I’d a spell in my repertoire for turning scraps of iron into plowshares. I pointed my wand at the animal and whispered the words. Its form melted, shimmering like a giant raindrop, and settled into the triangular shape of a plowshare. As I passed, it remained silent and inert.
I approached the bed cautiously, wand ready. The wizard might have woken. I edged closer. No worried hand emerged from the curtains. No trembling fingers grappled with a wand.
I slowly pulled back the curtains at the head of the bed.
Mage Telarian lay there, mouth open, jowls slack, deep in sleep. Without his robes and finery, he might have been just another stout villager of nearly three score years. He looked conquerable. And drunk. I pointed my wand at his face and whispered the incantation.
At my first word, his eyes fluttered open and he squinted in confusion. The wine had dulled his senses. He moved to sit up,but I finished before he did. His eyes went blank, and he fell back into his pillows.
I had forty minutes until he regained consciousness. Hopefully removing his mark would take no more than twenty minutes. If I completed the work and left before the wizard’s stupor wore off, he should drift back to sleep like one who was only slightly awakened after a dream.
The incantation to turn the wizard into a tree wasn’t complicated, at least not since Ronan’s skill had shown me how it could be done. Magic, Ronan insisted, was like math, and most wizards were content to use already established equations. He scoffed at these lesser mages because coming up with their own equations seemed not to occur to them.
In the lesser wizards’ defense, without Ronan’s talent, they might create a spell that ended up hurting themselves, or just as bad, one that didn’t work and therefore made them look incompetent in front of their employers. I didn’t veer away much from the tested equations myself.
I turned Telarian into a tree and chiseled out his mark. Trees could lose small pieces from their trunk without causing severe damage. After I removed the mark, I swept up the bits of bark and tossed them in the fire, so as not to leave clues as to what I’d done. Then I placed my hand upon the tree’s chiseled hole and used the spell to speed a wound’s healing. That way Telarian wouldn’t bleed to death when I changed him back to his human form.
Everything went smoothly enough, although the energy the process extracted from me was more than I expected. The wizard’s magic resisted being forced into another shape. To preserve my strength, I’d dropped my invisibility while I worked. Still, I was slow.
I’d have a hard time performing five such spells in one night. And yet if I didn’t complete them tonight, they would be so muchharder to complete at all. Once the wizards realized some of their kind had been attacked, they wouldn’t drink as they did tonight. They would add more protections to their rooms. I had to push myself.
After I returned Mage Telarian to his human form, I became invisible again and went to the next door. Shield raised, I touched the door handle to awaken the snake. The serpent drew itself up and hissed so loudly that the noise seemed to echo in the empty hallway.
This snake stood taller than the first and swayed back and forth, beady eyes hunting for me. Almost quicker than sight, it lunged toward my middle and hit the shield.
I swung the dagger. I wanted to trap the creature’s neck between my blade and the wood, but it dodged away. My blade missed the viper altogether and smacked the shield with a loud thunk. The sound could have been a knock on the door. One that might wake a sleeping wizard.
The snake struck again, low this time. Its fangs hit my boot. I pivoted and stepped on its body to keep it in place. The viper nearly tripped me, thrashing as it did. Its head whirled toward me, baring fangs and searching for a vulnerable spot. Before it could succeed, my blade severed the creature in two.
The head fell to the floor, mouth open and fangs bared, and it reverted to its metal form. So very gruesome. I tucked my blade back into my boot and was pulling out my unlocking charm when the door swung open.
Mage Sciatheric stood in rumpled night clothes, his dark hair in disarray. The gaudy moon pendant still hung around his throat. The man actually slept with the thing. He scowled, angry at being awakened. While he peered down the hallway, searching for whoever had knocked on his door, I pointed my wand at him and whispered the stunning spell.
His eyes went wide, and he reached for the wand pocket of his robes, which did little good as he wasn’t wearing them. Ronan had told me once that a wise wizard slept with his wand near his pillow. If Sciatheric did, he’d neglected to bring it with him to answer the door. One would’ve really expected more from a wizard on the king’s council.
He collapsed, and although I rushed forward to grab hold of him, I couldn’t completely keep him from hitting the ground. I could only minimize the loud thud he made as he did. This night was proving to be noisier than I’d wished.
Sciatheric was a tall man and heavy. With a suppressed grunt, I half-dragged, half-rolled him into the room and shut the door.
The same strange purple light I’d seen in Telarian’s chamber flickered in Sciatheric’s fireplace, sending out a glow of illumination. I noted a wild boar statue not far away, but since Sciatheric had kindly come to the door, I didn’t have to concern myself with it.
Removing Telarian’s mark had taken perhaps twenty-five minutes, but this time, I had to peel off all of Sciatheric’s jewelry before changing him into a hawthorn tree. Metal didn’t change into bark the way clothing did and would’ve bit into the tree’s flesh in an injurious manner.
I was also wearier. Each step of the spell took longer.
After I finished chiseling out Sciatheric’s mark, I leaned back on my knees and contemplated whether the time and energy to perform the healing spell was really necessary. I wasn’t positive that turning Sciatheric back into a man with the wound still fresh on his neck would prove fatal. Perhaps the injury would be more of a scrape than a cut.
My speed and energy were more important than the man’s safety. And besides, maybe leaving the wizard wounded would keep him from fighting me, should he awaken before I finished.
Even as these justifications entered my mind, I knew that carrying the weight of the king’s death on my conscious would be burden enough. I couldn’t chance that my actions would kill this man as well. He didn’t deserve that, even if he was a wizard and a blackmailer.
I completed the healing spell and returned Sciatheric to his human form, unsure of how much time had passed. When I picked up the shield, it felt heavier than it had before. I uttered the words of the invisibility enchantment and opened the door.
From the floor, Sciatheric yelled, “Who’s there?” He lifted his head and blinked at his surroundings in confusion. “What mischief is this?”
Curse my slowness. His voice had been loud enough to awaken both Telarian and whichever wizard was in the room on his other side.
CHAPTER 17