Betrayal in the Highlands (10 page)

He placed the bejeweled swords in the center of a blanket and rolled it into a tight bundle.

“May I …” Pond hesitated. “May I ask you something?”

“Since when do you ask permission to ask me anything?”

“Well …” Pond lowered his voice. “It’s about all of this magic stuff.”

Fatty Moron sat on the floor stroking Becky’s head. She rolled over onto her side.

“I mean, there aren’t a lot of people like you, are there?” Pond whispered. “No offense or anything, I just meant … well, you know the stories.”

Edmund tied the bundle of swords atop his bulging backpack.

“A lot of us? I don’t know. My father used to say that we were special, that not many people could do the things we could do. Two or three in every generation, that kind of thing.”

He thought about his father, regretting that he didn’t learn as much from him as he could have.

“M-m-my, my mother, on the other hand, used to say that everybody had various degrees of magic in them, but few people took the time to learn.”

“Everybody could do magic?” Pond repeated, delighted with the idea. He thrust his wiggling fingers at Becky as if to turn her into a frog. “Is it just saying the right words the right way?”

Edmund smiled, wishing magic was that easy. As gifted as his parents had told him he was, magic was excruciatingly difficult for him to learn. He could learn every language ever put into print before him, but trying to master a simple spell almost always ended in heart-crushing disappointment.

“It isn’t just the words,” he said, remembering something his father had told him. “It’s how you feel inside about the words, how you use your inner spirit to meld with what you’re saying and doing.”

Edmund shrugged.

“I don’t know. I never really got past the basic mind-clearing exercises, so what do I know about such things?”

“Mind-clearing exercises?” Pond asked, fascinated.

“Yeah.” Edmund nodded to the red flame flickering behind the lamp’s glass shade. “My mother and father could stare at a flame like that for an hour or more, sitting cross-legged on the floor, their minds absolutely at peace. They’d say they were opening their minds to the world—whatever that meant.”

Pulling the pouch of coins from his pocket, Edmund began to absentmindedly fondle it again as he wondered if he should start practicing the meditation exercises his parents had taught him. Then, suddenly realizing he was holding the pouch, he shoved it back into his pocket and resumed packing.

“They’d try to teach me how to do it,” he said, “but I couldn’t sit still unless I had a book in front of me.”

“They were both special, too, weren’t they?”

An image of his mother and father appeared in Edmund’s mind. He smiled to himself.

“Yes. They were both special.” He sheathed the short sword he’d taken from the troll’s lair and buckled his new weapon belt around his waist. “My mother was a gifted healer. She saved most of Rood from the Fever when she was only a teenager. The town would have died off if it hadn’t been for her.

“My father was a ‘trailsman.’ He could talk to animals and predict the weather. He could look at a path in the woods and know exactly where it went, and whether it had been used recently and by whom. He’d never get lost.”

“How did they die?” Pond asked. “I mean, if you don’t mind me—”

Edmund laughed, if for no other reason than to stop from feeling depressed. “It’s fine. You’re the only family I have.”

Or ever will have
…

“My father,” he said, trying to keep his voice from cracking. “My father stepped on a bear trap some furrier left out in the woods. It had poison on it.”

He looked out the window. Starlight shimmered on the ocean’s crashing waves. Over the horizon, black clouds rolled closer, blotting out the red twinkling stars.

“And your mother?” Pond asked.

“She killed herself when she couldn’t heal him.”

Edmund shook his head, trying to get rid of the image of his mother’s pale blue body twisting in the wind as it hung from the poplar tree in the garden behind their house.

“I’m sorry,” Pond said. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, it’s fine. You’re my only friend in the world. There’re no secrets between us. I asked you about your duel, didn’t I?”

Becky ran across the room to where Fatty Moron now stood. Fatty Moron rolled onto the floor, letting Becky jump on top of him; she climbed his mountainous stomach, tail wagging as she tried to lick his face.

“Okay,” Pond said. “Then tell me about you magic—I mean, tell me about you ‘very smart people.’ What exactly can you all do? Can you really possess people’s souls?”

Edmund laughed again.

“Well, then what?” Pond asked. “I don’t have a clue! I just know what the stories say, about how you’re all evil and you eat babies for breakfast.”

Edmund raised an eyebrow. “Eat babies for breakfast?”

“All right, I’ve never heard that specifically. But you know what they say about you all.”

“We can’t possess people’s souls or make them do anything they don’t want to do.”

“Then what?”

“It depends upon the path the person took.”

“Path?”

“A specialty. You see, once you learn the basic spells that train your mind, you begin to focus on a specific path of increasingly difficult incantations based upon what basic spells came easiest. There are many paths, but you can only follow one if you want to get very far.”

And you never went anywhere.

“S-s-some, some people are Elementalists,” Edmund continued. “They can do truly amazing things with fire and water and the like. Some can stir the wind into a gale. Others can breathe underwater. Others can reach into a fire without being burnt.”

“Can anybody shoot lightning out of their fingertips?” More than a little excitement had crept into Pond’s voice. He looked over at Fatty Moron playing with Becky by the front door then softened his tone. “Or fireballs?”

Edmund smiled, happy to finally talk about this taboo subject with somebody he trusted.

“No. Not that I know of. At least, not since the olden days. And even then, such powerful magic users, I mean … ‘very smart people’ … even then they were extremely rare. Only one in the world at any given time.”

“But what about what happened with you and Turd? You know …” Pond acted out the cloth wrapped around Turd’s hand bursting into flames when Turd had tried to grab Edmund by the neck.

Tell him
.

“In all honesty,” Edmund replied with some embarrassment, “I don’t know what the hell happened there. I was angry and scared. The bandages just exploded.”

“Wow! Good timing, eh? I thought he was going to kill you.”

“Yeah, me too! Anyway,” Edmund said, “nowadays, I’d imagine that true ‘very smart people,’ the highly skilled ones, are few and far between, especially after generations of witch hunts. Other than my family, that assistant librarian I met in Eryn Mas is the only other one I’ve ever met.”

He tied a coil of rope to the side of his pack.

“I suspect most of us are like typical tradesmen, only better.”

“What do you mean?” Pond asked.

“Well, imagine being a cooper who can make barrels that never leak. Or a bowyer who could create bows that shot arrows farther and truer than anybody else’s. Or a farmer who could nurse sick crops back to health or make corn more plentiful. That’s what most magic users end up doing, I imagine. We don’t roam around with pointy hats and staffs, looking for adventure.”

He glanced at Fatty.

Fatty patted the ground where Becky sat. Becky lay down.

“I get you,” Pond said, rolling his blanket into a tight bundle. “Go on.”

“For instance, Handel was a bartender. He was able to charm people and make them happy or agree with him. He used his abilities to convince King Hørvest the Horrid not to declare war on the Narvel back in the year 213. Pyra was a rare female magic user who could communicate with animals; she rid the entire city of Eryn Minor of rats back in year 516.”

“I’ve heard of that tale!” Pond said. “I thought it was just a myth.”

“No. It actually happened.”

“Why didn’t they burn her at the stake?”

“Nobody knew she was a magic user at the time. Who would have thought a little girl could be special?”

“You know, it seems like all the notable magic users were in the olden times. I wonder who will be the magic users of future sagas.”

“Who can say?” Edmund answered. “But I’m pretty sure nobody will be singing ballads about a one-eyed, middle-aged librarian named Edmund who could only cast four basic spells. Besides, they’ve killed off all the magic users of today.”

“Not all.”

“Not yet.”

They continued packing.

“What do you think was the Undead King’s path?” Pond asked, tying his waterskin to the side of his pack.

“I don’t know,” Edmund said. “That’s a good question.”

“He must be really powerful, having been alive for so long. Did you ever see him do anything magical?”

“I never saw him, period. Except as a dark shadow.”

“I didn’t see him at all. I wonder why.”

Edmund thought about this.

“Vaettir …” he muttered.

“Ed? You okay?”

“Yeah.” Edmund pulled himself out of his thoughts. “I’m just trying to figure out an answer to your question. Knowing what he could do would certainly help us.”

In the corner of the room, Becky barked. Fatty Moron hushed her. Outside the growing wind bent branches; they swayed back and forth, clawing at the windows like searching fingernails.

“Vorn,” Edmund said. “The other prisoner in the wet cell. He said that Kar-Nazar was a Vaettir.”

“Vaettir?”

“Yeah.” Edmund refocused on packing. “It’s … it’s a broad term for any spirit. It doesn’t help figure out what he can do.”

Setting his overflowing pack on the floor next to him, Pond sat and propped his feet up on the table. “But he was invisible, right? Who can make themselves invisible?”

“An Illusionist …” Edmund said, more to himself than to Pond. “Illusionists can appear like anybody or nothing at all.” The implications of this hit him. “In fact, he could be here, in this room, at this very—”

There was a gentle knock at the door.

They jumped, drawing their swords.

Becky scampered across the room in a torrent of barking, nails clicking on the parquet floor.

Edmund and Pond exchanged nervous glances while Fatty, seeing swords in their hands, hid behind a chair.

Edmund positioned himself next to the door. He signaled to Pond.

“Who is it?” Pond asked.

A dignified male voice floated through the thick wood. “It is Christopher, sir. The Baroness requests the presence of Master Edmund in the main hall.”

Edmund groaned. “The get-together! Damn it!”

Pond smirked wickedly.

“I’m s-s-sorry, Christopher.” Edmund slid his sword back into its sheath. “Please inform the Baroness that I’ll be unable to attend the festivities tonight, and pass along my kind regards.”

Floorboards on the other side of the door creaked uneasily.

“I am terribly sorry, sir,” the servant said with noticeable discomfort, “but I have been instructed to escort Master Edmund down to the gathering, or I am not to return at all.”

Edmund’s shoulders crumpled.

“Terrific.”

“I would very much like to retain my employment with the Baroness,” Christopher added. “She has been very kind to me over the years.”

“Just go for a couple of hours,” Pond whispered. “We weren’t planning to leave until after the storm blew over, anyway. Besides, he won’t go away until you go with him.”

“I’d rather go back to the goblins’ pits.”

“Master Edmund?” Christopher said through the door.

Edmund exhaled heavily.

“I’ll be right out,” he said. “I’ll need to change.”

“Splendid, sir,” Christopher replied. “I shall wait for you here.”

Chapter Eleven

“May I present,” Christopher announced over the bubbling commotion that filled the main hall of Baroness Melody’s manor house, “Master Edmund.”

Two hundred people, mostly young women in beautiful bejeweled gowns, turned and gazed up the marble stairway as Edmund stepped through the grand double doors and out onto the upper landing. His sage-green dress cloak billowed out behind him while the gold-and-emerald brooch on his shoulder glimmered in the glow of honey-scented candles placed throughout the chamber. In his lavish clothes he felt different—both regal and ridiculous at the same time. Adjusting his black eye patch, he surveyed the hall. All of the women had resumed their conversations, returning their attention to the wealthy men around whom they had formed tightly packed clusters.

This is horrible. I’m going to make a fool out of myself.

Just keep your mouth shut and pretend to be interested in whatever people say. Nod a lot.

Reluctantly he descended the broad stairs, his knee-high boots landing on each shiny step with an unenthusiastic thud.

A servant bearing a goblet of wine upon a silver tray approached him. Instinctively Edmund reached for it. Then he remembered Pond’s parting words about not drinking. He shook his head.

The servant bowed.

“On s-second, on second thought.” Edmund tried desperately not to stutter. “May I have some w-w-water, please?”

“Of course, sir. Splendid choice.”

The servant disappeared through a doorway, leaving him to stand alone at the edge of the chattering crowd.

Trying to appear as though he belonged in such a majestic setting, Edmund began to rock on his heels, humming uneasily to himself while he waited. Several people gave him peculiar looks. He stopped humming and attempted to smile, but his face only formed a twitching grimace. They turned away.

Painful minutes crawled by.

Edmund surveyed the ceiling, wondering how long he could inspect the brightly painted frescoes before people thought him queer.

Cold sweat began to gather beneath his armpits.

He glanced around nervously.

Throughout the room, amid a tinkle of light laughter and the clinking of crystal goblets, women chatted with richly dressed men half Edmund’s age. In the far corner, a quartet of minstrels played gentle music.