The Sorcerer's Abyss (The Sorcerer's Path)

by Brock Deskins

  Only a few pirates like him had recently broken from tradition and worked as a consolidated team instead of going it alone. The new navy and better-armed merchant galleons made pirating a risky affair. Many of the other captains called him spineless and a poor excuse for a pirate. Jake thought himself pragmatic and smart enough to adapt to the changing winds.

  “Captain, something coming toward us off the port rail,” came the report from the crow’s nest.

  Captain Jake pulled the brass spyglass from his hip, extended it to its full length, and peered out into the ocean. From his lower vantage point, he failed to spot what his lookout had seen. Then a minute later, a small distortion on the sea’s surface appeared in his view. The swell appeared to grow larger as it approached his two ships.

  The Captain cupped his hands in front of his mouth and called up to the crow’s nest. “What do you make it out to be?”

  The lookout had a much larger spyglass and could mount it to the edge of the crow’s nest. “Looks like a swell, maybe breaking into a wave.”

  Rogue waves were not unheard of, but the sea was almost glass smooth and the waters here were very deep. Those two conditions alone made the possibility of a rogue wave very unlikely. Jake continued to watch the swell, now definitely a wave as the white froth of water highlighted its apex and moved with unnatural speed. Its location and the speed of its approach was not the only thing unusual about it. Any single wave like that, usually caused by some massive upheaval like an erupting volcano or earthquake, spanned miles. This one was, at most, a few hundred yards wide and heading directly for his ships.

  “Batten the hatches and tie in!” Jake ordered.

  “Captain, we ain’t finished transferring the cargo,” a crewman yelled back.

  “Forget the cargo! Someone’s set a spirit on us.”

  His crew scrambled about the deck, following the Captain’s orders. The men redoubled their efforts when the wave was close enough for them to see with their own eyes. It continued to grow as it got closer, and it now reached higher than the ship’s deck. Captain Jake kept his spyglass trained on the strange wave and gasped as he made out a form beginning to take shape in the frothing cusp.

  Captain’s Jake’s jaw began to tremble uncontrollably as a face, etched with fury appeared. There was no longer any doubt this was an unnatural phenomenon, nor was he a random target. The Witch of North Haven had finally found him. He had heard of the deaths in the city and of the young woman who always asked for him by name before killing every slave runner she could get her hands on. Jake had long suspected her identity, but now there was no longer any doubt. The girl wizard he had captured and sold to the Vila had escaped and was now hunting him down, just as she had promised.

  He learned of the Vila’s death at the hands of an army led by a sorcerer. He assumed it was the girl’s master. She had warned him he was a very dangerous man and would come for her. However, he also heard that the sorcerer had died in the battle, so he thought himself reasonably safe. Jake still avoided the mainland ports, especially after hearing about the witch looking for him. Apparently, he had underestimated the girl’s determination and ability.

  An awful keening like the wail of a banshee coupled with the force of a hurricane filled his ears and turned his guts to water. Every man aboard stopped what they were doing, clasped their hands over their ears, and looked out in horror at the wave as it grew until it towered over the top of the mainmast. All could see the face of the witch, screaming her rage. Deep within her briny eyes, her hatred promised death for every man aboard.

  The witch wave formed two fists the size of large wagons and the entire form crashed down upon his ship, crushing everything and everyone beneath its thousands of gallons of liquid mass. Wood splintered and shattered under the assault and crushed or washed men from the deck. The ensorcelled wave tore Captain Jake’s ship apart and pulled it beneath the briny surface. The second ship fared better as it was not the witch’s focus, but it too was brutalized by the terrifying construct. The outer edge of the wave snapped all three masts, stripped it of sails, and nearly capsized it. The wave swept at least two dozen men overboard, half of whom never returned to the surface. The terrifying assault passed as swiftly as it struck.

  Ellyssa awoke, sore, exhausted, and in a great deal of pain. She was lying next to the pool, how long she had been there was anyone’s guess. Given how hungry she was, probably at least a day if not two or even three. She was lucky to have apparently rolled over and out of the pool at some point, or she probably would have drowned.

  Movement in the darkness alerted her to the fact she was not alone. Ellyssa drew a tendril of power from the Source and created a soft light. Even that small feat made her head swim and ache with a dull throbbing. At the edge of her pale blue light, she saw Wolf sitting at her small, rickety table with Ghost practically attached to his hip as usual.

  “How long have I been laying here?” Ellyssa asked, staring up at the ceiling.

  “I found you about a day and half ago,” Wolf replied. “A rough guess is that you were lying in that puddle for almost a day already.”

  “How did you find me?”

  Wolf let out a laugh that sounded closer to a bark. “It was easy, Ghost could smell you a mile away. Once I got within a hundred yards, I could smell you too. Just because you want to hunt pirates and slavers doesn’t mean you have to match them in hygiene.”

  Ellyssa knew she had let herself go and accepted Wolf’s criticism. When her entire life turned to hunting down Captain Jake and killing slavers, grooming fell far down the list of importance. After she left the school, it stopped mattering at all. She wanted to snap back that he was not one to talk about hygiene, but he had stopped being that filthy, wild boy a long time ago. He was eighteen now and every inch a man, a man who knew most of the girls at the school liked to look at him and giggled whenever he came around.

  Wolf had shed the dirty, stringy boy look practically overnight a couple of years ago. He was now a young man with a body chiseled from a life of living in the woods and doing everything himself. He kept his long, black hair in a tight braid and enjoyed showing off his fit body for the local girls by refusing to wear a shirt until winter forced everyone else into parkas. Technically, it was not a new behavior; it was just no one really noticed until recently.

  “You know, with running water inside your cave, it wouldn’t kill you to use it once in a while.”

  Ellyssa felt disgusting. Dried blood caked her face where it had run from her ears and nose. Her clothes had been sodden and then dried on her body, and they had been nowhere near clean to begin with.

  “Fine, turn around,” Ellyssa ordered.

  Surprise flashed across Wolf’s face. “Whoa, I didn’t mean right this instant!”

  “Doesn’t matter. These clothes are ruined, and I’m not putting a clean set on over a filthy body. Not again, anyway. Now turn around.”

  Wolf quirked his mouth in a smirk and turned around. He casually let his hand fall onto the wolf’s head pommel of the shortsword Azerick had given him years ago. The blade was magical and he discovered with it, he could see through Ghost’s eyes. It wasn’t as if he wanted to leer at Ellyssa, he saw her as a sister and he was sure she looked at him as a brother, but it could make for some really good jokes later on.

  Ellyssa started to peel off her clothes then spotted Ghost looking at her with what she could swear was a grin. “Ghost, you turn around too! I don’t know what you are up to, but I know it’s something. I can feel it.”

  Wolf barked out another laugh and Ghost joined him at the far end of the chamber. Ellyssa found the remnants of the dagger at the bottom of the pool, now nothing more than a charred lump of slag, and tossed it out. She wadded up her shirt and used it to scrub most of the sweat, blood, and crud from her body. She made sure Wolf and Ghost were behaving themselves before briskly crossing the room and retrieving one of her few spare sets of clothing.

  “Okay, you two creeps can turn around n
ow.”

  “I brought you some food. I figured you would be hungry when you woke up,” Wolf said. He brought two plates laden with edibles over to the small table.

  “I’m starving!”

  Wolf picked at his plate while Ellyssa scarfed down everything on her plate and then began picking morsels off his. Wolf let the famished girl eat without interruption until she relieved nearly half of his plate of its contents.

  “So what did you do?” Wolf asked once Ellyssa’s chewing slowed enough for her to talk between bites.

  Ellyssa swallowed and took a breath. “I found Captain Jake.”

  “In North Haven?” Wolf asked.

  Ellyssa shook her head as she chased down another bite of food with a drink of water. “He was out at sea. I found him by using a type of scrying spell.” Ellyssa explained how she found Sonjay, taken his knife, and then was attacked by Academy wizards. “I found another spell in the book enabling me to send a huge wave at his ship and I crushed it.”

  Wolf’s eyes widened. “Wow. So did you kill him?”

  Ellyssa’s shoulders slumped and she looked down at her empty plate. “I don’t think so. The last thing I saw was Captain Jake clinging onto a piece of wood. Some men were trying to get to him and there was another ship I didn’t sink.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “I don’t know. Still look for him, but now I don’t have any leads and he knows I’m after him.”

  “People are really upset about the book you took,” Wolf said with a glance at the tome open on the stone shelf.

  Ellyssa followed his eyes and took on a distant look. “I don’t care. They don’t know how to use it properly, and the book wants me, not them.”

  “The book wants you? It talks to you?”

  Ellyssa brought her attention back to the table. “Not really, not with words. It’s more like a feeling, emotions. No, not emotion, more like an urge or desire. I just know the book wants me and not them.”

  Wolf looked troubled by her explanation. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t sound good. How do you know this thing isn’t affecting you, making you do things? Allister said The Academy would stop at nothing to get their hands on that book. If you keep doing what you are doing, they will catch you eventually.”

  “The book is not making me do anything!” Ellyssa snapped. “It doesn’t care what I do, it doesn’t have any wants or designs other than to be used, and it wants to be used by me. Maybe they will get me one day and take the book. It won’t do them any good unless it decides to talk to them, and I don’t think it wants to. I don’t want to talk about the book. I won’t give it up.”

  It was Wolf’s turn to shrug. “Fine, then what do you want to talk about?”

  “I don’t want to talk about anything,” Ellyssa responded. She crossed her arms and looked away petulantly.

  “You need to talk to someone, otherwise you start talking to yourself and you’ll go mad.”

  “You talk to a wolf and you think I’m the one going mad?”

  Wolf smiled. “Ghost is a good listener and has never given me bad advice.”

  “Fine, I’ll get a pet. Go catch me a squirrel and I’ll talk to it.”

  “Squirrels are horrible listeners and even worse at giving good advice because they’re all nuts,” Wolf replied and broke out into laughter.

  “Yeah, I’m the one going crazy in this room,” Ellyssa mumbled dryly. “How long have you known where I was?”

  Wolf reined in his laughter and wiped his eyes. “We found you a couple weeks after you left the school.”

  “It took you that long?”

  “I didn’t care to look.”

  “So why did you?”

  “Roger was worried about you. He likes you. A lot I think,” Wolf told her.

  Ellyssa looked down at the table. “He’s better off forgetting about me.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I told him. So what are you going to do now?”

  Ellyssa looked around the cave. “I think the first thing I need to do is get some new clothes, but I’m too tired and sore to go into town.”

  “I can sneak some of your old stuff out of your room if you want. No one pays any real attention to me, except in the kitchens and some of the girls, and they aren’t interested in what I’m carrying.” Wolf burst out into another fit of laughter.

  “Thank you, Wolf. Some food would be nice too if you can get it.”

  “If? I’m Wolf of the wild. There are no ifs.”

  Ellyssa could not help but smile. The expression and the sentiment it caused felt alien to her. She could not remember the last time a smile adorned her face that was not driven by a sadistic glee for revenge. Wolf and Ghost disappeared out of the cleft making up her doorway and jogged west in the direction of the school. Despite having been unconscious for a couple of days, Ellyssa was exhausted and laid down on her makeshift bed for a nap.

  It was an easy task to jog the few miles to the school, but Ghost seemed particularly eager to make the trip back. As they drew nearer the school, Wolf could sense Ghost’s anxiety increasing, which caused a spike in his own. The two forest creatures stopped at the edge of the woods nearest the school. Wolf and Ghost stayed within the tree line as they made their way to the southern end of the school.

  Arrayed outside the main gates were at least two thousand soldiers and what appeared to be something close to two dozen wizards, all almost certainly from The Academy. Nearly an equal number of forces stood along the tops of the walls and the roofs of buildings. There did not appear to have been any hostile actions as of yet, but there was a definite tension in the air.

  “Ghost, creep closer so I can hear,” Wolf told his companion.

  The big wolf crouched and crept across the open expanse of land as if he were stalking prey. Wolf touched the pommel of his sword and merged his vision and hearing with Ghost’s. Ghost crept forward, his ears pitched toward the people on the ground exchanging words with those on the wall. Wolf guessed this army must have come by ship, as there was no way they would have gotten within a day of the school by land without him knowing.

  “Harvey,” Allister shouted down, “what is the meaning of this?”

  “I think you know, Allister,” Magus Harvey answered. “I told you I would either shut this school down or bring it under the control of The Academy.”

  “You bring armed men and wizards to a school full of children, my home?” the old archmage shouted in righteous fury.

  “This contingent is only to ensure no one acts rashly. It shall come to nothing as long as you comply with Academy edicts.”

  Miranda laid a restraining hand on Allister’s forearm. “Wait, look out there.”

  Allister looked to where Miranda pointed and saw a mass of cavalry flying Duchess Melina’s standard galloping toward the school. From the dust farther down the road, he assumed an equally large number of footmen followed. The clarion calls of a dozen horns preceded the cavalry’s arrival, likely in an attempt to preempt any hostile actions by either side.

  Duchess Melina reined her horse in hard with General Brague at her immediate right. She glared fiercely from under her open helm. “Who is in charge here?”

  Magus Harvey bowed at the waist. “I am in charge of this taskforce, Your Grace. I am Magus Robert Harvey, appointed by The Academy to carry out its instructions.”

  “I don’t give a damn if Solarian himself appointed you. How dare you bring an armed contingent into my duchy and threaten not just my citizens, but my own daughter and grandson! You will leave my territory immediately.”

  “Your Grace, your daughter and grandson are free to leave at any time,” the wizard said smoothly, “but this school unlawfully teaches magic and therefore falls under the jurisdiction of Academy law, not those of the state or the crown.”