Dragonfang (26 page)

‘Part of the job,’ the woman replied. ‘Now, I expect you will want to read
The Book of Alchemorum
.’ Lady Forturian’s no-nonsense attitude was comforting after the last few weeks of deceit and subterfuge. ‘There’s a copy on your chair.’

Startled, Jelindel looked down, her mind faltering for a moment for she had not expected to ever see the book again. ‘You – I – but – this is a rare and priceless book. It was stolen in Hazaria, and the constables were practically tearing the city apart to find it.’

‘Oh, that. Yes, so I’ve heard,’ said Lady Forturian. ‘That copy has water damage to several pages, moderate bookworm damage, and some very ill-informed scribblings in the margins by some Adept of a century or two ago. My copy is slightly singed on the back cover, but is otherwise intact. And fear not for the stolen book, Jelindel – it’s not in safe hands, but it most definitely will be cared for.’

Jelindel picked up
The Book of Alchemorum
and squinted at
the text in the fading light. Lady Forturian was right. This copy was even better preserved.

‘You can have a lantern and a spare room for your studies,’ Lady Forturian went on. ‘I’ve got some scraps of old scrolls if you want to make notes, and a writing kit. There’s a bed, table and chair in there. Oh, and about seven thousand books.’

‘Thank you. You’re most gracious.’ Jelindel paused, stumbling over her thoughts. ‘You could buy a grand mansion with the worth of this book,’ she said.

‘With the contents of this house I could buy a medium-sized city,’ Lady Forturian said off-handedly. ‘But why buy a mansion or a city? Books are far more interesting.’

She poured the herbal tea. Jelindel recognised the aroma of rosehip and lemon.

Lady Forturian set down the pot and looked up. ‘Someone is building a paraworlds bridge,’ she said in her direct manner.

‘I worked that out for myself,’ said Jelindel. ‘It’s dangerous,’ she added, lamely. Despite the coldness of the encroaching night, the air on the verandah seemed moderate. The trees were gently rustling, yet no wind spilled onto the decking.

Lady Forturian passed Jelindel a cup. ‘Well, interesting rather than dangerous. And not as dangerous as forming a bridge without a ringstone and the necessary rites.’

Jelindel frowned. ‘I’m unfamiliar with how the pentacle gems can be used in such a manner.’

Lady Forturian’s eyes sparkled. ‘Oh, I’ll show you how. But it’s a bit like tossing dice. The numbers are stacked against you. What comes through an unprotected portal could be your worst nightmare or a pleasant dream. Open the floodgates to the paraworlds and you are more likely to be drowned than borne aloft.’ She shrugged. ‘But what of it if you’re about to die anyway. Oh, look, a thief.’

Jelindel froze, then slipped her knife free of its scabbard. A dark figure was squatting on a thick limb of a gumgut pine. Lady Forturian did not seem at all concerned. In fact, she kept her hand outstretched, waiting for Jelindel to take her cup.

Jelindel obliged, deciding that the woman knew something that she did not. The thief sailed acrobatically to another limb and, using his momentum, flipped an incredible twelve feet to the verandah decking. By now, Jelindel was on her feet and in front of Lady Forturian, her knife held out. Almost as inexplicably as the thief’s presence, crackling white energy opened like a window and engulfed the man. He uttered an anguished oath, then disappeared as the energy aperture closed with a curt snap.

Jelindel spun around, knife poised. The only men capable of disappearing like that were lindraks, deadmoons or High Adepts – all lethal adversaries. Lady Forturian coughed politely.

‘Uh – what happened?’ asked Jelindel. She sheathed her knife self-consciously.

‘He jumped, oh, about a thousand years into the future.’ Lady Forturian sipped from her cup. ‘I do like a hot cup of tea.’

At Jelindel’s stunned silence, the older woman said, ‘Don’t worry, dear girl. There’s no way back, you know. Have you ever heard of causality paradoxes? I have a book on the subject somewhere.’

‘The future?’ exclaimed Jelindel. ‘Like with D’rudar’s pentacle gems?’

‘Oh, yes. Although his engine is rather archaic compared to the natural causality paradox. Do drink up, Jelindel. Your tea must be lukewarm. This house is bounded by a well in time – the exact spot on Q’zar where the ley lines intersect. Anyone trying to trespass without the truename of this exact spot, will be sent a long way away. It’s more humane than keeping a security demon.
Besides, demons are not good company around books; they breathe fire. They fart fire as well.

‘So, apart from the book, what can I do for you?’

Jelindel had met Lady Forturian at Madame Dione’s cottage, two voyages ago. They got along very well, except that Lady Forturian tended to boast of an impossibly large collection of magical books. Almost as a challenge, Jelindel had asked if she could visit her some time. Lady Forturian had written out her address without the slightest hesitation and offered her an open invitation.

‘Have you heard of the dragonlinks mailshirt?’ Jelindel asked.

‘Oh, yes,’ Lady Forturian said. ‘The individual links could be worn as enchanted rings. They sucked the fighting ability out of the wearer when they were removed, and transferred it to the next wearer. A self-replicating piece of misery by all accounts.’

‘Yes, but did you know – ?’

‘Six links were missing from the mailshirt. Last year three free-booting adventurers found the missing links, reassembled the mailshirt, and then began to fight about how it was to be used. It had immense powers, you know. Far more than the pentacle gems – although they are more useful in different ways.’

‘Well that is right too, but –’

‘One man was a champion swordsman by the name of Daretor, and the other a common thief called Zimak. The third was a young warlock named Jayen, who by remarkable luck defeated far more Senior Adepts. Jayen easily defeated his colleagues, and banished them to some distant paraworld. As luck would have it, Jayen was the one who thought the dragonlinks ought to be destroyed, and he did so. Pity, I would have liked to put it on the wall in here. It’s the only safe place for it, you know.’

‘You have both Jayen’s gender and name wrong,’ said Jelindel, gaining some satisfaction from knowing something that Lady Forturian did not.

‘How very interesting. Can you substantiate it?’ Lady Forturian asked with great interest.

‘Well, yes, sort of. Your “Jayen” was me. Only I went under the pseudonym of Jaelin.’

Lady Forturian was not vain about what she knew. She just liked to know everything. Thus when someone knew more about a subject then she did, she opened a jar of her best biscuits, made another cup of tea, and got them talking. Such an occasion rarely occurred.

Jelindel had wanted to talk, but there had been no sufficiently safe audience. Until now.

‘We faced a lot together,’ Jelindel said, waving a wheat biscuit for emphasis. ‘In the months we were together we came to depend on each other and work as a very tight team. Even though we probably did not like each other very much.’

‘So you don’t even care for these characters, Daretor and Zimak, yet you wish to rescue them from their distant world?’ Lady Forturian chuckled. ‘I do not read my guests’ minds, Jelindel. Simple deduction is the basis of all logic. You disposed of your former allies, and now feel guilt at your seeming treachery.’

‘Call me a fool if you like.’ Jelindel finished her second cup of tea and declined a third.

‘You’re a fool.’

‘What would you do?’

‘Leave them there. It’s bound to be an interesting life for men such as them. Place an exotic among the masses and it can go two ways. Either the masses cut down that which they cannot possibly better, or the masses bow in homage to something so obviously
greater than they.’ She grinned mischievously. ‘I have a suspicion your Daretor and Zimak will fit into the latter category.’

‘But they were born here.’

‘I was born in Skelt, yet don’t feel inclined to go back there. But do go on. All this intrigues me.’

‘We fought linkriders, the Preceptor’s army, lindraks and deadmoon assassins, potent wizards, angry farmers and paraworld monsters. I was alone and on the streets after my family was murdered. I was making a living as a scribe, then I fell in with them. Zimak was light of finger, and a Siluvian black-band master at kick-fist. That came from wearing a dragonlink, of course.

‘Daretor was a huge and superlative swordsman, who had lost his sword skills to another dragonlink. Thus he hated all dragon links and despised those who wore them. He had vowed to destroy them. He put honour before all else, including commonsense. It was his obsession that forced my hand. Had he not been so damnably
honourable
, I wouldn’t have worried about Zimak having his kick-fist skills thanks to a dragonlink ring. Daretor, on the other hand, might have killed Zimak.’

‘Is this bad?’ asked Lady Forturian.

A well of despair washed over Jelindel. For all she knew,
she
had killed them. There was no guarantee that the pair had landed anywhere. They were probably trapped in some paraplane, drifting endlessly with no anchor. ‘Oh, you just need to know them, I can’t explain,’ she said, miserably.

‘Hmm. But what do
you
want?’ Lady Forturian asked, offering Jelindel another biscuit.

‘To be graded an Adept 10, to have a nice position somewhere, doing experimental magic. To be an adventurer and discover the world for myself. To be
free
.’

‘Get the first, and you can have the rest – in moderation,’ Lady Forturian said. ‘No one is truly “free”, Jelindel. An Adept 15 is as bound to his duties as his inferiors. More so, I suspect, for there is always someone wanting to topple you from your high perch. A fact I learnt from D’rudar’s teachings. But an Adept 10’s accreditation is not too lofty a goal for one so able.’

‘Settling down long enough to get the first is a problem. It would need three months of serious study.’

Lady Forturian’s eyes flickered. ‘Are three months such a burden if they lead you to your goal?’

Jelindel bit her lower lip. ‘There is a large reward on my head – three hundred gold oriels now. The last attempt on my life was a few weeks ago in D’loom. I had intended to travel on a passenger vessel, and leave the continent for a while. But it was too late. I fled on the first ship to leave port.’

‘How very interesting.’ Lady Forturian steepled her fingers and regarded Jelindel. ‘Well, perhaps I can help. I want your story – or at least the part concerning how the dragonlinks mailshirt was put back together, then destroyed. Everything. Names, places, spells, charms, monsters, and whatever pictures you can draw as well. Spend three months helping me to transcribe your story in the mornings, and in the afternoons I shall tutor you for your Adept 10 grading. Then I can give you the tests and if you pass, accredit you.’

Jelindel gaped. ‘That seems a very unfair bargain for you. No story I could possibly tell would repay such a fee.’

‘On the contrary, my dear child. Your rendering of the mailshirt story will give me the only book in the world with a full and authentic account of that adventure. I shall call it
Dragonlinks
. I will be the envy of every skald across the land. What do you say? My certificates are highly regarded.’

‘I am tempted, but staying here for three months is out of the question. I think I know who’s collecting the pentacles, and he’s on the
Dragonfang.
It sails at daybreak and the tide waits for nobody.’

‘It waits for me,’ Lady Forturian said, carelessly.

‘I know it’s very generous of you and – what do you mean?’

‘My dear child, I can make this house stand still in time.’

It was morning, and Jelindel was getting ready to leave. The house looked considerably more tidy and better organised than when she had arrived three months ago. Outside the front door, only a single night had passed. Jelindel was now an accredited Adept 10. She had spent months studying the magic of paraworlds travel, minor properties of questing spells, slowing her pulse rate to around 60 for inner calm and focusing power, and other sundry abilities in keeping with her new rank.

It seemed to her that the more she learnt the less she knew. Lady Forturian had hinted at a great many specialised areas of magery: weatherworkers, firemakers, earthmovers, shapeshifters, conjurers of illusion and reality. They were in the realms of High Adepts, those attaining Adept 12 accreditation and above. There were darklings, too. Those who studied the arts without teachers, a dangerous practice, although, as Lady Forturian pointed out, Jelindel herself had been such a novice. Most darklings, however, erred to the more arcane brotherhood of magery. These were the wild cards that upset the balance between good and evil.

Jelindel felt no different from the Jelindel who had walked through the door three months ago. Yet she knew, like a bird about to leave the nest for the first time, that everything was about to change.

She was washing her face when Lady Forturian approached
with a small amberwood box. She opened it to reveal three pentacle gems. Jelindel recognised them instantly: water, air and fire: moonstone, sapphire and ruby.

Jelindel had told herself on numerous occasions over the past months that nothing Lady Forturian did ought to surprise her. Still, she stared at the gems with disbelief.

No larger than Jelindel’s thumbnail, the gems were small enough to be mistaken for pendants. They were rough-edged and multi-faceted, every cut reflecting a distorted image. The closed pentagram was minutely etched on each of them. They were shimmering as though some hidden but powerful magical source fuelled them.

Jelindel realised that she was holding her breath. She let it out slowly. How odd that, like the dragonlinks, these pentacle gems also glowed when brought together. Was it a property of all magical artifacts that they responded in this manner, as though gaining strength in numbers? There was no discernible power emanating from the gems. Yet Jelindel knew that, used wisely, they were more powerful than any bauble the charm vendors sold at market places.