The Sorcerer's Return (The Sorcerer's Path)

by Brock Deskins

  Azerick pictured his face in his mind and followed the insubstantial strand of magic through the foggy, ethereal dimension between realities. The energy slowly grew stronger and he knew he was on the right path. The sorcerer sensed he was as close as he could get and searched for any change within the vapors. A little ways to his left he spotted a faint light glowing like a tiny candle. He willed his consciousness toward it and called out.

  “Duncan.”

  The dwarven rune carver looked up at the polished steel plate propped between his workbench and wall and nearly fell off his stool. He narrowed his eyes and slowly lowered the small hammer gripped tightly in his meaty fist as he recognized the face within the metal.

  “Azerick, is that you?”

  “It is. Nice to see you again.”

  “Nice to see you too. That’s a nifty little trick you got there. How do you fare?”

  “Until recently, I have been dead,” Azerick answered.

  Duncan arched his thick, salt and pepper brows. “Dead, you say?”

  “It is a long story. The short version is I got taken by wizards and used as a vessel for a demon lord, killed the man responsible for murdering my father, opened a school for orphans, got married to nobility, got killed rescuing my apprentice, and pulled into service by the gods. So now I am here to enlist your aid in that endeavor.”

  “I see. Were it coming from anyone else, I would be surprised. I always felt the fates had you wrapped up tighter than a babe in a blanket. So what do you need from an old rune carver?”

  “Ancient gods called the Scions are going to attack our world and seek to destroy us all. Do you know of them? They were the architects behind the Great Revolution.”

  Duncan worked his heavy jaw as he seemed to literally chew on his memory. “I can’t say that I do, but if we ever did, it’s written in the archives. We dwarves don’t read a lot, but we write down anything of importance and keep it forever.”

  “I need you to find that lost history, Duncan. When you do, you must take it to your people and convince them to fight beside us. The Scions’ hatred for your people is as great as the enmity they hold for mine and the elves. We were all instrumental in banishing them, and they want to punish us severely for it.”

  “Son, the dwarves haven’t left these mountains in two thousand years. What you’re asking is akin to telling a fish to jump out of the water and walk on land.”

  “I know, Duncan, but the Scions will crush you beneath your mountain after they destroy the rest of us. Would you rather fight them on the surface in joined forces or alone within your halls?”

  “Put that way, it ain’t a hard choice, but my folks’ heads and hearts can be as hard the stone around us. Let me search our archives. It’ll be a waste of breath to say anything without getting something to back up what you claim. Even then…,” Duncan wagged his bushy head. “I just don’t know. It’s one thing to prove they exist, another thing altogether to prove they’re coming. Don’t get me wrong, son, you say they’re coming and I believe you. But dwarves can argue and dicker until the mountains crumble to dust.”

  “I have faith in you, my friend. I know you will do your best. The Guardians are all dead, Duncan. I am all there is holding the gates to the Scions’ prison, and I am not up to the task. We do not have long.”

  The dwarf nodded. “All right, son. I’ll get these boulders rolling. It’s hard work, but once they start turning, not even the gods can stop ‘em.”

  “Thank you, Duncan.”

  Azerick slumped down into a simple chair next to a workbench and sighed. He was amazed everything had gone so well, but he expected that to change. Tomorrow would surely be a test of his patience and courage. Tomorrow, he had to face his mother-in-law.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Hurry, go fetch Nana,” Wujek ordered Yubachi.

  The lean, dusky-skinned hunter of the northern wastes dipped his head and ran for the shaman’s hide and whale bone yurt. The aging matriarch shuffled after Yubachi using her ivory staff for support, but had little trouble keeping up with the young hunter.

  Nana looked at the desiccated figure lying beneath a pile of furs upon Wujek’s sled. “What have you brought home, Wujek?”

  “We found the old man lying in the snow several days to the north. We thought he was dead, but he still draws breath.”

  Nana motioned for one of the hunters to pull back the furs and reached beneath the shriveled old man’s clothing. “His heart still beats, although with difficulty.” The shaman furrowed her already crevassed brow. “Perhaps not so old as he seems.”

  “How do you mean, Nana?”

  “His furs are loose, as though made for a bigger man. Bring him to my yurt.”

  Wujek and Yubachi hoisted the man up with ease. Barking erupted around the small village as they carried their burden to the shaman’s home.

  “Did your dogs behave this way when you found him?” Nana asked.

  “They did. We could barely get them to go near him and only carried him on the sled with a great deal of coaxing. What does it mean?”

  “I do not know, but it is sure to be nothing good.” The three Thule and their burden drew the stares of the other villagers as they carried the man to Nana’s dwelling. “Lay him on the table and strip him bare.”

  Wujek and Yubachi did as ordered. They stepped back when they exposed the man’s flesh and revealed a network of black veins standing in stark contrast to the deathly white skin. The two Thule hunters stepped back with a curse and flashed a warding sign against evil.

  “What name of evil is this?” Wujek demanded to know.

  “Evil is right, but what kind I do not know,” Nana answered. “Let us find out.”

  The old shaman began grabbing things off shelves and mixing herbs and liquids in a stone bowl. Satisfied with her creation, she used a brush made of from the hairs of wolf seal alpha males, each bristle pulled from a different specimen, and painted a series of sigils upon the man’s pale canvas of skin. Once complete, she took a carved rod the length of her bony forearm with eagle feathers, tiny bones, and small bells dangling from the end and began chanting. She begged the ancient spirits for sight into the world of the dead so she could see what manner of evil infected this man. As she chanted and waved her wand over the man’s body, the runes painted upon his flesh began to smoke and blacken, releasing a putrid stench worse than the decaying carcass of a great whale.

  Nana fell silent and looked at the two hunters huddling near the door. “It is as I feared. This is not the body of an old man, but that of a young hunter just weeks ago. There is an evil spirit within him, and it has devoured his soul and feasted upon his body.”

  “What do we do? We should burn the body and its evil spirit immediately!” Wujek urged.

  “If we destroy the body, we risk setting the spirit loose. It may also prevent the hunter’s spirit from reaching the bountiful lands of the afterlife. I must cast the spirit out and banish it. Then we may return his body to the land.”

  “Nana, is this wise? He is not one of ours. What if the spirit breaks free and attacks us?”

  “He is Thule. Therefore, he is one of ours. The spirit is weak from starvation, and cannot defeat me. The ancient spirits will shield me from its evil.”

  Wujek looked unconvinced, but he knew better than to argue with the matriarch. Not even the chief of the village would argue with the shaman.

  “What must we do?”

  “Gather the village. The spirit is a creature of death. Death must be fought with life. We will perform the ritual when the sun reaches its zenith. Death is a creature of darkness, and darkness must be fought with light. Life and light against death and darkness.”

  Wujek and Yubachi left the shaman to prepare while they called the village together. Nana cleaned the runes from the body and began painstakingly painting new, more elaborate ones onto the white flesh. It was the season of the long nights, so there would be little sun and even less time to complete the ritual. She wished i
t were the season of long days, but the shaman was still confident in her ability.

  The Rook felt a force pulling him from the blackness deep within his host’s core where he hid himself, a dying cinder barely alive, buried deep within the ashes of existence. His first instinct was to fight, but he knew he would soon perish if he remained within the body he devoured to sustain his existence.

  As he floated to the surface, the Rook heard the faint droning of dozens of voices. The black faded to grey and his essence felt the hated, purifying light of the sun. Now he did fight. Whatever, whoever, had him, it meant to destroy him. The Rook would not surrender his existence easily, not until he killed the sorcerer.

  The magic within the voices tore him from his fleshy host, and his form flared with the pain of a thousand fires. He looked frantically about and saw he was within a ring of the short, brown people of the northern wastes. If the sun had not been a pathetic glimmer of its usual brilliance, it surely would have destroyed him in seconds. The Rook darted toward the nearest human body, but the power within the words they chanted drove him back toward the center. That left only the stooped old woman standing over his ruined vessel. She was chanting and shaking a stick with feathers and odd bits dangling from leather cords near its tip.

  The Rook sensed her power and knew she was the focus of the banishing ritual. He flew toward the shaman with all the speed and strength he could muster. If he did not take control of a new body quickly, the sun would burn him into oblivion.

  Nana shuddered as she felt the evil spirit attack. She increased her chanting and willed her ancestral spirits to give her the power to fight the shade. The strength of the attack surprised her. The dark spirit was powerful, but it was weak from starvation. It could not best her.

  The shade fought with the strength of a creature who desperately wanted to survive. It took several long minutes, but Nana finally felt the creature cease its struggles and disperse. She used her magical senses to try and detect the shade, but the circle was clear. Nana slowly turned and looked upon each of the chanting villagers for signs of possession, but they were untouched.

  “The spirit is gone,” she announced. “Light and life has defeated darkness and death.”

  Wujek broke from the circle and supported the exhausted shaman. “Nana, are you unwell?”

  The old woman patted the hunter’s hand. “I am weary is all. The spirit clung desperately to its false existence and fought me to the last. Give our poor fellow a proper funeral rite so his spirit may rest while I seek my rest as well.”

  The battle with the spirit had exhausted her more than she cared to admit. Life in the frozen wastes was a tough one and often cruel. Restless spirits were not unheard of out here, where death could come so swift a person may not know they are dead for days if their spirit was strong enough. She had lain to rest five such souls in her long life, but none as strong and malevolent as the one inhabiting the poor hunter.

  Nana opened her tired old eyes and saw it was dark out. How long she was asleep she could not know. Being the season of the long dark, she could have slept three hours or nearly twenty. Whatever the length, she should have felt more rested, but she felt even more tired now than when she had laid down. The realization of what happened came just a moment before her death.

  The Rook struck from the darkest recess of her mind. It was swift and flawlessly executed. He knew he could not afford to give her a moment’s warning and the chance to fight back. She was a tough old bird, and he had gained only a small amount of strength from her while she slept.

  Getting in had been the true test of his skill. His ferocity had surprised her and, in her surprise, he created a shadow of doubt. Shadows were his world, and he leapt into it like fish into water. He had not attempted to fight her. He knew an instant after the onset of the battle he would lose in his present condition. Using his skills as an assassin, he had slipped past her in the shadows and hid in the darkness where the shaman did not think to look for him. There, he gently fed off her life force to regain just enough strength to strike her down without alerting her to his presence.

  Despite consuming her life energy, she was old and provided him little in the way of sustenance. Fortunately, there was an entire village of food just beyond the door. The Rook searched the scraps of knowledge he was able to glean from the old woman’s memory. The name Wujek and the face of a strong Thule came to his mind. Wujek would make a far better host than the shriveled body of this old crone.

  The Rook used his stolen body to shuffle through the small village until he found Wujek’s yurt. He was barely inside the door when the hunter sprang to his feet, his precious steel knife gripped tightly in his hand. The tundra was full of predators, and a person learned to sleep lightly if they hoped to wake the next morning.

  “Nana, is that you?” Wujek asked, squinting at the stooped figure.

  “It is, Wujek. Pardon me for barging in, but my sleep has been disturbed. I need your assistance.” The Rook motioned for Wujek to help him stand.

  The hunter hurried to the shaman’s side and put his shoulder under her arm. “What do you need from me, Nana?”

  The Rook smiled as he plunged his spectral blade into Wujek’s heart. “I need your soul.”

  The hunter was strong in body and spirit and he fought back, but his struggles were short-lived. The Rook was far from recovered, but he had taken the hunter by total surprise. In the split second it took for Wujek to understand what was happening, the Rook was already inside the man’s defenses. The shaman’s body dropped lifelessly to the floor as the Rook relished in his new host. The hunter’s spirit was strong and fulfilling, but he was far from satiated. The Rook stepped out of the yurt, looked at the other meager dwellings, and smiled.

  CHAPTER 7

  Azerick stood at the foot of the high dais upon which sat Duchess Mellina, ruler of North Haven. An audience of key nobles and influential subjects sat seated in rows of chairs along the two opposing walls to his right and left. General Brague stood to Mellina’s right, looking as though he wished to demand why the gods hated him so much as to return Azerick to the world of the living.

  “Lord Giles, the court wishes to relay its heartfelt joy at your miraculous return.” The Duchess spared her general an icy look when he snorted a bit too loudly. “Had you not surprised us with your urgent request for a formal audience, we would have prepared a proper celebration.”

  Azerick inclined his head. “My apologies, Your Grace, but once I inform you of what we face you will understand my urgency.”

  “Very Well, Lord Giles. We will hear you now.”

  “Your Grace, esteemed audience, I have been dead and residing within the abyss for the better part of the last five years.” Azerick waited for the hushed mutterings of the crowd to subside before continuing. “While there, I had audience with the goddess Sharellan and later a creature known as a Guardian. I was told of and shown beings of enormous power and with great armies of creatures. These beings are known as the Scions. They were the gods before our gods and the true masters behind The Great Revolution.”

  “The Great Revolution was against the dragons! Everyone knows that,” someone shouted from amongst the assembly.

  Azerick turned and faced the direction of the speaker. “That is what we remember and what the Scions wish us to believe. The dragons were merely guard dogs and slaves of the Scions. The elves, who brought us the gift of magic, created the Guardians. They and the Guardians fought the Scions while we, the dwarves, and the other races fought the dragons and their legions. The last of the Guardians gave her life to free me from the abyss. The walls holding the Scions imprisoned are crumbling, and soon they will return.”

  “Then we will beat them once more,” General Brague announced. “We are stronger, more numerous, and have more wizards than before.”

  “We are scattered, General. The dwarves live inside their mountain homes within the Witchcrag and Great Barrier Mountains. The elves hide secluded far to the north, and the a
byssal elves have buried themselves even deeper than the dwarves. The orcs, goblins, ogres, and other races are scattered in a thousand different tribes all across the continent. Most importantly, we no longer have the Guardians, beings whose duality in spirit allowed them to fight the Scions face to face. My son Raijaun and I are now two to replace a dozen of the most powerful wielders of magic ever to walk this world.”

  “You sound apocalyptic, Lord Giles,” Duchess Mellina said flatly.

  “An apocalypse is coming, but as your general said, we are not defenseless. However, we are at the moment greatly unprepared. Have you heard of the happenings at Bruneford’s Mill?”

  The Duchess nodded. “I have received the report. It was a tragedy. I also received a report of someone claiming to be you attacking The Hall of Inquisition and threatening Duchess Paulina. She is demanding I have you executed upon the spot.”

  “I did not attack The Hall nor threaten the Duchess. I did request the return of my property and apprentice. My insistence could have been construed as a threat, I suppose. The Hall attacked me later. We were victorious because we were both prepared to meet a more powerful force. This lesson is what I desperately wish to convey here today. The fact is the Scions are more powerful than our wizards, and their army stronger, faster, and greater in size than our own. However, that does not mean defeat is inevitable.”

  The Duchess asked, “What would you have of us, Lord Giles?”

  “I have already spoken to the Crown Prince of Sumara and representatives of the abyssal elves and dwarves. I intend to speak with King Jarvin and a representative of the elves within the week. As I have told the others and will relay to our King, we must turn our minds and spears toward war. It is time to beat our plowshares into swords, conscript and train every available citizen, and adopt a strict military training regimen for our frontline soldiers.”