Old Jort was troubled, and he moved slowly along the trail that wound past the sand barrens and made his way home. With each step, he gave out a silent grunt. Long ago he waved youth a fond farewell, and now his joints painted him greatly.
Lifting his head, he sniffed the air. A change was coming, and it was more than the rain he smelled as the western wind rolled off of the distant, towering mountain peaks. Far off, the spires lifted and pointed heavenward like dark knives, and where they pierced the clouds, the sky bled showers and saturated the ground below. But it wasn’t the rain that bothered Jort, nor his joints. It was the change in the air that he sensed.
A year ago, after finally finding the objects he had devoted decades of his life hunting down, he had expected to move on. His life’s purpose had been achieved. His life . . . the battles, the killing, the sacrifices . . . they were justified now, weren’t they? What did it really matter to him that the sorcerers were busy about their schemes? After all, their kind always lusted for power. He was too old now to do his former job effectively. That was Jolan Kine’s job now. But he stayed on. As a favor to Joachim. And Jolan.
Jort didn’t know whether he had been cursed or blessed to have lived to see such a thing. But ultimately, if one read the prophets correctly, weren’t curses and blessings often the same thing just viewed from different angles?
Joachim’s grandmother had the gift of prophecy. If he had let him in on that little secret earlier, who knew how that would have changed the decisions he had made? That was fine, though. Jort held secrets of his own. And not even Joachim knew the real reason he had chosen to conceal himself in the guise he hid behind. Oh, it was no lie that he had long sensed the work of rogue wizards here in the lake valleys. He always, always caught them in the end.
But the thing he sought, the thing he had slowly uncovered by wading through the plots and schemes of countless sorcerers gave him a unique and disturbing insight into their grandest designs. And now, a little over a year ago, he had found a key part of it. The Maldies deaths were central to much of what was going on. He would have to settle that account soon, before things got too far out of hand. And Great Lord, those boys!
Right here. Right now.
And right on top of everything he had worked for. This was no coincidence.
Around him, a brief gust of wind whipped tree branches like the desperate waving arms of a drowning man. Jort pulled his coat around himself. Dark clouds began to roll overhead. It was going to a long winter.
Soon, Sartor’s goats were going to have to be brought down to the pasture on the north end of the estate. Jort hated that he had to spend so much of his time doing the work of a mad farmhand. But such was the price he paid for choosing to spend his retirement this way. And as he thought of Sartor’s estate, Jort smiled to himself. This was the perfect palace to hide his prized find—especially now that he knew it had never really been his to keep all along. That was the irony of it all. No sooner did he find it than he hid it, and unknowingly in the hands of one of the very few people that would have need of it.
Jort finally arrived at the small cabin Sartor had provided him when he stopped abruptly. In the air, he sensed it, the low thrumming ache he always felt in the presence of a sorcerer. And this one was powerful. Jort knew exactly who it was.
He looked ahead and considered his options.
The curtained windows of his cabin stared at him like heavily lidded eyes. Once he went inside he would not be alone. Angrily, he chided himself for not carrying his crossbow. The arrows were tipped with a fast acting poison. All he had on himself was the short dagger he kept concealed in his sleeve.
Jort sighed. He was getting old. In his younger days he would not have been so careless. If he could make it to the shelf where the crossbow was concealed . . .
No. If this was his day to die, then so be it. All in all, his life had been a good one.
When Jort entered the small cabin, the thrumming in his head nearly overpowered him, but decades of training took over and he reflexively pushed the feeling back. Long ago he had learned to conquer that influence.
A shadowy hooded figure stood motionless in the middle of the dark room. Jort cast a baleful eye in that direction and grunted, “I knew you would come one day—It was only a matter of time, I suppose.”
“Yes,” the figure beneath the hood said in a rich, baritone voice, “You’ve seen too much, old man.”
As the sorcerer began to lower his hood, Jort removed his own cloak. The fewer encumbrances the better. The ability to move quickly was essential when fighting a magic user. He cast a quick glance in the hidden panel containing the crossbow down below the lintel beside the fireplace. On the lintel sat a pitcher of water.
Calmly placing his cloak on the high backed chair beside him, he looked up, and when his gaze fell upon the face of the man before him, his eyebrows raised sharply.
“I always suspected it was you . . . had squat for proof, but I knew I’d eventually find out one way or another.”
“Yes, and that is a problem for me. One I intend to rectify shortly.”
Jort let out a dry laugh. “Is it boy? Is it? I think you may find that more difficult than you imagine.” Slowly he began limping over to the cupboard where he kept his cups and retrieved one. “I would offer you some water, but I suppose killing me negates the niceties of a kind social call on an old man.”
“Your jokes won’t help you,” he said and raised his hand towards Jort. Without warning, the cup was gripped by an unseen force. It shot out of Jort’s hand and collided with the wall beside him, shattering into hundreds of sharp fragments.
“The problem with your lot,” Jort said waving his finger at the wizard the way an adult might at a wayward child, “is that you’re all so tedious. You get so used to being able to do as you please, that all it pleases you to do is bend others to your will. Somewhere along the way you lose patience with just asking.”
“We’ll play it your way then,” the wizard growled. “Where is it?”
Jort gave a loud “Humph,” and retrieved another cup from the cupboard’s top cabinet. He then turned and began to limp toward the pitcher on the other side of the room.
“I trust this one is safe,” he said, and gave the cup a small toss in his hand. “If I’m going to die today, I’d prefer not to do it thirsty . . . never could abide being thirsty. Been hungry plenty of times though.”
“Where is it?” the sorcerer demanded.
Jort shook his head slowly, and in a regretful tone chided the dark man in the center of his living room. “Boy, you’re still a visitor in my home, and until you kill me or I kill you, you’ll use your manners.”
“I know you are more than you seem,” he said. “I knew it when I discovered you poking around beyond the barrens.”
“I suspect there is a lot you have missed,” Jort replied as he took the pitcher in his free hand and poured his cup full of water. Then, raising it to his lips, he drank slowly. “Ah,” he said, setting the cup down beside the pitcher, “better now.”
“I miss nothing,” the wizard hissed. “I saw through your act, walking about this estate raving like a lunatic, living off the charity of others.”
“I’m seventy years old. I’m afraid to say I didn’t have to try too hard,” he chuckled. “I cannot say that I hope you live long enough to see what it’s like to grow old, but that’s one of the things your lot tries to find a way around, isn’t it?” Jort shook his head. “Always have tried to cheat God and fate.”
“If only you knew—” he began, but Jort cut him off.
“—Don’t try that one with me. I’ve heard it from too many of your kind. I cannot abide how boring you are. It’s always the same old song and dance: I cannot imagine the power; I ca
nnot imagine the things you can do; I cannot imagine the chance of eternal life.” Jort looked at him and cocked his head to the side. “That about sum it up?”
“Fool!” the wizard snarled. “Arrogant fool!”
“Arrogant am I?” Jort raised an accusatory finger at his foe. “I’m not the one with delusions of eternal life. Hell boy, mine’s about done, even without you here to try to hurry that along. And you know what? I’m glad. I’ve had a full life. More than I ever deserved. What about you? Can you say the same? The pity is you didn’t have to die to experience hell. You already live it.”
“Enough!” the wizard roared. He raised his hand and prepared to strike.
“I know you changed masters,” Jort said to slow the attack that was coming. Casually, he leaned against the wall, careful not to let the wizard see him release the catch concealing the secret panel hiding his poisoned weapon.
The wizard held off for a moment. “My first one was a coward and a fool; his vision was limited. And you have seen too much. I should have done this much earlier.”
“And yet you didn’t. Why?”
“I suspected you sought the same thing I did.”
“And how are you so sure that I found it?” he asked, slowly sliding his hand behind himself, drawing the crossbow out.
“You stopped looking,” he said simply.
“Ahhh,” Jort said deliberately. “What if I gave up? What if I realized my search was futile, and that I couldn’t put it back together anyway?”
“You’ve lived here for five years. Every moment you could spare, you were up there among the filth living in those mountains, asking questions, poking, prodding, digging, hunting. You were like a dog sniffing around a midden heap for a bone. You weren’t ever going to give up.” And then, with a smug, self-satisfied tone, he added, “I let you do my job for me.”
“And yet I’m curious,” he began, hoping to lull his opponent into relaxing his guard long enough to lose the initiative when time came for him to make his move. “Don’t you feel the least bit uncomfortable you’ll be spotted? You and your new master are bound to draw attention. If your old master discovers you are still around, he will act. I’m sure he suspects a lot.”
“I can deal with him. He is no concern,” the wizard said, dismissing the issue the way he might wave away a gnat. He raised his hand toward Jort once again. “Now, we’ve exchanged pleasantries old man. Where are you hiding it?”
“You’ll never find out,” Jort said levelly.
“You’ll suffer until you tell me,” the wizard snarled. His hand tensed, as if a weight pressed against his outstretched arm. Suddenly, a brilliant flash of red light lit the room, and a crimson bolt sprang from his fingertips and arced toward Jort. Before it reached him, it seemed to grow weak, and as the bolt danced and whipped like an angry snake—just before it touched him—it faded together.
“What!?” the wizard shouted in surprise. Slowly he dropped his arm. “I know who you are now,” he said venomously, and stepped back into a defensive posture.
“And that is the last thing you will know, boy,” Jort spat contemptuously as he brought his crossbow out from behind him and leveled it at the wizard’s chest.
Instinctively, the wizard raised his hands over his heart and began mumbling a defensive spell. Before he finished, motion flickered behind him. Another man’s figure stepped out from where he had been hiding behind the bedroom wall. An audible twang sounded, accompanied a short hiss in the air.
Jort’s eyes went wide with surprise. The crossbow tumbled from his hand and landed on the floor. The trigger released the bow, and the poisoned bolt fired harmlessly into the wall below the living room’s front window. Jort’s legs began to wobble and he looked down at his chest, to the bolt embedded just below his heart.
“Fool!” the wizard roared in fury and rounded on the man who had fired the bolt. With a swipe of his hand, he sent his associate sprawling across the floor. “I could have caused him so much pain he would have told us eventually!” he screamed.
Ravel began to lift himself up off of the floor. “He had you. He was about to kill you,” he said shakily. “I saved your life.”
“That may be,” the sorcerer snapped, his words like molten lead. “Now we have to waste valuable time looking for the pieces I need.”
Jort dropped to his knees as a series of harsh, wet coughs wracked his body. Bloody spittle sprayed from his lips. The sorcerer walked over to him and yanked his head back. “You lose, old fool!”
Jort’s lips worked to produce sound, but only a bloody gurgle came out. More hacking shook his body, and he nearly collapsed. Somehow, he barely managed to hold himself up on trembling arms. When the coughing subsided, he managed to summon enough to pull his head free. A maniacal grin spread across his face.
With great effort Jort met the sorcerer’s gaze. “You’ve failed boy. And there’s . . .” more coughs shook his body as blood filled his lungs “ . . . there’s something you failed to take into account. They’re back. They’re back and you won’t be able to stop them.”
The sorcerer pushed Jort over in disgust. He bent over and struck the old man sharply across the face.
Jort’s head rocked back, but he didn’t seem to feel it.
“What are you talking about, old fool?!” he bellowed. “Who’s back? What kind of threat is that supposed to be?”
“You’ll never find it,” he said through hitching breaths. And as the last of his strength left him he silently whispered, “They’ve come back, boy. They’ve come back.” Finally a smile spread across his face. His eyes no longer focused on the wizard. Instead they grew distant and seemed to lock on some far off point. “Oh my,” he said weakly. “Hello Donna.” Then his face went blank, and his lifeless head rolled to the side.
The sorcerer roared in frustrated fury.