The Curse in the Gift (The Last Whisper of the Gods Book 2)

by Berardinelli, James

  Sorial had never felt more alive. Even with half his senses gone - he had given his ability to smell and taste to the portal - and with two toes and one hand amputated, he was suffused with health and energy. Using magic and communing with earth imparted a sense of wholeness and well-being missing for his entire life. He craved using his abilities but, even as unschooled as he was in matters of magic, he suspected a trap, because every time he accessed power, he felt not only the ecstasy of unlocking it but a subtle draining away of his mortal essence. Instinctively, he knew this was the ongoing price he must pay for being a wizard. What he gave up to escape the portal had only been the beginning.

  He remembered stories of how wizards rarely lived to old age, and he could understand why that might be. The urge to use magic could become overpowering. Its employment offered fulfillment and an affirmation of life and vitality. To abstain was difficult, unpleasant, and potentially harmful. Yet if each instance in which it was used drained away even a little of the wizard’s essence, how long would it take before he became a burnt-out husk? Sorial wondered about Ariel. What was she hiding beneath her cowl? Was her face horrific because of what she had yielded at the portal or because of what had been eaten away since then? It didn’t take book learning and a careful study of the history of wizards for Sorial to understand that this might be the greatest challenge faced by any practitioner of magic.

  What had Sorial learned during more than four weeks of self-denial, reflection, and practice? At the very least, he had made some discoveries about his limitations. He wasn’t all-powerful. Far from it, in fact. It was hard to imagine that wizards had once been able to pass themselves off as gods, but perhaps things had been different nine centuries ago. When it came to performing “magic,” his competency was restricted to acts that involved earth. It was a little frustrating to recognize that seemingly simple undertakings that might require little more than a moment’s thought from another wizard were barred to him.

  When it came to acts of earth, however, little was beyond Sorial’s capabilities; it was only a question of how deeply he drained his life’s essence to commit the deed. He could probably move a mountain if he tried, although he couldn’t conceive why such a thing would be desirable or necessary, and he might kill himself in the process. He had no idea how much he could accomplish before the toll began to mark him in perceptible ways.

  Sorial was convinced that the key to being a long-lived and successful wizard was in finding short cuts - ways to accomplish goals by using less effort. Consideration of the methods he had used to escape Havenham revealed a gross expenditure of power. Instead of bringing down the large area of the ground around the portal, he could have destabilized one or two load-bearing rocks and everything would have collapsed on its own. He also had to be careful about extravagant and unnecessary uses of his abilities. If something could be accomplished by brute force, there was no need to call on earth-power. Why use magic to lift a heavy rock if he could pick it up? Such a thing might be appealing as a demonstration but its practicality was limited.

  Sorial would never find his answers in books, even if he uncovered a treasure trove of documents dating back to the time of wizards. He couldn’t read and it was unlikely circumstances would provide him with an opportunity to rectify that deficiency any time soon. With no one alive to teach him and no way to comprehend the instruction of those long dead, he would need to learn his craft through practice, trial and error, and by following his instincts. He hoped those things would be enough; he worried they wouldn’t be.

  Sorial found a nice, flat rock and lay down, intending to absorb the sun’s warmth until the rock wyrm arrived. It wasn’t far away and could travel quickly, but he had a little time to himself before it arrived. As he closed his eyes, he noticed the involuntary pull as his mind connected with the rock. In an instant, he knew about its unremarkable history, its composition (there were flakes of gold in it), and how much it weighed. Knowing, as he thought of this ability, was coming more naturally to him. It was passive, a result of his deeply personal connection to earth. He couldn’t connect with a finger of flame or a drop of rain, but no stone could hide a secret from him.

  Some rocks had extraordinary stories to tell. Others revealed only that they had been shaped over the centuries by the other elements, especially air and water. When in balance, the elements worked equally with and against one another.

  A subtle shaking of the ground announced the arrival of the rock wyrm, which broke through the surface with little grace, sending rocks, pebbles, and clods of dirt flying in all directions as it poked its large serpentine head above the ground. It fixed its deep eyes on Sorial and he felt a flash of recognition pass between them. The wyrm awaited him, the majority of its fifty-foot long scaled body hidden. It preferred remaining underground as much as possible. As formidable as its scales were, tons of earth represented a more impregnable armor. By nature, wyrms were neither cautious nor cowardly but millennia of unfavorable encounters with men, who often brought them down through sheer force of numbers, had taught them to be circumspect. Encounters between wyrms and humans were rare, with the former assiduously avoiding the latter. The attack on Sorial’s group resulting in Lamanar’s death had been an act of misfortune and miscalculation. The wyrm had been hungry and sensed that such a small group might be easy prey. It hadn’t reckoned with Warburm’s pistol. As soon as it had realized these humans could cause pain, it had retreated.

  Now clean and dry, Sorial rose from where he was reclining and mounted the wyrm’s massive neck. As was his habit, he scratched it behind the ear holes, mimicking what he had done with horses during his years as a stableboy. The wyrm most likely didn’t notice the touch, but it provided Sorial with a sense of familiarity. As soon as he was firmly seated, the wyrm dove.

  Riding the worm required not only the skill to hold on, but the ability to link with its unique method of travel. Sorial had learned quickly how to phase through the earth; during his first trip, he had suffered numerous bruises and scrapes. Since then, injuries had become increasingly less frequent and were never serious. He began experimenting with a process by which he might eventually be able to bring someone with him, using his powers to provide them with protection.

  Sorial didn’t fully understand how the wyrm traveled. It moved through the earth like a fish through water, passing into all manner of solid material with minimal displacement. It could not traverse fissures, caverns, underground waterways, and magma in this way. If it encountered those, it would detour around them. Large rock masses didn’t deter it; it passed through them with no more difficulty than loosely packed dirt. While riding the wyrm, Sorial didn’t need to breathe in a conventional sense - there were microscopic air pockets all around that he could tap into. He could “swim” on his own but at a greatly reduced speed. The more time Sorial spent underground, the more convinced he became that, for one such as him, earth was like water only more dense.

  It took less than a quarter-hour to make the trip from the pool to Sorial’s cavern. His temporary “home” was an eerie place more than one hundred feet wide at its center - the kind of closed-in area many humans would find uncomfortable. The air, fed only by tiny passages to the surface, was stale and close. An underground stream passed through the middle, entering and exiting through openings in opposing walls, and gurgling as it moved along. Small fish swam in the current and Sorial had devised a way to move earth beneath the water and trap them so he could scoop them out with his hands. Once cooked, they were tasty, but there was so little flesh on their bones that he had to consume more than a dozen to fill his belly. Phosphorescent lichen populated the walls, ceiling, and part of the floor, spreading as free and as far as ivy and filling the cavern with a ghostly illumination. Until his trip to the surface today, Sorial had forgotten what natural colors were like. Although the floor was relatively smooth, massive stalactites dangled from the ceiling. Sorial had probed them for their history and saw how it had taken millennia for them to form
from the deposits left by droplets of water that seeped through the porous roof.

  After dismissing the rock wyrm to hunt a meal, Sorial sat cross-legged on the floor near the stream to resume his self-taught “lessons.” It was only then that he realized how tired he was. Losing track of time in this environment was easy; Sorial ate when he was hungry and slept when he was tired. The rest of his days were spent exploring his new abilities and contemplating his place in the world. How long had it been since he last rested? At least three meals ago. Twenty hours, perhaps thirty. It was common for him to forget about sleep but not a good idea. Magic worked best when the mind was sharp; fatigue was an enemy. Sorial thought that if he ever went into battle, it would be after a full night’s rest. That, of course, presumed he had a choice in the matter.

  He lay on the floor with his head and back touching hard stone. Although naturally cool, it offered surprising warmth the longer he reclined, almost as if it absorbed his body’s heat and radiated it back. With the exception of the sounds made by the stream and the occasional dripping of water from the slick, moist ceiling, the cavern was wrapped in a perfect cocoon of silence. Sorial briefly wondered whether The Lord of Water would feel comfortable here, close to his element but surrounded by so much of another. That was a question for another time and place.

  As Sorial began to drift off, his reflections turned inevitably to Alicia. Here, on the cusp of sleep, he could think about her without analyzing the precariousness of their situation. He could remember her beauty, recall the sweetness of her scent, and become aroused by as-yet unrealized fantasies. He needed Alicia. But how long would it be until he could have her? That was the damnable part of his situation.

  CHAPTER FOUR: THE LORD OF FIRE

  His name was Justin, but they called him The Lord of Fire. The title was hard-earned but, despite the blood and sweat that had gone into it, it was hollow. As yet, he was Lord of Nothing, unless one counted the rag-tag band of misfits who had chosen to follow him and named themselves his “army.” Some day in the not-too-future, however, he expected the whole of humanity to acknowledge him as its sovereign. Then he would truly be The Lord of Fire, one of four who had inhaled the last breath of the gods and used it to bring order and balance to a world that, left to its own devices, would surely destroy itself.

  Justin was a surprisingly small and fragile man for someone with his fearsome reputation. He had a gaunt frame with abnormally long limbs and thin, delicate fingers that court musicians would envy. The pasty, translucent skin of his face stretched tightly over his skull, giving him a ghoulish appearance. His crown was bald but there was a sparse growth of silver hair on his chin and upper lip. At age 39, he looked twice his age. His most arresting features were his eyes: deep brown, they flickered with an orange/red glow that could be seen most clearly in the dark. It was an affectation - one he had consciously adopted upon coming into his powers - but he was proud of it. People who faced him knew he was no ordinary man.

  Justin luxuriated in the heat of the southern Forbidden Lands, near to the Great Wet Jungle that few men from the human cities to the north had seen. It was here, close to the location where he had come into his powers, that he had established his army’s camp. He believed this to be a portal the supposedly all-wise Ferguson knew nothing about. It was nice to have knowledge of which his former mentor was ignorant. Justin liked having the portal close. That way, when one of his recruits displayed the necessary potential, the trip could be accomplished in less than two days. There might also come a time when the portal would again serve Justin. Wizards could only pass through once and survive, or so it was said. But there were ancient documents that hinted at another possibility - documents that formed the basis of Justin’s greater scheme. The Otherverse beckoned and who was he to deny its siren call?

  He was a patient man, which was fortunate, since the plan he had set into motion had evolved not over weeks and seasons, but years and decades. His greatest concern was that he wouldn’t live long enough to see it come to fruition. Based on his understanding of the history of wizards, gleaned through the perusal of all the great libraries across this continent and another, he was among the oldest of his kind. Most wizards burned out before the age of 30. Even the two greatest, Malbranche and Altemiak, didn’t live longer, although the exact dates of their deaths were lost in the mists of time, unrecorded by the hand of any scholar. If they had died, that is. Justin wasn’t so sure and that possibility excited him. Immortality wasn’t much of a temptation - the end-game of the gods proved it was more of a trap than a boon - but the potential of discovering new avenues of power and accomplishment was a great enticement. He didn’t want to live forever but he wouldn’t mind clinging to this existence for another few decades, or even centuries.

  For now, however, it was all about waging war. A nasty business, to be sure, but a necessary one. Humankind couldn’t be brought together under a single banner without shattering the allegiances that currently dominated the continent. There were six major cities - Vantok, Basingham, and Earlford in the South, and Andel, Obis, and Syre in the North. When Justin was finished, many of those bastions of human habitation would no longer stand. Not that men wouldn’t rebuild. In fact, Justin would encourage that. But the new settlements would have new names and new leaders and all the survivors would swear allegiance to Justin’s council of four rulers: The Lord of Fire, The Lady of Air, The Lord of Earth, and The Lord of Water.

  Right now, the matter of The Lord of Earth was giving him indigestion.

  For many years, Justin had relied on Ariel, The Lady of Air, to be his eyes and ears across the continent. It made sense considering that she could ride the winds far and wide, covering more distance in a day than he could in a week. Fire had many strengths but speed of travel wasn’t one of them. Justin couldn’t fly, burrow under the earth, or swim the seas. Walking (or being borne on a litter) was his preferred means of moving from one place to another. There were ways he could teleport, but that could be inconvenient, requiring heat sources on both ends. So Ariel became his chief gatherer of information. Without her, he would be blind and deaf, cocooned in his own small corner of the world. Unfortunately, she didn’t always disseminate everything she learned. She was selective and, as one might expect from someone fostered by Ferguson’s disciples, she loved secrets.

  One case in point related to her younger brother, Sorial, whom she had watched from afar since his childhood. Her air-granted ability to alter her physical appearance had allowed her to interact with him in occasional incidental ways. Justin had known about Sorial as the latest in Ferguson’s lineage of can’t-miss candidates, but he had never considered him either a threat or a serious contender for one of the wizards’ positions. More fool him - he had known Ferguson of old and should have realized that the crafty old man wouldn’t have bothered with Ariel’s brother if there wasn’t legitimate potential there. Now, to Justin’s detriment, that potential had been realized. Damn and blast!

  Ariel had known as well. She had seen early on that he was no mere pretender. As Justin had learned from her a few weeks ago when she confessed her decade-long obsession with the boy, she had watched Sorial’s progress under the tutelage of Ferguson’s lackeys and contrived several encounters. Her goal, at which she failed, had been to divert him from Ferguson’s path. Sentiment had been a driving force and there had also been perhaps an element of jealousy. Ariel had offered Sorial aid and cryptic advice, but he hadn’t been swayed. Justin would have expected nothing else and, had Ariel consulted him, he would have told her as much. Ferguson was a brilliant manipulator and the stubbornness Sorial had exhibited was a family trait. Justin had never known anyone more intransigent than Ariel.

  Justin’s plan was to cultivate likely candidates culled from the ranks of those who had joined his forces - those who, when brought into close proximity to a portal, heard its call. Age was apparently an issue - men who hadn’t matured sufficiently to impregnate a woman and girls who hadn’t shed their first woman’
s blood were blocked, even if the potential was there. Thus far, his efforts had met with meager results - only four legitimate candidates, three of which needed seasoning before facing a transformation. Eventually, Justin expected to develop a Lord of Earth and a Lord of Water in this manner, both owing allegiance to him. They would be treated as equals as befit wizards but their loyalty would be to him as a mentor. Unfortunately, Sorial’s elevation complicated matters. Sorial was not Justin’s acolyte and never would be. He was Ferguson’s. After all these years, the old man had finally achieved his lifelong goal. Damn and blast!

  Could this complication have been prevented or at least managed? Certainly, it would have been simpler if Ariel had come to him from the first. Justin would have preferred to implement his own plan of seduction rather than merely trying to undermine Ferguson’s. Instead of implementing a scattershot and ultimately ineffective plan to keep Sorial from becoming a wizard, he would have encouraged it and offered friendship and fraternity - whatever enticements Ferguson had presented and more. But now, it was too late. The Lord of Earth had been pushed into a position of opposition. Things had evolved to where Justin would have to kill Sorial. What a waste. When it came to identifying targets with an aptitude in earth magic, Justin had marked a lone candidate - a thirteen-year old boy who had been tested only two weeks ago after waking from a dream with sticky loins. To have had a chance to recruit Sorial, to have stolen him away from Ferguson... it was frustrating to contemplate what might have been. If only Ariel hadn’t been so damn stubborn. If only she’d been able to see the bigger picture and come to him earlier. If only, if only, if only...