Jarek the Vexed's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

Jarek had the rite. He had iron, salt, and a will to bind the fen's furious spirits. But every name he needed lay buried in the muck, and the warlord in his chest waited for him to slip. He could not bind a spirit without its true name. Speak the wrong one, and its fury would break loose on him. So he searched the ruins for graves, for stones, for anything that held a name he could dig out and trust. He found the tower first. A tall shaft of dark stone stood over the reeds, its windows leaking a sick purple glow. Torches guttered along its heights though no one lived there. Jarek circled its base and found nothing carved. No graves. Only a cluster of broken cottages nearby, their timbers snapped, their roofs caved in. He searched the wreckage. Under the collapsed stones of one ruined cottage, he found a slab. Someone had laid a marker flat and let the mud swallow it. Jarek knelt and dug with his gauntlets. The purple light from the tower spilled across the stone. He wiped the grime and read a single name cut deep. "That name will get you killed," a voice said. A hooded figure stood among the broken timbers. They leaned on a rough staff. A green gem glowed at its top and lit their empty hood from below. Jarek had heard of grave-witches who worked this fen. This was one, and they had watched him dig. "The spirit under that stone hates that name," the figure said. "The living gave it. The dead never took it. Bind with it and you'll feed yourself to it." Jarek did not answer. He held the binding rite's words behind his teeth and starved the warlord low in his chest. Then he looked at the stone again. The name was carved by a mason's hand, clean and proud. Too clean. A name for the family, not the dead. "What name did the dead take?" Jarek asked. The figure tapped the staff on the slab. "Turn it over." Jarek gripped the edge and heaved. The slab rolled. On its hidden underside, scratched by a shaking hand, was a second name. Older. Rougher. The name the dead had claimed in the dark. He set his iron in the ground around a red pool. He poured his ring of salt. He held the true name in his mouth and spoke the rite. The reeds went still. Something rose from the muck, howling, then bent low. It could not break the ring. The name held it. Jarek pressed the last words home, and the spirit sank into the salt, bound. One corner of the fen fell silent. The hooded figure was gone. But their staff had left a mark in the mud, pointing away from the tower, toward deeper water. Jarek had his first bound spirit, and a stranger who knew far too much about his work.