As for their number, early references mentioned three tomes, later references five. By the time of most references, some three hundred years before the Tothian Wars, the tomes had long vanished. He only had one clue as to their fate, a fragment that had survived the burning of the libraries. It named the destruction of three tomes, naming them the Tome of Creation, the Heart Tome, and the Shadow Tome. The first of these was taken by the Sky Brother, its apparent author, the second destroyed by fire salamanders, and the third—the Shadow Tome—lost at sea.
But the last two tomes, including the Tome of Prophesy, had not been destroyed, according to the writer, merely lost. Yes, Markal had thought at the time, but lost for so long was as good as destroyed anyway. Now he wasn’t so sure. According to ancient writings, the Tome of Prophesy could show the future and control the weak minded or the young. It also changed words and pictures, sometimes appearing a meaningless jumble to the untrained eye. That might explain why he’d not thought the book special upon first glance.
A hooting owl startled Markal from his thoughts and he climbed to his feet. A horned owl from the sound of it. His ears picked out a bear snuffling on the hillside some two hundred yards above them.
Bits of the bear’s blurry thoughts grumbled into his mind. Peoples. I smell peoples. No good peoples, no good stings on their hands. And then a new thought crossed its mind. Peoples. Food. Good food, sweet and salty food. Peoples food.
The wizard turned his own thoughts at the bear before it caused mischief. No good food here, friend. Only stings. Nasty, sharp stings from peoples. Find berries down the mountain, black, sweet berries. No stings in berries.
Markal turned his attention down the mountain, but heard nothing there except a skunk licking the salt from a leather glove dropped by one of Hoffan’s men. Bats clicked overhead, searching for insects.
Hoffan’s men camped against a hillside beneath the protection of pine trees. Men snored, some stirring in the strange environment. Markal searched out Hoffan and Ethan and woke them.
“I’m leaving. Don’t ask where or why. I can’t tell you.”
Hoffan grumbled as he sat up in his bedding and yawned furiously. “Even a blind dog can sniff his own butt, I suppose.”
Markal blinked. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Hoffan yawned again, looking confused. “Damn it, wizard, I don’t know. It’s dark, and I’m still half asleep.”
Markal laughed and turned to Ethan, who had wakened instantly, much as his brothers could. “I’ll meet you at the Citadel. If you reach it first, do what you can to soften the king’s heart.”
“What is all of this, wizard?” Hoffan asked. He yawned again, but the haze began to fall from his eyes. “You act decent enough most of the time, and then you skulk off in the middle of the night like any other wizard.”
Markal clapped the man on the shoulder. “Could be worse, highwayman. There’s a bear on the hill. I could have smeared honey on your face to make up for the times you’ve stripped me of every last shekel, dinarii, and guilder when I passed Montcrag. I daresay some wizards would have been hard pressed to pass on such an opportunity.”
“I’m not afraid of bears.” Hoffan snorted and lay back down. “Hell, I’m half bear myself. That fellow on the hillside might just be my cousin.”
Markal left the camp, slipping into the darkness. When he reached the ridge, he crouched to his knees, summoning the proper incantation. This time, vows of the Order, don’t fail me.
There were three components of active magic, that is, the magic greater than the ability to speak to animals and such. The first element was knowledge, and Markal knew more of the chants and incantations than anyone. He knew when it would be better to use the spells developed by each of the old orders: the Crimson Path, or the Seven Crippled Wizard Knights, or other, more minor orders. There was a difference between the right spell and the almost-right spell. This knowledge compensated for his other deficiencies.
The second component was life force. The Order of the Wounded Hand drew life from their own hands, which shriveled and blackened after use. Other orders had drawn life force from animals, or grew hugely fat before casting magic, fat they burned off in a riot of energy, leaving flaps of skin behind. An evil wizard, of course, used human life; it was said that King Toth burned alive a hundred thousand children to bind the Way. Cragyn often drew magic by impaling his victims on spikes.
The final component of magic proved to be Markal’s weakness. Because good orders of wizards didn’t have as much power as dark wizards—what was a withered hand to murder and torture?—they drew strength from their convictions. Wizards like Chantmer the Tall and Nathaliey Liltige believed so strongly in the precepts of Jethro the Martyr that it made them powerful indeed. Such passionate belief also blinded them, Markal believed, while a more practical man or woman might be ultimately more effective. Alas, at times like this, he wished he had more faith in the Martyr’s teachings.
He whispered in the old tongue, “A Manth Sever, nurjoro puissant urs anach aguil flok, me pasht veltra khah.” By the Wounded Hand, I draw the strength of the bear and the wings of an eagle to speed my journey.
Power flowed through his veins. He arched his back and groaned. At the last moment, a niggle of doubt crept into his mind and much of the power bled uselessly into the air. It had been this bleeding of power that had drawn wights in Balsalom. Markal’s hand burned with pain, then grew cold. It withered.
The wizard might have turned into a giant eagle, had his faith been greater, or even a bear, had he not been so weak. Still, his bones hardened, his heart surged and a shout came to his lips. He bounded up the hill. Raging with heat, he tore off his clothes and cast them behind him. Branches and rocks scraped at his body and tore at his feet, but he paid them no attention. Darkness didn’t bother him, for he felt the path beneath his feet.
Over the hills and mountains he ran. When cliffs blocked his path, he scrambled directly up their faces with his good hand and his toes. Startled deer bounded out of his way. He frightened a dozing rabbit, running it down and passing it on the trail. His skin burned with fire.
A griffin aerie loomed to his right. Even with his keen eyes, he might not have seen the old tower where it stood in a small clearing, if not for the cry of an owl in that direction. It occurred to him that he could travel even faster on the back of a griffin, and he veered toward the aerie.
The tower was like many in these hills. They predated the Tothian Way, when other roads snaked their way through treacherous valleys, avoiding giant country. The towers were short stone buildings, no more than a hundred feet high in most cases, to guard against bandits. But when Toth slew the giant king and drove the other giants north, then built the Tothian Way, the towers fell into disuse. During the wars, griffin riders adapted them into aeries.
Markal knew instantly that something was wrong. A jumble of clothing sat in front of the doors, which hung wide open. The contents of a broken chest lay scattered around the clearing. A fire still burned in the hearth. He listened but heard nothing, and crept forward to investigate.
The clothing was not clothing, or at least, not merely clothing. It was a young man lying face down on the ground. The wizard reached down a hand to his face, but the magic fever burned so strongly in him that he couldn’t tell whether or not the man was still warm. Markal smelled animal blood, and followed the scent to a dead griffin that dangled from the window of its aerie.
Inside, more destruction. Dragon wasps had come while the griffins slept, and while they’d killed at least one of the beasts, a dragon wasp lay dead in the room. A second wasp was alive but torn and dying fast. It let out a hiss when it saw Markal, but didn’t crawl its way to the doorway. Someone had ransacked the rooms below, then left. Cragyn, looking for Darik and the book.
A whisper caught his ears and he froze. He crept to the window and listened. Something or someone moved through the trees, silently hunting in the darkness. Dark magic flowed from the trees like blo
od from a wound, polluting the air around him and Markal fought the urge to flee. Instead, he crouched by the window, waiting. The magical force flowed past, searching, but not for him.
And Markal might have escaped detection had he not done something stupid. Instead of letting the enemy pass, he sent a tendril of thought, the barest query of magic.
The dark wizard, searching for the tome. Yes, it was him. Markal recognized his magic immediately.
He could hardly believe Cragyn had grown so powerful. Markal remembered when Cragyn had approached the Citadel as a boy seventy years ago. Young and earnest, much like Darik was now, his only follies were the kind that could be excused by youth. Cragyn was a studious boy, ahead in his reading and memorizing the ancient learnings with astonishing speed. If he had a fault, it was his overly keen interest in spells to bind wights. Such spells had brought the destruction of other wizards, but Cragyn swore he would be careful. Alas, years of proximity to wights took their toll and Chantmer had discovered him tinkering in the dark arts and cast him from the Order.
Afraid because the dark wizard had grown so powerful, Markal withdrew, but not in time. A rope of thought struck faster than a coiled snake. He staggered back from the window, clawing at Cragyn’s attack, but not before he was detected.
Markal turned toward the door in a panic, but the enemy burst into the bottom of the tower, speeding up the stairs. Markal returned to the window, eyeing the thirty foot drop to the ground. The door behind him opened.
Cragyn wore a dark cloak, and shadows wreathed his body so thick that they foiled Markal’s keen eyesight. He bared his teeth and smiled. “Markal. Whatever happened to your clothes?”
Markal jumped. He hung in the air for a long moment, flailing against the night air, the ground impossibly far below him. And then he hit, trying to roll. It knocked the wind from him. He regained his feet, magic still coursing through his veins. Cragyn landed beside him, light on his feet, hands grabbing for his shoulders. Markal leapt over the ground like a hunted deer, but the dark wizard stayed right behind, his power much stronger than Markal’s waning energy.
And then, impossibly, Cragyn stopped the chase. Markal raced ahead, leaving the man behind. He veered toward his goal—Flockheart’s aerie—and kept running.
An hour later, the magic faded, while he was still far from his goal. First he felt a burning in the lungs, then he began to stumble over the occasional tree root, and then his muscles trembled when he slowed to hurdle some obstacle. At last he collapsed to the ground with a gasp. The last of the magic fled. He couldn’t move, his muscles seizing up. If the dark wizard still hunted him, he would find Markal helpless. At last Markal struggled to his feet.
Why had Cragyn turned away? Markal could think of one possible reason, and it gave him hope. Perhaps as powerful as the dark wizard had become, he still bound his magic to a single site, some center of power.
King Toth had kept his magic in a box of souls, together with his strongest wights. Memnet the Great had kept his power in a glass sphere about the size of a fist. When the time came for him to pull from his reserves, Memnet would isolate himself, then draw what he needed.
Few wizards ever bound so much magic that they could store it, but the dark wizard might be one of them. He might have turned away, afraid that Markal’s flight was a ruse to draw him away from his power.
Yes, Markal thought. He might have stumbled onto Cragyn’s vulnerable spot.
Dawn crept over the mountains, and he still had three or four hours to go, barring another spell. But the way his heart thrashed about in his chest, using another spell might kill him. Now that he’d stopped burning with the magic fever, his naked body shivered in the cool night air. If only he was a greater wizard, he’d already be there. Markal continued by foot, gaining strength.
When he came upon Flockheart’s aerie, his heart pounded for a different reason. Two griffins lay dead in front of the tower, together with half a dozen dragon wasps. Cragyn had been here, too. One rider, face hidden, lay crushed beneath his mount. The battle had cost the dark wizard greatly, but he had won. The door to Flockheart’s tower hung from its hinges and debris lay strewn about in front of the building.
Sparrows chattered noisily from the branch of a tree, gossiping about the battle. “Yes, yes, yes,” one excitable fellow chattered. “Yes, the big people are going to war again. Yes, yes, lots of fighting. Big fighting. Yes.”
Markal turned, irritated. “The chattering beak tempts the snake,” he told them.
Chittering in surprise, the birds flew away. The wizard grinned in spite of himself, pleased that he’d remembered the common bird proverb. Like most such adages, it was utter nonsense. A snake was stone deaf, as any creature smarter than a sparrow could tell you.
He made his way to the clearing, afraid of what he would find. Much to his relief, the dead rider was neither of his friends nor Flockheart or his daughter. He didn’t recognize the griffins either.
Markal made his way through the tower. Thankfully, no more bodies. Indeed, the saddlebags were gone, making him think that they’d already taken the griffins to Balsalom before the battle. Flockheart had some fledglings, and these too were gone, perhaps removed to some other location. Cragyn must have drawn griffins from towers he’d attacked along the way. So the question was, had Darik taken the book? Why would he? If Markal was any kind of wizard, he’d have never left the book with Whelan and the boy without knowing its true nature first.
He found a shirt and some trousers and a pair of Flockheart’s boots, but the latter didn’t fit. Ah, well, his feet were tough enough. The skin on his blackened right hand began to slough off. It would hurt like hell for the next two days. This had been no mean spell.
The sun rose, promising a glorious late-summer day. It belied the scene of death in front of him. Others would have to give peace to this scene; he hadn’t the time. He scanned the trees, pondering the best way to cross into the Free Kingdoms.
“Did you lose something, wizard?” a voice said behind him.
Startled, Markal turned around. An old man with an oak staff stood at the edge of the clearing. He had a beard that was so white that it had a bluish tint, and an ancient face as lined as the mountain crags. It alarmed Markal that he hadn’t heard the man approach. Only a wizard had the power to do that.
“Are you friend or enemy?” Markal demanded.
The man chuckled. “If I were with the dark wizard, you would no doubt be laying in a pool of your own blood. By the Harvester’s bones, I thought you’d fallen asleep. I’ve rarely seen a more careless fellow.”
Markal grinned and forced himself to relax. The old man didn’t look dangerous, and that fact alone alarmed him. “So what were you going to do, old man, thump me over the head?”
“Old man? And I suppose that among the Order of the Wounded Hand, a man old enough to remember the Tothian Wars is not reckoned as old?” He shrugged. “Such is the curious way of wizards, I suppose. Men and women powerful enough to petrify their bodies in eternal youth, but feeble in the mind.”
“And you are not a wizard?”
The old man shook his head. “Not a wizard, no.”
“Then what, then who are you?”
He lifted his oak staff to point at the sparrows still chattering in the trees. “I’m the friend of those poor creatures you frightened just now. The friend of all birds and trees and animals who live beneath the attention of man.”
Markal nodded. “So you hide your destiny, magical man who is not a wizard? Very well. Yet, you know much about me. Who am I that my ways concern you?”
The old man lowered his staff. “You concern me little, except that I have something of yours that you carelessly let slip from your hands.”
Markal stepped forward eagerly. “You have it?”
The old man lifted a hand. “No closer, please. Yes, I have it. Your young friend looked into its pages one too many times and attracted unwanted attention. I trust if I give the book to you, you will be more
cautious next time?” He reached into his robe and removed the steel tome. The Tome of Prophesy.
“Yes, I promise.”
“Very well then. I will hold you to your promise, Markal of Aristonia.”
The old man dropped the book and stepped back a pace. By the time Markal picked it up and looked up to thank his benefactor, the man had gone. He stared for a moment, wondering. A surviving wizard from the Crimson Path, perhaps, who’d lived the last four hundred years perfecting his arcane crafts? He must be powerful indeed, to keep himself and the tome hidden from the dark wizard.
Markal would seek him out later, should he get the chance, and find out what he knew about the book and the rest of the Oracular Tomes. For now, he had to reach the Citadel and warn King Daniel.
A bird screamed from the sky and Markal looked up to see Whelan’s falcon. He held out his good left hand and Scree circled for a moment before coming to his wrist. He grimaced as the bird dug its talons into the skin.
“Left you alone, did they?” he asked. The bird cocked its head and watched him, perhaps surprised that he could speak to it. No, Whelan would never leave the bird alone. It must have been staying with the griffin rider laying outside Flockheart’s tower.
“We need an understanding, you and I,” Markal said. “I have none of your equipment. None. So you’ll be unhooded.” He nodded. “Fly away and I’ll leave you to the eagles. They’ll make short work of you. Do you understand me?”
“Fly!” the falcon said. “Fly west! Mountains!”
Markal clenched his eyes shut. Falcons, hawks, eagles: why was it they had to scream everything? “Yes, we’re going west. Settle down and we’ll be all right.”
The wizard made his way across the mountains over the next few days, making sandals from birch bark. The falcon hunted fowl and marmot, which they ate raw. While his companions battled Mol Khah in Balsalom, the wizard fought snowstorms atop Mount Rachis. He hadn’t planned to go so high, but had awakened one morning in the middle of a giant’s thrackmole. A thrackmole was a strange game where giants chopped down trees and stripped off their branches, then took turns casting these trees as far as they could.
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