Spellscribed: Provenance

by Kristopher Cruz

  Jalyin was considering how best to retrieve one of her throwing knives without getting caught in the crossfire between wizard and summoner, when a strange organic sound caught her attention. Looking back at the body of the last Draugnoa, she saw the body convulse and shudder. The Draugnoa must not quite have died from the poison.

  “Oh, still alive?” she asked, drawing her long daggers. “I’ll have to remedy that.”

  The assassin’s approach halted almost immediately as the woman’s head snapped up, her face in the rictus of a snarl. Selene’s eyeteeth had elongated to fangs, and the back of her dress boiled as she pulled her feet under her and rose. Steam poured from the wounds on her body, and the three knives wiggled their way free of her body, clattering on the stone. Her square-pupil eyes glowed through the shadows cast by her hair. She held up a clenched fist and released of all things a trio of crumpled red feathers.

  The back of the dress burst with the sound of flesh tearing as two bat-webbed wings erupted from her. Blood sprayed the pillar behind her, but the woman seemed beyond caring. The demon had finally risen to the surface.

  Jalyin backflipped away, trying to gain some distance from the Nephilim, but the half demon was faster than she could have expected. The red eyed woman, her violet hair streaming behind her in the arcane starlight and trailing speckles of blood from unhealed injuries slammed into her face with a clenched fist. The world flipped end over end as the assassin was rocked half a dozen yards back, crashing to the ground in a daze.

  Kalenden growled as he squared his shoulders to the mage, whose fingers still smoked from his spell. “You will have to do better than that to best me, whelp.” He grated, raising his hands. Though the king tried to seem unsurprised, Endrance could see the tremble in the king’s exposed hand.

  Endrance raised his as well, his rage making the feeling that his hand was on fire trivial and unimportant. The next exchange of spells would be the most important battle of his life, and he wanted the man dead. Pain was something he had shrugged aside.

  The first few seconds was a blur of motion, magic, and chaos. Elements were thrown at each other; the air trembled and crackled with power. Whenever one threw fire, the other rebounded with ice or water. Chunks of the stone floor rose to catch lightning flung, and whirlwinds swatted stone fragments out of their paths. In this place, the king had access to an enormous amount of power, but the mage was not without his tricks.

  Scattered across his body, the lines of his meridians glowed with arcane power. Traces of golden light shined through the cloth of his clothes, and the wizard’s own protective magic soundly defended against the powers the king threw at him. The young mage had woven a powerful spell into his left forearm that trailed up the meridians and formed a hypnotic spiral in the palm of his hand. As long as Endrance gave the spell power, he was able to safely touch elemental forces with that hand and redirect them somewhere safer. Already the sleeve of his shirt had disintegrated under the heat of the hellfire he batted out of the way, and his bracer gleamed with the light of the dozens of small stars hanging in the darkness.

  As the two battled, Jalyin unsteadily pulled herself to her feet. While she had been able to roll with the hit, the blow had still caught her off guard. Selene appeared in the air above her, diving down with her hands formed into claws. The assassin evaded, and saw up close her nails had actually become talons, her fingertips bloody from the forced transformation.

  The Nephilim was caught up in the throes of her otherworldly heritage, something that she would have been taught to protect against, if she had not slipped through Kalenden’s fingers. It was poor planning on his part. A berserk half demon was sometimes more dangerous than a full breed. At least a full demon could know when to retreat, or when to stop fighting.

  Jalyin dived back into the fray, slicing at the woman with her daggers. More often than not, her blades struck home, cutting into Selene’s skin, and slicing away parts of her dress and clothes. The Draugnoa paid no mind, instead slashing at the assassin with her hands in primal fury. Leather was flayed, and the assassin was cut as badly as the woman was. The elf got leverage on one of Selene’s arms, and threw her over her shoulder, trying to get some room to think.

  The woman’s wings snapped open to catch her in mid air, and she righted herself as she landed on her feet. Scarlet eyes burned angrily as every nerve of her being trembled with the desire to do great violence to Jalyin. The assassin, bleeding and battered, felt a flutter of fear for the first time in decades.

  With a roar that was as much feral animal as it was human, Selene rushed towards the assassin, her bloody talons gleaming in the starlight.

  Endrance was exhausted, but he couldn’t give up the fight. A lot of his power had been spent battling king Kalenden, but that initial volley was the most damage he had managed to inflict on him. The king had put up too many warding and protective spells while the mage had been working his way up to the castle, and stripping those away would take too much time to do him any good.

  Panting, he eyed the king. The man seemed at long last to be tiring, but did not look nearly as worn out as the wizard was feeling. The wizard couldn’t beat the man in his own house at his own game. It was time to do something different.

  “Those are some wards you’ve got.” Endrance stated. “Did your demons teach you those?” He threw out a low powered lightning bolt, which scattered in the air a foot from the king’s face.

  “Yes.” Kalenden said, seeing weakness in his opponent and taking the opportunity to lord it over him. “They taught me how to defend against everything that could harm me.” The king flung another volley of stone shrapnel at Endrance, forcing him to dive out of the way. His redirecting spell couldn’t move physical objects. “They are the only ones who could teach me real power.”

  Endrance’s mind raced. He knew he had a solution here, but what was it? He racked his brain, trying to figure it out. He remembered everything he had read through the studies he had made of demons after finding that first circle. Then, the answer came to him.

  He stood up straight, his hands dropping to their side as the spell light faded from their tattoos. “The demons may have taught you much,” Endrance admitted, “But you did not take into account something.”

  The king with his confidence unfaltering, scoffed. “And what would that be, whelp?” he asked, his voice dripping with scorn. The summoner called up a ball of hellfire and held it, ready to finish Endrance off.

  Endrance raised his hands, and prepared to sling a spell he had thought he had forgotten. But as he attempted to remember it, the spell came looming to the forefront of his mind, fresh as the night he had accidently learned it. The intricacies of the spell rocketed through his mind and the he need only speak the final word of power to bring it to life.

  “Demons don’t have souls.” He said. He thrust his hands out, fingers splayed, poured every last drop of power he had left into the spell and called out the final word of power.

  “Animorbus!”

  The soul lance had no visual component, but a thundering sound erupted from his outstretched hands. A shockwave of spiritual energy lanced out from his palms, crumbling the remains of his gloves to dust. The ripple of power washed through the air, extinguishing the few specks of light unlucky enough to be caught in its wake. Though spiritual in nature, the air between the two blasted in all directions, whipping Endrance’s loose hair back.

  Kalenden raised his hand to shield himself, but his eyes registered shock for the split second between him realizing his wards weren’t working and the spell impacting him in the chest. The armored man rocked backwards, slamming into the throne and snapping the back clean off as he crashed to the ground. Dust flew up around him, and he did not rise again.

  Endrance rushed up to the throne, and looked down at the body of the man he struck. King Kalenden lay dead, his soul shattered from his instantly lifeless body. The black armor of his breastplate crumbled to dust as he watched. The man was finally gone, his skin g
raying even in the pure white light of the multitude of stars.

  Jalyin was able to misdirect Selene’s attacks long enough to disappear around a pillar. As she took a steadying breath, she saw the king was slain. She grimaced part from pain and part from distaste. There went one of her compatriots. Now she would have to report back alone, and injured. If she wasn’t careful she wouldn’t survive leaving the room, much less meeting with her client.

  The elf silently stooped, picking up a fragment of shattered stone, and flicked it towards the mages direction. As she expected of Selene in her berserk state, the Nephilim went after the noise. Now the mage would have to deal with her. As the enraged woman half ran, half flew towards the wizard she excused herself out one of the servants passages. It was not her job to die for her client, and she was going to have to be as clever as she ever had been if she wanted to survive reporting back.

  Endrance turned from the body of the king as he heard a growling sound coming from behind him. He blinked in confusion as he saw what looked like Selene, but wasn’t Selene rushing towards him, fingers slick with blood and webbed wings upon her back. The wildness of her flying hair gave him the split second impression of horns before she slammed into him with a full force tackle.

  The woman hit him hard, and knocked the wind out of him. Dazed, with little energy left, and physically exhausted to begin with, he was unable to stop her from pinning him as they landed several feet from the body of the king. He looked up at her in panic, realizing that she had lost control of her demonic blood. Now she may very well kill him.

  “Selene!” he wheezed out, trying to breathe. He opened his mouth to speak when she kissed him hard and rough. He froze in shock as he felt her tongue shove deep into his mouth and her hips started gyrating as she straddled him. The scent of fresh rainwater filled his nostrils, but there was a barely noticeable acrid scent to it, like a touch of sulfur. The fangs in her mouth cut into his lips as she savagely kissed him.

  Ah… Damn. He thought. Succubus.

  He was unable to hold her off until she finally released her liplock on him. “Selene!” he blurted. “What are you doi-”

  “Sex or death?” Selene asked, her voice drawn out in a breathy hiss. “Which do you want first?”

  “Ah, I don’t have time for this!” Endrance cried out, thrusting his hand up against her chest. “Cularis!”

  The force of the spell flung her into the air with a yelp that sounded remarkably more like Selene than he had expected. She flared her wings, halting her ascent, and glared at him angrily. He had to get her to calm down so he could put his attention to saving as many lives as he could.

  “Selene!” Endrance shouted. “Do not give up, shake this off! You are not alone!”

  For the first time since she had awoken, the other half of her remembered those words from her dream. Her eyes wide, she saw for the first time that the darkness was alight with stars. Just like he had promised. As she looked down at him, she saw that many of those symbols and arcane marks glowed upon his person just like his dreams. It wasn’t exactly the same; they were duller and they didn’t cover his whole body, but they were there.

  You see? Selene said to her demonic half. He’s there for us. I don’t want to kill him, and I think you don’t really want to either. Let’s come back to him… together.

  Endrance wasn’t sure what exactly changed, but Selene’s face softened as she glided down to the stone. Her wings folded up against her back, taking up much less space than Endrance thought they would. Her eyes retained their demonic appearance, but finally he could see the human side of her had returned. She took a half step towards him, hesitant.

  “Selene?” he asked tentatively.

  She smiled; the fangs she had before were gone. She spread her hands, and he could see that her talons had returned to normal fingernails. “It’s me.” She said, her voice was normal, if not a little scratchy. She grimaced, rubbing at her throat. “I have to stop screeching like that.” She admitted.

  “Oh thank the gods.” He exhaled, relieved. “We need to tend to Anna and Brid-”

  He halted in speech as the air in the throne room started to stir. Golden light flared up from the bracer at his wrist. He looked down at it, and over at the corpse of the now deposed king, and paled as he realized the mistake he made. “Oh no!” he exclaimed, trying to scramble far enough away. “Not him!”

  Too late, he realized that he had been close enough to the death of the strongest spellcaster he had fought since he sparred with his master so long ago. The bracer would capture the energy that fled Kalenden’s aura, but with it would come knowledge. Endrance could not know for certain if he would only learn a little from the transfer, like he did with the goblin shaman, or if he would be overwhelmed with the subject’s ego, like with the blood tiger. No matter which happened, he did not desire to learn any of the man’s demonic magic.

  The golden wind rushed up into the air from Kalenden’s body, scattering specks of light in its passing. The power rushed to Endrance despite his efforts to escape and siphoned down into the gemstone. The gem returned to its full brilliance as it gathered the remaining power of his aura.

  Endrance lost the ability to run mid-stride, falling to his knees, and slowly collapsing to his side clutching his head. Images, memories, vile knowledge sifted through his mind. The only thing that kept him conscious was that it was not the first time his mind had been bombarded so, and this was only a single stream of memories, not an endless torrent like before. As the power flowed into his bracer, and the memories flowed into his head, he was able to gather his concentration, focus his mind, and put the incoming information into perspective.

  Inside the library of his mind, the reflecting pool of water in the center shivered, and as he stood upon it, he looked to the ground around it. The pool rose up on a pillar of stone, steps falling naturally as the column rose to the center point of the room. From there, he waved a hand at one far wall and at his command, everything regardless of memory or knowledge he was gathering from the king was shelved there in books.

  He was not sure if it was the nature of the knowledge he was sorting, or that somewhere in his mind he desired it to be so, but the shelves turned black as coal as the demonic red and black bound books flew into its spaces. As the trickle of information faded away, Endrance clenched the hand pointing at the shelves. Iron bars and chains sprang into existence, locking him out from the knowledge, but also locking it in.

  As he was about to return his focus to the world around him, he caught the flutter of a single memory he missed. Reaching out, the speck of sound and light that hadn’t even formed into a page came to rest on his palm. A single, short memory.

  Kalenden growled in frustration as he read through the correspondence he had been handed. He looked up at the deliverer with a scowl. Jalyin merely shrugged in the face of his frustration.

  “What do you mean, she won’t send any more assistance?” he demanded the letter crumpling in his clenched fist. “I’ve fulfilled my part of the bargain! She has not given me what she promised!”

  Jalyin shrugged again, eyeing him with the amusement of a predatory cat. “I think she has. She taught you how to better use those demons you were summoning.”

  “Fifteen years ago!” he shouted, standing. “And I had already learned how to summon them before she showed up!”

  Jalyin scoffed, her black leather armor soaking in the light from the fire in the room. “You were summoning whores, your majesty. She showed you that they had more to teach than just bedroom antics.”

  “I swear to you…” Kalenden growled. “If that whelp manages to interfere in my plans-”

  “Oh, do try to have some sense.” Jalyin retorted. “You gave her all the Crystalphage she asked for, what leverage do you have left, oh great king? You have me and nothing else.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “And you may not even have that much if you don’t change your tone.”

  A tense moment passed. Kalenden sighed, dropping back int
o his chair. “Fine.” He said with resignation. “Any news on the search?”

  “Not yet.” Jalyin reported. “He managed to escape the fire without leaving any traces.” She touched her abdomen as she spoke. “And the eclipse kept everyone who could have seen them in their houses. We may have to consider they left the city entirely.”

  Kalenden leaned back, rubbing his neck. “That may do us some good. I have to show my son to the people this afternoon, and I don’t want any unexpected surprises.”

  “You know I can’t make public appearances.” Jalyin responded. “But if something goes wrong, come back here. I’ll help however I can.”

  “At least you are.” He admitted. “I wish I could say the same for Valeria.”

  Endrance blinked, coming out of his trance. Selene was shaking his shoulder and calling his name, but he couldn’t hear her for a moment as the words of Kalenden’s memory echoed through his head.

  “I wish I could say the same for Valeria.”

  Valeria was the name of the prior Archmagus of Ironsoul, the woman who had centuries before trained his master, Kaelob, when she was just a wizard. She was also believed dead, having died alongside two wizards in an experiment gone wrong around the time he was born. This was too much information for him to deal with at the moment; he filed it away along the rest of his memories.

  Endrance picked himself up with Selene’s assistance. Somehow she had returned to her completely human appearance. As he stood, the doors across the hall slammed open, shedding more torchlight into the hall. Joven burst into the hall, dripping blood and breathing hard. Almost a dozen crossbow bolts stuck from his armor and body, and Endrance would have been surprised he was standing at all, if he hadn’t known the man.

  Behind his bodyguard were dozens of men and women with torches and weapons. They had finally gotten through the gates and came to deal with the traitor-king.

  Endrance waved weakly. “Hey.” He said, his voice carrying across the great hall. “A little help here?”