Aquamancer (mancer series Book 2) (17 page)

And he would say no more, fear as well as pain showing in his fever-dulled eyes. Douglas silently recited a healing incantation to set and knit the man’s bad fracture. It would be a time before the Pfantasian realized that he’d been cured.

The rains of the small castle were not particularly interesting, but they were at least cleaner—being more lightly populated—than other parts of town. Douglas spent an hour more, exploring and observing, trying to draw the poor derelicts into conversation, and failing completely. As the sun slipped behind the mountains he slithered and slid back down through the sweltering town, crossed the burn, and returned gratefully to the piny peace, fragrance, and neatness of their camp.

“No nibbles from this Cribblon person,” reported the Otter. “There are lots of tasty little minnows and crayfish in the upper creek, however, so you won’t have to fix supper for me, tonight. How do you like my fire?” He gestured to a neat blaze before the pavilion. “I set it all by myself!”

“Well done!” Douglas praised him, choosing to ignore the five or six patches of scorched grass where the Otter had practiced. He set about getting his own supper.

After darkness fell, they sat talking about the constellations in the cold, clear sky above—Otters had some interesting names for the Big Bear, the Little Bear, and other major arrangements of stars. Douglas learned that Otters were expert celestial navigators and could find their way over great distances by the positions and elevations of the stars alone.

Marbleheart stopped in the middle of a description of his journey from Dukedom across the Broad to Kingdom. He raised his black button nose and sniffed.

“Someone’s just crossed the bum—and not by the bridge! He’s taking many pains to move unheard and unseen, but I can smell him. I believe it’s a him. Smells better than the usual Pfantasian, too.”

Douglas said, “I sense him, also. Whoever it is has some small magics about him.”

A dark figure appeared below their campsite, lying prone in the deep shadows under low-drooping pine boughs.

“Come on up and join us,” Douglas called. “Others have not seen you but we’ve been watching you since you waded across the stream.”

The man rolled out from under the pines, stood, and walked stiffly up to the fire, throwing back a deep hood to show a young-old, deeply tanned face, a mouth drawn taut in apprehension.

He said simply, “I am Cribblon.”

“And I am Douglas Brightglade, Journeyman Fire Wizard taught by someone who remembers you of old, Cribblon.”

“Yes, good old Flarman Firemaster! Or Flowerstalk, as I now hear he is calling himself. The change in name is why it took me so long to find where he’d settled after Last Battle.”

“Aside from Flarman, Augurian, Marget of Faerie, and of course Frigeon, you are one of the few I’ve met who remember that time.”

“Yes, Frigeon,” said the other, sourly, accepting a seat by the fire and a plateful of supper leftovers. “The less we say about
that
Wizard gone bad, the better.”

“You’ll be happy to know he has reformed, or so we believe,” Douglas told him. “This is my Familiar, Marbleheart Sea Otter.”

The young-old man shook the Otter’s paw solemnly.

“Pleased to have you find us,” said Marbleheart. “Although I’m still not convinced standing on a hilltop and waving flags is the best way to avoid detection by your enemies.”

“It worked,” Douglas pointed out with a shrug. “Probably much faster than any other way.”

“It poses dangers,” agreed Cribblon, nodding to the Otter. “Which is why I chose to wait until deep darkness to leave town. The Witchservers are everywhere in Pfantas. They watch everyone and everything. Including you, Journeyman, when you visited the center this afternoon. Very little goes unnoticed by those Witch-Men. Their punishments for minor infractions are swift and cruel, too.”

“Do they watch you?” asked Marbleheart.

“Oh, yes,” said Cribblon with a tight smile, “but I try to blend into the scenery. I disguised myself as an itinerant bellows mender. It allows me to move about the countryside and assures me, if not a welcome, at least a reason for being here, close to the Coven.”

“Where
is
Coven, then?” asked Douglas.

“Two days’ walk to the northwest, on the east-facing slope of Blueye in the Tiger’s Teeth. You could see her tip plainly from the other side of this hill if you knew where to look.”

“Have some more supper and a mug of good brown Valley ale, transported direct from Blue Teakettle’s cellar at Wizards’ High,” Douglas urged him. “We have the whole night to talk and decide what to do next.”

Cribblon proved to be a good-natured, if rather high-strung man who looked younger than his two hundred years. His memory went back to the very beginnings of the war.

“I was apprenticed to... an Aeromancer,” he said once he’d satisfied a voracious hunger for decent food and slaked his thirst on the Oak ‘n’ Bucket’s best ale.

“Not Frigeon!” exclaimed Douglas.

“As it happens, yes,” said the other, nodding. “You who knew him later may find it hard to believe, but he was quite a good Master when we both were a lot younger, before the war. He taught me carefully and treated me fairly. We never actually liked each other, but I certainly respected his skills as a Wizard.”

“I’ve spent some time with him since he was captured and his power destroyed,” Douglas assured him. “I’ve seen the good side of him restored. I, for one, don’t think he’s trying to fool World with pretended remorse. As Serenit of New Land, he’s already doing a splendid job of righting what he did wrong. We keep an eye on him, of course.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” sighed Cribblon. “I would be relieved to forgive him what he did to me, toward the end.”

“Witches first,” said Douglas. “Tell us all you know about this Coven.”

Cribblon took a deep breath and shook his head.

“There is definitely no safe place to talk of the Coven, especially here.”

“I’ve protected us with some useful spells. You may feel them, if you try.”

The former Apprentice Wizard closed his eyes and appeared to be listening. A faint smile quirked his lips, and he relaxed slightly.

“Very powerful, yet very, very subtle! Stronger than anything I could do in the old days, believe me! Worthy of Flarman Flowerstalk, I’d say. It should keep the Witches from detecting our meeting—for a while, at any rate.”

He sat back, considering his words very carefully.

“Where to begin? Briefly, when Last Battle was over—nobody really won, you know—chaos descended on us all. The various bands, armies, tribes, nations, troops mustered to fight for—or against—the Dark Forces were widely scattered ... just as our Fellowship was dispersed to the four winds.”

“Yes, Flarman fled east and settled in Dukedom and Augurian went to an island in Warm Seas,” Douglas said, to show he knew the broad outlines of their history.

“Yes, well, as they did scatter, so did the Beings and dire Beasts on the other side, the Warlocks and Black Witches as well as the Red Sorcerers and Turned Wizards, Ogres, Goblins, Trolls, evil spirits, banshees and so on.

“Many were hunted down by our allies, destroyed or driven far away. The most powerful and luckiest survived, however, hiding deep in tangled black forests, in the western desert, the northern wastes, or under mountains and under Sea.

“They hoped that, in time, Mortals, and Near Immortals would become so concerned with their own problems and pleasures they’d entirely forget the Wicked who remained out of sight.”

“Their waiting might have paid off in the long run, except that Frigeon lost his patience and showed his reviving powers too soon,” the Journeyman observed. Cribblon nodded soberly and continued.

“In those days during the Chaos there arose terrible Beings we called Searchers, looking for revenge on Men. To avoid them, I fled west and south and settled in Farflung, as far away as I could get, to the very edge of Emptylands.

“I settled there, under a new face and new name, growing grapes for wine and raising goats. Five years ago a wanderer appeared at my door, emaciated, exhausted, in rags, only half-sane. He’d been horribly burned by magic fire and begged me to put him out of the unending pain.

“I’d not practiced any sort of magic for a century and a half—except a little here and there to earn a scant living among the farmers of that distant place. Cures for diseases among the cattle, broken arms, things like that. Nothing that would give me away.

“I thought I’d forgotten the air-curing spells for dire burns Frigeon taught me. Air is a great curer, you know.”

“I remember my lessons well,” said Douglas, chuckling to soften the implied rebuke. “Go on!”

“I treated him for almost a year. As his burns healed, his mind cleared and he slowly told me his story. He’d been a royal herald at Bloody Brook, had fled to the Far North when it was over. He hired himself out as a court musician. The proud Yarls of Northmost, not having joined Last Battle on either side, remained prosperous and able to pay well for good things like music and heroic poetry, which they love.

“But the Yarls began to war among themselves ... great bloody battles with much looting and cruel slayings, he told me. My musician fled south again at the first chance, coming down into what had been Kingdom along the unbroken chain of Tiger’s Teeth Mountains.

“His wanderings, filled with mischances, adventures, and narrow escapes enough to make a great saga-song all his own, brought him at last to the barren slopes of Blueye.

“Here he begged shelter from a terrible winter storm at the hut of an ancient woman, sightless and nearly deaf. The crone grudgingly took him in, more to hear his news than any kind of hospitality. He stayed two years slaving for her, cooking her meals, tending her half-wild cattle and cutting her firewood.

“She claimed she was wife of a herdsman who, with their sons, had perished in some obscure skirmish long before the Last Battle of Kingdom. Each night she prepared for the musician a tasty draught. After drinking, he always slept ten dreamless hours before awakening.

“At first the posset was welcome. He’d suffered from insomnia, fearing terrible nightmares ever since Last Battle, as so many did. After a time it began to worry him, however. He’d been a light sleeper all his life. Now he barely put head to pillow at dusk and suddenly it was morning!

“One night he pretended to drink but poured it out in the snow when he went to throw down hay for her three-legged cow. Then he went to his bed in the loft over the byre and lay fully awake.

“Not long before midnight he heard singing, shouting, and wild laughter. Creeping to the hay hatch, he peered through a crack and saw six women and a handful of men, some old, some young, some ugly, some comely, all dancing in wild abandon, completely naked despite the midwinter cold, about a furious fire in the old woman’s dooryard.

“He realized at once they were Witches and attendant Warlocks, having seen many such in Grummist’s court toward the end of the war. He sensibly remained hidden. Each night, pouring out the sleeping potion, he watched and listened in growing terror.

“Eventually the old woman became suspicious. He was ever tired, fell asleep over any task she gave him that allowed him to sit down. Fearing for his very life—or something much worse—he ran away into a heavy snowfall one night.

“The Warlocks pursued him on foot—disguised as ravening werewolves—and the Witches in the air on their broomsticks until he swam across upper Bloody Brook. Clean, running water they could not easily cross, of course.

“But just as he waded into the torrent, a Witch threw a magic fireball at him that ignited his clothing and terribly burned one side of his face, his left arm, and upper body.

“Fortunately, the fire didn’t touch his legs—when it hit him he was already hip deep in the brook. He dived in, smothering the deadly flames before they could kill him. Once across, he was able to run.

“In terrible and continuous pain and with no help offered by anyone he met, he came at last to my most distant neighbor who told him he might find healing help in my house.

“Well, I treated his near-fatal burns, which had never healed, although it’d been a year or more since his narrow escape. I kept him in my house. Finally healed, he insisted upon leaving, as he would only bring down the dreaded Searchers on us both if he stayed.

“I said I was able to protect him from pursuit as I had protected myself for over a century. But he didn’t believe me and slipped away one night, and I never saw him again. His trail led out into Emptylands’ desert. At least I had helped him to become healthy and relatively sane before he left!”

Cribblon shook his head sadly, remembering. “He told me he’d heard the Witches speak of the old woman’s hut as ‘Coven.’ Knowing something of Witches from Frigeon, who hated them passionately—”

“Which explains something I’ve always wondered about Frigeon,” interrupted Douglas. “Why did he never seek alliances with Black Witches in his own rise to power?”

Said Cribblon with a nod, “After the musician—his name was Illycha—left me, I was in a fearsome quandary. I wanted desperately to remain hidden where I had kept myself safe for a hundred and fifty summers. I was afraid that these Witches—this Coven—would, while seeking Illycha, discover me. My powers had been enough to hide from the Searchers, but Witchpower? I feared I would be too weak to avoid their all-seeing.

“On the other hand, I realized they posed a great danger to World, and especially our much-weakened Fellowship of Wizards.

“I determined at last to find who remained of my old Fellows and warn them of this Coven. I had to spy a bit on Coven so that I would have firsthand and convincing proof of the danger. I hoped I might be able to assess their strength and purposes from a near distance, then send report to the most powerful of the remaining Wizards.

“That’s how it came about. I came to Pfantas in disguise three years ago. I saw clearly the danger Coven presented to Wizards and World. After much careful inquiry I sent word to Flarman by way of a Kobold I met in an iron mine under one of the mountains. He agreed to pass the word through a certain Dwarf Prince who had befriended some of the Wizards ...”