Banuntu jumped up from the bench, almost knocking over the table. He rushed to the girl and took her hand guiding her to a table.
"Surely the gods have smiled upon us today," he said to her. "They have seen fit to grace us with one of such beauty that my eyes will never need to see again. Should I go blind today, your loveliness will be a memory, sufficient to last me the rest of my life."
He rushed back to Chihon's table and grabbed the empty mug and pot of ale the server had left for him. He sprinted over to the girl's table and placed it before her. "Please, my princess, allow me to pour you a mug of ale that you may wash away the thirst from your beautiful throat."
He filled the mug, repeating the expansive gesture with which he'd filled Chihon's own mug. He sat down next to the girl and placed his chin in his hands, staring at her just as he'd stared at Chihon.
Chihon frowned at him. She was just starting to appreciate the attention and now she'd simply ceased to exist for him. She cleared her throat.
"Mistress," he cried out and jumped up, running back to her table.
"What's going on?" Chihon asked.
He sat back down and pulled in the bench. He looked at Chihon with his sad eyes and said, "Your beauty is like the warm sun on a cool morning. It touches my soul. It fills my heart with its radiance and makes my day complete."
The girl whose attention had caught his eye turned and looked at him. He jumped up again, rushing to her side. Chihon reached out her foot and deftly caught his as he turned. He fell to the floor like a sack of root crop, bounced once, and lay still.
"What's going on here?" Chihon demanded.
The girl came over and shoved Banuntu with her foot, then took the bench across from Chihon.
"I'm Enmeld," she said as she sat. "This one," she delivered another kick to Banuntu, "He is smitten with everyone he sees. He's done it to himself."
"What's he done?"
"He tried to mix up a magic potion to make the Atenthi love us. Where he got the formula is a mystery. It does appear to work, but only on him.
"He thought that if the Atenthi loved us, they would treat us better, so he bought a formula and mixed up a batch of love potion. Silly fool." She shoved him once again.
Chihon could tell the girl had some affection for him by the way she looked at him, even while she was berating him for being a fool. She reached out to Banuntu with her magic. She could see the spell wrapped around him. It was weak and would eventually wear off on its own.
She looked at Enmeld, who was gazing down at the boy. She saw a thin thread of the spell, reaching out from Banuntu to the girl, along with one reaching to her. She sensed the spell, and how it was constructed.
She carefully pulled at a thread here and there, untangling them from one another. She found the one stretching to her and snapped it. She found other loose ends waiting for some other unsuspecting woman to arrive and cauterized them, preventing the spell from acting on anyone further.
As she worked, an idea popped into her head. Could she tailor the spell to keep it contained and directed until it eventually faded? Yes, it would work. She knew she could do it. She carefully rearranged the threads of magic until she was satisfied.
When she was finished she pushed a little energy into the man, just enough to rouse him.
He stood up and looked at Chihon, then over at the girl.
"Enmeld," he said. "How nice to see you." He extended his arm to her.
She looked at Chihon and back to Banuntu.
"Banuntu?" Chihon asked. He looked at her as if this was the first time he'd seen her. "Do you know who I am?"
"No, Ma'am."
Enmeld started to rise. He reached out to her. "Please allow me." He grasped he arm and gently helped her stand. He folded her arm in his own and escorted her over to the table where he had first deposited her.
Chihon cleared her throat to get his attention. He didn't even turn to see what the noise was all about. He sat next to Enmeld and leaned his head in to whisper in her ear.
"That was a foolish waste of magic," Tass said. "It would have worn off eventually; you didn't need to do anything."
"I thought what he was trying to do was noble. I also know he likes her, so I wanted to reinforce that a little before the spell completely wears off."
"It's still a waste."
The door burst open and a man walked in. He was so much like the one in the park that Chihon wondered how he'd found her. He walked into the dining room and locked eyes with the patrons until everyone bowed their heads. When he came to Chihon, she stood her ground. She looked him straight in the eye and refused to look down.
He placed his hand on his hips, challenging her, but she still refused to look away.
Chihon reached out with her magic, probing for his life force just as she had done to the Atenthi in the park. She slowly separated the threads of power around him until she could reach inside and touch his life force. What she saw inside him made her pull back in disgust. The man's life thread was a putrid brown.
Chihon drew back in shock. How could one so ill still live? She reached out to him once more to examine him. Not even the Atenthi invaders deserved something like this.
While she watched, the man crumbled to the ground and red foam spewed from his mouth. He shook uncontrollably.
Underworld
The path was rough, strewn with the same jagged rock fragments that formed the hillside. The peaks on the horizon were blurred by distance and mist. Lorit could just make out the castle sticking to the side of the mountain, like a goat perched on a crag high above them. Lorit was happy to be off the ice and onto solid ground once again, but the steep trail with its constant switchbacks and loose rocks was starting to wear on him.
He found a spot where the trail opened onto a wide patch of flat rock where they could make camp for the night. "Let's stop here."
He looked down into the valley that separated the peak from the one that housed the castle. The ice sheet that pushed its way through the depression was streaked with dirty brown and looked rough from this height.
"One more trek across the ice and we're there. If I never have to see that again, I will be happy."
The Princess followed his gaze. "It's only ice."
Lorit frowned at her. "Only ice? I've seen enough ice for a while."
"I think it's rather pretty. Just look at the beautiful patterns it makes as it winds its way through the valley." The Princess pointed out where the Ice Father twisted around the steep mountain peaks.
"I can do without the cold." Lorit laid out the gear that would become their camp site. He gathered a few dry branches from the woods around the trail and stacked them in a small pile. "Incendo ignio," he said and the fire burst to life.
Lorit placed a pot of water to boil above the fire next to the meat of a small goat he'd brought down earlier in the day. The meat was just starting to smell like dinner when he heard a sound up ahead. He grabbed his staff and stood ready.
A short stout man ambled around the rocks ahead. He was no taller than Lorit's shoulder but wider by quite a bit. He wore a green hat with a feather sticking out of it. He pulled up short as he saw Lorit and the Princess.
"Well, what have we here?" he asked. "Visitors on the mountain? Don't get many of those." He raised his hand in greeting and paused. He wrinkled his nose at the Princess then looked at Lorit with a quizzical look. "She's not what she seems to be, is she? Then I suppose you already knew that, being a Wizard and all."
"Why do you say that?" Lorit asked.
"Say what? The truth?"
"That she's not what she seems to be? And what makes you think I'm a Wizard?"
"So you want to play games with the truth?" the stranger said. "Suit yourself, find your own way." He turned to leave.
"Wait! Who are you?" Lorit called out after him.
"I'm Hanuwar." The man paused, waiting for Lorit to respond.
"I'm Lorit, and this is Princess Ukina of Veldwaite."
He
looked her over and whistled. "Wizards, Witches, and Priests. You must have really made a lot of folks angry."
"Why do you say that?" Lorit looked over at the Princess. She appeared as she always had; now that he'd broken the spell that had made her look like Chihon. He didn't think the link between her and Chihon was visible to anyone but him.
Hanuwar stepped closer to the Princess and peered into her eyes. He stretched his hand out to touch her hair, but the Princess pulled back.
"You sure have made enemies," Hanuwar said. "Come on, break this camp, and let's get you inside the mountain before the storm hits." Hanuwar pointed to the dark clouds peering between the mountain peaks ahead. He grabbed the roasting goat. "Don't mind if I carry this, do you?" Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed it and took a large bite out of it.
Lorit stretched his hand towards the fire. "Incendo exstinguere," he commanded and the fire died instantly. He quickly repacked their things and hurried after Hanuwar.
They wound their way around a few more switchbacks until they came upon a pile of rubble that had been thrown down the side of the mountain. It came from a mine shaft that was framed in stout wooden beams.
"Here we are," Hanuwar said. "Come on in."
Lorit had to duck to enter the mine, but once inside, it opened to well above his head and he was able to stand straight. The interior of the mine was dark but clean. The shaft had been cut and polished to a mirror finish.
Hanuwar held out torches to Lorit and the Princess. He paused when Lorit took the torch from him, and Lorit wondered what he was waiting for. Finally, Hanuwar shook his torch and said, "Wizard?"
Lorit realized that Hanuwar expected him to light the torches with magic. "Incendo ignio." As Lorit spoke, all three torches sprang to life.
"Thank you, Wizard." Hanuwar turned his back and headed down the passageway.
"How did you know I was a Wizard?"
"Because you smell like one. I have a gift for smelling magic and I can see some spells, but I'm not a Wizard." He turned to look at Lorit. "And I'm not a dwarf either. I'm just a little short for my height." He laughed at his own jest.
"You can smell magic?"
"Yup. Not many can, so that makes me sort of special."
"What good does that do?" Lorit asked as they made their way down a long series of steps leading into the darkness.
"Because we mine magic down here. Deep in the earth is a special place. It contains concentrated magic. Some say it's really ancient dragon magic trapped beneath the earth and turned to stone. Others say it's the raw stuff of power that the ancients used to create the magic we employ today."
"What does it look like?"
"It looks exactly like ordinary rock. That's why you need the nose," he said tapping the appendage he was so proud of. "We're almost there."
They turned a corner and descended a flight of stairs. The passageway opened into a large room filled with tables. Each long table had a dozen benches seated on either side. The tables were loaded with plates full of nuts and berries, vegetables and steaming platters of meat. Hanuwar handed the goat meat he'd been carrying to a woman in a white coat, who rushed it away.
"Come, it's just time for dinner. You must join us."
They placed the torches in holders along the wall. Hanuwar inclined his head towards the burning torches and looked at Lorit. "Don't think we'll be needing the torches any longer."
"Incendo exstinguere," Lorit said and the torches went cold, leaving the room lit only by the fireplace that did little to chase away the gloom.
Hanuwar led them to a bench along one of the tables near the center of the room. He pulled it out and gestured to them to have a seat. As he slid the bench back in, Lorit noticed that there were several unlit candelabras on each table.
He heard a loud whistle off in the distance. It seemed to come from all of the exits to the banquet room at once, reverberating off the polished granite walls. Soon a crowd of people poured into the room. Men and women dressed much like Hanuwar and about his stature pulled up at the tables and waited.
As the room filled, Hanuwar excused himself. He walked to the end of the dining hall and raised his voice. "Good evening, Brothers and Sisters," he said in a loud booming voice. "Tonight we have the special pleasure of entertaining guests from outside." He gestured to Lorit and the Princess. "We have with us the Wizard Lorit and the Princess Ukina."
"Please make them welcome," Hanuwar said.
The crowd applauded, turning to look at Lorit and Ukina, and then took their seats. Hanuwar headed back to sit beside Lorit. He extended his hand and touched the dark candle before him, favoring Lorit with a questioning look.
Lorit glanced around the room at the scores of unlit candles and back to Hanuwar. Hanuwar nodded his head, smiling. Lorit wondered why the dwarf wanted him to use his magic. Was he showing off the fact that his guest was a Wizard?
Lorit reached out to light the candles. As he did, he felt a surge in his magic that he'd never felt before. It was exhilarating and liberating. He felt that he could accomplish anything he put his mind to. The room suddenly came to life with the light from a thousand candles reflected through the cut crystal glasses and decorations on the tables.
A pronounced sigh came from the entire room as the hall lit up.
"Thank you," Hanuwar said. He peered closely at Lorit. "You felt it this time, didn't you?"
"I felt something," Lorit said. "What was it?"
"That was the magic we mine. You drew on it to power your spell. You are connected to the earth now, and to us. You will be able to draw on this power whenever you wish.
Hanuwar leaned in to Lorit. "I don't want to spoil your dinner, but as soon as you eat, I'd suggest you use some of your new found power to untangle a few of the spells that have been placed on this young lady." He gestured to Princess Ukina.
After dinner, the miners congregated around Lorit, seeking news of the outside world. They seldom left the mines, but were most interested in what was happening in the world at large. They marveled at the tales of his travels with Chihon and their battles with the Temple. After the affair wound down, only Lorit, the Princess, and Hanuwar were left in the large dining room.
The staff cleared the tables, removed the food, swept the floor, and departed. Only the three of them remained. The light of the fireplace and a few candles on their table were all that lit the room.
"We must begin." Hanuwar looked at the Princess. "It's time to unmask you. Please lie down right here." He passed his hand over the freshly cleared table and the Princess reluctantly climbed up.
"Remember the connection," the Princess reminded Lorit. "You hurt me, you hurt her."
"No one is going to hurt you." Lorit firmly pushed her down until she lay flat on the table. He brought out his staff and carefully examined her, letting the magic flow through him, focused by the jewel in its head. He felt the cords of the spell that bound her as he had before, only this time they seemed more pronounced.
He could see the different colors of the spells. There was a unique texture and flavor to each one. He could see that there were several spells that had been laid upon her.
"You can see it now, can't you?" Hanuwar asked. "A Sorceress, a Wizard, a Priest, a Witch, they've all put spells on her. I've never seen anything like it before."
Lorit tried to unravel one of the spells. As he did so, the Princess arched her back and screamed in pain. Lorit quickly released the thread. She collapsed on the table and lay there breathing heavily.
"You may need to put her to sleep while you work. Those spells smell pretty nasty to me," Hanuwar said tapping his nose.
"Somnum penitus et somniare" Lorit said as he waved his staff over the Princess. It took several passes, but eventually she drifted off into a sound sleep. Lorit hoped it was filled with pleasant dreams.
Lorit was ready to try again when Hanuwar placed his hand on Lorit's arm to stop him. He turned and shouted "Saefusk!"
A young dwarf wearing a leather a
pron and a pair of thick glasses arrived. He walked over to Lorit and reached out his hand, looking at Lorit's staff. He flipped his glasses in place and examined the jewel in the head of the staff. He shook his head, clicking his tongue. "Be right back," he said, speeding away with it.
Lorit lurched after him, but Hanuwar held his arm. "He's going to replace the jewel. The one you have is low grade and damaged. I'm surprised it does much of anything for you."
He sat on the bench next to the Princess and waited. Soon Saefusk returned with his staff. The jewel in its head had been replaced by one that glowed with a steady bright greenish gold light. It was the same size as the old one but more refined, the cuts were regular and the light caught it in a dazzling display.
He passed the staff over the Princess once more. This time he could feel the separate layers of threads that bound her. The outermost layer was rough and coarse. It was as if it was made of rope that had been braided from vines and plants. He carefully isolated it from the rest and drew them out.
"Witches' magic." Hanuwar smiled and touched the side of his nose. "It has that rotten vegetation smell to it, doesn't it?"
Lorit could almost smell what Hanuwar described. The spell did have the distinct flavor of rotting vegetation, like vines that hung from the trees deep in the swamp. He carefully unraveled the threads from around the Princess, peeling each one carefully away and discarding it until there were no more.
Lorit almost expected to see a pile of rotten vines on the floor when he finished, but they were magical bonds, not physical ones. He looked at her as she lay there sound asleep. She looked much the same to him as she always had.
"Sit and rest a while; this is hard work, I know." Hanuwar patted the bench next to him.
Lorit took a seat and rested. He leaned on his staff. He felt drained by the effort.
"That was Witches' magic," Hanuwar said. "Did you encounter a Witch lately?"
"We were tricked by a Witch in Relynn just before we came here. She said she could tell us where Prince Ghall and Chihon were, but she lied, I could tell just by looking at her." Lorit explained about the room where they had been trapped and how they had come to end up in the graveyard.
Wizard's Education (Book 2) Page 12