“
Then it’s another silver.”
Zedd forced himself to keep his voice down. “For what?”
“
For the lady’s time and company.”
“
I’ve no intention of availing myself of your lady.”
“
So you say. When you see her with him, you might have a change of mood, and decide to try to rekindle your … youth. It’s my policy to collect the money first. If she tells me you gave her no more than a smile, then you can have the silver back.”
Zedd knew there was no chance of that. It would be his word against hers, and her word would carry the sweet ring of extra profit, if not the truth. But in the scheme of things, the price was of no consequence, no matter how much it irked him. Zedd dug into an inner pocket and handed over the silver coin.
“
Last room on the right,” the innkeeper said as he turned away. He turned back to Zedd. “And we have a guest in the next room who doesn’t want to be disturbed.”
“
I won’t bother your guests.”
He gave Zedd a cunning grin. “Plain as she is, I offered her a little companionship—no extra charge—and she told me that if anyone disturbed her rest, she’d skin me alive. A woman with enough brass to come in here alone, I believe her. I’m not giving her her silver piece back if you wake her. I’ll take it out of your hide. Understand?”
Zedd nodded absently as he gave brief consideration to asking for a meal—he was hungry—but reluctantly dismissed the thought.
“
Would you happen to have a back door, in case I … need some night air?” Zedd didn’t want Nathan slipping out the wrong door. “I’d understand if it cost extra.”
“
We’re backed up to the blacksmith’s shop,” the innkeeper said as he walked away. “There’s no other door.”
Last room on the right. Only one way in. One way out. Something about this was wrong. Nathan wouldn’t be so foolish. Yet Zedd could feel the air crackling with the magic of his link.
As dubious as he was that Nathan would be so conveniently bedded down for them, he moved silently down the dark hall. He listened intently for anything out of the ordinary, but heard only the well-practiced, feigned sounds of passion from a woman in the second room to the left.
The end of the hall was lit by a single candle on a wooden bracket to the side. From the next to last room Zedd could hear the soft snores of the brassy lady who didn’t want to be disturbed. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that, and that she would sleep through the whole thing.
Zedd put his ear close to the last door on the right. He heard soft, throaty laughter from a woman. If this went wrong, she might be hurt. If it went very wrong, she might be killed.
He could wait, but having Nathan distracted would certainly be convenient. The man was a wizard, after all. Zedd didn’t know how strongly Nathan felt about being captured.
Zedd knew how he would feel about it. That decided him. He couldn’t afford not to take the opportunity of the distraction.
Zedd threw open the door, casting a hand out, igniting the air with silent, confusing flashes of heat and light.
The naked couple on the bed cringed away, covering their eyes. With a fist of air, Zedd threw Nathan off the woman and over the far side of the bed. With Nathan grunting and flailing at the air, Zedd seized the woman’s wrist and threw her back out of the way. She snatched a sheet with her.
As the flashes of light sparked out, and before she was even able to throw the sheet around herself, Zedd loosed a web, paralyzing her where she stood. Almost simultaneously, he cast a similar web at the man behind the bed, except this web was laced with serious consequences should he try to fend it off with magic of his own. This was no time to be polite, or indulgent.
With hardly a sound, other than a bit of thumping onto the floor, the gloomy room was suddenly silent. Only a single candle on a washstand flickered weakly. Zedd was relieved it had gone so well, and he hadn’t had to hurt the woman.
He rounded the bottom of the bed to see the man on the floor, frozen in place, his mouth opened in the beginning of a scream, his hands clawed to defend himself.
It wasn’t Nathan.
Zedd stared in disbelief. He could feel the magic of the hook in the room. He knew this was who he had been chasing.
He leaned over the man. “I know you can hear me, so listen carefully. I’m going to release the magic holding you, but if you cry out I will put it back on and leave you like that forever. Think carefully before you dare to call for help. As you may have already surmised, I’m a wizard, and anyone who comes will not be able to do anything to save you, should you displease me.”
Zedd passed his hand before the man, pulling back the veil of the web. The man scooted back to the wall, but he remained silent. He was older, but not as old as Nathan appeared. His hair was white, but wavy, rather than Nathan’s straight hair. It wasn’t as long, either, but the short description Zedd had given the innkeeper would have been close enough for him to think this was the man Zedd sought.
“
Who are you?” Zedd asked.
“
William’s my name. You’d be Zedd.”
Zedd straightened. “How do you know that?”
“
The fellow you’d be looking for told me.” He gestured toward the nearby chair. “Mind if I pull on my trousers? I have a feeling I’ll not be needing them off anymore tonight.”
Zedd tilted his head toward the chair, signaling for William to go ahead. “Talk while you do it. And keep in mind what I told you about my being a wizard. I know when a man is telling me a lie. Keep in mind, too, that I’m suddenly in a very foul mood.”
Zedd wasn’t exactly telling the truth about being able to detect a lie, but he reasoned that the man didn’t know that. He was, however, telling the truth about his mood.
“
I ran into the man you were chasing. He didn’t tell me his name. He offered me …” William glanced to the woman as he pulled the trousers up. “Can she hear this?”
“
Don’t you worry about her. Worry about me.” Zedd gritted his teeth. “Talk.”
“
Well, he offered me …” He peered at the woman. Her wrinkled face was frozen in a startled expression. “He offered me a … purse, if I’d do him a favor.”
“
What favor?”
“
Taking his place. He told me to ride like the Keeper himself was after me until I got at least this far. He said that when I got here, I could slow, rest, or stop, whatever my choice. He told me that you’d be catching up with me.”
“
And he wanted that?”
William buttoned his trousers, plopped back into the chair, and started pulling on his boots. “He said I wouldn’t be able to lose you, that sooner or later you’d catch up with me, but he didn’t want that to happen until at least after I arrived here. Fast as I was moving, I must admit that I didn’t think you’d be so close on my heels, so I thought to enjoy some of my profits.”
William stood and stuffed an arm into his brown wool shirt. “He told me that I was to give you a message.”
“
Message? What message?”
William tucked in his shirt and then reached into a trouser pocket and pulled out a leather purse. It looked to be heavy with coins.
William fingered open the purse. “It’s in here, with what he gave me.”
Zedd snatched the purse from the man. “I’ll take a look.”
The purse held mostly gold coins, with a few silver. Zedd felt one of the gold coins between a finger and thumb. He could feel the slight after-tingle of magic. The coins had probably started out as coppers, and Nathan had changed them to gold with magic.
Zedd had been hoping that Nathan didn’t know how to do that. Changing things to gold was dangerous magic. Zedd only did it himself if there was no other choice.
Inside the purse, besides the coins, was a folded piece of paper. He pulled it out and turned it over in his fingers, giving it a good look in the dim light, wary of any form of magic snare that might be attached to it.
William pointed. “That’s what he gave me. He told me to give it to you when you caught me.”
“
Anything else? Did he tell you anything else, besides to give me this message?”
“
Well, as we was parting, he paused and looked up at me. He said, ‘Tell Zedd it’s not what he thinks.’”
Zedd mulled this over for a moment. “Which way did he go?”
“
I don’t know. I was atop my horse, and he was still afoot. He told me to ride, then he slapped my horse’s rump and I rode.”
Zedd tossed the purse to William. While keeping a wary eye on the man, he unfolded the paper. He squinted in the dim light of the single candle as he scanned the message.
Sorry, Ann, but I have important business. One of our Sisters is going to do something very stupid. I must stop her, if I can. In case I die, I want you to know I love you, but I guess you knew that. I could never say it as long as I was your prisoner. Zedd, if the moon rises red, as I expect it to, then we are all in mortal danger. If the moon rises red for three nights, it means Jagang has invoked a bound fork prophecy. You must go to the Jocopo treasure. If you instead waste precious time coming after me, we will all die, and the emperor will have the spoils. The bound fork prophecy enforces a double bind on its victim. Zedd, I am sorry, but the victim named is Richard. May the spirits have mercy on his soul. If I knew the meaning of the prophecy, I would tell you, but I don’t—the spirits have denied me access to it. Ann, go with Zedd. He will need your help. May the good spirits be with you both.
As Zedd blinked, trying to clear his watery vision, he noticed a smudge. He turned the message over and realized that the smudge was wax residue. The message had been sealed, but in the poor light he hadn’t noticed before.
Zedd looked up to see William’s club. He flinched back, but felt the stunning pain of a blow. The floor crashed against his shoulder.
William pounced atop him, holding a knife to his throat.
“
Where’s this Jocopo treasure, old man! Talk, or I’ll slit your throat!”
Zedd tried to hold on to his vision as he felt the room spinning and tilting. Nausea gagged him. He was in an instant sweat.
William’s eyes were wild above him. “Talk!”
The man stabbed him in the upper arm. “Talk! Where’s the treasure?”
A hand reached down and snatched William by the hair. It was a middle-aged woman in a dark cloak. Zedd couldn’t seem to make sense of who she was, or what she was doing there. With surprising strength, the woman threw William back. He crashed against the wall beside the open door and slumped to the floor.
She sneered down at Zedd. “You have made a big mistake, old man, letting Nathan get away. I suspected that following that old crone would net me the prophet, so I’ve followed you two until I could sense your link with him. Yet what do I find at the end of your magic hook but this fool here, instead of Nathan? So, now I have to make things unpleasant for you. I want the prophet.”
She turned and cast a hand out toward the naked woman frozen in place. The room erupted with thunder as a midnight-black discharge of lightning arced from her hand. The deathlike bolt of lightning sliced the woman and the sheet she held cleanly in half. Blood splattered the wall. The top half of her toppled to the floor like a statue cleaved in two. Her insides spilled across the floor as her torso hit the ground, but her limbs remained frozen in the same pose.
The woman hovering above him turned back. Her eyes were molten rage.
“
If you would like a taste of Subtractive Magic, one limb at a time, then just give me a reason. Now, let me see the message.”
Zedd opened his hand to her. She reached out. He focused his mind through the dizziness. Before she could snatch the paper, he ignited it. It went up in a bright yellow flash.
With a cry of fury, she spun to William. “What did it say, you little worm!”
William, until that instant rigid in panic, flung himself through the door and bolted down the hall.
Her stringy hair whipped around her face as she spun back to Zedd. “I’ll be back to get answers from you. You will confess everything before I kill you.”
As she lunged for the door, Zedd felt an unfamiliar composition of magic ram through his hasty shield. Pain erupted in his head.
Trying to gather his senses, he fought through the grip of blinding agony. He wasn’t paralyzed, but he was unable to think of how to make himself get up. His arms and legs battled the air as ineffectively as a turtle on its back.
The searing pain made it difficult to do much more than maintain consciousness. He pressed his hands against the sides of his head, feeling as if it was going to come apart and he had to hold it together. He could hear himself gasping for breath.
The sudden thud of a concussion jolted the air and briefly lifted him clear of the floor.
A blinding flash lit the room as the roof tore open, the ripping roar of splintering wood and snapping beams was nearly lost in a deafening boom of thunder. The pain extinguished.
The light web had ignited.
Dust billowed through the air as smoking debris rained down around him. Zedd drew into a ball and covered his head as boards and bits of rubble peppered him. It sounded like being under a kettle in a hailstorm.
When silence settled over the scene, Zedd finally took his hands from his head and looked up. To his surprise, the building was still standing—after a fashion. The roof was mostly gone, letting the wind pull the dust away into the dark night above. The walls were holed like moth-eaten rags. Nearby lay the gory remains of the woman.