Witchmarked (World's First Wizard Book 1) by Aaron Schneider (my reading book .txt) 📕

were on a broad platform under a sharply pitched roof with rows of barbed chains stretched between stony pillars that formed the front of the establishment. Ashen-skinned, bent, and stout rows of them stood in a line with heads drooping so their lank, colorless hair hung over their thick features. A common ghul stood behind them with a whip composed of a spine and red sinew coiled around one hand, while in front of them, one of the smaller simian ghuls cavorted and gestured just inside the chains to other ghuls and stranger creatures who stood pointing and inspecting.

Milo stopped dead in his tracks and called to their escorts, one finger stabbing at the offending shop.

“What is happening there?”

An anger he could not quite put into words coated the back of his throat and burned all the way down his gullet.

Ambrose gave him a confused look but slid to his side in silent support as the ghuls turned and shuffled back to address him.

“We are late,” Imrah informed him curtly. “If you wish to peruse the shops, you will have time once you have your audience with—”

“I don’t want to shop, I want to get answers,” Milo snarled. “Is that a slave market?”

Milo had of course heard of such things, degenerate places in savage lands where people were traded like livestock. To see something that resembled such barbarism, only with the purchasers being fanged and gloam-eyed horrors like the ghuls made something rebel inside of him. He couldn’t say why this was the bridge too far, not with all the horrible and alien sights they’d seen already, but he found his feet planted in the middle of the broad street, and he would not be moved.

Imrah looked at where Milo was pointing, then glanced at Fazihr, who nodded in a most vulture-like fashion as he stepped forward.

“It is no slave market,” Fazihr said, uncurling his claws. “Though what it is will not in truth make you any happier. If it helps, I will tell you that those creatures, the goyisch, though they resemble your kind, are little more than animals.”

Milo felt a tremor inside him, somehow certain of the answer before he asked it.

“If it isn’t a slave market,” he said, tasting bile at the back of his throat, “what is it?”

Fazihr looked at Imrah, who nodded.

“It is a meat market,” he said, hands splayed apologetically. “Something like the butcher shops you humans frequent.”

Milo felt the lead weight in his stomach plummet toward the ground. He wasn’t sure if he was about to be sick, storm the abominable place, or attack Fazihr. For a long heartbeat, he stood rooted to the spot as the triptych of choices spun in his head.

You wanted more, his own voice whispered in his head. No one ever said you’d like it.

“Magus. Milo,” Ambrose whispered at his shoulder. “It sours my stomach too, but let’s not do anything rash. We just got here, and we both still have a lot to learn, you even more than me. Before we start overturning tables, let’s make sure we know which temple we’re in.”

The full effect of the biblical analogy was wasted on the religiously illiterate Milo, but the big man’s calm voice broke the back of his anger. It slunk into a dark corner of his heart to fester, but Milo felt its stranglehold loosen.

“This isn’t how I expected things to turn out,” he confessed to his bodyguard, not caring that Fazihr could hear. “This is not the kind of place I thought I would…”

Ambrose rested one strong paw on Milo’s shoulder and gave an affectionate if painful squeeze.

“I know,” he said. “Things rarely turn out the way we hope. But you have one advantage most people don’t.”

Milo let out a sigh and rolled his eyes.

“I’m a witch,” he muttered as they followed Fazihr, who had turned without comment to walk with Imrah again.

“Not much of one yet,” Ambrose chuckled. “Besides, that’s not what I was talking about.”

“Do tell,” Milo remarked dryly, exercising all his will not to look back at the downcast creatures, the goyisch, one last time.

“At least you were told that you’d be learning from monsters,” the big man said with a sweep of his arm at Ifreedahm. “Most folks don’t find out how awful their mentors are until it's far too late for it to matter.”

Milo’s shoulders sagged as he pulled out a desperately needed cigarette and the requisite match. The honest flame of the lucifer seemed a pale, puny thing before the unnatural light that bathed the city.

“Sometimes, Simon,” he said, taking a deep drag as he shook out the match, “it feels like my whole life is a study in too little, too late.”

It was Ambrose’s turn to roll his eyes.

“Young people,” he sputtered, shaking his head. “Always so dramatic.”

9

An Audience

Milo had a sneaking suspicion that their travel through the rest of Ifreedahm had been modified to make certain the two humans didn’t see anything that might spark more delays.

With Imrah leading the way, they soon left the wide thoroughfares and slid among the alleys and side streets until they came to a broad stair that descended to a lower level of the city.

“It will be quicker, and there will be fewer chances for interruptions,” Fazihr explained as Milo and Ambrose paused at the top of the stairs. “Truly, we should have traveled this way upon first entering the city, but I would have thought you’d appreciate being spared more darkness. I understand it is uncomfortable for your kind.”

The steps descended into shadow, and Milo had to admit that as bizarre and awful as the city was, he didn’t relish more tunnels with their smothering darkness.

Still, getting to the Bashlek’s court quickly was just fine with him. A growing desire to learn what he had to, rather than all he could, had been growing in Milo, and the quicker he got things started, the sooner he could leave.

“Let’s just get this over with.” He grunted as he shifted the lamp