The Black Robe (The Sword and the Spell), page 22
Tozaman knelt by Nyte’s side and felt gently for the weak pulse at her neck. It was there but only just. “You both need more help than I can give you here.” He thought for a moment working through the options of getting them all out of the pavilion alive. It would take at least two of them to move the girl and the magician. Although he had disagreed with Oraman he knew he could rely on him to help. “You, slave, find Brotherlord Oraman and tell him what has happened. Tell him to bring wine, food and salves.”
Rothers whimpered in fear. “Courage, friend,” said Jonderill. “You’ve been brave so far and this is just one more step on the way to being a lord again.”
Tozaman pulled off his ring and pushed it into Rother’s hand. “Take this, it will get you passed the guards and Oraman will recognise it as my token.”
Rothers nodded uncertainly but scuttled off, trying to be as brave as Jonderill said he could be. Tozaman helped Jonderill sit by the unconscious girl then went to the other side of the pavilion and disappeared behind some gauzy curtains, returning with a blanket and a small bowl of scented water. Jonderill looked at it longingly. He couldn’t remember when he had last been given anything to drink and his thirst, like his hunger, was desperate. He closed his eyes to put the sight of water out of his mind whilst Tozaman wiped the girl’s face and washed the rest of the blood off her body.
“Do you know who she is?” the Brotherlord asked suddenly.
Jonderill opened his eyes and glanced at the girl. “Her name is Nyte. I met her when she was a slave belonging to a black magician called Sadrin, but I think she lived here at one time as she told me that she loves Tallison.” He stopped, exhausted from talking when his throat was as dry as sand.
Tozaman shook his head. “Her real name is Malia. I met her once at a party in King Duro’s palace when she was a small child just learning to walk and I was a boy ten summers older than she was. Malia was his youngest daughter, a sweet child who used to laugh a lot. When Tallison killed her father he made her watch and then again as he tortured and murdered the rest of her family but for some reason he let her live and took her into his pavilion as a pet.
I didn’t know she had survived or even cared that much, I had my own problems. When she emerged many summers later she was a different person with a different name. I wouldn’t have recognised her if it hadn’t been for the green eyes. It reminded me of Duro’s magician. Coberin had green eyes too. I think what happened to her turned her mind and perhaps that’s not a bad thing, at least she has no memory of her past and what Tallison has taken from her.”
“Maybe, but if her memory ever returns she will be full of bitterness against those who stole her life and she will want her revenge.”
Tozaman looked at him curiously. “That sounds like the voice of experience.”
“I have some knowledge of the matter.”
He looked up suddenly as the flaps to the pavilion were pulled aside and an older man ducked inside followed by Rothers carrying an armful of water skins and bundles wrapped in cloth. Jonderill recognised the man as one of those who had stood by Tozaman and faced down the angry mob. The man hurried over and stared down at the unconscious girl and then at the freed magician as if they were two-headed desert runners.
“What in the Goddess’s name are you doing, Tozaman? If Tallison finds out what you have done he will burn you alive like he did your sister.”
“They need our help Oraman. We can’t just leave them here to die.”
Oraman shook his head in disagreement. “Don’t be a fool, Tozaman; we can’t take them from here. One step out of this place with those three in tow and we’ll have every guard in the compound down upon us.” He held up his hand as Tozaman went to protest. “Even if we could get them out of the compound what do you think Tallison would do if he found that the magician had escaped? He would rip Tilital apart looking for him and when he finds that it is the brotherlords who have taken him not even our rank will save us. You know he’s only waiting for an excuse to destroy us all.”
“But we have to do something. We said we needed a symbol to rally the people behind us and what better symbols could there be than the magician and King Duro’s daughter?”
“She was King Duro’s daughter once upon a time but that was a long time ago. Now she’s just Tallison’s whore. It won’t work, Tozaman, you’ll just get us all killed.”
Tozaman went to protest again but Jonderill interrupted him. “He’s right, Tozaman. If Tallison returns and I’m not here he will not rest until he has found me. Good people like you and the Brotherlord here will die trying to protect me and I am not worth that.”
He stopped for a moment and swallowed the watered wine which Rothers held for him. Of all the things he wanted to do it was to escape this prison but it wouldn’t work, he was too weak to walk more than two or three steps and a man with no hands who stank of filth and rot would not be easily disguised. He looked at the girl and thought that he should hate her for what she had done to him but he didn’t, she was as much a victim of Tallison’s cruelty as he was. Perhaps if he could give her a chance to live returning to the cage would not be so bad. He took another swallow of watered wine and felt a little stronger.
“Take the girl. She looks to be dead so the guards shouldn’t stop you and if they do you can say you are just disposing of the body. Take Rothers too, I don’t think Tallison will miss either of them that much if he has me to torment.”
Tozaman looked from him to the girl trying to find a counter argument but there wasn’t one. They were right. To take the magician from here meant certain death. He held up his hands in surrender. “You’re right, but it doesn’t make it any easier for me to leave you here in Tallison’s hands.” He stood and turned his eyes away from Jonderill as if he couldn’t bear to watch him as he made arrangements to leave him there. “Oraman, get a rug and wrap the girl up in it. That way she will look like just another corpse being taken to the refuse pile and you, slave, fetch your collar and leash. If you carry her it will look convincing.” Hesitantly he turned back and for a moment it looked as if he was going to change his mind. “What are you going to do, magician?”
Jonderill tried to smile but it was impossible. “I will wait here until Tallison returns and then crawl back into my cage.”
“He will punish you if he finds that you are free.”
Jonderill shrugged. “One more hurt won’t make a lot of difference.”
“Yes it will,” interrupted Rothers. “I will stay with him and help him back to where he was before and if you would leave the things you have brought I will do my best to keep Jonderill alive until the brotherlords find the courage to stand up to the demon.”
Oraman took a belligerent step forward, angered that a mere slave had insulted his honour, but Tozaman held out his hand to stop him. “It’s not wise to insult a brotherlord, slave, but it does take courage. Perhaps more than Oraman or I have.” He looked meaningfully at Oraman. “The things are yours, slave, hide them well and use them wisely.” He turned back to his fellow brotherlord and together they rolled the girl in a rug, heaved her off the floor and carried her out of the pavilion with her bare feet sticking out of one end and her head lolling from the other.
“You should have gone with them when you had the chance, my friend. You know there is only death in this place for you and me.”
Rothers squatted by Jonderill’s side, his ragged robe pooling around his feet. He broke off a corner of a small loaf and fed it to Jonderill, helping him to wash it down with watered wine. “I know, but I didn’t have the courage to follow them out of that door.”
Jonderill smiled knowing that it was a lie. He pushed himself forwards and Rothers helped him to stand. “Come, I need help to get back into my prison and you have work to do if we are both going to avoid the demon’s wrath.”
With Rother’s help he stumbled back to the cage and crouched down, making himself as small as he could, his joints grinding against each other and his muscles protesting, refusing to be pushed and squeezed into the enclosed space. Jonderill closed his eyes and tried to ignore the sores being rubbed against the bars and the chaffing of his burnt stumps as they were pressed tightly into his body. He heard the cage door close and the locking bar falling into place and then felt the cage swing free as Rothers pulled it off the floor and back into place. If it had been possible for him to weep he would have done so, but instead, he closed his mind down and retreated into darkness.
Or at least he tried to but instead of the smothering blackness that had been there before the light that kept him alive shone brightly in his mind. It was a different light now, not the small wavering flame that he’d been able to shut away in a corner but a strong flame that had substance to it. The flame reached out and touched the edges of his mind bringing him warmth and comfort and then, its task done; it subsided to a gentle glow, leaving him with a glimmer of hope. Something within him had changed but he didn’t know what it was. It was almost as if he’d died and had been reborn as something else; still Jonderill but different.
It was impossible of course. He knew he had no magic, but Rothers had told him that he had destroyed all the gnawers in one blast of power and he had opened the door of his locked cage not once but twice, of that he was sure. Then there was the statuette that he had melted into molten gold and silver. It had to be magic but if it was it was nothing like he had ever heard of before. Except perhaps that wasn’t true; it was like the magic Coberin once had, explosive and unpredictable.
That had died when Coberin lost his hands, the same as his magic had died. Perhaps if he was truly the one called Callistares and was beloved of the Goddess he would understand how to call up magic when there was nothing there, but he wasn’t, he was Jonderill, without magic and waiting to die. He turned his thoughts away from the pain of what could never be and back to the glowing light. It was glowing strongly but he smothered it in darkness and thought of nothing.
It was the sound of children’s voices which pulled him out of the blackness, their bright laughter breaking through the barrier he had built around his pain. He opened his eyes and blinked in the unexpected brightness and would have flinched back if he could against the brilliance of a dozen or so lanterns which had been placed in a semi-circle around his cage. In their centre, almost within arm’s reach, stood Tallison, a wide grin on his face and the light reflecting back from the madness in his eyes.
On either side of him stood two children, both of them girls, dressed only in bangles and shy smiles. His hands rested on their shoulders and his fingers caressed their skin. They were around nine summers old, large eyed and dark skinned and Jonderill’s blood ran cold. There had been no girls in the kingsward compound, but everyone knew the fate of young girls who were orphans of the state. If he’d been able he would have taken Tallison by the throat and would have squeezed the life out of him there and then.
Tallison laughed; clearly pleased with the effect his presence was having on his prisoner. He pushed the two girls forward slightly although they both seemed reluctant to leave his side. One wrinkled her nose and looked up to him and whispered something which made him laugh. “She says that you smell, Callistares, and she’s right, you stink of filth and rot and corruption, like all magicians do.”
He stepped forward to stand level with the two girls, well within Jonderill’s reach, if he had hands to reach him with. “How do you like my two new acolytes, Callistares? Beautiful, are they not? I’m kind to my people, magician. I take their children into my own home and teach them the ways of Talis and when they are old enough to carry a man’s seed to full term I return them to the people so that they may teach others.” He patted each of the girls on their rump making them giggle and then sent them scurrying away on an errand.
“They are too young yet to understand Talis’s ways, but now I’m no longer obliged to share my seed with Nyte, I will have time to teach them.”
“You’re sick, Tallison, you and your god together, and one day very soon you and your evil god will be destroyed, totally and utterly.”
Tallison’s eyes narrowed and the smile left his face to be replaced with something far more vicious. “You’re wrong, magician. It is you and your Goddess who will be destroyed and Talis will rule the hearts of all men.” His smile returned and he clicked his fingers. “And now I have a little gift for you, something to keep you company as your life fades to nothing.” The two girls hurried forwards carrying a small bundle which they handed to Tallison as if it was a sacred offering. He unwrapped it slowly and held it out in front of him.
Now Jonderill did cringe back although the bars of the cage should have made it impossible. Two sand crawlers, one gold and one silver, entwined around each other and seemed to writhe in his hands. The ruby eyes burnt red and glowered at him causing him more pain than any of Tallison’s tortures had so far. He gasped as his heart thudded in his chest and spears of pain forced their way through his mind like daggers.
“Your Goddess is a woman and she is weak, Callistares. Your pathetic attack on Talis was as nothing. It was as futile and as wasted as all her efforts have been over the years. You and your Goddess will never destroy us.” Tallison placed the symbol of his god on the table in the centre of the lanterns where the light reflected back ghostly images of sand crawlers twisting and turning around each other. “Enjoy your final hours, magician, knowing that it is Talis who waits to claim your soul and take it to eternal torment in hellden’s halls.”
Jonderill closed his eyes to block out the image and withdrew into himself, surprised to find that the flame in his mind burnt as strongly as ever, totally unaffected by Tallison’s futile attack. Now, at last, he was certain of what it was that the Goddess wanted him to do. He only prayed that she would give him the strength to do it.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
CHAPTER TWELVE
Dreams and Reality
Jonderill slept, comforted by the hidden glow of his life flame and dreamed of the days when he would practice the sword with Barrin and Redruth and the other cadets. It was a good dream, better than the reality where the others always won their practice bouts and he always lost, usually ending up with bruised fingers and blisters on his hands. In his dream he walked back from sword practice with Barrin sharing a skin of watered wine and then stretched out on the grassy bank outside the city walls watching the travellers come and go and practicing his magic. That was better in his dream too.
All he’d ever been able to do was produce a small wavering ball of elemental fire but in his dream he had sent bright balls of different coloured flame spinning and tumbling from his hands in every direction. He even turned the flames on and off whilst Barrin sat next to him in the grass and clapped. It wasn’t the only thing he could do either. He levitated their packs into the air, emptied out their contents and spun everything around in a circle. That included their practice swords, Plantagenet’s old iron blade and even the fine sword Swordmaster Dilor had given him for saving his nephew’s life.
It was all so easy, he didn’t need a wand or complicated hand movements, he just needed to want to do it. In his dream the elemental fire and the packs faded to nothing and Barrin turned into Tissian whilst the swords began to fight each other in the graceful, complex moves that a protector uses in his devotions to the Goddess. Then the dream suddenly changed. The swords stopped fighting each other and turned on them, slicing through Tissian’s neck and removing his hands.
Jonderill awoke with a start, his legs dangling from his cage and his handless arms resting across his knees where he had slid down into a sitting position. The pavilion was quiet and dark although he thought he heard the whisper of someone’s breathing as they slept. Carefully he eased himself forward from the cage and dropped to the floor, his legs folding beneath him, leaving him in the crouched position he had become so used to. Slowly he stretched as he had done in his dream and felt life return to his arms and legs. It wasn’t the stabbing, burning sensation of blood returning to starved muscles but the tingling of healthy limbs newly awaken from a deep sleep. It made no sense to him but then again not a lot did at the moment.
When he felt strong enough he rolled onto his knees and stood, swaying slightly but managing to stand without the need of support. He took two hesitant steps forward and collided with the low table which made him stagger and put his hand out to stop himself from falling. The image of his missing hands flashed through his mind and he rolled sideways to prevent himself crashing down on his burnt stumps. Instead he fell in amongst the semi-circle of lanterns and yelped as the hot metal touched his skin. For a moment he lay there panting, unable to work out what was happening, why so much had changed in the time he had been asleep. He rolled over and his bare foot touched something hard and slick that made his skin crawl and his heart thud in his chest. A noise exploded in his head like a scream and whatever he had touched disappeared, propelled across the pavilion as easily as a sling propels a stone.
He wasn’t sure if he was awake or dreaming again although the sound of swishing cloth moving closer seemed real enough. Jonderill may not have been sure what was happening to him but he did know who this would be and was relieved to know that help was at hand.
“Lord?” whispered the voice urgently. “Lord, what have you done? How are you free again?” Rothers knelt by his side, pushed the lamps out of the way, cursing as one of them burnt his hand, and helped Jonderill to sit, propping him up against the table.
“Water?” croaked Jonderill hopefully. Rothers nodded in the darkness, disappeared and returned with a skin and a small bundle. He held the skin with its mixture of water and wine whilst Jonderill drank greedily and then fed him one of the small rolls of oats and wine berries held together with the sticky sap of the desert bush. It felt like the finest meal that Jonderill had ever eaten. Rothers waited as patiently as he could but as soon as Jonderill had finished chewing his question almost burst from him.
