Wolf's-head, Rogues of Bindar Book I (24 page)

“Ulisa?” Baus
peered closer. His own murmur seemed comic in his ears.

She approached
on calm feet. She was gorgeous in every way, graced with a pure
presence that was difficult to describe. She exuded a magical
litheness; her figure was bathed in light, an emanation that
captivated him. Not for random was it that he took an instant like
to this creature, despite her absurd size. She was no more than
three feet high. Nor was the truthful innocence of her aura or
sense of arbitrary power any diminishing quality. She scrutinized
him just as curiously; he felt a keen stupefaction, for the wet
garments revealed her contours in evocative light, hardly for the
worse. Even so, she shivered slightly in the chillness of the
night.

“Who are you?”
she asked. “I am Ulisa—my friends call me Ulisa the
Utilitarian.”

“Baus of
Heagram,” Baus answered.

The rest of
the distance was small and he crossed it in a trice. With a
graceful ease she appraised him with blinking eyes. “I am indebted
to you,
Baus
. The like is not common in these parts. Let not
some false judgment of character betray me . . . so please accept
this token of my thanks for warning me against that rogue. Aurimag
is a cur. He was ready to dispatch me with prejudice! If you hadn’t
cried out—I might not have fared as well as I have.” Her voice
seemed to falter on the edge of tense memory.

Baus shook his
head with good-nature. “I offered an avenue of escape, no more, as
would any charitable citizen.”

“That you
did,” replied Ulisa heartily. Her smile revealed a natural delight.
“But I think you are more cavalier than your humility may
suggest.”

“You saved
yourself—from the dissolute rascal.”

Ulisa’s face
quivered from some painful memory. “The degeneracy of that villain
has created much grief for me! Dark days are upon us, Baus. His
ruthless deeds must come to an end. Look at me—shrunken to a child.
All creatures in the universe are in jeopardy.”

Baus blinked.
The absolutism seemed a trifle melodramatic. “I hear that name,
‘Aurimag’ more and more.”

“The name is a
mockery!” she spat.

“I know—it
means ‘
Golden Mage
’.”

Ulisa gave her
sandal a stamp. “Where have you heard that? ’Tis ironic that he has
ruined any chances for all things ‘golden’ in this life.”

“Riddles to
me,” grunted Baus. Gesturing to the sprawling forest, he waved with
a sense of urgency. “I suppose we must fly from here. ’Tis ill
fortune if Captain Graves discovers us in these precincts.”

Ulisa agreed.
She allowed her new friend to escort her closer to the looming bog.
Snatching her arm, he half dragged her into the forest gloom before
she could frame a protest. A frosty sheen glazed the foliage,
impelling the woman to jump and hop. Logs and stones proved
cumbersome in the brake. She urged him to slow down.

Baus griped:
“Let us hasten! It bodes ill that Weavil has been seized by that
lunatic. He is my friend and has been transformed into a wretched
midget like yourself.”

“Woe upon woe!
But hold up, I am no hurdler.” She cocked her head. “The small man
who was fleeing next to me when I was dashed to the ground, this is
Weavil?”

“’Tis.”

Ulisa’s lips
showed a brief quiver. “The poor man has been transformed into a
homunculus by an arcane containment like myself. Weavil has fallen
under the pall of Aurimag’s sorcery!—as have many others. It
happened for me in Lune’s glade—not far from Mismerion castle. So
it passed likewise for Woisper—and Salmeister—both neomancers of
the Mismerion Order. They were bewitched . . . in the upper
precincts of the Moon tower . . . Lured by Aurimag’s sly
temptation, typical of his craft. They were fooled.” She gave her
neck a painful twist. “To remedy the situation is no easy
undertaking. But that is where I hasten.”

Baus’s brows
arched. “Oh, and where is that?”

Ulisa peeled
off her cowl and gave a cryptic smile. Baus saw her hair was golden
as silk, enchanting to behold even wet and tousled.

“To revive the
Circle and repair myself to normal stature,” she stated. She seemed
careful not to stimulate Baus’s interest in her. “Woisper,
Salmeister, Adelyheim the Healer, Kazzasius the Projector, Ahrion
the Astrologer—all shall collaborate in the pursuit of justice! We
are neomancers!—Aurimag shall fall, and wrongs shall be righted. We
shall clip the dastard’s wings—master him like the cur he is!
Returning to Mismerion we will install ourselves as proper lords of
the Circle. We shall build our potency, create a new order, revive
the glory of old!”

Baus believed
the presumption lofty but voiced words that the quest was certainly
a noble enterprise. “If Aurimag is half as diabolical as you claim,
I doubt you will succeed.” He frowned at his own forecast and
pulled at his scraggly beard. He felt it imprudent to relay the
news that Weavil’s transformation, according to Nuzbek, could not
be remedied for fifty years, if the magicker was telling the
truth.

The wail of a
horn menaced the forest nearby. It seemed as if their recent
mobilization had not proven satisfactory.

Baus growled,
“I have just learned of the Circle from another source—a certain
‘Trimestrius’ of Desenion.”

Ulisa’s mouth
hung agape. “Trimestrius?” She rustled her gown in awe. “He is
alive?” A glint of hope shone palpably in her eyes.

“’Twas he who
loosed you from your jar.”

Ulisa’s face
swelled with pride. “I don’t doubt it . . . Were there others?”

Baus gave his
head a dour shake. “They are bottled. Now in Aurimag’s
custody.”

Ulisa made a
crestfallen sound. “I must make haste!”

Baus looked
about doubtfully. The bramble and roots formed a daunting mossy
barrier. The forest, no less, seemed a complex prison and the
undergrowth a damp and adder-like tangle. “To where?” he croaked.
“Grumboar is an unforgiving mistress. See for yourself. Your
comrades remain captives of the malignant Nuzbek. At this moment he
flees by air, a freakish sort on a parachute. He eludes those who
are surely out to murder him—they will murder us too unless we are
quick with our feet.”

The pearly
whites of Ulisa’s eyes glittered with animosity.

Baus pulled
the midget along with speed. The two coursed grimly through the
underbrush while Baus dodged awkwardly away from yet another set of
distant horns.

The bracken
became unruly; a choke of spine-weed reared in his path, fern and
fungus to the side. The north wall had tumbled behind in a wash of
mist, now little more than a dim luminescence seen through the arms
of the uncompromising forest. The going was tough yet Baus urged
them on to new speed. With deliberate strides, he hauled Ulisa to
his side and the two plunged recklessly into the woods.

Coils of mist
hung in unfriendly mats on the ground. Sprawling branches hindered
their passage. They felt their way, eyeing gnarled roots and aged
trees without cheer. Boughs seemed to wrap about them, to whisper,
like human shades. Grumboar, ‘the forest of murmurs’, seemed a
tangle of endless trunks, ever limp, mossy and damp, forever
splashed in deep shadow and buoyant fog.

He shrugged
aside the eeriness and plunged deeper into the hollows. Black
shadows seemed to be stained a slightly plum colour. The moon’s
cool shimmer glared bravely through the leaves.

No sign of
Nuzbek was in evidence. The spooky atmosphere grew only more
disquieting: phantom shadows mixed with deep murmurings of forest
secrets. There was a closeness here of watchfulness that engulfed
all thoughts and swallowed hopes.

Past a
jade-tinted pool they stumbled like ghosts. Strange animals lurked
in the gaps: large birds with shimmering legs, horned frogs eager
to croak and shine their glazed eyes. Ever did the trespassers
search for signs of Nuzbek, but they found none. The villain had
utterly disappeared.

Ulisa seemed
the worse for her efforts. Being entombed for so long in a
brine-brimmed jar had not helped her condition. She sensed the
inevitable and staggered to a halt. “I cannot take another step,
Baus!” She dropped to her knees in exhaustion. “The forest harbours
mysteries which I can’t conceive.” Her eyes misted, her hands shook
slightly. The neomancer drifted into a strange trance, as if guided
by an inner calling.

Minutes
passed. In the interim, Baus’s impatience grew. Tall beobar towered
on four fronts in an unnerving wall.

Ulisa snapped
herself alert; she urged them on toward an open space deeper in the
woods that promised respite from the closeness of Grumboar. A
sizeable clearing with boundaries vague and solemn showed the
ground soft and wet—an obvious swamp.

Baus was
unsure of the neomancer’s intent lingering here, yet he was glad to
be out of the stifling confines of the forest, able to breathe
somewhat.

The neomancer
set herself down on a moss-ridden log and in a queer voice, voiced
ominous words: “Aurimag eludes us for sinister reasons. His cunning
has grown; during the age I have been entombed as a trophy doll, he
has become more depraved. Let us rest here—I need quiet—by this
pool, by this glade . . .”

Baus humoured
her. Overlooking the misty reach he sat brooding on his misfortune.
Cattails dwindled at the fringe of the tussocked pool in faint
moonlight. Deep within the pool, he saw a cluster of deadheads
huddled in profusion: grey-mottled trunks with half rotted stumps.
The pool’s thin gleam played beams on a frog which thrummed.
Leaping from lily pad to pad, it spread ripples out upon the water
before submerging. The starry sky spread out its jewels, making
Baus feel somewhat insignificant, enhanced by the profoundness of
the sky.

The silence
deepened. A plaintive-sounding horn split the darkness—causing Baus
to clench fists.

He broke the
eeriness. “Something does not add up in all this talk about
Aurimag. A rogue, yes—but certainly not the utter despot you
describe. Why do you seek him out, as if he were the deadliest
villain on earth?”

Ulisa spoke in
grim fervour. “This ‘Nuzbek’ as you name him—is a powerful
enchanter—he and Aurimag are the same.”

Baus scoffed,
“’Tis hard to believe.”

Ulisa
murmured, “But you must believe it.”

“As you
wish.”

Ulisa said
thoughtfully, “Once he was a powerful sorcerer, though less wise
than most. When old Cascnus the Theosopher died, he applied for a
position to the Synod—as did Llonon the Younger. It happened a long
time ago, and I, senior member of the Circle, was present, along
with others. Woisper, Salmeister and Barbirius, for example, who
granted the two contenders an audience. Ah, what an august assembly
that was!” Her eyes misted, as if a glimpse of the past was too
much to bear. “It was at Mismerion, in our pillared Hall, in the
days of carefree and light temperament.

“Llonon, a
budding neomancer, was first to launch his grand feat—a dancing
lights and flame show. The like had never been seen before in our
keep. Such luminescence! Such fires!—’twas revolutionary for one so
young and brimming with talent. Neither radiating heat nor harm,
his forms made play, and yet were amazing vignettes of illusion,
exploding rainbow showers of tones of colour. How they filled the
hall of Mismerion with delight and wonder! I remember it as if it
was yester-eve: Llonon was dressed all in his finery, a mannerly,
dapper young man with the clever grace of a veteran, twirling and
snapping the shapes, as they formed faces and features of the past:
pilgrims, kings, martyrs, peons, tradesmen. All spoke in their own
native voice, injecting a phrase of knowledge, a quotation, a
witticism, a euphemism, even a tragic anecdote. His conjurations
dwindled to whispers, then rearranged themselves into
constellations, growing in size and wonder.”

Ulisa’s smile
warmed in the moonlight. “It appeared as if we were moving toward a
single star, a distant luminous orb that commanded the orbits of
the satellites! We fled on in our wonder to encounter another star
system. We were finally whisked to the center of our own galaxy, at
incomprehensible speeds. Unquenchable fires shone there with a
brilliance almost impairing to the eyes!

“Then a boom,
a sudden wracking explosion—a brief start—and a juddering jar. We
were flung back into the perplexity of our Hall! Llonon took a bow,
with larkish eyes glistening with mischief.”

“Impressive!”
muttered Baus.

Ulisa gave a
contented sigh. “Aurimag became inflamed at the display. In secret
fury he flung a hex so wicked that the young illusionist ran to the
fountain gulping like a fish. Members of the Circle were at odds
trying to figure out what happened. Our counterspell indicators
indicated that he had cast a spell to make his mouth eternally dry.
Barbirius the Bellicose opted for Aurimag’s dismissal. Salmeister
the Saturnine was in accord. Pizor the Polemicist, Dious the
Philosopher and Maitor the Moralist seconded the motion but Woisper
convinced his colleagues to hold off.

Ulisa paused.
“I say with anything but praise that Aurimag’s powers had grown
since we had last known him as a fledgling aspirant. Ever since he
had taken pilgrimage to the Nderian hills west of Mismerion and had
spoken to the wizened old shamans there who roamed the misty
reaches, he had changed—after that he retired to the stark quietude
of his cave by the Lim. He brooded there and experimented with fey
things. Years passed and he came to demonstrate his magic of new
thresholds, thought lost by all but our Elders. Aurimag’s
extravaganza was a demonstration of teleportation to another realm.
With the help of an assistant, he arranged a great rat on a podium,
a creature dishevelled and miserable, caged in a metal mesh, over
which he placed a mica shield. The rat was obviously under some
spell. Spreading various potions and elixirs of pungency, he
muttered an arcane verse which allowed us a view of that barbaric
podium showing the rodent to have disappeared. He voiced a cryptic
saying, singing fragments of ghastly songs. Blasphemous, these
utterances exemplified all kinds of satanic import and accompanied
with his arrogant bluster, included a flugelhorn performance and a
hornpipe dirge which were so appallingly out of character that we
blanched. As ridiculous as the exploits seemed, we endured them,
perhaps only from sheer etiquette. What was more the gathering felt
utterly scandalized, particularly Salmeister, who held a distinct
hatred for Aurimag and challenged him to prove that he had enacted
anything more than a dissembling of a disappearing rodent.