City of Rogues (Book I of the Kobalos trilogy)

  The healer withdrew the cloth and glanced at his patient to see the socket was already filling with a mixture of red and other, darker fluids.

  Randall dropped the bloody cloth into a bowl on a table. “This is not good.”

  “What can you do for him?” Belgad’s voice came from across the room where the big man stood between two of his personal guards.

  Randall swiveled in his seat and looked to the northerner. “It’s fortunate I’m near finished with Trelvigor. I’ll need as much strength as I can muster to replace the eye.”

  “No.” The croaking voice sounded from Fortisquo’s throat.

  All gazes turned to the bleeding man.

  “Leave the eye.” Fortisquo gripped Randall by the arm. “I shall wear the wound as a badge of honor, and to remember.”

  With that the exhausted sword master slipped into unconsciousness and his hand fell limp.

  The healer cast a questioning glance at Belgad.

  “Do as he wishes.”

  Randall shrugged and reached for a clean cloth. He continued to sop the blood from Fortisquo’s socket until the mess was no longer pouring out. By then Randall had a pile of scarlet-stained rags falling off the side of the small table he used for such operations.

  Belgad moved closer to look down upon the assassin. “How long until he is of use to me again?”

  Randall continued to work, wiping away sweat from Fortisquo’s brow. “Three days.” He looked up at Belgad. “What of the girl that was with him?”

  “Adara is fine. She is at my home, beside herself with grief. She blames herself for what happened and is too distraught to say much.”

  “Darkbow?”

  Belgad gestured for his guards to leave and they promptly exited, closing the door to Randall’s chambers behind them.

  The Dartague towered over the healer. “I’ve been meaning to speak with you in private.”

  “Yes?” Randall folded a heavy towel and placed it beneath Fortisquo’s head.

  “I want you to know I wish you no ill will, and I apologize if I have caused you any grievance of late. It was not my intention.”

  “You are talking about the ring,” Randall said, continuing his work.

  “Yes.” Belgad stepped back, realizing his physical presence was possibly overly threatening. “Its discovery was an accident. With this Darkbow running loose, I was merely checking all possibilities. I do not, however, believe you are Kron Darkbow.”

  Randall smiled while mixing a paste with mortar and pestle.

  “And as far as the ring is concerned, I will not cause you any grief,” Belgad went on. “You have served faithfully these last few weeks. At this rate, I am sure I will have need of your services again in the future.”

  The healer finished mixing the paste and used a small wooden spoon to drop a dollop of it in the hole where Fortisquo’s eye had once rested. The sword fighter’s body shivered, but the man did not wake.

  Randall kept his focus upon his patient, but he did not ignore the northerner’s words. “That is good to hear, for I do not wish to make an enemy. Why do you tell me all this?”

  “Markwood came to see me. I do not wish to make of him an enemy, nor you. I have enough problems without a powerful mage haunting me.”

  Randall smiled again. Markwood could be feisty at times, and he could only imagine what the old mage had said to Belgad the Liar. Fortunately for Belgad, he was smart enough to realize Markwood could back up his words.

  The healer allowed the smile to simmer away. “I apologize for Master Markwood’s intrusion. I did not know he would speak with you.”

  “No harm was done.” Belgad decided it was time to change this uncomfortable conversation. “In fact, he reminded me in his own way of what an excellent healer you are. How soon until Trelvigor can be woken?”

  Randall paused long enough to tear a light cloth into strips. “I plan to wake him tomorrow.”

  “Has it been three weeks?”

  “Just shy a day or two. His body has healed faster than I would have thought, considering the damage he underwent.”

  “Very well, then. I will return tomorrow to see Trelvigor rise again.”

  Belgad turned to exit.

  ***

  The rains oft dreaded by the residents of the Swamps began the morning Randall planned to wake Trelvigor from his three-week slumber. By the time the sun was high, engineers had been called forth from the College of Mechanicians to turn the giant screws that shut the iron gates of the flood walls, closing off all bridges that connected the Swamps to Uptown and Southtown. The only travel routes out of the Swamps became the North and South rivers, which collided east of the Swamps to become the Ursian River; to the west was swampland infested with disease and hungry beasts. The Swamps was shut off, thus earning its name once again while the rains tumbled. The center of the region was higher and furthest from the river, providing some protection from flooding, but the waters would continue to rise and the roads and alleys would become torrents of mud.

  An hour before noon, Belgad’s carriage was nearly mired in the dirt roads that were quickly turning to muck. Strong horses and the crack of a whip were all that allowed the Dartague and two guards to arrive at the healing tower.

  Belgad and his companions found Randall in his usual white robes inside the recovery room that had been Trelvigor’s home for almost three weeks. The wizard was still and quiet and appeared at peace as he lay on a down-filled mattress on a bed to one side of the room.

  Leaving his two men near the door, Belgad approached Trelvigor gingerly, as if he was afraid he could wake the man early and harm him somehow. The wizard was nude except for a thin, folded blanket from his waist to his knees. His skin was mostly a pale pink like that of a newborn, but there were a few red splotches here and there.

  The Dartague stared down at his employee. “What do we do now?”

  Randall placed his hands flat on Trelvigor’s chest, which raised and lowered slowly of its own will. “I begin the process to wake him. It shouldn’t take long, a few minutes at most.”

  “What should I do?”

  Randall pointed at the two guards. “Stand with them. I don’t know what Trelvigor’s reaction will be upon waking. His last conscious thoughts were of extreme pain, so he might react drastically.”

  Belgad frowned. “What do you mean ?”

  “He might jerk around, possibly even drool,” Randall explained. “I have healed him as well as I can, but his body has been inert for some while. His muscles will need time to build their strength. He might not have full control of his body for a day or two, but if he remains here I can see to his bodily functions and help him regain the use of his arms and legs.”

  Belgad nodded, apparently satisfied, then crossed the room to stand between his two guards.

  Seeing he could continue, Randall leaned over the wizard and pressed slightly with the palms of his hands. Trelvigor’s chest felt warm, a good sign.

  The Kobalan closed his eyes and allowed his mind to travel along his fingers and into the body of the magician. Randall felt the tingles of itching that continued to prick at the wizard’s flesh; the healer was glad to feel those pains because it told him Trelvigor was near the end of the healing process.

  “Awake.” Randall’s word was spoken softly, his lips barely moving.

  Belgad and the others watched with held breath. None of them had ever seen a healer raise someone from such a long, deep trance.

  Randall’s mind continued to race throughout Trelvigor’s body, knowing everything the wizard felt. Trelvigor’s breathing quickened and his eyes fluttered. The healer began to worry he had kept the mage unconscious too long. It was often difficult for a mind that had been in a coma to return to the waking world.

  “Trelvigor, wake,” Randall said, his eyes still closed. “You are healed and it is time to return to the world of the living.”

  The wizard’s eyes fluttered faster.

  Randall huffed, opened his eyes and ba
cked away from the wizard while keeping his hands planted on the man’s chest.

  Belgad took a step forward. “What is wrong?”

  Randall ignored the question. He would have to expend a little more magic on Trelvigor, more than just the empathetic ability he had been using, and that would require concentration.

  The healer opened his eyes wide and stared into the wizard’s face. “Wake.”

  Trelvigor’s eyes snapped open, full of red and hate.

  “Die!” The wizard raged and lashed out with a fist.

  The blow sent Randall flying over a table.

  One of Belgad’s guards rushed forward in an attempt to grapple the madman. Trelvigor saw the man in chain coming from across the room and pointed at his face. “Burn!”

  A shaft of golden light shot forth and impaled the charging man’s eyes. The guard screamed and dropped to his knees, all the while clawing at the red-hot helmet that covered his features.

  Trelvigor roared as he pushed himself off the bed, but his weak legs dropped out from beneath him, sending the wizard to the floor and earning him a busted nose.

  Seeing the crazed man was down and injured, Belgad wasted no time bounding across the room and hammering a fist into his jaw.

  Trelvigor crashed to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut.

  Belgad took a step back, his fist still raised in case the mage moved further. “Holy Ashal.”

  Randall, holding the bruised side of his face, used a table to push himself to standing. He stared at the destruction caused to the room and its occupants.

  The guard still standing by the door sheathed his sword.

  The man who had suffered the ray of light from the mage’s finger no longer moved. He lay on the cold floor, his helmet removed and his eyes clawed out of his face. Blood trickled from the empty sockets into rivulets that ran along the cracks in the floor.

  Belgad lowered his fist and spun on the healer. “You never said his reaction would be this.”

  Randall stood his ground, massaging his swollen jaw. “I never imagined he would be in condition to harm anyone.”

  Belgad spat and stared around the room from the disturbed furniture to the unconscious wizard to his dead and bleeding guard. “What do we do now? Put him out of his misery? He’s no longer of use to me, especially if he’s going to attack everyone he sees.”

  “It might only be a temporary derangement,” Randall said, studying the unconscious wizard. “He might be fine after further rest. But he needs to be awake. His mind needs time to adjust just like his body will have to do. His mind has been tortured from everything his body has had to endure.”

  Belgad grimaced. “I’m sure as hell not taking him back to my home, and he no longer has one of his own. Can he remain here?”

  Randall shook his head. “I can’t have him in the tower. It would be too dangerous to the other patients, as well as to myself and the other healers.”

  “Then there’s only one place.”

  “Yes. The Asylum.”

  Chapter Twenty One

  The rains continued throughout the night, filling the streets with brown muck and raising the rivers’ levels above the quays in the Docks district. Crews and captains of tied ships began to pull on their shorings, attempting to float away on the growing strength of the North and South rivers. The citizens of the Swamps who had not managed to escape the day before when the flood gates had still been open found themselves moving to higher ground. The inns and taverns in the most central region of the Swamps were quickly burdened with many guests, most covered in dreck.

  The dark, roiling sky over the city of Bond did not appear to be going anywhere. More rains were expected, and that brought fear. When the Swamps became a giant mud pit, it was not untold for hundreds or even thousands to perish from the mess and the disease that followed.

  Bond had two healing towers, both offering their services for free and open at all times, but the tower in the Swamps was always the busiest. The rising waters did not slow the tide of injured and ill who were driven to the place, but only increased those numbers.

  Randall found himself busy that morning, healing those he could and helping others to find places to sleep within the grounds or in the tower proper. Swamps dwellers were flooding the place in seek of aid and shelter. By mid-morning, Randall’s white robes were splattered with the mud of the streets and his body and mind were tired from casting healing spells. He even allowed a family of five to take his personal quarters; he knew he would not be sleeping that day.

  Randall had placed a sleeping Fortisquo in a resting chamber with Adara hovering over the sword master, but there was still the matter of Trelvigor. The wizard had to be moved to the Asylum, and Belgad had insisted that move happen today, rains or no rains.

  “Is he ready?” Belgad stood with fists on hips in the open doorway to Trelvigor’s recovery room. Water glistened on the bald man’s head and dripped from the edges of his white mustache and the wolf pelt pulled around his shoulders.

  Randall looked up from the wizard he had kept unconscious since the attack the day before. “He’s resting, but it’s not a deep sleep. I didn’t dare use strong magics this morning, what with the crowds coming in.”

  Belgad glanced behind himself, into the curving hall that ran around the central rooms of the tower. Past four of Belgad’s chain-clad guards were townsfolk shuffling to and fro, most of them with mud caked on their legs.

  The Dartague looked across the room and past Randall to the sleeping mage. “Will he sleep through this mess?”

  Randall shrugged. “Provided he is not jarred too much.”

  Belgad sighed and gestured for his guards to enter behind him. “Then let’s be finished with it.”

  The trip was easier ordered than done. Two of Belgad’s men lifted the cot upon which Trelvigor had been placed. Belgad, Randall and the other guards followed. Their going was easy through the healing tower despite the growing crowd, no one daring to interfere with Belgad the Liar, but the rain and mud hampered travel once outside. The short trip to a waiting carriage was uneventful, but the horses kept slipping in the mud and the wheels could hardly find traction. The path from the tower to the Asylum was a short one, only a little more than a mile, but it took nearly an hour of slogging through muck and whipping the horses. By the time they reached the Asylum, all were caked in mud from head to toe except Belgad and Trelvigor, both of whom had remained inside the carriage the entire trip. Even Randall, who had started the journey in the carriage, had been called out to use his healing magics on one of the guards who had fallen in the sludge and cracked an ankle.

  The Asylum itself was in little better condition than much of the rest of the Swamps. The high outer wall enclosing the grounds had its back to the North River, while the main building sat on a hill. The rising river waters lapped at the back of the surrounding wall, but could not work through to the building. Still, the area inside the walls was a mess of brown into which a man’s feet would sink.

  The gates to the outer wall were open as the carriage slid through the mud and onto the grounds. The day before Randall had arranged for delivery of Trelvigor to the chief guard. The Asylum’s top sentry had not liked the idea of taking in a wizard, especially one who had been described as potentially dangerous, but there was no place else for Trelvigor. It also helped that Trelvigor was in the employ of Belgad; no one would not give Belgad permission to use the Asylum

  The bulky form of Chief Guard Shaltros waited with water dripping from his bulbous nose and the sleeves of his gray jacket in front of the Asylum as Belgad’s carriage slid to a sloppy halt. With Shaltros stood the old guard Vitman and three other men in the dark garb of Asylum guards.

  Belgad climbed out of the carriage, his boots plopping in the growing muck, and surveyed the guards before him. He was glad to see the front door was already open.

  Randall walked toward Shaltros with an extended hand, which was accepted though the chief guard’s eyes remained locked o
n the carriage behind the healer.

  Shaltros nodded to the wheeled conveyance. “What is his condition?”

  Randall looked over his shoulder to see Belgad’s four guards removing Trelvigor’s still form from the carriage. “He’s in a stupor. Just a weak concoction. It should make him stable, but it won’t keep him unconscious.”

  Shaltros gripped Randall by the shoulder and turned the younger man to face him. “Why isn’t he knocked out? You said he was dangerous. I don’t need a lunatic casting spells in the Asylum.”

  Randall shook off the hand. “I did the best I could under the circumstances. The tower is swamped with people rushing in to avoid the floods. I had to spend a good portion of magic healing those people. A wizard with a cracked mind was the least of my concerns as long as he remained in a coma.”

  Shaltros nodded again. “My apologies, but like you, I have duties to perform and patients to attend.”

  “Understandable,” Randall said, turning back to Belgad and his burdened guards.

  The four men in chain armor carried their load as best they could, but their booted feet slid in the mud and more than once they almost dropped the wizard. As they proceeded toward the Asylum’s entrance, Randall held the edges of his robe over Trelvigor’s upturned face to shield his blinking eyes from the falling rain.

  Belgad followed at a slow pace, the dull and dreary day doing nothing to better his mood. Seeing he was not likely to find information from Trelvigor, information that possibly could have pertained to Kron Darkbow, the Dartague wanted the business at hand finished as soon as possible. As Trelvigor’s patron, he felt obliged to see the wizard had the best possible care, but the matter ended at the door to the Asylum as far as Belgad was concerned. He did not have hope Trelvigor’s mind would return. In Belgad’s experience, the insane remained insane.

  Soon enough, all in the party were through the front door and sheltered from the wet.

  Randall watched the old guard Vitman shut the door behind them then draw closed various bolts and iron bars that secured the exit.

  Belgad stared through the giant iron cage that surrounded them and took in the dark chamber that made up the center of the Asylum. Tired guards filed by dragging gray inmates in dirty rags. The haunting stillness of the place was occasionally cut short by distant screams or cackles. The Dartague’s gaze turned to find barred cells that rose on three levels of walkways.