The Fifth Sorceress Read online

  Ignoring the insults, the wizard commanded that the skiff in tow be hauled alongside and secured to the galleon. A rope ladder was lowered down the length of her rain-soaked hull and into the smaller craft as the storm fought violently to separate the two. Crewmen anxiously scrambled like a small army of busy ants as they readied the skiff, anxious to be done with it. Casks of hardtack, salted meat, potable water, and two lanterns were lowered in. Oars and the components of a rudimentary mast, sail, and rudder were also carefully lowered down, but left unassembled.

  At the direction of the wizard, the captain of the guard unlocked the shackles and manacles, freeing the women. The captain dropped the manacles noisily to the deck as the women began to flex and rub their wrists, blinking their eyes in the rain. He then beckoned three of his officers forward, ordering them to draw their swords, as he also did. A sword point to each of their backs, the women began to shuffle stiffly toward the now-open gunwale gate.

  The wizard watched as each of the first three turned to look him in the eye before clambering down the crude rope ladder and into the skiff. Their leader was the last. As she turned to face the wizard for the last time she pulled a wet shock of mixed gray-and-black hair away from her face, curling it behind one ear. Being free of her irons seemed to have somehow emboldened and partially energized her, and he found it unsettling to see her confidence beginning to return. Partway down the ladder she paused, continuing to hold his eyes in hers. Once again the damaged fingernail waggled threateningly.

  ‘Your new, so-called Directorate has miscalculated, Wizard,’ she gloated. ‘The food and drink will give us strength. My first order shall be to set sail back to our homeland and plan your death.’ She spat again, and a combination of blood and spittle ran slowly down the side of the galleon and into the sea.

  Then, to the captain’s puzzlement, the wizard extended the first two fingers of his left hand, pointing them at either side of the rope ladder. Immediately, the ropes on each side began to uncoil and separate, causing her to fall the remaining distance into the skiff. He then pointed to the heavier lines securing the skiff to the galleon. The captain watched in amazement as the heavier lines immediately separated in two and the skiff and the galleon began to drift apart.

  The wizard turned quickly to the captain of the guard. ‘Set sail,’ he said. ‘Due west. Home. Free the ship’s wheel, and be quick about it. We have no desire to travel any farther into the Sea of Whispers than we already are.’

  Visibly shaken, Wigg walked once again to his favorite spot at the stern of the ship and leaned against the rail. He looked up at the stern torch. Narrowing his eyes, he caused it to extinguish. The rain was abating, and with the torch out he could see that the clouds were gradually parting and the usual three red moons were rising into view, bathing the calming sea in their customary, rose-colored translucence. Looking at the familiar moons, he took comfort in the fact that despite what he and his countrymen had endured, some things never changed.

  He could now easily make out the dark shape of the receding skiff. As he continued to look, a yellow light suddenly winked on from the craft. One corner of the wizard’s mouth turned upward in recognition, his suspicions confirmed. He had purposefully given them no physical means to bring flame to the lanterns. He also knew that light would be their most immediate need in order to prepare their small craft to make way against the storm. Therefore, they must have summoned the remainder of their collective power to conjure forth flame to light the lanterns. That would leave them completely weakened; also, the light would give him a way to identify their position for the last task he was to fulfill. He remained silent and motionless as the captain of the guard came to lean against the rail beside him.

  ‘So you were right,’ the soldier said slowly to the old one. ‘They did have a small reserve of power.’ He paused. ‘But my conscience forces me, Lead Wizard, to tell you that this is a mistake.’ The captain’s eyes were neither angry nor resentful, but sadly skeptical. ‘We had all assumed that they were due for execution. The only thing we couldn’t fathom was why we were risking our own lives to take them out to sea in this barely adequate craft.’ He again paused, watching the small yellow light as it slowly grew smaller still. ‘Now we know.’

  He turned his face to the wizard. Young eyes that had already seen too many of the horrors of life hungrily searched the wizard’s profile for answers. None came. He decided to express his opinion anyway.

  ‘Many of my officers who have lost loved ones in the hostilities feel they have been cheated by not letting their swords take their vengeance. I must admit that I also do not understand. Those women were the last of their kind. Each of those bitches should have been killed, and the pieces thrown to the sharks.’

  The old one in the soaked gray robe didn’t answer, but continued to watch the receding light, as if he were temporarily lost in the past. He had no need to verbalize to the captain the unspoken sentiments that each knew he shared with the other, and the wizard’s legendary silence could be deafening. After what seemed an eternity to the young soldier, the wizard named Wigg finally took a deep breath and broke out of his reverie as if he were speaking only to himself.

  ‘We gave them a chance once, long ago,’ he mused. He smiled at the look of surprise on the young captain’s face. Sometimes the wizard forgot that he was so old, and the war had lasted so long. The death and the dying had seemed such an interminable part of his life that it was easy to forget he had ever enjoyed a peaceful existence before the outbreak of war. The offer he spoke of had been made before this man was even born. He sighed. ‘But you wouldn’t know about that. As their numbers and power grew, we offered to share power equally, and in peace. But they refused and chose war. With them it was all or nothing. Wizard against sorceress. Male against female. Light against dark.’ He slowly shook his head. ‘We are very fortunate to have prevailed.’ He paused, his index finger rubbing back and forth across his lip as if making a decision.

  ‘With the sorceresses gone I am now at liberty to tell you certain things,’ Wigg began. ‘Once the final four had been captured, we were forced to restrict their sustenance so as to be able to control their joined power and make them stand trial,’ he said slowly, the truth of it obviously causing him both pain and frustration. ‘However, after the trial and the women being so weakened, the Directorate collectively ruled that execution would be tantamount to murder.’ He turned his aquamarine eyes once again toward the captain. ‘And our vows forbid murder. Because of his power, it is forbidden for a wizard to take a life other than in urgent self-defense or without prior warning. Life imprisonment was considered, but posed too many ethical problems. The indefinite imprisonment of the sorceresses would have dictated continuance of their weakened state, resulting in certain death from disease, and therefore would also have constituted murder. A true wizard’s conundrum. Exile was the only choice. And the Sea of Whispers was the only answer. Here there was an outside chance, as far as we knew, for their survival.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘She was right about one thing, you know. It was a clever choice. Hypocritical, but clever.’

  ‘But what stops them from doing as their leader said?’ the captain pressed. ‘You have given them virtual freedom with their own craft, oars and sail, and food and drink. Their power will return, and they’ll set sail for home.’ He shook his head in his disbelief of the Directorate’s foolishness, while at the same time trying to control his anger. He couldn’t believe so many had died only to see these women set free upon the ocean. ‘Fifteen days is not a long time.’

  ‘To them, it will be an eternity,’ the old one said. He smiled. In his frequent conversations with the young captain, he was reminded of one of his father’s favorite sayings, which had often been repeated to him in the early days of his training in the craft. If youth only knew how, and if old age only could. And even though it seemed so long ago now, the phrase always proved just as trustworthy as ever.

  ‘The provisions are not as they seem,’ Wigg said simply. ‘I altered them. The number of casks that were lowered into the skiff appeared to be enough food and drink for weeks. But if you were to ask any of your men who did the work, you would be told that each of the containers was suspiciously light. Indeed, even if rationed there is only enough for five days at best. The false appearance of that much sustenance was designed to make them climb into the skiff willingly, and anxious to be off.’ He returned his gaze to the yellow light as the Resolve began to gain way slowly, the tattered and scorched rigging now raising her best sails up the lone remaining mast. He again remembered that many of the sails themselves were also badly damaged. It would be a slow trip home. He looked carefully into the face of the captain. ‘Do you now understand?’

  The captain smiled, nodding slowly. ‘Of course. The first thing they will try to do will be to eat and drink their fill. They will want their power back. But when they discover the shortages, they will have to ration themselves.’ He smiled broadly at the image. ‘Their power will not increase.’ Proud of himself, the captain laughed aloud to the ocean, thinking the riddle solved.

  His smile faded again as he saw the wizard silently staring at him with those infernally blue eyes of his. There must be more to it. He had often been told that the mental processes and physical actions of wizards were piled upon each other in seamless intricacy, carefully constructed layers of thought and deed. Trying to understand the ones in the gray robes was like trying to peel an onion: a layer was removed, only to reveal another beneath it. It was never easy to fully understand them. Few outside of the craft ever tried.

  ‘And can you imagine what else, Captain?’ the wizard asked. The younger man could tell that Wigg expected more from him, but he was unable to give it. The old one again raised an eyebrow. ‘No? Consi
der their plight. Their hold belowdecks had barred windows. They knew when it was day or night. Therefore, they also knew that we were fifteen days out.’ He laced his fingers and rested his forearms on the rail. ‘It is common knowledge that no ship has ever survived a journey of greater than that distance into the Sea of Whispers, even when wizards were aboard. And no one knows why. The ships just never returned. The women only have enough food, even if rationed, for five days. In their already-weakened state, an attempt to travel the extra ten days west toward home would result in death from starvation. Or rather, suicide. Their only answer will be to travel east, into the unknown despite the danger, in the hope that they strike landfall in no more than five days.’

  Layers of thought and deed, the captain thought to himself. But he still saw anxious concern in the old face as though there was more yet to do. The answer was quick in coming.

  ‘Captain, please go to my quarters and fetch the teak box you will find in my locker. Take care not to drop it.’

  Upon returning with the box the young officer watched the wizard remove what appeared at first to be an ordinary velvet bag. From the velvet bag came forth a bowl of blue glass, slightly larger around than the outstretched fingers of the old man’s hand. It looked to be as fragile and ancient as the wizard himself.

  Closing his eyes and balancing the bowl upside-down upon his thumb and fingertips, the old one stretched his arm to the sky. For a long silent moment the wizard waited, and something in the captain told him not to move or speak. In the rose-colored light from the trio of moons, the small skiff, with its faint yellow light, was now visible.

  The wizard suddenly raised the bowl higher. As he did so the ocean beneath the skiff took the exact shape of the bowl, surrounding the sorceresses’ little boat perfectly in its center, lifting the small craft high over the surface of the ocean at the top of a tall column of seawater. No sooner had the captain’s mouth fallen open than the wizard dropped the leading edge of the bowl forward. The huge, distant bowl of ocean water responded immediately, spilling the skiff down the forward falling rush of water and carrying it east, away from the galleon at least one entire league.

  The skiff’s lantern vanished from sight in the distance.

  The wizard raised, tipped, and lowered the bowl nineteen more times in a row. Then he unexpectedly cast the bowl to the deck, showering it into pieces. As it flew apart, the captain, his mouth still agape, saw a faint blue light start to glow from the pieces, and an unusual aroma came to his nostrils that reminded him of lily petals and ginger. The broken shards then suddenly combined into a quickly rising, brilliant azure vortex that careened upward, whistling hauntingly through the rigging and sails, eventually fading into nothingness.

  The wizard finally opened his eyes, exhausted, leaning against the rail for support.

  The captain closed his mouth. His knees were trembling.

  ‘Soon they will be an additional twenty leagues farther to the east,’ the old one said, finally satisfied. ‘The destruction of the bowl ensures that the process cannot be reversed, even by them. Any thought of their return to our shores should now be extinguished.’ He silently prayed for all of the future generations of his homeland that what he had just said would come to pass. But secretly, he wondered if it had been enough.

  He turned around, looking west once more and down the length of the Resolve’s decks, the braid of wet gray hair turning with him, and he lowered his head in fatigue.

  As the galleon limped west, the captain’s mind once again embraced the realization about those with endowed blood that he would not soon forget.

  Layers of thought and deed, he said to himself, shaking his head.

  Layers of thought and deed.

  Dawn broke harshly over the small craft as it bounced freely in the waves, revealing a clear, sun-filled sky. Various casks of food and water lay opened and partially consumed upon the deck of the skiff, gently bumping back and forth.

  The first to wake was the leader, her black-and-gray hair spread crazily over her face and breasts. Pushing her hair back, she tried to stand, angrily remembering she was still tied down. They had quickly secured one another to the deck as the wizard had begun to push them to the east. She loosened her bonds and sat up. She had understood his plan when the first of the casks had been opened, even before the giant waves had begun. She fruitlessly searched the barren horizon with her eyes, thinking.

  Wizard bastard.

  I will live to see you dead. Someday you will pay. You all will pay, including any of the inferior male offspring you may spawn.

  She splashed saltwater on the faces of her Sisters, awakening them. Coughing and blinking, they loosened one another’s bonds and sat up. Sullenly, the three other women raised their eyes toward hers in silent concern.

  Squinting toward the morning sky, their leader noted the position of the rising sun. Slowly raising her arm, she pointed out over the empty ocean. ‘Make sail,’ she said hoarsely. ‘We head east.’

  Looking nervously among themselves they reluctantly did as she ordered, and the small craft began to make way, each woman aboard knowing instinctively that heading east was the only choice. The only chance.

  The exotic one with the long black hair raised her dark, almond eyes to her mistress, silent questions implicit on her sensual face. The leader looked down at her, the food and drink having already begun to restore the gleam in her manic, hazel eyes. She tenderly placed a palm to one of the woman’s cheeks.

  ‘Even if we perish, my Sister,’ she said with her crooked smile, ‘never forget the one of us who sacrificed everything to a lifetime of seclusion in order to stay behind in our homeland.’ For the last time she turned her eyes west toward her lost home, searching the endless, invisible line where the turquoise sky met the darker blue of the sea.

  ‘At least one of us still thrives there.’

  She bent to pick up an oar.

  True peace of mind comes only when my heart and actions are aligned with true principles and values. I shall forsake not, to the loss of all material things, my honor and integrity. I shall protect the Paragon above all else, but take no life except in urgent defense of self and others, or without fair warning. I swear to rule always with wisdom and compassion.

  —THE SUCCESSION OATH OF THE FIRST REIGNING MONARCH OF THE KINGDOM OF EUTRACIA, MADE TO THE DIRECTORATE OF WIZARDS UPON THE PEACE FOLLOWING THE SORCERESSES ’ WAR

  To ignore the past is to solicit disrespect.

  To ignore the present is to invite laziness.

  To ignore the future is to beg disaster.

  —EUTRACIAN PROVERB

  PART I

  The Kingdom of Eutracia,

  327 Years Later

  Chapter One

  The Tome shall be read first by a seed of the victors who, years later, shall become the sworn enemy of those same victorious ones. The sire of this seed shall, having abandoned the victor’s cause, live as an outcast. The six of the craft who remain shall select one from their midst to lead them in peace for sixteen score and seven years, choosing, in turn, many who shall wear the stone. From the seed of one of those who wear the stone shall come the Chosen One, first preceded by another.

  The azure light that accompanies the births of the Chosen Ones shall be the proof of the quality of their blood . . .

  – PAGE 478, CHAPTER ONE OF THE VIGORS OF THE TOME

  True peace of mind comes only when my heart and actions are aligned with true principles and values. I shall forsake not, to the loss of all material things, my honor and integrity. I shall protect the Paragon above all else, but take no life except in urgent defense of self and others, or without fair warning. I swear to rule always with wisdom and compassion.