A Dragon From the Desert, page 18
“That the best you can do, Northman,” Todd asked. His voice was guttural with rage and hate. “My granny hit harder.”
“Thought we dancing.” Ghoran flipped his hand over and beckoned towards himself with all four fingers in the classic come-on sign of brawlers the world over. “If fight you want, fight you get. No blame me you get hurt.”
Todd moved with surprising speed for a man of his size. It was the spring of a wild beast. The weight of impact seemed to push Ghoran over and for a moment I feared for his life. Somehow though the Northman’s foot had got under Todd’s belly and, using the bigger man’s momentum, he threw him clear to land badly on his back. Ghoran rolled to his feet. Todd lay on the ground gasping. After a few moments he pulled himself up.
“I am going to kill you slowly, Northlander,” he said. You could tell from his tone he meant it.
“You serious?” Ghoran asked. “You want fight to death? You that stupid?”
Every man there heard the chill menace in Ghoran’s voice. Death radiated from him. I did not doubt that he would kill Todd if it came to it.
Todd felt it too. His eyes suddenly had the look of a trapped beast. He wanted to hurt Ghoran, but he was afraid now, and I don’t think he knew quite why. He also could not back down without losing face in front of every man present.
“I am going to kill you, Northlander.” He repeated the words very slowly as if he was trying to convince himself.
“Nobody is going to kill anybody,” said a calm authoritative voice. I looked around and saw the tall figure of Spider. “Your both going to be too busy marching with rocks in your packs.”
Ghoran’s face became bland. Todd actually looked relieved. Spider glared at every man present. “I don’t mind a little brawling. It relieves the tension. But no man in this company threatens another. Todd, I hear another word from your mouth about killing a brother and you’re out and I don’t care who your master is. Now the pair of you shake hands and go your separate ways.”
Spider in his own way was just as menacing as Ghoran. The Northlander grinned and stuck out his hand. For a moment I feared Todd would take the opportunity to strike him. I could virtually see the thought working its way across his low brow.
In the end, the two of them locked grips. Todd’s hand tightened as if he was trying to crush Ghoran’s fingers. The Northlander just smiled. As he had smiled when he had threatened to kill the man without saying the words and everyone had believed him.
I noticed Vorster standing behind the sergeant, looking for an excuse to intervene. His gaze shot from Ghoran to me then back to the Northlander. He gave a disgusted look to Todd who gazed upon his master with a beaten dog look and then he walked away. I knew the nobleman was not going to forget what had happened here.
After all the excitement the circle broke up with men speculating what might have happened if the sergeant had not intervened.
I walked over to Ghoran. As I approached, I heard Jay say, “You had better watch your back. Todd and his friends hold grudges.”
“I not scared,” Ghoran said.
“I believe that,” said Jay. “More fool you."
They both noticed me approaching. I looked up at Ghoran and said, “Thank you.”
“What for thanks?”
“You saved me from Todd. That’s twice. I won’t forget that.”
He grinned. “Just make sure your mistress no forget it and we both be happy.”
He laughed like a man who had not a care in the world. Once more he seemed like an ordinary, friendly young man but I could not forget the glimpse I had caught of the other Ghoran, the deadly one. I knew it would be better to have him as my friend than my enemy.
Red danced around in the sand, little wings flapping, as if trying to take flight.
Chapter Twenty-One
Not long afterwards I clambered onto the wagon. The company prepared to move out. The scouts had already departed. The riders were mounted, the marching infantry were drawn up in companies and ready to go. Spider gave Mistress Iliana the nod. She tapped on the drum and its steady beat rolled out. The soldiers began to march.
“What was all the fuss about?” she asked once I had guided the wagon down onto the road. I told her what had happened. She did not seem displeased by my account.
“It’s good that they got to blow off a little steam,” she said. “It will help after yesterday.”
“What do you mean, mistress?” Ahead of us the road rose towards distant mountains. Briefly, I wondered how long it was going to take us to get to our eventual destination, but other things were pressing on my mind.
“You saw it as well as I. The men resent what I did. No one likes to be made to feel useless, even by someone protecting their lives.”
“They were not useless,” I said, thinking about the way both Todd and Ghoran had fought. They were both hard, dangerous men, much more so than I.
“I did not say they were. I said they felt it. And that can be a bad thing to the likes of you and me.”
“In what way? You think they would turn on you? On us?”
“They turned on you, because they could not turn on me.”
I kept my mouth shut. There was no denying that.
“You were merely a proxy for me. It was not personal. Well, not for most of them. Maybe for Todd and Vorster. You are my servant and that makes you my stand-in. For better or worse.”
“I see, mistress,” I said.
“It is bad to cause such resentment. We need the protection of these men if we are to survive.”
I thought of what I had seen, of the way she had destroyed those monsters, of the wards we slept within, of the creature within the drum that watched over us. I had never met anyone less in need of protection than her. I said so.
She took a sip from the flask. I smelled alcohol and herbs. “Everybody must sleep,” she said. “Everybody must eat. Everybody needs someone to watch their back. Even wizards. Most especially wizards.”
I thought about that. She was laying careful stress on each word and it did not think it was because of her drinking.
“I am not immune to a dagger in the back,” she said. “Or a crossbow bolt fired from behind a boulder. Or poison in my food. Or any one of a hundred other ways that death might come.”
“Surely there are spells that can protect you, mistress.”
“There are but I cannot maintain all of them all the time and even if I could it would take all of my strength and all of my time to maintain them. And in no way would such a life be worth living.”
I thought about that. I begin to see what she was getting at. “People need company,” I said.
“People need company,” she agreed and there was such sadness in her voice that I wondered whether that was the real reason she had taken me on as an apprentice and why she was teaching me now. So many people were afraid of her and so many wanted something from her. Didn’t I? Did not Ghoran? And the Holy Sun alone knew how many others. “Wizards need allies.”
“Allies, mistress?”
“The thing you must realise is that we are few, very few, and they are many, very many. For every wizard there is perhaps ten thousand mundani, perhaps more. We must live among them and many of them hate us. Not all. Not even the majority, most likely. But a significant fraction and those odds being what they are, we will always be in danger.”
She paused. I sensed her burning gaze upon me. I felt the serpent of fire stir within its cage as if its mistress’s mood had upset it. I thought about her murdered apprentices. I thought about the way Vorster and Todd hated me for no reason. I could see that there was something to what she was saying. I thought about the witch I had seen burned. I tried to imagine a mob doing the same to Mistress Iliana, but I could not. Her blazing spells would have routed any crowd, no matter how enraged.
“You do not believe me,” she said.
“I have seen your power.”
“And I have told you it is not inexhaustible. We need allies. We need to find a place in the world. We need friends.”
I thought about that for a moment. “Surely it would make sense to make those friends among other wizards.”
“It would and it does, but it makes just as much sense to have friends among the mundani and if not friends, allies.”
I thought about Ghoran and Jay and Ruth. “Yes. I see that.”
“You had better. Someday your life may depend on it.”
“I am among the company now,” I said. “I am with you.”
And even as the words left my mouth I wondered if this whole conversation had been aimed at getting me to admit that one thing. Was there a brief smirk of triumph on her face?
“Yes, you are, but as you can see, even within the company there are those who would do you harm, and they do not even know what you are yet. They merely resent you for your association with me.”
I could see there was a lot to learn about being a wizard and perhaps most of it had nothing to do with casting spells.
Her face looked a little softer. “You will not always be with me, and you will need to find a place. Most wizards do. Some serve the church.” Something in her tone told me that she did not consider that a particularly good option. “Others serve powerful nobles or merchants. Or they serve in mercenary companies.”
“But they serve,” I said and my distaste for that idea showed in my voice. Magic had made me dream of being free of all shackles. Now she was telling me it merely imposed another set.
“They serve. Almost everyone in our world does. Even the nobles. They serve their feudal overlords. Even the kings, in theory, answer to the Holy Sun and to their people.”
That in theory told me exactly what she thought on the subject.
“What about the Shadow Kingdoms,” I said. “Wizards rule there?”
She looked as if she was considering striking me. She took a deep breath and said, “Never say that out loud again. Not even to me. If someone hears you, nothing will protect you. There are those whom even wizards fear.”
The way she said it was convincing, but I was young and I was sullen. “Like who?”
“Like the Order of the Dawn. Like the Reapers of Souls. Like the Claws of the Red Council. Like many others. The mundani have found ways of dealing with our kind, just as we have had to find ways of dealing with them.”
Once again, I felt a vast abyss yawning at me feet. Her statement had created a score of other questions in my mind, and I did not know where to begin asking them. I started with the most obvious.
“Who are they really, mistress? The Order of the Dawn, you mentioned them before.”
“The Order of the Dawn are a sect of knights sworn to the service of the Holy Sun. They have chapter houses across the Sunlands. They have thousands of soldiers armed and equipped to deal with mages and monsters. They have mages in their service and other things too. Creatures inhuman and possessed of ancient terrible knowledge.”
“Monsters and mages,” I said. I was not really surprised that she had mentioned the two in the same breath. After all a few scant days ago, I would have done the same thing myself. But then I had not thought of myself as a mage, and I did not think of myself as a monster.
“The worst are the guardians. Warriors trained to hunt and kill Old Ones, armed with swords that can slay even immortals and amulets which disrupt magic. In olden times, the Order kept to its mandate which was to protect humanity from the Old Ones. These days it serves the highest bidder.”
I thought about that. With every sentence she spoke I realised I had much to learn about the world in which I lived, and she could teach me. She had survived for decades amid all these dangers I knew nothing about.
“The Reapers of Souls?” I asked. The name sounded ominous enough already.
“A sect of assassins who serve the Courts of the Moon. They are mages themselves and that makes them doubly dangerous. The Old Ones send them to remove those who threaten their dominions. They lend their services to others in return for favours.”
She saw how intently I was taking all this in. “These are the most dangerous and remote threats you might have to face. If you do not draw the wrong sort of attention to yourself, you will never encounter any of them. If you do, my advice would be to flee as fast and as far as you can. There are other things much closer to hand and I would advise you to pay most attention to them.”
Before she could continue, I said, “The wrong sort of attention?”
“Killing people, enslaving people, casting dark magic, summoning dark things. It should be easy enough to understand. You have listened to the priests.”
“You kill people,” I said. I had not seen her do it. I had only seen her kill monsters and surely the Church would sanction that. But she served in a company of warriors. It seemed only logical she would kill others for pay. It was what they did after all.
She smiled at that. “Yes. But I am a war wizard.”
“What’s that?” I said.
“I am recognised by the Church and the Nobles as a military mage.”
I was even more curious now. “How does that work?”
“It dates to the time when all of the noble houses wanted to be able to employ wizards the way the Church did. They wanted access to the same power. They had the money and the strength to get such charters recognised by the Church.”
“There was a time when only the Church had wizards?”
“Once they had a monopoly on the Power. Their wizards were called templars, priests of light, healers, many such things. They still are. Any child found with a trace of power was held to belong either to the Light or the Shadow. If they belonged to the Light, they went to a monastic brotherhood to be trained. If they belonged to the Shadow, they were burned.”
“How could they tell which were which?”
Her cynical smile told me the answer before she spoke. “The ones who went willingly to the brotherhoods belonged to the Light. Those who refused belonged to the Shadow.”
“Surely there are spell that can detect the taint of Shadow,” I said. “You have practically told me as much yourself.”
“There are indeed. Such spells were administered by the brotherhoods, at the monasteries. If you refused to go, why obviously the Shadow was in your heart…”
“You do not sound as if you believe that?”
“How observant you are. Let us just say it was a system open to abuse. It still is. There are many nations across the Dragon Sea where it is still in force in some shape or form.”
“Why is it not here?”
“Because this is a land at war and the Church has not always been strong here, and in their wars with the Shadow Princes and the Children of the Moon, the Sunlander nobles often have had need of mages. The Church then, like the Church now, would rather see this land under Sunlander control than not. They licensed the use of mages, originally trained by them, to the noble houses. Since then, things have evolved, as they often do.”
I looked at her. I saw a flaw in what she was saying. “You say the Church claimed all mages belonged to them, but what about those who simply were not found by representatives of the Church. Surely they could not all live where they could be found or tested.”
She nodded. “Some managed to teach themselves and survive. Many others went mad or fell to the Shadow or were devoured by demons. You see the Church has a point. That is why to this day a wizard can still be called before the inquisition and be tested for the stigmata of evil.”
Again, her sour tone told me that she did not approve of this. I suspected she had some personal reason for her feelings, but I was more concerned with my own hide and the possibility of being called before the questioners of the Church. I had seen one at work once, at the witch-burning. It had been disturbing even when I did not feel the possibility of having to face the question myself.
“It is a system that can be abused,” she said. “I have seen it happen.”
“To who?”
“That is not important now. Someday I will tell you. All you need to know is that you should avoid giving anyone reason to bring you before the inquisition. It can be made to end badly if you have the wrong sort of enemies.”
“I have no enemies,” I said. Even then it was a lie. I thought about Vorster. He was a nobleman. His family had influence. He could if he wished have exactly this thing done to me. Perhaps he could have it done to Mistress Iliana which is why she made no move to stop his persecution of me.
“You will,” she said. “They come to us all.”
I thought about her murdered apprentices and the sorcerer in scarlet and black. Yes, she knew what she was talking about.
“What about the Moonlands,” I said. “Is there an Inquisition there too?”
“No. In the Moonlands wizards are made much of. They are second only to the Old Ones themselves – as long as they serve the Old Ones.”
I saw a pattern emerging. “It seems that everywhere we must serve,” I said.
“Mostly that is true. That is why you must be careful when you use magic.”
There it was again, the stress on being careful. I thought about her flamboyant use of the power, her drinking. She did not seem careful.
“It was not always this way,” I said. “The Solari Emperors were all wizards.”
“And all saints,” she said. “I can see you paid attention when the priests read the Testaments.”
I thought about the long Sunsday sermons. The smell of incense in the Church, the quiet voice of Frater Tobias from the Lectern, speaking of the glory of the Holy Sun and reciting tales from the scriptures that always made a moral point.
It seems strange now but at the time they represented one of the few breaks I ever got from the life of a goatherd on a farm. The stories conjured up far times and other days. They were full of miracles and battles and monsters and demons. They made simple points in ways even peasants could understand. They were dramatic. They told us how the Holy Sun and his prophets wanted us to be. The only things I had to compare with them were my father’s stories of his times in the war and those were different, more realistic, less strange, sometimes with no real point at all. It took me a long time to realise that the stories of most people’s lives are like that and most stories contain the morals we give them.
