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wizard hunters
Wizard Hunters is a urban fantasy series about a young girl named Crystal, who is caught in battle between vampires and wizards. Watch the full season at DitchTV.
The Mark - Act One
“I’m not saying I’m offended or anything, far from it. I’ve got thick skin, I just wish we were appreciated a little more, is all – maybe a feast to celebrate our arrival, or some girls to warm our beds. I’m just joking. All’s I’m saying is I expected a little more of a welcome than some cold stares and crying kids.”
“Perhaps it’s your mask, Vello. You might be wise to remove it before coming into town, if a warm reception is what you wish for.”
“Easy for you to say, Zura.” Vello tapped his mask with a gauntleted finger and then pounded his void iron breastplate with his fist. “The mask is part of the uniform. Plated from head to toe in magic-resistant metal, that’s what an ebonguard looks like. I lose the mask, I lose the allure.” He gestured to Zura’s arm, covered by a sleeve that fell down to her wrist. “Yet you cover yourself with robes and cloth to hide your ink. If you showed it off now and then, I know you’d be a real hit with the youngsters around here…maybe even the men!”
“You know why I conceal myself, Vello,” Zura said, looking at her partner from beneath the shadow of her hooded brow. “The markings have brought fear and scorn from many. Common folk understand us channelers more poorly than any other Inquisitor.”
“You walk around pretending people don’t know what you are, but you’re fooling yourself, woman. I’m proud of it, at least. I just wish people would be a little more grateful for our work, and a little less frightened.”
“The people of Midshire are thankful, I assure you both.” The Inquisitors stopped in front of a large house with a thick wooden door and a brass knocker in the shape of two fish. The leader of the trio turned to Vello and Zura. “They are scared, and for good reason. What is happening here is unnatural and sinister, and though we promise to put a stop to it, they are doubtful we will succeed.” The man looked at Vello. “There is no feast because the town is starving, and no women because we are here on business.” He looked at Zura. “Take Vello and go to the Bottled Fairy tavern. Buy three rooms for the evening, and tip the bartender generously. Have him draw up a couple of warm baths for yourselves – ”
“And ready three plates of supper for when you return,” Zura finished, sighing. “When will that be, exactly…?” The man hesitated, and knocked on the door in front of him three times. “Willam?”
“Give me two hours,” Willam responded, holding up two fingers. “It’s…been a long time.”
Zura nodded slightly, but looked at the ground instead of her commander. Vello looked to her and then to Willam. “A long time since what? Whose house is this, anyway?”
The door swung open, and a woman with golden hair and a regal blue dress stood before them, a soft smile on her lips. “Willam,” she said, her eyes twinkling as she looked at him, “it’s wonderful to see you again. Come in.”
He stepped through the doorway and walked past the woman, then looked back over his shoulder. “Two hours,” he repeated, before the door closed behind him.
Zura turned and began to walk away, but Vello stood still as if his ankles were in chains. “No women!” he scoffed. “Here on business!” He turned to follow his partner, stomping along behind her. “I’m getting a pint in my hand and a girl on my arm. Bugger his baths!”
******
“Her name was Mary Mazghul. Nowadays they call her “Mad” Mary Mazghul, but she was never crazy. Not until what they did to her.”
Willam sat at the long table in the kitchen, his void iron chainmail stowed in a chest against the wall, his boots at the door, his cloak and scabbard hung on hooks in the living room. He drank from a silver cup of red wine, sitting back in his chair.
“What exactly happened, Clarice?” he asked, sipping his drink. “I’ve spoken to the lord’s aides but I have a suspicion that they were less than truthful about the circumstances.”
“Surely they were,” Clarice answered, coming to the table to sit with the Inquisitor. “Many of the town’s elite say that the lord’s own son was among those in the mob who perpetrated the crime. Of course, that’s not part of the official story, and the commoners wouldn’t dare disagree with it publicly.”
She looked up at Willam with blue eyes that reminded him of an icy pond. Never had her gaze been so cold. “The people who did this deserve to starve, Willam.”
“Clarice – ”
“It’s true.” She looked down at the bare silver platter in front of her. “Mary was a peaceful, kind woman. There were always rumors about her and her…gift, but no one paid her much mind until the town fell on hard times. They burned her house down. They dashed her babe’s head against a rock, Willam. When she crawled back inside, the house collapsed on her. They never found a body.”
Willam nodded. “She swore revenge.”
“And now the commoners starve.” Clarice bit her lip. “I’d leave this town and let them were it not for the innocent children.”
“I was told that the woman was found to have sacrificed her child to place a curse on the town. Regardless of the cause or any wrong done, the famine that has befallen this town is magical in nature, I’m certain, and I must stop it…though it isn’t often I deal in dead wizards.”
Clarice laughed. “Just those who would be better off that way.”
Willam frowned and nodded slowly. “The dangerous ones, yes. But you know there is more to my work than violence. We provide people born into chaos with stability and security, given they can cooperate. We want to understand and help, not root out and suppress. You know that, Clarice.”
“Not all of you.” She looked away, then rose from her chair. “Some would prefer to see all wonder vanish from this world.”
“There are some who…stray.” Willam looked down.
“They want to see all the Gifted locked in dungeons, subjected to incessant scrutiny or worse.”
“It isn’t a gift, Clarice.” Willam sighed, as if having had this conversation a thousand times before. “It’s a condition – random, dangerous…but manageable.”
“A condition?” she asked, whirling to face him. She stepped silently across the room and reached out for a candle on the table. “Is that what it is?” She pinched the wick between two fingers and the candle lit up instantly. She was unburned.
Willam cradled his head in his hands. “I wish you wouldn’t do that in front of me.”
“Well, you’re the one with the power to judge me, so tell me: Am I sick, or blessed? Do I belong in a dungeon or in your island village? Am I manageable or…dangerous?”
He looked at her as though irritated. “Sometimes I don’t know.”
“Why do you do it, then, Willam? How can you bring others to your tribunals but continue to protect me? Can I not cause untold destruction to this town if I am to lose control?”
“Your father made me his ward. He took me in when no others would and made me the man I am. I owed him a debt, and on his deathbed he made me promise to protect you, to hide your…condition.” Willam stood and approached Clarice. “You know why I became an Inquisitor. It was to keep you under my watch...to keep you safe.”
She turned away. “Safe would be the Castle of the Void.”
He nodded. “That would be safe. Solitude would be safe, as well. This hiding in plain sight – ”
“Safe would be far away from you – far from your order’s reach.”
His gaze fell. “Perhaps…yes.”
Clarice suddenly faced him again, taking his chin in her hand. She raised his eyes to meet hers. “I don’t want to be safe anymore, Willam. My father kept me safe all his life, hidden from view in my room…but he couldn’t keep me from you. I want to live on my own terms, and damn those who would deny me of it.” She pressed her mouth to his and they shared a lengthy kiss that both had been eagerly awaiting. It had been too long.
“I want to live with you, Willam.”
He placed a hand on her cheek. “I have an hour still.”
She smiled and began to undo his vest.
******
“As big as a hill giant! I swear it! Oh, yes, this one was a powerful wizard indeed – could alter his shape as quick as you could snap your finger! We had been chasing him for some time, having cornered him in a home he had rented in Caltha. Just when we thought we’d had him, he transformed into a rat, smaller than the ones in your barkeep’s basement, and vanished into a hole in the wall. We heard reports of a large, unusual bird in the sky, flying north, and followed the trail to Illikon. The wizard’s plan was to take a ship and double back south, all the way to Kemhet. He would have taken the form of a fish and simply swam there himself, but all the transformations had taken a toll on him and he needed a quick rest. We caught him at an inn, and that’s when things got interesting. The innkeeper was adamant that we reimburse him for the roof after that incident…”
“Vello…” Willam had entered the Bottled Fairy a moment earlier, wet from the rain that had picked up while he was visiting Clarice. The ebonguard hadn’t noticed his arrival, and was in the midst of an exaggerated story of their exploits, which he told with great enthusiasm for the commoners gathered at his table. The barkeep didn’t seem too amused by the comment about the rats, but the rest of the patrons, including the woman on Vello’s lap, seemed to enjoy the story to a great degree.
“Sir,” Vello said, stammering slightly. He stood up, a bit wobbly on his feet, causing the woman seated with him to stumble and fall on the ground. “You’re back! I’ve…already eaten. I believe Zura has your meal.”
Willam nodded. “She is in her room? I’ll pay her a visit.” He walked towards the stairs, nodding at the bartender on his way. “Careful you don’t embellish your tales too heavily, Vello. We wouldn’t want these people to get any false notions regarding your aptitude.” He started up the steps and stopped. “And go easy on the ale. I’ll have you up early tomorrow morning to head out for the hills.”
“Right sir, of course.” Vello stood there until his commander continued his ascent, at which point he turned to take his woman back into his arm. “Where was I? Right! A void iron bolt right through his eyeball! No, wait…”
Willam knocked on Zura’s door, which he recognized from the odor of incense creeping out from the crack near the floor. She took her time opening the door, peeking out into the hall before allowing him to enter. The room was bathed in soft candlelight, and would look to most like the scene of some bizarre ritual, but the smell and the lighting were merely products of the channeler’s need for relaxation. It was for this same reason that she was naked from head to toe, her hair slicked back and shining black with smelly oils.
It was not unusual to Willam at this point. He had seen her this way many times before, as a commander to his subordinate. There was no tension present. Though Zura was a beautiful woman, when she laid her flesh bare it was not her nakedness that attracted the eye. Rather, it was the dense accumulation of intricate runic tattoos that ran down her arms, across her chest, over her stomach, blanketing her back and wrapping around her legs. It was an awe-inspiring thing to lay eyes upon, though to Zura it was her shame.
In public she covered herself as much as she could, fearful of the commoners’ reactions to her strange markings. As far as Willam knew – and it was none of his business, truly – Zura had not taken a man into her bed since she had received her markings. Here, alone, in the privacy of her own room, was the only place where she felt could shed her clothes and feel the air on her skin, and she refused to sacrifice that freedom to spare her visitors a bit of mild discomfort.
“Dinner?” Willam asked, surveying the room.
“Almost cold,” she replied, handing him a plate from the table beside her bed. “I expected you sooner.”
“I got caught up.” He looked at the plate and frowned. “Meat and potatoes? What kind of meat is it?”
“The stringy kind. Fatty and tough. I spat it out and asked the innkeep for vegetables. He gave me more potatoes.”
Willam smiled. “After this it will be back to the Imperial City. Cheer up.”
“I’ve done some reading.” She gestured to a book at her desk. “Mary Mazghul was a known associate of the Hidden back in Caltha. We may have a fight on our hands tomorrow, unless she really is dead.”
“I expect nothing less. We can handle it.”
Zura made a noise which might have indicated agreement, uncertainty, acceptance, or thought. She stood at her desk, reading, and said nothing more. Willam took it that the conversation was over and left the room with plate in hand.
In his own room, Willam’s window was wide open. The rain was blowing in, whipping the curtains about and covering the floor with a slick puddle. He cursed and tossed his plate of food onto a dresser, then crossed the room to shut out the wind. It wasn’t until he had closed the window that he began to consider that someone might have come in.
“Do they know of her condition?” The door swung shut.
Willam spun around quickly, careful with his footing as he stood in the puddle. His hand went to the hilt of his longsword, but he did not draw. “Explain yourself,” he demanded.
A man had appeared on his bed, lounging back against the headboard with one foot propped up in the air on his opposite knee. It wasn’t that Willam hadn’t noticed the man when he had come in; he simply hadn’t been there before. The man reached for Willam’s plate of food and took a potato, then popped it into his mouth.
He grimaced, but swallowed. “I thought the cooking in the dungeons of Karak du Vide was abysmal…”
“What are you doing here?” Willam checked the window, as if someone might be hovering outside, listening in.
“The same thing you’re doing, old friend. Hunting wizards.”
“Don’t call me friend, traitor. How did you escape your shackles?”
“It’s not so hard when you anticipate your capture.” The man held up his wrists as if bound, then shook them in the air. The sound of rattling chains filled the room, though no such bindings were present.
“You took a number of powerful tomes and valuable research from the archives on your way out. Was that your plan? Allow yourself to be apprehended to steal our secrets?”
“It would have been simpler, had I not been discovered so soon. I was chased out of the order with threats of beheading. How else was I to break into the impregnable fortress?” He rolled off the bed and stood on the floor, making not a sound as he moved.
“And where are our documents now?”
“Gone.” He threw his hand up and wiggled his fingers as if dust were blowing with the breeze. “Consumed by my studies. I’ve acquired some powerful magicks from those books of yours. Sometimes the parchment cannot bear the burden of intense scrutiny.”
“You’ve gone completely mad in your search for power, mad like any other wizard who digs too deeply into old books.” Willam’s tone softened. “You used to be one of us, Davorn. Your methods were…unsound, but you were a powerful fighter.”
“And now my methods are sounder than ever!” Davorn said. “The order and I didn’t see things the same way. These wizards cannot be rehabilitated, they don’t deserve to live. I’ve seen the mage fires burn half of the Red City to the ground, I’ve lost men to the black fog of the Forest of Shadows…and I’ve seen the sweet release in the eyes of a dying witch. The only relief in the life of a mage is the peace we grant them with a void iron dagger in the back.”
Willam glared. “Yet here you are, taunting me with your cheap conjurings and illusory tricks.”
Davorn’s eyes lit up, and he began to speak in a manic frenzy. “My power grants me the strength to hunt these monsters with efficiency that the likes of you and your friends can only dream of. When I was with the order and I discovered that I myself was gifted, I learned to use my abilities for detection. I could sense a wizard just by concentrating, saving my team days of rooting around in seedy pubs and back alleys. The Inquisition rejects the use of magic in our work when we should be embracing it. Properly wielded, the forces of chaos can be used to control!”
“Is that what you call your work? Control?” Willam laughed coldly, then shook his head. “You hunt down wizards and kill them without adequate proof, without tribunal, without jurisdiction. You are the chaos, traitor.”
“Only because those in power have rejected me.” He pointed a bony finger at Willam, wagging it in disapproval. “I seek to improve the system, and for that I am a traitor. The fact that I am a traitor makes me resort to whatever means necessary.”
“You enjoy killing wizards. What you do is not justice.”
“And you enjoy hiding them, don’t you, Willam?” Davorn took a deep breath and turned around, his back facing the Inquisitor. “I’ll ask again: do they know of her condition?”
“Who?”
“The oaf downstairs and the lovely girl in the next room. Do they know about your beloved witch?”
“You’ll stay away from her, or I’ll kill you. Speak of her to no one, or I’ll cut your tongue out.” Willam drew his sword halfway.
Davorn turned slightly, a smile on his face. “Now who’s killing without jurisdiction?”
“I have jurisdiction,” Willam declared. “The order wants your head, though I’m sure they’ll be happy to take whichever piece of you I bring them.”
Davorn nodded slowly. “I suppose it is your duty to attempt my capture, but I’ll strike a deal with you: Allow me to conduct my business in this town and stay out of my way, and I’ll keep your lady as my own little secret, I promise. She will go unharmed.”
“And your…business?” With Davorn’s eyes elsewhere, Willam slowly drew his weapon and gripped it tightly.
“It’s a modest request, actually. I seek the spellbook of Mad Mary Mazghul.”
Willam threw himself at the traitor, sword tip aimed at his back. However, in a second Davorn had vanished, his former position filled now with empty space. Willam’s sword continued on its path and got stuck in the wood of the wall, showering the outside hallway in splinters. He pulled his weapon loose and looked around frantically, but his enemy was gone.
December 24th-26th, 2013
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