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

buttons, he knew.  Press them and he could return.  He reached out to do so, but in that moment, he felt the monstrous presence again.  Blackness washed over him and he began to scream.

He jerked awake, snapping open his eyes.  Daaynan was standing over his bed, his tall form draped in plain convalescent robes, smiling down at him.

“Simon,” the Druid said softly.  The big man seemed kinder, gentler, the harsh planes and lines of his face less defined, less readily apparent.  He stood patiently, without the usual sense of urgency the Englishman had come to expect from him, waiting for him to speak.

Simon blinked rapidly, absorbing all of this.

“Where’s Christopher?” he asked suddenly, filling with panic, rising half out of bed.

The Druid lifted his hand in a soothing gesture.  “He’s fine.  He’s convalescing in another wing of the sanctuary.  As soon as I recovered myself, I went to see him.  He’s eating solid food and is talking.  Of the four of us, he was the least wounded.  He had only scratches.  One small scar perhaps, on his forearm where the crystal he wore was unable to fully deflect the Tochried’s attack.  Mostly he was tired.”

Simon relaxed slightly.  “That Commander visited me some time ago, I don’t know when.  He was visiting his second in command.  The man was seriously injured in battle but he’ll pull through, I think.  I can’t remember much of what he told me, only that it was you who saved us all.  That beast would have had us otherwise.”

If the Druid were pleased by his words, he did not give a sign that this was the case.  He looked around his chamber.  “Where are we anyway?”

“In the mountains, just north of Brinemore.  Commander Dechs’ men carried both of us here.  He left four days ago for the city to sort out the mess Longfellow made of things.  We’ve been here two weeks but I would bet they have only begun to make progress.”

“What happened to the administration?  Were they killed before we came to Brinemore?”

Daaynan shook his head.  “They fled to the outskirts long before the Naveen King arrived.  When they returned they were met by Dechs who handed control of the city over to them.  Once they discovered the role he had played in defeating the Tochried, they insisted on his help.  They promoted him from the rank and file of common soldier to acting deputy military advisor.  The news was related to me by a mountain guide who arrived from Brinemore this afternoon.  Now he will help oversee the administration.  He’s a good man.”

The Englishman sighed.  “So, there’s no one left in Brinemore save for the Legionnaires and what’s left of the governing Council?”

“That’s not true.  There were citizens who escaped the influence of the Naveen King.  They fled like the administration only to return when the battle was over.  And the remainder of the Northern Army returned from the Drague Territories on horseback.  The governors can build on those that are left.”

Simon reflected on this.  “They’re cowardly, that council.”

“Only because their Steward was too.  He’s being held in a barracks’ stronghold, by the way, pending their decision to strip him of his title.”

“Will they do it?”

“I think so.  They discovered he had banned sorcery only so his ‘creatures’ could employ it unchallenged and against council members who disagreed with the way he was managing affairs of state.  They’ll never forgive him for that.”

“I see, of course.

“Daaynan...you haven’t told me word of Mereka...”

A look of grief stole over the Druid’s face, fleeting yet intense.  “She didn’t make it, she...saved my life when I was still in the thrall of Iridis’ sorcery and unable to defend myself.”

The Englishman reached out, not quite touching the other’s arm.  “I’m sorry it had to be that way.  I know you cared for her despite what I said a while back.”

Daaynan nodded, yet his expression of sorrow had vanished.  Simon was once more quietly astonished at how quickly the Druid brushed aside all evidence of feeling, leaving him again with the impression that the other did not care in the same way that he himself would.  He knew that this was not true, but did it require the shared experience of a life-threatening conflict for him to see that?  The battle was over and he was glad.  Now he could turn his thoughts to achieving what he had wanted ever since his coming here.

The Druid’s thoughts, he discovered, ran unerringly close to his own.  “You want me to send you back home.  Both of you,” he said.

“Can you do it?”

Daaynan said nothing for a long while.  When he finally spoke, he said “the guide told me they discovered a ‘haunt’ beneath an inner tower of a small keep north-west of Brinemore.  There is a spirit creature there which by their account has resided there for centuries.  It had been helping Longfellow all this time by summoning wraiths and shades from the netherworld- including the Furies you saw at Fein Mor- to do battle with me.  It has near unlimited power though it cannot itself cross over into this world.  I think if we go there and talk with it, it might agree to send you back to England.”

Simon tried not to let his excitement show.  However, he was not as practised as the Druid at concealing his emotions.  Daaynan permitted himself a brief smile.

“What makes you think it would help us?” Simon asked.

“Because this ‘haunt’ it lives in is called the Darksphere,” the other responded.

“You mean...?”

“It is the brother of the one that appears in Fein Mor, the one that lives in the Brightsphere.”

“I see,” Simon said, not really understanding.  “Leaving that aside, why would it help Christopher and I to get home?”

“It wants something that only I can offer it.  I can bargain this for your request.”

“And what does it want?”

“What we all want, Englishman,” the Druid said solemnly.  “Freedom.”

37.

The rank air of Brinemore Keep permeated the corridor in which the Druid and the Englishmen stood.