Robert Newcomb: The Gates of Dawn

The woman looked carefully at the ancient, rolled-up parchment. It was about one meter long, and one quarter of a meter thick. Solid-gold knobs adorned each end of the rod running through its center. A golden band, engraved with words in Old Eutracian, secured the massive roll at its middle.

Wasting no time, the wizard picked it up. He turned to her, his eyes flashing.

“Can you locate the other scroll?” he demanded harshly.

“I—I don’t know,” she said, terrified of what he might do if her answer displeased him. Since she had been forced into his service, she had all too often been the victim of his sudden fits of rage. “I have never seen either of these parchments until now. Perhaps if I had either something personal of those who took it, or a piece of the missing document itself . . .”

“I don’t want to hear ‘perhaps’!” he snarled. Reaching out with his free hand, her took her by the throat, raised her off her feet, and slammed her against the nearest marble wall. “Besides, you ignorant cow, I cannot give you a piece of a document I do not have!” His angry, dark eyes bored into hers.

“You’re an herbmistress, are you not?” he hissed. “And a blaze-gazer as well—or so you have told me. These are the only reasons I tolerate your presence, and now you tell me you don’t know!” She wheezed desperately as he tightened his grip around her throat. Her arms and legs began to twitch involuntarily. He moved his face to within inches of hers.

“Now then, can you find it, or not?” he asked, his voice no more than a whisper. Her eyes began to roll up into her head. He didn’t care; if she couldn’t help him, her life didn’t matter. There were others like her, should he need one.

“Yes,” she finally gasped. “Somehow, I will . . . find . . . a way . . . but must have . . . herbs . . . for flame . . .” What sounded like a final, rattling gasp slowly escaped her lungs.

He smiled. “That’s better.” He let her go, and she crashed unconscious to the floor.

Ignoring her, he walked to the open doorway and again gazed out over the smoking rubble. Thinking, he looked back to the woman lying on the floor.

He would need to find another herbmistress or herbmaster, so that he could steal the necessary ingredients. That much was certain. But where to look? Then something began to tug at the back of his mind.

Searching his memory, he tried to retrieve the details of the rumor that had long been whispered down the halls of the Redoubt: the hearsay describing the only transgression supposedly ever committed by the lead wizard.

At last he remembered, and his mouth turned up into a smile. If herbs were what his seer needed, then herbs were what she would receive. And then, after acquiring them, he would pay the lead wizard and the cripple in the chair a visit they would never forget.

He walked back to the woman and levitated her body into the air. Still holding the single scroll, he grasped her with his free arm and glided back out over the steaming, hissing rubble.