Greensleeves was trussed hand and foot on a low black altar carved into the foot of the monolith, where…
Towser, with a silly-looking pink box tied atop his head by a blue scarf, poised a knife like a sickle above Gull's sister. He was ringed by…
Kem and three new bullies armed with short swords. They guarded the wizard, facing out, staring gape- mouthed at Gull, while…
Far behind him, inland, was Towser's circled wagon train, where his clerk and cook and dancing girls and bard and astrologer and nurse carefully tended their handiwork, so they might not see their master's work at the monolith altar, or…
Standing beside Gull…
Lily, her face white as her dancing togs. She chirped like a baby bird. 'Gull?'
'Lily!' Visions and ideas swirled around Gull, stunning him. The sea breeze soothed his sweating brow: it was cooler here than on the tropical island. Then one thought soared like a skyrocket. 'You're a wizard!'
'What?' She gaped at her shaking hands. 'No, it can't be!'
But Gull caught one hand, forced it open. Faint in the seaside glare, her palms still glowed with the white light that summoned Gull.
'It's true! You brought me here! You've got magic inside!'
'Love of the gods!' The girl was thunderstruck. 'That explains… my feelings, those voices! Oh, Mishra! I just missed you so badly! And wished you were here! To stop that!'
She pointed to Towser, who stood with sickle knife poised. He didn't look surprised, and suddenly-more thoughts, like waves sweeping him off his feet-Gull knew why.
Towser knew all along that Lily had wizard potential! He'd canvassed the women of the bawdy house, had each don the silver medallion Lily spoke of: a thing that could detect magic within, even if the wearer were unrealized. Towser had bought her contract, ostensibly as a whore, but in fact, to keep her close, for study or…
Sacrifice.
As if struck by lightning, Gull cast off thoughts and confusion, and moved.
Too late.
Kern and the bodyguards rushed. Gull barely hefted his axe before they jumped him. They swung fists, kicked to trip him, body-slammed him to the dirt, mashed him under a half ton of flesh.
Past Kem's scar-laced head, Gull saw the sacrificial knife rise.
And fall.
'Noooo!!!!'
Gull bucked against sweaty bodies, bit, thrashed, jerked his arms and legs, but stayed pinned as if by a landslide. A fist smashed Gull's mouth, bloodied his lips. Yet the bodyguards didn't kill him: they must think Towser wanted him alive.
Through a haze of pain and madness, Kem's face loomed. Scars overlaid veins that throbbed with exertion, and the mangled side that lacked an ear was glossy with sweat.
'Kem, you bastard! You murdering fiend! You whore!' Unable to move, Gull spit filthy oaths into the man's face. 'I went into a leech-infested swamp after you! I battled trolls to save your miserable life, you worthless cur! You owe me! That man's out to murder my sister!'
'You went after your sister, not me, you liar!' Kem growled from inches away. 'You didn't care about me!'
'I went in after you, damn it! No one deserves to be eaten by cannibals! My sister went after you, too! Because she's got heart!' All this time, Gull pleaded inside that his sister wasn't already dead. 'You never showed the gratitude of a cockroach! But you owe us! And now's the time to pay back! Or will you be a dog forever?'
For the first time, Gull saw the scarred brow pucker. Deep pockets lined Kem's eyes, and creases tightened his mouth. He was a haunted man.
Kem suddenly rolled off him. He whapped the other bodyguards. 'Let him up!'
Confused, the thugs dropped away. They worked for Towser, but Kem had hired them. Whom to obey?
As they deliberated, Gull shot up like a catapult and brushed them aside. Scrambling on hands and knees, he snatched up his axe.
If his sister was dead, a bloody wreck gutted like a fish, he'd chop Towser into a thousand pieces.
Gaining his feet, he raced across the yellow grass for the monolith. The setting sun just topped the tall cone, casting a halo, and Gull could not see its darkened base clearly.
But he could hear. A savage growling and snarling and snapping welled up. And a man's shriek's.
Squinting, Gull sprinted into the shadow.
A giant badger savaged Towser.
Atop Greensleeves, who was unharmed, stood a small badger with a notched ear.
Half-mad, Gull stumbled.
And thought.
The notch-eared badger had come from the Whispering Woods, leagues away. It hadn't been carried here, couldn't have followed them, wasn't hidden in the wagons.
And only Greensleeves had touched that badger.
So Greensleeves must have conjured it.
So Greensleeves, too, was an unrealized wizard!
Like pebbles falling into slots, a dozen clues clicked and questions were answered. Greensleeves could summon animals she'd touched in the past. That was why the notch-eared badger seemed to follow them. Why the mushroom-beast, the fungusaur, attacked the armored wizard before he stomped Gull. Why it glowed green, brown, and blue, not twinkling from Towser's conjuring nor glowing white from Lily's. Why the giant badger appeared in the troll's lair when Greensleeves was endangered. Why it savaged Towser now.
His sister had nature magic: he'd always known that. Her 'second sight.' Her ability to tame wild animals, to find strays. How animals never harmed her, not even flies and leeches.
Recently he'd learned there was more: that the magic of the Whispering Woods had flooded her mind, made her a simpleton. Clear of the forest, she learned to think clearly.
But now she could conjure whatever she'd touched.
Greensleeves was a full-blooded wizard!
And Towser had known all along!
As with Lily, Towser sensed Greensleeves's wizardness. So he'd hired Gull as freightmaster, (though Chad could do the job), just to get Greensleeves. (And Gull had thought himself clever in bargaining her passage, while Towser feigned indifference. What a dunce!)
Towser had plotted all along to sacrifice Greensleeves, to steal her mana on this black altar. But his scheme had backfired.
Unrealized or not, his sister had conjured two badgers to protect her.
Yet two badgers wouldn't protect her from an enraged wizard and his bodyguards. Unless…
Big as a bull, wide and flat and gray-backed, face a riot of white and black stripes, the giant badger crouched low to the ground and shredded Towser's fancy striped gown.
The ridiculous box, tied with a scarf, tumbled from atop Towser's head and bounced across the trampled grass. Gull recognized the pink block from the crater, the mana vault. Towser must have planned to store his sister's mystic energy in it.
Except her badger had interrupted the sacrifice.
The skirts of Towser's gown were slashed, and the badger pulled on more cloth clamped in its fearsome jaws. Yet the wizard seemed unharmed, only discombobulated.
And sure enough, Towser spit out a spell and thrust up a hand, and the badger bowled over backward with a snort. Gull had seen that before, in the burned forest. A personal protection spell, an impenetrable aura.
Which Gull longed to test.
'Towser!' he screamed. 'Fend off this!'
Gull slung his axe over his shoulder and pegged it like a thunderbolt straight at the wizard's chest.
Wood and steel whirled, end over end. But the heavy sharp head simply bounced off an invisible wall inches from the wizard's nose. Towser never even staggered from the blow. The axe thudded into the shadowed grass
