The Steward and the Sorcerer by James Peart (small books to read .TXT) 📗

The Druid gathered them close.

“That other, the one called Iridis, has followed us through the temple.  I do not know whether he is strong enough to come here: the temple, it seems, has a different effect on everyone.  It is imperative that he not catch up with us, yet if he does you must not allow him to touch you.  His power relies on that.”

“What can he do to us?”

“Of that I am not completely sure.  I have sensed his power, however, and it is quite possibly greater than my own, more so now that my magic has been weakened.  To restore it will not be easy and I shall need time to recover, time we don’t have.  But we have another problem.”

His hand disappeared inside his cloak.  When it re-emerged, it held an object that looked like a stick.  It was less than half a foot long, a few inches wide and flat.

“This is called a Drey torch.  I fashioned it out of the green fire, which draws matter, including people, into the user’s point of origin from another world.”  He held up the stick.  “This is half of the torch, to be precise.  The other half is placed on a window ledge overlooking the entrance to this keep.  It spies on intruders outside the castle.  One half of the torch sees through the other half.  I have placed others like it on windows on each wing of the castle.  I keep half of each on my person.  I am giving them to you now.”

Simon took them reluctantly.

“It tells me that there are creatures outside Fein Mor, waiting for me to emerge.  Observe.”

He outstretched the hand that held the torch and waved it briefly in the poor light of the chamber.

An image materialised before them suddenly, a picture of four individuals standing in a field, angled so that the viewer seemed to be looking down on them.  The people depicted in the image looked human, yet it was impossible to tell, given the distance.  They were very tall, cloaked in shawls that covered the entire length of their bodies, including their faces which were mostly draped in the shadow of their hoods.  One of them stood apart from the rest.  He/it was holding a black wooden staff with coloured runes embedded in its crown-like top.  He seemed to be waiting.  His hood had slipped to reveal part of his features: strange wiry hair protruded from his skin in uneven tufts, wild and sinewed.  The skin itself was plated with scales of mottled irregularity.

Simon and Christopher stared at it in horror.

“What are they?” Christopher stammered.

Daaynan looked sharply at Simon, who merely raised his eyebrows at him, inviting an answer to the same question.

“They are Faerie creatures, similar to the one that I now believe was sent to attack me by the steward of Brinemore.  They wait for us outside the walls of this keep.  It is Longfellow’s insurance against a strike against him by Fein Mor.  The one who leads them, the one who is standing apart from the others, is different from the Faerie who confronted me weeks ago.  He is bigger somehow, more purposeful looking.  I don’t have my magic in sufficient degree to let me know one way or the other, but I would guess that he is far more dangerous than his brethren.”

“He looks noble, in a way,” Christopher said.  Daaynan and Simon exchanged a look.

“Ok.  What do we do now?”

“I am not sure, Englishman, that we do anything, at least for the time being.  My powers have waned, and neither of you possess sorcery of any measurable kind.  However, should we escape Fein Mor, one of you is capable of successfully entering Brinemore unremarked on.”

“What do you mean?  Which one of us?”

Daaynan answered him by simply looking at Christopher.

“No!  No, Druid, this isn’t an answer to your problems.  He isn’t capable of that.  You’d better think of some other plan.”

“He is an exact copy of Karsin Longfellow.  He could be his twin.”

“And the resemblance ends there.  He hasn’t the will or stomach for this sort of...of operation.  He’d be killed minutes after entering the citadel, the real one.”

“He comes from royalty, didn’t you say?  He Isa Lord, is he not?  He has all the training he needs.  What this task requires is for him to lead us to the real Longfellow so we can assassinate him.  He needn’t talk to anyone on the way, in fact if he dismisses the people he meets the more in character he will be.  The job should be an easy one.”

“It’ll be anything but!  No, think of something else.  Can’t you use your magic to create another copy of Longfellow?”

“By using the green magic?”  There was a challenging look in Daaynan’s eyes that Simon failed to recognise.

“Yes, absolutely!  Create an army of them, if you like.  March them right up to Longfellow.  Storm the bloody citadel, if you like.”

“Firstly, the green flame is a rough instrument.  It will not draw an exact copy of somebody into this world, yet something real that approximates whoever it is asked to imitate.  Also, even if I were to recover my magic in time, employing my powers to do such a thing would render me incapacitated for a long time, certainly longer than is practical.”

Daaynan looked sombrely, almost sadly, into Simon’s eyes.  “There is no other way.”

“There has to be,” Simon insisted, “You’re just not thinking hard enough.”

“Englishman, I...”  The Druid’s words caught in his throat as something gripped him hard and fast from behind.  His entire frame went rigid, his mouth open in frozen surprise.  His body shook once in a convulsive twist, thrashing against whatever force held him, before growing limp and still.  Then he collapsed to the floor.

Standing in the chamber’s entryway was the Raja Iridis.

12.

Simon very nearly forgot what he was about.  He stood in shock, gazing at the fallen Druid, his last words to him (‘there is no other way’) echoing in his