Call of Wizardry Read online

  “Wait for me,” Sienne exclaimed as he strode out of the room. She hurried after him, the floorboards warm against her bare feet.

  Outside, the noise of the neighbor’s party drifted toward her on the wind, which had picked up since they returned home. Snatches of laughter, and the music of a fiddle and flute, filled the air with a carnival sound. The howling had stopped. Alaric rounded the corner of the house into the small garden, no more than fifteen feet on a side. Yew hedges taller than Sienne could see over bordered the garden on three sides, with the fourth side being the kitchen wall. Kalanath practiced his fighting routines there in the morning, and Sienne had often watched and admired his flowing, graceful movements. At the moment, it was dark and still.

  Alaric said, “I need light.”

  Sienne made half a dozen magic lights with a thought and sent them spinning into the air to illuminate the garden. Their white light cast strange shadows over the hedges, throwing each tuft of needles into stark relief. The branches needed to be trimmed back; their bushy limbs looked like they were reaching for Sienne with prickly fingers. Sienne looked closely at their bases. Nothing moved. She and Alaric were the only creatures in the garden.

  “Maybe it ran away when it heard us coming,” she said.

  Alaric nodded. “Maybe.” He had a distant look in his eye, as if he were thinking hard. Then he shook his head. “It was probably nothing.”

  Another howl swallowed the word “nothing,” longer and louder than before. “Around front,” he said, and ran from the garden. Sienne followed him, carefully avoiding the small rocks of the gravel path.

  Alaric stood at the edge of the street, looking east toward where the houses rose along the steep incline. Lights burned behind windows and in front of each house—it was each householder’s duty to maintain a lantern to light the street—some white with magic, some warm and yellow with real fire. The sound of the party was louder now, and Sienne could barely make out the booming voice of Master Innes, calling for more wine. If not for that, the street would have been its usual quiet, peaceful self.

  Sienne looked westward, toward the bottom of the street where it curved away to the north and toward the harbor. The small round paving stones were slick when it rained in winter, but at the moment they were dry and not at all treacherous. Cypress trees grew where the street curved, planted years ago by some overzealous property owner who wanted the neighborhood to look more prosperous than it was. Sienne’s eye lingered on the base of the left-hand tree. Was it her imagination, or were the shadows there deeper than they should be?

  She opened her mouth to ask Alaric what he thought, and the shadow detached itself from the tree and flung itself toward her.

  Sienne gasped and said, “Alaric!” Instinctively she flung up her hands and chanted the spell force even though the shadow was moving fast enough it would reach her before she finished.

  Alaric grabbed her and slung her roughly out of the way, interrupting her spell. She took a few stumbling steps to regain her balance and saw the shadow was a dog, a lithe black creature built like a greyhound. The dog’s mouth was flecked with foam and it growled deep in its throat as it ran. It ignored her and went for Alaric, who crouched, hands at the ready to wrestle the animal to the ground. Sienne took a few more steps to the side and once more began casting force.

  The dog launched itself at Alaric’s throat, knocking him over. Alaric got his hands around its throat, holding its head with those sharp teeth away from him. The dog went still. Alaric, it said in a voice that echoed in Sienne’s head.

  2

  Alaric released the dog and pushed himself into a sitting position. “Leaf,” he said in Sorjic. “What are you doing here?”

  Sienne spoke Sorjic well, but the dialect Alaric used was unfamiliar, with emphasis on the wrong syllables and a funny drawn-out sound to the A’s and O’s. She had to pay close attention to understand him.

  Alaric, the dog repeated in the same language. Its accent matched Alaric’s. You were gone long. Took ship, and I could not follow. I waited here in hope you would return.

  “That doesn’t explain why you left the valley. How long did it take you to get here?”

  I do not know time. A few seasons. It was winter when I left. Leaf butted its long head under Alaric’s hand, and he scratched it idly. He looked more stunned than Sienne had ever seen him.

  “Alaric,” she said, “you know this dog?” Questions about why the dog could talk would have to wait.

  “Pekkanen,” Alaric said. “She’s Pekkanen, not an ordinary dog.”

  “Loyal,” Sienne translated. “I can see she’s not ordinary. Dogs don’t generally speak. Did she come all the way from Ansorja?”

  “It seems so. Leaf, what happened to bring you here?”

  Your sister Genneva. The wizard took her for his host.

  Alaric’s hand stilled, and his whole body went rigid. “Impossible.”

  Not impossible. He thinks she is a liability. Wayward daughter of a rebellious breed.

  “Because I left,” Alaric breathed. “I ran away, and he thought that meant any of my mother’s children might be …tainted. What happened to Karlen?”

  He is well. He is one of the Niskanen.

  Alaric’s eyes narrowed. “I wish I could say that surprised me. But he wasn’t damned for my sins?”

  No. And your mother has not been punished. The wizard does not know who your father is.

  Alaric’s shoulders relaxed. “But Genneva…how long ago?”

  Before I left.

  “That could have been as much as eight months ago.” Alaric looked up at Sienne. “This changes everything. Wake the others. We need to talk.”

  Five minutes later they sat around the kitchen table and watched Alaric pace. He looked like a caged animal, something that might break free at any moment. Sienne clasped her hands tightly together in her lap. He hadn’t said a thing since asking her to rouse everyone, and the wild look in his eyes frightened her. Leaf lay on a blanket in the corner, her oversized head on her paws. It only looked oversized, Sienne realized, because she was so gaunt, her fur matted and her paws filthy. She certainly looked as if she’d run a thousand miles to find Alaric.

  “I can’t remember how much I’ve explained about the wizard who created the Sassaven,” Alaric said. “You know he’s over five hundred years old. I think I told you how he makes himself immortal.”

  “He takes the heart of a unicorn and swaps it with his,” Dianthe said. “It keeps him young, right? And makes him invulnerable. We have to destroy his heart to kill him.”

  “Right.” Alaric stopped pacing and drummed his fingers on the windowsill. “His own heart is so corroded and evil it corrupts the host over time. They only survive for a year, maybe fifteen months if they’re strong. Then the wizard does it again. And this time, he chose my sister Genneva.”

  No one spoke. Sienne hesitated to ask the obvious question, saw Dianthe looking at her as if to urge her to speak, and realized she would have to be the one to bring it up. “Were we…planning to kill the host, then?” she said. “Isn’t that how we destroy the wizard?”

  Alaric stopped fidgeting and turned to face her. “We aren’t killing my sister.”

  “But is there an alternative?”

  “We’ll force the wizard to reverse the exchange of hearts. Then we’ll kill him.” Alaric’s eyes blazed pale blue in his sunburned face.

  Sienne glanced at Dianthe again. Dianthe jerked her head minutely in Alaric’s direction. Sienne inwardly groaned. So she was the sacrificial goat because she was sleeping with him. Wonderful. “That sounds…difficult,” she said. “I mean, if it was going to be hard to get him to hold still while we work the unbinding, it will be almost impossible to compel him—”

  “It’s what we’re going to do. Only almost impossible is good enough for me.”

  “What do you mean, ‘what we’re going to do’? Shouldn’t we discuss this?” Sienne felt like a fly pinpointed by a glass lens, Alaric’s intensity a light focused on her that scorched her skin.

  “You think my sister’s life is a matter for discussion?” Now he sounded dangerously calm, as if a storm were brewing inside him.

  “We don’t want Genneva to die,” Sienne said. “But we can’t just fly off to the rescue without a real plan. It would be suicide.”

  Alaric slammed his fist against the wall and swore. “I’ve just told you the plan. Since when are you so cowardly?”

  Sienne shoved her chair back, standing in one swift, angry movement. “That’s not a plan. That’s idiotic. We don’t know anything about the wizard’s capabilities, we don’t know how much he knows—for all we know, this is a ploy to draw you back to the valley and kill you. You’re letting your personal feelings blind you to reality.”

  “Am I?” Alaric roared. His face was white with fury. “I guess this is what it always was—my problem, not yours. Is this how all of you feel? Only interested in my quest so long as it didn’t involve any real danger?”

  “We’ve put our lives on the line for you more times than I can count!” Sienne shouted.

  “This is getting us nowhere,” Perrin said. He sounded calm, but his hand where it rested on the table was closed into a white-knuckled fist. “Can we not discuss—”

  “There’s no time for discussion,” Alaric said. “I have no idea how long it took Leaf to get here. Gen may only have weeks left. We have to act now, or everything we’ve done is wasted.”

  “I thought we were doing this for all the Sassaven, not one woman,” Sienne said.

  Instantly, she knew it was a mistake. Alaric turned a furious glare on her, took a step forward, and she couldn’t help herself—she cringed, old memories of his hand around her throat coming back to fill her with fear. She made
herself stand straight and face him.

  Alaric didn’t seem to notice her reaction. “She’s the one I care about,” he said in a low, terrible voice. “I’ll save her or die trying.”

  “Dying is what you’ll do if you do what you propose,” Sienne said.

  He looked at each of them in turn. “So that’s how it’s going to be, is it?” he said. He almost sounded calm. “Fine. Cower here if that’s how you feel. But I’m leaving for Ansorja in the morning.” He turned on his heel and stomped out of the kitchen. Moments later, the back door slammed.

  Sienne sank back into her chair and covered her face with her hands. “Thanks so much for helping,” she said bitterly.

  “Would it have made a difference?” Dianthe said. “You’re the only one he listens to when he’s got the bit between his teeth. And he knew how we all felt.”

  “He is afraid,” Kalanath said, “and that makes him angry, to be powerless. I remember when he is controlled by the carver wizard. He does not like being not in control of himself.”

  “We cannot let him go,” Perrin said. “He will die for nothing. But I have no idea how to prevent him leaving, unless we hide the carpets. And that would be a mistake.”

  “It would tell him we think he’s a child,” Dianthe agreed. “He needs to cool off. Maybe by morning he’ll be ready to see sense.”

  He always was impetuous, Leaf said, startling them all. Ready to take risks. It is why he leaves the valley.

  “Is that…the dog?” Perrin said. “She speaks Sorjic?”

  “Alaric said she was Pekkanen,” Sienne said. “He didn’t say what that means.” In Sorjic, she added, “Alaric isn’t usually like that. I guess he’s changed over the years.” Or maybe he hadn’t changed much, given his display of anger and impatience.

  You speak oddly, Leaf said. I can barely understand you.

  “The valley has been isolated for more than five hundred years. Languages change in that length of time.”

  Dianthe rose and went to kneel beside Leaf, gently examining her paws. “She needs food and water,” she said. “Not much, or she’ll vomit. She looks near starved.”

  Perrin nodded and got up. He took the remnants of the roast chicken from the cupboard and cut the meat away from the bones. “Such devotion, to make that journey,” he said.

  “And following an eleven-year-old trail, too,” Sienne said. To Leaf, she added, “How did you know where to find Alaric? Is that part of what makes you Pekkanen?”

  I have known him since he was an infant, Leaf said. She nibbled on a hunk of chicken. He is himself. That persists. Her mental voice wasn’t impeded by her mouth being full.

  “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  An intangible breeze brushed her, like the memory of wind. It carried with her familiar scents of pine and rich humus and a deep, heady musk. The scents took shape in her mind, impossibly visible as the outline of a large man. It is him. I would know him anywhere. He left his mark all along his trail, and it is not a thing that disappears like scent.

  “Can all Pekkanen do this? What are you?”

  Leaf sighed. We are the wizard’s greatest failure as the Sassaven are his triumph. We could not contain the magic to be what he wanted. Now he despises us. We hide from him because he sometimes kills us when he is in the mood.

  “I remember now. The Pekkanen are what the wizard created first,” she told the others. “You know, how he tried to combine dogs and humans, but the dogs weren’t big enough, so he used horses instead? I didn’t realize the dogs were still around.” She didn’t think they were a failure at all, if they were intelligent and capable of tracking someone years after they’d passed. One more reason the wizard needed to be defeated.

  That thought sent a pang through her heart. Alaric wouldn’t actually go through with his crazy not-a-plan, would he? He wasn’t a fool. But he was devoted to his sister, and maybe that was enough to override his good sense. And enough for him to threaten you? her inner voice said. He’d said he never wanted her to look at him in fear. Maybe that only mattered when he wasn’t angry enough.

  “So what do we do?” Dianthe said. “We can’t let him go alone.” She filled a shallow bowl with water and set it beside Leaf.

  “But we also cannot accompany him on this mad venture,” Perrin said.

  “If we had another plan, something more rational, maybe he’d listen.” Sienne cupped her chin in her hands and sighed. “The problem is that Alaric is usually the one who comes up with our plans.”

  “We are not stupid,” Kalanath said. “We can use our heads and think.”

  Dianthe nodded. “All right. I think we can all agree that we should save Genneva if we can. So what do we need to accomplish that?”

  “A way into the valley, and then into the wizard’s tower, without being spotted,” Sienne said, ticking the point off on one finger. “Something to immobilize the wizard while we do the unbinding. And a way to force him to reverse the transfer of hearts.”

  “It is the last I do not think we can do,” Kalanath said. “He will say, there is no reason, it will kill me, and I do not have an answer for that.”

  “We can’t use reason, that’s true,” said Dianthe, “so what else is there? Magic?”

  “I don’t know any magic for,” Sienne began, and let her voice trail off. “But there is magic for that. Dominate.”

  “The charm spell?” Perrin said. “You said it was forbidden.”

  “It is. But there are people who know it. It’s not a lost spell like ash, just one you can be seriously punished for just for having it in your spellbook.”

  “Sienne,” Dianthe said, “you can’t be serious. How would you even go about finding it? No one’s going to admit to having it.”

  “I don’t know. I’m just saying it’s the only way I can think of to force someone against his will.” The words tasted like bile. She’d seen dominate used before, on Alaric, and it had been such a terrible violation he’d had trouble overcoming the memory. And here she proposed using it herself. Against someone evil, true, but somehow she didn’t think that made doing what was essentially evil all right.

  “Is it something you should do?” Perrin asked, as if he could read her mind. “Charm spells are forbidden for a reason.”

  “I don’t know,” Sienne said. “Maybe it’s irrelevant. Like Dianthe said, the odds of me finding it are slim. I don’t know that we should base a plan on it. But I really don’t see any other way of freeing Genneva.”

  Silence fell, interrupted only by the sound of Leaf slurping up water. “What about getting into the valley?” Dianthe said. “What if the wizard sees us coming?”

  “He cannot scry us out, as that is a priest’s magic,” Perrin said. “As is the magic that sets off an alarm when something crosses its boundaries. It is unlikely he can see beyond the limits of his natural eye, unless he has a spyglass, and that has its own limitations.”

  “He’ll be able to see magic like I can,” Sienne said. “But not at a distance.”

  “So he’ll depend on the Sassaven to relay what they see,” Dianthe said. “Which means we’ll need to stay out of sight of them. Damn, but I wish I knew more about the binding. Like, do they have to tell the wizard everything, or only respond to his direct questioning?”

  “Alaric would—” Kalanath’s words cut off mid-sentence. “It is hard planning without him.”

  “Let’s just act as if Alaric is willing to listen,” Dianthe said. She didn’t sound very certain. “Alaric can tell us what the Sassaven are bound to do, and we can work out how to get around them. Then there’s the…what did he call it?”

  “The walkstone,” Sienne said. “If Alaric can’t, I can probably work out how to operate it. I’ll just need time.”

  “So we’ll need to evade the Sassaven long enough for someone to make the walkstone work,” Dianthe said. “And it seems like all we need to subdue the wizard is one good force bolt to the face.”

  “But we don’t know how to perform the unbinding,” Sienne said. “Jenani told me that meant reversing the original binding, and we know what that is, but I’m not sure how much we can trust what it said, given that it tried to kill us.”