Moonstone, Magic That Binds (Book 1) (39 page)

She didn’t feel like lying. “I had a rare gem called a Moonstone in my sword. They captured me for that. The Dakkoran Emperor wants it as well as the Bloodstone of the Red Kingdom.”

“I thought as much. We were surprised why the Happly duke wanted our help in the first place. I’m afraid I don’t have enough people to assist in your escape. Had you arrived with your army, perhaps we could have changed sides.”

Restella smiled. Perhaps she might yet get her revenge. “There are others heading to Happly.” She tried to find the link again and found it a little further south. Lotto was either lost or he intended to infiltrate into Happly Keep from a direction other than the west.

“Go south and then west. There is a wizard-warrior who is heading our way. His name is Lotto Mistad. Tell him they have the Moonstone and have no use for me.” She didn’t tell him that the Duke likely did. She sunk back into misery. The Ropponi would believe her story.

“I have heard of him. This man has Affinity?”

“Yes. A lot.”

“I can find him then. I make no promises, but I will attempt to locate him and bring Lotto Mistad to you.”

She stayed by the door for some minutes further, but the man had left. What a strange conversation. Could she believe him? The strength of Ropponi sorcerers was legend. Fessano had confirmed the fact to her more than once. Perhaps she could hold on to a thread of hope.

The door opened and a guard brought her a tray. The food surprised her since she expected water. She toyed with the idea of a hunger strike, but what would that prove? Restella had no leverage at this point. She forced herself to eat and wished she could communicate with Lotto. He represented her only chance to get out of the dungeon and she couldn’t bring herself to throw anger in the way of hope. The jealousy and whatever else that boiled within her seemed as dim as the light in her cell. Lotto represented her only thin thread of salvation.

~

“Someone is looking for me,” Lotto said to himself, in the middle of the night. They were now a day’s journey to the south of Happly Keep and he wanted to get a bit more on the east side before they tried to enter the city.

He put on his boots and exited out of his little tent. The signal, if that’s what it was, came from the north and seemed very close. He would check on the watch, and then move towards the call.  Lotto pulled on some clothes and his boots and only took his long knife.

“I’m going to relieve myself,” Lotto said to the guard, probably waking him up.

He stepped into the darkness of the wood and felt another surge of the calling power again. He walked away from the source for a bit before he headed towards it from the east.

“Lotto Mistad?” A voice spoke in his head. “Come further, you are among friends.”

How did the wizard, for he must have been a powerful wizard, know his name?” He stepped into a clearing.

“Ah, there you are.” A man rose from a tiny fire. “Sit with me, there is much to discuss.”

The man looked like he came out of one of Mander’s picture books. The man wore a series of short robes and baggy pants. His dark hair shone in the light. He twisted it into a knot on the top of his head and still had enough for it to trail down the back of his neck. He gestured for Lotto to sit on the ground.

“My name is Shiro. I am a sorcerer from the land of Roppon. I must admit, I’m a bit of a renegade, but for good reasons, I hope. I have something to show you.” He pulled a little pouch from within his robes. It hung on long cords from his neck and he pulled out a gem.  It caught the light from the fire and looked as yellow as a daffodil. “Touch it once you are sitting.”

Lotto didn’t know what to expect, but he did as Shiro asked. He felt like he entered a tunnel and found himself thinking in gibberish. It gradually resolved into something understandable and he could feel Shiro’s thoughts.

“I am a powerful sorcerer,” Lotto heard in his mind, “and what you are touching is the Sunstone. You are thinking in Bessethian, but I can see your intent better this way and you can see mine.”

From that point, they did not think in any language but searched each other’s minds for truth. He could hold no secrets from the man, but in return, the Ropponi’s secrets became his own. The link broke and Lotto fell right back into the dirt, his mind still a jumble as it recovered from the experience.

“You believe that I am on your side?”

Lotto nodded. He did. “You’ll help me save the princess?”

Shiro smiled. “Of course. All I have to offer are my three hundred sorcerers to add to your army. The duke doesn’t trust us and for good reason. He is a dishonorable man and what I saw through the stone only reinforced my feelings. I am surprised. I thought that you might be a middling wizard, but your power rivals mine, although somewhat unschooled. In general, Bessethian wizards have lost much collective power through the centuries. 

“We Ropponi have known about Besseth’s weakness in Affinity bearers for hundreds of years, but our culture is insular, bureaucratic and vicious. My people regard all others as barbarians—no better than cattle. The Ropponi have no interest in conquest and perhaps it’s better to leave them to their delusions.”

“So why did you leave?”

“To escape a place that holds no future for me. Other Ropponi sorcerers provided us with a way out of my country. However, there is an enemy that we both share. Emperor Daryaku desires all four of the stones. He wishes to use them as war stones to conquer all of Goriath.”

“So we know where three of the stones are,” Lotto said.

“The Bloodstone is lost,” Shiro said.

Lotto shook his head. “Hidden, but not lost.” He didn’t know if Sally or Unca possessed it at the moment. “I imagine that the Emperor carries the Purestone?”

“Purestone, no longer. It became the Darkstone at the time of the cursing of Ayrtan. Because of that we all call him the Dark Lord.”

Lotto thought of Daryaku as the Dark Lord for a different reason. “We can speak of this later. You will help me?”

Shiro nodded with his hands placed just so on his knees. His actions seemed measured and formal. The Ropponi culture was built on formalities, so he had read.

“You know my goal was to disable the Ropponi wizards.”

“No need. The Happlyans have treated my people as offal. We will take care of Happly’s wizards and then the rest of the army camped outside of the city. My forces are mostly comprised of sorcerers, but there are some without power. All of them are proficient with military weapons.”

Lotto knew the feeling of demeaning treatment, thinking of the traitor, Lifton. “Then I intend on entering Happly Keep from the east and make my way to a building that adjoins the castle. I have a spell that will turn mortar into sand so we can silently get into the keep and essentially go through stone walls, a brick at a time.”

“Good. I don’t know of such a soundless spell. I would probably go crash! Boom!” Shiro clapped his hands together and laughed with his entire face. His Bessethian was somewhat limited, but Lotto had warmed up to the man. He seemed to be older than Lotto, but not nearly as old as Lessa or Mander. He had detected the sadness in his self-imposed exile and it came through strongly while their minds were linked, but he could trust him.

“Then go back. When our army attacks, disable the Happlyan soldiers. Can you heat up their weapons?”

Shiro chuckled. “We have our own ways. Don’t worry. Just don’t have your men shoot arrows at us. We will be dressed as I am. Red robes and uniform jackets for my wizards. We call ourselves the Red Rose.” He got to his feet and walked into the woods, leaving Lotto sitting on the ground wondering if he dreamed it all up, but the fire remained glowing and he knew that Shiro had just significantly increased his chances of success.

Lotto crept back to the man on watch and told him that he had returned. “Sorry, it took longer than I thought.”

The watchman just laughed and waved Lotto through.

In the morning, he sent a message to Lessa describing his meeting with Shiro. Lotto’s biggest worry had just been eliminated. Now he could concentrate on saving the princess. Tomorrow night he’d lie in a pool of his own blood, or he’d be pummeled with Restella’s angry thoughts. Feeling her frustration with him would be a blessed event. Then the both of them would speed north to Beckondale to expose the traitors.

~~~

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

~

T
HE GUARD THREW IN A BLANKET
as night darkened the cell. No lights for her. She wished she had a shred of Fessano’s magical power. She always enjoyed watching Fessano lighting candles with his spells when she was a girl. Before deciding to spend the darkness sleeping, she checked on Lotto. The link shouted out his southern location. Lotto closed in with his men!  She finally held out some hope. If  the man, Shiro, spoke the truth and hadn’t visited her as a taunt from the Duke of Happly, then she might find a way out of this mess.

A different guard roused her from her sleep in the morning and set a tray in front of her and threw a dress on the floor. “Put this on. The duke will receive you this evening.”

The duke!  Restella spit towards the closing door. She looked up at the window and wondered how awful the day would be. The duke had often referred to her as his concubine on their way to Happly Keep. She had just discounted the talk as boasting, but she looked at the deep red silk dress that sat in a wad next to her. The boasts might not be so idle, after all.

She shivered in the dim cell and drew the blanket around her. The only hope lay in Lotto, but a siege to take Happly Keep could take weeks, even if Lessa had found Lotto. What help could they expect from the Ropponi wizards? Shiro, the mysterious? She lifted her chin trying to concentrate on confidence, but it began to quiver and she began to weep.

~

Since Happly Keep had no city walls, but was surrounded by a maze of houses and shops.  Lotto looked at his copy of the map, memorizing the way to the street where he would find his entryway into the castle. He traced the route that Lessa would take. There were towers spaced on all of the main streets, but, if the map had been accurately drawn, and the Gensler rangers swore that they had done a masterful job, then they found a path avoiding the towers by taking a spiraling route on four parallel paths from the south to the north.  Lotto could only hope that no one had designed the streets to create a trap. The Gensler scouts and Lotto intended to invade the keep and rescue Restella before Lessa attacked.

He discounted Shiro’s help in the actual fighting but he had to count on him to neutralize the other battle wizards. If not, many would die this evening while they invaded the city at sunset.

Lotto and Morio walked into the city, not furtively creeping from alley to doorway, but conversing like the two friends they were. The other four, also in pairs came in through different entry points. Clearly, no one guarded this side of the city. To the north, the few soldiers remaining of the Valetan army sat behind a hastily made stockade surrounded by the camp of the Happlyan army. Such an oversight seemed like feckless arrogance. Silver should know better, but then Lotto had no idea who made the decisions in this mad war.

A few vendors had just set up their carts to sell their wares, early in the morning in near-empty marketplaces. A woman sold the sausages and bread that Lotto and Morio ate, paid for with Gensleran coinage. The chain mail peeking from their shirts and Lotto’s staff should have been enough to show that these men were part of the army. Lessa told him that most of Happly’s army dressed no better than they did now.  Lotto thought of the mercenaries he had seen in Heartwell’s inn.

Morio had no problem acting the part of a bravo. Lotto cringed from time to time as they passed cowed city-dwellers. While moving closer to the city center, they avoided the towers, walking through the myriad alleys and short narrow streets. A group of men dressed like themselves walked across a larger street in front of them.

“You there!” one of them said from fifty feet away. Lotto gripped his battle staff and tensed up.

Another cried out, “What have you found?”

Morio laughed and took another bite of his sausage. “An open vendor five or six streets that way,” he said with his mouth full, holding up his food. Lotto followed suit and tried to grin. It wasn’t very easy under the circumstances.

“Thanks!” a few of them said as they changed direction and walked right past them going back the way Lotto and Morio had come.

Lotto noticed the way they were dressed and smiled. “We look just like them.”

Morio leaned over and sniffed at Lotto. “Smell like them, too!” Both of them laughed partly for effect and partly because the encounter had been so absurd.

They took their time, just as they planned, and they soon walked the street of houses built next to the castle wall. These had no rear yards since the owners used the keep’s wall itself as the back part of their homes.  

“Morio!” The words were spoken softly from within an alley. Pillo, Nark, Anton and Creeden leaned against either side of the alley walls.

“Did you find a likely house?” Lotto said.

“Two blocks down. There is a shuttered bakery shop. The baker is probably on the other side of town baking bread for the army.”

Lotto and Morio continued on and found the bakery. They entered a side yard, littered with supplies and used as a trade entrance. Lotto fiddled with the lock and soon let the other five inside. Now to find the back. A few climbed the stairs to the third floor attic and Lotto went by himself into the basement. They had a choice of four walls.

“I say do the bottom,” Creeden said as they found some very stale bread, but used it along with a couple bottles of wine that Lotto discovered in the basement to eat. It looked like the bakery hadn’t been used in a number of days.  The fires were out in the ovens.

“How do you make a wall?” Morio said.

“You build a base…” Creeden’s squeezed his eyes shut as he realized he gave the wrong answer. “The bottom of the wall is likelier to be a lot thicker.”