The Elements of Sorcery by Christopher Kellen

widely derided as you think, sorcerer. There are rumors, whispers about you, some of them from very dark places. Someone had to determine if you were a threat."
    Whispers, about me? That was a chilling thought. "And… am I?"
    "That is the question," the Arbiter said, his eyes intent once more on me. "You have invoked a deadly spell, written by a dangerous black sorcerer. You have absorbed more power into you than any man truly ever should… which makes you dangerous, as well. Yet when I gave you the option, you chose to stand against the darkness, rather than run back to your lab and hide away. You are a difficult case, Edar Moncrief."
    "That was a test?" I asked. "You were testing me?"
    "All men must be tested; it is the fires of danger and the choices we make which forge the soul from cheap ore into shining steel," the Arbiter said, his eyes glittering.
    There was no reason to ask what he would have done if I had failed that test. A lump formed in my throat as I considered the grisly demise that my temporary bout of insanity – or heroism, call it what you will – had narrowly avoided.
    "So what do you intend to do with me?" I asked, managing to swallow the lump.
    "You have seen more than most men ever see, sorcerer," he said, his voice sinking to a low growl. "By all rights you should have died invoking that incantation, and yet you stand before me. If the vampires' power didn't kill you, Daen's certainly should have, and yet here you are ."
    Silence – uncomfortable, painful silence filled the lab, until I thought I would scream at the agony of it.
    At last, he broke it. "The Arbiters do not take chances."
    My heart sank.
    That was it; I was going to die.
    He pushed himself off my lab table with his hands and stalked toward me. I closed my eyes, waiting for the end.
    "We do not take chances, and yet somehow… I like you, sorcerer," Tal said, though there was no trace of warmth in the statement. My eyes sprang open in amazement. That sentiment scared me more than anything else he'd said since we met.
    "I never saw you here," he continued. "But know this, Edar Moncrief: if I ever see you again – I'll kill you."
    The arctic chill of the Arbiter's mass brushed past me, colliding with my shoulder. I lifted a hand and shoved him off me, though my meager strength made little difference against his bulk. My fingers fluttered as I pulled that hand back to me, and then something caught at the back of my throat. A closed fist, the same hand I used to push him away, flew to my mouth and covered a wracking cough that doubled me over.
    His words lingered in the air as I expelled the breath from my lungs in a vicious fit of hacking and wheezing.
    Slowly, painfully, I recovered, straightening myself at last. I opened my closed hand.
    In the center of my palm lay the tiny, fragile, crystalline heartblade – the one he'd hidden away in that tunic pocket.
    Simple sleight-of-hand. The things you learn to avoid starvation.
    The Arbiter had the book… but I had the incantation. The words seemed to be indelibly written on my brain. There was no possibility that I would ever forget them, now. Together with the heartblade, I held in my hand and my brain the first chance in centuries to unravel the truth behind the secretive Arbiters.
    A hysterical part of my brain babbled that I should tell the Arbiter, remind him that even though he might be ready to burn that book and remove its writings from the world forever, that they still lived on in my brain. After all, the "Sorcerer's Code" meant I could never tell a lie… right?
    I clamped my mouth shut, to prevent either the howling laughter of a madman or a desperate confession from escaping. At last, his presence disappeared from my lab, and my life, forever.
    There was always the chance that he'd discover what was missing, and come riding back for my head, but I was tired of this two-bit town anyway. It was time to move on. As the dawn rose, I would vanish like a shadow.
    In the silence