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