Renegade Wizards (38 page)

Unfortunately, he could not address the incident with Dumas directly until he’d cleared up other matters first. In particular, he had to mend fences with Palanthas following the debacle with the Thieves Guild and the fire in Smiths’ Alley. The Wizards of High Sorcery were also dispatching scouts from Palanthas to track Berthal’s camp.

Afterward, the three companions made their reports to the masters of the orders. Ladonna reported to Reginald Diremore through a scrying crystal in Arianna’s study. He didn’t hide his displeasure when she told him about securing one book only and was about to dismiss her for having performed “barely well enough to remain in the order” when she interrupted him. It was a moment of panic, of seeing her hard-earned position slip away. She couldn’t allow that to happen.

“I seduced Par-Salian,” she said. Immediately, the words sank down into the pit of her stomach, and she almost burned with shame.

I don’t care for him that way, she thought. I don’t—I mean …

Reginald cocked an eyebrow in intrigue, but Ladonna wasn’t about to let him steal her moment.

“I have his ear. Me … nobody else,” Ladonna said. “If you want me to influence him in the future, I suggest we discuss what the order can offer me in exchange for that influence.”

That brought a smirk to Reginald’s face. That was twice she’d backed him into a corner and twice he was smart enough to know when he was beaten. He would discuss it later with her, he said, as he studied her under his black eye, but her future was more promising than it had been a few minutes earlier.

Ladonna continued staring absently at the scrying crystal long after it had gone dark.

Par-Salian performed exactly as was expected of him, which was to say he met with the highmage’s lofty expectations. He had kept the group together, survived several brushes with death, he was able to give them the position of Berthal’s camp, and he had returned everyone home safely. But it was obvious Par-Salian didn’t consider the mission successful. They had located Berthal but were in no position to capture him. The group almost shattered apart on several occasions. Indeed, they had almost died and Par-Salian’s sympathies for the enemy forced him to question himself.

Highmage Astathan listened, never nodding or shaking his head, never smiling nor frowning. He listened while Par-Salian confessed to those terrible things, and only when the younger man was done did Astathan speak.

“Never apologize for the hardships you face. Never apologize for questioning. The test we take is but one of many life throws our way. What matters is weathering it intact, regardless of the scars you earn from the experience. What matters is having the strength to ask the questions and to face the answers with a straight back. You did both. Par-Salian,
I am proud of you. I may not have been your
Shalafi
, but I am as proud of you as I am of any of my students. You will make a fine addition to the conclave.”

“But I questioned my own loyalties. I questioned the test.”

“As well you should,” Astathan said. “The test is a choice, and all choices demand examination. You were not forced into it. You took it willingly, as a show of devotion. But you took it knowing what to expect. That was a choice, to take the test to show others you earned the right to learn the secrets of the greater arcane. Berthal is smart and compassionate, but his demand to rid us of the test is the cry of an over-protective mother. Nobody learns by being sheltered their entire life. Nobody respects something if it’s given to them without struggle. Rarely has a great thing been given away. It’s always been earned. And you, my boy … you earned your place here today. You should be proud.”

Par-Salian nodded gratefully and contemplated Astathan’s words and praise. Still, some doubt shadowed his heart, for there was one thing he kept to himself: he said nothing of his affair with Ladonna.

Tythonnia’s brush with Belize was decidedly less pleasant. She had no love or patience for the ridiculous little man, and he was not impressed with her performance. As master of the order, he proved himself the petty tyrant others knew him to be.

“One book?” he said through the scrying crystal, his pinched face hovering in the murk. “I’m glad Yasmine wasn’t here to see this travesty,” he said. “All that wasted effort for one book. I pray you will beg for the highmage’s forgiveness because this failure is unacceptable.”

Tythonnia’s patience had frayed thin, but she couldn’t afford to annoy the master of her order.

“I beg your forgiveness,” Tythonnia said, looking down at her feet. “I failed you, Master, and I failed the order. Please … give me a few more days to see if I can get the books back.”

“I should recall you right now,” he said.

“I can get the books back. I know I can,” she said.

“How?”

“Leave that to me,” she responded. “Better you don’t know in case this goes badly for me. You can say I acted on my own.”

Belize pondered it a moment before nodding. “Very well. But get caught, and I’ll personally push for your execution. Understood?”

“Yes, thank you!” Tythonnia said, doing her best to feign gratitude.

“You have two days,” he said. He waved his hand in front of the scrying crystal, and his image was swallowed by the mists.

Tythonnia spit on the floor and was glad to be rid of him. Soon she would be free of all pretenses. She hoped it would happen before Amma Batros came to Wayreth to visit her. Tythonnia knew she could lie to the others, but Amma Batros—and perhaps even Ladonna and Par-Salian—they were another matter.

The Tower of High Sorcery in Wayreth was one of the few remaining legacies of the power that the Wizards of High Sorcery once held. Its four sibling towers were either destroyed or sealed against all intrusion, leaving Wayreth as the last of the great repositories of knowledge. Before the Cataclysm, it had been the first one built, but afterward, it was a sanctuary for the beleaguered orders. It was a haven against all the spite and hate the world possessed against wizards for their perceived role in bringing about the
Cataclysm; it was the one place they wouldn’t be harried and murdered.

That was, until Astathan became highmage and rebuilt the respectability of the wizards. He forced them to leave the confines of Wayreth and again to travel the world, where Wyldling magic and renegade sorcery had blossomed to the benefit of a select handful. The wizards sought students and opened academies. More important, they showed the world they would no longer hide but neither should they be feared. The world went on fearing them, however, though they stopped murdering them.

Because of its history and significance in a wizard’s life, the tower’s crypts also housed some of its greatest members. Not everyone who called himself a wizard was laid to rest there, but most masters and highmages were.

What Berthal sought, what Tythonnia hunted for a week after arriving, was in the crypts, not the library. The latter was protected by too many traps and spells, but the crypts contained only corpses … supposedly. Anyone intombed there had donated his or her books and possessions to the orders and the various libraries. Thus, there was nothing of interest to crypt-robbers and little reason to protect it.

The crypts lay beneath the ground, between the principal towers of Wayreth. A winding staircase of polished stone and friezes etched in mercurial runes spiraled down into the central crypt. Tythonnia tried to breathe deliberately, to slow her pounding heart, but the deeper she descended, the faster her heart raced. Not only was she betraying her oath and her order, she was about to do so before the dead eyes of High Sorcery’s most powerful luminaries.

If there’s ever a place to be afraid of ghosts, it’s here, Tythonnia thought. Her imagination played on her fears, and she envisioned the reanimated dead masters killing her in a hundred different, terrible ways. Another fear drove her forward, however. Amma Batros was coming the next
day for a visit, and Tythonnia didn’t want to be around. She couldn’t bear looking Amma in the face, knowing she was about to betray someone she cared for deeply.

Through the archways at the bottom of the stairs, she entered the central crypt.

The chamber was circular and well greater than sixty feet in diameter. Across the domed ceiling was a stylized panorama of stars and planets as they appeared in the sky above Wayreth right at that moment. It was a masterful illusion, displaying the planets and constellations in silver against a deep azure sky. Lines of gold flickered between the stars, showing the signs of the different gods. It was the sole illumination in the chamber that evening and more than enough to cast an eerie light over everything.

Around her, set into the wall, were the funeral vaults, each one dedicated to the head of the conclave or hero of the order. Past the silver-plated gates were the sarcophagi themselves, each one topped with a gold slab, their sides enameled appropriately in red, white, or black. Three corridors led from the central chamber into the catacombs for the hundreds of wizards interred there. Each corridor was dedicated to one of the three orders and fell away into the darkness, but Tythonnia was grateful she didn’t need to enter any of them. What she sought was in the room she stood in.

Skipping the ones where she saw red or white coffins and focusing on the black ones, Tythonnia checked the name above each vault. Finally, she came to the one she was looking for: Gadrella of Tarsis, the first woman and the first of her order to sit as highmage.

The gate waited for Tythonnia to open it, and she swallowed hard. She was about to defile the resting place of a highmage, a Black Robe at that. No telling what nasty little tricks protected Gadrella’s vault. A bit of necromancy was enough to animate the dead or to kill a grave robber with a withering affliction. A thousand possible deaths awaited
Tythonnia if she proceeded, and yet she’d live through a thousand deaths if she lied to herself and stayed with the orders. Her heart didn’t belong to them or the three moons anymore. Hers was the most ancient of traditions, the magic fueled by passion.

“Live one day honestly,” she reminded herself and touched the bone key to the silver gate. It glided open silently and stopped just short of clanging against the wall. Tythonnia prayed Berthal was right about the key, that it would keep her safe from possible traps. She stepped into the vault, each foot forward celebrated with a pause as she waited for the hammer to drop. Nothing happened, however.

Tythonnia placed the key against the golden slab, and it, too, pivoted open. Inside the velvet-lined coffin lay the corpse of Gadrella. The enchantments had slowed her deterioration, but had not halted her decay. Her skin had grayed and was eaten through at the cheeks. Her eyelids and eyes were completely missing, as was her nose. Thin, brittle, white hair that fell across her black pillow covered her head. Gadrella’s mouth lay open in a perpetual gasp, and her desiccated hands rested across her chest.

What must come next filled Tythonnia with dread. Every time she thought about it, she stopped herself and almost backed away from the sarcophagus entirely. Finally, she took the bone key and pressed it into Gadrella’s mouth as quickly as she could. Tythonnia shuddered fiercely and silently cursed the Black Robes for their necromancy.