A Forthcoming Wizard Read online

  “Tildi!” A spark of scarlet flame sprang up right in front of her nose. Tildi flinched, and recalled where she was and what she was meant to be doing.

  “I am sorry, master,” she said.

  “Please pay attention,” Serafina said. “I want this done before we are out of the shadow of the castle.” She closed her thumb and forefinger, and the flame winked out. She held out her staff. Tildi had no wand, so she brought out her small dagger. “We must draw the runes. You know the enchantment. We face south, so we will begin with the ward for that direction. You will need every bit of concentration of which you are capable. I am too tired to create this spell without you, but I fear every moment we are not protected.” She raised her arm.

  Tildi let out a gasp. Suddenly a dagger was at the young woman’s throat. Loisan had his arm around Serafina’s shoulders, pulling her into his chest. It was his knife, and his hot amber eyes burned like coals.

  “What do you think you are doing?” he asked.

  “I am protecting us all,” Serafina said. Her voice was constricted to a whisper. She nodded toward Inbecca, then winced as the sharp blade pressed into her neck. “She knows. She heard. The threat is not over.”

  “The words of the mad court magician?” Loisan said. “I have heard Lar Inbecca’s recounting of what went on. I believe none of it. He was spinning a tale, trying to save his life. You will weave no enchantments. They serve no purpose in your journey.”

  “It will serve no purposes at all if the thraiks come for us,” Serafina whispered indignantly. By that time, the entire file had come to a halt. Rin unlimbered the whip she carried in her saddlebags. She cracked it.

  “Let her go!”

  At the sharp sound and the cry, everyone turned to look.

  “Lar Loisan, what is this?” the abbess demanded.

  “She was attempting a spell,” Loisan said, all traces of his courtly manner gone.

  “To what purpose?” Sharhava demanded.

  Serafina flicked her hand and Loisan lost his grip on her. He reached for her, but his hands never came within a span. She straightened, glaring at the knight as if daring him to touch her again. “To protect us! You continue to believe that there are no other powers interested in the Great Book, now that it is free and above the ground. You are wrong. Such blatant ignorance will cost lives.”

  “I care not if it costs all our lives, and yours, too!” Sharhava snapped, but she looked thoughtful. “If I permit you to draw the runes, will you swear by your heart’s blood not to try and make contact with others who might steal the book away from us?”

  Serafina looked scornful.

  “I will make no promises under duress,” she grated out, but with irreproachable dignity. “What value could you put by such an oath? Olen is already looking for us. He may find us without any effort on my part.”

  “It’s more important that the thraiks will be looking for us,” Tildi put in. “They are attracted to anything that has had contact with the book, even for a moment. It had a protection spell over it before, but it’s broken now that Nemeth is dead.”

  The abbess was startled into looking down at the bandages around her right hand. She eyed Serafina.

  “Very well, but my knights will watch you to make certain that wards are all you draw. We have power of our own. Lar Loisan!”

  Loisan held out his dagger and whispered to it. To Tildi’s surprise, a small rune in blue appeared upon it, almost concealing the golden rune of its existence. The new sign was the same blue as their tunics.

  “You seem surprised,” Sharhava said with a tiny smile quirking her lips. “We have not wasted all these centuries in contemplation alone. I look forward to supplementing our power with that of the Great Book. We shall make use of our time while we accompany you.”

  “This no longer sounds like a simple escort detail,” Magpie said. “Do you forswear what you promised?”

  “Of course not!” Sharhava said, looking insulted. “You cannot blame us for wanting to make the greatest use of this opportunity.”

  “But preventing Serafina from contacting other wizards—why?”

  “You yourself pointed out that we have other enemies pursuing the Great Book. To create an enchantment to draw attention to our location for the benefit of Master Olen also pinpoints us to any other master wizard who wishes to obtain the marvel of the ages for himself! A spell is not the same as dispatching a page with a parchment to be placed directly in the palm of its recipient. We are not in a position of strength here, Eremilandur. Give me credit for that. I wish to keep the Great Book as secure as I possibly can. To do less would be to fail in my duty.”

  She looked sincere, but Magpie still looked doubtful.

  Serafina looked uneasy. Tildi thought she could guess what the wizardess was thinking. How broad was the knights’ magical knowledge? Could they distinguish between a ward and a defense spell, or were they bluffing in hope that the show of force would keep them in line?

  “Very well,” Serafina said. “We will continue, on condition that I can set up magical protection for us now.”

  “You will promise not to attempt a message spell until I give you the word that it is safe? I do this only for all of our sakes,” Sharhava pressed.

  The young wizardess nodded. Tildi felt even more energy slipping from her. “I will.”

  “Then you may proceed.” The abbess nodded to Loisan, who pulled his horse away from them. Serafina neatened her cloak and held out her staff once more.

  “Together, then, Tildi, and remember—control!”

  Tildi nodded and held out the knife.

  “Crotegh mai ni lio!”

  Silver lines spread out from the tip of the wand and the point of the dagger and spread upon the sky to the south of them. To Tildi’s surprise, even though she was trying to use as little power as possible, her lines outspread Serafina’s, filling the quadrant of the sky with broad protective sigils. Serafina gave Tildi a nod, and they faced to the west, still writing as though they wielded giant pens. Tildi concentrated on making the correct runes for each direction. She was determined not to make a single mistake. The voices speaking to her from the Great Book were encouraging. Another whisper joined the low chorus: a high, singing note like the distant hum of bees. She had heard that sound before, but never so loudly: it was the noise made by the wards themselves. The power that flowed through her was as strong as a winter gale.

  The knights watched with interest and not a little suspicion as Tildi and Serafina commanded the runes to broaden and spread out until each rune touched its neighbors, arched high to form a four-sided dome that closed over their heads. The lines thinned out to a mere glimmer, then vanished from sight.

  “We should be invisible to malign forces,” Serafina said. “And to all others who use remote sight.”

  The abbess turned to her lieutenant. “Lar Loisan?”

  The rough man nodded and showed the blue rune. “No change. They speak true about what they did.”

  “Good. There will be no more magic from this moment forward, unless I give leave. Is that understood?”

  Serafina hesitated, then nodded. Tildi followed suit. The knight drew away from them and sheathed his dagger. The abbess once again gave the word to ride.

  “At last I feel protected,” Serafina said. She gave Tildi and Rin a half smile.

  Chapter Two

  ildi, the castle was the home of my many-times ancestors,” Magpie said as the party rode down the overgrown, winding path that led south from the foot of the castle. “It has been abandoned for centuries. In fact, it was in ruins all of my life. Nemeth must have rebuilt it. I only wish that he had not chosen to use the stairs as warriors. I would like to have seen it in all the glory of its ancient majesty. My brothers and I used to play here when I was a boy. It was a few days’ ride from our home, but sometimes we came up here to hunt. Plump orrens used to flock up here. Good eating. Have you ever tried any? They’re a bird about this big, and just as big around.”
He held his hands about a foot apart. “My brother Ganidur always wondered how it was they could fly when they were so fat. I always thought it was because they were so foolish that they didn’t know it was impossible.”

  Tildi laughed. She even saw a little smile dimple the cheek of the girl to Magpie’s left.

  “Quiet in the ranks!” one of the knights growled. The smile fled from Inbecca’s face.

  “I am not a member of your ranks,” Magpie said amiably, regarding the knight with a smile. “I always find that a story or two makes a long journey more pleasant, don’t you?” He looked as though he dared the other to force him to be quiet.

  Tildi dragged herself out of the pleasant haze that the book provided to cushion her from the discomfort of the world. “Why did your people abandon it?”

  “We began to trade more with our neighbors. It made sense to be closer to them. And work had begun upon the new temple.” He looked guilty, and Lar Inbecca gave him a very perturbed look. If one could ascribe ordinary people’s emotions upon human royalty, Tildi would have to say there was a story there, and one that was still stinging, by the look of it. She did not dare ask, though her curiosity was piqued. It felt as if she was listening to an interesting romantic tale told by a storyteller or reading in a book. The Great Book in her lap must contain many such stories.

  As if in answer, the scroll wound a few turnings, from one spindle to the other. The book appeared to have power of its own. Tildi rolled it open a trifle, to behold the runes thereon. Man; woman; horses; vows, broken and kept; all intertwined together. There was no doubt, by the smaller markings that further described that man and that woman, that she was seeing the runes for Magpie and Lar Inbecca. Tildi blushed. The book could effortlessly reveal the innermost secrets of anyone’s heart. As its keeper, Tildi would be privy to them. It was a good thing she was accustomed to keeping her own counsel!

  Even Magpie fell silent as they reached the end of the stone road that led down the mountain from the castle and came to a steep cliff. Tildi had seen only a corner of the devastation caused by Nemeth’s misuse of the book, but now she could see nothing before her but the scar in the earth’s face. A giant hand had scooped up a living valley and taken it away, leaving layers of clay and rock exposed hundreds of yards below them. An irregular oval pool of murky water quivered at the bottom.

  “So that’s the depth a country goes to, eh?” Lakanta asked. “We should be thankful that the description of Orontae doesn’t go all the way to the center of the world.”

  Her voice seemed to catch on an errant breeze that bounced it all over the hollowed-out landscape, dying away in faint echoes.

  Serafina looked stricken, as did Rin. The knights showed no emotion as they guided the party to the east.

  “How did he do this?” Loisan asked.

  “With a word,” Serafina replied. “A single word.”

  “That is the kind of power we want,” Sharhava said eagerly. “Wizard, you will teach us!”

  “To commit this terrible destruction?” Rin asked. “You humans!”

  “No,” the abbess said scornfully. “To rebuild. To make the world the way it must be. We will study the book and its effects, to see the most efficient way to restore the changes that the Shining Ones performed upon it. Thereafter we will seek out the abominations and restore them, when possible. To destroy,” she said with a cold backward glance at the centaur, “when restoration is not within reason. However, we shall return this place to its natural state of beauty. I intend that it shall be done with a single word.”

  Tildi was struck dumb by the stunning arrogance of the woman and her company. Why, she would have to go all the way back to the visitor from the Eveningside Quarter who brought her own jam along to visit her son, declaring that no fruit in the Morningside could possibly be edible in comparison. After a time, the ladies of the town had stopped trying to please her. If she was the potential mother-in-law, small wonder her hapless son had trouble finding someone to marry. Her brothers had taken Tildi’s name off the list of possibles as soon as they met the mother. Tildi’s eldest brother Gosto had suggested poor Dray marry a hinny, who was the only female in town stubborn enough to stand up to her.

  Tildi sighed at the memory. How she missed her brothers. She had scarcely thought of them in weeks. Her life would have been so very different if the thraiks had not carried them off. Her brother Teldo would most likely have been here in her place, at Serafina’s side, and she would be at home cooking soup and baking bread and, she admitted wryly, wondering what it was like out in the big world. Well, now she knew. It was both frightening and amazing. Humans had turned out to be kinder and more complicated than she had dreamed. She had met elves and werewolves, bakers, brewers and housekeepers, and at bottom they were just like smallfolk.

  She vowed that she would not go along with Sharhava’s plans. True, they could manage the book without her. They could have prodded the scroll onto a blanket, and carried it between a pair of horses. They could, with care, manipulate the roll of parchment with long sticks to avoid touching it, and be able to see the beautiful runes within. But could they harness its power? Tildi hoped not.

  The knights rode mostly in silence through the ruin of the valley. The pairs of riders murmured softly to each other. The loudest noise for miles, apart from the jingle of harness, was Lakanta talking loudly to herself. The trader woman was having trouble with her saddle and bridle.

  “Teach me, it will, to let another living soul prepare my horse for me! They don’t have a single idea where anything goes, and did they ask me? Not a chance! What do you think of that, Melune? Are there any lumps under your blanket? Did they put a stone there so you’ll be rubbed raw? Terrible way they treat decent mounts, isn’t it?” The little merchant went on talking to herself.

  Though the sky was clear, Tildi had the feeling that a storm was brewing around her. The whispers coming from the book increased in intensity, like the sound of leaves stirring in the breeze. Yet the wind was still.

  She turned the spindles, looking through the section on Orontae for a rune that described the part of the land through which they were riding. Even if what had been here before was gone, torn out and burned by Nemeth, what did exist now ought to be there. Her rudimentary knowledge of the ancient language, bolstered by weeks of drilling by Olen, gave her more insight into the words and compound phrases that the ornate glyphs indicated, yet she had not yet noticed one that meant ‘deep, lifeless ravine.’ The absence of the rune that ought to have been there might have had the same meaning.

  This is the path I took to find you,” Magpie explained, pointing to the southwest. “I guess that they followed me.”

  “Only one set of hoofprints heading northward,” one of the young knights, Driel, said. “All others were facing south.”

  “I passed thousands of people fleeing from this place,” the young man said sadly, unable to keep his eyes off the valley to their right. “My people.”

  He looked as if he could use a friendly pat for comfort, Tildi thought. Lar Inbecca seemed as though she ought to be the one to dispense it, but after the scolding from Sharhava, she never looked his way.

  “It is not your fault,” Rin said. “The madman made his own fate. In our land, he would have been driven away from the herd.”

  “That, I fear, is the reason why he became driven to do the unthinkable,” Magpie said, his eyes unable to tear themselves away from the ruin of the valley. “My father drove him from court. He blamed him for our failures in the war with Rabantae. My father . . .” he added with difficulty, “is a man of extremes.”

  “And he is really a king?” Lakanta said with relish. “My goodness, I had no idea we were keeping such exalted company.”

  “Don’t fear, I won’t expect a bow every time you speak to me,” Magpie said, planting a hand on his chest grandly. “In truth, my role as a troubadour has given me far greater pleasure and ease than I ever had as a prince.”

  “What is your famil
y like?”

  “My brother Ganidur is my dearest friend in the world. He’s twice my size, and has always knocked me down when he thought my ideas were too foolish.”

  “He’s not the heir, is he?” Lakanta asked. “Seems as though I heard a different name.”

  Magpie said tersely, “Benarelidur will be a good king, in the mold of my father, alas. But his wife, my sister-in-law, is a tempering influence. She is a gentle soul, and he lives for her.”

  “And are you married? This lass and you seem fond of each other.”

  “I . . . ask me later, friend,” Magpie said, after a furious glance from Inbecca.

  “Ah, well,” Lakanta said, with more tact than he would have thought she was capable of mustering. “My brother lives for his little wife. She is a fine woman, but hardly says a word from sunup to sundown. Hair as orange as a tiger lily, if you can picture such a thing, and eyes bluer than the sky. She’s the best weaver I have ever seen outside of the Quarters . . .”

  The dwarf woman prattled happily on with her story, reeling off an impressive list of nephews and nieces that had blessed the union of the loving couple. Magpie’s head sank into his shoulders. He didn’t dare glance at the young woman beside him. Inbecca looked angry enough to burst into flames. It was all his fault, of course, including the fact that the Scholardom, against which Olen had warned them, was now in virtual possession of the Great Book.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw a flicker of light. The silver-gilt runes that decorated everything in sight should not have attracted his attention. He looked around for the source of it. His eyes widened, and he felt his heart pound with fear.