The Staff of the Winds (The Wizard of South Corner Book 1)

by Meighan, William

  Below him marched five guards and two female prisoners. The lead guard was holding the end of a rope that was attached to the necks of the two young women each in turn. The woman first in line had her head downcast, her blond hair fallen across the left side of her face, but from Owen’s perspective he could make out the profile of Emily Pearson. She had been crying, the tears forming tracks through smudges on her pretty cheeks.

  Sympathy caused the calm to waiver around Owen, and the vision faltered momentarily until he was able to regain his detached objectivity. When he was confident in his self-control, he transferred the hawk’s gaze to the next prisoner in line. At first, there was no recognition. The prisoner was young and fair with long auburn hair. She was wearing a thin shift that had become stained and tattered from her ordeal, but her shoulders were back, her gaze straight ahead, and there was an unmistakable look of anger and defiance on her face despite her circumstance. With a jolt of recognition that exploded through his consciousness Owen realized that he was looking at Sarah Murray.

  The calm suddenly shattered with a flare of light that threw Owen on his back, crashing down through the naked brush. He lay stunned for a while, his stomach roiling, a growing pain behind his eyes and the back of his head and neck seeping blood from deep scratches that the broken branches had inflicted during his violent movement. His vision of the field across the river and of the light all around was gone. All he could see through his staring eyes were the leafless branches above him. They were spinning slowly, duplicated and out of focus.

  Across the river, a soldier looked up, his attention attracted by the violent motion of a large hawk. The bird flapped erratically for a moment, then regained control and glided to the top of a nearby pine where it landed awkwardly. With a fleeting wonder at the hawk’s unnatural actions he soon dismissed the thought and returned his attention to the prisoners and their path ahead.

  Gradually, Owen regained his senses. His pulse and respiration slowed, and his vision cleared. In the background he became aware of the pain of the scratches on his head, and the deep ache behind his eyes, but all he could do was repeat over and over to himself: “Dear Spirits, not Sarah. Don’t let them take Sarah. Please, not Sarah.”

  After what may have been minutes or hours, Owen was finally able to raise himself from his sprawl in the bushes, back to the seated position he had held before. He squinted and stared across the river and the broad meadow on the other side, but all trace of the guards and their prisoners was lost among the trees.

  Chapter 8

  Opening The Avenues

  Sarah Murray glared at the officer with the disfiguring scar and the eye patch as she was led out of the stable where the prisoners from South Corner were being held in Carraghlaoch. He had examined each of her fellow villagers, one by one, as if he were evaluating cuts of meat in the butcher’s cold room. His dark right eye seemed to see more than it should, and the sneer forced by the scar down the left side of his face gave the impression that he was not impressed by what he was seeing.

  Emily Pearson struggled and cried as she was also selected and led out next to Sarah. “Be quiet,” Sarah hissed at her. “You’ll make things worse.”

  The sight of blond haired, blue eyed Emily’s distress in the hands of the rough soldiers of Baraduhne was too much for several of the men of the village, and as Sarah feared they rose from the dirt floor of the stable to come to Emily’s aid. Though courageous, it was futile. With their hands still bound behind them, they were easily managed by the hardened soldiers, and soon every man who had risen, and several who had not, lay on the ground senseless and bleeding while the soldiers stood grinning at the rest with clubs ready.

  Only sixteen years old, Emily was a year younger than Sarah, and several inches shorter. Like Sarah, she wore the nightclothes that she had on when South Corner had been raided. The light material was now stained and tattered from their travels and their harsh treatment along the way, and her face was smudged where she had used her dirty fingers to wipe at her tears. Neither her dingy shift nor her soiled face, however, hid the fact that she was a very pretty young woman, with fair skin and an alluring figure.

  Sarah and Emily were not close friends in the village. Sarah had always considered Emily to be a little too soft and girly, and it had always irritated her the way all the boys her age would stare at Emily’s high breasts or her swaying walk whenever they thought no one was watching. She had clouted Owen McMichaels’ ear once when his gaze had lingered too long in that direction while she was trying to talk to him.

  Now, with Emily obviously frantic and terrified, Sarah, despite her own apprehension, was torn between the desire to mother her and calm her fears, or to give her a good smack to the backside to stiffen her spine. Given the firm grip that a big, leather-clad, smelly soldier had on her right arm, of course, she was in no position to do either. Instead, she gave a brave and reassuring look to her father, and a glare to the hateful, sneering officer. She also committed the visage of Commander Furstiv al Bardon to her memorized list of faces awaiting final justice.

  In the courtyard, she and Emily were led over to a lanky weasel-faced soldier, who leered evilly at them. Sarah wanted to pull a heavy cloak around her to hide her torn shift and what was under it from his vile stare, but lacking that settled for her most expressive look of censure and distaste. She did her best, with that look, to make it clear to him that his stares were neither appreciated nor appropriate, and that any actions on his part toward them would be met with a strong response. The soldier merely grinned wider in return.

  The girls’ hands were tied behind them, and a thick strong cord was tied in a slipknot around their necks with Sarah at one end, then Emily, and finally the other end was placed in the grimy hand of the grinning, weasel-faced soldier. Soon, they were led out of the fortress, with an additional pair of guards armed with spears and swords on either side.

  The small party headed across the drawbridge over the narrow spot in the river gorge. The water boiled loudly under them as it raced to get through the neck of sheer-sided rock. The white water under the bridge raced away, becoming more organized in its flow and a deep blue in color as the high walls separated further apart down stream. In the distance, Sarah could see a stone tower on a slight rise near the edge of the chasm. Beyond that, the river gorge wound down the valley until lost from sight behind the hills.

  The soldiers and their two captives continued their journey across a field of brown grasses under the watching eyes of a large red-tailed hawk that was soaring slowly high in the pale blue morning sky. On another day, Sarah might have gazed in admiration at the beauty of the soaring raptor in this majestic setting against the snow capped mountain peaks, but her attention was focused uneasily ahead.

  Before leaving the fortress, Sarah had heard the commander growl something about a package and a message to be delivered to a “Lord Sorcerer Kadeen.” She feared that she and Emily were the “package”—the soldier who held the end of their leash was wearing a pack on his back, but he was not carrying any bags or boxes—and she greatly feared the very idea of meeting an actual sorcerer. In the old stories, sorcerers were invariably men of great power and great evil who fought the heroes on the side of good with every vile deception and dark magic that could be imagined. As an adult woman, Sarah thought that she had outgrown all of those old stories. She had thought that until the very night that she had been dragged roughly from her bed out to the village green under the watchful eyes of several dozen actual live gorn. Since then, it seemed that she had been thrown into one of the old stories. What was missing was a larger-than-life hero to come to her rescue. ‘Pfah!’ she thought, straightening her posture. ‘Daddy didn’t raise me to be a damsel in distress. Give me half a chance against that weasel at the other end of this rope, and I’ll be my own bloody hero.’

  Beyond the field, they followed a winding path through a rocky forest of pine and cedar, with occasional patches of aspen, some still clinging to their dark red lea
ves. Along with the usual forest smells, the air was heavy with a musty odor that grew as they progressed.

  Out of site of the castle, a guard on Sarah’s left called to the weasel-faced soldier who held the end of their leash: “Hey Stangar, what say we take a little break before we get to the bridge? It’s not often that men such as us finds themselves in the company of two such pretty and willing young girls as these.”

  Sarah could see Emily duck her head deeper into her shoulders and hear her sobs increase at this suggestion. Angrily, she tried to think of what she could do in her own defense if the filthy beast’s suggestion was followed. She didn’t think that these rough characters would be as easily dissuaded as Darrel Hansen had been when he had tried to take liberties with her, but she wasn’t about to just let them have their way without putting up a fight. Maybe she could induce them to untie her hands and take the rope off of her neck. Then if she could get one of the ugly brutes off in the bushes by himself, a quick grab for one of those knives that they all were carrying at their belts and at least she would have some kind of chance; pretty thin she knew, but a chance.

  “Yeah,” said a soldier on the other side of her, “I’ll bet they’re both just panting to have a little fun with us. I don’t see any reason to be in such a hurry. Let’s stop and give ‘em what they want.”

  “Idiots!” snarled Stangar, glaring over his shoulder at the guards. “I like a little fun more than most, but it’d be worth my life to be deliverin’ damaged goods to that pig Kadeen. And you think al Bardon wouldn’t learn of it? He’d have you four roastin’ on a spit over a slow fire before you knew what happened. Think of the smell of crispin’ bacon; then imagine it’s your own skin before you suggest anymore stupid ideas like that one.”

  Other than some grumbling and cursing under their breaths, the soldiers made no more comments and the day passed monotonously as they continued their long march, winding through the patchy woods.

  Passing through a last large stand of tall grey fir trees, the vista suddenly opened up as they reached the rocky shore of the Wizard’s Moat. Sarah gasped at the beauty of the vast expanse of still water leading to the base of sheer cliffs that rose high up, tier after tier, to form the snow capped peaks of the West Wall. Only a strong, musty, dead smell emanating from the dark, unnaturally still lake marred the beauty of the scene. Sarah’s mouth dropped open and she almost stumbled when she saw off in the distance to her right the coal black stone bridge that arched high into the pale blue sky over the calm black water to reach the other side. It was huge, but looked almost delicate in its form.

  ‘How could anything this grand be built?’ she wondered. Reaching from shore to shore across the wide placid waters, it had no supports that she could see. She knew that when a stonemason wanted to build an arch, he must use a mound of earth or a timber scaffold to support the blocks until the keystone was securely placed; but here, over the deep black water, no such support could have been constructed. ‘It looks to be all of one piece,’ she thought in amazement. Sarah had never witnessed magic before, but surely only great and powerful magic could produce a structure on this scale.

  “That’s the path to your new home, girlies,” Stangar taunted over his shoulder. “The sun is getting’ too close to those mountains for us to try the bridge tonight, so we’ll camp on that little rise up ahead, but come first light we’ll be on our way over the bridge. Don’t want to keep your new master waitin’ any longer than we must.”

  “Yeah,” volunteered the guard to Sarah’s left. “You’re gonna just love the Lord Sorcerer Kadeen. Or, at least he’s gonna just love you.” Several of the soldiers laughed loudly as though they thought that comment was especially witty.

  Yeva crept quietly and skillfully down the passage toward the postern gate. Since her recent, unsettling experiences in the Realm of Infinite Possibilities, she had taken to regularly exploring the halls leading to the several entrances that she knew of to the Grand Palace of the Baraduhne. To avoid raising suspicions, she moved so as to minimize the chances of being seen by either the guards, the Watchers or other members of the Guild of Assassins. In the trade, what she was doing was known as “opening the avenues.”

  In the Realm of Infinite Possibilities, an observer could only witness future or current events in spaces and times for which they themselves may possibly be. If a future sequence of events is destined to travel down a particular “avenue” of space and time, and there is virtually no chance of a particular observer being in that place at that time in the real world, then that observer will be unable to see those events unfold while casting the future in the Realm. The more likely a person is to be present at a future event, the more easily and clearly it is seen in the Realm.

  During recent meditations, Yeva had seen possible future events involving strangers not from the palace, and by their looks, not from elsewhere in Baraduhne, the holdfast of Cathardoom, or even from Maragong to the north. In the Realm, these events had the weight and feel of pivotally important happenings. By scouting the palace, and especially the ways in and out of the palace, in a fairly random fashion, and with the strong intent to maintain her careful wanderings at every opportunity into the future, she hoped to set up the conditions under which she would be able to witness in the Realm the arrival of these mysterious strangers. If she could do that, it would be much more likely and therefore easier for her to track the events surrounding these key players in the big game of the future as they took the actions that would inevitably lead to the major disruptions in her life that her meditations in the Realm augured.

  They say that life is risk, but what Yeva was doing was risky indeed. If it were noticed by the wrong people, things could become very difficult. If the Watchers noticed that she was spending so much time in these halls she would almost certainly find herself the subject of an inquiry by the Guardians of the Way.

  The Guardians were an elite and feared sect of the Watchers, charged with ensuring that the Watchers were diligent in their duties. Subordinate only to the High Lord Sorcerer of Baraduhne himself, the Guardians watched the Watchers. As far as the rest of Baraduhne was concerned, however, this was the least of their tasks; for the Guardians were also charged with the questioning of anyone in the kingdom suspected of “sedition.”

  A charge of sedition could be brought by any citizen, and could consist of as small an act as speaking openly in critical terms about any lord of higher standing than the speaker. Sedition could also be charged by a Watcher who thought that a citizen’s behavior was in any way inappropriate or suspicious. Once in the hands of the Guardians, skilled application of a vice, pincers, hot needles and other instruments of persuasion would invariably reveal the truth. It was rare indeed that the Guardians failed to discover some hidden sin against the kingdom, and most criminals in their custody freely and eagerly confessed to any crime that would help speed their inevitable path to the gibbet. Execution was liberating, and to most minds, far preferable to the long, slow, agonizing process of establishing guilt.

  As skilled as she was, Yeva was confident that she could avoid the attention of the Watchers, but avoiding other members of the Guild of Assassins was a much more difficult challenge. Several other Guild members in the palace were nearly as adept as she in the Realm of Infinite Possibilities, and by opening the avenues, she was involving herself in more and more lines of time and space that they might cross during their meditations. Every major faction in the palace was protected by Guild members, and because of the Lord Sorcerer Kadeen’s position, many of those assassins would likely take more than a passing interest in her actions. They would just naturally assume that she was working on some plot for him. No one else had mentioned the turmoil in the Realm that she had been witnessing, though in truth neither had she, and she had sensed no unusual activity among any of the other members of the Guild. That lack worried her some. It was true that the things she had witnessed were in states difficult to achieve, and surrounded by roiling uncertainty, but still their
very impact should have caught the attention of some of the other members, unless they were to be on the periphery of the coming events. With events this large, Yeva could not imagine how that could be.

  Yeva slowed her progress as she neared the last turn in the dark corridor before the guard post at the postern gate. In the Grand Palace, no entry point was left unguarded, not even one as unlikely to be used as this one. She could hear the murmur of voices around the corner, although she could not make out what was being said. Approaching slowly, she suddenly heard footsteps coming toward her from the guard post.

  Quickly and silently Yeva moved back down the corridor. There was a narrow alcove about eight paces back, just deep enough for one archer to stand to establish a point of defense to slow an intrusion from the gate. Pressing her back into the corner of the alcove, Yeva used her hands and feet, pushing against the sides of the corner, to lever herself up near the ceiling into the darkest shadows. She held her position there for mere moments before, in the dim light of the corridor, she recognized Guild member Salanda striding by.

  This was the very kind of entanglement that Yeva had been working so hard to avoid. Salanda checked the alcove in passing, of course, but he had not looked up and back over his shoulder as would have been required to spot Yeva in her hiding place. ‘What were the chances that he might have done so?’ Yeva wondered. ‘What were Salanda’s normal scanning practices, and how standard were his patterns?’ Guild members tried not to lapse into predictable patterns, just to keep, in a small way, the avenues open; but it took constant effort to avoid simple habits over time. ‘How diligent was Salanda in maintaining his skills?’ These were the questions that related directly to whether Salanda had spotted Yeva during his meditations in the Realm the previous evening. He had given no indication that he knew of Yeva’s presence, but then he likely would not have done so, especially if he had known.