by Chris Turner
“Aurimag whirled his black robe and sought to depart the hall—but not before spitting on the floor like a peasant.
“Enraged beyond measure, Woisper gave a roar: ‘Return hither, you arrogant pretender! On that ornate account you are mistaken. ’Tis precisely for these reasons that the Code was devised—to combat arrogance. You are a scourge! A bane! A disgrace to these proceedings! I shall punish you with forces beyond far Altair for your forbidden reachings and your headstrong diatribe!’”
Ulisa paused and Baus twitched, frowning.
“But Aurimag had closed his ears. Woisper’s sermons were dull roars in his skull and then he voiced a terrible curse upon the assembly, sauntering insolently from the hall. Woisper was forced to act and was not so noble as to be left untouched of angry hubris. Reaching out with his mind, he sent psychic pins to thrust Aurimag’s limbs tightly against the wall. Aurimag laughed. He pulled his hands free, but not before Barbirius had leaped up and clamped Aurimag’s mouth from the progress of any destructive evocations. Salmeister too dragged Aurimag to Woisper’s secret chambers deep under the castle. They worked terrible spells on him, stripped him of his powers, the ones that he had toiled to achieve. Aurimag fought like a demon. Under the fury of exorcisms, irons, torques and purgations, he resisted the spells and counterspells, far-reaching to forbidden assaults of body, mind and spirit. It sickens me to this day to recall the event. Though I was not personally involved in the affair, the tumult of Aurimag’s cries and his stormings drifted up to the halls of the castle, reaching all corners of the keep for ears to hear. Still in my mind they remain as shivering memories . . .”
Baus paused, stroking his chin. “What then of Aurimag?”
“After the ordeal, he wandered about the castle like a lone ghost. He was given a menial posting, an under-stewardship at the castle I believe, but he disappeared less than a month later. Several neomancers did too—including Woisper and Salmeister . . .”
Turning eyes to Baus, she laughed morosely; her face was haggard, eyes dim. “Alas, you know now why Aurimag is so sullen. He has shrunken us to knee-high caricatures, encaging us forever. He thought us responsible for his powers being stripped and the departure of his dream. He could only catch four of us. I imagine that after this harrowing purification, he became an amateur magician, struggling with whatever small spells or prestidigitations he could muster. Alas, it seems he has wandered far—to this out-of-the-way fishing port of Heagram.”
Baus stared pensively at the moon-beamed pool, wondering at the fate of crossing paths with Aurimag; Ulisa jabbed at the mud. The shady world of ‘Neomancers’, ‘Circles’, and enchantments brought a chilled edge to his being. He stood up to leave. One thing was for certain—Nuzbek’s shameless acts began to make more sense now. The magician was out for blood and had visited odious spells on Weavil, Woisper and Trimestrius.
As if reading his lugubrious thoughts, Ulisa asked, “Where are you going?”
“To get away from here.”
“There is more to the story you must hear!”
“Not now.”
Ulisa caught up with him and grabbed his hand. “Aurimag and I worked in close association. Sorry to say I was harsh with him, even as he was my apprentice,” she admitted. She seemed to have a need to confess. “I made an example of him often in front of his peers. ’Twas a mistake. His clever circumventions were annoying! He took my teachings as pig-headed pedagogy. He begrudged me for my rigor.”
“It seems incredible . . . Though hardly enough to ambush you, shrink you, and stuff you in a bottle?”
“It is. You don’t know him.”
“But you are young, and he old in comparison. How could you possibly be his ‘teacher’?”
“Looks are deceiving,” she implied gravely. “In fact, I am quite his senior; I am his superior in age, though you would not know it. I will have passed my ninety second year this winter.”
Baus gave a startled gasp. “How?—a youthful creature like you, looking half his age?”
Ulisa beamed with frank modesty, “I studied the arts of Longevity early on at the Conservatory.”
“All is explained then,” muttered Baus. He could feel his own blood quicken—heady with a bizarre attraction to Ulisa’s exquisite body which he could not quite pinpoint. “I must confess, despite all the muskiness of this morass, I feel my own heart beating with a passion at your presence.”
“That is very gracious of you to admit,” she declared pleasantly. “But, as circumstances go, I am many years your senior. The ‘Auric Allure’ is to blame for this. It pulsates with a rare energy, exaggerating my emanation and playing havoc with your senses.” The sorceress laughed ruefully. “A pity—I was not cognizant of the spell’s strength while I was tutoring Aurimag. He must have fallen for me.” She trailed off, looking penitent now. “I shall have to de-vitalize the power—though a feat much easier said than done.”
Baus maintained a sour expression. “This makes me feel so much the better.”
“I’m glad you see it that way. So—you will aid in this quest and ensure your friend’s liberation?”
Baus demurred. He was irked at the quality of Ulisa’s sing-song utilitarianism. It smacked of opportunism. “That depends—what do you have in mind?”
“Aurimag has likely flown back to his lair—of faraway secrecy, or seeking an equally distant burrow to hide in. I require the aid of several colleagues to help me flush him out. You could be one of them. We will traipse to Mismerion and then fetch these assistants—a journey of no small magnitude—eighty leagues as the crow flies. What do you say?”
Baus jumped back in amazement. “Eighty leagues? I consider myself a man of adventure, but not such a daredevil!”
Ulisa’s mood became distant. “You are free to act as you wish; however, you shall have to deal with the consequences.” She turned, staring off into the night, pondering weighty matters. “Hearken! Others arrive . . . we had best don our wits.”
Baus swung around. Crashing saplings and cries now filled the air. He unsheathed his dagger. There came a splashing from nearby, a crash in a nearby pool, a swishing of underbrush and the approach of several baying hounds. Tramping boots pounded the turf not two score paces away.
Baus licked his lips, peered grimly about. “We must fly! Tally ho. Not to seem repetitive, we—”
Baus’s statement was cut short. While his back was turned, an irregular event occurred. An extraordinary glow permeated the surrounding trees.
He whirled in wonder to behold the pool, a pulsing luminescence, momentarily dimming. Then the water shimmered and the same luminescence he had seen earlier effusing from Ulisa’s aura when Nuzbek was ready to smite her in the gaolyard, became real.
He stiffened, straining to train eyes into the fog. Only a marked glow showed there, then a small yellow zigzag, disappearing like a firefly, fleeing into the murk.
Ulisa was gone—so too was the luminescence.
A voice of encouragement spoke in his mind: ‘Trust your instincts, Baus—we are only the true makers of our destinies, nothing else . . .’
The friendly mind-push was gone. And Baus felt a sickening sensation that cleaved his heart; his limbs felt limp; the sense of the chill raged faraway. But he was left to his own devices—in a desolate glade, crisp with dew and musk and a criss-crossing of tree shadows. Was he dreaming? It took some convincing to accept that he was encircled with the same lonely beobar trunks surrounding the prison yard.
II
Baus had not liked the penetrating look in the neomancer’s face before she had disappeared. A brisk chill gust infected him with doubt. He had never felt so isolated; yet he was free from the walls of the yard! On swift wings he fled.
The thrashing of boots and the yammerings of voices jolted his reverie. Over his shoulder, he saw torchlight glinting through the tree gaps, less than a bowshot away.
He wrenched himself to action and fled astride the pool. He was no more than a few yards away from the edge
of the forest before he ground to a baffled halt. Here was a new surprise: a set of separate yipping and yapping sounds. Dense trunks and the prospect of new foes blocked access from escape.
He shrank back. He was surrounded—by dogs and men.
Baus raced back to the pool and knew the fear of a cornered animal. He slumped down on the fallen log, hearing the thump of his sinking heart. Defeat was cruel, especially when he had made such progress. With eyes fixed miserably into the mire, he saw a dull reflection of himself: a mute and sardonic caricature. Why had Ulisa abandoned him? The vague, capricious firefly was a turncoat—could it have been her enchanted way of sending him a subtle message—that he had been on the border of abandoning Weavil, so why not she, him?
He felt a vagabond plan forming in the back of his mind. It was fight or flight. The pool, the dogs, Nuzbek’s magic ganglestick . . . perhaps—
He wiped out the trace of his prints near the edge of the pool and ran frantically back and heard, without warning, Oppet’s two horrors burst in the glade. They snuffled and clawed, baying like wolves, ogling him with rare malice.
Baus gripped his black baton. The first canine leaped. He flung out an end.
The rushing hulk fell in a sliding mass of jaws and teeth. Maw yawning agape, the thing croaked with its flapping tongue eventually stilling. Now its twin bounded from the side, snapping at Baus’s legs—but not before Baus had brought the ganglestick down on its hoary snout. It sagged to the ground in a frozen heap. “There you go, you vile stabbing curs!” Baus hissed. “Lie down and die like the mongrels you are!”
For a brief second, he limped back to the pool at a running jump. His ankle had been gored and the cold water shocked him as he sank up to his knees in gunky water. Slimy things twirled about his ankles, which he ignored, but the creeping sensation from the snauzzer graze was a tough enough injury to reckon with. Out at the center of the mire he slogged his way deeper, wading neck deep, teeth chattering in the rank slough. The twin deadheads tottered nearby, close enough to touch.
He chose a place behind the nearest sagging trunk and tucked his body in close. Nose deep he sank into the mire—waiting.
The moments passed . . . the glade was filled with a rush of bodies. Perspiring faces, shouts, wrath: all a mix of mayhem.
Amongst the ragtag Baus recognized Mulfax, Tilfgurd, Madluck and a grimy lot of others. They were grim-faced with limbs and hands scored from a dozen cuts of bramble; the whole disciplinary troop flourished a host of weapons—swords, pikes, whips, and daggers. If anything, the posse wielded aspects of crazed men whose mission of recouping their losses drove them to unpredictability. From behind a crouching mass of spindlefax Skarrow lurched, then Canjun, Haimes and Burkothes. Their weapons were cocked, hacking ruthlessly at the spine-backed shrub, slewing a path toward where Baus hid.
He thrust himself carefully deeper into the mire, forcing his limbs to obey and curb their cursed shaking, numbed as they were. He hoped that his time-sensitive plan would not be derailed by technicalities.
A battered Oppet gained his pets and stood quivering when he saw the two lying limp. “Kady! Zappy! Oh, woe! What has become of you?”
He gave a terrible moan, thinking them dead. He shrank to his knees, muttering endearments, and discovered they were of no use and he bowed his head, weeping in turn as Skarrow and Haimes came struggling out of the woods. “Hoy Oppet, what has brought such doom to your dogs?”
The dogmaster shook his head sorrowfully. He peered at the foremost hound, emotion choking his throat. Its front paws were splayed in an unnatural poise. Haimes, Burkothes and Canjun circled round the supine masses and gazed on Oppet in awkward helplessness. Kady’s face was carved into a ghoulish rictus; Zappy’s eyes had rolled back showing the whites of her eyes, as if the creature had witnessed a devil.
Oppet reached out a trembling hand. Almost at once, the hound leapt to life with a mouth full of snapping teeth. Zappy nearly chewed off his fingers before he bowled over Haimes. The two scrambled back, uttering astounded cries. The shaggy tail struck out at Kady, and with the breaking of the spell, the other hound now struggled to her feet in a fit of confusion.
Tilfgurd rocked back on his heels. “Hoy! Do dead dogs come back to life?”
“Nuzbek has enchanted them with magic!” blustered Mulfax. “Pay attention, men! Dire spells are in the air. The magician must be near.”
The officers spun about, brandishing their swords. Madluck and Skarrow stared about, expecting the magician to come vaulting out of the air, pitching bolts of lighting at them. Burkothes’s grave silence infected them with only a chill as the dark beobar hung about them in brooding clots, watching them with dispassion. A faint blue mist seemed to huddle above their heads.
The dogs set up a wretched keening. They ranged back and forth along the edge of the pool, seeming to detect an unlawful presence far out in the slough. They wagged their tails, lifted their snouts to the air.
Skarrow stood back, with arms crossed bluffly on his chest. “Well, it appears the enchanter is out there somewhere. Who’s going in, lads? Oppet, your hounds appear confounded, so that may well construe a good tiding. What do they see?”
“Who knows?” piped Mulfax.
Skarrow snapped back, addressing Madluck with a sour grin, “Any news from your squad?”
“None,” Madluck muttered. “We have rounded up Jorkoff and Zorez. Some other rogues were hiding in the spongebush by the old sea wall and the dogs flushed them out. Some of their cronies fled to the shore where they fuddled the snauzzerhound’s scent, but for the most they headed north, to the shallows.”
“Where’s Graves then?” demanded Tilfgurd.
Mulfax pointed toward the black-blue trees beyond the pool. “Somewhere west with Ausse and Germakk. They’re searching for Nuzbek out there and his cronies—Nolpin, even Valere. The Captain dredged up a posse from Heagram to be headed by Jukeneb and Diangule. The last I heard they had caught up with Quintlo and Vibellhanz. One’s dead. The rest are still running.”
Madluck shook his head with wonder. “What a cock-up! I can see only a demotion for us: an insufferable breakout, convicts running wild, dogs playing dead. It doesn’t add up. Uncanniness lurks in the air. For a flash I suspected the magician was playing us a foul trick. But now, I wonder, with Mulfy harping on about Nuzbek flying up over the wall on some kind of weird broomstick.”
“It was a balloon, you maroon!” grunted Mulfax “—or some sort of fantastic floating sphere. I saw it with my own eyes.”
“I’ll bet you did,” mumbled Madluck facetiously. “What of the little green monkey from the jar who you say killed Boulm and fled into a tree?”
“That was some little imp.”
“Don’t forget the little purple-hooded dame Nuzbek almost scooped up and bottled!” chimed Burkothes.
“Bah, you rogues are incorrigible!” muttered Mulfax.
Burkothes shook his head with comic effect. “Balloons—little green men—I don’t know what you two have been drinking, but those imps in the jars managed to escape and I know that we’re in a mess of trouble unless we can recapture them.”
“Here, let’s have none of that talk!” cried Canjun. “It’s bad enough as it is.” He jabbed his pike into the ground. “Let’s get these wombats—easy as pie.”
Madluck glared. “Enough of your clever boasts.”
“So why are we standing around then like a bunch of hens then?”
Oppet raised a minatory finger. “Because the snauzzerhounds have led us to this glade, which is of some importance. Someone is out there. I know it—my dogs do not trouble themselves unnecessarily.”
All eyes turned to the pool. “So then, what next? I’m not going in there, are you?” wheezed Madluck.
Skarrow rubbed his palms with grimacing unease. “Then let’s get out of here.”
Burkothes made a sour glottal noise. “Your pets are playing us for fools, Oppet, scaring us half to death with their wanton tendencies.”
&n
bsp; Madluck whined: “Oppet, can you not motivate your hounds to cease their whining and come up with convicts in their teeth? My ears are half baked.”
“By absolutely no means!” cried Oppet. “Kady has suffered a fright and howls for good reason. Zappy has been smitten no less with some sort of thaumaturgy.”
The animals affirmed the assessment with snuffles and whines.
Oppet brought out sweetmeats for the two and fixed his eyes with wry distrust on the deadheads. “Not likely, Zappy,” whispered Oppet. “—But certainly not impossible . . . ’Tis peculiar that we haven’t crossed paths with those rogues Baus and Weavil. Their comic tricks could not have prevailed over the course of our searches . . .”
Oppet knelt by the water’s edge and noticed something pertinent. “The trail terminates here by this log, then it veers off toward the north. The large footprints are a grown man’s. This much I know. Here are a smaller set, as one of those midgets that Mulfax rants on about.”
Burkothes gave a snort, “We just came from that way and none of us discerned hide nor hair of any persons, large or small.”
“We might have missed an important fact,” persisted Oppet. “If we retrace our steps, we might discover some clue.”