Renegade Wizards aot-3

by Lucien Soulban

  Tythonnia had heard that Vagros caravans made annual stops in kender communities and in the cities of Kender-more and Hylo. The Vagros brought them gifts and stories from across the lands, and the kender offered supplies and more stories in return. They bartered in tales and whispers of adventure.

  Everything Tythonnia knew about the Vagros came from the old woman Desmora. Desmora had Vagros blood and dealings with some Wanderers, especially the clan matriarchs. It was said they shared some of the same mystic traditions, though as Tythonnia grew more skilled within the Wizards of High Sorcery, she came to realize that was a generalization of all renegade magics.

  Still, the Vagros possessed what the wizards disparagingly called “cupboard tricks,” and such minor magic exerted a hold over small communities. In fact, the simple people of the land put greater stock in the good luck charms, divination readings, and crop blessings of village renegades than those of any trained wizard of the orders. That said, there were a rare few such as Desmora who had tapped into the more rare, more powerful Wyldling magic.

  Much to her chagrin, Tythonnia had to admit she was fond of the old ways as well. She found comfort in them, in the home remedies and the bits of common wisdom. It was that comfort that brought her to the outskirts of the Vagros encampment. If Amma Batros knew she was there, she’d never hear the end of it. Amma had grown up around wisewomen and seers such as Desmora. She even revered them once, but she put far more stock in the “respectable” practices of the wizards. Tythonnia, however, never shook her respect for the humbler magics and their practitioners-even when her training taught her that they were her enemy.

  A trio of women peeling potatoes next to a bow top wagon eyed Tythonnia suspiciously. Four men speaking around the pit fire also stopped and watched her approach. Only when she stopped just outside the circle of wagons did the men stand. Even the kender stopped, and while one of them smiled and seemed ready to step forward, a young Vagros girl stopped him.

  Tythonnia knew her place among their traditions. With her hand light on the reins of her Dairly, she waited until the group of men approached. A Vagros with thin features, hair peppered prematurely and a thick shadow of stubble, took the lead. He was dressed in flared trousers and black boots, his silk shirt still bright with yellow and blue hues. His thin fingers rested on his belt, close to his dagger.

  “What do you want?” he said. He eyed Tythonnia suspiciously and found her wanting in his appraisals.

  “I come to barter,” Tythonnia said. “A gift for the advice of your wisewoman.”

  He grunted both as acknowledgment and for Tythonnia to show her offering. She pulled a mirror from her travel pouch; its back was polished wood, its handle carved with geometric designs. It was a small indulgence of vanity that Tythonnia could do without.

  The Vagros studied the mirror with disinterest, the face of a haggler. “How do we know you don’t hunt us?” the Vagros asked, not addressing her directly. “Maybe you want to hurt her.”

  “I … was a student. Of Desmora. She introduced me to Mother Benecia of the Gratos Clan. Mother Benecia honored me with a reading.”

  The Vagros studied Tythonnia under renewed scrutiny. “Desmora, we know, and we trade with the Gratos. But Mother Benecia-”

  “Passed away years ago, I know. I was very young when I met her, and she was very old. I never forgot her.”

  The Vagros pocketed the mirror and motioned for Tythonnia to enter the circle of wagons. He and the others flanked her as they escorted her to a box-top wagon with spiraled fluting and stars and crescent moons carved through the wood. The windows were shuttered closed, but candlelight flickered through the carvings. The lead Vagros knocked on the door at the rear and entered when summoned. He vanished inside.

  Although still under their scrutiny, Tythonnia tried not to fidget. The cabin door opened again, and the Vagros hopped down. With a sweep of his head, he motioned for her to enter. Tythonnia nodded and suddenly doubted the wisdom of her actions. It was one thing to seek Vagros counsel when she was young and didn’t know better, but the Vagros dabbled with prohibited magics. The reasons the renegade hunters and the Wizards of High Sorcery hadn’t hunted them down entirely were twofold. The first was that Vagros rarely produced anything beyond folk charms-remedies, fortune-telling, and any number of other “charlatan arts”-at least publicly. The second reason was that the Vagros stood behind their wisemen and wisewomen, and any attempt to bring a matriarch or patriarch of the clan to High Sorcery judgment was met with outright and savage warfare. More than one renegade hunter had reputedly vanished at the hands of the Vagros and more than one Vagros clan had been massacred in a horrible misjudgment. The Vagros may not have believed it, but most wizards truly regretted those incidents.

  But they still couldn’t condone the clans’ use of magic and the rare threat of Wyldling arts.

  Yet here Tythonnia found herself, ready to seek their counsel. She couldn’t explain why she felt more and more comfortable remembering the old ways.

  What if I’m caught? she wondered.

  Then say you were acting the part of the renegade, she answered almost immediately.

  That little bit of justification was enough for Tythonnia to gird her courage, mount the steps of the wagon, and enter the candlelit cabin. The door closed behind her.

  Par-Salian sopped the hard bit of bread in the barley soup and savored the warmth of his food as it slid down his throat. It was an average meal but long overdue, he thought. There was something bothering him, however-the owner Tarmann. Par-Salian prided himself on being able to divine people’s emotions and moods, and the owner was a strange one.

  As Par-Salian was finishing his bowl, Tarmann became more and more agitated. When the owner thought nobody was looking, his gaze darted to the tent flap, as though anxious for someone’s arrival. But did that have anything to do with Par-Salian? The White Robe wasn’t sure, but he couldn’t afford to take anything for granted. He reached for his purse and saw the look of panic that flittered across Tarmann’s face.

  Tarmann practically ran for his table.

  “Finished, are you?” Tarmann said as he approached. “You’re not thinking of leaving without trying our sweet cakes?”

  “I couldn’t possibly eat another bite,” Par-Salian said. He began fishing through his purse for the right steel, but Tarmann shoved the purse away with a laugh.

  “It’s on me and the missus,” Tarmann said. “Just you wait. A finer bit of sweet I’ll warrant you’ve never tasted.” With that, he grabbed the plates from Par-Salian’s table and quickly bustled off with a final glance back.

  Par-Salian knew for certain now that Tarmann was trying to delay him. The reason was a mystery, and that was enough cause for worry, especially with Tarmann staring at him, as though nailing him to the seat with his very gaze. He had to escape without provoking a confrontation.

  Par-Salian slowly reached for one of his pouches and removed a pinch of wool. The table covered his movements, and Tarmann took no notice as he gestured beneath the table and whispered the words to evoke the necessary spell.

  “Capik,” he said, feeling the energy trickle through his fingers and into the wool like warm water. The magic ate the wool, turning it to dust, and Par-Salian directed the invisible spell along the arrow of his gaze, pinning Tarmann to the floor with it. Tarmann’s eyes glazed over, and he simply froze.

  Par-Salian immediately dumped coins on the table for his meal and headed out the tent flap. Tarmann had yet to react. In fact, he wouldn’t be able to for a few more seconds. Par-Salian quickly darted into the crowd of people waiting for the gate to be cleared and caught a glimpse of a panicked Tarmann shoving past the tent flap and looking around. He cursed his luck when he remembered he left his Qwermish steed behind.

  “There he is!” a voice shouted.

  Several people looked about, startled, but Par-Salian recognized the redheaded server pointing a finger at him. Accompanying the server was a bear of a man with a bushy beard. He
was larger than Tarmann and dressed in black with a hood pulled over his head.

  Par-Salian blanched; he recognized the renegade hunter, as well as the intent in his black-eyed expression. The renegade hunter was after him, though why, he didn’t know. The hunter pushed the boy out of the way then hesitated. There were too many people between him and his quarry.

  Par-Salian jammed his fingers into one of his many pouches with practiced familiarity and pulled at the reagents as the spell words flew to his lips. Somewhere in his mind, a page inscribed with the ink of thought burned with a flash. The script vanished and the spell made itself felt through Par-Salian’s fingertips.

  Before the renegade hunter could react, Par-Salian whispered, “Dumak edar,” and threw the bit of bone wrapped in bat fur to the ground. Darkness exploded from the bone, swelling up into a great sphere of night that engulfed Par-Salian and the crowd around him. Nobody could see, save for the white wizard. People screamed in panic, and the mob scattered in all directions, blindly trying to escape.

  Par-Salian ran away from the renegade hunter and used both the mob and the dome of darkness to hide his retreat. He wasn’t sure how much time he just gained, but he knew he had to flee toward the High Clerist’s Tower.

  Ladonna watched in horror as shouts pierced the air and a short distance away, a twenty-foot dome of shadows suddenly appeared. The panicked crowd surged away from the darkness, pushing Dumas and Ladonna away from it as well. Dumas struggled to fight her way upstream, but Ladonna knew better. She mounted her Abanasinian and, upon succeeding-barely-pulled away from Dumas to search for the others. They had to leave this place, but if they didn’t reach the other side of that keep, they would never make it to Palanthas. No, they had to find a way around the blocked gate.

  It was only by chance that she spotted the brown-topped head of Par-Salian as he fought his way toward the keep. Ladonna kicked her horse forward and pushed through the crowd to reach him.

  Tythonnia stared at Grandmother Yassa; she had a young face, younger than hers, but such ancient eyes they might have belonged to another woman. She’d been swept past the strange whirlpool of wrinkles around Yassa’s eyes and into their black pools. The young woman commanded authority with her words and her gaze. She was a stick of a person with thin fingers that spread from the branches of her thin arms. The beaded lace shawl that covered her head did little to hide her prematurely white hair. She was truly an ancient soul, young for her time.

  Yet it was her words that had robbed Tythonnia of her senses and continued to echo and linger in her thoughts. Tythonnia struggled to say something, anything, but the arguments would not come.

  Grandmother Yassa, however, continued as she swept up the painted cards and hid them back under the veil resting upon her wooden table. “You hide behind too many masks. You’ll die a stranger, among strangers. Nobody will ever know you. Change, or you live alone. Embrace that change, or you die lonely.”

  Tythonnia nodded absently, trying to digest the proclamation. It was true enough: Ever since the Test of High Sorcery, her life seemed to be unraveling. She was no longer who she thought she was, no longer who she wanted to be.

  “Is it your aim to be unhappy?” Grandmother Yassa asked.

  Tythonnia shook her head. “No, of course not, but how do I know so little about myself? I feel like I’m turning into a … stranger, as you said.”

  “It is the way of things,” Yassa said, nodding knowingly. “Magic is alive, dynamic. Not even death is stagnant. Why should you be?”

  “Magic?” Tythonnia said, suddenly uncomfortable. “Why do you say magic?”

  Yassa fixed Tythonnia with a scorn look that hooked into her soul. “You reek of it, girl. Your fingers are stained from powders and unguents; your hair practically dances with electricity. I smell it on you, wizard.”

  “I-” Tythonnia began, but the old woman cut her off with a wave of her hand.

  “I also smell the older magics on you as well. You learned the wilder ways first, did you not?”

  There was no use lying, Tythonnia realized, so she merely nodded.

  “Our ways are the old ways, before the moons could speak. The moons have forgotten to respect the wisdom of their elders.”

  “That’s not true,” Tythonnia protested. “It’s … more complicated than that.”

  “So you say. But when you are most troubled, you return for our comfort and not the wisdom of your moons.”

  “I thought …” Tythonnia said, but she bit her tongue. The Augury of Cards wasn’t specific in its readings, and for all of Yassa’s wisdom, she didn’t know the details of what bothered Tythonnia. She knew only that something troubled her and there was an internal battle for her heart. But the words came unbidden in Tythonnia’s thoughts, as did Yassa’s words.

  You have strangers living inside you, Yassa said. And yet they know you better than you know yourself. For they have made a home of your heart. Let them guide you.

  I want children. I want to be married, Tythonnia pleaded with herself. She had promised her mother children, had promised her father a legacy. She wanted to grow old with a man and find contentment in his love. But the stranger in her heart answered with the memory of Elisa.

  “What was her name?” Yassa asked.

  “Sorry?” Tythonnia said, shaken into cold panic.

  “The other girl I can see by your side. The one who enters and leaves your heart freely when you yourself are locked outside of it. Who is she?”

  Tythonnia hesitated. She had never spoken about that to anyone before. Her inclination was to dismiss the question, to laugh it away. She opened her mouth to lie, but Yassa cocked her head in warning, as though she knew what was coming.

  “Elisa,” Tythonnia managed to whisper, and the sound of it on her ears sent a shock through her system. She’d done her best to suppress the memories of Elisa until the Test of High Sorcery dredged them all back up again.

  “Elisa,” Tythonnia repeated, just to be sure she’d spoken it aloud. “But it’s wrong,” she said weakly.

  “That is not your voice speaking. You let other people speak for you?” Yassa responded. “It-”

  A rattle at the door startled Tythonnia from her thoughts. The Vagros who brought her to Yassa stood at the door, blocking it. He had his hand on the shoulder of a girl in her mid teens. She had brown hair and blue eyes and was breathing hard.

  “Tell them what you told me,” the man urged.

  “Renegade hunters,” the girl said breathlessly. “They’re looking for three people. Two women and a man … renegades.”

  The Vagros man fixed Tythonnia with a poisonous stare. “Go. You are done here.”

  Tythonnia rose to leave, but Grandmother Yassa clasped a hand over hers and pulled her down to whisper in her ear. Her breath flushed Tythonnia’s skin with its warmth.

  “It takes strength to love, not weakness,” Yassa whispered. “Trust your inner voice and worry not about the disapproval of others.”

  Tythonnia left the encircled camp in a daze, her thoughts overwhelmed. There were Yassa’s words, her own uncertainties, and finally, the renegade hunters. The hunters had to be searching for her and her companions. Why renegade hunters were on their trail was a question she couldn’t answer. She had to find Par-Salian and Ladonna.

  The area was in turmoil. Travelers and pilgrims alike stared in awe of the dome of shadow that rose over two stories high. Knights forced their way through the crowds, their swords already drawn and their demeanors rough.

  Most of the crowd stayed clear of the shadow bubble, but Tythonnia caught a glimpse of a hooded man moving toward the High Clerist’s Tower. She didn’t recognize him, but she spotted Ladonna pushing her horse through the mob a dozen yards to his side. They were both chasing the same person.

  A renegade? Tythonnia wondered. Then she realized they were both chasing after Par-Salian. Tythonnia shoved people aside with little care for etiquette. She had to reach Ladonna.

  The throng of people was
like a troubled sea, and Tythonnia continued to see and lose track of Ladonna and the hunter. They were heading for the central ramp leading up to the tower. Tythonnia swung up onto her saddle and prodded the Dairly forward.

  As she neared Ladonna, Tythonnia could see there were two hunters in the crowd, the second a woman headed straight for Ladonna. Tythonnia almost panicked when she recognized the female hunter from Virgil Morosay’s trial. She’d forgotten her name, but she feared the other woman just the same. Ladonna had no idea she was about to be overtaken.

  Less than a dozen feet away from Ladonna and the huntress, Tythonnia realized she would be too late. The woman raised her hand and uttered words that were lost in the din of the mob. More screams followed when strands of web flowed from the huntress’s fingers and snapped between two giant wood poles from which flew the Solamnic banners of the crown. The spell immediately snared Ladonna and her horse. The horse whinnied in panic and tried to buck as strands anchored it and several people together. Those not caught pulled away, sparking a stampede of humans and animals alike.

  Ladonna was removing her cloak and trying to struggle out of the web. Unfortunately, the huntress was almost upon her. Tythonnia watched in horror as the huntress unsheathed her flattened blade and prepared to run the trapped Ladonna through.

  Ladonna saw her attacker and tried to react, but she was still trying to wriggle free of the strands that had ensnared her right arm. She was powerless as the huntress raised her blade for the downward stroke. But for some reason the huntress hesitated, as though awakening to her own actions.

  Tythonnia saw the opportunity and took it. She raised her hands and gestured, forming a rapid series of signs with interlocking fingers.

  “Sihir anak!” She felt her heart surge four times at each fast, panicked beat. The daggers snaked and darted toward the huntress, bolting around anyone in the way.