Defenders of Magic 01 - Night of the Eye

by Scorpion ZS 256

  "Justarius will bring you up before a full conclave when he finds out you've kidnapped me," she hissed.

  Belize regarded her with lazy-lidded contempt. "After tonight no mortal mage will be able to touch me. I'll be beyond the circles of the universe."

  Adding the last of his things to the chest, Belize slammed its heavy lid shut. "Time to go," he announced. Scratching his goatee, he said, "I really must think of a more convenient way to travel with you." Belize abruptly snapped his fingers, nails clicking. "I have it!"

  The mage reached toward Esme and slowly closed his fingers. "Ligir."

  Esme screamed as her bones began to contract, snapping and popping in protest. Her heart thundered like the steps of a giant in pursuit, then reversed its pace and steadily slowed. Beyond the excruciating pain, she felt her pulse's last terrified, fluttering beats as the world grew larger, then silent as snow.

  When Belize uncurled his fingers, on his pasty palm lay a ceramic statue of a golden-haired woman in trousers and tunic.

  *****

  Castle DiThon was as near the magical plinths as he could get through the mirror world. Guerrand had no idea if he was walking into the middle of a siege, or even if the castle still stood. Assuming it did, Guerrand knew instantly which mirror to summon to mind. He instructed Zagarus to stay inside the mirror until he called him forth, knowing the bird's presence would only make the meeting he anticipated more difficult.

  Standing knee-deep in the pastel mist, Guerrand recalled a polished cherrywood, freestanding frame. Dried heather and wild geranium, treasures of happier days, were slipped between the frame and the silvered glass of the mirror. Guerrand took a step, and the mist gave way.

  Kirah's room looked virtually unchanged since last he'd seen it—frilly feather bed, milk-paint armoire, unused dollhouse — reassuring him that somehow the Berwick threat had been prevented. To his greater relief, Guerrand saw his sister at the window seat, gazing through the leaded windowpanes at the weed patches where gardens once grew. It was late, past the middle of the night, judging from the angle of the moonbeams that framed Kirah's golden hair. Her face was colorless and wan. She was dressed in the palest of yellow, a hue that only emphasized her pallor, and her hands lay thin and lifeless in her lap. If she heard his entrance, she made no sign.

  "Hello, Kirah," he said softly.

  Her head swung around slowly. Kirah looked first stunned, then annoyed. Guerrand could see the great effort it took her to resume an impassive expression. "Hello, Guerrand," she said at last, her unusual use of his full name cutting him to the bone. "You've come too late with your grown-up beard and mage's red robe."

  Guerrand could stand the distance between them no longer. He rushed across the room and dropped to his knees beside the window seat, taking her cool, limp hands in both of his. "I'm sorry I didn't come sooner." She shrugged disinterestedly.

  Guerrand gripped her frail shoulders and shook them gently. "Be angry if you must, I deserve that, but please talk to me. Tell me what's happened here."

  "Oh, nothing much." Kirah arched one brow listlessly. "The Berwicks attacked the castle."

  He frowned. "Didn't Lyim get here in time to warn you?"

  "Oh, yes," she said, a spark of life just beginning to show in her eyes at the mention of the apprentice. "He's the reason I'm still in the castle, along with the rest of the family. Without him, the Berwicks would have captured it, and who knows what would have happened then."

  "Is everyone—" Guerrand began haltingly "is everyone else... all right?" Kirah nodded, and Guerrand heaved a huge sigh of relief. He was suddenly struck with a distressing thought. "Where is Lyim? He wasn't hurt, was he?"

  Kirah shook her head. "He left for the coast yesterday, or was it the day before?" She shrugged again.

  Guerrand twisted to search her face. "I expected you to be mad, but why are you acting like this, Kirah?"

  A glimmer of her old fire sparked. "You expected me to be angry, so that, as usual, you could protect yourself in a cloak of guilt. Well, I won't make it easier for you to avoid responsibility for what you've done."

  "What I did was follow your advice to run away before the wedding and study magic!"

  "You have a selective memory," she accused. "The advice included taking me with you, so that we could both escape this prison."

  Guerrand felt the weight of her accusations. He reached a hand to her cheek. "You're the one who said we can never stay mad at each other."

  Kirah slapped the hand away. "Things have changed, Guerrand. You changed them." Her eyes narrowed with remembered pain. "Mother, Father, Quinn... then you." Tears welled and sparkled against her lashes, making her look even younger than she was.

  "I'd hoped my note would explain..." Guerrand's voice trailed off.

  "A note is a poor substitute for a brother." Kirah pulled the much-folded piece of parchment from the sleeve of her butter-yellow frock and fanned herself with it. "Lyim said you were unable to leave your master."

  "Apprentice mages aren't supposed to have families," Guerrand explained bitterly. "When Lyim offered to come here in my stead, I thought maybe I could have it both ways."

  Kirah's bitter expression eased momentarily at the mention of the other apprentice. "So why are you here now?"

  "The world is a lot different, a lot more difficult than I'd thought." Guerrand stood and ran a hand through his hair, turning away. "I was wrong not to come myself before. I was wrong about a lot of things."

  He turned back to her, his shoulders set with determination. "But I've come to put things right."

  "Does that mean you're back to stay?"

  "I can't, Kirah. You know it's too late for me here."

  Kirah took the news with a bowed head. "I hoped... but I knew," she said at last.

  Guerrand's gaze wandered above Kirah's head to the window, where bright Solinari and murky red Lunitari moved ever closer to each other. Invisible Nuitari could not be far behind. When the moons rose again, a half day hence, they would align on the Night of the Eye.

  "I need your help, Kirah." Guerrand cleared his throat and put up a hand to still the protest he knew would come. "I know I've forfeited the right to expect it, but before you say no, realize I don't ask for myself. There's another person I pray I haven't lost, but I need a horse to get to Stonecliff immediately. Please, do me this one last favor."

  Kirah threw up her arms in disgust. "Stonecliff! That's what's caused this pain from beginning to end. I'm sick to death of hearing about that land! No wonder Berwick was willing to give it back in the first place. I think Cormac is right about those pillars being created by pagan magic—they make people crazy!"

  What insanity did Belize have in store for Esme at Stonecliff? Guerrand had asked himself that a hundred times since he'd left the mage's lab.

  "Please, Kirah," he breathed again, clasping her cold hands tightly in desperation, "get me a horse before it's too late."

  *****

  Guerrand rode, his body bent low to the animal's sweat-lathered back. The sun was setting behind his shoulder, pushing the craggy shadows of the heath far ahead of the plunging horse. An interminable half day had passed since Kirah smuggled him from the castle and helped him saddle a horse and slip away. Guerrand knew her cooperation, however reluctant, was a sign that she might forgive him in time.

  Unfortunately, time was something of which he had too little. Guerrand rode the animal hard, strands of froth spraying around the bit in its mouth, but he couldn't stop. By the time the plinths came into view atop a hill ahead, his own sides ached from the arduous ride. Guerrand reined in the horse briefly to catch his breath.

  Zagarus alighted on the horse's rear and followed Guerrand's gaze skyward. The Night of Three Eyeballs can't be far off.

  Guerrand nodded. Shining brightly through shreds of dark clouds, the red moon already half lapped the larger white one, adding a sense of wonder to Guerrand's ever-present fear. Any hour now, all three moons would align briefly. By itself, the unus
ual triple conjunction would be a fearsome spectacle. More important, though, the event would amplify the power of all magic on Krynn. The thought of what that might mean for Esme brought Guerrand's heels into the flanks of the horse. Startled, Zagarus took wing while Guerrand pushed his mount over the last stretch to Stonecliff.

  At the base of the last rolling hill before the plinths, the apprentice reined in his horse in a small copse of dogwoods. Springing lightly from the saddle, he secured the horse to a branch. The landscape rolled upward, and tall seaside grasses made it difficult to determine if anyone stood on the plateau near the ancient carved pillars. Settling his small leather pack of components over his shoulder, Guerrand crouched low into the shadows and moved forward cautiously on foot.

  He squatted behind a small, jutting boulder and craned his neck around for a view. Limned in the light of two moons, the plateau was silent, vacant. Shaking his head in disbelief, Guerrand crept nearer, looking for the shadows of people behind the plinths. The surrounding grass was not even trampled.

  Guerrand rocked back on his heels, bewildered. He'd been so sure the creature in the lab had traced these magical plinths. Were there others like these to which Belize had taken Esme? If so, Guerrand had no hope of finding them before the conjunction. Before the archmage harmed Esme. One thing was certain: Esme and Belize were not here now.

  Stymied, Guerrand strode up the hill to the plateau and circled around the plinths, studying their carvings. He had never been frightened by their magical aura. Still, his "kinship" with Stonecliff had never helped him understand the plinths' magical symbols. He reached up a hand and traced a finger over the smooth grooves in the weathered marble. It was almost second nature now for the apprentice to notice and commit to memory minute details. Guerrand closed his eyes and visualized the symbols he had traced; a distinct and complex mystical pattern blossomed before his mind's eye.

  The still night erupted when a chill breeze whipped off the Strait of Ergoth. Cinching the sash of his coarse robe, Guerrand cocked his head, hearing a distant rustling, tearing sound. Before he could locate the source of the noise, the earth shook beneath his feet and cracked open in a dozen places around him. Thick black tentacles, each thicker than a human leg and covered with suckers, burst from the earth and shot skyward to form a slithering, shifting cage that surrounded him. His hands reached out instinctively to move or bend the makeshift bars. Moist, greedy suckers pulled at his clothing and the exposed flesh above his collar. Howling in revulsion, the apprentice sought the safety of the very center of the repulsive cage. The harsh wind died away.

  "Well, well," Guerrand heard a voice say over the hammering of his heart. "The intrusive knight-mage returns."

  Guerrand's gaze followed the sound of the familiar voice to the top of the cage. He crouched down in horror. Belize's head swayed atop the end of a tentacle, like a jester on the end of a child's toy. But the red mage's expression was anything but comical. Belize's tentacle snapped toward Guerrand again and again, bringing the mage's yellow-toothed sneer of elation within inches of Guerrand's face. The apprentice backed away from the archmage's hideous visage until there was nowhere else to go.

  Belize frowned suddenly. "This form is annoying." He sucked in a deep breath and held it, his ruddy pocked face growing darker. Suddenly, his head sprang from the tentacle. The mage's red-robed body appeared beneath it as he floated gently to earth nearby. He snapped his fingers, and a large, ironbound chest materialized behind him.

  "Where's Esme?" demanded Guerrand from the confines of the tentacle cage.

  Belize reached into the neckline of his gold-embroidered robe and extracted a chain from which dangled a small figure. The mage held the figurine out to the apprentice as if tempting a horse with a carrot.

  Even in the dim light, Guerrand could see that the figure was identical to Esme as he had last seen her, right down to the splint on the left leg. The figurine was too minutely detailed, its likeness too perfect, to have been carved by any craftsman. Guerrand knew at once that it was, indeed, Esme.

  "Is she—"

  "Dead?" supplied Belize. "Not yet."

  Guerrand lurched forward to reach through the bars for the leering mage. Rows of grasping suckers drew him back and held him fast against the tentacles. Another of the hideous appendages flicked its tip and slipped beneath the flap of Guerrand's pouch, obviously searching for something. Guerrand struggled against the rubbery limb to no avail.

  "Where have you hidden the mirror?" Belize demanded when the tentacle pulled back without it. "I should have had it back long ago when I dispatched the invisible stalker after you and that wretched apprentice Par-Salian saddled me with."

  "So you have been trying to kill me!" exclaimed Guerrand. "The invisible creature, the thugs in the marketplace... But why?" he breathed. "Why did you encourage me to go to the tower if you wanted me dead?"

  "I fanned your magical desires because my plans required you to disappear. If you had married, your brother would have torn down these plinths before tonight. Your death would simply have been a happy accident." Dismissing Guerrand as a threat, the mage turned to the chest on the ground behind him.

  Enraged, Guerrand seized the hilt of his sword and slashed through a swath of tentacles, severing them. Blood and ichor splashed everywhere. He charged through the gruesome opening in the cage, sword held toward Belize's back.

  Without looking up, the archmage held a hand over his shoulder. Guerrand felt a tingling in his right hand. He dropped the sword just as it turned into a leafy green stick.

  "Are you a knight today or a wizard?" Belize inquired, chuckling. "We both know you have no talent for either."

  "You know nothing of me," Guerrand said evenly. "I'm not the same rube you sent to Wayreth."

  "Perhaps I have misjudged your skills." Belize appeared to be considering the possibility. "For instance, I didn't expect a witless first-time traveler to survive the long trip to the tower, and yet you did."

  Guerrand gritted his teeth. Belize was toying with him, like he would a fly in a web, baiting him into attacking again to increase the thrill of the kill. But Guerrand would not give him the satisfaction of reacting.

  "Frankly," Belize continued, his tone artless, "my greatest underestimation of you came earlier, when I gave you the mirror. I fully expected you to track down the men it revealed, but I was equally certain you would get yourself killed by them. After all, they had murdered your brother, and he was a fine cavalier." The mage shrugged. "Then again, I had ensorceled the thugs to slay him to prevent the first union."

  Guerrand's every muscle went taut as the words sank in. Belize killed Quinn... The apprentice's head felt like it was exploding. He was so dizzy he could hardly stay on his feet.

  "I can see I've surprised you," the mage said slickly. He looked toward the sky and moved to push back the heavy lid of his trunk. "But then, life is full of surprises."

  Guerrand's head instantly cleared of everything but thoughts of revenge. The archmage was tall, but not well muscled; if Guerrand could drive him to the ground and quickly pin Belize's arms, he might be able to protect himself from the terrible spells at the wizard's command and plunge his dagger through the man's heart. Possessed by the vision, Guerrand charged again at the mage's back.

  But Guerrand's speed was not equal to his enemy's cunning and experience. Belize spun and faced him, then thrust his left hand forward. Guerrand stopped and ducked, expected an attack spell. But the breeze only kicked up on the hilltop again, bending the tall grasses, dashing Guerrand's hair into his eyes. The apprentice brushed it back in time to see Belize throw a dingy gray cloth between them. The cold wind blew from all directions, tossing the glove about. Suddenly the thing leaped into the air and hung there, jerking and pulsing with a pale, inner light. In a heartbeat the glove became a hand, stretched to the size of a man, and continued growing until it loomed high above the apprentice.

  Guerrand stepped to his left. The hand shifted smoothly with him. He jumped to
the right, but again the enormous hand mirrored his movement, keeping itself exactly between Guerrand and Belize. However Guerrand moved, he could not get around the monstrous palm.

  Guerrand snatched the dagger from his belt and plunged it hilt-deep into the giant palm. When he drew it back the shining blade was darkened with blood, which streamed down the hand and dripped to the grass. But the magical thing seemed in no way diminished.

  "The Night of the Eye is upon us," Guerrand heard Belize say. "I can waste no more time sparring."

  Guerrand dropped to his stomach and steeled himself for the spell that would finally kill him. To the amazement of both mages, there came instead a nerve-shattering squawk as a white bird flashed out of the dark sky and smashed against Belize's ribs. The startled wizard stumbled backward, nearly tripping over his trunk. The bird flapped about Belize's head, then shot away, upward into the sky.

  Guerrand would recognize that squawk anywhere. Zagarus! The apprentice leaped to his feet and waved the bird toward him. His heart soared when he saw the figurine of Esme clenched between his familiar's webbed feet.

  However startled, the older wizard was far from stunned. Even as he fought to maintain his balance, Belize sent a sizzling arrow of light shooting from his extended fingertip. Sparks flashed in the sky, the sea gull shrieked in pain, and Belize knew the missile had hit its mark.

  But Zagarus was not the only victim. Guerrand's fate was magically linked to his familiar's. Clutching his side in agony, the apprentice tumbled to the ground.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Hiking along the moonlit shore of the strait, Lyim whistled "Three Sheets to the Wind." He'd just learned the ditty from a sailor at the Dorcestars, a two-room guest house along the route between Thonvil and Hillfort. The apprentice had spent several enjoyable days there since the victory at Castle DiThon, locked in the pale, fleshy arms of the host's daughter, waiting for word of the next merchant ship headed south. Flushed with ale and passion and victory, the apprentice erupted in song: