Aquamancer (mancer series Book 2) Read online

  His farewells at the big double front door were affectionate but brief. Flarman shook his hand, then gave him a loving great bear hug. Bronze Owl clapped his brazen wings together so hard nobody could hear for a moment. Blue Teakettle stayed in the kitchen and scolded Scouring Pad for doing a perfect job on Griddle. She dribbled hot tears on Stove, making a rather mournful sizzle.

  Black Flame, the older Wizard’s Familiar, came and rubbed against the Journeyman’s legs, purring loudly, and his two wives jumped to Douglas’s shoulders and tickled his ears with their whiskers.

  The Ladies of the Byre mooed farewell from the meadow, turning their heads together in the direction of the cottage. In the thatched roof above, the Mouse family cheered and waved bits of red flannel to their friend and provider of bits of cheese and soda crackers on cold winter nights.

  Douglas quickly said his farewells to one and all, then strode off down the cottage walk, through a rickety wooden gate, down to the River Road, and on to the bridge. He paused to wave once again to the rather forlorn group on the door-stoop of the Wizards’ cottage.

  Flarman would love to go along. Douglas thought to himself as he crossed Crooked Brook. And I’m surprised that Bronze Owl didn’t decide to come along, too. Black Flame would never leave Flarman, of course, but he wishes he were on the road again, I’m sure.

  He stopped to say good-bye to Precious and Lilac, the High’s nearest neighbors. They were winter-pruning their apple trees. This elderly couple were like fond grandparents to the young Pyromancer.

  “Is the Lady Myrn in good spirits and health?” asked Lilac. She was already at work sewing Myrn’s wedding gown. “She must be beside herself, being so far away from you.”

  “As we would be, if we were separated,” said her husband, smiling fondly at her. “Take a pocketful of these late-autumn keepers with you, my boy. Nothing like apples to keep you in good health...An apple a day keeps the bedbugs away...Or something like that,” he added, quite seriously. “Keeping bedbugs under control is important for travelers, I should think.”

  “Old Man,” his wife gently chided, digging a sharp elbow into his ribs, “what do you know of traveling? You’ve never been farther than the Oak ‘n’ Bucket in Trunkety!”

  “I did, too, travel in me youth,” protested Precious. “Before I got good sense and married you, that is.”

  “I wish I had time to listen to your travel stories,” said Douglas with genuine regret, for the old man was a very good tale spinner and well worth the listening. “But I want to be down at least to Farango Waters by nightfall.”

  “To visit your Lady Mother and your father,” Lilac said, nodding in approval.

  “That’s my plan, but I must start now to get there before dark.”

  “Go on, then,” said she, drawing him into her arms and giving him a warm kiss on each cheek. Precious started to shake his hand but turned the handshake into a grandfatherly hug, instead.

  “Go in good health, and don’t forget to eat those apples each day,” called the orchardman after him.

  ****

  With the warm feeling that comes from being loved, Douglas walked briskly down the southern bank of Crooked Brook, past the high-arcing Victory Fountain in midstream, installed by the Water Adept, Augurian, to commemorate the defeat of Frigeon. He recrossed Crooked Brook at Trunkety Bridge, following the Trunkety Road into the center of Valley’s largest—and only—town.

  On the broad, oak-shaded Green, he looked in first at the Oak ‘n’ Bucket but found no one there except the red-cheeked Innkeeper, who was busy sweeping out the debris of the night before: pipe dottles and chestnut shells and occasionally a broken glass. Douglas loved the tobaccoey, winey, beery smell of the taproom, but he didn’t linger longer than to tell the Innkeeper that he was on his way and to send any messages he might receive on to the High.

  Crossing the Green, he met the town’s Schoolmaster amid a chattering, leaping, laughing, excited crowd of Valley youngsters. They clustered about him like a swarm of happy honeybees, all dressed in their very best, faces scrubbed to a shine and hands scoured spotless.

  “Hello, Frackett!” greeted Douglas. “Good morning, children!”

  “On your way again?” said the onetime Wizard. “A Journeyman must journey, they say. Well I remember ...”

  “We’re on our way to visit Wizards’ High!” interrupted several of the children, forestalling one distraction, as children do, by creating another.

  “Yes, the Wizard Flarman has kindly invited us to spend the afternoon with him,” said Frackett. He was no longer the morose, low-bent, and lonely old man Douglas first had met many months before. Frackett had spent two centuries as an outlooker in the wilderness of Landsend, far to the northeast, marking the comings, goings, and nefarious doings of Frigeon on his glacier. With the fall of Frigeon, he had returned to civilization and a happier, more sociable life, as Trunkety’s Schoolmaster.

  “Well, now, little friends,” Douglas said to the class, “you’ll truly love every minute at Wizards’ High, I know, but take my best advice and don’t put your fingers or noses into places where they don’t belong. Some things at the High are extremely dangerous, if you don’t know what they are!”

  “We won’t, we promise!” cried the children, and they trooped off after Schoolmaster Frackett while Douglas strolled into Dicksey’s Store to purchase a few last items to bring to his mother.

  Dicksey himself, looking plump and prosperous once again after the severe trials of Dead Winter and Dry Summer, was waiting upon two Trunkety housewives. He nodded to the newcomer and the ladies curtsied gracefully with broad smiles and a few words of affectionate teasing, mostly concerning the year-off midwinter wedding.

  “We’re getting ready already,” said one. “Embroidering and sewing, preserving jams and jellies, and pickling and planning the banquets. We can hardly wait!”

  “Nor can I,” agreed the Journeyman Wizard, much to their delight. Douglas was a complete favorite with everyone in Valley, but especially the housewives and farm wives. As Apprentice he had done all of the shopping for Wizard’s High at the Trunkety Tuesday Market and he knew them all well by name and reputation.

  The ladies wandered off to examine some of the many wondrous new goods Dicksey had on sale. Increased ease and safety of travel on Dukedom’s highroads since the end of the war had returned prosperity to Valley. The proprietor bustled about collecting the baking chocolate, sewing needles, and silk thread that Douglas’s mother required.

  “And next week, please, send a sturdy, reliable boy up to the High to get Blue Teakettle’s shopping list,” Douglas reminded him. “Left to himself, Flarman would forget to buy food when he’s hard at work.”

  Dicksey made a note of it on his slate and shortly saw the young Wizard off at his door.

  “Fair journeying!” Dicksey called after Douglas. The housewives came to add their farewells. Squire Frenstil, just arrived on horseback from his farm outside town, stopped to say hello and good-bye.

  “Sure you don’t want to borrow a mount?” he asked.

  “No, but many, many thanks,” said Douglas. “I’ll be going by packet from Perthside to Westongue and it would be much too long before you got your horse back.”

  “Ye must enjoy tramping in winter,” observed the gentleman farmer, who had once been the Master of Horse of the late Thorowood Duke, sire of the present Duke, Thornwood. “Well, I don’t blame you! If I were younger, I’d beg to go along with ye.”

  “And you’d be welcome,” said Douglas.

  He waved and set out again, determined not to be delayed further by the many friends who seemed to have made it a point to be along his road just by accident this morning.

  ****

  Three thousand miles or so to the east and south, on Waterand Island in Warm Seas, Apprentice Aquamancer Myrn Manstar prepared for bed in her pleasant tower-top apartment above the magnificent Palace of Augurian.

  Myrn was a slim, raven-haired young lady. She had spark
ling hazel-green eyes and the strong, self-confident movements of an experienced sailor, which she most certainly was.

  After rereading Douglas’s latest letter her thoughts were of Douglas and his journey.

  Journeying was a very important part of a Journeyman’s training for Mastery—in any craft, she knew. Someday soon, she hoped, she would be setting out alone on a journey of her own, leading to promotion to Journeyman Water Adept in Augurian’s footsteps.

  She imagined Douglas striding along the road from Trunkety to Perthside, in the bright winter afternoon, whistling cheerfully as he went. She knew instinctively that he would stop to say good-bye to Precious and Lilac, and to look in at the Oak ‘n’ Bucket and Dicksey’s store before he took to the road.

  “Douglas, take care!” she said aloud as she plumped her pillow and composed herself for sleep. “You’re going farther away than ever now.”

  Chapter Two

  Perthside to Westongue

  Some time before his journeying began, Douglas had been told by the Fire Wizard of the message from Cribblon. It disturbed Flarman greatly.

  “Cribblon I remember as an Apprentice to a certain Aeromancer once, but his Master...ah... was not able to finish his education after Last Battle of Kingdom. The lad evidently still practices magic enough to recognize other magicks and magickers when he meets them.

  “He reports to me a Coven of Black Witches in the mountains of the Far West, on the western border of Old Kingdom. He says they are rapidly expanding their evil influence, gaining control of surrounding towns and peoples. It’s what Witches sometimes do, when they decide to band together in a Coven. If they think they can get away with it, that is!”

  “Even Witches deserve to be left alone if they haven’t done anything harmful to others,” Douglas maintained.

  “That’s so, but you must remember that just being a Black Witch is pretty good evidence that some wickedness is being done or contemplated,” Flarman responded. “It’s many long years since I knew Cribblon, to tell you the truth. He may be misreading the situation entirely. There are good Witches just as there are bad Wizards. Some of my best friends are White Witches,” he added, a touch wistfully, Douglas thought.

  “This bunch needs looking into, at and over,” Flarman continued quickly, before Douglas could ask about that wistfulness. “Good or bad, we must know about them, and they about us. If their intentions are benign, all to the well and good! It’s their right, even if we don’t approve of their methods.

  “But we can’t tell from this long a distance. Witches of either color are very private persons and their strongest magicks are hiding and confusing hexes, you may recall.”

  Douglas would go and look them over, Flarman decided, determining, if possible, if these Witches were using their magic wickedly, making trouble for other, less gifted people.

  “I don’t expect they’ll be as much trouble as Frigeon was, however. I would go with you but Augurian and I have to get to work sorting out Frigeon’s—Serenit’s, that is—tangled web of selfish, evil enchantments.”

  Stripped of his awesome powers, Frigeon had changed his name to Serenit and had been exiled to a distant land. His spells remained, matters of primary importance to the Fellowship. The Ice King had put many people and places under deep, dire spells to suit his ambitious ends. It would take all three Wizards and eventually Myrn, too, years to right all of the Ice King’s wrongs, even with the reformed sorcerer’s help—those that could still be righted.

  “You’re more than a match for a whole Coven,” claimed Bronze Owl. “Besides, the experience is necessary for you as you prepare for your Master’s examination.”

  Douglas was eager to go for two other, very personal reasons: he was eager to test his growing Powers of Wizardry on a difficult professional task after his many years of training.

  And he wanted some such task to absorb him over the time he had to wait for Myrn to reach the stage in her own schooling in the art of Aquamancy to allow them to be together without constant and prolonged separations.

  ****

  His way was west, but the fastest way was to go south and west first, to the scenes of his childhood on Farango Waters; to bustling, shipbuilding Perthside at the mouth of Crooked Brook.

  On the road he still met people who just happened to be there in order to say good-bye and good luck. One such was the Valley farmer, Possumtail, who still divided his time between his land and captaining the Valley Patrol, formed to keep the peace and assist the hundreds of dispossessed wanderers of Dead Winter and Dry Summer.

  He sat now, slouched in his worn saddle, looking weary but quite alert, armed with sword and dagger and the authority of his friends in Valley.

  “Things are quiet, now that winter has taken its grip,” he said. “I’m for home and some winter’s rest. I’ve sent the Patrol on ahead of me.”

  “They’ll have scattered to their cottages and crofts,” Douglas said with a nod. “I saw none of them on the road.”

  Possumtail dismounted on the pretext of checking his mare’s cinch buckle, but really to share a moment with the Journeyman Wizard. They had worked very closely in the terrible days of the Dead Winter Frigeon had sent to keep them busy while he began his conquest.

  “I’m that surprised ye’re afoot,” the Patrol Captain said. “Didn’t ye ask Frenstil for a mount?”

  “I wanted to walk,” claimed Douglas. “Frenstil offered several times, but I refused. I need time and a closeness to the land. I’m on a very special Journey, you see. It’ll determine whether I’ll become more than just a Journeyman in my craft. Many never go beyond Journeyman, you know.”

  “I’ve no doubt at all about your Mastery,” said Possumtail, preparing to remount. “Best to ye, young Wizard! Keep your feet warm, is my best advice. And your wits about you, too. The roads are not always safe, even now.”

  Douglas thanked him and they parted, the farmer toward his warm but lonely cottage and Douglas toward his parents’ home on Farango Waters at Perthside.

  He arrived just at dusk at the comfortable, two-storied beam-built house in which he’d been born. It overlooked the busy shipyards beside upper Farango Waters. His father had long ago built a captain’s walk on its roof, the better to survey his yards and the shipways on the fjord that stretched all the way to open Sea to the southwest.

  The shipwright father and quietly lovely mother were more than just delighted to have their famous son in their home once again, and they were full of news of their own lives.

  “Glothersome Nunnery prospers under a new rule,” said Gloriana, Douglas’s mother. “The old rule of silence now applies only within the walls of the convent itself. It’s a wonderfully peaceful place to rest or spend a few days, away from this constant pounding, sawing, shouting of workers and screeching of machinery, the comings and goings of the shipyards. The Glothersome Sisters are much more involved in World, now. They teach school and crafts, care for the poor and the sick, cultivate their wonderful gardens to feed wayfarers and strangers, and make a bit of profit besides. I help as much as I can.”

  “She’s as near to being a saint as I know herself,” insisted the senior Douglas, smiling at his wife’s modesty. “If anything, I’m more proud of her than I am of you, my dear son.”

  “You’re building Thornwood Duke a navy?”

  “Tis a merchant fleet we’re building for His Grace,” protested his father, “although, truth to tell, each capital keel we lay down is fully capable of becoming a warship, should the need ever arise again.”

  “Surely there will not be war again!” cried his wife. She had lost her husband for many years and nearly lost her only child, thanks to Frigeon’s ambitious war making.

  “I truly don’t know of any wars brewing, these days,” said Douglas to reassure her, “and Flarman or Augurian would be the first to hear if there was one.”

  “Where are you off to, then?” asked his mother.

  “I’ve a Journey to undertake to the Far West of Old
Kingdom, where there are some Black Witches consorting, we are told. Witches have the potential for making mischief, especially if they’re banded together. Flarman wants to know who they are and what they intend.”

  “Won’t it be dangerous?” asked Gloriana.

  “Travel in Old Kingdom is always dangerous,” observed the elder Douglas. “You’ll be careful, son?”

  “Of course! And I’m rather better prepared than most for any such dangers,” Douglas pointed out.

  “Of course!” echoed his father. “It’s just that we’re your father and your mother and we will worry about you, no matter what.”

  The next day he went with his father to inspect the three great merchant ships on the Perthside ways, and to arrange for his passage on the next vessel to leave for Westongue, on Dukedom’s northwest coast.

  The workmen downed their tools and came to clap the young Wizard on his back and wring his hand. Many of them had been captives of the Ice King, as Frigeon had wished to deny their shipbuilding talents to his enemies. Those who had remained behind had been forced to work for the usurping Duke Eunicet, Frigeon’s tool. They all wanted a full accounting from Douglas of the former Duke’s trial and punishment.

  “It’ll be a long, long time before anyone sees or hears of Eunicet again,” Douglas told them. “He and that general of his, an ill-favored, slovenly and sly man named Bladder, are marooned together on a desert island far to the south of Waterand Island in the loneliest part of Warm Seas”

  The ship workers cheered his words and insisted that he stay and share with them their hearty working man’s lunches.

  “Have you doubts about your coming marriage?” Gloriana said that evening, mentioning the subject for the first time. “Are you truly ready to marry? Some young men rush into marriage, I have seen, when they still need to look further afield for a life’s companion.”

  Douglas nibbled on a piece of chocolate cake as he considered her question.