Wizard Pair (Book 3)

by James Eggebeen

  Garlath stood up. "Off with you, then. Go get your belongings and come straight back."

  He looked at Rotiaqua. "Wait just a moment. He knelt before her and passed his hands over her boots. They shimmered and transformed from the fine leather work of the castle into the rough work they'd seen in the shop below. "There. They're still the same on the inside, but I spelled them to appear more like what you should be able to afford."

  Zhimosom and Rotiaqua rushed back to the inn to retrieve their meager possessions.

  "What was all that about pairing?" Zhimosom asked. "You know how we can talk to each other by magic? Is that what he's talking about?"

  "I think it's more than that. Remember when we took the blood oath?" Rotiaqua held up her hand, palm forward. "I think there was more to the pact than just an oath. I felt your power then."

  "Do you suppose that was what did it?" Zhimosom shouldered his pack.

  "I don't know, but when Sulrad took our power, I recognized yours almost as if it was my own."

  "But the rest of our lives?"

  Rotiaqua smiled at Zhimosom. She reached up and put her arm around his shoulder. "What's the matter? Still afraid of me?"

  "No ... Not really ... But ..." Zhimosom stammered.

  "You can't still be afraid of being locked in the stocks, can you?"

  "No ... but you're still royalty ... and you're older than me ..." Zhimosom suppressed a shiver.

  Rotiaqua released him and turned him to face her. She had to crane her neck to look up at him.

  "Look at you. You've grown so much since we first met. I used to be taller than you. It doesn't matter that I'm older than you, and I'm no longer royalty."

  She turned him to face the door and pushed him. "Let's get back to the Wizard."

  Zhimosom walked ahead of her all the way to the Wizard's abode. He was embarrassed. Out on the road, he was the leader. He foraged and found work for them. He knew how to live off the land and she relied on him. She didn't seem like the Baron's daughter while they were on the road.

  In the city, it was different. She grew more confident and took on an air of someone who belonged in the castle. It intimidated Zhimosom, made him uneasy. He didn't know how to explain it to her, he just wished they could get out of the city and back to the way things were on the road.

  When they reached the Wizard's rooms, Zhimosom climbed the stairs and knocked on the door. It opened by itself.

  "Come on in." Garlath shouted from the back, where he was mixing ingredients for potions. He swept aside the beaded curtain and stepped into the main room wearing a thick, stained leather apron.

  Garlath surveyed Zhimosom and Rotiaqua's things. "You travel light, don't you?"

  "We left in a hurry." Zhimosom set the pack on the floor beside the table.

  "I have a room here for you. You'll have to clean it out first, though."

  Garlath showed them to a room that was piled high with refuse, bits and pieces of leather, cloth, dead branches, dried leaves and broken glass vials and bottles. Zhimosom sighed. It would take most of the day to clear it out.

  "Where should we put this?" Zhimosom asked as he eyed the refuse.

  "Where should you put it?" Garlath asked. "I should think nowhere would suffice, wouldn't you?"

  "Nowhere? Where is nowhere?"

  "Exactly." Garlath slapped him on the shoulder and headed back to his potions.

  "What do you think he meant?" Zhimosom looked at the refuse piled in the room. He pulled out a dead, dried branch and examined it.

  "Maybe he means we should use magic." Rotiaqua took the branch from Zhimosom and held it in her hand. Zhimosom felt the power she drew as it vanished.

  "Nowhere," she proclaimed reaching for more.

  Zhimosom joined her in the effort. They had only cleared a small section of the room when he felt exhausted. He was light headed and tired, and he was hungry even though they had just eaten.

  He sat down on the floor and leaned against the wall. Rotiaqua dropped into position next to him. She looked no better off than he was.

  "Something wrong?" Garlath asked. He stood, looking down at the two of them resting.

  "I'm exhausted and we've hardly made much of a start on cleaning the room," Zhimosom complained.

  "How are you doing it?"

  "We are making the refuse go nowhere," Rotiaqua answered.

  "Where?"

  "Nowhere," Zhimosom explained. "That's where we're sending the refuse ... It's exhausting."

  "You're sending it?" Garlath crossed his arms and scowled at Zhimosom. "Why are you sending it away?"

  "You said to get rid of it. Send it nowhere."

  "You're trying to send it nowhere. Nowhere is a long way from here. It takes a lot of energy to do that."

  "I'm learning that." Zhimosom sighed.

  "Good. That's your first lesson." Garlath sorted through the refuse pile and pulled out a heavy piece of scrap wood. He handed it to Zhimosom.

  "Here. Turn this into nothing. Feel the energy that is bound within it. It can be released to power the spell needed to dispose of it. If you burn it, you release the same energy. Separate the energy from the thing and it will cease to exist."

  Zhimosom focused on it. He felt the energy bound inside it. He reached for it, trying to separate it from the wood. It was hard to do at first. It was almost as if the thing fought him. Finally, he found it, a thread of its energy that was loose, dangling from the scrap, just asking to be tugged.

  He reached out and pulled at the thread.

  There was a loud bang. He felt the power of the blast hit him in the chest. It was as if someone had kicked him, hard. He had trouble breathing as he recovered his senses.

  "Not bad for a first effort. You should contain the energy though. Maybe release it a little slower." Garlath reached for another piece of refuse. He handed Zhimosom a small bottle this time.

  "Try it again, but this time draw the energy into a wall around the object. Don't just free it."

  Zhimosom visualized the bottle. He felt the energy it contained. He pulled it, separated it from the bottle just as he had done with the wood. It was harder to grasp the energy, but he soon felt it draw away. This time, instead of tugging at the thread, he gently pulled on it, slowly extracting it from the bottle, winding it in a mesh that encircled the object.

  The power was not as strong as that which he had extracted from the wood earlier. He embraced it and pulled it towards him as it unraveled from the bottle. He felt it become insubstantial as the thread faded out to nothingness.

  The bottle was gone.

  "That looks better," Garlath said. "Wood was easier because it once contained life force. The bottle only contained the energy used to create it, since it was never alive."

  Garlath held out his hands. "Now here's the lesson. Magic is hard. It takes energy and you only have so much. You have to recharge between spells or you will deplete your energy stores completely. When that happens, it's no different from physical exhaustion. You get tired, dizzy, and hungry.

  "When you do what I just showed you, it takes as much energy to drive the spell as you take from the thing you made vanish. Magic has its price."

  Garlath reached down to help Zhimosom up off of the floor. "I have prepared a meal for you. It will make you feel better."

  Zhimosom stood up on unsteady legs. He reached down to give Rotiaqua a hand up and then staggered to the table. He dropped heavily into a chair. "We could have used that lesson earlier today."

  "You wouldn't have learned it as well if I told you first. This way you'll remember it a long time. That I promise you."

  He slid a large tray laden with fowl meat and vegetables in front of them and took a seat.

  As they ate, Garlath told them what was required of a Wizard in training. They would learn their lessons, but they were also expected to practice magic, and serve. Wizards were to serve the community, he told them. It was why they had been blessed with magic in the first place.

  "Wher
e does magic come from?" Zhimosom asked. "Why do some people have it and others not?"

  "Everyone has it." Garlath served himself a plate heaped full of vegetables and meat. "Not everyone has the same level, though. Some are born with more than others."

  "Born with it?" Zhimosom asked. He had not been born with magic. It came on around his fourteenth summer. He had never experienced any magical abilities before then.

  "You were born with it. It just didn't awaken until about your fourteenth summer. Am I right?"

  "Yes. That's about right."

  "And you. Sixteen?" he asked Rotiaqua.

  "How did you know?"

  "That's the age when the magic awakens. We don't know why, but before then it rarely manifests."

  "How did yours start?" Garlath asked Zhimosom.

  "Fire. I started making fire when I got bored."

  "That must have pleased your family." Garlath smiled.

  "My father never liked it. My mother was killed in a fire when I was young."

  "I'm sorry to hear that. What happened to her?"

  "The Baron's men set fire to our house when my father was unable to pay his tribute."

  Zhimosom glanced at Rotiaqua. He had never told her that it was her father's men who had killed his mother. She looked ashamed, and Zhimosom felt bad for embarrassing her.

  "My father was killed in the war," he continued. "I was only fourteen summers old. I've been on my own since."

  "Your father was a soldier?"

  "A retired soldier. He was a farmer when the King's troops invaded our homestead. They killed everyone around as a warning to the Baron.

  Rotiaqua reached out and put her hand on his. "Zhimosom. I'm sorry. I never knew."

  He let her comfort him. "It was not your fault. It was your father's, and the King's. When nobles fight, commoners die."

  "Not just commoners," Rotiaqua said. "I've lost relatives in the wars, too."

  "How about you? How did it start for you?" Garlath asked Rotiaqua.

  "When I was sixteen summers, I started to have dreams. Dreams about things that came true. I would sit in front of the fire and dream, just let it flicker and watch the flames. I would see things in the fire. Things that came true later.

  "Then one night I opened myself to the flames and I saw Zhimosom." She patted his hand again and resumed eating.

  "So tell me, what led you here?" the Wizard asked.

  "A dragon," Zhimosom replied. "We were just sitting there on the banks of the river trying to decide our destination and a dragon flew over. It landed and told us to come to Tustow and find a Wizard."

  "A dragon?" Garlath stood up so quickly that his chair tipped over with a resounding thud. "Did you say a dragon led you here?"

  "Yes."

  He waved his hand over their half finished meal. "Don't bother with that. We have to leave."

  He turned for the door. "Now."

  Frostan

  Sulrad sat behind his desk and reviewed the plans for the Temple. His men were excavating a complex series of tunnels that would form a secret escape route. The tunnels extended beneath the castle walls to allow his underlings to escape with the Temple treasure, should the Temple ever be laid to siege. He was confident he could escape any siege by magic, but he could not carry the treasure, and didn't want to be forced to abandon it.

  There was a knock on the door.

  "Come." Sulrad didn't bother to look up from the scrolls to see who it was.

  "Father Sulrad. We have found something you should see," Veran said.

  "And what might that be?"

  "It looks like a Wizard's work. It's in the excavation, beneath the Temple. There's a doorway with ancient runes on it. The workers have just uncovered it. They're afraid to open it."

  Sulrad wondered what sort of Wizardry would lay buried beneath the city. He wound his way down the rickety ladder and into the tunnel, and pulled a torch from a sconce to light his way.

  The tunnel stretched out ahead until he was no longer beneath the Temple grounds. The workmen had discovered a wall made of solid granite block. They tunneled along it to skirt the buried structure, when they discovered the door.

  Sulrad brushed away the dirt so he could read the runes carved in the door posts. They were ancient and strange to his eye. They looked similar to one of the Wizard languages he had learned in Amedon while he was training. The Wizards in Amedon loved their ancient runes and reveled in their obscurity.

  "Yes. This is a Wizard's." Sulrad tried the door. It was stuck fast. He spoke a simple spell to open the door, but it held firm.

  "Fetch me parchment and charcoal," he told one of the workmen. "Ask my assistant to find them in my study and bring them back here."

  Sulrad turned to Veran. "Can you read these?"

  "No, Father. I have not studied the runes. I do not know what they say."

  Sulrad ran his hand over them. "They're ancient, that much I know. They look similar to runes that I have studied. These symbols usually give one a hint as to how to open the doors.

  "See this one?" Sulrad pointed to one of the symbols. This is very ancient, but one that has not changed much over time." It was a crude representation of a snake with wings and short stubby legs.

  "What does it mean?"

  "It is the symbol for dragons."

  "Dragons?" Veran asked. "I thought dragons were creatures of myth. The only ones left are the mini dragons."

  "Creatures of myth they are, but they were also real. They just don't visit this realm any longer. They used to, or so the histories in Amedon say."

  "What happened?"

  "They left the realm of man for their own place. Legend has it that some Wizard devised a spell to command them so he could use them for his own purposes. He made war on another group of Wizards and used the dragons as his weapon. The dragons fought valiantly and killed many of the opposing Wizards until the dragons eventually gained their freedom and left this realm. The Wizard who commanded the dragons was killed in that final battle and his spells were lost.

  "Dragons are rarely seen these days, and most folks think of them only as legend. Anyone who tells tales of seeing a dragon is laughed at. Few even admit it, if they chance to see one today."

  The workman returned with several sheets of parchment and a charcoal lump. Sulrad took the sheets, laid them over the runes and rubbed until he had a copy of all of them. He rolled up the parchment and handed it to Veran.

  "Take this to my study. I will search the records to see if I can make sense of this. It may provide a clue to the opening of the door."

  "Yes, Father." Veran bowed his head and departed.

  Sulrad ran his hands over the runes, caressing them, feeling the edges of the carving in the rough stone.

  "Dragons," he said softly.

  Back in his study, Sulrad bent over the reference books that dealt with ancient runes. He had not found the exact runes he wanted, but he was able to puzzle out several possible interpretations.

  "Dragon Lord," he mumbled beneath his breath. He looked around hoping that no one was near to hear him. His heart beat faster as he fingered the charcoal tracings. Was it possible? Had he stumbled upon the secrets of the Dragon Lord of old?

  He worked through the night, referencing the runes until he was confident that he had the answer. He donned his robe and pulled the hood over his head. He climbed down the ladder into the darkened tunnel. The workmen were gone for the night and the place was black.

  "Incendo ignio." Flame appeared in his palm to light his way. He reached out to the fire, separated it from his palm, and lifted it above his head as he approached the doorway. It illuminated the writing, casting a shadow in the deep crevasses of the runes.

  "Habere scientiam et potentiam trans fores," he commanded the door to open and admit him to gain knowledge and power.

  The door shuddered and slowly slid open revealing a dusty foyer that led to several arched doorways. The interior was bleak, with no trace of decoration anywhere.
/>   Sulrad entered and began exploring the buried building. He soon located a room that must have been the Wizard's study. It was packed with scrolls stuffed in a rack that reached from floor to ceiling.

  He turned from the rack of scrolls and saw a mosaic on the wall behind him. He lifted the light and brightened it to get a better look. It was covered in dust and dirt, but he could make out the image. It was a dragon, crouching down to a man. The man held a staff in his outstretched hand.

  Sulrad drew a breath. Could it be? This was the Dragon Lord's study!

  He walked up to the mosaic. "Permitte me clare videre." He commanded the dirt to clear from the mosaic so he could see clearly. The runes around the mosaic were familiar from his study. He traced his finger carefully along them as he read to himself. To command a dragon.

  He withdrew a scroll from the rack and carefully unrolled it on the empty desk. He rubbed his hands over the dry parchment, willing it not to crack from disuse. The scroll seemed to speak of the Wizard that controlled the dragons. It was slow going, but he could make out some of the language.

  Sulrad realized he must have fallen asleep in the study beneath the Temple when he heard the sound of the workmen. He quickly grabbed the scroll and tucked it into his robe, careful not to damage the fragile parchment. He rushed to the door and pulled it shut, pausing to speak a spell of closure on it so that the workers would be unable to open it.

  As the workers appeared, he turned to them. "The door will not open. Continue digging around the structure until you are able to turn back to your original path. He squeezed past them and hurried up the tunnel.

  Safely locked in his own study, Sulrad rolled the scroll out once more. He carefully examined the runes. The more he read of the runes, the easier it became. They were spelled to teach the reader how to interpret them. The ancient Wizards knew that even the Wizards' tongue would change over time.

  The scroll spoke of how to summon a dragon. The spell was complex and difficult. It would take more energy than most Wizards possessed, but Sulrad knew that he could draw on the stores of the Temple to help him.