Even so, as he neared the door at the top of the steps he crouched down and moved silently. He pressed his ear to the door, alert for any sounds of a kitchen. He heard instead the snorting of hogs. Grinning with relief, Mithris stood up straight and reached out to push open the door.
That was clever, the crystal voice interrupted his motion. But why is it you think the fortress yard any safer than the kitchens? Who is it that slops the hogs, and who is it butchers them?
Mithris froze, hand on the door. The foundation crystal certainly had a knack for making him feel stupid. But it was right. This door would take him out of the fortress proper, but he’d still be within the wall. The mercenaries had any number of reasons for being out in the yard. He was not out of the trap just yet.
Standing here trembling with indecision wasn’t getting him anywhere. Steeling himself, Mithris pushed open the door.
The hogs were in a pen ten paces to the left. Behind the pen was small barn, its low roof extending partway over the hog pen. They were enormous beasts, four and even five feet tall at the shoulder and longer than Mithris was tall. Each one had to weigh four or five times his weight.
The fort’s outer wall curved from around the corner of the main building and on behind the hog pen and barn, extending on for some way in that direction before circling the front of the yard. Off in that direction, to Mithris’ right, was a circular railing of wood. Within that rail was a round patch of beaten earth where several men were sparring with short swords or bare fists.
Without thinking, Mithris juked to the left and vaulted the fence of the hog pen. Dropping into a low crouch, he moved behind the nearest of the massive hogs. It snorted in surprise and edged away from him, trying to turn itself around in the crowded space to look at him. Short tusks protruded from its long snouted mouth; Mithris hadn’t noticed them before.
Staring wide-eyed at the tusks, Mithris crawled backward from the hog. He backed up right into another of the beasts, earning another snort. The other hogs began chuffing and stamping their feet, shifting about to get a better look at the intruder.
Any one of the animals could gore him with those short—but long enough—tusks, or stomp him to death with those fat, solid-looking hooves. If they panicked, he’d be crushed between them in an instant.
Mithris was breathing fast, the air huffing over his lips audibly. He closed his mouth, made an effort to slow his heaving lungs, and began a crouching run amongst the pigs to reach the barn. Fortunately the side of the barn was open. The fence continued inside. He reached it without incident and climbed hurriedly over.
The shadowy interior of the barn was cold and drafty. Beams of light stabbed through the ramshackle walls at odd angles in every direction. Old, gray hay was piled around at random. There was a rickety loft overhead. The ladder propped up to it was missing most of one side and more than few of the rungs.
The opposite end of the barn held six stalls in a row. The half dozen horses housed there whickered and looked over their stall-doors at him. Mithris waved in what he hoped was a calm, friendly manner. One of the horses snorted and pawed at its door.
He couldn’t even get horses to like him.
Then his eyes fell on the middle of the barn, where a collection of barrels and chests were piled together. Sitting on top of one of the fat oak barrels was a willow wand and a spellbook. His things! Now, if only he could get his voice back…
The shouting out in the yard had changed its pitch. Mithris looked up in alarm. They were looking for him.
Chapter 22
Mithris ran to the barrel, grabbing up his things. Stuffing the spellbook into its oversized pocket, he clutched the wand like a dagger and stared at the large but thankfully closed barn door. Men shouted on the other side of it. If they opened it…
Depths has figured out the spell that was used to keep me silent. If Ileera used the same incantation on you, we think we know how to break it.
Mithris had never been so glad to hear the crystal speak. For a moment, he relaxed in complete relief. The crystals could save him. Then he realized that was completely impossible. He still couldn’t cast a spell, and the crystals could do nothing without a caster.
That sinking feeling means you see the problem, but it’s not as bad as you think. We’re going to get Ileera herself to lift the spell.
Mithris had been holding on to a final shred of optimism, but it vanished now. “There is no way you’ll get that mean wizardess to take back the spell,” he snapped, angry that they had gotten his hopes up for nothing.
Hey, said the crystal, sounding surprised. It worked! Mithris gasped. The crystal was right. But the shouting outside had grown closer, and now the door rattled as someone placed a hand on it. Mithris raised his wand, racking his brain for melee cantrips.
Repeat after me, said the crystal. And do not attempt to memorize this spell.
Magic words sounded in the depths of his brain, full and deep in the somehow sonorous voice of the foundation crystal. Many of them, Mithris did not know. He repeated them aloud in a quiet voice, lest the men outside hear him.
Suddenly he was not in the barn.
“What?” Mithris stumbled, staggering against a white stone wall. He was in Avington! Looking up, he saw he was near the back of a refuse-strewn alley in one of the city’s poorer districts. He was a dozen leagues from where he’d stood a moment ago. Bending at the waist, he threw up again. Little was left in his belly save bile, but there was plenty of that to burn its way up his throat.
Nauseous, Mithris turned his back to the wall and sank down to sit in the muck.
Again? Really, Mithris, you need to get on with it.
“How did I get here?”
You cast a traveling spell. And not very well, either. You mispronounced _____. Pay more attention next time.
Mithris shook his head. At least he was free of the mercenaries. Not that they wouldn’t figure out where he’d gone eventually, but they might think twice about locking him up again. Well, probably not. At least he had a head start on them. But he needed to get himself out of Avington. The crystal was right. He needed to move.
Don’t forget about us.
“Us?”
Depths wishes to come with us, Mithris. He has been most unhappy living with Ileera. He says she’s been using him for the most dreadful purpose. It has to do with her students. I don’t think I should tell you. You seem to have a delicate stomach.
Grumbling, Mithris pushed himself up the wall and took the first unsteady step. His next step was more sure, and in a moment he was jogging down the alley and hunting for a landmark. He didn’t know how he’d get into Ileera’s tower and steal two of the most valuable magic artifacts in the world, but he’d figure that out.
***
The nervous mercenary captain knelt on the stone floor at Eaganar’s feet. The powerful sorcerer looked down at the bald-pated man with a sneer of contempt. Flanking Yuric on either side hovered two wetly glistening, red bodies. These were vaguely man-shaped. Their flesh appeared to drip blood from every pore.
Yuric quivered with fear. As he should.
“My apologies, great wizard,” mumbled the terrified mercenary. “We had him…”
“Yes.” Eaganar waved a hand airily to one side, though Yuric did not dare look up to see the off-handed gesture. “But I can’t help but notice, Yuric, that you do not have him now. You do realize that the point wasn’t that you possess him, but that I possess him. That you held him for a few hours is irrelevant. You have failed your task.”
The wizard spoke coldly, but inside he seethed with fiery rage. He had traveled thousands of leagues to collect the apprentice, and this fool had let the boy slip mere minutes before he’d arrived. It was an appalling set-back, not least because Eaganar could not afford to stay away from his newly acquired tower. The old place had warmed to him somewhat, but it was still too soon to relax his pressure on the spire. He needed to be back this very night, or he’d risk losing his hold on the place.
>
He would not let everything he had worked toward fall apart because of some untutored boy. He would not! Eaganar fought down his frothing rage, focusing it into a glare of hatred for the idiot who had failed him.
“My lord…” Yuric was a hard man, unaccustomed to humility. He gritted his teeth, forcing the next words out. “You have my most sincere apologies. You must know that I regret failing you. I assure you, however, I’ll get him back. And in the meantime, heads will roll.”
“Oh, indeed they shall,” agreed Eaganar. He made a chopping motion with his hand directed at the bloody demons hovering over Yuric. The creatures, summoned from the bleakest nether regions of the fourth foundation, descended on the mercenary in a crimson flash.
Yuric screamed, but his screams quickly became wet, gurgling sounds that grew weaker and soon cut off completely.
***
Mithris knelt behind an open cart laden with scrawny potatoes, peering around the front at the open plaza two blocks down the street. From this angle, only a small corner of Ileera’s tower was visible past the buildings at that end of the street, but Mithris wasn’t ready to creep any closer and risk being seen.
I’m sure you look ridiculous, cowering in the street in broad daylight.
“I’m waiting to be sure,” Mithris growled under his breath. On the other side of the cart, a farmer looked up in surprise and began looking all around for the source of the voice he’d just heard.
Wait too long, the mercenaries are sure to alert the wizardess of your escape.
Unfortunately, that was surely true. Mithris shook his head. The problem was, he still didn’t have a plan. Not one that stood any chance of working, at any rate. But he had to come up with something. He scratched his chin, thinking furiously.
“Here now, what’s this?” The farmer had come around the rear of the cart and spotted Mithris where he crouched. “Thievin’, is it? Get on with you, get now!”
The farmer aimed a solid kick at the lad’s backside. Mithris leaped out of the way just in time, and scurried down the street. He cast a few angry looks over his shoulder, but he supposed he couldn’t blame the potato farmer. The world certainly was filled with people who couldn’t be trusted.
He went to the next corner and stopped, idly looking this way and that as if trying to remember directions. Holding a hand over his mouth, he whispered: “All right, where in the tower are you? And please tell me you’re both together.”
We are both on the desk in Ileera’s private study.
On the top bloody floor, Mithris thought. At least they were together. “All right,” he muttered. “And where’s Ileera?”
Out of the tower.
Mithris jumped. He spun around and around, hunting the intersection and both streets for the glamorous magician. He couldn’t see her anywhere. Settling down, Mithris supposed she might have left the tower on some errand that wasn’t to do with him. If so, however, his luck must be turning around.
Such a pessimist. Get in here, Mithris. We don’t know how long until she returns. And, by the way, Depths wants me to tell you that it’s always nice when the little things fall together.
Mithris began to reply, then stopped. There had been no one in the scullery. The hogs, though clearly agitated, had let him pass without incident. His belongings had been waiting right out in plain sight for him. And for the first time, the foundation crystal had been able to help him without Mithris himself casting a spell. His luck really had turned around.
“Depths can…influence luck?” he asked, incredulous.
Luck may be putting it in terms which are too…binary. But, yes, to put it in your terms. Depths can influence the flow of chance to an extent.
“Then tell Depths I’m coming and Ileera will never get her hands on either of you again. Tell Depths I owe it to you both.”
Determined, Mithris strode down the last block before the plaza and Ileera’s tower. He had an idea. It might just be the dumbest idea anyone had ever conceived, but then again it just might work.
Chapter 23
Mithris waited until the young apprentice—Bartomae, he thought—went back inside the tower, having concluded the transaction with the onion seller.
The rough and wiry onion farmer, his face windburned and pocked, hefted one of his baskets of sweet onions from the back of his cart and hoisted it up to one shoulder. Mithris hurried over while the man was distracted, placing himself between the farmer and the tower entrance. When the man turned around, Mithris stepped forward like he had just come from inside.
“I’ll take those,” he said, projecting as much haughty self-assurance as he could muster. The onion-seller hesitated. Mithris stepped closer, leaning toward the man and lowering his voice as if confiding a secret. “Mistress Ileera knows what you did, friend. She’d not be happy to find you in her tower again. You understand?”
Mithris held his breath. His gamble paid off, and the onion seller paled. The man stuttered, finally managed to speak: “I didn’t mean to…you can’t…it was the ale, man!”
“Mistress Ileera does not care why you did the thing,” said Mithris, making his voice cold in an imitation of the wizardess when she was angry. “Now give me those onions and begone!”
The onion seller passed over his basket hastily. When Mithris took it from him, the man backed away dusting off his hands and then wringed them together. He glanced nervously up at the tower’s upper windows, then turned to grab the handles at the front of his cart. Mithris watched as the man hurried away before he turned and went into the tower. It took that long for his own knees to stop trembling. But it had worked!
“I’m in,” he muttered under his breath, heading for the kitchen with his load of onions. He kept his head down in case he ran into any of the apprentices, who might recognize him. “Still in the study?”
Yes.
“Ileera still gone?”
Yes.
That was good. Mithris hurried to the kitchen. There were a handful of apprentices there, but they were hard at work scrubbing pots. Mithris found a store-room and left the basket of onions on the floor just inside. Then he hurried back out of the kitchens. He had to reach the fourth floor.
Mithris found some stairs and hurried up them. As he rounded the second floor landing, he heard voices from above growing closer. He darted out into the corridor and searched for some place to hide. In a nearby alcove, he found a life-size statue in ivory. It was Ileera herself. The voices neared the landing. Mithris could not fit in the alcove with the statue. He dropped to his knees and pretended to polish the short plinth holding the ivory likeness.
“Who are you? I haven’t seen you before.”
Mithris looked up, fighting to keep his face calm. He smiled weakly at the two older boys who stood over him. He had not met them before, at least.
“My name is Gregor,” he said, glad that he had taken a few minutes to concoct a clever cover story before he tried infiltrating the tower. “I’m new here. Mistress Ileera just took me on after my former Master sent me away. His name was Eaganar.”
“I heard her mention this Eaganar yesterday,” murmured one of the apprentices. The other one, who had spoken first, nodded.
“Well,” that one said. He spoke imperiously, as if he were the Master here. “You make sure to polish that statue well, Gregor. The Mistress likes a tidy tower.”
“You bet,” said Mithris, bobbing his head in a subservient nod. The two apprentices moved on. When they rounded the next corner, Mithris breathed out in relief.
You’re becoming quite adept at lying, observed the crystal.
“I ought to be,” muttered Mithris, rising and dashing back to the stairs. He met no one else on his quick trip to the top, and soon he slipped into Ileera’s private study. He spied the two foundation crystals, sitting side by side amidst the books piled on her desk. He ran to the desk, grabbing them up one in each hand.
“Got you,” he crowed. “Now let’s get out of here.”
That would be a g
ood idea, yes.
Mithris spun around, ready to go. As he took his first step toward the door, he saw the handle turn and froze in place. Groaning, Mithris looked over to the window…No, it was too high up for jumping. He was trapped. He looked back to the door…
“By all the foundations!” Ileera roared when she saw him. Striding forward, she slammed the door behind her and drew out a fat wand of black ashwood. Her face was set in a scowl of fury. Muttering a few words of magic, she swiped the wand across in front of her.
An invisible blow struck Mithris like a giant’s backhand. Lifted off his feet, Mithris tumbled over backward. He hit the floor hard, Depths bouncing out of his hand. Ileera hissed two more arcane words and the blue-green crystal shot off the floor and flew straight to her outstretched hand.
Mithris pushed himself up, holding the other foundation crystal tightly in his hand. He met Ileera’s eyes across the room. They regarded one another, each clutching a foundation crystal and each determined how to retrieve the other one.
Ileera raised her wand and crystal, holding them out to either side. She began an sonorous incantation. Mithris drew his own wand and started to speak one of his dueling cantrips.
Use a ward for once!
Mithris, concentration broken, started to argue. He saw Ileera nearing the end of her chant. Without thinking, he wove his wand through the air and cast a ward between them. Fireballs appeared in midair, hurling themselves at Mithris. They struck his ward in the instant the spell resolved, exploding harmlessly but battering his ward out of existence.
Mithris had already cast his cantrip, the same one he’d already been preparing. He stabbed his wand toward Ileera, and a bolt of lightning shot from its tip. Laughing, Ileera waved her wand and spoke two words. The lightning bolt veered away from her, shattering one of the windows in a deafening crash.
Ileera cast another attack. As she spoke, Mithris threw up another ward. As a volley of summoned ice spikes melted against his ward, he cast a second ward that enclosed the entire room. Now Ileera could not break off her attack and escape. He began to weave a third ward inside the first one, but her next attack—a swarm of enraged hornets summoned from somewhere—passed easily through the first and he had to summon firebursts to destroy them. He did it rapidly, casting the same cantrip again and again. It was the spell used for lighting candles. He lit sixty candles, and the crispy hornets fell dead to the floor.
EverMage - The Complete Series: A Fantasy Novel Page 9