Pathfinder Tales: Lord of Runes

by Dave Gross

  I went for the knife boys. Two raised their blades, but one shied away. I feinted at one and tumbled through the gap. Rolling, I came up to my feet a good ten yards past them, fleet as a fox. With the magic in my feet, I’d win any footrace. I hightailed it toward the carriage, but they were already in trouble.

  A hatchet-faced man cracked a horsewhip to spook the team. Janneke stood on the driver’s perch, struggling to control them.

  Whipper wasn’t alone. Men and women from Thief Camp ran up to shout and throw whatever was close to hand. A potato struck the lead horse on the face. He reared up, screaming mad.

  Through a carriage window, Illyria waved a white feather at the attackers and cast a spell. The men and women on that side of the carriage screamed and ran. So did a nearby donkey, thrashing until it pulled out its tether and ran straight into the gang running after me.

  “Thanks,” I muttered. A donkey never did me a favor before.

  Up top, the boss cast spells, some by hand, others by riffle scroll. Lucky for the people attacking, he held off on the fire and lightning. Sometimes the magic you don’t see is the most powerful.

  Arni ran off the man scaring the horses, chasing him until he dropped his whip and kept running. The hound came bounding back, barking at anybody close to the horses.

  I flattened a man throwing tankards from the mead table. I shoved aside a woman banging a pot and jumped onto the carriage ladder. As I climbed onto the roof, I heard the snap of a crossbow. A bolt caught the boss in the belly.

  “No!” shouted Janneke. She let go of the reins to grab her own bow.

  “Control the team,” the boss snapped at her. He brushed away the bolt. It had put a hole in his coat but couldn’t pierce his warded skin.

  Illyria leaned out the other window and scared off another half-dozen folk from Thief Camp. I was glad we were taking it easy on them. They might be a bunch of robbers, cheats, and cutthroats, but they looked after their own. I couldn’t hardly blame them for covering Zora’s escape. Still, I wanted my cards back. And I guess I wanted the boss to figure out his thing, too.

  Janneke got the lead horse back under control. She turned the carriage toward the opening Illyria’s spell made. It was the right idea, but the people of Thief Camp were ready for it. A drover was leading his oxen into the path Zora took.

  “Get out of the way,” Janneke yelled.

  The drover pretended not to hear her, but it was obvious he was blocking her on purpose. He wasn’t alone, either. People were streaming out of the tavern and other buildings, even leaving their market stalls to block our way wherever we turned.

  Half the camp looked to be in on it, covering for the thief’s escape.

  “Time for a demonstration,” said the boss.

  “You bet.” While he made his arcane gestures, I kicked open the latch on the scorpion. It popped up and clicked into firing position. I slapped a bolt into place and swung it around to menace the crowd. They had sense enough to scatter.

  The boss’s lightning bolt came down in front of the oxen. The big animals bolted, lowing in panic.

  I aimed and pulled the trigger. The mead table exploded. The big bolt obliterated the keg of sweet mead and sent tankards flying in all directions.

  The people of Thief Camp ran everywhere except toward us. For a second, it looked like we’d won. Then the mead vendor stood up, drenched from head to toe and covered in the splinters of his tankards.

  “Kill them!”

  I held my breath, hoping the others would see that was a bad idea. Instead, another flurry of crossbow bolts rained down. A couple bounced off the boss. One perforated my jacket but didn’t catch me.

  “Boss, I don’t think we can hold back anymore. We got to take out a loudmouth or two.”

  He made a grim frown and nodded.

  I grabbed another bolt and started cranking the scorpion. He pointed the Shadowless Sword at our target, a Shoanti aiming his short bow at our horses. Just as I drew a bead on the guy, I heard a flapping of leather wings. The boss’s sword arm dipped as a drake landed on the flat of his blade.

  Not just any drake, but the purple we’d seen at the Acadamae.

  “Not now!” The boss tried to shake the reptile from his sword. She slid down the flat of the blade and hopped onto his wrist, where her claws clung tight enough to make him wince.

  “Stop!” cried a familiar voice. The skinny harrower came forward, the crowd parting for him. “Everyone, stop fighting. It is an omen!”

  The boss raised his free arm, and the drake hopped onto his wrist like a falcon. She opened her wings and let out a little cry, not at him but at the harrower.

  I watched his face. He frowned like he was listening to the drake, but I didn’t think so. I figured he was weighing the cost of letting us go against the damage we were sure to cause if they kept trying to keep us there.

  “Let them pass,” he said. “Desna smiles on these travelers.”

  “What about my mead?” wailed the wet guy.

  The boss gave me the nod. I fished out a purse and tossed it at the whiner, not too gentle.

  “Go now,” said the harrower. “And do not return.”

  I gave him a salute with the bolt in my hand. When I started to put it in the scorpion, the purple drake hopped off the boss’s arm and right onto the groove.

  “You’re a clever little lizard,” I said.

  She spread her wings to look all big and fierce. It would have worked better if she weren’t so cute.

  The boss climbed down and got back into the carriage, holding the door open until Arni jumped in.

  Janneke cracked the reins. Once the team got going, she looked back at me. “What just happened?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, wishing I had a bit of meat to give the drake. “Maybe the boss finally got himself a familiar.”

  7

  The Dawn Shadow Path

  Varian

  With sigh I had come to find disconcertingly agreeable, Illyria closed Hendall’s Razing of the Pale Tower. “Nothing.”

  “Are you certain?” I asked.

  “I might not have your perfect recall, but I’m sure there’s nothing here that mentions your codex.”

  “It is hardly perfect.”

  “You said you had an eidetic memory.”

  “That is so, but it is far from perfect. The last time I tested myself, my reading retention proved approximately ninety-three point seven percent accurate.”

  “‘Approximately’?” She snorted.

  Three days out of Korvosa, I could at last reliably determine when Illyria was mocking me: the conclusive evidence was that her lips were moving. “One does not wish to appear imprecise.”

  She chuckled. “One must be very proud.”

  “It is a gift, not a learned skill. You have doubtless heard of idiot savants, incapable of rational discourse but flawless in executing complex mathematical problems or in memorizing long sequences.” Speaking those words made me consider that memory and intellect mirrored the relationship between sorcery and wizardry. One was an inherited talent, the other a skill cultivated over years of study. But to the matter at hand, I added, “The average reader retains less than thirty-four percent.”

  “How do you even know that figure?”

  “An Arcanamirium colleague conducted a study in which I participated. Since then I have refined his methods. I test myself every few years.”

  “You attended the Arcanamirium?”

  “Only for a term.”

  “How many schools did they kick you out of?”

  Despite the knowledge that she provoked me intentionally, I could not suppress a defensive impulse. “None.”

  She smiled to see her barb had stung me. “Well, how many schools have you attended?”

  “Formally? Only nine, most only for a few series of lectures. I have visited many others to consult their libraries or scholars.”

  “I thought the whole point of graduating from the Acadamae was so you could go out a
nd experience the world, not to keep coming back to roam the stacks.”

  “Sometimes I experience the world through archaeological digs or frontier expeditions.” I shrugged. “Sometimes, I experience it through libraries. A million ghosts of love and conquest haunt the pages of history.”

  “You make them sound very nearly romantic.”

  I raised an eyebrow. A remark like that, under different circumstances, would surely be an invitation to make an overture. Instead, I said, “What would you like to read next?”

  She regarded me through half-lidded eyes. I could not tell whether she was disappointed or perplexed. Before I could study her expression further, something outside drew her attention.

  Radovan charged past on his phantom mount. He whooped and thrust a fist to the sky. Ten yards behind, Arnisant replied with a hearty woof.

  Perhaps because natural equines reacted to him with such violence, Radovan seldom missed an opportunity to run the conjured steed at a breakneck pace. It brought him such joy that I hardly resented the need to reinscribe the riffle scrolls he wasted. Besides, it was good practice for him to use the scrolls regularly. Over the past two years, his knack for triggering them had improved. In time, I thought, he might be able to cast truly powerful spells with little danger of electrocuting himself.

  Whether he or I summoned it for him, Radovan’s horse always had a distinctly infernal appearance. When I asked him whether he visualized a particular beast when casting the spell, he replied that he never gave it much thought. One day we would need to pursue a more rigorous examination of his knack for triggering scrolls and its relationship—if any—to his unique infernal bloodline.

  The carriage lurched. I heard the distinctive sound of the scorpion unlocking above us. An instant later, it launched a bolt.

  Seeing nothing amiss on the southwest side of the carriage, I looked to the northeast. The Mindspin Mountains loomed in the distance, the rising sun casting their shadows toward us. Between the foothills and the road lay a sea of green grass broken only by the occasional stand of trees or a lonely hillock.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Radovan yelled. Craning my neck, I saw him recovering from a sharp turn on his conjured mount. He pulled on the reins to turn it before stretching down to retrieve a scorpion bolt. He failed to notice the enormous hare still bounding away from the site of its near-death.

  Janneke shouted from the carriage roof. “Sorry! I wanted that rabbit.”

  “You can’t hit anything with that damned bucket on your head!” he snarled. “You nearly perforated me.”

  Irritated, I opened the carriage door and climbed up to the roof. Janneke appeared surprised to see me clamber up so easily, but I had years of practice. “I do not want you firing that weapon while the carriage is in motion. Not unless absolutely necessary.”

  She removed her helm. “But I— Yes, Your Excellency.”

  “You understand the reason.”

  “Yes.” Guilt deepened the blush on her cheeks. “It puts the carriage off balance.”

  I glanced at the driver’s seat, where Illyria’s phantom driver held the reins. While the conjuration resembled a gaunt man in a stovepipe hat—a superfluous but amusing touch—it was no more sentient than the spell with which Illyria had dusted Ygresta’s rooms. Perhaps Illyria had the right idea. I mused on the advantages of an entirely conjured staff, one that did not fire the siege engine against my wishes.

  “I don’t mind your leaving the reins to Lady Illyria’s creature, but I need you or Radovan alert at all times for any sign of our quarry or danger on the trail.”

  She folded the weapon’s mount and locked it down. “You’re right, Excellency. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  Her regret seemed sincere, so I withheld further rebuke. I nodded to indicate the matter was settled if not forgotten.

  “Any sign of the drake?” I asked.

  “None.” Janneke shielded her eyes from the sun and peered into the clear western skies where the drake had flown off an hour earlier. Part of me hoped she would find her way back to her brood in Korvosa, but I could not help feeling her appearance held some greater meaning. Surely she was not sent as a sign from Desna, as the villains of Thief Camp believed. In any event, her presence would make a similarly good impression on any other Varisians we might encounter. I hoped for her return.

  The drake flew off several times a day, presumably to hunt. I had spoken to the creature in Draconic, but she did not reply. Some of her kind could communicate telepathically. Some even became familiars to wizards or sorcerers they deemed worthy. Illyria fed the drake scraps of her meals in an effort to win its favor. A house drake was unlikely to choose a necromancer as her mistress—nor a lord of Cheliax as her master—so I made no such overtures. Besides, I preferred to clean my plate.

  Even that thought caused a pang of hunger. My yearning appetite had to be some trick of my imagination. We had eaten a full breakfast, but our supplies had dwindled sooner than anticipated, in part because of Illyria’s unexpected presence. We might have resupplied at Janderhoff, but I refused to expose Radovan to the dwarf lords’ vengeance. Instead, we cloaked the carriage in an illusion of a well-guarded trade wagon and continued toward the Storval Plateau.

  Inside the carriage, I found Lady Illyria deep in study. She no longer tried to hide her spectacles from me, either because she no longer cared whether she attracted my eye or—more likely—because she realized how fetching I found them. Every aspect of her appearance, from her tinted black hair to the ribbon at her throat, the monocle from her lapel to her tooled leather boots, evoked fond memories of past decades. Had such things suddenly returned to fashion during my recent journeys? I suspected not. Illyria must be one of those rare ladies who eschew modern style for that of a previous age.

  I approved.

  We spent the morning in relative tranquility, occasionally showing each other some interesting passage from the borrowed books. We learned that Runelord Zutha divided his Gluttonous Tome into three sections, which his minions had secreted in distant locations. The portion Ygresta left me was known as the Kardosian Codex. Another section including the cover and spine was called the Bone Grimoire. Of the final third we learned only a title: The Black Book.

  We passed two caravans and a trio of riders, pausing only to exchange news of the road. Shortly after noon we drove the team into a shallow stream. The horses drank as Janneke wiped them down. When Radovan and I traveled alone, I had become accustomed to tending to them since he could not. Tending to six horses was too much for one person, so I joined her. She appeared only briefly surprised as I peeled off my jacket, rolled up my sleeves, and set to work with a curry brush.

  As we worked, Lady Illyria brought the feedbags from the carriage boot. Beside her, a half-filled sack of oats hovered in the grasp of her invisible servant.

  “Don’t look so surprised,” she said as she handed two to me. “I spent many happy summers at my mother’s country estate, and I was no stranger to the stables.”

  As we watered and fed the horses, Radovan erected a table so Lady Illyria and I might enjoy a break from the carriage. We dined on preserved fruit, flatbread, and peppercorn salami.

  As I reached for a second piece of bread, Illyria pulled away the plate and handed it to her invisible servant. “Put that back in the boot.”

  “I beg your pardon,” I said. “I was not finished.”

  “Yes, you were. I can see my father isn’t the only one whose diet I must manage.”

  As the servant passed Arnisant, who dozed near the rear wheel, the hound rose up like a breaching whale and snatched the remains.

  I opened my mouth to protest, but the little drake chirped from her perch atop the carriage. I was glad to see she had returned safely.

  “See?” said Illyria. “Even Amaranthine thinks you’re getting fat.”

  “‘Amaranthine’?”

  She glanced up at the drake. “I named her.”

  “Amaranthine is the
shade of your handbag.”

  “It’s closer to the color of this amethyst, although I might call that heliotrope.” She showed off the gem on her left hand.

  “How many synonyms do you know for ‘purple’?”

  “All of them.”

  The affectation might have seemed childish in another woman, but it was a refreshing change from the black and gray necromancers with their skulls and cobweb lace. Besides, Illyria had the excuse of her purple Azlanti eyes and exceptional taste. I had come to anticipate her emerging from her conjured shelter each morning in a different ensemble.

  She pointed at me. “You’ve lost a button on your waistcoat.”

  As I felt for the missing button, I realized just how tight my clothes felt. I had already eaten as much as my custom. It was just that the salami and pear relish tasted so good together. Nevertheless, the evidence was undeniable: I was growing plump. “Perhaps I have overcompensated for the weight I lost traveling to Korvosa.”

  “Don’t you worry it’s more than that? This book you seek must be called the Gluttonous Tome for a reason.”

  “Gluttony is the sin of necromancy.” While we had raised the issue before, neither of us knew a satisfactory reason why each of the seven sins was associated with a school of magic. I had long assumed it was simply a personal reflection of the runelords, each of whom had mastered one type of magic. Perhaps the runelord of necromancy was a notorious glutton. “Could it be because the desire to extend one’s life through the dark arts is a sort of gluttony? A desire for more life than we deserve?”

  “That’s as good a reason as I’ve read,” said Illyria. “Speaking of which, I have been casting an epiphany spell each morning, hoping to catch some fragment from a library you haven’t visited.”

  Despite the imprecision of her spell and my personal disdain for divination, I envied Illyria’s ability to cast her thoughts by magic across the pages of distant books. The very idea made my memory library feel small. “And?”