Chapter 1: The Heretic

The world of Regent is introduced as well as one of the main characters, Thogmar.

CHAPTER 1: THE HERETIC

On the eve of its demise, it is written that the world shall be drunk on the wine of its own madness. But to sober what cannot be, the Seven shall be diminished to one under the horned abyss, and the low shall be made high while the world crumbles and fall from its false pride. -The Oracle of Ashtoth

1

            The end had come to the world of Regent, only no one bothered to acknowledge it. Nobody except the sorcerer called to his death before the Order of Waylor. Kill the messenger, indeed!

In the upper reaches of the Tower of Waylor, Thogmar awaited with his armed guards for a fate that would shake the foundations of society and make even the gods tremor with fear, for he saw himself as the savior of the world. Though the Order of Waylor had called him to the tower for a hearing, he knew they anticipated his death. This waiting game was a poor attempt to gain the upper hand. Thogmar scoffed at that thought and glanced out the window.

To calm his mind, he watched with reverence as twilight settled over the rocky bluffs of the Foghorn Mountains. The tower he waited within stood sentry high on Roth’s Hackle, a natural mound of granite cropping out of the base of the Foghorns. At the feet of the majestic mountains, the green crests of the rolling hills broke like waves against the expansive fence of snowcapped peaks.

            A serene night, except for one distraction: he looked at the crescent of the approaching planet, the one the Oracle had spoken of. He was the first to call attention to this anomaly; the “Night’s Horns” he had dubbed them. Its eerie glow increased through the blanket of stars wrapping the heavens, a false peace that would soon turn into pandemonium.

            As the night glowed outside, the shadows thickened inside, and Thogmar’s peaceful thoughts turned to doubt. The darkness reminded him of the doom that waited to waylay him tonight. Within these cold stones of the Keep, the Order of Waylor now sat at council keeping vigil in a world torn by the whims of the six gods. As de facto rulers of Regent, the Order maintained neutrality and kept the peace in a world riven by holy wars over which god should rule Regent. But as this night attested, the peacekeepers were hardly at peace.

The Hierophant of the Order had just returned from the northern realm of Azmut where he revalidated his authority. With the sway of the Order of Waylor secure in the North, he had recently returned to the tower to personally preside over this meeting so as not to lose the South.

All twelve of the Order, the most talented and revered sorcerers in all of Regent, would also be in attendance, many of whom Thogmar had taught the deepest secrets that only dusted the surface of his knowledge. Many had waited for this moment, the leverage to see him dead.

            Not that this worried Thogmar. He knew he was right about his plans for a New Order. Even if his brothers and sisters of the Order stood firm with the Hierophant, what he had discovered was enough to bring the gods to their knees. The Order had to realize this or the entire world would suffer. He was not a heretic, as they accused him of being, for the truth of his ways redeemed him from their error.

            “It is time,” his guard finally spoke. His burly voice broke the long silence.

            A hard shove from behind pushed him up against the door of the Grand Hall of the Hierophant, a room he had occupied as one of its members for the past thirty cycles until tonight. The solidness of the hand constantly reminded him his guards were the Hierophant’s Reds.

            Another guard reached up with a left arm of burnished steel and rapped against the door, sending a faint rumble that echoed beyond�"a vast, deep sound of money and power. Thogmar looked back at the dour face of the second guard, a man as serious as his trade. The Red kept his steel hand clamped on Thogmar’s shoulder. For a sorcerer, it was the grip of death.

            Thogmar shivered, not from the coldness of the steel but from the impotence of power it caused. The corporeal air surrounding him felt sour and insubstantial, disconnecting him from his sorcery. Sorcerers were never meant to wield steel, a weakness nature created to keep the powerful from rising above their station. How he hated that, and how he hated the Reds. They were no longer his puppets. Any sorcerer of Waylor had the ability to control the steel arm of a Red, but once that arm came into direct contact, they were puppets no more. Not that the Reds could ever get close enough to seize control of a sorcerer without permission, not yet anyway.

            Without a sound, the massive doors opened, and the Red shoved him forward. Thogmar kept his patience, though. Yes, he could have incinerated them all before he was captured or easily have eluded them with his sorcery to become a renegade sorcerer, as many others had done before him. He had a mission to fulfill, however; he had to get The Order of Waylor on his side. The Order was as curious of his crime as he was of persuading them to it, for a crime it was. He had violated one of the ancient laws of sorcery, “Thou shalt not combine the two Arts.” Thus, when they summoned him for an audience, he acquiesced to the armed escort, to show he was not their enemy.

He grinned. They would not want him as an enemy. But no matter their reaction, he was about to convert or destroy the Order of Waylor, the mightiest faction in all of Regent.

2

            The doors shut behind Thogmar with a dull thud that echoed through the massive hall. The steel grip of his guard finally released his shoulder, and the Empyrium coursed through Thogmar’s body again as the potent power of his sorcery returned. I will never let that happen to me again! He thought. I will burn this world before I lose access to my power again. Taking a deep breath, he strode into the hall.

His footsteps echoed through the expansive hall as he approached his fate. Unconsciously, he reached up and scratched a long pointed ear under a mane of his flowing black hair. He instinctually clicked his tongue in a loud, rhythmic fashion. It was too dim and distant for his eyes to make out any distinct shapes, but the clicking sound returning gave him an accurate account through echoes. To his eyes, the greasy smoke of the extinguished torches and the giant hearth glowing in the far right-hand corner obscured the cavernous hall in a haze of smoke and shadow. His echolocation, though, gave him sense of the colossal pillars, the Reds standing next to them, the arc of the council table in the distance, and sorcerers sitting at it. 

            With all the dignity he could gather, he approached the far end of the hall with confident steps, stopping his clicking as his eyes adjusted to the dark. The council members sat frowning upon a polished granite dais that carried the burden of the Order’s seats. The seat he had sat upon yesterday. He closed his eyes for a moment and conjured the scent of the table carved from the freshest cedar in all the land, the cedars of Xanthalor. He loved that smell, a smell absent in his ancient homeland under the mountains.

            Drawing closer, he scraped his boots along the gold and silver mosaic floor that depicted all the known landforms of Regent. A small smile twisted his pale mouth. Soon, all those lands would be under his grace.

            He looked up at the six columns straddling each side of the hall that loomed over him as a forest of marble. The builders of old erected each in commemoration of the six gods. Such wasted lavishness. Each pillar, carved from the most exquisite marble from the Pass of Amnigoddah, bore the bas-relief carvings covered with gold leafing of the myths of the gods. The beauty wasted on such foul depictions he could never stomach.

Feet shuffled to the left. Without taking his eyes off the Order, Thogmar clicked his tongue again without thought and sensed the Reds moving towards him to keep him hedged in. They marched into his peripheral vision, and he no longer needed his echolocation. Their left arms of sorcerous steel and their horrid blood red breastplates filled his outer vision, reminding him that he was not longer person of power.

Another guard standing still as a statue and holding a large, broad sword in a reverse grip never moved as he walked by. Thogmar gave him a moment of notice. He knew this man, Troas, as a friend and a slave. A silver stripe down the right breast of his armor set him apart from the other Reds. Troas was a Blade; he could best the other eleven Reds put together in any form of combat. Still, Thogmar felt no fear from the deadliest swordsman. He was of no consequence.

            “That will be far enough!” the Hierophant’s voice boomed from above with unnatural strength.

            The entire hall suddenly erupted with sorcerous ambient light. All shade and shadows dissipated as Thogmar cringed under the searing pain that shot into his saucer eyes. He took a moment to adjust his vision before he looked up. He took note of all twelve sorcerers of the Order sitting outward from Arimus, the Hierophant, in the middle: Galvarium, Iogoros, Filidon, Ino, Ariste, Dronin, Raishi, Ashora, Zanaxis, Armin, and Pylos. A new face sat on the far end, Thogmar’s obvious replacement.

            With eyes cold as winter’s night, his brothers and sisters of the Order glared down at him from their lofty seats on the dais, some with pursed lips and furrowed brows, and others with heads shaking in disappointment. Their judgment of him did not bother him, the Order’s motto did. Carved into the semi-circular cedar conference table at which they sat, the motto boasted in the high language of Nax, “Honor, Valor, Power.” He pretended not to notice it as if bored with this ceremony, for that is all it was. The Order had already passed sentence.

            “I am glad you’re all here,” Thogmar said. “I have such glories to tell you.”

            “Silence,” the Hierophant’s voice hissed with irritation, pushing his long silver locks out of his vision.

            Thogmar moved his gaze from the motto and looked directly at the man he used to call a friend. The nimbus of divine light crowning the Hierophant’s gray head flashed with authority. His rickety frame, shadowed by the throne from which he passed righteous judgment on the world, looked incapable of supporting the intelligence locked away behind his alert eyes.     Thogmar tried to keep his sallow eyes, which still unnerved many, meek with submission. Some of the Order would be more likely to believe him if he acted humble, for many of them feared him for what he was, and what he looked like.

            Raishi, one of the three women of the council, never tried to hide her repulsion of him. She stared at him with a crumpled brow and a lip raised ever so slightly as if she had just taken a whiff of dog excrement. He knew he appeared odd before these humans. They pretended to accept his strange features; they even tried to ignore the color of his skin, the color of pure ivory, but they could never hide their prejudice.

            “Now,” the Hierophant continued, his voice cracking yet strong, “what is this we have discovered? Is it true, Thogmar? Have you been experimenting with steel?”

            Thogmar kept his peace, even the clicking of his tongue.

            The Hierophant’s raspy voice echoed down the hall, “I suspect your silence confirms your guilt. How is it that you can allow steel weapons upon your presence? How can you taint yourself in this way? . . .

            “Speak!” the Hierophant bellowed.

            Thogmar gritted his teeth. His suspicions were true. The Order did know his secret. How? He was not sure. He stood unmoving before them, studying each face, calculating who could have discovered it. His owlish gaze fell on Galvarium’s rat-like face.

            Thogmar had his answer. He wished he could easily grind the man under his heal as a rat. Galvarium was a self-centered power monger whose dealing with others was as hooked as his nose.

            “Yes,” Thogmar finally said with confidence, shifting his attention to the center. “I have been experimenting with steel weapons.”

            Those of the Order that had been sitting before him moments ago, eyes drooping with boredom, suddenly jerked out of their stupor. What he had spoken woke them to a deeper sense of dread than they had originally thought.

            “I told you we never should have trusted a Kalgathian,” Galvarium said.

            A sneer appeared as he spoke the name of Thogmar’s race. That sneer revealed the source of Galvarium’s bigotry: fear. Full, ignorant fear. And awe. Galvarium had always been outspoken against Thogmar’s sitting in the council, but he had always voraciously taken any teaching Thogmar had given and used them to his advantage.

            “Meggidon was wise to keep Taurean free of the gods’kin,” Galvarium continued. “Something you should have remembered before allowing him into our ranks.”

            “Enough!” The Hierophant glared down at Thogmar. “I know you are fully aware of the punishment for tainting the Perdu Arcana. You, one of us, have sat at this council proclaiming the same punishment upon heretics. How can you stand before us then and speak such blasphemies?”

            Thogmar cringed and bowed his head. He had ignored the Hierophant, that was easy to do, but the prodigious portrait of Waylor San Tribadon, the progenitor of the Order, hanging behind the Hierophant could not be. The celestial blue eyes of the Father glared down at him in indignation, more now than when he first entered.  He could no longer stand the betrayed look in the portrait’s eyes.

            “What would Waylor say?” Filidon, a young and gaunt sorcerer, echoed his thoughts.

            More than any words, those stung the most.

            Thogmar nodded. “I am guilty of what you say. I have killed heretics for less. However, my wisdom from more than thirty cycles in the Order should be worth listening to my plans. Roth’s blood,” he cursed, “my wisdom from more than nine hundred cycles should be worth at least some toleration. Waylor never realized the times we all would face. I know I have ordered the death of many heretics who have attempted to combine metallurgy with sorcery. Yet they all failed. I have succeeded.”

            The Hierophant pursed his lips in thought and spoke, “I will give pause out of respect for your wisdom.”

            Thogmar was not sure if he heard mockery in the voice.

          “The oath of the Order is to protect the Perdu Arcana from tainting. Other heretics were guilty of that. Not I,” Thogmar announced. “I have restored what was lost. I have made the art whole. ”

            “Why force what is against nature?” Raishi said, impatience growing in her voice.

            The Hierophant nodded. He flashed a look behind Thogmar and motioned with a willowy hand. “Troas, come forward,” he demanded.

            Thogmar snapped his attention to the left where the immobile guard stepped to life without any expression. He moved with lethal ease, his muscles taught, but his movements limber.

            “This,” the Hierophant said, pointing down to the Blade and the Reds, “is what completes the lost art. We have no need for a weapon because they are our weapon.”

            Thogmar knew this already. Everybody knew this. What the Hierophant actually said carried a hidden threat. The Blade approached with deadly efficiency causing Thogmar to tense in defense. He had to be wary. Friend or no, the Blade was here to do the Hierophant’s bidding.

            “This atrocity,” Thogmar said, knowing he could convert some to his side, “is an archaic vision of completing the lost art; it should not be ours any longer. I’m sure that a few others here would agree with me. If you use something, it ought to be an inanimate object like a sword or even the Empyrium itself.”

            “You question my power and authority?” the Hierophant said, his aureate eyes a brewing storm.

            “A weapon should not be made of slavery,” Thogmar said. He had great respect for the Hierophant, but he did pity the men and women who served under the curse of their trade.

            “Troas,” The Hierophant said. “Do you feel like a slave?”

            “My duty is out of honor and not slavery,” Troas replied as he passed his index finger from the top of his forehead and down to his chin. 

            “You are the steel in my hand,” the Hierophant said. “Thank you. You may return to your post.”

            Troas marched past Thogmar without even a look. With one word, Troas could gut him before he could blink. Blades were lightning quick. None exceeded them in the art of the sword.

            The Hierophant waited until Troas stood erect before his post at the pillar before returning his gaze back to Thogmar. Doom had settled into his eyes.

            “Sentence has been passed,” he finally said without emotion. “Death!”

            “But…I have much more to say,” Thogmar said, surprised the time of inquisition had been this short. Trials never ended this quickly.

           The chamber filled with white light. Thogmar’s hair came alive. He rubbed his nose as if static sparked the air. Static! Thogmar did not even see it coming. A bolt of electric charge flashed, sizzling white-hot, slamming Thogmar back. He skittered along the floor, smoke trailing from his body.

            “Such a waste,” the Hierophant said.

            “Good riddance,” Galvarium added.

            The light dissipated. Silence sat heavy over the hall, as if the finality of the blow was in question.

            “If only you would listen,” Thogmar’s voice broke through the din.

            The smoke thinned away, and several of the order gasped with surprise. Raishi cursed. Thogmar lay huddled on the ground, smoke rising off his body. The sorcery had not harmed him, except the jarring force of its impact. With a pained grunt, Thogmar rose and looked up at the Order, who were nothing but slack jaws and blinking eyes. His gaze locked onto the Hierophant’s. Thogmar knew that Arimus was only doing his sworn duty as Hierophant.

            “This is not how I foresaw the rise of my New Order,” he moaned. “It is to bring peace and understanding, not death and destruction.”

            “But,” the Hierophant said, shock still coursing through his eyes, “but how did you defend yourself in time? It was instantaneous, a preset trap that only I knew of. You never even touched the Empyrium.”

            Thogmar sniffed back his pain and pulled open his robes as a martyr exposing himself to mortal strike. Revealed under the folds of his robes, glinting in the sorcerous light, was shining metal armor etched with arcane inscriptions.

            “I could have taught you so much,” Thogmar sighed with grief. “And I still can, if you will only drop this foolish facade of trying to protect yourself from tainting.”

            Seeing repulsion in the Hierophant’s eyes, Thogmar continued. “I have not tainted the Perdu Arcana. I have added to it.” He truly had! With his skill in metallurgy, he had devised this sorcerous armor from a source of metal he would never reveal. It radiated a thin field of energy around him, shielding him from sorcerous attacks, but not bladed ones.

            “You have said enough,” the Hierophant said, puffing his chest out. “You have only condemned yourself.”

            Igniting the sorcerous energy around him, the Hierophant burst from his chair and glowered down upon Thogmar. The fluxing nimbus of power echoing his rage and added to his gruesome features as electrical energy shifted and arced around his body.

            “You say you have not tainted the art? Yet you have rendered your leader, your ruler, impotent with your experiments,” Raishi said. Thogmar could tell she wanted kill him. This is not how he wanted this meeting to go.

            “Yes,” Thogmar said, “but I can grant you the use of my power. Just help me with my cause to bring Regent back to its former glory. The way it was before the gods.”

            Seething, the Hierophant answered, all previous dignity lost, “You grant me your power? Me? The ruler of this world? I will allow no such thing!”

“You’re a heretic condemned to die,” Galvarium chimed in.

            “Please,” Thogmar said. “I have much to offer. We can do this together.”

            “The purpose of the Order is to preserve the Perdu Arcana from being tainted and used for evil,” Iogoros, a trusted sorcerer with the council, said. “You are to add to the power we preserve and not subtract from it. Our Blades are a perfect example. You know the centuries it took our order to finally infuse sorcery into a Blade’s steel arm!”

            “An experiment I added upon in my studies before I even joined the Order,” Thogmar interrupted.

            “Yet Blades add to every individual sorcerer’s need without any hindrance,” Iogoros continued. “We are all rendered powerless with metal, of any kind, on our persons. And as you have just demonstrated, you have rendered us, the most powerful, powerless.

“Think of the power shift if this gets into the wrong hands,” another sorcerer, Ariste, said, his yellow teeth distractingly visible even from this distance.

             “That is the reason for my studies in metallurgy,” Thogmar added. “We are weak and rely on Blades to do our dirty work.”

            “Heresy!” The Hierophant said, his nimbus flashing with intensity. “I will not sit idle and allow you to belittle the Perdu Arcana. We spend countless cycles in study to better our knowledge. S’bane!” He spat the curse with distaste. “Those brainless brawns who wield metal sticks are nothing compared to the power we hold. The steel they wield blocks them from grasping the art. Without their puny weapons, they are nothing. How can you say we are weak? We rule the land. We are the power!”

            “True,” Thogmar acknowledged with a nod of his head, his dark flowing hair bobbing down over his face. “True, but we are the few. With what I have discovered, we will not be weak any longer. We will become a new order. Too many are dying without achieving their true potential. Why?” He brushed the hair out of his eyes and pierced the hard stare of the Hierophant.

            “Because they are weak,” Thogmar continued. “There comes a time when even we are backed into a corner and cannot create a way of escape. The tumult around us becomes too great to allow complete concentration, or we cannot mentally react fast enough. Then what? The Blades aren’t always at our side. What if some assassin comes from out of the shadows and catches us unawares? Not everyone reveres us remember? Without sturdy armor to protect us or the ability to fight in hand to hand combat with steel as our weapon, we die!”

            The Order sat in silence, contemplating his words, chewing on the bitter core of truth.

            “That’s a good defense Thogmar,” the Hierophant said after careful consideration. “But, the fact remains, both arts cannot be combined. ‘Thou shalt not combine the two Arts’ was one such law you swore an oath to uphold! We have no need for hand to hand combat. You may have found the key to defensive sorcery, but what of the offensive. What good is a sword if we cannot touch the Empyrium with it in our hands?”

            Thogmar smiled with righteous finality. He then drew from the folds of his robes a steel sword that gleamed when he unsheathed it. The sword glowed brighter than the sorcerous effulgence lighting the room, which now paled in comparison. The hum of power ringing off its steel filled Thogmar’s ears; it was the sound of triumph.

            The Blade and the Reds near him sprang to life, drawing their swords. Shocked cries rose from the conclave. The Hierophant silenced them again with his striking voice. “You have rendered yourself powerless by tainting yourself with that weapon.” Sorcerous energy burst around him as he readied to attack.

            “You are wrong, my brother. I am the power,” Thogmar said; his form, too, burst forth with his own sorcerous energy, something that should not be possible with a steel sword in his hand. Electrical arcs of power whirled around him, hissing with power and menace. With a word and a wave of his hands, the Reds and the Blade slowing drawing close to him froze from a spell he cast. They were no longer a threat!

            “I am the source of all the sorcery in this world,” Thogmar continued. “I have contributed more to the art than any single sorcerer ever has in all of Regent…even more than Waylor himself.”         

            The council rest of the council ignited in the same sorcerous energy as they too rose from their seats.

“Kill him!” Raishi screeched.

“To the Nocturne with him!” Filidon shouted.

Thogmar understood now that they refused what he knew to be the truth. He relaxed and his energy dissipated.

“Keeps your wits about you!” Iogoros yelled above the cacophony to those sitting at council. “We are dealing with powers we do not understand. Control yourselves. The Hierophant will decide his fate.”

The rest of the Order stopped their shouting for Thogmar’s death, and turned their attention to the Hierophant, his sorcerous energy screaming around his quaking form. 

            Doubt clouded Arimus’ face. The Hierophant knew now he could not beat Thogmar. The Order was scared, and he was considering different tactics. Taking advantage of this doubt, Thogmar continued, “I plead for your co-operation in achieving a New Order. But, please, I beg of you, do not attempt to stop me from what I am destined to do. Either join my efforts, or stay out of my way. It’s that simple. What I have been chosen for is too important.”

            The Hierophant relaxed his sorcerous energy, and motioned for the others at the table to do the same. “What do you want?” he asked.

So, the Hierophant was willing to negotiate. The Order had to know there was no way they could defeat Thogmar.

Before Thogmar could say anything, the Hierophant added with deathly seriousness, “Not that I will grant it. You will never leave here alive.” Bitterness dripped from his words. “What will you use all this power against? There has been relative peace, thanks to our Order, and no need for such a dangerous power combining the two arts to sweep the land.”

            Shuddering under a faint thought in his mind, Thogmar held his sword in the air to reiterate the flashing thought, causing all in the hall to shudder from his words of utter and complete sacrilege: “By the grace of my power, I will bring death and ruin to the gods.”

Author's Note

I am interested in pacing. Since this is the first chapter, is it interesting and hold your interest all the way to the end of the chapter.

Reviews

[Emma Patterson]

You have a real gift for imagery and detailed descriptions. I loved how you set the beginning scenery. You kept the pace well throughout the chapter, and I was very impressed! I didn't notice any errors because I was too distracted by the story! Awesome job!