The Wizard_s Fate e-2

by Paul B. Thompson

Time dragged, slow as resin oozing from a wounded pine. The ache in Tol’s knees was nothing compared to the longing in his heart. He prayed for dawn, for release from this torture, but the heavens would not hurry to suit him.

  A faint sound interrupted his long torment. Valaran had sighed. She rolled back her sleeves, baring her arms to her elbows. Her fingers were long and tapering, a lyrist’s hands, though Val disdained idle pastimes like music. With her fingers spread, she could hold a manuscript open with one hand while holding her tea, or taking notes, with the other-no mean feat. Those hands had also gripped the back of Tol’s neck with desperate strength when she’d feared he might leave her too soon. Not trifling things, those hands. He had been held by them often enough to revere them.

  Again he caught her sneaking a glance at him over the bier. Was it his own wishful thinking, or had her expression softened? It wasn’t love, but something other than anger flickering in her eyes. From her expression, it seemed to Tol she desired to ask him a question but couldn’t quite frame the words.

  He returned her gaze calmly, concealing his own inner turmoil with great effort. They studied each other, both perspiring in the stifling dimness. It came to resemble a contest to see who would look away first. Tol never wanted to look away ever. Solin’s rays could harden him to stone right here, forever beholding the woman he loved.

  When light did at last slant in, graying the high dome, it took some time before either of them recognized the dawn. Still they did not turn away.

  Footfalls announced the entry of two members of the White Robe order. They halted at the foot of the bier. The younger bore a tray with a slender pitcher and two clay cups. The older wizard made the sign of Draco Paladin in the air, ending the vigil.

  “Good morrow to you, Highness,” he said. “Welcome the day, my lord. I am Perogen.”

  In unison, they turned away from each other to face the newcomers. Tol’s tongue was thick, his throat parched. Coughing a bit, he said, “It was a long, hot night.”

  He got to his feet. His legs roared with pain as blood rushed back to long-folded muscles. Perogen extended a hand to help Valaran rise, but she ignored it and staggered upright unaided.

  The younger wizard presented the tray of refreshments. He was about Tol’s age, clean shaven, and with dark skin like Felryn. Perogen poured two measures of amber liquid from the slender pitcher. Silvanesti nectar. An ironic choice, Tol thought, given the events of Pakin III’s life.

  A cup was offered first to Valaran, who took precedence over Tol. She downed the nectar in a single long swallow.

  Tol watched her slender throat work and swallowed hard himself. This vigil had been worse than some battles he’d been in. Well, not worse perhaps, but certainly hard to bear. He sipped his own nectar gingerly, letting it trickle down his dry throat.

  Valaran set the cup back on the tray then carefully adjusted her gown, closing the neck and unrolling the sleeves. “Thank you,” she said to the wizards, her only words all night. With a swirl of silk, she turned and walked swiftly out of the tower.

  The young wizard frowned slightly at the obvious tension in the air. “Did the vigil pass well?” he asked.

  “Well enough. I owe much to the late emperor. It was hard to say farewell to him,” Tol murmured.

  “We were told you were most devoted to him,” said Perogen. “That’s why you were given this duty.”

  “I’m honored.” The import of the fellow’s words suddenly occurred to him. “Who told you I was specially devoted to the late emperor?”

  “Consort Valaran, my lord. It was her request that brought you here.”

  Tol smiled all the way back to the Quarry district. Upon his return, Miya made ribald comments about where he’d been, scoffing at the notion of a holy vigil. She knew that look, she teased. He’d been with a woman.

  And so he had.

  Mandes the Mist-Maker yawned and stretched. It had been a long night and a boring one. He could not use his magic to spy upon the dead emperor’s vigil; the Tower of High Sorcery was well shielded against such intrusions. He was forced to rely on a more old-fashioned method to gain information about Lord Tolandruth’s activities-he bribed a young Red Robe to act as his spy.

  “They did nothing, master,” his hireling reported. “They remained kneeling by the bier all night and never spoke.”

  Mandes smiled and readily gave the young wizard the promised six gold pieces. His informer seemed puzzled by his pleasure.

  “Nothing happens for many days after a seed is planted,” Mandes told him. “To expect a sprout the first night would be unnatural.”

  He dismissed the spy, reminding himself to ask Prince Nazramin to have the fellow killed. Anyone who could be so easily bought was a liability to their scheme.

  Chapter 11

  Force of Arms

  More vigils followed. Each night two people with close ties to the late emperor stood watch over his remains. When the rites ended, Pakin III was completely transformed into stone, and then it was time for the coronation and funeral. Traditionally, the two ceremonies were performed sequentially. Only when the old emperor had been consigned to the gods could the new emperor be crowned. Because Pakin III’s preservation depended on the natural course of Solin through the sky, the petrification process occupied several days.

  In her rooms deep within the palace, Valaran felt half turned to stone herself. She’d known that after Pakin III’s death the warlords of the empire would gather from all over to put their old master to rest and see a new emperor crowned. She knew that Tol would be one of those lords, of course he would. That was perfectly logical, and she prided herself on her logical and ordered mind. Unlike the featherbrained consorts and ladies-in-waiting who populated the palace, Valaran was well read, intelligent, rational-

  She threw aside the roll of parchment on which she’d been writing. This was her fifth book, a history of the cadet branches of the Ackal dynasty. Five years she’d spent compiling genealogies, reading dry old chronicles from every corner of the realm where the many descendants of Ackal Ergot had spread, seeking to understand the impulses and motives behind the history. Now the sight of one man in the Tower of High Sorcery was driving all sensible thoughts from her head.

  What was his gift? Why did this son of a peasant farmer hold such a grip on her heart and mind? He wasn’t the smartest man in Ergoth, nor the strongest, nor the bravest. Tol wasn’t even the best-looking man around. He was short, broad shouldered and thick necked, with a coarse, loud voice. And yet-

  Valaran went to the window. She could see the wall of the Inner City, a patch of the wizards’ garden, and the pallid glow of the Tower of High Sorcery beyond. White banners flipped slowly in the night breeze. Beyond the wall, the lamps of Daltigoth were lit.

  Tol was real. When he took her out the first time through the streets of the capital to that noisy, dirty tavern, he was in his element and she was out of hers. The true world of sweat, dirt, and blood-that was the realm where Tol of Juramona stood tall and commanded respect. Not in the shadowed halls of power. Not in the scented courts of devious nobility and pampered consorts.

  Damn him to the fires of all Chaos! She struck the heel of her hand against the wall, succeeding only in making her wrist hurt. Like an old scar, Tol brought with him an ache she had thought long healed. No, not a scar-more like a severed limb. Everyone knew that warriors or workmen who lost hands, arms, or legs experienced pain in the missing part long after the stump healed. Learned healers wrote treatises on why this was so. The Silvanesti sage Coralethian believed the soul of a living being was shaped like their flesh. When an arm was chopped off, the flesh passed away, but the soul of the limb still lived. It ached, as any limb of blood and bone would, when the phantom extremity felt cold or was tired or strained.

  So it was with Valaran. She’d severed Tol from her life over ten years ago, but he was still there, a part of her soul. The missing part ached.

  There was a cure, but she feared it would be worse tha
n the pain.

  Every day, more and more of the empire’s warlords arrived in Daltigoth, assembling from all parts of Ergoth. Some were battle hardened and trailworn, others softened by years of idle luxury. The first high lords from the armies at Tarsis reached the capital five days after Tol’s arrival. They brought news of the city’s final capitulation. The princes and syndics had submitted to all the empire’s demands, ceding coastal territory in Kharland, agreeing to remove the high tariffs on Ergothian trade goods and to use their navy to curb piracy, and allowing the establishment of an Ergothian garrison just two leagues from Tarsis.

  Daltigoth went wild with joy at the news. The name credited with this considerable victory over a wily foe was Lord Tolandruth’s. Men who had served in Tol’s army came to his rented villa to pay their respects. As it would have been inhospitable to send well-wishers away without refreshment, Tol soon found his larder depleted and the Dom-shu sisters in revolt. Tol hired a cook and kitchen crew. To mollify Miya, who refused to allow anyone else to take over the marketing yet complained about the amount of food she had to purchase and organize daily, he himself agreed to help with the shopping. It would give him an excuse to get outside, moving among the people without ceremony.

  On a gray morning four days after Tol’s vigil, he and the sisters wheeled an empty cart out of the villa gates, headed to market; that is to say, Tol pushed the two-wheeled cart, and Kiya and Miya walked ahead of him. The dawn sky was low and threatening. The smell of rain was in the air.

  It took considerable muscle to manhandle the pushcart through and up the twisty, uneven streets of the Quarry district. When they finally reached the level of the city proper, Tol was sweating. He wore no armor, only a light linen shirt and leather trews. His heavy saber hung from his left hip.

  The nearest market square was in the Old City. It was a long, rather narrow square, lined with temporary stalls and stands. The food sellers inhabited the south end; the north was populated by potters, tanners, cobblers-those who peddled items other than food.

  Tol and the sisters, were at the south end, and Miya had already acquired a side of bacon from a butcher at a startlingly low price, when a commotion broke out at the other end of the square.

  A gang of men erupted into the market, their faces concealed beneath blue scarves. They assaulted anyone within reach and tipped over sellers’ stands. From all around came screams and the cracking of wood. The noisy, crowded market fell silent as everyone looked up from their business toward the disturbance.

  “Who wears blue?” Tol demanded, incensed. “Not some followers of the Pakin clan, are they?”

  “I’ve heard talk about this band,” Miya said in a low voice. “Skylanders, they call ’em. They’re said to owe allegiance to a secret group of provincial landowners opposed to the new emperor.”

  “Who do they prefer?” asked Kiya. “Prince Nazramin?”

  Tol shook his head. “Nazramin’s followers wear black.”

  The politics of Ergoth, like its war-making, was brutal. Factions formed gangs to intimidate their rivals; by committing outrages, they made their opponents look and feel powerless.

  Tol knew nothing about these Skylanders or their beliefs, but he wasn’t going to allow vandals to wreak destruction. The square was crowded with more than enough people to subdue the criminals, if only the folk would band together and fight.

  Tol drew his saber. “Are we going to stand here and let thugs ruin our city?” he shouted. “Fill your hands, and we’ll send these dogs back to their masters whipped! Who’s with me?”

  He started forward a few steps but stopped, suddenly aware he was charging alone. Even the Dom-shu sisters seemed reluctant to mix in. The blue-masked gang continued to overturn carts and pummel helpless onlookers. Anyone slow to flee was dragged aside and beaten with cudgels, the gang’s only weapon.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Tol raged, as traders and customers alike stood wide-eyed and unmoving. Those closest to him seemed more frightened of his bared blade than of the rampaging rioters fifty paces away.

  Rabbits, he thought suddenly. They were like rabbits frozen in place by the baying of the hunting pack; they think they can hide simply by remaining immobile. Ordinary city folk, diligent and hardworking, they had grown dependent on the Riders of the Horde for protection.

  Tol sheathed his sword. Going to a trestle laden with summer cabbages, he handed the seller two silver coins and yanked one of the folding legs loose from the table. Cabbages tumbled around Tol’s feet, and he now had a stout stick. Tapping it against his palm, he started toward the trouble.

  Their indifference broken, the Dom-shu yelled for him to wait. They grabbed the first things to hand which could be used as weapons-the wooden poles from their pushcart. Removed from the sockets, these made handy staves.

  As the ruffians ploughed through the crowded square, a swell of panicked people rushed to get away. Tol found himself breasting this human tide. He grabbed an able-bodied young man as the fellow rushed by and shook him until his teeth rattled.

  “Listen to me!” he barked. He pressed a gold coin into the man’s hand. “Find the City Guards! Have them send a detachment here to quell the riot!”

  The terrified man jerked away from Tol and resumed his panicked dash. Two heartbeats later, the stampede thinned before the oncoming Skylanders, and Tol found himself facing seven toughs. More were working their way through the frightened crowd.

  Surprised to see someone standing up to them, they halted in a body, but the lull lasted only a moment.

  “Him!” exclaimed one of the masked men, pointing at Tol with his stick. “Pound him into the cobbles!”

  Yelling, six men charged. Tol sidestepped the first, whacking him across the shoulders in passing. The man pitched onto his face. Tol parried an overhand blow from the second, dropped his shoulder to avoid a hit from the third, and thrust the end of his bludgeon into the face of the fourth attacker. He received a whack on his left thigh from the fifth man. He punched that one in the throat, cursing himself even as he struck home. He knew better than to hit someone with his fist. It was an instinctual reaction, but also a good way to break every bone in your hand.

  Ducking a sideways swing from the sixth man, Tol now found himself ringed by masked enemies. He wasn’t overly worried. Although they were rough and brutal, they weren’t trained warriors. He had faced any number of more seasoned and dangerous foes than these street toughs.

  Unconsciously, Tol smiled, giving a snort. The contemptuous sound caused the blue-masked gangsters to hesitate; this was not the reaction they usually encountered. Tol immediately used the advantage. He hurled himself at the farthest one, the fellow least expecting an attack. The borrowed table leg connected with the thug’s jaw. Bone yielded, and the man went down.

  Someone landed a terrific blow on the small of Tol’s back. Pain seared through him, and he staggered forward. He stumbled against a fruit seller’s stall, collapsing on a tray of ripe grapes. Half blind with pain, he still managed to get his stick up in time to ward off the next swing.

  A full-fledged riot had broken out. Some opportunists in the square were trying to loot the stalls, but if the traders would not stand up to masked gangsters, they apparently had no qualms about cracking the heads of common thieves.

  The churning crowd had delayed Kiya and Miya, but at last they fought their way to Tol’s side, screeching forester war cries that gave their blue-masked foes a start. Kiya fended off attackers while Miya boosted Tol to his feet.

  “Where’ve you been?” he gasped.

  “Buyingbeef,” Miya quipped. “Prices dropped suddenly!”

  Kiya battered down a Skylander, but more took his place. Blue-masked enemies were thick around them. The press of so many foes forced Kiya back to her sister and Tol.

  “You two done resting?” she snapped.

  Tol answered by laying out four opponents with as many blows. He got a nasty chop in the ribs and staggered back again, gasping. There were to
o many, too many attackers in too close quarters.

  The gang leader who’d ordered his men to pound Tol appeared again. Now he personally went on the attack, holding his stave in two hands, like a quarterstaff. Tol fended him off, but this man was not like the other Skylanders. This man had warrior skills.

  Tol used his shorter stick to deflect another attack from the leader. The fellow sidled left, seeking to cut Tol off from Kiya and Miya. Sliding on the crushed fruit underfoot, Tol drew off. He feigned confusion, dropping one end of his stick. The leader promptly swung his cudgel up in a powerful underhand stroke, aiming for Tol’s unguarded chin. Tol hurled the table leg, which rapped his opponent across the nose. The gangster yelled and fell flat on his back amidst the purple pulp of a cartload of grapes.

  Tol advanced quickly, snatching up the fellow’s own staff. He stood over him. “Yield,” he commanded, breathing hard. “Guardsmen are coming!”

  “Liar!” the masked man hissed. He drew a long, thin knife from his boot and cut at Tol. The sharp tip snagged on Tol’s pants leg. He sprang back out of the way.

  Discarding the borrowed stave, Tol drew his saber. He hoped the lingering hiss of blade on scabbard would bring the gang leader to his senses. It did not. Undaunted, the masked man thrust at him again.

  Tol presented his far longer blade, ordering his opponent to disarm.

  “Mercy?” sneered the masked man. His face above the blue kerchief was young, but his dark eyes were those of a fanatic. “But I heard Lord Tolandruth was such a fierce warrior!”

  Tol was surprised to be recognized, but easily knocked the man’s knife back. “I don’t know you,” he said. “Why should I want your blood?”

  “Because I’ll have yours if I can!”

  He slashed at Tol. Catching the point on his handguard, Tol drove the masked man back with a strong shove. He raked the tip of his sword down the man’s chest. Homespun tweed split wide under Tol’s blade. Metal gleamed beneath. His foe was wearing a scale shirt!