The Ban of Irsisri_An Epic Fantasy Read online

  “Not dead yet?”

  The sorcerer knelt to examine the man’s injury and almost lost his balance. There was little blood seeping around the blade. Might as well let him linger.

  Raethir Del stumbled around till he found the hunter’s bags. Sitting in a small puddle, the sorcerer rummaged through the bags till he found salve to spread over the burns on his palms. He tore up some of the hunter’s extra clothing to cover and bind his hands.

  He took some time to gather more wood, but it was all wet. Fanning the campfire back to life was a smoky ordeal, but once it was going well, he stacked branches above it to let the rising heat dry the wood. Satisfied with light and heat, he found a flask of water and drank deeply. He sat and faced the fire for a while, then turned his back to it. As he regained his night-vision, he hoped he could dry out and warm up enough to fall asleep again, but he feared what the woman’s voice would say to him next.

  The sound of the hunter's horse cropping at some grass brought Raethir Del back to consciousness. He blinked and saw nothing but gray, smelled nothing but smoke and damp, heard nothing but the steady pip pip pip of the trees shedding the rain. At least it was dawn, and he'd heard no more voices.

  As he sat up, he realized once more how weak he was. Aiding the Draelani through fog and lake had drained him of power, and the fight with the Saerani flyer had taken more of his strength than he cared to admit. The hike through the woods and holding the illusion of an old woman, however briefly, had taken nearly everything he had.

  Now he was cold and wet and injured. And no closer to finding what he was after.

  A plan, Raethir. You are never without a plan. What's next? He tried to organize his thoughts, but exhaustion fought him. Food. No, no, a piss. Then food.

  Within moments, he fell asleep again and slumped over.

  Once Raethir had slipped out of the hands of the Saerani guard during the Draelani raid, he had swum some distance away before leaping from the water and flapping around on the beach for a few moments. There, he had returned to his human form, wet and shivering. He had been just in time to witness the rout of the Draelani. He had cursed the tribesman who had tried to stop him and then turned his curses on the Draelani.

  There had been no use in returning to the Draelani camp and risking their anger turning to violence. The few possessions he'd brought and left cached nearby were not worth retrieving.

  Yet, there had been other options. He could return to the Saerani to search the ruins of their camp, but it would probably require sword and sorcery to find what he wanted. If, in fact, what he sought was even there.

  He could also head back to the city of Kophid. In and near the city were others who sought what he sought. For now, they knew little more than he did. But he couldn't risk them beating him to his goal.

  Something was about to happen. Something only the resari could interpret. Raethir Del could feel it, even if he was only a sorcerer and not someone who could read the Weave. All paths were converging, and he was determined to reach their intersection before anyone else.

  As soon as he had left the lake and turned his feet toward Kophid, the weather had turned on him, and it had begun to rain. Too drained to change into an eagle and fly back to the city, he had struck out on foot. Without food or shelter, his fatigue and anger had both grown. Late in the day, he had smelled smoke and soon saw light flickering in the woods. It had been then that he had approached the hunter's campsite and taken advantage of the man's hospitality.

  Now, it was dawn, and the rain had mercifully stopped. The campfire had gone out, warm ashes fluttering in the breeze. At least he had meat, and water, and some supplies.

  For the next few hours, Raethir alternated napping with drying out his clothes and the belongings of the hunter. There was little sunlight to help him, but the breeze was dry, and it gathered moisture to itself.

  Power. I need more power. He looked at the deer carcass, and the dying hunter, and knew what he had to do.

  He started by cutting down the deer and skinning it. It took more time and effort than he expected, and the results were not impressive. When Raethir Del was done, he roped the deerskin to a venerable oak, tying the hide just below the deer's drooping head so the deer faced out.

  Next, he turned to the hunter. Leaving the dagger embedded in the man’s shoulder, Raethir stripped him of his clothes, ignoring his cries of pain and pleas for mercy. He dragged the man naked through the mud, over to the deerskin. He managed to get underneath the man and lean his body against the tree, holding him in a standing position inside the deerskin. The deer's head rested on top of the hunter's head. The sorcerer drew out more rope and tied the hunter to the tree, running the rope under the man's armpits.

  Aramas was now draped by the deerskin. The deer seemed to be looking down on him. Raethir Del lashed the hunter's wrists and ankles to the legs of the deer.

  The sorcerer stepped back to look at his creation, this macabre symbol of transformation, and smiled. He could feel his hunger growing. His lips began forming the vradu words to name the spell he needed.

  As he finished, the forest went silent.

  The deer's antlers sprang up as the hunter raised his head, wide-eyed. “No!” screamed Aramas.

  But it was too late. His clammy flesh was already merging with the deerskin. The deer's head was already slipping over and engulfing his own.

  The creature jerked, coughing. Great spasms jumped through its legs, and a rush of steaming urine shot out. The hunter looked around through the eyes of the deer, wild with fear.

  What ... what have you done to me? said the deer-man in Raethir Del's head.

  The sorcerer stepped forward, ignoring the acrid pool at his feet, and took hold of the creature by the base of its antlers.

  “You are changing,” said the sorcerer, looking into the beast's eyes. “The power of the change is gathering in you, and I will take it into myself.”

  Go to hell.

  “Fine. Come with me.”

  The deer-man's legs strained at its bonds. The creature began to shake, the rope biting into its wrists and ankles. What had been the hunter's arms were covered with brown hide, his clenched fists turning into black hooves. The head of the deer slipped lower over the hunter's brow as the two continued to merge.

  Raethir Del took the bandaged palms of his hands and placed them over the large black eyes of the deer. He closed his eyes and leaned into the beast. The deer-man continued to shake, trying and failing to resist the transformation. As the change proceeded, Raethir Del began tapping the power that was building in the creature. It felt like warm water trickling up his arms, gathering in his chest, leaping into his head. Little by little, he felt the power slide into him, restoring his strength.

  With a sudden grunt of pain, the deer and the hunter became a single creature. Raethir Del found himself looking through the eyes of a deer on the run. But it was the hunter behind those eyes. The hunter ran in horror from his transformation. Raethir Del watched and laughed. It was like watching a dog running from its shadow.

  The sorcerer could feel the deer-man's heart pounding in his own chest. The change was working its way through every muscle in the creature's body. Raethir felt like ants were crawling up his skin, giving him dozens of little bites as they worked their way from his feet to his scalp. He cried out in pain as the energy rushed into him faster than he expected and threw him back, breaking contact.

  Raethir opened his eyes. He felt alive again, strong again, ready to join the hunt. For a moment, he gave in to temptation and let a ripple of change flow over him, becoming a tall, striped krylaan before returning to human form.

  The deer-man's head slumped forward. Raethir took the creature's head by the jaw and lifted it, looking into its eyes.

  “Do you wish to be released?”

  The creature's eyes rolled up. Yes.

  “Have you given me everything?”

  Yes. Now do it. Release me.

  “What can you tell me before I re
lease you? Do you see any of the Weave?”

  A moment or two passed.

  Only a threadbare patch on a cloak.

  “Speak to me,” commanded Raethir Del.

  And the creature spoke, but now, it was the voice of the woman Raethir had heard in his dreams.

  Take your power, abramusara, said the deer-man tied to the tree. But know this: what you seek is moving through the hills, headed for the city. Pursue it if you dare, but you will be too late.

  Raethir felt a trickle of sweat roll down his spine. There was no time to lose. He had to get back to Kophid before someone else held what he, Raethir Del, had sought for so long.

  Fly? No, he wasn't strong enough yet to fly to Kophid and still have power to spare if it was needed. He'd have to take the hunter's horse.

  Release me, said the deer-man. Or burn in hell.

  Raethir Del took the head of the beast by the base of its rack and gave it a violent twist, snapping its neck. A sound like rushing wind twisted around the creature's corpse as the deer-man burst into a cloud of dust and blew away.

  Raethir turned to head back to the shelter.

  Raethir Del. Ban-breaker.

  The sorcerer stopped without turning around. The deer-man was gone — the whisper had come from somewhere else, like a leaf falling from a tree. He turned his head only, looking back, waiting for the next whisper.

  Not far above the hunter's campsite, the hilltop was a graveyard for old rocks. The trees seemed to shun it. Perhaps more than one of their number had been struck by lightning there, as it was the highest point for a mile or two in each direction. Raethir wandered a bit, looking for the best perch on just the right boulder. Once he had found a comfortable rock, he sat cross-legged and closed his eyes as the clouds parted and sunlight broke through. He raised his hands to the sky and reached inside for the vradu words.

  “Numenaara selira vasecha. Numenaa sela visarecha. Vis', a selira vis', selira vasecha.”

  Sunbeams seemed to wrap themselves around his hands. The bandages began to scorch, and Raethir cried out but kept his hands high and his eyes closed. When the bandages were all black, they crumbled into ash. Raethir lowered his hands and looked at them. The burns were gone. Only pink flesh remained.

  He rested, aware that despite the renewal of his power he was not fully returned to his usual strength. As he sat, he scanned the sky. After several minutes, he was pleased to see some large black specks approaching in the distance. He raised one hand and motioned to the birds. Shortly, a trio of ravens landed nearby. The largest of the birds walked over to him and hopped up on the rock, then cocked his head.

  “What?” croaked the raven.

  “A message I want you to bear.”

  “What?”

  “A message, I said. To one of my servants.”

  “Who?”

  “Maznarg.”

  The raven began hopping up and down, squawking to the others. “Krylaan! Krylaan!”

  “Calm down,” said Raethir Del.

  “Eats ravens!” croaked the bird.

  “No. A krylaan just looks like it would.”

  “Eats ravens!”

  “Fool bird. It may eat a wayward crow but not a raven.”

  The raven hopped a little longer, then stopped as if to consider that. “Crow! Crow! Send a crow!”

  “No. I don't trust crows. Now shut up and listen carefully.”

  Chapter 5

  Visylon stood on the winding shoreline, staring across the tranquil water of Lake Cinnaril. He had followed the shore trail till he could no longer hear the commotion of the Saerani camp: the squeals of children chasing one another, the whacks and thuds of axes shaping timber for new cabins, the clang of hammer against metal as the smiths repaired notched and broken weapons. The dead had been cremated, the rituals performed. The camp would soon be rebuilt. Yet, for some reason, the disappearance of Enkinor kept tugging at him. Late in the afternoon, Visylon finished his weapons practice with the other warriors and left the camp to be alone.

  He's gone. He told no one, not even me. Why?

  He had asked Saeron the obvious question. No, their chief had told him, Enkinor had not been exiled for leaving his post. But no one knew where he'd gone.

  Visylon watched the trees sway with the autumn gusts, shedding the recent rain. Leafeld, how many did you claim?

  Only a few months had passed since that day. On a warm summer morning, a small group of Draelani had met under a flag of truce at Leafeld with an equally small band of Saerani, Saeron and Enkinor’s father among them. They had sat on meeting blankets and argued diplomacy with the Draelani for only a short time. Then, the Draelani chief had stood, the signal for treachery. A dozen Draelani had emerged from the woods, brandishing blade and buckler. When it was over, Saeron and only half his band had fought free. The outnumbered Saerani had struggled to carry away their dead. Over his shoulders, Saeron had carried the body of Enkinor's father.

  Enkinor had no voice in the Council yet. Like Visylon, he had to wait till his thirty-second year. But whenever he could get one of the Council to listen to him, Enkinor had urged retaliation. How could such an act go unpunished, he would ask. Despite his pleas, the tribe would not retaliate, judging that the price of vengeance would be too many Saerani lives.

  For many weeks after, the young sentara, mother and father now both dead, had spent hours each day alone. He had wandered the hills and swam across the lake. His friends and fellow tribesmen had encouraged him to join in their hunts, their feasts, their storytelling, their rituals. But Enkinor had lost all interest in tribal life. He did his duty as a sentara, and that was all.

  Is that it, then? Does the wound of your loss still fester? Why did you leave so suddenly? Why without a word, so soon after the battle?

  It was unlike Enkinor. Despite the sentara's obvious despondency, it was easier to believe a mouth in the void had swallowed him up than believe Enkinor, without warning or farewell, could gather up his things and leave his tribe.

  The more Visylon thought about it, the more confusing and disturbing it became. He paced back and forth. Something was wrong. Something must have happened to Enkinor. This disappearance was no reaction to his father's death.

  And the sorcery that almost claimed you? Did it return?

  Visylon walked the shore of the lake, kicked a piece of a ruined khayan that had drifted ashore, stared without recognition at a raccoon's tracks in the wet sand.

  As the afternoon waned, a very different feeling began to come over him. His confusion drifted away. In its place came a feeling of nervous expectation, of events and circumstances coming to a point of irreversible change. A little bit at a time it grew and expanded.

  And then, in a matter of moments, it swelled and washed over him. It engulfed him, infused him. The feeling grew far beyond anything Visylon had ever felt, a concentration of energy and power, till it seemed it would incarnate itself at any moment and swallow him whole.

  Visylon turned and looked around, filled with an indefinable tension. He whirled as if expecting foes at every hand.

  And the feeling vanished.

  All was still, and calm.

  Go, find him, whispered the tiny waves lapping at his feet. The soft breezes swept the water and then skimmed across the treetops, swaying them in unison, a large-scale mimicry of the ripples flowing across the lake.

  Go, find him, whispered the rustling, red-orange maples. The breezes grew a little in strength. A low-sailing cloud cast a cool, damp shadow as it passed. Without a sound, the gray mass rammed the mountainside behind him, hesitated for a moment, and slid over the top.

  Go, find him.

  Visylon stood still, afraid to move. A prickling touch spread down his arms and legs. The sensation grew till it felt like dozens of hands were prodding him, gripping and shaking him while keeping him rooted to the ground. As the feeling mounted in strength, it enveloped him like invisible robes. He spread his arms wide as unseen power coursed through him. The warrior sta
red without seeing, eyes wide. He trembled a little, half from cold and half from fear, knowing something far beyond the range of normal experience was happening. Visylon was in the grip of a preternatural force, and it would not let him go.

  Go, find Enkinor, for many have need of you and him.

  A terrible sense of urgency coursed through his veins like fire, spreading, consuming, compelling. Something was being laid before him, something that had to be done, a task he could not refuse.

  His vision misted. Shadows played, and in the shadows soared a wyvern, long considered a mythical creature. Head and neck of a serpent, wings of a giant bat, an eagle's talons, a barbed tail. Facing the wyvern, a great bear rearing on its hind legs. The wyvern swooped and struck the bear with its poisoned tail. The bear roared and lashed out, its claws scraping with no effect against the bronze scales of the wyvern's underside. The two creatures battled, seeking to overcome one another, a vast doom in the balance. And still, the sense of urgency, a dire necessity that could neither be diverted nor denied.

  When at last Visylon realized that the vision had passed, he let his arms drop, and he looked around, apprehensive and bewildered. He was still alone, alone as he had been all day. Was it a voice he had heard, or just a feeling?

  Without warning the overwhelming sense of urgency returned, and for a moment it lingered, reminding him this was no illusion, that this was not something to be taken lightly.

  Something, some power, wanted him to find Enkinor, for some very important reason. A reason that involved Visylon too. But who, and why, and when?

  But when was now. That much was clear. And what was meant by the vision of the bear and the wyvern?

  The experience could not be denied. But what should he do?

  Visylon returned to the Saerani camp. It was that certain point of twilight when everything seems outlined sharply in the growing dark. Not yet decided on a course of action, he walked to the practice area. Drawing his sword, he began a complex sequence of moves.