Aeromancer

by Don Callander

  Aeromancer

  Don Callander

  Published by Mundania Press

  By Don Callander

  Pyromancer

  Aquamancer

  Geomancer

  Aeromancer

  Marbleheart

  The Reluctant Knight

  Dragon Companion

  Dragon Rescue

  Dragon Tempest

  Dragon Winter

  Warlock’s Bar & Grill

  Warlock’s All & Sundry

  Teddybear, Teddybear

  Cruise of the CSS Pocahontas

  Star Warrior

  Aeromancer

  Copyright © 1995, 2013 by Don Callander

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Cover Art © 2013 by Niki Browning

  eBook ISBN-13 978-1-59426-183-1

  Trade Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-59426-185-5

  First Mundania Edition • November 2013

  Published by:

  Mundania Press

  An Imprint of Celeritas Unlimited LLC

  6457 Glenway Ave., #109

  Cincinnati, OH 45211

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher, Mundania Press LLC, 6457 Glenway Avenue, #109, Cincinnati, Ohio 45211, books@mundania.com.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

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  Mundania Press LLC is a division of Celeritas Unlimited LLC

  Chief among those who give me their unqualified support, and quite a few very good suggestions, too, is Andrew Morgan Callander, my grandson.

  Andy loves a good fantasy. He’s thinking of writing some of his own, one of these days... when he’s not busy being a Boy Scout, learning to fence, doing very well in middle school, working (and playing) on his father’s computer, taking care of his cats... and looking forward to this, his very own book.

  —Don Callander May 1994 Pineedle Point Longwood, Florida

  “The profession of Aeromancer—skill in working spells by the virtues of air and other gases, as opposed, say, to an Aquamancer, who works magics using the powers of water in its several forms—has fallen into disrepute in recent centuries, mainly because of a renegade Wizard named Frigeon.

  “A new Air Adept, once the apprentice of the aforementioned Frigeon of Eternal Ice, has risen to Journeyman in recent years, accomplishing much to reestablish the good repute of the Craft of Aeromancy.

  “He is Cribblon of Farflung ...”

  —Myrn Manstar Brightglade of Flowring Isle Master Aquamancer An Examination of the Current Status of Wizardry

  “A Wizard’s work is never done, either!”

  —Flarman Flowerstalk

  before a Conventicle of Faerie Scholars

  Chapter One

  Little Lost Filly

  “The trouble with you Geomancers,” maintained Journeyman Aeromancer Cribblon of Farflung, flipping an eight-inch flapjack deftly into the air and catching it neatly again in Griddle, “is you want everything immutable, solid as the hills ... engraved in stone, as it were.”

  “Of course!” agreed Geomancer Litholt Stonebreaker of Wyvern Hills in the Serecomba Desert of Choin. “How else may one deal with history, geography, economics, politics, sociology, geology, and the other, younger branches of science—such as your own, my dear Cribblon?”

  “My own feeling, if I may say so, gracious lady,” put in Marbleheart Sea Otter, polishing off his third flapjack stack with thick, amber maple syrup and sweet Valley butter—some of which was still dripping from his long gray whiskers, “is that one can be too hard-set in one’s expectations. It’s a changeling and changeable world, I’ve observed.”

  Fire Wizard Douglas Brightglade sat on the edge of the firelight, his son Brand sprawling across one knee and Brand’s twin sister Brenda perched on the other, listening to his friends arguing amiably.

  His pretty wife, dark-haired Myrn Manstar Brightglade, merely listened and nodded her head when she agreed with a good point. She kept a sharp eye on the twins—in happy contemplation of their daughter and their son at this early-summer-evening picnic, the twins’ first ever—on the wide, gently sloping front lawn of Wizards’ High beside the ancient Fairy Well.

  In a World where you could expect high adventures and sudden disturbances to pop out of just about anywhere, Myrn was most content. Her own Examination for Advancement to full Mastery only lacked a suitable Journey in her Craft. Her Examination could be set as early as Midsummer’s Eve, yet a month and three weeks off.

  She’d wed her beloved Douglas, completed her studies of her Master’s books and demonstrations of Aquamancy atop the high Water Tower of Waterand Palace, and conceived, borne, and greatly enjoyed her twins, all in the space of three hectic years.

  Myrn was supremely happy just listening to the good-natured banter between the Journeyman Aeromancer and the Lady Geomancer while finishing the latest two pancakes from cast-iron Griddle nestling cozily in the embers.

  As for Flarman Flowerstalk—the famous Pyromancer—he appeared to be sound asleep, having recently devoured a round half-dozen flapjacks. His eyes were closed and his hands were clasped loosely over his ample tummy. He leaned comfortably against the ancient fìeldstone curbing of Fairy Well, only half-aware of the pleasant drone of conversation.

  The Sea Otter, Douglas’s Familiar, lay curled into a furry ball near the fire. Not far off the elder Pyromancer’s own Familiar, the tomcat Black Flame, solemnly instructed four of his youngest sons and daughters in the fine feline art of stalking fireflies.

  The glowing insects enjoyed the chase at least as much as the kittens.

  Black Flame’s wives, Pert and Party, rested contentedly on the still sun-warmed stone curbing of the ancient well, watching the Beginner’s Class in Stalking ... and purring compliments to each other on their latest litters.

  An errant breeze, called forth by the nighttime cooling of the eastward hills overlooking broad Valley of Dukedom, fanned the fire. Flarman stirred and sat half-erect. Marbleheart and the seven cats stood suddenly very still and turned their heads to listen to what the wind was sighing.

  Douglas caught Brand just as he was about to tumble to the grass and held him and his sister close while he turned his inner Wizard’s ear into the wind.

  Litholt and Cribblon paused in their banter.
>
  Myrn laughed in delight. “ ‘Tis my Master, come from Warm Seas for a bite of pancake picnic and cool Dukedom evening, I believe!”

  As they turned to look at each other in pleasured wonder, a darker part of the night swirled soundlessly against the stars and Augurian of Waterand suddenly appeared in the soft circle of firelight.

  “Welcome, Water Adept!” hailed Flarman, sitting straighter yet and beginning to rise.

  “Magister!” Douglas and Myrn called in unison.

  “Pfumph!” shouted young Brand, waving his arms delightedly.

  “Don’t get up, please,” begged the tall, spare Water Adept, smiling warmly at everyone but especially on his Apprentice. He bent to give her a kiss on the forehead, and then kissed the twins on their rosy cheeks, ignoring the traces of maple syrup still adhering there

  Brenda cooed sleepily, and smiled up at him. Brand gurgled in delight again.

  They made him comfortable against the well curbing next to his very best friend, Flarman. The cats came to pay their respects, along with the Sea Otter.

  Cribblon bowed and shook the Water Adept’s hand firmly, beaming with pleasure.

  And Litholt, as he sat beside her in the grass, kissed him quickly but firmly on the left cheek.

  “Everybody here?” Augurian asked, looking about himself and beaming happily at them all.

  “We can call for Wong, if you wish. He could be here by breakfast-time tomorrow, I’m sure,” Flarman told his friend.

  “No need, Fire Eater. Leave the poor old Choinese gentleman to his stone trees and tea plantations. Doing well, I do believe, even without our intervention, is the Emperor’s Foremost Magician?”

  “Right as spring rain!” agreed Flarman, sharing a pillow with his oldest friend. “We didn’t expect you just now, Waterman. But you’re always welcome... of that there’s no doubt. I even think our Air Adept might find a bit more batter in his bowl to make you some flapjacks—if you’re hungry.”

  Augurian made himself comfortable and agreed that he had come away from Waterand without breaking his fast, so Cribblon busied himself once more cooking the last of the pancakes.

  Marbleheart searched the night sky until he saw, as he’d expected, a silently circling smudge of gray-white, high overhead.

  “Ho! Ha! Come on down, Featherbrain,” he called, standing on his hind legs and waving both forepaws. “You could use some pancakes, too, I imagine!”

  Stormy Petrel, Augurian’s silent, shy Familiar, needed no further urging, and shortly both the bird and his Master were busy eating pancakes, which were delicious, light, and fluffy, as only an Air Adept can make them.

  “How now?” asked Flarman Flowerstalk when the newcomers had finished eating and settled back to enjoy the company, the cool night breeze, and the countless stars wheeling overhead.

  “Even a Wizard gets lonely,” admitted Augurian with a slow smile.

  Across the fire from him Stormy Petrel nodded emphatically.

  “I was looking into reports of several of old Frigeon’s lost enchantments,” the Water Adept continued. “We can discuss them in the morning, if you’ll lend me a bit of your hottest spelling, Firebrand.”

  “Serenit lose track of some of his enchantments?” asked Myrn, shaking her head.

  “He was banging them out so fast and so furious for a while there,” her Master explained, “that he kept almost no records at all. He now recalls them piecemeal. These spellings he remembered when he started to build a levee to control the spring flooding of the New River a few weeks ago.”

  “This has been going on and on,” Douglas observed. “Maybe we ought to make an audit with Serenit-that-was-Frigeon, to make sure we haven’t missed anyone.”

  “I’ve been doing just that,” admitted Flarman, nodding his head at his former Apprentice. “It’ll be several years yet before we get them all, I’m afraid.”

  “But I’m determined to get them all,” insisted Augurian. “As I need special help, be sure I’ll call on you, individually or as a group.”

  Flarman sighed and rested his head against the stone curbing.

  “Time to get some aspiring young Wizardlings into their cribs,” decided Myrn, rising reluctantly.

  “I’ll keep an eye on them until they’re full asleep,” Marbleheart offered.

  He and his young Master’s wife went off, each bearing a sleepy toddler, into the High cottage, heading for the double crib old Michael Wroughter had whipped together on almost no notice when the word had first spread of the births of twins to the popular young Brightglades.

  The older Wizards finally wended their sleepy ways off to their beds, leaving Douglas and Myrn, returned from bedding her twins, to quench the cooking fire (which Douglas did with a gentle word and a gesture of thanks) and pick up stray scraps of pancake to feed to the hens and their chicks in the morning.

  Despite many adventures together, a happy marriage, difficult studies, and the birth of their son and daughter, in many ways the young couple acted as if they had just met and first fallen in love.

  The low new moon was so romantic and the air so soft after the sharp nip of winter, and the stars so thunderously silent above all, they took advantage of the very late evening hour to sit on the edge of the lawn above Crooked Brook talking of absolutely nothing important at all.

  As the young Fire Adept rose at last to suggest bed, his wife placed her hand on his sleeve. Following her gaze he sensed rather than saw, at first, a large and darkling figure moving along River Road on the far side of the Brook.

  “Dwarf?” wondered Myrn. “Goblin, perhaps?”

  “Neither Goblin nor Hobgoblin, I’m sure,” murmured her husband. “It came from Precious’s house. Yes, I see ... it is Precious ... and someone else. A pony, perhaps?”

  The confusion wrought by the thin moonlight and deep shadows under the apple trees was resolved when the figures stepped onto the loose planks of Old Bridge and the young Wizards could hear the sounds of a pair of heavy farm-boots and four dainty hooves drumming on the wood.

  “Who’ve you got there, Grandfather?” Douglas called, in case the old farmer couldn’t make them out in the dappled moonlight by the old Fairy Well.

  “Ah! Douglas!” called Precious. “A friend, I deem! Someone come to ask for your assistance, I suspect.”

  “At this time of night?” yawned Myrn. “I’m sorry! I didn’t intend to be rude but it’s well after midnight and I’m very sleepy.”

  “Sleepy comes easy with twin babies,” chuckled the orchardman.

  Now that they were closer, Douglas and Myrn saw more clearly who it was accompanied Precious—a small, dark gray horse dappled with paler patches.

  “This is ... ?” asked Douglas when Precious and his companion drew up before them.

  “Drat ‘f I know, Wizard!” laughed the orchardman with a shrug. “Came to the barn over to our place long after I’d fed the stock. To stay the night with my old Jennifer, I guess. I heard them two whinnying and snuffling up a storm a few moments back and went out to see was someone hurting or affrighted.”

  “And it was this adorable little pony?” cried Myrn, charmed by the perfect tininess of the animal. “Hello, my darling! Welcome to Valley and to Wizards’ High!”

  “Thing is,” Precious went on, speaking softly as he might of someone with a serious illness. “Thing is she can’t—or won’t—talk! Nary a word out of her mouth since I found her in the stalls with Jennifer and her Roland. Tame enough, and intelligent, I daresay, but not a word out of her.”

  Myrn approached the filly carefully, so as not to startle her, and stroked her neck, running her hands through her long, soft mane, and clucking consolingly to her all the while.

  “Not a wild horse, I’d say,” guessed Douglas. “Or she’d not come so close to be petted, not even by Myrn. Shod, too, I see. And her coat’s quite smooth and hardly damaged by rough travel.”

  “She’s not of Valley,” Precious said firmly. “I know every stallion, mare, colt, filly,
mule, and donkey in three days’ ride of here. Stranger, she certainly is.”

  “Not really a wild pony, by the looks of her,” agreed Myrn thoughtfully.

  She stroked the horse’s forelock and smoothed down her silky flank. “Not really a pony at all. A youngish girl-horse, I’d guess. She’s not quite full grown, still very young, don’t you think, Precious? She hasn’t the too-long legs of a foal.”

  Precious leaned thoughtfully against the well curbing and examined the creature in the light of the moon, which was now slipping fast down toward the western horizon.

  “A very young lass, but a filly, for a’ that,” he agreed. “But from whence d’you think she’s come?”

  “We can ask Captain Possumtail or Squire Frenstil later in the morning,” decided Douglas, yawning. “They know more about horses than I or my Sea-sailor lady, I think.”

  He let the tiny horse, which stood at her shoulder only as high as his chest, sniff his right palm and wrist.

  “Come with us, pretty horseling!” he urged her gently. “We’ve a warm, dry byre with six lady cows and two new calves to keep you company. In the bright of morning, perhaps we can find where you hail from—and why you’ve come here.”

  The tiny beast sniffed at his hand again and nodded her immediate assent.

  Observed Myrn, falling in on the other side of the animal, “She shows clear signs of good breeding. Coming up to the High with us, Precious?”

  “No, Mistress Myrn, me dearest! Must return to me good-wife, Lilac. Left her sound asleep abed and if she wakens, it might startle her to find me gone and no sign of me in barn or milk shed, although dawn’s only a few hours away.”

  He bade them a fond good night... “Or what’s left of it!” ... and turned back down the sloping lawn toward Old Bridge.