A Forthcoming Wizard

by Jody Lynn Nye

  “Are you hurt?” she asked Magpie as she passed. He lay stretched on the ground panting, like a deer shot by hunters. He smiled at her, though his ribs ached.

  “I am all right. Are you?”

  Tildi cast a fearful look at her captors. “Please don’t tell anyone what I said.”

  “I won’t.”

  The knight tugged her lead, and she turned away.

  He couldn’t move his legs. He rolled onto his side, and saw that lengths of rope weighted with round stones had tied themselves around them. They had used a hunting snare. Two knights, Braithen and Vreia, stared down at him, stony-faced.

  “How appropriate,” he said dryly. “Would anyone care to help me up?”

  Braithen knelt beside him and yanked his legs into the air. He unwound the whiplike weapon from around Magpie’s shins and tucked it into a pouch on his belt.

  “Get up, Your Highness,” he said.

  Reluctantly, Magpie climbed to his feet. The knight tied a rope around his elbows, securing it behind him so he couldn’t move his upper arms, then led him toward the clearing. Magpie’s heart was full of dread.

  Chapter Seven

  he children still danced about the knights surrounding Sharhava, but they had changed. The first thing Magpie noticed was their eyes. They seemed less bright, less intelligent. The knights let down their hands, breaking the knot of humanity that had forged the spell. The sudden movement startled the children. One of them let out a scream of terror, and fled from the clearing. His shouts alarmed his friends, who backed away from the strangers, eyes wide with horror. When they reached a safe distance out of reach of the knights they started shouting in shrill voices.

  “It is finished,” Sharhava said, raising her voice over the din. “The human element has been removed from their rune. It did not belong. They are returned to their proper state.”

  The adult beasts rose from their repose. Their fur seemed to have coarsened, and their faces had become sharper, less human. His heart aching with pity, Magpie saw the difference in the runes. Where once they had been complex and cleanly drawn, the sigils that remained were simpler, almost blurred, like inexpert writing by a child. The children went running to their parents. The elders gathered them up and followed the frantic pointing. Though they had accepted the knights’ appearance before, the adults now seemed confused by the sight of smooth-skinned, uniformed beings in their clearing. They put the children behind them and growled fiercely at the threatening strangers, but the children had lost their understanding of safety. They kept dashing between the knights and their parents, trying to make sense of the visitors. They were all alarmed and confused. Magpie felt so sorry for them.

  “Isn’t there anything we can do to help?” he asked, appealing to Tildi. “I know the names in the book look like the ones they have now. Aren’t there any more of them somewhere that the spell didn’t touch you can look at, to repair the harm?”

  The scroll spun from spindle to spindle at Tildi’s touch, but she shook her head sadly. “All of them in the world are here,” she said.

  Magpie evaded the attempts of his guards to pull him back to his place. He threw himself down on his knees beside the smallfolk girl.

  “Change them back, Tildi. You know how.”

  “I haven’t got the rune for them,” Tildi said forlornly.

  “But it was in the book. It was on their backs. You saw it!”

  “I can’t remember it,” she said. “It changed before their bodies did. I told you, I heard it happen. The voices told me.”

  “This is awful,” Lakanta said, watching the beasts with pity in her wide blue eyes. “They are acting as though they are drunk.”

  “They are disoriented,” Serafina said. “As you would be, if half your history was torn away from you in a twinkling.”

  “An excellent outcome, brothers and sisters,” Sharhava said, surveying the beasts in the clearing. “I admit it was a spur-of-the-moment decision to come here, but I could not resist the opportunity to see the result of our work face-to-face. With the book we shall now be able to do our work at a distance. It won’t be necessary to travel to where the abominations are to be found. Locating the page upon which they are described will be enough. The long waiting is over. Alada shall be cleansed of the mistakes imposed upon it by the so-called Creators. See how well these are adapting to normalcy?”

  Magpie was aghast. Sharhava could not have been more mistaken. Any semblance to normalcy was fast vanishing in the clearing. Magpie felt as though he were watching a boatload of dear friends sailing downriver toward a raging waterfall. The adult beasts circled around the knights, trying to scare the intruders from their home with bared claws and teeth. A few of the biggest ones grabbed sticks off the ground, still stained with scarlet and green ichor, and brandished them. In response, the knights merely drew their swords halfway. The slick sound of steel grating on metal or wood alarmed the beasts. Some retreated, snatching up their children and fleeing to the edge of the forest. Some of the males, the leader among them, stood firm. They looked pitiful and weak compared with just a few minutes before. Magpie’s heart ached for them. He had seen men struck in the head, in battle or as the result of an accident. Some became childish in their behavior. Many of those realized that they had lost something vital, but they could not call it back to them.

  To their credit, not all the knights were complacent about their deed. Loisan had the decency to look shaken. His normally rosy face had faded to gray.

  “We should depart from here, mistress,” Loisan said. “Our task is complete. We have no further business here.”

  “In a while, brother,” Sharhava said. She seemed well pleased. She made her way into the heart of the clearing and sat down upon the humped root under the leader’s tree and placed her hands, both good and bad, upon her knees. Magpie longed to remove the smug expression from her face. “I would find it satisfying to observe them for a time.”

  Her lieutenant knew better than to argue. He bowed his head. “As you will, Abbess.”

  Sharhava made herself comfortable, leaning back against the tree, into the worn spot in the bark that marked the spot where the leader had reposed, no doubt for years.

  The leader found this invasion of his territory unacceptable. He breasted up to Sharhava, hooting and shrieking fiercely and waving his hands. His message was clear: she should vacate his seat. She glared back, not moving a hair. The leader backed up a pace. He picked up a pointed stick from the ground and hefted it. He charged.

  “Guards!”

  Sharhava’s bodyguard rushed in, meeting the black-furred male with a grid of crossed steel yards before he would have touched the abbess. The leader windmilled to a halt. He shook the stick at them and at Sharhava. She stared at him, imperturbably.

  The leader had had enough. Nostrils flaring with anger, he raised his hands as the elders had done during the battle against the cave monster and pressed his palms toward Sharhava.

  Nothing happened, certainly not what the leader was expecting. He tried again, throwing his whole body into the effort. Sharhava remained unaffected. The leader stared at his palms, horror on his face. His magic was gone. His body sagged. He rallied, remembering that he still had a weapon: his stick. He raised it on high, calling a challenge to Sharhava. The quartet of knights hunched toward him. He struck at them. They turned the flats of their blades upon him, driving him back with blows to the limbs and chest. He did not want to retreat, but he had no choice. The knights pressed him inexorably. Magpie could tell they didn’t intend to hurt him, but the more he threw himself at them, the more bruises and cuts he got.

  “Stop it, old fellow.” The largest of the guards took him on directly. The leader snarled a wordless reply. The guard kept his calm. “You’ll not get to our abbess through me.”

  The leader kept trying to sidestep him to get back to his seat, but he was outflanked with every move. He dodged from side to side. The guards kept step with him. At last, the big man took his sword
in both hands like a quarterstaff, and shoved. The beast went staggering back.

  He was beaten.

  This opportunity was what some of the younger males seemed to have been waiting for for some time. Their chief had been proven powerless. A handful of them started urging one another forward, cuffing each other half playfully, half seriously. In a moment, a clear winner had emerged among the young males. This fellow, a healthy specimen half a head taller than the others, breasted up to the leader. Throwing his head back, he let out a long wail.

  The leader seemed startled by the challenge. He held up the stick, still in his right hand, as if to say, “Remember who I am?” Unimpressed, the youngster fleered his upper lip and flexed his arms. Finished with verbal warnings, the leader snarled and jumped at him. The youngster fell over backward with a yelp with the leader on top of him.

  The pair rolled over and over across the clearing. The others jumped out of the way, their cries egging the fighters on. The young one clamped his teeth into the leader’s hand that held the stick. His face contorted, the leader struggled, but he finally had to drop the stick. The young male let out a screech of triumph as he flipped out of the leader’s grasp and, with a complicated move that would have been the pride of an Orontavian wrestler, scissored his legs up and over. He ended up sitting on the leader’s back, pounding the elder’s face into the dirt. He accepted the acclaim of the crowd, kicking the leader in the head whenever the elder tried to raise it. Magpie felt sorry for the older male.

  “A dynasty changes,” Rin said. “The strongest leads.”

  “Why did you unmake them?” Magpie asked Sharhava, who appeared to be enjoying the spectacle. “Do you call this a responsible use of power? They had a hierarchy that worked well for them.”

  “I cannot expect you to understand our cause. These beasts were changed horribly. They needed to return to their normal state. Their king was old. He would have been superseded in the natural way of things. Soon they will remember the way things were before the meddling wizards interfered with them, and adapt.”

  “This is not a recent alteration. It goes back millennia. Look at them,” he said. “You have destroyed them.”

  Sharhava regarded him steadily. “Nonsense. This is the way they were meant to be. You cannot let sentiment fool you into thinking otherwise. They would be grateful to us, if they had the capacity for logical thought. Now they can live the lives they were always meant to have. Nothing important will change. If their king has been replaced by a younger beast, it was his time, nothing more than that.”

  The leader picked himself off the ground. He was not going to let his office slip away from him unchallenged. As the youth accepted the accolade of his peers and the worship of some of the fruit-pickers, the leader gathered himself, then leaped at the young male from behind. The two of them went down together. The others crowded in upon them, shouting. They clawed and hit at whatever they could reach. Magpie could no longer see the original combatants, but the two factions, that of the old chief and that of the new, started to draw blood from each other.

  The melee was short and brutal. Without their magic, the elders could not withstand the strength of the young. One by one, they were kicked to the side of the clearing. They huddled together, trembling, covered in blood and wounds. The crowd of youths went on beating the old leader. He struggled to get up. He went from shouts of outrage to cries of pain and, finally, whimpers. The youths stopped and backed away, leaving the young leader looking down at the body of the old. He turned the limp form over with his foot. The male on the ground was dead or unconscious. The youth suffered only a moment of shame or regret. He raised his hand to the sky and hooted.

  The call was echoed by a gang of children who had retreated from the fray to the mouth of the cave. They ran out, their eyes wide, and threw themselves at the feet of the new leader. That could mean, Magpie thought with horror, only one thing.

  “The snakes are back,” Lakanta said.

  They were. The terrifying green serpents erupted from the cave mouth in greater numbers than in the previous attack. The crowd of beasts gathered in a circle around the new leader, wailing, appealing to him for leadership. The young male stared at the roiling mass of tendrils. One of the others tugged at his arm. It was an urgent plea for action. The youth hooted wildly at his fellows. They began picking up sticks, turning them over without seeming to know what to do with them. He ran at them angrily and slapped them. Magpie realized he did not know what to do. The beasts were without leadership, without intelligence, and without magic.

  “They are doomed,” he said.

  “They must learn to cope with their surroundings,” Sharhava said. “They have been sustained artificially all this time. The Mother and the Father are surely less offended by this state of being. The beasts will find a way to survive.”

  “The beasts?” Magpie said, aghast. “Do you think only the beasts are in danger from the snakes?”

  At last he had gotten their attention. The entire Scholardom turned to look at him.

  “What do you mean?” Vreia demanded.

  “What will happen when the beasts can no longer hold back those tentacles? What did Serafina call them, the roots of the earth? They’re strong enough to strangle a man. Once they are let loose, what will they do? They strive to kill anything that moves. Obviously the beasts are not the only ones who lack logic and foresight!” He rounded on Sharhava. “You caused this, and many more might die because of it!”

  A heavy blow from behind knocked Magpie to his knees. Magpie clutched his ringing head and looked up. Loisan loomed above him, his sword drawn.

  “Show more respect to the abbess,” the big man growled. But he looked uncomfortable at Magpie’s words. So did some of the other knights.

  None of their aching consciences helped the situation at hand.

  In disarray, the beasts mounted an indifferent defense against their ancient enemy. The snakelike creature cast loops around two of the small females and squeezed.

  As Magpie watched agape, the leading end of the snake opened up like a funnel and engulfed the smallest beast. The green maw closed over the redfurred legs. The feet kicked for a short time. They stilled shortly before they, too, were swallowed up. He glanced at the knights. A few let momentary regret move across their faces, but he could tell they did not particularly care what became of a lesser species.

  Unhampered by the beasts’ spells, the snakes fanned outward, seeking other prey. The smallest snakes must have been the vanguard, for the newest to emerge from the cave were even larger than the first. They rolled on past the thrashing army of beasts and made for Sharhava. She rose to her feet, her eyes wide with alarm.

  “Abbess, behind me!” Loisan bellowed. He rushed to interpose himself between his mistress and the questing monsters. The bodyguard formed around him, swords drawn. “Knights, on defense!”

  No question now whether or not to involve themselves.

  Sharhava’s bodyguard fended off the advances of the two huge snakes. Loisan parried against the coil of the first one, then chopped his blade down hard. Ichor ran from the cut, and the beast shrank back from him for a moment. The lieutenant called for help, and four knights came to his aid. Inbecca was among them. Together, they managed to sever a couple of yards of tendril, which continued to writhe and twist on the ground while the rest of the creature withdrew. The second snake, as if sensing the defeat of its companion, responded furiously. It grasped Brouse in its toils and squeezed him until the stout almoner’s face was as red as a cherry.

  “Abbess, you should withdraw,” Loisan called hoarsely over his shoulder.

  “No, I will not retreat!” Sharhava said. She drew her own sword and marched into the fray. As little as Magpie liked her, she was the aunt of his beloved and he respected her courage. He drew his belt knife and ran into the clearing to help. Two of the knights wrestled the end of the monster away from Brouse’s neck. Magpie plunged his knife into the writhing tube. The others sliced into
the body of the second monster until they were all spattered with green fluid, and the slashed remains lay motionless upon the ground. Magpie backed away from it.

  “It’s no easy task to slay these,” he panted.

  “Ware enemy!” Rin shouted from behind them. “Prince, your ankle!”

  There was a flash of black and white as Rin leaped over the bushes and dived into the midst of the action. Magpie looked down. A gigantic vine was stalking his foot as a terrier pursued a rat. He danced away from it. Rin galloped in and pushed him aside.

  “Now, menace, feel the wrath of a Windmane!” she cried. She reared up and brought her front hooves down upon the gigantic tendril. It shrank from the blow, and retreated as soon as she lifted herself up again for another blow. Comprehending that these were not easy targets, it reared up on half its length and reached for a trio of beasts. Rin cantered after it, wheeled, and began to kick at it with her back hooves. The beasts cowered from her at first, but when they realized she was helping them, they hooted their war cries and leaped on the monster. The tendril could not withstand the combined onslaught and tried to creep away. Rin let out a bloodthirsty laugh and galloped along its length. She leaped into the air and came down with all four hooves sinking into the crisp flesh. Red fluid scattered everywhere. The beasts followed her, shrieking, and dug into the tendril with their weapons.

  “You’re not going to have all the fun on your own,” Lakanta exclaimed. She picked up a sturdy fallen branch and waded in after the centaur. With a brief glance at their captors, Captain Teryn and Morag hurried to join in the fight.

  “We must drive them all back again,” Serafina called. “They cannot be allowed to stray from this clearing! Drive them back!”

  A trio of enormous cave snakes appeared, bowling over the crowds of beasts and humans in their way. Magpie tripped backward in haste to avoid being knocked askew by the leading coil.

  They curled to either side to allow for the passage of the biggest monster yet. As though it knew there was something special about her, it bore down upon Tildi. The smallfolk girl stood transfixed, staring at the huge creature as it rushed toward her. The maw opened.