Berlina's Quest (11 page)

Berlina laughed. “I like that description, except that it may be insulting to pond scum.”

The crew lowered the gangplank, and Berlina and her companions walked the horses down to the road. They waited until the wyrm pulled away from the road and went skimming away across the sand. Then, they mounted their horses and started down the road.

The next day, as they rode around a bend in the road, Berlina pulled her horse to a sudden halt and said, “Look!”

“Look at what?” asked Felistia.

“A path going off to the side flanked by yellow forsythia bushes. Just like the other one we saw. Again, I assume it is a sign we should take the path.”

“Queen Sandia told us to avoid any unnecessary delays, didn't she?”

“True, true, but if this is a sign from Forsythia, and I am sure it is, it will be worth the time to follow it.” Without waiting for any further answer, Berlina turned her horse and started down the path. Felistia and Lathan followed.

After a mile or two, they emerged into a clearing containing a small, neat cabin. “This looks very much like that cabin belonging to…what was his name…Dolorophus,” said Felistia.

“Yes, it does,” said Berlina. She dismounted and started to walk over to the door, one hand on the hilt of her sword.

Before she got there, the door opened, and a man in sorcerer's robes came out. “Hail and welcome,” he said. “I hight Dolorophus.”

Berlina stopped short. “Dolorophus is dead, shot in the throat by an arrow. How can you be Dolorophus?”

“Dear me. I am Dolorophus, and I am very much alive. If you saw a corpse in sorcerer's attire, and in a cabin much like this, I fear me it was my cousin Rondomagus. Who might you be?”

“I hight Bejanna, and these are my companions Fezzia and Lathan.”

“Bejanna, indeed?” Dolorophus allowed a little smile to play across his features. “I think not, I think not. Your clothes are well chosen to pass as a common traveler, and your glamours for your face and that of your lady companion are excellent, but you can't conceal your true identity from a powerful sorcerer. Welcome to my cabin, Princess Berlina.”

Berlina dropped the glamours and said, “Thank you, Sorcerer Dolorophus. This is my companion Felistia. I already used Lathan's real name. He tends to get…er, confused if I try to give him a fake name.”

“Yes, I understand Lathan's case. Unfortunate. Felistia, a most charming wildcat…oh, yes. I can see that. Any really good sorcerer would be able to.”

“Really?” asked Berlina. “In five or six years, our Court Sorcerer Zatarra was never able to see that. Although he did once or twice say he thought there was something odd about her.”

“Zatarra?” Dolorophus spat on the ground. “A third-rate hack. Unworthy of being called a sorcerer. Anyway, why are we standing around out here? Come inside, sit down, and have a glass of wine while we talk.”

They entered the cabin. Felistia looked around and said, “This is much the same as the other cabin.”

“Yes,” said Dolorophus, “I have several of them, all identical. They are constructed using a spell, the same spell for each of them. No point in complicating things by making them different from one another. The same table and chairs in each, too, so have a seat.”

All four sat down at the table. Dolorophus poured four goblets of wine from a flagon, and then turned to Berlina and said, “Tell me about finding Rondomagus.”

“He was dead, shot in the throat by an arrow. He had been dead quite a while. The shot came from outside, my guess by a trooper afraid to enter the cabin of a sorcerer,” said Berlina. “A grimoire and some other books and tools were untouched, so I presume whoever shot him had no magic users with him. None were unafraid to enter the cabin and get them.”

“What did you do with those things?”

“I took them. Do you want them back?”

Dolorophus ignored the last question, and asked, “What about page 47?”

“Ah,” said Berlina. “The funeral oration…or funeral spell. After I had gathered up what looked useful, I made sure we were at a safe distance away and read it. After all, we thought the dead body was you, so it seemed like the respectful thing to do. Quite a blaze. There's not much left of that cabin.”

“Of course, that was the obvious thing to do. As for as the grimoires, spell books, magic tools, you are welcome to keep them. I have more. There was only one thing there that I really would like to get back, if possible. Tell me, did you find a book in a hidden enclosure, a book titled
Faces of Evil
?”

“Yes, we found it. It was well-hidden. Only careful work with my wand was able to detect the enclosure, and Lathan had to pry it open with his sword.” She turned to Felistia and said, “Fee, it is in my left saddlebag. Would you please go get it?”

They sat there until Felistia returned with the book. Berlina took it from her and handed it to Dolorophus.

“Thank you, thank you,” he said. “When you told me you had set off the funeral pyre, I was afraid it was lost. It was well-concealed, and I feared you might not have found it before you burned the cabin. In thanks for this, I will bestow upon you three gifts. A gift of warning, a gift of teaching, and a gift of advising.”

“I will accept your gifts with pleasure,” said Berlina. “Proceed.”

“First, the gift of warning,” said Dolorophus. “Prince Drailsen sent ahead a small army with your brother to capture the Quince Castle and imprison him there. After, a large number of men in that army left the castle. They did not go far. They set up a camp less than half a day's march this side of the castle, and they are watching the road. They are north of the road, so you will have to take a detour through the woods to the south to get by them safely. Worse, at one point, they were invisible. The sorcerer with them cast a spell. I know not if the spell is still in effect or whether it has worn off.”

“Thank you for the warning,” said Berlina. “We will avoid them, and I will be on the alert for invisibility.”

“Second, the gift of teaching. I know you are a witch, a powerful witch. I assume you are familiar with wards?”

“Yes, I am. I use them whenever needed.”

“How much do you know of the actual structure of wards? Have you ever gotten to that point in your studies?”

“No. I know how to use them, but I have never thought of their structure.”

“Wards are not solid,” said Dolorophus, “but are composed of many lines of magic force lying next to one another. With the proper spells and strong magic, it is possible to locate the joints where two lines of force touch. One can force a wand into that joint so that one end of the wand is inside, and one outside. Then, most difficult of all, one can twirl that wand, move it around, and enlarge the hole to a useful size. Come, let me give you a lesson.”

He rose, stood in an open part of the floor, and waved his wand around. Nothing seemed to have happened, but he said, “I have set up wards around myself, wards that neither men nor weapons can penetrate. Lathan, swing your sword at me.”

Lathan hesitated, confused, and looked at the princess. “Shud I do dat? I don wanna hurt him.”

“He says he is protected, Lathan, so it should be all right. Just in case, don't swing too hard.”

Lathan pulled out his sword and swung it at Dolorophus, but it bounced off something invisible a foot away from the sorcerer. He looked at his sword, said, “Wow, dat's somethin',” and resheathed the weapon.

“Now, Princess, you have seen that the wards are in place around me,” said Dolorophus. “Hold your wand out pointing toward me and move in until you feel resistance.”

Berlina did as directed. The wand stopped at about the same distance from the sorcerer as Lathan's sword had been stopped.

“Now what?” she asked.

“Back the wand away just a fraction of an inch, then move it sideways. Tell me what you feel.”

Berlina moved the wand, trying in both directions from where she had originally touched the wards, repeating the procedure both higher up and lower down. “It's not smooth,” she said. “I feel ridges and valleys, and they seem to run up and down.”

“Good, good. Find one of the valleys with the tip of your wand, and put the wand as far into the valleys as you can. Then, use the spell ‘
Terebro'
.”

Berlina moved the wand to a spot in a valley, then said “
Terebro
.” The wand sank in much further, stopping only when her fingers came into contact with the wards.

“Ah, you are doing well. You penetrated the wards. That shows you are a very powerful witch. You must be as strong as, or stronger than, the one casting the wards to do what you have done. Of course, at this point, you have only a hole too small to be of use. Now, we will work on enlarging the opening you have made until it is adequate for you, or a soldier, to go through.”

It took another half hour for Dolorophus to present all the additional spells needed, and for Berlina to learn them. Finally, he pronounced her ready.

“Thank you again,” she said. “I assume we did all this, because I am going to need this skill?”

“No man can predict the future perfectly, but it seems to me very likely that you will. Now, the third gift is the gift of advising. After you have rescued your brother, after you have done whatever seems appropriate to Prince Drailsen and Zatarra, you should go to the Black Fortress of the Ultimate Wizards. There, I believe you will find something you want, something you cannot get elsewhere.”

“I thank you a third time, Dolorophus. Now, I think we must go. We cannot afford to waste time. Especially if we have to take a long detour around that possibly-invisible army that is watching the road.”

“I agree, Berlina. It is time for you to go. Good luck on your quest.”

All four stood and walked out to where Berlina and her companions mounted their horses. They rode out of the clearing and down the path toward the road. When they got to the end of the path, Felistia said, “Look, the yellow bushes are gone, just like last time.”

“Of course,” said Berlina. “When they are no longer needed to guide us, the spell that conjured them plays out, and they vanish.”

Berlina reined in her horse and said, “I bet that soldier up there is one of the road watchers that Dolorophus warned us about. We must be getting into the territory of that army.”

“Soldier? What soldier?,” asked Felistia. “My eyes are better than yours, and I see no soldier.”

“Hmmm. Lathan, do you see a soldier on the side of the road, ahead of us?”

“No, yer Highness. Der ain't no sojer up dere.”

“Well, I can clearly see a soldier in Drailsen's colors standing up there. Obviously, their sorcerer did cast an invisibility spell on their army, but he was as much of a lackwit as Zatarra, or as lazy a tree sloth as Zatarra, or both. He used a spell—I know the one. It is the simplest such spell to cast, and it doesn't affect witches and other magic users.”

“So, you can see him, but we can't? What are we going to do?”

“Very simple. We are going to ride up to him as if none of us could see him. I will be the one closest to him, and I am going to have my sword out but hidden down by my side. Since he will think we can't see him, he probably won't even bother to draw his sword until we are right next to him. Then, off with his head.”

“Definitely sounds like a plan,” said Felistia.

The enemy soldier was on the left side of the road, so Berlina held her sword down by her right leg, and Felistia and Lathan rode on her right.

As they got close to the man, he was just standing and watching, taking no pains to conceal himself. As Berlina had guessed, he didn't even bother to draw his sword until she was right next to him.

By then, of course, it was too late. Berlina swung her sword around, and the soldier's head parted company with his shoulders. He had no chance to make any noise before he collapsed to the ground.

Three backup solders off in the woods saw this , and they came charging out with swords drawn. Berlina saw them and yelled, “Watch out. Here come three more.”

“We can't see these, either. You'll have to give us directions, or do all of them yourself,” said Felistia.

Berlina kept a tight right hand on her sword, but slipped her wand out with her left and waved it at the soldiers. Instantly, a layer of fine ash and dust coated them, rendering them partly visible. They appeared like wraiths or ghosts but were visible enough that one could see to swing a sword at them. Berlina decapitated one, Lathan split a second in two with a mighty sword stroke from head down to crotch, and Felistia transformed and ripped the throat from the third.

“Good work, people,” said Berlina. “I wish we could get more of them two or three at a time like this. Unfortunately, I fear that invading their main camp would not be a good idea.”

“Won't there be more sentries like this one along the road, Bee? If you can spot them far enough ahead so we can be ready, we can pick off a few at a time. That way, we can avoid a long, slow detour through the woods.”

“Yes, that sounds good. Let's go.”

They rode slowly along, and were able to pick off two more of the sentries, plus their backup guards. Then, on a deserted stretch of road, they heard noises off to their left.

“That must be their campsite,” said Berlina. “I'd like to get a look, and of course, we might be able to shorten a few more sentries.”

The three led their horses into the woods on the south side of the road and tethered them out of sight, then stealthily approached the camp. They did find a few sentries, but disposed of them silently.

They were close to the main camp when suddenly, the earth shook. There were screams and yells. In several places across the camp, the ground swelled up, then burst. Dirt sprayed all over, lending a wraithlike visibility to the soldiers just as Berlina's dust-and-ashes spell had. Rocks followed the dirt, and many of them fell on the soldiers, knocking them out.

The tops of the mounds opened into large craters, and from these emerged the heads of large wyrms which immediately began to pounce on and eat the soldiers. Many of the soldiers tried to escape, but few succeeded. Those who had the misfortune to flee toward the road were cut down by Berlina and her companions.

Finally, there was a swelling in the ground much larger than all the others, and the giant wyrm with the queen's platform emerged and flopped its head down so the platform was level. There had obviously been no concern as to where it landed. The numerous arms and legs sticking out from under showed it had landed on a number of the soldiers.

Berlina walked over to the wyrm and called up, “Hail, Queen Sandia. We give you our thanks.”

“Hail, Berlina,” said the queen. “Always glad to help. Besides, eating those two men on the road through the desert gave our wyrms a taste for Drailsen's men. They wanted more.”

“How did you do this? I thought the wyrms could only travel in the quicksand of the desert. How do they go through solid rock and soil to get to a place like this?”

“Simple. Magic. The wyrms, by themselves, are limited to the quicksand. With the proper spells—though, they are not too happy here in the solid soil. I need to get them back to their quicksand with as little delay as possible. I know you need to press forward with your journey, so I will say farewell for now and good luck, Berlina.”

“Farewell, Sandia.”

As Berlina and her companions watched, the wyrms slowly withdrew back into the ground, leaving huge mounds of dirt and shattered tents. When the wyrms were completely gone, the companions went back across the road to get their horses, and started again to ride.

“Dolorophus said this camp was a day's ride or less from Quince Castle and Quince Village. We must be getting close to our destination,” said Berlina.

“I hope so. This has been a long journey, and I welcome its ending,” replied Felistia.

“The end of the journey perhaps, but not of the quest. I suspect we have a battle or two yet to fight.”