The Faithful Traitor (Wizard & Dragon Book 2)

by Robert Don Hughes

“There could be.” Seagryn nodded again. He paid no heed to Nebalath, who stood behind Norck and rolled his eyes derisively. “But you will stay at anchor here and wait for our return?”

  “Naturally,” the captain agreed. Then a second thought obviously raced through his mind, for Seagryn saw it dance across Norck’s features. “Ah — how long will you be?”

  Seagryn looked at Nebalath, who shrugged and answered, “A few days, a week, two weeks — what does it matter? Wait for us and we’ll make you rich. Leave us —” Nebalath pulled from within his tunic the weathered pages he’d fetched from his rooms in Haranamous. “ — and you lose your charts.”

  The argument obviously wasn’t lost upon the captain. Norck raised his eyebrows, then smiled warmly. “I’ll have someone row you to shore.”

  Emerau had a long, gentle shoreline. The waves began breaking well off the beach, and it took several minutes for each to wash up onto the snow-white sand. The rowboat bounced around considerably as they made the trip; thus it was no surprise to Seagryn that as soon as they scraped bottom Fylynn hopped out of the craft and splashed up onto the land. She fell headlong into the sand, first shouting in thanksgiving and then in moaning with the frustrating realization that, despite this firm foundation, her stomach’ continued to chum as if still at sea. “When will it end?” she pleaded with the two wizards as they sloshed up onto the beach behind her, after helping the oarsman turn the rowboat around and shove it back out toward the anchored Stork.

  “Give it a few minutes,” Seagryn encouraged. “You’ll get your legs back.” He jumped up and down twice. “My own feel a little rubbery.”

  “Why is it so quiet?” Nebalath asked as he eyed the tree line suspiciously.

  “I don’t know,” Seagryn answered, immediately suspicious himself.

  Fylynn stood up and shook the powdery sand from her clothing. “Perhaps the trees don’t find much to say to one another. You can hardly blame them. I imagine they don’t get around much.” The two wizards frowned at her, and she shrugged. “Are we going?”

  Stepping from the beach into the forest felt like plunging through a green curtain into an entirely different world. None of them had ever seen foliage this flat and wide, in this many shades of green, nor such competition among plants for all of the available growing room. So thick was the jungle that within a few paces the sea had disappeared completely. The only way they could tell its direction was the noise of the waves constantly lapping at the shoreline. A few paces more and even that sense was denied them, for the thickness of the greenery and of the humid air itself seemed to suppress all sound, crushing it to the root-tangled ground. They stumbled forward, glancing at one another for encouragement but finding little of that available. As if on cue, they all stopped walking together — and the silence engulfed them.

  “Where are we?” Seagryn whispered to Nebalath. It seemed disrespectful — even dangerous — to speak normally in such a place.

  “I don’t know,” Nebalath whispered back.

  “You’re on the verge of Mora,” a voice only an arm’s length away explained, and the three voyagers all gasped in surprise and grabbed one another for support. It was Fylynn who recovered first.

  “Oh, that’s a relief. I’d thought we were in the middle of nowhere.”

  “No,” the voice said, and the speaker stepped into view. “Just on the verge of it.”

  He was very tall, dressed in a shining material that looked like high quality fish-satin. The garment was wound round and round his body like a Lamathian funeral shroud. What most startled them was his skin color: He was purple. Not that they could be certain that this was a he — the speaker’s darker-purple hair hung to the shoulders of his shroud wrap, but his voice sounded deep and resonant. He didn’t seem to be joking.

  “We’re on the edge of nowhere then,” Fylynn corrected herself when it became apparent that her two male fellow travelers were still dumbstruck.

  “Very much so. We’ve come at some hardship to fetch you.”

  “We?” Fylynn asked. As if in answer, about a dozen similarly shrouded figures stepped out of the green curtain and surrounded them. Their faces weren’t at all menacing, but still Seagryn’s heart pounded. They were all so tall — and so purple.

  “And — how did you know where to come?” Nebalath had finally found his voice.

  The speaker seemed puzzled by the question at first, then apparently made some mental connection and nodded. “We’ve been expecting you. Join us, won’t you?” Then he stepped to one side and gestured for them to precede him.

  Fylynn looked at Nebalath. “Aren’t you going to do something?”

  The old wizard’s forehead creased with concern. “I tried,” he said — obviously very uncomfortable with the idea.

  “Yes,” the purple speaker nodded. “You tried to make us believe you three were invisible. Why is that?”

  Nebalath shrugged. “Oh — no reason.”

  The speaker paused, looking down. Then he looked back up at Nebalath. “No, you tried to make us believe this because you wished to escape. Why would you wish to escape from us?”

  “It — seemed a good idea at the time.” Nebalath obviously felt humiliated; when his eyes met Seagryn’s inquiring gaze, he snarled, “Why don’t you try something then?”

  “I didn’t know if I needed to — and now, I don’t know whether it would do any good.” He looked at the purple speaker, who watched with apparent patience. “I had understood that you — people who live in the spice islands spoke a different tongue from that of the old One Land. How do you know our language?”

  “Oh, we don’t. Our masters do — and they tell us.”

  “Umm.” He nodded. “And are your masters from the old One Land?”

  The speaker paused, eyebrows knitted, his eyes focused above their heads. Then he answered, “No.”

  “Ahh,” Seagryn said, nodding again and trying to think of another question that would help him make sense of the purple speaker’s flawlessly pronounced words.

  “You want to know how our masters know your speech,” the speaker supplied, smiling slightly, and Seagryn, surprised, could only nod. “They understand your thoughts — the thoughts of all three of you. Our thoughts as well. They place answers to your questions in my mind, and I speak them to you. It’s really quite a simple system, really. Shall we go?”

  Fylynn and Seagryn started forward obediently, but Nebalath was not yet convinced. “If they can place these thoughts in your minds, why can they not place them in ours directly?”

  “Oh, they could,” the speaker explained with a magnanimous smile, “but you’re not yet domesticated. Please,” he added with a warm smile, “come with us. You’ve been traveling far, and certainly you’ll want to get out of these uncomfortable garments and put on something more compatible with the climate. Oh, and one of you is hungry, as well!” he added.

  Fylynn looked back and forth at the two wizards, then sucked in her stomach and snapped, “Why not? I haven’t kept a meal down in days!” She stalked past the speaker, then turned her head to call back over her shoulder, “Although, looking at him, I’m not certain I’m going to want what they serve …”

  “You’ll find it delicious!” The speaker smiled, falling in to walk behind her and letting the wizards trail them both. “Already our masters have picked from your mind your favorite foods and are giving instructions as to their preparation. You’ll find it a delightful meal!”

  Seagryn glanced at the placid purple faces that ringed them, and shuffled forward. Nebalath stepped right in behind him and leaned forward to whisper, “What are you thinking about?”

  “Elaryl, actually,” Seagryn replied with a sigh.

  “Good. Keep thinking of her.”

  He got Nebalath’s meaning but disregarded it as having come much too late. He’d already made the assumption that they might be in danger if these “masters” learned of their mission and opposed it. But since the masters obviously could read thoughts, they
doubtless knew already why these voyagers had arrived upon their shores. And if he and Nebalath couldn’t shape the local powers, then their situation looked very nearly hopeless. All of this had led his thoughts back to Elaryl — why hadn’t he turned around and returned to her when he had the chance?

  All these thoughts tumbled over one another in his mind as they stumbled deeper into the jungle. With each vine they struggled under, each huge leaf they dodged, it seemed the air grew both hotter and wetter, until he could imagine they were walking under a stifling green ocean rather than a canopy of trees, and he began wondering if it was possible that he could drown. He almost stepped on the heels of the speaker, for the man paused, then looked back over his shoulder at Seagryn. He shook his long, purple locks and answered, “No.” Then he turned and plunged on.

  “Nebalath,” Seagryn murmured wearily without looking back, “why won’t our magic work here?”

  “I thought you were thinking of Elaryl!”

  “But now I’m thinking of magic. If ours won’t work here, why should these creatures be concerned if we talk about it?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” the old man snarled. His normally sour disposition was not being helped by this humid march. “I’ve told you before, wizardry hinges upon our imaginations! If they can read our thoughts, then they’ll recognize our illusions for what they are! Thus — we’re in trouble.”

  Seagryn pondered that. “Is it that they read your thoughts and knew they were imagined, or did you somehow reveal to them that you didn’t believe the illusion yourself?”

  Nebalath sighed heavily. “What do you mean by that?” he moaned.

  “Only that — perhaps — this particular circumstance might require faith.”

  The old wizard grunted. “Meaning that if you believe it, they’ll be fooled into believing it, too?”

  “I don’t consider that being fooled, Nebalath. I do believe it, remember?”

  “Let me put it this way,” Nebalath said gruffly. “If faith in some Power or other can extricate us from this situation, then I’ll have to leave our rescue up to you. Though I was born and raised in Lamath, I never had a thimbleful of faith. Not even a grain of it.”

  Again the speaker stopped and turned around. “The masters want you to reflect more upon this Power.” Just that — then he was off and walking again. He was a voice and nothing more.

  “Now I see it!” Nebalath cackled, and Seagryn frowned back at him in some confusion until he explained. “What better way to confuse them than to get them thinking about theology! Your faith may get us out of this after all!”

  Feeling rather naked, Seagryn nevertheless did as he’d been instructed — and, he reminded himself, as he himself chose; he thought about the Power. The speaker did not turn around again, and before much longer Seagryn noticed that the jungle was thinning out — or, rather, becoming more orderly. It was soon quite clear that somewhere they had crossed over out of the bush and into a tropical garden. The air seemed less dense here. Despite his worry, Seagryn couldn’t help but enjoy the beauty that now surrounded them. Waxy magenta flowers grew from dangling vines, and multicolored birds swooped and darted around the trees that now seemed to arch together much higher over their heads. The green of this garden seemed less yellow-green and more the richer, cooler blue-green of the forests of home. Then they began to encounter dwellings — large, rectangular buildings faced with a glistening white stone. Seagryn was finding it difficult not to be impressed with these purple-tinted people — and, by extension, with their masters.

  As the stone houses became more frequent, the garden yielded to them, and certain purple members of their party left the column and went off to — apparently — their homes. Nebalath called Seagryn’s attention to this with a touch on the shoulder and a gesture. He did so again when the last man behind him abruptly dropped out of line and angled toward a house where violet children played. “Why are they leaving us?” he whispered.

  “You think they couldn’t immediately swarm back out and surround us if we took it in our minds to flee?” Seagryn asked. He noticed that the speaker had reached out to pull Fylynn back even with him, and now he gestured to the two wizards to join them. The warmth of the gesture was unmistakable. They walked four abreast into the heart of the city. They each glanced to the speaker to gauge their direction and soon saw they were headed for a long, low building some distance away, which appeared to be somewhat larger than the houses they’d passed. When finally they reached the door, Seagryn took a deep breath and plunged inside. He was prepared to meet the masters.

  “Oh, they’re not here,” the speaker told him. “No,” he went on, “I really doubt if they’ll reveal themselves to you. But look! Here’s a table, and a feast spread upon it!” The words were almost an understatement. The table before them struggled to stand beneath a load that would surely have challenged the tables of the King of the old One Land … “When there was such,” Seagryn mumbled sadly to himself, remembering little Merkle.

  “Such a small person,” their host marveled. “And white as a house, too …”

  “If the masters aren’t here, where are they?” Nebalath demanded, stepping to the table and picking up what appeared to be the leg of some roasted bird — some large roasted bird.

  “That’s — not for me to say,” their purple guide responded.

  “You can’t say? Or you don’t know?”

  “Oh, I know, certainly — we all know. But — we don’t speak of such things.”

  “Or even think about them?” Seagryn prodded, and the man’s purple curls bounced as he nodded vigorously.

  “Exactly. It isn’t done.”

  Seagryn looked at Nebalath, shrugged, and plunged ahead. “What about a powdery green substance that puts the mind to sleep? Do you talk about that?” Their host froze in obvious horror. “Or — even think about it?” Seagryn added a moment later. When the man’s silence continued, Seagryn murmured to Nebalath, “The masters are obviously instructing him what to say next.”

  “I wish someone would instruct me what to do next,” Nebalath said back. “Did you have some plan of action behind this frontal assault? Or did the idea just pop into your head?”

  “The masters would like you to sleep here tonight — or for as long as you choose to stay. This is your home. You’ll find bathing facilities and clothing provided in the anteroom beyond. As to what you choose to do next, or where you choose to go — that’s entirely up to you. If you wish a guide, just ask the masters, and they shall provide you one.” As abruptly as he’d appeared to them that morning near the beach, the tall island dweller turned to go.

  “Wait!” Seagryn called, and the man stopped immediately and looked back. “What would they do to you if you thought about such things — the masters, I mean?”

  The man smiled broadly. “Are you teasing me?”

  “Not at all! What would they do?”

  The man’s disbelieving smile didn’t fade. “They’d eat us, of course.” Then he was out the door and gone, on his way home, Seagryn assumed, to rejoin his family and put his day with these odd visitors out of his mind.

  “He didn’t lie. It’s delicious.” Fylynn had made several circuits of the table by this time and was looking rather overstuffed.

  “Too delicious,” she added, her hand on her stomach. “Since you gentlemen have yet to eat, I’ll just go bathe and find some clothes. These,” she said, looking meaningfully down the front of her garments, “smell as if they’ve been worn by a fish.” She disappeared through an archway on the far side of the hall, and they soon heard her splashing. Nebalath continued to gnaw his bird leg, while Seagryn surveyed the table and made his own selections.

  “What do you think?” he finally asked.

  “I’m still trying not to think,” Nebalath answered. “There doesn’t seem to be much future in it.” He tossed aside the bone and settled down into a chair, which was obviously built for a much taller frame. Since his feet didn’t reach the floor, Nebalath
pulled them up into the chair with him. “Still, I suppose we must do some planning. I suggest we get a good night’s sleep and get up before dawn.”

  Seagryn groaned. “Why is it your plans always seem to start so much earlier in the day than mine?”

  “We need to find something that these purple people are forbidden even to think about. We can’t cloak ourselves here, thus we must move under cover of darkness. We’re ail dead tired after our jungle trek. Early morning seems the most obvious answer.”

  “And what do you think these masters will be doing? Dreaming? We may become somebody’s breakfast.”

  “We’ve not yet seen these masters, nor heard from them directly. I have a feeling about them.”

  “And that is?”

  “I think they’re powers of some kind. These games they appear to be playing in our minds are a type of shaping. And who knows? A good night’s sleep, and we might be shaping them.”

  “Help!” Fylynn cried from the other room, and both of them jerked with surprise. A moment later they raced through the arch to find her struggling, wrapped in the coils of — a garment of some kind?

  The clothes laid out for them by their hosts were naturally of the same wraparound design the purple people wore themselves. On them, the wraps had looked neat and even. Fylynn appeared rather more like a poorly bandaged warrior. In some places the yellowish cloth wound around her too tightly, cutting into her and restricting her movement. In other places it sagged open, exposing more of Fylynn’s flesh than she wished to show or they wished to see. “Can either one of you figure out how this goes on?” she pleaded.

  Neither one could, with the result that well before dawn the next morning they rose and donned the same old clothes they’d worn from Pleclypsa, still moist from being washed out the night before.

  “What difference does it make?” Fylynn whispered when Nebalath grumbled about this. “They’d be dripping wet again by midday anyway …”

  The people of Emerau were not early risers. No one challenged them as they slipped out of the large guest house into the predawn mist. Not knowing which way they needed to go, they’d agreed previously to head toward the center of the island. Silently they turned toward the south and soon slipped past the last white-stone house. As far as they could tell, no one inside stirred. Once the dwelling was out of sight, both Seagryn and Nebalath held hands out before them and made the attempt — and both created balls of fire to light their way before and behind. This was a cheering portent. “So. We can shape here,” Nebalath whispered. He sounded much relieved.