“What are you doing?” Haroun asked, alarmed. “What have you done to my ship?”
“Creating the diversion,” Calester said with a charming smile. He turned to his chosen companions. “It won’t hurt the ship itself, Captain, I promise you.”
“And that will tell the other wizard we are here?”
The Maker clapped his hand on the werewolf’s wiry shoulder. “I guarantee it. Make haste to be ready, my friends. It won’t be long.”
Tildi ran for her cloak.
Chapter Thirty-one
akanta could not fill her eyes enough with the sight of the four smallfolk men who huddled with her and Rin on the floor of their cell around a tiny green fire. They were pale and thinner than they ought to be, but that mattered little to the fact that there they were. If in her mind she cut the long shaggy brown hair, shaved the beards of three of them (the fourth had barely a whisker to his name as of yet), and put them in whole clothes instead of dirty rags, she could picture a respectable family of smallfolk farmers. She had to keep looking at the first one, with his oval face and large brown eyes.
“I almost think I could name you each,” she said wonderingly. “You’re Teldo, without a doubt, because you look enough like Tildi to be her twin. She always said you were closest to her. The good-looking one has to be Pierin. Tildi told us many a story of you.” Pierin, possessed of the darkest, curliest hair and a well-molded chin and cheekbones, nodded and grinned. His brothers laughed and nudged him. “As for the other two, one looks older and one looks younger, so you’re Gosto, and you’re Marco.” The beardless boy gawked as she pointed at him. “I’d love to hear you play a tune someday. Tildi says you have real talent.”
Gosto, the one with thin, almost straight hair clinging to his very round head, grasped her hand. “You cannot think what a gift you have given us, mistress. I am so grateful to you I can never repay the debt. You really do know Tildi. Since we were locked up in here, we have questioned whether she was captured, too. That human”—he put a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the corridor—“wouldn’t say, no matter how often we asked. All he wanted to know was about a Compendium, as though we knew what he was talking about. He kept raving about it. When he was finally satisfied, he had us thrown down here. We can’t agree on how long it’s been. The ugly ones feed us, but he’s never called for us again. As far as we know, he has never called for anyone he has thrown down here. I am sure he’s forgotten about us. We’ve been left to our own devices. If we hadn’t been together, we probably would have died of despair.”
“And cold,” Pierin added. “Thanks to Teldo we had fire, at least, even if it’s a strange color. If we ever see daylight again, I swear I will never make fun of Teldo and his magic again as long as life is in me.”
Gosto, true to Tildi’s assessment of him as the practical leader of the family, got right back to the point. “Are you saying that it is because of that little parchment our parents bought for Teldo all those years ago that the thraiks carried us here, that piece of paper that hurt to touch?”
“I am,” Lakanta said. “It was a copy of this Compendium, or a page of it, at least. That terrible man is called a Shining One, one of the wizards who helped make it. It’s a book of all reality.”
Teldo opened his mouth. “But that’s impossible. The Shining Ones have been dead for centuries.”
“He’s been telling us tales of them while we have been locked up here,” Marco added.
“Not impossible, or the six of us wouldn’t be sitting in a dungeon together,” Lakanta said. “He wants it more than he wants air to breathe or water to drink. He’s killed and kidnapped to try and get it.”
“But what does it do?” Teldo asked. Lakanta saw the keenness that marked his sister.
“It describes everything in the world,” Rin said. “And somehow, the words in the book are tied to the real object. Change the word, and the thing changes. Destroy the word, and . . .”
“A quarter of Orontae vanished with the piece of parchment it was painted upon,” Lakanta finished. “Two months ago, now. No, a bit longer.” The smallfolks’ eyes were huge, dark pools of amazement.
“The world’s changed a dozen times since we were locked up here,” Gosto said, and whistled.
“And to think we had a leaf of that very book in our home,” Pierin said.
“A copy, thank the Father and Mother,” Teldo corrected him. He turned back to Lakanta. “Are you saying that the thraiks could smell it on us somehow?”
“Yes,” Lakanta replied. She took a deep breath, knowing that what she was about to say would sting. “On anyone it touched. And on your parents, most likely.” She regretted the stricken look on their faces. “You have not been able to find if they are here?”
“No. We have given up hope for that,” Gosto said sadly. “When we were first locked up, we called and shouted to anyone who could hear us. There were other prisoners. We know of at least a dozen. We hear them mostly when they first arrive, but after a time . . . I think they just give up and die. I fear . . . it has been ten years, mistress. I don’t know that we could have survived such a long imprisonment.”
“Do . . . do you know if there is a dwarf here? My husband went missing two years ago. He is the one who sold the leaf of the book to your parents. His name was Adelobert.”
“The trader?” Gosto asked in astonishment. “Old Glad-to-see-you was your husband? The dwarf with the big blond beard and three braids down his back?”
“I don’t think we ever knew it,” Pierin said, abashed. “We always called him trader or friend. He was our friend, mistress. We were glad to see him, too. Always.”
“He gave us good bargains, as well. He remembered I like music,” Marco said.
“I don’t think there’s anyone in a hundred miles around Daybreak Bank that didn’t know that,” Teldo teased his youngest brother. “But Adelobert—I am glad to know his name—did keep these things in mind when he made his visits. That’s no doubt why he brought the leaf to my mother all those years ago, since he knew we had a mind to higher learning. He was a good man, mistress. We shall miss him.”
It was as close as he would ever have to a memorial gathering. Lakanta felt deeply grateful to Tildi’s brothers. “Kindness runs in families,” she said. “I’d have known you were related to Tildi even if I couldn’t see you.”
“Is Tildi well?” Teldo asked.
Lakanta put aside her own sorrow. She had always known Adelobert must be dead. The fresh grief she felt at having it confirmed she suppressed firmly when she surveyed the anxious faces. “Is she well?” she echoed, finding a little of her old spirit inside. “She’s the companion of wizards and kings! She’s as brave as lions. She’s faced down werewolves and danced with the bearkin. The Great Book itself is her very own plaything. A prince has written a song about her. You’d be so proud of her, it would make your chests pop. Unless you’re the kind of smallfolk fools who believe that a girl shouldn’t strive for anything past cooking a good dinner and mending socks.”
“Not at all, mistress,” Gosto said. “Our sister’s the equal of any of us, and better than most of those who look down on her. We’ve all winked at her learning magic alongside Teldo. I just thought she didn’t have much of an aptitude for it. Seems I was wrong, and I take joy in knowing better.”
Teldo grinned. “And to think the last time we studied together she could just barely make a spark of fire, and that not all the time.”
“Oh, she’s moved far beyond just flame spells,” Lakanta said, waving a hand. “She can conjure things without even thinking about them. By the motherlode, she will fly to the moons and back when she learns you’re all alive. She’s been grieving for you all this time.”
“But how did you come to meet her? Dwarves and centaurs rarely come to the Quarters.”
“We met her in Overhill,” Lakanta said.
“Overhill?” Gosto echoed. “What in muck was she doing there? A respectable girl should be safe at home.”
“The way that we understand it,” Rin said gently, “she took Teldo’s letter offering an apprenticeship to the wizard Olen and went there.”
“But why did she leave home?”
“She couldn’t stay,” Lakanta said. “Any more you’ll have to ask her yourself. By the stone that spawned me, you shall see her again to ask.”
“We have to escape,” Gosto said, “and from what you say, we must do it before she and your friends figure out where we are. I have no wish to have that madman get his hands on the book she guards. Are her protectors strong enough to keep her safe?”
“They’d give their lives for her,” Lakanta said firmly. “I’d have said that would be enough.”
“We have many tales we can tell you about all of them,” Rin said, “and I have no doubt we will have more than enough time, but how did you manage to break through the walls?”
The Summerbee brothers looked at one another. “It started with a loose rock in the side of our cell,” Gosto said. “There’s precious little fresh air down here. Marco felt a bit of a breeze and went looking for the source. It took all of us to work it loose. We were hoping it led to the outside, but it didn’t.”
“It was the wall of the dungeon next to us,” Pierin said. “When we began to pick away at it, hoping to get more air, a voice spoke to us. A human man was locked in there, only a foot or so away, and we never heard him. We started talking about getting out of here. We scratched at our side with our rock, and he scratched at his. We were so close to breaking through to meet each other. One day we heard screaming, then nothing. When we did make a hole big enough to look in, there was no one there. I think the ugly ones caught him and gave him to the charnives.”
“Charnives?” Lakanta echoed, and the name summoned up horror stories of her childhood. “But they’re myths. Those things out there can’t be charnives.”
Rin stamped a hoof. “What are charnives?”
“A legend. They’re the beasts that sneak up on people traveling underground and drag away the one at the back, never making a sound.”
“Those black-furred beasts?” Rin asked. “Why can’t they be?”
“Well, I lived underground half my life, and I never knew anyone who was carried off by them. But tales came back with traveling folk.”
“We heard of them taking victims in the tunnels between us and the trading port south of our homeland,” Marco said. “Maybe they were invented by these Makers of Teldo’s, and that’s why they are here. He brought them as his hunters, to keep his prisoners from escaping.”
“And it’s worked, too,” Pierin added. “If anything’s kept us in here, it’s them. There’s swarms of them, and they can run down anyone who gets out. That’s why we’re going through the walls of the cells instead, breaking rock and using Teldo’s fire to melt through where it’s thin. We’re safe from the hunter-beasts in here. We have broken into four cells already. You’re the fifth, and the first one where we’ve found anyone else.” He didn’t say “alive,” but both Lakanta and Rin understood it.
“Charnives,” Lakanta mused, shaking her head. Another legend come to life, as if the Great Book wasn’t enough.
“We figured to get as far uphill as we can before we get out into the corridors and make our run,” Marco said. “It’s slow going.”
“I have been trying to kick down the door,” Rin said.
“We heard you for the last several days,” Gosto replied with a grin.
“Never mind bothering with the door; it’s bespelled,” Teldo said. “But the wall holding it up isn’t.”
“Really, now?” Lakanta asked. Her spirits lifted. With such a talent at hand, she could see her way clear to a future that existed. “I can tell you where the stone is sound or weak. That’s my people’s greatest gift. Let’s see what we can do together.”
“Aye,” Rin said. “Six of us stand a better chance of getting away than any of us alone.”
Gosto gave a good-natured snort. “We’ll see if we can live up to our sister’s reputation. I’d hate to let the family name down.”
Soliandur and Magpie led their horses up from belowdecks into the midst of the preparations. Magpie had been in a military camp before, but never on a warship. The atmosphere was much the same, flavored as it was with a sense of urgency, fear, and anticipation. Everyone hurried about him on his or her own business, seeking to be as ready as they might be. Three of the women sat on the deck among armloads of leather barding, mending straps, and hammering in bronze and steel plates to replace missing or damaged pieces. A gray-haired male sat at a grinding wheel. Sparks flew as he set new edges on swords and knives. A werewolf blacksmith, his limbs narrow but as tough as the steel he worked, melted the links shut in the repairs he made to chainmail shirts. Soldiers and scholars alike saw to their own gear, making certain that the arrows in their quivers were straight and well fletched, dents in helmets were hammered out, and boots were sound and whole. Cooks served up huge bowls of hearty fish stew and chunks of bread that steamed in the cold air. People sat wherever they could to eat their rations. Knight, guard, and trader alike, they toasted one another in draughts of beer, and passed a joke or a friendly word as if they were the final gifts they might give. Who knew which of them might be hurt or killed in the days to come?
With a tilt of his head, the king directed his son to follow him to the sheltered spot beneath the wheelhouse, where Serafina stood. Magpie saw that she was looking at the rune. He wondered what it was for. Calester ignored any questions he didn’t like, and Master Olen had been too busy to indulge Magpie’s curiosity. A pity he didn’t have time to ply Tildi. She had more luck with Calester than the rest of them, since she could do something he couldn’t, and she might be able to wheedle more information out of him.
“We are at your service, mistress,” Soliandur said.
“I am honored, Your Highness,” Serafina replied.
“What can an army of two do, Father?” Magpie asked. “I obey your command.”
“An army of three,” Soliandur said with a gleam in his eyes as he peered over his son’s shoulder. “Yes, I thought it. Here comes Halcot. Told you off, did she not?”
“She did,” Halcot said, looking sheepish. He brought his mare up beside his brother king’s and made a great business out of tightening a stirrup strap. He glanced up at Magpie. “I asked my captain if I could fly in their company. She said no. I was fool enough to argue, and she told me in words that even a child could understand what my proper place is.”
“I can’t imagine her being disrespectful, sir!”
“She was more respectful than I deserved. She reminded me my guards’ duty is to protect me and my house. I’ll be in her way if I try to go with them. This is not a war; it is a diversion. All we seek to do here is to keep this wizard’s forces busy until our friends have attained their goal. If it becomes impossible to continue, we are to abandon ship. Then my guards will see to the safety of my person. In the meantime I am not to endanger it unnecessarily. If My Highness wishes, she will assign guards to me for the duration.” Soliandur laughed. Halcot joined in, though he sounded pained. “Captain Teryn is right and I am wrong, lad. I cannot force her to divide her attention away from the battle at hand. Therefore, let us devolve upon our original plan.”
“What plan?” Magpie asked, intrigued and concerned at the same time.
His father answered instead. “My brother king and I have discussed the division of duties. Captain Teryn and Abbess Sharhava will defend the ships by air. Mistress Patha is in command of the merchant crew, our land forces. We three have the most important task. We will protect this young lady from direct attack. If necessary, we will sweep her to a place of safety.” He offered a nod to Serafina, who nodded back gravely.
“What about Inbecca?” Magpie asked anxiously.
“I have spoken to the abbess,” Soliandur said, careful not to see the exchange between the two.
“And gotten an earful, I imagine,” Halcot said
with a twinkle in his eyes.
Soliandur scowled and swung up into his saddle. “Never mind that! She will keep the lady as safe as she can, but she deserves to share the task of her fellows. To demand she stay below and out of sight is to deny her rank and her courage. She is a future queen. I would be as insulted if anyone tried to require me to remain out of this battle.” A defiant glare at his son, who admitted to himself that he wanted to do just that. “Now, mount up. Be a credit to your ancestors.”
“Very well, Father,” Magpie said, concealing a grin.
The stranger came down the steps from the ship’s wheel with Olen, Tildi, Captain Betiss, and the five guards behind them like goslings following a very self-important goose. Calester had the Great Book tucked under his arm. Magpie could not help but notice that Tildi’s eyes kept darting to it. Poor thing, he thought. Serafina’s eyes fixed upon the enormous scroll and widened. Magpie followed her gaze, then looked at the rune in the center of the deck.
“It’s the book,” he said.
“My lords,” Calester said, “I hope it will be a matter of hours rather than days before our return. We face grave danger, as do you. I bid you good fortune.”
“Good hunting,” Halcot said.
Calester met his eyes with a smile. “We seek two kinds of quarry today. As you know, sometimes one must use bait to lure out one’s prey.” He reached into the air and spread out his long fingers. Magpie felt as much as saw the pale gray curtains that surrounded the ship dissolve into nothingness. The thin sunshine beat down upon the big rune, which seemed to glow. “That should be enough. Farewell.”
“Wait, Master Calester,” Serafina cried. “The wards—why did you do that?”
One moment the “hunting party” was there, and the next it was streaking away from them toward the cliffs swifter than a fish could swim. Magpie ran to the side to see the tiny figures of Olen, Tildi, and Calester alighting on the narrow foreshore with the dazed guards staggering unsteadily behind them.
A Forthcoming Wizard Page 49
