“Why, do you want to know what a nuisance they all think you are?” asked the knight guarding the copse. “Silence, or it’ll go worse for you.”
“I’m not impressed with your threats,” Lakanta said. “I haven’t been out on the road all these years without knowing how to take care of myself. And my friends,” she said with a wink for Tildi. The two Rabantavian guards said nothing. Teryn ignored her bonds with dignity. Morag stared at the ground. “Pay them no mind, Tildi. They don’t know what to do, and they don’t like looking foolish.”
The smallfolk girl appreciated the cheerful encouragement, but she was worried. The book was a sacred trust to Olen. How could she have been so careless?
A hum of voices swirled about Tildi as the wind rose. Dust blew through the finger-thick stems. Tildi squeezed her eyes shut and huddled deeper into the borrowed cloak. The garment was much too warm for the day, but she appreciated the comfort. How kind Serafina was. She shifted her feet. Her oversized boots struck an obstruction. She lifted the edge of the cloak.
A bar of shimmering white all but lit up the inside of the copse. Tildi gasped. The book was there! It rested beside her hip like a faithful dog. She snatched it up and held it to her. The voices inside it thrummed with pleasure.
“Why, it’s back again,” the almoner said in a low voice. “She must have been carrying it inside that cloak.”
“She wasn’t,” Findor said. “It hasn’t been here all this time.”
“Then, how did it get here? Walk?”
They all looked at Tildi. She shook her head, unable to believe the wonder of it. The knights gathered around to gaze at it. Sharhava frowned at Tildi, but Tildi was too delighted to have her treasure back in her arms that the abbess’s anger rolled off her like raindrops on a roof.
“Where was it, and how did it return to her?” the abbess demanded.
“A mystery we won’t solve,” Loisan said dismissively. “The Great Book is found. Let us be on our way.”
“Very well,” Sharhava said. “Make preparations.” Loisan nodded and turned away. The others followed him. Tildi sprang up, the book hugged tightly to her, and followed her nemesis out into the clearing.
“Please don’t hurt those people,” Tildi begged. “I was impulsive. Don’t punish them for my mistake.”
“Harm human beings?” Sharhava asked. “Why would you think we would harm them?”
“Lar Lindor said if I wasn’t quiet he would order the rest of you to kill them.”
Sharhava gave her a superior smile. She leaned down, her gaze almost a leer, and spoke in a very low voice, too low for the others to hear. “You are gullible. We would never think of harming a natural human, child.” She brought her face so close to Tildi that the smallfolk girl could feel the warmth of her skin and dropped her voice to a whisper. “But I will tell you this: if you try again to run away or steal the book from us, we will go directly to your homeland and dispatch as many smallfolk as we possibly can. Your kind does not belong in the world. They will be the first ones to be transformed back into whatever they had been made by the Mother and Father before the so-called Shining Ones began to meddle.”
Tildi was mortified. She sputtered.
“You can’t do that!”
“You cannot stop us,” Sharhava said, rocking back on her heels. “What changes we can wreak, with you or without you, we will do. Prove your worth, and perhaps we will spare your folk for a time. How long you stave off their doom depends upon how cooperative you are with our cause.”
With that, she rose and stalked away. Tildi felt angry tears on her cheeks. A horrid woman! The worst she had ever met!
She clutched the book to her. Where have you been? she thought at it.
Feeling exhausted with worry, she returned to sit beside Serafina. The young wizardess looked down at her with curiosity written large in her eyes.
“How did the book come to you?” Serafina asked.
“I don’t know,” Tildi said, smoothing the open page with her hand. “I didn’t summon it.”
“Perhaps not consciously,” the wizardess said. She patted the ground beside her. “Put it here, and go to the other side, next to Lakanta.”
Very reluctantly, Tildi put the book on the ground. She hated to be without it, even for a moment, even for an experiment, but she obeyed. She crawled toward the other end of the small enclosure. Behind her, Serafina let out a chuckle.
“Look behind you,” she said.
Tildi glanced over her shoulder. The book was hovering at her shoulder, about two feet off the ground.
“It is obedient,” Serafina said. Tildi gave her a sharp look wondering if the wizardess could possibly have heard what Sharhava had said to her.
Serafina smiled as Tildi reached out and gathered the book to her like a beloved child.
“It seems it does not wish to be separated from you, either. That gives me food for thought. I must consider what that may mean for us all.”
“The farmers are gone,” Lar Vinim said, sticking her head into their shelter. “Make haste. We depart now.”
Chapter Six
nemet was angry. He had reached out through every means available to him—plants, animals, even stones—but he could not touch the new owner of the Compendium. More than once, he thought he had touched another magically oriented mind, but every contact was tenuous. He thought he had felt an echo of thoughts about the Compendium once, a few days following Nemeth’s death, but the touch was as nebulous as a spiderweb. If he had found that wizard, the guardian spell around him prevented any definite means for Knemet to identify him or his whereabouts.
The thraiks had been frustrated. This new wizard seemed to be everywhere at once. The thraiks saw runes all along the full length of the road to the east of the great river, no portion of it seeming to be stronger than any other. As to the source, they had no indication that was any use to him.
The most recent brought to him by the thraiks was a sad specimen of humanity, a peasant with a thick-jowled face and rough black hair that must have been cut with the same scythe he used on the crops. Knemet had had to draw a rune to rid him of vermin, for the man’s skin crawled with them. It was almost certainly, Knemet thought with a touch of humor, the first time in his life he didn’t have lice.
“Why this one?” Knemet asked the hunter who had brought the man to him. “He is from the west side of the Arown.”
Touched, the thraik indicated.
“The book itself, its bearer, or a copy?” Knemet demanded. He spun to confront the man, who shrank into the corner. “What did you see, man? What made my thraiks bring you here? What did you see?”
The man seemed confused. “A mir’cle, ’s all.” Uneasily, the man looked up at the thraiks who hovered high above him. The leader flicked his tongue at him. He shuddered. Knemet cleared his throat noisily. “I seen those things o’erhead, lordship.”
“They won’t harm you, not if you speak to the point!”
“Yes, lordship. What can I tell ye? I’m but a humble man, lordship. Not worth bein’ carried off, no.”
“What kind of miracle was it? Did you see a book? A scroll, as long as this?” Knemet held out his arms to indicate the dimensions of the Compendium. “What was this miracle? Tell me! I want to know what you saw!”
The man looked up at him shyly. “Shining, ’twas.”
Knemet leaned close to him, the multicolored irises of his eyes focused upon his subject. “Tell me what you saw.”
Unlike so many of the witnesses discovered by the thraiks, this man was eager to talk his “mir’cle.” He held out his clasped hands.
“A month and a day it was we had it,” he told Knemet. “Bright as the sun. Gold, though I never seen gold. I mean, gold like the merchants talk about. They never bring us none but bronze. They say it’s brighter. A twisty thing like a word, ’twas. Most beautiful thing any o’ us ever known. We still talk o’ it, betimes. Came and went and came again.”
“Yes, yes,” Knemet sa
id impatiently. “Gold, for a month and a day?” That was impossible. The runes always faded after the influence wore off. “Where did you see it?”
“Our village tree. Middle o’ t’green. Walnut tree, ’tis. Call oursel’s the same. Stands to reason, don’t it?”
“I decline to dispute your founders’ logic,” Knemet said dryly. “When came this miracle?”
“Two moons gone, ’twas. One day t’ tree started shinin’. We was all struck awed by it. Sometimes when we was close by, we had twisty markin’s on us, too. Headman said ’twas a blessin’. Gave sacrifices, as is proper. Tree accepted ’em and all. I gave it t’ best of my crops, and m’wife her best cookin’. We didn’t spare nothin’, lordship.”
“I trust you did not,” Knemet said. He wanted detail, but he saw he must distill it from this man drop by drop. “Did you see anything unusual in the tree? Anyone in its branches?”
“Nay, sir! We’d a seen a man. Just a tree, when all’s been and all. At the center of Walnut Tree these four centuries, it has.”
“A venerable tree, you say?”
“Aye, venerable. ’Tis a good word, lordship.” The man tried it out on his tongue. “Must tell t’headman that, when I go back, sir. Hope ’tis soon.” He twisted his big, calloused hands together and regarded Knemet with hope. “Crops must come in, lordship.”
“But the miracle departed, did it not?” Knemet said, leading him back to the matter of importance.
“Aye. T’ end of everything when it went. Our hearts broke, d’ye see? Like the sun goin’ away. But, ye see, ’twasn’t t’ end of it all, at all,” the man insisted, meeting Knemet’s eyes earnestly. “Not too long a’ter, the mir’cle come back.”
“It came back? When was that?”
The man had the dates at the tips of his calloused fingers. “A moon and five days agone, lordship. Three wizardesses come to us with sojjers t’ protect ’em. Not that we’d a-hurt them. They’s powerful ladies, lordship.”
Knemet raised an eyebrow. “Three?”
“Aye, m’lordship. Come from the south, they did. One was a womanhorse.”
“A centaur?”
“Aye, lord. That’s what they’s called, I hear. I never seen one like it. Like an honest woman, but half a horse. Girl on her back was a bitty slip of a thing. The light seemed a-shinin’ off her, it was. Same as the dark-haired wench in white, might’a been an elf maiden, glowin’ like the moon. I seen an elf wench once in the woods. Vanished all quiet like she was made o’ water. The third was a stout lass with long braids o’ bright gold. All as clean as if they was new-made.”
Knemet fingered his lip. A centaur wizard? Was such a thing possible? He had been away so long. Standards may have become lax in training, or this was a prodigy too profound to ignore. He must study the notion. “But you say this was after the miracle left you? Why did it come back?”
The man shook his head, his eyes earnest. “Dunno, lordship. I tell y’ true, that’s what we know!”
“One of them was carrying a book,” Knemet said. “Which of the three had it?”
“N’er saw a book, lordship,” the man said. “The girl had a bit o’ parchment w’ sommat scrawled on it, a picture or two. We thought about it all later. Must’ve been a blessin’ of some other kind. They’s mir’cles of many shapes, is there not?”
Knemet nodded, careful not to show his triumph. Nemeth had been careless, leaving pieces of the book behind him, then. But it might just be a page from a copy. His thraiks had been fooled over and over, bringing him putative witnesses who had had the bad luck to come into contact with one of these sad imitations. But even a bad copy had its connection to life itself. It could be that the wizardesses this plowman described were following the golden thread between the copy and the original. They sought its power. Well, who was to wonder at that? But had they been the ones who had taken it from Nemeth in Orontae?
“I will cast my net wider, then,” he said thoughtfully. “I had not thought to look for more than one mage, now had I?”
“What, lordship?” the man asked.
Knemet looked up in surprise. His musings had made him forget about his visitor. He made a sign. “Take him down.”
“Wha’?” the man said, as the liches surrounded him. “My lordship, I tol’ ye all I know about the mir’cle. Do not punish me!”
But Knemet was already pondering the threat of a triumvirate of power. “With it in their hands, could they withstand my influence?”
It would seem so. Three was traditionally known as a number of great strength. Yet, three minds that could be steered, instead of only one. If he could trouble just a single one of them and create strife among the three, they might break the spell that concealed their precise whereabouts from him. Then the thraiks could strike. The Compendium would be once again in his hands.
Yes, Knemet thought, ignoring the wails fading away down the stone passage, divide and conquer. Three . . .
Tildi felt every jar as Rin negotiated the rocky road ahead of them. She could scarcely bear Magpie’s backward glances of sympathy. She was so mad she was shaking. She hated Sharhava with all her heart. To threaten her people like that took an absolute disregard for living creatures. She had not really believed until that moment how the knights viewed nonhumans.
Escape must be made, as soon as possible, for all their sakes. Somehow. But, oh, how? Her people would suffer if she did leave. She was torn between the welfare of all smallfolk and fulfilling her promise to Olen. As dearly as she loved it, the Great Book needed to be hidden away. The Makers struck her as impossibly irresponsible for having set it loose in the first place. What could they have been thinking?
What could she do about the knights? She could not let them lock her away and keep the book for themselves. It was too dangerous. Some of them had dangerous burns to prove it, and one of them was dead. If that wasn’t warning enough, what could be? She must take it far away, as soon as possible. The Quarters would suffer. That would be horrible. Tildi couldn’t have that on her conscience, but she was left with few choices.
Tildi felt a thought tickle at the back of her mind. What if . . . what if she changed the knights. Just a little, just so they would stop wanting to undo the Makers’ magic. What if she studied them all very carefully, and made the tiniest alteration. She could make them like smallfolk. It would be a minor difference. They would be angry that Tildi had gone away, but they would stop short of taking out their frustration on her people.
Tildi nearly moaned with frustration. Oh, but that wouldn’t help the centaurs or any of the other people who had been made different by the Shining Ones! Anyone could see the disgust in their eyes when they looked at Rin or Lakanta. They even treated Serafina with disdain because she was a wizard. Protecting the smallfolk wouldn’t mean that the other races would go unscathed. All things must be kept in balance, Serafina had said. If Tildi changed the knights’ minds about one thing, the balance of anger might tip over in a different direction, and she would be responsible for harm to other innocent beings. Serafina was right again. To alter anything was almost impossible. That left her stewing in her own roiling, boiling thoughts, day after day after endless, bumpy day.
If only Olen had been with them. He would have had no trouble straightening things out and setting them all in motion once again.
Tildi laid a protective hand on the book, which floated sedately beside her.
Don’t worry, the voices said. We are with you.
What are they?” Magpie asked, peering through the trees in wonder.
The Scholardom had ridden another three days to the southeast, keeping their right hands to the river, and being careful, even when seeking supplies, to avoid any more entanglements with other people. Magpie had chafed at the enforced isolation, but he knew his duty was to protect Tildi and the book, and by extension the others who accompanied her. And Inbecca, of course, though she showed little need or wish for his care. She rode by his side, responding occasionally to his conversation
al sallies but refusing to engage with him. She was still angry or hurt, or both. Magpie accepted that he owed it to her to offer his back to her verbal lash, should she choose to take out her frustration upon him, but she had been so contained, so distant. At the moment, he was pleased to see that she was as curious as he was.
The autumn noonday sun beat down upon their backs, but their shortened shadows were invisible to the objects of his study.
“They don’t have a name,” said Braithen, a middle-aged man with a sardonic face. “They cannot speak. They can only make the grunting noises you hear them making.”
To Magpie’s ear the noises sounded more like singing than grunting. The beasts, for so he felt he should call any creature with such a pelt of hair, greatly resembled mimburti, the small, almost manlike animals who occupied much of the southern end of the continent of Oscora, halfway around the world. He had seen them while accompanying his father on a diplomatic visit to a sister queen who ruled in that part. Mimburti had sharp faces, whereas these had almost humanlike, softer visages, with intelligent eyes. He had been charmed by the mimburti, as he was by these beings now. If he squinted and ignored their outward appearance, he could pretend he was watching the daily activity of a small human village. He could tell right away which were nurturers, which were hunters, and which of the largest males was the leader. Females and smaller males picked through piles of spiny seed pods, the fruit of one of the evergreen tree species of the area, breaking them open and gleaning the shiny red seeds. Some they ate, but most they put into a pile in the center, obviously a supply to be used in common. Another group sorted heaps of black seeds that came from long, gray, oval pods, but ate none of them. Magpie wondered why.
“What are those?” he asked Rin.
The centaur shook her long mane. “I do not know. They grow only here, in this small patch of land. These hairy people do not allow visitors to pluck from the bushes where they grow. They are very protective of their territory. If any of the Windmanes have tried the black beans, I never heard of it. The red beans are tasty, but more of a confection than nourishment. They make Windmanes giddy.”
A Forthcoming Wizard Page 12
