Renegade Wizards aot-3

by Lucien Soulban

  “Likely. I don’t see our prey, though.”

  “Me either. There’s too many of them. How many casters?”

  “A dozen. Maybe more. We need help. Follow them,” Dumas said. “Leave a trail for me to find if they cover their tracks.”

  “Where you going?” Hort asked. “We want the three renegades.”

  “I’m going back to Palanthas to hire mercenaries,” Dumas said. “And if our renegades aren’t in that camp, then someone down there knows where they are.” With that, she patted Hort on the shoulder. “I’ll see you in a few days. Don’t lose them.”

  He scowled and nodded curtly. He didn’t like that one bit, but after what the three renegades did to Thoma, Hort wasn’t going to question his companion anymore, no matter how strangely she acted. He wanted the renegades to pay. Even if it meant following the camp of mystic refugees down the funnel of the Blood Sea of Istar, he would avenge Thoma’s death.

  CHAPTER 15

  In Shadow and Scheme

  While it was Highmage Astathan who served as master of the Tower of High Sorcery in Wayreth, his position was largely ceremonial by choice. He watched over the affairs of the Wizards of High Sorcery, which more than occupied him, and left it to others to run the daily matters of the tower. Ladonna’s mentor, Arianna, possessed the enviable and much coveted role of managing the tower’s library, perhaps the greatest known repository of magic, arcane lore, and artifacts anywhere in the world.

  As such, the tower was open to all wizards with sanction to be there, as well as a cadre of assistants and librarians who cared for the monumental library and maintained the tower grounds. It was those assistants who first came to investigate the commotion in the courtyard, but it was Arianna who welcomed them back.

  Arianna, a woman in her forties with short-cropped brown hair and rounded features, took Ladonna into her embrace, but the kisses the two women placed on each other’s cheeks seemed cold and distant. Once they might have been mentor and student, but that was no longer the case. They were fast growing into rivals.

  To her credit, however, Arianna made sure baths were drawn and chambers afforded the sojourners while Highmage Astathan was roused from sleep. He’d been awaiting their return. Before Arianna parted company with them, however, she pulled Tythonnia aside.

  “You should know,” Arianna whispered, “Yasmine of the Delving died. Belize has replaced her as master of your order. He’s at Abrasama Keep but expects a full report when you are finished with Highmage Astathan. I’ll arrange for your communications.”

  Tythonnia nodded. She felt too numb, too tired to care. It was inevitable that Belize would head the order; Tythonnia had just hoped she wouldn’t be around to see it. Ladonna and Par-Salian said nothing either. They regarded one another with looks of utter exhaustion. Their shared ordeal would forever bind them regardless of what came next.

  Before Tythonnia entered through the wooden door to her chamber, she pulled out one of the books from her worn pack, Forgotten Tongues, and handed it to Par-Salian. Par-Salian nodded in gratitude, but Ladonna continued scowling. They retired to their chambers without another word.

  Tythonnia stretched and stifled a groan. The hot bathwater soaked through her, numbing her muscles and edging her toward exhausted sleep. There was still much to do, but until the water grew cold or black with filth, she would stay here.

  As she luxuriated in its steaming warmth, she examined the bone-lace key that Berthal had given her. She turned it end over end and marveled at its delicate design. He’d been loath to part with the three books stolen from the Black Robes, but what the key promised to unlock was of far greater value. Tythonnia had happily offered her help and was grateful when he told her he knew about them and their mission. That thrust everything out into the open, and Tythonnia couldn’t wait until she was reunited again with the renegades. She tired of the duplicity, but slowly, she was ridding herself of the lies.

  The next two days were spent in a blur of activity. Tythonnia, Ladonna, and Par-Salian, with barely a word to one another, spoke to Highmage Astathan together then each in private. They related their journey, including their encounter with the animated dolls and the flight through the High Clerist’s Tower. They told him everything they knew about the renegade hunters, about the attack at the tower and again in Palanthas and about the murder of Thoma at the hands of Dumas. That troubled Astathan deeply. He promised to speak with the other masters about the attacks, but as of that moment, he had no choice but to send out more hunters to bring Hort and Dumas back for questioning.

  Unfortunately, he could not address the incident with Dumas directly until he’d cleared up other matters first. In particular, he had to mend fences with Palanthas following the debacle with the Thieves Guild and the fire in Smiths’ Alley. The Wizards of High Sorcery were also dispatching scouts from Palanthas to track Berthal’s camp.

  Afterward, the three companions made their reports to the masters of the orders. Ladonna reported to Reginald Diremore through a scrying crystal in Arianna’s study. He didn’t hide his displeasure when she told him about securing one book only and was about to dismiss her for having performed “barely well enough to remain in the order” when she interrupted him. It was a moment of panic, of seeing her hard-earned position slip away. She couldn’t allow that to happen.

  “I seduced Par-Salian,” she said. Immediately, the words sank down into the pit of her stomach, and she almost burned with shame.

  I don’t care for him that way, she thought. I don’t-I mean …

  Reginald cocked an eyebrow in intrigue, but Ladonna wasn’t about to let him steal her moment.

  “I have his ear. Me … nobody else,” Ladonna said. “If you want me to influence him in the future, I suggest we discuss what the order can offer me in exchange for that influence.”

  That brought a smirk to Reginald’s face. That was twice she’d backed him into a corner and twice he was smart enough to know when he was beaten. He would discuss it later with her, he said, as he studied her under his black eye, but her future was more promising than it had been a few minutes earlier.

  Ladonna continued staring absently at the scrying crystal long after it had gone dark.

  Par-Salian performed exactly as was expected of him, which was to say he met with the highmage’s lofty expectations. He had kept the group together, survived several brushes with death, he was able to give them the position of Berthal’s camp, and he had returned everyone home safely. But it was obvious Par-Salian didn’t consider the mission successful. They had located Berthal but were in no position to capture him. The group almost shattered apart on several occasions. Indeed, they had almost died and Par-Salian’s sympathies for the enemy forced him to question himself.

  Highmage Astathan listened, never nodding or shaking his head, never smiling nor frowning. He listened while Par-Salian confessed to those terrible things, and only when the younger man was done did Astathan speak.

  “Never apologize for the hardships you face. Never apologize for questioning. The test we take is but one of many life throws our way. What matters is weathering it intact, regardless of the scars you earn from the experience. What matters is having the strength to ask the questions and to face the answers with a straight back. You did both. Par-Salian, I am proud of you. I may not have been your Shalafi, but I am as proud of you as I am of any of my students. You will make a fine addition to the conclave.”

  “But I questioned my own loyalties. I questioned the test.”

  “As well you should,” Astathan said. “The test is a choice, and all choices demand examination. You were not forced into it. You took it willingly, as a show of devotion. But you took it knowing what to expect. That was a choice, to take the test to show others you earned the right to learn the secrets of the greater arcane. Berthal is smart and compassionate, but his demand to rid us of the test is the cry of an over-protective mother. Nobody learns by being sheltered their entire life. Nobody respects something if it’s given t
o them without struggle. Rarely has a great thing been given away. It’s always been earned. And you, my boy … you earned your place here today. You should be proud.”

  Par-Salian nodded gratefully and contemplated Astathan’s words and praise. Still, some doubt shadowed his heart, for there was one thing he kept to himself: he said nothing of his affair with Ladonna.

  Tythonnia’s brush with Belize was decidedly less pleasant. She had no love or patience for the ridiculous little man, and he was not impressed with her performance. As master of the order, he proved himself the petty tyrant others knew him to be.

  “One book?” he said through the scrying crystal, his pinched face hovering in the murk. “I’m glad Yasmine wasn’t here to see this travesty,” he said. “All that wasted effort for one book. I pray you will beg for the highmage’s forgiveness because this failure is unacceptable.”

  Tythonnia’s patience had frayed thin, but she couldn’t afford to annoy the master of her order.

  “I beg your forgiveness,” Tythonnia said, looking down at her feet. “I failed you, Master, and I failed the order. Please … give me a few more days to see if I can get the books back.”

  “I should recall you right now,” he said.

  “I can get the books back. I know I can,” she said.

  “How?”

  “Leave that to me,” she responded. “Better you don’t know in case this goes badly for me. You can say I acted on my own.”

  Belize pondered it a moment before nodding. “Very well. But get caught, and I’ll personally push for your execution. Understood?”

  “Yes, thank you!” Tythonnia said, doing her best to feign gratitude.

  “You have two days,” he said. He waved his hand in front of the scrying crystal, and his image was swallowed by the mists.

  Tythonnia spit on the floor and was glad to be rid of him. Soon she would be free of all pretenses. She hoped it would happen before Amma Batros came to Wayreth to visit her. Tythonnia knew she could lie to the others, but Amma Batros-and perhaps even Ladonna and Par-Salian-they were another matter.

  The Tower of High Sorcery in Wayreth was one of the few remaining legacies of the power that the Wizards of High Sorcery once held. Its four sibling towers were either destroyed or sealed against all intrusion, leaving Wayreth as the last of the great repositories of knowledge. Before the Cataclysm, it had been the first one built, but afterward, it was a sanctuary for the beleaguered orders. It was a haven against all the spite and hate the world possessed against wizards for their perceived role in bringing about the Cataclysm; it was the one place they wouldn’t be harried and murdered.

  That was, until Astathan became highmage and rebuilt the respectability of the wizards. He forced them to leave the confines of Wayreth and again to travel the world, where Wyldling magic and renegade sorcery had blossomed to the benefit of a select handful. The wizards sought students and opened academies. More important, they showed the world they would no longer hide but neither should they be feared. The world went on fearing them, however, though they stopped murdering them.

  Because of its history and significance in a wizard’s life, the tower’s crypts also housed some of its greatest members. Not everyone who called himself a wizard was laid to rest there, but most masters and highmages were.

  What Berthal sought, what Tythonnia hunted for a week after arriving, was in the crypts, not the library. The latter was protected by too many traps and spells, but the crypts contained only corpses … supposedly. Anyone intombed there had donated his or her books and possessions to the orders and the various libraries. Thus, there was nothing of interest to crypt-robbers and little reason to protect it.

  The crypts lay beneath the ground, between the principal towers of Wayreth. A winding staircase of polished stone and friezes etched in mercurial runes spiraled down into the central crypt. Tythonnia tried to breathe deliberately, to slow her pounding heart, but the deeper she descended, the faster her heart raced. Not only was she betraying her oath and her order, she was about to do so before the dead eyes of High Sorcery’s most powerful luminaries.

  If there’s ever a place to be afraid of ghosts, it’s here, Tythonnia thought. Her imagination played on her fears, and she envisioned the reanimated dead masters killing her in a hundred different, terrible ways. Another fear drove her forward, however. Amma Batros was coming the next day for a visit, and Tythonnia didn’t want to be around. She couldn’t bear looking Amma in the face, knowing she was about to betray someone she cared for deeply.

  Through the archways at the bottom of the stairs, she entered the central crypt.

  The chamber was circular and well greater than sixty feet in diameter. Across the domed ceiling was a stylized panorama of stars and planets as they appeared in the sky above Wayreth right at that moment. It was a masterful illusion, displaying the planets and constellations in silver against a deep azure sky. Lines of gold flickered between the stars, showing the signs of the different gods. It was the sole illumination in the chamber that evening and more than enough to cast an eerie light over everything.

  Around her, set into the wall, were the funeral vaults, each one dedicated to the head of the conclave or hero of the order. Past the silver-plated gates were the sarcophagi themselves, each one topped with a gold slab, their sides enameled appropriately in red, white, or black. Three corridors led from the central chamber into the catacombs for the hundreds of wizards interred there. Each corridor was dedicated to one of the three orders and fell away into the darkness, but Tythonnia was grateful she didn’t need to enter any of them. What she sought was in the room she stood in.

  Skipping the ones where she saw red or white coffins and focusing on the black ones, Tythonnia checked the name above each vault. Finally, she came to the one she was looking for: Gadrella of Tarsis, the first woman and the first of her order to sit as highmage.

  The gate waited for Tythonnia to open it, and she swallowed hard. She was about to defile the resting place of a highmage, a Black Robe at that. No telling what nasty little tricks protected Gadrella’s vault. A bit of necromancy was enough to animate the dead or to kill a grave robber with a withering affliction. A thousand possible deaths awaited Tythonnia if she proceeded, and yet she’d live through a thousand deaths if she lied to herself and stayed with the orders. Her heart didn’t belong to them or the three moons anymore. Hers was the most ancient of traditions, the magic fueled by passion.

  “Live one day honestly,” she reminded herself and touched the bone key to the silver gate. It glided open silently and stopped just short of clanging against the wall. Tythonnia prayed Berthal was right about the key, that it would keep her safe from possible traps. She stepped into the vault, each foot forward celebrated with a pause as she waited for the hammer to drop. Nothing happened, however.

  Tythonnia placed the key against the golden slab, and it, too, pivoted open. Inside the velvet-lined coffin lay the corpse of Gadrella. The enchantments had slowed her deterioration, but had not halted her decay. Her skin had grayed and was eaten through at the cheeks. Her eyelids and eyes were completely missing, as was her nose. Thin, brittle, white hair that fell across her black pillow covered her head. Gadrella’s mouth lay open in a perpetual gasp, and her desiccated hands rested across her chest.

  What must come next filled Tythonnia with dread. Every time she thought about it, she stopped herself and almost backed away from the sarcophagus entirely. Finally, she took the bone key and pressed it into Gadrella’s mouth as quickly as she could. Tythonnia shuddered fiercely and silently cursed the Black Robes for their necromancy.

  A sigh seemed to escape Gadrella’s shriveled lips, and the fabric of her black robes rustled. Tythonnia realized Gadrella was holding a book beneath her hands.

  Berthal had told her about the legend, about a key Gadrella had fashioned to hide a book. It was meant for the Black Robes if there was ever a desperate time for their numbers. The book would return to her only when someone placed the key in her
mouth. However, the tome would serve Berthal instead. It was worth far more than the three books he gave Tythonnia to regain her compatriots’ trust.

  Tythonnia carefully slid the book out from beneath Gadrella’s dead fingers. It was heavy, its surface bronze and silver, and its patterns reminiscent of spiderwebs layered over one another until no light could shine through them. It reminded Tythonnia of the volume strapped to Dumas’s chest.

  Etched into the steel plate, bolted into its front was its title: Orphaned Echoes.

  She took the book and retrieved the key from Gadrella’s mouth. No sooner had she pulled it out, however, then the gold slab covering the coffin and the gate to the vault both slid closed. Tythonnia’s heart stuttered, and she struggled to breathe. No monster gripped her lungs, only her own fears choking her. She forced herself to relax, to think clearly. She was not trapped … not yet.

  Then she heard footsteps echoing through the stairwell. Someone was racing down into the central crypt.

  With the key tucked safely away, Tythonnia fumbled for the pouch on her belt. The footsteps grew louder, like thunder, spurring Tythonnia to move faster. But the pouch strings were tied too well. Her fingers couldn’t pull the knot apart. She tore at it but only tightened it further. The echo of footfalls was too painful to bear, like someone hammering on the door of her ears. She couldn’t be caught. Too much depended on her escape. She grunted in panic and pulled out her dagger.

  “Tythonnia!”

  It was Ladonna. Tythonnia went cold; she did not want witnesses to her betrayal, least of all Ladonna and Par-Salian. Better that she vanish into the night, never to see the disappointment on their faces. She pulled at the string and slit just below the knot. Ladonna raced into the chamber and spun around, trying to find her. Tythonnia ducked behind the sarcophagus. To her terror, the footsteps raced straight for Gadrella’s vault.