Dave Smeds - The Sorcery Within

"Good evening, Admiral."

Warnyre jumped. Keron was leaning back lazily on his bed. The admiral recovered quickly. "To what do I owe the honor, Captain?"

"I thought you might want a report on my mission," Keron said matter-of-factly.

Warnyre closed the door. "I had thought tomorrow morning would be more appropriate."

Keron reached in a pocket, withdrew something, and threw it to the admiral. "I found something in Eruth. I thought you might be interested in it."

Warnyre held what he had caught in his open palm. It was an amath pearl.

"Have you ever seen that before?" Keron asked.

"I've seen many amath pearls."

"Notice the flaw. It's quite distinctive. The last time I saw that pearl, it was in the sea chest of this very ship."

Suddenly Warnyre whistled sharply.

"We seem to be upset, Admiral."

"You won't live to bear witness against me," Warnyre swore, and drew his rapier.

The door opened. Enret stuck his head in. "Did someone whistle?"

"What?!" Warnyre yelled.

Enret lifted the head of an unconscious man into view. "If you wanted Nals here, he seems to have fallen suddenly asleep. Poor Robbern isn't doing much better." Behind Enret, Bhaukom waved cheerfully.

Warnyre spun toward Keron, who simply raised a blowgun to his lips and fired. Warnyre clutched at the pin in his chest. His rapier fell, then his body, battering the floor with an ignominious thud. He wiggled there, awake and struggling, but unable to stand.

Keron came forward, picked Warnyre up by the front of his clothing and hoisted him above his head. "I used Mother's Breath. You can try moving your muscles all you want, but they won't work in coordination. Unfortunately it won't kill you."

Warnyre goggled at the single arm holding him toward the ceiling. Suddenly everything made sense. "You – you have the belt of Alemar!" The words were garbled by the effect of the poison, but understandable.

"Yes. Had you known that earlier, your ambush would no doubt have been successful. The belt doesn't do much, you know; just makes me strong. I see now that I need something to make me stab-proof."

Enret, with Bhaukom immediately behind, dragged in the limp bodies of Warnyre's henchmen. "What do we do with these, Cap'n?"

"Put them in the brig. I want them alive."

He dropped Warnyre, leaning the man's back against one of his sea chests. "I want all of you alive. There are others like you out there, and you can tell about them."

"Never," Warnyre mumbled, but he failed even to convince himself.

"Think again. Send Obo to me," Keron called after his departing mates.

"No need," the old wizard said, and stepped into the room. He stooped over the admiral. Warnyre looked into the frightening depth of the sorcerer's eyes and choked.

"We will find the truth," Keron reiterated. "It's no trivial thing, a navy man defying the authority of his superior officer. For my sake I have to make sure my case is thorough. We will set sail for Firsthold before the night is out. The king himself will be the judge of your guilt."

Warnyre groaned.

"Lady Nanth has been pining for the children. She will be pleased to return to the capital," Obo said.

"I imagine she would be," Keron said in a reserved tone. Obo shot him a puzzled look. As Warnyre drifted off into a drugged haze, he felt Keron lift his head by the hair. The expression on the captain's face seemed more melancholy than victorious, and his voice was vengeful.

"You owe me more than you will ever know," he said.

AN OLD PRIEST NAMEDGerat led Alemar and Elenya more than a league from the T'krt camp in the central reach of the Ahloorm Basin, alone and in silence, and stopped in the middle of open desert. The place was a curious mixture of terrain. Several outcroppings of brittle, volcanic rock pockmarked the landscape, the sands varying from miniature, fine-grained dunes to patches of coarse material. Silt from prehistoric flows of the Ahloorm could be found in the areas where the sage was thickest. Gerat reached down and broke off a chunk of ancient lava, his grip stronger than one would expect of a priest.

"What is this called?" he asked.

Alemar sighed. "Seti'i."

The old man made no overt acknowledgment of the correct answer, merely stepped over to a ridge of sand and picked up a handful of its grains. "This?" he asked Elenya.

"Mah,"she replied.

Gerat was an aged, gaunt Ah-no-ken rarely possessed of either enthusiasm or impatience. His expressions and manner were etched into him as deeply as the lines on his face. Dour and owning a monotone voice, something in his speech nevertheless caused his words to remain in the memories of those he instructed.

Gerat pointed to the coarsest sand. "Choo,"Alemar answered.

Gerat nodded slightly. Soon he picked up another handful from a dark section of earth where a pool had been not long before, a remnant of the sudden, thunderous rain earlier in the week. He stared at Elenya.

"Mud," she snapped.

The Ah-no-ken waited with his infuriating calm. He never criticized, never complimented. He also never allowed his pupils surcease from his lessons. Alemar opened his mouth to word the answer, but Gerat said, "No. I askedhim."

She sighed. "Leism,"she said curtly.

Gerat looked at the mud in his palm. "What is the significance ofleism?" he asked.

She could think of several uses for that particular handful, but she held her tongue. The past four months had taught her that spite washed completely past Gerat. She cited the passage: "After God created the world, He took the mud of its shores and made from it the first men, that there should be physical containers for the souls that He took from His being. Man's original substance is recalled each time he spits, or bleeds, or urinates, creating mud again from earth and the fluid of his body."

"And the lesson thatleism gives us?"

"That man should guard his fluids – drink water only to the extent of his actual requirement, spill his seed only into a female, and let blood only as ritual and war demand. There is power within the liquid of the body, which devils and sorcerers may twist to their own ends."

Gerat nodded. "Good," he said. "You are ready."

"Ready for what?" Alemar asked presently.

"Next week, the youth of the T'krt journey to the oasis of Shom, to perform the rite ofpulstrall, as do all boys in their thirteenth year, if, as have you, they have absorbed the teachings required of them. The other Ah-no-ken have decreed that you will go. My vote is the last."

Gerat began walking back toward camp, drawing the twins with him as he spoke. "You have been trained very hard. You have been with us four months – hardly long enough to learn what a man must know. But thepulstrall comes only once a year, and it is not appropriate that you, who are grown, should be as children. We had no concern for you in the physical tests, but a man who knows nothing of language and law is not a man. You have done well."

It seemed odd to finally hear his judgment. Gerat had early been given the responsibility for the twins' education. He had drowned them in Zyraii. During the first few weeks, Fumlok had been allowed to explain the difficult concepts and points of grammar, but as the twins' fluency in the desert language reached a proficiency equivalent with Fumlok's weak command of the High Speech, the lame man appeared less and less often, and finally, not at all.

"This ceremony – we've heard it mentioned often. What's involved?" Alemar asked.

"It lasts eight days. A small party of Ah-no-ken and Po-no-pha will take you to Shom, a place used only for thepulstrall, and you will be put through tests to prove that you are ready to become men. You'll find out the rest when you get there."