Wandering Lark (24 page)

“Help me, please!” Wendon said. “Fenelon has escaped, and he is wearing my clothes!”

The guard looked up and down at the tatters that Wendon wore. Then he glanced over his shoulder at someone Wendon could not see and shrugged.

“Good one, Fenelon,” the guard said. “Don’t know how you managed to change forms, but we’re not falling for that one.”

“No, wait, I’m not Fenelon! I’m Wendon Stanewold!”

“Oh, right...like we’re going to believe that.”

“But...I came up early yesterday and took Fenelon’s place!” Wendon protested. “Really.”

The guard shrugged. “I wasn’t on duty yesterday,” he said. “So you’ll have to wait for morning and tell your story to the High Mage when he pops in for a visit tomorrow...” He pulled out of the room and laughed.

“Thinks we’re gonna fall for that one,” Wendon heard one of them say before the door shut.

“No, you idiots! I’m Wendon, the real Wendon!” He snapped his head back and bumped it hard against the wall...too hard. The blow sent red flashes of pain racing across his vision. With a groan, he sank in the chains, cursing under his breath.

The forest gave way to more
open moors and scattered copses, and in the distance Alaric could see the crags of some mountain range. Closer at hand, rolling hills topped with tufts of trees greeted his eyes. It reminded him a little of Tamnagh in a way.

“Do those mountains have a name?” Alaric asked, looking at Talena. She was trying to keep that flighty little mare of hers on the road at his side. The bay was not cooperating.

“Those are the border ranges,” she said and cursed under her breath when the mare hitched and bucked. Alaric was impressed with how she managed to stay in the saddle so well.

“But do they have a name?” he asked again.

Talena snarled and slammed a fist against the mare’s neck. “Behave yourself you stupid...”

“And interesting name,” Alaric said in a teasing manner. “The Mountains of Behave Yourself You Stupid...”

Talena turned a sharp look in his direction. He smiled back. She shook her head. “Depends on which side you’re on,” she said. “Here in Garrowye, we call them Blacktooth Mountains.”

“Why?”

“Because the story goes that they are the teeth of some giant of old who was defeated by Ymir before the First Darkening.”

“The same Ymir whose body formed the world?” Alaric remembered Etienne’s tale quite vividly.

Talena looked at him again. “You know the heretic’s version then.”

“The heretic’s version?” he repeated.

“That the world was made from the body of a giant slain by the dragon of darkness,” she said. “And that if you put your ear to the ground, you can hear the beating of his heart. It’s a story they tell to make the children go outside and play. And then they would stand at the windows and laugh while their children ran from place to place, putting their ears to the ground.”

“And did you?” Alaric asked in a teasing manner.

She hesitated then frowned. “No, because I knew it was just a story,” she said. “But I had a cousin who did.”

“Really? And what did this cousin do when they found out it was just a story?” Alaric asked.

Talena’s frown actually deepened. “She said it was true, and that she could hear Ymir’s heart, and then the temple came and took her away.”

“Took her away?” Alaric raised eyebrows. “Why?”

“Because only heretics can hear Ymir’s heart,” Talena said with a sigh.

It was Alaric’s turn to frown. “How old was she?”

“Twelve,” Talena said.

He felt a tiny shiver racing down his spine. That was the age when most mageborn came into their power.

“As I told you, mageborn and magic are forbidden here,”
Ronan whispered in Alaric’s head.

“Why all this interest in Ymir’s heart and heretics?” Talena suddenly asked.

Alaric shook his head. “No more than a bard’s interest in stories,” he said. “Where does this road lead, anyway?”

“To the borders and the Blacktooth Mountains,” she said. “Assuming you stay on it and don’t take one of the crossroads.”

“And on the other side of the mountains?”

“Taneslaw,” she said and narrowed her eyes. “But you don’t want to go there because there is a border war being fought between our good king’s troops and the mountain fighters of the evil king of Taneslaw.”

“Evil? Why is he evil?”

“Some say he is wyrm-kin.”

Alaric frowned. “Wyrm-kin?”

“Yes, in the ancient days, it is said that the Kings of Taneslaw were descended from the wyrms and demons, and that they ruled with an iron hand and worshiped the ancient wyrms. They cast spells of shadow to cover the land, and they devoured the children of their people and fed them to their dark gods.”

“Temple tripe,” Alaric blurted then realized it was actually Ronan who spoke. Alaric clamped his mouth shut as Talena glanced at him.

“You know,” she said. “Talk like that could get a man thrown in the deepest dungeons of the Temple of the Triad, assuming he was not beheaded or burned at the stake.”

“And how would they even know what I have said out here?” Alaric asked. Inside he could hear Ronan ranting.
“Fools, they forget their own history...they bury the truth in Temple twaddle, tell their children lies and deceive them so they will not turn from the Temple’s evil ways.
It is no wonder she would not use her power to restore what they had lost.”

“Well, I guess they wouldn’t,” Talena said with a shrug. “Though I have heard it said that the Watchers have eyes and ears everywhere in the land.”

“Watchers?” Alaric asked, pushing Ronan’s temperamental raging to the back of his mind. “What are these Watchers?”

“You truly do not know?” Talena asked.

“I have been away a long time,” Alaric said.

She cocked an eyebrow. “The Watchers are servants of the Temple who have the task of keeping watch on the world and making sure no magic is ever used.”

“And how do they do that? I mean, how do they know when magic is being used?”

“I’m not sure I understand it myself,” Talena said. “But I have been told that the Watchers know everything and tell the Temple High Lords what they have seen. They watch the stone gates in particular.”

Alaric managed not to give his thoughts away with his expression. Stone gates? That was how
he
got here.

Talena apparently took his silence as interest. “The old Walking Stones are everywhere,” she said. “As a bard, you must have heard of those.”

“Oh, yes,” he said and nodded.

“It is said that in ancient times, heretics used the Walking Stones to move from place to place unseen. The priest tried to destroy them, but some power protects them, and so they must be watched to be certain they are not misused by heretics.”

“Really?” Alaric said. “How do you know all this?”

Talena stopped and looked at him. “Well, I always heard the priests talking about these things,” she said carefully and looked away.

Alaric felt Ronan grow silent and smug within.

Talena was obviously not telling the truth.

Was it a dream? Wendon opened
his eyes and shifted with a moan. The restraints that held his wrists were awfully tight, and his arms were all tingly. He heaved his legs under him and pushed up so he was standing, taking the pressure off his arms. Uncertain, he glanced down at himself, and was greeted by the sight of his own gut protruding over the torn breeches and under the hem of the shirt.

Horns, it wasn’t a dream. He had let go of the spell, and now he was himself again.

Well, that would never do. What if the guards came in? He paused in those thoughts. The guards
had
come in last night. He had called out and they came—and told him that the trick would not work.

Horns.

Wendon took a deep breath and stretched mage senses to touch the small bag around his neck. The fingers of awareness could not find a bit of essence there. And then it occurred to him that in a fit of temper, he had spent all of the essence, spewing it like venom when he came to believe Fenelon had betrayed him.

Double horns
, he thought. What was he to do now? He could not draw his own essence for a transformation spell. Fenelon had already warned him that it would be futile to even try. Though it did occur to him to question where Fenelon found the essence that he had place in the bag. It certainly reeked of Greenfyn essence.

And stone.

Wendon looked down at his feet. There were runes on the floor. He rather doubted the power came from there. Those runes were designed to keep power from being drawn.

But Fenelon must have done it.

But how?

Frowning, Wendon leaned back and looked up. Overhead he could see wooden beams supporting planks. Not there.

“Oh, this is useless,” Wendon muttered. A total waste of time. Fenelon must have carried a power stone—perhaps a lunari stone—in here with him. And Wendon had wasted the power on a rant. He sighed and put his head against the wall... 

...Of stone.

Of course! Wendon closed his eyes and relaxed against the wall. His mage senses searched the stone, and sure enough, he found cracks, and through those, a hint of power outside these walls.

So
that
was how Fenelon did it. The discovery filled Wendon with a certain amount of glee. Eagerly, he snatched at those tendrils of essence, dragging them through the wall, through himself, and filling the bag with new power. There was a lot of it there! Far more than Wendon would have expected.

But as he dragged it through, he felt a strange vibration in the wall...like the foundations were shifting slightly. Bits of stone fractured and began to tumble to the floor. As though the wall were crumbling...

What in the name of Cernunnos?

He released the flow of power, but it did not stop. It poured through him now, as though he had opened a spigot on an ale cask and forgotten how to turn it off. And it was building inside the small bag, building to the point that Wendon felt it growing warm, then hot, against his chest.

Horns! He had to stop it! But how?

More bits of wall crumbled. One of his manacles gave way, and his left arm dropped to his side like a dead weight where the nerves had gone to sleep. In desperation, Wendon jerked at some of the power and tried to make the flow stop with a counter spell, but it did no good. Essence continued to flow through him.

The door to his prison slammed against the wall as it was thrown open. Several bodies flew through the gap, and to Wendon’s dismay, one of them was the High Mage. Turlough Greenfyn’s glower of rage was replaced by an expression of utter surprise.

“What in the name of Cernunnos?” Turlough shouted.

More stones fell inward from the wall. The guards hitched back as though expecting catastrophe.

But Turlough shouted,
“Clach greimich!”
and the wall ceased to tremble. Another wave of his hand and whisper of mage words, and the essence stopped flowing. Wendon sank as low as the rest of his chains would allow, and looked shyly at the High Mage.

“Who are you?” Turlough asked as he marched over and stood menacingly at Wendon’s side.

“Wendon Stanewold,” Wendon said and cringed.

“What are you doing here? Where is Fenelon?”

Wendon’s tongue adhered to the roof of his mouth as it went dry. But he finally managed to pull it loose and swallowed hard. “Uh....I....uh...don’t know,” Wendon finally muttered. “I was not told that part.”

Turlough reared upright, anger turning his face a livid hue of red.

“Get him up and bring him along,” Turlough said through gritted teeth. “I think I know.”

They dragged Wendon upright, releasing him from the rest of the manacles, and hauled him from the chamber on the High Mage’s heels.