Wizard of Wisdom: An Epic Fantasy Series (Wisdom Saga Book 1)

by W. C. Conner

  Scrubby didn’t look over at him. “Oh, you’ve clearly been at it all for awhile. I’d say you look like probably you’re no more than thirty or thereabouts.”

  Wil studied his feet. “You found me in your pig sty after I got blind drunk on my sixty-fifth birthday. I got drunk all by myself. No friends to toast me. Never really had any friends. Never really felt close to anybody.” There was a long moment of silence before he admitted a painful truth. “When I left the tavern, I intended to kill myself. I wanted to die.” He shook his head as if disgusted with himself. “I couldn’t even do that right.”

  When he was met with a prolonged silence he looked over at Scrubby. “If you want me to leave now, I will.”

  Scrubby finally looked toward Wil. “Why would you go?” he asked, obviously genuinely puzzled. “Don’t you like it here?”

  “It’s not that, but doesn’t it bother you to know I think so little of myself that I wanted to end my own life?”

  Scrubby shrugged and looked back toward the road. “I don’t know that man. I’m sorry for that man you just told me about, but I met a man who fell into my hog sty and threw up on my boots and shared my hospitality and had a quiet smoke with me. That man sitting here still feels worth the knowing to me. If he wants to leave, that’s his own affair, but he doesn’t have to. He’s welcome to stay here as long as he feels the need.”

  Wil looked over at Scrubby’s profile as he stared in the direction of the risen sun. Here was a man who had accepted a total stranger into his home and was now inviting him into his life. Wil could have been a hardened criminal, wanted for murder in the three duchies and the principality at large, but that sort of cynical thought obviously would never cross this man’s mind because he had accepted his gut feeling that this virtual stranger was ‘worth the knowing’.

  Wil looked down as he contemplated and realized he was still wearing only his undergarments. Setting his pipe on the ground, he stood up, retrieved his now dry clothing from the line and went into the house where he dressed, scowling and thinking as he did.

  The man is a common swineherd. He lives simply yet he appears to accept whatever life puts before him. I was given an education and I’ve traveled the land. I’ve even lived well from time to time, but still I judge and complain without cause and reject everything life puts before me. He gives thanks for the little he has while I resent the little I have. I haven’t even the simple purpose of this man who is content with what he is and knows where he belongs.

  Wil paused for a moment and looked around Scrubby’s humble home before pulling on his boots.

  Where do I belong?

  His eyes unfocused as he straightened up, overwhelmed by the feeling that something was flowing toward him like the dark line of a breeze approaching across still water.

  This little out-of-the-way village is of no importance to the outside world, and nobody here knows me. I’ve been running from myself for sixty-five years and it’s gotten me nowhere. Maybe this is where I can stop running.

  When he emerged from the house he found Scrubby sitting under the tree just as he’d left him. “I’ll stay,” he said, “but I don’t want you asking any questions.”

  Scrubby shook his head. “Wouldn’t do it even if you hadn’t said not to.”

  “I’m only doing this because I have no other place to go, but I’ll work for my keep. I won’t stay here for free.”

  “I would never have expected you wouldn’t.”

  Scrublein got up and dusted off the seat of his pants. “Well then, let’s get these pipes put away and get some of those pigs out to the woods to feed.”

  The sensation of an approaching breeze grew in Wil’s mind and a shiver ran up his back.

  2

  “Sire, the delegation from the Wizards’ Guild awaits in the Judgment Hall. There are far more of them this time than ever before. The Hall is fairly bursting with them.”

  Prince Gleneagle frowned at his chamberlain who stood formally attentive, ignoring the expression of disapproval. He knew it was unfair to vent his displeasure at the impending meeting on the old man who was simply doing his job, just as he knew it would be dangerous to show the same face of displeasure to the wizards. Their leader was arrogant, but of more concern, he was powerful.

  “We shall attend them shortly, Geoffrey.”

  With a slight bow, his chamberlain turned and left the Prince’s chambers on his way to relay the message to the delegation.

  Geoffrey had been a young man when he was elevated to his present position during the reign of Gleneagle’s father. His loyalty to the throne was unswerving, his court manners were impeccable, his advice was unfailingly sound and he was unquestionably discrete, yet Gleneagle had never been able to become close with him. Perhaps it was because Geoffrey had been his father’s choice. It was more likely, however, that the thirty year difference in their ages created the gulf in his mind.

  Geoffrey should have been decrepit at seventy-five, an age at which almost all men were but memories, waiting on the other side for those they had known to join them. His mind was keen, however, his body still straight, and he managed to keep up with younger men by sheer force of will. It was those qualities which had earned him Gleneagle’s respect. But there was another, much younger person to whom Gleneagle looked for strength.

  He turned to the young woman who stood quietly near the window, breathing in the clean morning air. From the back she presented a modest appearance in a dress of simple light gray silk with graceful open sleeves which hung longer than the ends of her arms. Her long dark hair was bound up in a golden net which hung against the nape of her slender neck, while her flawless pale skin, highlighted by a blush of pink at her prominent cheekbones, was all the more striking by its contrast with her hair. She turned toward her father and he looked into the almost unnatural dark eyes and pointed eyebrows that had captured his heart when he first saw her as an infant in her cradle. She had inherited those arresting eyes from her mother.

  “Attend with me, Caron,” he said, extending his arm.

  She moved smoothly to his side and took his proffered arm before leaning up to give him a gentle kiss on his cheek. “I wish that I could do more than simply stand and observe at this meeting, father” she said, looking gravely into his eyes.

  “Your presence gives me strength,” he replied as they turned toward the door, “just as your mother’s did before she departed this life to wait for us on the other side. And I value your judgment of people and their reactions more than any other of my advisors.”

  Nothing more was said as a liveried servant opened the door and they walked together down the wide hallway toward the Judgment Hall. Those they passed were invariably drawn to watch them, for each presented a similarly striking and courtly bearing. Though it was true they did not heavily favor one another in appearance, yet they were of a match, father and daughter.

  Gleneagle was taller than most men, with a full head of prematurely snow-white hair. A well built man in the prime of his life with piercing blue eyes in an angular face and the same light complexion and dark eyebrows of his daughter, he looked every bit the royalty that he was. His strength, though, was neither diplomacy nor the administration of the principality that his father had excelled in performing. His father had lived a life of nuanced, carefully measured words, but Gleneagle was in his element in battle, where instant decisions and instinctive action mattered most. He had been handed a principality at peace, however, and with the exception of having to defend their borders against sporadic raids by the northern and eastern barbarians, he seldom got the opportunity to take to the field. As a result, he all too often found himself chafing at the royal bit in his frustration with the formalities of life in the palace.

  For her part, Caron was a strikingly attractive young woman with her pale skin that contrasted so sharply with her dark hair and eyes. While not as tall as her father, she was yet markedly taller than most women, and bore herself in the same elegant manner that he did. I
t was she and Geoffrey who truly administered the principality. It was she to whom Gleneagle looked for guidance in evaluating the requests and demands of those who came before the court.

  As had all before him, Caron’s father bore the name of the principality over which he ruled. The custom had begun centuries before when the daughter of the then ruling prince had conceived an illegitimate child of the elf, Gleneagle, shortly before the elves departed forever. When the prince died leaving no male heir and no siblings to assume the throne, the daughter’s only child, a son, became the ruling prince. He had been given his elf father’s name by his mother at the time of his birth.

  Upon his ascendancy he renamed the principality Gleneagle and decreed that all male rulers would carry the name of the principality as a constant reminder of both their heritage and their responsibility. In witness and reminder of their elven heritage, the elf Gleneagle had gifted his life force elfstone, a brilliant green gemstone, which had been faithfully handed down from father to son. Over the centuries, whether by the whims of nature or by the strength of the elven blood they carried within them, there had ever been a Prince Gleneagle on the throne of the principality and a male heir apparent.

  Until now, that is, for the current Prince Gleneagle had produced but one child from his beloved wife before she had passed to the other side. That child held her hand upon his arm as they approached the doors to the Judgment Hall.

  The conversations of the wizards dropped to a low murmur as the double doors at the end of the room opened, accompanied by the door warden’s announcement, “His Highness, Prince Gleneagle and her Highness, Princess Caron.”

  Everyone in the Hall bowed with the exception of three who stood slightly apart from the others. These three managed a barely acceptable dipping of their heads, making their disrespect evident.

  Caron’s hand squeezed her father’s arm gently as she felt him stiffen at the deliberate insult. Though annoyed, Prince Gleneagle calmed himself at her touch and continued to the dais without acknowledging any individual among them. He took his seat with a deliberate flourish, while Caron took her place to the right and slightly behind her father. She assumed a casually neutral expression, her hands folded loosely together in front of her.

  Geoffrey stepped to the foot of the dais and turned to face the wizards. “Attend and pay heed,” he announced as he pounded a long wooden staff loudly three times on the polished floor to silence those few still talking in the Hall. “His Highness, Prince Gleneagle sits to receive the petitions of those assembled. Let those who have need or cause come forward and present their appeals for his judgment.”

  Caron watched and noted the expressions of the assembled wizards as the centermost figure of the three who had performed the minimal acknowledgement detached himself and came forward. A man not quite of average height, he had sandy colored hair worn long and loose, and a pathetically wispy beard the same color of his hair. In shape and appearance, his face called to mind that of a ferret. Like a ferret, his intense, dark eyes constantly darted about to fasten on whatever was moving at the moment. The white of his robe announced that this was the leader of the Wizards’ Guild.

  “Ah, Greyleige,” Gleneagle said, his voice and smile radiating a warmth he did not feel. “We bid you welcome. Be at your ease and approach.”

  Beside him Caron smiled inwardly at her father’s flourish of words. She knew the formal court speech did not come naturally to him and he often complained that he felt he was gagging on the words he was required to utter. That he had to do so in the face of his dislike for the wizard who stood before him rankled him even more.

  Greyleige had taken the name upon his elevation to High Altarn of the Wizards’ Guild sixty years prior. It had been the name of a notable High Altarn who had administered the Guild several centuries earlier. The current Greyleige had taken it intending that it would signify the impartiality for which his predecessor was known, but the flaw of arrogance had worked its way and in a short time he had lost his ability to withstand the desire for ever more power. Though he had no consciousness of the changes wrought by his hunger for supremacy, it slowly became apparent to the membership that his adopted name had come to suggest not impartiality, but rather a blending of the growing blackness within that was hidden by the whiteness of his robes without.

  Greyleige scowled at the stilted formality and insincere warmth of Gleneagle’s invitation, never suspecting that he and the Prince were in agreement on that one thing alone. Sensing the coolness within Gleneagle’s demeanor, his eyes darted from Gleneagle to Caron and back to the Prince, bounced off Geoffrey, then again back to the Prince. Although he appeared to be supremely self confident, Caron didn’t miss the fact that he betrayed his anxiety at this meeting when he licked his lips quickly three times before beginning to speak,. He knew this was likely to be his last chance to openly petition the increasingly recalcitrant Prince for what he sought.

  “His Highness is most generous,” Greyleige replied, his tone a poor imitation of Gleneagle’s as he mouthed a politeness that, like Gleneagle, threatened to gag him. “We come before you,” he continued, sweeping his arm around to indicate the entire assemblage, “to implore once again that your Highness grant our request to open the Old Forest to the Wizards’ Guild. Though the histories tell us the Forest was closed to man for all time by the elves when they fled this world, my research suggests that it is within your power to make entry possible for the one designated by the Gleneagle line. Access to the magics therein would be an eternal boon for the principality and for those of us who work for the strength and healing of the land and of all life upon it.”

  Neither Prince Gleneagle nor Caron had any need to concentrate on what was being said because Greyleige had already been before them several times in his attempts to secure access to the Old Forest. At the first he had sued for permission to attempt access for himself alone, then he had included the leadership in the request, and now he had included – grudgingly – almost the entire membership of the guild in the pursuit of his goal.

  In reading the faces of the assembled members, it was obvious to Caron that it was certainly Greyleige’s goal and not that of the majority. With the exception of the disrespectful three it was apparent that the rest of the wizards were there largely, if not entirely, against their will. She wondered what power Greyleige had, beyond being the head of their order, to coerce these wizards of such varied disciplines and skills. She bowed her head slightly and covered her mouth politely with her hand, then coughed softly as if clearing a small obstruction from her throat.

  Her father heard the quiet cough and, though he had sensed himself that Greyleige did not enjoy the unanimous support of the assembled wizards, it gave him confidence to know that Caron could find no one in the room who stood with Greyleige other than his two Sub-Altarns.

  “We understand and respect your reasons and your sincerity,” he recited from the response Caron had prepared, addressing Greyleige with platitudes he knew would only anger him, “but we are not persuaded that the Old Forest’s proscription against entry can be violated by anyone without catastrophic consequences, even by a group as august, dedicated and caring as the Wizards’ Guild. We regret that, in good conscience, we are obliged to continue to deny and discourage any further attempt to gain access to the Old Forest to all individuals and groups, whether or not nobly intentioned.”

  The room went silent as the prince summarily indicated the audience had come to an end by standing and holding his arm out to Caron without looking toward her. Noting the look of smug satisfaction on the faces of most of the wizards who had clearly been there against their will, she stepped forward and laid her hand across her father’s forearm without otherwise looking toward him or the assemblage. Together they strode purposefully from the Judgment Hall.

  When the doors closed behind them, a chorus of whispers arose from the gathered wizards. From Greyleige, who had stalked angrily to join his two disciples, there was only an ominous silence.

/>   As they slowed their pace after the doors closed, Caron removed her hand from her father’s arm and the two of them walked side by side, their hands clasped behind them as if in deep thought.

  “Yesterday, the woodcutters,” Gleneagle grumbled. “The day before that it was the huntsman’s guild, and today it is those annoying, persistent wizards once again.” Caron listened without responding.

  “They all know the Old Forest was proscribed by the elves on the day they departed, yet they continue to press me for access. The woodcutters and huntsmen are no problem, of course, and I suspect they were set at it by Greyleige to try to soften the path for him.

  “I have virtually no power to overrule the proscription of the elves upon the Old Forest. Surely Greyleige knows that as well, but it seems as if he believes that I can do just that.” Caron’s eyebrow arched thoughtfully at that statement.

  “My power is limited in this sort of situation, Caron. I feel I’m constantly performing a balancing act when dealing with any one of them, and especially the wizards.” They walked for a bit more in silence before he added, “Give me my sword and my good horse under me and I’ll deal with whatever’s before me, but I’m out of my element when dueling with words.”

  Caron once again took her father’s arm and gave it a squeeze as they approached the turning of the hallway that would lead them to their apartments. “You don’t give yourself enough credit, daddy,” she said, lapsing into her childhood informality. “You manage words and people far more effectively than you believe. And most, if not all, of the wizards in the hall were there under some threat or spell of binding. That much, at least, was clear in their eyes and in their reactions after you delivered your refusal.”

  “Perhaps,” he allowed as she detached herself at the entrance to her room, “but those wizards worry me. They can be dangerous ... especially Greyleige. I’m not convinced he’s stable”