Hunt of the Bandham (The Bowl of Souls: Book Three) (5 page)

Lenny looked the ogre up and down. “You know I could let the seams out a bit fer you. Give you a little room to breathe in that thing.”

“You sew?” Qyxal asked in amusement.

“You learn how to do a lot by the time you get my age.” Lenny turned and spat through his missing tooth before mumbling under his breath irritably, “Durn elf.”

Justan ignored them and looked back at the skeletal structure of the unfinished castle. “I can't help but wonder how much good we actually did here.” Qyxal and Lenny exchanged puzzled looks but Justan did not explain further.

“So exactly where are we going?” Qyxal asked Justan.

Justan looked off into the direction Tamboor and Zambon had headed. “On a brighter road than some, I hope.”

“Why do my rooms have to be so high up?” Locksher muttered to himself, as he trudged up yet another flight of stairs. Though he was glad to be back in the
Mage
School
, the long climb up the
Mage
Tower
to his quarters reminded him why he always enjoyed leaving so much.

His problem with the climb wasn’t weakness or age. Locksher was only in his early forties and was quite fit as far as wizards were concerned. He just couldn’t stand tedium. He was a man with little patience, which was one of the reasons he made such a good wizard of mysteries. It was also the reason why he took so many trips away from the
Mage
School
. Then again, trips away weren’t always full of excitement. His recent journey had been long and though he had learned many things about Justan’s mysterious book, most of it had consisted of week after week of monotonous travel.

At last he reached his floor and started down the long hallway that led to his rooms. It would be nice to get back into his daily routine. He wondered if anything interesting had happened during his absence.

As he approached the entrance to his rooms, he saw a young mage pacing back and forth. She had long blond hair and wore a blue robe. Locksher sighed. He wasn’t in the mood for a visitor; this one especially. She was so beautiful that it was distracting.

“Can I help you, Vannya?” he asked.

“Oh!” She jumped at the sound of his voice. When she saw who it was, she smiled. Her hazel eyes looked weary, as if she hadn’t slept in a long time. “Wizard Locksher! I came up here as soon as I heard you had returned.”

“Well it was kind of you to welcome me home, Vannya. Please tell your father that I will speak with him about whatever it is he wants later. I am sure that work is stacked high waiting for me.”

Anger flashed in Vannya’s eyes. Evidently she did not like his assumption. “That's not what I am here about, sir.”

“Good. Surely someone else can help you then.”

She stamped her foot in frustration. “No, I have been to everyone else. You are the only one that can help. You are the wizard of mysteries for this school are you not?”

Locksher wasn’t in the mood to deal with childish tantrums at the moment.

“I was the last time I checked, young lady. Let us see if your status has changed.” He looked her up and down. “Hmm, no rune on your left hand, so you haven’t been named. You aren’t wearing the collar of a wizard and your double ringed belt tells me that you are still a mage. From the standard white slippers you wear, you are still a student, and from the dark circles under your eyes, a student who has not slept in a long time. All together, this tells me that I far over rank you and should not be spoken to so rudely!” He paused. “Am I wrong?”

“Sorry, Wizard Locksher.” Vannya replied, her eyes cast downward.

“Good, then. I am sure that whatever it is can at least wait until I have my rooms in order. I will send for you as soon as I am settled back in.” He stepped over the threshold.

“Please wait, sir. I am sorry that I snapped at you. You are right, I-I have not slept in quite a while and I am feeling very stre-.” She yawned. “Stressed out. Please hear what I have to say. It’s very important.”

Locksher slowly turned around. Her persistence was grating,

“Alright then. Make it quick,” he said.

“Do you remember a cadet by the name of Piledon?”

“Piledon? Yes. He’s quite the sneak, isn’t he? I caught him in a few pranks. He got tangled up in that golem mess.” One eyebrow raised and a bit of interest entered his eyes.

“Yes, he’s the one. Well he came up missing a couple of weeks ago,” she said.

“Oh. Well I’ll get on it as soon as I can. Thank you for telling me.” He started to close the door.

“But Wizard Randolf says he has evidence that the cadet was murdered!”

He stuck his head back out. “Murder? In the
Mage
School
? I would say that’s highly unlikely. Wizard Randolf has always been the excitable sort. I will talk to him about it in the council meeting later today.”

“No, no! You don’t understand,” Vannya interrupted, her eyes wild. “He says that Justan killed him!”

“Justan, you say?” His irritation vanished, replaced by concern. “You had better come in then.” He stepped out of the way so that she could enter.

Locksher’s rooms were a complete mess. The walls were covered in tiny hooks with magical baubles and trinkets hanging on them. The floor was cluttered with stacks of old tomes and strange objects with barely any room to walk between. To make things worse, during the months he had been absent, a thin layer of dust had covered everything.

Vannya eyed the rooms with distaste. She picked up a book off of a nearby stack and blew the dust off of the cover. “Does Vincent know that you have all these books up here?”

“Uh, of course. I told him before I took them. Besides, he has more than one copy of these . . . Well, most of them anyway.” In all truth, the librarian would probably faint if he ever walked into this room. But Locksher wasn’t worried. The gnome rarely left the library. He took the book that Vannya was holding and put it back on the stack. “Please don’t touch anything.”

“Would it really matter?” she asked.

 “I have a very organized system.” He pointed at the floor and showed her a small letter ‘f’ engraved near the stack. She looked around. Each stack of books had another letter at the base and all the trinkets on the walls had little naming plates. It all made complete sense to Locksher.

“You know if you returned them to the library you would have a lot more room in here,” she said.

Locksher scoffed at the idea. “Then they wouldn’t be here when I needed them, would they? I can’t go traipsing down to the library every time I need a book. I am far too busy.”

“I suppose you are right . . .” She still looked dubious, though.

“Besides,” He waived his hand absently. “Too many stairs.”

“Why not at least put in some book shelves?”

“Where? The walls are taken up with-.” He paused and frowned at her. “What are you prattling on about anyway? Didn’t you have something more important to talk to me about? Like . . . say, the reason Justan is being accused of murder?”

“Yes! Sorry, I am just so tired, my mind is all over the place.” Her face had turned red in an annoyingly adorable way, making the light scattering of freckles on her face stand out even more. He wondered how Valtrek got anything done when she was a child.

Locksher sighed. “Just sit down, would you? Tell me what is going on.”

Vannya looked around for someplace to sit, but there wasn’t a chair or anything nearby that wasn’t covered with books or boxes or any other assortment of objects. Locksher gestured towards a large desk in the back of the room and after walking around some particularly tall stacks of books, she did see two chairs. He flopped into one chair while she eased into the other and began her story.

“It was a few weeks ago, just after the Apprenticeship ceremony. Oh, did you know that Justan was raised to the office of Apprentice early?”

Locksher smiled. “Oh, really? Well good for him. In his first year too, how nice indeed.”

“Well the next day, he and Piledon both disappeared. No one knew why. Justan’s things were all gone while Piledon’s things were still a jumbled mess. Some students were saying that Justan had taken Piledon with him, but then why would Piledon leave all of his clothes behind?”

“Interesting. Did the council find out where Justan went?” Locksher asked.

“For the first day everyone was pretty worried, but then my father told the council that he had sent Justan away to study with a different wizard somewhere abroad. That made a lot of the council members pretty angry, especially when he admitted that he had let them take the rogue horse with them-.”

“By the gods, girl! Slow down. Let me digest what you say before prattling on.” He leaned back and closed his eyes.

“Sorry.”

“Alright. Questions then. In order of importance. You said, ‘them’. You said, ‘let them take the rogue horse with them’. Who else left with Justan? I am assuming that Piledon isn’t one of them or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Sorry. Again, I haven’t got much sleep and . . .” Locksher was twirling one finger to tell her to get on with it. She frowned and cleared her throat. “My father sent Justan, Qyxal and one of the guards named Zambon away from the school that night with the rogue horse and two warhorses.”

“Aha!” Locksher grinned. “So, let me see if I follow. Your father took Justan on as his own apprentice, correct?”

“Yeah . . .” Her brow furrowed in confusion. “How did you come to that conclusion?”

“For your father to have the authority to send Justan out of the school without council approval, he would have had to take him on as his personal apprentice. Since everyone knows how much Justan loathes your father, it also makes sense why he would need to send him to learn from someone else.”

It took her a moment to follow his round about way of thinking. “Right, that makes sense. You’re right, father did take him on as his apprentice and the council signed off on it. That is one of the reasons they are so mad at him. That and the rogue horse situation.”

“That would be why Qyxal left with him.” Locksher deduced.

“Right,” She said, though she looked at him with suspicion. “My father told the council that the rogue horse belonged to the elves and that he had authorized Qyxal to return it to his people-.”

“And since the creature is not
Mage
School
property, the council had no say in the matter,” Locksher finished. He laughed out loud. “Oh, I am sure that had them hopping mad, having such a prize taken out from under their noses!”

“Why do you take the idea of a rogue horse being here in the school and alive so lightly? All the other wizards are still talking about it.”

“Bah, you can’t study a rogue horse. They die in captivity, everyone knows that. I mean, I am curious about their origins just like everyone else, I must admit, but I can find that out through other kinds of research. It is best that such a beast remain with the elves. If anyone could keep a rogue horse alive, it would be them.” He leaned forward. “So what is your father’s explanation for sending Justan away?”

“He won’t say. He won’t tell the council anything until he is sure that Justan has arrived at his new location safely. He won’t even tell me what is going on.” Her frustration with that fact was evident on her face.

“Ah, so he is concerned that the council will try to go after Justan once they know. Hmm . . . this does make your father a suspect you know.”

“What? How is that possible?”

“If Piledon is really dead, then maybe he overheard where Justan was going and Justan or your father could have killed him to keep it quiet. Or the council might think that Justan killed Piledon and Valtrek sent him away to cover it up. Or Valtrek killed Piledon and sent Justan away to make it look like he did it. The only way your father gets out of this is if he can prove that neither he nor Justan had anything to do with Piledon’s death. Then he will simply need to have a really good explanation as to why he isn’t telling the council where Justan is.”