The Ventifact Colossus (The Heroes of Spira Book 1) (2 page)

Berthel laughed. “Then being a bit poorer won’t matter much, will it? How about that rent?”

Dranko rubbed his temples. “I had it, but I got rolled on the way back here. Someone took my pack, and my pack had your coins in it.”

“You? Someone robbed
you
?” Berthel gave him a look of pure skepticism.

“Yeah. Me. So how about I pay you next week with an extra silver thrown in to reward your patience?”

Berthel crossed her arms and said nothing.

“Hey, look, when have I ever gone more than two weeks without paying rent?”

“Last month.”

“Er, okay, fine, but when have I ever gone more than
four
weeks without—”

“Yes, yes,” said Berthel. “One week from today, with
two
extra silvers, and I won’t kick you to the curb.”

Dranko sat up a bit. “Thanks. Though maybe I should hold off paying you until you’ve done something about this drafty strainer I live in.” He looked pointedly at his collection of containers.

“Right.” Berthel laughed again. “You got somewhere else to go?”

Dranko paused. He imagined the sanctuary of the Church of Delioch, God of the Healing Hand, where those who needed succor were given harbor and comfort. Six years he had spent beneath that roof, wearing out his welcome day by day and year by year until, drained of patience, they had turned him out. His one friend there, a girl a couple of years his junior named Praska, had tried to warn him, but he hadn’t listened.

“No,” he said. “I guess I don’t. Now if you don’t mind, your perfume is obscuring the aroma of my chamber pot. Also I have to figure out where my next meal is coming from, and after that your rent. One week, I’ll have your money.”

“I know you will,” said Berthel. “And…are you okay? I mean, whoever took your money, did they hurt you much? You look like crap, even more than usual.”

Dranko grimaced. “I’ll be okay. Thanks, Berthel.”

His landlady turned and picked her way between the buckets to the door. “Oh, almost forgot. Some kid came by today and left this for you. Said it was important.” She produced a small envelope and tossed it to Dranko, who caught it deftly before it could land in a puddle. “I didn’t know you could read,” she added, then gave one last braying laugh before departing.

Dranko turned over the letter in his pruned fingers. Its beautiful wax seal and fine calligraphy were an absurd opulence in his grungy apartment.

“What in the twelve Hells is this?”

He ripped open the envelope and slid out a thick beige card.

You will appear at the tower of the Archmage Abernathy in the city of Tal Hae at sundown on the first day of spring in the year 828.

Dranko peered with suspicion at this unlikely invitation, its words glowing with faint enchantment. He flipped it over, saw that nothing was written on the back, then ran his fingers along the heavy parchment. From his time working in the church’s bindery he knew that this sort of paper was rare and pricey. (Among his dozens of scars from Mokad was a long one on his elbow, testament to a moment of carelessness wherein he had knocked over a pot of ink and ruined a sheaf of vellum.) The expense of the paper made the obvious conclusion—that this was some odd prank—harder to countenance, though it was still more likely than him being summoned by the elusive archmage of Tal Hae.

His life not having much overlap with wizarding circles, assuming there even were such things, Dranko knew only the usual street gossip about the archmagi. Powerful, mysterious, and never seen outside of their stone towers, the archmagi were said to be working on some grand project on the orders of King Crunard himself. Typical citizens had heard only faint rumors of them, rumors they probably disbelieved.

Other possibilities: the letter was a ploy to lure him either into a trap, or out of his house so someone could rob the place. The first of those was more likely. Unless someone desperately needed buckets of rainwater or a stiff straw mattress with a few fleas in it, his apartment was not much of a target for premeditated burglary. But a trap, that he could believe. Careful though he was, his cutpurse hobby had occasional repercussions. Someone may have tracked him home after one of his outings, and now was planning revenge.

The letter…there was certainly some sort of glamour making the words glow. Had he inadvertently robbed a wizard on one of his extralegal excursions? Or maybe, maybe, the invitation was on the level. This was already a momentous day, the day he had channeled Delioch’s healing energies, years after being cast out of the church. Was the letter related? Had Abernathy used his wizardry to sense the power he had so briefly touched? Who knew? He didn’t have much time to think about it—the first day of spring was tomorrow—but the possibility made it worth the risk.

* * *

Dranko Blackhope arrived at Abernathy’s tower the following afternoon and noticed for the first time that it had no doors. Though he had ranged far and wide through Tal Hae over the years in search of prospects, targets, and cheap liquor, Dranko had never visited the wizard’s tower in the city’s northwest corner, in an old park that offered few opportunities for his ignoble trade. He had seen the upper portion of the smooth stone cylinder from afar but had no clear picture in his head of what the place looked like at ground level. Now that he stood before it, he found that its bottommost section was no different than the rest of it—seamless stone, unsullied by carving or graffiti or anything else. The tower was a tall featureless post thirty feet across and nearly a hundred feet high, rising from the grass like an ancient menhir. Indeed there was no reason to think it was hollow, save for the fact that a mighty wizard was purported to live inside of it.

There were no windows either, and Dranko didn’t give himself good odds of being able to scale the smooth tower wall to check out the roof. His mind flashed to his friend Praska, a fellow novice in the church and a co-conspirator in many of his childhood pranks. She’d try to climb the tower, no question; she could climb almost anything. Gods, what would she say if she could see him now, answering an invitation from an archmage? Whatever happened next, this might occasion his first trip back to the church since his exile, just to tell her all about it.

After a quick scout-around that revealed no immediate ambush, Dranko walked a slow, careful perimeter of the tower, running his hands over the stone in case there was a door masked by illusion. That seemed like the kind of thing a wizard might do—test Dranko’s reasoning and resolve to see if he was truly worthy of whatever it was he’d been summoned for. But, no, there was nothing. The sun had already dropped behind Tal Hae’s western wall, and sunset was imminent.

He cupped his hands to his mouth. “Hello? Abernathy? I’m here. You going to let me in, or what?”

A bird chirped and the sound of a dog barking came from several blocks away, but Abernathy, if he was really inside this pillar of rock, did not respond.

“Great,” Dranko muttered. “I should have guessed this was some kind of idiot joke. Maybe someone from the church who still—”

With no noise, lights, or warning of any kind, Dranko found himself somewhere else. He blinked his eyes. Gone were the park and the tower and the fish smell of Tal Hae, and in their place was something more like a parlor, or a library. (Not that he had much experience with parlors and libraries; the church of Delioch had both, but with his reputation for troublemaking Dranko had seldom been allowed to visit them.) This place had a cozy, comfortable, happily disorganized feel despite being quite a large room. Bookshelves lined the stone walls, and many of the scrolls and books lay on their sides or had spilled onto the floor. A half dozen small tables were heaped with more books and leaves of parchment, as well as inkpots, quills, pots of wax, and an assortment of small curios. Among them were valuable figurines and objects d’art, small and easily palmed.

But while the objects and furnishings of this scholar’s lounge were interesting, Dranko quickly focused his attention on the people who stood nearby. Five others, three men and two women, were looking around in confusion or wonderment, and Dranko guessed that they had not been expecting to get magicked directly into Abernathy’s tower, or to find themselves part of a larger group. They stood in different parts of the library, none too close to any of the others. It seemed that each of the six of them was waiting for someone else to speak, so Dranko broke the silence. “I don’t suppose one of you is Abernathy?”

Everyone looked expectantly at everyone else.

“Did all of you get one of these?” asked a sandy-haired kid, holding up a card that matched Dranko’s. “I’m Ernest Roundhill, by the way. My friends call me Ernie. Nice to meet you.” He was an honest-faced young fellow with a sword at his belt. Dranko pegged him at eighteen years old.

“I’m Aravia Telmir,” said a girl on his left. She looked out at the others from beneath the brim of a large and ridiculous conical hat, purple, adorned with little stars and moons. Did she think she was going to impress a powerful wizard by playing dress-up? The hat shaded her face enough that he couldn’t know her age, though from her voice he guessed late teens or early twenties.

On the other side of Ernie was an elderly woman holding a cleaver dripping with blood. She was in her sixties, and dressed like Dranko imagined someone’s mom would dress: long peasant skirt, dingy blouse, tattered scarf, bonnet around her gray hair. Laugh lines dominated her face.

“My name is Ysabel,” said the old woman. “You young people can call me Mrs. Horn.” She held up her cleaver and graced the room with a friendly smile. “Try anything, and you’ll be my next victim.” When Ernie took a quick step away from her, she laughed. “No, no, don’t get the wrong idea, young man. I was butchering a deer a moment ago. Never thought that invitation was really from a wizard.”

Dranko grinned at her. “Noted.” Her return smile went straight to his eyes, not his tusks. He liked her.

“Tor. Tor Bladebearer.” Tor was a tall, muscular, and well-dressed youth who carried himself with a grace and confidence Dranko didn’t see much of in the poorer parts of town. A nobleman’s son, maybe? There was a sheathed sword strapped to the boy’s back, and the kid could doubtless do some serious damage with it, but his face was guileless and full of wonder. Dranko would have bet a gold crescent that “Tor” was a pseudonym.

Closest to Tor was a grim, dour-faced man, probably in his mid-forties, and like the two youths he carried a sword. His right hand was on its grip, though he had not yet drawn it, and his eyes were wary, flicking around between Dranko and the others. Of his fellow guests in the library, this guy was the only one sizing
him
up in the same way he was doing to them. Competent and humorless; probably a soldier or mercenary.

“I’m Grey Wolf.”

Dranko tried not to laugh, but a poorly-stifled snort came out. “Your name is Grey Wolf?”

“No,” said Grey Wolf. “But it’s what I prefer to be called. Is that a problem?”

“Hey, no, that’s great. Whatever makes you happy. I’m Dranko Blackhope.”

Grey Wolf scowled and narrowed his eyes.

Ernest squirmed uncomfortably at the exchange. “So, anyone know why we were…magicked here by an archmage?”

“Teleported,” said Aravia. “The correct term is ‘teleported.’”

Dranko updated his impression of the girl. Maybe she was a wizard herself? The hat was still outlandish.

“Teleported,” Ernie repeated. But no one answered the question, and an awkward silence lasted almost half a minute.

Dranko hated silence as a rule. “Maybe this is a test. Maybe we’re supposed to find Abernathy somewhere in his tower, and the first person to catch him wins a sack of gold.”

Ernie laughed and Grey Wolf rolled his eyes, but Dranko was only half-kidding. He walked to the door and tried the handle. It was locked. He shook it, turned it both ways, and even put his shoulder into the door in case it was merely stuck, but they appeared to be trapped in the library. Maybe there was a hidden exit somewhere, but it would take hours to search properly through all the clutter. He glared at the door. If only he had his tools…

Grey Wolf sighed and sat down in one of the room’s wooden chairs.

The boy who had called himself Tor Bladebearer (a name no less silly than Grey Wolf) picked up a little onyx dog from the table nearest him and examined it idly. “All of the archmagi work for the king, right? I’ll bet King Crunard asked Abernathy to assemble a team for some kind of secret mission. He must have picked me because of my swordsmanship. What about the rest of you?”

“I am a wizard,” said Aravia proudly. “I have been studying under the master Serpicore for over two years and have learned several significant spells.”

That answered that, then. A young wizardess, full of herself.

“Really?” exclaimed Ernie. “That’s amazing! What kind of spells do you know?”

Aravia smiled, straightened, and spoke in a crisp and practiced manner. “I’ve learned
heatless light
,
minor arcanokinesis
,
minor lockbreaker
…”

“Lockbreaker?” Dranko interrupted. “Now we’re getting somewhere!” He gestured to the door. “How about lock-breaking us out of here so we can find Abernathy and let him know we’re waiting for him.”