The Young Magician

‘Hiding,’ the mad man told them with sudden seriousness. Snot was running freely from his nose, like a two- year-old child who had not yet learnt to clean it himself. ‘Everyone else is dead now, but I’m still alive. I won’t go outside. You can’t make me.’

‘Who killed them, Sebastian? Where did they come from?’

‘Here.’

‘Then where did they go?’ Lomar asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Sebastian explained. ‘I hid while the others were all killed. If only Balten were here. He could have saved them all.’

The name sounded familiar to Samuel and he caught sight of Lomar also raising an interested brow.

‘They’re all dead?’ Captain Orrell asked. ‘Who attacked you?’

‘Ti’luk,’ Master Sebastian responded.

Master Glim looked to Lomar and both their faces showed concern. Samuel was perplexed. Ti’luk meant hungry in the Old Tongue.

‘He’s not much use,’ Orrell said. ‘Bring him downstairs.’

They tried getting Sebastian to stand, but no amount of persuasion could get him to move from his corner in the attic. He wriggled from their hands and wedged himself tightly in the corner, screaming like a wild piglet. He was already covered in cuts and scratches and was only hurting himself further as he struggled against them.

‘Don’t worry,’ Orrell finally directed. ‘Leave him be. My men will drag him out whether he likes it or not.’

They waited downstairs while there was much screaming from Sebastian and much cursing from Orrell’s men. They eventually sent for a rope and dragged him out between them, tied hand and foot. Still, he thrashed wildly and the men had angry scratches and bite marks to show for their efforts. A gag had been tied around Sebastian’s mouth to stop his incessant crying and screaming.

By then, Tailor and Keller had finished their search for passages below.

‘There is an underground stream that runs beneath us along this entire rise,’ Keller told them. ‘I can’t tell whether or not it’s full of water or even accessible, but it is large enough for someone to pass through.’

‘Very well,’ Captain Orrell said. ‘I’ll send someone down.’

‘Lomar,’ Samuel began. ‘Do you think that one mage could have killed all the others-this Ti’luk.’

‘I don’t know. If he did, he may have escaped unseen. Orrell’s scouts would not have noticed if he was hidden by magic. He must be very strong to do all this. We should keep ready,’ and Samuel nodded in understanding.

One of Orrell’s men had dropped one end of a rope down the well with a lantern tied to its end. The rope that had originally been used with the well was gone, which meant either that someone had removed it or the well was unused.

‘It goes down quite a way, Captain,’ the man said, peering down. ‘I think I can see water. Shall I go down?’

Orrell nodded and the man prepared himself by taking off some of his light armour and removing his sword. They tied the top end of the rope to a great iron pin that was sticking out of the stones. The shaft was just the right size with rough stone walls, so that the man could press his back against one side and his feet against the other. With the aid of the rope, he began down.

‘What do you think made Sebastian lose his mind?’ Samuel whispered to Lomar beside him. ‘A spell?’

‘I don’t know, Samuel. I met him once, years ago, and he was sane then, but he could have lost his mind at any time. I wouldn’t trust anything he does or says. Still, I feel we must display caution here.’

Samuel nodded.

Grunts of exertion echoed up the shaft as the man steadily progressed down. ‘Hold on. I can see something moving!’ he called up. ‘Wait…there’s someone below!’

‘Captain,’ Master Glim urged. ‘Get your man up. If there’s someone down there, it’s not someone your man wants to meet alone.’

‘Get him up,’ Orrell barked out and then he called down the well. ‘Hold on tight. We’re pulling you up.’

They began heaving on the rope.

‘He’s coming up after me, Captain!’ the man in the shaft echoed up. His voice was carrying some hint of alarm. Samuel looked to Lomar and Master Glim and they both look uneasy. ‘Captain, he’s…get me up! Get me out of here!’ The man in the well was now screaming frantically. ‘Hurry! Hurry up! It’s coming after me!’

The men were all pulling and heaving as best as they could, while Captain Orrell peered down the well with concern etched on his face and one hand on the hilt of his sword. The frantic man could be heard climbing just below the top and Orrell’s hands went down to help him out. A pair of grubby hands came up and gripped the top of the well, followed by a terrified face as Orrell pulled his man out by the back of his shirt. The soldier toppled over the edge and sprawled on the ground, rolling away from the well and leaping to his feet with wild eyes.

‘It’s not a man!’ the soldier gasped between frantic breaths.

Captain Orrell took a look down the well and quickly stepped back. ‘Get back!’ he ordered and everyone nervously took a backwards step, Samuel included. Swords hissed out of their sheaths. Samuel and the magicians moved further back as something came up from the well.

A large, round, bald head, pale and swollen and devoid of ears, poked up from the shaft and eyed them with enormous, black, saucer eyes. It looked at them and it grinned as its oversized, tooth-laden mouth came into view. It was not human, and it was not animal. It was something else.

Behind them all, Sebastian was thrashing on the ground, his bonds tearing at his skin with his wild eyes fixed on the rising thing.

‘What, by the nine gods of old, is that?’ Keller asked. He was on the opposite side of the well to Samuel, and his face had suddenly drained white.

‘Bowmen, ready!’ Orrell called and five of his men stepped to the front, putting arrows to their bows and drawing their strings tight.

The creature continued up out of the well, carried by a set of long bony arms and equally disproportional legs. Its skin was a pasty white with long blue veins pulsing underneath, stretched tight over its bulbous, swollen sack of a stomach.

‘What is it?’ Samuel hissed.

‘Ti’luk,’ Lomar responded, his eyes never leaving the creature. Hungry.

The men all stepped back further as the thing clambered over the well and regarded them eagerly with its glinting, saucer eyes.

‘Master Glim!’ Captain Orrell called across. ‘What is that thing?’

‘I don’t know, Captain,’ came the answer. ‘But I recommend you kill it quickly.’

He had no sooner spoken than the creature snapped out an arm at blinding speed and grabbed Master Keller around the waist. Its reach was deceivingly far. He had no time to even scream as it pulled him in and bit into his shoulder. The limb snapped off in the creature’s mouth and it proceeded to finish it with a quick gulp. It was then that Keller began screaming, locked within its grip.

‘Loose!’ cried Captain Orrell and the creature was an immediate pincushion of arrows as the bowmen released their missiles into it. Their empty bows hummed in their hands and the bowmen stepped back.

Keller was skilfully avoided, but blood continued to gush from his ruined shoulder, spraying over the creature’s pallid skin. ‘Help me! By the gods help me!’ he screamed.

The creature ignored the shafts that hung from its body and took another bite from Keller, this time putting his howling head into its gaping mouth and snapping it off with a single chomp. Keller’s thrashing body fell limp.

Samuel could not believe his eyes. This hideous creature seemed born of his worst nightmares. How could such a thing exist? Not even in the spirit world of his dreams had he seen such a monstrosity. There, everything had been wispy and made of smoke, however horrible. This was all too real.

‘Kill it!’ Orrell ordered and a dozen men stepped in with their swords raised. The creature sprang up, dropping Keller’s lifeless body down the well as it leapt. It jumped clear over the swordsmen and landed amongst the