Will’s eyes bugged out. Mister Mittens? Had the goddamn cat heard her call him that? He looked Sammy up and down, but he saw no signs of scratches or bloody wounds. Then he looked back at the cat and realized what had been bothering him subconsciously.
Someone had tied a neat little pink bow in the goddamn cat’s hair, centered between his ears—and it was adorable. Using the crutch, he shuffled out of the bedroom as quickly as he could, giving Sammy weird looks the entire way. Once they were in the front room, he confronted her. “Did you do that to him?” he said in a worried half-whisper.
“Do what?” she asked innocently. “I made him the bed on top of the bed, and I brushed him out,” she admitted. “From what I could see someone hasn’t been taking very good care of their cat.” She gave Will a look of disapproval.
His jaw dropped. “My cat? Are you insane? He’s nobody’s cat. He’s a goddamn demigod! Did he let you put that thing in his hair?”
She smiled. “It wasn’t easy, but he was sleeping and Aunt Erisa always tells me that I have very clever fingers. I tied it by hand.”
“He’s liable to murder us all if he finds out!” exclaimed Will.
“Stop exaggerating. Mister Mittens has been a perfect gentleman since you left. I never knew how much I liked cats until you brought him to visit.” She paused, then added, “How did he get hurt, by the way?”
“I was riding him through Hell and some demons shot at us with these weird magic crossbows,” said Will dryly.
“Be serious, Will!” she demanded angrily. “Someone deliberately hurt that cat, didn’t they?”
“I’m fairly certain that’s what I just told you.” They were both distracted then, when the goddamn cat slipped through the open door and walked between them. Will stifled a laugh when he saw the bow again. Damn, that’s cute.
Sammy knelt. “Mister Mittens! You shouldn’t be walking around. You need to rest so you can heal,” she remonstrated the cat gently. “What’s this?” She began feeling around in the fur on the cat’s chest. “I can’t find the scabs.”
“He heals quickly,” said Will, amazed that the Cath Bawlg seemed to be letting his cousin touch him without complaint.
“Nothing heals that quickly,” argued Sammy.
Erisa stepped into the room. “This cat does.” She glanced at Will. “Are you still determined to leave?”
He nodded.
Sammy was immediately up in arms. “You just got here! And you haven’t cooked anything!”
“Is that all you care about?” asked Erisa.
Will laughed. “I promise I’ll come back as soon as I can, and I’ll cook something special for everybody.”
Sammy hugged him and then stepped back. “Be sure to bring Selene next time. I’m sure your wife must be desperate for my advice on how to handle you.”
The words brought a quiet stab of pain, but he laughed politely, wishing he could do exactly that. “I’ll tell her. She definitely wants to visit.” His mother hugged him then, and after a long exchange of ‘good-byes’ and ‘be carefuls,’ he and the cat escaped back into the Glenwood. Will hobbled along on his crutches while the cat walked beside him.
Will waited until they were a good distance from the house before he asked, “Mister Mittens, huh?” The goddamn cat declined to respond. Will wondered if the demigod realized there was a ribbon tied in his hair. Had he played along, or was he oblivious? In the end Will decided it wasn’t worth risking his life to ask.
When they were almost to the congruence that led to the Shadowlands, the Cath Bawlg resumed his larger form. Will was pleased to note that the bow wasn’t dislodged during the transformation. It was killing him to keep from sniggering.
Casting the climb spell on himself, Will painfully crawled up the beast’s side and back until he was once again centrally positioned and well affixed. “Hang on,” cautioned the goddamn cat, and then they were flying through the forest. The constant jarring sent a continuous stream of painful impulses up Will’s leg, causing him to grunt and moan whether he wanted to or not.
A leap into the dark shadows beneath a particular set of trees, and Will found himself once again within the strange, twisting Shadowlands. It didn’t improve the pain in his leg, but the wound did distract him from the headache caused by the strange dimension’s weird geometry.
Chapter 32
The goddamn cat left him at the outskirts of Cerria. Will was grateful to end the torturous ride, but now he faced a less painful, but much longer walk through the city. He watched the cat walk away, aloof as always, never looking back—and still with a pink bow tied between his ears. He smirked as the demigod left. “Even the darkest day has something to chuckle about,” he told himself.
He summoned the crutches from within the limnthal and set off down the road. The sun was about to set, which meant he was getting close to the twenty-four-hour mark for when his friends had been injured. His goal was to have the potions to give to them before hitting forty-eight hours.
Will had no good way to judge what his true time limit might be, but sooner was safer. He also worried about the time the potions would take to produce. Last time he’d had only a quarter as much troll urine, and he’d managed to make seven potions. This time he could potentially make several times that many, but he would need to restrict the size of the batch he worked with, otherwise it would take far too long.
The first stage of the process involved boiling down the urine to fully sterilize it, but boiling a hundred gallons of urine took a lot longer than boiling twenty or thirty gallons, and that was without considering the fact that he would have to work in smaller portions because he didn’t have vessels large enough for such amounts.
He thought about it as he walked and decided he would scale his production to half of what he had done the year before and try to produce four potions. “One for Janice, one for Tiny, and one for this gimp leg,” he muttered. That would leave only one to spare for an emergency, but he could make three more similar sized batches later.
It had taken him three days to make the regeneration potions last year, but that had been partly because he’d had other things to do as well. If he kept the batch small and stayed throughout the process, starting the second and third stages as soon as they were ready, he thought he could finish in about twelve hours.
Will was halfway through the city when the sun sank fully below the horizon and the street lighters began to light the lamps. Other than those vital workers, he saw no one else outside, which was unusual. Like most places, Cerria’s activity died when the sun was gone, but there was usually some traffic. The odd carriage, a few late-night workers, and the inevitable foot traffic back and forth to the public houses.
Tonight, there was none of that. The city seemed deserted.
Nervous, Will checked his prepared spells and adjusted them accordingly, one illumination spell, one wind-wall, and a chameleon spell. The light between streetlamps dwindled as the sky lost the glow of dusk, but that wasn’t a problem for him. He might have considered using the chameleon spell and sneaking the rest of the way back to Wurthaven, but his leg made that impractical. He had to move slowly and smoothly for that sort of thing, and there was nothing smooth about his hobbling gait presently.
Plus, he didn’t want to waste the time.
Fatigue sat heavy on his shoulders. “I guess being passed out drunk for four or five hours in a troll village isn’t a substitute for sleep,” he muttered sarcastically to himself. “I’ll have to be extra careful at the Alchemy building, or I’ll make a stupid mistake and ruin the whole thing.”
He turned a corner and found himself twenty feet away from a group of men, City Watch by the look of them. “Hold!” one of them shouted.
Damn it, he thought, but he stopped. There were six men in the patrol, an uncommonly large size. Normally the watch patrolled in twos. Then he noticed one of the men was a sorcerer.
The sorcerer stepped forward. “You’ll have to come with us.”
“Why
?” demanded Will. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Defying the curfew,” said the officer.
“What curfew?”
“The decree was announced at midday and read out for everyone to hear,” said the sorcerer.
Will sighed. “I got back at sundown. How was I to know? Just let me be on my way and I’ll be off the street as soon as I get home.”
“You can talk to the magistrate about that—in the morning,” said the sorcerer, a malicious grin on his lips. Will knew his type, men who exulted in having the opportunity to exercise power over others.
Then again, maybe he was just biased, but either way, he couldn’t afford to spend the night in jail. He wished he had prepared a sleep spell, but he had been more worried about vampires than watchmen. He was tempted to try the ‘do you know who I am?’ trick, but as bedraggled as he was there was virtually no chance anyone would believe he was the king’s son-in-law.
He smiled. “I’ll be happy to cooperate—” but he wasn’t. Before the sentence was finished, he released the wind-wall spell, though he did so without putting much power into it. He wasn’t trying to murder anyone.
The air whipped up, and chaos ensued as the men were knocked off their feet. Before they could recover, Will caught three of them with a source-link. The two regular watchmen he had caught were paralyzed, and then he focused on the sorcerer. It was a brief struggle, lasting no more than a couple of seconds, and then the man was disconnected from his source and paralyzed.
The other watchmen had regained their feet, and two were already swinging at him with their truncheons. Will blocked each swing in turn with a point-defense shield, leaving the men with strange looks on their faces as they tried to figure out why their blows weren’t connecting.
Things were looking rather desperate, though. The sorcerer’s fire elemental had manifested and was now swelling up to full size. He still had three men to deal with, and if he was going to release the source-links on the three he had already stopped, he would have to either drain them or inject turyn to make them nauseous. He didn’t want to leave them helpless at night in a city filled with vampires, though, since he already had a good idea why the curfew had been created.
On the other hand, he had a bad leg and he wouldn’t be able to run away, nor could he keep blocking the watchmen’s attacks forever. Without having a sleep spell ready, he didn’t have a safe way to stop them without hurting them. He backed up until he felt the nearest building brush against his shoulders. He was cornered.
“Give it up,” said one of the men.
“Listen, I’m not coming with you and I’m running out of safe ways to end this without hurting you,” responded Will, trying to put as much sincerity as possible into his voice. Looking over the man’s shoulder, he saw the elemental was on the verge of throwing a massive fireball in his direction. That will probably set the building on fire and might kill these men, he realized.
The sorcerer was still conscious, and Will locked eyes with the man. “Call your elemental off or you won’t see the sunrise.” Since the man was unable to touch his source, Will wasn’t entirely sure if he could still communicate with the elemental, so he released the man’s throat muscles and vocal cords. “Tell the men to back off too,” ordered Will.
“Let him go,” said the sorcerer, his voice weak. Without conscious control of his breathing, it was difficult for the man to control the volume of his voice. Will corrected the problem quickly when he understood. The sorcerer repeated his order, and the watchmen stepped back. “You won’t get far,” he warned. “The Driven are out in force tonight. They’ll find you.”
“Good,” Will agreed. “They’re keeping the vampires in check, I hope.”
The sorcerer stared at him thoughtfully. “How do you know about that?”
“I’m the king’s son-in-law, William Cartwright. I know a lot more than most.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
Will winked at the man. “I do. Do you see an elemental with me?” The man said nothing, so Will continued, “And yet you’re lying on the ground, helpless. Have you heard of any other wizards who could manage that?”
“He’s lying!” sputtered one of the other men. “He’s dressed like a beggar.”
“The clothes I wear are none of your concern, patroller,” said Will, affecting a condescending tone. He quietly began constructing a sleep spell to replace the wind-wall he had used, but he didn’t intend to use it. He addressed the sorcerer, “I’ll need you and your squad to escort me the rest of the way. As you can see, my leg was injured, and it has put my mission in jeopardy.”
“Mission?”
Will had him. Taking a chance, he released the source-links, allowing the men to regain control of their bodies. “I’ve told you who I am, which has already violated the secrecy of my task. I can’t say any more.”
Getting to his feet, the sorcerer in charge stared at him suspiciously. “You expect me to believe anything that comes out of your mouth?”
“The way I see it, you’ve got two choices,” began Will, “either you escort me to my destination, or you try to stop me. If you try to stop me, I won’t pull my punches the second time around. Your men might manage to apprehend me, but you, sir, probably won’t be there to congratulate them. Finally, even if things go perfectly and you drag me in to the magistrate, I promise you’ll wind up tied to a flogging post for interfering with me.”
“Assuming you live to see the magistrate,” suggested the sorcerer, but his voice was more speculative than hostile.
“In that case the king will see you all hanged,” said Will confidently, lacing his words with an air of indomitable superiority. He kept his gaze fixed firmly on the sorcerer, giving the impression the others didn’t matter at all.
A tense silence ensued, then unexpectedly the sorcerer lowered his eyes. “As you wish, milord. We are yours to command.”
Will let out his breath slowly, trying to hide his relief and surprise. I didn’t really think that was going to work. Keeping his chin elevated, he asked, “What’s your name and rank?”
The sorcerer stiffened, coming to attention. “Lieutenant Dan Ramfeld, milord.
“I assume you’re not part of the City Watch.”
“Detached duty, from the King’s Special Service.”
Will narrowed his eyes. The Driven all had more than one elemental.
“I’m still in training, milord. His Majesty has every able man out on the streets tonight.”
He hadn’t seen anyone else on the street, but he could make some guesses in that regard. “Only the regular watch patrols are visible then,” he observed out loud. The Driven would be hidden.
“Yes, milord.”
“Sir is good enough for me, Lieutenant,” Will informed him. “My last official rank was ‘corporal’ and these days I’m just a royal-in-law. I don’t hold any titles.”
“Very good, sir. Where are we heading?”
“Just get me to the gates of Wurthaven. You can return here after that.” Lifting one crutch, he pointed in the direction he was going, then began to move. The men fell in around him. As they walked, he asked, “Tell me about last night. Something bad must have happened for His Majesty to have put a curfew in place.” Of course, he had been in the middle of his own struggle to survive, but he didn’t know what might have happened elsewhere in the city.
“Felt like the whole damn city went mad,” said one of the watch patrollers. A second later the man added a belated, “Sir.”
“I’ll tell it, Sims,” said the lieutenant. “Three homes were burned, and Father Latimer was found brutally murdered.”
Father Latimer was the high priest for the Church of the Holy Mother, the man who had performed Will’s own wedding ceremony. He could hardly believe his ears. “Was he?”
“All I know is hearsay,” admitted the officer. “But his body was cremated, on the spot, if that’s any clue for you.”
“And the homes?”
“
They wasn’t random,” said Dan. “One was the high priest’s house, but the other two belonged to high ranking nobles. Lord Tintabel’s home was ransacked and his family murdered before the house was set afire. And Lord Nerrow’s place was—”
“Excuse me, did you say Lord Nerrow?” Will’s heart had frozen in his chest.
“Yes sir, the baron, Mark Nerrow. His home was vandalized and set on fire. Apparently, he put up a fight first, though. It wasn’t the first attempt, so he was ready for them. Still, it didn’t keep them from burning the place down around his ears.”
Will felt as if he was walking through a tunnel, for the officer’s words sounded as though they were echoing from miles away. “Did his family…?”
“Oh, they was all fine, sir. Do you know them? I should have said that first. Apparently, he held them off for a while, then they retreated inside. He had some sort of fortified basement ready. The fiends couldn’t get to him. After the fire burned out, they all emerged safe and sound this morning.”
The heavy lump in his chest eased slightly. “Where are they now?”
“I dunno, sir. Wherever rich people go when their houses burn down, I suppose. They might be at the palace.”
That made sense to Will, though he wished he could have offered his own home to them. But he’d been too busy nearly being murdered himself, and then he’d spent the day traveling through Hell and drinking with trolls. My life is beyond weird, he thought. “Any idea why those people in particular were targeted?”
“Nothing official,” said the lieutenant. “But my personal theory is that the Prophet is trying to destroy our morale.”
“The Prophet? He’s in no position to start a war. He lost most of his army recently. It will take years before he can afford to antagonize Terabinia,” argued Will. If anything, Lognion was preparing to attack Darrow soon.
Scholar of Magic Page 32