The Deadly Magician (The Memory Stones Series Book 2) Page 11

  “You’re awfully young,” Weese noted skeptically.

  “I learned this from a much older doctor, one who really knew medicine better than anyone I ever met,” Theus assured his patient. “I’ve never been let down by any of his formulae.”

  “Thank you,” Weese seemed mollified.

  “I’ll come back tomorrow with the rest,” Theus assured him as he picked up the empty jar.

  “Will Letta be back to see me soon?” Weese asked.

  “She surely will be. She personally wanted me to treat you,” Theus tried to comfort the man. He told himself to remember to ask Letta to visit soon. “Maybe not tomorrow, but soon.”

  He waved, then exited the building, to find Torella waiting as expected.

  “We’re done here. What’s our next assignment?” Theus asked the girl.

  “We go back to the kitchen to find out,” she told him.

  “I had to take lunch food to the king’s aunt’s sick friend,” Torella gossiped. “That’s the first time I’ve ever gone that far into the royal wing of the palace.”

  The girl described the elegance of the furnishings and the servants’ uniforms, until they arrived back at the kitchen. The head cook, in Letta’s absence, watched the pair enter the kitchen with a concerned expression on his face.

  “The magician Donal wants five meals delivered immediately,” he told Torella.

  She audibly inhaled, and her face turned pale.

  “What is it Tory?” Theus asked.

  The girl reached over and grabbed his hand in hers, squeezing tightly. “I’m afraid to go there.

  “Bad things happen down there; sometimes people go there and they don’t come back,” she whispered.

  “I’m going with you,” Theus said reassuringly. “I’ll do my best for you.”

  “I know you will,” Torella answered. “If it was just weapons, I’d stand behind you any day, but the magician uses dark powers. If he wants to harm us, we’re powerless to resist.”

  “He may just want food,” the cook tried to reduce the tension. “And we’ve got the food waiting. It’s best not to keep the magician waiting.

  “I don’t think this is anything but a delivery, really,” he tried to ease the girl’s fear.

  “It’s here in this warming oven,” he pulled the handle down to reveal the covered plates inside the warmer. “Here,” he said to Theus to move things along, “let me put some pads on your arms so you don’t get burned carrying them.”

  Theus extended an arm, and the cook placed folded towels along it, then balanced a pair of plates, and handed a third to Theus. Torella in the meantime mechanically prepared herself and took the other two plates.

  “Stay close to me,” she whispered to Theus when they left the kitchen.

  “I’ll be right with you,” he asserted. They walked for minutes until they reached a large hallway, where guards were stationed, and then stopped at the foot of a circular staircase.

  “The magician Donal has asked for delivery of meals,” Torella told the first guard they encountered.

  “Make your delivery,” the man said in a bored voice, and he stepped aside to allow access to the stair case.

  The pair of kitchen workers began to climb the steps, up a tall flight of stairs that looped around to reach a second floor that was lit only by the lights from the ground floor below. The floor was a circular opening, with a balcony circling it, and a series of closed doors, plus a further flight of stairs climbing higher into a darker space above.

  “We need to keep climbing,” Torella told Theus.

  “Do you want me to lead?” he asked, sensing her trepidation.

  “Yes, please. Thank you Theus, you’re so good,” she answered gratefully immediately.

  They ascended further to a higher third floor, where there were again no open doors or obvious directions. The tower narrowed around them, as the central chimney that looked down to the ground shrank to a reduced size.

  “We go up one more floor,” Torella spoke between taking deep breaths.

  Theus led the way around the balcony to the next flight of steps, then climbed it slowly, giving them both time to breath and prepare to end the trip into the frightening quarters of the magician. The third set of steps was narrower than the first two, and darker, but just as long. When they reached the top, both Theus and Torella paused to catch their breath.

  “Will we have to come back to get the plates?” Theus weakly tried to jest.

  There was an obvious door on this level, a door with a burning lantern hung above it, and a guard standing next to the door.

  “Let’s go finish the delivery,” Theus spoke, then walked forward.

  Chapter 7

  “We’re here to deliver the food requested by the magician,” Theus told the guard, a blank-faced man who stood at rigid attention.

  “Proceed to enter,” the man spoke hollowly, without any sideways glance at the visitors.

  Theus pressed against the door with his shoulder, and the heavy slab of wood and metal creaked open. Theus walked in first, followed by Torella. The interior of the magician’s stronghold in the palace was just as dark as the upper levels of his tower had been, lit only by lanterns that hung upon the stone walls. Theus proceeded cautiously, looking for anyone they could deliver the meals to.

  He stopped when he heard a terrible scream, from some place not too distant. His hackles were up.

  “Voice,” he whispered, “I wish you were still with me voice. I could use your support.”

  There was no response, and he walked to the end of the hallway, which provided a choice of going left or right down the crossing hall. He thought he saw a flicker of movement to the left, and went that way.

  He found a man, standing over a table, studying a sheaf of large papers illuminated by three candles, so intent in his examination of the papers that he was unaware of the approach of the meal delivery.

  “My lord,” Theus called while still several feet away. “My lord, we have the meals you requested.”

  The man turned and looked at them. He was a very ordinary-appearing man, and Theus felt even more alarmed by the fact that a man could appear so ordinary while existing in such a frightening environment.

  “I didn’t order them, the master did,” the man said calmly. “Let’s put them at the table for our guests. Follow me,” he commanded.

  He turned and proceeded to walk past them, back down the hall they had just traveled. They followed warily as they passed the intersection with the first corridor and kept going. The man stopped just a few steps past the intersection. He fished a key from a pocket in his gown, then unlocked a door, and pressed it open.

  Theus heard a stifled gasp from inside the room, before the door opened wide, and he could see the interior of the space.

  It was a large room, big enough to accommodate a very large table, with chairs, and surrounding furniture against the walls. There were no windows, but a pair of doors were cut into the opposite wall at the long end of the room, and a chandelier held several candles that cast a warm glow across the scene.

  Three people sat together at the far end of the table, a woman and two men. They were middle-aged, and the woman was crying softly as one of the men tried to comfort her with his hand placed atop hers on the arm of her chair. They were visibly chained to their chairs.

  “Place the plates down in front of the guests, and then you may depart,” the escort prompted Theus and Torella to begin to move.

  “Help us, please. Set us free,” the woman spoke aloud as the pair of kitchen workers delivered the food.

  “We’re going to die soon. Help us,” she repeated. She raised her hands and grabbed Theus’s arm as he placed a plate in front of her.

  Just then the door behind the terrified diners swung inward, and a man entered the room. He was dressed in red, with a black hood pushed back to drape over his shoulders. His face was as cruel as any human visage Theus had ever seen or imagined. He made the memory of Monsant, the evi
l member of the royal family in Stoke, seem kindly by comparison.

  Torella gave a soft shriek as she looked upon the man’s face, stricken just as much as Theus was by fear.

  “You’re slow to deliver,” the new man’s voice was a deep rumble. “The food had better be good. My guests deserve to have a fine meal while they live here.”

  “Master, I’ve brought them directly to the dining room,” said the man who had escorted them through the hall. Theus imagined he saw a flicker of concern in the man’s eyes.

  “Don’t worry Cask, you’re not at fault this time,” said the man in red.

  “Is there some problem with your arm? Are you unable to place the plate on the table?” he turned to Theus, stepping closer.

  “Voice, Limber, please help me,” Theus whispered in true fear. His hand had frozen in place, without placing the plate down, as he had studied and been terrified by the appearance of the new arrival.

  There was a slight pulse of warmth somewhere in the back of his skull, and Theus felt released from his paralysis of fear. He lowered the plate, then the last one on his arm, and he reached over to help Torella also place her plates on the table. He gently took her hand in his and pulled her next to his side, keeping a firm grip on the petrified girl.

  “We’re sorry for the delay in delivery, my lord,” Theus thought his voice was a high-pitched squeak.

  “You’re new here, aren’t you?” the red-robed man looked at him with interest.

  “Yes, my lord,” Theus swallowed his words.

  “Would you like to come work with me, be one of my guests?” the other man asked.

  Theus looked at the trio who were chained to their seats at the table. “I’m still settling into my role in the kitchen, my lord,” he declined as graciously as he could manage.

  The man laughed, and after a moment, the man who had escorted them to the room laughed as well.

  “See them out, then come feast with us,” the man in red directed the other. His attention left Theus, and he took a seat at one of the empty seats that held a plate of food.

  Theus stepped back, extraordinarily anxious to leave. His foot landed on Torella’s toes, making her grunt, but then she stepped back too. They both bowed, then retreated from the room into the hall. Cask, the man who had escorted them in, led them down the hall. A door opened on their right side, making both of the kitchen servants jump. A quartet of men emerged from the doorway, bearing a litter carrying an old man’s body. The bearers went down the hallway in the opposite direction from Cask, Theus, and Torella, without a single word being exchanged.

  When the exit from the quarters of the magician came into view, Theus breathed an inward sigh of relief, and hurried his step to draw even with their guide and to pass him by a step before they reached the door, Theus’s hand still tightly clasping Torella’s.

  “Thank you for guiding us,” Theus told Cask.

  “Perhaps we’ll see you again,” the man said drolly. “I think the master took a fancy to you; he may invite you back.”

  Theus nearly convulsed as he struggled to prevent bile from rising in his throat. Still holding Torella’s hand, he began to hurry down the steps, listening to the hollow sound of laughter behind him as the pair hurried away from the lurid location. They rushed down the next set of steps too, then slowed as they descended the final staircase, back in a brighter setting, exposed to direct light that streamed in through windows and helped to alleviate a portion of the frantic fear that had possessed the two kitchen helpers.

  They rushed past the guard at the foot of the stairs, and ran down a hall and around a corner, then finally stopped running when they could no longer see the magician’s guard, and they leaned against the wall, panting and fearful, heedless of the people who walked past them and stared at them.

  “Oh Theus!” Torella cried, as she flung herself against his chest and grasped him tightly, while she started to cry. “I felt like I was going to be hated until I died,” she sobbed.

  “That’s how I felt,” he agreed, realizing that the girl had put into words the terrible dread that had threatened to overwhelm his sanity.

  “Those people, those captives – they’re going to die,” Torella said. “They know it. What can we do to save them?”

  Theus audibly gasped at the notion of trying to free the people chained to the chairs.

  “Relax, it’s over,” he told her. “We made it out of there alive.”

  “Do you think we can help the people up there?” Torella asked.

  “There’s nothing I can do about it. We can ask Letta, but I think I know the answer,” Theus’s voice trailed away.

  “Thank you for going with me. I can’t imagine what would have happened if I had gone there by myself,” she was still pressed against him, but relaxed now, no longer tense and rigid. She felt comfortable to Theus as he put his arms around her.

  “Go get a room somewhere,” a page sniggered as he and a friend walked by.

  Torella tensed, then separated slightly from Theus, but kept her face down.

  “We should return to the kitchen,” she said, and proceeded to lead the way. They no longer held hands, and Theus sensed that some bond between them had been severed by the rude comment the child had made in the hall – that and the fact that time had passed after their horrifying experience together, reducing the need to cling to one another so intensively and intimately.

  When they got back to the kitchen, Letta spotted them immediately. She walked towards them, and as she passed the head cook, she slapped the back of his head hard, knocking his hat free and making him shout an oath, until he saw who had struck him.

  “You two are back? Are you safe? Was everything okay with your delivery?” she asked anxiously.

  “I don’t ever want to go there again!” Torella nearly broke into tears again.

  “I can’t believe that idiot sent you two to deliver to Donal!” Letta fumed as she looked back over her shoulder at the sullen cook. “After we started ‘losing’ delivery people from the magician’s tower, I just turned deliveries over to the palace guards,” she said. “I’m so glad you made it back unharmed!” she hugged Torella, then hugged Theus too.

  “There were people there – they were prisoners,” Torella spoke out. “Can we rescue them?”

  “We can have nothing to do with that place!” Letta said in an agitated voice. “Don’t stir up any trouble; don’t call any attention to yourselves. Donal and Colandra are allies in the palace games,” she spoke in a much lower voice to the pair.

  “It’s all so dangerous now, with the magician pressing the king to go to war. No place is safe,” she warned the pair of youngsters. “I’ll keep you safe here in the kitchen, but we all have to stay out of trouble and just do our jobs,” she advised.

  Theus thought back to the words of Eiren, on the caravan journey that now seemed so long ago, in a different life. Eiren had burned into his soul the precept that he should stand up for what was right. Yet in the circumstances of seeing how frightening Donal’s evil was he quailed from the prospect of trying to stand up to the overwhelming opponent.

  “Are there other chores you need me to do?” he asked, eager to switch the topic.

  “There is, as a matter of fact,” Letta was relieved to switch topics as well. “I had meant to ask if you knew any medication to treat gout?”

  “Ah, yes,” Theus refocused his mind, and let his consciousness flip through the stored memories that the ancient stone of healing knowledge had bestowed upon him. There was a cure, one that required several steps to produce.

  “Will you produce a few doses for me?” Letta asked.

  “I’ll need a few things, and it will take three days to make it, and I’ll need to cook it on a stove, under pressure,” he spoke aloud as he ran through the instructions.

  “What does that mean, ‘under pressure’?” Torella asked.

  “He wants to cook it in a pot with the lid latched on,” Letta explained.

  “Yes
,” Theus agreed.

  “Of course, you’ll need to go to the market to buy some things,” Letta asked sarcastically.

  Theus bit back a grin as he nodded his head.

  “I’m going to send you out first thing in the morning. This is for the Lady Makbit, a friend of the king’s sister. We will all be well-served if we can win her gratitude with a treatment that truly works on her gout pain. I presume your treatment works?” Letta asked.

  “I wouldn’t offer them if they weren’t useful,” Theus answered, taken aback.

  “Of course! I know,” the woman smiled.

  “Torella, you’re released from duty for the rest of the day. Theus, you go write up your list of ingredients you’ll need tomorrow, then show it to me before you leave,” Letta directed.

  “Now, about those potatoes,” she turned and spoke to one of the workers in the kitchen, and she was off to resume her management of the facility.

  Theus closed his eyes and took a last deep breath to cleanse himself of the vestiges of the horror of the magician’s tower. When he opened them, Torella was standing in front of him, her eyes wide and serious.

  “I’m going to leave now, but I’ll see you again soon,” she told him. Her fingers came up to caress his cheek softly for a moment, then she smiled and left. He closed his eyes and breathed again, then went back to the counter where his medical supplies had taken up permanent residence, and he slowly wrote his list of ingredients that would be needed to create the treatment for gout.

  “The best treatment would be for her to not be a glutton,” he muttered to himself, as he started on his list. It was a long, slow, complex formula that was being delivered on paper to Letta to peruse. He wrote out all the materials, and the amounts needed, then walked back to the front of the kitchen and showed the list to Letta.

  “The kitchen will go broke if we keep buying all this extra material,” she complained as she looked down the length of the list.

  “You could charge people for the medicine,” Theus ventured.

  “Touché!” Letta smirked. “You know I’m not going to ask for money from someone in the king’s circle. I was just complaining. Very good; I’ll send you out with someone in the morning,” she told Theus.