The Road To Sevendor - A Spellmonger Anthology by Terry Mancour Page B

defiantly.  “Now it’s overrun, as is everything in the Wilderlands.  All the way to Tudry,” he said, miserably.  “Even now my master fights them while you fight him!”
    “Then you will be fortunate enough to avoid that fight,” Lespin said.  “Goblins are not the Censorate’s concern.  Renegade magi are.  Ready, b—ahh hhh! ” Lespin’s sentence died in his throat as his eyes opened wide in surprise . . . moments before he was blown unexpectedly off the dock, dozens of feet into the air, and splashed far downstream into the river.
    “Tyndal?” squeaked Ansily.
    “I didn’t do that!” he insisted, looking around wide-eyed for the source of the attack.  It didn’t take long. Just as the Censor had emerged from the shadows, a magelight suddenly appeared over the river, twenty paces from the dock. 
    Under the pale glow of the arcane illumination Tyndal could barely make out two figures in the thick river mist; but where he expected to hear the slap of water against the boat they would have had to be standing on, there was nothing . . . and as the glow came closer and the figures more distinct, the apprentice could tell that there was, indeed, no boat.
    “I hope you weren’t looking forward to handling him yourself, Tyndal,” the warm, yet stern voice of Lady Pentandra said.  “We don’t have time for a glorious duel.”
    “L-lady Pentandra?” he asked, mystified, as the famous thaumaturge – and beloved colleague of his Master – stepped lightly and gracefully onto the dock, her slippers not even wet.  A thick woolen cloak of pale blue surrounded her, making her seem semi-divine in the glow of her light . . . and a slender wand was in her own hand. 
    Next to her was the shorter, clumsier form of his fellow-apprentice, Rondal – a left-over Master Minalan had inherited from an errant competitor, back in Boval.  Rondal had been tasked to stay with the rest of the refugees, just as Tyndal had been tasked with protecting Alya, so his presence meant something important was afoot. 
    “I told you I was on the way,” she said, a little irritated.  “My barge is still a mile downriver, but when I felt someone clearly using a lot of magic all at once, I felt compelled to hurry.  I built a . . . bubble chariot,” she explained,  clearly simplifying a complicated spell into an inadequate description.  “We were able to glide along much faster that way.  And it looks as if I made it in the nick of time . . . although I’m sure you could have handled it,” she added, when she saw Ansily’s frightened form behind Tyndal.  “And who is this? ” she asked, curiously.
    “Ansily of Roxly,” Tyndal explained, pausing only to sheath his mageblade.  “She’s an innkeeper who . . . she’s been helping me protect Alya.  She’s safe,” he added, hurriedly.
    “Ah.  Yes.  I see,” Pentandra said, a twinkle in her eye.  “Well, she will have to stay with Minalan’s family awhile longer without you, I’m afraid.  Things in the Wilderlands are moving, and your Master has called all his allies to him, you included.  Your Duchy needs you, Tyndal of Boval,” she said, formally.
    Tyndal blushed, and was thankful it was dark and misty, and he could hear Ansily gasp behind him.  He took her hand and squeezed it. 
    “I’m sorry, I have to go,” he said, reluctantly.  “Please tell Alya, and Master Rinden and Mistress Sarali and the bakers, will you?  And then get back to Roxly where it’s safe for you.”
    “You have to . . . to go?   But you saved my life! ” she said, staring at him intently.
    “He has other lives to save,” Pentandra insisted.  A bell rang downriver as her barge finally rounded the bend.  “And we cannot tarry.  That Censor will wash ashore eventually, and we need to be leagues away when he does.”  Rondal looked disgusted as Ansily nearly crushed him with the force of her embrace.
    “I’ll come back,” he promised, lamely, after she kissed