The Wilder (The Trouble with Magic Book 1)
Read The Wilder (The Trouble with Magic Book 1) Online
Authors: B. J. Beach
The Wilder
by
B. J. Beach
Book One of the
‘The Trouble with Magic’
©2014
Having purchased this eBook from Amazon, it is for your personal use only. It may not be copied, reproduced, printed or used in any way other than in its intended Kindle format.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance between the characters in this work and any persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
The right of B. J. Beach to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.
Published by Ex-L-Ence Publishing a division of Winghigh Limited, Gloucester, England.
MAGE PRIME
Volume 2 of The Trouble With Magic - ‘Mage Prime’ is available from your local Amazon website. For a full list of Amazon websites and details of ‘Mage Prime’, see:
www.qtvh.com/yourls/mage
CONTENTS
The lingering stink of previous occupants didn’t bother Grub. That particular blend of odours was something with which he had become familiar during his short life. He’d grown accustomed to a variety of malodorous whiffs and stenches over the last few years, and recognised most of them. There was even a bizarre comfort in the skittering and squeaking of the rats who shared his cell. He envied them their freedom, their ability to cope with enclosed spaces and confining walls, their security in the knowledge that they had a way out.
For him, there seemed no way out. The bruises on his back and shoulders, and the iron shackle which bit into his ankle each time he moved, served as constant reminders. What gave him the creeps was knowing he was shut in a confined space, hemmed in by four cold, unyielding, windowless walls and a low ceiling.
The heavy clatter of key in padlock and the shriek of sliding bolts shattered the oppressive silence, slamming his attention to the direction of the opening door. He blinked hard as flaring torchlight thrust its way into the darkness.
Something hit the floor with a soft, double thud, accompanied by a hoarse, unfriendly voice. ‘Get this down yer scrawny neck. It’s all you’re gonna get, not as yer deserves it.’
The heavy, ironbound door thumped shut, leaving Grub once more in the thick, oppressive and near tangible darkness. He waited for his heart’s pounding to slow, before dropping to his knees, searching the dirt floor for whatever his gaoler had thrown in. He gave a little yelp of pain. The shackle on his right ankle which held him chained to the wall, had brought him up short.
He wanted to be angry, somehow knowing that deep down within his anger lay a strength he could use if only he could grasp it, but his anger refused to rise, quelled by a deep sense of frustration and despair. Trying to ignore the chafing shackle, he lay on his belly and stretched out his manacled hands as far as he could, feeling about in the thin covering of musty straw. His chilled fingers touched something dry and hard. With his forefinger he edged it towards him, until he was able to close his hands around it, and lift it to his face. He sniffed the object, his upper lip curling as he detected the sour tang of mouldy bread. Grub eased his aching body back against the cold wall, tucked the stale chunk inside his tunic, and stared against the absolute darkness in the direction of the door.
His bruised shoulder protested as he lifted his hands to wipe at the blood he could feel seeping from his eyebrow. Slow, stinging tears trickled down his face to mingle with the blood and dirt. Sobbing quietly, fearful of drawing further attention from his gaolers, he drew his shackled legs up to his chest. With his hands wrapped in the tails of his torn shirt in a futile search for warmth, Grub sank into an exhausted sleep.
He woke with a start, to find his cell flooded with torchlight. The total darkness had already robbed him of all sense of time. Any sounds which reached his ears had been infrequent, distant and unrecognisable. The door stood wide open, and he squinted towards it. A snarling mastiff lunged towards him, its charge checked by the chain held firmly in the gaoler’s meaty hands, but not in time for Grub to exert similar control on his sphincter. Appalled and terrified, he flinched and cowered as gaoler and mastiff moved towards him. He could feel the slobbering dog’s hot breath on his head, and pressed himself against the wall.
The gaoler’s harsh voice was heavy with contempt. “Where’s yer magic now, yer dirty little wilder. Got nuffink ter say, eh?”
Grub screamed at the sudden shock and pain of the gaoler’s kick at his shackled ankles. A gobbet of spittle slapped against his face and slithered down onto his neck. The gaoler uttered a humourless bark of a laugh. Eyes tight shut, Grub hardly dared breathe as he listened to the sound of scrabbling claws and hob-nailed boots moving away. The door slammed, an awful finality borne in the hard clatter of iron bolts being slid home. Aware of his own stink, and the mess he was in, Grub tried to ease himself into something resembling comfort, wishing all the while he could summon up a good bellyful of anger, just when he needed it most. He knew things happened when he was angry, even though he had no idea why they happened. If he could get angry enough, he might cause enough damage to be able to escape.
Hunger pangs growled around his stomach, but not yet strong enough to reduce him to chewing on hard, mouldy bread. His most recent taste of food had been a large meat pie, donated by a grateful carter whose load had toppled to the ground, causing havoc in the outskirts of Great Market. Grub and his best mate Legs had pitched in to help, and afterwards shared the reward. Not much in itself, but very welcome when the last meal was a memory, and the next one no more than a wish.
It was just as they were licking the last crumbs from greasy fingers that the trouble started. In Grub’s mind it was a noisy, jumbled picture, hardly making any sense, but he did remember a lot of shouting and bawling, and being very angry. Events which followed swam round his mind in a dark, painful and incoherent fog, culminating in his incarceration in this black and miserable hole.
He made another attempt at getting comfortable, hoping he could fall asleep again. His stomach growled. Under his tunic, the chunk of stale bread scratched his skin as he moved. Giving a little squirm, Grub nudged it with his elbow until he felt it slide down into his lap. With one cold hand resting on its rough brick-like crust, he began to wonder whether Legs would eat it, if he was in his place. Taking flight, his thoughts expanded, encompassing memories and recollections of the times they had spent together in the company of the street-boys they now called family. Wondering if Legs was safe and getting something good to eat, Grub eventually fell into an exhausted and troubled sleep.
Across a bruise purple sky assaulted by dark billowing storm clouds, nightmarish creatures hurtled, screaming, massive wings pounding hard and high, above a desolate storm-ravaged landscape. Thunder crashed, lightning crackled. A great shout pierced the charged air. Hooves clattered, harness jangled, gravel crunched.
Waking with a start, from his afternoon nap, Symon wiped his hands over his face, the noise of loud voices, harness, and hooves on gravel crossing over from his dream into reality. The little magician rubbed at his eyes. He pushed himself away from the enveloping comfort of his armchair and scurried to the window of his tower to look down on the scene below. Bushy white eyebrows gathered briefly into a frown beneath his broad brow. Turning away from the window, he strode across the room, unlatched the door and hurried downstairs, sandals clattering on the wooden treads. He pulled open the door, his nostrils immediately assaulted by the heavy reek of sweating horses.
Wrinkling his nose he peered up at the young guard Captain who looked disdainfully down at him from astride his big grey gelding.
Symon was singularly unimpressed. “Might I ask what matter warrants the disturbing arrival of a small army at my tower?”
The young captain’s only reply was a disdainful smirk as he turned his mount. He called out “Bring the prisoner forward!”
Hands enveloped in the sleeves of his robe, with increasing consternation Symon watched the scene unfolding in front of his tower. Its broad shoulders leaning into the traces of an iron-wheeled wooden cart, a heavy horse was being led towards him. The magician stepped forward, his expression darkening as he realised what kind of miserable burden the cart transported. Thin face streaked with dirt and blood, a young boy of about fifteen glared defiantly down, his bony hands grasping the close-set iron bars of a heavily padlocked cage. Outraged, Symon spun round to find the guard captain had edged his mount up close behind him.
Thrusting a pugnacious chin towards the man’s face, the magician pulled himself up to his full five feet, and gestured in the direction of the cart. “This is intolerable! What is the reason for this inhumane outrage, and more to the point, why have you brought that pitiful child here?”
The captain smirked again. Symon suppressed a sudden urge to remove the supercilious little man from his big horse and teach him a lesson in manners. Instead, he stood and listened in growing disbelief as, with undisguised relish, the young officer gave Symon the answers to his questions.
“The boy is a wilder. He has been witnessed in the execution of a magical act. Upon discovering that he has no license, nor is he apprenticed to any qualified and certificated magician, he was duly arrested.”
Symon’s tone was as flinty as his grey eyes. “Don’t say another word, Captain. No doubt you are dying to spout chunks of the law at me, but I was well versed in that particular law before even your grandparents were born, so you needn’t waste your breath.”
The magician turned on his heel and stomped towards the cart. This was not the first time, although it had been a good few years since a so-called ‘wilder’ had been brought by various means to his door. Symon suspected this was yet one more trumped up charge, a ploy to get another troublesome urchin off the streets.
The Captain called after him. “I suggest you keep upwind if you mean to question him…sir.”
Checking his pace, Symon turned, a sharp retort hovering on his lips. Seeing the malicious grin on the Captain’s face, he swallowed his words and carried on to the side of the cart. Dwarfed by the high iron-shod wheel, he rested his hands on the heavy wooden spokes.
Craning his neck, he peered up at the boy in the cage. “What’s your name lad?”
Lowering his bruised and grubby chin to his chest, the boy mumbled something.
Symon frowned. “Speak up lad. What was that?”
Their defiance suddenly extinguished, dark eyes flicked in a brief, sidelong glance. “Grub. I’m called Grub.”
A pungent whiff of rank body odours drifted down, and Symon took a step back from the cart. The boy had obviously had cause to soil himself sometime during his ordeal, and Symon’s indignation lurched towards boiling point. Knuckles showing white on clenched fists, he slowly turned. Murmuring under his breath, he allowed his gaze to rest briefly on each soldier of the escort in turn. Horses began to fidget and stamp, their arrogant and scornful riders visibly wilting under sudden and uncontrollable waves of shame and remorse. White faced, the young Captain struggled to control his increasingly fractious mount as he made his way to join his troop, milling in confusion at the rear of the cart. Retribution achieved, Symon returned to the side of the shameful tumbril.
Folding his hands inside his sleeves, he looked up again at the boy. “Are your parents alive?”
The boy shook his head, his chin trembling.
Symon’s grimace was followed by a deep sigh of resignation. “Well, whether you or I like it or not, you’re my responsibility now. For the time being, that is.”
Eyes wide in panic, the boy looked about him, tugging at the chains and shackles which anchored his wrists and ankles to the floor of the cage.
Holding a pair of keys on an iron ring, a heavily built sergeant moved to stand beside Symon. “Shall I fetch him out of the cart, sir?”
Symon gave the keys a dubious glance, then turned his attention once more to the young prisoner. The boy had ceased his futile struggle and begun to tremble as a trickle of fresh blood ran down his forehead and seeped through his eyebrow. In a vain attempt to swipe it out of his vision he lowered his head to his hand. Hampering his feeble effort, the heavy manacle scratched his cheek, adding yet more dirt and blood to his already devastated face. Fists clenched in frustration he pressed his forehead against the cold bars. His mouth quivered and his thin body shook. Fixed on Symon, his dark eyes betrayed a whole gamut of emotions.
His voice was little more than a hoarse whisper. “Please! It was…a mistake. I didn’t mean to do it.”
Symon fixed an unblinking gaze on the boy, seeming to study him. For a long moment he stood motionless, then gave a brief nod. Like a trapped animal sensing freedom, the boy stood a little straighter, more alert, his grimy hands grasping the cage’s rusting bars as the sergeant made a half-hearted effort to climb up onto the cart. Symon shook his head in a gesture of disbelief, then raised a hand and gestured in the direction of the cage. With a tortured screech of stressed metal, the padlocks sprang apart, misshapen pieces of heavy iron falling with a clatter to the ground. With a slithering rattle the chain dropped loose, and the cage door squealed open.
Symon turned to the sergeant. “You can unshackle him now, and help him down.”
Climbing up, this time with noticeably less reluctance, the sergeant pushed the cage door wide.
He frowned at Symon. “Best be careful sir. He might do a runner.”
The remaining vestige of Symon’s patience snapped. “Good grief, man! The boy isn’t a hardened criminal! Anyway, the state he’s in, I doubt he’d get very far. Now get him out of there”…he spun round… “and you Captain, get your troop off my property forthwith!” He raised a hand in the air. “Or I’ll move the lot of you!”
Swiftly turning their mounts, the escort troop moved off, never looking back, the jangle of harness accompanying the hasty clatter and crunch of hooves. Similarly disinclined to doubt the magician’s ability to make good his word, with remarkable alacrity the sergeant unlocked the restraints which held the boy. Grabbing him by the scruff of his neck, he pushed him forward.
The sergeant’s voice was gruff but not unsympathetic. “Right, my lad. You’ve landed on your feet. Master Symon is magician to the king himself. He’ll soon have you sorted out, no mistake.”
Bundling the boy out of the cage, he man-handled him over the side of the cart, lowering him none too carefully to the ground. No sooner had the boy’s feet touched gravel than the driver had the cart moving. Chips of stone spat and flew, the iron-shod wheels leaving a wide circled rut behind them. Urging the horse on, the driver followed the troop and their discomfited captain into the adjoining lane.
Only the sergeant remained, one hand at his restive horse’s bridle, while he rummaged in his uniform jacket with the other.
He thrust a crumpled sheet of paper towards Symon. “I’ll have to ask you to sign this, please sir.”
Raising a quizzical eyebrow, Symon regarded the paper. “I presume, therefore, that you have ink and quill about your person, Sergeant?”
The man looked perplexed. “Er…no, sir…I thought…”
Before he could finish, Symon plucked the paper from his hand, glanced at it, then ran a slender forefinger over its lower half. A short line of neat flowing script, the letters sharp and black, appeared at the bottom of the paper.
A satisfied smile crossed his smooth round face as, after a quick check, Symon handed the sheet back to the sergeant. “I think you’ll find that in order. Now, if that’s all, I’d like to get my charge indoors, and cleaned up. I think he’s suffered enough, don’t you?”
Taking the shivering, bewildered Grub by the elbow, the little magician led him towards the tower door, the clatter of the sergeant’s hurried departure barely noticed.