The Sorcerer's Ascension (The Sorcerer's Path)

by Brock Deskins

  Azerick completed his spell first and launched three dagger-shaped brilliant bolts at Travis. A spellcaster could shape the visual appearance of many of their spells as a method to personalize their castings. All three bolts should have struck Travis in the chest, but an invisible shield harmlessly dissipated them.

  Such total protection from his spell should not have been possible given Travis’s skill level. His shield could protect him from some of the damage, but only a wizard of much higher power could negate it entirely. This unexpected revelation caused Azerick a great deal of concern.

  Travis released his own stream of bolts that looked like small glowing skulls. Both bolts pierced Azerick’s shield, which bled off some but not all of their power, and struck him in the chest. The blow burned like mad, but Azerick maintained his focus and launched another, stronger spell at his nemesis. A green, arrow-shaped bolt sprang forth from his outstretched hand, but whatever force was protecting his target turned his spell aside once again.

  Travis completed his next spell, laughing at Azerick’s seemingly impotent casting. Travis hurled a large ball that sparked with electricity. Azerick tried to dodge the crackling orb but was caught a glancing blow on his shoulder as it sailed past. Even with the minor protection of his shield, agonizing pain lanced through his body.

  Azerick now realized that Travis was wearing some kind of enchanted device that protected him from the magic that he had thrown at him thus far. Blinking the sweat and pain-induced tears from his eyes, Azerick prepared his most powerful spell, hoping that Travis did not know that he had attained such a level of skill and that it would pierce whatever protection he had bought.

  It was the most complex spell Azerick knew and the time it took to cast was such that Travis was able to launch another pair of skull-shaped bolts at him before he completed it. Once again, the young sorcerer ground his teeth in pain and concentration, willing himself to focus on his casting.

  Azerick thrust his hand out and shouted the arcane command that released the gathered power. The clap of thunder set his ears ringing as the smell of ozone produced by the lightning bolt filled the air. Travis was hurled back and sent sprawling as his shield failed to fully protect him from the spell’s deadly force.

  The young sorcerer spun around to face Travis’s friends, knowing that they would interfere now that their leader was down. They were already casting when Azerick turned to face them and knew he could not complete his spell before all three struck. He doubted that he would be able to withstand the barrage of all three students’ spells.

  Azerick was forming his attack even though he knew it was probably futile when a gout of flame sprang from the tree line a few yards to the side of Travis’s three friends. The flaming lance of fire stretched from Rusty’s hands and shot between the young mages, burning all three. They dove and rolled in the dirt trying to smother the flames from their burning robes.

  “What are you doing here, Rusty?” Azerick shouted in surprise and relief.

  “Saving your butt from the looks of it,” his friend replied.

  Rusty covered the three young men on the ground as Azerick turned back to face Travis. Travis had recovered from what should have been a mortal blow, holding his wand out before him.

  “Put the wand away, Travis, and admit defeat,” Azerick demanded.

  “No, I have you now; you’ll never be able to get that spell off before I kill you.”

  “Don’t do it, Travis, or you will be sorry. I promise you.”

  “You lost, peasant, and I’m going to blast your friend too, right after I kill you,” Travis promised as he uttered the command that would unleash the wand’s power.

  Azerick dropped to the ground as Travis fired his wand. A massive explosion ripped through the air as the wand exploded, releasing all its stored energy in one mighty blast due to the sundering spell Azerick had cast on it previously to weaken it. The force of the uncontrolled discharge crashed over everyone in the clearing, blasting leaves from the surrounding trees and sending Rusty and the three other students flying through the air. The concussive wave washed over the prone sorcerer, rolling him away from the source of the explosion.

  When the dust cleared, all the young men climbed back to their feet, ears ringing, and looked around in shock at the damage that the exploding wand had caused. All of the trees immediately surrounding the clearing had been stripped of their leaves, at the source of the blast the ground had been laid bare of all grass, nothing but dirt, blood, and Travis’s ruined unmoving form remained. All five students slowly walked up to the body and knew immediately that he would never move again. The arm that had been holding the wand was simply gone and his face and chest were shredded and blackened from the blast.

  “You did this, you knew what would happen! I heard what you said and saw you drop to the ground just before his wand blew up!” one of Travis’s friends accused.

  “I didn’t know it would be so powerful. I thought it would just break,” Azerick tried to explain.

  “You killed him, it was murder, and I’ll see you hang for it!” another shouted.

  “I would be very careful with who you threaten right now. Do you think this is the first man I have killed?” Azerick asked his eyes full of menace.

  The three wizards decided to run instead of challenging the dangerous sorcerer.

  “How did you know I was here, Rusty?”

  “I knew you were going to do something that would probably get you killed, so I waited for you to leave then followed you here.”

  “I wish you hadn’t gotten caught up in this, but thanks for your help.”

  “What are you going to do now?” Rusty asked, concerned for his friend.

  “I have to leave. I knew that before I came out here,” he replied as he walked over and pulled his packsack and staff out from behind a tree.

  “They are going to ask me what happened, you know. What do you want me to tell them?”

  “Tell them the truth,” Azerick suggested.

  “Did you know that that was going to happen when you sabotaged his wand?” Rusty asked looking at the corpse.

  “No,” Azerick replied, shaking his head. “I really did not know that would happen. At least not nearly that bad, but I am not sorry for it. He was going to rape a girl last night but I stopped him. He would have cheated in order to kill me tonight as well, so he got what he deserved. I probably saved a lot of people from his predations.”

  “But you were already packed, ready to leave,” Rusty pursued, doubt creeping into his voice.

  “I knew I would not be returning to The Academy no matter what happened here tonight. There are other things going on that I cannot talk about.”

  “All right, Azerick, you are my friend and I trust you. Keep yourself safe; you know I am here if you ever need anything,” Rusty promised as he embraced his friend.

  They parted ways there in the clearing, Rusty going back toward The Academy, Azerick heading off in a different direction and both wondering if they would ever see the other ever again.

  Rusty moved at a sedate pace, his mind feeling as though it were in a fog, desperately trying to come to terms with what had happened and what to do about it. A troupe of Academy cadre, being led by the recently deceased Travis’s friends, intercepted Rusty as he walked slowly back to The Academy.

  “There he is, Headmaster, he saw that street rat kill Travis!”

  Rusty started at the unexpected shout and saw Travis’s trio of friends leading Headmaster Dondrian, Magus Allister, Magus Florent, and Magus Bauer toward him at a rapid pace. Magus Bauer looked furious and ready to flay the skin from someone, Magus Florent and Allister looked concern, while the Headmaster just looked confused.

  “Franklin, what has happened? Where is Azerick?” the Headmaster asked, winded from the swift walk.

  “I don’t know where he is. As to what happened, that’s a long story, but Travis is dead and they were part of it,” Rusty said, pointing at the three that had brought the teac
hers.

  “Take us to Travis and where it all happened,” Magus Allister told Rusty.

  Rusty led the group back the way he had come and into the small clearing. Nothing had changed in the last half hour. The massive blast had scorched the ground clean of grass and shrubs, the nearest trees were bereft of much of their foliage, and Travis lay strewn about a large are in so many pieces that it would take days to recover most of the bits for burial.

  “By the gods,” Allister rumbled, looking on in shock and disbelief. “I think we had best get back to your office, Dondrian, and discuss this further. We will need to contact the boy’s father.”

  “As well as the magistrate,” Magus Bauer added in her own shrewish voice.

  “Indeed,” the Headmaster replied, heaving a heavy sigh. “This is a most distressing situation with little chance of coming out well for anyone involved.”

  CHAPTER 19

  "This is where we're supposed to look for some old trinket?" Borik asked dubiously.

  "That is what Bishop Caalendor said," Malek answered.

  "I think the Bishop is trying to drown us and be rid of us. There's no damn treasure here!" Borik shouted.

  "Bishop Caalendor is a respected man and priest of my order, have respect!" Malek shouted back, tired of the dwarf's complaining.

  "Respect? He has sent us on three wild goose chases already! We were nearly cooked and eaten by lizardmen in Darkmoore, sacrificed to some giant tigers in Lazuul, and let us not forget, nearly turned into undead by that crazy cleric in that tomb near the Sumaran border, and you know how much I just love undead! And for what? What do we have to show for it? I still have sand in my codpiece from Sumara, a strange rash that is almost gone that I picked up in Darkmoore, and now…this!" Borik ranted until his face turned red.

  Maude and her group were standing on the gently rolling deck of a ship they had chartered in the King's name, miles from any hint of land.

  "Tarth said he knew a spell that would let us breathe and move under water as we were on land so there's no worry," Maude assured the irate dwarf.

  "Of course Tarth thinks he can make us breathe under water, he thinks he's a fish right now!" Borik bellowed pointing an accusing finger at the elven wizard who was currently wriggling around on the deck of the ship and fanning his hands next to his jaw in an imitation of gills. "Last week he thought he was a bird! He'd have broken his stupid skinny neck if he hadn't landed on that woman stabling her horse when he jumped off the roof of that barn because he thought he could fly! Now you want me to jump into five hundred feet of water filled with dwarf-eating sharks and the gods know what else. All on a hunch from a thus far unreliable bishop with my safety and very life in the hands of that?"

  "Actually it be nearer six hunerd fifty foot according to the charts and the depth readin' we took," one of the grizzled sailor's offered helpfully.

  The dwarf threw his hands up in the air and let out a scream of anger, frustration, and helplessness. His ranting and arguing went on for another twenty minutes before Maude finally got tired of trying to convince the fuming dwarf and took matters into her own hands.

  "Tarth, do it," she ordered.

  The wizard pulled out a bit of seaweed and fish scale while chanting the words of the spell that would allow them to function under water. Once he was finished, Maude went up to the protesting dwarf, grabbed him by his weapons harness, and flung him over the side of the ship. Borik hit the water with a splash that nearly reached up to wet the deck just before Maude, Tarth, and Malek entered the water with considerably more grace.

  "I'm drowning, you damn fool woman! You've killed me!" Borik screamed while several feet under water.

  "You're not drowning, you idiot. If you were you wouldn't be able to talk!" Maude shouted back.

  "I, oh…well it's still a mean trick to play on someone. I could have had a heart attack," Borik grunted, realizing that he was not sinking and could indeed breath.

  He pulled out his axe and gave it a few test swings. Once he was satisfied that his movements were not impaired by the resistance of the water, he hung it back onto its harness on his back.

  "Good work, Tarth. I'll admit, I wasn't sure it would work either," Maude said.

  "You weren't sure it would work? Why would you risk our lives if you weren't sure it would work?"

  "That's why I threw you in first. All right, we should be close to the place we are looking for. We'll swim down from here and look for signs of some ruins or anyplace that looks like it may hold an artifact."

  They quickly got the hang of moving under water with Tarth's spell and began their decent into the watery abyss. The party swam down toward the seafloor with Borik complaining the entire way about his ear drums hurting, his rash chafing, and dwarf-eating sharks. It took nearly half an hour before the sandy bottom of the seafloor came dimly into view.

  The light from above faded to a dim murkiness. By the time they reached the sandy bottom, it was almost too dark to see.

  "Hey, elf, make a light, I can hardly see a thing and you know these humans are near blind without the sun overhead," Borik directed.

  The wizard made a few hand gestures and a radiant light floated just above and behind him. The light cast dark shadows along the sandy seafloor, reflecting off several small colorful fish nibbling at a growth of coral. Unfortunately, it also illuminated several large, dark shapes that began swimming aggressively toward the undersea strangers.

  "Turn it off, turn it off! Dwarf-eating sharks!" Borik shouted an alarm.

  It was too late to extinguish the light now, so the party reached for their weapons as the deadly sea creatures darted in for a quick meal.

  One of the big, grey sharks rushed at Malek and tried to grab the cleric in its huge, tooth-filled jaws. He darted to the side and swung his hammer hard into the rough-scaled side. The shark immediately rushed away from the sudden source of pain and circled several yards away. The party quickly figured out that moving in the water required their own body movements as well as simple thought, similar to moving in the astral plane. Not that any had such experience with the exception of Tarth, and that had been an accident.

  Another of the creatures dove at Maude who dropped down several feet as the shark came in for a bite. As it flashed over her head, she swung her huge two-handed sword overhead and opened the big fish all along its stomach. Blood and entrails spilled out into the water in a massive red cloud that made it nearly impossible to see.

  The blood cloud drifted in the current and obscured Borik's vision enough that he failed to see the largest of the sharks bearing down on him on his left side. As the dwarf kept a wary eye on the shark in front of him, the immense shark on his left snatched him up in its deadly jaws. Borik could hear his steel breastplate shrieking in protest as the great fish tried to crush him. The shark opened its mouth slightly and whipped its head about in order to shift the dwarf in its mouth lengthwise so that it might swallow its tough meal whole.

  Borik found his head suddenly halfway down the shark's throat and drew his legs in swiftly before the viciously sharp teeth could bite through the chainmail and snap his limbs off. With large bolting actions, Maude watched the dwarf disappear into the huge creature's gullet.

  "Borik!" she cried out as she watched the huge shark swallow the cranky stubborn dwarf alive.

  She tried to swim over and attack the shark in a vain hope of rescuing her devoured friend, but another shark attacked from behind her. Maude thought the mad thrashing of the shark was going to shake her body about as it shook her like a terrier on a rat. She felt the shark release her as several bright orbs streaked into the side of the creature. Before the shark could successfully make its getaway, Maude swung her sword and opened a huge gash along the shark's side.

  The shark’s gaping wound poured more blood out, further obscuring the already red murky water. Before the shark got out of sight, she saw two other sharks tear in to their wounded brethren, taking huge bites out of the creature. The severely wounded,
and now probably dead, shark drifted down to the sandy bottom where it stayed, slightly twitching.

  Another shark, perhaps drawn by the sudden appearance of the light from Tarth's magic missiles, bore down on the wizard. He calmly turned toward the newest threat and released a magical bolt that struck the oncoming shark right in the snout. It turned immediately away and fled into the dark waters.

  Maude called to Malek and both swam after the gargantuan shark that ate Borik. As they neared the behemoth, they watched as a thin ribbon of blood blossomed near the middle of the shark’s body. The ribbon of blood quickly intensified into a torrent as a large, gaping wound opened in the stomach of the huge fish. As Maude and the cleric watched in stunned disbelief, Borik's hands burst through the wound clutching a dagger and pulled himself out of the shark's stomach in some bizarre semblance of birth.

  "It ate me! I told you there were dwarf-eating sharks here and you pushed me in the water anyway, and a dwarf-eating shark ate me as if I was some kind of fish kibble! I am a dwarf, not fish bait!" cried the livid dwarf in accusation.

  Before Maude could reply or Borik could continue his tirade, several more sharks were rapidly drawing near, likely drawn by the scent of blood, or so the party first thought. As they watched the threat grow nearer, they noticed smaller, man-shaped figures among the deadly predators, some actually astride them as if they were some kind of carnivorous mount.

  The new arrivals carried spears and tridents constructed of various materials. Stone, coral, or obsidian tipped most of the spears. Iron or steel made up a few others and coated in some kind of jelly. Whether the substance was to protect the iron and steel from the harsh salt water or it was some dreadful poison Maude was not sure. Probably both but regardless of its purpose, she and her friends did not intend to let it touch them.

  Tarth launched what should have been a huge ball of fire into the thickest knot of sharks and fish people but it turned into a massive ball of steam, viciously scalding those unfortunate enough to be in the area of its effect.