by Chris Turner
FORSAKEN MAGIC
Witch of the Thorn
Chris Turner
Copyright 2018 Chris Turner
Cover Art: Battlemage
Published by Innersky Books
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in these stories are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
CONTENTS
The Wish Bone
Thornkeep
The Huntress of Caerlin
The Isk Rider
Books in The RELIC HUNTER series:
Forsaken Magic : Witch of the Thorn
The Isk Rider of Bazuur
The Temple of Vitus
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The Wish Bone
The low mound at Risgan’s feet was anything but ordinary to his trained eye. Underneath it had the look of treasure. It is said that grave-robbing was bad for the soul, likely to incur the wrath of the spirits. But Risgan was not of this belief, nor an entertainer of superstition. It was bad for business.
Without hesitation, he swung his pickaxe hard on the packed earth. His trim leather hunting breeches creaked with the effort. Standing atop his pile made him seem taller than usual in his low black boots. His square chin, brawny arms and untroubled stance had a queer way of looking quixotic in this deserted quarter with only fallen, moss-covered columns to his left and a collapsed lichen-ridden domed prayer hall to his right. The air, sticky and sweltering, lent to the atmosphere of antiquity and decay. Flung to a side in the dirt lay scalpel, scoop, wire brush, bodkin, bone horn: certain accoutrements of his trade, along with a diamond scratcher for measuring gem hardness. Also a polished truncheon of gibbeth femur useful for surprising bandits, whom he encountered often in his trade.
The club had served good purpose—an instrument of finality in settling previous ‘disagreements’ with wizards and unruly clients. One could never be too careful at out-of-town fairs or in the company of disreputable relic hounds. Only yesterday he had been impelled to ward off the thrusts of two petty thieves in a back alley whose overzealous confidence had earned them a quick beating, thanks to his club. The day before, a squawking dealer had occupied his time for an hour squabbling over a price of a simple amethyst. In terms of his recent finds, he had discovered an amphora of withered dry olives with impressive inscriptions dating around 401 CD, certainly a prize to any historian—yet hardly worth the ten mezks of its material value. In a nearby crypt, he had uncovered a mouldering wristband of a Karkarian which gave off an offensive stench and an eerie whine when he twirled it from his finger. Interesting, but hardly salesworthy. An ostler’s whip too whose poor workmanship was only outmatched by the black scavenger beetles inhabiting its handle.
Risgan gave a weary laugh. When would he ever see the end of this unavailing bric-a-brac? Perhaps his luck had run dry? The feeling was discomforting. A snuffle from the nearby forest suddenly shook him from his thoughts.
He crouched, poised like a panther.
The sound was gone. Probably a foxmok or some passing baby basilhoon. He sighed. Relatively harmless.
Relatively.
He swung his attention back to his pick-axing.
Drenched in sweat, he grunted some time later to more vigorous axe plunges. The clink of metal on pickaxe came as music to his ears. The jangle from the newly-hewn deep hole was slightly tinnier than normal, a sign which could mean anything. He paused, scratching at his head. He wiped the sweat from his red-rimmed eyes. The midsummer heat was getting to him. Unseemly things lurked in the forest. His haste in choosing this less than wholesome location brought memories of apprehension crawling in his skull.
He recalled his desperation to secure sellable relics and pay his gambling debts, also his decision to wander far from his home base. Yet here he was, a place a bowshot away from the ancient worship hall of Lin, the ruined complex of jumbled masonry and moss-covered pylons amidst wilted beggar bush and thistle.
This haunt was better left for ghouls. He hoped he would not regret his decision. His fingers worked nevertheless with precision and his muscles flexed, recalling how curiosity had led him to the discovery of these ruins, briefly researched in the Zanzuria library.
His lavender-grey eyes glinted in the dull light. He stooped to uncover what his pickaxe had hit: a large coffer. He exhaled a breath, sensing a movement.
A scrape, a rustle. The merest snuffle of interest... Risgan knew better.
His muscles tensed for a confrontation and he reached for his waist belt. The male gibbeth was a stone’s throw away. His keen horror had him grimacing, then crouching out of sight of the snuffling beast, soon to be a hair’s breadth away. He would be trapped in this dank hole, in which case his death was imminent.
Without preamble, Risgan acted. Scrambling out of his pit, he fingered his ancient Kraken-whistle horn. A quick blast and the creature was bolting out from the underbrush. Gods! would it be rendered dysfunctional for even a brief moment?
Within a heartbeat the gibbeth charged and Risgan braced himself for death. He blew another hard breath into his Kraken horn. The beast, a mountain of matted turquoise fur and reeking hide, sagged, smitten with a stupor, assailed with the whistle’s screeching beyond the threshold of audibility. The thing windmilled its forepaws, swatted out a paw as it efforted to claw him to pieces and stop the blare tormenting its skull.
Risgan reached in his side pocket. He tossed a pinch of purple dust—all before the gibbeth could recover. Deadly claws threatened to rake him down, then the eyes of the creature shut; the nose pinched.
Stymied, the beast staggered back on hind legs. Risgan swung the pickaxe and the weapon flew in a crunch of bone. The predator gurgled as the base of its bony throat was ripped out and the thing fell in a loud smack of sinew and flesh.
Risgan watched as the greenish blood poured forth while it lay thrashing in the dirt like some beached grouper.
He examined the creature without sympathy. It was not of this world: an elder beast of the realm of sorcery, manufactured by degenerate magicians…a species that had gone on to multiply to the detriment of man. The tough hide showed the first strains of hoar-fur peeking through its mange along the spine and ribs. A gruesome sight, but what of it? The splatter had marred his relatively new dun cape hugging his shoulders. That and the light hunter’s sweater and woodsman’s cap which contained the crop of thick yellow hair on the verge of greying. Small inconveniences albeit, which, aside from the greying hair, could be replaced by Riik the haberdasher...
Risgan smoothed back his tawny locks and wiped his pickaxe on the dead hide. He returned to his exhuming, taking pains to study the unearthed find. Prying off the lid, he discovered the usual in the mouldering sarcophagus: tatters of once-regal clothing, withered bits of skin, ash-light bone, also the remains of coarse, yellow hair. At these he stared: a broken string of beads, a necklace evidently of some ancient fabrication worth some money. He pocketed the beads then rummaged through the burial case with more grimaces. The sides were corroded, gilded with a thin patina of gold.
Risgan’s eyes glinted with interest. He saw sheaves of papyrus, with incomprehensible writings, a small ring, solid gold and faceted with a dull ruby, two brass seals, a brooch of garnet. Under the bony hand, something new: a long hard bulging oval, like the belly of a fat trout. It was near translucent, like some kind of nugget of nephrite, a treasure radiating fascinating possibilities. He wiped it of its dust and discovered it to be very brilliant on one side—nearly pure yellow, depending on what angle one looked. The flip side revealed a dark surface, murkier than murk. The surface was like the portal to some limitless cave, a contrast to the reverse face which was so daz
zling of brightness that it hurt his eyes. He handled the object with care. He found it smooth to touch, and soft, no larger than a goose’s egg. What a marvel! But was it an item of worth?
Risgan pursed his lips. Only time would tell.
He indulged in a roguish smile. Sarcophagi were, after all, known to contain certain old-world treasures. The items, he suspected, would be of novelty to collectors. Worthy of some haggling for a substantial price.
Out of the hole he vaulted and gave the dead carcass only a secondary glance. The rodentish features of the gibbeth were disquieting: ghoulishly jowled and snaggle-toothed. Hungry for flesh, the creature, even in death, resembled a mix between a cave bear and a vole, but Risgan knew that lying there so vilely, it was the product of many sorcerers’ experiments gone bad.
Risgan shrugged. Thinking to profit, he began skinning the gibbeth of its ropy hide, rolling it into a pulpy mass and stuffing the hide in his treasure sack. The fur, when dried and tanned, would fetch a modest price at the upcoming fair—if the tourist traffic continued to flow.
Risgan hummed a cheerful tune. Gathering his spoils while seeing the day was growing old, he realized there was still time to display his wares before the week’s end...
* * *
On his way back out of the ruins, Risgan recalled the three thieves who had accosted him not two days ago. He had recently uncovered three bone suracs and a petrified didor tethers, rare to these parts. The thieves’ had received the blunt end of his club, yet despite the damage to his wares, the relics were still probably worth several more pounds of gold could he land them in the right traders’ hands...
But Risgan gave his head a wry shake. The prospect was easier said than done. He had been forced to abandon the loot in a safe place leagues south in civil-wartorn Sinbria. By the time he eluded footpads and duty collectors and greedy border rangers, he’d be an old man and likely penniless. All part of the profession. He needed another way to secure them.
His tireless stride did nothing to relieve the ache of his muscles. He came to the site of certain gigantic stone heads: two twin megaliths rooted like kings’ sentinels, now mossed and weatherbeaten. They guarded the borderlands between Utreach and Razillion, ancient territories famed when the Gilad barbarian rebels flooded the eastlands and invaded the old court at Avilarz. At their sides were long sturdy stone weapons, pike and stave, lanced in the ground like pillars. The statues’ facial features were blurred, as if carved in an expression of sublimity. But moulded yet with moon eyes, rounded nose and stern lips. Once significations of powerful rulers these icons were now bygone castaways of forgotten stone.
Risgan slowed his pace. He scanned the treetops as he neared the old forest. It was the only expeditious route back to Zanzuria. His feet balked at the course he must take. The narrow path was drawn tight with shadows, a hundred dappled shades of gold, courtesy of the low sprawling trees. Ducking under a set of prickly leaves, he proceeded with caution. Haste could bring a naive wayfarer stumbling into the hands of deadly prey. Like the crafty volfi that clung in the branches waiting to pound, and the ravenous gibbeths. He did not pause to contemplate such predators. He resumed his journey with a scowl, escalating his pace through the old forest toward Zanzuria.
* * *
Zanzuria was a venerable town put under governance of the Pontific Pantius who ruled as a local satrap in place of the Governor Huak of Mansubia. Risgan made his current headquarters in the southern quarter of old Darbur. Unbeknownst to him, there was to be a procession of nobles in the town square this afternoon. The fete had been delayed for various reasons and Risgan had not missed anything of import. Whistling confidently to himself, he was now thankful to be out of the dusky corridors of the forest, approaching the well-to-do neighbourhoods from the east. There was a weary lean to his step as he clutched his treasure under an arm in a leather sack. From a respectable distance, the spires of the Pontific’s palace rose up like a steeple of stacked pearls. Now they glinted silver in the late afternoon sun with splendour. To the south shone the low shale roofs of the townsfolk, basking in an alabaster-pink. Some of the older, richer residences lay shaded in cool hues: adorned with trim yurl bush and bright green conas trees.
The stone canals gave way to footpaths and cobbled alleys, which invested the place with a distinguished ambience, as the waterways joined with the Badan River farther north behind the palace and its mazes of manicured shrubbery. A pawnbroker’s shop made its home in the smithy’s quarter, and Risgan thought to make a detour despite the slight unsavouriness of the neighbourhood—all in an effort to spare himself the tedium of standing in the market for hours haggling for a decent price for his hard-won wares.
At Fibistix’s place of business, Risgan narrowed his brows. A new sign made itself known:
Occupations of the astute Fibistix—relic appraiser, occasional divinator.
Estimates, trade, barter. Come one, come all, inquire within for unique antiquities!
Fibistix greeted the relic hunter in his usual manner of amiability. Risgan was on his best behaviour, for Fibistix was his best local supplier. “Ah, Risgan, a pleasure to see you! Doubtless you are armed with more astounding relics to trade. Here is Munix, an associate of mine.” He motioned to a tall figure of brooding face with gleaming teeth and a woollen square grey hat. He sat by the counter at Fibistix’s side. Black garb dragged about his ankles. “He subscribes to the tenet of Theolulism, which in a nutshell, repudiates the three reasonings of Barbon, and ascribes to selective non-dualism.”
“You don’t say?” Risgan said with interest. “I assume this is your new ‘divinator’ then?”
Fibistix nodded proudly. “You are always a good guesser.”
“Come, Fibistix, you are ever the flatterer,” the divinator protested. Here was a sad-faced man with a slight lilt of speech. “This is a gentleman of quality we have before us. He does not care to hear philosophic rhetoric spoken by dilettantes.”
The pawnbroker nodded. He spoke in even tones. “To business. We have here an earnest relic hunter with quality items in his sack with an interested buyer—to say myself. Let us see what you carry.”
Risgan rolled the items on the counter. Nephrite, beads, papyrus, ring. “I recently uncovered these from the sarcophagus of an important courtier.”
The pawnbroker pinched his lips. “You don’t say?” He rolled his bright brown eyes, scratching at his cheek. He prodded the items for a time with a short marlinspike, as if afraid to touch such merchandise, then vented a heavy sigh and extended an arm: “The beads, tempting as they are, are eroded to the point of uselessness. The string is frail and about to break. I’ll bypass the beads, and the ring and the papyrus, well—” his voice took on a nasal quality. Oblivious to Risgan’s strangled croak, he sighed “—I have too much similar stuff already. But this—” He paused, rubbing his chin, examining the oval-shaped piece of nephrite with a gaze of wonder. He pushed his nose closer, squinting his bespectacled eyes. “Where in Douran did you find this curio? In a sarcophagus, you say?... Very unusual and thought-provoking. Such items are not to be found readily—they are known to be tainted, for a fact.”
“Only to the superstitious,” said Risgan.
“Aye, perhaps,” responded Fibistix sagely, “but I must bypass the trinket. Notice the left ridge on its dark convex. It’s embossed with an almost imperceptible tourmaline—an obvious motif of craftsmanship dating from the late 13th age—and an evil one at that. Wafting of ghosts, dark magicians and occultists. What better era to lay a taint on an innocent being? Call me a duffer, Risgan, but I’m better being cautious than a collector struck dead from a curse. Better luck next time, old boy! Head to the market. There you’ll find Vosta the antique-monger giving you a fair offer for the piece.”
Risgan grunted his appreciation. He turned to leave.
Munix called after him: “In the interests of conveying practical divinatory advice, I prophesize you are destined for a long voyage, Risgan, of trials and misfortunes...
possibly an extended pilgrimage.”
Risgan swept the air with an impatient hand. “Prophecies I am suspicious of, Munix, no less that I will ignore. Good day, gentlemen!”
Fibistix blinked. Munix gave Risgan a respectful bow.
His feet took him west to the market, flanked between the porphyry columns of Aspiux and the old Romaric hostelry. Slightly miffed by the pawnbroker’s disinterest in his wares, Risgan paused as he passed the market full of hawkers. Already he could hear vendors’ voices bawling out the benefits of their goods. Munix’s saturnine prophecy had put him in a most morose mood. The merchants’ guild had taken over this quarter, commanding the choicest booths in the market square. Risgan decided to set up shop here and try his luck at selling his rejected items. They were of course, scant, but genuine, and the market at Zanzuria, at the crossroads to many far towns, was invariably the gateway to Hadeshire, a bustling town of arts and commerce four leagues along the old roadway. Chances were, a wealthy nobleman or some well-to-do magician might take interest in one of his unusual relics.
The town market was open to a wide cobbled court. Along its high opposite wall of rough hewn stone flew banners and regalia in celebration of the ten years of peaceful union with the neighbouring kingdoms. At a spare section of table, Risgan set up his wares. It was next to the acrid waft of a fishmonger’s stall where he waited for customers. A long line of tables, awnings and draperies stood by the distant wall, amidst which disparate teams of peddlers, philosophers, garish jokesters, barbers, tailors, toolmakers and wheelwrights worked. They bartered over ruminants for sale, freshly-beheaded fowl, vases, pottery, woodworking, fabrics, dyes and bric-a-brac by the dozen.
On second thought, Risgan returned the oval piece of nephrite to its sack. Better to polish it up later when he had time to guarantee a better price. Yes, much wiser! His eyes wandered to the north end of town where the palace rose and its glistening spires and tiled roofs angled below. The grounds hosted pleasant green bowers, esplanades and shaded walkways. The place was enormous, home of the Pontific, Zanzuria’s lord, who made few appearances in public. The man also handled law and order with a strict hand. Gongs tolled and horns blew from the main court, and so Risgan saw that the Pontific would be passing through the market square soon. All the better, Risgan mused, regarding the few sleepy folk milling in the market square. It might attract more rich patrons to this miserable peddlers’ quarters.