Reapers of Souls and Magic: A Rohrland Saga (The Rohrlands Saga Book 1)

by R. E. Fisher

  “No,” she replied.

  “It’s the discipline of magic that allows you to do everything from understanding a completely different language to seeing things you wouldn’t normally be able to see. In other words, it allows you to see, ascertain, and locate beings and objects that most others cannot.”

  “I understand, I think,” she said.

  “No, but you will. This is your first lesson. There is something in this room that you cannot see, nor would even the most powerful of mages be able to find. I need to see how strong your magic truly is. Find it. Take all the time you need,” Hindle said, lifting a cup of tea from the table next to the chair and sipping it.

  Tetra closed her eyes and began searching, sensing that the something was more of a someone. With her eyes closed, she began walking through the room, avoiding the various pieces of furniture and books strewn about the room, impressing Hindle.

  She turned as she neared a corner of the room and opened her eyes, staring into the corner.

  “Why is she in a cage?” Tetra asked the mage.

  “What do you see?”

  “It’s a fairy,” she said. “A harmless one, I think.”

  “Look deeper now that you found her. If you can,” Hindle instructed.

  Now that she could see her, Tetra realized that the fairy looked benign. She sat upon a swing within the cage, swaying back and forth and smiling at the Elfaheen. She was dressed in a gown of silver and white and her wings were flitting back and forth, keeping her momentum going. Her blue eyes were surrounded by her beautiful, alabaster face and blonde hair. Perfect teeth and red lips encompassed her beautiful smile.

  “It’s not fair to keep anything in a cage,” Tetra said.

  “Keep looking; your answer lies in the seeing,” Hindle said, taking another sip of his tea as Eivy climbed onto the back of the chair to watch Tetra.

  Tetra reached for the simple slide that held the cage closed and locked. Eivy hissed loudly at Tetra, who immediately drew her hand away from the cage.

  Tetra watched as the fairy leapt from the swing and onto the bars of the cage, holding them tightly, and her once-beautiful face suddenly became hideous and diseased. Her gentle, soft wings were suddenly dirty and torn. Her feral screams were quickly directed at Eivy. “Mind your own damn business, you runt of a dragon! You malformed cat!”

  Tetra stepped away from the cage in shock at the sudden transformation. The behavior of the fairy suddenly reminded her of the look on Quensi’s face as she took Daena from her arms. Tetra quickly looked at Eivy, whose deep growl reflected her displeasure at the fairy.

  “Please, missus! Let me out! I’ll be good,” she begged Tetra.

  “Ignore her. She was cast out of Allwind. Even her own kind doesn’t want her around. She’s a rabble-rouser, that one is,” Hindle told her.

  Tetra turned back to the fairy and saw that she was once again sitting on her swing, as pretty as she had been upon her first observation.

  “Please, missus; that one there thinks that I can grant him a wish or something. Made that story up to keep me here, he has.”

  “Shut up, Gwilli; she doesn’t care,” Hindle said, rising from his seat and looking at Tetra. “And that doesn’t count. She showed you who she is rather than you telling me. At least it’s nice to know you aren’t all-powerful and wise. Wasn’t sure how to act around a goddess anyway.”

  “Why is she in that cage?” Tetra asked.

  “She’s what we call an unseelie. Fairies who cause mischief and harm to those who are unfortunate enough to have come across them.”

  “Why is she in that cage?” Tetra asked again, more firmly.

  “Because she killed a woman and her child. I wanted to catch them all, but the rest got away. They hunt for trouble in packs, like wolves. Once they catch you, they carry you to their little bonfire court where they hold you accountable for whatever wrongs your kind might have done. They said that this woman’s great-great-uncle killed one of them with a scythe and that she and her child had to pay for that death. They tossed both over the wall of their well, hoping that it would look like an accident. But I saw them do it.”

  Gwilli interrupted him by doing her best imitation of Eivy’s hiss while the mage told Tetra of her wrongful deeds.

  “She was the court princess that year, making her responsible,” Hindle said.

  Hindle looked at Tetra and asked, “Was that the intent of your creations?”

  “No, Hindle, it was not. But this is not right,” Tetra said, pointing to the cage.

  “Do not judge us for doing what we must do to protect those who have never sought harm of another,” Hindle said, waving his hand toward the cage. It disappeared once again.

  “Why the cage?”

  “Because she will kill again, and I don’t kill needlessly. Everyone is better off by simply removing her from the equation. Unless you would do that which needs to be done yourself with that dagger or sword of yours?” he questioned.

  “No, I would not,” Tetra said as her own memories and guilt reappeared.

  “That’s all for today,” he told her.

  As Tetra walked past the mage toward the doorway, Hindle began to understand her feelings of guilt. His magic was subtle and thorough. He had just used his talents to discover why she was among them, with her none the wiser.

  “Perhaps you should visit Pokmok to see what true evil and darkness is. I understand that you have three others to visit still. Come back after you have, and we will continue to teach you to see the truth of things.”

  Without looking back, Tetra rushed out of the tower, unsure of what Hindle expected of her.

  “Are you all right, Mistress?”

  “I’m fine, Tel. Just not sure the people here are going to give us the help we seek. I don’t need to be shown things that are cruel, then justified! Does everything we created kill for sport? Even fairies?” she asked angrily.

  “Mistress, if the gods foresaw this, then you have still followed their wishes. If not, how could you even begin to blame yourself or your people? You should know better than most that if even your kind could not agree, why should the young races do so?”

  “Maybe Lavalor and the others were right for leaving!”

  Telerex looked at Tetra and could see the pain that was forming deep within. She was losing her innocence, and he saw that it was hurting her terribly. He hoped Lysette had known what she was doing when she’d set this course for his friend—rather, the course that the gods had seemingly preordained for her.

  Although he was sitting far away from her, he could hear her thoughts, and he was pleased. The simple journey of learning was beginning to weaken her. He heard every lesson the mages were teaching her; their knowledge had grown much since his time with the Shadow Elves. His own already lethal arsenal of magic grew with each new technique or tidbit of arcane knowledge they shared with the Elfaheen. He realized that the more they taught her, the more he was going to have to compete with her. His magic was limited to that which he could impart psychically. He would have to learn how to master the physical world as well if he was going to oppose her when the time came. As she practiced under the tutelage of the most educated and creative of mages, he, too, practiced. He tried casting spells as he had in the bowels of Asmordia, with no effect. They would not work by simply saying the words. His inability to facilitate the use of magic without the hand gestures led him to seek other ways to manifest his magical will upon the realm of light. He would have to double his efforts, but he wondered how much magic he had remaining. He might now be immortal, but what good was that without his magic?

  Pokmok Lighteyes seemed to be staring at her, but she wasn’t sure; he didn’t have any actual eyes to look into. He had a spectral shape that resembled any other man: two arms, two legs, torso, shoulders, and head, but they were almost vacant under his robes. He had a ghostly visage that she could tell was mostly from the ethereal planes—which one of them, she did not know. She had been able to determine w
hat he was when he had pointed toward the multi-colored pentagram shown on the wall and then waved that same hand toward the floor. Instead of eyes, he had two small, glowing orbs of bluish electricity hovering where any person’s eyes would be. He had not spoken a word to her yet.

  “You want me to draw that on the floor?” Tetra asked.

  Tetra watched as Pokmok simply nodded and waved his ethereal hand toward a table of colored salts and minerals. Tetra noticed that the colors of each of the items on the table matched the colors that had been drawn on the wall.

  Tetra walked over to the table and reached for the white salts first.

  “Noooooo…” Pokmok moaned in an unearthly voice.

  Tetra set the bottle of salts down and looked back at the mage, who was now standing next to the image on the wall. She watched as his spectral finger touched the center of the pentagram and made a circle around it and as he continued to show her each step.

  “Draw it from the middle outward? Is that it?” Tetra asked.

  Pokmok nodded his head in agreement again. She watched him as he floated over to the table, where he picked up a black glass container and handed it to her. She removed the lid and saw that it was filled with charcoal dust.

  “How big should I draw it?” Tetra asked.

  The wraith pointed toward carpet that covered most of the floor in the room and waved his hand. Two corners of the carpet lifted, and the carpet seemingly dragged itself toward the corner of the room. Underneath the spot, where the carpet had been, was a circle that was more than three full paces across. She looked at the size of the circle and then at the drawing, and now saw how intricate the loops, swirls, interlocking lines, and languages were. She realized that she was going to be there for quite a while before she would be finished. She looked over at Pokmok, noticing that he had two helpers—one standing on each side of him—that were now the same shady smoke color as he was. She knew the Elfaheen had not created the two short and very thin beings. There had never been creatures of this type seen, nor did they carry the feel of Elfaheen magic about them. She realized that they must have come from the same ethereal plane as Pokmok.

  “No mistakes. No stopping. Each grain precisely placed. Else failure or disaster,” the wraith moaned with a hollow and gravelly voice.

  Tetra watched as he left the room, taking his two helpers with him and closing the door behind them. She sighed heavily and set about her task as instructed.

  Eivy watched as Tetra struggled to stay awake. She had been laboring at the getting the image exactly right for more than three days while Eivy took occasional naps deep within the now-folded carpet. She had managed to sneak into the tower after Pokmok had left to meet with Lleward. After finding Tetra and seeing that she had been locked behind a door, Eivy worried that she would be unable to tell Hindle what she had been doing, so she managed to squeeze under the door and into the room. She realized that Tetra was so engrossed in whatever she was doing that she hadn’t noticed Eivy enter the room. The shoulder-drake took that opportunity to hide in the best place she could quickly spot, between the folds of the carpet that rested in the corner of the room.

  After she hid, Eivy began watching the Elfaheen and how studiously she was placing grains of sand onto the ground in a pattern of some sort. She watched Tetra for hours, even falling asleep a few times, unable to keep her eyes open but waking each time the Elfaheen cursed in frustration.

  The drake watched carefully, seeing that the colored sands had now filled much of the circle Tetra was working within.

  “I’m not going to be doing anything but this for a few more hours, and I’m not allowed to stop. Was there something in particular you needed to tell Hindle, or are you just here to visit me?” Tetra asked aloud, not looking up.

  With a small sigh of exasperation, Eivy climbed out from within the carpet and walked toward the Elfaheen kneeling on the far side of the circle.

  “Don’t walk across it; I’d have to start over.”

  Eivy skidded to a stop and began walking around the outer edge of the circle to comply, but the drake’s curiosity got the best of her. She paused to examine what Tetra had been doing all that time.

  Eivy noticed that Tetra had drawn a thin circle on the outer edge in white salt and then a band of black just inside that one that smelled like ashes to Eivy. There was another thin white band of salt, making three thin lines in total. The five-pointed star she had drawn was fascinating to Eivy. It had been drawn with what looked to be a single thick line, but it overlapped the opposing lines like the one on Hindle’s robe, and she had filled the lines of the star with a silvery-white looking powder. Each point of the star connected with the inner white salt line, creating eleven panels within the circle.

  Eivy moved slowly toward Tetra and around the image; she saw that she had also drawn another line of white salt that looked to run under the star, tricking the drake’s vision, and had filled that with a foul-smelling yellow powder. The eleven panels that were created after drawing the star had been filled with more charcoal powder, but atop each of the panels, she had drawn interlocking symbols and characters in a script that Eivy was unable to read or make sense of.

  Eivy looked at the Elfaheen as she stopped near the woman’s elbow, wondering why she had spent all that time drawing a picture with dust.

  “Pokmok is going to show me how to summon a spirit,” Tetra said.

  So, the Elfaheen could read her thoughts, just like Hindle could! How odd; Tetra was not her mage and Eivy wasn’t the Elfaheen’s familiar. The drake wondered how she could do that.

  “I didn’t. I think you did, Eivy,” Tetra responded. “I figured since everything else around here was magical, you were as well.”

  Eivy jumped up and down, excited that she was finally able to communicate with someone who wasn’t so obsessed with magic. She then remembered that the man with the dragon eyes had understood her as well, and she was excited about that also. How marvelous! she thought to herself. Eivy, eyes wide, looked at Tetra, who was sprinkling the last of the powders onto the picture.

  Eivy looked down at the dust and heard Tetra utter, “Finally, we’re all done.”

  Just as Tetra spoke those words, the door to the chamber opened and Pokmok entered the room. His sudden appearance surprised Eivy, who turned abruptly toward the quiet sounds of his entry.

  None of them noticed the single grain of salt that shifted ever so slightly, falling from the top of the line of salt and coming to rest on the outside edge of the circle. The slight breeze of Eivy’s wings as she turned had toppled the single grain of salt from Tetra’s careful effort.

  Pokmok’s anger at seeing the shoulder-drake within his tower caused his normally placid demeanor to suddenly change. His once calm, lightning-filled blue eyes turned to a fierce red, the electricity within them beginning to strike outward and filling his cowl with shades of his growing anger.

  Realizing she had been caught, Eivy rushed from the room, skittering across the stone floor as she turned after passing between Pokmok’s legs. Her black wings and fur looked like nothing but a rapidly moving shadow as she left.

  Pokmok waved his hand, slamming the door behind the drake as she left. He glided toward the summoning pentagram and began examining it, checking Tetra’s work. Tetra said nothing to the mage, unsure of the reason for his anger, watching as his eyes returned to the orbs of electric blue she had come to recognize.

  Pokmok came to a stop at the base of the pentagram and stood outside the circle, where two of the points formed the bottom of the star. Without turning, he looked at Tetra and pointed to the corner of the room, near where the shoulder-drake had originally been hiding.

  Tetra understood that she was to stand where he was pointing and moved out of the way of whatever it was he planned to do. She watched as Pokmok placed his long, skeletal index finger in front of his nonexistent lips and made a cross between a hissing and a shushing sound toward her. Tetra stared at his ragged black robes as he turned his attention
back toward the summoning circle and began chanting. His words of magic were clear and precise, more precise than when he had spoken to others. It dawned on Tetra that magic required that precision—that clarity of voice—or else it would not work. Just as a musician had to hit the precise note for the music to sound beautiful.

  The candles that had been burning were suddenly extinguished as his magic intensified; the room grew dark, his eyes providing the only light for the moment. The vibrations of his haunted voice began bouncing around the room as he drew forth magic from the elements of earth and fire.

  The single grain of salt that had fallen earlier, now lost in the quasi-darkness of the room, rolled completely outside the circle of summoning.

  Pokmok completed his spell, and in the center of the summoning circle stood the unimpressive form of a woman dressed in a once noble but now ragged gown of purple and gold.

  “What trick is this? A spirit cannot summon a spirit!” she said, eyeing Pokmok.

  “Obey,” Pokmok replied.

  Seeing that it was no average mage that had summoned her, she cried, “Return me! I would rather suffer his pain than his wrath! Return me now!”

  “Answer,” Pokmok commanded.

  “Do you have any idea whom you have interrupted? He will follow and make you suffer!” she hissed at the mage.

  Tetra watched the exchange from the shadows. She was curious as to why Pokmok had summoned the spirit and from where she had come.

  “Answer!” Pokmok demanded.

  “I will not! I am forbidden to answer what you have asked!”

  Tetra grew confused, since she had not heard Pokmok ask the spirit any question; still, she watched as Pokmok’s eyes once again grew red and unleashed tentacles of electricity toward the spirit. She watched as the tentacles began embracing the spirit, wrapping around her gently at first, causing her nothing but concern.

  “Answer…now!” Pokmok uttered gently, almost lovingly.

  The fingers of electricity were wrapped completely around the spirit, and they lifted her from the pentagram like a lover would lift a partner in their arms. The bolts of energy drew tighter as she was lifted upward. Ecstasy began filling the spirit, reminding her of things she could no longer find in her realm of the undead. She closed her eyes, relishing the caresses that Pokmok was now showering her with, not wanting them to stop.