The Sorcerer's Vengeance: Book 4 of the Sorcerer's Path (49 page)

“You may as well save your voice; they cannot hear you and you will need it soon. It would be a shame for you to strain yourself when you have such an important speech to make tomorrow.”

Ulric spun back towards the man in his chair. “What are you talking about, what speech?”

Now Azerick stood and stepped slowly towards the duke, his eyes suddenly burning red as the duke tried to push himself backwards through the door.

“Relax, Ulric, drop the knife. I am not going to harm you,” Azerick said smoothly.

The dagger clattered to the floor at the duke’s feet, his utter obedience compelled by the young man’s hypnotic, dual-toned voice. One voice, smooth and higher in pitched than the other seemed to mix with another much deeper and foreboding voice as if two people were talking at precisely the same time, speaking the exact same words.

“That is better. Are you relaxed now?”

Ulric nodded his head with a sheepish smile. “Yes, I’m fine now. Sorry, I don’t know what came over me. Just nervous I suppose. It has been a very stressful time for me you know.”

Azerick returned his smile. “I know, Ulric, but that is all over now. Your forces have failed at North Haven. The city still belongs to the duchess and your men have been routed, but that is not important now.”

“That is disappointing, but you are right, it is not so important. What do I do now? The king will have me banished, possibly executed for what I have done. I have done some very bad things and a lot of people are going to be angry with me,” the duke frowned.

“I am going to tell you what you are going to do and it will make it all better. You will not have to fear the king or anyone else,” Azerick and Klaraxis intoned.

Ulric nodded as Azerick told him what he needed to do. “That sounds reasonable, thank you,” the duke said after Azerick finished speaking.

“Good, ensure that you have your criers sent throughout the city so everyone will come to see you and hear what you have to say. We want a nice big crowd. That is important.”

“Of course. I will have my seneschal send them out first thing in the morning and announce it every hour on the hour. In fact, I will have the watch send people to the square. I will make it mandatory to attend!” Ulric said earnestly.

“Good, that should work very well. Make sure you get a good night’s rest. You want to look your best for tomorrow’s event,” Azerick said and stepped through the portal he summoned and disappeared.

Yes, I must look my best. It is important,
Ulric said to himself as he opened the door to his chambers.

“Is everything all right, Your Grace?” the guard asked as the duke stepped out into the hall.

“Oh yes, very well. Please send for Lord Alton at once and have him attend me here.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” the guard replied without comment to the hour, quickly flagged down a servant, and relayed the duke’s command.

A few minutes later, a light rapping sounded outside Ulric’s door. “Alton? Come in, quickly now. We must attend to some very important things right away. I am going to address my people. First, I need you to lay out my finest garments of state. Nothing too thick and cumbersome however; white silk would be best. Then you must send out criers to every corner and announce to all that I will be commencing a speech of profound importance at exactly noon tomorrow in Rose Plaza. Instruct the guard to urge everyone they see on the streets to attend or face a fine.”

The old chamberlain shook his head at the duke’s rather impulsive request, but Alton had been chamberlain for the previous two dukes of Southport and he was ingrained to follow orders promptly and without hesitation.

“Yes, Your Grace. I will see to it at once.”

“Excellent, Alton, I shall leave the details in your capable hands. I must get some rest now. I must look my best for tomorrow’s address.”

Alton selected the garments that would satisfy the duke’s wishes as Ulric slipped back into his bed and fell straight to sleep. Once Alton was satisfied that the clothing was suitable, he shuffled out of the rooms to carry out the rest of his orders.

***

Azerick found himself in a richly appointed study standing just behind a man sitting in front of a warm fire in a high-backed, thickly padded chair sipping a glass of brandy despite the late hour. The man nearly spilled the entire contents of his glass upon the red silk and velvet house robe he wore when the cool metal of the extended blade of Azerick’s staff touched him lightly on the neck.

Azerick walked slowly around to the front of the man that now sat frozen in his seat with only the trembling of his glass to show that he was alive at all.

“Lord Beaumonte, we have some things to discuss, you and I,” Azerick told the man as he removed the gleaming arcanum blade from his neck and leaned upon the deep burgundy staff.

“Wh—who are you?” the man asked nervously.

Azerick shook his head and flashed a humorless smile. “It must be something that runs in the family. You and your cousin, the duke, seem to have a talent for ordering the murders of others without even knowing or remembering their faces.”

A look of comprehension came across Lord Beaumonte’s face. “You are the one that murdered my son!” he hissed past his own fear.

“No! I did not kill Travis,” Azerick said more softly. “Travis was killed by his own petty selfishness and the belief that his social status allowed him to act as he pleased. He thought he had the right to extort younger students, rape a young woman, and kill me because of the values
you
instilled. You are as guilty of his death as I am.”

“That is nonsense! I raised him to be a man of breeding and power, all those things necessary for a leader of men, but you killed him with your cowardly sabotage!”

“You taught him how to be nothing but a two-bit tyrant with the wealth to hire enough muscle to intimidate people into doing whatever he wanted. That is not a leader that is a bully. A leader is able to get men to follow him through the strength of his convictions, character, and purpose! But you would not know about that sort of thing,” Azerick charged.

“So what will you do now, kill me? Go ahead, you will be dead soon enough. I hired the best assassin in the known world to pay you back for your treachery, though why the Rook has not finished you off yet is beyond me. I paid him quite enough to ensure that it was carried out with due diligence,” Lord Beaumonte snapped back.

“Ah yes, the Rook. He was a very frightening fellow wasn’t he? Let me tell you something. If you thought he was scary then I ought to terrify you. He died trying to fulfill your contract,” Azerick informed the lord with a dark smile of triumph.

“He is dead? You killed him?”

“I have killed many men, more than I care to count or think about, enough that I am willing to give you just one chance to go on and live your life, for whatever it is worth. Your cousin is going to give a speech tomorrow that people will be talking about for a very long time. I strongly suggest you attend so that you might learn what becomes of men who give in to their selfish desires, who attain their lofty positions of power by climbing the bodies and swimming through the blood of the people they killed to attain it. Listen well, and learn from his example if you wish to continue to live.”

With that dire warning, the sorcerer stepped through a tear in the very air behind him and disappeared, leaving the lord to ponder his words and decide for himself what to do, and to put the fate of his life into his own hands.

Azerick returned to the docks two hours before the sun rose and boarded
Dolphin’s Grace
for the return home. Four ships sailed quietly off into the night, their captives pitched overboard, and a single longboat dropped as an act of mercy just after they passed beyond the mouth of the bay.

Azerick shuddered and felt physically ill when he thought about the use of such compulsion on another person; even one as vile as Ulric. It reminded him far too much of what Xornan did to him and that instantly brought back memories of Delinda. He tried to reconcile the need of what he did with the awfulness of the act, but nothing made him feel any better about it. Whatever, it was done now and he would not change it if he could.

***

Throughout the morning, pages and runners ran from inn to inn to announce the mandatory attendance of Duke Ulric’s speech. Criers stood at every major intersection in the city repeating the same announcement several times every hour on the hour. As noon approached, the city watch was out in force clearing out taverns, inns, places of business, and herding anyone they found on the streets towards Rose Plaza located within the castle grounds.

The tumultuous cacophony of thousands of voices drifted up through the open doors that led to the grand balcony where Ulric would soon give his citywide address. Alton was by his side trying to calm his lord, wishing that the duke would tell him something of what this was all about, but Ulric insisted that it must be him alone to reveal his message and would do so only to the people as a whole.

“It is nearly time, Your Grace,” his chamberlain informed him quietly.

“Very good, Alton, please leave me and join the crowd down below. Of course you will stand at the head of the other nobles of the city,” Ulric instructed.

Alton’s aged hand trembled slightly as he raised it towards the duke. “I thought I might listen from here in case you needed me, Your Grace.”

“No, my loyal chamberlain, you must join the others in the courtyard. I will be all right, I promise you.”

Duke Ulric was left alone to gather his thoughts as he paced nervously within his rooms as the time grew near, then boldly stepped out onto the balcony. The chaotic noise of the populace turned into subdued murmuring then ceased altogether as Duke Ulric stepped out upon the balcony and raised his hands for silence. He looked down at Alton and the assembled nobles then spread his gaze out over the sea of pressed bodies all eagerly awaiting his proclamation.

“People of Southport and guests from throughout the land,” Duke Ulric called out in a loud but clear voice, his words carrying with perfect resonance thanks to the skillful engineering of those who had built the courtyard. “I come to you today to confess my sins and divulge the wrongs I have committed against my citizens, my neighbors, and the kingdom itself.”

The stillness of the courtyard was drowned out in the frenzied questioning and murmurings of several thousand people. It took several minutes for the duke and the guards below to restore the peace enough for him to continue.

“I have committed numerous and grievous crimes, far too many for me too list them all. It was I who ordered the poisoning of the late Duke of North Haven over ten years ago, arranged the assassination of Duke William of Brightridge, as well as our former king.”

It took a full ten minutes to restore order after Duke Ulric’s confession. When the crowd was once again quiet and able to contain themselves, Ulric continued.

“I tricked a local merchant named Darius Giles into smuggling an illegal artifact into the city with a set of forged documents supposedly from the king, then I had him murdered when he was discovered to ensure that no suspicion was cast my way. I sent my own soldiers to acquire the pieces of Dundalor’s armor so that I could challenge the king for the throne, going so far as to slaughtering his special guard and recover any pieces they had in their possession. I also paid men to try to kidnap Lady Miranda of North Haven so that I might force her into a marriage and one day eliminate the duchess and gain power over the northern city.

“When that failed and the men I had sent after the armor turned against me, I hired mercenaries to pillage several smaller towns of the kingdom so that I could ride in and appear to drive them away in order to gain the favor of the populace. The battles were staged and nearly every casualty the invaders suffered was faked. I even sent them against Groveswood and allowed them to plunder the wealthy town full of some of our most esteemed nobles as payment for the services as of the mercenaries as well as to add those noblemen’s influential voices to my group of supporters when I made my bid for the crown.

“I then sent an even larger force of mercenaries, augmented by my own men, to sack the city of North Haven where I would supposedly liberate it in the same manner that had been so successful on a smaller scale for the past year. However, those forces have failed and my complicity and duplicity has been revealed, so I stand here before you, confessing my crimes as part of my punishment and to serve as a warning to any who would think to try to gain power by spilling the blood of others.”

Duke Ulric stood upon a chair and pulled out a dagger from the sheath belted around his waist. “As a further warning of what happens to men who abuse the trust and power of their position, I offer you this last warning.”

Without warning or hesitation, Duke Ulric plunged the blade deep into the side of his stomach and a red rose of blood instantly bloomed across the white expanse of silk and velvet. The rose turned into a river as he pulled the blade sharply across his abdomen before stepping up onto and over the balcony rail.

No one noticed the rope that the duke had secured around his neck and trailed down his back until it snapped taught, sending a spray of blood and offal down upon the front ranks of nobles gathered some twenty feet bellow him. When the blade plunged in and blood sprayed across Lord Beaumonte’s face and fine clothes, he understood the warning Azerick had given him as well as the second chance he offered.

He continued to stare up at the swinging, dangling corpse of his cousin as people screamed, women fainted, and guards ran amok, unsure of what to do. After a brief moment of shock, Lord Alton gained control of several guards and ordered them to clear the courtyard and recover the duke’s body. This was indeed a speech that many people would be talking about for a very long time.

EPILOG

Azerick and Miranda rode down a deer path and entered a small grassy glade hidden within the woods not far from the keep. The bodies were gone and classes had resumed. North Haven was still busy repairing and fortifying the walls and gates around the city, but Miranda had urged Azerick to take her on a picnic until he relented.