Alexey Pehov - Shadow Prowler

Four of the men were clutching short, heavy armored-infantry swords, the kind used by the soldiers of the Border Kingdom. The most efficient weapon in confined spaces or dense ranks, where you can’t turn with a long blade. The fifth man, whose right shoulder was bandaged, hung back behind the others.

“How’s your health, Paleface?” I asked politely when they walked up and stopped five yards away from us.

“Better than yours will be in a moment,” the assassin replied.

“Kill them!”

My crossbow gave a click and the hulk that Paleface was hiding behind started tumbling backward with a bolt in his forehead. The second ugly brute yelled and raised his sword above his head, and then there was a roar behind me and I felt the searing heat as a ball of fire the size of a good horse’s head went flying past me straight at the killers. I abandoned everything, dropped down onto my belly, and put my arms over my head.

A loud boom struck my ears, I felt the earth shake, and crumbs of stone came showering down on me. Someone howled. What’s the advantage of wizardry over shamanism? Wizardry takes effect instantly, while shamanism is an entire ritual. Goblins dance, orcs sing. That’s why shamanism acts a lot more slowly, but the shamans don’t lose any strength after they use it, unlike magicians.

The fireball, that weapon so beloved of all novice magicians, had transformed one attacker into a heap of ash, then struck the wall of the building and exploded.

Paleface was howling and yelling somewhere beside the end of the alley. I could see that his face was burned, and bloodied by small splinters of stone. A hole big enough to drive the royal carriage through had appeared in the house to the left of us. Roderick certainly hadn’t been stingy with his spell.

Tearing my eyes away from Paleface, I turned toward the magician’s apprentice. The young lad, totally drained of strength, was half sitting, half lying, propped up against the wall, and the two remaining thugs were staring at him in amazement.

“Let’s run for it!” howled one of the killers, throwing away his sword. In his fright he obviously hadn’t realized that Roderick couldn’t hurt a fly right now.

They ran off in the same direction they’d just come from, stomping their feet and howling in terror. Of course, I didn’t bother to follow them. I was more interested in Paleface, but he had vanished without a trace.

“Lucky bastard,” I said, shaking my head in admiration.

I went across to Roderick.

“Are you alive?”

He nodded feebly, but his eyes were glowing. “I did it! That’s the first time I’ve made that spell work!”

“Oh yes! I almost got roasted. Thanks for the help. Now let me help you up. Or the guards will come running in a moment.”

Roderick gave a brief nod of his light-haired head. I helped him get up off the ground, then supported him as I led him toward the deserted Street of the Apples.

The look on the face of His Magicship, Master of the Order of Valiostr, Archmagician Artsivus boded no good to my own humble personage. The old dodderer received me in his own home, located in the Inner City, right beside the king’s palace. The archmagician was seated in a deep armchair and swaddled in a heap of woolen blankets that would have warmed a dead man in the very fiercest of winters, but that was still not enough for his frostbitten bones. “Harold, may you be torn limb from limb!” the old man screeched. “What have you done? Have you completely lost your mind?”

“What’s happened, Your Magicship?” I really didn’t understand.

“Hmm.” Artsivus cast another keen glance at me. “So you don’t know anything. You’re as innocent as Jock the Winter-Bringer? Hmm…”

The old man drummed his fingers on the little table while he pondered something and then asked abruptly, “What were you doing yesterday? Mind, think before you answer me; I shall recognize a lie.”

I wonder what it is I’m suspected of now? Should I confess to stealing the magical scroll? After all, it was lying there unwanted for all those years.

Years?

I strained my memory, trying to remember what the magical spell had looked like. I seemed to recall it was the only one not covered with a thick layer of dust. That was why I’d chosen it from among all the others. But if it wasn’t dusty, that meant it had been put there quite recently…

I began my story in a very roundabout fashion. The archmagician, however, showed no signs of impatience and didn’t interrupt me. He simply knitted his bushy eyebrows whenever I started throwing in unnecessary details or long descriptions in an attempt to divert him. Then I decided to tell him about the scroll after all, and then about the unexpected effect it had when I took a chance and tried the spell on the Doralissians. Surprisingly enough, the old man wasn’t even interested, as if it wasn’t me that had driven all the demons out of the city. The archmagician was only concerned about the Doralissians.

“Say that again, what was it they were shouting?”

“Well, something like: ‘Give us back our horse.’ ”

“Did you hear anything else about horses last night?”

“No,” I lied, deciding not to mention Vukhdjaaz, although he had harped on about some horse or other as well. I was interested to see if the archmagician would notice my lie.

“Good.” Artsivus didn’t spot my fib. “The scroll is very interesting, especially since I’m sure that no one in the Order has ever heard of any such spell.”

The old man squirmed in his chair, adjusted the edge of a blanket that had slipped off onto the floor, and looked at me thoughtfully again.

“So where is the Horse?” he suddenly cooed in a sweet voice.

Only there was nothing sweet about the look in his eyes.

“What would I want with a horse? What would I do with it?”

The archmagician knitted his brows and said nothing for a moment, but a hint of doubt appeared in his eyes. “You mean it wasn’t you who stole the Horse from Archmagician O’Stand’s house last night?”

“He must be raving mad, if he keeps a horse in his house!” I exclaimed in amazement.

“What horse are you talking about, thief? Yesterday a magical stone-the Horse of Shadows-was stolen by persons unknown from the house of Archmagician O’Stand, who came here from Filand. We were planning to use it to drive the demons back into the Darkness. But now it has disappeared!”

“But the demons have gone. I pronounced that spell.”

“Yes, they’ve gone.” The archmagician nodded. “And it worries me very much that you did what the entire Order couldn’t do. How did that scroll, which no one knew about, come to be where it was? Who else paid a visit to this Bolt of yours and asked about plans of the forbidden zone? Who is the Master? Why did the killers attack you and Roderick? Who wanted the Stone, and how could anyone have found out about it?”

“But why did you immediately suspect me, Your Magicship?” I asked, squinting at a nearby armchair.

“Sit down, you might as well,” said the archmagician, spotting my glance. “Who else could have pulled off a trick like that, Harold? Not a single magical trap was activated, the Stone simply disappeared. Any fool can see it was the work of a master.”

“Well, I’m not the only thief in the city. There are at least two more men in the capital who are capable of doing a job like that. But what does O’Stand himself say?”

“Nothing. He’s dead.” The archmagician closed his eyes wearily. “The servants found him with his throat cut. He was killed like some drunk on a spree at Stark’s Stables. An archmagician of Filand! It’s more than just a political scandal, it’s a serious blow to the prestige of the Order of Valiostr!”