Long hours he was used to, and he’d learned a little about patience. But, as the old sorcerer had said many times, his studies were not advanced enough to be of any use, nor would watching be of any benefit.
“Child, please stop daydreaming.”
“I’m not!” He jumped and forced himself to stand up straight. “I was just… thinking.”
“I see.” Trevor stared at him for several icy moments.
Could he crawl under the table? But that would only make the old man laugh and tell him to run off and play. If Trevor must send him away, he’d rather it were said with a little dignity.
“I see,” Trevor repeated. “You think too much. It’s called brooding, I believe, much related to the unsociable behavior of an old hen. Do you think you can postpone your thinking and assist me for a few hours?”
“For as long as you need me,” Viper whispered. Could the old man really want his help? With a complex magic spell?
“Good.” Trevor lobbed his bunch of keys. “Run ahead and open the entrance to the Lab. Fetch a few candles and light one from the kitchen fire. I want both of us to save all our energy for the spell. Don’t just stand there, child.”
Viper grabbed the keys and exploded through the rattling house like a boisterous thunderstorm racing before the plain’s capricious wind. The old sorcerer had never asked for his help before. He couldn’t wait to see what they’d be doing.
He grabbed a handful of candles from a drawer in the sitting room, stuffed them into his jacket pockets, and dashed into the kitchen. Careful to keep his fingers away from the fire, he thrust the end of the taper into the flames.
Half the candle drooped and melted. Wax sizzled and popped. Heat splattered over his hand.
Blast. He dropped the taper into the fireplace and shook his fingers to cool them. No blisters, thank the Thunderer. He pulled out another candle and inched it forward until he was able to light just the wick.
Trevor stuck his head through the doorway and raised an eyebrow, but he simply shook his head and handed Viper a candleholder.
Heat singed his fingers as wax dribbled down the side of the candle. He yelped and stuffed the candle into the copper holder.
“Do pay attention to the details, child.” Trevor stepped out of the doorway.
The details of what? No time to worry about it now. He sprinted down the hall to the entrance to the Lab’s labyrinth.
His candle blew out from his own wind.
Oh, that kind of detail. He raced back to the kitchen hearth, relit the candle, and crept down the hallway to the Lab entrance to unlock it. He locked it behind Trevor, thrust the keys into a jacket pocket, and turned toward the stairwell.
Trevor grabbed his shoulder and solemnly lit a second candle from the flame of the first. The old man’s eyes twinkled in the firelight. He wasn’t laughing, was he? No, not Trevor.
Creeping down the spiral stairs using candlelight instead of Trevor’s will-light was an eerie experience that burned through six candles, but not even climbing down the rope ladder through the hostile darkness of the guardian spell – Kraken’s knife sliced up through his shirt, down along his ribs, across his foot – daunted him. Free of the fragile candle flame, he raced down the glowing hall to the Lab door and willed it open.
Trevor strolled along behind him. The old man was definitely smiling now. But why shouldn’t he smile? They both loved experimenting, learning new magic. Today would be wonderful.
At the far side of the room waited a cleared, round, mahogany table, one that used to hold boxes of mouse bones, jars of pickled kraken eggs, and bottles of dried scorpions. Where’d all the treasures gone? “I’ve never seen an empty table inside the Lab before.”
The old sorcerer laughed aloud. “You may never see one again. I’ll need lunars to find everything I shifted about. But this spell will be worth it.”
They wound their way through the clutter to the empty table. A second table nearby held only a book, a few odd bottles, and two small boxes. The old man was serious about this magic to clear so much space.
“What are we doing, exactly?”
“A spell from your new grimoire, the Obsidian Mirror.” Trevor patted the little book affectionately. “I can’t tell you how rare it is to find a wizard’s spellbook. RedAdder must have been an unusually organized person.”
Must have been? “Do you think he’s dead?”
“I can’t find a single record about him. I suspect he was a new wizard who died in our recent outbreak.”
That sounded more like measles than murder. Maybe they should be looking for a disease. “What do we do now?”
“You shall assist me by handing me the ingredients as I ask for them. Everything is clearly labeled. Later you shall chant some of the incantations of making.”
He’d do some chanting? Have a hand in creating the mirror? He hadn’t even hoped to have such a large part in the spell.
He stood up straighter.
Trevor picked up the grimoire and settled into the chair closest to the back wall. “Sit down, clear your mind, and relax. Hand me the golden cloth.”
Viper perched on the chair, opened the larger box, and reached in. Heavy fabric slithered through his fingers like oiled chainmail. It gleamed like molten gold, but smelled like his mother’s favorite dress. Like warm silk and cinnamon.
Trevor draped the cloth over the table. “Now the slice of serpentine.”
Marbled green stone glimmered in the Lab’s magelight as Trevor placed the quarter-inch-thick slab on top of the golden cloth.
“The jar of gyric acid.” Trevor laid the open book on the edge of the table.
The cramped handwriting seemed to wiggle. It couldn’t, of course. The only things wobbling were his nerves. He better get a grip on his imagination or he’d ruin the experiment.
Yellowish liquid sloshed sullenly inside the glass jar as he handed it over. “What’s gyric acid?”
“Sulfuric acid from the stomach of a gyrfalcon treated with scorpion venom to intensify its acidic properties.” Trevor leaned back and cautiously poured the acid until the green stone was coated with it.
Rock bubbled and hissed. Burning pitch stung his eyes.
The old man began to chant.
Viper didn’t recognize one word in seven, but the magic didn’t care. After several minutes, the stone’s boiling surface curdled into a greenish blue. The stench of rotting fish drenched the Lab.
From lava to stagnant seawater in seconds. What a fascinating change. Was it really wet? He leaned closer to the table. Yes, liquid pooled over the whole slice of stone, and only on the stone.
Trevor leaned back and stretched. “Kindly chant the liquid dry.”
Chant it dry? He didn’t know any… Maybe he did. The second verse of the Sweep-the-Floor chant should work with only minor changes.
“Brize, wacan, heorc.
“On journee neowe embarc.
“Siticun tha ston, Til va’at na mo
“Staie makien mearc.”
A light breeze swept over the table. The metallic scent of drying blood whispered in the air.
The stone turned blood red.
Blast. Had he done something wrong?
Trevor leaned forward and grinned. “Perfect. Hand me the vial of Hreshith dust.” He sprinkled the powder uniformly over the stone.
The rock oozed orange.
Trevor frowned and sprinkled more Hreshith dust over its surface. And more. “This is costing me a fortune,” he muttered.
Finally the orange cleared to yellow. The scent of sweet wine filled the room. Trevor pushed hair out of his eyes and mustered a weak grin. “Concentrate on the surface and command the page to turn.”
Do what? That didn’t make the least bit of sense.
Trevor chuckled. “We need it to open to us like a book.”
Right. It still sounded weird. He certainly could do it, but he’d better say the chant in Old Tongue this time. “Pagina, turnen. Ih neowe demande, Thy leef changen,
Aet min commande.”
The stone faded to a milky white, but the room smelled normal, of old paper and ancient books.
Trevor applauded. “Only two steps left. Hand me the mandrake sap.”
More poison. Why so many fatal ingredients? Tomorrow he’d ask Trevor to explain the whole process.
Wine-red jelly oozed slowly across the glass when Trevor tilted the jar. When a large drop hovered on the lip, the old man upended the jar and tapped the bottom.
Burgundy plopped onto white, spread like slimy oil to the edges of the stone, and shimmered into dull black. Ice crystals formed in the air above it. Viper swore he could smell a blizzard creeping in.
“Chant an Opening,” Trevor whispered. “Use any opening incantation, modified to open a spell.”
His mind went blank. How did he say ‘spell’ in Old Tongue? Spellam? Wasn’t that too easy? But it was the only variant he could remember. “Spellam, openian, Thy hlid reisen. Schew ealle thy contentum, To min bryht eyen.”
“Again,” Trevor whispered.
Over and over he chanted the silly words.
Trevor chanted something different. He chanted so fast the words blurred together.
The incantations intermingled like trumpets creating a single song.
Trevor nodded at him and spoke faster. And louder.
That sounded like a hint to raise his voice, too. He sucked in a breath and shouted the odd little chant like a war song intended to reach the Thunderer Himself.
Words hung in the air with the ice crystals. His words, and others he couldn’t read. It didn’t matter. He chanted even louder.
Trevor slapped his hands together directly over the stone.
Viper’s mouth slammed shut.
Words and ice vanished. Dull black shimmered into an icy shine. All scent, all sound, all sense of time disappeared.
The obsidian mirror glowed within its golden frame.
Was that a face in the stone, or his own reflection? He leaned closer, careful not to breathe on the black glass.
“It’s finished,” Trevor whispered. “We’ve succeeded.”
Viper sighed and closed his eyes. He threw back his head and thrust his fingers through his hair. Finished. Thank the Thunderer. He’d never have forgiven himself if he’d messed up.
Trevor pushed the grimoire aside and walked around the table. “You did well.” His thumbs dug into Viper’s tense shoulders and kneaded out the pain. “Very well, indeed. Today you proved that I picked a solid, dependable apprentice, just as I have always believed. I do wish you trusted in yourself more.”
Viper reached up to touch Trevor’s hands. “If I stay with you long enough, I think I could believe in anything.”
The old sorcerer patted his back before returning to his side of the table. “This is our moment, my child.” Trevor bowed, his movements solemn and formal. “It is time to put our scrying glass to the test.”
Viper stared into the eerie blackness of the mirror. The angle seemed wrong to be reflecting his face, or Trevor’s. Was he seeing the reflection of a mask on a high shelf?
Trevor settled into his chair and leaned over the obsidian mirror.
“What will you look for?”
“The murderer of mages, if that’s not too vague an instruction for the glass. We need to know the truth.”
“It could be lying in wait for you.” Whatever ‘it’ was. He still wasn’t sure that the deaths weren’t just a series of accidents.
“Nonsense, child.” Trevor smiled and reached over the glass to pat Viper’s shoulder. “Nothing will be expecting me. Besides, I have put every protection I know into this glass. Nothing will be able to get through to me.”
Trevor leaned back. “Now, fetch a pen and a large pad of paper. And move your chair back so you aren’t reflected in the mirror. A little farther. Very good.”
The old man smiled like a cat with cream on its breath. “We are about to create a very important document. I want you to record every word I say, and I’ll need you to wake me from the trance when I’m finished.”
Pen in hand, Viper watched Trevor’s body go still.
Trevor sat quiet for a long, long time. For such a long time that Viper grew restless.
If he’d had any sense he’d have checked the clock when they started. How could he forget? Now he had to sit here and wonder how much was Trevor being slow and how much was himself being fast.
Well, Trevor believed in him. He didn’t know why, but the old man wouldn’t say so if he didn’t. Would he? Nah, not Trevor. He took in a nameless Outcast and did his thundering best to teach it something. And he did. He just hasn’t managed to teach it good sense.
Abruptly, Trevor chanted: “Snaca ston zu obsius miratorium,
“Kwat serche nyni min eyen
“Du Ih commande skwuwojan.”
So many Old Tongue words he barely knew. Viper mentally translated them: Serpent stone to obsidian mirror, What my eyes now search for I command you to show.
That sounded harmless enough. He’d expected something more violent. More demanding.
“Shi,” Trevor muttered.
Viper wrote the word.
“Shi.”
The old man’s green eyes focused deeply into the glass, as though he were looking infinitely far away. “Dead. Bent. Slaves. Madness. Hidden. Mindbender.”
Viper scribbled desperately.
“Wizards.” Trevor gasped for breath. “Slaves. Mindbender.”
He glanced up as the old voice faltered.
“Mindbender! Warn!” Trevor’s eyes refocused on the surface of the spell. “No! I won’t! Stay back! NOOOOOO!” The old sorcerer smashed his fist down on the mirror.
Obsidian glass exploded. Power surged across the room.
Claws hooked Viper between the eyes and yanked him forward even as the blast tossed his body away. The back of his head bounced off a table and knocked it over. His shoulder thudded against a bookcase. His forehead crashed against the floor. Books and bottles pelted him.
Dust erupted from a glowing ball of smoke where the glass had been. Something heavy crashed to the floor. Thuds echoed through the chamber.
Smoke shimmered across the Lab.
Grit clogged his throat. He coughed until his lungs felt inside out. Something pressed down on him. His overturned chair? He crawled out from under the broken slats. Nothing around him made sense.
Where was Trevor?
His eyes watered and stung from the smoke. He blinked and raised one hand to rub away dust. Why was there blood on his fingers? His nose seemed to be bleeding. Or his lip. Everything hurt.
This corner of the Lab was in shambles. Books off the shelves, bottles on the floor. Bookcases overturned. Paper everywhere.
Blood pounded behind his eyes. His throat was so tight he could barely breathe. Where was Trevor?
Ragged chunks of mahogany covered the floor, the remains of the table they’d used. Trevor’s chair was nothing but a tangle of sticks. Just beyond it, near mounds of boards and books and broken bottles, lay a single dusty slipper.
Twin sparks of green light skittered away from the bottles. They bounced off the ceiling, across chaos of the wide room, and landed on Trevor’s desk.
What on Menajr was that? Something escaping from one of the bottles, obviously, but Trevor never mentioned capturing a sprite. Must have been a chemical reaction. Right near Trevor’s heart.
What if whatever it was had spilled on the old man? Viper stumbled across the room and peered under the wrecked bookcase. He swallowed hard.
Trevor lay on his side, one outthrust arm protecting his face. Books and chunks of wood covered him. Smoke hovered over his head in the shape a kneeling body with claws tangled in the old man’s hair, but it dissipated when Viper hobbled closer.
He tried to shoulder the bookcase aside. It didn’t move. He scooped a pile of books out of the way and knelt by his teacher’s feet. “Are you all right?”
Trevor lay motionless.
“W
ake up, Master Trevor.” He slid the slipper back onto the old man’s foot. The sorcerer remained silent. How long could he stay unconscious? How badly was he hurt?
Viper staggered to his feet and dragged the largest boards aside. He tossed stacks of books out of his way. The old man would kill him when he saw how he’d handled those precious volumes.
Books didn’t matter right now.
“Wake up, now. It’s over.” He scrambled over the endless mound of books to kneel next to his teacher. Maybe if he kept talking, he’d be able to wake the old man up.
“What happened, exactly?” Questions always caught his teacher’s attention. And he was full of questions right now.
“You know what happened, right? The glass exploded. Do you know why?” He shook Trevor’s limp shoulder. It felt like shaking a floppy pillow.
“Please wake up. Tell me you’re all right.” Viper brushed fragments of glass out of Trevor’s gray hair.
“Wake up?” He shook the limp shoulder a little harder.
At least there wasn’t any blood.
Viper swallowed hard. Was lack of blood a good sign, or a bad one?
Something was wrong. Horribly wrong. But what could he do to fix it? First he needed to figure out how serious the damage was. He pushed aside a mound of books and gently rolled Trevor onto his back. “Oh, no. No!”
One green eye stared upward in utter disbelief. The other was pierced by an inch-wide blade of obsidian. The eye socket was burned and empty.
No. It couldn’t be true.
“Master Trevor, wake up. Please wake up. I’ve got to get you to a healer. I can’t pull that out by myself. Don’t leave me. Please…”
The sightless green eye glazed over.
He reached out with shaking hands and smoothed Trevor’s disheveled hair. Tears plopped onto the old man’s dusty shirt.
“I never told you I love you,” he whispered. “I never– I need to tell you– Please wake up. Trevor, I need you. Please don’t leave me. Please?”
Viper laid his head on his mentor’s warm chest and listened to silence.
Chapter 6.
The silence was broken by a child’s whimper.
Sorcery's Child (The Mindbender's Rise Book 2) Page 6
