Spellscribed: Provenance

by Kristopher Cruz

  After all, she had thought as she touched the grip of one of her lancet thin black steel knives, it would be so easy to just execute him now, and his bodyguard would never-

  She had pulled the blade a scant half inch from the sheath when the young man had suddenly groaned and his eyes fluttered. She had slunk back into the shadows of the room, and with a simple thought had bent the shadows to conceal her. As she did so he had awoken with such speed and panic, it gave her the impression that such a simple application of natural magic had been like dropping an armload of steel pans.

  Once concealed, she observed him until he fell asleep again. Now as she stood beside the bed once more she recognized one reason that she had been paid so exorbitantly to subtly harass the young man. He had potential, even she could see that.

  The sha’hdi slunk silently to the door, listened for any foot traffic in the hall beyond, and then excused herself from the room. Perhaps some other day she would get to enjoy the pleasure of ending this mage. If he proved interesting enough, she might consider doing it at a discount.

  Chapter 22

  Endrance didn’t sleep nearly as long as he wished he could. Still, a bed in a warm room was better than the nights out in the cold. His throat was definitely grateful, as he wasn’t inhaling cold air all night long. He wouldn’t have to perform quite so many vocal exercises before he would feel comfortable casting a spell. Last thing he needed to have happen was for his voice to crack or give out during a complicated spell casting.

  He immediately regretted moving. His body ached from almost every conceivable spot, sore or bruised from impacts or even aching from pulled muscles. The day before had been very long in the saddle, and combining it with being hit off a horse with a tree branch at full gallop as well as a life or death struggle with a wolfman made it one of the worst days that Endrance could remember. He wearily rubbed his thin limbs as he tried to work out some of the soreness, and blinked his eyes multiple times as he gazed around.

  The room had dimmed and the ventilation leaked cold air again, as the fire pit had almost entirely died down. Endrance wasn’t sure what time of day it was, but now he was awake again he was too sore and aching to go back to sleep so soon. At least his mind had rested well enough.

  Adding some extra wood to the fire pit, he heated a tin cup of water and steeped it with a pinch of his favorite herbal mixture. He sat quietly for the few moments the hot embers and newly lit wood did its work. Only after the aroma of the bittersweet herbs and oils wafted up from his cup did he see to cleaning himself up and getting dressed. His body protested the whole way, but he eventually got fully dressed in his spare set of clothing. He pulled the blood tiger hide winter coat on over his clean shirt and breeches.

  This time he examined his hands before he went out. The day before he had overused his spell scribed lightning by not allowing the meridians time to clear. That had caused painful burnout that normally only happened when a mage used more power than they were capable of handling safely. The result was that his fingers were bright red around the zig zag lines in his fingers, as if he had burned himself with a small flame. They would likely sting for a day before they healed; longer if he had to use them again.

  Outside, he found Joven standing waiting for him. He was dressed and armed and ready to go to war if it should happen to break out at this little fort in the middle of the snowy plains. He gave Endrance one of his signature grins, and patted him on the shoulder.

  “Slept well?” Joven asked. “It’s been a while since you’ve had a bed to sleep on.”

  “Yes.” Endrance replied, wincing at the pat which reminded his sore body to speak up again. “I slept well enough, I suppose. How long was I asleep?”

  “Over five hours!” Joven exclaimed. “Isn’t that good?”

  “Of course…” Endrance muttered. “I would have preferred a few more though.”

  “Bah!” Joven exclaimed. “You’ve been sleeping five hours a night for weeks now, you should be just fine.”

  “Most of those days,” Endrance responded, his voice nearly a growl. “We don’t fight for our lives and then stay up several hours later than usual.”

  Joven shrugged. “It has still been better than military service would have been. And we still have to finish here and then make up for lost time.”

  Endrance sighed, hanging his head with a frown. “Right. I’m still sore as hell though.”

  Joven shrugged. “You’re new to fighting. Going to be a while until you get used to it.”

  Endrance scowled at him, his ache adding a little bite to his words. “First, I’d rather not have to fight like that anymore, and second-”

  Commander Gural cleared his throat, alerting the two to his presence. Endrance snapped his mouth shut. He didn’t need the commander to see them bickering over this or he might lose some credibility, which would be bad this early on in his career.

  “Commander.” Endrance began, nodding his head to him. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning, sir mage.” Gural responded, raising an eyebrow. “Did you make any observations last night I should be aware of?”

  Endrance shook his head. “Not yet. I’ve had a look around and kept some notes, but I’ll need time to analyze it, maybe see if there’s anything magical I can glean from the room.”

  The commander sighed but shrugged. “As I expected would happen. I’ve had my scouts out searching for anyone who might have escaped since the murder, and they have come back with bad news, but not related to this.”

  “That means one of two things.” Endrance admitted. “Whoever murdered the tribunal either had a magical means to escape across the snow covered fields around the fort or…”

  “The murderer is still here in the fort.” Gural admitted. “And my other news might be worse.”

  “What’s that?” Endrance asked. He was already getting the idea that the day may be as strenuous as the last was.

  “One of our scouts found wolfmen tracks and a few of their corpses south of us.” Gural reported. “There are a sizeable number of them inside our borders.”

  Endrance and Joven exchanged a glance. Gural watched them, his eyes narrowing. “But something tells me you already knew about that.” He concluded.

  “Of course we know about them.” Joven responded. “Who do you think killed them?”

  Endrance glared at Joven, but didn’t say anything. Gural’s face twisted into a snarl. “This is something you should have told me immediately!” He swept his hand out in the direction of the few of his men who had been standing alertly nearby. “Wolfmen inside our borders is a serious threat to Ironsoul! Even as a wizard you should know it is your duty to protect the people of our land!” His voice had risen to a shout, echoing down the stone halls.

  Endrance winced, unused to people actually yelling at him. Joven took a step closer to him protectively. Endrance shook his head, waving his hand dismissively. “They were hardly a threat.” Endrance stated evenly with a scowl.

  “That’s not for you to decide; after all you’re not responsible for the northern borders of the Ivory Satrap, are you?” Gural shouted. “That’s my decision whether or not it is a threat!”

  Joven stepped in front of Endrance, his own temper rising. “Hey!” He shouted his face a snarl of anger. “We took care of the wolfmen! There’s nothing left for you to worry about!”

  “That just makes it worse!” Gural responded, his hands clenched into fists.

  Joven blinked. “What?” he demanded. A silent moment passed, and Joven’s temper cooled in his confusion. The anger in Gural’s face vanished instantly, a ruse that seemed to have evoked the responses he was looking for. The corner of the commander’s mouth ticked downwards, and he snapped his fingers.

  “Among the dead wolfmen we found one of them that had been killed in exactly the same way as the Tribunal was.” Gural stated, his volume lowering. “Now I have to take you both into custody, as you are the only ones who could have done this.”

  Th
e men who had been standing behind the commander walked forward, hefting a pair of heavy crossbows and training them on Endrance. Joven lurched, his newly ignited rage being restrained by the fact that he couldn’t get between Endrance and both shooters in time. Gural took a single step back and spoke in an even, level voice.

  “Now, please accompany these men into our dungeon, so that there aren’t any further incidents. If you aren’t the murderers, then cooperate. If you open your mouth, mage, my men will fire upon you. If you do not do everything they say, they will fire upon you. Work with me, and we will try to get you out of here as soon as we catch the culprit.” Gural made way for the four men who came to relieve Joven of his weapons, and the two who had their crossbows trained on the young mage kept the barbarian from retaliating even though he practically boiled in rage at this sudden turn of events.

  Endrance watched this sudden change in a daze. Was this really happening? Was this just a dream? It sure didn’t look like one to him. He kept his mouth closed and his hands pressed to his sides. One of the soldiers leaned down in front of the mage, putting his face on level with his. He held up a gag made of a latched bit of metal, wood, and rope. “This is for you to wear sir mage. If you would slowly open your mouth…” he said as he held the gag up to Endrance’s face. The rope went into his mouth, the bands of steel on either side of his face kept it sitting around his head, and the iron latch in the back was locked so that it would be impossible to pull the thing off without biting through the half inch thick rope.

  It took them only a few minutes to take them to the underground dungeons. There they had been locked into separate cells. Both were stripped to their boots and breeches, and Endrance still wore the gag. Though it was repulsive and he gagged every time he thought about it too much, he was able to breathe and he could still attempt regular speech. The gag was more than effective enough at muddling the precision of his lips and tongue when forming words of power, but he still could sound out basic tones without much hindrance.

  The dungeon was dark, damp, and smelled of stale hay and stagnant water. A single fire burned in a fireplace on the far wall from the doors in, and the heat hardly spread across the stones into the four cells occupying the room. In between the cells was an assortment of torture and interrogation devices. A table with built in manacles was the centerpiece of the set, with barrels containing water to one side, and a smaller table with instruments spread across it on the other. The cells were walls of bars, spanning between the floor and ceiling on three sides, with the very solid stone blocks forming the back wall. One other cell in the room was occupied; a man lay on a wooden plank that formed the cell’s bedding with his back to them, asleep.

  Blood stains across the floor around the table had spread several feet in every direction, but looked long dry. Instead of any one travesty spilling enough blood to stain this chamber, the marred floor was a product of several decades of ‘guests’ being kept and questioned in the fort. It was one more depressingly nauseating reminder of where they were.

  Joven couldn’t pace the small cell, easily able to grasp the bars on opposite sides as he stood in the center. Instead he sat on the wooden plank of a cot and seemed to be lost in thought. The barbarian considered everything in the room that he could see, so that if it came down to it he could escape from there and break out his charge. He had been willing to entertain his charge’s insistence on following Ironsoul’s law, but now it was directly interfering with his duty to his own kingdom. He hadn’t even seen this fort or it’s people when he first crossed the borders into Ironsoul.

  Endrance did pace the cell, nerves wracked and nearly hyperventilating through the gag. At first he thought this would be over soon, but now he wasn’t sure if the commander intended on letting them out at all. As he paced he thought at first he could smell the blood staining the floor, his imagination given strength by the unknown.

  An hour later, he was certain he could smell the blood on the floor. He didn’t realize it, but his breathing had slowed, his pace stilled, and his eyes were wide open. Having fixated on the smell, the need to vomit had faded. Instead, his stomach rumbled and he realized how hungry he was. He had nothing to eat but his herbal tea, and while it did help stave off hunger, he hadn’t anything to eat since the day before. He took another deep breath through his nose, and the smell of blood welled in his nostrils. It was almost as strong in his mind as if he had a bloody nose or lip, and for some reason it only made him hungrier.

  Joven looked up when his ears picked up a low growl coming from somewhere in the room. It sounded like a cat of some sort was stalking prey, but when Joven looked up there was only the three people in the room. The man hadn’t awoken, but Joven saw Endrance staring at the torture table in the center with wide open eyes. The young mage had a strange expression on his face. Joven had expected him to be afraid, but instead saw… yearning?

  “Hey.” The barbarian spoke up. The young mage didn’t seem to hear him. By this point Joven could tell the low toned growling was coming from Endrance’s throat. “Hey!” Joven said sharply, slapping his hand on the bars. Endrance twitched and looked at him with startled eyes. The barbarian was certain he had imagined that the young man’s pupils had been slit right before the mage blinked at him and were normal, though they still did seem almost illuminant in the darkness of the chamber.

  The young mage seemed disoriented, so Joven continued to speak at him. “Hey, Endrance… snap out of it. We’re going to get out of here without a problem, just you see. Don’t panic, we’ll be out of here in no time, even if I have to break us out.”

  Endrance nodded, sank down to the ground and sat. The smell of blood had faded, and as he focused his thoughts inward he felt a familiar impression in his mind. The instinctual presence of the blood tiger had resurfaced, it’s self assure confidence stepping in when his own instincts didn’t know what to do. He shook his head, pushing it back down and retaking control. He had thought the presence had faded as time had passed, leaving only the information behind. Apparently either he was wrong or the strength of personality behind the subject affected the rate it faded, or if it faded at all.

  He couldn’t know for sure so soon; he had only seen the bracer absorb energy from two subjects, the goblin shaman and the blood tiger. He hadn’t absorbed the energy from the wolfman, perhaps he had fallen too far away when he died. The same must be said for the thug that nearly carved his face up. At least he was able to figure out there was a maximum range of absorption.

  Now if he only knew if the absorption affect was beneficial or detrimental. It didn’t matter at the moment; they had taken the bracer off him when he had been arrested. Still, the knowledge he gleaned from them might be useful if he could just apply it to this situation…

  The iron clad door leading into the chamber clacked as the bolt on the door slid open. A man in an insulated armor coat walked hesitantly in, followed by commander Gural. The door was closed behind them by a man guarding the door from the outside. The commander walked past the two cells Endrance and Joven were in, and stopped in front of the other occupied cell.

  Rapping his hand against the bars of the cell, Gural tried rousing the subject. “Elf!” he exclaimed. “Wake up already.”

  The figure stirred, and rolled onto his back before sitting up. Endrance was uncertain why they hadn’t noticed, but the other captive in the chambers was an elven man. As the nervous man stirred and fed the fire with wood, they were better able to see him.

  The elf was willowy and tall, not quite as tall as Joven but couldn’t weigh more than half of the barbarian, maybe less. Dressed in a well tailored tunic and breeches of violets and gold trim, the clothes were of exceptionally high quality, even after their rough treatment in the dungeons. He wore soft leather boots and gloves, the kind with a folded cuff at the wrists and ankles. They too were scuffed and dirtied, with a few nicks in them at the bends in the leather.

  Only the clothes seemed to show any stress from the ordeal. The man himself
seemed not only unperturbed by the experience but refreshed by it. He was of incredibly fair skin, and had smooth, angular features and his violet eyes were almost preternaturally clear like pools of glass from which he viewed the world. His face was serene, and his hair was shoulder length, and seemed to be perfectly straight and slinky despite hours spent laying on the boards that passed as cots in the dungeon, the hairs shifting over each other as he moved, straightening out on their own.

  Endrance thought he had problems with people thinking him either beautiful, a woman, or both. If this elf was any example of the species, it was no wonder that humans wrote poetry of their beauty and grace. It at least made his heritage more understandable; who couldn’t fall in love with someone if their kind was on average as good looking as this man?

  Perhaps it was the lingering traces of the blood tiger in his thoughts, but something else about this elf told him to be cautious around him. Maybe it was the way that he moved as he stood, or how the elf carried his self when he approached the door to his cell, but something about how he moved reminded him of a great cat. Like all his speed and power was coiled up underneath a guise of grace and gentleness.

  The elf stopped just on the other side of the bars from Gural. The corner of his mouth ticked up in a smirk as he addressed the base commander.

  “I take it that you are finally through with this madness and are ready to release me?” the elf asked, his voice smooth and almost mocking.

  If Gural was provoked, he didn’t show it. The commander jerked his thumb at Joven before replying. “Got a pair of cellmates for you, play nice. One of you three might be the murderer.”

  “Oh most indubitably.” The elf commented in mock sincerity. “I’m sure that you will get to the bottom of this so that the rest of us travelers can be about our business without any further hindrance.”