Nomadin
Copyright © 2011 by Shawn P. Cormier
Images used under license from Shutterstock.com
Published by Pine View Press at Smashwords
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Nomadin
NiDemon
Necromancer
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Acknowledgments
The following is a chronological listing of those special few who helped make this book possible:
1. My parents, John and Emily, for their support.
2. Mr. David Yacavace, for his love of words.
3. Joe Romano, for his belief in dreams.
4. Steve Westcott, for leading the way.
5. Paul Cormier, for his constant encouragement.
6. Nancy Holder, for her keen eye and red pen.
7. Robert Holland, for his help with the ‘technicals'.
8. Jeff and Kelly Maraska, for my wonderful cover on the physical book.
9. My children, Tom and Nicole, for keeping me young at heart.
But most of all, I would like to thank my wife, Lynn, for without her there would be no book.
For Glenn,
who I will always remember.
And for Keith,
who I will never forget.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter I The Pointed Pencil
Chapter II The Map in the Hall
Chapter III Of Witches and Wands
Chapter IV Whispers and Warnings
Chapter V The Illwood Tree
Chapter VI The Bark and the Bite
Chapter VII Evernden
Chapter VIII The Groll
Chapter IX The Drowsy Wood
Chapter X Kink and Crank
Chapter XI Into the Dog House
Chapter XII A Shadow in the Dark
Chapter XIII The Swan
Chapter XIV The Test
Chapter XV Runner
Chapter XVI The Best Laid Plans
Chapter XVII The Giant's Tale
Chapter XVIII Kink's Revenge
Chapter XIX Herman the Heretic
Chapter XX The Giant's Encampment
Chapter XXI Alone in the Night
Chapter XXII Greattower
Chapter XXIII NiDemon
Chapter XXIV Nomadin
THANK YOU
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chapter I
The Pointed Pencil
Ilien Woodhill was dead.
Twice before he had foiled their attacks, once by hiding at daybreak in a thicket of brambles whose prickers left claw marks down his face, next through sheer luck, overhearing their whispers of revenge as he hid behind a tree at dusk. Then he was able to avoid their trouble. But now, this third time . . . three times was a charm, but not always a lucky one. He braced himself as his enemies approached.
The two figures moved from behind the stand of trees and stopped a dozen paces away. The leader, small and thin for a boy his age, shoved his larger companion ahead of him. "Get it," he commanded.
The other boy lumbered forward, his wide face creased in delight. There was nothing to fear here, that much he knew. After all, he was the biggest twelve-year-old in town, and taller than most thirteen-year-olds as well. Heck, he'd even made a few high schoolers cry. This little one would go down easy.
"Give it to me or else," he said, advancing and raising a meaty fist.
Ilien looked hopefully up the dirt road. Farmer Parson sometimes passed this way with a load of hay from his outer fields, bound for his tall grey barn, but it was only mid-April. A lone hawk circled above, a black spot in the sky above. As usual, Ilien was on his own.
"I said, give it to me or else," the boy growled, opening and closing his fist, knuckles cracking like shots.
"Or else what?" piped a voice that sounded, oddly enough, just like Ilien's.
Ilien groaned. He knew he should've left his enchanted pencil at home. An "A" in math was little consolation for a beating.
The boy left the fist in the air and turned to look back at his impish leader. "Did you hear that, Peaty? Now I'll hafta hurt him."
Peaty laughed him on, his lips drawn back in a sneer. "Do it, Stanley. Do it."
Ilien held the pencil at his side as Stanley approached, his feet frozen to the ground. He might still escape unharmed. There was still a chance. If only . . .
The pencil made a sound as if clearing its throat.
"Shut up!" Ilien shouted. "Why can't you ever shut up?"
Stanley's fist streaked forward and Ilien's head flew back with an audible snap. He stumbled back and tumbled to the ground, clutching the stinging wound beneath his eye, tears blurring his vision.
The boy leaned menacingly over Ilien, sweat beading on his meaty brow. "Don't tell me to shut up. Now give me that pencil. Give it to me, or I swear I'll break your arm."
"Why?" piped the pencil, mimicking Ilien again. "I bet you don't even know how to use one. Besides, I'd be afraid you'd poke yourself and pop. Someone in your condition should be careful around sharp objects."
With a bellow, Stanley fell on Ilien, hammer fists raining blows. Ilien threw his arms across his face. Pinned beneath the sweating Stanley, he could do little more than shield his wounded eye and gasp for breath, but his thoughts were racing.
Peaty's face twisted with spite, reddened with sudden blood-lust. "Kill him, Stanley! Kill him!"
The barrage of strikes was short-lived as the fat boy quickly tired. Stanley climbed off him and struggled to his feet, and Ilien scrambled back as his attacker stood swaying and exhausted before him. Both eyes stung now, and a tear of blood trickled from his nose.
"Is little Ilien afraid to lose his pencil?" Peaty mocked, his eyes cruel slits in his feverish face. "Are you gonna cry, little baby? Is that pencil your only friend?" Spittle flew from between his lips as he continued in angrier tones. "I bet your deadbeat daddy gave it to you right before he ran out on you."
Ilien squeezed the pencil in fury. It didn't matter that he never knew his father. No one talked about his dad like that. A few choice words of his own came to mind as anger swept through him, words that would do more than just sting.
"Ilien Woodhill! Don't you dare!" a voice cried behind him.
Ilien winced. It wasn't Farmer Parson come to the rescue, that was for sure.
The two boys backed away, fear clouding their faces.
"It's that crazy old man. Let's get out of here!" Peaty yelled. Ilien watched from the ground as the two boys ran off, casting back menacing looks. "Look! It's freak and geek!" they called, laughing. Then they were gone.
Ilien climbed to his feet and wiped at the blood running from his nose. The old man stood before him, leaning on a thin wooden cane."Don't worry, I'm fine!" Ilien snapped in answer to the sudden withering stare.
The old man merely squinted. "It wasn't you I was worried about." His eyes followed after the fleeing boys.
Ilien summoned tears and hid the talking pencil by his side, praying it would keep silent. He had learned to summon tears on cue since Gallund had come to stay at
the house. A most useful skill.
Gallund leaned in and pointed a finger at Ilien. "Don't give me that look, boy! You know what I mean. It's a good thing I got here when I did."
Ilien straightened and began to speak, but fell silent.
"So I was right!" Dust swirled around the old man, the product of an angry foot upon the road. "And to think I trusted you." His eyebrows furrowed into a single grey line. "What is rule number one?"
Ilien's shoulders resumed their usual droop. "No spells whatsoever outside the house," he muttered, "unless confronted by dark magic of the worse sort."
"And it seems I can't stress that enough, can I?"
Ilien's hands balled into fists. "But you didn't hear what they said!"
"I hear more than you think," Gallund said. "And if you're talking about what mister Peaty Wilson said concerning your father, he should be as lucky. His father's a lying, cheating drunk. He beats the boy, I know. Better to have no father at all than one like his."
Ilien doubted that, but he kept his arguments to himself as he looked up the dirt road. He was in enough trouble already. Besides, he suddenly didn't feel like talking about it.
Gallund tapped his cane on the road to garner Ilien's attention. "Now back to the point at hand. You know better than to use magic outside the house."
Ilien stared at his shoes. "I wasn't really going to electrocute them."
Gallund nearly jumped. "Electrocute them? Electrocute them!" he cried to the sky. "You cannot be serious!" He drove a finger into Ilien's chest. "Not only have I been careful not to teach you offensive spells, but I am quite sure I have never taught you anything as low-down and ordinary as electrocution. Surely you know that I myself would never consider using such a crass, and frankly, low class spell when Phlaming Phalanges would do a much better, and might I add, more impressive job. And let me remind you that Lightning spells are about as predictable as the weather. For all you know you might have electrocuted yourself."
Ilien kicked at the ground in front of him. "Well, I think Lightning spells jam," he mumbled.
"Jam? Jam?" Gallund looked around as if addressing an unseen jury. "What is that language he's speaking? Where in the world did he ever think that one up? Jam indeed. I never will understand you kids. Jam. Jelly. Marmalade. Really!"
Gallund turned and walked up the dusty road, carrying his cane like a sword and ranting under his breath about everything, from what kids say to what kids smell like. "And how your mother ever gets your britches clean after god knows what you've been rolling in. If she wasn't away visiting your uncle—. Why I ever decided to teach you magic behind her back, I'll never know!"
Ilien stifled a laugh as he followed behind. The old man spun and grabbed him fiercely by the shoulder. He drew Ilien close, his face suddenly pale. "This is not a game, boy. I warned you to keep your studies to yourself. There are those who would do worse than schoolyard bullies if they discovered out little secret."
Tense silence hung between them. A gust of wind kicked up a cloud of dust around the two still figures. Gallund released his iron grip and Ilien rubbed at his arm.
"And don't think I didn't see that pencil in your hand," continued the wizard. "I didn't give you an enchanted pencil so you could cheat on your geometry test. It's for spellwork, not schoolwork. Your mother hired me as a private tutor and entrusted me to keep an eye on you while she's gone, and that's what I'm going to do. One more stunt like this, just one more, and you'll lose that pencil for good. Now let's go. If you can't play nice then you won't play at all."
To Ilien, the short walk back to the house felt as long as a forced march to certain death. He trailed behind his teacher, kicking along a small rock that had been unfortunate enough to get in his way. The flat land surrounding his small town of Southford stretched out around him like a taut, green blanket with an occasional wrinkle where a sudden hill dropped down to a flooded gully or trickling stream. Luckily, he had to pass only one house along the winding road, Farmer Parson's, and no one there was home to witness his humiliation. Study! On a Friday, no less! He shoved his hands to the bottom of his pockets in disgust.
Chapter II
The Map in the Hall
So it was that Ilien found himself imprisoned on a sunny, green April day while the rest of the world fished and climbed trees and chased dogs. Even his house, a small, two story farmhouse with no trees nearby to speak of, got to bask lazily in the warm afternoon sun, and Ilien desperately wished he could join it, lying half-asleep in the backyard out by the small, meandering stream that snaked away into the surrounding fields. Instead, he sat in a small, hard chair poring over a textbook big enough to choke a dragon. It wouldn't have been so bad, after all he was studying magic, if it hadn't been for the eyes he accidentally conjured up.
All seventeen of them. The size of dinner plates.
Fortunately, they weren't sword-wielding arms, or fang-filled jaws. They were just eyes, a mob of them, huddled together in the far corner of the study, their lids flapping up and down in unison like tiny window shades. They hovered above the floor, squinting in the sunlight as if woken from a nap, thankfully taking no notice of the boy who sat frozen ten feet away.
Ilien eased his chair back and inched from his seat, keeping his two small eyes on the seventeen big ones across the room. He hoped to make it to the door before they saw him. No small feat considering their number. If he left them alone they might float out the open window before Gallund discovered them and sail off into the sunset, never to be seen again. If not, big trouble was sure to follow. Ilien had been forbidden to Conjure ever since the killer-bee incident the week before, and the fang-filled jaw charade the week before that, and the . . .
With memories of the sword-wielding arm melee burning in his mind, Ilien turned and crept toward the door. Halfway there, something caught his eye. He looked back in disbelief. He had forgotten his pencil and it was rolling across the table! He knew he shouldn't have choked the blasted thing earlier. Now it was going to pay him back. Magical pencils were so vindictive.
He held his breath as it neared the edge. If it fell he would be caught for sure. Magical pencils could make quite a racket when they wanted. Once, he accidentally broke its tip and it screamed so loud it woke his mother out of bed. He had to do some quick thinking to explain that one. He suddenly wished Gallund had never given him the wretched talisman. All it ever did was get him in trouble.
The pencil continued its vengeful march. Ilien pleaded silently for it to stop. It teetered on the brink.
"Over here! Over here!" it screeched as it sailed over the edge.
Seventeen black pupils narrowed to angry slits, revealing razor sharp teeth. Eyes with teeth? Ilien ran for the door. The eyes flew after him, lids flapping violently with the sound of snapping jaws. Ilien's feet barely touched the floor, but the eyes were too quick. They reached the door before him and turned with an angry leer. Ilien was about to do the only thing he could think of, apologize profusely then run the other way, when the eyes sprang open wide. Their teeth disappeared. They retreated. They backed into the door, wincing in fear. One eye opened wide, peering at him through a pool of shimmering tears.
"Forgive us, Master!" Its pupil formed the words like a mouth with no tongue. "Forgive us! We didn't know it was you."
Ilien forced a smile and shuffled back toward the table, and the open window beyond. "I forgive you," he stammered, secretly wondering how much his fall from the second story window would hurt.
At that the other eyes joined the first in blinking away their tears. The whole sopping cluster moved toward him, laying a watery trail behind. They seemed relieved, almost grateful—
—until Gallund stepped through the door.
In the blink of sixteen eyes (one remained shut in fear) they spun on the new intruder.
"Illustus bregun, illustus bregar!" the wizard cried as the eyes volleyed toward him. No sooner was ‘bregar!' out of Gallund's mouth when the eyes burst and disappeared, soaking him nose to kn
ees in a deluge of warm tears.
"Ilien Voracious Woodhill!" Gallund's cheeks glowed a torrid red, and his hands at his hips framed a thoroughly wet mid-section. "If I've said it a thousand times I've said it once, just because you can read a spell doesn't mean you're ready to cast it!" He rapped his cane on the floor and his clothes dried in an instant. "It's a good thing your mother's not here, that's all I can say. I don't know how I would have explained that one."
Ilien tugged at his shirt and looked nervously around the small room. The bookcases that lined the far wall seemed to lean forward disapprovingly. He was a small boy for his age, and shrank even smaller before the angry wizard.
"I really didn't think I could conjure them," he said.
"You most certainly didn't conjure them. Do you honestly think that after what you put me through that I would ever permit you to conjure again?" Gallund shook his head, his mouth a thin line of exasperation. "Your conjuring days are over. I've placed anti-conjuring wards in every room of this house. Yes, even in the bathroom!"
"But—"
"What you managed to cast," snapped the wizard," was an Illusion, and how you managed that is beyond me. Eyes? Really, Ilien? Eyes that call you master? Frankly, I preferred the fang-filled jaws. They might have been real but at least they couldn't talk!" Gallund studied him silently for a moment, gauging the effect of his rebuke, then shook his head. "Just sit and open your spellbook and show me what else you've learned today. And it better not be trouble!"
Ilien snatched up the magical pencil and jammed it into his pocket. With a nervous glance at the wizard, he sat back down, turning his attention to the massive spellbook in front of him. A curving, black symbol emblazoned its faded cover, like two cast iron horseshoes stuck belly to belly. He set it open to its very first page. The Kindle Candle spell. An easy spell to impress the old codger with! thought Ilien.
In the center of the table sat a tall, unlit candle in a holder of tarnished brass. Ilien silently read the spell, took a deep breath and pulled the candle close. At a glance, a thin wisp of smoke curled upwards from the wick and a small flame grew visible. Ilien squinted in concentration and the pale flame grew steady. It danced atop the candle and Ilien turned to Gallund with a toothy smile.
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