The Wizard King (34 page)

“What have you done to her?”

Jaren surged forward, determined to throttle the Sage with his bare hands, but Durek grabbed his arm and roughly wrenched him back. “Don’t be a fool! The man could kill us all with a gesture.”

“Not to worry,” the Sage said, waving indifferently in Jaren’s direction. “I’ve no intention of harming Athaya. Quite the opposite in fact,” he added with an insolent smile. “But I cannot say the same for you, so you’d best do as I tell you unless you wish to make a widow of your dear princess at such a tender age.”

Jaren glanced to the pair of guardsmen at his back; if they hadn’t been wizards, he and Durek might have been able to slip past them with a bit of trickery, but he soon abandoned all thoughts of attack, resigned to the fact that the slightest move against them could well result in the deaths of one or both of Athaya’s brothers—not to mention himself. As for Athaya, the Sage seemed to have other plans for her… or so he would have them believe.

“I would suggest,” the Sage went on, pacing casually around the king like a tailor estimating how much cloth to cut, “that in the future, your gatehouse guards use the mirrors allotted to them. My men and I walked right past them and they didn’t even blink. Of course, there were so many refugees clamoring for their attention…”

“How many are here with you?” Jaren asked. He didn’t expect an answer, but perhaps if the Sage thought victory was assured, he might just get one.

The Sage’s smile was thick with malice. “Not as many as there will be shortly.”

He spun on a booted heel and strode to the window, throwing open the shutters and stretching out his arms to embrace the sky. Then, with a murmured phrase, a raw blast of power swept outward like a tidal wave, shredding Hedric’s potent wards in one brutal blow and leaving them in tatters, like fine silk rent by claws.

No sooner were the wards destroyed than there came another blast, equally raw and powerful.
“Columen flammosum fac!”
the Sage shouted, his magic giving birth to a column of fire that shrieked up from the courtyard and exploded into multicolored fireworks; a flare, Jaren realized, to signal his men to attack the castle in force. His next spell blew out the iron-rock flung through a stained glass window, leaving the gateway open to the Sage’s army.

“It won’t be long now,” the Sage informed them, reluctantly turning away from his handiwork. “Thousands march under my banner. The scattered few you sent against me were but a petty inconvenience. I will rule here by dawn. As for you, my little king…”

The Sage raised his palm and hurled shock waves of sickness at Durek. Durek crumpled to the floor like a cloth doll, clutching at the sharp cramps cutting through his belly and unable to resist the impulse to retch. Beside him, Jaren frantically began to weave a counterspell, all the while knowing that his mundane skills were no match against the Sage.

“You are the king!” Brandegarth taunted, smiling down at Durek’s pain even as he deftly turned aside Jaren’s efforts to relieve it. “Command me to stop—beg me!—and perhaps, just perhaps, I shall obey you.”

Just as Durek struggled to voice a scathing refusal, another blast ruptured the air, this one from behind them. In an explosion of wind and blinding light, the guardsmen at the door fell back, blown aside as easily as stalks of wheat in a storm, moaning in anguish as they clutched their heads against sudden pain. The Sage spit out an angry curse of surprise as Master Hedric stepped into the chamber. Far more than a frail old man in a simple green robe, Hedric was electric with power, calling forth every ounce of adept power at his command.

“I cannot allow you to do this,” he said calmly, his benign tone in glaring discord with the massive and deadly magic he wielded. He eased himself between the Sage and his captives. “No wizard shall use his power for domination. Such is the law of the Circle.”

One gesture to Durek, and the spell of sickness was dissolved. The king struggled to his feet, woozy and pale, but otherwise cured of his affliction.

“Your Circle holds no sway here,” the Sage said. All traces of his mocking ways were gone; remaining was the wrathful god. “And even if it did, old man, I would not obey it. You threaten me with no more than the strictures of shortsighted philosophers who have no concept of what our power is for, denying themselves its full extent like priests who swear to celibacy to uphold some misguided sense of propriety.”

“You have ruined my wards,” Hedric observed mildly, refusing to be baited as his eyes drifted past the Sage to the open window where once-fine wards now hung in tatters. Then, without speaking, he sent a different message to Jaren.
I knew you were in danger when the wards went down. The Sage may be powerful, but his technique leaves much to be desired; his spells are atrociously loud.

“And you have tightened your bindings upon the prince,” he continued to the Sage, “undoing all of my careful work…”
The word is spreading through the castle to evacuate, but I fear it is already too late for most.

Did you find Athaya?
Jaren sent back.

Hedric paused.
No, Jaren. If she is here, then she is well warded.

“Nicolas only lives because his sister wishes it,” the Sage said darkly. “He is of no other use to me.” Brandegarth lifted his hands to cast another spell, but Master Hedric quickly countered with another potent blast of light, scattershot with silver and stars.

Take the king and go,
Hedric sent.
I shall see to Prince Nicolas. You cannot take him with you and hope to escape.

Jaren heard the growing exhaustion in his Master’s voice and grew fearful; Hedric was not a young man and the Sage was at the peak of his power. Hedric needed a weapon that the Sage did not have; something he would never expect…

The crystals!
Jaren sent urgently, subtly touching a finger to the leather purse at his belt.
Master Hedric, I have them! If Athaya can do it, maybe you—

No,
came the firm reply.
Even if I knew how to use them, I would not do so. We cannot betray what might be Athaya’s only hope of defeating the Sage; if he knows such a thing can be done, he may well find a way to do it. He’s powerful now, Jaren. Not tightly controlled, but with enough raw force to make up the difference…

“The sealing spell has damaged you,” Hedric remarked to the Sage, betraying nothing of his other, private dialogue. “Your spells are potent, but not so refined as ought to be the case with an adept.”

Master Hedric, what will you—

I have other means,
he replied obscurely. Jaren could hear the vitality ebbing from his voice; whatever Hedric was planning, it would take all the strength that remained to him.
Now go, and take the king to safety.

The Sage raised his arms aloft as if to invoke God’s blessing upon the contest to come. “Then we shall see who among us is the finer wizard. I have won many Challenges over the years against those who fancied themselves my betters.” He narrowed his eyes and stepped back, readying a killing blow. “I am a greater wizard than any clucking hen of your Circle. God has granted me gifts that have never before graced this world!”

I can’t just leave you—

Jaren, don’t argue with me. I haven’t the time for it and neither do you. Now go! Get as far away from this room as you can!

Hedric’s placid face betrayed none of the frightful urgency of his words. “Despise us if you will,” he said to the Sage, one blue-veined hand sliding inside of his robe, “but we of the Circle do know one or two useful tricks.”

He extracted a small charm; a charm that Jaren recognized at once, though he had not seen it since the early days of his service to Hedric. It looked like nothing more than a peasant woman’s poppet—a harmless scrap of cloth tied with twine—but Jaren’s eyes widened with horror as he realized what Master Hedric intended. Empowered by all seven wizards of the Circle, the charm was meant to be used only in the direst of need. Like the brutal, psychic jolt that Rhodri had once dealt him, its deafening screams echoing within the corridors of his paths, Hedric’s charm was charged by the Circle to do the same, but on a killing scale. An extremely potent weapon, but one that discouraged careless use by killing any wizard in the immediate vicinity when it was discharged…

His paralyzing shock was broken by the touch of Durek’s hand on his shoulder. “Don’t you see? Hedric is buying time for us. You can’t help now. Neither of us can. Please, Jaren,” Durek added, as humble as Jaren had ever heard him. “I need your help to escape.”

It was, Jaren realized, the first time that Athaya’s brother had ever called him by name.

And Durek was right; if they did not leave now, Hedric’s sacrifice would be in vain, and he would be dead as well. And Nicolas would be safe in the end; the charm was only deadly to wizards and Nicolas had no paths to damage. And with the Sage dead, his wizard’s army would have no Sage to follow, no king to crown, and thus no more reason to continue their assault on Caithe.

A promising outcome… as long as the charm worked.

With one last look at Master Hedric, committing his face forever to memory, Jaren grabbed Durek’s arm and fled. The Sage’s shielding spell, intended to block their escape, was shattered like fine crystal by the force of Hedric’s counterspell—the last spell he would ever cast before whispering the keywords, hurling the Circle charm to the ground, and destroying both he and his enemy in one brilliant psychic explosion of pain.

The last thing Jaren heard as he bounded down the corridor at Durek’s side was the Sage’s angry voice, echoing like thunder as he rained down curses upon Master Hedric’s head. “Now, old man, you’ve made me angry. Do you really think it will take me long to find them again? You’ve given yourself up for nothing. Now you shall see what the true chosen one of God can do…”

As he and Durek hurtled down the spiral stair leading to the castle’s lower level, Jaren heard the deafening roar of a thousand oceans churning in his head; the very stones seemed to shake beneath his feet, as if a god-child had picked up the fortress and shook it like a toy. Shock waves from the explosion rippled through him, battering his paths and sending him crashing to his knees with a strangled gasp before Durek hauled him up and urged him on. He clutched Durek’s arm and ran blindly, sick with grief and pain, wondering what had become of Athaya, praying that Hedric’s charm was potent enough to kill the Sage, and torn with anguish that if it was, then he would never see his mentor again.

* * * *

Athaya unconsciously obeyed the whispers in her mind that bade her wake only to find herself in the same dungeon cell where she had been confined the night Rhodri had come to steal her power. The wall beside the pallet was scarred with the scratches she had made to mark the time of her confinement… and, she noted with a shudder, spattered with dark stains never fully scrubbed away—the last earthly traces of Rhodri’s shattered body, unable to contain the stolen power that it bore. But as Athaya massaged the sleep from her eyes, bringing into focus the man looming over her pallet, she dearly wished that it was only Rhodri come to torment her again. She possessed the power to challenge him now; she could not say the same for the Sage.

The farther she emerged from her cocoon of magic-induced sleep, the more aware she became of the sensation inside her head. Her skull felt solidly stuffed with wool—a feeling that was dishearteningly familiar. This time, the wool was packed more tightly, proof that the spell was cast by a more powerful wizard than the last one who had bound her so.

Damn.
She should have expected as much. The Sage had taken advantage of her weakened state and confined her power with a sealing spell while she slept. Now she was unable to use any spell at all, much less channel one through a corbal.
If I had one
, she added sullenly, realizing that the pouch of gemstones was with Jaren. Wherever
he
was.

The Sage bent over her and nodded curtly, satisfied that she had roused at his command. “Come with me,” he said, though his voice wavered curiously, without its usual arrogant vigor. “Someone wishes to see you.”

Athaya sat up, still drowsy, but it did not take long to realize that something had happened to her captor since they had last met. The Sage was badly shaken; his powerful hands trembled like an old woman’s and the normally haughty eyes were shrouded and disoriented, as if he had been rudely jolted from an achingly beautiful dream to attend his own execution.

He did not speak at all as he led her to Nicolas’ rooms. The room was not guarded, but Athaya did not fail to notice two blanket-shrouded bodies lying in the corridor; a scrap of black cloth laced with silver peeked out from one of the shrouds. Her stomach twisted into a tight knot as the Sage pushed open the familiar set of doors, suddenly terrified that she would enter the room only to see a priest muttering prayers over her brother’s body, consigning him to heaven and bidding him fair journey.

The sitting chamber was deserted, but bore telltale signs of magic. An ugly black scar marred the center of the carpet, the air carried the acrid stench of scorched wool, and bits of cloth and twine were scattered across the floor as if a child’s puppet had been rent apart. Something else lingered in the room as well, though it was far less definable; vibrations of a sort, just now fading away.

“What happened here?” She bent down to touch a scrap of cloth and the vibrations intensified slightly.

“What happened, Princess,” the Sage replied with a respectful tone that she had rarely heard him employ, “was that I very nearly introduced myself to God before I was ready, thanks to your mentor. That should make you proud. But God gave me the power to prevail,” he added, lest she draw too much satisfaction from his tale. “He protects His servants well.”

He escorted her to the inner chamber. Nicolas was nowhere to be found; instead, Master Hedric lay across the quilts, dangerously close to death.

“Oh God, no…”

The change in him was a brutal shock; for the first time, he truly looked old. Thinning locks of white hair hung limply around a sallow face and once-bright eyes were glassy and distant, already set upon their journey home. Only by looking very closely could she detect the shallow rise and fall of his chest to know that he lived at all.