THE MARK OF THE ONE

Morgan's left ear ached, though not from infection or illness. His ear ached only in the absence of magic. He had cut his way through the last of the wizards in the city, and now his ear ached.

The trull snoring beside him could easily have helped him to forget the dull throb centered around the stud he wore in the cartilage of his left ear, as she had last night, but that would cost him another silver. He was out of silver.

Not that she hadn't been worth the coin, but silver was silver, and the ache in the hard tissue of his ear was deepening his already foul mood. Morgan was enjoying being in a foul mood. He was also looking forward to leaving this thrice-accursed city. Another dalliance with the whore in his bed would only serve to weaken a perfect traveling mood and delay the start of his journey. Neither prospect appealed to him.

Slowly, with deliberate care, he removed himself from the sodden tangle of the straw pallet, gently easing himself from the embrace of his companion. Passion in return for money was nothing new to him, but this whore had been a particularly talented one, and worth the silver he had spent to acquire her services for the night. Skill and talent in one's calling were to be admired. Everyone had a fated place in the world, and aptitude the only variable. To be the best in one's field was the greatest of achievements in his world, and if his experience was any sort of benchmark, this harlot had excelled. Now however, payment had been made, services had been rendered and the contract was fulfilled. Morgan would have been perfectly within his rights to wake her up with a rough shove and expect her to depart his room without a word. The professional that she was, Morgan could count on no less from her, but he left her sleeping in his bed as a complement to her skill. The room was paid up for until midday, and the innkeeper had strict instructions concerning his privacy. She would be left alone if she wished. One day's peace was all the kindness he would offer, but that was still more than most would ever willingly part with for her.

He dressed quickly and silently. A loose fitting pair of buckskin trousers, a plain woolen vest, his riding boots and gloves were the only clothing he possessed. He needed little else. Three feet of steel hung loosely at his left hip, secured to a plain leather belt that also held two knives; one blade for hunting, the other for wizards. The hunting knife steel was almost as well tempered as his sword, the other knife was one of bone. The bone knife had been fashioned from the thighbone of the first person Morgan had ever killed. One edge was serrated wickedly, designed to inflict maximum damage both on entry and exit. Opposing the barbs was a keen edge that had taken Morgan weeks to hone to razor fineness. The bone held it's sharpness better than steel and fashioning that edge had been the most arduous task he had ever undertaken. Laced with magic that knit them together with strength greater than that of any material on earth, the bones of a wizard were the only weapons that could kill another of their kind. The sorceress whose thighbone hung at Morgan's right hip had been loath to give it up, and only his skill and cunning, along with a wizard knife borrowed from his mentor had been able to separate her from it. She had died well, with courage and grace. She had forgiven Morgan her murder with her final breath.

She had also been his mother.

The users of magic rarely sired future wizards, but it did happen often enough. Mostly, their offspring were born without magic and went on to other, more mundane professions. Once in a great while, a wizard or sorceress would bring into the world one who would become a hunter. Mage slayers were rare, and revered.

A child fated to hunt and kill those who practiced the occult arts was considered the most noble of achievements. Such a child would eventually use his or her skills to cull the wheat from the chaff in the fields of sorcery. On the mortal plain, magic was a finite resource, distributed equally between all the practitioners of the arts. The power of a mage was divided and reduced each time a child with that Mark was born. Only the death of a wizard could increase the magnitude of the magic the rest could possess. In his mother's generation, a disproportionately large number of children had been born with the Mark of Sorcery. Morgan's birth had been an auspicious one; the first Mage Slayer born in almost a thirty years. To anyone's knowledge, he was the only one of his kind on the face of the earth, and there were a great number of wizards that needed killing. Practitioners of the occult arts had an annoying tendency to live very long, very productive lives. The wizard he had killed last night had been well over a hundred and sire to close to a dozen children of that Mark.

Morgan's mentor had been a Mage Slayer in his youth. As an older man, he had raised Morgan from an infant, with the help of a large household staff who had cared for the boy as if he were their own son. Crippled almost to the point of immobility in a battle with a sorcerer when he was still a young man, and unable to perform his duties as a Mage Slayer, he had trained Morgan to the art. In the twenty years since his mutilation at the hands of a wizard, the species had flourished at an alarming rate. Despite his debilitating injuries, Morgan's mentor had survived into his dotage and been able to give him almost fifteen years of training. For the young man, it had been a disillusioning fifteen years spent training for something that he had been born to. He had never asked to be a Mage Slayer, but he had been born with the Mark of the Mage Slayer and that was the end of it. No choice was offered, and none was possible. He was a Mage Slayer. His fate had been determined by his birth. Whether or not he wished to be what he was made no difference.

Most of the time, the master had watched while Morgan had honed his fighting skills against other young men hired to instruct him in the finer points of the art of killing. Hours of sword and knife training followed by hours more in hand to hand combat, archery and horsemanship. When each day would draw to a close with the setting sun, the master would drill Morgan relentlessly in the more arcane skills, until recognizing the feel of a spell or charm and how to counter it came as naturally to him as breathing. Sometimes the old man would ramble about his adventures, few though they had been before his final calamity. Morgan had almost hated those times; he had adventures of his own to have, and listening to the wistful recollections of the old man had fired a passion within him that he could scarcely control. Morgan had yearned to be free of his bond of apprenticeship, to roam the world and find his fate. In the time he had spent fidgeting cross legged before the master while he listened for what always seemed the most interminable lengths of time to yet another grand retelling of a story he had heard a thousand times before, he had been taught the basics of the most important skill of all for a Mage Slayer; patience. Morgan had yet to fully appreciate that particular lesson, and in his mind, the full realization of the skill would have to wait for a while; he still had a lot of killing to do.

His only other possessions were a leather bag, a small re-curved bow and a quiver that held a dozen arrows. The bow itself looked fairly normal, but it had an invisible distinction from similar weapons carried by hunters and warriors the world over. The bone that made up its frame was, like the bone of Morgan's knife, bone harvested from a wizard. No one had ever been able to make a bow from a wizard's bones before Morgan had created this one. The bones of a sorcerer resisted all conventional attempts to reshape them into the form required. As Morgan had toiled at honing the blade of his wizard knife, the idea had struck him like a thunderbolt. Animal bones used in the production of conventional bow staves were soaked in water mixed with a little vinegar until they were supple enough to be plied into shape. This technique had been applied, without success, to the bones of mages countless times. It was theorized that the acidic content of the vinegar was too low to impart malleability to the bone, but stronger mixtures had been tried, also without success. The answer was a simple one. Only magic could affect magic.

Morgan's answer to the problem was to soak the bone in blood; wizard blood. The technique worked, but it had been a long and unpleasant task. The blood of a sorcerer normally doesn't congeal as quickly as that of regular creatures, but even mage's blood eventually clots and dries. Morgan had traveled to a place where he knew that he could find practitioners of the art in abundance and there he had begun his project. Three occult artists had eventually added the contents of their veins to the steaming cauldron that held the bones of one of their brethren. None had been willing participants in the experiment, but their lack of consent hadn't mattered in the end. After almost a week of treatment in the cauldron, the bone had indeed been malleable enough to craft it into the curves of a bow, albeit a small one. Morgan's bow was noticeably smaller in size than the average hunter's bow, but it was the only long-range mage killing weapon in the world. The tips of the arrows in his quiver were also fashioned from the bones of a wizard. No mage alive would be expecting to have to protect him or her self from such a weapon. Nothing like it had ever existed before, and every wizard that Morgan had used it against could be positively counted on not to give it's existence away; none were left alive to speak of it. The existence of his magic killing bow was a secret he guarded with his life.

Morgan had lost count of the number of times he had killed. The majority of the people he had killed had been users of magic, but some had been normal folk. He regretted those kills, but they had been bodyguards to his quarry, and in the way. They could choose their fate no more than he could, and were bound by their destiny from birth to be what they were. No one had free will to choose their own calling. Each person could only be expected to fulfill their role as best they could. The Mark of one's birth determined the path of one's life. Morgan bore his Mark with pride, and while wizards revered him for his service, all feared to catch his attention. When he found a wizard, inevitably, he found numerous attendants, consorts, apprentices and bodyguards. Mages always surrounded themselves with such. It was their way to draw the masses to them. A sorcerer appreciated the need for Morgan's kind, but had no desire find themselves faced with the prospect of defending themselves against him. Normal people sought protection from harm of all sorts, both real and imagined, in the power of the wizard and in return they fiercely defended their benefactor. Fear always comes full circle; the protector becomes the protected and the defended the defender. Morgan would not go out of his way to harm those in a wizard's circle of influence, but neither would he let them get in his way. Fate is fate.

As he culled the population of wizards, Morgan knew that those remaining alive would get stronger. It was quite likely that one day Morgan would kill enough of them to allow one to become strong enough to kill him. The prospect was a daunting one about which he had asked his master many times. To his mind, it didn't make sense. By doing what he was supposed to do, that is killing wizards, he was quite likely placing enough power in the hands of one of them to end his own life. The Mage Slayer was not particularly happy when he had reasoned this out for himself as his master had hoped he would. Morgan's questions about this had produced only a sad smile and a shrug from his mentor. Fate is fate.

With a sad smile and a shrug of his own, Morgan quietly closed the door, leaving his former companion to her slumber. Fate might well be fate, but that didn't mean he always had to like it. He wished that he could do something to help people like her, trapped as they were in lives that they had little or no control over. He would have been surprised to learn that the whore in his bed pitied him his fate as well.

As he descended the stairs to the inn's common room, Morgan tried to shake all thoughts of fate and destiny from his head. Nothing could be done to change who he was and what he must do, and dwelling on the impossible would not make it any better. In this world of the Mark, life was not what could be made of it, but rather what it made of an individual. Being born without the Mark of one's destiny had become so rare that no one remembered the last time it had occurred. Ancient stories sung by bards in the common rooms of inns like this one spoke of such people, and their almost inevitably tragic fate. Morgan had heard many such tales in his travels, yet he found their similarity somehow fraudulent. Surely, he reasoned, not every person born without the Mark had met a violent or meaningless death. The idea of being born without the Mark frightened most people near unto death, their fears reinforced by balladeers and story tellers of every stripe, but Morgan was strangely drawn to the idea. To live life without predestined direction seemed to him the most desirable fate of all.

Eight steps from the bottom the board beneath his feet creaked loudly, causing the innkeeper to look up from behind the rough-hewn plank that served as the bar. Morgan had surmised, correctly, that the man had little interest in fixing the noisy step, as it served to alert him to the comings and goings of his clientele. The trick was an old and well used one that the Mage Slayer had encountered and avoided when necessary many times in the past. The tavern master was a florid, well-fed example of his kind, so similar to others that Morgan had met over his short lifetime, that he had managed to name the man wrongly three times in the first week of his stay. The innkeeper never seemed to take offence however, as he had been paid well in advance to take care of Peter's every need. The small insult of being called by someone else's name didn't ring nearly as loud in his ears as did the liquid sound of silver pouring into his purse.

Wiping his fat fingers individually on his stained apron, the corpulent innkeeper trundled his form down the length of the bar until he stood directly opposite Morgan as he reached the bottom of the stairs. Lit with a truly masterful imitation of a sincere smile, his face radiated an almost palpable warmth that despite himself, Morgan could not help but admire. This man was one who was truly content in his place in the world. In the weeks he had lodged here, he had noted quite a few details about his host. Married with two strapping sons, one a blacksmith and the other a carpenter, Master Strom was the center of a profitable little empire. His obviously long suffering wife turned a blind eye whenever one of the tavern girls took Master Strom by the hand into the tiny office behind the kitchen, plying him relentlessly with their varied charms, hoping for an opportunity to advance in salary or stature under his generous employ. She didn't turn a blind eye when it came time to tally up the day's profits however. As if by magic, Mrs. Strom seemed to know to the copper how much each girl had accumulated in tips, and seemed to take no small measure of satisfaction in forcing them to turn over the exact share due to the establishment. She did the same to the girls who worked their trade in the upper rooms as well, but Morgan could not for the life of him figure out how she knew exactly what each girl had made in an evening, but know she did. Morgan wasn't altogether sure if he really wanted to know how she knew. Between the money brought in by the tavern, the commissions paid by the tavern girls and prostitutes, and the money his son's made working from their adjoining shops, Master Strom had wealth beyond the dreams of most folk, and a happy and apparently harmonious home and family on top of that. Truly, he had made the best of his fate. Morgan wondered if he would ever be able to match this man's success. In his fated profession, the prospect was an unlikely one.

The beaming face of his host seemed to lose just a hint of it's warmth when Master Strom noticed that Morgan was carrying all of his worldly possessions with him this morning. The light of avarice in his eyes dimmed noticeably, but he was still smiling gamely as he greeted his departing guest.

"Master Morgan, a good morning to ye sir! Will ye be taking some of our fine roast lamb to break your fast this morning?" Master Strom avoided the subject of Morgan's departure, despite knowing that his tab was only paid until that evening. In the tavern business, he had learned that appearances could be deceiving, and just because a client looked to be leaving didn't always mean that they were. To suggest the idea could only serve to put an idea in a man's head where it may not have already been. Better to wait until the client opened the subject than to appear eager to see them leave.

A shake of Morgan's head was all the response he got, but never one to be denied an extra opportunity to fill his coffers, he plowed on, suggesting everything on his menu that he could call to mind as quickly as he could. Each offer was met with the same negative response, but he somehow managed to maneuver himself between his guest and the door in the meantime. As the two men neared the door, Master Strom could see that the time had come to bring the matter to a head, or he might not get another copper out of this lucrative client. Master Strom prided himself on his ability to wring every coin possible from every person who crossed his threshold, and this young man wouldn't get away that easily. "Master Morgan, ye've graced my humble inn for near to a month, and ye have yet to break bread or even share a drink with me. Have I offended ye in some way? Please, sir, sit and share a pint with an old man. Ye look to be setting out for a journey, and I'd be remiss to my trade if I let ye leave without food or drink."

With a resigned sigh, knowing he had been bested by a true master, Morgan allowed Master Strom lead him to his preferred table in the back corner of the common room. The spot allowed for an almost unimpeded view of the rest of the common room, and a perfect view of both exits. It was a table favoured by most of Master Strom's customers, but since Morgan's arrival, it had been reserved exclusively for his use. As they sat, Morgan looked across the table at his host and smiled his most pleasant smile.

"Thank you for your hospitality Master Strom, but I must confess to you sir that I am out of silver this morning. The uh...lady you recommended took the last of it last night."

Without missing a beat, Master Strom turned to his wife who was busy sweeping out the last of the detritus from the previous night's revelry onto the street. "Mary dear? Would you be good enough to bring me thirty three silver and six copper?" With a beatific smile of his own, Master Strom turned back to his guest. "For you, Master Morgan, it is never any trouble to change a gold coin."

It certainly isn't, thought Morgan, as you have short changed me two coppers and charged me for both my pint of ale and your own. Mary Strom brought the silver and copper coins along with two under filled mugs of ale, but her smile and the unnecessarily long time she bent over the table to wipe it clean before setting the mugs down on it wiped all thoughts of protest from Mogan's mind. The tavern keeper's wife had a prodigious and well formed cleavage, which she displayed quite shamelessly. How she managed to keep herself from spilling out of her marvelously low cut dresses was another mystery about the woman that Morgan knew he would never know the answer to. Without a word, he drew a gold coin from his pouch and handed it to the woman. The coin disappeared between her breasts as she walked away, her hips swaying invitingly.

Morgan had his doubts about the sincerity of the invitation, but then nothing in this or any other inn was truly sincere. Taverns and inns were often little more than a veneer of civility painted lightly over lust wrapped in greed. The analogy certainly held true here in the Stone Unicorn. Even the name was a thinly veiled allusion to wanton behavior. Certainly the look painted on the face of the young, barely covered maiden straddling the one horned horse on the sign outside the door left little doubt of the nature of the establishment or the possibilities it held. For all that, it was clean and not overly rowdy, so Morgan had little to complain about over his stay. Even with Master Strom's tendency to overcharge his guests, the price had been far less than one would pay for similar accommodations in the larger cities of the land, so Peter hadn't haggled long over the price. Besides, by right, any gold that a mage had at hand when Peter killed him was Peter's to use as he saw fit. Usually he divided the spoils evenly among the mage’s surviving household and took a small amount for himself, but he knew that in the past that hadn't always been the case. His master for example had kept all of his few victim's wealth, and with careful investment over the years, he had managed to become an extremely wealthy man. Morgan felt less inclined to material wealth than his former mentor, believing that worldly goods would only slow him in his purpose. He kept only what he needed. When he felt it was time to retire, he would simply kill his last wizard and take all that he had. Morgan hoped one day to find out who the richest wizard in the world was, so he could kill him last. So far most of the sorcerers he had met had been relatively wealthy, but none so wealthy as to tempt Morgan into retirement. Morgan was young, and he still had a lot of wizards to kill.

When Master Strom spoke again, Morgan had to shake his gaze away from Mary Strom's ample and attractive hips. It wasn't easy, but the fact that he was speaking with her husband gave him the necessary incentive. He tried to listen carefully to what the tavern keeper was saying. "So my young friend, where would ye be off to? Ye've girded on your weapons, are ye off to kill a wizard?"

"No, Master Strom," he answered in a voice higher than one would expect to come from his frame. "I'll be quitting your fine establishment today, my work here is finished." After Morgan had killed one of the town's sorcerers, his purpose had become common knowledge and the subject of intense gossip in the tavern. Many people had asked him about his work, but none had received more than a glare from him. Mage slaying was not something one talked about with common folk.

"I'm sorry to hear that Master Morgan. Ye know that your room is paid up until this evening. Will ye not stay a while longer...perhaps a meal? I'd be honoured to serve ye myself, seeing how this would be your last meal under my roof."

"Master Strom, thank you, but no. I must be on my way. Please see to it that the lady in my room is not disturbed until she chooses to be."

"Of course, Master Morgan. Will ye be stopping at the Temple before ye leave? If ye preferred, I could have one of my boys bring your horse to ye there so ye could enjoy the walk in the morning air." It was illegal in most towns to ride a horse within the town proper, to avoid accidents between horse and man or property. Larger cities had the same rules, but wide thoroughfares in such places meant that as long as one was cautious and caused no problems, the rule was rarely enforced. It was an inconvenient but necessary rule in smaller towns like this one, where the streets were crammed so full of vendors that the already narrow passages were all but impassable to a mounted man. A horse must be walked beside its owner while inside the town limits, to be mounted only once one reached the countryside. The rule saved as many horses as it did people and property.

"That would be most kind Master Strom." Morgan shook his head in wonder as he left the Stone Unicorn. By convincing him to let his horse be brought to him, Master Strom had separated the Mage Slayer from yet another few coppers in the form of the tip he would be obligated to pay whoever brought him his horse. No doubt Mrs. Strom would know exactly how much he paid the boy and demand the Strom's fair share the second he returned. One couldn't help but admire their efficiency.

Morgan found his way to the local temple without any difficulty. It was easily the largest structure in town, with a huge spire thrusting up from it's roof into the morning air, proudly announcing it's presence to all who had eyes to see. All Temples of the Mark were built along the same lines, if not to the same scale. In places that could afford such luxury, a Temple of the Mark ten times the size of the one before him were almost commonplace. After his stay at the Stone Unicorn, and passing the tavern's sign many times in the past few weeks, Morgan noted the similarity of the temple's design to a unicorn's skull. The back of the temple was significantly higher than the front, and the spire grew from the rear third of the curved roof. The entire building gradually opened from a narrow alcove into a wider and more open room towards the rear. Odd that he had never noticed the similarity before. Over the years, he had seen numerous depictions of unicorns, and the Temple of the Mark was to be seen everywhere, in every hamlet, town or city, in varying sizes to be sure, but always there. He had never noticed the similarity until now. How odd.

The construction of this Temple was of simple wood and limestone, but Morgan had seen examples of Temple construction that included granite, marble and even one that was entirely plated in silver. Rumour had it that the Prime Temple was constructed entirely of gold and other precious metals with stained glass windows encrusted with gemstones. He doubted that such a place existed, but it was an astoundingly persistent rumour in almost every place he had been to. Morgan traveled more than most folk, and had come to realize that what was obvious truth to people in one place could easily be silly superstition to those living elsewhere. In a very short time, he had learned to speak little and listen carefully to those around him. He found himself in much less trouble that way. This particular idea, however, varied little from place to place. It was something that Morgan would dearly love to see with his own eyes. Assuming that it truly existed.

The Temple didn't seem too busy today, and he was thankful for that. He wanted to be on his way quickly, and a long wait in the temple did not appeal to him. He entered the central doors and found himself alone in the vestibule but for the ever present entrance attendant. The young Temple acolyte held out his hands, and Morgan placed his sword, bow, arrows and knives in them. This place was the only one in which he felt safe without his weapons, as even the wizards he hunted wouldn't dare attack him here. The Temple of the Mark was the holiest of places. All power, all fate and all life was said to flow from the Prime Temple to the various satellite Temples. This belief was the absolute and undeniable foundation of society, and the Temples the physical embodiment of that belief. To defile a Temple in any way was to incur the wrath of every person alive.

After depositing his weapons with the acolyte in the alcove, Morgan followed the Path of the Righteous, a hallway branching off to the right of the alcove that traced the outer contours of the Temple, curved around at the rear wall and entered the main hall from the opposite end of the building. By constructing the Temples in this manner, whoever had designed them gave those entering the main hall the impression of almost infinite space before them. Since the building was larger and higher at the rear, when entered from that direction, the foreshortening effect of the smaller and lower end created the illusion that the main hall was much larger and longer than it actually was. When seen form the worshippers point of view, the main hall seemed to extend into infinity, a gradual elevation in the floor as it extended to the front of the Temple giving the impression of seeing the walls of the structure vanish in the distance. Very few people realized that the inside of a Temple measured exactly the same as it did on the outside. Most just assumed that the apparently infinite dimensions were the work of the One and Its Elements, and left well enough alone. To question the One wasn't something that most thought to do.

The main hall of the Temple held a dozen or so worshippers, all kneeling quietly in the open space. Above them, the vaulted ceiling was decorated with hundreds of representations of the Mark. Every type of Mark was depicted including the Mark of Sorcery and the Mark of the Mage Slayer; in fact they were shown intertwined directly. Tendrils of gold, symbolic of the flow of life touched every Mark to every other Mark, some connected directly, some more distantly, but all Mark's interconnected to each other in one way or another, symbolizing the dependence of every member of society on every other member. The flow of life, depicted in gild above his head had a calming effect on his soul, as always, while adding to the impression of the infinite space within the Temple by drawing the conscious mind's attention to the intricate designs and away from any minute examination of the surroundings and their dimensions. Morgan was aware that the appearance of immeasurable space within the Temple was a deception, and he had a reasonable idea of why this was so, after all, he had been trained to fight people who used illusion as a weapon, but he chose to allow this particular illusion to deceive his mind, so that he might enjoy the experience of the Temple as it was meant to be enjoyed; in the presence of the infinite. Whenever he visited a Temple, he spent most of his time gazing at the mural on the ceiling, rather than bowing his head in prayer to the One Who Placed the Mark. The mural on the ceiling was also depicted on the floor, beneath dozens of coats of wax, but to see the entirety above rather than a small portion of it below was much more appealing and satisfying.

Taking a place near to the entrance of the hall, Morgan knelt on the highly polished floor, turning himself slightly so that he could keep an eye on the door. He might feel safe in a Temple, but the habits of a lifetime were impossible to break, and Morgan felt that no disrespect was intended, therefore, no offence would be given to the One. Being cautious was as much a part of his fate as killing wizards; the One would understand.

The traditional chant came easily to his lips. Morgan repeated it quietly to himself thrice; once for himself, once for those whose lives he touched and once for the One.

"The Mark is life, life is the Mark. The Mark is fate, fate is the Mark. All that is, all that was, all that shall be is the Mark. Thank the One Who Placed the Mark. Wisdom, mercy and benevolence flow from the Mark. Fate is the Mark, the Mark is fate. Life is the Mark, the Mark is life."

As he chanted the third repetition, he felt eyes on him. The feeling broke his concentration, and the final words of the third chant slipped from his lips unconsciously as he looked around sharply. Within the Temple, privacy was a courtesy given to all, and to look into the eyes of another deliberately considered extremely rude. Only the acolytes of the One could look into someone's eyes with impunity within the sanctuary of the Temple. When Morgan looked up, his eyes met those of a girl who hadn't seen more than thirteen winters. Her acolyte’s robes hid the immaturity of her body, but her face told the tale plainly. She motioned Morgan to come to her, and despite her youth, the gesture held the confidence of someone accustomed to being obeyed.

Almost of their own volition, his legs raised him smoothly from the floor and propelled him towards the foreshortened end of the Temple where she stood waiting for him. When he was close enough to follow, she headed through a door on the left hand wall of the Temple. Morgan followed without a word, and she never looked back to check on his progress. She was an acolyte. He would follow.