Michael Manning - Mageborn - The Blacksmith’s Son

“Now now, lets be a good girl. If you scream again I might not let you have air next time. Besides, isn’t it so much nicer when you have some complicity in this? The knowledge that you could have screamed but didn’t? Sometimes it takes something like that to teach someone just how important life is, certainly it’s worth more than your maidenhead.” He leered as he began sliding her skirt up, exposing her nakedness to the light.

Penny closed her eyes, the awful reality of it being too much to look upon any longer. Then blessed unconsciousness overtook her and she knew no more.

I got to the library without meeting anyone in the corridors, which was a relief. After the day I had had I wasn’t really looking forward to seeing people. Once inside I retrieved the book and took a moment to weigh it in my hands. It was an impressive tome weighing several pounds and covered with arcane words and symbols that glowed in my sight. Having already read a substantial part of Vestrius’ journal I felt sure it would make the remainder much easier to understand. Mastery of the Lycian tongue was quite literally the most important knowledge I could gain, it being the means for me to control my incipient abilities.

Feeling a little better I tucked it under my arm and headed back toward my room. My life might be a mess in most respects but here at least was a problem I could solve through honest application of effort. Wrapped in my own thoughts I barely noticed the voices coming from one of the rooms along the hallway. I kept walking, wondering how late I could stay up studying and still be able to rise at the proper time in the morning, when a shrill scream cut through my ruminations. It was a sound I’ll never forget. A raw expression of fear and terror, the sort of scream you sometimes imagine but never hope to hear. The sort of sound someone might make falling to their death. It stopped abruptly, cut off before it could be completed.

I looked around anxiously, unsure which direction it had come from. The book distracted me so I set it down against the wall to free my hands and walked back the way I had come. There. I could hear someone talking behind a door. I checked the doors on both sides before I found the correct one and leaning in I thought I could hear Devon’s voice, speaking calmly to someone else. I almost moved on at that point, surely the person that had given that blood curdling yell couldn’t be inside, not with Devon talking in such a composed manner.

I pulled my head back from the door frame, and then I felt a sudden release of power. My practice over the last few days had made me quite familiar with the sensation. That held my attention. I pressed my ear firmly to the door, straining to hear his voice through the thick wood. The words that finally came chilled my blood, “Sometimes it takes something like that to teach someone just how important life is, certainly it’s worth more than your maidenhead.” I couldn’t be sure who Devon was speaking to, but it was clear that whoever it was, they were in terrible trouble.

Unsure what to do I drew a deep breath and used the only spell I knew that might help, “Shibal,” I intoned quietly with as much power as I had, directing my will beyond the door. I listened again, I wasn’t sure but I thought I heard someone slump to the floor, and Devon was no longer talking. Satisfied I tried the door handle.

It was locked, of course. I had no knowledge that would get me past locked doors, and the doors in Castle Lancaster were so sturdily constructed it would take two men and a ram to batter one down. I stared at the door, angry at my own ignorance; surely if I were better educated there would be a simple way to bypass the lock. Thinking of the state the poor girl must be in gave urgency to my anger. Placing my hand on the door I closed my eyes and bowed my head. I took a deep breath and drew my power up as I filled my lungs, pulling in ever more, till it felt as if it would be a race to see which burst first, my mind or my chest. I had never tried to do something like this before but I knew that without proper words it would take a lot of strength. Then I began to exhale slowly, building pressure in my hand as it pressed against the door. As my breath emptied I began to feel the door give way and I blew the rest of the air from my lungs in an explosive rush. The result was an explosion of wood and splinters as the door disintegrated, slivers of wood flying in every direction.

The vision I found within was one that still gives me nightmares. Devon lay slumped on the floor on the opposite side of bed, but I had no attention to spare for him. The figure on the bed riveted me in place. It was Penny, her long dark hair had come loose from the bun she usually kept it in when working, and it lay scattered about her head in dark ringlets. Her uniform was ripped open, from her neck to her belly, exposing flesh that I had previously imagined but never hoped to see. Her skirt was shoved up above her hips and her legs were spread, one folded awkwardly under her, the while the other was stretched out, her foot touching the floor. She looked dead. A long splinter stood out from her right thigh, blood dripping down onto the linen sheets. If I could describe the emotion that filled me then I would, but there were no words, the world went white, as if all the color had been leached from it, leaving a horror of stark white and black contrasts.

I was numb with horror and shock while at the same time filled with a cold heartless rage. Walking over I bent down to pull the dagger from Devon Tremont’s belt, which was already partly undone. From the looks of things he hadn’t had time to bring his crime to fruition. It hardly mattered, Penny was dead. Her virginity or lack thereof would not bring her back to life, would not make her smile at me again. I knelt beside the bed, and though I cannot remember feeling anything but a cold numbness, tears ran down my face.

Carefully, I brought the dagger to bear, directly over the bastard’s still beating heart, careful not to prick him with the point lest it wake him before I made the final plunge. I held it there for a timeless moment. My only worry was that it was too clean a death, better than he deserved. That momentary debate was all that saved his life.

A sudden sound broke my train of thought, an incongruous noise, too improbable to belong there. Penny was snoring. If it had been a light snore I might have missed it, but this was no delicate thing, it was a deep rumbling vibration. The sort a fat farmer might make after having too much ale and passing out in his bed. It led me out of the dark place that had replaced my heart, and improbably I began to laugh.

It was an awful laugh as such things go; when it started it was a terrible sound, a wretched gibbering sound, the kind of laugh to make townsfolk shutter their windows and lock their doors. As it stretched on though my stomach relaxed and I began to laugh more naturally, a deep belly laugh, interspersed with gasps as I struggled to catch my breath. Eventually the laughter faded into tears and I cried quietly till I got control of myself.