Forgotten Realms - Counselors & Kings 01 - The Magehound

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Prologue
The wizard's shoulders burned with fatigue as he forced himself to lift the
machete one more time. He hacked at the flowering vines, but the tangled mass
was so thick that it seemed to shrug off his blows. A burst of shrill, mocking
laughter erupted from the green canopy overhead, a maniacal sound that held a
rising note of hysteria. Several of the men with him froze, their dark eyes glazed
with trepidation.
"Nothing but a bird," the wizard snapped, desperately hoping that he
guessed correctly. "Are you masters of magic or timorous milkmaids? Has
Akhlaur's treasure lost its allure? Perhaps you'd prefer to pass your remaining
days as a magic-dead wench crouched beneath a cow's udder? I assure you," he
added darkly, "that could be arranged. Now, get back to work." He punctuated his
command with another angry whack.
He focused on his anger and goaded his men into doing the same. Anger
kept them moving. Fear was something they ignored as best they could, for in
the Swamp of Akhlaur, even a moment's hesitation could be deadly.
An enormous, luminous green flower snapped at the wizard, missing his ear
but dusting him with pollen that glowed softly and smelled like mangoes and
musk. He sneezed violently and repeatedly, until he feared that the next
explosion would surely expel his liver through his nostrils. When at last the
spasms passed, he lashed out with his machete and sliced the blossom from the
vine. He knew better than to kick the massive flower, but he dearly wished to.
The wizard had come to loathe the swamp and everything in it, but for these
flowers he reserved a special enmity. Monstrous in size and appetite, the swamp
blossoms snapped randomly and unexpectedly. Their cup-shaped blossoms
were ringed with thorns that curved like a viper's fangs and held poison as deadly
as venom. What they caught, they kept. A spray of iridescent blue tail feathers
protruded from one tightly clamped blossom. On the ground nearby, low-growing
vines entwined the nearly skeletal form of a wild boar. Tendrils of green spiraled
around exposed ribs. A flower bud nodded over the juncture of a dagger-sized
tusk and massive skull, like a child admiring the work of its deadly parents.
The wizard redoubled his assault on the vines. His hair clung to his forehead
in wet strings, and his fingers itched with the desire to cast a spell that would
wither the dangerous green barrier into dry and crumbling twigs.
But he dared not. He had brought a company of wizards into the Swamp of
Akhlaur, armed with enough spells and potions and enchanted weapons to take
them from one new moon to the next-or so he had thought. Already their store of
magic ran dangerously low.
How was it possible that in just three days they were forced to replace magic
with muscle? What other equally vital errors might he have made? What secrets
did the swamp hold that might prove beyond their dwindling powers?
Doubts plagued the wizard as he and his men hacked their way through the
thick foliage. Three days in the Swamp of Akhlaur had thinned his patience, his
confidence, and his ranks. Twenty men had followed him into the swamp, only
thirteen had managed to stay alive. That was no small accomplishment, not when
every day brought unexpected dangers and merely breathing was a great effort.
His chest throbbed with a dull, heavy ache from battling air as thick and hot as
soup.
The wizard had thought himself well accustomed to heat, for Halruaa was a
southern land where seasons were denned by patterns of the rains, the winds,
and the stars. But never, never had he known such heat! The swamp was a
cauldron, a fetid, foul thing that simmered and bubbled and spat.
Water was everywhere. It dripped from the leaves, it enshrouded the shallow
waters with mist, it sloshed about the men's ankles. At present they skirted a
strangely brooding river. The surface of the water rose in slow, green bubbles
that spewed stench and steam into air too moisture-laden to receive either.
Odors lingered in the stagnant air, as land-bound as shadows, commingling but
still distinct enough to identify: swamp gas, decay, venom flowers, sweat, fear.
Fear. The wizard could taste the sharp, metallic bitterness of it in his throat
and wondered why. He, Zilgorn of Halruaa, was no coward. Wizardry was a
demanding and difficult path, and no wizard without a strong will and a stronger
stomach could become a necromancer. Zilgorn courted death, he bought and
sold death, he shaped it to his will. It seemed reasonable to him that he should
succeed in the deadly swamp where so many other wizards had failed.
He glanced at the ancient, sweat-stained map he clenched in one hand. His
first master, Chalzaster, had spoken of his ancestors' lost village as a place on a
hill overlooking a fair meadow, with the swamp beyond. The meadow and village
were long gone, swallowed by the eerily growing swamplands, but a hill was a
landmark worth seeking. It was all Zilgorn had-that, and the legends that
whispered of magic-rich treasure, and the knowledge that many had died trying
to claim the legacy hidden in the swamp.
"How much longer?" demanded one of his apprentices. The young man
squinted up into the thick green canopy. "We've been working since dawn, and it
must be nearly highsun. Yet how far have we gone? A hundred paces? Two
hundred?"
"Would you rather swim the river?" snapped Zilgorn.
His retort drew no response but sullen stares. The apprentice shrugged and
lifted his machete high overhead. He swung hard, and his blade grated against
hidden stone.
Several of the men exchanged hopeful glances. "Akhlaur's tower?" one of
them breathed.
The wizard chuckled without mirth. "Hardly! If this quest was so easy, why
has no one yet succeeded?"
His followers looked doubtful. This, easy? In three days, they had spent more
time in battle than in exploration. Two men had been lost in sinkholes, and
another had been crushed and swallowed by a giant snake. Four battle-scarred
figures shuffled along behind them with the obedient, mindless gait of the
animated dead. The presence of these zombies, their former companions,
unnerved some of the younger members of the party, but Zilgorn knew better
than to leave the dead lying around untended.
"Not Akhlaur's tower," he said in a milder tone, "but worth exploring all the
same. Strip the vines from the stone."
They fell to work, grunting and sweating as they attacked the foliage, ripping
at it with knives and their bare hands. Suddenly one of the wizards fell back with
a startled oath.
Zilgorn hurried over for a better look. The skeleton of a tall man stood erect,
arms held out dramatically high as if to cast a final spell. Vines twined through
the dead man's empty chest, and his skeletal back was propped against a tall,
rune-carved stone. Lying amid the moldering tatters of his robes was a tarnished
medallion. Zilgorn could barely make out the engraving: a rising flame in a circle
of nine stars, the symbol of Mystra, goddess of magic. He turned the medallion
over and studied the sigil, a magical design unique to a particular wizard, that
was engraved upon the back. It was a mark he knew well.
"Chalzaster," he murmured, lifting his gaze to the empty eyes of his first
master. "So this is what became of him."
A heavy silence fell over the group. The name Chalzaster was familiar to
them, for they had seen it on many a spell scroll. An archmage of the illusionist
school, he was most famous for creating defensive spells against attacks by sea.
Many would-be invaders had been kept at bay by his illusions of pirate ships, sea
monsters, and waterspouts. His name had become proverbial: "Chalzaster's
shadow" was a catchphrase for anything fearful but insubstantial.
"The swamp killed the archmage Chalzaster," one of the men muttered. His
tone and his eyes were hopeless, defeated.
"Yes," Zilgorn agreed evenly. "This is an unexpected bounty. You, Hazzle.
Collect the finger bones."
The young wizard set to work without hesitation. He was well on his way to
learning the necromancer's art, and so he understood that the bones of an
archmage were most likely components of some rare and powerful spell. After a
few moments, Hazzle spilled the grim treasure into his master's hands.
Zilgorn carefully slipped the bones into a bag tied to his belt. "Look around.
Who knows what Chalzaster might have found before he died."
They worked until the shadows turned dusky and deep, until the distant
snarls of night-hunting creatures heralded a rising moon. At last they freed
Chalzaster's bones from the vines. The great wizard had died guarding the portal
to a large, crumbling stone building that had long ago been swallowed by the
swamp.
Zilgorn thrust the skeleton aside and peered into the darkness. "Bring a light.
Quickly!"
It occurred to him, too late, to specify that he wanted a mundane torch, an
oil-soaked reed set aflame by sparks from flint and steel. Out of habit, one of the
wizards conjured a floating sphere of soft blue light. The glowing sphere bobbed
gently, then glided into the room.
Zilgorn's reprimand died unspoken as azure light fell upon the room's grim
occupants. Chalzaster had not died alone.
The bones of at least a dozen large humans and the more delicate remains
of three half-elves lay sprawled on the floor, the skeletons strangely intact. Bony
fingers still curled around valuable weapons: swords, pikes, and daggers. These
people had died quickly, and they had been left to lie where they fell.
The wizard glanced around the room in search of some explanation. The
walls, though ancient and crumbling, were decorated with remnants of carvings
depicting legends told of the goddess Mystra. Zilgorn could barely make out a
shattered marble altar amid the heap of stones against the far wall. From one
tilting pillar dangled a hanging censer designed for the burning of incense, but
which now held an abandoned bird's nest. Clearly this had once been a Mystran
temple, and most likely the ancient site from which Chalzaster’s forebears had
come. Apparently the archmage had returned to his ancestral village. But why
had he died here?
Zilgorn stooped to tug a sword from a crumbling fist. He studied the markings
on the blade. They were magical, of that he was certain, but he felt no pulse of
life within the steel. A very fine tiger's eye, a golden gem nearly the size of a
pullet's egg, had been set into the ornate hilt. But the stone was dull and milky, as
if the sword had been blinded.
"Not blinded," Zilgorn murmured with sudden understanding. "Drained."
"Master, look at this!"
Hazzle's voice blended excitement and awe. The necromancer dropped the
magic-dead sword and strode across the room. His apprentice pointed toward a
crystalline statue, a transparent, life-sized image of an elf warrior frozen in a
battle-ready crouch, muscles tensed for a sudden charge.
The statue was female, exquisite in the beauty of its subject and the artistry
of its crafter. Zilgorn had never seen its equal. Yet certain things about the statue
troubled him. The elf woman's lovely features were frozen in a rictus of pain, and
her crystalline hair hung strangely lank.
Absently he brushed at his own damp black locks. A horrible suspicion took
root in his mind and began to blossom.
"The warriors fell with their weapons," he mused. "Chalzaster, an archmage,
died on his feet But what of this elf woman?"
"Elf woman?" Hazzle was clearly disconcerted by this notion. "This is but a
statue, a treasure from some long-lost time."
"Is it?" said Zilgorn with dangerous calm. He fisted his hand and drove it
toward the crystal warrior. As he suspected, his hand plunged deep into the
translucent image. What he did not expect was the bitter chill that assaulted him,
not merely the cold of death, but the utter absence of warmth that spoke of a
void, a frigid absolute emptiness. Zilgorn jerked his hand free and showed his
student the blue-white skin.
Hazzle sucked air in a quick, startled hiss, and several of the men made
signs of warding-a superstitious, peasant-brained response to the unknown,
something that would have irritated Zilgorn had he not been consumed with more
important matters.
The wizard shook his hand until a measure of warmth and feeling returned.
He tore a corner from the parchment map and walked back to the bones of his
former master. Taking Chalzaster's medallion in one hand, he pressed the
parchment against the sigil. During his apprenticeship, he had been magically
empowered to affix Chalzaster's sigil to the spell scrolls he copied, thus marking
them as authentic copies of the archmage's work. This power was his to
command until the day he died, so by this reasoning the sigil should burn a
glowing red shadow of itself onto the parchment
But it did not. Whatever magic the medallion had once held was long gone.
Zilgorn rocked back on his heels and considered this. Chalzaster had no
patience for anything mundane or magic-dead, so every person with him had
surely been a wizard, or possibly a cleric. All had died quickly, according to the
power they held: most of them in the act of attacking, the great Chalzaster in mid-
spell. But the elf woman, a creature whose essence and body and soul were
fashioned of magic as surely as a rainbow was made of light, had been drained
so quickly that she had left nothing but a transparent, profoundly empty image.
Zilgorn had never heard of such a thing, but he knew death well-well enough to
see his own death foretold by the bones of Chalzaster, and his pretensions of
magical power mocked by the elf's frozen ghost.
The necromancer stiffened. "Away from here! Flee this place at once!"
The panic in his voice lent wings to the other men's feet. They charged from
the ruined temple and stumbled frantically down the narrow path.
They pulled up short at the water's edge, eyeing the dark, simmering surface
as they struggled to calm their frenzied breathing and quiet their pounding hearts.
Quiet.
It occurred to Zilgorn suddenly that the swamp had become eerily silent At
twilight, the swamp usually seethed with life, but no crocodiles roared from the
shallows, no birds shrieked or twittered in the canopy, no monkeys scolded. Even
the insects had stopped humming. The swamp itself seemed to be huddled
down, wary and watchful.
Then a terrible thrumming roar ripped through the air, at once both as deep
as thunder and as shrill as a falcon's cry. Zilgorn, dazed and defeated though he
was, thought he heard a dissonant chorus of lost voices reverberating through
the inhuman roar. One of those voices he knew well.
The necromancer squared his shoulders and prepared to join Chalzaster in
whatever afterlife their efforts had earned them. He summoned a lightning
sphere, the most powerful spell left to him, suspecting that magic would act as a
lure and make his end quicker. That wasn't cowardice, he assured himself. Didn't
Chalzaster die on his feet, ready to hurl one last spell?
But the magical weapon quickly dissipated, fizzling in Zilgorn’s hands like a
campfire in a monsoon. He hardly noticed, for his eyes were fixed on the creature
that rose slowly, silently from the dark water.
The creature's face was enormous, hideous beyond words, the sort of visage
that surely haunted the nightmares of demons. The face was framed by huge elf
ears that were not only pointed, but also barbed. Its massive skull was covered
not by hair, but by a tangle of writhing, snapping eels. Black as obsidian were its
eyes, and they showed no intelligence that Zilgorn could understand, they were
as soulless and single-minded as a shark's. As the creature waded toward shore,
it revealed a muscled body shaped roughly like that of a man, but utterly devoid
of beauty. Each sinew was corded like a drawn bow, and its gut was sharply
concave beneath the massive chest. Four arms, each ending in grasping talons,
reached toward Zilgorn.
"A-a laraken," he breathed, though in truth the monster was larger and
mightier than any measure Zilgorn knew of such creatures. The approach of
death lent its own clarity, and Zilgorn recognized the monster as a kindred spirit:
a creature of power and hunger. He remembered all that he had done over the
years and understood that this was the death he had earned. Nothing in all of
Halruaa could have frightened him more than that knowledge.
Zilgorn had seen death in all its forms, and he had dealt death in manners
that stretched the bounds of normal possibility. He had summoned and
commanded creatures so fearful that a glimpse of them would stop most men's
hearts and turn a warrior's bowels to water. But the necromancer could do
nothing to stop the screams that tore from his throat.
Tore from his throat! Zilgorn's head snapped back, forced by an unseen
power as he felt his voice, the instrument of his magic, wrenching loose. The pain
seared through him and was gone, leaving him empty and mute. Instinctively he
lunged forward, as if to seize back his voice, and he watched in horror as his
outstretched hands withered to skin-shrouded bones.
He wanted to flee, but his limbs would no longer obey his will. Power and life
flowed out of him like blood from a mortal wound. The laraken, which had
reached the river-bank and loomed over them at twice the height of a man,
slowly began to gain flesh. Its sunken belly swelled as it drained the magical
essence of the wizard Zilgorn and the dying men behind him.
The proud necromancer's last thought was one of relief, for without a voice,
he could not die screaming, and there was no one to witness his final defeat.
He was wrong on both counts.
In a tower room that overlooked Halruaa's western mountains, a place far
from the Swamp of Akhlaur, an elf woman bent over a low, round scrying bowl.
The death of Zilgorn played out before her in all its detail, and her sharp ears
caught the new note in the laraken's roar: the necromancer's trained voice,
raised in a final keening shriek of pain and terror.
When the magical vision ended, the elf woman leaned back and brushed a
glossy green curl from her face. She glanced at the wemic, a lion-like centaur,
who crouched in watchful silence by her side.
Neither elves nor wemics were common in Halruaa, and together they were
as oddly matched as any two companions in all the land. Kiva, the elf woman,
was of wild elf blood, and her coloring was common among forest folk in the
southern lands. Her abundant hair was deep green in hue and her skin a rich
coppery shade. Her face was beautiful but disturbing, for there was no
gentleness in its sharp lines, and her eyes were as golden and enigmatic as a
cat's. She was resplendent in a gown of yellow silk and overdress of gold-
embroidered green. Emeralds flashed on her fingers and at her throat. The
wemic, in sharp contract, was clad only in his own tawny hide. He was a massive
creature, with the lower body of a lion and the brawny, golden-skinned torso of a
man. A thick mane of black hair fell to his shoulders, and his eyes, like the elf
woman's, were a feline shade of amber. His only ornaments were the ruby
earring fastened in one leonine ear and the massive broadsword slung over his
shoulder.
"Zilgorn was the best of the lot," Kiva mused in a singularly clear, bell-like
voice. "I thought he'd make a better showing for himself."
The wemic frowned, misunderstanding. "You thought he would succeed?
That he could free the laraken from the swamp?"
Kiva's laughter rang out like crystal chimes. "Never a chance of it! That is our
task, dear Mbatu. But with each wizard we entice into the swamps, we learn a bit
more."
Her companion nodded, and his golden eyes flamed at the prospect of
battle. "We go into Akhlaur soon?"
The elf's face clouded. "Not yet. Zilgorn proved ... disappointing. A
necromancer's magic offers no better protection from the laraken than that of any
other wizard. We must find another way."
"So this last expedition was money and effort wasted," Mbatu concluded,
gesturing to the scrying bowl.
Kiva's smile held an edge that could have cut diamonds. "Not a waste," she
said softly. "Never that. I would pay any price to bring death to Halruaa's wizards,
and count it a bargain."
Chapter One
If asked, many of Halruaa's people would swear that the world ended in a
circle of snow and sky. This proverb referred to the Walls of Halruaa, the nearly
impassable mountain ranges that encircled their land like a gigantic horseshoe.
Such words were spoken with great pride, and only partly in jest.
It was harder for Halruaans to dismiss the seas beyond their southern border
and the ships and merchants that came and went with the tides, but trade was
regarded as an exchange of goods and not of culture. Halruaans purchased
luxuries such as silk from the far-eastern lands and musical instruments crafted
in the distant city of Silverymoon. They sold their potent golden wine and the
trade bars of electrum taken from the dwarf-mined tunnels that honeycombed the
foothills. But the best of Halruaa they kept fiercely to themselves. Theirs was a
magic-rich land, a kingdom ruled by wizards, and a living legend whose reality far
exceeded the tavern tales brought home by awestruck merchants.
To be sure, most of these merchants had little true understanding of
Halruaa's wonders, and the wizards of Halruaa went to considerable pains to
keep them unenlightened. Foreigners were confined to the port cities and
carefully monitored both by magic and militia. Many well-traveled visitors
considered Halruaa to have the least accessible culture and most suspicious
people they had ever encountered. If that was so, it was not without reason.
Halruaa's history was that of an oft-besieged castle, for many of her neighbors
saw the land as a treasure trove of unique spells and incomparable magical
artifacts.
Dangers from within-dangers spawned by magical failures or wildly
ambitious successes-were just as deadly as the threat offered by pirates or
dragons or the drow-spawned Crinti raiders that prowled the wastes beyond the
northeastern mountains. The ruling wizards understood that only hard choices
and constant vigilance kept Halruaa from going the way of lost Netheril, and Myth
Drannor, and a hundred other legendary lands that lived only in bards' tales.
That was not to say that life in Halruaa was grim. Far from it! The clime was
soft and balmy, the soil yielded a succession of abundant crops in every season,
the wilderness provided adventure for those who desired it, and the cities offered
luxury for those who did not. And magic was everywhere.
Nowhere was that so true as in Halarahh, the capital city and home of the
wizard-king Zalathorm. The skies were full of curving towers resembling graceful
dancers frozen against the clouds, structures too fantastic to stand without
magic. Exotic beasts known nowhere else roamed the public gardens and graced
the homes of wizards and wealthy merchants. Shopkeepers casually displayed
rare spell ingredients, as well as magical items that could shame a dragon's
hoard and reduce most northern wizards to tears of despairing envy. Many of the
common folk could boast of a magical item or two, practical things that aided in
daily chores or provided a bit of simple luxury or whimsy. Even those who had
neither the talent to wield magic nor the means to purchase it could join with the
elite to enjoy the city's frequent spectacles.
They gathered this night at the shores of Lake Halruaa to celebrate the
spring regatta. As the rains and storm winds of the winter season abated, the
skyships once again took flight. It was a sight that never failed to coax sighs from
jaded archmages and swell the hearts of the common folk with awe and pride.
No magical secret was more jealously guarded than that of Halruaa's flying
ships. At first glance, a ship in dry dock or tied at port appeared to be nothing
more than a mundane sailing vessel, broad-beamed and carrying three masts.
The skyships were not particularly maneuverable, and they could not lift high
enough into the air to clear the mountains. Skyships required constant magical
renewal, and they were too slow and clumsy for aerial combat. None of this
mattered at all, and reminding a Halruaan of these details would be as pointless
as criticizing the artistic merit of a family coat of arms. The skyships were a
legacy from their ancestors, the wizards of ancient Netheril, and as such they
were a potent symbol of what it meant to be Halruaan.
The launching of the skyships came at the end of Lady Day, a spring festival
honoring the goddess Mystra. Everyone donned festive red garments, lending
the crowd at lakeside the appearance of a vast field of scarlet flowers. As the sun
set, the music of street musicians faded away and the cheerful clamor of voices
dimmed to an expectant hum. Every eye turned toward the waters of Lake
Halruaa.
Slowly, slowly the great ships began to rise from the lake. Starlight seemed
to gather in their white sails, gaining brilliance as the sky darkened and the
skyships rose. There were ten of them, moving into perfect formation: nine ships
forming a circle of starlight around a central ship, the great vessel owned and
occasionally flown by King Zalathorm himself.
Suddenly Zalathorm's ship appeared to burst into crimson flame. The
starlight captured by the attending ships began to blink on and off in a pattern
that made it appear that the circle of ships was moving faster and faster until
giant stars seemed to spin around the dancing flame-Mystra's symbol, and
therefore that of Halruaa.
The crowd responded with huzzahs, stamping their feet in quickening
rhythm, dancing and holding their arms out toward the light The display ended in
a brilliant burst, and a cloud of sparkling motes descended upon the cheering
people. These tiny lights would cling to their red garments until the sun returned,
forming patterns that, according to tradition, spoke of Mystra's favor.
Laughing and chattering, the people hurried away to enjoy the evening's
festivities, most of which revolved around having their fortunes told. Some went
to the temples to joyous rites to the goddess of magic, while others sought
counsel from diviners who read such signs through incantations. The common
folk held parties for neighborhood wise women, who pieced together credible
stories using bits of folk magic and a lifetime of experience with the people who
sought their advice. Wherever they went, most people came away satisfied. Ill
tidings on Lady Day were as rare as snow in the swamplands.
In the sky over the lake, the now-dark skyships prepared to return to port.
Procopio Septus, the Lord Mayor of Halarahh and captain of the skyship fleet,
nodded to his helmsman. Before the man could relay the orders to the crew, the
scrying globe beside the helm began to pulse with light.
Procopio skimmed his fingertips over the smooth crystal. A face took shape
on the surface of the globe, a round, cheerful, and distressingly familiar face. The
wizard stifled a sigh as he regarded his friend and nemesis, Basel Indoulur.
"We conjured up a good show, eh what?"
"And a fine Lady Day to you, Basel," Procopio told his fellow wizard, ignoring
the sly humor in the man's words. Basel Indoulur was a wizard of the conjuration
school, which was not as highly regarded as divination, Procopio's discipline. But
Basel never lost an opportunity to tease the diviner with the opinion that conjuring
accomplished things, while divination merely nosed about in whatever other
wizards were doing or were likely to do.
Nor was their school of magic the only difference between them. Procopio
was a small man with a prodigious beak of a nose and strong, blunt hands. He
wore his thick white hair clipped close to his head. His appearance was always
meticulous, and his garments, though honoring Lady Day with the traditional red
silk, were quietly fashionable. Basel Indoulur was a fat, jovial soul who was frank
and vigorous in his enjoyment of Halruaa's finer things. He was brightly clad in a
tunic of crimson silk with beaded trim and voluminous sleeves. As was his
custom, his black hair had been dressed with fragrant oils and worked into
scores of tiny braids. When he laughed, which was often, the beads at the tip of
each braid set up an echoing twitter. Procopio did not measure Basel by his
appearance but by his ambition. The conjurer had reached a high level of
magical skill and was the Chief Elder of his home city of Halagard. It did not
escape Procopio's attention that Basel lost few opportunities to attend events in
King Zalathorm's court. Much good may it do him. King Zalathorm was a diviner,
as were most ruling wizards. It was widely accepted that only a diviner had hope
of ascending the wizard-king's throne.
"Lady Day was a great success. All went well, as I anticipated," Procopio
added, getting in a subtle dig of his own.
"Deft riposte!" Basel threw back his head and laughed delightedly.
The compliment dampened the diviner's self-satisfaction, but not for long.
Procopio had other ways of making his opinions and his powers known.
"A fine night," he said mildly. "A shame to take the sky-ships down so early."
The image of Basel pursed his lips, probably to avoid grinning like an urchin.
"And there's a sprightly wind," he agreed. "Seems to me a good ship, well
captained, could race a dragon on a night like this."
Procopio permitted himself a smile. "You read my intentions. Figuratively
speaking, of course. Shall we wager, say, a thousand skie?"
It was a princely sum, for the electrum coins were as dear as gold, but Basel
did not blink. "Past the western banks of the River Malar," he suggested. "First
man to the green obelisk takes it."
Procopio nodded, accepting the daring wager. The night winds were
capricious, and the ships could not venture far out over the turbulent lake.
Moreover, the junction of river with lake was a common site of wind tunnels. Here
the river water, cooled by melting snows from the mountains, met the steamy air
that seeped northward from the swamp. It was a volatile mix at the best of times
and especially risky in the spring.
"Captain?" the helmsman said hesitantly.
The wizard waited until Basel's image faded from the globe, then gave a sly
wink. "Hard astern, on my mark."
The helmsman picked up the horn and shouted orders to the crew, then
repeated Procopio's count. He turned the wheel hard, and the starship began to
trace a slow, wide arc in the sky. Her sails fluttered, then snapped tight as they
filled with wind.
"There be twisters tonight, m'lord?" the helmsman asked with studious calm.
"You looked ahead to see, so to speak?"
Procopio turned to regard the man. "Would I have accepted Lord Basel's
wager if I had not? There will be a bit of weather as we pass the city's storm
break, however. Basel's apprentices plan to cast spells of wind summoning.
Could be nasty to someone whose ship or crew are ill prepared." He paused for a
small, cool smile. "Pity about poor Basel's aft mast."
*****
As if in response to the diviner's words, the third mast of the Avariel, Basel
Indoulur's skyship, began to groan in the gathering wind. The conjurer turned and
regarded it with mild puzzlement. The wood was flexible, taken from the date
palms that lined the stormy Bay of Taertal. Spells of binding kept the masts firm,
and Farrah Noor, one of his most competent apprentices, had been charged with
renewing the enchantment.
The wizard shrugged and turned back to the grinning trio of apprentices that
awaited his command. "Ready to cast the wind charm?"
They nodded and began to chant in unison, their hands moving through the
graceful gestures that summoned and shaped the magic. Basel left them to the
task and turned his face into the wind, enjoying the bracing rush.
摘要：

PrologueThewizard'sshouldersburnedwithfatigueasheforcedhimselftoliftthemacheteonemoretime.Hehackedatthefloweringvines,butthetangledmasswassothickthatitseemedtoshrugoffhisblows.Aburstofshrill,mockinglaughtereruptedfromthegreencanopyoverhead,amaniacalsoundthatheldarisingnoteofhysteria.Severalofthemenw...

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