The Archmage Unbound (43 page)

“You don’t have a hat,” I pointed out.

He groaned wearily, “It’s a figure of
speech. Anyway, you’re so used to thinking like a wizard you forget that men
are not helpless without magic. He won’t have been idle while you were here,
but he may need your help when he finds them.”

The next morning I returned to
Lancaster. We had talked long into the night but in the end we didn’t have any
better solutions than what we had started with.

Stepping out of the teleportation circle
I spotted two men standing guard within the building that held them. They had
already taken note of my appearance and were opening their mouths to speak. I
was too quick for them however. “You!” I said sharply. “Where is the Duke
presently?”

The man looked quite anxious, probably
due to my aggressive demeanor. “He should be in the keep your Lordship, taking
breakfast, given the hour.” I had arrived fairly early.

“Excellent,” I replied and turned to
head that way.

The man called after me, “He said to
tell you that he would like to speak with you as soon as you arrived.”

I laughed and kept walking. Entering
the keep I headed straight for the great hall. A number of people pointed and
began talking as they saw me pass, which gave me the impression I had been the
topic of discussion lately, but I didn’t bother trying to listen in. When I
entered the great hall the effect was entirely the opposite. All conversation
died as I made my way to the high table, and silence fell over the room.

James stood as I got close and greeted
me with an embrace. As his head came close to mine he spoke quietly, “Where
the hell have you been these past two days?”

“I had a wizard to interrogate, people
to inform, and information to gather. I take it things have been exciting in
my absence?” I didn’t bother to keep my voice quiet. The crowd needed
something to talk about after all.

The duke sat down again. “Do you think
a band of armed men could infiltrate my castle, assault and murder my guests,
and then escape without any repercussions?”

“They’re already dead,” I replied.
“Except for the wizard,” I added.

James leaned toward me, “And what did
you learn from your new guest?”

“That his situation is more complicated
than it at first appeared, and our enemies are more powerful than we knew,” I
said wittily. I had probably spent too much time in Lady Rose’s company.

The duke’s eyes narrowed, “That is ever
the case, but what of the particulars?”

I shook my head negatively, “Not here
your Grace, the matter requires as much tact as dealing with royalty.”

James’ eyes widened momentarily but he
showed no other sign of having understood my meaning. Instead he rapidly
switched to his own news and delivered it with his usual enthusiasm, “The news
that shiggreth in the hundreds could be roaming my lands with impunity did not
sit well with me, nor did it please Master William or my other foresters.
Despite the great lengths the enemy went to in order to disguise their trail we
believe we have run them aground.”

I showed my teeth in an expression that
only resembled a smile in the most superficial of ways. “Marc told me you’d
find them,” I replied.

A shadow crossed James’ face so quickly
I doubt many would have noticed it, “How is my son?”

“Doing well,” I told him. “He has taken
to intrigue and subterfuge like a duck to water. At the moment he is engaged
in Albamarl, ferreting out secrets for me. More importantly, I think he is
recovering from what happened to him.”

He nodded, “I want you to tell me in more
detail later.” I knew he meant his words.

“I will.”

“William and I had a devil of a time
finding the shiggreth,” he said returning to the subject at hand.

“My husband spent more time in the woods
than at home after what happened,” came the voice of Genevieve from behind me.
She had walked up while we talked. I glanced up with an expression of mock
surprise. She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “Nephew,” she said
simply.

“Your Grace,” I replied. “I hope you
can forgive my rudeness the other day.”

She raised a hand as if she were shooing
a fly away, “Nonsense, I recall no fault on your part.”

“Thank you,” I told her.

James interrupted, “As I was saying, we
searched high and low, but the tracks of so many going in so many directions
made it impossible to find them at first.”

“So how did you do it?” I asked.

“If it were a cunning beast you would
circle the area more widely, until at last you find where the trail emerges,
but these were no animals. They are intelligent, and each one took a separate
path, even after traveling miles from where they converged. William and I had
to divide my lands into sections and assign men to search each of them. Even
so nothing was found, until we reached the foothills,” he answered.

“I might have thought you would start
there, rather than in the forests,” I commented.

James sighed, “I had thought it would
turn out this way, but I could not leave the forests unexamined. Otherwise we
might have left a viper near our bosom while we were searching further afield.”

I had to admit he had a point.

“When we started searching the foothills
to the east we lost several men,” he went on. “I had to increase the size of
the search parties to groups of five men each. The next day I lost an entire
patrol group and I knew we were getting close.”

“They seem pretty bold. Surely they
realized that would give away their location,” I pondered aloud.

James snorted, “They’re desperate and
they knew we were drawing close. It was only a matter of time. I mobilized
all my armsmen at that point. We swept through the hills leaving no stone
unturned in that region.”

“When was this?”

“Yesterday,” he said with a smile. “We
found their hole. There’s a cave out there, and they’ve gone underground. My
men have them bottled up now.”

“What if they have another exit?” I
worried the enemy might circle around and attack Lancaster while he was focused
on their ‘lair’.

“That thought occurred to me,” he said.
“I sent a message to you yesterday, asking for men and assistance.”

I frowned, “I haven’t been home yet, but
I’m sure Sir Harold will respond in my stead.”

“I received a reply late last night. He
promised to be here before noon with as many men as he thought he could safely
muster without endangering the defense of Washbrook and Castle Cameron,” said
the duke.

“Then he is on the road as we speak,” I
observed. “How soon do you plan to leave?”

“As soon as he arrives.”

I rose abruptly, “Then I have some
preparations to make.”

James chuckled grimly, “You always do…
heaven protect us. Best hurry, I won’t hold the men up if you haven’t returned
by the time he gets here.”

***

Walter looked up as I entered the room
where I was keeping him under, ‘house’ arrest. “How are you feeling?” I
asked. He looked tired and he had dark circles under his eyes, but somehow I
could tell he was starting to recover.

“Now that the fever is gone much
better,” he said plainly. “Though I have to admit this necklace makes me feel
blind and helpless.” He held up the necklace I had used to block his magesight
as well as his power.

I had spoken to the guards as well as
those in charge of keeping his wound clean while I was gone and they had
informed me regarding his condition already. Yesterday the fever from his
wound had broken at last, signaling that he would most likely survive. He was
still quite weak though. “Think you can ride?”

He made a face, “It won’t be pleasant,
but yes.”

“How do you feel about the shiggreth?”

“As any decent man would feel, they are
an abomination and a threat to all of us,” he responded promptly. After a
pause he added, “They also scare the living daylights out of me.”

“A reasonable response, though I have to
say… most decent men don’t even know they exist,” I sat down next to him so I
could see his face more closely as we talked.

He looked at me with anxiety in his
face, “You’ve found them haven’t you?”

“James Lancaster has,” I informed him.
“We ride from his keep in a few hours to burn them out of their nest.”

“You know they eat magic as easily as
men’s souls don’t you?” he said nervously.

“I’ve fought them before,” I told him.
“I’d like you to see what happens today, and it is entirely possible I might
need your help.”

He gestured at his wounded leg, “I’ve
just returned from death’s door. I’m not sure how much help I will be,
especially with this.” His hand touched the pendant at his neck.

“My father was friends with your older
brother, did you know that?”

He nodded.

“Why didn’t you say anything about it?”
I said curiously.

“I’m a prisoner. Anything I say will
just make it seem as if I’m trying to curry favor. Besides you never knew your
father, so there was no way to verify the claim,” he answered rationally.

I liked his answer. “If I take that
necklace off will you give me your word on something?”

He looked at me suspiciously, “Perhaps,
it depends upon what it is. More importantly, of what value is my word to
you?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer that, but I
trusted what Penny had told me. I also found that the more I talked to Walter
the less I hated him. He definitely wasn’t a man given to violence or
aggression. If anything he might even be something of a coward, though I had
no way to judge that yet. But I got the impression he was at the very least a
man of compassion, a man who had been badly used. “Its value will depend upon
how you honor it. Betray me and you will never get another chance,” I
responded somberly.

“If it conflicts with my need to protect
my family I won’t give it. If I give it and discover later that my family is
jeopardized by my keeping it, I will break it without a moment’s thought. Is
that the sort of honor you would trust?”

I thought of Cyhan and his unbending
oaths. If I had not known him I might have had a different answer, but now I
had a wiser view on the matter. “It sounds exactly like the sort of honor I
would trust. Help me with this Walter, and if it is possible I will do all I
can to help recover your family safely.”

He sighed, “Fine. Tell me what you want
me to swear to.”

“Swear you will not seek to escape or
use your power to oppose me. Swear you will follow my orders, except and until
they endanger your family. Swear that, and I will remove the necklace.”

Walter watched me carefully as I spoke
and when I finished he answered, “I so swear.” A moment later he added, “I see
why the king fears you now.”

“What do you mean?”

“If he had been like you he would never
have taken my family hostage, nor would he have needed to do so,” he explained.

“You don’t know me Walter,” I replied.

He laughed, “On the contrary I was
watching your every move for almost two months. I think I know you fairly
well. Your people trust you and your armsmen would walk through fire if you
asked them to do so.”

His praise was honest but it made me
uncomfortable.
And what about my wife?
I thought to myself.
The
last part of the fairy tale should have been that my wife was the most
beautiful woman in the land and that every man was jealous of our happiness.
I swallowed as a bitter knot rose in my throat.

I ignored his comments and reached over
to gently grasp the necklace. With hardly any effort I picked out its voice
and in an instant it became a part of me. I pulled it apart as though it were
made of soft cheese instead of metal. Once I had it off I put the ends back
together and watched the silver chain reform as if it had never parted.

Walter watched with keen interest, “How
are you doing that? I can’t sense any power being used at all.”

“I just listen,” I said patiently.

He snorted, “If my wife were here she
would say that rules me out as far as being able to do whatever it is you just
did.”

I laughed politely, but thinking about
his wife didn’t make me feel any better. Glancing down at the necklace I
decided I had better remove the iron sphere just to be safe. The last thing I
wanted was an accidental explosion. Repeating my action of a moment ago I
separated the iron ball from the silver clasp.

Now that his magesight was restored
Walter could sense the power stored within it. “That’s what you had set in
case I broke the necklace? I doubt there would have been anything left of me.
How did you manage to store so much energy in there?”

“That’s a conversation for another day,”
I told him, not wanting to get into the details of how I had rediscovered the
art of enchanting. “I’d better get rid of this.” I had a chest full of
similar explosive iron balls, tucked away, and the pouch at my belt allowed me
to safely store and access them without actually carrying them around with me,
but I wanted to make one further point while I had Walter’s full attention.