The Hag of Holbonne

By GJ Kelly

Yarmian Eventyde arrives in the coastal city of Holbonne after a harrowing hundred-mile trek through a bitterly cold and snow-covered wilderness. His fury at The Black Rose has cooled, and now, all the young WIzzen wants is to remain anonymous, find a peaceful inn, and quietly await the arrival of spring before taking his leave of the place. It's a time to rest and recuperate, or so he believes...

Alas, appearances can indeed be deceiving, and Holbonne certainly isn't the dull, grey and bland city it appears to be on the surface. The seemingly innocuous west coast city has a dark and grim history... and it's a history so well-guarded, it's not permitted to be taught in schools except to pupils over a certain age (and those are few and far between).

Alarmed by a strange event which seems to suggest a sorcerer might be lurking behind the dull façade of Holbonne, and intrigued by the history he learns from one of the regulars at The Whistling Kettle, Yarmian's discreet investigations bring him to the attention of the city's authorities, and Yarmian finds he must turn to Holbonne's criminal underworld for help in bringing to light a terrible, shameful secret...

Sometimes, there's a steep price to be paid for doing the right thing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: GJ Kelly
• Release date: Aug 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005827519

GJ Kelly

GJ Kelly was born near the white cliffs of Dover, England, in 1960. He spent a significant part of his early life in various parts of the world, including the Far East, Middle East, the South Atlantic, and West Africa. Later life has seen him venture to the USA, New Zealand, Europe, and Ireland. He began writing while still at school, where he was president of the Debating Society and won the Robb Trophy for public speaking. He combined his writing with his technical skills as a professional Technical Author and later as an internal communications specialist. His first novel was "A Country Fly" and he is currently writing a new Fantasy title.He engages with readers and answers questions at:http://www.goodreads.com/GJKelly and also at https://www.patreon.com/GJ_Kelly

Book preview

Prologue

Then I saw a distinctly shady-looking character come skulking into the inn’s rear yard, glancing furtively this way and that. A grubby coat which might hide a multitude of sins, probably in the form of weapons, long greasy-looking hair, and an unkempt goatee beard… I think I remembered him from The Rusty Dagger, but couldn’t be sure; they’d all looked decidedly dodgy in there.

He disappeared from view below me, probably entering the rear doors through which customers came and went on their visits to the outhouse. It wasn’t very long before I heard footsteps hurrying down the corridor, and then a knock on my door.

Who is it? I called, donning my cloak and picking up my stick, pretty much guessing what might happen next.

oOo

1. Holbonne

Walking a hundred miles through the wilderness really ought not to take very long; at least it shouldn’t if you’re young, fit and healthy, and following a straight line on a piece of paper. Averaging, oh, let’s say thirty miles a day, and it really shouldn’t take more than three days to reach the homesteads and farms on the outskirts of a coastal city like Holbonne. This is particularly true if a fellow is well-equipped with food, has a plentiful supply of water, is wearing master-made boots handcrafted in Thellesene (and carrying a spare pair too), and has spare clean socks. Alas, I hadn’t been walking on a flat sheet of paper.

Nor were the wilds I encountered on my journey a pristine wilderness basking in the delightful radiance of nature’s glory, to be admired and enjoyed along the way. Rather, those wilds were to be cursed with muttered oaths and very much endured along the way; deep snowdrifts, hills, dales, dense woodland, rivers, deep streams, and deep, freezing muddy puddles hidden by a coating of snow-covered ice… not to mention a biting cold which seemed only to increase along with the blustery winds opposing me the nearer I got to my destination. Darkness too was a companion, since in mid-January the land might expect to receive only a paltry eight hours or so of daylight between dawn and sunset, assuming the absence of a heavy overcast.

However, for safety’s sake, you really can’t go trudging through deep snow in the dark. Turn an ankle or indeed break one in such conditions and even a Wizzen might have a job to survive; after all, a Wizzen can’t use his own Izen to heal his own wounds and injuries… that was a lesson I learned from my stepfather a long time ago. Burning out a Witchfever is one thing, knitting broken bones quite another...

Consequently, at least an hour of daylight was lost in the mornings waiting for sufficient light for safe hiking, and another hour at the end of the day settling into a hasty makeshift camp and preparing food before it got too dark to see without the aid of a dazzling Izenlight which might serve to attract unwelcome attention.

And the makeshift camp was pretty much just me sitting on blankets, wrapped in the ‘tent’ of my long-suffering Dennhai cloak, nursing a canteen of hot water while sleeping in fits and starts. My old mate Porky Norm, when regaling us with tales of how to survive being robbed by bandits in wild country, used to tell us that in cold weather a fellow might survive by sitting on something warm like a blanket, while wrapping a large blanket ‘tent’ around his head and shoulders and keeping a shielded candle lit between his legs. He even insisted on demonstrating the technique, just in case we weren’t lucky enough to be stranded in woodland where one of his much more comfy shelters could be made.

I had no candle, or if I did it was buried beneath spare clothes and beefsticks somewhere in my backpack; a pack also laden with my meagre possessions and precious books, including the now-complete set of the Permanentarium. Those four books, the Temparus, Volumes One and Two of the Permanentus, and finally what was known as the third book, the Theoratus…. Weighty tomes these, but essential reading for me, or I’d have discarded them in favour of more food back when I’d set out from Brenneth with a Black Rose assassin hunting me.

Dead by now, that murderous beesh. In my fury at her having killed my beloved friend Pandan, that ever-faithful, intelligent and inquisitive mule, I had left her dismembered and slightly charred, but still alive, in the snow a hundred miles behind me. Well, the heat of my fury had melted the snow around her, but still, she’d have frozen to death eventually. Or starved, or died of thirst, if the cold hadn’t claimed her first. Boohoo. It’d taken an hour to get the information I needed from her: the location of the secret lair of The Black Rose.

I’d fully intended to take ship and go directly there to exterminate every last one of the filthy female assassins, but… days of trudging through a spiteful snow-bedecked wilderness, long nights spent hugging an improvised hot water bottle cuddled against my chest, and trying to stop my chattering teeth giving me a concussion, had all conspired to somewhat cool my fury.

Now, all I wanted was a hot bath and a warm bed. Besides, had it not been for the snow, it might well be me lying dead as a doornail back there instead of her, and with my anger now much reduced to a small glowing ember, but still filled with a strong desire for vengeance for her callously killing poor Pandan, I understood that I wasn’t quite ready to go up against a cult or sisterhood of who knows how many highly-trained assassins, all possessing the reputation of infallibility. It’d be as futile as my now going up against those three bastards on the Isle of Sinnock, any one of which (or any permutation thereof working together) had started the current Wizzen’s Purge.

The bloody purge was the reason why I was freezing my nadgers off trudging towards the outskirts of Holbonne in hopes of finding a comfortable inn to rest my bones, warm me up, and restore my equilibrium, instead of sitting by the fire with Albionus teaching me all the wieldings contained in the Permanentus Permanentarium. I’d get to those three would-be Philostrates on the Isle eventually, but when I felt ready to face them, and not before. Same goes for the secret lair of The Black Rose.

Still, something had happened to me since leaving home last June; something really rather frightening if I dwelled on it too much. When that wretched Black Rose beesh had killed Pandan, and I’d seen my wonderful four-legged long-eared friend lying dead in the snow atop a chudfundling little hillock in the middle of furgnurdlin nowhere, it seemed to me that the whole world’s Izen had flooded into me. In my burning rage, and channelling all that Izen, I’d opened my eyes to see my friend’s ashes, and the nearest trees of the copse upon the mound afire. Had I not been so enraged and engorged with white-hot Izen, I might well have been as terrified of me as the assassin had been when I’d turned and strode towards her.

Then there’d been a flash of inspiration, a quiet whisper in some part of my mind which had remained detached from that incendiary fury, telling me that this was the third book… this opening of some kind of portal within, as though a dam had burst or floodgates opened to admit all the limitless power and possibilities of Izen; Izen which permeated everything. Take a look around you right now; there is a lot of everything.

And there was a lot around me now. I’d slept uninvited in sheds and shacks out in the belt of homesteads to the northwest of Holbonne, and last night had slept uninvited in a warm barn I’d had to share with goats, chickens, and a couple of milk-cows. Farmland was behind me now; I’d left just before sunup, given the fact that the night before, I’d seen a rutted track in hard-packed snow along which I was now trudging into the outskirts of town.

Holbonne, on the western coast of the Carpidian Sea, twenty-five miles northwest of Dorcane, and close to ninety miles south and slightly east of Jakarla. I’d been to Dorcane, briefly, and that place was close enough to Meneva to have acquired some of the reasons why Meneva is apparently universally known around Carpidia as a shithole, at least as far as mariners are concerned anyway. I didn’t know much about Holbonne though, and now that I was approaching its poorer outskirts, I couldn’t really remember my stepfather saying much about the place either.

Bit of a boring place as I recall, Albionus had said with a sniff. "Though I admit I didn’t have cause to stay there very long on the occasions I passed through it. Let me think… oh yes, the locals, funny bunch, prone to being a bit rowdy, and they’ve taken to pronouncing the name of the place as Ho’bun. Which is a bit bizarre, now that I think on it. Why are you asking, Yarmian? You hoping to find some poor deaf dumb and blind girl as’ll take you in up there, you depraved teenage goit? If so, you’d better hope she’s nose-blind too, you haven’t washed your wretched socks in weeks. Bloody teenagers, the same the world over."

Well, boring would suit me just fine, no matter what the locals called their hometown. I needed the rest, and to think a bit more carefully about my long-term future, especially since I knew that the bastard or bastards unknown on the Isle of Sinnock had paid a fortune to sic a Black Rose assassin on me. I had to hope that Master Iarnus of Brenneth was right, and that the secret sisterhood of murderers never took the same contract twice.

I took a room at the first inn I saw, a ramshackle place called The Wheatsheaf, and should’ve known better when the landlord charged but pennies for a bed and bath, and food’s extra. First stop was the bathhouse, and the water was cold and didn’t look particularly clean either. I heated it with my stick until it was steaming, and soaked for the best part of half an hour before scrubbing the grime of more than three weeks of wilderness from my skin. After that, it was on with the spare clothes I carried, passing empty stables in the courtyard which threatened to bring a lump to my throat and spark up my rage again, and up to my room.

Of course it was mere pennies for renting this flea-pit of a room; it had an odd odour, one which suggested that the straw filling the palliasse on the rope-strung and rickety-looking bed hadn’t been changed since the end of autumn last year. There was no telling how many bodies had slept on that thing since the last time it was cleaned and filled, so I decided I’d sleep on the floor, on my own blankets, and leave such mundane matters as laundering my own grubby garb until I found rather more upmarket accommodations.

Thus, next morning, and being used to going without breakfast recently, I simply left The Wheatsheaf and trudged off down the road towards the centre of town, where I hoped to find something considerably more comfortable, there to await the welcome warmth of spring.

Holbonne, at first sight, certainly did appear on the surface to be as ‘boring’ as my late stepfather had suggested it might. It followed the usual pattern I’d come to expect from a large town or small city; poorer dwellings on the outskirts, mostly of wooden construction, slowly giving way to richer, larger, stone-built dwellings and business premises towards the centre. Grey seemed to be the accepted colour of the buildings in the more affluent parts of the town; grey stone, unpainted, probably from a local quarry somewhere nearby, and brown doors of wood likewise unpainted but weatherproofed by coats of clear varnish.

Rows of neat houses, all the same. Rows of neat shops and offices, all the same. Grey stone, with brown varnished woodwork. Yes, no wonder Albionus had considered the place boring; there were no visible signs of any character to be seen. Indeed, the only colourful displays I saw were goods for sale and the signs hanging on gibbets outside pubs and taverns, or very occasionally painted above shop windows. Even the people seemed somehow all the same, but that was probably because they were all hunched over against a chilly wind and a fine, powdery snow blowing swiftly down the streets.

Finally, close enough to the centre of the city to be able to visit it comfortably on foot should I so desire, I spotted a colourful sign swinging rather jauntily from its chains on a gibbet outside a large grey building with brown doors and window-shutters, proclaiming the place to be The Whistling Kettle. Stone-built, obviously, and, according to the signboard affixed to the wall beside the main doors, offering Good Food All Day and Good Rooms.

At this point in my journey I didn’t care how much the landlord of this establishment might charge for his good food and good rooms, as long the rooms were comfortable and warm, reasonably quiet, and the place had a good bathhouse and laundry. It did. Hurrah.

The landlord’s name was Grayson, and I almost choked when he told it to me given the lacklustre nature of Holbonne and its buildings. Still, he was a professionally friendly chap, who let me have my pick of five unoccupied rooms; I chose a corner room at the back of the premises, with Grayson confirming that it was the quietest and quite warm too on account of it being above the bakery end o’ the kitchens below.

I committed my filthy clothes and blankets to the care of the Kettle’s laundry service, and when Grayson had left me alone, I committed my precious books to a small but heavy strongbox chained to an eyebolt set in the wall at the head of the bed, left side, below a nightstand. The key to the hefty padlock securing the hasp of the box I hung around my neck on a loop of cord; and hoped that any local equivalent of Sylvee might be just as beautiful but possessed of no thievery skills whatsoever.

The rest of my gear I merely dumped in a corner, before venturing downstairs to order a late breakfast or early lunch in order to test the Kettle’s claim with respect to the goodness, or otherwise, of the food it served all day. It passed with flying colours, and I’m ashamed to say I made a right pig of myself. Well, I deserved to, after subsisting on meagre rations during my 12-days footslogging trudge through the wilds (and I still couldn’t believe how long it had taken me to traipse those one hundred miles!).

Back in my room later and lying on the bed, I pondered. Should I immediately go in search of one of Ranquin Dutt’s affiliated messengers, and send a bird or two to Farakand with the message that I’d survived The Black Rose? Should I tell my most important (and only) benefactor that I was now in Holbonne?

No. For why? For because on all my journeys since meeting Dutt, I’d fallen into the habit of immediately seeking out a messenger in his network and sending word of my new alias and whereabouts to the wealthy mogul of Farakand. Holbonne was grey and boring enough without my becoming grey and boring and routine too. Besides, I’d survived against the odds, and I rather desired complete anonymity and rest before, as my recent friend Arric of Turretmor might say, trouble came to me like flies to shite.

When I’d arrived in Brenneth, I’d promised myself a quiet winter’s repose; a warm bed and something warm in it. That promise had promptly been broken by events and circumstances, thanks to my all-too-public searching for the third book. I possessed that book now. Now, I could remain nothing more than an anonymous traveller, enjoying a well-earned rest before setting off again in the spring. Setting off where? Who knows, and more to the point, who cares? Not me.

Ooh carp… what was the name I’d given Grayson again? I’d blurted it out when I’d first encountered the landlord at the reception counter…

Morning, young sir! My, you’ve the look of one who’s travelled far!

Too bloody far. My horse died under me out in the wilds, I had to come the rest of the way here on foot. Hence the baggage I’m carrying and the state of my garb.

Well, sir, you’ve come to the right place to rest up from all yer recent troubles! We’ve good food and good rooms here at the Kettle. Grayson’s the name, sir, landlord o’ The Whistling Kettle. And you are…?

!!

Carp, how had I replied? Oh wait…

Arrian Ebbentied.

Glad to meet you, mister Arrian Ebbentied. We’ve seven rooms in all, and five unoccupied thanks to this mis’rable season. Would you like see the rooms? Our rates are very reasonable…

And very reasonable they were too. But nadir and zenith, the hell had made me blurt out the ridiculous moniker Arrian Ebbentied? I lay on the bed, hands behind my head, repeating the name over and over under my breath. Yes, of course I needed a new name every place I visited, particularly since the bloody Beldane Council were actively looking for me. If that wretched Inquisitor who’d turned up in Wenneck had learned my name from the idiot Lord Prince Sarafian, and passed that name to the Isle, then they’d be looking for a Yarr Even in vain…

Still, the way things were going, I’d probably have to write all these fundlin’ aliases down somewhere, just to keep track of them all… which of course made me wonder if Ranquin Dutt hadn’t already done the same, and kept the list in one of those strongrooms down in his cellar. I could well imagine his major-domo, what was her name… ah yes, Evangelina… hurrying to fetch a little notebook from within one of those secure repositories so that another entry could be made in it.

But for goodness’ sake, Arrian Ebbentied? I can only blame this spur-of-the-moment blurting of the name on blind panic in the face of a smiling landlord’s question after a long and bloody arduous journey made on foot in very far from clement conditions. Still, it’d have to do, at least while I was here in Holbonne. After all, I didn’t plan on many people having to use it. Here would I rest my travel-weary bones awhile, catch up on my reading, and allow all the grey and boring life here in the coastal city to carry on as boringly normal, and without the risk of me adding to any excitement which might otherwise disturb its peace.

The next time I ventured into a new town, though, I’d come up with a proper alias before someone asked me my bloody name.

oOo

2. Toasty

This close to the Carpidian Sea, and in this dark and depressing season, the winds were either distinctly brisk, or gales which rattled the windows and whistled through any gaps in the wood frames thereof. I’d rather expected winter to abate somewhat this close to the briny waters, and it was true that the snow melted quickly here and fell far less than it did inland. Brown slush was heaped in the streets, and I decided not to venture outdoors for the first few days of my sojourn in the comfort of The Whistling Kettle.

My clothes had been laundered, and my life-saving Dennhai cloak repaired in the several places where the silk lining and its tight-woven outer layers had been ripped. My boots were dry and clean at last, and I felt rather more myself than some shipwrecked wretch flung up on a beach. I still had a small supply of wooden ‘Corky Coins’ which had settled in the bottom of my backpack, and from these I made money enough to pay my way here at the Kettle; and I paid rent in advance too to forestall any overt inquisitiveness from mine host, Grayson. Empty rooms at an inn don’t earn money, and he was more than happy to take mine with a smile and no questions asked.

There were two other guests down the hall from my room; one a ship’s captain and the other his first officer. Both men were swarthy and weather-beaten, and obliged to remain ashore while repairs were being carried out on their vessel, The Lucky Lady. This I gleaned from overhearing their quiet conversations in the dining room at breakfast, it being too noisy in there at lunch and dinner times for such focused eavesdropping. The food here really was good, and the prices really were reasonable, which explained the popularity of the place among the locals hereabouts.

Eventually, though, I ventured outdoors and promptly set off in search of a barbershop. There, I had my hair trimmed up a little, and my beard likewise; I’d decided to keep the latter purely on the grounds that the description the Isle had of me ran along the lines of short black hair, is usually clean shaven but sometimes to be seen with three or four days’ growth of beard. Well, my beard had been growing for a lot longer than three or four days, and I asked the barber just to tidy my hair, leaving it a little longer than I usually kept it.

I know. Not much of a disguise, but better than nothing at all and besides, the mirror in the bathhouse where I’d intended to shave had revealed my rather manly growth to be decidedly… well, manly I suppose. I intended to keep it anyway, at least until the heat of summer made it itchy, and then I’d get the razor out and dispense with this ‘winter plumage’ of mine.

I bought new clothes, especially socks and underwear, and later visited the docks. No, I wasn’t feeling nostalgic for Sylvee or The Idalina and its crew. Nor was I particularly interested in the sight of a dismasted Lucky Lady being repaired, though it did put me in mind of the first time I’d seen Tiresian’s ship back home in Dulluston. No, I went to the docks for one specific purpose, which made a distinctly satisfying plop when I casually dropped it over the edge of the wharf and into the briny clutches of Holbonne’s deepwater harbour.

What was it I’d surreptitiously disposed of in those dark and freezing waters? Kordellen’s leather drawstring purse and its contents, the one I’d initially given Arric of Turretmor, until his conscience had seen him return it when we’d parted company in Brenneth. For why throw away the golds and silvers the purse contained? For because bloody Kordellen, Inquisitor of Cloisters from the Isle of Sinnock, had probably made the coins, and thus they might have been marked in some way as coming from him (or from the Isle). And being so marked, physically or mystically, well, they might have led those flies of trouble to the turds of Kordellen’s coins, resulting in grief for whoever spent them.

Clever of me, eh? Not really. I’d examined the coins in the comfort of my room before I’d started making my own money, having decided to remain at the Kettle for the remainder of winter. Those coins of Kordellen’s bore the head of someone I certainly didn’t recognise, and it was that which’d seen my brow furrow and wonder if they were thus unique enough to be traceable by another Inquisitor; there were apparently two more of those out and about in Carpidia, at least according to Iarnus of Brenneth, and they were possibly, if not probably, actively seeking little old bearded me.

On my way back to the Kettle, stick at the ready to deal with any trouble should I have accidentally strayed into Holbonne’s scumbuggery way down there at the docks, I conceded that yes, in some ways, the area down there by the docks was a little nostalgic after all… I passed new-to-me but familiar sights; sheds, warehouses, taverns, inns, brothels, eateries, and then all the businesses of shipping, before I was heading back into the city centre and through it.

What’s there to be said of the splendour of Holbonne’s centre? Bugger-all. Why? Because there isn’t any splendour to be found there. Bigger buildings, obviously, but all of ‘em grey stone blocks with varnished brown wooden doors and window-frames. Traipsing through the slush as I was, I found it difficult to discern which large edifice might be the Port Lord’s Palace, which the Town Hall, which the Offices of the City Guards, the central courts, or any other building come to that. They all looked the same.

Well, it was winter, after all, and maybe the place livened up a bit in summer. Perhaps the empty square with its prominent statues mounted on tall stone plinths here and there might be a hive of bustling activity in the brighter months; perhaps there’d be entertainers, food-sellers, market stalls and barrow-boys calling out their wares and prices… but I rather doubted it.

Still, once I was settled back in the warmth of my room, I allowed myself a little smile. Not for disposing of a pouch of coins which might’ve led my enemies to my door, but for the fact that I’d noticed no-one paying any attention to me at all. Not even my Dennhai cloak seemed out of place in this city, nor my ‘walking stick’ of a half-staff. Not even the very slight limp I’d employed to justify carrying it drew an eye; indeed, I’d seen more than a few of Holbonne’s menfolk carrying canes too. It was either fashionable so to do, or eminently sensible given the slippery nature of the streets in this season. Maybe I didn’t need the limp hereabouts… I’d decide later.

Yes, I’d kept my Izen-nose wide open on my journey to the docks and back, and no, no nasty witchy-whiffs or sorcerer’s pongs did I detect. A few very faint scents indicative of old wieldings by Wizzens, but barbers being garrulous even in this dull town (or perhaps especially in this dull town), I’d learned from mine earlier that there were now no Wizzens to be found in Holbonne… which he had indeed pronounced Ho’bun…

All just upped and buggered off, he’d sighed. Not that they gave me any o’ their custom, what with the long hair and beards an’ all. Funny how they-all tend towards long hair and beards, must be like some kind o’ uniform I suppose. Except for Wizzener Claudibus, bald as a chimp’s arse that one.

Were there many of them? Before they all just upped and buggered off?

Three. No, four. Or was it three? Anyway. Off they all went on their summer holidays, and ain’t come back since. You need a Wizzener for something then, sir?

Split in the sole of one of my spare boots, I lied, Thought a Wizzener might be cheaper than a cobbler.

Not much in it, I reckon sir. For the same price, cobbler’d nail a new sole on, while a Wizzener’d fix the split with those Wizzener ways o’ theirs. Heard tell of an alchemist setting up north o’ the city centre, but he won’t be of much use where a split boot is concerned, I reckon. What about you then, sir, go anywhere nice for the summer holidays last year?

And so the conversation had meandered, punctuated by the sound of scissors snipping here and there, even when they were only cutting fresh air. Why do barbers insist on doing that? It’s surely not as though they need the practice before they actually snip a lock or trim a whisker. Snip-snip-snip-snip-snip while they fiddle with a comb or study their target, and then a proper snip, when a cut is actually made, and then more snipping at empty air as if the scissors were applauding themselves for a job well done.

Still, as before in other parts, I’d discovered myself the sole Wizzen in town, at least as far as I knew. Not all Wizzens fear the purge and take flight when word reaches them that one has started; Fennet, for example, back in Wenneck, had remained about his work, having no cause to believe that his life was at risk. It’s usually only the older Wizzens, those who know things which might embarrass a potential Philostrate, who may have cause to consider themselves a possible target for a murdering bastard like Evrard… and I certainly wasn’t about to advertise my presence here in Holbonne.

Holbonne. When the weather was foul, I remained in my room, reading and studying. Iarnus of Brenneth had mentioned how complex problems might somehow be internalised and ‘solved’ unconsciously during sleep, so I decided to put my faith in that where the third book was concerned. It all seemed to boil down to modifying existing Permie chants in order to shift or alter the form and function of the Izen thus summoned. I know, it sounds simple enough, but the demon is in the details and like any skill, to acquire mastery requires much dedicated practice.

I really didn’t want to practice in my room at the Kettle, and thus risk not only blowing myself up with a mischant, but also the inn. Grayson the landlord seemed a decent enough chap, and though his clientele were indeed a rambunctious lot when they’d had a few of an evening, they were generally decent folk. Besides, I was still bothered by the incendiary fury which had filled me out in the wilds when poor old Pandan had been killed. Actually, I was more than bothered by it…

There’d been several occasions, usually in times of desperate need, when I’d felt a sudden chill deep within me, often describing it to myself as a portal opening to fill me with Izen from my surroundings. That had been puzzling, and I’d even found myself wondering if my stepfather hadn’t somehow surreptitiously endowed me with some kind of mystic mechanism to give me the means of survival in my hours of greatest need.

But then had come The Black Rose, and her senseless slaying of my dear friend Pandan. A massive and near-unstoppable flood of red-hot Izenrage had seemed to balloon from me, melting the snow around me, incinerating the ground around my feet, not to mention setting light to a few of the spindly trees closest to me. A little voice inside my head had quietly declared this is the third book… And that really was more than a little alarming. Why? Because I couldn’t recall uttering any kind of chant, audibly or silently, to summon forth that intense heat.

Yes, I’d been outraged, furious even, seeing my four-legged friend lying there in the snow, head and neck outstretched as if desperate to see one last new thing before death had claimed him… and people do talk of doing things in the heat of the moment. I’d done something frankly quite terrifying, and I’d done it without conscious thought directing my actions.

What if it happened again?

Well, that was what truly disturbed me. Suppose for instance I became angry with some poor dope in the bar downstairs? Would conflagrations instantly burst into being? Would the poor fellow promptly go up in smoke?

What if I had a nightmare reliving the Rose and her murdering of my friend Pandan? Would I wake to find The Whistling Kettle nothing but a heap of smouldering ashes around me?

You’re a little teapot…

Well yes, I had my childish little ditty to keep me calm, but I doubted that would work in my sleep.

All right, I’ll admit it, to myself though not to anybody else: I was frightened, and not for the first time, I was frightened of myself and what I might unwittingly do. When I was very young, when Albionus had first taken me in and decided to make me his apprentice, I’d worried… no, feared… that my first wielding would see me shrivel into one of the horrible ‘things’ that my stepfather had described as freakish little creatures who got it wrong, begging for a pitiful living, and those were the lucky ones who survived their mistakes.

Of course, he’d subsequently filled me with confidence, and I’d gritted my teeth, and raised a small, short-lived but functional and effective Shield of Bombast for the very first time. Huzzah for me. And from then on, he’d had me practice it every day. Yet… for all its strength and power, a Bombast isn’t particularly scary. Powerful, yes, but scary, no, not really. Incinerating everything around you without being aware you’re doing it, that’s scary.

So no, I wasn’t going to sit in my room trying to develop new forms and functions for Izen using the complex theories and methodology described in the Theoratus. Instead, I’d read it, try to understand it, and let the sleeping brain work it out while I dreamed of Sylvee and Layla and Trinnie and… well, enough of that. The younger barmaids here at the Kettle were all spoken for, and I wasn’t about to draw attention to myself by treading on any boyfriends’ toes, thanks very much. It just wasn’t worth the risk for a few fleeting moments of carnal pleasure the body instantly forgets until the next time. See, Albionus, I did learn some lessons from you after all.

Was I in reality hiding from The Black Rose, shutting myself away here in the Kettle? No. Master Iarnus had been quite insistent where that sisterhood of cut-throats never taking the same contract twice was concerned; if they ever did, it would demonstrate to the world the lie of their mythical infallibility, and I had no reason at all to disbelieve the one-armed Wizzen who’d taught me so much back in Brenneth. It was thanks to Iarnus, after all, that I could read the High Beldanian in which language the third book had been written.

No, I wasn’t hiding from the Rose, an organisation which was now firmly on my list. I’d get to them eventually, and probably use the destruction of their secret lair as a kind of proving ground before advancing to the Isle of Sinnock and exterminating Kurster, Arrapthane, and Norridus, the three candidates vying for the highest rank of all Wizzenry, and for dominion over the Beldane Council on which they currently sat. They were on my list too.

For now, I was resting, recuperating, regaining my strength, and sheltering from decidedly manky weather which, although it was now the second day of February, was still rattling the windows and their shutters and making outdoor life something of a misery for anyone who had to venture out in it.

I vaguely recalled someone telling me that winter would be long and cold this year. Perhaps it’d been Fennet, or the landlord of a pub somewhere in Wenneck or Brenneth. Whoever it had been, they appeared to have been right. Not that it was going to bother me much, with the heat of the baking ovens seeping up through the floorboards from the kitchen below. Me? I was toasty. I just had to ensure I didn’t accidentally toast the world around me.

oOo

3. Sheep’s Clothing