CHAPTER EIGHT: SCRYING
Returning to the Gosling, Fawkes put everything away, including the basket. He went to a corner where a keg filled with rolled-up maps and charts stood strapped to the wall. Rifling through them, he pulled one out and carried it to the table. Next, he opened the stowe under his bed and took out a satchel to plop on his blankets.
Fawkes unrolled the map on the table between the two narrow beds and sat down on a stool. Turning to his satchel, he took out a flat box. Setting the box on the blankets, he opened it, revealing a collection of various quills, sticks, and polished wands. He took an elmwood wand with string spooled about it. At the end of the string hung an amethyst.
Leaning over the map, Fawkes unraveled the string. At a slow and steady pace, he began to swing the wand in a widdershins manner. The amethyst, shaped so that it had a point, swung around the map, going out farther and farther until it swung in a leftward circle covering the whole map.
Fawkes stared at the amethyst. Garzio'indar, he thought over and over. He let that name fill his mind until all other thoughts were out of the way. For a minute that turned into a quarter-hour, he stared at the amethyst.
Light flickered deep within the gem then grew into a soft glow that filled the gemstone. He let go of the wand. It hovered above the map while the amethyst kept on swinging in circles, seeking.
Fawkes sat back and waited. This kind of magic was slow but effective. It could find the location on a map of anything with a name if the map was accurate. Whether pretty or crude, the more errors and false marks on the map the less chance there was of the spell working.
I should have thought of this myself, Fawkes scolded as he shifted to lean an elbow on his bed. The accuracy of his spell did not worry him. All his water charts and maps were the finest Grandfather could buy. What did worry him was whether or not the enchantments on the sack would block his little spell, despite what Father Burnyrd said. Did this wizard even know about map scrying or the proper enchantment needed to block it?
Map scrying was a very old and slow type of magic. It had fallen out of use when newer, faster scry spells were crafted a few centuries ago. Grandfather had given him an old, dusty tome to learn the old magics from, at Garzio's suggestion, of course.
Garzio had taught Grandfather but amused himself watching Fawkes sneeze over the dusty old tome that was still in the satchel on his bed. Every time he sneezed, Garzio would flutter its pages at him in a bookish laugh or waggle its tongue-lie satin bookmark at him. Grandfather never seemed to notice.
Fawkes let out an aggrieved sigh. How did the wizard come to know the name of Grandfather's book? Taught how to say the name when he was twelve while in the utmost privacy of an enchanted sanctum, Fawkes had never been allowed to say the full name aloud again. It had all been very strange to him at the time. Eventually, he came to learn just how special, and annoying, it could be.
And now I'm trying to rescue that damn book.
The amethyst clacked firmly against the table. Fawkes flinched at the sudden noise, almost falling off the stool. He leaned closer. The amethyst stood on its narrowed tip, marking a place deep in the Thrundank, a vast swamp close to Blackstone.
He tapped the wand. The glow went out of the amethyst and the wand fell to the table. Taking great care not to crease the map, Fawkes rolled it back up and returned it to the keg then took out another. Unrolling this map on the table, he sat at the stool and picked up the wand. Once again, he started the amethyst swinging in circles, searching. Fawkes went back to waiting.
This map held far more details of the Thrundank Swamp than the first map, purchased from cypress tree loggers for an outrageous price.
"A really good quality map was worth almost any price," Grandfather once explained. "A wise man could draw out copies of it and earn himself a living." That led to lessons in cartography. Now, he sat here waiting to see if he would need to draw one to get to the book.
Minutes later, the amethyst clacked to the table. Fawkes pulled out a sheet of paper from a scroll case hanging on the wall. Bolted to the corner of the table was a box. Opening it, he took out a quill and an inkwell. With slow deliberate care, he drew a map of the area where the amethyst stood. There were many twisted waterways in the Thrundank and he needed to be as accurate in his drawing as he could so each quill stroke came slow and careful.
The day grew dark. The dogs bothered him to feed them and himself from the rations barrel. He eventually had to light the lantern hanging on the wall above his desk. Two hours later, he wearily sprinkled drying sand on his newly drawn map.
Fawkes put everything away and went to bed. As he tried to fall asleep, his thoughts turned to how he was going to get through the soggy maze of the Thrundank. The Gosling was too big for the narrow waterways.
He would have to slog through, and probably swim, with things that might eat him. An even bigger worry was how he would get the book back from the nisslings without getting pierced with poison bolts and his liver cut out.
Sleep was long in coming.
