THE WIZARD HUNTERS

by Martha Wells

  “You mean it’s forgotten you?” Brows drawn together, Tremaine held it out to him again. “Try to use it while I’m holding it. Something simple.”

  Gerard rested his fingers lightly on the sphere, frowning in concentration. For a moment Tremaine thought nothing would happen. Then a swirl of illusory light drifted across the fine old carpet near the hearth, sparkling like fayre dust, making both the fire in the grate and the electric bulb in the lamp dim and shiver.

  Gerard let out his breath and released the sphere. The light vanished. “It still knows me but it apparently wants contact with you also.” He met her eyes, his face serious. “Tremaine, I hate to ask you this, but. . . it’s vital for the continuation of the experiment. We’re so close to success—”

  Tremaine looked around at the library, gesturing vaguely. She couldn’t afford to get involved in anything right now. “I’m sort of in the middle of something—”

  “—I know it’s dangerous, but if you could—”

  Dangerous. Tremaine stared at him. That’s perfect. She nodded. “Give me a few minutes to get dressed.”

  Chapter 2

  Isle of Storms, off the Southern Coast of the Symai

  “We’ll see you at the moonrise,” Ilias said, and thought, I hope.

  In the water below, Halian was balanced carefully on the bench of the dinghy, bobbing in the ripples that washed against the rocky wall of the sea cave. He was a big man, weathered by sun and sea, his long graying hair tied back in a simple knot; Ilias had never thought of him as old, but right now worry made Halian show his years. “Are you two sure you know what you’re doing?” he asked, handing up the coil of rope.

  Ilias chuckled, reaching down out of the crevice for it. “I’m never sure we know what we’re doing.” The jagged hole of the cave entrance lay only twenty paces or so beyond the bow of Halian’s little boat, allowing in wan morning light and the dense fog that lay like a wool blanket over the blue-gray water. The rock arched high enough to allow entrance to their ship the Swift, but the bottom was dangerous with submerged wrecks.

  Longer ago than Ilias or anybody else alive could remember, the back of the cave had been a harbor, part of an old empty city that wove through the caves, much of it underwater. But now the stone docks and breakwaters were obstructed with the wooden skeletons of wrecked ships, all jammed together in one rotting mass. The stink of decay hung in the cool dank air, concentrated in the fog that some wizard from ages ago had caused to form around the island. The sudden gales and bad currents that frequently trapped ships and drew them in to their deaths gave it the name the Isle of Storms.

  Halian didn’t appreciate the attempt to lighten the mood. “You know how I feel,” he said seriously, sitting down again in the boat as it rocked gently in the low waves.

  “It’ll be all right,” Ilias told him, exasperated. When Halian had brought this up to Giliead last night, it had caused one of those long polite arguments between them where both parties are actually on the same side and there is no hope of resolution. Ilias had no idea how it had worked itself out; he had gotten fed up and gone to sit out on the wall of the goat pen with the herdsmen.

  From the crevice above Ilias’s head, Giliead’s voice demanded, “What did he say?”

  Ilias stretched back to hand the rope up to him through the narrow passage. “He said we’re suicidal idiots.”

  “Tell him thanks for his support,” Giliead said, but the words didn’t have any sting to them. “And love to Mother.”

  Ilias leaned out again to relay this, but Halian rolled his eyes, saying, “I heard him, I heard him.” He took up the oars as Ilias freed the mooring line. His expression turning rueful, he added, “Just take care.”

  Ilias smiled. Halian had faith in them; he was just tired of funeral pyres. “We will.”

  Without looking back, Halian took two quick strokes toward the cave entrance, the little boat already starting to vanish into the fog. Ilias braced his feet on the slick rock and pushed himself up through the opening into the cramped passage above, finding handholds in the mossy chinks in the stones. Giliead was waiting there, sitting on his heels and digging through the supplies in their pack. The crevice stretched up into the rocky mass over their heads, disappearing into shadow when the dim gray light from the opening below gave out. “Ready?” Giliead asked, shaking his braids back and awkwardly maneuvering the pack’s strap over his head and shoulder. He was nearly a head taller than Ilias and the confined space was almost too small for him.

  “No,” Ilias told him brightly. The crevice was not only too small for Giliead, it was too small for the distance weapons they would have preferred to bring; bows and hunting spears would never fit through here. They both had their swords strapped to their backs, but drawing them in the confined space was impossible.

  Giliead’s warm smile flickered, then straight-faced he nodded firmly. “Me neither.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  The climb went faster than Ilias remembered, maybe because this time he knew it would end. Searching for a way out of the caverns last year, they had discovered this passage by accident, not knowing if it led to a way out or a dead end somewhere deep in the mountain’s heart. It was pitch-dark and the stone was slick with foul water that dripped continuously from above. After a time the sound of the waves washing against the cave walls below faded and the only noise was their breathing, the scrape of their boots against stone, and an occasional muttered curse due to a bumped head or abraded skin. It was hot too and nearly airless, and Ilias felt sweat plastering his shirt to his chest and back. Bad as it was, it was still easier going up than it had been last year going down.

  Giliead called a halt at what they judged was halfway up and Ilias wedged himself onto a shelf of rock invisible in the dark, bracing his feet against the opposite side of the crevice. Shoving the sticky hair off his forehead, he realized his queue was coming undone and he took a moment to tighten it and pull the rest of his hair back. After some struggling, he managed to unsling the waterskin and take a drink. He handed it up to where Giliead was shifting around, still trying to fold his larger body into a comfortable position, and slapped it against the other man’s leg to let him know it was there. When Giliead handed it back down, Ilias asked, “What did you and Halian finally decide last night?”

  “That I’m bullheaded and he’s worse.” There was rueful amusement in his voice. Since Halian had married Giliead’s mother five years ago, becoming his stepfather and the male head of the household, things between him and Giliead had occasionally been tense. There wouldn’t have been a problem if Giliead had still had his own household with his sister Irisa, but living under what was now Halian’s roof had caused some friction.

  “Bullheaded? I would have picked the other end.” Ilias was only a ward of the family, Giliead’s brother by courtesy rather than blood, and therefore able to remain stubbornly neutral. He had come to Gil’s house of Andrien as a child; his own house had been a poor one with far too many children to support, especially boys. He and Gil didn’t look much like blood brothers either, since Ilias’s ancestors had come from further inland, where people were smaller with lighter hair and skin, and Gil’s people came from the bigger, darker strain that had been planted here on the coast since before the first boat was built.

  Giliead snorted. Ilias could hear him shifting around uncomfortably again. Finally Giliead added, “He understands that I just want to be sure.”

  Ilias finished the unspoken thought hanging over both their heads. “That Ixion’s not back.” It was the first time either one of them had said it aloud, though Ilias knew they had both been thinking it since earlier this season when the rumors had started. Stories of smoke from the island again, of the bodies of curselings like those Ixion had bred washing up on isolated beaches. It wasn’t just talk, either; in the past few months fishing boats had gone missing far more often than they should, with no survivors and no signs of wreckage in any of the places where small boats usually came
to grief. Then a trading fleet of six ships from Argot had failed to arrive and two small coastal villages of gleaners had been found deserted, the huts burned and the boats broken into kindling. Nicanor, lawgiver of Cineth, and his wife, Visolela, had asked Giliead to return to the island to see if another wizard had taken Ixion’s place here.

  “He can’t be back,” Giliead pointed out reasonably. “I cut his head off. Nobody comes back from that.”

  Ilias remembered that part, in a hazy way. Lying across Giliead’s lap in the sinking gig, the water in the bottom red with blood, he had a clear picture of Ixion’s head under the rowing bench. They had never talked about that, either. “Dyani told me you threw it to the pigs.”

  “The pigs we eat?” Giliead sounded dubious.

  Ilias didn’t take the bait and after a moment his friend said quietly, “Three days after we got back I took it to the cave and the god told me to bury it at the place where the coast road met the road to Estri. That’s when you started to get better.”

  “Oh.” Ilias scratched the curse mark on his cheek. He remembered Giliead being gone then and everyone refusing to tell him why. Even after all this time, the memory of Ixion’s malice and power gave him a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. That the man could be dead and in at least two pieces and still be trying to hate him to death.

  As soon as Ilias’s fever had abated enough for him to get up, he had walked to Cineth to turn himself in and get the curse mark, the silver finger-width brand given to anyone who had been cursed by a wizard. Giliead had caught up with him halfway there and tried to stop him, but Ilias had refused to listen. He hadn’t meant to make himself a walking symbol of their failure but maybe it had turned out that way; it still seemed like something he had had to do, though Ilias couldn’t say why even to himself.

  He shook his head, trying to drive off the uncomfortable reflections. At least the curse mark had stopped Visolela from trying to convince the family to sell him off into marriage somewhere inland. “Crossroads, huh,” he said thoughtfully, keeping his tone light. “I guess the god figured the bastard’s shade would get confused and wander around in circles.”

  “Shades can’t cross running water anyway.”

  Ilias heard Giliead’s boots grate on the stone as he shifted, ready to start the climb again. Giliead hadn’t meant for Ilias to come with him this time. He had, in fact, invented a story about a dull trip along the coast to Ancyra, which would have been more convincing if Giliead wasn’t such a lousy liar. Cornered and forced to admit the truth, Giliead had still maintained adamantly that Ilias shouldn’t come with him. Ilias had spent the last few days countering arguments, calling bluffs, topping dire threats with even more dire threats, ignoring pleas, and foiling a last-ditch attempt at physical restraint by battering the bolt off the stillroom door. Everybody else had refused to take sides, fearing retribution once Giliead wasn’t around to protect them. Halian and Karima, Giliead’s mother, hadn’t interfered either, both knowing that the only thing more dangerous than going to the Isle of Storms was going to the Isle of Storms alone.

  That Giliead would go, with help or without it, had been certain; it wasn’t just that he had taken the duty of Chosen Vessel personally ever since he had first discovered what being one meant. Ranior, who had been his father before Giliead had been named a Vessel, had died from a wizard’s curse. It had been the first real curse that Giliead had ever faced and probably the first time he had started to blame himself for things he had no control over.

  Ilias took another drink from the waterskin, slung the strap back over his head and shoulder and pushed himself up to follow. “That’s rivers and streams that shades can’t cross, not seas.”

  “Seas don’t run?” Giliead countered.

  He had a point. Ilias thought for a moment, feeling for the next handhold. “They’re salty.” But as he leaned against the warm rock, he felt a vibration. He hesitated, pressing the side of his face against the stone. Somewhere, deep inside the mountain, something was thrumming. Like a giant heart beating fast in panic.

  “What would salt have to do with—”

  His throat suddenly dry, Ilias whispered tensely, “Gil, listen.”

  Giliead stopped. Ilias could sense him listening silently to the telltale vibrations in the stone. After a moment he answered softly, “I feel it.” He let his breath out in resignation. “I hate being right.”

  “I hate you being right too,” Ilias told him briskly, bracing his feet and feeling for the next handhold. At least they didn’t have to wonder about it anymore; knowing for certain was a relief. Though it sure cut all the joy out of the debate over the seaworthiness of shades. “And Halian thought he wouldn’t have anything to worry about the rest of the year except the drainage problem in the hay fields.”

  “Well, that’s a pretty serious drainage problem,” Giliead said, deadpan, as he resumed the climb. After a moment, he added, “It’s not him. It’s another wizard that came to take his place.”

  “I know.” Ixion alive had been bad enough. Ixion, dead, headless and really, really annoyed was unimaginably worse.

  After another long stretch of darkness and groping for hand- and footholds and occasional slips on the slimy rock, Ilias realized he could make out Giliead’s outline above him. Nearly there, he thought. Too bad this was the easy part.

  The gradual increase in light let their eyes adjust from the impenetrable darkness to the dim grayness of the upper cave, just visible through the cracks above. Giliead found an opening large enough for them to wriggle through and paused, listening intently, then cautiously edged upward to peer out. There was room for only one of them at a time and Ilias waited below, braced awkwardly, nerves tight with tension. Giliead’s heritage as the god’s Chosen Vessel made him proof against curses, but not Ixion’s curselings. If something had heard them climbing up through the cave wall, if it was waiting up there like a civet at a mousehole, all he would be able to do was pull Giliead’s body back down after it bit his head off.

  Giliead motioned that it was clear and climbed up through the crack. Breathing a little easier, Ilias followed, pulling himself out onto a ledge in the large cavern. The dim light came from above, through shafts and cracks that led up to the surface of the mountain. Conical columns of rock hung from the cave roof like icicles, hundreds of them, the light-colored ones glittering with myriad crystal reflections.

  It courted terrible luck to say “so far so good” so Ilias just knelt, dumping the coil of rope off his shoulder and unclasping the climbing hook from his belt. Giliead paced along the edge, looking for the best spot to go down. The cave was about four or five ship lengths across, the far side hard to see in the dim light. They knew it was just like this one, sloping down into the abyss, pocked by cracks and crevices, ledges and sheer faces of rock. They had no idea how deep the cavern was and personally, Ilias didn’t care to find out. The dank cold air drifted up out of it like a breeze from the netherworld, raising gooseflesh on his sweat-slickened skin. They would use the rope to go down the cliff to the inner passages’ entrance, about forty paces down this side.

  Ilias took a deep breath as he tied off the climbing hook. Except for the rush of wind through the shafts higher up, it was silent. Last time they had been able to hear the pounding of Ixion’s engines all through this part of the caves. “At least it’s quiet,” he said, keeping his voice low. He glanced up when Giliead didn’t answer. His friend was sitting on his heels near the edge, head cocked to listen, his brows drawn together in consternation. “What?” Ilias asked softly.

  Giliead glanced back urgently. “You hear that?”

  “The wind?” Except it was growing steadily louder. And it didn’t howl and moan like it should through the narrow rocky openings. It was more like ... a roar.

  Giliead came to his feet suddenly, staring toward the north side of the cavern, where it wound deeper into the mountain and the darkness was absolute. Something was moving there, something very, very big. Ilias’s breath
caught. “Not the wind.”

  It was already too late to get back down into the crevice. Giliead flung himself against the wall as Ilias rolled back to crouch against it. They both froze. The roar that sounded like rushing wind grew louder until it hammered off the stone walls and inside Ilias’s head. Heart pounding, he pressed hard against the rock.

  It came out of the darkness with a steady, inexorable motion, an unbelievably huge oblong shape, black as night.

  It was narrow at the front, but the middle swelled to take up almost half the cavern. It had to be walking on the cave floor, however far below that was, but its gait was smooth and impossibly even. Ilias couldn’t see anything that looked like an eye or worse yet, a mouth, but it wasn’t featureless; he could see pockmarks and the long ridges of ribs running horizontally through its body.

  Giliead’s thigh brushed against Ilias’s shoulder and he looked up, startled, to see his friend easing away from the wall. Ilias reached up to grab his belt. “Gil,” he whispered through gritted teeth.

  “I want a closer look.” Giliead mouthed the words, though surely the thing couldn’t hear their voices over its own hollow roar.

  “Are you crazy?” Ilias mouthed back, and tightened his grip.

  Giliead pressed his lips together in exasperation but didn’t force the issue.

  It was already moving past, the bulk of its middle part narrowing again at the rear. It had a jagged ridge along its back and a cluster of long sharp-edged fins where the tail should be. As its mass slowly vanished into the darkness at the other end of the cavern, Ilias let go of Giliead and they both eased to the edge to watch the slowly disappearing bulk. His voice hushed, Ilias said, “That’s . . . that’s . . .”

  Giliead drew a sharp breath. “Bad.”

  “Bad,” Ilias agreed. He leaned out, trying to see the creature’s legs. It was too dark in the bottom of the cavern to make them out. “You think it was here last time? Maybe in those tunnels we couldn’t get to from this side?” Like all wizards, Ixion had used his curses to make things. Live things. Distorted awful things that were always hungry. With Ixion dead, there was no way off the island for most of his curselings and the waterpeople tended to kill the ones that could swim.