Tyrant Trouble (Mudflat Magic) (18 page)

“What
kind of a sorcerer?”

“One
with magic, but not a magician. More powerful, I think. Remember what I told
you about lifedrainers? Sorcerers can call them.”

“Call
them from where?” Now I was awake and alert.

“From
the mountains where they live, if there really are such things.”

“Why
would anyone want to call them?”

“Oh,
I don't know.” Nance sat up and looked at me. “Rulers can raise armies and go to
battle for what they want. Others cannot. And so they call on evil magic to aid
them. The lifedrainers are evil magic.”

I
didn't find any lifedrainers in any of the charts when I was finally able to
draw them. Perhaps that's because I didn't actually know what a lifedrainer
would look like in a chart.

But
I certainly did find evil.

CHAPTER
10

When
Uranus and Saturn have a negative aspect on the Twelfth House of Death, all the
strengths of Aries cannot assure protection. Kovat was powerful, ruthless, and
probably clever, but Aries is a young soul. And now the Aries warlord marched
to battle leaving his son and his city unguarded against the darkest signature
I had ever read.

If
I had seen Ober's horoscope before advising Kovat that victory lay in the waxing
of the moon, I should have had a different tale to tell him. What I saw now was
what he must have guessed. When I read his brother's wife's horoscope, I knew
this was the danger he suspected, although he had not been sure of its source.
I think his suspicions were with his brother or possibly with Ober’s man
servant, left behind with us.

He
was wrong.

“If
you see what I suspect is there, you will know it,” he had said, adding, “and
you will warn my son.”

To
be an astrologer is simple. All one needs is a talent for mathematics and a
dependable memory. To give advice is way more difficult. How come no one told
me this when I first started learning astrology back in Mudflat? Shoulda got on
a Greyhound bus and never looked back, like my mother and my aunts did. Looking
at the horoscope I found my mind in disagreement with my emotions. Oh, to be
able to fling myself headlong among the sheepskins and weep and kick, as Nance
sometimes did, and then remind myself that other people's fates are not my
fault.

The
big deal was this. Within that evil horoscope lay threats against Nance and
myself. And tangled in these threats was a chance of a split in castle
loyalties through which I might escape. But I could not be sure. Again, with no
knowledge of the positions of the faster planets for the birth times, there was
a whole lot of info missing.

Plus,
even if I got myself away from temple and hilltop and city, I wasn't sure I
knew the way to that stream where I had entered. Was it a couple of days
journey?

Back
home I could get lost between the bus stop and my house. Oh right, it was my
dead wrong sense of direction that had landed me here in the first place.

I
did know this, no matter how badly I was lost, I would never find my way out
until I started to search.

Was
Tarvik my responsibility? Because he had spared my life and protected me, did I
owe him the same?

“You
frown, Stargazer,” Nance said as she hurried by the table on which I sketched
the signatures. She touched her fingertip to the spot between my eyes. “Stop or
your brow will age early.”

Would
Nance be caught in what I saw? I had no horoscope for her and couldn't make
one. She did not know the day of her birth.

“Where
are your parents? Can you send to them for your birth date?” I asked.

Nance
stopped with the corner of the cloth she was folding still tucked under her
chin. “My parents? I never knew them. They both died of fever a few months
after I was born, as did Tarvik's mother.”

“I
didn’t know that. Sorry.”

“My
uncle would know the day. I could ask when he returns, if it is important.”

By
then the information would be of no use. I tried to concentrate on the
horoscopes of Erlan's family. No matter what happened beyond the gates, the
temple itself, with its own guards and its hold on the minds of the people,
would remain sanctuary for Nance. I was fairly sure of that. But I could not
find any hint of protection for Tarvik, not in his own stars and certainly not
in the stars of his relatives.

One
of those wretched flash visions hit me, blanked out my surroundings, filled my
mind like a nightmare. In it, Kovat was sitting on a bench and was fallen
forward, lying across a table, his shoulders hunched up, his scarred face
turned to the side, cheek resting on a dish, something wet and greasy dripping
from the edge of the tilted dish and soaking slowly into the fur collar of his
cape. His jeweled hands hung to his sides. I didn't need anyone to tell me that
he wasn't breathing.

I
stared at Ober's chart, trying to remember if I had ever seen such evil in a
horoscope. The vision was gone. None of it was anything I wanted to explain.
But I was bound by my word to warn Tarvik. Of what? That I saw his father
passed out in a vision? Maybe that's all it was, way too much wine for Kovat.
Or too much imagination for me. I was pissed at Kovat. Maybe the vision was a
bit of wishful thinking.

Closing
my eyes, the better to think, I leaned against my hand, putting my palm down in
the center of Ober's chart.

Big
mistake. Visions are one thing, touching a horoscope is something else. No
little flash on a scene, rather, I was sometimes pulled into touch and sound
and smell. No silent battle this time. I saw the bottom of the world, a pit
deeper than any coal mine, and felt sleet hit my face. The air was filled with
swirling black grit and no light penetrated, only moving clouds of blackness.
The stench was of death. I very nearly choked on it. My eyes popped open. I
jerked my hand away from the chart.

With
my eyes open, once again I slowly pressed my hand over the sun in her chart.
And with my eyes open, I could feel a rapid heartbeat. My palm ached with cold.

This
physical reaction to touching the sun in a horoscope, I remembered having it
before but nothing this strong. I really hated it.

“It’s
no good arguing with myself,” I said to myself. “Tarvik is a spoiled brat, but
he has tried to protect me. And I don't dislike him anything like the extent of
Ober's horoscope.”

“What
is it you say?” Nance asked.

“Nance,
I have to speak with Tarvik. How do I arrange that? Can I send a message to him
to come here?”

“Now?
This morning? Please not now!” Nance wailed.

“Why
not?”

“Why
do you think I rush around so? If I can right the temple by noon, we can slip
away at dusk and not return until sunup of the day past tomorrow.”

“No,
we can't.”

“Stargazer!
We have been locked in this boring place for ages! Wouldn't you like to ride
away and cook our supper in the forest and enjoy the morrow on the plateau with
nothing to do but lie in the sun and fly with the wings?”

“You
fly, toots. I will do the sun-lying. Yes, that would be fun, Nance, but we
can't, not now. There are problems shaping up that would catch us out.” I could
not think how to explain to her the rotting soul I had felt in Ober's chart. I
would never again lay my palm on a chart, never, not ever.

Nance
stamped her foot at me. “If you must see such warnings in your silly circles,
stop looking at them.”

Trying
to close my mind to that death pit in Ober's heart, I kept my voice steady.
“Think, Nance. With Ober and her daughter here, extra guards will be
everywhere. Not only ours. We are also surrounded by Ober and Alakar's guards.
Somebody is sure to see us.”

“I
suppose,” she sighed. “If you must see Tarvik, send a message with a guard.”

“Could
we send a message with Lor? Could that be done? It might be better if others
didn't know about our meeting.”

Nance
clapped her hands and laughed. “I like that! Secret meetings with Tarvik! He
will be pleased.”

“Why
should Tarvik be pleased?”

“Sometimes
you are truly stupid, Stargazer. But do not heed me. Find out in your own
time.”

I
knew where her mind was wandering and I wasn't going to waste time explaining
to her that her cousin was a typical male, all ego. He flirted with every
female in sight because he thought that was his main job in life.

“Can
we send a message by Lor?” I persisted.

Of
course we could. Whatever Nance asked of the stable keeper, he did, despite his
grumbled protests. I told him to ask the prince to come to the temple any time
that day.

I
had thought Tarvik would come to the courtyard as he often did, but I guessed
wrong. Instead he sent Lor back to us with instructions for Lor to bring me
alone to the castle after dark, and in secret.

“I
don't care much for that idea,” I told Nance.

“Are
you afraid to meet alone with Tarvik?” she teased.

“No.
That’s not what I’m afraid of. If Tarvik tells me to come to the castle in
secret, then he must suspect we have a private way to leave the temple.”

“What?
No! No one knows of the doorway to the stable but you and me and Lor!”

“Then
why would he ask me to do that?”

“Perhaps
he suspects,” she said slowly, her expression begging me to agree. “But he
cannot know.”

“He
will, if I follow his instructions.”

I
wanted to believe she was right, that he had nothing more than a suspicion.
Tarvik's knowledge of the sliding stone to the stable could foul up future
escape plans. And so to avoid exposing that secret, I told our guards I was to
be escorted to the castle, accompanied by old Lor. They nodded and smiled,
relaxed again now that Kovat had left the city. It was as though everyone once
again felt free to breathe.

The
only castle resident who never changed was Kovat's large patchy dog. It gave me
the briefest of glances from where it lay against a closed door, then settled
back to sleep.

When
we entered the castle, Tarvik opened his chamber door, saw the temple guards,
and looked surprised. “You will leave and return to your posts,” he told the
guards. “Lor will wait outside my door to return the templekeeper when I
command it.”

I
stepped into his room and saw Artur, the guard with the streaked hair, standing
against the far wall. He was slightly taller than Tarvik, and, I guessed,
several years older. His eyes were a grayer blue, his skin a shade darker, his
cheekbones and arched nose sharper. Nance was right. He was a looker.

Tarvik
turned, following where I looked. “You, too, Artur. Wait outside for me.”

Artur
nodded and followed the other guards from the room.

After
closing the door behind them, Tarvik said, “I thought you wanted to see me
privately, Stargazer. Why did you bring guards?”

Pushing
the hood of my cloak back from my face so I could see him better, I said, “I
can't leave the temple gates without the guards.”

“Why
did you leave by the gates?”

“Is
there some other way?”

He
frowned, drawing his eyebrows together, and bounced lightly on the balls of his
feet, such a fidgety guy, always moving. Had Kovat once looked like that,
young, unscarred and handsome? I glanced around his room. Rugs woven in bright
patterns covered the walls. I couldn't see any openings in the walls, but I
thought there might be some because one of the hanging cloths moved slightly,
as though stirred by an air current. The floor was piled deeply with sheepskins
and more of the bright wool rugs.

On
the side wall several of the stones had been painted blue and against that
background there were small drawings of a deer, a bear, a rabbit, a squirrel. A
larger stone contained a picture of a white horse.

“Is
that Banner?” I asked, walking over to the wall.

He
nodded.

“That's
very pretty.” I ran my finger lightly over it and could feel the roughness of
the stone under the paint. He reached toward me, unfastened my cloak and slid
it from my shoulders so quickly, I had no time to protest.

“I
am not planning to stay.”

“Then
why are you here?”

“At
your father's request.”

He
looked startled at my mention of Kovat. “He spoke with you privately?”

“He
came to see me at the temple this morning before he left.”

“Why
should he seek you out alone at the temple?”

“Because
he is free to move about his city and I am not,” I said, a bit too carefully,
as though talking to a child. Might as well get this straightened out right
now, wipe out any notion he had about secret doors in the temple. “While my
trip to the castle surrounded by guards draws considerable attention, his brief
visit alone to the temple did not. The same holds true for you, my lad. You
could have come to me when I asked to see you.”

His
lower lip jutted out in that childlike way that made me want to smile. “I rule
the city in his absence. It is proper for me to send for you and not the other
way.”

Not
proper to come to visit me? Hmm, then what were all those evening appearances
when he banged on the gate. I almost asked him if I should turn him away the
next time he came to share a story or a dance, but decided not. His rapid
changes of moods were puzzling and worth avoiding. No surprise that Kovat
feared for the safety of his only son. The difference between the two of them
was this. While both were brave and arrogant, Kovat did not allow his emotions
to blind his reason.

“What
was it that Kovat the Slayer wanted of a templekeeper?” Tarvik demanded.

“He
wants me to chart the stars and to warn you if I find anything wrong, uh,
dangerous, evil, like that.”

That
caught his attention. He leaned close to me, his face almost touching mine.
“What did you find?”