Messenger of the Dark Prophet (The Bowl of Souls: Book Two) (31 page)

“Masters, you will not believe what is in my stable!” he blurted, his face full of excitement. “It's a rogue horse, Masters!
A rogue horse!”

Justan's heart shot up in his chest.
Gwyrtha!
He closed his eyes and concentrated, searching deep within himself to the place where he had pushed her thoughts. He called out to her, but received no response. He pushed deeper and to his relief, he found that she was still there and her presence was located in the direction of the stables. Her thoughts were ethereal and distant as they were when she was asleep, but they were too distant. She wasn't dreaming. He shouted at her over and over mentally, but he couldn't wake her.

Justan opened his eyes to see the council members all talking at once, hounding the stableman with questions. Everyone seemed to have forgotten Justan and no one had noticed his actions except for Valtrek, who looked at him with brow furrowed.

They all seemed excited by the prospect of a rogue horse, especially Master
DeVargas
, who looked as though he had just stumbled onto a dragon's hoard. Jeffrey's nervous eyes darted back and forth between the wizards addressing him, not knowing who to answer first. His hands were clenched tightly in front of him, their knuckles white.

Once again, Master Latva's staff pounded against the table, brightening the room with a flare of light and silencing the excited council members.

“Enough! Please, professors. Let the man tell his tale.” The Wizards grumbled, but held their tongues and watched the stableman as he composed himself. “Now, Jeffrey, would you please tell us what happened?”

“Well, a couple of hours ago, sir, there was a ruckus out by the wall. See, that student, Pympol, he started yelling, saying there was a monster out by the forest. Well he got Wizardess
Bendra
and Wizard Jackson and they gathered the guards and went out after it. Next thing I know, they come back in dragging the scariest looking monster I have ever seen. I didn’t realize what it was at first, but Wizardess
Bendra
looked so excited about the capture that I looked closer and sure enough, it was a rogue horse!”

Justan’s mind whirred. They had Gwyrtha. What was he going to do?

“Are you sure?” asked
DeVargas
.

“Yes sir, the wizards put the thing to sleep and we locked it in that room in the stable we keep for unruly mounts. Back in my youth, I saw enough of the things that I know. There is definitely some horse in the beast. Anyway Wizardess
Bendra
told me to come and tell you that it was a rogue.”

“Amazing.”
Master Latva leaned back in his chair. “After all these years . . .”

“Wait!” Justan stood. He had an idea. It was a gamble, but it was all he had. The wizards looked irritated by the intrusion. “I am sorry for interrupting, but Jeffrey, this beast, they captured. Did it have the head, claws, and tail of a lizard, but the mane and the flanks of a horse?”

Everyone turned to Justan with surprise as Jeffrey answered. “Why, yes Justan, it does. You’ve described it perfectly.”

Randolf
frowned at Justan with suspicion. “How do you know about this, boy?”

“I have seen this creature before when I was in the Tinny Woods with the elves.”

Justan figured that this was his only chance to get them to let Gwyrtha go. He didn’t want to lie to the council unless he had to, but he hoped that if they thought she was the property of the elves, they would be forced to let her go. He knew that if he told them about the bonding, they would want to study her even more.

“Why didn’t you tell us about it earlier?”

“The elves were upset that I had seen the beast and made me promise not to tell anyone that I saw her.
Especially anyone at the
Mage
School
.”

“Why not us?” asked Professor Beehn.

“They were afraid that if the wizards here found out about her, you would capture her and experiment on her. The elven council was very insistent. We need to let her go, or they will be very angry.”

“This is an outrage!” barked Master
DeVargas
. “How dare the elves keep something of this magnitude from us?”

“I agree,” said Wizard
Munsey
. “Their hiding this from us is an enormous insult!”

Wizard
Randolf
leaned back in his chair. “Perhaps they don’t know that she is here. Surely it will do no harm if we do some research. After all, when we are finished, we can just let the beast go.”

“That hasn’t worked very well in the past,” Valtrek pointed out.

Justan waited for Professor Beehn or Master Latva to speak out against such action, but they just sat there with thoughtful expressions. Finally, he blurted out, “I don’t understand what could be so important, that you would take something belonging to the elves without permission.”

DeVargas
stood. “It is not your place to speak that way here, apprentice!”

“This is true,” Master Latva agreed to Justan’s astonishment. “Jeffrey, would you please take your leave and see to the care of the rogue horse?” The stableman nodded with relief, uncomfortable with the tension in the room, and Alfred let him out.

“Master Latva, I was just trying to say that we can’t
possibl
-”

“Enough, Edge!” Latva said, anger sparking in his youthful eyes. “You may have been named, but you are still a student here. Apprentices are not allowed to speak to the council that way.”

“I am sorry, sir.”

“Very well.”
The master’s tone softened, but his visage was stern. “Edge, the council has more business to attend to and I must ask you to leave. We will discuss your matter further and if there is anything else we need to speak to you about, I will send Alfred for you, understood?”

“Yes sir.” He was embarrassed about being chastised in front of the whole council, but he was still furious that none of them came to Gwyrtha’s defense.

Master Latva continued, “You must wear the gloves Alfred gave you at all times. No student is to see your runes until we decide what must be done about them. We don’t want rumors flooding the school.” He motioned and Alfred escorted Justan from the room.

Professor Auger started in, “We cannot release the creature. This is too important for the study of magi-” As the door swung shut behind him, the wizard’s voice cut off completely. The council room was protected against idle listeners.

Justan fumed. His life was falling apart. What was he to do? His thoughts were interrupted by the weight of a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Alfred staring down at him. Justan hadn’t noticed the gnome leave the room with him.

Chapter Twenty

Justan paced back and forth in the library, a book in his hand, searching for answers to one of the many questions buzzing through his mind.

The library was the only place left for him to find answers. He had tried to get into the stables to see Gwyrtha, but there were guards posted out front and they wouldn’t let him in. The council had made the stables off limits to all students. Now, though it was getting dark outside and he had missed dinner, Justan didn’t have room in his thoughts for hunger.

 “Pardon me, Justan, but I am afraid that if you don’t stop soon, you might wear a hole in that rug.”

As he turned to see his friend Vincent, the gnome’s tall, thin frame shaking with a chuckle, Justan couldn’t help but allow a smile to corner his lips. “Good evening, Vincent.”

“Was I right?” the gnome asked.

It took Justan a moment to realize what the librarian was referring to. “Oh yes, they made me an apprentice earlier today.”

“Fantastic! Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Vincent demanded. Then his brow wrinkled and he began tugging on the end of his long nose. “Or did you? I’ll have to look in my log book.”

The gnome turned and started to walk away, but Justan stopped him. “Vincent, wait. I have a question.” The gnome turned back. “What can you tell me about rogue horses?”

“Rogue horses, an amazing subject. Let’s see,
Punja’s
book on mysterious magic.
Floor two, aisle twenty, row three.
The
Punja
Row, I like to call it. You know
Punja
was an amazing scholar. He didn’t have a bit of magic talent within him, but he studied with both my people and the wizards his entire life.

“I recall that there is a funny story about him in the memoirs of Wizard Gillard, floor two, aisle ten, row one, volume two, pages thirty five through forty, starting on paragraph three of page thirty five. You see, Willard Gillard had an itchy skin condition that the other wizards just could not heal.
Punja
heard about it and did a month of research on the subject. Then one day, he appeared in Wizard Gillard’s office with a sack of troll dung-.”

“Vincent!” Justan’s head was pounding and he didn’t have the patience required for dealing with his friend.

The gnome was so startled that he dropped his glasses.
“Oh, my!
Justan, you know better than to shout in my library.”

 “I’m sorry.” Justan picked up the librarian’s glasses and took a deep breath as he handed them back to him. “Look . .
.Vincent
, you were telling me about rogue horses?”

“Oh yes,
Punja’s
book on mysterious magic, chapters ten through twenty five.
An amazing subject, rogue horses.
They are strange beasts, part horse, part something else. Each one is a bit different. Did you know that to this day, the wizards at this school still don’t know how they were created? There are some theories and in chapter twenty, he talks about the creators of the beasts. What were they called? Hmm, page eighty-three . . . or was it eighty four?”

“Never mind, Vincent.”
Justan’s head couldn’t take much more.

“Perhaps it was on page eighty five, paragraph two . . .”

“Please.”

“Wait, wait! I remember . . . no. Hmm . . .”

“It’s
okay,
I’ll look it up later.”

The gnome tugged on the end of his nose, his brow furrowed in deep thought. “No . . . wait- page eighty seven . . . no.”

Justan had had enough. “Vincent, I saw Chauncey asleep in the astronomy section, floor two, aisle seven.”

Vincent’s jaw dropped in outrage. “Why, I told that gnome to retrieve Volume three of Master Alvin’s book on geometric symbols that Professor
Polt
had asked for.” The librarian stormed off in that direction, tugging his nose furiously.

Justan sighed and ran one hand through his hair, wincing as the stitching on the leather glove caught a stray hair and plucked it out. From the moment that he had put the gloves on, Justan hated the way they made his hands feel confined. Before he had traveled thirty steps from the council hall, he had taken the gloves off and cut out the fingers with his dagger. Now his fingers were free, but the stitching was loose. The constant tickling of the fibers was another reminder that his life was out of his control again and that irritated Justan all the more.

Justan sat down at a nearby table and thrust his head into his hands. What was he to do? He reached down inside himself to try and contact Gwyrtha as he had done a hundred times since leaving the council room, but once again, there wasn’t even a stirring in response. He found nothing more than a warm spot in his mind as proof of her presence.

He could not stand the idea of Gwyrtha being imprisoned just for curiosity’s sake. She needed to be free. He knew her well enough through their bond to surmise that she would not last long in captivity. He needed to set her free and it had to be soon. The longer that she was here and the more the wizards learned of her, the harder it would be to get them to let her go.