The Wizard at Mecq

by Rick Shelley

  "Or here or there, or both places," Silvas agreed. "Your men are eager?"

  "Aye, lord. They have been too long idle."

  Silvas smiled at the understatement. The Seven Towers rarely had need of such fierce soldiers. On only three occasions during Silvas's long tenure had they found their talents for fighting actually needed, and never in the lifetimes of any of the current soldiers.

  "The time is coming, Braf, the time we've all trained against."

  —|—

  There were routines to Silvas's life. Every evening before retiring, there were magical chores that needed doing, and not just when he expected trouble. His mind touched on the normal defenses of the Seven Towers, strengthening or renewing where necessary, inspecting always. The daily routines did not take a lot of time, and they required no special preparations. The Glade had been under these safeguards constantly since Auroreus first raised the walls. They were strong and well tested.

  Silvas spent more time than usual at his maintenance this evening.

  "We are as prepared as we can be," he told Carillia when he finally joined her in bed.

  "You are taking no chances, are you, my heart?" she said as she gathered him into her arms. Without speaking of it, both knew that this would not be a night for passion, merely for sharing strength of their spirits and bodies, holding each other until sleep came.

  "I dare take no chances," he told her. "I must offer you all of the protection I can."

  She laughed softly. "Not to mention all the others who depend on you, my heart."

  Not to mention, he thought—and he did not mention them.

  There were a few moments of soft movement between them as they adjusted into more comfortable positions. Silvas went through the disciplined routines of clearing his mind of unnecessary clutter so sleep could come quickly. As the warmth of approaching sleep flowed, Silvas felt familiar sensations of Carillia and him melding together into a greater whole. The feelings were almost those of a dream—but not quite. Where their bodies touched, they seemed to fuse. The warmth became a cocoon that encompassed both, drawing them even closer together, uniting them in a way that their waking bodies could only poorly imitate. Their minds seemed to flow through each other on some primitive level of sensation. They shared no thoughts, but they did seem to share of each other's souls at a time like this. When the union came, it could last through an entire night, holding Silvas's mind, flooding him with a rest that was much better than sleep, strengthening him, rejuvenating him. I could live on this and never touch food or slide into sleep, he would tell himself while he floated in the heaven of this spiritual cradle.

  It did not come every night.

  And they never spoke of it. Silvas believed that Carillia shared the experience, though she had never mentioned it, and he had never asked. To talk about it openly might ruin it, Silvas told himself whenever the experience came. He was satisfied to revel in it when the opportunity arose, and to remember it at other times when he needed the reassurance of that deep warmth.

  When it came.

  While it lasted.

  Silvas and Carillia walked together in the shade of flowering trees, enjoying the alternation of warmth and coolness as they went from shade to spring sun and back again. They walked arm in arm, holding hands and leaning against each other. Silvas recognized that they were in some sort of ordered orchard, not in a wild stretch of woods. These trees had been carefully tended by loving hands. The grass had been cleared from around the base of each trunk, leaving a circle of bare soil and chips of bark. That puzzled Silvas, for the short time he bothered to think about it, because he could not recall seeing that kind of detail to any orchard before. But there was too much to absorb his attention for him to pay any great concern to this. There were the fresh scents of spring, a melange of aromas to tickle his senses. And there was Carillia at his side. Wherever they touched, the feeling was that of skin on skin, though they were both dressed. Clothing simply did not affect the sense of touch between them.

  Neither spoke. They merely walked. At times Carillia drew Silvas's attention to some sight—a tiny brook meandering past one side of the orchard, small clearings arranged as formal gardens, a doe and her fawn bounding off in the distance. She did all of this without words, and in the same way Silvas occasionally pointed out other sights to her—the patterns in leaves and flowers, a new scent coming in on the zephyr that lightly swirled around them.

  And demons rode the night again.

  —|—

  Silvas exploded out of sleep, jumping from bed before his mind had fully returned from its nocturnal walk with Carillia. The frenzy of his movements was almost impossible for any eye to follow. He raced through a spell of protection and delay while he pulled on his robe and knife belt. He grabbed his quarterstaff as he ran out the door. He didn't waste time to see how Carillia or the cats were reacting. They would react. They would know that attack was coming and respond. This summons was so urgent that the cats didn't growl or scream. Carillia asked no questions. They all followed Silvas from the room.

  The Seven Towers shook at the sudden onslaught of foes that Silvas could not yet grasp. Going up the first set of circular stairs, the trembling of the keep became so violent that Silvas missed a step and pitched headfirst. Only his quick reflexes managed to get hands and arms out to break his fall. He was back on his feet as quickly as one of his cats, though, continuing to race for the pentagram in his workshop.

  Silvas spoke words of power. The air around him crackled with magic, and not just his. Lightning seemed to flash within the keep. The second set of steps, the iron stairs, danced with light that prickled against the skin, drawing sparks—and drawing protests from Satin and Velvet each time their paws came down on metal treads. Silvas had no time to spare for calming them. The assault was already within the Glade.

  "Eyru, reygu mavith. Eyru, sprath tourn." Silvas shouted the spell, loading his voice with urgency. The walls took on their familiar glow, but it wasn't even this time. The competing magic caused it to ebb and flow. "Dar, korbeth mavith. Dar, sprath tourn." He added the intensifiers and watched the luminescence even out.

  Carillia and the cats took their normal places in the circles at the side of the room, but the lines of the pentagram were already fully aglow with power, so Silvas had to speak a spell of passage to get to the center. Then he had to waste time testing the space for any lurking enemy. That the pentagram had been activated before he entered was cause enough to require that caution. To be trapped with an invisible enemy within the pentagram might prove fatal.

  Silvas moved on to chants of power and defense. Though the Seven Towers trembled at the assault, they remained standing. The walls provided their protection. Silvas chanted and he seemed to grow, to expand, overflowing the pentagram, even the workshop. Colors reversed. The glow turned dark, and that which was dark glowed light, casting everything into reverse—the better to see the demons that must be attacking. Before many seconds had passed, Silvas seemed to tower over the Seven Towers, with the castle nestled between his feet, a child's toy being protected from harm.

  The stars were black points against a silvery night sky. The earth was covered with muted colors, red greenery against the black of water and the pale yellow of bare dirt. The walls of the Glade were a muddy red.

  Against all that, the forms of the attacking demons were a brilliant, crackling bright blue. Squadrons of outlined forms circled the Seven Towers and the enlarged form of Silvas. Darts of crimson shot from black bows. On the walls of the Glade, Silvas's lupine warriors fought back as best they could, wielding silver blades that had been touched by their master's magic. Dark against the earth, Silvas saw reflections of other warriors moving toward the walls. These warriors themselves were invisible in this obscure light.

  Silvas called on his Unseen Lord. He spoke the words of defense and brought in the lightning.

  The Earth continued to shake.

  Silvas spoke more words of power and caused the wind to tu
rn in circles around the walls of the Seven Towers, bringing a chop to the water of the moat, bending trees and grass around it as the wind increased and funnelled in on itself, tighter and tighter, creating a wall as impenetrable as the stone and mortar of the physical walls. The cyclonic barrier became a mirror, brilliant in clarity. Silvas saw his image repeated a thousand times, bent forward into distortion.

  And he saw more.

  —|—

  The storm engulfed Mecq and its valley. The sky was crisscrossed with lightning. Thunder rumbled continuously. More than one bolt of lightning touched the roof of a cottage. Only the rain that had continued since the previous afternoon prevented a score of destructive fires. Some of the soaked thatch smoked for a few minutes, but none of it was dry enough to sustain fire.

  Brother Paul stood before the altar at St. Katrinka's. The candles lit at either side were scarcely needed in the repeated toss of lightning. The vicar was deep in his prayers and in the minor incantations that his station permitted. The friar prayed and chanted. Then he turned and walked the length of his church to stand in the doorway. There he was not completely protected from the driving rain that had replaced the calmer shower left by the wizard.

  It is come to us now, Brother Paul thought. His left hand clutched the crucifix hanging from his neck. His right hand drew the sign of the cross against the storm. Staring into the rain, the friar caught glimpses of the demons riding the night, but his power was not great enough to hold the visions or to see the demons in their full fury. But he knew that they were out there, and his voice found the chants and prayers against them.

  Brother Paul could hear the laughter of the demons mocking him. He called on the power of the White Brotherhood, and he felt extra strength flowing into him as he repeated his spells of protection. The laughter of the demons continued, but it was softer, almost sounding more distant.

  —|—

  Old Maga crouched in terror against the cold hearth of her cottage. Unlike some villagers, she didn't keep even a small fire going through the night, except during the coldest nights of winter. Getting wood to fuel a constant fire was more trouble than going next door to get a flaming brand to rekindle her fire every morning.

  "This comes from the stranger," Maga mumbled over and over. The terrors of Hell seemed ready to consume her, but she could do nothing but crouch against the stone of her fireplace, waiting for the end to come. The wind rose in strength and volume. The ground shook under her. It seemed certain that the entire village would be consumed by the devil fires lancing the night. The smell of Hell was in the air, the nose-curdling odor of brimstone.

  "Saints protect us!" Maga shouted into the storm, but the only answer was a vague sound of laughter on the wind—followed by the growing shriek of banshees screaming for the dead.

  There was an even greater terror that Maga could find no words for. After a lifetime of going faithfully to church, of listening to Brother Paul, and to Brother Ezra who had the parish before him, and Brother Alfred before that, Old Maga knew that this was a night when souls would be lost. The demons and the banshees who came to oversee their work would carry off both lives and souls.

  —|—

  The mill's wheel began to turn. The river was not yet high enough to flow over the wheel, but it had finally reached the bottom, making it creak noisily as it came back to life after idle ages. Metal fittings screamed in protest as they stripped themselves of surface rust. Wood groaned as if it would split. The millstones inside started to turn, though there was no grain between them.

  Next to the mill, the Eyler was a muddy torrent for one of the few times in a generation, frothing and racing past the village, pulling dirt from the banks and carrying it downstream. Some came to rest against the new stones that the villagers had placed across the river. More flowed across that insignificant barrier toward the gap between the twin mountains that bracketed it.

  The rain flattened much of the grain in the fields. Most would survive, perhaps, but the storm was a further outrage against crops that had already faced much just to get this far.

  —|—

  Silvas suddenly found himself back within his body, shaking with the force of his magics. He blinked twice, then spoke a spell of passage so he could leave the pentagram safely. "Stay where you are," he said, including Carillia and the cats in the command as he raced from the room.

  He climbed to the narrow turret that let him look down on Mecq. The sight he saw now was basically the same as he had seen through the vision of his magic. The village was being assailed by the storm. If anything, it was more viad thought. Demons rode the ridge of Mt. Balq and circled the peak of Mt. Mecq. More rode the surge of the Eyler. Silvas could hear their laughter, and he could also hear the crying of the banshees waiting to collect their due.

  "Not yet," Silvas muttered under his breath. He turned and ran back down the stairs, through his conjuring chamber and library, heading for the curtain wall that surrounded the Seven Towers.

  "It's come for fair, it has," Braf Goleg shouted when Silvas climbed to the parapets. The soldier had a gleam in his eye that told the wizard that his lupine commander had already found some targets for his weapons.

  "How has it been?" Silvas asked. He too had to shout to be heard over the fury of the storm.

  "Some few demon riders have come over the wall," Braf said. "None has survived the passage. They burn and smoke when the silver rips them."

  Silvas nodded.

  "Have any said anything you could understand?"

  "Nay, lord." Braf shook his head violently. "They do naught but scream their fury and pain. I think we are more than they expected."

  "That could be, Braf, but don't get overconfident. They may learn that you're not so different as you look."

  "Here they come again," one of Braf's warriors shouted. He pointed. Silvas turned to follow the direction.

  Ghostly riders sholent than Silvas howed no substance but only the brilliant blue outlines of their form. There was nothing but the night between the lines. The rain was there, and the forest of the Glade's valley. The demons rode demon steeds, charging through the air, caring not where the ground was or what they rode over in their mad assault.

  "Give me space," Silvas said. Braf and the other nearby warriors moved aside, clearing an area that would give Silvas room to swing his staff at full reach if he chose to.

  "Eyru, delvi, kepthi, dar." Silvas spoke each word separately, encased in its own web of power. He flung them at the five riders who approached in a tight wedge formation. The words forced some separation among the demons. Silvas adjusted his grip on his quarterstaff, dipping first one ferrule and then the other to scrape against the stone of the wall in front of him.

  "Kabri, estu delvu restith," Silvas said, and the forms of the demons started to show some semblance of substance. A pale light filled in the empty spaces of their forms.

  "There are your targets, lads," the wizard yelled. Silver-tipped arrows leaped from bone bows. When the arrows struck demon form, there were sparks, moments of intense white fire, longer moments of soul-stealing screams. Three demon riders erupted in the blinding flames of their kind. Their steeds—not horses, not animals of any known kind—shared their fate. But the remaining demons came on, aiming with certainty at Silvas and the aura of power that surrounded him.

  Silvas swung his quarterstaff. The silver ferrule connected with the steed of the lead rider. The beast exploded in a white flare, but its rider leaped clear... and the quarterstaff went sailing back over Silvas's head into the courtyard of the Seven Towers.

  The wizard barely had time to draw his dagger before he was knocked to the parapet by the force of the leaping demon. He was scarcely aware of Braf engaging the other. Silvas was aware of little more than the grinning death's head pressing down against his face and the smell of sulphurous breath coming from the demon's empty form. Silvas's wrists seemed clamped, as if by vises. The demon, for all his emptiness, had physical power at this juncture. He had the
weight of hell behind him, trying to crush the wizard through the stone and into the ground. The demon's empty skull gaped wide and long, pointed teeth sought to bite away the wizard's soul.

  Silvas twisted, calling for the help of his master. With his shoulders pressed against the stone, he found some leverage and started to bring the dagger up. The blade showed the same bright luminescence as the demons, but white rather than blue. The demon shifted his grip, concentrating on the hand that held the dagger. That gave Silvas a chance to roll to the side—enough to get the incredible weight of the demon off of him.

  They became tangled. Silvas seemed to get a foot through the demon's middle, where its stomach would have been—if it had had a stomach. The wizard got up on one knee, and the knee would have pressed against the demon's heart—if it had had a heart. And suddenly their positions were reversed. Silvas was on top, pressing down against the tremendous power of the sketchy form. The point of his knife aimed for a target just above the center of the gaping mouth.

  The blade cut through the blue lines that marked the demon's face. A flood of putrid smells erupted, almost drowning the screams of the wounded demon. The bright white flare of the fire that consumed the demon blinded the wizard for a moment. He staggered to his feet, reeling from the pain of the intense fire. His arms stretched out, seeking the security of the wall. His feet slid cautiously along the deck, worried that he might step off the parapet to plunge to the courtyard so far below.

  "Here, lord, I have you," Braf said, and then the wizard felt the steel grip of his warrior. "This way, lord. 'Tis over for the moment."

  "I'll be all right, Braf," Silvas said as some hint of vision returned. There were still bright spots sparkling before his eyes, but he could make out Braf's form. The pain of burning disappeared as quickly as the ethereal fire that had produced it. "A moment. The last of them?"