Michael Manning - The Archmage unbound

His eyes widened as he realized I was about to put him to sleep. “Wait, I have more news. I found their hidden compound. It’s several miles…”

“Shibal,” I said quietly and he sagged back into the chair. “You can tell me about it when you’re sober.” After that I called Harold in and with his help we got him upstairs to his room.

Once Marc was safely tucked in Harold spoke, “What was that all about?”

“I need him sober and the best way to manage that is to let him sleep it off. Hopefully Rose will be here by the time he wakes up and I can explain things to both of them at the same time,” I said. As we walked back downstairs I could smell something good frying and my stomach began rumbling. It had been quite a while since I had eaten and my last food had been a cold camp breakfast. “What’s that smell?” I asked.

“It appears Walter is a passably fair cook,” Harold responded. “Once he got a good look at the pantry he decided to throw something together.”

My mouth was watering already. I decided to eat first before trying to magically locate Dorian and Penny in the city. I was pretty sure the king would have them kept somewhere far enough away that I wouldn’t find them anyway. Still I had to try.

The afternoon passed slowly into dusk. I spent most of that time in a sort of focused meditation as I searched the area within a mile or so of the house. As expected I didn’t find any sign of my wife or my friend, but I had to be sure. The city itself covered a much larger area, since it was at least two miles in diameter and simple math dictated that I would have to move at least four or five times to completely cover the area just contained within the outer walls. The King wouldn’t be such a fool as to keep them within the city.

Rose still hadn’t returned by the time the sun had gone down, which left me to believe she probably was staying at her own house again. Unfortunately that simply wouldn’t do. I couldn’t afford to wait several days for her to check in, and that meant I would have to go out and find her. Normally that wouldn’t have been a problem, but considering the fact that I didn’t want the King to know I was back in the capital I had to make sure I wasn’t seen. Once he knew I was here he would be able to send a summons or message, and my freedom to act would be greatly limited. Until he found me he couldn’t effectively leverage my wife and friend against me.

Naturally my house was being watched. I had already spotted the men loitering suspiciously outside with my magesight. The building across the street was also being used. Either that or the people that lived there had developed an intense interest in staring at my house for hours on end.

Luckily I had a secret tool in my arsenal, Walter Prathion, and after some consideration we hatched a plan. I disguised Harold to look like Marcus, since he was still sleeping upstairs. Walter used his talents to make both of us invisible and the two of us slipped out while Harold opened the door and looked out as if he were checking the street. Once we were past him he stepped back in and shut the door. Presumably the King’s spies already knew Marc was staying at my address, so we hadn’t made his situation any worse.

Rather than take chances Walter kept us unseen while we walked to Rose’s home. It was the first time I had ever been invisible while walking through a city and the experience was entirely different from the one I had had underground surrounded by shiggreth. The main difference being since we only needed to be invisible to normal vision we were able to use our magesight. For some reason walking in and around people on the street who didn’t even know I was there brought out my inner voyeur.

“You can just go anywhere like this can’t you?” I whispered to Walter as we approached Rose’s home at last.

“Pretty much,” he replied.

After we had reached her door I considered knocking but quickly discarded the idea. Sneaking was simply too much fun. Instead I used my arcane senses to make sure no one was in the vicinity of the door inside the house, and then, with a few words in Lycian I let us in.

“You really know an amazing variety of spells,” Walter observed quietly after we were inside. “Where did you learn them all?”

“I got some from a journal I found and the others I just made up, though I did have to study Lycian quite a while before I understood it well enough to really do anything complicated like the door back there,” I replied off-handedly.

“You know Lycian?” he asked in a tone of wonder.

I frowned, “I thought it was a requirement of sorts. Isn’t it?”

“It’s been a dead language for several thousand years and there haven’t been more than a handful of wizards for at least six or seven generations. Most of them just passed along what useful spells and phrases they already knew,” he replied.

I hadn’t considered things in that light before, and frankly I was shocked. “Well I guess if you really needed to do something and you didn’t have the words you could just do it without words,” I said quietly.

Walter sighed and shrugged his shoulders invisibly, “That’s incredibly difficult, not to mention dangerous.” He said it as if it weren’t really an option.

I decided not to pursue the conversation further. I had done quite a few things without words in the past and while it did take a considerably greater expenditure of energy I hadn’t really thought it was dangerous or difficult, just tiring. Somehow I knew Walter would be shocked, and probably disapproving so I figured it wasn’t something we needed to discuss.

I had already mentally located Rose so we headed down the hallway and toward the small study where she was currently reading something. As we went I had a sudden thought. “You must be the world’s greatest peeping tom,” I said to Walter.

He coughed uncomfortably, “Well that is one of the particular uses for my ability.”

I nudged him, “I don’t mean just ‘spying’ like you were doing for the King, I mean women, ladies and such.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” he replied.

“You mean you never thought about it?” I asked incredulously. “Are you sure you’re feeling well?”

He shook his head, “Well I mean, obviously I’ve ‘considered’ it, but I’ve never abused the ability in that way.”

“Bullshit,” I declared.

“Look, Mordecai,” he began, “you don’t honestly expect me to stand here in the hallway and tell the man I was sent to spy upon for several months that I enjoy sneaking around and looking at women undressing and such… do you?”

It took a moment for that to percolate through my head. Eventually it got through to me though, “You pervert! You’ve peeped at Penny haven’t you!?”

If he hadn’t been invisible Walter would have been incredibly red. “No! But that is exactly why we are not having this conversation! Rest assured I am a married man and I wouldn’t waste my time creeping about and looking in on naked women.”

My eyes narrowed, though I wasn’t using them anyway. “You haven’t seen your wife in four years you said.”

Walter finally lost his temper, “Do you realize how stupid you sound!? You’re a wizard. It isn’t as if you have to be invisible anyway! Hell they don’t even have to be naked you moron! Obviously you can simply examine them anytime you want… clothes or no clothes. So why in the hell are you getting worked up over the fact that I can turn invisible?!”

His observations were dead on and I felt a bit sheepish. “You’re right Walter. Not that I would do that. I just didn’t think it through properly.”

Rose spoke up from the study doorway, “As I recall just the other day you were observing our friend Marcus while he was behind closed doors with his lady friend. What was her name? Oh yes, Marissa, that was it!”