Wizard Squared (14 page)

He snapped his fingers.
“Stop.”

Like running face-first into a stone wall, Lional slammed to a halt.

“Lional, Lional, Lional…” Still strolling, he joined Melissande’s motionless brother. Looked all that ruined beauty up and down and sadly shook his head. “Well, you can’t say I didn’t warn you. I did try to resolve this reasonably… but I suppose that was foolish. After all, who can reason with a madman? Not me, apparently.” He frowned. “You shouldn’t have killed the dragon, Lional. That was the proverbial last straw, I’m afraid. One innocent victim too many, old chap. I simply have to draw the line.”

Silenced as well as halted, Lional impotently glared.

“And now I’m going to punish you,” he added. “Because if anyone deserves to feel sorry for himself, Lional, it’s you.”

With a flick of his finger, a push of his
potentia
, he tipped Lional over backwards to thud onto the grass. Hexed immobile, Lional could do nothing but glare and breathe. His one good eye rolled wildly, trying to focus.

Gerald looked to the dead dragon, some fifteen paces distant.
Poor thing.
Wings splayed pathetically, its body sprawled like a giant’s abandoned toy. Anger and power simmered inside him, each feeding the other. Growing fat and impatient. Longing to be let loose to wreak vengeance. Justice. Lional had caused so much pain…

Time for him to feel a little, I think. For some people there’s just no learning without doing.

“I’m sorry. Please forgive me,” he said, and meant it. Feeling Lional’s panic he glanced down. “No, not you, Lional. The dragon.”

Hoping there was forgiveness, somewhere, for what he’d done—what he’d let be done—he snapped his fingers twice. His
potentia
, a [tenwasnswering, wrenched the two largest teeth from the dragon’s massive mouth. Another finger snap saw Lional’s arms stretched out wide, bared palms to the cloudless sky. A garbled sound vibrated in Lional’s straining throat.

“Pin him,” he said. “Make our Lional the Butterfly King.”

In a blur of magicked motion the dragon’s teeth flew through the air and plunged one each point-first
through Lional’s waiting palms, sinking deep into the earth beneath him.

“You can scream if you like,” he said. “If it helps. I don’t mind.”

Released from the holding hex Lional opened his mouth and shrieked, heels drumming his agony against the close-mown grass.

“Hmm. You know, that’s interesting,” he said, head tipped to one side. “I was right. The dragon’s poison isn’t affecting you. Must be a leftover advantage from the
sympathetico
.”

Lips flecked with bloodied spittle, Lional tried to lift his head. “I’m going to kill you, Dunwoody. I’m going to—”

He smiled. “No, you’re not, Lional. You’re going to lie there and cry.”

Eyes slitted Lional twisted, gathering his stolen
potentias
into a tight fist. “Oh, yes. I am going to kill you. But first I’m going to hurt you, Gerald, I’m going to make what I did to you in the cave feel like a slap and a tickle, I swear. You’ll
beg
me to—”

“Oh, shut up, Lional,” he said—and took back all those thieved magics. Gathered them into a single pulsing, diseased mass and wrenched them without pity from the blood and bones of the wicked man who’d stolen them.

Lional’s scream was beyond agony. Beyond anything human, or even animal.

As Melissande’s brother writhed and gobbled on the grass, spitting blood and bile and vomit, Gerald watched the pulsing mass of power bob in the afternoon sunshine like an obscene, distorted balloon. Tears pricked his eyes. Five wizards killed for those
potentias
. Five good men destroyed. There was only one thing he could do for them now. He clenched his fist. Breathed a single word:
Dissipato
. And watched the stolen
potentias
spread and thin like smoke, thin and thin and vanish into thin air.

Lional was shuddering at his feet. He looked down. “Ah ah, Lional, I said
cry
, not
die
.”

It was nothing,
nothing
, to steady Lional’s laboring heart. To restore his violated body’s equilibrium. To keep him alive. Magic was effortless, his
potentia
so instantly responsive to his will. He hardly needed the words, a simple thought was enough. It was marvelous.

I’m a new kind of wizard. I am unique.

The thought pleased him, enormously.

Eat your hearts out, Haythwaite and Co.

He looked down again. “All right, Lional. Now we’ve got
that
settled, let’s move this along, shall we? There’s a debt you [’s d dneed to repay and we’ve barely touched upon it. Trust me, one little scream hardly balances the scales.”

His good eye tear-filled and bloodshot, Lional stared up at him. “And you call me mad.”

“Oh yes,” he said, cheerful. “You’re stark staring bonkers, old chap.”

“And what kind of justice is it that tortures a man lacking his wits?”

“Ordinarily no kind,” he said. “But the thing is, Lional, you’re a special case. You sent yourself mad. You did it on purpose, murdering those wizards for their
potentias
. So as far as I’m concerned that exempts you from any kind of compassionate consideration.” Dropping to one knee, he leaned close. “Or, to put it another way, I’m about to show you all the
mercy you showed them. And me. I think that’s only fair, don’t you?”

A pulse beat in the hollow of Lional’s elegant throat. Fueled by terror it pumped and pumped. How
satisfying
it felt, to know that Lional could feel terror.

“You do know
you’ve
gone mad don’t you, Gerald?” Lional whispered. “Madder than I ever was. I can see it in your eyes. And they’re going to hunt you down like a rabid dog when they realize. All those wizards in Ottosland’s famed Department of Thaumaturgy? Men you think are your friends? They’ll take one look at you and—
oh
.”

Mildly curious, Gerald watched as one by one the lizard scales peeled off Lional’s cheek, revealing the glistening and greenish-pink suppurating flesh beneath. The pulse in his throat beat harder, echoing his incoherent pain.

“I’d rather you didn’t talk about my friends,” he said. “I’d rather you didn’t do anything but scream.”

Which is what Lional did. Such a lovely, lovely sound.

It was truly extraordinary, what he could do now. How with a mere thought he could manipulate sinew and muscle. Spring blood free of its conduits. Crack bone. Twist nerves. Lional shrieked like a girl. Remembering those long days in the cave, the filth and the stink and the utter degradations, he spiced up
Pygram’s Pestilences
with a few neat quirks of his own. Remembering Reggie and all the other palace staff, those poor people in the capital and all of Rupert’s harmless butterflies, he honed his
potentia
like a sword-blade and blunted it on Lional’s soul. Remembering the trick with the hexed chicken, those
terrible hours he’d believed Reg was dead, he scaled new heights of invention and was rewarded with Lional’s desperate tears.

After some time had passed, and Lional had pretty much lost his voice, he pushed to his feet and stretched, unkinking his spine. Breathed deeply of the fresh garden air, absently listening to Lional’s whimpering sighs. The afternoon was waning, dusk waiting in the wings.

“You know Lional, it’s a great shame,” he said, glancing down. “If you’d not gone mad you might have made a halfway decent king. You’re certainly handsome enough. Or you were. I don’t know why it is, but people like their kings to be handsome. Their prime ministers too. Leaders in general. As though a pretty face were
any
kind of measure of worth. It’s not, of course. I mean, look at Melissande. Even after I’d tarted her up, underneath the polis [eatnd h she was still—well—
plain
. But you’d be hard pressed to find anyone better at her job. Don’t you agree?”

Lional moaned, barely conscious. His thrashing heels had battered quite deep holes in the soft ground.

“Why, if you hadn’t gone mad you could’ve followed your father’s example,” he said, untucking his shirt-tail and wiping smears of blood from his fingers. “Found something to amuse yourself with and left all the real ruling to Melissande, behind the scenes. But you didn’t. You had to go and get all obsessed with being a wizard. As obsessed as Rupert is with his wretched butterflies. Which only goes to show you two have far more in common than you might think.” He glanced down again. “Lional? Are you listening?”

Stirring, Lional dragged open his eyes. The one that had burst when the
sympathetico
was severed looked painful. But then, so did the ruptured lizard scales on his cheek and arm, and the bruises and lesions and pustules and boils, and the splintered ribs and shins and sliced wounds in his chest and belly and thighs.

“Bastard,” Lional muttered. “Kill me.”

“Oh no,” he said, cheerful. “I couldn’t do that, Lional. I mean, you spared my life after the cave, didn’t you? Returning the favor is the least I can do.”

A crimson tear rolled down Lional’s ravaged cheek. “Illegal.”

“Yes, I know,” he said, dropping back to one knee beside Melissande’s brother. “Stealing a wizard’s
potentia
is
terribly
illegal—and for very good reason. What a blessing it turned out you couldn’t steal mine, eh? I mean, now that we know I’m a once-in-a-lifetime kind of wizard.
Think
of the mischief you’d have got up to…”

The holes in Lional’s palms had widened considerably, what with all his thrashing about. But the dragon’s teeth kept him safely pinned in place, secure as one of Rupert’s dead butterflies on public display. Kindly, Gerald brushed a fingertip across Lional’s sweaty brow. Smiled to see the mad king shudder and try to turn aside.

“Now, I know you think you’ve been punished enough,” he said softly. “But actually, Lional, I’m not sure you’re the best judge of that. I mean, admit it—you are just the teeniest bit biased, aren’t you? But I will admit there should be some kind of rhyme or reason to our proceedings. So how does this sound? Let’s say we assign an amount of time for each of your
dastardly crimes, say, one hour of suffering—just one little hour—set against every life you’ve taken so far. Does that sound fair? I think that sounds fair.”

For once in his glib life, Lional had nothing to say.

“So if we use that as a yardstick, Lional, I think you’d agree that we’ve barely begun. I mean, only today you must’ve killed over a hundred people. So that’s at least one hundred hours of suffering you owe this kingdom, Your Majesty. And it doesn’t include the five wizards you murdered. Now, by my reckoning you’ve been screaming for two hours. Well, two and a bit. Which means—”

A ripping in the ether. A stirring of new
potentias
. A familiar, unwelcome flapping of wings. And then he and Lional were no longer alone.

“Gerald Dunwoody!” cried Reg. “What’s the meaning of this?”

It took Monk a moment to make sense of what he was looking at. And then, when he did, he wanted to close his eyes. Or run away. Or possibly throw up what little food he had in his stomach.

Bloody hell, Gerald. Have you gone mad?

Beside him, Melissande clutched at his coat sleeve, making soft little sounds of distress. It was taking everything he had not to echo her. Beside her Rupert breathed harshly, close to groaning. And then there was Sir Alec, who—

“Wait,” he said, his voice low, grabbing hold of the government man’s elbow, keeping him back. The portable portal had spat them out a long stone’s throw past the stricken dragon. In other words, uncomfortably close to Gerald and the half-butchered man on
the ground. “Just wait, Sir Alec. Let Reg handle it. He won’t lash out at her.”

“Are you sure?” Sir Alec murmured, then glanced pointedly at the hand restraining him.

Oh.
He let go. “Yes.”

Sir Alec wasn’t convinced. “Look at his eyes, Mr. Markham. I don’t think you can say with any authority what your friend—your former friend—is likely to do.”

He didn’t want to, but he looked at Gerald’s eyes. The last time he’d seen them they were a nice, ordinary brown. And now—
now—

“I don’t care,” he said, dogged, his stomach heaving in protest. “I know Gerald. No matter what he’s done, no matter what—what kind of magics he’s mucking around with, he would
never
hurt Reg.”

Sir Alec snorted. “Well, for the bird’s sake, Mr. Markham, I hope you’re right.”

Yeah, well, so do I.
He glanced down at Melissande. “Is that Lional?”

Shivering, she nodded. “Please, Monk. We have to do something. I know Lional’s awful but—”

“But he doesn’t deserve that,” said Rupert. “Melissande’s right, we have to—”

“
Wait
,” he said sharply. “Because I’m telling you, right now Reg is our best hope of this mess not blowing up in our faces.”

Landed safely on the bright green grass—well, green where it wasn’t splattered with blood—Reg was marching to and fro like a sergeant major at mess-time inspection. Ignoring Lional, Gerald had dropped to a crouch and was watching her closely, his lips twisted in a faint, almost amused smile.

“—don’t believe this, Gerald,” Reg was saying,
her voice unusually high-pitched. “I mean, not that I care a fat rat’s ass about
this
tosser—” she flipped a contemptuous wing at Gerald’s prisoner and kept on truculently marching, “—but even if you are giving him a taste of his own medicine—and I don’t blame you for that, nobody would, he did you
such
a mischief—I
do
take exception to you ignoring my excellent advice and dabbling your fingers in those mucky grimoire pies!”