Taniel (The Taverner's Daughter I)

75: Sam

Unnoticed, Sam entered the atrium. He watched his second-in-command, Baldwin, in excited talk with the travl-wizards. All gesticulating and pointing, they leaned over the map table dominating the sunlit chamber. From his position by the door, all Sam could see were the Morrdakes looking like jumbled rows of sharks' teeth along the far edge.

Involuntarily, he glanced up through the glassed dome at the snow-covered peaks towering over the citadel. As usual, the inhospitable mountains reminded him of his ancient homeland beyond. Firedrakes had forged the way to Corrangorach, each bearing wizards, supplies, and precious pieces of travl-ring. Disaster struck. Only after an abomination was imposed upon comatose wizards by dragons, did his ancestors gain their freedom.

Sam shuddered, as he did every time he thought of the Clades and the illegal merging of the two magics. Now, if Baldwin told him that the One had travlled the Void, all that was needed to set the first quatrain in action was the bonding of her keeper. Should the blasted prophecy follow through, then descendants of those same warmongers of the Old World would come.

Sam tore his eyes away from the peaks, bringing his attention back to the travl-wizards.

He coughed.

Seven heads swivelled, followed by the straightening of bodies and the shuffle of feet. Eyes locked on him: not one pair friendly.

"Grandmaster Wizard, do come in." Baldwin bowed slightly as he spoke and motioned him to the table. Joyce and Munson yielded their place.

"What do you know, wizards?" Sam clasped his hands behind his back.

"It's been a busy night," put in Munson. The travl-wizard jigged as if he needed the privy.

Baldwin glowered at the interruption, before turning his attention back to Sam. "First, a dragon travlled in the Void on his own. We disapprove of that; the rings are for wizards, not-"

"Get to the point, Master Wizard," snapped Sam.

Joyce tapped the tip of a wooden rod on the blue-painted sea and Sam did not need eye magnifiers to recognise Stakkr Island.

"Stakkr's door-ball was highly active overnight," Baldwin said. "Three people travlled the Void, and your son," he said, somewhat triumphantly. "And don't you think it an odd coincidence that it was his dragon that used the Skerby to Turras route without permission? Twice."

Excitement oozed from the wizard. "That midwitch woman, Paget Aithne, was on the first trip, but it was her last which proved the most..." Baldwin paused, glancing at the others. "Fruitful."

"Paget," Sam exclaimed.

Hers was the face he had seen looking out at him from the coach above the Skerby valley. There was only one place she could be going on that road — Stakkr. And, she had been to Skerby with his son. There, no doubt, they had worked her midwitchery on his tavern girl. Sam hardly dared believe that his luck had changed.

The paternity spell was not yet out of his reach.

***

2 April 2017 - replaced with revised scene (and removed image, streamlined the backstory bit)

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