Chapter 1: Chapter 1: The Magic Anvil

It came from the far reaches of the north.

It snaked through the mountains, chilled by ice and marred by the dust of old draugr tombs. It swooped into the stretch of orange and red trees where an ancient malice festered. And at last, the northern wind pierced my green cloak, brushing autumn's leaves down the trail as I pressed forward on a desperate mission.

It wasn't a time to be about. Not with the putrid smell in the air. It didn't originate from the red and yellow mulch that coated the path before me. Nor a dead animal. My gaze pierced into the woods, searching for hooded black robes or the reddish-brown of rotting flesh.

I noted the fleeing sun as the trail fell beside a creek. I wanted to arrive at the village before nightfall. My mother needed that cleansing potion sooner rather than later.

She could die, my deepest thoughts whispered.

A sudden gale billowed my cloak like a sail, set the oaks swaying, and raised the water's mist against my throat. I was finding relief in the crunch of my steps when it happened.

A distant man's scream filled the air. A pack of ravens took flight, sending leaves falling that fluttered with the same frantic energy of my heart.

I broke into a sprint. My boots pounded the earth as wiry thin branches battered my face. Leaping from one leg, I soared over a fallen log, my cloak snagging and tearing on a wooden stub. I cursed myself for not finding the time to deepen my mana well. That I couldn't afford a stronger spell than Mana Splinter or a superior weapon than the rattling dagger on my hip.

When a cramp tightened beneath my rib, and my legs turned to lead, I slowed to a jog, then to a walk. It was silent now. Save for the rustle of leaves.

A twig snapped.

My gaze darted to a dense cluster of oaks and shrubs, and I withdrew my dagger. Something rustled behind me, so I spun around. It was a deer bounding into the woods. I sighed. Maybe I was clear from danger. The scream had been far away. I turned back to the path ahead and froze.

There was a necromancer.

His black robe rippled in the wind, the shadows of his hood impenetrable. The light dimmed around us. And when the necromancer sighed, dark tendrils spilled outward, brushing the fallen leaves into ash.

Run or fight, my father had always said, but never freeze.

I pivoted on my foot to flee, but the necromancer thrust forward his hand. My legs flung out before me as something clasped my neck. I clawed at the invisible vice, but they were iron fingers, indomitable against my attempts to pry. Heavy footfalls approached, and the necromancer towered over me—breathing.

I watched him as I faded into darkness.

***

I slid on my back, damp leaves spilling over my shoulders and onto my chest like water.

As the necromancer stomped ahead, I strained against the fibrous constraints on my wrist and ankles. The man must have heard me because he looked back. I fell limp as if unconscious.

Up ahead, we neared a series of stone pillars. They sat in a half-circle with a bloodied altar between them. I watched the deep crimson trickle down the sides of it.

Sliding to a stop, I analyzed my restraints. I could probably sever the ropes around my ankle with a couple Mana Splinters, but I could only cast three before my well went dry, and running would be futile when the necromancer had telekinetic magic. Oh, and a skinned thrall to go with it.

Twisting onto my stomach, I got a better view of the situation. The undead's eyes protruded from bloody flesh, and its teeth grinned perpetually. It was some feeling of terror to meet the thing's gaze.

I saw something else.

An anvil wrought from black steel, heavy, and pressing into the earth. On top of being massive, it was out of place. What would a necromancer do with smithing equipment? A good chopping block for my head, my darkest thoughts hinted. I jumped when an invisible hand seized the back of my cloak and lifted me. The ground retreated as I went higher, then neared as I dropped onto the wet altar.

The blood seeped through my sleeves, cooling my forearms. I told myself to stay calm; I needed to find a way out. What did I know about necromancers that could help?

My brows drew together.

The rumors said necromancers were residents of the local villages—that they performed their craft in secret. If that were true, maybe I knew this person outside the woods. And maybe, just maybe, I could reach them.

"Do you live around here?" I asked with forced calmness.

The necromancer crushed a variety of herbs into a mortar.

"I only ask because I know a lot of people," I continued. "I've been to Mountain Shade, White River, and Fellroot, so I have probably met you before."

"You have." The necromancer's voice was deep and muffled, strained, but familiar too.

"Then I'll admit the reason I'm out here. I want to learn necromancy. I could help you gather people. I have a couple of friends that I could lead right to this location. I'm sick of them bothering me all the time, and maybe we could split the souls."

"If that is true, why did you run?"

"I was scared," I said truthfully. "It's one thing to have an idea, quite another to face it down."

The necromancer grunted. "Your assumptions about what this is are wrong, and you can quit lying. It doesn't fool me."

Then I needed to escape. Now.

I pulled the mana from deep in my core. It streamed upward like thin glowing cracks, then condensed into the shape of a tiny shimmering spike. I angled it at the necromancer's back. I pointed two more at the ropes restricting my ankles. And I fired them all at once.

The man grunted as the rope snapped at my feet. I twisted over the side of the altar to run but slammed into a translucent black wall. A dome of it surrounded me and the altar.

"You can relax," he said. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Yes, he was going to turn me into a thrall, which was more akin to killing than hurting. I hit the barrier with my shoulder to test its strength. It did not give. I considered my options. One, I could brave whatever was to come. Two, I could threaten to end my own life. Maybe a suicide would break the ritual and render me useless as a thrall.

I unsheathed the small blade and held it to my neck.

"Put that down," he said.

"Don't think I won't do it," I threatened.

Suddenly the dagger ripped out of my grip to smack against the barrier, and a force grabbed my arms, yanking me back down onto the altar.

"I'd rather die than become a minion!" I said.

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"You'll never be anyone's minion. You will become something far greater."

What was that supposed to mean?

"Who are you?"

His cloak of shadow was dark against the autumn trees as he walked past. Darker so when he paused to face the snowy mountains. But those shadows began to retreat, allowing the beauty of the mountains to shine my way. There was something about his broad shoulders. The way he stood like a king, yet slumped under the weight of something great.

He grabbed the edges of his hood but hesitated. "You weren't supposed to find out," he said with a certain hollowness. "I thought it would be easier that way."

The muffled voice had first been unrecognizable. But now...

"Father?"

The necromancer lowered the hood, revealing short-cut black hair, a once tan man from working the fields, now pale and scarred. It was my father. I immediately felt the stab of betrayal.

"Why are you doing this to me?"

With a jaw like carved stone, he turned around with cold eyes I no longer recognized. "I didn't mean to hurt you. The trials I endured have changed me. But I want you to understand that everything I did..." He trailed off. "I must continue."

He walked back toward the anvil.

"No," I said.

He halted in his tracks. "Wyden..."

"You can talk to me. Tell me your journeys on our way back home."

After looking at me for a long moment, he took three steps to close the distance and paused before the barrier. "My son. I have already stepped beyond the gates of no return." The air darkened around him, the leaves slowly crumbling to ash at his feet.

"What have you done?" I asked.

"Everything I could." He placed his hand against the barrier as if to touch my own, and for just a moment, I saw my father—the man he used to be. Just as quickly he let it drop, eyes hardening into cold steel.

I watched him walk away as a shadow of the once-great man I had known. My father kneeled before the anvil, took one last look at me, and raised his forearm over the black steel.

He retrieved an ancient dagger from his cloak and held it against his wrist.

"Wait!"

He drew it anyway. The blood swelled from the gash to drip down, tapping the metal. A glowing symbol blazed into existence.

"Just stop," I said. "I could still heal you. We could go home."

"And we would die, my son. The great ones of the deep grow hungry for souls. Draugr multiply in the north. And even our king will carve a bloody path in pursuit of immortality." He slit his other wrist. "I have seen this all. But I've also seen what you could become."

A piece of my father's cheek blew away as ash in the wind. It was a great pain to consider what it meant.

"Please," I tried one last time.

An arc of light lept from the anvil to connect with my chest. A pain like a million radiant needles radiated outward from where it touched.

I could only grit my teeth as my vision blurred.

My father stood to face me.

"Rise, son. Rise like the sun against the night. Don't let man be forgotten."

Those were the last words I would ever hear from my father.

***

I awoke around sunset, my head throbbing. As I sat up, the cotton of my robe scraped painfully against my chest. I tested it with a few tentative touches. It felt like a burn, so I placed a healing hand against it.

My heart became as heavy as a stone when I saw it.

My father's robe lay disheveled on the ground. I could only stare at it for a while, not wanting to reveal what it meant. But I already knew. I walked over to lift it, and ashes spilled from the sleeves. He was dead.

I punched the earth as hard as I could until my hand quaked. I didn't care if his stories were true; I would have preferred to spend the last of my days with him.

As I weathered the agony, slowly I became aware of a strange sensation. The anvil. It was both gone and present. I could feel it just out of reach. When I focused on the feeling, the anvil appeared.

But it was more now.

I rose to take a closer look.

Pressed against the ground, it came as high as my waist. Its edges shimmered like the stars, the world blurred beyond as if insignificant in comparison, and a single autumn leaf drifted past, flipping against its uneven weight in slow motion.

And when I placed my hand upon it, I could feel its true purpose. I could understand, though not support, my father's final actions to grant me it.

This was no mere anvil to craft armor.

With the powers bestowed, I could take two spells or items and combine them into something new.

I would become the Spell Smith.

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