Black Wizards (40 page)

The wizard and his companions traveled cautiously. Razfallow and Doric moved in the lead, seeking signs of the six horses and the large moorhound. Kryphon followed, several hundred yards behind, concealed by a spell of invisibility. Any ambush directed against his companions would almost certainly overlook him, leaving him in position to rescue, or avenge, as the case might be. In any event, Kryphon had insured that he, himself, would remain safe.

They pressed northward through the dark woods for two days, and gradually the sign of their quarry grew more and more faint. For most of the second day they moved by guesswork with no clue to indicate they were on the right track. Kryphon began to worry; he feared Cyndre’s wrath should the prince escape them.

Then fate intervened, as eight men leaped from the underbrush to
surround Doric and Razfallow, brandishing swords and crossbows. Kryphon, invisible, watched the scene with interest as he quietly approached them. In a minute he had moved within earshot.

“Gold!” one of the strangers demanded. “Will ye hand it over, or shall we search ye for it?”

“You shall have what you require,” she said slowly. With great deliberation, she began to fumble in the pockets of her robe. She was taking plenty of time, but the bandits seemed to be in no hurry. Their attention was riveted to her, as her robe swirled aside to reveal a long stretch of her leg.

Kryphon smiled to himself as he reached the confrontation, still secure in his mantle of invisibility. This was going to be very easy. He drew a pinch of sand from his robe, allowing the grains to pass slowly between his fingers while he concentrated on a simple spell.

“Sleep, children,” he said mockingly. With the casting of his spell, several things happened: He became visible to all of those gathered on the forest path, and seven of the eight bandits staggered and then slumped to the ground, breathing deeply but sound asleep.

The eighth bandit—the one who had demanded the gold—whirled toward Kryphon in shock. His shortsword quivered as he staggered backward.

“Where … where did you …?” His voice cracked and then faded.

Kryphon smiled. “Be at ease, friend,” he said softly, his hands executing a series of gestures. “I mean you no harm.”

The spell—the same one he had used to charm Razfallow—worked remarkably well. The bandit relaxed and lowered his sword, offering a tentative smile, “Sorry. It’s just that, well, you surprised me.”

“I understand,” said the mage, benignly. “We are looking for some … friends. We think they might have passed this way.” He described the prince’s party, speaking without urgency, but his heart pounded with tension. Would this man know anything useful?

“A halfling, you say?” asked the bandit, as Kryphon described Pawldo. “Sure—they were in Doncastle just yesterday morning.”

Kryphon forced his voice to remain calm. “Doncastle, eh? How can we find this place?”

The man beamed with pleasure, elated that he would be able to help his new friend. “Why, it’s a few hours from here. I can take you
there myself!”

Kryphon smiled, his mouth tightening into a thin line.

Tristan felt a strange mixture of emotions as he stood before the High King. His desire for vengeance flared within his breast, but was tempered by the knowledge that this man was his lawful liege. Yet the fellow’s ridiculous appearance and the stark fear that shone blatantly from his eyes overruled the tradition. At once, the Prince of Corwell decided that this man did not deserve his respect.

“Who … who are you?” the king demanded, his voice quivering slightly. He stared at the intruder, disbelieving.

“I am Tristan Kendrick, Prince of Corwell!” he declared.

“Why … er, what …”

“Did you have my father killed?” Tristan demanded. He did not draw, or even handle, his weapon, but the High King recoiled as if physically assaulted.

“No! I didn’t!” His voice cracked and he pushed his chair backward, his uneaten breakfast tumbling to the floor.

“Why did I find your coin upon the killers?” Tristan took a step forward. He felt, rather than saw, Daryth’s reassuring presence behind him, guarding the door.

“Don’t kill me!” squealed the king. “The kingship is yours! Just let me live!”

“Kingship? Of Corwell?”

“No—the High Kingship!” For a moment the king looked puzzled. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

“Who told you that?” asked the prince.

“Why … I thought everybody knew that. That’s why you came here, isn’t it? To claim my throne?”

Tristan leaped around the king’s table, too quickly for the monarch to evade him. He grabbed the pathetic little man by the throat and shook him. “I came here,” he growled, “to punish the person responsible for my father’s death.” The king gasped and twisted, but could not escape.

“If that person was not you,” Tristan snarled, “who was it?”

“Perhaps it is me you seek.”

The voice, soft and sinuous, came from the far side of the huge dressing room. Tristan and Daryth turned in surprise to see a person, shrouded in a dark robe, standing before them. He had not been there a moment earlier.

“Who are you?” demanded the prince, retaining his grip on the king’s throat.

The stranger didn’t answer directly. Instead, he pulled a small gray pebble from a pocket of his robe with his left hand, while his right emerged from another pocket with a pinch of what looked like dust.

“Wissath Duthax, Hisst!” said the man, sprinkling the dust over the stone.

Tristan suddenly felt himself falling, head first. The room whirled around him as he released the king, struggling to raise his hands and protect his head before he landed. He crashed into a hard stone surface and felt the wind explode from his lungs. For a fraction of a second, he had the feeling that he, and the king beside him, were lying on the ceiling of the room. Then the force of gravity returned to normal. He had been on the ceiling. Now he crashed to the floor where he lay, stunned. A crash, somewhere behind him, told him that Daryth, too, must have been ensnared in the spell.

“Guards!” squealed the king, squirming away from Tristan. The prince found his muscles paralyzed, and his head pounded. He had nearly been knocked unconscious by the strange fall.

“Korass, Sithtu—” the wizard began, pulling more items from his robe.

“No!” cried the king, somehow scrambling to his feet and stepping in front of the wizard. “Do not kill him … yet.”

Tristan could not see the wizard’s face beneath his cowled hood, but the sudden tension in the mage’s body signaled his annoyance with the king’s order. Nonetheless, his movements relaxed.

“Very well,” he said quietly. The smooth voice, Tristan thought, sounded incongruous coming from one of such arcane power.

The door burst open and a dozen guards flew into the room. “Seize them!” ordered the king, and the groggy pair of trespassers were swiftly clasped by strong hands.

“I will interrogate them myself!” he barked. “Take them to the dungeon!”

The iron door slammed shut, leaving Tristan alone in the darkness of his cell. Daryth had been taken somewhere else—the vast dungeon seemed to have no shortage of suitable enclosures.

Angrily, the prince pulled against the chains that secured his wrists and ankles to the hard stone wall. They clanked taut with his movements, but gave no further. Reaching awkwardly behind him, he felt the mounts of each of the chains. They were solidly embedded in hard, dry mortar.

His eyes adjusted to the gloom of the small cell. As in Llewellyn, a feeling of terrible suffocation threatened to choke him. This time, the feeling was intensified by darkness, and the fact that he was chained to the wall, alone in a cell.

He shouted at the darkness. Furiously, he struggled with the chains, trying to tear them from the walls with brute strength. All he gained for his struggles were chafed wrists and strained muscles.

He thought of Robyn, wishing there were some way she could know of his plight. But then he imagined her young druidic powers facing the magic of the king’s wizard—a man who had the power to reverse gravity itself! Robyn, he knew, would face the wizard, unflinching in her courage and her faith. And she would be doomed by his power to a horrible death.

Only the fortuitous intervention of the High King, he felt, had saved Daryth and him. Why had the king wanted him to remain alive, after dogging their trail with assassins and sorcery? Certainly whoever had sabotaged the
Lucky Duckling
had not wanted them to remain alive for questioning. Nor had the assassin Razfallow with his band of killers.

And what had the wizard said when he suddenly appeared in the king’s dressing room? “Perhaps it is me you seek,” or words to that effect. Was his quarrel indeed with the king’s wizard, and not the High King himself?

“Tristan,” came the soft, musical voice.

“Huh?” he grunted stupidly, opening his eyes and raising his throbbing head. A white figure stood before him, glowing with a brilliance that hurt his eyes. He blinked several times, and saw her blond hair
spilling across a silver breastplate, His heart leaped as he recognized his visitor.

“My queen!” he croaked. “Thank the goddess you have come! Please, unfetter me!”

Queen Allisynn’s eyes were brighter than he had ever seen them. She was here in the cell with him. He longed to reach out and touch her, but she came no closer. The light surrounded her body, and caused her hair to glow like fire. He looked full upon her face and felt the pain in his skull melt away under the healing warmth of her gaze.

“I cannot free you.” Her voice was heavy with sadness. “My power is useless against the cold iron that binds you.”

Tristan moaned and dropped his head in defeat.

“Do not despair, my prince! You have learned what your enemy fears most, and that is valuable knowledge.”

“Learned?” he said scornfully. “I learned that I’m a fool! I don’t deserve to be a footman in Corwell’s army, much less the king! I was taken prisoner like a chicken walking into a noose!” His anger threatened to consume him, and the queen flinched under the onslaught of his rage.

“I have no right—I forgot where I was for a moment. Can you forgive me for my self-pity?”

“I fear you place undue weight upon my approval,” she said. “There is a lass upon Gwynneth who would be sorely touched by your plight. Perhaps it is for her that you should fight.”

Tristan bit his lip with guilt. In the glory of the queen’s presence, he had forgotten about the woman that he loved—that he wanted to have share his life. “But, you …”

“I am … far too old for you.” She smiled coolly. “Though your affection touches me deeply. It has been a long time since a man looked at me with such … love.”

“I do love you, my queen!” he gasped. He suddenly felt deep humiliation for his imprisonment. “May the goddess grant me the power to prove that someday!”

“I think that she will. Think about what you have learned. And now rest, my prince.”

She slowly faded from his sight, but he could not call her back. He had already collapsed into sleep.

His awakening came as his cell door clanged loudly open. He jerked his head up to see a sudden wash of torchlight precede two figures into the dingy room.

The first was the bent and leering turnkey who had eagerly latched the chains to his wrists and ankles. And the other was the High King.

The turnkey stepped out of the way, holding the torch high. The monarch marched past the turnkey and stopped, just out of the prince’s reach. He looked more self-confident than he had during their first encounter, though still not quite the picture of a High King that Tristan had always imagined.

He wore a long purple robe, trimmed with white. His wig of loose curls gave his head an unnaturally large appearance, though he was a broad hand shorter than the prince. A tiny mustache twitched below his long, pointed nose.

“You intrigue me, Prince of Corwell,” said the king, staring intently at Tristan. The prince said nothing.

“You say that you come here for vengeance?”

“Yes, I do.”

“You did not journey to Caer Callidyrr to claim the throne of the High Kings—
my
throne?”