Magus
by Mike Adamson
Men said it was from the deserts
beyond Karthos that Mafashjo had come, and it was to the
burning anvil he would return in the gods’ good time. He
walked the civilized world as a mendicant by day, but
always enshrouded in the foul presence of some unseen
familiar. No good ever came of his passing. His name was
cursed in the smoky air of wayside taverns, by those for
whom the magus had only contempt. For, though his
essence was an abomination to the light of day, he could
always find a client for his peculiar skills when the
moon rode high above Avestium. Black magic was illegal,
and the pious followers of the Sun-Hawk and Moon-Stag
abhorred the dark arts. But when fate ran contrary to
one’s deepest needs or desires, there were those who
turned their faces from the path of righteousness.
Indroma was a city like
many others, baking in the sun of late summer in the
Year of the Ram; and Ventoro was just a man among men.
The lean, hungry craftsman, a maker of leather goods,
had lost much in the lean years of the kingdom’s
religious turmoil. He had hoped all would be well, but
Deros, a dealer in leather, cheated him with improperly
cured hides and then vanished, banishing any hope of
restitution. Creditors clamoured for payment and the
marriage he longed for evaporated with his prospects,
leaving him embittered and angry. The king’s law had
failed him, and when he suffered one too many jokes at
the careless tongues of his peers, Ventoro made discreet
inquiries among those he trusted to know
such things.
Night was the proper time
for misdeed, and Ventoro walked out from Indroma upon
the south road, which crossed dusty, reaped farms and
wound through the Ettric Mountains toward distant lands.
He did not regret his choice. Since the ways of day
deserted him, those of night had become his friends. He
had passed word and coin by means of tavern revellers and travellers on the
highroads, and was promised an audience with the magus.
Heat beat back off the
road at him as he walked; only the late singing of the
crickets disturbed the tranquil night. Stars blazed, lit
the countryside in silver-blue, and,
with the surety of a lifetime’s experience,
Ventoro made his way some miles beyond the
farthest hamlets, to
the storm-blasted dead tree local children called
Henge-bough — the
hanging tree. Not in a century had a rope depended from
its gnarled and gesticulating members, but the awful
shape — frozen as if in the act of thrashing at some
unseen foe — was stamped into the minds of countryfolk.
They knew the tree as a place of dark doings, and
avoided it with a passion when the sun left the fields.
Henge-bough stood upon a
low hill and glowered over the reaped wheatland. As
Ventoro approached, it rose menacingly against the sky’s
glowing river of stars. He felt the cooling air do
battle with the heat locked up in the land, and knew
crows and other scavengers would be roosting up there
somewhere. He moved silently, disturbing nothing,
as if he wished he could sweep clean his very
footprints. Now, as
he approached the spot, he felt the wrong of his actions,
but his anger knew no solace, his resentment no rest.
When at last he stood by the hateful old trunk,
his certainty had returned.
No figure moved in the
bright starlight, no light showed anywhere but for a
spark or two at the windows of farmhouses far off.
Ventoro thrust his hands into the pockets of his leather
tunic and hunched his shoulders. He would wait until the
Hunter was over the highest branch, and,
if he was still alone,
he would assume he had been duped yet again.
Night winds whispered
across the fields, taunting him with thoughts of the
strange and deadly place he had come to. His workmates
would recoil in horror, his family disown him. But they
had already severed any familial bonds when they cast
him adrift to his misfortune, and all he wanted was
satisfaction: the justice the state seemed unable to
offer. He was not above taking revenge where he found
it.
An hour became two and
the day’s warmth was gone. Ventoro had turned up the
collar of his tunic and begun to have fond thoughts of a
mug of ale and his bed when a whisper of motion in the
dry grass brought his head around, and he found he was
far from alone. A cold hand seemed to touch his heart as
he saw, not three strides away, the tall figure he had
both hoped and dreaded to meet.
“Are you the one who
seeks the services of a traveller from afar?” came a
deep voice, oddly accented.
The sound sent a chill through
Ventoro. “I am.” He fought for words. “And are you —”
“Speak not my name, for
the wind itself has ears,
and our business demands the greatest discretion.”
“I seek a service,”
Ventoro went on hesitantly. “I have been wronged and
wish justice upon my abuser.” He jingled a money pouch
at his belt. “I offer the king’s good gold.”
“All this I have been
told by the voices of
the roads,” the words
went on, emanating from the tall, gaunt silhouette.
“Have you brought some talisman of your abuser? A thing
by which he may be known?”
Ventoro fumbled in a
pocket and brought out a piece of the poor-grade
leather. “His own miserable wares, with which he cheated
me.”
The tall figure moved, a
hand extended in the starlight and Ventoro’s wide-open
pupils began to make him out. A shaven head gleamed
above a hawkish face with thin nose and prominent chin,
and a mouth like a gash. The eyes he could not make out,
but sensed they were more than he would wish to meet.
The man took the scrap of leather,
examined it, sniffed it. “This will do admirably.” For a
long moment the magus looked up at the stars and Ventoro
realized he carried a tall walking stick, a staff
perhaps. “Think carefully, young man. I can accomplish
your wants, but you make yourself an outcast with whom
your king will deal harshly should this matter come to
his attention. Does your grievance warrant this risk?”
Ventoro breathed deeply,
sensed the nighted countryside around them and knew his
abuser was out there somewhere; and he nodded. “Yes. I
cannot rest until all he has taken from me is in turn
taken from him.”
“Then let us be about
it,” the magus replied with easy mastery, and turned to
gesture down the hill a little way. “This will do well
enough.” The ruin of an old farm building hunched below,
tumbledown and abandoned. They headed for it with
crickets rising from their tread. “We need some measure
of concealment; a flame must be lit.”
They made their way to
the ruin and stood within the crumbling walls. It was
merely a stone room, maybe six strides across. Starlight
filled it with ghostly blues but no houses could be seen
through the gaps. A slithering, as of a disturbed snake,
made Ventoro flinch but the strange, harsh man ignored
it and tapped a fallen stone with his toe. “Here.” He
swept detritus from the surface, then opened a satchel
he carried over one shoulder, brought out a tinderbox
and spent a few minutes making flame.
As sparks struck from the flint and
steel and the first tiny golden motes came into being
among the tinder, Ventoro saw the sorcerer clearly and
clenched his teeth in sudden fear. The face was unkind,
the eyes reptilian, and his fixed expression belonged in
the shadows of this world. The dark robes swathed a body
of whipcord strength which seemed to emanate an unclean
power, unseen by the eye but very much felt by the soul.
The night was not too windy for a
candle to burn. When a pillar of finest beeswax shed a
steady glow within the walls, the magus blew out the
tinder. Upon the stone he arranged a small brass bowl
and a scrying crystal, aligned upon the candle in a row
of three. Ventoro was panting softly as his heart
raced -- knowing he witnessed an illegal thing, knowledge
he should never possess — and his mouth was dry.
From a flask, the magus
poured water into the bowl, then added a few drops of
oil from a tiny,
brown glass bottle. He placed the scrap of leather by
the candle and pierced it with a long, ornate skewer
whose writhing inscriptions, while incomprehensible,
seemed repellent to the man of Avestium.
With a small knife
Mafashjo gathered long stems of dead wheat which grew
within the shed, all the while chanting in some tongue
of faraway, a grumbling, muttering incantation which
near-petrified Ventoro. When he was done he squatted by
the makeshift altar and began to bend the stalks,
trimmed them here and there, and in a matter of minutes
had shaped a corn-dolly. The crude mommet was a mere
stick-figure, but its arcane weaving sent a chill
through Ventoro.
“This shall stand in lieu
of the miscreant,” the magus whispered, “and thus give
us power over him. Tell me, young man: what do you wish
to befall this person who has so wronged you?”
The silence was punctuated by the
night breeze over the fields as Ventoro fought for words
that had come so easily before matters took on deadly
reality.
“I see dire intent in your
difficulty. It is not mere inconvenience you would bring
him, is it? Not the discomfort of boils; more than
failure in trade or the desertion of romance.” He
smiled. The twisting of his dark features made Ventoro
feel ill before the magus spoke in a whisper. “You would
have him dead. Yes?”
All the leatherworker
could do was nod. No words would pass his tongue
anymore, and he felt
his commitment to the act consume him. Come what may, he
was no longer the injured party; he was the man who
killed his abuser.
“Done,” Mafashjo added in
like volume, and set the mommet down by the altar. He
shifted around and pronounced a number of magical
statements in some foreign tongue — perhaps mere
showmanship, for then he raised a bony finger and spoke
with a peculiar directness which commanded obedience.
“There is no undoing what shall be done. Your last
chance. You are sure of your course of action?”
The agreement came from
Ventoro with surprised immediacy as morbid fascination
and the desire to see his will executed gradually
overtook fear. “Yes. Please continue. That is exactly
what I want.”
“Hold silence with me,
then. I shall reach a point where I ask you to look into
the scrying waters and confirm the subject’s identity.
Until then make no sound;
do not distract me in any way or the consequences could
be dire.”
To whom, the magus did not
elaborate, but settled cross-legged before the altar and
composed himself to concentrate. After a while he took
up the pierced talisman and passed it slowly across his
forehead several times before he set it down and entered
what Ventoro assumed was a mystical trance. He breathed
softly, straight-backed, hands in his lap, and his eyes
were hooded, half closed, while his lips moved in silent
invocation.
This went on for some
time as the magus entered a deeper and deeper trance,
using his mind to seek out Deros, wherever the fellow
had got to. Ventoro found himself in fear and awe of the
abilities he was witnessing. He had heard the great
priests of the Hawk and Stag had such powers, and that a
mage served the king; but these abilities were not used
to instil fear in the people. If the king’s advisors
were capable of such feats, they aided state business in
the most discreet
fashion.
Discretion was a
necessity, and, as
Mafashjo worked,
Ventoro looked nervously around, listening hard for
sounds of soft movement in the dark. The candle, dim as
it was, had spoiled his night vision and now all was
black out there, filled with the terrifying chance of
discovery — recognition — shame — punishment.... He
sweated coldly as the minutes dragged on,
and his belly churned. He wished it was over and
wondered if he could not have found some better means to
exact reprisal. He did not want to be the first man in a
hundred years to dangle from old Henge-bough, on the
rough end of peasant outrage.
But the magus was well
versed in his dark craft and would not expose himself to
danger; so for the moment Ventoro told himself he was
safe, and concentrated on the strange, still tableau
before him. At last Mafashjo stirred, opened his eyes
and beckoned his client near. “Is this the man who
wronged you?” he whispered, gesturing at the skin of oil
on the surface of the water.
Ventoro blinked, focused
on the black reflections in the bowl, and after a moment
made out a shape. As if he looked through a window into
a tavern, he saw Deros, recognized him clearly, saw him
laugh and put a tankard to his lips. “Yes,” he
whispered, shocked by this vision manifest before his
waking eyes, a dream made tangible. “It is Deros.”
“Then bear with me, and
your revenge will be complete.”
Mafashjo returned to his
deep concentration, drew several massive breaths and
seemed to tense for effort. He extended his hands toward
the bowl, palms outward, and Ventoro almost saw the
power of his will pushed into the connection. Still the
man in the image chattered to people unseen, oblivious
of his watchers; but when the magus took the skewered
strip of leather and touched it to the candle flame,
they saw Deros start as if
at some physical shock, cough violently and
guzzle more ale.
As the leather caught and flared up
he palmed his face, clutched at his head and rolled in
his seat as if beset with terrible pain. The leather
smoked, curled, slowly consumed, and all the while,
people fussed about the man in the image. Hands slapped
his back, drinks were thrust upon him, but his distress
was deep and unremitting.
At this point Mafashjo
looked up at his client. “Yes?” he asked softly.
Ventoro could not take
his eyes from the image. The deep, morbid satisfaction
of seeing his foe in torment was feeding the dark place
in his soul created by the abuse, like a sore in the
mind that demanded to
be rubbed. He was panting with the catharsis of
delivery, and he nodded wordlessly — yes, more — do
it.
The magus picked up the mommet, held
it in bronze tongs he took from his bag, and without a
flicker of expression,
touched it to the flame. Bright gold licked up the stems
and in that moment Deros went into full seizure. A
rictus of agony locked his face, he thrashed in his
seat, his face turned purple. His extremis lasted until
the mommet was mostly consumed, when his heart gave out
and he passed beyond torment. All in silence, a grisly
image seen in every detail by the watchers from afar.…
The last stems caught and flared, and
the doll of wheatgrass was gone. Mafashjo carefully
dropped the remains upon the rock and set the tongs
aside. “It is done,” he said softly. “I hope your
revenge is truly satisfying.”
Ventoro could hardly stand. He sank
to his knees, shuddering with overwhelming feelings, and,
when Mafashjo offered an uncapped canteen,
he took it and drank over a tight throat. The content
was not water but some strong, spiced brew he could not
identify. With an involuntary cough, he swigged again
and passed the canteen back with a nod of thanks.
“Very well done, magician, you are
truly all the people claim.”
“My thanks,” Mafashjo murmured as he
stoppered the canteen and set it aside. He waited a few
moments as Ventoro regained his senses, then extended a
hand, palm upraised. “However, a sorcerer cannot live by
praise alone.”
“Quite right. And your fee shall be
in proportion to my gratitude.” Ventoro fumbled at his
belt for the money pouch, but the magus raised a flat
hand.
“Gold I have enough of. There is
something for which I have a more pressing use.”
“What? If not coin, then...?”
“I’ll take your soul.”
Ventoro blinked, not understanding.
“What...? My...?”
“Your soul. I need souls, my friend.
I collect them, you see. Not for myself, that would be
very wrong. But for Skanthomos... Skanthomos is a demon
from the great southern deserts, and it is from His dark
well of power that my own abilities derive. It is only
fitting if I deliver unto Him the nourishment he craves
in exchange for his gift to me of skills
that transcend the
norms of magic.” The skull-like face twisted once more
in a terrible smile. “Would you not agree?”
Now Ventoro felt a rising surge of
panic. No one had mentioned such a price to be paid, but
services had been rendered, and he could not imagine
succeeding in dispute against such a one as this. He
could not form words,
and his heart seemed to be in his throat.
“Come now, fellow, time to settle the
account.” Mafashjo’s voice had taken on a harder edge
and the candle, whose flame rose straight and still,
unnaturally still on a night of breezes, filled his
harsh features with contrast and shadow. “It is easily
paid. Come, look into the scrying stone. Do as you are
bid.”
Ventoro moved as if at the volition
of the other. He crawled to the altar and looked into
the great polished crystal, seeing the candlelight
fracture in a million directions through it. Part of him
tried to close his eyes but some force would not allow
it, and he flinched mentally as he felt the loathsome
touch of the sorcerer’s hand upon his shoulder. Then the
hand moved to his neck and forced his face toward the
stone.
“Look!” was the word snarled by his
ear, and before his eyes it seemed the candlelight took
on a third dimension, a depth that fell away before him
so the facets of the stone became the angles of the
universal dimensions themselves. All was a deep
goldy-green twilight, and in its depths he perceived
some presence, something frightening, for it was not of
this world and would
belong ill in the good light of day.
He tried to struggle but the hand was
like iron, and in his last moments of sanity he felt his
grip on reality slipping. It was as if he
were being stripped
away, syphoned off, sucked dry by a spider, his essence
channelled down into the strange, lambent crystal. It
became his universe, a boundless gloom in which he
suddenly perceived others — tormented faces and voices
which wailed and wept, creeping forever in a trackless
void — caught like flies in amber.
“Skanthomos is a just devourer.”
Mafashjo’s voice came from afar, somewhere behind him
now. “He gorges on only the most doubtful of souls and
in this way cleanses the land.
Think long upon your predicament, my friend, for what
you call justice the next man calls merely murder. In
what way are you better than he who wronged you?”
With that, the twilight expanded,
engulfed him. Ventoro fell for an agonizing eternity,
screaming his madness as he lost all notion of the
world of his birth and
entered a realm in which his very essence was merely
fodder.
Under the stars of the Avestian
summer Mafashjo blew out the candle, tipped the water
from the bowl upon the altar stone, crumbled the burnt
stems onto the wind and repacked the tools of his magic.
He shouldered bag and staff and looked down at the dead
husk of his client for a long moment before an ironic
smile broke through.
In the new day, farmers would come to
see what the crows were busy with, and find a body
beneath old Henge-bough, scraps of frayed rope about its
neck. The story would go that Ventoro the leather-maker
had lost all will to live through the cruel caprice of
fate. None would see the hand of magic. With silent
satisfaction in the execution of his art, Mafashjo the
magus turned to stride on through the dark, lose himself
in the black shadows and await his next willing
customer.
THE END