Ez Ozel: Prologue to Perdition

by Dave Oliver

  “I see,” said Merrik as his gaze fell to the floor of just about the most unkempt hotel room he’d ever seen. Dirty clothes and food containers were everywhere, and in the corner a small rat was gnawing on a green piece of potato. “Tell me more about these klatches.”

  Merveille crossed his arms casually. “There’s a lot to tell, but I’m not trying to get into a formal study course here. You already know about renders, menders, and benders. And like I said, we learn some basic spells from each before we end up choosing one to specialize in. There are other niche groups, like the Shamans, who are pretty much weirdos; the Conjurers, who are reckless rogues; and the Chronomancers, who are so elite that very few get to join their ranks. There are some other small coteries too, but it’s mostly just folks from the three main groups.”

  “I see,” Merrik said as he gazed hard in thought. He felt his stomach starting to turn and roil, no doubt creating something remarkably foul for him to deal with later. The doctor’s elixirs must have been less powerful than advertised after all. Or maybe his bowel was simply too strong to be soothed by medicine. “Well, do you know how I might cross through that portal into your world?”

  “I can’t think of why it’d be any different for you,” he replied. “For me, I was out in the wood with a…very good friend of mine, and that thing yanked me through and spat me out there in the desert. I panicked, but I was able to go back through and find my way back home. I spent a couple nights doing my usual thing, but I kept thinking about this place. I felt the opportunity to practice some truly unhindered magic here. I packed up some supplies and headed back through. The portal never tried to stop or resist me at all.” He put his hands on his hips and looked down, pursing his lips with thought. “I’m not sure how it works, but maybe I’m marked in some way that lets me use it whenever. Or maybe it was only accessible for a short time after I was thrust through. It’s hard to say; bender portals are much simpler than that thing.”

  “So you can’t teach me how to use the portal, and you can’t teach me how to perform healing magic?” Merrik asked.

  “Teach? You definitely have the wrong guy there. If I wanted to be something like a boring teacher, I wouldn’t have trained to be a bender. All I want to do is screw around and have a good time.”

  “Uh-huh,” Merrik said, clearly in thought on something else entirely. “Say, why don’t we test your theory? You could try taking me through the portal.”

  “Look, I understand how bad you must want magic. And I appreciate you being willing to take me to Ryten with you. But I don’t want to go near that thing again. What if it sucks me in and I can’t come back here? What if I take you through and I can’t return? What if some of my people found it and started to come through? I’m trying to leave that life behind, and that conduit is just too risky to play around with.”

  “I didn’t realize mages were such cowards.”

  Merveille dropped to one knee again, covering his ears.

  “Whatever that word is, can you stop saying it?”

  “What word?” Merrik asked. “‘Mage’?”

  He yelled in pain. “Yes! That one.”

  “Why does that hurt you?”

  “I’m running a constant manipulation spell for speech and appearance. Didn’t you think it was weird that someone from another world was a human speaking your language?”

  Merrik was embarrassed that he hadn’t thought of that. “I suppose that is odd.”

  “Exactly. As soon as I saw one of you, I started a spell to look like you. I’ve been adjusting it and tweaking it to be more and more attractive to you people since I got here to town. I’m also channeling a spell to translate my words to your language, and your words to mine. It works most of the time, and usually does a good job at giving me something to go on for proper names, but when you say a word that there’s absolutely no equivalent for in my language… Well, it hurts.”

  “So if you said something that we’d have no reason to have a word for, it’d do the same for me?”

  “Let’s see. Apiophilia.”

  Merrik looked at him and shrugged.

  “Why in the world would you have a word for that? Okay, how about this?”

  The wizard emitted a horrendous shriek and Merrik dropped to all fours. He thought his ears might explode. His brain cried out in pain far beyond what his migraines felt like. And then, as suddenly as it had come on, the pain passed.

  “There, that’s what I feel whenever you say that word.”

  “That is…horrendous.”

  “Isn’t it? Now, I really should be getting back to the bar. No hard feelings though, right? We can still be buddies, and I can find a different way to pay you for passage to Ryten if you’re still up for it. I’m just not interested in ever seeing that conduit again.”

  “You bastard,” Merrik said. His face had gone from curious and hopeful to twisted and angry. “You know, if it weren’t for my rituals, you wouldn’t even be here to…fondle our airs or whatever it is you do.” He coughed up a spot of blood onto the floor. “I pulled you through that conduit, and you will take me back through it.”

  “Nothing doing, pal. I appreciate whatever you did to bring me here, but I never asked for it. I don’t owe you any favors. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to go practice showing off with the local color some more.”

  Merveille turned to the door. Merrik was seething. All this effort, all this expense, all this distance, and for what? So some pompous illusionist could brush him off for such selfish, trivial ends?

  He sprang at the mage. He ignored the pain in his joints, ignored the angry rumblings of a digestive system in full revolt, ignored that his arm was bleeding again, and ignored the throbbing in his head. He leapt on top of this magical bastard.

  Merveille fell to the ground with no resistance at all. It felt like his body was made of tissue paper rather than flesh and bone. Merrik paid little mind as he started hitting him. Punch after punch, right to the face. Still the wizard’s body felt very weak. The punches caused Merrik no pain at all, even though he was striking him at his full, albeit relatively weak, strength. He also noticed that he wasn’t actually inflicting any wounds. No matter where he struck, the wizard’s face remained the same pristine, infuriatingly overhandsome visage. He wrapped his hands around the mage’s throat.

  Merveille turned his head to the side and looked at his hand. He kept fiddling with gestures. He managed to get a few sparks to ignite before finally conjuring a small immolation in his hand.

  “All you had to do was take a short trip with me, mage,” Merrik grated. Upon uttering the word, the wizard lost his newborn fire spell and grimaced. Merrik tightened his grip. “I need this, you selfish simpleton.” He swallowed, his throat feeling horrendously dry. “My entire life waiting for an answer, and you presume to stand in the way of the only cure?”

  Merveille flailed his hand around some more to cast a spell, but nothing was happening. Merrik gripped so tightly that his whole body was shaking. His vision started to fade, stars and blackness filling his sight. His blood was on fire, and it seemed he had inadvertently released his bowels.

  Then everything changed. Where there once had lain a handsome wizard, there was now some strange plantlike thing. It was a dark yellow color, and it was roughly as long as the man that it had once looked like. The top third of its body was a large slick tube, about as big around as a bicep, the top of which was crunched and indented from Merrik’s attack. The lower part of it was a mess of over a dozen long, spindly legs. It looked like some kind of bizarre vegetative squid, disgusting and fascinating.

  He heard a scream and looked up. One of the cleaning staff was standing in the doorway, a basket of fresh linens overturned at her feet.

  “What did you do to him? What is that? You killed the magician!” She bolted down the hallway. “Someone killed the magician and turned him into a weird frog pole! There’s a monster up here! Help!”

  He scooped up the tube portion of his victim.
>
  “Please, don’t,” Merveille uttered. His voice was weak, barely more than a whisper.

  Merrik folded the creature’s legs around its main body. A sickening crunching sound came from each leg as it was bent beyond its limits. Merveille moaned in pain as each of his limbs snapped and twisted. In a short time, Merrik had a small package with the legs wrapped around the tube like a wire. He slid it into his robe and felt nausea hit again as the slick, rubbery skin of the creature rubbed against his chest. He scurried downstairs and mounted the nearest saddled horse, ignoring the wet slap of the seat of his pants as he sat down.

  He heard shouts, but he felt too lightheaded to understand them. His vision was hazy and his hands were shaking so badly that just turning the horse in the right direction felt like a gargantuan challenge. He felt a hand on his calf and heard some mumbling, but he ignored it and kicked the horse into action. More shouts called at his back as he headed north out of the town, but he was fresh out of shits to give. He had one hope now, one chance, and he was taking it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The heat was pouring in now. Fierd had never felt it this intensely before. It was searing and suffocating, but also invigorating. He felt unstoppable, stronger with each passing moment. Something about tearing into these pale knights felt so right, so satisfying. He reveled in it. He kept on, heading further away from the courthouse and closer to the keep. It made sense that there’d be even more enemies near where the leader of this city sat. What invading enemy wouldn’t love to take the king’s head?

  As he neared the castle, he saw a special one of these pallid fighters. He was dressed in fancier garb than the rest and walked with a much more arrogant gait. He would have looked fit to be a king were it not a mindless drone. He saw Fierd too and raised his two scimitars. Come to think of it, this was the first time he’d seen one of these things fight alone. He wondered if this might actually be the king of the city, but his body was still under the heat of engagement. It rushed off without much of his say-so.

  Fierd slashed again and again at his new opponent, but it wasn’t much different from his previous fights. The martial prowess of the king was fair, and his weapons and armor were definitely of a much higher quality, but it was hopeless for him to try to keep up with Fierd’s assault. Hits scored his breastplate and pauldrons as Fierd looked for a weak point. After pummeling the king for a while, Fierd gave him a fierce kick to the chest, knocking the king onto his back. Fierd leapt high at him. He came down knee-first on the king’s breastplate, smashing it inward until the front plate touched the back plate. The king coughed blood and scraped his arms on the cobbles, trying to get up.

  Fierd stood and looked down on the writhing king. He wasn’t dying. He was still trying to get up and fight. What couldn’t these things live through? As he was still thinking on it, he saw a group of Zahl approaching him from inside a giant mine. He hadn’t even noticed the mine entrance. It was tucked into the mountainside between the castle and the courthouse, with a small building—little more than a shack—standing next to it.

  They noticed him too, and they changed their course to intercept him. He charged at them and started cleaving and tearing this new pack into pieces. As his body did the bloody work of dismembering these once-proud soldiers, he managed to get a glimpse into the mine. There were so many dead inside. This group must’ve gone in to clear it of people. Must’ve just happened too. All of the forges were still lit. Magma was still flowing through the trenches and some areas were starting to overflow. Fierd tried concentrating hard on getting away from this mine. It was going to get dangerous around here soon, and he hoped whatever had control of his body would understand and move away.

  There were sixteen corpses lying in front of him when Fierd had finished. His body turned and halted.

  He saw something truly unique. A slender figure standing taller than a building. He was stark white, like all the other Zahl, but there was something different about him. He looked much more at ease and confident, with an air of arrogance about him. He was so familiar. A memory tickled his brain. He knew this thing, whatever it was. Its name throbbed in his mind like a migraine. But that didn’t matter. If Glory was commanding this invading force, he’d kill it like any other Zahl. If he could control this crazy army, how powerful might he be in a fight?

  Fierd couldn’t help but allow a grin to sweep his face. He sprinted forward and rammed the figure with his shoulder, only to feel it give way and slam into one of the nice patron houses down below. Fierd waited a moment, but the figure did not come back out. Disappointed, he became much more angry. The anger brought on a new wave of heat.

  He could barely think, there was just so much fire and pain inside him. It was surrounding him, immolating him. Yet strangely, he was growing comfortable with it. Fierd turned to the castle. Maybe there was an elimination force in there as well. It was a pretty important structure; surely those Zahl would want—

  Something sharp swung down into his shoulder, lodging itself in the bone on his left side. Fierd turned his head and saw an eerily unworldly hand, its fingers too long and far too sharp to be human. He grabbed the fingers with his right hand, and crushed them as hard as he could. He lifted them out of his shoulder and turned to see his assailant. It was that tall bastard, a bit dirtied from being flung into a building, but otherwise unharmed. A voice other than his own gave a gravelly growl inside his mind.

  Glory took a step back, dismay and confusion contorting his featureless face as he shook his crushed hand. His face twisted even further and he swung again. This time Fierd blocked it with a hatchet and pressed closer. Glory pushed away and danced around to Fierd’s flank, thrusting his pointed fingers at him. Fierd fought with such power and rage that no attack could touch him. He pushed Glory into the mine entrance and flung him to the steaming floor near the city forges. Fierd raised his arms and breathed deeply as he took in all the precious heat of the sweltering area inside the mountain, where molten slag that had been used in the crafting of Ildia’s coin and equipment still burned.

  He looked down on Glory and swung a hatchet at the beautiful bastard’s face. Glory glowed brightly and slashed at the hatchet as it fell. The weapon snapped and the sharp edge bounced across the dry stone floor. Fierd stepped back and tossed his left hatchet into his right hand. It was so hot in here. It was perfect.

  “You can’t be human,” Glory said as he got to his feet. “They are stronger than they were before, but not this strong. Your scent is familiar.”

  Fierd threw one of his knives straight for Glory’s forehead. The graceful figure spun to evade, only to have a second dagger sink into his clean, glistening cheek. His perfect, featureless face was marred with a hideous gash from the attack.

  An intense burst of pressure bellowed out as Glory shrieked, and it buffeted Fierd to the ground. The tall, pale man rose slowly in the air. With a final outburst of shrill ferocity, he went fully spread-eagle and a pair of large, feathery wings sprouted from his upper back. He hovered there, looking down on Fierd with his face contorted into something wrinkled and grotesque.

  As Fierd got to his feet, he was pummeled back down. He hadn’t even seen the winged creature move, and yet here he was being shoulder-checked by him. He scrambled to his feet, ready for the next onslaught. He whispered under his breath, “Heat, don’t fail me now.”

  Glory cocked his head to the side. “Heat?” he asked. He rushed forward. Fierd raised his remaining hatchet to defend himself, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Glory was too fast and too strong. He disarmed Fierd and grabbed him by the shoulders. They flew upward, toward the ceiling of the large cavern. Just as they were about to hit the top, Glory turned downward at disorienting speed. At around halfway through their descent, Glory threw Fierd toward a large trough filled with molten slag.

  Fierd hadn’t felt this potent brand of fear in years. He couldn’t imagine the kind of agony he was about to fall into. He closed his eyes and braced himself as he dropped square into the b
urning slop.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Casselle rounded the corner and bolted north for the barracks. She headed straight for her quarters, and she felt her heart drop when she saw blood and limbs scattered everywhere. The field was covered with the dead, both Zahl and human. Her home in particular was almost entirely painted red with chunks of once-living flesh clinging and sticking to the side. She waded through the thick odor toward her door. She reached out for the handle, her heart beating so hard she thought she might pass out. She turned it and opened the door.

  A claymore swung down hard at her head. She narrowly dodged it and brought her own weapon to bear. She looked at her attacker, and all her breath fled her lungs. Ragna stood breathing hard, covered head to toe in drying sticky blood.

  “Ragna! Are you okay?”

  Ragna swallowed hard. “Some pale bastards tried getting in. Got all bunched up in the doorway. Feels like I’ve been killing ‘em for days.”

  Casselle put her weapon away. She opened her mouth to speak but had no voice. She threw her arms around Ragna instead, nearly toppling her over.

  “Don’t get all emotional on me. Wasn’t like I was in any real danger with them coming in one by one.”

  “You’re not hurt at all?”

  “Well…” She turned and showed a large gash on her left side between her ribs.

  “That looks bad!”

  “Meh, it hurts, but it’s not so bad.” She nodded to her workshop in the back. “Used some of my boot staples to shut it up from bleeding. Seems to be working. I was changing dressings for it when I heard you walk up.”

  “We need to leave.”

  Ragna huffed. “I won’t argue with that. What’s going on out there?”

  “I’ll explain later. How fast can you move?”

  Ragna blinked and grinned. She was clearly trying to come up with a good joke about her condition.