The Sorcerer's Legacy (25 page)

Rusty,

   I am not sure what to say or how to say it. I hope this letter finds you well. A lot has happened to me since the last we saw of each other—far too much to go into detail at this moment. I am certain there have been significant changed in your life as well.

Am I still being sought in Southport? Are you still attending The Academy? Have you and Colleen gotten married? I see now that I am digressing so let me get to the point.

  I need help. I have taken residence in an old keep a few miles northeast of North Haven. I have taken in more than seven score of homeless children between the ages of six and sixteen years of age. To complicate matters, I have just discovered that at least a few of them are magically talented. I have not yet attempted to identify any others with latent magic potential but will do so tomorrow. I just cut half of a boy’s foot off so I am a bit out of sorts at the moment.

You know that my skills lay as a sorcerer not a wizard. My apprentice, whom I took in only a few months ago, will soon exceed my ability to properly train. I was hoping I could convince you to help me in training these children before they hurt themselves or others, much as I did that day in class. You need not worry for lack of wealth. I am able to pay you whatever salary you need to support yourself and Colleen, if she is still a part of your life. I hope you will come as soon as you are able, but if you cannot I understand.

Your Friend,

Azerick

P.S. Tell no one of my location.

My life may still depend on your secrecy.

Azerick cast a minor cantrip that made the ink dry instantly and made the parchment and ink invulnerable to water. He sealed it with wax and marked it with his signet ring that he had crafted for him last summer, a large A set over a tower with a lightning bolt shot through it. Now he had to get to a messenger service in North Haven, but the letter could sit there for weeks, possibly months before a rider could even make the journey south.

A ship was possible but none of his was in port now and he was loath to trust it with another. Even if he did, it could take well over a week for it to arrive.

Azerick quickly decided this was unacceptable. He needed to find a faster method to get his message to Rusty. There were pigeons in North Haven but they could only carry tiny scrolls bearing a few words. Azerick thought back to when he had built the small golem-like simulacrums. Could he build one that could fly and could he make it capable of following such complicated instructions as to seeking out a particular individual?

Azerick wracked his brain and constructed the animated mechanical bird in his mind until he thought he had it all sorted out. He realized that he had one big problem. He was going to have to ask Wolf for his help. With a sigh of resignation, Azerick pushed away from the desk, stood up and turned towards the door, and nearly fell over backwards when he saw Wolf and Ghost standing a few feet away.

“Wolf, what in the blazes are you doing here?” Azerick exclaimed in surprise.

The half-elf shrugged his shoulders. “Ghost said that you may need my help with something.”

“Ghost said that? Ghost the big black wolf that is now sitting in front of me shedding on the carpet and cleaning himself?”

The wolf looked up at the sound of his name with what Azerick would swear was a look of self-consciousness.

“That’s the only one I know,” Wolf replied simply.

Azerick looked askance at Wolf. “Are you telling me that you talk to your wolf?”

“Sure, all the time, what else am I going to do? I’m a terrible whistler and I can’t hold tune with a darn!” Wolf confessed, doubling over in laughter at his own joke.

“And Ghost—,”

“Can’t whistle either but he does have a great singing voice!” Wolf began laughing hysterically again.

Azerick shook his head, not in the mood for Wolf’s bizarre humor. “No, he talks back to you?”

“No, he’s too polite,” Wolf answered, grinning broadly at the fun word games.

“Damn it, Wolf, would you be serious for one minute, this is important!” Azerick shouted in exasperation.

The smile immediately slid from Wolf’s face. “For someone who came asking me for help you aren’t being very nice.”

“I’m sorry, it is just that—wait a minute, I did not come looking for you; you were in my room!”

Wolf began laughing once more, holding his arms across his stomach in his usual manner of hilarity.

“Wolf, please!” Azerick pleaded with the half-elf.

“Oh fine. What do want?”

“Those feathers that you used for Ellyssa’s darts, can you get more of them?” Azerick asked.

Wolf shrugged. “I suppose so. How many do you need?”

“I need as many as you can get. Nearly a full count of flight and tail feathers at the least,” Azerick answered.

“It sounds like you need them pretty bad,” Wolf observed. “What’s in it for me?”

“Wolf, you have eaten as much as four grown men out of my own larder since you came here!” the sorcerer pointed out incredulously.

“Pfft, not lately, you’ve gone and given most it away to those freeloaders.”

“If they are freeloaders, then what are you?”

“Hey, I poached mine fair and square, law of the wild!” Wolf declared, insulted by the sorcerer’s insinuation.

“What do you want for the feathers, Wolf?”

The boy shrugged. “I don’t know I’ll figure it out when you bring it to me.”

Azerick knew that he had just been baited and trapped and could only shake his head in resignation. “I’ll need them as soon as you can get them.”

“Ok, I’ll have them tomorrow,” Wolf promised. “Hey, what is that?” Wolf asked, pointing out the small window of Azerick’s room.

Azerick turned his head to look then turned back. “What, I don’t see anything.” However, Wolf and Ghost had seemingly vanished.

“Pretty mysterious aren’t I!” Wolf said from right behind him and doubled over laughing as Azerick spun about in surprise once more.

“You need to relax, you’re too jumpy,” Wolf recommended as he and Ghost walked out the door.

Azerick was unable to prevent the smile of amusement and perhaps just a little fondness for the wild young man. Azerick walked down to Simon’s room who had already retired for the night, weary of teaching the children mathematics. He rapped lightly on the door and waited patiently. Within a minute, Simon’s owlish face appeared in the now opened portal wearing a flannel night robe, blinking back the light from the hall.

“Oh, ah, Master Azerick, is there, ah, something the matter?” Simon asked.

“No, Simon, I was just wondering if I could borrow your wicker chair.” Azerick asked as he pushed past the accountant.

“Um, ah, of course, I suppose,” Simon bewilderedly answered.

“Thank you, Simon,” Azerick returned politely as he lugged the chair upstairs to his room.

“Um, ah, certainly, Master Azerick, ah, anytime,” Simon quietly replied to the empty air with a small wave then shut the door and went back to bed.

Azerick immediately began pulling the wicker chair apart and tying the light-weight but strong twigs together as he had imagined in his mind. With knife, twine, and glue, Azerick constructed the body of a bird out of the whicker reeds with a rather remarkable resemblance to a real falcon. If he covered it completely in real feathers, he doubted that anyone would be able to tell it apart from a real one from more than a few paces away. The only thing that would disrupt the illusion was the rather stiff mechanical movements.

As Azerick was remarking on his work, he realized that Wolf never did answer how it was that Ghost supposedly knew he needed the boy’s help. Azerick set the mystery aside knowing he would find no answers within his own head and seriously doubted he would pry them out of Wolf’s. It was perhaps two hours before sunrise so Azerick decided he would try to catch some sleep with what little time he had remaining.

Azerick’s subconscious noticed some foreign irritant assailing his right nostril. His hand involuntarily brushed the pestering object away but it returned seconds later. His subconscious, severely annoyed at the intrusion, decided to smite the annoyance once and for all. His own hand slapping him firmly on the face rudely awakened Azerick.

He bolted upright in his bed and saw Wolf holding a hawk’s feather and grinning from ear to ear. Azerick forced himself to swallow the scolding that was on the tip of his tongue.

“Did you get them, Wolf?” Azerick asked as he rubbed the grit from his eyes.

“Of course I did, I’m Wolf of the wild not some pampered lordling cozily tucked away in his mansion,” Wolf chided the still groggy sorcerer.

Azerick looked into the bag Wolf handed him and was pleased to see the number of feathers it contained.

“Wow, Wolf, where did you find so many feathers?”

Wolf broke into a devilish smile. “Let’s just say there are some very cold and angry hawks around here.”

“You plucked these from the birds last night?” Azerick asked incredulously.

“Of course not, I collected them all summer and had them stashed away. What do you think I do with all my time in the woods, count pinecones?” the half-elf asked sarcastically.

Azerick shook his head and let out a deep breath. Talking with Wolf was always a test of patience.

“So have you figured out what you’re going to give me?” Wolf asked.

“Not yet, Wolf, I have been a little busy,” Azerick answered with forced patience.

“Ok, but it had better be good. Those hawks weren’t happy donating those feathers, especially in this kind of weather,” Wolf informed the sorcerer with a deadpan face.

Azerick was about to remind the boy that he had just said he collected the feathers over the summer but brushed it aside knowing that he would not get a straight answer from him. The sorcerer swung out of bed and sat at his desk where the wicker falcon rested and began gluing the feathers on it.

“Hey, you made a bird! Does it fly?” Wolf asked with excited curiosity.

“I hope so, because it would take it forever to get to Southport walking,” Azerick answered and smiled when Wolf puckered his face in annoyance, having gotten a taste of his own sarcasm.

“Why are you making a fake bird?”

Azerick’s grin grew larger. “Because a real one would chew up my message and make a nest out of it.”

“C’mon, Ghost, let’s go to the kitchen and get something to eat. At least down there people only throw stuff at us,” he told his wolf and stomped out the room.

Azerick continued to smile as he glued the feathers onto his wicker construct. It was rare that he won that kind of word war with Wolf and it felt good. He might have felt a little childish relishing such petty revenge, but after last night, he felt Wolf probably deserved it.

No, he definitely deserved it,
Azerick thought to himself as he recalled the assault on his cloak.

It was another morning of fasting for Azerick as he methodically brought his construct to completion. After magically hardening the glue, he slipped his letter inside the wicker body of the falcon along with a small crystal that held the magical energy and the instructions that it needed to complete its task.