The fifth sorceress, p.37
The Fifth Sorceress, page 37
It was early evening of the fourth day when they found themselves standing before the inn. The Rogue’s Roost was one of the largest hostels in the country, situated as it was on the main thoroughfare between the northern cities and Tammerland. They gave their horses to the stable boy and paid him well after he told them that the stable, like the inn itself, was very full. Tristan demanded extra oats and a good brushing for both horses.
The prince, carrying the concealed dreggan and the remainder of their food in the leather bags, was about to enter the inn when Wigg grabbed him by the arm, holding him back. ‘Be careful,’ the old one said. ‘The Royal Guard is no more, and this place has long been known as a favorite spot for drunkards and thieves to lay over and rest, even when the Guard was active. Speak little, and let me do the talking when it comes to getting a room. We must stay as low-profile as possible.’ Saying no more, the old one opened the door to the inn and beckoned the prince through.
The lobby, if one could call it that, was very large and served as a combination of tavern, meeting place, and eatery. Along one wall a large fireplace stood, its orange glow dancing about in the dim half-light of the room. The floor was full of tables, most of them filled with men of varying description, almost all of whom seemed sullen and distrustful. Many of them looked up quickly at the two robed figures who had just entered the room, and did not take their eyes off them for what seemed to be a very long time. Some of the men were drunk, and others were playing at cards or board games. The only women Tristan could see in the room were several barmaids who did their best to keep up with the loud, abusive demands of the patrons. Occasionally the men would grab at the women, and sometimes it was all the girls could do to break away from their advances. Any men who were staying here with their wives were probably keeping them upstairs, locked in their rooms, Tristan thought. He didn’t know how long he could watch without doing something. The muscles in his jaw clenched as he followed the wizard to the desk at the far end of the room, knowing that Wigg was silently screaming at him to use self-restraint – something he was in very short supply of.
The innkeeper was a fat, greasy man with little pig’s eyes. He looked up sullenly at the two of them as if they didn’t matter.
‘A room, with two beds,’ Wigg said politely, ‘and food and drink for tonight and tomorrow morning.’
‘We’re full,’ the pig-man said. ‘Go away.’
Wigg produced the bag of kisa and threw several of them on the countertop. As expected, the ring of the gold coins bought a measure of silence from the room.
‘Inns are never full when the price is right,’ Wigg said casually. ‘How much?’
Pig-man cracked a slight smile, and Tristan guessed that the fellow had never seen that many gold coins in one place in his life.
‘Who are you?’ the innkeeper grunted. ‘You don’t look like the usual type I get in here.’
‘We’re refugees,’ Wigg said in a friendly tone, ‘just like everybody else. And we need a place to stay.’ He opened the bag a little wider.
‘Six kisa,’ Pig-man said quickly. ‘The meal tonight is fresh mutton with vegetables.’ He turned and reached under the countertop, producing a key. ‘The room at the top of the stairs. When you come back down I will send one of the maids to your table.’
Wigg produced three more kisa and placed them on the countertop. As they were turning to go up the stairs, Pig-man spoke again. ‘I have other things to sell that you may want,’ he said lewdly as he quickly scooped up the coins.
‘Such as?’ Wigg asked.
‘The road from Tammerland is long and hot, and there are few diversions. Two men such as yourselves could possibly welcome some entertainment.’ The little pig eyes looked sure that more kisa would be coming their way tonight. He spread his hands flat upon the counter and smiled.
Tristan knew exactly what the man was talking about. ‘You sell the barmaids, don’t you?’ he asked, no small amount of anger in his voice.
‘Indeed I do’ – Pig-man leered – ‘whether they want to be sold or not. Refugees from the city, nice and fresh, they are. Since all the trouble in Tammerland, there’s nowhere for them to go from here, and no way to get there on their own. Law of supply and demand, I say. They’re mine to do with as I please. For just a few more kisa each you can have your pick, and be assured that they will be sent to your room.’ He leaned forward to the point that Tristan could smell the ale on his stale breath. ‘And if they don’t do everything you want, I’ll see to it that they are whipped, good and proper.’
To Wigg’s horror, Tristan reached over the counter, grabbed the innkeeper’s dirty shirt, and pulled him halfway across the countertop. The wounds of his family’s deaths were still too fresh, and he was reacting without thinking. ‘Don’t you know that’s illegal?’ the prince snarled. ‘You could get into a lot of trouble for this.’
Unperturbed, Pig-man looked squarely into the prince’s eyes. ‘There are no laws anymore, boy,’ he said, pleased with himself. ‘Since the trouble down in Tammerland, I hear the Royal Guard are all dead, and the Directorate and even the royal family, too. So who’s going to stop me, huh? Now, do you want the women or not?’
‘No,’ Tristan said simply. He pushed the innkeeper back behind the dirty counter and grabbed the key.
After depositing the food and Tristan’s dreggan in their room, they went back downstairs and took a small table in one corner, as far away from the others as possible, so that they might talk. Wigg was beside himself with fury.
‘That was a very foolish thing to do,’ the old one said curtly. ‘If you keep drawing attention to us this way, we will never get to Shadowood.’
Tristan looked across the room at the innkeeper, wishing he had done more, but he knew that the old one was right. ‘I just can’t stand back and let all of this happen,’ he said angrily. ‘I already feel responsible for it all, and watching our people suffer in so many ways only makes it worse.’
Wigg was about to respond when suddenly he lowered his head and cleared his throat, tilting his face slightly. Tristan looked up to see one of the barmaids approaching.
He found himself looking up into the face of one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. She was tall and shapely, with expressive green eyes and long, curling red hair that caught highlights from the fireplace. She wore a simple peasant’s dress, over which was a torn and stained apron. In her hands she held a tray of empty tankards. She looked to be about twenty-five years old.
And she was scared to death.
Clumsily, she asked, ‘What would you like to drink? I’m afraid that there is only wine or ale, but the red wine is fairly good, if you like that kind of thing.’ She stood there nervously, not seeming to know what to say next, as if she had never done this work before. She awkwardly shifted her weight from one foot to the other as she waited. The fear was apparent in her eyes, and despite the wizard’s warnings Tristan found himself wanting to know more.
‘Red wine will be fine,’ he said gently. ‘What is your name?’
‘Lillith, of the House of Alvin,’ she said quietly, as though she couldn’t understand why anyone would want to know. ‘My father was a friend of the king, before he died. Both of my parents and my brother were slaughtered in the massacre at Tammerland, and I left the city in a panic, trying to get to relatives in Ephyra.’ She gave a quick, scared little look toward the innkeeper before continuing. ‘I only arrived yesterday.’ She looked at each of them in turn, with a fear that Tristan had seen far too much of in recent days. She lowered her head, and a tear started to come. ‘Why do you ask?’ She paused for a moment, biting her lower lip. ‘Are you going to buy me for tonight?’ Her expression was one of genuine terror. ‘Is that why you need to know my name?’
‘No, my child,’ Wigg said gently. ‘No harm will come to you from us.’
She seemed to relax a little.
‘Why don’t you leave?’ Tristan asked.
‘How?’ she said, crying a little bit. ‘I came here just as you did, with very little, trying to escape all the madness of my home, looking only for a room. And when he saw me, he took all of my money and clothes, and gave me these to wear. He watches us all day, and locks us up at night. He said that I was now his to do with as he wished, that I had to work for him, and that he would sell me if he chose to.’ She shook her head in pain. ‘And he said this morning that if no one bought me tonight, he would take me himself, to break me in.’
Suddenly, from across the room, a particularly dirty one of the drunkards called out to her. ‘You little Tammerland bitch!’ he shouted. ‘If you don’t bring me my ale soon, instead of me paying you, you will be paying me!’ He made a circle between his left index finger and thumb, and lasciviously ran his other index finger back and forth inside of it. He laughed while several of his friends slapped him on the back.
In a flash, she was gone.
Tristan put his face in his hands. ‘Have we really come to this?’ he asked.
‘Yes, we have, Tristan,’ the old one said. ‘And you must accept the fact that such things are now the way of our world, and that if you try to intervene in each problem that you see, we will actually end up helping no one. You must think of your sister. First, last, and always.’
Tristan knew that the old one was trying to turn the subject away from the plight of Lillith the barmaid. And it worked. Tristan found himself once again preoccupied with Shailiha.
He looked into the Lead Wizard’s eyes as they stared out at him from under the hood of his robe. ‘How is it that I have never heard of a place called Shadowood?’ he asked simply.
Wigg took a long breath in through his nose and looked around the room before responding. ‘No one outside of the Directorate, not even your father, knew of Shadowood,’ he began in a low voice.
He paused as he saw Lillith returning with two glasses of red wine. She placed the glasses on the table and looked briefly into Tristan’s eyes. Watching her walk away, the prince found it hard to drag his mind back to what Wigg was saying.
‘Shadowood was created by the wizards, Faegan included, near the end of the war, at the time when we thought that all might be lost – just before we found the Paragon. It was created as a peaceful hiding place for the wizards, if necessary, so that male endowed blood would not become extinct. It is surrounded on all sides by a great canyon; the easterly side is very close to the Sea of Whispers.’ The old wizard pursed his lips. ‘I was greatly disturbed to hear Succiu make mention of it. That can only mean that the Coven has somehow discovered its existence.’ He sat back in his chair.
Tristan took a sip of the wine, thinking. ‘But there is no such canyon,’ he said. ‘I’m sure I would have heard of it if there had been.’
‘Oh, the canyon exists, all right,’ the old one said, smiling, ‘and was one of our greatest achievements. Truth be known, it cannot be seen. Still, it exists.’
‘I thought you said that until that day upon the dais, invisibility had never been achieved.’
‘It hadn’t. This is different.’
‘What do you mean?’
Wigg sighed. There is so much to teach him, he thought. And I am the only one left in the entire nation who can do it. ‘It can be seen only by those of highly trained endowed blood. And just having the right blood and being trained in the craft does not mean that one can automatically see it. One must be trained in how to see it. Even you and you sister, despite your blood quality, would not be able to see it until you were taught to. That is not the same thing as invisibility. True invisibility is a much harder concept to achieve.’
Tristan wasn’t sure he understood the subtlety, but he was too interested in his next question to debate the point. ‘So what happens if an untrained person, or even one of unendowed blood comes upon it? What do they see?’
‘They see exactly what we planned to have them see: a forest.’
Tristan scratched his head as he took another sip of wine. Then he looked up at the old wizard. ‘And what happens if they continue to walk into this so-called forest?’
‘Once they have walked far enough, when they put their next foot down upon what they think will be firm ground, they fall to their death.’ Wigg spoke as if none of this bothered him at all. ‘Anyone behind them who was watching simply thinks that the person ahead of them has somehow been swallowed up by the earth.’ A small smile crossed his face. ‘A human being suddenly sucked up by the earth, his horses and oxen not suffering the same fate, tends to add to the legend and keep people away, as you might well imagine.’
Tristan was aghast. ‘Are you saying that innocent people can die by simply going there, just so you can protect a piece of ground?’
‘Try not to be too harsh on us,’ the old one said, meeting the prince’s stare. ‘We were virtually sure at that time that we would lose the war, and this was the best spell that we could invoke. Remember, we had not yet discovered the Paragon, and knew far less about the craft than we do now. The canyon around Shadowood seemed to be a good answer, since if the Coven had indeed won and enslaved the nation as they intended, then anyone who came our way was a potential enemy.’
‘So how do we get across?’
‘There is a bridge, of course.’
Tristan shook his head. This was all starting to sound like a bad dream. ‘A bridge? A simple bridge? Why don’t we just fly across on some of your blue lightning bolts?’ he asked sarcastically.
Despite the jab, Wigg was glad to see the prince’s true personality beginning to return. Although he would have never told him so, Wigg had actually begun to miss Tristan’s flippant remarks. Nonetheless, he gave the prince a rather deprecating look and was about to respond in kind when Lillith returned with their dinner. She put large plates of steaming mutton down before each of them, and a bowl of vegetables between them. When Tristan reached for his wineglass, his hand touched hers, and he looked up into her green eyes. She looked down, frightened, and quickly walked away. Tristan followed her with his eyes.
Wigg took a forkful of the mutton, placed it in his mouth, and chewed without speaking. Reaching for a sip of wine, he added drily, ‘It isn’t that simple. The bridge has a guard. At least it did three hundred years ago. And if Faegan lives there, I would be willing to bet that the guard is still in place.’
Tristan dug into his meat, suddenly surprised at how hungry he had become. Without looking up he asked, ‘So do we have to fight this guard to get across? I suppose he is some great, lumbering, three-hundred-year-old brute of a man.’
Wigg pursed his lips and sighed. ‘The guard is a gnome,’ he said simply.
Tristan’s fork stopped halfway to his mouth. ‘A gnome?’ he asked. ‘What in the name of the Afterlife is a gnome?’
‘To put it simply, a gnome is a little person. They tend to live to be very old, and are fiercely loyal to those whom they serve. I’m not surprised you never heard of them. In fact, I’m glad of it. That means they are all still in Shadowood.’ He served himself some vegetables.
‘I don’t understand.’
Wigg smiled. ‘There’s no way that you could. Gnomes have been in Eutracia for as long as we have. But before the war, some men found it to be great sport to hunt them down and kill them, and sometimes take the opportunity to rape their women. These poachers came to be known as gnome hunters. This was all before the creation of the monarchy and the Royal Guard. Because of the gnome hunters it took the wizards a long time to finally earn the gnomes’ trust, and to enlist their help in our cause against the Coven. In return for guarding Shadowood, they were given the benefits of time enchantments and a safe place in which to live, free of the hunters. Ironically, the only wizard to live there now is Faegan, presumably the one who aided the Coven during the war.’
Tristan sat back in his chair, spellbound. Shadowood, Faegan, a giant canyon that cannot be seen, and a bridge guarded by something called a gnome. He shook his head. ‘Is there anything else?’ he asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.
‘Oh, yes,’ the wizard said between bites. ‘The gnome might not let us cross.’
‘Why not? You’re the Lead Wizard, aren’t you?’
‘Of course I am,’ Wigg said testily, brushing away the comment with his free hand as if it were a nuisance. ‘But even the Lead Wizard must prove his identity before being given permission to cross the bridge. Another safeguard.’
‘And just how do we manage that?’
‘Actually,’ Wigg said, ‘for me it is extremely simple. You see, I have been specially trained to see it – another safeguard against the Coven. But as for you, with no training in the craft whatsoever, well, that will be a different matter. We will cross that bridge when we come to it, as they say.’
Tristan decided to change the subject. ‘Wigg, what is a wiktor?’
Wigg sighed and took another sip of his wine. ‘I truly do not know. But I am certainly glad that you killed it.’
‘But it said that it had been awakened to come after me here, in a foreign land. Where, then, did it come from?’
‘I don’t know. Presumably from wherever the sorceresses were.’
‘The deaths of both the harpy and the wiktor were followed by thunder and lightning such as I have never seen,’ Tristan recalled. ‘I cannot remember such a thing ever happening on a clear day or night, and yet now, in such a short time, I have seen it twice. They must be related, but how?’
And I had not seen it myself for over 300 years, Wigg thought. ‘Do you remember that day in the woods when I showed you what the Vigors and the Vagaries actually looked like – the two glowing, revolving orbs?’ he asked.
‘Of course,’ the prince answered. He would never forget that sight, no matter how long he lived. When he had first seen those orbs, they had made an indelible impression on his soul, as well as sending his endowed blood screaming through his veins. And now, after learning so much about himself from the wizard, he felt he was closer to knowing why.
