The Sorcerer's Path Box Set: Book 1-4

by Brock Deskins

  He tried to scream, but he could only continue laughing as he felt himself being forced from his own body. Blackness overcame him, and he could no longer see out of his own eyes.

  Klaraxis looked at his sprawled body through his new eyes as the chains uncoiled from around his wrists and ankles. Far above on another plain, five wizards watched as the five braziers flared black flames for several seconds before returning to their normal orange glow.

  CHAPTER 15

  Joshua paced the long, gloomy hall outside the summoning room just in case his mistress needed him to perform some task. His conscience warred with his inability to do anything regardless of how he felt about the situation. He heard the sorcerer shriek a long and frightful scream, but he had heard nothing more for many minutes now. Not even the droning chant of the archmages slipped under the crack beneath the thick door.

  Unable to stand it any longer, he stalked down the hall and into the library where he saw Aggie behind her desk, as usual, though looking a bit fretful.

  “Ah, Jonathan, I’m glad you stopped by,” the senile old librarian said as he walked into the room.

  “It’s Joshua, Aggie.”

  It was funny how she would always get his name wrong but could tell you where every book was within the library and what it contained.

  “Joshua Aggie! Why you have the same last name as my first name,” she cackled.

  “No, Aggie, it’s just Joshua.”

  “Well, whatever you want to call yourself, I am glad you’re here. I seem to have lost the key to my desk drawer, and I could use a good spell caster to get it open for me. I used to know a nice little spell that would do the trick, but I’ve forgotten it over the years.”

  “I’m sorry, Agatha, but I haven’t studied that one.”

  Aggie waved a gnarly old hand dismissively. “No need to fret, this is a library for Solarian’s sake.” She began sifting through sheets of velum and paper scattered across her desktop. “I have a scroll around here that should do the trick.”

  She picked up one of the scrolls and pressed it to her nose before shoving it in Joshua’s face. “What does this one say at the top?”

  Joshua told her and she waved her hand once more as if she were shooing away a fly. “No, no, that one would unlock everything from shackles to a dimensional portal. This is just a desk, not a wizard’s ward.” She began picking through the scrolls once more. “Ah, I think this is the one! Tell me what this one says.”

  Joshua took the scroll from her and read its title.

  “That’s the one! Be a dear and use it to unlock my desk for me.”

  Joshua read the scroll, its scribbled runes flaring away to nothingness as he recited the magical words. He heard the click of the locking mechanism release the instant he read the last word on the scroll.

  The old librarian opened her desk drawer with a little shout of triumph. “Well there’s my key, right in the drawer. Now how did I manage to lock that in there without having the key? Oh well, such mysteries can wait to be solved until after my lunch,” she said and pulled out a salami and cheese sandwich and took a full bite.

  “You want a taste?” she offered Joshua, pointing the end of her sandwich at him.

  “No thanks, Aggie,” he replied and walked out of the door.

  Joshua resumed his pacing and glanced down at the scroll he still held in his hand every few steps.

  ***

  “Skunk!” Klaraxis shouted. “Skunk, get your worthless hide down here, do you hear me?”

  “Of course I hear you. Everybody between here and the third circle of the abyss can hear you,” Skulk muttered as he flew down the stairs and through the hall. “Skulk would have to be deaf not to hear you. Hm, not a bad idea. Maybe Skulk can jab his eardrums out so he does not have to listen to big-mouthed, cow-headed demon lord.”

  Skulk flew through the huge bronze door that still stood open. “Yes, oh magnificent lord of the under…balls of fire, he’s dead! Puny human done killed da big horn-headed blattazuu’s rump! Oh, joyous days! Skulk’s dreams have come true!” Skulk cried joyously and began dancing a jig on the demon lord’s chest.

  “Skunk, get off my chest,” Klaraxis told the demog who was busy shaking his posterior in the face of the demon prince’s body, making flatulent noises with his tongue.

  Skulk bit off his raspberries with a squeak and looked at the sorcerer, his black tongue sticking out between his puckered lips. Skulk looked between the human and the seemingly dead Klaraxis, which he was still squatting over, in confusion. The demog flapped up and peered intently into each of Azerick’s eyes then rapped on his forehead with his knuckles.

  “You in there, oh prince of darkness whom Skulk serves with utmost loya—ack!” Klaraxis’ new hand wrapped around his scrawny throat and cut off Skulk’s words.

  “I should tear your wings off, followed by your arms, legs, and finally your brainless little head for that display,” Klaraxis threatened with a low growl. “But I have a more important use for you. First, you will go and summon two of my tar’raun’atu to heft my body onto that stone slab. Then you will be responsible for ensuring that no one disturbs me or my possessions for the next one hundred years while I bring about a reign of torture and misery for the feeble inhabitants of the mortal world.”

  “Yes, great demon lord. Prince Klaraxis is wise to know that Skulk is his most loyal and adoring subject with whom to trust such an important honor,” Skulk croaked past the demon prince’s crushing grasp.

  “Trust?” Klaraxis laughed. “Hardly, you little dung pile with wings. I know that you are too much a coward and too feeble to attempt to destroy my body and usurp my throne while I am away.”

  “Dat too, your benevolent wickedness.”

  “Now go get my porters to lift me off this floor.” Klaraxis slung Skulk through the doorway to smack heavily into the wall before he could arrest his uncontrolled flight.

  “Stupid, pasty-faced, human skin-wearing, demon squatter. Bad enough he think Skulk is scouring maid, stupid human think Skulk is doorman, now he supposed to be some kind’a mortician to take care of his stinkin’ body. He thinks he can just throw Skulk against da wall like he is stupid little puppy, and den I’m supposed ta just sit around and watch his stinkin’ corpse collect dust? Skulk gonna get his revenge, make him regret ever throwing Skulk around.”

  Skulk returned with the two hulking tar’raun’atu. The tar’raun’atu were massively muscled, wingless demons who were nearly as wide as their eight-foot frames were tall. They had long, ringed horns like a gazelle jutting slightly back from their bristly, black-haired heads. Their ridiculously muscled arms were so long that their knuckles dragged the ground. Their enormous strength was only equaled by their stupidity.

  “Pick up my body and lay it gently upon the slab,” Klaraxis instructed the two brutes.

  If the demonic duo was surprised to find the body of their prince lying seemingly dead upon the floor with his voice coming out of the mouth of a human, they gave no sign of it. They simply bent down, lifted the thousand plus pound demon prince up as if he were a sleeping child, and placed him on the black stone table as they were instructed.

  “Face up, you imbeciles!” Klaraxis growled irritably.

  The two tar’raun’atu righted the lifeless body of their liege then stared at him expectantly.

  “You may go now,” he told them with forced patience then turned to Skulk. “You will guard my body with your life, Skunk.”

  “Oh joy of joys! Skulk is most happy to sit on the cold corpse of the Lord of Lies, the Duke of Degeneracy, the Emir of Immorality, the—.”

  “Shut up, Skunk, and if you so much as touch my body, I will tear one of your wings off and laugh as I watch you fly in circles.”

  Klaraxis turned to leave but spun back around as soon as he stepped through the door and narrowly missed catching Skulk shoving one of his fingers up his body’s nostril and sticking his tongue out at him as he walked away. The prince of demons glared at the innoce
ntly hovering demog and returned to his throne.

  Klaraxis sat back on his throne of bones, waved a hand over an upturned skull in the arm of the throne, and saw Shakrill’s expectant face in its reflection.

  “It is complete, and I am ready.”

  “Excellent, my demonic prince, we are prepared to bring you to your new home. He is ready,” Shakrill informed the other wizards and led the chanting of the complex spell that would bring the soul back from the abyss and return it to the vessel.

  Klaraxis felt a moment of disorientation before his new body seemed to leap from the throne and fly upward at an incredible rate. He looked down and saw his mighty fortress dwindle to a black speck amidst a rosy field before disappearing entirely. Before he was able to comprehend the sensation fully, he found himself staring up at a black ceiling just above the heads of the five humans looking down at him.

  “Welcome, Klaraxis, we have all been eagerly awaiting your arrival so that you may lead us to our rightful place of domination,” Shakrill crooned.

  Klaraxis looked at his wrists and down at his ankles, giving the chains a test tug. Had he been in his demon body, he could have snapped the feeble restraints with ease but, stuck in this form, some of his powers, most notably his physical prowess, was greatly diminished. But not his innate magical power, as these foolish wizards were about to learn.

  Klaraxis called upon his demonic source of power only to find it beyond his grasp. His mouth opened in mute surprise at the sudden understanding that he was helpless and realized that these were no ordinary chains. Somehow, they managed to block his ability to reach back to the abyss, the source of his infernal magic. He tried to access the sorcerer’s Source and found that it too was beyond his grasp.

  “What have you done, Shakrill? How am I too aid you in your ascension when you have bound me and my power?” the demon asked, trying to control the rage he desperately wanted to unleash on these fools.

  “Calm yourself, my prince. It is but a temporary measure until we come to a full understanding of one another,” the wizard said then bent down next to his ear and whispered, “or should I say Dur’ar’ang’sen.”

  Every muscle in the demon’s new body spasmed at the sound of his soulname.

  “How do you know that, you traitorous bitch?” Klaraxis grunted through the pain.

  “How is not important. It is only important that you know that I am the only one who knows it, for now.”

  Well, she was the only one until she just told me, Azerick’s voice sounded through the demon’s mind.

  What, how? I destroyed you! I replaced your soul! How are you still here? Klaraxis demanded.

  I made a vow that no one would ever control my mind and body ever again, demon! Now take a seat while I get us out of here.

  Like hell I will! I am in control of this body. It is mine, and I will never give it up!

  You were never in control, you disgusting boisterous braggart, now shut up while I think! Azerick commanded the demon.

  Klaraxis shrieked in impudent rage as Azerick forced his essence to the far reaches of his mind. Azerick quickly found that his connection to the Source was indeed severed as long as these shackles remained. He decided he would simply have to wait until an opportunity presented itself, which it did when Joshua came bursting through the door, reading from a scroll he held in his shaking hands.

  “Joshua, what do you think you are doing? I did not summon you!” Shakrill screamed at her apprentice.

  The magical bonds holding Azerick to the floor and blocking his access to the Source released their hold as the metal shackles fell to the floor with a clank.

  “What have you done, you stupid little fool?” Shakrill asked, her voice hoarse with fury lacing every syllable.

  With a great smile of triumph, Azerick leapt impossibly fast to his feet from his fully reclined position and brought Klaraxis out of the darkness to which he had banished him.

  All right, demon, do you want to make these people pay? Then let’s do it, and do not try to fight me.

  The smile on the sorcerer’s face took on an even more menacing cast as Azerick’s hazel green eyes glared with a red, evil glint.

  Azerick called his staff to hand and felt its reassuring power slap into his palm. He raised the weapon high and struck its gleaming shaft onto the floor. A burst of power exploded out from all around him with such force that it sent the wizards sprawling and extinguished the braziers in a cloud of sparks. Even Joshua, who was farther from the heart of the blast, was sent flying back through the open door to land heavily against the wall.

  Azerick shouted a word of command and called forth every ward he knew, shielding his body with a series of spells strung together to be brought up all at once. Several illusory duplicates sprang up around him, and his body was invigorated with a sudden burst of energy that increased his reflexes even beyond the unnatural speeds that Klaraxis’ possession instilled in him. Such a casting would normally be exhausting, but the demonic possession seemed to give Azerick an immense well of power from which to draw upon.

  The sorcerer stretched out a hand and sent an electrical ray into the chest of the master of the Black Tower, instantly searing a massive hole through him before he even got halfway through the spell he was trying to cast. An intensely hot jet of flame splashed harmlessly against Azerick’s demonically-reinforced wards. The demon Klaraxis stretched out a hand, and a black ray lanced through the wizard’s body, turning it into a desiccated husk.

  One wizard tried to cast a binding, but his efforts were futile against the dual spirits that now resided within one body. Azerick imitated the previous wizard’s attack and sent a hellish stream of liquid fire into the archmage’s torso, incinerating his body and melting the black stone behind him.

  Another archmage tried to grab the sorcerer with hands that wreathed in a black flame. Klaraxis dodged the grapple, grabbed the foolish wizard by the wrist, and slammed him repeatedly against the wall until he slumped down, leaving behind a bloody streak.

  Azerick stood over the cowering form of Shakrill, holding up her arm that had appeared to have grown a second elbow. “Klaraxis, please,” the wizard pleaded. “I never meant to betray you, I swear! Together we can conquer the world; no one can stand against us! I only learned and used your soulname so that you would not betray me.”

  “And for that I am truly grateful, Shakrill. It makes controlling the demon much easier,” Azerick replied with a grim smile.

  “You…you could not possibly still be alive.”

  “Oh, but I am. Sorry, Shakrill, but you do not fit within my plans, nor does any of your other Black Tower ilk,” he informed the wizard and thrust his arcanum spear through her heart.

  Azerick strode through the door and looked down at Joshua who still huddled against the wall, staring at the destruction the creature before him had wrought.

  “Please, I set you free. Please don’t kill me,” Joshua begged.

  Azerick’s spear quivered under the force of his grip as the demon battered at his host’s mental defenses, longing to crush the cowering human. With another mental surge and the use of the demon’s soulname, he forced the demon further back into his psychic cage.

  “Are there any others who share your decent nature in this nest of vermin?” Azerick asked.

  The apprentice nodded vigorously. “My friend Umair, a few other apprentices and younger students, maybe an adept or two have not been terribly corrupted.”

  “You are not as incapable as your mistress liked to tell you. I see within you great potential and even now possess a respectable amount of skill. Would you like to continue your studies, free of threats and insults, perhaps even teach those younger and less accomplished than yourself?”

  “You would take me as your apprentice? Are you Azerick, or are you the demon?” Joshua asked tentatively.

  Azerick grinned down at the frightened young man, which did nothing to ease his distress. “A little of both at the moment, and no, I would not have you a
s an apprentice. I would have you as a colleague at my school.”

  “I could learn and even teach?”

  “Get yourself and any who are decent, trustworthy, and willing to follow you to North Haven. Anyone there should be able to direct you to the Orphans’ Academy. Take whatever you wish from this tower. Those who remain will have bigger worries than some pilfering. Now, go get those who will follow you, but be swift about it. You do not have much time.”

  Joshua nodded, jumped to his feet, and sprinted up the stairs to gather the satchel Aggie had given him and to get Umair and the others he thought deserved to be spared from whatever fate the sorcerer had in mind for the tower.

  Azerick looked up and down the hall with his red-tinted eyes, about to follow Joshua up the stairs when he noticed the brighter light streaming through an open doorway farther down the hall in the other direction. Azerick turned to his right, stepped into the library, and saw a stooped, old woman puttering about behind a large desk.

  Agatha looked up and squinted at the newcomer. “Well, hello there, young man, come to check out a book? I don’t seem to recall seeing you here before, and I never forget a face; a name on occasion, but never a face!”

  “No, revered grandmother, I am afraid I do not have the time to enjoy the treasures you have here. Though I wish I had a few years to peruse your grand library. I am afraid I must ask you to leave the tower and with some haste.”

  “My, my, honored grandmother am I? Such a polite young man; unlike those stupid wizards who mock old Aggie and call her a useless has-been. Well, I suppose it’s finally time for me to move on, though I don’t know about the swiftly part,” she cackled as she shuffled out from behind her desk.

  “Please move as fast as you are able, Grand Magus.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about me. You go on and do what you have to do while I collect up a few things. I’ll be gone before you’re finished, don’t you worry about old Agatha,” she ordered, shooing Azerick away with a bony old hand.