Sorcery's Child (The Mindbender's Rise Book 2)
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Sorcery’s Child
The Mindbender’s Rise: Book 2
D. J. Salisbury
Published by
Magic Seeker Books
Sorcery’s Child
Copyright © 2015 by D. J. Salisbury
All rights reserved.
DJ@magicseeker.com
www.DJSalisburyBooks.com
Published by Magic Seeker Books
www.MagicSeeker.com
100 PR 232
Abbott, TX 76621
Cover art and design by Deb Salisbury.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, or locations is entirely coincidental.
I dedicate this novel to Dona Salisbury,
Michael Pennington,
Susanne Marise Miller,
Larry Chang, who helped create Zedista’s version
of the mandrake myth.
and to the Novel Club at Forward Motion,
a forum for writers.
Thanks to all of you for your help.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1.
Chapter 2.
Chapter 3.
Chapter 4.
Chapter 5.
Chapter 6.
Chapter 7.
Chapter 8.
Chapter 9.
Chapter 10.
Chapter 11.
Chapter 12.
Chapter 13.
Chapter 14.
Chapter 15.
Chapter 16.
Chapter 17.
Chapter 18.
Chapter 19.
Chapter 20.
Chapter 21.
Chapter 22.
Chapter 23.
Chapter 24.
Chapter 25.
Chapter 26.
Chapter 27.
Chapter 28.
Chapter 29.
Chapter 30.
Chapter 31.
Chapter 32.
Chapter 33.
Chapter 34.
Chapter 35.
About the Author
Chapter 1.
“My name is Viper.” He leaned back against the fruit vender’s cart and scanned Market Square. The Nashidran soldiers were marching away, praise the Thunderer. The two of them hadn’t been pegged as troublemakers, after all.
The luscious scents of ripe fruit wrapped around him like unbaked pies. Honeyed glaze from the sticky bun in his hand coated his fingers. Cheerful chatter resumed amongst the shopkeepers and their customers.
Lorel rolled her eyes. “Viper’s a wizard’s name. You ain’t no wizard, Loom lint.” She popped another cherry into her mouth.
He bit into the last mouthful of sticky bun and glared at her. Of course he wasn’t one of the insanely powerful wizards. He was merely a sorcerer’s apprentice aiming to advance to the third level. That wasn’t going to stop him from claiming his name.
Though if the Nashidrans had recognized him during their last escapade, he was in more trouble than a one-legged sand lizard trying to hop across the desert on its stumpy tail. They probably hadn’t recognized Lorel, who looked like most Kerovi immigrants: dark and unreasonably tall. A skinny fourteen year old with a mahogany sheen to her skin and gray eyes that glowed silver in some lights, she only stood out if you knew what to look for.
He, however, with his Setoyan-tawny skin and oak-blond hair, was easily identifiable. It frayed his thread, as Lorel would say, that he was half as tall as any other Setoyan boy his age. Not that the occupying Nashidrans and local Zedisti knew the difference.
Why couldn’t he be as tall as any normal Setoyan? Or at least as tall as Lorel? It wasn’t fair he wasn’t even as tall as her armpit. Thunderer blast the viper that bit him.
Lorel tucked the cherry pit into her pocket. “You oughta pick a new name. A normal name.”
“My name is Viper.” If he said it enough times, she might believe him. “I’m not changing my name ever again.” Unless he really did become a wizard. No, he still wouldn’t need to change it. It would fit him as a wizard, too. She was right that only wizards took names from nature, and street gangs borrowed names from wizards.
His heart clenched at the mere thought of one particular street gang. He shook that memory away. Last night Lorel had helped him get revenge against the gang that tried to steal his name.
Viper he was, and Viper he’d stay.
“I ain’t calling you that.”
He couldn’t remember her ever calling him by name.
She leaned back against the fruit cart and fished into her bag of cherries. “You better get home, kid. Old Trevor’s gonna miss you.”
Trevor wouldn’t be out of bed for another couple of hours. With any luck, the old man hadn’t noticed the emanations from the illusions he’d done last night, and all the half-controlled magic earlier this morning. Viper sincerely didn’t want to explain the giant spider. He still didn’t know how he’d created it.
Maybe the spider was why the Nashidrans hadn’t noticed him. Who’d be looking at a short, skinny boy when an enormous spider was waving four-foot-long legs from the top of his head?
“I’ll be in less trouble than you’ll be, pine tree.” He licked honey off his fingers and stole a cherry from her sack. “Can you tell your parents you were helping me with a project?”
She snorted. “I told them that last night, before we went hunting. I ain’t stupid, you know.”
He didn’t know what to say to that. Maybe not stupid, but sometimes he thought she was suicidal. Or just out to drive him insane.
The fruit vendor wandered along the side of his cart. “You two gonna sit there all day?”
Lorel stretched. “You get busy, we’ll move out.”
“You look tired, girlie. You been hunting rats again?”
Hunting rats? Is that what the turybird did in her spare time? What did she do with them? He was sure she’d catch them if she put her mind to it.
“I ain’t that tired. Had a great night swatting gnats.” She grinned and rummaged at the bottom of her sack for another cherry.
An earthquake shook the ground. Bells jingled in the tobbo shop behind them. The fruit vendor sighed. “I forgot about the Alignment.” He jogged to the front of his stand and restacked his produce so it wouldn’t roll off the lowered side of the cart.
Viper yawned. Lorel may not be tired, but he was. Staying up all night reading was one thing, but running around all night, evading the gang and manipulating feral magic … now that wore him out.
Clouds rolled over the horizon. Thick black clouds that looked heavy with rain. Maybe it was dark enough Trevor would sleep late, and let him sneak in a few hours of rest.
Chapter 2.
The Thunderer didn’t favor him that morning. Trevor was awake and puttering around in the kitchen when Viper finally got home.
“Beautiful morning, isn’t it?” The old man poured boiling water into the teapot.
Viper backed out of range.
Rained clattered against the kitchen window. It was a wonderful spring morning, if he’d been worried about a drought. Having been wet most of the night, he wished for a few hours of sunshine. After, please the Thunderer, a few hours of sleep.
“You’re soaking wet.” Trevor blinked sleepily. “What’s wrong with your shirt?”
Blast. The old man had noticed the green stains from his roof climbing adventure. “I must have leaned against something. I’ll go change.”
“Come right back down.” Trevor scooped leaves out of the pot and poured a mug of tea. “We’ll read in the parlor this morning.”
Viper sighed and trudged up the stairs. The old man definitely suspected something
. They went to the Lab when he was happy. They read in the parlor when Trevor wanted him to confess. Or was waiting for someone to come tattle on him.
He closed his bedroom curtains tightly to avoid giving the nosy neighbor girls another excuse to complain. And laugh. They’d laughed at him every day since he’d moved in with Trevor.
It wasn’t his fault he hadn’t closed the curtains that first morning and had wandered around in his skin. Who’d have dreamed anyone would peek into his window, much less be high enough above him to see in. Tents never had upper floors like the tenements all around Trevor’s house. His tribe had never been so rude as to peek through his mother’s tent flap without an invitation.
They weren’t his tribe anymore. His mother wasn’t allowed to speak his name. His old name. He had a new name now, and he’d earned it. No matter what Lorel said.
He changed into dry clothing and laid his wet jacket and trousers over a chair near the fireplace. He carried his wet socks and the stained shirt downstairs to the privy, stuck them into the bucket of soapy water, and sloshed it around a little. That made three dirty shirts. Only two clean ones left. He’d have to boil his laundry again soon, whether or not it stopped raining.
Trevor was comfortably settled in the largest armchair with a thick book by the time he trudged into the parlor.
A small earthquake jolted the house. The sofa danced three inches to the right. Trevor didn’t even look up.
Viper sighed, plopped down on the ratty, red velvet sofa, and picked up the book lying on the cushion. My Time in Kresh. Where in Menajr was Kresh? He opened to the frontispiece map. Oh, it was that little port town at the southern edge of the Chalder Desert. That sounded fairly exotic.
He leaned back and started to read.
The room grew darker as the storm grew stronger. Rain racketed against the parlor windows.
Viper curled his tingling bare feet up onto the sofa’s velvet. They’d fallen asleep again because they didn’t reach the floor. Why make them dangle?
He glanced up at Trevor, but his mentor didn’t complain about feet on the fabric. He sighed.
One more wet, miserable day, no different from any other, if he didn’t count the earthquakes. He stared out the window, feeling as drippy as the never-ending rain, and as warped as the parlor’s ancient floorboards. Even his reading had failed him. My Time in Kresh had finally gotten interesting, but there wasn’t enough light coming through the drenched windowpane to decipher the cramped handwriting.
Everything around him was cramped. His life, his prickling feet, his whole undersized body.
He was thirteen years old, and still so short his father would feed him to the bahtdor. He’d be Trevor’s apprentice forever, just because nobody would ever notice that he’d grown up, even when he turned ninety and hobbled around on a cane.
He snuggled deeper into the sofa cushions and sighed.
Trevor laid down his own book and glared at him. “Why aren’t you outside with your friends, celebrating the earthquakes?”
“We don’t celebrate earthquakes.” He thumped his fist on the arm of the sofa. “And they don’t need me. Faye is with her new boyfriend, and I don’t like him.” He’d never forgive Wolf for torturing him, no matter what Faye thought about the creep. “Lorel said she was meeting her mercenary friend, and I’d like to know what all that woman’s been teaching her, but they won’t tell me.”
Trevor smiled. “If you stay with Lorel long enough, I suspect she’ll teach you eventually.”
“I’m not talking about swords and horses.”
“Neither am I.”
How would anybody that old know anything about … whatever Lorel was being sneaky about. “How old are you?”
Trevor sat up in his reading chair and straightened his shabby black frockcoat. “I am one hundred thirty two years old, as of the fifty second of the Elder just past.” One hundred thirty two? It wasn’t possible. Though it might take him that long to get used to the Zedisti habit of naming the lunars after the seven moons. “How old are you?”
“At least thirteen, even if I am too little.” He punched a sofa cushion and wished he could punch the viper that had ruined his life.
“I see.” Trevor blinked like a canyon owl who’d been poked by an unusually aggressive mouse. “So it’s your height and age you’ve been moping over.”
“I’m not moping.” He nudged the book he’d been trying to read. “It’s just that I’ll always look like a baby, so I’ll be your apprentice until I’m too old to walk.”
“That’s a rather long time. I really don’t plan to live that long.”
“Oh, Master Trevor–”
The old sorcerer waved him into silence and laid down his book. Joints popped like wet resin a badly-laid fire as he stood up. “Come along. If I let you mope any longer I shall go quite mad. I’m going to put you to work.” Trevor walked out of the parlor, through the sitting room, and into the hallway.
Viper hopped down from the sofa and scurried to catch up. “What kind of work?” Given the old man’s record, he probably didn’t want to know until the last minute. Trevor’s tasks were generally weird, but boring.
“To the Lab, child.” Trevor led the way to the dark left end of the hall, and unlocked the door to the Lab’s hidden upper entrance. “Once we’re inside, I’ll tell you.” He picked up a sturdy glass jar, mumbled a chant over it, and handed the glowing jar to Viper before locking the door behind them.
Viper held up the lamp and began to descend the steps lining the wall of the hole in the middle of the floor. Solid stone at the top of the shaft vanished after only a few feet, replaced by flaky, grayish-green stone.
The ten-foot wide shaft still reminded him, sometimes, of an abuelo snake’s lair. It still had the same musty, dried-carrion smell.
Spiraling steps sprang from the stone like frothy brown fern fronds growing out of a ring of mossy trees. On Trevor, the steps were more than knee high. On him, each tread was waist deep below the next. Chest deep, when he was honest with himself, about two and a half feet apart.
He trailed his fingers along the wall with each downward hop and pretended he had wings. Even though his eyes claimed the planks were narrow and rotted, his bare feet proved the steps were wide, and solid wood. The conflicting sensations made his stomach insist he was flying, soaring down the shaft like a sparrow.
His own bare feet whispered like dry leaves in the wind, but Trevor’s bootfalls echoed into the depths, up and down again until ceremonial drumbeats filled the shaft, which rather ruined his illusion of flight. Or could it be wing beats he was hearing?
“On which day were you born, child?”
What did that have to do with flying? “Setoyans don’t keep track of dates the way Zedisti do.”
“No record keeping? How appalling.” Trevor slapped his forehead. “Everyone needs a proper birth date. Today is the twenty first of the Monitor and the Spring Equinox. A perfectly balanced date. I declare it to be your official birthday.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Of course I can.”
As if anything in life was as easy as simply saying what things should be. Silly old turybird. “How old are you really?”
“I told you the truth.” Trevor’s voice echoed eerily in the depths of the shaft. “One hundred thirty two.”
“Nobody’s that old.”
“Shame on you, child. Don’t accuse you elders of lying. I’ll have you know that Raulin is two hundred twelve. Samiderf is two hundred eight. I’m just a youngster next to those two. Wizards have been known to live more than a thousand full years.”
“A thousand–” That was longer than forever. Wizards must never die. No wonder wizard Clay looked so tired. “How old is Bahtdor Nose? I mean Fruit Juice, I mean–”
Trevor sat down abruptly and covered his face with both hands. His thin shoulders jerked. He curled pillbug-wise until his forehead touched his knees.
Was the old man sick? How could he get him bac
k upstairs? He’d never be able to carry him.
The shaft howled with Trevor’s hooting laughter. “I believe you mean Frujeur,” he gasped at last. “He is sixty three years old.”
One of these days he’d remember the old lard lizard’s name. If it ever became important, anyway. “He looks much older than you do.” Viper sat on the step and watched his teacher gather his breath. “And he does love to talk important. Why do the older sorcerers put up with his garbage when he’s so young?”
“Everyone is young at some point.” Trevor stood and continued his journey down the steps. “We’re allowed to make mistakes. Besides, the reason Frujeur looks so old is because he is old. He’s a third level sorcerer, and not strong enough to keep his body healthy, so he counts on potions and charms. Such nonsense does not have the power of the disciplined mind. Hence we put up with him, mainly out of pity. Though some of the weaker members follow him because he’s so loud and belligerent, I suppose. One hates to cross him.”
That was true. Viper hated to even speak with the sand lizard. He hadn’t been caught yet, but he’d hidden under the kitchen table a few times when Bahtdor Nose bellowed his way into the house.
“Tomorrow we’ll go collect on our wager with Frujeur. You passed first level lunars ago. I shouldn’t have put it off so long.”
He didn’t blame the old man for putting it off. Whatever he’d won with the bet, it wasn’t worth listening to Bahtdor Nose to collect.
Trevor paused at the bottom of the steps, pulled the rope-and-bone ladder out of its niche, and tossed it into the velvet darkness below the bottom step.
Viper set the lamp jar on the bottom step and followed his mentor down the twenty-foot-long ladder, through the black void of the protective spell – his father’s bloodshot eyes glared down at him; stones hurtled at him; Kraken’s bloody hands reached toward him – and down the long, strangely lit corridor.
Why had his father Outcast him? It couldn’t be just that he was so short. Exiling a boy shamed the whole family, but his father in particular. Why not send him away with a caravan, on a trading mission?