Read Online Sun Cross 1 - The Rainbow Abyss by Barbara Hambly - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Barbara Hambly
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At least, thought Rhion, hunching deeper into the hood of his cloak and scanning the deserted and overgrow fields nervously, if they were attacked by bandits out here, or in the stony hills or the wilderness of the Drowned Lands that lay beyond, they had the option of fighting back without concern about future retaliation against wizardry in general.
To most people, he knew, a wizard was a wizard was a wizard—as had been the case with himself before he’d become Jaldis’ pupil—a mysterious figure in a long robe who acted from unknown motives and held strange and dangerous powers. And from that standpoint, he supposed, Chelfrednig’s argument was correct: his sale of potions would contradict what the Selarnists had been laboriously working to convince the town authorities was the nature of wizardry.
Though it was only their opinion of what it should be, dammit!
And thus, though he and Jaldis could have summoned lightning from the sky to blast Lord Pruul’s liverymen and their volunteer helpers out of existence, or even have caused the stairs at the Black Pig to collapse under their weight long enough to have given them time to make a getaway, in the long run it would mean more trouble for other wizards they knew, who would have suffered the retaliation.
It was, in fact, the reason that Jaldis had left the house where he had lived for so many years in Nerriok—that tall, narrow house on one of the dozen tiny islands that made up the city, where Rhion had first learned the nature of magic and had first seen what it was to be a mage. When the old High King had died and his brother had briefly taken the scepter, the brother had hated wizards due to some bad financial dealings with an Ebiatic mage who, in Rhion’s opinion, should have known better. As a result all mages, from respected masters of the Great Art like Jaldis down to the Figure-Flingers throwing painted bones on the street corners, had been banished from the city and the realm, to earn what livings they could in places like the Black Pig.
The old High King’s brother had died at the turning of autumn, of dysentery contracted while besieging the stronghold of a rebellious vassal in the Clogreth Hills in the west. On the night of the winter solstice, even as Jaldis had been listening in the Dark Well to the clamor of voices crying of the death of magic, the High King’s daughter had been crowned in the great Temple of Darova in Nerriok, and had received the homage of all the lords of the Forty Civilized Realms.
It was, Jaldis had said quietly, time to return home.
Night fell early. Owing to the rucked and muddy condition of the winter roads and to Jaldis’ lameness, the two wizards were far from the inn which even in summertime lay a good day’s journey from Imber’s gates. They pressed on long after it grew fully dark. Throughout the day the cloud cover had been thinning under the creeping dryness of the north wind; rags of moonlight filtering through the bare trees which pressed ever more closely about the road through the hills eventually showed Rhion the inn itself, perched on a little rise where the road up from the Drowned Lands divided to run northwards to Imber, and to Felsplex in the east.
Snow lay heavy on the bare hilltops above the road and among the trees that grew thick as a bear pelt about their feet. Against its luminous pallor, the inn’s gray stone walls bulked heavy and dark. Every shutter was fastened, every door bolted; every stall in the snow-blanketed stableyard was empty and smelled of fox-mess and field mice, and the tracks of deer and rabbits were a scribbled message all about the walls:
Not at Home
.
Rhion swore fluently for a short while, then walked with what caution he could muster—a city boy born and raised, he had little woodcraft—all around the inn and its outbuildings, sniffing, listening, searching with the hyperacute senses of a wizard for the least sign of danger. But all he heard
To most people, he knew, a wizard was a wizard was a wizard—as had been the case with himself before he’d become Jaldis’ pupil—a mysterious figure in a long robe who acted from unknown motives and held strange and dangerous powers. And from that standpoint, he supposed, Chelfrednig’s argument was correct: his sale of potions would contradict what the Selarnists had been laboriously working to convince the town authorities was the nature of wizardry.
Though it was only their opinion of what it should be, dammit!
And thus, though he and Jaldis could have summoned lightning from the sky to blast Lord Pruul’s liverymen and their volunteer helpers out of existence, or even have caused the stairs at the Black Pig to collapse under their weight long enough to have given them time to make a getaway, in the long run it would mean more trouble for other wizards they knew, who would have suffered the retaliation.
It was, in fact, the reason that Jaldis had left the house where he had lived for so many years in Nerriok—that tall, narrow house on one of the dozen tiny islands that made up the city, where Rhion had first learned the nature of magic and had first seen what it was to be a mage. When the old High King had died and his brother had briefly taken the scepter, the brother had hated wizards due to some bad financial dealings with an Ebiatic mage who, in Rhion’s opinion, should have known better. As a result all mages, from respected masters of the Great Art like Jaldis down to the Figure-Flingers throwing painted bones on the street corners, had been banished from the city and the realm, to earn what livings they could in places like the Black Pig.
The old High King’s brother had died at the turning of autumn, of dysentery contracted while besieging the stronghold of a rebellious vassal in the Clogreth Hills in the west. On the night of the winter solstice, even as Jaldis had been listening in the Dark Well to the clamor of voices crying of the death of magic, the High King’s daughter had been crowned in the great Temple of Darova in Nerriok, and had received the homage of all the lords of the Forty Civilized Realms.
It was, Jaldis had said quietly, time to return home.
Night fell early. Owing to the rucked and muddy condition of the winter roads and to Jaldis’ lameness, the two wizards were far from the inn which even in summertime lay a good day’s journey from Imber’s gates. They pressed on long after it grew fully dark. Throughout the day the cloud cover had been thinning under the creeping dryness of the north wind; rags of moonlight filtering through the bare trees which pressed ever more closely about the road through the hills eventually showed Rhion the inn itself, perched on a little rise where the road up from the Drowned Lands divided to run northwards to Imber, and to Felsplex in the east.
Snow lay heavy on the bare hilltops above the road and among the trees that grew thick as a bear pelt about their feet. Against its luminous pallor, the inn’s gray stone walls bulked heavy and dark. Every shutter was fastened, every door bolted; every stall in the snow-blanketed stableyard was empty and smelled of fox-mess and field mice, and the tracks of deer and rabbits were a scribbled message all about the walls:
Not at Home
.
Rhion swore fluently for a short while, then walked with what caution he could muster—a city boy born and raised, he had little woodcraft—all around the inn and its outbuildings, sniffing, listening, searching with the hyperacute senses of a wizard for the least sign of danger. But all he heard
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