The Archmage unbound

Chapter 39

Our arrival in Lancaster was greeted with some surprise but I didn’t have much patience for formalities. I headed for the keep as soon as we arrived, stopping only to ask one question of the guard on duty, “Where is Genevieve now?”

“She’s in the study sir,” the man answered quickly.

I turned to Walter and Harold, “I will be meeting with the duchess, go ahead and find something to eat but don’t go too far. I plan to travel again momentarily.”

I ran into Benchley right after entering the main hall. “Your Excellency, it is good to see you again,” he said to me in a tone that was genuinely respectful. Since I had been granted the title of count I found I missed his sarcastic tones. He just isn’t the same anymore, I lamented inwardly.

“Benchley!” I exclaimed. “I’m going to see her Grace but she will need your assistance immediately thereafter. She will want to send several messages. I would appreciate it if you would call for the messengers and tell the head groom to get a fast horse ready.”

He gave me a tight lipped smile and walked with me to the study door. “Certainly sir,” he replied.

I stopped, “I mean now Benchley. I can let myself in. I don’t need you to open the door for me.”

He coughed. “Begging your pardon sir but I’ve already taken care of those things. Do you still wish to open the door for yourself or is there something else you would like me to do?” His hand was already gripping the door handle.

I almost laughed, instead I grinned at him. “You smug bastard, I’ve missed you.”

He gave me a quizzical look, “I never left sir.” His tone and expression gave nothing away, but my magesight showed me a distinct flicker of amusement as he answered. I could study for a hundred years and never attain this man’s level of sarcastic excellence, I reminded myself.

I waved my hand at the door and let him open it for me. I found Genevieve sitting at a desk leaning over a heavy ledger book. She glanced up at me in surprise, “I hadn’t expected to see you back so soon. Is James alright?” Her eyes had already taken in the fact that I was alone.

I walked around the desk and held out my hands. She tentatively accepted them and I pulled her gently to her feet before embracing her. “Penny and Dorian are alive,” I said softly. It was something I had only learned myself an hour past and the emotion that swept over me as I allowed myself to say the words was overwhelming.

“What?!” she said thrusting me out to arm’s length. “Where are they? How did you learn this?”

“They’re in Albamarl. The King has them…,” I began. It took almost a quarter of an hour to explain the situation and how I had come by the information. The matter was only made more difficult by the fact that I could barely speak due to the storm of emotions that was running through me.

The duchess was patient as I told my story, waiting till I had run down before she spoke. “What do you intend to do now?” she asked bluntly when I had finished.

“I need you to send a message to James. He still thinks we’re trapped in that cave. He should come back and I will probably need his help soon,” I told her.

“And then?”

Frustration boiled up causing me to clench my fists, “I don’t know! I want to go to the capital and separate Edward from his entrails!”

Genevieve shook her head, “You know you cannot do that.”

“Why not?” I asked. “If he can’t speak he can’t order their deaths. I simply have to kill him quickly.” I knew better but I wasn’t in the mood for being rational.

“He has been at this game for much longer than you have been alive. If you kill him they will die, you can count on that Mordecai,” she replied sternly.

Helpless anger put tears in my eyes as I looked up at her. “Then what would you advise me to do?”

“You might consider negotiating first. Obviously he will use them as hostages to ensure your cooperation. Depending on his plans for you it may be better to cooperate than risk him harming the two of them,” she said slowly.

“No,” I said immediately, “Walter took that course and he hasn’t seen his family in over four years. Besides, the king doesn’t dare kill them. We are at an impasse. If he kills them I will not hesitate to avenge them. Their lives are the only things that shield him.”

Genevieve’s voice was bitter. “Who said anything about killing? He can do far worse than that, and send you the evidence of their torture to prove his point. This isn’t a fairy tale Mordecai. Edward is capable of many fine gradations of cruelty to ensure your compliance.”

She was right of course, and her words only gave voice to my deepest fears. Still I couldn’t accept things as they were. “He hasn’t made his ‘acquisition’ known to me yet so I at least have some time to think before I have to respond to any demands. How long do you think I have before he reveals his hand to me?”

The duchess had her head down, for she was focusing on writing a letter. “Not long. He will want to solidify his hold upon you as quickly as possible. Most particularly if he already has something in mind he desires to gain from you,” she speculated as she wrote.

I straightened up, “I’m going to Albamarl. I don’t want to waste what time I have.”

She glanced up, “Anything specific you want me to tell James?”

“Stay here and stay ready, if I need him I’ll arrive suddenly and probably need to depart again just as quickly,” I replied, striding purposefully for the door. I paused with my hand on the knob, “Thank you Genevieve. I’ll never be able to say that enough.”

Ignoring my words she replied instead, “Don’t do anything rash Mordecai. As long as Edward is unaware of your knowledge you are still free to act on your own. Once he communicates with you your every action will be viewed and evaluated carefully, and any consequences will fall upon Dorian and your wife.”

I interrupted Walter and Harold’s brief lunch and within a few minutes I had taken us on to my house in Albamarl. I began searching for Marc and Rose as soon as we arrived. I held out little hope of finding either of my two friends in residence but luck was on my side for a change. Marcus was lounging in the downstairs parlor, one leg thrown over the arm of a well cushioned chair. He had a wine bottle in one hand, and another now empty bottle, lay on the floor.

I took one look at him and asked Walter and Harold to give us some privacy. They excused themselves and went looking for the kitchen, most likely to finish the meal I had interrupted in Lancaster. Once they were gone I closed the parlor door.

“You’re drunk,” I started with a vindictive tone. Marc stared up at me bleary eyed but gave no sign of responding yet so I continued, “Did you even bother trying to discover any information while I was gone? Or did you just spend your time whoring around with priestesses?” My frustration with my situation was definitely spilling over and finding Marcus drunk when I needed him most had pushed me over the edge.

His eyes focused on me finally, “I’m not drunk. I’m a gods-damned heretic!” He held up a sheet of paper and waved it haphazardly in my direction. “See! I have papersh to prove it.”

“You’re a waste of air is what you are! It isn’t as if I have very many friends left. I’m up to my eyeballs in trouble and when I need your help you’ve gone and pickled what little brains you have left with wine!”

“You think I don’t know that?!” yelled Marc. “It should have been me! They were my besht friends! If I had any faith left I’d be praying to thoshe asshole gods to take me instead.”

I felt my heart grow cold at his words. “You think I wish you were dead in their place?” I could see the pain in his eyes even as I said the words.

“No idiot! I wish I was dead in their place. You need to learn how to lishen better.” He stood suddenly and shoved his paper in my direction, “Read thish damnitt.”

I plucked the sheet from his hand and then gave him a brisk push, sending him falling backward into the chair he had just risen from. “Sit down before you hurt yourself.”

Scanning the page I was surprised to see that it bore a reasonable likeness to Marc’s face drawn upon it. The top line read in bold letters, “Warning! This man is no priest of Doron or any of the other shining gods…” It went on to detail his real identity as an ex-priest of Millicenth and a disinherited heir of the duchy of Lancaster. Near the end it labeled him, ‘Marcus the Heretic’ and included strong instructions to deny him entry to any of the temples of the shining gods.

“How did you manage this?” I asked forgetting my anger.

“They caught me sneaking around in the high priest’s shtudy. I was trying to find invoices detailing what they’ve been shipping to that shecret compound of theirs,” he explained with a bit less slur in his voice.

I raised an eyebrow, “I’m surprised you weren’t locked up.”

“Ha! They might’a tried that but it was jus’ the high priest his pox-ridden self that caught me.” He punctuated his declaration with a soft belch.

“What did you do?”

He grinned sloppily, “I popped the fat bashtard right in his puffy face. You should have seen how surprished he was!”

“And then?” I prompted.

“He started screeching like a little girl so I hit him again, but he still wouldn’t be quiet. I wound up beating him half to death before he finally passed out. For such a weak man he took one hell of a pounding. I hafta’ give him that. Anyway, after he finally shut up I had to take my leave suddenly. I was lucky to get out before they sealed the whole damn place.” After he finished he began miming the high priest’s expression when he surprised him. “Whupsh! Pardon me Father, was that your nose!?”

It might have been funny if he had been sober. “When did all this happen?”

“Yesterday morning… they had those warningsh posted by mid-afternoon,” he replied. “I don’t think Marissha is going to want to see me anymore… now that she knowsh I’m a heretic.” He looked around for his wine bottle but I had already removed it from his vicinity.

“No more of that,” I told him, “I need you sober.”

“Why?”

“Dorian and Penny are alive,” I said abruptly.

His eyes widened and began to well with incipient tears. “Don’t do that to me Mort. That’s not fair.”

“I’m not making jokes you drunken fool. They’re alive and somewhere in this city. After you sober up you and Rose are going to help me find them.” I leaned in closely and my hand reached into the collar of his shirt. A moment later I had found the necklace I had given him.

“How? I don’t understand,” he said, trying to shake me off as I unclasped the pendant.

“I’ll explain when you wake up. I don’t feel like having to repeat myself,” I told him as I pulled the chain away and stood back.

His eyes widened as he realized I was about to put him to sleep. “Wait, I have more news. I found their hidden compound. It’s several miles…”

“Shibal,” I said quietly and he sagged back into the chair. “You can tell me about it when you’re sober.” After that I called Harold in and with his help we got him upstairs to his room.

Once Marc was safely tucked in Harold spoke, “What was that all about?”

“I need him sober and the best way to manage that is to let him sleep it off. Hopefully Rose will be here by the time he wakes up and I can explain things to both of them at the same time,” I said. As we walked back downstairs I could smell something good frying and my stomach began rumbling. It had been quite a while since I had eaten and my last food had been a cold camp breakfast. “What’s that smell?” I asked.

“It appears Walter is a passably fair cook,” Harold responded. “Once he got a good look at the pantry he decided to throw something together.”

My mouth was watering already. I decided to eat first before trying to magically locate Dorian and Penny in the city. I was pretty sure the king would have them kept somewhere far enough away that I wouldn’t find them anyway. Still I had to try.

The afternoon passed slowly into dusk. I spent most of that time in a sort of focused meditation as I searched the area within a mile or so of the house. As expected I didn’t find any sign of my wife or my friend, but I had to be sure. The city itself covered a much larger area, since it was at least two miles in diameter and simple math dictated that I would have to move at least four or five times to completely cover the area just contained within the outer walls. The King wouldn’t be such a fool as to keep them within the city.

Rose still hadn’t returned by the time the sun had gone down, which left me to believe she probably was staying at her own house again. Unfortunately that simply wouldn’t do. I couldn’t afford to wait several days for her to check in, and that meant I would have to go out and find her. Normally that wouldn’t have been a problem, but considering the fact that I didn’t want the King to know I was back in the capital I had to make sure I wasn’t seen. Once he knew I was here he would be able to send a summons or message, and my freedom to act would be greatly limited. Until he found me he couldn’t effectively leverage my wife and friend against me.

Naturally my house was being watched. I had already spotted the men loitering suspiciously outside with my magesight. The building across the street was also being used. Either that or the people that lived there had developed an intense interest in staring at my house for hours on end.

Luckily I had a secret tool in my arsenal, Walter Prathion, and after some consideration we hatched a plan. I disguised Harold to look like Marcus, since he was still sleeping upstairs. Walter used his talents to make both of us invisible and the two of us slipped out while Harold opened the door and looked out as if he were checking the street. Once we were past him he stepped back in and shut the door. Presumably the King’s spies already knew Marc was staying at my address, so we hadn’t made his situation any worse.

Rather than take chances Walter kept us unseen while we walked to Rose’s home. It was the first time I had ever been invisible while walking through a city and the experience was entirely different from the one I had had underground surrounded by shiggreth. The main difference being since we only needed to be invisible to normal vision we were able to use our magesight. For some reason walking in and around people on the street who didn’t even know I was there brought out my inner voyeur.

“You can just go anywhere like this can’t you?” I whispered to Walter as we approached Rose’s home at last.

“Pretty much,” he replied.

After we had reached her door I considered knocking but quickly discarded the idea. Sneaking was simply too much fun. Instead I used my arcane senses to make sure no one was in the vicinity of the door inside the house, and then, with a few words in Lycian I let us in.

“You really know an amazing variety of spells,” Walter observed quietly after we were inside. “Where did you learn them all?”

“I got some from a journal I found and the others I just made up, though I did have to study Lycian quite a while before I understood it well enough to really do anything complicated like the door back there,” I replied off-handedly.

“You know Lycian?” he asked in a tone of wonder.

I frowned, “I thought it was a requirement of sorts. Isn’t it?”

“It’s been a dead language for several thousand years and there haven’t been more than a handful of wizards for at least six or seven generations. Most of them just passed along what useful spells and phrases they already knew,” he replied.

I hadn’t considered things in that light before, and frankly I was shocked. “Well I guess if you really needed to do something and you didn’t have the words you could just do it without words,” I said quietly.

Walter sighed and shrugged his shoulders invisibly, “That’s incredibly difficult, not to mention dangerous.” He said it as if it weren’t really an option.

I decided not to pursue the conversation further. I had done quite a few things without words in the past and while it did take a considerably greater expenditure of energy I hadn’t really thought it was dangerous or difficult, just tiring. Somehow I knew Walter would be shocked, and probably disapproving so I figured it wasn’t something we needed to discuss.

I had already mentally located Rose so we headed down the hallway and toward the small study where she was currently reading something. As we went I had a sudden thought. “You must be the world’s greatest peeping tom,” I said to Walter.

He coughed uncomfortably, “Well that is one of the particular uses for my ability.”

I nudged him, “I don’t mean just ‘spying’ like you were doing for the King, I mean women, ladies and such.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” he replied.

“You mean you never thought about it?” I asked incredulously. “Are you sure you’re feeling well?”

He shook his head, “Well I mean, obviously I’ve ‘considered’ it, but I’ve never abused the ability in that way.”

“Bullshit,” I declared.

“Look, Mordecai,” he began, “you don’t honestly expect me to stand here in the hallway and tell the man I was sent to spy upon for several months that I enjoy sneaking around and looking at women undressing and such… do you?”

It took a moment for that to percolate through my head. Eventually it got through to me though, “You pervert! You’ve peeped at Penny haven’t you!?”

If he hadn’t been invisible Walter would have been incredibly red. “No! But that is exactly why we are not having this conversation! Rest assured I am a married man and I wouldn’t waste my time creeping about and looking in on naked women.”

My eyes narrowed, though I wasn’t using them anyway. “You haven’t seen your wife in four years you said.”

Walter finally lost his temper, “Do you realize how stupid you sound!? You’re a wizard. It isn’t as if you have to be invisible anyway! Hell they don’t even have to be naked you moron! Obviously you can simply examine them anytime you want… clothes or no clothes. So why in the hell are you getting worked up over the fact that I can turn invisible?!”

His observations were dead on and I felt a bit sheepish. “You’re right Walter. Not that I would do that. I just didn’t think it through properly.”

Rose spoke up from the study doorway, “As I recall just the other day you were observing our friend Marcus while he was behind closed doors with his lady friend. What was her name? Oh yes, Marissa, that was it!”

I spun about and stared agape at her. “That’s not what happened! You told me to check on him!”

She smiled, “I didn’t have to try very hard to convince you to do it, now did I? This really isn’t fair Mordecai. I’m sure your face must be priceless to look at right now. You may as well make yourselves visible so I can see you.”