Seven Sorcerers: Book Three of the Books of the Shaper

by John R. Fultz

  Yet here you stand, watching with dry eyes as Vireon dies.

  Dahrima might have screamed at the strangeness of the dead Queen’s presence, but then she remembered something that explained all of it.

  She is a sorceress. Like Ianthe, she cannot truly die.

  Iardu has brought her back to Vireon.

  There was no recognition in Alua’s eyes when she looked at Dahrima. She stared at Vireon in that same blank manner, as if she observed a sick stranger instead of her own husband.

  Dahrima moved away from the bed and took up her spear. She joined her sisters standing at attention between the pillars.

  Save him. She watched the sorcerer and his three sorceresses gather about Vireon. It had taken far too long for Iardu to gather these powers. Yet the Shaper and his allies had come at last. The Mistress of the White Flame had returned.

  Save him, Deathless Queen, and it will be enough.

  He is yours, never mine. I will not forget this again.

  He is my King, and I am only his servant. Only that forever.

  Rekindle his dying fire with your white magic.

  Let it burn away these tears.

  It pains me to pull Sharadza away from her dying brother, but I must.

  I lead her from the bed so that Alua can approach Vireon. Sharadza presses her tear-stained face to my shoulder. Her hands squeeze my arm. I must be the rock she clings to in this storm of grief.

  Alua kneels at the bedside. Her fingers run along Vireon’s pallid cheek. Still she does not weep, but I believe she now recognizes him. The strands of her memory are thin and frayed, but not wholly broken.

  “Vireon.” She says his name like a holy word. “My husband. My King.” She turns glimmering eyes to me. “I do remember him.”

  Do you remember the daughter you had with him? Or the tragedy of that lie?

  If she had remembered Ianthe’s posing as Maelthyn, a seven-year deception that ended in betrayal and death, she would have tried to battle Ianthe’s spirit-form in the underworld. I do not think I could have stopped her. If she remembers it now, it will surely shatter her.

  “He loves you,” Sharadza tells Alua. “More than anything.” Alua kisses the Giant-King’s lips. The kiss is gentle. “I loved him too.”

  Loved. Has her most recent death stolen that love? If so, can it be restored?

  I have no answer for these questions. Yet now is not the time to seek them.

  I lean close and peel away the stained bandage about Vireon’s midsection. The wound is terrible, a suppurating mass of ruptured flesh. It may go deeper than the flesh.

  I take Alua’s hand and place it upon the open wound.

  “Call upon your white flame,” I tell her. “Close this wound, Alua.”

  Her look says I will try. She has no confidence. She remembers Vireon, but she has lost the deep love they shared.

  Pale light slips from the skin of her palm, sinking into Vireon’s gouged flesh. It erupts into a dancing flame, like the blue Flame of Intellect dancing on my own chest. Alua’s power burns without heat. The torn flesh sears and blends, knitting itself back together. When Alua removes her hand, the wound has closed, leaving only a great scar stretching from sternum to navel.

  Sharadza breathes a sigh of relief behind me. I touch the new flesh of the scar. Vireon’s skin is still pale. Still cold. I feel no heart beating in his chest. His eyes do not flutter.

  “Will he live?” Sharadza asks. Her hand trembles on my shoulder.

  I must tell her the truth. If he dies it is my fault. I cannot compound my crime with a lie.

  “The wound is closed and the flesh is whole,” I say. “Yet the blade of Zyung tore through spirit as well as body. I fear the damage is greater than we can see.”

  “What does that mean?” Sharadza asks. There is panic in her voice. Desperation. Love.

  “It means we must wait,” I tell her. I hold her hands and bring my face as close to hers as I dare. Her eyes are drowning emeralds. “Alua’s presence may call him back. Or his soul may have wandered too far away from his flesh. It may be too late.”

  “How long?” she asks. Always one for impossible questions.

  “I cannot say. But I will not leave his side. And I will do what I can to aid him. I promise you. Try to get some rest.”

  “I’ll not leave this room,” she says.

  I ask an Uduri to bring a cot for her. It takes a while, but I convince Sharadza to lie upon it and sleep next to her brother’s bed. Alua sits near Vireon, his hand in her own. This reminds me of Dahrima, who did the same before we arrived. She stands now among the rest of the spearmaidens, but she does not share their icy detachment. Her eyes are red with weeping. I see the worry that obscures her face like a gray mask. I see also that Vireon is far more than a King in Dahrima’s heart.

  Servants bring us wine and food. The drink eases my vigil, but the quiet of the chamber weighs upon me like a set of chains. Alua whispers to Vireon, speaking of wildflowers and snowy hillsides. Her voice and touch may be what he needs to bring him back to us.

  I watch and wait. Sharadza and Vaazhia sleep.

  As I pour another cup of wine, the chamber doors swing open yet again. A wounded warrior stands there. I recognize him as D’zan of Yaskatha when he shuffles into the light of flaming braziers. He moves slowly as an old man, though he is in the prime of his life. Bandages cover his arms and legs, chest and waist. Another dressing winds about his forehead, pushing back his mane of thick blond hair. I am glad to see him alive, yet the number of his wounds is appalling. The great blade of Olthacus the Stone still hangs upon his back. The weapon seems to weigh him down like a yoke of iron, yet his eyes gleam bright as candles. He has come to see his Queen.

  “She sleeps,” I tell him. I offer him a chair at the table where attendants have placed pomegranates, pears, and a roasted pheasant with black bread. He bends to kiss Sharadza’s cheek without waking her, then he sits painfully. His jaw is clean-shaven, and in the absence of a beard he looks as young as a teenager. Yet the lines of worry and pain lend wisdom to his handsome face. His green eyes are troubled, restless, and distant.

  “You were right,” D’zan says, cradling the cup of wine in his hands but not drinking. “The sea battle was sheer folly. We never stood a chance.”

  “Undutu has paid the price for his warrior’s pride,” I say. “I could not make him listen. Khama was swept away by that same pride.”

  D’zan’s face tightens. “Along with several thousand lives,” he says. “What of Vireon? Will he recover?”

  “That remains to be seen.”

  D’zan drinks. Words flood from his mouth while tears crawl down his cheeks. “All those men burned and drowned to gain nothing. I could have said no to Undutu. You speak of his deadly pride, yet I am as guilty of it. I should have died with my warriors. Every ship was lost and I could do nothing about it. Nothing but watch them burn and sink.”

  I say nothing. D’zan needs to tell of these things. He needs me to listen.

  “When the Kingspear went down, I went with it,” he says. “My armor dragged me to the bottom of the sea. I struggled to remove it, knowing I would drown before I could do so. I held my breath as long as I could, fumbling with the straps of my corslet. I even cast aside my crown. I did not want to die, but eventually I had no more breath left. All about me dying men bubbled out their last bit of air and twitched like beached fish. I thought my life was over. My lungs were fit to burst, and still I could not get the metal off my body. Panic had numbed my fingers and made them clumsy.

  “So I gave up and inhaled the seawater, knowing it was death. There was nothing else I could do. My lungs filled with brine, my eyes closed. I lay there twitching like the rest of them. But I failed to die. At last I lay still, not breathing, the sea filling me up like an empty jar. My panic had been drowned, so I finally removed the corslet and greaves. The surface of the sea above me was on fire, so I could not swim to it. Realizing that I was unable to drown, I walked and spran
g across the seabed, stepping over the charred and bloated corpses of Yaskathans and Mumbazans. I passed the broken and tangled wreckage of warships, some of them still burning. Not even the deep water could quench the flames of Zyung’s sorcery.

  “I walked among the feasting crabs and schools of rainbow fish, through forests of seaweed and coral hills. Far above me the burning went on. I passed legions of drowned men, wondering why I was not one of them. I walked in a daze, astounded at my own existence.

  “I came to a black mountain and climbed the slimy rocks. It was an island, so I climbed out of the sea to walk along its shore. I vomited seawater from my lungs and learned to breathe again. There was a broad cove not far from where I surfaced. A handful of Mumbazans had swum there all the way from their lost ship.

  “I looked across the waves at the pitiful remains of our great fleet–the greatest armada in history–and I saw thousands of Zyung’s ships still blotting out the sky. Then I truly understood how stupid we had been. I called out to Khama, and he came with Undutu to carry us away. We fled like cowards instead of dying with our men.”

  D’zan falls silent and swallows more wine.

  “You did what Kings must do,” I say.

  “We should have listened to you, Iardu. We should have gone north with Tyro and Vireon.”

  His cup is empty. I refill it.

  “It might have been the same, even if you had done so,” I tell him. “Tyro and Vireon both fell at Shar Dni. Tyro will never rise again. Yet you live to fight on.”

  D’zan drains the second cup of wine in a series of gulps. His breathing is heavy.

  “Look at me,” he says, moving his hands across the mass of linens that band his flesh. “I saw Tyro die, and Undutu. I took spears in the gut, blades in the chest. Here–see this spot?” He points to a place near his heart. “This was a killing stroke. I bled like a fountain, yet again I did not die. Mendices and I led the retreat. Zyung’s wizards could have finished us, but he let us go.”

  He tells me of the hooded stranger who turned the God-King to iron for a brief moment and disappeared. He asks me who it was, but I have no idea. Ianthe helped us break the spell of Udgrond, but surely she would not move so openly against Zyung. Whoever the stranger had been, D’zan tells me, his spell had allowed Dahrima to save Vireon. Suddenly I recognize the true courage of the red-eyed Giantess who watches over her King. And I know of a certain that she loves him.

  I look toward Alua. Her head lies upon Vireon’s shoulder.

  She too sleeps. Vireon does not move. “Can you explain it, Shaper?” D’zan asks.

  “Can you tell me why I am not dead? Is it… Is it because of the spell you worked with Sharadza? This body you created to replace the one that Elhathym destroyed? Am I no longer even a Man?”

  “You are very much a Man,” I say. “Yet your woman-born body no longer carries your spirit. The body you inhabit now is a creation of our sorcery and your own willpower. It is not above death, but it is far more durable than one born of a mother’s womb. You did not drown for the same reason you did not die in battle: Your flesh is invested with Sharadza’s power and mine. It will not age or sicken. Not while we both endure.”

  D’zan has lost his words. Perhaps he thinks of the guilt he will carry for the rest of his life. I might tell him that I share that same guilt, but I say nothing. He drinks a third cup of wine. Slowly this time.

  He leans in close. “What of my children? Will my son be… human?”

  I could tell him what Sharadza never has. That his sturdy body is a sterile thing, without the procreative power that comes from a parental bloodline. When his original body died, so did his chance at having an heir.

  Yet I know that his second wife carries a child in her belly even now. A child that she says is D’zan’s own son, even though this is impossible. D’zan had thought Sharadza to be barren, and she lets him believe it to spare him grief and shame.

  Should I tell him the truth? That he cast Sharadza aside for a failing that was his own? That his new woman has lied and betrayed him with a bastard offspring? Should I shatter what little remains of his fractured humanity?

  I ask myself what Sharadza would want me to say.

  “You need not fear,” I tell D’zan. “Your son will be fine. As will any other children you sire. This aspect of your manhood was not affected by our spells.”

  The lie comforts him.

  “Iardu!” Alua calls my name. Sharadza wakes, and D’zan moves to embrace her.

  Vireon’s body trembles, wracked with spasms. The gaping wound has reopened. Alua’s power–Alua’s love–is not enough.

  I rush to the bedside. Alua moves away, one hand covering her mouth. At last, she weeps.

  Sharadza and D’zan draw near to me.

  “What is happening?” she asks.

  “He is dying,” I say. “His wounded spirit seeks to leave this flesh behind.”

  Vireon does not realize that the choice of living or dying is his own. I must show this to him. “There is one last chance,” I say. “Only Vireon can save Vireon. The power of Vod’s blood slumbers inside him. He must awaken it.”

  I lie upon the cot Sharadza was using.

  “Watch over my body,” I tell her. “Let none enter this room.”

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “The only thing left to do,” I say. “I will enter the realm of Vireon’s spirit.”

  Sharadza is terrified. D’zan clutches her shoulders as if she is still his lover.

  “What can we do?” she asks.

  “Hold my hand.” She does this. My heart leaps, and my head falls back upon the pillow.

  My eyes close, and I gaze inward. As my spirit-self emerged from my body days ago to seek the heart of the world, so now it rises to seek the depths of Vireon’s soul.

  Time to embrace your true heritage, Son of Vod.

  You must learn or die.

  I float above the Giant-King’s body and dive into the red wound, a swimmer leaping from high precipice to deep ocean.

  15

  Seven Sorcerers

  At first there is only the void.

  A vast abyss gleaming with constellations, a mirror of the greater void that lies outside the earth. As above, so below.

  I am a racing meteor of awareness, painted indigo by the Flame of Intellect that accompanies me into the astral. Each guttering star is a mote of thought, spiraling in multitudes. Innumer able gas giants of sentience orbit the pathways of wisdom, exhaling luminous clouds of insight. None of these are physical entities, yet each is a facet of Vireon’s living soul, which is indescribable in all but the corporeal language of analogy and symbol. The starfields of Vireon’s inner being are the manifestations of his unbounded consciousness.

  I sink deeper. The void takes on shape and form. There is no actual substance, no confining matter here. There is only a vast matrix of ideas, concepts, and perceptions.

  A sky of sapphire swallows my intruding spirit-self. Trees great as mountains rush up to meet me. Each leaf is a jade magnificence, each mighty trunk the ideal of arboreal perfection. A sea of red-barked titans accepts me into the olive shadows of its canopy. Starlight follows me down in lambent beams, and my spirit-self manifests the image of my physical body.

  The mosses of the forest floor are silver and golden, gleaming with their own phosphorescence. Motes of sentience flit between the great boles like butterflies, their wings bright with nameless and ever-changing colors.

  I have reached the floor of Vireon’s soul. I am not surprised to see it as a forest, for his love of the wild places sits at the core of his being. About me spreads no true wilderness, but the ideal version of nature itself, a flawless imitation of the woodlands where Vireon’s young heart ran free in decades past. The rare splendors of childhood have a way of sculpting the eternal soul.

  A stream of diamond waters cascades through the wood, laughing among the green stones. I follow it toward the lip of a great waterfall, where the torrent spi
lls into a lake far below. I leap above the cataract as a white owl, gliding downward. The lake’s waters are silver and emerald beyond the thundering falls. Groves of willows and massive Uygas stand about its shore, and wild chromatic flowers blossom among the trees.

  A boy swims in the lake, splashing and diving among the sun-scaled fish. His head rises from the water, tossing back a long mane, slinging droplets like tiny jewels across the surface. He watches me perch on a moss-draped log as big as the pillar of a fallen palace. About the lowland, scattered among the roots of the gargantuan trees, the ruins of such a palace lie smothered in curtains of vine and wildweed. They are the remnants of a life that has crumbled. Already the boy has forgotten their importance, and the secrets of their history.

  My wings fade and I sit upon the log in Man shape, realizing that it is indeed a column of toppled marble. The Flame of Intellect burns brightly on my chest, shedding cobalt light upon the lake.

  The boy swims to the lakeshore and pulls himself from the waters. His arms and legs are lean, strong, the color of newly minted bronze. His eyes are the fierce blue of a cloudless sky. The water streams from his limbs as he approaches.

  “I know you,” he says. It is the voice of Vireon’s younger self. The soul is ageless, and while memory and experience sculpt its nature, it has no single true shape.

  “And I know you,” I say, smiling as I would at any child. “I am the Shaper.”

  “Iardu,” he says, running a hand through his damp hair. He smiles. “You are the friend of my father.”

  “You are Vireon, Son of Vod. Do you remember this too?”

  The soul disguised as a boy nods. “I had a brother, but I lost him. He is on the Last Long Hunt now, with my father.” He points toward the deep woodland that goes on forever. The depths of his boundless imagination.

  “Tadarus was your brother,” I remind him. “Would you remember more of him? More of your father and the world beyond this vale?”

  The boy is uncertain. He shivers, arms wrapped about himself. Yet he nods again.

  I remove the silver chain that supports the Flame of Intellect and offer it to him. Save for a loincloth of woven leaves and reeds, he wears nothing. “Wear this,” I tell him.