This is the third excerpt from my upcoming novel tentatively titled “Elder Rites” which was begun on November 1st, 2020 for National Novel Writing Month and is intended to be the first volume of an as yet unnamed dark fantasy series set in a world of myth and magic which now finds itself on the brink of a bizarre apocalypse.
Asan entered the alehouse cautiously, casting his eyes about the smoky room before settling upon an empty table beside the window. He took a seat in the corner, where his back would be exposed neither to the door nor the other patrons. There was a slight draught, probably the reason the table was empty. It mattered little; he was used to the cold. He forced a smile as the serving maid approached.
“Welcome to the Old Black Cat,” she said. “What’ll it be?”
“Turskanian ale.”
“Right away, melor.”
The Old Black Cat was located in the seedier section of Darkmoon, where visitors to that city rarely ventured unless they also happened to be mages, thieves, or smugglers. Its owner was a cantankerous old woman known only as the Crone. She was rumoured, of course, to be a witch. The place took its name from her cat – some said her familiar – who was completely black save for a patch of white just above his groin. If he had a name it was not known. She called him the little master, because she said he was the one who really owned the place, but he was so old now that he could barely walk any more, and most of the time he just lay curled up by the fireplace, as far from the big clumsy feet of the tavern’s patrons as he could get.
Asan wondered where the Crone was now, or if she was even still living. The serving maid returned with his ale, and he was on the point of enquiring about the Mistress of the house, but abruptly changed his mind. He did not like the way some of the patrons were looking at him, and it was hardly a good sign that they had taken an interest in him at all. His last visit here had ended in bloodshed, and he began to wonder if some of the regulars didn’t recognise him after all these years, so he certainly didn’t want to ask any questions that might confirm his having been there before. Besides, it’s not as if he really cared about the old woman’s fate; he was merely curious as to whether or not she was truly immortal, as some had claimed.
He hardly touched his drink, and every now and again he glanced around the room apprehensively, as if he half expected some hideous creature of the supernatural to suddenly spring at him from the shadowy corners. He hated magic, mostly because he did not understand it, and the last place he wanted to be right now was in a tavern owned and operated by a reputed witch. It was bad enough they had to be in the City of Enchantments at all – why had Ylse picked this den of foul witchcraft as their meeting place? It wasn’t as if there weren’t any taverns in Darkmoon that were not owned by magic-makers. He had a feeling she had done it for the very reason that she knew it would discomfort him.
As he glanced up from his mug of ale for the fifth time, he noticed that four of the patrons who had been staring at him since he’d walked in were now seated together at the table adjacent to his. They were three men and a woman, all hooded and cloaked. One man was clad in dark grey and brown, one in green and gold, and the third entirely in black. The woman wore a cloak of purple, the robes beneath it lavender in colour. They were obviously mages.
Asan’s hand beneath the table gripped the hilt of his longsword firmly. Not without basis was the old adage that magic could be hindered by cold iron. Run the mage through with your blade, and any spells previously cast by them would be broken with their death. But even better was the stroke that prevented any spells from being cast in the first place.
As if they had been reading his thoughts, as one the four mages abruptly turned back to their drinks. After a few moments, however, the woman turned to look at him again. Her purple cloak, which almost matched the colour of her eyes, was fashioned of velvet, a rare material made in the faraway city of Kathifet. Beneath the hood her curly hair was raven black, and her skin a deep brown. Asan thought her uncommonly beautiful, yet there was a coldness about her that he did not like at first. But then she smiled, and it was as a spring thaw, and he found himself smiling back at her despite himself.
Just then the man in green looked up again, and seeing the grin on Asan’s face, nudged his companion, the man in grey. “Looks like we may have made a new friend,” he said.
“Forgive me,” said Asan, “I did not mean to stare. It’s just that where I come from there are no mages.” This was his standard icebreaker when it came to dealing with strange magic-users, and it had a predictable effect.
“No mages?” exclaimed the man in grey. “That’s unheard-of!”
“Where do you come from,” asked the man in green, “the moon?”
This drew laughter from the rest of the party, except for the man in black, who did not seem to be paying attention to anything but his drink.
“Not quite so far,” said Asan, not smiling. “But to travel here from the moon I would have to be a mage myself. No, I come from Calembria, the land beyond the Urz Mountains.”
“Then you might as well be from the moon!” laughed the man in grey. “There is nothing beyond the Urz Mountains, but a frozen waste.”
“You are mistaken, gentle,” Asan replied politely. “While it is true that the mountains themselves are covered in the deep snows of ever-winter, they shelter a warm and pleasant valley where sheep graze and clear cold rivers empty into great lakes filled with fishes, and no maker of magics has ever walked there, nor indeed has anyone else from outside.”
Now the woman spoke, and there was no trace of mockery in her eyes or her voice as she asked: “Then how is it you came to be here?”
Asan sighed. “That is a long story, and a sorrowful one. Suffice it to say that several years ago I chose to leave my beloved homeland in search of something more. I alone of all my people have braved the treacherous mountain passes—by the skin of my teeth, mind you—and came thereby to Dasun. Northernmost of the northern lands that country is called, but of course that is not entirely correct. I found their ways not that much different from my own, though their language was unintelligible to me. When by signs and gestures I told them where I was from, they believed me, but feared me, perhaps because they thought that if I came thence I was not truly a man, but some kind of spectre. Although, I daresay, by the paleness of their skin I might have judged them such as well, had I believed in such things.”
“Yes,” said the man in green. “The farther north one goes, the paler and also more ignorant and superstitious are the barbarians. It doesn’t surprise me that there are no mages where you come from. There’s almost none left now in Dasun itself.”
The woman’s face darkened, apparently scandalized by her companion’s rude words, for she said to Asan: “Pay no mind to what Marlon says. He is just angry because he was forced into exile by his own people, for they have come to hate and fear mages. He is from Samakar, the land just south of Dasun, and he blames the barbarians for his country’s changing attitudes toward magic in recent years.”
Asan nodded. “I can understand your anger,” he said to Marlon. “But there has never been a mage in Calembria. They are not there, not because we cast them out, but because magic itself does not exist there, or so it would seem.”
“Doesn’t exist!” The man in grey stood up, and grabbing his goblet of wine, crossed over to Asan’s table and took the seat across from him. “But magic is everywhere! It touches everything, permeates everything, even the most ordinary of objects.”
Asan shrugged. “Verily I cannot say for certain that your magic would not work there if somehow you managed to survive the journey to my homeland. But it is the only explanation I can give you for the lack of mages there. For a long time after I left Calembria I thought that the magic the people of Dasun spoke of was just superstition, until I was faced with the reality of it and forced to admit that it really existed.”
Her fascination growing, the woman joined her friend at Asan’s table, followed shortly by the Samakaran, whom she had called Marlon. The man in black stayed where he was, maintaining a stony silence.
“Perhaps,” said Marlon as he took his seat, “the fault lies not with the land, but with its people.”
Asan’s grey eyes flashed. “What do you mean?”
“Well, aptitude for magic is inherited. You come from a closed society. All that inbreeding would only allow for certain traits to–”
“Really, Marlon!” the woman cut him off, giving him a disapproving look.
“You dare!” the Calembrian roared as he leapt to his feet. His chair fell back against the wall with a thud and his hand strayed to the hilt of his sword. All eyes in the room turned to him. There was a long intense moment as the bigger man’s gaze locked with that of Marlon. But the mage did not rise to the challenge.
“Please,” the woman said quietly from her own seat, “you must forgive our Marlon. He is young, and prone to speak rashly.”
But Marlon himself did not apologise; nor did he look at all sorry, and there were only so many insults Asan could suffer from this beardless youth before he would consider himself obligated to argue the point with his sword. However, he saw a hint of fear in the Samakaran’s eyes, and satisfied that the unspoken warning had made a significant impression, he slowly removed his hand from the sword hilt.
Then he bowed to the woman, as if to make it clear to all that he had restrained himself only out of respect for her. “I am called Asan,” he said, “and I am at your service, Madam.”
The other patrons, seeing with some disappointment that a fight wasn’t about to break out after all, slowly turned back to their own business and pleasure.
“You may call me Mephis,” the woman replied. “These are my Guild-brothers, Marlon and Drake. And the talkative one over there is Khand the Black.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance.” The burly Calembrian bowed slightly as he took his seat once more, his eyes never leaving hers, so that the others were forced to wonder if he spoke only to her.
“So what brings you to the Old Black Cat?” Drake asked.
Ordinarily such a question, however innocuous seeming, would have instantly raised the Calembrian’s suspicions. But somehow he knew that these people were not in league with Malik. There wasn’t even a hint of the underworld about them, and in fact with their fancy cloaks of dyed wool (not to mention Mephis’s own of expensive velvet) they looked even more out of place in this part of town than he did. Still, out of habit he proceeded to give them as little information as possible.
“I’m waiting for a friend,” he said.
Drake nodded, drawing back his hood to reveal shoulder-length brown hair much like Asan’s, though the latter’s was now streaked with grey. Now that the younger man’s eyes were no longer in shadow, Asan could see that they were charcoal in colour; a dark grey that was almost black. They held no malice, yet there was a fierceness that shone in them which suggested he could be a dangerous man if crossed. “Then I am afraid you wait in vain,” he said.
Once again Asan’s hand gripped the hilt of his longsword beneath the table. Perhaps he had been wrong not to suspect these mages of villainy. After all, it was not necessary that they be servants of Malik in order for them to be foes of Asan and Ylse.
“Do not be alarmed,” said Mephis. “We mean you no harm.”
“Explain yourselves quickly,” Asan demanded.
“Let’s go,” said Marlon. “This fool doesn’t deserve our help.”
“Silence!” Mephis all but shouted. “He has every reason to be suspicious of us.”
“We will be happy to answer all your questions, Asan,” said Drake. “But not here.” With no movements save the direction of his gaze he indicated the group of patrons seated at the table adjacent to theirs, not a few of which suddenly seemed to be very interested in their conversation.
“I cannot leave,” said Asan, lowering his voice so that only the three he spoke to could hear him. “I promised my friend I would wait here, and I never break a promise.”
It was a lie, because as a rule he never made promises, but he didn’t like the idea of going anywhere alone with these people. Mephis nodded in understanding.
“Then consider yourself released from your promise,” she said. “Ylse is not coming.”
Asan felt a lump form in his throat. They knew of Ylse. But were they friend or foe? His frantic gaze swept over their faces in a vain attempt to gauge their motivations.
“And you know this how?” he demanded of Mephis at last.
Before she could answer, the Old Black Cat’s front door swung open, the reddish fire that had been burning merrily upon the hearth abruptly shrank to a faint blue glow that no longer warmed, and into the tavern filed seven outlandishly dressed figures: three male, three female, and one of indeterminate sex. Judging by the ostentation of their jewellery and the many arcane symbols etched into their fine silken robes, they were mages of some sort, but definitely not local. All heads now turned toward this spectacle as the roar of conversation slowly died down to a mere susurration of furious whispers.
“What’s this?” sneered Marlon as he looked the newcomers up and down.
“Astrologers,” answered a familiar but seldom-heard voice from behind him.
Marlon turned toward the lone mage seated at the table the rest of the party had just vacated moments before. “How—”
“They are from my homeland,” Khand the Black explained. “They come from Kathifet.”