Aethersmith (Book 2) (14 page)

“If you drank half what was missing from that bottle, I
don’t know that you have much say in the matter,” she joked.

“I did not.”

Even with Zell, whom she had known most of her life, she
tried to maintain her air of toughness. Somehow she did not mind so much if
Rakashi saw her cry.

* * * * * * * *

The crowd gasped as a gout of flame billowed from the
magician’s fingers. He was an older gentleman, distinguished and genteel in
manner, with the boyish looks accentuated by grey hair rather than given lie to
by it. That grey hair hung loose about the magician’s shoulders and snapped smartly
to a point at his bearded chin. He wore a black dress coat that would not have
looked out of place if worn by a magistrate and he covered his hands with white
gloves. A flat-topped silk hat sat not upon his head, but rather waved about in
one hand while the other gesticulated with a pointed stick.

“Now, before I move on to my next trick, I would like to
demonstrate that this hat is empty.”

The magician, known professionally as Wendell the Wizard,
held the open end of the hat out toward the audience that gathered all about
him a few paces away. He had commandeered a sizable chunk of plaza space in
Marker’s Point and people were packed in and around the merchants’ stalls to
get a better view of him.

A few hecklers in the crowd complained that they would not
be able to see if there was anything shady with the hat.

“Suit yourselves,” Wendell said, “but toss it back when you
are satisfied. I have nothing to fear from its close examination.”

With that, Wendell threw the hat into the crowd. It was
grabbed and rumpled and generally mistreated as a dozen denizens of the rough
port city gave it a thorough once-over. Amazingly the hat was returned in
serviceable condition.

“Now, if you will all stand back and prepare yourself for a
sight that will shock and amaze you …

“Huaxti janidu deldore wanetexu elu mulaftu sekedori
puc’anzu margek lotok junubi
,”
Wendell chanted ominously, slowly
waving his wand about in the air, tracing supposedly mystical patterns in the
air with it. At the end, he tapped the wand twice on the brim of the upturned
hat. Tucking the wand inside a coat pocket, he reached one gloved hand into the
hat and drew out a dove, displaying it to the crowd in the palm of his hand
with a flourish of his hat. The tiny little creature shook its feathers and beat
its wings a few times, then flew off.

The crowd hooted and cheered. Wendell the Wizard smile and
bowed a little, turned to a different section of the crowd and bowed again.
Then a curious look passed over his face. His hat jerked about in his hand,
seemingly of its own accord. The magician stopped his bowing and investigated,
looking down into the hat as if it were a good deal deeper than it appeared.
Reaching into it again, he drew out another dove, releasing it into the air
with a disgusted harrumph. After a brief pause, the hat moved about a bit
again, and Wendell withdrew another dove, then another, then another. Soon
doves were streaming out of the hat, to the delight of the crowd.

Several of the doves, not content to fly off, returned to
attack their former captor. They flapped about as Wendell dropped his hat and
devoted his efforts to swatting them away. The crowd roared with laughter. Soon
Wendell switched to snatching the birds out of the air and hurling them away
from him. First one bird, then another … but they would just circle back around
to attack him again. The crowd soon realized that the hurled and returning
birds were making a circular circuit of the air just over their heads,
returning at regular intervals and evenly spaced out—Wendell the Wizard was
juggling birds!

As his grand finale, Wendell quickly snatched up his hat
from where it had fallen and started catching the birds with it. Once he had
recaptured all the juggled birds, he put two gloved fingers to his lips and
whistled.

“All right, boys, get back in. That is all for tonight’s
show.”

And with that, all the birds that had flown away and not
stayed to be juggled returned in a storm of feathers, diving headlong straight
into the hat. The crowd cheered and applauded.

“Thank you. Thank you, all.” Wendell handed the hat to
someone in the first row of bystanders. “If any of you cares to look for those
birds, toss in a coin. If you find one, you can keep all the other coins you
find.”

* * * * * * * *

The Wendell Dumark who departed the plaza was better
financed than the one who had entered it. With men knowing his name, and with a
bit of coin in his pocket, he was able to make friendly inquiries about the
whereabouts of one Captain Denrik Zayne, noted patron of the mystical arts, if
Acardian authorities were to be trusted on the matter.

Wendell was interested in meeting the infamous pirate, but
he was more interested in meeting the Acardian witch he kept company with.
There was more to that story than folk were letting on, Wendell was convinced,
and he knew that he wanted to be the one to assemble the puzzle and see what it
was before anyone else. There was profit to be had in such knowledge—in coin
perhaps, but in other, more valuable currency for certain.

The
Fair Trader
had sailed for the east by all
accounts. It was a chance meeting with an elderly former crewman of Captain
Zayne’s who had given the key bit of information, though: Zayne had a
particular fondness for a little island known as Denku Appa that lay along that
course.

It took all the money Wendell had earned in the plaza, and
most of his savings, but he managed to convince a ship to take him to Denku
Appa as a stop well out of their way to Khesh.

Wendell did not know that the maneuver put him a day’s
pursuit ahead of Soria and her companions, looking for the same man.

Chapter 9 - Staffing Issues

Jinzan fidgeted in his seat, an endeavor he was little
familiar with. He was seated at the hexagonal stone table of the Megrenn High
Council, listening as each of his fellow Councilors gave their report on the
state of their preparations on the eve of the invasion of Kadrin. He was not
looking forward to the prospect of his own. While there was no petitioner to
the Council, leaving the sixth side of the table vacant, the five High Councilors
were far from alone. Desks and tables ringed the walls of the room, where
assorted functionaries listened and recorded. Even casual comments made in the
Council chamber were recorded for posterity and more than a few in the room had
little purpose there but to write the land’s history as it occurred. Others
there ensured that orders were carried out with all practical haste. Troop
deployments could be relayed by lieutenants who waited near the chamber’s
doors. Requests for information were often returned by the end of longer
meetings. Rumors could be spread throughout the city before the Councilors
adjourned for their midday meal—whether they intended such rumors to be spread
or not.

Council meetings were thus half rulership, half theater. Had
Jinzan been alone among his old friends, he could have borne their censure
quietly and deservedly. It was an embarrassment lying in wait for him, though,
with the crowded Council chamber. His only hope to avert a public loss of face
was that the situation resolved itself before it was his turn to present the
readiness of the kingdom’s sorcerers for the war.

“The blockade will be in place by the morrow. Any ships that
wish to reach Kadris are going to have to venture a long way out of their
course to bypass our ships,” Varduk Steelraven reported. Twenty years earlier,
he had become de facto admiral of the rebellion’s navy. When none of the
Megrenn back then knew anything of ships but fishing and trade, Varduk had
pieced together a functioning navy out of trade ships and secondhand castoffs
from other kingdoms’ fleets. Ever since, he had overseen both Megrenn’s sea
trading and their navy, though he left the actual sailing to much younger men.

“It will not do much, but it is prudent, I suppose. We will
need the blockade much closer to Kadris before they feel any real pain from
it,” said General Kaynnyn Bal-Tagga, the Megrenn Minister of War. Once the face
of the rebellion, she had been a ferocious beauty who commanded the stripe-cat
cavalry that had done so much to help free Megrenn. Reckless and wild, she
inspired both the men and women of the rebellion and most of the men were
willing to die for the chance to bed her. Her close-cropped hair was white now,
still teased with ointments into a forest of short spikes like she had worn in
her youth, and it stood out starkly against her deep brown skin. Her once
muscular body had grown thick and soft, covered in a layer of flab that she
attributed to the prosperity that had come following the rebellion. The breasts
that once numbed the reason of her troops had grown huge and sagging, having
nursed six children of her own and a dozen fosterling orphans in the early
years after the war. She adorned herself in gold and silks instead of armor,
but her spirit was as fierce as the day she first charged headlong into the
Kadrin garrison as they drilled in the practice yard—the first strike of the
war. If any were to embody the rebellion in the hearts of Megrenn, it was
Kaynnyn “Bloodstorm” Bal-Tagga.

“In time. The war will not be quick and we must have the
long view of it,” Varduk replied. “We start with the periphery, just as you
plan for the land war. Ultimately we will have to lay siege to Kadris, but that
day is a long way off. Their strength is concentrated there, and we will not
dislodge it by direct action. We must whittle away at their borders and draw
their strength out to us. They have more troops than us—more sorcerers, too—but
they have far more land to defend with them. We just need to track their
movements, and wait for the opportune time to pick them apart.”

“Speaking of troop deployments, Narsey, how are the Kadrin
forces looking?” General Kaynnyn asked.

“They are scrambling to prepare for our attack. It looks as
if they are prepared to concede border territory,” Narsicann Tenrok answered.
The only other sorcerer besides Jinzan to sit among the High Council, Narsicann
oversaw Megrenn’s web of spies and informants. Less gifted in open warfare than
was Jinzan, Narsicann concentrated more on defending Megrenn from magic than
inflicting his own on others. While Jinzan had been trained among the Kadrins
after they decided—foolishly—that Megrenn was integrated sufficiently into the
Empire, Narsicann kept his magic secret from their occupiers his whole life.
“They have already evacuated many of the less defended towns, leaving token
forces that I expect will flee as we approach. I think we shall find the
resistance much heavier once we get farther inside their borders. Munne,
Garsley, Pevett, Reaver’s Crossing … all seem to be receiving reinforcements.”

“What news from Kadris?” asked Feron Dar-Jak, Megrenn’s
Interior Minister and the only member of the High Council who was not one of
the Liberators. He had taken over for the great General Ashton Sweely, who had
been an old man when the rebellion started and who had served Megrenn well into
early senility before retiring to spend his last few years at leisure with his
great-grandchildren. Feron had fought in the rebellion as well, but he had
earned his position largely based on his valuable service under Sweely in the
Interior Ministry.

“Not much of import. We have lost three sneaks and four
informants trying to gain access to substantive information on their military
plans. That demon is too quick to kill anything that smells wrong to him. I
would bet good coin he kills three by mistake for every one of ours he gets,”
Narsicann said. “We know that they are having a major wedding planned for the
first of spring—the demon’s avowed son and some Archon heiress.”

“As always, pomp and self-congratulation comes before
practical matters.” Jinzan could not help chiming in. He had intended to keep
quiet until his turn to report on the state of the sorcerers and his cannons.
Why
can I not just let such matters lie? Stupid. Stupid!

“To our advantage,” Varduk observed, drawing nods from
Narsicann and Kaynnyn.

“For that day at least, we ought to know the whereabouts of
the demon and many of the Inner Circle,” Feron observed. “Would that not be the
best day to make our first real strike?”

“The frosts have not broken yet over much of Kadrin. Their
lingering winter is saving them from our stripe-cats for another tenday. I have
monohorns ready to assault Temble Hill on the first of springtime—which is
tomorrow I must remind you, Feron,” Kaynnyn said curtly. She never respected
Feron’s position on the Council, though she knew it was inevitable that the
Liberators would someday need successors. She just did not like the fact and
resented him meddling in her planning.

“Perhaps Jinzan can duplicate his little transference trick
and take some remote city himself? With the demon preoccupied, it seems almost
a shame to let the opportunity pass. After all, what better use to test out the
Staff of Gehlen?” Feron suggested.

“Are you mad?” Narsicann broke in.

Good. He can save me from having to say much the same and
sound like a coward,
Jinzan thought
.

“After all that Jinzan went through to secure it?” Narsicann
said. “It is the key to our defenses against Kadrin’s sorcerers. Wherever the
wielder of that staff is, we will have an advantage against any opponent. We
cannot risk losing it with something so chancy as a transference spell.”

Not what I had in mind, Narsey. Your concern for my
safety is touching as well.

“All right, all right,” Feron said. “No need to flay me in the
Council chambers over it. Consider my suggestion withdrawn. Anyway, it is about
time we heard from Jinzan about the sorcerers’ readiness. Is everything in
order for the invasion to begin?” Feron inquired, giving Jinzan a simpering
smile in the hope that he had given him something to brag about and ease the
tension he had caused.

“Well …” Jinzan paused and drew a deep breath. “Not quite …”

* * * * * * * *

Elsewhere in Zorren …

Small hands fumbled with the latch of a stable door. One
hand simply was not enough, at least not for a boy of ten springtimes. Anzik
tucked the Staff of Gehlen awkwardly under one arm and used both hands to
spring the door open. It was a task that could easily have been accomplished
with magic, but Anzik had not thought of that. His first instinct was to open
the door using his hands and that thought stayed lodged in his mind until he
was finished with it.

They will look for me. I took Father’s staff. My staff
now. They will look for me. Hide. Need to hide.

It was hard to concentrate. Anzik had to keep reminding
himself where he was, what he was doing. The voices were badgering him again.
He knew that if he concentrated on the task at hand, he could wait them out and
they would stop for a while.

The door creaked only a little as Anzik pushed his way
through, not daring to open it wide and draw attention.
Be quiet. Horses
make noise. Quieter than a horse and they will not hear me. If they do not hear
me, they cannot find me. Quieter than a horse. Quieter than a horse …

Anzik settled himself in an empty stall in the back, paying
scant attention to the horses that occupied the half-full stable. He could see
in the aether, looking through the walls, that the stable boy was just outside.
It was an enclosed stable, well vented but with full walls on all sides. It
seemed like a good place to hide.

Anzik had been hiding for days, moving from one place to
another. He knew that he had stolen his father’s staff. He knew that meant he
would get in trouble when he was found.
I just need to hide long enough to
grow up. Everyone says I will be more powerful than Father when I grow up.

“Stop it! I’m not hungry!” Anzik clutched his ears, trying
to block out the voices, but it was in vain. “I just ate. I took pies from the
market.” He could not reason with the voices. The voices told him to eat. They
told him to open his mouth, to just try a little. Sometimes the voices
blathered on about nonsense, which was easy to block out. When they got
insistent, sometimes he had to just give in to make them go away.

Anzik opened his mouth, keeping his eyes clamped shut and
hands pressed over his ears. He felt something warm and mushy in his mouth, and
then felt a spoon. He closed his mouth and felt the spoon pull out. The mush
was not unpleasant, tasting of potato and carrot, and Anzik swallowed it. He
opened his mouth again and another spoonful followed the first. He knew from
having lost the battle with the voices that once was never enough. When it
finally stopped, the voices went quiet.

Anzik opened his eyes and fell back into a pile of hay. His
mind was quiet. He was sweating, breathing quickly, but he felt free. After a
few moments to compose himself, he took stock of his surroundings with a
clearer head. He had wandered into one of the wealthier parts of Zorren, where
someone had money and land enough to have their own stable within the city.
Zorren sprawled with bustling markets filled with people and warehouses stacked
with trade goods, intermixed with tiny orchards, walled estates, and public
parks. There were hardly any people about where Anzik had stashed himself.
There was a stable-boy, a groom, and a half dozen horses—though those probably
did not count as people.

Anzik was exhausted. His newfound freedom had made him bold,
and he had fought against the voices longer than usual, but had not prevailed.
Most often, he would block them out, losing himself in whatever task he could
find, then placate them quickly when they became too intrusive.

I bested Father. I will best the voices, too. Maybe
tomorrow.

Anzik wanted to sleep. It was only midday, but both his mind
and body felt used up. Running away was hard work.

I should disguise myself, in case they look in here while
I sleep. I cannot let them see me here. Something innocuous … Maybe just make
the hay pile look a bit larger than it had been
.

It was easier to think when the only thoughts in his head
were his own. Even at home, it seemed rare to have a truly quiet moment, with
so many other people around.

Anzik needed no gestures or words for his magic. He had been
seeing how his father and the other sorcerers did it since he was a babe. He
could get the aether to respond much more easily than they. Mimicking what the
aether did when they commanded it was, for Anzik, child’s play.

He began to draw in a bit of aether for a simple illusion.
Few in Megrenn were well versed in the art, but after Anzik had seen it, it had
become one of his favorites to practice, causing no end of strife in the Fehr
household. He wanted to ensure that the spell would last the length of his nap
at least, so he drew in a bit more aether than he normally would have for a
simple prank.

The Staff of Gehlen threw things amiss. Still barely having
tested the artifact’s power, Anzik unintentionally called on the staff’s draw
to augment his own. Amplified many times over, the aether was sucked toward the
staff like the funnel of a cyclone. Anzik’s persistent aether-vision saw a
vortex forming around him as his draw sped beyond his control. Horses whinnied
in terror, feeling their very life forces being wrenched at and the nearest one
to Anzik’s stall fell over dead before he could stop drawing in aether.

Anzik felt the roiling power thrashing about within his
Source. It was the most he had ever held at once, but it was not foremost on
his mind.