The Four Rules of Qinrock

1. Once a story is started it must be finished

2. There can be no written plans for the story except for the story itself

3. A story cannot be edited or changed significantly while it is being written

4. Anything goes in Qinrock

A sorcerer is locked high in a tower. He is chained to his chair at a table and is unable to move very far in his bonds. The room he is in is old and dark, rats creep throughout the deeper parts of it. The sorcerer does not mind, he is a sorcerer, and he is not troubled by these mortal concerns.

Every morning a maid of the tower, Alla, comes to his little room bearing a loaf of warm bread. She talks to him in her homely voice of homely things and he repays her by listening and watching her with his golden eyes. She tells him of the chickens in the yard and the eggs she has got from them. She tells him of the rooms of the tower and what she has found as she swept every one. She tells him of young Tillo, the other maid who makes the warm bread. She tells him of Tymos, the old and weary warden of the tower who keeps the sorcerer locked up. He listens to her and watches her with his golden eyes. He cuts the bread as best he can in his bonds with the bone-handled knife that she always brings. While he is listening he asks questions, questions about the tower and about Alla and her life in it. Soft questions, gentle questions, questions that mean nothing to him but everything to her. He is someone to talk to, a handsome kindly man she must care for in this tower.

Then she has to leave and she takes the knife with her, leaving just the bread. The sorcerer does not eat the bread, he is a sorcerer and does not need food or drink. Instead he leaves it there and waits for the rats to emerge. They eat the bread, they grow fat on it, and the sorcerer does not stop them. He waits calmly in his chair while they nibble and chew before his eyes. But he does not just watch them.

He tells them great tales, his grand adventures in the outside world. He tells them of monsters and magic and of great heroes and champions of light he has cast down before him. He tells them of the enormity of the world beyond their tower and of his triumphant conquests in it. They are but rats and do not think as men think, but they understand. He is a sorcerer, he makes them understand. They look up to him. They fear him. They worship him. He is the king of their tower. Their lord who gives them bread and life. Who cares for them and speaks to them when all the others shun and loathe them. They listen to his stories all day long.

The sorcerer’s name is Qaerus. The Tower’s name is Ulbalan. He is chained there because long ago the warden and his allies were unable to kill him with mortal weapons wielded by mortal men. This is the story of his escape.

One night there is a storm, a terrible storm that shakes the tower in the night. Alla and Tillo are roused from their beds and huddle together in fear. The sorcerer does not sleep so he is not woken, he knew the storm was coming though, and he prepared. In the evening before the storm he spoke to his rats and they listened. They climbed up to the windowsill, this was difficult for them as the wall beneath was solid stone with no handholds even for their small claws. They instead had to clamber over one another, each one holding onto the wall as best he could while the next one climbed up over him. Eventually the rats, weary and sore, reached the windowsill and struggled to open the window. This was more difficult as the latch was made for human hands. Once more they had to clamber over one another to reach it and struggling atop their perilous perch the topmost rats heaved and shoved at the latch, threatening to topple them all with their struggles. Then the latch came free and the window swung open in the early winds of the storm. The rat that had been leaning hard against it fell into the night below. The other rats did not see as they were scrambling down and away from the battering window as fast as possible but later they knew that one of their number was gone. But they did not blame the sorcerer, for he was their lord, their ruler. It had been the rat’s own fault, he had leant on the latch too hard. He must have deserved all that came to him or the sorcerer would not have allowed it to happen. They returned to their holes and hid from the howling storm.

Down in the maid’s quarters, clinging to the skinny and terrified Tillo, Alla heard a window banging in the wind. She looked up into the cold dark room and tried to tell where it was. It was from the room of the sorcerer. The kindly man who would be freezing with his window open like this. She told Tillo of this and went to leave but Tillo clung to her.

“Don’t go Alla,” Tillo said. “He is a bad man, an evil man, a man of foul magic and sorcery. Stay here with me and leave him to freeze.”

Alla looked down at Tillo’s freckled face and bushy hair as her frail arms wrapped around her. “Oh he’s not as bad as all that. You haven’t met him. He’s quite kindly.” With that she unwrapped Tillo’s thin arms from around her with her own much stronger ones and walked through the cold tower in her nightgown, leaving Tillo sobbing in her bed. The girl would be alright, she’d be right back after she closed the window.

The sorcerer was looking out unto the storm through the open window. He strained in his bonds. The storm raged around the tower but it was protected by old magic and the tower would stand strong. Not so the window, however, it flew and buffeted just past the invisible barrier that kept the storm at bay. And that was all the sorcerer required.

A terrible boom of thunder shook the tower as Alla was hurrying up the stairs clutching a candle she’d found. She jumped in fright and almost lost the candle and her footing, but she recovered herself, muttered something about getting old and flighty, and kept climbing. She soon reached the sorcerer’s room and unlocked the door. There he sat in his chains with the loaf of bread reduced to crumbs as it always was, with the window banging about in the wind behind him. She realised that the window was damaged, it had been hit by lightning and blasted in two. The fragment that was swinging in the wind was all that was left.

“Alla,” the sorcerer said to her with trembling lips. “Thank goodness you’re here. This wind chills me to the bone.”

“The window is shattered,” she replied, walking to the table and setting the candle down. “I can’t close it.”

“Take me out of this room, please. I cannot stand the cold.”

Alla looked uncertain. The sorcerer was a prisoner here, he was supposed to be in those chains. But he looked at her with those kindly golden eyes, those eyes that had listened to her for so long when no one else would. Those eyes that now sat in a face pale from cold and fear. She relented and undid his chains. She had been given keys to the room and to all of his bonds back when they’d thought he would need to be treated as a human and released occasionally. They had soon learned he never had to be released and had stopped releasing him. Of course, when they used to release him the warden had been there and had kept a close watch on him the entire time. The warden was not here now.

The sorcerer pulled himself to his feet, leaning on Alla and shivering. It was cold in the room, she could feel it through her thin nightgown and she would be happy to return to her bedchambers. But she couldn’t leave the sorcerer here in this cold wind. Together they climbed back down the stairs, Alla using one hand to support the sorcerer and the other to hold the candle out in front of them. There were no more blasts of thunder and they returned to her bedchambers soon enough. She realised as they walked that Tillo would not be happy. Hopefully she would be able to sleep, they would put the sorcerer back in the morning.

When they opened the door into the bedchambers Tillo saw them and she screamed. Alla rushed to comfort her, forgetting the sorcerer and heard the door slam shut behind her. She turned and saw that the sorcerer was not in the room with them, he had closed the door. Tillo was wailing and sobbing now and the storm still howled in the distance.

“Tillo,” Alla said harshly. “Calm down,” I have the all the keys to this tower,” she brandished them, “so we are not locked in here. And the sorcerer cannot leave this tower even if he had the keys. Is that not what the warden always said?”

Tillo stopped wailing and sniffed instead. “Can you lock the door so he can’t get us?”

Alla didn’t want to lock the door, she wanted to search for the sorcerer and make sure he was alright. But Tillo looked very upset so she agreed. She locked the door and sat next to Tillo, wrapping her up in her warm arms. They sat there and listened to the storm. Then came the rats.

The sorcerer walked up the tower to the solar at the top where lived Tymos, the warden. He knocked on the door and when no one responded he opened it and walked inside. The warden was an old and frail man, lying sickly in his bed, but when the sorcerer walked in he sat up in shock and desperately tried to push himself away. The sorcerer only smiled, all pretence at being cold and feeble gone.

“What do you want?” Tymos asked.

The sorcerer sat down on a stool and looked at the old man, still smiling. “I want you to let me out of this tower.”

“No,” the warden snapped. “I can’t do that.”

“You’re the only one who can do that,” the sorcerer replied with a smooth voice.

“You will never leave this tower, I will never lift the wards that keep you here.”

“You will lift the wards that keep me here or I will rape and kill Tillo your maid and let the rats feast on her corpse.”

“Do it,” the warden answered. “You will not leave this tower.”

The sorcerer stood up and walked from the room, grabbing the warden’s keys on his way out. The warden sat in his warm bed, shivering.

Alla and Tillo tried to hold off the rats. There were so many of them, they had not realised just how many had been hiding in their tower. They kept coming in swarms and droves and all they had to drive them off were their arms and legs. The rats would leap at them with their warm heavy bodies and scratch and bite through their nightgowns. They would kick and lash at them and sometimes manage to grab one and fling it away, only for it to come right back. Tillo wasn’t faring very well. She was small and skinny and the rats were biting her and making her bleed. She would whimper and yelp but she had no energy with which to scream. Alla was doing better, she could fling the rats far and sometimes stomp on one hard enough to break the thin bones in its back. Then the sorcerer walked in and Alla looked up in relief.

“You came back,” she said. “Help us.”

The sorcerer only curled some keys through his fingers. They were the warden’s keys. He made no move to help and she felt her heart sink. Then he laughed, a cold and cruel laugh, as merciless and harsh as the raging storm. The rats surged on, seemingly renewed in ferocity by his merriment and Alla struggled against the tide. Tillo was doing less well and was almost buried under a tide of rats. The sorcerer strode forward as she fought her way out, her frail arms clawing at the rats like a cat. She twisted her way free and staggered back from the swarm only to fall right into his arms. She looked up in terror as he grabbed her wrist in an iron grip and stared down at her with the cruel golden eyes she had feared for so long. When he was done with her he slit her throat with the bone-handled knife, something he had picked up from the kitchen on his way back down. The only weapon in the tower. Then he left her and Alla to the rats and returned to the warden’s chambers.

The warden was still shivering in his bed. He had heard the screams and he knew what it was they meant. The sorcerer returned, once more with a cruel mocking smile and sat down on the stool again. “Your maidservant is dead. Your next one will soon follow, release me from this tower now!”

“If I release you you will bring the terror and pain you visit on us down on the world. I cannot release you.”

“Then I will rape and kill your second maidservant. When she is dead I will use the darkest sorcery to animate her corpse and fill it with rats. I may be unable to leave this tower but she will leave it for me, and visit a plague of deadly rats upon the world.”

The warden stared at him with big fearful eyes. He did not respond. The sorcerer stood and walked from the room once more.

Alla was weeping and was losing the will to struggle against the rats. Many of them had gone though, gone to feast on sweet Tillo. This was all her fault, she had thought the sorcerer had been such a kindly man. How wrong she had been. How wrong. The sorcerer returned and she stared up at him weakly as he walked over to her. She was bleeding and tired and rats still crawled on her. She had killed many of them but there were still so many more. As the sorcerer walked past Tillo all his rats came with him and surged at her again. He watched as all her energy was expended driving them off. She tried running, she tried hiding. She went to all the rooms of the tower and even out into the storm. But the road was flooded and out there in the mud the rats finally overcame her. She slumped to her knees, the rain pounding around her, and then fell to the ground. They carried her inside, hundreds of warm wet bodies wriggling beneath her. The sorcerer did to her what he’d done to Tillo. Then he wove a foul spell into her body, using his own blood and seed in the process. He had to cut himself with the knife to get the blood, leaving a thin bloody scar across his wrist. When he was done the rats poured into her. Devouring her from the inside out, feasting on the flesh, tainted by magic and sorcery. He then walked back up the stairs, back to the room where the warden was still trembling on his bed. And he bought his monstrosity with him. She loomed behind him as he sat on his stool and faced his jailer for the last time. The rats squirming and writhing beneath her skin. The warden looked repulsed but he still didn’t move from the thick blankets that had held him for so long. The sorcerer leaned forward, in one hand he toyed with the warden’s own keys, able to unlock any door in the tower but still unable to free him. In the other he held the bone-handled knife, bloody from its recent activity. He smiled cruelly at the warden and spoke.

“Now is your final chance, release me or I will release a monster of my own.”

The warden trembled but his old eyes never left the sorcerer’s. “You will never leave this tower, monster. It will be your home for all eternity until the reaper finally claims your twisted soul.”

The sorcerer’s cruel stare turned to fury and he stood up, pointing the knife at the warden. “I will leave this place one way or another if I have to tear it down with my hands.”

“I will die before I let you leave and with me dead no one will be able to help you for there will be no one left in this tower but you and your rats.”

The sorcerer moved forward, the bone-handled knife which he had so often used to cut bread moving dangerously close to the warden. The warden didn’t look at it, only staring up into his golden eyes with his own hard grey ones. Then the warden spoke again. “You will die alone in this tower, all your power, all your foul magic, will come to nothing, and you will be forgotten, bested by me, a mortal.”

The sorcerer screamed in rage and anger and drove the bone-handled knife into the throat of the warden. Then he did it again and again until he and the bed were covered in blood. Then he stood up straight, panting with exhaustion and looked at the ruined body of the warden. He would find a way out, there had to be one. With all his magic and all his might, he must be able to break the wards put in place by this feeble mortal. Then he felt his heartbeat. Stabbing like that must have been more physically exerting than he’d thought. Then he felt it again, in his head, louder. That was strange, didn’t heartbeats get quieter? Then again and this time it was so loud he dropped to his knees. Then again and his head filled with agony. He clutched at the sheets with his left hand, the one without the knife and felt the cut in that hand as his muscles tensed. Another heartbeat. He looked at the cut, the cut he’d made to give his own blood to his monstrosity. Another heartbeat. The cut he’d made with his own hand with a knife he’d used every day to cut bread as he listened to Alla. Another heartbeat. A knife saturated with his own sweat and flesh, a knife almost as infused with sorcery as he was. Another heartbeat. And he’d cut himself with it. He collapsed to the floor staring at the ceiling. Another heartbeat. He hadn’t noticed it before as he’d been calmly walking around the tower but the frenzied stabbing had set his blood pumping and had sped up the magic as it flowed through his veins. Another heartbeat. A magic weapon, wielded by a magic creature. The only thing that could kill a sorcerer.

Qaerus died in that tower, staring up at the ceiling and listening to the storm.

Alla and Tillo had never been real, they were illusions made by Tymos. When he died they disappeared and the rats within Alla fell to the floor, freed of their sorcerous master they dispersed. Tymos had grown old guarding the sorcerer for much of his life, but eventually he hatched a plan to kill Qaerus and set about ridding the tower of every other weapon except the bone handled knife, knowing that if the sorcerer ever needed his own blood for a foul spell he would have no other option. Thus, Qaerus was one of the few sorcerers to ever be slain by a mortal, and not a mortal wielding some mighty blade of the gods or allied with powerful creatures from the heavens. But by an old man with a bone-handled knife.