Renegade Wizards

CHAPTER 6

The wide, open plains that spread out to the horizon’s sunlit fringes gave way to blankets of bruised clouds. Rain fell in heavy sheets, like a play with a never-ending series of curtains, and the temperature evaporated at the storm’s touch. The three renegades rode the wet days with barely a word; they rarely spoke to one another, each somehow inconvenienced by the others’ presence.

Par-Salian had given up his attempts at banter, much to the relief of the other two. Tythonnia tried her best to teach them the necessary wilderness survival skills, while Ladonna did her best to prove she was equally capable using magic. Tythonnia searched for dry wood for the night, and Ladonna used magic to ignite wet wood. Tythonnia hunted for food to extend their provisions, and Ladonna killed larger game with her spells.

The two women were in fierce competition, and when Par-Salian refused to take sides, he paid for it with their silence and scornful stares.

That drove the three into a deeper, more uncomfortable quiet.

The rain fell harder as they approached a branch of the Vingaard River; they were less than a day’s travel from the river, but they were already well into the fertile delta called the Plains of Solamnia. Here lay the crop and cattle belt of the region, where farmers drove herds to Solanthus to the south and Palanthas to the northwest. A necklace of three mountain ranges surrounded the plains, with the Vingaard Mountains to the northwest; Dargaard to the east; and Garnet to the south, below Solanthus itself. It created a basin where the mighty Vingaard River branched and forked into smaller tributaries. All told, it afforded for rich fields and easier flooding.

Likewise, the communities thinned out, with farmers and cattle owners clustered around the different keeps and river communities. Unfortunately, that little fact exacerbated the friction between the three wizards. Par-Salian advocated staying close to the roads and paths for safety. Ladonna wanted to spend the night in an inn, where they’d be warm and wonderfully dry. Tythonnia, however, insisted on sticking to the wilderness, where they could avoid civilization and the threat of discovery.

“You’re not happy unless we’re all miserable!” Ladonna said.

Tythonnia almost growled. She was tired of that argument every few miles. Couldn’t they understand how their course helped them? What was she supposed to do? Order the elements to comply to Ladonna’s whims? Turn around because their resident Black Robe fretted?

“You can’t spend your life being pampered!” Tythonnia shot back. She prodded her horse forward.

“Pampered? I’ve lived hardships that would have killed you, farm girl,” Ladonna said, nudging her own horse forward. Her skills as a rider had improved substantially, which annoyed Tythonnia. She preferred Ladonna when she was too focused on riding to complain.

“I’m sure wearing all that jewelry is such a terrible burden!”

“Tythonnia,” Par-Salian said, “Ladonna, stop bickering!” His voice was low. Perhaps he was fatigued. But Tythonnia recognized the edge to it, the frayed nerve about to snap.

Ladonna pulled hard on the reins and wheeled her Aban-asinian about. “Perhaps if you chose a side-”

Par-Salian laughed, a bitter guffaw that cut Ladonna off and showed the exhaustion in his rain-streaked face. “Choose a side? Is that what you think? This is what I get for trying to support you both? Fine … here’s my side. How about you show that backbone the Black Robes are so renowned for and stop complaining! You do your order a disservice. And stop trying to undermine everyone’s authority! Until we reach Palanthas, you follow Tythonnia’s lead and my instructions!” He turned on Tythonnia next. “And you … take us closer to the roads where the travel will be easier, and find us a damn inn for the night so we can sleep properly for once. No arguments! I will suffer no more disrespect from either of you. Once you’ve spent another ten years within the orders, serving them to every bloody inch that I have, then maybe you can address me as an equal. Until then, I find you wanting-in age, in skills, and in manners! Now shut up. Do you hear me? And I swear … one more argument, and I’ll give you both a lesson in magic you won’t soon forget.”

They sat there a moment, their horses uneasy in the storm of rain and argument. Both women stared at Par-Salian in shock; they’d never seen him so short-tempered. Until then, he’d taken matters in stride, perhaps too much so. They could see the raw, exposed nerve now. Whether or not Tythonnia agreed with his outburst, it was no time to argue her position. She nodded her head and wheeled her horse about.

“This way,” she said. “There’s a village nearby, I think … maybe they have a barn we can use.”

A triumphant smile began to mark Ladonna’s lips, but Par-Salian silenced it with a glare. He would brook no more quibbling that night, for which Tythonnia was grateful. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold her temper in check. She wasn’t sure how much longer any of them could hold back. She hoped a night spent somewhere warm and dry would improve everyone’s disposition.

Tythonnia, Par-Salian, and Ladonna stared at the village in disbelief. A road eaten into the plains’ grass served as its axis. No more than four or five buildings dotted either side, likely once small shops that catered to travelers and local farmers-a trading post, a smithy, a tavern. Fire, however, had made them indistinguishable. Bodies lay in the streets, some purple and bloated in rainwater puddles, others charcoaled by the flames. The sky seemed to cry harder at the sight, and the curtains of rain drenched the macabre stage.

The three exchanged glances, uncertain of what had transpired here. In the mud lay a sword or two, and an ominous farmer’s scythe stabbed into the spine of the ground. Otherwise, there was nothing to show for their deaths, no arrows or dead horses, no signs of battle. Just corpses and the cindered remains of buildings.

“We should leave this place, I think,” Ladonna said.

“We can’t leave the bodies out to rot,” Par-Salian whispered.

“We’ll tell one of the neighboring villages,” Tythonnia said. “Hartford is a day’s ride from here.”

“Whatever killed them might still be about,” Par-Salian said.

“Exactly why we should go,” Tythonnia replied. She glanced around and was sickened by the charred body of someone too small to be an adult. A fabric-sewn rag doll, untouched by the flames, lay inches from the corpse’s fragile hand. Tythonnia looked away.

“No,” Par-Salian said. “I will not send more villagers to their doom. Not without knowing what unfolded here.”

The same thought must have crossed Ladonna’s and Tythonnia’s minds because neither of them pressed the matter. They would follow Par-Salian. He was older than both of them, and while age counted for little, he was rumored to be in line to lead the White Robes. That meant there was tremendous magic at his disposal.

Ladonna climbed down from her horse.

“What are you doing?” Par-Salian asked, his voice an urgent hiss.

“You wish to play leader? Fine!” Ladonna said. “Good leaders know when to rely on the expertise of their allies.”

Tythonnia bit her tongue as Ladonna handed her the reins of her horse. The black robe wizard calmly walked up to one of the unburned corpses as though long intimate with it. She kicked away a rag doll lying near the body and managed to turn the corpse over onto its back with the tip for her boot.

Tythonnia could not stop staring at Ladonna in that moment. There was something in her expression, the mesmerizing and lethal grace of someone utterly sure in her craft. Magic was a dance for her, sometimes the dance of a seductress and sometimes the dance of a tribal warrior. Silently, Ladonna knelt in the muddy soil and removed her gloves. With practiced hands, she clasped the sides of the dead man’s face and opened his opaque eyes with her thumbs.

Ladonna leaned in close, as though to kiss the corpse. She began whispering to it, her breath congealing as cold vapor. A trickle of mist seeped from the corpse’s lips.

The Black Robes and their skills in necromancy were renowned among wizards, and frankly, the skills of healing and resurrection powers once attributed to holy women and men were skills of the distant past, things of legends. No, she was not healing him or bringing him back to life. She was stroking the tattered veils that bordered the lands of death. She was coaxing a little of what was left back into its vessel. The corpse was no more living than an echo of the original voice.

Par-Salian blanched and looked away; necromancy was a controversial art, surrounded by its most vocal Black Robe supporters and White Robe detractors. The Red Robes remained neutral, as always, judging the situation and not the practice. Tythonnia continued watching out of curiosity because she’d never seen anyone use the magic of the dead before. It distracted her from her nagging thoughts, that there was something she should have noticed. But the whispers of the dead swelled the air, their ghostly strokes falling between the patter of droplets and finding all the negative spaces to fill. Tythonnia couldn’t understand their words, but the dead were speaking and Ladonna was listening.

Even when the corpse tilted its head up to within an inch of Ladonna’s ear, even when it reached up to stroke her face and stopped just shy of Ladonna’s cheek, Ladonna never flinched or appeared distressed. Tythonnia marveled at her bravery and had to wave a startled Par-Salian back from saving Ladonna.

Whatever Tythonnia was overlooking, however, continued to nag at her. It would not remain silent, even with all her attentions focused on Ladonna. She shook her head the same way she might shoo a fly bothering her and looked around. What was she missing? What was so important that-

Tythonnia’s eyes flew to the rag doll that Ladonna had kicked away from the corpse. It was still resting where it lay. She looked to find the other doll near the burned child, but it was no longer inches from her fingers. It was several feet away, closer to Tythonnia and Par-Salian.

The blood froze in Tythonnia’s veins, exposing her stomach and chest to an ice-water chill. She looked around and saw another rag doll and another. All lay in the mud, all near bodies or in the ruins of buildings, yet somehow untouched.

Tythonnia stared from doll to doll and from shadow to shadow, and while she saw none of them move, each seemed somehow closer than the last time, their limbs in different positions.

“Par-Salian,” Tythonnia said, trying to keep track of the rag dolls. She counted six … then seven. “The dolls!”

“What?”

Ten dolls rested in places Tythonnia knew there hadn’t been any dolls before. And they were edging closer.

“The dolls!” Ladonna shouted as she rose from the mud. Her fingers were scrambling for her reagents pouch. “The dolls murdered everyone! They’re alive!”

No longer bound by pretense, the heads of the dolls snapped upward in unison. There was a greenish glow to their wood-button eyes, and their stitched mouths strained open, tearing the burlap fabric. There was malice in their expressions and rage for anything living.

The dolls scrambled forward in the mud like a pack of dogs. There were more than a dozen, and they moved with frightening speed. They emerged from the burned buildings and crawled out from puddles, from beneath the mud and under the bodies.

Tythonnia had never seen such terrifying venom in their expressions. Par-Salian tried to cast a spell, but the creatures upset the horses. Tythonnia struggled to control her Dairly, and Par-Salian flipped over backward as his Qwermish reared up on its hind legs. The only one in a position to fight was Ladonna.

“Sihir anak!” she shouted, and four darts of light flew out in different directions from her finger. Each found its target with unerring accuracy, and blasted four dolls backward. Without pause, however, the slightly blackened and damaged dolls were back on their feet, racing to overtake the three wizards.

Par-Salian cried out, and Tythonnia regained control of her mare in time to see one doll on his back, biting his shoulder. There was no blood to be seen, but Par-Salian was in agony. He tore at the doll, but it would not let go, and more were advancing on him.

Tythonnia kicked her horse into motion and bore down on Par-Salian. He’d just managed to pull the doll from his back and throw it to the ground, but five others were mere feet away. With the reins quickly looped around her wrists, her fingers danced together as Tythonnia called, “Khalayan perubahan!”

As with all illusion spells, Tythonnia concentrated on the glamour and its intention, on the effect that would unfold. The magic found its mouth through her fingertips, and her eyes felt hot as it surged through and out of her. Arcane threads briefly manifested in the air and shot into Par-Salian. He vanished and instantly reappeared two feet away.

He appeared startled, as did the dolls. They hesitated a moment before shifting direction and charging toward Par-Salian. The dolls leaped at him and passed right through him. Tythonnia was grateful that the illusion worked, but it was a brief reprieve at best. The dolls were already looking around, trying to find the wizard.

Par-Salian, however, was ready for them. Because it was her spell Tythonnia could see him clearly. He hadn’t budged; her magic had merely displaced his image. Par-Salian’s fingers and mouth were already moving, ambient flickers of magic coruscating around his body. Palms directed downward, he whispered and the air hissed as a sphere of flame unfurled beneath his hands. The ball of fire crackled and steamed with the downpour, but it was not quenched. Par-Salian pointed at the dolls and the ball rolled through the air toward them. It caught one doll then another. It danced and burned at the behest of Par-Salian’s outstretched hand, tumbling this way and that, sweeping through the dolls, dousing them in fire.

Tythonnia pulled on the reins and forced her mare to trample the dolls coming toward her, but they were quick underfoot and dodged the mad, panicked dance of hooves.

Ladonna lost none of her grace. She stood her ground as a half dozen dolls scrambled to overtake her. Suddenly, one of the gaudy ring stones on her finger flickered, and as her arms swept the ground around her, a curtain of fire erupted from the earth. The wall steamed under the rain and caught a handful of dolls in its heat. The others turned and scampered back into the buildings’ dark ruins.

Tythonnia’s horse bucked and she cursed herself for getting so distracted. Several dolls were already at its hooves, trying to leap onto its legs. One managed to clamp on and bite, and again, its soft mouth seemed to draw no blood. But the Dairly whinnied in pain and reared back. Tythonnia lost her balance and fell into the mud.

The fall drove the wind from her lungs and knocked her senseless. Something in her mind screamed at her to get up and fight, but her thoughts were muddled. Dancing dangerously close to her, the horse bucked and kicked, trying to knock the dolls loose. Only a couple attacked the horse, however. Four, or perhaps more, had turned on Tythonnia. She screamed in pain as the first doll bit into her calf.

The bite itself wasn’t very deep, but the doll’s mouth seemed laced with something that burned her skin with an unholy pain, a lancing agony that impaled her leg and sucked her strength through the wound. She felt weakened even as her blood pushed her heart faster.

“No, no!” she cried, fighting to pull the doll from her leg, as another doll bit into her forearm. Strength faded and she thought she might pass out.

“Discipline through pain,” a voice said. It echoed somewhere deep inside her thoughts. Tythonnia dimly recognized the voice. It belonged to a trainer, a veteran taskmaster named Segarius. Her teacher, Amma Batros, had asked Segarius to put Tythonnia through her paces in preparation for the test.

“Use the pain to provide focus. Focus is clarity and clarity is magic.”

“I can’t think! Stop! Please!”

“The test is merciless, so why should I be any different? Don’t think! Act!”

A third doll bit into her arm and overwhelmed her in pain. It rode the senses; she was suddenly bereft of the right words, the correct motions to unlock the magic spells stored in her head. She felt a sudden void where the knowledge was supposed to be; the bizarre dolls were sapping her strength and her ability to think, to react.

Save me, she thought, hoping the others would somehow hear her, but they were caught up in their struggles, and her horse was racing away with two dolls latched onto it. Through tear-swollen eyes, she could see more dolls running toward her. And still the magic refused to come. Tythonnia could recall nothing beyond that moment of pain.

She couldn’t remember the magic, but there was once a time when she could feel it. Long before Amma Batros taught her to read arcane script and unlock the power hidden in reagents, long before the High Sorcery wizard found her on her father’s farm, there was the crone Desmora. Desmora could whisper to the world and have it heed her words. Desmora taught her how to bend the elements to her whim without words or dancing fingers, just using naked will to harness magic.

Tythonnia felt raw energy surge along her body and down the channel of her arm. She thrilled at it. From her outstretched hand, Wyldling magic curled and popped between her fingertips, and she grabbed the first doll. It jerked in her grip, and the stray ends of straw that poked out from the lining of its burlap skin caught fire. A hissing shriek escaped its lips before the glow of its button eyes dimmed and it went limp.

She pulled it away in time to grab another doll and send another electric charge into that little monster. It, too, shrieked and fell. The pain diminished even though one doll remained firmly clamped on her thigh and several more were charging her.

Memories returned and with it, her training. Suddenly, the lessons of Amma Batros and Segarius flourished in her thoughts.

Her fingers danced and connected before the next wave of dolls could reach her.

“Sihir anak,” Tythonnia whispered.

The words evaporated. Four darts shot out, two arcing back to strike the one biting into her thigh, the other two slamming into the lead doll. The doll stumbled and fell, while the one latched to her thigh was blasted loose, never to rise again.

The pain vanished almost immediately and Tythonnia could feel her strength return in full force. More important, she could think clearly, and with that came the anger at what she’d done. To have retreated to unsanctioned, chaotic magic and forgotten her training shook her to the very core. She was proud to be a wizard of the Red Robes, but to have abandoned her discipline in a moment of panic was unforgivable. Anger gave way to rage, and Tythonnia pulled a pinch of powder from a small belt pouch.

“Corak pesona!” she said as she released the spell material. In her mind, the powder overtook the dolls racing for her and another ribbon script of magic was unwritten.

The powder fanned out into a cone of violently clashing colors. It swept over the attacking dolls, and instantly, all four fell into the mud. Tythonnia quickly crawled to them and began stabbing them as hard as she could. It only took a stroke or two before the light dimmed from their button eyes, but Tythonnia stabbed each a couple of times more for satisfaction and good measure.

The three wizards surveyed the damage about them. Fifteen or more dolls lay scattered in the mud, some burned, others ripped apart. Tythonnia, Par-Salian, and Ladonna said nothing. They were too tired, too exhausted from the battle that had sapped their strength and pushed their magics to the breaking point. Ladonna seemed to have fared better than the rest of them, never once succumbing to the dolls, while Par-Salian looked downright miserable with his hair and clothing caked in mud.

“What’s happened to your hair?” Par-Salian said, looking at Tythonnia.

Tythonnia’s hand went to straighten her blond locks, but it was hard to find them beneath the layer of mud that covered her. Even the rainstorm was hard pressed to rinse her clean. Tythonnia and Par-Salian laughed so hard, it was impossible to stop or stand straight. Even a stern look from Ladonna fueled their laughter even harder.

Ladonna allowed her two compatriots to ride out their mirth until they were too exhausted to offer anything but a chuckle. Finally, she asked, “What about the dolls that escaped? I counted two or three of them. And there’s the matter of their creator,” Ladonna said.

“Creator?” Par-Salian asked.

“Yes,” Ladonna replied. She motioned toward the body of the dead villager, the one she spoke to earlier. “He told me that the dolls belonged to an old man living on the edge of town.”

“We must rest first,” Par-Salian said, levity instantly forgotten.

“No,” Tythonnia said. “This isn’t our concern.”

“He murdered these people,” Par-Salian said, motioning to the corpses around them. “He nearly killed us!”

“I think he should die,” Ladonna said.

“Wait, wait. I didn’t say that either,” Par-Salian protested.

“It isn’t our problem,” Tythonnia said. “It isn’t our place to bring him to justice, only to report him. Our priority is finding our horses and reaching Palanthas.”

“We should at least bring him before the conclave,” Par-Salian said.

“To what end?” Ladonna retorted. “To assuage your guilt for leaving him alive? I say kill him.”

“No,” Par-Salian replied. “And that’s final, Ladonna.”

“Then leave him for the conclave,” Tythonnia said. “Send them a message, and let them decide what to do about him. We need to keep going.”

Par-Salian shook his head slowly as he pondered the matter. It wasn’t an easy choice, Tythonnia knew, but none of them were ready to capture a renegade, much less drag him back across the countryside to Solanthus. That would not only delay them, it would endanger their identities as well. It was better to leave him for the conclave to deal with.

“We find our horses,” Par-Salian announced finally, “and continue on to Palanthas. I’ll alert Highmage Astathan as to what’s happened here.”

To Tythonnia’s surprise, Ladonna said nothing.

It had taken them an hour to find the three horses. Tythonnia’s Northern Dairly had managed to lose her two attackers along the way, though where the dolls had escaped to was anyone’s guess. The three wizards decided to camp at the spot where they’d found the Dairly, in an open field good for grazing with a nearby cluster of five trees. Though all three were exhausted, Ladonna offered to take the first watch while Par-Salian and Tythonnia slept beneath the cloudlike canopy of the green ash.

“You can cast while riding,” Par-Salian said to Tythonnia, as they made ready to sleep. “Nifty trick, that.”

Tythonnia blushed at the compliment. “I was taught to spell-ride. I can cast some spells from horseback.”

Par-Salian nodded in appreciation. “I’m glad you can. You must teach us how you do that.”

Tythonnia nodded before her eyelids fluttered heavily. “We have the time for it,” she said with a yawn. Her eyes closed.

A moment later, Par-Salian’s eyes closed as well.

Ladonna paced around to stay awake. She would have loved to sleep, but her mind was in turmoil as it analyzed scenarios, went over plans of action, and argued with itself. She understood their obligation to the mission, the need to reach Palanthas. It was a reunion she herself eagerly and nervously awaited. But there was the matter of the monster that had animated the dolls. Par-Salian and Tythonnia opposed his execution, which was expected, considering the robes they wore, but they hadn’t heard the dead one speak. They hadn’t heard the dead cry out for vengeance. Ladonna had. She’d heard the terror in their voices, the ghosts of parents searching for their children, the ghosts of children crying to be held. Neither ever seeing the other. They would never be reunited and move beyond the pale of life until someone satisfied their need for justice.

The villagers were more than just terrorized and murdered. They were torn from life, their every connection broken until there was nothing and no one to remember who they were. Ladonna could not abide that. Ghosts created in that fashion would never rest until satisfied, and without rest, they would haunt whomever came upon them.

By no means were the Black Robes saints. In fact, murder and terror were well-regarded tools in their repertoire, but they did not condone either without regard for the specific benefit to the Order of Black Robes first and the Society of High Sorcery second. It was necessary, since many felt that the line between Black Robe and renegade was thin at best. So the members of Ladonna’s order, while advancing personal wishes, always used “benefit of the order” to legitimize their actions in the eyes of others.

Ladonna sighed. The old man responsible for crafting the dolls was proof that magic needed rules, that Ansalon itself needed the orders. She understood the mission, but sometimes the needs of the moment temporarily took precedence over longer-term ambitions. Ladonna knew what needed to be done, and it would be her responsibility alone. She waited a half hour longer, until she was certain her companions were sleeping deeply.

She circled the small cluster of trees once in a wide arc while swinging a tiny bell from a silver string. She incanted the words, barely stirring her own ears with her whispers, and felt the magic slip through her feet and fall along the path she’d trodden. The circle was complete and if anything broke its borders, the spell’s cry would be shrill enough to wake the dead.

At the very least, she wouldn’t be leaving her companions without an alarm. She only hoped that she would be back before they awoke.

The rain had lessened by the time Ladonna spotted the old man’s cabin; it was out of the way and at least twenty minutes from the ruins of the small village. With any luck, Ladonna thought, she could be done and back at the camp within another hour. Ladonna dismounted from her Abanasinian and patted the tall horse on the neck, grateful for its calm temperament. She tied its reins to a nearby tree stump and walked slowly to the cabin. Its ragged curtains were closed, but the frayed edges betrayed flickering candlelight. The walls were rubble stone, cobbled together to form a low-ceilinged house. The roof was thatched and in bad need of repair. Ladonna crinkled her nose at the building; it barely managed as a barricade against the elements, much less a home.

Carefully, she nudged a corner of the wet cloth from the window, enough to afford her a peek inside. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust and another moment to suppress the shudder that ran through her body.

The one-room cabin held little furniture-a rickety chair to lend company to the rickety table, a molding mat on the floor for a bed, and a cooking pit dug into the earth. A sewing bench rested against one side, where two dozen more dolls hung from hooks in the wall, waiting to be finished. The floor was cleared of grass and covered in a layer of packed dirt. Piled on the floor and table, however, were dozens of small artifacts and trinkets. Jewelry, coins, children’s toys, gourds, bottles, a decomposing chunk of ham already white with maggots, fabric rolls-everything stolen from town, Ladonna realized.

What held Ladonna’s attention, however, was the old man himself. He sat on the bed mat, his back to the wall, attended by a half dozen dolls. Silk cloth torn roughly from a bolt was arrayed over his shoulder; an exquisite quilt covered his lower body. Two dolls fitted him with rings and necklaces, riches for their king. Another doll served him morsels of dried fish and meat from gelatin-filled pots, but the food tumbled from his lifeless mouth.

The old man had been dead for days, by the stink of his corpse. His eyes were white, his body drying. His head lolled to one side, and food covered in maggots filled his mouth. And yet the dolls continued to cater to him as though he lived. They were his friends in life, and his death had somehow tainted them. Did they blame the villagers for his death? Ladonna wondered. Or perhaps he imparted into the dolls some loathing of his neighbors.

Ladonna didn’t know. All she knew was that the companions the old man had created were killing people. Perhaps, even, they might have killed him, though despite their hellish appearance, the dolls administered to the old man gently, even lovingly.

She didn’t know or care.

Ladonna quietly stepped away from the cabin, grateful that the rain had covered her footfalls, and retreated to her horse. When she was comfortable with the distance, she turned and pointed her finger at the home.

“Be undone,” she whispered.

The ruby-colored stone set into the ring on her finger sparkled and turned into a pea-sized ball of flame. It shot straight at the cabin, growing in size until it was larger than a horse’s head. The ball struck a stone wall and exploded it inward. Almost instantly, the cabin collapsed in upon itself, the fire quick to devour the roof and everything inside that was flammable. Curls of flame licked upward.

In seconds the cabin and everything inside it were gone, destroyed. Ladonna abandoned hope of ever feeling satisfied at her actions, and simply mounted the Abanasinian. She cast a final look at the bonfire and directed her steed back to the camp.

The three riders were similar in appearance, from their dark cloaks and hoods to their three black Blödegeld horses, a stock so stout and thick they were said to have ogre blood in them. But of all horse breeds, there were few that were as tireless and strong as the Blödegeld. It was the perfect animal for the three renegade hunters.

Dumas had been quiet the entire trip, though the trio rarely spoke. It was the quiet in each other that they preferred, and hunting renegades for the past few years had given them a comfortable familiarity with each other. Still, Dumas knew both the slender Thoma and the bearlike Hort were troubled by her seemingly distant manner. In fact, Dumas herself was troubled by her own thoughts.

She did feel detached from everything around her, as though the roots of her feet had broken free of the soil. As though there was nothing left to anchor her in the seas of the sky. She’d been feeling that way since leaving the chambers of Highmage Astathan, Reginald Diremore, Yasmine of the Delving, and … Belize? Was Belize there, she wondered? No, she couldn’t remember him attending when the three masters of the orders instructed her to find and kill the three renegades.

Perhaps that’s what bothered her. For Highmage Astathan to condone the deaths of three wizards, regardless of their actions, was highly unusual. She quickly chastised herself. Who was she to question the highmage himself? Had anything been too untoward regarding his request, surely Yasmine and Reginald and Belize would have spoken up.

No wait, Dumas reminded herself again, Belize was not there.

Dumas shook her head against the rain and the gauze that seemed to fill her mind. She kept seeing Belize there, sometimes standing with the others in the chamber of Highmage Astathan, sometimes alone in a strange garden. She was tired; that’s what it was, or perhaps she was ill. She distracted herself as fair-haired Thoma leaned over in his saddle, low to the ground, and studied the path closely. He pulled himself back up again.

“There’s no way to track them,” he said. “Too much rain … way too much rain. We don’t know if they’re sticking to the roads or the fields. Dumas, I tell you we’re better off racing ahead and intercepting them.”

Dumas nodded. “I thought as much. All right. There’s a small village ahead. We check there first, then head to the High Clerist’s Tower. It’s the only way to reach Palanthas. At the very least, we’re bound to catch them there.”

Hort nodded in agreement and spurred his horse forward. In seconds, the three renegade hunters were galloping along the mud-splattered path, deeper into the thick rainstorm.

Ladonna dismounted and walked her horse to the invisible arcane boundary separating her from the camp. As she approached, she was pleased to note that it lay undisturbed, a shimmer of yellow light against the green that only she saw. With a whisper of her password, “Daya,” she and her steed crossed over the ward without triggering it. She walked her horse over to the others and glanced to where her companions rested.

Par-Salian was asleep, but Tythonnia was seated and awake. Her gaze locked firmly on Ladonna, her brow knitted in angry furrows. Ladonna said nothing, though she was mildly surprised. She studied Tythonnia, measuring her. Neither of them spoke, even as Ladonna looped the reins of her Abanasinian to the low branch of a pine tree.

So Tythonnia knew, or had guessed.

Ladonna didn’t bother offering explanation or justification for being caught missing. She could have said the old man was already dead when she arrived, but it would be a weak excuse. She went there to kill him, and she would have killed him had she found him alive. Pretending otherwise was a lie, and they both knew it.

She stepped under the canopy of the tree and pressed the water from her long, black hair. She settled into her bedroll that rested on a dry bed of leaves.

“Your turn at watch,” Ladonna said as she settled down to sleep.

“I was awake,” Tythonnia whispered, “waiting for you to come back.”

“I didn’t ask you to stay awake for my benefit,” she replied as she turned away from Tythonnia.

“I won’t worry about your safety again,” Tythonnia said. “I promise you that. And I won’t say anything to Par-Salian, but when this is done, you’ll answer to the conclave.”

“I look forward to it,” Ladonna said with a smile. “Aren’t you on watch? Mm?”

“No, I’m not,” Tythonnia said. “You left your post, which means you can have my shift too.”

Ladonna stopped herself from muttering an insult. She didn’t feel much like sleeping anyway. Thus she rose and began her vigil anew, feeling the Red Robe’s gaze on her back. She silently chastised herself; probably she should have cast a deep sleep spell on her companions before leaving. The rain descended even harder.

The three Blödegeld horses shifted around nervously, but Hort kept a strong hand on their reins. Whenever they got too nervous, he clucked gently and managed to calm them again. Dumas and Thoma surveyed the destroyed buildings and examined the bodies. Perhaps more perplexing, however, were the nearly two dozen small dolls scattered about in the mud, their bodies torn and burned.

“What happened here?” Thoma said as he leaned against his longbow. Runes along its length glowed ever so slightly.

Dumas shook her head. “I’m not certain … not yet at least. But I suspect …” She closed her eyes and rested her hand on the tome she carried. She mumbled the incantation and heard the pages flip open even though the cover remained unmoved beneath her palm. The words in the book slithered as she uttered them, as though suddenly uncoiled and slippery.

The spell began slipping away, and Dumas regrouped, trying to grasp it again. She managed to pull it back into her before it eluded her completely, and she felt her eyes warm to the spell’s touch. Her eyelids opened to reveal silver irises, and her sight suddenly beheld more of the world. She saw the dead bodies, the destroyed buildings, and the strange dolls. More, even, appeared as the faint echo of magic became visible to her: Crimson threads that materialized and were devoured from one end to the next; black, thorny ribbons like the tendrils of some dark plant; and finer threads that shifted hues like oily water. There were more colors, too weak to distinguish properly, shifting in and out of being.

Dumas tried concentrating on what spells might account for the echoes, but her mind refused to cooperate. She felt lost in her own dreams, one turn behind in a maze of her own making. Whatever had happened here, however, magic was at its root.

The three renegades, her thoughts whispered. The notion was unfounded, and yet it rang with certainty. Not Dumas’s own convictions, but the whispered beliefs of someone else. Who? One of the three masters? The voice almost sounded like Diremore’s, Yasmine’s, Astathan’s, and-perhaps most strongly-Belize’s voices all rolled together.

No, Dumas thought as she corrected herself. Belize wasn’t there.

It hurt to fight the voice in her head. It took too much from her to resist it. So she allowed its truth to worm its way into her heart and was rewarded with a clearer head. She suddenly felt better, as though broken of a fever.

The three renegades did this, Dumas thought and again felt better, rewarded. In fact, it seemed silly that she questioned the truth of it at all in the first place. Of course they did it; that was the only possible answer.

“The three renegades,” Dumas said, “they’re responsible for this.”

Thoma and Hort exchanged glances.

“You sure about this?” Thoma asked.

“I’ve been told to expect this,” Dumas said, taking the reins of her horse from Hort.

“We should send word, no?” Hort said, his brow furrowed.

“No,” Dumas said, mounting her Blödegeld. “We were told to stay hidden. It’s more imperative than ever that we find the renegades and kill them before they can murder anyone else.” She nodded to the ruin around her. “Before they can do this again and cast the name of the wizards in disrepute.”