The Wizard of the North

by Richard Stephens

  The guardsmen stared at the Enervator leaning against the wall. Before they could do more than gape, a second group of people came down the tunnel from the opposite direction. At the head of the second group strode an older man clad in flowing red robes cinched about his slim waist with a woollen belt.

  “What goes on here?” The white-bearded leader demanded, his intense blue eyes surveying the scene. “Alhena Sirrus?”

  “High Bishop Uzziah,” Alhena said, lowering his eyes in supplication. “I have returned to Gritian with news of great import.”

  “Why isn’t this man in restraints?” the high bishop demanded.

  Olmar made a half-hearted move toward the wrinkled primate of Zephyr, but Sadyra and Larina held him back.

  “Think, lunkhead,” Sadyra growled up at him. “That’s High Bishop Uzziah. You want us all to burn in hell?”

  Jibrael twisted his head and swallowed, his voice raspy. “Your Eminence, it is by my decree Alhena has been brought into the Chamber thus. He claims to carry news regarding Silurian Mintaka.”

  “Indeed.” The high bishop nodded. He turned to a pikeman. “Escort him to the Chamber. I’ll be along shortly.”

  “Aye, High Warlord Uzziah.” One of the armed men snapped a salute and barked orders for the chambermaster’s instructions to be carried out.

  Jibrael brushed himself off. He took a moment to glare up at Olmar—his look promising the big sailor he hadn’t heard the last of this.

  “And what of the others, High Warlord Uzziah?” Jibrael asked.

  Abraham gave Jibrael a stern look. “Bring them along. They’ll face the same fate, pending the outcome.”

  Jibrael offered the newcomers a knowing smirk and scrambled after the warlord’s receding red robes.

  City of Despair

  Yarstaff was filled with wonder as he followed in Pollard and Rook’s wake. The muscular Voil craned his neck this way and that, taking in the foreign sights. Though the majority of the landscape was covered in black ash and littered with destruction, after living within the prison-like confines of his former cliffside home along the Marrow Wash, everything about Zephyr held a magical charm in his eyes.

  He never dreamt of seeing a settlement the size of Madrigail Bay. Witnessing the grandeur of the Spine as a backdrop to the port city had been a jaw-dropping experience. Travelling the vast expanse of Zephyr’s interior farmlands, burnt beyond redemption as they were, did little to dampen his exhilaration. The kingdom was an expansive land containing unlimited wonders along its forever changing contours. Mountains five times higher than any he knew in the Under Realm, and great rivers running clear and unspoiled throughout the plains they journeyed across were but two of the wondrous sights he witnessed, and he’d only been in Zephyr for less than two weeks. Perhaps the most incredible spectacle of all, was the sky. A ball of yellow brilliance tracked across the heavens during the day, basking their skin with warmth, only to be replaced by a white, crescent-shaped thing Pollard had called a moon. The countless pinpricks of lights illuminating the night sky left him mesmerized.

  Yarstaff smiled, remembering the astonished looks on Pollard and Rook’s face when he screeched at the sight of something they referred to as a shooting star. He thought someone was stealing one of the miracles painted upon the sky.

  Two days ago, they had entered a blackened tundra Rook referred to as the Plains of Lugubrius. Apparently, the King of Zephyr’s castle lay at the end of the road they trod.

  Pollard set a fast pace, and Yarstaff found himself scurrying to keep up. Looking at Pollard, he couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to mess with him. Even if the person knew magic, it would take a mighty wallop to slow Pollard’s advance. He felt empathy for him. For such a big brute, Pollard had shown he was a man of great passion. The devastation affected him deeply.

  Yarstaff scrambled to Pollard’s side, careful not to get trampled underfoot. “So, Mr. Pollard, how much longer until we reach this Castle Sw…sf…sv…?”

  Pollard looked down at him, his eyebrows knitted in consternation. “Svelte?”

  “Yes, Swelt.” Yarstaff frowned as the strange word crossed his tongue.

  Pollard didn’t correct him.

  Rook glanced over from Pollard’s far side. “Unless I’m mistaken, we should be able to see the castle’s soaring spires anytime now.”

  Yarstaff almost squeaked with excitement, recalling Rook’s description of the kingdom’s largest city. Carillon, sprawled about Castle Svelte, was a sight like no other.

  Rook smiled at Pollard’s glum face. “I imagine you’ll see it long before us. You have a much better vantage point up there.”

  Pollard grunted, casting a scowl at the green-clad bowman. “I believe the castle will come into view once we top yonder hill.”

  West Castle Road rose slowly toward a pronounced crest upon the vast plains. Yarstaff found himself jogging to keep up with Pollard’s increased pace.

  Sure enough, breasting the gradual hilltop, a distant spire separated itself from the relatively flat landscape.

  “And there it is,” Pollard said, a hint of excitement lightening his sour expression.

  Yarstaff jumped up and down, straining his neck, but saw nothing. “Where? I can’t see. Where is Castle Swelt?”

  Pollard grabbed him beneath the armpits and hoisted him high into the air, putting his head ten feet above the ground.

  Squinting, Yarstaff thought he noticed a slender darkness on the horizon. “Ooh, I see it. I see it. Wow.” He cocked his head sideways; the enthusiasm left his voice. “Is that all?”

  Pollard lowered him to the ground. “What do you mean, is that all?”

  Yarstaff shrugged, trying to think of a way to say what he thought without offending him. “I don’t know. I thought it would be bigger, yes?”

  “Hah!” Pollard exclaimed. “What you see is but the castle’s tallest tower. Castle Svelte is still a long way off. That tower is known as the Wizard’s Spike. It stands three times taller than the next highest spire.”

  Rook nodded. “Aye, Pollard speaks true. The Wizard’s Spike is something to behold. Gives me the shivers just thinking about it. And that’s just the tower. Wait until you see the castle proper. I have seen many great keeps, but Castle Svelte is grander than them all. Probably greater than Kraken Castle, eh Pollard?”

  Pollard’s faced turned sour. “Never seen it. If I had, it wouldn’t be standing no more.”

  Yarstaff had no idea what they were talking about, but their description of the castle piqued his excitement into a barely restrained frenzy. After more than four hundred years cooped up in the cliffs along the Marrow Wash, getting a chance to visit a place as grand as a king’s castle was almost too much to take. Without waiting for his travelling companions, he started off toward the spire.

  Every farmhouse and outbuilding had been razed to the ground—every field hidden beneath a layer of black ash. Over the last week, they hadn’t encountered a living soul. As morbid as it seemed, they gained a small glimmer of hope passing by a string of recently dug gravesites alongside West Castle Road. Not because of the tragic deaths, but because the graves meant that someone else had dug them. People had escaped the atrocity of Helleden’s firestorm. The total absence of anyone, especially this close to the castle, was disturbing, but Rook was sure that would be explained soon enough. Perhaps the king’s resident wizard had proven strong enough to protect Castle Svelte and the capital of Carillon.

  Rook ran to keep pace with the odd pair ahead of him, the large crossbow strapped over his right shoulder bouncing around uncomfortably. He berated himself for lugging it around but it had belonged to Avarick Thwart, so he guessed it was his way of paying tribute to the irascible Enervator.

  As they made their way up the desolate roadway, their view of the distant city became clear. Any hope Rook had about the castle’s safety was dashed as reality set in. Several other tall towers should be visible above the bulk of the main keep by now. Their absence did not bode well.
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  Pollard startled him when he unsheathed his double sword and broke into a run, his long strides chewing up distance faster than his companions could match.

  Rook and Yarstaff finally caught up to him at the broken gates fronting the western approach into Carillon. The royal city lay wasted, tumbled about the perimeter of Castle Svelte.

  Pollard stood gaping, his sword hanging forgotten in his right hand, its double tips jabbed into the ground at his feet.

  Rook followed his gaze, feeling sick to his stomach. As much as he feared that the great city hadn’t been spared, he wasn’t prepared for the sight of Castle Svelte in the distance. Though most of her thick walls stood defiantly over the wreckage of Carillon, four of the castle’s five towers had fallen—the southern two lay broken upon the southern battlement, while the northern towers were nothing but stubs of shattered rock barely visible above the scorched ramparts.

  Between the devastated remains of Castle Svelte’s bulwarks and where they stood beside the twisted iron gates warding the city, lay the burnt-out husks of what had been some of the finest buildings in Zephyr. Stone, wood, marble, it hadn’t made a difference. Everything had been reduced to rubble.

  Pollard’s breathing came in ragged gasps. “This is worse than Madrigail Bay or The Forke.”

  Rook placed a hand on his back. He knew Pollard had held out hope that Carillon had been spared. If not the city, at least Castle Svelte.

  “Let’s hope King Malcolm found a place to weather the storm,” Rook whispered. He gave Pollard’s shoulder a squeeze. “Come on.”

  Rook walked beneath the battered gates, his eyes scanning their blasted heights—they looked to be on the verge of collapse. As soon as he passed within the city walls, he heard voices toward the castle walls. Finally. Someone was alive.

  The main avenue led straight to Castle Svelte’s front gate—the only entrance into the royal palace. It used to be a wide thoroughfare, lined with large trees, colourful gardens and thick bushes—its edges resplendent with marble statues and stone fountains. The firestorm had changed all that. The Grand Esplanade lay buried beneath chunks of blasted building—their remains blackened by fire.

  It took them a while to reach the wide moat surrounding the castle. The viaduct leading across the mud coloured water to the barbican that breeched the castle’s thick outer wall had been reduced to fragmented pillars and crumbled arches.

  A large group of people stood in a line, passing chunks of broken stone from one person to another, away from the fallen gate towers that flanked a badly warped portcullis. A fire burned on the edge of the southern gate tower, sending plumes of greasy black smoke curling into the air.

  Pollard sheathed his sword and made his way into the throng of dirt-smeared men, women, and children. “What goes on here? Does the king still live?”

  A weary-faced man handed a chunk of splintered wood to an old woman standing next to him. He paused to look up at Pollard, but if he was shocked by his size, his tired face didn’t register it. “That’s what we’re to be discovering, mister.”

  The chain gang was unburying the approach to the castle. They had positioned long boards across the crumbled arches of the viaduct to allow them access to the front of the gatehouse.

  The moat on either side of the blasted bridge was littered with discarded rock and judging by the piles on the city’s side of the ramparts, the people had been at it for days.

  “You mean nobody knows whether the king still lives?” Pollard shouted.

  “We ain’t doing this to amuse ourselves. Either move along or give us a hand, but stop slowing us down,” the man said without emotion.

  Rook feared Pollard might throw the man into the foul-smelling moat. “Come on, big guy, I’m sure they can use your muscle up front.”

  A woman shrieked, “Ew, what’s that?”

  At once, several other voices chimed in, “Demon! Kill it!”

  The chain gang’s progress ground to a halt as people took an interest in the orange-furred, Yarstaff.

  It was all Rook could do to prevent the poor Voil from being pierced by a hayfork of one of the workers. “Whoa, mister. Put that down, you’ll skewer someone.”

  “Aye, that’s me plan. There’s a demon in our midst. Get out o’ me way else I put you to the fork as well.”

  Several people armed with knives and crude swords moved toward Yarstaff as he cowered behind Rook. Before Rook had a chance to intervene further, Pollard stepped between them, sword gripped in both hands and outrage in his eyes. Although seriously outnumbered, Rook wasn’t worried about Pollard, but he was concerned for the naïve city folk.

  Pollard reached behind Rook and yanked Yarstaff to his side, never once taking his eyes off those closest to him. “Yarstaff is with us. He is no more a demon than you with the pitchfork. Put your weapons away. I’ll not warn you twice.”

  The man with the pitchfork bristled. He backed up a couple of steps, clearly contemplating his chances of overcoming Pollard.

  Rook gave the man credit. Most people would’ve dropped their weapon and fell to their knees begging for mercy. Rook stepped in front of Pollard and held up his hands. “Look mister, we don’t want any trouble. We’ve travelled a long way to see King Malcolm, bearing important news.”

  The man spat on the ground. “Get in line,” he said, his gaze looking across the viaduct to the smashed front gate.

  “Are you all that’s left?” Rook asked. There were a little more than a hundred people standing along the roadway. Those on the makeshift bridges spanning the broken bridge arches were beginning to protest the fact that the line had stopped moving.

  “More or less,” the man said, never taking his eyes from Pollard.

  “You mean to tell me everyone else is dead?” Rook’s voice cracked.

  “Didn’t say that, did I?” The insolent man spat again. “There are others. Wounded folk and those tending them. When hell opened up the skies, most people tried to gain entry into the castle. A good amount passed beyond yonder gate before the castle fell. I’m thinking those of us who weren’t able to make it inside were the lucky ones.”

  Rook couldn’t argue with that. At the base of the gatehouse, a mangled body was pulled from the wreckage and promptly thrown into the raging firepit. He swallowed. He had seen many of these pyres during his campaigns with King Peter. One never quite got used to the sight, nor the smell, but he hated the noise of a burning body most of all. The sizzling and popping of someone who had recently been a walking, talking person, full of hopes and dreams—reduced to ash and black smoke. He shivered.

  “What type of misbegotten beast do you harbour? I’m thinking there’s more to you three than you’re letting on,” the man said, his face twisting in disgust as he studied Yarstaff.

  Rook sighed. How could he explain the Voil without a lengthy, unbelievable retelling of their voyage? Judging by Pollard’s expression, the Songsbirthian wasn’t prepared to give this man enough time to hear the story. “This is Yarstaff. He comes from a far away land. He’s a friend of Zephyr.”

  “Looks like one of Helleden’s minions if you ask me.” The man regripped the handle of his pitchfork.

  If you only knew the truth of your words, Rook thought. “Nevertheless, Yarstaff is with us, so if it’s all the same to you, we—"

  All at once, across the bridgeworks, a large section of the northern gatehouse broke free of the wall and crashed upon those working about its base. The ground shook. Large chunks of stone tumbled onto the debris below, much of it settling into the moat beyond with a great splash. Screams of agony sounded amid the sound of grating stone. When the ensuing dust cloud cleared, a wide gap exposed the castle beyond.

  Rook’s jaw dropped. The hulk of the Wizard’s Spike still rose stark against the sky, but now visible at its base lay a massive mound of splintered rock where the majestic, palatial keep of Castle Svelte had once stood.

  Untravelled Path

  Melody hadn’t slept a wink. At least that’s how it
felt lying awake in the cold night air. She must’ve succumbed to sleep sometime after whatever creature had been eating below the ledge she and Silurian cowered on had moved on. She vaguely remembered dreaming about her husband, Rook Bowman. The dreams were nothing but disjointed images of him being alone—searching for her through a veil of dark fog. Every now and then they were able to see each other, but as they reached out to touch one another, the veil solidified.

  Something felt amiss. She opened her eyes and sat up. Silurian was gone! The trail leading up the side of the fissure was bereft of anything but dun coloured rock and creeping ground cover.

  “Ah, you decided to wake up.” Silurian’s voice made her jump. What was he doing on the Gap floor?

  “You scared my hell right outta me.” She fought to calm her breathing.

  Silurian laughed. “Then I’ve done a good thing for a change.”

  Melody gathered her belongings, her gnarled staff and the small leather bag with the greater storage capacity than its size suggested, and slid them over the edge to her brother’s waiting hands. Her voluminous robes dragged up over her waist, exposing her knee-length under garments, as she lay on her stomach and dropped, feet first, to the Gap floor.

  “What are you doing down here?” She straightened her robes and accepted her staff and pouch.

  “I couldn’t sleep. As soon as there was enough light, I decided to find out what had happened down here.” He motioned with the tip of his unsheathed sword to the grisly carcass of an unrecognizable creature the size of a large dog.

  “Eww.” Melody’s face contorted with disgust. Flies and insects infested the gory remains.

  “Ya. I’d hate to meet whatever killed it.”

  Melody scanned their surroundings, afraid the creature responsible still prowled close by. She gathered her bearings and pointed to where the widest part of the Gap led south, away from Dragon’s Tooth. “Me neither. Come on. The farther we get from this place, the better.”