Accidental Sorcerer (32 page)

Shugat nodded. 'Yes, my sultan. Mad as a scorpion, or a man boiled too long in the sun. But he does not think it will come to war. You know he sees us as little more than superstitious tent dwellers grubbing in the sand. Nerim's gullibility easily convinced him that we think our gods are on his side.'

Zazoor turned, his eyes ablaze. 'And what of you, Shugat? What did you do to show Lional his error? To show him that the Three are
our
gods and do not truck with outsiders?'

He hesitated.'Nothing,' he said at last.

Zazoor spread his arms wide in entreaty.'
Why?
I sent you to New Ottosland as I would have sent myself. Why did you not act?'Then he lowered his arms and took a step back, the fire in his eyes doused with shock.'You
believed
him?'

'I -' Shugat took a firmer hold of his staff. In his forehead he felt the heat as a small pulse of white fire beat deep in the heart of the
andaleya.
i was unsure,' he admitted.'At first. When I called upon the gods to strike Lional down and they did not, I thought - it seemed -' He rapped the staff into the carpets. 'When I asked them for guidance they did not reply. I do not question the gods, Zazoor! Silence answers as loudly as a shout!'

Sudden anger spent, Zazoor stepped close, placed a hand on each of his shoulders and rested their foreheads together, i understand,' he whispered. 'Forgive me for doubting you.'

For the briefest moment Shugat cradled his hand to the back of Zazoor's neck; then he smacked the side of the sultan's head in remonstration. 'You're forgiven,' he growled. 'But do not do it again.'

Like a child in the schoolroom Zazoor dropped cross-legged to the carpeted floor and stared up at him, his face once more calm and composed, all shame wiped away.'The gods are
not
with Lional.'

His smile was fierce.'No. They are not.'

'They have told you this, Shugat?'

'They have.' He raised his staff. 'My words are the words of the Three, of Grimthak and Lalchak and Vorsluk, Holy of Holies, greatest of all gods,' he said, his voice taking on the singsong cadence of holy pronouncement. 'Hear their words and obey or perish in Grimthak's flame, by Lalchak's teeth andVorsluk's talons.'

Zazoor pressed his face to the floor. 'What is their will, Holy Shugat? I will hear it and obey'

'You will ride to New Ottosland at the head of an army' he intoned. His eyes were rolled in their sockets, now, till only a yellow-white crescent remained, and the stone in his forehead blazed like the sun.

'A large army?'

He felt his crescented eyes flicker. 'Fifty men from each village one day's ride from the palace.'

'As soon as the sun sets I shall send the proclamation to each village leader on the swiftest camels,' Zazoor promised. 'And after that, Shugat?'

Slowly Shugat lowered his staff, blinking. His vision returned to normal and the
andaleya's
incandescence faded. Frowning, he stared at a fading shaft of sunlight then at last stirred and looked down at the sultan. 'After that you wait, Zazoor.'

Zazoor sat up. 'For what?'

'For the whisper in your heart. It will tell you what to do.'

Zazoor nodded. Then he said, hesitantly, 'Forgive me, Shugat, but does it not seem to you, as it seems to me, that the gods' pronouncements have of late been more
cryptic
than once they were?'

Leaning forward, he patted Zazoor's cheek. 'When we are children our parents tell us precisely what we must and must not do, for our understanding is circumscribed and our knowledge of the world incomplete. But when we are grown they nod and say, "We have taught you well. Go now into the world and remember what you learned at our table.'"

'Indeed,' said Zazoor, and laughed. 'You are wise, Shugat, and patient beyond understanding. In the name of the Three I praise you thrice.'

Shugat nodded, acknowledging, but did not reply. His thoughts again were snared in the sunlight, and the memory of a man who yet disturbed him. A touch on his knee; he looked at Zazoor.

'Shugat? What is it? What have you not told me?'

'There was another man in the audience with Lional,' he said slowly. Then he pulled a face.'I say man, but youth is more truthful. A fingerful of years older than Nerim, no more.'

'Ah! The wizard. Nerim said. What of him? Lional has had many wizards since he came to the throne, each gone more swiftly than the one before. Nerim says it's whispered in the palace that Lional lacks the loving touch. Doubtless this one will disappear as quickly as the rest.'

'He is not like the other wizards,' said Shugat. 'From afar I read them and remained at peace. But this one? Power like a bud yet to blossom curls within his breast, and all around him a roiling of darkness.'

Seeing his discomfort, Zazoor rose smoothly from the carpeted floor, his eyes chilled to cold purpose once more.'He is evil?'

'No ...' he said, after deep thought. 'Not evil. And yet evil surrounds him ...'

Zazoor's frown was suspicious, it sounds most strange. What must I do with this wizard when I find him? Kill him? You say he is not evil but there is fear and doubt in your eyes, Shugat! I see it, plain as a bird in the sky. What is to be done with Lional's enchanter?'

Shugat sighed, i am sorry, Zazoor. On this matter the gods stay silent. I have asked them, for this
Gerald Dunwoody
fills me with foreboding, but all they will tell me is:
wait!

'Then at least tell me this, for I trust in your judgement,' said Zazoor. 'Do
you
think him a danger to Kallarap?'

Shugat pursed his lips, considering. 'Perhaps. Or perhaps he is more of a danger to Lional. Or perhaps ... at the end of the day when the sun has set and the camels chew cud in their stables ... perhaps the biggest danger he poses is to himself.'

'As ever you speak in riddles, my friend.'

'The day I speak but plainly' Shugat replied, allowing himself a smile, 'is the day the gods have done with me!'

'A day long hence, I implore them!' said Zazoor, and kissed his fingers to the Three. 'Shugat, will you ride with me back to the court of King Lional?'

His bones were peevish just at the thought, but he nodded. 'I will. The gods decree 1 must return there and see their desires fulfilled. There is a mystery with Lional, his wizard and his blaspheming beasts that I must pierce to the heart lest it poison us all. For good or ill our future lies with them, and in this brewing storm ... though why that is I cannot say'

'The ride to New Ottosland is long and slow,' said Zazoor. 'Can we reach it before the storm breaks?'

'Time has no meaning for the Three. I am given power to bend time, that it might serve our purpose and the purpose of the gods.'

'Truly, they are great,' Zazoor whispered. 'Shugat, pray with me.'

Together they knelt before the shrine and prostrated themselves in supplication. What Zazoor heard then, Shugat did not know. But in his heart he heard the whispers of the gods and felt himself complete, and at peace.

Something was very
wrong
here. Well,
more
wrong than being cooped up in these wretched rooms unable to do a stroke of work because the etheretic transductors still hadn't returned to normal and Lional had forbidden contact from anyone beyond the palace which meant every meeting scheduled for the past five days had been cancelled and what that was going to do to the Treasury's cash flow and the kingdom's trade balances she couldn't
begin
to think about without a cold compress for her forehead and a very large glass of whiskey for the rest of her.

Oh dear lord how she
loathed
her brother.

Returning to the doors she pressed her cheek to the timber and listened. Nothing. She took a deep breath. 'Ronnie? Ronnie, are you there yet? Is
anyone
there? Answer me!'

Silence. Ronnie was gone and no other guard had taken his place. Neither had Bedford responded to her summons via the bell-rope, and he'd been faithfully delivering her meals since this ridiculous incarceration had begun.

It didn't make sense.

'Well,' she said to the world at large. 'Bugger
this
for a barrel-load of monkeys.'

Muttering, she retrieved from her sock drawer the special set of keys she kept hidden there and returned to her stubbornly locked suite doors. Lional wouldn't like it one little bit, her just letting herself out with incanted keys she wasn't supposed to own, but that was too bad. He shouldn't have turned into such an unreasonable bully. He only had himself to blame. She'd get him to see sense once he'd calmed down. That was one of her greatest talents, getting Lional to see sense in the long run.
Usually.

Shoving aside
that
unwelcome thought, she sorted through the key collection until she found the big one with all the curlicues and stuck it in the lock. There was a sharp
crack,
an acrid puff of smoke and a flash of unbearable heat. Crying out, she let go of the key ring ... and watched the incredibly expensive incanted keys melt and dribble down the varnished timber into a sizzling puddle of bronze on the floor.

Her jaw dropped.'
What?'

Closing her mouth with a snap she fetched a screwdriver and tried to remove the hinges holding the doors to the wall. The screwdriver sagged like a limp piece of liquorice.

No.
No.
There was a
hex
on her
doors?

Gerald, how could you?

Tears welled. Angrily she smeared them away and dropped again into her chair. At least this explained why she hadn't heard from him in over a week. Meditation? Meditation her fat Uncle Albert! Gerald had
caved,
that's what he'd done. He was aiding and abetting impossible Lional. What pressures her brother had brought to bear on him she couldn't imagine ... and didn't much care about, actually. Gerald was a scummy turncoat, full stop, end of discussion.

Damn
him. If
she
could stand up to Lional why couldn't
he?

What a
rnessl
The only person left on her side of the argument was Rupert and there was no point considering help from that quarter, even if she could reach him. Rupert couldn't even help himself. Expecting him to defy Lional and come charging - no, make that fluttering - to the rescue was like expecting Reg to keep her beak shut.

And as if her personal crisis wasn't bad enough there was the imminent national disaster waiting to explode in all their faces once Lional's dealings with the Kallarapi were made public. But instead of being out there in the thick of the action, doing her job, taking charge, organising some kind of intelligent response, she was stuck
in
here behind a pair of hexed doors without the first idea of how to get around them.

Which meant she was stuck here
indefinitely,
because those doors were the only way out of her apartments. It was an absolute
catastrophe. And
if she wasn't careful she was
really
going to cry.

From the direction of the bedroom came a heavy, clunking-on-glass sound. She stood up, frowning. What the hell?

I've had about as much nonsense as I can take for one lifetime. If you're a burglar you're going to be sorry.

Fists clenched she marched to the bedroom, stopped just inside the doorway and glared into the corners. Then she heard it again, a banging against the windowpane behind those curtains
therel

Heavy drapes in either hand, panting, she found herself staring nose to beak at Reg, who was hovering like an ugly overgrown hummingbird on the other side of the window.

'Well don't just stand there, you stupid bint!' Reg shouted through the thick pane of glass. 'Or do you
want
him to fall screaming to a messy death?'

That's when she noticed the fingers ranged along the window ledge. The window ledge of the window that was seven storeys up the side of the palace wall, that she couldn't escape through because not even all her sheets and blankets tied together would reach the ground and, thanks to Madame Ravatinka, her levitation skills hadn't progressed past lifting and lowering very short thin pencils.

The fingers were bloodless, and clutching the window ledge in a manner that did suggest imminent letting go and a subsequent screaming fall to a messy death.

She opened the window and Reg half-flew, half-fell into the room. 'What are you waiting for?' the wretched bird gasped, collapsed in a heap on the floor.'Pull him in!'

She lunged forward and over the windowsill, grabbed the wrists belonging to the slipping fingers, dug her heels into the carpet and heaved. Inch by inch the wrists became arms, became shoulders with a head centred neatly between them, became a whole body kicking and cursing and scraping over the sill and into her bedroom.

With a startled grunt she overbalanced and fell on the carpet, rump first. The body landed on its face between her outstretched legs. After a grumbling groaning moment, it looked up.

She stared.'What the hell?
You're
not Gerald!'

The body shook the floppy black hair out of its face, offered her an engaging grin and waved its inkstained fingers at her.'Hi there, Your Highness. Monk Markham. Remember me?'

Far
too much whiskey. A dip in Gerald's fountain. A wobbly face in his crystal ball. She repressed a shudder. 'Vaguely' she said, and scooted herself backwards to a decorous distance.'How did you get here?'

Markham wriggled himself into a sitting position.'Long story. Where's Gerald?'

She scowled.'I neither know nor care. I consider myself gravely deceived in Gerald Dunwoody'

'Deceived?'
Reg demanded, heaving herself unsteadily upright. 'You watch what you're saying about that boy, there's not an ounce of deception in him! And not for want of my trying, either. A good wizard needs a dash of the devious but will he listen? No, he won't.'

'Really?' She glared at Reg. 'Then why did he hex my doors so I can't get out after he swore blind he'd help me?'

'How should I know?' said Reg. 'I haven't been here. But I'll bet you a new hairdo it wasn't Gerald. Or if it was, he had a very good reason. Probably something to do with saving you from yourself. The ether knows you could do with it. Those
trousers,
girl! With that shirt? With
any
shirt?'

Just what she needed in a time of crisis: more acerbic fashion advice. 'Of course it was Gerald, who else could it be? And what do you mean you haven't been here? Where have you been? And what are you doing in my
bedroom?
With
Markham?
Answer me!'

i would if you'd let me get a word in edgewise!' Reg retorted. 'We're in
your
bedroom because we couldn't get into
my
bedroom! And we couldn't get into
my
bedroom because Gerald wasn't there to let us in! Now where is he, ducky?'

'Don't ask me! And
don't
call me
ducky!

Reg glared. 'Why shouldn't I ask you? Are you the princess round here or aren't you?'

'Yes. I am. I'm the princess who's been locked in her suite since the day that rotter Gerald fell off Dorcas! You're his keeper, why don't
you
know where he is?'

'Because I've been out of the country since the day after that!'

Grabbing hold of a handy chair, Melissande hauled herself to her feet. 'Out of the country? What are you talking about? What the
hell
is going on around here?'

Markham glanced at Reg, who nodded. He got up, lifted her onto the back of the same chair then pulled a lump of rock from the pocket of his slightly threadbare blue jacket. 'Can you keep a secret, Melissande?'

She looked at him. 'I'm the prime minister of New Ottosland and I have two older brothers, one of whom is Lional, King of Insane and Inappropriate Wedding Plans and the other Rupert,

Prince of Butterflies. What do you think? And don't call me Melissande. It's "Your Royal Highness" to the likes of you.'

'It's all right, Monk,' Reg said gruffly. 'We can trust her. She's got the manners of a warthog and the grace of a drunken rhinoceros but unlike Rupert she's not a complete ninny'

She goggled.
'Excuse
me? Did you just call me a -'

Markham cleared his throat. 'Okay, ladies, probably right now we should be concentrating on -'

'Oh, why don't you put a sock in it,
ducky]'
Reg snapped. 'If you can't dress like a princess you can at least act like one. Now listen up. We -'

'Listen
up?
To
you?
The biggest mistake I ever made in my life - after hiring Gerald, that is - was listening to
you]
You're a bird, for God's sake! A scruffy, coarse, drab, irritating, uninvited
bird]
What do
you
know about being a princess? What do you know about
anything?'

'What do / know?' said Reg, clutching at the chair back to stop herself from falling; she was swaying with exhaustion. 'A damned sight more than you do, ducky, I'll tell you that for nothing! I may well
die
a bird, dearie, but I sure as shooting wasn't
born
one. I was born a princess and became a queen
and
I was a witch to boot. The most powerful witch in all of Lalapinda!'

Melissande opened her mouth then closed it again.Turned to Markham.'Is that true?'

Markham shook his head and sat on the end of her four-poster bed. 'Don't ask me. Reg's past is a closed book, Your Highness.'

Frowning, she leaned against a bedpost and considered the bird.'So what happened?'

Reg sighed, it's not important. What's important is finding out what's happened to Gerald.'

'Nothing's
happened to Gerald!' She scowled.
'Yet.'

'Urn ...' Markham exchanged a worried glance with Reg. 'Look. Not that I make a habit of contradicting royalty, but ... we're pretty sure you're wrong.'

'Why?'

'Because a few hours ago the Ottosland Department of Thaumaturgy's thaumatograph's readings hit the roof, kept on going and are currently headed for outer space,' said Reg.

'So?'

'So,' said Markham, 'the source of the readings was New Ottosland. And their cause was the biggest Level Twelve transmog ever recorded. Gerald's the only wizard I know who's capable of successfully pulling one off.'

Oh.
She rallied. 'That still doesn't explain what you're doing here.'

'He promised me he wouldn't do another one and he's a man of his word,' said Markham. He looked worried. 'Gerald must've been under duress.'

'Duress?
From who?'

Markham and Reg exchanged cryptic glances. 'We're not sure,' he said, cautiously. Then he held up the nondescript rock. 'But it's why I risked using this.'

'And what
is
that, exactly?'

i call it a Stealth Stone. It's a kind of portable portal. You can use it to go pretty much wherever you like without needing any physical apparatus or a destination module, and nobody at the other end is any the wiser when you get there.'

'A portable portal?' she said, peering suspiciously. 'I've never heard of such a thing.'

He cleared his throat. 'That's because I only just invented it. This is a prototype.'

'You
invented
it?' Despite herself she was impressed. 'How?'

Markham shrugged, it just sort of happened while I was mucking about with transdimensional keys.'

Reg eyed him with proprietal favour. 'He's a bit of a genius himself, is our Markham.'

He slipped the rock back in his pocket. 'Anyway. I haven't told my bosses about it yet. I wasn't even sure it would work. But when the thaumatograph spiked and the Department brass launched into hysterics I thought it was as good a time as any to try it.'

'So that explains how you got
into
the country. But I'm still waiting to hear how Reg got
outV

Reg sniffed, i flew.'

'To
Ottosland?
In what, a
week?'

'Four days. It was supposed to be two,' said Reg. 'Only the
accelerando
wore off prematurely. I had to hitch till my wings worked again.'

'And why did you have to go at all?'

'To find Markham, of course,' said Reg, rolling her eyes. 'And raise the alarm. He'd just finished finding out what happened to all of Lional's
other
wizards when I reached him, but then he had to convince those idiots he works for he wasn't making it up! I was just about to start cracking some heads myself when the thaumatograph went haywire and they
finally
took him seriously. Except
then
they had to form a committee to investigate and we didn't have time to hang about. So here we are.'

She was feeling bewildered, which always made her cross. 'Reg, this is nonsense.
Nothing
happened to Lional's other wizards. They quit or he fired them. I
told
you that already'

Markham shook his head. 'I know that's what your brother said, Your Highness, but ... he lied.'

Shaken, she shoved a couple of hairpins back into her lopsided bun. 'Nonsense. I've got three letters of resignation in my office. I'll
show
them to you, assuming I ever get out of this stupid suite.'