A Forthcoming Wizard

by Jody Lynn Nye

  “Is that you, Lakanta?”

  “Rin!” The dwarf woman sat bolt upright. Pain shot through her back, and she winced. She felt along carefully, but the ache was only bruises, not broken bones. “Are you intact? That was a surprise. No wonder Tildi had nightmares about those monsters. I had seen many a one in the sky, but never touched one like that. They are ugly enough to scare my hair white. Not that it’s not going that way to start with, what with customers being so slow to pay, and the road getting worse, no matter what all the town councils say . . . !”

  “Yes, it is I,” the centaur’s resonant voice cut through her plaints. Lakanta heard rustling, followed by the clack of shod hooves on stone as Rin, unseen but close by, regained her feet. Lakanta felt her way along the uneven floor until she came to a narrow column like a young tree, but warm. “There you are,” Rin said.

  “Ah, yes, but where are we?” the trader asked. “Those monsters took us into a tear in the sky. Now I know what it was Tildi meant. I really had hoped never to see it for myself, but there you are.”

  “Here I am,” Rin agreed. “Here we are. The truth is much more chilling than any campfire story. I felt as if my lungs were being pressed out of my body when we flew into the blackness. And as soon as I could draw breath, they dropped me on this floor. We are not still within the spell,” she mused, her voice echoing. Lakanta imagined that she turned her head to survey their prison in search of light. “The runes are gone. We must be far away. The wind over the ship was sharp and crisp. This place is hot and dank. It smells.”

  “Wait a moment, I am forgetting my wits! They should be tied around my neck in a bag, I declare.” Lakanta felt at her waist. Her belt pouch was still there, firmly attached to her stout leather belt. “Here, let me see if I can make a light. It would be handy to have young Tildi here. She’s a game hand with fire.”

  “Demon fire,” Rin said. “Fire should not be green.”

  “It’s less green than it was,” Lakanta said absently as she felt through the capacious leather sack for her striker box. Steel and flint felt differently to fingers that were not aided by eyes. The steel felt coarse, as though it had been combed with tiny wires. The flint was smooth, with sharp facets. In another compartment of the small box lay tinder: birds’ nests, bits of lint from the yard goods she carried, fluff from milkweeds, whatever was to hand. She set the tinder on a pile of the noxious straw and struck the flint and steel together.

  The first hot, yellow spark was echoed in dozens of paired reflections all around them.

  “Bless me, Mother and Father!” Lakanta cried. She almost dropped the firestones.

  “We are not alone,” Rin said dryly. “Are any of you friends?”

  Not a sound. Lakanta snorted. Shadows in the night were not going to deprive her of a comforting fire! She lit the tinder, and held a fistful of the dank grass over it until it started to burn. Though it smoked fiercely enough to make her cough, red flames ran up the stalks. Lakanta gathered up the largest pile she could without moving from the spot she stood in, and set it alight.

  “Brook reeds,” she said with a professional eye. “Won’t last long.”

  “I hope we will not be here long,” Rin said.

  “Ah!”

  The eyes, for the twin lights had to be eyes, had moved much closer, close enough to touch. A thick snout brushed up against Lakanta and pressed its way up and down her skirts, snuffling. It was not a rat, or she hoped not. Rats should not be the size of small pigs.

  “Shoo!” she said, swatting it back.

  The thing responded with a growl.

  “What are they?” Rin demanded. “I have never seen their like in our lands.”

  “Nor have I,” the trader said. “What I can see of them, anyhow, and I cannot say I like what I see.”

  The small detail her dwindling light afforded them gave Lakanta the chills. The creatures had thick fur, beady eyes, and lopsided, triangular ears. She tried to push her way through them. They showed their teeth. Lakanta recoiled. She had no taste for bitten fingers. “There’s too many of them between me and the wall.”

  “Up on my back!” Rin commanded. She gripped Lakanta’s hand with hers and swung her upward. The trader grabbed for the thick mane and hung on as the centaur bucked and kicked, trying to drive back the silent beasts. They leaped for her, mouths closing on whatever limbs they could reach. One caught her ankle between its teeth. Lakanta hissed at the pain. She struck at the coarse muzzles with her steel block as the dark beasts tried to pull her off her perch, tearing at her skirts and the ends of her sleeves.

  “That’ll do for you!” she exclaimed, bringing the block down on one’s head, hard enough to break the bone under the tough skin. The creature still made no noise, but it slithered down off her lap and onto the floor. She heard the snap of Rin’s whip and the smack! as it struck one or another of the enemy.

  A faraway clanking of metal on metal caused the beasts to let go. The small fire dwindled and went out. They were left alone in darkness with the taste of rancid smoke in their lungs.

  “Are you all right?” Rin asked. She sounded out of breath.

  “A few bites,” Lakanta gasped out, leaning her head on the springy hair along the centaur’s back. “They’ll heal. But who is coming?”

  Light flooded her eyes. She could almost hear the crack of her pupils as they contracted. She held up a hand to protect them. Figures were approaching, at least three. She couldn’t see their shapes properly, but something about the way they moved disturbed her greatly.

  “What are they?” she asked.

  “I have never seen anything like these, either,” Rin said.

  “I know most of the beings that walk in the caverns beneath the earth, to a certain depth, anyhow. Those stubby things are new—that’s it, new! Someone is making new people. Like the eels. Those had no history, like Master Olen said.”

  Rin twitched nervously. “Tildi’s foe. We knew he ruled the thraiks. He has others to do his bidding, monsters he has made. Do not let them near us!” She cracked her whip. The first of the gray-green people halted for a moment, then continued. Rin struck out at it with the lash. Its head parted where it hit. It did not stop moving. “Monster!” she cried, backing away. She struck again and again. The whip drew lines across the being’s broad chest, but it never halted, nor did its fellows. The two friends found themselves surrounded by a host of nearly identical creatures standing shoulder to shoulder, ring within ring. The centaur could no longer leap out without landing upon more of them. She began to dance in panic, her hooves clattering on the stone. “Where is your face? It has no face!”

  “Easy, easy now,” Lakanta said, patting her on the shoulder. She felt as if she were talking to her pony. “If they meant to hurt us they would have. Look at them with their green pelts, like the ugliest hedge ever clipped.”

  “Are they plants?” Rin asked, interested in spite of her fear. Her eyes showed white all around the jade-green irises.

  “Bet they started out that way,” Lakanta said calmly. “Or a moss, if you look at the texture. I’ve squeezed water out of enough of it to know. I’ve never been threatened by any moss in my life, and I don’t expect to be so now. Wizarding and gardening don’t match well, in my opinion. They want us to go somewhere.” The rings of moss-men had elongated in the direction of the bright light, and she felt some of them nudge Rin from behind. “I’ve no doubt they can pick us up and carry us. Wherever we are going, I’d rather go there on my feet or, rather, on yours.”

  “It seems we have no choice,” Rin said. She wound the whip into a coil and held it, ready to strike as they were urged in the direction of the light.

  Knemet stood up from his cold stone seat as the liches escorted the newcomers into the great chamber. A centaur! He had not seen a centaur in hundreds of years, not since they had claimed the land of Balierenn as their domain. He did not need to see her rune to know how terrified she was. The horsefolk had always been skittish. They hated enclosed s
paces. The dwarf upon her back was a hearty-looking female, still pretending defiance even though she, too, showed signs of dread.

  The mark of the Compendium was upon them. Not a copy this time. They had touched the actual object. Avidly, he watched them approach, anticipating that hoped-for moment of laying his hands upon it at last. The wizardesses must cede it to him, and without demur. He was not in the mood for bargaining.

  He stopped suddenly, and studied them further. They had been in contact with the book, and recently, but they were not wizardesses. Nor did they have the Compendium with them. No trace of magic did they display, except for a knickknack or so on the person of the dwarf woman. Had he been fooled again?

  “Where is it?” he demanded.

  The dwarf woman looked at him in astonishment. “Who are you to ask us anything? Where are we? You don’t think that we will tolerate being stolen away at your whim, do you? We demand you send us back at once! And not in the care of those . . . those things!” She waved her hand at the ceiling, where the thraiks circled like buzzards over a dead animal. “They are too rough. We expect better treatment.”

  Knemet stretched out a hand. He grasped the blond female in a web of magic and wrenched her sideways, flinging her off the centaur’s back and across the room. She sprang up from the floor and started toward him, the light of battle in her eyes. He brought her to a halt with a mere flicker of power. She strained against it, angry rather than frightened.

  “Do not pretend you don’t know of what I speak,” he snarled. “I am too weary for games! Tell me where is the Compendium!”

  This time they both looked genuinely astonished. “What is the Compendium?” the centaur asked.

  “A book. My book. I have tracked your triumvirate of wizardry across the face of the world, and I will not wait another moment!”

  The dwarf reschooled her features into a shrewd expression. “Well, you’ll have to, as we have no idea what you mean. What do you want this book for? I am a merchant. I travel in my trade, all over Niombra, and I have connections on all four other continents and the archipelagoes. Perhaps I can help you find it. What does it look like?”

  Knemet glared at her. “Don’t be disingenuous,” he said. “I have seen you before in my visions. I can read your very soul. You know. My thraiks could not bring it to me. You shall.”

  “I don’t trade something for nothing,” she said boldly, putting out her chin. “When you tell me what it is you are looking for, and tell me what price you will pay, and possibly add in a commission and perhaps a gift because you’re being such a pushy customer, then perhaps we have a beginning point to our negotiation.”

  Knemet could hardly contain himself. There was such a difference between these and any other captives that the thraiks had brought him. They were intelligent and aware. Not only that, they had seen the book itself. They had handled it. The scent was fresh upon them.

  “I do not negotiate. The Compendium belongs to me.”

  “Then you’re careless with your possessions, Master Rainbow-Eyes,” the dwarf woman said. “No one gets something for nothing. What do you offer?”

  “If you do not aid me, you will never leave this place!”

  Instead of being terrified into babbling out everything they knew, the pair held themselves aloof, though Knemet could see them quail inside.

  “I don’t mind,” the trader said with a nonchalant shrug. “My people have lived beneath the hills for . . . how long is it since you made us out of stone, eh? I’ve always had questions. I don’t suppose you’d care to answer any?”

  “I . . . I, too, have questions,” the centaur said, holding up her head proudly. “Were we meant to be subject races or free?”

  “That’s a good one,” the dwarf said cheerfully. “I’d rather like to know, though it matters little after so long. We’ve hardly made it a practice to interact with humans. I do, but I don’t mind people.”

  “You seek to cloud my mind with your prattle,” Knemet said. He hated them as he had hated no others for millennia. “You were not alone. I saw you among your companions. They will want you back safely. I will trade for you. I will accept only one price. I must have the Compendium! I need it back! You cannot deny it from me forever!”

  The dwarf woman gave him a pitying look. “There must be a thousand books of magic in the world. Why do you need this one so badly?”

  Knemet’s temper flared. “You wretched fool, I want it back so I can destroy it!”

  Both women gasped.

  “But why?” the trader asked. “If you prize it so highly, why? How could you even think of destroying it?”

  “You know of what I speak,” Knemet said with grim triumph. “It is in the forefront of your mind. You have no secrets from me.”

  The trader crossed her arms across her round chest. “I won’t tell you a thing.”

  Knemet gripped his hand, and the spell constraining her tightened farther. She let out an involuntary squeak. He moved closer to her. She was only a few inches shorter than he was. He tipped up her chin. She flinched at his touch, but she could not avoid it. Once she met his eyes, she was trapped.

  Such a different mind from Nemeth’s, and from the trace of the other wizard he had sensed briefly just after Nemeth’s death. He was not the judge of character that Deelin had been, but he could find thoughts that were uppermost. All he had to do was read them in her rune. He saw it all: her mental strength tempered by grief; her intelligence, sense of humor, and deep, enveloping warmth that could flare up to a terrible fire when needed. For what? he wondered, seeking more deeply.

  “Where does your loyalty lie?” he asked, and unwillingly, her mind turned to those she would protect against all threat. Fear, awe, and love surrounded one tendril that extended to surround a ghost shape. Knemet concentrated upon it. A female figure. A child. No, it was the smallfolk girl he had seen through the eyes of his kotyrs, the one he had last seen among those guarding the Compendium.

  “Who is she?” he demanded. “What purpose has she in your company?”

  “None,” the dwarf gritted.

  “You cannot conceal the truth. Tell me.”

  Her blue eyes went as blank as stones. “You know all, Master Mushroom-Face. You cipher it out yourself.”

  Fear alone would not wring answers from these two. They were warriors, unlike the pathetic specimens of humanity he had faced before. He flung out a hand, and the wall beside her exploded into fragments. One of them grazed her cheek, drawing a thin line of blood. She was a true stone-child; that sharp rock would have laid open the face of any other race.

  “I could do the same to you,” he said.

  “Then why don’t you?” she asked. “You’ll get the same answers from me either way.”

  He knew she was telling the truth. The thought of torture sickened him, but he would not balk at using it if he believed it would work. He had not the talent for reading thoughts or the ability to scry, as a few minor magicians he had once known. She must tell him. He had the knowledge to cause her to confess. He hated to ruin such an admirable specimen of dwarfdom by making her compliant, but his need was great.

  The trick had nearly been played upon him, once. His fellow Shining Ones had nearly succeeded in applying the skill to him. Once he had seen the rune gleaming above him, he had never forgotten it, not one single detail. He drew it then in lines of gold, causing it to hover in the air between him and his subject. She eyed it suspiciously.

  “It won’t work,” she said. “No matter what you do to me.”

  “Don’t change her!” the centaur shrieked. “Don’t do it.”

  “What?” Knemet asked in surprise, turning to her. “You have seen this manner of transformations done? Who is practicing this skill?”

  The centaur, seeing that she had said too much, pressed her lips together. Knemet could see in her thoughts that she was fearful of the rune. He meant to give them no choice.

  “It does not matter whom I use it on,” he said. “If you are
worried for your friend, then you shall tell me what I want to know.”

  “You are a monster!” the dwarf woman shouted, her pink cheeks darkening to red. “Come back here. Don’t touch Rin. She’s a princess, much too good for the likes of you to touch.”

  Knemet would not answer them. He merely shifted his hand. The rune glided toward Princess Rin. He followed it at a safe distance, waiting for it to do its work before he came close. Her eyes widened until white showed all around her irises, a throwback to her equine heritage. She was a better choice than the dwarf. Horsefolk could be trained more readily.

  Rin struggled, pressing herself to avoid contact until the very last second, but the rune touched and melded with her own sign. He watched the metamorphosis. Though there was no physical alteration, she was different. The fire of her personality was banked, and he controlled the damper. He approached and took her dark hand in his pale ones. She twitched and shivered in fear.

  “You wish to aid me,” he said in a soothing voice. “Where is the Compendium? It belongs to me. You believe in justice; I can see it in you. You are strong and honest. Help me to regain my property. Who guards it? Where are they?”

  He locked her gaze with his. In the back of her mind she was screaming, but she had no choice but to comply.

  “Ship,” she gritted out between her clenched teeth.

  “Where? Is it still in the Arown, or has it set out to sea?”

  But the centaur could not stop. One word, one syllable at a time, Knemet gleaned the names and numbers of the guardians. Werewolves and soldiers. Those he could dismiss. He had heard of the Scholardom. They had nothing to do with the Shining Ones who had deprived him of the Compendium, but they must have been influenced by them. They had skill at magic, but it was dependent upon proximity to the Compendium. Two kings and two wizards and one apprentice. He had seen them all through the eyes of his kotyrs. The elder wizard was a wily one, but no match for him—or as he had been in his prime. The female was young and inexperienced. He had seen her reactions when the thraiks had attacked. She was skilled but too slow. The smallfolk girl, now, there was an interesting creature. She could do magic, an enormous departure from the origins of her people. None of the created folk but the bearkin had inherited magical abilities. She held the book, had actually wrested it from Nemeth, and maintained an uncanny connection with it. She had done the transformations, restoring the body of a minstrel in their company. A powerful magician, for all she was only an apprentice. She was the one he must guard against.