Son of a Dark Wizard (7 page)

Sage stared at him for a moment, making no
movement. Sorren stared back.

“Thought you were dead,” Sage said.

“Can I come in?” Sorren asked.

Sage didn’t open the door. “How did you
survive?”

“He almost died,” Kovola said, stepping
forward. “Took me forever to find him. He was buried in stone. Lost
his arm.”

Sage’s eyes went to Sorren’s mechanical arm.
He flung the door open and motioned the two inside. “Come in, come
in.”

The room inside was a mess. Wooden tables and
chairs were scattered around, the tables piled with books and junk.
The walls were lined with shelves that overflowed with random
trinkets, books, scrolls, and bottles of strange foreign
ingredients, sands and powders and liquids of every color. It was
not a home of luxury. Potions were Sage’s specialty, and he
apparently dedicated every waking moment to his work. A strange
smell filled the place, at once both sweet and putrid, like a mix
of warm cinnamon bread and a sweaty man’s dirty shoes. A wide
circular hearth sat in the middle of the room, the chimney hovering
over it. The entire room baked in the orange light of its roaring
fire.

Sage grabbed Sorren’s silver-copper arm,
pushed back his sleeve, and brought it close to his eyes as if it
were some puzzle to be solved. His eyes went up and down the length
of the arm and he poked his fingers between the silver rods that
formed the forearm. “Very impressive,” he said. “Your work is a bit
sloppy at the wrist, though. And why didn’t you give yourself
additional fingers?”

Sorren tore his arm from Sage’s grip and
showed him the wound on his other arm. “Do you have something for
this? I don’t want a scar.”

Sage grabbed this arm too and squeezed it.
“Does this hurt?”

“Yes,” Sorren said, again pulling himself
from Sage’s grip. “What are you doing?”

“Sit down,” Sage said. “It will take me half
an hour to make it.”

Kovola was carefully clearing books from a
chair near the hearth. “Make what?” he asked.

“Treethrice glue,” Sage said, walking to some
shelves and filling his arms with seemingly random things. A vial
of liquid here, a jar of sand there, a wilting flower here, a box
of seeds there. “It’ll accelerate skin growth, keep the sides of
the cut together, and won’t leave a scar.” He paused and looked at
Sorren with squinted eyes. “It will also be extremely,
tremendously, remarkably painful.”

Sorren ignored the comment, leaned his staff
against a chair, and browsed some of the old books on the tables.
The Game of Gynwig
,
The Book of the Harbinger
,
How
to Make Music Boxes
,
Moonrise Ink and other Forbidden
Tales
. They seemed to be random. History books and how-to books
and storybooks and song books.

Sage had been Sorren’s tutor years ago, from
when Sorren was seven years old to ten years old, teaching him
everything he could about history, mathematics, potions, and the
arts. They were the only formal lessons Sorren had ever received.
Though Vonlock had paid him very well, Sage eventually quit, angry
that Sorren rarely gave him his full attention and never did his
assignments. It was true that Sorren hated the lessons, but he
still missed Sage after he left. He hoped the past would not come
up in their conversations.

Sage set his supplies down on a table. “Read
a book. This will take time.” He set about creating the potion,
mixing things and heating things and timing things.

Kovola sat near the hearth, browsing through
scrolls of some sort, frowning as if he disapproved of everything
he read.

Sorren sat at a table and rummaged through
some other books, finally settling on an old book of children’s
tales called
Maker of the Twenty-first Moon
. He remembered
reading the title story years ago, perhaps out of this very same
book when Sage had been at the castle. He reread it now, slowly,
contemplating every sentence as if the story was full of secrets.
The story was the same he remembered, but the spirit of the story
had somehow changed. It involved a father dying for his son, and
his son vowing revenge. When he had read it years ago, it somehow
felt like fun entertainment. Now it was a devastatingly serious
tragedy. Though he knew he was very different, Sorren felt a close
connection to the child in the story, the child left fatherless at
the end. It was almost as if his own life was being written by the
same storyteller. But he knew his own story would end
differently.

“That bird has been staring at me since
before you arrived,” Sage said.

Sorren looked up and followed Sage’s eyes to
a window across the room. Quove sat on the other side of the
window, staring in.

“It’s Quove,” Sorren said.

“You still have that bird? Do you want to let
her in?”

“She’ll be fine,” Sorren said. “She just
likes to keep a watch on things.”

“She looks like she wants to gouge out my
eyes.”

“She probably does.”

“The treethrice glue is done.”

Kovola stood up and looked at the small
steaming bowl sitting in front of Sage. “That’s treethrice
glue?”

“Yes.”

“Is it hot?”

“Very.” Sage stood up, took the bowl, grabbed
a paintbrush from the table, and walked toward Sorren. “As I told
Sorren here, this will be extremely, dreadfully, horrendously
painful. But it won’t a leave a scar.”

Sorren slid out of his coat, resting it on
the back of his chair, and pulled up his sleeve. He held out a hand
to take the brush. “I can do it.”

“
I
will do it,” Sage said. “This
requires the steady practiced hands of a master.” He pulled a chair
next to Sorren, facing his wounded arm. “But first, another
sensitivity test. It’s very important.” He pressed his thumb
against the wound, digging it in as if trying to reopen the cut.
Pain shot through Sorren’s entire shoulder and down through his
arm. He held his breath, resisting the urge to shout.

Sage took his thumb away with a hint of a
smile and Sorren gasped, catching his breath.

“Was that really necessary?” Kovola
asked.

“Oh, yes,” Sage said. “Very important. You
see, it gets the heart pounding. Good for blood flow.”

Sorren couldn’t tell whether or not he was
lying.

“And if you thought that hurt,” Sage said,
stirring the brush in the thick dark green steaming liquid, “then
you don’t know real pain at all.” He pulled the brush out, let it
drip for a moment, then quickly slathered it across Sorren’s wound.
It was as if someone held a flaming torch to his skin. His heart
raced, his fists tightened, his mechanical arm began to shake,
sweat trickled down the side of his head, and he clenched his
teeth.

“Oh dear,” Sage said. “Should’ve given you
something to bite down on. Sorry about that.” He continued
slathering on the green glue, globs of it rolling down the sides of
Sorren’s arm and dripping onto the floor.

Sorren closed his eyes, trying to
concentrate, letting his mind forget the present moment, trying to
find some calm memory, some peaceful place his heart remembered.
But all he saw in his mind’s eye was the Chosen One’s face, staring
at him from across a castle hall. And then the Chosen One and the
soldiers behind him were tossing hand bombs his way. And then the
statue was falling. The grand figure of his great great great
grandfather who had been king over a century ago. It had happened
in slow motion. The bottom of the stone figure cracked, then the
legs began to crumble, and the top half of the body turned to the
side as if to look at Sorren, tumbling face-first toward him.

“Done,” Sage said.

Sorren opened his eyes, panting, wiping sweat
from his head with his mechanical arm. The burning sensation was
fading. Now it felt only like a splash of melted candle wax.

“You’ll be healed in seven days,” Sage said,
standing up and walking to the fire in the center of the room.
“Until then, don’t scratch the wound. Drink plenty of liquids, get
plenty of sleep, and most importantly, whatever you do,
don’t . . . uh . . . do not,
um . . . I can’t remember.”

Sorren blew on the wound, trying to cool it
off.

Sage looked down at the bowl and brush in his
hands. “Can’t use these anymore.” He tossed them into the fire,
which sparkled and crackled and sent a burst of red flame up into
the chimney before settling back to normal. “Now then,” he said,
turning back to Sorren and Kovola, “we must discuss payment.”

“Payment?” Kovola repeated.

“My ingredients were not cheap,” Sage said.
“It is only fair that I am reimbursed for my expenses. And my
time.”

Sorren stood up. “I’m not going to pay you,”
he said.

“You have to.”

“No, I don’t,” Sorren said, taking his staff
in his silver-copper hand and slowly turning it.

Sage stared at the staff. “Are you
threatening me?”

“Do you feel threatened?”

Sage stared at Sorren and scratched his chin
for a short moment. “No.”

“Good,” Sorren said. “I have nothing to pay
you with.”

“Yes, you do,” Sage said, walking to a table
on the other side of the room, “or I would never have let you in.”
He picked up a journal, opened it, and held it out for Sorren to
see, showing a mess of scribbly notes and diagrams. “For the past
year, I’ve been studying the moons. The Nyrish moon especially.
There’s more than just light flowing from it. It’s sending down
some other kind of energy.”

Sorren couldn’t understand any of Sage’s
notes. His handwriting was so sloppy that it looked like a foreign
language. “So what do you want from me?”

“Your power.”

“I can’t give you that.”

“I mean
access
to your power. I want
to make some measurements while you’re enchanting something or
casting a spell.”

Seemed easy enough. “How long will it take?”
Sorren asked.

“A few months.”

“What?”

“I need multiple measurements for each and
every phase of the moons,” Sage said. “Also, I need to do it all
over again in the summer because the tilt of the planet
changes.”

“I don’t have time,” Sorren said, picking up
his coat and draping it over his arm. “Maybe next year.”

Sage closed the journal. “Don’t have time?
Are you running from Atlorus?”

“I’m not running from Atlorus.”

“Quite the contrary,” Kovola said. “He’s
trying to
find
Atlorus.”

Sage looked confused. “Is this true?”

Sorren picked up the book he had read just a
short while ago,
Maker of the Twenty-first Moon
. “Can I have
this?”

“Why are you trying to find Atlorus?” Sage
asked.

Sorren tucked the book under his arm. “I have
to defeat him so that I can become Head of the Nyrish Council.”

“Ah,” Sage said, nodding as if he now
understood some grand truth. “Of course. How hard could that
be?”

Sorren turned to leave.

“Have you even read the prophecy?” Sage
called out behind him. “Do you know what the Candlewood Prophecy
actually states?”

Sorren paused and turned around. Truth was,
he had no idea what exactly the prophecy stated.

Sage quickly rummaged through a bottom shelf
on a far wall. “Here we are,” he said, returning to the table with
a thin book bound in fading blue leather. “
Maewyn’s Book of
Prophecies, Volume Seven
.” He sat down and began leafing
through the pages. “Granted, most of these
are
nonsense, the
delusions of dying madmen. Such as the invisible dragon prophecy.
Invisible dragons will eat everyone’s first born son for a hundred
years. That one won’t keep me up at night. But the Candlewood
Prophecy. Here.” He ran his hand down the length of a page near the
back of the book.

Sorren peered over the table, trying to make
out the text.

“It’s written in Old Tavendin,” Sage said,
“which I know you can’t read because you have no patience for
learning languages. My Tavendin needs work, but, roughly
translated, the prophecy states: ‘A tower that rises too close to
the stars cannot bear its own weight, and collapses in the wind. So
it is with the power of the Candlewood family. For seven
generations, the family’s branches will wither and die. On the
eleventh day of the eleventh month, the moons will send forth the
final destroyer. He will be born under the very shadow he will
destroy, and he will vanquish the last of the Candlewood family. He
will become king and lead his kingdom out of the darkness. Never
again will one suffer at the hands of the Candlewood family’s
power.’ It’s dated about two hundred fifty years ago.”

“That doesn’t really tell me anything,”
Sorren said.

Sage took off his spectacles and rubbed his
eyes. “Don’t you realize you’re a part of this?” he asked. “The
Candlewood Prophecy has not yet been fulfilled. The Chosen One has
one last wizard to kill.”

Sorren gazed at the book and whispered the
seizing spell in his mind, sending the book into his hand. He
couldn’t read the language, but the prophecy seemed rather short
compared to the other ones.

“You’re the last of the Candlewood family,
Sorren,” Sage said. “The prophecy calls for your death.”

“And you’re walking
toward
it,” Kovola
added.

Sage slid his spectacles back on his nose,
pressing the bridge between his eyes. “I don’t believe prophecies
are mystical things,” he said. “Most men and women who call
themselves prophets are deluding themselves, it’s true. But there
are a few people who find themselves in tune
with . . .” He waved his arms around at his side.
“They’re not getting messages from mystical dimensions or
unexplainable dreams. They’re just in tune with things. They can
sense things. A bit like how some animals can sense when a storm is
coming. They can see things other people can’t and draw conclusions
from them. Whoever wrote this prophecy must have known something,
must have sensed something about the Candlewood family that he or
she knew would eventually lead to its downfall.”