The Deadly Magician (The Memory Stones Series Book 2) Read online

  “He is taking life from everyone, a little from each person he treats. He’ll use the power for his magic,” the man sitting at the next table told Theus.

  Donal’s eyes turned to look in the direction of the conversation, and the man explaining the situation instantly stopped, then looked down in his lap.

  “Hmm,” Donal murmured. He left his spot and his next victim, to walk towards the location of the voices.

  “What an interesting sight,” Donal said when he approached, and came to stand next to Theus and Torella’s table. “So intriguing.

  “The slaves from the palace,” he intoned, loudly enough for all the nearby tables to hear.

  “There was something interesting about you in the palace. And it seems most unusual that slaves would have the funds to afford a bottle of wine in an establishment like this,” he looked down at their table.

  “Not to mention the unusual rumors I’ve heard in the past few days. A master swordsman is defeating our best palace guard officers with swords – but he’s a slave. A high-ranking noblewoman is bewitched by a charming young man – but he’s a slave. Miraculous cures are helping the invalids and incurable – but they come from a slave,” Donal ticked through his list, looking down at Theus as he did, his eyes burning with intensity.

  “There’s something unusual happening, and I’m always interested in the unusual,” Donal said. And then he laid his hand upon Torella’s shoulder.

  The girl screamed, and her hand and Theus’s gripped one another with intensity.

  Donal closed his eyes. Theus felt suddenly chilled.

  Fantasy Series by Jeffrey Quyle

  The Memory Stones Series

  Journey Through the River Cities

  The Deadly Magician (NEW)

  The Inner Seas Kingdoms Series

  The Healing Spring

  The Yellow Palace

  Road of Shadows

  A Foreign Heart

  Journey to Uniontown

  The Guided Journey

  An Unexpected Deity

  A Marriage of Friends

  The Ingenairii Series

  Visions of Power

  2. At the Seat of Power

  3. The Loss of Power

  4. The Lifesaving Power

  5. Against the Empire

  6. Preserving the Ingenairii

  7. Rescuing the Captive

  8. Ajacii and Demons

  9. The Caravan Road

  10. The Journey Home

  11. The Cloud of Darkness

  12. The Past Revisited

  Alchemy’s Apprentice Series

  The Gorgon’s Blood Solution

  The Echidna’s Scale

  Scarlet from Gold

  The Southern Trail

  The Southern Continent Series

  The Elemental Jewels

  Perilous Travels

  The Greater Challenge

  Out of the Wilderness

  Also by Jeffrey Quyle

  The Green Plague

  For more information, visit the Ingenairii Series on Facebook, www.facebook.com/ingenairiiseries

  The Deadly Magician

  The Memory Stones Series

  Book 2

  Jeffrey Quyle

  Index

  Chapter 1 Page 1

  Chapter 2 Page 8

  Chapter 3 Page 15

  Chapter 4 Page 41

  Chapter 5 Page 56

  Chapter 6 Page 68

  Chapter 7 Page 81

  Chapter 8 Page 91

  Chapter 9 Page 110

  Chapter 10 Page 125

  Chapter 11 Page 132

  Chapter 12 Page 137

  Chapter 13 Page 143

  Chapter 14 Page 153

  Chapter 15 Page 165

  Chapter 16 Page 169

  Chapter 17 Page 174

  Chapter 18 Page 182

  Chapter 19 Page 184

  Chapter 20 Page 205

  Chapter 21 Page 209

  Chapter 22 Page 217

  Chapter 23 Page 244

  Chapter 24 Page 249

  List of Characters

  Theus (Prometheus)

  Thera, Theus’s sister

  Cern, father of Theus

  Allise, mother of Theus

  Torella, kitchen slave at Southsand palace

  Letta, chief kitchen slave at Southsand palace

  Ruune, injured slave in the palace kitchen

  Amory, Amelia, prince and princess of Steep Rise

  Redford, Steep Rise bodyguard

  Montuse, officer of the palace guard in Southsand

  Coriae, daughter of Great Forks nobleman

  Monsant, evil member of royalty

  Forgon, son of nobleman from Great Forks

  Warrell, father of Coriae and Forgon

  Janiae, murdered friend of Coriae

  Caral, Lanaie, noble friends of Coriae

  Blanche, kitchen servant for Warrell

  Lorinse, steward for Warrell’s mansion

  Glory, Great Falls apprentice bottle painter

  The Gods of the Land

  God of healing, Baccoso

  River goddess, Currense

  Mountain god, Limber

  Flat land/soil god, Plever

  Persepho, goddess of crops

  Darkness goddess, Scurtisse

  Stone god, Trinte

  God of thieves, Maurienne

  Light god, Incand

  Air goddess, Bellance

  Gelate, goddess of love

  Flat land/soil god, Plever

  The evil god, Ind’Petro risen again to power

  Prologue

  The city of Limber, on the eastern slopes of the Wallchick Mountains, was lost in the terrible cataclysm that raised the Jewel Hills far out on the eastern frontier. The destruction of Limber unsettled the balance of power among the four great cities that dominated the lands from the Wallchick Mountains to the ocean that washed the western edge of the civilized world. Over the following generations, the city of Stoke came to control nearly all the lands.

  Limber’s sacred ruling family was nearly extinct, as only a few surviving members of the blood line sank into obscurity and decline over time. One such minor branch of the family settled in the poverty of the Jewel Hills, where farmers and residents of small villages eked a poor living from the distressed land.

  But when evil began to arise and ascend towards a conquest of the south, as a prelude to a conquest of all the land, the dormant god of Limber struggled to resurrect the partnership between the royal blood and himself, as the likely best protector of the lands that faced the hidden threat.

  Theus, the son of a woman who was a distant progeny of the Limber royal line, did not know or understand any of the divine maneuverings taking place. When his poverty-stricken family is forced to sell his services to a traveling merchant, Theus is placed on a path that will require worldliness far beyond what he has experienced in his sheltered corner of the world.

  His travels take him down the Landwide River, a might stream of water and commerce, through two of the greatest cities of the nation, Greenfalls and Great Forks, both subject to Stoke’s rule.

  He settles in Great Forks, and learns not only the art of treating memory stones, but he learns that he is subject to visitations from a mysterious, all-knowing voice that advises and reasons with him. And he falls under the enchantment of the Lady Coriae, offspring of an ancient, noble family of the city.

  But in a brief fit of poor judgement, he angers the guards from the royal palace of Stoke, who are in Great Falls to investigate a murder, and he is forced to flee the city – leaving it, his job with
memory stones, and Coriae behind.

  Chapter 1

  His seat on the bench was damp, and hard, as Theus put his weight into pulling the oar on the right side of the ship. He was on the third day of the trip from Sea Head, and it was the first day he felt completely at ease physically, past the effects of a case of seasickness.

  He’d known a cure for seasickness. Through his memorization of the information stored on an ancient memory stone that revealed medical remedies, he was aware of two possible formulae he could mix to use. Unfortunately, on a low-budget cargo ship sailing to Thuro, there wasn’t the supply of pharmaceutical items he would need, so he had not been able to produce anything to ease conditions for himself or the two other landlubber crew members who had come on board.

  Instead, he suffered agonizing discomfort, until finally his body made the adjustment, and he rapidly grew better. And now he was earning his keep, satisfying the officers on the ship, and his crew mates, by carrying a fair share of the load.

  They only faced an eight-day journey to Thuro, the island kingdom to the northwest of Great Forks. Theus wasn’t sure that he wanted to take up residence in Thuro, but he had found the ship as the first one that was ready to depart and still looking for a crew member, so he had accepted the offer that had been tendered, and came on board with the twenty-two other members of the crew.

  His experience on the Surprise, a river barge, hadn’t prepared him for the trip on the Swaigg, the ship he inhabited for the trip to Thuro. He’d rowed and handled freight and helped shift the sails on the Surprise, during his weeks of sailing the ship down the Landwide River from Greenfalls to Great Forks. The scale of everything aboard the Swaigg was larger than on the Surprise however. He had to work in unison with other members of the crew more constantly, and to a greater degree than he had ever needed on the Surprise.

  And psychologically, he’d always been able to see the shore line of the river banks, just yards away when he’d been on the Surprise. Now, aboard the Swaigg, there was no land in sight. There were lots of waves, some of them large. But there was no security in knowing he could swim to solid safety in an emergency.

  On this day, the sun was hidden behind clouds, and a steady wind blew from the north, forcing the ship to rely on oars to advance towards Thuro. Theus had fleeting thoughts about his future as he rowed, thoughts that perhaps he would remain on Thuro longer than he expected, just to lengthen his reprieve from sailing on the open waters of the ocean again. But of course, that would mean spending more time away from Great Forks, and Coriae, and Falstaff’s shop, and all his friends among the apprentices.

  He pulled again on the oar, in concert with the other crewman on the bench who he was working with.

  “What’s that on the horizon?” asked Elof, sitting next to him, at that moment.

  “Thuros?” Theus responded hopefully.

  “You’re dreaming,” Elof replied with a grunt as they started to pull on their oar once again.

  An officer was standing at the front of the deck, calling out the cadence.

  “There’s something out there,” Elof insisted.

  Theus looked to his right and saw that there was something, an irregularity, on the ocean horizon. “I see it,” he agreed, then pulled on the oar again.

  Seconds later there was a shout from the lookout atop the main mast of the ship, and a small flurry of activity among the officers of the ship. A minute later there was ongoing activity that increased, as the captain of the ship climbed the mast to inspect the horizon himself.

  And a minute after that, the ship altered course to move away from the irregularity on the horizon. Within seconds, whispered and grunted messages among the oarsmen revealed that the sighting was another ship, and the Swaigg was adjusting course to avoid an encounter with the unknown vessel.

  The other ship was sailing with the wind behind it, and it approached with ease, growing larger on the horizon as it drew nearer, and it adjusted its course to remain headed towards an uninvited rendezvous with the Swaigg.

  “Who ever heard of pirates this far north?” Theus heard one rower on the bench in front of him ask.

  “What is a pirate?” he asked Elof next to him.

  “You don’t know?” the other man said. They pulled their oar again, and he continued. “They’re robbers – ships that rob other ships.”

  “Why would they rob us?“ Theus asked, after the next stroke.

  “Well, there’s all our cargo, there’s the ship itself, and then of course there’s all of us they can sell as slaves,” Elof spoke sarcastically. “Do you need any other reasons?”

  The ship changed course again, heading nearly due south as it began to run away from its pursuit, but also headed away from Thuro, its goal. The sails were raised and added to the speed of the vessel, easing the strain on the rowers, who continued to stroke their oars in the hopes of running to freedom.

  But the pursuing ship continued to follow, and with its greater spread of sails and sleeker sailing design, it continued to reduce the gap between the two ships. Theus could no longer see much of the chase, as the turn in the ocean’s waters put the pirate ship on the opposite side of the hull, but he heard the muttering and chattering observations that resided on the other side.

  The chase caused tension to mount dramatically onboard the Swaigg. Even though the rowers were hours into their shift, and entitled to take a break, no break was offered or asked for, as everyone tried to keep the ship moving as quickly as possible. The ship continued to move, the sun starting to descend over the western sky and fall directly down upon Theus’s side of the ship.

  When arrows started to fall into the ship, Theus knew trouble was drawing very near. He was shocked, as the thought of the attack turned to reality. Two men cried out as they were pierced by weakly falling shafts that had traveled across the gulf of sea water separating the two ships.

  “Hard right! Hard right!” the mate who was calling the cadence screamed at the rowers. “All oars on the right hold in the water!”

  Theus and Elof, and the others on their side of the ship held their oars steady in the water, dragging and turning the ship sharply to the right, away from the oncoming attacker.

  “Now pull! Pull! Pull hard!” their officer screamed. Despite the exhausted muscles all the men at the oars felt, they managed to wrench their oars powerfully, and then stroke again, and again.

  “That did it!” the mate whooped exuberantly.

  “Lower the sails!” another officer called, and crew members went scrambling up the masts to take down the sheets of canvas that were a hindrance as the ship tried to travel north again, into the wind.

  The ship began to make headway, and Theus listened to the running commentary among the rest of the crew as he stared forward. The pirate ship had immediately changed course and was heading west, trying to tack its way back into position to attack the Swaigg once again. His arms ached with more pain than he could remember ever feeling – worse than anything he’d ever experienced on the farm when he’d had to repair stone walls around fields or dig drainage ditches or harvest potatoes from the fields.

  He knew a number of pain remedies he could create. His medical knowledge would allow him to produce liniments and ointments and lotions that could be rubbed on the aching muscles to quickly relieve the pain. But he would have to be in a market place or an apothecary shop or an alchemist’s laboratory to have access to the materials he would need to create the relief.

  He wondered what would happen when they were caught. The demoralized murmurs that caught his ear seemed to indicate that the majority of the crew considered capture to be inevitable. Perhaps the pirates would simply seize the cargo and then let the ship go on its way. He could hope for such a happy outcome, but it seemed unrealistic he knew.

  Piracy had never crossed his mind as a problem when he’d stepped aboard the Swaigg. He hadn’t known it was a threat. He’d only wanted to leave the jurisdiction of the palace guard from Stoke for a few weeks, to avoid a
rrest – or death. He hadn’t thought about, or known about, dangers that accompanied sailing on the high seas.

  But now he was experiencing piracy.

  He pulled on the oar again, and felt the resistance of the oar grow dramatically, as Elof gave a sudden groan and released his grip on the handle, leaving the entire effort to Theus.

  “My back,” Elof moaned as he writhed in pain, then slide onto the filthy wet floor. “I can’t do any more.”

  “Help!” Theus called, as he struggled to maintain the oar by himself, despite his own painful weariness.

  “We’ll take him below deck,” an officer shouted, and two of the sailors came to haul Elof away, while Theus slid into Elof’s position, where he could feel better leverage on the oar handle.

  Other men were ceasing to stroke their oars as well, Theus realized. He could see that there were gaps in the seating of the benches in front of him, as the long, draining effort to move the boat continued on and on and on, and fewer men were available and able to help move the ship through the water.

  The Swaigg was fortunate that it has the mobility and agility in the water that its rowers provided, while its pursuer had only sails. That agility offered the ship its only hope for evading capture.

  The rowers were losing their last reserves of energy though; none of them had any stamina left.

  When the sailing ship came about to make its next attack upon the Swaigg, Theus saw more of the rowers fall victim to arrows from the other ship, and the sharp turning maneuver used to slip away happened more slowly and sloppily than before. Even the inexperienced Theus could see that there was little hope of further escape.