Aquamancer (mancer series Book 2) (3 page)

****

Three thousand miles or so to the east and south, on Waterand Island in Warm Seas, Apprentice Aquamancer Myrn Manstar prepared for bed in her pleasant tower-top apartment above the magnificent Palace of Augurian.

Myrn was a slim, raven-haired young lady. She had sparkling hazel-green eyes and the strong, self-confident movements of an experienced sailor, which she most certainly was.

After rereading Douglas’s latest letter her thoughts were of Douglas and his journey.

Journeying was a very important part of a Journeyman’s training for Mastery—in any craft, she knew. Someday soon, she hoped, she would be setting out alone on a journey of her own, leading to promotion to Journeyman Water Adept in Augurian’s footsteps.

She imagined Douglas striding along the road from Trunkety to Perthside, in the bright winter afternoon, whistling cheerfully as he went. She knew instinctively that he would stop to say good-bye to Precious and Lilac, and to look in at the Oak ‘n’ Bucket and Dicksey’s store before he took to the road.

“Douglas, take care!” she said aloud as she plumped her pillow and composed herself for sleep. “You’re going farther away than ever now.”

Chapter Two

Perthside to Westongue

Some time before his journeying began, Douglas had been told by the Fire Wizard of the message from Cribblon. It disturbed Flarman greatly.

“Cribblon I remember as an Apprentice to a certain Aeromancer once, but his Master...ah... was not able to finish his education after Last Battle of Kingdom. The lad evidently still practices magic enough to recognize other magicks and magickers when he meets them.

“He reports to me a Coven of Black Witches in the mountains of the Far West, on the western border of Old Kingdom. He says they are rapidly expanding their evil influence, gaining control of surrounding towns and peoples. It’s what Witches sometimes do, when they decide to band together in a Coven. If they think they can get away with it, that is!”

“Even Witches deserve to be left alone if they haven’t done anything harmful to others,” Douglas maintained.

“That’s so, but you must remember that just
being
a Black Witch is pretty good evidence that some wickedness is being done or contemplated,” Flarman responded. “It’s many long years since I knew Cribblon, to tell you the truth. He may be misreading the situation entirely. There are good Witches just as there are bad Wizards. Some of my best friends are White Witches,” he added, a touch wistfully, Douglas thought.

“This bunch needs looking into, at and over,” Flarman continued quickly, before Douglas could ask about that wistfulness. “Good or bad, we must know about them, and they about us. If their intentions are benign, all to the well and good! It’s their right, even if we don’t approve of their methods.

“But we can’t tell from this long a distance. Witches of either color are very private persons and their strongest magicks are hiding and confusing hexes, you may recall.”

Douglas would go and look them over, Flarman decided, determining, if possible, if these Witches were using their magic wickedly, making trouble for other, less gifted people.

“I don’t expect they’ll be as much trouble as Frigeon was, however. I would go with you but Augurian and I have to get to work sorting out Frigeon’s—Serenit’s, that is—tangled web of selfish, evil enchantments.”

Stripped of his awesome powers, Frigeon had changed his name to Serenit and had been exiled to a distant land. His spells remained, matters of primary importance to the Fellowship. The Ice King had put many people and places under deep, dire spells to suit his ambitious ends. It would take all three Wizards and eventually Myrn, too, years to right all of the Ice King’s wrongs, even with the reformed sorcerer’s help—those that could still be righted.

“You’re more than a match for a whole Coven,” claimed Bronze Owl. “Besides, the experience is necessary for you as you prepare for your Master’s examination.”

Douglas was eager to go for two other, very personal reasons: he was eager to test his growing Powers of Wizardry on a difficult professional task after his many years of training.

And he wanted some such task to absorb him over the time he had to wait for Myrn to reach the stage in her own schooling in the art of Aquamancy to allow them to be together without constant and prolonged separations.

****

His way was west, but the fastest way was to go south and west first, to the scenes of his childhood on Farango Waters; to bustling, shipbuilding Perthside at the mouth of Crooked Brook.

On the road he still met people who just happened to be there in order to say good-bye and good luck. One such was the Valley farmer, Possumtail, who still divided his time between his land and captaining the Valley Patrol, formed to keep the peace and assist the hundreds of dispossessed wanderers of Dead Winter and Dry Summer.

He sat now, slouched in his worn saddle, looking weary but quite alert, armed with sword and dagger and the authority of his friends in Valley.

“Things are quiet, now that winter has taken its grip,” he said. “I’m for home and some winter’s rest. I’ve sent the Patrol on ahead of me.”

“They’ll have scattered to their cottages and crofts,” Douglas said with a nod. “I saw none of them on the road.”

Possumtail dismounted on the pretext of checking his mare’s cinch buckle, but really to share a moment with the Journeyman Wizard. They had worked very closely in the terrible days of the Dead Winter Frigeon had sent to keep them busy while he began his conquest.

“I’m that surprised ye’re afoot,” the Patrol Captain said. “Didn’t ye ask Frenstil for a mount?”

“I wanted to walk,” claimed Douglas. “Frenstil offered several times, but I refused. I need time and a closeness to the land. I’m on a very special Journey, you see. It’ll determine whether I’ll become more than just a Journeyman in my craft. Many never go beyond Journeyman, you know.”

“I’ve no doubt at all about your Mastery,” said Possumtail, preparing to remount. “Best to ye, young Wizard! Keep your feet warm, is my best advice. And your wits about you, too. The roads are not always safe, even now.”

Douglas thanked him and they parted, the farmer toward his warm but lonely cottage and Douglas toward his parents’ home on Farango Waters at Perthside.

He arrived just at dusk at the comfortable, two-storied beam-built house in which he’d been born. It overlooked the busy shipyards beside upper Farango Waters. His father had long ago built a captain’s walk on its roof, the better to survey his yards and the shipways on the fjord that stretched all the way to open Sea to the southwest.

The shipwright father and quietly lovely mother were more than just delighted to have their famous son in their home once again, and they were full of news of their own lives.

“Glothersome Nunnery prospers under a new rule,” said Gloriana, Douglas’s mother. “The old rule of silence now applies only within the walls of the convent itself. It’s a wonderfully peaceful place to rest or spend a few days, away from this constant pounding, sawing, shouting of workers and screeching of machinery, the comings and goings of the shipyards. The Glothersome Sisters are much more involved in World, now. They teach school and crafts, care for the poor and the sick, cultivate their wonderful gardens to feed wayfarers and strangers, and make a bit of profit besides. I help as much as I can.”

“She’s as near to being a saint as I know herself,” insisted the senior Douglas, smiling at his wife’s modesty. “If anything, I’m more proud of her than I am of you, my dear son.”

“You’re building Thornwood Duke a navy?”

“Tis a
merchant
fleet we’re building for His Grace,” protested his father, “although, truth to tell, each capital keel we lay down is fully capable of becoming a warship, should the need ever arise again.”

“Surely there will not be war again!” cried his wife. She had lost her husband for many years and nearly lost her only child, thanks to Frigeon’s ambitious war making.

“I truly don’t know of any wars brewing, these days,” said Douglas to reassure her, “and Flarman or Augurian would be the first to hear if there was one.”

“Where are you off to, then?” asked his mother.

“I’ve a Journey to undertake to the Far West of Old Kingdom, where there are some Black Witches consorting, we are told. Witches have the potential for making mischief, especially if they’re banded together. Flarman wants to know who they are and what they intend.”

“Won’t it be dangerous?” asked Gloriana.

“Travel in Old Kingdom is always dangerous,” observed the elder Douglas. “You’ll be careful, son?”

“Of course! And I’m rather better prepared than most for any such dangers,” Douglas pointed out.

“Of course!” echoed his father. “It’s just that we’re your father and your mother and we will worry about you, no matter what.”

The next day he went with his father to inspect the three great merchant ships on the Perthside ways, and to arrange for his passage on the next vessel to leave for Westongue, on Dukedom’s northwest coast.

The workmen downed their tools and came to clap the young Wizard on his back and wring his hand. Many of them had been captives of the Ice King, as Frigeon had wished to deny their shipbuilding talents to his enemies. Those who had remained behind had been forced to work for the usurping Duke Eunicet, Frigeon’s tool. They all wanted a full accounting from Douglas of the former Duke’s trial and punishment.

“It’ll be a long, long time before anyone sees or hears of Eunicet again,” Douglas told them. “He and that general of his, an ill-favored, slovenly and sly man named Bladder, are marooned together on a desert island far to the south of Waterand Island in the loneliest part of Warm Seas”

The ship workers cheered his words and insisted that he stay and share with them their hearty working man’s lunches.

“Have you doubts about your coming marriage?” Gloriana said that evening, mentioning the subject for the first time. “Are you truly ready to marry? Some young men rush into marriage, I have seen, when they still need to look further afield for a life’s companion.”

Douglas nibbled on a piece of chocolate cake as he considered her question.

“When you ask me directly, I can only answer just as directly, Mother,” he said at last. “I have no doubts about Myrn or about marriage with her. It feels perfectly right. To both of us. We’ve talked of it many times this past summer.”

“Good!” said Gloriana. She was knitting as they talked, in yarns of blue and white—a baby’s shawl or sweater. Douglas couldn’t decide which. “No one can be entirely sure in such matters, but I must tell you that I also feel perfectly at ease with your decision. Your father and I are unworried—beyond the normal concerns of parents, of course. And I hope you can live with those worries.”

“I see them as signs of your love for me and for Myrn, too,” said Douglas, feeling rather humble and yet very happy at his mother’s words.

Said Gloriana, “Here’s your papa, fresh from the toils of profit-and-loss and engineering drawings! Shipwright, do you think you could make us some popcorn?”

****

Douglas sailed on the newest Perthside ship for Westongue. The splendid square-rigger would be taken into the Ducal service on arrival there. In Westongue Douglas hoped to find a ship that would be going—or could be chartered to take him—across the wide, shallow bight of Sea called the Broad—to some point on the east coast of the land still known as Old Kingdom, although there had been neither king nor kingdom in that place for more than two hundred years.

Douglas had Sea in his blood from his heritage of shipbuilding, reinforced by his adventures the year before. He loved to sail and was fascinated by everything connected with ships.

The good ship
Ramrod
carried him without incident down the long fjord of Farango Waters, around Cape Fioddle, the southwesternmost tip of Dukedom, and up its long, low, sandy west coast to busy Westongue. This port served Capital, the seat of Thornwood’s government and, other than distant and more isolated Wayness Isles on the south coast, was Dukedom’s only deepwater port.

When they moored Douglas recognized a familiar figure on the dock and waved, gleefully.

“Ahoy! Ahoy, Thornwood! Here’s a Journeyman Wizard most pleased to see you once more!”

The young and handsome Duke of Dukedom waved back, grinned broadly, and gave the younger man a strong embrace and a buffet on the shoulder when Douglas stepped ashore.

“I came down from Capital to look over
Ramrod,”
he explained. “I hadn’t known that you were aboard her.”

Douglas asked after Thornwood’s mother, the Duchess Mother Marigold, whom Douglas and Flarman had rescued from Frigeon’s frozen workshop under Eternal Ice. Thornwood urged him to come upriver to Capital to visit her and see how things were going, now that a proper Duke had taken the helm, as he put it. His training as a Seaman showed in many of his mannerisms and phrases.

But Douglas begged his pardon, explaining his mission was too important to delay, much as he’d like to have seen Capital. He’d never been there.

“I never interfere with Wizard’s work,” said Thornwood, seriously. He had spent some months hiding from his enemies at Wizard’s High as a boy and had learned a lot about Wizards’ ways and means.

“But at least spend a few days with me here, while we find you a ship going west. There’re some people here who perhaps can give you good advice on that score. They may be able to tell you something of your destination, too. No one should go to a far land totally unprepared.”

He would have said more but just then the sailors who were to take over
Ramrod
from the Perthside builders’ crew arrived in an untidy and laughing marching body. There were things to which Thornwood had to attend.

“Go up to my brand-new Sea House, just finished,” Thornwood said. “You can walk there from here, when you’re ready. There it is ... there, with the tallest roof and the long captain’s walk.”