Magician (15 page)

Tomas sat next to Pug on a bench in
Princess Carlme’s garden, one of the few quiet places in the
castle. Tomas looked thoughtfully at Pug. “I expect that these
Tsurani people are coming.”

Pub ran a hand through his hair. “We
don’t know that.”

Tomas sounded tired. “I just have
a feeling.”

Pug nodded. “We’ll know
tomorrow when Kulgan can tell us what happened.”

Tomas looked out toward the wall. “I’ve
never seen it so strange around here. Not even when the Dark
Brotherhood and the goblins attacked back when we were little,
remember?”

Pug nodded, silent for a moment, then
said, “We knew what we were facing then. The dark elves have
been attacking castles on and off as far back as anyone can remember.
And goblins . . . well, they’re goblins.”

They sat in silence for a long time;
then the sound of boots on the pavement announced someone coming
Swordmaster Fannon, in chainmail and tabard, halted before them.
“What? Up so late? You should both be abed.” The old
fighter turned to survey the castle walls. “There are many who
find themselves unable to sleep this night.” He turned his
attention back to the boys. “Tomas, a soldier needs to learn
the knack of taking sleep whenever he can find it, for there are many
long days when there is none. And you, Squire Pug, should be asleep
as well. Now, why don’t you try to rest yourselves?”

The boys nodded, bade the Swordmaster
good night, and left. The grey-haired commander of the Duke’s
guard watched them go and stood quietly in the little garden for a
time, alone with his own disquieting thoughts.

Pug was awakened by the sound of
footsteps passing his door. He quickly pulled on trousers and tunic
and hurried up the steps to Kulgan’s room. Passing the hastily
replaced door, he found the Duke and Father Tully standing over
Kulgan’s sleeping pallet. Pug heard his master’s voice,
sounding feeble, as he complained about being kept abed. “I
tell you, I’m fine,” Kulgan insisted. “Just let me
walk about a bit, and I’ll be back to normal in no time.”

Tully, still sounding weary, said,
“Back on your back, you mean. You sustained a nasty jolt,
Kulgan. Whatever it was that knocked you unconscious packed no small
wallop. You were lucky, it could have been much worse.”

Kulgan noticed Pug, who stood quietly
at the door, not wishing to disturb anyone. “Ha, Pug,” he
said, his voice regaining some of its usual volume. “Come in,
come in. I understand I have you to thank for not taking an
unexpected journey with unknown companions.”

Pug smiled, for Kulgan seemed his old,
jovial self, in spite of his wan appearance. “I really did
nothing, sir. I just felt that something was not right, and acted.”

“Acted quickly and well,”
said the Duke with a smile. “The boy is again responsible for
the well-being of one of my household. At this rate I may have to
grant him the title Defender of the Ducal Household.”

Pug smiled, pleased with the Duke’s
praise. Borric turned to the magician. “Well, seeing as you are
full of fire, I think we should have a talk about yesterday. Are you
well enough?”

The question brought an irritated look
from Kulgan. “Of course I’m well enough. That’s
what I’ve been trying to tell you for the last ten minutes.”
Kulgan started to rise from the bed, but as dizziness overtook him,
Tully put a restraining hand on his shoulder, guiding him back to the
large pile of pillows he had been resting on.

“You can talk here quite well
enough, thank you. Now, stay in bed.”

Kulgan made no protest. He shortly felt
better and said, “Fine, but hand me my pipe, will you, please?”

Pug fetched Kulgan’s pipe and
pouch of tabac and, as the magician tamped down the bowl, a long
burning taper from the fire pot. Kulgan lit his pipe and, when it was
burning to his satisfaction, lay back with a contented look on his
face. “Now,” he said, “where do we begin?”

The Duke quickly filled him in on what
Tully had revealed, with the priest adding a few details the Duke
overlooked. When they were done, Kulgan nodded “Your assumption
about the origin of these people is likely. I suspected the
possibility when I saw the artifacts brought from the ship, and the
events in this room yesterday bear me out.” He paused for a
moment, organizing his thoughts. “The scroll was a personal
letter from a magician of these people, the Tsurani, to his wife, but
it was also more. The seal was magically endowed to force the reader
to meant a spell contained at the end of the message. It is a
remarkable spell enabling anyone, whether or not they can normally
read, to read the scroll.”

The Duke said, “This is a strange
thing.”

Tully said, “It’s
astonishing.”

“The concepts involved are
completely new to me,” agreed Kulgan. “Anyway, I had
neutralized that spell so I could read the letter without fear of
magical traps, common to private messages written by magicians. The
language was of course strange, and I employed a spell from another
scroll to translate it. Even understanding the language through that
spell, I don’t fully understand everything discussed.

“A magician named Fanatha was
traveling by ship to a city on his homeworld. Several days out to
sea, they were struck by a severe storm. The ship lost its mast, and
many of the crew were washed overboard. The magician took a brief
time to pen the scroll—it was written in a hasty hand—and
cast the spells upon it. It seems this man could have left the ship
at any time and returned to his home or some other place of safety,
but was enjoined from doing so by his concern for the ship and its
cargo. I am not clear on this point, but the tone of the letter
suggested that risking his life for the others on the ship was
somehow unusual. Another puzzling thing was a mention of his duty to
someone he called the ‘Warlord.’ I may be reaching for
straws, but the tone leads me to think this was a matter of honor or
a promise, not some personal duty. In any event he penned the note,
sealed it, and was then going to undertake to move the ship
magically.”

Tully shook his head in disbelief.
“Incredible.”

“And as we understand magic,
impossible,” Kulgan added excitedly.

Pug noticed that the magician’s
professional interest was not shared by the Duke, who looked openly
troubled. The boy remembered Tully’s comments on what magic of
that magnitude meant if these people were to invade the Kingdom. The
magician continued, “These people possess powers about which we
can only speculate. The magician was very clear on a number of
points—his ability to compress so many ideas into so short a
message shows an unusually organized mind.

“He took great pains to reassure
his wife he would do everything in his power to return. He referred
to opening a rift to the ‘new world, because—and I don’t
fully understand this—a bridge was already established, and
some device he possessed lacked some capacity or another to move the
ship on his own world. From all indications, it was a most desperate
gamble. He placed a second spell on the scroll—and this is what
caught me in the end. I thought by neutralizing the first spell I had
countered the second also, but I was in error. The second spell was
designed to activate as soon as someone had finished reading the
scroll aloud, another unheard-of piece of magical art. The spell
caused an other of these rifts to open, so the message would be
transported to a place called ‘the Assembly’ and from
there to his wife. I was nearly caught in the rift with the message.”

Pug stepped forward. Without thinking,
he blurted, “Then those hands might have been his friends
trying to find him.”

Kulgan looked at his apprentice and
nodded. “A possibility In any event, we can derive much from
this episode. These Tsurani have the ability to control magic that we
can only hint at in our speculation. We know a little about the
occurrences of rifts, and nothing of their nature.”

The Duke looked surprised. “Please
explain.”

Kulgan drew deep on his pipe, then
said, “Magic, by its nature, is unstable. Occasionally a spell
will become warped—why, we don’t know —to such a
degree, it . . . tears at the very fabric of the world. For a brief
time a rift occurs, and a passage is formed, going somewhere. Little
else is known about such occurrences, except that they involve
tremendous releases of energy.”

Tully said, “There are theories,
but no one understands why every so often a spell, or magic device,
suddenly explodes in this fashion and why this instability in reality
is created. There have been several occurrences like this, but we
have only secondhand observations to go on. Those who witnessed the
creation of these rifts died or vanished.”

Kulgan picked up the narrative again
“It’s considered axiomatic that they were destroyed along
with anything within several feet of the rift.”

He looked thoughtful for a moment. “By
rights I should have been killed when that rift appeared in my
study.”

The Duke interrupted. “From your
description, these rifts, as you call them, are dangerous.”

Kulgan nodded. “Unpredictable, as
well. They are one of the most uncontrollable forces ever discovered.
If these people know how to manufacture them and control them as
well, to act as a gate between worlds, and can pass through them
safely, then they have arts of the most powerful sort.”

Tully said, “We’ve
suspected something of the nature of rifts before, but this is the
first time we’ve had anything remotely like hard evidence.”

Kulgan said, “Bah! Strange people
and unknown objects have appeared suddenly from time to time over the
years, Tully. This would certainly explain where they came from.”

Tully appeared unwilling to concede the
point. “Theory only, Kulgan, not proof. The people have all
been dead, and the devices . . . no one understands the two or three
that were not burned and twisted beyond recognition.”

Kulgan smiled “Really? What about
the man who appeared twenty years ago in Salador?” To the Duke
he said, “This man spoke no language known and was dressed in
the strangest fashion.”

Tully looked down his nose at Kulgan.
“He was also hopelessly mad and never could speak a word that
could be understood. The temples invested much time on him—”

Borric paled. “Gods! A nation of
warriors, with armies many times the size of our own, who have access
to our world at will. Let us hope they have not turned their eyes
toward the Kingdom.”

Kulgan nodded and blew a puff of smoke.
“As yet, we have not heard of any other appearances of these
people, and we may not have to fear them, but I have a feeling . . .”
He left the thought unfinished for a moment. He turned a little to
one side, easing some minor discomfort, then said, “It may be
nothing, but a reference to a bridge in the message troubles me. It
smacks of a permanent way between the worlds already in existence. I
hope I’m wrong.” The sound of feet pounding up the stairs
made them turn. A guard hurried in and came to attention before the
Duke, handing him a small paper.

The Duke dismissed the man and opened
the folded paper. He read it quickly, then handed it to Tully. “I
sent fast riders to the elves and the dwarves, with pigeons to carry
replies. The Elf Queen sends word that she is already riding to
Crydee and will be here in two days’ time.”

Tully shook his head. “As long as
I have lived, I have never heard of the Lady Aglaranna leaving
Elvandar. This sets my bones cold.”

Kulgan said, “Things must be
approaching a serious turn for her to come here. I hope I am wrong,
but think that we are not the only ones to have news of these
Tsurani.”

Silence descended over the room, and
Pug was struck by a feeling of hopelessness. He shook it off, but its
echoes followed him for days.

P
ug
leaned out the window.

Despite the driving rain that had come
in early morning, the courtyard was in an uproar. Besides the
necessary preparations for any important visit, there was the added
novelty of these visitors being elves. Even the infrequent elf
messenger from Queen Aglaranna was the object of much curiosity when
one appeared at the castle, for rarely did the elves venture south of
the river Crydee. The elves lived apart from the society of men, and
their ways were thought strange and magical. They had lived in these
lands long before the coming of men to the West, and there was an
unvoiced agreement that, in spite of any claims made by the Kingdom,
they were a free people.

A cough caused Pug to turn and see
Kulgan sitting over a large tome. The magician indicated with a
glance that the boy should return to his studies. Pug closed the
window shutters and sat on his pallet. Kulgan said, “There will
be ample time for you to gawk at elves, boy, in a few hours. Then
there will be little time for studies. You must learn to make the
best use of what time you have.”

Fantus scrambled over to place his head
in the boy’s lap. Pug scratched absently behind an eye ridge as
he picked up a book and started to read. Kulgan had given Pug the
task of formulating shared qualities of spells as described by
different magicians, in the hope it would deepen his understanding of
the nature of magic.

Kulgan was of the opinion that Pug’s
spells with the trolls had been the result of the tremendous stress
of the moment. He hoped the study of other magicians’ research
might help the boy break through the barriers that held him back in
his studies. The book work also proved fascinating to Pug, and his
reading had improved greatly.

Pug glanced at his master, who was
reading while puffing great clouds of smoke from his long pipe.
Kulgan showed no signs of the weakness of the day before and had
insisted the boy use these hours to study, rather than sit idly by
waiting for the arrival of the Elf Queen and her court.