The Archmage Unbound (51 page)

Naturally my house was being watched. I had already
spotted the men loitering suspiciously outside with my magesight. The building
across the street was also being used. Either that or the people that lived
there had developed an intense interest in staring at my house for hours on
end.

Luckily I had a secret tool in my arsenal, Walter
Prathion, and after some consideration we hatched a plan. I disguised Harold
to look like Marcus, since he was still sleeping upstairs. Walter used his
talents to make both of us invisible and the two of us slipped out while Harold
opened the door and looked out as if he were checking the street. Once we were
past him he stepped back in and shut the door. Presumably the King’s spies
already knew Marc was staying at my address, so we hadn’t made his situation
any worse.

Rather than take chances Walter kept us unseen while
we walked to Rose’s home. It was the first time I had ever been invisible
while walking through a city and the experience was entirely different from the
one I had had underground surrounded by shiggreth. The main difference being
since we only needed to be invisible to normal vision we were able to use our
magesight. For some reason walking in and around people on the street who
didn’t even know I was there brought out my inner voyeur.

“You can just go anywhere like this can’t you?” I
whispered to Walter as we approached Rose’s home at last.

“Pretty much,” he replied.

After we had reached her door I considered knocking
but quickly discarded the idea. Sneaking was simply too much fun. Instead I
used my arcane senses to make sure no one was in the vicinity of the door
inside the house, and then, with a few words in Lycian I let us in.

“You really know an amazing variety of spells,”
Walter observed quietly after we were inside. “Where did you learn them all?”

“I got some from a journal I found and the others I
just made up, though I did have to study Lycian quite a while before I
understood it well enough to really do anything complicated like the door back
there,” I replied off-handedly.

“You know Lycian?” he asked in a tone of wonder.

I frowned, “I thought it was a requirement of
sorts. Isn’t it?”

“It’s been a dead language for several thousand
years and there haven’t been more than a handful of wizards for at least six or
seven generations. Most of them just passed along what useful spells and
phrases they already knew,” he replied.

I hadn’t considered things in that light before, and
frankly I was shocked. “Well I guess if you really needed to do something and
you didn’t have the words you could just do it without words,” I said quietly.

Walter sighed and shrugged his shoulders invisibly,
“That’s incredibly difficult, not to mention dangerous.” He said it as if it
weren’t really an option.

I decided not to pursue the conversation further. I
had done quite a few things without words in the past and while it did take a
considerably greater expenditure of energy I hadn’t really thought it was
dangerous or difficult, just tiring. Somehow I knew Walter would be shocked,
and probably disapproving so I figured it wasn’t something we needed to
discuss.

I had already mentally located Rose so we headed
down the hallway and toward the small study where she was currently reading
something. As we went I had a sudden thought. “You must be the world’s
greatest peeping tom,” I said to Walter.

He coughed uncomfortably, “Well that is one of the
particular uses for my ability.”

I nudged him, “I don’t mean just ‘spying’ like you
were doing for the King, I mean women, ladies and such.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” he replied.

“You mean you never thought about it?” I asked
incredulously. “Are you sure you’re feeling well?”

He shook his head, “Well I mean, obviously I’ve
‘considered’ it, but I’ve never abused the ability in that way.”

“Bullshit,” I declared.

“Look, Mordecai,” he began, “you don’t honestly
expect me to stand here in the hallway and tell the man I was sent to spy upon
for several months that I enjoy sneaking around and looking at women undressing
and such… do you?”

It took a moment for that to percolate through my
head. Eventually it got through to me though, “You pervert! You’ve peeped at
Penny haven’t you!?”

If he hadn’t been invisible Walter would have been
incredibly red. “No! But that is exactly why we are not having this
conversation! Rest assured I am a married man and I wouldn’t waste my time
creeping about and looking in on naked women.”

My eyes narrowed, though I wasn’t using them
anyway. “You haven’t seen your wife in four years you said.”

Walter finally lost his temper, “Do you realize how
stupid you sound!? You’re a wizard. It isn’t as if you have to be invisible
anyway! Hell they don’t even have to be naked you moron! Obviously you can
simply examine them anytime you want… clothes or no clothes. So why in the
hell are you getting worked up over the fact that I can turn invisible?!”

His observations were dead on and I felt a bit
sheepish. “You’re right Walter. Not that I would do that. I just didn’t
think it through properly.”

Rose spoke up from the study doorway, “As I recall
just the other day you were observing our friend Marcus while he was behind
closed doors with his lady friend. What was her name? Oh yes, Marissa, that
was it!”

I spun about and stared agape at her. “That’s not
what happened! You told me to check on him!”

She smiled, “I didn’t have to try very hard to
convince you to do it, now did I? This really isn’t fair Mordecai. I’m sure
your face must be priceless to look at right now. You may as well make
yourselves visible so I can see you.”

“You don’t startle easily do you?” I asked as we sat
in her study. I had already taken the opportunity to introduce her to Walter.

Rose laughed, “It is difficult to be startled when
the culprits sneaking into your home are having a shouting match in the hall.”

“We weren’t shouting,” I responded while she shook
her head in disagreement with me. “Walter, tell her we weren’t shouting,” I
said looking to him for support.

The older wizard shrugged, “Well… we did get rather
loud.”

“Fine… we got rather loud. That’s not why we’re
here anyway,” I said grumpily.

“I’m assuming you noticed the men watching your
house,” said Rose.

I nodded, “That’s why we used Walter’s invisibility
to arrive here unseen.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t use a disguise, or just
lose them once you were away from your house. Marcus and I have been managing
that way for the past few days,” she commented.

“I’m afraid that isn’t good enough Rose. I can’t
afford to let the King know that I’m back in the city.”

That piqued her interest. “I assume you have some
new development to relate,” she replied.

“I have good and bad news,” I said, unsure how to
begin.

She tapped her fingers on the desk. “I’ve already
heard the worst so don’t think to spare me.”

“Dorian and Penny are alive and probably aren’t far
from the capital,” I said abruptly.

She stood and put her back to us with a speed that
surprised me. “Walter would you mind stepping outside,” she said carefully.

He rose and headed for the door, “Certainly. I’ll wait
in the hall.”

After he had gone she looked toward me and her
appearance shocked me, red eyes and tear stained cheeks where just moments
before she had been composed and flawless. “Mordecai, are you sure? If this
is some trick I won’t be able to handle it.”

I shook my head, “I don’t have any way to be sure
yet Rose. I only found out this morning and the circumstances were unusual, to
say the very least.” I crossed the room and put my arm around her shoulders.

“You haven’t said yet what the bad news is,” she
said with her head against my chest. Before I could answer I felt her stiffen
and she pushed me out to arm’s length, “Oh Gods! It’s the King isn’t it?
Edward has them!”

Since I hadn’t told her any of the details yet I was
rather astonished at her guess. “Yes. How did you figure that out?”

“We already had good evidence he was the one that
sent the original abductors to Lancaster. Now you tell me they are alive and I
just got news of something unusual that occurred the other night,” she answered.
“Mordecai, do you have any idea what he wants?”

“Slow down,” I told her. “I still don’t know what
you’ve learned.”

“Why don’t you tell me how you discovered that they
are alive,” she suggested.

“In a moment, first I want to know what you found
out about the other night,” I countered.

She shrugged, “Not much really, just that the King
dismissed the guards at the palace’s postern gate for several hours. I had no
clue what his reason was, but I knew he had to be meeting someone secretly, or
moving something that needed to be kept hidden. Now that you tell me they’re
alive… you can see how my thoughts lined up.”

If I had ever doubted how keenly sharp Rose’s mind
was I had all the evidence I needed to prove otherwise now. Her mind was a
weapon. If we did ever manage to rescue Dorian I almost felt sorry for him.
He’d never be able to get anything past her. Good thing he was honest to a
fault. “I’m still amazed at your quick wits Rose,” I told her.

She was trying to mend her appearance by dabbing at
her cheeks with a small cloth she had produced from a drawer in her desk.
“Let’s hear your story Mordecai,” she reminded me but before I could start she
crossed over to the door and opened it. “You can come back in Walter, thank
you.”

I explained our near disastrous exploration of the
caves near Lancaster and described our encounter with the creature that now
inhabited Timothy’s small body. She listened carefully and let me finish
before she spoke again.

“Have you spoken with Marcus since you returned to
the city?”

I coughed, “He was drunk so we didn’t talk much but
he should be waking up soon. I put him to sleep to get him to stop drinking so
he’d sober up.”

She frowned, “He’s been sober the last few times I
talked to him. Did something happen?”

“Apparently the high priest of the iron god caught
him rifling through his papers and after he escaped they figured out his real
identity. They’ve given him a new name,” I told her and then went on to
describe his encounter.

Rose had her hand in front of her mouth by the time
I finished, “That’s terrible.”

“I rather thought it was funny, though I didn’t want
to admit it in front of him while he was drunk. I was a bit peeved about
that.”

“No, Mordecai. I swear sometimes I think you’re as
dense as Dorian. I’m talking about Marissa,” she said the name as if it alone
would explain everything.

I stared blankly at her, “What about Marissa?”

She sighed, “He was very taken with her. I think
they might have developed some serious feelings.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, “Are you sure we’re
talking about the same man? He bedded half the noblewomen near his age and
none of them were able to capture his attention for more than a day or two.”

Now it was her turn to stare; except her stare was
of a much more serious nature.

“Look Rose,” I began, “I love him like a brother,
but he’s an absolute plague on women. I doubt he’s even given her a second
thought since they chased him out.”

“We have too many more important things to talk
about right now Mordecai,” she said at last. “Let’s just leave it at, ‘you’re
an idiot’, and move on. And do promise me to treat the subject carefully when
you see Marcus later. Can you do that at least?”

Walter started snickering quietly behind his hand at
her comment. I gave him a hard look before answering her, “Fine, we’ll just
leave it at that. Why don’t we retire to my house so we can continue this
conversation with Marc when he wakes up?”

***

The return trip was equally uneventful though Rose
didn’t enjoy it much. Since she didn’t have the benefit of mage-sight she was
completely blind while we were invisible. For her the experience was
essentially identical to being blindfolded and led across the city by hand.

When we reached my door we simply opened it and went
inside. To appease the men watching the house I had Harold come back and look
out, to give the impression that he had opened the door. After I talked to him
though I quickly discovered it didn’t matter anymore.

“Is Marc awake?” I asked him as soon as we had
gotten inside.

He nodded his head, “Yes, but he’s got a hell of a
hangover. He’s in the kitchen trying to get some food inside him.”

I started walking in that direction, “Good, now we
can finally get everyone together and see if we can figure something out.”

Harold put his hand on my shoulder, “Wait, you might
want to read this letter. I think it’s urgent.”