A Forthcoming Wizard

by Jody Lynn Nye

  “Better find a new mail shirt,” he said. “My thanks, lady.” He struggled up and helped the werewolf to lie down in his place. Magpie leaped forward to assist them. Serafina repeated the spell.

  Halcot swung down from above. His horse’s hooves touched lightly onto the deck and trotted to a halt.

  “Time for your rest, lad?” he asked. “Mother and Father know I need one. I’m not as young as I was.”

  “No, sir,” Magpie said. “I have news.”

  “You look grim,” Halcot said. He came to grip the young man by the shoulder. “What is wrong?”

  “What news?” Serafina asked, glancing up at him for a moment.

  Magpie explained what he had seen. Serafina closed her eyes briefly, and nodded. “I can still hear our friends. They are all well, but you are correct: they have gone out of our reach. Unless they stop, the influence of the book will be pulled out from over us in a short time. That may draw the thraiks away.”

  “It may not,” Magpie said. “If they have been fooled by the false rune for so many hours, won’t they still seek it?”

  “I would fear for our friends’ safety if the thraiks suddenly lose interest in us,” Halcot said, looking up at the dancing shadows beyond the lamps. “Those creatures must not return to their lair, lest it inform our enemy that what he seeks is not out here. How many more can you sustain in the skies if the runes should fail?”

  Lines of strain creased the corners of the girl’s eyes, but she set her jaw. “I will do what I have to. They will learn of our weakness soon enough. Let us hope it is enough time for our friends to return to us.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  nemet glared at the cluster of liches.

  “Gone? What do you mean, the subjects are gone? Where could they go?”

  If the gray-green creatures had had any personality, they would have hung their heads in shame. As it was, they stood still, faceless, impassive, their message delivered. The prisoners were gone.

  “Impossible!” Knemet flung himself away from them and paced to the curved wall. He pounded his fist upon it.

  It was no use raging at the liches. The women must be wizardesses. How had he been so deceived? Was there a way that had evolved since his exile to conceal magical talent? On the eve of recovering the book and ending his long torture, had he missed power greater than his own?

  He felt a stirring of magic nearby, strong magic. The familiar touch alarmed him. He had not sensed it since the last upheaval of the world sent him scurrying for shelter.

  Knemet turned, and his eyes widened with alarm.

  “You!” he snarled.

  Light flooded the chamber, and the floor broke into shards under his feet.

  Tildi had only a moment to see the face of the human they confronted before the room was blotted out in a flash and a roar like lightning. However she had pictured the man who had killed her family, it was not as a small, frail-looking human with thin hair. His eyes, though, were like nothing she had ever seen, not even during the last few months, when her life had been turned upside down and she had seen wonder after wonder that surpassed every fairy tale she had ever heard. His eyes were rainbows, brilliant and beautiful and dangerous. What else she saw in them surprised her: astonishment, anger, and hope.

  From the knife-thin, narrow chamber, Calester had led them at a rapid pace. Tildi had sensed that they were walking steadily uphill. The last passageway had been squared off, by magic or stoneworkers, and smelled of smoke, dung, and spoiled vegetation—lived-in scents, she would have said. At the top of that passage, he changed size again and led them under a low lintel that was a tight fit even for Tildi. The guards had to hand their packs and weapons through before crawling on hands and knees. Olen, last to pass through, took the doorway in his stride, only ducking a little. Tildi had to blink. Had he enlarged it by magic? He gave her an encouraging smile and laid his finger to his lips.

  Beyond it, Calester rose to human proportions again. The room in which they had emerged was large and high, almost the shape of a beehive. The floor of the chamber ran with damp, and gleaming white moss decorated the walls. The walls were riddled with openings, including four that seemed to lead into other corridors.

  Tildi had felt rather than heard something approaching. She looked around and let out a gasp. Dozens of man-shaped creatures, no taller than a dwarf, moved silently to surround them. Tildi was horrified to see that they had no faces. Morag and the other guards drew their swords and interposed themselves between the man-things and their charges.

  “Hold,” Calester said. “You can’t hurt them. Don’t waste your strength.”

  “What are they?” Tildi asked.

  “Liches. Simple minds, dedicated to serving us. They are strong and nearly indestructible. If I needed confirmation that a Maker lives here, this is it. They can guide us to him.”

  “I mistrust these,” Olen said. “If Knemet made them, they will betray us.”

  “They have no will of their own,” Calester said. “They will obey me just as readily.” He turned to them and spoke in the tongue used by the people who lived in the Compendium. They obeyed without surprise. As one, the liches turned and stumped toward an opening that was a foot or two above the wet stone floor. Water dripped down the wall over a lip of moss that had formed there. The liches used it as a ledge to help themselves climb up. The guards boosted themselves after the plant-men and held out a hand to the wizards. Calester waved them away imperiously and pushed ahead to be the first to follow his guides. Tildi didn’t like the idea of touching the moss and solidified the air so she could walk on it. Olen smiled at her as he stepped up beside her.

  “Are you frightened?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Angry, I think,” Tildi said, though the feeling in her belly could have been either one.

  “Good. But do not lose sight of the purpose of our journey, as I believe Calester has.” She glanced up at him, a little startled. He smiled and put a hand on her back. “Hurry. We must catch up.”

  The liches moved so quietly that Tildi was only certain where they were by the runes bobbing along ahead. Calester had extinguished his guide light. The floor was fairly level, so Tildi felt as if she were walking endlessly in place. Her thighs began to grow numb from carrying her. A drop of water began to gather on the tip of her nose and splashed off onto her collar. She had just brushed it away for the third time when Calester whispered.

  “Halt.” Tildi could see attention and curiosity in his rune, as though he was listening. “An opportunity, a rare opportunity.”

  “What?” she couldn’t help but ask. “Have you found them?”

  “Sh! Follow!”

  The passage took a sharp turn to the left. Doorways appeared on both sides of the corridor, huge, wooden doors with metal straps. Tildi listened as they went by but heard nothing behind them. The smell of smoke was even stronger than it had been below. More liches came behind them and surged forward until she could not tell which group was which. Calester seemed well pleased.

  Light bloomed ahead, a small patch of whiteness that drew her forward. The gray heads of the liches emerged from the dark, taking on being, then Calester’s tall form, the three knights, and, most comfortingly, Olen beside her. She felt as if she really existed again for the first time since the narrow chasm.

  Calester took a few paces back and pressed the book into Tildi’s arms.

  “Take this,” he said. “I don’t want all my advantages to be lost at one time. Stay well back. This is my time.”

  Tildi opened the book, scanning the page by the faint light. They were not near their friends. What was that man doing? Olen’s hand dropped upon her shoulder, and she looked up at him.

  “Guard yourself,” he whispered. “Remember where you stand.”

  The light came from ahead. Tildi got the impression of a large room, much larger than the chamber of doorways. Throwing his hood back, Calester strode forward, outdistancing all of them but the liches. They passed insid
e, but he remained just in the shadow beyond the fall of the light.

  Tildi could not see over the heads of the others, but she could hear a man’s voice shouting. He was angry that someone was missing. Her heart squeezed in her chest. Had he discovered that they were not on the ship as he suspected?

  Olen’s hand urged her forward. For the first time she saw who was speaking: a small human. He swung around. His skin and thin hair were gray-white like the moss on the walls, but his eyes were rainbows. He saw Calester. He was surprised, but Tildi thought he looked glad to see him. Then the tall Maker swept up a hand. The floor exploded in a burst of stone shards and the small wizard plunged through it. Calester stood looking grimly pleased. Runes appeared and danced above his head.

  “Look out,” shouted Demballe.

  Calester glanced up. A part of the wall detached itself and fell toward him. He flicked a hand at the slab. It shattered around him like ice. He shook a finger toward the hole in the floor.

  “Oh, Knemet, what a pathetic retort. After so many centuries I would have expected more from you.”

  Pieces of broken rock hurtled upward like a fountain, cascading in every direction. The guards threw themselves before Tildi and Olen, seeking to protect them.

  Olen pointed his staff. “Voshte!” he commanded. The shards struck an invisible wall and pattered to the floor. Calester clapped his hands together. Fire fountained upward from the pit. The crack in the floor zigzagged toward them, and the halves tilted up. Lar Mey tripped and started to slide toward the dark gap. Demballe cried out and sought to reach out to him. Tildi reached out to Mey, thinking the words of the solid-air spell as hard as she could. The knight scrabbled with all four limbs as he was lifted up from the uneven floor. Swiftly, he regained his wits as well as his footing. Olen gave Tildi a look of approval and gestured toward the others.

  Just as she was about to oblige, a terrible weight seemed to land upon her shoulders. Tildi fell to the floor, the Great Book beneath her.

  “I see you have brought me a gift, Calester, my old friend.”

  Tildi looked up. The rainbow eyes were glaring down upon her. Knemet, too, stood upon thin air. Tildi realized the wards that had concealed her and the others since they left the ship had disappeared. Calester must have taken them away. The gray-skinned wizard pointed to the book.

  “That is my property, twig-girl. It was rightfully mine. Give it to me now.”

  “No!” Tildi said, wrapping herself around it.

  Calester was there between them before the other wizard could draw breath. “Knemet, you fool, it is no longer yours. It serves me and my companions.”

  “The one who holds it is the one who controls it,” the small man said, his beautiful eyes burning with an inner fire. Tildi dragged herself and the book as far from him as she could go. “I require it. I crave the touch of it. Only the touch.” He reached out to Tildi. Her body lifted from the floor and began to float toward him. Terrified, she clutched the book to her chest.

  Calester made a gesture with two fingers as if he were cutting a thread. Tildi floated gently down again until she was sitting on a chunk of shattered stone. Olen stood beside her, staff at the ready to defend her.

  “What a clever man you are,” Calester taunted. “If she was not holding it you could not compel it to you. Tildi, put it down. Put it down.”

  With the greatest of reluctance, she set the scroll on the floor beside her and glanced warily at Knemet. The two wizards glared at one another. Knemet swept the other with a summing eye.

  “I would not have known you after all this time if not for your arrogance,” Knemet said. “You are much thinner. And taller.”

  Calester considered the statement. “I refined myself to my liking. As, I see, did you.”

  The other nodded. “I have. I have found the optimum shape to continue in my studies, and the ideal home.” Knemet gestured around him with a hand. “Until you destroyed it, it was the perfect place for me to remain for the rest of my days. I shall have to remake it. Perhaps you will help me. You were my closest friend and ally for centuries. I would welcome your assistance.”

  Don’t trust him! Tildi felt with the whole of her body that he lied. The voices inside the Great Book were agitated. She tried to calm them. No telling what kind of trouble it would cause if the book was to fall out of balance here. With so much magic in the air the mountain could explode.

  If the book had been out of harmony, Knemet was worse. He vibrated like an out-of-tune harp string, grating on the eardrums in a discord that rang on and on. It was painful. He didn’t belong.

  “What is that, twig-girl?” Knemet asked, looking down at her suddenly. The rainbows suddenly flooded her vision. She could hear his voice both in her ears and in her mind. “I lie? I don’t belong? You are right. That is why you are here, to rid me of my pain.”

  Tildi was horrified that he could read her thoughts. Knemet shook his head. “I was there when your kind was engendered. You are my Nature’s Child. Why should you not be as an open book to me?”

  “No,” Tildi said weakly, fighting the draw of those eyes. She closed her own. “My kind has nothing to do with you!”

  “But you knew you were created by one of us. I can see it in your face. You know the truth of your origins. Why the shock to learn which of us it was? Come, bring the Compendium to me. It is mine. Isn’t that why Calester brought you here? As a messenger to return my property? To cure me?”

  “I feel the pain,” Tildi croaked, overwhelmed by it. “It isn’t physical. You need healing. We have a healer, back on our ship. The bearkin could help you. They cured me.”

  “Not that kind of healing. Mine can only come from that.” He lunged for the Great Book.

  “Together, now!” Morag barked. The guards leaped to catch Knemet by the arms. Knemet snarled. Runes burst into being.

  Morag went flying backward, crashing into the carved-stone seat that was the room’s only furniture. Demballe crashed into the doorpost and sank to the floor, looking dazed. Knemet stood untouched. Morag lifted himself to hands and feet and crawled toward the wizard, his usually muddy eyes glaring blue in his craggy face.

  Lar Vreia signed to her companions. In each of their hands bloomed the blue fire that the Scholardom had made their own weapon. The six points spread until they formed a ring around Knemet. It blazed up into a cylinder of fire that closed in on him like a cocoon. Inside it, Knemet screamed. Tildi winced at the tearing sound, pitying him.

  Olen stamped the foot of his staff on the uneven floor. Knemet froze for a moment like a figure in ice. With a grim smile lifting the corners of his mustache, Olen sought to build upon the spell’s strength. Knemet began to move. His hands twitched. Olen’s face twisted. He threw up his hands, and the runes he had been building burst outward, vanishing in golden light. The knights went sprawling. The blue fire faded. Knemet came to life again. His face was blistered. The rainbow eyes glared at Olen. As she watched, the shining patches on his face faded to red, then to the pale mushroom hue of his ordinary skin.

  “I have seen you before,” he said. “How dare you blind my kotyrs?”

  “How else was I to stop them telling you all of what they saw?” Olen asked reasonably. “I did not want them to.”

  The small wizard’s voice climbed an octave. “You ruined an entire species! My beautiful creation!”

  “I do not see how you can be angry, when you caused the death of my apprentice’s entire family. You claim that you created her kind as well.”

  The colorful eyes were startled. He looked from Olen to Tildi and back again. “That is only a few of the smallfolk. There are many others left. You cannot claim that the matter is equivalent.”

  “They matter to me!” Tildi said.

  “I am afraid I must take her part,” Olen said. “Intelligent individuals are as important as the whole of the species. I did not see much in the way of independent intelligence in the—kotyrs, did you call them? You left us little choice of action.” />
  “I see,” Knemet said. The evenness of his voice told Tildi that he was only keeping his temper in check. He still vibrated with pain. “I shall not underestimate you again. Parthray!”

  The word seemed to linger on the air, ringing in Tildi’s ears. A rune she did not recognize wrapped around her body. Her skin burned and froze at the same time as she struggled against the magical bonds. The voices in the book in her arms cried out. She understood part of their words, and cudgeled her memory for the lessons Serafina had given her on the ancient language. Back—turn back—turn it back! In her mind she made a ball of the rune he had thrown at her, and flung it back in his direction. Knemet flung up his hands to ward off the spell. It tied itself around his limbs like a length of creeper vine. He took a step backward and sprawled. Cursing, he banished the bonds and rose to his feet.

  Olen, too, was moving again. He raked the air, and the runes dropped away from the guards. Demballe sprang toward Knemet and wrapped her arms around his knees. Morag moved in from behind, throttling the wizard with his huge hands.

  In his momentary distraction Tildi was free to move. She felt Knemet’s ache as if it were her own. She wanted to escape from it. She would go mad if it didn’t stop. Tildi grabbed up the book and fled toward the doorway. Clawlike spikes of power pierced her arms, dragging her backward through the air. She cried out.

  “Come back here, girl!” Knemet bellowed.

  The pain fled as swiftly as it had come. She fell, but an arm in a gray cloak caught her. She looked up into Olen’s brilliant eyes. Knemet upturned a hand, the fingers beckoning. Olen, too, lifted a hand. The pull on Tildi stopped at once. The rainbow-eyed man snarled at Olen and pointed a finger at him, moving it in the air like a stylus. Tildi was horrified as Olen’s face stretched out so that his lips were pulled back from his teeth like a death’s head. The skin of his hands thinned until they were skeletal. Olen closed his eyes, films of skin over bulging orbs. His face returned to normal for a moment, then his features bulged like a bag of potatoes. His limbs swelled. Though Tildi could tell he fought the spell-making, he was unable to hold her. She fell to the floor, the book on top of her.