The Sorcerer's Torment (The Sorcerer's Path)

by Brock Deskins

  Azerick intentionally left out any reference to Delinda’s death. He was not ready to speak about that painful part of his life.

  The dwarf shook his head in amazement at the young human’s experiences. “Psylings, cavern gnomes, and killed a dragon. Well, I won’t try to keep you here against your will. It just doesn’t seem healthy! I am glad you decided to stay a spell and let me study that book of yours. It’s going to be winter soon, and even though we can take you under most of the passes to where ever you have a mind to go, it’s still no fun traveling through the fall and winter. Like I said, the snows have been coming earlier and earlier these last couple of years and dropping more than usual.”

  “Do you think I can learn some of your rune magic?” Azerick asked.

  “I can try to teach you, but I can’t guarantee that you can learn more than the theory of it.”

  Azerick was in no particular hurry to go anywhere at the moment, and staying with the dwarves would give him a chance to learn something that few would ever have a chance to. Even if he was unable to learn to use rune magic, he could learn of it, and of the secretive dwarves as well.

  He thought about Zeb, and how he might be concerned with Azerick’s whereabouts, but he would just have to deal with that himself. Right now, being ensconced under millions of tons of rock and away from the rest of the world sounded like a good place to stay and plan his future.

  Duncan continued to quiz Azerick about his own discoveries of the book’s contents, and Azerick in turn inquired more into what was required to create magical runes. Azerick sipped at his mug of beer while Duncan downed far more than Azerick thought appropriate given the early hour, but he left it to dwarven customs.

  After a tour of the forges, smithies, potters, weavers, and other various shops that filled many of the caves, the pair returned to Duncan’s home and shop where they each sat and exchanged knowledge.

  The first week of Azerick’s stay consisted mostly of learning the history of the dwarves and their rune carving art. Duncan explained how all runes were comprised of representations of a natural element, and how these elements were often combined to create the desired effect. Other than that, there were few rules to rune carving. Azerick saw that it was very similar to his sorcery in that the rune carver’s imagination and interpretation decided the shape of the runes and were not fixed in any set form. There existed a multitude of runic combinations that would cause the same effect, the shape of which was left strictly to the carver.

  “Duncan,” Azerick said, interrupting the dwarf’s studies, “I can’t help but notice some similarities between rune carving and sorcery. Each carving is generally unique to the carver; much in the same way sorcerers shape their spells in a way that best suits the individual.”

  “That’s my understanding, yes,” Duncan replied without looking up from the book.

  “And you can create a nearly unlimited number of effects by shaping and blending different runes, correct? It’s mostly limited by the skill and imagination of the carver.”

  “Correct again.”

  Azerick looked at the dwarf puzzlingly. “If the method of the two magics is so similar, why are sorcerers limited in the spells they can master?”

  Duncan looked up from his book and returned Azerick’s puzzled look. “Who says they are?”

  “My former master told me that I needed to choose my spells carefully because there was a limit to what I can learn, unlike wizards who can learn any spell they have the skill to cast.”

  Duncan took in a deep breath, held it while he thought, and then slowly let it out. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you what you can or cannot do. Too often, people use their own limitations as a basis for what can and can’t be done. From what I know of sorcery, which ain’t a lot, it takes time, imagination, and skill.

  “Sorcerers use what I would call intuitive magic. It’s their intuition that guides them in creating their spells, and there is just so much a person can keep straight in his head. I see no reason why a sorcerer can’t do just about anything he wants with the Source as long as he has the imagination to shape it and the strength to control it.”

  Azerick nodded along with the rune carver’s statement. “I’ve always had a really good memory, and it seems like I already know more than what Master Devlin said I should know at this point in my studies, but I thought that was because of what the psyling did to me.”

  “Could be part of it, but I’d wager it’s mostly because you are uniquely talented. I’ve heard bards that have been singing and playing all their lives and they sound good. But every once in a while, a young man or woman will come along, and their ability to sing and play a musical instrument goes beyond anything you’ve ever heard, and they might not be any older than you are. That’s why you have to decide what your limitations are, not someone else.”

  “You really think I’m unique?”

  “You want flattery, get a woman. Look at what you’ve done already. I’m saying you have talent.”

  “Do you think sorcerers are deliberately taught not to experiment, and if so, who is trying to hold them back; other sorcerers or the wizards?”

  “It could also be that master sorcerers don’t want a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears apprentices practicing new things before they master the basics. Imagine the trouble a young sorcerer could cause experimenting with the Source. Such a thing is best left to those with a great deal more experience and wisdom.”

  Azerick thought about what he had done to Travis that day in class and how he had nearly killed them both. What Duncan said made a lot of sense.

  At the start of the second week, Duncan gave Azerick several shallow glass discs filled with a hard wax, several small chisels, and a list of runes. The dwarf had Azerick practice carving various runes in the wax until he mastered the form. Each time he carved a rune in each of the wax vessels, Duncan would inspect them before holding each one over a candle and melting the wax smooth again so that Azerick could start all over. Azerick found that he had deft hands, possibly a side effect of his own spell casting experience and requirements.

  While the sorcerer was busy carving his wax runes, Duncan identified several areas of interesting text that he marked by sliding a slip of velum between the pages. Once the rune carver identified the passages of interest, he began studying them in earnest.

  Duncan began to think that the tome itself was magical in that it seemingly contained more knowledge than even its numerous pages should allow. There were entire treatises on dwarven history and lore that had been lost ages ago and was no longer found in the libraries, or even the memories of the short statured but long-lived race.

  Glancing up from the tome, Duncan looked at the human meticulously carving the small wax disc. He was impressed at the young man’s diligence and attention. His focus was quite remarkable for one of such an impatient and impetuous race. It made the rune carver realize that it was about time he took on an apprentice and passed on his knowledge to ensure that the next generation kept his craft alive.

  Azerick raised his head, examined his work against the drawing, and found it nearly identical in detail. He looked over and saw Duncan watching him. With a mix of pride and trepidation, he handed the wax carving over to the rune master. The dwarf studied the width, depth, and quality of lines that made up the rune for fire.

  “Not bad for a clumsy-handed human,” Duncan’s prickly reply came. “I think you are ready to move onto stone.”

  Azerick smiled at the dwarf’s approximation of a compliment. Duncan passed him three soapstone discs and a finer set of chisels wrapped in a soft square of leather. Taking up a one of the chisels and a small wooden mallet, Azerick began inscribing a rune upon the soft, mottled stone chit. He quickly discovered that carving into the steatite disc was significantly more difficult and less forgiving than the wax had been.

  It took over two weeks for the young Sorcerer to graduate from the soapstone to harder types of stone. The hard, grey rock before him frustrated Azerick to
no end as it seemed determined to fight his every attempt to create smooth, sharp lines with his chisels. It was thus that Azerick found himself hunched over the workbench, blowing away the tiny flecks of stone from his most recent attempt at carving the resilient rock, when a dwarf burst excitedly into the room.

  Duncan looked up from the tome as the dwarf entered the room and began shouting. “Master Runecarver, a group of miners have been attacked by a huge beast in one of the caverns and has them trapped!”

  Duncan hopped down from his stool, grabbed a wide belt adorned with several pouches, and belted it around his thick waist. “C’mon, lad, I might need your help.”

  Azerick jumped up and followed the two dwarves down the series of slide poles. Despite their short legs, Azerick had a hard time keeping up with the dwarves as they sprinted through the streets and out to the mining tunnels beyond. Several more dwarves fell in behind the running rune carver and his human guest, wielding axes, hammers, and shields. Most had found the time to slip a chain or heavy leather hauberk over their shoulders before rushing out to join the rescue party.

  Azerick was the only one breathing hard by the time they arrived at a tunnel where several empty ore carts sat lined up on steel rails. Azerick followed closely behind Duncan as he vaulted over the side and into the mining cart. Several of the dwarves pushed the carts together and locked their couplers together with steel pins before cramming themselves into four-cart train.

  Duncan reached into one of the pouches on his belt and pulled out a palm-sized stone disc with the runes of air and iron engraved on its surface. He closed his eyes in concentration for a brief moment and uttered the words in the rough, dwarven language that would release the runes energy.

  Azerick gripped the sides of the cart tightly as it lurched forward, propelled by an unseen force. Duncan leaned forward with his head just above the front wall of the cart and his beard flapping in the wind. Azerick’s eyes widened and his grip tightened on the sides of the cart as it continued to pick up speed.

  Within moments, the train of carts was hurtling down the steel tracks with a velocity that would make a racing charger appear about as swift as a plow mule. Azerick’s stomach lurched and his eyes widened so far that the whites showed all around as the carts rounded a sharp bend in the tracks.

  Azerick let out a scream despite himself as the invisible centripetal forces shoved him against the outside wall of the cart. He was certain that the dwarf-laden cars would be hurled off the narrow tracks and its living cargo thrown to their deaths.

  The dwarves leaned into the curve and Azerick actually felt the inside wheels regain contact with the iron rail before continuing its terrifying dash down the dark tunnel. Azerick saw that Duncan had the rune-carved stone in his hand once again and was calling forth its power. The cart began slowing nearly as fast as it had taken off, and it soon came to a halt just short of a stout wooden barrier at the end of the tracks.

  Azerick tried to follow the dwarves as they leapt out of the cart, but his legs felt as though someone had removed the bones as soon as his feet touched the ground. Duncan grabbed him by the elbow and forced him to hobble along as the rescue party ran down a side tunnel.

  Azerick could soon hear the crashing of stone, the shouting of dwarves, and the hissing of some large beast coming from up ahead. Several of the dwarves’ glowing orbs cast a pale blue light that lit up a large cavern at the end of the tunnel.

  Near the back wall of the chamber, a massive creature, looking a great deal like a forty-foot long centipede, was hurling itself at a narrow cleft in the wall and furiously trying to burrow through the stone.

  Curses streamed out from inside the fissure in dwarven, followed by a hurled pickaxe that struck the cave crawler in the middle of its eyeless head. The cave crawler hissed in anger and frustration, trying to dislodge the pickaxe as it lunged forward once more, tearing a large chunk of stone out of the wall with its massive, diamond-hard mandibles.

  Azerick conjured forth a palisade of stone spikes between the fearsome beast and the dwarves trapped in the crevice. Several of the sharp stone tips burst up from the ground and struck the cave crawler in its softer underbelly, wounding the beast and forcing it to back away from its trapped prey.

  The multi-legged creature swung its huge head towards the dwarves that ran at it, shouting a loud battle cry that rang off the cavern walls.

  Azerick let loose a barrage of arcane darts that flared brightly in the gloomy cave and struck the beast in its head. Duncan retrieved another rune stone from his pouch-laden belt. The earth and air runes engraved upon the stone glowed as he chanted under his breath. Several rocks the size of a large man’s fist rose from the cavern floor then flew across the open space as if hurled from a ballista. The projectiles hit with such force that the impact echoed throughout the chamber and cracked the beast’s hard chitinous shell.

  The cave crawler turned its glare away from the charging dwarves and locked its eyeless gaze on the magic-wielding human and the few dwarves that remained near him.

  Azerick saw the thick, caustic liquid dripping from its mouth as it drew back its head. The sorcerer had a gut feeling of what was about to happen and raised a ward just as the creature whipped its head forward like a striking viper. A stream of venomous acid sprayed from the creature’s mouth, easily covering the tens of yards between them. Azerick bent his concentration into his ward and was just able to deflect the stream away from him and the dwarves. Where it struck, the stone hissed and bubbled like the mud around a hot spring.

  The attacking dwarves reached the cave crawler and scurried about like ants attacking an intruder, hacking at its many legs and softer underbelly. One of the dwarves went flying across the cavern when the segmented creature whipped its hind end around and struck the dwarf solidly in his back.

  The cave crawler snapped up a second unfortunate dwarf in its powerful mandibles and lifted him high above the ground. Even as the sharp pincers pierced the dwarf’s armor, the valiant warrior raised his hammer high over his head and brought it down onto the monster’s forehead between the space where its eyes should have been. The powerful blow cracked the hard carapace near the area where the pickaxe was still lodged.

  A stream of gore flew out from the wound when the cave crawler whipped its head to the side and tossed the dead dwarf away to lie lifelessly in a heap against the cavern wall.

  “Azerick, keep that thing from charging us as soon as my dwarves fall back,” Duncan ordered.

  Azerick nodded as the rune carver yelled for the harassing dwarves to fall back to him quickly. The attacking dwarves retreated to the cavern entrance with military precision. As soon as they gained a few feet of space between themselves and the colossal creature, Azerick brought forth another field of stone spikes. The cave crawler tore at the spikes, tearing the sharp tips off with its mandibles and shattering others with its huge body.

  Duncan raised a rune of water and earth and the stone beneath the numerous feet of the cave crawler turned soft. Its own incredible weight forced it down into several feet of mud. Turning over the stone disc, Azerick saw the runes of earth and fire engraved upon it. The runes glowed as Duncan fed power into them and caused the mud to return to its solid form once again. The cave crawler shrieked its rage at suddenly finding most of its legs trapped in solid stone. It thrashed about and began tearing at the rock with its powerful jaws.

  “Stay back, ya thick-headed louts!” Duncan shouted as his dwarves, along with the miners hiding in the crevice, started to charge the restricted cave crawler.

  Duncan retrieved another rune carving of earth and spirit from his belt. The floor trembled slightly as the magical runes worked its power upon the surrounding stone. Several sharp snapping noises were all the warning the cave crawler got before several large, sharply pointed stalactites lost their hold on the tall ceiling overhead. The heavy stone spears, hurled down by the force of gravity, struck the cave along its hard carapace, cracking and piercing it in several places.


  Dwarves rushed forward once more, swinging their axes, hammers, and pickaxes at the restrained and severely wounded behemoth. Though severely hindered, the cave crawler was far from helpless. As the rescuers and miners charged the beast, it whipped its head around, snapping angrily at any dwarf that got near. One dwarf was barely able to dodge the lethal mandibles, but he still got himself butted by the creature’s enormous head, which sent the hapless attacker rolling halfway across the cavern floor.

  The cave crawler reared back to launch another stream of caustic acid, but Azerick distracted it with another salvo of magical bolts straight at its head. The dwarves drove their hammers and axes into the rents caused by the fallen stalactites, hacking and prying large chunks of the chitinous armor from its body and chopping at the soft tissues beneath.

  Azerick poured lightning into the cave crawler and was gladdened to see the creature shudder under the assault. A second blast brought the creature down and dwarves scurried up its hard back and drove their weapons into the creature’s skull.

  Duncan ran and attended to the injured using rune stones marked with the glyphs of flesh and spirit. Azerick saw that one of the dwarves trapped in the cleft was Togar. He watched as the dwarf walked over to the front of the cave crawler’s head, grabbed the handle of the pickaxe that had lodged there, and pried it loose before striding over to where Azerick stood by watching the dwarves tend to their wounded and recovering the one unfortunate dwarf that had perished.

  “Looks like I owe my life to ye again, wizard!” Togar yelled as he walked towards Azerick.

  “You have Duncan and the courage of the other dwarves to thank just as much,” Azerick replied, grasping forearms with the dwarf.

  Togar smiled broadly at Azerick’s inclusion of the other dwarves in the rescue. “Aye, that be for sure, but there’d be a lot more injuries, and no less than a few more deaths, without your help and I’ll thank ye for that.”