Chapter 38 #2
At least I don’t have to worry about the Great God glaring down on me, since the One who is all things was offended enough by the first batch of scourge sorcerers to abandon our continent centuries ago in the midst of the Great Retribution.
Having now experienced the venom of scourge sorcery firsthand, I kind of understand.
I climb the stairs as quickly as my legs will go. With every step, the taint of magic in the air thickens.
It’s not only the temple’s, but an energy that’s more erratic and searing as well, radiating down from above.
To my frustration, my own power stirs in my chest in answer. It starts to niggle at my innards with its familiar demands.
I could launch myself right to the top of the tower in an instant. I could crush whoever’s working their brutal sorcery up there without even seeing them.
I set my jaw and march on up. I need to see.
I need to know what’s actually happening before I can be sure of stopping it properly.
And I won’t lower myself to the same stinking depths Wendos and his allies have, not caring what or who they sacrifice to get what they want.
When I reach the first windows showing the increasingly dim light of the impending evening outside, I know I’ve emerged beyond the level of the temple’s main roof. I push my burning calves onward, breathing in a slow, steady rhythm.
There are platforms at periodic intervals now. The flat spans of stone floor hold markings of ash, wax, and other fragments that suggest the clerics conduct occasional rituals up here.
I haven’t passed so much as a devout. Do they not use the All-Giver’s tower regularly?
Or have the scourge sorcerers done something to ensure the temple’s staff would be occupied elsewhere?
A breeze drifts down from above, carrying an acrid smell. Julita’s presence goes rigid at the back of my head.
That’s burnt dartling eggshell. Borys and Wendos thought it would help them consolidate sacrifices into a greater power.
At the same moment, I catch the first muffled voice from above. Whoever’s burning the stuff now, I’ve almost reached them.
I set my feet even more carefully as I continue my swift ascent, keeping my ears pricked. When I get close enough for the words to become clear, I recognize the voice of the man who approached me in the library and claimed to be Julita’s friend.
Wendos’s tone is harsher now. “We need more. I can’t quite connect our power with the others’. Focus your gifts.”
A youthful female voice answers, lower and pained. “We’re trying.”
“We’ll see through our duty to the gods,” another man says with a rasp. “We won’t let them down.”
They think they’re doing this for the gods? Are they insane?
I guess that’s a very real possibility.
I ease up the last spiraled flight with silent steps and breath held. Who are the “others” Wendos mentioned that he’s trying to connect his magic with?
My hand drops to the pocket where I tucked his sketch paper. The arrangements of three circles.
Was I right, and at least two more scourge sorcerers are at some other high points in the city? It sounds like they haven’t accomplished what they’re aiming for yet, though.
So what exactly is that? The college is already in chaos.
But they’re out here in the rest of Florian. Maybe they’re hoping to wreak the same havoc across the entire capital.
My blood runs cold. I push myself a little faster—until the final landing emerges into view around the next curve of the staircase.
I spot the top of Wendos’s head, his shaggy dark hair swaying as he shifts his view. His back is mostly to me.
Crouching low, I creep up step after step. Then I huddle with my back against the central post of the spiraling stairs, which ends at the span of floor just above my head.
At the sight before me, my stomach flips over.
Yes, Wendos is standing there, poised by the stone railing that surrounds the uppermost platform of the tower. Only the nine narrow columns that hold up the final spire of the roof break the view of the rest of the city all around us.
Julita’s childhood tormenter has smeared a dark, glinting powder across his hands and the stone edge, and he mutters words I can’t make out as he stares off into the distance.
Toward his far-off associates?
He has other associates here, though. Three of them, hunched in a ring around him—but they barely look like people at all.
Their scalps are bare patchworks of scarring where their hair was carved off. Only ruddy holes mark where their ears should be. The one I can see in profile has nothing but wizened hollows where his eyes once were.
And their bodies…
Their cloaks slump across shoulders far too narrow. I don’t think any of them have arms. A wooden post protruding from one figure’s skirt suggests she’s lost a leg as well.
No, not lost. Sacrificed.
Gods save us all, Julita murmurs.
As nausea roils through my stomach, I understand.
The scourge sorcerers haven’t lured innocent kids into sacrificing their whole existence to fuel someone else’s power—at least, not all of their victims. They’ve had them give up every piece of themselves they can while still living to gain who knows what twisted gifts the godlen felt obliged to reward them with in return.
In a sickening way, the strategy makes sense. It’s a subtler approach than the typical, fatal scourge sorcery technique.
The sacrificial accomplices have kept their own gifts while staying ready to support their sorcerous leaders with them when called on. No one figure has been carrying massive amounts of power as if trying to match the divine.
Alek said it’d take the power of all the godlen to compel daimon. Are there at least nine of these ruined figures positioned around the city for the sorcerers’ evil purpose?
Where did they come from? Is this who Ster. Torstem had hidden away in the brothel’s attic?
Were they the prostitutes’ children? How could anyone in that place allow this horror to happen to kids they’d watched grow up?
Wendos hisses through his teeth and makes a sharp motion at the forms around him. “Concentrate harder! We need the daimon rampaging right through the inner wards if we want everyone to see the truth.”
My pulse hiccups. They have found a way to control the spirit-creatures, then.
But what truth could he possibly think he’s conveying?
His voice has gone even more ragged. Whatever his mad purpose is, he’s obviously happy to tear the city apart for it.
I glance at the stairs behind me, but there’s no sight or sound of my associates. How long will it take for Julita’s men to follow me?
I dig my hand into my pocket to press the locket again, in case they won’t realize I’ve gone up the tower. I have no idea how long the magical signal lasts.
Wendos has to be stopped—but we need to know who he’s working with too. Where the other sorcerers are. What they’re trying to accomplish.
Ending this catastrophe isn’t as simple as running in there and stabbing the royal sword straight through him. I don’t know how to do this right.
Then the woman in the middle of the semi-circle stifles a sob, and Wendos’s attention jerks toward her.
“Get yourself together, Fyrinth,” he snarls. “Or would you rather Torstem dumped you back at the whorehouse where maybe you belong after all?”
Fyrinth?
I register the confirmation of my suspicions, of Torstem’s involvement and the brothel’s, but all that feels momentarily distant behind the chill that name provokes.
It’s not a common one in this city—I think it’s Icarian or Bryfesh in origin rather than Silanian. But I’ve heard it before, just a few days ago.
What are the chances that one of the orphans Torstem saw off to the Inganne’s temple had the exact same name?
Oh, Julita mumbles, just as the same realization hits me like a sucker punch. Oh, no. He switched them.
The women of the brothel didn’t sacrifice their own children. They sent them off to better lives at the temples.
Did they even know it’d be under some other child’s name?
The girl who was going by Fyrinth—her sacrificed little finger—just like one of the prostitutes I spoke with. It’s a common minor sacrifice. I never would have assumed…
That could have been her mother. And the real Fyrinth was secreted into their attic, with no one at the orphanage or the temple having a clue that she’d never ended up at her supposed destination.
No wonder the devouts spoke so vaguely—or outright fancifully—about their visits to the college. They had never actually been, only the kids whose places they’d taken.
How far does the conspiracy stretch? There are dozens of brothels across Florian’s wards.
We have no idea how many devastated children the sorcerers have groomed and hidden throughout the city. How much power they might be calling on now.
Fyrinth sucks in a ragged breath and squares what’s left of her shoulders.
Whatever she does must help, because Wendos’s face brightens. “That’s it. I can feel that. It just might be enough…”
As he turns back toward the view of the city, my gut churns. There’s still no sign of my allies arriving.
It’s only me. I have to stop him before he unleashes even more terror on my city, however I possibly can.
My magic shudders in my chest alongside the queasiness in my gut, but there’s no direct threat to me yet. It isn’t wrenching at me the way it can.
Let’s hope I can keep it that way.
I slide Stavros’s sword from its sheath, testing the weight in my hands. It’s about twice the size of my favorite knife and three times the weight, but I’ve wielded bulkier weapons when I’ve needed to.
Maybe the interruption will shake the accomplices’ loyalty to the man who’s channeling their gifts. Maybe I can take him prisoner without any more bloodshed.
I have to try.
I heft the sword in my hands and adjust my position on the steps. Inhale and exhale to steady my body and my mind. Wait until Wendos appears completely focused on the world beyond the tower.
And then I launch myself at him.