Renegade Wizards aot-3

by Lucien Soulban

  “Corak pesona!” she said as she released the spell material. In her mind, the powder overtook the dolls racing for her and another ribbon script of magic was unwritten.

  The powder fanned out into a cone of violently clashing colors. It swept over the attacking dolls, and instantly, all four fell into the mud. Tythonnia quickly crawled to them and began stabbing them as hard as she could. It only took a stroke or two before the light dimmed from their button eyes, but Tythonnia stabbed each a couple of times more for satisfaction and good measure.

  The three wizards surveyed the damage about them. Fifteen or more dolls lay scattered in the mud, some burned, others ripped apart. Tythonnia, Par-Salian, and Ladonna said nothing. They were too tired, too exhausted from the battle that had sapped their strength and pushed their magics to the breaking point. Ladonna seemed to have fared better than the rest of them, never once succumbing to the dolls, while Par-Salian looked downright miserable with his hair and clothing caked in mud.

  “What’s happened to your hair?” Par-Salian said, looking at Tythonnia.

  Tythonnia’s hand went to straighten her blond locks, but it was hard to find them beneath the layer of mud that covered her. Even the rainstorm was hard pressed to rinse her clean. Tythonnia and Par-Salian laughed so hard, it was impossible to stop or stand straight. Even a stern look from Ladonna fueled their laughter even harder.

  Ladonna allowed her two compatriots to ride out their mirth until they were too exhausted to offer anything but a chuckle. Finally, she asked, “What about the dolls that escaped? I counted two or three of them. And there’s the matter of their creator,” Ladonna said.

  “Creator?” Par-Salian asked.

  “Yes,” Ladonna replied. She motioned toward the body of the dead villager, the one she spoke to earlier. “He told me that the dolls belonged to an old man living on the edge of town.”

  “We must rest first,” Par-Salian said, levity instantly forgotten.

  “No,” Tythonnia said. “This isn’t our concern.”

  “He murdered these people,” Par-Salian said, motioning to the corpses around them. “He nearly killed us!”

  “I think he should die,” Ladonna said.

  “Wait, wait. I didn’t say that either,” Par-Salian protested.

  “It isn’t our problem,” Tythonnia said. “It isn’t our place to bring him to justice, only to report him. Our priority is finding our horses and reaching Palanthas.”

  “We should at least bring him before the conclave,” Par-Salian said.

  “To what end?” Ladonna retorted. “To assuage your guilt for leaving him alive? I say kill him.”

  “No,” Par-Salian replied. “And that’s final, Ladonna.”

  “Then leave him for the conclave,” Tythonnia said. “Send them a message, and let them decide what to do about him. We need to keep going.”

  Par-Salian shook his head slowly as he pondered the matter. It wasn’t an easy choice, Tythonnia knew, but none of them were ready to capture a renegade, much less drag him back across the countryside to Solanthus. That would not only delay them, it would endanger their identities as well. It was better to leave him for the conclave to deal with.

  “We find our horses,” Par-Salian announced finally, “and continue on to Palanthas. I’ll alert Highmage Astathan as to what’s happened here.”

  To Tythonnia’s surprise, Ladonna said nothing.

  It had taken them an hour to find the three horses. Tythonnia’s Northern Dairly had managed to lose her two attackers along the way, though where the dolls had escaped to was anyone’s guess. The three wizards decided to camp at the spot where they’d found the Dairly, in an open field good for grazing with a nearby cluster of five trees. Though all three were exhausted, Ladonna offered to take the first watch while Par-Salian and Tythonnia slept beneath the cloudlike canopy of the green ash.

  “You can cast while riding,” Par-Salian said to Tythonnia, as they made ready to sleep. “Nifty trick, that.”

  Tythonnia blushed at the compliment. “I was taught to spell-ride. I can cast some spells from horseback.”

  Par-Salian nodded in appreciation. “I’m glad you can. You must teach us how you do that.”

  Tythonnia nodded before her eyelids fluttered heavily. “We have the time for it,” she said with a yawn. Her eyes closed.

  A moment later, Par-Salian’s eyes closed as well.

  Ladonna paced around to stay awake. She would have loved to sleep, but her mind was in turmoil as it analyzed scenarios, went over plans of action, and argued with itself. She understood their obligation to the mission, the need to reach Palanthas. It was a reunion she herself eagerly and nervously awaited. But there was the matter of the monster that had animated the dolls. Par-Salian and Tythonnia opposed his execution, which was expected, considering the robes they wore, but they hadn’t heard the dead one speak. They hadn’t heard the dead cry out for vengeance. Ladonna had. She’d heard the terror in their voices, the ghosts of parents searching for their children, the ghosts of children crying to be held. Neither ever seeing the other. They would never be reunited and move beyond the pale of life until someone satisfied their need for justice.

  The villagers were more than just terrorized and murdered. They were torn from life, their every connection broken until there was nothing and no one to remember who they were. Ladonna could not abide that. Ghosts created in that fashion would never rest until satisfied, and without rest, they would haunt whomever came upon them.

  By no means were the Black Robes saints. In fact, murder and terror were well-regarded tools in their repertoire, but they did not condone either without regard for the specific benefit to the Order of Black Robes first and the Society of High Sorcery second. It was necessary, since many felt that the line between Black Robe and renegade was thin at best. So the members of Ladonna’s order, while advancing personal wishes, always used “benefit of the order” to legitimize their actions in the eyes of others.

  Ladonna sighed. The old man responsible for crafting the dolls was proof that magic needed rules, that Ansalon itself needed the orders. She understood the mission, but sometimes the needs of the moment temporarily took precedence over longer-term ambitions. Ladonna knew what needed to be done, and it would be her responsibility alone. She waited a half hour longer, until she was certain her companions were sleeping deeply.

  She circled the small cluster of trees once in a wide arc while swinging a tiny bell from a silver string. She incanted the words, barely stirring her own ears with her whispers, and felt the magic slip through her feet and fall along the path she’d trodden. The circle was complete and if anything broke its borders, the spell’s cry would be shrill enough to wake the dead.

  At the very least, she wouldn’t be leaving her companions without an alarm. She only hoped that she would be back before they awoke.

  The rain had lessened by the time Ladonna spotted the old man’s cabin; it was out of the way and at least twenty minutes from the ruins of the small village. With any luck, Ladonna thought, she could be done and back at the camp within another hour. Ladonna dismounted from her Abanasinian and patted the tall horse on the neck, grateful for its calm temperament. She tied its reins to a nearby tree stump and walked slowly to the cabin. Its ragged curtains were closed, but the frayed edges betrayed flickering candlelight. The walls were rubble stone, cobbled together to form a low-ceilinged house. The roof was thatched and in bad need of repair. Ladonna crinkled her nose at the building; it barely managed as a barricade against the elements, much less a home.

  Carefully, she nudged a corner of the wet cloth from the window, enough to afford her a peek inside. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust and another moment to suppress the shudder that ran through her body.

  The one-room cabin held little furniture-a rickety chair to lend company to the rickety table, a molding mat on the floor for a bed, and a cooking pit dug into the earth. A sewing bench rested against one side, where two dozen more dolls hung fro
m hooks in the wall, waiting to be finished. The floor was cleared of grass and covered in a layer of packed dirt. Piled on the floor and table, however, were dozens of small artifacts and trinkets. Jewelry, coins, children’s toys, gourds, bottles, a decomposing chunk of ham already white with maggots, fabric rolls-everything stolen from town, Ladonna realized.

  What held Ladonna’s attention, however, was the old man himself. He sat on the bed mat, his back to the wall, attended by a half dozen dolls. Silk cloth torn roughly from a bolt was arrayed over his shoulder; an exquisite quilt covered his lower body. Two dolls fitted him with rings and necklaces, riches for their king. Another doll served him morsels of dried fish and meat from gelatin-filled pots, but the food tumbled from his lifeless mouth.

  The old man had been dead for days, by the stink of his corpse. His eyes were white, his body drying. His head lolled to one side, and food covered in maggots filled his mouth. And yet the dolls continued to cater to him as though he lived. They were his friends in life, and his death had somehow tainted them. Did they blame the villagers for his death? Ladonna wondered. Or perhaps he imparted into the dolls some loathing of his neighbors.

  Ladonna didn’t know. All she knew was that the companions the old man had created were killing people. Perhaps, even, they might have killed him, though despite their hellish appearance, the dolls administered to the old man gently, even lovingly.

  She didn’t know or care.

  Ladonna quietly stepped away from the cabin, grateful that the rain had covered her footfalls, and retreated to her horse. When she was comfortable with the distance, she turned and pointed her finger at the home.

  “Be undone,” she whispered.

  The ruby-colored stone set into the ring on her finger sparkled and turned into a pea-sized ball of flame. It shot straight at the cabin, growing in size until it was larger than a horse’s head. The ball struck a stone wall and exploded it inward. Almost instantly, the cabin collapsed in upon itself, the fire quick to devour the roof and everything inside that was flammable. Curls of flame licked upward.

  In seconds the cabin and everything inside it were gone, destroyed. Ladonna abandoned hope of ever feeling satisfied at her actions, and simply mounted the Abanasinian. She cast a final look at the bonfire and directed her steed back to the camp.

  The three riders were similar in appearance, from their dark cloaks and hoods to their three black Blödegeld horses, a stock so stout and thick they were said to have ogre blood in them. But of all horse breeds, there were few that were as tireless and strong as the Blödegeld. It was the perfect animal for the three renegade hunters.

  Dumas had been quiet the entire trip, though the trio rarely spoke. It was the quiet in each other that they preferred, and hunting renegades for the past few years had given them a comfortable familiarity with each other. Still, Dumas knew both the slender Thoma and the bearlike Hort were troubled by her seemingly distant manner. In fact, Dumas herself was troubled by her own thoughts.

  She did feel detached from everything around her, as though the roots of her feet had broken free of the soil. As though there was nothing left to anchor her in the seas of the sky. She’d been feeling that way since leaving the chambers of Highmage Astathan, Reginald Diremore, Yasmine of the Delving, and … Belize? Was Belize there, she wondered? No, she couldn’t remember him attending when the three masters of the orders instructed her to find and kill the three renegades.

  Perhaps that’s what bothered her. For Highmage Astathan to condone the deaths of three wizards, regardless of their actions, was highly unusual. She quickly chastised herself. Who was she to question the highmage himself? Had anything been too untoward regarding his request, surely Yasmine and Reginald and Belize would have spoken up.

  No wait, Dumas reminded herself again, Belize was not there.

  Dumas shook her head against the rain and the gauze that seemed to fill her mind. She kept seeing Belize there, sometimes standing with the others in the chamber of Highmage Astathan, sometimes alone in a strange garden. She was tired; that’s what it was, or perhaps she was ill. She distracted herself as fair-haired Thoma leaned over in his saddle, low to the ground, and studied the path closely. He pulled himself back up again.

  “There’s no way to track them,” he said. “Too much rain … way too much rain. We don’t know if they’re sticking to the roads or the fields. Dumas, I tell you we’re better off racing ahead and intercepting them.”

  Dumas nodded. “I thought as much. All right. There’s a small village ahead. We check there first, then head to the High Clerist’s Tower. It’s the only way to reach Palanthas. At the very least, we’re bound to catch them there.”

  Hort nodded in agreement and spurred his horse forward. In seconds, the three renegade hunters were galloping along the mud-splattered path, deeper into the thick rainstorm.

  Ladonna dismounted and walked her horse to the invisible arcane boundary separating her from the camp. As she approached, she was pleased to note that it lay undisturbed, a shimmer of yellow light against the green that only she saw. With a whisper of her password, “Daya,” she and her steed crossed over the ward without triggering it. She walked her horse over to the others and glanced to where her companions rested.

  Par-Salian was asleep, but Tythonnia was seated and awake. Her gaze locked firmly on Ladonna, her brow knitted in angry furrows. Ladonna said nothing, though she was mildly surprised. She studied Tythonnia, measuring her. Neither of them spoke, even as Ladonna looped the reins of her Abanasinian to the low branch of a pine tree.

  So Tythonnia knew, or had guessed.

  Ladonna didn’t bother offering explanation or justification for being caught missing. She could have said the old man was already dead when she arrived, but it would be a weak excuse. She went there to kill him, and she would have killed him had she found him alive. Pretending otherwise was a lie, and they both knew it.

  She stepped under the canopy of the tree and pressed the water from her long, black hair. She settled into her bedroll that rested on a dry bed of leaves.

  “Your turn at watch,” Ladonna said as she settled down to sleep.

  “I was awake,” Tythonnia whispered, “waiting for you to come back.”

  “I didn’t ask you to stay awake for my benefit,” she replied as she turned away from Tythonnia.

  “I won’t worry about your safety again,” Tythonnia said. “I promise you that. And I won’t say anything to Par-Salian, but when this is done, you’ll answer to the conclave.”

  “I look forward to it,” Ladonna said with a smile. “Aren’t you on watch? Mm?”

  “No, I’m not,” Tythonnia said. “You left your post, which means you can have my shift too.”

  Ladonna stopped herself from muttering an insult. She didn’t feel much like sleeping anyway. Thus she rose and began her vigil anew, feeling the Red Robe’s gaze on her back. She silently chastised herself; probably she should have cast a deep sleep spell on her companions before leaving. The rain descended even harder.

  The three Blödegeld horses shifted around nervously, but Hort kept a strong hand on their reins. Whenever they got too nervous, he clucked gently and managed to calm them again. Dumas and Thoma surveyed the destroyed buildings and examined the bodies. Perhaps more perplexing, however, were the nearly two dozen small dolls scattered about in the mud, their bodies torn and burned.

  “What happened here?” Thoma said as he leaned against his longbow. Runes along its length glowed ever so slightly.

  Dumas shook her head. “I’m not certain … not yet at least. But I suspect …” She closed her eyes and rested her hand on the tome she carried. She mumbled the incantation and heard the pages flip open even though the cover remained unmoved beneath her palm. The words in the book slithered as she uttered them, as though suddenly uncoiled and slippery.

  The spell began slipping away, and Dumas regrouped, trying to grasp it again. She managed to pull it back into her before it eluded her completely, and she felt
her eyes warm to the spell’s touch. Her eyelids opened to reveal silver irises, and her sight suddenly beheld more of the world. She saw the dead bodies, the destroyed buildings, and the strange dolls. More, even, appeared as the faint echo of magic became visible to her: Crimson threads that materialized and were devoured from one end to the next; black, thorny ribbons like the tendrils of some dark plant; and finer threads that shifted hues like oily water. There were more colors, too weak to distinguish properly, shifting in and out of being.

  Dumas tried concentrating on what spells might account for the echoes, but her mind refused to cooperate. She felt lost in her own dreams, one turn behind in a maze of her own making. Whatever had happened here, however, magic was at its root.

  The three renegades, her thoughts whispered. The notion was unfounded, and yet it rang with certainty. Not Dumas’s own convictions, but the whispered beliefs of someone else. Who? One of the three masters? The voice almost sounded like Diremore’s, Yasmine’s, Astathan’s, and-perhaps most strongly-Belize’s voices all rolled together.

  No, Dumas thought as she corrected herself. Belize wasn’t there.

  It hurt to fight the voice in her head. It took too much from her to resist it. So she allowed its truth to worm its way into her heart and was rewarded with a clearer head. She suddenly felt better, as though broken of a fever.

  The three renegades did this, Dumas thought and again felt better, rewarded. In fact, it seemed silly that she questioned the truth of it at all in the first place. Of course they did it; that was the only possible answer.