I knocked softly on my bedroom door and a midwife opened it a crack. “May I help you?” she asked.
“Yes, you may get out of my way so I can see my wife and son!” I replied sweetly.
“There’s nothing that you need to do in here right now. Your wife and child are being cared for. Come back in the morning and you’ll be able to see them then.” and she attempted to try to close the door.
I put my foot in the door and took a deep breath. “It just occurred to me that you might not know who I am. I asked to be admitted just to be polite. Now, if you don’t get out of my way, you run the risk of seeing just exactly what an upset wizard is capable of doing.”
The poor woman turned white and stepped aside and I walked to my beautiful, but exhausted looking wife.
“Hello, my love. How are you doing?” I whispered.
With a very tired voice she answered, “I’m doing well and the baby is fine.” She pulled the blanket back from her chest and exposed my sons face to me.
“I am certain that we now have the most beautiful baby that has ever been born.” I told her.
“Well, my husband, I have to agree. Do you think we feel that way just because we’re his parents?” She smiled.
“Of course it is, but that doesn’t change a thing.” I replied.
Isabel looked at me with a tired look and said, “I’m exhausted and am going to try to get some sleep. My sisters and Alice are going to stay in here with me. I have arraigned other sleeping quarters for you if you don’t mind.”
I laughed, “You’re running me out of my room for another man. Oh, the horror! How can I live with it! You know I don’t mind, my love. There are plenty of empty rooms in the keep that I can stay in for awhile.”
She laughed and grimaced, “You could stay in a room alone but Elizabeth and Emma have asked that you share a room with them. You knew six months ago that they would ask to be consorts and tonight when I mentioned you staying alone, they asked if I would accept them. It’s up to you of course but that would make all of the instructors consorts and is perfectly fine with me.”
I looked at her and shook my head. “Even during the pain of childbirth you were looking out for me. Not only do I have the most beautiful baby in the kingdom, I have the most wonderful wife. I love you, Isabel.” I leaned over her and kissed her gently. “I’ll send in Alice, Chloe and Alba and try to get the rest of the keep settled down. We haven’t had this much excitement around here in a long time.”
She nodded and adjusted herself more comfortably on her pillow, whispering ‘goodnight.’ I nodded to the still terrified midwives and took my leave, closing the door softly behind me. I went to the roof and told Alice and the princesses that they were wanted downstairs. I also mentioned to Chloe that she might have to cure the midwives jangled nerves. I let them know that I’d been a bit unhappy when they wouldn’t let me in and had suggested they move. Chloe shook her head, laughed, and said that she’d do what she could.
I walked over to the twins and asked if they wanted company. They had their own rooms now that we had moved to Wizards Keep but they were across from each other. They blushed slightly and said that, if I didn’t mind we could all stay in Elizabeth’s room tonight. Then, depending on how long Isabel needed to recover, I could swap rooms back and forth.
I got the other four girls headed for their rooms and then followed the twins to Beth’s room. They said that if I was ready for bed I should make myself comfortable and then slipped back out to Emma’s room. I got undressed and crawled under the covers to the middle of the bed. They had said to get comfortable after all, and knowing the situation the middle would be the most comfortable spot!
The girls returned shortly dressed in nightgowns in the style that I had worked with the tailor to invent. They were spaghetti strapped, pleasantly low cut and halfway to the knee. I liked them much more than the long, to the ankle gowns that the rest of the women in the kingdom wore. The twin’s gowns were a matching sunshine yellow that worked for them. They set off their blue eyes and blonde hair perfectly. Beth came to the right side and Emma to the left and they joined me under the covers. After a few minutes of small talk and cuddling I was asked if I would be able to take their virginity as close to the same time as possible. They were twins after all and wanted to keep everything that way. I said that with a little help I’d be able to do that and still be gentle.
3.
Unwelcome News in Clodfey
The next morning I woke as I have been accustomed, surrounded by beauty. This morning was quite different from most mornings because that I didn’t have beautiful women on my mind, but a beautiful boy! My beautiful boy! I snuck out of the room leaving the pretty blondes sleeping peacefully. I knocked on my bedroom door softly and it was quickly answered by one of the midwives. She greeted me with a ‘good morning my Lord Wizard’ and curtsy. I couldn’t remember which one I had threatened last night but this one seemed friendly enough. I walked in and saw Alice holding the baby in a chair in a corner by the bed. I sat softly on the bed next to Isabel and asked how she was feeling. She reminded me that her sister is the greatest healer in the history of the kingdom and she felt perfectly fine. She said the only reason that she was still in bed was because the midwives weren’t used to dealing with magical healing. They nagged and whined anytime she got up. I asked if Isa thought that it was time for the midwives to go back to Tesil and she said the sooner the better. By the time I started to look for Alba she was standing next to them. The midwives complained that if they left now they would have been immensely over paid. I told them to chock it up to wizard eccentricities and be happy. This time at least, I told them that they were going to recall to Tesil, before Alba grabbed a hand in each of hers a recalled out.
The ‘crack’ of the recall got me an evil look from Alice but my boy slept right through it. My son, I thought, you better get used to sudden noises growing up surrounded by wizards! I look over at Alice and told her that I was going to hold my boy pretty soon. I was sure that half the keep had held him and it was time for his father too.
I asked Isabel if she had thought of a name for our boy, she hadn’t and her mind seemed to go blank whenever she tried. I asked her what she thought of the name James. She sat and thought for a bit, whispering the name over and over to herself. Suddenly her face brightened and she said that she loved the name. Our boy could be named James Stephenson. I grinned, she seemed to like the name and I could quit referring to him in my mind as ‘the boy’ and ‘the baby’.
I leaned over and whispered to Isa, ‘have I told you today that I love you?’ She shook her head and smiled. She said, ‘but you don’t have to my husband, because I know the truth.’ I kissed her and told her that I really had to go to Clodfey and check on the iron supply, after all what kind of father would I be, giving his son an incomplete keep! She grinned and told me that if was going that far I should take the twins with me. She didn’t like the idea of me going out alone. I’d tangled with some Orc Captains spears from the wrong altitude once and got busted up pretty badly. Ever since then I’ve been on a short leash. Alba had returned from Tesil and I told her to take care of her sister. She smiled and said that her sister was fine; she was going to take care of her nephew! I kissed her and went out the bedroom door. I went back down the hall and knocked on Beth’s bedroom door. Emma answered only half awake and was confused to see me standing there. She had thought that I was still sleeping between her and Elizabeth! I asked her if she and her sister were up for a scouting mission all the way to Clodfey. It was three hundred miles away and the amount of time that we wanted to take to get there would determine how fast we flew. Our flying spell was such a wonderful mode of transportation. It wasn’t as fast as recall, but with recall you have to had been there before. Except in the cases where Elaine used her remote viewing talent. I asked Emma to get her sister up and we would take off whenever they were ready. She nodded and I kissed her and told her to take her time.
I went down s
tairs and found Margery in her office. She wanted to give me a financial report on what was in the vault. We had the money for the school stacked in one place and of the wizards’ individual money stacked in their own sections. She told me that the school had just over eleven million in gold, platinum and gems. That our outlay was very low and if things stayed the same we should be set for at least the next thousand years. I grinned and told her if we had that much money she should give herself a raise. She just ‘tisked’ me and shook her head. ‘That isn’t how you keep a balanced budget, young man.’ I explained that I was an ancient wizard and shouldn’t be referred to as a young man. She rolled her eyes and grinned. As far as the business went she suggested that we hire a couple more maids and the kitchen staff had asked for a scullery maid for some menial chores. I told her to hire away, that my accountant had told me recently that we were pretty well off. She nodded and said that she thought that would be my answer but felt that she should check. Now I grinned and rolled my eyes, after all the times I’d told her that the hiring of staff didn’t need my approval.
Finally the twins made it downstairs, we went out the front of the keep and cast our shield and fly spells. We climbed to five hundred feet and started east along the river. We had all made patrol runs through this section of the canyon and watched the ground out of habit. I suggested that, if we saw Orcs, we continue on unless they were close enough to home to be a threat in the next few days. I told them that I’d seen some a couple hundred miles from home but didn’t have my bodyguards so had to leave them. They laughed at being referred to as bodyguards. Two quite petite, I doubted they were five feet tall and certainly under a hundred pounds, fourteen year old blondes hardly fit the typical description of a bodyguard.
After fifty miles I accelerated. Soon we were clipping along at two hundred miles an hour, watching the ground as best as we could through the trees. We saw deer, wolves and even some bears but none of the nasties that we didn’t want to see. We flew until the mining town came into view on the horizon. As we slowed and drew closer, we could tell that something was wrong. Clodfey was a bustling town with the streets always busy during the day with carts and people. Smoke from the smelters could be seen for miles as you approached.
We slowed to a crawl keeping our altitude, crossed over the wall marking the city limits. The silence was eerie with no one in the street, no children at play, and no callers in the market. Toward the mines and the smelters where there was always a cacophony of noise with saws, axes, and hammers, there was nothing. Smoke free air, that you would think would be a blessing, was spooky and out of place for Clodfey.
We landed near the north gate after a quick flyover. We’d seen no one and were filled with trepidation. Something wasn’t right and we had to find out what. We walked south three blocks until we came to the east/west main street. This was the street that housed all the shops and merchants for the town. We slowly walked west with wands at the ready. I thought that we could stop by the smelting office and see if there was anyone there. That was, after all, our mission to the town.
As we approached the smelting office the door slammed open and we froze. An Orc squeezed its massive frame out to the door and turned to walk away from us. With a triple sizzle and a pops we all fired energy bolts into the creature. I was so glad I was walking between the twins because, if they had cast together like that, at a target ten feet away, we’d have been wearing Orc entrails!
The way the Orc had come through the door made me think that he was going to the river. We, very much on our toes now, continued down the street to the west and then turned onto the supply road going south. Suddenly, ringing loudly through the silence, we hear a smiths hammer on an anvil. That was a noise that we should have heard from miles away but now just raised more questions. Why would a smith be working when there was an Orc as close as the one we’d killed? As we approached the bridge we could see smithies, smelters, and numerous other shops that used either raw metal ore or a product from the smelters. We stopped at the north side of the bridge and looked across. We saw a man working at his anvil and waved to him. When he saw us he gave a panicked look towards his shop and signaled us to go back, but we got the message to late. Two Orcs came from the shop and rushed across the bridge at us. Before they had traveled twenty yards we’d downed them with energy bolts. The smith ran to us and dragged us back across the bridge and into an empty building.
Inside the smith bowed to us and said, ‘Master Wizard, Twin Wizards, good afternoon.’ The twins grinned at the greeting. He said, ‘we have to go and get more help. I have heard of your power Master Wizard and the awesome abilities of the Twin Wizards but that isn’t nearly enough. The Orcs that attacked our town were a thousand strong. They have pulled back to their side of the mountain taking our entire population, men, women, and children with them.’
That brought up a question, ‘what do you mean by their side of the mountain?’ I asked.
He answered, ‘The miners were working along as they have been for years. The vein of iron has been perfectly level and quite easy to get to. I guess it was two months ago when someone relayed down the line that they were seeing light at the end of the tunnel. The next thing we knew a swarm of oddly dressed Orcs were swarming out of the tunnel and rounding us up. They took everyone back into the tunnel and have been trying to get weapons together. I believe that they intend to attack Eredwynn in force! Master Wizard, these aren’t like the Orcs that we are used to. They have a language and actually live in cities! They could pose a real threat!
‘Alright’, I said. ‘The first thing that we need to do is get you out of here and back to Wizards Keep. Then we can get our forces together and decide a battle plan.’
The smith agreed with that, especially the part about getting him out of there. We all joined hand and I focused on the roof of the keep, and then cast recall.
4.
To the Rescue
When the roof came into focus we went downstairs. I told the twins to put up red sparks to call the girls in from the training area. I parked the smith in a meeting room and went back to my bedroom. I had thought it a bad idea to go barging in to my room with everyone in tow. Upsetting a new wizard mama might be a good way to find out what Flamestrike did!
Isabel, Chloe, Alba and Alice where all in my room with the baby while the other girls were in the field working on spells. I told them that we had a situation in Clodfey and I needed Chloe, Alba and Alice to go with me. Isabel said that she would go too and I told her that she had just had a baby and was going to stay here. Then she told me that she was going and someone else could watch the baby for a little while. She pulled rank, the only rank that someone could pull on the Master Wizard in this kingdom, the wife. I agreed that if she could get someone to watch the baby she could go, but only if she agreed to be uncommonly careful. She smiled sweetly and said, ‘aren’t I always.’ I just shook my head. She was more prone to look out after everyone else than herself.
I told them that we were meeting in the room downstairs shortly if they would like to join us. Then I went down myself. Six girls and the smith, looking quite uncomfortable being surrounded by young women that he knew could kill him with a thought, were all there waiting. Finally, the four other instructors, toting the baby showed up.
The first matter of business was to locate a babysitter. This irritated the smith to no end but he was wise enough to keep his mouth shut! Chloe said that if we were going into combat a healer might come in handy. Alba said that there was no better scout and that she had to go. Alice said that with her ability she could hold off crowds if she needed to and must go also. The twins stated that with their abilities they could take out targets instantly that would cause us problems. Elaine said she was working on remote transport and could strip weapons before they were used. Melodie said that with her invisibility now she could cause groups to go invisible by contact. Calla said that she had worked out how to control Flamestrike and could keep the spell burning and move it to clear a
path. Kiena said that she had signed on for wizard training not babysitting! The last got a laugh from all of us.
I stood up and walked out shaking my head. I walked into Margery’s office and asked her if she had any experience taking care of babies. She said that she had younger siblings and later had often taken care of nieces and nephews. I told her that we had a major mission that we had to go on and that everyone, even mama, needed to go. She said that she would be honored to watch the baby for us and that there was always milk to be had in the kitchen. I asked her to follow me and led the way back into the meeting room. I told Isabel what Margery had said and she handed her the baby with a sad smile and her thanks. As we started to leave I asked Margery to have a maid show the smith to a room and the showers if he wanted. I also told her that she might not want to think that she is holding the heir to the throne because it might make her nervous. She looked at me for a second, turned a bit pale and said, ‘Well, thank you very much for reminding me of that David!’ I grinned and told her she was welcome.
Vol. 2 - Another Typical Day, Too (The Wizards of Eredwynn) Page 2