Pestilence and Strife

[Atzar]

The finger of acid traced another symbol onto bone; numerous others glistened around him in a three-quarter circle. Languid eyes crawled to the next location, and his volatile paintbrush dutifully followed. Not far behind him, the mage heard William’s battle. He didn’t turn. That was the revenant’s business right now; the portal was his.

Another symbol; a small wisp of steam hissed from the new marking. His pulse pounded in his heart, his head, his wounded arm. His hands trembled violently. Sweat dripped from his face despite the chilly air. His lungs ached, but each breath brought less relief than the last. Atzar had done business with Death in the past, but always as the seller. This was a new experience for him.

He had faced danger many times. And in those situations, he had usually carried with him a prudent sense of self-preservation. But he had passed that crossroad several miles back. Here he knelt on the corpse of an ancient dragon in a valley of poison, fending off zombies and mortal infection while attempting to cross into the realm of a malicious minor deity. Yet despite Death’s inexorable stare, Atzar found himself unafraid. Perhaps it was logic. Panic did nothing for him now. He knew he was already fucked; might as well do as much as he could before his body gave in.

Or perhaps his brain was simply too wracked with weariness and fever to comprehend the idea of fear.

He painted the next glyph; two to go. A new sound intruded on his senses. Slithering, roiling, splattering… Then he heard William yell.

You’d better be done, mage!” the demon roared, and Atzar glanced back. William sprinted toward him from the beast’s neck, tailed by a vast, hideous mass of tentacles and acid that made the wizard’s flesh crawl. Nope. His brain still understood fear just fine.

With as much urgency as his condition allowed, he finished the last two symbols. A new energy, sick and vile, surfaced at the edge of his consciousness. That was a small relief, but here, the demon’s instructions ended. William expected Atzar to instinctually know how to activate the portal. And now, the wizard had to do it with the spawn of the underworld gnashing at his back.

He took a deep breath and snaked a tendril of his magic out to meet this new power. He heard footsteps behind him… another yell, directly into his ear this time… Atzar grasped, and yanked with all the might he had left.

The symbols burst aflame, then the world exploded.


His head spun violently. He clenched his teeth to keep from vomiting. The ground suddenly tilted; he pitched onto his back. The world was blurry and out-of-focus. Atzar could see no details; only colors. Green, black, purple. He was vaguely aware of another presence beside him. He hoped it was William.

Yet as he lay there, struggling to make sense of the world around him, other information intruded on his confusion. The first was that his heart beat calm and even, no longer a frenzied staccato. He felt the strength return to his muscles and the wind to his lungs.

The second was that the familiar touch of his magic, so central to his existence, was gone.