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

breaks and rifts.  The wind was strong but intermittent, whipping against them in short, powerful bursts, then dying to nothing, the cycle of gusts an irritant but it merely threatened to destabilise them- they were each securely strapped to a harness.

He glanced back at Christopher and Simon who were sat behind him and Mereka, the pain of even this simple movement causing him to wince and buckle forward.  He held on tightly to the fastenings, grimly determined to maintain consciousness, directing his thoughts on the group, on the ordeal that awaited them.

“Are you alright, Daaynan?” Mereka asked.  She had been turning frequently to look at him.

“I...will be fine,” he said.  Whatever magic the King possesses, my own is fighting it-...I won’t give up.”

Mereka’s face was etched in concern.  “There’s not far to go now.  When we set down, I shall cast about for a shelter to place you while the sickness passes.”  She paused, thoughtfully.  “Do you think your companions are up to the task that awaits us?”

He considered his response.  If there was one individual from this group that could be relied upon to keep his wits about him when they arrived at Brinemore, it was Simon.  He told her so.  “I have prepared a speech for Christopher to deliver to the Brinemore soldiery.”  He paused, wincing with a sudden pain.  “Simon will make sure he delivers it correctly.

“The Englishman reminds me of someone I knew growing up in the Dell.  He was a sorcerer’s apprentice and someone I occasionally confided in regarding the use of magic when others wouldn’t listen or were afraid.”  Mereka nodded in understanding, thinking perhaps of her own former talents.  “He distanced himself from the villagers later in life.  When I asked him why this was, thinking it had to do with his being singled out for mistreatment because he’d been different, he told me that he neither thought good nor ill of them.  There was a young woman he’d had a liking for, a woman who had been well respected in the Dell.  Many thought her to have been the reason for his ambivalence to the villagers, yet it was not the case.”  A wave of dizziness washed over the Druid suddenly, and he pitched forward in his seat, lifting his arm against his forehead, breathing shallow mouthfuls of air.  Mereka reached back, her arm outstretched to help him recover his balance, but he waved it away with cold resolve.  Behind him, Simon and Christopher were talking, exchanging words quickly and in hushed tones, too engrossed in each other’s company to notice him.  He waited for the spell to pass, then resumed speaking.  “He was a rare sort, this man, and not just because he had use of magic.  He was both clever and dispassionate, not swayed by the other person’s origin or loyalties.  An honest, objective intelligence in a world of ignorance and false allegiances.  I heard he prospered in cargo trading off the western coast.”  He paused.  “Simon is like this man.”

“Where are they both really from, old friend?  It’s not the Dell, or anywhere that I know of in the Northern Earth.”

“I took them from another time and place.”

“You mean you...abducted them?”

The Druid met her sudden, intense gaze, his eyes, usually hard and unforgiving, yielding slightly yet spying past her at some unfathomable truth, the existence of which only he could warrant.

“On arriving in these lands,” he continued, “Simon could have surmised that I had...abducted...him for selfish reasons, and perhaps initially he did, yet he took care to investigate the circumstances leading to my decision.  His and Christopher’s world may be filled with compromise and hesitation, but this is only skin deep with him.  Christopher, on the other hand, revels in regret and uncertainty and, I suspect, would have died long ago had it not been for his friend. I also think that both of them stand apart from the place they live in.  They are part of the culture of their England and yet they are also outside of it, able to view it from more than one perspective.  This might well be the reason they have survived here.  Simon, assessing everything he encounters logically, dispassionately, might survive in any age.  Christopher, perhaps, merely does not belong to the place where he was born.  It could be that this thing- this standing outside one’s circumstances of living- is practiced more in the age in which their England finds itself.  The age of exploring different styles and customs, of trying new things.  In someone like Christopher, this would be decadent.  In Simon, it is a more constructive thing.  Simon’s world of machines and miracles...” he trailed off suddenly, “I wonder what it would be like there.”

Mereka placed a hand on his shoulder.  “That’s enough talk for now.”  She went on to say more but was interrupted by the two Englishmen who were chattering excitedly, pointing down over to the west.  They followed the Englishmen’s gaze and Mereka’s breath hitched in her throat.  The grass and trees beneath them had given way to roads and buildings that stretched as far as the eye could see, ringed by ancient historical walls that signalled the administrative boundaries of the city.  Homes of differing styles and designs ran into shops and trading houses that dwarfed in size and enterprise anything they had seen in Carasan.  They flew over neighbourhoods with vast urban parks filled with creeks, lakes and ale gardens connected by walkways decorated with plants and flowers of every conceivable variety.  Dotted throughout the city were old palace estates fronted by castle ruins on grounds that had been converted to markets and games arenas.  Some of the buildings, Daaynan knew, were unchanged since the Punic Wars hundreds of years ago.  Road converged to form broad avenues that ran through the centre of the city featuring giant trading halls, museums and galleries.  There were thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people beneath them, a maelstrom of humanity forming a thronging pulse that moved in