The Work We Have In Hand

By G. W. Thomas

Something is going on in the city of Stormcock. Wizards are disappearing at an alarming rate. Something has risen in the necroplois outside the city walls, something ancient and evil. Fortunately, Emmerant the crystal gazer knows what terrors threaten the City of Birds, and perhaps the entire world. With the help of the rogue known as The Falcon, the unlikely duo must face angry barbarians, possessed hounds and the terror that is Nyoglatha. G. W. Thomas offers up an intriguing world of savants and sorcerers, mysterious and the fantastic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: G. W. Thomas
• Release date: Apr 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9781927089620

G. W. Thomas

G. W. Thomas has been publishing since 1987 and has appeared in hundreds of magazines, books, ezines and podcasts. He has written non-fiction for Writer's Digest, The Writer and Black October Magazine. These days he contributes articles to Innsmouth Free Press as well as publishes the daily micro-fiction newsletter FLASHSHOT. He is also one of the editors/artists of DARK WORLDS, a modern-day Pulp magazine. He has been a champion for ebooks since 1999 and was brought to tears a few months ago when he saw his first TV ad for ebooks. It's been a long road, folks.

Book preview

THE WORK WE HAVE IN HAND

by

G. W. Thomas

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

RAGE m a c h i n e Books

The Work We Have In Hand

Copyright © 2014 by G. W. Thomas

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

This book is dedicated to Jack Mackenzie

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Contents

The Work We Have In Hand

THE WORK WE HAVE IN HAND

The gods do not let us chose what deeds we will accomplish. Instead, we must suffer the work we have in hand. -- Vectorides

i

EMMERANT, wizard, conjurer and wealthy purveyor of information and other necromantic secrets, surveyed the collected rabble and wondered for the twentieth time why he had left the comfort of his highest tower--and the only thing that brought any joy into his long life, his collection of mystical gazing crystals—to be summoned by some new magister with promises of grand and stupendous power. He saw several of his customers and competitors, including the tall Narabezan Zu Man Dee with his ebony skin and facial tattoos; Rheximal of the Sunken lands, sage and advisor to kings as well as a buggerer of boys; the sleek and artificial Sheelma, the courtesan-turned-witch, her long legs sheathed to great effect in semite silk. There were a few other minor practitioners, the humble Boret-Tar with perpetually rank breath, and ZanderrednaZ the Hadisan of low order, plus witch doctors, hedge wizards and even a few midwives. All had the same red stone in their hands, some openly, others secreted away but close at hand. Each had received the same mysterious invitation. Meet in the Temple of Sestiqil this dusk. The sun had long set over the abandoned shrine of pitted red tofa and weather-stained marble. Little used by priests, more often now by lotharios bent on stealing some virgin's gift, the gloomy walls were sturdy enough to keep out the wind but not the spiders, which danced about in the corners and over the door frame.

By Blaal's swinging bag! cursed Rheximal. Do we have to wait all night? Emmerant, is this some joke of yours?

When did you ever know me to jest – about anything—Sinklander? Emmerant punctuated his distain, first for the man and secondly for inane questions, with a look he used on poor customers who didn't pay their bills. In fact, Emmerant was just as unhappy to be wasting an evening in a dusty shrine as the other.

Rheximal never answered that pinching retort. All the red stones began to glow in unison, to throb with mystical energy. Emmerant's brow darkened. He had applied a dozen spells and tests to the jewel, without any result that spoke of it being magical. This dark thought ended with him placing the stone into a special pouch he used for the collecting of manticore bolts and unicorn barbs.

There was a general shuffling now, as each wizard and witch examined the burning stone in his or her hand. Emmerant leaned over and watched the stone in the palm of a hedge wizard he knew casually but not by name. It was only when Rheximal looked up that they noticed a figure standing in the doorway.

Who?

The shadow moved forward, to reveal the face of a simple country bumpkin, a man with ale stains on the front of his suit of badly patched clothes, though the look in his eyes was not that of a peasant.

Turgin? howled the Sinklander and a few others. What do you have to do with this?

Though Rheximal did not say more – for all present knew the whole story and many had witnessed it themselves— of Turgin's expulsion from their ranks for gross incompetence was known to them all.

I have called you all here— began Turgin in a powerful voice.

Bah! cried Rheximal, throwing his stone at the newcomer. You waste my time, fakir! What the wizard intended as his next move none ever knew for Turgin's hand came up, exposing another red stone, this one set in his palm like a tick bored into its victim, burning with a wicked and chilling light. Alien words sparked from Turgin's lips in a sudden and harsh burst, forming a syntax none in the room knew, diction from a language two hundred centuries old.

The Sinklander hurled himself at the newcomer, his hand forming the extremely painful but not-often fatal Glyph of Sundered Breathing. The red burst of light covered Rheximal's face but no face remained a second later. What arrived at Turgin's feet was no longer a man. It was merely ash. Turgin took a second to place his buskined foot in the little grey pile and kick. The mighty Rheximal of the Sunken Lands filled the cracks in the stones of the temple's floor.

The other wizards and adepts did several things—some tried to throw their stones from their hands, and failed; others attempted to attack Turgin with their own brands of sorcery—and also failed.

After a few seconds of flopping about like gaffed halibut, they all dropped their hands to their sides and began chanting the same unearthly phrase Turgin spoke. Skelq scoruscorum sheek shek Nygothala— One of the weaker hedge wizards screamed, his body and possessions lit brightly for a second from his burning palm, then turned to the same gray ash as Rheximal.

Come! said Turgen, who had been shunned by his brother and sisters, speaking in a new voice, one that was as terrible and uncompromising as it was flat and emotionless. Come, let us begin.

With this last command all the remaining sorcerers gathered about him and their voices rose in unison—

Not quite all, for Emmerant had not been holding his stone when the others succumbed to Turgin's power. Instead of attacking, Emmerant pulled his cloak about himself and became part of the wall. Not quite invisible, he exploited the