The Wysard (Waterspell 2)

by Deborah J. Lightfoot

  Neither Carin nor the warlock joined in Welwyn’s laughter. Over the little man’s head, their eyes locked. The expression on Verek’s face combined annoyance with some quality of emotion that was far rarer with him, and far harder to make out.

  And what’s he reading in my eyes? Carin wondered. Her feelings were in such a muddle, she couldn’t sort one from another or begin to guess what was plastered across her face. The only clear sentiment inside her was a burning desire not to have to talk with Verek just now.

  To hide her confusion, she dropped her gaze and busily began to clear away the remains of her interrupted meal.

  That brought Welwyn out of his jolly fit.

  “No, no, Lady Carin!” He waved her off, still chortling. “You’ll not deny me the pleasure of treating you like a guest in my house. I’ll be at cleaning up this mess after I’ve seen to the deer. It’s time they were off the mountain. Now sit yourselves down, the both of you, and have some more goat. Poor fare it is. But what’s in the pot is steaming yet and tastier—if my own travels tell me anything—than what you’ve been eating these past weeks.”

  Verek didn’t leave his place by the corner fire, nor Carin her spot near the kitchen wall. The eyes of both were on the monk as he wrapped himself in his hooded cloak and rolled to the door.

  “Master Welwyn!” Carin called.

  With his hand on the latch, the little man paused and turned back to her. No part of his face was visible under his hood but a huge smile.

  “Your servant, my lady!”

  “Sir, can I help you bring in the deer?” Carin tried to keep the pleading out of her voice. “Before today, I’d never seen a Trosdan. And I’ve never touched one, of course. They’re supposed to be good luck. May I go with you and help you herd them?”

  Welwyn shook his head, still smiling.

  “Nay, Lady Carin. Begging your pardon, but it’s no job for a slim limb of a lowlander. Don’t you know you can’t believe everything you hear? It’s only in the stories that they’re such brave little heroes, rescuing princesses from the savitar or pulling men-of-arms from bogs. In truth, herding those fractious creatures takes one born to the mountains. They do as they please.” He tipped his head back. “Drisha willing, they’ll be keen to see what new beasts have taken up residence in their shed, and they’ll skip down the mountain like curious kids. But if it’s their usual impish selves they be, you’ll not see me again for hours.

  “So eat, you two, and talk a little together,” Welwyn added as he headed outside. “Confession’s good for the soul.”

  And a really bad idea around the warlock, Carin silently corrected her host.

  With the monk’s departure, Welwyn’s cabin seemed to dim. All the cheerfulness went with him, leaving behind Verek’s somber dissatisfaction with his “footboy” and Carin’s dark suspicions of her captor.

  Carin didn’t look at the wizard. She forced herself to the end of the table that held the meal Verek had abandoned. She refilled his mug with Welwyn’s potent home-brewed ale. Then she picked up Verek’s nearly untouched dish of stew. He’d obviously eaten little before rushing to tend Lanse’s injuries.

  “This food’s cold.” Though Carin addressed the wizard, her gaze was on his bowl. “I’ll bring you some that’s warmer, if you want it.”

  Verek made no reply.

  When the silence had stretched on for as long as Carin could stand it, she flicked him a look and found him still studying her. Then he nodded.

  “Yes, I’ll eat. That old meddler is right about one thing: he knows how to fix goat.”

  Verek pushed away from the mantelpiece and seated himself at the head of the table. Carin took his cold stew to the sideboard and ladled up a fresh serving. Her own leftovers were not only cold, but also sprinkled with Welwyn’s magic sparkles. She replaced them with a steaming bowlful for herself, and opted for a cup of plain water instead of the monk’s home-brew. Then she took a seat three places down from the wizard.

  For a time, they ate in silence. Carin tried not to fidget.

  As she knew he would, Verek at last asked her a question. It was not, however, the one she expected.

  “Did you drop the tree limb on the boy?”

  “Me?” She gaped at him. “Of course not. That branch just suddenly fell on Lanse. It dropped like a piece of the sky falling.”

  “Which is a thing that tree limbs seldom do,” Verek retorted. He drummed his fingers against his bowl. “A dead branch may snap under its own weight, it’s true. But the limb that fell on Lanse was green-needled and healthy—further from death than I am, I’ll be bound. Neither did it simply fall. It was hurled upon him. My question is: by whom? Yourself, or the woodsprite?”

  “The sprite?” Carin feigned surprise. “How could the woodsprite have had anything to do with it?” She avoided Verek’s gaze. “The creature—if it’s even still alive—is in Ruain, a long way from here.”

  The wizard snorted. “Which certainly would explain the marked scent of pine oil that rose from your coat when I took it off you, days ago, as you lay unawares, under the canvas in the snowstorm.”

  Carin gulped. Verek sipped his ale, studying her reaction over the rim of his mug. Then he continued:

  “My faith was small, that Myra could do as I bade her and keep the creature shackled through the winter. That simple woman could as little outwit the fay as a star shall outshine the moon. But I had hoped that she might hold the goblin until we were beyond its reach.” Verek sighed. “Jerold, I do not doubt, would have made a stricter warden. But to give the prisoner to him might have meant the sprite’s death. Jerold does despise the creature.”

  The wizard pushed away from the table and stood. He went to the cooking fire, rested his hand on the mantel, and stared for a moment into the flames. Then he turned back to Carin, his eyes seeking hers.

  “You see, perhaps, the problem I faced,” Verek said, his voice quiet but edgy. “Leave the sprite with Myra and risk its swift escape, or consign the creature to Jerold’s care and have it dead before we were a day gone from Ruain. I could hardly choose the latter, could I? Didn’t I make you a promise to free the sprite unharmed, when you had done the work I set you?”

  Carin reached for her water and drank half of it. Verek kept his gaze on her, obviously expecting an answer.

  “Yes, that’s what you promised,” she replied finally, and put down her cup. “But I never thought you meant to keep your word. At least, not after that first night, when I did what you asked but you still kept the woodsprite locked away. Until it showed up in Deroucey, I suspected that you had killed the sprite before we ever left to come on this journey.”

  The wizard took one step toward the table and kicked a leg of it with enough force to rattle every dish on its top. Carin jumped up from her chair. She stood behind it, though it offered little protection.

  “You ‘suspected’!” Verek snapped. “Would to glory that you might contrive ever to hear my words and believe them!”

  He reached for the pitcher of ale; Carin retreated a step. But Verek only poured himself another tankard full, took it back to the fireplace, and stood with the blaze behind him. As he sipped the home-brew, he seemed to gather himself, as clouds gather before a storm.

  Minutes passed in silence. When the wizard finally lowered his drink to speak again, his eyes flashed.

  “I make you now a promise that you may trust me to keep, as Drisha is my witness.” Verek’s gaze pinned Carin to the floor. “Mark me well. It will not be the sprite who endures the punishment, should the creature dare again to move against Lanse or myself. Tell your weirdling friend that I vow to hurt you in ways that it cannot imagine, if it so much as flutters a leaf at us.”

  Carin’s scalp crawled. Possibilities that the sprite might find truly unimaginable rose, vivid, in her mind. She gave the wizard a weak nod, unable to answer him otherwise.

  Verek took another sip. Over the rim of his mug, his eyes watched her until Carin could meet his gaze no longer but w
as forced to stare past him, out the window.

  Abruptly then, the wizard reached for the nearest chair. He dragged it to the fireplace and sat astraddle it, with his back to Carin. Speaking over one shoulder, he dismissed her.

  “Go. Tell the creature what I have said. I counsel you to make certain—for your sake—that the sprite fully understands the danger to you. I do not utter idle threats.”

  Carin fled. Collecting only her cloak, she didn’t pause to throw it on but rushed out the door in her shirtsleeves. She ran to the shed and around to the oak grove behind it. Only when she was out of sight of the cabin did she take a moment to wrap up against the cold.

  The sprite was not in the oaks. Nor was there any sign on the slopes above of Welwyn or his deer. Evidently the beasts hadn’t been as curious about the horses as their owner had hoped. Instead of coming docilely down the mountain, they seemed to have led the monk off on a chase.

  As the sun sank behind the peaks, Carin stood in the grove, calling to the sprite but getting no answer. The cold made it impossible to stand still, so she began walking, without a purpose except to put distance between herself and Verek.

  She didn’t get far. Twenty paces deeper into the glen, beyond the cluster of oaks, the ensorcelled band tightened on Carin’s ankle.

  “May your life be a misery forever!” she cursed the warlock, and burst into tears. “May you never, ever know a minute’s happiness.”

  Carin flopped to the ground. She slapped open the buckles of her boot and yanked it off. In a growing frenzy she stripped off her stocking, baring her foot to the cold. But she felt nothing except the iron’s grip. With chipped and broken fingernails, she clawed at her anklet until her skin bled. Screaming with fury, she picked up a rock and struck it blows that could have splintered bone. The iron was undamaged, though again and again she hammered at it. Her sobs alternated with shrieks of rage.

  “Lady Carin!” Welwyn sounded shocked. “Stop! My dear girl—stop that, I say!”

  The monk trundled down to her from the upper reaches of the glen. His hand closed over Carin’s; he pried the blood-sprinkled rock from her grip.

  Through her tears, Carin met the monk’s gentle, worried gaze as Welwyn squatted on his haunches beside her.

  “My dear girl,” he said again. He took both of her hands in his beefy paws. “Things are seldom as bad as they seem, don’t you know. What in this world has put you in such a temper?” Welwyn kept a firm grip on the hand that had done the pounding, but he released Carin’s other one so he could wipe his stubby fingers across her wet cheeks.

  With her freed hand, Carin grabbed for her fettered ankle.

  “Master Welwyn,” she sobbed, “I can’t stand this thing a minute longer. Either that blackheart of a warlock takes it off me, or I’ll beat it off. By Drisha, I swear I will!”

  “Now, now, Lady Carin … do not take the name of the Divine in vain,” the monk scolded her absently. Welwyn’s attention was less on Carin’s blasphemy than on her ankle. He studied the injuries she had given herself. He licked his fingertip and rubbed the ensorcelled anklet, cleaning Carin’s smeared blood from one small section of the iron.

  “Perishing oaths!” Welwyn swore then, ringingly, as though he hadn’t chided Carin a moment before for the same offense. “And how long has your ladyship worn this curious bit of jewelry?”

  “Day and night for six weeks,” she said, still sniffling. She started to wipe her nose on the hem of her cloak. But thinking better of it, Carin bared her shirtsleeve and used that instead. Her shirt would wash.

  Welwyn experimentally scraped at the iron with his yellowed thumbnail.

  “Hmmm. A collar for a gallows bird is this,” he muttered, more to himself than to Carin. Then he reached for her chucked stocking and boot and handed them to her. “Best put these on, my lady. The onfall of winter is no time to be going barefoot.”

  He hoisted himself up to stand over Carin like a large brown roly-poly while she covered her foot. Then he offered her his hand and helped her to stand. Gallantly he tucked her arm under his, and together they strolled toward the shed.

  “I’ll speak to his tetchy lordship, my dear,” the monk said. He patted Carin’s hand. “That’s no fit ornament for such a well-turned ankle as yours.” He winked up at her; the little man came barely to Carin’s nose. “But you’ve the power yourself, don’t you know, to rid yourself of the fetter—and not by hammering at it, either! Let’s have no more of that, if you please. That’s not the thing at all. What you want to do, Lady Carin, is to think it away—just as Theil Verek thought it onto you.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know how to do that, Master Welwyn. I’m not a witch.”

  “Said with such conviction!” The monk chuckled. “His lordship has told me how keen you are to deny your essential nature. But my dear, he’s also told me how you have walked unscathed through ensorcellments potent enough to destroy any mortal being of Ladrehdin. He’s told me how you opened the door to his vault of magic, there in Ruain. You lifted that latch, calm as you pleased, and you came away with nary a scorch mark on your pretty hand.” Welwyn patted it again.

  “Dumb luck, is all,” Carin mumbled. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  “Clearly!” Welwyn exclaimed. “If I’d been in charge of you, I wouldn’t have permitted you to demonstrate your powers in quite so dramatic a fashion. By all that is worthy and fair! Opening that door is tempting fate, even for a well-trained adept—which you are not. Well-trained, I mean to say.”

  Welwyn looked toward his cabin; Carin followed his gaze. Smoke rose from all four of the cabin’s chimneys. Welwyn’s other guests were undoubtedly warmer, indoors, than she and the monk were, standing out here as evening closed in. But Carin held back, unwilling to go in just yet. Welwyn grinned at her.

  “My dear,” he said, “you confounded his lordship when you didn’t lose a hand to the spells that guard the secret cave. But you almost stopped the man’s heart when you spoke the name of Power and roused a wind from the wysards’ well.” Welwyn laughed. “You’re living dangerously, don’t you know.”

  “I do know!” Carin protested. “I’m not doing it on purpose, Master Welwyn. And I’m not ‘denying my nature.’ All of this is just some bizarre accident. Verek says I shouldn’t even be here. But he makes me stay—I can’t get away from him.” She pointed at her ankle iron, and Welwyn nodded.

  In the fading light, Carin looked searchingly at the monk. “Verek says I have some ‘duty,’ some job that I have to finish. But he’s just using me. I’m a pawn—I don’t have any powers of my own.”

  “You’re rough about the edges, certainly,” Welwyn said. “That’s obvious, my dear. If you were my apprentice, I’d be honing your talents through more—ahem—traditional wizardly methods. But you’re far from powerless. Look within. Look to your true self. You’ve always had the gift. It only needed the proper … atmosphere, let’s call it … to flourish.” The monk waved a hand in the direction of his cabin. “I saw the potency in you when you snared that prickly sea devilkin.”

  Carin drew back a little.

  “In me? That can’t be right, Master Welwyn. I didn’t do anything except catch the creature that you conjured up. I saw what you did—raising that ball of lights, and then turning it into a sea urchin.”

  Welwyn slipped his arm from Carin’s. He faced her and caught her hands. His stubby fingers were damp and warm.

  “I’ll claim no credit for magic not of my making,” he said. “The sparkly lights were mine—a bit of my soul made manifest, if you’ll excuse the romanticizing of an unbeauteous old fellow. But the water devilkin, my dear, was yours … all yours.” Welwyn’s chuckle threatened to become a chortle. “Those of mundane bent have no power over the mysteries. The talisman that I threw to you answers only to the artful, each according to his—or her—own source. And your source, Lady Carin, unless I miss my guess, is the sea—that faraway sea of your own forgotten world.”

  Carin snappe
d her head around. She’d heard a familiar sound, or thought she’d heard it, off in the distance. It could have been a wind on the mountain above them. But she listened harder and caught it again—the sound of the surf breaking on a rocky seashore. Were her ears playing tricks? This mountain range rose far inland, nowhere near Ladrehdin’s oceans.

  Not long ago, however, Carin had crossed an ocean. She’d stood in a child’s bedroom at the edge of a sea. And from that bedroom, she’d taken a piece of crystal that was shaped like a dolphin—something Verek had wanted badly enough to risk both their lives to obtain.

  “What do you hear, Lady Carin?” Welwyn asked. The monk was still holding her hands. He squeezed them gently.

  Carin didn’t look at him. She closed her eyes, and for one fleeting moment that might have been a memory, she found herself back in her childhood home on a seacoast far beyond the void.

  “I hear ocean waves,” she murmured. “They’re pounding the shore. They’re really strong … powerful.”

  Welwyn chuckled. “From water rises the wysard’s art,” he intoned as if dredging up lines he knew by heart but hadn’t thought of in ages. “Still water runs deep. But the restless sea casts forth the greatest gift.”

  Chapter 10

  Mysteries

  The knock on her bedroom door was a gentle, considerate tapping—not an impatient, bare-knuckled rap. She knew immediately that it wasn’t Verek summoning her.

  “Rise and shine, Lady Carin!” The door’s thick planks couldn’t disguise the glee in Welwyn’s voice. “You’ve a busy day ahead. Just peek out a window and see all that’s befallen us.”

  “What is it, Master Welwyn?” Carin called sleepily. She sat up in bed and fumbled in the dark for her breeches. So completely did the room’s shutters block light, the hour could as easily be midnight as morning. She slipped her clothes on, stumbled barefooted to the window, pulled open one wooden leaf—

  “Oh!” Both hands flew to shield her eyes.