The Azure Wizard (31 page)

As they advanced into a large dark pillared hall, lit only by a few feeble torches bearing purple flame, Ethan and Marros were met by nearly a score of white-robed prophets. Children clutched the robes of some as they watched curiously and wide-eyed at the new visitor accompanying Marros. Ethan noticed that none wore the medallion that Marros wore about his neck, the amulet depicting an open palm with an eye at its center.

“So I take it that you’re the top prophet here or something?” the Wizard inquired, his eyes glowing slightly blue in amusement.

Marros laughed softly and said, “Aye, Ethan. I’m something of the sort.”

When they reached the middle of the pillared hall, standing upon an ancient frayed rug of burgundy weave, Marros slowed to a stop and Ethan followed suit. A few dozen white-robed prophets and only a few children encircled them, their faces a mix or curiosity and, Ethan could swear, hope.

“Friends, prophets,” Marros began with his arms outraised, “we welcome into our midst, here at the Priory of Prophets, Ethan Skalderholt, the Wizard and Herald of Wizardcraft foretold to us by our order’s founders a thousand years ago. He has brought Wizardcraft back into the land of the Three Baronies, and I, Marros, our humble leader, have brought him here to us. Our task has come to an end!”

The gathering of white-robed prophets cheered and applauded, some with tears welling in their eyes. Ethan, still a bit confused on why his arrival here would be such a wanted solution to the return of Wizardcraft, smiled nervously and waved a blue-tattooed hand at the congregation.

Marros turned to Ethan with a broad warm smile, and he asked excitedly, “Are you, Ethan Skalderholt, the sole Wizard of the Three Baronies, ready to fulfill your destiny and save this land from destruction?”

Ethan smiled and shouted, “Yes, Marros, and the rest of the prophets that have gathered here! I am ready to end this destruction and death, and fulfill my destiny!”

Marros smiled warmly, putting a hand on Ethan’s shoulder, and he pulled the wiry Vharian close to him so he could whisper into his ear. In a soft voice that stirred Ethan’s wet blond hair Marros hissed, “Then die!”

Ethan gritted his teeth and winced in pain as a dagger was drove home into his chest, its fine blade grinding against his ribs as it entered his chest and pierced his heart. Hot crimson blood spurted out upon Marros’s white robe, and the prophet jerked the blade free. As the congregation of white-robed prophets and their pale children cheered, Marros drove the blade home again, deep into Ethan’s stomach.

Blood dribbled from the Wizard’s mouth as he crumbled to the ground, sliding free from Marros’s knife. Blood rapidly began to pool around him, and through blurry eyes he saw Marros, robe speckled with scarlet drops raise both hands into the air of the dark chamber in exultation. The fist that gripped the straight-bladed dagger was red with Ethan’s warm blood.

Marros shouted, “The Wizard is dead! Wizardcraft is once again vanished from the Three Baronies! May this one spend eternity in the Soul Wastes with his kin, Illumis!”

Ethan coughed up blood, and clutched desperately at his chest as his life drained from him. Then his eyesight beheld naught but a blue void, as azure as a cloudless summer sky. This vision slowly coalesced into the image of May and Kraegovich, Nythee holding the massive old Vharian’s hand, standing upon the bridge that led to the Castle of Greenwell. They seemed sad and a little confused as they talked, gazing hopelessly over the side of the bridge into the waters of the great Three Baronies River.

For the second time in his life, Ethan was seeing a vision, the first when he brought Wizardcraft back into the land, and the second as he was leaving the world in death. Just as with his first vision, he would not ignore this one. Feebly he reached out a blood-soaked hand and grasped Marros by his ankle.

Marros smiled, all benevolence replaced by malevolence, as he stared down at the dying Wizard with his fierce, red eyes. Ethan’s eyes began to glow a vibrant and rich blue as he choked out, “You’re coming with me, prophet.”

A pillar of brilliant blinding azure light broke through the darkness of the chamber in the heart of the Priory of Prophets, and when it vanished the stunned and bewildered congregation of prophets surrounded only a tattered and old blood-stained rug in the middle of the hall. Marros, their leader, and the Wizard were vanished.

May and Kraegovich whirled around in surprise and hope when a brilliant blue flash and gust of wind exploded from behind them, in the center of the old stone bridge. In the setting sun, their hope quickly became shock as they beheld Ethan, bleeding and dying upon the ground, and above him a white-robed figure speckled in blood, holding up a bloody dagger. Kraegovich pushed little Nythee behind him against the rampart on the side of the bridge, and smoothly pulled free his sword from his scabbard.

May screamed, “Ethan!” and when she advanced Marros held the dripping dagger out before him, menacingly towards her.

“Back, whore, before I knife you too,” snarled the prophet.

“What have you done, you bastard?” Kraegovich growled looking down at Ethan and taking a step forward, his sword gripped firmly in an iron grip within his two hands.

“I saved us all, you Vharian oaf! I’ve killed the Wizard, and saved the Three Baronies. With his last breath the monsters will turn back into their mundane forms and all the destruction will cease.”

May began sobbing as she knelt down on the bridge. The western sky blazed in fierce orange and to the east, behind the Castle of Greenwell, stars began to twinkle in the sky. She gazed through her tears into the tattooed face of Ethan, her lover, and in his glowing blue eyes she saw peace and his love for her. Through blood-speckled lips he smiled at her, and he wheezed, “I love you, May.”

But then the blue glow in the Wizard’s eyes began to fade until she stared into the ordinary amber eyes of the Vharian storyteller she had first met. But behind the yellow-brown hue of the eyes was the glassy look of a dead man. Ethan Skalderholt was departed to the Ancestor Lands.

May Kinsley looked up from the eyes of her dead lover and gazed into the wild red eyes of the prophet, Ethan’s killer, and through her tears she saw his vulnerability. “You aren’t going to be leaving this bridge alive, murderer,” she stated angrily as she began to slowly rise. Kraegovich still advanced, backing the prophet against the rampart on the other side of the bridge.

“I beg to differ, lass,” he chuckled as he pulled a green crystal from a pocket on his bloody white robe.

Suddenly shouts and screams echoed faintly through the air and ribbons of acrid smoke could be seen rising from Greenwell City beyond the Old District’s high walls. Monsters, likely the acidic Deep Wolves, were besieging the most powerful city of the Three Baronies. Marros looked confusedly to the west, in the direction of the most screams, and mumbled, “It can’t be. He’s dead. The Wizard is dead. Wizardcraft is dead.”

“No it isn’t,” was May’s fierce but quiet reply.

Marros looked on the ground before him at the lifeless corpse of Ethan Skalderholt, then up to the woman who had spoken, and then as realization dawned,  he looked down to her belly.

“His seed is in you, lass. A Wizard grows in your womb. Wizardcraft will not leave the Three Baronies until that fetus does,” snarled Marros as he advanced with his bloody dagger pointed out threateningly towards her.

In a flash of cold steel Kraegovich leapt forward the rest of the way, straddling Ethan’s corpse, and severed Marros’s hand and dagger from his body in one swift downward chop. “

“You will not touch this woman or her unborn child. That, I can promise,” warned Kraegovich evenly.

Marros fell back against the rampart, green crystal grasped in one hand as his newly-acquired bloody stump dripped much blood over the old stones of the bridge. He howled in pain, and saw death coming as Kraegovich, the largest and most menacing Vharian he had ever seen, strode towards him, readying his sword for another blow. He shrieked in fright as Kraegovich raised his sword in preparation for another downward two-handed chop.

Suddenly, in a flash of emerald light, a white robed Greenwellian man with shaggy brown hair and green eyes, curved dagger in hand, appeared in front of Marros. He had time to glance in Kraegovich’s direction confusedly and yelp in desperation before the heavy iron blade buried itself halfway through the man’s skull. Three more emerald-hued flashes severed the dusk upon the bridge, revealing three more prophets, two pale brown-haired Greenwellians, and one white haired Wendlithian. The Wendlithian wielded a curved scimitar he held with two hands, and the other two both held straight-bladed knives.

Marros shouted, voice ringing in pain and desperation, “It took you fools long enough to track my amulet! Now defend me and kill these fools!”

The white-robed Wendlithian took up a fighting stance in front of his countryman and smirked at Kraegovich. He snapped, “Among the prophets, I am the finest of swordsman, brute of the North.”

He spun in a full circle waving his scimitar in a flourish and put on a cocky grin. Kraegovich let out a hardy Vharian chuckle, “There is a saying in my barony, prophet; ‘The finest of goats is still just a goat’”

Kraegovich swung hard at the Wendlithian prophet and the swordfight ensued. One of the Greenwellians advanced toward May while the other held his dagger out menacingly towards Nythee. The terrified Wendlithian girl shrank into a terrified ball against the rampart of the bridge as the prophet cruelly joked, “Hush, hush, little girl. It’ll only last a second.”

Those were his last words before a stone-bladed dagger sank hilt-deep into his temple. The prophet let out a jerky spasm before sprawling face-first onto the stones of the bridge in a fit of erratic seizures. May barely had time to dodge a swift swipe of the knife wielded by the other prophet, but she ducked beneath his swinging arm and punched him directly in the groin. He roared in pain and threw all of his weight onto the much-smaller May, smashing her beneath him against the hard stones of the bridge. He lay atop her and brought his dagger down towards her face. May barely caught his wrist with both of her hands and the two struggled against one another in a battle of strength, which May knew with dread the man would soon win.

Kraegovich parried a swift horizontal slice of the Wendlithian prophet’s curved blade, and brought his shoulder to bear roughly into the man’s face, smashing his nose. Kraegovich reversed his grip on the sword and rose it up to plunge it into the stunned prophet’s ribcage from above, but as he thrust downward the Wendlithian spun out of the way, and in the completion of his rotation he scored a quick slice across the Vharian’s ribs. It burned in pain, but Kraegovich wouldn’t acknowledge it.

The Wendlithian came in for another swift horizontal strike from the same side, and again Kraegovich parried it. But this time, instead of throwing his shoulder into the man’s bloody face, he let go of his sword and grabbed the prophet by the wrist of his sword arm and the wrist of his other arm, and spread the weaker smaller man’s arms out wide. He heard May scream behind him, in pain or fear, and knew he must finish this quickly. He brought his head forward hard into the already-smashed face of the helpless prophet, and two more times, until the Wendlithian’s tanned face was broken and deluging scarlet blood. He then let go of the man’s arms and caught him by the front of his white robe before he collapsed onto the ground. Kraegovich lifted the man high in the air, spun once, and tossed his broken-faced opponent over the side of the bridge and into the dark waters of the Three Baronies River.

As the knife came shakily closer and closer down towards her face, May let out a scream of frustration. The man atop her sprayed spittle onto her face as he snarled at her, “Prepare to die, lass.”

Suddenly a straight-bladed knife appeared at his throat. He and May both ceased in their life-and-death struggle and looked to the side. Nythee, her two white braids framing her tan face and fierce orange eyes, held the dagger firmly against the man’s throat and she snarled, “Leave my friends alone.”

At that she slid the blade quickly and forcefully across the man’s throat, opening a bloody rift. As blood began to spray onto May she kicked the gagging prophet from atop her and rolled away from him as he squirmed and tossed about in horror at his demise. She looked at Nythee and reached out to take the knife. The little Wendlithian girl placed the weapon into May’s palm. Kraegovich came forward and took up the little girl in one arm, as she began to sob, and he helped May to her feet with his other thick arm.

Then they all turned to Marros, his bloody stump of his right wrist draining his lifeblood upon the bridge to join that of his bleeding companions’ corpses, and that of Ethan. His pale sweaty face twitched in anger and pain as he snarled, “I will live through this! I will heal! The prophets will regroup! We will survive!”

Kraegovich handed Nythee to May and picked his blood-soaked sword up from the bloody stones of the bridge. He advanced at Marros as the prophet continued, “I will find you! I will hunt you and your Wizard-blooded infant to the ends of the Three Baronies! I will not rest until you are dead just as your lover! The Prophets will always protect this land, as we have always done! Wizardcraft will again die, but this time it will be at our hands!”

Kraegovich brought his sword down, but at the last second Marros vanished from the bridge and the Old District of Greenwell City in a brilliant flash of emerald light as the last of the light faded from the west. The Vharian’s blade bit into the stone rampart of the bridge, casting up stone chips and sparks, where once the prophet cowered.

Holding the whimpering child in one arm, May reached down and rubbed her belly with the other. Kraegovich turned to her and stated with determination, “As long as I still draw breath, you and Nythee will be safe. And your child, born of you and Ethan, will remain safe as well.”

May’s eyes welled with tears as she nodded her silent thanks. Kraegovich knelt down next to Ethan’s lifeless body, and tears brimmed the old Vharian’s brown eyes as he reached down and lifted the Wizard’s head from the spreading blood upon the stones of the bridge. Ethan’s face, shrouded in bisymmetrical blue swirling tattoos, stared blankly up into Kraegovich’s face, and the warrior used his other hand to close Ethan’s eyelids forever.