Tak

Aldervale - Part 2

     It was too late in the day for him to do anything now, so Lyssa was fated to spend at least one night in Philip's bed, but the next morning he was up before the yellow sun and standing before the ruined remains of the gatehouse. The last barrier between him and the outside world.

     He was wearing a set of clothes he'd found in Molos Gomm's bedchamber. Not outdoor clothes, unfortunately. All his searching had failed to reveal any of those, and he was eventually forced to conclude that the grey wizard didn't own any. That he relied on magic spells to protect him from the elements. Still, even indoor clothes were better than the simple white robe he normally wore. At least these clothes covered his legs, although the material was so thin that whatever protective value it had was hardly noticeable. The exposed parts of his body, his hands and face, were already numb and blue with cold. Cold was something he'd gotten used to over the past few years, though, and he was pretty sure he could make the journey without collapsing along the way. He had to try, anyway. His hands stuffed deep into his pockets, therefore, he stepped forward.

     He felt the hypnosis spells tightening their grip on him as he passed through the inner gate, or at least where the gate had been in centuries past, and under the deadfall. The hatches in the ceiling where defenders would have dropped rocks and hot sand on invaders who'd managed to breach the outer doors. The gap between the two doors was about five yards, and every step was harder than the one before as he fought the mental chains binding him.

     "I'm coming back," he told himself, trying to make himself believe it. Trying to make it a cast iron certainty in his mind. "I'm coming back!" The hypnotic compulsion eased just a little. Enough to allow him to take another couple of steps. He repeated the promise to himself over and over again, forcing his feet forward a few inches at a time; his teeth gritted and droplets of freezing sweat beading his creased forehead. It seemed that he spent forever in that short, rubble strewn passage, but at last he stood in the outer gateway, the open valley laid out before him in the golden sunlight. One more step and he was over the threshold and suddenly the struggle was over. The mental chains evaporated and he was free. Free to walk out along the narrow mountain road, out into the wider world. Free! He was free! He could go wherever he wanted. Make a new life for himself...

     Even as he thought this, though, the mental chains solidified around him again, stopping him in his tracks, and they wouldn't let him go until he conceded to himself that he was not free. He was coming back whether he wanted to or not.

     The wind hit him with its full force as soon as he was away from the shelter of the castle walls. He gasped as it tore through the layers of clothing he was wearing. He might as well have been naked for all the good it seemed to be doing. He tried running to generate heat, but that just pulled the cold air deeper into his lungs where it felt as though he'd swallowed acid.

     He almost turned back, cursing himself for a fool, longing for the warmth of Molos Gomm's chambers, but no. He had to do this. He'd survived whole days out in the open on days colder than this, although that had been in the shelter of the castle walls that kept the wind out and reflected the warm rays of the sun back at him. He refused to think of that. He would make it! He settled into a slow and easy trot, cursing Philip with every step he took, and gradually the cold lost its grip on him. The bright sun warmed him as it rose higher in the sky.

     The weather was good to him. It could so easily have been raining, or one of the frequent storms to which this area was prone could have been blowing. Instead, the air grew almost still as the day drew on, allowing layers of warm air to remain trapped inside his clothes, and the sky was bright and clear. So clear that from his road half way up the side of the mountain it seemed that he could see every tiniest leaf and branch of the shrubs growing on the opposite side of the narrow, steep sided valley. Below him, a stream of white water splashed over rounded rocks. Above him eagles circled lazily, no doubt contemplating him as a possible meal. A totally unexpected sense of exhilaration came over him and he found himself actually enjoying the walk. It was a beautiful day. He was young and healthy, and one day he would be a wizard. One of the most powerful people in the human world. A wielder of awesome and terrible powers whom all would fear and respect...

     That last thought brought him to a sudden, shocked halt. Was he reconciled to the fate Molos Gomm had laid out for him, then? Had he truly given up all hope of escape? He tried to imagine, as a purely hypothetical exercise, what he might do if he suddenly found himself truly free. What he would make of his life. Become a farmer, perhaps. Return to the life he knew best. Perhaps marry, raise children. Spend the rest of his life bowed down by hard labour while watching those he loved spend every daylight hour trying to scratch a living out of the hard, unyielding soil. He remembered the early years of his own life when he'd thought their homestead and their immediate neighbours were the whole world. Could he condemn his own children to that kind of life, now that he himself had had his own eyes opened?

     Then there was the library. The library had awoken an insatiable thirst for knowledge within him. Learning new things was an endless joy, and he knew in that moment that, whatever kind of life he chose, he could not live without some way of learning. Of studying and researching, of gathering information. A library, in short. Out here on the road, several days after the grey wizard's last use of him, now that the awful memories had had a chance to recede a little, he found that he was almost grateful to Molos Gomm for bringing him here. No sooner had he thought this, however, than the memory of his murdered family came back to him with an almost physical shock of pain and guilt. He still owed Molos Gomm for that!

     Anyway, farming was out. What else was there? Whatever it was, it would have to be something in a city. A large enough city to have a library, except that all libraries were privately owned and their owners didn't allow just anyone access to their valuable collection. A burst of inspiration came to him. He could be a scribe. One of those responsible for looking after the libraries, caring for the books. Copying them out onto new paper as they grew old and fragile. Organising and cataloguing the collection so that their owners could easily find the information they wanted. Yes! That was the life for him! Except that he knew, from Molos Gomm's proud boasting, that few people in the world had access to libraries as extensive and comprehensive as the one he already had access to, inherited, as it was, from his own master and his master before that.

     If only he could stay in Castle Nagra. Able to visit the library as often as he wished, but free of the hypnotic compulsions that bound him to service. Free from having to serve Molos Gomm's bed. If only there was a way! Of course, Molos Gomm was old, and getting older all the time. Perhaps all he had to do was wait. There was Philip, of course, but although he was glad to take pleasure from Tak from time to time he seemed to prefer women. Once he was master, he didn't seem likely to want to use him as much as Molos Gomm did.

     A more disturbing thought came to him. Once Molos Gomm was dead, he and Philip would no longer be apprentices but rival wizards. Castle Nagra could only have one master, and he instinctively felt that he had more natural aptitude for magic than Philip. How long could they remain under one roof before one of them tried to kill the other? If he knew that Philip would one day make a move against him, maybe he ought to move first...

     Once again he was brought up short by the direction his thoughts were taking him. He'd started out dreaming idly about freedom and ended up contemplating murder! He hated both of them for their unnecessary and vindictive cruelty, but was he really any better? The idea disturbed him and he turned his mind firmly away from the matter for the rest of the journey.

     There was one thing, though. One stunning piece of self discovery, that he couldn't stop thinking about. Sometime over the past few minutes he'd given up all serious thought of leaving Castle Nagra, even if he were able to. The library, the knowledge it contained, had a firmer grip on his soul than all Molos Gomm's hypnosis spells, and he wanted to be a wizard. Wizardry was another way of gaining knowledge.

     Molos Gomm had bragged about the spirits and powers he'd summoned from strange alien dimensions, and the knowledge he'd gained from them. Knowledge of matters far beyond the normal limits of the human world. Tak wanted to be able to do that. He wanted to learn!

     Libraries and wizardry were the two things he wanted and needed more than anything else. He would willingly endure every degradation and humiliation, serve every one of his master's needs no matter how twisted and disgusting, so long as he could have both those things. He was hooked, he realised. He belonged to Castle Nagra more surely, more completely, than he ever had before.