It looks like it’s going to be a long night of investigating.Hopefully the books the Librarian gave me will have answers to at least one of my questions.
I shook myself from my thoughts as the Destruction Mage edged closer to the Librarian. She bent and whispered something in his ear before kneeling and grasping his left hand. To my horror, his hand, usually pale white, started to turn grey, then black, with flecks of embers embeddedwithin—almost as if the magic itself was consuming his flesh. I blinked and his hand was gone, a jagged stump and ashes slowly floating into the air all that was left behind.
My mouth gaped open in shock.
“It only gets worse,” Sharol whispered brokenly.
And she was right. It did get worse. With the methodical precision of a Healer, the female Mage used her Destruction Magic on various body parts—a few fingers on his other hand, his right ear, his left eye, half his nose. I was sickeningly drawn to the spectacle before me, simultaneously disgusted with the obvious torture of someone I considered, not necessarily a friend, but at least a close community member, and morbidly curious and appallingly impressed with the utter magical control she exhibited.
Sometimes she let the area bleed before the Fire Mage came and cauterized the flesh. Other times she simply destroyed so many of the blood vessels beneath the skin that there was no blood to effuse from the wound. And she never rushed, every move was thought out beforehand; what would cause the most harm or the most pain as she slowly disintegrated the Librarian. Time passed slowly and too fast, the sun descended toward the line where the sky met the earth, and still the Destruction Mage worked.
How large were her Vessel’s reserves?Did some Vessels have larger reserves than others?
Immediately I felt guilty over the thought. The Librarian, who had only ever been kind to me, was dying in the street at the hands of this woman, and I was fascinated by her power. Shame like I had never felt started to coil throughout my body and I felt like I was going to be sick.
“It’s almost over now. Her reserves are close to depleted,” Sharol said as if she had read my mind.
“H-how do you know that?” My voice was raspy from disuse over the last few hours.
She shrugged. “I just do.” Her tone didn’t invite a response, so I left it in the air as I turned back to the scene on the streets.
Sure enough, as the sky started to darken to a deep pink scattered with brilliant purple, the Destruction Mage finally halted her assault on the Librarian’s body. At some point she had removed his clothes, leaving him naked and missing his manhood. There were fist-sized chunks of flesh missing on his torso as well, and his breathing waslabored through his mouth. I snuck a glance at the other Elemental Mages, noticing sweat beading on their brows, their skin clammy, and faces tight from exhaustion. The vines holding the Librarian up started to wilt, and the fire creating the circle waned.
All their reserves are depleting.
More concerning was the look on the faces of the Vessels—they looked positively exhausted, dark circles under their eyes contrasted against nearly translucent skin, their breaths coming in pants. Some even had their eyes closed, fighting against the bone-deep exhaustion that was written clearly in their body language. One had even collapsed to the ground in a puddle of her own vomit, the Air Mage completely unconcerned with her collapse and clear need for medical attention.
“I don’t know who I feel worse for, the Librarian for what he had to endure, or the Vessels attached to these Mages.” I looked at Sharol and noticed tears streaking silently down her face. “At least the Librarian will be free soon. ThoseVessels,” she spat the word like it was dirty, “will just be used again and again and again until they’re burned-out husks and unusable. Then they’ll be tossed in some backwater village, or worse, forced to figure out life once all their magic is gone.”
“I-I didn’t know that could happen,” I stammered.
Sharol turned her sad brown eyes to mine and held my gaze. “It can. It does. More often than you would think.”
“What could possibly be worse for a Vessel than being, what did you call it? Burned out and separated from their Mage?” I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know the answer.
Sharol ground her lips together before turning back to watch the macabre display.
“Nothing, forget I said it.”
I dropped the subject, fully intending to revisit it later, and watched as the Destruction Mage approached the Librarian again, the last of her magic pooling in her hands. She bent to say something in his remaining ear before plunging her right hand into his chest and returning with his still-beating heart. Blood gushed from his chest cavity and his eyes rolled in his head. The Destruction Mage held the heart aloft, the blood dripping down her arm and saturating her tunic. Whatever wasn’t absorbed by her sleeve dripped down and pooled against the stone street. Slowly, whether due tocontrol or her waning magic, the Librarian’s heart was overcome by the weird ember-laced grey magic. Once the heart was gone, the Librarian’s body slumped to the ground, and I was extremely grateful for the strong Air Wards that blocked the sound from outside.
There is no way I would’ve hung on to what little food was in my belly if I heard half of what happened to the Librarian.
I felt a hand on my shoulder as the Mages gathered their Vessels, quite literally in the case of the Air Mage’s Vessel, and started to march back down the street, stepping over the fallen bodies from their earlier power display. Thankfully, all the residents chose to heed the Mage’s earlier warning and stayed in their shops and businesses.
“Let’s go sit. I’ll get you a cup of tea, maybe some food if you can stomach it. You can stay here for the night; I don’t suggest leaving town,” Sharol said firmly but kindly. I just nodded my head.
“They just left his body,” I said woodenly.
Sharol squeezed her hand on my shoulder before releasing it. “As a warning.”
“To whom? We just watched the whole thing happen. We don’t need any more warning.”
“They’re hoping to draw out the rebellion. The Last Keeper would have felt the Librarian’s death and will inevitably send some of her followers here to collect his body. I’m sure the Warlord is hoping this will be a way to trap them,” she said. “He’s getting desperate,” she mused under her breath before turning fully away from the window and heading farther into the common space that made up the first floor of the inn.
She bent and stoked the fire before calling over her shoulder, “Come, sit. Enjoy the tea.”
So, I gathered up my box and shuffled my feet across the floor before collapsing into one of the chairs by the fire.
