The Book of Deacon (19 page)

"So, you will not yell until Myn leaves?" she
asked, sliding herself into a sitting position and waking the
dragon.

"Aye, but as soon as the wee creature is out
of earshot, you will hear what I am at this moment only barely able
to contain," he said, twitching with suppressed anger.

"Why am I tempted to keep her around?" she
said meekly.

"Because you have forgotten that, as a
wizard, I've a host of more powerful and
far
more permanent methods of
disposing of the creature than a
blasted
sleep
spell!"
Wolloff said, the final words
carrying a hint of the rage he was feeling.

The awakened dragon looked sleepily at
Myranda, and then at the wizard. When she noticed the second human,
her eyes shot open and she leapt to the floor. Situating herself
between Myranda and the perceived threat, she shot Wolloff a steely
stare and adopted a fierce stance. She opened her wings and bared
her teeth. When the wizard refused to back down, Myn lashed her
tail back and forth, knocking down a pile of books. Instantly,
Wolloff grabbed his medallion. Myranda placed a reassuring hand on
Myn's side.

"Myn, don't worry. Wolloff here is a friend!
He won't do anything . . ." she began, before glancing at the
furious wizard just in time to see another twitch. " . . . terrible
to me."

She continued to pat the dragon on the neck
and soothe her until she was willing to relinquish her defensive
stance.

"That is right. You must be tired of being
cramped into this tiny room. Why don't you just go play outside in
the warm sun, and catch something to eat?" she said.

As Myranda gestured repeatedly to the window,
Myn shifted her gaze to the broken shutter, which had once again
come undone. A bird fluttered by. Myn locked onto the creature and
darted out the window and down the wall in a twinkling. Myranda ran
to the window and watched as the little dragon rushed toward the
same stand of trees she had terrorized the day before.

Wolloff joined her at the window, concerned
solely with the distance between himself and the dragon. As he
watched he spoke, his voice rising as the overprotective creature
moved further away.

"These books around you represent three
lifetimes of tireless search. My grandfather, my father, and I have
spent our youth scouring this embattled land for any scrap of
knowledge that it could muster. Every hint of mystic knowledge
available in the realm of healing has been assembled here. I will
not
allow all
of that to go up in a puff of smoke because an uneducated
apprentice
could not follow orders and let her blasted dragon let fly a spark!
Understood!?"
he cried with growing anger.

"Yes" Myranda said, sheepishly.

"Right . . . then let us begin," he said,
quickly composing himself. "First, you will need to learn how to
pronounce each rune. As a whole, they compose a complex written and
spoken language, but for our purposes, you will need to learn only
a small part of it. However, if you learn anything of the mystic
language, learn it well. A misspoken arcane word can be
dangerous."

"Dangerous?" she asked.

"Aye. At best, the spell will not work.
Equally likely is the mistake changing the behavior of the spell in
unpredictable ways. I cannot stress this enough. Ignoring all else,
you must only speak a spell with an effect that you are absolutely
sure of. Years ago, a colleague of mine attempted a spell intended
to light a fire. He mistakenly substituted the target rune for the
self rune. Needless to say, it was an unpleasant thing to witness.
Even more unpleasant to clean up. It was, though, a fine reminder
to speak with care," he said.

Aside from two breaks for meals, the day was
utterly filled with study. Learning to pronounce these words was
far more difficult than any other she had learned. This was because
each word carried power, and if too many were spoken together, a
spell would be cast. So each attempt was separated by a long and
purposeful silence. Whenever Myranda was not as careful as Wolloff
would like, she would be treated to a variation on the same long
lecture about the "undesirable" results that such behavior could
bring. Despite the difficulty, she did manage to learn a handful of
words. During dinner, she decided to ask some questions that had
been bothering her.

"Wolloff?" she asked.

"Aye," he said, as usual without looking up
from the ever-present book.

"Why do we have to learn a different language
to cast spells?" she asked.

"Strictly to save effort. The language that
these spells are scribed in is one that the spirits are attuned to.
When you speak an incantation, you entreat the forces around us for
help. I've seen similar effects brought about in nearly any spoken
language, but in those cases the mind of the caster must attune
itself to the spirits. The process tends to be longer and slower.
Sometimes chanting is involved. I personally cannot see the
benefit, but to each his own. Nothing you will be doing will
require much more than you'll learn of the runes," he said, as
though he'd answered the question countless times before.

"What if---" she began.

"Listen, all that needs to be answered shall
be. Any question that you have that does not find an answer in the
months ahead is not one worth asking. Please keep your
magic-related inquiries to yourself," he said.

From that point forward, he rigidly refused
to answer any more of her questions, rather forcefully suggesting
that she retire to her room and practice what she had learned thus
far. She climbed the increasingly familiar staircase to her room.
The fading light of the setting sun illuminated the page that she
had left open on the table. After finding and reminding herself of
the runes she knew, she carefully located the book she had found
earlier and analyzed the spell that bore her name. Not
surprisingly, most runes that she had learned were present in the
spell. She grinned at the thought that Wolloff was preparing her
for this very incantation. A few days more of study such as this
and she would know all of the runes on the page. She could be
casting it by week's end. With this thought in her mind, she felt
the wound on her arm. The sliver Wolloff had removed was enough to
take from it the constant pain. Soon she would be rid of the wound,
once and for all.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the violent
swinging of the shutter, and she knew without looking that it was
not the wind that had dislodged it. Sure enough, the little dragon
was at her side again. She stroked the loyal creature's head and
continued her review. Myn delighted in the sound of Myranda's voice
as she muttered this word or that from the symbols scribed on the
page. Soon the sun was behind the mountains, leaving her with no
light to learn by. This was Myranda's cue to retire, with Myn
taking her usual position on top of her.

"So, how did your day go? Keeping busy?" she
asked her silent companion. "New words. You know, I haven't learned
a new language since I was a little girl. It wasn't particularly
easy back then, but now there is the distinct possibility that if I
mispronounce a word I could wind up as a jackrabbit or invisible.
That has added a whole new dimension to the learning process, I can
tell you. I'll tell you something else, too. He may know this magic
backward and forward, but he could stand to learn a thing or two
about manners. I was afraid that when my time here was up I
couldn't bear to leave it, but if he remains as he is today, after
six months I shall be glad to be rid of it."

Morning came quickly, and Myranda was sure to
be up with the sun so that she would have time to coax Myn to leave
before Wolloff arrived, lest she receive yet another of his
long-winded lectures. She managed to do so with little time to
spare. Wolloff's slow, plodding footsteps could be heard
approaching just as she closed the shutter.

The day passed almost precisely as the
previous one had, as did one after, and the one after that.
Daylight was spent studying, night spent with Myn to keep her
company. It might not have been the most luxurious life, but it was
just exactly what she needed: stability, safety, and even education
and companionship. For the first time in ages, she could feel her
tightly-bound mind decompressing, her perpetually tangled nerves
unraveling. She was living, not merely surviving. After so long, it
was a state she was unaccustomed to, and brought with it the
nagging fear that it would be fleeting.

#

Several days of travel had brought Trigorah
and her men from their headquarters in Northern Capital to the
southern edge of an icy field. She had most of the other Elites
combing it for some sign of where the sword had been found. If the
reports were correct, then the girl had passed through the nearby
towns heading south. Of the three nearest towns, only the people of
the village due north had any memory of the girl described in
Demont's report. They spat when they spoke of her, decrying her as
a sympathizer and traitor. One man recounted with pride sending her
directly through this field.

The general considered the facts. An
unprepared, unequipped individual as the townsfolk had described
would not likely have survived the journey to the next city, even
if she'd known to head there directly. She must have found some
manner of shelter before then. The only conceivable source, barring
something within the tundra itself, was a small, poorly-kept place
of worship. Trigorah approached it. There were horses and riders in
front of it. As she drew nearer, she realized that she recognized
the uniforms of the men assembled before the church as not merely
Alliance Army, but her own Elite. Anger and confusion welling up in
her, she spurred her horse forward.

"General Teloran!" piped one of the soldiers,
offering a salute.

"At ease, what is the meaning of this? I left
no orders for you. Why are you here?" Trigorah snapped.

"We've been assigned a temporary commander,
General. Commander Arden," he replied.

"Arden? Stand aside, soldier," the general
hissed.

Fury in her eyes, the general stalked inside.
In the darkened interior of the church, near a door at the far end
of the room, a massive man was clutching a frail, blindfolded old
priest in one hand and an oddly elegant halberd in the other. The
old man was fairly dangling from the aggressor's ham-sized
fist.

"You seen 'im. I know you did!" he
barked.

"Put him down!" Trigorah ordered.

The hulking man's head jerked in her
direction.

"Don't in'erupt, Gen'ral. I know dis old man
saw somfin," Arden growled.

"He hasn't seen anything, you imbecile! He is
clearly blind!" Trigorah cried, yanking the helpless old man from
his grip.

Arden considered this for a moment.

"That don't mean nothin," he decided.

"Father, if you will just take a seat in the
other room, I will have a word with my . . .
associate
. . . and then I require
a few words with you myself," Trigorah said diplomatically.

The priest gratefully felt his way to the
door to his chamber and closed the door behind him.

"What the
hell
do you think you are doing with
my
men,
Arden?"
Trigorah fumed, pronouncing the thug's name in an almost mocking
tone.

"You ain't doin yer job no more, they said,
so they decided I oughta. Said somebody's gotta find the 'sassin,
since you couldn't," he replied.

"I
found
the assassin's accomplice!
Someone
saw fit to
hire
him
rather than imprison him," Trigorah replied.

"Uh-huh. And he did his job. Probably I
wouldn't of had to get involved if he'da just been paid, but what
do I care 'bout 'scuses?" Arden shrugged, adding. "Yer men follow
orders good. I think I'll keep 'em."

Trigorah shuddered with anger.

"Huh-huh. Tell you what. You gotta find that
sword, right? And I gotta find that 'sassin. What's say we make a
wager? You find yer bounty first and I refuse to take yer men, even
if they're offered," Arden suggested.

"And if you win?" she asked.

"You know what I want if I win," Arden
replied.

The general's eyes narrowed.

"Don't flatter yerself, elf. I want what's in
here," he said, attempting to poke Trigorah on the helmet only to
have his hand knocked away. "I got a lot of questions, and I wanna
be able to ask 'em in
my
way. And, naturally, I'll be hanging onto yer
men."

After a moment, Trigorah offered her hand.
Arden shuffled the halberd to under his arm, its blade swiping
dangerously near to Trigorah's head, and shook her hand.

"Right. I'm off then. Have fun with yer
priest," Arden said, plodding out toward the door and barking an
order to the men outside.

Trigorah entered the priest's chambers. He
was sitting in a large chair, strangely composed despite his recent
ordeal.

"I apologize for the actions of Arden. They
were inexcusable," Trigorah began.

"Mmm. And yet you work with him," the priest
replied.

"Through no choice of my own, I assure you,"
General Trigorah said.

"Everything is a choice, my child. Some
choices are made poorly. They can have terrible consequences," he
replied coldly. "Tell me. Is that the sort that our glorious army
sees fit to employ?"

"These are hard times . . . regardless, I
again apologize. I shall endeavor to make my time here brief and
leave you in peace," Trigorah replied.

"As you wish, though it is not often I am
graced by the presence of a general. May I offer any hospitality?"
he said, the realization of his current guest finally taking
hold.