Night of the Eye

by Mary Kirchoff

  “Let me assure you, my evening wasn’t fun either.” For Zagarus’s sake, he swallowed a smile. “I’m sorry, Zag. I didn’t tell you last night because I intended only to get proof that these men were Quinn’s killers. Besides, I was afraid you’d tell Kirah and you’d both want to come along.”

  So you took Kirah!

  “That wasn’t my idea. She was spying and followed me to the stable. I either had to leave her on the moor or take her along to keep her quiet.” Guerrand swung his legs out of bed and sat up, rubbing his neck. “I should have left her, too, because she almost got us killed!”

  Zagarus’s wings lifted in a shrug. Sounds to me like you should thank her. Now you’re going to be a knight after all, just as you’d agreed.

  “I don’t want to be a knight!” Guerrand said furiously. He was tired of living a lie. The lie would just continue in a different place, with different people. He snatched up Ingrid’s silver necklace from the small table on which it lay and squeezed it as if to crush it. “And I don’t want to be married to Ingrid Berwick.”

  What do you want? Zagarus asked, his voice unnaturally soft inside the human’s head.

  The question surprised Guerrand. In recent years he’d spent more time thinking about what he didn’t want. He sucked in a breath. Had he used Cormac’s hatred of magic as an excuse to protect himself from failing? Guerrand had long ago convinced himself it wasn’t his fault he’d not been allowed to study as a mage. And if he never tried, he’d never fail.

  Guerrand picked up the small fragment of mirror behind the washbowl. “I want to be a mage. I want to become apprenticed to a mighty wizard and eventually take the Test at Wayreth.”

  What? It was more an exclamation of startlement than a question.

  Guerrand told Zagarus of his meeting with Belize. He described his wonderment at the spells the mage had used so casually, told him of the thrill he’d felt when Belize invited him to Wayreth. Last, he set the mirror on the table and explained its role in capturing Quinn’s killers.

  The bird flapped over to the table and pushed the mirror with his foot. This little thing showed you where the bandits were?

  “Easy, now,” admonished Guerrand, extending his hand. “I don’t want it broken.”

  Zagarus cocked his feathered brown-black head to the left and closed one eye. Does it do anything else?

  “Frankly, it hadn’t occurred to me that it could,” Guerrand admitted. The young man peered at the mirror closely. “Do you suppose I can use it to see anything I want?”

  You’re the mage-in-waiting, replied Zagarus. His attention was riveted on a beetle crawling across the table toward the mirror. Tentatively, the insect felt its way onto the glass. As it approached the center, Zagarus struck, his head darting down to snatch up the hapless bug.

  But instead of striking the glass, as he expected, Zagarus’s beak closed around the beetle and kept on going. He froze, wide-eyed. Zagarus could feel the beetle squirming slightly against his tongue, and so he swallowed the tasty morsel. He could see his eyes reflected clearly in the mirror, which was practically touching his forehead. But he couldn’t see his beak; it was inside the mirror!

  The curious bird pushed his head forward and completely through the mirror. He looked right and left, up and down. The view was the same: gray and featureless. He could see only a few rods in any direction before even that view was obscured by a thin, dry, multicolored mist.

  Without removing his head from the mirror, he called to Guerrand. Guerrand, can you still see me?

  For an answer, Guerrand, a look of horror on his face, grabbed the bird by the wings and hauled his small head from the even smaller mirror. “What have you done, Zagarus?”

  Zagarus blinked. I just pecked at the beetle, and there I was with my head in the mirror.

  Guerrand could scarcely believe what he had seen. The bird’s head looked to have disappeared into the impossibly small looking glass. “Were you really ‘inside’ it, Zagarus? What did it look like in there?”

  It’s hard to say, replied the sea gull. I can tell you that this mirror is a lot bigger on the inside than it looks from out here. Zag flexed his wings and tilted his head. I’ll just take another look. Be right back!

  “Wait!” cried Guerrand, but he was too late to stop his familiar from wiggling forward to push his neck through the mirror. There was a pause. Zagarus flipped his tail into the air the way Guerrand had seen him do countless times diving for food in the strait. It seemed quite impossible, but the bird’s body, at least four times wider than the mirror, slipped between the edges and disappeared!

  Guerrand lurched forward and stared, breathless, down at the mirror. He was afraid to touch it. All he saw was the reflection of his own eyes, big as shields. But the image in his mind was his last view of Zagarus, wiggling as he disappeared. Guerrand still could not understand how the much larger bird had fit through the tiny mirror, even though he’d seen it happen. Somehow, when it was happening, it made sense; the perspectives and proportions seemed right.

  Zagarus had been gone some time, and Guerrand was beginning to get concerned. He called the bird mentally. Zagarus! Come out of there this minute!

  Suddenly the shiny dark head popped straight up through the mirror. What now?

  “Good gods, Zag, you terrified me!”

  With a wiggle and a hop, Zagarus popped back out of the mirror and stood on the table. Guerrand shook his head in disbelief.

  You’re a mage, said Zagarus. How does it work?

  “I’m not really a mage, and I don’t know how the mirror works.” Guerrand sat down heavily on the bed. “That pretty much sums up my whole problem, Zag. I’ll never be a mage or know more about such magic if I stay here.”

  He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I can’t shake the feeling that this is my last chance to decide how I’ll spend the rest of my life,” he said. “If I’m still here when the sun comes up, Cormac will have me. I’ll be married to Ingrid Berwick and become a merchant lord and be miserably responsible forever.”

  So what are you waiting for? demanded Zagarus. You said before that it was your greatest wish to travel to Wayreth and become a real mage. He hopped toward the window and onto the sill, where soon the nearly full white moon, Solinari, would be visible.

  “It’s not that simple, and you know it. There’s just so much to consider. What would I tell Cormac?”

  That’s simple, snorted the gull. Nothing. You tell him nothing. He’d stop you for sure, probably lock you up until the ceremony.

  Guerrand frowned. “He’s not a cruel man.”

  “Maybe not, but he’s a desperate one.”

  Guerrand’s frown deepened, knowing Zagarus was right. He knew, too, what he had to do. He couldn’t stay for all the reasons he’d told Cormac; he’d stomached all he could of his older brother. Taxing the locals was an accepted way of life for nobles. Enabling Cormac to rob the Berwicks was entirely another thing.

  But more important than the reasons Guerrand couldn’t stay was the reason he had to go. This was his last chance to change his life. If he didn’t leave to study magic now, then he never would.

  “We’re going to leave tonight,” Guerrand said aloud.

  Does that ‘we’ include Kirah?

  Guerrand gave Zagarus a haunted look. How could he drag Kirah cross-country? Even if he did take her and was lucky enough to be given an apprenticeship, what would he do with her then? Belize had made the point about Ingrid, and it applied to his little sister as well. She would be safer at Castle DiThon.

  “No, it doesn’t include Kirah.” Once the words were out, Guerrand felt a wave of guilt wash over him. He and Kirah and Quinn had been a team since they were children. Quinn had broken up the team when he’d left on crusade, and death had made that split permanent. How could he divide its last two members? A memory in Kirah’s own voice supplied the answer to that. “Guilt is an excuse used by people who are afraid to do what they want. I am never afraid to do what I wa
nt.”

  Guerrand squeezed his eyes shut. It was even more difficult to take her advice now, when she was the one who would be most hurt by it. And yet he knew now he had to leave. In recent days he had witnessed respect for him fading in his sister’s eyes. Guerrand only hoped anger wouldn’t prevent her from being proud of him for following his dream.

  He could no more tell her he was leaving than he could Cormac. A note to both would have to do. After fumbling in one of his trunks for several moments, Guerrand pulled out a writing case containing several quills, some ink, and parchment.

  With a hand that shook, he began to pen: Dear Cormac …

  Guerrand looked at the words and stopped, pushing the parchment aside. Cormac was not his dear anything. He started again on another piece: Cormac …

  Guerrand tapped the end of the quill against his lips, searching his mind for words to explain to Cormac why he was leaving. When it came to him that Cormac would know the answer, that there was nothing else he could tell his elder brother, Guerrand pulled the candlestick on his desk closer. He held the piece of parchment above the flames. It danced briefly in the rising heat until the fire caught it, curled it, and shriveled it to ash.

  Blowing the ash of the already forgotten missive from his desk, he pulled forth another piece and quickly scrawled:

  My Dearest Kirah,

  There’s no easy way to tell you this, but here it is. I’ve gone. You know why. As usual, you were right all along. Where I’m going, you can’t follow. I promise I’ll send for you when my future has some pattern to it. Please know this, too: you’ll always be in my thoughts. If ever you need me, I’ll know, and I will find a way to come back.

  Your faithful brother,

  Rand

  Guerrand rolled the parchment tightly, sealed it with a gob of wax from his candle, and then stared at it before getting on his knees to lift the air grate from the wall behind his desk. Pushing it to the side, he set the letter in the tunnel beyond. Kirah might not find it immediately, he thought, but within a day or two, when they’ve searched everywhere for me, she’s certain to crawl through here looking for some clue.

  Guerrand set the grate back in place. Remember, Kirah, he prayed, it was you who said we can never stay mad at each other.

  Zagarus had returned to the sill, reading Guerrand’s tormented thoughts. I’ll meet you at Stonecliff after I’ve fed, he said, waiting for a response.

  For a long moment, Guerrand could not reply, his voice trapped by teeth clenched to hold back tears. “Yes, all right, I’ll be there,” he managed at last, needing to hear the finality of the words. Zagarus sprang from the ledge and took wing into the dark night sky.

  Wordlessly, Guerrand packed one small bag, in which he included the beginnings of a spellbook, collected his sword and dagger, and slipped out of Castle DiThon. He did not look back at the cold stone walls before he headed west over the moors for Stonecliff, where he’d meet Zagarus. Together, they would continue on to the port town of Lusid and the ship that would take them south to Wayreth and a new life.

  Guerrand took a drink from his waterskin, let the warm liquid run down his face and pool in his collar. He had no idea where to direct his next step on this hot summer afternoon. He’d been wandering for days in the magical Forest of Wayreth, looking for the tower whose position no map revealed. Belize had told him that the tower could “be found only by those who have been specifically invited.” Guerrand felt foolish now for having assumed that, invited, he’d have no trouble finding it. He’d even allowed the belief to comfort him on the long and tedious voyage from Northern Ergoth to Alsip, the port town nearest the tower.

  In reflection, the backbreaking weeks he’d spent as a ship hand to pay for his passage were nothing compared to the days of fear and frustration he’d already spent in search of the Tower of High Sorcery. Wayreth Forest was thick, tangled, and difficult to traverse, with few discernable paths. The trees and bushes were twisted into weird, creepy shapes, made more frightening by the ever-present, distant sounds of wolves and bears.

  Guerrand opened the flap on his leather pack and retrieved the magic mirror. “Zag,” he called toward the glassy surface. Zagarus had traveled overland from Alsip in the mirror. Guerrand had to call two more times before the sea gull’s head popped through the small glass surface.

  Yes? Zagarus craned his neck around. Say, there’s no tower here.

  “No kidding,” snorted Guerrand. “I’d like you to fly overhead and look for the Tower of High Sorcery. I’ve been stumbling around for days without a clue.”

  Zagarus bobbed his head and hopped out of the mirror. With a loud “kyeow” the sea gull’s white wings spread and he disappeared into the sliver of blue sky between the trees overhead.

  Guerrand settled himself against a tree stump and nibbled the last of his provisions while he waited for the gull to return. Before long, Zagarus dropped from the sky and landed on the stump behind him.

  “Well? Which way is it?”

  I’m sorry, Guerrand. I flew far and wide, but all I saw was a few mountains and more trees. Can I get back into the mirror now? This forest is eerie.

  Guerrand held up the mirror wordlessly and didn’t even watch as the sea gull slipped inside, afraid he might be tempted to follow. He’d already spent two hair-raising nights in the pitch-black woods and was not anxious for a third. Zagarus’s news made him downright angry. What was the point of making the damned thing so difficult to find?

  Guerrand forced himself to review his options. He had no food left and would have to begin foraging if he didn’t find the tower soon. Zagarus was an excellent scout; if the gull said they were nowhere near the tower, Guerrand knew they weren’t.

  The young man was contemplating finding his way back to the coast to return to Thonvil with his tail between his legs, when he heard a new sound, very faint and melodic. Singing, perhaps? He looked around, trying to fix the direction, and saw a trail he hadn’t noticed before.

  Not knowing what else to do, Guerrand shouldered his pack and followed the sound to a clearing. To his surprise, he found a crystal fountain, more than a bit incongruous in the forest setting. The crystal carving of a unicorn spouted cool, clear water from its upturned horn. From its mouth came the lilting voice Guerrand had followed through the woods.

  Guerrand strode carefully around the fountain, admiring it cautiously. Suddenly the unicorn spoke to him. “Follow the sun,” it said in its singsong voice.

  “Me?” Guerrand jumped back, startled. He circled around again, looking for signs of a spell on the statue.

  “Follow the sun,” said the unicorn again.

  Guerrand found his voice. “But the sun moves,” he objected.

  The unicorn simply repeated its message a third time.

  With no better plan, Guerrand did as the figure bade, until at sundown he literally stumbled into a clearing where twin towers pierced the forest roof. He’d had no clue the towers or the clearing were ahead until he stood at the gold and silver gates, so masterfully crafted they looked as thin as a cobweb.

  Though the sky was dark, Guerrand could see that the Tower of High Sorcery actually consisted of two towers of polished black obsidian. The spires were enclosed in a wall-shaped equilateral triangle, with a small guard tower at each point of the triangle. There were no battlements on the obsidian walls. Guerrand presumed wizards had little use for earthly protection.

  He felt weak with awe as he strode slowly through the delicate gates, eyes looking everywhere at once. He was only distantly aware that the flagstone courtyard led to a small foretower between the twin columns. A door flew back. Though no one appeared, he instinctively knew he was expected to step inside the foretower.

  Sitting in the entry chamber, Guerrand could scarcely believe he was there. He felt like he’d already passed some minor, though important, test. By showing him the way to the tower, the forest itself had deemed him worthy to seek an audience. Now if he could only quell his nerves enough to express his am
bitions to the venerable mages to whom he would soon speak.

  He wished he could talk over his fears with someone, even Zagarus, but he dared not. If he gave the bird half a chance to speak, Zagarus would undoubtedly push Guerrand to let him out to poke his beak around the Tower of High Sorcery. That was a bad idea, under the best of circumstances.

  Guerrand had seen little of the inside of the tower. The foretower in which he waited with three other hopefuls was a simple, dimly lit, circular room. Three doors led from the room at equidistant points in the circle. He sat in a curved row of chairs that faced the door through which he’d arrived, between the two doors whose destinations he could only guess at.

  Actually, Guerrand could do better than guess. No one had used the door to his left, but the other two mages with whom he sat had already gone through the door to his right for their interviews with the heads of the orders of magic and returned to their seats; a third was still inside.

  Guerrand’s sweaty palms unconsciously squeezed the armrests of his chair. He considered the others in the room, too nervous to ask them any questions. Sitting in the darkest shadows between the left and front doors was a man whose gently pointed ears revealed his elven heritage, though his huddled pose made it difficult to determine his years. Guessing the age of long-lived elves was a pretty pointless exercise, anyway.

  He looked to the other person in the room, a handsome young human man with perfectly chiseled features, who was sitting two chairs down from Guerrand. Dressed in an elaborate, flowing costume with slashed and puffed sleeves, multicolored breeches, and a cap with a huge feather plume, the flamboyant man had a casual, almost insolent posture. His long legs were sprawled before him, arms folded over his chest, eyes closed in sleep. Guerrand envied both his good looks and relaxed attitude.

  Suddenly the man’s eyes flew open, and he caught Guerrand staring. Blushing furiously, Guerrand looked away. To his surprise, the other man merely smiled and extended his hand over the chairs that separated them.