“I’m sure you will do everything you can.”
I glared at her suspiciously, “Something tells me that your words and your intentions are two different things.”
“Nope,” she said, “I realize I can’t keep you here when there’s something dark prowling the night.” She did her best to make her voice sound deep and ominous.
“Well… good then,” I said. Unusual as it was, it felt good to win one now and then. After dressing we went our separate ways. She had been busy with the architect lately; overseeing the construction of the kitchens and living quarters. I spent the afternoon helping my father. He had been working to produce a serviceable portcullis for the gatehouse.
The day passed quickly and that evening I calmly got ready for my night out. I didn’t have anything resembling proper armor but I hardly needed it with my magical shields. Instead I wore dark hunting leathers, buckling my sword on over them. I also carried a staff.
The staff warrants special attention. After discovering the secret of permanently enchanting things I thought I would try to recreate something I had read about in Vestrius’ journal. The specific details regarding what sort of staves wizards carried long ago was lost, along with the art of enchanting. Still I was drawn to the idea and I decided to try and create something similar to the descriptions I had read in Vestrius’ journal.
Supposedly the ancients had used them to channel and focus their powers to greater effect. I had no idea how they accomplished it but I tried a few things of my own anyway. The first was to enchant the head of the staff so that it would hold any spell I put there indefinitely, sort of a flexible enchantment. I could light it and not worry about maintaining the spell. Potentially I could do other things as well, but that was all I had thought of so far. The second thing I had done was encircle the entire length with a sort of hollow shell of wards and runes. I found that if I channeled my strength along the shaft I could direct my power out to much greater distances, or focus it more powerfully at short range.
Honestly I hadn’t had a need to do either so far, but I had great hopes that it would prove useful eventually. Plus it looked pretty nifty. “I’m off to save the village honey!” I shouted toward our bedroom, hoping to provoke a laugh.
“Ok, be careful,” she yelled back calmly, not even bothering to step out and give me a good-bye kiss. Obviously she had resigned herself to the situation. I stepped outside, looking around and trying to decide which way to head first. Penny showed up a moment later, walking around from the other side of the house.
She was wearing a soft gambeson and a long chain shirt. She also carried a bow and a slender sword. “Um… Penny, what are you doing?” I inquired.
“I’m going out to hunt for evil-doers,” she answered casually.
“You’re not coming with me,” I said firmly. Once in a while a man just has to put his foot down.
“That’s fine, you go that way, I’ll work my way south.” The smile on her face was positively diabolical.
I rephrased myself, “No… I mean you’re staying here.”
“Nope,” she replied.
She was missing the subtleties of my argument so I decided to try something more direct, “Shibal” I said, using a spell that should put her soundly to sleep.
Penny held up the amulet I had made her a few months previously, “Forget about something?” I had made it to protect her from mental assaults such as she had endured previously… such as I had just attempted.
“Goddammit, you’re not going out there alone!”
“Fine, you can come with me, but try not to make noise, I don’t want to scare them off,” she answered. Her attitude was one of indifference.
“This isn’t your job Penny,” I said stubbornly.
“Like hell it’s not! You may be the damned Count, but I’m about to be your wife. If you are responsible then I’m in this just as deeply as you are. Now you can go your own way or we can go together… what’s it going to be?” she said with resolve. She could be really beautiful when she was determined, but don’t tell her that, she’s hard enough to deal with already.
In the end I let her come with me. There really wasn’t any alternative, other than tying her up, which I did briefly consider. We headed north of the village, since all the missing persons had lived on that side, and found a nice quiet spot in the forest. Once we got under the trees the darkness intensified; neither moon nor the stars could be seen.
“Oof!” Penny had just tripped over a root and almost went down in a sprawl. I stifled the urge to laugh. I could have provided light but I had the wonderful excuse that we were trying to avoid tipping off our quarry. My magesight gave me a distinct advantage in the dark.
“Stop it,” she said.
“What?”
“You’re laughing at me… I can tell,” she answered.
“I was just wondering how you’re going to see to shoot that bow if something happens.” It was so dark there weren’t even shadows. She declined to answer so I dropped the subject and we kept walking. Soon enough we had reached my spot.
It was a location without anything to recommend it. There was nothing particularly comfortable about it, but it was in a place where, by stretching my senses I could cover most of the area that had lost people. We sat down, back to back and I began to relax. The art of sensing a large area requires a lot of effort, but most of that goes into not tensing up. I had to calm myself and let my mind expand, feeling as much as I could around me.
The first hour was the worst, after that we both gave up thinking about our daily lives and it got easier. I wasn’t sure but Penny might have gone to sleep. There really wasn’t anything else for her to do, and nothing could sneak up on us as we were. I could feel a field mouse moving around half a mile away.
Another hour drew slowly by and I began to wonder if this would be a repeat of the previous night. My thoughts were drifting, but my mind was still alert. If anything had moved I would have felt it, but I had no idea what I was looking for… I would learn that later. Penny had begun snoring, which probably hid the sound of its approach. Even if she had been silent I’m not sure I would have noticed. It was very quiet.
The first indication things were not as they seemed was the sound of a twig snapping not five feet behind me. The sound would not have been so surprising, except I knew there was nothing there, no animals, no life at all. I came awake suddenly and then I felt it, an absolute emptiness. It was as if something had carved a void in the air behind me, a place where nothing existed.
I stood and whirled about, the darkness was absolute so my eyes were useless; yet I could feel the empty place with my extra senses. I reached for my sword but a hand grabbed my arm. It went through my shield as if it didn’t exist and when it touched me the world changed. Everything vanished… my sight was gone, and I could sense nothing but a vast void drawing me in. It was absorbing the light within me, and crushing the light from the world as well. A few moments longer and I would have been lost.
Something knocked me sideways, breaking the contact, and the world rushed back in at me. I could sense Penny there, grappling with something so black my mind could not reveal it, something that was sapping her energy. Her life force wavered in front of me, being drawn rapidly away, like a candle guttering in a strong wind.
“Lyet,” I spoke, conjuring a ball of light, and then I could see it. In the stark light I saw Penny struggling with Sadie Tanner. Ordinarily Penny would have easily overpowered the smaller girl, but now her strength was waning quickly. Whatever this thing was, it was a mockery of the girl we had known. It looked like Sadie, but the emptiness revealed by my magesight made it clear that she was nowhere within the creature we faced now.
“Sadie?” Penny exclaimed.
“I don’t know what that is… but it isn’t Sadie,” I yelled back, and then I continued in Lycian, “Stirret ni Pyrenn!” A line of fire lanced from my outstretched hand. I had learned to focus my power in such a way that it would burn a hole through the thing… yet my fire disappeared the moment it touched the thing.
Sadie, the thing, whatever it was… looked at me then, a hideous grin on its face. With a shove it threw Penny back six or seven feet, to strike a tree, and then it reached for the ball of light I had created. As it touched my spell the light vanished, winking out as suddenly as it had appeared. I felt a sense of shock. This thing, whatever Sadie had become, consumed my magic as quickly as I had summoned it.
I drew my sword and lashed out at her even as the light disappeared. I hoped cold steel would do what magic could not. I felt the blade meet resistance and then it passed onward. Stepping back I conjured more light.
