imagine the power you’d have. Think of how the other warlocks would see you . . . Thenna, you’d be like one of the sorcerers from before the Shattering. Far more powerful than anyone can imagine. Second only to the emperor.”

  Thenna retreated a few steps. “I’ll make you howl with agony.”

  “You can’t risk it.”

  “I’ll ply you with coercive sorcery, along with the old methods: pincers and hot irons, sharp knives and serrated-edged saws. You’ll beg to be put down, like a dog run over by a wagon.”

  “You won’t.”

  No reply. Wetness trickled down his arms from the cuts in his wrists. Warm at the source, then cold as it descended. Ill-maintained hinges creaked. The door slammed.

  Thenna was gone.

  CALDAN SHRIEKED AND screamed his throat raw.

  He’d lost track of time as Thenna made good on her promise. Misery piled atop misery. Glowing red irons seen through bleary eyes. The stench of his own burning flesh. Agony on agony. Subtle sorcerous webs scuttled about in his mind, tearing and rending, with no thought to the damage they caused—or the suffering.

  The familiar feeling of his blood boiling in his veins returned as soon as they started to work on him—but chained as he was, he couldn’t break free. They knew what he was, and they’d made sure even his enhanced strength was useless.

  So far, Caldan’s defenses had protected his mind, fending off their clumsy attempts. Quiss’s lessons stood him in good stead, though with only a trickle of power from Amerdan’s partially open well to work with, he was reduced to subtle tricks to unravel their coercive threads.

  And frustrated, they applied themselves with vigor to the weakness of his flesh. He writhed and howled, swinging by his chains, until his throat was torn and bloody.

  Time passed. But he didn’t break. He didn’t succumb.

  He barricaded himself into a tiny kernel of thought. He was Touched. His body would heal, unless he was dead or sustained permanent injury. And as long as he could hold out, his mind was safe. And the longer he resisted, the greater their doubts would grow.

  Searing agony flared again.

  As long as I can hold out . . .

  It took Caldan a few moments to realize the new agony was a result of his circulation being restored. He’d been lowered to the floor. Chains clinking, he curled himself into a fetal position, sliding in his own sweat and blood and filth.

  Shadows moved around him. It was too much of an effort to try to make them out. He closed his eyes.

  “Caldan . . .” a voice whispered.

  A hateful voice, one he’d come to loathe. Thenna.

  “I know you can hear me. You’ve proven yourself stubborn. But we both know where this will end. All you have to decide is how broken you’ll be when death comes for you.”

  A strangled cough escaped Caldan’s lips, tearing his throat, as if his own breath were composed of broken glass.

  “Cl . . . close,” he croaked.

  “Hmmm . . . to what, though? To your secrets? Do you give up? Surrender your knowledge, Caldan. Maybe you can have some respite before the end.”

  Caldan uttered a weak laugh. “Close to . . . triggering . . . coercive . . .” It was all he could manage. They had to be doubting themselves now, didn’t they?

  “I think you’re lying.”

  “He’s weak.” Another voice. A man’s.

  “He’ll last a while yet,” Thenna said.

  “Maybe not.”

  “Don’t question me.”

  “He’s no good to us if you kill him before he spills his secrets.”

  Thenna snarled with disgust and frustration. “How long?”

  “A few hours. Come back then.”

  Wiry fingers gripped his chin. “I’ll see you soon, Caldan,” Thenna said. “The time has come to use unconventional methods. I don’t like this course, but you leave me no choice. When you see me again, you’ll tell me everything. Or . . . I’ll pay Miranda a visit. Yes, I know about her. And when she’s here with you, you’ll regret not being forthcoming with me.”

  Booted footsteps faded.

  Miranda . . . no.

  A hand cupped his head. Cool water trickled into his mouth, burning his torn throat like acid. Caldan coughed most of it up.

  “More,” the man said. “Try to have more.”

  Eventually, he could swallow small amounts. Someone poured water over his face, and he spluttered. It pooled on the stone floor under his head. More footsteps faded. Hinges squealed.

  Caldan groaned and tried to sit up. Failed. Tried again and managed to lever himself up on one arm until he half sat, half reclined.

  He opened his eyes and blinked against the brightness and the water dripping into them. He squinted around him. Alone. They’d left him alone.

  A brazier was against the wall in front of him, handles of metal implements poking out. Caldan looked at his chains. The brazier was too far away for him to reach.

  Blood dried black crusted his manacles, and Caldan winced every time he moved his hands. But it couldn’t be helped. He pushed himself into a sitting position, metal rattling against stone. The chains ran up to rings bolted to the ceiling, then trailed down to cleats in the walls on either side.

  Clenching his jaw, Caldan twisted his forearms and wrapped the chains around them. Agony flared from his shredded wrists. He fought his way through it, pulling until the chains between him and the cleats were taut. He pulled, slowly at first, then with all his strength.

  Nothing.

  Again he heaved against the taut metal imprisoning him. He yanked and tugged until his vision went gray. Caldan ceased his struggle. It wouldn’t do if he blacked out.

  He closed his eyes. It was no use.

  With a strangled cry of despair, he collapsed to the hard floor, face in his hands, weeping.

  He didn’t know how long he sat there before he pulled himself together. Numb, trembling hands wiped aching eyes.

  The Touched had their trinkets, which offered more control over their abilities. Naked as he was, without craftings or trinkets, without being able to trigger his abilities himself, he was helpless.

  Caldan cursed his manacles, his chains, Thenna, the warlocks, Joachim, Bells, everyone and everything that had led him to this. Gathering himself, he prepared for another struggle with the chains; then his shoulders slumped, and his head lowered to his chest. There was no point. He was finished. Done. It would end here.

  A band of steel around his wrist. All that was between him and freedom, perhaps some small measure of vengeance before he was recaptured. A ring of metal too small for his hand to fit through.

  Caldan almost laughed then as a thought came to him. Would it be that simple? And that horrifying?

  But the torturers’ implements in the brazier were too far away. There was nothing else to use.

  Quelling a rising dread, Caldan swallowed and licked salty lips. There was no point agonizing over this.

  He placed his left manacle on the stone floor and raised his right hand high.

  It didn’t feel like it took bravery. All emotion and feeling had been wrung from him. He just didn’t think about it, disconnected his thoughts from his actions.

  The metal manacle slammed down on his left hand with a crack, shattering bones.
>
  Caldan screamed once, then raised his arm again. As numb and damaged as his hands already were, it hadn’t even hurt as much as he thought.

  His hand came down again. And again.

  His right hand curled around the manacle. His left hand looked strange to him, as limp as a sausage. Breath hissing between his teeth, Caldan pulled it through the manacle.

  “Argh!” Waves of pain shot up his arm.

  But it came free.

  Caldan let out a throaty laugh. One tether no longer restrained him, and he could now reach the brazier. He staggered over to it, and taking a long metal rod he eyed the chain close to his remaining manacle. The rod made an effective lever, though it was a struggle to position it without using his mangled hand. But with the bar in the crook of his elbow, he yanked it down and one of the links broke. Loose chain clattered to the floor.

  Caldan grasped the rod in his good hand and made for the door.

  He banished all thought, wiping his mind clean. What remained was a semblance of his old self, but one with no emotion, no remorse, no feeling. To do what he needed to do, he could hold no mercy in his heart.

  The warlocks were corrupt. The Protectors who worked with them were as well. As were the Touched. There were no innocents in this.

  Caldan came to an iron-framed door. On the other side, somewhere, were his craftings and trinket, the sword barring him from his well, and Thenna.

  He yanked the door open and looked into the eyes of a surprised guard. The man’s mouth dropped open as he fumbled for his sheathed sword.

  No innocents.

  CALDAN ROAMED THE corridors and rooms of the building like an unforgiving spirit—hate and vengeance fueling his merciless rage.

  A blind fury filled him, and he spilled blood and broke bone as a panicked beast would, with no thought to what was right or wrong, only of survival. Hurt or be hurt. Kill or be killed.

  Trained guards fell before him. Too slow, barely moving when he came upon them. His boiling blood coursed through his veins, pushing him to extremes. A small part of his mind knew he was doing his body irreparable damage, but he cast it aside. For what use would he be dead?

  He blew past the guards’ feeble defenses. His metal rod slammed into skulls and necks, bludgeoning, hammering, leaving them limp or shrieking. Five were down now. And by the sounds of pain echoing throughout the building, the others would know he was loose and was coming for them.

  Though Caldan’s thoughts were reduced to the single imperative of survival, he still recognized goals he needed to fulfill to reach his end. Kill, find his craftings and trinkets, and find the sword.

  He came across a group of guards cowering inside a carpeted room. The first one died with Caldan’s rod buried in his brain. The second when Caldan broke the man’s wrist and impaled him on his own sword. The third as Caldan yanked the blade out and hewed him from shoulder to hip. The fourth groveled, howling for mercy through tears streaming down his face.

  But he died, too.

  Caldan felt a warp in reality. The trickle of power he had was enough to indicate that open wells approached.

  Let them come.

  Caldan dropped his metal rod and took up a dripping short sword. He left a trail of sticky scarlet footprints behind him.

  By their wells, he sensed sorcerers congregating in a group, no doubt shielded. Protectors or warlocks, it didn’t matter. Shields would stop sorcery, or the blows of an axe, or the strike of an arrow, but unless these sorcerers were far more skilled than the masters Caldan had known, their defenses wouldn’t arrest momentum. He would show them their protections were flawed. Sorcery was their crutch, and he would kick their support away and leave them reeling.

  For an instant, Caldan paused. One sorcerer trailed the others, keeping always behind them. He laughed then and dashed toward the leftmost well. Once he got through or around that one, the sorcerer hiding behind the others would be his, and the trinket sword he no doubt carried.

  There.

  He blasted through a door. Splinters flew. Boards crashed against walls. A woman stood before him, covered in a blue haze. She snarled and opened her mouth to shout.

  Caldan slammed into her, shoulder crashing into her chest. She flew across the room like she was drawn on a string, smashing into a stone wall. Her shield winked out as she slid to the floor, eyes rolling into her head. She slumped like a rag doll. Shouts came from somewhere to Caldan’s right.

  He ran.

  Ahead was the lone sorcerer, moving quickly.

  But nowhere near fast enough.

  The blood of the ancestors churned through him, hot and turbulent and powerful. He laughed, shouting words he knew he’d never be able to recall.

  A Protector stood in front of him, defiance on his face. He clutched a sword, the blade a ribbon of silver in moonlight. A multicolored fish-scale haze surrounded him, along with rune-covered crafted armor.

  Caldan’s elbow smashed into his head before he could move an inch. It snapped back, motes sparkling across his shield, and he fell unconscious onto the ground. Immediately, Caldan felt the barrier keeping him from his well dissolve, and he opened it and drank deeply of his power.

  He dropped his short sword and grasped the hilt of the trinket. There was no time to learn how it worked, but that didn’t matter. He now had access to his well, and his blood still burned like lava.

  He ran a finger along the edge of the blade, slicing into his own flesh. His finger came away sticky and crimson. He drew symbols and runes on the trinket sword’s blade, powerful permutations bound by a variation of the shield crafting.

  He grasped the sword again.

  Wells tracked toward him, gathering and combining.

  With barely a thought, Caldan split his well into multiple strings. He gathered his power, sending it through the runes of blood on the sword.

  And blew through stonework like it was paper.

  The building rocked to its foundation. Shards of stone timber and dust blew in shredding gales. Those who rallied against him were as nothing. Shields, wards perfected over centuries, craftings and trinkets of incomparable power—they all failed as the sorcerers who possessed them parted before him like mist. Scintillating tendrils sheared through shrieking bodies.

  Flesh split. Crimson flowed. Bones cracked.

  Souls were sent screaming to the ancestors.

  And through the destruction, Caldan strode.

  There were no innocents. He destroyed them all.

  When he could sense no more wells, Caldan turned to what trinkets and craftings he could feel. He left the ones on the bodies and parts of bodies; they were crude and unwieldy, proven worse than useless. But he backtracked to where he’d been held, and in a locked chest easily opened by his sorcery were his craftings and trinket ring. Everything but his bone trinket, and the one he’d taken from Devenish.

  Thenna must have them.

  Caldan was still naked, his body marked by the torments he’d endured—although the oldest of those wounds were already healing. He prowled the crumbling ruin of the building, searching, wanting to find more sorcerers to bring his vengeance upon. But there were none.

  He passed broken walls and mutilated bodies. Rubble and dust, blood and flesh. Caused by his actions. Though this knowledge horrified him, that horror was so far removed from where he was right now that it seemed to be an echo of the person he used to be. At this moment Caldan was filled with righteous indignation, and a sense of wonder and elation. When he’d brought destruction, he hadn’t thought—he’d been numb to what he was doing. And the elation was unforeseen. He reveled in his power’s release, the complex application of destructive sorcery, wondering if there was anything that could stop him.

  His uncanny strength left him in a rush. Weariness descended upon him, both physical and mental. He found a broken roof beam and sat down to rest. A moment only. He couldn’t afford more. They will be coming. Warlocks and Protectors.

  Ancestors—everyone would be coming, now.
/>
  Eventually he left the devastation.

  Incredulous onlookers huddled in alleys and avenues outside—residents, traders, and merchants. They stared with shock at the destruction, and at Caldan as he trudged listlessly out of the smoking ruin, useless left hand hugged to his side. It ached abominably, and inside, he felt its loss keenly, as if part of him had been cut away. And it might as well have been.

  Caldan ignored the people, looking up at the cloudy sky.

  There was the dead body of a guard close by, a plump man with unseeing eyes. Caldan awkwardly stripped off the man’s pants and shirt as best he could with only one working hand, and tugged them on. They were too big, but better than nothing.

  Ancient stone walls surrounded him, and from the position of the sun, he was in the south of the city. That meant Miranda was east.

  Caldan lifted the trinket sword and rested the flat of the blade against his shoulder, edge close to his neck. The guards at the gate would let him through; they wouldn’t be able to stop him. Then he would go to Quiss’s ships, clean himself and rest. A physiker would need to see to his hand. He’d healed flesh wounds quickly, but crushed bones were another matter. Perhaps they’d be able to set it so there was a chance he’d be able to use the hand again one day.

  Perhaps.

  He bowed his head and rubbed his eyes. He was weary, so weary.

  Without warning, Caldan felt a surge of power and a whiff of lemons. He reacted instantly, his shield surrounding him the moment before gouts of light pummeled him. Dust stirred in great whirlwinds, and shadows thrashed among the wreckage he’d wrought.

  He lashed out to where he sensed wells. Four, no, five of them.

  Black-clad warlocks scrambled among the rubble, dodging behind cover. Thenna was with them.

  Caldan whirled, searching for threats, promising violence to all who opposed him. Wood charred and stone cracked under his renewed fury.

  “Stop!” someone shouted.

  Caldan ignored them.

  Thenna had tormented him past reasoning. Now she would reap her reward.

  A shadow moved. He pitched sorcerous ruin at it. One of the warlocks floundered. Her shield dissolved under his onslaught, and as it fell, she fell flaming to the dust, screeching in agony.