“I have lost most of my landmarks, but I think that there is a pleasant clearing not far away where we can rest for the night,” Magpie said. “My brothers and friends often stopped here if our horses were too tired to make it all the way to the ruins. Hark, Romini, did you find a branching trail before you were mired?”
“No time, highness,” the youth said.
“I will take a look. I shouldn’t be long.”
Magpie pulled himself up the bank with the help of a few handy saplings, and forced himself through the undergrowth. There was no point in trying to make sense of the runes. The very preponderance of the glowing golden sigils overwhelmed his brain, as though hundreds of people were shouting at him at once. Instead, he sought a void, a place where there were no runes, or just a few.
Only a few arm’s lengths from the main trail, the trees thinned out so that he could walk easily. With his hands out, he sought a path wide enough for horses to pass.
How can the book cause a fire?” Sharhava asked. She glared at Tildi as though she were to blame.
“The wizard claims that its passage caused changes in the roadway. All it required was a spark, which Romini’s torch provided,” Loisan explained.
Sharhava digested the notion. “What a gift we have been given,” she said, her eyes gleaming. “No foe could withstand us if we can change the substance of reality to thwart them. This invisible enemy that they say follows us will be vulnerable, he and all his minions!”
“Abbess, think what you are saying,” Captain Teryn said. “Honorable men and women have died in great pain because of the misuse of the power. Look what happened to my colleague.”
Morag cast his eyes down, not liking the gazes of the knights suddenly turned his way.
“And to Eremi,” Inbecca added.
“We would only use it for the good of all,” Sharhava said, waving away their protests.
Tildi was horrified. “I won’t let you misuse the book!”
Sharhava turned a benevolent face upon her. “You cannot stop me. Enough discussion. We must find a way to continue. I wish to make camp as soon as possible.”
Magpie came out of the darkness at a run.
“I have found another trail that runs more or less parallel to this one. It’s very narrow. I am concerned about one part of the passage about fifty yards from here where it passes between the halves of a giant boulder that was split into two when it fell from the mountaintops ages ago. The space between them may or may not be wide enough for the horses, but that is the only impediment. The path is dry and solid thereafter. There is no other way, unless we backtrack all the way to the castle and divert to the west side of the river.”
“No,” Sharhava said. “I do not wish to encounter your father’s forces coming northward.”
“Forces?” Magpie inquired with a raised eyebrow. “What forces?”
“He and the king of Rabantae are aware of our quest. They may wish to take the book into their keeping. I claim the honor of escort for the Scholardom!”
Magpie shook his head. “My father doesn’t believe in the book. As for King Halcot, his wish would be the same as mine, to take it and hide it away again!”
“That must not be allowed to occur, either, not now. We will continue. Lead us back. Loisan, you and Auric keep the Great Book to the rear of the party. If there are any more unmakings, let them be behind us.”
“Yes, Abbess,” the older knight said.
The stars were invisible among the branches, but Tildi could still discern them. “I am worried about you, little one,” the princess of the Windmanes said over her shoulder. “You are withdrawing farther and farther from us every moment.”
“I’m not!” Tildi protested.
“You are,” Rin said. “I’ve spoken to you often, and you scarcely reply to me. I am afraid you are falling into the spell of the book.”
Tildi took a deep breath as though she were surfacing from a pond. It did take an effort to bring her whole attention away from the leaf she was studying. She gave Rin an apologetic smile.
“It’s just that it is so new and interesting. It is teaching me as we go. I will get used to it in time, I am certain.”
“Keep your wits, then, so you can keep your head,” Rin told her. “This is a tricky place. I would have been much happier if we had stopped before the sun set.”
Tildi held on to Rin’s mane with her free hand. How odd it was to know what kind of trees and shrubs were around her, and what birds roosted on the branches (though somewhat disturbed by the noisy passage of the riders) without being able to see them. She could read them, though true comprehension of all the details would take years, and that made her more aware of how many different things and beings were all around her all of the time. The sigils were repeated in the parchment under her hands. How clever the Makers of the book had been, to document every single thing in existence, and set it all down on paper. It was an undertaking she could never have conceived, comparable to naming every grain that her brothers might have harvested in their fields, and every other field in the Quarters.
Every grain is listed herein, a voice whispered to her. See them, count them . . .
No, Tildi said to herself, shaking her head firmly. Not now, please. She pulled her head up, concentrating on the living runes moving around her.
“Branch!” Rin called. Tildi bent over the book just in time as the bough came swinging her way. It swished overhead. They were past it before it swung back to its original position. She smelled the crisp scent of tree sap, moss, and the stony soil underfoot, and saw the floating names of each.
“Halt!” a man’s voice called from up ahead.
Tildi peered at the bobbing runes that represented the riders. She had begun to recognize some of the runes. That sensible older man was beside her, holding the tether around her waist. He was her only guard at the moment. Magpie had been correct that the path offered little room. Tildi bobbed and lurched on Rin’s back as the centaur sought the most secure footing.
“Hiyin!” Rin declared. “I have to step over a large stone here. I have just knocked my right knee into it. Be careful, all of you.”
“The boy was right,” a man’s voice called from the front. “My horse won’t fit in between these rocks, perhaps not even if I strip off her tack and lead her through.”
“Can we push them apart?” Sharhava asked.
A pause, while two of the knight-sigils moved. Tildi could still see them beyond the symbol of the rock and creepers. It was as if all were made of black glass overlaid with fine silver etching. All that prevented her from seeing directly into the mountainside beyond was the preponderance of tiny symbols, each indicating a pebble, a plant, a leaf, a small creature, that carpeted the land with silver-gilt. The knight-symbols returned.
“No, my lady,” a woman’s voice replied. “The half on the left is braced against the mountainside. The second seems pretty well anchored. This stone has been here a long time. Vines are growing up the outer sides. I am slim, but can just barely squeeze around the edge. The cleft is clean, but narrow.”
“We ought to be able to use our newfound gift to make way,” the abbess said thoughtfully. “Mistress Serafina, how may we change this boulder’s state? Can we render it into gravel?”
“It could be done,” Serafina replied, studying the towering rune, an echo of the invisible ridge to their left. “I would require time to study the character of this rock, whether it serves a deeper purpose seated here . . .”
“Your talk is meaningless!” Sharhava interrupted her. “This is but a rock, a piece of stone, a lump of the solid earth, and it is in our way! Move it or dissolve it into dust, now!”
Serafina drew herself upward. “You do not understand magic, madam. Everything has its place in nature.”
“But everything about it is written upon it,” Loisan said. “Does that not tell you what you need to know?”
“That is but the thing itself,” Serafina explained patiently. “It may an
chor something below it. It might be the home of a being whose nature I cannot guess. I would rather not interfere than to destroy something that has purpose.”
“This is why I have no patience with wizards,” Sharhava exploded. “You mull over meaningless facts, and in the end you do nothing.”
“They are not meaningless! You purposely misunderstand me.”
“I . . . will move it, Abbess,” a strained voice said.
Tildi felt the shorn hair at the nape of her neck stand up. She turned toward the knight who had spoken. He moved into the firelight and cast back his hood. It was the boy she had been watching most of the afternoon. His face was much the same as it had been, but the body had grown grotesque. His chest had swelled outward until it was twice as wide, with muscles like tree roots bulging from his collar. His arms jutted out, suspended from shoulders like a yoke of oxen, bursting free of his sleeves and the side of his surcoat. His unnaturally long legs fairly straddled his horse. The rune on his chest, stretched out and thickened compared with before, seemed to twist and heave against itself. Its natural shimmering hue was suffused with red and a hint of purple-blue.
“What have you done to yourself?” Tildi managed to choke out. Serafina looked as horrified as she felt. Rin let out a whinny of surprise.
“Do not chide me, unnatural creature!” the boy said, gritting to get the words out of his massive jaw. “I do not answer to you, only to the gods and the Scholardom.”
“But why?” Tildi pleaded.
“I . . . serve my order,” Bertin said simply. He raised his head, and the cords on his neck stood out. “I can move the stone, Abbess. It would be my privilege.”
Sharhava’s eyes gleamed.
“Lar Bertin, you may proceed.”
He stepped backward over the horse’s rump. Bertin handed off the reins to another knight. Unable to recognize its master, the animal danced in its panic as the huge hand passed its eyes. The other knights fell back silently, making way for him. Tildi saw the look of awe on their faces.
Morag, a few rows ahead of her, had dropped his eyes, unable to look at the misshapen figure. Tildi knew seeing Bertin so altered had to bring back terrible memories to the soldier. She could not look away. She was transfixed.
The other knights moved backward, making way. The two nearest the stone held up torches in both hands to give Bertin the most light. He hulked forward into the cleft. Tildi watched his rune flickering and changing color with each step. A human being was never meant to look that way.
He stepped in between the rock halves, braced his feet in the gap, and pressed his hands to either side. With an enormous effort, he began to push. A guttural noise escaped his throat as he put all his strength into the task. The halved rock could not possibly move, but unbelievably, it did begin to move. At first the delicate ferns growing on the top of the valley side of the stone began to tremble. Tildi stared, unsure whether she was imagining the shift, it was so slow, no more than the breadth of a wisp of grass at a time. The top of the boulder crept away from its twin.
“Aaah!” The young knight let out a gasp. His younger fellows leaped into the gap to help push. One of them pressed his back against the hillside rock and his feet against the other. Teryn and Morag sprang forward to assist. Sharhava did not call them back. Fraction by fraction, the gigantic boulder moved. A grumbling hiss erupted from underneath as the roots of centuries were torn asunder. The stone tilted back slightly, and the men and women behind it cried out in alarm, but they managed to push it outward again. Gradually, a little at a time, they got it to rock back and forth in its steadily widening socket.
“It’s tipping!” Lakanta called out. “Beware! There it is—it’s going!”
The youth threw himself against it with all his strength. The boulder heeled over, then crashed to earth on its side. The ground shook under its weight. Tildi heard the terrified squawking and footsteps of small animals fleeing from the disturbance.
A force of nature released, the stone began inexorably to roll downhill. It crushed the narrow saplings growing up beside it, which lurched over onto bigger trees and thicker growth. The stone ground them all into the dirt. The other knights retreated away from the spray of broken branches and scattered stones that it kicked up. The stone rumbled away, disappearing out of the torchlight, until its rune was lost among the myriad below. Tildi and the others listened to the crashing and thumping, until at last it came to rest and fell silent. She looked back up at the space where it had stood for so many centuries. It was clear of runes, except for flying motes of dirt. The way was open.
“Well done, Lar Bertin!” Sharhava shouted. “Honors to Lar Bertin!”
The others let out a rousing cheer. “Hail, Bertin! Hail, Bertin!”
The red face running with sweat that sat atop the hulking figure was still boyish, in a grotesque way. Its mouth stretched in a grin as he acknowledged the praise of his fellows. Then, almost exactly as the stone he had just moved had done, Bertin tilted gently over and fell onto his side.
The ground shook, not as deeply as it had under the stone, but enough to be felt. The knights rushed to Bertin’s aid.
“Help him sit up!” a female knight ordered. “Help him breathe!”
“Let me pass!” Serafina cried, pushing through the crowd.
They made way for her. She put her staff on the ground and sat beside the stricken man. She tried to raise his head, but he was too heavy for her.
“Aid me,” she appealed to the two men nearest her. They hoisted Bertin’s enormous shoulder and supported his head. Serafina touched the big vein at the side of his neck, looked into his eyes, and felt his wrist. She shook her head and reached for her staff.
“What are you doing?” Loisan asked.
“I am trying to save his life!” Serafina said. “His body was never meant to be stretched this way. I must try and stop the vital forces from draining out of him.” The jewel on top of the staff glowed pale green as she swept it over the distorted body beside her. The green light suffused Bertin’s form and faded. She shook her head.
Mindful of Serafina’s strictures against doing her own magic, Tildi very carefully hardened the air beside Rin and stepped down from the centaur’s back, the book clutched to her chest. The rope around her waist tightened, making her fall back a pace. She glared back at Auric. Startled, he dismounted and fell into step beside her, careful not to pull on her tether. She knelt down beside Serafina. Auric squatted beside them. He put a hand on the boy’s chest.
“Can I do anything to help?” Tildi asked.
Again, Serafina drew the gleaming staff up and down the young man’s straining body. She had her lower lip caught between her teeth. The rune on Bertin’s chest wavered, then snapped back into its deformed shape. “I fear there is nothing any of us can do,” she said. “He is dying.”
“No!” Sharhava said, looming beside them like a storm cloud. She fixed her gaze upon the wizardess as if by will alone she could change her words. “Help him.”
Serafina bent over the young man, now gasping for every breath.
“Can you change back to your ordinary state?” she asked Bertin. “You made alterations, but I do not know what they are. Can you describe what you changed? Tildi might be able to restore your rune if you can tell us what you did.”
“Did you write it down?” Tildi asked eagerly. The boy’s lips puffed in and out, each breath an agony to him. He turned his bulging eyes toward the smallfolk.
“No . . . I . . . I thought . . . I would remember.”
“Do you?” Tildi pleaded.
“No,” Bertin gasped. “I can’t . . . the rune was too complex. I only changed a little of it. I wanted to be strong!”
“You were, lad, you were,” Auric assured him.
“You are the healer,” Sharhava said, turning to Serafina. “Restore him.”
Serafina rounded upon her, her temper spent at last. “I cannot. I can’t begin to undo the damage his body is doing to itself. He exceeded th
e strength of his tissues by expanding them, and they are failing. Everything is failing, and he never troubled to sketch his rune so he could be put right again. I warned you. I warned him. Why will none of you listen to me?”
“Recriminations are pointless,” the abbess said impassively. “Our ways are not your ways. What can you do?”
Serafina shook her head. “I can make him comfortable, that is all.”
“How long?”
“Not long.” Her tone this time was final.
Sharhava nodded. She knelt beside Bertin and touched his breast with her bandaged hand.
“You honor us, Lar Bertin,” the abbess said. “What you did was an example to us all. You have proved we have no limits in what we may achieve. No living man has ever done what you have done.”
The boy’s eyes fixed upon her face hungrily, absorbing the words as though they were food and wine.
“I did it gladly for the Scholardom, Abbess,” he whispered. “Pray to the gods for me.”
“I shall.” Sharhava clutched the symbol that hung around her neck. “We accept your brave sacrifice. Sleep well, Bertin. Your name will be remembered.”
Bertin struggled a little while longer. His hands trembled as he tried to help himself up, but he fell back against his fellows’ arms again and again. Tildi found it painful to watch. She pitied him, even though she knew he had done the damage to himself. Each breath grew more and more shallow. Bertin’s face reddened as he struggled to draw in air. At last, his tortured body could do no more. He let out a pained gasp, and his eyes widened and fixed upon Sharhava’s face. Lar Bertin lay still.
The abbess closed his eyes with her hand and rose. She addressed the rest of the knights, all of whom stood slack with shock. “Our brother has led the way in scholarship. Let us follow in his studies, and learn from both his success and his failure. His memory will be a beacon to us.”
In the shadow of the remaining half of the boulder, they buried the youth and pulled a cairn of stones over the grave. Tildi and her friends were not permitted to come close. The rites, Auric explained kindly, were private.
A Forthcoming Wizard Page 6
