In the Household of a Sorcerer

by Nicolette Andrews

  In the Household of a Sorcerer

  By Nicolette Andrews

  Copyright 2013 Nicolette Andrews

  Smashwords Edition

  Cover art by Nadica Boskovska

  All rights reserved

  Table of Contents

  Foreword

  Prologue

  Part I

  Part II

  Part III

  Part IV

  Part V

  Part VI

  Part VII

  Afterword

  Other works by the Author

  Diviner’s Prophecy Excerpt

  Foreword

  This Novelette is dedicated to my husband for his patience, devotion and inspiration that he gives me every day and for staying by my side while I pursue my dreams.

  Prologue

  I hated the city. Had I the choice, I would have avoided it all together, but as weary as I was and with the voice of the specter filling my thoughts day and night, I knew I must rest. In the war-damaged state Danhad was in these days, I had but one choice—to go to Keisan, the one place I’d sworn I would not return to unless it was on my terms. The outlying villages and towns were decimated in the final battles before the treaty was signed; they had little enough food to feed themselves let alone house a traveler for a night.

  I entered the city through one of the lower city gates and into the wharf side of the city. The lower ring was where the thieves and vagabonds resided. I found a place at an inn; the purveyor—a grizzled man with a few missing fingers, scars marring his face and an eye patch—bit my coins to make sure they were good.

  “There’s a room for ye upstairs.” He pocketed the gold coins and then looked me up and down. “Ye look familiar, where are ye from?”

  I tugged down the hood of my cloak, hoping to disguise my features. He could not know me. It was not possible, I thought. I had come to this part of the city for the very purpose of avoiding detection. Just in case, I lied, “I’m from the north, a little mountain village in the shadow of the Snake mountain.” Well, a partial lie.

  He chewed his thumbnail and regarded me. “The price of a room includes a meal,” he grumbled, seemingly appeased by my lie.

  “Very well, I’ll take it in my chamber, then.”

  He laughed. “Where do ye think ye are, boy, I ain’t gunna bring yer food to yer room. Ye can eat here with the rest of us.” He swept a meaty hand over the room. A couple of men, whom I assumed to be sailors, eyed me over their ale cups. A third man in the corner of the room had slumped over, and his cup had spilled over and onto the floor.

  Charming, I thought. “I’ll take it now, then.” I wandered over to the least filthy looking table. I resisted the urge to clear it with my sleeve. The innkeeper followed me and dropped a wooden bowl, a pewter cup and a chunk of bread onto the table.

  “Here’s yer dinner, boy.”

  I turned my lip up at the ‘boy’ comments. I was sixteen, and with my father’s passing, a man and heir to my household, but how could this brigand possibly know that? To him, I am sure I looked to be just another wandering youth. He lingered over me, and I once more fidgeted with the edge of my cloak, making sure he could not look at me properly. I wanted to pass through without regard.

  “Thank you,” I said, hoping he would understand my underlying meaning.

  He nodded curtly and stomped away. I poked at my food for a time before deciding it was inedible. I stuffed the crusty bread into my pocket for later. I still had a long journey back to Graystone.

  I held the cup of ale in my hand, twirling it back and forth as I regarded the room. The sailors had continued a game of dice that they had left off when I walked in. The innkeeper walked over to them, and the three chatted in low tones. I thought to linger and pretend to enjoy my meal, but I decided I was too tired to make appearances for this lot.

  I headed up the stairs, dragging my weary feet. I opened the door with the number two, which matched the key the innkeeper had provided me. Inside, a bed and a table waited. The windows were shuttered, and the bed was bare. The room had a faint odor of sweat and an acidic scent that I suspected to be vomit covered with the smell of sawdust. Too tired to care, I sank onto the bed and cradled my head in my hands. His voice whispered through my skull, a never-ending hiss, an ever-present reminder of my sacrifice to achieve my goals.

  “Do you regret?” he whispered in my ear. I could feel his hands caressing my skin.

  “No.”

  He cackled in my ear.

  The whispering taunts of his voice died away, and I found without the ever-present commotion in my skull, I was able to rest. I laid my head down and slept.

  I awoke to the thud of a fist upon my door. I rubbed my bleary eyes and stumbled over to the door. The innkeeper stood in the doorway.

  I could not have been asleep long, natural daylight still filled the hallway through the cracks in the shutters.

  “Yes?” I asked with an arched brow. Surely it was not this man’s habit to harass his patrons. I considered slamming the door in his face for a few more moments of quiet. He placed his beefy hand on the door jam and prevented that, however.

  “Ye need to leave,” he stated, and he folded his other thick arm over his broad chest.

  “I have paid for the night, sir,” I said with feigned indifference.

  He growled. “Yer money is no good here.” He tossed my bag of coins at my feet.

  “And why would that be?” I asked though I suspected he had known all along.

  “I know who ye are. Ye’re the traitor Prince Garrison’s son.”

  I sighed. I knew I should never have come to Keisan. “You are mistaken, sir. I do not know this man.”

  That was the wrong choice of words because the man’s face flushed. “Ye can’t hide from me. Every’n down to the babe in the crib knows that blood-cursed man’s name.” He spit on the ground.

  I gave him a blank stare, again the wrong choice. He reached out to grab me, but I slipped from his grasp. He missed my shoulder, but his thumb hooked on my hood and pulled it off my head. I fumbled trying to recover myself, but it was too late.

  The innkeeper stepped back, and the fear in his eyes said it all. “What’s wrong with yer hair? That ain’t natural.”

  I could feel its presence settle over me like a cloak, and the way it twisted my mouth of its own volition. Laughter escaped me, and I threw back my head. I did not want to reveal my power, not to this man, not for my first, but he had woken the specter.

  I opened my hand, and the man rose off the ground. He swung his arms, trying to regain his balance. Despite his efforts, he titled sideways, and his arms moved up and down like puppets on a string. His remaining eye bulged in its socket as he twirled about. I squeezed, and he clenched his throat. The laughter continued as the man struggled to breathe.

  His skin turned purple, and I eased back on his windpipe before letting him crumple on the floor. He lunged to his feet, and his eyes wide, he pointed to the door. “I want ye out!”

  I must admit, he had courage, but seeing as he knew me and knew what I could do, there was no sense in staying. The specter’s powers left me as quickly as they had descended.

  “Very well.” I scooped up my bag of coins and walked past the man and down the stairs. At the bottom, the sailors waited, cracking their knuckles and eyeing me dubiously. They took in my uncovered head and checked themselves. I was fortunate commoners were so superstitious. They made a sign of warning, slashing two fingers across their chest.

  The drunk, who had previously been passed out in his own sick, looked up and shouted at me. “His hair is white, like the harbinger of death!”

  I’d feared this type of reception. I
stopped at the door and turned to face them. “I would appreciate it if you did not mention my passing to anyone.”

  The innkeeper was also at the bottom of the stairs. Though he frowned at me, I could see his fear as he rubbed his throat.

  “Get out,” he snarled.

  I covered my head and exited onto the street. The wind picked up and blew about me, winter was close at hand, and I best not dally long in the city if I hoped to make the pass into the valley before winter made it impossible. I was heading down the street in the direction of another inn, one in the merchant quarter, when I spotted a slight figure.

  I turned just as it slipped past my vision, but I swore I had seen something. I walked down the street briskly, and once more I sensed something nearby.

  “She is here,” the voice whispered.

  I turned to search the empty street. The drunk from before had tottered out of the inn after me, muttering about death’s grip and getting back to his family. He stumbled and laid flat upon the crumbled stone path, and beyond him was an alley.

  “She is down there, find her.”

  I felt drawn to the presence, and I followed the voice’s orders. I headed down the alley, and pressed against the wall at the far end, a child dressed in a threadbare gown, shoes with holes and a tangle of black hair sat back on her haunches. She reminded me of the wild Biski people who I had met on my travels, but they did not live in cities nor did they venture this far north into Danhad. No, she was just another orphan living on the streets after the war.

  I thought to turn away. But the voice spoke again. “Look at the child. What do you see?”

  I kneeled down before her. She raised her head, and her piercing violet eyes struck me through. They held decades of wisdom within them for someone so young. She could not be more than six or seven, yet her eyes were ageless, as if she had seen millennia.

  “Beautiful eyes,” I murmured. They reminded me of something, an old story I had heard as a boy.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out the bread. It had been crumbled slightly but otherwise remained intact. I held it out to her. She eyed me and then the bread for several moments before snatching it from my hand and skittering back like a crab. She took a large bite, and I thought she would devour it all in one sitting, but she slowly chewed her food, then hesitantly put the rest in her dress pocket.

  She’s smart. I thought. She knows food may not come again soon, I expect. For the first time in a long time, I felt for someone other than myself. I wondered if there was an orphanage nearby where I could take her. Alone on the streets, she would not last the winter.

  “The child could be useful to your plans,” the voice crooned. “Can you not see she is a diviner? They were once advisors to the king. You could raise her and train her to your ends.”

  As ambitious as I was, the prospect of raising a child at sixteen seemed daunting. Unless, I thought, Damara owes me a debt. If I were to call on her for help to raise the child, then I could call our debt fulfilled. The specter laughed in my head, and I suspected my train of thought pleased him. It only cemented my resolve.

  I stood, and the child pressed her back to the wall. “Come with me, or waste away here.” I summoned the glamour to make myself appear more grand and imposing.

  She stared at me for a moment before creeping forward. She took my outstretched hand and wrapped her small hand around mine. For a moment I had second thoughts, and then I thought of my reception at the inn. This was the only way, I told myself, if I wanted to get my revenge.

  Part I

  I stretched a crick in my neck, tilting my head to the side. I rubbed a knot at the base of my skull that had grown from too many hours bent over my books and parchments. Even now, five books lay open upon the table, and I reread a correspondence from a friend in a port city along the coast south of my home, at Graystone. He wrote of a Jerauchian tome he had acquired, which had supposed links with old magic. Another dead end, I thought, letting the parchment fall upon the table. I brushed it aside and closed a tome on magic and memory alteration. It, too, had yielded no results in my search.

  The voice had faded as time passed, now his whispers were seldom, and I found the power, too, waning. I no longer had the ability to lift a man off his feet without exerting a great force of energy. If I tried, it left me drained and exhausted. Why has the power faded? I ran my hand through my hair and sighed.

  “Johai?”

  I did not look up as she called my name. The child, Maea, padded into the room.

  “Are you still working? You promised you would come to the festival with me,” she scolded me, and I sighed deeper and raised my head.

  I nearly did a double-take. She stared at her feet, and a charming blush stained her cheeks. Her ebony hair had been twisted away from her face, and a garland of flowers rested on her head. The form-fitted lilac gown accentuated gentle curves, and her bodice enhanced her blossomed bosoms.

  “They chose me as the spring maiden,” she said to her feet. “Are you disappointed?” She looked up and pierced me through with her startling violet eyes, but they were no longer the ageless eyes of a child. They were wise and full of ancient knowledge, framed by long dark lashes. They were the eyes of a woman.

  The half-starved child I had plucked from the streets of Keisan had grown. While I had been too absorbed by revenge, she had transformed into this.

  I realized I had been staring without speaking and said, “No. It’s fine.”

  She smiled and bounced over to me. “I’m glad. Now why don’t you put these things away and come join me. The dance will start soon!”

  I glanced at my work, the translations I had yet to complete, and I thought of Maea. The awareness of her womanhood made me uncomfortable. I shifted away from her as she leaned on my desk and fiddled with a book in the old language. I inhaled the scent of her, sweet with a hint of musk. It intoxicated me like never before. I needed air and space. I should not think these things about her. I snatched the book from her grasp.

  “I am not going. I have work here to finish.” I swept my arm over the desk and avoided her pressing gaze.

  “Oh.” Her tone dropped. “I am sorry, Johai. I’ll leave you to your work.” She walked to the door, and I stared at the desktop, listening to her footsteps receding. When she reached the door, I glanced up and stole one final glimpse of her. Her walk had changed with her body, there was a new sway to her hips I had never noticed before. The chamber door shut, and it felt as if she had taken the warmth from the room. I stared across the bleak gray of my chambers and reconsidered my decision to send her away.

  The voice stirred, as it often did when I was in her presence. It was the only time he deemed it worth it to speak with me.

  “You are a fool,” he said.

  I ignored him and scribbled notes along the margin of a transcription of a Biski fable.

  “You can see that she is a woman now. It is time you prepared for your great accession. Do not waste the power I gave you on such trivial things.”

  “Perhaps if you told me why my power fades, I would not need to,” I replied.

  He laughed inside my skull. “You know I cannot, but the girl…”

  I did not want to hear his taunting about Maea. So I shut him out. He fought me, as he always did, and I just managed to shut the lid and lock him up. The effort left me panting and clutching the desktop. My ragged breaths filled my ears, and I considered my work. Is this worth it? What progress have I made other than to become weaker each day?

  I shoved my papers away and stood to pace the room. Ten years I had wasted planning and plotting, and what did I have to show for it? Nothing. My only achievement was Maea. She was a bright student, obedient in most things, an apt scryer and dream reader. Now that she was a woman, perhaps I should prepare for a return journey to Keisan. Had the time come to put my plan in motion at last?

  I punched the wall nearby. I leaned into it and rested my head against the smooth plaster. I am a fool, I thought. They will never
trust me, no matter what ploys I attempt to use. Perhaps I should give up. Music carried up to my study, and laughter followed it. The spring maiden procession would be starting soon. I imagined Maea leading the revelers, throwing her head back, laughing and smiling.

  My mind wandered, and I thought of the clinging fabric of her gown and the sweet garland upon her head. I could not shake the image. When had she become such a beauty? I thought of her request, it would not be such a trial to go into the village, if just for a moment. I cringed to be thought of as soft, but perhaps I could sneak up and just watch from afar.

  With that decided. I left the house and found the procession wending its way down the road from the manor towards the village. Their songs and laughter filled the air. I inhaled the early scent of spring, the damp earth and crushed petals that had been trampled underfoot. Only during festivals did the lord who ruled revel with the common folk who toiled the land. I had not thought on it before today, but I liked the notion, to shed my cursed existence for a moment and just be a normal man.

  I caught up with the back of the procession as they reached the village center. They arranged around a bonfire in a half circle. Maea stood at their center beside a young man, whom she clasped hands with. He wore the white and tan of the maiden’s beloved. I knew the young man. He was my groundskeeper’s oldest boy, Earvin. He had the broad chest and thick arms of a laborer. I was not one to judge a man’s appeal, but I found myself wondering if that was what women found desirable in a husband. I had spoken to the boy perhaps a handful of times in the course of the past ten years. In that moment I despised him.

  I had not considered Maea playing opposite some young man, a handsome young man, of her age. It had been at the back of my mind for some time that Maea would need to travel to court and begin her accession and reclaim House Diranel’s title, but now more than ever I knew I must hurry. What if she fell in love with one of these simpletons? All her training and everything I had planned for would be ruined by a willful girl.