Fletcher

by P. S. Power

  Anders didn’t know what to do, though Farad, being old and if not used to action himself, feeling rather remote to things, simply opened his right palm and pushed it forward. Not at the creature of magic, which must weigh most of what a horse would. No, he targeted the little mouse under the hanging. There was a high-pitched squeak, then a soft noise that was low and wet, as it hit the wall far harder than any man would have. The normally safe move killing it against the stone.

  Which didn’t stop the monster in front of him from throwing the flame around its hand directly at the King. The man ducked down in his chair. Wisely as it turned out, the fireball missing him, if only barely.

  Moving then again himself, Anders got between the ruler and the giant thing in front of him and created a wall in the air using the hand sign he’d worked out for that. The last two fingers being bent downward, thumb alongside his palm on the left hand. The visualization came as well, instantly, having been driven home by Depak, who had fired arrows from a weak bow at him, hundreds of times, to make certain it was working right.

  The wall was not, it turned out, proof against heat. The flame itself, a blue ball, hit against the invisible force in the air. Splashing over it like a thing made of water. The heat of it passed through, forcing Anders to scream a bit in response. It was painful. Singeing enough that if it had been a pot he would have dropped it instantly, without ever considering what was happening.

  It was the back of his left hand that took the brunt of that damage. His sleeve protected much of his arm from the effect, even if it was warm there. The spell he was using not dropping or wavering at all. The design of it required him to turn his left hand the other direction to take it down. A tempting thing, if one that came too slowly, allowing the next blue ball of heat and pain to slap against the wall that he was holding.

  People in the room moved, including the King, it seemed. Anders couldn’t see them, since they were roughly behind him. Only the movement of the monster, tracking the King with a single-minded focus did anything at all to inform him.

  At the third volley, the singeing being harsh enough that he screamed again, Anders dropped his guard, taking the spell down for a moment, in order to attack with his other hand. A closed fist was pushed toward the thing. Then, in a moment, he opened his hand, causing an explosion that should have easily killed anything standing before him. The wall behind the thing cracked, a large chunk of gray stone falling from it, just as he managed, almost failing to do it in time, to get the wall back up.

  Master Tolan yelled at him then, which helped a lot.

  “Brolly! It’s an illusion, like before. Stop the blood magic! Like the rabbit!”

  Another fireball hit then, as he scrambled to recall what it was that he’d done to the small animal that had stopped it the first time. It had been freezing. From an arrow, though that might not have been the required portion.

  Dropping the wall of air, pointing with his right main finger, Anders barked out a simple spell.

  “Que-li bestle-fen!” The words were screamed, flames from the construct hitting him in the chest as he tried the freeze the little beast. A thing that he’d never practiced at all.

  Thankfully, as he reacted and fell back, his tunic on fire, the impact taking him to the ground, the large creature vanished in a single instant.

  Then, as everyone stood frozen, Anders force his aching and burned hand into the correct sign to quell flame and awkwardly tried to put himself out. It worked, thankfully, before the heat moved through his clothing too badly.

  Looking down at his left hand, he saw that the back of it was already a mass of white blisters. Some broken open, from forcing his hand into shapes it didn’t wish to go into at the moment. He hissed a bit.

  “That, is less than comfortable.” His words were filled with pain. Agony, to be fair.

  One of the other men, who was older and in a very nice army uniform, moved to him then.

  “Secure the room. Is that thing coming back at us? Should we move the King or stay here?”

  The man looked at Master Tolan, who didn't answer for almost five breaths.

  “Stay here for now. The current carrier is both dead and frozen. That small creature there on the floor. We know what to look for right now. Master Brolly… Can you stand guard here?” The words sounded upset, as if that might not happen. The Master was looking at the blisters on the back of his left hand.

  Anders gave a slow, single nod.

  “I can. For now. If this happens again I can respond more correctly. Fighting that illusion… It was powerful for one of those.” Not that he knew the rules of such things at all. The blue flame had harmed him, setting him on fire, which was all he meant.

  Tolan agreed however, or at least seemed to in the moment.

  “Yes. It possessed a physical impact as well as a mere seeming of the creature we all saw. Let me…” The man walked quickly over to the wall, where the tiny corpse of the mouse, a plain brown thing that wasn’t large even for its own kind, was pulled around. Anders stood with his left hand raised, the blisters still growing larger on the back of it.

  The pain was intense, which didn’t mean he let himself be distracted from the project at hand. Not too much. Walking into place so he could look over Tolan’s shoulder, as if he had any skills that way at all, he saw the very tiny leather jacket with its complicated wheel symbol on the back, a smear of blood in the middle of that.

  “It’s…” Anders brought up the image of the worked leather that he’d seen the last time, overlaying the two images in his mind. “The pattern is similar to the other one. The first portion here, in the first two fingers width around the outer edge? Those are identical to the other one. Then the rest of it changes. Some of the symbols repeat. I can’t read them. I would hazard a guess that they’re just the spell. A personal language of the blood mage, possibly. Infused with power first, then…”

  Anders was making up a story, so he stopped. Everything in it made sense so far. To him. The problem was that he didn't know enough to be doing that kind of thing. Not yet.

  Hunching over the little piece of bloody leather on the back of the diminutive carrier, Master Tolan cleared his throat.

  “That would be a reasonable hypothesis. Can you feel the residual magic in the leather, Master Brolly? The sense of it…” The man closed his eyes then and didn't speak for a long while. The other people started to move then. More guards were called for, along with a request for a bucket of cool water and Master Franken.

  The man that had helped Anders to not be killed in the first days after his illness. His warning of what might happen had been important to Farad. A thing that he might not have trusted if it had only come from the young boy inside of him.

  When Tolan spoke, his voice was soft. Meaning he was deeply into his magical trance.

  “The magic on this is old. Weeks or months. Possibly much more than that. Only a being of incredible power and skill could make that happen. The blood is from a different magic user than the creator of this work. Fresh, within the hour. The source for that came from outside the castle. To the north and west. The woods. Again… The feeling from the original caster is that of one being, both man and woman at the same time. Mixed in to one thing. From the far south and east.” There was a shuddering breath then and stillness for a good while.

  Finally, the man shook himself with a sudden movement and gasped.

  “Ah… They noticed me watching them. I have an image of the face. That of the mage behind all of this. Perhaps I could draw it? I fear that my skills that way aren’t great.”

  Anders thought for a moment, then nodded.

  “Get with Depak Sona on that portion. He’s very good with pictures. It might not help at all but can’t hurt to try. We might move the spell away from the King, in case it tries to start again.”

  Tolan laughed a bit. Darkly and without amusement being part of the sound.

  “No. You destroyed the link in the blood with the cold. A perfect thing, ver
y nearly. Fire or energy would have also worked. This simply allows us to look at the spell itself, so is better that way. I’m adept enough to follow faint traces back to the source. A thing burned is harder to do that with. You are correct, Master Brolly, in that we should seek to remove the threat and search for anything else we might find. At the same time, you are injured and also needed here, to protect the King and his sons. I’ll go away and see to that. May I have some guards to aid in the search, Your Majesty?”

  The King was clearly still a bit worked up, as were most of the men in the room. He yelled then, not waiting at all.

  “Immediately! If there is another threat here to myself, my family or my people, I want it located and dealt with. Now! You have all resources. General Nesmith, please see to that, along with the Master Wizard. Master Brolly, if you would stay here for the time being? I… don’t know what our men here are supposed to do without your aid.” The man did not seem happy to realize that factor. There was a glower in his eyes over it, which was turned on Anders, as if the failure there was his own.

  Farad recalled an older tale, one of the first that he’d committed to the halls of memory, in his youth. His lack of skill at the time had caused him to read the story as he placed it in his mind for all time. A thing that he’d learned not to do as much of, later in life. The trick used by the warriors of Sintel when facing high magic would work just as well for the matter at hand, he thought.

  “If they find anything, a mouse, animal or even person, with a wheel design in strange script with a blood print over it, have them capture or kill the thing and then move away from the leather. The rules of common magic still seem to apply here. The mouse and the rabbit both could only affect an area about ten paces from themselves. From the patch of leather at least. The magic is stored in that and activated by the force of the blood. I don’t think it’s being given power that way. If they can get far enough back and the carrier can’t move, the magic on it should eventually fade totally. They won’t need magic to face this, just clever tactics.”

  The King looked skeptical on that matter, with the Princes all being rather blank faced. The generals seemed to get the basic idea at least, with Nesmith nodding boldly.

  “Understood, Brolly. We’ll pass the word on this. Master Tolan?” The men fairly well ran out of the room, decorum being tossed as they went, in favor of expediency.

  Even though the men inside the room finally sat back down at the table, with Anders standing in front of the door to the space, Prince Erold next to him, holding a decently large knife in his hand. Nothing much changed until Master Franken arrived, with two of the palace servants, each carrying buckets of water and cloths. The Master Healer looked around, assessing the situation, then moved to the King.

  The left side of his face was red, and part of his hair was shriveled and blackened. It took almost no time for the bearded man to dampen a cloth and carefully place it on the burned areas of King Matheus. At the same time, he called out.

  “Anders, use one of the buckets and place your hand in it. That will help with the discomfort, for a time. I have some compounds that will help with the pain of the wound there. Is any of the flesh burned to black?”

  Turning his hand carefully, examining the whole of it, he shook his head.

  “Not that I can see. It’s just the blistering kind of burn. Bad for those. The flesh still lives.” The water was brought to him by one of the upstairs servants. An older man that was called Jerome.

  Without waiting to be told to do it, some of the dry cloths were moistened and placed on his neck. Where fire had tried to lick his skin after he’d been set alight. There was probably more than that under the tunic. At the moment he was hoping that the pain indicated that nothing there was too bad. His left hand did feel better, once in the coolness of the bucket.

  Doing all of that required him to sit, instead of standing in front of the door. He watched anyway, trying to sense magic, if it started to rise.

  Prince Erold didn't shift at all, holding his place, ready to fight if anything came for them.

  After a moment, Master Franken made a soft sound, like a sigh.

  “You’re not harmed badly, Sire. There will be no scars or infection from this.”

  Rather gruffly, the King waved then, and took the damp cloth from the Master Healer, to hold it to his own face.

  “See to Anders, then. Master Brolly, I mean, of course. He stood between us and death this day and shows the signs of that battle. Not that I didn't notice you moving in behind him, to take his place in the flames to guard us, Erold. Brave, both of you.” There was a soft laugh then, that didn't sound too mean. “I can understand why Robarts didn’t do the same, but shame on you Alpert. Being shown up by a couple of boys like that.”

  The words got a small chuckle from across the room. One that sounded strained. That came from the Heir.

  “Brother was standing in front of me, Father. Granted, not as loyal as if he’d been doing the same for you, personally. Still, it wasn’t cowering in the corner, so I think we can grant him that one. It isn’t like we have a plan for this sort of thing. I hadn’t even ever thought of it as being possible before this moment. I’m not totally certain what it means now, either.”

  Anders got it. He spoke as well, since someone had to point out the obvious.

  “It was an assassination attempt. Directly on the King. Using magic and done from a distance. From now on we have to assume that such things will be common. At least until we locate and end this blood mage who’s behind it. From the sound of it, this person is in a different part of the world, which will…” That would probably mean hunting them down. “First we need to locate their agents here and stop them. My guess is that they won’t be able to strike at us without a person here activating and deploying their magics for them. Which is what Master Tolan and General Nesmith are doing at this moment.”

  The words were meant to be reassuring and came out sounding a bit strained and weak. The King, damp towels pressed to the side of his head, made a sour face.

  “Right. Yet another thing to have to deal with, as if a normal war with a neighbor isn’t enough. Do you think this is connected? The situation with Yanse and this attempt on my life today?” The words weren’t spoken to Anders, even if that could have been the case. Instead the rest of the room was being asked their opinion. That answer varied, a lot.

  Some of the generals seemed to think it was clearly an attack from Yanse and that returning fire, so to speak, by killing their King was the only proper and honorable action to take. Most of the others simply didn’t know at all. The information they had spoke of a person from far away. One who was both a man and a woman.

  Master Franken, looking at the blisters on Anders’s arm, snorted gently, then placed the arm, with the damp tunic sleeve and all, back in the water, quickly.

  “Hermaphrodite. A person with the aspects of both staff and distaff, it is a rare condition of birth. I have seen it before, in my practice.”

  No one seemed to have a real answer, though the call to assassinate King Talbot of Yanse did seem to be winning the day, as far as Anders could tell. A thing which, to his mind was likely fair enough. It was possible that the two situations were separate in nature. Not likely, just a thing that could happen. In life, outside of stories meant to amuse, most things weren’t difficult to determine at all, as to guilt.

  The person that benefited most from an action was either the guilty party or directly next to them, pulling the strings. The idea that this attack had come weeks after the sudden start of a war with Yanse not being related was one that nearly made Anders shake his head. If King Talbot hadn’t ordered the attack, or asked for it, entreating the powerful mage to aid him, then it was the other way around and the blood mage had put Talbert up to starting the war in the first place for some reason.

  If the things were truly unrelated, then killing Talbot was still fair enough, since they were at war and someone had just tried to kill their King. It m
ade the other man seem so guilty that even his own people would think it a justifiable action in response. As long as they were allowed to know about it.

  Still, the place of the young boy wasn’t in giving his opinion on matters of war. The historian was no better off that way, so every part of him was content with keeping his mouth closed on the matter.

  His wounds were wrapped and he was dosed with poppy powder, for the pain. That was going to make him sleepy from what Master Franken said.

  No one liked the idea but he was, finally, sent back to his room, to sleep for the night.

  Chapter thirty-one

  The alchemical compound, poppy powder, wore off just as Anders rolled over, the light of day just starting to come through his window. His left hand hurt still, the pain intense enough that he doubted working with arrows or bows was going to happen that day. In fact, his left hand had swollen enough that he doubted it would be possible to open and close it if he tried.

  When he did, the loose wrapping around it pushed and strained against the bandages. It hurt, if not much more than it was anyway. A pink seeping showed through in several places where the blisters had ruptured. Getting up, several spots on his chest burning as he did it, Anders felt tired still. That was the residue of what Master Franken had given him, still inside his body.

  Probably still blunting the pain, which was less than good to think about. If that was correct, then he was going to be in much greater discomfort, later.

  Regardless, the day had to be met, so he used half a dozen different spells to cleanse his body and the bandages. Then, carefully, he took his singed clothing off, and traded the outfit out for something a bit less damaged. There, on the front of his old tunic, was a starburst pattern in black, with holes in several places. Burned clean through before he’d managed to put the flames out.

  His naked chest, lacking hair and pale in the light from his window had large angry red marks on it, with a few small blisters. Compared to his hand it wasn’t bad at all. Setting the ruined clothing to the side, Anders reworked his older outfit, fixing the holes in it, which were small and not too big to repair. Then the color was shifted.