“I think not. She wants this and only this. Anything else and I am afraid she would wither and perish like a flower at the first breath of winter. I am prepared to pay you very well.”
Pahluv considered. He had no doubt he could “repair” the device. Yet not to buy from the master tinkerman was an insult and should be treated as such. Still, he had profited not at all that day. “I do not normally do this. But for the well-being of a young lass. Give it to me.” He took it gingerly, as if the sphere was covered with an odious slime. “Wait here. I shall see if I can atone for some idiot's poor craftsmanship.” He disappeared behind the curtain.
“He will pay me well,” he muttered to himself. He looked at the jeweled sphere. What do you do, my little lovely? Well, let's find out. Still mindful of the warning from his Master, he placed the orb within a heavy metal box and covered it with a tarp. He stepped far back before he made a mystic gesture.
He smiled as he saw the glow rise from within the box. Now we shall observe what Pahluv has wrought. He removed the sphere and studied it. The jewels turned in interlocking circles around some unknown central mechanism and flashed in ever-changing colors, ever-changing patterns. Amusing indeed for a child! I wonder if I can discern its secret? He studied it more closely, concentrating on one light, than another. At first he thought he had solved the pattern, but then it abruptly changed. A few more minutes, he thought. A few more minutes and I can make one just like it. He focused his concentration even more on the dazzling yet oddly soothing colored lights.
* * * *
Daasek waited five minutes, then walked back himself. He found Pahluv standing before his workbench, still as a tree, staring into his cupped hands. He approached the magician carefully, not looking at the now-operating sphere. If he did so he would become like Pahluv, frozen by the madly dancing, flashing display. Unaware and uncaring of everything save the enchantment before him. Unable to do anything save starve to death.
Daasek carefully removed the pin that held the black stone from the magician's vest and ground it to dust under his heel. Then he threw off the long bulky coat and removed the small stilts that had added to his stature. He had no need for them now. Later he would wash the black dye from his hair.
As he walked through the shop, the archers and swordsmen and warbirds watched without moving, their defensive powers unnecessary because Pahluv was not physically harmed. When he left, he made an unconscious gesture with his left hand. The door was now sealed against anything but the strongest of spells. None of the townsfolk of Phrion would be able to enter the building and save Pahluv from the power of the sphere his own magic had liberated.
As he rode away, Daasek thought about the plan that had come to him in his dreams. It was a very good plan, one he could appreciate on an intellectual level. Emotionally, he felt nothing at all. No satisfaction for completing his task, no remorse for the doomed magician. No emotion save relief that the urge which, for the nonce, was dormant. How does it feel to feel? he wondered as he rode away. Will I ever know? Intellectually, the idea troubled him. That seemed to be the only way he could feel anything, anything at all. Except, perhaps, for pain.
* * * *
Mythalia swept away the spiderweb with a sigh. Her amulets must be weakening. There was no other explanation for the presence of the arachnid. Instead of tending to her witchly duties, however, she sat in a chair and drank a cup of strong senroot tea. Perhaps that would give her the energy to complete her tasks, she thought.
You are getting old, old hen, her conscious mocked her. “Yes I am,” she said aloud. “Old and tired.”
Too tired for what they ask me to do. For they were always asking her to do something. Still the cough of their horses, or stir the spawning grounds of their infertile women. Make a love potion for an ugly lad. A thousand and one things which they asked of her and for which they gratefully paid and all she wanted was to be alone. Alone in her home which she had grown and fashioned from a single tree. Alone to admire the sun and her handiwork and remember the past. And a face and a name.
You should take an apprentice, her member of the Thirteen had told her more than once. Our compact demands that you take an apprentice.
Yes, it did, she had agreed. But right now she had no energy to instruct some young girl, just blossoming with the eventual promise of womanhood, on the intricacies of her powers. How to sing to the flowers, to feel the pulse of the trees, to convince the life around her to bow to her will. Someday, someday, she promised. Someday.
But not today. Today she would do what she did every day. Today she would sip her tea and rock in her chair and remember. Remember the laughing eyes, the open smile, the warmth and strength of the lad she had loved and then thrown away without thought, with the carelessness and shortsightedness and impatience of youth. Turan. Poor, dear Turan. Where are you now? What have I done to us? She could see him still, just by closing her eyes. She could almost reach out and touch him. Almost smell his excitement when they had shared beds and bodies. Almost taste the salt and sweat of his strong, young body.
Almost. It's been so many years, dear Turan. And I am so tired of waiting. Of hoping. But she had been doing that for nearly all her adult life. She would not stop—not give up her dreams—now. Not since this recrimination was an atonement she performed daily.
This day was different. This time her reverie was broken by a horse's whinny. She rose slowly. Who can that be? Another farmer seeking relief for the colic in his stock? She approached her window and looked out with rheum-filled eyes.
A stranger stood within her meadow. The sun was behind him so she could not make out his features. Only that the shadow-shape was familiar. She felt her heart surge as she watched him approach and knock on her door.
It is impossible. It cannot be him. After all these years it cannot! Please, let it be him! She minced over to her door. “Who calls?” she asked harshly.
“A friend,” came the soft reply.
She cracked the door and looked. Her eyes adjusted slowly to the bright sunlight. She still could not make out his features. Not clearly. Could it be? “I recognize you not,” she said after a moment. “Be gone with you.” The door slammed shut. She leaned against it, gasping. Please don't leave. Please, let it be you!
“Is that the way you treat your other lovers? Mythalia? Or should I call you Wildflower?” the oft remembered voice whispered.
The near-forgotten name caused her heart to explode with wonderment. It must be him. No one else has ever called me... She threw open the door in fear, desperation and hope. So many years. It can't be you. It must be you. “It can't be you. Not after all these years, it can't be you,” she echoed her own thoughts as she stumbled toward him.
He caught her with his strong arms easily, familiarly. “I know it has been many phases of Phann,” he responded, turning to face her. “We have both changed much. But surely you haven't forgotten me, my dearest Wildflower?”
“Wildflower.” She half whispered, half caressed the word. She reached out a trembling hand and touched his face. “Is it you, Turan?” She shook her head and stepped back. “It can't be.” It must be! “You've been gone so long!”
“Yes, Turan. I promised I would return. Even though it has cost us both much in the passage of years. But I have found the Tears of Iofhee. I have brought them with me. As my wedding gift to prove my worthiness to you.”
“The Tears.” She brought her hands up to her face. The damn Tears! “Oh, Turan, I never wanted them. I was only hurt, angry.” Her voice cracked. “And to be this long, alone.” She buried her face in his chest. “Turan, you don't know how long, how lonely. Since you left,” she looked up at him, sobbing, “I have never favored another man. Never! And I made you go! Darling, please, please hold me.”
“Yes.” Daasek wrapped his powerful arms around her thin, ancient body. He squeezed her tightly.
And continued squeezing until she cried out, until she begged him to stop. Until he broke her back.
*
* * *
He looked at the single black stone. Now that the urge was satisfied, he could once again think. He had seen them before, although he was not sure where. He squeezed it gently and felt it flex. It looked like stone but was resilient like leather. It elongated as he increased the pressure, then suddenly ruptured. A lavender cloud escaped and flew up into his face. It bit at him like fire and he held his breath and clawed at his eyes and mouth. He recalled seeing a well as he rode up. Desperate, he stumbled from the strange house and half walked, half crawled to it. There was some water remaining in the bucket. He submerged his face and rubbed briskly, trying to stop the pain.
After a few moments, the feeling subsided. He saw a reflection in the now still water and caught himself. At first, he thought he saw the old woman, the witch he had just slain, staring back at him. Then the features were replaced by an old man with a straggly beard. A memory seemed to stir, but before he could seize it the reflection became his own.
He slept that night within Mythalia's chaste sheets. When he awoke, he knew he must leave Oio for another location, another magician. One who lived in a small seaport named Ta'Bel.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Chapter Seven: The Ninth Magician
“She was a pretty maid, pretty maid, pretty maid.
With eyes of gold and jade, gold and jade, gold and jade.”
The men around the campfire joined in with the minstrel on the familiar verses, many of which were quite ribald. Daasek, however, only half listened to the musician sing about the girl from Venalyn. He was much more interested in the plate of fishhead stew, balanced awkwardly on his lap. A day's march in the Garan desert was a guaranteed cure for even the most finicky appetite.
“Eat hearty, Patch. You look like you can use it.”
Daasek glanced up. The caravan master was perched over him, smiling. “I appreciate your concern. I don't appreciate the name.”
The man laughed heartily. “With that quilted body of yours? What else could we call you, eh? No, my friend, as long as you are with us, you will be called Patch. Don't take offense,” he patted him on the back and continued his rounds.
Daasek nodded glumly and returned to his meal. Since Ta'Bel, he had taken to wearing leggings and rough shirts that covered as much of his ruined body as possible. But in the Garan desert such attire was impractical ... if not hazardous. The men had made comments, some sympathetic, some not, when he had first appeared in the layered silks that were the standard uniform. His new nickname was one of the milder.
But, he had to admit, he had little else to complain about. He had been welcomed by the merchantmen several weeks after he had left Costein, where the local regent had been killed while hunting wild boars on his estate. It had taken Daasek two full nights to dig and conceal the horse-sized trap that the magician had ridden over.
Since then he had wandered aimlessly, like a compass that had lost its power. The urge was different now, more an emptiness that had to be filled than a drive to be sated. He remembered more now, too. The demon that was the queen, and the hell that was his first trip to Ta'Bel. The frustrating conversation with the mage Krujj. Other memories, of times and people farther past, occasionally intruded as well, but only in a kaleidoscopic pattern that he could not decipher.
He actually felt welcome with this caravan of merchants and Mercenaries traveling south across the great Garan desert. For the first time he could remember— the first time in his life?—he felt like he belonged. For the first time he actually felt. Would it end soon? He had to admit the possibility, but he wouldn't let it ruin his appetite for a good meal or the companionship of his new comrades.
Someone thrust a jug of cactus wine into his hand. Daasek smiled, took a healthy swallow, and returned it. It would be nice to get drunk with them, he thought. But not everything had changed.
“A reel, boy,” one of the rough guardsmen yelled out to the young minstrel. “I feel like dancing tonight.”
The musician stopped the sad melody he had been playing, then plucked a string on his silver mandolin thoughtfully. “A real what? A real meal? A real deal? Drink some more and you can reel without my help.”
The Mercenary rose awkwardly, his face red from more than the hot Horean sun. “No backtalk, boy, or you'll be serenading Hys.” His words wavered as much as his balance. “You do not jape with the Guild. Play a tune to wake these tired feet or I'll teach you to dance with the point of my sword.”
The minstrel smiled sadly. “There's one in every crowd. Dance you want, dance you will. Have you ever heard of the great warbacks that stalk the Horean seas?”
“Who hasn't?” the rude guardsman yelled out. “Get on with the song, boy. Before we use you for another form of entertainment.” He winked and his comrades laughed.
The lad ignored the threat. “This is a song I learned while sailing with the brave men who hunt them.” He carefully formed a minor chord and drew his hand slowly across the strings near the bridge. The high lonesome sound surprised Daasek. He shivered involuntarily.
“The warbacks call, oh the warbacks call.
With their great steely voices they cry death to us all,” he began slowly.
The men around the fire hushed, even the soldier who had ordered a song. Their destination was Brayf, the great port on the western shores of the Horean Sea. Many would be sailing her later, and of all the dangers they might face, none was as terrifying as the warback.
COM:BLOCKQUOTESTART
“With jaws of iron and spines like knives,
they seek to dine on sailors’ lives.
Your ship may be as fast as wind,
but none can flee the warback's kin.”
COM:BLOCKQUOTEEND
Daasek listened intently as the minstrel continued to spin his tale about the leviathans. How quickly they could lay waste the mightiest of vessels and how rapid and terrible their vengeance was afterward. The descriptions were graphic and horrifying, and yet he was unsatisfied. They did not ring true and he could not understand why. He tried to puzzle it out as the song continued.
The tempo increased gradually until all the men were stomping their feet and clapping. Several, including the belligerent guardsman, were dancing, frantically trying to keep time to the singer's flying fingers. Despite the inevitable tragedy of the story, Daasek found himself enjoying it and soon was singing along with the musician. Daasek's hands were nearly numb from clapping when the minstrel hit one final chord and stopped. Daasek caught his breath, too tired even to applaud. The dancers dropped from exhaustion. The ordeal had been especially strenuous on the ill-mannered Mercenary and he had to be caught and dragged away before he toppled into the raging campfire. He would neither dance nor drink again this evening.
The singer cradled his silver mandolin for several minutes, then favored his audience with a bemused smile. “I believe I have earned a drink now,” he said. He rose stiffly, shaking cramps from his legs. He approached Daasek, instrument in hand. “Is there any wine left?”
Daasek shook the jug resting nearby and was rewarded with a splashing sound. “If you had gone on much longer, there wouldn't be.”
The young man laughed. He had a broad, handsome face that seemed as yet untouched by the cares of the world. Long curly brown hair seemed to explode everywhere from the top of his head. Sepia eyes studied Daasek with uncommon curiosity. He tilted his head back and drained as much of the drink as he could.
“I enjoyed that song very much. Why did you stop?” Daasek asked, waiting until he finished.
“I don't know any more verses,” he shrugged after returning the now-empty jug. “Not all the verses are sad, you know. There is the story about a one-armed fisherman who tricked a warback into giving him his arm back. And another about a boy who rode the tail of one all the way to safe harbor.”
The lad's eyes fired with interest. “This is wonderful!” he clapped his hands with delight. “I am always in search of new material. You must tell me the stories!”
&
nbsp; Daasek started to speak, then stopped. He somehow knew those verses existed. But he didn't know why, or what those verses were. “I'm sorry, I only remember the story. I don't remember the words.”
The lad was dispirited for only seconds. “Then I'll write the words!” He noted the surprise on Daasek's face and laughed. “Minstrels often have to do that, you know. But don't tell anyone,” he winked. “Trade secret.” He made himself comfortable. “You have sailed the southern seas, I gather.”
Daasek looked at him, startled. “I've never sailed.”
“I thought...” then he stopped. It was a serious breach of etiquette to ask a man's past uninvited. Especially in the Garan desert. “I am sorry. I meant no offense.”
Daasek was not offended, only confused. Had he sailed? “Why would you think that?”
The lad threw up his hands. “Because of the way you joined in with my singing. I learned that song in Pedra, on the southern tip of the Horean Sea. I have traveled much, and I have learned that songs do not. The men here,” he looked around the campfire, “are familiar with warbacks. But not the songs of the sea. Perhaps you have been around sailors at some other city.” Suddenly he brightened. “Or perhaps you are a musician also.” He offered Daasek his mandolin. “Do you play?”
Daasek studied the unfamiliar instrument. It was covered with silver and etched with interlocking dancing figures and multi-colored stones. He cradled it uncomfortably and ran his fingers along the frets and doubled strings. The mandolin was warm to his touch, but when he plucked the strings, only a discordant bark came forth. Daasek shook his head and returned it. “For me, I'm afraid, the best use I could make of it would be to stir the cooking pot.”
The musician shrugged and took it back. He touched a string and a shimmering note floated in the air. He played a run off the lydian scale, ending with a tremolo on a minor sixth chord. “A little trick I learned in Oio,” he said, letting the sound die naturally. “Have you ever been there?”
The Thirteenth Magician Page 13