“Then I’d trap rabbits and squirrels and forage for tubers.”
“Not if you lived in a city like Tyford or Brendinas,” said Nûd. “With a lot more gold around, city people couldn’t afford to feed themselves.”
“So they’d have to move to the country,” said Eynon. “I don’t know if I’d like a lot of city people moving to the Coombe.”
“If we don’t give King Dârio any gold,” said Nûd, “you can avoid that problem.”
“I think I understand now,” said Eynon. “Though if the city people were willing to move farther west and settle in the Borderlands, that would work, too. They’d just have to build stockades to protect themselves from raids from the southern Clan Lands.”
Nûd rubbed a spot above his eyes.
“I think my head hurts.”
“Mine, too,” said Eynon.
He checked the fifty gold-dust collection cylinders again. They were all concentrating gold effectively and doing so much faster than before. Perhaps there was something about having them in rows that churned up more flecks of the precious metal from the mud of the riverbed. The two young men stood quietly, watching the water flow and the cylinders turn for a few minutes. Already, a sizable collection of gold dust had settled into each cylinder. Eynon shaded his eyes against the early morning sun and spoke. His words came out as puffs of warmth in the cold air.
“Why do you stay in Melyncárreg working for Damon? It must be boring without anyone close to your own age around. And Damon’s not exactly cheerful company.”
“I’ve asked myself that question more times than there are stars in the sky,” said Nûd. “The simple answer is Damon and my mother both said it wasn’t safe for me to leave.”
Eynon nodded. “Is there a complicated answer?”
“All the rest of my answers are complicated,” Nûd replied. “I feel like I’m standing on top of one of the cliffs by the falls near the castle, waiting to grow wings so I can jump.”
“Have you ever considered learning how to be a wizard?” asked Eynon. “Your mother is very talented that way.”
“The one thing I know is that I don’t want to be a wizard,” said Nûd. His voice had grown louder and he began to pace up to the edge of the river and back, his crossbow swinging in his left hand.
“Is there something wrong with being a wizard?” Eynon asked.
“Of course not,” said Nûd. “But I don’t want to be one. I don’t want to turn out like Damon and my mother.”
“Grumpy?”
“Cynical. More concerned with political machinations than helping people.”
“That makes sense,” said Eynon. “I’d rather help people than worry about politics myself.”
He gave Nûd a sympathetic look when the big man’s pacing brought him back toward Eynon. Nûd didn’t seem happy, so Eynon tried to distract him.
“I understand that your servant act was partly put on for my benefit, but what do you do with your time in Melyncárreg when you’re not waiting on Damon’s every whim?”
“He’s not so bad,” said Nûd. “I spend a lot of time in the library.”
“If I were stuck in Melyncárreg I’d do the same. What do you like to read?”
“Histories. Philosophy. Law books. Travelers’ tales. Poems. Story collections. Even books of wise sayings, like Ealdamon’s Epigrams,” said Nûd. “And most of the atlases in the Map Room.”
“I envy you the opportunity,” said Eynon. “It sounds to me like you’re not so much waiting as preparing for something.”
“Maybe,” said Nûd. “But I wish I knew what. Turn around slowly.”
“Huh?” said Eynon.
He saw the concerned look on Nûd’s face and carefully rotated his body. A dozen wisents, including two calves and a massive shaggy bull, were making their way toward the section of riverbank where Eynon and Nûd were standing.
Wisents had notoriously bad eyesight, so they hadn’t noticed Rocky. They probably thought the wyvern was a large black rock. Humans were small and inconsequential. They could get out of the wisents’ way of their own accord or be pushed aside and trampled like so much sage grass.
There was still a gap of three spear-lengths between them and the tiny herd. Nûd raised his crossbow, then lowered it and put his hand on Eynon’s shoulder.
“Does the wizard have any ideas?” Nûd asked.
“Scream loud enough to wake Rocky?” offered Eynon.
“That might make them stampede.”
“Fly above them?” asked Eynon.
“Good answer,” said Nûd. He put on his own pack, attached the crossbow with a strap, and tossed the extra quarrels into his hood. Then he removed Eynon’s flying disk from the back of the young wizard’s pack and handed it over.
“I’ll put that on,” said Eynon, indicating his pack. Nûd held the pack up and Eynon slipped his arms into the straps. He put the flying disk on the ground, stepped on it, and beckoned Nûd to stand behind him. Eynon directed the disk to rise, keeping his movements slow and controlled so they didn’t frighten the wisents. They soon had enough altitude for the shaggy horned bovines to pass below them.
“I may have forgotten to tell you that this stretch of bank is also a ford,” said Nûd. “The river is shallow here, which makes it a good place to pan for gold and for wildlife to get across.”
“That’s a major oversight,” said Eynon.
The cows and calves had reached the water. Their quiet grunts and snorts as they drank didn’t disturb the peaceful riverbank. Then the bull came up and drank while two of the cows watched for predators. Eynon realized the entire herd was about to cross the river at the exact spot where he’d positioned all his gold-collection cylinders. He could move the cylinders, but that would set his schedule back.
It was time to try something creative. One of the cows was about to step into the river and begin to cross. Eynon used the subtle control of the blue magestone around his neck to form a wide, stiff sheet of transparent solidified sound beneath the cow’s feet. He added power from his red magestone and extended the sheet until it covered the entire river, gently arching a few feet over the tops of the cylinders.
The wisents proceed across without further incident. Eynon watched them amble up the far bank and enter the forest, unperturbed by their encounter with wizardry. He dispelled the sheet of solidified sound.
“Nicely done,” said Nûd.
Eynon smiled and gave a small bow, which caused his flying disk to tip precariously. He’d have to remember not to do that again.
When they got back to Chee and Rocky, the raconette opened one eye and nodded at Eynon before going back to sleep. Rocky had napped through it all.
Nûd and Eynon watched as a family of mule deer stopped to drink from the river. They didn’t try to cross and left quickly, with nervous glances at the humans and the large black rock sleeping in the sunlight, making rumbling noises. A fox nosed its head around a boulder, inspected the scene, and left without getting a drink.
Eynon was growing hungry, so he opened the basket to see what his family had packed for them to eat. He hoped most of the contents had been prepared by his mother and father rather than his sister. Braith had many talents, but cooking wasn’t one of them. If Nûd had lived on his own cooking for years, Braith might still be a good match for his friend in a few years. Maybe Eynon could teach Nûd what he’d never been able to teach his sister about the culinary arts.
As soon as he pulled back the cloth covering the basket, Chee was chittering on his shoulder.
“You got a whole bag of dried cherries from my mother and took a bag of dried plums from the castle’s kitchen,” said Eynon. “Wait your turn and let the humans eat first.”
Nûd and Eynon leaned against the rock supporting the basket and ate the smoked sausage and cheese and small loaves of dark bread Eynon’s family had provided. It was simple fare, but filling. Chee managed to beg morsels from both of them.
“How long have the cylinders been running?” Nûd asked whe
n they had finished their snack.
“Only half an hour,” said Eynon. “It’s probably time to check them again. I’ll need to bring one ashore to confirm it’s really as full of gold as it looks.”
“Damon creates lenses from solidified sound so things farther away look closer and little things look larger,” said Nûd. “That might save you time.”
Eynon loved making lenses. He experimented for a few minutes but couldn’t make them augment his vision.
“I think Damon might have created them in pairs,” added Nûd. “Two for each eye.”
“That might help,” said Eynon.
When he tried that option he felt his blue magestone pulse in approval. Instead of two lenses, he got four, as Nûd had specified. Now he could see wisents nibbling on new green grass near the forest on the far side of the river. Fercha must have saved a lot of valuable magic in her magestone. He lifted one of the cylinders in the middle of the river and zoomed in on its collection chamber. It was indeed full of gold dust.
“What do you see?” asked Nûd.
Eynon reached out to the blue magestone and generated another pair of double lenses for Nûd.
“Look for yourself,” said Eynon.
“Thank you, I love it,” said the big man. “Damon never shared his far-eyes spell with me. Time to bring the cylinders in?”
“I think so,” said Eynon.
He heard stones clattering behind him and turned to see a huge animal that looked like a cross between a deer and a wisent making its way down to drink from the river.
“What. Is. That?” Eynon whispered.
“A flathorn,” said Nûd. “Don’t startle it. They can be worse than wisents when they’re frightened.”
Eynon saw that the big animal’s antlers were indeed flat, not round and pointed like the deer back in the Coombe or the local pronghorns. They made its great head look even bigger.
“They’re antlers, not horns,” Eynon protested.
“Don’t blame me,” said Nûd. “Damon and his wife named the animals and plants near Melyncárreg before I was born.”
“Damon was married?”
“Was married, is married, I don’t know. He doesn’t like to talk about it.”
“It’s certainly hard to get information out of him when he doesn’t want to give it,” agreed Eynon.
Nûd stood up when he finished eating. He removed two of the pillowcases from Rocky’s back and put one inside the other. Eynon tilted his head while his companion was at work.
“I’m making the bags double-strong,” said Nûd. “Gold dust is heavy—and I don’t want any to escape when we fly back to the castle to melt it.”
“Why do we have to fly back to the castle for that?” asked Eynon. “I can melt and form it with magic.”
“I guess you can at that,” said Nûd. “I still haven’t cleaned the gold off the ceiling and floor of the artifact studio.”
“I’ll help you with that,” said Eynon.
“Don’t bother,” said Nûd. “Once we leave, I don’t think I’m coming back here again.”
“Oh,” said Eynon. He knew he would—there were so many books he wanted to read in the library.
“Does that mean I won’t need these pillowcases?” asked Nûd.
“It does. I can dump gold dust from the cylinders directly into spheres of solidified sound for heating.”
“Why can’t you just transform the cylinders into spheres?”
“Maybe I can,” said Eynon.
He lifted one cylinder out of the water and brought it over to float in the air in front of them. Then Eynon made the cylinder shorter, closed its ends, and spun it into a large sphere, adding heat as he did. He moved his hands together like he was squeezing a ball and the sphere got smaller and even hotter. The gold dust inside melted together and puddled in the bottom of the sphere. Eynon spun the sphere around and pushed one of his palms toward the other. The upper and lower parts of the sphere met in the center, turning it into a small ring.
Eynon inhaled and his magestones’ wizardry chilled and solidified the molten metal. He dispelled the solidified sound construct and caught the gold ring before it could fall. It was about three fingers across and as wide as an arrow shaft in cross section. Eynon hefted it and tossed it to Nûd.
“What do you think it weighs?” asked Eynon.
“A bit over a pound,” replied Nûd.
“Perfect. I think I can have my magestones do the work to repeat the process.”
Eynon instructed his magestones to make forty-nine more rings from the gold dust in the remaining cylinders. While they were heating, spinning and cooling, Chee made the same gestures Eynon had made. The raconette was pretending that he was a wizard. Eynon and Nûd didn’t laugh, but they did grin at each other when Chee couldn’t see them.
As the rings formed, Nûd suggested putting them in the pillowcases and tying them to various bony protrusions on Rocky’s back.
“At least they’ll be good for something,” he said.
“And we don’t want to advertise we’re carrying fifty pounds of gold,” noted Eynon. “Though lumpy pillowcases might make people wonder what’s in them.”
“We’re two humans—one a young wizard with a red magestone—riding on a wyvern,” said Nûd. “Anyone seeing us won’t be wondering about lumpy pillowcases.”
“Right,” said Eynon. “At least it hasn’t taken us long.”
When the last few rings were finished and bagged, Eynon and Nûd approached Rocky. Chee clambered up the wyvern’s neck and began to dance on his scaly head. Rocky stretched, raising Chee four or five feet higher, then yawned, revealing an impressive collection of long, sharp teeth.
Eynon made Rocky a tasty ball of solidified sound to lick while Nûd anchored pillowcases filled with gold rings around the wyvern’s back. He tried to make sure the extra weight was balanced.
A minute later, they were all flying back to the castle.
“Where’s the gate to Brendinas?” asked Eynon.
“There are two of them,” Nûd replied. “One on the second floor of the castle and one in Damon’s tower, but they won’t do us any good.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know how to open them,” said Nûd.
“And I’m not interested in trying to cram Rocky back into the pantry to use the gate to Taffaern’s inn,” said Eynon. “It looks like we’re going back to Fercha’s tower.”
“Do we have to?” asked Nûd. “She has an animated broom and dustpan that frightened me when I was small.”
“I’ll protect you,” said Eynon. “I think they’re cute—and useful.”
“If you insist,” said Nûd.
Eynon brought Rocky in for a landing near the four blue-and-white striped pillars outside the castle marking the gate to the Blue Spiral Tower.
“Blast!” said Eynon as he was about to trigger the gate. “I forgot to contact Merry!”
Chapter 12
Damon and Merry
Merry couldn’t breathe after she entered a gate from the second floor of the castle in Melyncárreg to Brendinas. She’d been standing next to Damon somewhere in the castle, leaning against an Athican-style fresco of cavorting nymphs and small winged-horses. A moment later, a cloud of heavy fog enveloped her head. She couldn’t see and started waving her arms. After a few seconds of asphyxiation, Damon noticed her gyrations.
“Stop that,” the old wizard commanded. “Up!”
The fog-cloud thing rotated once around Merry, mussing her hair before it rose to float just below the whitewashed ceiling covered in hundreds of multicolored arcane symbols. The young woman inhaled deeply several times, glaring at Damon when she had more confidence she’d survive.
“What was that?” asked Merry once she could speak again.
“A servant to keep my rooms tidy,” said Damon. “It’s not alive but it has a tiny fleck of magestone to animate it and is very protective.”
“It caught me by surprise or I would have blaste
d it with a fireball.”
“A transparent sphere of solidified sound around your head might be more effective,” said Damon.
“Only if you’d warned me so I could put it in place before I stepped through your gate,” protested Merry.
“Sorry. I forgot the little thing even existed. It’s so good at dusting with blasts of air that I didn’t remember how it reacted to strangers. And it’s been two decades. Usually I’m the only one here.”
“Right,” said Merry, feeling—rightly—that Damon wasn’t too pleased to have her tagging along. She thought about tying the old mage up in the bottom of a coracle and stranding him in the marshes along the Rhuthro when the midges were swarming. Merry smiled at Damon and the old mage turned away, as if he could sense what she was thinking. Then he changed the subject.
“I used to have an animated broom and a congruency dustpan, but had to replace them with the fog-cloud.”
“I think I saw them in Fercha’s tower,” said Merry.
“No, those weren’t mine,” said Damon. “At least the broom wasn’t. She kept the dustpan and made a new broom for herself. I sold mine to a farmer who needed help with irrigation.”
“Why did you get rid of yours?” asked Merry.
“I gave it arms and taught it how to carry water for my bath,” said Damon. “But things got out of hand.”
Merry laughed, imagining an overflowing tub and a broom that wouldn’t stop dumping buckets. Then she thought about it more.
“Why didn’t you just open a congruency to a hot spring to get warm water?”
“I was trying to impress a woman,” said Damon.
Merry put a hand over her mouth to hide a grin.
“What?” asked Damon. “I was young and foolish. Not much older than you are.”
“Did it work?” asked Merry. “You must have been close to her if you were bathing together.”
“Oh no, it wasn’t like that,” said Damon. “She was a wizard, too, and I wanted to show off. I was teaching her in secret and wanted to demonstrate how to animate objects. We didn’t fall in love until later.”
“I see,” said Merry.
Wheels were spinning in her head. She tried to imagine Damon at Eynon’s age and was only partly successful, but she resolved to draw the old mage out over time and learn more of the story. For now, she looked around the place they’d gated into.
The Congruent Wizard (The Congruent Mage Series Book 2) Page 8