Wolfsbane s-2 Read online

  “Something about the Wizard Wars,” said one of the children instantly.

  “Yes,” said Gerem softly, as he approached the group from the shadows. “Tell us a story about the Wizard Wars.”

  Startled, Aralorn looked up to meet Gerem’s eyes. They were no more welcoming than they had been earlier that day.

  “Tell us,” he continued, taking a seat on the floor and lifting one of the youngsters onto his lap, “the story of the Tear of Hornsmar, who died at the hands of the shapechangers in the mountains just north of here.”

  She was going to have to teach her brother some subtlety, but she could work with his suggestion. She needed a long story, to give Wolf as much time to recover as possible. One came to mind as if it had been waiting for her to recognize it.

  “A story of the Wizard Wars, then, but the story of the Tear is overtold. I have instead a different tale for you. Listen well, for it contains a warning for your children’s children’s children.”

  Having caught their attention, Aralorn took a breath and sought the beginning of her tale. It took her a moment, for it wasn’t one of the ones she told often.

  “Long and long ago, a miller’s son was born. At the time, this hardly seemed an auspicious or important event, for as long as there have been millers, they have been having children. It was not even an unusual occurrence for this miller, because he’d had three other sons and a daughter born in a similar fashion—but not a son like this. No one in the village had ever had a son like this.” She saw a few smiles, and the hall quieted.

  She continued, punctuating her story with extravagant gestures. “When Tam laughed, the flowers bloomed, and the chairs danced; when he cried, the earth shook, and fires sprang up with disconcerting suddenness. Concerned that the child would set fire to the mill itself and ruin his family, the miller took his problem to the village priest.

  “In those days, the old gods still walked the earth, and their priests were able to work miracles at the gods’ discretion, so the miller’s action was probably the wisest one he could have taken.

  “And so the boy was raised by the village priest, who became used to the fires and the earthquakes and quite approved of the blooming flowers. The miller was so relieved that when the temple burned down because of a toddler temper tantrum, he didn’t even grumble about paying his share to rebuild it—and he grumbled about everything.

  “Now, in those days, there was trouble brewing outside the village. Mages, as you all know, are temperamental at best, and at their worst ...” Aralorn shuddered and was pleased to see several members of her audience shiver in sympathy. At her feet, Wolf made a soft noise that might have been laughter. Kisrah smiled, but in the dim light of the great hall, she couldn’t tell if it was genuine or not.

  “Kingdoms then were smaller even than Lambshold, and each and every king had a mage who worked for him. Usually, the most powerful mages worked only for themselves, for none of the small countries could afford to hire them for longer than it took to win a battle or two. The strongest mages of them all were the black mages, who worked magic with blood and death.”

  Gerem straightened, and said, “I never knew black magic was more powerful than the rest.”

  Aralorn nodded. “With black magic, the sorcerer has only to control the magic released; with other magics, he must gather the power as well. Collecting magic released in death takes nothing out of the mage . . . except a piece of his soul.”

  “You sound as if you’ve had personal experience,” said Gerem challengingly.

  Aralorn shook her head. “Not I.”

  When Gerem looked away from her, she continued the tale. “This balance of power had worked for centuries—until the coming of the great warrior, Fargus, and the discovery of gold in the mountains of Berronay.” She rolled out the names with great ceremony, like the court crier, but added, much less formally, “No one knows, now, where Berronay or its mines were. No one knows much more about Fargus than his name. But it was his deeds that came close to destroying the world. For he ruled Berronay shortly after its rich mines were discovered and before anyone else knew how rich that discovery was. He amassed a great army with the intent of conquering the world—and he hired the fourteen most powerful mages in the world to ensure that he would do so.

  “Tam’s village was the smallest of three in the kingdom of Hallenvale—that’s ‘green valley’ in the old tongue. It was located in the lush farmland in the rolling hills just northwest of the Great Swamp.” Aralorn paused, sipping out of a pewter mug of water someone had snagged for her.

  “But there isn’t any farmland there,” broke in a tawny-headed girl of ten or eleven summers.

  “No,” agreed Aralorn softly, pleased that the child had added to the drama of her story. “Not anymore. There’s just an endless sea of black glass where the farmland used to be.”

  She paused and let them think about that for a little while. “As I said, Tam was raised in the small farming village by the priest. When the boy was twelve—the age of apprenticing—he was sent to the king’s wizard for training. By the time he was eighteen, Tam was the most powerful wizard around—except for those using black magic.”

  Aralorn surveyed her audience. “There were a lot of black mages, though. Black magic was common then, and most people saw nothing wrong with it.”

  “Nothing?” asked Gerem.

  “Nothing.” Aralorn nodded. “Most of the mages used the blood and death of animals—if they used human deaths, they kept it quiet. If you kill a pig for eating, its death releases magic. Isn’t it a waste if you take the animal’s hindquarters and throw them in the midden? Why then is it not a waste to leave the magic of its death to dissipate unused?” She waited. “They thought so. But our Tam, you see, was different. He’d been raised by a priest of the springtime goddess—a goddess of life. Out of respect to her, he didn’t sully himself with death.”

  Satisfied that she’d given them something to think about, she continued the story. “Fargus, with the wealth of the gold mines of Berronay behind him, bade his mages ease the way for his armies, and he took over land after land. As each new country added to his wealth, he hired more mages. Even the Great Swamp was no barrier to Fargus’s mages, whose powers only grew as the number of the dead and dying mounted.

  “Now, Fargus was not the first warlord to conquer others using the power of the black mages. A score of years earlier, the battles between Kenred the Younger and Agenhall the Foolish had raged wildly until the backlash of magic had sunk the whole country of Faen beneath the waves of the sea. A hundred years before that, the ravages of the Tear of Hornsmar destroyed the great forest of Idreth with the magic of his sorceress mistress, Jandrethan.” Aralorn looked up and saw several members of her audience nodding at the familiar names. “But it was Fargus’s war that changed everything.”

  “Hallenvale,” she went on, “came at last to Fargus’s notice, and he sent his magic-backed army to fight there. But it was not an easy conquest. The king of Hallenvale was a warrior and strategist without equal—called Firebird for his temperament and the color of his hair. Ah, I see several of you have heard of him. Hallenvale was a prosperous little country, as it had been ruled wisely for generations. The Firebird used his wealth to gather together wizards of his own, including Tam. The small unconquered countries all around, knowing that if Hallenvale fell, their lands would be next, aided him any way they could.

  “A battle was fought on the Plains of Torrence. The armies were equally matched: Thirty-two black mages fought for Fargus, a hundred and seven wizards stood beneath the Firebird’s banner—though these were mostly lesser mages.”

  She let her voice speed up and drop in pitch as she fed them details of the fight. “. . . Spells were launched and countered until magic permeated the very earth. After three days, a pall hung over the plain, an unnaturally thick fog, a fog so dense they could not see twenty paces through it. To the mages, whichever side they fought upon, the air was so heavy with magic that it too
k more power to force yet more magic into the area. Fortunately”—she let her tongue linger on the word and call it to her audience’s attention—“there were so many dead and dying on the field that there was power enough to work more and greater magics.

  “Tam, his power exhausted, was sent to the top of a nearby hill that he might get a better view of the battlefield. He did so. What he saw sent him galloping for the Firebird’s personal mage, Nastriut.”

  “Wasn’t the mage who escaped the sinking of Faen on a boat called Nastriut?” Falhart asked.

  She nodded. “The very same. He was an old man by then, and tired from the battle. Tam coaxed him onto a horse and hauled him up to the top of the hill.”

  She sipped water and let the suspense build.

  “Only a very great mage could have seen what Tam had, but Nastriut was one of the most powerful wizards of his generation. From the vantage point of the hill, Nastriut and Tam could see that the fog that had grown from the first day of the battle was not what either had thought. It was not a spell cast by one of Fargus’s wizards or some side effect of the sheer volume of magic.

  “ ‘Just before Faen fell into the sea,’ Tam said, ‘you saw a dark fog engulf the whole island.’

  “ ‘There was magic so thick it hurt to breathe,’ said Nastriut. ‘Death, more death, and dreams of the power of blood. From the sea I saw it like a great hungry beast.’ The old man shuddered and swallowed hard. ‘Have you been dreaming of power, Tam? I have. Dreams of the power death brings and the lust that rises through my blood. It promises me youth that has not been my state for a century or more.’

  “ ‘If I use black magic,’ whispered Tam, ‘my dreams tell me that I can end all the fighting and go back to my home. Are you saying this thing is in my dreams?’

  “ ‘Such dreams we all had before Faen died,’ the old man said. ‘I dreamed that we created this with the taint of death magic, but I had no proof. When this beast killed the island, it was half the size it is now. But it is the same, the same.’ ”

  The great hall was deathly quiet, and Aralorn was able to drop her voice to a whisper that echoed—a trick of tone and architecture she’d discovered a long time ago.

  “Tam could not have done it, but Nastriut’s reputation was such that Fargus’s mages left the battlefield to help. Over a hundred mages pooled their magic to create a desert of obsidian glass to contain the Dreamer their blood magic had brought into being. Nastriut died in the doing—and he was not alone. The rest of the wizards vowed never to use black magic again upon pain of death. To ensure that this promise was kept, they placed upon themselves a spell that allowed their magic to be controlled by one man—the first ae’Magi, Tam of Hallenvale.”

  “A pretty tale to cover the wizards’ stupidity,” said Gerem abruptly. “It was abuse of magic that created the glass desert, not some heroic effort to save the world.”

  Aralorn smiled at him. “I only tell the tale as it was told to me. You can judge it true or false if you wish. It won’t change the results.”

  “The destruction of a dozen kingdoms,” he said.

  “You’ve been listening to your teachers.” Aralorn smiled her approval. “But there were other results as well. The wizards were vulnerable, most of them trained to use magic in a way that was forbidden them. Now the people feared them and killed them wherever they found them. For generations, a mageborn child was killed as soon as it was recognized. Only in Reth or Southwood could wizards find sanctuary.”

  Aralorn surveyed her audience, child and adult alike. “If you wonder if this story is true, ask the Archmage what the first words of the wizard’s oath are, the oath every apprentice must make to his master since the ae’Magi was set over the mages at the end of the Wizard Wars.”

  “Ab earum satimon,” said Kisrah. He frowned thoughtfully at Aralorn, then translated softly, “To protect our dreams. Where did you hear this story? I have never heard it before. I thought the glass desert was a mistake caused by a clash of magic gone wild and out of control.”

  “I told it to her,” said Nevyn, stepping out from a doorway. “It’s an old tale I heard somewhere—though Aralorn has improved upon it.”

  Aralorn nodded gravely in acknowledgment of the compliment as she rose from her seat. “I have heard several variations of the story since. Lord Kisrah, you wanted to see my father?”

  “One more story, before you go?” asked Falhart. “Something less . . . dark, if you would? I don’t know about anyone else, but I’d rather not spend the night trying to convince my children that there is nothing lurking in the shadows.”

  Aralorn glanced down at Wolf, who was lying on his side being patted by small hands, his eyes closed. It was unusually tolerant of him. In his human form, he avoided people’s hands, other than her own, altogether. The wolf was less shy, but she wondered if he was really asleep. If so, a few minutes more could only help him.

  She gave Falhart a challenging look. “No more comments about my height?”

  He raised his right hand. “I swear.”

  She glanced at Kisrah.

  “I can wait,” he said.

  Aralorn resumed her seat. “All right, let’s see what I can come up with. Hmm. Yes.”

  She waited for it to quiet down, then began. “Not so very long ago, and not so far away, there lived a sorcerer’s apprentice named Pudge. As you might expect from his name, he enjoyed nothing so much as a nice soft pudding, except perhaps a piece of cake. He especially liked it when the sorcerer’s cook would try to cover up the fact that his cake had fallen by filling in the hole with sugary frosting this thick.” Aralorn held up two fingers together and watched a smile cross the face of one of Falhart’s brood at the thought of such a delicacy.

  “Now, Pudge’s master had several apprentices who teased him about his eating. They might have meant it kindly—but you and I know that doesn’t matter. It got so that Pudge would take whatever sweet he happened to thieve from the kitchen and eat it in secret places where the others wouldn’t find him.

  “His favorite was a little cubby he’d found in the library. The passage was so small and insignificant that even if the sorcerer had remembered it, he would never have used it. It was, in fact, so narrow that only a child could squeeze though the long tunnel that led to a comfortably cozy ledge on the side of the sorcerer’s castle several stories above the ground.

  “As the months passed, and the cook’s sugary treats took their toll, the passage grew tighter and tighter, until Pudge began to wonder if there wasn’t some kind of shrinking spell laid upon it.

  “ ‘Perhaps,’ he thought, ‘perhaps, it once was a normal sort of hall and every day it gets smaller and smaller.’

  “It was an idea he found pleasing, though he found no mention of such a spell in any of the books he was allowed to delve into. I might mention here that Pudge was quite an adept little sorcerer in his own right. Had he been of a different temperament, the other apprentices might have truly regretted their teasing.

  “One bright and sunny morning, the cook made little cherry tarts, each just large enough to fit into one of Pudge’s hands. Nobody makes a better thief than a boy—just ask the Traders, if you don’t believe me. Nobody, that is, except a sorcerer. Pudge came out of the kitchen with twelve cherry tarts, and he scrambled to the library before the cook realized they were gone.

  “He opened the passage and managed to squeeze in, though he had to push the pies, stored in a knapsack he used for such nefarious missions, ahead of him in order to fit. It was really only the thought of the cook’s ire that made him fight and struggle through the passage. The cook was a man after Pudge’s own heart, but he had a terrible temper and was best avoided for a while after a successful raid.

  “At last, Pudge was safely through the passage and out on his ledge. He ate eleven of the tarts and shared the twelfth with a few passing birds. Then he decided it was time to go back.” Aralorn paused.

  “He couldn’t get back,” said a young boy seated near
the back of the group.

  “Why not?” asked Aralorn, raising her brows.

  “Because he was too big!” chorused a series of voices (some of which were bass or baritone).

  Aralorn smiled and nodded. “You’re right, of course. It took several days before Pudge was thin enough to get back through the passage, and by that time, his master was getting really worried. Upon hearing of Pudge’s adventures, the sorcerer taught Pudge a spell or two to help him get out of tight places.” She waited for a moment to let the chuckles die down. “Over the years Pudge grew in both girth and power. You might know him better by his real name—Tenneten the Large, own mage to King Myr, current ruler of Reth.” She stood up briskly and made a shooing motion. “All right, that’s all for the night. Correy, if you could spare a moment?”

  Correy approached her, with Kisrah somewhat behind him, as the children shuffled off to their respective parents.

  “What did you need?” asked her brother.

  “Hmm, well, you know that old vacant cottage where the hermit used to live? In the clearing, not too far from here?”

  “The one Hart fell through the roof of when he was pretending he was a dragon?”

  Surprised, she nodded. “That was well before your time.”

  “Some things become family legends,” he replied. “Besides, the knowledge he gained reroofing the cottage came in useful when Father sent us to build a house for Ridane’s priestess to live in.”

  “Ah,” she said, wondering why her father was building houses for the death goddess’s priestess. Guessing why he sent his sons to do it was easier—the Lyon liked to make certain his children knew as many skills as possible. He also liked to keep them humble. “Well, in any case, you need to send someone there to take care of a rather large carcass we left. It might attract some predators, and it’s near some good winter pasture.”

  Correy nodded. “I saw that your wolf is missing some hide. Run into a bear?”

  Aralorn coughed, glanced at Kisrah, who was listening in, and said, “Something of the sort, yes.” There is nothing more disastrous than allowing your opponents to overestimate your abilities: Killing legendary monsters almost always led to that very thing.