Read Online Below the Wizards' Tower (The Royal Wizard of Yurt Book 8) by C. Dale Brittain - Free Book Online Page B

let myself be marched around
to the back of the municipal building.   Better find out all I could.   The guardsman produced a heavy key to let us into the cell
block , unlit and quiet except for the sounds of several men
breathing.   No magic locks here, I
quickly determined.   Another key
opened one of the cells, and the guardsman pushed me inside.
    “Better get your story straight by
tomorrow,” he said, turning the key with a loud click.   “Escaping only increases the penalty,
you know.”
    He slammed the outer door of the cell block , and it became even darker.   There was, I could tell, someone already
in the cell where I had been pushed.
    I lit up the sun and moon on my belt
buckle for enough light to see.   A
man with a white beard, wearing a tall hat covered with stars, sat on the
cell’s narrow cot.   His face seemed
oddly familiar.
    I took a deep breath.   “Let me introduce myself.   I think you’re my long lost twin.   My name is Daimbert, and I believe you are
Marcus.”

 
    VIII
    The beard, I saw now, was not really
white but bleached, full of yellowish streaks.   The face was similar to but not identical
with what I saw in the mirror every morning:   the nose was a little wider, the chin a
little narrower, there were more freckles, and his eyes were blue where mine
were brown.   But the overall
similarity was striking.
    A decade ago, when I had graduated
from the wizards’ school, I had learned the enormously powerful spells that
slow aging.   This man looked roughly
the same age as I did, which meant he was probably about ten years
younger.   We couldn’t be twins after
all.
    He looked up calmly, doubtless doing
his own comparisons.   “I don’t
believe I have a long lost twin, Daimbert,” he said at last.   “I was an only child.   I am however happy to meet you.   Sorry it’s not under better
circumstances.”
    I sat down next to him on the
cot.   “I was an only child too.   But people in the great City have been
mistaking me for you for two days.”
    “My family came from the City
originally, and I was born there, although I grew up out in the country,” he
commented, apparently ready to enliven a dull evening in a cell with
conversation.   “My parents decided
farming was the only true occupation for an adult—a point on which I thoroughly disagreed once I was old enough to recognize the virtues of cities.   You and I might be cousins.”
    “Why did the guard imprison you?” I
asked, temporarily leaving the interesting topic of long lost cousins.
    He shrugged.   “He didn’t say.   Maybe I overplayed my role with the
cathedral priests.”
    Slurred voices from the other cells
interrupted whatever I had been going to reply.   “Hey, keep it quiet!”   “We’re trying to sleep in here!”
    Time to get out.   The guardsman should be far away by
now.   With a quick spell I opened
the lock on our cell, then the door to the cell block .   I briefly considered freeing the other prisoners ,   but if drunks
wanted to sleep here in quiet, then I should probably let them.   When Marcus followed me out, I let the
outer door slam shut.
    Reluctantly I turned in the opposite
direction from the inn.   By now the
guardsman was probably eating there himself.   Instead I led us back toward the little
castle, dodging through shadows, probing mentally for members of the
guard—or for Elerius.
    No one stopped us.   When we reached the square I flew up,
found a window big enough to admit a man, and got it open.   The room inside was dark and musty.   Well, it had been a while since the
royal court of Yurt had been here.
    “Stay still and relaxed,” I called
down softly, then lifted Marcus with magic and brought him inside with me.
    “I see it could be an advantage
being a wizard,” he said, the first time he had spoken since we left the
cells.   “But my branch of the family
never went in for magic.   Any chance
of conjuring up some dinner?”   There
was