Ascendant (56 page)

Paedris
blinked slowly to clear his vision. He was already feeling the effects of the
artificial energy coursing throughout his mortal body. "Yes, lend me two
of your guards. I need to go up on the roof."

The chief
guard turned to bark orders at his men, and that was where the night truly
began to spiral out of control, and the future path of Koren's life was
decided. Because, when an unwritten order is repeated enough times, from one
person to the next, the original intent is often lost in a confusion of
misunderstandings, rumors and embellishments. That explains how '
protect
Koren' and 'bring him to the
fortress
' changed into what guards
throughout the castle heard.

When Koren
recovered his wits, he  angrily wiped away his tears, and considered what
he should do. Nothing, he thought, had changed from his original purpose of
coming to the castle. He needed to attend to the wizard, although now it seemed
best that he first go to the tower and collect a sample of healing potions to
bring to the hospital with him. The courtyard was in an uproar, with guards
running this way and that, although no one seemed to know what they were doing,
and no one yet called out for him to stop. He ran up into the tower, and
pressed the locked door to the potion room in exactly the place Paedris had
instructed him to, to avoid the wards from releasing banshees and blasting his
ears. He had collected a sample of healing potions in a leather satchel, when
he heard several sets of boots tramping across the courtyard to stop at the
doorway below. Koren froze in place to listen, holding his breath.

"What're
we here for?" One guard's voice asked.

"The
wizard's brat, we're to take him to the dungeon, is my orders."

"The
dungeon?" The first guard exclaimed, surprised. "I didn't even know
he'd returned. He's a coward and a deserter, but-"

"And he
made that gargoyle fall on the princess, I heard the Regent say it myself. The
wizard told the captain of the guards, find Koren Bladewell, and bring the boy
to the dungeon."

"The
wizard is up from his sickbed?"

"Aye, an
attack on the princess is enough to make the dead rise."

Koren's ears
didn't register the next words of the guards, for all he could hear was that
the wizard ordered the guards to bring Koren to the dungeon. The
dungeon
.
The word sent chills down Koren's spine, for the dungeon held only the worst of
Linden's criminals.

Slowly, he set
the leather satchel on the floor. He would not need potions this night. This
was the moment Kyre Falco had predicted. Koren needed to run, to run far away,
and never come back. Sought by the army as a coward and a deserter. Declared by
the Regent to be a dangerous jinx who had injured the crown princess. He was
not a coward, not a deserter. But he was a jinx, he knew it. He would always be
a jinx, always bring nothing but trouble to the people around him, and the worst
trouble was for the people he cared about most, for the people-

A horrible
thought struck Koren like a lightning bolt. He had not rescued Ariana from the
bear after all! She had been attacked by the bear
because
Koren was
there. Koren the jinx, who brought misfortune and disaster everywhere he went,
to everyone around him. Ariana
’
s
life had been in danger because of him. He was no hero, far from it. He was a
curse. If there had not been a bear in the forest, Ariana would have fallen
from the boat and drowned, or sat down in the forest and been bitten by a
serpent, or maybe been struck by lightning. As long as Koren was nearby,
something bad was bound to happen to the princess. And he had not rescued
Paedris from the enemy, the enemy had attacked the wizard in a peaceful
village, because Koren was there. Koren had brought the attack down on the
wizard and Raddick's men! That was why Paedris had ordered him thrown into the
dungeon, why the wizard would use as a excuse the charges of cowardice and
desertion to get rid of Koren Bladewell. Because Koren's curse was so strong,
so dangerous, that Paedris realized by now that even a powerful wizard could
not stop it. For the security of the nation, Koren Bladewell belonged in a
dungeon.

Or in a grave.

Koren sat on the
floor of the potion room back against the stone wall of the tower, hearing
guards' feet pounding on the stairs, up, then down. No one had tried the door
to the potion rooms, they must have recognized the ward symbols. From the
window, he heard the second guard's voice say "He's not here. Leave two
men at the door, and follow me, we'll search the west wing of the palace
next."

A few minutes
later, Koren risked a glance out the window; there were only two guards,
waiting by the door. No matter, Koren knew a secret way out of the tower. The
trouble would not be getting out of the tower, the trouble would be getting out
of the castle walls. And he might know how to do that, too.

Moving slowly
and carefully, he stepped out of the potion room, and down the stairs to his
bed chamber. The guards had searched his small room, things were strewn all
over the floor and his bed was laying on its side. Quickly, Koren went directly
to a particular stone in the wall behind the bed, and wriggled it out of the
wall. Behind the stone was a hole, with a cloth-wrapped package, which Koren
pulled out. Inside there were two knives, fishing line and hooks, string, flint
and steel for starting fires, the money he had saved from his pay, and most
importantly, the money Kyre Falco gave him. Koren had changed those gold coins
for smaller coins, for servants running away should not attract attention by
trying to use gold coins. He paused to look around the small room that had been
his home. He realized that he would miss it, even though it could be cold, damp
and drafty. Heading out the door, he stepped over items the guards had
scattered on the floor, and saw one of the items was a quill pen and inkpot
that Paedris had given to him. Back when the wizard was pretending to care
about his servant. A note. He couldn't leave without writing a note, at least
to apologize to Ariana for nearly killing her, he would never get another
chance. It was important that Ariana know he hadn't meant for his curse to hurt
her, and that he was leaving so his curse couldn't hurt anyone else.

It was
surprisingly hard to put his thoughts on paper, and not just because the quill
pen kept running out of ink. He had too much to say, too much anger and regret,
and not enough time to write it all down. When he finished scribbling the note,
he read it, and almost tore it up. It was a mess, full of smudges and
misspellings, as a result of his haste. "Oh, to hell with it." He
said, almost too loud, for the guards were only two floors below him, and left
the note on top of the bed.

What the
guards outside didn't know was that firewood for the tower originally used to
be stacked in a room under the ground floor, to keep it dry, and so occupants
of the tower did not have to go outside in nasty weather when more wood was needed.
There was a room in the foundation of the tower, accessed by a trap door under
a closet on the ground floor. And a hatch leading outside, up against the wall
of the castle, hidden behind overgrown bushes. When Paedris moved in years ago,
he had the firewood moved outside, because he didn't want bugs like termites
inside the tower. But the trap door and the hatch still worked, Koren had oiled
their hinges only two months ago. The moment of greatest danger was moving the
cleaning supplies that were stored on top of the trapdoor, with the guards just
outside the heavy wood door of the tower. Koren's heart nearly stopped when a
mop toppled over, he managed to catch it with a foot just before the handle hit
the floor. The trapdoor opened quietly, Koren slipped through, and carefully
let it close behind him. Now he was in darkness, complete darkness.
Fortunately, since he could not light a torch, he knew every step on the
ladder, and the chamber was empty. When he reached the floor, he felt his way
along the wall until he came to the hatch, which he unlocked by sliding aside
the bar. Cracking open the hatch only an inch, he listened for voices, but no
one sounded nearby. Careful to open the hatch only enough to squeeze through,
he stepped into the night, and closed the hatch, crouching behind the bushes
which screened the hatch from the castle courtyard. The courtyard still rang
with shouts and commotion; it must be that the guards, soldiers and palace
staff were frantically searching for him. He felt safe for now, the bushes were
thick, and extended almost all the way to the castle wall. The wall was in
darkness behind the wizard's tower, and there Koren knew another secret; a
possible way under and through the wall. A storm drain, which let rainwater
cascading off the wizard's tower drain away, without flooding the courtyard.
This particular drain had an iron cover that had rusted over the years, the
castle maintenance crew knew about the rusty cover, but none of them was eager
to be near the wizard's tower, so the cover rarely got attention. Koren had
discovered a couple months ago that the cover was loose, the rusted iron was
not only weak, the rust also had eaten away at the stone the iron cover pins
were set into. He had brought an iron bar with him for the purpose of popping
the cover out of its setting. It was surprisingly easy to break the rusted
pins, but the cover was also surprisingly heavy! Koren nearly lost a couple
fingers getting the cover out of the hole, moving slowly so the sound of heavy,
rusted iron scraping on stone didn't alert guards. He dropped his pack in ahead
of him, and considered whether to crawl in head first or feet first. Head
first. He might need his hands if there was a cover at the other end.

There was a
cover, which Koren found after perhaps half an hour of crawling and squeezing
his way along the storm drain. It was disgusting, but still better than the
last time he'd been stuck in a wet, smelly, slimy drainage channel. The opening
at the far end was barred with an iron gate, above a stream, in the shadow of a
grain mill. This gate was well maintained, and sturdy, with a lock, for the
gate was periodically cleaned of leaves and other storm debris to keep it from
clogging. There was no way Koren could break this gate open. But, he didn't
need to. With his thick, short knife, he picked away at the mortar around the
stones the gate was set into. Soon, enough stones were loose that he was able
to push them out, out, out, until the stones tumbled into the stream, and the
gate fell away. He was free, away from the castle, in the city of Linden! Now
where was he going to go?

Captain
Raddick nodded to the guards at the entrance to the royal hospital. Visiting
the wizard was his first stop in the castle since arriving only an hour before;
as the Regent was busy. General Magrane he had met on the road, the general was
so anxious to take command of the eastern borderlands that he arranged to meet
Raddick along the way.  Raddick hated going to hospitals, even more than
he hated being a patient in hospitals. Twice in his life, he had lain weak and
sick in a hospital bed, suffering from fever, nausea and terrible pain. In his
long military career, which began when he was only sixteen, he had never been
actually wounded in combat seriously enough to require being sent to a
hospital. Once, a sword cut to his leg, shallow as to be shrugged off as a mere
scratch, had become infected within a week, and he had come near to death as he
had ever been. Potions, herbs and poultices had served only to keep him barely
alive until a minor wizard, by chance passing through the town, healed him with
a single spell. The second time, he had been bitten by a snake, and potions had
served to save his life, although he had been so sick that he had almost felt
dying would be better.

“
Halt!
”
One of the guards called
out, blocking the entrance to the hospital with his pike. The three other
guards, Raddick noted, had hands on the hilts of their swords.
“
What is the password?
”

“
I
’
m Captain Raddick, you
oaf, get out of my way.
”
Raddick said with a deliberately haughty sneer, and moved to brush aside the
pike.

The pike didn
’
t move, being held in a
grip like iron, and three swords came out of their scabbards.
“
You look like Captain
Raddick, I served under him last year on patrol in Holdeness. Maybe you
’
re him, and maybe not. But
whoever you are, you
’
re
not getting through that door alive without the password.
”

Raddick fairly
beamed with pride. These men had been trained well, and took their jobs
seriously. They guarded not just a door, not just a hospital, they guarded the
court wizard, who lay on his sickbed within.
“
I know you, Tom Bestin, and you served well
in Holdeness with me. The password for today is
‘
red wolf
’
.
”
The three other guards,
Raddick noted with satisfaction, did not relax until Bestin lifted his pike,
and saluted the Captain.
“
How
is the wizard?
”

Bestin held
his hand out, and waggled it side to side.
“
Some good, and some bad, the healers say. Don
’
t think they rightly know
what to do with a wizard, sir, leastwise, a wizard who isn
’
t in hospital to heal the
sick. Lord Salva is driving the nurses to distraction, the few times when he is
awake.
”

Raddick nodded
grimly.
“
General
Magrane sent for Shomas Feany, or any other wizard, but likely they won
’
t arrive in time to
matter. Lord Salva will have to fight this battle himself, I fear. Bad enough
that he had to fight three wizards, but having to rise from his sickbed to deal
with that assassin may have been too much, even for him.
”