Shadowmage: Book Nine Of The Spellmonger Series (13 page)

If functioned on a similar principal as the kindling wand, but instead of merely shredding the toughest, oldest planks into strips no bigger than a thumb, it also converted the stone within its sphere of effect and reduced it instantly to gravel, as if each rock was smashed by a heavy iron hammer.  

The field was also much broader than the kindling wand.  When Rondal stretched the sphere of intent with his mind before activating the spell, he was concerned it would not be powerful enough.  But he’d underestimated Tyndal; the wand took direction admirably, and when Rondal was ready to act, the entire warehouse was converted to rubble with a single word.

That’s for the Kasari,
he thought to himself as he turned around and hefted the bag of loot on his shoulder.  

As he passed by the monk, he dug into his pouch and found a half-ounce of silver he passed to the shocked priest.  “Pray for those poor river drakes, Brother,” Rondal urged, as he headed back to the inn by the most circuitous route he could envision as a massive cloud of dusk filled the evening sky over Solashaven.

Tyndal appeared near midnight with Ruderal and his small, frail-looking mother, Chaterny.  Both former captives looked shaken by their ordeal, and Ruderal clutched a large, hastily-made bundle of their possessions like it was gold and jewels, but they seemed otherwise no worse for wear.  

Except they were both
tremendously
hungry.  The Rats used food to keep their prisoners from getting unruly, Tyndal explained, when he put a huge basket of provisions from the kitchen below on the table.  

“I had to pay extra, but I told the innkeeper we were entertaining,” he explained, as the boy and his mother eagerly tore into the food, with Tyndal’s nod.  Then he hastily recalled something, and pulled two earthenware bottles of brandy out of the basket.  “I had to keep up the appearance that we were entertaining,” he explained to Rondal’s skeptical expression.  “Besides, it helps keep the stink of the sewers at bay,” he added, reminding Rondal of his odious journey yet again.

“Fine, you’ve earned it,” Rondal dismissed, putting his foot on the large, sturdy black bag.  “We got what we came for, and who we came for, and escaped without a scratch.”

“It remains to be seen if we escaped without pursuit,” Tyndal pointed out.

“We have a boat to take us upriver at will,” Rondal riposted.  “But we’re going to delay departure for a few days.  I have to meet with a . . . with an informant,” he said, glancing toward Ruderal and Chaterny.  

“Why an informant?  The mission is
done,
” Tyndal said, confused.  “We got the kid, we got the mom, we got the loot.  Let’s go!”

“The mission
isn’t
done,” reminded Rondal.  “We’ve merely achieved our objective. We still have to get them - and us - back home.”

“That’s the easy part!” Tyndal dismissed.

“Which is precisely when things usually go into the chamberpot,” reminded Rondal.  “Do you recall talking our way out of a bandit attack with nothing but a quick-thinking knight and a cross-dressing goblin?”

Tyndal’s face changed abruptly.  “We swore
never
to speak of that again!”

“My point is that just when we think things are going
smoothly
, the gods decide it’s time for us to learn some valuable lesson.”

“Like delaying the mission a few days . . . for an ‘informant’?” Tyndal asked.  “Is she
pretty
, at least?”

Rondal considered explaining the entire episode with Atopol on the roof, and the clandestine meeting with the shadowmage scheduled the next evening.  It would have required retelling the story of the entire evening, with innumerable questions from his partner.  Increasingly inane questions, he realized, as the level of the brandy in the bottles declined.

“Violet eyes.  To
die
for,” he said, simply, taking one of the two bottles from Tyndal, whose mouth was agape.  “And that’s
all
I’m saying,” he said, pulling the cork off the top and taking a long pull of the sweet, spicy liquor.  

He deserved it, too, he reasoned.

The next morning Tyndal moved Ruderal and Chaterny to another inn in another town along the bay, under another fictitious name - this time as a Vale family from Inmar, come to the shore on holiday – while Rondal quietly inspected the result of their previous night’s work in Solashaven.

The warehouse was destroyed, with no solid timber remaining.  A pit of rubble and shards of wood filled the crater, and the fetid water of the river and runoff from the sewers washed dead seaweed and river scum around the great mound.  Various spots in the rubble were stained with blood, Rondal noted.  There were also signs that the wreckage had been thoroughly picked through already, he saw.

The rubble attracted plenty of spectators still, and the tangled tale of the mad night included plenty of exaggeration.  No one was certain what happened, but the speculation ranged from the mystic to the irrational.  Rondal enjoyed listening for awhile, and occasionally adding his own details to the story about a woman screaming after her dead son in the rubble after the collapse, purely for the sake of art.  And to plant the seed of the idea that Ruderal was dead.

The Brotherhood may or may not learn who attacked their installation so suddenly and viciously, but it was unlikely they believed Ruderal and his mother had escaped the collapsing building . . . and by the time they suspected it, he would be leagues beyond their reach.  

Rondal was feeling very satisfied with the result and was preparing to go on his way when he noticed a few men standing at one corner, overlooking the crater.  The man in the center, in a long sea-green cloak and merchant’s hat, stared intently into the pit, his jaw set angrily.

That man
, reasoned Rondal,
was an interested party in this enterprise.
 From the animated way the others were waving their arms and looking desperate, they were subordinates at a loss for explaining just
why
a stone and timber warehouse sturdy enough to survive tempest, tyrant, and time itself for well over a century was suddenly now a damp gravel pit.  

Rondal was intrigued by their answers, so he found a wineshop he’d become fond of and ordered a cup from the attendant, whose pretty smile was the reason for his fondness, and employed the Long Ears spell to listen to their conversation.

“ . . . it
has
to be magic, milord,” the smaller of the two men pleaded, reasonably.  “It has to be!  If it was the Eyes, they’d slaughter the lot as a message.  If it were the bloody Fish, they’d burn the place to the ground.  It
had
to be bloody magic,
” he said, bitterly.

“
Do
you
know any magi who could manage this?”
the senior Rat said, his eyes narrowed, skeptically.  
“This is no seamage or spellmonger’s work, you idiot.”

“The Three Censors, milord?”
asked the other, who appeared to be a clerk.  

“No,”
the older man said.  
“The Censors have no business with us.  But someone clearly does,
” he said, gesturing at the pit with disgust
.  “Do you have any idea just what was stored here?  How much we’ve lost?”  

“From what I can figure, milord Flacet, the warehouse had more than eleven thousand ounces—“

“It’s not about the money, you idiots!”
Flacet the Fence insisted. 
“Not even the loot we were storing!  When Lord Darius hears that we lost that precious brat of his, we will all wake up with a shiv in our ear!  You have no idea how much depends upon him!”

Rondal smiled at the discomfort he’d caused the Brotherhood.  It was small recompense for their crimes, and a mere installment on his revenge for their callous slaying of his friend, Estasia - the girl for whom their order was named.  Avenging her death, and disrupting the Brotherhood, had become his and Tyndal’s un-official goal in life.  Their actions against the Kasari expedition that inspired this rescue were also in need of vengeance.

“What shall we do, Sire?”
asked the clerk
.  “Do you have orders?”

“
Send word to Drakehaven to Lord Darius that our guest is, unfortunately, lost,”
he said, darkly.  
“Explain the circumstances and let them know that it is clearly an attack. An arcane attack. And request instruction,”
he directed.

“What about the assets still down there?”
the clerk asked, glancing into the fetid crater.

“Bring in a witch to dowse for them, and sift through every pebble, I don’t care how you do it, but recover as much from it as you can.  After that, we lose it.  Now if this tragedy has taken up enough of my time, let’s get to the tavern and meet our new friends.”

“But milord, if it is a mage, shouldn’t we be
looking
for him?”
asked the small man.

“Idiot!”
sneered the Rat
.  “This was a
professional
assault.  Whoever did this is probably on a boat to Farise right now.  And by the time we can send word to our brothers there, he could be anywhere from Merwyn to Unstara.  So no, we do not waste time, coin, and resources looking for a
godsdamned wizard
who doesn’t want to be caught!  Now let’s go before I push you into the pit to look for yourself,”
Flacet snorted with disgust.

Rondal let the Long Ears spell fall, as the men strolled out of range.  He’d learned what he needed to know.  He flirted lightheartedly with the attendant until he finished his glass, and then left the table, the shop, and the town of Solashaven.  It was a sad and depressing place, perhaps, but it did have the least bit of charm.

Chapter Six

The Shrine Of Eight Bells

Several houses of Coastlords dedicated themselves to the effort to establish their supremacy over the Sea Lords, and not the least were the powerful houses of magi both in and outside of the government.  Several noble houses imported from Vore, Merwyn and Cormeer to settle the Coastlands brought their magical traditions with them.  When they were challenged by Sea Lords or fellow Coast Lords for territory or rights, these houses fought back with a ferocity that called to mind the greater Mage Wars of the middle Magocracy. 

“But not every Coastlord with magical ability sought to dominate his neighbors with his craft.  Amongst the many magi who came to Alshar during this period, simple spellmongers and Imperial adepts of great note mixed with shadowmagi, warmagi, and seamagi enlisted in the effort to support the Lord of the Fields, as the Counts of Falas began styling themselves at that time, in opposition to the Sea Lords’ Lord of the Waves.