A Forthcoming Wizard

by Jody Lynn Nye

  “They value you?” Knemet pressed. Blood burst from the centaur princess’s nose and the corners of her eyes. She tried so hard not to respond to him that she was tearing herself apart inside. Her heart was pounding hard. “Will they come for you? Will they trade for your lives?”

  “Not if they know what you want to do!” the dwarf shouted at his back. “I won’t let them. You will have to keep us locked up until the end of time!”

  The end of time. The phrase evoked a long, dark, empty corridor in Knemet’s mind. He could not bear to look at the two women any longer.

  He flicked a hand at the liches, who moved to surround the dazed pair.

  “Lock them away,” he ordered. “Make sure they do not escape.” The gray-green beings inclined their blank heads toward him.

  “Don’t say any more,” the dwarf called to her. “Rin, he wants to destroy the Great Book! Stop!”

  He released his spell and let the women be herded out of the room. The centaur whinnied in fear. He heard her hooves clatter and slide on the stone floor. A shout and a curse came from the dwarf woman. He took dark pleasure in their discomfiture. They had not wanted to aid him. It sounded mad to anyone who had not suffered as he had. Ten thousand years of life was too much.

  The book was so near! The end of his suffering had been within his creatures’ grasp. He owed death to the ones who had thwarted him. He looked up at the ceiling, where the thraiks circled and wheeled, too terrified to come down. He shook his fist at them.

  “You failed me! You failed me again! How could you be so careless! A promising new species, wasted because of your foolishness!”

  They wailed their apologies to him, begging him to forgive them. They didn’t deserve forgiveness. They were useless. He had to try again, but with what tool?

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  ildi’s hair streamed and whipped over her collar as she stood in the bow of the Corona, watching the monolithic sculpture approach. Her cheeks were red and stiff with cold, but she did not move. For the first time she missed the cocoon of warmth in which the book had held her for the first months of her caretaking. It was important that she not let it rise again, for it was a symbol of the imbalance the book created between itself and the reality it described; her anger could set it free. She had kept her eyes on the far horizon, waiting for the narrow finger of rock to rise out of the surface of the water. They had been sailing for four days. As soon as the ship had been cleaned and the wounded restored with the aid of the metal plate they had made, Olen had revived the wind spell that propelled the two ships southward, then gone below, where he had slept for a night and a day. Tildi and Serafina were left to mind the bags of wind that had kept them riding at that rapid pace night and day with only short intervals for rest and to gather food. Sailors in vessels that they passed followed their speedy progress with curiosity, fear, or open envy. Tildi paid them little heed. All she could think of was getting to the Guardian so they could find Rin and Lakanta before it was too late. The thraiks’ master would have discovered at once they did not have the Great Book. How long could they live in the face of his disappointment? What perils would they face? No matter what, now, he had made her his enemy. What small powers she had she would bring to bear upon him. She had sorrowed before, but now she was angry.

  At least now they knew where her friends were: in the south of Ivirenn, in the hills above the human-inhabited port city of Tillerton. She and Olen had pored over the page that the book had revealed to them. There was no doubt about it. Their runes were there, in the middle of a boiling of thraiks. There was no sign of a wizard among them, nor any combination of strokes that would denote a man of power and vast age. Still, Rin and Lakanta were there. Tildi had to check innumerable times to make certain she was not mistaken. Both runes showed they were frightened, but that reassured Olen and the others. The dead could not fear. Tildi was so relieved that she had burst into tears all over again. Her friends were within forty miles of the Quarters.

  She had searched the portion of the huge rune that described all of Ivirenn closely. Could she have found her brothers, even if they were alive, even if she knew what their runes looked like? After so long, she had no hope for them or her parents.

  A stream of bulky shadows passed over her head, but Tildi did not flinch or even look up. Not to say that a herd of flying horses did not provoke interest, but the sight had lost its novelty. The company of guards from Rabantae and the entire Scholardom rode in formation, breaking off into smaller groups that galloped silently upward and downward, taking defensive positions all around the pair of ships. Their leaders shouted orders. Voices and the clanking of harness and the sound of weapons being drawn were the only noises they made. It was eerie, like watching an army of ghosts.

  Once the ships were underway again after the battle, Serafina had not hesitated in giving the Scholardom instruction in riding the skies. They were capable of creating the spell to create secure footing for their own steeds.

  They tackled the skill as they did everything else, with determination and perseverance. It took longer for their horses to get used to galloping through the air than it did for the knights themselves to become at home and, shortly, masters of their new domain. They created a series of maneuvers that so impressed Captain Teryn that she asked to have her people drill with them. As they had no means to control the book’s power, Serafina offered to cast the spell for them.

  Sharhava was a much more skillful rider and general than Tildi ever dreamed. She gained the respect from Teryn and her company that she had not had before. They practiced whenever they were not eating or resting. They were preparing for the battle they knew must come soon. It seemed appropriate for the Rabantavians, with the symbol of the winged pegasus upon their breasts, to fly through the air. King Halcot himself had not been able to resist it. With some difficulty he had persuaded his fellow king to take to the air alongside him. Soliandur had not been keen to try in the beginning, but once he had experienced it, he was the first one up during drills, and the last one down. His son followed him every moment, flying just behind and below to catch him if he fell, but Soliandur was as good a horseman as Sharhava. The monarch’s usually mournful face lifted and became youthful. He and Halcot led mock battles against the well-disciplined force of the Scholardom that left the watchers on the ships breathless with excitement.

  There seemed no doubt that they faced one of the ancient Shining Ones. The werewolf traders were fully convinced, as were the Scholardom and Teryn’s company of guards. When the two kings proved still skeptical, Olen had shown them one of the eel-creatures that lay dead upon the deck.

  “It is neither male nor female, my lords,” he had explained. “Such a thing was made, not born, and made for a purpose. Can you doubt that it was to lead the thraiks to the treasure that we guard?”

  Halcot, who had been party to the earliest councils, had been already half persuaded. It was the lord of Orontae who was yet to come to terms with the threat of an immortal enemy, a legend from long ago. As Prince Eremi had said, his father was a hard man to convince of anything in which he did not believe. Yet no matter what his personal beliefs were, he joined in the common defense of the Great Book—and its guardian.

  The company kept a close watch upon Tildi, whether she was sleeping, eating, studying, or bathing. She had reached a point where she could feel the others’ eyes on her as though they were touching her. She had always been a modest and private person, and she hated that they were always looking at her. No matter where she went, at least one guard in blue-and-white and one in red-and-white followed her. There was no peace or privacy on the ship except there in the bows, tucked into a small corner beyond the forward hatch where only she could fit. She had taken to going there when she could not stand it any longer. Though she didn’t complain to anyone, Serafina had noticed. The wizardess had ordered everyone, including Olen, to let her alone there with her thoughts. They had respected the stricture, until now.

  Olen appea
red beside her, his green eyes avid with curiosity. They were close enough that the back of the statue’s hooded head loomed high above them. He settled onto the hatch cover beside her.

  “Do you see it, Tildi?” he asked. “He is there.”

  The figure of stone puzzled her. “It’s there, master, but it’s not alive.”

  “Ah, but it is. All of my research says so.”

  Patiently, Tildi brought the Great Book and opened it to the page on which had been inscribed several individual features of this part of the world. Painstakingly wrought in gold was the rune. It showed a statue hundreds of feet high, standing on a pedestal of rock. It was beautifully made in the image of a man with a long, narrow face; keen, hooded eyes, and a sharp chin. One long arm reached out to sea in a palm-out gesture of warning. The hooded cloak that covered him from crown to heels had been wonderfully carved so that it looked like vast folds of cloth. It only lacked one detail. “There’s nothing alive in it.” No being, human or otherwise, lay within it or under it, or anywhere near it for miles. She didn’t want to say he was mistaken. He was so seldom wrong, but her confidence had been shaken when he had been taken by surprise by the eel-creatures. She merely showed him the rune.

  Disconcertingly, Olen seemed to read her thoughts. “I do not know how to reconcile what I know with what you can see, my dear. Only experimentation will take us further. Nevertheless, we must find Calester. We need his help. I, too, am worried about our friends.”

  Captain Temur held tightly to the wheel as Olen and Serafina let the winds spill from the bubbles behind the ships. Gradually, the Corona and the Eclipse glided to a near halt. The wizards controlled the release so that there was no harsh transition to the speed of the natural current of the Arown.

  Tildi had never been farther than the southernmost Quarter, but her brothers had traded goods in the human-owned towns and villages along the south coast. “My eldest brother, Gosto, often told stories of the Guardian. It is said it has been there since Father Time set it in place, at the beginning of the world.”

  “It is not quite that old,” Olen said with a smile.

  As they neared it, it seemed to fill up the sky.

  “I don’t see where we can dock, Master Wizard,” Haroun shouted, coming up beside them. “Our chart shows the riverbed here is treacherous. We usually stay within the channels.” He pointed to colorfully painted wooden floats tethered in the stream.

  “Don’t trouble yourselves,” Olen said. “Find a safe harbor. I shall be making my visit by air.”

  Tildi was delighted when one of the werewolf crewmen brought Sihine up from the hold. The silver mare was Olen’s own steed. Tildi had ridden with Olen to perform her first great task, to turn the Madcloud away from Overhill. It felt as if it had been a lifetime before that she had last seen the lovely mare, but Sihine put her velvet-soft nose down into Tildi’s palm and whickered, looking for a treat. Olen reached into the pouch at his belt and brought out a sugar crystal. He handed it to her and let her feed it to the mare.

  “Come with me,” he said. “You have had so much experience traveling in this fashion, you should no longer be afraid of heights.”

  “I still am,” Tildi said, a little shamefacedly.

  “You are wise,” Olen said kindly. “It is I who am reckless.”

  Serafina had already led her white mare up to the edge of the deck. Teryn followed her, leading her sturdy gelding. She saluted Tildi, but addressed Olen.

  “I should accompany you. My guards are prepared to join us. My lord has given us permission.” She gestured toward the belly of the ship, where Morag had the others waiting.

  Loisan, Sharhava’s lieutenant, came bustling up the steps with his horse in its full tack behind him. Its hooves clattered on the deck. His craggy face was red with strain.

  “Master, we are the book’s guardians! We should be the ones to protect Mistress Summerbee.”

  “There should be no need for rivalry, Captain and Lieutenant,” Olen replied, nodding to each. “You may come along, of course. There is room in the sky for all.” He helped Tildi up to sit sideways just before him on the saddlebow. The book floated into her lap. Sihine gathered her great haunches and leaped upward. Tildi clutched the big scroll. The voices inside were excited. They were airborne.

  The Scholardom launched itself and spread out into a hemispherical formation around the two wizards. Teryn and Morag flanked Olen and Serafina. The rest of the Rabantavians streamed out behind their leaders. Tildi was annoyed with all of them. Why must the two groups fight over precedence? She felt, not for the first time, that they were thinking less about her and more about their own glory.

  Olen brought the horse close to one of those huge eyes. “Calester!” he shouted. “Calester, I am Olen! I need your help. One of your colleagues has abducted two of my companions!”

  “He doesn’t hear you,” Serafina said, listening closely. “I hear nothing within.”

  Olen rapped upon the left eyeball with his knuckles. “Calester!” He paused to listen. There was no sound but the crashing of the waves on the island and the roar of the wind. He turned Sihine with a rein on the neck. They flew around to one of the ears that showed just beyond the edge of the hood. Tildi peered into the opening. It seemed to go a long, long way in, dwindling from a hole larger than her body to one she could have covered with a palm.

  “Could be you were wrong about this, master?” Loisan asked, trotting forward. “We have records that date back to when the Great Book was made. It makes no mention of the Makers transforming themselves into statues.”

  “There are things that the annals do not record, my friend,” Olen said. “This happened long after the war between the Shining Ones, I know not for what purpose. I have spent many centuries divining where this Shining One might be, and this is he. I have tried to communicate with him before, but he has always ignored me. Once I made the discovery, I have spent years trying to make contact with the man within this monolith. Not worth his trouble, I suppose. I had nothing to interest him. I have never located any of the others. This is our time of deepest need. I believe that if we can get his attention, we can gain his aid. And we sorely need it. Our combined power will not be enough to wrest our friends from the master of the thraiks.”

  “We will wake him, sir,” Loisan assured him. He flew back toward Sharhava, who listened with a grave face to his news. While Olen studied the ear with great concentration, the Scholardom flew forward in an arrow formation, and spread out. On Sharhava’s signal, the knights pointed their right hands toward the chest. Tildi saw a vast rune form on it, just where the heart would be if it had one. It sank into the image. Tildi fancied she could hear a rumbling coming from inside the ear. Just as quickly, it died away, leaving only the cry of gulls and the sounds of the sea.

  The knights tried many times with different sigils, no doubt gleaned from the mysteries their order had gathered for centuries, to awaken the giant. She did not understand most of what they did, but each attempt ended in failure.

  “We are not real enough for him,” Olen murmured at last.

  “What is real?” Tildi asked curiously.

  “Something he made,” Olen said, bringing the horse around to the eye once again. “Tildi, show him the book. Show him the page that shows where our friends are imprisoned.”

  Tildi felt more than nervous leaning out over thin air to hold the book out to the huge eyeball. Did she imagine it, or did it move a tiny bit? She looked down. The right hand was held out almost at the level at which they hovered, offering a warning to invaders from the south, but the left was upturned, held back nearly to the figure’s waist. Had that empty palm ever held anything? Was it meant to hold something?

  “Showing it won’t help, master,” Tildi said. “He isn’t looking.”

  Olen glanced downward to see what she was looking at, and a broad smile lifted the corners of his mustache. “You are quite right, Tildi. We must let him touch the book.”

  “No, master,�
�� Serafina said warningly. “You do not know what response you might set off.”

  “It is possible that it will be nothing,” Olen said. “It is worth a try.”

  “It is too risky!”

  “All magic is risk-taking,” Tildi said. Olen’s hand squeezed her shoulder. He had said that to her the first time she had gone with him to undertake her first major magical working. She didn’t feel much braver than she had that day, but the image of Rin and Lakanta being dragged through that hole in the sky kept coming into her mind and making her tremble with fear and anger. Someone had to wake up the stone giant, and it looked as though the only person who could do it was her.

  Serafina pursed her lips. Edynn had undoubtedly told her much the same thing, for she nodded. She looked at Olen.

  “There is no sense in sending Tildi unprepared. We should place wards around her.”

  “Not if it will prevent the book from touching the flesh, as it were,” Olen said. “That would negate our efforts. But a guard on Tildi herself would make the most sense, if you would.”

  Serafina did not look satisfied, but she pointed a finger at the smallfolk girl. “Voshte,” she said softly. Tildi felt as if she had put on another cloak that also covered her face. She could scarcely feel the saddle under her rump. She nodded.