The Accidental sorcerer ra-1

by K. E. Mills

  'Melissande! said Markham. His hand took hers again. 'The wizards are dead!

  'And if you bleat "no, no, Lional isn't a murderer" one more time when you know damn well he is,' said Reg, without any compassion, i swear on my phoney grave, ducky, I'll poke out your eyeballs like olives and feed them to your precious Boris.'

  She tried not to think of dear Bondaningo, ripped apart from the inside out. 'Fine,' she said sullenly. Hating Markham. Hating the bird. Most of all, hating Lional.'Have it your way.They're dead.'

  Markham chewed on a fingernail. 'Blimey, Reg. We've got a real problem. How are we supposed to stand up to a man with the potentias ot five First Grade wizards?' His expression changed, abruptly. 'Especially when one of them had access to texts from the Internationally Proscribed Index! He let go of her hand and unfolded to his feet, looking stricken. 'Damn. Pomodoro Uffitzi held a doctorate in Theoretical Applications of Reverse Thaumatics.' in Ottish please?' said Melissande, feeling waspish.

  'Black magic,' he said, distracted. 'Uffitzi spent eleven years researching his thesis in several countries renowned for their past dabblings in unsavoury practices. Who knows what grimoires he managed to find in that time?'

  'And ever so carefully forgot to declare to the authorities?' said Reg.'Saint Snodgrass preserve us!' if I'm right, I have to notify the Department.'

  'Yes, but after we've found Gerald,' said Reg. She chattered her beak, thinking hard. 'He must be around here somewhere.'

  Very carefully Melissande laid Markham's damp handkerchief over the arm of her chair.'Lional said he was in private retreat, meditating.' Reg snorted. 'Meditating my feathered arse. He's being held prisoner.' 'Maybe he's run away'

  'Stop being deliberately provocative. I'll bet you a nice pair of high-heeled pumps, ducky, Gerald's "accident" in the forest was Lional not being able to steal his potentia. That means our mad king needs him to do his dirty work for him — whatever that is.Trust me, he won't be far away'

  'But he will be somewhere with a decent amount of space,' added Markham. 'We know the dirty work involved a Level Twelve transmog that makes the cat-into-lion trick look puny. Melissande, do you have any idea what Lional wanted Gerald to make?'

  She glared at him. 'Of course not! Who do you think I am, his evil sidekick? I don't have the first idea what — ' And then she turned to Reg.

  'Hell's bells,' Reg whispered, as they stared at each other in sudden, appalled comprehension. 'Are you thinking what I'm thinking, madam? The Kallarapi gods. Tavistock as Lalchak… me as Vorsluk…'

  Melissande shot out of the chair.' Grimthak] Oh my God, Reg! Gerald's made a bloody dragonV

  Reg turned, her dark eyes blazing. 'Markham, get us out ofhereV

  He flung himself at the foyer doors. Spread his fingers flat to the polished oak surface and pressed his cheek between them. After a moment he began to hum off-key. A moment after that, alarmingly, his unruly dark hair developed a life of its own, weaving and unweaving itself around his head in a series of bizarre patterns.

  'Ah — wouldn't the window have been easier?' she asked. 'Don't distract him!' hissed Reg.

  As she watched, holding her breath, Markham's face began to twist with pain. The humming became a groan and a bloody sweat broke out on his forehead. Moments later there was an explosion of light and sound and a billow of foul green smoke. Markham, shouting, flew across the foyer, struck the far wall and slid moaning to the floor.

  As Reg exclaimed in the background Melissande dropped to her knees beside him. 'Monkl Are you all right?' i think I'm going to be sick,' he groaned. 'Not in my foyer you're not!' He heaved himself upright.'Okay'

  'Good!' said Reg, hovering now between the splintered remains of the foyer doors. 'Now come on, you two. Let's find Gerald!'

  She helped Markham to his feet. 'Give him a moment, you nagging old hag! He was practically knocked unconscious!'

  'Gerald's running out of moments!' Reg shouted, flapping madly. 'How long will your brother keep him around, do you think, now that he's got his precious dragon?'

  'Reg is right,' said Markham, still looking sick. 'We have to go.'

  'Go where? I've no idea where Gerald is. Have you?'

  'No. But if we're lucky I can find him with a locator incant. I'll need something to guide me.'

  'Then what are waiting for?' demanded Reg, still haphazardly hovering. 'Let's get to our suite!'

  They raced through deserted corridors and up and down empty staircases to the palace's official wizard's residence. Gasping for air, Reg landed on a foyer chair and pointed a wing.

  'The bedroom's that way. Fetch a used sock, Markham. That should have a good strong scent.'

  As Markham fetched, Melissande frowned. 'Something strange is going on. The place is deserted, we didn't see anybody between here and my apartments. Where's everyone got to? There are always servants scurrying around here, it's like a damned anthill.'

  Before Reg could comment Markham returned with a limp red sock. 'This should do it. Now I need a map of the kingdom.'

  'There's one in the Guide to New Ottosland I left here for Gerald.'

  Reg jerked her beak. 'It's in, the dresser, underneath that painting of the constipated cow on the wall there.'

  'He shoved it in a drawer?' said Melissande, offended, as Markham found the pink folder. 'Did he even read it? I'll bet he didn't. I spent hours putting that guide together, you know!'

  'And now it's come in very useful,' said Reg, 'which only goes to show there's a first time for everything. Now be quiet and let Markham focus.'

  Melissande swallowed.'Will the incant still work if the person you're trying to find is — you know — '

  Markham glanced up from spreading the guide's map on the foyer table. 'Dead?' he said. 'No. It won't.'

  'Anyway, he can't be dead,' she added, desperate for a bright side. 'You said Lional couldn't kill him.' 'Not with magic, apparently. No.' She didn't need him to elaborate. 'Oh.'

  Reg flapped from her chair to the table and glared. 'Any more clever questions, ducky?' 'Not for the moment.'

  'That's a relief. Now come on, Markham. Let's get cracking.'

  Markham nodded curtly, his face pale and serious. He wrapped Gerald's sock around his left hand, extended the index finger of his right hand and held it over the map of New Ottosland. 'Seekati. Kevelati. Demonstrate.'

  Almost before the words had left his lips the tip of his pointing index finger flared into life as though a light had been switched on under the skin.

  He laughed. 'We've got him, Reg! He's still alive!' 'Yes, but where?' Reg demanded.

  His pointing finger started zigzagging across the map.'Hang on, it's trying to home in on him now.' Another zig and two more zags and his finger jabbed itself to a standstill.'There.' He peered at the map. 'Tolepootle Valley. Melissande?' 'That's miles from here. It'll take hours to — '

  'No, it won't. The Stealth Stone's fine with miles. What can we expect when we get there?'

  Before she could answer they heard a thundering of feet in the corridor outside the suite and a cacophony of alarmed cries.

  'Now what?' said Reg, and rattled all her feathers. 'Quick, madam, see what's making the natives restless!'

  Melissande flung open the foyer doors and accosted the first running servant she recognised. 'Hamish! What in the name of Saint Snodgrass is going on?'

  Hamish was too panicked to be polite. 'Bloody hell, miss! Haven't you heard? There's a bloody great fire-breathing dragon on the loose! It's already killed people down in the city and now it's flying over the palace!'

  She stepped back, shut the doors on all the fleeing servants and turned to Reg and Markham. Instead of gibbering incoherently, she felt unnaturally calm. It's already killed people down in the city. 'Hamish says there's a fire-breathing dragon flying over the palace.'

  'He's right,' said Markham, staring at the foyer's skylight. 'There is.' She looked up.

  On the other side of the skylight's glass, floating lazily on an updraft like an e
normous crimson and emerald striped seagull — with teeth and talons — was Lional's dragon. As they watched, it opened its massive jaws and belched a fearsome plume of fire.

  She felt her heart shrivel to ash. It's already killed people down in the city.

  'Come on,' said Reg grimly. 'Let's go. We have to stop that damned thing before it really gets started.'

  Melissande nodded. For once she wasn't inclined to argue. When Gerald eventually roused from his exhausted, nightmare-ridden stupor there was still no light in the cave. So he sat with his back to the wall and waited. There wasn't anything else to do. A few feet away in the dirt and the dark was Reg.

  He didn't want to think about her. Reg was a bruised and bloody mark in his heart, an absence he was only just beginning to realise. Another failure he wasn't sure he could live with. She was dead, she was dead… and it was all his fault. Everything was his fault. All those people, hunted to a crisp or soaked in poison. The terror. The destruction. He pulled his knees to his aching chest and held on tight.

  If only I'd been braver. If only I'd defied him. If only I'd never been born.

  There was no food or drink in the cold dark cave. If Lional changed his mind about wanting more dragons or lost what little was left of his sanity and forgot about him, which seemed more likely, then he was doomed to die in this place. Oh God. I hope so. Time dragged on, sodden with regrets. Later, in the unrelenting black, he thought he saw a pinpoint of light.

  He stirred. Stared, blinking. What new torment was this? Lional, returning at last to dispose of his tool? Or demand more damned dragons… or something worse… I can't. I can't.

  Ten feet away and six feet in the air, the pinpoint of light grew. Intensified. Glowing, it expanded to the size of a firefly. Against his skin, a sudden tingling crackle of power. Heedless of scrapes and bruises he hauled himself to his feet and leaned against the rough rock of the cave wall, his gaze not leaving the ball of light pulsing before him.

  With a flash and a ripping sound the air tore open and three briefly silhouetted figures fell through the hole to land shouting on the cave's dirt floor. 'Owl That's my face]'

  'Sorry Melissande. Gerald, are you in here? Um, Your Highness, not to complain or anything but your elbow's in a very precarious part of my anato-'

  I'm dreaming. I must be. 'Monk?' he said tentatively, is that you?'

  'Oh, yes, fine, ask about Markham first why don't you?' demanded an impossible voice. 'When I'm the one sitting here faded to a mere shadow of my former glory after flying and hitching from here to Ottosland, then convincing Markham and his idiot colleagues that your life was in danger and then risking my life again to get back to this ether-forsaken kingdom using Markham's highly illegal and practically untested portable portal! And why is it so dark in here? Why doesn't somebody turn on the lights?'

  For a moment Gerald thought he'd finally gone mad. Because that was Reg's voice, being Reg, in the Reggiest way it knew how.

  And then somebody snapped their fingers and said illuminate and he was blinking, half-blinded by the sudden light, and there on the cave floor shaking dirt out of her feathers was -

  'RegV he cried, and fell to his knees. 'Oh my God, Reg, you're aliveV

  She glared at him. 'Well if I am it's no thanks to your friend the Mad Scientist!' She swung her beak towards Markham and chattered it. 'What kind of a portal exit do you call that? Flinging us out at speed and miles above terra firma, I think I've bent a tail feather, you stupid boy! Do you know how long it takes to grow in a tail feather, you — awwwkV

  'Reg!' he shouted, clutching her to his chest. 'Lional said you were dead, he said he'd killed you! He did kill you, look, there's your body! Over there!'

  Melissande, grubby and harassed and getting to her feet, stared where he pointed at the forlorn draggle of feathers in the dirt.'Eww What's that?'

  'It's Reg,' he said, dizzy with relief. 'At least, I thought it was Reg. Lional told me it was Reg.'

  Wriggling free of his embrace, Reg flapped over to the corpse on the cave floor and inspected it. 'That's not me,' she said. 'That's — ' She took a closer look. 'That's a dead chicken hexed to look like me. And it's not even a very good likeness.' She fixed him with a gimlet eye. 'Gerald Dunwoody, are you saving you couldn't tell the difference between me and a hexed dead chook? Please don't tell me you couldn't tell the difference between me and hexed dead chook! Look at it! The beak's all wrong and the eyes are crossed and it's missing a claw on the right foot! And it s fat. How could you possibly think that was me?'

  He didn't care that she was scolding, i'm sorry,' he said, getting up. i was a bit… distracted… at the time.' He stared at them, breathless, i can't believe you found me. How — '

  'Locator incant and a portable portal,' said Monk. 'A portable por-?' 'Monk invented it,' said Reg.

  'Of course Monk did,' he said, dazed. 'But how could it work, Lional set a lodestone, it — '

  'What?' said Reg. 'Gerald, what are you talking about?'

  Oh, hell. The lodestone. 'Lional hid a lodestone in here so I couldn't escape via magic,' he whispered, nauseous. 'He deactivated it so I could make the dragon… and then he lost himself inside the damn thing's mind. He never turned the lodestone back on. And I've been so busy feeling sorry for myself I — ' i don't know what you're bleating about and I don't care!' said Melissande. 'What the hell were you thinking, Gerald? Making a dragon?' i'm sorry' he whispered.

  'How did you do it?' she demanded, hands fists on her hips. 'Transmog a lizard? What kind? The only exotic lizards we have live in the zoo, and none of them look like that flying monstrosity you've set loose!'

  He could barely look her in the face, it was a Bearded Spitting Lizard from Lower Limpopo. Lional said Bondaningo Greenfeather got it for him.'

  'That's a HeV Her eyes were hot with anger and betrayal. Glittering with tears. 'Bondaningo was a good man. He would never bring something like that into the country!' i'm afraid he did. Your brother can be… very persuasive.' iil bet!' she said, contemptuous. 'So what did he promise you in return for his dragon? Gold? Jewels? Land? Wlrat did he promise you?'

  He made himself meet her furious gaze. 'You don't want to know what he promised me, Melissande.'

  With a subdued flutter of feathers Reg flew from the floor to his shoulder. 'She may not want to, Gerald, but she needs to. It's the only way she'll understand what has to be done.'

  Gently he prised Reg free. 'No,' he said, thrusting her blindly into Monk's unready hands. 'And don't ask me again.' Monk cleared his throat. 'Look, mate…'

  'Are you deaf? / said no' he shouted, and turned away.

  'He tortured you, didn't he?' said Monk. He always was a stubborn bastard. 'Tortured him?' said Melissande. 'Don't be ridiculous. He looks fine to me, there's not a scratch on him.'

  Her fresh contempt was like acid. Gerald spun around, shaking, and whatever she saw in his face drove her backwards till she struck the cave wall.

  'I'm sorry, all right, Melissande? Sorry I wasn't strong enough, sorry I gave in to him, sorry I made his bloody dragon!'

  Her chin lifted. In so many ways she was her brother's sister. 'Sorry doesn't help the people it's killed. Did you know that, Gerald? Did you know that it's killed people?'

  'Yes. I know.' He saw them whenever he closed his eyes.

  'Then how could you do it? How could you make such a monstrous creature? Why weren't you strong enough? You're a wizard, you swore an oath). You as good as killed those people yourself.'

  'You think I don't know that?' he demanded, his voice ragged. 'You think I don't know I've got their blood on my hands? I tried to resist your damned brother, Melissande! I did resist him, at least for a while. But in the end… in the end…' Helpless, he stared at her. 'In the end I wasn't good enough. I broke. I failed.'

  'That's not fair,' Monk said quickly. 'We know what Lional's been up to, Gerald. The stolen potentias.We know he had access to illegal grimoires, the kind of filthy magic he's got at his fingertips.'

>   Melissande turned on him. 'How dare you make excuses for him, Mister Markham? Haven't you been listening? People have died because Gerald made that dragon. He's an oath-sworn wizard, he should have died before — '

  'Do you think I didn't try?' Gerald said, grabbing her elbow and hauling her around. 'He wouldn't let me, all right? Everything he did was designed to keep me alive. Alive and — and — ' 'And what?' she said. Her tone was scathing.

  He opened his mouth and the memories poured out. By the time he was finished she was crying, Monk looked like a ghost and Reg was stamping to and fro across the cave's dirt floor swearing a blue streak.

  'There's something else you should know,' he said tiredly, as Reg finally ran out of curses. 'Lional's controlling the dragon using the Tantigliani sympathetica!

  Melissande smeared a dirty sleeve across her wet face. 'What does that mean?' she said unsteadily. it means your brother and the dragon are two bodies with one mind. He sees through its eyes, it breathes with his lungs. It's got all his cunning, his intelligence, his knowledge. And he's got its… savagery'

  Shaken, Monk said, 'Bloody hell. Every wizard who's ever tried that incant has gone mad. Even Tantigliani in the end.' He frowned. 'You said he'd lost himself inside the dragon's mind? Does that mean…'

  Gerald looked at Melissande. Despite everything he could have wept for her. 'Yes.' In his memory, Lional and the dragon whispering. 'I'm pretty sure it's too late for Lional.'

  Reg rattled her tail feathers. 'Then the only way to stop the dragon is by capturing the king.'

  'How can we capture him, Reg?' said Monk. 'He's as good as half a dragon himself now!'

  'Fine,' she said, shrugging. 'Then we don't capture the bastard. We kill him.'

  'Kill him?' Melissande stared. 'You can't! / can't! He's my brother!'

  'He was your brother,' Gerald said gently. 'What he is now… is anybody's guess.'

  'It's a simple equation,' said Reg. 'Kill Lional and we kill the dragon.'

  'And if we kill the dragon instead?' demanded Melissande, folding her arms.

  Monk put his hand on her shoulder. 'Lional still dies. But the chances of us killing that dragon…'