Storm of Prophecy: Book 1, Dark Awakening (8 page)

“I’m sure they will.” The master crafter stared at him without saying anything. Vincent blinked and stammered, “…perform their duty, I mean.”

His supervisor stood up straight and took a breath to calm his frustration. “I hope that you recover soon in case they don’t. Then I’ll at least have you to protect the vault.” He held his hand out for Vincent to shake once more, and Vincent took it without hesitation. He was surprised to find it more gentle this time. “I’m supposed to be teaching a class right now, and I’m afraid I must leave. Take care.” Vincent nodded to him and then he left.

With the master crafter gone, his friends approached the rest of the way to share a few words. He was sure they had heard everything. Stacy looked preoccupied and anxious to leave, which wasn’t unusual with how busy she was. The fact that she came at all was a nice courtesy and not one that many others of her stature would dare pay to one as low as him. In fact, most who shared her rank had no respect for him at all.

Karl looked mildly pleased, and Rick looked alive, awake, and alert as always. Since Stacy seemed most eager to be off, she said her peace first. “Well done, Vincent. I’m sure it was quite an ordeal. I’d stay but I’m needed in an advanced class with Master Anthony, which he’s heading back toward right now. Try to get better soon. We all appreciate what you’ve done for us.”

“Thanks for coming,” Vincent acknowledged. She gave a quick, polite smile as she backed away and walked quickly to catch up with Master Anthony down the hall. Rick and Karl watched her leave briefly before returning their attention to Vincent.

“She has a skill for using few words when she needs to,” Karl noted.

Vincent nodded. “It was still a nice gesture though. From all of you.”

Rick couldn’t contain his flippant tongue. “You’d think that with all the words our illustrious Grandmaster uses, he wouldn’t have left out the most crucial thing you did for us.” Vincent felt slightly puzzled. Though Rick lowered his voice, his enthusiasm was undiminished, nor was his emphasis on certain words. “He never mentioned how without you, we would have never even known that they were here.”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Karl said. “I thought you raised the alarm.”

Rick’s teeth were showing with a devilish grin beneath his red handlebar mustache as he turned to look at him. “After I got off of guard duty myself, I was about to go talk to Vincent before I went to bed, and that’s when I ran into those bastards. One of them had both of his legs showing, not much mind you, but they kept appearing and disappearing in certain spots. That’s how I was able to catch him in the hall. And boy was he sorry.” Vincent looked down, feeling disinterested in this part of the conversation. He wasn’t fond of killing, even if it was necessary, and knew that Rick’s attack could have only been just as gruesome.

“Why were his legs not fully covered by the seal?” Karl asked next.

“I don’t know. I saw some blood dripping on the floor, and I’m sure Vincent had something to do with it. Too bad the other one was such a slippery little cuss, otherwise I would have had him too.”

Karl then asked the next question that Vincent dreaded answering. “Exactly what happened down there?”

Deciding to answer only the relevant part, Vincent slowly looked up and eyed each in turn. “I was on the ground and I only managed to barely gash him across one of his legs before he kicked me in the face and stepped right down on my sword arm. That’s when I pulled out my knife and stabbed him in the other leg.”

“Hah!” Rick exploded. “Brilliant!” Vincent didn’t think it was so brilliant. If he could have from his present position, Vincent was sure that Rick would have slapped him on the back. “Karl didn’t think you had it in you,” he teased. “He thought you were too much of a softy, but I always knew you could do it.” Karl just shook his head and let out a sigh of a breath through his partially closed lips, making the blowing sound one sometimes did when finding a joke silly or immature.

“It wasn’t pleasant,” Vincent admonished.

“I know,” Rick conceded, “my encounter wasn’t either. I finished mine off quicker just so I wouldn’t have to hear him scream anymore while he burned alive. We were both just doing our jobs, Vincent. Whenever you feel any sympathy, just remember what those people had to do to become invisible like that in the first place. They were sick and they deserved it.”

“True enough,” Vincent admitted, looking down at his blankets once more. Somehow, Rick’s words still didn’t make him feel any better.

“You also know that they couldn’t have been down there for anything good, right? Who knows what they stole from us. Or what they plan to do with it. We better be extra careful from now on.”

That part made Vincent feel even worse. When he said nothing, his cousin Karl stepped in. “I’m sure the masters have already figured out what it was and will give us the proper instructions when the time comes.” Then he observed something that Vincent really wished he hadn’t. Karl shook his head. “To suddenly be attacked from thin air...”

“I wasn’t. I managed to attack them first.”

Silence.

Vincent wished he hadn’t been so honest and had kept his mouth shut. Now they were only going to pry more. Karl was already putting pieces together. “Then how did you get hurt so badly, and why were you on the ground? From what I remember, wizards and sorceresses who use the Seal of Cheated Light are left vulnerable. Even carrying a knife would have been a drain on the limited time and energy of the spell. If you figured out they were there, you should have had the drop on them.”

Vincent raised his head with a sad look on his face. “I’d rather not talk about it right now.”

“We’ll you’re going to have to when you give your report to the masters,” he reminded. “They’re going to want to know everything that happened.”

“What I’d be more interested to know,” Rick interjected into the exchange while loosing none of his excitement, “is how he noticed them in the first place?”

“It’s normally very quiet on the bottom floor outside the vault,” Vincent answered simply. “They just weren’t being nearly quiet enough with their footsteps.”

“Hot damn!” Rick exclaimed. “Just like that! You caught them!”

“Yeah, I caught them alright,” Vincent replied, feeling unenthused. He saw one of the healer women returning with a cup and a pitcher of water, and decided to seize upon the opportunity. “If you two don’t mind, I think I would like to get some more rest now.”

She heard what he said and shared a look with the two of them. Karl concluded his remarks. “I know this must all be hard on you, but you can’t let it stop you from living.” He didn’t know the half of it, Vincent thought. “Get well soon.”

“And quit feeling so bad,” Rick put in as they both started leaving, “you did your part and we’ll be back to see you again later.”

Vincent nodded. “Thanks, I appreciate it.”

After they left, Arrendis came and approached him last while the healer lady poured him some water and gave him the cup. It was his way to let Vincent stand on his own with others while watching how he fared from afar, observing how his pupil performed without his interference. Vincent drank as he came closer, following his arrival with his eyes. Vincent wasn’t feeling so eager to see him. He felt like he had let him down and betrayed the faith he had placed in him as well as all his efforts on Vincent’s behalf, but he tried his best to put on a show for him.

The healer woman departed as Arrendis approached him, his long white beard swaying against the front of his gray robes. The staff he walked with was a twisted, furled wood that curled into a coil at the top. It made an audible tapping sound as he slowly walked along. His flat glasses with circular lens gleamed once with the reflected sunlight in his face. Beneath the wide hood that was round, not pointy, at the top, his kind old blue eyes looked Vincent over carefully, seeming to wonder if he was alright. Arrendis almost never had a scowl or overly cold or serious expression on his face, and he appeared genuinely concerned.

When he came, he asked in his weary voice how Vincent was, and Vincent amiably told him he was alright and should recover. Arrendis didn’t ask for specifics but instead told him that he was proud of him and that he defended the keep well. Vincent didn’t argue and simply agreed though he felt like the biggest liar in the world when he did. Arrendis wished him well and then left. After he was gone, Vincent lay back on his bed and brooded.

Vincent felt horrible about everything, but Arrendis’ visit was the worst. He didn’t have the heart to tell him he had failed, that he had hesitated when it counted most. Arrendis, like everyone else, also knew nothing of Vincent’s unproductive wanderings, investigating and seeking anything that might be traced to those who were responsible for the deaths and disappearances of so many.

Vincent wondered if the intruders in the keep were somehow connected with it but felt like a fool for having ever tried to find them by himself against everyone’s wishes. He was clearly no match for them. He had so much trouble with killing, absolutely abhorred it, and yet he had gone in search of them anyway. What would he have done had he found them out there? He probably would have been killed. The Seal of Cheated Light had kept him safer from them, but even then he still failed. What an idiot he had been. They not only eluded his grasp when he had searched, they had also dropped right in his hands, and he let them get away.

Two different feelings threatened to rip him apart. One was his hatred of what he had done; the other was his anger and frustration, making him wish he had done more. Overall, he felt like simply quitting.

He now firmly realized that his own magic had in fact been mediocre and ineffective compared to others this whole time, as was his ability to succeed without it, and he had just been deceiving himself. What was he to do now? He felt like he had wasted his life, like his life meant nothing, and a part of him wished he really had died down there.

His anguish was compounded even further when he thought of Jessica again. No wonder she never seemed interested in him. Why should she? He was nobody. Nothing. A waste of space. He was not even fit to serve in a wizards’ keep such as this. Was he even really a wizard himself? Or just some freak occurrence, a person who happened to carry a tingle of magic?

He would quit. That was what he had to do. He would go home to his parents, to the farming town in northeast Ryga where he was born, and be a farmer just like his father had wanted. His parents would miss him and would welcome him back. Unbearable as it was, he would have to do something else first before he left. He would have to say goodbye to Arrendis and thank him for all that he had done. He at least owed him that much. He didn’t have it in him to tell Karl and everyone else; he was far too ashamed. They would just have to hear it from Arrendis.

He was also starting to realize that he hated his sword. What a waste his life had been: learning to use something so awful, to do something so awful, and he wasn’t even really needed. He hated all of it. As soon as they pronounced him able, he would leave the infirmary and leave Gadrale Keep. Forever. For now, he would rest and wait until he could.

A healer woman came by later and he asked her how much longer he would have to remain. She told him that another day and night of rest should be enough. Then before she left again, he asked her to use her power on him to help him sleep since he didn’t think he could manage it. It was due to his own personal anguish, but he didn’t tell her that. He blamed it on the anxiety caused by his traumatic experience, which was partially true. She agreed to help him, and soon he fell into a dreamless sleep.

Chapter
V

V
incent awoke when he heard some unusual sounds: breathing, the stepping and scraping of shoes against stone, and a wet click. Perhaps it was only his restless and tormented mind that kept him from sleeping longer, but he awoke nonetheless. Everything was dark, and so he guessed that it was sometime during the middle of the night or early the next morning.

He heard the sounds again. Immediately he tensed and could feel his pulse throbbing through his head. He held perfectly still, fearful of the possibility that the keep was facing another infiltration. He opened his eyes only a small crack and saw little since the infirmary was lit only by moonlight coming through the thin windows in the wall that were once killing slits. Thankfully, he saw no one directly near his bed though this was small comfort due to the fact that the intruders could become invisible.