Rick Cook - Wizard’s Bane

The effect was breathtaking, like a handful of gemstones strewn carelessly across the bottom of a rocky pool. But Toth-Set-Ra paid no heed. His trained senses searched for bright spots not marked with precious stones. Those were places of new or unexpected magic.

There, well within the line setting the Wild Wood off from the Fringe was a glowing white pustule on the reddish copper surface. It was fading, the wizard saw as he bent his full attention to the spot, but it had been strong. Very strong and uncontrolled while it lasted. In the center of one of the quietest places in the Wild Wood, too.

He scowled again and reached out, weighing and savoring the magic that marked this place. It was powerful, that he knew almost without bothering to look. He sensed the disturbance in the weather, but he could see no purpose in it. There had been a mighty wind, but nothing seemed to have been accomplished.

His scowl deepened. Strange. Great spells were almost always supposed to accomplish great purposes. The spell itself was strange as well. It was as if a mass of minor spells had suddenly worked in the same direction.

Toth-Set-Ra was reminded of a marching column of army ants. Individually insignificant, they assumed enormous power because they all moved together. He savored the image and decided he didn’t like it at all.

Behind the wizard, the door opened and Atros entered quietly. He spoke no word and Toth-Set-Ra paid him no heed. Heart’s Ease. Yes. That was the place. Heart’s Ease.

Then Toth-Set-Ra’s fist smashed to the rim of the bowl, making the waters within quiver and the magical indications dissolve. He whirled to face his lieutenant. "Storm that place," he commanded, his brows dark and knit. "Bring me the magician responsible for that magic."

"Dread Master…" Atros began.

"Do it!" Toth-Set-Ra commanded. "Do not argue, do not scruple the cost. Do it!"

The big dark man bowed. "Thy will, Lord."

"Alive, Atros. I want that magician alive."

"Thy will, Lord."

Toth-Set-Ra turned back to the Sea of Scrying, searching it with his eyes, trying to pry more meaning from it. Atros bowed again and backed from the room, considering the ways and means of accomplishing the task.

A purely magical strike was clearly impossible. The Quiet Zone lay well beyond the barriers set up by the Northerners. Magical assault would be detected immediately and countered quickly. If he was willing to spend his strength recklessly he could undoubtedly penetrate the Northern defenses, but he might not have time to find and seize the magician before the counterassault.

Fortunately, thought the big wizard, I have minions in place. The old crow thought always of magic, but there are other ways to accomplish things. This time magic would be the mask, the shield, the cloak flourished in the opponent’s face. The dagger behind the cloak would use no magic at all.

Even as he strode down the corridor, he began issuing orders into a bit of crystal set in his cloak clasp. Before he had reached the end of the hall those orders were being carried out.

As Wiz was making his sullen way up the stairs at heart’s Ease, the City of Night erupted into a hive of activity. Lines of slave porters toiled down the gloomy narrow streets, bent under the burden of provisions and weapons. Apprentices, wizards and artisans all jostled each other and the slaves as they rushed to carry out Toth-Set-Ra’s commands.

In the bay, ships were hurriedly rigged and loaded. In the mountain caves where the dragons and flying beasts were kept, animals were groomed, harnesses checked and packs were loaded.

Within minutes of Toth-Set-Ra’s order, the first flights of dragons were away from their cave aeries high on the mountain that loomed over the City of Night. They issued from their caverns like flights of huge, misshapen black bats. Their great dark wings beat the air as they climbed for altitude and sorted themselves into squadrons under the direction of their riders.

In a tower overlooking the bay, the busiest men of all were the black-robed master magicians who would coordinate the attack and make the magical thrusts. Down in the great chantry beneath the tower, brown-robed acolytes and gray-robed apprentices turned from their magical work and set to preparing the spells the black robes commanded. Astrologers updated and recast horoscopes to find the most propitious influences for the League and those which would be most detrimental to the Council.

Further below, in the reeking pits where the slaves were stabled, slavemasters moved among their charges, selecting this one and that to be dragged out struggling and screaming. Whatever the spells, they would require sacrifices.

Far to the North, a spark appeared in a crystal.

"Lord, we are getting something," the Watcher called out as the pinpoint of light caught his attention.

The Watch Master hurried to his side. "Can you make it out yet?"

The Watcher, a lean blonde young man stared deep into his scrying stone. "No Lord, there is too much background, or… Wait a minute! I think we’re being jammed."

"A single source?" The Watch Master bent over to peer into the crystal.

The Watcher frowned. "No Lord, it is spread too wide." The Watch Master straightened up with a jerk.

"Sound the alarm. Quickly!"

On a cliff overlooking the Freshened Sea, the Captain of the Shadow Warriors reviewed his troops’ dispositions and permitted himself a tiny smile of satisfaction.

For months he and his men had camped undetected on the enemy’s doorstep. They used no magic in camp, save for the communications crystal the commander wore about his neck. Even their great flying beasts were controlled, cared for and fed without magic. Instead their magicians had spent their time listening intently to the world-murmurs of magic from the Northerners.

For months the men had subsisted mostly on cold food. Cooking was limited so the smoke might not betray them. In twos and threes they had penetrated miles inland, observing and sometimes reporting back to their masters in the City of Night.

Thinking on that, the Captain frowned. This was not supposed to be an assault mission. But now his patrols had been hastily consolidated into a strike force and ordered to penetrate a Quiet Zone to assault a castle and capture the magicians laired there.

The message he received was as short as it could be so the Watchers of the North would not intercept it. Burn the keep called Heart’s Ease and bring the magicians there alive and unharmed to the City of Night. That was all, but for his well-trained band that was enough.

He had no doubt his men could do it. The castle defenses were minimal and although his men did not normally use magic, they had it at their call.

In the forest clearing three flying beasts waited. Their gray wrinkled skin bore neither hair nor scales. Their long necks and huge blunt heads thrust aloft as their great nostrils quivered in the wind. The huge bat-like wings were unfurled to their full 300-foot span and the animals moved them gently up and down at the command of their mahouts. Unlike dragons, these creatures were cold-blooded. They must warm themselves up before they could fly. Even from this distance the captain could smell the carrion stench of the animals.

Ritually, the Captain checked his weapons. The long, single-edged slashing sword was over his back with the scabbard muffled with oiled leather at the mouth. His dagger and axe hung at his waist. The contents of the pouches and pockets scattered about his harness: poisons, powders of blindness, flash powders and pots of burning. A blowgun lay alongside his sword and the needles were sheathed in their special pouch. Everything was muffled and dull. There was nothing on him or his men to shine, clink or clatter and almost nothing of magic.