A Likely Story: A Wayward Ink Publishing Anthology (28 page)

“The King
must
marry and produce an heir, before it is too late. We can no longer afford this fastidious picking and choosing, this one too old, this one too young! It is beyond a joke!”

“We should never have let him choose for himself in the first place,” muttered the greybeard. “We should have insisted on his alliance with Princess Iliana as soon as her father proposed it. What matter that she was ten years his senior? She was still fertile enough, the magic strong in her! And now it is too late,” he continued sourly. “She is wed to the Vizier of Tempre. I hear they are expecting their second child.”

“No use crying over that,” reproved the old woman. “I’ll wager there are still plenty of maidens ready and willing to become his queen. Surely one of them must be suitable?”

“We can no longer leave the decision in his hands,” announced the elf firmly. “The magic has become dangerously low. If there is no heir by midsummer. … ” her voiced trailed off.

“We must decide for him,” finished the old woman. “He
must
marry. Before this month is out.”

“What if he refuses, again?” demanded the greybeard.

“Then—you know as well as I do. We will have to find the Challenger. We will have no choice.”

The Wizard

DAFYDD WREN woke at dawn, as he had done hundreds of times before, roused by the sound of birds stirring in the trees around his hut. But this time something was different.

Someone, or some creature, was calling him eastward, toward the rising sun. He felt the call, as if it was a thread attached to his very center.

He frowned in annoyance. The timing was inconvenient, to say the least. The closing days of summer were a busy time in his garden, fruit and vegetables to preserve for winter, herbs to pick and dry while they were at their most potent. Not to mention the animals he cared for; an orphaned family of squirrels to raise, an injured fox to tend.

He tried ignoring the call as he went about his daily tasks—he was sure he would have more free time in a week or so—but by nightfall it was stronger than ever, relentless.

By the next morning it was like a hook in his heart. He couldn’t ignore it any longer; he had to face the fact that he was needed elsewhere. Once he had resigned himself to the inevitable, it was a surprisingly quick task to pack and get ready. He was able to arrange for a young girl from the village to come and tend the animals, but the garden would have to fend for itself.

He saddled his dappled brown mare, and slung two saddle bags holding a few clothes, some travelling rations, and his water flask across her withers. Neither he nor the mare had any need for reins. Dafydd could communicate with her—as with all animals—directly, mind to mind, but he found a saddle more comfortable than riding bareback. He wore forest colors for the journey—brown trousers, a dappled green shirt—and tied back his long, silver-white hair away from his face. He slung his favorite emerald green satchel, filled with herbs and potions, over one shoulder and he was ready.

It was approaching nightfall when he finally came across the village he was seeking. He felt the pull drawing him toward the hills beyond, but he stopped at the inn first, to book a room and settle the mare in her stall.

Two small boys followed him into the stables.

“Are you a wizard then?” asked one, eying the silver-white hair with wonder.

“Are you here to catch the monster?” asked the other, not wanting to be left out.

“What monster is that?” Dafydd queried, raising an eyebrow.

“I don’t know exactly, but it’s huge!”

“I’ve seen its eyes glowing… a hundred at least!”

“And where can I find this monster?” asked Dafydd.

“It lives underground, in the tunnels behind the village.”

“I can show you!”

“I’d take that kindly,” smiled Dafydd. Although he knew where the pull was coming from, it would be helpful to have a guide to show him the human path. Too often he had had to fight his way through scrub and trees, following the apocryphal crow’s flight to his goal.

“Tod, Kim, come back here this instant!” a large woman with a white apron called from the door of the inn. “Don’t be bothering our guest.”

“They’re no trouble, mistress,” he answered. “I’d be glad of their help.”

She looked as if she would protest further, but her husband touched her arm lightly and spoke softly into her ear. “Careful. You don’t want to risk offending a wizard.”

As softly as he spoke, Dafydd’s keen ears picked up the frightened words. “No need to worry,” he assured them cheerfully. “I’ll make certain the boys do not come to any harm.”

Carrying a lantern, for the sake of the boys rather than himself, he followed them along a winding path which led behind the village up though pine trees and scrub for what must have been a full kilometer before they halted. The sky was now dark and the two boys, who only moments ago had been filled with excitement, were suddenly glad their charge had insisted on stopping a good couple of hundred meters short of their destination.

“It’s up there.” One of the boys pointed. “See that boulder that looks like a sheep’s head? Just behind that.”

“Thank you kindly. You’d best be off now—can you find your way back alone?” Although Dafydd was confident he could handle the ‘monster’, there was no point in taking any risks. He could tell from the very fact that the creature was drawing him, that it was magical in nature, and magic was never wholly predictable.

He waited only until he was sure that the boys were on their way, taking the lantern with them, before continuing upward with all the skill of a wolf on the hunt.

He didn’t need to see the entrance to the tunnel to know that he had found his quarry. The delicate magic which infused every living thing simply vanished between one step and the next. It had been devoured, leaving only lifeless rock and soil.

Silently, he slipped inside the entrance to the tunnel, sending out his senses as far as he could into the deeper darkness. Whatever else this creature might be, it was clearly a threat. He could tell it was nearby, probably as drawn to his magic as he was by the creature’s. He glided softly around a corner.

There!

He froze in momentary disbelief. The boy was right, there must be a hundred eyes! What kind of monster was this? He stared. Glowing red eyes floated just above the ground, others just below the roof. It didn’t make sense. … They turned toward him and he realized they weren’t eyes at all. Each glowing ‘eye’ was a tiny sphere, about the size of his thumbnail.

Fascinated, he allowed one to touch his foot. Agonizing pain woke him from a near trance and he thrust out violently with a wave of magic, trying to push them away. But it had the opposite effect. Greedily the spheres sucked the magic right out of the air, glowing brighter as they ate, coming closer.

His brain whirling frantically, Dafydd tried to think. If magic fed them, then. … He drew in every bit of magic he could gather, holding it tight inside his body until he felt as if his eyes would burst out of his head. The lights wobbled for a second and then—went out. A hail of what sounded like iron balls hit the ground. He let the magic out in a great rush, panting with the exertion.

Gingerly he squatted down and examined one with his senses. Nothing. Still tentative, he prodded one lightly with a fingertip. Instead of acute pain, he felt the dull ache he always encountered when around iron tools. He picked it up. Creatures made of living iron, his own magic’s nemesis. He had never encountered anything like it.

The whole encounter had taken less than a minute but he felt as if he had run thirty kilometers.

Perhaps that was why it took him so long to realize that he still felt the call, pulling him eastward. Instead of the destination, this had been a detour.

The King

KING MARCUS Ardiel turned to his Chief Advisor with a world-weary smile. “How can I convince you people that it’s over? Friends though we were, it was never more than that, however much you might have wished otherwise.”

He glanced down for an instant and straightened the front of his black, fur-trimmed cloak. Looked up again. “As far as I know, Jez is on her way home.” He gave a rueful smile that reached his eyes for the first time. “And with a goodly sum in her pockets, too, which she won from me at cards last night.”

“But sire—”

The King held up a hand and frowned. “Let that be an end of it, for heaven’s sake.”

He strode off toward the Commoners’ Hall, where the common people had been queuing for hours to see him with their problems and ask for justice. He had managed to close off that particular conversation but he knew it, or something similar, would be repeated over and over again until he was married. For a while there, he had really thought Jez would be the one. They had got on well enough and he had always had a preference for strong women, but after two weeks of being constantly in each other’s company, his feelings were brotherly, not romantic.

Finally the day ended. Alone at last, his manservant dismissed for the night, his thoughts returned to his problem. Surely there must be a woman out there somewhere with whom he could fancy spending his life? It was getting harder and harder to pretend nothing was wrong. His barriers were as strong as he could make them, but even so, he found it astonishing that none of his advisors had guessed his secret.

He stared blindly into the mirror, not seeing the black hair cropped close to his head, the strong bones of his face, tired blue eyes, thin lips pursed with tension. How much longer could he hang on before everything came crashing down around him?

Not for the first time, he wished futilely that he had not been born into the royal family or that, at the very least, he had a brother or sister who could take over. Occasionally, like right now for instance, he wondered whether he should simply give up completely, let the council choose someone else to be King.

But he honestly didn’t know who else they could choose. He supposed the obvious choice would be his cousin Niall, but he had a hard streak that worried him. He was too ready to take the most expedient way out, to not consider more time-consuming, less dramatic options. He knew Niall found the commoners’ court a tedious chore.

Marcus didn’t think he was being vain, but he honestly thought he was the most suitable person for the kingship. Not only was the magic strong in him, but he knew he was fair and just—a good administrator. It was only the rest of the job he failed at. The part where he had to father the next heir, preferably two or even three of them, and thereby keep the magic in his country strong and vigorous for another generation.

For magic held society in Aelith together. It wove lightly through every living thing, providing a source of energy for magic technicians and wizards alike to draw from. If you had a message for your cousin on the other side of the country, you could, for a small fee, employ the local communication technician to send it for you. If you needed to be there in person, you could, for a much larger fee, employ a transport technician to send you there.

Wizards, of course, did not undertake such mundane tasks. If you were foolish enough to approach a wizard to do such for you, you were just as likely to be turned into a goat.

The Scrying Pool

THE THREE Elders looked at one another. It was getting late and they should be on their way back to Fairhaven, but there was one more task they needed to complete. “Will you look into the Scrying Pool,” the old woman asked the elf, “or shall I?”

“I will.”

The elf, Starwind, rose to her feet and walked over to where a spring welled forth from the ground. She seated herself, ignoring the damp, and slid into a trance. She looked down at the slightly convex surface of the small pool and waited.

Sometimes she thought the visions she saw were of a possible future. At other times they appeared so alien she thought they showed her a different world entirely. Perhaps a warning of what Aelith might become if the magic died. Tonight was one of those occasions, but instead of misty impressions, this time the visions were frighteningly clear.

She saw a scene where row upon row of houses covered the ground, from one side of the flat horizon to the other. Metal horses raced along tracks at speeds she could only imagine. People walked on streets lined with stones, their faces grey and hard like the ground they walked on. The scene changed to show children playing in garishly colored structures, some bouncing high into the air and others eating strange things out of little boxes. At least
they
appeared to be having fun, as children would do everywhere. But where was the space to breathe? The forests? The wilderness?

Where were the elves?

Distressed, she rose to her feet and told the others what she had seen.

“This is a warning. Time is running out,” concluded the old woman, Elder Aneiss. “We should return to Fairhaven and meet with the King.”

Elder Corwin nodded in agreement. “There is no time to be lost. We must begin the search for his bride immediately.”

As one, the three winked out, and reappeared a moment later in the Wizard’s Tower, high up in Castle Haven.

An Encounter

DAFYDD RODE into the outskirts of Fairhaven, following the call which remained strong and urgent. Once again, he reached his destination at nightfall, and he booked into an inn which appeared clean, if basic. He didn’t have coins to waste, nor did he know how long he would have to stay here. Cities confused him; the multitude of people rushing about their business, all in a hurry to get somewhere else. Already the call was muddled. He could still feel it but the direction was difficult to pinpoint; he thought it came from the center of the city but he couldn’t be sure. Perhaps it came from the other side, the city itself another detour on his quest.

He would stable his horse, and then find somewhere in the city to eat and drink, listen to the local gossip, and see if he could discover what might have brought him here.

An hour later, he sat in the Ram’s Head, a rather seedy tavern, sipping his ale and keeping his eyes discreetly downcast while his ears listened to the voices around him. The tavern was either poor or old-fashioned; there were rushes on the floor and the wooden tables were heavy and scarred, stained with years of use. Lamps were turned low so that faces were hard to make out. Evidently it was a meeting place for those with business they did not want to broadcast.