Son of a Dark Wizard (15 page)

Sorren turned to see what had struck him. It
was there, beside the log, nestled among the dead pine needles of
the forest floor. It looked like a small brown leather pouch of
sand.

Sorren recognized it in a heartbeat.

Devil’s breath
.

A hand bomb, the same sort of bomb soldiers
had thrown at him in his castle.

As it began to quiver, Sorren leapt to his
feet and held out his flesh-and-blood hand. He thought the seizing
spell, bringing the bomb hurdling into his palm, and, with another
spell, sent it rocketing skyward.

Boom!

The air shook and Sorren felt the heat of the
fire above on his cheeks, but his eyes were scanning the darkness
between the trees.

“There,” Thale said, pointing at an angle
through the colors of the bonfire.

Sorren followed Thale’s finger, but saw
nothing but trees and shadow. More small leather pouches burst
through the pine branches, rolling through the air at Sorren. He
threw his arms out in their direction, as if placing his hands on
an invisible wall, catching the bombs with a spell and launching
them into the forest canopy high above.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Men and women were scrambling around the
bonfire, dropping plates, spilling bowls, overturning tables. The
children were screaming.

The children.

Sorren spun around. Some of them had already
fled into the forest, but others crouched close to the ground, some
shielding their eyes, others gazing skyward, transfixed by the
sight of the bombs bursting above. Black ash from the explosions
came drifting down like fine snow.

Sorren flung his silver-copper hand in their
direction, backhanding the air, swiftly but gently pushing the
children backward as if by the winds of an invisible storm,
backward into the shadows where they’d be safe.

More bombs thudded against the ground beside
Sorren’s feet. He aimed an arm in their direction as he saw them,
whispering spells under his breath, casting the bombs skyward as
quickly and forcefully as possible.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Branches snapped and plunged to the ground as
ash continued raining down. Thale grunted.

Sorren turned to see him two steps away,
fallen on his side, desperately clambering to pull himself back up,
his good hand clawing at the log.

A bomb came soaring out from the shadows,
smashing into the weaving colors of the bonfire’s flames, sending a
spray of sparks showering across Sorren and Thale. Sorren pointed a
hand at the fire, trying to spot the bomb within the roaring
flames, but it was no use. The flames were too bright and wild.

Sorren turned his flesh-and-blood arm to
Thale and whispered a spell, preparing to send Thale blowing back
to safety as he’d done with the children. He pointed his mechanical
arm at the flames, directing the same spell at the bonfire’s wood,
hoping to catapult the whole blazing thing skyward in the opposite
direction.

Just as Thale began rising into the air, just
as the bonfire’s colorful flames began whirling back and away, the
bomb exploded.

A soundless flash of light and Sorren flipped
backward, fire rushing past his eyes in wild torrents of color. He
put his arms over his head, curling himself up as large chunks of
burning debris fell upon him, pelting him from head to toe.
Fortunately, nothing heavy enough to cause injury, but it hurt all
the same, stinging his back, scalding his injured leg and the back
of his flesh-and-blood hand.

It was over in seconds, and Sorren was quick
to his feet, shaking off ash and surveying what remained, ready to
catch more hand bombs with a spell should they come flying toward
him.

Nearby, Thale slowly and crookedly rose to
his feet.

A long shaft of burning wood impaled his
side. Thale had it clutched in his good hand, oblivious to its
flames, slowly pulling it out, blood dripping from its end.

“Don’t touch it!” Sorren wasn’t sure if he
said the words or only thought them as he stumbled toward
Thale.

But it was too late; Thale dropped the
burning length of timber by his feet. In vain, he pressed a hand
against the gaping wound in his side, blood pouring out from
between his fingers, and he collapsed forward.

Sorren caught him and the two fell to the
forest floor.

Sorren sat up with Thale in his arms. He
pressed his silver-copper hand on Thale’s wound, but the warm blood
oozed out all the same, drenching his silver hand and soaking his
shirt.

Thale began shuddering, convulsing, his body
thrashing backward in violent jerks. His human eye fluttered and
his tovocular eye twisted in strange erratic rhythms. His breath
became desperate gasps.

“I . . . I
should’ve . . .” Thale’s voice came in strained
broken whispers. “I should’ve . . . should’ve seen
them . . .”

Sorren tried to work his flesh-and-blood hand
under Thale’s head to steady it. The blood wouldn’t stop.

Then Thale was still. His human eye relaxed
and almost seemed to glow, as if he’d caught sight of something
wondrous and beautiful in the sky.

His body went limp. A long breath escaped his
mouth and the life in his eye was gone.

Sorren wasn’t sure how long he sat there with
his friend in his arms. Time had stopped.

The rest of the world was gone. Silent. Dark.
Cold.

Sorren drew a deep breath and took his
mechanical hand from the wound. Gently, he put three blood-soaked
silver fingers around Thale’s tovocular eye and pulled it from his
socket. Blood dripped across Thale’s face as Sorren clasped the
gold-blue eye in his silver-copper palm.

When he glanced up, he found several men
watching him. Rozzom in his wolf skins, Entackus in his bear skins,
another man in tiger skins. They stood amid the burning remnants of
the exploded bonfire, their faces expressionless. Behind them, half
hidden by the shadows of the forest, more men of Owl’s Grave stood
beside four kneeling Zolen soldiers. Swords rested against the
soldiers’ necks as someone tied their hands behind their backs.

Rozzom and Entackus stepped forward and knelt
beside Sorren. Rozzom slid a hand across Thale’s face, closing his
lifeless human eye, then he and Entackus carefully took Thale’s
body from Sorren’s arms. They said nothing as they began carrying
the body back toward their huts.

They saw me cast those spells
, Sorren
thought.
They know who I am now
.

He kept silent as he stood up, and he didn’t
look back as he walked past the captured Zolen soldiers and into
the shadows of the forest.

The forest was almost pitch black, but Sorren
followed the soft and steady sounds of Quove’s wings as the raven
led him to the airship. He held his arms out in front of him and
walked slowly, careful to not walk headfirst into a tree. He wasn’t
so concerned about the branches, letting them scrape his face as he
walked past them.

He had to keep moving. He didn’t want to
linger in the forest or in the memory of what had just happened.
Keep moving
, he told himself.
Don’t stop moving
.

He needed the moon. The sudden thirst for a
clear open view of the Nyrish moon was almost unbearable.

Sorren had no idea how long he’d been walking
when he came to the airship. It sat on the forest floor, tilting to
the side as if about to fall over. The loading bridge was open,
casting a faint yellow glow across the surrounding trees.

Sorren approached, realizing he’d been
letting himself limp.

“Sorren?” Sage called out, carefully walking
down the crooked slope of the loading bridge. “It’s not midnight
yet—Sorren?” Now he was hurrying down the bridge. “Sorren, what
happened?”

Sorren held out his mechanical arm. “Get me
my staff.”

“You’re bleeding all over!” Sage said,
adjusting his spectacles. “You need to lie—”

“My staff,” Sorren repeated, almost
shouting.

Sage paused and stood there, staring at him
with wide worried eyes.

Don’t make me say it again
, Sorren
thought.

As if reading his mind, Sage turned and
hurried back into the airship. Moments later, he reemerged with the
staff, the green flame at its top blazing brightly. Sorren uttered
the seizing spell, sending it rushing out of Sage’s grasp, catching
it in his silver-copper hand.
Clank.

Sage rubbed his hands together. “It’s not
midnight yet. The ship’s not ready.”

Sorren limped closer to the airship. “Get me
a pen and paper.”

Sage looked confused, but once again
disappeared into the airship, returning moments later with the pen
and a scroll. “What’s all this about? What happened to you?”

With another spell, Sorren pulled the pen and
paper from Sage’s grip and caught them in his other hand, stuffing
them into a coat pocket. “They know who I am,” he said as he turned
away. “And Thale is dead.”

He heard no response from Sage as he followed
his raven back into the forest, this time with the light of his
staff to guide his steps.

* * *

Sorren journeyed up a long steep hill where
half-buried boulders glinted in the green fire of his staff. The
pine trees thinned out here, and the ground was hard and rocky.
Quove flew ahead, leading Sorren up the hillside.

As he continued climbing, pieces of the
Nyrish moon came into view between the trees and boulders ahead.
Such small pieces, but the dark warm shades of blue beckoned Sorren
forward.

The hill peaked with a smooth surface, a
narrow gently-sloping plateau that led to a sharp cliff. Sorren
walked to its edge and peered over, kicking pebbles into the pools
of darkness below. It was a long way down.

Here above the pines of Owl’s Fortress, the
wide sky was open and crowded with stars. The full moons cast their
light upon the sea of treetops as dark clouds scrolled across the
distant horizons.

Sorren sat down and unrolled the blank scroll
across the hard ground. He licked the tip of the fountain pen and
wrote out a small note to Kovola, informing him of what had
happened in Owl’s Grave and why he’d never see Thale again. When he
finished, he ripped the note from the rest of the paper and rolled
it into a small tight scroll. He used the tip of the fountain pen
to tear off a very thin strip of cloth from where his coat was
still ripped open on his arm. He whistle Quove to his mechanical
hand, placed her on his foot, and carefully tied the note to
Quove’s leg with the cloth.

Before sending the raven on her errand,
Sorren sat back and looked at the bird. Why had she come to him in
the first place? He’d never questioned it before. He took the bird
in his hands, held her close for moment, and quietly spoke her
name. “Quove.” Slowly, he held her out and gave her to the sky. She
flew off, out over the trees of Owl’s Fortress. Sorren watched
until she was too small to see.

Then Sorren stood and faced to the Nyrish
moon. He didn’t
need
to collect power, he had plenty
coursing through his veins. But he was thirsty for it.

He opened his mind and let the Nyrish power
flood in. It flowed through him and around him and seemed to cloak
him in warmth. It brought him back to that stormy night in the
castle years ago, when he’d drawn a fever and only found comfort
beside the fire.

He let the power rush in, knowing he didn’t
need it, knowing he was already overflowing. It wasn’t wise to
drink in too much Nyrish power. It might escape in wild and
dangerous ways. It might break his mind.

But Sorren wasn’t worried. He would drown in
the power tonight. He tried to open his mind more, to let more
power in. Images burst into existence before his eyes. His castle
crumbling to pieces. A ring of ravens flying in circles. The
wizards of the Nyrish Council sitting around their table, scowling
at him and shaking their heads. The rire, the breeze caressing its
fur, steaming blood bursting from its neck. Atlorus sitting in the
center of a bonfire, unharmed by the roaring flames around him,
staring through them with a fearless smile. The power was rushing
in and around Sorren’s mind like a raging river, pushing his
thoughts into strange and ghastly places, yet Sorren wanted
more.

He lost all feeling in his body. He lost all
sense of sight and sound, all sense of up and down. He felt
weightless now, as if he were floating in some warm abyss where he
existed only as a collection of strange and broken thoughts.

And the roaring river of power began ripping
at his mind, tearing at its edges, searching for a way to burst
through, pulling apart his consciousness. So Sorren laughed, or
thought laughter, and let go of his mind, surrendering himself to a
deep and dreamless sleep.

* * *

Sorren awoke to a cold wind. The stars were
hidden by clouds, but the Nyrish moon still shone through, coloring
the clouds a creamy blue.

Something soared above, its silhouette
gliding in circles. Quove? No. The shape wasn’t right. This was a
larger bird. As it flapped its wings and swooped down, its wide
golden eyes glinted in the green light of Sorren’s staff.

An owl.

Sorren stretched and sat up, grabbing his
staff and pointing it at the owl, letting the flow of his power
brighten the staff’s green flame. It wasn’t just any owl. Sorren
was sure he recognized it. It was the owl that had watched him slay
the rire.

As Sorren rose to his feet, the owl flew down
the rocky hillside to the edge of the forest. Then it came
fluttering back toward Sorren, then back to the trees.

It wants me to follow
, Sorren
realized. He glanced around his feet to be sure nothing had fallen
from his pockets, then started forward, following the gray owl into
the forest.

Sorren kept his eyes on the owl as he
descended the gentle slopes into the thick forest underbrush. The
owl flew slowly, always circling back toward Sorren now and then as
if to make sure he was still following. Its wide golden eyes were
like those of a madman, curious and bewildered and confused by
everything he saw.