Michael Mathias - The Wizard and the Warlord

From above, Lord Vidian nodded to his men that a deal had been struck. It didn’t take long to clear the grounds after that. The fisherman looked sullen, especially when Commander Lyle and his men began ogling the unnerving sight in his cage.

The skeletons turned their eyeless heads as if they could somehow observe what was going on. They didn’t seem pleased to be there, but they didn’t look to have the strength to escape.

“We heard there were three of them now,” Lyle said as he flinched away from a grasping, bony hand. Inside the cage, yellowed teeth clacked together.

“Don’t know nothing ’bout more than these two,” the fisherman replied a little too quickly, and gave a fearful glance at his wagon.

Commander Lyle was sure he was lying, but only sighed and ordered his men to prepare to roll out. His orders were to get the cage and the two skeletons in it. He would amend his report to warn of the third skeleton they had heard about. He felt lucky to accomplish what he had without getting himself or his men killed.

Around midnight they, along with the fisherman and his wagon, were moving north out of Weir’s city gate. The ferry didn’t run in darkness, and the commander wanted to be away from the inhospitable city as quickly as possible. He knew there was a bridge into Seaward in the city called Xway. It was just a short distance up the Pixie River. He figured they could be out of Highwander altogether by midday on the morrow. Only then would he and his men be allowed to rest.

It wasn’t a great surprise when a group of hooded bandits swarmed them just before dawn. River road bandits were common, and Lyle’s men were trained to deal with them. What was surprising was that they didn’t fall or stop when they were hit by the crossbow bolts fired at them. What really shocked the commander was when the leader of the group pulled back his hood revealing that he was nothing more than a living skeleton himself.

The evening Lord Spyra returned to Southport, Master Wizard Sholt was waiting for him in the royal apartments.

It was unsettling for Spyra when he tried to conceive the nature of magic. It bothered him that the wizard could seemingly read his mind. Spyra had just been contemplating how to get word swiftly to Sholt and then he opened the door to the apartment and Sholt was there. Spyra didn’t want to think about how the wizard had gotten there so swiftly either. He thought in military terms. His mind worked in offensive and defensive mode, whichever one was appropriate for the situation. He could never get himself out of defensive mode when he was around any sort of mage. Sholt was a slightly different case because the two of them were both from Highwander. Both had sat on the council with Queen Willa in Xwarda as well. They had fought Pael side by side. There was a bond of trust between the two men which allowed Spyra to confer with Sholt as if they were true friends, and maybe, Spyra decided, they really were.

It seemed fitting to the one-time general that the two of them were still chasing down and snuffing out the last tendrils of Pael’s destructive rampage. Lord Spyra tried his best to keep himself on equal footing with the master wizard as they spoke.

“Lord Spyra.” Sholt bowed respectfully. He was of middle age, though with wizards you never really knew. He wore a white, high-collared robe. The hem, collar, and belled sleeves of the garment displayed an intricate pattern of black and gold lions and swords. The man’s long, dark hair and closely trimmed mustache and beard framed his thin face and gave his deep-set eyes an almost menacing cast. The hard look evaporated when he smiled, though, which was what he was doing when he saw Lord Spyra wave off his bow with a look that showed it was unnecessary.

“Master Wizard, we’ve known each other far too long for that ceremonious crap,” Spyra smiled back. “Can I offer you some refreshment, some food?”

“No, General,” Sholt replied. He intentionally used Spyra’s old title, as he often did, out of respect. “I’ve been here a full day, so I'm settled. I came to test a remedy for the problem these men are facing.”

“How would you test something of that sort?” Spyra asked curiously. “If you remove the spell or enchantment from one of the inflicted men, wouldn’t you only know if it worked if you killed him and made sure he stayed dead?”

Sholt chuckled. “Well that would work, but since I can cast a seeing spell to let me know if a man has been ensorcelled, we don’t have to kill them. If my remedy works, after a while the man wouldn’t appear to be under Pael’s spell anymore.”

Spyra pinched the bridge of his nose and tried not to get mixed up. “You’re telling me that you’re going to cast a spell, or whatever it is that you do, on one of these men. Then, if your spell works, when you cast another spell to see if they’ve been spelled, then you’ll see that they haven’t been spelled at all?” He shook his head and knew that he appeared baffled.

Sholt laughed out loud this time, but not mockingly. “I think you’ve got it, General,” he said. “It’s not necessary for you to understand. We can start by trying it on the two who are still…” He steepled his fingers in front of his chest searching for the word he wanted. “…lingering,” he finished.

“If it works on them, those two will just die?”

“Correct.”

“Without pain, I hope,” Spyra mumbled. “They were afraid to cooperate when they were falling apart. I’ve fought in the trenches and seen the most grievous of wounds. I’ve seen them days after they were inflicted, but I don’t think anything has ever gotten to me like seeing those two rot away before my eyes.” He stood and indicated the door that led out to the street. “Both of them want to pass on, Master Wizard. When they could still speak, they told me so.”

“Then I think we should oblige them.” Sholt’s expression was grave. “I observed them for a while yesterday. I hope I didn’t offend them. It’s hard to think of them as once being human and alive in their current state.”

“I understand,” Spyra said as they exited the apartment into the cobbled street.

They were in the most prestigious section of Southport. The autumn evening was chill, and the light fog left a slick sheen on everything so that the flickering of the many lantern flames danced on a million reflective surfaces. The street was relatively empty; only a few people could be seen moving about the city. A couple spoke quietly above them from a balcony as Spyra and Sholt passed by. A lute playing a lighthearted melody could be heard in the distance.

“It makes me feel like a monster to keep them in a cell,” Spyra said as they neared the constable’s office.

As far as cells go it was far from your typical rock square with steel-barred doors. The constable’s office, in this part of Southport, was clean and well kept. The cells were used primarily for drunken merchants, or noble folk who became a temporary threat to themselves or those around them. The occasional thief or murderer had occupied one of the large, furnished chambers. But not often.

When they entered the constable’s office, which was connected to the prison by a long hallway, the stench of rotted flesh hit them like a hammer blow.

“Hold on, my lord,” the constable called from across the street. “I had to take a breather. It fargin stinks so badly in there I can hardly stand it.”

Spyra noticed that the sign over the establishment the constable was leaving read, The Axe Master’s Lodge. It was a private drinkery for the many merchants who’d made their gold off of the lumbering industry, one way or another. He could see that the constable had had more than a few sips of stout by the man’s gait as he closed the distance between them. With two rotting dead men who weren’t quite dead in the rooms inside, who could blame him?