Fire and Sword

by Dylan Doose

  Chapter Seventeen

  Magic

  They were up an hour before sunrise and met outside the armory, as Theron had told them to do the night before. Aldous was anxious; he was afraid, yes, that was certain, but for the first time he also felt a faint flare of anticipation.

  “The contract is for an Obour,” Theron began. “A walking corpse, a spirit that exists in our world in a state of… undeath, so to speak. For forty days and forty nights it walks in this state and does mischief most foul. They spread their dung on the walls of villagers’ homes, and tear the udders from cattle to drink their blood and milk. On rare occasions, they attack and kill humans.”

  “Sounds like a nasty pest, but not a monster,” said Ken, but Aldous thought it sounded quite monstrous. “Why would the Duke of Dentin send a man all the way here to get a pest taken care of? Hell, they could have just rounded up a few lads with scythes to kill a single fiend.”

  Theron shook his head.

  “The situation is not so simple,” he said. “The Obour was first spotted twenty-eight days before the letter was signed. The messenger took at least five days to arrive here. We will take six to get there, for I am not well versed with the route to Dentin, although I do know of it. I assume the Obour was not spotted the very first day it rose, and even if it had been, that only gives us a day or two to find it in the form of an Obour.” His lips almost curled into a smile.

  “What other form would it be in?” asked Aldous. The fear went up a notch and the anticipation went down.

  “On the forty-first night, the Obour turns into an Upir,” said Chayse.

  “And mischief most foul becomes something altogether more sinister,” said Theron. “So there is a small chance it might be an Obour we come across, in which case we take off its head and call it a day.” Theron grinned, a grin that made Aldous a bit more nervous. “But more likely it will be a full-fledged Upir.”

  “So in the case of a full-fledged Upir, what do we do?” Aldous asked, and swallowed the bit of bile that he told himself was from morning hunger and not fear.

  “We take off its head, then we burn it and call it a day,” said Ken, and he too was smiling. He was excited; there was no doubting that.

  Aldous turned to Chayse. She was beaming; the other two were smiling, but Chayse was beaming. “So exciting!” she said, and shook Aldous by the shoulders to get him to be excited, too.

  Her tactic failed, and the shaking simply further stirred Aldous’ guts.

  “Ken, what will you be taking?” Theron asked as he opened the door to the armory like a gateway into some majestic oasis.

  Ken pulled a one-handed bearded axe from a rack. He swung it and twirled it in his hand. “This,” he said, then moved down the rack, and lifted a mace in his other hand. Had Aldous been using the thing, he would need two hands, but for Ken it was a toy. “And this.”

  “Armor light, Ken. You will need to attempt to match the thing in speed, for an Upir is a creature egregiously swift,” said Theron.

  Ken donned a cuirass of black boiled leather. It thickened his already immense frame. In that moment, Aldous greatly envied Ken’s size, for he thought it might take only a single swipe for even the less threatening Obour to knock him down.

  Chayse wore a light chain mail vest, no sleeves, and leather breeches, like she had when Aldous first saw her. She threw a black cloak over her shoulders, and took her bow and belted two short swords.

  Theron pulled a light chain full shirt over his head, then a black coat atop it. He sheathed his claymore on his back, along with a small hand crossbow the likes of which Aldous had never seen. It looked quick, versatile, and deadly, without the cumbersome size and weight of the traditional weapon.

  The last thing Theron put on was his helm. It was forged from black iron, and engraved with ancient northern symbols that Aldous could not decipher. There was a spiked horn on each side, with smaller spikes on the crown and scalp of the helm. It was an old, brutal, sinister thing that looked as if it had once been alive. When Theron pulled it onto his head and his eyes peered out from the circular holes, the armor seemed to become part of him, as if the iron were scales and the horns and spikes grew from the hunter’s skull.

  “Where did you get that fine piece?” Ken asked.

  “It was gift,” said Theron. “My travels took me to Ygdrrast, far to the north and across the sea. I met a great Jarl there, by the name of Vulknoot Therickson. His brother was slain in a hunt for a frost boar. To this day I have still not seen such a beast.” Theron stared before him, his muscles tensing, as if the boar were down there in the armory with them. “Twice the size of the biggest bull was that gargantuan swine. He had tusks as long as spears and thick as oaks. His eyes were as wild as a thousand reeling maelstroms.” Aldous thought for a moment how such eyes would look, then decided it was a thing better left un-thought. “Jarl Therickson and I, just us two. Together we achieved conquest over the most quarrelsome quadruped. It took eight spears to slow him enough to get in close, but even then the white behemoth fought to the teeth. Blood stained the snow, and its squeals echoed through the mountain pass. The Jarl got his axe in its belly and my claymore found its throat. We feasted like Therickson’s gods that night as we took shelter from the elements in the boar’s carved-out rib chasm.”

  “I am certain that story told of some great adventure,” Ken said. “But I was unable to understand it for all the words. Quadru-what?”

  Ignoring him, Theron took off the helmet and stared at it in admiration. “When we returned to his great hall, as a gift he gave to me this helm, the helm of his fallen brother… Fine men, the Thericksons… fine men. ”

  Aldous looked at the size of the helmet, wondering if he would even be able to lift it. Already did he feel small and weak next to just Theron and Ken. He could not imagine an entire hall of Therickson behemoths.

  After a moment, Theron placed the helmet back on his head and turned to Aldous.

  “And you, Aldous? What here in this great armory lights the kindling of dormant violence in your chest?”

  “I can read your fine mood, brother, in your flowery language,” Chayse said.

  Theron ignored her as well, and said, “Aldous?”

  Aldous winced. “Perhaps a quill and parchment? Is that not the task you assigned me when we were in the dungeon? That seems best suited to my skills.”

  “That would be magnificent, good Aldous,” said Theron. “This is a desire I have held since our first meeting, but you cannot write in the thick of the action. In the thick of the action, you will need a weapon, so it would seem you have two mighty tasks, whereas the rest of us just have one.” Theron turned his back to Aldous and went through the racks.

  “He has been practicing well with short sword and shield,” said Ken. “Let him try with that in the field. In sparring, he fares better than most would.”

  “What say you to that, Aldous?” Theron asked.

  Before he could respond, Chayse spoke. “Give him the sword and shield, but why isn’t he using his gift?”

  They all fell silent at this. And in the silence, Aldous’ anxiety heightened.

  “Why shouldn’t he be using his magic?” Chayse continued.

  “Aldous is yet to repeat whatever spell he called upon in the chapel. When the rats attacked the village…” Theron let his silence speak for itself.

  “Magic cannot be summoned at the snap of a finger,” Chayse said. “Even our mother, skilled as she is, needed a catalyst, brother.”

  Ken’s axe clattered to the ground.

  Aldous felt like all the breath had left his body. He thought he must have misheard Chayse, but there was no other way to interpret her words. She spoke of magic. And she spoke of her mother—Theron’s mother—in the same breath.

  Theron and Chayse, the two people he thought most of in this world, had magic in their blood. The revelation made him feel terror and wonder and despair and hope all at once.

  Theron stalked toward Chayse, his g
ood humor evaporated.

  “Tread carefully, sister.” Each word sounded like it was bitten out between clenched teeth.

  “We must help Aldous tread carefully, must help him hone the skills to control his magic,” Chayse said, not backing away. “We are going into the hunt with Aldous, so trust him. You spent too much time alone, Theron. Surviving alone is about trusting yourself. Surviving as a pack is about trusting the individuals that make up that pack. You asked me to trust Kendrick the Cold, to live under the same roof, to eat at the same table, to fight by his side… a killer, a monster in human form.” She shot Ken an apologetic look.

  He shrugged.

  “If Aldous truly has a dormant power,” she continued, “then let us trust him. Let us use the keys we have in this very house to unlock that power.”

  Though a part of Aldous didn’t want to know his power, the bigger part of him wanted to unlock it just as Chayse said.

  “It will take time, Chayse,” Theron said. Aldous wasn’t sure if that meant Theron had agreed to share the secrets or not. “He will not be able to simply loose bolts of lightning and flame just because he has scrolls and a catalyst.”

  “Scrolls?” Aldous whispered.

  They both ignored him.

  “So let him learn as he goes,” Chayse said. “He has already proven to be a quick study with a sword.” Ken snickered. “He will be equally quick with magic,” Chayse finished.

  Aldous turned to Ken with a scowl, and the large man rolled his lips inward in mock fear.

  Theron reached into his pocket, and from it he retrieved a Brynthian ducat.

  “Theron, really? Now?” Chayse shook her head in dismay.

  Theron ignored her and flipped the coin. It spun in the air end over end. Aldous’ stomach was in his chest with anxiety as he struggled with the reality that this coin would have a pivotal role in his life.

  Theron caught it. He slammed it on his hand. The face of the king.

  The hunter scowled at the coin for a long moment then flipped it over.

  The face of the dragon.

  “Very well,” said Theron. “Very well, but he is taking a sword and shield nonetheless.” He turned to Aldous. “Do we have a deal, wizard? You fight no matter what, whether your magic can be tamed or not.”

  “Yes,” Aldous said, the excitement rising again, rising to the thought of a dormant power and the new and unexpected opportunity to learn about that power. He lifted a light wooden shield from the rack and belted a sheathed short sword.

  “Follow me,” said Theron, his voice stern, his presence more formidable than ever in his armor. They were about to pass some sort of threshold; an irreversible step was about to be taken, and although afraid, very afraid, Aldous Weaver followed, ready to study and learn and grow his power.

  Lady Wardbrook’s hidden study was past the baths at the very end of the hall. A loose brick, when pushed in, activated some mechanism incomprehensible to Aldous, and as if by magic, but more likely by magnificent engineering, the wall simply opened.

  “Sneaky,” said Ken as he watched the secret gate part.

  There were steep stone stairs that led down into black. The torches on the wall burst into flame, illuminating the stairwell. This was certainly by magic. It was just like in the chapel when Aldous lit the candles with tinder or flint. Aldous looked at his hands.

  “It wasn’t you,” said Theron. “My mother put a spell on the torches to illuminate whenever the gate was opened.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me your mother is a sorceress?” Aldous asked.

  “I’m more than telling you now,” Theron replied.

  “Where is your mother?” Aldous asked, following Theron as they descended deeper under the earth, Chayse and Ken following behind. Cobwebs ran across the ceiling and walls, causing all of them to swipe in front of their faces to remove the things from their path. It had unquestionably been a very long time since anyone had been in this deep, reclusive part of Wardbrook.

  “My mother’s whereabouts are more unknown to me than those of our mortal enemy the Emerald Witch, so please let us deal with one demon at a time,” said Theron. His tone—and the cracking of his knuckles as he clenched his fist—made Aldous think it wise to immediately stop that line of questioning.

  The further they went down the stairs, the stranger Aldous felt. His palms grew hot and moist, and an icy, damp sensation slithered down his spine. He thought he heard Chayse whisper something, but when he turned around to look at her, it was clear she had not spoken.

  They reached the bottom of the stairs. The ceiling was perhaps only nine feet high, but the room extended for at least a hundred. Like many other rooms in the estate, the walls were all lined with books.

  “Are these all…?” Aldous approached a shelf and read a single title at random: Lightning Possession.

  “Yes,” said Chayse, “they are all tomes of spells.”

  “Does your mother—”

  “Yes,” said Theron, “she knows them all.”

  A shudder shook Aldous’ frame. He again took in the vast room: thousands of books, tens of thousands of spells. What power would such a person possess?

  You will one day know, Aldous Weaver. The voice was a hushed whisper, nearly a hiss; it was the voice of a woman.

  Something tugged on his chest. Something was pulling him.

  “What is a catalyst?” Aldous asked, as he looked around the room for the voice, or the thing that pulled him, wondering if that, in fact, was this catalyst they described.

  “It is a magically imbued anything,” Theron said. “Well, inanimate as far as I know. It is magically imbued by an arch mage and passed down to disciples, so they may, with greater ease, access their powers.”

  “The first time you called fire, what was in your hand, Aldous?” Chayse asked.

  Aldous thought back and replied, “Father Riker.”

  Chayse and Theron exchanged a glance. “Nothing else?” asked Chayse.

  “Nothing else.”

  “What is so fascinating about you, Aldous, is that the very first time you used your powers you had no catalyst,” Theron said. “Arch mages spend most of their lives trying to reach that point.”

  “Could a sword be a catalyst?” asked Aldous, as he gripped the hilt of the blade at his hip, and in his mind’s eye he saw the weapon ablaze, hordes of rats closing around him, and he was not afraid.

  “Yes, as I said, any inanimate object,” Theron said. “An arch mage could imbue a spoon if he desired, or a chair if they had an urge to watch their disciples run round shooting bolts and blasts from a chair.” He snickered.

  “In the far east I saw a battle mage,” said Ken. “He wielded an axe that blazed with hellfire. It set men ablaze by the score and cut through the heaviest plate like a hot knife through butter. He and twelve of his men held a mountain pass against three hundred of us.”

  “How did you defeat him?” asked Aldous.

  “They say that the practitioners of magic use their own life force to generate their spells. After killing over two-thirds of our force, his twelve followers long ago butchered, the battle mage simply wore out. He was exhausted, and his axe fizzled. He became a normal man. I shot him in the eye with a crossbow.”

  “Ah,” said Aldous. He thought of what Ken had just said about the use of life force as a currency for spells. He remembered the feeling after he’d set the chapel ablaze; it was the feeling of slipping into death’s black fade. It was painless, but it was the temptation of an embrace much unlike sleep, for sleep promises of awakening. This had been different, a sweet song that sang only of eternity.

  “Here,” Chayse said as she opened a chest next to a massive oak desk and from it pulled out a four-foot wooden short staff. “This was one of my mother’s earlier staffs, given to her by a great druid who dwelled in the Nevidian forest.” She walked back to the others and extended the staff to Aldous with both hands.

  He took it with the utmost care. It was fashioned from ash and perfect
ly smooth in the center. The rest was carved with the most intricate details, a relief of an unkindness of ravens on one half, and a pack of fang-baring wolves on the other.

  The dreams. Dreams of wolves and ravens.

  Aldous ran his hand over the carvings, and there was a stirring in him as he touched the wolves. In the furthest abyss of his mind he could hear them howling, and the sound echoed down his spine and found his heart. It thumped in his chest to the moon song of the wolves on the staff. He twirled it in his hands so that the raven side was up, and he inspected the art closely, running a single finger over one of the forbidding birds’ forms. The unkindness of ravens joined the wolves in their song, and the ballad of beasts grew louder, as the wings flapped up and the claws ran across ice and snow from the depths of his consciousness to the front of his mind.

  Aldous could no longer see the room. Chayse was gone. Ken and Theron both gone. He was in the woods. The trees grew so tall they must have reached clouds, the branches so thick the sky could not be seen. Fireflies shimmered gold and gave the black wood light. It was haunting; it was beautiful. The wolves surrounded him. And the ravens perched on all the branches. They painted the already dim canopy forever black, all but the reflection of the fireflies in their obsidian raven eyes. The wolves came closer. Hundreds of massive wolves. Aldous was not afraid, for they were bowing their heads. He felt powerful, immensely powerful. His heart thumped and thundered in his ears. It was the thudding like the drums of war, and all at once, in perfect unison, the wolves howled and the ravens cawed. It was a thing most divine, but this was no action performed by the God of Light. This was a god altogether more savage and altogether more present.

  * * *

  Aldous stood upright, his legs completely stiff and rooted, while his torso and head convulsed madly as he screamed and frothed, his eyes rolled back so that they were completely white. All the while he clung to the staff, holding it with both hands directly out in front of him. One hand on the wolf carvings, the other on the ravens. The veins in his wiry forearms bulged. It was a sight Theron had never seen before in person. He knew it happened, for his mother had told him, but it was a bloody strange thing to bear witness to.