by Rowe, Andrew
Forging Divinity
By Andrew Rowe
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this book are fictional.
Copyright © 2014 Andrew Rowe
All rights reserved.
Edited by Jessica Richards
Cover artwork by Daniel Kamarudin (http://thedurrrrian.deviantart.com/)
Cover Design by James, GoOnWrite.com
ISBN: 1505886554
ISBN-13: 978-1505886559
DEDICATION
For my parents, Bruce Rowe and Christine Rowe, for helping me live my dreams.
CONTENTS
DEDICATION
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Chapter I – A Misplaced Weapon of Legend
Chapter II – A Contemplation of Constant Complications
Chapter III – Definitely not a Trap
Chapter IV – An Attempt at Teamwork
Chapter V – An Introduction to Sorcerous Theory
Chapter VI – A Contest of Concealment
Chapter VII – Inefficient Investments of Effort
Chapter VIII – Definitely a Trap
Chapter IX – Decieving Sight
Chapter X – The Value of a Promise
Chapter XI – Necessary Precautions
Chapter XII – Mirrors
Chapter XIII – Paths of Ascension
Chapter XIV – Forging Divinity
Chapter XV – Unsheathed
Chapter XVI – A Few Key Explanations
Chapter XVII – The Next Steps
Epilogue – Greetings and Goodbyes
Appendix I – Dominion Sorcery
Appendix II – Notable Personages
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First off, I’d like to thank my editor, Jessica Richards. Her support throughout numerous revisions of this project has been invaluable.
Thank you to Daniel Kamarudin for really going the extra mile and making me some amazing cover art.
I’d also like to thank my beta readers, Caitlin Bates, Danielle Collins, Rachel Judd, Rachel Noel, Bruce Rowe, Aaron Rowe, and Jennifer Williamson for their excellent notes, feedback, and support.
I owe sincere thanks to Micky Neilson for many years of mentorship and guidance.
Jesse Heinig has earned my thanks for providing me with tons of support when I was struggling to find my way in the gaming industry. I really appreciate all his help and support.
Mallory Reaves has provided support with building this world since its very inception, and Kari Brewer was instrumental in giving life to the character of Lydia.
Chapter I – A Misplaced Weapon of Legend
Taelien’s jail cell was surprisingly well-furnished. A table of lacquered cedar encompassed much of the center, topped with books, scrolls, and an ostentatious gold-framed mirror. A padded chair sat beside it, unattended, much like the four-posted bed near to the barred window. None of these luxuries were accessible from the position where the dark-haired man was chained to the darkest, coldest wall.
At first, Taelien had guessed that the fine trappings were intended to be a temptation. Perhaps the intent was to imply that cooperation would lead to the reward of a more comfortable imprisonment. Disturbingly, when the questions had come, no such reward was offered. Now he suspected that his captors simply had a demented sense of irony.
His suspicions were supported by the sound of knocking upon the chamber’s heavy iron-lined door. Maybe the headsman will ask me politely before bringing down the axe.
“Come in,” Taelien said, a smirk stretching across his lips.
The sound of a key turning in the lock was jarring. Perhaps some part of him had forgotten that the door was locked – after all, such a measure was largely superfluous, given the extent to which the chains bound his body. He was clothed in them, which was perhaps reassuring, as he was clothed in little else.
As the door opened, an unfamiliar figure stepped into the privacy of his cage. She wore thin spectacles over a freckled face, her hair the red-orange of firelight constrained into a single neat bun. Her loose violet robes, cinched at the waist by a scabbarded belt, emphasized the slenderness of her frame. At a glance, she looked younger than he – perhaps only twenty years of age.
Interesting, Taelien considered. She is the first female they’ve sent to see me. Perhaps they think I’ll respond better to more delicate persuasion, since force has proven worthless. After a moment of consideration, he reassessed that idea. No, the violet robes mean she’s more than likely a sorceress. He noted three silver pins on the collar of her robe, each with the stylized insignia of a spear etched into their surface. Three pins means she’s pretty high ranking, assuming they use a similar ranking system to the one at home. She’s less likely here to seduce, more likely here to try to wrest secrets directly from my mind.
The young woman looked him over for a moment, grimaced, and turned to close the door behind her. He didn’t see a key in her hand, nor did he hear the sound of someone else relocking the door from the outside. For an instant, it seemed almost an opportunity, but common sense told him that the woman would be ready for any attempt he made at escape. Be patient, he told himself. You can probably talk your way out of this. It hasn’t even been a day yet.
The sorceress reached upward with her left hand, straightened her glasses, and spoke in a clear tone. “I’ve been told that you have not been cooperative.”
Taelien quirked his left eyebrow. “Hard to do that when no one has told me what I’ve been accused of.”
“You have committed an act of blasphemy against the noble gods of Orlyn.” The woman began to pace around the room as she spoke, wearing a disinterested expression. “I am Lydia Scryer, court sorceress. I have been sent here to provide you with legal advice, and to gather details about the incident.”
“You can call me Taelien. I’m surprised to hear that I am being offered any sort of representation,” Taelien said dubiously, offering her the same name he had given to the other guards.
She glanced toward him at the sound of his name, pursing her lips. After a moment, she shook her head in a dismissive motion. “I may not have been clear. I am not an attorney. My job is to ensure that a confession is extracted from you in a timely fashion.”
“Ah, that’s much clearer,” Taelien replied, a hint of disappointment penetrating through his attempt at cynicism.
“Before we continue our discussion, I must perform a cursory examination,” the sorceress continued. She approached him without hesitation, and though Taelien felt an urge to stretch forward to test her response, he kept that impulse at bay.
Lydia came to within arm’s reach of him – a mistake, from his perspective, but he did not yet know her own capabilities. His eyes scanned her for any weapons beyond the obvious sword at her side, but found none. The weapon did not frighten him, but her unknown sorcery could pose a threat.
“Dominion of Knowledge, I invoke you,” the woman began, reaching out to touch Taelien’s arm. His jaw clenched in response, but he made no move to intervene. Lashing out at the sorceress was unlikely to earn him anything other than harsher treatment and more impediments to his attempts to escape.
There was no tangible sensation as the spell took effect, no flash of light, no hiss of sound. He felt only the warmth her fingers pressing against his bicep. In truth, he had no way of knowing if any spell had been cast at all.
Knowledge sorcery sounded relatively innocuous, but Taelien knew from experience that it could be utilized to devastating effect. He had no talent for the Dominion himself, but his adoptive mother had been an expert. She had taught him that the Dominion of Knowledge could identify weaknesses or fears, even peer into recent memories
. He had no defense against it; simply thinking about other subjects would provide no distraction, and any effort to close his mind entirely would be obvious to the sorceress.
Lydia’s incantation gave little hint as to what information she was divining. She closed her eyes, seemingly concentrating. After a moment, he realized that her eyes were moving rapidly beneath their lids, almost as if she was dreaming. That’s sort of creepy. Can she learn my goals from a simple touch and a few hastily spoken words? Can she reach into my memories?
The woman withdrew her hand a few moments later, her expression grim. The sorceress folded her arms across her chest, the fingers of her right hand dancing dangerously close to the hilt of a sheathed saber. Her eyes narrowed, scrutinizing something, or perhaps sorting through whatever information she had just harvested from his mind.
“You are a metal sorcerer,” she said matter-of-factly. “Though your connection with the dominion is distinct from others I have analyzed in the past.”
Taelien nodded once. He felt the muscles in his shoulders tense. If she can identify dominions, that might pose some problems.
The young woman’s hand moved away from the hilt of her sword, allowing Taelien to take a breath of relief. “If you cooperate, I may be able to answer some of your questions. Demonstrate your ability to use the Dominion of Metal.”
A daring request, he considered, and a potential trap. Still, I have little choice.
Taelien had no need for words. His eyes sealed themselves shut, though in truth, such a step was hardly necessary. He could already sense each piece of metal roughly abrading his bare skin – and with a minimal amount of effort, he could extend that sense further into the interlocking rings.
It would have been a simple thing to make a subtle change, weakening the iron bonds at the point where they met with the larger iron rings embedded into the wall. Taelien thrived on complexity. He sought out the weakest points in each link, formulating a map in his mind that highlighted each of these flaws.
Degrade, he told the chains, focusing his mind on key locations in the web of metal that enshrouded his form. As he compelled the metal, Taelien stretched his arms outward. There was only the faintest hint of resistance as each piece of metal tore apart, his silent spell expanding existing weaknesses even as he exploited them. The motion may have looked to an outsider as if he was tearing through the bonds using brute force; in reality, nothing could have been further from the truth. The Dominion of Metal performed feats that his arms could have never achieved.
The chains, shattered by a casual motion and an unspoken word, clattered noisily to the floor.
To her credit, Lydia hardly blinked. Free of the metal, Taelien was suddenly aware that he wore nothing beyond his underclothes. He stretched, yawning intentionally, but the effort had drained him more than his performance confessed. Using any form of sorcery had a cost on the body.
Using flame sorcery would steal his body heat, and he had heard that using water sorcery would consume water from the blood. Metal sorcery was a more obscure art, and the effects on the body abstruse. Whenever he overused the Dominion of Metal he found himself exhausted and profoundly hungry, but he suspected those were side effects of a cause he did not understand.
After a moment of pause, Lydia said quietly, “I was hoping for something subtler. Someone could have heard that.”
Taelien shrugged casually, trying to hide his disappointment in Lydia’s uninspired reply. “You could have been clearer. In any case, I doubt anyone heard me. Nothing happened last time.”
Lydia took a step back, her face betraying a hint of surprise for the first time. “You’ve broken the chains before?”
“Of course,” Taelien reclined against the wall, a crooked smirk favoring the right side of his mouth. “Putting them back on is significantly more difficult, but I would have been insane not to test my most effective method of escape.”
The sorceress reached up and pushed her glasses back further on her nose. “You could have been caught.”
Taelien held his hands up in a gesture of helplessness. “To be fair, I was already caught. Imprisoning me further would be redundant, would it not?” He paused a moment, and then noted, “That rhymed, I think.”
Lydia folded her arms again and tilted her head slightly to the side. “If you could have escaped at any time, why are you still here?”
“Courtesy?” he tried.
She shook her head. “Unlikely. You must have some incentive to remain here. Perhaps you are biding your time, waiting for an ally to rescue you?”
He sighed, holding his hands up in a gesture of helplessness. She thinks I’m some kind of criminal mastermind. That’s kind of flattering, but I should probably set her straight. And if honesty doesn’t get me anywhere, I can always fight my way out if I have to.
“Nothing like that. I’m here alone, not as part of any sort of grand conspiracy.” He paused, knowing this conversation could quickly maneuver a saber into his body.
“A few reasons I haven’t broken out. First, the last guy who visited me – Veruden, I think – was pretty friendly. I was hoping I could eventually talk my way out. Second, even if I could get out of this room easily enough, I’d have to harm innocent people to get all the way out. Third, I don’t know where any of my belongings are, and I’d really like them back. If I fought my way out, I might never see them again.”
Lydia furrowed her brow, silent for several long moments. “What is your connection to the gods of the Tae’os Pantheon?”
Taelien briefly glanced downward at the chains piled around his feet. “I’d love to have a good answer to that myself.”
“And the sword you carried into this city?” Lydia asked, her right hand drifting toward her own weapon as she spoke. He did not tense for an attack; her motion looked incidental, not hostile.
Taelien’s thoughts went to his missing weapon, the object that had presumably been the cause of his arrest.
This sword is your inheritance, his adoptive mother had told him. The Paladins of Tae’os may cause you trouble – they consider it sacred. They call it the Taelien, “the sword that gives”.
He had learned later that the full name of the sword was Sae’kes Taelien, and he had taken the latter word as his own title and surname. He knew some people would find that arrogant, but humility had never been his greatest strength. The weapon’s winged hilt and jeweled pommel were quite distinctive, especially given that the Paladins of Tae’os wore tabards with the sword featured prominently upon it.
“Nothing but trouble, I assure you.” He stretched again, and then began to rub at the spots on his arms where the chains had abused his skin the most severely. Fortunately, the chafing was his only current injury. His arrest had been smooth and methodical once he had surrendered his sword, and his captors had not resorted to physical torture. If they had treated him poorly, he would have attempted an escape immediately. “I had no idea that symbols of the Tae’os Pantheon were illegal here.”
The young woman stood, unfaltering, seeming to carefully measure each word. “How did you acquire the weapon?”
“I was found with it as a child,” he explained, still nursing his bruised flesh. “My parents – that is, the people who took me in – assured me that it was my birthright. Seems less than plausible, really, but I have thus far failed to find a more satisfactory explanation. Would you happen to have any ideas?”
“Several,” she said simply. Taelien assumed she was bluffing, but her tone didn’t give anything away. “What is your business in Orlyn?”
Taelien pressed his hands against his back, and then flexed backward, applying pressure with his hands. He felt a familiar crack along his spine and his muscles beginning to relax. “I was told to meet someone here. Erik Tarren.”
Lydia titled her head downward and leaned forward toward him, a gesture that was somehow more intimidating than the threat of her blade. In spite of her delicate frame, her green eyes burned with dangerous intensity. “The scholar,�
� she said more than asked.
He nodded, appraising her as he did so. Her stance was not well suited toward initiating combat, but the tightness of her jaw showed the potential for violence. He knew nothing of her capabilities, save that she claimed to be a sorceress. Her spell could have been faked, but given that her assessment afterward had been accurate, it seemed more plausible that it had been real. He was not concerned with her weapon, but antagonizing a sorceress while he was unarmed was an unwise prospect. “I was given a note to deliver to him, but it was confiscated along with my sword and supplies.”
Effective, he considered. The combination of my limited knowledge of her sorcerous capabilities and her threatening body language is making me far more nervous than the guards did. As a result, I’m talking more to her than I did to them. She might not have any offensive sorcery at all, but she doesn’t think I’ll call her bluff.
“Don’t move,” she instructed him, unfolding her arms.
Taelien waited quietly as she reached down to her sword belt – and unfastened it, slowly lowering it to the floor. She bent her knees carefully as she let it down, never letting her gaze leave him. Her gaze glowed with distrust.
After removing the belt, which carried both a scabbarded blade and a large pouch on the opposite end, she grabbed the bottom of her violet robes and began to lift them off of her body.
Taelien found himself at a loss for words, which was a remarkably rare event.
As Lydia removed her robes, it became apparent that the sorceress’ motives had nothing to do with seduction. Beneath the violet cloth he discovered a second, identical robe. He found that both comical and somewhat disappointing.
As she concluded pulling the robe over her head, she cast it toward him. He caught it deftly, his expression perplexed. Lydia reached down and hastily donned her belt, her eyes only briefly abandoning him this time.