Soul Stealer: Legacy of the Blade Read online

  There was a gaping wound in the man’s chest despite his otherworldly armor, which now trembled and flickered about his body as fragilely as his failing breath. How something had gotten through this magical aegis I did not know, though I could certainly imagine, but that it had happened was beyond a doubt, for the man’s lifeblood pooled thickly about his recumbent form, the sodden ground unable to absorb his loss.

  Kneeling beside the warrior’s still frame, I placed a reassuring hand on the man’s shoulder, wishing but unable to offer more.

  Life from Death

  Upon touching his shoulder, feeling the moist fabric of his garments beneath my touch, offering a soothing gesture of reassurance, a tide of power overcame me. I shook violently as with an electric shock, unable to control my motions or remove my hand, writhing in agony as though I had been blasted by a bolt of lightning descending from the firmament in righteous fury that refused to ground itself in the earth.

  With this surge, visions flashed in my mind’s eye, ever faster and more frenzied, quicker than I could register or catalog.

  In rising horror, I realized this phantasmagoric tide of images of a life past was not my own.

  I was reliving the life of the fallen hero lying before me.

  Worse than that, I was losing myself in his resurrection.

  I received my blessed sword from my father in the lush hills surrounding the family keep, overlooking glacial lakes beneath the distant sky-spanning peaks that separated Fornost from surrounding realms as I first laid hands on the enchanted blade.

  I spent years wandering the land, challenging myself in search of a brighter future.

  I marched alongside resplendent Empyrean Guard caparisoned in lucent Sigil Shields, proudly brandished glowing Angel Swords as we marched alongside fey dryads, sidhe, and other allies of men.

  Creatures of Darkness fell before my mighty glowing blade in an endless tide.

  I spent decades in prayer, supplication, and study in various monasteries, keeps, and retreats.

  I practiced the arts of war on the field amidst enemies and at home amongst friends and allies.

  The light of hope was cast across a land wreathed in despair in times of darkness and desolation.

  Heroes walked among men and fell just as readily.

  Was there no end?

  Faster and faster the visions, sensations, and memories came.

  Just as quickly I began to fade.

  This was too much…

  Everything was moving too quickly…

  I…could…not…take…any…more…

  Unable to bear further witness to the life of a man whose heroics spanned an entire world and crossed generations, I fell face-first into the muck.

  And Now the Cavalry

  Spitting, coughing out dirt, I awoke to a boot kicking me unceremoniously in the ribs.

  Trying to call my attacker off, I attempted to stand, but a boot planted firmly in the small of my back discouraged further movement.

  “Stay down, Saedeus, if ya know what’s good fer ya.”

  The town guard had finally arrived.

  Just not in the nick of time.

  Carefully cracking open my dirt-encrusted eyes, I tried to remember where I was and what had happened.

  My arm lay on the cool fabric of someone’s garment.

  Of a man…

  A dead man.

  A man with an alarmingly awful hole blasted through his chest.

  This was not good.

  But what ever was?

  I was at the scene of a crime cradling a dead man, a man of nobility as high as I was low, his blood all over me with no other tracks, signs, or evidence in place.

  No, this was not good.

  Not good at all.

  “Jon…” I recognized the ready compassion and intelligence of Jon’s voice even with my head buried in the mire. Jon often offered sage words of advice and heartfelt encouragement to me from the safety of the barricaded far side of the town gates when nights were especially dark and grim. “This is not what you think.”

  “Oh? And just what am I thinkin’, ya pile o’ mushroom dung?”

  Recognizing that his question was largely rhetorical, for Jon did not think, he merely acted on base instinct, I replied, “I heard a commotion last night and came to investigate. When I arrived, I found this man here, injured, dying, in fact. I came over to help but fainted before I could.”

  Jon snorted. “You would.”

  After a long pause, one in which I knew the four or five neurons still residing in his skull were trying to express themselves fully but failing, he added, “Save it fer tha magistrate.”

  I would.

  Sitting in the dank, ill-lit, dusty prison cell, I realized something.

  It’s sad when a prison cell is an upgrade from your home, especially one as abandoned and run-down as the dungeons unlucky enough to be still standing in Balde.

  As a corollary to this insight, I realized something else—perhaps I should have tried to get arrested sooner.

  My house and the mushrooms holding it together would not notice my absence.

  “You must always remain optimistic so that your views will guide your actions.”

  What the huh?

  “Who’s there?”

  I stood up within the cramped confines of my cell and looked around, leaving footprints in the dust as I circulated about the small stone chamber.

  There was no one to be seen.

  The banded oaken door was shut, allowing only a limited view of the passageway beyond through a hand-sized, iron-barred window.

  I could see no onlookers or spectators looking in on the sorry exhibits in the menagerie.

  I walked over to the pile of rags serving the dual role of bedding and minimalist artistic architectural element and kicked them aside.

  “You’ll find nothing there.”

  I jumped…thankfully not very high, or I would have smashed my head into the low stone ceiling.

  Spinning around, I got dizzy as I tried quickly but unsuccessfully to locate the source of the advice.

  Using my superior reflexes and the element of surprise gave me little advantage.

  “Sit down.”

  For the love of the Light, what was going on here?

  “If you would please sit down, I will tell you.”

  I sat.

  There was no point arguing with something I could not see, touch, or feel.

  Especially when using my second sight revealed nothing.

  And, as crafty as I was, I knew ignoring the voice would only make it talk more.

  As a general rule, I hated talking.

  At least when I was not the one doing it.

  Better to get whatever this sorry excuse for a joke was over with. Surely some witty local hedge wizard had decided, or even more likely had been contracted by the local officials, to hex the room to torment prisoners as a deterrent to further incarceration.

  “The sooner you accept my reality, the sooner we can begin to work together.”

  Work together?

  Work together!

  I worked alone!

  Except for Lucius.

  And my mushrooms.

  “What exactly are you talking about?”

  “I am not talking.”

  Then it hit me.

  The voice was right.

  It was not talking.

  It was in my head!

  Right then and there, I bestowed myself with a Saedeus Award for Genius, one of many SAGs I had earned for my uncanny skills of observation and discernment.

  Of course the voice would be in my head!

  What better place for a new voice to take up residence than inside my very own skull?

  “If your petulance is at an end, I will begin.”

  At an end?

  My petulance had yet to begin!

  “I seem to be truly needed here,” the voice sighed.

  It actually sighed.

  Inside my own head!
/>   “Now listen here…voice…and listen well. This is my head we’re talking about…or in, and I’ll have no lip from the likes of you!”

  “Perhaps introductions are in order?”

  The voice was so calm, so civil, so smooth and composed.

  I hated it.

  “How about I introduce you to the back of my hand?”

  “No thanks. I have already met it.”

  The nerve!

  “Now, if you are done pouting, I would advise you to stop talking aloud. Talking to yourself in public certainly will not help your case before the local justice.”

  I steamed but managed to hold my tongue…tightly, pinched between my teeth.

  “I am Alric of the Empyrean Guard, erstwhile defender of the realm, hunter of demons, and protector of the Light’s cause.”

  I knew this guy!

  I had lived his life!

  “I know all about you, Alric. I just lived through your near-death experience…although it seemed quite a bit more than that.”

  “Indeed it was.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I share your thoughts, Saedeus.”

  The proof was right there. I had not even introduced myself and he knew my name.

  This was not going to be pretty.

  My secrets really were not worth knowing.

  “You know all that I know, Saedeus. You have but to learn to access it, and grow into your ability to use it.”

  “What?”

  I could not have heard that right. I knew how to grow and harvest mushrooms…not slay extradimensional nasties from the black pits of Chaos.

  “I will show you how. I will teach you what you already know.”

  “Why would you do a thing like that?”

  “We now share a common body, Saedeus, along with a common cause.”

  I did not like the sound of that!

  The True Beginning of My Travails

  There’s a saying, “Two heads are better than one.”

  This is generally true.

  Except when there are two heads in one.

  Then all bets are off.

  I did not bet, nor did I want to, but I had already lost.

  And I did not even have any money.

  “You expect me to follow in your footsteps?” I asked incredulously.

  “No. I expect you to follow in your own footsteps. I will just provide some guidance along the way.”

  “Then why do you presume that our interests are aligned?”

  “You wish to survive. I wish to make that happen.”

  Old Al had a point there.

  “So what do I need to do?”

  “Listen to me.”

  Why did they always want me to listen?

  “Alright. I’ll do my best.”

  “First, you must get out of this cell. Then you must retrieve my sword. Then you must begin becoming what you will.”

  Was that all?

  “What will I do the rest of the afternoon?”

  “Your sarcasm only amuses yourself.”

  This guy was going to be a lot of fun stuck inside my noggin.

  “And how exactly will I manage that?”

  “You must internalize what you have seen. Reflect on the memories now in your mind. Incorporate that knowledge and ability into yourself.”

  “Yes, but how exactly did this happen?”

  “Of that, I am not entirely certain.”

  At least he was honest.

  “I just placed my hand on you and boom! I was soaking in your life like stale bread slurping up gravy.”

  Mmm…bread.

  How long had it been since I had eaten?

  My stomach offered its opinion on the conversation.

  “Has anything like this happened before?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  Had it?

  The world was a magical place, full of wonder and danger in equal measure. How had I survived outside Balde’s fortifications when few dared to venture out after the sun fell?

  How had I managed to understand how to harvest plants, which ones were safe to touch and eat, their properties, their relationships to each other, how to grow those that had the most interest to me, all without any formal training or help from others, if I did not take something of their essence and learn from it?

  After a moment’s pause, I amended my earlier comment. “Perhaps I do learn something from the essences of the plants I harvest.”

  “Hmm… This was the first time the ability manifested itself so strongly?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you ever been near anyone dying or killed anyone before?”

  What kind of question was that?

  “Of course not! No one will have anything to do with me other than to trade for my medicinal plants and tonics. And more often than not, I don’t bother seeking anyone out to trade.”

  “What about animals? Do you hunt for your food?”

  “I never intentionally kill anything. My mushrooms give me everything I need. When I do want meat, I trade for it. I would be more likely to hurt myself than whatever it was I would try to hunt, anyway.”

  “If you’ve never killed anyone, especially anyone with powerful magics, then you would not know what would happen to you if you had.”

  “Meaning?”

  “You may be far more than you appear.”

  Great!

  Riddles.

  So, not only do I have someone sharing my thoughts, but he speaks in riddles as well.

  “And?”

  I was growing impatient.

  Considering that was how I’d started, I did not have to grow far.

  “I think you may be proof that the Djen’toth are not extinct.”

  “Djen’toth?”

  His voice was firm and sharp, like the edge of a blade. “Soul stealers.”

  Djen’toth

  Soul stealer!

  How could I be a soul stealer?

  Soul stealers were extinct long before the demons threw down the gates of Heaven and raged across Uërth’s surface largely unchecked until humanity began to fight them back with Angel Swords wielded by the Empyrean Guard.

  Soul stealers were extinct for a reason.

  In many ways, soul stealers were worse than demons. They combined demons’ power and need for more with humanity’s insatiable desire to expand, control, and subjugate.

  They were like demons in human guise.

  However, there was one principal difference. Soul stealers took the knowledge and power of anyone or anything they killed as their own.

  Secrets were not safe before their blades. Empires could unwind with the right kill.

  Ancient knowledge could be stolen with a single stroke.

  Lore held within the minds of the most secretive mages could be had with but a little blood.

  Unimaginable powers could switch from one individual to another without being earned or achieved.

  Soul stealers left violence and chaos in their wake.

  They also tended to be mad.

  Or their psyches were so shattered and overwrought, they were far beyond madness.

  Luckily for the rest of humanity, Djen’toth tended to hunt each other in calamitous efforts to gather and consolidate power.

  As damaging as they were to society, soul stealers tended to be their own worst enemies.

  It was killing the last remaining few that had been the real challenge.

  Godlike beings with an insane lust for power and the ability to gain more from whatever the source were not easy targets even with Heavenly intervention.

  Though the cost had been terrible, in the end, the Djen’toth had been wiped out, their terrors and atrocities forgotten.

  Until I came along.

  Lucky me.

  So, in sum, I was privileged enough to be quite possibly the last of a rare subgroup of humanity thought long extinct. With this good fortune came the very likely possibility of being hunted and killed for my genetic heritage
.

  People being who they were, lacking appropriate creative outputs and hobbies, like moss gardening or dragon scale collecting, they would probably take my capture as an opportunity to torture, taunt, and torment me in as many ways as their small minds could imagine. With the appropriate creative outlets and a broader vision—that is to say, in a saner world not degraded by past atrocities and ravaged by throngs of demons—my hypothetical pursuers might even let me be.

  However, as the import of Alric’s words sank to the marrow of my soul like a cast iron anchor tethered to a child’s sailboat, I realized the chances of that outcome were none, bordering on statistically impossible.

  And I was not any good at math.

  Cheered by my deliberations, I was at least reassured that before I was waylaid and dismembered by bloodthirsty savages, I would probably already be insane, my consciousness torn apart by the warring minds and experiences housed within my fragile intelligence.

  Taking a deep breath, I decided three things.

  First, I would hide who and what I was at all costs. Being as brave and outgoing as I was, such duplicitous subterfuge might be a challenge for my heroic nature, but I thought that I could manage the task.

  Second, I would do my best to learn from any experiences I might glean as a result of my abilities as intelligently as possible. Given my intellectual challenges, this might prove an insurmountable task. However, as an outcast stubborn enough to harvest mushrooms and persist on the margins of an already marginal society, I should have enough perseverance to make up for at least a modicum of what I lacked in cognitive faculties.

  I hoped.

  Third, despite my many shortcomings, foibles, eccentricities, and limitations, I would try to be true to myself, as sad a self as that was, and would be, and do all I could not to lose myself in the lives, knowledge, and power of others. The simplest path to that end was not to kill anyone and avoid anyone dying.