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

by Brock Deskins

  If you are too stupid to give me control, I thought it best not to distract you. A wasted effort since you failed miserably anyway. I do not like this creature. You should kill him and take strength from his life essence.

  “I don’t like him either, but I still need him to get me out.” Azerick returned his attention to Fu’Marb. “You said we are getting close to the way out?”

  The demon’s entire body bobbed up and down. “Yes, Glorious Prince! I will lead you out. I will not fail you again.”

  “Go, but do not stray from my sight,” Azerick ordered.

  Fu’Marb waggled his entire body once more and carefully picked his way down the passage, constantly stopping ensure Azerick was following. Azerick allowed a shudder to reverberate through his body only after the demon turned away. The icy pain the shadow spawns’ attacks caused was agonizing, but he could not allow himself to show how badly they hurt him. Keeping his brilliant light blazing in his palm, Azerick followed the demon at a close but wary distance.

  The Rook fumed at yet another failed attempt. The luck of this creature was beyond anything he had dealt with before. He focused on stilling his anger and summoning his patience. Luck, no matter how potent, eventually ran out. It was the law of the cosmos, and when that happened, he would strike.

  The passage continued to cut a winding path through the red stone without any discernible indication they were getting nearer to finding a way out. Azerick was beginning to think Fu’Marb was intentionally leading him astray in hopes of creating another ambush. He still was not certain the demon was responsible for the first. Just as his suspicions began to nag him to the point he could no longer ignore them, Azerick noticed a slight diffusing of the darkness that was not due to his magical light.

  “See, Master, I have found the way for you!” Fu’Marb croaked excitedly.

  A few minutes later, the tunnel ended at what appeared to be a large, red eye. The landscape beyond shown at the end of the passageway with the usual dreary redness and wane light of the Fifth Circle, but it looked as glorious as the first sunrise he had seen after escaping the psylings. Fu’Marb darted ahead just outside the tunnel’s iris as Azerick followed him out.

  The Rook pressed his body against the ground in his supplicating manner, summoned his ethereal, soul-rending blade, and hid it beneath his body. He watched the sorcerer step from the tunnel and look up at the featureless sky. Now was the time to strike, while his guard was down.

  Azerick stepped from the tunnel and looked up. He found himself in some sort of canyon. Red stone cliffs stretched what must have been a thousand feet over his head in every direction but straight ahead. He glanced back at the supplicating balrog then looked back up at the towering cliffs and the only apparent way out.

  “I would ask where to from here, but it looks like there is only one direction that does not require wings,” Azerick said.

  The Rook crept silently closer on his belly. “Yes, My Prince. Through the gorge you will find your way.”

  “You sound like you do not intend to go with me.”

  “I should return to the battle. Where you must go is no place for Fu’Marb,” the demon explained.

  Azerick squinted into the distance but failed to see anything other than the red cliffs. “Where exactly am I going?”

  The Rook tensed his legs beneath him, their incredible strength more than sufficient to carry him the thirty feet separating him from his prey. The assassin leapt with his black blade held high.

  “Straight into the heart of oblivion!”

  Azerick spun, and although wary of the demon, his speed and the suddenness of the attack caught him by surprise. Fu’Marb covered half the distance between them by the time Azerick was able to turn far enough to see him. He saw the shadowy blade gripped in the assassin’s hand and knew if it was the same type of weapon as the shadow spawn in the tunnel then his wards were useless.

  Azerick tried to backpedal and raised his arm in a futile defense. Another, much larger shape dropped from the sky and crushed Fu’Marb to the ground hard enough to raise a cloud of dust. Azerick heard bones crunch with the impact. Drak’kar grabbed the balrog by the leg, slammed him into the ground twice, and then hurled him against the cliff with a sickening smack of more broken bones and a splatter of black, viscous blood.

  Drak’kar must have been clinging to one of the cliff sides, probably directly above the cave opening, and hid in a dark cleft of rock. Azerick had little time to ponder his fortune, both good and bad, as the demon lord lunged with his impossible speed and kicked him in the chest. Azerick flew back and struck the wall not far from the very dead Fu’Marb.

  “You see how pathetic you are? Even your own turn against you,” Drak’kar said.

  Azerick had not recovered from their previous battle, but he was not nearly as weak as he had been. He knew he would have only one chance and drew upon the Source. He laced his spell with abyssal power and unleashed it against his foe. Drak’kar actually smiled even as the strike blasted him from his feet and smashed him against the solid stone near the cave entrance.

  “I was hoping you were not just going to let me kill you without a fight.” Drak’kar laughingly grumbled as he regained his feet.

  “I will never go down without a fight!” Azerick shouted and tore at the two disparate sources of magic with wild abandon.

  Azerick shaped the spell similar to the one he had used to undermine the boulder that killed the dragon years ago. Only he fueled this one with the power of abyssal corruption on a scale he could have never achieved in his human body. Azerick struck not at Drak’kar, but the cliffs behind and to both sides of the demon lord. A deafening rumble filled the canyon as the stone shattered and fell in a hail of massive boulders so great it looked as though the world were imploding.

  Drak’kar roared furiously and tried to leap at the sorcerer bent in concentration. A boulder the size of a small cottage caught the demon prince in the back and crushed him to the ground much as he had done to Fu’Marb. Drak’kar continued to scream in pain and outrage until hundreds of feet of rock entombed him beneath its crushing embrace. Azerick stumbled back, gasping and avoiding the occasional tumbling rock not satisfied with burying just one demon.

  Azerick felt like passing out, but he knew if he gave into his weakness, he might never get up again. He took several steadying breaths and focused on the small mountain of fallen stones. Deep beneath its wasted surface, Azerick felt Drak’kar’s presence, alive, in pain, and very angry. He knew the demon lord was probably already calling to his minions for aid. Azerick needed to leave this area as quickly as his exhausted body would allow.

  Azerick thought of the many battles he had faced in his life, and the only one he recalled putting him in this much pain and left him feeling this weak was when the abyssal elf, Teraneshala, had nearly killed him. If it were not for the awesome strength and durability of Klaraxis’ body, he certainly would not be capable of pressing on or possibly surviving such a beating.

  The walls of the canyon continued to tower over him, looking down like gods, ready to crush him like an insect at the slightest misstep. The divide narrowed as if they were the hands of that god closing in to swat him. As the towering walls continued to contract, Azerick began to fear the fissure would close completely and he would have to climb the thousand or so feet of sheer rock face to escape this chasm.

  Just when he thought he had reached the inevitable end where the walls were close enough to touch with his outstretched arms, the fissure opened into a wide valley just a short ways ahead. Azerick escaped the narrow confines of the cleft and breathed a sigh of relief as he stepped into the much wider canyon. He then jumped when a voice spoke right into his ear.

  “I am so glad you finally made it,” the voice said silkily.

  Azerick spun and lashed out at whoever had spoken with a pathetic display of magic. Even that small effort made his head reel. He saw the speaker vanish in a puff of pink smoke, leaving behind only a vaporous silhouette and
the stench of brimstone.

  “So hostile,” Sharellan’s seneschal said.

  “What do you want, Krade,” Azerick demanded as he spun and faced the devil.

  The devil smiled. “I told you I would make you pay for your impertinence. Now is the time to collect.”

  Azerick replied with far more menace than he thought he could actually deliver. “I have faced Drak’kar twice and survived. Do not think that I am afraid of anything you can do.”

  “Me? I’m not going to do anything. It is much more satisfying to watch you torture yourself.”

  “If you expect me to torture myself you are in for a long wait.”

  “Nonsense. You have been torturing yourself from the time you got here, but like an amateur. I will show you what true pain is.” Krade waved at the expanse beyond. “What you see before you is the Valley of Lies. I am the Master of Lies and shall be your guide as you pass through it.”

  “Why would you think lies could torment me?” Azerick asked.

  “Because, as we examine and accept our lies, we discover truth, and the truth can be a very painful thing to behold.”

  “Why should I listen to the Master of Lies? Doesn’t that mean everything you say is a lie?”

  “Of course.”

  Azerick looked up at the cliffs reaching into the bland sky. “I refuse to dance to your tune, devil.”

  Azerick exchanged his soft, human fingernails for Klaraxis’ iron-like talons and began scaling the cliff face. Although severely weakened, Klaraxis’ incredible strength allowed Azerick to pull his body up the sheer, expansive escarpment. Even with his demonic strength, the climb was arduous, and his already weakened body soon began to flag.

  He looked up and saw hundreds of feet of rock rising above him and a nearly equal distance beneath him when he looked down. Azerick took a minute to rest and then continued his ascent. Thrusting hands into cracks and claws into solid stone when no handholds presented themselves, Azerick continued to pull himself up the wall. Minutes stretched into hours and every movement became agony, but he refused to relent.

  “Why do you continue to punish yourself?” Krade asked. “This physical self-torture became boring hours ago.”

  Azerick looked over his left shoulder and saw the devil perched on an outcropping of rock he swore was not there before. He looked past Krade’s grinning face and down at the ground, which still seemed the exact same distance away as the last time he looked despite at least two hours of constant climbing.

  “Why am I no nearer the top?” Azerick Demanded. He suspected the devil was involved in some sort of trickery.

  “The top is a lie, of course,” Krade replied gleefully. “Now I get to ask a question. Why are you so afraid to face your lies? Do you fear the truth so much you willingly put yourself in this physical agony to avoid the assault to your conscience?”

  “I have no lies from which to hide!”

  “That is a lie. See how easily they fly from your lips, like bees from a hive. That is okay, for within the lie rests the truth if one has the courage to open one’s eyes and see it. Do you have the courage to look upon your lies and see the truth, or do you prefer to keep brute-forcing your way past it like you are doing now; like you have always done?”

  “I have no lies, you damnable devil! I have always lived my life as one of truth. I have faced more truths than you can imagine!”

  Krade tilted his head back and laughed. “Yet here you are, clinging to this crag, this towering wall of lies, like an insect instead of simply walking the valley. If you have nothing to hide then the valley holds no fear for you.”

  “Fine, I will walk your Valley of Lies and show you I speak only the truth, as I always have. Now help me off this damnable wall.”

  “No.”

  Azerick’s face burned. “Why not? If you are so eager to have me walk your valley, then help me down so we can get on with it.”

  “You chose to ascend this wall despite it being monumentally more taxing. The ground is where you will find the truth, and you must reach it yourself.”

  Azerick gathered up the Source and tried to blast the arrogant devil from his perch. Krade vanished in a puff of pink smoke with a laugh as Azerick’s spell shattered the rock ledge. Pieces of stone rained down on his head and Azerick felt himself falling. The ruddy stone of the cliff flashed by as the wind rushed past his ears with an eerie howl.

  The sorcerer struck the ground and his vision went black. Azerick was certain he now stood at the precipice marking the final end to his life. He almost welcomed it. Light flooded his senses when he opened his eyes and gasped in a great lungful of air to replace what his impact violently expelled. Azerick knew he should be dead now; even in this demonic body, such a fall should be at the very least crippling, if not lethal. He reasoned this to be another affect of this peculiar place.

  Krade’s long face filled his vision as he looked up at the mauve sky. “Ouch. I did not expect you to be in such a hurry to face your lies.”

  Azerick rolled painfully to his feet. “I have no lies. I am not like you, Klaraxis, or these other retched creatures.”

  “When it comes to honesty, you fall far short of Klaraxis. He, like most of us here, are far more honest than you have ever been. Klaraxis has no delusions as to his motives, desires, or actions. You, a murderer, and at such a young age when you started upon the path of slaughter, have lived your entire life wrapped in lies. Your every motive a lie to justify your bloodlust.”

  “I killed only those who tried to hurt me or to avenge my family’s murder,” Azerick said through clenched teeth.

  “You lie,” Krade countered. “You say you hunted and killed all these men to avenge your parents and friends. What good does a dead man do another dead man, or woman? Your desire to kill those people had nothing to do with helping your mother, father, Jon Locke, or any of the others. It was all about making yourself feel better. It was about reclaiming power so you did not feel helpless. It was about punishing those who took from you. Go on, deny it.”

  Azerick opened his mouth to do just that, but the words would not come. The lies that had come so easily to mind clogged his windpipe and refused to become words. He knew the truth. He wanted revenge, he wanted to punish everyone who wronged him and caused him pain. Not for those he lost, but to ease his own conscience, to relieve the burden of his failure to protect them. Every man or woman he killed, every drop of spilled blood was a balm meant to soothe the pain of his own fear, anger, and guilt.

  “Ah, I see in the watery pools of your eyes you now accept the truth you hid even from yourself. The greatest lies ever told never pass our lips.”

  Azerick took a shuddering breath. “Fine, I killed those people because I wanted to punish them for what they had done. I did it for me, but the people I killed were horrible people who enjoyed causing grief and deserved to die. But I am not like you and these other creatures who kill simply for the joy of it! I am still better than that!”

  Krade’s chiseled face split with a pointy-toothed grin. “Really? Everyone was evil and deserved to die? You know this for a fact? Did you know everyone in the guild house you burned to the ground? Is it impossible to believe some of those men, some of those children, who were inside were not monsters and threw in with the thieves out of necessity? Have you never been placed in a situation where you had to act out of necessity even when such actions went against your basic nature? What about all of those who died when you destroyed the psyling city? Were they all evil? I would say not even a majority would fall under what you consider evil, and they numbered in the tens of thousands.”

  “I never meant to destroy the city! Their deaths were an accident.” Azerick felt a fresh wave of remorse wash over him.

  “I’m sure knowing that makes them feel better about dying.”

  “So what do you want from me? Do you want me to say I’m no better than Klaraxis?” Azerick demanded.