Rick Cook - Wizard’s Bane

"Quietly, you fool!" Atros whispered, dragging him back into a shadowed alcove.

"You, you startled me," he said looking up at the hulking form of the League’s second most powerful wizard.

Atros grinned mirthlessly. "You should be more alert. Now, what have you?"

"Only this: The Dread Master…"

"The old crow," Atros interrupted.

"Eh?"

"He is an old crow. Soon to be no one’s master, dread or otherwise. You should learn to call him so."

"Yes Master," said Kar-Sher. "Ah, as I said, the—old crow—stays close to the City. There is no sign of new magic further south."

"Cloaking spells?"

"They would show."

"Like the cloaking spell this new northern wizard shows?"

Kar-Sher made an annoyed gesture. "That is different. It would take a truly mighty wizard to cast a spell that effective."

"Toth-Set-Ra has that reputation."

"You don’t think… ?"

"I think you should be very careful what you assume about the old crow. Now. Are you sure there is no sign of secret magic being made to the South?"

Kar-sher considered and then shook his head. "Nothing at all."

"Well, then. Keep your watch." He turned to go, but Kar-Sher plucked at his cloak.

"Master, will we strike soon? The old crow grows impatient. I do not know how much longer I will hold my position."

Atros regarded him coldly. "The old crow is impatient for one thing only; this strange wizard. Events are already in motion to snare him. In a day or two that will be accomplished. Meanwhile it keeps our master occupied."

"What if he finds out about us?"

"He does not even suspect. Keep your wits about you a few days longer and you are safe. Now wait here until I am out of sight." Atros stepped out into the corridor and strode on.

Kar-Sher waited until he had his nerve back and started up the corridor in the opposite direction.

Neither of them had noticed the fat black spider hanging motionless in her web above their heads.

"So," hissed Toth-Set-Ra as he broke contact with his spy. "So indeed." He leaned back and rubbed his forehead. Peering through a spider’s eyes was disorienting. His brain kept trying to merge eight images with apparatus designed for two.

A spider’s eyesight might be poor, but there was nothing wrong with a spider’s hearing. He had heard exactly what he expected to hear.

You run too fast, Atros. It is time you were taught another lesson. He extended his hand and an amethyst goblet flew to his grasp.

He expected Atros to connive against him, just as he had connived against the Council of the League to win his present power. It was his good fortune that Atros was nearly as clumsy a plotter as he was as a wizard. Powerful enough, perhaps, but lacking the finesse, the last measure of ability that raised a plotter or wizard to true greatness.

He sipped the wine and reflected on the best way to check his subordinate. Someday soon, Atros, I will send Bale-Zur to you. But not yet. One does not discard a tool merely because it is flawed. One uses it, preferably to destruction, while a new tool is forged.

Still, this tool was showing signs of blunting. In spite of all the power he had been given, Atros had still not brought him the alien wizard. Toth-Set-Ra rotated the goblet in his hand and frowned at the purple sparks that glinted off its facets. That wizard was the immediate problem, the unknown. Once he had been found and neutralized there would be time to deal with Atros.

A pity I cannot send Bale-Zur to that wizard. He could, of course. Bale-Zur could find and destroy any mortal whose true name had ever been spoken. Unlike other demons he did not need to know the true name of his quarry. It was sufficient that the true name had been spoken just once somewhere in the World.

It was that special power which had raised Toth-Set-Ra from a minor wizard to the leadership of the Dark League in a single blood-red night of slaughter. But Bale-Zur could only destroy. Toth-Set-Ra wanted to take alive this wizard whom Patrius had died for. He wanted to squeeze him, to wring the secrets of his foreign magic from him. Killing him was an option, but only a last resort.

Bale-Zur was almost as crude a tool as Atros, but both were useful. This other one now, this Kar-Sher, was much less useful. Under his mastership the Sea of Scrying had been useless in the search and all he could do was whine about Northern interference with his magic.

Yes, the wizard thought. This one is eminently dispensable. He paused to admire the play of fire in the goblet again. But not yet. Not quite yet.

In his own way Toth-Set-Ra was a frugal man. He always wanted the maximum return from his actions.

They slept on straw ticks on the floor that night. Lothar offered them his bed in the loft, but Moira declined politely. Before retiring, she took the poultice, which had been simmering in the pot, wrapped it in a clean cloth, and tied it about her knee. She turned her back while she did so and Wiz tried not to look.

By the next morning the swelling had vanished. She did several deep knee bends and pronounced herself healed.

"Lady, if we could get you back to my world, you could make a fortune as a team doctor for the NFL," Wiz told her. She cocked an eyebrow but did not ask for an explanation.

Lothar insisted on feeding them a breakfast of flatbread, sausage and beer before they left. Both he and Moira were obviously uncomfortable, but Moira thanked him kindly and Lothar gave them some dried fruit and parched grain to add to the supplies.

It had stopped raining and the sun was shining brightly. As they left the clearing, Wiz noticed a detail he had missed the night before. Four mounds of earth, one large and three much smaller, neatly laid out next to the cabin and enclosed by rude rail fence.

Moira saw him looking at the three small graves. "They only count the children who live," she said.

Once out of the clearing, they angled away from the path they had taken the day before. The woods were still sodden, but there were no rivulets to cross and, except in the shadiest places, things seemed to be drying rapidly.

Whether because the footing was still somewhat uncertain or to spare her knee, Moira did not walk as fast.

"What happened back there anyway?" Wiz asked when the clearing was lost from sight.

"What do you mean?"

"Between you and Lothar. Everything started out all right, then—boom—it was like you’d bumped into your ex at a cocktail party."

"My ex at a… ?"

"I mean you both got real cold and distant," he amended.

"Was it that obvious? Moira sighed. "I tried to conceal it. He gave us shelter and aid when we needed it and that is no small thing in the Wild Wood. I should have tried harder to be gracious."

"Yeah, but why?"

"Because he is a fool!" Moira snapped. "There is no place in the wild wood for mortals, Sparrow. Only fools try to live here and they fail."

"I guess it was rough at first, but he seems to be doing all right now."

"Yes. Because he bartered away his daughter."

"What?"

"You heard the child. His daughter has been given to the elves in trade for the safety of his miserable farm!"

"He traded his daughter to the elves?"

"Life in the Wild Wood is hard for those who have little magic." She smiled a little bitterly. "Call it a ’fostering.’ That puts a better face upon it."

"What did they want with her?"

"As the little one said. She is a nursemaid to an elven infant." Moira’s face softened. "Elves seldom have young. That must have been an event beneath the Elf Hill."

"Wait a minute," Wiz protested. "She wasn’t… ah, I mean she wasn’t married when she went, was she?"

"You mean was she unspoiled? Probably. Elves prefer virgin’s milk when they can get it."