The (sort of) Dark Mage (Waldo Rabbit)

by Nelson Chereta

  “Why did he want to kill you?”

  “Because it was fun, and to a lich nothing is sweeter than the taste of your own family’s blood.”

  Alice looked away.

  She didn’t really understand, but it wasn’t important. When it had mattered most he had risked his own life to save hers. Even if he didn’t say the words she now knew he truly loved her.

  “Thank you for saving me. I owe you my life.”

  Alice felt his hands tremble ever so slightly. Through their bond she felt a momentary surge of guilt and confusion.

  “You don’t owe me anything, you’ve already saved mine. I suppose we are even.”

  “I guess that’s true, but I am still grateful. A husband and wife should take care of each other. I feel blessed.”

  “Blessed?”

  Alice nodded. “We protected each other, and now you don’t have to feel in any sort of debt. You don’t need to feel guilty about what happened tonight.” She turned her face back to him smiling tenderly. “I am just happy to know how much you care about me.”

  Through the bond she felt another sharp pang of guilt. His eyes avoided hers.

  “Do you feel strong enough to fly some more? Or would you like more rest?”

  She was as eager as he was to get further away. “I can go.”

  She wrapped her arms firmly around his chest so that his back pressed to her front. She spread her huge leathery wings and stretched them as far as they would go. With a grunt she flapped as hard as she could and the two of them staggered into the air. Alone she would have ascended easily and then simply glided along as she pleased. Carrying Waldo she was forced to continuously keep her wings pumping in order to keep them in the air. Before long she was sweating and her shoulders were aching.

  She didn’t complain though, and took them as far as she could before feeling exhausted.

  They did this about two dozen times. They decided to stop only as dawn approached and with it the possibility of being spotted. They landed in a patch of woods not far from the road. Alice was completely spent. She reverted back to her human form and was quickly asleep.

  Waldo was not as exhausted as she was, but he was tired. With all the spells he’s used he was almost tapped out of mana. For a mage using mana had a similar effect to performing any physical labor. It used up your energy, and wore you out. It could be recovered naturally through sleep.

  It had been a very long time since Waldo had felt as drained as he did now. He had poured all that he could into healing Alice and fighting his grandfather. It would take at least a couple nights of rest to fully recover, but sleep would have to wait a little bit longer.

  “There is no rest for the wicked.” He muttered to himself as he popped out a knife.

  Alice had curled up in a patch of grass and was fully asleep. Waldo got down on his knees and stabbed his knife into the earth. Grunting with the effort, he hacked and cut and tore at the grass. Both hands on his knife ha dug out a line. He silently muttered and cursed at just how hard it was.

  His forearms ached he was sweating. “I was never made for physical labor.”

  He glanced at Alice and thought about waking her to have her deal with this. Seeing her peaceful face he decided to just let her sleep.

  As he struggled with his task he wondered at everything that had happened and at his feelings.

  He had actually put himself into danger for her. He hadn’t planned to, it had just sort of happened. When he’d heard her cry in pain and seen her wound, all he’d thought about was how to save her. He had made himself a target just to keep his grandfather away from Alice.

  “Then why are you trying to save her? There is never any reason why a master should put his own life in danger for the familiar’s sake.”

  His grandfather’s words had been mocking, but truthful. What he did made no sense, but he was glad he’d done it.

  He completed cutting a circle around where Alice was resting. He paused for a moment and rubbed his hands. Tearing out grass with a simple knife had been harder than he’d expected. He didn’t allow himself more than a short respite before he got down on his hands and knees and began tearing out patches of grass inside the circle.

  When he had set out from Castle Corpselover he’d thought of all the problems he would face. Capturing monsters, defeating a knight, and dealing with all the hazards of the road. Some how though he had never thought about being attacked by his grandfather. That had definitely been stupid on his part. Grandfather had killed and eaten the hearts of two of his siblings, it only made sense it would want to do the same to him.

  That he had even survived the initial encounter was something of a miracle. His wand had worked better than he’d ever dreamt it could. Even with that all of his spells had proved useless. Waldo had only managed to trap his grandfather because he’d been underestimated. That would not happen a second time.

  He tore up grass and tossed it aside. In the dirt he scratched out runes and magical symbols. When he was done he had created a Circle of Secrets. It would defeat all but the most powerful scrying magic. From this point on staying hidden would be a priority. It could not prevent his grandfather from tracking them down eventually, but it would at least make it much harder.

  When all that was finally done he lay down beside Alice.

  He looked closely at her sleeping face. He stared at her shut eyes and her lips. He would never deny that she was beautiful or that he cared for her. He wondered at these strange feelings. They couldn’t possibly be normal for a master and servant. He’d seen how servants were treated and dealt with them. He’d had favorites, but his feelings for Alice simply didn’t match.

  He thought of his feelings for his mother and, to a lesser degree, for his sister Gwendolyn. Those seemed similar to how he felt about Alice. He couldn’t accept they were the same though. He loved his mother and his sister; he couldn’t possibly be in love with Alice. That was impossible. Love was a terrible weakness and no Dark Mage would be fool enough to fall in love with his servant.

  Be affectionate with them? Certainly.

  Be intimate? Surely.

  Truly love them? No. Never.

  With one hand he gently brushed aside a lock of hair that had slipped over her face. A thumb ever so softly caressed her warm cheek. Just being able to look at her and know she was safe gave him a sense of comfort.

  As he shut his eyes and drifted into sleep he thought again how what he felt could not possibly be love.

  Chapter 33

  Something For Alice

  They slept for several hours.

  Alice was the first to stir awake. She opened her eyes to find her husband resting up against her. After everything they had been through, it was comforting just to see him alive and well.

  She gently rolled over onto his back, and was lying half on top of him. Alice placed a kiss on his lips.

  His eyes opened immediately. His confusion and awkward stare only made him that much cuter. “You don’t mind do you darling? I’m starving.”

  “No,” Waldo aid. “I don’t mind.”

  Alice was taken off guard when he placed a hand behind her head and pushed her back down. Her lips were on his again, but he was kissing her. For just a second she stiffened, not from opposition, just from surprise. Not only was he initiating this but he was kissing her very eagerly.

  It felt wonderful.

  She relaxed and leaned into his lips. One hand remained at the back of her head, as if to ensure she would not try to get away. The other was slowly running down along her back. His mouth eagerly played with hers. His desire was strong, and her hunger dissipated and quickly vanished.

  Waldo had never done anything like this before; she was the one who always had to start things. Having him be the aggressor for a change was a bit exciting. She liked it. If his hands started to roam she wouldn’t mind. Alice thought she might be ready to let him do whatever he wanted.

  After several minutes of kisses and soft touches he stopped
and looked up at her cautiously. “Are you full now?”

  “Afraid not, still hungry.”

  “All right then.”

  They went back to their very eager kissing and touching.

  XXX

  Eventually they had to stop and get going.

  “We need to reach Middleton before dark.” Waldo said. “My grandfather will want to avoid entering a city if he can.”

  “So that means were safe now?

  Waldo shook his head. “My grandfather is determined to come after us. He will never stop. I have a few wards that can keep us hidden, but he will track us down eventually.”

  “Then what can we do?”

  “For the short term get into the city and find my second monster. For the long term we will have to keep moving until I can figure out some way to deal with him.”

  “All right darling, I trust you know best.”

  XXX

  At long last they reached Middleton.

  Waldo was pleased that the horrible ball of fire was still in the sky. There was still time to get everything done today. Depending on what sort of Great Monster was waiting for him their odds for survival would greatly improve.

  “A vampire would be best,” Waldo told her as they approached the city. “A really vicious, bloodthirsty vampire.”

  “As long as it’s not another succubus it’s fine.”

  “You understand that I will have to perform the same binding ceremony I used with you?”

  “You’re going to kiss her.” Alice said unhappily.

  “Or him, but I promise there will be no flowers this time.”

  “I guess that will have to do.”

  Waldo sent her a sideways glance. “I can’t return home until I have three monsters bound to my service, defeated a knight, and found a certain treasure.”

  “I know darling,” she said. “It doesn’t mean I have to like it though.”

  They continued on for a bit when she turned to him. “What sort of treasure?”

  “Something very precious and very well guarded, It will be the hardest part of my quest and I can’t even begin to consider it until I have taken care of the other parts.”

  Alice nodded, apparently satisfied.

  They entered Middleton through the south gate. The guards manning it were most respectful to him. They mentioned that the city gates shut at sunset and reopened with dawn. One of them offered to send a message to the Baron of his arrival. Waldo waved that away, the last thing he wanted was to draw more attention.

  Twelve hills dominated the city. Each was surrounded at its base with a fortress wall with towers. Even from a distance one could see mine entrances carved into each hill, along with roads spiraled down from top to bottom. There was a steady flow of traffic going either up or down those long twisting paths.

  From different sections of the city filthy, black smoke rose from multiple chimneys. There was a constant, never ending, ringing that filled the air. When Waldo first hard it he’d thought it some sort of bell. There was no order to it though, and no halt. The buildings here were a bit different from the ones Waldo had seen in Stratford. Nearly all were just one or two stories tall, and unlike in the previous city very few of them were painted. They were a mass of grey and brown stone, jammed together amid a confusing tangle of roads.

  “What a depressing, noisy place.” Alice said.

  “It’s disorderly.” Waldo said in condemnation. “Who would design a city like this?”

  “Cities aren’t designed darling. They’re like children; they’re born and then they grow. No one can know how they will turn out”

  Waldo shook his head. “Alter was planned out from the very start. The streets are all impeccably straight, and the buildings are all uniform. It’s a place of perfect order.”

  “Then from what I hear it’s probably the only one in the whole world like that.”

  “That’s undoubtedly so. More’s the pity.”

  “We’ll need to find a place to stay and eat. We’ll also need to replace everything we lost. That means backpacks, clothes, blankets, traveling supplies, and I suppose we may as well get a tent too.” She put a hand protectively over her purse. “It’s a horrible waste of coin, but I guess there’s no avoiding it. Maybe I’ll get a job to help pay for everything.”

  “All that can wait. The most important thing is to find my new servant.” He began casting his detection spell. “Taranos evel monstri desu noratal est aki est avaratos."

  As soon as the spell was complete Middleton managed to give him another surprise.

  Waldo took in a sharp breath. “Damn.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “This is going to take longer than I expected.” To his eyes Alice was now ablaze with reddish light. When he looked in the direction of the city he spotted hundreds, possibly thousands, of similar lights. Stratford had had a grand total of four! It had been very easy to distinguish Alice’s signature from the much weaker lights being given off by the other three. The sheer number of lights he was looking at now made that impossible. There were some monsters in every section of the city, but most of them were concentrated within the various hills. Each hill was so flooded in reddish light there was no way to distinguish from a distance if one of them might be stronger than all the rest.

  He quickly explained the situation to Alice.

  “Why are there so many more monsters here than there were in Stratford?”

  Alice shrugged. “How should I know?”

  Waldo shook his head with helpless frustration. “I was hoping to find my new familiar right away, but there’s no chance of that. We’ll have to trek through this entire place until I can spot the strongest light.” He glanced at the horrible ball of fire and estimated they had a couple more hours of day light remaining. Searching at night would make the glows more distinctive, but it would be dangerous to wander about a city filled with uncivilized barbarians. “Let’s find a place to stay tonight. We can begin searching tomorrow.”

  “All right darling.”

  XXX

  The reaction Waldo received was similar to that in Fall River. People would nod at him respectfully, but make sure to keep a safe distance.

  He noticed that there were a great many more city guard here in Middleton than there had been in Stratford. They traveled the streets in groups ranging from four to ten. All of them looked to be quite well armed, wearing chainmail and iron helms. They were mostly armed with swords though a few carried spears or double headed axes. Perhaps one in three of the men he saw were members of the city guard. Even most of the commoners were armed, nearly every man who wasn’t wearing chainmail had a long knife or even a short sword tucked into a belt or in a scabbard.

  “The people here seem very well armed. Do they have bandits nearby?”

  Alice frowned. “Not that I’ve heard of, the land is pretty safe outside of the marshes.”

  “Then why does everyone have a sword?”

  “I have no idea. We would get merchants at the Inn all the time. They sold bars of wrought iron, tools, nails, and blades or they were passing through to someplace else. I can tell you the ringing is from all the blacksmiths working their forges, and all that smoke come from the fires melting iron from the ore.”

  “You seem to know a bit about this place.”

  “Oh it’s nothing; men always love to talk about their work and their homes. They call Middleton the Iron City because there is so much iron in the ground here. The blacksmith’s guild is based here because there are hundreds of them working all day long, from sun rise to sun set. They say that if you live here you didn’t even notice the ringing.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “They all told me it stops with sunset.”

  “I suppose I should be grateful for small favors.”

  “I bet we’ll be safe as long as we’re here.” Alice said trying hard to look at the bright side. “Your grandfather wouldn’t want to come into a place with so many armed men. Would h
e?”

  “As a matter of fact, I don’t think he will. Though I suspect he would be more worried about running into a White Mage than any number of city guards. I’m sure he’ll wait until we leave to come after us again.”

  “Well, at least we’re safe for now.”

  “We are never safe,” he reminded her quietly.

  “Don’t worry darling, I’ll keep you safe.”

  As they walked along a twisting street, a large cart with two shoulder high wheels came around a bend. The cart was piled high with sacks. It was being pulled along by a goblin. The creature wore a leather harness around its wide chest and an iron collar about its thick, bulbous throat. The collar was connected back to the cart by a thick chain that rattled with each shuffling step.