Michael Mathias - The Sword and the Dragon

A servant girl carrying a tray of meat and bread saw Pael in the corridor and froze. Her eyes went to the hem of her apron. When he passed, she was trembling so badly that he could hear the silverware rattling on the tray. Her fear disgusted him, almost as much as the sight of all that food did. It was probably more slop for that fat pig Lord Ellrich. The huge Lord of the Marshlands was rooting himself fiercely into the Royal Guest Apartments. No doubt he wanted to gain Glendar’s ear and his favor. The only thing good about the obese man that Pael could find was his beautiful, budding daughter, Lady Zasha. Later, he would suggest to the girl and her ladies that some fresh air in the garden would help take their minds off of the sad and dreary process of preparing for the King’s funeral. He wouldn’t tell them that Glendar would be there, or that the King-in-Waiting’s Queen Mother was buried there. They would just happen upon each other.

Pael could think of a dozen reasons for Glendar to take Zasha as his queen. For one, the people loved her, but the main reason was that with Lady Zasha as his bride, there would be no quibbling when her father met his end. That heavy task would be taken care of, just as soon as the marriage was consummated.

“First things first,” Pael mumbled to himself as he ducked into a not so well known passage. To get to his tower, he had to traverse a labyrinth of halls, tunnels, and stairways. Some were bustling with staff and grieving visitors, and some, like this one, were more private and hidden. There were other passageways that only he knew about.

The castle’s outer walls were laid out in a diamond shape. Each towered corner of the diamond pointed in one of the four cardinal directions. The southwest wall loomed over the huge body of water known as Lion’s Lake, thus the name, Lakeside Castle. The bulk of the noble folk and merchants who lived in the castle, resided in the smaller towers and apartments that sprung up around the massive King’s Spire there. Most of them looked out over the water. The southwest wall was also the only wall without its own gate. There was no need for one there, for it would only open up to the lake.

Pael’s personal tower was in the southern most corner of the grounds. It overlooked a well used guard barracks. It was so close to the castle’s southern turret tower, that an agile man could easily leap from the lower landings of the Wizard’s tower to the top of the crenellated wall, where they met the southern turret.

Pael knew that old King Balton had kept spies in the turrets, and among the members of the wall patrols, to keep an eye on him. He wondered if they were still there now. He and King Balton had started off well enough, but the King of Westland hadn’t liked the subtle ways Pael tried to influence him in several situations.

Pael had always sided with Lord Brach. Both of them constantly wanted to expand the kingdom by use of force and trickery. King Balton, on the other hand, was a man of peace who remembered the lessons of the old wars, even though he hadn’t been alive for them. Balton Collum had also remembered the stories of peace and hope that filled the years after the demons were defeated and purged. Pael had been loyal enough to him though. The wizard had helped strengthen the kingdom, with his arcane skills and with plenty of hard work as well. But King Balton had never fully trusted him, and Pael had always known it.

The crafty Master Mage used the King’s spies to his advantage by making sure that any and all of his suspect activities took place well above the eyes of the guard patrols. To do this, he required a means of traversing the heights of his tower quickly and quietly. To meet his need, he created a hidden lift. It was a small, cylindrical cage, just large enough for three men to crowd into. Each floor in Pael’s tower, and half a dozen floors below it, all the way down to the dungeon’s lowest floor, had a hole bored through it that was in line with the center of the tower. By way of the powerful and naturally enchanted stuff known as Wardstone, the lift would rise up and down at Pael’s command, stopping at whatever floor he directed it to. This allowed Pael to work on complex, questionable spells and other dark magics in private, while still being seen every now and then reading in his library, or making charts in his map room.

His contraption kept unwanted eyes out of his true affairs well. The lower floors, the ones that could be seen from the castle wall and the turret tower, still had stairs and landings curving around the inside. Pael had had masons wall in the lift tube on these lower floors, so that it couldn’t be seen as it moved up and down through the tower. Of course, he had to kill the masons when the job was finished. The upper floors were only accessible by his lift. The stairs and landings above the turret tower had all been removed to make more room. Only Pael and his assistant, Inkling, knew how to use the lift, and in all of Westland, only Pael knew that Inkling existed.

Inkling was an imp, a small, minor demon, who could assume the shape of many different living things, though not very large ones. He could change into a human child, a full grown dwarven woman, or a thin, hungry looking wolf, and nearly any creature smaller than those. He was in the form of a young boy when Pael glided off of the lift onto the second highest floor of his tower. This level was one wide open circular room with several open windows. Pael called it the Nest.

“Any news?” the wizard asked, as he seemingly hovered just above the surface of the thick, plank wood floor.

“Only one bird has returned, Master,” Inkling answered, in his thin, wispy voice.

He thrust a finger sized scroll towards Pael. Pael looked at the rows of empty cages that lined the shelved walls. Only two hawklings and a pigeon remained. His gaze shifted to Inkling for a moment. No matter what form the imp took, his eyes were always solid black pools, with no whites at all. It was unsettling even to one such as Pael.

He put the unread scroll down on a table that was crowded with various shaped flasks and jars. He raised one that held a clear, blue liquid up to the light of an oil lamp, and swirled it around, as if he were studying the consistency of its contents. It was thick, like honey. Satisfied with what he saw, he carefully poured a drop of the stuff into another flask that was full of what appeared to be dirty, yellow urine. He swirled that mixture around, until it changed into a bright, greenish color, and then raised it to his nose and sniffed.

“I’ve got a task for you, my little friend,” he said to the imp, before downing the contents of the flask. Only a minor look of distaste crossed his colorless face as he swallowed.

Inkling scurried closer, shifting into his true to form as he did so. The lamp light reflected brightly off of his shiny red scales as he shivered his leathery wings with anticipation. As terrible as his devilish visage was, the horns, the pointed ears, and the needle like teeth, the imp would have a hard time intimidating anybody, as he was the size of a child. He didn’t get to leave the tower often, so the idea of a mission for his Master excited him greatly. He was hissing and ringing his little clawed hands together nervously, when Pael finally told him what it was that he would do.

“At the Summer’s Day Festival, you’ll find the truest of hawker’s. You are to purchase a dozen hawkling eggs from them, no matter how much the price. You’ll do this in a mannish form.”

Inkling sighed in disappointment. Pael grinned, because he had expected this reaction. He drew out the rest of his instruction, just to taunt the imp.

“Once the eggs are secured, seek out Lord Gregory.” Pael sat the empty flask down on the table and paced a few steps across the room. Inkling all but ran into him when he stopped, and Pael had to bite back his laugh. Seeing that he’d tormented the little devil long enough, he ended the suspense. “When you find Lord Gregory, kill him.”