Court Wizard (Spellmonger Series: Book 8)

by Terry Mancour

  “I was rushed,” Pentandra pointed out, a little irritation creeping into her own voice. “I was facing two Nemovorti and around a dozen draugen--”

  “Draugen?” asked Anguin, even more confused.

  “That’s what the red-eyed undead were referred to by the Nemovorti, Your Grace,” Terleman explained.

  “Aggressive, belligerent spirits from ancient times,” Pentandra supplied, “During the Midsummer raids the dungeon was attacked, and several of the Rats we captured escaped. Several more of the Crew apparently joined their masters in exile from Vorone. But their new ally betrayed them by destroying their souls and giving their bodies over to these . . . things.”

  “As if we needed another monster to contend with,” Anguin said, shaking his head. “First the goblins, then the hobgoblins, then the great goblins . . . now these draugen. Renegades, bandits, Soulless, Sheruel, Korbal, and all of their merry folk . . . do the gods feel amused by what they have challenged me with?” he asked, frustrated and angry.

  “The gods themselves have blessed your reign, Your Grace,” Sir Vemas pointed out. “Had you not had Ishi’s favor, this night would have gone much differently.

  “True,” conceded the young duke. “And for that I am thankful. However, if this girl is so important, Lady Pentandra, then I do hope you will make securing her a priority,” he suggested, with the weight of command. “Do what you have to do, but keep her out of the clutches of our enemies. Use Lord Arborn’s trackers, if you must. He should be returning any day.”

  “I will be gone ere he returns, Your Grace,” Pentandra agreed. “I need but check the state of my office and gather a few supplies before I go. But I shall not return without a resolution to the matter,” she pledged.

  “That’s what I like to hear from my court,” Anguin nodded. “If only the Spellmonger had been here . . .”

  “Oh, he was, Your Grace,” Pentandra said, before she could stop herself. “He came by the Alkan Ways an hour before the attack. But he was in no state to assist. He was overwrought by . . . recent events in Sevendor, and had escaped into drink. It’s a miracle he actually ended up in Vorone, and not on the far side of the ocean.”

  “He’s good at doing magic drunk,” Terleman defended. “He’s back in my quarters, sleeping it off. Someone put a soporific spell on him,” he said, his eyes cutting to Pentandra. “He’s going to be out for . . . a while,” he finally decided.

  “He needed it,” Pentandra said, defensively. “He would have been a liability in this fight, without his orb. He . . . he hasn’t been the same since Castle Salaisus.”

  Anguin nodded, a wince flashing across his face. He counted the Spellmonger as a friend, and he knew, personally, the pain of grief from such loss. “Do what you must, Lady Pentandra,” he nodded, gravely. “But I really don’t need my palace redecorated by a necromancer again.”

  *

  *

  *

  Pentandra discovered when she finally returned to her quarters, just before dawn rose over the eastern hills, that the vile-looking Nemovort had been correct about killing a mage. She had dreaded investigating that since she heard the admission, first wondering if the dead mage was Minalan or Terleman. It proved to be Harrel, the night manager of the Mirror array, who had been delivering the night’s messages to the office before retiring, when he was attacked by the undead.

  The former spellmonger had acquitted himself well in the fight; he might not have been a warmage, but he had a few spells hung, enough to deter the undead from making a more exhaustive search. And he had bravely stayed and fought, instead of fleeing, though he’d paid for it with his life.

  As sad as that was, after Pentandra made arrangements to have his body removed to a temple for preparation for burial and a crew from the Castellan’s office arrived to start removing debris (the entire front of her office had been destroyed in the battle, mere moments after Terleman had departed with Minalan’s snoring body, she learned later). The examination room, the waiting chamber and a goodly portion of her private office was now so much broken masonry and kindling. If she had needed more adequate facilities before, now they were vital.

  She was packing and preparing, giving instructions to her maid and her office staff, when her mother showed up unexpectedly . . . and terribly concerned.

  “Pentandra! Thank the goddess you are all right!” she said, giving her daughter an uncharacteristically warm hug. “What in the name of seven hells happened last night?”

  “Whatever do you mean, Mother?” Pentandra asked, eyes narrowed. Did the woman not realize that she was working?

  “There was a crash so loud it woke me up!” Her mother had found an expensive townhome across the street from the east wing of the palace. It was expensive, as local properties went, but compared to Remeran prices Amendra saw it as a bargain. “The guardsmen at the gate wouldn’t let me in for nearly half an hour, and then I heard that the palace was attacked . . .”

  “I am fine, Mother,” Pentandra assured her, breaking the embrace impatiently. “It was a just few undead. We took care of it,” she said, casually, as she continued packing what she thought she might need.

  “Just . . . a few . . . undead?” Amendra asked, her eyes wide and her mouth falling open. “Goddess protect us! Pentandra, in all the years your father has practiced, he’s never run into an undead anything!”

  That’s not what I heard, regarding your marital life, Pentandra suppressed herself from saying.

  “I’m not a Resident Adept, Mother, I’m a Ducal Court Wizard. I don’t have clients, I have a liege. And I don’t deal with challenging cases, I protect and serve the entire duchy with my magic,” she said, hurriedly. “Even against evil undead. Sometimes that means beating down undead assassins in the middle of the night. Sometimes it means placating an irritating goddess. Mostly it means a mountain of parchment that needs my attention six months ago.

  “But today,” she said, exchanging her second-best mantle for her best traveling cloak, “today it means I go plunging off into oblivion by myself in search of my apprentice . . . and that has become the most pressing need at the moment.”

  “Doesn’t the Duke have people to deal with sort of thing?” her mother demanded.

  “I am the Duke’s ‘people’ when it comes to this sort of thing,” Pentandra replied, crossly. “This is what I do, Mother!”

  “Well, can’t he send someone more . . . experienced?” she asked, fretfully, as she struggled for the right words.

  Pentandra really did have no idea where Alurra had gone, and every moment that passed made it increasingly unlikely that Pentandra would find her even if she did employ magic.

  “There is no one more experienced in these matters, Mother,” Pentandra assured her, as she grabbed a few things out of her office press she thought might prove useful. “No one else has gone up against undead, particularly not undead like this. And no one is more qualified to contend with the magical effects of the Penumbra than I,” she added as she hurriedly packed a bag – not with clothes and shoes, but with magical supplies.

  Her mother did not find satisfaction with her answer. “All of these knights and soldiers, all of these guardsmen, and they have to send you?”

  “She’s my bloody apprentice, Mother!” Pentandra exploded. “She’s my responsibility! I’m the one that sent her to goddess-alone-knows-where in the middle of the battle, and it will be me who finds out where she was sent and when and how she’s getting back!”

  Amendra stared at her daughter critically. “It’s not as if she’s your child,” she said, reprovingly and with exaggerated patience. While she was speaking, Pentandra noted the sleepy appearance of Sister Saltia, who had hurriedly slipped on her habit before seeking out the ruckus which awakened her.

  “Are you going somewhere, Pen?” she asked, sleepily.

  “Yes,” Pentandra said, “and no, I don’t know where.”

  “Just into oblivion, to find someone who’s probably dead already. That apprentice
of hers.”

  “Alurra?” asked the nun, alarmed. “What’s wrong?”

  “Pentandra threw her into the Void,” answered Amendra, critically. “Who are you?”

  Sister Saltia ignored the older woman. “What are you going to do?”

  “Follow her,” Pentandra shrugged. “I don’t really have a choice!”

  “Wait!” Saltia insisted, then closed her eyes and prayed over Pentandra, asking the blessing of Fortune on her task. Once she traced an infinity sign over Pentandra’s forehead, she nodded.

  “Can you please go find that wayward urchin, now?” complained Amendra.

  “She’s a blind girl who has literally disappeared to gods-don’t-know-where, who happens to be hunted by the undead minions of a dark lord and the only person in the world who can possibly find her right now is me!” she fumed, as she finished packing her satchel.

  Most of the things she would need were already in pockets in Everkeen, thanks to Minalan’s foresight or desire to show off, depending on your perspective. “I have to do this because there is simply no one else who possibly can,” she continued, in a lower tone of voice - she knew that look on Mother’s face. “I am the only one who can use Everkeen,” she reasoned, “and I’m the one who sent her away. It’s my job to get her back. She’s not my child, but she is my responsibility,” she repeated.

  “You’ll find her,” Saltia assured, enthusiastically, though the way she bit her lip lessened her confidence and credibility.

  “She’s a good girl,” her mother finally pronounced after a moment’s intense concentration. “You do what you have to do, my dear. I see there is no way to stop you--”

  “Mother, if you could -- for just one moment -- quit trying to second-guess everything I do in my life and appreciate what it is I do in my life, perhaps you would see me differently!” Pentandra snarled, suddenly sick of her mother’s pointless posturing. This was a crisis. There was no time for her manipulations. Amendra simply did not understand what the stakes were, and years of frustration with her dismissive attitude to her and her father’s work erupted in her tone.

  To her shock, Amendra closed her mouth, stilling a rebuke on her tongue. Instead she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and we she opened them she seemed to have found a different perspective - or at least a different manner.

  “What do you need me to do?”

  The offer was as startling in its simplicity as it was its unexpectedness. But there was no time to react to the emotional meaning behind it. Every moment she delayed Alurra could be sliding deeper toward an unknown danger. She didn’t even have her pet raven to act as her eyes, Pentandra remembered with a guilty wince. But if her mother was offering to help, there was something she could help with.

  “I’m going to give you an enchantment, Mother,” Pentandra said, searching the room for something useful and portable. Her eyes fell on a pair of straight weirwood hairpins Carmella had sent her as a wedding present. They had a simple spell that would keep them in place perfectly, even in the midst of a tempest. An extravagance - weirwood was too valuable, ordinarily, to waste on such frivolities. But as pretty as the pieces were, they were low-quality weirwood.

  She picked up both pins and shoved one into her belt. The other she quickly used Everkeen to strip the original enchantment out of it, and replace it with a location and tracking spell. The paraclete obligingly built just the spell she needed, with refinements she hadn’t thought about. The result was far better than her expectation, from a technical perspective. She turned and handed it to her mother.

  “When Arborn returns, give him this. He can use it to track me, if he suspends it mid-point from a string. The tip will always point toward Everkeen. If I have not made contact in a few days, have him follow me.”

  Amendra took the stick solemnly and cupped it in both hands. “It shall be done. Pentandra, I know you have to do this,” she admitted, a trace of matronly guilt in her voice. “Do be careful.”

  Pentandra was overcome - not by what her mother said, but the volumes she’d chosen not to say under the circumstances. She quickly embraced her, amused that she was a few inches taller than her, now, and indulged in a few moments of blissful maternal affection.

  And then it was over. “Go,” she commanded. “Go find your girl. I’ll make sure my son-in-law gets this,” she pledged. “You just go be . . . Court Wizard. And don’t get yourself killed. Your father would be vexed.”

  “Wouldn’t want that,” Pentandra agreed with a quick smile. “Love you!” she said, before she instructed Everkeen to locate where it had sent Alurra, and then take her there.

  A snippet of Alkan song went through her mind, and then she was torn out of existence.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The Grotto of Antimei

  Pentandra was ejected from the Ways - she assumed it was the Alkan Ways -- in the middle of a meadow in mid-morning. The feeling of disorientation and confusion she always felt after such trips manifested in a hearty fountain of vomit before her head began to clear enough to get her bearings.

  Before she even picked up Everkeen off of the ground, where she had cast it while retching, she knew she was in the Alshari highlands, the rolling hills and foothills north of Tudry. But that still encompassed several thousand square miles of territory. She might not have been a ranger, but her experiences with the Kasari had demanded she become familiar with the flora and fauna of the land, and she recognized the region by the trees and plants, much to her surprise. Only when she managed to activate her baculus did she discover precisely where she was.

  As coincidence would have it, she had been near to this place only last year, during the great Kasari March, nearly half-way through the course of that historic journey. She found the trees surrounding the meadow obscured the horizon too much to see for herself, but according to Everkeen they were, roughly, fifty-four miles east of the trail they’d followed. A wild, sparsely-settled region even before the goblin invasion in the west, and virtually deserted today.

  So why did Everkeen send Alurra here? she wondered as she prepared her next spell. True, it was deserted and remote, but surely there had to be more to it than that. Pentandra commanded her baculus to track any recent activity, and after she’d filtered out the various woodland creatures the thing reported, she was able to determine which way Alurra exited the meadow. The glowing footsteps it indicated were Alurra’s size, and they followed a barely-perceptible path that seemed to go nowhere.

  Before she followed, she paused to reach out to Terleman and report on her status. She didn’t want to worry anyone - Arborn and her mother, in particular - and if she needed help she knew that the new Marshal of Alshar would be happy to ride to her rescue in the absence of her husband.

  Terleman was interested in the result of her tracking spell, but he had other news to report. The undead had slaughtered no less than twenty-six people during their raid, which was plenty to enrage the duke. Terleman was coordinating a retributive strike on the strongholds of the Penumbra, as Anguin had ordered him, but Father Amus was trying to talk him out of such a course of action.

  Pentandra didn’t care - the war was resurging, whether the old priest liked it or not - and the gurvani did, indeed, understand power and force. They’d already eliminated Lady Mask’s stronghold last year. Taking two more castles away from the enemy was good strategy, even if it was lousy diplomacy. Father Amus would have to accept that -- and Terleman agreed. Of course, he was also eager to unleash the full power of Warmaster on a fortification, so his opinion was understandably biased.

  Once she’d notified someone of where she was, she began following Alurra in earnest.

  She had to admit, this part of the Wilderlands was breathtakingly beautiful. Not the intimate beauty of the massive redwoods of the Brancei region, or the wild nature of the rocky river vales she had come to associate with the Wilderlands. The hills here were gentle, for the most part, forested in patches and displaying a lot of exposed rock under the quilt of
earth and vegetation. The air was clean and cool, fragrant with grasses and wildflowers in the high summer. There was no hint of predators or danger, nor of anything to disturb her personal wards.

  It was only when Pentandra made her way out of the little copse of wood that she realized where she was. Above her loomed the impressive expanse of rock that could only be The Anvil.

  She knew of this place, though she had never seen it. This was where Carmella proposed building the citadel and city that would someday blunt the hammer of the goblins.

  The mountain was half a mile away from its nearest neighbor, a remnant of a spur of some ancient range that had persisted into the present age. The lower slopes of the huge mound were forested, but about two hundred feet up the slope the earth fell away exposing the rock underneath. From there up -- another six or seven hundred feet, from her estimation -- the mountain was naked light gray stone with only pockets of soil and vegetation clinging here and there to its face.