Aquamancer (mancer series Book 2) Read online

  The Waiters listened, their faces aglow, yet very serious.

  “Now, let’s all have a good, sustaining lunch, with lots of pepper and salt, marjoram and rosemary, and...well, all the things you’ve neglected to use for too long. Ale and cakes, if you like. Together!”

  A sturdy old table was enthusiastically hauled from the dust of a long-empty house, wiped clean, and spread with age-yellowed linen. In a few minutes it was loaded with porcelain dishes and gold-ware fit for any king. The serving dishes were heaped to overflowing with all manner of good, spicy, savory things to eat. Glasses were filled with truly well aged and heady wines.

  “Are you going to stay here forever?” asked a voice at Douglas’s elbow. Marbleheart was daintily sampling a spiced wing of chicken from a vast platter on the table.

  “No, no!” whispered Douglas. “They might want to make me king, and Wizards make the very worst sort of kings! Let’s leave while they’re still arguing. They’ll be just fine! People get exactly the government they deserve, Flarman Flowerstalk says.”

  “I’ve decided to go with you,” announced the Sea Otter, licking his paws appreciatively. “Say, the food here has vastly improved all of a sudden!”

  He selected a drumstick from the platter. Douglas laughed aloud.

  “Well, I’ve gotten quite curious about what’s to be seen beyond Wide Marsh. Beside that, you might need me. If you’ll take me with you, that is.”

  “Curiosity is a very useful quality,” said Douglas, remembering the day he first encountered the Fire Wizard who advertised for an Apprentice with a Large Bump of Curiosity. “Very necessary for anyone, even an Otter.”

  “Otters have the most curiosity of anyone,” claimed Marbleheart, stoutly. “I wonder where we’ll sleep tonight?”

  “Let’s find out,” said Douglas, and after they’d retrieved his knapsack and topped it off with some choice foods from the Waiters’ gala table, the new-made friends slipped quietly away, down a cracked and sand-clogged boulevard to the river.

  “It wouldn’t be such a hard trip if we both could swim,” observed the Otter, dabbling his forepaws impatiently in Bloody Brook. “But I guess we’ll just have to walk, unless Wizards can become fishes.”

  Douglas was examining one of the long, narrow, high-prowed gondolas tied to Summer Palace’s crumbling stone pier. The Waiters had been using them for fishing, he decided, for they were worn, smudged, and smelled strongly of fish. They’d once been graceful, heavily gilded vessels for carrying noblemen and their ladies up and down the river.

  “How do you think these things are propelled?” he asked. “Ah, here’s an oar.”

  “That’s disappointing. I thought it might go by magic,” said Marbleheart, poking his inquisitive nose into the nearest boat.

  “No, servants rowed them.”

  Battered and stained as it had become, something about the slim grace of the gondola reminded him of a pearl fisher he knew. Myrn, island born and bred to ships and sailing, would have appreciated the beautiful craft, if she could see it. A memory returned to him as he thought of her.

  “There’s something a friend of mine told me, not long ago. ‘What good is being a Wizard if you can’t make a boat go without sail or oars?” she asked me, and she taught me just the Propelling Spell we need.”

  “I was wondering when you were going to do some magic,” cried Marbleheart eagerly. “Let’s go!”

  He leaped nimbly into the gondola, followed more carefully by the Journeyman. When Douglas spoke Myrn’s spell and made a pushing motion with his left hand, the gondola slid gently backward into the river… but came to a stop with a sharp jerk that tumbled the Otter to the floorboards in a furry heap.

  “Some sailors we are!” he chortled. “Wait, I’ll untie the mooring rope!”

  Once freed, the beautifully proportioned craft slid with increasing speed into the slowly moving current. Douglas described a tight circle with his left hand and the boat turned sharply, pointing upstream. The Wizard gestured away upstream and the boat reversed itself and accelerated smoothly in that direction.

  “Better than swimming, almost,” laughed the Otter in pure delight. He trailed a paw in the water over the side and watched the V-shaped ripple it made. “We should make Pfantas by tomorrow, at this rate!”

  Douglas doubted it. “Lots of things might happen on an adventure like this,” he warned his new companion. “And probably will.”

  ****

  “Water is the most powerful element, by far,” Augurian was saying. They were seated on the battlements above crashing surf stirred by a Sea storm so far away they weren’t aware of it otherwise. The tall walls of this wing of Augurian’s Palace stood with their stone feet right in the surf.

  Below them, cadet Porpoises played excitedly in the foaming breakers, gliding swiftly down the wave-fronts and darting off to the side or leaping joyously into the air just before the crests curled over and hurled themselves onto the black and green rocks.

  “There’s certainly a lot of it,” said the Apprentice Aquamancer.

  “It’s not just a matter of quantity. It’s also quality,” said her Master sternly, sensing that her mind was not entirely on his lecture.

  “Let’s see; water is solvent, mover, life giver, mountain breaker, pathway ...”

  She went on at some length, mollifying her dignified Magister with what she remembered of earlier lessons. He sat back, his eyes half-closed, as if listening to poetry in the wind. When she fell silent at last, he shook himself slightly and rose. Myrn followed him toward the broad stair down to the Palace forecourt, with its enormous, four-story-tall fountain. Augurian paused.

  “You seem distracted these days, young Apprentice. Even so, you’re very quick to learn.”

  Myrn let the spray from the great fountain dampen and cool her face. It was winter on Waterand but the tropical heat was still intense at midday.

  “I... I’m sorry, Magister! At the oddest times I have thoughts of...”

  “Of Douglas Brightglade, I suppose,” chuckled the Water Adept. “Well, I don’t complain about that. Douglas is like a son to me, also. Think of him all you wish, but remember...the sooner you learn your basic Aquamancy, the sooner you can rejoin your young fire-eater.”

  “I know,” said Myrn with a bright smile. “We’ll make some steam, I think, together!”

  Augurian laughed outright. The girl was a delight to him, strong yet flexible, earthy yet innocent. Wise and yet ever eager to learn. She could make sail and steer, reef and tack with the best sailors. She knew Sea’s moods, sudden swings, and color changes better than any Mortal he knew, himself not excluded.

  She had great courage, great self-confidence, yet she was gentle, polite, and pleasant to everyone. Even Grand Dragon, who now came often to visit and tended to be a bit haughty with everyone else, laughed with Myrn and played games with her he had forgotten ten thousand years before. Like water itself, she flowed to the occasion.

  “Flarman will be here soon.” Augurian resumed his way down the marble steps. “Will you see to preparing his rooms? I’ll make plans for our dining. Flarman loves a good table better than I, but I enjoy having him enjoy our hospitality.”

  Myrn took the last nine steps three at a time, waved her hand at the Water Adept, and disappeared in the direction of the Palace’s guest quarters.

  “Makes me wish I had taken time to have a family,” Augurian said to his Familiar, the silently swift, patient Stormy Petrel, who just then swooped down to perch on the fountain curbing.

  The seabird, as usual, said nothing, but Augurian thought he nodded his great head in agreement—and friendly amusement, too.

  Chapter Six

  The Savannah Horses

  Marbleheart spent most of his time in the water swimming from boat to shore and shore to boat, finding all sorts of interesting things to investigate and delicious—he said—things to munch.

  At first Douglas propelled the Summer Palace gondola by Myrn’s magic. Then, becomi
ng bored with doing and seeing practically nothing—except blue sky, brown river, and yellow reeds all the same height on either side—he stood on the after-deck and fitted the long oar into its rest. Swinging it back and forth in the rowlock to push and pull the curved blade through the water, he found he could drive the gondola easily, breasting the slowly flowing river current. It was welcome exercise, once he got the hang of it, and something useful to be doing.

  At Summer Palace the river had been broad and the current lazily looping right and left, syrup slow. As they moved upstream, however, its course became choked with densely tangled floating mats of hyacinths, water lilies, and low-lying mud aits built up around snags of branches and sometimes full trees, swept down by past floods.

  Between the islets, the stream flowed so slowly that its direction was barely perceptible. Choosing the passages that appeared deepest and widest, Douglas rowed steadily on.

  By late afternoon, open water had all but disappeared. Douglas navigated by the lowering sun, alone. Even this failed when he ran the gondola’s sharp prow against an unusually thick and tangled snag that blocked the stream course, disturbing a nest of newly hatched alligators, who swam quickly away, squeaking furiously.

  Backing water to free the bow from the snag, he tried another channel, only to find their way impeded by a vast floating mass of sweet-smelling purple hyacinths. Even Myrn’s strong propulsion spell was unable to push them through the intertwined stems and bulbous leaves.

  After retreating and trying several other paths, he realized he was becoming confused, especially as the sun was now below the horizon.

  “Can you tell which way the current is flowing?” he called to the Otter, who was sitting on another hyacinth mat, fluffing his fur.

  “Better turn back! We’ll never get the boat through here.”

  Douglas shipped his oar and sat down to ponder the situation in Wizardly fashion. The Sea Otter jumped aboard from the hyacinths.

  “Actually there are several dozen channels,” he said. “You just keep picking the wrong one, I guess.”

  “You’re a big help,” Douglas sniffed sarcastically. “Got any better ideas?”

  “Hoy! I’m a Sea Otter, not a riverine one,” Marbleheart protested. “I don’t know anything about rivers except that they get shallower and smaller as you go away from Sea. As I said at the beginning, if we could swim ...”

  “I could change myself into a fish. No, not a fish! A certain Otter around here has too big an appetite,” mused Douglas. “Beside, shape changing is a very uncertain business. There’s always the danger of not being able to change back. If I changed into an Otter, I might have to stay an Otter forever!”

  “Not what I’d call a fate worse than death,” chuckled the Sea Otter.

  Douglas stared at the wall of reeds on all sides, each reed as thick as a man’s thumb and standing eight feet out of the water.

  “I could fly out of here, but then I couldn’t take the boat—or the Otter, for that matter, over that distance. Too tiring. No. Instead, I’ll loft myself above the reeds with Flarman’s Levitation Spell,” he decided. “Maybe I can see our way to a clear channel.”

  “Worth a try,” said Marbleheart, excited by the prospect of seeing more magic. “What should I do?”

  “Stay put! Don’t wander off and don’t let the boat get in among the reeds where I can’t see it,” Douglas ordered.

  He performed the appropriate incantation and gestured to lift himself gently into the air, slowly rising until he was looking down at the hundreds of square miles of marshland around them. From this vantage he could just see the broken towers of Summer Palace in the distance and a ragged line of mountains to the west, but little in between but the occasional glimpse of open stretches of water rapidly growing dark as the sun fell.

  “We’ve twisted and turned so often,” he called in disgust to the Otter, “I can’t even see the way to backtrack. I’ll have to check all possible channels by sight, first, then move the boat. It’ll take days!”

  He took a long time, sitting cross-legged atop nothing, much to the Otter’s amazed delight, turning slowly about clockwise to study the lay of the wetlands in all directions.

  “That way, I think,” he decided, at last. He produced a brass pocket compass from his right sleeve and carefully noted the direction of the most promising channel. Once he dropped back into the boat there were no landmarks to tell which way to go.

  “Please, Marbleheart, swim on ahead and check the depth of the way I chose, so the boat won’t get stuck in the mud. What are the tides hereabouts, anyway?”

  “Not large,” said Marbleheart, splashing eagerly into the water. “That, a Sea Otter can tell you. It’s second nature to notice such things for us. The tide turned two hours ago and is ebbing now.”

  “Which means it’ll get shallower and shallower around here unless we find a deep channel,” sighed Douglas. He checked his compass once more and pointed out to the Otter the way to go.

  It went well but slowly for an hour while twilight stayed in the sky. At times the reeds, sand, and mud banks closed in on the narrow boat so that the Journeyman could touch the stalks at either side by spreading his arms wide. Then they would suddenly emerge from the narrows into wide, still lagoons, completely clear of vegetation. The next problem was choosing a suitable exit through the reeds on the far side of each pool.

  The Sea Otter made sure they had enough water under the gondola’s keel to remain afloat and clear of subsurface obstructions, but seeing soon became difficult even for the Otter’s night-sharp eyes.

  “It isn’t getting any deeper,” panted Marbleheart, pausing to rest a moment on a great green lily pad with upturned edges like an enormous pie plate. “On the other hand it isn’t getting any shallower, either. We can go on for another half hour or so, but could you see well enough to steer?”

  “Not really,” admitted Douglas. He allowed the gondola to coast to a standstill in the middle of one of the open pools. “Better stop for the night.”

  “There’ll be a moon later on. Maybe we can go on under moonlight,” the Otter told him.

  He went off in search of his supper while Douglas contented himself with a meat pasty and a rather wilted salad taken from the Waiters’ luncheon at Summer Palace.

  Wide Marsh came to life as full night fell. Choruses of chirps and croaks filled the air, punctuated by alligators booming, warning everyone away from their personal banks and ponds. The air hummed with the wings of hungry insects homing in on Douglas’s tender skin and warm blood.

  After some thought, Douglas conjured an insect-repellant envelope about the gondola and listened to the angry comments of tens of thousands of mosquitoes until they gave up in disgust and went whining off to find their suppers elsewhere.

  “I’ll take a short nap,” he decided when the Otter returned, smacking his lips over some undisclosed wetland delicacy.

  “I’ll just snuggle close and benefit from your bug spell,” agreed the other, and in short time they were both sound asleep in the bottom of the gondola, gently rocked by tiny wavelets.

  A thirty-foot alligator with a wickedly sharp grin glided silently into the lagoon. He nosed curiously against the mosquito shield, suspiciously eyed the frail-seeming gondola for a long moment, but moved off again, wary of the invisible blockade he had felt but couldn’t see.

  The sleepers didn’t even wake when a fight broke out between several night birds over a fish carcass floating on the glassy surface at the other end of the lagoon.

  “Pad Foot!” said a husky voice near Douglas’s right ear. “Pad Foot, come look at what I’ve found!”

  The Journeyman awoke without starting, opening his eyes just a slit to see who had spoken. He felt the Otter stir ever so slightly, then lie very still as well.

  The rising moon was silvery bright just above the tall reeds edging the pool; bright enough for one to see very well, Douglas discovered.

  The gondola rocked slightly. Glancing over the side,
he caught sight of a pair of gnarled and spindly arms and twisted, webbed fingers grasping the side of the boat.

  A moment later a pair of huge, luminous yellow-green eyes peered cautiously into the boat. They blinked slowly.

  “Gangoner, what are you going on about?” called a new voice from some distance away. “I’m coming...”

  Slowly sitting up, Douglas saw a swift-moving chevron of ripples pointed in their direction on the glassy surface. The disturbance slapped softly at the side of the gondola and a second, even more grotesque pair of hands and two wide-set, gold-glowing eyes appeared over the side near where Douglas lay. The first impression Douglas had of the night visitors was that they were giant frogs, mottled green and black with wide, toothless mouths.

  “Hello, there!” said the one called Gangoner cheerfully, if a bit hoarsely. “Welcome to Wide Marsh!”

  “Thank you,” said Douglas. “I’m afraid I fell asleep!”

  “For some, nighttime is for sleeping,” observed the creature. “But for us, it’s time to look to our tummies, you know.”

  “Not fond of Otter, are you?” asked Marbleheart, also sitting up and watching the visitors warily.

  “No, no! Fishes are best, oysters are even better, if we can find ‘em and clams. Then a salad of water-lily root and lotus buds for roughage. This night we’ve already dined, anyway.”

  The frog-creature named Gangoner introduced himself and his companion, Pad Foot, quite politely. Whatever unease their appearance initially caused, Douglas quickly put aside. Despite their lumpy ugliness and guttural voices, they seemed gentle, friendly beasts.

  He told the marsh dwellers his own name and Marbleheart’s and invited them to come aboard.

  “We’re a bit lost here, not being able to find the main river course,” he explained. “Perhaps you could help?”

  Pad Foot, the smaller and more talkative of the two, nodded his understanding as he climbed wetly aboard the gondola and perched on the forward thwart. He was, indeed, a huge amphibian, green with three yellow stripes down his flanks.