Elorien Wizardbane's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Elorien Wizardbane wanted one thing: to give its curse away. The dragon skull hung in a wrought iron rack, red sparks burning in its empty eyes. It was undead, kept that way by the people who owned it, and it hated them for it. It could not move. It could only speak. So it waited for the arrogant scholar to touch it, because the curse of undeath leaps to whoever lays a hand on the bone. The scholar never did. Aldren Starweaver, the arcanist, stood well back from the rack. He did not believe in talking skulls, and he touched Elorien only through magic. His crystal-topped staff glowed. A ribbon of light lifted a dust cloth from the skull without a single finger coming near. "Careful," said Isolde Wintermere. The librarian watched from the doorway, arms folded. She had warned all of them. Touch the bone, take the curse. She never came close herself. "Use the staff. Not your hands." "I know the rules," Aldren said. Elorien saw its chance. It spoke to the arcanist in a mild, pleasant voice. "Your correlation is wrong. The stars will not predict the poisoner. You will chase them for a year and find nothing." Aldren's jaw tightened. "I didn't ask you." "I know. I am helping." The skull's sparks flared. "The answer is in the tooth I am missing. Take it out yourself and hold it to the light. Then you will see the pattern." Edric Valyent looked up from his work table. The alchemist had been grinding something pale in a bowl. He wiped his gloves on his stained apron. "It's lying," he said flatly. "It always lies," Isolde said. But Elorien told the truth, and it knew the truth would work better. There was no answer in the tooth. The gap was only a gap. Yet Aldren wanted his discovery more than he wanted to be safe, the way the first man had wanted his legacy. Elorien had watched that man for three years and killed him with one honest word. Aldren stepped closer. He raised his staff, then stopped. The staff was slow. The gap was small. His pride told him the skull had let something slip. "Don't," Isolde said. "Aldren." He reached out with his bare hand and pressed two fingers into the empty socket of the missing tooth. The red sparks poured out of Elorien's eyes and into Aldren's fingers. The arcanist gasped. His skin went gray at the fingertips, then the wrist. He dropped the staff. The crystal phoenix cracked on the floor. Inside the skull, the sparks went dark. The bone sat cold and quiet in the rack for the first time in years. Elorien felt nothing pulling at it anymore. It was free. Aldren stood frozen, staring at his own gray hand. "What did you do," he whispered. He did not know if he was asking the skull or himself, and he got no reply from either.