by Joe Mahoney
Neekson looked at him as if he were mad. “Seven years?”
“In your case, maybe eight.”
A horse approached at a gallop; Keele’s grey, wild-eyed and frothing at the bit. Keele reined up in front of the two men, looking little better than he had that morning. A woman sat behind him, her arms wrapped tightly about his waist, her head resting between his shoulder blades.
The grey pranced sideways. With a shock that brought him to his feet, Tanner recognised the woman as Damaris Fen. She didn’t look quite so freshly scrubbed anymore. Burrs dotted her hair. Streaks of mud and blood discoloured her cheeks and fingernails. Tanner tried to wrap his head around her presence on the back of Keele’s grey, and couldn’t, quite.
Keele regarded Tanner from atop the grey. “Is it her?”
Tanner felt a sinking in his gut, a feeling he got whenever his luck was about to change, and not for the better. “Yes, but—”
“Good,” Keele said, dismounting.
“What are you doing with her?”
“Found her. Off the King’s Road, alone.”
“Alone? You’re sure about that?”
Keele did not deign to answer.
“You mean no one’s after us?”
“No one except her.”
“I don’t understand. What about her family? What’s the matter with her, anyway?”
“It’s the moonstone,” Keele said.
Neekson’s head jerked up like a small rodent sensing danger.
“What about the moonstone?” Tanner asked, although he did not really want to know.
“It’s killing her,” Keele said, easing Damaris down off the grey.
The whites of Damaris’ eyes flickered beneath half-closed eyelids. Beads of spittle pooled at the corners of her mouth. But for Keele’s grasp, she might have fallen.
“How could it be killing her?” Tanner asked. “She’s not even wearing it.”
Keele eased Damaris gently onto the steps of the Heroes Welcome. “You took the moonstone from her. In turn, the moonstone took her mind. It’s not unheard of.”
Damaris had suffered more than just injury to her mind. Countless brambles and thorns had torn the clothes from her back, flayed the skin from her face and body. Tanner watched as Keele applied salve to an ugly laceration on her face. “You went looking for her,” he accused him. “You knew she would be out there.”
“I am not a seer,” Keele said. “I did not know for certain.”
Why Keele would have gone out of his way to find Damaris Fen Tanner could not imagine. Keele’s Order was not exactly known for their good works. Damaris was a Fen, of course, of the House of Fen, and a man stood to benefit greatly by aiding the likes of them, but Tanner did not think that was it. The Keele he knew served no man.
His voice pitched slightly higher than usual, he asked, “What if someone followed you? What then?”
Keele ignored him, and Tanner forced himself to let it go. In the end, Keele’s act had done more good than harm. Now it was obvious that the House of Fen didn’t know about the theft. Damaris had simply wandered off, into the woods, her mind addled by the abrupt loss of the moonstone. Her guardian, having failed to protect her, had almost certainly not alerted his superiors. If the House of Fen wasn’t after Tanner, then it wasn’t necessary to risk Fanarion. Tanner was free to travel inland, to Marjan maybe, or Wurzipal. Sell the amulet. Live like a king.
Neekson appeared at his side, his eyes fixed on Damaris. Tanner had almost forgotten about him.
“Give it back to her,” Neekson said.
Tanner could hardly believe his ears. “Give it back?”
“Look at her. As it is she’ll never be the same, if she lives. Do you understand that? Do you care?” Neekson’s fists were white balls at his sides. “Or are you too busy figuring out how much silver and gold you’re going to squeeze out of the thing that’s killing her?”
Tanner flinched. “It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t know about the moonstone. I thought it was diamond—”
“You know now.” Neekson’s short sword hissed from its scabbard. “Give it back to her.”
Tanner stepped back in alarm, fearing Neekson’s lack of control with the weapon.
“Now.” Neekson leveled the sword at Tanner’s chest.
“And what good would that do?”
“Save her life, if we can wean her off it properly. If we’re lucky. If she hasn’t been wearing it too long. And that’s not all. We need to make sure you don’t sell it to anyone else.” The point of Neekson’s blade descended slowly, coming to rest lightly on Tanner’s chest. “We need to make sure that no one else suffers.”
Tanner flicked his eyes from the sword to Neekson back to the sword again. His own sword exploded from its scabbard, searing a blistering path through the air that ripped Neekson’s weapon from his hands and sent it careening away. A boot to the chest doubled Neekson over. Neekson collapsed to the ground gasping for breath, his knees drawn up close to his chest.
“Let me tell you a little something about suffering.” Tanner’s blade drew a slender, menacing shadow across Neekson’s face. “About boys digging for coal with their bare hands. About black-lunged fathers boiling grass for their families to eat. Men and boys coughing up blood. Suffering. Dying. I’ve done my share of suffering, Neekson. I’ll do no more of it.”
“You’ll make others suffer instead,” Neekson wheezed, through lips drawn taut with pain. “Is that it?”
Tanner tightened his grip on his blade, tempted to end Neekson’s suffering right then and there. Neekson’s unnatural strength had clearly waned; a quick thrust to the neck should make him dead enough to satisfy most gods. He stared into Neekson’s amber eyes, struggling to muster some strength of his own. The strength to kill a man over a cutting remark. To let a girl die over want of a few coin.
But that kind of strength Tanner did not possess. Would never possess. And so it was that he found himself handing the oilskin packet over to Keele, who, with clever fingers, mended the broken chain and slipped the amulet around Damaris’ neck. Damaris opened her eyes, took in her surroundings. Keele’s moustache twitched. It occurred to Tanner that he didn’t know Keele quite as well as he thought he did.
Perhaps even less than he knew himself.
The Wizard’s Castle
The boy caught sight of what he had come to see half way up the mountain.
He gasped at the wonder of it all.
He saw among other things turrets and spires and slim, cylindrical towers, and when he got closer there was a drawbridge spanning a moat of an enchanting silvery liquid, and finally, a modest faerie mist clothing grey stone walls near where they met the earth. The wizard’s castle was everything his imagination had said it would be.
When he stepped upon the drawbridge, though, he saw that the moat beneath him contained only water. Considering it had appeared infinitely more magical only moments before—perhaps the reflection of the sun had fooled him—he was slightly disappointed. Even so, he could not help but wonder what peculiar manner of creature lay in wait beneath the water’s silvery sheen. Aside from sea serpents and sharks he could think of no names, but his mind drew terrible pictures, and he was careful to stay well to the centre of the drawbridge as he daringly traversed its length.
The boy paused at the far end of the drawbridge, dwarfed there by the enormous wooden door. He lifted his hand to knock but found that he could not. Instead, butterflies invaded his stomach and his mind whirled with fears. What if he had come all this way for nothing? Suppose the wizard did not receive visitors after all? Would he send the boy away? Or worse, in a fit of pique at having been disturbed, might the wizard wave his hands in the air and utter angry words that would transform his unwelcome visitor into a toad or a goblin?
Such a fate seemed entirely possible to the boy now that he had thought of it. Unn
erved, he turned to flee, and he would have done so except that just then, accompanied by the sound of grinding gears and rattling chains, the huge wooden door slowly began to creak open, and the chance to flee was past.
A shock of unruly white hair surrounded a cherubic cheeked face. Eyes the reflection of a winter sky focused on the boy as the entire combination poked out from behind the door. A frown and a “breathe, boy, it doesn’t do to hold one’s breath,” acknowledged the petrified lad. “Come for a visit, have you?”
The boy could only nod.
“Well, come in, come in. Have you a name? Perhaps when you find your tongue you can tell me what it is. Myself, I am the caretaker of this keep, and as such I must ask you to wipe your feet, please, this isn’t a hovel, you know, it is a castle, and we must abide by certain rules. Rules are unfortunate, restricting things, but they do possess a certain merit, they keep the floors clean you’ll notice, and if that is not a sufficient reason to abide by rules then I am unaware of what is,” and accompanied by a great deal more rambling of a similar nature the boy was led inside.
Enormous tapestries lined walls of corridors guarded by uninhabited suits of shining armor. The footsteps of the caretaker and the boy could have been those of giants, rattling back and forth between the distant walls the way they did.
The boy began to relax as the words of the old man encircled and reassured him. It was good of him to come, very few did these days, wasn’t the weather mild and nice and was the climb up the mountain very difficult? Would he like a warm cup of mead?
He was taken on a whirlwind tour of the castle, which was splendid. Up to the top of the tallest spire, a view from the ramparts, a glimpse of every room, chamber and den, it seemed.
Could I see the dungeons? Most certainly. Are they occupied? He would have to wait and see. Sinister words, preceding an equally sinister descent into the deepest and darkest portion of the castle. Sparsely placed torches barely lit the way, and innumerable times the boy almost fled back up the spiralling staircase, especially at the thought that perhaps the old man’s plans were of a nefarious sort. He trod boldly on, however, one eye warily on his guide, and was relieved when no attempts were made to incarcerate him. Instead, his host proved most informative.
“To your right, at one time the cell of a sorcerer imprisoned for transforming chickens into gophers. A distressing habit, very unsettling economically.
“Look closely at the next, lad, and see the bloodstains of a great ruffian, murdered by his cell mate, a woman, incensed at his manner of ogling the siren in the cell beyond.” On and on the narrative went, a tale for every cold and empty dungeon.
Then, because he had come this far, the boy said, “The wizard,” and the old man turned an inquiring eye his way.
“The wizard,” the boy repeated, half expecting that with a flourish and a self-deprecating laugh his guide would reveal himself as the famed necromancer and cast a modest spell or two.
“Eh? What?”
“I would like to meet the wizard who lives here, if I may,” the boy said hopefully.
“Oh,” the old man said. “Well.” He shook his white-haired head. “No wizards here.”
“But he lives here,” the boy insisted.
“No, he doesn’t,” the old man said. “Used to, once upon a time.”
“Where did he go?”
“Away. Where wizards go. Left with a gaggle of geese one day.”
It was not beyond the realm of reason for the boy. He nodded politely and turned away.
The old man was an empathic soul who felt keenly the boy’s disappointment. “A moment,” he said, “wait a moment. There is magic about yet, I think, for the wizard could not take it all with him,” and he led the boy back up through the convoluted castle corridors to a place they had not yet been.
They entered first a room of odd creatures. Cats and dogs as one, a creature with an extraordinarily long nose, horses with wings, multicoloured rabbits, and other magical animal fare. The boy murmured all the right things in all the right places, but he could not help but think that animals were animals, magical or not.
Next came a room of whistles and bells, of baffling machines that could perform every conceivable task, some that could potentially release mankind from its bondage of labour forever, others that could give it something to do then.
“Thank you,” the boy said. “They are very nice. I believe my mother would have liked that one,” and he pointed to a whirring contraption that diced carrots into a neat little orange pile. But the old man could tell that he was still disappointed.
In the spacious corridor he confronted the youngster. “Does the magic I have shown you fail to bedazzle? Does it not boggle your eyes, mystify your brain, make your nose runny? Do your knees not shake, your lips tremble, and your ears go all a quiver as you contemplate the magical prowess required to even imagine, let alone create, all that you have seen?”
The boy replied, “I have seen many wondrous things, I agree,” and in truth he was impressed, at times it was all he could do to keep his ears from quivering and his nose from running. “It is just that I would have liked to have seen the wizard, is all,” he said.
“Yes, the wizard,” the elderly caretaker repeated. “A very great and popular wizard he was, it is understandable that you should so wish to see him. He has, however, flown with the geese, he shall not be back for a while, a century or so, I should imagine, so put it out of your mind. You shall not be able to see the wizard today. May I suggest some grapefruit juice in lieu?”
The kitchen had seven ovens and the pleasant scent of baking bread and basting turkeys was as permanent as the squared stone floor. Grapefruit juice was one of an abundant store of refreshments to choose from, so with his host’s hearty recommendation, the boy bravely chose a green elixir instead, and they retired to the dining room.
It was there beneath an elaborately jeweled chandelier of enormous breadth, a gift from the gods, the old man claimed, that the boy humbly asked, “How did you come to be caretaker of this castle? Was your father a caretaker too? Or did the wizard make you, like he made the magical machines and animals, maybe out of a fly or a garden gnome?”
The caretaker replied, “I was neither born for the position nor created for it. Nay either did I covet it. I was chosen by the great wizard himself one day as I toiled in my father’s field, and the wizard passed by and took note of my diligence and discipline and extraordinarily intelligent demeanor. Forthwith I was snatched away and a doppleganger placed in my stead. I have been here since, happily so, I might add.”
“I had thought you might be the wizard, hiding your true nature,” the boy confessed.
“A common misconception,” the caretaker reassured him. “It happens all the time. Perhaps it is my eyes, which are veritable pools of wisdom, and my kindly disposition, and my overall bearing of benevolence and tranquility. Why, I would have made a fine wizard looking the way I do. I look more like a wizard than the wizard himself, if the truth be known. However, I have never had an inclination to be one. Too much time with your nose in a book, studying spells. Hard on your eyes, hard on your nose.” The old man shook his head. “Not for me.”
Another round of green elixir and grapefruit juice. A chill invaded the room and prompted a fire in the hearth. Comfortable surroundings and pleasant company gave rise to prolonged conversation, though the caretaker spoke mostly, responding to the many inquiries of the boy.
“He calls it an elephant,” he responded to one such question, concerning one of the magical animals they had seen. “Named for a distant relation, I’m told. The elongated nose concept arose from the wizard’s fondness for noses, or perhaps more precisely, his fondness for the sense of smell. Smells are very important to the wizard. They alert your mind to many memories, you know, and the wizard is old and has many memories, many of which he cannot remember. He would like to recall more, and he
believes that if he could smell better, he could remember better. It seems to have worked in the case of the elephant. However, it would be unseemly for a man to have a nose as long.”
“Why did the wizard leave?” the boy wanted to know.
“I do not know for certain.” The caretaker reflected on the question. “To see the world through the eyes of a goose, perhaps. It is a pastime he cherishes, seeing the world through different eyes, one day a goose, the next a dog. The world is a wondrous place, he says, but more than that, it is a trillion worlds, each unique and worth seeing. And each separate world may only be seen by looking through a fresh pair of eyes. So this time, I think, the wizard has chosen to live for awhile in the world of a goose.”
The boy smiled at this charming but unlikely hypothesis, considering that the wizard in question had to be a worldly, busy individual, with far better things to do than spend a hundred years as a goose.
A window revealed the sky outside to be of a beckoning hue, so with great reluctance but commendable discipline the boy stood and thanked his host for allowing him to stay for as long as he had. The tour had been magnificent, the magic unforgettable, and the refreshments most refreshing. The elderly caretaker in turn remarked that his guest was too gracious, and wouldn’t he come again sometime?
They parted on the drawbridge. A shake of hands and a wave or two and then the heavy wooden portal clanked shut. Soon it was concealed behind a raised drawbridge. The boy stood gazing at the fairy tale castle for some time, prolonging the visit, which had been perfect in every way except for the absence of the wizard. He would visit again, if he could, and maybe by then the wizard would have returned. Surely he wouldn’t really be gone for a hundred years.
Only when he had climbed all the way back down the mountain and caught the scent of the foliage there did the wizard remember. He smiled and sat and spent many hours recalling the visit to his home, through the eyes of a boy. How the familiar and mundane had been transformed! How it had appeared so fresh and wonderful! Then, he arose, touched his earlobe the requisite way, and borrowed new eyes for a walk in yet another world.
