A fountain beneath the Towers? Praz knew of no such place, and while he'd grown up in Bo's care, the young warrior had prowled the confines of the Towers repeatedly.
He halted inside his father's book-filled office and tried to listen.
"I fear that a simple fountain under the Magistracy can't be of too much interest, my old friend," Bo said kindly. "Why waste your time on such a snipe hunt?"
"With all due respect, Bo, such a discovery might yield more than it seems. There are no records of such a fountain in any of the architecture books, and we still don't know the limits of power these Towers hold. Maybe there's a connection. Even Alagar is interested in this matter."
Bo smiled.
"Still an old treasure hunter, are you, Devlin? Very well. Study this fountain and get back to me if you find it's anything more than a well-spring that was once used as a water supply/'
Morely shook his head. "It's a fantastic find..."
Bo chuckled. "Every study you undertake is fantastic."
Praz glanced around his father's office as he listened. Keepsakes and mementos sporadically showed up on the shelves of books, magical powders, salves, and tools. Bo's studies had taken him out into the forests and lands beyond Soronne on more than a few occasions, and Praz had always gone with him. The centerpiece was the huge desk, kept immaculately clean except for books and projects Bo was currently working on.
"Commander Lenik and Mandel are certainly enthusiastic about this discovery," Morely said.
Praz recognized the names.
Commander Lenik was the second-in-command of the Circle of Steel Tower, where warriors trained in killing. Fahd Mandel served as second-in-command at the Shadow Tower.
"The erstwhile Commander Lenik and Man-del have always been keenly interested in anything that smacked of a conspiracy," Bo said tightly, "though I assume that their standings in war and larceny behoove them to cultivate that interest."
Morely frowned in disappointment. "I should tell you, Bo, that I am frankly dismayed in your own lax attitude about this matter. I think a lost fountain could be a stellar find when all is said and done. Absolutely stellar."
"I feel that whatever mysteries this fountain brings to the Magistracy are in good hands," Bo said confidently. "Should you need anything simply let me know."
"I will," Morely promised.
Bo waited in the hall for a moment, then gave Morely a final wave and stepped back into the office.
The Magistrate of Eldrar's Tower glanced at his foster son and sighed. "As if Devlin and his mysterious fountain were not enough, we're still left with the matter of you, aren't we, Praz?"
The young warrior swallowed hard, determining not to get angry. It's a lecture, he told himself. Sit down, shut up, and say yes sir a lot. I can do that.
But judging from the way his foster father sat at the desk across from him, Praz knew this would be no ordinary conversation.
2
"How to begin," Bo mused, seated at his desk. Praz readied himself. His father had a dozen different ways of handling a conversation between them. Actually, some people might have said there were more, but Praz felt they were pretty much variations. Father as Consoling Friend was easy to take. Father as Strict Disciplinarian required keeping his mouth shut. But Father as Philosopher was by far the trickiest to manage.
Bo was Magistrate of Eldrar's Tower and had mastered guile and cunning years before that appointment, and long before having a son.
"You've always said it was best to address a problem head-on," Praz said.
Bo nodded quietly to himself for a moment. Then he pushed up from his chair and crossed the room. He scanned through an organized stack of papers and books, then brought out a small glass tube filled with dozens of multicolored tiles. "Do you remember where we got this?"
Memory of the incident filled Praz's mind easily. "In the Blighted Desert. A dwarven mage at the village of Cor-Amyr got a message out to you that the miners had found an underground city."
"Yes." Bo turned the glass tube over in his hand, causing it to rattle loud enough to fill the room. "But it wasn't a city. It was a couple of buildings that they hadn't had the chance to explore. They were sinking slowly and steadily into the shifting sands. You were very young—"
"I was eleven," Praz said.
"—and I was unsure whether you were ready for such a long trip into such inhospitable territory. The dwarves at Cor-Amyr had just been betrayed into slavery to the Black Forge dwarves." "You and I journeyed there and we found the lost buildings underground just as the dwarven mage had said."
Praz remembered. He and his father had gotten separated from the rest of the group for a time while working on the excavation. A freakish settling of the treacherous sands had left them underground for over a day. They'd depended on each other for survival then, fighting the serpents that lived in the sands, as well as digging from one room to another to keep from being buried alive. The building had been only five stories tall, but it contained several rooms, and climbing through the sand while ferreting out passageways and stairs had been exhausting.
There'd never been a time they hadn't been struggling for their lives.
Bo uncapped the glass tube and spilled the tiles out into his palm. They gleamed like jewels. "Then, when we thought we were almost done, after we'd climbed up through the building to the very top and had no place to go, we came upon the hidden room."
Praz remembered. The sheer weight of the sand had broken the secret door in, spilling Praz into the room amid a glittering array of treasures.
"You had only seconds," his foster father said. "All those things scattered on the shelves, gold and silver and precious gems. You had no time to do anything. I was yelling at you from the doorway to take my hand."
The Magistrate of Eldrar's Tower paused.
"And you chose—in the space of a heartbeat— this tube." He held it up.
"It was strange," Praz said, "but I thought I would have a better chance of getting it out."
"If we lived," Bo said. "For all we knew, that last room was going to fill up in seconds." He poured the glittering tiles back into the glass. "We were up to our chins when Taris and his diggers finally reached us. As it turned out, these tiles were the codex we needed to a long-dead Minotaur language we might not ever have cracked."
Praz nodded. That had been a fine adventure, and returning home to Soronne to discover they were heroes wasn't bad either.
Carefully, Bo replaced the glass tube on the shelves. "Praz, my point in all this is that I've never seen you lack confidence in yourself. But you do it now. It is way past the time for you to choose a Tower, and it makes me wonder if I'm somehow to blame."
Praz gritted his teeth, and for the thousandth time he thought back over his fractured life. "Learn as much as you can," his mistress had told him, and he couldn't help but think his destiny was right around the corner, and if he just held on a bit longer, whatever he'd been waiting for all his life would finally find him.
"I wish to master all the Towers," Praz stated firmly, "just as I have said all along."
Bo breathed out heavily.
"No one can master them all."
"No one has before," Praz countered. "I believe I can."
Bo turned from him and broke eye contact. "You can't," he whispered, his voice dispirited and faraway.
The way his foster father dismissed Praz's claim irritated the young warrior. He was meant to study all he could. He had to. It was the only thing that had kept him going for all these years.
"Then test me," Praz said, standing up in open defiance.
Bo gazed at him in surprise, but without another word, he snapped his fingers, and a blinding light filled the room.
When Praz opened his eyes, he discovered that they no longer stood inside the office, but on one of the practice fields inside Eldrar's Tower. The field lay under a windowless stone dome with a flagstone foundation.
Passing a hand over his clothing, Praz willed away his robes and dressed himself in combat leathers in the blink of an eye. He already carried his usual sword and brace of throwing knives and although the expenditure of magic was a waste, he felt better fighting in clothing he was comfortable in.
Tired of the countless arguments with Praz over this issue, Bo wasted no time. He drew back his hands and threw them forward.
A whirling fireball rocketed straight at Praz's head.
Praz spelled his defense instinctively, spreading his hands before him. A gossamer web of power glowed in front of him and the fireball struck it hard.
The fire was contained, but the force of the blow knocked Praz backward.
The young warrior put his hands out and rolled, getting to his feet even as Bo launched yet another attack. Praz didn't know what was coming until a sudden lethargy filled his whole body. His breath wheezed in his lungs and his arms and legs felt like lead weights had been tied to them. He summoned his failing wits and forced the lethargy from his body.
"Is this what you have been training to do?" Bo demanded. "Parlor tricks? Any street urchin can command this much magic."
Angered by his father's unaccustomed taunting, Praz summoned up a fireball and threw it. However, the ball was less than half the size of Bo's. Almost disdainfully, the Magistrate of Eldrar's Tower slapped it away. The roiling mass of flames exploded on contact and left only a puff of smoke behind.
Bo gestured again, pointing at the ground around Praz.
Instantly, skeletal hands shoved up through the floor, pushing aside large flagstones as if they were nothing. Three human skeletons clambered up from the hole, all of them armed with short swords.
Instinctively, Praz pulled his own sword from his hip. He whirled low, gripping the slightly curved sword in both hands. The keen edge caught the skeleton at the knees. Bone splintered and, as the skeleton was falling, Praz rose and slammed the undead thing with his sword's hilt. The skull came apart in flying shards.
Breathing easily, a smile on his lips, Praz gave three feet of ground before his two surviving enemies and set himself—sword loose in his hand. He started forward confidently, blocking the lead skeleton's blow, then placing his boot through the skeleton's midsection and stepping on its hipbone. Continuing his upward momentum as if he were climbing a ladder, the young warrior charged up the skeleton before it drew the sword back to swing again, then planted his other foot on its head. He leaped upward, snapping its neck, and threw himself into a forward flip high in the air.
The remaining skeleton looked up at Praz as the young warrior started his controlled fall. If there'd been any flesh on the undead thing's face, Praz felt certain it would have worn an astonished expression. He swung his blade before the skeleton could even move, bringing the sword down like an axe, cutting the undead creature from the left collarbone to the right hip. The heavy blade—especially smithed to Praz's size and strength—snapped the ribs and hacked the sternum. As Praz landed on the ground, crouched with his sword in both fists before him, the skeleton landed in pieces at his feet.
The young warrior grinned, knowing that his foster father hadn't expected that move and probably hadn't even thought Praz was capable of such a thing. The three skeletons had hit the stone floor in less than a minute.
But Bo didn't care in the slightest. He threw both hands forward. Lightning jumped from his fingertips, streaking in harsh, jagged spears of heated white light.
Praz tried to cast a defensive spell and managed only a split second before the lightning smashed into him. Super-heated pain filled him, sizzling through his mind, almost causing him to black out even as he left his feet. He wasn't sure how far he sailed through the air, nor how far he skidded after he smashed the flagstones.
He bit his lips to keep from crying out with the pain that throbbed at his temples and made him feel like he was being cooked alive. He lay facedown, barely holding onto his consciousness. Though the training domes prevented spells from doing any actual physical damage, they nevertheless allowed pain to be felt.
Praz breathed shallowly, glancing through a slitted eye at Bo approaching him. His mind raced. If he passed out, the spell would be broken and they'd return to his father's office.
I will not be defeated! he yelled inwardly.
Taking advantage of the smoke still eddying around him, Praz shifted his appearance. His clothing became rags of smoldering ruin and his flesh took on the appearance of bloody charred meat.
"Praz," Bo called out.
Like a true predator, Praz lay quiet and waited until his foster father was almost upon him. A savage glee filled the young warrior, the same feeling he got every time he was in a fight or a battle. When Bo was close enough, Praz hurled himself up, throwing out a hand toward Bo and willing his spell toward its target.
Liquid flames jetted from Praz's outstretched palm, drenching Bo.
Bo became a pyre, and Praz watched the flesh burning and peeling from his face, the skin now pieces of orange coal. The young warrior drew back his sword and swung, aiming to slice Bo in half. He felt the blade bite deeply, coring through the man, even as he realized that although Bo was on fire, he wasn't screaming or yelling.
The two halves of the Magistrate dropped to the floor at Praz's feet. Cold suspicion dawned on him then.
He'd been tricked.
He glanced up and saw a second Bo standing across the floor and staring at him intently.
"With magic," Bo stated calmly, "things aren't always what they seem."
Praz lifted his sword and raced at his foster father, screaming out a challenge.
"A rogue's trick and a cleric's belief in what you do aren't going to help you now, Praz. Nor will your sword arm. Here you are in my domain, the field that I have given all my life to, and now you will face me."
Praz had cut the distance to half. He leaned harder into his stride, pushing himself, feeling the air burn the back of his throat.
Bo flung out his hand.
Suddenly, Praz stopped dead in his tracks. He felt as though he were under an incredible weight. Glancing down at his body, he watched in horror as it collapsed and folded in on itself, growing shorter and smaller. He tried to scream, but there was no control, no way he could force sound from lungs that had already collapsed. His eyes closed involuntarily and blackness swam into his senses.
When Praz opened his eyes again, he sat in his father's office, drained, stunned, and angry. Bo was behind his desk, staring at him. "You failed," he said.
"I failed to beat you," Praz agreed hotly. "That doesn't indicate that I can't do all the work the four Towers will expect of me. You've had years to perfect your spell-casting. I'm still learning."
"When I was younger than you, I was still stronger."
Unable to constrain himself anymore, Praz stood. "Were you as good with a sword? Or a knife during close fighting? Or a bow? Did you study to lead troops into a battle, to marshal your forces from a safer position at the rear?" His pulse beat at his temples, and he knew he was pushing his foster father further than he ever had before.
Bo did not answer.
"I am a good mage," Praz declared. "Second to none in my class. I am a good warrior as well. Arrak Southerly told me I'm the best student he's ever taught. And that was after I bested him."
"Yes." Bo sighed. "I know that, Praz. All of your teachers have talked to me of you, and so have the other Magistrates of the Magistracy." He paused. "However, Arrak Southerly also told me that he'd never dealt with a student who managed to keep his arrogance as long as you have."
"Arrogance makes champions," Praz stated. "Dellan's Beauty of War uses that precept as its cornerstone."
"And Dellan goes on to say that the arrogance in a warrior must be tempered," Bo pointed out. "I've read the book, Praz. I may not be the swordsman that you are, but I was a good student myself."
"I'm a good student, too. In all the Towers. Neither you—nor anyone else—can say differently."
"No," Bo admitted. "You're right about that. But you can't just be good, Praz, especially when someone with your talent can be great."
Praz breathed out heavily.
"But no one can truly say which Tower I'm most suited for."
Bo pushed himself back into his chair. Frustration, an emotion very seldom seen on the Magistrate of Eldrar's Tower's face, showed there now. "No. And that is why no one has forced the issue until today"
Praz looked up at him.
"You have placed the burden of your continuing education—unfairly in my opinion—on the Magistrates of the Magistracy," Bo said.
"What do you mean?" Praz asked slowly.
"The Magistrates have deemed that you are setting a bad precedent for the other students by refusing to choose one of the Towers. The Magistracy is giving you one week to decide which Tower you will pursue."
"And if I don't choose?" Praz asked defiantly.
"Then you will be forced to leave."
Praz hesitated.
"Did you agree with them on this?" Bo looked at him sternly. "The vote was unanimous." Praz's face went red.
"Fine," he said. "Then since you've had your say, I'm going to have mine."
Surprise lit the wizened elf's face, and he settled back into his chair.
Giving vent to the anger and frustration that filled him, Praz spoke in a measured voice. "Don't ever forget why I'm here, Magistrate Bo. You've talked about the destiny I have within me, the potential to be great."
"But only if you're—"
"No," Praz interrupted, the weight of all that was on his mind lately suddenly giving vent. "No. You will listen to me. I don't know what events have shaped my life until this point, nor do I know whose hand has guided my fate. But by the gods, I'm tired of people thinking they know more about me than I do. I will come into my destiny—whatever it should be—on my own. I will meet it with naked steel in my fist, a spell on my lips, and all the cunning and guile I can muster." "The Magistrates—"
"The gods take the Magistrates if they stand in my way!" Praz thundered. "If they choose to bar me from their precious Towers, then that means only one thing to me—that my life doesn't lie here. It means that my destiny isn't tied to the Six Shards or the Towers, or the Magistrates' dreams of what I should do. Maybe this is just another stopping place—like everything else has been in my life."
Without another word, Praz turned and strode from the room, seething. He planned on finding Telop as quickly as possible to take on the unsanctioned thieves at the Hanged Man's Inn with abandon. He slammed the door shut. He was tired of people telling him what to do, tired of not knowing who he was, but most of all, he was tired of not knowing where his empty life would take him next.
Magistrate Bo stared at the closed door and tried not to think he'd just made a serious mistake. Praz-El had never been easy to rear, and the only guidance Bo had really been able to give was generally when his foster son had been headed in that direction anyway.
There was just so much of the boy that remained hidden in the six years he'd lived before arriving on the steps of the Magistracy.
Praz-El.
Even his name was strange.
El was the surname of a lesser demon. His friend Alagar had been the first to point out that fact so many years ago. But the mystery of Praz's true heritage still plagued the Magistrate.
For a time, Bo had even suspected that Praz had demon blood in him. Although there were few hybrids of demon and human, such obscenities were known to occur. Usually, the fetus arrived stillborn, a victim to the warring races trapped within its blood.
But none of his demoniac blood ever showed itself. Usually upon puberty, demoniac characteristics manifested. The features would change, the teeth would elongate, or sudden growth spurts would kick in.