Berlina's Quest (7 page)

“Spare uniforms…phew…not even clean!” She threw them in the bushes. “A halfway decent dagger…guess I'll keep that. A pile of paper…damn! He has a stack of ‘wanted' posters with my picture on them. That son of an incestuous swine, Drailsen!”

She put the papers back. As she moved around to the other side of the horse, Felistia asked, “Why are you keeping those papers?”

“Handy for starting fires with,” Berlina said, “or for wiping my…well, never mind.” She dug into the other saddlebag. “Some packages of food and…aha! Down at the bottom, a pouch of gold. Not too much. I'll bet he spent a lot of what he had on the barmaid. I hope he gets his money's worth from her, because I have a feeling that's going to be his last pleasure for a very long time. When his boss finds out how he and his companions lost their horses…”

Felistia went through the bags on her horse and found much the same things, while Berlina checked Lathan's horse—not trusting him to do it himself.

Finally, Berlina gathered everything together. “A little gold, some food, a few knives and daggers, and a pile of other junk. We're a heck of a lot better off now than we were before. I don't know how long we have to keep going. I doubt the gold will last to the end of our quest, so we'll still have to steal a bit here or there, but it will help. If we're lucky, we'll get to steal from Drailsen's men. If not, we'll steal from whoever we happen across. I don't like stealing, but needs must when the devil drives. Look, it's getting on toward evening. I think we'll spend the night here and push on in the morning.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” said Felistia.

Lathan just nodded his head.

Rather than go hunting, they pulled out the supply of food they found in the saddlebags. They made a small fire to toast the stale bread and scraped the mold off the cheese, ending up with a barely passable meal. After eating, they spread out on the ground and went to sleep.

In the morning, Berlina sent Lathan out to find some more bargabird eggs. While he was gone, she said, “Fee, maybe I was hasty in complaining, yesterday. Lathan does have his uses.”

“Yes, he does, but I wouldn't get too enamored of him. You don't know if you're going to find a cure. You wouldn't want to get serious with him the way he is now.”

“Oh, I'm not talking about getting serious. Mother would have a fit if I, a princess, took up with a common guardsman—brain dead or normal. No, that just wouldn't do.”

When Lathan returned with the eggs, she scrambled them with chopped up bits of a rather greasy sausage from one of the saddlebags. Once again, they toasted the stale bread, making a breakfast that was edible but little more.

After they finished, Berlina said, “We are going to have to go back down to the road. Keep a sharp eye out as we approach it. The last few hundred feet, we will need to dismount and walk the horses.”

They got back to the road, moving cautiously. When they found no enemies in sight in either direction, they mounted up and headed east.

For most of the day, the road ran through forest and wilderness, and they saw nobody. As the sun started to set, they spotted another path going off to the side and followed it until they found a small clearing to camp in. The evening and the morning were a repeat of the previous day, but as they finished breakfast, Berlina said, “We're pretty much out of the food from the saddlebags. Either we're going to have to find a village, or we may have to do some hunting.”

“Hey, Princess. I got my bow and arrers, and I'm a good shot. Hunting is purty easy.”

“Perhaps I could change and bring down a deer or two,” said Felistia. “In my cat form, I'm faster than most of the wildlife.”

“We'll see how far we get, today.” Once again, Berlina led them slowly and carefully back to the road, and as there was nobody in sight, they mounted up and once again headed east.

As the three rode down the road, Berlina suddenly halted her horse and signaled for the others to stop.

“What's the matter, Bee?”

“See those two bushes of yellow flowers with a path leading between them? I think we're being told to take that path.”

“Why would you think that? There have been any number of little paths along here. Why this one?”

“Fee, don't you recognize the yellow flowers? Those are forsythia bushes. I'm going to assume they were put there by…”

“Forsythia! Your witchcraft teacher! Okay, okay. Now I see why you want to take that path. The plants are her way of telling you there is something important here. Lead on.”

Berlina turned her horse and headed down the path, followed by Felistia and Lathan. It seemed to go on forever, but eventually, they got to a clearing containing a small but well-built cabin. Berlina dismounted and walked around it, her wand at the ready in case of traps. When nothing happened, she went to the door and pulled it open, then hurriedly backed away, coughing and choking.

“What's the matter?” asked Felistia.

“It stinks!” said Berlina. “A horrible smell. I swear I've never run into anything half as bad. You two come closer, slowly and carefully. See if either of you has ever encountered this before.”

Felistia moved in closer, then grabbed her nose and backed away, but Lathan sniffed at it and said, “It's like…a dead poyson. Dey all stink like dat a few days after dey bin kilt. I smelt lotsa dem after a battle.”

Berlina opened the door again, while holding her breath, and looked in. There was a body on the floor clad in Sorcerer's clothes. It had obviously been dead for a while. The exposed parts, like hands and a face, were rotting away.

One side of the cabin had the door in it, and the side walls contained windows. The far wall had a large, stone fireplace but no other openings.

“Lathan,” Berlina said, “since you're used to this, I want you to go in and open the windows and air this place out. Be careful, though. Don't step on the body.”

“I'll be real, real careful,” said Lathan as he went in. Shortly, he came out again and said, “Dey're open.”

The three waited twenty minutes or so until the smell diminished to tolerable levels, then went in to look around.

Felistia focused on the body, to see how the wizard had died. It didn't take long for her to see the arrow through the man's throat, and she said, “Come look at this, Bee. Cause of death is pretty obvious, but look closely—maroon and orange fletchings on the arrow. Drailsen's colors.”

“Well, I guess that tells us one thing,” said Berlina. “Not all sorcerers are on Zatarra's side. This one must have been opposing Zatarra, and look what it got him. There's a book on the floor. It looks like he might have dropped it when he was killed. Everything else looks neat and proper. Let me see…”

Berlina pulled out her wand and began scanning the cabin and the corpse. “Interesting,” she said. “There was nobody in this room with him when he was shot. The arrow must have come in through the door and gotten him. Warriors, troopers, would have been afraid of entering a sorcerer's dwelling, so I'm assuming they didn't have any magic users with them. If they had, they would have searched the cabin. Zatarra would never have missed an opportunity to grab anything faintly useful in the magical line, so I assume he wasn't here. Therefore, we are going to see what
we
can salvage.” She started looking carefully, paying special attention to books and anything that looked like wands or other magical tools. Felistia continued her search while Lathan, bewildered as usual, just stood in the middle of the room and watched the two girls.

Berlina seemed most pleased with the book she found on the floor. “Fee, this is a grimoire of sorcerer's magic. Forsythia told me that it differs from witch's magic. She said I could probably learn it and use it, but she felt improving my witchcraft was a better use of my time in class. However, with this book, I'll be in better shape to handle Zatarra if we run into him.”

“That sounds good,” said Felistia. “Does it say who this guy is…er, was?”

“Yes, inside the cover, it's inscribed ‘Property of Dolorophus'. Below that, it says ‘The funeral is on page forty-five'. Funeral?” She flipped to the indicated page and read it silently. “It's an incantation to be used after Dolorophus dies. I'm going to wait until we're finished here and back outside before I invoke it. I'm just a little worried about what it might do.”

Felistia went back to exploring and said, “Hey, take a look at this. A crystal ball.”

Berlina looked at the device, then went back to her pile of books, pulled one out, and flipped it open. “Yep, here it is. How to use a crystal ball. You cast certain spells to focus it on an enemy. Then, you can go back and spy on him later. It can actually be set up with several ‘channels' to watch several enemies at once.
This
we are definitely taking. When…
if
I get a chance, I'll set it up on Zatarra and Prince Drailsen. Fee, see if you can find a soft cloth—a towel or something. I want to wrap it up, so it won't get scratched.”

After she wrapped the crystal ball, Berlina held her wand out and spun around in a circle. There was a brief flash of light, and she swung back, aiming the wand where the light had been, until she got a steady indication. “Right next to the fireplace, there's something there.” She walked over and tugged at a wall panel, but it didn't move. “Lathan, can you use your sword to pry that panel loose?”

“Yeah, shur.” He stuck the point of his sword into the crack between that panel and the next, and then gave it a sudden push. The panel popped off and fell on the floor, revealing a shallow compartment containing a book.

Berlina grabbed the book and began to examine it. “The book is titled
Faces of Evil.
Each page seems to be about a sorcerer or a wizard, with Zatarra right up front on the first page,” she told Felistia. “In fact, someone handwrote on Zatarra's page, ‘the evilest face of all'. Looks like we have a roster of bad-guy magic users, probably compiled by our dead friend on the floor.”

“So, if we meet a sorcerer or wizard we don't know, we can look him up?” asked Felistia.

“Right. Any magic user not in here is probably good.”

Soon, they gathered up everything that looked useful. Unfortunately, there was little edible food in the cabin. All the food supplies had rotted or been attacked by animals and insects in the interval since the owner had been killed. They took their plunder out and put it in their saddlebags, now fairly empty as they had eaten most of the food they had found there originally.

The three rode back across the clearing to the end of the path. Felistia and Lathan continued until they were well into the woods, just barely still in sight of the cabin. Berlina stopped right at the edge of the clearing, turned her horse to face the cabin, and read the funeral incantation for Dolorophus. The cabin exploded into purple flames and quickly burned to the ground, until there was nothing but a pile of ashes. Berlina went down the path until she reached the other two.

“Instant funeral pyre,” she said. “Now you see why I wanted to be out of there before I read it. Well, let's go.”

The three turned and went on down the path to the road. When they got there, the forsythia bushes were gone. “You see…” Berlina said. “Once we figured out they were signposts and followed them, they were no longer needed, and they vanished. I told you they were a magical message from Forsythia.” They turned and continued east on the road.

“How the hell did they escape?” asked Zatarra. He was a small man, but powerful in appearance and dressed in sorcerer's robes. He had long, white hair down his back and a long, white beard down his front, both reaching past his belt line. Bushy, white eyebrows hung down, barely failing to obscure his vision.

The man he faced was obviously a nobleman, but an ugly one for all that. He was never handsome, but the scar across his left cheek disfigured his face beyond its natural unpleasantness. He wore the silks of a prince, in the maroon and orange colors of the house of Drailsen.

“I don't know, Sorcerer,” Prince Drailsen said in a raspy voice, the result of another injury evidenced by a second scar—this one across his Adam's Apple. “The princess and her companion were in my dungeon. In one of the safest cells, it had wards built into the cell door.” In a voice dripping with sarcasm, he added, “Wards cast by one more of an expert in such things than you.”

“Your Highness, are you casting aspersions on my powers?”

“Take it any way you like, Zatarra. I have heard some of your fellows discussing who is the better sorcerer and who is the worse, and your name came out well down the list. They say you are sloppy, careless, and cast poor spells. As an organizer of our efforts you are fine, but as a magic user…”

Zatarra had a fierce scowl on his face, but he didn't contradict the prince. “Let's not argue. The question is, how did the princess escape?”

“One of my guards survived long enough to tell us that he recognized the warrior who forced his way into the palace and broke down the cell door,” said Drailsen. “He said it was Lathan—that stupid oaf you hit with the beclouding spell. That still begs the question of why he was here. Who summoned him and how?”

“Did your guards confiscate all the possessions carried by the two girls?”

“I know they confiscated all their gold, and one took an old, rusty sword the princess had. He said the sword was so badly rusted, he could not pull the blade from the scabbard. Let me think…yes, one of them found a book and took it. I'm not sure why. Did he think that a book could knock down the bars of their cell?”

Zatarra got a terribly angry expression on his face and said, “You idiot! If that's all your guards took, they must have left the princess with her kit of tools for magic and witchcraft. No wonder she was able to get out. She probably cast a summoning spell to get that lout Lathan to come to her.”

“No, that she did not do. This castle is protected. Protected by spell-wards that will not let magic in or out. Any attempts to cast a spell further than the castle walls will just bounce back and hit the one who cast it. If she did not do that, and she couldn't have, I have no clue how they escaped. It looks like someone, perhaps Lathan, used a mace on the cell door. However it happened, before they left the castle, they located her sword and her book, and she took them along. Although, why she wanted a rusty sword—one rusted so badly into the scabbard that it couldn't be drawn—really perplexes me.”

“A rusty sword? Oh, my God. I remember hearing tales of a rusty sword that couldn't be drawn, except by its owner. A sword that appeared rusty to outsiders, and which is hardly visible, as it blended in with its background. The legendary Black Sword is one of the most powerful enchanted weapons in the world and now she has it.”

“Black? No, my men were sure it looked rusty. They said it was sometimes hard to see, because it blended in with its surroundings so well.”

“That fits,” said Zatarra. “The Black Sword. I wasn't sure if it really existed, or if it was a myth. She has it. Damn! Well, there's no use crying over spilled dragon's milk.”

“One thing I don't understand,” said the prince, “is why you keep talking of magic, spells, and such. Surely, the princess cannot be a witch, wizard, or a sorceress?”

“Wrong. She's a witch. From what I hear, she is a very accomplished witch, very powerful. Several members of the Order of the Flowers, actually a witch's coven, were hanging around the High Palace for years. They purportedly taught her classes about nature, flowers, and such, but they were really training her in witchcraft. From what I hear, she was an excellent student.”

“A princess who is also a witch? Are you sure? Couldn't it be her companion who is the witch? That sounds so much more likely.”

“No, Princess Berlina is a witch. I know that for a fact. That is one of the reasons we are so anxious to capture her. As for her companion, there
is
something strange about her, but we—my organization—have not been able to find out what. The important thing, right now, is what has been done with the idiot Crown Prince Darvid.”

“My men, those that did not get killed in the kidnap raid, took him to the Quince Castle and have him locked up there. That was as we planned. Wasn't it, Zatarra?”

“Yes, yes. The castle far in the east. That, of course, is why I persuaded the foolish Queen Regent to imprison the brat, Berlina, at the Sorcerer's Retreat to the west, as far in the other direction as possible. For her own protection, of course.” He chuckled evilly. “But now…” he paused and shook his head. “Now that she has escaped, she will have figured it out that if I wanted her to go west, east is where she should head. Damn.”

“You didn't leave any clues behind, did you?”

“Of course not! The thing most to be feared is the map, and I took that with me. In any case, my tower lab is completely secure, she couldn't have gotten in there.”

“Sorcerer, here you've been telling me how powerful a witch she is, and now you deny that she could have entered your lab and found a clue. Think, man, think!”

“Well, if she got in…unlikely, but if…she could have relocked the door on exiting and made it look like nobody was there. The map…” He paused and scrunched up his face, obviously trying to remember something. “Arrgh! I recall it, now. The Adobe spell. I have never used it, but I have heard of it and how it works. She could have made a copy of the map that
used to be there
!”

“So, she and her companions could right now be heading toward the Quince Castle? I think we better get moving. If she gets there…my troopers are good men, but not one of them has any brains. Lord knows what she might manage to do.”

“At least, Your Highness, we can make good time mounted. When they left your castle, they were on foot. They will be slow getting there. We should be able to beat them to the Quince Castle.”

“If she's as good as you say, she'll get herself and her companions some horses as quickly as she can. We had best get moving.”