Sky Rider

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by Terry Mancour


  But the young knight was enthusiastic and competent in his duties, and Minalan liked him. Usually Riverlord knights were afraid or skeptical of magic, but Sir Festaran’s constant exposure had allowed him to accept it as a matter of course.

  “Uh, no, no, just doing Thayer’s Test. Six rune combinations of the second stave,” she explained, hurriedly, as she kicked the pile of dirty stockings under the table with the toe of her boot. “Nothing that’s going to blow up the castle. What can I help you with?” she blurted.

  “Sire Cei asked me to inform you that Master Min will be back this afternoon, and wishes to speak to you about your lessons . . . and, my lady, are you aware of what kind of toy your puppy is chewing on?” he asked, suddenly, as he stopped petting Cinder.

  “What?” she asked, confused.

  “I am a novice in all things arcane,” he confessed, “but I do believe this stick resembles weirwood,” he said, pulling the stick gently from Cinder’s jaws.

  To Dara’s horror, she realized that the thick, six-inch long twig was, indeed, the deep, fine red grain of weirwood. Weirwood was a magical wood highly prized for its ability to easily take enchantments. It was the preferred wood for most thaumaturgical wands, she knew, and was also extremely expensive. Once carefully polished and sanded, it was now peppered with toothmarks and dog slobber across its entirety. One end had been chewed to splinters.

  “Oh, Cinder!” she moaned. “Why did it have to be that stick? I borrowed that from Gareth to practice elementary enchantment!”

  “It is valuable, is it not?” the knight asked, concerned.

  “This piece costs as much as a small cart,” she agreed, staring at the ruined wood with magesight. While the elementary enchantments were still – mostly – intact, the wood was damaged beyond the ability to place further spells on it. Sighing, she realized she would have to repay the young wizard for the loss. “That was a very expensive chew-toy,” she said, handing it back to the dog, who took it greedily between her teeth.

  “She didn’t know,” Sir Festaran consoled her.

  “I should have told her,” Dara chided herself. “Honestly, if I’d just pointed out this particular stick was off-limits, she would have stayed away from it, I think. Cinder isn’t as spiteful as Frightful. But she might as well keep chewing on it. It’s useless for anything else, now.”

  There was an awkward silence, as the two of them stared at each other. Festaran had discharged his duty to inform her of Master Minalan’s request, but didn’t seem to want to leave. Dara had received his message, but didn’t really want him to go – despite the unkempt state of her room. The puppy’s improbable toy had provided a moment of distraction, but only a moment. She struggled to think of something else to speak to him about. Just about anything would do. Hopefully something witty . . .

  Unfortunately, Sir Festaran broke the silence first. “Lady Lenodara, it occurs to me that the Chepstan Spring Fair is nigh, and it is well-known that Sevendor sends a robust contingent to represent us,” he began, nervously. “Do you yet know if the Baron plans to attend . . . with his household?” he asked. It was a pointedly awkward way of Sir Festaran asking if Dara, herself, would be going. And there were only a few reasons why the handsome young knight would be interested in her plans.

  “I am, uh, unaware of my, um, master’s plans,” she mumbled, as she struggled to remember all of the formal speech she’d learned in Barrowbell. She’d spoken with barons and lords there easily enough – why were those words so frustratingly elusive when speaking with a simple Riverlord? And a friend? “He doesn’t necessarily include me in his strategies and schedules,” she said, apologetically. She devoutly wished she knew some magic to make her sink through the floor.

  “Such is the way of wizards,” Sir Fes sighed. “Well, when you have learned of them, should you find yourself in attendance, it would be my honor to accompany you, my lady,” Festaran said, sounding confident.

  “I—I—I will keep you appraised, Sir Festaran,” she finally blurted out. “Though there is no telling if Master Minalan will give me much time to myself, even if we do go this year,” she added, lamely.

  “I look forward to hearing from you,” the knight assured, with a bow. “Good evening, my lady,” he said, and with a final pet of Cinder’s shaggy head, he took his leave.

  Dara’s head was whirling. There was no denying the intent of Sir Festaran’s invitation. When a young knight asked a maiden to accompany her somewhere, it was a prelude to courtship. Should she accept, there was no way she could deny declaring an interest in the young man. Worse, not only would everyone in Sevendor know of it, at Chepstan everyone in the Bontal Vales would soon associate the two of them together.

  Dara huffed a deep sigh as she sprawled on her messy, unmade bed. Cinder quickly crawled up beside her and laid her shaggy head on her shoulder. She absently petted the puppy’s head while she considered the implications of Festaran’s invitation.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t like the young knight – quite the contrary. He was charming and funny, intelligent and engaging. He was the sole heir to a tidy domain of Hosly, to the east of Sevendor; his father was one of her master’s most loyal vassals. He adored his sister and mother. Sir Festaran had proven his loyalty to Sevendor over and over again, and any girl should be thrilled to get an invitation so graciously delivered.

  But it was Sir Festaran’s very attractiveness that made Dara reluctant to pursue the relationship as assiduously as, say, her sister Linta had pursued her new man, or her friends in Barrowbell’s society went about their own courtships.

  Dara was not her own woman, despite the new title of nobility she bore. She was still Master Minalan’s juniormost apprentice and had years of study and practice ahead of her before she would take her journeyman examinations. And considering all the schemes and plots the Spellmonger was involved with, there was no telling, one day from the next, whether she would find herself dancing with courtiers or fighting for her life in some godsforsaken ruin. Wizards lives were just like that, she’d learned.

  But she also knew, deep down, that part of her was avoiding Festaran’s attention because it was just too . . . too easy. He was a handsome young knight with his Baron’s favor. She was a young apprentice to the foremost wizard in the world, recently ennobled for her efforts on the battlefield, assured of a bright future as a magelord. There were many who thought match between them was natural.

  That was not Dara’s opinion, however. As much as she liked Festaran, she was not ready for courtship or its inevitable conclusion. She might be the Hawkmaiden, to the people of Sevendor, but she was also a fourteen-year-old girl who still stumbled up the stairs because she was unused to how quickly her feet were growing. There was still too much magic for her to learn for her to consider tying herself down to a husband at her age. There were aspects of her Talent as a beastmaster that she’d yet to explore. She didn’t want to be someone’s wife before she was her own woman.

  Of course, being her own woman came with its own problems. Like being involved with a secret project for the Spellmonger she couldn’t even share with Festaran.

  She sighed again, grateful for Cinder’s comfort in her turmoil. She was a lovely pup, a little goofy and always playful, but intelligent, as all the Westwood hounds were. Thanks to the nascent magical connection the two were developing, Cinder always knew when Dara was feeling down, and needed a wiggly puppy to cheer her up. That brought her a lot of comfort at Sevendor Castle, where there were few girls her own age and even fewer with a brain in their head.

  Of course, when she was feeling her lowest, she could always visit Westwood Hall and see her family, she reasoned. But even that simple pleasure had become tainted, a little, since she’d been ennobled and moved to the Castle to be closer to her master. Most of the Westwood treated her differently, now. Certainly her brothers had teased her about her new title, and her sister had been openly jealous of her plain little sibling, suddenly bedecked with gold and titles . . . not the
reward Dara should have gotten for playing around with her filthy bird, according to Lista. Her father, Kamen, Master of the Wood, was proud as he could be, as was her favorite uncle, Keram the Crafty.

  But there was also a disturbing shift in everyone else in Westwood Hall. It was subtle, but it was there. It had taken a few visits for her to pin down, but Dara had soon realized that her extended Westwood family no longer saw her as a pest, a troublemaker, or even a freak. They saw her as someone important. Someone to be aware of. Wherever she went in her family’s estate, she was now treated with a deference that set her apart from the rest of the Westwoodmen, before the Flame. Only her eldest brother Kyre seemed entirely immune from it, though he brought her title up more frequently than most, she realized.

  That was disturbing, to Dara. When she’d come to the castle she had the comfort of knowing that Westwood Hall was only a half-mile away, and that she could retreat there any time. Now, because of her adventures, she didn’t quite fit there anymore. Oh, she was always welcomed to the heat of the Flame, as all Westwoodmen were, but she was now set apart from her family in a subtle and insidious way . . . and she had no idea how to overcome that.

  Instead, she’d been stretching out the time between visits, since she’d returned from Barrowbell. While that had certainly aided her academic studies, it had also increased the distance she felt from the people she’d grown up with. That was hard for her to contend with.

  She resolved, instead, to work even harder on her magic lessons. The giant falcon project had reinvigorated her interest in the subject, generally, even if the lessons she was grinding through were boring. Tomorrow, she knew, she was supposed to meet with Master Olmeg, the barony’s Greenwarden, for her lessons.

  It amused her that her master, Magelord Minalan the Spellmonger, accounted one of the greatest wizards in the world, would himself employ wizards, but in truth Master Minalan was busy with an awful lot, these days. Master Olmeg was a Green Mage, a specialist in Herbomancy, the magic of plants, and he was highly competent in his trade. She always found extra value in his lectures, just as she did from Lady Pentandra’s erudite explanations of the inner workings of the arcane world.

  She was lazily petting Cinder and nearly drifting off to sleep, still in her clothes, when there was another knock at her door. Once again, she fully expected Lady Estret or Sister Bemia to burst in and start complaining about her room before bedtime. Once again, she was proven incorrect.

  “Dara?” came the tenor voice of Gareth, Sevendor’s assistant spellwarden. He was one of several wizards Master Minalan employed, in addition to Master Olmeg, for various functions around the domain. He was also just a few years older than Dara, incredibly smart, and an already an accepted journeyman, Academy trained. And he was incredibly nice. “I’ve been looking around for a stick of weirwood I was working on, and realized I loaned it to you. Do you have it?” he asked, hopefully.

  “Weirwood?” Dara asked, guiltily glancing at her naughty puppy. “What are you doing with weirwood?”

  “Magic stuff,” Gareth dismissed, as he came into her chamber and leaned against the door frame. His eyes flickered around the room, but he didn’t mention it. Not because he was as gracious as Festaran, but because he was used to the idiosyncrasies of wizards. “Enchantment, actually. Thaumaturgical enchantment, if you want to be specific. Applied photomancy, if you want to be precise.”

  “You want to build a wand that makes magelights?” she asked, surprised.

  “Among other things,” Gareth agreed. “Master Banamor has tasked me with installing permanent magelights on the High Street, to activate at dusk. Believe it or not, it’s a trickier enchantment than you might think. And far easier to do if you have most of the basic work done for you by a wand.”

  “How do you manage a permanent enchantment?” she asked, suddenly interested enough to sit up and disturb Cinder. Besides, it kept her from having to address the inevitable discussion about the weirwood wand he’d lent her. And she liked the way Gareth taught magic.

  “You embed the glyph in a piece of thaumaturgical glass,” Gareth explained. “Ordinary glass can work, for a few years, but it’s not really permanent. You have to use special glass for that.”

  “Why glass?” she asked, confused.

  “Because it’s a super-cooled liquid, even if it looks solid. That allows the arcane glyph you attach to an enchantment to remain pliable by sealing it to the molecular structure of the glass. And glass is a natural arcane insulator. It keeps the spell from losing power and degrading over time,” he explained. Once again, she was impressed with Gareth’s knowledge about their craft.

  “How do you do that?” she asked, fascinated.

  “By heating the glass just enough to convince it that it’s more liquid than normal and cast a darenth rune to hook it to the glass. Then cast the spell, use the bidarenth rune to bind it, power it sufficiently, then allow the glass to return to normal temperature. That part is easy enough, especially with a witchstone. But casting the magelight spell, the activation spell, and the deactivation spell, not to mention the photomantic determination spell while you’re keeping a dollop of glass at molten temperatures is hard.

  “So . . . I want to build a wand for that part, because I’m lazy,” he admitted. “Then I remembered that little piece of weirwood I loaned you, which would be perfect. It’s already shaped and primed for a simple spell like that. Is it in Master Min’s workshop?” he asked, glancing around at her room. For some reason she was less concerned that her fellow wizard saw her disheveled quarters than Sir Festaran. She was just more comfortable around Gareth. “That’s where I gave it to you, if I recall. Has he had you enchanting?”

  “No, he’s been gone for a few days. And last time I was just painting tiny little names on tiny little marbles yesterday,” she recalled. “Nothing even remotely magical about the practice, in fact. That’s probably what he’ll have me do tomorrow, too. Just one of one of Master Min’s mad little projects,” she complained.

  Gareth smiled. “You’re actually quite lucky, Dara. He’s only one master. At the Academy, I had nine I had to serve. And they changed up, most years. They also didn’t allow dogs,” he said, reaching out to rub Cinder’s belly affectionately, before Dara could intervene. Then he stopped, mid-rub. “Dogs who enjoy chewing on expensive weirwood wands, I see,” he added, picking up the stick Cinder had been gnawing on.

  “Oh, Gareth, I’m so sorry!” Dara exclaimed, as if it was the first time she’d discovered it. She didn’t know why she pretended she didn’t know, but she did. “How much time did you spend preparing it?”

  “Only six or seven . . . hours,” he dismissed, good-naturedly. “At least I know where it went, now. I can stop looking for it and start fresh with a new piece from Banamor’s stock.”

  Master Banamor was one of the leading wizards in Sevendor Town. Once he’d been a wandering footwizard, before he’d come to Sevendor last year and helped Minalan develop the village into the town it was quickly becoming. He wasn’t particularly powerful, himself, but Banamor was adept at buying and selling the sort of things that wizards needed, and had a large shop in the center of Sevendor’s new High Street. He’d been appointed as Master Minalan’s spellwarden, the official in charge of magic in Sevendor. Gareth was his deputy.

  “Won’t Master Banamor be angry?” she asked, concerned.

  “No, he’s blissfully unaware of what his underlings do in his name . . . and with his stock. He gave me the task,” the young wizard reasoned. “He can supply the stock from his personal collection. And I can write this off as a regrettable enchanting failure, which happen all the time – to other wizards – and he won’t even look at it in the accounts,” he assured her with a shrug. “No need to worry.”

  “That’s a generous master,” she said, knowing the stick cost a lot of silver. “But I can pay for it! I—”

  “Don’t bother about it, Dara,” Gareth insisted, handing the ruined weirwood wand back to the puppy, who
took it eagerly. “Banamor won’t mind, and I certainly don’t. You can make it up to me by going shopping at the Chepstan Fair with me,” he proposed. “I’m looking for a few particular items . . . I could use the benefit of your opinion.”

  “I . . . I’ll have to check with Master Min,” she said, lamely. “I don’t know if we’re even going, this year. You know how he is.”

  “I do,” Gareth agreed. “Always into three different things at once. Just let me know if you do go, and I’ll consider us even for the weirwood.”

  Once the wizard left, Dara realized she now had two dates for the Chepstan Fair. And she hadn’t even wanted one.

  Chapter Three

  The Mysterious Invitation

  The next morning, Dara stumbled down the stairs to the Great Hall for breakfast, after splashing her face with water and releasing Cinder to terrorize the castle. Her dreams had been filled with all sorts of dire images, featuring all the people and animals in her life demanding all sorts of unlikely things from her. She found she was more tired when she woke than she’d been when she’d retired. That put her “in a mood,” as her uncle Kamal would call it.

  The fire on the hearth behind the dais was crackling merrily, which irritated her for some reason. She immediately felt guilty. That was a near-blasphemous perspective on the Flame the Westwoodmen held sacred. But Dara was feeling sulky, and if the Flame could not bear the slight, she decided, it could burn her later.

  As a member of the Spellmonger’s official household, as well as her new title of nobility, Dara was granted permission to dine at the great stone table at the head of the Great Hall of Sevendor Castle. There were a few others in the hall at this hour, though most in the early shift had already eaten their porridge and gone to their daily tasks. One of the other advantages of being a wizard, Dara contemplated as the fire warmed her back, was being freed from the expectation of rising before dawn.

  “You must be Lady Lenodara,” said a man at the far end of the long stone slab. Dara didn’t recognize him, exactly, though she’d seen his face around the castle once or twice in the last few days. He was a knight of about twenty-five, with the long hair and clean-shaven face preferred by most Riverlords. He was dressed in armor, covered by a surcoat that displayed a blue boar. A long cavalryman’s sword was resting against the table in its scabbard, as if it might be needed at any moment. “The Spellmonger’s apprentice,” he added, when he’d caught her eye.

 

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