Read Court Wizard (Spellmonger Series: Book 8) Online

Authors: Terry Mancour

Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #Fantasy, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Epic

Court Wizard (Spellmonger Series: Book 8) (2 page)

BOOK: Court Wizard (Spellmonger Series: Book 8)
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She was destined to take up the task.  She had foreseen it.

Antimei agreed to take charge of the girl on the spot, calmly informed the village that the army she’d seen would pass them by as it streamed toward the southlands along the Timber Road, and that all was well.  Her words calmed a great many, and the grateful people packed Alurra up and provided her with simple gifts before she went.  Antimei had not mentioned the river of ice, or the dragons, or the desperate struggle to come.  For the people of Tolindir village there was safety . . . for now.  That was all they really cared about.

For two years and more Alurra had lived here in the croft with her.  She had lectured the girl constantly on her new craft, and found her both intelligent and engaged.  Having already accepted the reality of her blindness, accepting the novelty of magic seemed easier to her than in most neophytes.  After making her at home in the croft, Antimei ushered the girl through the painful process of adjusting to her Talent.  It had seemed an endless psychic crisis as the Talent re-made her nervous system into its eventual form, but the pain and suffering involved in the process had brought them close together in a short time.

At first Antimei had been perplexed about how to proceed with Alurra’s training, since without sight the girl could not read, or use magesight.  Many spells required magesight to even begin, and without vision Alurra could not learn magic the way that Antimei was prepared to teach it. 

But where there is will, there is possibility – and magic always found a way, her experience told her.  At first she read aloud to the girl and explained the words along the way.  She shaped sticks into the form of letters and runes and let the girl hold them and feel them until she knew them in her heart. It was a long, slow process, but Antimei was persistent.  Eventually she had to find new methods of explaining concepts that would have been best seen by eye. 

That’s when Alurra’s Talent intervened.  The girl began waking from strange dreams where she was a raccoon, or a racquiel, or a wolverine, a mouse, a faun, a rabbit or a raven.  It became clear to Antimei that Alurra was bilocating.  She had the rare beastmaster ability as part of her natural Talent . . . and that began to affect how she learned magic.

Teaching her apprentice to do consciously what her subconscious mind did was easy, compare to teaching her to read with sticks.  Antimei worked with her until she mastered the art of bilocation at will, and experience the world from their perspective . . . and with their eyes.  Using her animal companions, Alurra could “see” again, within limits.

Within weeks she was able to tame a young raven to ride on her shoulder and “see” the world on her behalf.  She learned how to easily slip behind the eyes of mice, chickens, turkeys, and songbirds that haunted the croft.  Alurra’s awareness of the world expanded significantly.

But though she could now navigate the croft no matter how often Antimei re-arranged the furniture, none of the creatures Alurra had mastered could look at a page of text and
read
.  It wasn’t a matter of vision – the animals could see the parchment, see the contrast between black and white . . . but none of them had the capacity to
understand
it.  Alurra remained illiterate.

Still Antimei persevered.  The good-natured girl developed a mastery of some forms of the Art, while remaining almost ignorant of other aspects.  For every cantrip she easily mastered, there were five she could not even attempt, unless her rajira found a way around the component of sight.  Antimei tried her best to adhere to the standard Imperial Magic course of study, but neither her inclination nor her disability could give Alurra the discipline to adhere to it.  She had become, by default, a Wild Mage. 

That didn’t really bother Antimei.  It wasn’t like there were many Censors wandering around in the Alshari Wilderlands, and even less since the war.  That was entirely the reason she had come here in the first place.

Figuring out exactly what to do with the perplexing girl was becoming a pressing issue.  Old Antimei was
old
, and she had no illusions about how much strength there was left in her body . . . or just when she would pass from this world.  The girl learned what magical theory she’d been capable of teaching her and was learning how to manifest that power without the benefit of sight largely on her own.  After two years of work Alurra could slip her consciousness into dozens of creatures, now, allowing her awareness beyond what mere human sight could provide. And her understanding of what she was experiencing was growing admirably.

Alurra was becoming a decent apprentice, but it was time to prepare her for her greater purpose.  That did not include succeeding her as the next hedgewitch of Tolindir Village.  Antimei regarded her carefully as she began feeling her way around the small kitchen to prepare their supper.  The old witch heaved a great sigh.

“My girl, it is time that you learned of how and why I came here, to this beautiful land, so far from my home, my life.”

“Antimei?” Alurra asked in surprise, her hands clutching unconsciously at her apron.  “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Alurra,” she assured.  “Leave that, for now.  Put the kettle on and let me tell you about one of my Gifts.”

“I . . . I know about them, Antimei,” Alurra said, quietly, as she took a seat on the low wooden rack covered with a tick that passed for a couch in the dusty croft.  “You have the Gift of Prophecy.  Which I must never,
never
speak about.”

“That is correct, Sweeting.  Just as you can easily force yourself into the mind of most creatures, I, too, have a gift that most other magi lack.  In my case it is more curse than gift, because it is the forbidden gift of prophecy.  Even before our ancestors conquered the Magocracy prophecy was forbidden.  Foretelling the future is a professional sin, and always has been.  Never you forget that.”

“But
why?
” Alurra asked as she set the kettle onto the fire without seeming to pay attention to it.  Thanks to her raven friend, Lucky, she knew precisely where the tiny fireplace was, and where the iron hook was positioned.  “What’s so wrong about telling the future?”

“When we issue prophecy, we bind ourselves to Fate,” explained the hedgewitch, after a moment’s thought.  “When we say what
will be
or what will
not be
, we surrender the ability of free will . . . and will is the most potent tool of the mage.  Rarely are prophecies heeded in a useful way – quite the contrary.  Usually they do nothing but condemn us to tragedy and misfortune.  Few have the wisdom and wit to hold them close, ponder them, and use them wisely.”

“Do
you?
” asked the girl, taking her accustomed seat on a stool.

“Oh, Luin’s Staff,
no!
” cackled the old woman, absently petting the old gray cat who shared her croft, Widdy, as it wandered by.  “Nor do I have the power to affect great change.  No, I have spent more than thirty years in the Wilderlands constantly foreseeing what will come to pass . . . and
telling no one
.”

Alurra frowned.  “What’s the point of that?  Why bother, if no one knows?”

“It’s not that
no one
knows, Sweeting, it’s that no one knows . . .
yet
.  Unlike most oracles cursed as I am, I
knew
what had befallen me, and did not seek to aggrandize myself through the power of prophecy, as so many of the ignorant do.  My Talent was
proscribed.
  I kept it to myself.  Every vision, every prescient dream.  I kept quiet about it and thought about it until I thought I understood it.  Then I wrote it down.”

“You did?” Alurra asked, intrigued.  She had a fascination with the power of reading, and often fingered the pages in the seventeen volumes in Antimei’s precious library with longing.  “That explains all those hours beating parchment reeds I did this autumn.  Where?”

“Oh, I was
quite
careful,” confided the old woman, smiling wickedly.  “I wrote in verse, one leaf at a time.  I hid it betwixt the pages of that book of Alka Alan poetry, so that it looked like a translation, not a prediction.  When I had the page complete, front and back, I hid it away in a . . . secret place and started the next one.  When I had a hundred, I bound them and hid them in a yet
more
secure place.  No one but myself knows its location,” she said, patting the arm of the chair smugly “I’ve
seen
every night of my life for thirty-two years.  Like an endless tapestry woven one thread a night.  Yet I cannot recall every inch of every strand,” she admitted.

“But you wrote it down,” Alurra prompted.  “If you wrote it down, shouldn’t you be able to remember?”

“Imagine it raining, with every drop a prophecy: a face I may know, may come to know, or may never meet, going through their journey unaware of my witness.  Sometimes I see strangers at the most mundane of tasks.  Sometimes great nobles, kings even, or powerful magi, doing things and saying things in a jumble. Each raindrop is like a moment of someone else’s life . . . and my book is the bucket I’ve collected them in, after distilling them down to what I think is the truth of the matter.  That does not mean that my perspective is correct.  Prophecy is a . . . devilish Gift.”

“I . . . I’m not sure I understand,” confessed Alurra, as Widdy jumped into her lap.  The old cat claimed the spot as if it was his by divine right and settled into a ball.  Alurra began petting him automatically.  To do otherwise was to risk his displeasure and his claws.

“I wrote down very
select
incidents, in as helpful a context as I could, while disguising it in verse from the eyes of the ignorant,” Antimei conceded.

“So who is
supposed
to read them?  Have you seen
that
?”

“Of course.  Indeed, the day draws near when I will turn over my entire life’s work and count my vocation fulfilled.”

“When will that be?” asked her apprentice uneasily.

“Not until the end of this story,” promised the witch.  “Make the tea?”


What
story?” asked the girl as she unceremoniously dumped Widdy to the floor.  He landed indignantly, and immediately began cleaning himself in front of the fire as if that had been his plan all along.

“The story we are both in, Sweeting.  We and a great many others.”

“I
do
like stories,” said Alurra carefully, as she used a rag to grab the handle of the copper kettle.  “When they have happy endings,” she added.

“All good stories do,” agreed Antimei with a sigh. 

Her own story had not been as happy as she’d have wished, but then again it had not been entirely unhappy, either.  “And no good story ever comes to an end.  Not
really
.  There is always some before, and a great deal afterward that happens.  Those become their own stories, with their own endings.

“But this story that
we’re
in, Sweeting. I’ve foreseen it since before you were born.  I haven’t always
understood
it, until recently, but I think I’m finally beginning to, here at the end of my life.”

“What happens?” demanded the girl as she added leaves to the pot and set it down to steep.  She hated it when Antimei talked about her own death so matter-of-factly, but the girl had to get used the idea.  “And what are you talking about?  You look plenty hale!”

“A great many things will happen: death, betrayal, victory over great odds, bravery, cowardice, treachery—”

“Love?” interrupted the girl eagerly. 

Antimei smiled fondly.  She remembered what it was like to be a maiden, all those years ago.

“Love?  More love than you can
possibly
imagine, in more ways than you can conceive.  The story is all
about
love: love of the land, love of a man, love of every sort.  Good love, bad love, love in all of its confusing aspects.  An
embarrassment
of love.”

“That sounds unwieldy,” frowned the girl.

“Love is
never
neat and tidy,” she chuckled.  “That’s what I tried to explain to an initiate of Ishi, once, long ago.  Love is messy, sticky, and ugly as it is joyous, enriching, and sublime.  Love makes strong men weak and weak women suffer.  Love
always
dices with death and despair.”

“Well gosh, you make it sound
so
appealing!” Alurra said, irritated.

“Love, you silly girl, is a beautiful thread that can bring warmth and strength when woven into the tapestry in the proper proportions . . . but in great wadding hunks it becomes as oppressive and bulky as a bale of wool in the woof.  Love . . . love is a
very
complicated thing,” she finished. 

She felt a hypocrite, speaking of love – she, who had abandoned her beloved husband and cherished children over thirty years before, to seek peace and solitude – and safety - in the wilderness. 

Yet not a day passed when she did not long for them with an aching heart. 

Once Antimei had been in love.  And her name had not been Antimei.  She was once happily in love, and married to a good man who was devoted to her with all of his heart. 

BOOK: Court Wizard (Spellmonger Series: Book 8)
3.15Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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