The Wizard's Curse (Book 2)

by Jenny Ealey

  Falling Rain’s eyes narrowed and he shook his head. “No, I felt every blow that landed on you, every burn and every raw emotion. I have never experienced mind images like yours before. And you threw them at me in such a fury. Was that because you were forced to endure the pain again?”

  Tarkyn’s eyes lit with laughter, “No. I didn’t particularly like having to re-experience the pain, but more than that, I hated submitting to your demands. I’m an ornery bastard. Remember I told you when we first met, I answer to no one. I submitted my will to you for the welfare of our people but it enraged me. I felt like a caged lion.”

  “Whew! I think I was taking a bigger risk than I realised,” said Falling Rain ruminatively.

  “I did warn you. In fact, I thought I controlled myself very well.”

  “Except for the little matter of throwing me against the tree,” put in the woodman dryly.

  “Hmm, yes. That was a bit of an error. But that wasn’t deliberate. That was a spurt of outrage beyond my control. You can tell them about that if you like and I won’t say explicitly why I did it.” Tarkyn chuckled, “They all know I’m a well-meaning loose cannon.”

  “You know,” said Falling Rain sadly, “I could have been your friend, if I’d behaved better. We have a lot in common; closeness with animals, both being exiled, being turned away by our own kin,” He flicked a quick glance at Tarkyn and looked away again, “even though you are a sorcerer... and Markazon’s son.”

  “Falling Rain, I know you haven’t been here to see our friendship develop, but Waterstone and I are the best of friends. And yet we often fight. He says some horrible things to me and hurts me really badly at times. But we are still friends. I would be pleased and honoured, especially in view of your attitude to sorcerers, if you could consider me your friend… and I would like to count you as one of mine.” He gave a quirky smile, “Besides, now you know more about some of the things I’ve experienced, than most other people do.”

  A slow smile dawned on Falling Rain’s face, “Of all the things I ever imagined about returning home, the last would have been that I made friends with the tyrant sent to rule over us.”

  “Be nice. I’m not a tyrant.”

  Falling Rain laughed, “Obviously not, but that’s what I expected.” He looked at Tarkyn for a few moments, “So. Shall we do it? Look at my memories and see who these people were? I won’t show you all of it, as I was going to. I’ll just show you what you need. Pull out any time if you want to.”

  Tarkyn smiled at him, “Now we may have swung too far the other way. Without ramming it down my throat, there may be some things you want to share with me as a fellow exile. What do you think?”

  Falling Rain gave his head a little shake, “I’m getting a bit confused. Why would you want to experience it, if you don’t have to?”

  “So I know something of what you have been through.” Tarkyn shrugged, “You don’t have to, but I have shown you a lot about myself that I wouldn’t normally have done.”

  “And in friendship, one reciprocates.” Falling Rain smiled, “But now, it will be our choice, not me forcing you to watch my memories to punish you.”

  “You see? It will feel different, even though the same thing is happening,” said Tarkyn.

  “I will show you when I was exiled,” offered Falling Rain, his voice suddenly tight.

  I am still weak from the illness but I can no longer stay. The king left two days ago and the controversy which erupted in his wake is still raging.

  “Our whole way of life has been overturned,” says Thunder Storm. “Nothing will ever be the same again. One false move and we may lose our forests.”

  “And this is because you led them to our door, knowing that we would be unable to leave. You are a disgrace to our nation,” proclaims Running Feet.

  My stomach turns over and my knees feel as though they may not be able to support me.

  Waterstone, grim-faced, raises his arm and points into the distance. “And so, since you have broken our code of secrecy, with such disastrous consequences, you must remove yourself from the lands of the woodfolk and live where no woodfolk or sorcerer will find you.”

  “Do you understand?” asks Creaking Bough. When I nod mutely, she says, “Now go.”

  I turn away from them and start walking, holding in the tears, without looking back.

  “Oh Falling Rain! I can’t imagine how bad that must have felt. At least when I was exiled, I knew I had been wrongly accused. So I felt hard done by, but not guilty as you felt. But I still felt so jarred and shocked by it all. And it took my exile to bring me into the woods and discover that Stormaway had used mind control on you.” Suddenly, Tarkyn eyes twinkled, “Just as well I was exiled then, wasn’t it?”

  Falling Rain laughed, “Yes, it was. I can’t believe how good it feels to have someone who has been through the same thing as I have. You can’t explain it to someone who hasn’t been through it. Not really.”

  “No. I don’t think they would begin to understand that degree of isolation. Saying that, I only had to experience it for a few weeks until I came to know woodfolk. You’ve had it unremittingly for twelve years.”

  “Yes, but now at last I’m back with my kin and you may never be.”

  Tarkyn shrugged, “Now that I’m used to basic food and hard floors for beds, I don’t think I care. I feel happier and safer here than I ever did in Tormadell. After all, if my brothers can betray me like that, what is there to go back for?”

  Falling Rain considered him, “Yes, that is a difference, isn’t it? Because even though it nearly broke my heart, at least I knew they were acting in good faith, not as an act of betrayal. In essence I agreed with their judgement. I had the guilt to deal with. You had betrayal.”

  “And betrayal like that destroys the whole foundations of your faith in people,” added Tarkyn sombrely. After a moment, he chuckled, “Poor old Waterstone; sat beside me for two weeks as I recovered from injury and then had to endure my suspicion of him when I awoke. I couldn’t believe he would offer friendship without wanting something in return.” He smiled, “You see? You are gaining from all that hard work that Waterstone put in. It didn’t even cross my mind that you might want my friendship to use me.”

  Falling Rain frowned a little, “What could I hope to gain that I couldn’t just get by asking?”

  Tarkyn grinned, “Thus the woodfolk mind. Straight as a die. I love it. Sorcerers at court develop friendships to gain favours and to get closer to other people of influence. You see, if you just went to my brother’s court, and asked for something, chances are you wouldn’t get it. So you have to manoeuvre people instead.”

  Falling Rain shook his head, “Sounds unnecessarily complicated to me. Let’s get on and do this bit of memory when I’m being held captive by Stormaway. Look into my eyes.”

  I feel terribly sick and afraid. I am in a strange, solid, enormous building. There are no plants anywhere, only flat hard walls with pictures and tapestries hanging on them. King Markazon and Stormaway are leaning over me, studying me. A knock comes on the door. Stormaway opens it slightly and takes a plate of food and a cup of water from someone out of sight. He brings it back and leaves it on the table next to my bed, indicating that it is for me. Then the king and he both leave. As soon as the door closes behind them, a scrawny lad appears from behind a curtain at the other end of the room and takes away the food. I don’t really care. I am too ill to be hungry.

  “That’s Journeyman, I think,” breathed Tarkyn. “Keep going. Was there anyone else?”

  I am just settling down to sleep and the curtain pulls aside again and a slightly older youth come in and sits beside me. After looking surreptitiously at the door, he begins to whisper demands to know what Stormaway wants with me. When I close my eyes, he shakes me awake again.

  “And that’s Jarand,” said Tarkyn quietly.

  “I think that’s it,” replied Falling Rain.

  “Could you just show me a bit more to be certain, please?�
��

  The night wears on into a blur of the youth and the scrawny boy alternating their visits. Each time, the person sits on the bed and whispers to me asking where I’m from and what I’m doing here. I get tireder and tireder but I refuse to answer. At dawn, Stormaway enters once more, clears away the empty plate and brings me breakfast.

  Falling Rain broke contact. “Enough?”

  “Wait. Can you just go back and show me the second last visit by the youth again?”

  The young man walks in, glances at the door and sits down on the edge of the bed…

  “Okay. You can stop. That is not the same youth as before. That is Kosar. You saw the wizard’s apprentice and my twin brothers, Jarand and Kosar. And that curtain at the end of the room… I wonder if they were able to stay concealed behind it while Markazon and Stormaway were talking?” Tarkyn shook his head. “I wonder how much my brothers knew of all this? Of woodfolk, the oath, my legacy of the forest?” He smiled at Falling Rain, “Do you want to show me anything else? Did you see any other sorcerers at any time?”

  Falling Rain shook his head. “No to both. I think we’ve both had enough for tonight.” He hesitated, “And Tarkyn, I am sorry that I treated you so badly.”

  Chapter 65

  When they re-entered the clearing, it was clear even from a distance that things had changed between them.

  “I think Tarkyn has wrought some more of that magic he used on you,” said Waterstone dryly to Running Feet.

  Running Feet shook his head, smiling, “I don’t know how he does it.”

  Waterstone grunted with laughter, “I don’t think he does either. He just stays true to himself and resistance melts around him.”

  “Eventually,” added Tree Wind. “It doesn’t always happen straight away.”

  “No,” agreed Rainstorm, “He said you’d reverted to type.”

  “I haven’t. I only said one mean thing,” replied Tree Wind hotly, “And you can’t blame me. I was upset about Falling Rain’s treatment while he was held captive.”

  “You mean, when Tarkyn was seven?” Rainstorm said sarcastically. “No wonder you thought you should pick on him. Obviously the one responsible.”

  Tree Wind threw her hands up, “All right, all right. I’m sorry.” As Tarkyn walked up, she turned to him and said, “I apologise for what I said to you. Now, do you think you can get your young champion off my back? He’s hounding me to death.”

  Tarkyn grinned, “What a fine young man he is.” A thought struck him and he turned to Falling Rain, “Falling Rain, I don’t suppose you really know young Rainstorm here. He would only have been four years old when you left. And over here is North Wind. He too would have been quite young.”

  Falling Rain smiled and nodded at them before turning to Waterstone, “And I believe you have a daughter, Waterstone…and that you lost Skylark. I was sorry to hear that.”

  “Yes.” Waterstone cleared his throat, “Skylark survived the sickness, only to die six years later in a hunting accident. But despite that, I am grateful that the sickness was cured, even at the cost of the oath, because otherwise I wouldn’t have had my little Sparrow.”

  “And Sparrow is worth her weight in gold…” Tarkyn grinned, “Not that I’m a prejudiced uncle or anything.”

  Rainstorm frowned suspiciously, “So Tarkyn, what are you so happy about, all of a sudden? You looked pretty bleak when you left with Falling Rain two hours ago.”

  The prince beamed, “I have found a new friend in my fellow exile, Falling Rain. After a fairly long-winded exchange of ... hmm, what would we call it?… unpleasantries?… we realised that we had quite a bit in common, not least of which is that we have both been exiled. And I have just realised, we both wear our hair extremely long. Another similarity. Marvellous!”

  Falling Rain smiled, a little less exuberantly, and said, “Yes, and we both have an affinity with egrets. So there you are. I didn’t annihilate your prince after all, though I did put him through the wringer for a while.”

  “And I didn’t annihilate Falling Rain, although in a moment of lapsed control, I did slam him against a tree and knock him out.”

  Waterstone frowned, “You did what?”

  Tarkyn smiled apologetically, “Well, not me exactly. My outrage did it.” The sorcerer glanced at Falling Rain. “He was being rather provocative, you know, and I’m afraid for a split second, I lost it.”

  “Did you hit him?” demanded Rainstorm, eyes shining with excitement.

  “No, of course I didn’t. It was just one of those waves of spontaneous emotion, well, a small tidal wave of outrage, if you must know.”

  “Like the one that rocked us backwards when you were happy at becoming a woodman?” asked Rainstorm.

  “Something like that but rather stronger.” Tarkyn grimaced, “To be honest, I think Falling Rain was thrown through the air by it.”

  “Stars above, Tarkyn!” exclaimed Waterstone, not at all pleased. “You could have killed him. You are going to have get these emotions of yours under control. You can’t just say your anger did it.”

  Falling Rain’s eyes twinkled as he watched Tarkyn meekly accepting a woodman’s censure. Nevertheless, he rose to the prince’s defence, “He did warn me not to push too hard and I ignored him. He healed me, so there’s no harm done. And quite frankly, I more or less deserved it. I was quite poisonous for a while there,” he glanced at Tarkyn with a smile, “wasn’t I?”

  “Absolutely putrid,” agreed Tarkyn, smiling in return, “I wasn’t much better myself. Autumn Leaves, if you thought I behaved badly when I pushed Waterstone for his memories… well, suffice it to say…that was chicken feed compared to what we have just been through.”

  “So who were the other sorcerers, Tarkyn? Or did you forget to find that out?” asked Stormaway dryly.

  Tarkyn waved his hand airily, “No, no. We found out.” Suddenly he became serious, “They were Journeymen, Jarand... and Kosar.”

  “What! All three of them?” asked Stormaway in consternation. “I thought it would be Journeyman and I thought it would possibly be Jarand because Journeyman is based at the campsite run by Jarand’s crony. But it didn’t occur to me that Kosar would also be involved. Hmm, this requires some thinking.”

  “It is even worse than that,” said Tarkyn. “Up one end of your room was a curtain through which they left and entered. I suspect they could have been hiding behind it at any time during your discussions with Markazon about devising the oath.”

  Stormaway frowned with the effort of memory. “That curtain hid the entrance to a secret passageway. The palace was riddled with them. But I didn’t realise Journeyman knew about it. I had placed a glamour on it from my side of the wall so it couldn’t be seen if you moved the curtain.”

  “Stormaway, didn’t you think a curtain over a blank wall was likely to arouse his suspicions?” demanded Rainstorm dryly.

  The wizard looked at him in some irritation, “Give me some credit, Rainstorm. There was an alcove behind the curtain with shelves full of herbs and equipment along one side of it. The curtain hid my mess when important people such as the King visited my rooms. The entrance to the passage was along the opposite wall of the alcove. But because it was so disorganised, there wasn’t room to hide behind that curtain unless the door to the passage was open. So Journeyman must somehow have figured out that it was there and traced it from the other side. Blast it! Maybe he was smarter than I gave him credit for.”

  “Considering he managed to oust you from your own post,” said Rainstorm dryly, “I would say that he almost certainly was.”

  “Yes, well, quite,” huffed Stormaway.

  “If Kosar and Jarand were listening while you planned with Markazon to hand over the sovereignty of all the woodlands of Eskuzor to me, I am hardly surprised that neither of them felt they would be able to trust you as their advisor.” Tarkyn ran his hand through his hair as he sat down, “You’re lucky to have come away with your life.”

  Stormaway went pale,
“Oh my stars! This is a disastrous development. I will have to think through everything I ever said or did that may have been overheard.”

  “And we don’t know who overheard what, and whether they would have shared it with the others!” exclaimed Danton.

  Tarkyn raised his eyebrows at Falling Rain, “And thus the sorcerer mind. Crooked as a dog’s hind leg, present company excepted… Hmm, except for Stormaway….Hmm, and Danton, now I come to think of it.” He smiled, “Well, String and Bean are pretty straight forward, I think.”

  “So is Tarkyn, for your information,” said Danton, wandering over to an earthen ware jug and pouring out two cups of wine. Over his shoulder, he continued, “He tries to be discerning of other people’s motives but in reality, he’s totally gullible and can only stay safe from sorcerer intrigue by holding himself aloof.” He smiled at Tarkyn, “True?”

  “True, I’m afraid,” Tarkyn shook his head ruefully. “That’s why I could never be king.”

  Stormaway was clearly unconvinced by this remark but didn’t take issue with it.

  Instead he said sternly, “Tarkyn, it may no longer be your choice whether to become involved in sorcerer affairs. Someone is obviously hunting for you and for the woodfolk. And you realise now that it is highly likely that at least one of your brothers knows about the oath and its tie to the destruction of the forest.”

  “Stormaway’s right, Tarkyn,” said Danton as he walked back over and handed the prince and Falling Rain a cup of wine each. “Remember, when Journeyman realised you weren’t a rogue sorcerer, he said, ‘This changes everything.’”

  Tarkyn stared at him, “So he knew that the oath would be galvanised by my integrity.” Unconsciously, he let his eyes rest on Lapping Water, who was seated a short distance away talking to Ancient Oak. He gave a sad smile, “Maybe I will have to leave you all, to keep you safe.”