Aquamancer (mancer series Book 2)

Aquamancer

Don Callander

Published by Mundania Press

By Don Callander

Pyromancer

Aquamancer

Geomancer

Aeromancer

Marbleheart

The Reluctant Knight

Dragon Companion

Dragon Rescue

Dragon Tempest

Dragon Winter

Warlock’s Bar & Grill

Warlock’s All & Sundry

Teddybear, Teddybear

Cruise of the CSS Pocahontas

Star Warrior

Aquamancer

Copyright © 1993, 2013 by Don Callander

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Cover Art © 2013 by Skyla Dawn Cameron

eBook ISBN-13
978-1-59426-177-0

Trade Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-59426-179-4

First Mundania Edition • October 2013

Published by:

Mundania Press

An Imprint of Celeritas Unlimited LLC

6457 Glenway Ave., #109

Cincinnati, OH 45211

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Prologue

or, What Came Before

Douglas Brightglade, son of a master shipbuilder lost at sea, apprenticed himself to a Fire Wizard, or Pyromancer, Flarman Flowerstalk, also called Firemaster, and lived at Flarman’s home, Wizard’s High, in Valley, in the land called Dukedom. After several years of intensive training, Douglas rose to the rank of Journeyman Pyromancer.

Douglas and his Master were called upon to assist a Water Adept, Aquamancer Augurian of Waterand Island, in battle against the very powerful and wicked Ice King, Frigeon.

Their ways parted, as Flarman undertook a mission of great danger to Frigeon’s Ice Palace on the glacier Eternal Ice. Douglas was entrusted with the delivery of a magic Great Gray Pearl to Augurian.

While Flarman was matching wits with Frigeon, Douglas was lost overboard from a ship at Sea, was rescued by the Asrai, a Phosphorescence, and was cast ashore on Flowring Isle, where he met a pearl fisher’s beautiful daughter, Myrn Manstar.

When Myrn was kidnapped by Duke Eunicet, one of Frigeon’s evil minions, Douglas went to her rescue assisted by a Great Sea Tortoise named Oval.

Meanwhile, Flarman had escaped from Frigeon and sailed to Augurian’s Waterand Island, where he and Douglas were reunited. The two Fire Wizards helped Augurian launch a fateful Sea Battle against Frigeon and his host of Goblins, Ghouls, Ogres, Banshees, and bloodthirsty renegade Men.

Under cover of this Battle of Sea, the Wizard and his Journeyman gained entrance to Frigeon’s magic workshop deep inside the glacier under Ice Palace and destroyed the Pearl, a talisman that allowed the Ice King to be completely wicked.

Augurian enrolled Myrn as his own Apprentice, and she and Douglas planned to wed when she was far enough along in her studies. Meanwhile, the survivors gathered together to begin undoing the evil enchantments wrought by the Ice King. Frigeon himself was exiled to his glacier, which was rapidly melting away, creating a New Land.

Upon their triumphant return to Wizards’ High, Flarman’s cottage in Valley of Dukedom, Flarman gave a wonderful Homecoming Party for everybody who helped defeat the Ice King—and the Pyromancer assigned Journeyman Douglas Brightglade to Journey in his craft to Old Kingdom, to check on reports of a Coven of Black Witches there, and earn his full Mastery.

Here the story continues...

Part One

Journeying

Chapter One

Leaving Home

Journeyman Wizard Douglas Brightglade, student of the arcane and ancient magical arts and sciences, colleague of Master Pyromancer Flarman Flowerstalk, fiancé of Apprentice Aquamancer Myrn Manstar of Flowring Isle, friend of Dwarfs, Faeries, Dragons, Sea Creatures, Wraiths, and resident of Wizards’ High in Valley of Dukedom, opened his eyes to bright winter sunshine coming through his unshuttered bedroom windows.

He stretched his arms wide and yawned, shook his close-cropped brown locks, rubbed his Sea blue eyes, and slid his bare feet out from under the counterpane.

In a furry flurry, Pert and Party, Wizards’ High’s resident female cats, jumped from the foot of his bed to the broad-planked floor and scurried to the window, mewing a greeting to Douglas and to the morning.

“Breakfast!” said the Journeyman, aloud to himself, “but a bath first. Then say good-bye and start my Journeying.”

“Journeymen,” said Bronze Owl, gliding through the open window with a tremendous clatter of metal wings to perch upon the bedstead, “are, by definition, travelers.”

“I know, I know!” cried Douglas, pulling on his trousers. This morning was the last of such homey comfort he could expect for many a day. He was off on a mission for the Fellowship of Wizards—at the moment consisting of himself, Flarman Flowerstalk, and the Water Adept, Augurian of Waterand Island and Warm Seas—that very morning.

Bounding down the curving staircase, he found Blue Teakettle sputtering busily about her wide, slate-topped kitchen worktable, herding pots and pans across the range, spouting rapid-fire orders to Salt and Pepper, Butter Firkin and her Wooden Molds, and to Toast Rack on the open hearth. Douglas greeted them all with a cheery wave and an appreciative sniff as he went through the kitchen door to the washstand, just outside in the courtyard between the cottage and the underhill barns and workshop.

The white porcelain ewer was filled with hot water, which sent clouds of steam into the winter-cold air. A fresh bar of soap rested in a slotted wooden soap stand near to hand. Clean, fluffy towels hung on bars under the washstand. Douglas’s Razor, Shaving Brush and Mug, and brown leather Strop jumped into action at his appearance. Razor ran rapidly and smoothly up and down Strop, honing a keen edge for the young Wizard’s fuzzy whiskers, while Brush jumped gleefully into Mug and whipped up a froth of fragrant lather.

The Journeyman Wizard washed and shaved, combed and dried, prancing from foot to foot on the chilly slates. He could have made them warm as toast at a magic word, but preferred to feel the tingle and pleasant pain of the cold on his bare toes.

Across the wide courtyard, through the door of the Wizard’s workshop came a rumbling fuss. Firemaster Flarman Flowerstalk was having trouble with some experiment or other. A cloud of purple smoke poured through the open transom above the workshop’s wide door, scattering the doves who were perched there arguing good-naturedly over the remnants of their breakfast.

The placid Ladies of the Byre paused to look back in bovine amusement. They were already on their way through the courtyard gate to the frost-whitened brookside meadow. Seven chickens paused a moment in their perpetual pecking, looked up in mild surprise, then went back to pursuing the last few insects of summer and spilled grains of wheat and barley in the cracks between the courtyard cobbles.

“Ding dang! Double fudge and saltwater taffy! Grumbles and mumbles,”
came the Wizard’s deep roar.
“Drat.”

Douglas grinned to himself. He quickly rinsed and carefully dried Razor before putting it in its leather traveling case along with Strop, rolled up tight, and Shaving Brush and a vial of fragrant, frothy liquid soap. He tied it all with an old leather thong.

“Flagpant! Cryptomagler! Oh, Graddishr.”
Flarman’s vexation came flying from the workshop. The words seemed meaningless bluster... or perhaps they were enchantment words of some arcane spell Douglas had not yet learned. He indulged his large Bump of Curiosity by skipping across the courtyard to look in at the workshop’s open door.

Pyromancer Flarman Flowerstalk stood on a tall, three-legged stepladder, furiously wielding a broom with one hand and a feather duster with the other. Clouds of bright dust swirled about him in a shaft of sunlight slanting through the transom. He sneezed explosively.

“Oh, Graddish! Kerplunkt! Oh, Darnnatr,”
he growled, attacking four years’ accumulation of cobwebs and the condensates of thousands of smoky alchemical procedures.

“What in World are you doing, Magister?” asked Douglas, laughing aloud in spite of himself at the sight.

“Spring cleaning!” replied the Wizard, giving in to a powerful sneeze. He floated gently down from the ladder top. “Cobwebs and dust balls, trash under the table, soot over the mantel, ashes beneath the grate! Once I had an Apprentice I could order to do this sort of thing but now I’m all alone and have to do it for myself, despite the fact that I am by far the oldest, most powerful, most highly respected Pyromancer in ... in ... Valley, anyway.”

“I could help you,” said Douglas, knowing this beloved blusterer very well, “or we could go in to break our fast and you could finish all this spring cleaning later—say
next
spring—although it should have been done months ago.”

Things had been happening too fast and furiously ever since the Wizard and his Journeyman had gone off to subdue the Ice King, who had threatened to freeze World and enslave its various peoples. Flarman had been captured and taken to an Ice Palace on a glacier far to the north while Douglas had been lost at Sea, been rescued by a giant Sea Tortoise named Oval, and had fallen in love. Housekeeping had fallen by the wayside.

Along with a powerful Water Adept and a host of Faerie warriors, Dwarfs, Near Immortals, Sprites, Sea creatures and birds, fishermen and sailors, they had overcome wicked Frigeon in a great Sea Battle, destroyed his dire enchantments—along with his Ice Palace—and rescued the Ice King’s captives, including Douglas’s own father.