REAPERS - Book Two: The Hunger and the Sickness

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Reaper Team 3 humped toward the location provided to them by Merek. There was disappointment among them that the only captive held by the sandmen at their destination wasn't a true Reaper at all, but instead the recruit Addison who had failed in his first outer mission. Blacwin considered confessing to Nail about his abandoning Addison and Merek and Barnibus in the desert. Did it matter now, anyway? He couldn't be sure how such a thing fit into his leader's antiquated code. Blacwin had endangered the lives of his comrades. He had been a deserter. The rulebooks permitted execution for such crimes. He decided instead to wait and be ready to defend himself if the story of his earlier desertion ever came to light. He had since that occasion shone as a Reaper. Perhaps that would mean something. And if not, he would be ready to fight and run if he must. He would be happy to be done with these endless conflicts forever. Blacwin was already fatigued by a life spent contending with aggressors. Every side seemed forever determined to clash over resource or dogma. Each tribe and person bent on besting the other. All crabs in a well, clawing for the light whether that beacon be riches or god or power. The Reapers spoke on runecraft as they walked. Merek had promised they would face it in their raid on the wasters.

"Is sorcery always such a horrible thing?" pondered Jasha. "Couldn't it, say... be made to infect peoples' minds with pacifism? Cast a spell that sweeps the world like a wave and charms every warrior to lay down his arms and embrace his foe?"

"I wish it were so, brother," said Riddle as they humped in tandem through the haggard terrain of ashy earth and dead grasses. "But in the end, the Black Science corrupts all. Have I told you of my grandfather? Ignalio served among the paladins of Toloy. His order, the Brothers of Mebish, and others like it tried to strike such a balance, using sorcery for righteousness and justice only, and not for personal gain. Every one of them eventually fell to the art. Sorcery rots the mind, unfailingly. Twists the soul. There is something about the runery that causes knots in the ether, a radiation that pervades all around them. There are wards to counteract and slow this, but they are not perfect. My grandfather and his Brothers took oaths... as soon as they felt the entropy take hold, they were to end their own lives on the spot. That drastic measure was the only way to halt the decay's advance once it took root. Suicide was the only sure escape from eventual madness, loss of self, a descent into chaos that threatened all around you. No one man should have that power. Look at every society magery has touched. The Khrem, the hobgoblins' old shattered empire, the fall of Yoglunus. As much as I may disagree with the Diluvians, they were right to outlaw its use. I became a rune man and a Reaper to help keep things that way, after seeing what happened to my father's father. Yes, old Ignalio was a powerful warrior thanks to his supposed 'holy runes'—but it was not worth that price. Never should we tamper with those ruinous forces."

— • —

Jinx had stolen many a heart in his younger years, leaving behind a trail of broken oaths (fiery Yasmin was the one his mind returned to the most), before his dark study of the tome became his new obsession. And now his own heart had been hijacked too, but not by love. By runery. Still his inner breast twinged with each throb. He could not be sure if the pain was true or some phantasm conjured by his distressed mind. Jinx had no way of knowing if Wral's statements were lies or truth, whether his heart had indeed been runed. Still, he moved with care across the immense square outside the Triad to avoid laboring the organ too much and finding out, at the cost of his life, it indeed had been compromised.

He'd been in the Halls of Theory when the blast hit the city the previous night, searching through the vast collection of tomes and scrolls and tablets for any sign of the curse that had been placed on him. This complex held the largest known libraries on the continent (though the rakshasa across the sea were said to keep archival vaults so immense that they were themselves almost cities). No person was given access to arcane writings or materials outside the tightly-controlled halls of the Triad, but there were often hints to be found in the old histories and folktales. Perhaps there were some past tales that told of runed hearts and the ways to break their bond and power. Jinx also read all that he could about his new masters, the Inquisitors. It was their charge to eradicate sorcery but Wral had violated that sworn duty for his own aims. Was he a lone operator, or were all the Inquisitors rotten? Wral had mentioned others whom he served. Did he mean the Inquisitors, the Diluvians? Or some other cabal of schemers?