The Ventifact Colossus (The Heroes of Spira Book 1) (3 page)

“Do you really think Abernathy would have locked us in here if he wanted us to break out?”

All eyes turned to the far side of the library, where a woman stood mostly hidden in a shadow. She was almost a ghost, with cheesecloth-white skin and hair so pale it must have been bleached or dyed. But the odd thing was, she was wearing black Ellish robes, and everyone knew that all Ellish sisters had dark hair. Maybe she was part of a weird secret sect within the Ellish temple? Who knew? But like the rest of her sisters she didn’t like the light; though she stood in the darkest corner of the room, both of her hands were shielding her eyes from the library’s lamps.

She also had a weapon on her belt, a stout club with a spiky flanged head. Dranko frowned. Had he missed a follow-up message that warned the wizard’s guests to come armed? Was there going to be some kind of arena battle staged for Abernathy’s amusement? The general feeling among the citizens of Charagan was that the mighty wizards in their towers were of a benevolent sort—wouldn’t they have taken over by now if they weren’t?—but no one knew for certain. Perhaps Abernathy was a cruel, ruthless sorcerer who enjoyed making strangers fight one another for sport. Dranko hoped not; the tenets of his faith would put him at a severe disadvantage.

“Maybe,” he said. The closer he looked, the more freakish he found her appearance. It was possible that Ell had put a curse on her, but he didn’t know much about the Ellish religion. Ell was the Goddess of Night. Her clergy were all women, who never went outside during the day.

“What’s your name?” he asked her.

“Morningstar of Ell.”

“Well, Morningstar of Ell, maybe Abernathy is testing our initiative, and
wants
us to figure a way out. Aravia, what do you say about that lock?”

An eager expression came over Aravia’s face and she moved toward the door, but before she had crossed half the distance the door swung inward without needing her arcane persuasion. In walked an elderly man, in his seventies at least, with a long hooked nose, wrinkled face, and startling blue eyes. An untended white beard sprouted from his chin. He was dressed in a plain white robe and had white slippers on his feet.

Dranko repressed a snort. The wizard was certainly dressing the part.

The old man stopped inside the doorway and sighed with relief. “Ah. Good.” His voice was aged and crackly. Wizardy. “All here then?” He counted them with a wrinkled finger, but frowned when he was finished. “Are there any more of you? Did anyone leave the room?”

“No, sir,” said Ernie. “It’s just the seven of us.”

“There are supposed to be eight,” said the old man.

“You must be Abernathy,” said Dranko. “Nice place you have here.”

“I must be, and I do. Now, tell me your names, please.”

One by one the guests introduced themselves to the wizard. When Grey Wolf gave his nom de lupine, Abernathy shook his head. “No, I mean your real name, Mr. Wolf.”

Grey Wolf stared at the wizard for a moment. “Ivellios Forrester.”

“And you, ‘Tor Bladebearer,’” said Abernathy. “That’s not your real name either, is it?”

“N…no,” stammered Tor. “But I’d rather not say it in front of strangers. Uh, no offense.”

Abernathy scratched his face through his beard. “Very well. Are your initials ‘K.B.’?”

“No.”

“How about ‘D.F.’”

“Yes.”

“Fine.”

Dranko held his breath, but Abernathy didn’t come back to challenge him. Was it because he had chosen the name “Dranko” at such a young age?

Abernathy looked around the room one more time, then stooped to glance under the nearest table. “Do any of you know a man named Kibilhathur Bimson?”

The question was met by blank stares and shaking heads.

“Well, it was an old spell, and my tower is built to prevent…oh, never mind. You seven will have to do.”

“Do what, exactly?” Dranko asked. At the same moment Morningstar said, “Why have you brought us here?”

Dranko expected the old man to launch into some grandiose speech, but instead the wizard merely brought his fingertips to his lips. Several seconds passed during which Abernathy did nothing but pass his gaze around his guests.

“The world is in some danger,” Abernathy said at last. “It has been for some time. Recently that danger has grown more immediate, to a degree such that I felt I needed a team of…agents would be the correct term, I think. For—”

“I knew it!” Tor interrupted gleefully, only seeming to realize afterward that he had interrupted one of the (supposedly) most powerful men in the world.

Abernathy smiled indulgently at Tor and continued. “…For reasons I don’t have time to explain, we archmagi don’t leave our towers and don’t have an adequate sense of what goes on outside of them. You will be my eyes, ears, and hands out in Charagan.”

“For how long?” asked Grey Wolf. “I have a job to get back to, you know.”

Dranko wondered the same thing himself, but he bristled at the guy’s self-important impatience. He forced out a smile, showing his tusks.

“What are you, a bouncer, Mr. Wolf? Or can I call you ‘Grey?’”

Grey Wolf glared at him silently.

Abernathy fixed his penetrating blue eyes on each of his guests in turn. When they were turned to Dranko, he squirmed in spite of himself. Could wizards read minds?

“I don’t know for how long, exactly,” Abernathy admitted. “Maybe a long time. And perhaps this will become a permanent arrangement.”

“No thank you, then,” said Morningstar. “I appreciate the offer, but I should not stay away from my duties at the temple for very long.”

The wizard sighed and walked to the nearest wall. With a wave of his hand a window appeared in the stone; he gazed out of it upon the rooftops of Tal Hae.

“I could compel you,” he said wearily. “Some of the others felt I should.”

“Others? Others who?” Tor’s voice was clear and deep, but his inflections were boyish.

“The other archmagi,” said Abernathy. “Some disapprove of me summoning you at all, and the others feel that I should simply coerce you with threats. For instance, I could say something like, ‘Serve me in our kingdom’s hour of need, or I will turn you all into toads!’ But I am disinclined to that sort of bullying.”

Grey Wolf looked meaningfully toward the door. “So we can say no?”

“You may,” said Abernathy. “But I will put one condition upon you, in return for my forbearance regarding transforming you into amphibians. And that is, I would like each of you, in good faith, to allow me to try convincing you
without
threat of force, or blackmail, or any kind of improper strong-arming. I’ll visit you each tonight at the Greenhouse. If you promise to hear me out, and should I not sway you to service of the Kingdom of Charagan, you will be free to return to your lives.”

“That sounds more than fair, Mr. Abernathy,” said Mrs. Horn, every bit as polite as Grey Wolf was insolent. “But if you don’t mind my asking, why did you summon
us
to be your…agents? If the world is in danger, shouldn’t you have picked great warriors or other powerful wizards?”

Ernie Roundhill’s eyes went wide. “Am I here because of the statue of me in Murgy’s basement? Do you need us to hold up the sky?”

Abernathy’s expression became hard to read. “I don’t know who Murgy is, or about any statues, although I’m sure that’s an interesting tale. And the sky is not falling, except in the most metaphorical of senses. No, you were chosen by a very unusual spell I cast three days ago. The spell was designed to select several people who will be instrumental in helping protect Charagan from the evils that beset it. It chose you. But why you specifically? I don’t know.”

The old wizard didn’t have much experience in lying to people, that was certain.

“What kinds of missions are you going to send us on?” asked Tor. He looked like a puppy eager for a walk.

“Scouting, initially,” said Abernathy. “After that, it will depend on what you learn.”

Tor’s shoulders slumped a bit. “Will there be fighting? Battles against the forces of evil? Monsters?”

Dranko snorted. “Monsters? Forces of evil? Are you serious?”

But Abernathy wasn’t laughing. “That is entirely possible,” said the old wizard. “My boy, whatever your life was like before today, it is likely that should you accept my offer, you will be afforded opportunities for adventure and glory that few in a generation are given.”

Tor grinned like a six-year-old offered an entire apple pie, but Ysabel—Mrs. Horn—clicked her tongue. “Abernathy, don’t you think I’m a trifle old for adventures and glory? And I’m just a farmer. Unless you intend adventurous sewing, or a glorious feeding of the chickens, I can’t see that I’ll be much good.”

Abernathy gave the old woman an apologetic look.

Ernie’s voice had a noticeable wobble. “So it’s, uh, dangerous, then?”

“Very likely,” said Abernathy. “I won’t lie to you. Though some among the archmagi feel you should be left in the dark until you earn our trust, I think it is important for you to know what we’re dealing with.”

From somewhere distant in the tower, a single chime sounded. Abernathy tugged his beard and looked nervously at the door to the library, at which point the conjured window, deprived of the wizard’s attention, shrank to a point and vanished.

“I will briefly summarize, as I shouldn’t be away from my work any longer than necessary. It would be a bitter irony if I let things get out of hand because I took too much time talking with you.”

He took a deep breath before continuing.

“There is a very powerful and dangerous man—no, not even a man, a monster, a being of a sort we do not know how to kill. He is currently locked away, but we believe he is figuring out how to escape. If he succeeds and comes to Spira, he may decide to conquer the world or destroy it, but it would be best it not come to that. I and the other archmagi have spent many, many years maintaining the locks on his door. Your first assignment will be to go to where that door is and inspect it. It’s all much more complicated than that, and I’ll explain in detail when I have more time, but for…”

He was interrupted by a low grinding roar, a nearly subsonic groaning, as if giant hands had grasped the tower and now were trying to bend and twist its stones. Dranko was overcome by a sourceless vertigo and lurched involuntarily. Holy Hells! Aravia stumbled and fell to the floor, though nothing was actually moving. Abernathy braced himself against a table, his eyes wide.

“Is it the monster?” cried Ernie.

Then it stopped. A burly red-faced man in workman’s clothes, with a bulbous nose and a bristling black beard, had appeared in the center of the library. He was in the very act of bringing a hammer down upon a chisel. When his swing did not meet with any resistance, the man overbalanced, stumbled, and dropped his tools.

He looked around as he bent to pick up his instruments. “Well, damn. So that fancy card weren’t no joke then.”

Dranko let out his breath; it was only the missing invitee.

Abernathy held up his hand and, eyes closed, turned a slow circle in place, muttering syllables beneath his breath that Dranko couldn’t quite make out. When the wizard opened his eyes again, he was obviously relieved.

“The tower’s wards appear to be uncompromised,” he said. “Good. I’m surprised something like that didn’t happen when the rest of you arrived.” He walked to the newcomer. “Please tell me you are Kibilhathur Bimson.”

“Be glad to, seein’ as it’s true,” said the man. “And you must be the Archmage Abernathy, and this here’s your tower?”

“Welcome to the team!” said Dranko. “Abernathy here was telling us about our new careers as prison door inspectors.”

Abernathy gave Dranko an aggrieved look. “Kibilhathur, as I was telling your new companions, it’s not quite so simple.”

The man with the chisel scratched his beard. “My new what?”

Dranko cleared his throat. “Do we get paid to be your lackeys? ’Cause I have some back rent to pay.”

“Hmm,” said Abernathy. “I confess that I have an unusual relationship with money. I can’t simply produce it from the aether. Creating permanent solid objects is extremely difficult even for the most skilled wizard, and the spells for it are typically limited to wood, stone, and poor-quality iron. Conjuring up gold or gemstones would be quite out of the question.”

“Yeah,” said Dranko. “Okay. But what about money you get the old-fashioned way? Does anyone
pay
you
to be a wizard?”

“I used to have a decent amount saved by, but that was a long time ago. What I had left, I’ve recently spent on things for you. I’ve purchased you a house, a converted bakery called the Greenhouse on the Street of Bakers. As for working expenses, I think that in the course of your employment, should you choose to accept it, you may find valuables that you will be welcome to sell or keep.”

“Great,” said Dranko. “What about up-front money?”

“Oh, well.” Abernathy looked around the library, made a few halting steps in several different directions, and finally strode to a tall bookshelf where he took down a jade owl figurine. It was six inches tall and had small rubies for eyes. He handed it to Dranko. “How about this? Are there still jewelers in Tal Hae who will give you coins for it?”