by W. C. Conner
With words of encouragement from the onlookers, the little band of eleven – plus three donkeys – set off down the road through a deserted Wisdom and across the narrow valley in pursuit of the town’s former residents.
Eldred walked along comfortably, slightly ahead of the others. Behind him, Stewart, Angela, Allen and Bartholomew walked side by side followed by the five wizards and Sylvester with the donkeys.
“Three days to the crossroads,” Eldred called back over his shoulder, “and then we shall see what we can see.”
Vultures circled overhead as the party approached the crossroads, leaving each of them feeling a bit unnerved about what they might find. Eldred halted the group and sent two of the younger wizards ahead to investigate and report back.
“It’s Stephan,” Samuel said on their return. “At least, we’re pretty sure that’s who it was.”
“Take Bartholomew with you to see what he can divine from the remains before you bury him,” Eldred said. “We’ll wait here until you let us know there is no lingering danger.”
Despite Allen’s protest, Bartholomew would not allow him to accompany the burial detail. “I will not risk the most potent healer seen in this world in living memory for a man already dead,” he told Allen. “Were there any possibility of saving him, I would consider it, but the buzzards have already been at him. There is nothing there for you.”
The men of Wisdom with their haunted eyes and gaunt appearance sat around a series of small fires at the crossroads, waiting for the night to turn once again to day. They had not properly provisioned themselves for this journey, for they had done no planning. Once they had determined they were going to follow their families, they had simply walked away from Wisdom.
All of them still keenly felt the guilt and shame of what they had done and they largely kept to themselves. Their wounded minds would not allow them to talk about what had happened as they had to the wizards back in Wisdom immediately after the insanity. The one constant driving them was the need to get to their families and beg their forgiveness. The driving need to reach those they had hurt overrode all their other needs: food, sleep, companionship. All those were secondary to the need for forgiveness.
At last, Stephan broke the silence. “I can’t do this,” he said. “I won’t be able to look Rose in the eye and beg her forgiveness. I’m going back to Wisdom.”
As one, the others rose up from where they sat and turned toward Stephan.
“You cannot, Stephan,” said Dewey, the cobbler. “We must all go to them or none of us may go.” The others nodded at what they irrationally perceived as the wisdom of what was being said.
Stephan shook his head as if trying to clear water from his ears. “I no longer feel compelled to go to Rose,” he said. “I will return to Wisdom in the morning.”
Dewey moved closer to Stephan. “We won’t allow you to leave.”
Stephan stood up and backed away from Dewey who now advanced on him threateningly. As he did, the others stood and joined him, surrounding Stephan. Almost as if on a signal, the group rushed Stephan, the insanity once again driving all reason from them as they clawed and bit and kicked and hit the unresisting Stephan.
After it was done, they backed away from his remains, horrified by what they had done. Get away from him, they thought almost as if they were one. My family needs me. They need to forgive me for what I have done. Turning away from Stephan, the survivors started walking once more toward the east where their instincts told them their wives and families would be.
Bartholomew lowered his hands from where they had been hovering over Stephan’s mutilated remains and looked up at Samuel who stood patiently as the older wizard worked.
“He was torn apart by the others because he wanted to return to Wisdom,” he said. “Go tell Eldred there is no evil left here. They may come ahead.”
One day ahead of their men, the women and children of Wisdom walked resolutely eastward, confident that safety lay waiting for them when they arrived at Castle Gleneagle.
“Which among you has the strongest skills as a seeker?” Eldred asked.
Samuel raised his hand and, after a pause, Allen raised his. “I found the cave,” he said when the others looked at him with skepticism.
“He did, indeed,” allowed Eldred. “All right, then, let’s see if you are able to join your seeking powers to those of Samuel that we may find our pilgrims.”
Allen had participated in but one communal joining of powers at the time that they had sealed the cave in which Gregory’s glob of evil darkness lay imprisoned. It had not come easily to him for he was, by nature, a solitary sort, but once he opened himself to it, the power had flowed from him with no obstructions. He stepped forward unwaveringly.
“What must I do?” he said.
“Come and sit on the ground next to Samuel,” Eldred replied. “Face to the east, toward where they have gone, and concentrate on as many of the faces of any or all of them as you can remember.”
“Men and women both?” Allen asked.
“Both. And children, too.”
Seeing that both of the wizards were concentrating within themselves, Eldred motioned with his hands and released a barely visible breeze of power toward the east, carrying the thoughts of the two seekers with it. Samuel stiffened first, followed momentarily by Allen.
“Where are they?” Eldred asked.
“The women and children are two days ahead of us,” Samuel responded.
“...and the men are less than a day behind them and gaining,” Allen finished.
Eldred summoned them back from their seekings and pondered the situation. Their little group was bound for Blackstone no matter what happened, but he would turn the Wisdom residents back somehow if he could only reach them.
“We must turn them away from their quests for Castle Gleneagle and for their families,” he said to no one in particular. “Well, we did it outside of Blackstone. Why not here? There are, after all, far fewer of them and they are not demon possessed as those were back then.”
“I postulate the women are under a spell of compulsion while the men are under dual spells of compulsion and mayhem,” Brother Thomas offered. “It is logical that at this distance, these are not single, blunt force spells such as would be used, for instance, in a contest of magics between two wizards, or even the one we used before Blackstone. I am quite certain these are thread spells which attach themselves to each non-magical individual by gossamer strands of magic which might well be easily broken by a relatively weak counter spell.” Thomas was a Simple Wizard whose potential was great enough that it caused him to brush hard against being a Lesser Wizard, and he was among the leading scholars in the little community.
“Let us take one spell at a time, then, brothers. I suggest we tackle the hardest one first. Thomas, would you say the mayhem will be the more difficult for us to crack?”
“It would be.”
“Then mayhem it will be.”
Drawing the ten wizards together in a semi-circle, the open end of which pointed east toward the moving men of Wisdom, they linked their arms and began the low chanting that always preceded a communal spell of this sort. The sounds of the chant spoke of the values of love and nurturing and caring.
Angela stood behind them as they chanted; watching in fascination as the rhythm drew them into a collective state of shared consciousness and a brightly shining point of shimmering blue light grew and hovered at their center. As the volume and pace of the chant increased, an ether of magical energy shot forward as if focused by the parabola in which it was born.
Twenty-three miles east of them, the men of Wisdom started walking slower as the threads of Styxis’s spell of mayhem were snapped by the far less powerful Wisdom wizards’ spell of values. As the wizards felt the threads of the spell falling away from the men of Wisdom, they broke off the chant.
“Is the spell of compulsion similar in nature to that of the mayhem spell?” Eldred asked.
“Logic would indicate
that it is,” Thomas answered. “I surmise that both these spells were cast broadly so that the people of Wisdom were not the only ones affected. It would be beyond us to seek and nullify the effects of them on everyone most likely ensorcelled, but we should be able to aid our friends from Wisdom.”
“Then let us proceed to do what we might to free them,” Eldred said, and the group again linked their arms and began to chant. This was of a different pitch and rhythm than the first and spoke of home and hearth. As the scintillating blue light formed at the center, they held it stationary longer than they had the first time, letting the globe of magical energy grow larger so that it could be broadcast farther and to the larger number of victims of the spell of compulsion.
As the ether shot from the center of the wizards, they held the chant for less than a minute before the energy they had expended left them unable to continue and they all lay back on the grass as if exhausted after a long foot race.
On the road to the east, the families of the men of Wisdom all milled about briefly within their groups as the spell dropped from their minds. They looked at one another as if puzzled to find themselves farther from their homes than almost all of them had ever been. As realization came to them, the families turned and started back in the direction of Wisdom. The men, who had felt the second spell as strongly as the first which released them, realized that their families would be returning home and sat down beside the road to await the reunion they knew was headed toward them.
Eldred looked pleased as he stood and rubbed his hands together. “By the powers,” he declared, “I think perhaps we should have been war wizards. We’re very good at it.” His smile of happiness cooled as he looked at the expressions of the other wizards.
“Do you really think this is fun?” Sylvester grumped, a dour expression on his face.
“Come, come, Sylvester,” Eldred said, “we have done a fine piece of work here and helped our friends and neighbors avoid an oncoming catastrophe. We should pass them on the road no later than the day after tomorrow and we’ll all feel better once we’ve seen them restored to their lives.”
He was met with expressions of agreement, though some were not as enthusiastic as he about the job they had done.
In Blackstone, Styxis shifted on the High Altarn’s chair as she felt the threads of her spells snapping under the counter-spells of the Wisdom wizards. Her eyes narrowed at this affront to her supremacy.
These will be the first to feed my demons once the new order is in effect, she thought.
The more she dwelled on the insult to her spells, the angrier she got. The Wisdom wizards will pay for their interference, and they will pay now. She sat up in the chair and looked to the demon at her feet. “Send your best to destroy the wizards coming this way from the village of Wisdom.”
She looked around herself angrily, looking for something she could vent upon. “And bring the wizard Gregory to me,” she said. “I need some sport.”
27
Gleneagle and Roland looked up in surprise as Kemp and Scrubby walked up the rise to where they were meeting. Not far behind them walked Tingle and Thisbe, followed by Peg and Mattie carrying their daughters on their hips with Philip helping to herd the three young boys who were goggle-eyed with excitement at the prospect of being with the Prince.
“Have you learned magic to be able to conjure your families so quickly?” Gleneagle asked in amusement.
“There seems to be magic involved, Highness,” Kemp answered, “but we weren’t the magicians.” At the serious look in Kemp’s eyes, Gleneagle sobered. “We met them on the road. They, along with most of the residents of the castle and town surrounding it, were on their way here. It appears they were being driven by some compulsion, and fear followed behind them.”
“If this is widespread, as we suspect it might be,” Tingle added, “the numbers of your subjects camped behind you will soon be enormous.”
At that point, Caron stepped from her tent, spying Kemp as she did. Upon seeing her companions, she ran over to greet them. “I had already missed you,” she said looking at Scrubby and Kemp before giving each of the group a gentle hug of greeting.
Little Wil smiled up at Caron. “Hello, beautiful princess,” he said.
Caron stooped down and wrapped him in her arms, then straightened up with him riding on her hip.
“You’re back quickly,” she said. “I gather they were on their way here?”
Kemp nodded. “Along with the population of the castle and the town.” Caron looked puzzled. “They were being pushed toward Blackstone by some sort of compulsion, chased from behind by fear and mayhem.”
“The… The whole town?” Caron stammered. She set Little Wil back on his feet as Kemp nodded once again.
As she absorbed the enormity of Kemp’s news, her eyes lost their focus as an image formed in her mind of a horde of demons attacking the Wisdom wizards at the turning to Wrensfalls. She concentrated on what she was seeing and the faces of Eldred and Angela swam into her view. Eldred was bathed in sweat as he and the others lashed out with what destructive energy they were able to gather to them. Angela’s face was a study in terror as nightmarish creatures leapt at the circle of wizards who stood with their arms linked as they chanted a desperate spell of repulsion.
Kemp’s voice intruded into her consciousness. “Caron, what are you seeing?”
The vision faded and she turned to the others. “For whatever reason, the wizards from Wisdom are on their way to join us. They are being attacked by a horde of demons similar to the ones that attacked us at the crossroads, but they do not have the talisman to protect them. I fear they will be overwhelmed.”
“Why can’t Wil help them also?” Scrubby asked.
Caron turned to him. “Why not, indeed,” she said. With that, she returned to the tent and emerged once again with the talisman in her hand.
Wil, she sent.
I sense your fear. Show me.
Caron focused her mind on her memory of the vision and it sprang immediately to life.
Focus on the horde. Try to pick out individual demons, Wil sent. With the strength of Wil’s presence, Caron’s mind was filled instantly with images of the demons.
Hold me up and point me in the direction from which the vision comes, he sent. Without conscious thought, her arm brought the key up before her.
A blue-white nimbus grew around the key, getting larger and darker as Caron visualized more and more of the demons. At last, Wil released the energy which shimmered briefly before shooting off in the direction Caron looked. She shuddered as the bolt of magical energy departed, gasping slightly for breath with the release.
At the turning to Wrensfalls, the Wisdom wizards had locked arms and begun to chant in what they knew would be a hopeless defense against the horror that was encircling them. Angela stood in their midst, trembling in terror when Wil’s power struck.
The wizards stopped abruptly in mid-chant as the bolt scythed through the demons. There was no explosion, no noise, no fire. When the magical bolt arrived, the demons simply ceased to exist. It was as if the Wisdom wizards had suddenly awakened from a collective nightmare. They looked around themselves, clearly stunned by what had happened.
“Did you feel that?” Allen asked. “What do you suppose did that?”
“Wil did that,” Eldred said. “That was Wil’s power. I now know why the Forest did not allow him to come out. Because of the manifold increase of his powers that took place at the time of the collision of magics when he confronted Greyleige, he would be a danger to the entire world. In that instant he became our savior and our peril.”
Back on the rise overlooking Blackstone, Caron stood panting with the sensual relief she had experienced at the moment the magic had flashed from the talisman.
Wil, she sent, that is like... being with you... alone with you.
Your powers have grown quickly, Caron. Your ability to seek and see has become acute, he returned. But you must be wary of the pleasure of this sensat
ion, it is seductive and addictive. It has the potential to turn you into a copy of the one we seek to destroy.
She closed her eyes and bit her lip with the intensity of her sudden desire. I want to be alone with you again, Wil. I need to be alone with you.
You must concentrate on what we still have to accomplish. With that thought, he broke the mental bond between them and retreated into himself in the stone cottage in the Old Forest. He knew that any further contact could break his own will to allow a future which he worked to engineer, but which he also knew could take from him the one thing in the world he valued above all else.
He walked into the bedroom in which they had made love and lay down on the bed, feeling her presence as he did. Folding his good arm over his chest, he dropped quickly into the wizard’s sleep to regenerate the energy expended in dispatching the demons. It was a light sleep, however, for his power had, indeed, grown and it had taken but little to dispatch the horde surrounding Eldred and the others.
More than anything, I want to be alone with you, also, Caron, he thought to himself. But now is not the time.
In Blackstone, Gregory dropped to the floor as Styxis became aware of the growing center of magical energy not far from the fortress. Her stomach churned with pleasure at the raw power it represented and she shuddered with release as it surged from the talisman to flash across the miles. As her demons winked out of existence, her rage at their destruction brought her to the edge of madness.
Her hands pawed at her own body as her mind imagined what it would be like once she had brought him to her. That man; that power; they will do for me what has never been done before. I will have him. When the time comes, he will be mine and I will be his. The pain she was inflicting on herself comforted her and she sat back onto the High Altarn’s chair as she fantasized about the power she had felt, the power she wanted in her.