The Wizard's Chalice, page 30
part #2 of Gags & Pepper: Protection Agents Series
“We’ll have to talk about pursuing Nestus Deliry,” Gags said. “I think he hid the Chalices before I could confront him. The sack wasn’t on his horse when I saw it last.”
“Plenty of time for that, and I’m sure he was able to retrieve them,” Lucian said. “The healer said one more day before we can leave, but you’ll need a day cramming food into that maw of yours before you can travel. There wasn’t anything left in reserve when you fainted this time.”
When they left Plainsview, Gags rode with Soxus on the supply wagon. He had lost his personal things but kept his staff, his sword, and his original boot knife. The ancient dagger had saved the lives that Nestus Deliry thought to throw away during his successful getaway. Gags thought Nestus took a significant risk since Gags could escape his first attack of the lighting motes, but the wizard proved luckier than Gags.
Pophius spent a few hours at the guard office in Plainsview before they left and had the officer who Gags had saved send letters to various contacts in southern Peria. Someone else would take the investigation on, Pophius had said, but he told Gags to be prepared to be interrogated at some point after he arrived at Yearsend Vale.
They drove into Deliry’s burnt-out manor. The drive had dark streaks where Lucian, Pophius, and Soxus triggered Deliry’s traps.
The burnt tower wasn’t even a story high. The rest of the manor was a smoking ruin. The team spent a few minutes staring at the devastation.
“I’m glad it burned down,” Soxus said. “At least we made things hot for Nestus Deliry.”
“And hot for the both of us, eh?” Gags said with a smile. “He lost his position, his property, the use of his shoulder, I hope for a long while, but he still has the chalices, as dented as they might be.”
“And you have your wizard’s chalice. His five against yours. Will that be a good match in the future?” Soxus asked.
“He called it a master chalice, but I like the wizard’s name better.” Gags sucked in his breath before continuing. “We must find out how to defend against the lightning motes.”
“But Deliry made off with them. Didn’t you put your rubbings in your saddlebag?”
“When we made a secure place for the wizard’s chalice, I hid the rubbings with them,” Gags said. “Who knows what might have happened when I took that trail to the manor.”
“But what if Deliry would have found that hiding place when he attacked He Bin and Lady Patricia?” Soxus asked.
“Deliry wasn’t the only one with a little luck,” Gags said. “Now we can return to Yearsend, and hopefully, the children will be there.”
Soxus shook his head. “You really think they will be there? Give an urchin a penny and watch them spend it within five minutes.”
Gags didn’t respond and turned the wagon around to follow the rest of the team back up the drive when two uniformed riders arrived on foam-flecked mounts. The team gathered at the back of the boxwagon.
“Lord Quilius is under attack in Fetishing! He requests your assistance if you are still alive,” one of the men said.
“We appear to be still alive,” Lucian said.
“Who is attacking him?” Pophius asked.
“Nestus Deliry has returned.” The two riders stared at the wizard’s manor. “You defeated him?”
“Not defeated,” Gags said. “As you said, the wizard is threatening Fetishing.”
“He has collected more of his black-uniformed guards. Lord Quilius doesn’t have the magicians to stay safe for long,” a Fetishing guard said. “He fears Nestus Deliry is planning something awful.”
“Then we will help him,” Pophius said to the guard. “Take the wagon and the boxwagon back to Fetishing. We will move faster without them.”
The guards looked at each other and looked relieved. Gags guessed it wasn’t a fair fight about to erupt in their city, but if the Fetishing guards were outnumbered, how could the team help?
“If you said yes, Lord Quilius wanted you to read this.” One guard pulled a sealed letter from his coat and handed it to Pophius.
“There is gold at the end of the battle,” Pophius said. He looked at the others. “I don’t like leaving Nestus Deliry to do his nasty business. My recommendation is to head east. Gags?”
“Losing to Nestus was a bitter pill, but since we no longer have the dagger, we must find a way to defeat Deliry’s lightning motes. However, no one will have to go looking for him. The fool has announced his location.”
“We can talk of it while we travel,” Patricia said. “If he was able to create a shield, we should.”
“Are we wizards?” Pepper asked.
“You certainly aren’t,” Lucian said with a laugh.
Pepper blushed. “I have other talents,” he said defensively.
“And we have used them,” Gags said. “Perhaps we will need you in Fetishing. We need to be off.”
~
Gags didn’t trust the two guards to protect the wizard’s chalice, so he wrapped it up and put it in the stewpot the team carried with them. The rubbings, he slipped into a pocket in one of his saddlebags. Gags didn’t like them exposed, but that was the best solution he could think of.
They made much better time without the wagons and changed horses in a village they hadn’t stopped at before. Gags stopped at a shop that mainly sold hunting weapons and bought all the handheld crossbow bolts the shopkeeper had. Pebbles and rocks weren’t lethal enough for the wizard.
Gags wandered out after a big dinner and thought about Deliry’s lightning motes. Finding a defense would be easier if he understood the spell better. He walked away from the inn and sat on a big rock, looking out onto the dirt road.
Thinking of sparks from fire and lightning bolts, he tried to recreate the effect, but the visualization produced nothing when he applied his power. He plucked a dandelion from a cluster of the weeds growing close to the rock and blew the seeds off, watching them flitter to the ground. Gags grinned and did it again.
This time he thought of a volcano shooting the sparks among lighting strikes from the sky. Volcanos and tornadoes were Gag’s expertise. He took a deep breath and visualized a spinning volcano rising from the road, and then the visualized sparks erupted from the center.
Gags beheld his creation shooting lightning motes from the imaginary volcano. The motes looked the same as Deliry’s, and he played at controlling the density. Gags figured he could make a trap of the things if he learned how to make wards, but he never had. No one on the team could.
“What are you doing?” The voice made Gags jump.
“Shouldn’t you be with Pepper?” Gags said.
Patricia pursed her lips. “There are few ‘shoulds’ in my life,” she said. “I should return to Basheer, although I don’t want to. I am with Pepper because I want to be with Pepper. Right now, I’m more interested in you.”
“We don’t have a relationship,” Gags said.
“I don’t want a relationship. I want to know what you are doing. You knew how to make the sparkles?” Patricia asked.
Gags shook his head. “You saw me trying. I am good at figuring out visualizations, so I wanted to see if I could mimic Deliry’s chief weapon.”
“Doesn’t a magical shield work?” Patricia asked. “The wizard has struck people without them. Soxus said that all you had to protect you were his spelled sword and your staff.”
“A real magical shield?” Gags asked. He looked at Patricia with surprise that the woman had made such an important observation. “Shall we try it?”
“A shield?”
Gags nodded. “Let me make sure I can control the sparks.” He made three volcanos in succession, and when the volcano didn’t stop erupting immediately, he tacked a stop command on the visualization. “There. Try it. Call out if you need me to stop.”
Patricia created her shield and walked into the volcano spell. The wind whipped her dress as she walked through the invisible tornado, but the sparks didn’t affect her. She held out her hands, showing Gags no ill effects after she walked through the cloud of lightning motes.
“Could you get the others while I practice the spell? Bring Soxus, Pepper, or both. We need to see if someone has a large enough shield to protect him. Soxus said he doesn’t do shields,” Gags said.
He worked on his spell while Patricia gathered the others. He could eliminate the whirlwind effect, and Gags was sure that had also reduced the drain on his energy.
Everyone returned as a group.
“Patricia will demonstrate,” Gags said. He spelled the volcano, and her shield worked again.
“Again,” Patricia said, taking Pepper’s hand. “Stay close, and don’t let go of my hand.”
The shield Patricia created protected Pepper, and everyone clapped until Pepper took his hand from Patricia’s to bow before he exited the cloud. He gasped and tried to swat the sparks away. Patricia hugged Pepper immediately, and the sparks were repelled, even the ones he had breathed in.
“That was instructive,” Pophius said.
“At my expense,” Pepper said with a rough voice.
“You learned something, too,” Gags said. “Don’t celebrate in the midst of danger.”
Pepper screwed up his face. “A painful lesson.”
“So don’t forget it,” He Bin said as he was next. His shield let in a few of the sparks, but he could walk from one side to the other of the mote cloud.
Lucian had no trouble and took Soxus’s hand. “Don’t worry, I won’t hug you,” Lucian said with a grin. “That is Patricia’s technique, and she had to have thought quickly to save our friend, Pepper.”
Pophius created an impervious shield, but he couldn’t get his to lend protection to another.
“Soxus will work with Lucian, and Pepper will be Patricia’s physical protector,” Pophius said. He turned to Gags. “We don’t know about you, but other than losing power quickly, your shield is as good as anyone's. You obviously can’t rely on He Bin’s weapons spell to protect you against the motes. I am still amazed at how quickly you can figure out a spell.”
“I won’t use my staff,” Gags said. As for learning spells, he still had no idea how to transform Miria back into a woman. Gags looked up. “I’m going to have a few more snacks tonight. We enter Fetishing tomorrow night?”
“We do. I suggest everyone get to bed early so we can leave early,” Pophius said. “I’ve already arranged for our breakfast at dawn.”
Gag laid down on his bed. Pepper hadn’t arrived to share his room, so Gags stared at the ceiling. He seemed so far from Dixoia and being able to search for Miria himself. He almost regretted taking on so much responsibility, but he felt he was making progress on a personal front if it wasn’t for Miria.
He raised his burned hand. The skin was tender, but the pain faded while Gags practiced his magic. The pain was returning, and his grip weakened. He had bought another pair of gloves just as the general shop in the village was closing down. Gags wouldn’t have thought a gloved hand would be so exposed.
If it weren’t for his fighting with Deliry, the Plainsview people wouldn’t have been so exposed to danger, but Gags didn’t suffer guilt for the deaths and injuries the way others might. His years on Atto had cured him of that. He still felt terrible for the victims and their families and wouldn’t hesitate to end Nestus Deliry’s life just for that callous act.
Pepper slipped through the door.
“I’m still awake,” Gags said.
“Oh. You’ve made Patricia happy,” Pepper said. “She felt bad she didn’t get to fight against her father’s killer.”
“She’ll get the opportunity this time, and so will you,” Gags said. “Get some sleep. We may fight at the end of a day of travel, and nothing but our best will do.”
“My best isn’t as good as your best,” Pepper said.
“That may be, but we work as a team, and we all have a part. You have already made contributions impossible for me.” Gags turned over and didn’t respond to Pepper until the dim light of early dawn woke him up.
Pepper snored across the room. Gags shook his friend awake and endured a fit of complaining until Pepper was fully awake. They were already dressed when Pophius softly knocked on the door.
“Good,” Pophius said when Gags opened the door, ready to go. “Let’s eat and discuss some strategies. We have no idea what Fetishing will be like when we arrive.”
Gags had plenty to eat at breakfast since Pophius had the innkeeper serve it all in big bowls so everyone could take what they wanted. Gags still had plenty of room after an evening of practicing the lightning mote spell.
Chapter Forty
~
D usk hadn’t quite darkened the sky when they reached the western side of Fetishing. They stopped for a cold meal before entering the city, letting travelers from the west pass them.
“Patricia, Pepper, and Soxus will enter from the west,” Pophius said, reviewing what they had settled on at breakfast and continued to discuss during the long day of travel. “He Bin, Lucian, and I will enter through the northern gate, and Gags will be a solitary traveler entering from the south. We will assemble close to the inn Lucian, He Bin, and I stayed when we first arrived.”
“I don’t know where it is,” Pepper said.
“I’ve been there, so you don’t have to know,” Soxus said with a smile.
“Keep your eyes open and ask discreet questions where you can. We don’t have enough information to decide our next step,” Pophius said. “By the time you make it to the inn, we should know more. If any of us are captured, those left will continue to pursue Nestus Deliry.”
Gags nodded. “I’ll be going,” Gags said before he mounted and headed south on the lane that circled the city. He had the longest to travel.
What would he do if he didn’t connect with the others? Gags thought. Pophius gave Gags a small mission to complete by himself, but Gags was used to that on Atto. Everyone understood that if they were caught, the team's prime focus was Nestus Deliry.
He wished he had something flashier to fight Deliry with. A volcano shooting the sparks that were impervious to shields would be impressive, but then if Gags was drawn into the maelstrom, he wouldn’t have any defense. The sparks had just about killed him before, and he knew he didn’t want to face the same situation.
Gags picked up the pace and eventually found the crossroad that led east to the southern gate. He had passed through the same entrance for the third time. The trip from Sheerport seemed like months ago, but it had only been weeks.
More people were heading into the city, with fewer coming out on the road to Sheerport. He eased into the line of travelers just behind a tall carriage, hoping he wouldn’t look so tall on horseback. None of them knew if Deliry had taken over Quilius’s guards by now.
Entering Fetishing didn’t produce any drama. He kept going as the guards shuffled them past as the darkening twilight was relieved by torches on both sides of the gate. The gates would close an hour after nightfall when he would be more noticeable to enter. Gags hoped the others had the same ease in entering.
Gags didn’t wait long to turn right off the main road and weave through the derelict structures in various stages of falling or having been torn down for their building materials, but the city didn’t look as forlorn in the darkness as it did during the day.
Pophius gave Gags a different assignment than talking to the locals. He was tasked with riding past the sorcerers’ original headquarters. Gags always had a good sense of direction, and before being forced to use his night sight, he entered the street not far from his target building.
He found an abandoned inn, dragged the partially closed gate open, and secured his horse at a watering trough with a working pump. Gags tested the pump, and the water smelled clean enough before he put enough in for the horse.
He stuffed his bag and pockets with crossbow bolts and gnawed on the bread he had taken with him after their evening meal. The building was two blocks away, and Gags walked through the dark, abandoned streets. No wonder the wizard had chosen this neighborhood for his sorcerers. He guessed the sorcerers lived not far from the building, so he clung to the deeper shadows as he walked across the street from the entrance and waited for more than an hour.
A sorcerer walked through the entrance, lit by two magic torches on either side, illuminating the street in front of the headquarters. More sorcerers were converging on the center. Gags withdrew and ran back half a block before darting across the street and entering the alley that ran along the back of the building when he last visited. The gate into the back of the headquarters was lit by a small magic light and a single guard.
If Gags was intent on invading the building, the guard wouldn’t have been a problem, but he didn’t want to set off an alarm before they knew where the wizard was in all of this. He waited patiently for at least an hour before he had to slide farther into the darkness as he heard steps behind him. Two sorcerers walked up the alley behind him and began to talk to the guard. He airwalked closer to hear.
“Time to go inside,” they said to the guard. “You don’t want to miss out on the orders.”
The three sorcerers pushed through the gate and entered the building through the back door. Gags was tempted to enter as well, but there were open windows where he could listen. He backed up into the darkness and looked through the window, counting eighteen sorcerers before he put his back to the wall.
After a call to order by a female, a male sorcerer spoke. “We will take over the palace in about two hours. The maps being passed out show your assigned entry points. Some guards have agreed to let you in, but do not let that make you spare them. Every person in the castle that isn’t wearing black is to be killed, including lords, ladies, children, and especially Quilius Oleander. There are a few magician-lords who are on our side. Spare them if they are dressed in black, for they have agreed to join us.”
“Do we all enter simultaneously?” a sorcerer asked.
“Wizard Deliry will send an orange bolt of lightning into the sky close to the front palace gates. When you see it, go into action. No one will know that we are attacking, so everything should be easy,” the male sorcerer said. “Now is the time to get something to eat and show up close to your entry points in two hours. That is all.”
