Accidental Sorcerer (21 page)

'Especially
official
p'eople?'

'Exactly'

'And Tavistock?' Melissande said delicately.

'Tavistock was ... unsanctioned.' He scrubbed a hand across his face. 'Look. Lional's invited me to go hunting with him in the morning, and since I don't suppose there's any hope I can get out of it ...'

'None whatsoever,' she agreed. 'Short of death. And even then I wouldn't put it past him not to tie you to the saddle as an example to any other slackers who might be watching.'

She was right. Lional would. 'Okay. So perhaps while we're cavorting about the countryside I could persuade him to forget this whole wedding idea.'

She snorted.'Good luck.'

'What? You don't think I should try?'

'Well, you can certainly
try,'
she said. 'But don't hold your breath waiting for Lional to agree. Not unless blue is your colour.'

'Then what would you suggest?'

She sighed. 'Honestly? I don't know. I need to sleep on it. In the meantime, I have work to do. Enjoy your outing with Lional tomorrow. And please don't get yourself killed. With my luck I'd inherit the bird.'

She turned and headed for the door. He took a step after her. "Melissande - wait -'

She stopped. Looked back. 'I apologise for barging in here the way I did,' she said stiffly 'And for the things I said. Most unprofessional. I don't know what got into me.'

'I do,' said Reg. 'The best part of a very large bottle of Orpington's Superior Single Malt.'

The foyer doors banged shut with a bad-tempered thud.

'Honestly,
Reg ...' said Gerald, and collapsed into a convenient armchair.

'Well, she called me a fungus!' Reg complained, and flapped from his shoulder back to her chair.

'Cheeky young besom. I'll give her fungus ...' She rattled her tail feathers.'So. What now?'

Now I go looking for my own large bottle of Orpington's.
'I find out what Lional's
really
after. Because I'll never believe he's been pining for Zazoor as a brother-in-law. There's a hell of a lot more to this than meets the eye, Reg.' He thumped the chair with his fist.'Losing my temper with him was a mistake. I'll have to work twice as hard now, to make him believe I'm on his side.'

'On his side?' said Reg. 'What are you talking about? You're not on his side!'

'No, but I have to make him think I am.'

'You mean
really
spy on him?' she shrieked. 'Gerald Dunwoody, are you out of your
mind?'

He snorted. 'Probably.'

'Then get back into it! That Lional's as flash as a rat with a gold tooth! You'll never bamboozle him into thinking you're after a life of crime. What do you think you are, a government secret agent?'

'Of course not,' he said impatiently. 'But I'm partly responsible for what's happened. If I don't do everything in my power to put things right I don't deserve to be a wizard. Now you can either help me or get out of my way.'

After a brief internal battle she heaved a sigh, wings drooping, and said, 'All right, Gerald. But when you're up to your armpits in alligators, don't say I didn't warn you.'

He blew her a kiss.'I won't.'

'Ithink I should come with you in the morning,' she added. 'Just to be on the safe side.'

'You can't. Lional said to leave you behind, and flouting a royal command won't help me discover his secrets.' Brooding, he picked at a loose thread in his trousers.'I wonder if a truth incant would work on him? I don't see why it shouldn't. I mean, they work on everyone else ...'

Reg fluffed up her feathers. 'You don't know any truth incants.'

'No,' he agreed.'But I'll bet you do.'

'That's not the point,' she said, looking harassed. 'Truth incants are restricted to law enforcement,
and
for very good reason. They're extremely temperamental and can even cause brain damage if something goes wrong. I won't be responsible for turning you into a vegetable, Gerald.'

And there she went, treating him like a wayward little brother again. He sat up. 'Look, Reg, I appreciate the concern but I'm prepared to risk it.'

'Well I'm not,' she said. 'Just you stick to your original plan, sunshine. At least for now.'

'And if I can't convince Lional to let me in on whatever he's scheming? What then?'

She shrugged. 'Then we'll just have to wait for the other shoe to drop, won't we?'

'When the other shoe drops,' he said sourly, 'it's going to hit me on the head and give me concussion. And when that happens, Reg, I'm going to blame
youV

After a restless night filled with disquieting dreams, Gerald walked into Lional's private stable yard at two minutes to seven. It was a pretty cobblestoned place with neat flowerbeds and some twenty stables with horses in most of them. Another ridiculous extravagance; what did one man need with twenty horses? Lional was little more than a gluttonous child, snatching at everything he saw just because he could.

And everyone else in the kingdom goes without to keep him in ponies.

Whoever thought royalty was a good idea?

It was a dank, cool morning; mist draped the treetops and curled in tendrils across the damp ground. Moisture beaded his hair and stippled his shiny black boots, his breeches and the jacket hastily conjured up from his existing wardrobe. Maybe when this was all over, provided he was still in one piece, he could set up shop as a
magical
tailor? He was certainly getting enough practice with clothes ...

Lional, of course, had arrived before him. The king stood in the middle of the yard surrounded by a milling horde of black and tan hounds, all barking and snapping and slavering, competing for his attention. Lional laughed at them, his face alight with pleasure. He was sheathed in silk and supple leather, dark as midnight. A long-bladed hunting knife rode his right hip.

'Good
morning,
Professor!'

'Good morning, Your Majesty,' Gerald replied, giving the hounds a wide berth and trying not to look at the prancing black monstrosity of a horse making a spirited attempt to flatten its handler as it was led from its stable. If Lional thought he was going to ride
that
thing he really
was
mad.

'Looking forward to our little expedition?' said Lional, taking the black monstrosity's reins and feeding it a sugar lump. '1 know I am!'

'Ah ...' Even though his belly was empty, he still wanted to be sick. 'Certainly, Your Majesty. Wouldn't miss it for the world.'

'Excellent.
Now, let's mount up, shall we?' He clapped his hands. 'Stable boy! The professor's horse, if you please!'

Oh hell, oh shit ... He turned, braced for the sight of a second fire-breathing monster.

'This is Dorcas,' said Lional as he vaulted -
vaulted,
the bloody show-off - into the black horse's saddle. 'I'm sure the two of you will get along like peas in a pod.'

Dorcas was a pony. A short, fat, mud-brown pony with a resigned expression and sleepy eyes. She stared at Gerald with a minimum of interest and he stared back with a maximum of surprise. Then he realized. Of course he was riding a Dorcas: how likely was it that Lional would risk being upstaged by his wizard?

'Get a leg over, Gerald!' said Lional, as his wild black horse fought the restraint of the bit and plunged amongst the excited hounds like something possessed. 'The morning gallops away, sir, and so must we. Come, Demon'.' Clapping his spurred heels to the black horse's flanks he charged out of the stable yard, scattering gravel and grooms. The hounds bolted in his wake, yelping.

The stable boy rolled his eyes as he manhandled Gerald into the saddle. 'Have fun, sir.'

He managed a faint, sickly smile. 'Oh, yes. Fun. I knew I was doing this for a reason ...' And then he bounced up and down until Dorcas reluctantly took the hint and shuffled off in the black horse's vanishing wake.

impatiently. His voice floated back on the damp morning breeze.'Hurry
up,
Professor!'

'Aye, aye, Captain,' he muttered. Gritting his teeth, he clapped his heels to Dorcas's unenthusiastic sides and hurried.

Seven rabbits and two foxes later, he swore he'd never go hunting again.

Lional had let the hounds devour the rabbits and the foxes but their latest prize, a deer, he forbade them. By this time they were plunged deep into the Crown Forest, according to Lional an exclusive royal hunting preserve. The mist had cleared and the sky was a patchwork of blue and green, with golden columns of sunlight shafting cathedral-like between the lacework branches overhead. The only sounds as they rode further and further in were the muffled thudding of the horses' hooves, the panting and padding of the hounds, the jingling of harness, the occasional startled cries of invisible birds ... and the last desperate gasps of the doomed creatures who could run no more.

Lional looked up from wiping his hunting knife on the flank of the slain doe. 'Ah, Professor! There is nothing to match the taste of freshly roasted venison. Particularly when the kill is your own. We shall dine like kings tonight!'

The deer had been brought down in a small clearing littered with leaf mould and pocked with poisonous-looking mushrooms. Gerald, who couldn't bear to watch Reg humanely despatch a fieldmouse, swallowed nausea. He'd be dreaming of dagger teeth snarling and brown eyes glazed crimson with terror for the rest of his life. He slid down from happily dozing Dorcas and tied her reins to the nearest tree branch. Demon, trained to a hairsbreadth, stood like a statue with his reins still trailing.

'Well, Your Majesty, one of us will, anyway.'

Lional laughed. 'You're a witty man, Professor. I like witty men.'

He nodded. /
wonder if he also likes men who vomit at the sight of blood?
He snuck a glance at his watch. Four hours they'd been out here, charging across the countryside, and all he had to show for it was blisters on his backside. In four hours the only thing he'd gotten Lional to discuss was how much he enjoyed killing things.

Good thing he
wasn't
a government secret agent. After a dismal performance like this one he'd be fired from that job, too.

Lional slid his knife back into its sheath and rose to his feet with smooth, athletic grace. 'Yes,' he mused, leaning his shoulder against the mossy trunk of a convenient tree. '1 do like you, Gerald. Far more than the other tedious fellows I hired.'

And is that supposed to reassure me?
Gerald bowed. 'A compliment indeed, Your Majesty.Thank you.'

Lional smiled.'You're welcome.'

'Speaking of those other wizards ...' He throttled any sign of eagerness, kept his tone casual, uncaring. 'Do you mind if I ask, sir, why none of them suited?'

'Not at all,' said Lional. 'I'll even answer you. Professor. In short they were dullards.'

Well, that was a big help. 'Dullards, Your Majesty?'

'Yes. Each time I had such hopes ... and each time, alas, my hopes were dashed,' said Lional, regretful. 'You see, Gerald, I was searching for a man like myself, a man of
vision.
A man who understands the world and how it works. Who appreciates that timidity is the refuge o± cowards. I sought for that rare man amongst the world's premier ranks of wizardry and had come to think I'd never find him. And then, just as I was about to surrender to despair ...
you
came along.' He laughed. 'What a pity Melissande didn't ignore my hiring instructions long ago. Then I needn't have wasted so much time.' His amusement faded and he frowned. 'She's being difficult about the wedding, you know. Tiresome wench. As if she's ever going to get a better offer. As if she's going to get
any
offer apart from this one.'

Condescending, patronising bastard. 'It's just shock, Your Majesty,' he said carefully. 'Once it passes I'm sure she'll be eager to marry Sultan Zazoor. As you know, women don't possess the most powerful of intellects. They find it almost impossible to see the big picture.'

Lional's eyebrows lifted. 'And what big picture would that be, Professor?'

The surrounding forest had fallen deeply silent. Even the bright shafts of sunlight had faded, dimmed by incoming rain clouds high overhead. The hounds' panting as they lay sprawled around the carcass of the deer sounded even louder, impatient and foreboding. Gerald glanced at them uneasily and they stared back, eyes shining.

Here was his chance. It was now or never.

'The one you are painting, sir, with breathtaking brushstrokes. Your Majesty, I owe you a humble apology. I spoke hastily and without thought yesterday after the Kallarapi departed.'

'You certainly did, Gerald,' said the king, his guarded gaze sharp and watchful. 'Indeed, I was brought to the brink of doubting you.'

'Your Majesty, it shames me to hear you say so,' he said, and lowered his head in what he hoped looked like heartfelt contrition. 'In my defence, allow me to say that your actions took me by surprise.'

'I'll allow it,' said Lional, after a moment.

So far, so good.
He risked lifting his head. 'It also shames me, Your Majesty, to recall my childish response to your bold attack upon the Kallarapi's rapacious demands. It is clear to me these are a rudely primitive people, desperately in need of New Ottosland's civilising influence.'

'They certainly are.'

'To be frank, Your Majesty, after my ill-judged actions yesterday I wouldn't blame you if you chose to dispense with my services and sent me packing.'

Even though Lional appeared relaxed as he leaned against the tree trunk, there was about him the air of a nocked arrow, quivering and ready for flight. He smiled. 'Oh, no, Professor. That would be quite the over-reaction. You are young, and allowances must be made for youth.'

Gerald pressed his hand to his heart. 'Your Majesty is graciousness personified.' 'Yes, I am, aren't I?' said Lional. 'Then ... I am forgiven?' 'Of course you are.'

But only because you want something from me. What is it, you smarmy sanctimonius maniac? What else do you want me to do for you?
'Thank you, Your Majesty. How can I repay such generosity?'

'Oh ...' Lional waved a careless hand. 'I'm sure I'll think of something.' Pushing away from the tree, he began a casual circumnavigation of the clearing. The hounds watched him, ears pricked, tongues lolling. 'See here, Gerald, this dead deer,' he said, and kicked it casually in passing. 'It's dead because I killed it. Because tonight I will be hungry and require sustenance. There was no malice in my action. Certainly I committed no
crime.
I merely obeyed an immutable law of nature: the strong devour the weak in order to survive and prosper.'

As Lional circled, Gerald found himself turning too so the king never managed to get behind him. Suddenly it was very important Lional not get behind him. His mouth was dry. 'As you intend to devour Kallarap, Your Majesty?'

'Is that what you think?'

He nodded. 'Of course. Marrying Melissande to Zazoor is but the first ... mouthful of the meal, is it not?'

Lional laughed, a soft whisper of amusement. 'You disapprove?'

Yes, yes, yesl
'Not at all,
Your
Majesty. The strong must always overpower the weak. As you say, it's the law
of
nature.'

'But you are curious,
CTerald.
I see the question in your eyes. Why bother with conquering Kallarap? That barren wasteland of sand and sun. What use can it be to lush delicious New Ottosland?'

'Iassume for access to the trade routes, Your Majesty,' he replied. 'They represent significant financial value to New Ottosland, after all.'

'Yes,' agreed Lional. 'But they are merely the beginning.'

Deep in his eyes burned a fervid, greedy flame. Seeing it, Gerald felt his chest tighten.
Here it comes ... here it comes .. .
'Princess Melissande has told me Kallarap possesses a formidable army, Your Majesty, while New Ottosland stands defenceless. If they should resist ...'

'New Ottosland defenceless?' Again Lional laughed. 'Not at all, Professor. New Ottosland has you.'

Me? Wliat the hell?
The tightness in his chest increased almost to suffocation point. 'Forgive me, Your Majesty. I'm afraid I don't follow you. I am but one man. I can't defeat an army.'

Lional stopped walking and skewered him with a stare.'But you're
not
a man, Gerald. You're a
wizard]

Oh ... bugger.
Of course. Of course.
'Actually, Your Majesty, I'm both.'

A heartbeat's pause, then
Lional
started circling
again.
'I'm only interested in the wizard. Take my advice, Gerald: put the man in a box, lock it and throw away the key. He'll only get in our way'

He took a deep, painful breath and let it out slowly.'
Our
way, sir?'

'Yes, Gerald. I'm asking you to join me.'

'Join you? In ... conquering Kallarap?'

'In creating a kingdom the likes of which this world has never seen,' said Lional. 'In driving New Ottosland to the very pinnacle of international power and prestige where she has always deserved to be! Every king of New Ottosland before me was a weakling, a coward, a slave to tiny dreams! Not I!
This
Lional is a visionary.
This
Lional has greatness.
This
Lional is man to be
reckoned
with!'

As his voice rose higher and louder, the panting black and tan hounds surged to their teet and howled, refusing to lie down again until he kicked them into cowering submission.

'Well, Gerald?' he demanded, once the hounds were subdued around him. 'Will you join me? I know you possess the ambition, I can see it in your eyes! You think you hide it but you're mistaken, my friend! We're cut from the same cloth, we hunger for the same things. You're no more for a small life than I am, Professor! You have dreams too, of glory, of greatness! Don't dare to deny it for I'll know you're lying!'

Gerald felt his face heat. Ambition wasn't a crime ... so why did it sound shameful when Lional talked of it?

Because his ambition demands the subjugation - the destruction - of anyone or anything standing in his way.

He looked at the forest floor, afraid Lional would read the thought in his eyes, where he'd already read too much for comfort or safety.

'Well, Gerald?' Lional said softly. 'What do you say?'

/ say you're mad, you're crazy, you're stark staring bonkers.
He kept his gaze lowered, hoping Lional would take it for humility. 'Your Majesty, speech is almost beyond me. The honour - the trust - where do I begin?'

'By saying yes, Gerald. Say yes and I'll make you the most powerful man in New Ottosland after myself. No pitiful rules. No pathetic regulations. Your word will be law. And the Scunthorpes of this world will be as dust beneath your feet.'

His head snapped up.
'Scunthorpes?'

Now Lional's smile was wicked with mischief. 'Foolish fellow. Did you think I'd grant you access to my court without knowing
exactly
who you are? An hour after our first meeting I knew everything about you, Gerald. Where you were born. Went to school. Qualified as a wizard. Your first job. Your second job. Your disaster at Stuttley's. None of it matters. You made me a
lion]

And see where that pride, that
folly,
had led him. When he could trust his voice he said, 'Your Majesty is too kind.'

More laughter. 'Kind? Kings can't afford to be kind. Now answer my question.'

Will you join me?
How could he possibly join Lional? Help him force Melissande into an unwanted marriage - conspire with him to destroy the Kallarapi - and after that, who knew?

But I started this, God help me, and then I kept it going. So if the only way to heat Lional is to join him ...

He bowed, so deeply his nose nearly touched his knees. 'I would be honoured to join you, Your Majesty.'

'How honoured?' said Lional, regarding him playfully.

Now
what? 'Your Majesty?'

'Honoured enough to make me a dragon?'

'A dragon,' he said blankly, after a long pause. 'Your Majesty, dragons don't exist.'

'Ah, but Gerald, they
doV
replied Lional, exultant. 'They exist in our imaginations. And what can be imagined can be created. After all, you turned my cat into a lion. Now you can turn a lizard into a dragon. I have the perfect specimen, as it happens, all ready and waiting.'

'Your Majesty -'

'Now, now, don't go getting
coy
on me, Gerald! And don't try telling me you can't do it, either, for I shan't believe you.'

A
dragon?
Why the
hell
would Lional want a -

Oh hell. Oh no.
The third and final deity of Kallarap, mightier than the other two put together. Grimthak, whose earthly form manifested as a dragon.

What have I done?

This was his fault, all of it. If he hadn't been so desperate to stay in New Ottosland, to prove he was brilliant, if he hadn't turned Tavistock into a lion then Lional would never have hatched this plan. Or even if he did, without Tavistock-the-lion, without Reg at his fingertips, he could never put it into action.

If one person dies over this I'll be a murderer.

No matter what happened he must never give Lional what he wanted. He must never turn
anything
into a dragon.

'I'm sorry, Your Majesty,' he said, pouring as much regret into his voice as he could muster. 'I'm afraid I'm not good enough for that kind of magic'

Lional slid a hand into his breeches pocket. 'On the contrary, Gerald. I'm afraid you're far
too
good.'

He frowned. There was a note in Lional's voice that he'd never heard before. Gone was the petulance. The peevishness. The volatile good humour. The handsome face was suddenly older. Grimmer. Suddenly Lional's face was frightening.

He felt himself take an unintended step backwards. His heart was beating so hard he felt sick. 'You knew all along I had no intention of joining you.'