“Oh, come now!” Magpie exclaimed. “This is a transformation so thorough that a butterfly that had just finished turning from a grub would be impressed with you.”
“Eremi, don’t speak to my aunt that way!” Inbecca protested, but she did not look straight at him. Tildi could tell that she was torn between believing him or Sharhava. Tildi could tell by her rune that she was wavering. Magpie and Princess-Knight Inbecca were looking and not looking at each other. Tildi saw volumes of meaning in the runes that adorned them, then looked away, ashamed to be able to read their feelings so readily. Moments ago she had been blind to everyone’s deepest thoughts. Now she could not help it. She longed for rest. None of this was really happening to her. Everything felt like it was happening in a distant haze.
In the Great Book, she found the story of a girl named Tildi, who was just like herself. But it was all so unbelievable! If she had read it at home, she would have put the book aside as a drunken tale.
Home. She felt pangs for lost home, loved ones, safety, comforts. But the book made up for a lot of her loss. She hugged it to herself. Over her head, the argument went on. Sharhava put her hand, her good hand, on Serafina’s shoulder.
“You need time to think and to heal. Let those of us with more experience take a hand. We will make ready to go. The sooner we leave, the more distance we can put behind us before dark. As soon as I consider that we are in a safe place, you may contact Olen and tell him where to find us. Loisan!”
The gray-haired knight presented himself at her side. “Yes, my lady?”
“Gather up the horses. We leave within the hour.”
“Yes, Abbess.”
And that was that, Tildi realized. Serafina, coping with her own grief and the exhaustion from healing so many wounds, had been overwhelmed by the abbess. In fact, she agreed with the imperious woman many more times than Tildi would have thought she might if she were not so tired. The others were also too tired or disheartened to put up much of an argument in reply. Sharhava was triumphant. Tildi saw it in her rune. She knew Serafina could see it, too. Sharhava was a masterful woman.
Within less time than she would have believed, the horses were found and groomed, including Magpie’s Tessera, Serafina’s white mare, and Melune, Lakanta’s obstreperous pony.
No food was to be found in the castle, nor would any of them have trusted it, but Nemeth’s reconstruction of the ancient building appeared to have included the wellheads. A couple of volunteers from among Sharhava’s force tested it and found the water not only good but sweet. They filled bottles and canteens, and washed off the dust and blood of battle.
The book spoke of all these things to Tildi, even when she could not see them. She found she could spin automatically to the page she wanted to see, though much of which she wished to know was on the few leaves surrounding the gaping wound where Nemeth had ripped pieces away. She touched the torn edges. It would take strength to tear the parchment. Although it was old, it was as sound as the day it had been made. Such a beautiful thing. She could not help but stroke it, even though the touch still sent fire racing through her fingertips. It did not burn as painfully as it had in the beginning.
She remained sitting on the floor where she had stopped after helping Magpie. The knights were careful to give her room. She sensed odd emotions from them, almost as if she could hear their thoughts. They were angry, in a way. She felt fierceness from them. They . . . hated her, or so it seemed, but why? She had never done any harm, and they were offering to help her accomplish her goal. She thought she understood all of it when she saw open envy on the face of one lanky young man. That was it: she could do what they could not. She couldn’t do anything about that, nor could she help their feelings.
Her friends spoke to her now and again. She thought she replied to them, but so much seemed imaginary now that she was not certain if she had spoken or only thought about speaking.
With no duties and no responsibilities at hand, Serafina had settled in one of the big white thrones where she could see Tildi. Her rune was almost spinning. Tildi knew she had much to think about. So much had happened. So much.
Then it had been time to go. Tildi had seen the impatience in the knights’ runes on the page of the Great Book. She did not need to look up to see how many of them stood around her, waiting for her to rise. She rolled the enormous scroll up and prepared to leave. Heat seemed to roll from her in waves. It was lessening every moment, but it still made the others step well back. They formed a double row that led to the hole in the floor.
She had looked down through it, and her heart quailed. The stone blocks had been a graceful staircase, then Nemeth’s monstrous army lay scattered in heaps on the floor of the huge reception room far below. The knights had been pulling themselves up by means of rope ladders. Tildi did not like heights. If only the stairs were still there! Only a fragment of the uppermost end of the flight remained. Two stairs still clung together upon the section of the arch that had held them aloft. The rune, though slightly damaged, was largely intact. If that was how those parts were made, then it stood to reason that the other steps would have had similar if not identical runes.
At that moment Tildi had been certain she could see how the stairs ought to fit together all the way down. The voices coming from the book assured her that her vision was true. She put out a small hand.
“Votaf,” she said.
With a crash like a thousand bolts of lightning, the stones flew together. Tildi blinked. The stairs were complete. Well, nearly complete. Some pieces still lay in heaps on the floor below, but an entire flight did now stretch down from here to there. She gazed at it in astonishment, then looked at her hand. How had she done that? What did votaf mean? Where had the word come from? She had looked up to see Serafina studying her curiously. The knights were positively agog.
“Could you do that again?” Serafina asked.
“I don’t know how I did it this time,” Tildi admitted.
“It was well done, no matter how,” Rin said, trotting down the flight ahead of them.
“Aye, I agree,” Lakanta said, taking the tall steps sideways to accommodate her short legs. “I didn’t like the idea of swinging down a rope like a spider, though I would have done it.”
Tildi’s legs were shorter yet, but somehow she managed to get down without falling or dropping the precious scroll.
In the courtyard the knights offered Tildi the choice of any mount she wished to ride, but the voices broke into loud whispers.
“Bearing her is my honor,” Rin told the knights fiercely. She flared her nostrils, defying them to contradict her. They had appealed to Tildi.
“What is your decision?” Loisan asked, in his courtly way. Tildi felt nervous, but she managed to state her wish.
“I’d rather go with Rin.”
That had prompted another huddled discussion among the knights. Tildi became fascinated with watching the runes in the book, until the circle broke.
“It shall be as you say,” Loisan announced.
A stout man who by his bearing ranked lower than either Loisan or the abbess but higher than most of the others had come forward with an ancient leather satchel fastened with a gleaming buckle Tildi thought must have been of pure gold. He unfastened it and drew from it a cloth so white it almost hurt Tildi’s eyes. She could tell the cloth was something special that the knights had carried with them for a very long time. The intricate embroidery looked to be of smallfolk design and the very highest level of workmanship. With Rin’s permission he spread it over her back, then gestured politely to Tildi.
“May I assist you?”
“What is the cloth for?” she asked, a trifle suspiciously.
“It is to protect the book from soiling, honored one,” he said.
“Oh.”
She was impressed that they had thought to bring the cloth with them, since they’d been looking for the Great Book for centuries more than Olen and his council had. The two men knelt, as if they would lift her
onto Rin’s back.
“Better not,” Tildi warned them. She started the flight chant.
“Stop!” Serafina interrupted her. “Until you have control of yourself, I had better do that.” She continued with the chant. Tildi could see the lifting runes form underneath her feet and a similar spell appear on Rin’s back. They were weaker than any she had seen Serafina create before. Distantly, the feeling part of her was worried about the young wizardess. She also had a faint hint of concern for herself.
Rin had let out one soft grunt when Tildi settled herself. It was the only complaint she had made or would make. Tildi was grateful to her, and vowed to make her presence as painless as possible.
“We are ready, then,” Sharhava said. “We will go now.”
I ask again, does she have some special powers that will preserve her life if you are beset?”
“No,” Serafina said.
“Then she can die. So can all of you, and you shall, if you do not cooperate with us. She will bear the book for us. She will bring it, under our escort, to the chapter house of our order, or you can attempt to fight your way free of this place against all of us.” She sketched a bow to Tildi. “You will have a high office with us, honorable, with all the things you will need to assist us in our studies. Since you are the only one who can handle it, we will protect you and the book forever. No one will harm you there. What do you say?”
Tildi looked at the others. She swallowed. She could not forfeit the lives of her friends to save the book. The only other answer would be to harm or kill all of the knights by changing their runes, and that she was unwilling to do. She looked to Serafina for guidance, but the young wizardess shook her head. Tildi swallowed.
“I . . . I am afraid we have no choice.”
Sharhava beamed, as if they had reached an agreement willingly. “Good. We will depart. You will be content there, in your new home.”
She pointed forward, and the party began to move once again.
“Why are you listening to her?” Lakanta demanded in a hiss. “Tildi! We can’t stay in Orontae. We’ve got to get this thing to the south as soon as we can!”
“I know,” Tildi said miserably. She couldn’t explain. She could not believe that Sharhava could play her so cruelly. Why had she believed the woman at the start?
Tildi studied the abbess, who would no longer meet her eyes. Sharhava had the deepest control, and the deepest convictions of any of her followers. When she and the knights were not concentrating upon the unwelcome guest in their midst, they seemed nice enough people. A few of them were unable to contain their joy at having the Great Book nearby. A young man with a long, thin face and very intense, dark blue eyes risked censure by riding up in between the stone wall and the lefthand file of guards to behold the bundle in Tildi’s lap. He gave her a look of pure delight, before recalling that she was an unnatural creature who was not supposed to exist. His cheeks reddened. Tildi gave him a pleasant smile. He didn’t seem like a bad man. One could grow up with a knowledge of the world that was completely wrong, yet be a genuinely good man or woman.
Serafina drew her mount back until she was riding in the protected circle with Tildi and Rin. Tildi could tell by her expression that the argument was not over, by any means, but they could do little at the moment. It was better to have an escort than not. None of them knew what other menaces Nemeth could have loosed in his quest for revenge.
Rin muttered to herself. “A Windmane does not take instruction from a two-foot. If I get the chance, I shall kill her.”
“Save your efforts, my friend,” Serafina said, though her eyes were aglow with the same ire as the centaur’s. “The time is not yet. We do need protection, more than my magic or your strong arm can provide. Since we are forced to travel with them, they may as well guard us until another solution can be found.”
“Can we send a message? Olen must be looking in on us, with his scrying ways.”
Olen! Tildi’s heart leaped within her for joy at the sound of her first master’s name. If only he could rescue them.
“I will try to send him word,” Serafina said. “He may already know. The face of the very world has been scarred. He must see. He must know. I hope that he can see us, too. We have other allies nearby as well.”
“Who?” Tildi asked.
“Hush!” Serafina said as the guards turned their way.
“How silent it is!” Lakanta said, turning on her plump pony’s saddle. “Not a bird, not a cricket, not a rustle anywhere.”
Tildi listened. Except for the lonely whisper of the wind, not a sound but the jingle of harness and the clatter of shod hooves on the stone path reached her sensitive ears.
“Looks as though every living thing for miles got scared off by whatever spell your mother cast,” the trader continued. Serafina stiffened, but the little trader didn’t notice. She went blithely on. “On the good side, we shouldn’t be seeing that Madcloud again!” She looked at Serafina speculatively. “Are you sure you cannot send these habited nuisances away the same as your mother did with the stone giants?”
“No!”
Tildi giggled to herself. Lakanta chattered on as if the knights couldn’t hear a word she was saying, but they most certainly could. They rode as stiff-backed as Serafina. The trader pressed on.
“What about Tildi? She has all this power, now that she’s got that big scroll, there.”
The guards looked alarmed. Rin shook her head.
“Even if she could, friend, she does not have the control of a wizard,” Rin said. “She is but an apprentice. I say this not to hurt your feelings, Tildi.”
“It is only the truth,” Tildi said. “I’m afraid of what would happen if I try.”
“If it would rid us of these people, what harm could there be?”
“I had not known you to be so bloodthirsty!” Serafina said with a wry expression. “I chafe at this state of affairs, too. Wait.”
Lakanta snorted. “Wait. As we trundle off to who knows where? And with no one tending my customers along my route—it’ll take years to get them all content again, if my cousin doesn’t steal my route before I can get back to them.”
“If he has your winning ways, how could he but succeed?” Rin asked with a snort.
“You may go, if you wish,” the abbess said suddenly, casting a glance back over her shoulder. “There is no reason for you—any of the rest of you, either—to remain. Only that one. We will escort her.”
Lakanta folded her arms, gripping her reins in her round little fist. “We stay with Tildi, fine lady. And never you think I resent it. It’s you and yours who give me the saddle sores.”
The way Sharhava’s spine stiffened, Tildi knew that the feeling was mutual.
“Lend me your assistance, Tildi. We need warding,” Serafina said.
Tildi nodded and prepared to concentrate. One of her first lessons with Master Olen was to make wards. “For protection?”
“No. We require more than that. I wish that Captain Teryn had not been so impatient with her sword. Nemeth had much more to tell us.”
“If he would!” Rin said with disbelief on her long face.
“He was in fear of his life,” Serafina said, her face thoughtful. “He was terrified of more than our arrival. His quest for revenge was only part of the reason he had set himself in this citadel. It is a defensive location, and we are leaving it. I wish I could convince that stubborn woman that we face a much greater threat than we can defend against on our own.”
“But the Shining Ones no longer exist,” Rin protested. “How could they? They would be over ten thousand years old.”
“What is that to ones who could harness all of existence in a single book? You must not forget that they were in complete command of their magical abilities. We know so little about the advances they made in their studies.” She tilted her head toward the Great Book. Tildi clutched it tighter. “We must study it later, Tildi, in hopes that perhaps we can identify the Shining One of whom Nemeth spoke, and
locate him. In the meanwhile, let us try to shield ourselves from discovery, as Nemeth himself did.”
Tildi nodded. The spell that concealed the wizard from them had been penetrated only because she bore with her a fragment of a copy of a leaf—not even a piece of the book itself. It had been enough.
She unrolled the pure white parchment scroll a short way, wincing again at the holes in the leaves. When they had discovered Nemeth, he had torn runes from the book and destroyed them. In turn, their destruction had triggered the cataclysmic damage she saw around her. Tildi’s heart constricted at the ruin of the land as well as that of the book. How something so beautiful could be desecrated by one who had claimed to love it she didn’t know. In time, she and Serafina would work out how they could keep the knights from using the book for their own deadly purposes. She hoped Olen and the others would come and help them before the caravan reached the Scriptorium of which Sharhava spoke. Tildi feared Magpie might be right about Sharhava’s motivation, in spite of her protests that the knights were only there to provide escort. The knights would not tell her in which way the Scriptorium lay, possibly to keep them from making plans based upon the terrain through which they must pass.
Teryn and Morag openly disdained the knights, and Loisan in particular. The way Teryn’s hand hovered over her empty scabbard told Tildi the guard captain wanted only an excuse to challenge their captors. Since the knights had not forbidden them to accompany Tildi, the guards had not revolted openly. Though she was certain that Teryn and Morag were trained to the uttermost of their talents, they could not succeed against forty armed men and women. Tildi could not give up hope that the guards would find some way to navigate a safe course for them that did not include the knights. She was certain that Teryn and Morag had more resources between them than a bit of paper or a couple of pieces of metal. Halcot said he believed in their cause. His chosen guards must have more means of defending her than the weapons that had been taken away. She hoped it would not be necessary to find out, unless the Great Book became imperiled. She had less concern for her own safety. The book required protection. It was precious.
A Forthcoming Wizard Page 3