She walked back to the high seat as the seven hundred came down from their benches. One by one they tore away pieces of Damodar, Zolmuno, and the eleven others, stuffing them into their mouths, chewing and swallowing their salted essence. The light of ingested souls streamed from the eyes and mouths of the Eaters.
These Skeptics will serve the empire yet, as they have become part of us all.
Word of this punishment would spread throughout the land. Men would know that the New Seraphim held fast to their own laws. There would be no more slaughtering of citizens, no more of Zyung’s heartless cruelty. The law of the Holy Senate was now the heart of the Living Empire. Only Sungui refused to take part in the mass devouring. The others accepted her refusal as the express right of the High Consul.
In the end there was little left of the Skeptics but a few grains of loose salt sprinkled across the marble. These were swept up by attendants, carried to the summit of the Holy Mountain, and scattered to the winds.
Dramatis Personae
Vod the Giant-King—Former ruler and rebuilder of New Udurum, City of Men and Giants; slayer of Omagh the Serpent-Father; sorcerer and legend; also known as Vod of the Storms; drowned himself in the Cryptic Sea.
Gammir the Wolf (formerly Fangodrel of Udurum)—Vod’s adopted bastard son; his true father was Gammir the Second, Prince of Khyrei, who was slain by Vod; also known as Gammir the Bloody, the Undying One, and the Black Wolf; former Emperor of Khyrei.
Ianthe the Panther—Former Empress of Khyrei; grandmother of Gammir; an ageless sorceress; slain by Vireon and Alua at the fall of Shar Dni; reborn in the body of Maelthyn of Udurum; also known as the White Panther and Ianthe the Claw.
King Vireon of Udurum—Son of Vod and heir to his sorcery; ruler of New Udurum; all the power and strength of a Giant in the body of a Man; also known as Vireon Vodson and Vireon the Slayer; crowned as King of All Giants after the fall of Angrid the Long-Arm.
Queen Alua of Udurum—Ageless sorceress married to Vireon; mother of Maelthyn; known for her mastery of the white flame magic; slain by Ianthe the Claw.
Maelthyn of Udurum—Seven-year-old daughter of King Vireon and Queen Alua; later revealed to be Ianthe the Claw and utterly consumed by her emerging immortal essence.
Dahrima the Axe—Blonde-haired Giantess (Uduri) who once served Vod the Giant-King; now she serves as one of the Ninety-Nine, King Vireon’s personal guard of Uduri spearmaidens; often considered Vireon’s “right hand.”
King D’zan of Yaskatha—Ruler of Yaskatha; reborn from a state of living death by the sorcery of Iardu and Sharadza; also known as the Sun Bringer.
Sharadza Vodsdaughter—Vod’s only daughter and heir to his sorcery; Princess of Udurum; apprentice of Iardu the Shaper; former Queen of Yaskatha and First Wife of D’zan.
Emperor Tyro of Uurz—Twin brother of Lyrilan; swordsman of renown; also known as the Sword King; ordained as Emperor of Uurz after banishing his brother from the Stormlands.
King Lyrilan of Uurz—Twin brother of Tyro; scholar and scribe; also known as the Scholar King; former co-ruler of Uurz who fled to Yaskatha after being framed for the murder of his wife and banished from the Stormlands.
Ramiyah of Uurz—Wife of Lyrilan; born in Yaskatha; slain by Talondra’s plot to make Tyro the uncontested Emperor of Uurz.
Empress Talondra of Uurz—Wife of Tyro; born in Shar Dni and survived its fall; recently slain by Lyrilan’s newfound sorcery as revenge for the death of Ramiyah.
Lord Mendices of Uurz—Warlord of Uurz; Tyro’s chief advisor and military tactician; willing co-conspirator with Talondra in the plot to frame and banish Lyrilan for the murder of Ramiyah.
King Undutu of Mumbaza—Nineteen-year-old ruler of Mumbaza; also known as the King on the Cliffs and Son of the Feathered Serpent.
Khama the Feathered Serpent—Ageless sorcerer whose true form is that of a great feathered Serpent; fostered the founding of Mumbaza, advisor to its Kings, and protector of its long peace.
King Angrid of the Icelands—Lord of the Frozen North; ruler of the Udvorg clans (blue-skinned Giants); slain by the behemoth of the Khyrein marshlands.
Varda of the Keen Eyes—Shamaness in service to King Angrid; blessed Vireon with the slain Angrid’s crown, making him King of All Giants.
Tong the Avenger—King of New Khyrei; a former slave who led a revolution assisted by Iardu the Shaper and a horde of the blind subterranean creatures known as Sydathians; also called the Slave King and Tong the Liberator.
Iardu the Shaper—Master of Shapes; an ageless sorcerer reputed to live on an island in the Cryptic Sea.
Zyung the Almighty—Ageless sorcerer and “God-King” of the Zyung Empire; seeks to conquer the Land of the Five Cities with his Holy Armada; also known as the High Lord Celestial. Sungui the Venomous—One of Zyung’s High Seraphim, a legion of ageless sorcerers who serve as the enforcers of his empire; a unique being of alternating male and female aspects.
Vaazhia the Lizardess—Ageless sorceress dwelling in the ruins of a forgotten city beneath the Stormlands.
Indreyah the Sea-Queen—Ageless sorceress who rules an undersea kingdom of “sea-folk” from her hidden coral city; also known as the Mer-Queen.
extras
meet the author
JOHN R. FULTZ lives in the Bay Area of California but is originally from Kentucky. His fiction has appeared in Black Gate, Weird Tales, Space & Time, Lightspeed, Way of the Wizard, and Cthulhu’s Reign. His comic book work includes Primordia, Zombie Tales, and Cthulhu Tales. When not writing novels, stories, or comics, John teaches English literature at the high school level and plays a mean guitar.
introducing
If you enjoyed
SEVEN SORCERORS,
look out for
VENGEANCE
The Tainted Realm: Book One
by Ian Irvine
Ten years ago, two children witnessed a murder that still haunts them as adults.
Tali watched as two masked figures killed her mother, and now she has sworn revenge. Even though she is a slave. Even though she is powerless. Even though she is nothing in the eyes of those who live aboveground, she will find her mother’s killers and bring them to justice.
Rix, heir to Hightspall’s greatest fortune, is tormented by the fear that he’s linked to the murder, and by a sickening nightmare that he’s doomed to repeat it.
When a chance meeting brings Tali and Rix together, the secrets of an entire kingdom are uncovered and a villain out of legend returns to throw the land into chaos. Tali and Rix must learn to trust each other and find a way to save the realm—and themselves.
Chapter 1
“Matriarch Ady, can I check the Solaces for you?” said Wil, staring at the locked basalt door behind her. “Can I, please?”
Ady frowned at the quivering, cross-eyed youth, then laid her scribing tool beside the partly engraved sheet of spelter and flexed her aching fingers. “The Solaces are for the matriarchs’ eyes only. Go and polish the clangours.”
Wil, who was neither handsome nor clever, knew that Ady only kept him around because he worked hard. And because, years ago, he had revealed a gift for shillilar, morrow-sight. Having been robbed of their past, the matriarchs used even their weakest tools to protect Cython’s future.
Though Wil was so lowly that he might never earn a tattoo, he desperately wanted to be special, to matter. But he had another reason for wanting to look at the Solaces, one he dared not mention to anyone. A later shillilar had told him that there was something wrong, something the matriarchs weren’t telling them. Perhaps—heretical thought—something they didn’t know.
“You can see your face in the clangours,” he said, inflating his hollow chest. “I’ve also fed the fireflies and cleaned out the effluxor sump. Please can I check the Solaces?”
Ady studied her swollen knuckles, but did not reply.
“Why are the secret books called Solaces, anyway?” said Wil.
“Because they comfort us in our bitter
exile.”
“I heard they order the matriarchs about like naughty children.”
Ady slapped him, though not as hard as he deserved. “How dare you question the Solaces, idiot youth?”
Being used to blows, Wil merely rubbed his pockmarked cheek. “If you’d just let me peek…”
“We only check for new pages once a month.”
“But it’s been a month, look, look.” A shiny globule of quicksilver, freshly fallen from the coiled condenser of the wall clock, was rolling down its inclined planes towards today’s brazen bucket. “Today’s the ninth. You always check the Solaces on the ninth.”
“I dare say I’ll get around to it.”
“How can you bear to wait?” he said, jumping up and down.
“At my age the only thing that excites me is soaking my aching feet. Besides, it’s three years since the last new page appeared.”
“The next page could come today. It might be there already.”
Though Wil’s eyes made reading a struggle, he loved books with a passion that shook his bones. The mere shapes of the letters sent him into ecstasies, but, ah! What stories the letters made. He had no words to express how he felt about the stories.
Wil did not own any book, not even the meanest little volume, and he longed to, desperately. Books were truth. Their stories were the world. And the Solaces were perfect books—the very soul of Cython, the matriarchs said. He ached to read one so badly that his whole body trembled and the breath clotted in his throat.
“I don’t think any more pages are coming, lad.” Ady pressed her fingertips against the blue triangle tattooed on her brow. “I doubt the thirteenth book will ever be finished.”
“Then it can’t hurt if I look, can it?” he cried, sensing victory.
“I—I suppose not.”
Ady rose painfully, selected three chymical phials from a rack and shook them. In the first, watery fluid took on a subtle jade glow. The contents of the second thickened and bubbled like black porridge and the third crystallised to a network of needles that radiated pinpricks of sulphur-yellow light.
A spiral on the basalt door was dotted with phial-sized holes. Ady inserted the light keys into the day’s pattern and waited for it to recognise the colours. The lock sighed; the door opened into the Chamber of the Solaces.
“Touch nothing,” she said to the gaping youth, and returned to her engraving.
Unlike every other part of Cython, this chamber was uncarved, unpainted stone. It was a small, cubic room, unfurnished save for a white quartzite table with a closed book on its far end and, on the wall to Wil’s right, a four-shelf bookcase etched out of solid rock. The third and fourth shelves were empty.
Tears formed as he gazed upon the mysterious books he had only ever glimpsed through the doorway. After much practice he could now read a page or two of a storybook before the pain in his eyes became blinding, but only the secret books could take him where he wanted to go—to a world and a life not walled-in in every direction.
“Who is the Scribe, Ady?”
Wil worshipped the unknown Scribe for the elegance of his calligraphy and his mastery of book making, but most of all for the stories he had given Cython. They were the purest truth of all.
He often asked that question but Ady never answered. Maybe she didn’t know, and it worried him, because Wil feared the Scribe was in danger. If I could save him, he thought, I’d be the greatest hero of all.
He smiled at that. Wil knew he was utterly insignificant.
The top shelf contained five ancient Solaces, all with worn brown covers, and each bore the main title, The Songs of Survival. These books, vital though they had once been, were of least interest to Wil, since the last had been completed one thousand, three hundred and seventy-seven years ago. Their stories had ended long before. It was the future that called to him, the unfinished stories.
On the second shelf stood the thick volumes entitled The Lore of Prosperity. There were nine of these and the last five formed a set called Industry. On Delven had covers of pale mica with topazes embedded down the spine, On Metallix was written in white-hot letters on sheets of beaten silver. Wil could not tell what On Smything, On Spagyric or On Catalyz were made from, for his eyes were aching now, his sight blurring.
He covered his eyes for a moment. Nine books. Why were there nine books on the second shelf? The ninth, unfinished book, On Catalyz, should lie on the table, open at the last new page.
His heart bruised itself on his breastbone as he counted them again. Five books, plus nine. Could On Catalyz be finished? If it was, this was amazing news, and he would be the one to tell it. He would be really special then. Yes, the last book on the shelf definitely said, On Catalyz.
Then what was the book on the table?
A new book?
The first new book in three hundred and twelve years?
Magery was anathema to his people and Wil had never asked how the pages came to write themselves, nor how each new book could appear in a locked room in Cython, deep underground. Since magery had been forbidden to all save their long-lost kings, the self-writing pages were proof of instruction from a higher power. The Solaces were Cython’s comfort in their agonising exile, the only evidence that they still mattered.
We are not alone.
The cover of the new book was the dark, scaly grey of freshly cast iron. It was a thin volume, no more than thirty sheetiron pages. He could not read the crimson, deeply etched title from this angle, though it was too long to be The Lore of Prosperity.
Wil choked and had to bend double, panting. Not just a new book, but the first of the third shelf, and no one else in Cython had seen it. His eyes were flooding, his heart pounding, his mouth full of saliva.
He swallowed painfully. Even from here, the book had a peculiar smell, oily-sweet then bitter underneath, yet strangely appealing. He took a deep sniff. The inside of his nose burnt, his head spun and he felt an instant’s bliss, then tendrils webbed across his inner eye. He shook his head, they disappeared and he sniffed again, wanting that bliss to take him away from his life of drudgery. But he wanted the iron book more. What story did it tell? Could it be the Scribe’s own?
He turned to call Ady, then hesitated. She would shoo him off and the three matriarchs would closet themselves with the new book for weeks. Afterwards they would meet with the leaders of the four levels of Cython, the master chymister, the heads of the other guilds and the overseer of the Pale slaves. Then the new book would be locked away and Wil would go back to scraping muck out of the effluxors for the rest of his life.
But his second shillilar had said the Scribe was in danger; Wil had to read his story. He glanced through the doorway. Ady’s old head was bent over her engraving but she would soon remember and order him back to work.
Shaking all over, Wil took a step towards the marble table, and the ache in his eyes came howling back. He closed his worst eye, the left, and when the throbbing eased he took another step. For the only time in his life, he did feel special. He slid a foot forwards, then another. Each movement sent a spear through his temples but he would have endured a lifetime of pain for one page of the story.
Finally he was standing over the book. From straight on, the etched writing was thickly crimson and ebbed in and out of focus. He sounded out the letters of the title.
The Consolation of Vengeance.
“Vengeance?” Wil breathed. But whose? The Scribe’s?
Even a nobody like himself could tell that this book was going to turn their world upside-down. The other Solaces set out stories about living underground: growing crops and farming fish, healing, teaching, mining, smything, chymie, arts and crafts, order and disorder, defence. They described an existence that allowed no dissent and had scarcely changed in centuries.
But their enemy did not live underground—they occupied the Cythonians’ ancestral land of Cythe, which they called Hightspall. To exact vengeance, Cython’s armies would have to venture up to the surface, and even an aw
kward, cross-eyed youth could dream of marching with them.
Wil knew not to touch the Solaces. He had been warned a hundred times, but, oh, the temptation to be first was irresistible. The book was perfection itself; he could have contemplated it for hours. He bent over it, pressing his lips to the cover. The iron was only blood-warm, yet his tears fizzed and steamed as they fell on the rough metal. He wanted to bawl. Wanted to slip the book inside his shirt, hug it to his skin and never let it go.
He shook off the fantasy. He was lowly Wil the Sump and he only had a minute. His trembling hand took hold of the cover. It was heavy, and as he heaved it open it shed scabrous grey flakes onto the white table.
The writing on the iron pages was the same sluggishly oozing crimson as on the cover, but his straining eye could not bring it into focus. Was it protected, like the other Solaces, against unauthorised use? On Metallix had to be heated to the right temperature before it could be read, while each completed chapter of On Catalyz required the light of a different chymical flame.
A mud-brain like himself would never decipher the protection. Frustrated, Wil flapped the front cover and a jagged edge tore his forefinger.
“Ow!” He shook his hand.
Half a dozen spots of blood spattered across the first page, where they set like flakes of rust. Then, as he stared, the glyphs snapped into words he could read. Such perfect calligraphy! It was the greatest book of all. Wil read the first page and his eyes did not hurt at all. He turned the page, flicked blood onto the book and read on.
“I can see.” His voice soared out of his small, skinny body, to freedom. “I can see.”
Ady let out a hoarse cry. “Wil, get out of there.”
He heard her shuffling across to the basalt door but Wil did not move. Though the crimson letters brightened until they hurt his eyes, he had to keep reading. “Ady, it’s a new book.”
Seven Sorcerers: Book Three of the Books of the Shaper Page 40