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

fire had marked him.  Then he went to his bed and lay down tiredly, falling asleep in moments.

When he woke, it was the evening of the next day.  He ate a breakfast of dried fruit and some bread and began to walk through the many rooms of the keep, thinking about what he would do.  As Druid he had responsibilities and he would be expected to carry them out.  One of them was to recruit and train sorcerers who wished to apply to Fein Mor as helpers.  He would start this as soon as he could, he decided, beginning with those who wished to apply from his home village Bottom Dell.  From there he would look further to the south, where it was rumoured there were those who practised magic and were friendly to the Druid order.  He walked past a window overlooking the drawbridge entrance to the keep, glancing casually over the patch of land where he had yesterday confronted and killed the being.  He came about abruptly.

Standing where it had stood yesterday, cloaked and hooded in its scarlet broad cloak, looking directly ahead at the entrance to Fein Mor, was the Windwalker.

He couldn’t believe what he was seeing at first.  He blinked hard again and again, convinced it was his mind playing tricks on him.  But it was there just as before, as real as it had ever been, the wind whipping around the tail of its broad cloak, its face, his face, lost in the shadow of its long hood.

What manner of creature was this, Daaynan wondered?

He stood staring at the Windwalker for some time, unable to take his eyes away.  Finally, he abandoned his vigil, headed for the deep interior of the keep where the chamber that housed the Druid records lay.  There must have been something he missed, he thought.  Could it have been an illusion he had fought, like the one he himself had brought about?  No, he decided, no illusion could have sustained injuries like those he had inflicted on the creature, nor have produced a smell like the one he had encountered.  Besides, an illusion could not match fire with fire.

It occurred to him that, in searching for mention of this being in the records, he had been looking in the wrong place.  There was mention in the books of beings known as Morphlings, shape shifters who could alter their appearance, indeed their whole identity for long periods of time.  Upon entering the vault chamber, he reached for the shelf that contained books on Morphlings and Alterforms, scanning through these for some cross connection between these and Windwalkers.  It was late in the evening by the time he finished and he was no better off in his search.  He went to bed tired, his eyes puffed and sore, grimly resolving to continue his search the next morning.  His sleep was fitful, his dreams irregular and broken-sequenced.  When dawn arrived, he re-entered the vault and resumed his search, not expecting much.  He had the germ of an idea, however, something that stood out from the general tumble of his dreams and stayed in the forepart of his mind.  What if he had been using the wrong kind of magic?  The idea bore closer scrutiny.  He had attacked the creature using conventional Druid sorcery but what if this kind of magic was useless against such a thing as this?  It had matched him fire for fire but what if it used another kind altogether, or at least was vulnerable to it?  He reflected on this for a time before an idea struck him.

Of course, how stupid he had been!  The answer was obvious.  It was a being from another age so it stood to reason it employed a sorcery from that time.  What sorcery?  The records wouldn’t help him there.  However, he now had access to all manner of enchantments and in time could select the right one.  Time, after all, was what he had in abundance.

He decided to test his theory sooner rather than later.  He was mindful of his impatience, yet over the past few days a slow anger had been building inside him, railing against the outrage that had been done to him, trapping him in his own home.  He would have to act if he were to escape his prison.  If he were to best his opponent.  First, however, he tried once again to communicate with it.

He stood in the well of the North Tower, closing his eyes, and summoned an image of the being that stalked him outside the keep.  It came to him clearly, a well-defined picture of it standing no more than a few feet from the entrance to Fein Mor.  He spoke not in words but in impulse ‘impressions,’ rather like pictures that expressed feelings of what he intended to communicate.  He sent them in a code to convey sentences much like his own speech structure.

For long moments there was no reaction from the Shape-shifter.  Then, slowly, it began to respond, sending coded images of its own, tentatively at first, then with greater speed.  Many of the images were unfamiliar to Daaynan and as a result much of the communication was lost.  There were pictures and summonings of another time, depictions of creatures at rest and in battle wearing markings and using gestures he could not identify.  They came and went at speed in a sequence he didn’t understand.  He asked it what manner of sorcery it used and the confused impression he received in response was of no immediate help.  After a time, he gave up.

His failure to communicate with the Shape-shifter left him with the same problem, namely how would he discover what manner of sorcery it used?  Even if he could have conversed with it would it have come straight out and told him?  He thought not but it was curious about him, the Brightsphere had said, and might possibly trade information with him.

How would he find out the nature of the sorcery