Wizard's Goal

by Alan J. Garner

  The accommodation above the taproom proved equally drab and disgusting. A straw pallet rested on the floor in a corner of the windowless room, offset by a frail chair complementing a table upon which shone half a candle leaning in a chipped porcelain holder, its sputtering flame tugged by an unseen draught. The floorboards creaked dreadfully when boy and wizard entered the rustic lodging.

  "Friendly sort isn't he?” Garrich said of the landlord, collapsing on the lumpy mattress.

  "Olben's not so bad,” returned Maldoch, shutting the door and leaning his staff on the wall. “Be thankful he only thinks you're diseased. You'd be treated far worse if he knew you were a Goblin."

  The youth was discomfited by that certainty.

  "I'll return shortly,” the wizard abruptly announced.

  "Where are you going?” When Maldoch directed a blunt stare at Garrich from the doorway, the youth sighed. “Don't tell me—private business."

  "I'll bring supper back with me, boy. Don't expect a feast. Olben's good wife is not renowned for her cooking, or her lovemaking.” With that, Maldoch left the room.

  Garrich was proceeding to disrobe when the latch rattled and the door came ajar as the mage poked his head through. “Don't bother undressing. Keep your cloak fastened tight and the hood pulled up. I'm not expecting company, but it doesn't hurt to be overly cautious.” The wizard departed again.

  Garrich heaved a despondent sigh, his first sightseeing outing beyond Wivernbush a hugely dissatisfying non-event. “I'm an outcast and a prisoner,” he grumbled to the uncaring candle. “I only hope the rest of Anarica is an improvement on this."

  Maldoch found Olben tending bar, playing host to a pair of sullen and grimy sheepherders. “Drink up, lads,” encouraged the innkeeper, “for it's a long and dry road up north.” The roughnecks retired to the fireplace as the oldster approached the counter. “Ah, Sulca. Can I pour you a tankard of ale?"

  "You know very well I don't partake of alcohol,” declared the wizard, pulling up a shaky stool to sit on.

  "You can't blame an honest proprietor for trying. What can I do you for?"

  "I am in need of supplies.” Glancing doubtfully through the smudged windows at the darkening street outside, the old man supposed, “I don't imagine the trading post is open for business at this late hour."

  Olben smirked indulgently at his guest. “Actually, I own the general store now. Thorda Colrass sold the business to me last winter."

  "That's a shock. I thought the old tightwad would rot to death in that shop of his."

  "So did he, until his sister over in Karavere up and died. She left him half shares in a leaky hulk of a merchantman. Thorda always fancied living on the coast. Reckoned the sea air would be better for his rheumy bones. I ain't ever seen a man pack so fast in all my days. Still, I gave him a fair price."

  Maldoch nudged the innkeeper with a pointy elbow. “You screwed him to the wall, you mean."

  The chubby landlord chuckled heartily. “Let me just say that my neighbor's profit margin was not nearly as great as he would have liked. Pity the old buzzard was in too much of a hurry to haggle a better deal. Who could blame him? I sometimes think of selling up and moving on myself."

  "You'd miss the liveliness of the fair too much,” argued Maldoch. “Plus the girls."

  "I only collect rent that is due from those lovely city wenches when they lodge under my roof."

  "Just don't let your wife catch you getting paid by those comelier tenants."

  "The missus hasn't so far. Down to business then. What supplies are you after?"

  Maldoch relayed the innkeeper a list of his wants, a new cloak inclusive, which Olben duly wrote down, before pulling a jingling purse from his smock to give to the Midden's sole permanent resident. “Take what you need to cover expenses,” he instructed. “But I expect change."

  "Had I known you were carrying coinage, I'd have charged you for your room,” lamented Olben, hefting the pouch in his hand.

  "I warned you Olben, don't enter into any bargain lightly. Would you care for some more disparaging news? My bones are telling me that we're in for an uncommonly lengthy winter."

  Olben moaned. “And your weather nose?"

  "An unseasonably wet one."

  "You'll be the ruin of me, Sulca."

  "Barkeep! More ale, before we die of thirst."

  Olben scurried over to serve the surly sheepherders. When the innkeeper returned he complained in a quiet voice, “Foul-mouthed brutes. But their money is as good as anyone else's."

  "What's their tale?"

  "They're driving a mob of mostly sheep from Rolverton up to Orvanthe early to sell to the garrison. It seems the baron's soldiers have a hankering for mutton and a spot of goat's meat. I purchased a couple of ewes myself. Poor specimens really, but meat is meat and I beat them down on the price."

  "They look shifty,” the old man said of the herders.

  "I wouldn't trust them as far as I could spit,” agreed Olben. “Still, they're good enough payers and lord knows I need their coins. The upkeep on my two properties is crippling."

  "I can imagine,” muttered the wizard, looking about at his dingy surrounds.

  Olben poured himself a foaming mug of beer from a pitcher. “How's the weather forecasting business been of late?"

  The spellcaster shrugged. “The sun either shines or it doesn't. I fear we're in for the mother of all storms in a few years that'll blow in from the west like a hundred tornadoes. I advise you to stock up your storm cellar with provisions well before then, Olben."

  The innkeeper paled. “By the Maker you can be a sourpuss, but you've never once missed with your predictions."

  "What news of the realm? I've been stuck way down south in the Lower Wade these past weeks where yesterday's news arrives by courier a month late."

  Taking a sip of his beverage, Olben casually leaned on the bar. “Funny you should ask. I'm amazed you've not heard yet, but maybe that's unsurprising. I only learnt myself a few days ago, when a relieving sergeant on his way to the outpost at Serepar with his squad called in with the saddening news."

  "Oh, spit it out Olben!"

  "I'm getting to it, Sulca. There's no need for impatience. As I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted, Prince Jannus is dying."

  Maldoch snorted contemptuously. “That's old news. The old codger has been on his deathbed for years."

  "Ah, but the royal physicians themselves gave the Prince less than a week to live."

  "They've been saying that for the last decade too."

  "This time the pronouncement was purported to have been officially made by Presbyter Jhonra himself,” Olben proclaimed with satisfying smugness.

  "The Royal Advisor said that?” Maldoch stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Jhonra's a man of unimpeachable integrity. He would never publicly issue a statement of such severity unless it was fact.” The oldster's brows knitted. “If what you say is true, then Jannus may already be dead."

  "Stands to reason. That particular company of soldiers rode through here less than a week ago. They were the soberest bunch of men I've had the displeasure of meeting. Not one of them drunk more than a thimbleful of grog."

  "A new Holbyant monarch will be sitting on the throne very soon,” mumbled the wizard.

  "Eh? Your habit of interrupting people is most annoying, Sulca.” A call from the kitchen at the back of the taproom prompted Olben to excuse himself from Maldoch's company. He returned bearing a tray with two plates and spoons, a half-loaf of dark brown bread, and a steaming bowl of watery soup. “Supper is served,” he proudly announced, setting the meal in front of the contemplative old timer. Taking a hearty whiff of the bowl's contents, the innkeeper smiled. “And may I say that my wife has outdone herself. This mutton broth smells positively delicious.” That was a matter of opinion, for in reality the soup exuded a foul reek. “It may even be edible,” added Olben.

  Maldoch remained submerged in deep thought, reasoning aloud. “According to royal protoc
ol, the body of the old prince lies in state for two weeks and the coronation of the new prince traditionally takes place fourteen days after that. That only gives me four weeks."

  "Eat up, Sulca,” urged Olben, “before it goes cold."

  The innkeeper's recommendation jolted the wizard back to the present. “Can you have my supplies ready by first light?” he requested.

  "I guess so. Why the urgency?"

  Beckoning for the landlord to lean close, Maldoch eagerly declared, “I have a month to reach Alberion, so we'll be leaving at the crack of dawn. I'm hankering to see our new prince crowned,” before disappearing upstairs with the tray.

  "I'll be darned,” exclaimed Olben, taking a swig from his tankard while considering the diviner's oddball behavior. “I'd never have taken Sulca for a royalist."

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter Seven

  "It's breathtaking!” murmured Garrich.

  "Spectacularly big, but unimpressive,” Maldoch said derogatorily of Alberion.

  "Does nothing excite you?"

  The wizard glibly answered, “I like wind. You can't beat a good gale. Shall we proceed?"

  The pair moved off from their vantage point overlooking the very heart of the Anarican principality. Stopping on a riverbank half a league west of the city for their midday luncheon, the break had given Garrich ample time to soak in the splendor of the largest city in all of Terrath on this unusually sunny autumn day. While the Midden was plainly a makeshift village and Haston merely a distant rural town, Alberion was unmistakably a full-blown city. The realm's glorious capital sat on the shores of Fisher Lake, its blue waters reflecting the sun's warming rays in a shimmering display of nature's beauty. Mesmerized, the youth gazed upon the city's multitude of spires and towers on the horizon, each clawing skywards into the cobalt where their individual pennants—many flying at half-mast to commiserate the old prince's death—flapped for attention in a blustery wind. Alberion was indeed a marvel to behold!

  Three and half weeks had elapsed since vacating Olben's establishment. On that morning the old spellcaster was particularly grumpy, his purse left considerably lighter after the innkeeper's crafty surcharge for disinfecting the room in light of Garrich's fictitious communicable disease. Maldoch initially headed along the Eastern Royal Roadway, but once out of sight of the settlement took Garrich off-road and, exchanging robes, struck out across the countryside in a southerly direction. When questioned by his wondering offsider over the wisdom of forsaking the speedier road in favor of a slower journey across the heath, the wizard retorted by saying the shortcut would negate any time lost through avoiding the highway and at the same time impart a measure of privacy to their travel. Traffic would steadily increase upon the thoroughfare leading to Anarica's crowning glory and unwanted gossip by busybodies concerning a mysterious hooded figure in the company of a robed wizened man was best averted. The oldster steered that course until they reached an easterly flowing river, which he revealed to be Ohnab Streaming. They paralleled the sluggishly meandering waterway, Maldoch explaining how the river eventually emptied into the lake Alberion majestically adjoined. The landscape subsequently underwent a gradual change from wild moors to sparsely populated farmland marked by untilled fields fenced by low stonewalls and hedgerows. Along the way they crossed grassy paddocks watered by irrigation ditches drawing from the broad river. Using the walls to mask their journeying, their passage elicited bleats of annoyance from flocks of grazing black-faced sheep.

  "We'll cut across country to arrive at the north gate just as dusk is falling,” decided the spellcaster, his pace slowing as they angled away from the watercourse. “It's better for you if we enter the capital under cover of night. That way unfriendly eyes won't be able to snoop as much in the darkness."

  "Do my people truly invoke such fear in Men?” asked Garrich, dreading yet knowing the answer.

  "Ignorance promotes hostility, my boy. A sad, but undeniable fact of life in all cultures, save perhaps the Trolls."

  "Aren't they just vicious, desert-dwelling brutes?"

  Maldoch smiled ruefully. “Thank you for proving that truism correct, Garrich."

  Late that afternoon saw the travelers lay low in an empty meadow awaiting nightfall, a hundred yards from the artery connecting the cornerstone of the monarchy with its satellites. Sitting quietly beside a hedge studying the tree-lined avenue of packed earth through a gap in the foliaged branches, Garrich threw back the hood of his tattered, but better fitting, second-hand robe Maldoch purchased from Olben, a puzzled look marring his youthful face. Enjoying the fresh breeze gusting from the south, his tousled raven hair untied and free, he quizzed Maldoch. “Why is the main road to the princedom's chief city unpaved?"

  "A case of simple geography."

  "I hate when you talk in riddles, old man."

  The wizard grinned from where he relaxed upon a grassed mound. “Alberion was founded by the first Prince of Men, Trant Coramm, back in the early 300's. Why the man chose such an out of the way locale for his newborn realm's capital lord only knows, but it is generally accepted he was swayed by the picturesque vista of Fisher Lake. Others do think, however, he settled on the lakeside to be near his mother presiding over neighboring Stranth Tor. Trant always was a mummy's boy.

  "Due to Alberion's placement off the main commerce routes, roadways connecting it to the rest of Anarica were oddly not given priority; an omission that remains unchanged to this day. It's sort of an island in the sea of civilization, if you like. In reality, Trant always valued his privacy and opted to live as secluded a life as his lofty station permitted. A tradition maintained by successive monarchs ever since.” Maldoch laughed ironically. “As if a nation's founder and ruler could really live in seclusion."

  "You speak as if you knew him personally,” observed Garrich.

  Maldoch answered with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “So I did.” He cast a faultfinding eye over the youth. “We really must do something about your hair. It's a dead giveaway."

  Garrich watched the oldster rummage through his comparably weathered satchel to fish out three small wooden bottles. “Is there anything you don't carry in that?” he snidely asked.

  "Only the kitchen washbasin. It doesn't fit.” Maldoch uncorked one of the bottles, revealing a red stained lip, and grumped, “Wrong one,” crossly banging the stopper back in. The wizard's second choice was more to his liking and he motioned for Garrich to kneel. “Don't face me, boy. Turn around. It's easier that way."

  Garrich cringed when the old man poured a yellowish goop on his head, massaging the ooze in to his scalp. “What are you doing?"

  "Changing your hair color to make you less conspicuous."

  "Can't you do that by magic?"

  An indignant snort derided the boy's proposal. “Spellcasting does not harness the energies of the universe for the betterment of hairdressers.” Maldoch coughed from embarrassment. “Besides, I haven't come across an incantation for tinting hair."

  Garrich squirmed beneath the wizard's rough touch. “So what color are you giving me?"

  "You're turning blonde. They are reputed to have more fun."

  "And this'll disguise me how?"

  "If by chance we get stopped in the streets, I'm going to pass you off as an Elf. At a quick glance in the dark your facial features look sort of Elvish and golden locks will add to that illusion."

  "You said back in Wivernbush that I was too short to be an Elf."

  "Then think tall."

  Making for the northern gate as twilight spread its dusky drapery across the land, Maldoch timed their entry to the city perfectly; as the day gatekeepers of the city watch gratefully relinquished their posts to nighttime replacements, boy and wizard shuffled by the preoccupied guards unnoticed in the gloom. Slipping through the trickle of late travelers exiting Alberion, Garrich drew in a nervous breath and followed Maldoch's lead, ducking into the concealing shadows of an alleyway close at hand to the city walls. At long last he was
in a city—not just any settlement, but the impressive municipality that happened to be the pearl of Anarica.

  Adjusting the youth's cowl, the spellcaster cautioned, “Speak to no-one. Walk quickly but naturally. We don't want to arouse suspicion from officers of the Prince's Constabulary."

  "Who are they?"

  "Civilian law enforcers. Largely harmless and ineffectual do-gooders, I'd rather not have them meddle in my affairs. Any delay is intolerable."

  Maldoch insisted that he shepherd them through the unseemly back streets of the capital in the name of secrecy, much to Garrich's dismay. The young Goblin's first real taste of city life proper then was scurrying down narrow, darkened alleys snaking between the untidy backsides of closed shops, warehouses, and eateries. Refuse littered these byways populated for the most part by outsized rats and the occasional tramp snoring loudly in the shelter of a doorway or dumpster. Obviously wending their way through the Poor Quarter of the city, Garrich registered the barefaced poverty evident with each lane traversed. The number of vagrants encountered multiplied the deeper they went into this district of Alberion. More often than not Garrich found himself stepping over a dozing hobo sprawled in the middle of an alley, the bottle of cheap wine that induced his drunken stupor clutched possessively in a grubby hand.

  Yanking on Maldoch's robe, Garrich broke the wizard's admonition for silence and asked, “Why are there so many poor?"

  The hurrying oldster did not even pause or break his stride when replying. “The homeless are a common problem in all cities, boy. Be quiet now."

  Walking steadily for an hour or more, turning this way and that through the maze of lanes and side streets, Garrich wound up thoroughly lost by the time Maldoch halted at the backdoor of a nondescript two-storied brick building. Tapping insistently on the timber door with the crown of his staff, the wizard waited impatiently. When no reply was forthcoming, he rapped again. This time the wooden portal came ajar and a sliver of welcoming yellow light brightened the dark alley. “Yes?” a woman's voice suspiciously enquired.