Sword and the Spell 01: The Grey Robe (11 page)

Pellum flushed bright red and would have made a sharp
retort if the herald had not announced the Duke of Tamm and his two sons. He
stepped to the side as his father had instructed him and silently fumed to
himself as one after another the kingdom’s noble families presented their gifts.
He noted with some satisfaction that each gift was received with the same
formal words of gratitude and then unceremoniously dropped on the floor. The
numerous dolls, all sumptuously dressed, formed a forlorn heap on one side and
an assortment of music boxes, puppets and games were stacked in some sort of
order on the other side. The only object which seemed to gain her favour was an
ornate riding whip with a carved bone handle and a lash of multi-coloured
plaited leather which she kept on her lap and touched at regular intervals.

When the last of the gifts had been presented the
adults retired leaving the children in the charge of Tavlon, the court
minstrel. Musicians struck up lively music and footmen hurried to prepare
chairs for the first of the afternoon’s games. Daun looked sullenly at the
activity as if playing party games was too boring to contemplate and then with
a sudden burst of temper scattered the pile of toys across the floor. The
sudden clack of wooden puppets and the discordant sound of several music boxes
playing in disharmony brought a hush to the room and all eyes turned towards
the princess. Tavlon looked at her in trepidation knowing her temper would ruin
his carefully planned games. He just wished he’d resigned his position as court
minstrel after all when King Steppen had insisted on him being games master for
the afternoon.

Daun stood up, grabbing the largest doll by the ankle
and stalked across the room to where Pellum stood, thrusting the doll into his
arms. She turned to the minstrel with contempt.

“I hate party games and he’s too old to play them so
we’re going to the stables to look at the present Sarrat sent me, the rest of
you can stay here and do what you like.” She turned back to Pellum, “You, come
with me and I’ll show you the best birthday present you’ve ever seen.”

Pellum followed with mixed feelings, she was only a
child and a rude one at that but anything was better than playing stupid party
games. He looked down at the doll and cringed and wondered if he could drop it
somewhere without Daun noticing. She spun on him suddenly as if she had read
his mind.

“If that’s the best present you could think to bring
me then it’s your own fault if you have to carry it.” Pellum scowled. “Anyway
we are only taking it as far as the kennels.”

She turned around and skipped down the corridors with
Pellum trotting behind, trying to hide the wretched doll beneath his tight
fitting tunic but with no success. He was surprised when Daun led him through
the kitchens with servants bowing and curtsying on either side. From there she
led him out into the yard where buckets of left over’s from the last meal waited
to be sorted and taken to the pig pens. Daun stopped and snatched the doll from
Pellum’s grasp and then dunked the expensive gift, head first, into the bucket
of slops. Pellum looked on, dumbfounded, whilst the princess lifted the doll in
and out of the mess until it was coated in slime and then handed it back by its
one clean foot.

Not bothering to explain, she skipped across the yard
and disappeared down a flight of steps. Intrigued, Pellum followed behind,
holding the doll away from him to avoid being splattered by the dripping swill.
When they reached the long line of metal bars with sharp points on the top,
Daun stopped and waited for him to catch up. As soon as he was by her side she
gave a piercing whistle and stepped back. Pellum was a little slow and was
nearly bowled over by the force of six giant, shaggy hounds throwing themselves
against the constraining bars of their kennel.

Daun clapped her hands and laughed in delight. “They’re
my father’s hunting hounds and really savage. Throw it over the bars and see
what they do,” she commanded, pointing at the dripping doll.

Pellum suddenly realised what she had in mind and gave
her a conspiratorial grin. With an easy lob he threw the doll to the hounds and
together they watched in raptures as the savage hounds tore the doll apart.

“If I were queen that wouldn’t have been just a doll
in there.”

“
If I were king I wouldn’t stop you.”

Pellum and Daun smiled at each other in understanding.

“Come on, let me show you my horses.”

She took hold of his hand and retraced their steps
until they came to the stable yard. Rows of brightly painted stalls opened onto
the cobbled yard, many with horses heads leaning over the half doors. Several
whickered a greeting to Daun and Pellum. Immediately the Stablemaster arrived
and bowed to his two royal visitors. He was a man of advancing years who had
put both Daun and her father before her on their first horses, treating Steppen
like his own child, even when he became an adult and king. The Stablemaster
loved the little princess but like everyone else was wary of her temper and spite
so he obeyed her instantly when she commanded the presence of her two birthday
presents.

A tall boy with slick-backed hair and hard features
led the two animals forward, holding his head as proudly as if the horses had
been his own. He smiled down at the princess who smiled back.

“The brown one is from my father,” said the princess,
pointing to a well bred mare with a look of speed about her. “King Sarrat of
Leersland sent me the silver stallion.”

“He’s magnificent,” said Pellum in awe, as he stood
back to admire the grey colt. “I’ve never seen anything like him.”

“He’s special too,” explained Daun proudly. “Sansun
has been blessed by a magician so he understands every word I say.” Pellum
looked at her in disbelief. “Sansun, would you like an apple?” The colt snorted
and shook its head up and down in answer. “See I told you so. Tarris, give
Fiola to Pellum and walk Sansun around so he can see his paces.” Tarris smiled
and walked the colt in a wide circle. “Tarris is my friend, he looks after
Sansun for me and he gave me a riding whip for my birthday.” Tarris looked even
more pleased with himself and gave a nod of acknowledgement.

“The horse is wonderful, said Pellum in a dream. “I
wish it were mine.”

“Then you can have him,” announced Daun, “I don’t need
two horses.”

Pellum looked at her in disbelief. “Do you mean it?
Can I really have him?”

“Of course, otherwise I wouldn’t have said it.”

“Yer can’t do that miss,” blurted out Tarris in alarm.
“’E was a present to yer from King Sarrat an’ ‘e would be right upset if yer
gave ‘im away.”

Daun scowled, making the smirk disappear from Tarris’s
face.
  
“It’s mine and I can do with it
as I want. If I want to give it to my best friend then it’s nothing to do with
you. you’re just a servant.” She turned back and smiled sweetly at Pellum. “You’re
my best friend aren’t you?”

“Oh yes,” said Pellum, knowing at that moment he would
have agreed to anything for a chance of owning the silver horse.

“An’ what about me miss, are yer goin’ ter give me
away too?”

Daun frowned in consternation. “Damn, I had forgotten
about you. Sorry, Pellum, I can’t give Sansun away because I’d have to give Tarris
away as well and he’s my friend too, so you’ll just have to take Fiola instead,
you don’t mind do you?”

“No,” said Pellum, disappointed.

“But you must come and visit me very, very often and
then you can ride Sansun whenever you want.”

Pellum nodded in agreement, his arms around the mare’s
neck and his face buried in its silky chestnut mane to hide his feelings from
view. His father was going to be delighted. Not only had he become best friends
with the girl his father viewed as a potential bride but he’d an open
invitation to visit her at any time he wanted. More than that he’d gained a
splendid horse, albeit not the one he wanted but undoubtedly a racer. This had
to be the best afternoon he’d ever had.

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Jonderill
sat very still and concentrated as hard as he could on the white stone placed
carefully between his crossed legs. The afternoon sun prickled the back of his
neck and a fly buzzed irritatingly around his ear but he was determined to
ignore every distraction and concentrate on the stone until it moved. For a
moment his eyes wandered and caught a glimpse of the panorama spread like a
patchwork quilt at the foot of the great tower. From his grassy bank the view
was truly beautiful, a mixture of green and gold fading into dusky yellow where
the desert far beyond met the edge of the fertile land.

Losing his concentration completely he looked up at
the pinnacle of the great tower with its grey slate, conical roof. The tower
was protected by the mightiest of all demons, the flying dragon, carved into
stone and entwined around its topmost reaches. From up there the view would be
awe inspiring, right across the desert to the stone hills and northward perhaps
as far as the sea. He would have liked to have seen the panorama from up there
and imagined himself on the dragon’s scaled back, winging swiftly above the
earth on a secret mission of incalculable importance and returning triumphant
to a grateful king.

With a jolt the practical side of his mind brought him
back to earth. He had no real idea of what the view from the top of the tower
was like as he had never been up there. It was the magician’s room where those
who served the goddess Federa met in conclave, whatever that was. At least they
were supposed to but Garrin had told him that there’d been no call to meet
since Maladran had become King Sarrat’s magician and taken up residence in the
tower. The fourth floor was empty but the living rooms, including his small
bedroom, took up the other three storeys below Maladran’s room. Beneath the
tower there were vast caverns but like the top room those deep chambers were
forbidden to any but master magicians.

Sometime’s though, Maladran took special guests down
there and entertained them for King Sarrat. Strangely he’d seen most of those
guests come but he’d never seen any leave. However, he knew when one was
staying because Maladran would be absent for most of the day and sometimes far
into the night as well. Jonderill sighed, he would really like to see what was
below the tower but the most interesting parts of the tower were warded and some
parts not even Maladran could enter. The way things were going they would
always be closed to him.

He turned his mind back to the white stone which had
stubbornly remained in its resting position, despite all his efforts. This time,
he promised himself, he wouldn’t let his mind wander until the stone had moved
at least a hand’s span. He concentrated on the stone and emptied his mind,
searching for the blackness which would be the vessel of his power. At least
that is what the book he’d found had told him to do. It was an old book with
scribbled notes in the margin and rude descriptions of things you could do with
local barmaids which had made him blush. It was not as ancient as the books in
Maladran’s study which he was forbidden to touch.

He’d found it one day in a deserted room on the fourth
floor whilst Maladran was doing something below the tower with one of the
visitors who had arrived that morning with an escort of kingsguards. Garrin had
been busy cleaning some fish for dinner so he’d gone exploring. The fourth
floor wasn’t actually forbidden to him although Maladran had told him he
shouldn’t enter any of the rooms because there were dangerous things inside. He
was bored though and thought that just taking a quick look inside without
touching anything couldn’t be too dangerous.

When he stepped inside the room he was disappointed. He
thought there would be all sorts of interesting things in there but the room
was full of odd bits of furniture, a dozen or so musty looking chests and some
old pots and pans which had seen better days. In disappointment he had turned
to leave when he spotted Maladran’s scrying stone on a small table. At least it
looked like the scrying stone except it was the wrong colour, somehow darker
and heavier looking. He walked over to it and stared into its depths and
without thinking about the consequences placed his hands on either side of its
smooth surface. An image appeared, faint at first and then clearer, pulling him
in until he was no longer a small boy in a store room but someone else
entirely.

“No!” he snapped to no one but himself and an empty
room. He closed the book in front of him with an irritable snap which disturbed
the spider at the edge of the table and the dust on the long unopened bottle of
sweet red-root wine.

“No!” he snapped again, slamming the book down on the
pitted wooden table with enough force that would have made any other desk or
bench shake but this one was too solid for that. It settled squarely on its six
splayed legs, solid weiswald with its perfectly smooth, bleached surface covered
in stains. Some were from spilt red wine, some from old blood and more recently
shrezbere essence, potent pain-killer, hallucinogen and deadly poison.

His back cramped and he cursed his dependency on the
essence of the delicate red berry and the life he clung to with such tenacity. He
knew that when the time came he would no longer be able to resist Federa’s call
and he would go to his goddess in the hope she would understand what he had
done and why he had become what he had. Perhaps she would forgive him and would
let him be her slave, but if not he knew his confinement to the eternal
tortures of hellden was no more than he deserved for what he had done and the
life he had lived.

His eyes settled on the volume in front of him, exquisitely
bound in burnished red leather with gold lettering and decorated with garish
gem stones. On the open market the book would fetch more than most men could
earn in a year yet this had cost him nothing, or at least not a drac had
changed hands but that was the way of things. He wondered if the giver would
have been so generous if he’d known his bribe was wasted on one whose end was
so close. Before that day came he had one thing left to do but very little time
left in which to do it and after that nothing would matter anyway.

He turned his attention back to the object in front of
him, a history of the six kingdoms, a decade in its writing and a day in its
search for truth. In disgust he swept the book from the table as if it were
worthless and beneath his attention. Why, he thought, did those who called
themselves historians never search for the truth of a matter? Why did they
always take things on face value, listening to minstrel’s songs and courier’s tales?
Why were the good always so strong and the evil so weak when in reality it was
the other way around? Most of all,
why were the heroes always noble born?
Did coin and privilege and a name given to them at birth give them the right to
be glorified for deeds they didn’t commit whilst lowly birth carried no more
weight than the honour a man could claim for himself?

As always his anger burst like a soapwort bubble,
disappearing with a sigh of regret. Somehow his guilt always managed to sweep
away his feelings of hurt pride. He looked down at the discarded book wishing
he’d not been so careless but however much he might wish it, his permanently
frozen back and shattered spine would not allow him to pick it up from the
polished wooden floor.

However, his remorse stopped at that point. There was
no way he was going to expend his carefully preserved energies on levitating
the book back onto the table. It would have to lie where it was on the floor
until his man came to move him onto the stone-flagged veranda so he could watch
another dawn light the skies over the vine covered hills and green forests
beyond. Another day waiting for Federa’s final, irresistible summons.

He looked at the book and gave a bitter laugh. Perhaps
he’d been too hard on Pratalus. After all, the man had taken the trouble to
record what had taken place, which was more than could be said for himself, and
the man did have a living to make, two villas to keep and six concubines and a
fat wife to dress and indulge. He needed to write a bestseller. An account of
the truth would hardly have kept him in the luxury he was accustomed to. In
fact it was quite likely it would have cost him his head. He could have written
the truth of course, not to increase his wealth or fame as Pratalus had done
but so that people would know he had tried to do what was right but was as
vulnerable as any other to the influence of vengeance and pride.

Yes, it would be a story worth the writing if he only
had the means. He looked down at the two leather pads which covered the stumps
where his hands should have been and choked back the bitterness. Of all the
things that had been done to his body in Federa’s name, taking his hands had
been the worst. He had eventually triumphed over his mutilation, his powers
finding a new focus, intensified tenfold by no longer having to be physically
manipulated but that didn’t compensate for their loss and having to be fed and
dressed and cared for like a helpless child.

Not that his man treated him like a child. If he asked
he would take down his words but he was no great scholar and progress would be
uncomfortably slow for both of them. What was more, there wouldn’t be time.
Soon he would face the goddess’s justice one last time, and whatever the
outcome, he would die.

The man closed his eyes and as he did so the image slowly
faded away releasing the boy from its grip. Jonderill stepped back and blinked
as if he had been in a dream. For a moment he wondered who the man was and then
he turned away, the memory of what he had seen forgotten as he looked for
something else to take his interest. As he looked around his eyes rested on the
book. It had been left unopened on a table, covered with dust and obviously
forgotten. He knew he was forbidden to touch any of the books of magic but this
one had an irresistible lure and apart from that, if it had been there long
enough to be layered in dust, it could hardly be important.

Now he knew his assumption had been correct. Despite reading
the boring and stuffy epistle from cover to cover, quite an achievement for
someone with only four summers book learning, he still knew nothing about
magic. Maladran would help him if he asked, of that he was sure, but after his
one and only abortive attempt to try and use the power, Maladran had smiled
kindly, ruffled his hair and had never mentioned magic again. Yes, he could
have asked his guardian but he wanted it to be a surprise, like a gift to thank
the magician for all that he had done for him.

Still the stone hadn’t moved and Jonderill berated
himself for having let his mind wander yet again but it was so difficult to
concentrate on blackness and silence when the sun shone from a brilliant blue
sky and sky singers sang with piercing clarity. Perhaps the book was right all
along, it had warned that levitation was of a second level magic, whatever that
was, and unsuitable for apprentices. He might have had some success if he’d
started with something easier.

He thought of the number of times he’d tried to make
elemental fire, the simplest of all magic but even that was beyond him. A
slight tremor of anxiety passed through him as he thought of Maladran. The
magician had never once expressed disappointment with his inability to use even
the simplest, basic arcane skills but surely one day he would lose patience
with him and what would happen to an unwanted kingsward then?

With more determination than ever, Jonderill returned
to the search for a darkness to contain his power, closing his eyes to block
out the sunlight but instead of darkness all he could find was a soft yellow
glow which spread from the corners of his mind in gentle peace. It was a
wonderful warm feeling, just like drifting into sleep. Only he didn’t want to
sleep so he opened his eyes, marvelling at the sudden clarity of everything
around him. The panorama seemed to sweep on forever but instead of a blend of
subtle colours he could see each field in stark detail right out to the far
edge of the desert.

He could see which crops grew where and how many sheep
grazed the hillside and when he breathed deeply he could smell the newly cut
hay from the distant fields. Startled by the unusual clarity, he looked to
where his hands rested on the ground, each blade of grass like a miniature
upturned dagger between his fingers.

Jonderill lifted his hand towards his eyes as if he
had never seen it before. He studied the small silver hairs which shimmered
along its surface and the shadow of blue veins just below the skin. For the
first time he noticed his fingers were long and thin and remarkably flexible
and when he turned his hand palm upwards, each finger could reach below the
base of his thumb. The concentrated movement of his fingers made him feel
different, almost restless as if he had an itch he couldn’t scratch and as
light-headed as the time he had drunk unwatered wine. He flexed his fingers
again, stretching the small one to touch his Venus mound and a creamy yellow
light flowed from his mind to form a flickering ball of fire a finger’s breadth
from his open palm.

For a moment he stared at the wavering light in shock
and then jumped to his feet with a shriek of alarm, shaking his hand as if he
were trying to dislodge pinching crabs. The ball of fire shot from his hand and
bounced on the grass before disappearing without leaving a trace of its
existence behind. Jonderill trembled with the shock of what had happened and
stood rooted to the spot, it was what he’d wanted to happen but it had happened
all wrong. There had been light inside his mind instead of darkness, movement
instead of stillness and all his senses had been dramatically attuned to the
life around him. Nervelessly he slumped onto the ground and it was several
minutes before he dare bring his hands up level with his eyes again. Nothing
had changed; they were still as they were before, brown and a bit wrinkled,
grubby from playing six-stones and scraped across two knuckles. How then could
such hands produce elemental fire?”