The Evil Wizard

I cannot endure the betrayal. Everything disgusts me: the cruelty of my homeland and what I am, from which I cannot escape. I will find the path leading to the sleeping god, the dreamer who dreams the universe, and awaken it. That will be the end of me and everything.

The trail has led me here, to a filthy tavern where I must barter and beg for the next clue.

***

Cobblestones wound through narrow streets where timber-framed buildings pressed against one another like huddled conspirators. Their wattle-and-daub walls, painted in weathered blue limestone plaster, seemed to lean inward as if sharing secrets.

Orange light bled from shuttered windows and doorways, casting restless shadows that danced with each flicker of lamp and hearth. Citizens hurried through the deepening twilight, humans mingling with stranger folk whose lineages remained unspoken mysteries.

Toren’s ash-gray features, speckled with distinctive black and white markings, drew no more curious glances than any other in this distant realm.

The tavern’s wooden sign creaked overhead, displaying a foaming tankard beside the carved bust of a buxom woman, headless and truncated at the waist. Music thrummed through the walls like a living heartbeat. Behind a curtain of glass beads that clinked with each patron’s passage, warm, moisture-laden air beckoned from within.

Toren pushed through into a vast hall where tiered platforms rose along the far wall, musicians perched like birds of prey, their melodies soaring over the crowd below.

The audience sat entranced, faces turned toward the central stage where a single figure commanded every eye. Above, a chandelier of rainbow glass rotated slowly, its countless candles painting the smoky air with shifting light spectrums.

The performer wore a mask of glittering stones that framed her eyes like a jungle cat’s markings, beautiful and dangerous. Gems and cut glass caught the light, sending fractures of brilliance across Toren’s sensitive vision.

Silk draped her form in fluid lines that moved like smoke-given substance, with each gesture a whisper of flame-touched wind. She was no Ignassi, that much was certain, but her otherworldly grace held him captive nonetheless.

Her hips and fingers swayed with the music’s pulse, each twist of her bare waist summoning thunderous rolls from the shirtless drummers. When she plucked at invisible strings, the flutes sang in response, their trilling melody weaving through the smoky air like enchantment made audible.

Toren’s mind lurched, snapping free from the dancer’s spell. The performance was a mere distraction; he had business here. Beyond the grimy windows, the last orange and silver light faded toward the horizon. Darkness settled over the city like a familiar embrace, tangible and cool against his skin.

His people thrived in the deep realms where silver skylight never penetrated and shadow became substance. Their magic was born of that darkness: pure, potent, and perilous to master. As a wizard of considerable skill, Toren’s mind housed an arsenal of such spells, each carefully contained within mental walls he had spent decades fortifying.

He slipped the protective black spectacles from his eyes and tucked them into his velvet jacket’s breast pocket. Without their filter, the dancer blazed before him in full radiance. The dying light streaming through dust-stained glass transformed her exposed skin into molten copper, glowing with an inner fire that seemed to pulse with each beat of the drums.

A slave? The question flickered through his mind unbidden. She possessed far too much ethereal beauty to be mere chattel in some squalid pleasure house. He could spirit her away to his estate in the deep realms, where she would receive proper education and care, becoming a prized ornament of his household.

In the Deep Realms, servants were currency as valuable as gold or precious stones. Toren selected an empty chair against the wall, positioning himself with clear sight lines to the entrance while fighting the urge to lose himself again in her performance.

His contact arrived precisely on schedule. A weathered human filled the doorway, full beard streaked with gray, accompanied by a brutish companion whose scarred features suggested orcish blood somewhere in his lineage.

The tavern’s dim lighting would challenge human vision, but Toren snapped his fingers, conjuring a brief spark to guide them to his table. Both men wore their swords strapped across their backs, their leather armor studded with protective metal rings that caught what little light remained.

The pair settled into chairs across from him. The grizzled mercenary immediately launched into his practiced negotiation, voice carrying the rehearsed cadence of a man accustomed to bartering for his life.

“Come now, Toren,” the human began, words tumbling over each other in forced confidence, “surely you recognize the value of experienced hands. Men of our particular talents deserve proper compensation, lest the quality of our work... suffer.”

The dancer’s gaze found his through the jeweled thicket of her mask, and something shifted in her rhythm. Her movements grew fractionally tighter, nervous energy creeping into what had been fluid grace.

Toren followed the direction of her barely perceptible glance and spotted them: cloaked figures filtering through the tavern’s entrance, crossbows poorly concealed beneath their garments as they spread along the walls. Professional. Coordinated. And closing the circle around his table.

His mind raced through a catalog of enemies, each name a reminder of debts unpaid in blood. Too many faces, too many grudges left to fester. Perhaps some new player had entered his particular game, someone with similar ambitions and better timing.

“You babble like a toad drowning in sewage,” Toren snarled at the mercenary, his irritation seeking any available target.

The grizzled human’s jaw tightened, fists clenching reflexively before he caught himself. Whatever leash held him was stronger than his pride. He swallowed his rage and began his pitch anew, voice strained but obedient.

Perfect. The fool’s wounded ego would buy precious seconds. Toren’s fingers moved subtly beneath the table, calling forth the familiar weight of arcane power that pooled in his chest like molten shadow.

Another figure entered, magic crackling around him like invisible lightning. Toren’s trained senses caught the telltale resonance of a prepared spell, its energy coiled and ready for release. To mundane eyes, the newcomer appeared unremarkable, but Toren perceived the glowing lattice of power surrounding the cloaked mage like ethereal webwork.

He could only guess at the spell’s deadly purpose without time to decipher its intricate patterns. His gray lips pressed into a thin line as he calculated the seconds needed to mount a proper defense.

Too many enemies, too little time. His survival instincts shrieked their verdict: strike before the net closed completely.

Hidden within his sleeve, a glass vial contained his emergency measure, volatile fuel suspended in magically compressed oxygen. Toren’s fingertips found the activation mechanism just as the music faltered for a heartbeat.

The approaching mage’s attention flicked toward the stage in that brief silence. Toren seized the moment, smashing the vial against the table’s surface.

The glass exploded. The stored spell ignited on contact, pure oxygen feeding flames that bloomed into a roaring fireball. The grizzled mercenary threw himself backward, mouth opening in a scream that died as superheated air seared his lungs. Burning fuel clung to his flesh like liquid torment.

Toren rolled away through the chaos of panicking patrons and fleeing performers. The orcish brute ignored his leader’s agony, sword already in hand as he kicked their table aside. Toren fought to center his mind, blocking out screams and crackling flames to summon his most devastating spell.

But as his concentration crystallized, the brute’s blade found an easier target, a barmaid, her graceful form crumpling as steel punched through silk and flesh.

Her cry strangled into silence. The brute lowered her gently to the floor, allowing her body to slide from his blade with practiced efficiency: clean steel, minimal gore, but crimson pooled beneath her still form. Toren seized the moment of the killer’s satisfaction, hurling his matrix smasher into the cloaked mage’s prepared spell.

The competing magics collided in dimensions beyond normal sight. Hairline fractures spider-webbed through the enemy’s spell matrix, and volatile energy began bleeding back into its creator. The cloaked figure’s body convulsed against the wall, lips moving soundlessly around a scream that existed only in realms of pure thought. Wounded, but still standing.

Toren barely managed to raise a wooden chair as the brute’s sword whistled toward his skull. The blade bit deep into the wood, but a boot followed, driving into his chest with bone-crushing force. The impact launched him backward onto the stage, where he rolled to a stop beside a cowering performer.

The orcish warrior advanced with grim confidence, assuming victory. Fatal mistake. Toren’s mind plunged deeper into the metaphysical realm where time stretched like heated metal. He had precious seconds to forge a lightning spell in the space between heartbeats, though panic and rage drove him past safe limits.

Power scorched through barriers meant to protect his essence, the magical backlash audible only to those who could perceive beyond the physical world. Pain beyond mortal understanding tore through his being, but the spell took shape in his trembling hands.

Toren rolled to face his attacker as the brute raised his sword for the killing blow. Lightning erupted from the wizard’s fingertips, racing along the blade’s metal surface and into the warrior’s body.

The electrical torrent hurled the screaming figure backward through a cascade of splintering furniture. The stage dancer’s shriek pierced the air as the smell of burned flesh filled the smoky tavern.

The cloaked mage had recovered, his hood fallen away to reveal a human face marked by fresh magical burns. In his hands, an exposed spell matrix pulsed with malevolent energy. The casting was complete. Five smoldering orbs of nether-realm power burst forth, scattering across the stage like deadly seeds.

Within heartbeats, the spheres burned through reality itself, opening rifts into the howling void beyond. Massive serpentine heads pushed through the dimensional tears, scales gleaming emerald in the firelight. Ancient vipers from realms of shadow, their minds already linked to their summoner’s will.

Desperation drove Toren to overload his failing lightning matrix. The spell structure screamed in protest as he forced it beyond all safety limits, unleashing a bolt that could have split mountains.

The nearest serpent’s head exploded in a shower of ichor and bone. A second creature reeled back, half its skull charred away, while three others remained unscathed and furious.

The matrix detonated. Raw magical energy flooded back through Toren’s nervous system before the metaphysical breach could seal. His skin cracked like drought-stricken earth, weeping amber fluid mixed with blood.

Each breath brought fresh agony as he struggled to grasp another spell from his fractured mind. Time was slipping away, and the pain made concentration nearly impossible.

Blood trickled from the enemy mage’s chin as he smiled through his injuries, reaching inward for his next devastating spell. The surviving vipers circled Toren like predators, their massive heads weaving hypnotically as they struck at him with lightning speed. Each feint and snap shattered his concentration, making it impossible to delve deep enough for another casting.

The stage dancer screamed as the wounded serpent, driven by pain and rage, sank its fangs deep into her thigh. Confusion clouded her features as venom raced through her veins. Rather than surrender to the poison, she seized a shard of fallen chandelier glass and drove it into the creature’s remaining eye.

The blade punched through to the brain, and the twice-wounded viper collapsed, its form already beginning to dissolve into the primordial ooze of its origin realm. She tried to flee but managed only a few stumbling steps before her poisoned leg buckled.

The tavern had emptied of all but combatants, giving the crossbow assassins clear sight lines. The first bolt whistled past Toren’s ear as he threw himself behind an overturned table. The second scraped along his shoulder, while a third punched through his side just above the hip.

He pressed his hand against the wound, grateful the shafts had missed anything immediately vital. The archers spread out in practiced formation, methodically closing the circle around his meager shelter.

Those precious seconds of repositioning gave Toren the focus he needed. Rather than waste energy on precise targeting, he hurled a fireball directly into the ceiling above, trusting distance to spare him from the worst of the blast.

The detonation shook the building’s foundations, windows exploding outward in crystalline halos as atmospheric pressure hammered the walls. Choking smoke and superheated air drove the crossbowmen to their knees, gasping through ash-filled lungs as flames licked at their clothing.

The soldiers forgot their disciplined advance, frantically patting embers on their gear. In that moment of chaos, Toren began weaving a Blink spell to escape entirely. Then he saw her: the poisoned dancer’s tear-streaked face, beautiful even in her dying agony, watching him with desperate hope.

The teleportation matrix dissolved as he redirected his will toward the Carnic Rift Blade spell instead. He fed double power into the casting, conjuring twin force blades that screamed through the air toward the remaining serpents.

The ethereal weapons punched through scaled skulls with wet, meaty sounds. Both massive heads dropped lifeless to the stage before dissolving into otherworldly ichor.

Toren pushed himself upright, pain flaring as the crossbow bolt shifted in his flesh. He tested the shaft gingerly, but the barbed head had buried itself too deep for easy removal. Among his people, such wounds were familiar territory. The Ignassi understood pain as intimately as other races knew comfort.

Focus became everything. By the time he reached the dying dancer, the Blink spell had reformed in his mind like gathering storm clouds. She barely registered his approach before he pulled her against him, the casting enveloping them both in shimmering violet light.

Reality became negotiable for a heartbeat, and they slipped through stone and timber as if passing through morning mist, materializing in the cool darkness beyond the tavern’s walls.

The night air embraced Toren like a lover’s touch. His breath steamed in the chill as he fought to steady his racing heart, drawing on meditation techniques learned in the deep sanctuaries of his youth. The rhythmic thunder of marching boots came from around the corner, a full military column by the sound.

His gray skin would mark him instantly as one of the despised Ignassi, those shadow-born folk whom surface dwellers considered harbingers of corruption and decay. Capture meant interrogation, and interrogation meant death.

The Blink spell flickered to life again, carrying them twenty yards down the cobbled street into the embrace of deeper shadows. There they crouched, the wizard supporting his poisoned burden while her life ebbed through the serpent’s venom.

Toren dragged her by the wrist through narrow alleys and forgotten passages when stealth served. When pursuit drew near, he risked another teleportation, though each casting threatened to shatter his strained magical reserves.

Even masters of the arcane arts faced the constant danger of matrix collapse, and Toren could feel his spells growing increasingly unstable with each desperate use.

Safety materialized in the form of Kack, his Rattis companion, holding open a cleverly concealed entrance to the city’s underground network. The ratlike humanoid’s whiskers twitched with concern as he took in Toren’s bloodied condition and unconscious burden.

“Deal not go well, Toren?” Kack asked, his heavily accented Common betraying his nervousness. “Who is Human? You take hostage now?”

“I rescued her from certain death,” Toren replied curtly, supporting the dancer’s limp form. “She’s our guest, not a captive. We abandoned that particular business practice, remember? Besides, she possesses a rare beauty that deserves protection, not exploitation.”

Kack’s elongated snout wrinkled in confusion. “I thought ‘exquisite’ meant tasty, yes? She looks stringy and hairless. Not beautiful to Rattis’ eyes.”

The hidden door sealed behind them with a soft click, and within the sanctuary of their subterranean chamber, Toren finally allowed himself to collapse into a weathered wooden chair. His wounds throbbed with each heartbeat, but they had reached safety at last.

“I must fetch my spellbook, Kack. Remain quiet while I summon it.” A brief gesture and whispered incantation brought the leather-bound tome into his waiting hands from its dimensional hiding place. He flipped through pages of arcane formulae and healing practices, then snapped the book closed with evident frustration.

“At this rate, I’ll need to memorize a bolt-extraction spell,” he muttered, examining the embedded shaft. “My encounters seem to grow more hazardous by the day.” Gritting his teeth, he began the delicate process of working the barbed head free, twisting and easing the metal point to minimize additional tissue damage.

The dancer stirred on the stone floor, consciousness returning with cruel clarity. The repeated mention of hostages had penetrated her venom-clouded thoughts, alerting her to fresh terrors.

As her eyes adjusted to the chamber’s gloom, she took in her captors: a rat-faced creature with bristling whiskers watching her with evident hunger, and a gray-skinned humanoid whose oversized, drooping ears marked him as something other than the graceful forest elves of legend.

The Ignassi ears rose nearly to the crown of his skull before curling downward under their weight, giving him an almost comical appearance that somehow made him more unsettling.

Fear crystallized into panic as she recognized the dwellers of shadow and darkness, beings whose cruelty was whispered about in surface tales. Her mind conjured images of the tortures his kind supposedly inflicted on helpless victims. Inch by inch, she began edging toward what she hoped was the exit. Kack noticed her movement and stepped closer with predatory interest.

Terror overwhelmed caution.

“Stay back, you scourge of decency!” she screamed, voice cracking with hysteria.

Toren finished extracting the crossbow bolt and wiped his bloodied hands on a stained cloth. He looked up at her outburst with the weary expression of someone who had heard such accusations countless times before.

“My lady,” he said with patient formality, “we intend only assistance. The nether viper’s venom courses through your blood even now. You likely feel merely lightheaded at present, but the poison will soon reach your heart. Minutes have passed since you were bitten, nothing more. I possess the knowledge to purge this toxin, but you must trust me and remain still while I prepare the remedy.”

“I’ll find an honest wizard to help me,” she spat back, defiance masking her growing weakness. “Just let me leave this place.”

“You’re free to go,” Toren replied with urgent sincerity, “but consider the practicalities. Your honest wizard must be located swiftly and persuaded to act immediately. More importantly, will this paragon work without payment? Do you carry the coin for such services? I beg you, spare yourself the indignity of dying while you plead with some cold-hearted spellcaster for charity. Allow me to prove my intentions through action.”

He began rummaging through a leather satchel in the corner without awaiting her response. The neutralize poison spell would demand his whole strength and concentration. There could be no margin for error, no opportunity for a second attempt.

He daubed his wound with a faintly luminescent salve, the magical unguent sealing torn flesh within moments. Kack wordlessly assisted, wrapping the injury with clean gauze and securing the bandage with practiced efficiency.

The dancer remained unconvinced by his arguments and moved toward the door, but her heart suddenly began hammering against her ribs like a caged bird. Her vision swam as strength fled from her limbs, and she crumpled to the musty stone floor. The chamber reeked of dampness and decay, but she barely noticed as consciousness drifted away.

Toren’s hands moved in the opening gestures of his spell as delirium claimed her mind.