dismal village, I didn't even have so much as a scrap of parchment on which to take notes and write out my eldritch formulas. My good pen and inkwell had burned with the rest.
Still, the thoughts needed to be ordered somehow, or I would never devise an incantation that would strip away the Reaper's glamor so that I could get at the man inside. I picked up a piece of coal from the dead ashes of the hearth, and began to write on the wooden walls.
XI
I barely even noticed the time passing until I looked up, and it was dark outside. To their credit, the villagers had not even tried to bother me.
My stomach was growling, so I rummaged through my pack and managed to choke down a bit of hardened travel bread as I stared at the walls of the house. They were covered from ceiling to floor in black etchings; some had been wiped away when I'd realized that I was chasing the wrong track, but most stood out starkly against the brown wood. Somewhere along the line, I had restarted the fire to give me light to see by, though I had no recollection of actually doing it.
For several minutes after coming out of my haze, I stared at the final line I'd written, on the wall next to the door that led outside. The incantation was complex, but it included a counter ward for the terror glamor, another for the illusion that affected sight, a third to dampen any extraneous effects that he might be using. Without knowing exactly what they were, I could not disperse them directly, but I could affect them more generally.
The last was only a snippet of a much larger, more complex spell. I had included seven words from Yzgar the Black's Verse of Undoing , the very one which had saved my life from the vampires, back in Elenia. Once the rest of the spells had stripped away the layers with which this sorcerer cloaked himself, those seven words would enter his brain, and unmake his mind.
I had never purposely constructed a spell to kill someone before. This was black magic; the blackest, really, designed to do nothing more than systematically wipe away every defense, prevent every counter, and slaughter a human mind at its culmination.
It would be weeks later before I realized that I had never cared about anything – or anyone – enough to design such an incantation.
In that moment, though, I simply regarded my work with a sort of grim satisfaction. There was no escaping what my anger-deranged brain gleefully called Edar's "Reaper" Reaper . It was the spell I should have been prepared with the night before, if not for my idiotic hubris.
Silence reigned supreme around me as I swore to myself that I would never make a mistake like that one again.
Ever.
I turned to the hearth, and spoke a single word in a forgotten tongue. The flames stoked higher, pushed on by my power. Before the night was out, the house would burn to the ground, leaving behind nothing but ash.
With a tiny sigh, I made my way out into the night.
XII
At last, the Deadmoon began approaching its zenith. The dead eye of the old Tellarian goddess stared down upon what would be the reckoning day for a man who had become a monster; a poetic thought, even if I found such a legend hard to believe.
It would soon be midnight.
My stomach twisted and roiled as I stood alone in the cold. The villagers were still safely inside their homes, like the pathetic cowards that they were. Smoke curled lazily from the chimneys of the surrounding huts, and I felt my hatred for them growing as I watched it.
This time, when the Reaper came, there was no baying of hounds.
There was only the crunch of frozen snow as the dead staggered into Warsil.
I stood alone in the moonlight as I watched them emerge from the darkness. The chill breeze of the winter's night brought with it the foul stench of death and decay. Far away, there was a howling noise, though whether it was the wind whistling through some distant hollow or the sound of enraged hounds straining at their chains, I couldn't be
Still, the thoughts needed to be ordered somehow, or I would never devise an incantation that would strip away the Reaper's glamor so that I could get at the man inside. I picked up a piece of coal from the dead ashes of the hearth, and began to write on the wooden walls.
XI
I barely even noticed the time passing until I looked up, and it was dark outside. To their credit, the villagers had not even tried to bother me.
My stomach was growling, so I rummaged through my pack and managed to choke down a bit of hardened travel bread as I stared at the walls of the house. They were covered from ceiling to floor in black etchings; some had been wiped away when I'd realized that I was chasing the wrong track, but most stood out starkly against the brown wood. Somewhere along the line, I had restarted the fire to give me light to see by, though I had no recollection of actually doing it.
For several minutes after coming out of my haze, I stared at the final line I'd written, on the wall next to the door that led outside. The incantation was complex, but it included a counter ward for the terror glamor, another for the illusion that affected sight, a third to dampen any extraneous effects that he might be using. Without knowing exactly what they were, I could not disperse them directly, but I could affect them more generally.
The last was only a snippet of a much larger, more complex spell. I had included seven words from Yzgar the Black's Verse of Undoing , the very one which had saved my life from the vampires, back in Elenia. Once the rest of the spells had stripped away the layers with which this sorcerer cloaked himself, those seven words would enter his brain, and unmake his mind.
I had never purposely constructed a spell to kill someone before. This was black magic; the blackest, really, designed to do nothing more than systematically wipe away every defense, prevent every counter, and slaughter a human mind at its culmination.
It would be weeks later before I realized that I had never cared about anything – or anyone – enough to design such an incantation.
In that moment, though, I simply regarded my work with a sort of grim satisfaction. There was no escaping what my anger-deranged brain gleefully called Edar's "Reaper" Reaper . It was the spell I should have been prepared with the night before, if not for my idiotic hubris.
Silence reigned supreme around me as I swore to myself that I would never make a mistake like that one again.
Ever.
I turned to the hearth, and spoke a single word in a forgotten tongue. The flames stoked higher, pushed on by my power. Before the night was out, the house would burn to the ground, leaving behind nothing but ash.
With a tiny sigh, I made my way out into the night.
XII
At last, the Deadmoon began approaching its zenith. The dead eye of the old Tellarian goddess stared down upon what would be the reckoning day for a man who had become a monster; a poetic thought, even if I found such a legend hard to believe.
It would soon be midnight.
My stomach twisted and roiled as I stood alone in the cold. The villagers were still safely inside their homes, like the pathetic cowards that they were. Smoke curled lazily from the chimneys of the surrounding huts, and I felt my hatred for them growing as I watched it.
This time, when the Reaper came, there was no baying of hounds.
There was only the crunch of frozen snow as the dead staggered into Warsil.
I stood alone in the moonlight as I watched them emerge from the darkness. The chill breeze of the winter's night brought with it the foul stench of death and decay. Far away, there was a howling noise, though whether it was the wind whistling through some distant hollow or the sound of enraged hounds straining at their chains, I couldn't be
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