The Wizard King (40 page)

Recounting the tale had made him restless, and Tullis rose from the stool with the dull snap of tendons. “Once his power was freed, the Sage began to search for the seeds of power among the household staff. After Lady Drianna left, destroyed by what he told her, I went to him again. I implored him not to use this new ability—to refrain, as you had done. Drianna’s fate was proof of the harm it could do. And again, he censured me. And now he thinks not only to seek the seeds, but to plant them where he will? No,” Tullis said firmly, “that I cannot allow. I had already seen the idea of obtaining more power begin to corrupt his judgment… now that he possesses it, the corruption grows steadily worse. I can no longer serve a man who twists God’s plan as he does.”

Athaya studied the man before her, deeply impressed by his convictions and the risks he took to stand by them. “When the Sage learns that you have released me, you will certainly lose the position you sought to keep before… if not your life as well.”

“Only if you fail to stop him. And I have faith that you can. But do not mistake my motives, my Lady,” he added, lifting up a crooked finger. “My father’s family descends from Dameronne himself, and I affirm the Lorngeld’s natural right to rule. But in payment for that right we must strive to make wise use of God’s gifts; not for senseless domination, but for just and fair government. The Sage, I fear, has forgotten that distinction in pursuit of his own fame. You, your Highness, have not.”

“But I don’t want to govern anyone—I’ve told that to anyone who would listen for the past two years.”

“Perhaps you do not. But he who will be the wizard king—I no longer think it was meant to be his Grace, the Sage—would do better to follow your leadership than his. I see that clearly now.”

He glanced to the window, judging the time from the pattern of the stars. “It is almost morning; I will be expected in the storehouse soon. Go,” he said, without turning around. The single word held all the solemnity of a formal commission from king to vassal. “Return to Caithe and stop his coronation. You must not let the Sage become king.”

Athaya stepped behind the wardrobe screen and hastily changed from Drianna’s robe and shift into her own gray gown. The worst wrinkles had softened after two days of disuse, and after dragging a comb through her hair and tossing on a lightweight traveling cloak, she looked almost presentable.

She went to the steward’s side and took his hand. “Come with me,” she urged him. “I can use you to help train the new students. You risk too much by staying.”

Although visibly grateful for the offer, Tullis nonetheless refused it with a squeeze of his hand. “No. This island has been my home for over sixty years; I have no wish to uproot myself now. Curious,” he added with a wry grin. “Generations of expectant Sarians have awaited the day of our return to Caithe, and now that it has come I find that I would much rather stay behind. But should you defeat the Sage,” he added, “I will be glad to continue as caretaker here and serve you as his successor.”

Athaya folded her brows inward. “Successor?”

“You will be so, should you win the Challenge.”

“The—?”

Somehow, she had always known it would come down to that—a duel to the death between them—but the reality of it struck her like a cold slap in the face. Suddenly, her immediate future took on an entirely new—and deadly—aspect. She felt as if someone had thrust a sword into her hand, shoved her before an experienced soldier, and told her to survive as best she could. She had studied battle magic, of course—Master Hedric had not set her upon this crusade unprepared for the worst—but conceptual knowledge of killing spells was far different than hard experience in using them. Granted, her own abilities had often surprised her in the past—her talent for seeing futures, her discovery of translocation, her unexpected ability to discern the seeds of power—but a duel to the death was not the time to rely on something as intangible as luck. Not when Caithe’s future—and her own life—was the price of miscalculation.

“But I only want to stop him—to drive him out of Caithe. How can I Challenge him?” she went on, aware that her nerves were making her ramble. “He’s more powerful than I am… never mind that he’s done this several times before and knows what he’s doing.”

“His spells are potent, yes, but his mastery is not what it was.”

Athaya threw up her hands with a muffled curse. “A swordsman can have the finest technique in the world, Tullis, but it won’t matter a whit if somebody fires a cannon at him.”

“It must matter, Princess. He will be defeated only by his death—you know that as well as I. And if he is defeated by your hand, then you become Sage after him. It is the law.”

“But I don’t want to be Sage,” she replied, ignoring for the moment the very real possibility that she would not defeat him and that her objection would be moot.

“Once he is crowned king,” Tullis explained, “Dameronne’s prophecy will have been fulfilled; the role of Sage will pass into obsolescence. His Grace will feel no obligation to accept your Challenge. And it is only victory by formal Challenge that will make you the sanctioned leader of the Lorngeld who follow him; you will never gain their obedience without first gaining that title. After that… well, I suppose you could simply command them all to go back to Sare and never return.”

It was a tempting notion, but one that she could not allow to seduce her. “All right. I’ll grant that the Sage has lost some of his edge. But I’m no Sarian; I don’t know the first thing about the rite of Challenge.”

“There is nothing to know; there are no rules or restrictions within the arena. It is quite simply a battle to the death with your inborn spells your only weapons. But beware of the Sage’s mind-magic,” he added gravely. “It has been the downfall of every wizard who has opposed him.”

Athaya pressed her fingers to her temples, sensing a growing headache; she was being pushed headlong into a confrontation for which she was in no way prepared. “Yes, mind-magic,” she repeated absently. “I saw what it did to my brother Nicolas.”

“No, that was a spell of compulsion,” Tullis corrected. “Mind-magic is somewhat different—a more fragile kind of magic, but far more insidious. Compulsion wills the victim to perform a specific task; mind-magic deludes him into believing a thing is true and then acting accordingly. His actions, however, are all of his own choosing… more or less.”

Tullis rested his hands on her shoulders, bracing her against the truth. “The Sage will attempt to use your own thoughts against you. He will pluck out your deepest fears and fashion them into weapons and cripple that part of your mind that discerns truth from falsehood. In the same way a wizard might steal a drop of your life’s essence to create a likeness of you, the Sage will steal slivers of your mind to create an illusion of your own making and discourage you from questioning what you see. In this way, the enemy ultimately defeats himself. Mind-magic is not easy,” Tullis finished, “but his Grace has had much practice at it.”

Athaya was grateful for the steward’s warning, but found herself far more apprehensive about the Challenge than she had been before receiving it. Her life was littered with fears and regrets and unpleasant memories; the notion that the dark secrets of her heart might be ripped from their hiding place and brandished before her in all their ugliness was more fearful than a battle of shields and fire spells could ever be.

Still, she forced herself to remember that she knew something that the Sage, as yet, did not. A precious pouch of corbal crystals was still in Jaren’s possession. Granted, she had only used the gems to work magic that one time, but at least she had a chance to take the Sage completely by surprise, much as Bressel had done. It wasn’t much, but it was a branch of hope to cling to in the flood that threatened to sweep her away. Athaya kept her secret from Tullis, however; he had proved himself trustworthy, but she feared the Sage might force the knowledge from him if he were caught before the Challenge—which now seemed her only option—could take place.

“Just one more thing before you go.” Tullis moved away from her to retrieve a weathered leather satchel left near the door. “His Grace planned to come back for these later—and the rest of his treasures—once his conquest was complete. If you do not object…” The steward’s words trailed off as he glanced meaningfully to the fireplace.

Athaya drew out the collection of books and papers, and pensively paged through them. The satchel’s miniature library contained all of Rhodri’s precious notes—everything he had learned and written about the forbidden rite of assumption in his twenty-odd years of study. She perused a coolly disinterested summary of the rite that had granted King Kelwyn his power, a catalog of the spells he could cast afterward, and a list of remarks on how well he performed each one. And last, she found a hastily written record of her own unexpected gift; and finally, a note about Kelwyn’s equally unexpected death.

Her hands trembled with rage as she tucked the items back into the satchel. God, it would be gratifying to toss the whole lot into the fire, reducing Rhodri’s life’s work to nothing more than smoke and ash. Gratifying, perhaps… but not right. Abhorrent as the ideas were to her, who was she to erase them from the earth? It went against all of Hedric’s teachings—Rhodri’s knowledge itself was not evil, but only what he had chosen to do with it. And the easiest way to expose that evil for what it was lay in careful study and not in suppression.

“I can’t, Tullis. I’m not sure I can make you understand, but… I can’t destroy these notes. There are unique ideas here that shouldn’t be destroyed simply because I happen to dislike them. That’s no better than absolution—killing all wizards on the chance that a few of them might become dangerous. Let me send these papers to the library at Wizard’s College; they can serve as a reminder of the danger that comes from dabbling in things we ought not—and provide fodder for many a long discussion over ale, I’m sure.”

Tullis acceded to her wishes with a polite but baffled nod, unable to reason his way through the peculiarities of Reykan thinking.

Athaya looped the satchel strap over her shoulder and prepared to go. “Thank you for freeing me,” she said, already withdrawing into the relaxed state of mind needed for a smooth translocation. Though still brilliant with stars, she could detect fingertips of dawn probing at the eastern sky. “You may have just freed us all.”

Tullis went down on one knee before her in an unexpected gesture of homage. “It has been a honor to serve the lady of the prophecy,” he said, placing his right hand lightly over his heart.

Athaya winced through a smile at the steward’s choice of phrase. “Please don’t call me that. It makes me feel as if I ought to work a miracle or two before I leave, just for effect.”

“Save your miracles for Caithe,” he replied, glancing upward. “You have worked many there, though I suspect you do not see them yet.”

It sounded like something Master Hedric would have said to her, and it took conscious effort to keep tears at bay. Athaya helped the aging steward to his feet and embraced him fondly, hoping that she would survive the Rite of Challenge to see him again… and trying not to think what it meant for all the Lorngeld in her homeland if she did not.

Athaya’s feet met the floor of her room at the Kaiburn camp just before dawn. In a heartbeat, the rhythmic roll of the sea and the pungent smell of salt were transformed into the gentle murmur of windswept leaves and the scent of earth still damp from recent rain. The forlorn wail of a seagull changed mid-cry to the knowing hoot of an owl. She was home.

The translocation spell, cast so soon after her release from the Sage’s seal, made Athaya woozier than usual; she collapsed beside the snoring bundle on her pallet, weary and light-headed. She groped in the dark for Jaren and shook him gently, and the bundle shifted in response as she rolled against him and brushed her fingertips across the bearded chin…

Bearded?

Durek jerked awake with a strangled gasp like a child breaking free of a nightmare, and Athaya barely kept herself from tumbling off the pallet onto the floor. Her brother’s profile was limned by pale moonlight. “What are you doing here?” she demanded; her astonishment turned the question into an accusation.

“It was the biggest room, so Jaren let me have it,” Durek snapped back defensively, as startled to discover an intruder in his room as Athaya had been to find him there. When his sister’s flustered expression did not fade, he added imperiously, “I
am
the king, you know.”

Only after this exchange did Durek realize what her presence meant. He sat bolt upright and threw the blankets aside, all traces of drowsiness gone from his eyes. “Where have you… I mean, how did you—”

“The Sage was holding me in his fortress on Sare, but his steward let me go. Lucky for me, Tullis doesn’t hold with all of his master’s lofty ambitions.” Athaya refrained from mentioning the extent of those ambitions; Durek had enough to worry himself over without knowing that the Sage’s plot to mastermind a dynasty of Lorngeld was far more diabolical than Rhodri’s petty scheming had ever been.

“Where’s Jaren?”

Durek cocked his head toward the adjoining room and then guided her footsteps—still wobbly as a fawn’s—to Jaren’s bedside. She leaned over and kissed him fervently back to consciousness—as fervently as was possible in his Majesty’s presence—but instead of snapping back to consciousness as Durek had, Jaren roused more slowly, drowsily savoring the means of his awakening. He opened his eyes languidly, suspecting it all a pleasantly vivid dream, then swiftly realized his error and snatched her up in a powerful embrace of relief at seeing her safely home again.

Nesting in the blankets beside him, Athaya told both he and Durek of the tedious days of her confinement and of Tullis’s hand in her freedom. She postponed all mention of the Sage’s plans to sow the seeds of power in those of his own choosing until she and Jaren were alone—it was the only sure way to avoid blurting out the secret of Mailen’s gift in front of Durek—and told them instead of the Sage’s other plans, almost as repulsive, at least from her own perspective.