Chapter Ten: The New Master

The dawn came before long, then morning, and Thelos arose from sleep. Swenhild's plan of destroying the town had been very far from succeeding: the witch's grip on Tormadeus had been broken soon enough that in all but a few neighbourhoods folk had gone to their beds and slept the night away all unknowing. There were still signs of damage, but already they were so few and so small as not to attract much notice.

In Grey Garland Hall the morning was greeted wearily by Voltan and his three friends who had returned there after the events of the night. Tired as they were they had refused sleep, and waited anxiously - all except Evermorn - by the fireplace in a small sitting room, while the white wizard and other healers tended to Robon and his three companions, and to Wist. The golden chain lay untouched on a small table before the hearth.

After a time a messenger brought the news that Swenhild and Blister had indeed made good their escape. The two had apparently made off with one of the small sailing craft tied up at the docks, and had set off intrepidly to sea before sunrise. There was no chance of recapturing them, the messenger said, but it hardly mattered anyway: they were not known to be experienced sailors and would be more likely to perish at sea than to land again safely. It was not known whether the monkey creature, Swenhild's other companion, was with them.

Voltan grunted when he heard this news, and seemed in a way relieved, though it was plain he doubted that the witch would suffer shipwreck.

"Shrivel and blast the woman, anyway!" he muttered after the messenger had left. "If only she would drown herself, it would be a favour to us all!"

The others had no comment. Like Voltan himself, it was Wist that concerned them, not Swenhild. She had been half-conscious by the time they had got back to the Hall some hours before, but Evermorn would not promise them that she had no lasting hurt.

Since then neither Evermorn himself nor anyone else from the sickroom had been back to see them. The three waited with mounting impatience as more minutes slipped away.

Finally Yinna said, "I can't stand it any more, Voltan. I'm going up to see how the poor child is. Really, Evermorn should have sent us word by now!"

"You'd better not," Voltan answered. "The sickroom is off limits even to me. The Guild would be really upset if you were to go in without authority."

But Yinna was already at the door. "I'll say I lost my way," she said.

"I'm going too," Heron announced, and jumped to his feet.

Voltan looked from one to the other of them exasperatedly. "Thieves!" he said in a disgusted tone. "No respect for rules!" Then he stood up. "Well, let's go!" he said. "I want to see her too, you know!" From the sitting room they entered a big lounge area, with soft low couches, shelves of scrolls, and walls lined with portraits of noted sorcerers from history. At the other end of the room was the flight of stairs they would have to climb to get to the sickroom.

It being early still, they were not surprised when the lounge appeared at first to be empty. But it wasn't.

Almost at once there was a movement in the shadows at one corner of the room and the small figure that had been curled up on a couch there sat up somewhat dazedly and stared at the three in surprise.

"Wist!" cried Voltan. "You're - you're - "

"I'm fine," answered Wist with a yawn. She got to her feet a bit unsteadily and came towards them. A wound on the left side of her face had been dressed, and another on her left arm, but she bore no other signs of injury.

Heron giggled, but Voltan became peevish.

"Do you know how long we've been waiting for you?" he demanded. "Hours! Why, for all we knew you could have been - well, badly hurt. You might have at least come to see us!"

Wist took another step forward and hugged him.

"Oh, Voltan, I'm so sorry. Evermorn said that it would be all right to come down and be with you, but when I got to this room and saw all these cushions and everything - I guess I just couldn't stay awake. Did you say you'd been here for hours? Really? Has it been that long? I came down here just after daybreak!"

"Daybreak!" exclaimed Voltan. He was just about to launch into another round of scolding even as he returned Wist's hug, but Yinna interrupted him.

"What of the fisherman?" she wanted to know. "And the three others? Do you have news of them?"

"Nothing certain," answered Wist. "Perhaps by now - oh, look! Here comes Evermorn!"

The four waited expectantly as the wizard came down the stairway towards them. His face wore its usual half-smile, but it also showed the strain of long effort.

"I miss my bedtime sorely," he admitted when he stood before them. "Still, others have taken worse harm. Robon recovers; so do the ones called Skean and Kell. The fourth man, Soren, was less fortunate."

"Dead?" Voltan asked, his voice brittle.

"Nay," Evermorn replied heavily. "Less fortunate even than that. Swenhild had no care for the harm her magic might do. She used the men roughly, and Soren paid the heaviest price. His mind is empty: he is alive - even awake - but he cannot see, or hear, or speak. Perhaps he does not know that he himself exists."

"Oh, Evermorn, that's horrible!" said Wist. "Isn't there anything you can do?"

"Nay," Evermorn said again, and paused. Finally he added, "Not while Swenhild lives."

"And if she died?" asked Yinna.

"In that case," the wizard answered, "Soren might return to himself. I do not know."

"Then die she will!" came a terrible shout from above.

Startled, they all looked up at the lone figure on the stairway - Robon the fisherman, still clad in his nightgown from the sickroom. Painfully, and with tottering steps, he approached them. Evermorn met him half way and supported the sick man with his arm.

"Soren lives in my village," Robon said. "He is a weaver, with a wife and two young children. And I - I, Robon - am the cause of what has befallen him."

"It wasn't your doing," protested Voltan, but Robon shook his head.

"It was my greed that allowed the witch to snare me," he said bitterly, "my greed for the jewelled knife. I might have escaped her, but I did not. How can I face Soren's family now?"

"What is it you intend to do?" asked Voltan quietly.

"I am a fisherman," Robon said, his voice quiet now, but rock hard. "I have a boat of my own, small but seaworthy. Unlike my friend Soren I have no family to depend on me. As soon as may be I will take to the sea, and pursue the witch wherever she goes, until at last I find her. Then she will die by my own hand, so that Soren may live."

His words ended in a silence none seemed eager to break, but it was to Evermorn that the others turned, one by one, to hear how he would respond.

When at last he did speak, they were shocked at how old he sounded, how tired, and how uncertain.

"Before all else," he told them, "one who serves the White Garland is a healer. But harming one to heal another is forbidden by the Vow, even when the harm would be small and the healing great; and even when the one to be healed is innocent, and the one harmed evil. So I cannot counsel you, Robon, to slay Swenhild, however much I may agree that she deserves no better.

"But there are other objections to your plan. How will you find the witch, my friend? Do you know whither she has gone?"

Robon shook his head.

"But find her I will," he said. "Sooner or later."

Evermorn shrugged.

"Maybe," he said. "It is possible. But even if you do find her, how will you master her? Her power will return to her ere long. You are no match for such as she."

"I don't know," answered the fisherman doggedly. "I'll find a way. I have to."

"I know where you will find her!" said Wist unexpectedly. "And where you can find an army to help you fight her!"

Robon gave her a long look.

"You must be the girl they told me about," he said slowly. "The one Swenhild took prisoner. I-I'm sorry, I have no memory. Was I unkind to you?"

"You saved my life," Wist told him. "You broke free for a moment and saved me."

Slowly Robon raised his left hand, the burned one, and stared at the fresh dressing on the palm. His brow furrowed as he struggled to remember.

"There was a knife," he murmured. "And there on a table - you." His eyes widened as the details came rushing back to his mind. "It was the knife!" he exclaimed, a note of horror entering his voice. "And she was going to -"

He broke off suddenly, and for an instant his jaws locked and anger boiled in his eyes. Then he mastered himself and went on.

"Little one, you must tell me," he said. "Where can I find her? How can she be slain?"

"Wist - " Evermorn began in a half-pleading tone, but she interrupted him.

"Swenhild is going to the land of Eladeria," she told Robon. "She has enemies there, it seems, and she wants to destroy them, and their city, and to lay the land waste. Perhaps she will first visit Sharkoon - she said she could find help there if she needed it. But the place for us to go is Eladeria. The people there know her, and once in the past they have already defeated her. That's where we have our best chance."

"Us? We?" Voltan's tone was horrified. "Wist, you're not thinking of - ?"

"Yes I am," Wist answered. "If Robon is sailing to Eladeria, I want to go too. Not to fight Swenhild, of course, at least not mostly for that. There's something there I want to look for."

"I had thought you were considering becoming my apprentice," remarked Evermorn mildly. "You've changed your mind about that?"

Wist reddened, but she nodded her head.

"I've watched you, Evermorn, just as I watched Voltan. I really admire the way you work, and the things you do. But I don't think I could stand to live under the Vow the way you do. I wish I could. And I've figured out now I can't spend my whole life wandering, the way Voltan does, either. But I still want to be a sorcerer. I just have to find my own way. That's why I'm going to Eladeria. I want to find Pala's Grave."

"Pala's Grave! That's only a legend!" exclaimed Voltan. "You'd be wasting your time."

"Well, maybe it is only a legend," Wist said. "I hope it's not. Either way, I mean to find out. But before I go, there's one more thing I have to do. Evermorn said the chain would be down here, Voltan. May I see it, please."

Numbly Voltan nodded, and pointed into the sitting room. Wist smiled and went in, with the others following. She sat down by the table in front of the hearth, picked up the golden chain with fingers that trembled slightly, put it around her neck, and did up the jewelled clasp. At once Tormadeus appeared; he was perhaps a little larger than when Wist had first seen him, but she did not notice that. Wist heard Robon's cry of astonishment from behind her. He, of course, remembered nothing of the demon.

Tormadeus bowed.

"Greetings, Lady Wist!" he said in his musical voice. "I am glad to see you well!"

"And how are you?" asked Wist.

The demon's face fell slightly.

"Alas, I do not rightly know," he confessed. "So many years of obedience, and now I find that I am free, that I was free all along. Thanks to you, Lady. I will always be grateful. Now, though you again wear the chain, I am not bound to you as I was before. Yet though I say I am free, really I am not. You could tire of me, Lady, or if I offended you by some act of mine you could seek to punish me."

"I wouldn't do that!" cried Wist. "How could you even - ?"

The demon held up his hand.

"I know. But you could. You could take off the chain. You could even destroy it - destroy me. How then can I pretend to be truly free."

"Well, that's the whole point!" Wist said excitedly. "That's what I want to talk to you about!"

Tormadeus looked puzzled, and Voltan, Heron, Yinna and Robon no less so. But there was a bright light of interest in Evermorn's eyes, and he leaned forward eagerly to see what would happen next.

"A splendid idea!" he exclaimed under his breath. "Who would have thought?"

Wist did not even hear him.

"Come here," she said to Tormadeus, beckoning. "There's something I want to try."

Tormadeus grasped her outstretched finger with his hand and jumped lightly across the gap between the table and the chair to alight on Wist's lap.

"Now just hold still for a minute," Wist said. "Don't wriggle."

She took the demon around the waist with both hands and pressed him against her body, then with a swift motion slid him upwards, so that his head passed under the loop of chain around her neck.

"Wist! Do you know what you're doing?" hissed Voltan urgently, and made as if to step forward, but a sharp glance from Evermorn stopped him.

"I feel - I feel strange!" groaned Tormadeus. "Lady Wist, I - I - "

Before he could say more Wist lifted him higher, and the chain came clear of her head so that only he was wearing it. The demon shrieked as though in agony, and seemed to explode in Wist's hand.

Wist rolled away with a cry, shielding her eyes, then looked back at once to see what had happened.

Tormadeus was sprawled flat on his back on the floor, his face twisted with pain, while sparks of coloured light danced up and down the length of his body. After a minute the sparks vanished, his eyes closed, and he became completely still.

The others crowded around, their faces full of concern.

Then Wist cried out in anguish, "Oh, no! Look, he's getting smaller! Oh, what have I done?"

"No, you're imagining - " Yinna began, but quickly changed her mind. "Why, I believe you're right," she said softly. "Whatever can it mean?"

Tormadeus had indeed begun to shrink, very slowly, but unmistakably. Oddly, the chain was shrinking too, but faster, until, from being too big, it had come to fit his neck more tightly than it had fitted Wist's.

Voltan nodded grimly.

"He has no life force to sustain him," he said, "and no power of sorcery. He will shrink to nothing."

Frantically Wist threw herself to the floor beside the demon, and struggled to unclasp the golden chain, now tiny, from around his neck. Tormadeus had been knee high to her, or a little more. Now, if he had been standing, he would have been at eye level with her ankle. Wist had the wild thought that if she could get the chain off him in time it would return to its normal size, and she could use it to restore him too. But a moment later she looked up in dismay.

"It's stuck to him somehow!" she moaned. "I can't get it off!"

"The demon and the chain are one," Voltan told her, "as the two faces of a coin are one, or the two ends of a stick. Now they are growing together in substance as well as spirit. Soon both will be gone."

Evermorn held up his hand.

"Do not speak too soon!" he murmured. "Kalassin was a greater sorcerer than any other who then lived in this land. Let us not underestimate his works. Perhaps he knew more of the life force than we do today."

Voltan only grunted in reply, but he clearly thought that Evermorn was clinging to false hopes. Indeed, by now Tormadeus was as long as a long finger, and no more.

Then the shrinking ceased, but almost before the onlookers could be sure that it had, something new happened. For an instant the demon's golden skin seemed to shimmer, then it abruptly changed colour, to bright red. A heartbeat later it changed again to yellow, and then yet again, to brilliant blue.

Wist was still kneeling by him. Now she leapt to her feet with a shocked cry and reeled back. A moment later the others were struck by a blast of pure heat, as though a furnace door had suddenly been opened before them. Then the wave of heat passed by them, and was gone.

Next, and most surprising, Tormadeus began to grow, more rapidly than he had previously shrunk. In a few seconds he was as tall as he had been before, and still he continued to grow.

He grew to Wist's height and more, to the height of a man, and more, to a giant's height so that the watchers had to stand back to make space for him, and so that his head and feet were pressed against the opposite walls of the small room.

Alarm, fascination, curiosity, fear: Wist felt all of them in turn, and then panic as Tormadeus once again began to shrink. But this time the shrinking stopped when he was a little below man-height, and then he lay quiet.

Instantly Evermorn knelt down and lifted the demon into sitting position. "Awaken!" he said, and Tormadeus awoke.

Even Robon cheered.

Ten days more had passed. It was a warm morning, still in the height of summer, but a breeze from the sea cooled the docks at Thelos where six companions stood and said farewell. Evermorn, who had returned to his glade, to make it whole again, was not among them.

Tied up to the dock with lines to stern and bow was Robon's fishing boat, the Puffin, and indeed it was as comical and squat as the bird it was named for. But Robon vowed that the Puffin was as safe and steady as any vessel afloat, for all that it was not fast, and no one doubted his word.

The tide being right, Robon was eager to sail, and so were Wist and Heron, hard though it was to say goodbye to Voltan and Yinna. As for Tormadeus, his skin now gleaming blue, he was content to stay or to go as Wist desired, for though he was no longer bound to obey her, he had promised to do his best to keep her safe on this journey, and help her in her quest to find Pala's Grave.

There was a last round of hugs, and farewells, and promises to return as soon as could be, then the little boat hoisted sail and cast off. From the cockpit the four voyagers waved their final goodbyes.

Even as he waved in reply, even as he wiped away a tear that had somehow found its way onto his cheek, Voltan's mind was turning to another matter.

"And where are you bound, now?" he asked Yinna. For some reason there was a ghost of nervousness in his tone.

But Yinna seemed not to notice, and answered without hesitation, "I think I will ride for East Misting. Interesting things tend to happen there at this time of year."

"Do they?"

Voltan seemed even more uncomfortable than before.

"What about you?" Yinna inquired in a careless tone. "I suppose you won't be staying in Thelos?"

"Oh, I'll follow my map as usual," Voltan said, reaching for a pocket in the lining of his cloak. "With my luck it'll send me - Oh, no! It's gone! I must have lost it somehow in all the excitement that night with Swenhild! Now what'll I do?"

Yinna grinned, and from her own cloak produced the missing parchment. She opened it out for Voltan to see.

Anger appeared on the sorcerer's face for just a moment, then gave way to bewilderment, and finally to a reluctant grin.

"Well, I'll be!" he exclaimed. "East Misting! There's a coincidence for you!"

"Let's get the horses," said Yinna. "I've had enough of this town for now."

They set off together back to the Grey Garland Hall, and if Voltan noticed that Yinna dropped his Destiny Map at the dockside behind them, he didn't say anything about it.