Wandering Lark (34 page)

“Yes, but this is different,” she said.

Wendon nodded. The furnishings of the room were simple and scarce. Other than the pallets, some cushions and a low long table, there was nothing. On the table sat trays of fruits, nuts and cheeses. But Wendon had barely nibbled any of his share.

“You should eat,” Shona said and picked up an apple.

“I know.” He sighed and glanced longingly at the window again.

“Thera will be fine,” Shona said.

“I wish I could be certain of that,” Wendon said.

Shona nodded. “I understand. I feel much the same about Alaric being so far away, and not knowing where he is or what is happening to him doesn’t help. At least, you know where Thera is and who holds her hostage.”

“So you really like Alaric, do you?” Wendon ventured.

“Very much,” Shona said. “In the beginning, I thought he wasn’t even noticing me. I think he had eyes for Etienne then.”

“And that doesn’t bother you?” Wendon asked.

“No,” Shona said and sighed, and then she smiled. “I think I was able to persuade him that I was a better match for him. Of course, it helped that Etienne was angry with him for a time.”

“For what?”

Shona giggled. “He looked down inside her gown when she was tending him,” she said. “Etienne was so furious because she had thought he was more of an innocent than that.”

“And he wasn’t?” Wendon said and looked startled to think that there was an aspect to Alaric he had never considered. “Are you sure it wasn’t Fenelon’s influence?”

“Why do you dislike Fenelon?” Shona asked.

“Apart from the fact that he’s arrogant and rude and considers himself above everyone else.”

“Actually, I think you are describing the High Mage,” Shona said and smiled. “Etienne says that Fenelon is more like an overgrown child. He’s very curious about magic and its applications. And he’s an adventurer at heart. But arrogant and rude...no. Even I would not call him that. I think he just gets so involved in his love of life and magic and forgets that not all of us have such lofty intentions.”

“I suppose she would know him better than anyone else,” Wendon said and sighed. “But he was always cruel to me.”

“Wendon, he only wanted to convince you that you didn’t have to be such a stuffy old bear all the time.”

“Right, and that’s why he used me like he did?”

“Don’t you want to be a master mage?” Shona asked.

“More than anything...well, almost more than anything.” Wendon pursed his lips in thought. Before now, magic had been about the only thing that mattered.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you want to be a master mage?”

Wendon shrugged. “So people will respect me,” he said.

“Respect is something that has to be earned,” Shona said. “As I recall my own father saying, you can earn it one of two ways. By bullying everyone into being afraid not to respect you or by showing everyone you care enough to make sacrifices for them or for the greater cause. Frankly, I think the latter method has more appeal because it will certainly mean you have more friends.”

Wendon’s leaned on the window sill and looked out at the world again. He had never had many friends. In fact, the more he thought about it, he had never had any real friends. The people he grew up with at home had made fun of him until his mage sign manifested. Then they would avoid him. At Dun Gealach, he had tried to fit in, but there were always mageborn who were smarter or faster or more popular than he. When Alaric came, he seemed the least judgmental of all the people Wendon had met over the years of struggling to learn magic. But even he had drifted over to Fenelon’s side, became Fenelon’s apprentice. So no wonder he had been startled to find that Thera really cared for him as she did.

“You do have friends, Wendon,” Shona said.

“Name one,” he mumbled.

“Besides Thera? Well, Alaric, myself, Etienne, and even Fenelon. And all you have to do is let us see the real you, the unpretentious you.”

Wendon glanced at her. The angle of the light was causing her hair to shimmer like spun gold in the sun. She looked almost fey to him now.

“You think of me as a friend?” he asked.

Shona nodded. She picked up an apple and put it into his hand. “Now, you want some advice from a friend. Eat before you starve yourself weak.”

Wendon took the apple and smiled faintly. “I dunno,” he said and patted his stomach with his free hand. “I suspect it wouldn’t hurt me to starve a little. Maybe then no one would call me Warthog.”

“That’s not why he calls you that,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“You charge around huffing and puffing all the time, rather like a wild boar defending its territory,” Shona said.

“I do?” Wendon weighed the apple in his hand.

Shona nodded. “But I suspect you don’t have to be like that at all,” she added.

“I suspect you’re right,” he said and took a bite of the apple. The sweet juice filled his mouth. He chewed it, amazed at the flavor and texture.

“Good, aren’t they,” Shona said.

Wendon nodded and took another bite.

Even warthogs, he told himself, have to eat.

Thera was still sitting in the chair
when Brother Colum arrived.
Oh, good,
she thought. She had feared it would be Sister Onora whose temperament reminded Thera of a wasp. The brother swept in, frowning so that his aged face seemed to fold with wrinkles. A deception, or so Thera hoped. Even this elderly brother of her temple had his bad days. He offered a cold glance to all those who stood around her, then stepped forward to stand over her like a true patriarch.

“May I have a chair?”  It was not so much a question as a command. The mageborn guards traded glances of uncertainty then one of them rushed over to fetch a chair and brought it to the brother. Brother Colum seated himself so that he was on eye level with her, and waved a hand at the guards to indicate their presence was no longer necessary. Again they hesitated.

“We are under orders from the Lord Magister not to...” one of them began.

Brother Colum’s glower was steely and cold. He shifted in the chair to turn that look on the guards.

“It is not like I have the power to whisk her out of here with a snap of my fingers,” he said. “But as an elder patriarch of the Temple of Diancecht, I am not bound to your rules. You will leave me to speak with this sister in private, or I will leave and go straight to the king and force your lord magister to turn her over to us.”

The guards balked. Then their leader gestured for all of them to leave the room.

“We will be just outside the door,” he said, and he bowed to show that he did have some respect for Brother Colum’s position before he followed his men.

Brother Colum sat stiffly, waiting for the door to close. Only then did he relax his fierce bull terrier posture into the loll of an old bear. A smile tugged one corner of his mouth into a curve.

“Well, Sister Thera,” he said. “What have you gotten yourself into this time?”

Thera sighed, relaxing. “I helped Magister Etienne and her apprentice and a mageborn student named Wendon to escape this set of chambers. For that matter, I have assisted in the deception of putting another in Magister Greenfyn’s place so that he could escape the tower and rescue a friend.”

“I see. And was this sacrifice of your self-esteem and your safety worthy of this assistance?”

“I believe their cause is just,” Thera said. “As I understand it, they are seeking to keep the Lord Magister from executing a young man named Alaric Braidwine who has recently had the misfortune of being forced to ally himself with a demon in order to save his own life. The young man apparently had a part in stopping a bloodmage whose sole purpose was to raise the Dark Mother.”

Brother Colum stiffened. “The Dark Mother? Blessed Brother, I had always hoped those legends were not true.”

“Legends?” Thera said and waited in the hope that he would continue this tale.

“The Dark Mother is one of the Great Dragons, and she has ever plagued this world since the beginning of time. When I was a young healer, I tended a very old man who said that he was a survivor of the Great Cataclysm. At the time, I did not believe him. That was so long ago, and I assumed that it was delirium that made him speak so. But he said that he was born in the last decades of the reign of the Shadow Lords, and that he was given long life by an Old One that he might survive and help bring back the age of light. He said that the Dark Mother had been slain by a Champion of Light, and that when the Circle of Time turned, the Balance of All Things would be challenged once more, and unless a champion was born in this age, there would be none who could stop the sons of the Dark Mother from bringing her back to life. And that if she returned to her physical form, she would bring back the Darkening. And the Shadow Lords would rise to rule again.”

Thera was holding her breath when he stopped speaking. He studied her for a moment.

“What do they believe you can tell them?” he asked.

“They believe I can tell them where the others have gone,” she said. “I fear they will try to torture me.”

Brother Colum shook his head. “I will stay and make sure they do not. But tell me, do you know where they have gone?”

She looked him in the eye. “I swear on the Blessed Brother that I do not,” Thera said. “I asked them not to tell me in case something went wrong and I was left behind.”

Brother Colum nodded. “Then I will certainly stay and make certain you are not harmed in any manner. And when they are done with their interrogation, I will make them hand you over to me. You are, after all, one of my pupils, and your fate is my decision.”

Thera nodded. There was comfort in that.

Etienne awoke, refreshed
from her nap. She had not meant to sleep so long, but it had felt good.

As she sat up on the pallet, she saw the small feast, mostly gone. And two backsides high in the air. Shona and Wendon were leaning out of the small window.

“There he is...I told you,” Wendon said.

“How can you tell from here?” Shona asked.

“Tell what?” Etienne said.

They jerked back simultaneously, and poor Wendon cracked his head on the upper beam of the window frame. Etienne winced in sympathy.

“There’s a mage down below,” Wendon said, rubbing the back of his head. Shona had the good graces to stifle her laughter.

“Mageborn are not unusual in Ross-Mhor,” Etienne said.

“This one is wearing the livery of a royal advisor,” Wendon said.

“Which kingdom?” Etienne felt her heart trying to leap into her throat.
Oh, horns, how could they have found us so soon?
She was certain she had set enough misdirection spells on the gate to stifle the pursuers for a while.

“Loughan, I think,” Wendon said. “That is what I was trying to determine.”

“Definitely not Keltoran,” Shona added.

Etienne sighed. “How odd? Why would a mageborn from the Kingdom of Loughan be here?”

They both shrugged. Etienne took a deep breath and let her mage senses slide into the floor and followed the path of wood down to the truck of the great willow. The bright golden essence of the mageborn was starting to climb the entry stairs to the village. He did not feel familiar to her. On the other hand, as swiftly as Turlough found them when they went to the Shadow Vale, she knew she should not be surprised that other mageborn from Ard-Taebh were on the move. She pulled back her mage senses and frowned in thought. Like as not, Turlough had sent messages to everyone in reach of a ley line and told them he suspected Etienne and the others were in Ross-Mhor. It occurred to her that this might not have been the best place to come after all. She had hoped that by not going to her own village that she would be able to elude capture, but now she wondered who would have known that she had kin in this part of the world.

“I think we better leave,” Etienne said.

“Are you well enough?” Shona asked, and Etienne had a hard time not laughing considering her apprentice was only recently recovering from the damage of a death bolt.