The Sorcerer's Abyss (The Sorcerer's Path) (4 page)

"Then we should have died!" The nearby crowd of shoppers all stopped and stared as the scene unfolded. "He helped people! All I have done is caused everyone around me pain. You say you never stopped caring. Azerick died before letting me go! He cared, not you! Others loved him so much, strangers who barely knew him but knew how great a person he was, died for him to come rescue me! Selling me was not your last act of desperation it was your first. He was my true parent, and now I have none."

Ellyssa picked a direction at random and found herself running once again. She could run from her mother, run from the accusing eyes of everyone at the school, but no matter how furiously she pumped her legs, she could not run from the pain in her heart. How much worse could this day get? She had not felt this bad in almost a year. It felt like everything that could go wrong had gathered and waited for this day to leap from the shadows and bury her beneath a mountain of emotional torment.

People stared at her as she ran down street after street, looking behind her to see if the Watch was giving chase. Ellyssa eventually found herself in the lower common quarter. Eyes still followed her everywhere despite her having slowed to a purposeful walk. Let them look! Let them stare at her with their judgmental eyes!

Ellyssa spotted a stray dog sniffing around for a scrap of food and realized how hungry and thirsty her flight had made her. She searched the area and found a kitchen and bar three blocks over. It was not the nicest establishment in North Haven by any means, but she would probably have to cross the entire district to find a better one. The smell of food wafting through the open doors was sufficient to entice her inside.

The distraught girl stepped inside and found the place packed with diners. Every table in the place was filled to capacity and beyond. The din of dozens of voices was a physical assault on her ears. She was about to turn away and find somewhere less crowded and noisy when a voice accosted her.

"Come here, honey!" a grizzled, older man with the look of a logger called out and beckoned with a wave of his arm. "You look a bit rough. Let ol' Brad smooth ya out!"

At barely fourteen, Ellyssa was still within her girlhood, but her disheveled appearance, sunken eyes, and the rapid maturity brutal captivity brought on made her look several years older. Although it was not even yet noon, the man was obviously getting a jump on an evening of drinking.

"Brad, you leave that girl alone! She looks like she has enough troubles without you making the usual ass of yourself."

A rotund serving woman with a matronly bearing and kind smile approached and took Ellyssa by the elbow. Ellyssa flinched but allowed the woman guide her toward the bar.

"You don't pay the old goat no never mind. He likes to bother anyone with a new face, especially a pretty one. You look hungry. Would you like something to eat?"

Ellyssa nodded.

"Can ya pay?" the woman asked, seemingly abashed at making such a request.

Ellyssa nodded again and fished a silver coin from her pocket.

"Well there's a nice change of pace. Most folks looking like you come in here without two coppers to rub together. I have a big skillet of logger's omelet cooked up and ready. I'll go fix you a plate."

The woman reappeared from the kitchen barely a minute later with a plate heaped full of scrambled eggs topped with chunks of pork sausage and melted cheese. She set a glass of water down next to the plate at the corner of the bar. Ellyssa took the plate in one hand and picked up the water with the other. She looked around the room and made for an empty chair set against the wall. There was no table, but she would make do.

Her attention focused on navigating through the crowd, Ellyssa did not notice she was passing right by the table where the obstinate, old logger was sitting. The cup of water Ellyssa held fell to the ground when Brad grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her toward him.

"I was just playin' with ya, girl. Here now, give Brad a little peck on the cheek to show there's no hard feelins."

Ellyssa’s throat closed and her lungs froze as she looked at the man's grinning face. A bright gold tooth set in the front of his mouth winked mockingly when the light of a nearby lamp struck it. It was unadorned and occupied the space next to his left incisor, but Ellyssa's tormented mind moved it back and elongated it into a canine tooth with a glittering diamond set in its middle. The deep creases of his sun-aged face smoothed out and his somewhat humorous laughter turned mocking and cruel.

Ellyssa stared into Captain Jake's face and her blood boiled. She dropped her plate of food, grabbed the wrist of the offending hand, and tore madly at the Source. Ellyssa poured white-hot electrical fire into the man's arm. Other patrons cried out and leapt away in fear as Brad screamed in anguish, helpless to do anything as the smell of burnt flesh and hair filled the room.

"Witch!" a man cried out and tried to pull the wild-eyed girl off Brad before she killed him. "Let him go!"

Ellyssa turned and faced the man grabbing at her and saw Sonjay's big, black face twisted in anger, ready to lash her with his whip once again. A scream tore from Ellyssa's throat, drowning out the hoarse wailing of the tortured man now falling from his chair. Outside, passersby stopped and stared at the front of the diner from where those horrible screams emanated.

The walls exploded outward, blasted the onlookers from their feet, and pelted them with splinters and planks of wood. The entire roof caved in and crashed down with a billowing cloud of dust. Even as the astonished spectators struggled to their feet, a second explosion turned a portion of the roof into splinters and shards of clay tiles and sent them arcing hundreds of feet over the tops of the neighboring buildings.

Like a demon emerging from the shadowy recesses of the abyss, Ellyssa burst from the cloud of dust, skidded across the loose pieces of wreckage, and sprinted down the street. She made a mindless dash through the city, fueling her body by drawing in the Source and feeding it directly to her muscles. It was something briefly talked about in class, but warned it was a very dangerous practice to use. It was very easy to push oneself so hard the heart gave out and literally burst in the chest.

Ellyssa did not care and would not even if she were of a mind to form such a rational thought. Her terrified mind put her in full flight with no energy spared for any other kind of thought or reason.  She rounded a corner and found her way blocked by a large wagon laden with cargo. With a cry of fury, Ellyssa hurled the Source at the unfortunate conveyance and blasted it to pieces, sending bits of it and its cargo flying in all directions.

On she ran through the city, out the gates, and up the road to her home. Ellyssa made the ninety-minute walk into a twenty-minute sprint. By the time she reached the safety of the tower, she was certain her heart was going to explode and almost welcomed the freedom it would bring, freedom from the fear, uncertainty, and shame, which defined the majority of her life.

Ellyssa staggered drunkenly up the stairs, snatched the blanket from the top of her bed, and wedged herself in the small space between her wardrobe and the wall next to it. She collapsed into the corner nook and huddled under her blanket, trembling. This was the worst day of her life since she had been captured. All those horrible memories had come flooding back. The feeling of weakness and helplessness drove her to the brink of insanity. Just before exhaustion pulled her into the numbing folds of unconsciousness, Ellyssa wondered how much more it would take to push her forever over that edge.

A soft rapping on her door startled her awake. Ellyssa peered over the top of the blanket and saw only blackness through the small window of her room. The rapping sounded again, this time followed by Allister's soft, rumbling voice.

"Ellyssa, it's me, Allister. May I come in?"

When Ellyssa did not answer, the old mage slowly pushed open the door and stuck his head inside. He spotted the huddled lump of blanket in the corner. Allister entered the room fully and touched the dimly glowing glass globe on the wall, filling the room with soft, white light.

"Ah, there you are. Are you all right?" Ellyssa's only response was to bury herself deeper into the blanket and try to meld into the wall by sheer force of will. "A lot of people were hurt today."

"Did anyone die?" The muffled question came from under the blanket.

"No, thankfully, although that in itself is a miracle," Allister answered. "The man will lose the arm."

"No remorse," Ellyssa whispered, almost hypnotically.

"What was that?"

Ellyssa pulled the blanket down and looked at the kindly old wizard. "He should not have grabbed me."

Allister shook his head. "No. No, he should not have, but you must learn to control yourself. I know you hurt, and I know you were scared, but you must conquer the fear and the pain. You have an amazing amount of power within you, and you have yet to tap your full potential. Your studies have been going extremely well, but I fear you are becoming too isolated. It is not good for people to be alone with their own thoughts for too long. The mind has a remarkable ability to confuse and trap us within its ramblings. It is then we do something foolish."

"No one else wants me around. They all blame me and hate me."

"That's not true, Ellyssa."

"Yes it is!" Ellyssa shouted. "I see it every time they look at me. Especially Miranda. She tries to hide it. She's too nice not to try, but it's still there. Especially when Daebian is around. I look at him and I imagine him riding on Azerick's shoulders around the school, but I know it will never happen because of me, and it hurts so much! It's all I can do to lose myself in my studies. It's the only way I can stop thinking about it, to ignore the pain."

Allister let out a sigh. "Oh, child, you must not ignore it. Pain cannot be ignored. It will only come back, often at the most inopportune time. Like yesterday and today. You must face it, accept it, and move past it. If you do not, then you become a slave to it. Remember what I told you. Be strong for Azerick. It is what he would want, and hiding from the unpleasant is not what a strong person does."

Ellyssa bobbed her head in understanding. Allister patted her on the knee and left her alone. Ellyssa’s stomach growled angrily, reminding her she had eaten next to nothing all day. She eventually mustered the strength to shed the blanket providing a rather flimsy shield from the world outside her bedroom and quietly snuck downstairs.

The lower level was empty with the exception of the hideously ugly dog, Lord Crowley, who lay as always in front of the fireplace despite no fire burning on this moderate night. Ellyssa made it to the kitchens uninterrupted and scavenged through the cupboards and pantry for something to eat. Mission accomplished, she began to make her way back upstairs where her bed demanded her undivided attention.