“May I escort you out, Azerick?” she asked kindly but in a tone that implied his answer would be yes whether he wanted it or not.
“I suppose you would be better company than the Captain,” Azerick replied drolly.
Miranda guided Azerick down the marble halls of the castle by a different route than they had taken coming in, which took nearly twice as long to reach the entrance. Miranda made a good tour guide, pointing out the portraits of her ancestors, who had built which halls and rooms, and when they were constructed. For some reason Azerick could not fathom, Miranda’s presence made him slightly nervous. It came as a sense of relief when they finally arrived at the doors leading out.
“Do you know where you will be staying?” Miranda asked.
“No, this is my first time in North Haven. I will find an inn somewhere and stay there until I deal with the keep,” Azerick responded.
“Why did you choose such a dreadful reward? My mother would gladly give you a beautiful chateau or mansion here in the city.”
Azerick shook his head. “I want something that I can truly call my own. Somewhere set apart from everyone else. The keep will be what I make it, not what someone else has given me.”
“Do you truly wish to be apart from everyone else so badly?” Miranda asked sympathetically.
Azerick thought about the question for a moment and shrugged. “It is safer that way; less painful.”
“Safe, yes, but also dull. Some risks must be taken to find happiness, or it is really not much of a life at all. You may survive, but you will never truly live. Fare thee well, Magus. I look forward to speaking with you again.”
Azerick gave her a nod and descended the broad granite steps that led down to courtyard where a groom stood waiting with Horse. Azerick put his foot in the stirrup and lifted himself into the saddle.
“Do you know a good inn to stay at?” Azerick asked, looking down at the lad.
“The Golden Glade is as nice an inn as you will find in the city, milord,” the young groom replied respectfully.
Azerick thanked the young man and flipped him a silver piece for his help.
“Thank you, milord!” the groom replied with a deep bow and scampered away.
Azerick guided Horse through the heavy gates set in the secondary wall that surrounded the palace grounds. The homes and few businesses that lined the streets this close to the palace were opulent affairs; two and three stories tall, built of white stone, and roofed with the same blue tiles as the palace. Somewhere along one of the many grand plazas was where Azerick would have had a home if had wished it. Instead, he was now the owner of a decrepit ruin allegedly haunted by a vengeful spirit. He began to wonder about his own sanity.
If I am already insane, can the ghosts still drive me mad? Azerick wondered.
He asked a few people he passed for directions to the Golden Glade. They looked from his travel-worn clothing to his plain horse before pointing him in the general direction of the inn.
Probably assuming I am looking for a job not a room, Azerick thought to himself.
The Golden Glade was located directly on the intersection that separated the wealthy quarter of the city and the merchant quarter where much of the middle class lived.
The sign above the door was a painting of a golden waterfall cascading down into a golden pool of what was probably supposed to be beer or ale, surrounded by lush vegetation and grass. The paint was clean and fresh; probably touched up or repainted frequently to maintain the quality of the sign.
Around the back of the inn was a large, clean stable with three stablehands ready to take good care of the customers’ horses. Azerick guided Horse through the gates that were now open, but kept shut at night for security.
The three stablehands watched as Azerick approached and conversed amongst themselves, probably deciding who was going to service the pauper and his worn-looking mount. They pushed the youngest boy forward, who was most likely the one that always took the customers that looked least likely to tip.
Despite having drawn the proverbial short straw, the lad bounded forward enthusiastically. “Take your horse, sir?”
Azerick dismounted and handed the towheaded boy Horse’s reins. “Yes, thank you.”
“Will milord be staying the night?”
“Do you know if there are rooms available?” Azerick asked.
“Oh yes, milord! the Golden Glade always has the best rooms available. Except during winter festival. They tend to fill up rather quick ‘round the holiday,” the groom replied helpfully.
“What is your name?”
“Peck, if it pleases milord.” The boy then grinned broadly. “Of course Peck ain’t me real name, but that’s what everybody calls me on account of how small I am.”
“Well, Peck, take good care of Horse for me,” Azerick instructed as he slipped a gold coin into the boy’s small, grubby palm. “Brush him down real well and give him the best oats and feed you have. I will probably be staying for several days at the least.”
Peck looked at the small fortune in his hand. It would likely take him a year or more to save up that much if he did not spend a single copper on such necessities as food, clothes, or shoes.
“Aye, milord, I’ll take special care of him I will!” Peck shouted excitedly until Azerick put a finger to his lips and looked pointedly at the two older boys watching from the rear of the stable.
“Oh aye, milord, I catch yer meaning,” Peck replied cautiously.
Azerick had lived in the streets long enough to know that if a smaller boy came into any kind of wealth he would likely lose it rather quickly to anyone big enough to take it away from him, and it looked as though Peck knew such things as well.
Peck took Horse to one of the open stalls, removed his saddle and tack, filled the manger with fresh hay and oats, and began vigorously brushing the animal down. Wally and John walked over to the stall where Peck was busily brushing down the pauper’s mangy horse.
“So did the raggedy man tip ya, Peck, or did he stiff ya?” Wally asked the smaller boy.
Peck gave a noncommittal shrug. “Just a single. Better than nothin I guess.”
“Ha, a single copper! I told ya the guy was a bum, Wally,” John said as he elbowed Wally. “I can smell a cheapskate a mile away I can. Those are the ones we give to Peck!”
Peck just smiled as he brushed several hundred miles of travel out of Horse’s coat.
Azerick stepped through the solid yet decorative door at the front of the inn. A few well-dressed patrons watched him warily as he entered and approached the bar.
“Can I help you, sir?” the innkeeper asked casually.
“I need a room for a few nights; maybe longer,” Azerick replied.
The man behind the bar looked at Azerick’s clothes and the trail dirt covering his face. “I have a few vacancies, but you might find the rates in this part of the city a bit exorbitant. There are quite a few decent places in the lower quarter that can be had for a fraction of what I have to charge. I’d be happy to recommend a few of the more honest places if you like.”
Azerick dropped a short stack of gold coins onto the highly polished cherry wood bar. “No thank you. I think this will do just fine. If you could point me to my room, I would like to get settled in. I would also like a hot bath drawn and directions to the nearest tailor.”
The innkeeper’s face became even friendlier at the sight of the gold stacked on his bar. “Of course, sir! We’d be glad to have you at the Golden Glade,” he cajoled as he swept the coins off the bar and into his hand.
An hour later, Azerick had eaten, bathed, and gotten directions to a clothier. He purchased a few well-made outfits of dark material and set off towards the bank. Now dressed in his new clothes and having discarded his tattered garb, he received a much warmer reception at the bank than he had at the inn or the clothiers.
“Can I help you, sir?” an attractive woman behind a marble-topped counter running the entire length of the back wall asked as he approach
ed.
“Yes. I would like to exchange these for coin,” Azerick replied and dropped two small diamonds, an emerald, and a sapphire the size of his thumbnail onto the counter.
The woman’s face flushed in excitement at the gorgeous, glittering gems that lay on the counter in front of her.
“Of course, sir. Just one moment please.”
She turned and walked back to a man seated at a workbench that Azerick could see through and open door behind the long counter. The man got up and walked out to where Azerick patiently waited.
“Good day to you, sir. Let me see what you have here, if I may,” he greeted and held each gem up to the jeweler’s loop he pressed into his right eye.
He held the gems up to the light and studied each one in detail with his magnifying lens. “Very nice, no inclusions, good color and clarity,” he mumbled half to himself as he studied each gem.
The jeweler and Azerick haggled on the value for a few minutes before coming to an agreement. The woman exchanged the gems for a pouch of coins once they finalized the deal.
“Is there anything else I can help you with, sir?” she asked pleasantly.
“Yes, is there anything kept for safe keeping for me? It should have been left here for me by a man named Zeb,” Azerick informed her.
“One moment, sir, and I will check the vault.”
The woman returned with a heavy pack that Azerick immediately recognized. He paid the fee for his precious books, happier now than he had felt for some time, and returned to his room at the inn. He set up his books on a shelf built into the wall of the furnished room he rented, pulled one out at random, and passed away the hours lost in its pages.
When Azerick looked up from his book and saw that the sun had set some time ago, he closed its pages, picked up his staff from where it was leaning in one corner, and left the inn.
He retrieved Horse from Peck who got him saddled and bridled for him, and headed for the eastern gate. The large main gate was still open to traffic as a few people came and went. One of the guardsmen held up a hand as Azerick approached.
“Good evening, sir. Will you be returning tonight?” the guard asked.
“I certainly hope so,” Azerick replied.
“If you do and the main gate is locked, just pound on the sally port there and we’ll let you in.”
Azerick thanked the guard for the information and rode out through the gate. He pointed Horse to the northeast where he rode until he could just make out the shape of the tall, main tower of the ruins. He dismounted and tied Horse to the branch of a maple tree before proceeding on foot.
As he drew nearer the ruins, he felt a chill run up his spine and his hair stood on end. Azerick came upon the first tumbled blocks of stone that once comprised a section of the outer wall and caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye.
He quickly turned his head in that direction, but he did not see anything there. The sorcerer walked through the breach in the wall and saw several buildings in various states of disrepair. Some stood nearly intact while others were open from one or more collapsed walls. None had a roof any longer. The timbers that had once supported them had long ago rotted away and turned to mulch.
Another flash of movement caught his attention, but whatever it was disappeared in the fraction of a second that it took him to look that direction. Azerick picked through the ruins of what had once been a smithy. A large, rust-covered anvil still rested upon a granite block.
He left the ruins of the smithy and worked his way past various buildings. Few of which left him any clues as to what purpose they once served. Azerick slowly walked towards the open maw of the central tower that looked like the large, black mouth of a huge, stone beast.
Another flicker of movement drew his attention away from the fallen remains of the heavy wooden doors that had once blocked the entrance to the tower. He spun about in an attempt to spot the elusive figure, but he saw only more stone blocks and deep shadows. Azerick turned back towards the tower entrance, released a strangled cry, and took an involuntary step back as a wispy, lucent figure hovered in the dark entranceway.
“My children! Where are the children?” the plaintive voice cried out.
Azerick stood dumbfounded as his blood turned to ice water in his veins. His heart pounded in his chest and his hands shook involuntarily. The apparition looked like a woman in a flowing, ancient robes. The once colorful patterns now appeared as mostly dress of washed-out shades of grey. She floated perhaps two feet above the ground, her hair flowing about her head as if she were under water.
“Where are my children?” the specter demanded to know.
Azerick cleared his throat in an attempt to loosen his tongue. “Lady, your children are no longer here. It is time for you to go.”
The ghost moved forward a few feet towards him. “Where are the children? I must protect the children!”
“Your children are gone, Lady, as you must do. You must leave this world of the living if you are to ever find them,” Azerick told the restless spirit.
The specter appeared to think for a moment, and then a look of pain and rage rippled across her ghostly countenance.
“I want my children!” the spirit wailed in a voice filled with fury and torment. Its appearance twisted to match its rage. The face and eye sockets elongated, the fingers lengthened into wicked claws that she stretched towards the creature that dared to mock her pain with its warm, living blood. Her hair became a tangled, writhing mass that seemed to have a life of its own.
Azerick stumbled back under the mind numbing assault of the banshee’s wail. He clapped his hands over his ears in an attempt to block out the mind-rending pain of the dreadful shrieking. It took all his concentration to reach out to the Source and shape the spell that was his only chance at surviving the sonic attack. His nose bled and his vision began to fade under the terrible assault. With a final burst of will, Azerick enveloped himself in a blissful sphere of absolute silence.
He stumbled back to his feet, saw the banshee, and staggered away. Azerick could feel the air grow colder around him as his silenced footfalls pounded against the ancient flagstones of the keep’s courtyard. He bolstered his resolve and forced himself to run faster as the air grew even colder. The air that he drew in and forced from his burdened lungs came out in thick, vaporous clouds. Icy pain flared across his back as he felt the clawed fingers of the vengeful spirit rake across his living flesh.
The certainty of death if he did not escape fueled his sprint as he pumped his legs ever faster. It seemed only seconds had passed since he faced the spirit when he finally reached Horse who was chomping contentedly on the grass that grew around the tree to which he was tethered. Ripping the reins from the branches, he vaulted into the saddle, spun the surprised Horse about, and put his heels into his mount’s flanks.
Azerick rode Horse at a gallop until they reached the gates of the city a few minutes later. One of the guards must have seen or heard him coming, because the sally port opened for him as he brought Horse to a walk just before the gates.
“Ho there, sir! You look like you seen a ghost!” the guardsman called out to him jovially.
“You have no idea of truth of that statement,” Azerick responded as he let out a deep breath.
He ducked his head as he rode Horse through the smaller gate and left him in the capable hands of Peck upon reaching the inn a short time later. Azerick let himself in through the small side door that opened to the stables.
He ascended the stairs to his room and fell upon the soft bed without bothering to undress. It would appear that if he was going to make the citadel his own, he was going to have to fight for it. Could he fight without destroying? Azerick desperately wanted a home that was his, but could anything be built upon the ashes of destruction without eventually falling to the same fate?
Everything he was and everything he had was built upon someone’s loss, usually his own, but also the lives of others as well. Not this time. Azerick would build s
omething that meant more than what he could take by force. Somehow, he would find a way to put the spirit at peace and to allow him to make his home in the tower.
Several minutes passed before he worked up the will to kick his boots off and lay staring up at the dark ceiling until sleep finally took him in its embrace.
*******
General Baneford sat in his command tent coddling a bottle of strong spirits. Something he found himself doing more and more often. The longer this tedious campaign continued, the more he sought solace by imbibing in the mind-numbing brew. The General was well into the dregs of his bottle when a sharp rapping sounded on the pole next to the tent flap.
“What?” the general bellowed.
A young, wiry rider stepped smartly into the tent and gave the inebriated general a sharp salute. The intoxicated Baneford threw up his hand and let it drop back to his side in return.
“Sir, I have a missive from His Grace, Duke Ulric,” the rider informed the general and handed over a folded sheet of paper sealed in wax bearing the Duke’s crest.
General Baneford snatched the message out of the rider’s hand and dismissed him with a wave. He staggered over to the small field table and sat down heavily. The general used his dagger to break open the seal and began to read the contents through his bleary eyes.
General Baneford,
I am swiftly coming to the conclusion that the rather simple retrieval task I have set you upon may be beyond your ability to handle. While you and my men have been roaming seemingly aimlessly across the kingdom, others are busily making moves of their own, and the king becomes more tightly ensconced upon his throne. Your own reward hinges upon the successful completion of the mission I have set you on. For several years you have rode out with a large force of my cavalry and, more often than not, returned empty handed and with fewer men than you departed with! I have allowed you to wear my armor to facilitate your success, but even with that help, you fail me and continue to lose more of my men. You have one last chance to prove to me that you are not completely inept before I replace you and have you digging the privy trenches. If I have not obtained that which I seek by the end of summer, you are finished! Return with my armor, or do not return at all!
The Sorcerer's Torment (The Sorcerer's Path) Page 32