Nicholas Raven and the Wizards' Web (The Complete Epic Fantasy)

by Thomas J. Prestopnik

  “We should handle matters with the key first,” Leo said, his arm resting again in the makeshift sling after he had removed his coat. “My shoulder can wait. I don’t want to waste valuable time.”

  “If you plan to return to Morrenwood with the key intact, then you must be intact as well.” He looked reassuringly at Leo. “Trust me. You will feel no pain. I have administered to worse injuries than this.” He handed the medallion back to Nicholas and then stood beside Leo, gently pressing his fingertips upon his left shoulder. “In earlier days I would often receive a basket of fresh eggs for my labors. Once I was presented a slab of bacon. Mostly fish around these parts now, though I haven’t been about in some time.”

  “We have a little money to pay you,” Nicholas said.

  The wizard chuckled. “I am not angling for compensation but merely making conversation. What you two are doing for King Justin is more than payment enough. Many people will be in your debt.” He stepped away from Leo and thought for a moment before slowly walking into an adjoining room. “I believe I have a solution,” he said, his voice rising above the sudden clatter of glass vials and clay jars. “Rustin, fill a cup with hot water please.”

  Leo glanced at Nicholas with horrified amusement. “I hope I’m not getting another dose of yoratelli.”

  “Definitely not,” Frist announced as he returned to the room and took the cup of hot water that Rustin had prepared, adding a few drops of an amber-colored liquid from a tiny vial. “Though yoratelli would help ease your pain temporarily, I have something better.” Frist handed him the steaming cup. “Drink this for starters.”

  “For starters?” Leo raised his eyes skeptically. “What is it? And what follows?”

  “This is the first half of your cure,” Frist replied. “Trust me, it will not harm you and will taste much better than even the freshest yoratelli leaves.”

  “I guess that’s a plus,” he muttered before taking a cautious first sip. He was pleasantly surprised though how palatable the drink was and took several more swallows. “Not bad. It’s chasing the damp chill right out of my body.”

  “Much like Hobin’s ale?” Nicholas joked.

  “But hopefully without the same effects the day after.”

  “This is better than ale,” the wizard said, taking the empty cup from Leo after he had finished his drink. “Now I can complete your cure if you’re ready.”

  “Ready as ever,” he replied, appearing more relaxed and less concerned about the wizard’s plan for his shoulder. “How long will this take?”

  “Not long for me,” Frist replied, standing at his side. He placed one hand upon Leo’s injured shoulder and another just above his elbow. He closed his eyes and began to whisper words that neither Leo nor Nicholas could comprehend. As Frist continued to speak, his voice grew lower and softer and his facial muscles tightened. Slowly his eyes closed, and though his lips continued to move, the wizard’s voice was silent as he cast his healing spell.

  Soon Leo’s eyelids grew heavy as a deep and recuperative sleep overwhelmed him. A moment later his eyelids dropped as his head leaned comfortably against the back of the chair. He took a deep breath and exhaled, a slight smile of relief upon his face. Frist opened his eyes and removed his hands from Leo’s arm and shoulder. His spell was now fully administered.

  Nicholas glanced at the wizard, unsure whether he should break the solemn silence, but did so with a whisper. “How is he?”

  “He’s sleeping,” Frist replied matter-of-factly.

  “For how long?”

  “For a few hours. It will do him a world of good.”

  “Will his shoulder be all right?”

  “The spell is healing it as we speak, so there is no need to worry. Leo will be fine,” he promised. “In the meantime, let us eat the supper that Rustin has graciously made and talk more about that key of mine–or what remains of it.”

  While Leo soundly slept, Nicholas, Rustin and the wizard ate at the table and discussed the goings-on in Arrondale and elsewhere. Nicholas told them about the war between Rhiál and Maranac and of the invasion of Montavia, as well as his and Leo’s journey with Princess Megan and their failed rescue of Ivy above the grasslands. Frist was touched when Nicholas spoke of reluctantly abandoning Leo and Hobin to resume his search for Ivy, planning to leave the reforged key in their trust.

  “I’m confident they’ll deliver the key to Morrenwood,” he said. “But I must move on to the greater cause in my heart.”

  As Nicholas continued to discuss his adventures, Frist was especially interested in hearing how Jagga had murdered Arthur Weeks and stole the key to the Spirit Box. He found it darkly comical that the Enâr had gone to so much trouble to melt down the key and dispose of it, only to have the object end up in the hands of the very wizard who created it.

  “I had put some of my very life force into that key,” Frist said. “And though I recovered from the strenuous effort over time, I felt that I was never whole again. It was an exhausting endeavor, almost debilitating to me.”

  Nicholas looked at the elderly wizard, nearly on the verge of hopelessness, wondering if Frist was about to tell him that his and Leo’s journey had been for nothing. “Is it impossible to repair it?”

  “No, I’m not saying that at all,” he replied, taking a spoonful of soup. “You and Leo did not travel here in vain. I shall be able to remake the key, though it will be a monumental effort. The spell still resides within the medallion, though somewhat misshapen by the forging process. It will require several hours to reform the key and fix the spell, but it shall be done–and it shall be done tonight. Rustin will have to get a fire started outdoors.”

  “We have a small forge built into the base of a rock face just beyond the second garden,” Rustin said. “Anyone could easily melt the medallion there, but only Frist has the power to remake his creation.”

  “And I willingly accept the challenge,” he said.

  “Yet I respectfully suggest that perhaps…” Rustin’s voice faded when he glanced at his two companions with an obvious sense of worry. “It might be best if–”

  The wizard interrupted Rustin with a soft chuckle. “What my apprentice is trying to say is that creating such an elaborate spell–or in this case, repairing it–might be too laborious a task for an old wizard like me,” he explained to Nicholas.

  “You have experienced extreme fatigue and dizziness teaching me some lesser spells over the last months,” Rustin said. “That’s why I have not pushed you for many lessons in recent weeks and have returned to my village for longer stays than I used to.”

  “Still, I’m a teacher at heart and wish to do what I love best.”

  Rustin nodded appreciatively. “Then I will accede to your wishes if your mind is truly decided.”

  “It is,” the wizard said.

  Nicholas noted the determination in the old man’s eyes, yet he also wondered if the task might be too much for him. But as Frist continued to talk about the necessity of opening the Spirit Box, he knew the wizard would never be talked out of making the attempt. After supper, Frist instructed his apprentice to prepare a fire in the forge so he could begin the elaborate process later that evening. Rustin bowed obediently as he got up from the table, grabbed his coat and then stepped outdoors, heading for the rock face.

  Nicholas and Frist in the meantime, continued to discuss the troublesome events plaguing Laparia, each speculating whether the small part they were playing would have any effect on the spreading wars. When the wizard refilled their cups with more tea, Nicholas took it as a sign that he was in the mood for more conversation and seized the opportunity to pose several questions about Vellan. He was rewarded with the story of Vellan’s towering ambition and his expulsion from the Valley of the Wizards at the age of twenty-eight.

  “That was fifty years ago, yet the memory is still etched clearly in my mind,” Frist said, recounting those dark days. “For all of his skill, intelligence and potential to do good, Vellan’s one weakness was hi
s love of himself and of his grand ideas to the point where he could see nothing else. His behavior was obsessive and childish.” The wizard sighed wearily. “Vellan was perpetually consumed with creating a world where everyone should bow to his will and greatness, and as the years passed, his warped vision–if he can even remember what it originally was–has led to war, poverty and economic chaos in all lands marked by his evil touch.” Frist leaned back in his chair. “It’s ironic that the hands of a potential healer have caused so much misery and destruction. Besides using our magic for practical applications and entertainment from time to time, some of the best wizards have developed and perfected spells and potions to combat the ailments that have inflicted men and women for years. Healing is a noble calling for any wizard, but one which Vellan has willfully and selfishly cast to the winds.”

  “Luckily for Leo that you hadn’t,” Nicholas said, glancing at his friend who was still sound asleep in the chair. “You performed a compassionate act.”

  “Any wizard who is truly good at heart would have done the same,” Frist softly said as he stared at his patient, observing Leo’s breathing pattern, facial hue and expression. He went silent for a long moment, contemplating a jumble of images from the past until his eyes widened in sudden recognition. Frist turned his head and stared at Nicholas, a slow smile forming upon his face. “Now I know where I’ve seen you before! I tried to save your life after the Enâri attack.”

  Nicholas was taken aback. “Excuse me?”

  Frist quickly shook his head. “My thoughts are getting ahead of my words. Not your life, of course, but a man I assume was your father–someone named Jack Raven.” The wizard suddenly appeared melancholy as he recalled that terrible time. “Yet I had failed back then in my task. I had failed.”

  Nicholas looked askance at the wizard. “I don’t understand. Failed at what? And how do you know my father’s name?”

  “When I first saw your face at the doorway, Nicholas, I was certain we had met before. But given your age, and considering how long I’ve lived here, that would be impossible. But now that distant memories have been jogged, I realize that it was your father whom I had met in Kanesbury twenty years ago while combating the Enâri.” Frist stared at Nicholas. “You look remarkably like Jack Raven when he was about your age.”

  “So I’ve been told by others who knew him well,” Nicholas said, both troubled and perplexed by the wizard’s words. “But how could you have met my father? And how could you have tried to save him from an Enâri attack? He died in a terrible storm one night shortly before I was born. He was thrown from a horse.”

  The wizard returned a skeptical gaze. “Was there another Jack Raven living in Kanesbury? A relative with the same name?”

  “No,” Nicholas said. “He was the only one. He died from the injuries sustained during a fall.”

  “But if I’m not mistaken, his wife’s name was…” The wizard thought for a moment, again reaching back in time for a faded memory. “Alice, I believe.”

  Nicholas slowly nodded, his mouth agape. “Alice was my mother. She died when I was five. But how…?”

  “Then it is your father who I’m thinking of and tried to cure,” Frist replied, observing Nicholas’ stunned expression. Then the realization suddenly hit him, but it was too late. The wizard knew there was no taking back the words he had already spoken. “Dear me, but I can see now that you were never told the truth about your father’s death,” he continued, sorry that he had ever broached the subject. “I had just assumed…”

  Nicholas sat silently for a moment, not fully comprehending what he had just heard. When he was almost five years old, he vaguely remembered his mother once explaining to him why he didn’t have a father. He had asked her for a reason when seeing other children walking or playing with their own fathers. He recalled the pained look upon his mother’s face, remembering her explaining something about a terrible storm and a wild horse. Only after her death, when Nicholas was raised for several years on his uncle’s farm, did he hear the full story of Jack Raven’s accidental demise which he accepted as truth. Years later, when Maynard and Tessa Kurtz eventually adopted him, they also related the same story if ever the subject of his father’s death surfaced. The account had become a melancholy piece of personal history that Nicholas carried with him. But with a few words, Frist had turned this sad fact upside down.

  “Tell me of the Enâri attack you spoke of,” Nicholas said after giving a brief account to the wizard of what he had been told as a child. “What do you know?”

  “First let me apologize for my carelessness. I–”

  “No need to,” he calmly jumped in. “I just want to know the truth. You certainly couldn’t have known that my father’s fate would be hidden from me years later.”

  The wizard offered a heartfelt smile. “I’m sure your family members were only trying to conceal a terrible truth from a young boy, not wanting you to grow up bitter or resentful if you knew what really happened.”

  Nicholas nodded. “I now know that and have no ill feelings toward the people I love because of it. How could I after all they’ve done for me? Still, I need to know what happened to my father.”

  The wizard told Nicholas how he had traveled in haste to Kanesbury with King Justin and his troops twenty years ago after Otto Nibbs sent word that his village was under an Enâri attack. They arrived to discover that Caldurian and his associates had taken refuge near Kanesbury after the attempted kidnapping of Princess Megan in the Citadel. In anger and desperation, Caldurian had unleashed the Enâri upon the village after Mayor Nibbs refused to act as a go-between with his cousin, the King, to help encourage an alliance between Arrondale and Kargoth.

  “After several days of terror, the uprising was quashed upon the arrival of King Justin’s forces,” Frist explained. “The Enâri fled to the caves outside the village and were trapped within by the royal guard. Caldurian and Madeline were arrested and his eagle, Xavier, captured. As you know from local stories, I cast a sleeping spell over the creatures to avoid further bloodshed, creating a contained spirit to destroy them should they ever awake and escape in the future. But as I was attempting to challenge a creation of Vellan’s, my spirit needed years of incubation to gain the strength and potency to be effective. I suspected that such a magical weapon would never be needed in the future.” Frist took a sip of tea. “Seems I was wrong.”

  “But fortunately you created the Spirit Box. And I have every confidence that you can repair the key that opens it,” Nicholas said. “But right now I just want to know what happened to my father.”

  “Of course,” he replied with understanding. “You see, Nicholas, just before King Justin and I had arrived, your father and several other men had been involved in a skirmish with a large group of the Enâri. Your father was severely wounded while trying to lead your mother to safety. He was one of the injured people I tended to while the King’s soldiers were safeguarding the village. Your mother was at his side through the entire ordeal as I remember, at the time with child. It must have been only days from your birth.” The wizard looked at Nicholas with sincere regret. “I tried everything I knew, but his wounds were just too grave. As powerful as I am, Nicholas, I cannot hold back death when it wants its way. Wizard though I am, and as long-lived as our race is, we are mortal in the end.”

  “I understand.”

  “I wish there had been more I could have done for your father, and especially for your mother and her unborn son. But alas, Vellan’s evil sting had reached both your family and your village during those several days.” A faint, hopeful smile appeared on the wizard’s countenance as he looked into Nicholas’ eyes. “Yet judging by the persistence you have shown and the hardships you’ve endured to bring this medallion to me, I can only conclude that Jack Raven must have been a decent soul to have fathered such a fine son. He would have been very proud of you.”

  Nicholas grew misty-eyed as the wizard spoke, remembering the many stories his mother had told him about his
father. He found it difficult to put into words what his heart knew to be true about the man he was acquainted with only through the kind words and gentle recollections of others.

  “Maybe,” Nicholas finally said. “But I’m even more proud to walk in Jack Raven’s footsteps, along with those of my mother and Maynard and so many others who have prepared me for this journey. I’m only now beginning to realize it.”

  “That knowledge will help sustain you in place of actual memories of your father,” the wizard said. “Perhaps one day you can share it with your own son or daughter and honor him through the generations.”

  “I plan to,” he replied with a wistful smile.

  The wizard downed the rest of his tea and set the cup on the table. “And now the time for talk is over,” he said, slowly standing up. “Rustin should have the forge glowing white-hot by now. After all, I have taught him some superb spells regarding the ignition and manipulation of fire. He has quite the aptitude.”

  “Do you need assistance?” Nicholas asked. “I possess zero magical skills, but…”

  “Thank you,” Frist replied with an appreciative smile. “But neither you nor Rustin can help me at this point. What I must do, I must do alone. I thought my task was done twenty years ago, but fate has determined otherwise. It is best that no one interrupts me until it is finished.” He noted the look of disappointment on Nicholas’ face. “But please walk with me to the forge. It’s not very far. Just past the second garden. After your long journey, you at least deserve to see where this deed will be done. I’m sure Rustin is patiently awaiting my arrival. You can keep him company in the garden while I fulfill my assignment. But check in on Leo from time to time. I’m not sure when he’ll awake. The spell works at varying speeds depending on the individual, and as he is young and appears quite healthy, I suspect it will take fewer hours instead of more in his case.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on him,” Nicholas promised as he helped the wizard slip on his cloak before putting on his own coat. He opened the door into the chilly night and took Frist by the arm, leading the aged wizard along a snow-dusted path through a thicket of trees to the second garden.