Sorcerers' Isle

by D. P. Prior

  “Come on,” she said, shouldering her satchel. “We should go.”

  “Momentarily,” Pheklus said, eyeing her warily, as if he feared she might command him once more. Did he know? Had he any idea she’d exceeded her limitations? “Gulgath needs to replenish himself. It’s a poor meal you’ve left him, but it’s the best he can hope for right now.”

  Tey was about to object, but then there was a colossal thud that rocked the chamber.

  THE ARCHMAGE

  “Don’t worry,” Theurig said. “It’s not the real thing. It’s a statue.”

  The driver lashed the ox onward, and the Wyvern grew larger and more distinct. There were dark specks milling about its base, and when Snaith looked at Theurig for confirmation, the sorcerer nodded. They were people.

  Closer, and Snaith could see the statue was carved from the same obsidian as the buttresses, each scale meticulously worked and utterly realistic. The head reared a couple of hundred feet above the plinth the beast stood upon—a seven-pointed star.

  The ocher rock face of the mesa formed a looming backdrop in the near distance. The people they’d seen from far off were now easily distinguishable. Besides the milling Lakelings, most were robed sorcerers in their various styles and affectations. Many of them Snaith recognized from the Proving. There were apprentices, too, no doubt as new to this as he was. If it hadn’t been for the bear attack, he might have faced some of them in the fight circles. Deformities abounded, as he would have expected: missing limbs, eyes, ears—which caused his stomach to clench in memory of his mother. He scanned their number for Tey. His disappointment at not finding her was mingled with relief. He knew she’d be able to see right through him, and would know all the sordid things he’d thought and done.

  He became aware of the low thump of drums, the skirling music of pipes, growing louder the nearer they got.

  The driver brought them through a space in the stalls that formed a perimeter around a wide and desolate clearing of scorched earth. The wyvern statue was the focal point around which sorcerers and their apprentices congregated, some bending down to read the inscriptions that covered the base in cursive script.

  As the cart drew up, Theurig jumped down, wincing before he straightened his knees. Snaith followed him in a daze, gazing around at the Lakeling stalls selling crafts and foodstuffs, scrolls, trinkets, and all manner of clan fetishes that could be used to propitiate the Weyd. Or so it was said. Sorcerers moved from stall to stall like excited children, and even Theurig was not immune. He cupped his hands in front of his mouth and called out to Snaith above the music.

  “I’ll meet you by the statue once I’ve picked up a few items.” He headed toward a table displaying dried roots and a selection of pestles and mortars.

  Snaith watched the sorcerer’s retreating back, thinking how the kink in Theurig’s spine had grown more pronounced during their trip. Maybe it was just muscle fatigue. Or perhaps it was for show. The pounding of the drums, the shrillness of the pipes was disorienting. It clouded his thinking—a disability every bit as diminishing as his maimed arm.

  He wandered away from the ox-cart to the obsidian seven-pointed star supporting the Wyvern of Necras. The sun peeked through a slit in the clouds to the west, casting the statue’s long shadow over him and bathing him in a blessed coolness. It would soon be dusk. Had they really been traveling so long since the night at the ruins?

  He waited for a group of sorcerers and apprentices to move off then found himself a spot in front of the base where he could study the inscriptions. The letters were familiar, but the words they formed were not. He frowned and turned away, considering whether to ignore Theurig’s instructions to wait here and instead go peruse the stalls.

  “Egrigorean,” a voice rasped from his left, somehow carrying above the din of the musicians.

  Snaith looked around, but there was no one there. A rustle of cloth he shouldn’t have been able to hear. A blur of movement to his right. This time, when he turned, he came face to face with an old man, found himself arrested by cataract-clouded eyes. The face that housed them was grey and wrinkled, shadowed by a hood. The man was robed in patched and mottled velvet with traces of purple still discernible amid the faded drabness of the whole. An arthritic hand was extended toward Snaith, and despite his revulsion, he took it. Almost, it seemed, he had no choice.

  “Calzod Murcifer.”

  “Snaith Harrow.”

  “Yes, Theurig’s apprentice. It’s about time. He’s put it off about as long as he could hope to.” Calzod Murcifer leaned in close for a conspiratorial whisper. “Like we all do in our youth, Theurig considered himself immortal, an exception to the decay that surrounds us. His aching joints must have finally convinced him otherwise. A sorcerer needs an heir, else how would the Weyd be served upon his death?”

  That made it sound as though the Weyd needed service, that it was dependent upon it. With the way Theurig had started to muddle his mind, Snaith wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the Weyd was indeed made up, that it depended upon sorcerers like Theurig to convince others of its existence.

  “Is your apprentice with you?” Snaith asked, noting the sorcerer was alone.

  Calzod smiled a toothless smile. He shook as he chuckled. “Want to know what it says?” He gestured toward the inscription Snaith had been examining. Without waiting for an answer, he pressed on. “It’s a curse upon the Wakeful, a crude banishing, if you like. The statue is both a ward and a warning.” Again, the close whisper: “But between you and me, hardly likely to be heeded when those that created it fled the Dark Isle in panic.”

  “You mean Branikdür?”

  “I do not. Renaming a thing does not change what it is. Personally, I like the Dark Isle. I’ve always found it rather fitting.”

  “So, the Hélumites built the statue? From the ruins of the citadel?”

  “The Seven commanded it,” Calzod said, already starting to walk away. He craned his neck to look back at Snaith and winked one milky eye. “Like a fighter beaten bloody in the circle, then vowing to crush his opponent next time they meet, it’s a threat, a promise, a denial that they were forced to leave by what they encountered here.”

  “What was that?” Snaith asked, but Calzod kept on walking. Almost at once sorcerers and their charges flocked to the old man, and he was lost to sight.

  But the hood—Calzod’s hood—reminded Snaith that he needed one of his own, now that he’d decided to grow out his hair. He set off toward the stalls, tempted, despite just eating, by the cauldrons of steaming broth, the cured meats and sweet pastries.

  A Lakeling woman in a molting cloak of feathers offered him hot kaffa in a ceramic mug. She had a hooked beak that gave the impression of a witch, and he hurried on with an apologetic wave.

  He found a stall with an awning, where clothing was displayed: hemp britches, woolen coats that looked too thick to wear in the heat, but which apparently kept the skin cool; leather gauntlets for falconers, belts and girdles, and in among them a selection of cloaks with hoods. It was at that point he remembered he had nothing with which to pay for the goods. For an instant, Snaith considered snatching a cloak when the stall-keeper was distracted, but he shut down the thought immediately. He’d never done such a thing before. Thievery in Malogoi was a sure way of getting the rot. Even the thought of it was anathema to Snaith, so why would he consider it now? Because the rules had changed, he realized, since that night at Coldman’s Copse, since Theurig had muddled his world. And if rules could change so much, perhaps that’s because there were no rules.

  “Thought I told you to wait for me by the statue,” Theurig said. Over his shoulder, his bag was bulging more than it had before.

  “What did you buy?”

  Theurig patted his bag. “Things. How about you?”

  “I was after one of these cloaks, maybe a shirt.”

  “Ah, your shirt. And you blame me?”

  “No, I—”

  “Here.” Theurig tossed him a pouch.<
br />
  Snaith tried to catch it without thinking—with his maimed arm. The pouch thudded to the ground and spilled silver coins.

  “Funny how we forget what we’ve lost,” Theurig said, pointedly looking at Snaith’s arm. “Like my pack. You’d best pick up the coins before someone else does.”

  The sorcerer waited at the front of the stall while Snaith fumbled the coins back into the pouch. They were stamped with the Wyvern of Necras on one side and a seven-pointed star on the other. Hélum coins, not the rough copper currency of the clans. He glanced at Theurig for an explanation, but the sorcerer was looking the other way. What was Theurig up to? Why did he have foreign coins? And what made him think the stall-keeper would accept them?

  But the Lakeling did, and Snaith bought a black hemp shirt and a hooded cloak woven from dark wool. He struggled into them by himself. The thought of asking for assistance lit a fire in his veins. He pulled up the hood, and his tension fell away markedly. No longer did he feel passing sorcerers were looking at him, reading his secrets, like he was sure Calzod Murcifer had.

  Thanking the stall-keeper, he rejoined Theurig and offered the coin pouch back.

  “Keep it. You may need it again.” Before Snaith could thank him, the sorcerer added, “But you owe me.”

  Theurig wandered away in the direction of the mesa, passing beyond the perimeter of stalls. He turned and gestured impatiently for Snaith to follow him, as if he shouldn’t have to be told.

  Set a way back from the sellers and their wares was a broad dais that also appeared to have been made from the obsidian of the ruins. Lakelings, stripped bare save for their bird masks and loin cloths, crouched around the platform beating on skin-covered drums and playing strident melodies on pipes and whistles. Up close, the music was deafening. But it wasn’t the musicians who caught Snaith’s attention; it was the dancers on the dais: men and women, bird-masked, naked skin painted with serpent scales in purple, blue, and yellow. They swayed and cavorted. Women circled men, stalking and predatory, then closed in with obscene touches before swirling away out of reach.

  Sorcerers were filing through from the stalls, gathering in pockets. There must have been more than fifty of them, talking among themselves, glancing at the spectacle. Theurig joined a small group, where he was greeted with animated conversation.

  The apprentices, fewer in number than the sorcerers, perhaps as many as thirty, were largely ignored. Most of them stood gaping at the dancers, exchanging red-faced looks.

  Snaith found himself a spot close to the dais. He could smell the sweat of the dancers, and grew mesmerized by their sensuous movements. Heat flooded his groin, and he pulled his cloak tight to cover the swelling. The poison of shame flowed through his veins, burned his face, and he willed himself to look away. On instinct, he threw up his simulacrum of Tey, tried to distract himself with its details; but it was the true Tey he saw, scarred from neck to toe, not the one he’d built for himself. He relived the feel of her hand, and his shame gave way to something stronger, more urgent, that made him turn back to the dancers.

  With the drumbeat pounding in his ears, he was lost to all but the cavorting figures on the dais. A dancer noticed him swaying in time to the music. She broke off from her partner, running her hands over her sumptuous breasts while glaring down at him through the beady eyes of her bird-mask. Snaith took a stuttering step forward, and she held out a hand to him. His heartbeat quickened, thudding the same tattoo as the drums. Not thinking, he extended his maimed hand to the woman, and she spun away from it, rejoining the swirl of the dance.

  Snaith cursed himself for a fool, cursed the woman for a whore. Anger blasted all sense of shame from him, and he held his mangled limb before his face, trying in vain to will the fingers to clench into a fist. They moved slightly, which was better than before, but all he could manage was a stiff and crooked claw. He watched the dancer through the gaps in his fingers. She saw him and stumbled.

  Bitch, Snaith thought. I’ll get you for that.

  He tensed as images of rending and blood invaded his mind. They made him gasp, and he stepped back from the dais, clutching his chest against the fierce pounding of his heart. His throat tightened, forcing him to pant for every breath. He swayed and staggered, knocked into an apprentice, who cursed him. Then even his panting drew no air, and he started to swoon.

  Somewhere in the background, the clash of a gong, its resonant echo lingering in his ears. The sound startled him, broke the spell of his panic. Instantly the music stopped dead, and the dancers froze in their places.

  Everyone turned to face the backdrop of the mesa, the light of the sinking sun limning the summit in flames of orange and red.

  “Come,” Theurig said, hurrying back over from his group. “It’s time.”

  The rest of the sorcerers were collecting their apprentices and walking toward the face of the mesa, master on the left, student on the right.

  Theurig and Snaith fell into line as the procession passed down a scree bank into the depression in which the mesa sat. It looked like the effect of erosion. Either that, or a mountain of limestone had at some point thrust up through the heart of a crater. Or it could have been grown with magic. After all, if that’s what they said about the Citadel of the Wakeful, the same could have been true here.

  From the foot of the scree bank, Snaith could see an arched opening set into the wall of the mesa. The gong they had heard stood atop the summit a couple of hundred feet above, a giant Lakeling beside it, beater over his shoulder.

  Cloaked and masked Lakelings processed from the archway, dusk light glinting red from the tips of pikes. They formed a line either side of the entrance. Fifty, Snaith guessed, but before he finished counting, more emerged, these carrying recurve bows, with quivers of arrows slung over their backs. They fanned out to form a pincer, inviting the arriving sorcerers and their apprentices to take the center. All Snaith’s instincts shouted that it was a trap, but Theurig seemed unperturbed.

  As they drew near the entrance, Snaith could make out cuneiform etchings scarring the face of the mesa, complex patterns of lines forming channels between all manner of geometric shapes with three, four, five sides; some with as many as twelve. He thought of Tey, of the triangle between her breasts, then focused hard on the patterns before him, ensuring he never forgot them.

  The train of sorcerers and apprentices entered beneath the arch, and soon it was Snaith’s turn. They passed through a rough-hewn corridor of limestone that glowed a gentle violet. Theurig pointed out fungal growths on the walls and ceiling which appeared to be the source of the light.

  The passageway opened up into a vast cathedral cavern lit by the same phosphorescence. Snaith lifted his hand to rap three times on the wall, but resisted the compulsion. Someone might see. He didn’t need to reveal anything about himself to these people. They were rivals now, all of them. He was growing more and more certain that was the way things worked among Branikdür’s sorcerers. The less they knew of him, the better.

  Stalactites hung overhead, twisted and glittering with minerals. Bronze censers were suspended from chains, yellowish smoke billowing from them, redolent with incense that was both peppery and sweet.

  The sorcerers and their apprentices emerged at the top tier of stepped seating carved from the natural rock of the cavern. They descended the aisles to seat themselves along the first few rows. Snaith and Theurig took their places at the front.

  The floor had been constructed from the same marble they had seen at the ruins, a perfect circle bordered by uncut limestone. Instead of the Wyvern of Necras, it was dominated by the emblem of a seven-pointed star. Opposite the seating stood a three-stepped dais, atop which was an intricately carved obsidian throne with a high backrest. Lakelings carrying either bows or glaives were stationed all around the cavern and at various heights. Rough-hewn steps led to dozens of irregular-shaped openings, which suggested the mesa contained a warren of interconnecting tunnels.

  Without warning, there was a sudden pressur
e in Snaith’s head. Apprentices put fingers in their ears and waggled them about. Snaith went to do the same, but Theurig stopped him.

  “It will pass. Be ready now. And be quiet. Apprentices should be seen and not heard. Listen. Observe. And remember, this is just a formality. I’ve been to dozens of these conclaves, though this is the first time I’ve brought an apprentice.”

  The pressure increased until Snaith felt his eardrums were going to burst. A frisson of anxiety passed among the apprentices. Even some of the sorcerers grew agitated. Maybe they weren’t as seasoned as Theurig.

  Then, as suddenly as it had started, the pressure relented, but it was replaced by a prickling sensation—insects swarming over Snaith’s skin. A shadow fell across one of the openings behind the throne.

  Like a fussy mother, Theurig reached out and pulled Snaith’s hood down, exposing his face and head. He nodded, as if to say, “There, that’s better.”

  The air within the cavern bristled. The atmosphere was charged, pregnant with expectation. A new scent entered underneath the incense: sulfur and something metallic, like the smell that was in the air following a lightning strike.

  The shadow resolved into the figure of a man as it came into the light. He was slight to the point of appearing frail, of average height, and bald, save for a long grey beard that fell below his knees. His face was sharp, angular, sun-touched but slightly jaundiced. One eye was blind, perfectly white; the other was a virulent yellow veined with red. His robes were dark crimson trimmed with silver. A gold medallion etched with lines hung around his neck. Rings adorned his fingers, each with a huge, multifaceted gemstone. He walked with the aid of a blackwood staff, around which a brass serpent twisted, wings flaring from the back of its ram’s-horned head. A stylized depiction of the Wyvern, no doubt.

  As the man seated himself upon the throne, a booming voice resonated around the cavern, though there was no indication of where it came from.

  “Anathoth Xolor, Archmage of Branikdür, Servitor of the Seven of Hélum.”