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

by Brock Deskins

  Thinking quickly, Ellyssa wrenched open another gate directly below her. Her and the fist vanished into the gate’s entrance and spilled out into the street just beyond the mansion’s surrounding wall. Severed from its magical point of origin, the earthen hand crumbled back into an inanimate pile of dirt, stones, and grass.

  Reaching down and grabbing a double handful of small rocks, Ellyssa sent them streaking skyward. The rocks burst into flame and plummeted back down like small meteors, filling the majority of the front lawn with dozens of man-sized craters.

  Ellyssa could not see the wizard past the wall, the devastation her spell had wrought, or if she managed to strike him with one of the meteors. She sincerely doubted it and was not about to gamble her life by sitting still. She darted into the alley across the street just as a massive section of the wall next to her exploded.

  Rhys was impressed with the girl’s talent and imagination. She fought much more like a Black Tower wizard than any bookish Academy mage he had ever met. There was something in her determination and ferocity that reminded him of the way the sorcerer had fought in the days prior to that terrifying night when the demon brought the tower down.

  Several orange streaks shooting up over the stone wall interrupted his recollections. Knowing what was coming, Rhys took off at a run as the world began exploding around him. He poured power into his magical shield and unconsciously raised an arm to protect his eyes from the dirt and rock blasting up from the ground. It felt as if the fusillade would never end despite its relative brevity. The moment the last meteor struck, Rhys spun toward the wall where he saw the spell originate and hurled a massive sphere of pure force against it.

  With any luck, the bricks of the wall crushed the girl’s skull, but he was not going to take any chances. She had already proven herself more than competent and fully capable of killing him. Rhys ran to the wall and jogged next to it until he was able to peek through the destroyed section. He snapped his head back as a stream of arcane bolts smashed into the wall and streaked past his face.

  “You are very talented for one so young,” Rhys shouted into the darkness. “There is no need for us to destroy each other.”

  Rhys made a slit in the air, passed through parallel dimensions, and stepped onto a roof overlooking the alley. A quiet incantation and a complex waving of his hands filled the alley with fire from one end to the other and high enough to force him to take a step back to avoid the flames.

  “Are you still with me, little mage? I hope you didn’t get singed.”

  Ellyssa sprinted toward the far end of the alley and emerged onto the street just as flames filled the narrow confines.

  “The thieves are a nation unto themselves and they needed a leader, a queen. Faralynn brought order to a chaotic, disorganized society. We can use a girl of your strength and intelligence. You do not have to die tonight.”

  Rhys felt a slight tremor in the roof beneath his feet and leapt the span between buildings just as the entire surface collapsed into the interior of the structure. A billowing cloud of dust filled the air behind him as he sprinted to another nearby building.

  “What did Andrill offer you, gold and sweet words? It is Andrill, is it not? I thought I saw him in that row within the mansion. Do not let his silver tongue fool you, girl. The man is every bit the thief, liar, and cutthroat Faralynn is.”

  Ellyssa tried to ignore the wizard’s words except to discern his location, but still her mind weighed them. Andrill was a thief and had drugged her. He made promises she had no way of ensuring he kept. She did not know if he even could keep them. Everything was based purely on trust; trust in a man she only just met, a man who built his entire existence on deception and doubletalk.

  Whatever, she had made her choice and chosen her side. Andrill would give her what she wanted or he would pay. Ellyssa would hold up her end of the bargain and trust Andrill did the same. She would get Captain Jake, even if it meant making a deal with the dark goddess herself.

  Ellyssa tracked the voice and responded with a punishing hailstorm, punching fist-sized holes through the roof and shattered against the stone cobbles of the streets. She saw the wizard leap from the building and run down another street, chunks of ice shattering and sizzling against his ward.

  Ellyssa clung to the shadows next to the buildings and worked her way around toward the area she saw the wizard disappear. She used her magic to pull the shadows in tighter and move with her. The streets were empty, partly because of the hour, but mainly from the ungodly destruction everyone within a quarter mile could feel or hear being wrought, and no one wanted to be caught up in that.

  She spotted the wizard running out of the alley and racing toward another side street. Ellyssa broke from her concealment and sprinted after, launching a barrage of arcane bolts. One of the bolts tore right through the man’s body, but the only discernible effect was a large, smoking hole on the side of the building next to him.

  Ellyssa knew what was happening and leapt with all her might, even using the Source to help propel her up and away. Her quick thinking saved her life, but just barely. A massive explosion rocked the entire block and blasted a hole spanning the entire width of the street all the way down to the sewers below.

  The concussive blast struck Ellyssa in mid-leap and sent her crashing into the side of a nearby building. Her wards flared before shattering under the power of the blast and her body took the full brunt of her collision with the wall.

  Ellyssa tried to get her feet beneath her and make a stand, but her mind reeled and her muscles refused to obey. She mentally cursed herself for falling for the same kind of illusion she herself had used several times in the past. Rhys stepped out of the side street and casually sauntered toward her, even pausing to peer into the black hole to admire the destruction of his handiwork.

  “I would offer you a chance to live, but I can see by the look on your face you would not accept it, or if you did, I would have to watch my back for the rest of my probably short life. So I think it best for everyone, except you of course, that I kill you now.”

  ***

  The battle raged through the mansion as the opposing sides launched wave after wave of attacks. Andrill’s people had the momentum and steadily cast back the attempts to push them back. Deeper into the house they fought, dodging surprise attacks, hurled daggers, and volleys of crossbow bolts.

  Faralynn grabbed one of her lieutenants. “Pull everyone back and make toward the catacombs. We’ll bleed them to death in the tunnels!”

  The thief boss released her officer who darted down the halls, spreading word to make a tactical retreat. Faralynn hated to give up the house, but Andrill’s people had penetrated too far in before she could form a cohesive defense. She had sent runners to several other houses, but none had yet come to the rescue. She figured Andrill and probably a few others displeased with the new hierarchy were at this moment launching separate attacks against those as well.

  It was a bold move, but destined to fail. She was too well established and had more people. This battle would quickly boil down to a war of maneuvering and attrition. Andrill and whatever fools he convinced to gamble away their existence could not contend. All Faralynn needed to do was withdraw then strike from a position of strength.

  Faralynn’s people quickly began to conglomerate around her as they fought their way into the basement and down into the catacombs below. As soon as Faralynn and her defenders made it to the dark maze of tunnels, they broke off to harry the attackers and make them pay in blood for every inch of ground they gained.

  Andrill saw that Faralynn was making a concerted retreat to the lower levels of the house and called for Trevor and his people to converge on his position. After regrouping his own people, Andrill assaulted the stairs leading down. The stairwell filled with the hissing of crossbow bolts, forcing him and his attackers back.

  Andrill’s soldiers lobbed flash bombs made from ceramic spheres packed with some expensive alchemic powders down the stairs. The flash bom
bs burst with a concussive force and spray of ceramic shards, disorienting and injuring the thieves defending the stairs.

  The attackers charged down the steps and into the basement, dispatching the thieves guarding their leader’s retreat. The basement was huge and spanned nearly the length and width of the entire mansion above. It took several minutes to locate the hidden passage leading to the tunnels beneath the city.

  Crossbows loosed from within the dark passageway took down the first men through the door. Flash bombs launched from slings and crossbow quarrels replied in kind, allowing them to charge into the dank aqueducts and meet Faralynn’s people with steel.

  Andrill’s forces quickly gained the tunnels where they were immediately set upon with a series of hit and run strikes. The fighters on Andrill’s flanks and rear fell prey to hidden assaults launched from the many labyrinthine side channels.

  “Trevor,” Andrill called out, “take some of our forces and secure our flanks before they bleed us dry!”

  The big guild boss inclined his head once and motioned to several others nearby. Four groups set off down side passages to blunt Faralynn’s ambush attacks while Andrill and the bulk of his forces continued down the main tunnel. Andrill and his people crept silently down the central passage along the narrow walkway running along the wall. Murky water of an unknown depth slowly flowed through the center giving off a distinctively unpleasant aroma.

  A massive explosion shook the tunnel, causing Andrill to throw himself flat and knocked several thieves into the fetid water. Those on the ledges quickly rescued their comrades from the wastewater.

  “What in the abyss was that?” Braxis hissed from behind Andrill.

  “My guess would be our fiery young lady,” Andrill answered.

  Faralynn watched the tunnel collapse ahead of her, burying at least a dozen of her people and sealing off the passage. “Damn it all to the abyss and back! We’ll have to backtrack and find a way around this.”

  “We may run into Andrill’s people if he has managed to follow,” a lieutenant said.

  “Then I will deal with him.”

  Faralynn led the bulk of her forces back down the blocked tunnel in search of another side passage that would lead to the main aqueduct. Within minutes, a runner approached her.

  “Faralynn, we spotted lanterns ahead.”

  “Are there any other passages that will allow us to avoid them?” the guild boss asked.

  “No. There is a passage ahead that should take us around the area of the collapse, but we will not reach it before Andrill’s people.”

  “All right, it is time for me to deal with this popinjay once and for all.”

  Faralynn stormed forward, forcing her people to follow in her furious wake. The guild boss stalked down the dank corridors, her progress lit only by a dim, shielded light. She spotted the wane illumination of a shuttered lamp ahead a few minutes later.

  “Andrill, is that you?” she shouted at the dark shapes huddled around the lamp.

  “It is. Have you decided to surrender and face the judgment of the houses?” Andrill asked.

  “Hardly. The passage ahead has collapsed. We can battle here and cut each other to pieces, or you and I can settle this between ourselves.”

  Andrill pondered Faralynn’s offer. They could battle it out here in a final stand, but it would be a bloody affair with no guarantee of success. Neither could he allow Faralynn and her people to withdraw since she had far greater forces to call upon than he did, which would make resumption of hostilities untenable.

  “All right, you and I,” Andrill responded, accepting the personal challenge. “Winner allows the loser’s people to depart in peace with no promises made after that.”

  “Agreed.”

  Both guild bosses began slowly moving toward each other until Andrill suddenly stopped. “Oops, bootlace is untied.”

  Andrill knelt and grabbed the laces. Braxis’ crossbow quarrel passed over his head so close it ruffled Andrill’s hair. Faralynn cursed as she spun away and heard one of her men let out grunt followed by the dull thud of his body striking the ground behind her.

  “Always the treacherous snake, Andrill!” the woman shouted.

  Andrill looked up from his boot. “Better a live snake than a dead bitch.”

  Faralynn made to hurl another insult but the blood welling up in her throat cut off her words. She pressed a hand to the minor cut on her hip and looked at the fresh blood on it. Faralynn spit out a gob of blood to curse the man, but the extraordinarily virulent poison had already set in and was rapidly dissolving her organs.

  As Faralynn’s corpse struck the ground, and before her followers could react, Andrill called out to them. “Think before you choose to throw your lives away for a dead woman. Did you hear the explosion a moment ago? That was the death of your wizard.”

  Andrill knew it was a bluff, but it was one he was willing to make to prevent more bloodshed—especially his own. “It’s time to go back to the old guild ways where an industrious man or woman could rise to be the boss of their own house and not be pressed under the thumb of another. Go back down the passage and we will leave you to determine your own fates. Continue to fight us, and we will seal those same fates here and now.”

  There were mutterings and more than a few curses issuing from the darkness as the thieves debated a course of action. Valor in defeat won out as the thieves slunk back into the darkness of the passage from which they came. Andrill led his people to the side tunnel Faralynn was trying to gain in hopes of finding a way back to street level.

  ***

  Ellyssa lay on the ground pressed against the building and watched as the wizard prepared a spell to snuff out the pathetic candle of her existence. There was little she could do to prevent it. No spell she could conjure strong enough to defeat the ward she could see glimmering like a soap bubble around his body before he unleashed arcane fury upon her.

  Still, she refused to lie back and let death take her without fighting until the last breath left her body forever. Ellyssa reached into her jacket and pulled out one of the darts she had favored since hunting rats as a punishment when she was a little girl. She flicked the dart with expert aim and used a trickle of the Source to help speed its way despite knowing the futility of the gesture.

  Rhys watched the dart leave her hand and smirked, knowing the pathetic thing would never breach his ward. Ellyssa watched as her dart seemed to fly as if it were taking a languid swim through water. The wizard made the final form of his weave and was about to unleash his spell when something appeared to distract him.

  The mage turned his head with a look of surprise and confusion on his face. Ellyssa’s dart slipped through the ward and stuck him in the side of his neck. Rhys grabbed the projectile and tore it from his flesh, eliciting a spray of blood from the severed artery. He collapsed before his confusion ever resolved itself into understanding the cause of his death.

  Ellyssa did not attempt to move from where she lay. Her body demanded she stay still while her mind was engaged in trying to understand what had happened. Something had distracted the wizard enough to cause his ward to falter, but she had seen nothing or no one that could have done it. Wards required very little concentration to maintain. Unless something occurred to weaken it, her dart should never have been able to breach it.

  She spotted movement at the massive crater in the street and tried to get on her feet as several dark shapes crawled out of it like roaches through a crack in the kitchen floor.

  Andrill’s voice hissed through the night like a passing arrow. “Ellyssa, is that you?”

  Ellyssa waved and slumped back down against the wall. The figures ran toward her in a crouch born of habit. She recognized Andrill and Braxis first, then the wide face of Trevor as they came near.