Sorcerybound (World's First Wizard Book 2) by Aaron Schneider (best color ereader .TXT) 📗

something had been roughly dragged across it. Some of the blades glistened black in the moonlight.

“What was it?” Milo mouthed to Ambrose as they followed the marquis.

The big man shrugged, but Milo noticed he’d surreptitiously adjusted his grip on his rifle. He nodded forward, and Milo realized that their host was still talking.

“Once I’d reviewed those, it seemed clear what I’d have to do. I know it might seem silly, but sometimes the ritual and metaphor of these things are an essential part of the magic. I’m sure you understand?”

The marquis turned as he came to the door, looking at Milo, who realized after missing a beat that the last statement had been a question.

“Oh, um, certainly,” Milo said lamely. “Whatever it takes.”

“I’m glad you understand,” the marquis said, and with a quick flourish of his hand, a bright red apple appeared between his claws. It shone with a throbbing light of its own, more fecund and vibrant than the pale gleam from the moon above. For a moment, all the three of them stood in silence, staring at the glowing fruit, one caught up in the drama of the moment while the other two were just confused.

“I have to eat?” Milo asked, pulling his gaze from the apple.

The marquis looked down at him, a little deflated.

“Well, yes. A bite, at least. I thought I’d made that clear.”

“Just checking,” Milo muttered as he reached out to take the apple from the fey’s hand.

The marquis let it roll from claws to Milo’s palm, who nearly dropped it in shock and surprise. The fruit was soft and warm and trembled like a living thing. Milo felt his skin crawl as though trying to retreat from the unnatural thing in his hand. He raised it to his lips, reminded himself it was for Rihyani and sank his teeth into the apple. The skin parted easily, and the flesh within was juicy and sweet in no way that any apple had ever been in his life, but there was a strangeness to the texture that Milo refused to focus upon. His jaw worked mechanically as he doggedly kept from making comparisons with all the things chewing it was like, of which any plant-based edible was not one. A few eternal seconds later, he swallowed the bite and looked at the marquis.

“I don’t understand,” he said, drawing a hand across his wet mouth. “What is supposed to—”

The marquis smiled as something like an experiential bomb detonated inside Milo’s head and heart. It was a firehose of sensation, not only information, but memories and emotions racing through him, chasing and devouring and regurgitating each other in a mad carousel. Milo felt his legs buckle and he heard Ambrose’s voice, but everything was surrendering to a swelling white overload. The expanding overstimulation flooded every aspect of Milo’s mind, and for a moment, he was certain he was about to lose himself, drowned by experiences and will he couldn’t even begin to process from a being who was alien to him. In a fitting way, it was like when he’d had to hold the transformation of his blood in check, only now it was his soul and not his circulatory system that was in danger of being snuffed out.

Then, like the dawn of the fortieth day, the tide stopped, and Milo’s consciousness stood upon the last spit of his identity, on higher ground, looking over an ocean of experience that wasn’t his. He hung there, and for a moment, he realized there was something clinging to that higher ground with him.

Before he could ascertain what it was, the floodwaters began to recede, some evaporating into the psychic ether, some soaking into his mind’s aquifers of instinct. He felt them there, pockets of conviction that told him that if he willed it, the world would bend to him. It was not the same metaphysical muscle as that which shaped essence from necromist formulae, but it was similar to the sensation. When he controlled essence, he was drawing in, focusing it down to a point of combustion and transformation. This was pushing out, pressing against the walls of minds and realities until a crack was found to let his will fill that space.

The white-out of sensation began to shrink, and Milo came to with a jolt to find he was still kneeling on the bloodied grass. Ambrose was squatted in front of him, massive paws holding his head.

“I think he’s coming around,” Ambrose said, his eyes searching Milo’s face fervently.

“Your hands are sweaty,” Milo said slowly. “Are you nervous?”

A rush of relief followed quickly by irritation swept over the bodyguard’s face, and he gave Milo a little shake.

“You are not funny,” he growled before releasing him and rising. “Stop embarrassing yourself.”

The marquis’ chuckle rippled out, dark and rich in the night air.

“Oh, I can feel it, Magus,” he declared triumphantly. “Your will has bloomed. You are ready to put this to use.”

Milo wasn’t sure he was ready for anything except a full belly and a long nap, but it was clear neither of those was in his immediate future. With a grunt, he climbed to his feet.

“Are you sure he shouldn’t take some time?” Ambrose said, eyeing Milo skeptically. “You know, rest, and maybe get some practice?”

The door to the stone and mortar tower was sized to human proportions, so the marquis was forced to bend nearly double to take the ring in hand. He looked back at Ambrose, bemused, and gave him a wink.

“Time is of the essence, isn’t it?” he said, then tugged the door open. “And this is practice. He will learn by doing.”

Still bent over, the marquis ducked inside. With little choice, Milo and Ambrose followed.

The stone walls of the dovecote had an upward-spiraling series of alcoves that reached three-quarters of the way up the structure, while the last quarter was domino tiles that formed alternating bands of black and white around a central hole. Directly over this hole hung the immense golden moon,