Chapter Ten #3
under normal circumstances, but I was being trained to face an ancient
sorceress who could rival armies. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I am much
more powerful than another transmutation student would be at my age.”
“I’ll
take that as no—what you went through ain’t normal.”
He
looked down at his feet, watching his boots tread across the knuckled road.
“You have to understand that I had no reference for much of anything. I never
once left my uncle’s tower, with the only exception being my training in the
yard. My only understanding of the world came from books. As an example, I used
to think horses were blue because a textbook I read had a translation error.
When my flame instructor arrived on horseback for a lesson, I asked her if she
wouldn’t prefer a turquoise stallion instead.”
She
snorted. He glared at her. She cleared her throat, gesturing him on.
“I did
eventually,” Isaac said, “realize my experience wasn’t normal. My bedroom was
at the top of the tower, and I could see Khador’s elemental college in the
distance. Often, there would be students returning from classes, talking and
laughing. I’d watch from the window and . . . make up stories, in my head,
about their lives. I’d always wonder why I couldn’t go to the college, like
them.” He cleared his throat. “I was very lonely.”
“I
know, love. It’s alright.”
He said
nothing.
Zaria
nodded, like certain pieces were fitting together. “Third question. Sorcerers
have specialties, aye? Not everyone can throw a fireball, cast bone-melting
light, so on, so forth?”
“Yes.
You have to specialize if you want to be respected in any one discipline.
That’s another reason why I had to train so fiercely—I’m proficient in both
elements and anti-necrotics, which is very rare. I’ve told you this before.”
“What’s
your uncle’s discipline, then?”
“Necromancy.”
It took
her a moment to respond. “Like the ancient bitch we’re questing after? Same
type of evil magic?”
“Not exactly,”
Isaac said. “Necromancy isn’t all evil. It’s controversial, definitely, but it
has many practical applications, and it’s allowed to be practiced in certain
guilds as long as there’s strict Diet oversight.”
“Still—”
“My
uncle’s specialty is anti-necromancy, to be precise. He’s written
treatises on expunging necrotic traps, subduing undead thralls, things of that
nature. He’s also received no little renown for hunting and arresting rogue
necromancers who’ve broken the mandates of the Diet. His colleagues refer to
him as ‘the Bone Hunter’.”
“Bone
Hunter, huh? That’s a name like a dread pirate, if I ever heard it.”
“If you
met him, you’d say it’s accurate.”
“I
think I’d just call him a cunt.”
Isaac
gave a soft laugh. Zaria clapped him on the back, shaking him as they walked,
and Isaac felt his smile stretching wider as the idea took root in his mind. He
could already imagine the face his uncle would make, seeing Zaria stroll into
the well-ordered foyer of his sorcerer tower. He saw the red in his uncle’s
cheeks as she disrespected his accomplishments, his titles, his parenthood, and
Isaac could well picture the bulging vein on his uncle’s forehead as he
screamed back in rage. The idea of someone disrespecting him so openly seemed
almost sacrilegious.
It was
a fantasy, of course, but it was a good one.
“What’s
his name?” Zaria asked. “Your uncle?”
“Berith.”
“Berith,
huh? Berith the Bone Hunter?” The hyena nodded, letting her hand free of his
shoulder. “I’ll remember that.”
Isaac
felt his chest get fluttery again.
“So,”
Zaria said, regaining a serious voice, “you’re saying he has experience
crawling through ruins and fighting horrible monsters? He’s been all over the
Nine, fighting evils blacker than night?”
“Essentially,
yes.”
“Right,
well, I got a new question, then. Why the fuck ain’t he here with you? Sounds
perfect for the task. Hardly a better choice.”
“He’s
tenured now,” Isaac replied. “He teaches at college, assists Diet agents with
their expeditions, performs alchemical research. He’s a very busy sorcerer.”
“He’s
too busy to rescue his brother?”
“They,
um. . . .” Isaac cleared his throat. “They never liked each other. Listen to my
uncle, and he’d tell you my father was a glory hound with no respect for
procedure. Apparently, my father has ruined several expeditions by
contaminating the samples. He’d touch any mysterious object without a second
thought. My uncle said he had no respect for anyone’s safety, and that always
infuriated him the most. My uncle—Berith—is very particular in his ways.” Isaac
glanced at a shadowy library glowing faintly like gold. “I’ve always thought
it’s why he hated having to raise me.”
There
was no response. When Isaac glanced at her, she was watching him with a careful
expression.
“Does
that satisfy your curiosity?”
“Not
yet,” she said. “That was all in service of my final question.”
He
gestured for her to continue while looking at another mural. This one, like the
others, seemed to depict a necrotic god giving benediction to his worshippers.
Somehow, this one involved summoning swarms of very small flies, which burrowed
into the skin of the supplicant. The man was taken with rapture.
Isaac
decided to move on.
“Why
you?” Zaria asked. “Why was the burden of rescuing your father placed only on
your shoulders?”
He
sighed, rubbing his face. “It was politics, mostly.”
“You’ll
have to explain a bit.”
“The
Diet of Nine likes to appear as a monolithic force, but there’s an embarrassing
amount of internal strife. All the nine kingdoms have their own concerns, their
own petty rivalries that still exist between each other, and they all refuse to
secede any real amount of governing power, which has led to factions,
blackmail, malicious bureaucracy, even assassinations. There’s a reason I had
to use a safehouse while traveling.” He waved a hand. “It’s a slow, petty
machine. My uncle was right—my father made many enemies with his lack of
patience. Every time a proposal was made to assemble a rescue party, it would
be voted down in committee. Many times, the motion would be killed before even
getting that far.”
He
shrugged.
“You
also have to consider that this tomb is at the edge of the map, in the middle
of an empty desert, surrounded by pirates and sandwyrms. Risking that many
lives just for my father was never seen as . . . politically expedient.”
“That’s
all well and good,” Zaria said, “but it ain’t what I asked. I asked why you
were made to do all this. Rather sounds like it got forced on you by someone
else.”
Isaac didn’t
respond. He gazed up at the giant rib cage.
“Forced
on you by your uncle, actually.”
“I
suppose—”
She
grabbed him by the shoulder, not ungently, and forced him to stop walking.
“Isaac, I’m gonna say my piece now, and I’d appreciate it dearly if you’d let
me speak it out.”
He
blinked up at her, silent.
“Here’s
how I understand this,” Zaria said. “Your father comes down to this dead city
and gets captured. That seems fair enough—evil sorceress and all—but you’re
still growing in your mother’s belly when he does. Your mom then dies giving
birth to you. Also fair. Happens to many. Once she’s gone, though, you’re
tossed off to your uncle, who by no means wants a sniveling reminder of his
brother to care for, except he has a very secret soul chat with your father
himself, which somehow sways his opinion. You spend your entire life training
in magic, treated like a caged bird, thinking it’s your responsibility to
rescue your parent when your uncle is perfect for the task. Then, when you’ve
come of age, your uncle speaks to your father again just before you leave on
this quest. As you’re out the door, your uncle sabotages the mission—”
“He did
not sabotage—”
“Yes,
he did. He told you to walk through a nest of sandwyrms, and, for good measure,
gave you bad directions for water. That’s fact, ain’t it?”
“It’s
not that—”
“Isaac,”
Zaria said. “That’s what happened, isn’t it?”
He
gazed into the mouth of a skull, thinking.
“Now,”
the hyena said, “you’ve told me that some other sorcerer arrived here before
you did. Using spells to turn people into puppets. Wielding illegal magic, to
be specific-like.”
“Yes.”
“Right.
Now, you’re a smart lad. These corpses we’ve been seeing in the tomb—how old
were they?”
“About
a day or so.”
She
nodded, like the final piece had slid together. “Final question. Did your uncle
send you off on your journey? Hug you tightly, wish you luck?”
“No.
He—” Isaac shook his head. “He had some urgent business come up before I left.
Something about taming loose thralls that were attacking a village.”
“Be
specific, now. When was the last time you saw him?”
He
blinked. The air of the dead city seemed to rub against him.
“About
a day before you left, wasn’t it?”
“No,”
Isaac said. “No, no, he wouldn’t—”
“Isaac—”
“No!
Parasite magic was not his specialty! It’s a different sorcerer!”
“Aha,”
Zaria said, like she’d caught him in a blunder, “but as I recall you sayin’,
magical talent is all passed by blood. Your father knew two types. So do you.
It’s all in the family.”
She
looked at him, expectantly. He did not answer.
“Does
your uncle know two types?” Zaria asked.
“No,”
Isaac replied. “He only . . . studied necromancy. He did not divest his
training.”
“Could
he, though?”
“I
suppose.”
“Would
he?”
“I
don’t know! Look, he—he left the tower frequently. It
was not unusual for him to be called away. He—he wouldn’t—”
“Called
away for what?” Zaria asked. “Training? In some different blood magic, like
he’s already got? He’s a student of the dark arts, like you said. How hard
could it be to learn another?”
“That
is an outrageous accusation.”
“Listen,
love—”
“No!”
His shout echoed down the empty streets. “My uncle would not do such things! He
wouldn’t try to kill me! He wouldn’t—there’s no way he could’ve gone ahead of
me. He wouldn’t do that. He cared about me. I know he did! It wasn’t constant—”
Isaac forced himself to breathe. “He would chat with me, tell jokes, give me
books, he tried very hard to play the stern instructor, but I could always tell
he cared, he wouldn’t have bothered with me if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have
spent so many years giving me mnemonics training, he wouldn’t—”
Her
hand squeezed his shoulder. Isaac fell silent, expecting an instructive lesson,
a reprimand for raising his voice.
“Listen,”
Zaria said, softly.
He
looked up at her.
“To be
fair,” she said, “this is all above me. I won’t pretend to know the faintest
twit about mage politics, nor your mentor himself. If you say he wouldn’t be
nefarious, then I’ll have to take your word.” She squeezed again. “But I know
my business, love. All my life, I’ve had to watch for those who’d take
advantage, those who’d cheat me of coin, giving me a sweet smile so I don’t see
them robbing me blind. I know how to spot when people lie. Because of that, I’m
now positive that someone’s been lying to you. How or why, I don’t know, but
that’s my conclusion, all the same.”
Isaac’s
mind raced in his head. Every thought made his heart flutter and twist.
“Whatever
deal is being arranged here,” Zaria said, “you’re getting the raw end of it.
That’s the only way I can make sense of this.”
He
gazed out over the empty street, past murals of mythology and long vacant
homes, losing himself in memory.
The
cane.
The
shouting.
The
books and gifts and lessons.
The
warm meals shared, the promises of a future.
“Isaac,”
she said. “I trust you won’t get offended by this, but you don’t know how the
world works. If you want to live your fantasy of wanders and travel, then you
need to be mindful of those who’ll wish you harm. There’s bad sorts out there,
and they won’t always look that way on first glance. Everyone’s got motives and
meanness to them—it’s just a matter of whether they’re showing it to you.” She
took her hand off his shoulder. “Consider what I’ve said. That’s all I’m
asking.”
“It’s
not—” Isaac took a deep breath. “This isn’t something I haven’t thought of
before. It’s not as if I could ask any of these things, but . . . I’ve always
suspected, in some way—”
An
explosion ripped through the street.
The
shockwave slapped him so hard, so suddenly, that he felt several punctures
reopen on his chest. Dust spurted in grid-like gusts from the knuckled
pavement. They both stumbled back, ears ringing and organs quivering, barely
hearing the sound as it echoed and slammed further along the city.
“Oh,
fuck,” Zaria said. “Not again.”
Another
explosion came. He saw a brief sliver of fire and smoke over the roofs of
several mausoleums before the next shockwave bowled him over, knocking him
off-balance. It felt like half his intestines had switched position. Next to
them, a library, buttressed with ulnas and radii, began to rock as several of
its support beams snapped at once, the ancient building quickly crumbling into
several skeletons of stone.
Isaac
leaned on his knees, rubbing a hand across his bearded jaw. His teeth ached.
Had he clenched them too hard? Through ringing ears, he heard the shockwave of
the explosion bouncing rapidly off the walls of the titan’s body cavity,
growing more chaotic with every reverberation. He felt nauseous and dizzy.
Zaria
slapped him roughly on the back, seeming barely affected.
“That’s
black powder,” she said. “Soren’s down here.”
Once
the echoes stopped bouncing through the necropolis, he began to hear the sounds
of fighting. There were screams and shouts, a crackling fire, a dry tumble of
stone. He heard the dull thump of a grenade. Dirt rained from the ceiling.
“Sounds
like a full charge,” Zaria said, clutching her poleaxe. “What in the name of
peace and fuck does she think she’s doing?”
“That’s
not the worst thing,” Isaac said.
“How’s
that?”
“What
could she be fighting down here?”
Zaria
looked at him, the dust of an ancient city coating her mohawk. The sounds of
battle grew louder. Buildings rattled with noise. He nodded.
They
ran through the street, toward the sound of war.