The Sorcerer's Sword: Part 1

By Jack Cee

In Ily, the greatest city in the Republic and all the known world, a young man is discovered for his unusual fighting skills and recruited into a private soldier troop. But why is he lying about his origin? Meanwhile, the sorceress Rahin is making her way through the scorching desert. Her father is dying and she must reach him before it is too late. Could he have some answers about the disturbing visions that are plaguing her?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jack Cee
• Release date: Jul 2, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310572166

Jack Cee

I'm just a guy who writes stuff.

Book preview

The Sorcerer’s Sword – Part 1

By Jack Cee

ISBN: 9781310572166

To find out more about the author visit: www.jackceeauthor.wordpress.com

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Chapter One

The Beloved One looked around the public square where all the townspeople had been gathered. At his orders the adults had been placed on one side and the children on the other. He knew from experience that when it came to this kind of bloody events parents had an instinct to cover their little ones’ eyes to protect them from witnessing the horror. But no one would be shielded from what was to come. All would see him execute the judgement of The Mighty.

People, The Beloved One said in a strong voice, we are gathered here this morning to witness and rejoice in the rightfulness of The Mighty. For He does not tolerate disrespectfulness of His intended order and his most perfect wrath will be poured onto anyone…

He now pointed at the young man kneeling at the centre of the square.

… who dares to think he has the right to disobey Him.

The young man did not move or say a thing. He simply held his head down and was not sobbing nor screaming. There was a calmness about him which The Beloved One found strangely annoying.

We know from The Perfect Book, he continued, that The Mighty in the beginning created woman to rule over all the living things of the world. But woman was not perfect, like no created creatures are perfect, and she made many mistakes. So, The Mighty created a being closer to perfection than she was and appointed him to rule over her: man. Then He commended that woman always would belong to man and that man would always be with woman to guide her. Man with woman. Woman with man. It is quite simple.

He walked towards the man at the centre of the square and drew his sword. It was a shiny and heavy weapon made from unbreakable steel from the Eastern Realm.

But some humans are merely animals without fur and do not comprehend even the simplest things.

The Beloved One lifted his sword and the people drew their breaths. Some in anticipation, others in horror. But instead of striking down he pointed his blade at a random person in the audience. An elderly woman who began to shake as he looked into her eyes.

Woman, what does The Perfect Book tell us in its fifth chapter, on the twelfth line?

She cited the scripture with a trembling voice, but without hesitation.

‘Anyone who loves any living thing, above or below, more than he loves Me does not deserve my love and shall never see my face’, says The Mighty.

Good.

He pointed his sword towards a new person. This time a young woman with long wavy blond hair and the same deep green eyes as the young man who was to die this day.

You. Come here.

The people around her stepped aside and let her walk to The Beloved One. For the first time the young man on his knees looked up and they saw into each other’s eyes as she stood in front of him.

Is this your brother? The Beloved One asked her.

Yes.

And do you love him?

Yes.

Do you love him more than The Mighty?

She hesitated, but only for a short second.

No, of course not.

Your brother, The Beloved One said and started drawing patterns in the snow with the point of his sword, has greatly offended The Mighty. He has disrupted His perfect order and made himself into the likes of a woman by lying down with another man.

He put a hand on her shoulder and she shivered at his touch, strangely soft and light as it was.

What does The Perfect Book tell us should happen to such a man, my child?

He should be put to death.

The woman’s voice was shaking. She wanted nothing more than to burst into tears but she knew that forbidden emotions could send The Beloved One into a mighty rage. And when he raged, blood was shed.

The Beloved One picked a dagger from his leather belt and put it into her hand. She looked down at the small weapon made from the same unbreakable steel as his heavy blade. The handle was made of precious gold and had holy words from The Perfect Book engraved on it.

She knew that from where she stood she could turn around quick as the wind and stab him in the neck or in his heart. But she knew that if she took his life, his guards would take hers. And most certainly her children’s too.

What is your name, child?

Batta.

Well, Batta, today The Mighty has blessed you greatly. For He has chosen you to carry out His perfect will.

He leaned forward and whispered in her ear.

Kill the unlawful one.

As much as she was fighting her own feelings, she could not stop a tear from escaping her eye and running down her cheek. Her little brother, the one she had held into her arms the day he had come into this world, crawled closer to her and looked into her eyes with all the love he had.

It is okay, sweet sister. If you do not obey him, he will surely condemn you to the same fate as me and choose someone else to take my life. My fate ends here either way, it is how it must be. I do not blame you. Do what you must and go be with your children.

She stepped towards him and whispered in a low voice that only the two of them could hear:

I love you, little brother.

I love you too, sweet sister.

The young man smiled at her one last time, nodded and closed his eyes. He was ready.

Quickly, to not prolong his suffering, she plunged the blade into his heart. He fell down on the glittering snow and she tried to hold him in her arms as he drew his last breath. But The Beloved One’s private guards pulled her away.

As they pushed her back into the crowd, she looked up at the cloud free skies and swore in silence an oath to Spirit above:

One day, the blood of the one they called The Beloved would be the one painting the white snow red. She would make sure of it.

*

Sweets! Sweets! Get your delicious sweets right here! Fruity sweets, sugary sweets, even salty sweets, would you believe it!

Djeen struggled to make his voice heard over the noise and cacophony in the stadium. As he walked between the rows he could not see even one seat of all the two hundred thousand that was not occupied. Which, even if he had no real interest in today’s event, made him feel quite content. It was a great day and place for business and that was really all he cared about.

This stadium was unlike all the others he used to sell at. Here no combats or races ever took place. No plays were ever enacted and no music played. What the people of the grand city of Ily came here to see, and this was something he never could wrap his head around, were men talking.

Seller! Seller, over here!

A man was calling for him and waving his hand above the crowd. Djeen walked towards him, eager to earn some more coins before today’s debate started, and noticed that he was sitting with a woman and three children. Two of them were seated between the two adults and were most likely his children. The third one, a little girl who looked to not have lived more than five winters, was kept on a leash and kneeling by the woman’s feet. A slave girl.

Djeen did not look at her for too long as he knew that the citizens of this city thought it strange when someone would acknowledge or even notice the existence of a slave that wasn’t their own.

Instead he took some merchandise out of his shoulder bag and put on the friendly seller smile he had practiced to perfection.

What can I help you with, dear citizen?

I’ll have two small bags of the fruit flavoured sweets for the children and one large bag of those rose flavoured ones for me and my wife to share.

Djeen gave him what he ordered in exchange for five shiny bronze coins and his children immediately started to chew on the treats. The slave girl looked up at them with envious eyes but also with an expression of resignation. Even at her young age she knew that certain things just were not meant for people like her.

Djeen could feel the rage boil inside of him. This is how they, the Ilyians treated persons and still they dared to call all other people beasts.

The sound of a horn being blown was heard across the stadium. It was the signal to the audience that the debates were about to start and to the sellers to leave the arena. If they did not, guards would soon be there to escort them out.

As every day when he left the stadium, he was greeted by the deafening sound of the crowd. It was midday and food vendors, street musicians and storytellers along with sellers of all kinds were trying to make their voices heard above the noise, competing for potential customers’ attention.

Djeen stopped, like he did every single day, by the cart of his friend Xet to buy himself some meatbread. An Ilyian speciality, it consisted of a piece of pre-roasted meat rolled into a sugary dough and fried in oil. It was a perfect treat if you were in the mood for something both sweet and savoury and, most importantly, if you were in a hurry like he was right now.

So you were at the stadium, eh? The old man Xet asked.

Yep.

Djeen found this an odd question since he was selling sweets there every single day and Xet knew that.

Must have been an awful lot of people there, mustn’t it?

Oh, yes! Not a single seat left.

The old man nodded as he dipped the meatbread Djeen had just paid for into the boiling oil.

Must be a very popular senator debating today.

Oh, no! Xet said and chuckled. But a very crazy one!

He prepared the square plate made of leaf where he would put the meatbread and continued:

Some man named Nov Julkis, the leader of what they call the Human Liberty Party. They’re trying to pass laws forbidding people to own slaves. Can you believe that?

Sure. What’s so strange about that?

Xet seemed surprised at Djeen’s response. He shook his head while picking from his large assortment of spices.

I don’t know, it’s just how it is. There have always been slaves. What would the world look like if everybody was allowed to be free?

Where I come from there are no slaves.

The old man looked at him with a suspicious expression in his eyes and Djeen could tell that he did not believe him. And if he was to be honest he would have to admit that the truth was actually quite the opposite. In his homeland, everyone was a slave.

Anyway, Xet said, very few take his party seriously. Most go to his debates to laugh at him. Do you want the regular spices?

Djeen nodded in response and Xet poured the colourful herbs unto the smoking hot meatbread on the plate and gave it to him.

Here you go, lad. Have a nice day and say hello to your boss from me.

The young man nodded and smiled and continued his way through the crowd. He made it to a sweets shop near the public scare and walked up to the counter.

The face of the girl on the other side lit up when she saw him and as always it made him slightly embarrassed. It had been obvious for many days now that she liked him but unfortunately for her he had no such interest in women and he wasn’t sure how to handle this unwanted admirer.

Hi, he said and put his selling bag on the counter before she could even say a blushing hello, it was a good day today. Sold almost everything. The left-over sweets and the money are in the bag. See you tonight.

And he hurried out of the shop to the disappointment of the shop owner’s daughter who always longed to this see his beautiful face. She sighted heavily and went back to cleaning the counter, hoping still that one day he might notice her.

Djeen walked towards the east of the city, were the slums were. This is where he had lived when he first came to this city about seven hundred days ago. He had since moved into the apartment he rented from his boss and which was situated above the same shop where he worked. But he still hated passing through this part of town.

Here was where the poorest and most unwanted members of society lived. Orphans and beggars slept on the dirty streets which stank so badly it made his eyes water. From time to time he would walk by one of the young people, carrying a large bucket and whose job it was to pick up from the ground the faeces that the more fortunate of this slum threw out the windows of their apartments. This human waste would later be sold as cheap manure that only the poorest farmers were willing to pay for.

This was one of the many small jobs he had done himself when he had first come to this land. It made him nauseous to even think about it and he thanked Spirit every day that his life had since taken a turn for the better. Not least because of his skills as a fighter.

And it was with a smile on his face that he arrived at the small stadium right by the border-wall of the city. It was much smaller than the one he had been at this morning and made out of wood instead of precious marble. No statues of popular senators were surrounding it and no families with children were eager to visit it. Only the shadiest and most lawless members of society ever took the risk of coming to this place.

Still, here was where he loved to be more than anywhere else. At any other location he was just a poor young man struggling to survive like any other soul. But there, inside of this arena, he was cheered on by the crowd and admired and respected by all. There, he was a king.

*

Arzi studied the two fighters walking barefoot on the hot sand of the arena. The biggest one of them was a tall and chubby man with a large scar across his forehead and a vicious expression on his face. He was clutching his fist and staring at his opponent, a redheaded young man with a goatee and a strange tattoo in the shape of a bird on his arm. This opponent was smaller than the other man. In fact, he was smaller than most men, but he was also quite muscular and seemed to be in good physical shape.

Arzi still seriously doubted that he had any chance in this fight. So, he raised his hand to