Frostborn: The Undying Wizard

by Jonathan Moeller

  “I…” Morigna opened her mouth, closed it again, and scowled. “The Old Man said the Magistri were proud and haughty.”

  Calliande raised her eyebrows. “And how many Magistri have you met?”

  “You,” said Morigna, “and…”

  “The Old Man?” said Calliande. “Was he a Magistrius?”

  “No,” said Morigna. “Maybe. I don’t know for sure. He knows a great deal about them, though.”

  “Perhaps he was a Magistrius,” said Calliande, “and he fled the realm for some reason.”

  Morigna smiled. “And since he was a Magistrius, everything he told me about their Order is accurate.”

  “Or,” said Calliande, “he is bitter, and has told you a darkened version of the truth.”

  Morigna made her uneasy, but her descriptions of the Old Man alarmed Calliande. He sounded a great deal like Alamur, a traitorous Magistrius who had tried to hand her over to Shadowbearer in Dun Licinia. Or, worse, Talvinius, a former Magistrius who had used dark magic to extend his lifespan, and had ended his days with his spirit bound to the body of an ancient, crippled kobold shaman.

  “He would not lie about that to me,” declared Morigna.

  “Are you entirely certain?” said Calliande.

  “Yes,” said Morigna.

  Calliande shrugged. “Well, if the monks can make up stories to ease their lives…why should the Old Man not spin tales to make himself sound better?”

  Morigna said nothing, and Calliande had the satisfaction of seeing the sorceress at a brief loss.

  “There is one thing the Old Man taught me that is certainly true,” said Morigna.

  “Oh?” said Calliande.

  “Power is the basis of all respect,” she said, “and the strong rule over the weak. If I did not have magic, Michael or Jonas would have killed me by now. You would probably try to take me back as a prisoner to Tarlion.”

  “No,” said Calliande. She sat down on a bed and tugged off her boots, sighing in relief. “I would not. I have my own concerns, and cannot spare the time to take you back to Tarlion to forcibly enroll you in the Magistri.”

  “What are you doing?” said Morigna.

  “Bathing,” said Calliande. “If I must listen to you talk with such authority upon topics about which you know nothing, I may as well be comfortable for it.”

  Morigna glared at her, but thankfully did not say anything.

  Calliande crossed to the bathtub, stripped off her clothing, and stacked it in the corner. She made sure to pile everything over a leather pouch that had hung from her belt. That pouch contained a relic of tremendous power.

  Exactly the sort of thing that should not fall into the hands of someone like Morigna.

  Calliande lowered herself into the water and let sighed. The monks had filled the tub already, thank God, and the hypocaust kept the water warm. After a week traveling through the wilderness, of bathing only when she could find a stream, it felt wonderful.

  She opened her eyes and saw Morigna staring at her.

  “If you’re concerned about the monks spying on you,” said Calliande, “we could always tell them the tale of what happened to the foolish young man who spied upon the bathing Magistria.”

  “No,” said Morigna. “It’s just…truly? You…bathe with others?”

  Calliande shrugged. “It is the custom. Since the time of the Empire of the Romans, even before Malahan Pendragon led our ancestors from Old Earth. One bathhouse for men, and one for women.”

  At least, it must have been the custom before she went into the long sleep below the Tower of Vigilance. Of course, the custom might well have faded away in the two centuries she had slept below the Tower. But she had seen bathhouses in Dun Licinia and Moraime, and another for the monks alongside the main keep.

  To sit in a hot bath and talk with friends was such a pleasant custom. It would be a pity if it faded away.

  A memory of doing so hovered just as the edge of her consciousness, but as ever, it sank into the mists choking her past.

  For a moment Calliande thought Morigna would stalk away back to the bedroom. But the woman steeled herself, pulled off her boots and removed her ragged cloak and her leather and wool clothing. She was slim and fit, with legs muscled from long travels across the hills and marshes, and the arms of a woman accustomed to using a short bow. Her black hair hung loose around her pale shoulders, and she took a deep breath, the ribs pressing against her skin.

  Then she dropped herself into the water with a splash.

  “Damnation!” spat Morigna. “It’s so hot!”

  “It’s supposed to be,” said Calliande.

  “I always bathe in the ponds of the hills,” said Morigna. “Cold in winter. I suppose you wouldn’t be used to that.”

  “I suppose not,” said Calliande. She had bathed in creeks during the last thirty-two days, but could remember nothing before that. For all she knew, she had bathed in mountain streams every day. But she did remember cold water, remembered desperately floundering through the freezing water in the ruins of the Tower of Vigilance. “But I’ve had enough of cold water.”

  “Still,” said Morigna, leaning against the stone tub, “this is…less unpleasant than I expected. I suppose one could even get used to it.”

  “I suppose,” said Calliande.

  The monks had left rough cakes of soap by the edge of the tub, and Calliande took one and started to scrub. It felt good to wash away the accumulated grime and grease of the road. Morigna frowned for a moment, and then reached for a second cake of soap and followed suit.

  “I suppose I haven’t smelled like this in years,” said Morigna. “I’ll have half the wolves of the hills following me in bafflement.”

  “You…speak to wolves?” said Calliande, thinking of dark magic.

  “Of course not,” said Morigna. “Wolves are not capable of speech. But I could reach their minds, and command them to obey me, and share images from their primitive thoughts.”

  Calliande shook her head, wet hair sticking to her face. “That is perilously close to dark magic.”

  “Is it?” said Morigna, sniffing the soap with a look of distaste.

  “If you used that same magic to enslave the minds of mortal men, then yes,” said Calliande.

  “Well, I do not,” said Morigna. “I know you think me some dark witch eager to go on a rampage, but I am not. I want…I want…”

  A look of distant pain came over her face.

  “What do you want?” said Calliande.

  “I want,” said Morigna at last, “to be left alone. To have enough power to be left alone.”

  “Why did you need power for that?” said Calliande.

  “Because,” said Morigna, “the strong do as they please…”

  “You keep saying that,” said Calliande.

  “It is true,” said Morigna. “No doubt you think the Old Man pumped my head full of lies. But he is right about this. The weak are trampled underfoot. The only security in life is power.”

  “That is a bleak view,” said Calliande.

  “Whether or not a truth is bleak,” said Morigna, “has no bearing on whether or not it is true.”

  “There is kindness and love,” said Calliande.

  Morigna laughed. “Masks only, for lust. Or manipulation.”

  They washed in silence for a moment.

  “I wish to ask you a question,” said Calliande, setting the cake of soap back on the edge of the tub.

  Morigna sighed. “About whether or not I am a dark sorceress feeding upon the weak?”

  “No,” said Calliande. “About a place.”

  It was a risk, talking to Morigna about it. But if the Old Man was a renegade Magistrius or sorcerer, he might have access to forgotten lore.

  Including, perhaps, the answer to one of Calliande’s questions.

  “A place?” said Morigna. For the first time there was no arrogance or annoyance in her tone, only curiosity. “What kind of place?”

  “A place
called Dragonfall,” said Calliande, repeating the name the Watcher had given her as she dreamed.

  “Dragonfall?” said Morigna. “No…the Old Man has never mentioned the name. What is it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Calliande. The Watcher had said that her staff waited there, but Calliande would not tell that to Morigna. “I…think it might be a tomb of some kind. Something to do with the dragons of old.”

  “Dragons?” said Morigna. “Now they are surely mythical. The great dragons of old who taught the high elves their magic long before humans ever came to this world? No living human has seen one…nor has any human in the history of Andomhaim, one should think.”

  “Perhaps,” said Calliande, thinking. “Your Old Man…how old is he?”

  Morigna blinked. “Old. Very old. He looks ancient. Certainly he has lived in the hills as long as anyone in Moraime can remember. Why?”

  “The way you describe him,” said Calliande, “reminds me of someone I met.”

  “Who?”

  “Talvinius,” said Calliande. “A renegade Magistrius who joined the Eternalists.”

  “An Eternalist?” said Morigna. “What is that?”

  “A traitor to the Magistri,” said Calliande. “A hundred and fifty years past, a group of Magistri turned against the teachings of the church and the Order. They sought to use their magic to become…oh, a more powerful kindred of man, I suppose, as powerful as the dark elves and as immortal as the urdmordar.”

  “Foolish,” said Morigna. “The natural of man is mortal. It is madness to deny that. No power can overcome it.”

  “For once, I agree,” said Calliande. “The Eternalists pursued the vilest blood sorcery and dark magic in pursuit of their goal. Eventually, they were discovered, and driven out. Talvinius survived by transferring his spirit into the body of a kobold shaman and lurked in the Deeps for centuries. His minions captured me, and he tried to move his spirit into my body.”

  Morigna started to laugh.

  “What?” said Calliande. “It’s not funny.”

  “But it is,” said Morigna. “He tried to possess a woman’s body? The old lecher! Likely he hoped to sit about and fondle himself. Well, herself, if he claimed your body.”

  Despite herself, Calliande laughed at the grotesque absurdity of the thought. “I would not put it past him.”

  “Clearly you escaped him,” said Morigna. “How did he die?”

  “I killed him,” said Calliande. “He underestimated me.”

  “And you think he reminds you of the Old Man?” said Morigna. “Don’t be absurd. The Old Man looks older than Moraime, and he needs a cane to walk. If he had the magic to take a new body, I think he would have done so fifty years ago.”

  “Perhaps he was waiting for a suitable host,” said Calliande. “Talvinius was only strong enough to possess a kobold, not a human.”

  “A thousand people live in Moraime,” said Morigna, “and hundreds more must have come and gone in the time the Old Man has lived here. If he was looking for a suitable body, surely he must have found one by now. The Old Man is not one of your Eternalists.”

  Calliande shrugged, the water rippling. “When Ridmark speaks with him tomorrow, we’ll know for certain, won’t we?”

  “The Gray Knight,” said Morigna. “An unusual man.”

  “He is,” said Calliande.

  “How did you meet him?” said Morigna.

  “He saved my life,” said Calliande. “Some Mhalekite orcs were about to kill me for an arcane ritual. Ridmark stopped them, and I’ve been with him ever since.”

  Morigna raised her eyebrows. “With him? Is that a polite euphemism?”

  “No,” said Calliande, annoyed. “It’s not. Mhalek killed his wife five years ago, and Ridmark…” She shook her head. Why was she even trying to justify herself to Morigna? Calliande could not remember anything that had happened more than thirty-two days ago. For all she knew, she had been married and had borne children. Perhaps her husband and children still slept in some secret place, as she had slept below the Tower of Vigilance.

  She could not think about Ridmark in that fashion.

  Even if Aelia’s death had not scarred Ridmark too much to think about Calliande, or anyone, in that fashion.

  “Ah,” said Morigna, “for the first time a question for which you do not have a glib answer. How interesting.”

  “Ridmark saw his wife killed in front of him,” said Calliande. “He has not recovered from it.”

  “That is not the sort of thing one recovers from,” said Morigna, a cold glint in her black eyes, “though I am sure I would not know. Yet I am curious why you are following this man, about whom you feel nothing, into a place like Urd Morlemoch.”

  “Because the Frostborn are returning,” said Calliande. “The omen of blue fire a month past was proof of it. But we do not know how or when. The Warden warned Ridmark against the omen nine years ago.”

  “Brave of you,” said Morigna, “but foolish. Even the Old Man would not go to Urd Morlemoch. Once he fretted about some lost book of the high elves, and I pointed out that he had told me the Warden has the largest library of magical lore upon this world. He said that was folly, that the Warden amuses himself by driving intruders to madness over a span of decades.”

  “The Warden has answers that we need,” said Calliande.

  “Such as,” said Morigna, glancing over Calliande’s shoulder, “the nature of the powerful magical object you carry?”

  Calliande kept her expression blank.

  “Do not bother to deny it,” said Morigna. “I have sensed the thing since I got within five paces of you. What is it?”

  “An empty soulstone.” Perhaps Morigna would not recognize the term.

  But to judge from the way Morigna’s eyes widened, that had been a vain hope.

  “Truly?” said Morigna. “Such a thing…how did it get away from the high elves?”

  “I think Shadowbearer stole it,” said Calliande. “The Mhalekites wanted to use it on me when they tried to kill me atop a dark elven altar.”

  Morigna considered this in silence for a moment.

  “Whatever you do,” she said, “do not tell the Old Man about it, and do not let him sense it.”

  “I wasn’t planning on it,” said Calliande.

  “He might try to steal it, if he thinks he can get away with it,” said Morigna.

  “And you won’t?” said Calliande.

  Morigna shrugged. “Believe what you like. But I know my limitations. That is too much magical power for me to control. If I tried anything with the soulstone, I would likely burn myself to ashes. But the Old Man has no such limitations. Better not to wave raw meat in front of a dog.”

  “I see,” said Calliande. “Thank you.”

  She climbed out of the tub and got dressed.

  ###

  Ridmark stood alone upon the monastery’s curtain wall and looked into the darkness.

  He saw lights in the great hall behind him. Gavin and Kharlacht and Caius were eating heartily, and no doubt Caius was regaling the monks with tales from their travels. The dwarven friar knew how to spin a tale.

  Ridmark himself had little taste for companionship. He would have gone to Urd Morlemoch alone, if he could have managed it. He deserved to die, but no one else did.

  Still, without Calliande’s help, he would have perished at Urd Arowyn.

  He heard the scrape of a boot against the rampart and turned, hand tightening against his staff.

  But it was only Calliande, as if his thoughts had summoned her. She had bathed and put on clean clothing, a wool shirt and trousers and a leather jerkin and boots, her cloak pulled tight against the chill of the spring night.

  “Shouldn’t you be at dinner?” said Ridmark.

  Calliande shrugged. “The monks are not comfortable around women. So I availed myself of their bath instead. Why aren’t you there?”

  “Because hearing Caius recount the glorious tales of my valor,” said Ridmark with a
scowl, “grows tiresome. And I wish to think.”

  She nodded, but did not leave. To his surprise, he did not mind. He sometimes tired of her constant lectures about letting go of the past, about forgiving himself. But she understood him, and she knew when not to push him too far.

  And she, too, saw the dangers of the return of the Frostborn.

  They stood in silence. A few lights shone here and there in the town, but none on the wall. The watchmen would want to preserve their night vision.

  “What are you thinking about?” she said at last.

  “It does not make sense,” said Ridmark.

  “Morigna’s story?” said Calliande.

  “No. She makes perfect sense,” said Ridmark, and Calliande frowned. “But of all this,” he waved a hand over the battlements, “does not.”

  “The undead, you mean?” said Calliande.

  “Yes,” said Ridmark. “Why raise the undead? Why attack Moraime?”

  She shrugged. “Perhaps there is no purpose. Wielders of dark magic are rarely rational in their decisions.”

  “There is always a purpose,” said Ridmark. “Qazarl raised the undead to attack Dun Licinia. Agrimnalazur and Morwen used the undead as guards. Yet I cannot see the reason here. Does someone hope to drive the people of Moraime behind their walls to prepare for an attack? If so, it would be better to wait until the crops are in the ground.”

  “Our foe may not have a sound grasp of tactics,” said Calliande. “Morwen did not.”

  “No,” said Ridmark. “Yet her actions still had a purpose. Here, I cannot see the purpose, not yet.” He looked north. “Perhaps this Old Man of Morigna’s shall know more.”

  “Morigna,” said Calliande.

  There was a wary note in her voice.

  “I don’t think you should trust her,” said Calliande.

  “I won’t,” said Ridmark. “But trust is not necessary. I understand her.”

  “So quickly, then?” said Calliande with a bit of doubt.

  “The Old Man, whoever he is, raised her,” said Ridmark. “So all her arguments are, I expect, merely recitations of things the Old Man had told her over the years.”