Master of the Books

by James Moloney

  ‘Let me stand,’ he demanded and, to their amazement, a man who had almost died of terrible wounds only minutes before walked freely on his own two legs.

  Marcel followed as far as the gaol, where the soldiers shoved the sergeant into the same cell that he, Nicola and Finn had occupied only an hour before. The man was no longer a wounded prisoner to be treated gently, nor did he want their pity. He wrenched his arm free of their grip, and received a vicious kick to his legs in return that sent him sprawling to the straw-covered floor. He turned, eager to heap abuse on his captors, but saw Marcel instead.

  ‘You, young wizard, it was you who saved me, wasn’t it? You used your magic like I asked.’

  ‘Only part of it was my magic,’ Marcel replied with an honesty that made him wince.

  ‘Come in here then, before they close the door, and I’ll return the favour.’

  What did he mean by that?

  The foul-faced gaoler stood with the door ajar. ‘Well, do you want to share this traitor’s hospitality or not?’ he growled.

  Marcel slipped inside just before the gaoler slammed the door and shot the heavy bolt into place behind him.

  ‘How can you return the favour?’ he asked. ‘You have no magic.’

  ‘No, but sometimes a little information can be just as valuable. You saved my life and what I’m going to tell you now might save yours.’

  The sergeant stepped to the door and checked that no one was listening, then retreated all the way to the window. ‘What do you know about Lord Ismar?’

  What did Marcel know? ‘Only what I’ve seen. He’s a wizard, a very powerful one too if he could make the taurine.’

  ‘Yes, but has your magic told you what he’s up to?’

  ‘I only know what I’ve heard — that he’s convinced the country folk to follow him, the farmers, the millers, the woodsmen, everyone who’s been ignored for so long by King Osward. He wants them to make him king of Tamerlane.’

  ‘Make him king!’ the sergeant said with a laugh. ‘If anyone makes Ismar king of Tamerlane, it will be the fiend himself, and he will take the crown from that young girl, you mark my words. You’re right about his power. What you don’t know is how he grows stronger with every man who joins him. It’s the magic he uses, you see. At first the fools join in because of his pretty speeches and his promises, but once they’ve pledged an oath to his cause, they’re his, body and soul.’

  ‘Slaves, you mean.’

  ‘Better than slaves — I’ve never seen an army like them. Not an order questioned, not a doubt raised about what they must do, no matter how savage.’

  ‘But what about you? You’re no slave.’

  ‘I’m a mercenary, boy, do you know what that is? I fight for whoever pays me and I take no oaths of loyalty. If I get free from here, there’ll be reward enough. You could do the same, if you join him.’

  ‘Don’t waste your breath,’ said Marcel sourly and he started across the cell towards the door.

  ‘All right, all right, you don’t want to join Ismar,’ said the sergeant, holding up his hands to deflect Marcel’s disgust. ‘But you saved my life and I owe you a debt. This is the only way I can repay it, by making you see there’s no reason to die for these people. You’re a stranger here, aren’t you? Get out of Cadell now, while you can. Anyone who fights against Ismar will die, and those who surrender must take the oath that binds them to him or die as well. Have you been listening to me, boy? Death, or the life of a warrior slave, that’s the fate of everyone in Cadell.’

  ‘But once Ismar is king, he’ll free the people from his spell, won’t he? If he wants to rule Tamerlane like a proper king, he’ll need them to go back to their farms and the many jobs they had before.’

  ‘Free them? No, that’s the last thing he’ll do! Tamerlane’s just the beginning. Ismar doesn’t want a single crown, he wants them all, and he’ll need every man and woman he can take into his service to do it. Haven’t I explained to you already — each new follower makes him a more powerful wizard and every new soldier makes his army a stronger force. Tamerlane is a wealthy land and he’ll take all that he can from it — cut down the trees to build ships that will carry his army across the oceans, plunder the land for its grain and the mines for their metal to make weapons. He’ll build the greatest war machine the Mortal Kingdoms have ever seen.’

  ‘Other kingdoms, other crowns,’ said Marcel. As he began to understand the horror of this man’s story, he could feel pin-pricks of perspiration erupting along his arms and legs.

  ‘Yes, and Ismar’s already picked out the first to fall after Tamerlane. It’s across the sea to the southwest. Their army hasn’t fought a war in a hundred years, and their Master of the Books is young, no match for Ismar.’

  Marcel thought his heart would stop beating inside his chest. He had to force himself to breathe and when he spoke he could manage no more than a whisper. ‘Elster.’

  ‘That’s the place,’ said the sergeant. ‘It was Damon who told him of its weakness; the same wretch who used me to save himself. He’s a sly one. Ismar ordered him here to Cadell to spy on the defences and gain Osward’s confidence, but the rogue wouldn’t take such a risk without a reward to match it. He demanded the crown of Elster for himself, and Ismar will let him have it too, as long as its men become his warriors and its women work the farms to feed them.’

  ‘You mean everyone in Elster will become Ismar’s slave?’

  ‘All except the king and his court. Damon will have them killed, most likely. That’s what I’d do, if I was him.’

  Marcel couldn’t bear to stay in the cell with this man for another minute. ‘Gaoler,’ he called, and as soon as the door swung open, he hurried up the stairwells and along the passageways to his room overlooking the stables.

  He found Nicola on his bed, stroking Termagant’s ear as she lay on her side enjoying the attention. Her left foreleg was bandaged and patches of fur were still damp where the blood had been sponged away. Finn stood by the window, watching groups of soldiers who had gathered in the courtyard to discuss the astounding news about their hero, General Lorian.

  ‘Where’s Fergus?’ Marcel asked. ‘Did you tell him about the curse.’

  ‘No, he wouldn’t give us a chance,’ Nicola replied. ‘He kept jabbering about that special sword, and as soon as they unlocked his chains he went off to find it.’

  ‘A sword! Well, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. He’ll need it to save Elster.’ And while his companions listened with rising dismay, Marcel passed on all that the sergeant had told him in the gaol cell.

  CHAPTER 23

  A Memory Reclaimed

  ‘WE HAVE TO WARN your father,’ said Finn when Marcel had finished his story. ‘I’ll go down to the docks right now and tell our captain we want to sail on the next tide.’

  When Finn was gone, Marcel sat down next to Nicola on the edge of his bed. She was a different person now that Finn’s life was no longer in danger; in fact, she was a different girl in lots of ways.

  ‘Show me the dragon’s tooth that let you perform the magic,’ she asked, and taking it from Marcel’s hand she held it between her thumb and forefinger and inspected the smooth surface minutely. ‘Strange how so much magic can lie inside something so small. The only dragon I’ve seen was Mortregis.’

  ‘One was enough. I’m in no hurry to see another one,’ said Marcel.

  ‘Yes, I’m the same. What I meant was … Mortregis was a horrible creature, evil to the core. All dragons are, aren’t they?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Yet the spells this dragon’s tooth helped you conjure weren’t evil. They saved Demiter and then that soldier in the tunnels.’

  ‘Because that was how I wanted the magic to work. You heard what Rhys said when he gave it to me: the tooth vouches safe a wizard’s magic and makes it true to his intentions.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I thought he said.’

  ‘What are you thinking, Nicola? You’ve got an idea, haven’t
you?’

  Nicola was suddenly too anxious to keep her seat on the edge of the bed. She paced from the window to the door and back again before glancing down into the courtyard, for a sign of Finn perhaps. He would still be on his way to the docks, but Marcel suspected her restlessness had something to do with the young knight. Finally she turned to face him, this time her voice more confident, the tone of a princess who knew what she wanted.

  ‘Your magic was stronger than Lord Alwyn’s once, Marcel. Remember how you took a memory from his mind and made it your own? Well, the old wizard is dead now but there are still memories to be reclaimed — of our old lives, before we were taken away to Fallside. I know you’ve tried before, but you could try again now, couldn’t you, with this talisman in your hand so your magic won’t go wrong?’

  She left the window to stand in front of her brother and held out the dragon’s tooth until he took it back. He sat still and silent for a long minute while her words taunted him and at the same time enticed him.

  ‘I don’t think this is why Rhys gave it to me.’

  ‘Does that matter? Do it, Marcel, give me back the years when my name was Catherine; let me know my mother at last and all the things she told me. Maybe then I can make sense of what’s happened to me since I left Elstenwyck, everything that I’ve never felt before. I need her, and so do you.’

  Those last words surprised him. All this time he had missed his mother with a loneliness he could barely express, but he had never said those simple words to himself. ‘Get me the book,’ he said softly.

  Nicola didn’t have to ask which book he meant. She took the blue book of spells from the table near the window and placed it in his lap. Leaving it closed, he simply hugged it to his chest with one hand while the other clutched the dragon’s tooth. The book reminded him of his year of failures, yet inside it were the verses that connected him so strongly to the life he ached to know.

  He didn’t bother with any spells but instead delved into his own mind as he had never done before, going deeper than he’d thought possible. When the familiar fear threatened, he clutched the tooth more tightly until it faded away. What relief there was to know his magic would work as he wanted it to.

  He pressed on, delving further, until Nicola disappeared from his vision even though his eyes remained open. Was she still there? He could hear a voice, not so much a girl’s, more a woman’s. Who was talking? The figure close at his side was wearing a dress, so it must be Nicola, except he had never seen her in a gown like this one.

  His ears hadn’t deceived him. This was a woman, not a girl, and she was handing him the blue book, just as his sister had done, yet somehow he was younger and he had never seen the book before. He was delighted with it, the feel of it and the brilliant blue of its leather binding.

  ‘What is it?’ asked his own youthful voice.

  ‘A present,’ said the woman and, looking up, Marcel found himself staring into a face he had only been able to imagine before. ‘A present from your mother, for your tenth birthday.’

  ‘Are you going to give a book like this to Edwin as well?’

  ‘He’ll get a different present; this one is special. You mustn’t show it to anyone, or tell anyone about it, not even your brother. We’ll find a secret place for you to hide it.’

  Watching inside his mind, Marcel wanted to reach out and stroke his mother’s cheek or take her hand and touch it to his own face, but these scenes were real and couldn’t be changed at a whim.

  He watched himself inspect the book with its crisp blank pages and its cover the colour of a cloudless sky in those peaceful minutes after the sun has disappeared. So he hadn’t made it himself and he hadn’t stolen it from Lord Alwyn; his mother had given it to him and he searched his new-found memory to find out why.

  ‘You were born to sorcery, Marcel,’ he heard Ashlere tell him.

  ‘Born to it! How could you know?’

  ‘Because on the day you came into this world, I was told of what a seer had found in your future.’

  ‘But I’m a prince. Wizards like Lord Alwyn are always alone and never laugh at anything. Do I have to be a sorcerer too, just because the seer said I would be?’

  ‘No, Marcel, your life is your own and you’re free to follow whatever path your heart picks out for you, but all human beings have a destiny of some kind. Whether yours is the life of the sorcerer is something you’ll find out as you become older and wiser. Open the book. You should write that down on the first page as a promise to yourself.’

  The queen helped him open the heavy book on the desk he used for his lessons.

  ‘Dip that quill into the ink, Marcel. Everything in this book is to be in your own writing, but for this first time I will help you with the words.’

  She thought a while and then began to recite a verse she had composed in her head.

  My fate is my own, my heart remains free

  Not magic but wisdom reveals destiny

  ‘There you are, Marcel. You have plenty of time to decide, and I’ll help you for many years yet. One day you’ll understand the deepest meaning of those words and you’ll tell me what you’ve decided.’

  Had he done that — had he gone to her some time afterwards and accepted his destiny as a sorcerer? If he had, he must have known something, felt something in himself that was lost when Lord Alwyn swept away who he was and everything he’d learned, because he couldn’t remember it now.

  Not all of his memory had returned. His mind was a dry lake bed gradually filling up after a long drought. He could sense the last of it coming, a deluge that would swirl around him with the painful eddies of his mother’s death. He didn’t want such sadness to taint the joy of knowing her again.

  The same magic drew the past into Nicola’s mind. She shouldn’t have to feel that pain, he told himself, not amid the happiness she’d longed for, pestered him for, and which he had at last been able to give her. That part of their lives should remain unremembered, and convincing himself this way, his will shifted to seek more of his mother in the easy days before she was taken from them. His memory jumped around unpredictably until he found himself in the same room but many weeks later.

  ‘I have a new spell for you to copy,’ said the queen. She was still so strange to him that he had to recall what was happening before he recognised her again. ‘It’s here in this book I’ve taken from Lord Alwyn’s room. He won’t miss it for a day or two. Only the most powerful spells are to go in your blue book, Marcel.’

  She looked up, concerned, when footsteps could be heard hurrying along the corridor. ‘Mother,’ called a girl.

  ‘It’s Catherine. Quickly, hide the book.’

  At her command, he opened a much larger tome to reveal a space cut deeply into the pages, large enough to accommodate the blue book. With his precious secret snugly in place, he slammed it shut just as a girl burst in without knocking.

  ‘Have you seen my silver hairbrush?’ she asked in obvious frustration.

  ‘You brought it to my room yesterday so you could comb your hair at my mirror,’ said their mother. ‘Since you never put anything away after you’ve used it, I suppose it’s still there.’

  The girl made a face, so childish, so different from the girl Marcel knew better as Nicola. At this moment, she would be delving into her own memories, returned to her by his magic. Would she remember this scene? Perhaps not, but there must be a reason why it figured so strongly in his own mind.

  The princess swept from the room in pursuit of her lost hairbrush and without the least idea of the secret her mother and her brother shared.

  ‘Why should I write more spells into the book when I haven’t been able to conjure any of the ones in here already?’ Marcel asked.

  ‘You will, when you learn to feel the magic in your bones.’

  ‘Did the seer tell you this as well?’

  ‘No, I never met him, but once I knew a boy who was born to magic, just as you are. We were very close growing up and in those early years
I dreamed that he would marry me one day. I was heartbroken when he said he was going away. Why was he leaving, I wanted to know, although I didn’t dare mention my dreams.

  ‘That was when he told me of the powers he felt within himself. He was going to the island of Noam where the great scholars could teach him how to master those powers. I hoped that he would come back to me one day and gave him a keepsake to remember me by. It was a stone I’d found in a shallow stream; slim and smooth, it looked like a tooth from the mouth of a savage beast. He laughed when I said that and pretended it was a dragon’s tooth.’

  ‘You were in love with him,’ said Marcel, with a boy’s shyness at such talk.

  ‘A little bit, yes, but when his letters to me spoke only of spells and magic I quickly lost interest in him. Some years later, Queen Madeleine invited me to the court of Elster where I met Prince Pelham and I was soon more in love with him than I’d ever been with the young wizard. In fact, I’d pretty much forgotten him altogether when suddenly I found myself with a son born to magic just as he was, and the things the young wizard had written in his letters came back to me, so that I could pass them on to you.’

  The shock of this memory broke Marcel’s magic and he came to himself with a jolt. Nicola was standing over him. Their eyes met.

  ‘I remember her, Marcel, everything about her. It’s so wonderful. Is she there in your mind too?’

  ‘Yes, even more than I wanted to know.’

  Marcel opened his fist to look at the talisman. Could it be the gift his own mother had given to a young wizard as a sign of her girlish fancy?

  I knew your mother. I was very sad to hear of her death, Rhys had said when he’d first learned who Marcel was. It had to be him, and this smooth shape in his hand wasn’t a dragon’s tooth at all. No wonder he’d felt nothing stir within it when he grasped it tightly in his hand. Cold and hard, it was nothing but a stone his mother had picked up from the bed of a stream.

  More of Rhys’s words came to him from only days earlier. As he’d run off, anxious to meet Fergus and Gadfly, the Grand Master had tried to stop him. There’s something you should know about the stone, he’d called, forgetting to call it a dragon’s tooth. Of course, it was just a stone and Rhys Tironel had known it.