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

  “Probably for more than a while, unless you do something foolish like try to run away,” Molly told him in a semi-stern tone. “If you try to run away, they’ll catch you – they’ve got the dark magics to do it. And you’ll be punished; others may be punished too if they are at fault,” Molly explained succinctly. “Don’t even bother trying to run away.”

  “I’ve never been on a boat before,” she casually changed topics as they rounded a corner.

  “This was the first trip I ever took out on the ocean,” Theus told her. “I thought the boat looked pretty big when I got on board in the port. But after it sailed out, and there was no land in sight – just water all around, everywhere – the boat didn’t seem so big after all. I’d rather not sail again if I didn’t have to,” he said. But I will if that’s what it takes to escape this place, he added silently to himself.

  They continued to stroll until they reached a market, where Theus was able to find several of the common elements he wanted for his complex burn remedies. They strolled up and down numerous aisles of goods, and Theus finally declared they had exhausted all the possibilities of finding further items at that particular market.

  “We can go to the Bipping market next,” Molly suggested. “It’s not too far away.”

  “Is there a bridge near the market?” Theus asked, a memory triggered.

  “A bridge? The Bipping Bridge? Yes, we’ll go right over it. Why?” Molly wanted to know as she led him out of the market, and towards a narrow road that had only a smattering of pedestrians walking.

  “Someone at the palace asked if I would try to heal his wife. He said they lived near the Bipping Bridge. Could we stop there?” Theus recollected the heartfelt request of Gance, the dog handler who had dropped off the dogs in the evening at the kitchen.

  “I don’t know. Mistress Letta didn’t mention anything about that,” Molly said doubtfully, uncertain about the departure from her planned itinerary.

  “It shouldn’t take long, since we’re going to be right there anyway,” Theus pointed out. “Gance said it’s a blue housing square; let’s just see if we pass it.”

  “We’ll see,” Molly said noncommittally.

  They continued on, as Molly cheerfully discussed the palace kitchen. “Those sinks where we wash the dishes are terrible,” she opined. “It’s too easy to splash water on your clothes.

  “And those ovens,” she added the incomplete thought.

  “What about the ovens?” Theus prompted her to finish the comment.

  “Well, you know, the way they exploded and burned all those people who were trying to clean them out,” she said.

  “I don’t know about it,” Theus told her. He presumed she was talking about the very people he was going to try to heal.

  “There was some problem with the ovens, and when some of the crew tried to clean them out before lighting them, the ovens just exploded out and killed some of them, and burned others. It was all very horrible, and then Colandra got immediately involved, trying to prevent Letta from overseeing her people and investigating the problem,” Molly told him. “I don’t know much else, but I try to never be involved with the ovens now, especially when they light them in the morning.”

  Theus listened in silence, wondering what was at the root of the topic.

  “There’s a blue housing square,” she noted. “And we’re almost to the bridge. I suppose you could go talk to this woman if it won’t take long.”

  “Their home is on the second floor,” Theus informed Molly. He didn’t know which apartment they would have to visit; discovering that would be a matter of trial and error.

  The square had a wide set of covered steps that led through the width of the building to a balcony that ran around the perimeter of an interior courtyard. There were no other people visible as they reached the second floor.

  “Hello? Is Losa home?” Theus decided to boldly knock on the first door he chose at random.

  There was no answer after a minute’s wait, and so he moved to the next door and tried again, Molly standing next to him.

  “Who?” a child’s voice answered as the door opened. Theus looked down and saw a young boy looking up through the door opening.

  “I’m looking for Losa, who lives with Gance,” Theus answered.

  “They don’t live here,” the boy answered forthrightly.

  “Can you tell me where they do live?” Theus asked, and received directions to go to doorway number seven, on the other side of the courtyard.

  Seconds later, in front of the correct door, Theus knocked again. “Losa?” he called. “Losa, are you home? Gance asked me to visit you.”

  There was no response, and Theus knocked again. Again there was only silence.

  “She must not be home,” Molly declared.

  “If she’s ill, she may not be able to answer the door,” Theus replied. He placed his hand on the knob and jiggled it, then swung the door inward.

  “Theus!” Molly exclaimed in astonishment. “You can’t go in there!”

  “I’m just going to check on her. If no one’s home, I’ll be out of here in two minutes.”

  He stepped into the doorway, and surveyed the room he entered. It was plain, with a minimum of furniture, and doorways that led in the other three directions. He stepped over to one and looked through the open space at a kitchen. He left it and went to the door on his right, where he softly opened the door and looked into the next room.

  “Here she is,” he said over his shoulder, as he noticed that Molly had entered the apartment and was behind him. A woman lay in a bed, sleeping soundly. Her neck was malformed, carrying an extremely large, swollen expansion of flesh on one side, something that looked as though it was so large it would be a heavy encumbrance on the lifting of a head.

  “Losa,” Theus went over and touched her lightly on the shoulder. “Losa, Gance sent me to look at your goiter, to see if I could help,” he spoke slowly.

  She opened her eyes and stared vacantly at him for several seconds, then closed her eyes again.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Molly asked with a note of concern in her voice. “Can you help her?”

  Theus stood over Losa, looking at her and reflecting on the knowledge that the memory stone had implanted within him. The cure seemed straightforward, though he would have liked to have asked some questions of his patient. But the case was a severe one, according to the references he found his mind sorting through. Losa would be best served with immediate care.

  “She needs some medicine right away,” Theus said to Molly. “Let’s go to the market and get a few things for her care, and then we can finish our shopping for the palace needs.”

  “We’re really only supposed to be taking care of palace business, but she looks like she needs help,” Molly spoke slowly as she worked to justify the extra steps Theus proposed.

  “Can you do this quickly?” Molly asked.

  “Yes,” Theus said assuredly. “It won’t take but four or five things.”

  The two of them left the building and went to the market they had been headed towards initially, where Theus found what he wanted with visits to only four stalls in the market. Afterwards, they went back to the apartment. Theus mixed and sliced and mashed the ingredients into a pulp, then put it in a glass with water and stirred it.

  “Now we have to get her to drink this,” He told Molly, as he carried his remedy to the bedroom.

  “You wouldn’t get me to drink that,” Molly muttered under her breath. “It’s a good thing she’s unconscious.”

  Together, as Theus propped Losa up, while Molly gently dripped the drink into her mouth, they slowly gave the woman a full dose of Theus’s remedy.

  “That’s all we need to do,” Theus said as he laid her back on her mattress.

  “Will she heal quickly?” Molly asked as they left the building.

  “She’s going to need to take that every day for several days to return to full health,” Theus estimated.

  “You’r
e going to have to come here every day?” Molly asked in protest. “Who’s got the time to escort you around like that?”

  “Her husband comes to the kitchen every day,” Theus pointed out. “We can just prepare the mixture at the palace and let him deliver it.”

  Molly conceded the point, and they were soon browsing among the stalls in the market, adding to the items Theus had selected earlier in the day.

  “Are you hungry?” Molly asked after their luck in finding needed ingredients lagged. “It’s past lunch time.”

  “I am hungry,” Theus realized as soon as he heard the question. “I just need a couple of additional things. Can we go to a fish market?” he asked.

  “And eat lunch by the harbor?” Molly responded. “That’s a good plan.”

  After further shopping for the items Theus wanted from the vendors at the fish market, the pair sat down to eat in a tavern by the water. The atmosphere in the tavern was rich with the effects of the alcohol that several sailors were drinking heavily, and Theus began to quickly suspect they had made a poor choice in eating at the place. The pair sat and waited as inconspicuously as they could while the drinkers at the nearby tables grew more rambunctious.

  “Here’s your food,” the waitress slide two bowls of fish stew onto their table.

  Theus thanked her, and watched as she gave a sigh, then began the trip back to the kitchen, past the rowdy inhabitants of the tavern.

  “Theus!” Molly said in shock as one of the drunken sailors reached out to pinch and then grab the waitress, making her shriek as the man pulled her in amongst the men at the table. “Do something to help her!”

  He thought of Eiren’s admonition to him back when he’d been in the caravan.

  Theus looked around at the tavern as he started to rise. A long pole used to open and shut the high windows of the building stood in a corner, looking to Theus suspiciously like a fighting staff. He felt comforted as he saw it, and allowed Molly’s words to propel him into action.

  “Let loose of her and leave her alone,” he said loudly as he stood up.

  All heads of the four sailors at the table turned in unison to look at Theus, and the room grew quiet.

  Theus stood, a thin youngster, sitting only with one other person, and appeared far from threatening to the quartet of men who were harassing the waitress. With their attention momentarily diverted, the woman managed to break out of their grasp and pulled away, backpedaling so strenuously to escape from them that she backed across the room and landed in a sitting position on the floor, her eyes glued to the brewing confrontation.

  Theus had two flashbacks. He remembered his brief battle with the members of the patrol in Great Falls. He doubted the brewing battle in Southsand would end so easily and quickly. And he again remembered the long-ago and far-off words of Eiren in the caravan, who had told him that he must do the right things. Protecting the waitress from assault seemed like the right thing.

  “What bone-snapping stupidity made you interrupt our fun?” one of the sailors asked as the four rose from their table.

  “I just asked you to leave the girl alone and let her do her job,” Theus said. He inched to the side to be within easier reach of the pole; he had little doubt he was going to need it. And he hoped that no other alcohol-fueled customers of the tavern would join the coming battle. He thought he could hold his own against the four, with their alcohol-addled abilities; he doubted he could fight many more. Forgon and Coriae had taught him well, but there were limits to his abilities, which would be rusty in any case.

  “Maybe you should have left the situation alone and let us have our fun,” another sailor in the group said menacingly, as they all lurched towards him in a sudden rush of violence

  Theus lost any remaining shred of doubt that he would have to use the pole, and he reached over to grab it as a weapon. The wooden shaft felt instantly comfortable in his hands; he slid his fingers along its length to reach the positions he wanted while he lifted it in front of himself, and then the staff swung into action.

  One end struck the center of the forehead of one sailor square on with considerable force, and the man fell backwards. Theus raised and swung the other end to strike another man in the temple, while the swinging lower end of the pole cracked hard against the shin of another man.

  Theus stepped back, and three of the attacking drunkards were on the floor.

  The remaining fighter took no heed of the loss of his companions. He stepped in close to Theus and swung a fist towards Theus’s face, with enough energy to knock Theus off his feet. But the blow didn’t land as the staff in Theus’s hands rose to strike the threatening arm off course, followed by the other end of the staff hitting the man in the ribs, followed by a quick strike across the bridge of the man’s nose, causing him to fall to the ground in writhing pain.

  “Let’s go Molly!” Theus said urgently. Only one of the men was unconscious, and the others were struggling back to their feet. Theus wanted to escape while there was the least likelihood of being followed. He held the pole in one hand, while he reached over to grab his companion’s hand and pull her up out of her seat. As soon as she did he released the pole, letting it clatter to the floor, while he grabbed his bag of purchased medical supplies. He was astonished at how easily the ability to use the staff had responded to his need, how thoroughly entrenched the moves must be in his muscles for him to take such a victory in his first use of the weapon in weeks.

  And then the two fled, Molly silent until they had exited the tavern.

  “Who are you?” she asked in breathless astonishment. “I’ve never seen anything like that! I’ll bet the king’s own guardsmen couldn’t have done what you just did!” she exclaimed.

  Theus still held her hand and was leading her through the traffic on the street as quickly as possible, trying to get out of sight of the tavern before trouble might follow them.

  “Were you in the army?” she asked. “You aren’t really a slave, are you?” her tone was serious as she looked at him.

  “I’m just a slave,” he assured her slowly. “I’m not in the army.”

  “You just beat four men in a matter of seconds!” Molly marveled. “You saved that girl, the waitress. All you used was a stick!”

  “They were drunk,” Theus pointed out. And he recollected that Coriae, in her matches against him with a staff, had demonstrated the very effective use of the weapon. Perhaps his quick victory hadn’t been as astonishing as he had initially thought, he began to doubt himself.

  “Let’s go on to the market,” Molly suggested. “Unless you want to fight anyone else?”

  “You’re the one who told me to go help the waitress,” Theus pointed out.

  “Are you saying I started that fight?” Molly stopped walking to look at him incredulously.

  “Well, no,” Theus wisely chose not to try to press his point. “Shall we go to the market?”

  They said nothing further as they reached the fish market, and Theus strolled among the displays of seafoods, selecting a few things for Molly to purchase. “Okay,” he said after they bought some seaweed from a merchant who was only too happy to receive money for the material he used only to store and transport his fish in.

  “We’re on our way back to the palace then?” Molly asked.

  “Unless you have a better idea,” Theus answered jokingly.

  She subjected him to a piercing stare as they stood in place, then she tossed her head, and they began the meandering journey through the city, back to the palace after spending nearly three quarters of the day shopping.

  The two of them remained together all the way back through the city, back into the palace grounds, and back into the kitchen.

  “You’re officially no longer my responsibility,” Molly told Theus when he lifted his bulging bag of goods up onto the counter he had used before. “Now hold still a moment,” she directed him. He did as ordered, and she caught him off-guard by reaching around his neck and removing the leather collar with the pala
ce slave markings. He’d worn it so long through the day he had become accustomed to it, and had forgotten he had it on.

  “Thank you, Molly,” he said solemnly.

  “Thank you, Theus. I’ve never had such an adventurous day!” Molly told him as she stood beside him, holding the collar, suddenly hesitant to leave him and acknowledge the end of their day together. “What will you do now?”

  “I’m going to start working on the remedies that we bought all these ingredients for,” Theus reminded her.

  “Well then, I guess I’ll be going,” Molly said. She stuck her hand out, and Theus shook it, before he watched her walk away. After several steps opened up distance between them, he turned to the goods that were spread across the countertop, and he set to work.

  His first priority was to create a new dose of the goiter treatment medicine he had created earlier in the day. When he saw Grance, he wanted to be able to give the man more of the medicine his wife needed.

  Theus proceeded to work through the late afternoon and evening. The others who worked in the kitchen offered him a plate of food, which he ate at his work station, and by the time evening rolled around, he found that he had fallen into an assumption that he would remain in the kitchen for another night with the dogs, so that he could work on his projects longer, and so that he could meet Gance and give the man the remedy that was prepared and ready to go back to his apartment to help heal his wife.

  He felt a trace of bitterness; he wanted to go to his room. He wanted to change clothes into something fresh. Once upon a time, when he had lived on the farm, he would have thought nothing of wearing homemade clothes for several days in a row. But after the relative luxury he had become accustomed to in Great Forks, he wanted to have a bed, and clean clothes.

  The memories of the farm reminded him of his sister, Thera. He wondered how she was. He’d not seen her in months. The potato crop on the farm had surely matured and been harvested already, and the starvation that had posed such an imminent threat to his family should have receded. Perhaps a new nanny goat had been bought, and Thera would have learned to milk the new creature. It was all so long ago and far away, and he realized he no longer truly wanted to try to go back to that life.