A Forthcoming Wizard

by Jody Lynn Nye

  “No!” Tildi shrieked.

  Olen lifted his staff. Light lanced from it. The thraiks seemed to be dragged downward, then kicked free with force. The glow faded. Olen’s face twisted with strain.

  The centaur and dwarf were not willing prisoners. Rin kicked out with all four hooves. She threw the lash of her whip around the neck of the monster holding her. Lakanta belabored the face and skull of her captor with her wooden pin.

  “Let me go, you bat-winged menace!” She jammed the pin into its eye. “Do something!” she shouted over her shoulder.

  “Help them!” cried Magpie. He grabbed Serafina’s hand and ran down the few steps to the herd of terrified horses. He pulled the piebald mare out of the group. “Help me!” he pleaded. Serafina understood. Magpie swung onto Tessera’s back and pulled her head back by her mane. She obeyed, and galloped into the air, on solid footing provided by Serafina’s magic.

  Captain Teryn grinned ferally. “Morag!” she shouted, waving her sword in the air. The two guards ran for their mounts as well.

  The thraiks saw Magpie coming. They opened their jaws at him as though they laughed at him. Too swift to catch, they skimmed away in a band, flitting their tails derisively. Behind him, Olen shouted out a command. Three of the thraiks dropped out of the air, dead or senseless, but the two carrying the friends were shielded by the bodies of other monsters. Olen threw another bolt, this one of hot yellow flame. The enchanter’s fire caught only the wing tip of a thraik, but it spread over the sails and ribs as if they were made of tissue paper. The thraik wailed as it was consumed by fire. Pointing a hand, Olen drew a rune ahead of them. Tildi stared at it, urgently, waiting for the thraik to fly into it and get stuck, like moths in a spiderweb.

  Only yards above the deck, the sky opened on darkness, just short of Olen’s trap. The thraiks sped through. It closed and vanished. Olen’s next blast of power sailed past and dissipated. The three riders reached the spot, but nothing was left except empty air.

  For a short time, there was only silence. Tildi stared at the place where her friends had vanished, not able to believe it. Suddenly she felt suffocated inside the small shelter. It had protected her, and left everyone else in danger. She fought loose of the spell and stood up. Tears pricked her eyes. When she blinked to clear them, more poured down her cheeks. Her chest tightened as if bonds of iron closed around her heart. The voices in the book sounded almost tender and soothing. She pushed it out of her arms to hover beside her. It was to blame for her friends’ deaths. If not for it, they would be safe and alive.

  A low moan came from somewhere in the crowd of defenders on the deck. A male werewolf lying on his back amid the bloody ruin waved a feeble hand for help. Another werewolf, a healer by his businesslike gait, loped over and lifted his head into his lap. The sound set Tildi free. She fetched in a breath, and it went out as a gasping sob. Her knees refused to support her. She sat down on the top step of the stairs and wept.

  Serafina, too, seemed stunned by the horror. She stood rigid at the side of the main deck, her eyes closed, hand clasping her staff so tightly her fingers were squeezed bloodless.

  “My ship, Master Wizard, my ship!” cried Haroun, bounding over the wounded and the dead. He still wore his wolf shape. His fur was as black as his hair in his human form. He pulled at Olen’s arm.

  “How can you be so heartless?” demanded Lady Inbecca, pushing forward. A streak of blood ran along her cheek, and her habit was spattered with more. Her sea-blue eyes were cold with anger. “Two people have just been carried off for slaughter by the thraiks!”

  Haroun turned his bright golden eyes on her. “Because, knight, we will all sink and die if Master Olen does not spare us. Look!” He waved a long paw. The Corona’s masts were at an acute angle to those of her sister ship that now rode by her side.

  Olen seemed to wake from his shock. “You are quite right, Captain. I apologize. Tildi, would you care to . . . ?” He glanced at her. She set her jaw stubbornly as tears continued to drip down her cheeks. She was unashamed to show her grief. He nodded. “Ah, I see. You feel that I have failed you. You can blame me no more than I blame myself, my child. Allow me.” He spread out his arms. The color of the deck under their feet turned from ash to golden, and the small cracks and gouges closed up. The whole vessel groaned as the timbers in the damaged hull regained their integrity. “You must still bail, Haroun, but she is sound once again.”

  “I thank you, master.” The captain bounded away, crying orders.

  “Lar Inbecca! Attend me, if you please!” Sharhava snapped. “I apologize for her outburst, Master Olen.”

  Olen bowed slightly. “I do not take offense, Abbess Sharhava. I wouldn’t be so patient with me, either. It would seem I needed to have greater foresight than I had.” He sighed. “And greater strength. I am getting old, I fear.”

  The indignant young woman gave Olen one final look of disdain and went to stand silently at the abbess’s side. Olen shook his head sadly. He leaned upon his staff. Tildi realized she was wrong to think he did not mourn. The skin over his cheekbones looked tightly drawn, as if he had aged a hundred years. His green eyes looked as dull as dead leaves.

  “Master Wizard,” Sharhava said, “when all this is cared for, I want you to teach me and my people the flight spell. If they return, and they undoubtedly will, we must take the fight to them, not let them attack us where we stand. The advantage has been theirs. I will lose no more knights to that menace.”

  “You are right, Abbess,” Olen said. “I will be happy to instruct you, though Mistress Serafina has the more practical experience. In any case, you shall learn.”

  Sharhava nodded sharply, and withdrew, taking her followers with her.

  There were not so many dead as Tildi had feared. Five werewolves had been killed, more by the eel-creatures’ poison than by thraiks. Three humans, one from Teryn’s company and two of the knights, had died. Each one was carefully laid out. Their faces were washed of blood, their wounds and gashes hidden by clean clothing brought up from the hold, then each was wrapped lovingly in white shrouds. To Tildi’s surprise, a ring of both werewolves and knights of the Scholardom gathered to grieve over them, regardless of species. Sharhava offered ritual prayers in the ancient human language, humbly asking the Mother and the Father to receive the dead. Tildi was almost convinced of Sharhava’s sincerity of reform. When she had done, the werewolf female known as Patha led the group in a howl. The sad, liquid voices in which werewolves cried for their dead sounded more like true grief than any dirge sung by bereaved smallfolk in the Quarters. Tildi hung her head and wished Rin and Lakanta with the Mother and Father.

  King Halcot wiped the blade of his sword carefully on a cloth he took from his belt, then carefully sheathed it at his side. He looked as stricken as Tildi felt. “Valiant. Both. I will go to their homes and proclaim their bravery. Prince Lowan will receive me. Best you let me off in Balierenn, Master Olen. I will carry the ill news from there. My soldiers will stay with you. I will not need them.”

  “The princess of the Windmanes fought like an army,” Soliandur said. “The, er, trader also. I would hate to have an army of her people stand against me.”

  “I regret their passing,” Sharhava said. “If they had been humans, their names would be in the annals of the Scholardom.” She grimaced. “They will be so inscribed. They protected the Great Book to the very ends of their lives. They were better guardians of it than we were.”

  “Their deaths will not be forgotten,” Magpie said. He and the others had ridden back to the deck and left their horses with the stunned grooms. The horses were calmed and led below. Those in the herd that had sustained injuries from the eel-creatures or thraiks were tended. He wished that a rubdown and a bag of sweet feed would soothe his shock and sorrow as easily. He glanced toward Inbecca. She seemed to be all right. She had fought like the tigress she was. She sorrowed for the lost ones, though her outrage at Olen was that of a bystander, not a friend or companion. It was for Tild
i his concern was greatest. The smallfolk girl’s usually pink-cheeked face was pale, except for her nose, which was red from crying. Her eyes bore a haunted look that he fancied he shared. Too well did he understand why she was upset with Olen. He had made a choice to use his magic to defend her and what she carried. It was a decision only a king or a leader could make, to sacrifice others for the greatest good. Seldom had he ever been so grateful that the duties of kingship were not his. Magpie was able to contemplate his own grief. He had genuinely admired the centaur princess and the cheeky dwarf trader, and enjoyed their company. He knelt before Tildi and took her hand. “I will write them a song that will live five thousand years.”

  “That would be fitting,” Soliandur said solemnly. “I would look forward to hearing such a tribute sung by you.” Magpie was a little surprised, but warily pleased in spite of his sorrow. He risked a glance up over his shoulder at his father. The moment had passed with its usual swiftness, and the king pursed his lips impatiently. He wiped his sword on a cloth handed him by his groom and sheathed it as he walked away. Magpie tried not to feel let down. He sat on the steps and let Tildi lean upon him. The book lay propped on her lap, devoid of its usual dancing energy.

  “They are so alive in my mind I can hardly believe them to be dead,” he said.

  Serafina’s crisp voice broke over his.

  “They are alive.”

  All of them turned toward her. She remained erect near the rail, her eyes closed.

  Olen said, hurrying down the stairs, “They are? Tell me, my dear.”

  “I can hear them,” the young wizardess said wonderingly. “I . . . I hear their rhythm. Their songs.”

  “Are you certain?”

  She looked fully at him, her dark eyes wide. “Master Olen, I am certain. I studied hard while we were among the bearkin. I learned to distinguish the . . . the songs of each of my companions.”

  Olen’s green eyes brightened to jewels. “Where are they?”

  Serafina shook her head very slowly. “I do not know. If the bearkin were here, they could tell you, but I cannot. The skill is too new to me. I can only hear them, braided within the rhythm of the rest of nature as I can yours or Tildi’s.”

  “Bless that skill, then,” Olen said, smiling. “I never doubted you were your mother’s daughter. Well done, my dear.”

  Serafina looked proud for a moment, then confusion came over her face. “But why steal away Lakanta or Rin? They do not have the Great Book.”

  “His spies who could penetrate our spells could no longer see Tildi or the book. The thraik leader showed more intelligence and cunning than I believed they had. They made a grab at random, and they think they have gotten what they wanted. Had either Rin or Lakanta ever touched the scroll, Tildi?”

  Tildi thought hard, trying to remember over the many weeks of their journey. “Lakanta might have when she pulled me from the fire after I took it away from Nemeth,” she said. “I don’t know about Rin. I don’t think so.”

  “Many times, I am afraid,” Serafina admitted. Tildi looked at her in surprise and dismay. Serafina touched her arm. “You don’t know, Tildi, because she asked me not to say, but when you were riding on her back, you touched her with it now and again when you drifted off to sleep or were inattentive. I healed the burns for her. She was proud to bear the pain for your sake. She said it was much worse for you.”

  Tildi’s heart wrenched. “I am so sorry!”

  “It doesn’t matter now. We know that our friends are alive.”

  “But where?” Olen asked. He sat down beside Tildi on the steps. Teryn sent her guards running for chairs, but he gestured to her that they should be set forth for the kings and the abbess. “Tildi, let us consult the Great Book. Now that we have assurance that they live, we should be able to locate their runes. The direction in which the thraiks disappeared is not an indication that their lair lies hence, of course. At least we know that we will find them, as long as Mistress Serafina can hear them.”

  Tildi felt the horror and grief that had paralyzed her begin to leave her limbs. She reached for the scroll, which leaped toward her like a favorite pet. She spread it out upon the air and concentrated upon finding her friends. What a task! she thought as the pages began to unfurl themselves. They could be anywhere in the wide world. But at least they were in the world, she thought, and the notion comforted her.

  “Why not you, then?” Magpie asked Sharhava. “Why were you not carried away as well? You certainly had your hands upon the book.”

  “Eremi!” Inbecca exclaimed.

  “Lar Inbecca, it is a fair question.” Sharhava laid her right hand upon the small amulet that Tildi now noticed lay upon her breast and that of each of the Scholardom. “I was spared because of a gift from our new allies. I had no idea of the others, or else I would have suggested they be given the same protection.”

  “Or I,” said Halcot. “But you were not there at our first council, Abbess. I handled a scrap of parchment that burned my hands to the bone. I was lucky not to be carried off.”

  “Yes,” Serafina said, regarding him with concern. “They could have taken you once the first wards fell. You were vulnerable. Why not you?”

  “No,” Olen corrected her gently. “It was not luck. I knew he had touched the copy. You were the one who healed him, I recall. I put wards upon him as soon as the thraiks burst through the protective spell. I did not know about the others. I regret that.”

  “It would seem that I need one of these amulets, my friend,” Halcot said to Captain Temur.

  The werewolf’s eyes glinted. “It would be my honor.”

  “But what about your allies?” Sharhava asked. “You say they live. They will be the prisoners of the master of the thraiks.”

  “Indeed they will,” Olen said, and amusement tweaked the corners of his eyes. “He will have his hands full with those two.”

  The abbess looked outraged. “Aren’t you concerned about their wellbeing?”

  He turned his gaze full upon her. “Of course I am, but I would be much more worried if one of your knights fell into his grasp. You know too much of the history of the book and its powers, and you might comply with his orders just because you know the legend of the Makers rather than the facts that would unroll themselves before you. Rin does not give a toss for the legends. In fact, I think she would like to give more to him than that, on behalf of every centaur, unicorn, and pegasus in the world—all the horsekin.”

  Tildi didn’t know whether to be offended or scared by his cavalier expression.

  “We must free them,” she insisted.

  “Of course we will, my dear,” Olen said mildly.

  “Yes,” Serafina said thoughtfully, and she laid a hand on her chin in an unconscious echo of Olen’s gesture. “I have a feeling that we will be given every opportunity to do so, and we must take none that are offered.”

  “What? Not save them if we can?” Magpie demanded.

  “Oh, no, I didn’t say that, did I?”

  Olen smiled. “You sound more like your mother every day.” For a moment Serafina looked mulish, then she laughed.

  “Thank you.”

  “How is it that this Shining One lives in the world without anyone knowing of him all these years?” Soliandur asked. One of his footmen brought wine for him. He gestured to have it served to the abbess before him or his brother king. On silent feet, the werewolves moved around them, putting the ship to rights. Tildi scented a whiff of firewood and the smells of cooking. The lunch that was to have been made of the eel-monsters was being prepared with a much less perilous main ingredient. She was surprised to note that she felt ravenous.

  “We may never know that,” Olen said. “But we have gleaned other information. We now know that the Maker is not all knowing or all powerful, because he can be fooled. I believe that he has been seeking the Great Book a long, long time. Your brothers, Tildi, had touched the true copy of this book, so the thraiks fetched them away thinking that they had the book.”<
br />
  “And my parents?” Tildi asked, pale.

  “Almost certainly. They bought the scrap for you, not knowing its significance. Considering your own surprising immunity to the book’s effects upon living flesh, they probably possessed it as well.”

  Serafina considered the question. “It is possible that that is true. The book has only been free since Nemeth broke into its fastness. Before that, he might have sought for it. Your parents had handled the scrap. I can imagine them turning it over. And so had the peddler who brought it to them, Lakanta’s husband.”

  “This Maker has had his creatures seek out everyone who has ever had contact with even a single rune?” Halcot asked.

  “We are still not certain that it is a Maker who is looking for the book, master,” Serafina pointed out.

  “Very well, Mistress Serafina, I will cede your logic. But a powerful person, nonetheless, who controls the thraiks. Where the thraiks have gone, they have taken our colleagues. I hope they can remain alive.”

  “It is a game now,” Olen said. “A serious one, but a contest of strategy and will, between us and our unknown enemy. Our mission has changed. Now it is more imperative than ever that we reach the mouth of the Arown as quickly as possible. We need our last ally more than ever before. Perhaps the urgency of saving our friends will move him to action. Time knows I have tried often enough before this.”

  “An ally?” Halcot asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Who is he?”

  “His name is Calester,” Olen said.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  he screaming lasted as long as the rushing of the air. Lakanta took her hands away from her ears and opened her eyes.

  “Oof!” she cried. She lay on her back for a time, working her arms and legs, clenching her hands, to make certain everything still worked. It did, thank the stone. But where was she? She felt out with a hand, and brought a handful of what lay upon the ground back to her nose. Foul straw, so old it almost dissolved in her palm. It smelled of rot and droppings. She wiped her hand on the side of her voluminous skirts. “Pew! No one’s done any cleaning in the last century or so, indeed they have not.”