The Wizard

Bitter Tears

The chill of the evening brought Mevner back to consciousness. He saw flashes of blue and white but knew he was blind. The nerve signals from his hands, back, and legs fired every pain receptor in his head. It was maddening. 

"My mind!" he thought, pushing the pain aside. 

His brain was functioning. Redwing's Twisted Mind curse had failed. His memory was intact and his personality not lost. He had sidestepped instant insanity.

As he lay there writhing in agony he kept thinking. 

"How did I resist the curse? How did I survive the attack that took down our master?"

And it dawned on him; Melock had saved him when he touched his head and protected his mind. 

"Oh-ggghaa, ma-gghhh-stha." He choked on his attempt to lament. 

"Why didn't he save himself? Why waste the Charm of Protection on me! He taught me everything, gave me everything he could." The thoughts echoed in his head as bitter tears of loss streamed down his face. 

He tried to move but had no way to grasp the earth. Hands trembled, legs were useless, the pain in his spine utterly crippling. He used his forearms to move in the direction of the master's body, bumped into his leg, and reaching forward felt his robe disintegrate into ash. There was hardly any flesh left on the bony thigh. 

Mevner reached for his master's belt, slid his wrist under, and pushed a hand toward the small pouch he always wore at his side. When the back of his hand hit the pouch, it too deteriorated. Mevner frantically groped in the dark. Two glass vials fell past his grip. He reached to find them in the dirt, pushing them together with his backward thumbs. 

Swollen and shaky hands couldn't feel which bottle was which. Mevner tried to slow down his breathing, to focus his attention, and fumbled with the vials helplessly unable to see them. The stopper bumped off one spilling it and in a panic, Mevner jammed it between his palms and dumped the remainder into his eyes. 

"YAAAAAA-GGGRHHAAA!!!!" 

He choked just trying to scream and nearly vomited from pain. His blind eyes seared as if they were on fire. He curled in a ball furiously wiping his eyes with his sleeves. The stinging moved down his cheeks. 

Time passed and the eye pain subsided allowing him to remember the pain from his limbs. He forced himself to look for the other bottle, found it, placed it between his wrists, and lifted it to his mouth. He pulled the cork out, spat it to the ground, and smelled. Nothing. Not a trace of a scent. 

Mevner tasted a little. It was cool, almost spearmint, tingling his numb knotted tongue. He poured the contents into his eyes trying to put half in each side and leaving his mouth hanging open to catch whatever ran down his face. 

"AAAAAAA-hha-hhhhha-AAAAAAA!"

This time his eyes froze as if filled with liquid nitrogen. The cold fell down his face and filled up his mouth. The icy feeling passed quickly and his eyes felt a little better. He swallowed the minty remains. It didn't have the freezing sensation orally, though the parts of his cheeks that were burning before now felt as though they had ice packed against them. He buried his face in his elbow and curled up again. 

Tear ducts thawed and big wet drops of psychological pain relief soothed his aching eyeballs. 

Mevner stayed sniveling in the fetal position until he heard the wolf. Its howl echoed across the canyon from the foothills beyond and it was returned. He looked up to the sky and opened his watery eyes as wide as they would go. A blurry orb lit the clear night. He blinked and looked around.

In the moonlight, the wrought iron sword became a devilishly wicked tombstone that pierced the burnt skull of its victim. Melock hardly resembled himself and was crumbling away more by the second. His pack was gone as was his dagger, but his ring remained. Its silver caught the bathing lunar reflection. 

Mevner crawled to his hand and tried to remove it but couldn't grasp it. His fingers moved painfully the wrong way. He bit at Melock's bony finger and the withered flesh ripped away. Mevner recoiled in disgust at the burnt pork flavor on his horrified taste buds. He spat and gagged and prayed hysterically for the master's forgiveness. 

The ring had regenerative powers. It helped Melock sustain his exceeding long and healthy life. It could not bring him back but maybe it could help Mevner. He could join his master in death or taste him again.

 Mevner leaned forward, bit the band with his back teeth, and pulled. Melock's hand came clear off but Mevner held his bite. Putting his wrist on the hand, he pulled again and the ring came free. Mevner clasped it in his jaw. Seared flesh hung off his lip as he tried to get a swollen finger through the loop. He blew air out of his mouth, got the ring over the first knuckle of his pinky, and pushed hard past the second bulbous broken joint. 

Mevner collapsed again licking the dirt to get the taste out of his mouth; the tongue pain a penance for defiling his beloved master. Before he could come to his senses the wolves startled him again. They were moving in the mountains. 

He hadn't thought about his location much, being blind on the precipice of an enormous cliff, nor the fact that as the night went on the empty road held other dangers. The woods looked black and full of splintered shadows. He couldn't make out the bridge very well and the wolves certainly smelled the human remains at his side. 

The mountain pass was far too challenging. Managing the journey back was impossible, not even to the woodsmen's village on the far side of the forest, let alone making it to the seaside and the master's lighthouse. And would Redwing be there? Or would he continue on their journey through the Stone Mountains to the castle? Or even the kingdom beyond? 

He would take his chances in the woods. He forced himself to crawl, arm over arm, dragging worthless legs behind. When he reached the treeline, he looked back and could no longer see the master's body in the darkness. Mevner was sorry for leaving him, for not being able to save him, for removing his hand, for not burying him, for leaving that sword stabbing into his head, for stealing his ring, for his death, for everything.