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

“I don’t know.  I can’t see past this creature, it hurts too much.”

Daaynan reached forward and gripped Torn by her collar.  “You have to tell me how to defeat it!  It, or the person responsible for it being here.  You must tell me now!”

Torn fell back against the other’s grasp, helpless and afraid.  “I...the Steward can control it, but only once.  It is a command that it will only obey, a final directive...

“There is another...one who can shape its thinking and behaviour...he calls it the Thrust.  I don’t know much about him.  This man lives in the shadows, but he has been helping the Steward.  He was behind the attack on your keep, manipulating the Faerie creatures to attack you.  I don’t know any more.  Really.”

Daaynan released his grip on Torn, sitting back down.  “I’m sorry to have done that,” he said, eyeing her rumpled collar.  “It’s important that we find and stop Longfellow before he can put his plan into action.  Is there anything more you can tell us, anything we should know?”

A single tear rolled down her cheek and she brushed it away distractedly, regaining her composure.  “Longfellow has mobilised a portion of his army whose task is to track and destroy magic users,” she sniffed.  “He does this while he secretly uses this man’s magic to control the Tochried.”  She leaned forward suddenly.  “Confront him, Druid.  Put an end to him.  The Northern Earth is better off without such people.”

Daaynan offered her the crystal.  “Thank you for your help.  Now, could you bring us to the Carrion bird?”

“Keep it,” Torn said, looking at the crystal.  “You may need it.”  She turned to Mereka.  “You know how it works?”

Mereka nodded.  “It protects the wearer against the use of sorcery.”

“Yes, but it can only be employed a number of times before the light inside it fades to nothing.  When this happens, it becomes just an ordinary crystal, not much more valuable than a piece of rock.  Now, you do not have a lot of time and I must yet take you to the bird.

“Come, follow me.”  She rose, her face running, beginning to change, to transform back into the Wade Torn they had met on entering the Axe and Stump.  Daaynan wondered quietly what effect this changing back and forth would have on an individual, indeed what effect Mereka’s transfiguration had had on her.  He noticed Simon looking at her and wondered if he were thinking the same thing. He could have found an accommodation of sorts with people here in Dhu Nor, just as Mereka had in Carasan, yet in the end it hadn’t been enough, had it?  We all have our cross to bear, he thought darkly.  Was this the way of things in Simon’s England?  He thought it likely, knowing Simon’s particular cross.  Would this experience change Christopher for the better?  Only time would say so.

Torn unlatched the door and the company followed him through the tavern.  They were ushered quickly past the revellers and through a side-door that led to a series of back-offices along a dusky corridor.  They turned right and left, past an office which Torn announced to belong to Drett Peers whom they had by now all but forgotten, and into a rear vestibule with a door that opened onto a yard.  There was a large cell in one corner of the yard which looked specially constructed to house something valuable.  On closer inspection it was a tempered steel cage with sheet metal laid over iron bars, the metal exposed in a window-like frame to permit the viewer a glimpse of what lay within.

Peering out through the window was the largest bird Daaynan had ever seen.

It was powerfully built, like a bird of prey, with a heavy, almost ponderous head and a large, smooth, yellow hooked beak.  Its legs were strong and muscular, ending in formidable looking talons that would rend flesh and more besides.  Its feathers were a mottled brown and white, the endings of some tipped in gold to form an irregular pattern along the length of its body.  Its eyes were arresting: blue-green in hue, they glanced at the small company with a knowing awareness; sharp, yet not entirely unfriendly.

Torn gestured at the creature, turning to the rest of the company and with a theatrical flourish he said “Say hello to Attarack!”

26.

Karsin Longfellow passed along the courtyard that housed the Steward’s quarters, past the halls of the Confederation Council chambers, through the gates of the fortified complex, and outside toward the citadel barracks.  The sentries on duty nodded curtly as he went by, their features exhibiting deference.  Longfellow offered them a thin smile, keeping his expression neutral.  It belied his true feelings, which he kept well in check, hidden from everyone around him.  Everything seemed to be happening at once.  The sorcerer known as the King was almost upon the city, Tan Wrock had informed him.  It was almost nightfall, and Wrock had told him the other would arrive shortly after this, though he did not give a specific time.  Let him come, he thought.  The Tochried would put an end to him and perhaps the Druid as well, though he would believe that when he saw it.  Daaynan had so far escaped three attempts on his life: first the Faerie creature, after that his cousin, then those Furies.  The thing that lay housed inside the Darksphere had promised him that the Tochried would finish the job.  Tan Wrock thought so too.  He was in control of its mind and privy to the limits of its strength of which there didn’t appear to be any.  Wrock had gone into hiding, Longfellow reflected.  His dwelling on the outskirts of Brinemore was reported to have been vacated a day ago.  His guess was that the other had accommodated himself in one of the outlying towns of the region.  He clearly did not want to be around when the two sorcerers arrived.  How wise of him.  As Steward he had