The bound wizard, now addressed himself to Eril, “Sir,” he said with reluctant respect in his voice. “If you are indeed a Zdrell wizard, and this is not some sort of elaborate farce, I most humbly beg your mercy and would ask to be your slave, if only you will spare my life. I would be honored to be the servant of a new Zdrell master.”
This was not remotely the reaction Eril had anticipated. In truth, he had not been sure what to expect, defiance, threats, anger? Those he would have understood, but the respect and awe in this man’s voice unnerved him. Finally, Eril found his voice.
“So, you aren’t mad that I destroyed your army and killed your partner?”
The wizard smiled sadly, “Oh, yes, I’m not happy with the way this day turned out. But if I am to be beaten by someone, to be beaten by a Zdrell master, well, that is something of a consolation.” He snorted and continued, “and it isn’t as bad as it could have been. I’m not dead yet, unlike my partner and employer. So, it could have been much worse, all things considered.”
“What is your name?” Eril asked.
“I am called Zeldar, these days.”
“Well, Zeldar,” Dorull said, sitting up. “If you were serious about being willing to serve Eril here, then we’ll untie you and see if you can make good on your word. Are you willing to submit to a binding oath? We don’t need slaves here.”
Zeldar swallowed, suddenly nervous. “You know how to administer a true binding oath?”
Dorull grinned with a complete lack of humor. “Oh yes, when you get to be my age, that sort of magic becomes rather necessary.”
“What would I have to swear?”
“Only that you will deal with Eril and I without deception and that you will not betray us nor our allies.”
Zeldar held his head up, proud. “I can do that. I wasn’t joking when I said I’d be happy to serve a new zdrell master. I have to believe that a true zdrell master will be able to teach me things I don’t know.”
Eril was about to protest, but a look from Dorull silenced him.
Dorull stared at him. “We’ll need your true name.”
Zeldar looked pained, then bowed his head and nodded. “It’s Treylan,” he whispered.
“Alright, repeat after me. I, Treylan swear . . . .”
Ten minutes later it was finished.
Chapter 20
Castle Kord
“So, who sent you to attack my home?” Dorull said, gesturing with his spoon.
After releasing Zeldar they had gone to Dorull’s personal dining room where bread, cheese, and bowls of steaming stew were served.
Zeldar hesitated a moment, then spoke. “Officially, Turik, my former partner, and I were hired by General Castor, the leader of the army you destroyed,” he nodded to Eril. “But I discovered before we left that the General was being bankrolled by a pair of demon wizards who are the royal advisors to crown prince Kato of Chaz. Officially, the whole expedition was a private venture to secure the pass for Chaz. They have never been happy that Giltrup soldiers are quartered in this fortress and that the pass is now considered Giltrup territory.”
Dorull leaned back and snorted. “Nothing new there. This pass has been controlled by Giltrup, Chaz, and Ardalan over the years. Each thinks it should be theirs by right. And, let me guess, prince Kato thinks Ardalan is weak and ripe for the taking?”
“I wouldn’t presume,” Zeldar began, but Dorull cut him off.
“No, of course not, but since you are working with us, you’ll agree you have heard this?”
“Well, yes,” Zeldar continued, squirming in his seat slightly, but then straightening up. “Yes, that is what I’ve heard whispered, but only whispered. The prince rules in all but name in Chaz now and has made no secret of his contempt for Ardalan, but he punishes anyone who says he would do anything overt.
“Frankly, I was getting tired of the direction things were headed and hoped that the expedition would pay off enough for me to be able to head to Ordowey or maybe even Duloria in Caravain. I don’t much like the cold, but I hear it is beautiful.”
Dorull nodded. “I presume the countries of the south . . .”
Zeldar grimaced. “The nature of my work. I’m not welcome, at least presently, anywhere except Hath. They love me there, but I can’t abide the humidity and the bugs.”
“So, the demons masters control Chaz as well as Ardalan. That is depressing news.” Dorull stood and began pacing around the room. “At this rate, Grimor won’t have to invade at all,” he said anger creasing his ancient face. He waved an arm emphatically, “I never thought Chaz would join with them, but if the old King is not stopping it and the prince is fool enough to think he can benefit from this folly . . .”
He sat down and glared at Zeldar. “So, should we expect another attack?”
“No, uh, I wouldn’t think so.”
“Why not?” Eril asked.
“Because this wasn’t an official expedition of Chaz. If it were, then it would be considered an act of war by Giltrup,” Dorull replied. “Isn’t that so?”
Zeldar nodded. “They were very clear that neither the king nor the prince had anything to do with this, but most everyone suspected otherwise.”
“Stupid, transparent, move,” Dorull growled. “But Giltrup would put up with it if they succeeded as long as it looked like they only wanted to go after Ardalan,” Dorull said, disgust clear on his features. “Politics, bah. And people wonder why I like living in a castle on a forsaken mountain pass.”
Chapter 21
Salaways, Castle Salaways
“Lady Silurian,” the fourteen-year-old apprentice said, peering into the row of the greenhouse where she was working with her spotted wortling seedlings. Alira looked up with mild irritation. “What is it?”
“There are two ladies asking for you at the front gate.” The boy looked down, unwilling to make eye contact. “I think they might be weidges,” he whispered.
“What did you say?” she demanded, her thoughts in an uproar. This couldn’t be. She was sundered, no weidge would come here.
Only a little louder the boy said, “I think they might be weidges, lady.” Without looking up and visibly trembling he continued, “They said they were here to speak to Lady Silurian if she would receive them. They didn’t say who they were, but they both have the look. My gran was a weidge and one of them looks old enough to be my gran’s mother.”
The boy obviously understood how unheard of it was for weidges to be here and was justly frightened by whatever would bring them, even if he didn’t know that she was a defrocked weidge herself. She was having a very hard time believing this was happening, but the attitude of the boy kept her from believing it a prank.
“Where are they now? You didn’t leave them standing outside the gate, did you?”
“No, Lady, no, I believe they are in master Feldor’s study. They were headed that way when I was sent to fetch you,” the boy said nervously twisting the loose sleeves of his robe.
“Alright, don’t be concerned, Fard, it is Fard isn’t it?”
“Yes, Lady, thank you for remembering.”
“I try to know all your names, you know that. There just have been so many coming and going in the last few months it has been hard to keep up.
“Fard, I need you to go to Feldor’s study, or wherever they are, and show them to my personal sitting room, where I will join them shortly after I get presentable. Also, make sure that some refreshments are sent there from the kitchen. Tell Feldor, he’ll take care of it, if he hasn’t already. Even if these ladies aren’t weidges, they should be treated with hospitality. I do get so few female visitors.”
She waved a dirty hand and the boy bolted. She put away her tools and wiped the worst of the dirt off her hands and went to the wash bucket to finish cleaning herself and the tools. It would do no good to be in a hurry. If these truly were weidges, she needed time to come to grips with the idea. She hadn’t spoken to another weidge directly in nearly eighty years, ever since she mad
e the choice that bound her to Silurian and Salaways and cut her off from the Motherhood.
Unannounced and uninvited, these women could hardly be upset if they were made to wait. If they were weidges, even more so.
After Alira had visited her personal lavatory and changed her dress to something more appropriate for receiving visitors, she calmly opened the door to her sitting-room; a room normally only visited by herself, Silurian, and Feldor. She knew at a glance that both women were indeed weidges.
The two women both had the aura only one who has dedicated themselves to the motherhood possessed. Beyond that, they could not have been more different. One was small, shriveled with age and dressed in a simple all covering dress in earth-tones. Her white wispy hair was pulled back into a tight bun.
The woman beside her was quite young. Probably less than thirty, but certainly a married mother of at least one child , as no one else could be a full weidge. This woman’s aura attested she was a full weidge indeed. Strangely, neither the young nor old weidge wore rings of marriage (or any other rings for that matter). This woman though, was dressed all in black, as one in mourning, which offered one explanation.
Alira took this all in, in the time it took her to close the door behind her and fully face the two women who rose to meet her. She did not think she knew either of them until the older one spoke.
“Oh, Alira,” she said smiling with her whole wrinkled face. “It is so good to see you again.”
“Madge?” Alira said, unbelieving. “Is that really you? I would have thought there would be no one left from my time before . . .”
“Yes, Alira, it really is me, and yes I am very much the last one left who knew you before your . . . sundering.” She stepped forward and embraced Alira, who returned it awkwardly.
She stepped back and looked up at Alira, tears in her eyes. “I can’t say how happy it makes me to be able to speak to you again, and even more so when I am able to tell you of my purpose in being here.”
“Madge,” Alira said, her voice choking with emotion, tears trickling down her cheeks. “You were the youngest mother when I left, no more than twenty-two.”
“Yes, exactly,” the old weidge answered, “and I shall be one hundred and three next month. But you, Alira, were not young, at least fifty-five by my remembering, and here you stand looking not a day over fifty, unlike me.”
“The benefits of being married to the greatest wizard in the land. Silurian uses the same magic on me that he uses on himself. I am something like one hundred fifty or sixty. It is not worth the bother to keep track anymore. He says I have at least another century in me, assuming any of us are allowed to live that long.
“Come, sit and tell me who your companion is and how you come to be here talking to me, one who the mothers have made an outcast.” She gestured them back to their chairs and sat in her customary chair facing them. The opposite door opened, Feldor and two apprentices came in and served them Kel tea and small cakes the cook must have had prepared for the evening meal.
After they had been served and Feldor and the apprentices departed, they spent a few moments sipping their tea.
Madge made eye contact and gestured to her companion. “Alira, this is Kirina, she is recently widowed, as you may have guessed, and the reason we are here is that the council of forest mothers has declared your sundering null and void. You have been reinstated to the motherhood.”
Though Madge continued speaking, Alira could not process the words. Reinstated. How could that be? When a mother was severed from the motherhood, it was forever, it could not be undone. And yet, here these two sat, calmly stating that the impossible had occurred.
“Madge, you can’t mean this. It can’t be true.”
“I see you didn’t hear me, Alira, it not only is true, you are again part of the motherhood, but they apologize. I am here to deliver that apology and to tell you that they now know that you were right, and they were wrong.”
“How is this possible? They said that my position went against everything the motherhood held dearest.”
“Yes,” Madge continued, leaning forward, tears flowing steadily down her cheeks, but her voice clear. “You said that weidges could no longer hold themselves apart from male wizards if we were not to be overwhelmed by the demons and their wizards. You said that if we didn’t unify with the non-demon wizards that the weidges along with any other free person, woman or man, would be destroyed by the demons. And then you lent your talents to Silurian and married him.”
“And for that, I was severed from the motherhood,” Alira said bitterly.
“Yes, you went against all the forest mothers. Told them they were blind fools to not see what was coming and that their blindness would make slaves of us all—or something along those lines. I wasn’t in that meeting, of course. I was too young to be involved in the politics of that time, but everyone heard about it, and I’ve read the transcript,” she smiled through the tears.
“So,” Alira began, wonder in her voice. “You are saying that the forest mothers have reversed themselves? They are actually admitting I’m right?”
“Exactly. And let me tell you they did not want to admit their error or apologize, even though none of those alive are the ones who had you sundered.”
“Then why is this happening? How is it possible?”
“They need your help. We need your help.”
Alira sat dumbfounded, it should not have surprised her, in fact, she had even predicted this day would come. Even so, that it had indeed happened was nearly too much to believe.
Madge sat for a moment, saying nothing, then went on. “Everything you predicted has happened and worse. The areas of Skryla where demon wizards have eliminated competition have begun to persecute and threaten the mothers. If that were all, I’m pretty sure some would still not have been convinced, but it is Grimor that made them understand.
“You surely remember that it was Grimor that they threw in your face when you told them what was coming.”
“Yes,” Alira replied bitterly. “Grimor, they said ‘If Grimor is controlled exclusively by demon wizards and they hate us, then why is the motherhood still unmolested in Grimor?’”
“Well, you were right again. You said that we had no verifiable evidence that the motherhood wasn’t persecuted.”
“And they laughed me off,” Alira said, feeling all the old frustration and anger with the old mothers who would not see the evidence right in front of them.
“They’re not laughing now. The last decades have seen the communication from the mothers of Grimor go from the trickle that we were getting in your time to complete silence. Then several months ago a boat arrived from Grimor. It was the only one of a group of three that survived the crossing. It had the last forest mothers of Grimor.
“There are no more weidges left in Grimor.”
“How can that be?” Alira pleaded.
“You were right, back when you said that the weidges of Grimor could be being persecuted and we would not know of it. The demons and their wizards started silencing any who opposed them in the provinces farthest from us. Slowly, the refugee mothers tell us, they drove all who would not swear allegiance to the wizards and their governors across the continent. Those who cooperated were forced to watch as their children each year were sacrificed to the demons. They didn’t just go after the boys, but the girls too. They only persevered because, in the beginning, any who resisted had their entire family sacrificed.
“The demons are insatiable. To appease them, the wizards have tortured and killed so many that the southeast corner of Grimor is becoming depopulated. It is only a matter of time until the rest of the continent suffers the same fate.
“Parents are forced to have as many children as possible, only to have them tortured and killed by the demons before they are even grown. The weidges tried to fight, but you know our methods of keeping men in check have always been by subtle means. The Sisters of the Dark are the only mothers that were able to do anything, but w
hen they managed to kill a demon wizard, the other wizards would set free multiple demons to kill everyone in the area. The Sisters of the Dark became extinct in Grimor right about the same time you were sundered from the motherhood, and we never knew.”
Alira sat stunned. She was vindicated, but in the most unpleasant way. All of her greatest fears were realized.
“So, they need my help, because they finally see that we are only a few years away from a renewal of the Great War and that if something isn’t done, we will follow the same fate as Grimor?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“And if they had only listened eighty years ago, we could have nearly eliminated demon wizards from this continent by now . . .”
“Yes. Sadly.”
“Well, I suppose it is better late than never. I just hope that it is not too late.”
Alira stood and began to pace. “So how do they want me to help?”
“We need you to work with Silurian to bridge the gap between the few powerful non-demon wizards left and the weidges. We also need you to help provide intelligence so the Sisters of the Dark can do their work here, before the demon wizards have become so powerful as to be unstoppable. That is why Kirina is here. She is a new member of the Sisters and she will work with you directly to share whatever intelligence you can supply to the Sisters.”
“One so young, a member of the Sisters?” Alira said turning and bending to grasp Kirina’s hands. “I’m so sorry for your loss. To lose both husband and child, or is it children, so young. You have my greatest sympathy. I too lost a husband when not much older than you, but I was much older when my son died fighting to establish Salaways.”
“Demons killed both my husband and two children,” Kirina said, with almost no emotion in her voice. “They said that it was an accident, that the wizard had badly worded his binding and the demon got out of control. But my husband was known for opposing the use of demons in our town. It was no accident. The only mistake was leaving me alive.” Though her voice was flat, fire burned in her eyes.
The Journeyman for Zdrell Page 10