Pawn's Gambit: And Other Stratagems

  Which likewise left out the possibility of camping at the entrance to the pass. He could find a room in Abron Mysti, of course, staying at his own expense … but he had a measure of pride, too, and after that confrontation he would shrivel up and die before he would give Borthnin the satisfaction. Turning his back to the mountains, he retraced his steps back toward the river.

  The bridge was still in place—the bridge keeper, no doubt, still drowning his sorrows in town. He was about to cross when a voice from his left stopped him. “You leaving?”

  He turned. The woman he’d spoken to earlier had emerged from her cottage, a hoe in her hand. “Only for the night,” he told her. “I’ll be back in the morning to take a look at the pass.”

  Her lips compressed. “Is our hospitality that lacking that you prefer sleeping outside?”

  “I wouldn’t know. Cyng Borthnin decided the town isn’t willing to provide me a bed for the night.”

  The sour look on her face flickered out, to be replaced by surprise. “He—? What did you say to him?”

  “Only the truth. That I came to try to help Abron Mysti get rid of whatever was blocking Gyran Pass.” He eyed the woman, a sudden suspicion dawning on him. “He mentioned that a local resident had tried to become a wizard. Your husband?”

  Her face hardened, and for a moment he thought she would slam the door on him again … and then her whole body seemed to slump. “Yes,” she said softly, her voice barely audible over the roar of the river.

  Saladar felt an echo of pain in his own heart. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

  Slowly, her eyes came back up to his face. “Why did you come here?”

  “I already told you. To try to help.”

  “And you’re staying? Even after … everything?”

  He nodded. “I have to.”

  “Why?”

  He hesitated. Because this may be the only chance I ever have to be a wizard, the thought whispered through his mind. “Because it’s my job,” he said aloud. “Because it’s what I’m called to do.”

  For a long moment she just stared at him. “My name is Marja,” she said at last. “I …” She took a deep breath. “I have a spare room.”

  Her husband’s name, Saladar learned two hours later, had been Nunisjan.

  “He left three years ago this autumn,” Marja told him, the soft candlelight bathing her face with gentle radiance as she collected the dishes from their evening meal. “Travel through the mountains slackens with the first snowfall of winter, you know, and for those months a bridge keeper has little to do. He’d always felt that Abron Mysti was important enough to have its own resident wizard, and so he … left … to try to become one.”

  “And never returned?” Saladar asked quietly.

  She turned her back to him, busying herself with the dishes. “A dove arrived here a year later,” she said over her shoulder, her voice wavering slightly. “It carried a message for me from his mentor. Word of his death.”

  Saladar sighed soundlessly. “I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t reply, and for a few minutes the room was silent except for the clinking of dishware. “How did it happen?” he asked at last.

  “The message didn’t say.” She paused. “I was hoping … you might be able to tell me.”

  Saladar shook his head. “I’m sorry. There are any number of dangerous spells a wizard has to learn. A mistake with any one of them—”

  “Brings on the Wizard’s Curse?”

  He winced. “You’ve heard of the Wizard’s Curse?”

  “Hasn’t everybody?” she retorted. “Though most people around here think it’s nothing but a rumor started by the wizards to keep other people from seeking the Power for themselves.”

  “Yes, I got that impression from Cyng Borthnin earlier,” Saladar said heavily. “I’ve heard that said before, too, in other places. But it isn’t true. The number of wizards is limited solely by the number of heartstones available.”

  “You really need those things? I always thought they were just for impressing the peasants.”

  “No, they’re absolutely vital. Without a heartstone to strengthen and guide the Power, none of the truly potent spells will work.”

  She seemed to consider that. “Then what’s the Wizard’s Curse?”

  Saladar grimaced. “Perhaps by tomorrow I’ll be able to tell you.”

  Marja turned from her work to frown at him. “What do you mean?”

  He hesitated, his first instinct to deflect the question. But it had lain hidden in his heart for so long … and anyway, with this trouble facing her town perhaps she had a right to know. “No one’s ever told me what the Wizard’s Curse was,” he said in a low voice. “It’s the price a wizard must pay for the privilege of using the Power—that’s all my mentor would ever tell me. He wouldn’t say anything more.”

  “Yes, but you’ve been a wizard yourself for—surely for many years.”

  “Fifteen.” He turned away from her eyes, to the small window and the still-lighted tips of the mountains beyond. “I’ve been a wizard for fifteen years. Or at least that’s how long I’ve had my heartstone. But in all that time I’ve never had the chance to use the Power.”

  He could feel her eyes on him. “I don’t understand.”

  “What’s there not to understand?” he lashed out, fifteen years’ worth of accumulated frustration welling from him like brackish water. “I’m never at the right place at the right time, that’s all. I hear of some catastrophe—something where the wizard’s Power is needed—and I go to try to help. But by the time I can get there and get ready, it’s … it’s too late. Someone else always manages to get there ahead of me and deal with the problem.”

  For a long moment she didn’t speak. “Well,” she said at last, her voice uncertain. “At least that means you … well, you’ve got a clean slate to work from, anyway. I mean, even if you haven’t … done much, you haven’t fouled anything up, either. Like some wizards I’ve heard stories of …”

  She trailed off, and Saladar blinked against tears of shame and anger. A clean slate. The sheer lameness of the phrase fairly dripped with scorn and pity. “Would you be content with such a life?” he snarled.

  “I have such a life,” she whispered.

  Saladar sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said, ashamed of himself. His long bitterness was no excuse to stir up similar feelings in others. “I just …” He dabbed surreptitiously at his eyes, his heartstone throbbing sympathetically with his emotion. “This may be my only chance to be a wizard, Marja,” he said, the words coming out with difficulty. “I’m here—the first one here, for a change. If I can rid Abron Mysti and Gyran Pass of this trouble—whatever it is”—he took a deep breath—“then maybe I’ll be able to justify having wasted my possession of a heartstone for all these years.”

  “And what of the Wizard’s Curse?” she asked quietly.

  “I don’t care,” he said, and meant it. “Whatever the price, I’ll pay it.”

  For a long minute the room was silent. “Nunisjan used to talk like that,” Marja sighed at last. “Will you need a guide tomorrow to … where the trouble is?”

  Saladar shook his head. “Thank you, but you’d better stay here. It’s likely to be dangerous.”

  A ghost of a smile touched her lips. “So? What do I have to live for?”

  “Marja—”

  “I want to come, Saladar. I … want to see what this dream is that Nunisjan gave his life for.”

  Saladar bowed his head. “All right.”

  They left at sunrise the next morning, though the colors of the dawn were hidden by the mountains before them. Still, by the time they’d crossed to the other end of Abron Mysti and started up the slopes of the mountains, the sky above them was bright enough to see by.

  And bright enough to show Wizardell in all its splendor.

&
nbsp; “It was some wizard, several hundred years ago, who did this,” Marja told him as they stepped into the straight-walled passage. “Gyran Pass doesn’t quite extend all the way through to this side of the Bartop Mountains, and I suppose the wizard got tired of having to climb up along the side of Mount Mysti every time he came through from Colinthe. So he just sliced a huge gap in the mountain and finished the pass properly.”

  Saladar nodded, raising his eyes briefly from the high walls of the gap to the still higher peaks of Mount Mysti towering above it. He’d heard the story of Wizardell, of course, but no story could match the sheer impact of seeing the place for himself. “Incredible,” he murmured.

  “Yes,” Marja agreed, running her fingertips along the nearest wall as they walked. “I remember trying to gouge out a hole in one of the walls once when I was younger. I couldn’t even make a good scratch in it.”

  “Yes, he would have had to permanently strengthen the rock, or the wind and snow would eventually have broken it down.” The things the right man can do with a heartstone, Saladar thought, a touch of bitterness tainting the wonder in his heart. Why can’t I ever come up with ideas like this? Resolutely, he shook the thought from his mind. “Where is this Lighttower that Cyng Borthnin mentioned?”

  “At Wizardell’s end, where the natural pass begins,” Marja explained, pointing ahead. “There was a natural column of stone at that spot, and the wizard decided to leave it standing. But he rounded it and carved out a room in the top with a door and windows where men could run a light to help guide travelers at night.”

  “Does Abron Mysti do that?”

  She shook her head. “There aren’t enough nighttime travelers to make it worthwhile.”

  “So when whatever it was got into the Lighttower, no one was there to see it.”

  “Or to be killed by it,” she countered stiffly.

  He grimaced. “There’s that, of course. How close are we?”

  “About a tenth league from the Lighttower itself, but we’ll be able to see it as soon as we round this bend.”

  Saladar nodded, drawing his heartstone out of his tunic and clutching it tightly in his hand. The straight walls bent slowly around … straightened out again … there was the Lighttower, fully as impressive as Wizardell itself—

  And without warning a horrible wailing shriek exploded into the gap, filling Saladar’s ears as it reverberated again and again from the stone walls.

  Beside him Marja screamed, the sound utterly pale in contrast, as she flung herself cringing against the wall. Head ringing with terror, Saladar was only dimly aware of grabbing her arm and dragging her back, squeezing his heartstone with manic strength—

  The wailing cut off as suddenly as it had appeared, though for several seconds Saladar’s ears seemed to echo with the memory of it. Beside him Marja clutched unashamedly at him, her whole body shaking. Saladar held her to him, working moisture back into his mouth, letting the heartstone’s soothing power flow into them both.

  Even so, it was several minutes before either of them could speak. “I see your problem,” Saladar said at last.

  Breathing deeply, Marja pulled back from him. But not too far. “Gods above and demons below,” she whispered hoarsely. “I had no idea. No idea.”

  “Agreed.” Saladar licked his lips. “I take it beasts simply refuse to pass the Lighttower?”

  “Beasts and people both.” She shuddered, violently.

  Saladar glanced toward the Lighttower, now hidden again by the walls of Wizardell. “I can’t say I blame them,” he admitted. “Still … has anyone actually been attacked?”

  “I doubt anyone’s gotten that close,” she retorted, a measure of spirit beginning to return.

  He nodded. “Understandable. I suppose someone ought to find out for sure, though. You’d better wait here—”

  “Wait a minute,” she snapped, stepping into his path. “Gods and demons, Saladar—are you insane?”

  He sighed. “Look, Marja, no hunting beast would warn its prey like that, at least not before it was close enough to attack. If there’s something trapped or stuck in the Lighttower, it can’t hurt me down here.” He gestured toward the sheer walls rising above them. “By the same token, I can’t do anything about it from down here … and it’s pretty obvious I can’t get up to the Lighttower from Wizardell.”

  For a long moment she gazed up at his face. Then she exhaled in a long, tired sigh. “All right,” she said. “The way up to the Lighttower is only a short distance into Gyran Pass. I’ll show you where.”

  Saladar had sensed her offer coming, but he was still impressed. “Thank you, Marja. But I could be wrong about what’s in the Lighttower—”

  “You’ll never find the path by yourself,” she cut him off angrily. “And I’d rather be with you than all alone here, anyway. Come on, let’s get it over with.”

  “All right,” he hesitated. “But perhaps I can make it easier for you. If you don’t mind being deaf for the next half-hour or so.”

  “You can do that?” she asked, looking wary.

  “I know the spell. I’ve never tested it, but it’s supposed to be perfectly safe.”

  She grimaced. “I … all right.”

  Stepping close to her, Saladar placed the point of the heartstone against her forehead. Giving her what he hoped was a reassuring smile, he began to speak the spell.

  The shrieking began again as they came around within view of the Lighttower, and for the first few steps Saladar didn’t think he was going to make it. Unwilling to risk deafness for both of them—there might be other dangers in Gyran Pass besides the creature in the Lighttower—he had had to settle for protecting himself with a strong calming spell. But it didn’t help nearly as much as he’d hoped it would. Gripping his heartstone, mentally ordering it to slow his heartbeat to a less frantic pace, he clutched Marja’s hand and forced himself to keep going.

  It was almost a shock when he abruptly noticed they were passing the smoothly rounded base of the Lighttower. Half-done, he told himself as they kept going. The hard part’s half-done. From here on it’ll be easier.

  It wasn’t really any easier, but it did turn out to be shorter. With the smooth walls of Wizardell giving way to the more natural contours of Gyran Pass, visibility around them changed dramatically, and without warning the wailing abruptly cut off as the Lighttower dropped out of sight behind a craggy hill.

  Saladar stopped, his trembling knees refusing for a moment to continue. Marja gazed at him in silence, a mixture of concern and awe on her face. Giving her hand a reassuring squeeze, he got his feet moving again, and together they headed up into Gyran Pass.

  They reached the path Marja had mentioned within a hundred paces, and Saladar had to admit that he probably wouldn’t have found it on his own. From a totally ordinary cut between two boulders it stretched along an intermittent stream bed, twisting between scraggly trees and jutting layers of rock as it worked its way upward.

  “We should be able to see the Lighttower from that rise ahead.”

  Concentrating on his climbing, Saladar jumped at the sound of Marja’s voice. “You startled me,” he muttered in vague embarrassment. “Your hearing’s back, then? I was starting to wonder if the spell had affected your voice, too.”

  She shook her head. “No. But it sounded strange when I tried talking without being able to hear—” She shivered.

  “I’ll have to remember that for next time.” Saladar took a deep breath. “Well. I thank you for you help, Marja, but from this point on I’d better go alone.”

  “Why? Can’t you protect me from whatever kind of beast is—?”

  “It’s not a beast. It’s some sort of spiritual being.”

  She seemed to shrink slightly into her skin. “What?” she whispered. “Are you sure?”

  He nodded. “It kept up that scream the whole time we were in sight o
f the Lighttower, without ever having to rest or even pause for breath. No physical creature can do that.”

  Marja licked her lips, her eyes staring past Saladar’s shoulder. “But what would a spirit be doing in the Lighttower?”

  “That’s one of the things I’m going to have to find out,” Saladar said grimly. “Maybe someone in Abron Mysti made an enemy of one of them—offended it somehow—and this is its way of taking revenge. Or maybe it was someone at the other end of Gyran Pass in Colinthe,” he added as she started to object. “It may not have been your fault—shutting off the pass hurts both towns equally.”

  Marja shifted her gaze to his face. “Can you stop it? Destroy it, or send it back where it came from?”

  He considered lying, but she deserved the whole truth. “I don’t think I can destroy it. Spells of that power … well, if you don’t do them exactly right, they can easily turn back against you.”

  Marja’s lips pressed together into a bloodless line. “Perhaps that’s what the Wizard’s Curse is.”

  “Maybe part of it,” Saladar said shortly. Reminders of dark curses weren’t exactly what he needed just now. “As for sending the spirit back”—he shrugged—“that’ll depend on what kind of being it is and why it’s trying to close the pass. And maybe on whether I can reason or bargain with it.”

  Clenching her teeth, Marja straightened her shoulders. “Well, there’s no point in standing here, then, is there? Let’s go.”

  “Marja—”

  “Saladar, I have to go with you.” She looked up at him, her eyes pleading. “Nunisjan’s dream, remember?”

  He took a deep breath, exhaled it tiredly. He had no business taking her into danger like this, but he had to admit she’d earned the right to see what was trying to kill her town.

  Besides which, deep down he knew he would welcome the company. The first time, he was quickly finding out, was harder on a man’s courage than he’d expected it to be. “All right,” he sighed at last. “Come on.”