Penric and the Shaman (Penric & Desdemona Book 2) Read Free

Darthacan terminology, but Aulia of Brajar was no physician. And also, she may be out of date.”
    The strange man’s hand clenched in impatience upon his knee. “ Your Grace …” squeezed out between his lips, protest constricted by politeness, or perhaps the prudence of a man who hadn’t yet had his wish granted.
    “Ah,” said the princess. “Permit me to introduce Senior Locator Oswyl, agent of the Father’s Order in Easthome. He is here, he tells me, on a mission of close pursuit, complicated by some very peculiar aspects, for which he earnestly begs the support of a sorcerer.”
    Senior Locator was a title of a Temple Inquirer of middle rank; not the lowly man-at-arms of a mere Locator, nor the heights of an Inquirer or, more dizzyingly, Senior Inquirer, who were normally learned divines, but something betwixt and between. Although the name of his Order’s home chapter, from the royal capital itself, added some tacit clout. Penric sat up, interested, and offered the man a friendly smile and a little wave of his fingers. He did not smile back.
    “And this is Penric, my sorcerer,” Princess Llewen went on, with a nod Pen’s way.
    Oswyl’s eyes widened. In a voice of unflattering surprise, he said, “ That’s your court sorcerer? I was expecting someone… older.”
    And better dressed, perhaps? Penric was very fond of his hard-earned white robes of the Bastard’s Order, and wildly proud of his shoulder braids marking him as a divine and a sorcerer, but he had quickly learned not to wear them while at work. At least not when yoked with a demon of disorder with a questionable sense of humor. As a result, most days he went about the palace precincts looking the tattered clerk Oswyl had evidently taken him for. Since the palace denizens knew who he was by now, this was not usually a problem. He could turn himself out as a showy, and laundered, ornament to the court well enough when someone gave him warning …
    Thinking of his incomplete translation, Pen stifled his leaping curiosity and offered, “You could try Learned Tigney of the Bastard’s Order on Stane Street. He is the master and bailiff of all Temple sorcerers in this archdivineship.” Not that this secretive company numbered many. Nor did that number include Penric, who owed fealty directly to the princess-archdivine in return for his late schooling.
    “I started with Tigney. He sent me here ,” growled the Grayjay, sounding frustrated. “I told him I needed someone powerful .”
    “I trust,” murmured the princess, “you do not judge so quickly by appearances in your inquiries, Locator.”
    Oswyl went a little rigid, but swallowed any attempt at answering this observation, yes or no being equally hapless choices.
    Feeling faintly sorry for the man—he’d run into the sharp side of the princess’s tongue himself a time or two, though never without having earned it—Penric offered peaceably, “So what do you need this powerful sorcerer for, sir?”
    The princess waved her beringed hand. “Tell the tale again, Locator. With a bit more detail this time, if you please. If something so dangerous has entered my lands, I need to understand it.”
    Oswyl took a long breath, of a man about to recount the same story for, by Pen’s guess, the third time in a day. At least it ought to be well-practiced. He at last addressed Penric directly: “What do you know of the Wealdean royal shamans?”
    Penric sat back, or aback. “Not… a great deal. I’ve never met one in person. Their society is engaged in an attempt to recover something of the Old Weald forest magics, thought to be stamped out in the conquests of Great Audar. Except brought under the disciplines of the Temple, this time.”
    The Darthacan conquest of the Weald had taken three hard-fought generations, five hundred years ago; three generations later, Audar’s empire had all fallen apart again in internal discord. But when the Darthacan tide receded, the Temple remained, and the old