Wandmaster

by Valerie Kramboviti

  In order to leave the comfort of his tunnels and their darkness, he would have to prepare. His eyes, now colourless and almost blind would have to be protected, as would his putrid skin, which had turned pappy and moist, like that of a scale-less fish or a worm, unused to the drying effects of weather. Long spindly hands aided in the preparation. Nya was correct in calling them ‘numbers'; the sameness of the spindlies was the result of long deprivation and they had left the word ‘hope' behind them long ago together with their childhood in the brief days before being taken to Athrak. Mindlessly they ambled along the dark underground passageways performing some duty or just simply existing. They rarely bickered and never laughed; they simply existed to be battle-fodder when required. Silently, but for the padding of their feet on the stone floor, three of these ill-fated creatures cloaked him in soft garments, spun from the silk-like substance which oozed out of a wall-clinging grub and was gathered and worked for this sole purpose. Into the strands, the very stuff of darkness was entwined, robes of night for Ataxios, the walking nightmare. The last two items of dress were gloves, whose fingers had been made long enough to accommodate the long, curling claws, and the headdress. That he had designed himself, and had been fashioned on the locust-like head of his very own beloved mother beast, with black crystal-worked eyes from behind which his own pale ones could witness the progress of his plans in safety and comfort. A mirror was of little use in a world without reflections but Ataxios visualized how terrifying his appearance would be to the enemy, and he sent an image to his seeing orb, which he would relish at some later time; in the course of the expedition, he would collect and savour many an image and he smiled a sickly grin at the thought of recalling them one by one from his orb when he had all the time in the realm to do so.

  The little priest had escaped though. He frowned as he remembered the empty cabinet and his frustration and disappointment welled up inside him once more, issuing from him in a throaty growl. He was still unclear as to how it had happened but after his initial outburst he had reasoned that of his minions, Gnath alone had the words of power and the key to the cabinet, and if he had done such a foolish thing as to help the little man get away, the big 'lo' would have had enough sense to be a long way from Ataxios when he eventually opened the box. No, there was the feeling of the Wandmaster's hand in this, and Ataxios experienced a fleeting unease at the realization that his defences had been penetrated in a way he couldn't fathom, and that the little priest had been seemingly stolen from under his very nose. Well that couldn't be allowed, and Ataxios would see to it that the Wandmaster paid; that everybody paid.

  At the fore of the fully assembled force were 'lo's' with sniffers, four to a man, straining for the hunt to begin. All was in readiness. The black box was trundled out on wheels pulled by worker beasts, locust-like but smaller male versions of the Akryd borrowed from caring for their mistress in order to work for Ataxios. But she had plenty of suitors and labourers, and could spare a few. Ataxios himself was in a chariot pulled by more of them, and he admired their smooth black shiny carapaces and their many-legged forms. Only one member of the army was missing now, the most fearsome of enemies and the most dreaded sight in the whole of the Realm, the She Beast, the Mother Beast, the Lomaker, the Soulstealer; she was known by many names to those whose dreams she haunted or whose sons or brothers she had turned into 'lo's'. Two 'lo' guards on either side of the towering entrance to Athrak emitted a high pitched whine, their feelers moving and their heads swaying as the sound filled the air. One by one, their comrades picked up the cry, and Ataxios himself let out a soft hiss of anticipation as he leaned forward to watch his precious Akryd emerge. The locust-like head began to show, at higher than man-height in the doorway, looking around, predator-like with enormous compound eyes on each side of the mandibles, which snipped in the air before her. Her movement was slow as she cleared the exit way with care, easing her bulk out into the exposure of the dim light. Her belly was swollen and ripe, and she glistened. When all of her shape had emerged, she half sprang, half ran into the center space which had been left for her, swift as a spider, surprisingly so for her size and girth, and Ataxios relished the sight of her.

  He threw back his helmeted head and shrieked his war cry, and was answered by his Akryd and his 'lo's', so that the whole Realm seemed to be filled with an insectivorous cacophony, which threatened such peril that none who heard it could remain unafraid, and the legions of Ataxios formed ranks behind their leader and his Akryd as they led off south, away from the sanctuary of their underground lair in search of prey, and one victim in particular. Only Melindra was witness to the gathering, a long way off in Kinguard, and her terrified screeching did not do the horror of the scene justice.

  Chapter 20

  Home From Home

  Tyloren had stopped in his tracks, transfixed, with eyes wide as he repeated again and louder, "You're a lo, aren't you?"

  His heart had sunk when he first saw the moving lump on Loman's shoulders shifting independently, but it was nothing to how he felt when the awkward shuffling of the man halted and fingers fumbled to untie the neck of the all-encasing robe. Loman's eye never faltered as he stared back at Tyloren and allowed the garment to fall to the ground revealing the characteristic features of a lo between his shoulder blades. It was the weirdest sight; this two headed being, but whereas the other lo's Tyloren had seen were always dominated by the cruel, ghost-white features of the implanted lo head, in Loman's case, the humanity in the eyes of the man half was strongly apparent, and the lo was just a hideous appendage. It swiveled its head from side to side on a stumpy neck attached to its carapace, striving to look around it, but Loman snatched back the cloak and covered it again with a practiced sweep of his arms and in a flash the chalky white features were once again shrouded in his cloak.

  "Yes, Tyloren," answered Loman, "I have that misfortune, but don't judge with your eyes alone; feel with your heart, and in any case your choices are limited, I would say." Tyloren knew that to be true, but was not about to put himself in the hands of the enemy again, especially not willingly or knowingly. Loman sighed, and raised his hands in a gesture of resignation, saying, "We are all what we are. I can be no less than the hand life has dealt me. You must decide whether you can trust me or not, but you must decide now, because they may be after you and it would not do for me, either, to be found out in the open. I must get out of sight, and I advise you to do the same. I have offered you the hand of friendship, but I cannot make you accept it. I will go now, and I strongly advise you to come with me. I feel that we have work to do together Tyloren, you and I, but If you do not come with me now, I will not return and you will have to fend for yourself here."

  With that, Loman turned away and started to move off through the trees. Tyloren, still clutching his basket, hesitated for a moment, but knew he had no real option and tagged along behind. Anyway, he thought, all his instincts were telling him it was right, and they hadn't failed him yet. Loman set an acceptable pace and Tyloren had no problem keeping him in sight in the beginning. After a while, however, his physical condition began to slow him down, and he called out to his guide that he was in need of a rest. Loman turned and looked at the little priest, and with a troubled scan of the area in which they now travelled, nodded his agreement. Gratefully, Tyloren dropped down to sit at the side of a boulder and lifted the lid of his basket to take out what he knew he had left from his surprise breakfast. He bit off a lump of bread and another of cheese, and chewed happily, savouring the tastes and the opportunity to regain his strength. Loman stood at a distance, waiting patiently, and Tyloren was touched by guilt seeing him there.

  "Would you like to join me in a bite to eat?" he eventually asked through a mouthful.

  "No thank you, you need it more than me," replied his companion.

  "Then would you like to sit down a minute while I finish off. It's hard to eat with someone standing over you, you know," Tyloren chided. Loman raised one eyebrow and waited for Tyloren to conti
nue before deciding how to respond, unable to judge the little man's mood. Tyloren stopped chewing and sighed, raising his eyes to Loman with a smile.

  "I'm afraid I may have misjudged you and I apologise," he conceded. "But you must admit, you have certain characteristics which may have contributed to my earlier assessment."

  "Caution is a very commendable trait and I do not take it personally, but I am pleased you now feel more able to trust me. I will indeed sit, if you will allow me," replied Loman, and moved closer to Tyloren, to take a place at his side leaning up against the boulder awkwardly and slightly askew as the passenger on his back would not allow him to sit straight.

  The hump was very disconcerting in its independence, and Tyloren found his eyes darting to it frequently until he could resist no longer and asked, "Exactly how do you manage to be so normal with that thing between your shoulder blades? Why doesn't it control you like the others?"

  "The truth is, I don't know. I only know that the implantation didn't ‘take' with me as it was supposed to and I managed to retain my faculties. What was responsible is unclear, but I kept out of sight till I had an opportunity to escape and then I ran off, though my friend here nearly got me captured by shrieking at the top of its voice, I may add," he said, indicating the hump with a thumb waved over his shoulder.

  "Is that why you keep it hidden?"

  "Yes, and also because it's not the most pleasant thing to look at either I think you'll agree, but the main reason is that it is weakened and disoriented by being kept unaware of its surroundings."

  "Our Wandmaster removed a lo from the back of one of our young Guardians, you know," said Tyloren, "but there is some question as to the young man's recovery; he seems to have retained a certain …. belligerence, let's say."

  Loman looked directly at Tyloren with undisguised interest.

  "I didn't think it was possible to reverse the process. I have never heard of it being done before. I would like to meet this Wandmaster of yours. Indeed I would. As for the young man in question, it is said that the implanted larva from the Akryd heightens the characteristics it requires and smothers those it doesn't. It can't create what isn't there, only strengthen what is."

  "Hmm," mused Tyloren thoughtfully, "What about in your case? Maybe you didn't have the right qualifications, Loman. Maybe you weren't evil enough."

  "Some very good people have been turned into very bad lo's, Tyloren. I don't flatter myself that the reason is my superiority. No, something was different with me, but I haven't been able to work out what it was, though I have tried, believe me, I have tried." Loman took a flask of water from inside his cloak and offered it to Tyloren before saying, "We've delayed enough. Come on, we still have a way to go."

  After an afternoon's march through a changing landscape, the two unlikely companions emerged from the trees at the base of a chasm. Tyloren had noticed the downward tilt of their passage, but hadn't until that time realized just how far down they had climbed. Before him was a sheer rock face, stretching up so high that he couldn't see the top, and to his left and right similar rock walls with just a break between the east and west portions through which they had emerged. At their feet ran a lively river which poured through the gorge on its way north, presumably some branch of the Suryana.

  "What river is this?" asked Tyloren, trying to remember his geography.

  "We call it the Diathus," answered Loman, "but I don't know if it even has a name on your maps. As far as I am aware, its existence is unknown except to us. It emerges out of a rock face in our valley, and travels through it before disappearing into a fissure at its far end."

  "Us?" Asked Tyloren warily, "I thought it was just you." He had begun to feel uneasy again.

  "Now, little man, you do have a tendency to be suspicious, don't you?" came the response. Just as Loman finished his question and smiled enigmatically, Tyloren heard voices and turned to see where they were coming from.

  "Bright Crystals alive!" was all he could think of to say at the sight that met his eye.

  A shape, roughly man-sized, and crowned with a mass of bright red hair emerged into the clearing before them. From a circlet of some dark metal, strings of crystals hung down to the floor among the hair and clacked together as the strange personage bobbed up and down in some kind of dance while keeping up a continuous chant. There was a strong aura of power about the figure and Tyloren couldn't take his eyes off the scene before him, not least because this strange apparition stood surrounded by a crowd of child-sized people, all chanting and thrusting spears in his direction. The mass of hair and crystals halted and Loman moved into the space that divided Tyloren from the reception committee, whose intentions were none too clear, but Loman bowed and greeted the figure with a smile, and held his hand out in Tyloren's direction.

  The wildman ceased his dance with a foot planted heavily on the ground and silence fell. The spears were lowered and an expectant silence fell on the scene. Loman spoke in a loud and melodic voice, addressing those gathered before him.

  "Mahoo, great seer, mage and wise one, may I present Tyloren, who I found wandering lost after escaping from Athrak."

  Tyloren did not know how to respond, and plumped for civility. He bowed low to the hair and crystals, and to the person under them, by proxy, though he could see nothing beyond the suggestion of a nose dividing the hair at a point roughly facing him.

  "I am honoured to know such a wise and powerful mage, and I greet you, Mahoo, I thank you for your welcome." Mahoo gave a nod and adopted a more relaxed pose, raising his hand in a gesture of peace. A thin wavering voice came from behind the cascade of hair, and Mahoo said "I bid you welcome, Tyloren." Tyloren decided to respond wordlessly and bowed his head in polite deference. The exchange appeared to be over, and Mahoo moved off with his band of warriors, who were called 'slints', as Loman informed him. This place was full of surprising inhabitants. Loman then turned and said, "I offered you the hospitality of my home, and I think it would be a good idea if we made our way there now. I would like you to meet my family."

  "Your family?" queried Tyloren in surprise,

  "Yes, my wife and children will be expecting us. Come." Loman set off down the gorge and Tyloren followed, wondering who could possibly be Loman's wife and what kind of children they might have produced. Nothing would surprise him, he decided, and he would not repay Loman's hospitality with rudeness by appearing to be critical, whoever he was married to. Even so, when Loman introduced his wife to Tyloren, he was hard-pressed to keep his composure. She stood twice his height and was thin, thin, thin! She was a spindly, though the first female Tyloren had ever seen of the kind, but nonetheless a spindly. As she extended a hand to Tyloren in greeting, and smiled, the spindly who had captured him came strongly to mind, and even more so when the nasal voice said,

  "Greetings, and welcome to our home."

  From the hut at whose door she stood, came the voices of children, and three young boys appeared at their mother's back. The two younger ones met him with smiles on their faces, but the eldest of the three was sullen, probably to be accounted for by his age as he was in his teens. All three appeared to be normal in every way as far as Tyloren could see.

  "My children," said Loman simply, and my wife Lenora.

  "I am very pleased to meet you all," said Tyloren having to overcome so many preconceptions that he was afraid he would not be able to maintain his external calm. "I would like to thank you formally for the food and clothing you prepared for me. I was desperately in need." Lenora gave an angular smile and replied, "You are very welcome, but please come inside and I will prepare you a proper meal while you talk with Loman and get to know the boys."

  "You are very gracious," said Tyloren, and he meant it. ‘Looks can be deceiving, he thought. Yes indeed!'

  The sun broke through the crack in the shutters and poked a finger of light at Tyloren as he lay on a reed-stuffed mattress, covered with a soft warm blanket. He opened his eyes lazily, thinking, for one moment that he was back in h
is little room in Wandguard with its comfortable bed and clean sheets. Then he blinked and took in the unfamiliar surroundings, searching to remember, until, like a window opening in his mind, the where and how of things, hit him. He felt refreshed and safe, something he had not felt for a considerable time, and he thanked his lucky crystals that he had managed to reach this safe haven. He stretched out his arms and legs and then relaxed, luxuriously snuggling into the security of his cozy bed, and tried to remember as best he could the series of events that had brought him there. He had been out in the hills around Wandguard early one morning as he often was, enjoying the first rays of the sun as they filtered down through the gaps in the clouds, and he had just trekked up a hill when he saw a moving shape in the hollow, away below him and to his left. He knew Westroth was missing, and decided it was probably him, and so had set off down the slope in an attempt to reach him and maybe talk to him. The young man had been troubled since his release from lo-dom and Tyloren had wanted the chance to speak to him. He owed it, first of all to Menoneth, but he also wanted to assess, for himself, Wes's mental state. Why was he here wandering alone in the hills anyway? Was he trying to quieten his mind like Tyloren, or was there another reason?