I am a wizard, not some primitive sorcerer. All the same, it sounds like those rumors are based on me. He pushed out his energy and could sense the structures around him. Before, he hadn't tried looking for anything in particular. Now that he knew there was something to specifically seek, he was able to sense what seemed like a shaft in the rock that led downward, but it was shattered and fragmented. I think I can feel where my tower sank down and became embedded in the rock. Wait, how long ago did all this happen?
“You don’t know how long you’ve been here?”
Time is… different than when I was human. It seems to slip me by.
“It must have been more than fifteen years ago the tower disappeared, so they say.”
That long? I’ve been contemplating my strange new situation this whole time, and it never felt more than a matter of hours … or perhaps days. But it could have been that long, yes. I haven’t felt the pains of time at all. This is amazing.
"Amazing is an interesting word to use, just finding out your ancestral home was destroyed, and you are left a magical skull floating about above some kind of altar."
Mertho had never considered that he might be on top of anything but a random slab of rock. Maybe it was an altar of some sort, and if that were the case, this was not merely a malevolent spell gone wrong in a bizarre way. I think something unique has happened to me. Since the first second it struck me, I felt a new type of energy, not a common dark magic, but far from light magic. I feel as though I am the core of this underground cave, the remnants of my wizard's tower. I know it seems absurd... he added, noting the look of incredulity on her face.
"I'm not going to pretend I know about any of those things. If this is true, and the stories my bullies used to frighten me as a child were actually based on fact, not mere fantasy, that means you really have been down here for a long time. I was only ten years of age when I finally left the orphanage, not that my life improved much on the streets, but at least I was no longer a victim." The pretty elf sat up straight, her posture impeccable even though she seemed relaxed.
You are an elf, Mertho said.
"What? Of course. You knew this when I first entered this chamber."
Yes, I mean—how old are you? For all I know, you just as easily be one hundred as you could be twenty.
"I am twenty-five years old," she responded. "I know that is young, particularly for one of a race that can live hundreds of years."
It does explain your naivety of being out here alone at night, and in the rain.
When he called her naive, the elf began to tense her leg muscles and leaned back on her hands, propping herself and looking like she was thinking about jumping back away from the altar. "Why am I naive? So, this is some kind of twisted trap then?"
Please, don't be alarmed. I only meant that it was honestly foolish to come here, not knowing anything about what you would find, and without even a pair of boots or shoes, let alone a proper weapon. Can you fight with that letter opener you have with you?"
"Ask the man I killed last night."
Mertho tried to laugh, his magical aura glowing more brightly for a moment as he did so. I hope he at least had it coming. Hmm, but if you left the orphanage at the age of ten, I have been down here for more than fifteen years. It feels like, so much less, and yet somehow so much more. Nothing is real to me anymore, but everything is so very real.
The elf sighed. "I honestly cannot tell you I understand, not completely. But I don't think you will find many people willing to share personal histories with a magical skull. That has to mean something to you, right?"
Was she trying to comfort him? It had not occurred to him that Mertho might actually be pitiable in his new form. He was quiet for some time after that, again not totally sure if it was just a minute or two, or a lot longer. Time was not a completely foreign concept to him anymore, but it did tend to drift back and forth in his mind, like the tide of an ocean shore.
She'd been staring intently at him the whole time, as well as the altar he was sat atop. It must have been incredibly strange to her, but the young elf was made of tougher resolve than most, or she simply had a mind full of curiosity than outweighed the fear she should have been driven by the first moment she encountered the chamber within the rock - a drive to run like mad and never return to this clearly cursed place or even mention it to anyone.
What is your name, young elf? he asked her eventually, having realized that he was already slightly fond of her tenacity.
"Tehra. I never knew my family name. Well, I might have, but that was at such a young age that I've forgotten everything about my family now. Do you, have a name?"
Yes. Like the stories went, I was a human, but a wizard rather than an uneducated sorcerer. I am Mertho, a name which has been passed down from my father and his father before him, and so on for generations. I guess I really let my ancestors down when I destroyed their tower and drove it deep into the rock. He sighed, again the light of his skull and altar glowing. You may sleep here if you'd rather not face the storm. Without any effort this time, he used another magical conjuration to call forth a comfortable single bed and a bronze fire barrel that nestled at the entrance to the chamber, to allow the magically burning flame's smoke to exit out and not suffocate the elf as she slept.
"Thank you," she said, now cold and despondent as she silently walked over and lay herself down in the bed. Her own demons were battling in her mind after talk of her painful past. The future was never assured to be any less painful, but at least in the present there lay the opportunity to numb the mind with things like wine and sleep. As a living, breathing person, she could at least enjoy such things. Soon, she was making gentle sounds of slumber.
Mertho did not sleep, but time passed him less cruelly now. He had wasted more than fifteen years just sitting and thinking, at least he thought he probably had – it was so hard to tell. To think of all the things he might have learned about his new form, his new powers, in that many years—it was frustrating. It was for the best that he did not need to sleep now because he had missed too much time already.
8
Mertho couldn’t figure out how he’d get himself to sleep with no eyes to close and no physical body to rest anyway. This would have been seen as a disadvantage by many, especially those who love a good nap. The wizard had never been much for sleep, however. When he had been made of plain flesh and blood, he would stay up through all hours of the night, often forgoing sleeping even long after the sun had reclaimed day from the night, and the early morning was well into the day.
As a knowledgeable wizard with great power, from a strong line of wizards and magic users, he was able to make his body into a powerhouse of study and constant wakefulness. Sleep was only rarely needed, perhaps only a handful of times during each month of the calendar. This was his secret weapon in the never-ending war to amass more knowledge and ability in spell casting. Where many lesser students of magic would have eventually dropped into a deep slumber and lost precious time poring through their books and scrolls, experimenting with the information found therein, Mertho tirelessly continued his quest for magical superiority for many days and nights at a time.
His mind now was growing dim and weary without a single new thing to learn. It almost drove him into a state of primitive semi-consciousness, the droning silence of nothing; nothing to think, nothing to do, nothing new to make him feel a sense of progress and accomplishment as a wizard.
He almost failed to hear the telltale crunch of feet on top of rock and soil. People were coming toward the entrance to his cavernous tomb. They lacked the magical aura that had made it easy for him to sense Tehra from a distance. The only way he had been made aware of these newcomers approaching was that they were practically already at the entrance to his cave.
Yes, he could sense them coming in, much louder and more carefree than the elf had been when she'd crept along in the dark. It was still raining outside, but they had modern lanterns that provided their light its own shelter
from wind and raindrops. Amazingly, Mertho could see them through his mind as they came through the cave entrance one at a time. Their faces were worried, but there was a self-assured facade covering that doubt. Theirs were the kinds of faces owned by adventurers, or perhaps mercenaries.
None of them were wearing uniforms, so it was unlikely they were from the town guard. He had not asked the elf what had caused her to flee the city—that was her own business and he had never been the sort of man to gossip or pry into the personal affairs of others. Tehra had mentioned that she'd killed a man the previous night. Surprised, and a little impressed perhaps, that it might actually be true, Mertho spoke to her in a way he hoped would not be heard by the intruders.
Young elf, it is time to wake up.
The wine must have put her into an extra deep sleep because she did not wake up.
Tehra, wake up, or I will be forced to take care of this without full knowledge of the scenario.
She didn't wake up. She just rolled over and made a grumbling sound like a child whose mother was trying to rouse them on a cold winter morning.
Mertho was not ready to start babying anyone, especially a fully grown adult who he had just met. He ignored her and went back to focusing on the intruders. He sensed there were four of them, all men. No, there was one woman, dressed in the same type of armor as the men. They wore no markings of elegance, and they were dressed mostly in black and other dark, plain colors. They had all the trappings of mercenaries, possibly hired to go and find the young elven maid who had put an end to a man's life in the city two nights ago.
It was a conundrum to think of how to stop them. Without his body, he could not use his arms to cast the spells he had memorized, those that could actually be used without preparation. That had always been something that fascinated him about the less-educated forms of spellcasters. Sorcerers, druids, and even witches to some degree, could cast spells using their natural link to their specific sorts of magical energy. They were able to draw up the magic in the world around them and channel it with their own rituals and casting.
A wizard was a scholarly magic user, someone who was not necessarily born with an innate ability. Although it was common for those born with natural magical abilities to become wizards, many of the most powerful and famous wizards throughout the ages had been regular human beings at birth. Mertho was in that camp of wizard. He had been taught even his most basic spells, such as conjuring object and detecting magic. He had already learned to walk before he was allowed to start his training. That's why he had always felt as though he was somehow behind natural magic users, even though they were often much less refined and powerful in their specific forms of magical energy.
But Mertho knew how to attain the ability to cast spells from a wide range of different magic types. What had been done to him had to be of a certain type of magic, or a combination of multiple types. Knowing that, whatever magic had turned him into the core of his own personal cave, or dungeon, beneath the surface of the world, could be learned about and indeed mastered. If there was any wizard for that task, it was him.
Clearing his mind of all else, he focused on his own central core. Soon he could feel the structure of the rock, the soil, even the moisture that was a neutral part of all things. He could sense there was plant life in the cave, moss and tiny formations of tangled roots and leaves. Insects were there in their millions.
Yes, he could sense everything around him, at least to the point where the underworld met the surface. He thought about the rock surrounding the oncoming men. They were bearing weapons and clearly meant to use them when they found Tehra asleep in her bed. Even if she were to wake, which he might be able to bring about by calling to her again, could she take on this whole group with just a knife and no armor? That was unlikely.
He created a divide, cracking up the cave’s natural rock farther along where the group of mercenaries was heading. There was nothing else he could think to do. No, it would be wrong to let them enter his chamber. And if they were to discover his altar, they were sure to want to destroy it or perhaps try to take him, the skull, the core of his being, for all he could figure out.
Could he really murder these unwitting adventurers? There was a chance their intentions were not murderous, but that was so slim he immediately pushed it far from his mind. The idea that such brutish people could be up to anything but trouble was laughable, really. It made him remember Benevic’s party who had come to his tower as though they owned it. Without any cause for provocation by Mertho, those men had been willing to smash down the antique door that had stood strong and proud for hundreds of years. They'd entered Mertho's private sanctum and hurled accusations at him, as though he were some common witch who ate children and used dead cats for divination. While he was in the throes of agony and needing help, not hindrance, they had come into his bedchamber and taken everything from him at the behest of their supposedly righteous leader, the hero Benevic.
Gaynor had come to Mertho. She had chosen him. It was his right to be with her. The wizard had done nothing wrong!
With that rage surging through him, he formed a falling rock trap that would drop the moment something of sizable weight passed on the floor beneath it. He did not need to think about how to do this. It just came to him, as though second nature. Mertho wanted the trap, and there it was. He was magically in tune with the rock and earth around him.
The first intruder wasn't wearing a helm, and as he walked sure-footedly down the cavernous path, a jacked chunk of rock the size of a suckling pig expelled itself from the tunnel ceiling and plummeted toward the floor. It met with the hapless man's head first, of course, but barely slowed down on impact. Instead, it pulverized the top of his skull and drove his neck into his spine. Death was mercifully instant. The man’s associates looked carefully until they were sure there were no more rocks waiting to drop from that location, and stepped over the body.
The blasé reactions of the other three to this man’s gruesome death confirmed in Mertho's mind that they were indeed hired mercenaries. He felt nothing but contempt for them; he was still swelling up with feelings of hatred and regret at the memory of his own personal abuse at the hands of hired swords and adventurers.
However, he felt there was not enough time to form another trap. With time moving so strangely for him, it had seemed like an eternity of contemplation while he decided how to deal with the four, now three, intruders. Even as he was sensing them move by the falling rock trap, they were seemingly almost right up to his inner chamber and the sleeping elf.
Go back! he called out, hoping to tap into their minds.
"What was that?" said one of them to the other two.
The woman, whose face was stern and without emotions, replied, "The elf's a whore, obviously, and she's got a man with her. Are you afraid?"
"I'll show you who's afraid, woman," he replied. They continued coming closer.
What business of theirs it was if Tehra had a male companion? Mertho could not figure it out. These ruffians had to be taught a lesson about dealing brutality in the name of earning gold, and righteous cause and effect. Very well! he called to them with a rueful glee that felt well suited to his mood, which was quickly growing more murderous. Murderers deserved murder, after all.
"What's that noise?" said the other man, who had not spoken yet. His quiet awareness might have served him better in life, if he had not chosen to throw his sword at the feet of whoever could pay the highest price in coin. As such, he heard the cracking sound of rock too late.
With much less mental exertion now, even less than with the simple rock trap, Mertho thought carefully about a solidly formed section of rock at chest height to the intruders. It was perfectly in every way, a beautiful part of the underground world. And it became a spike instantly, shooting out of the cave wall and piercing the man from the side. Blood started to pour out from where the rock spike had entered him through the area under his arm and all the way through his body, side on. He did not drop to the flo
or as he died; he was pinned to the other side of the rock wall.
"What was that?" asked Tehra. She was sitting up in the bed. "I heard a terrible crashing sound and someone screaming. Did I dream it?
No. Mercenaries have come to collect a price on your head, I assume. Mertho was not eager to discuss the details of his killing, not while the hatred was still running its course through his magical core.
Tehra took up her knife and stood to the side of the only entrance to the chamber, which had no door or any other visible way of stopping entry from the other side. "I will stop them from coming, or they will have to take back a corpse to collect their reward."
You think they have come for you? I assumed you were lying about having killed a man. I have already decided their fates, so you need not worry. Your little knife will not need to taste blood again, not tonight anyway.
"I can take care of myself," she said stubbornly.
When the footsteps were audible to the elf too, and Mertho could sense them just out of sight as the two mercenaries drew nearer, it was past the time for playing petty games. With all the energy he felt he could summon, the wizard formed a series of flinted pieces in the rock, this time much shorter and thinner. He pushed them outward from the natural tunnel and sent them flying at incredible speeds from all around the man and woman.
They were struck all over with the foot long shards of razor sharp rock. It was like an explosion of fragments, each one slicing up its victim without prejudice; natural elements knew no allegiance and could feel nothing for the pain or pleasure of mortal beings. Mertho appreciated this for the first time as he sensed the life forces draining from the last two intruders of the group. Even seeing the woman die, knowing her pain and sorrow, did not make Mertho feel bad. He was too level-headed now to favor her with sorrow over the man, just because of her gender. No... Mertho felt a sense of powerful balance that left him buzzing with excitement.
The Wizard (Dungeon Core Book 1) Page 5