Wizard of Wisdom: An Epic Fantasy Series (Wisdom Saga Book 1)

by W. C. Conner

  “Take care of yourself, Tingle,” the barman said to himself as the tinker walked out the door.

  Tingle slowed as he came even with the two beggars still sitting on the bench. Looking over at them he said quietly, “I won’t stand you a pint, but you’re welcome to share a humble supper of jerked meat and some vegetable broth and hard biscuits if you dare.”

  The one armed beggar nodded his thanks which Tingle noted from the corner of his eye as he walked away.

  The water in the cook pot had been simmering for some time, sending off inviting scents as Tingle sprinkled a few more dried and crushed herbs over the carrots, potatoes and cabbage cooking in the broth. As he took an experimental sip from a ladleful of the soup, two pairs of legs materialized at the side of his wagon.

  “Welcome, gentlemen,” Tingle said without turning. “Pull up a stool and join me.”

  They did so without comment. They were of about the same height although the one-eyed drunkard was noticeably the broader of the two. He set his stool away from the fire with his back to the wagon in a watchful attitude. The one armed man pulled his stool up to the fire and sat at his ease, leaning over the pot and sniffing appreciatively at the smell of the hot broth.

  “I’m curious, my friend,” Tingle said without preamble, “how you managed to sober up so quickly.”

  He looked to the man leaning against the wagon as he spoke, but it was the other who responded. “We’ve never met, Tingle, but we know of you, for we are all of one cause.”

  The timbre of the speaker’s voice caused him to turn and look closely at his face. “Clearly, you are not what you wish the world to believe you are,” Tingle said, only mildly surprised that they knew his name. He was, after all, widely traveled and widely recognized.

  “Nor are you,” was the reply.

  Tingle stirred the pot a moment more before he asked, “Tell me, friend, do you enjoy games?”

  “Nothing more,” came the response. “My favorite is hide and seek.”

  The passwords had been exchanged. Tingle smiled. “Ah,” he said, as he ladled generous helpings of the steaming soup into three large bowls, “then I have no doubt this meal will be most interesting.”

  For the first time since his plea for a pint that afternoon, the drunken beggar spoke. “I presume Albrecht told you of Wrensfalls’ misfortunes.”

  Tingle nodded as he dipped a hard biscuit into the broth and took a bite.

  “And of the riders who passed through shortly thereafter seeking Bork’s apprentice?”

  Again he nodded.

  “We seek the apprentice as well. His well-being is of paramount importance.”

  “Then I’ve no doubt you would be heartened to know that I left him in the company of the man who killed four of the five who pursued him,” Tingle said quietly.

  “And the fifth?”

  “Kemp is not always as gentle as most believe him to be; at least not when those he cares for are threatened.”

  “This is good news indeed, Highness,” the one-eyed man said, smiling broadly. “Things are not as grim as we feared.”

  “Caution!” the other hissed.

  Tingle, who was not easily surprised, sat staring at the one-armed beggar, his mouth open in disbelief. As he looked more closely, he could see the uneven staining from the plants used to disguise her distinctive pale skin which he had taken to be nothing more than the dirty, unwashed skin of the beggar she pretended to be.

  “Tingle,” she said softly, keeping her voice low in the unlikely event there were other ears besides those of the three of them, “we know of your involvement. You have placed yourself in danger many times. We can do no less. You now know who I am. The one-eyed man is Mitchal, the head of my personal guard, and I doubt it would surprise you that neither of us suffer the loss of sight or limb we show the world. Greyleige has identified us as members of the cause and we are on the run, doing what we can from the hopeful anonymity of beggars and drunks. We must now trust our lives to you as well.” Mitchal nodded gravely.

  “These are desperate times, Tingle. The game is well afoot and it seems all the players are on the board but one.”

  “The Key?” Tingle surmised, and Caron nodded. He looked from one to the other. “If the name Wilton means anything to you, then I know where he is.”

  Both listeners leaned toward Tingle. “If he is the person you seek, he is living as the swineherd’s assistant in Wisdom.” The two looked toward each other. “And when I left him, that is where Kemp was bound, accompanied by the warrior and his daughter.”

  Caron and Mitchal slumped visibly in relief. “There could be no better news,” Caron breathed. “I can imagine no place or position less likely to come to the notice of Greyleige.” She sat up straight and stretched her back as if having just been relieved of a great load, sighing heavily as she did so. “Thank you for that, Tingle,” she said.

  There was no further conversation then for a bit as the three of them finished their meals, each of them digesting both the news and the soup in silence.

  “Well and good,” Caron said at last before setting her bowl on the ground and standing. “Hope is renewed for me where it had begun to flag. We thank you for your hospitality, tinker. Should the end of this game favor us, your contributions will not be forgotten.”

  Tingle bowed his head. “I expect nothing more than the knowledge I have helped the cause, though I certainly wouldn’t refuse more than that,” he said, then looked up again. “Highness, before we part, there is something I would know.”

  “Ask it,” Caron said.

  “Albrecht spoke of men that are pale as death. Do you know anything of these?”

  “Not much more than that they exist,” Caron replied. “We have seen them and they are sinister in appearance, but while their presence terrifies the residents, it seems that they shun contact with humans. Mitchal and I are certain they are the source of the failings of life and land here in Wrensfalls. I sense a malevolence in them that is certainly powerful enough to cause undefended life to wither.”

  “Summonings of Greyleige?” Tingle asked.

  “I can think of no other source of such illness and blight, and Bork’s refusal to cooperate most likely served to identify Wrensfalls as the unhappy testing ground for a future controlled by Greyleige.”

  Caron looked about once again to reassure herself there was still no one near. “Now, my friend and ally,” she continued, “we must use your traveling talents to pass along the good news.” She looked at him shrewdly. “Have you ever tried selling your wares at Castle Gleneagle?”

  “Once only,” Tingle said, scowling. “And once was more than enough.”

  Caron laughed lightly. “I predict you will have tremendous good luck this time.”

  17

  Moisture from the unnaturally heavy fog floating throughout the Wizards’ Guild compound left all exposed surfaces damp with large drops of water. The gloom and humidity were oppressive to everyone but Greyleige who sat cross legged at the center of a pentagram drawn with his own blood on the floor of the tower room, oblivious to all around him. A candle burned at each of the five points of the pentagram, each one so thoroughly black it seemed as if there was a hole in the universe where it sat. Each flame flickered an eerie blue and purple, giving off almost no light.

  On either side of the door, Bertrand and Amos stood immobile, their arms crossed over their chests.

  Greyleige’s eyes had rolled back in his head, leaving only the whites showing. A voice chanting a rhythmic series of arcane words in some harsh tongue sounded as if it belonged to Greyleige, but his lips did not move. From the candles long undulating streaks of purple-blue flame reached up to join above the wizard’s head, forming and re-forming images of hideous demons and other creatures of unspeakable evil in a field of sluggishly roiling blackness.

  After several foul images had appeared and drifted away, the image of a nude woman solidified and stepped from the blackness within the flame. Her body was
of the same semi-transparent purple-blue as the candle flames and was perfect in every earthly feature. Everything about the apparition was beautiful except her eyes and her mouth. Where her eyes should be there were only pale yellow lights from which the suggestion of eyes looked. Her sensuously full mouth which would ordinarily cause a man to think of rumpled beds and fleshly pleasure was drawn back in a sneer of disdain she made no attempt to conceal.

  “Why have you summoned me?” The words hissing from her mouth suggested venom and agonizing death.

  “I have need of assistance,” Greyleige’s voice answered.

  The shade did not respond, waiting for Greyleige to continue.

  “There is a key of which I have a special need.”

  “The ‘Key’ of the scrolls?” asked the shade, at last showing some interest.

  “The same,” responded Greyleige.

  The shade faded to nothing for the span of several heartbeats, then returned brighter than before. “It is in play,” she said, her voice low and husky with excitement and desire. “Its power can be felt pulsing like the heartbeat of a newborn babe. The time of opportunity is upon us.” Her eyes turned to the seemingly comatose wizard. “What would you have of me?”

  “Seekers,” Greyleige’s voice responded, “to find this key.”

  The apparition diminished as it flowed back into the flames of the candles.

  “They are yours.”

  Bertrand and Amos drew even further back against the wall as five black shapes emerged – one from each of the candles. They were hunched beneath what appeared at first glance to be great capes but which were, in fact, wings. Thin slits served in place of a nose and thick green saliva dripped from pointed fangs. The drops fell to the floor where they sizzled briefly before disappearing in tiny puffs of sulfurous smoke. Small red eyes glowing with the light of some internal fire of hatred looked about the room, fixing on the two wizards near the door.

  “No,” commanded Greyleige’s voice. “Those are not yours. This is what you hunt.” Greyleige mentally projected to the minds of the creatures the feeling of the mental lock that somewhere had clicked into place as he had stood before Prince Gleneagle.

  As one, the black creatures shuffled to the large opening and leaped through, one after the other, with no sound other than the scraping of their clawed feet. Their bat-like wings opened, filling with wind as they fell from the tower. Banking and climbing quickly, they shot from sight into the heavy mist, each of them going in a different direction.

  The candles flared and then went dark as Greyleige groaned and fell to his side. Bertrand and Amos hurried over to where he lay, lifted him as they had been instructed, and carried him to a cot at the side of the room where they gave him a goblet of foul smelling liquid. Leaving their master covered with a blanket as they had been told to do, they quietly left the room and closed the door behind them. A faint red nimbus glowed around Greyleige’s insensate form as he dropped into the wizard’s sleep in which his powers would restore themselves.

  Early the next morning, as Caron swam and bathed alone in the Ahnglees River, the feeling that there was a presence watching grew in her. Using the skills taught her by Mitchal, she ducked under the water and swam into the reeds where she surfaced silently and looked carefully around. She lay in the shallows, breathing through a hollow reed, with only her eyes above the surface of the water as she tried to discover where and who was watching her. Before very long the feeling started to fade, then disappeared altogether.

  She returned to where she had left her clothes, dried herself, dressed, and rejoined Mitchal who sat poking at the last of their bacon in a frying pan over an open fire.

  “I just had the strangest experience, Mitchal,” she began. “As I was bathing, the feeling grew on me that I was being watched.”

  Mitchal looked up, concern on his face. “I heard no one, Highness,” he said. In response to her raised eyebrow he quickly added, “and I have been here at the fire the entire time. I swear it upon my honor!”

  Caron laughed lightly. “I meant only to tease, Mitchal. I would never question your honor.” Her face sobered once again. “I hid myself and observed most carefully to try and find the watcher, but I could discover nothing and the feeling finally went away.” A puzzled look crossed her face. “What do you suppose could have caused that feeling?”

  “I have no idea, Highness,” Mitchal said. “But there is more and more that I don’t understand lately. More and more and more.”

  The mists in the globe lost their shape as Greyleige erased his mental vision of the pale blue sculpture of Caron that sat on the desk in Gleneagle’s study where the prince sat staring at it, his gaze drawn to it by the spell of compulsion subtly woven into the blue stone by Greyleige. A satisfied smile played on the wizard’s lips as he summoned Bertrand to him.

  “The princess is at the ford at the Ahnglees River, Bertrand,” he said. “That can only mean she is heading west. Send a squad of my best men at once to intercept her. But make it clear that, despite what they may have heard before, they are to do her no harm, for I have great need of her.” His expression turned hard. “Should she be harmed, whoever is responsible will learn the exquisite agony of a flaying knife. Make that clear to them, Bertrand. Make it crystal clear to them.”

  Bertrand bowed and backed away from Greyleige, hurrying to carry out his master’s command. As he padded down the tower stairs he muttered to himself, “Make that clear to them, Bertrand. Pick me up, Bertrand. Put me on my cot, Bertrand. Don’t do anything I don’t tell you to do, Bertrand. Don’t think for yourself, Bertrand.” He shook his head as he arrived at the bottom of the circular staircase and turned the corner leading to the guardroom, the sound of his voice fading as he went. “You’d better get something really good out of all this, Bertrand.”

  18

  It was the hottest hour of the afternoon as the two beggars sat in the shade, their backs against the largest tree beside the road, watching as the cloud of dust rising in the shimmering golden sunlight materialized into a squad of fifteen mounted men in matching uniforms of charcoal gray. As they approached, they slackened their pace and finally came to a halt beside the two.

  The leader of the group looked them over carefully. “Where are you bound?” he asked, his contempt for the two beggars apparent.

  “We travel to the crossroads, then south to the port at Afrah, Captain, sir” the one-eyed beggar responded, standing and thumbing his brow in a sign of deference.

  The captain of the squad squinted at the one-armed beggar. “What’s his story?” he asked, poking his finger toward Caron. “He looks simple. How’d he lose that arm?”

  Mitchal looked briefly at Caron, knowing she held a dagger in the “missing” hand inside her shirt. She had leaned forward and was staring at the ground around the horses’ hooves, drooling slightly and ignoring the dribble of snot below her filthy nose. Her hair, which had been roughly cut to chin length when she had disappeared into the world of disguise, was dirty and mussed as if she had just gotten out of bed.

  “He’s been like that since the logging accident five years ago, Captain, sir.” Mitchal said smoothly. “We were working for the Duke of Confirth up in the Estrellin Mountains, bringin’ in timber for his country estate in the foothills there.”

  The captain nodded. He was well familiar with the estate. “I was in his employ when he had that estate built,” he said. “As pretty a place as there is in the entire principality.”

  “Mayhap you heard of the accident, then,” Mitchal continued. “A chain broke on the team that my cousin there and I were driving. He was just a lad at the time.” Mitchal saw that the troop was listening every bit as closely as the captain was. “When the chain broke it whipped just past my head. A piece of metal from the broken link lodged in my eye,” he said, pointing at the patch, “but it got him fair. Hit his arm just below his shoulder and tore it off clean.” All eyes turned toward Caron who still stared and drooled, then back to Mitchal. />
  “When he fell, one of the horses’ hooves fetched up against the side of his head. He didn’t move at all and with the all that blood everywhere and everything, we all just figured him for dead. Turned out he was still breathing, but he’s not been just right since then.” Mitchal shook his head. “Four good men were killed by the logs that went rolling down the hill and the teamster boss blamed us for the accident, even though everyone knew he’d been buying poor quality chain and putting the difference in his own pocket.”

  A muttering was heard from someone in the troop. “Seems I remember hearing about that from my uncle who was up there at the time.”

  The captain nodded. “Life is hard,” he said, then lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Perhaps you can earn a coin or two to ease your way.” Mitchal looked interested. “We are searching for a young lady heading in this general direction and we would appreciate any information you might be able to share.”

  Mitchal’s one eye gleamed with avarice. “We’ve seen naught but you in the past two days, Captain, sir,” he said smiling lasciviously, “but for a few coppers I would find young ladies for all of you.”

  There was laughter and not a few ribald comments among the troop, but the captain put up his hand to stop the clamor before leaning down toward Mitchal. “We seek the Princess Caron,” he said quietly. “It is known she was but recently at the ford at the Ahnglees River. She is reputedly traveling in the company of the head of her personal guard, a man named Mitchal.” At the look of surprise on Mitchal’s face, he smiled. “Yes, my friend, and the right information would be worth far more than a few coppers. A pair of gold pieces would be the metal of choice in this case.”

  Mitchal’s mouth fell open. “B- By the powers, Captain. For that much I would turn myself in,” he stammered.

  “We travel west as you do,” the captain said, straightening in his saddle and signaling his men to prepare to ride. “Should you happen upon anything of interest, do what you can to get word to us. Agreed?”