“I may be old, but I never forget an apprentice, Baylan” House Master Grozul said, pushing his broken spectacles up his hooked nose.
“I—” Baylan was at a loss. Seeking an explanation was like trying to climb up fog.
“Your disguise leaves a lot to be desired,” Grozul said, hobbling over to a chair and dropping into it. “You’ll need to do more than just shaving your beard and your hair to fool me.” He smiled, showing his mouth with but a few teeth remaining.
Friend or foe, Baylan wasn’t sure. How deep did Asebor’s talons reach?
“Don’t worry,” the House Master said, lowering his voice. “I wasn’t the one who ordered you to the dungeons, though your response then, was not the wisest.”
“Lillian wasn’t the type to die in chains, whoever did order it should have known that,” he barked, smashing his palm on the table and rattling a vase that shimmered like broken glass. “Who was it? Since when did the Houses put questioners in chains? What evil penetrates these walls?” So many questions wanted to break through his lips.
Grozul’s little eyes went wide and he cringed in his chair, pushing it away from the table. Baylan saw the gleam of his dagger in his hand, unaware he had even drawn it. Waves of blue light smoked from his skin, vibrating his chest, shimmering in his eyes. He lost control, realized he had embraced every ounce of the Phoenix that he was capable of handling and let it go with a breath, exhaustion hitting him like a smith’s hammer. He slumped into his chair, sheathing the dagger, Phoenix sliding into the back of his mind.
“Sorry. It’s been a trying time, as I’m sure you can imagine.”
“Ah—yes,” Grozul said, straightening his beard, the tips singed black and filthy with the remains of meat or an experiment gone wrong. “As I was starting to say, I had no part in your eh, brief imprisonment. I don’t condone your actions against the House of Arms, however… and reparations must be made. I had heard an inkling of what you were going to present to us from Tamia, the new House Master of the Dragon and Bezda’s assistant. Ah—there is much to tell.”
Baylan blew out his cheeks. “It’s okay. Please, take your time. We have a few hours before the sun rises.”
“Well, I followed Tamia’s lead, it piqued my curiosity, as most things do. She mentioned that you wanted to speak with us about the false god, Asebor. I—many of us see now you were right to come to us, given the raids on the villages to the west, the altercation on the plains and the attacks to the south by what the villagers only can describe as monsters from their nightmares.”
“Altercation,” Baylan scoffed. “Many men died, defending the heart of the realm in that battle. Wait—did you say there have been attacks to the south, so close to the Tower?”
“I apologize if I offended. Your weariness makes you brittle, Baylan,” Grozul said, launching into a fit of coughing. Baylan popped the cork from his water skin, handing it over to the old shell he’d remembered, once the picture of graceful aging. He wondered if this would be the future for him, thriving then declining sharply.
“Where was I?” the House Master said, his eyes rolling about the high shelves.
“Attacks to the south,” Baylan said, leaning his chest against the table, heavy as iron.
Grozul nodded, his eyes seeming to be looking into a distant scene on the polished table’s surface. “There is something wrong with the Arch Wizard. She was once a decisive woman, quick to action to squash an uprising. Now she spends her days brooding in her spire, weeks after an attack, only to deploy the armsmen far too late, after a village and its people have been ransacked, their innocent blood spilled and dried,” he whispered.
Baylan felt like a stack of bricks had been placed on his back, trying to crush him into blood and dust. “This sounds far too familiar,” he said softly.
“What are you saying?” Grozul said, his eyes snapping back to reality.
“When I was in Midgaard, where do I begin? We—I,” Baylan paused. Very few could be trusted to handle the truth in its entirety, not even his former mentor. A life without people you could trust was no life at all. He had to try to trust someone. “We discovered that King Ezra’s faculties were being manipulated by one of Asebor’s generals, they call themselves ‘The Wretched’.”
“But how?” Grozul asked, his jowls spreading out behind his beard. “No! Not one of the banned spells.”
“Yes, a Mind Eater. The Wretched do not subscribe to any laws, lastly ours.”
“You’ve brought me grim tidings. Grim tidings,” the old man said, staring off. “I fear you are right though. I believe I saw the afterimage of the Mind Eater in Bezda’s office, but I couldn’t believe it. It had to have been a trick of the mind.”
“It must be Tamia, her new assistant. Do they spend a lot of time together?” Baylan asked.
“This is difficult to process. The demon god, Asebor, is real and his reach has extended into the Tower, this is so very grim…”
“Tamia?” Baylan nodded, getting the House Master back on track.
“She never leaves the Arch Wizard’s side. We can’t make an accusation without proof. This must be handled delicately… if the people were to lose faith in the fortitude of the Tower, it would be a great blow to morale. People are already shivering under their sheets, the stories of lore manifested in reality.”
“Right,” Baylan nodded. “She’s positioned herself well. House Master of the Dragon and Bezda’s assistant. She’s the most powerful person in the Tower,” Baylan said with heavy realization. “How did this happen?”
“Too quickly. Tamia rose from apprentice to journeyman soon after you left, then quickly replaced the House Master and wriggled her way into Bezda’s quarters.”
“The Arch Wizard was never one to push an attractive woman from her bed. It was too easy for Tamia. So she is the only boil that needs to be cut from the Tower?” Baylan said, pressing his fingers into the bridge of his nose.
“There may be others. She has other allies in the Tower, though she hasn’t gone out of her way to make friends after winning Bezda.”
“She got what she wanted. No need for any other superfluous relationships.”
Grozul grunted, absentmindedly plucking a piece of meat from his beard and popping it into his mouth. Any other time Baylan would have acknowledged the action with revulsion, now it was like watching a dream scrape by. “There is more though, I’m afraid. The Tower no longer sends scouts to the other realms or to the edges of Zoria to search for dual-wielders. Bezda said it was a waste of our time now.”
Baylan snickered in mock amusement.
Grozul flashed him a contemptuous smile, then continued, “Alia, the young girl who could touch both of the god’s essences, that was found in the Nether, died a few months ago on a hunting trip. A Sand Buckeye snatched the poor girl before she was properly trained on how to defend herself. A horrible tragedy.”
“This plague spreads deep,” Baylan said, maggots of hopelessness worming their way into his chest. Alia was supposed to be well protected because of her gifts, as he was duty bound to watch over Walter. Dual-wielders were a dying breed and something this age would need if humanity wanted to survive unchained.
“What happened to Lillian? Did she come with you?” Grozul asked, genuine interest touching his eyes.
By the Phoenix, he didn’t know. How long had his messages gone undelivered? Baylan shook his head, feeling his eyes bubble with warmth and wet, wiping tears on his dirty sleeve before they fell. The air felt hot in here, thick and hard to breathe, like it wasn’t getting into his lungs. He took a few deep breaths, wondering when it would no longer feel like he was being rammed through with a spear every time her name was mentioned.
“My condolences, Baylan. I didn’t know…”
“It’s alright,” he sniffed. “I sent hawks to Bromley who was to deliver my messages to Adgren and Sophietta, the only other two wizards whom we trusted. I know what happened to Bromley, but I haven’t seen—”
“All de
ad,” Grozul said, his small eyes widening, enormous saucers of blue behind his spectacles. “Grim tidings,” he repeated with a touch of madness.
“Dead?” Baylan asked, his back sagging further down his chair, his voice deadpan. His only allies here had been discovered and obliterated. Maybe he still had an ally here though. Grozul’s eyes were tightening, lips pulling down into a frown. Loyalty was starting to become a scant quality in men of this age.
“The apprentices you discovered are quite powerful. They seem to be trained beyond their years,” he said with enthusiasm.
“Yes. They’re truly gifted,” Baylan said, appreciating the subject change, his stomach pain becoming a background throb with the excitement he felt at Walter’s most recent progress.
“Not ordinary apprentices, especially the boy,” Grozul said, his bushy eyebrows drawing in.
Grozul couldn’t be fully trusted, not yet. His trust had to be earned. “He seems to hold a lot of promise.”
The old man pulled off his hat, dispersing the quintessential image of a wizard from the stories. Without it, he looked no different than a beggar. His robes were rumpled with stiff creases. The aroma wafting from his skull was that of a man who hadn’t bathed in months. He placed the grease stained hat on the table, twiddling the bent point straight. “I made a great journey a few weeks ago, one I could not resist. I discovered in Nutlee’s Chronicles of The Age of Dawn, an amazingly heavy tome, the location of where the demon god Asebor was supposedly buried.”
“And?” Baylan remembered roughly where Walter said he’d found it, in the forest north of the Helm’s East road.
“I found the tomb, an incredible place, deep within a Shiv Fang den. It was a perilous journey, one fraught with—”
“Get on with it, Grozul. I need to get some rest,” Baylan cut in, exhaustion not allowing him to feel an ounce of regret for his sharp tongue.
“Uh, right.” The old man sighed with a bit of hurt in his eyes. “The artifacts mentioned in the book that were placed there due to their extraordinary power were missing. Stormcaller and Blackout. It seems the bracer the boy wears looks a lot like the sketch I saw.”
His eyes were sharper than he made them out to be. Were the spectacles just a ruse? “Strange, I hadn’t noticed,” Baylan said. “It must be some sort of replica.”
“Perhaps. I heard reports from the battle of the Plains of Dressna that there was a man who cut down Death Spawn with trails of fire…”
“Fascinating,” Baylan said, doing his best to not reveal what he knew, letting silence do the talking. They both sat there, staring up at the crystalline dome, the first light of the sun piercing through and dotting the library with pinks. Titles with gilded script shone bright, begging to be read.
“The Chains of the North—Bonesnapper as some call it—are still yet to be discovered, supposedly this weapon will be needed to slay Asebor,” Grozul said, peering over his shoulder at the scuffle of feet. A few diligent students slinked into an alcove on the other side of the dome, sending curious glances at the men. Grozul gave them a dismissive wave.
“I believe the legend of Bonesnapper is true. It’s a long story… I believe the Chains of the North are in the hands of Asebor,” Baylan said, his hands steepled.
“Grave tidings,” Grozul groaned.
Baylan stared beyond Grozul at a bookshelf, books blurring in his eyes, hoping for some serendipitous answer to emerge from the roots of his mind. None did.
“What should we do about Tamia?” Grozul finally asked.
“I don’t know. There is an army of demons outside the Tower and a snake within. It seems there is no front that lacks danger. We watch closely, try to catch her in the act. We’ll need proof before we strike.”
His lover, closest friends in the Tower, all dead. How many more would die before this disease was excised from the realm? Baylan was feeling the icy touch of death at his back, his bones aching when he woke in the morning, muscles chronically sore. Recovery from Phoenix wielding now took days instead of hours. He felt that time was running down for him, though he had felt that way before in his youth, and here he was, staring across the table at the face of his likely future. No one would escape Time’s poisonous blade. Not even a wizard.
Chapter Fourteen
Separation
“We don’t think of the true cost of blood until after it has been spilled.” -The Diaries of Baylan Spear
The room was small and too cramped for people who Walter thought should be well respected. All men were alike it seemed, regardless of geographic location. “People didn’t give surgeons proper respect, until they needed one,” his mother had said. The size of this room reflected her sentiment, an afterthought compared to the massive rooms in the rest of the Tower. The quarters he shared with Baylan were about the same size, he reckoned.
Walter had learned that there were many specialties in the houses. The Phoenix had their masters of healing, shields, portals, and telekinesis. The House of the Dragon had specialists in each of the elements—fire, air, earth and water. The House of Arms had specialists in over fifty weapon varieties. After ten years in the Tower as a journeyman you could choose your specialty on the path of mastery.
The air felt too hot this early in the day, in dire need of more circulation. The walls of the healer’s room were a blue-gray stone, sparkling in the gleam of the morning sun flitting through the sole window. One side of the wall had stone shelves lined with foreign jars of various goos, tinctures, and powders in the full spectrum of color.
Another side held a box of surgeon’s tools propped open on a small table, a few he recognized. There was a fine line between healer and torturer, mainly distinguished by the cleanliness of one’s tools. The healer’s tools were polished to a sterile gleam, well organized in a heavy lidded box lined with red fabric. It was a good choice for hiding blood stains, notoriously difficult to remove.
Juzo stood with his arms crossed on the opposite side of the bed, facing Walter. Blackout lay on a nearby table, Juzo’s eye seemingly unable to look anywhere else.
The healer had long hair, black with streaks of sun tinted browns. “The curse of this weapon is quite strong. I’m not sure how long this will take or how painful it may be. I won’t lie to you, this may be excruciating,” The hawk-faced man said with a strange accent. His stubby fingers rubbed the plain wooden ring all of the healers wore around their necks, secured by a simple piece of hemp.
Juzo nodded, eyebrows drawn flat. He flicked his eye up at the healer, to Walter, then back at Blackout. He let out a long sigh as he shook his head, lips moving as if lost in some hidden dialog.
Nyset stood at the end of the bed, flashing a toothy smile at Walter as he met her eyes. She wanted to be here for Juzo, she said at morning supper. She said her classes ended early today. Either way he was glad to see her. It felt like it had been way too long, though only a very long couple days. He did his best to smile back, but anxiety was clawing at his guts and twisting them into knots. He knew the pain well that Juzo would endure, wishing there was something else he could do for him. Sometimes the best thing you could do for someone was just to be there.
“Go ahead and take off your shirt, Juzo. I’ll dull your skin with some numbing oil,” the healer said, calm as if he were about to take a stroll in the garden, brush and clear oil in hand.
“Alright, let’s be done with it then,” Juzo said, slipping off his oversized shirt, rolling onto the bed, his sinewy muscles flexing. The healer flicked the brush over Juzo’s shoulder a few times, then over his chest and ankles, smiling all the while.
“That should do it. You’ll feel a brief tingling as the oil spreads through your skin,” the healer said, capping the oil and placing the brush in another jar.
“Are you sure you can do this?” Juzo stared up at the healer standing over him. “The sword—it talks to me,” he said quietly.
“No, I’m not sure. But I have been doing this for over thirty years and have yet to encounter an art
ifact with a curse I could not break,” he smiled reassuringly. He didn’t seem worried. Why should he be?
That didn’t seem to do much for Juzo, who lay squirming on the bed, gray strands of hair sticking to his forehead. Feathers spurted out from a rip in the mattress in a jet of white as he tossed his back into a different position. The sheets were porcelain white, an incredible feat for a surgeon’s room. The wonders of magic, Walter thought with reverence.
“We’ll have to strap you down for your own protection,” the healer said, draping worn leather straps over his body, cinching them to the bed on one side. These were clean too, but Walter could see the deep stains of pink showing through. He made himself useful, getting the other ends of the straps and working them through the hooks bolted to the bed. It felt like just yesterday when he was in this position, terror firmly gripping his throat, under Malek’s impassive gaze.
He brushed the hair from Juzo’s eyes and gripped his hand tight, trying impart a sense of comfort. It was alarmingly cold. Juzo looked up at him, forcing a smile that didn’t touch his eyes and squeezed Walter’s hand in kind.
“Apprentices, please stand back,” the healer said, waving them away from Juzo. “I’ll need to remove this too,” he said, slipping off Juzo’s eye patch and hooking it on a corner of the bed frame. His eye wasn’t just an empty socket, but a jagged mess of misshapen bone and skin, like someone had tried to work the eye out with a garden shovel and failed the first ten times. The sight of that old wound pressed on Walter’s chest, whose heart was thundering, teeth gritted at the pain Juzo had to have endured. Walter gave his friend’s hand another quick squeeze, ignoring the inhuman cold of his touch, then stepped back to the wall beside Nyset.
The healer’s hands glowed with the distinctive blue of the Phoenix, lightly humming in the air and illuminating the dim corners of the room. It was fascinating to be on the other side of the Phoenix’s healing. He wondered when he would learn how to heal the wounds of others.
The Silver Tower (The Age of Dawn Book 3) Page 17