by Logan Jacobs
I looked to the side of the path and saw the golden hawk hopping along and pumping its wings in preparation to take off again. There was a chance that Theo could catch it and destroy it before then, but I held him in place instead, because the bronze hawk was nearing us. I eyed its trajectory, timed my strike, and swung my sword.
The hawk, however, seemed to have learned from our last encounter. I realized, too late to get my sword in place, that it had been feinting as it swerved at the last second, its beak aiming for Theo’s skull instead of my chest.
So I did the only thing I could think of-- dropped the sword and punched the mechanical hawk as hard as I could. Its metal feathers slashed my hand open as my knuckles made contact, but the collision absorbed all of its momentum, and it dropped to the ground, where Theo promptly reduced it to scrap metal just like its silver counterpart.
I leapt off his back in order to retrieve my sword and as I picked it up, I yelled to him to get down, because the last surviving hawk, the golden one, was diving at us. I didn’t have to turn to look to know that he would have folded his legs beneath him.
The golden hawk screeched furiously. I didn’t know whether it was angry about the destruction of its fellow hawks, or whether it was just frustrated that it had missed its target the first time around, but it came in even harder and faster than before, if that was possible.
However, the last few minutes of near misses had provided me with a precious education on the movement patterns of these creatures, and it was now easier for me to eyeball them and time my swings accurately.
I swung my sword, it managed to dodge by performing some kind of elegant midair rolling technique, and then before it could pull out of the roll and soar out of reach, I smashed it to the ground. Its wings unfurled, and it cawed in protest. Because Theo wasn’t standing up yet and wasn’t at the ready to deliver a killing blow, I did the honors myself. First, I stepped on its neck with my boot to pin it in place. Then, because if the injuries to my hand were any indication, the metal feathers were likely to slash the soles of my boots to ribbons if I tried to stomp it like Theo had been doing, I instead knelt, enlarged my sword until I could barely hold it upright in both hands, and used the heavy pommel to hammer the bird into glittering pieces.
Then, I looked up and met Gorander’s eyes. His face was taut. His beard concealed his neck, but if it hadn’t, I imagined that I would have been able to see him swallow.
“Well, I suppose congratulations are in order--” he began to say in a very patronizing tone. But I wasn’t interested in chatting with him anymore, although I had humored him at first because I was curious about his motivations for this deranged but, I had to say, impressively ambitious empire-building mission of his.
So without pausing to even remount Theo, I just dashed at him headlong with my sword. Gorander was a powerfully built man, but I was willing to bet that in a purely physical fight I could kick his ass. Apparently he didn’t have time in the second or two that it took me to cross the fifteen feet between us to think up or cast another spell that would produce an attack. What he did do, however, probably on reflex more than anything else, was get the hell out of my way.
I don’t mean that he turned and ran off into the shrubbery. In fact he didn’t take a single step.
What did move, however, was the ground beneath him. A very localized portion of the ground beneath him. A pillar of earth about three feet in diameter shot skyward as if it had been neatly carved and was being pushed out from some gigantic hand deep below the earth. Luckily for Gorander, it was hard-packed earth, not loose soil, and maintained its structural integrity as it carried him about twenty feet up.
“It’s not very civil of you to attempt to interrupt me,” Gorander called down. I wouldn’t describe him as a particularly cheery person generally, but his tone of voice definitely held a cheerful note that time. I guess he felt pretty pleased with himself for escaping my reach like that.
“Your pet birds weren’t very civil either,” I replied.
Gorander’s face was now about twenty feet above mine, so I couldn’t see his expression all that closely, but it gave off a distinctly smug appearance nonetheless, and that was unacceptable to me.
I couldn’t reach Gorander, and even if I were somehow able to climb up his pillar of dirt, I’d be vulnerable to attack the whole way up. He could throw things down at me, or he could just ram the pillar back into the earth and potentially bury me alive.
So, the only good option was to knock him off his perch. That was what he really needed, both figuratively and, at the moment, literally.
I thought for a second. Then I took a few steps over to the wall of the maze, reached deep into the hedge and grabbed ahold of a vine, and pulled its length out as far as I could. Then I used my sword to cut through it, as close to the root as I could reach. This left me with a vine about six feet long and about an inch in diameter. I expanded the vine to the thickness of a man’s wrist. Now, I had a much longer and sturdier rope to work with. I proceeded to loop it around Gorander’s pillar, with the loose ends hanging off. I wrapped one of them securely around my waist.
Then, I tossed the other end to Theo and told him to pull.
Meanwhile I went around to the opposite side of the pillar, got on my hands and knees, braced my abdominal muscles in order not to get squeezed in half by the constricting coils of the rope, and acted as a human anchor while Theo used the vine to slice through the pillar.
I couldn’t see what was happening from my position, but increasingly larger clods of dirt rained down on me, and then suddenly the tension of the vine rope around my waist released, and I scrambled to my feet and turned around in time to see the destabilized pillar toppling over across the nearest hedge.
Gorander, however, remained in place, floating. He stretched out his arms. His purple and gold silk robes, and even his absurdly long beard that reached to his belt, wavered slightly in the wind. He glowered down at me and was probably trying his best to look like some kind of angry god.
“I sure hope you’re wearing knickers!” I yelled up at him.
To be honest, I was impressed. Levitation wasn’t unheard of, but it required a tremendous amount of energy for sorcerers to sustain. Which wasn’t necessarily the case for natural magic users with some kind of flight ability, but that wasn’t relevant to the situation. Then, before my eyes, I saw Gorander slowly start to float downward like a dandelion seed.
Ah. So staying airborne was a strain on him, although of course he was trying not to show it.
As he floated downward, one of the hedges started rustling and then growing to meet him. It created a platform of woven branches for him to stand upon. This platform wasn’t quite as high as the pillar of earth had been, but it still propped him up about fifteen feet off the ground. I was starting to get a little annoyed with his refusal to stand eye to eye with me.
“You stuck up there?” I inquired. “Will I have to chop you down?”
This time, it was the arrogant sorcerer who didn’t seem inclined to talk to me. Instead, he just pointed his scepter at me. In turn I raised my sword. Hacking away cursed hedges and knocking down murderous clockwork birds wasn’t the same as dueling a more conventional opponent, but as long as you had a versatile mind, sharp steel could serve you in more ways than one.
It wouldn’t, however, have done me a lick of good in that particular moment, I realized as a fireball the size of a beer keg materialized out of thin air and hurtled toward me. Maybe it’s an illusion, I thought sort of dazedly as the flaming orb that, deep down, I knew to be as real as my own self roared larger and larger like a sun that was about to swallow me.
Then, the fireball abruptly stopped, with its nearest tongues lashing out barely a foot from my face. I stumbled back dry-mouthed and sweating from the heat. The massive fireball sort of collapsed inward on itself until it was no more than a tiny candle’s worth of flame, and then it winked out.
I looked up at Gorander and expected him to be c
ackling over the joke he had just made. I thought maybe this was his way of toying with me, of flaunting his powers before he destroyed me. Well, if he thought he could use these kinds of tricks to change my mind about working for him, then he was an even bigger fool than I already reckoned him for.
But he wasn’t laughing.
His face was contorted in an expression of undisguised shock. Then, the shock began to give way to an enraged scowl. His thin lips parted and after a moment’s hesitation he hissed out, “… Vera?”
The hedges rustled. Then the leaves parted, and an alluring, raven-haired figure sashayed out. I realized that her green silk robe matched the color of the maze rather well and probably helped her remain unnoticed as she moved about in it. Well, that and her illusion magic, of course.
Vera stood next to me, completely ignored me, and stared steadily back at her furious employer, who was turning red in the face, as he brandished his scepter threateningly in her direction.
“Pardon the interruption, my lord,” she addressed him calmly, “but I’m afraid it looked to me rather as though you were about to violate the terms of our agreement.”
Chapter 18
“Your agreement?” I inquired dryly.
“Oh yes,” Vera said as she continued to not even spare me a glance. “You belong to me, not Gorander. It’s up to my judgment to decide whether you prove absolutely intractable. And if that is the case, it’s my duty to execute you.”
“Well, you ain’t exactly had much luck killing me all those times you’ve tried in the past, have you now?” I snorted.
“It was only twice, and I have progressed and matured greatly as a sorcerer since the last time you saw me,” Vera replied serenely. “You don’t realize how powerful I have become... under Lord Gorander’s tutelage, that is.”
“More like two and a half I’d say,” I grumbled. “And the tally just keeps climbing.”
I peered at Vera from the corner of my eye. She was still keeping her gaze fixed straight ahead on the sorcerer, but I could tell that her attention was focused on me anyway. She took a deep breath that made her chest rise and fall, and she clenched her teeth.
“I’m afraid I’ve changed my mind about that particular agreement, my lady,” Gorander said as he stared down at us and stroked his scepter menacingly.
“You cannot unilaterally change your mind about an agreement made between two parties without the consent of the other, my lord,” Vera said angrily. “That’s called breaking your word.”
“Not if the agreement was formed on the basis of a false premise,” Gorander retorted. “More false premises than I care to count, in fact.”
“Such as what exactly?” Vera demanded. “I told you that this man is Casifer of Delorne. The long-lost crown prince. And so he is.”
“I have no reason to disbelieve that, but it’s the only part of the whole deal that I don’t believe you deceived me in,” Gorander replied. “First of all, you said he was positively amoral and would have no qualms about serving me, so long as he was duly compensated for it.”
“I’m a contractor, not a vassal,” I said. “I’m for temporary hire-- not for sale.”
Both sorcerers ignored me as they glowered at each other. I glanced over at Theo, who waited off to the side and was nervously pawing the dirt. If this had been an ordinary hedge maze, then maybe we could have taken advantage of their distraction to hoof it out of there. Come up with a plan. Return with reinforcements and better weapons. Storm the palace. Cut down Gorander’s army of demons and let the place become flooded with maggots.
But, it wasn’t an ordinary hedge maze. I would just have to try to make the best of the situation I’d already gotten myself into.
“Second of all,” Gorander continued, “you insisted that you only wanted him around because he could be useful, and not because you continued to harbor any form of affection for him.”
“Which is entirely true,” Vera stated icily.
“My dear, do not insult my intelligence,” Gorander sighed.
I snickered. Both of their heads snapped around, and they glared at me in unison. Frankly, between the three of us, it was beginning to look like a toss-up as to who would attack whom first.
“Don’t insult mine,” Vera retorted. “I’ve known Hal, I mean Casifer, for the better part of a decade. And you met him just today. I think I understand him and what he’s capable of better than you do. My lord.”
“Well, I happen to have known the fellow in question for a bit over three decades, so I think I can claim to be somewhat more of an authority on the subject than either of you,” I interjected. Both of them ignored me, although Theo uttered a supportive snort.
“What Casifer can or cannot do for me, and whether he is a liability or an asset, is no longer my primary concern,” Gorander announced from his leafy perch above us.
“Then what is, my lord?” Vera demanded.
“… Your loyalties,” he said grimly.
Vera’s golden-brown complexion was too dark to change color easily, but from her expression, I imagine that she would otherwise have paled. Then, her sultry black eyes welled up with tears, and I realized that Gorander and I were about to be treated to one of her performances.
Sigh.
She wasn’t the hysterical type. Just dramatic. Her lips parted as if in agony, her brows contracted, and her head bowed. Then she let out a gasp and fell to her knees in the dirt.
“My lord, you know that I am eternally faithful only to you--” she began to exclaim as she raised her head again to gaze up earnestly at Gorander.
“Well, that’s a familiar position,” I remarked, somewhat spitefully I suppose. “Not the way that you’re defiling your mouth right now, though. You never said anything like that to me. I guess because you know I’m not as gullible as Beardy Longface here.”
“Are you?” Gorander inquired of Vera, and ignored my aside altogether except for a grimace, as he loomed above us. I considered chopping the hedge out from under him, just on the off chance that he’d be too distracted by Vera to levitate in time and I’d get to watch him fall on his ass. But I refrained because I wanted to see how their exchange panned out.
“Of course I am,” Vera murmured. She filled her voice with warmth and ardor. “Your vision is my vision as well. I have sworn to you to spend my life serving it, and serving you, and I will do no less. It is for your sake alone that I urge you to reconsider the potential utility of this ungrateful wretch. If I were more selfishly minded, I would kill him at once and be rid of him. He has been the bane of my life since I met him.”
“Well now, that’s awfully touching,” I scoffed. “That’s not exactly what you said that night in Thistletown--”
“My lord, have I not always been an invaluable servant to you ever since I joined in your cause?” Vera hastily interrupted, at a distinctly louder volume than previously. “Has my counsel ever led you astray? Have I ever failed in any task that you assigned to me? Has not the palace that I helped you create pleased you?”
“Invaluable, yes,” Gorander agreed. “You have been absolutely integral to my operations here. You are a magnificent sorceress and, moreover, a magnificent woman. Your performance has continually amazed me. To watch you engrossed in casting a particularly complex spell, of your own devising, why, it is quite a mesmerizing spectacle, one might even say… titillating.”
When he first began his speech, I could see Vera glowing with self-satisfaction and relief that she hadn’t lost her hold over the master of the palace, but by the end of it, I could tell she was trying not to wince.
“So it comes as an unutterable relief to me to hear you profess your undying faithfulness to me,” Gorander continued, “and to express your personal indifference to this… wretch… here, as you put it.”
“Then we are in agreement, my lord?” Vera asked eagerly. “I will impose my own methods on him, and I guarantee that I will eventually be able to bend him to your will. Our united will, that is.”
&n
bsp; “You refuse to destroy him because you believe it would be against my best interests,” Gorander said in a contemplative tone. “But, you would do anything else for me, as long as it would truly benefit me?”
“Of course, my lord,” Vera said after the most barely detectable fraction of a pause. Her enthusiasm for Gorander’s agreeable, complimentary mood seemed to be quickly waning. “Do I not always fulfill all of your desires?”
“Not quite all of them, no, my dear,” Gorander replied slowly. He was savoring the moment now. He had never appeared more evil to me. “Not yet. But you are quite capable of doing so. I would like you to become my wife, Vera.”
“It would have come to this sooner or later, you know, Vera,” I said wryly. “My arrival might have hastened things on a bit, I’ll surely admit, but don’t pretend you didn’t know from the first time he ever leered at you--”
“Go to hell, Hal,” Vera snapped, but seeing as she had become disillusioned with the Savajun religion that her tribe raised her in by the time she came of age, and declared my people’s kind of church even more absurd than that, I knew the imprecation meant less than nothing to her.
“So... do we have an agreement, Vera?” Gorander demanded. I could tell by the predatory, triumphant, defiant way he was staring her down that he knew very well the proposal wasn’t welcome. And he didn’t give a damn. He only cared whether it was accepted.
“You know I am not worthy, my lord--”
“You keep saying that, but I deem you worthy, and do you not defer to my judgment as superior?” he interrupted.
“It would assuredly be against your best interests to marry me,” Vera stated.
“How so?” he asked impatiently. I recognized that it was a conversation they had had many times before, but this time was different. This time had more urgency, because of the implied ultimatum. The egotistical madman was offering to let me live, in exchange for Vera selling herself into a marriage she didn’t want. I would never have let her do that, but I also knew that Vera would never agree to be a sacrifice in the first place. And she was the one who had gotten herself into this trap by exploiting Gorander’s vanity and obsession with her, so I figured I’d let her go on and try to get herself out of it.