Below the Wizards' Tower (The Royal Wizard of Yurt Book 8) by C. Dale Brittain

out of the way so badly—leaving me paralyzed for
hours yesterday, then trapping me here today.   Why do you want to make sure I never
meet Marcus?   And what plan, exactly,
are you carrying out that requires that I not be a witness?”
    Elerius spread his hands in a
gesture of innocence.   “I?   I had nothing to do with whatever
renegade captured you.   And you must
think very poorly of me to imagine that I would contrive a plot that ended up
trapping myself down in the cellars!   I hope the Master and Zahlfast told you how hard I searched when you
turned up missing.   Of course I
should have realized there would be sea-caves somewhere along the shore here,
but unlike you and Titus, I grew up in a castle, not some hovel by the harbor….”
    His voice trailed off.   Elerius had never shared any information
on his background, and normally I would have liked to hear much more about this
castle, but not today.
    “Does this involve the Royal Wizard
of Caelrhon?” I demanded.   “The man
you thought should have been hired instead of Titus?   Since I know him all too well, did
you—”
    “Him?   Of course not,” said Elerius, in a tone
so genuine that I was close to believing him.   “Certainly I thought he was more
qualified, but I am nothing more than one of the school’s many
graduates—as of course are you,” managing to sound patronizing.   “It was not my place to tell the Master
what to do.”
    “And yet,” put in Joachim mildly,
“you must have had some purpose today in separating Daimbert from the young
wizard who was supposed to help protect him, and in telling him that Marcus was
here, when he clearly is not.”
    Elerius might be able to deny all my
accusations easily, but he was having a harder time with Joachim.   “Well, I certainly was told that he was
here,” he said hastily.   In the
light from the glass fishing float, his eyes looked
calculating.   “Perhaps I
misunderstood….”
    I would have pushed whatever
advantage I now had, but suddenly there was a step in the corridor outside, and
a voice speaking the heavy syllables of the Hidden Language.   It was the Master’s voice.
    Elerius sprang to the door, put both
hands on it, and added some spells of his own.   In a few seconds the magic lock
vanished, and the door flew open.
    “ What are you doing down here,
Daimbert?” the Master demanded.   We
filed out, and he gave Joachim a heavy frown from under shaggy eyebrows.
    “Elerius brought me here, claiming I
would meet Marcus,” I said quickly, before Elerius could get in some lie.
    The Master made a low rumbling
noise, not quite a dismissive snort.   “That seems an odd reason to bring a priest into the school.   And why would this Marcus be down in
our cellars?   You told me he wasn’t
even a wizard.”
    “Elerius said he was here,” I tried
again, feeling like a student who had messed up an exercise and was now trying
to shift the blame.
    “I understood that he was working
down here for Titus, and I knew Daimbert wanted to meet him,” said Elerius,
when the Master turned his frosty gaze on him.   He didn’t sound much more confident than I did.
    If Elerius didn’t sound confident, I
told myself, it was because his cunning plan was falling apart.   I gathered my courage.   “Let’s go talk to Titus right now and
get to the bottom of this,” I said while I had the momentary advantage.
    “I am staying with Daimbert,” said
Joachim calmly when the Master frowned in his direction again.   “I promise not to invoke the
supernatural while here, to disturb any of your spells.”
    Another joke! I thought.   Joachim dared make a joke to the Master
of the wizards’ school, which was more than I would have been able to do.   But his face was perfectly sober.
    “How did you find us?” I asked the
Master as lightly as I could as we started
upstairs—not the same staircase that we had descended.
    “When that young wizard came back
and said that Elerius