Page 31 of Witchcraft and Fury (Chronicles of the Divided Isle #1)
WOLFPORT
I arrived in Wolfport a slave; I depart as a man of means.
(Grave epitaph, Wolfport Cemetery)
They had been travelling for over a week on the road to Wolfport when, late in the afternoon, Loveday called an early halt.
It was the first time on their journey to the city that they had stopped to make camp before dusk.
Bear and Pingot prepared an early supper, and they all ate in the day’s final light, sat round the fire in a tiny clearing just large enough for the tents.
Once they had finished, and with night having fallen, Binns retired to his tent.
Several of the trainees made to follow suit, but Loveday stopped them with a shake of his head and gestured for them to resume their seats.
The wizard produced from a sack at his feet seven pairs of gloves.
He handed them round the ring of students, Cal included, and kept the final pair for himself.
‘I’m aware that, with our need to make haste to aid the folk of Wolfport, we have had to pause your lessons.
But I do not want to neglect your magical education completely.
Tonight I will introduce you to another skill of the mind: “mind trickery”.
After this class you will practise it night and day, alongside mind raiding, for only with sustained effort will you master it – if at all.
Cal, I have asked you to join us since this will be a new skill for you too.
But I know you’ve read about it; can you share with the others what it is? ’
‘It’s the art of making people see, hear, smell, taste or feel things that aren’t actually there.’
‘Exactly. I remember once I was on a royal assignment in one of the minotaur kingdoms of the west coast. The late King Edric had tasked me with securing by any means necessary a magical heirloom that had once belonged to his uncle but had been taken in a minotaur raid.
Deploying a series of carefully crafted illusions, I was able to steal into the fort where it was held, divert guards, cause distractions and clear a path to my target.
This is just one tale I could tell that illustrates what a useful skill it is to be able to fool an enemy.
‘Now, does anyone other than Cal know why I have given you each a pair of gloves?’
Bear’s hand shot up.
‘Bear?’
‘Because you need to be wearing them to perform mind trickery. My great-uncle was a wizard, and when I was young he used to put on his gloves and conjure hallucinations in the hall of my father’s castle, for the entertainment of my brothers, sisters and me.
He said the gloves were made of dragon skin, and that’s what gave them their magical power. ’
‘Very good,’ said Loveday, pulling on his gloves.
‘Dragon skin is a powerful material with unique qualities. With it you can deceive the mind, like this.’ He clapped his hands together, and a huge antlered stag leapt from the shadows into the ring of students.
Solar and Wyman dived to one side, thinking it would charge right over them, but Loveday clapped his hands again, and the stag disappeared.
‘Or you can fool the ears,’ said Loveday, and suddenly the students could hear the most beautiful music coming from the trees around them.
It sounded like hundreds of priests singing a hymn meant only for the gods’ ears.
Loveday clapped his hands again; the music stopped abruptly, and a wooden chest appeared by the fire.
Its lid burst open to reveal a dazzling array of treasure: silver coins, gold ingots, rubies, emeralds, sapphires and, perched on top, a crown fit for a king.
The students looked longingly at the chest’s contents, leaning forwards.
‘Or seduce hearts,’ concluded Loveday, and the chest vanished.
The class sat up straight, rubbing their eyes as if to clear them.
‘Everyone, pull on your gloves and take turns conjuring hallucinations. It will require the utmost determination and dedication. You have to will the conjuring of a hallucination with every fibre of your being, with uncompromising and unrelenting concentration of the mind.’
Solar pulled on her dragon skin gloves and gasped. An intense heat enveloped her hands. She looked around and saw her classmates react similarly; Wyman had thrown his off and was now blowing frantically on his fingers.
‘The heat you feel is, of course, a trace of dragon fire,’ said Loveday. ‘Put your gloves back on, Wyman; they may be uncomfortable, but they won’t cause you any lasting harm. You only have to wear them for the duration of the hallucination.
‘Cal, you go first. We’ll start off with inanimate objects, which are relatively simple. Conjure something for me. Conjure for me … a work of art.’
Cal furrowed his brow in concentration. Everyone was very still and very quiet.
Then, after what seemed an age, Cal looked up and clapped his hands together softly.
A framed picture appeared next to the fire, where the chest had lain moments before.
It was the most detailed and exquisitely executed painting, showing a boy of around seventeen leaving a castle.
The expression on the boy’s face was one of extreme sorrow.
On the castle walls, looking down at him from above the drawbridge, was an austere, unforgiving-looking man who could only have been the boy’s father.
‘Not bad for a first attempt,’ said Loveday.
‘But you see how the frame shimmers and is almost transparent? You won’t fool anyone that this is a real painting, especially if they are expecting mind tricks to be played.
You must imagine first what you want to conjure, in all its detail, and then will it to be so with unwavering focus.
‘Oswald, you next. Let’s have something different this time. Let me see … conjure a candle.’ Loveday swept his staff through Cal’s painting, which vanished in a puff of smoke, and looked expectantly at Oswald.
None of the trainees had nearly as much success as Cal.
It was fiendishly difficult. Oswald’s candle was just a wick without any wax; Bear conjured a chair with legs that wouldn’t stop fidgeting; Wyman’s wine flask spurted wine everywhere; and Solar’s suit of armour had plates missing.
Solar found that every time she focussed on a certain aspect of the armour, attempting to make it more realistic, she forgot about the other parts, which promptly vanished.
‘Pingot, you next. Conjure me a statue.’
Pingot leaned forwards, hunching his shoulders and wrinkling his nose in concentration.
Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, Solar noticed a cloaked figure sitting on the log to her left, wreathed in the night’s shadows, that could only be Pingot’s statue.
It was incredibly realistic, its cloak complete with folds and creases, and its stone boots painted in such a convincing shade of brown that they looked almost like real leather.
Hoping to make it go up in a puff of smoke, much as Cal’s painting had when Loveday swiped his staff through it, Solar jabbed a finger into its hooded face, hard.
‘OW! What was that for, you ruffian?!’ it howled, leaping to its feet.
Solar fell back, alarmed.
The figure threw back its hood, and Solar, to her utter confusion, saw in the firelight a shrivelled face that she recognised: Bayen!
‘Ever the one for creeping up unawares on people, aren’t you, Bayen?’ said Loveday, laughing heartily. ‘How long have you been sitting there watching us, cloaked in the night?’
The wizened man rubbed his nose and tugged at his lank beard. ‘Since the start of your class,’ he said sourly. ‘Thought I’d see how the protégée I scouted for you is coming along. It’s clear she hasn’t picked up any finesse whilst on the road. Got me right on the nose, she did.’
‘Class, may I present the kingdom’s most professional, disreputable rogue: Bayen Crooked-Tooth.
He never ceases to amaze the impressionable with his talent for disappearing and reappearing at will, and nor does he seem likely to ever curb his habit of turning up unannounced.
What is it this time, you old greybeard? ’
‘I have news that you will be interested in hearing. Been keeping my ear to the ground for you, as always. You won’t want to miss this.’ Bayen gave Loveday a knowing look.
‘It seems we have much to catch up on. Class, continue practising mind trickery on one another whilst Bayen and I take a stroll.’
The wizard and stooped old man walked away from the campfire and into the trees .
What news could Bayen have for Loveday? Solar wondered. And isn’t he meant to be stationed at The Boys’ Inn, back home in Falcontop? Loveday told Mother that he would always be there, in case she needs anything.
She didn’t have time to hesitate. Now was her chance to spy on Loveday, to eavesdrop. She might not get another such opportunity for weeks. She leapt up and, casting a meaningful look at Pingot that she hoped he would interpret as ‘cover for me’, dashed off after Loveday and Bayen.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Cal shouted after her, but Solar ignored him.
‘If she’s got to pee then she’s got to pee,’ Solar heard Pingot say. ‘You don’t see me chasing after you every time you need the loo, do you?’
Once she was within the trees she slowed to a halt.
She looked all around her, but the trees were thick, and the pair could have walked in any direction.
For a while all she could hear was the hammering of her own heart, but then she heard a twig snap nearby and Loveday’s voice coming from a small clearing in the trees, the words indistinct.