Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn. He swallowed hard, fighting his nerves’ insistence that he would feel better once he vomited on himself. He’s staring at you again. Quick, say something to throw him off!
‘So …’ Dreadaeleon said, grinning meekly. ‘Did … did you want a loincloth?’
WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?
‘You concern me, concomitant,’ Bralston replied.
‘Well, it’s just that it’s sort of the common style around here, and wewere offered, or rather forced when we-’
‘Believe it or not, your crippling lack of vocal judgement is not the issue,’ the Librarian said. He turned on his heel and began walking down towards the village, his very posture demanding that Dreadaeleon follow. ‘You have been amongst these … adventurers for how long, concomitant?’
‘Roughly a year.’
‘And you can still recall the lessons that enabled the practice of your studies?’
‘My master taught me much before I left him.’
‘Ah, so you are tutored instead of academy-trained.’ Bralston sniffed. ‘There are few like you anymore. Tell me, did your master teach you the Pillars?’
‘Of course. We covered them the moment I set foot in his study: Fire, Cold, Electricity, Force …’
‘Those are the Four Noble Schools,’ Bralston replied, ‘the ends of what the Pillars are taught to control and use properly.’
‘Aren’t … aren’t they the same thing?’
Bralston paused, fixing that scrutinising stare upon Dreadaeleon.
‘This is the problem,’ he said, the despair evident in his voice, if not his eyes. ‘Venarie is a subject of law. Law is a matter of discipline. Discipline is made possible by the Pillars.’ He counted them off on his fingers. ‘Rationality, Judgement and …’
There was a long pause before Dreadaeleon realised he was awaiting an answer. The boy shook his head and Bralston’s eyes narrowed.
‘Perception, concomitant. Rationality grants us the clarity to recognise threats and potential alike. Judgement is what permits us to act as we must in the name of the Laws. Perception bridges the two, acting as recognition of the situation and rationalisation of the proper response.’
‘How can my perception be called into doubt?’ Dreadaeleon replied. ‘Did you seewhat I did last night? Who else would have thought to destroy a heretic by bringing a giant sea snakedown on him?’
While Dreadaeleon couldn’t seethe childishly eager smile spreading across his face, he was made instantly aware of it by Bralston’s quickly deepening frown.
‘It’s notabout spitting ice and hurling fire,’ the Librarian said. ‘The difference between using them as a means of enforcing the Laws and using them as means in themselves is-’
‘Perception?’
‘The difference between a member of the Venarium and a heretic,’ Bralston corrected. ‘Your time amongst these adventurers is what concerns me. How much have you done to enforce the Laws?’
‘I’ve … I’ve been enforcing them.’ Dreadaeleon rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I was the first one to encounter the longfaces.’
‘And yet you continued on with your companions instead of notifying the Venarium of their violation instantly?’
‘There wasn’t enough time.’
‘Time is a hindrance of the unenlightened. Wizards cannot claim the handicap.’
‘But I’ve done so much. The tome we’re chasing is-’
‘This tome,’ Bralston replied. ‘You say a priest sent you after it?’
‘Well, he hired us to-’
‘Gold is for the unenlightened, as is religious zealotry. We are concerned with higher matters. Venarie is as vast as it is ever changing. In exchange for the gifts we have, we dedicate our lives to furthering knowledge, to understanding how we, as vessels, relate to this. How have you done that, concomitant?’
‘I would argue that we can only understand how it relates to us by understanding how we, as vessels, relate to others. In fact, just last night I discovered-’
‘Any discovery made in the company of these vagrants is irredeemably tainted by-’
‘ Stop interrupting me.’
Bralston’s eyes narrowed at the boy, but Dreadaeleon, for the first time, did not look away, back down or so much as flinch. He met the Librarian’s stare with a searching scowl of his own, sweeping over the man’s dark face.
‘This is far too insignificant a point for a Librarian to harp on,’ Dreadaeleon said firmly. ‘I’m hardly the first wizard to extend his studies through adventuring and I’m sure I won’t be the last, yet you act as though I’m committing some grievous breach of law just by being in these people’s company.’
Bralston’s eyebrow rose a little at that, his lip twitching as if to speak. Dreadaeleon, forcing himself not to dwell on the stupidity of the act, held up a hand to halt him.
‘You have another motive, Librarian.’
‘You are certain?’ Bralston asked, a sliver of spite in his voice.
‘I am more perceptive than you suspect.’
For all the ire he had been holding in his stare alone, for all the disappointment and despair he had seen in the boy, it was only at that moment that Bralston’s shoulders sank with a sigh, only at that moment that he looked at the boy with something more than scrutiny.
‘Perceptive enough,’ he whispered, ‘to know you’ve contracted the Decay?’
With a single word, Dreadaeleon felt the resolve flood out of him, taking everything else within him with it and leaving him nothing to stand on but quivering legs that strained to support him.
‘I don’t have it,’ he replied.
‘You do,’ Bralston insisted.
‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘No, I don’t have it.’
‘I can sense it. I can smell your blood burning and hear your bones splitting. I followed it last night. That’s how I found it. Surely, you can sense it. Surely, you know.’
‘It’s nothing,’ Dreadaeleon said.
‘Concomitant, if I can track you across an ocean through it, it is certainly not nothing. In fact, to even sense it at all, symptoms must be forming by now. Fluctuating temperatures? Loss of consciousness? Instantaneous mutation?’
‘Flaming urine,’ Dreadaeleon said, looking down.
‘The Decay,’ Bralston confirmed.
It was unthinkable, Dreadaeleon told himself. Or perhaps, he simply hadn’t wanted to think about it. He still didn’t want to. He didn’t even want to hear the word, yet it was burned into his brain.
Decay.
The indefinable disease that ravaged wizards, that unknown alteration inside their body that broke down the unseen wall that separated Venarie from body, turning a humble vessel into a twisted, tainted amalgamation of errant magic and bodily function.
It was that which turned men and women into living infernos, turned flesh to snowflakes, caused brains to cook in their own electric currents. It was the killer of wizards, the vice of heretics, the consequence for disregarding the Laws.
And he had it.
He didn’t question Bralston’s diagnosis, didn’t so much as feel the need to deny it anymore. It all made too much sense now: his sudden weakness, his use of the red stones, his altered bodily state.
But then … how did you recover last night?
A fluke, perhaps. Such things would not be unheard-of. In fact, Decay’s fluctuating effects on magic often resulted in sudden, sporadic enhancements. It all made too much sense, followed too cold a logic, too perfect an irony for him to deny it anymore.
‘What …?’ he said with a weak voice. ‘What now? What happens?’
‘Your master told you, I am sure.’
Dreadaeleon nodded weakly. ‘The Decayed report back to the Venarium for …’ He swallowed. ‘Harvesting.’
‘We are wizards. Nothing can be wasted.’
‘I understand.’
Bralston frowned, shaking his head.
‘My duties require a survey of the ocean,’ Bralston said, ‘to scan for any signs of the heretic. After that, I shall return to Cier’Djaal. You will return with me.’