Wizard squared ra-3 Read online

  Wizard squared

  ( Rogue agent - 3 )

  K. E. Mills

  K. E. Mills

  Wizard squared

  CHAPTER ONE

  A different New Ottosland, eighteen days after the Stuttley’s staff factory debacle…

  Love at first sight.

  M onk Markham, sprawled on a not-terribly-impressive carpet in a totally awkward and compromising position, looked up into a face that until now he’d only seen through the ambivalent lens of two different crystal balls.

  The face belonged to Her Royal Highness Princess Melissande of New Ottosland.

  “What the hell?” Her Highness demanded. “ You’re not Gerald!”

  Just like that, no warning, no reprieve… the world was abruptly divided in two: the time Before this moment, and the time After it. And without anyone bothering to ask his permission, he suddenly wasn’t the same man and never would be again.

  Princess Melissande’s face wasn’t beautiful, like his sister Bibbie’s. It was plain and round and pinkly embarrassed, with severe green eyes and a scattering of freckles and a framework of springy rust-reddish hair and a pair of prim spectacles sliding down its blunt nose. It was a face full of character-and determination-and courage.

  The first time he’d seen it he hadn’t actually seen it, because it was hidden behind a voluminous veil. As for the second time, not only was it distorted by Dunwoody’s truly cheap and nasty crystal ball, it had been mostly crowded out by Dunwoody.

  Gerald and a princess, sitting in a tree…

  Except it wasn’t a tree, it was a fountain. And though it had been a bit tricky to tell, he was almost sure Her Highness had been what polite society called squiffed.

  Mind you, given what Gerald’s been getting up to while my back’s turned, I’m in the mood to get bloody squiffed myself.

  Never in a million years would he have said that kind and gentle and above all else ordinary Gerald Dunwoody could ever land himself in this kind of trouble.

  But then I never would’ve said he could turn a cat into a lion, either. Third Grade wizards who used to be probationary government compliance officers-until they accidentally blew up a staff factory-can’t do Level Twelve transmogs. Everybody knows that.

  Well. Everybody except Gerald, apparently.

  And now some mad king’s trying to kill him or worse, he’s about to incite an international incident and I’ve got a used-to-be-human talking bird telling me what to do.

  Having wearily flapped herself onto the nearby royal bed, she was telling him now.

  “-lying about like a ratty old rug and find our boy Gerald before something else terrible happens to him!”

  Ignoring Reg, he managed to smile at startled royalty. Waggled his fingers at her and hoped she couldn’t tell she’d tipped him ass over teakettle.

  This is ridiculous. I don’t believe in love at first sight. It’s a side effect from the portal. Some kind of chemical imbalance in the brain. It’ll wear off. It has to. I’m far too busy to be in love.

  It took him two tries before he could unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth.

  “Hi there, Your Highness. Monk Markham. Remember me?”

  Please. Please. Say you remember.

  “Vaguely,” Her Highness snapped, haughtily repressive, and shuffled herself backwards. “How did you get here?”

  He sat up. “Long story. Where’s Gerald? Because he’s not in his apartment.”

  “I neither know nor care,” said the princess, frosty as mid-winter. “I consider myself gravely deceived in Gerald Dunwoody.”

  “ Deceived?” Catapulted headlong into battle, her weariness forgotten, Reg chattered her beak. “You watch what you’re saying about that boy, madam, there’s not an ounce of deception in him! And not for want of my trying, either. A good wizard needs a dash of the devious but will he listen? No, he won’t.”

  “Is that so?” The princess glared at Reg. “Then why did he hex my doors so I can’t get out of my apartment after he swore blind he’d help me?”

  “How should I know?” said Reg. “I haven’t been here. But I’ll bet you a new hairdo it wasn’t Gerald. Or if it was he had a very good reason. Probably something to do with saving you from yourself. The ether knows you could do with it. Those trousers, girl! With that shirt? With any shirt?”

  Monk looked at her. Really, Reg? Really? You think this is the time for a fashion critique? “Um-look-maybe we should be concentrating on-”

  The women ignored him. “Of course it was Gerald. Who else could it be?” Her Highness retorted. “And what do you mean you haven’t been here? Where have you been? And what are you doing in my bedroom? With Markham? Answer me!”

  So Reg answered, at length, all her acerbity given free rein. To pass the time as she pontificated he clambered to his feet and gave his portable portal a quick once-over, just to make sure it was still in working order. When Reg was finally done explaining, the princess rounded on him. Behind the prim spectacles her green eyes blazed with temper.

  As if this is my fault. Well, it’s not. I’m just along for the ride.

  Except maybe, sort of, it was his fault. Or partly his fault.

  Because if I hadn’t shown Gerald that stupid Positions Vacant advertisement…

  “Well, Mr. Markham?” the unexpected love of his life demanded, and used a handy chair to haul herself upright. “Don’t stare at me like an idiot. If Gerald is missing, then why is he missing? What the hell is going on around here?”

  It took quite a long time to tell her, because Reg insisted on interrupting and making trenchant personal observations about the princess and one-upping her about how she was the former Queen of Lalapinda and so forth, which inevitably led to more acerbic exchanges and a certain amount of metaphorical hair-and-feather pulling. If he’d not been so worried about Gerald and exactly why there’d been such an enormous spike on the Department of Thaumaturgy’s etheretic monitors he would have found it rather amusing. Like vaudeville.

  At least, it was like vaudeville until he got to the part about how King Lional was suspected of some very nasty goings-on and likely had something truly horrible planned for Gerald. It broke his heart to tell the princess that. Seeing her pain, feeling her shock, his pleasure at impressing her with how he’d casually invented the portable portal evaporated.

  “Come on, ducky,” Reg said gruffly, breaking Her Highness’s stunned silence. “You don’t honestly expect us to believe you never once looked at Lional sideways, do you?”

  Arms folded, head turned towards the window, the princessMelissande- shrugged.

  Monk flicked Reg a reproving glance-which naturally the bloody bird ignored-then took a hesitant step towards the woman who’d turned his life inside out just by existing. “Don’t mind her, Melissande. I’m sure-”

  “No,” said the princess. “Actually, the bird’s right. I just-I didn’t-I couldn’t- I mean, I never thought he’d actually hurt anyone… but-” Her voice caught. “It’s true I’ve always known he could be unkind. And I don’t recall inviting you to call me Melissande, Mr. Markham.”

  The last bit was said snappishly. That was all right. He could live with snappish. He could live with anything but seeing that blinding misery in her eyes. “Sorry.”

  She turned. “So. We’re in a pickle. Don’t suppose you’ve got any bright ideas about how we’re going to get out of it, do you?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “But first things first. We can’t do anything while we’re stuck behind locked doors.”

  “Then what are you waiting for?” said Reg. “Get out to the foyer and unlock them, Mr. Markham!”

  But that was a whole lot easier said than done.

  One touch to the apartment doors’ binding i
ncant and he broke into a cold and sickly sweat. Snatching his hand back from the polished timber, he shook his head.

  Oh, bloody hell. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse.

  “You’re right. They’re hexed. But Gerald didn’t do it.”

  Standing off to one side, the princess glared. “Don’t be silly, Mr. Markham. Of course he did.”

  No. No. I’ve got a first name. You can use it. “Call me Monk,” he said, then pressed his palm flat to the doors a second time. For her, not for him. He already had his answer. The same sickly surge of thaumic energy roiled through him, tangled and twisted and hideous. Bile rose in his throat, burning.

  “Well?” Reg demanded, perched on the back of a book-laden chair. There were books on the floor, too. There were books everywhere. Her Royal Highness Princess Melissande was as big a book fiend as he was.

  Bloody hell. She’s perfect.

  Distracted, he looked at Reg. “Well what?”

  “Well can you get us out of here or can’t you?”

  With an effort he focused on the job at hand. “I don’t know. Maybe. It’s the most powerful barrier hex I’ve ever come across.”

  “Then it has to be Gerald’s,” Melissande insisted. “Because there isn’t anybody else in New Ottosland who could’ve put it there.”

  “Mel-Your Highness-I wish that were true,” he said. “It’d make my life a whole lot easier if it was.”

  Melissande started tapping her toes. “Fine. Then who was it if it wasn’t Gerald? And don’t say Lional, because he’s not a wizard.”

  Bloody hell. I don’t want to tell her. Except he had to. Not only was she ranking royalty and had the right to know… he had no right to protect her. And if he tried she’d probably smack him.

  “Look. Your Highness. I know this is going to sound crazy, but-”

  “Then it must be true,” said Reg, snippy. “ Everything in this cockeyed kingdom is crazy.”

  “Thank you,” Melissande said coldly. “Mr. Markham?”

  “The doors were hexed by a single wizard,” he said quietly. “But there are five First Grade thaumic signatures in the hex.”

  “So?” said Melissande, her arms folded tight and her chin lifted, as though she could hold the terrible truth at bay.

  “So we have five missing First Grade wizards, all of whom reported to your brother the king-and who all disappeared before Gerald got here.”

  She didn’t want to believe him, couldn’t bear the thought of her brother murdering five innocent men and stealing their potentias. So he made her prove it to herself using a thaumically-charged gift the missing wizard Bondaningo Greenfeather had given her.

  It was the cruelest thing he’d ever done.

  I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t have a choice.

  Giving her a moment to compose herself, he turned to Reg. “A non-wizard stealing potentias? I’ve never come across anything like it.”

  “You wouldn’t have,” the bird said darkly. “Seeing as you’re a nice young man who doesn’t read that kind of grimoire. But I’ve known men who do, Monk. Crazy or not, you’ve hit the nail on the head. It’s true that mad bugger Lional’s not a wizard, but all it takes is one tiny thaumaturgical spark to start the fire. Now get us out of here so we can rescue Gerald before he becomes victim number six.”

  Breaking the mad king’s filthy hex nearly finished him. Sick and shaking he forced himself inside its intricate workings. Tried not to hear the faint, terrible screams of those five dying wizards as he unraveled the incant strand by dirty, stinking strand.

  The power of its final unbinding blew him clear across the foyer.

  Melissande rushed to his side. “Monk- Monk! Are you all right?”

  And suddenly the blinding headache and nausea were worth it.

  He groaned. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “Not in my foyer you’re not, Mr. Markham! Just you pull yourself together!”

  She put her arm around his shoulders and helped him sit up. The urge to collapse into her practical embrace was almost overwhelming. But Gerald needed him, so…

  “I will,” he mumbled. “I promise.” Blearily he blinked around him. “Reg?”

  Lalapinda’s former queen was hovering between the splintered remains of the foyer doors, wings flapping up a hurricane. “Yes, that’s me! Now get off your skinny ass and let’s go, Mr. Markham!”

  Melissande’s fingertips brushed against his cheek. “Are you really all right? Are you sure you can do this? Find Gerald, stop Lional? Save my kingdom?”

  Mesmerized by her stern and steady gaze, Monk nodded. Cleared his throat. “Yes. I think so.”

  “Good,” she said, with the swiftest, sweetest smile. “I think so too. Now you heard the bird, Mr. Markham. Get up off your skinny ass. You and I have work to do.”

  The warm glow of her touch, and her smile, carried him through the fear that he’d not be able to locate Gerald-fed into the ebullient joy when his best locating incant did find him-and lasted right up to the moment they saw the dragon.

  On the other side of a palace skylight’s sparkling glass, lazily floating on an updraft like an enormous crimson and emerald striped seagull-with teeth and talons-the fantastic creature opened its massive jaws and belched a fearsome plume of fire.

  Staring astonished at the impossible beast, Monk felt a fresh wave of sickness crash over him-because here was the explanation for that enormous thaumic spike.

  Gerald, Gerald. What have you done?

  Because it had to be Gerald. It couldn’t be anyone else.

  “Oy. Madam,” said Reg, perched piratically on his shoulder. “You know who that’s supposed to be, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Melissande whispered, with tears in her voice. “Grimthak.”

  “Grimthak?” he said. He couldn’t tear his gaze from Gerald’s impossible creation. “And who the bloody hell is Grimthak?”

  “A Kallarapi god,” said Melissande. “Monk-Mr. Markham-get us out of here. Now.”

  With Gerald’s location set into the portable portal’s destination node, there came one nasty moment when he thought he wouldn’t be able to adjust the device’s parameters to accept simultaneous travel by two adults and a bird.

  Come on, come on, Markham, you pillocking plonker. Are you a genius or aren’t you? Pull your finger out. Get it done.

  “Ha!” said Reg, as his rejigging of the portal’s matrix finally took and a pinpoint of light in the air before them began to blossom. “About time, sunshine. What took you so long?”

  Bloody hell, Gerald. How do you stand it?

  “Sorry,” he said curtly. “But I assumed you’d want to reach the other side in one piece.”

  Perched on Melissande’s shoulder now, the bird sniffed. “Let’s leave the witty banter for when we don’t have a dragon on top of us, shall we?” She bounced a little. “Come on, Your Highness. Giddyup. Let’s go.”

  “Don’t look at me,” he told Melissande. “I’m not the one who rescued her from the wilderness.” Then he held out his hand. “To be on the safe side.”

  Her lips twitched, just a little. “All right. Provided you don’t try making a habit of it.” Her fingers closed around his, cool and ever so slightly trembling. “On three?”

  The brilliant portal shimmered like a lake in bright sunshine. He nodded. “Why not? On three. One-two-”

  They leaped through it on three.

  A dizzying rush… a wrenching unreality… and then they ripped through the air on the other side of the thaumaturgical conduit and landed with a bone-rattling thud onto cold dirt in the sudden dark.

  “ Ow! That’s my face!”

  Hastily he snatched his hand away. “Sorry, Melissande. Gerald, are you in here?” And then he winced and froze. “Um, Your Highness, not to complain or anything but your elbow’s in a very precarious part of my anato-”

  “Monk?” said a disbelieving voice. It sounded small and frightened. “Is that you?”

  Gerald? S
ince when was Gerald small and frightened? But before he could speak, the bird rattled her tail. “Oh, yes, fine, ask about Markham first why don’t you? When I’m the one sitting here faded to a mere shadow of my former glory after flying and hitching from here to Ottosland then convincing Markham and his idiot colleagues that your life was in danger and then risking my life again to get back to this ether-forsaken kingdom using Markham’s highly illegal and practically untested portable portal! And why is it so dark in here? Why doesn’t somebody turn on the lights?”

  Oh. Right. He snapped his fingers. “ Illuminato.”

  And just like that, there was light.

  “Reg!” cried Gerald, and fell to his knees. “Oh my God, Reg, you’re alive!”

  And then Reg was saying something, scolding again, she was always scolding. But Monk didn’t pay any attention. He could hardly make sense of the words. Because Gerald-Gerald Bloody hell. Gerald. What happened to you?

  There wasn’t a mark on him. Not a scrape. Not a bruise. But his face had gone so thin and there were smeared shadows beneath his eyes and his eyes-his eyes -

  Oh, Gerald. What have you seen?

  His friend was clutching Reg so tightly the bird could hardly breathe. “Lional said you were dead, he said he’d killed you!” He was practically babbling. But Gerald never babbled. “He did kill you, look, there’s your body! Over there!”

  Feeling sick again, Monk stared as Gerald and Reg fussed at each other over some trick with a dead chicken. He could feel his heatbeat’s dull thudding in his ears.

  This is bad. This is very bad. Something very bad’s happened to Gerald.

  “Mr. Markham?”

  He turned at the light touch on his arm. “Your Highness?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  So she’d been watching him. She could feel his dismay.

  I wonder if that means she’s ass over teakettle too?

  It’d be nice if it did. He was feeling horribly alone.

  “Nothing,” he said, because whatever Gerald had been through her brother was behind it and he wanted to spare her that pain for as long as he could. “Sorry. I just-”