Aquamancer (mancer series Book 2)

by Don Callander

  Here the air smelled of the stream’s hot, sulfurous water and, a pleasant surprise in such a place, tiny, white flowers such as grow on the edges of glaciers.

  My dear young Otter, he said softly to himself as he gallumped down the last rockfall to the cave mouth and safety, you might as well get used to the smells and the eye-watering fumes and the mysterious lights. You’re going to have to go much, much closer than this, soon.

  One of the red-shot eyes of Coven Castle was larger than the others, although Marbleheart hadn’t noted it particularly. It was the embrasure that lighted and aired, more or less, a large, bare-walled, dank-smelling anteroom of a haughtily beautiful woman. She sat erect and proud in an ebony chair supported by writhing, deeply carved jade-eyed serpents with golden fangs.

  The Black Witch called herself Emaldar and was called by her sycophants, servers, and slaves “Emaldar the Beautiful” and “Queen Witch” and, sometimes, “Woman of Bare Mountain,” among a number of less happy things not worth remembering now.

  She was silently studying the young-old man in the tattered gray robe standing unhooded before her with his head up and, his eyes slitted, bravely waiting.

  “You are Douglas Brightglade.”

  It was a statement, not a question.

  “If you say so,” murmured Cribblon.

  “Eh? Speak up! Louder, so we can hear you, Brightglade Bumbler!”

  Cribblon winced at her shrill tone but stood, still silent. A Witchserver guard prodded him with a three-tined pike, none too gently, making him flinch and stumble forward. The former Apprentice Wizard glowered over his shoulder at the soldier.

  “They’d love to tear you limb from limb, of course,” remarked Emaldar with a throaty chuckle. “Or use your pitiful body for target practice at the archery butts.”

  “I am sure,” agreed Cribblon.

  “Not now. Not just yet, however. I want some answers from you, Journeyman. Then a long stay in my sweet dungeon, a remarkably vile place. Even my Witchservers hate it down there.”

  She stood and paced back and forth before her chair for a moment, looking down at her dainty feet as they moved under her heavily jeweled and crescent-spangled gown.

  “Where, now, is Flarman the Freak?”

  “I don’t know any such person,” said her prisoner.

  “Flarman Flowerstalk, then, or Firemaster, if you prefer.”

  “I assume he is at his home at Wizards’ High in distant Dukedom,” said Cribblon, shrugging. “He doesn’t tell me his comings and goings.”

  “I’m sure of that!” laughed the Black Witch, scornfully. “Were I Flarman, I wouldn’t give you the time of day, either. But you must know what he knows about me or you wouldn’t be here. That’s what I want to hear from your lips, either now—or later, when they are broken by beatings and blistered with thirst and your body is twisted and screaming with remembered pain.”

  “I forget the question,” said Cribblon, seeking to string the moment out, fearing what would follow when the interview ended.

  “I want to know what Flarman knows—and Augurian, too, blast him—about Coven and about me.”

  Cribblon shuffled his feet about, not looking up at the Witch Queen. He was, in fact, struggling to recall a simple spell Frigeon had taught him, ages ago. It was supposed to make one impervious to pain. He had too long forgotten some of the words, and the passes would be impossible with chained wrists.

  “They know who you are,” he said just as the soldier raised his pike to prick his backside once more. “They certainly know where you are, and when you came here. I’m not sure even you know why you came.”

  “My goals? Well, someone has to rule Old Kingdom! It’s laying about completely ungoverned, in utter chaos. All sorts of people and things come and go as they please! Or they sit and sneer at you when ordered to leave! There are even some here who are happy and at peace with themselves. That won’t do! It just won’t do! There are too many things to be done and run and taken to pieces and put back together again the right way—my way!”

  She sat abruptly on her chair and leaned back, stroking one of the carved serpents thoughtfully. There was a speculative look in her eyes that gave Cribblon more shivers than her threats of torture.

  “Personally, I like things neat, straight laid and perfectly efficient,” Emaldar went on more quietly, as if to herself. “I require all my people to know exactly where they stand... or grovel, if in my presence. I don’t like that it’s sometimes warm in winter and cold in summer. People must realize World will be much better off when everything is exactly the same everywhere, for everyone, forever!”

  Cribblon sagged—he had been standing braced for hours now, and the chains about his arms and legs were very heavy. Wasn’t there a spell Frigeon had drummed into him? Something to do with rusting heavy iron?

  She thinks I’m Douglas, he thought. The least I can do is prolong her misconception, for Douglas’s sake—and Flarman’s, too, and for the people who have a spot here or there to be happy in and content, despite all the wrongness brought about by people like her.

  “So, Flarman knows of me, eh? Who told him?”

  “I did,” said Cribblon, stoutly.

  The Witch leaped to her feet again and threw up her hands in quick fury.

  “Sneak! Spy! What business is it of yours or Flarman’s or Augurian’s what I do?” she shrieked.

  “It’s a Wizard’s business to fight evil and right wrongs,” quoted Cribblon from some long-forgotten text. “A Wizard has the duty to—”

  “Duty! To be a pest and a nuisance to people who are making things run neatly, on time and straightforward, once again? You’ve seen Old Kingdom. It’s a mess, crying out for a good, severe housecleaning, for a strong-armed ruler!”

  “I hadn’t noticed that,” disagreed Cribblon, wearily. “I suppose you would point to Pfantas as a model of housekeeping?”

  “Pfantas? Of course! What’s wrong with Pfantas?”

  “I never saw a filthier or more disreputable place than Pfantas. It was once a garden spot. People came from all over World to enjoy it; fresh air, warm sunshine, and soft rains in their seasons...”

  “Seasons! That’s one of the worst excuses for doing something I ever heard,” scoffed Emaldar in exasperation. “Put on bright colors because the trees are budding? Nonsense! Go sledding because it’s snowed? Nonsense again and it must stop! Pfantas now is well organized, straightened out, a real no-nonsense kind of place, a paradise. I shall soon do the same for all Kingdom. Or Queendom, perhaps I shall call it.”

  “You intend to rule, then?” asked Cribblon, tiredly.

  “None of your blasted business!” the beautiful Witch snarled. “You won’t be here to see it, at any rate. You will—”

  She stopped in midscream at the entrance of a uniformed and plumed Warlock officer of her Witchserver guard. He bowed deeply and held out a folded parchment.

  “A message? From...?”

  She cracked the red wax seal with her sharp thumbnail and read the missive aloud: “‘Emaldar Witch: This is from the hand of Flarman Flowerstalk and is carried by the wings of Curfew, a Great White Sea Gull.

  “‘You boast of holding one Douglas Brightglade as prisoner. I must warn you that you do this at extreme peril to yourself and those who are misguided enough to belong to your Coven.

  “‘Augurian, of whom you may have heard, and I join to send you this good advice. Release your prisoner and set him on his way home. Disband your Coven at once, on pain of swift and fiery retribution for the evil you have perpetrated. Abandon your mountain before it is too late, or you lose all!

  “‘Flarman Flowerstalk of Wizards’ High (For the Fellowship of Wizards).’”

  “Nosy, witless busybody! Gossipy old wart-curer!” keened the Witch Queen. She crumpled the letter between hands trembling with fury. Before she could hurl it to the floor it burst into hot, white flame, scorching her fingers so that she cried out in fear and pain. The burning parchment dropped among
dry rushes scattered on the stone floor.

  Fire instantly caught at the rushes. A Witchserver with quicker wits than most of his kind rushed forward and doused the burning spot with an ewer of water.

  Instead of being extinguished, however, the flames floated on the surface of the wash and raced across the uneven floor toward the Witch herself.

  “Wizard’s Fire?” she screamed in terror. “Put it out! Put it out!”

  It looked for a minute as though it might burn the entire castle—and Cribblon, too—but the former Apprentice Aeromancer remembered one of his very earliest lessons. He stooped over the fast-spreading flames and blew on them gently, reciting an air-based specific against fire learned from his Master.

  The flames died out with a sullen sizzle. The Wizard’s message became a pile of fragile, black ashes among a tangle of half-consumed rushes.

  “Guards! Take this sniveling fire dabbler and throw him in the wettest part of my dungeon where he can’t do any fire harm!” ground out Emaldar, still shaking with fright. “I’ll question him myself later. Get out, all of you! Say nothing of this to anyone on pain of... of painful and an extremely slow death!”

  The Witchservers and their Warlock officer scuttled out in disorder, not forgetting, however, to drag the chained Cribblon after them, much to his relief.

  The Witch Queen retired to her inner bedchamber to recover her wits and self-control.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Spring Cleaning

  The sun would have risen over Pfantas—if it could have found the town under a dank, brown fog that wrapped itself about the hill. Myrn and Pargeot ate their breakfast before a small campfire and watched the smog swirl and reluctantly begin to lift. On their own hillside, the spring sun shown warmly.

  “How do we go about finding Douglas?” wondered the Seacaptain aloud.

  “I’ll go over to town and ask if they’ve seen him,” said Myrn, rising. “No, you stay here. A lone lass will seem less a threat to Witch-ridden people. They might refuse to talk to a woman accompanied by a big, strapping man with dirk and cutlass in his belt.”

  “I’ll leave ‘em behind,” Pargeot called after her, but she was already halfway to the plank bridge. He watched her go with an inane look of infatuation mixed with anxiety. “Be ye careful, Mistress!”

  She waved her hand at him without turning around and disappeared through the postern gate, which stood unguarded and open, onto the steep stair-streets of Pfantas.

  Myrn climbed through several of the poorest, smelliest levels before she reached what seemed to be a main avenue circling the hill. The houses here were in slightly better repair, somewhat larger, and had fewer broken windows.

  Pfantasians she met ignored her, walking in a listless, cringing manner to and fro. The few whose eyes lifted to catch a quick glimpse of the attractive young woman at once swiveled them to either side to see if anyone had noticed their interest in the stranger. Nobody answered her cheery “good morning!” but she continued to greet them, anyway.

  She walked around the hill on that level, observing and making conjectures, not ready to ask anyone about her Fire Wizard. She sensed a pall of strong Black Magic about the city, but was unable to name it yet.

  There must be soldiers or policemen or spies here, she reasoned, to enforce the Witch Emaldar’s commands.

  She had reached the arc of the level that overlooked the waterfront and the narrow, wind-ruffled lake. Three disreputable-looking men in food-stained uniforms and battered tricorn hats rushed at her from a sleazy alehouse as she passed.

  “Halt! Halt! Stop right there, girlie!” they shrilled. “In the name of Emaldar the Beautiful! Stop at once!”

  They made a great commotion, but stopped short of laying hands on her, encircling her instead. They drew short, rather rusty swords and waved them recklessly at her, as though she were a dangerous criminal.

  “Well, good sirs, what can I do for you? Have I broken a law, perhaps?” asked the Aquamancer’s Apprentice sweetly.

  “Halt! Halt!” one of the Witchservers continued to bawl. The other two silenced him with scathing looks and moved closer to Myrn.

  “Ye’re a stranger here!” one shouted in her ear.

  “I certainly am that,” agreed Myrn. “Is that a crime in Pfantas?”

  “Yes! Of course! You’re required by the laws of Emaldar the Beautiful to ask permission of us, her loyal Witchservers,” said the largest of the three. “You must come with us to the Onstabula. At once!”

  “Fair enough, I suppose,” responded Myrn with a gracious smile. “Which way do we go?”

  They fell into step, one on either side, the largest going before, swinging their battered swords to and fro in an impatient manner, trying to look very important and succeeding only in looking extremely silly, at least to Myrn, who tried hard not to giggle aloud.

  Pfantasians they met stole startled sidelong glances at them. Some, she noted, looked sympathetic but most showed only sullen resignation. They kept well clear of the Witchservers’ swords, parting before them like a bow wave before a ship’s prow.

  “Make way!” bawled the loudmouthed Witchserver on her left. “Make way for the Mighty and Dreaded Minions of the Witch Queen’s law!”

  “You certainly are a noisy lad,” commented the girl with an easy laugh. “They’re doing everything they can not to come too close to you, it seems to me.”

  “Be not impertinent!” shouted the lead Witchserver, spinning about and marching backward. Loudmouth fell back and raised his sword to prod her in the backside with its blunted tip. Myrn cried aloud in anger and stopped suddenly, whipped about to face him, her eyes flashing fire.

  “Touch me with yon dirty steel on pain of a very hot bath!” she said, sharply. “I’ll not be harried by such a mud-wallower as you!”

  Loudmouth thought better of prodding but gave her a wicked leer instead.

  “You’ll soon change your pretty tune, me sweet cuddle, when we reaches the Onstabula,” he sneered. But he fell in beside her again, just the same. The lead policeman took out a rumpled notepad and wrote something with the stub of a pencil, snarled out of the side of his mouth at Myrn, and tripped on a loose cobblestone.

  “Watch your step,” Myrn called, pleasantly.

  The policeman regained his balance and turned to face forward, once more, glaring at the watching Pfantasians, daring them even to smile at his near pratfall.

  They came to a low, moss-covered stone building with a low-pitched roof half caved-in, and reeking, even from a distance, of stale beer, old tobacco smoke, and long-unwashed bodies, among other unpleasant things. A faded sign over the entrance had originally said Constabulary, in large, gilt letters but now it read ONSTABULA, the C and the RY having long ago lost their grip and fallen away. In its narrow doorway, watching them approach, stood a hollow-cheeked, mean-looking little man wearing a dusty cocked hat sporting a broken and greasy cockade. His rusty black uniform coat was decorated with tarnished brass braid loops and swirls that hung from his epaulets by a few loose threads.

  He looked, Myrn thought, like a large, dirty, and starving starling deep in molt.

  “What have we here, what have we here, good fellows?” he chortled, strutting down to face the captive. “An out-of-town girl? Well, now, tell me all her crimes.”

  “I caught her sneaking along Main Level in broad daylight!” exclaimed the lead policeman quickly, so as to get for himself all the credit for the daring arrest. “‘Twas only a matter of minutes before she would’ve started talking to people, I’m certain. About to intentionally and with malicious forethought disturb the peace, you can be sure, Loo-tenant, sir!”

  “Oh, yes, I know her kind,” snarled the officer. “Drag her inside. I’ll examine her very carefully in private.”

  He turned on his heel to reenter the building, looking out of the corner of his eye to be sure the gathering crowd of Pfantasians saw how evilly important he was.

  “In ye go!” shouted Loudmouth. He felt brave
enough in front of his officer to shove Myrn from behind.

  The Apprentice Aquamancer stood like a rock.

  “I warned you, fellow! I don’t allow the likes of you to set even a little finger on my person. Ever! Draw back, filthy dog!”

  Something in her way with words caused the constable to do just what she demanded. He took several steps backward and was content just to look daggers at her.

  “We’ll tote you in like a sack of potatoes if you resist,” the leading policeman shouted. “Here, you men! Seize her by her hair and haul her before the Loo-tenant!”

  The other two constables exchanged doubtful glances—as if to say to each other “Why me?”—but, seeing their leader’s black scowl, they moved toward the angry Apprentice.

  “Well! No more Mistress Nicelady!” cried Myrn. “There!”

  Before either of the constables could reach her, the sky above their heads split wide open with a sharp bang. A torrent of very hot, soapy water cascaded over all three of the constables. They yowled in pain and shock and fell to their knees on the road, scrubbing the steaming suds into their eyes and spitting bubbles from their foul mouths.

  When they attempted to jump to their feet, now cursing with anger—and their eyes full of stinging soap—their feet slipped out from under them and they flipped over onto their backs. Being close to the edge of the level, they skidded right off the soap-slick pavement and tobogganed down the stair-road, rocketed across the wooden dock, and plunged into the lake.

  Somewhere, someone in the watching crowd laughed aloud in delight. It was immediately taken up by the throng, despite their struggles to remain sober faced.

  “Loo-tenant!” wailed the lead constable as he shot down the hill, arms flailing. “Help! Help! She’s fighting back!”

  Myrn made an easy gesture with both hands. The lieutenant, just reemerging from the Onstabula to find out what was the commotion, found himself flying up into the air, borne off atop an enormous soap bubble, its sides iridescent with gay rainbows as a belated sunbeam broke through the overcast.