The Staff of the Winds (The Wizard of South Corner Book 1)

by Meighan, William

  Four times in the past three years Yeva had received the same warning or premonition of a great upheaval. Little had been clear during these seeings, which indicated to Yeva that the possibilities were buried in great uncertainty in both time and probability, but on all four occasions, she had known without knowing why that if the requisite conditions aligned themselves in her world, she herself would be in a position of great leverage and great danger. She had glimpsed as if through a heavy smoke two dominant possibility-streams flowing from this nexus, and she had known that her actions or inactions could tip the balance and send the world rushing down either one of the two. Further, she had been certain that some form of likely destruction lay down either path. On all four occasions, her concentration had shattered and she had been thrown out of the Realm of Infinite Possibilities, something that did not happen to her since the early days of her training. In each case she had been left nauseous, cold with sweat, and with the thought echoing in her head: “An old power approaches—he is sealed to the winds.”

  She reviewed the words of the High Lord Adham al Dharr: “…young. He wields great power and is sealed to the winds,” he had said. Could this be the advent of destruction that she had foreseen in the Realm? On reflection, it did not seem likely. The Great Sorcerer had clearly said that the one who was coming was young and ill prepared. To Yeva, that last fact was reviewed with the greatest contempt. She had trained unceasingly for most of her twenty-two years of life to become what she was and she had no sympathy for those who entered any situation unprepared. Was it possible, though, that against the odds events were building towards the fatal nexus of which she had been warned? If reality was beginning to form around that possibility, then the chaos related to that potential future in the Realm of Infinite Possibilities would begin to gel. Both the possibilities and the related consequences of actions connected to the events to come would gradually reveal themselves as probabilities narrowing down to that nexus as alternate paths of evasion became less likely.

  Yeva could enter the Realm to allow potential futures to wash over her with just a few minutes of focused meditation, but she dared not do it in this chamber. The risks were far too high. If the nexus of destruction was in fact approaching and she reacted to her visions in any external way, or worse yet was cast back out of the Realm, the Watchers would surely see. The Great Sorcerer could easily develop an interest in her should signs of her distress in his presence be brought to his attention, and those that interested the High Lord often satisfied that interest under the skilled hands of his torturers. She would have to wait. If the danger was truly returning with the raiding party sent through the pass, then it was still some way off and there should still be time.

  Yeva returned her attention to her master. “Are you certain that my instructions were understood precisely?” the High Lord was asking Kadeen.

  “Yes, Great Sorcerer. Captain Saglam knows well to reclaim the texts that were stolen by the wizard Gilladhe, once the spell that you created was unleashed against him.”

  “And the wizard’s staff, and the wizard’s journal?” Adham al Dharr interrupted impatiently.

  “Yes, High Lord,” Kadeen responded, bowing deeply, “the staff and journal will also be held for you. And as instructed, the entire population of the wizard’s pathetic village will be held, securely bound, so that his apprentice cannot escape your great justice.”

  “It had better be as you say, Kadeen,” Adham al Dharr said ominously. “Many years and many useful lives have been sacrificed to finally destroy Gilladhe and to free us from this confinement. You will join Captain Saglam hanging from my wall, old friend, if some carelessness of yours should cause this great venture to fail.”

  “As you say, High Lord,” Kadeen answered, bowing lower.

  “Leave me now,” Adham al Dharr ordered, turning away.

  Kadeen dropped to his knees and briefly pressed his forehead to the floor before rising and backing ten paces. Turning, he then strode deliberately down the length of the audience chamber towards the vaulted entrance.

  Yeva, who had been expected to be unseeing and unhearing in the presence of the High Lord, was nonetheless also expected to see and to hear the advance of her master and to resume her responsibility for his life once he departed this room. Before he reached her, she sprang lightly to her slippered feet and preceded him out the door. She scanned the grand hall in both directions, then took up her station on her master’s left side, two paces back, as he passed her. The loose fitting silk blouse and pants that she wore gathered tightly at her wrists and ankles, allowed her excellent freedom of movement. They also showed off her tall, shapely form as the finely woven fabric flowed against her body while she strode behind her master down the hall. This was not lost on Kadeen when he glanced in her direction, nor was the resultant veiled admiration and envy in the eyes of others lost on Kadeen.

  Kadeen, who was a little man, a good three inches shorter than Yeva, slight of frame with a narrow face and a hooked nose that was broken when he was a child and never healed quite straight, was a collector of rare and beautiful things which he took great pleasure in displaying before his rivals.

  At the end of the hall, they turned right towards Kadeen’s apartments. As they rounded the corner, a servant failed to move quickly enough to get out of their way, and Kadeen struck her in the face with the back of his hand as he went by. Yeva could have easily moved forward to prevent the entire encounter, but she had judged immediately that the servant was no threat to her master, and Kadeen would not have appreciated her interference. He invariably left the presence of the High Lord in an evil humor, and it was better, she thought, that he take it out on an inattentive servant rather than on her. The things that he did were rarely fatal, in fact they were normally trivial compared to the treatment that she had routinely received in training, but they were still humiliating and painful and best to be avoided.

  As they approached Kadeen’s apartments, Yeva moved ahead, opened the door, quickly scanned the rooms for threat and moved aside allowing her master to storm past. She closed the door after him, and took up her position inside standing next to it. By extending her awareness to the door, she could easily detect the subtle vibrations of anyone approaching down the hall and provide her master with ample warning. With contact firmly established with the door and surrounding walls, even another of the Guild would find it difficult to approach without Yeva’s knowledge.

  Kadeen shouted for tea, sending the slave who had been kneeling in the corner scurrying off to the kitchens, then cast a pattern of privacy about the room. The spell always sent a wave of nausea through Yeva as it cut across her lines of concentration to the door, but the feeling passed quickly and did not further interfere with her contact.

  “Hang me from his wall, will he?” muttered Kadeen in outrage, pacing across the room and back. “Saglam had better not fail me. With the Staff of the Winds in my hands we’ll finally see who ends up hanging from the wall. But first he’ll pay me back for every slight, every humiliation,” he muttered as he paced. “I’ll not be gentle as I drain him of his power. The screams and pleading of the four mages that he consumed to construct the spell of undoing used against that dog Gilladhe will be soft music compared to the anguish I will wrench from him.

  “And curse Gilladhe! May the fires of Phasarat burn his soul forever. If it weren’t for his vile trigitch I’d be able to cross the Deep and not be dependent upon Saglam and those gorn dogs. I warned al Dharr that Gilladhe’s death would not undo that beast. Nothing short of draining the Deep entirely will unseat that vile creature and allow one of magic to cross that moat. Once I dispose of the apprentice and secure the staff, we can turn the gorn loose on whatever farmers are left, set the engineers and the slaves to clearing the way, and the lands to the east will finally be mine for the taking.”

  Kadeen calmed himself as the slave scurried back into the room with his tea. It would not be wise to let one such as she see him in a state of agitation.
Kadeen had long since had her tongue removed, but Adham al Dharr could easily be using her as an informant nonetheless. Centuries of caution in the palace of the Baraduhne had kept Kadeen alive and close to the pinnacle of power. He would not be caught out now, not when his greatest opportunity to achieve the status he deserved was drawing ever closer.

  “Summon Commander al Bardon,” Kadeen commanded, and the slave scurried away.

  Commander Furstiv al Bardon was a large man with a huge barrel chest and biceps that strained against his formal uniform blouse. He wore a gray patch over his left eye, a dark scar ran out from under it and down his left cheek. A departing gift from his predecessor on the occasion when Furstiv had replaced him, the scar had tightened that side of his face when it healed causing the left side of his mouth to turn up slightly in a permanent sneer. He was lightly armed while in the palace, wearing a short sword at his left hip and a long curving knife on his right. Of course he carried other weapons as well, but these were the only ones visible.

  “You sent for me, my lord,” he said in a low but booming voice, and inclined his head slightly.

  “Leave us,” Kadeen commanded the slave.

  Turning to al Bardon, Kadeen said in a lowered voice: “Our time approaches. I have learned that an apprentice to that old fool Gilladhe is among those being brought to us. They should be approaching Carraghlaoch by now. I want you to meet them there and make sure that our orders have been followed precisely. The apprentice is a young man, and poorly trained; he will be no threat once he is secured in the warded dungeons of Carraghlaoch. Separate out all young men from the prisoners and secure them there. Make sure that the rest are kept alive, we’ll let al Dharr search through them at his leisure,” he added with a sneer. “Most important, secure the staff. The books can wait; I’ll claim them later.

  “Oh, and Commander, warn our men to be wary of birds of prey. This apprentice may be able to use them to his advantage.”

  “As you command, my lord.” Raising his right fist to his chest, al Bardon bowed and left.

  While Marian kept watch at the edge of the trees, Owen and Jack buried the body of the woman they had found in the watchtower deep in the woods near where they had camped. When they were done, they scattered leaves and brush over the grave and swept around it so that it would not be found by the gorn. They then gathered their packs and the horses and joined Marian.

  “Any sign?” asked Jack.

  “No, everything is quiet.”

  “Before we start out,” Owen said somewhat hesitantly, looking out over the hills to the west, “there is something that we have to talk about. I already know where we’re headed and what we will see when we get there.”

  “What are you talking about?” Marian asked.

  “Last night, when that gorn surprised you on watch, you were saved by an owl.”

  “Well, yeah, there was an owl. It scared the crap out me with its screeching. It was all over the place, diving at the gorn. It really tore him up good, but I would have spotted him myself… Wait a minute, how do you know? You slept through the whole thing.”

  Owen turned and looked his sister in the eyes. “I was that owl. At least I was in that owl, or my mind was, or something. I don’t know exactly, but I was there.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jack asked.

  Owen reached in his pocket and pulled out the headpiece to the Old Wizard’s staff and showed it to his friends. “When we were in the village, I took a look in the Old Wizard’s cottage. It looked like his staff had exploded and killed him. As I was leaving I noticed this on the floor. I picked it up and put it in my pocket, thinking to give it to dad, but I forgot about it when he told us to track the raiding party.

  “The first night out, when I went to sleep, I dreamed that I was flying. At least I thought it was a dream. Anyway, I followed the trail we’ve been on and I saw the enemy campsite. The villagers were all tied up in the middle of the camp, with about 20 soldiers and maybe twice that many gorn camped around them. I flew around it a couple of times, then flew further up the trail until I got to this tower. I was perched on that point right up there, when a gorn threw a rock at me. That is when I woke up back in our camp. I pulled this out of my pocket, and the eyes were glowing.”

  “So you knew this tower was here before we ever got to it,” Marian said. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “I didn’t believe it,” Owen answered. “At least I didn’t want to believe it. It isn’t natural. And besides, I wasn’t sure it was real until we got our first look at the tower from that rise back there. I still didn’t want it to be real, but it happened to me again last night.”

  “You mean you dreamed yourself into that owl just in time to scare the crap out of me and save us all?” Marian asked with just a touch of sarcasm. “Pretty good timing, I’d say.”

  “Well that isn’t quite what happened,” Owen said, and he told them the whole story including the castle of Carraghlaoch, the bridge across the Wizard’s Moat, the sorcerer on the other side, and the monster in the water.

  “Jeez, Owen,” Jack said when he was done. “We can head back and report right now. You’ve done the whole job already.”

  “Not quite,” Owen answered. “We still don’t really know where they are taking the villagers. I mean that bridge is really narrow. They can’t be planning to just herd them all across. It would take a good part of a day to get everyone over, and they’d probably lose half of them in the water. I still don’t have any idea why they took them, but I think they may be planning to hold them in the old castle. We need to be sure before we go back to report to our fathers.”

  “That should be no problem, big brother” Marian interjected. “We can just camp right here and you can fly up there tonight and see what they’re up to.”

  “I don’t think that it’s that simple,” Owen answered. “Last night, when I was coming back from the Moat, I was starting to worry about how to get out of the owl and back to being myself. On the first night, it happened all by itself when I was attacked, but the second night I was attacked twice and I was still in the owl. I didn’t get out until Jack shook me awake after you two killed the gorn. I’m afraid that if I do it again, I might not be able to get back at all. One thing I am sure of is that I don’t know how this is happening or how to control it, and that scares me.”

  “Sounds easy to me,” Marian remarked. “You said you came out no problem the first night. Just give the headpiece to one of us tonight. It’ll be our first time, and you should be able to wake us up easily when we come back from scouting around.

  “Here, let me see it,” she said holding out her hand.

  Reluctantly, Owen handed the headpiece to his sister. Something about letting go of it didn’t feel right, but after all, it wasn’t really his to begin with. He’d just picked it up by chance off the Old Wizard’s floor.

  “Ow! Damn! You could have warned me that it was hot!” Marian exclaimed as she dropped the brass falcon’s head to the forest floor shaking and blowing on her fingers. “How were you able to hold it without getting burned? I’m already starting to raise a blister.”

  “It’s just a lump of brass, Marian. It’s not hot,” Owen answered and stooped to retrieve it.

  “Wait,” Jack said, putting a hand to Owen’s arm. “Let me pick it up.”

  Cautiously, Jack squatted down before the headpiece, stared at it for a time, then slowly lowered his hand to grasp it. Before he touched it, he just as slowly drew his hand back again. “I’m not sure if it’s heat exactly, but it definitely hurts if I put my hand too close to that thing. And, it may be my imagination, but those eyes seem to be staring at me and they don’t look at all friendly. You better take it back, Owen.”

  Mystified, Owen carefully reached for the headpiece. It didn’t feel warm to him, no warmer at least than a piece of brass should feel after lying in the sun for a few moments. He looked at the eyes, and they appeared very intense, like the eyes of a falcon should, but not overly me
nacing.

  “That settles it,” Jack said. “You’re the only one who seems to be able to handle that thing. It’s not going to let us use it, so we’re back to where we started.”

  “I think you’d better ditch it somewhere,” Marian interjected. “I mean if it’s messing with your mind, and you can’t either control it or predict what it’s going to do with you, it’s too dangerous to just keep around.”

  “Marian’s probably right,” Jack agreed. “Granted, your experiences with it have been really helpful so far, but you were amazingly hard to rouse this last time. If it’s affect on you is getting stronger each time you use it, we may not be able to bring you back at all next time. To be on the safe side, you should probably just leave it behind. We could bury it here and mark the spot so that nobody else finds it, but where it could be reclaimed if someone sometime has a need of it.”

  Owen looked down at the headpiece—it seemed to be staring back at him—and after a pause, he thrust it back into his pocket. “I’ll have to think about it. I can’t explain it, but it somehow doesn’t feel right to me to discard it yet.”

  Jack and Marian looked at each other and frowned, then Jack said, “Okay, so what do we do next?”

  “Well as I said,” Owen answered, “I’m afraid to try using it again tonight. Who knows, there might not even be an owl around and we will have wasted the rest of today and tonight. I think we should continue on as we have been. Only this time let’s swing a little wide and approach the castle from the north. I think they may be stopping there, and I don’t think that it’s safe to just come strolling in on them up their back trail. Sooner or later, they’re likely to send someone back to this tower and I’d like to be a good distance away from it when that happens.”

  Marian and Jack agreed, and they led their horses back through the woods to exit at the northwest corner. Jack did what he could to disguise their trail as they went through the trees so that the gorn would have a tougher time tracking them.