The Sleeping King

by Cindy Dees

  Aurelius explained carefully as if it were of utmost importance that Will understand, “If you were, in fact, the son of that … person … I would be required to arrest you and hand you over to the governor forthwith for execution. Not only was that person sentenced to death, but all of his family and issue were also. It is all well and good to speak of the past, but that man is dead, and were he to have had children, they would surely have been put to death by now as well.”

  Will stared in utter shock. There was a death sentence active against him?

  “If, stars forbid, the son were to survive and inherit any of the father’s talent for certain rare skills like, oh, magic, learning how to use it would be strictly illegal. I would have to exercise my full authority as Guildmaster of the Imperial Mage’s Guild of Dupree to put an immediate end to such training and turn the child over to the authorities. Do you comprehend me, boy?”

  Will nodded fearfully. He clasped his hands behind his back, terrified that by some stray glimmer they might give away his ability with magic. Aurelius must have noted the movement, for he nodded knowingly. “So, tell me, Will the cobbler’s son. Can you cast magic?”

  “I’ve … uh-h … never been formally schooled,” he stammered.

  “That is not what I asked. Can you cast magic?”

  “A little. After a fashion.”

  “No, no, no!” Aurelius bellowed. “Have you not listened to anything I’ve said?” He moved toward Will threateningly. “Where is your talisman? Hand it over.”

  “Talisman?” Will repeated, confused.

  “Yes. Your talisman. The magical object you use to focus your mind and call magic to you. Give it to me.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Will retorted. He had no weapon at hand, but an instinctive compulsion to protect himself surged to the fore. His hands whipped up as the guildmaster stalked toward him, a ferocious scowl on his face, his skin gleaming metallically in the lamplight. The solinari drew within about two body lengths of him—his effective range with a repelling spell—and Will mentally pushed him back. The elf halted mid-step, leaning forward but coming no closer.

  “Ahh. There it is. The stone in your bracelet. That is your talisman.”

  Will stared at his own wrist. His bracelet? His father had given it to him when he was a boy. Before he learned how to summon magic. The stone had been a gift from Adrick, and Ty had braided it into a leather wrist band for him. Recollection of his father asking if he’d had the bracelet on that last night when the hollow was under attack flashed into Will’s mind. That was why his father had asked. He’d checked to make sure his son had one of these talisman things so he could cast magic.

  Aurelius stepped back and gave a curt nod. “You look like the type to whom force magic might come naturally. The Dragon’s Roar is sound magic, but De’Vir was a skilled kinetic mage. Apparently, you share his talent for it.”

  Kinetic magic? What was that? Were there different types of magics, then? Everyone knew of spirit magic, of course, but that was special. “Uh-h, begging your pardon, but I was never taught force magic.”

  The solinari went silent, staring at Will speculatively. Eventually, he commented cryptically, “Better. Cautious, he was. Smart. Sit, boy. I will return in a moment.” The elf swept out of the room.

  What on Urth? Now the guildmaster was back to being friendly to him? His brain felt whiplashed. Did he dare make his escape now? Or would the knight from before be standing outside the door to keep him here … assuming Will could even figure out how to pass through the glowing magic protections upon the door in the first place? Will tugged his sleeve down over his wrist band, hiding his talisman from sight. He glanced around, spying the only visitor’s chair in the office, a four-legged wooden stool with a vertical back of narrow slats. He sighed. Like it or not, he was effectively caged. He perched on the uncomfortable stool like a naughty schoolboy.

  Truth be told, he was a little surprised he’d hit the guildmaster with that spell. In his limited experience messing around with magic in the woods back home, it was an inexact science at best. He’d initially assumed that casting magic would be like throwing a rock. It would travel straight and true at his target. But he’d found it to be more akin to tossing a pitcher of water toward a target. Magical energy curved and twisted and bent with a mind of its own once loosed. It took great force of will to drive the magic forward to a target with any accuracy at all.

  He’d heard the great battle mages could deliver magical damage at a range upward of a hundred feet. Mages like his father, he thought bitterly. He had a hard time crediting such rumors, though. He’d been practicing in secret for years and his effective range was no more than twenty feet.

  The guildmaster did indeed return in a minute or two. He promptly sat down at his desk and removed a blank sheet of parchment, a fresh quill, and an inkwell out of a drawer. Will watched in silence as the elf trimmed a quill and unstoppered the ink pot.

  Aurelius poised his hand over the page. “Have you any name besides Will?”

  “You know full well that my family name is De’V—”

  Aurelius cut him off sharply. “We’ve already covered this. You. Have. No. Name. Am I clear?”

  “But—” He broke off. His true identity must disappear forever if he wished to live, apparently. He said hesitantly, “Perhaps you could spell out my name for me, Guildmaster?”

  Aurelius smiled broadly. “Will is an easy enough name to spell. Common. Cobblerson is too cumbersome for a last name, though. How about something shorter? To the point. Cobb.” He scribbled on the sheet of parchment before him. “Yes. Will Cobb. That is how your name is written.”

  Will had no wish to run afoul of the Empire. But apparently, the fact of his birth had already put him on the wrong side of the law. The solinari bent his attention to drafting several long paragraphs. Will tried to read the script upside down, but the print was too small and ornate to decipher.

  Aurelius sprinkled sand on the document and, when the ink was dry, blew the sand back into its stone box. He finished the document by melting bright blue wax at the bottom and pressing the ring on his right-hand middle finger into the cobalt puddle.

  “This is my report upon your magical testing to Anton.”

  Will leaped out of the chair. “My father did you a favor! He sent me to you for help! And you wish to reveal my magic that he tried so hard to hide to his greatest enemy?”

  “Far more is afoot here than a simple raid by orcs. Ty the cobbler did the right thing to send you to me. And now I do the right thing in return.” Aurelius shrugged. “Unfortunately for you, the only way to ensure the complete silence of the son of Tiberius De’Vir would be to kill him. Tiberius was well known. Anton despised him. And after your stunt in the council with the Dragon’s Roar, you are known as well. It is exceedingly fortunate for you that you are this other person, Will Cobb and that your talent for magic is limited.”

  Limited? Exactly how many untrained youths walked in here doing this Dragon’s Roar thing?

  “The Mage’s Guild will, of course nurture what little talent you have. But you are far too old to ever train up fully.”

  Impotent rage at his father rose up in Will’s chest before he caught the twinkle in Aurelius’s eyes. Oh. The anger drained away, leaving him sad. His father’s name was all he had left of him. It felt utterly wrong to cast that off like a ragged shirt. It was who he was. This was how the Empire repaid its loyal servitors? Do it a favor and it casually stripped you and your family of everything it was for its own convenience?

  In the midst of his confusion, something took shape within Will, a nascent sense that he did not deserve what was happening to him. If he did not go along with changing his name and casting off his father’s legacy, he would die swiftly and brutally at the hands of the Empire, sicced on him by his father’s adopted father. After watching his friends and neighbors be slaughtered like sheep, he was not about to stand here quietly and allow the same to be done un
to him.

  “How can this be the right thing to do?” Will demanded. “His name is all I have left—”

  “You never had his name. It was never yours. And it is not yours now,” Aureilius responded with terrible urgency. “These are the facts, boy.”

  The guildmaster’s expression remained intense. In desperation, Will cried, “But what about the Sleeping King? My father told me to finish the quest. To find and wake him before freedom dies. Before memory of hope is lost—”

  That got a reaction out of the solinari.

  Aurelius snarled and advanced upon Will with naked fury glittering in his blazing golden eyes. Will’s hands rose up of their own volition in front of him. What had his father gotten him mixed up in? Had Ty known this would be the outcome of this interview? Had he sent his son here to die?

  “Do not speak of that again!” the solinari snarled in palpable threat.

  In his burgeoning horror and terror, a surge of magic rose up in Will greater than anything he’d ever experienced before. He did not stop to think. He merely let instinct take over. He gathered the energy into a great, burning ball and hurled it at the elf menacing him.

  Kaboom!

  The explosion nearly knocked Will off his feet. It did knock Aurelius off his. It blew the guildmaster backward a half-dozen feet, in fact, slamming him into the bookcase with enough force to send disintegrated books and incinerated bits of parchment flying every which way. Flaming paper rained down like burning snow.

  Will turned in panic for the door. It was not glowing. He didn’t stop to ask why but merely bolted through it. Footsteps pounded on the stairs, coming up fast, along with the telltale jingle of chain mail. The drake, Bruin. Will raced down the hall to the stairs nonetheless. It was the only way he knew out of the building.

  Will jumped down the steps two and three at a time. He rounded a bend, took a great leap, and jolted as Bruin careened into sight in front of him. Will lowered his shoulder and let his downward momentum slam him into the guard. Both of them went tumbling, but Bruin was on the bottom and wearing heavy armor, and he got the worst of it by far. Will regained his feet and tore onward while Bruin struggled to untangle his armor and hoist himself to his feet.

  Will burst into the common room and raced straight for the intricate lock he’d spied upon his arrival. The key still hung on its hook beside it. Thanks be to the Lady. He snatched up his pack, ripped the key off the wall, and jammed it at the big lock. It slid into its slot easily and turned smoothly.

  The front door ceased glowing. Bruin burst out of the stairwell and Will dived for the door. He made it outside onto the stoop before Bruin caught up with him. The guard grabbed and Will ducked, as slippery as any pickpocket dodging capture. But the guard did clip his shoulder, spinning him off balance and sending him tumbling head over heels.

  Will was too off balance already, too startled by the unexpected impact, to control the fall like Ty had taught him. He landed in a heap at the foot of the guild steps, banging his knees painfully and scraping his palms on the rough cobblestones. He staggered to his feet and stumbled a few steps before regaining his wits and balance.

  A quick movement caught his eye—a dark shape barreling at him from the alley beside the Mage’s Guild. He braced himself instinctively, throwing up his forearm to absorb the blow. Something—someone—slammed into him, nearly knocking him off his feet again. He grabbed on to the other person to steady himself and was shocked by the inhuman face only inches from his. Covered with fine black scales, the creature looked more like a swamp monster than any sort of humanoid. But then a frantic gaze met his, eyes so black Will could not tell iris from pupil, and the terror glinting in them was entirely humanoid. A lizardman girl.

  He felt the creature’s hands move between them, groping for Will’s pocket. A quick, almost imperceptible nod and the creature tore out of his grasp with incredible strength and raced away. Will turned in the opposite direction and ran. He didn’t look back. He just ran.

  He didn’t stop until he was so out of breath and the cramp in his side so sharp that he had no choice but to stop. He crouched behind a rainwater barrel in a narrow alley, completely lost, his sense of direction blown. He listened carefully but heard no pursuit. For now.

  He probably had that lizardman girl to thank for drawing off any who might have pursued him. Wherever she was, he wished her a successful escape. He was fairly certain the reptilian creature had put something into his pocket as opposed to picking anything out of it during their brief collision. He stuck his hand in his pocket. Sure enough, he felt a foreign object there. He pulled it out to have a look at it.

  It was a thin, round disk, a thumb’s length across, bulging slightly in the middle. It appeared to be made of some sort of red-brown wood. Were it not for that swollen center, it would look like a cross section of a tree branch. As it was, it looked more like an oversized seed of some kind. The whole of it was covered with fine, carved sigils that were incredibly intricate and ancient looking. And … that was odd … the disk was faintly warm. A tingle passed through his hand as he rubbed his thumb over the highly polished disk.

  Just then something heavy crashed squarely into the middle of his back, throwing him forward.

  “Gotcha, boy.”

  Will took a large, staggering step to catch himself. Something caught his side with a glancing blow, spinning him to the ground. He landed awkwardly, his right hand still clutching the wooden disk, trapped awkwardly under his chest. Searing pain shot through his upper body. It pierced him with agony so intense he could not draw a breath.

  Had he been stabbed?

  Will gasped at the pain ripping through his lungs. His heart felt as though it had burst and was pouring his life’s blood out upon the ground. He rolled to his side and grasped frantically at his chest, feeling for a wound. His shirtfront was intact. He craned his head around awkwardly to see if there was blood upon his back. What little he could see was muddy, but not bloodied.

  “Get up, you lousy piece of filth. Attack my guildmaster, will you?”

  Dregs. Bruin. Will opened his mouth to speak, but the agony in his chest was so intense he couldn’t force air out to make a sound.

  Bruin bent down, reaching for him. Using the tactics his father had pounded into him over years of practice, Will rolled fast, not away from but toward his attacker, slamming into the man’s legs. The guild man toppled over him, his armored shins smashing Will’s ribs and making him grunt in pain. But he kept rolling until he was clear of Bruin’s tangled form.

  Will leaped to his feet and took off running once more. At first he attributed the daggers of pain in his chest to the excessive running for his life. But as he stopped and slowly caught his breath, the pain intensified rather than dissipating. He opened his shirt to check for some injury Bruin might have inflicted without Will’s being aware of it. The man worked for wizards and sorcerers, after all.

  The agony centered on a single spot just to the left of Will’s breastbone, about the height of his heart. He looked down. Odd. The wooden disk the lizardman girl had slipped in his pocket was stuck to his chest. He gave it a tug. It didn’t come off.

  He tried to wedge a fingernail under the edge of the flattish medallion, but it was plastered fast to his skin. And every time he tried to peel it off, the pain intensified. The thing felt as if it was slowly burning a hole through his flesh and muscle to the bone. What manner of strange object was this? What had that lizardman girl done to him?

  CHAPTER

  16

  Aurelius studied Bruin, who stood before his desk, brushing mud off of himself in disgust. His vaunted elven control slipped a notch and he asked the knight anxiously, “But he got away, though?”

  “Yes, Guildmaster. As you ordered. You do realize I’m going to be harassed for years to come about letting a mere boy give me the slip like that?”

  “I thank you for your sacrifice, Drake Bruin—and for your superior acting skills. Did the boy believe the ruse?”


  “Oh yes. He was convinced I meant to kill him then and there.”

  “Perfect. And my message? You found the gentleman in question and were able to deliver it?”

  “Aye. Selea said he would do as you asked. He said it was good fortune, indeed, that he happened to be in the area to aid you.” Bruin added somewhat reluctantly, “And he said you would owe him a large favor for this night’s work.”

  Aurelius nodded, wincing. He leaned back in his chair behind the charred and splintered ruins of his desk. A wry smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. “This desk is kindling. The boy packs a punch, doesn’t he?”

  “Like his father,” Bruin commented quietly.

  “Aye. Tiberius was the most talented battle mage I ever had the privilege of fighting beside.”

  “Agreed.” Bruin was silent for a moment, then said reflectively, “Will the son live up to the father, do you think?”

  “If we are to survive, he must exceed the Dragon’s skill, Bruin. He must.”

  “Was the news he brought you so dire, then?”

  Aurelius looked candidly at his drake, unable to conceal his deep unease. “I have a bad feeling about it. Very bad.”

  * * *

  Anton hated skulking around Dupree in the middle of the night like some common criminal. He was the governor, for stars’ sake. But there was one man on this forsaken continent who wielded more power than he, and it was to this man, who had summoned him, he went. Anton pulled his dark cloak and nondescript clothing closer to him, darting from shadow to shadow so as not to be seen.

  At least the curfew had finally taken effect. He wanted with every ounce of his being to head for Aurelius’s storehouse and finally glimpse the extent of the treasure within. Lust for the taxes he could levy on the undeclared property coursed through his blood, thick and hot.