Call of Wizardry, page 23
“Then try it on me,” Alaric said.
“No,” said Kalanath. “That is wrong. You already endure it once, and I think it is bad you endure it again. It is me you will try it on.”
“I’m not—”
“Alaric, stop being stoic and let someone else stand up for you,” Dianthe said.
Alaric scowled. “It probably won’t work,” Sienne said.
She caught sight of Viveka, who was now standing in the corner nearest the front door. Even in the candlelight, Sienne could see her cheeks were rosy and her eyes red-rimmed. She glared at Sienne as if she wished she had a dagger pointed at her heart. Sienne glanced at Alaric, whose attention was on Kalanath. What had passed between him and Viveka while she was in the throes of memory? Suddenly her wish for Alaric to put a stop to Viveka’s fantasies felt cruel. And yet what else could he do?
“Let me write this out properly, and then…” she said, letting her words trail off. She half hoped it would fail.
Scribing the spell took only a few minutes. Sienne took her time. It was the first charm spell she’d ever written, and it had been years since she’d learned the charm language. Fortunately, the spell languages were the sort of thing that stayed with you, like knowing how to climb stairs or ride a horse. The lines of the charm language were languorous, relaxing, and at one point she found herself drifting toward slumber and had to shake her head to wake herself. That cheered her, because it had to mean she’d done something right.
When she finished, she read it over silently. It was the right spell, she could tell. Whether it would work, she had no idea. But she had to try.
“All right,” she said, letting out a deep breath. “Kalanath?”
“Should I relax?” Kalanath said. He looked not at all afraid.
“I don’t think it matters. I fought, and it…anyway.” Sienne took one last look at her friend’s dark eyes, suppressed momentary self-loathing for what she intended, and began reading the spell.
Immediately she felt as if she were being drawn out of herself, as if an unseen hand had plucked a thread from her chest and wound it on a spool. It wasn’t painful, just a steady pressure drawing her toward Kalanath. Kalanath closed his eyes and twitched, and she felt the movement as if she’d done it herself. He twitched again, and then Sienne felt his consciousness writhing to get away from her. She could see the gray fog swelling up around him, blocking his attempts to flee, and she almost stopped reading. I have to see this through, she thought, and bore down on him with all her might.
She read off the last sleepy syllable, and Kalanath’s eyes opened. They’d lost their usual brightness, and his mouth hung slack, but otherwise he looked just as always. Sienne found herself speechless. She felt in her bones it had worked, but what now?
“Drop your staff,” she said.
With a clatter, the staff hit the floor. Kalanath looked surprised, as if his hand had opened of its own accord. He bent to pick it up. “Leave it,” Sienne said. Kalanath froze. All his muscles quivered as he strained against the compulsion. He looked up at her, terror contorting his handsome face, and Sienne’s heart lurched. Frantically, she searched for a way to dismiss the spell. The thread was still bound to the spool, and in desperation she snapped that delicate connection and saw the gray fog vanish. Kalanath dropped to his knees and clutched his staff to his chest, which heaved in desperate gasps for breath.
Sienne knelt beside him. “I’m sorry,” she babbled, “I shouldn’t have done that, I don’t care if it helps us—”
Kalanath shook his head, which he kept carefully averted from her. “It is what we need, and I will live,” he said. “I do not know how you and Alaric endured it longer, and from an enemy.”
Sienne wanted to hug him, but she had a feeling the last thing he needed was her touch. Instead, she stood, and said in a shaky voice, “If we can get the wizard to hold still long enough, that will be…effective.”
No one spoke. Viveka now looked frightened as well as angry. “Then here’s the plan,” Alaric said. “We’ll have the Sassaven coordinate an attack. Lothar made it sound as if they’d gather in smaller groups, so we’ll need to give them instructions and timing. Sienne, you’ll disguise the non-Sassaven so our group can move freely within the crowd. We’ll work our way to the tower, activate the walkstone, and take the wizard by surprise.”
“You make it sound easy,” Dianthe said with a grin. “Any ideas for taking him by surprise?”
“Well, that—” Alaric flicked the medallion she held with a finger—“will make us look like a bunch of Niskanen reporting in, so we won’t stand out. We’ll set up an ambush. Sienne, you’ll hit him with your most powerful paralysis, and the rest of us will subdue him before that wears off. Then we’ll work the unbinding—oh.”
“Oh, what?” Perrin asked. “That does not sound promising.”
“We need a Sassaven to stand in as proxy for the race,” Alaric said. “I’ll have to ask my mother or father—but they’ll likely be needed in the attack—”
“What is a proxy?” Viveka said. “I mean, I understand the concept, but what do you need a proxy for?”
“You remember your coming of age ritual,” Alaric said. He didn’t sound as if he felt the least bit embarrassed having a normal conversation with his cousin. “You were bound to serve the wizard. We can’t perform the ritual ten thousand times to free each Sassaven individually. Instead, we’ve come up with a variation that will allow one bound Sassaven to stand in for all of them, and free every Sassaven at once.”
“I’ll do it,” Viveka said.
Alaric blinked. “You?”
“Why not me? I’ve been through the wizard’s ritual, so I qualify. And I’m not much of a fighter.” Viveka’s expression lacked the animation and passion it had held just half an hour before, and Sienne finally felt genuine empathy for her.
“Well…yes. It’s dangerous,” Alaric warned.
“No more than any of the rest of this,” Viveka said. “And I’m not going to sit back and watch others free me. I want to help, even if you—” Her mouth closed sharply on the rest of her words, and Alaric reddened slightly.
Dianthe took a startled step back and held the medallion out in front of her. “It twitched,” she said in a low voice.
“Karlen, report,” said Kyros, his voice taking on a metallic echo as it emerged from the medallion.
No one spoke. Dianthe gestured wildly to Alaric. “I…haven’t seen them, sir,” Alaric said. “Did you capture them?”
“They’re at large in Barholt,” Kyros said. “Where are you?”
“Still at my mother’s house,” Alaric said. “I think this may be a waste of our time. Should I take up the search?”
“If they haven’t gone there yet, they likely won’t. Join your squad and proceed to the north gate. No one enters or leaves, understand? They could look like anyone.”
“Understood, sir,” Alaric said.
Dianthe lowered the medallion. “It’s inert again,” she said. “Good thing you sound like your brother.”
“How does the wizard know where we are? We haven’t said his name,” Sienne exclaimed.
“I think he’s guessing,” Alaric said. “He knows we aren’t likely to give up after one setback, and we’d have to be in Barholt for another attack. But it doesn’t matter. The problem now is there’s a Niskanen patrol expecting Karlen to join them, and if he takes too long, someone’s going to go looking for him, and when they don’t find him at my mother’s house, they’ll raise an alarm. That’s if he didn’t summon a bunch of Niskanen to Annegret’s house, and they’ve found him already and just haven’t reported in yet. We’re running out of time.”
As he said those last words, the door opened, and Detlenda entered, followed by a man and a woman. Both were older than she and had the look of people dragged out of bed unexpectedly at far too early an hour. “This is Arris and Brigit,” Detlenda said. “My son, Alaric, and his friends from the south.”
Arris peered nearsightedly at Alaric. “Quite an unexpected arrival,” he said. “And you intend to overthrow the wizard?”
“It’s madness,” Brigit said. She was as tall and heavily-built as Alaric, but wore her hair in a long braid that at the moment was in disarray. “But I promised I’d listen.”
The door opened again, admitting Ellard and a petite blonde woman who looked younger and more alert than either Arris or Brigit. They were followed almost immediately by Annegret and Lothar, trailing three more strangers, two of them unicorns. The third was a lanky woman with prominent front teeth who shut the door behind them all and said, “We were nearly caught. I want to know what’s so important I just risked being harassed by Niskanen well after I should be safe asleep in bed.”
“Freda, this is Alaric,” Lothar said. “Everyone, I want you to listen to Alaric’s proposal. Then we’ll talk.”
Sienne backed away toward the wall to make more space in the crowded room and found herself next to Viveka. Her awareness of the Sassaven woman felt like spiders crawling over her skin, spiders whose legs burned and prickled. She didn’t know what to say, if anything. Alaric had begun speaking, but with her whole attention focused on Viveka, she couldn’t keep her mind on his words. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t the one he needed to convince.
Viveka shifted her weight. “You and Alaric,” she said in a murmur that barely carried to Sienne’s ears. “Has it been long?”
“Half a year,” Sienne replied in the same low voice. “I didn’t…” He never mentioned you seemed unnecessarily cruel, and I’m sorry was both untrue and condescending.
“We were close as children, and he promised he’d return for me,” Viveka said. “I suppose he didn’t really mean it.”
Again Sienne couldn’t think of anything to say. Viveka almost certainly didn’t want her sympathy.
Viveka sighed. “It doesn’t matter now. In twenty-four hours we might all be dead. I just feel like a fool.”
“You’re not a fool,” Sienne said. “People change. It’s not your fault if you were faithful enough that you didn’t.”
“Sorry, but that’s not much comfort.” Viveka shifted, and Sienne turned her head to find the woman looking at her. “You realize you’re condemning him to childlessness?”
“It was his choice. I offered to step aside.”
Viveka pursed her lips. “Generous.”
Her sarcastic tone irritated Sienne. “I love him,” she retorted, “and that means I want him to be happy on his terms, not on mine.”
A muscle twitched in Viveka’s jaw. “There’s nothing I can—”
“And I say it’s impossible!” someone shouted, cutting Viveka off. Sienne’s attention jerked back to the conversation Alaric was having with the Sassaven elders. One of the male unicorns had stepped up to be right in Alaric’s face. “You place us all in jeopardy for some impossible fantasy!”
“We can do it,” Alaric said, unmoved by the man’s aggressive stance. “I’d prove it, but we can’t afford any of you to be incapacitated by force.”
“I don’t know what that is. You’re talking nonsense.”
“It’s a refined, more potent version of the magical attack unicorns can do,” Alaric said. He gestured to Sienne. “Sienne is more than capable of facing down the wizard, and with her companions’ help, she’ll knock him out long enough for us to reverse the binding and free you.”
“Some of us are likely to die,” Brigit said. “Do you have an answer for that?”
Alaric looked past his antagonist to where she stood, lounging in a corner as if none of this mattered to her. “I have no guarantee that everyone will make it out of this alive,” he said. “But I’ve already risked my life repeatedly to get us to this point, and you should remember that my friends and I will be in more danger than anyone. I’m willing to risk death for the sake of Sassaven freedom. I hope it matters enough to my people that they’re willing to do the same.”
Brigit’s eyes narrowed, but she said nothing. Alaric returned his attention to the unicorn staring him down. “I’m not a fool,” he said. “I wouldn’t ask this of you—of all of the Sassaven—if I didn’t believe it would work. But we can’t do this without you.”
The man continued to glare at Alaric for a moment. Then he took a step back. “It’s a risk,” he said, “and I’m taking your word for it that the boy is capable, Ellard.”
“He is,” Ellard said.
Silence fell as all the Barholt elders turned to Lothar. “We need complete agreement on this,” he said, “or it won’t work. Does anyone still have an objection?”
“Are you sure the people will respond? We haven’t had to use the emergency passphrase since I was a child,” said Freda.
“The names of Harvalt and Audny represent the promise of freedom,” Lothar said. “Invoking them will tell the people this is serious.”
Freda nodded. “Then I’m in.”
The others all nodded or murmured assent. Sienne realized she’d been holding her breath and let it out slowly so as not to draw attention to herself. “Alaric, what is your plan?” Lothar said.
“Am I right that you are each responsible for a portion of the citizenry?” Alaric asked. When they nodded, he went on, “Then you’ll each gather those people to wherever your predesignated location is, and tell them it’s time to rise up against the wizard.” He took a deep breath. “And here’s what I want them to do.”
21
Sienne stood concealed between two of the low thatch-roofed cottages at the edge of the plain surrounding the tower with Alaric’s heavy hand resting on her shoulder. The black sky shaded to gray in the east, and the stars there had faded. “Be careful,” Alaric said. “You could still be caught.”
“Everything depends on this,” Sienne said. She put her arms around his waist and buried her face in his warm chest. “I’ll be fine.”
He returned her embrace before kissing her lightly and letting her go. “If you’re caught, make a racket so we’ll know to come charging to the rescue.”
“Of course.” Neither of them had to say if Kyros did the catching, she might not be allowed to make any noise at all.
She stepped away from him and cast, first vanish, then float. Viveka gasped when Sienne disappeared, but said nothing else. She’d been silent the whole way from Lothar’s house to this watch point. It wasn’t as if there were anything to say, but Sienne wished perversely that the woman would throw a screaming fit, or attack Sienne, anything to show a normal reaction to finding out the man she loved was in love with someone else. That could wait until later.
“I’ll be back in fifteen minutes,” she said, and took a couple of running steps out of their hiding place, rising higher with every step. Float was nearly as good as flying, or so she guessed; she’d never had fly cast on her, but this sailing, swooping motion through the air took her breath away and left her feeling exhilarated and utterly free. She pushed off the hard earth again and gauged the distance to the wall. She’d aimed at the northeast side, midway between the gate and the corner tower, and one more leap should put her…there.
She sailed over the wall with nearly a foot to spare and touched down lightly, rebounding off the ground without giving herself an extra push so she’d decelerate quickly. Even so, her final step caromed her gently into the tower wall, where she clung, heart racing, and listened madly for any sound that someone had noticed. Nothing moved. Distantly she heard the guards on the towers shouting to each other, but the sound lacked the urgency that would mean the Sassaven assault had begun.
She inched down the wall and walked at a fast shuffle to the tower door, careful not to bounce. The solid black iron was as intimidating as ever. This was the dangerous part, getting inside without drawing attention. Even the most stolid, unimaginative Niskanen warrior would wonder at the door opening seemingly by itself. More Niskanen filled the space between the tower and the wall, crossing the ground in pairs or groups of three, some of them entering or leaving the tower at unpredictable intervals. She hugged the wall next to the door, and the next time it opened, she gave the Niskanen time to exit, then slipped inside.
The room smelled even more strongly of mildew than she remembered. Probably she’d been too terrified the first time to pay attention. This time, it was lit by torches that flickered in the breeze caused by the opening door. She’d been right; the room was full of cast-off furniture, tables and chairs and a sheet-draped vertical oblong that was probably a mirror. Why Kyros would fill the base of his tower with such prosaic things, she couldn’t guess. From what she could see, the room filled the entire base of the tower, and the junk crowding it made that space cramped rather than expansive. Sienne almost felt claustrophobic.
She swiftly set about memorizing the space for transport. The clutter made the job easier, defining the unique space well, but she felt twitchy the whole time, half her attention on the door so she could get out of the way if anyone came through the door or used the walkstone. She let the space fill her, concentrated on the relation of sofa to table to mirror until her awareness snapped into place around her. She stood for a moment breathing in the smelly air and relaxing her tense shoulders. Then she concentrated on jaunt, and with a jerk, she was back in the alley between houses.
The others all stood where they could clearly see the wall, their backs to Sienne. “—almost time,” Perrin said. Sienne dismissed float and caught herself as she dropped an inch to stand on the ground. “I’m back,” she said as she dismissed vanish. Everyone turned, startled. She smiled and said, “We’re all set. We just need a distraction.”
“I was just saying it is nearly time for that,” Perrin said. “I wish to give us the language blessing before that happens. It may not matter, as I believe it lasts for twenty-four hours, but I choose not to risk it.”
“I agree,” Alaric said. “But hurry.”
Perrin held up the blessing and murmured an invocation. A sharp pain stabbed through Sienne’s head and was gone with the last of the pink flames surrounding Perrin’s hand. They matched the rosy streaks touching the eastern sky, setting the shadowy mountains into stark relief.
