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  Call of Wizardry

  Company of Strangers, Book 6

  Melissa McShane

  Copyright © 2020 by Melissa McShane

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Map by Oscar Paludi

  This book, and the Company of Strangers series, is dedicated to all role-playing gamers everywhere who ever said the words “Let me tell you what my character did.”

  This is our story.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Sienne’s Spellbook

  Afterword

  About the Author

  1

  The familiar brown brick of the three-story houses along the gently sloping street welcomed Sienne home. It was early evening, when the cool breezes off the harbor blew away the heat of the true summer day, and the long, slanting rays of the setting sun pointed the way to Master Tersus’s back door. Their warmth soothed Sienne’s aching back, sore from her having lain propped on her elbows for ten hours on her flying carpet.

  She could have ferried herself and her companions back instantaneously, but the joy of flying had captivated her enough that she didn’t want to give it up, regardless of the pain. And it was far superior to riding. Ten hours on horseback would have been painful in a different way. It also would not have gotten them nearly so far. They’d made the entire journey from Chirantan in Omeira to Fioretti in that ten hours—a journey of more than a week by ship or twice that overland by horse. Sienne rubbed her lower back. Such lightning travel was worth a little pain.

  “Are you all right?” Alaric asked. He walked beside her, toting both their rolled-up carpets. They weighed practically nothing because they floated whether they were rolled or flat, but they looked heavy, and Alaric had pointed out that no one would believe someone her size could carry a carpet that big.

  “Just sore,” Sienne said. “Aren’t you?”

  “A little stiff. Next time, we should take more rests.”

  “I concur heartily with this decision,” Perrin said from behind them. He sounded so relieved Sienne pinched her lips against a smile. Perrin hated heights more than she did, and he’d looked so chagrined that morning when Alaric declared they would fly home Sienne could guess how he felt.

  “We might not need to, if Sienne can find transport,” Dianthe said. “Kitane’s eyes, but I’m hungry.”

  “If we have luck, Leofus has supper still,” Kalanath said. He sounded as fresh and unwearied as he had when they’d said goodbye to his parents that morning.

  “Let’s not count on it,” Alaric said. “Sienne, will you get the door?”

  Sienne hurried ahead to open Master Tersus’s back door, then stood aside for the others to enter with their awkward burdens. She paused for a moment when they’d all passed her to look out over the street that sloped downhill before her. It smelled of dozens of different evening meals that blended together into the scent of hot meat and salt potatoes and, from somewhere nearby, a hint of chocolate. That might be Leofus’s cooking. He’d been experimenting with the unusual southern delicacy when they left.

  The warm evening light turned the paving stones more golden than usual, burnishing them to a bright radiance. Sienne heard laughter from across the street where one of the neighbors was having a party, judging by the extra lanterns strung around his front door and leading around the side of the house. She breathed in a sigh of contentment. Home. They were all safe, no one had died in Omeira, and their quest was all but complete now that Alaric was a full Sassaven unicorn, and she…

  She closed the door and went into the bath house to wash her face. The carpets’ magic included an invisible shield that protected their riders’ faces from wind blasting them at gale force speeds, but Sienne still felt grimy. Dozens of invulnerable magic lights shed a cold white light over the sink and the pump and the porcelain tub for a rather more thorough cleaning. The whitewashed walls peeled at the corners from the damp, making Sienne itch to pull strips off the walls.

  She scrubbed and splashed herself clean, then dried off with the cloth hanging from the wall. Then she used a small magic to heat the water the cloth absorbed, making it evaporate and drying the cloth. Three days ago she wouldn’t have bothered because it took her so much time. Now she did it in seconds. Just another way in which she’d been altered by the ritual that had changed Alaric. It exhilarated and unnerved her.

  It had been an accident. The ritual had been intended only to unlock Alaric’s full potential. They hadn’t realized it worked both ways, affecting the one performing the ritual as well as the one undergoing it. Now Sienne no longer needed a spellbook to cast spells, and her magical reserves had increased so dramatically she didn’t know what they were anymore, and her so-called small magics were enormous by comparison to what they’d been. She felt like a stranger to herself, and she felt more complete than she’d ever felt before. Strange contrasts. If she looked in a mirror and found her hair had gone as blonde as Alaric’s, she wouldn’t be surprised.

  The door opened. “Looks like we had the same idea,” Alaric said, entering the room. Sienne stepped back to give him room at the sink. “Leofus is putting a meal together for us. Complaining noisily the whole time, of course, but if he weren’t glad to see us, he wouldn’t do it at all.”

  “I didn’t realize how much I missed home until we got back.” Sienne thought about leaning against the wall, but remembered in time how damp it always was.

  “Me too. I’ll be glad to sleep in our own comfortable bed.” He held out a hand for the cloth, and Sienne tossed it at him with her small magic called invisible fingers. He dried off and tossed it back to her, and once again she dried it, marveling at how easy it was.

  Alaric reached for her hand and drew her close, putting his arms around her. “On the other hand,” he continued, “we don’t have to sleep.”

  Sienne ran her fingers over his strong chin and the curve of his neck. “I’ve been thinking about a back rub since we left the Bramantus Mountains behind.”

  “Mmm. Yours, or mine?”

  “Both, so long as we’re naked for it.” She pulled his head down for a kiss. He smelled deliciously of pine forests and the heady musk of the unicorn, and his lips were firm and warm on hers.

  “I thought you were hungry,” Dianthe said from behind them. Sienne, startled, jerked away from Alaric and was brought up short by his encircling arms. Dianthe smirked. “Dinner’s ready. Though if you want to keep on with what you’re doing, might I suggest the bath house isn’t the best place for it?”

  “Suggest away,” A
laric said, and kissed Sienne once more before letting her go.

  Leofus was still complaining when they entered the kitchen and took their usual seats at the table. “No warning,” he said, “no advance notice at all, it’s like you don’t appreciate my genius, don’t know what you’d do if I just up and refused to wait on you all—”

  “Thank you, Leofus,” Sienne said. “I’m amazed you were able to put together a meal this good without any notice.” The table was covered with remnants of past meals, cold roast chicken and sliced ham and the tag end of a pork roast, hardboiled eggs already peeled, sliced cooked carrots and baked potatoes still in their jackets, sautéed squash emitting aromatic herbed steam, and a tureen of dumplings floating in golden chicken gravy.

  “Don’t take advantage,” Leofus warned, gesturing with his ubiquitous spoon, but he was smiling.

  Sienne sat next to Alaric and heaped her plate high with chicken and squash. “I like Omeiran food, but there’s nothing to beat home cooking,” she said. Leofus beamed.

  “Let’s talk about tomorrow,” Alaric said. “Sienne has to meet with this—what was her name?”

  “Carys Bettega,” Sienne said. “Ghrita said she’s a retired scrapper wizard who might be willing to sell me some spells. A scrapper is likely to have transport, and if I can get that, it will change how we go to Beneddo.”

  “But we are going, correct?” Perrin said. He hadn’t taken large portions of anything, and Sienne noticed he’d only picked at what he had taken.

  “Of course,” Alaric said. “The next step is to make sure your family is still safe, and see what progress Sienne’s brother has made on their problem.”

  Sienne nodded and said, around a mouthful of tender squash, “Alcander will have a plan by now. I’m sure of it.”

  “When I spoke with Cressida this morning, she indicated all was well,” Perrin said, “but I…would like to see for myself.”

  His uncertainty surprised Sienne. Perrin had spoken with his former wife Cressida almost every day since they set off for Omeira, and Sienne had been sure they were working out their differences and moving toward a much desired (on Sienne’s part, at least) reconciliation. Perrin loved Cressida still, and Sienne thought Cressida returned his feelings, so if they could just sit down in the same room for ten minutes and talk things through…but now Perrin sounded doubtful in a way he hadn’t throughout their journey. If he was having second thoughts, Sienne didn’t know what to do.

  Outside, a dog howled, a low, mournful sound like the cry of a lost soul. Leofus groaned and muttered, “Not this again.”

  Alaric turned toward the window. “Again? Has this been going on long?”

  “Four days,” Leofus said, scowling. He held his spoon, dripping with chicken gravy, like a spear. “Howls like the undead every night around this time. Some stray dog, like as not, though it might be someone doesn’t want to lay claim to the beast and get the neighbors in an uproar after him.”

  Alaric looked thoughtful. “Odd. I could swear…” He shook his head. “At any rate, we need to stop in Beneddo sooner rather than later.”

  Dianthe nodded. “We can be on our way day after tomorrow, either by carpet or by transport. Or—I suppose Sienne could use ferry, take us one by one.”

  “We’ll need to travel overland once we reach Ansorja, so I don’t want to leave the carpets behind,” Alaric said. The howl cut across his words, fainter this time as if the dog had run away. “But we have plenty of options for that. At any rate, tomorrow Sienne hunts for spells, the day after that, we go to Beneddo, and then, once we know where things stand with Perrin’s family, we’ll leave for Ansorja.”

  His final words fell like shards of ice into the sudden silence, broken only by the sound of Kalanath steadily eating his way through the last of the roast. Sienne laid down her fork and knife and pushed her plate away. “And then we confront the wizard,” she said. “Are we ready for that?”

  “We still don’t understand how the unbinding should work,” Dianthe said, “and we aren’t sure about whether it makes more sense to try to do that, or just kill the wizard and hope that breaks the binding.”

  “I’m inclined to the latter,” Alaric said. He wiped his mouth with his napkin and dropped it on his empty plate. “Subduing the wizard long enough to perform the unbinding could be dangerous.”

  “But what if the binding persists after his death?” Sienne asked. “That would leave the Sassaven—the adults, anyway—trapped in something they can never break.”

  “We’ll have time in Beneddo to finish working out the details,” Alaric said. “I don’t want us rushing off without a plan. There’s no hurry.”

  “I am glad of this,” Kalanath said. “I do not wish to face this wizard with no plan. It is not what I see.”

  Alaric frowned. “Did you have a vision?”

  “Last night,” Kalanath said, nodding. “But I do not say because I do not understand it. I think about it while we fly.”

  Sienne wasn’t used to her friend being so open about his ability as devesh, the holy child of God, to have prophetic dreams. His time in Omeira, and his growing relationship with the father he never knew, had changed him.

  “I see us flying,” Kalanath went on, “flying like birds, I mean. And we fly over forests and mountains to a tower. It is too tall—no tower is so tall without falling.”

  “That sounds like the wizard’s tower,” Alaric said. “It really is impossibly tall.”

  Kalanath nodded agreement. “We fly, and fly, but the tower’s top is always out of reach. So we fly to the ground and search for an entrance, but there is none. And in my dream I know it is because we must have a plan.”

  “The wizard’s tower is solid stone. No stairs,” Alaric said. “There’s what we call the walkstone in the base. It’s an artifact that transports you to the top. I think I remember how to activate it.”

  “And we have to worry about the Sassaven attacking us,” Dianthe said. “Hard to figure out a strange artifact while a mob is nipping at our heels.”

  Alaric yawned and stretched. “I’m too tired to think about this now. Let’s sleep on it, and discuss it in the morning.”

  Sienne gathered up her plate and Alaric’s and scraped the bones into the scrap bucket. “Thank you again, Leofus,” she said as she handed him the plates.

  “Taking me for granted,” Leofus muttered, but he was smiling.

  Alaric trailed Sienne up the stairs to the third floor. The third floor had once been servants’ quarters, back before Master Tersus had bought the place, and the bedrooms were plain and plainly furnished. Sienne pushed open the door of the room she shared with Alaric and winced at the heat radiating from it. “I wish I’d left the window open a crack before we went to Omeira,” she said.

  She crossed to the window and got it open with some shoving. Cool evening air breezed past her, bringing with it the smell of the distant harbor, brine and hot tar and a hint of cinnamon. She inhaled, closing her eyes. It reminded her of their sea voyage and how beautiful the waves were.

  The bed creaked, and she turned to see Alaric sitting on it, removing his boots. She’d cast fit on the bed weeks ago, enlarging it and its bedding enough that Alaric’s feet didn’t dangle off the end. He had his attention on his boots and his brow was slightly furrowed. “Something wrong?” she asked.

  “Hmm?” Alaric looked up, one boot in his hand. “Just thinking about getting into the wizard’s tower.”

  “I thought you said you were too tired to think about that.”

  “I am. But my brain didn’t get the message.” He set his boot down and tugged off the second one. “This isn’t going to be easy. Avoiding the Sassaven, subduing the wizard, performing the right ritual…there are still too many unknowns.”

  Sienne sat beside him, sending up her own creak. “We’ll figure it out. There are still things we have to do before we can make any concrete plans. If I get new spells tomorrow, that could change things.”

  Alaric put his
arm around her. “How likely is it that this Carys Bettega will want to deal with you?”

  “Ghrita thought she’d at least be willing to meet with me. She said Mistress Bettega collects scrapper stories, like as a historian or something. But she’s not with the university, so I don’t know exactly what that means. If she’s not willing to sell or trade, she might know others who would be. I feel confident I’ll get something out of meeting her.”

  “We could come with you.”

  “I thought about that, but the rest of you will do better to prepare for the journey to Beneddo. Besides, I don’t want to overwhelm her.” Sienne rested her head on Alaric’s shoulder and felt his arm tighten around her. “This is nice.”

  “I had in mind something a little more intense than ‘nice.’” Alaric’s hands went to the hem of her shirt. “Unless you’re too tired.”

  “I hope I’m never too tired for that,” Sienne said.

  Outside, the dog howled again, mournful and loud. Sienne, leaning in to kiss Alaric, found his lips unresponsive. His hands rested unmoving on her hips. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know.” He blinked and looked at her. “Nothing. That howl…it sounds familiar.”

  “All dogs’ howls sound the same to me.” She kissed him again, and this time he returned her kiss, slow and sweet. She loved his kiss.

  The howl went up again, and Alaric stiffened. “I swear I’ve heard that before,” he said. He stood and went to the window. “I don’t see anything. I—”

  The unseen dog howled again, closer this time. Alaric swore and turned away. “Sorry. That howl is going to drive me mad.” He crossed to the door without stopping to put on his boots.