Scott J Couturier - [The Magistricide 01]

by The Mask of Tamrel (epub)

  The crystals protruding from the ceiling glowed with borrowed energy, their matrices infused. The Gyre bent Its head and summoned the distilled essence from the depth of the well, murmuring soft, coaxing words of power. A blob of luminous blue liquid ascended slowly to hover before It, the unstable mass contained within a sphere of pure crushing intent. Speaking a final word, the Gyre Itself gestured to the crystals, which immediately dissolved into a hissing quicksilver stream. Their liquified matter poured down on the inchoate blue mass, and there was a distant, rending wail, as if the earth itself cried out in pain. The Gyre raised and lowered Its hands, and the substances roiled together, crystal re-solidifying and melding with the azure fluid. At last it was done. The Gyre stared at the freshly-forged lump of chromox, the philosopher’s media, the sole key to magic. With a languorous wave It dismissed the new batch down the throat of a far tunnel, blue lambency shining off the knife-like crystals studding the walls and ceiling of the Great Forge. Above the well, where only the faintest submerged flicker could now be seen, the newly-spent crystals regenerated themselves, pure and translucent, ready to receive further infusion.

  Tonight was a night of High Council. The Gyre raised Its head, checking Its current point in the temporal progression. The council was to be held at two o’clock: it was one-thirty now. There was a small amount of time to dedicate to some other pursuit. It stretched luxuriantly, then turned Its many-souled eyes to a cauldron of mercury set at the base of the glistening throne. The metallic fluid convulsed at the Gyre’s scrutiny, bubbled and fumed, then gradually grew clear as Ixthian crystal. Closing Its eyes, The Gyre sent Its consciousness outward from the subterranean chamber, seeking out the gaping wound to the east, the city-state once known as Tannigal.

  Images immediately formed in the mercury. The Gyre’s eyes slid open, and It watched the panoply of destruction play out in accelerated time. Towers exploded and crumbled to dust, blood ran in thick runnels down the streets; the Gyre bent Its omniscience towards the capering, butchering revelers, puzzled by the strange brand of madness it saw festering in their collective mind. Something had happened in Tannigal, something outside the two-thousand years of Its amalgamated experience. The Gyre frowned and let Its senses rove further abroad, seeking out any hint of intrusive energies. They often manifested at this time of year, when the veils grew thin.

  The Gyre had felt the first explosions in Tannigal as vibrations along a meticulously spun web. It had quickly dissected the disruption, found it to be of a singular potency. No chromantic malfunction could account for the city’s wholesale demise. For the last ten hours It had combed the ashen streets with Its awareness, seeking the source of the perversion, but all trails led to the same dead end. A brief flicker of underground passages appeared in the mercury, followed by the flash of a mummer’s mask: the Gyre raised Its hand, freezing the image. For a long while It stared at the mask, wondering why this same smiling visage persisted in manifesting.

  Then, suddenly, completely, It knew. The Gyre gasped, then leaned forward on Its throne, multifarious mind fixing on a single point in the countryside just east of Tannigal. Three figures lay slumbering in the loam, their bodies wracked with wound and exhaustion. The largest figure, that of an aging soldier, wore the mask; immediately the Gyre perceived Tamrel, knew him to be a creature of the old world that had somehow slipped through Its innumerable nets and snares. The Gyre rose and stared down into the swirling mercury, overwhelmed by an appalling wonder. It was exceedingly rare for objects of any potency to endure from the world’s previous ages; the last discovered had been a platinum amulet capable of purifying any poison, found in the desert drifts by a wandering Jeneni tradesman three hundred years past. The Gyre had quickly acquired the object and dissolved the tradesman, scattering his atoms to the four winds. But this mask, this mask...it was doubtlessly the most potent old-world relic the Gyre had ever encountered. With a trill of satisfaction It bent to examining the other bodies sprawled in the leaves, was further surprised at what It found.

  The girl was nothing, a dim coal barely flickering beneath a coat of ash. But the boy, the boy! The Gyre Itself reeled and fell back from the cauldron, hand flashing up to obscure Its eyes. Oh, what lovely prizes the day had brought!

  A bell chimed, reverberating in the protuberant crystals lining the walls and ceiling of the Forge. The Gyre raised Its head: the Council meeting was imminent. Looking down into the mercury, It contemplated the proper course, considering and discarding a dozen plans before arriving at a most unorthodox choice: inaction. It would observe, and in observing know all.

  With a whispering chuckle the Gyre Itself hovered upwards from Its august throne, ascending through the successive layers of pale stone sunk beneath the glittering tower of Ithen. It emerged into the vaulted council chamber on the ground level, narrow windows looking out over the watery, moon-bathed expanse of the Ithenmere. The Isdori Council was gathered in waiting; at the sight of the Gyre the conclave bowed low, a hundred archmagisters paying their collective veneration. The Gyre passed Its hand before Its face, affixing the veils that concealed Its countenance from mortal sight, though Its own perception remained pure and unobstructed. It settled into Its high throne, a lesser specimen forged from prosaic ores, and beckoned for the Isdori Council to be seated.

  The first item on the agenda was, of course, Tannigal. Asmak the Bender came forth, a Biomancer whose forbidden delvings had long intrigued the Gyre, though they also ensured he was forbidden from leaving the sacred isle. “O Great Font,” he declaimed, sweeping a bow before the Gyre’s throne, “the latest news has arrived. Tannigal is nothing but ashes and fume. We have dispatched twenty Taskmasters to dissemble the siege-dome, as you decreed, along with a contingent of Binders and Mentatii, but it is the fear of this Council that not enough is being done.”

  General rumbles of agreement sounded from the gallery, several archmagisters stepping forward as if they would declaim. The Gyre held up Its hand, and silence fell immediately, Asmak choking back his follow-up statement.

  “What more would you have done?” It asked into the sudden, reverent still.

  Asmak glanced back at his fellows on the Council and gulped. “It is the general agreement of this Council that some strange magic is at work in Tannigal. By all reports the consulate fell first, a rank impossibility. I have been deep in conference with my fellows, and it is agreed that a special task force should be immediately dispatched to examine the remnants of the city-state, as well as the surrounding countryside.”

  General mutterings and shiftings amongst the gallery; the Gyre smiled. The archmagisters comprising the Isdori Council were a hodgepodge of dreamers and sycophants, madmen and fools, power-hungry schemers and humble workers blindly bent towards executing the Gyre’s will. They were rarely in agreement about anything, which was by design. Only now, it seemed, they had all arrived at a common resolution: the Gyre inclined Its magnificent brow.

  “I have been observing the events in Tannigal,” It said, “and I do not see the necessity of your recommendation.”

  Asmak blinked, looked away. “O Great Font,” he began, “surely the events are unprecedented enough to warrant a full investigation -”

  “I do not deny this. However, it is my will that this investigation be postponed until the shield-dome is deactivated and the remains of Tannigal properly secured.”

  A snort from the gallery. “Remains? What remains?”

  The Gyre swiveled Its gaze towards Randosian the Pale, a Mentatii and archmagister of considerable power who had only joined the Council the previous session. He quailed before Its burning gaze, bowed deeply and said, “Forgive my impudence, Great Font, but an entire city has been wiped off the map! Word is there are few, if any survivors. If this catastrophe was caused by malfunctioning magic or the incursion of some rival city-state it must be ascertained. Otherwise we have an unknown quantity on out hands.”

  General hushed mutterings
of assent. The Gyre nodded, then leaned forward on Its throne, eyes blazing through the strata of Its veils.

  “You have put forth your proposition. I have rejected it.”

  Randosian spluttered, looked to Asmak, who merely bowed and retreated to the gallery with a sweep of his ermine-trimmed robes. The Gyre smiled, though Its mirth was obscured from the Council. Raising Its hand, It snapped Its fingers once.

  “This order of business is concluded. When the shield-dome falls I shall reconsider your request. What is next on the agenda?”

  The next four hours were spent in uncomfortable degrees of bickering. There were many items to discuss, though none rivaled the destruction of Tannigal in importance. Three times the Gyre was forced to rebuke members of the Council for re-broaching the topic. It held firm on Its proclamation, and when the Council finally broke up and began to filter from the hall they did so in chastened silence. The Gyre watched them depart, then descended down into the stone, bound again for the Great Forge sunk deep in the roots of the Ilarks. The Great Forge, source of all magic, the birthing-bed of the chromox — its very existence was a secret known only to the Gyre Itself.

  The pool of mercury was still swirling, giving off a faint metallic glow. The Gyre swept Its hand over the surface, clarifying the image of the three exhausted sleepers. But no — now there were only two, the large masked man having vanished. The Gyre frowned and sought for Tamrel, finding him some miles from the campsite, wandering abroad in the big man’s slumbering body. It was all so delicious, so blissfully unexpected, that the Gyre (the hub and ultimate orchestrator of all events in the land of Thevin) found Itself actually excited. It was a rare sensation, one It had seldom tasted in the last millennium, and hunkering close to the cauldron It summoned up an image of the boy-adept.

  He was young, painfully young, his long nose sticking upwards from a layer of face-obscuring leaves. Features, though, were unimportant — the Gyre saw the deep fire burning in him, wondered what creations could be forged in the heat of such a crucible. It resolved to wait and watch, watch and wait, to play out this latest twist in the long, endless game.

  “I am watching you,” It said to Kelrob, dipping a finger into the mercury and stirring its quicksilver surface. “Watching, and waiting.”

  Copyright ©2014 by Scott Couturier.

  All world rights reserved.

  Scott J. Couturier was born and raised in Traverse City, Michigan. He has been obsessed with the divinity of the written word since before he could spell. He earned his Associates from Northwestern Michigan College, then his Bachelors in Creative Writing and English Literature from Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, though he considers both tenures as only the beginning of his education. He currently lives in the deserts of southern New Mexico.

  Coming in SEPTEMBER 2014

  enjoy this preview

  of the first two chapters

  Chapter 1: A Hero and a Villain

  The stink of blasting-powder swirled in his nostrils, the screams of the dying reverberated in his unwilling ears. Kelrob staggered down the street of a doomed city, shielding his face from clouds of grit and kiln-hot ash. There was one beside him, a large man with a perpetually smiling face, who chuckled merrily as the fires spread. After much struggle they emerged into a broad square of white cobbles; bodies were piled there, a high tottering mound of burned flesh and gaping eyes. Kelrob screamed soundlessly and turned to his companion, whose smile had expanded into a mocking leer — and then he awoke.

  Kelrob gasped, finding himself cradled in a diffuse golden light. After a moment he realized his eyes were covered with leaves, through which an autumnal sun was streaming; sighing raggedly he flexed his fingers beneath the loam, momentarily considering going back to sleep and letting both earth and nightmare claim him.

  It was cold. He shivered, and raised his head slightly, dislodging the leaves from his eyes. The sun hovered directly overhead, beaming down through a break in the sparse, rattling foliage - he admired its luminous curve from the corner of his vision, wondering why it so forcibly reminded him of a pumpkin.

  The events of the previous day flooded into his mind. Kelrob stiffened, but did not panic, dimly realizing that he was becoming accustomed to the swift assimilation of horror. He lay utterly still, in a meditative state taught to him by Master Huerton, as visions of Tannigal crumbling into chaotic ruin filled his mind.

  Tannigal. Tamrel. Jacobson. Nuir. Kelrob found himself forcibly guided through every stage of his ill-omened journey. He saw Salinas’s ensorceled dancers in the House of the Setting Sun, remembered dimly the torments he had ripped from their minds with his magic. He saw Jacobson’s kindly besotted face, and the bodies of revelers weaving between lantern-haunted trees. He saw and heard the coming of Tamrel, the minstrel’s bone-white mask glistening in the commingled light of the Twin Moons. Then it was onward, from lesser to greater atrocity, and Kelrob writhed amid the duff, nearly losing his grip on reason. The sight of towers crumbling, of twisted bodies and raging fires, returned to him not as a dream but as actuality. He heard again the screams of his nightmare, now recognized as true-memory, and witnessed in maddening repetition the moment Jacobson had tried to kill himself. Then came Nuir, dreadful and fierce and frail, and Lord Azumana her father, who had penitently strode off to the slaughter after hearing Tamrel’s song. With a groan Kelrob turned his face from the sun. He relived it all, each horror unwittingly labeled and preserved by the mental conditioning he had undergone as an initiate in the Mentatis Discipline.

  Finally, after several minutes, the involuntary examination of events was complete. Kelrob groaned and eased himself upwards, his limbs protesting, joints popping and snapping like bracken crushed beneath a heavy tread. Looking blearily to his right, he saw a mound of brown-gold leaves, Nuir’s sable braid trailing from beneath it. She was still asleep, similarly mummified, her head cradled against the twisted root of an oak. With a groan Kelrob swiveled his attention to the left, seeking Jacobson, but the big man was not there. The forest was still, deathly still; Kelrob shivered as he struggled to his feet, leaves sloughing from the abused fabric of his robes.

  He saw Jacobson almost immediately, sitting on a jut of moss-crusted stone beneath the curve of a denuded ash tree, silver lute strapped over his broad shoulders. He was clearly lost in contemplation, one hand shoved beneath his chin, the other toying with a crimson leaf. The mask’s lips seemed curved in a frown, and Kelrob took several steps forward, undergrowth crackling beneath his boots. The sound did nothing to disturb Jacobson, though his hand suddenly closed and crushed the leaf, then opened, scattering a cloud of vivid red fragments.

  Kelrob approached the rock, reached it, eased down beside his friend. A cold energy ran through him, and he realized Tamrel was in possession of the body. He said nothing, watched as the bard picked another leaf from a hollow in the stone and trailed Jacobson’s coarse nails along the stem, the contours, the dry and brittle veins.

  “I am perplexed,” Tamrel said at length.

  Kelrob shifted his weight. Picking up a leaf of his own, be began to dismember it, tearing and ripping until he was left with nothing. Only then did he raise his head and say, “What do you mean?”

  Tamrel released a long, low sigh, his grief mirrored in the faint vibration of the silver lute slung over his back. “I am dissatisfied with the course of this narrative,” he said.

  Kelrob blinked, the gum of sleep still clouding his mind. He looked sidelong at the mask’s pale face. “This is the story you chose,” he said, with a shrug of his shoulders. “I’m none too happy with it either.”

  Tamrel chuckled with an uncharacteristic human mirth. Turning to Kelrob, the mask’s lips curved into a distant smile. “As I weave our quest into song, I see that, through some sour twist of plot, I have become an antagonist. An ambiguous antagonist, perhaps; but this should not be. I am the bearer of truth. It is my duty to
be the ally of change, to spur on the burgeoning hero, yet I find Kelrob Kael-Pellin most reluctant to accept his path.”

  Kelrob cast his eyes up to the sun’s bright disk, his cheeks flushing redly. “I will never follow you willingly,” he said. “You are a murderer. You stole the body and soul of my friend.”

  “I cannot deny the latter, but the former is gross distortion. I have killed none. What men do when their souls are stripped of burden and shackle is what they truly desire.”

  A thin trail of black smoke trickled over the sun, the fume of Tannigal’s burning. Kelrob watched as it coiled crookedly up from the west. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, with a quick nervous laugh. “You know this quest is futile. When I fail I will make good on my end of the bargain, and you will have your hero.”

  The mask tilted to one side. “If you are thus resigned, why do you bother to resist me?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose because you are the antagonist.”

  Tamrel jerked to his feet and staggered back, as if struck a blow. “And how have I come to personify such a limited archetype?” he cried, the mask shivering on Jacobson’s face. “I followed you from the wood out of wonderment, out of hunger, but above all out of weariness, for the energies of the world have long been ebbing, barely lingering at the root of the eldest trees. Never before did I seek out the source of this degeneration, never before have my own powers been great enough to step beyond the influence of the black standing-stones and the hidden groves where my counsel and craft are sought. But Jacobson, burning so bright, went like a star before me, guiding my immaterial migration; I emerged into a world of chained joys and hidden ecstasies, of lies cast into the mold of truth. I do not understand the nature of human magic, but I now see that it condenses rather than frees, ensnares rather than summons, and that man is powerless to access it without the presence of that hideous glowing metal. The people of your country, the brothers and sisters of your race, are bound by fetters of enchantment and material acquisition, soul-shells obsessed with hoarding the basest element of their essence. Never before in the long spiral of the world has mortal incarnation been so grossly misunderstood! And now I am come, the bearer of the old flame, whose inferno is the kiss of cleansing, to find that my just actions in the face of so gnarled and grotesque a world are cast as the calamities of a villain! I can only assume that the corruption is too deep, the lens too cracked and warped, for any to truly perceive and understand my actions. To you I am a murderer, a bringer of chaos, my songs the demise of your acclimated world, yet I have shown you what lies beyond the veil, given you visions of immemorial time, hinted at the deepest draught of knowledge for which your blackened lips so atavistically thirst! But still you persist in casting me in the shadow-role of the great Enemy - why, Kelrob, why do you do this? For now I am chained by the sacral quest, and should you fail you will yield to me, but where is the triumph in despairing surrender? I have become a force of daemonic coercion, a destroyer instead of a maker, who must break a soul to set it free!” Froth gathered on the lips of the mask as Tamrel raved, his musical voice rising to a harsh, grating rasp. The azure of his eyes flared as he bowed before Kelrob, pressing the cold lips of the mask to the startled magician’s knuckles.