“Yes.”
“And you called me back from the road of death.”
“Maybe.”
“And you killed Zarahel.”
“Yes.”
“What would you do with those books now?”
“Burn them.”
“That would be a waste of something that might be needed in the future. So would giving you to the Inquisition, I think.”
“Do you?”
“You have the power, boy. You were denied schooling. You were denied your birthright. Still you reached for it. It is what the mage-born do. It is like breathing to us. I cannot judge you for that.”
She paused for a moment, and looked directly at him. Rik had seen that look before on the faces of men holding a sword in their hand in a weapon-smiths and trying to decide whether to buy it. She seemed to come to a decision. “I can teach you.”
Rik was stunned. He did not know what to say. All of his life seemed to have been leading to this moment, and now that he had reached it he had no words. He just felt empty.
“Would you like that?”
Was this some cruel joke, a trap, a cat playing with a mouse? He nodded anyway.
“What is your name? I cannot keep calling you boy.”
He considered his answer carefully, recalling all the things that he had been called and the things he did not want to be called anymore.
“Rik,” he said at last.
She glanced at the Foragers who were looking after their dead. The light of the lantern hit her silver mask, and turned her face into that of an enigmatic God. “Then let us leave this place, Rik. We have a long, long way to go. ”
Behind him Rik was startled to hear a groan emerge from Sardec’s lips. It seemed that he was alive after all.
Rik strode back to where Weasel knelt by the Barbarian. The poacher shook his head and reached forward into the bloody mess that was the Barbarian’s tunic. He pulled forth a torn canvas money belt in which the glitter of gold was visible. Weasel looked up and gave Rik a strange lop-sided smile.
“It’s what he would have done. You can’t take it with you. We’ll drink a toast to his health with it, and then some.”
“If you don’t put that money back right now, I am going to stick it so far up your arse you’ll have gold teeth.” said the Barbarian. It looked like he was going to live after all. Rik was glad.
The End
About the Author
Aeons ago seeking a better life than that offered as dole claimant under the gloomy skies of his grim northern homeland, Bill King fled south to the ancient, daemon haunted metropolis of Nottingheim.
Amid its narrow alleys and fog-shrouded streets, he stumbled into the unhallowed precincts of the Low Pavement Studios of the Workshop of Games where he was initiated into the blood-stained mysteries of the Adeptus Scriptorum.
After years of gruelling toil amid the clatter of the great Script Engines, he clambered to the position of Scribe Third Class With Very Occasional Responsibility for Game Development. Driven mad by the endless perusal of forbidden books he took flight, passing through the fleshpots of South East Asia and Stranraer till he eventually came to rest in the doomed city of Prague, from which he makes occasional forays into the great world beyond.
The sound of buckets of six-sided dice being thrown onto baize covered tabletops haunts his nightmares still.