Chapter 071: Controlling the Darkness

In the middle of the night, Jess tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep. His burned hand hurt, but he was just as worried about his secret being exposed.

"We're finished, Saeno," he muttered. "If I don't use magic, I get killed. If I do use magic, people will find out. What a mess."

Saeno poked his head out of the bag and whispered, "I don't understand, Master. Why are mortals so afraid of demonic power? Look how kind I am! How friendly! How thoughtful! I'm a good friend to humankind!"

"What I want to know is what spell you used at the top of the tower. You enchanted my sword with fire? Was it really that simple?"

"That simple, Master," Saeno said. "But the flames affected your mind. I saw it happen. Unless... perhaps your mind affected the flames. Maybe your heart is even darker than a demon's. You certainly scared me back there!"

"What a load of nonsense," Jess said.

"You caught me, Master! I was lying, because nothing could ever frighten me!" The imp snickered.

Jess immediately pointed at his nose.

"Keep your voice down! Do you want the priests downstairs to hear you? One blast of Holy Light and a little imp like you is finished."

Saeno covered his mouth at once and ducked back into the bag, saying nothing more.

Jess had no idea how long he slept. When he woke with every muscle aching, it was already afternoon.

His body was covered in bruises, as though someone had beaten him from head to toe. Every muscle hurt when he touched it.

Orange sunlight came through the window and painted the whole room gold. Yet Jess was gripped by an oppressive sense of uncertainty.

He knew why. Too many things were still unresolved. Too much remained unexplained.

Had the power that killed the gnolls last night come from the darkness in his own heart? Could the imp have been right?

Thinking back, every time he'd unleashed unusually powerful shadow magic, strong emotions had come first. That had been true when he confronted Gagin in the street, when he fought wolves in the forest, and last night.

Were those emotions the source of the extraordinary shadow power he'd released?

He remembered a conversation with a priest in a little building near Cathedral Square. The priest had told him that negative emotions could give rise to shadow.

He'd also read about ancient followers of the Old Gods who drew shadow energy from negative emotions, whether their own or those of others—fear, anger, grief, and so on.

So what had he felt last night?

Hatred? Madness? Or something else?

Or had it been the staff?

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The staff of Teron Gorefiend, which Saeno claimed was an eredar staff, lay beside the table. It gave off no evil presence or noticeable magical power. It looked like an ordinary black wooden stick.

Jess had carried it on his back throughout the fight. He'd barely used it in combat. Whether it had played any role when he lost control of his emotions, he couldn't say.

He simply didn't know.

Sitting on the bed, he tried to understand what had made him become like that.

Maybe it was nothing more than a desperate desire to live.

He wanted to survive. He didn't want to be slaughtered as casually as that apprentice had been. He didn't want to die without a sound on some random tower and be forgotten forever.

He wanted to live, no matter what it took. And that desire to survive had been set alight by the evil flames and twisted into a terrifying dark power.

Jess didn't want these things controlling him. He wanted to control them instead.

He had to learn to control his emotions—release them when he chose to and stay calm when he needed to.

Any normal wish or thought could twist into a deformed desire, then become an obsession that dragged him into hell. Shadow power could exploit those changing desires and take control of its host, turning a person into a creature of darkness more terrifying than any demon.

While thinking about all this, Jess suddenly needed to pee.

He climbed out of bed and discovered there was no chamber pot.

He limped to the door and pushed it open. Morgans was hurrying toward him from the other end of the corridor.

"Mr. Jess Seso! How are you feeling? I was just coming to find you."

"Not bad, Master Morgans. My hand is the worst of it. Everything else is all right."

"Good. I have a few questions for you."

Jess hesitated. Had Morgans discovered his secret?

Ordinarily, he might have panicked. But now he found that his emotions weren't unusually unsettled at all.

He needed to learn to keep calm, whatever happened. It was the only way to keep this path from turning against him.

"I'll get straight to the point, then," Morgans said.

"All right."

"I want to ask about the sword that burned last night."

Jess's heart sped up, and his hands went still.

"You want to know why the sword I was holding caught fire, right?"

"Yes."

"I don't know, Master. I was fighting the gnolls with it, and it suddenly started burning. The flames nearly caught my hair. Not long after that, the blade was ruined."

"The magic that set it alight was dark magic," Morgans said with two coughs. "Do you know anything about that?"

"I heard what the soldiers said. They think the gnolls used some dark spell to burn my sword."

Morgans nodded slowly.

"Did you hear—or see—anything strange before the sword caught fire? Whispering, perhaps? Or a gnoll making unusual gestures?"

Oh, so that's your angle.

Morgans was doing the same sort of thing Jess was doing. He wanted to find the gnoll responsible and learn whatever dark magic the creatures had acquired.

They really did have something in common.

Jess finally relaxed. The mage hadn't recognized him as a warlock.

The imp-summoning spells used by the people at the Slaughtered Lamb had made Jess overestimate how skilled the Wizard's Sanctum's secret researchers were. But if a practitioner of Morgans's level could be expelled for studying shadow, Jess wouldn't fare any better if discovered.

He wasn't merely studying dark spells now. If he summoned Saeno, he could probably be accused of being a demon worshiper.

Gagin had tied him completely to the people at the Slaughtered Lamb.

"I'm sorry, Master Morgans. I was focused entirely on the enemies right in front of me. I nearly died. I didn't have time to notice other sounds. You know how chaotic last night was."

"I understand," Morgans replied. "The Darkhide tribe has connections to the orcs who once occupied this keep. They learned corrupt spells from orc warlocks. They're a serious threat. If we discover what they learned, we can work out how to counter it."

"I heard about your fight last night. Rest well. Burns caused by shadow flame are very hard to heal. And when you meet the king, try not to look too miserable."

Morgans turned to leave. Jess was so surprised by the last sentence that he stopped him immediately.

"Wait! Master Morgans—the king? I'm meeting the king? Where?"

"My apprentice has already received a reply," Morgans explained. "King Varian will arrive at Stonewatch Keep soon. He's heard about the gnoll attack and intends to come in person to visit the wounded soldiers and officers. That includes you, of course. Make a good impression. Perhaps this trouble will turn out to be a blessing."