Princess of Wisdom: An Epic Fantasy Series (Wisdom Saga Book 2)

by W. C. Conner

  Thisbe reached out eagerly to take Ellen. “You never have to ask, Mattie,” she said, seeming almost to speak to the baby rather than Mattie.

  Tingle cocked his eyebrow and looked to Scrubby who shrugged his own confusion, then turned to follow Mattie who was already headed for the front door.

  From habit, Scrubby looked to the east as they walked through the gates of Three Oaks. Just gaining the crest of the rise at the far side of the narrow valley, he could see a wagon being pulled by two horses, but they were so distant yet that he could make out no detail. He started to slow but Mattie took hold of his sleeve. “Whoever they are, they’ll get here whether you watch them or not,” she said, “but we’ve got to get to the wizards now.”

  A glance at the set of his wife’s face told him there was no point arguing or resisting. He picked up his pace to match hers and took her hand as they walked quickly toward the earth wizards’ home that had been built to the west of their own place, close beside the Old Forest. She gave his hand a squeeze as they walked, but did not slow her pace.

  The nine wizards who had aided Gleneagle and his allies in the battle before the walls of Blackstone, had returned to Wisdom following their victory four years earlier. They had been drawn back to the town by the powers of love and life and growth they felt in the Old Forest when they fled to it after Greyleige had begun summoning demons from the other side. Upon their return, they had found only one of the three who had remained behind still alive. The other two had died following a direct confrontation between the magics of good and evil in which the good had prevailed. The only survivor of that confrontation, Gregory, now stood second in respect to Eldred, the acknowledged leader of their brotherhood.

  The fledgling brotherhood had built a farm to the west of Scrubby’s place which had attracted many like-minded Simple and Lesser Wizards. They had come in ones, twos and threes, bringing their families with them. As a result, the wizards’ community to the west of Scrubby’s place now rivaled Wisdom in size, and the combined communities had established a fair amount of trade beyond their borders.

  The wizards’ meeting hall had been built as close to the Old Forest as they dared, with their living quarters, gardens and crops on the other side of the road. At the time they started their colony, the road had been no more than a wide pathway at that point. That had changed considerably with the arrival of more and more of the brothers and their families until it was now wide enough for two horse drawn carts to pass one another in most places. For those who had come, the new colony replaced the old Wizard’s Guild compound which was now enclosed by the fortifications of Blackstone put up by Greyleige. The Wizards’ Guild itself was no longer the force it had been after those who remained behind had declined to name another High Altarn following Greyleige’s fall.

  Several of the brothers looked up from where they worked in the large truck garden nearest the road as Mattie and Scrubby walked by.

  “Is Eldred in the hall?” Mattie called to them. At the nods of affirmation, she turned, pulling Scrubby along with her.

  Eldred walked out onto the porch as they approached. “Good morning Mattie, Scrubby,” he said smiling broadly. “To what do we owe the pleasure this morning?” Then, seeing the set of her face, he paused. “Is there a problem?”

  “There’s a shadow on our spring,” she said, “and there are more than a dozen dead animals around it. All of ‘em look like they were bent somehow.”

  Eldred looked to Scrubby who just shrugged his shoulders once again. “I didn’t see it, Eldred,” he said. “Mattie came and got me.”

  As he was speaking, Gregory walked out of the hall and joined Eldred on the porch. “A shadow, did you say?” he asked, his dark eyes glittering with interest.

  Once again, Tingle looked up as the front door of Three Oaks opened. The door framed a young family. “By the powers,” Tingle exclaimed, “Kemp, Peg, what in the world are you doing here?”

  At his exclamation, Thisbe popped out of the kitchen with Ellen held close against her shoulder and ran to where Kemp and his family stood in the doorway. Little Wil followed shyly along behind her, stopping next to Tingle at the counter. Throwing her one free arm around Kemp, Thisbe smiled broadly at Peg who held a toddler of her own on her hip.

  “I’ve been dreaming of you,” she said, “wondering how you were doing.” She looked at the child astride Peg’s hip and the two sets of young eyes staring at them from behind Kemp’s legs and laughed. “It looks like I don’t really have to ask how you two have been doing after all.”

  Kemp reached out and affectionately touched the head of the girl clinging to Peg. “This is Marlis,” he said before pulling the two boys from behind him, “and these are our sons, Mitchal and Harold.” Patting them gently on their shoulders, he pushed them forward. “Say hello to Thisbe and Tingle.”

  The two boys held their arms out uncertainly to shake hands with these two almost mythic strangers of whom they had heard their entire lives. At the question in Thisbe’s eyes, Kemp nodded. “Yes. They’re twins.”

  Thisbe squatted down on her haunches and regarded them seriously as they stepped forward and each shook her hand in turn. “You have no idea how lucky you are to have the mommy and daddy that you have,” she said. They looked sideways at one another as if questioning her judgment.

  Turning her head, she beckoned to Little Wil and he walked over to join her. “This is Little Wil,” she announced, looking up to Kemp and Peg. “He and Ellen here are Scrubby and Mattie’s children. We’re watching them for a bit.” Turning her attention back to Little Wil and the twins she said, “Wil, I’d like you to say hello to Mitchal and Harold.” The three boys eyed one another timidly. “Why don’t you take your new friends outside and introduce them to Philip?”

  As the boys left the common room, Thisbe stood and looked to Kemp. She said nothing, but the look in her eye told Kemp she knew something was amiss.

  “There is sickness in Wrensfalls,” he said, “but it is an unnatural sickness. Shadows appear on the ground where there is no sun.” Thisbe and Tingle shared a glance which Kemp caught. “You have seen these also?” he asked.

  “Mattie saw one just this morning at the spring behind their house,” Tingle said. “It sounds as if there are many of them in Wrensfalls, but the one that she told us of was the first we’ve heard about.”

  Kemp looked around and seemed suddenly to realize that, while their children were here with Tingle and Thisbe, Scrubby and Mattie were not. “Where’s Scrubby?” he asked.

  “They dropped the children here not more than half an hour ago,” Thisbe said. “They’ve gone to the earth wizards’ farm.”

  Kemp’s expression was grave. “How do we get there?”

  Eldred stood as a member of the brotherhood opened the broad front door of the meeting hall and escorted two people into the room.

  “Kemp, Peg,” he exclaimed. “How glad I am to see you!” At his words, Scrubby and Mattie stood from where they sat with their backs to the door. Scrubby tripped on the edge of his chair, caught his balance and launched himself toward the two of them. Mattie looked on with interest as she beheld the couple she had heard so much about over the past several years. Her instincts told her that, though they seemed pleased to see her husband once again, they were disturbed beneath their smiles of greeting. After giving Kemp a hug and Peg’s hand a warm squeeze, Scrubby introduced them to Mattie before Kemp gently interrupted the reunion.

  Looking to Mattie he said, “We understand you’ve seen one of the darknesses.” At the reaction in her eyes, he continued, “We have had many in Wrensfalls. They are evil, these darknesses. My instincts have brought me back to Wisdom for answers, much as they did when the name of this town suggested it as my destination four years ago.”

  Gregory looked up from where he sat to the right of Eldred. Rising to his feet, he introduced himself. “I don’t expect you would remember me, Kemp, but my name is Gregory. I am one of the three who were too timid to return with El
dred to face Greyleige at Blackstone.”

  Kemp reached out to shake his hand. “I do remember you,” he said, “though I didn’t know your name at the time. I heard of your terrible trial here in Wisdom after we all left.” As they were talking, the brother who had escorted Kemp and Peg into the hall had brought chairs for them and they all sat down.

  “His trial left him in a unique position,” Eldred said, nodding to Gregory.

  “I trust Mattie and Scrubby will forgive me for repeating myself,” Gregory began, “but it will be of interest to you, Kemp, since you also have seen what Mattie has seen.

  “Because the three of us who stayed behind ended up facing five of Greyleige’s summonings directly, we had the unfortunate opportunity to deal with creatures constructed of terror and unadulterated hatred first hand. Though we were weakened at the time, we managed to focus our combined powers into a single shaft of power that immolated them where they stood upon the stones before the door of Three Oaks.” Darkness passed over his face at the memory.

  “Having faced them so directly, I know the shadow and hatred and death of which they were made. It is the same sort you have been seeing in Wrensfalls and which Mattie has now seen here in Wisdom.” He smiled grimly. “The reason they have not been seen before now in Wisdom is that I have been tracking them by night and collecting them. They are bound in a secure place until it can be determined how they can be safely disposed of.” He looked reassuringly to Mattie. “I’ll see to it that the darkness lying on your spring is removed tonight.”

  “But what are they?” Kemp asked.

  It was Eldred who responded. “You were there when Wil and Greyleige confronted one another. You saw the moment when the focused powers of good collided with the collected powers of evil.” He gestured with his hands as he continued. “The powers of good returned to that place from which they had come—the Old Forest—and Wil’s power returned with them. His spirit and his power dwell even now in the Forest.”

  Gregory picked up the tale at that point. “The powers that had been collected by Greyleige and his predecessors were not of our world,” he said quietly. “Because they did not have a place to go as did the powers of good, they have been drifting high above our world like motes of black dust since that cataclysmic burst of energy. But they have begun to coalesce, to weave themselves back together. Fortunately, there is no will, no intelligence behind them as of yet. They exist merely as darkness, sickness and death such as that which you have seen in Wrensfalls and which Mattie has now seen here just this morning.”

  “Have you any idea what can be done about them?” Kemp asked.

  “I am doing all that I can by collecting them as they arrive here,” Gregory said. “Beyond that, I’m afraid I have no plan. I would train other of the Lesser Wizards how to collect them if I believed they could manage it without harming themselves. I am not convinced it can be done, however, and I’m unwilling to risk the lives of any of the brothers to find out.”

  Eldred spoke again as Gregory concluded. “We have tried to combine our powers to reach Wil’s spirit in the Old Forest in the hope he could help, or at least give some guidance, but there is a resistance at the border of the Forest which rebuffs our efforts.” He cocked his head as he had a thought. “I suppose it’s possible that he hears our call, but there is no way to know.”

  After a long silence Kemp spoke. “I’m going to go fetch Caron.”

  3

  Caron leaned on her elbows atop the battlements of Castle Confirth. Her chin was cradled in her hands as she observed the tiny figure of a horseman approaching from the west. The glare of the late afternoon sun made him little more than a wavering blot upon the road. Beside her stood her faithful Mitchal, showing a bit of gray at the temples already, but still in his prime.

  “That rider is Kemp, coming to summon me to Wisdom,” she said absently.

  “How can you tell, Highness?” Mitchal asked.

  “Tell what?” Caron said, prompting Mitchal to cock his head at the non-answer to his question.

  “You just said the horseman approaching is Kemp, coming to summon you to Wisdom.”

  She looked puzzled as she considered his words, but as they watched it became apparent from the size of the rider and his unruly blonde hair that it was, indeed, Kemp who rode toward them. “I did say that, didn’t I?” she murmured, not really expecting to be heard nor looking for an answer. In her heart, she knew that she had said it although it made her uncomfortable to admit it.

  She raised her elbows from the wall and dusted off the front of her skirt. “Well and good, then,” she said, turning to walk down the stairs from the battlements. “He has come a long way, Mitchal. Let’s get down there to greet him when he arrives.”

  You must come to me.

  Caron’s vision blurred and the world seemed to sway slightly as the words from her dreams echoed in her head. She stumbled as she strode toward the gate to meet Kemp and Mitchal put his hand out to help her maintain her balance.

  “I tripped,” Caron said at his concerned look. Mitchal did not reply, nor did he believe her.

  “Caron,” Kemp said enthusiastically as he gave her a great bear hug of greeting. “I’ve missed seeing you since you last visited us in Wrensfalls.” Caron smiled, appreciating the familiar warmth in his use of her given name rather than her title.

  “You’ve come to summon me to Wisdom, haven’t you, Kemp?” she said, smiling uncomfortably at the surprise on his face. “I have been seeing things of late, Kemp. Just now I told Mitchal that the rider coming out of the sun was you and that you came to fetch me to Wisdom.”

  Kemp looked to Mitchal who nodded in affirmation before turning back to the princess. “There are darknesses, Caron,” he said. “They’re sickening the land and the animals as well as the people. Peg and I traveled to Wisdom to meet with the earth wizards there.” Wil’s face appeared before her as Kemp continued. “We need you to try again to reach Wil.”

  Her face betrayed no emotion as her desires battled within her. She had traveled to Wisdom shortly after the confrontation at Blackstone to try to get to the man she desperately wanted to believe awaited her whole and alive in the Old Forest. She had spent months studying and attempting to gain entry, but she had been rejected time after time. Some of her attempts had caused her painful headaches when she pushed at the border of the Forest. Some had left her confused, causing her to walk about for several days afterwards, unsure of where she was or what it was that she sought. On one attempt she had boldly tried to walk directly into the Old Forest but was pushed abruptly and unceremoniously onto her bottom by an invisible force.

  At the time, she wanted nothing more than to see Wil, to see the man she felt she had practically created by herself from whole cloth. She idealized Wil as the man who was everything she had ever dreamed a man could be: handsome, powerful, strong of character, honorable, determined, and desperately in love with her.

  But time had passed and dreams had faded.

  And there had been another standing resolutely beside her during the entire period of her search for Wil. He was handsome, he was powerful, he had a sense of honor that she could not help but admire; and he was kind, and he loved her desperately.

  Roland’s patience and caring had eventually won her love and she had married him willingly despite the ache in her heart for the love she could never have. She loved Roland the more because he knew of her pain and accepted it as just another part of the woman he worshipped.

  Her father, Prince Gleneagle, had blessed the marriage and acknowledged that upon his passing to the other side, the children of his daughter and Roland, the Duke of Confirth, would become the rulers of the principality of Gleneagle.

  At dinner that evening Roland looked from Caron to Kemp and back. “Of course you’ll go to Wisdom,” he said as if he was insulted that she had even asked. “How soon do we leave?”

  You must come to me.

  How do I get to you?

  Deep in her hea
rt, she knew that the answer was at hand.

  Later that same evening in their bed, Caron cuddled with Roland, feeling closer to him than she had in many months. She opened herself to him as she kissed his lips and caressed his face.

  “Thank you, Roland,” she whispered in his ear as she moved against him.

  “You needn’t thank me this way, Caron,” he said, though she could feel his interest stirring against her. “I truly do want you to go, and I will go with you to help you in whatever way I can.”

  “I know that, Roland,” she said, “and I love you the more for it.” With that, she rolled him atop her and pulled him down to her. Her lips brushed softly back and forth on his as he came to her and she moaned softly with the love she could feel passing between them.

  Caron walked into the stable area the next morning in the tall boots and close-fitting riding breeches that had been made to her specifications. They had caused quite a scandal when she first wore them, but the inhabitants of the duchy had become so used to them that they were now an object of admiration rather than scandal. Roland raised an eyebrow in a frankly approving look which she returned in kind. Both of them smiled broadly as they checked the girths of their mounts.

  Having been initially captivated by Caron upon seeing her in men’s breeches astride a horse when she had been brought before him as a prisoner, Roland accepted her riding attire as perfectly natural. Where another lady would ride sidesaddle, if she rode at all, Caron much preferred straddling the horse which allowed her to ride as recklessly as any man.

  Mitchal noted that the pink flush of Caron’s cheekbones seemed higher than usual this morning and he smiled to himself at the looks she and Roland had exchanged as she walked into the stable.

  Kemp fell in beside Mitchal in the vanguard of the troop as they rode through the gates. “I have never asked, for it is truly none of my business,” he said as they trotted along, “but has there never been a woman in your life?”