The Dragon Thief (Sorcery and Sin Book 1)

by Justin DePaoli

  “This isn’t right, you know,” he told the tree. “I command the realm of the dead. Darkness like this shouldn’t blind me.”

  The tree didn’t answer. Most trees do not answer, because they do not talk. But most trees do not share the soul of Hilnade, god of mischief. Mischief, as Hilnade had learned, comes with a price. If you piss off—or in Hilnade’s case, piss on—the wrong god, you’ll find yourself pummeled into the bark of a tree, made deranged, mostly dead, corrupted and utterly mad while spending a tortured eternity forever hungering for the flesh of living things.

  This was one of many reasons Gynoth did not keep company with gods. That and because most had checked out a long time ago.

  He crossed his arms and waited. Nothing happened. Or rather, no one approached.

  “Lazy, lazy witches,” he said. Was that sobbing? “Ulauna,” he called. “Imriss. Selise, Bevry?” The sobbing stopped abruptly, but still no one approached. “An old friend is here to see you. I’ve returned, as luck would have it.” He then muttered, “Or fate.”

  A weak, pathetic voice peeped. “Gynoth?”

  “Come out here. You know I’m not fond of climbing inside the mouth of a tortured god. You never know when it will close.”

  The sound of bare feet slapping against roots announced the arrival of Imriss the witch. Or as Gynoth had always called her, Imriss the Lumbering. He couldn’t see her, but her heavy-footed movements always gave her away.

  “Where are your sisters?” he asked.

  A long bout of silence. Then, “Wickeds… wickeds! Dead! In the dirt. In the soil, ’neath the roots. Ya hear me? Dead!”

  “Did you not feed your tree its nutrients? You know he gets angry if you don’t hold up your end of the bargain.”

  “Flames, flames! They took Ulauna and Selise. Our savior, our god above and below and all around us—the one who is good and mighty! He took Bevry, ’cause Bevry was a wicked, wicked one. She didn’t feed him. She lied. But I don’t lie, and I won’t die.”

  How far she has fallen, Gynoth thought. “Ulauna and Selise should have known better than to go toward the light.” He chuckled to himself—his sense of humor was slowly coming back.

  “Selise, stupid! So, so stupid. But Ulauna, noooo. I was there, I was with her when it happened. There were no flames. No fire. Then… then! The boy, he come running at us, fire bouncing on a stick. He had no fire before.”

  “Fascinating,” Gynoth said. “The—”

  “Listen! He went gone. Gone, poof. You understand?”

  “No.”

  “He vanished! Into the air! Into the deep deepness. He was there, then not. Then he was there again, but he had fire. I thinks he was a Wraith Walker.”

  It appeared Gynoth had been too quick to judge Imriss as a devolved, babbling idiot. A Wraith Walker here? Strange. A Wraith Walker anywhere could have fit the profile of strange, unless they had repopulated themselves while Gynoth took his long nap in the dirt. He hadn’t given the derelict time travelers much thought since he had awoken again, but if they remained, that would make his journey home much simpler.

  “The curse,” Imriss hissed, “has left us.”

  “I told you it wouldn’t last forever. You have charms. You have your own devices. What have you done with them?”

  “He desires them all, bones and flesh. I sneaks upon the sinners who walk these woods, and I captures them. I barely brings ’em back, and he’s already devoured them. No bones means no charms to attract the sinners. But you! Curse these Woods again, you must.”

  Centuries ago, Gynoth had struck a deal with four witches who had moved into the Sanctum Woods and made a pact with Hilnade. The three-way deal went like this.

  In exchange for the flesh of man, Hilnade would grant the witches domain over the Woods and its surrounding lands. The witches intended to parlay this into expanding their influence across all of Avestas, establishing a new, powerful coven. Gynoth promised to curse the Woods, attracting travelers from all over—and thereby fresh food for Hilnade—if the witches kept any and all from passing through the Woods to the other side; the necromancer had an interest south of the Woods and preferred not to attract attention.

  Gynoth’s gamble had ended with his death, because the witches had failed to uphold their end of the deal.

  “Fine,” he said. “Consider your Woods cursed once more.”

  Imriss gasped. “A fine, a good necromancer! I always knew—”

  “But,” Gynoth said, cutting her off, “I of course want a favor in return. I’m not a nice, charitable person, Imriss. You know this.”

  Imriss waited for the terms and conditions. Gynoth guessed her face was one of scrunched-up fury.

  “I want your eyes,” he said.

  She scoffed. “No! Only one pair left. One! Can’t make another all by myself, so no! You won’t get it.”

  “Then enjoy your final days. I’m sure your liver will satiate Hilnade’s hunger. Until he desires your kidneys. Then your toes…”

  “Wait!” Imriss cried. “Wait! You… you can borrow the eyes. Borrow only, do you hear? I need them. I need them!”

  “I’m aware of your needs, Imriss. Give them to me.”

  The witch plodded forth. “Hold out your hand.”

  “It’s already out.”

  “Oh. Er. Well, here, you bag o’ bones.”

  Gynoth closed his hand over two slimy and squishy eyeballs. He thanked Imriss, promised he’d be back as soon as possible, then departed for the Woods’ edge. He needed moonlight to work with.

  A raven pruned its feathers atop the bare boughs of a dead tree. Moments later, as a noxious smoggy cloud leaked out of the soil and encapsulated the tree, the raven fell.

  That little trick of Gynoth’s would allow the Daughters to zero in on his location, but what’s a necromancer without an aptitude for delivering one to and from death? Also, he was beginning to feel more like himself. The Daughters would need to bring half of Silderine to place him back in the grave, just as they had the first time around. But things were different now.

  They weren’t prepared for him, for starters.

  Gynoth knelt at the raven’s head. He put a couple fingers to the bird’s skull, felt the warm pulsation of a fleeting soul burn through his hand. The soul spun through the cosmos, hurtling toward its final resting place, where the raven would know eternal peace.

  Gynoth chased it down. He snatched it, wrenched it back just as he had with the souls of those villagers of the Spigatoon Mountains.

  Life—perverted life—bled back into the raven’s glassy eyes. It opened its beak and squawked meekly.

  “I own you, little black bird of death,” Gynoth said, stroking its plumage. “But fly for me, fly high and far and show me where this Wraith Walker intends to go, and I’ll release you. Here.” He massaged one of the eyeballs against the tip of the bird’s beak.

  The raven opened and gently pinched the eye in its mouth. It shuddered as Gynoth trespassed into its mind.

  Fly, he said, his voice echoing inside its skull. Beyond these Woods, to the south. Fly.

  The raven righted itself and took to the air. It would fly tirelessly without need for rest or food, because those essentials depart from the body when the soul does. And they only return if birthed back to life as Gynoth had been, not dredged up from the dead as he’d done with the raven and villagers.

  Gynoth sat on the cold dirt, propping himself up against the tree. He watched the eye as its swirling vortex of utter nothingness transformed into a picture, the vantage point of which was ever moving and high above. He saw an entanglement of trees in the eye, a seemingly endless canopy that lunged this way and that.

  But as the raven flapped its wings and soared through the sky, the trees became sparser until there were few and sometimes none at all. The bird had reached the other side of the Sanctum Woods.

  Several boring hours had passed of watching nothing but mountainous terrain intersect flat plains that gave way to rolling hills before the
whole pattern circled back around itself. Holding the eye for so long had made Gynoth’s flesh soggy and soft, much like spending too many hours in the bath will do. But the mindless, monotonous night eventually passed, and morning came, bringing with it a sight that had Gynoth’s brow bending with intrigue.

  The eye showed him a caravan of sorts, its travelers unidentifiable so far from the raven above. But the bird understood its objective, knew what its master wanted. It tucked in its wings and plunged toward the rear wagon of the caravan. There it landed, on the wagon framework. It hopped along, gathering information for Gynoth to discern. From wagon to wagon it went, sweeping its beak across supplies which were few and occupants who were many and almost all of whom were sleeping.

  Those who were awake stared hopelessly at their feet, heads hung. A good thing too, because seeing a raven holding an eyeball in its beak could spark hysteria. It’s not an everyday sight, unless you made a habit of traveling with witches.

  Near the front of the caravan, second or third wagon, the raven again hopped along, swiveled its head from right to left and jumped to its next destination.

  The faces Gynoth saw in his mind and those present in the eye did not match. This is because, while the raven had moved on, the necromancer had not. He saw something in that previous wagon, and it excited him. He committed the faces to memory, burned them into his mind like a brand into flesh.

  A boy and a man. There was a woman too, but he discarded her; she was unimportant. Maybe the boy was too, but he doubted this, for two reasons.

  First, this search revolved entirely around finding a boy who was a Wraith Walker. Secondly, the man sitting beside the boy was, without question, the Keeper.

  How curious, Gynoth thought. Where are you going, Baern? And who’s the boy?

  Gynoth mapped out the points of interest in Avestas. Nothing that way, he thought, except Haeglin.

  It didn’t make much sense. None of this did. Capturing the Keeper—and it certainly appeared Baern was not traveling with the caravan on his own volition—that required a capability few in this world possessed. Maybe he was too old, had grown incompetent.

  Gynoth’s knowledge of the Keeper consisted of only bits and pieces. He knew only that he tapped into the restorative realm of sorcery was an ageless wonder courtesy of occult doings, and—more importantly—this was the fundamental brick in the wall that barred Gynoth from reaching his homeland.

  Gynoth pictured the face of the boy again. If he traveled with the Keeper, he’d have no need to burn the witches; Baern could have used his sorcery to shield him. Unless, Gynoth thought, he wanted the boy to practice.

  He didn’t like this. The information he had was sparse, didn’t offer him a single certainty. But if this boy was the Wraith Walker he needed, he couldn’t let the opportunity pass him by.

  To Haeglin he’d go.

  He looked at the eyeball, considered his promise to Imriss. Then he shrugged, pocketed the eye, and cut a path through the center of the Sanctum Woods, far away from Hilnade, far away from Imriss.

  She wouldn’t last long without Gynoth’s curse. But what did she expect? She had failed to keep her promise six hundred years ago, and because of that, Gynoth had died.

  He’d told her he wasn’t a nice person. And she should have known the taste of revenge delighted him.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “There she is! Oh, yes, ma’ams and sirs, there she is.” The ever-rollicking Jocklun jumped to his feet in the foremost wagon and clapped his gloved hands. He spun around, wearing a smile so big it lifted his cheeks into his eyes. “Haeglin, my boys! My girls! My little itsy bitsy weensy teensy prisoners. They call it the crown of the East, you know? Or is it the jewel? Ah, no matter! No, sir, no ma’am, does not matter, because we’re here and that’s all that counts. Innit, my dear Elaya?”

  Elaya sat smooshed between Lavery and Baern a few wagons back. She said nothing.

  Jocklun pouted. “Oh, put on a wittle smile. Please? You hurt my feelings when you look like that. It’s not personal, I told you. We’re so similar, after all, you and me. Little people in a big world, doing what we can to survive. Sometimes that means killing, stealing, lying and, er, well—making deals with the devil.” He cupped his hand around his mouth and whispered, “Don’t tell Olyssi I said that.”

  Lavery didn’t know it was possible to hate someone more than he hated Maren O’Keefe. But Jocklun proved it was indeed possible. Actually, Lavery hated pretty much everyone right now.

  He hated Elaya and the Eyes for kidnapping him. He hated Baern for not telling him he was a Wraith Walker. He hated himself for not being a good king. Good kings didn’t go frolicking about in tombs, getting themselves abducted.

  I don’t want to die, Lavery thought, looking at the mighty spire of Haeglin. It was a silly thought, really. He probably wouldn’t die. He would be used as a pawn, a tool of negotiation between Haeglin and Valios. But Elaya, Tig, Adom and the rest of the mercenaries? He doubted they’d be so lucky. And because of that realization, his hatred for them faded like a cube of ice dipped in a pot of boiling water.

  Sure, they had done bad things, but they had treated him so nicely, better than anyone had ever treated him in Valios, except maybe Baern.

  Had it been just about any other occasion, Lavery would have probably found himself ogling the imposingness and majesticness of Haeglin in awe. Beauty, however, is not only in the eye of the beholder but also in the womb of the circumstance. Bad things were about to happen, and beauty has no place in times like these.

  For hours now, soupy gray clouds had mucked up the sky, but they’d passed harmlessly above. Now, they began drooling a cold sprinkle that made Lavery shiver. It didn’t help that his crotch was already wet from peeing himself twice; Jocklun had refused all requests for rests since last night.

  “And here we are,” Jocklun announced gleefully. The caravan came to a stop about a hundred feet before the domineering pillar of slate and rock that spiraled up and up and up, as if a stairway to the heavens.

  In one of the many texts that Maren had forced Lavery to read to prepare for his kingship, it was said that Haeglin had once been the Alter of Yalmur, the god of creation. Even during the battle of good and evil, between the fallen gods and the risen, the spire had never fallen.

  It didn’t take a whole lot beyond looking at the earthen citadel in the flesh to deduce why. Lavery couldn’t fathom an army on Avestas, or for that matter all the armies on Avestas, sacking the place. He might not have had the same strategic mind as Maren O’Keefe, but he knew that high ground gives you the advantage, and Haeglin had nothing but high ground. The only way forward was up, and from Lavery’s point of view, the paths were narrow and hemmed in by walls of limestone and claystone and chalk—essentially perches for hidden attackers and archers and places from which pots of boiling water and scalding oil could be poured.

  He shivered at the thought. War did not interest him, not even as a means to pique his curiosity. The entire concept of war confounded him. Why did smart men, good men, decide to kill one another so often throughout history? Why couldn’t they embrace peace? To make matters worse, their battles which littered the plains and mountains and rivers with bones were usually carried out under the guise of safety and liberty.

  No general or king or spymaster cared about such things. They only wanted to chase after bigger and more bountiful holdings and spread their influence across the world. Sometimes they just wanted to kill for the fun of it. Lavery had read about men like that, women too, even boy kings—they were downright mad, the kind of people whose day would be made by cutting your tongue off and seeing you suffer.

  Lavery might have only been eleven, but he had big eyes for a harmonious world. He hoped and prayed—even though he hadn’t decided which god, if any, he truly believed in—that he would never see war in his lifetime.

  Lately, though… well, things looked bleak.

  After much grumbling and several back-and-forth no-I-told-you-to-g
rab-its, Jocklun finally grasped a small black flag in his hand. Since the rise of intertrade in Avestas, most kingdoms had adopted a standardized approach to allowing caravans and visitors inside their walls: the flag system.

  It revolved around three colors of flags: red, black, and white. Red suggested you were there solely for matters regarding to trade, and you’d wave the black one if you had important affairs to conduct with Haeglin’s crown. The white flag conveyed you were a transient guest who was there for neither of these matters.

  The level of interrogation one would be subject to depended entirely on the color of one’s flag, with black being the most vigorous of them all. If you lied about the reason for your visit, punishments were often… unsettling.

  Jocklun waved the flag like a frantic, starving ape trying to rip the last banana in all the jungle from a tree. In fact, most things Jocklun did, he looked like a frantic, starving ape trying to rip the last banana in all the jungle from a tree.

  The guards atop the parapet waved the caravan in.

  The castles and fortresses and cities of most kingdoms on Avestas were corralled by a square framework of walls and towers. Maybe even a moat, if the crown in question had the finances and geography. Haeglin’s defenses did not form a square, and there was no moat. Their walls were made almost entirely from the earth itself, save a few patchwork details here and there, and formed a wide circle. Picture a fat cylinder and you’ll have the gist of what the bottommost rung looked like.

  A sublime ramp of smooth, polished brick took you into the kingdom, provided you—or your horses—weren’t too fatigued to walk upward for a quarter mile to get there.

  Jocklun paused the caravan at the base of the ramp and waited. Had he clapped those ridiculous fingerless gloves of his, flamboyantly pointed at the gate and exuberantly said, “Onward!” he would have never had the chance to speak again. Entrance procedure is simple: you wait for the guards to come to you; you do not, under any circumstance—unless that circumstance is desired suicide—go to the guards.

  Lavery heard the screeching of winches and the grinding of an opening portcullis. A battalion of towering Jackals clad in gold-painted plate walked down the ramp.