Wizard’s Bane
Rick Cook
Wizard’s Bane
Rick Cook
BAEN BOOKS by RICK COOK
The Wiz Biz
The Wizardry Cursed
The Wizardry Consulted
The Wizardry Quested
Mall Purchase Night
Book One:
Wizard’s Bane
For Pati.
Who has her own
special brand of magic.
One
Meeting in Midsummer
It was a fine Mid-Summer’s morning and Moira the hedge witch was out gathering herbs.
“Tansy to stop bleeding,” she said to herself, examining the stand that grew on the bankside. Carefully she selected the largest, healthiest stems and, reciting the appropriate charm, she cut them off low with her silver knife. She inspected each stem closely before placing it in the straw basket beside her.
When she had finished, she brushed a strand of coppery hair from her green eyes and surveyed the forest with all her senses.
The day was sunny, the air was clear and the woods around her were calm and peaceful. The oaks and beeches spread their gray-green and green-gold leaves to the sun and breeze. In their branches birds sang and squirrels chattered as they dashed about on squirrelish errands. Their tiny minds were content, Moira saw. For them there was no danger on the Fringe of the Wild Wood, even on Mid-Summer’s Day.
Moira knew better. Back in her village the fields were deserted and the animals locked in their barns. The villagers were huddled behind doors bolted with iron, bound with ropes of straw and sealed with such charms as Moira could provide. Only a foolhardy person or one in great need would venture abroad on Mid-Summer’s Day.
Moira was out for need, the needs of others. Mid-Summer’s Day was pregnant with magic of all sorts, and herbs gathered by the light of the Mid-Summer sun were unusually potent. Her village would need the healing potions and the charms she could make from them.
That most of her fellow hedge witches were also behind bolted doors weighed not at all with her. Her duty was to help those who needed help, so she had taken her straw basket and consecrated silver knife and gone alone into the Fringe of the Wild Wood.
She was careful to stay in the quietest areas of the Fringe, however. She had planned her route days ago and she moved cautiously between her chosen stands of herbs. She probed the forest constantly, seeking the least sign of danger or heightened magic. There was need enough to draw her out this day, but no amount of need would make her careless.
Her next destination was a marshy corner of a nearby meadow where pink-flowered mallow grew in spiky profusion. It was barely half a mile by the road on whose bank she sat, but Moira would take a longer route. Between her and the meadow this road crossed another equally well-travelled lane. Moira had no intention of going near a crossroads on Mid-Summer’s Day.
She was fully alert, so she was all the more startled when a dark shadow fell over her. Moira gasped and whirled to find herself facing a tall old man wearing a rough travelling cloak and leaning on a carved staff.
“Oh! Merry met, Lord,” she scrambled up from the bank and dipped a curtsey. “You startled me.”
“Merry met, child,” the man responded, blinking at her with watery brown eyes. “Why it’s the little hedge witch, Moira, isn’t it?” He blinked again and stared down his aquiline nose. “Bless me!” he clucked. “How you have grown my girl. How you have grown.”
Moira nodded respectfully and said nothing. Patrius was of the Mighty; perhaps the mightiest of the Mighty. It behooves one to be respectful no matter what style one of the Mighty chooses to take.
The wizard sighed. “But it’s well met nonetheless. Yes, very well met. I have a little project afoot and perhaps you can help me with it.”
“Of course Lord, if I can.” She sighed to herself. It was never too healthy to become involved with the doings of the Mighty. Looking at Patrius she could see magic twist and shimmer around the old man like heat waves rising from a hot iron stove.
“Well, actually it’s not such a little project,” he said confidingly. “A rather large one, in fact. Yes, quite large.” He beamed at her. “Oh, but I’m sure you’ll be able to handle it. You were always such an adept pupil.”