Drafted Into Darkness, Page 2

need it to appease the totem spirits, in any case.”

  “I agree, if you will mix your blood with mine, and swear a blood oath.”

  Zaharo barely hid his surprise. Was it was possible the man had more training than he’d guessed? A blood oath carried power and he would be obligated to honor the contract. No matter, Zaharo excelled at vengeance and believed he could honor such an oath.

  “Very well, let us be about it then,” said the old man, producing a small, double edged bronze knife. Carefully, he opened a vein in one of his own scrawny wrists with the knife’s clean edge, and deftly rotated the hilt so the other edge of the knife, coated with a poisonous drug, sliced through the flesh in one of Igon’s wrists.

  “By that which I hold sacred, and by my own blood, I swear to gain vengeance against Herauts. He will know fear, and pain and shame, and understand the source of his suffering before he dies,” Zaharo intoned, holding his wrist above Igon’s so his blood dripped across the other man’s open wound. He feared for a moment that his victim might force the two cuts against each other so that any venom would run through both their veins, but fortunately Igon either wasn’t suspicious enough or lacked knowledge of drugs.

  “I will serve you for a year of my life,” said Igon.

  “Very well, I have some things stashed here that will be necessary to summon the spirits,” said Zaharo. He made a show of gathering up a bag and rummaging through it. He wanted to give the drug time to take hold, but not so much time that he couldn’t blame the drug’s effects on blood loss. Finally he nicked Igon’s unwounded arm and began draining fluid into a wooden mug.

  Zaharo focused his will and caused several tiny, almost microscopic rifts to open between the planes. Nature abhorred a rift, and he struggled to maintain the openings. Lying at the bottom of the mug, the holes drained Igon’s blood into the astral plane where it drew more of Zaharo’s pets. The hungry spirits swarmed around the tiny rifts, fighting for position like greedy piglets suckling at a sow’s teats. Zaharo could see them growing stronger as they drew in the warm, living essence.

  “I feel dizzy,” said Igon. “It seems to be taking a lot to fill that little mug.”

  “The blood is flowing slower than it looks, else the cup would be full,” Zaharo reassured. “You must have skipped a meal, or you would not be feeling so drained.”

  “That is true,” said Igon. “I have been too angry to eat.”

  “Eat something when we finish here. Until then, lie back so you won’t strike your head if you faint.”

  Unsuspecting, Igon complied with the suggestion. Within minutes he lost consciousness, then he succumbed to the drug’s other effects.

  Totemic shamans used the substance to initiate their apprentices to the mysteries of astral projection. As Zaharo guessed earlier, Igon possessed a latent potential for magic, and he responded to the drug in the same manner as an inexperienced student. His soul floated free from his body and manifested on the astral plane - right in the midst of the feeding frenzy of extra planar entities.

  It would have been easy for an adept to return to the physical plane, but Igon had no training. He recoiled in alarm and confusion as the hostile spirits attacked him, and Zaharo swiftly severed the smoky tendril connecting his essence to his body.

  “No!” howled Igon, “I never agreed to sell you my soul!”

  “That is correct,” Zaharo chuckled. “But I just stole it from you, nonetheless.”

  The astral wraiths fed on Igon’s spirit like a swarm of piranha on a drowning calf. The man’s essence shrank, and it pleased Zaharo to watch his servants and allies grow stronger.

  Igon fled deeper into the astral plane, pursued by the wraiths. The fool’s soul was strong enough it should manage to avoid being completely devoured. Zaharo had time for other tasks.

  The old man turned his attention back to the pore sized rifts in the bottom of the mug. Concentrating on a single rift, he expanded it as far as he could. The natural pressures to close any rift between planes increased with the size of the hole, and sweat stood out on his forehead at the effort of making an opening that a flea would find hard to squeeze through.

  “Beltz Bela, come forth and serve me,” he crooned.

  Something came through the rift. When a human mage sent his soul into the astral plane, he or she took on a spirit form. When a spirit entity entered the worldly plane, it required a physical form. Guided by Zaharo’s spell, the summoned being entered Igon’s body.

  Beltz Bela had existed for millennia. This was not the first time it had possessed a human form. It knew how to control its limbs, could use its hands and fingers, and was able to speak.

  “Master,” it said, acknowledging Zaharo’s status. “What is your will?”

  “Soon, perhaps several days from now, a man called Herauts will declare you are his slave,” said Zaharo. “You will obey Herauts, but you will continue to serve me.”

  “I will pretend to serve this Herauts, while I serve you,” agreed Beltz Bela.

  Returning his attention to the astral plane, Zaharo beheld Igon’s struggle. Inexperienced, the man fled in circles, orienting himself on the worldly objects whose outlines he could still vaguely perceive from the astral plane. With a word, Zaharo ordered the wraiths to cease their attack on the man. Realizing he was no longer beset, Igon stopped, looking wildly around.

  Zaharo laughed; an ugly sound. “Finding it hard to leave? Your blood oath still binds you. You owe me a year of service, boy.”

  “No,” snarled Igon, “I agreed to give a year of my life. You’ve killed me, and my afterlife was never part of the bargain.”

  “Oh, you’re not dead. Your body lives and breathes, and your soul is still mostly intact. Body and soul can be reunited, by my arts.”

  “Then put my soul back in my flesh!”

  “Not until you fully understand who serves, and who is master,” Zaharo answered coldly. “Try going to a priest with tales about me now, and my pets will finish making a meal of you. Try turning me in once I’m done with you, and your own complicity will see you burned at the stake alongside me.”

  Igon started to retort, plainly defiant, but stopped himself, eyes flicking fearfully toward the wraiths still prowling hungrily nearby. When he finally did speak, his tone was sullen, but subdued.

  “What use am I to you like this?” he said, passing one ghostly arm through a wall.

  “You will see,” Zaharo said, gums showing in a grin.

  The next day Igon didn’t show up to work. Beltz Bela rested the body, recuperating from the effects of blood loss and poison. Zaharo made sure it lolled in or near a seedy tavern, with plenty of beer in its system. Men who knew Igon attributed Beltz Bela’s lack of recognition and response to drunkenness.

  Herauts arrived two days later. In addition to two of his own bodyguards, a pair of berbers from the Moorish garrison attended him. The men discouraged resistance by punching the supposedly drunken teamster in the head and body before shackling his wrists and shoving him roughly towards the court. Beltz Bela managed a convincing show of confusion and fear.

  Zaharo feared that a priest or imam might examine Igon and discover he was possessed. Despite its age, Beltz Bela had a limited understanding of human society, and any strange behavior might attract just such an examination. The old shaman had coached the spirit to remain silent and sulky as much as possible; to answer questions with “yes” or “no” or “I don’t know,” or with simple pleas for mercy. He hoped to disguise Beltz Bela’s alien attitudes and personality as a combination of inebriation, shock, shame and despair.

  The old man carefully kept his distance, but whenever he dared he sent his servants on the astral plane to spy, especially Igon. The vascone’s arcane talent flourished under Zaharo’s guidance. By the time his body was hauled before the magistrate, the former teamster had learned to attune his senses to see and hear things on the material world. Among the insubstantial beings that served Zaharo
, Igon’s understanding of contemporary speech and customs made him the most able to observe and report intelligently on events.

  It was hard for Igon to watch his enslavement. The guards, both Herauts’ men and the berbers, slapped and cuffed him all the way to the magistrate’s court. Igon couldn’t take more than three steps without being knocked off balance, propelled violently forward by a kick or shove. Anybody watching would think he’d already been found guilty of something far worse than spilling some wine.

  And plenty of people were watching, too. The road to the courthouse led through Calahorra’s market. Igon recognized the faces of friends and neighbors. They watched appalled as Igon’s body, possessed by the spirit Beltz Bela, whimpered and cringed away from the punishment. Igon saw his landlord’s wife, could see her astonishment when she recognized him. There was his friend Jokin, who had invited Igon into his home to eat dinner, but now pretended not to know him. He saw two men he’d worked with loading wagons, staring in open disbelief. Worst of all he saw Domitia the baker’s daughter, who he’d hoped to marry someday. Her expression changed from shock to revulsion when Beltz Bela failed to control Igon’s bladder and he pissed himself in the middle of the street.

  “No! It’s not supposed to be like this!” Rage and shame overwhelmed him. His pride, dignity, respectability and dreams for the future were all