Nightlord: Sunset

by Garon Whited

  In Raeth’s case, it was like suddenly being able to hear. In Bouger’s case, he remained a bit tone-deaf. Bouger has all the talent for wizarding of your typical hamburger. Without cheese.

  Still, it’s something to do, and Raeth can already light a campfire. Bouger can, too, technically; it just takes him about as much effort as flint and tinder would. Handy if he doesn’t have them, though. Raeth just waves his hands and concentrates for a half minute and the laid sticks start to burn. It’s their one trick, but they practice it.

  They’ll never be great wizards. They just don’t have the… the… what’s the word? Capacity? Like a man who wants to be a professional race car driver, but who doesn’t have the reflexes or the eyesight for it. Doesn’t mean he can’t drive, just not well enough to be a pro. Or a man who wants to be a professional bodybuilder—but just doesn’t have the bone and muscle structure for it. Doesn’t mean he can’t bulk up and get strong, but he’ll never make it to the Olympic weightlifting team.

  I’m enjoying it immensely, though. It tickles me pink and polka-dotted to see them succeed.

  I needed something enjoyable to offset the food, that’s certain.

  TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 15TH

  Delvedale. Lovely place. Set in the foothills of the scenic Eastrange and climbing into the rocky prominences. Primary industry: mining. Population: well over a thousand. Main exports: Iron and coal.

  It’s impractical to put a wall around the place; it’s too spread out. There are mineshafts all over several square miles, each with a cluster of nearby shacks for miners and their dependents. The only fortified area is the civic center, a sizable keep where they do most of the refining and where they store the metal. It’s a no-nonsense keep and looks like it’s seen its share of fighting. Since the Eastrange is full of orku and galgar, I guess mining is more hazardous than usual.

  Delvedale isn’t really a city, as such. It’s more of a Royal industry. The King gets twenty-five percent of anything that comes out of the ground, in addition to his usual taxes, but also subsidizes the local food merchants to keep prices reasonable. Granted, some of the locals farm in the foothills, but it can’t possibly meet the demand.

  I’m glad we stayed the night. I would have felt guilty about sapping energy from these poor blokes. The administrators—who do nothing more strenuous than collecting the King’s share—they were another story. I’ve never been too fond of the tax-man, so it seems fair they should have a headache for a change. Hanging around for the night let me pick and choose rather than just take a fast sweep with a wingful of tendrils.

  The place has a good inn, though. It lives and breathes for merchants who want iron and coal. The foundries and smithies of the kingdom hinge on these mines. I’m told there are other mines besides here in the Eastrange, but none anywhere near as large or productive. The inn also makes a nice profit off the soldiers passing to or from the war with the northern barbarians.

  I was downstairs; Raeth and Bouger had already hit the beds. We had a large, tasty dinner—trail rations got old for them, too—before they went up. I visited the room and a curled up in a blanket for the sunset, then went back downstairs. I found I was enjoying a nice evening in the common room. The place never was empty; miners, working underground, don’t care if it’s day or night, only if it’s their shift or not. I’d been there about an hour when I noticed there was a discussion across the room.

  Three large men accosted the fellow at his table. They simply sat down and started having a direct conversation. The first fellow listened intently, nodded, nodded some more, answered a question. This would not have stood out so much if there hadn’t been such an intensity to the conversation. I wondered what it could be about; I couldn’t hear them over the room noise.

  Finally, the first man rose and picked up a staff; the quartet then departed.

  A wizard of some sort, I guessed. Probably just hired for some sort of spell work. I understand the mines use magical lights whenever possible; it prevents gas explosions. The really good lights even change color when the gas starts getting thick. Nice safety feature. I wondered what other uses they had for magic in a mine. Magical blasting, maybe? Or spells to pump out, evaporate, or otherwise remove water? Maybe something to freshen the air?

  I was lost in the ideas of enchanted mining equipment when the trio returned, minus the wizard. One of them got up on a bench and cleared his throat. A sort of hush settled as people craned necks to see what was what.

  “I don’t want t’be disturbin’ ye from yer drinks, but is there another wizard hereabouts? We’ve a need for all, for we’ve more injured than a single wizard can handle.”

  There was a good deal of looking around and a lot of headshaking. The man got down from the bench, looking glum.

  I stood up. “I’m a wizard.” People near at hand gaped at me and scooted back. I guess I don’t look the part. I blame the armor.

  The trio closed on me at flank speed. “Indeed, are ye? Good, then. Will ye help?” asked the spokesman.

  “If I can. I am Sir Halar. And you are?”

  “Drummon,” he replied. “These’re Phlis and Bulton. Are ye a knight or a wizard, then?”

  “Both.” I gestured and a ball of blue fire appeared in my hand; I closed my fist and it winked out. “Where’s the wounded?”

  “This way, good sir wizard,” Drummon replied, and they led me out of the inn.

  The trip was fairly lengthy. We wound our way up into the mountains at a fast walk; the locals have really good legs. When we arrived at the scene of the accident, it turned out to be no accident. Men were lying all over the place, many of them dead or dying. The wounded were being cared for, but there were only two wizards there before I arrived. Mundane care was mostly limited to giving them water and staunching the flow of blood.

  The dead had arrows sticking out of them; several of the bodies were badly carved up.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Galgar,” Phlis replied. “Dozens of ’em. Loosed two flights, then charged. Cut down near everybody. Took the mules and the iron on ’em. Happens.”

  “Happens?” I echoed. “Why doesn’t someone go after them, wipe them out?”

  “They’s fast and sneaky, an’ they know them peaks,” Drummon replied. “Ambush spots ev’rwhere. Tried it a couple times, back when. Gave up. Now we leaves some iron and a mule now and then as a bribe. Din’t leave enough, I’d say.”

  “I guess not.” I looked over the wounded. At least they understood the idea of triage. The dying were in two groups. The first group was being comforted as much as possible; they were considered hopeless. The other group was being bandaged; these were the ones they thought they could save.

  I don’t doubt they knew their business, but I had to see for myself. I went to look over the hopeless cases.

  They weren’t hopeless. Just tricky. Like the fellow with the arrow in his left lung. He was bleeding into the lung and would likely drown in his own blood eventually. If anyone pulled the arrow out, it would bleed more freely and he’d die quicker. But he was hanging on for a while; his wife or girlfriend or whoever she was knelt beside him on the ground and wept over their clasped hands.

  I whistled piercingly for attention.

  “All right, I’ve got a couple of spells for the dying. Is there anybody here who is willing to buddy up with someone who is dying and carry them while I fix them up?”

  There were a lot of exchanged glances. The only volunteer I knew I could count on spoke up right away.

  “Oh, master wizard!” she cried, throwing herself at my feet. “Save him! Save him! Do whatever you must, take whatever you need, but save his life, I pray you!”

  I looked at the other two wizards. “Keep at it; we’ll have sit-down and I’ll show you later.” They looked at each other, back at me, shrugged, and turned their attention to the not-quite-dying wounded again.

  The lady and I examined her man. The trick would be to get the arrow out—feeling it with tendrils tol
d me it was a barbed arrowhead—without ripping him open much more. A little magical push and pull and twist ought to be okay for that…

  “All right, here’s what’s about to happen,” I explained. “I’m going to tie your lives together for a while. Some of your life force will flow into him. It will be like sharing his wounds; I don’t think you will feel any pain from it, only some of the weakness. But I could be wrong, so be prepared for it.”

  “Anything, master wizard. Anything!”

  “So you said. Now sit down. Better, lie down next to him and hold him close. Don’t interfere with that wounded side, though. Good.”

  I wound tendrils through them both, drew lines of power between them and through them, and linked their lives. His spirit brightened immediately; hers dimmed.

  That was the first easy part.

  “Drummon, do we have any wine or strong spirits?”

  He looked startled, then drew out a flask. He handed it to me.

  “Good start.” I was certain I could sterilize the wound, but I wanted something to wash out dirt and the like. I wrapped tendrils around two ribs and pushed, separating them. Both the man and his lady gasped in pain. Ah, well.

  Once I had the ribs apart, I jammed two fingers in, one on either side of the arrow, and held them there. He groaned aloud while she just gritted her teeth. My tendrils slid down the arrow, covered the arrowhead completely, and expanded just a little. This pushed back all the flesh and allowed me to carefully slide it out.

  That was the second easy part. Now, about this problem with a lung collapsing…

  “Open your mouth,” I told him. “You, girl; hold his nose shut. Take a deep breath, son, and then hold it. Let your lady breathe into your mouth; I want her to blow air out this hole in your chest.”

  They both looked at me strangely.

  “Now, please,” I prompted, “or all my work to now is wasted.”

  So they did it. She kissed him and blew into his mouth; he laid there and let the air flow through him.

  I, for my part, worked quickly. He couldn’t hold his breath for very long. I drew a gridwork of power inside the wound, a frame for flesh to follow when it healed. This is how you will grow, it said. It was really just a copy of another section of lung. Then I washed it out with whiskey, scooped even the whiskey out with a flick of my mind, and drew flesh from all around the wound into the hole.

  It was a heck of a bandage, I thought; I made it up on the spot. It doesn’t heal the wound, just fills it in from everything around it. It treats flesh like clay. You can close over holes pretty easily, but you only have so much clay and it’s rough on the person you hit with it—it hurts a lot.

  It took two minutes, tops. That’s a long time to hold your breath when you want to scream in agony. We had to pause for both of them to breathe a little between applications, but I kept at it until he looked less like an anatomy display.

  “Okay, leave off,” I said to her. “You, big guy. Try breathing slow and deep.”

  He did. It looked like he was airtight again.

  “Now listen, you two,” I went on. “You’re both going to be tired and shaky for a while. Eat a lot. Rest a lot. Drink a lot. In a week or two, you should start feeling pretty good again; don’t get too excited. That’s when my spell should wear off. She’ll be healing some of your injury until then. When the spell goes, you’ll feel worse; that’s normal. You’ll still feel a lot better than dead, though, so rest until you feel well. Got that?”

  They grabbed my hands. She kissed the one, he just gripped the other. I moved on to the next guy with holes.

  It was four hours of work I don’t want to do again. I was bloody, dirty, and tired before all was said and done. I felt really good for all of that. Six men died under my care, one of them while I was working on him. Fourteen not only survived because of me, one even got up and hobbled down the mountain on the arm of a friend.

  Yeah, it was draining. I didn’t mind. I kill people who don’t want to live, but it felt even better to help people who do.

  Back at the inn, I counted my coins. There weren’t a lot of them. I splurged on a bath anyway; I needed one. Fortunately, the inn was built near a small waterfall; fresh bathwater was free. I luxuriated in steaming water—I stirred it with Firebrand until it started to boil—and got rock dust, coal dust, and blood out of my pores.

  Dead or not, it’s nice to have a hot bath. But if that waterfall were warmer…

  The wizards who were also on medic duty hit the bathtub after I did. Then we had a lengthy conference at a table in the common room. They got a few drinks—I declined their offer to buy me one—and I explained the idea behind the buddy system spell.

  It’s really a simple idea. Healthy people produce more energy than they absolutely need—you can be tired, even bone-weary, and still be alive. By tying the two life-streams together, a wound on one person heals up twice as fast—both bodies work to fix it. Of course, in Geva’s case, the bird didn’t double the available energy. And I’m sure there’s a point of diminishing returns—fifty people probably can’t heal a paper cut in ten seconds—but I haven’t fooled with it enough to know for certain.

  The danger to this is that if one of the people dies, everybody dies. All that life energy drains out through the hole. It wouldn’t be an instantaneous thing, of course, but it’d be a heck of a major energy loss. A wizard in the matrix ought to be able to break the spell before he died.

  Probably.

  They were duly impressed. Unfortunately, they also had very little talent for doing it; mucking about with life force isn’t something mortal wizards generally do. They have to make spells to even see it, really; then they have to cast them and create new spells to manipulate and channel it.

  Complicated. But possibly worthwhile. It also might explain why there were so few occasions to invoke the law against animal sacrifices for power. True, the penalty was death; but the potential power to be had from one slaughterhouse before a feast-day is incredible. It’s possible that sacrificial power is only really useful to a nightlord. I’d bet that no mortal magician can take life force and use it to gather magic. The life force probably winds up being put directly into the spell—converted, transformed into energy the spell can use. A no-good way to do it, with a really poor return on the life of the creature sacrificed, but if you have enough of them… I made a mental note to research a transformer-type spell and see.

  I did not share these thoughts with my students!

  The wizards, Phlis and Bulton, were appreciative of my skill; I didn’t have the heart to tell them I just had a natural (unnatural?) talent for it.

  “It is a shame we must part company,” Phlis offered. “I would love to know more of your art; it is fascinating, the idea of binding two lives together so.”

  “Indeed,” Bulton agreed. “I wish we could study this more. Where are you bound?”

  “Crag Keep. There’s a war on, I understand.”

  “Ah, yes. Doubtless your skills will be very useful.”

  “Possibly,” I replied. “Why not come along?”

  Phlis and Bulton looked at each other, then at me. In unison, they said, “No.”

  Phlis went on with, “We dislike fighting, you see. We are not warriors.”

  “Fair enough, fair enough,” I said. “But if you want to study the spells, talk to the two I lifebound; they’ll probably let you look it over. Don’t touch it, if you please.”

  Bulton looked guilty. “I was planning on examining it,” he admitted. I chuckled and he asked, “You are not angry?”

  “Why should I be?”

  “It is your spell,” he said. “I am somewhat amazed that you share it so freely.”

  I stared at him. “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “Well… it is yours. It is terribly useful and doubtless worth much to those who need it. You could travel the kingdom with a few slaves to heal the dying. You could be wealthy.”

  “I’d rather teach the technique to anyone who can u
se it,” I said. “Wouldn’t it be better if all wizards could learn everything they could hold? Then we’d know who the competent ones are and who are the idiots.”

  Phlis burst out laughing. “That would work!” he declared. Bulton looked sour.

  “Yes, it would,” he agreed, “and we would never make a decent amount of coin again. Everyone has their specialty, the thing he can command high prices for. I hear metals in the earth; Phlis can see through rock and stone. We do not share these things because that is how we make our living.”

  “You have a point,” I conceded. “Well, I suppose I’ll just have to content myself with being poor.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Phlis replied. “It is not a simple thing you suggest. This life-bonding is difficult at best; I do not know that I can do it at all—no, nor you, Bulton! Yet you, sir, can do it. That is a talent, not just a technique. A battlefield is the place for you, I think; you will find much profit there.”

  I grinned. “I just hope I get that far on what I’ve got left,” I answered, jingling my coin pouch. “Sometimes being a wizard is more profitable than others.”

  They chuckled and agreed. Phlis downed the rest of his beer and rose. Bulton followed suit.

  “The hour is late and the night has been hard,” Phlis said. “We thank you for your instruction, sir wizard, and we wish you well on your journey.”

  “And quick passage out of our financial territory,” Bulton added, smiling and winking at me.

  I laughed at that. “Goodnight, gentlemen.”

  I watched them leave and chuckled to myself. I wonder if that’s how all wizards feel about their spells? I realized I was in a good mood. I really did enjoy teaching them how to work that spell; it was fun. It’s been a long time since I was in front of a class, and I miss it terribly.